Actually Ed the Undying/Strategy

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Revision as of 14:32, 19 February 2015 by imported>Greycat (→Astral Gear)

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

Mr. Store Items

Astral Consumables

  • Considering Ed needs to buy a stomach and liver in the first place, astral energy drinks seem to be the most obvious solution. However, you will have to upgrade your spleen capacity at least once to consume it, although this costs less than the stomach and liver upgrades. Energy drinks can save you at least 75 Ka coins worth of spleen in the long run, but even at level 11+ the drinks provide the same adventures per spleen as the mummified loaf of bread, and are worse than the mummified beef haunch.
  • When farming Ka coins stops being a major concern, astral pilsners can be taken purely for turngen.
  • Due to requiring buying a stomach and Ed's low food capacity with it (you can only eat one a day), astral hot dogs are not recommended.

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 almost no other +ML sources (just the aggravation device, Blessing of Serqet, Florist Friar plants and random drops), so you'll need every source you can get. (This may change with future IOTMs.)

Skills

Intrinsic

  • Mild Curse - Deals a minimal amount of Spooky damage. Only useful in very low-level zones or for dying on purpose.

Invocations

The Invocation tree contains buffs of various kinds.

  • Prayer of Seshat - Grants +3 Mysticality stat points for 10 turns. An obvious first skill to learn, since you can start out with Minor Curse or attacking at Level 1.
  • Wisdom of Thoth - Grants 10 + 50% Mysticality for 10 turns. This skill boosts your spell damage and allow you to hoard more MP for a measly 0.5 MP/Adv.
  • Power of Heka - Grants bonus Spell Damage and Spell Critical Hit chance for 10 turns. While somewhat costly to maintain, this skill is useful for one-shotting bosses and high-ML monsters when you can afford to stack ML, as well as improving your MP efficiency.
  • Hide of Sobek - Grants some Damage Absorption and Reduction and slight Elemental Resistances for 10 turns. The extra durability might not be much, but it can mean the difference in surviving a hit or not, plus this skill becomes more valuable for resistance tests after building some skill points after a few ascensions.
  • Blessing of Serqet - Grants 20 ML for 10 turns.
  • Shelter of Shed - Decreases combat rate for 10 turns.
  • Bounty of Renenutet - Grants +50% Item Drops for 10 turns.

Evocations

The Evocation tree contains mostly combat spells initially focused on just dealing damage, but grants some valuable utility at later levels.

  • Fist of the Mummy - A spell that deals physical damage. Since Minor Curse won't be killing anything outside of the Pantry and Back Alley, you'll need to learn this skill to start dealing some damage. As a result, this skill should be learned right after Prayer of Sekhat. As a bonus, this deals full damage to physical-immune enemies, making it quite sufficient for A-boo Peak all by itself.
  • Howl of the Jackal - Deals Spooky damage. At later levels (10-ish), this skill starts being more MP-efficient than Fist of the Mummy.
  • Roar of the Lion - Deals a large amount of Hot damage.
  • Storm of the Scarab - Deals Prismatic damage.
  • Purr of the Feline - A buff skill that improves Ed's servants for 10 turns.
  • Lash of the Cobra - Deals minor damage and pickpockets the enemy.
  • Wrath of Ra - Yellow Rays the enemy for 40 MP, with a 100-turn cooldown.

Curses

The Curse tree grants various types of skills to weaken monsters. While the earlier skills are hardly worth it considering Ed's properties and potential body upgrades, the last two skills are valuable monster queue manipulation skills. This tree is ignorable in the first few runs, but worth learning after obtaining some skill points.

Body 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 as well.

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. 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 most 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.

General strategy

Quests

  • While veterans usually hold off doing the Typical Tavern Quest until late as possible, remember that it's not necessary in this run since you don't even have to go through the Pyramid in this run.
  • 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.

Ka coin 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 once you can survive here.
  • The Hippy Camp is 100% 2-Ka Hippies, and is 100% combat prior to level 9. You have to sink 9 turns unlocking the Island to get here, and you have to be able to survive.
  • All of the pirate zones are 100% 2-Ka Pirates, with unskippable noncombats. However, unlike the other zones listed above, they are ascension-relevant. The Pirates are also far stronger opponents than those in the zones listed above.
  • 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. There are no normal noncombats. The monsters are very tough, but since you will always win initiative they are simple to beat even at very low levels. With Roar of the Lion they are very easy to defeat, even with increased ML from the Omega Device.

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. Therefore, tackle the Pirates Quest as soon as possible. The Filthy Hippy Disguise is much less useful when you have no access to Advanced Cocktailcrafting, but you can still pick it up to get a head start on the War.

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.

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
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