Actually Ed the Undying/Strategy

This page describes strategies for the Actually Ed the Undying challenge path.

Mr. Store Items

These are the relevant available choices:

• airplane charter: Conspiracy Island (HC): Gives access to The Secret Government Laboratory which is helpful for Ka coin farming and powerlevelling. Synergizes with love bugs, giving you free Coinspiracy while adventuring here, which you can use to buy Jungle Juice if you spend enough turns in the Lab.
• airplane charter: Dinseylandfill (HC): By design, more useful than Spring Break Beach but less useful than Conspiracy Island. The Ka farming at Pirates of the Garbage Barges is slightly better than at CI's Lab, but there's no Omega Device to boost their level. FunFunds™ from lovebugs or garbage tourists can be spent on a Dinsey food-cone for the nuns, or Dinsey face paint for ML.
• airplane charter: The Glaciest (HC): For those who can't afford Dinseylandfill or Conspiracy Island then The Glaciest isn't a terrible choice for a scaling zone. VYKEA has entirely 2 Ka Dudes and you can make VYKEA companions for more substats/items/meat/MP regen. Also the Ice Hotel is available for making perfect drinks for nightcaps.
• The Crown of Ed the Undying (HC): The path-specific IOTM, provides a good boost to early-game survival with bonus HP and Initiative, the bonus MP lets you run your Evocations faster, and it has a configurable enchantment which is one of the few ways for Ed to get bonus ML in Hardcore. Occasionally also provides Ka from undead monsters, among other purposes.
• bottle of lovebug pheromones (HC): Passively helps speed up several zones. Gives you a 0 MP stunning skill and a 0 MP damage-over-time (physical + Stench) skill, which allow you to postpone learning Evocations, or just as MP-free damage. Ed can Summon Love Scarabs instead of Love Mosquitos, which restore MP instead of HP, giving Ed more MP to work with. All 3 of these skills can be used once per Undying, allowing you to maximize the utility of the skills.
• Chateau Mantegna room key (HC): Gives you free stats and MP. Gives you some potions or meat each day (including cyclops eyedrops on day 3). Lets you "fax" a single monster prepped before the run, or copy a monster encountered during the run. Popular copy targets include Bram the Stoker for the -Combat% accessory, mountain man for its ores, ninja snowman assassin, dirty thieving brigand (Mantegna is the only way to do the Nuns trick in HC), or even the lobsterfrogman.
• Clan VIP Lounge invitation (HC): Assuming you have whitelist access to a clan with all of the furniture and all of the consumables unlocked, this gives you access to the Hot Dog Stand and A Speakeasy, plus the Hot Tub for removing negative effects that the Underworld doesn't clear (removing Thrice-Cursed after finishing the Apartment Building). Some of the food/booze buffs are helpful, but this is not the Must-Have IOTM that it used to be when the fax machine was available. That being said, sleeping dog becomes extremely important for people with Chateau Mantegna, optimal dog is still as good as ever at forcing Mick's IcyVapoHotness Inhaler, while Bee's Knees and Ish Kabibble are quite useful for survival while filling organ space with high-quality consumables.
• Order of the Green Thumb Order Form (HC): Lets you boost +item or +ML in several zones (including Oil Peak). Lets you boost initiative in The Defiled Alcove. Gives MP regeneration in several zones. You can also plant elemental damage flowers for zones with strong opponents (like The Secret Government Laboratory) if you need them.
• GameInformPowerDailyPro subscription card (HC): Gives a daily SGEEA, scroll of Protection from Bad Stuff and scroll of Puddingskin. The dungeon has scaling monsters, but they are Constructs who drop no Ka coins. Not the best pick for power-leveling, but also not the worst.

• Folder Holder (SC): Configurable. Enchantments like the HP regeneration may not work for Ed, but the MP regen and bonus Damage Reduction can be valuable.
• Jarlsberg's pan (SC): Although this item was made for Avatars of Jarlsberg, it happens to help Ed out since he's also a spellcaster. Everything about the pan except extra food conjuration benefits Ed well. Due to Ed's low metabolic capacity, he can turn food/booze he can barely fit into his gullet into Cosmic Calories for powerful +resist, +item, and +com or -com potions.
• Pantsgiving (SC): The 5 daily banishes are the main benefit, but it also gives +item, elemental resistance, extra turn generation, a few stats, and an elemental damage combat skill. Extremely handy.
• Sneaky Pete's leather jacket (SC): Only useful if you ascend in a Gnome sign so you can buy Torso Awaregness. You can pop the collar for +ML and +init.
• Thor's Pliers (SC): Gives stats and MP regeneration, and lets you perform physical attacks. Low priority.

Astral Consumables

Despite the warnings at The Bureau of Reincarnation, the astral pilsners and astral hot dogs are the viable options. As always, the astral pilsners give superior turngen to pretty much anything accessible in the game, and are the obvious choice for an ascension faster than 3 days, as the Replacement Stomach will only fit one astral hot dog per day (3 full out of 5). However, the astral hot dogs can help with gaining stats, and free up liver space for drinks from the Speakeasy or the Conspiracy Island Canteen.

Astral Gear

For low-skill runs:

• The astral ring improves Ed's spellcasting power and grants enough MP regen to get you through the early game. With the Staff of Ed equipped, Fist of the Mummy alone can get you through most of the run until the last third or so of the quests.
• The astral shield increases Ed's durability significantly, allowing Ed to whittle down his enemy over a few fights.
• As usual, the astral mask is viable for its item drop and Moxie bonuses.

For high-skill runs, you probably need the astral belt for the +ML. Ed has very few +ML sources (just the aggravation device, Blessing of Serqet, Florist Friar plants, and his crown, plus drops like the badge of authority, serpentine sword + snake shield), so you'll need every source you can get.

Moon Sign

Ed can't summon Smithsness, gains little benefit from Innabox, and doesn't need a bitchin' meatcar or meat maid. So for once, the main benefits of Knoll signs are completely moot. It does still save a few turns when you need to retrieve the Untinker's screwdriver.

Bonus adventures from The Opossum and The Blender are equal whichever you pick, so choosing between those two is a matter of whether you want access to Little Canadia or The Gnomish Gnomads' Camp. Gnomish skills are still available and are likely a good choice, especially as perms are disabled and the Desert is open from the start to immediately set the MCD. Alternatively Canadia's Camp Logging Camp may be useful in the early game for farming substats and Ka (the humanoids in the Thugnderdome don't give as much Ka).

Skills

Each of the three "trees" contains 7 skills. The last 3 skills in each tree are powerful utility skills (+ML, -combat, +item, +servant level, Rave Steal-analogue, Yellow Ray, +meat, banish, Olfaction lite), while the first 4 assist with other areas.

The Invocation tree contains buffs of various kinds, culminating with +ML, -combat and +item buffs. Speed-wise, of the early skills, Prayer of Seshat gives +3 Myst stats per combat, and Wisdom of Thoth gives +50% Myst buff which may speed power leveling against scaling monsters. Power of Heka allows you to hit much harder than otherwise possible, while Hide of Sobek aids survival. For more experienced players, Blessing of Serquet provides even more substats, while Shelter of Shed makes several quests a lot faster (although on your first run or so, it will only be available at level 8, too late to help with a Steel Margarita). This tree is the best for quicker ascensions.

The Evocation tree contains mostly direct-damage combat spells, but culminates in the +servant level buff, Rave Steal-analogue and Yellow Ray. Though lower priority than other skills, the stronger Evocation spells are necessary for battling tougher monsters, or when the Love Bugs start to lose effectiveness at the end of the day. If you are unable to dodge monsters, Roar of the Lion does provide uncapped hot damage which can one-hit enemies, but when possible it is better to repeatedly use the lower skills.

The Curse tree grants various types of skills to weaken monsters, culminating with the +meat buff, and the banishing and Olfaction skills. The second skill is a multi-round stun, but it doesn't last very long and is probably not worth 2 skill points if you aren't going for the final skills in this tree. You can skip this tree in your early runs.

You get 8 skills for questing through most of your first run, at levels 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11. That's enough for one full tree + one more skill. You may choose either of the first two trees, and take the top skill from the other tree, and do well enough. Spreading points across all 3 trees is not recommended until you have more starting points. You get up to two more skill points at 13 and 14 if you decide to stick around though, up to a total of 10 on the first run.

In some cases you can select your servants to compensate for missing skills. For example, if you do not get Lash of the Cobra from the second tree for pickpocketing, you can use a Belly-Dancer to substitute (and talisman of Renenutets are also helpful for the task of encouraging stubborn item drops).

Ka coins

Farming

Zones with a high concentration of Dudes, Hippies, Hobos or Pirates allow farming much more Ka than typical zones. In order of difficulty/accessibility:

• The Sleazy Back Alley has 4 monsters, 2 of which drop 2 Ka, and 2 of which drop 1 Ka. It can be survived easily. It does have a few one-time unskippable noncombats.
• Camp Logging Camp is 100% 2-Ka Dudes, but has some unskippable noncombats. If you ascend under a Canadian sign, this zone can be useful since it's fairly easy to survive in.
• The Hippy Camp is 100% 2-Ka Hippies, and is 100% combat prior to level 9. You have to sink 9 turn at the Shore unlocking the The Mysterious Island of Mystery to get here, and you have to be able to survive, but since you have to build a boat eventually you might as well do it early. Note that the monsters on the island are significantly harder than those Seaside Town zones.
  • All of the pirate zones are 100% 2-Ka Pirates. The Cove, Barrr and F'c'le all have unskippable noncombats. However, due to the reshuffle of the Talisman o' Namsilat pirate zones are no longer ascension relevant.
• The Secret Government Laboratory, accessible to players who've purchased and used an airplane charter: Conspiracy Island, has 4 monsters, 3 of which are 2-Ka Dudes, and one of which is a 1-Ka Beast. The only noncombats in the zone are the introductory one and one that occurs after 40 turns. The monsters are very tough, but since they have 0 initiative they are simple to defeat even at very low levels. With Storm of the Scarab or Roar of the Lion they are very easy to defeat, even with bonus 150 Attack and Defense from the Omega Device.
• Pirates of the Garbage Barges, available to players who've use an airplane charter: Dinseylandfill, is stocked entirely by 150-ML pirates who never win initiative. This makes it a decent alternative to the Laboratory if you need Ka (or the perfume-soaked bandana) more than substats, or if Conspiracy Island is outside your budget. Do not activate the flashy pirate in the maintenance tunnels, since it gives 0 Ka due to being a construct. Fortunately, unlocking the option takes long enough that you'll probably have already finished your business at the Barges, so don't bother.

In short, the early-ascension-relevant zones in The Mysterious Island of Mystery are populated exclusively by 2-Ka Hippies and Pirates, making them great farming zones. The Filthy Hippy Disguise for the produce stand is much less useful (as you have no access to Advanced Cocktailcrafting), but getting it early means you won't need to spend turns at the noncombats.

The Hidden Temple should be avoided if you need to do some early-level powerleveling because there are no monsters that drop Ka coins. Fortunately, The Haunted Gallery is a lot better in this regard, since only one monster out of 3 (or 5, if you want to fight the Knights) doesn't drop Ka coins.

Using an ice house before starting your ascension can improve Ka farming in several zones by removing a monster with lower Ka drops.

Consumables

Everything Under the World sells a number of items. As the larger items become available, try to avoid figs as they are vastly more inefficient than either of the other two items in both per-spleen and cost. Mummified loaf of bread works well enough, but mummified beef haunch are ideal as they are effectively epic quality at 5 adv/spleen and the most efficient Ka to size ratio.

Ideally you do not need to bandage as you can simply un-die, which is completely free most of the time. You probably don't need MP or MP regen either.

Talisman of Renenutet are very useful when trying to find quest items, functioning as similar to a non-guaranteed Yellow Ray (much like Pete's Fix Jukebox skill).

As with stomach and liver on other runs, you should make an attempt to fill your spleen if possible, but this may not always be useful because of the Ka coin requirement to buy these items. If you farm 2-coin dudes you can get the consumables in 5/8 turns, making back your time spent, although consider that some players would advise against unnecessary extra turns farming non-quest areas.

Upgrades

Ed starts with an extra-small spleen and inability to eat or drink, therefore the first several Ka coins should be used to fix these issues. Upgrades that help Ed become self-sufficient or indirectly save turns are also valuable.

Upgrading Spleen before buying a Stomach/Liver is more cost-efficient until the third Spleen upgrade, but the sooner you can get your Stomach/Liver, the more turngen resources are available to you. The more Spleen you buy, the more Ka coins you'll have to farm to fill it up.

The Replacement Liver should be taken before the Replacement Stomach, because it allows you to nightcap.

An early Elemental Wards upgrade lets you forego trying to farm a bum cheek for the Bat Hole quest, though it too can be put off if using Hide of Sobek. Later on, further Elemental Wards upgrades can be used for other resistance tests like The Haunted Kitchen, A-boo Peak, and Twin Peak.

Because Ed is very fragile early, Upgraded Legs are a viable upgrade even before your Stomach/Liver because it prevents monsters from killing you 3 times in a row and being penalized for continuing, not to mention it's useful for modern zmobie hunting and it's an easy way to pass the Initiative test in Twin Peak.

Servants

Every 3 levels, Ed can release a Servant for use. Servants can gain experience and levels like a regular familiar. They don't benefit from +familiar experience or +weight buffs, but Ed has one skill to boost their effective level (Purr of the Feline +5 servant levels), and once all the skills are unlocked, you can eventually start ascensions with "imbue points" that let you level up your servants for free. The Crown of Ed the Undying will double the speed at which servants gain experience. As level is the square root of experience, level 7 is about 50 fights, level 14 is about 200 fights, and level 21 is about 450 fights. Without imbuement it is rather unlikely that any servant skills will be obtained.

• Priest from level 14 gives you 1 extra Ka coin per fight (except against enemies with no souls). This is the most desirable bonus, especially once you have 2 starting imbue points to reach that level instantly. The Ka can be used to buy talismans of Renenutet which can be used when you need +item and may be better than the Cat for certain quests. Ka can also be used to buy more spleen consumables and MP regen as required. Its other abilities are far less relevant for speed ascending.
• Cat gives +item (starting at level 7), and delevels monsters (starting at level 14). At level 21, it gives you a passive +item skill. You can use this as your main familiar if you don't have a high level Priest, as +item is almost always useful, and the deleveling allows safer combat or even melee attacking. The deleveling can be a huge boon when hunting for Gremlin tools.
  • Put the Cat away if you want to undie during a fight -- unless you bought Bone Spikes and are worried the enemy will kill itself before it "kills" you. Hitting round limit does send you to the Underworld, so spamming the dictionary is all it'll take in this case.
• Belly-Dancer gives massive MP regeneration (every round of combat) starting at level 7, and pseudo-pickpockets enemies starting at level 14. If you don't learn Lash of the Cobra, you want this, at least for the filthworms and the warehouse clerks/guards. Her pickpocket has a daily limit, so only use her in strategically chosen combats after you've leveled her up. Consider buying Holy spring water if you need MP or MP regen.
• Scribe gives +stats (presumably like a volleyball?). May be useful if you don't have good power-leveling choices such as scaling monsters or +ML. Spell crit is nice but as swingy as anything to do with crits ever is, and bonus spell damage sounds good but will probably never be needed with Ed's powerful Evocations. Low-skill runs skipping 6/7 of the Evocations tree might find it useful, though. However, at higher skill counts, imbuing the Scribe 5 times and learning Gift of the Scribe gives a huge amount of Mysticality substats over the course of the run.

The following servants are less useful:

• Maid gives +meat, which is only relevant if you are going to do the nuns/brigands side quest. (You will need much more +meat than what the Maid gives to break even on that side quest, so you may be better off skipping it until you can add on other +meat sources.)
• Bodyguard blocks attacks, which is pretty much only relevant if you really need to avoid getting one-shotted, and is redundant with a sufficiently high-level Maid anyhow. It eventually learns to attack enemies, another function duplicated by the Maid.
• Assassin attacks enemies, which is rarely helpful. It later learns to delevel (which the Belly Dancer and Cat can also do) and stagger (which the Bodyguard can do faster if you really need it, and the Maid can do with the same amount of servant experience and it has better other benefits). It and the Bodyguard are both about as good as pure combat familiar-likes can get, which is to say, not very.

General tips

Never go to The Underworld from the gate in your pyramid. Purposefully lose a fight to get there. Then use whichever services you require.

Quests

• While veterans usually hold off doing the Typical Tavern Quest until late as possible, remember that it's not necessary to wait in this run since you don't even have to open up the Bottom of the Pyramid in this run. This also means that the only reason to hunt drunken rat kings is for PvP.
• It should be noted that for the Pirates Quest, reviving lets you use The Big Book of Pirate Insults again, allowing you to finish the quest faster than usual. As long as you can both use the book then deal damage before losing all your HP, you can triple the rate of insult acquisition.
• Similarly, you can use the rock band flyers and jam band flyers again after reviving, speeding up the Mysterious Island Arena sidequest.
• Reviving allows you to get cursed multiple times from pygmy shaman in the Hidden Temple side quest. This means being able to get Thrice-Cursed by a single shaman, and then potentially banish it in order to prevent further turns of the debuff.
• A-boo Peak is a pain, because if The Horror... reduces you to 0 HP and you haven't bought any bandages, you're forced to waste an adventure taking the portal to the Underworld. Buy bandages before you buff up. Even if you just buy 3 of the 1-ka bandages, you can spend a turn advancing some other quest and intentionally get beaten up to gain the rest of your HP.
• Sonofa Beach has the same problem; if you're beaten up by Zerg Rush, you'll need to heal before you can return to hunting lobsterfrogmen. In this case, the 1-ka bandages are definitely the best choice, since you only need the smallest amount of healing to let you continue the quest. However, unlike A-boo Peak where the noncombat is forced, multiple bandages may need to be kept in order to prevent getting hit by consecutive zerg rushes.
• Lash of the Cobra will speed up the acquisition of filthworm glands and warehouse inventory pages and warehouse map pages in the Epilogue quest (4 of each combined with the total 8 combats allow you to progress through the quest).

Ascension Strategy
Rankings:	HC Skills - HC Familiars - HC IotMs
General:	Class selection - Familiar usage - Lucky adventures
Paths:	BHY - Fist - AoB - BI - ZS - AoJ - BIG! - KOLHS - CA2 - AoSP - SS - HR - Picky - Ed - Random - AoWoL - Source - NA - GN - LtA - L.A.R. - PF - G-Lover - DD
Additional Paths:	DG - 2CRS - KoE - PotP - LKS - GG - Y,Robot - QT - WF - GY - JM - FotD
IotMs:	Tomes - Faxing - Copying - YR - Garden - Correspondent - Workshed - Tea party - Florist