Heavy Rains

Heavy Rains is the Autumn 2014 special challenge path, introduced on August 15, 2014. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "Torrential rains have flooded the Kingdom, making everything extremely difficult. But you can rise to the challenge (seriously, this one is challenging) with the help of some powerful new skills.

NOTE: Limited-time content from prior to 2012 is disallowed on this path."

Restrictions

• You are not permitted to use Mr. Items or limited-time content that became limited before January 1, 2012. The restrictions are shown in the type 69 schedule (or this static external list).
  • Attempting to use a restricted familiar gives this message:

    That familiar is too old to be used on this path.

  • Clicking the clan VIP pool table (or trying to view the leaderboard) gives:

    That clan thing is too old to be used on this path.

  • Attempting to use a restricted skill gives:

    That skill is too old for this path.

  • Attempting to pull a restricted item from Hagnk's while in Ronin gives:

    That item is too old to be used on this path.

  • Buying restricted items from the Mall:

    You can't afford that item. (With meat from hagnk's)

  • Attempting to use a restricted item:

    That item is too old to be used on this path.

  • Attempting to use An Awesome Ball Pit in Hardcore or Ronin:

    The ball pit is too old to be used in this path.

• The Feast of Boris does not give bonus fullness. On the main map, this message appears:

Today is the Feast of Boris.

The rain has ruined your festive mood.

Divergences

• During combat monsters will be covered by water that increases their monster level the deeper it is. The depth of the water depends on the zone type (indoors, outdoors, underground) and the general difficulty of the zone. A zone is considered "easy" or "challenging" depending on the stat requirement of the zone (what's the threshold?). An easy zone has a base depth of 1, and a challenging zone a base depth of 2. If the zone is outdoors, the rain level is unchanged, indoors is +2, and underground is +4. Nothing can increase the level above 6 or decrease it below (1 or 0?). The monster level increase is equal to 10 times the depth of the water, and the increase is treated as bonus monster level for stats and penalties.
  • The water depth is visible by mouse-hovering on the monster icon during a combat.
• After combat, some items may be washed away by the water. The chance of losing an item is 5% per level of water depth.
  • Each item's chance of washing away is independently rolled. You may lose multiple items in the same combat.
  • Items dropped due to yellow ray may still be washed away.
• Wandering monsters will occasionally attack the player. The first monster is met on turn 9-11(?) of the run, and all subsequent monsters are seen 35-45(?) turns after the last. The monster seen depends on the water depth of where you are adventuring, and the terrain type:

Depth	Terrain	Monster	Notes
1	Any?	giant isopod	Drops 1 freshwater fishbone
2	Any?	gourmet gourami	Drops gourmet gourami oil
3	Any?	freshwater bonefish	Drops 2 freshwater fishbones
4	Any?	alley catfish	Drops catfish whiskers
5	Any?	piranhadon	Drops 3 freshwater fishbones
6	Underground	giant tardigrade	Drops thunder thigh
6	Indoor	aquaconda	Drops aquaconda brain

• (Monsters which drop multiple fishbones may not have 100% drop rates on each fishbone.)
• The water inhibits familiars in some way which is not yet fully understood.
• The General Store sells 4 new items during this path:
  • water wings for babies - 50 meat - Multi-equippable accessory that raises maximum HP by 10 and lowers monster level by 15.
  • miniature life preserver - 100 meat - Familiar equipment that makes your familiar immune to the familiar-blocking effects of the rain.
  • heavy duty umbrella - 300 meat - Offhand item that lowers the water level by (?) when equipped.
  • pool skimmer - 500 meat - Offhand item that randomly lets you receive items that have been lost in the water by other players after combat.

Bosses

Many ascension-required bosses have been replaced with a mass of sentient water. These new rain bosses drop different items, and a hard cap on damage that can be dealt to them.

Normal Boss	Rain Boss	New Item	Hard Cap	Notes
Boss Bat	Aquabat	neoprene skullcap	12
Knob Goblin King	Aquagoblin	goblin water	23	Removes a buff every round
Bonerdagon	Auqadargon	nothing	28	Does not drop rib or vertebra
Groar	Gurgle	liquid ice	56
Lord Spookyraven	Lord Soggyraven	Lord Soggyraven's slippers	39
Protector Spectre	Protector Spurt	Ancient Protector Soda	21
Dr. Awkward	Dr Aquard	Sogg-Os and dumb mud	?
The Man	?	?	?
The Big Wisniewski	the Big Wisnaqua	Wet Russian	?

The Aquagoblin does not drop the Cobb's Knob lab key (it is not yet known whether this is intended or a bug).

Skills

A new set of skills may be learned by using thunder thighs which drop from giant tardigrades. These skills are powered by a new resource called Thunder, which is measured in dB.

Skill	Type	Cost	Notes
Thunder Clap	Combat	40 dB	Banishes the enemy for the rest of the day, or until another foe is banished with the skill
Thundercloud	Noncombat	20 dB	Gives Personal Thundercloud (100 turns) Increases water depth by 2
Thunder bird	Combat	1 dB	Combat skill??
Thunderheart	Nonombat	20 dB	100 turns of +100% hp
Thunderstrike	Combat	5 dB	Stun?? Usable once per fight
Thunder Down Underwear	Noncombat	60 dB	Can be used once per day Summons thunder down underwear (disappears at end of day)
Thunder Thighs	Passive	N/A	You regain 50 dB every swallowed clap, instead of 30

Thunder is generated by a post-combat event (how often?):

A peal of thunder sounds nearby. You swallow X dB of it.

X defaults to 30, if you don't have Thunder Thighs. Stored Thunder caps at 100 dB.

Using the Personal Thundercloud effect lets you increase the water depth to 6 in indoor zones, which allows the aquaconda to appear. Using the aquaconda brain lets you learn Rain skills. These skills are fueled by a new resource called Rain, measured in drops.

Skill	Type	Cost	Notes
Rain Man	Noncombat	50 drops	Make monsters out of rain
Rainy Day	Noncombat	20 drops	Gives The Rain In Loathing (100 turns) Increases water depth
Make it Rain	Combat	10 drops	Usable once per fight
Rain Dance	Noncombat	10 drops	Gives Rain Dancin' (100 turns) (+20% item drops)
Rainbow	Combat	3 drops	?
Rain Coat	Noncombat	40 drops	?
Rain Delay	Passive	N/A	+3 Elemental Resistance

Rain drops are generated by a post-combat event (how often?):

You turn your smiling face up to the rains, recovering Y drops.

Y defaults to 7. Rain caps at 100 drops.

Strategy

• If you are finding adventuring too difficult, particularly at the start of the run, you may wish to buy and equip one (or more) water wings for babies from The General Store.
• While a level 1 charater will likely be one-shot by most things, the Noob Cave offers a good low-level power-leveling zone by having high monster-level monsters that can't hurt you that also drop fruits and booze for cocktails.
• A Maze of Sewer Tunnels leading to hobopolis will always have giant tardigrades and is always available provided you can survive the ~300ml there. (You can get whitelisted into bumcheekcity's Basements to get free access.)

Notes

• The Trendy-type restriction (no use of limited-time content older than 2012) applies only while Heavy Rains is the current challenge path. On November 15, 2014 this restriction will no longer exist.
• While you are on the path, your profile includes a link to the new restricted item list.

Rewards

• Finishing a Heavy Rains run that began while it was still the current special challenge path -- that is, between August 15th, 2014, and November 14th, 2014 -- gives players 100 (in Hardcore) or 50 (in Normal) extra karma points the next time they visit Valhalla.
• You receive a ??? for completing a Normal or Hardcore run while this is the current challenge path.
• Players will receive a thwaitgold spider statuette upon defeating the Naughty Sorceress.

Ascension Paths
Boozetafarian	Teetotaler	Oxygenarian
Special Challenge Paths
Spring Summer Fall Winter 2011 None Bees Hate You Way of the Surprising Fist Trendy 2012 Avatar of Boris Bugbear Invasion Zombie Slayer Class Act 2013 Avatar of Jarlsberg BIG! KOLHS Class Act II: A Class For Pigs 2014 Avatar of Sneaky Pete Slow and Steady Heavy Rains Picky 2015 Actually Ed the Undying One Crazy Random Summer Community Service None 2016 Avatar of West of Loathing The Source Nuclear Autumn None 2017 Gelatinous Noob License to Adventure Live. Ascend. Repeat. None 2018 Pocket Familiars G-Lover Disguises Delimit None 2019 Dark Gyffte Two Crazy Random Summer Kingdom of Exploathing None 2020 Path of the Plumber Low Key Summer Grey Goo None 2021 You, Robot Quantum Terrarium Wildfire None 2022 Grey You Journeyman Fall of the Dinosaurs None 2023 Avatar of Shadows Over Loathing Legacy of Loathing A Shrunken Adventurer am I None 2024 WereProfessor 11 Things I Hate About U Avant Guard None 2025 Z is for Zootomist Hat Trick 11,037 Leagues Under the Sea None