Bees Hate You/Strategy
This guides will list some tricks and tips for a Bees Hate You run, as well as an overview of significant "b" items.
Which Sign?
The Mongoose, The Wallaby, or The Vole are highly recommended, especially if you don't own A Pumpkin Patch.
Familiars
- Many of the high-end familiars are unusable: Frumious Bandersnatch, Baby Sandworm, He-Boulder, Jack-in-the-Box, Obtuse Angel, Pair of Stomping Boots, Baby Bugged Bugbear, Knob Goblin Organ Grinder, Hobo Monkey, Hunchbacked Minion, Cheshire Bat, Cymbal-Playing Monkey, Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot.
- Even many of the standard familiars are also unusable: Blood-Faced Volleyball, Hovering Sombrero, Baby Gravy Fairy, Cocoabo.
- The Green Pixie can be used, but the tiny bottle of absinthe cannot, rendering the Green Pixie pointless.
- The Mini-Hipster works, but you cannot pawn the fixed-gear bicycle to turn it back into the other equipment forms. You can have one of each equipment form by day 3.
- The Llama Lama and the Rogue Program are the only usable spleen-filling familiars.
- Neither the Bandersnatch nor the Boots are usable, so there are no familiar-based runaways.
- You cannot use the He-Boulder; also, you cannot use a pumpkin bomb; so there are no yellow rays available at all.
- No Obtuse Angel means no badly romantic monsters.
- Most fairychaun familiars are usable: Piano Cat, Dancing Frog, Casagnova Gnome, Attention-Deficit Demon and Coffee Pixie are all B-free.
- Some volleychaun familiars are usable: Dramatic Hedgehog, Chauvinist Pig, Uniclops, and Nervous Tick.
Restricted Items
Here is a small list of important items that you cannot use, craft, or equip without discretion in a Bees Hate You run. Especially important items are bolded.
Unusable Items
- bartender-in-the-box & chef-in-the-box: No bartender and no chef means you will have to spend some turns to cook or mix better foods, unless you have Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration available.
- Ben-Gal™ Balm
- black cherry soda and knob goblin seltzer: if you don't have magical mystery juice access, be prepared to do a lot of starfishing.
- Blue and black snowcones
- BRICKO items
- can of Ghuol-B-Gone™, half-rotten brain, rusty bonesaw: plus-sized phylactery is OK.
- chaos butterfly: You won't be able to use the shortcut for the Defowl the Farm side-quest.
- Chest of the Bonerdagon
- disassembled clover: Make sure to closet ten-leaf clovers instead.
- divine blowout (but the other two combat favors work)
- Dungeons of Doom potions: You can't open large boxes or small boxes, so you'll not likely be using bang potions, unless you're willing to spend 5000 meat to kill mimics. Even then, you can't use bubbly potions.
- However, bang potions are not required to enter the Naughty Sorceress's Lair in a BHY run.
- fruit basket & fruit bowl: Don't count on The Hippy Camp clover adventures for fruits.
- Harold's bell
- Knob Goblin lunchbox: Stick to tasty tarts or distilled fortified wine instead.
- The Knob Dispensary items
- Love songs of vague ambiguity and disturbing obsession
- Medicinal Herb's medicinal herbs
- moveable feast
- pumpkin bomb
- scrumdiddlyumptious solution: You can't use a delectable catalyst, so no hi meins or fine potions.
- shard of double-ice
- sonar-in-a-biscuit: You must kill 3 screambats in order to face the Boss Bat.
- tomb ratchet
- turtlemail bits, snailmail bits
Consumables
- badass pie
- Boris's key lime pie, Jarlsberg's key lime pie: But not Sneaky Pete's key lime pie.
- pumpkin beer: Make pumpkin pies instead.
- Any dusty bottle of wine in the case any are left over from the Spookyraven Wine Cellar.
- Advanced Cocktailcrafting: fuzzbump, blended frozen swill, bungle in the jungle
- Superhuman Cocktailcrafting: yellow brick road, Gordon Bennett
- Pastamastery: boring spaghetti
- Meins: Knob sausage chow mein, Knob lo mein, bat wing chow mein. Also, elemental hi meins cannot be made (see above).
- Among spleen items from Mr. Store familiars, not-pipes and bottles of agua de vida are unavailable in Hardcore, as you can use neither a tiny bottle of absinthe nor a Baby Sandworm. However, glimmering roc feathers and coffee pixie sticks are obtainable as usual.
Equipment
While any piece of equipment with a B can be worn, players should plan to compensate for the HP loss from wearing one or more of these items. The following are equipment that you are likely to run into during your run.
- astral bludgeon, astral bracer, astral longbow, astral belt
- bag of many confections
- all boss drops: All equippable items dropped and craftable by Baron von Ratsworth, Boss Bat, Knob Goblin King, and The Bonerdagon have "b"s in them.
- In particular, badass belt
- Starting class weapons: disco ball, seal-clubbing club
- Class Epic Weapons: Bjorn's Hammer, Disco Banjo
- Class Legendary Epic Weapons: Shagadelic Disco Banjo, Squeezebox of the Ages
- Boris's ring, Jarlsberg's earring, Sneaky Pete's breath spray
- kickback cookbook, Cookbook of the Damned
- rubber band gun
- scratch 'n' sniff crossbow
- Staff of Blood and Pudding, Staff of the November Jack-O-Lantern, and the Staff of the Soupbone: Aside from the chefstaves with B's in their name, several chefstaves require elemental hi meins, which cannot be made (see above), depend on other chefstaves which can't be made (since you can't use bat guano, you can't get hippy herbal tea, which prevents you from obtaining a Staff of the Teapot Tempest). Only the Staff of the Greasefire, Staff of the Short Order Cook, and the Staff of the Midnight Snack can be created and used in Hardcore without penalty. Although only the Staff of the Soupbone can be made in Hardcore without a Pumpkin Patch or Pulverize.
- Most craftable shields: Players using Shieldbutt can make a meat shield or reliably obtain the giant clay ashtray from their pen pal (as a muscle class) or the hot plate (guaranteed).
- swashbuckling pants
- Both the War Hippy Fatigues (3 B's) and the Frat Warrior Fatigues (2 B's) have outfit pieces with the letter B. Since the war is (much) faster as a War Hippy, you'll have to compensate for the higher repeated HP loss. (This can be mitigated by doing much of the ducks, filthworms, and lobsterfrogman out of uniform.)
Useful Skills
Some highly recommended skills to have in a Bees Hate You run:
- Tongue of the Walrus: Expect to get beaten up by bees several times. Tongue of the Walrus makes getting Beaten Up much easier to deal with.
- Cannelloni Cocoon: Very effective at later levels, and makes the Level 12 quest much easier to deal with.
- Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration: Since you cannot install a bartender-in-the-box or a chef-in-the-box, this skill will come in handy more than ever. Having this permed will save you a lot of turns.
General Tips
- Players will not be able to use much housing at all, except for the cottage, the ginormous pumpkin, sandcastle (only pulled) or house of twigs and spit.
- Players in hardcore without access to Inside Degrassi Knoll cannot make a bitchin' meatcar for access to the Desert Beach and must either buy a Desert Bus pass or make a pumpkin carriage.
- You will also have to wait until you have instructions to gather the ingredients for wet stunt nut stew to obtain access to Whitey's Grove.
- And if you want the Filthy Hippy Disguise or the Frat Boy Ensemble, you will have to get them from their respective zones.
- Because the monster level boost that "b" enemies receive is percentage-based, the increase in difficulty is minor in early zones, but grows increasingly dangerous in high-level zones. Monsters like Possibility Giants, Alphabet Giants, tomb bats, and Beer Bongadiers will be significantly stronger than they normally are, so try to keep your combat buffs running and your HP topped off.
Quests
You cannot use a sonar-in-a-biscuit, so you must kill 3 screambats.
Fax a screambat before doing anything in the bat hole to skip 2 zones, and a big headache. Make sure you acknowledge the quest by talking to the council first, or the screambat doesn't count.
Pick up an enchanted bean while looking for the last screambat as you will need one for later.
If you use the Harem method, you will take 40% damage. You'll also have to obtain the perfume effect from adventuring, rather than using the item. If you use the Elite Guard method, you will take 60% damage. Further, the Elite Guard outfit is not very helpful because everything in The Knob Dispensary will be useless to you. Either way, the best way to deal with The Knob Goblin King is to get initiative and then hit him hard or buff your Moxie to where he can't hit you.
Remember that you cannot use the can of Ghuol-B-Gone™, half-rotten brain, rusty bonesaw, so it's a waste of adventure to get these.
To plant the enchanted bean, you must click the coffee ground.
- Also, you don't need any letters, so you might be able to quit earlier than usual and avoid alpha-beatings.
In the Pyramid, turning the wheel is your only option, since tomb ratchets can not be used.
If survival is an issue, sniffing the Iiti Kitty in the Middle Chamber will reduce the number of Tomb Bats you encounter, and ideally leave you with a supply of ancient Magi-Wipes to make the war less painful.
Possibly the hardest quest in a Bees Hate You run.
It is important to remember that you do not have to be in the uniform of either side to adventure in the Orchard, Farm, or Beach areas. You only have to wear the uniform after doing what is necessary to complete the quest, and to get the rewards for doing so. However, you cannot adventure in the Themthar Hills without wearing a uniform.
For choosing sides, doing the Hippy side is highly recommended over the Frat Boy side. Because you can't complete The Junkyard and the Mysterious Island Arena sidequests due to letter "b" in the required combat items, it'll be much faster on the Hippy side. To compare, it takes 67 turns minimum as a Hippy and 132 turns minimum as a Frat Boy to clear The Battlefield. You do take 30% damage per turn as a Hippy compared to the 20% as a Frat Boy, so keep your health up.
For the McMillicancuddy's Farm side-quest, you'll encounter one "b" duck for whatever option you choose for Cornered Again!, so choose according to your taste. You can't use the shortcut for this quest because it requires a chaos butterfly.
Several changes have been made to the Lair and the final fight with the Naughty Sorceress.
In the Entrance Cavern, the 3 gates are replaced by a single Gate of Bees. In order to pass it, you need the Float Like a Butterfly, Smell Like a Bee effect given by a honeypot (itself made from 3 handfuls of honey).
The entirety of the tower climb now consists of six Giant bees. Shore vacations (Tropical) will now give you packets of orchid seeds to compensate.
Your Shadow's HP will be boosted if your current title includes one or more instances of the letter "B". Plan ahead if you are a...
- Seal Clubber at level 6, 9, or 13+
- Turtle Tamer at level 6, 8, 9, 12, or 13
- Accordion Thief at level 6, 8, 10, or 11
- Disco Bandit at level 5, 7, 10, 11, or 15+
- Pastamancer at level 5 or 12
- Sauceror at level 9 or 11
The Naughty Sorceress will only send 2 out of 3 of her familiars to face you, instead of 2 out of the usual 5. The 2 that would be impossible to defeat will not be used.
The last form of the Naughty Sorceress will be replaced by the guy made of bees. A Wand of Nagamar will not defeat him; however, an antique hand mirror will still do the trick.
