Hardcore Familiar Analysis

This page is in need of content. Ordering within tiers, if that is important

This article is a work in progress. As new familiars are released they should be evaluated and added where appropriate. It should only include familiars judged to be "best for hardcore." This is obviously subjective and can occasionally seem arbitrary. If you disagree with the categorizations on this page, or feel that a familiar has been left out unjustly, please add comments to the relevant section of the talk page. The page currently considers up to familiar 210: Optimistic Candle.

While this article is written with Hardcore non-challenge path players in mind, much, if not all, of it is also applicable to Softcore ascenders.

It should be said that when this page is talking about "what's best for hardcore", it really means "what will help me get runs done faster". In roughly descending order, that means:

• Familiars that grant or directly save turns
• Familiars that grant extra stats
• Familiars that increase item drop rates
• Familiars that heal HP/MP while doing one or more of the above things.

It is most important to have at least one familiar to fulfill each of three basic roles - turn generation, stat gains, and item drops. Beyond that, the familiars that provide a unique function are generally the best. For this reason, the best familiars are not separated into tiers. Instead, they are categorized by their function, and ranked roughly by importance within each category. Some of the best familiars exhibit some flexibility, and can be used in several ways, so these categories are not exact, but each familiar is filed under its most important function.

A few familiars (Sleazy Gravy Fairy, Stocking Mimic, Mini-Hipster, Baby Bugged Bugbear, and Reagnimated Gnome) can produce their familiar equipment for free. These familiars should always be used with their equipment. Most other familiar equipment requires 5 turns and 500 meat spent at the arena (also grants some familiar experience) or summoning a Box of Familiar Jacks with Summon Clip Art, and whether it is worth it is a complicated question. If you feel that the bonus supplied by the equipment is worth the 5 turns and meat, or one tome summon, then get it (don't forget opportunity cost of the turns sunk in stat gains missed and items not acquired).

Familiars that do a combo of one or more of the key functions are going to be higher rated than those that don't. Straight attack familiars are not very useful in this regard, though attack familiars with other qualities may be useful at times. Just because a familiar is ranked low here doesn't mean more laid-back HC, Softcore or Casual players think the same thing. This also means that new ascenders shouldn't panic because many of the top-rated familiars are rare and/or expensive, such as long-gone Mr. Store offerings, one-time event rewards and so forth. New familiars can and will come along that will equal or supplant them; in the meantime, use what you've got that works for you.

Familiar Categories
Category	Symbol	Definition
Combat	Combat	Helps during combat, including dealing damage, deleveling, and/or stunning
Item drops	Item drops	Increases item drop frequency
Meat gain	Meat gain	Increases meat dropped from monsters
Sub-stats	Sub-stats	Provides additional substats at the end of combat
MP Restore	MP Restore	Restores MP, during or after combat
Turn Management	Turn Management	Has functions that allow you to save or generate turns in a run
Special	Special	Provides other helpful miscellaneous effects

Familiars that can be received during limited-time content as well as past Mr. Store familiars will not be available during the current in-season challenge path, once they reach a certain age.

Limited-time content
Pre-2015 limited-time content	Not available in in-season challenge paths.
Pre-2016 limited-time content	Will not be available in in-season challenge paths after 2017.
2016 or later limited-time content	Will not be available in some future in-season challenge paths.

Spleen Tier

These familiars give you a lot of adventures for your spleen, where you would otherwise gain little or none. These familiars will decrease daycount for all consumption paths. Not all of these are necessary, but any combination of two or more is very useful.
Familiar Name	Familiar Type	Rarity	Description
Golden Monkey		FotY	Drops spleen items, which generate turns/stats and have no level requirement. Also increase stat gains and meat drops as a Blood-Faced Volleyball and Leprechaun and drops gold nuggets against monsters that do not drop Meat.
Grim Brother		FotY	Drops spleen items, which generate turns/stats and have no level requirement. They also increase stat gains and meat drops as a Blood-Faced Volleyball and Leprechaun. You can also receive a low-level buff from the Grim Brother every day, and the Unconscious Collective provides a few free rests. Spleen Cost: Using a familiar that does not grant MP or items.
Unconscious Collective
Bloovian Groose
Rogue Program		IotM	Drops Game Grid tokens, which indirectly provides coffee pixie sticks, which generate turns. It also restores MP in combat. Can also use excess tokens to buy little parachute guys, which provides extra HP and MP heal after combat when used and is reusable multiple times. Spleen Cost: Using a familiar that does not grant stats or items; using a spleen item that provides no stats.
Pair of Stomping Boots		IotM	Can smash enemies into pastes, which generate stats and turns (and the occasional helpful effect). It also increases item drops and provides free runaways, which doesn't require additional MP to be spent, unlike the Bandersnatch. Spleen Cost: Using a familiar that grants no stats or MP; no items or stat gains from stomped enemies – but pastes grant more stats than 2/3rd of the monsters you encounter during a run.
Baby Sandworm		IotM	Increases stats like a sombrero. Drops agua de vida, which generates turns. It also increases stat gains. With an empty agua de vida bottle, you can finish the Level 12 Flyer sub-quest by flyering Cyrus the Virus (which takes only 7 turns with a ten-leaf clover), although this is slower than posting flyers in areas where you were adventuring anyway. Spleen Cost: Using a familiar that does not grant MP or items; familiar does not give stats on the turn the item drops; using a spleen item that provides no stats. Drops items at slightly lower rates than more recent familiars.

Tier 1

Familiars with excellent functions and are among the best of their class.
Familiar Name	Familiar Type	Rarity	Description
Slimeling		Rare	Acts like a fairy and can restore MP like a starfish when fed equipment. If fed equipment made from meat stacks, the slimeling will drop slime stacks. The Slimeling also uses a modified version of the Pickpocket mechanic, giving it a chance to steal one piece of equipment per combat. This usually makes the slimeling a better choice that the Hound Dog when looking for equipment drops, even if MP is not an issue.
Jumpsuited Hound Dog		Uncommon	Increases item drops like a fairy with 125% of the dog's weight. Increases the frequency of combat encounters by floor(weight/6) to a maximum of +5%. Powerful but not useful all the time. Makes Sonofa Beach a lot quicker.
Gelatinous Cubeling		Uncommon	Acts as a Fairy and delevels at the start of combat. While its effects are nothing special, what makes the Cubeling good is that it drops items that save turns in the Daily Dungeon. The eleven-foot pole lets you skip elemental tests altogether without spending a turn, the ring of Detect Boring Doors allows you to skip a chest and 2 additional rooms, and Pick-O-Matic lockpicks can be used as an alternative to skeleton keys before you can obtain them. You only need to put in 12 combat turns with the Cubeling to get all three items, then you can ditch it for the rest of the run. Also useful during a Gourdcore run.
Hobo Monkey	Meat gain	Uncommon	Increases meat drops like a leprechaun with 125% of the monkey's weight, and drops a bit of extra meat. Useful every ascension for the nuns and squeezing extra meat out of the beefy bodyguard bats. The Hobo Monkey is a go-to choice if you do not already have a higher leveled Leprechaun-type familiar when you get to the Nuns.
Reassembled Blackbird	Special	Common	These familiars speed up exploration of The Black Forest, saving a few turns there. After acquiring either hatchling, a different familiar can be used while retaining the exploration bonus.
Reconstituted Crow
Trick-or-Treating Tot	Combat Item drops Meat gain Sub-stats MP Restore Turn Management Special	IotM	This little guy does it all. Acts as a Ghuol Whelp with a 100% activation rate regardless of the costume equipped, with additional bonuses based on the costume (familar equipment) equipped. In a standard run he has three permanent costumes and three temporary ones. The three permanent costumes give +15 to all attributes, +5 Adventures/+5 Pvp Fights on Rollover and Superhuman Resistance to All Elements respectively. The three temporary costumes give +150% item drops, +300% meat drops and +15 stat gains respectively. Powerful and versatile. Gives additional bonuses during trick-or-treating and has additional costumes for Fallout Shelter runs.
Space Jellyfish	Combat Item drops Sub-stats Turn Management Special	IotM	Acts as a Barrrnacle at the start of every combat. Grants items and stats underwater. Allows you to extract jelly from elementally aligned monsters, which are 1 speen items that produce a variety of helpful effects. You are guarenteed to get the jelly on the first extract each day, with diminishing returns for each subsequent use. Jelly can be cooked with toast to produce 1 fullness items of the same ability as the jelly. Each jelly produces 50 turns of an effect. Each effect includes +5 elementally aligned damage, +10% to all attributes/+30% to a specific attribute, +5 stats/+3 to a particular stat/30% item drops. In addition, there is a bonus effect. Depending on the jelly you'll get either a free run away/banish, free booze with the next drink, a 10% discount at the next item purchased from an NPC store, a yellow-ray or the ability to force a non-combat. Underwater this is a great familiar to leave equipped, and gives a free sea jelly each day to speed underwater exploration. On land it is still useful to equip against elemental monsters to extract the first 3-5 jelly per day.
Puck Man		IotM	Acts as a Levitating Potato and Ghuol Whelp. Drops a yellow pixel after every combat, which can be crafted into various helpful items at The Crackpot Mystic's Shed. This includes food and booze in the form of pixel lemons and pixel daiquiris, which grant 10 adventures on average for 2 fullness or drunkenness. Potions that can be crafted include yellow pixel potions, which grant +20 Monster Level for 20 adventures, and miniature power pills, which grant +100% to all attributes for 30 adventures. In addition, occasionally drops power pills, which can be used to insta-kill an opponent without the combat taking an adventure like Lightning Strike, while still getting normal stats, meat, item drops, and other after-combat occurrences. In a 3-day run, up to 9 power pills can be collected.
Ms. Puck Man
Machine Elf		IotM	At the beginning of combat, stuns, staggers, delevels, or restores a sizable chunk of MP. If the combat is a boss, also grants 1 turn of Inner Elf, which gives +100% to all attributes, weapon damage, and spell damage. At the end of combat, grants extra substats of one type, a bit of meat, or one of six abstraction items. These abstractions are size-1 spleen items, which grant no adventures and a 50-turn effect that either increases an attribute by 100% or stat gains of an attribute by 25%. Also drops a Deep Machine Tunnels snowglobe at the end of combat, once a day. While active or with the effect from the snowglobe, grants access to The Deep Machine Tunnels underneath The Wrong Side of the Tracks, a zone containing scaling monsters that also drop abstractions. With the Machine Elf active, combats in this zone will not take any adventures, for 5 combats every day. In these combats, using the right abstraction against the right monster will convert the abstraction into a new abstraction that does not drop normally. These new abstractions are also size-1 spleen items that grant no adventures and a 50-turn effect, one that gives 100% Item Drops, one that grants +10 Familiar Weight, and one that grants +100% Initiative.
Galloping Grill		IotM	Acts as a Hovering Sombrero and a Hot-aligned Star Starfish. Also drops handfuls of hot ashes, which can be used as a strong combat item or cooked into a +ML potion, shakers of dry rub, which increases stat gains from food, bottles of lighter fluid, which can be used to skip some noncombats in the Tavern Cellar, and off-stat boosting potions, useful for survival and the NS tower off-stat test. In total, the Grill gives more substats than any other familiar except for the Artistic Goth Kid or Mini-Hipster while they have fights remaining.
Fist Turkey		IotM	Increases Item Drops like a fairy, and attacks enemies, sometimes staggering them. Always acts at the beginning of combat, performing one of the following: attacking, granting substats for one stat, or granting a bit of Meat. Occasionally drops high-quality effect-granting booze (Friendly Turkey , Agitated Turkey, or Ambitious Turkey) at the end of combat, depending on your level, up to 5 drops per day.
Crimbo Shrub		IotM	Attacks enemies with elemental damage and grants extra substat gains after combat, weighted toward a given stat. Has decoration options for customizing the familiar's abilities, once per day: Specifying which stat the extra substat gains are weighted toward Tuning the type of elemental damage dealt One choice out of: Restoring HP after combat Occasionally granting extra PvP fights Blocking monster attacks One choice out of: 150-turn cooldown Yellow Ray 100-turn cooldown skill that grants 2000-3000 Meat Gift exchanging, allowing you and random players with the familiar to occasionally give and receive duplicated item drops at the end of combat
He-Boulder		IotM	Has an ability that can guarantee all non-conditional drops, once each per day and per 150 turns thereafter. Obscenely useful for getting complete outfits and other low-rate drops. Cannot be used as the only item-drop familiar, but still extremely useful. The red ray can also be used for a good amount of stats, with the same time restrictions. This is very useful for getting to level 2 in few turns. The Boulder also increases meat drops like a leprechaun, so it can be used for meat drops if you don't have a Hobo Monkey or another improved leprechaun-type familiar.
Nanorhino		IotM	Delevels at the start of combat and deals elemental damage, but its main feature is its charge function. When fully charged, using a class combat skill will give you one of three buffs, respective to its source. While the buffs are decent by itself, if you Unleash Nanites with 40 or more turns remaining for these buffs, it will dispel the buff for another powerful effect: banish the monster until rollover, convert a monster into a stronger monster with much higher stat yields, or a "Yellow Ray" disintegration. In particular, banish is particularly notable since it's one of the only banish sources in a standard run, but disintegration is good if you do not have any other Yellow Ray effect and conversion can yield a huge amount of stats if used properly. It requires spending turns with a mediocre familiar if you want to use these effects more than once, however.
Mad Hatrack		IotM	Multi-purpose familiar whose function depends on the hat/pants placed on it. Duplicates a lot of other familiars, usually at lower weights/efficiencies than the real familiar. Highly versatile provided you can get the appropriate hat/pants and are willing to spend the effort looking it up. Faxing a sleepy mariachi and yellow ray-ing it for its drops the spangly sombrero/pants, which turns both the Hatrack and Scarecrow into to a double-weight Fairy/Potato with a high level cap.
Fancypants Scarecrow
Steam-Powered Cheerleader	Item drops	IotM	Acts as a Fairy and Barrnacle. For the first 100 fights (200 with its familiar equipment), it is equivalent to as as much as a 1.4x Fairy/Barrnacle, its effectiveness decreasing every 25/50 turns until it's a normal weight Fairy/Barrrnacle. Also provides some decent buffs during combat for that turn.
Mini-Hipster		IotM	Up to 7 times a day, replaces a non-superlikely adventure with a scaling combat that doesn't take a turn. In addition to directly saving turns when looking for a superlikely, these combats mean that the Hipster often yields more stats per adventure than even the Bugbear. In addition, a player capable of surviving a few rounds of combat can milk a great deal of MP from the Hipster before its big attack kills a monster.
Artistic Goth Kid		IotM	Similar to the Mini-Hipster, the Artistic Goth Kid also gives free scaling combats up the 7 times a day. Compared to the Mini-Hipster, it's a full-time Volleyball and therefore gives more sub-stats, but its familiar equipment is not as useful. Crayon shavings can be used as a percentage-based delevel or be crafted into low-level Moxie equipment. Also gives Extra PvP Fights.
Frumious Bandersnatch		IotM	Acts like a volleyball. With Ode to Booze activated this familiar gives free runaways, one of the few familiars that do so. Also incredibly useful for making combat a lot easier. Great for early sewer leveling. Casting certain spells gives the Bander bonus experience, which can be used to quickly level it up. While the familiar equipment is powerful, it is not worth getting in fast ascensions without Summon Clip Art.
Reanimated Reanimator		IotM	By default, it acts as a Volleyball. Occasionally collects monster parts, allowing it to increase item drops, meat drops, attack, delevel, and/or block enemy attacks, independent of weight and dependent on the number and type of parts collected. It also has a skill that lets you turn an enemy into a wandering monster, appearing 3 more times that day, 15-25 turns apart.
Stocking Mimic		IotM	Acts like a Cocoabo and also drops useful items that will give a lot of stats, item drops and meat gains. The stat gains from BitterSweetTarts, if used correctly, make the Mimic a comparable stat familiar to the Bugged Bugbear, while Polka Pops are very useful when you need item drops. At the same time, the Mimic provides an MP return comparable to a starfish, although the MP is less reliable, as the Mimic will sometimes kill a monster before providing any MP.
Happy Medium		IotM	Acts as a Volleyball and increases initiative. Every monster kill charges up the Medium, which is used to siphon the spirit of a monster to create booze. They are good to awesome quality 2-drunkenness boozes that also give buffs depending on the monster type siphoned, including +50 mainstat buffs.
Knob Goblin Organ Grinder		IotM	Increases meat drops like a leprechaun and attacks for elemental damage. Also drops pies after a certain number of combats. If one of those combats is a boss, the pie will be a Badass pie, which yields very good adventure and stat gains. The turns used resets at rollover, but killing a boss with the Grinder before rollover can lead to a Badass pie the next day. The grinder should be used for 5 turns each day to collect a badass pie, and possibly an additional turn to store boss organs.
Grimstone Golem		FotY	A Fairychaun that drops a grimstone mask every day. Of the content it unlocks, one particular zone lets you collect odd silver coins for a cost of a few adventures, which you can spend on useful items that help speed up a run, including bridge parts and faster Desert exploration.
Angry Jung Man		FotY	A Fairychaun that drops a psychoanalytic jar every day. In particular, in the Crackpot Mystic's psychoses, you can find a morbid skull which drops more white pixels than the blooper. This is a much faster way to make the digital key than farming the 8-Bit Realm. Beyond that, most of the content is more suited for aftercore than it is for turn optimization.

Tier 2

Familiars that can be handy in a niche role, even if you have all the above familiars, but are generally not essential.
Familiar Name	Familiar Type	Rarity	Description
Mutant Fire Ant		Very Rare	If there is a lot of moonlight coming from the Grimace moon, then this will be an improved fairy. Occasionally slightly better than a hound dog.
Mutant Cactus Bud		Very Rare	If there is a lot of moonlight coming from the Grimace moon, then this will be an improved leprechaun. Occasionally slightly better than a hobo monkey.
Oily Woim	Special	Common	Increases Combat Initiative by twice its weight. With just a few +familiar weight buffs, even a completely unleveled Woim could be helpful in reaching the initiative needed in To Catch a Killer (during the Level 9 Quest).
Optimistic Candle	Item drops Sub-stats Special	FotY	Acts as a Fairy and Blood-Faced Volleyball. Occasionally drops glob of melted wax which can be fashioned into a variety of useful objects and food. Good as a generalist, but ultimately I think Trick-or-Treating Tot is stronger.
Chocolate Lab	Item drops Special	IotM	Acts as a Fairy in addition to producing additional sprinkles from monsters. As the only familiar that increases monster sprinkles that automatically makes him the best in class. It is unclear whether harvesting sprinkles will speed up or slow down a HC run, but at a minimum you are going to want to do it until you perm the useful Gingerbread City skills.
Intergnat	Combat MP Restore Turn Management Special	IotM	I have not played with this familiar, but wanted to add it for completeness. If you have played with it please complete this description and move it to the appropriate tier.
Xiblaxian Holo-Companion	Special	Common	Increases Combat Initiative by twice its weight. With just a few +familiar weight buffs, even a completely unleveled Holo-Companion could be helpful in reaching the initiative needed in To Catch a Killer (during the Level 9 Quest). The Holo-Companion offers additional prevention of enemies' attacks, that's currently unspaded. This presumably holds about as much relevance for hardcore ascenders as a Levitating Potato.
Reagnimated Gnome		IotM	Normally acts as a Fairy, but can also perform other functions based on its familiar equipment, and one of these can be obtained for free every day. Three of them are combat-based, and in particular, the gnomish housemaid's kgnee gives free adventures once in a while like the Temporal Riftlet.
Obtuse Angel		IotM	Functions like a Baby Gravy Fairy but is usually not used for that reason. When using the angel, you can use the Fire a badly romantic arrow skill once each day that will turn that enemy into a wandering monster that will appear two more times that day in any zone (or three times if you have the familiar equipment). This is generally worse than the Reanimated Reanimator, but there are some monsters, such as the Ninja snowman assassin that you only want to fight three times.
Twitching Space Critter		Rare	Attacks and restores MP; both functions are doubled against Spooky and Hot monsters. When used in the copse and The Cyrpt, it can provide a large amount of MP while killing monsters for you.
Baby Bugged Bugbear		IotM	Visiting The Cake-Shaped Arena will give you the basic familiar equipment for free. This can be freely transformed into a bugged balaclava, which makes the familiar act like a volleyball that gives an extra +20 ML, which can help to speed up certain quest parts (like the Defiled Cranny and Oil Peak). With the balaclava equipped it sometimes gives more substats than a basic Hovering Sombrero.
Mini-Adventurer		IotM	When set to mini-Turtle-Tamer increases stats like a volleyball, and can restore MP like a starfish after player level 5. It offers a lower-upkeep benefit than the GGG or spirit hobo, and it scales better than Emilio after player level 10. It does not compete with the higher-tier stat familiars except in niche cases where MP generation is important. When set to mini-Accordion-Thief offers wildly-varying utility based on player class. Other mini-classes offer niche aftercore utility.

Tier 3

Familiars that are good for what they do, but are outclassed by better familiars.
Familiar Name	Familiar Type	Rarity	Description
Exotic Parrot	Special	Common	When combined with a +familiar weight skill (e.g. Amphibian Sympathy), this familiar will provide elemental resistances. This can help you explore The Haunted Kitchen faster. It will also increase stat gains in the elemental tests in the Daily Dungeon. If you are lacking elemental resistance skills, the Parrot will also let you pass resistance tests such as the Icy Peak and reduce damage taken in A-Boo Peak.
Baby Mutant Rattlesnake		Very Rare	If there is a lot of moonlight coming from the Grimace moon, then this will be an improved volleyball. Sometimes better than a basic volleyball, but never as good as the higher-tier stat familiars.
Midget Clownfish		Common	Attacks and restores MP; both functions are doubled against monsters of the appropriate element – Stench and Hot. When used in the right areas filled with multiple of the same elemental enemies, the appropriate elemental Starfish will yield significant amounts of MP while killing monsters for you. The clownfish is generally inferior to the Twitching Space Critter, which is effective both in the copse and The Cyrpt. While the other elemental starfishes (Snow Angel, Underworld Bonsai) follow the same principle, their optimal areas are at late in the ascension, where MP becomes less of an issue, and thus not as good.
Animated Macaroni Duck		Common	Attacks and restores MP; While it can't take advantage of elemental weaknesses like its elemental cousins, they are still effective familiars for restoring MP. The Animated Macaroni Duck is superior to the Star Starfish if you are a Pastamancer, which acts as if it's 20 pounds heavier if so. Otherwise, it's exactly the same as a Star Starfish.
Star Starfish		Common
Cocoabo		Common	Occasionally attacks, restores MP and HP, and provides meat. A good source of MP if you can survive enough combat rounds for it to trigger a few times, but outclassed by the many familiars that restore MP and do other things.
Hovering Sombrero	Sub-stats	Common	Gives stat gain depending on both the familiar weight and monster level. Gives good stats later in an ascension and if boosting monster level a lot.
Blood-Faced Volleyball	Sub-stats	Common	Increases stat gains. Bonus stat gains are very important, but other familiars do it better. Also applies to the Pre-2012 Volleychauns, Ancient Yuletide Troll, Crimbo P. R. E. S. S. I. E., Grinning Turtle, Penguin Goodfella, Hovering Skull, and Baby Z-Rex.
Baby Gravy Fairy	Item drops	Common	Increases item drops. Item drops are important, but other familiars do it better. Also applies to most Fairychauns, elemental fairies, Crimbo Elf, Grouper Groupie, Syncopated Turtle, Peppermint Rhino, and Mechanical Songbird.
Nosy Nose		Uncommon	Acts as a Barrrnacle in combat. Having it as your active familiar grants you the skill Get a Good Whiff of This Guy, which works similar to Transcendent Olfaction with no MP cost (details need spading). It can be useful for players who did not farm up Olfaction, or if you need to save 40 MP.
Rockin' Robin	Item drops Sub-stats Special	FotY	Decent as a Fairy/Volley combo, but ultimately I feel this is outclassed by the newer FotY Optimistic Candle.
Adventurous Spelunker		FotY	A Fairychaun that attacks and blocks. Also drops a Tales of Spelunking once every day, which is fun, but does not help in finishing a Hardcore run faster.
Lil' Barrel Mimic	Sub-stats	Common	Grants extra substats at the end of combat like a Volleyball, and occasionally drops items, similar to those found in The Barrel full of Barrels. With its equipment, restores HP and MP after every combat.
Choctopus		Subscriber's Bonus	A fairy/ghuol whelp combo. Obsoleted by the Slimeling, which is also cheaper to get, but still an excellent familiar.
Dandy Lion		IotM	A fairy/ghuol whelp combo. Obsoleted by the Slimeling, which is also cheaper to get, but still an excellent familiar.
Rock Lobster		Rare	Attacks and restores MP; both functions are doubled against monsters of the appropriate element – Spooky and Cold. When used in the right areas filled with multiple of the same elemental enemies, the appropriate elemental Starfish will yield significant amounts of MP while killing monsters for you. The lobster is generally inferior to the Twitching Space Critter, which is effective both in the copse and The Cyrpt. While the other elemental starfishes (Snow Angel, Underworld Bonsai) follow the same principle, their optimal areas are at late in the ascension, where MP becomes less of an issue, and thus not as good.
Astral Badger	Sub-stats	IotM	Astral mushrooms can be used to take a Great Trip. In addition to their high monster level, the monsters there have useful cupcakes, and you are guaranteed a single Munchies pill per mushroom, which will grant 3 adventures. If you are looking to cut turncount, the turns spent with the badger instead of a stat familiar and the adventures spent in the trip are not worth the benefits. If you are looking to cut daycount and you need to level early, the turns generated by the Munchies pill partially offset the cost of the trip, which may make at least a single day 1 trip worthwhile.
Disembodied Hand		IotM	Very powerful damage dealer. Not much use otherwise unless you really want to take advantage of a one-handed weapon's enchantment.
Gluttonous Green Ghost		IotM	Increase stats like a volleyball, and can restore MP like a starfish when given food or booze, respectively. Useful, but does not compete with the higher-tier stat familiars. If you use a Gluttonous Green Ghost, be aware that it can also steal food drops from you.
Spirit Hobo
Green Pixie		IotM	Increases items like a fairy and drops absinthe that can be used to visit The Worm Wood. Adventuring in the approriate location with 1 turn of Absinthe-Minded left guarantees an adventure that provides up to 150 substats, which may be better than other powerleveling options.
Llama Lama		IotM	Increases stats like a half-weight Volleyball and delevels defense. Drops gongs which provide several different options. Bird form restricts your options in combat for 15 turns but can provide a spleen item that provides a significant boost to item or meat drops or stat gains if you fight Spooky, Stench, or Hot aligned monsters, respectively. Path of the Roach takes 3 turns to use but gives significant statgain followed by a buff to monster level or item drops.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot		Rare	Improved Cocoabo. Can be used to restore large amounts of HP and MP, but outclassed by the Stocking Mimic, which yields somewhat less HP/MP but drops very good candies.
Tickle-Me Emilio		Rare	Acts as a Volleyball and an improved Cocoabo. Compared to the Cocoabo, it acts more often, sometimes deals elemental damage, and produces a static 60 meat. If you are fortunate enough to own this familiar, it gives more mileage than a plain Volleyball or Cocoabo would.
Li'l Xenomorph		IotM	Normally functions as a Volleyball, and with its familiar equipment it also functions as a Fairy, making the least restrictive, uncapped Volleyball/Fairy familiar in the game. Whether it's worth giving its Fairy function is debatable. Its content is largely for aftercore, and is rarely done during a fast run. It does, however, contain scaling monsters, and dog hair pills and distention pills can come in handy if you manage to find one.
Hippo Ballerina		KoL Con	A Fairychaun, but also deals Sleaze damage, delevels, and block attacks, making it strictly better than other Fairychauns, but not by much.
Sugar Fruit Fairy		IotM	Acts as a fairy, increases stats as a volleyball at the cost of MP. If not enough MP is available the additional stats accumulate in sugar plums for later use. Also occasionally drops other handy sugary sweets. The MP cost is quite high which makes its use questionable, but can be helpful in the unlikely event that you are swimming in MP. The Pygmy Bugbear Shaman has a slightly lower MP cost, but does not drop fruit. Both of these familiars cost too much MP to be useful in a fast ascension.

Other

Familiars that are useless or not as good as easily obtainable familiars.
All Other Familiars	No useful functions that aren't better gotten elsewhere	These familiars all do a variety of non-useful things. If you are trying to ascend fast, you won't use them.

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