Avatar of Sneaky Pete/Strategy

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Revision as of 19:16, 16 February 2014 by imported>Melon (Motorcycle Guy Tree analysis)

This page contains tips and tricks for the Avatar of Sneaky Pete special challenge path.

Mr. Store Items

With Sneaky Pete not allowing Your Mystical Bookshelf skills and familiars, a large number of Mr. Store items are unusable in Hardcore that otherwise usually are.

Here is a complete list of Items of the Month which can be used in Hardcore Avatar of Sneaky Pete:

Normal runs can also pull Mr. Store items. Remember that skillbooks, familiars and familiar equipment are unavailable, but the shirt slot is still usable. The Crown of Thrones and Buddy Bjorn are useless as they cannot be occupied.

Astral Consumables

  • With only 5 stomach capacity, astral hot dogs are a poor choice as you can only eat one per day and it's not hard to fill up your stomach with other great alternatives, especially if you have access to the Hot Dog Stand.
  • Unlike other Avatar classes where the astral energy drinks are a no-brainer, Sneaky Pete can actually generate adventure-yielding spleen items via Incite Riot. It also shouldn't be too hard to fit in astral pilsners if you're able to expand your liver capacity to the max.
  • Therefore the energy drinks are great for low skill runs that don't plan on exploring much of the Dangerous Rebel skill tree, but those that are able to go deep into the tree and get Hard Drinker could find the pilsners as a competitive option. More analysis is needed on this.

Astral Gear

  • Pete can wear shirts thanks to Best Dressed, so the astral shirt is a viable option, and a great option for low-skill runs, providing lots of easy stat gains in an otherwise under-utilised slot.
  • The astral mask offers a range of useful benefits, however the item drop bonus is less useful than usual if you are able to get Natural Dancer because your available item drop is so huge anyway, and you can gain access to the yellow ray effect via Flash Headlight with the appropriate motorbike upgrade. If you're not planning on going all the way through the Loveable Rogue tree, then the astral mask should be very strongly considered in hardcore.

Workshed Items

  • As this avatar, you get free access to Nash Crosby's Still in your workshed. This is in addition to your normal workshed item.
  • As you will be crafting a LOT of cocktails, the High Efficiency Still is a good choice and will help you stretch your materials out to fill your potentially giant liver.

Skill Analysis

Every time you complete a Avatar of Sneaky Pete ascension you will begin the next one with more skill points available to invest in the skill trees. During the time when you don't have enough skill points available to get all of them you'll need to make some decisions about which skills to take and in what order. What follows is an analysis of the most important skills in each tree.

Lovable Rogue Tree

  • Mixologist and Throw Party at positions 2 and 3 in this tree are pretty much a necessity for Hardcore. Without these skills you will really struggle to fill your liver with high quality booze and your adventure generation will be atrocious. Mixologist lets you make Disco Bandit cocktails and superhuman cocktails (you will find Nash Crosby's Still in your Workshed to make the latter) and Throw Party gives you the ingredients to make them. Don't forget that the amount of ingredients you get with Throw Party depends on the amount of audience love you have, so will want to focus on raising it at the start of your ascension by using Mug for the Audience whenever possible. Disco Bandit cocktails have a level requirement of 4 and superhuman cocktails a level requirement of 6, so you ideally want to invest at least three points into the Lovable Rogue tree by the time you reach level 4, ideally before drinking on day 1. Watch out, it costs 1 turn to craft a Disco Bandit cocktail, and 2 turns to craft a Superhuman cocktail, so make sure you have enough adventures spare. Unfortunately it is possible to get RNG screwed on the ingredients you receive as there is no guarantee you will be able to mix them together effectively, so choose which drinks to make and which ingredients to distil with care.
  • Fix Jukebox at position 4 can be thought of as a partial yellow ray with no cooldown, as the skill allows you to get a single-turn +300% item drop buff in the middle of combat, three times a day. Unlike Yellow rays, it also works on conditional items so items such as The F'c'le quest drops are good targets. See Yellow ray strategy for some ideas on the sorts of items that make good targets for this skill, although this skill can only guarantee the drops on items with a 25% base drop rate or higher. Using this skill also gets you a big chunk of audience love, which can help max out your approval for Throw Party, but in practice concentrating on the item drop bonus is going to be a better idea. Note that trying to get the Filthy Hippy Disguise using this skill is a bad idea and you should just wait until level 9 and then boost non-combats, due to the staggeringly low base drop rate on the outfit pieces.
  • Check Hair at position 7 gets you a buff that gives +100% item drops for 10 turns at the cost of 30MP. It's too expensive to run all the time, but running it whenever you need item drops for a quest that cannot be guaranteed via Fix Jukebox (or you've already used up your 3 uses of that for the day) is perfectly manageable. It's worth noting that if you don't make it this far along this tree, Sneaky Pete's general-purpose item drop access is atrocious, with limited access to other significant item drops bonuses, barring the occasional 10%-25% buff here and there from various sources and pickpocket. In hardcore during low-skill runs that do not plan to at least pick up this skill, the astral mask comes highly recommended. Check Hair really helps for The Defiled Nook, The 8-Bit Realm, The Hole in the Sky and getting the steel margarita, making it more valuable in hardcore.
  • Make Friends at position 9 is believed to be similar to Transcendent Olfaction and has a minimum audience love requirement before it can be used. More information is needed before this can be analysed further, watch this space.
  • Natural Dancer. This skill. This skill! Good grief! A passive +200% item drops is absolutely gigantic and combined with Check Hair, which is a prerequisite, allows you trivially cap any item drop with a base rate of 25% or higher. Incredibly powerful, especially in hardcore, but can save some pulls in softcore too. Some yellow ray or Fix Jukebox targets typically have base drop rates around 30%, they can be capped naturally when you get to the bottom of this skill tree, thereby allowing you to save those limited resources for other things. Here's a list of quest relevant item drop targets that can't be capped with 300% but can be capped with 600% by using Fix Jukebox, (in rough appearance order):
And here's a list of item drops with lower than 15% base drop rate, being good targets for yellow rays:

Motorcycle Guy Tree

  • Rev Engine at position 1 initially gives a buff of +10 to all stats for 5MP, the length of the buff scaling to your audience Love or Hate, which is pretty nice early on, but not major. However by upgrading your motorbike's muffler you can make this skill also give 10 turns of a +combat or -combat buff, the exact strength of each still need to be confirmed. Note that the +combat upgrade is Pete's only source of +combat, and Sonofa Beach is totally non-viable in Hardcore without it. Choosing one of the two upgrades means giving up letting Peel Out banish enemies, which is also very powerful. Those in low skill runs not planning to access Peel Out or upgrade it to 30 peel outs a day should probably take the non-combat buff if they are not also going down the Dangerous Rebel tree, or +combat if they are. A small thing to consider, if you do upgrade this skill, it's possible to end up in a situation where you run out of the +stat buff but don't want to cast it due to not wanting the combat modifer buff at that time.
  • Pop Wheelie at position 3 is a large delevelling skill that is very useful for Softcore where you have access to more ML.
  • Rowdy Drinker at position 4 is essentially a passive Ode to Booze. With Pete's liver potentially getting very large this is a very strong skill, easily generating between 23-38 adventures per day. For Hardcore, Throw Party on the Lovable Rogue tree is arguably higher priority, but ideally you want both. A very strong 0-skill hardcore skill selection is to pick up Throw Party and then immediately beeline for this skill in time for level 7.
  • Peel Out at position 5 is initially 10 free runaways per day. That's already really good. It has two motorcycle upgrades available for it that make it even better, you can upgrade your tires to increase the limit to 30 peel outs a day (at the cost of not being able to skip Mt. McLargeHuge), and you can upgrade your muffler to make peel outs also banish (at the cost of not making Rev Engine give combat modifiers). 30 banishes per day that are also free runaways is immensely powerful and turns this into one of Pete's most powerful skills, although the opportunity costs offset this somewhat and all that running away hurts your levelling up. The skill costs 10 MP to use each time, so it can get very expensive overall if you upgrade your usage limit.
  • Easy Riding at position 6 is very useful. Pete doesn't naturally have access to much ML yet can easily access a lot of turncutting abilities via his motorbike and skills. This can leave him needing quite a lot of powerlevelling, so a passive +5 moxie stats per fight is a pretty big deal, the same amount as you'd get from 40ML. Do watch out for your offstats though, you also need 70 mysticality to equip the war outfit. Obviously this skill is more useful the earlier you can pick it up.
  • Check Mirror at position 7 lets you spend an adventure to set or swap one of 4 mutually exclusive intrinsic abilities, +3 to all elemental resistance, +3 stats per fight, +50% meat and +50% initiative. +3 stats per fight is the obvious winner in hardcore, with initiative possibly being better in softcore. The elemental resistance helps for A-boo clues and/or if you're skipping Mt. McLargeHuge via the motorbikre tire upgrade (as you still need fight to Groar which requires 5 cold resistance) while getting the outfit is likely the better route for those that go for more peel outs.
  • Biker Swagger at position 9 gives 10 turns of 30ML for 30MP. Easy to survive thanks to Rev Engine, Born Showman, Pop Wheelie and Riding Tall all being prerequisites for this skill. Can be tough to afford, but will cut out a fair amount of powerlevelling.
  • Flash Headlight at position 10 isn't great unless you use your motorbike headlight upgrade to turn it into an 100-turn cooldown yellow ray (at the cost of not getting the extra desert exploration upgrade). Despite Pete having easy access to 300% item drops on the Lovable Rogue tree yellow rays are still useful and the short cooldown time means you can fit them in more easily. See either Yellow ray strategy or the list above in the Natural Dancer analysis for good ways to use these. If you're not planning on getting the upgrade, you can ignore getting this skill.
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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