Hardcore Strategy

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Revision as of 06:23, 29 May 2011 by imported>Leaper ('Cuz it's true. :))
The Hermit humbly requests that this page be rewritten or expanded.

This guide, as well as many of its links, is extremely out of date, thanks to major changes in the game since, and previous to, 2011. Needs massive overhaul.


Contents
  1. General Strategy
  2. Ascension Path Strategy
    1. Non-Pathed Ascensions
    2. Teetotaler Ascensions
    3. Boozetafarian Ascensions
    4. Oxygenarian Ascensions
  3. Star-Sign Strategy
    1. Muscle Signs
    2. Mysticality Signs
    3. Moxie Signs

This guide covers information you will want to consider for hardcore speed ascensions. The softcore speed guide is on the Ascension Strategy page. RoyalTonberry has written a hardcore walkthrough that is NS13-compliant and very effective. View the discussion thread for the outline here.

General Strategy

This guide assumes your overall goal is to minimize day count first, and turn count second. (Minimizing day count serves two purposes: it allows you to ascend more times in a given span of days, thereby perming skills faster; and it's how the leaderboards are structured.)

Fill 'Er Up!
The best way to reduce day count is to get more turns every day. This means you want to eat, drink, and spleen the best quality food, booze, and... spleen... available every day. During the early levels, there is a feedback loop: you need to be higher level to consume higher-quality stuff, and the higher-quality stuff helps you get the turns to become higher level. Making a Meat maid early in the run helps too.
No Rest For the Weary
If you are Beaten Up, restore your health using items or spells instead of resting. If you don't have Otter or Walrus tongue, find somewhere useful to adventure safely with your reduced stats, or use the turns crafting items you will need for your run. Herbs are one option for restoring HP as a Muscle class, but they hurt your spleen, preventing you from filling it with adventure-giving goodness, so consider them a last resort. Without healing skills, Doc Galaktik's Ailment Ointment is the best bargain, unless you have already completed Doc's Quest, in which case the Curative Nostrum is cheaper per HP (and also avoids losing Meat to round-off errors). Characters who have healing spells will normally find casting those is more Meat-efficient than purchasing anything from Doc (contingent on having a source of MP... see below).
Low MP
Cost Analysis of Restoring HP and MP identifies the best store-bought MP restorers. If you are low on MP, invest in magical mystery juice if you have access to it, or otherwise Fizzy Invigorating Tonic from the Doc Galaktik's. Obtaining the Knob Goblin Elite Guard Uniform (easy via a semi-rare) lets you purchase the more efficient Knob Goblin seltzer (as well as many other handy elixirs). At level 11, you can also buy black cherry soda in the black market (this is the same efficiency as seltzer, but isn't combat-usable like seltzer is). Moxie class characters with Superhuman Cocktailcrafting permed can make tonic water a few times a day early in the run. If you have a larger MP pool that needs to be filled and don't have the Meat to finance it, you can make use of the Star Starfish Trick for a few turns.
Know Your Way
Know which items you need for the journey through the Sorceress' Lair and make sure you adventure intelligently to get as many of them as possible while still maximizing stat gains. Skip the zones you don't need to do. Cutting out unnecessary adventures reduces both turn and day count.
Familiar? Yeah, I guess I know them all right
There are three basic categories of useful familiars: Volleyball-type (Frumious Bandersnatch, Cheshire Bat/Cymbal-Playing Monkey/Nervous Tick/Hunchbacked Minion, Spirit Hobo/Gluttonous Green Ghost, Ancient Yuletide Troll, Jill-O-Lantern, Blood-Faced Volleyball, Llama Lama etc.); Item drop (Jumpsuited Hound Dog, Slimeling,Green Pixie, Coffee Pixie/Attention-Deficit Demon/Jitterbug, the Dandy Lion, any of the five Elemental Gravy Fairies, the Crimbo Elf, the Baby Gravy Fairy, etc.); and Spleen-filling (Llama Lama, Baby Sandworm, Rogue Program, Green Pixie). Use an item drop familiar whenever you need an item (which will be somewhere between a third and half of the time). Use a spleen-filling familiar whenever you need a spleen consumable. Use a volleyball-type when neither case applies. The Green Pixie and Llama Lama are exceptions, as there are stats to be had in The Worm Wood or in roach form. Generally, Mr. Store familiars beat their mundane counterparts. The best choice among the elemental fairies is the Sleazy Gravy Fairy, because you can get the hot pink lipstick in The Sleazy Back Alley easily. At high levels, a sombrero might outperform a volleyball, though the volleyball hybrids may bring benefits that might outweigh a few stats. If you've got the skills to handle it, the Baby Bugged Bugbear can be one of the best stat-gain familiars in its +20 ML configuration.
Starfishing (or other familiar tricks) to restore MP should be done as needed, using whichever familiar coincides with your other goals. If you need an item and MP, then use a Slimeling or Dandy Lion. If you don't need items, then consider a familiar that gives stats and MP, such as the Spirit Hobo. If you need MP in a hurry, an elementally aligned starfish (like the Midget Clownfish -- does double damage, and therefore restores double MP, in the Friars' Quest) can speed things up. The basic Star Starfish itself is not to be overlooked, however, if you have nothing better available. It never runs out of fuel, it does solid physical damage, and everyone in Hardcore has one already.
For low-skilled characters, strong attacking familiars may have benefits to consider despite from the lack of item drops or stats. NPZR/Cocoabo, Spooky Pirate Skeleton, Imitation Crab/Pair of Ragged Claws and Star Starfish type familiars can allow victorious combats in harder areas, particularly as they can delevel, stun, or rip through monsters more effectively than you can at early levels. This is not without risks, of course; sometimes they sit idly by while you get beaten up, but there are direct stat advantages for adventuring in areas at or slightly above your capabilities that should be considered situationally.
Adventure Management / RNG Cursing
It's important not to skip an area that you need an item drop from, but it's doubly important not to put so much time into that area that you've dug yourself into a hole looking for said item. Know when to cut your losses and move on; there will be time later to try again without it affecting your run as strongly. It's important to quickly get to the better areas for better stat/Meat gain. Spending 30 adventures at the Outskirts of Cobb's Knob looking for a chef's hat is very bad if that keeps you from reaching the areas with the ingredients you meant to cook that day. Also, you can return to these areas with a heavier item drop familiar, or after obtaining items that improve your item drop skills; the Knob Goblin eyedrops, miner's helmet and makeshift cape are a few possibilities.
Gladiator, No!
Spending 10 turns in the Arena is generally considered a waste in NS13 due to the diminishing returns from increased familiar weight (as well as the 25% chance of not getting the familiar equipment you hoped for). If you are in a muscle-sign run, you might consider pursuing the annoying pitchfork instead, but even this isn't universally acclaimed.
Stat Boosting Equipment Saves Lives
Make do with whatever you can to survive. For Muscle and Moxie classes, it should be a priority to acquire the appropriate Epic Weapon when clovers are available. Hair spray provides a 15% Moxie boost for 3 turns, a very cheap and effective way to boost your Moxie (only 24 Meat for a can, or 8 Meat per turn). Likewise, Ben-gal Balm boosts your Muscle, which can be a godsend for Muscle classes, or a situationally useful add-on for Myst and Moxie classes. Wear your shiny ring, badass belt, pirate fledges, Bonerdagon necklace (if you got a hemp string to drop), etc. as soon as you can. Know which MCD-analogue settings give which boss drops, and plan for the ones that will help you. Lucky equipment drops like the f3d0r4, worn tophat, mesh cap, etc. can also help, although you'll rarely want to spend turns farming one.
Saved By the Daily Dungeon
The Daily Dungeon might be attempted as soon as your stats are around 25 each, but you'll need them to be in the low-40s before you've got a good chance of passing most days. The monsters are always easy, as long as you make sure to kill the Apathetic lizardman with an item that doesn't touch him. Repeated elemental tests can do damage that leaves you Beaten Up, but they're still passable with time. The hard part is getting past the stat tests. See the Daily Dungeon Stat Tests page for more information about their requirements. It may be helpful to check out the tests for the day in advance, via another character, chat, or an on-line resource like Noblesse Oblige's Kingdom Calendar to determine whether today's test series will be easy or difficult for you to pass. Sometimes you get lucky and there's nothing to stress your lowest stat. Try to obtain your keys as early as possible, which usually means your first try at the end of Day 2 of a no-path ascension. Those aiming for a 5-day ascension (as fast as you'll get without major skills and practice) might hit the Daily Dungeon late on day 2, on day 3, and early on day 4; that way, you'll know at the beginning of the day if you have a complete set of keys. If you do not have all the keys by the time your character is nearing the end of level 9, look into purchasing a wand to make sure you're not held up by bad RNG numbers. If you have a wand, there's a trick to let you get through even with only two keys; see the Hardcore Checklist page for more information. For those who don't have skills like Elemental Saucesphere which add protection from all the elements, it's a better idea, speedwise, to take the damage rather than spend turns farming for resistance.
Always use stench protection when opening doors in the Daily Dungeon. This means don't smash or sell (or feed your slimeling) your harem veil if you lack elemental resistance skills. Also bear in mind that you'll need a Dungeons of Doom potion at the lair, so you might end up getting the zap wand anyway. Many players consider the zap wand 100% necessary, and only do the two mandatory Daily Dungeon trips.
Stat Days / Moon Gazing
Banking turns, and saving things like the stat script and the Chest of the Bonerdagon for the stat day that coincides with your class's primary stat can give you a small bonus. However, you should not postpone stat gains more than one rollover. Getting stats now is better than getting stats three days from now, due to the feedback effect (higher stats make you higher level, which gives you higher level monsters, which gives you more stats), in almost all situations. When choosing which class to ascend to, take the moon phases into account. The optimal setup has the stat days on the last day or two of the time you're expecting the run to take.
Gym? No.
Stats are best gained by adventuring. Using the gym doesn't give you nearly as many stat points as adventuring would. The only exception to this would be encountering drunkenness due to a mistake and needing to spend adventures so as to not go over the 200 limit.
Autosell = Good.
Don't be afraid to get rid of items that you don't need for your run. Keep outfits that you may need intact, but feel free to autosell things that you don't require more than one or two of. All they are doing is sitting in your inventory, and if you're low on Meat, selling them fulfills a much better purpose for you. Keep in mind, however, that you may not need to autosell items that much if you are adventuring properly. Also, you may be able to change some items into more useful ones later by Zapping. Do not feel like you need enough Meat to purchase every skill for your class; get by with what you can. Keep in mind that you can use a clover to obtain 1000 Meat from the treasury, but you might wish to spend the clover on other things.
Clovers, Clovers, Everywhere.
Clovers are amazingly useful in many different areas in hardcore. Here are some of the primary places they can be used:
Music to my ears.
After perming Moxious Madrigal or other Accordion Thief skills, most players create a Rock and Roll Legend when they get the chance. That's normally the best use of the one clover that you get on your first day.
A Zap a Day
There are several spots where you might find it justifiable to purchase a wand for Zapping. The most popular is when it's obvious The Daily Dungeon isn't going to give you the 3 keys you need to ascend before you're done leveling up. If you jump into The Enormous Greater-Than Sign as soon as it opens in the middle of level 7, you won't take too bad of a stat hit adventuring there. If you have leftover Teleportitis after getting the plus sign, burn it off in the Daily Dungeon, the Barrels, the Shore, the Sewer, or meatsmithing. If you're out of anything useful to do, change to your item-drop familiar and teleport away; you may get one of the items you'll need in the Sorceress tower later (razor-sharp can lid, spider web).
Once you have a wand, anytime you're at the end of the day and haven't used it yet you should try to find something to aim it at; other good uses for zapping in a HC run include:
  • Converting multiples of one outfit item into a missing piece
  • Changing Advanced Cocktailcrafting components into those that target your main stat better, or to match your available mixers
  • Turning extra Valley scrolls into more useful ones
  • Trying to get a missing letter (most likely another lowercase N after losing one in the tower)
  • Zapping a ring of aggravate monster into a ring of conflict
  • Zapping keys and stat-boosting equipment from the Daily Dungeon into the keys you need for the NS quest, or into stat boosting equipment that you need (like the Sneaky Pete's breath spray to increase your moxie).
For further ideas, see Hardcore Zapping Tips & Tricks.
You, uh, you wanna use some goofballs?
Goofballs are very helpful in the hedge maze when you are close to ascending. Be very careful, however, as the Naughty Sorceress now does not remove Goofball Withdrawal and other negative effects. Being trapped with withdrawal is not a good thing, especially if you have to fight some angry topiary golems.
Flower Power, man.
Flower Power gives the same benefit as goofballs (and +20% Mysticality) without the cost of withdrawal. Flowers are easily attained in PvP and PvP doesn't pose any (real) risk to players in HC. With fermenting powder at 70 Meat, a shot of flower schnapps is a good way to get a quick 3-turn burst.
Chowing down
The chow mein dishes are some of the best food in the game. They also can take many turns to prepare, require both Pastamastery and Transcendental Noodlecraft skills, cost 1000 Meat to make, and are only available to Pastamancer and Sauceror classes who can access The Wok of Ages. The benefits of chow mein are substantial and it can be worth going a bit out of your way to prepare those dishes, especially on your class's stat day. But generally you should consider making chow a nice bonus when things line up for you, rather than something you should always make. A player with Saucecrafting and Pastamastery can cook lo mein without using the Wok of Ages.

Ascension Path Strategy

The one thing adventurers need to carefully consider are the level requirements of the food and drink items available. It can be very easy to run out of turns before you can eat or drink items that are aimed at a higher level than you're currently at.

For example, the rewards from the Typical Tavern Quest can be improved using Advanced Cocktailcrafting for a huge stat and turn boost, but these improved drinks require you to be Level 4, which means you may be unable to consume them immediately following the quest.

Non-Pathed Ascensions

Since you will have both food and booze at your disposal, non-path is the ascension of choice for those that are starting out and want to be able to achieve a fast run. In fact, it is strongly recommended to start with multiple non-pathed hardcore runs so you can get some key skills before attempting an Oxygenarian ascension. General strategy for a no-path ascension is as follows:

Booze Hound

  • Muscle Sign: Muscle signs don't offer much in the way of booze save for six mushroom fermenting solutions, which when combined with the third-tier mushrooms (flaming mushroom, stinky mushroom, frozen mushroom) are very decent and better than the typical booze a Moxie sign would drink. The fourth-tier mushrooms (gloomy black mushroom, oily golden mushroom) on the other hand, make wines which surpass adventures-per-drunkenness of even drinks made with tiny plastic swords. However, since you only get 6 fermenting solutions, this isn't a very practical way of getting booze for your run.
  • Mysticality Sign: Chez Snootée isn't going to be serving up any drinks anytime soon, so you're somewhat sunk here. You will get some booze for finishing the Tavern quest and may get some from your Guild in early ascensions, and The Barrel full of Barrels can provide a useful source for medium-quality drinks.
  • Moxie Sign: If you are approaching ascension with speed in mind, then a Moxie sign will allow you access to the Microbrewery. The Microbrewery will provide the alcohol you need to fill up every day and sometimes even bless you with especially salty dogs. The Beach will become active at Level 4 if you can make your bitchin' meatcar quickly.

Hungry Hungry Adventurer

  • Food is measurably better than most booze, so you should eat as much as you can. Work to get to the Knob Goblin Kitchens (Level 5) as soon as practical; the Kitchens are even better if you have access to clovers, which will give you easy access to the ingredients you need to make reagent dishes. Reagent dishes are a good source of food once you reach Level 6 because the ingredients for them are readily available, and they are also not turn-intensive like chow meins are (two cook combines for a reagent dish compared to the five cooking operations for chow mein). You will find that chow mein typically cannot be eaten every day due to not having either the required mushroom or the required second piece (these should not be backfarmed due to poor stat gains).

Chef in the Box -- Huzzah?

  • Muscle Sign: If you come across enough early ingredients and have the rest of the qualifications to make chow mein a large portion of your diet, then by all means farm for the chef-in-the-box. Chow mein can be a good choice for those who choose a Muscle sign because they can grow their own mushrooms instead of having to farm for them, so they only have to farm for one type of item, which in some cases can be extremely easy (such as bat wings). This strategy relies heavily on gaining the Hippy Outfit.
  • Moxie Sign: It's harder to justify obtaining a chef-in-the-box in a properly prepared Moxie-sign hardcore run. You may get lucky and get most of the pieces while adventuring around -- if so, great -- but keep in mind that your best case scenario involves cooking reagent dishes every day once you can (two, normally Spaghetti with Skullheads and on occasion the others) and finishing off with a spicy enchanted bean burrito or another equivalent three-fullness food. Cooking a reagent dish only wastes two adventures. Depending on how strong your item-drop skills are, it could take you more turns to obtain the parts for a chef than it saves. The chef's hat and the disembodied brain are usually the harder parts to obtain, with the hat being in a very low stat gain area.
  • All signs can partially offset the negative effect backfarming has on your stat gains, through the detuned radio, The Super-Secret Canadian Mind-Control Device, and The Annoy-o-Tron 5000. If, for example, you wanted to fight at Tower Ruins and you would normally be active in the Treasury, you could set the ML boosters to the level that would make the stat gains from the Tower monsters roughly equal to the stat gains from the Treasury monsters (see Safe Adventuring). The moon sign ML boosters only go up to 10 (11 for the MCD), however, so this strategy is only effective in the early game.

Teetotaler Ascensions

Knob Kitchen, Ahoy!
A Teetotaler's life is horrible until they reach the Knob Goblin Kitchens. Your most important goal is to get there early enough in your runs in order to be able to cook reagent dishes once you reach Level 6.
Seconds? Thirds?
Stomach of Steel is the Teetotaler's version of Liver of Steel; it increases your maximum fullness by five. It lets you eat three reagent foods a day -- except if you don't have The Way of Sauce, you have to balance it out so you will have reagent potions at the Hole in the Sky and the Hedge Maze. You can use more reagents earlier if you calculate the use of Goofballs or Blood of the Wereseal -- just be very careful. It's also possible to get more reagents at the Laboratory, but the drop rate on those is low there.
Paté? Of course.
If you have just finished a Teetotaler ascension, eating paté at Level 9 is optimal.
Alfred, prepare my dinner.
A chef-in-the-box can be very helpful for a Teetotaler if they go the chow mein route. This saves you reagents to use later on; however, chow mein may not be the optimal choice because of the difficulty of obtaining mushrooms (if you are not a Muscle sign) and other ingredients without wasting time in areas that will not give you optimum stat gains.
Full? Too bad, eat more.
If you can't finish off your fullness with what you have on hand, eat some fortune cookies. They'll finish off the fullness that you have left over even if they don't have the greatest adventures-to-fullness ratio, in addition to revealing Semi-Rare Adventures.
Ooh, Moons.
The moon signs that stand out as being beneficial for a Teetotaler are Mysticality signs and Muscle signs. Mysticality signs are very popular because of the availability of jewelry and Chez Snootée (which is better than fortune cookies when you don't have any better food). Muscle signs are popular because of the availability of mushroom farming for efficient chow mein cooking.
Muscle Sign?
If you are a Muscle sign without Pastamastery, a decent way to earn adventures is to do the warm mushroom loop in Degrassi Knoll. In it, you obtain 8 warm mushrooms every 2 days and cook them with flat dough to obtain spicy mushroom quesadillas. Not very good, but an acceptable substitute for chow mein.
-urp- Excuse me.
Chronic Indigestion is obviously a great skill to use as a Teetotaler. It is relatively easy to get, is able to do 20-25 Hot Damage in a normal battle, and the damage increases with a full Stomach of Steel to 25-30. Damage is doubled against cold and spooky monsters; if you are completely full and have Stomach of Steel, you will do 50-60 damage against them. This skill is especially useful against the ~120 HP Bonerdagon and 90 HP Yetis. It's also worth considering for use against the minibosses in the Hidden City.

Boozetafarian Ascensions

Drink, Drink, Drink!
Booze is your life. The ideal setup for a Boozetafarian is being born under a Moxie sign (for access to the Microbrewery), and having Advanced Cocktailcrafting and a Filthy Hippy Disguise. The drinks that you can make with Cocktailcrafting are generally better than the special in the Microbrewery -- although this depends on what is in stock at the time, since the Microbrewery may stock drinks like especially salty dogs. If you do drink the Advanced Cocktailcrafting drinks, make sure to drink IPAs from the Microbrewery to use the leftover drunkenness points.
Alcohol Poisoning? No Sir!
Liver of Steel increases your capacity to drink significantly; normally you would have to stop at 14 drunkenness, but you can now safely drink to 19. After drinking all your better drinks that give a 3 or 4 drunkenness each, use any ice-cold Sir Schlitz or Willers hanging around to drink to 19; even an Imp Ale may make sense. Normally to reach 19 you'll either drink six 3-drunkenness drinks plus a beer, or four 4-drunkenness Advanced Cocktailcrafting drinks plus a 3-drunkenness one. After you're out of adventures, make sure to end your day by drinking a final high-quality drink you made, or an Infinitesimal IPA. Every adventure counts; the fact that you can't use these last adventures that day doesn't mean you can't make use of them the next day.
Yeah, I'll have a glass of milk.
Investing in a bartender-in-the-box has become easier with the ability to gain a set of beer lenses at once from the Typical Tavern. If you are going to use the Advanced Cocktailcrafting items, it may be beneficial to create a bartender for your campground. A bartender is also very handy for creating flower schnapps, which is a great way of boosting your stats. Keep in mind, though, that you may spend a good number of turns trying to farm for the pieces, which could put you farther behind than just making the drinks by hand would have. When weighing that option, don't forget to factor in that adventuring at the Tavern trying to get the beer goggles adds drunkenness that reduces the numbers of turns you can gain by drinking. The longer your expect this run to take, the more sense a bartender makes.

Oxygenarian Ascensions

Have you tasted this air, man? This air is great.
Oxygenarian, a masochist is you! Make sure you make use of items that give you extra rollover adventures, such as a Meat Maid, dead guy's watch, Pagoda and chrome weapons (e.g., the chrome crossbow or better yet a sword behind inappropriate prepositions), since you are given only 40 turns a day. Muscle signs are preferable because of the ability to create a quick Meat Maid; however, the Mysticality sign's Jewelrymaking can be very helpful. Also, the Moxie sign allows you to construct a Clockwork Maid from Supertinkering; however the parts required to construct it have quite a low drop rate.
The moon shines just for you, babe.
Adventure using a full 200 adventures on your class's stat day. It'll speed up your Hardcore Oxygenarian run incredibly. It may be a bit boring not doing things in game for as much as 3 to 4 days, but hey, go hang out in chat and be social.
Your body can do only so much.
If you are in danger of going over the 200-adventure limit, spend as many adventures as you need doing non-combat tasks. If it's a clover day, spend some turns getting extra clovers.
What'dya mean you're thinking still?
If adventure management is a chore, then in a Hardcore Oxygenarian run it's a lifetime jail sentence. Improper turn management can turn your Oxygenarian ascension into a multi-month event that just won't ever end. By doing some normal hardcore runs, you can learn to manage your turns, take a few valuable skills with you, as well as bring a handy stainless steel item on your first Oxygenarian ascension.
Above all, stay organized.
It's easy to lose track of what you're doing during an Oxy-core run, especially if you have multis or a social life. If you aren't careful, you could end up spending half a week's adventures looking for something you already have. Try to keep some kind of checklist.
Smash, smash, smash.
Be sure to consult the Hardcore Pulverizing page for suggestions on how to get the most wad action out of your run.
Still crazy after all these years.
Even if you're not adventuring, Moxie classes with the Superhuman Cocktailcrafting skill should spend some time with Nash Crosby's Still every day. Turning ten soda waters into tonic water is a quintastic way to increase your MP cheaply.

Moon Sign Strategy

If you are planning to try your hand at speed ascending, looking for a certain item, trophy, or tattoo, or just trying to find the best fit for your play style, choosing the correct moon sign is incredibly important.

Muscle Signs

Being born under a Muscle sign turns the Degrassi Knoll into a mini-town instead of an adventuring area, and opens The Bugbear Pens once you have 13 in your primary stat.

Area Content

  • The Plunger -- Combines items for free.
  • Innabox -- Gives you the Untinker's screwdriver. Smiths items for free, except for items that require advanced skills.
  • Mushroom Fields -- Allows for creation of mushrooms, which reduces backfarming for those that prefer chow mein. Costs 5000 Meat to set up, plus planting costs. Required if doing Mayor Zapruder's quests during the hardcore portion of your ascension.
  • General Store -- Sells the items that normally drop in Degrassi Knoll, which makes it easy to build a bitchin' meatcar and a Meat Maid. It also sells the detuned radio, which allows you to increase the monster level of creatures in the kingdom by 1-10. Setting it to a higher number increases the amount of Moxie you will need to have to dodge an attack; creatures also hit harder and have higher HP. A setting of 4 increases stat gains by 1; 8 will increase stat gains by 2; 10 will give you a 50% chance of a third extra stat point per battle. It also causes bosses to drop certain items at certain settings.
  • The Gym -- More powerful than the clan Muscle gym (though you really shouldn't be using it).
  • Mayor Zapruder -- Gives various quests.
  • Familiars & Equipment -- Stinky Gravy Fairy, limburger biker boots, Frozen Gravy Fairy, iced-out bling, Flaming Gravy Fairy, flaming glowsticks.
  • Trophies -- Let My Bugbears Go!

The Mongoose

Occasionally gives bonus Muscle substat points at the end of combat (believed to be between 0-3).

The Wallaby

Increases your effective Familiar Weight by 0-3 lbs. each combat.

The Vole

Gives you an extra 0.5 chance of Critical hit. This stacks with all critical hit modifiers.

Area Overview

Muscle signs tend to be the sign of choice among hardcore speed ascenders because of the general store meaning easy meatcar and easy meat maid. Oxycore players will find the easy meat maid especially beneficial. Players that take the Teetotaler path have used the Mushroom Fields to reduce the amount of time spent backfarming for chow mein ingredients. It is important to note that the Muscle sign area requires six separate ascensions to get all of the content out of it (all three familiars and their specific equipment). The special trophy obtainable under this sign cannot always be obtained through pure effort, unlike the trophies for Moxie and Mysticality signs.

Mysticality Signs

Being born under a Mysticality sign opens the way to Little Canadia just north of the Seaside Town (on the town map, not the general map).

Area Content

The Platypus

Occasionally gives bonus Mysticality substat points at the end of combat (believed to be between 0-3).

The Opossum

Gives +5 adventures when first eating food for the day

The Marmot

Very occasionally gives you a ten-leaf clover after non-combat adventures. (This includes ten-leaf-clover adventures as well.)

Area Overview

The Mysticality signs are popular for the ability to make jewelry. They are better for Teetotalers and Oxygenarians than for No-Path or Boozetafarians, because Canadia does not offer any booze directly (unless you adventure at the Outskirts of Camp Logging Camp or Camp Logging Camp, which you shouldn't do because you can normally spend your adventures in a better place).

Moxie Signs

Moxie signs will have access to The Gnomish Gnomads' Camp in the Desert Beach.

Area Content

The Wombat

Occasionally gives bonus Moxie substat points at the end of battle (believed to be between 0-3).

The Blender

Gives +5 adventures when drinking first booze of the day

The Packrat

Sometimes increases base Meat drops from monsters by 10%. Meat from Monsters modifiers act on both the base drop and the packrat bonus.

Area Overview

The Moxie signs are the signs of choice for Boozetafarians. The easy access to booze from the Microbrewery adds a lot of adventures each day without much hassle. You can also pick up some skills from Fragnk, if you have the Meat. Teetotalers wouldn't get much of a benefit from this area, nor would Oxygenarians.

  • A spreadsheet tool has been put together to help players decide which locations give the best stat gains.
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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