Avatar of Jarlsberg/Strategy

Mr. Store Items

Very useful (HC)

• Jarlsberg's pan: Pretty much required for competitive play. Gives you 2 extra Mysticality stats per combat. Converts filthy, germ-ridden otherwise-useless food and booze into Cosmic Calories that can make potions. Greatly increases your survivability by adding 30 DR to the first hit you take each fight. Increases your conjuration yields like Early Riser (and stacks with it). It also has the same spell damage multiplier as an astral statuette, and gives 8-10 MP regeneration.
• Tome of Clip Art: Summon Clip Art's unbearable lights are the best source of disintegration ("yellow rays") in the path. Clip Art also provides shining, frosty, and time halos for +stats, +items, and turngen, respectively; additional banishes on top of the cheese staff via crystal skulls; and potions like cold-filtered water to help with challenges like fighting your shadow.
  • The shining halo is not a useful summon if you have Jarlsberg's pan, as the pan gives more mainstat per fight, without requiring the sacrifice of two important equipment slots (weapon and off-hand).
  • The box of hammers can be a viable day 1 summon to bootstrap your run with stats.
  • potions of the litterbox can give a bit of extra +item in a pinch.
• Librams: Now we're talking. Thanks to Jarlsberg's huge MP pool and MP regeneration (Jarlsberg's pan, Jarlsberg's hat, chefstaves, Food Coma), librams are of great interest in this path.
  • Summon Party Favor: As always, divine champagne poppers are useful for mini-banishing and free runaways. Divine crackers can be used for stubborn worm glands, or to shave a few turns in the hedge maze. Remember that the chance for an uncommon favor is halved each time you receive one.
  • Summon BRICKOs: Lots of summons means lots of BRICKO fights, but remember that you're limited to 3 eye bricks per day. Plays well with resolutions and O'RLY manuals.
  • Summon Resolutions: The main attractions here are "smarter" and "happier". The offstat resolutions don't hurt either -- your offstats help you equip better survival gear, boost your HP pool, and reduce damage taken. Your odds for a "smarter" resolution aren't great, but you'll always be able to use more.
  • Summon Candy Heart: Though these are less useful now that mainstat requirements for zones have been removed, yellow candy hearts' +20% initiative is handy, and lavender candy hearts' +10% items is always nice to have.
  • The other two tomes are less useful; Summon Love Songs requires intense usage to maximize buff potential, and the only relevant result of Summon Dice is the 2d10 stat gain.
• Garden items
  • A Bone Garden provides skeleton skis, whose init bonus makes a ton of difference when combined with Never Late for Dinner. The skeletal skiff shaves at least 9 turns from your run (realistically 12), and Skeletal Buddy gives bonus stats once you're done with those two items.
  • A Peppermint Patch gives more active benefits than skeletons -- peppermint twists give +40% of valuable initiative, peppermint crooks help with the Filthworms, and peppermint parasols provide free runaways in a path that otherwise has few (in HC, anyway).
  • A Pumpkin Patch is arguably the least useful garden, as the pumpkin bomb's yellow ray function is outshined (pun intended) by unbearable lights. Pumpkin juice does provide +20% items, however, and if you don't have Summon Clip Art, yellow rays are still quite valuable.
• Clan VIP Lounge key
  • An Olympic-Sized Swimming Pool is one of the main VIP attractions in this path, because Chocolatesphere and the ballroom song together are only -20% combat; Silent Running gets you to -25%.
  • A Pool Table is also of use, particularly for its +50% initiative buff (that also comes with a handy +10% items).
  • A Looking Glass's buffs can give you +25 max MP for early-game conjuration, +50 max HP for survivability, and several other useful effects.
  • The April Shower can make a double-ice cap or double-ice britches for Avatars who are taking hits, and otherwise provides a stat boost via Thaumodynamic.
  • A Relaxing Hot Tub's healing may be of interest to Avatars at several points during a run.

Slightly useful (HC)

• Other Tomes: While not as consistent or effective as Clip Art, some other tomes have uses in AoJ. In particular, two casts of Summon Rad Libs can provide papier-mâché toothpicks (40 turns of +25% items), and Summon Stickers can yield huge item boosts from unicorn stickers. Most items crafted from sugar sheets are of limited use, however, and the best result from Summon Snowcones is a 1/5 chance for a blue snowcone.
• Correspondents
  • GameInformPowerDailyPro subscription cards provide dungeoneering kits for free, whose scrolls of Puddingskin and Protection from Bad Stuff can be very helpful for survivability and elemental tests without Oilsphere, respectively. The dungeons themselves take a lot of turns, but the Raiments of the Final Boss are exceptionally useful if you're not concerned with your turncount.
  • My Own Pen Pal kit is outshined by the dungeoneering kit, unfortunately, as Jarlsberg's hat and chefstaffs outperform the Van der Graaf helmet and electric crutch. The shock belt may be useful to Avatars who are taking hits and did not craft a double-ice cap, however.
    • The shock belt virtually guarantees success against your shadow using only garters/poultices (it prevents the shadow from attacking you, one or more times, giving you extra rounds). If you have both correspondents, it may be worth switching to the Pen Pal just before your final day, to pick up the shock belt for the shadow and the level 12/13 bosses.
• Camp Scout backpack (HC): None of the food or booze is usable, but the CSA fire-starting kit provides HP and MP regen, Camp Scout pup tents are a full heal once per day, and the CSA bravery badge helps shore up your HP and moxie when needed.
• The Sorcerers of the Shore Grimoire's snack voucher can help you kill tough bosses with the +150% spell damage buff from tobiko marble soda.
• McPhee's Grimoire of Hilarious Object Summoning can sometimes give the Amulet of Yendor which will increase damage output of Jarlsberg spells, since it increases MP cost. (Black body spray has the same effect, but is only available in the late game. Yes, they stack.) Increasing spell damage is most helpful in low-skill runs, when you do not have Blend or Slice.

Slightly useful (SC)

• Boris's Helm (askew) gives +25% initiative, +15 ML, 70 more DA, and (usually) more MP regeneration than Jarlsberg's hat.

Moon Sign

This challenge path is a bit more flexible with its choice of moon sign:

• The Wallaby (Knoll): Most paths gain the most benefits from a Knoll sign, and Jarlsberg is only a little different. While you won't use the mushroom field, free meatsmithing, or have as much use for the free meatcar, a 0-turn frilly skirt is still useful for The Infiltrationist and a meat maid, the detuned radio is available from the get-go, and you can complete the Untinker Quest in zero turns as well. The path's actual bonus, +20% spell damage, is marginal, but more useful than the +5 turns/day skills if you are comfortably making your target daycount.
• The Blender (Gnomads): Especially useful for Normal (softcore) players, who can purchase a bus pass right away and equip the astral shirt, a hairshirt, or a Grimacite guayabera. This path also lets you skip the South of the Border items (saving a valuable clover), unlocks an additional +10% items from Powers of Observatiogn, and can help you eke out a little more initiative and ML via marzipan skulls (Hombre Muerto Caminando) and handsomeness potions (Mysteriously Handsome). Blender's +5 turns per day is also useful for hitting daycount targets.
• The Opossum (Canadia): This sign may appeal to Hardcore players (who can't pull keepsake boxes) for the logging axe to speed up the level 9 quest a bit, and +5 turns per day from Opossum's effect is nothing to sneeze at. Otherwise, though, the path provides nothing of value; Jewelrymaking's yields are eclipsed by your chefstaffs.
• Also worth mentioning is The Marmot, due to the exceptional usefulness of clovers in this path, but the lost Mysticality stat gains are difficult to recuperate.

Astral Consumables

Jarlsberg won't eat anything he didn't make, even if they're astral. However, astral energy drinks are exempt from this rule, and therefore your only option.

Astral Gear

• Avatars of Jarlsberg can't use their weapons to attack, so anything that improves Weapon Damage is largely useless. astral pet sweater also has no use, since you can only use companions.
• astral statuette improves your damage output considerably and provides extra adventures per day. Highly recommended if you don't have a Jarlsberg's pan.
• astral ring is an all-around strong item, providing three important stats for AoJ. Recommended if you have trouble maintaining MP.
• astral bracer reduces your MP usage per adventure, but it reduces your damage output due to how AoJ spells' damage cap scales with MP used. While not good for low-MP spells, it can be more useful for high-MP spells, in cases where you don't need to deal as much damage. However, this utility is largely overshadowed by the astral statuette.
• If you have trouble maintaining HP, an astral shield may help with this issue. While your magical prowess is diminished, it gives extra HP, HP regen and damage reduction, making you near-invincible early game.
• astral belt is probably the best choice for speed, once you have the skill points to handle combat with it.
• astral mask is never a bad choice. You can always use more item drops.
• astral shirt cannot be worn unless you ascend under a Gnome sign and buy Torso Awaregness in run. If you're doing this in softcore, you'd be better off pulling a cane-mail shirt (or similar) instead. Access to the Beach in hardcore will probably come too late for the shirt to give much benefit, so in both cases, the astral shirt is a fairly poor choice.

Skills

The following is an analysis of all of the skills available in Avatar of Jarlsberg. Some skills will be more desirable after you bank skill points.

Intrinsic

• Curdle: Your most basic spell. Other than being the primary source of damage on first few levels, costing no MP and opening up half the basic boozes, there's not much to say.

The Path of Breakfast

• Boil: A great early-game spell for AoJ. It's the first skill in the tree, so you can pick it up immediately after Curdle starts becoming weak. It is normally capped at 50 points of damage, so it may weaken without boosting your bonus spell damage multiplier. It is hot-aligned, which means another spell may be required for the Friars.
• The Most Important Meal: An important skill for increasing adventure gains, providing 3-21 adventures per day. Once your food options open up as you bank skill points, you can use it more effectively to maximize adventure gains. It also gives a large amount of substats, as much as 60 to 100+ Mysticality substats. Essential for speeding up runs.
• Conjure Eggs: Eggs do a bit of everything. They're a easy to fill building block in 4, 5, and 7 fullness foods. Staff of the Healthy Breakfast is also great for maintaining HP early game.
• Egg Man: +50% item drops. (+75% with Working Lunch). Probably the most useful of all the familiars. It is also Jarlsberg's biggest item drop booster.
• Conjure Dough: Allows you to summon dough, as well as the Staff of the Staff of Life, which gives good HP and MP regen, max HP and spell damage, as well as a Jiggle effect that restores your HP to full. Since Avatars of Jarlsberg lack a healing skill, this chefstaff is a strong, but limited source of healing.
• Early Riser: You can conjure 1 extra food item per cast. Its effectiveness increases as you gain Stomach/Liver capacity and need more consumables to fill them.
• Fry: Once your 5-MP spell doesn't deal enough damage, Fry is an excellent mid-to-late game spell to use, dealing high elemental damage for a reasonable cost. It is also sleaze-aligned which makes it perfect for dealing with hippies in the level 12 quest.
• Coffeesphere: Increases +Combat%. Lets your complete the Lighthouse sub-quest at a reasonable time, but other than optimizing speedruns, it's not essential.

The Path of Lunch

• Conjure Vegetables: The most useful aspect of Vegetables is that you can use it to make Die Sauerlager(s). While it's only "decent" booze, it's superior to "crappy" mediocre lagers.
• Radish Horse: Increases combat initiative. Probably the weakest of the 4 familiars, but may be useful in aiding survival.
• Chop: For 5 MP it's non-elemental. It is an uncapped spell, and it may be useful in place of Boil or Freeze if you're dealing with an elementally-aligned enemy. It is also required in a 4 fullness, 5 fullness, and 6 fullness food, and is needed to make Vodka Dogs.
• Conjure Cheese: Cheese is required in 2 of the 3 7 fullness foods. It's primary draw is the Staff of the Standalone Cheese, which allows players to banish 5 monsters per day.
• Slice: A high-level physical damage spell, a non-elemental counterpart to Fry. It also weakens monsters as a bonus. It's also required for two of the three 7-fullness foods.
• Working Lunch: Boosts companion effects by 50%, equivalent to +25% item drops with the Egg Man or +10 ML with the Cream Puff.
• Lunch Like a King: +5 Stomach Capacity. Extra stomach capacity is always a good thing, but investing points to obtain this skill won't give much returns unless you can make good foods. Hard to use effectively with low skill points, but is a powerful skill to have once your food options open up.
• Oilsphere: Gives serious (+3 levels) resistance to all elements. Decent in passing various elemental tasks, a bit more is still required to make it to the Icy Peak without an outfit handy.

The Path of Dinner

• Bake: Deals damage over time. Largely a weak combat spell, since you should be focused on one-shotting monsters.
• Food Coma: Gives 10 free rests, and rests fully restore MP. Great for maintaining MP, as well as healing slightly. With resting now removing Beaten Up, it's also good for weaker players who find themselves getting Beaten Up a few times.
• Conjure Potato: 4 of the 7 good quality drinks require you to be able to conjure potatoes.
• Hippotatomous: Gives +3 substats, like a Volleyball-type familiar. A great companion to have throughout the game, and is more useful the earlier you get it. As an added bonus, it also blocks attacks occasionally.
• Conjure Meat Product: Conjures meat, which you can use to craft the Staff of the All-Steak, which has a Jiggle effect that greatly increases item drops. Very useful if you're trying to get an important item to drop ASAP.
• Never Late for Dinner: Gives 10 adventures per day, as well as +50% Combat Initiative. The bonus initiative almost guarantees you the first move, saving you HP and allowing you to handle large ML boosts. A good skill overall.
• Grill: The most expensive combat spell. While its steep MP cost can be a pain to maintain, it is good in situations where you need to deal a lot of damage, particularly against the bosses.
• Gristlesphere: Increases ML. Gives as much ML as the Cream Puff without Working Lunch, but does not take up a companion slot. Largely a skill used for speed runs.

The Path of Dessert

• Conjure Fruit: Fruits have minimal uses in foods (the only noteworthy food you can craft from it being the Omega Sundae), but they are used to make adequate rum, a component for half the higher-level boozes.
• Best Served Cold: Gives +100% Spell Damage. A very strong damage booster, allowing you to take out even the toughest of monsters, plus you can get it early in the tree. It's almost essential to have against the final boss.
• Freeze: The cold-aligned counterpart to Boil, although it's a tier 2 skill in the path. It's slightly more useful than Boil as a combat skill since you can use it for the Friars and the lack of cold-aligned monsters in general. Freeze also does double damage to both sides of the Hippy/Frat war, making it virtually unstoppable when combined with Best Served Cold
• Nightcap: Gives an additional 5 Liver capacity. While a strong skill to have, filling up on good boozes combined with Liver of Steel will be difficult without a surplus of ingredients and a high number of skill points.
• Conjure Cream: Conjures cream, which is a component for Disappointed Russian and Omega Sundae, as well as the Consummate sour cream, one of two 1-fullness foods. It's also used for crafting the Staff of the Cream of the Cream, which has a jiggle effect similar to Transcendent Olfaction.
• Blend: Stuns monsters for a few rounds. Combined with a high-MP spell, it makes boss fights trivial.
• Cream Puff: A companion that gives 20 ML. While it takes up a Companion slot, if you can handle the ML, it can speed up runs considerably, especially with Working Lunch.
• Chocolatesphere: Boosts -Combat%. While -Combat is great overall, make sure you can create good foods/drinks before you pick this up.

General Tips/Tricks

Combat

• Jarlsberg truly embodies the traditional "glass cannon" wizard. Your HP and Moxie are low, and Jarlsberg's hat (which you want equipped as often as possible in Hardcore) provides little DA. As you advance through Avatar of Jarlsberg skill points, you'll be fighting in one of two ways:
  • Taking a hit and then killing the monster with either Blend and small spells, a single big spell for a one-shot kill, or a double-ice cap stun to give more breathing room. Jarlsberg's pan and its 30 DR on the first monster hit of a fight helps a lot with this strategy, as will HP boosters such as Thick-Skinned from the tea party and Puddingskin from the dungeoneering kit. The Hippotatomous companion's blocking may save you from taking a hit at all. At low levels, the Moxie from Staff of Fruit Salad and DR on Staff of the Hearty Dinner will reduce damage, and Staff of the Healthy Breakfast will increase your HP. At higher levels, the cream, dough, and meat staffs will provide better versions of the same bonuses, respectively.
  • Getting the jump and killing the monster right away with Blend or a single nuke. Knowing monsters' initiative values and how +ML affects initiative is helpful for this method of play. You don't need to worry about your HP or DA/DR -- just your initiative. The Radish Horse helps here. Never Late for Dinner is critical to this strategy; Staff of the Light Lunch and especially Staff of the Standalone Cheese are very helpful; and skeleton skis, infernal insoles, and the makeshift skirt will all contribute as well.
• Know your Elements. Exploiting elemental weaknesses will save you MP and possibly turns of Beaten Up.

Quests

• Because Chocolatesphere only gives -15% combat, you'll want some combination of the Strung-Up Quartet, Silent Running, a ring of conflict, and/or invisibility potions to get to -25%.
• Since you don't have to spend meat on skills (or kitchen equipment or a meat-smithing hammer, for that matter), buying a bus pass may be a better alternative to farming for a bitchin' meatcar if you do not have access to Inside Degrassi Knoll.