Dark Gyffte/Strategy

This page is in need of content. Work in progress

This guide will provide some additional information to aid with a Dark Gyffte ascension. It is a work in progress as such.

Pre-Ascension Preparation

When outside of Ronin/Hardcore, having the Warbear induction oven in your workshed will duplicate the first consumable cooked. Having a warbear high-efficiency still in your workshed will occasionally save you a blood bag when making drinks, allowing you to make an extra food/drink item. Carefully crafting and switching between the two can lead to many extras.

Astral Consumables & Equipment

Neither astral consumable is compatible with the Vampyre.

Regarding astral equipment, the Astral belt is likely the best choice. The path does not provide more than +30 ML naturally (and said buff is incompatible with two of the three intristic forms), so the extra stats are always welcome. The extra +20 will make meeting certain thresholds like climbing the Oil Peak and heating the unstable fulminate easier.

For low skill runs, the Astral shield is a possible option, for the damage reduction and HP regeneration improve quality of life substantially. This is less viable for those with either the latte lovers member's mug or the Kramco Sausage-o-Matic™.

Most choices have their uses, though, at least to varying degrees.

Moon Sign

• Knoll sign - There is no real incentive to unlock the island before level 12 (hippy store fruits have no value in this path), making the instant meatcar less appealing.
  • The Vole providing +20 max HP can be helpful, though.
• Little Canadia - ten-leaf clovers are important for fast progression in the smut orc camp as well as clearing the zeppelin protesters, making the Marmot a viable option. There is little reason to rush unlocking the desert beach & island, so you can delay it for later when you can afford the 5000 meat bus pass easily.
  • Access to the logging hatchet is also a plus.
  • If you are having trouble with HP upkeep, the huge mosquito proboscis is a possible option for quality of life.
• The Gnomish Gnomad Camp - If you have January's Garbage Tote, it may be worth ascending under this sign and getting 5000 meat in order to afford Torso Awaregness, and thus use the makeshift garbage shirt, as soon as possible. If you cannot afford the 5000 meat Desert Bus pass to unlock the desert quickly, Degrassi Knoll can be unlocked by visiting the Untinkerer, and shouldn’t realistically take more than 4-5 adventures to build a bitchin' meatcar if you use two banishes (and Vampyres have one built in).

Mr. Store Items

Most of the usual applications for various items from the Mr. Store exist. However, some are more important due to these some items are more important than others under these restrictions, while others have their effectiveness reduced (or, in the case of familiars, are not usable at all).

• Lil' Doctor™ bag - HP & HP Regen are exceptionally vital due to the nature of this path. The extra blood bag and the combat abilities provided are also tremendously helpful.
• Kramco Sausage-o-Matic™ - Despite not being bloody, the magical sausage can still be consumed in this path. The free fights alone are worth the effort, though.
• Meteor Lore - Despite being a permed skill, it is retained in this path, along with the valuable Macrometeorite. Micrometeorite and metal meteoroids don't hurt either.
• FantasyRealm membership packet - No Gelatinous Cubeling means the daily dungeon will take 9 turns per day at the minimum. Fantasyrealm gives a token in only 5 turns in comparison. Also mandatory for 2 day runs (or faster).
• Boxing Day care package - Of the three consumables provided, only body spradium is useful. More importantly, the daily Flagrantly Fragrant buff provides a massive boost to your survivability, which makes it easier to run more skills and ML under tougher circumstances.
• January's Garbage Tote - If you want to use the makeshift garbage shirt, you will have to choose a gnome sign and cough up 5000 meat in run to learn Torso Awaregness (or do melvin’s quest, which is undesirable). The other equipment forms still work as normal.
• The Neverending Party - It is not worth doing any associated quest in run, given that the rewards largely revolve around consumables that you cannot consume.
• Asdon Martin - Aside from the usual applications of buffs and banishes, it also provides the only source of disintegration in this path.

Softcore Strategy

Aside from the usual strategies that are viable for ascensions in the ronin phase, some are particularly noteworthy.

• Vampyre consumables are fully tradeable (even if the blood bag is a quest item) and have do not have a level requirement for consumption. As such, multiples of the blood-soaked sponge cake and vampagne can be pulled to maximize your turn generation.
  • It is possible to generate an obscene number of adventures in a single day by combining these with a spice melange as well as a Ultra Mega Sour Ball, both of which reduce fullness and drunkenness by 3, and stack with one another.
  • For longer runs, a mime army shotglass can serve a similar purpose
• The wax hand is an accessory that provides +40 max HP in-run at no stat prerequisites and it can be used for quality of life for low skill runs.

General Advice

• Note that the only ways to recover HP are by consuming a blood bag (not recommended since they are better used for generating turns), using Dark Feast, entering Torpor (whether by losing a fight or through your coffin) and with passive HP Regeneration.
  • Dark Feast with Hypnotic Eyes should cover your combat needs early on. Around level 9 or 10, though, you will have to resort to other combat strategies. If these strategies include combat skills, make sure your HP Regeneration is enough to cover the HP costs.
  • When monster HP exceeds 100, adding Crush to the above line-up will reduce non-boss enemy HP enough to allow them to be fed upon without risk of killing them accidentally. This can be vital for vampires without IotM sources of HP regen late in a run.
• Even with the possible 8 blood bags per day, you cannot use all of your daily organ space in hardcore.
  • However, dieting pills from the gaunt ghuol in The Defiled Cranny function normally with vampyre foods, so 2 dieting pills will allow you to use all of your organ space in one day. Dieting pills are unlikely to be worth going out of your way for, though.
• Since the fortune cookie cannot be consumed, you cannot get semi rares reliably.
  • Some locations that require many adventures spent, such as The Copperhead Club or A Mob of Zeppelin Protesters, may be reasonable options if timed well.
• Upon meeting Dr. Awkward for the first time, your HP will be reduced to 0, which will inevitably require a visit to Torpor (unless you sacrifice a blood bag to heal yourself). Time this for when you need to switch your skills anyways.
  • You could weasel your way around this by combining HP regeneration and an action that uses a turn to do (that is still possible with 0 HP). An example of this is cooking the unstable fulminate.
• Sonofa Beach’s Zerg Rush will be especially problematic since HP regen and restoration is not readily available. This can be handled somewhat by deliberately lowering your base HP while running sufficient HP regen, while increasing your moxie enough that lobsterfrogmen cannot hit you.
• The Copperhead Club’s passive damage can catch you off guard if unprepared; make sure you have enough base HP & regeneration to survive it, and rely on one-shotting the monsters here. Mist Form form may help as well, but you won’t be able to run Bats Form for the quest-relevant item drops.
• Chill of the Tomb is especially effective in The Smut Orc Logging Camp, thanks to the relatively new mechanic that causes a vital non combat to occur when sufficient cold damage is done.
• When using any form, either make sure that your stats are configured for fighting with basic attacks or that you take combat skills from said form’s skill tree.
• The forms can be toggled on/off at will (but use the casting cost in HP for each toggle). Since forms disable so many other skills, it's generally desirable to only run them when necessary, and fall back to a non-form state for more general-purpose adventuring.
• Mist Form is especially effective for fighting monsters that deal abnormally high damage, such as ninja snowman assassins, or monsters that can hit and deal damage regardless of your moxie, such as all of the path’s level 11 bosses or the gremlins.
• Bats Form and Sharp Eyes together yields 250% item drops, which is largely sufficient for general item hunting purposes.
  • You can combine this with using Ensorcel on a high level bug-type monster to boost this further. Level 11 monsters like the black widow and rock scorpion are decent options for this purpose. Wishing for a scaling Black Crayon Beetle or finding a Spant from a high-level Spacegate planet gives you access to potentially more powerful bugs.
• You don’t need to visit the blood bank with intimidating aura immediately; you can visit it without for 5 bags of blood, then learn intimidating aura later to obtain 2 more at your leisure. Best to do this at the very end of the day, so you can get all 7 bags the next day without reconfiguring skills again.
• Unlike other avatar paths where you gain more skills with levels, your base HP is dependent on your base muscle. If you want to have more skills active at once, you will need to adjust your leveling strategy accordingly. Muscle substat buffs such as Gunthers are useful for this, at least until you have enough runs done that base HP ceases to be a concern.
• If you are using Preternatural Strength or Sinister Charm, buff your mysticality exclusively. Your offstats will adjust accordingly.
• Due to how the path works, Spectral Awareness’ +2 resistance to all elements is not compatible with Mist Form’s +4 resistance to all elements. Don’t rely on combining them for something like a-boo peak. Elemental resistance from Ensorcel-ing an elemental stacks with either of the above, though, and is potentially the best source of elemental resistance.
• Bear in mind that you cannot easily heal between a-boo peak tests, unless you burn extra adventures at Torpor. It is best to mix these HP-draining tasks with fights versus quest-relevant monsters that you can easily feast off of.
• Regarding the registration desk, Vampyres can naturally do well in terms of the initiative and off-stat tests, but lack any reasonable sources of elemental damage for the third test. If you have access to a genie bottle, saving a wish for this purpose is recommended.
• For players with few/no IOTMs doing early runs where HP is at a premium, consider lingering in the Haunted Bedroom a little longer to grab an elegant nightstick. The +30 HP is like getting an extra skill or two for free in Torpor.