User:Kazim/Strategy

The strategies on this page are for my personal reference only. I've been taking notes in a very haphazard fashion, and I'd like to have one location that I can access from any computer. If you would like to criticize the contents, please feel free to strike up a conversation on the talk page.

Commented added 2/4/10: A lot of the page is out of date. Some of it was even written before NS13. Page links are still good, but take specific advice from the page with a pound of salt.

Quick links to important pages

General self-improvement

• Hardcore Skill Analysis
• Dressing For Success

Speed ascension

• Hardcore Location Analysis
• Ascension Aids
• Drinking Strategies
• Spookyraven Manor Quest (Direct path for getting to the gallery, and the clover areas)
• The Sorceress' Tower - Reminds you which items and pets you need, as well as good advice on your final outfit

Making stuff

• Advanced Cocktailcrafting
• Superhuman Cocktailcrafting
• Mushroom Fields Strategy (Explains how to make gloomy mushrooms)

Farming

• Farming Strategy

Pre-ascension shopping list

Before any ascension, try to be stocked with the following disposable items, from crafting or from the mall if necessary:

1. 15 chow meins or hi meins of each stat (see consumption reference, below)
2. 20 drinks of each stat, of which at least 5 are Superhuman Cocktailcrafting drinks
3. Disassembled meatcar
4. 3-5 of each of the following (only need one, but keep extras around in case you forget to stock up on some runs)
   • Chef-in-the-box
   • Meat maid
   • Flaming mushroom, Frozen mushroom, Stinky mushroom (for muscle sign runs, if you want)
   • Enchanted bean
   • Insanely spicy enchanted bean burrito
   • 668 scroll
   • 64067 scroll
   • Epic Weapons: Rock and Roll Legend, Mace of the Tortoise, 5-Alarm Saucepan, Disco Banjo, Pasta of Peril, Bjorn's Hammer
   • Sorceress items: baseball, meat vortex, sonar-in-a-biscuit, photoprotoneutron torpedo, barbed-wire fence, razor-sharp can lid, frigid ninja stars, NG, spider web, chaos butterfly, disease; also more items since NS13.
5. 9 of the following (need multiples of this resource):
   • Sonar-in-a-biscuit
   • Asbestos ore
   • Linoleum ore
   • Chrome ore

Consumption quick reference

Chows

• muscle foods: hot hi mein, cold hi mein, knob sausage chow mein
• mysticality foods: spooky hi mein, stinky hi mein, bat wing chow mein
• moxie foods: sleazy hi mein, rat appendix chow mein

Superhuman drinks

Drinks from Superhuman Cocktailcrafting that have the highest yield:

Class	Drink	Ingredients
Muscle	Mon Tiki	rum, lemon, coconut shell
Muscle	teqiwila slammer	tequila, lemon, coconut shell
Moxie	Mae West	whiskey, strawberry, magical ice cubes
Moxie	prussian cathouse	wine, strawberry, magical ice cubes
Mysticality	gimlet	gin, soda water, little paper umbrella
Mysticality	yellow brick road	vodka, soda water, little paper umbrella

Advanced drinks

Sometimes I feel like SHC drinks aren't cost effective unless you really need the stats in the beginning of the game -- although I can be convinced otherwise. Just for reference, here are Drinks from Advanced Cocktailcrafting that have the highest yield:

Class	Drink	Ingredients
Muscle	slip 'n' slide	vodka, orange, coconut shell
Muscle	fuzzbump	whiskey, lemon, coconut shell
Moxie	rockin' wagon	vodka, olive, magical ice cubes
Moxie	perpendicular hula	rum, strawberry, magical ice cubes
Mysticality	horizontal tango	wine, soda water, little paper umbrella
Mysticality	roll in the hay	whiskey, soda water, little paper umbrella

Pulls

My philosophy on pulling is an ongoing learning experience. I'm not a super-elite player who regularly run two day ascensions, but I am getting fast enough that I'm starting to worry about losing a day for bad pulls using the right pulls on the last day. Therefore, I'm saving this information for quick reference so I don't blow it.

Low level consumption items

• insanely spicy bean burrito, insanely spicy jumping bean burrito (3 fullness, level 4. The enchanted variety requires level 5, so use bat stir fry instead for myst.)
• bat wing stir-fry, Knob sausage stir-fry, rat appendix stir-fry (3 fullness, level 4)
• painful penne pasta (3 fullness, level 3)
• dry martini, dry vodka martini, grog, old-fashioned, sangria, tequila with training wheels (3 drunk, level 3)
• All bandit-improved non-super drinks are level 4

See Best Foods (adventures) and Best Drinks for more.

High Priority

These items should be pulled on every run, as they are indispensible for speed.

Day 1:

• 3 food per day (class appropriate hi mein; see above for lower level food)
• Bartender-in-the-box, Chef-in-the-box
• 1-2 facsimile dictionaries (sell for meat)
• Rock and roll legend, Mace of the tortoise. Optionally 5-Alarm Saucepan as well, but can probably make do in most runs with a plain old saucepan found in the woods.
• 5 drinks: Drink them on the first day; on the second day you can drink the tavern reward drinks, and thereafter you can create your own.
• Primary familiar equipment (Spoon!, possibly others)
• Mr. Accessory if available

Later:

• Various stainless steel and plexiglass items (12 in all, most unnecessary)
• Wand of Nagamar, eventually, if this run stays under 5 days.

Medium Priority

These items are frequently needed, but in a pinch they are not absolutely required for a successful run.

• Rhesus monkey: I use the NPZR occasionally during a run to get mana and level it up, so I can break it out for the sorceress, so you might as well pull this.
• Meat engine + dope wheels: Saves you from having to farm Degrassi Knoll, which is not high enough level.
• Star hat, Richard's star key, and a star weapon. The alternative is to spend time farming the castle and then more time getting star items, instead of being in the gallery. This is time consuming, but if I'm finding myself running out of pulls, I might change my strategy on this.
• Knob Goblin elite helm, Knob Goblin elite pants, or Knob Goblin elite polearm: Try to get a few of these through combat first. The lab store has some really nice stuff, especially pet buffing spray and seltzer, but you can live without them.
• Knob Goblin perfume: Not necessary if you can get it from a harem girl, but it can take a little while.

Low Priority

These items are convenient to have, especially if you get them early. I used to think they were really important, but I'm feeling more and more that they're starting to waste my pulls.

• Meat maid: Those extra adventures are handy, but they're looking less and less critical to me as I cut down my run speed.
• Cottage: Early on it gives a little bit of free health and mana each day at rollover, but let's face it, I have a Nervous Tick so I don't worry so much about money anymore.

Example early pulls

This section is starting to become obsolete as I rethink how many days I expect to stick around. May update this section later, but probably not soon.

Day 1

Note: This is an incomplete transcript of a sample run. Currently experimenting with how to get optimal pulls for a 2-day run. Run began 5/24/2007

1. hi mein
2. hi mein
3. hi mein
4. hi mein (assuming teetotaler + drop path)
5. meat maid
6. bartender-in-the-box (make a drink instead of pulling)
7. spoon!
8. red balloon
9. stainless steel item 1
10. stainless steel item 2
11. stainless steel item 3
12. rock and roll legend
13. meat engine
14. dope wheels
15. Knob Goblin elite helm (rounding out the outfit)

    (That was all I needed for the day; I drew my last 5 pulls based on next day's needs)

16. Boris's key
17. Jarlsberg's key
18. Sneaky Pete's key
19. Richard's star key
20. Digital key

Day 2

1. chef-in-the-box (needed to make milk of magnesium)
2. hi mein
3. hi mein
4. hi mein
5. hi mein
6. bandit drink (was able to create 3 drinks today but not a fourth)
7. star hat
8. star pants
9. star sword
10. Wand of Nagamar
11. skeleton key

I didn't pull off a two-day ascension this time, but at this point I've comfortably got enough pulls left for the tower. So I'm getting all my other stainless stuff and calling it a day.