Avatar of Boris/Strategy

This guide will list some tricks and tips for an Avatar of Boris run.

Garden

• Peppermint
  • Provides superior booze, but you not only have to upgrade to a Queue Du Coq cocktailcrafting kit at the cost of 1000 meat, you also need to come across base booze with which to mix it and spend a turn mixing it.
  • Easiest way to generate free runaways with the Peppermint parasol.
  • Peppermint crooks are useful for gaining low-droprate items such as filthworm glands.
  • Peppermint patties are pretty swell.

• Pumpkins
  • Only way to have access to the Yellow Ray mechanic in hardcore. Notable YR targets are: Harem Girls, Filthy Hippies, War Hippies and Frat Warriors.
  • Provides a good source of booze (pumpkin beer) without the need to upgrade to a Queue Du Coq cocktailcrafting kit or invest a turn.
  • Also provides a good food source (pumpkin pie), though this requires either the Bugbear Costume or a moon sign with access to Degrassi Knoll.

Astral Consumables

• In hardcore, you will have no other source of turn-generating spleen consumables, which may make the astral energy drinks the most desirable choice.
• However, some may choose the astral hot dogs to help get past the early levels, particularly since there is no Ur-Donut option.

Astral Gear

• You will not have Torso Awaregness, even if it has been permed already, unless you ascend under a Gnome sign and re-purchase it for 5000 meat. So taking an astral shirt with you as your gear is questionable at best, and pointless in non-Gnome signs.
• Since you're not allowed to equip any off-hand items, or any weapon other than Trusty, taking any of the astral weapons or off-hands doesn't make much sense either.
• Additionally, since you do not have access to familiars, the astral pet sweater is useless as well.
• Of the remaining items, only the astral belt and astral trousers boost your Muscle, and both must be unlocked before they can be selected.
• If you have access to it, the astral belt will give you the most stats, but only if you can handle the +ML.
• The astral mask will increase item drops, which may turn out to be more beneficial in hardcore (remember, you won't have your +item skills or your super-fairies, or any fairies at all until level 7 for that matter).
• Additional astral bracer can make for easy MP management for combat dropping your cost per action to only 2 MP and the extra MP can easily be converted to HP with Laugh it Off.

Avatar of Boris Skills

Some notable skills you can use as an Avatar of Boris. Some skills will be more desirable after you bank skill points.

Intrinsic

• Mighty Axing: This skill is equivalent to your regular attack, except you can never fumble and it gives you +1 Muscle substat on kill. You should be using this whenever possible.
• Laugh it Off: Avatars of Boris will need HP more than they need MP, so you will be using this the most out of any other skills. The amount healed is small, but it heals nonetheless.

Feasting

Feasting, without a doubt, is the best of the three skill trees. Not only do the skills give you extra adventures, it also boosts your survivability and even gives you a useful combat skill. Whether if it's your first AoB run or your 11th, putting points in Feasting is your main priority.

• Demand Sandwich: Gives you 9 fullness worth of food per day. Due to the scarcity of good food and the fact it's the first skill in the Feasting tree, this skill is a must have.
• Legendary Girth: Gives you passive elemental resistances. With this, you won't need to waste turns finding Stench or Cold resistance for the Bat Hole and the Mt. McLargeHuge Quest. You'll also save HP from the Daily Dungeon.
• Song of the Glorious Lunch: The Avatar of Boris's Got Milk. An absolute must.
• Legendary Appetite: +5 Stomach capacity = More food you can eat = More adventures available. No matter what, learning this skill ASAP is your priority.
• Heroic Belch: With 30 fullness, deals about 100-130(?) Stench damage. As monsters get tougher at higher levels, it's a great combat skill to fall back on.
• Hungry Eyes: +100% Food drops. Makes Fruit Golem farming more feasible and desirable.
• Barrel Chested: +50% Muscle. Makes the Level 12 Quest boss a breeze, makes the Naughty Sorceress easily beatable at Level 13, makes any monster past Level 9 a breeze. This skill will basically eliminate any trouble you had with combat. Highly recommended.
• Gourmand: A passive Got Milk which stacks with Glorious Lunch. Gives you even more adventures, but until you bank a sufficient amount of skill points, it's not something you need to rush.

Shouting

Not as useful as Feasting, but more desirable than Combat. It doesn't generate extra adventures, but it gives you sustainability and various ways to speed up a run. On a low-skill run, higher leveled skills aren't mandatory, but the lower level skills are worth putting points on.

• Intimidating Bellow: 15% ML debuff. On low-skill runs, don't take this skill for granted. When higher-level monsters overpower you at higher levels, this skill will make them at least hittable.
• Legendary Bravado: +10 to all stats. Makes the lower levels a breeze. Beneficial to get early.
• Big Lungs: Passive HP regen. Healing is a big issue in an AoB run, so this skill saves you time and money. But whether or not you want to put points for this skill is debatable.
• Song of Solitude: A huge 20% -Combat modifier. -Combat is always great to have, but this skill isn't top priority.
• Song of Fortune: Great source of +Item and +Meat, but remember you have Clancy for +Items. Good to have if you have points to spare.
• Song of Battle: Gives +Combat, which makes the Lighthouse quest faster. Dubious value for any other situation.
• Banishing Shout: Banishes monsters. Huge MP cost, but can considerably speed up runs for high-skill point runs.

Combat

The Combat tree isn't as beneficial as the other two skill trees due to how much more useful the other skill trees are. Until you bank a lot of skill points, you will likely not put any points in this skill tree. This doesn't mean the entire tree is useless, though. It's just comparatively worse and not very optimal. Until you bank a lot of skill points and want to do a speed run, skip this tree.

Clancy

• Clancy acts as a volleyball with the crumhorn, which costs 2500 meat and requires access to the Beach. So, for speed purposes, you'll want to get the meatcar built (or the bus pass bought) and scrounge up 2500 meat ASAP.
• Clancy acts as a fairy with the Lute at level 7, but you must do his first two quest in the bar and mines before you can get it. If you can stand to wait, get his lute before going for steel stomach or the skeleton part of the crypt.

General Tips/Tricks

In hardcore boriscore filling your stomach with good food is a tough challenge. Your main foodsource will most likely consist of semirares, fortune cookies, sandwiches from demand sandwich and pies. Flower petal pies are not only easy to acquire but provide a small boost to stats when you want to adventure in zones that are a little tougher then your current stats allow.

It may also be worthwhile to spend a few clovers in the The Hippy Camp with a filthy hippy disguise to acquire fruit baskets. These provide limes for Boris's key lime pies (and cherries for cherry pies). Keep in mind that this is a calculated risk since you are not guaranteed to get these greater fruits. So if your clover days are stingy, it may be a good idea to save them for more important things that shave turns.

Another strategy to fill your stomach in hardcore is to unlock the Menagerie Level 1 and use an Odor extractor on the fruit golems to acquire limes and cherries a la Bad Moon strategy. This is probably not worthwhile until you have Clancy's lute and Hungry Eyes, not to mention an acceptable finished Bounty on days 1, 2 or 3. If you farm just before rollover you can have 20 turns of the friars food buff before, and 20 the next day to go with your 40 turns of olfacate.

Chronic Indigestion can be a very useful skill for AoB runs, becoming potentially lethal to low-level monsters if your stomach is full. It can also be used as a (somewhat) useful alternative to Heroic Belch against physically-immune monsters like the protector spirits.

Double-ice cap can be an extremely useful hat though the entirety of an AoB run. It's one of the only sources of good MP regen aside from Pork Elf jewelry, which are very situational. It's also great for its effect to stun an opponent that hits you. Once you're at a point where you can't one-shot monsters, the stun will allow you to avoid one turn of damage.

Healing

So, you have have gobs of HP and MP. Even more if you're Big Boned and Barrel Chested. How are you going to heal up the damage you're tanking?

Well, it really depends on a few things. Before The Black Market unlocks, you'll be better off buying from Doc Galaktik. You should buy ailment ointments unless you completed his quest for herbs.

If you've made it to Level 11, you'll be better off spending your meat on black cherry soda and laughing off your wounds.

MP Restorers

Laugh it Off restores 1.5 HP per MP spent.

Source	HP Gain	Cost	Meat per HP	Notes
black cherry soda	9-11 (10 avg)	80 Meat	5.333...	Requires access to The Black Market, opens during the level 11 quest.
Fizzy Invigorating Tonic (post-quest)	Any Amount	Varies	8
Fizzy Invigorating Tonic (pre-quest)	Any Amount	Varies	11.333...
soda water	3-5 (4 avg)	70 Meat	11.666...

HP Restorers

For meat:

Source	HP Gain	Cost	Meat per HP	Notes
Curative Nostrum (post-quest)	Any Amount	Varies	6
Doc Galaktik's Ailment Ointment	8-10	60 Meat	6.67
Doc Galaktik's Pungent Unguent	3-5	30 Meat	7.5
Doc Galaktik's Restorative Balm	13-15	120 Meat	8.571
Curative Nostrum (pre-quest)	Any Amount	Varies	10
Doc Galaktik's Homeopathic Elixir	18-20	240 Meat	12.632

Other

• Band aids received from a pen pal can greatly increase your survivability by providing HP and leveled damage reduction.

Quests

• Mt. McLargeHuge Quest

  Mountain men are quite the meatshields. In hardcore, you will need combat strategy which can dish out around 300 damage while surviving a few hits. Heroic Belch with a full stomach is an effective means of accomplishing this. You can fuel your belches with a Double-ice cap.

  Another good option is Broadside and two or three Cleaves, provided you have the mana supply.

• Mysterious Island Quest

  For speed purposes, it's preferable to do this quest at a Frat Orc. The main reason is because Clancy doesn't provide any +Meat modifiers, which means recovering the sister's meat will most likely make you waste turns, unless you're in Softcore and can pull +Meat modifiers. On the down side, you can't rely on Heroic Belch to fight Hippies.