Basement Diving Guide: Difference between revisions

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→Strategy: Don't even mention phials any more. Do mention the Vivala mask.
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*[[Entangling Noodles]] stun, allowing you a few more hits than you might be able to otherwise get (doesn't work well on beer golems). See also: [[Stunning|other stuns]]. [[Mesmereyes™ contact lenses]], in particular, will stagger any monster that gets the jump on you.
*[[Entangling Noodles]] stun, allowing you a few more hits than you might be able to otherwise get (doesn't work well on beer golems). See also: [[Stunning|other stuns]]. [[Mesmereyes™ contact lenses]], in particular, will stagger any monster that gets the jump on you.
*See [[Maximizing Your HP]], [[Maximizing Your Moxie]], and [[Maximizing Your Damage Absorption]] to help survive long enough to kill.
*See [[Maximizing Your HP]], [[Maximizing Your Moxie]], and [[Maximizing Your Damage Absorption]] to help survive long enough to kill.
*You can use a phial effect to deal with physical-resistant monsters, although it's an expensive strategy on the long run.
;[[Spells]]
;[[Spells]]
*If you didn't know, [[Calculating Spell Damage|spell damage]] is based off '''Mysticality'''.
*If you didn't know, [[Calculating Spell Damage|spell damage]] is based off '''Mysticality'''.
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*[[Love songs]] deal damage equal to buffed mainstat, for '''all three stats'''. Additionally, some do '''elemental damage'''.
*[[Love songs]] deal damage equal to buffed mainstat, for '''all three stats'''. Additionally, some do '''elemental damage'''.
*[[Ambidextrous Funkslinging]] makes combat items even more efficient. It allows [[stunning|stunlock]] and damage at the same time.
*[[Ambidextrous Funkslinging]] makes combat items even more efficient. It allows [[stunning|stunlock]] and damage at the same time.
*The [[V for Vivala mask]] increases combat item damage by 50%.
*[[Shrinking powder]] cuts a monster's current HP in half.
*[[Shrinking powder]] cuts a monster's current HP in half.
*[[shard of double-ice|Shards of double-ice]] deal [[cold]] damage equal to your '''highest buffed stat''', stun monsters for 1 round, and makes them cold-aligned for the rest of the combat.
*[[shard of double-ice|Shards of double-ice]] deal [[cold]] damage equal to your '''highest buffed stat''', stun monsters for 1 round, and makes them cold-aligned for the rest of the combat.

Revision as of 14:01, 16 October 2013

For Loathers wanting to do a basement dive to upgrade their telescopes (or for other reasons), this article aims to provide strategies for doing so efficiently. While the focus will be on reaching floor 500, the strategies will also be applicable for those who want to go deeper.

Fernswarthy's Basement consists of several different types of challenges, which get more and more difficult the deeper into the basement one goes. Every fifth level is a reward (usually a stat reward, whose magnitude scales to your main stat).

Overview

Fernswarthy's basement contains monsters to fight, stat tests, damage tests (physical and elemental), and MP draining tests. Difficulty progresses exponentially as a function of your depth in the basement. All the challenges follow the basic formula: 

StatRequired = Depth1.4

There is typically some variance in the exact requirements, but this formula gives a rough approximation.

Buffing

Getting your stats up to Depth1.4 (or in some cases a bit higher) will usually require several effects.

The first and most important effect is the equalizer. There are three different equalizers, one for each stat:

  • oil of stability -- equalizes everything to Muscle -- calculates percentage Moxie/Mysticality boosts using your black Muscle stat instead of Moxie/Myst
  • oil of expertise -- equalizes everything to Mysticality
  • oil of slipperiness -- equalizes everything to Moxie

Once you're past the early basement levels, you should be using an equalizer all the time. This means that you don't need to raise offstats at all (except to meet equipment requirements) -- your ability to progress will depend only on your main stat.

The Maximizing pages (Muscle, Myst, Moxie) have comprehensive lists of the available effects, but they are not presented in an economically efficient order, nor with indications of which effects are limited (X times per day, or Y fullness, or Z spleen).

The affordable, unlimited potion- and skill-based buffs include:

Some other powerful but pricier buffs are:

Saucerors may use vials of slime (from the Nemesis quest) as well:

  • 200% Tertiary color slime potions
  • 100% Secondary color slime potions
  • 50% Primary color slime potions

Limited buffs:

Outfits

In addition to buffs, you can get huge stat-buffing boosts from your equipment. It is well worth the time required to set up some custom outfits specifically for basement diving.

Some players make more basement-diving custom outfits than others. A reasonable starting point is to make 5 outfits: Muscle, Mysticality, Moxie, Elemental resistance, and Combat. Players who lack major elemental resistance gear may choose to make specific elemental resistance outfits for each test (e.g. one for the Hot/Spooky test, another for the Cold/Sleaze test, and so on) rather than a single generic elemental resistance outfit. Some players may also choose to make a Damage absorption outfit for the Gauntlet test (if they lack the Tao of the Terrapin skill for example).

The Maximizing pages (Muscle, Myst, Moxie, Elemental Resistance) will give you comprehensive lists of the equipment choices for each slot, so that you can construct your outfits depending on what you have available.

If you lack most of the great equipment on those pages (in particular, the Slimesuit), you might consider delaying your basement dive until you've had the chance to gather some of it.

Combat Challenges

Monster Level in the basement scales as twice the basement level (Depth) to the 1.4th power. That is, 

ML = 2 * ceil(Depth1.4)
Defense = ceil(ML*.9)
HP = ceil(ML*.85)

Because of how quickly ML (and hence monster defense) scales, and how Hit Chance is calculated, it will eventually be impossible to hit with a "normal" weapon attack. This includes attack skills like Thrust-Smack (normally). By Depth 300, a character will need almost 5900 attack strength to hit the monsters. The story gets worse, because monster defense also absorbs damage due to Muscle. Fortunately, there are ways to beat the monsters without out-statting them.

Note that combat with basement monsters can last up to 50 rounds, rather than the usual 30.

Monsters have 70% Combat Initiative unless otherwise stated.

Encounters

Monster Notes

The Beast with n Ears 		 

The Beast with n Eyes 		∞ initiative.

A n Stone Golem

A n-Headed Hydra

Can do hot, cold, and stench damage.


The Ghost of Fernswarthy's n great-grandfather

n Bottles of Beer on a Golem
  • Blocks a high percentage of spells.

A n-Dimensional Horror

Strategy

If you've been working over a run with Lunging Thrust-Smack or Shieldbutt, you can basically keep doing whatever you're doing up to a point, but as the monsters go past a few thousand ML at higher levels, here are a few strategies to deal thousands of damage even when your stats are much lower than the monster's.

The main idea is, be the David to their Goliath. Don't try to out-stat the monsters.

General tips
Spells
  • If you didn't know, spell damage is based off Mysticality.
  • Regular class spells don't work on beer golems, but it's easy to switch to combat items for one battle.
  • With a good chefstaff and/or a Stick-Knife of Loathing, it's increasingly trivial to get over 350% bonus spell damage for pretty cheap. At that point, damage for the high-level class spells are more than 1.5 times buffed Myst. See also: Maximizing Your Spell Damage.
Combat items
  • None of the monsters block combat items (which is kind of sad), so this works on everything.
  • Party favors deal damage equal to buffed mainstat, for all three stats.
  • Love songs deal damage equal to buffed mainstat, for all three stats. Additionally, some do elemental damage.
  • Ambidextrous Funkslinging makes combat items even more efficient. It allows stunlock and damage at the same time.
  • The V for Vivala mask increases combat item damage by 50%.
  • Shrinking powder cuts a monster's current HP in half.
  • Shards of double-ice deal cold damage equal to your highest buffed stat, stun monsters for 1 round, and makes them cold-aligned for the rest of the combat.
Birdform
  • Birdform grants various skills that scale well with buffed stats.
  • Vicious Talon Slash does Muscle-based physical damage, and always hits. Only the Ghost can cause a problem.
  • The various other skills do Mysticality-based elemental damage. However, they require use of certain items before combat, and don't scale as high as Vicious Talon Slash. See Form of...Bird! for more details. The strongest of these is The Statue Treatment.
  • Warning: Birdform prevents the use of other skills and combat items. This means no stunning, and the only way to heal is to use Feast on Carrion. Survival, then, is based on Maximizing Your HP and Maximizing Your Damage Absorption.

Elemental Challenges

There are five different Elemental Resistance challenges, which test two elements at once. The same amount of damage is done in both elements; failure results if HP is reduced to 0. As with the combat challenges, the damage scales with basement level: 

 Elt = 4.48 × Depth1.4 + 8

To repeat, the above damage is applied using both elements of the test, so the total raw damage is twice the calculated value. Additionally, there appears to be about a 5% variation in the equation, so having exactly enough HP and resistance to survive the damage indicated does not guarantee the test will be passed. This also means that it is possible to pass the tests with fewer HP than implied by the equation.

Elemental cluster potions' effects (e.g., Coldform) force elemental damage rules to be followed, so that one of the two prongs (the elemental forms cannot stack) of each test can be reduced to one point of damage, effectively cutting total damage in half. However, care must be taken to choose the form which won't double the damage received from the other prong.

Damage Absorption has no effect on these challenges.

Encounters

Elemental Test Elements Optimal Elemental Form

Singled Out 		cold and sleaze Coldform (phial of coldness)

Peace, Bra! 		sleaze and stench Sleazeform (phial of sleaziness)

Still Better Than Pistachio 		stench and hot Stenchform (phial of stench)

Unholy Writes 		hot and spooky Hotform (phial of hotness)

The Unthawed 		spooky and cold Spookyform (phial of spookiness)

Strategy

Elemental Resistance levels decrease damage by a percent of the raw damage, but more levels asymptotically increase the percentage to 90%.

Mysticality classes have an extra 5% resistance added to their effective elemental resistance (for example, turning 85% to 90%), and at the same high elemental resistance levels (25+, or 88.91%), they take nearly 50% less damage than other classes take.

In order to pass these tests a basement diver may wish to maximize their effective HP. Effective HP is the amount of unreduced elemental damage it would take to reduce a player to 0 HP. Effective HP is found by the formula: EHP = HP/(1-resistance percentage). HP in this formula is the player's current HP including any bonuses from equipment, buffs, etc. A player can raise their EHP in two ways: HP Increasers and modifiers to Elemental Resistance levels. As the resistance level gets higher extra resistance becomes less useful. As HP gets higher extra resistance becomes more useful.

Attribute Tests

The remaining challenges are passed or failed based on buffed Muscle, Mysticality, Moxie, HP, or MP.

The stat tests are thought to scale as: 

 Stat = Depth1.4 + 2

The HP test probably scales like: 

 Phys = 10 × Depth1.4

The MP test likely scales as: 

 Drain = 1.67 × Depth1.4

The stat tests seem to have about 10% variation. The MP drain test is believed to have less than 5% variation.

Attribute Test Notes

Lift 'em!
Push it Real Good
Ring that Bell 		Muscle tests

Gathering: The Magic
Mop the Floor with the Mops
Do away with the 'doo 		Mysticality tests

Don't Wake the Baby
Grab a cue

Put on the Smooth Moves 		Moxie tests

Throwin' Down the Gauntlet

A Festering Powder

Strategy

For raw attribute tests, there's nothing more to say than "buff up".

For the Gauntlet, increase Damage Absorption as close as possible to 1000, if not above. Once that's accomplished, then increase HP (when you must choose between the two, DA is more important). Ghostly shell and astral shell buffs are a nearly-free 160 points of DA. Having Tao of the Terrapin can effectively increase your DA by 400, making the Gauntlet test nearly trivial. Torso Awaregness allows an increase of up to 240, in addition to the HP or Muscle boost of the shirt being worn. As an alternative you can also use too legit potions for a DA-increase of up to 600.

For the Powder, to refill your MP after maximizing it, you have a few choices:

Number-Crunching

Assuming that the combat challenges can be handled, the major hurdle for most divers will be the non-combat tests. Recall the basic formula: 

StatRequired = Depth1.4

All the basement challenges scale using this formula.

  • For the stat tests, the formula is applied directly (with 10% variance).
  • For the Gauntlet challenge, the damage done is 10 times the formula, but 1000 Damage Absorption reduces it to 1/10, and so one is back to the formula.
  • For the elemental tests, the total damage done is 9 times the formula, but elemental resistance reduces it to around 1/10 (muscle/moxie class) or 1/20 (myst class) -- depending on one's resources -- so this is typically even simpler than the Gauntlet, even without phials.
  • For the Powder challenge, the MP required is 1.67 times the formula. Having the MP increasing skills permed gives you 1.65 times the MP you'd normally have, so with those skills you're nearly right back to the formula; if you're a myst class, that's another 1.5 times the MP, so getting your max MP high enough is a non-issue compared to actually generating the MP.

Given two basement levels m and n, one might wonder how much more difficult the basement is at n compared to m. Some math will show us how far one must dive in order for the basement to become twice as hard: 

n1.4 = 2m1.4
e1.4 log n = 2e1.4 log m
1.4 log n = log 2 + 1.4 log m
1.4 (log n - log m) = log 2
log n - log m = (log 2)/1.4
n/m = e(log 2)/1.4 =~ 1.64067

So, if you dive to a level that is about 1.64 times as deep as your current level, you will need 2 times the stats.

The question of whether basement diving is feasible can be asked in two related ways:

  • How much damage is done/how big do player attributes have to be to pass the non-combat tests at a given basement level?
  • Knowing the stat/damage results, what main stat will be required to reach a particular basement level, given the buffs a player is willing to run at all times?

Table of Test Strengths

Knowing the approximate values of the tests as discussed in the outline, it is useful to have a reference of the stat strength/damage done at several common stat levels.

The following table shows the approximate ranges of stats, HP or MP required for the basement challenges just before every 25th level. The Gauntlet damage is reported at 60% and 90% Damage Absorption levels; the elemental tests are shown at 70% and 87% resistance (corresponding to 9 and 20 points of resistance).

Stat tests are believed to have 10% variance. The variance on the Gauntlet and MP drain tests is not fully known yet; therefore only the mean damage is shown.

Depth Stat tests Gauntlet
(60% DA) 		Gauntlet
(90% DA) 		MP Drain Element
(70% Res) 		Element
(87% Res)
24 77 - 94 342 86 143 231 100
49 209 - 256 930 232 388 628 272
74 373 - 455 1656 414 691 1118 484
99 560 - 684 2489 622 1039 1680 728
124 767 - 938 3411 853 1424 2302 998
149 992 - 1213 4411 1103 1842 2977 1290
174 1233 - 1507 5481 1370 2288 3699 1603
199 1488 - 1819 6614 1653 2761 4464 1935
224 1756 - 2147 7806 1951 3259 5269 2283
249 2037 - 2489 9052 2263 3779 6110 2648
Depth Stat tests Gauntlet
(60% DA) 		Gauntlet
(90% DA) 		MP Drain Element
(70% Res) 		Element
(87% Res)
274 2329 - 2846 10349 2587 4321 6986 3027
299 2631 - 3216 11695 2924 4883 7894 3421
324 2944 - 3599 13087 3272 5464 8833 3827
349 3267 - 3993 14522 3630 6063 9802 4248
374 3600 - 4400 15999 4000 6679 10799 4680
399 3941 - 4817 17516 4379 7313 11823 5123
424 4291 - 5245 19071 4768 7962 12873 5578
449 4649 - 5682 20663 5166 8627 13948 6044
474 5016 - 6130 22292 5573 9307 15047 6520
499 5390 - 6588 23955 5989 10001 16170 7007

If you're on a Unix-like system, this command will generate a table of the maximum stat requirement, and the mean Powder MP drain, for every level from 1 to 500: 

awk 'BEGIN {for(i=1;i<=500;i++){L=exp(1.4*log(i));printf("%3d %8.1f %8.1f\n", i, L*1.1, L*1.67)}}'

You can save that in a file, or pipe it through your favorite pager program. Either way, it's a handy reference to have open in a window while you're diving.

Main Stat Requirements

This section is completely out of date and needs to be rewritten. Until it has been rewritten, readers are urged to ignore it.

I mean it.

Knowing the stat/HP/MP requirements for the tests at particular basement levels allows for the conversion of the challenges into statements about main stat.

The following table then calculates the required main stat for every 25th basement level according to the equations listed previously, as well as the required stat with a 5% safety margin, given the easy buffs shown. Because of class differences, several common scenarios need to be spelled out for the HP, MP, and element tests.

  • Class differences do not affect Muscle, Mysticality, or Moxie tests, and thus there is only one column.
  • Muscle classes get an innate 50% HP bonus. Tao of the Terrapin enables a large boost in DA. Hence the HP test has four columns.
  • Mysticality classes get an innate 50% MP bonus. The MP test can be divided into Mysticality/non-Mysticality.
  • Mysticality classes have an additional +5% resistance to elements, which is ADDED to the reduction percentage. For example, if a a non-myst class would only take 50% of the raw damage, a myst class would take 45%. If a non-myst class takes 10.1%, a myst class takes 5.1%. When resistances hit the high 20s, this very nearly cuts elemental damage in half.
  • Moxie classes lose out on both the HP and 5% bonus resistance, so in practice there are three elemental categories: Muscle (89.9% resistance, +50% HP), Mysticality (94.9% resistance), and Moxie (89.9% resistance). The numbers in the table assume that the correct powder potion has been imbibed to reduce one element to negligible damage.

While the above does not capture the full range of possibilities given the passive skills available, it gives a good idea of what is possible.

Ignore elemental damage numbers, because they are way out of date and use a deprecated mechanic.
BL Stat Phys
(Mus, 60% DA) 		Phys
(Mus, 90% DA) 		Phys
(Other, 60% DA) 		Phys
(Other, 90% DA) 		Drain
(Other) 		Drain
(Myst) 		Elt
(Mus) 		Elt
(Mys) 		Elt
(Mox)
24 12 31 8 47 12 20 13 14 11 21
24
(5% padding) 		13 33 8 49 12 21 14 15 11 22
49 32 84 21 127 32 53 36 38 29 57
49
(5% padding) 		34 89 22 133 33 56 38 40 30 60
74 57 150 38 225 56 95 63 68 51 101
74
(5% padding) 		60 158 40 237 59 99 66 71 53 107
99 86 226 57 339 85 142 95 102 76 152
99
(5% padding) 		90 237 59 356 89 149 99 107 80 160
124 117 309 77 464 116 194 130 139 104 208
124
(5% padding) 		123 325 81 487 122 204 136 146 109 219
149 151 400 100 600 150 251 168 180 135 269
149
(5% padding) 		158 420 105 630 158 264 176 189 141 283
174 187 497 124 746 187 312 208 223 167 335
174
(5% padding) 		197 522 131 783 196 327 218 234 176 351
199 226 600 150 900 225 376 251 269 202 404
199
(5% padding) 		237 630 158 945 236 395 264 283 212 424
224 266 708 177 1062 266 444 296 318 238 476
224
(5% padding) 		280 743 186 1115 279 466 311 333 250 500
249 309 821 205 1232 308 515 343 368 276 552
249
(5% padding) 		324 862 216 1293 323 540 361 387 290 580
274 353 939 235 1408 352 588 392 421 316 631
274
(5% padding) 		370 986 247 1479 370 618 412 442 332 663
299 399 1061 265 1591 398 665 443 476 357 713
299
(5% padding) 		419 1114 279 1671 418 698 466 499 375 749
324 446 1187 297 1781 445 744 496 532 399 798
324
(5% padding) 		468 1246 312 1870 467 781 521 559 419 838
349 495 1317 329 1976 494 825 550 590 443 886
349
(5% padding) 		520 1383 346 2075 519 867 578 620 465 930
374 545 1451 363 2177 544 909 606 651 488 976
374
(5% padding) 		572 1524 381 2286 571 955 637 683 512 1024
399 597 1589 397 2383 596 995 664 712 534 1068
399
(5% padding) 		626 1668 417 2502 626 1045 697 748 561 1122
424 649 1730 433 2595 649 1084 723 775 582 1163
424
(5% padding) 		682 1816 454 2725 681 1138 759 814 611 1221
449 704 1874 469 2811 703 1174 783 840 630 1260
449
(5% padding) 		739 1968 492 2952 738 1233 822 882 662 1323
474 759 2022 506 3033 758 1267 845 906 680 1359
474
(5% padding) 		797 2123 531 3185 796 1330 887 952 714 1427
499 816 2173 543 3259 815 1361 908 974 730 1461
499
(5% padding) 		856 2282 570 3422 856 1429 953 1022 767 1534

The last row, 499, is most informative. It shows that all classes really need Tao to survive the HP test. Muscle/Moxie classes really need Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises in order to make diving feasible. Mysticality classes fare best against the elemental tests. Moxie classes are the worst in every category.

Strategy

From the information above, conclusions can be drawn about configurations that are very useful to have in a basement dive.

Permed Skills

Doing a dive without these skills can significantly increase the time and Meat costs of reaching level 500.

  • For most of the combat challenges, an uncapped combat spell will help: Fearful Fettucini, Saucegeyser, or Weapon of the Pastalord. Pastalord normally does only physical damage, which can be a problem for the ghost, but this can be rectified with Flavour of Magic or by using powder potions.
  • Spectral Snapper is considered a weapon-based skill and not a "spell," so it will always hit the beer golem. The golem often blocks spells, and at higher levels it can become difficult to survive against beer golems long enough for spells to get through. However, uncapped spells scale to a larger portion of their associated stat and benefit from percentage-based spell damage increasers, so spells are a more efficient choice than Snapper when fighting anything other than the beer golem.
  • Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises gives a 50% MP bonus, making the MP test much easier.
  • Spirit of Ravioli provides a 25% HP bonus.
  • Impetuous Sauciness gives five extra turns when drinking Sauceror potions, driving down costs.
  • Ambidextrous Funkslinging enables a player to use two combat items per round. Funkslinging the divine combat items (divine noisemaker, divine can of silly string, divine blowout) is an effective (though somewhat expensive) alternative to scaling combat spells. Remember to use powder potions if fighting a physically resistant monster. Love songs can also be used to the same effect, without requiring a powder potion.

Several buffs help in diving, but are available via buffbots and do not need to be permed.

Several other skills are not "must-have" like the above, but do simplify a dive.

Class Choices

There are several innate differences between character classes that can help one decide whether to do a dive on the current ascension.

  1. Muscle classes have an intrinsic 50% HP bonus.
    • Seal Clubber: The class with the fastest low- to mid-level powerleveling (averaging over 450 muscularity per turn without clovers). Fast powerleveling leads to being able to start the basement at a higher level in the same amount of time.
    • Turtle Tamer: Characters with low skills can benefit from having the natural 50% HP bonus, a class skill for a 50% MP bonus, and a skill to double Damage Absorption from hats and pants (effectively up to 400 extra DA out of 1000 max).
  2. Mysticality classes have a resistance bonus of 5%, and also an MP bonus of 50%.
    • Saucerors get a five-turn duration bonus when imbibing saucecrafting potions (on top of any Impetuous Sauciness bonus), and additionally cook potions at a 3:1 product-to-ingredient ratio. These help give them more efficient use of effects, making them the cheapest class to use. Saucerors also get Slime Potions, which stack on top of sauce potions, letting them reach up to +350% more in stat bonuses than any other class. Also Saucemageddon, a spell more powerful than the normal class spells.
  3. Moxie classes have basically no relevant advantages. Unless dance card-leveling counts, but it doesn't.

Familiars

Given that there are no item or Meat drops in the basement, and monster levels ramp up so high so quickly, very few familiars are actually useful in a dive.

  • An Exotic Parrot helps with the elemental tests, without taking up an equipment slot. Back when elemental resistance had a maximum value, however, it was easy to max out one's resistance with cheap buffs and ordinary equipment. Now that the elemental resistance has no upper limit, any extra elemental resistance will help with the elemental tests. Every 20 lbs of parrot adds 1 increment of resistance to each element.
  • A Levitating Potato can block attacks, which may be particularly helpful against the beer golem.
  • A Hovering Sombrero may be a good choice for increasing the already large stat gains at deep basement levels.
  • A Crimbo P. R. E. S. S. I. E. can act as an improved Sombrero. It can boost stat gains like a Sombrero, buff your stats, restore MP, block enemy attacks, attack, and delevel.
  • A Disembodied Hand allows you to temporarily trade out your familiar slot for an extra one-handed weapon. This is helpful for cases like equipping another Brimstone Bludgeon, stainless steel shillelagh, Grimacite gat, bottle-rocket crossbow or Hodgman's whackin' stick in order to pass a stat test.
  • Among familiar equipment, a Mayflower bouquet is especially useful for basementing since it has a decent chance to block enemy attacks on any familiar.

Useful items

Equipment choices

The 'Dressing For Success pages should be the main resource for meeting the requirements of the challenges. However, several pieces of equipment deserve explicit mention.

  • The El Vibrato Relics outfit, when properly charged, will give 1000 HP or 1000 MP (or a combination in between), which makes the damage tests much easier. Note that this outfit requires 200 Muscle and 200 Moxie to equip, plus the appropriate punchcards. It's much less expensive to increase MP than HP.
  • A scratch 'n' sniff sword/crossbow with 3 wrestler stickers provides 30% bonus to all stats. They last 20 battles, meaning you can use it for tests without using it up. The stickers are cheap at the Mall and the sword / crossbow is free when you use the stickers.
  • Sugar shorts provide 25% to all stats for around 30 battles. Like the stickers, they are also cheap.
  • The Sea salt scrubs are very useful if you have Torso Awaregness, giving +400 HP and +400 MP, in addition to a Mysticality boost.
  • The super-sweet boom box gives great stats for one hand (meaning it can be dual-wielded) and an extra song slot (if you really need it), as well as MP regen (which is good to have during stat tests). It costs 1000 Game Grid tickets, making it an investment.
  • Equipping the entire Clothing of Loathing outfit grants you +128% to all stats, plus +10 resistance to all elements. You also get +500 HP/MP from the Jeans of Loathing, plus a dozen other effects. It will take at least 13 ascensions to get the entire set, however.
Ascension
  • The Ascension Rewards for Hardcore, HCO, and Bad Moon runs give very good stat buffs, often among the best of any equipment available.
  • Astral Pets grant a good percentage increase to a single stat, but must be chosen before the ascension.
Clan Basement

Consumables

General Strategy

  • Characters willing to use up their fullness can drink Jumbo Dr. Lucifers to cheaply refill their MP for the MP tests.
  • Those having trouble passing the tests should save the diet buffs (e.g., wad effects, Flower Power) for basement diving later in their KoL day, after they've had a chance to raise their main stat some more.
  • The attribute and damage tests are not necessarily constant; due to the variations, one can pass a test with the exact same stats that have failed previously.
  • Doing the Mysterious Island Quest's side-quests as a Frat will be helpful. Mysterious Island Arena's Frat reward includes the Elvish buff, and the Nunnery's Frat reward heals up to 3,000 HP and MP per day.

Optimal Time to Start a Dive

Many players choose to do their dives concurrently with attaining their level 30 class trophies (e.g., the Seal Clubber's Scourge of Seals), as the high main stat at level 30 makes for an easier dive. However, a dive need not start at level 30, because the stat rewards over the course of finishing 500 basement levels are considerable, due to scaling monster levels. At level 100, 300 stats per combat are expected, roughly half of which will be distributed into the main stat. At level 400, over 2000 stats per combat will be earned.

Here is some rough math: 

 Monster level = 2 * Depth1.4
 Sombrero weight = 40
 Sombrero bonus = sqrt(40 * monster level) / 10
 Total stat gain from monster = (monster level / 4) + sombrero bonus
 Chance of combat on a non-reward basement level = 0.46 (estimated)
 Expected mainstat gain on a non-reward basement level =
   0.46 * (total stat gain from monster) / 2
 Expected mainstat gain on a reward basement level = current mainstat * 2 / 3

If we approximate your current mainstat as 780, then you can expect to gain 168K mainstat from the Basement, assuming no stat days. This is enough to move you from 738 to 845. In other words, if there's no stat day in the near future, mainstat 738 might be a good point to enter the Basement.

Note: if you are leveling using a Gym, the number of substats gained per turn increases with your mainstat. It might be a good idea to run the Basement earlier than strictly necessary, so as to gain the substats from combat sooner and thus level faster. This must be balanced against the increased expense of running the Basement at a low level.

Cost Expectations

This section is outdated, and is inherently subject to incorrectness when new basement-relevant items are released, or when mall prices change.

Here is a rough table for computing how much a Basement dive might cost. We assume that the character initially has a mainstat of 750 and offstats of 200. We assume the character has equipment-based stat buffs totaling 100% to each stat (for example, a full Brimstone outfit). For each section of the Basement, the table gives the potions that would be required to pass all stat tests in that section. After 330 basement levels have gone by, we assume the character has reached a mainstat of 800.

For Meat-per-adventure calculations we assume that each potion grants 10 turns of its effect.

Basement Levels Active Potions Lowest Stat Meat/Adv Cost
1-70 (none) 200*2=400 0 0
71-180 oil of stability or oil of expertise or oil of slipperiness 750*2=1500 100 11000
181-210 the above, plus tomato juice of powerful power 750*2.5=1875 160 4800
211-280 the above, plus potion of temporary gr8tness 750*3.5=2625 310 21700
281-330 the above, plus philter of phorce, ointment of the occult, serum of sarcasm 750*4.5=3375 490 24500
331-450 the above, plus Ferrigno's Elixir of Power, Hawking's Elixir of Brilliance, Connery's Elixir of Audacity 800*6.5=5200 1010 121200
450-500 the above, plus the five elemental wad effects (requires rollover to refresh spleen) 800*7.5=6000 1010 50500
Total: 233700

Players might be able to save some Meat by employing food-based buffs (such as flower petal pies or roasted marshmallows), but these come at a substantial cost in that they prevent the player from gaining adventures from higher-quality food. In general it is more efficient to eat the higher-quality food, use a few extra potions, and make up for the cost by spending the extra adventures Meat-farming.

Other buffs, such as those gained from Dungeons of Doom potions, are inefficient compared to sauce potions, and should only be used as a last resort.

On the other hand players can save some Meat by having better equipment, or being more careful about their buffs (using wad effects, hair spray, and Ben-Gal™ Balm to best advantage). Players can save quite a lot of Meat by playing as a Sauceror, which makes all sauce potions last 15 turns instead of 10.

Still, it's reasonable to expect that a basement dive will require roughly 250K worth of potions.

Notes

  • The original spading and strategizing for basement diving was largely done in the HCO forum.
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