Hardcore Speed Ascending

This topic is for hardcore info.

very useful guide to HC. Nearly all of the things I do inately I found in this guide, put to words. I think there are a few things people could add, but overall a great resource. Perhaps if we have enough additions, we could edit and post here. But I'll wait for more comments.

http://kol.coldfront.net/index.php/index.p...nt/view/689/61/

In Hardcore Boozetafarian, it is absolutely necessary to have the Orcish Frat Boy Outfit and the Hippy Outfit (and, of course, Advanced Cocktailcrafting, but I assumed that was a given). On clover days, stock up on base booze for about five days... in case of a clover drought. Get the skill ASAP to stock up on garnish, so you can use five per day.

Also, getting Advanced Saucecrafting is a must for any HC ascension. I had a heck of a time in the Hole in the Sky and the Hedge Maze as a level 11 Disco Bandit. If you don't get that skill first, your best backup is goofballs. I ended up autoselling nearly everything to purchase eight bottles, which I used to get both necessary star items and get through the Topiary Golems. I ended up adventuring through my withdrawl in the Cake-Shaped Arena.

A skill that helps much more in Hardcore than in Softcore: Advanced Armorcrafting. If you don't have it, you can't get the furry suit, meaning you may have fewer tactics to use against the Sorceress.

Oh, yes, and something vital to Hardcore and Softcore ascensions alike: you must take a stat-giving familiar though the astral gash with you. I prefer my Dark Jill-O-Lantern, because it helps me survive in stronger areas, and it gives me more stats for doing so.

OK, quick question. What does anyone think of the new familiar of the month? I see it as filling the role that was previously taken by an item drop familiar. I think it's drawback is too significant to use full time, but will be better than the new gravy fairies/coffee pixie/elfling for spot item drop duty.

I think it certainly could be useful, but only under the right circumstances. I've heard people who have used it with the HC reward that regenerates MP, and that supposedly works very well. The penatly is certainly too great to use it full-time otherwise. That being said, I may still get one anyway...

I still think the Dark Jill-O-Lantern is the best, though. It helps you survive in really tough areas.

In terms of the NS fight (and this goes for HC or SC), and this is pretty obvious, but hard to do in practice, is be almost fully healed for the second form, since you are less likely to get in heals and MP restores. Having full HP is key to getting in as many hits as you can on the 2nd form.

My last two NS encounters were as:

DB - fedora/wand/snowpants/talons/talons/amulet + 22 lbs pickle. hit hit hit heal heal heal form 1, MM/chronic form 2.

This took 10+ fites and for some reason, wearing the magnet (which gave more MP) didn't appear to help at all. go figure. So I don't know if this is optimal or not.

SA - +MUS hat/wand/+MUS/1337 pants/cookbook/cookbook/boris ring + 23 lbs pickle. 10 clicks of stream of sauce or whatever and both forms are dead. first time through.

That DB strategy is similar to the one I used. The accessories were different, though. Mine were: amulet of extreme plot significance (vital!), moxie magnet, Sneaky Pete's breath spray (sub another amulet if you don't get this). I don't believe the flaming talons help the Moxious Maneuver (they didn't help me, anyway). I use the MM every round until she died, which is why the MP++ items are vital. It's also useful to have a reserve of Knob Goblin superseltzers, in case something goes wrong. Plot Holes also pwn, if you can find them...

In other words, beating the sorceress as a Disco Bandit is FREAKING HARD. That's the only reason I didn't show up second on the Hardcore Boozetafarian leaderboard (or at all, for that matter).

This is my setup beating the NS with a level 12 Turtle Tamer:

Wolf Mask
Wand
Furry Pants
Flaming Talons x2
Enchanted Knuckles
Familiar: 23lbs. Ghost Pickle on a Stick

My Stats: 131/101/95

Her first form I used the attack/heal stragety, using Galatik Elixir's to heal. Made sure to begin the battle against her second form with full HP.

Second form I hammered her with a couple of Spectral Snappers but the majority of the damage dealt to her was through plot holes. Finished with 46 HP to spare

Sweet_Jesus asked me for some hardcore advice, so I've decided to make a huge post here so everyone can take part in the knowledge.

First off, the hardcore advice in fartfarmer's post is very useful, and I'll probably end up accidentally repeating a lot of information given there.

What you're constantly trying to do in hardcore is to maximize the output of each adventure. Meat, stats, and items are the three things of value, but it's hard to rank them in any consistant order. Early in the run, it'll generally be items that limit your progress, and later, it'll be stats. What you'll generally want to do is try getting the required items and meat WHILE getting solid stats. There are only a handful of times you'll want to use something other than a stat familiar (ideally a bitten).

Quick progress is especially important early on, with things like Stomach or Liver of Steel and the hippy store to get. Getting the Steel ability or access to a better diet ASAP basically gives you free adventures. Since most of the basic tips of hardcore are covered in fartfarmer's link, I'll give a general walkthrough of the run.

Your first goals are to get the Steel ability and access to the hippy store (which will allow you to make chow mein). This means you need stats and meat fast. The best place for meat early on is the treasury, and places with many enemy encounters (as opposed to non-encounter adventures) are the best for stats (the treasury is also good). With the exception of the Tavern and Spooky woods quests, you don't need to complete anything to unlock anything else, so you can save things like the bat hole and goblin king for later. The first thing I do is farm the outskirts for the chef's hat, then the plains for the rest of the chef ingredients. Meat maids and bartenders aren't really worth the effort to make (unless you're oxy, in which case you'll want a meat maid), but a chef definitely is. The bat hole is a good early place to level if you don't have madrigal saved from an earlier run, otherwise the kitchen is good training for the treasury. You'll want to adventure at the treasury until you have the resources for a meat car, and the 5 required shore trips for access to the island. The hippy camp, and then the Friar's quest are next.

Next, the midgame. There's a lot to do for levels 7 and 8, but if you have a lot of skills from earlier runs, you might finish all quests before you level up. In this case (which you probably won't encounter until you're skilled enough to not need this advice), the best stats for level 7 are the menagerie level 3, and for level 8 are the peak. The cyprt is unpredictable, so you'll probably want to put it off til you're powerful enough to kill the sub-bosses (moxie of about 80). With 70 moxie, the pirates are easy enough to kill, so you can start on them if you're done with all quests but the cyrpt. Before the choice adventures at the cove were implemented, a lot of my leveling would occur there. At level 8, the mountain quest is opened, and while the mines enemies are easy, the goats are not. You can level at the cove in the meantime, or a place with enemies of a difficulty between the pirates and goats if you've done everything to do with the pirate (I think the menagerie level 3 fits this, but don't hold me to that). After the goats and eXtreme slope, the peak is the best place to level to 9, but you probably won't be powerful enough for that. If it's one of your first few runs, your level will probably be way ahead of the quests you've completed, so you won't have to worry about pure leveling at all. Level 9 is the valley, and the peak if you finish the quest before getting to level 10. I usually get two 31337 scrolls and the gates scroll before I'm done there.

And then the endgame...beyond the beanstalk. Some classes are well prepared for the high-level combat (myst and moxie classes), and some will have a lot of trouble. Having the saucecrafting skill makes this infinitely easier. This part of the game is pretty straight-forward...if you collect the necessary items from the HITS before you hit level 11, you should go back to the castle and hope for the appropriate wheel adventures. As for the lair, some of the items you should have by now, some you might not. For minor combat items like the baseball and disease, it's not such a big deal to backfarm with a high level familiar. I also do all my pixel farming at this point, which usually takes around 30 adventures. It's almost more efficient to do the combat item farming at this point, because you no longer need stats and have the freedom to use an item familiar. Make sure you know exactly what you'll need for all parts of the liar before you start your hardcore run.

A side-note on the Daily Dungeon. Start as early as possible. Modded secondary stats of around 40 are enough to pass the stat tests, and this can be achieved very early on with saucecrafting. It's worth it to waste lots of resources if it means getting to start the DD early. You don't need elemental resistances to get by the elemental obstacles...this was changed a little while ago- they just damage you now. One of the worst things that can happen is being delayed by the DD because you don't have one of the legendary keys.

As for the fence, you can hope you get it in the required 5 shore trips (it's at the moxie zone), and if you don't have it then, another 7 trips for the globe provides a bit of insurance. If you don't get it from that, hope you don't see a cow, and if you do, hope you get the fence early. Many runs are ruined by the fence.

There are many class specific strategies for the NS, but my general strategy is attack familiar and chronic indigestion + lots of healing items (exilirs mainly).

It goes without saying, but you should make sure your diet is as good as possible. It's sometimes tough to eat well in a HC run because you can only use what you find. The spice loop is essentail, and you'll hopefully get lots of chow mein ingredients in the bat hole and kitchens. A clover at the kitchens is another good source of ingredients. A muscle zodiac makes chow mein a bit easier to make, but with good planning, you can end up with enough mushrooms without it. Your first hardcore run should be a PM, to get pastamastery, because non-pasta food is, simply put, horrible. Spicy (but non-insanely so) burritos and pizza are good, and high-level stir-fry is pretty much the best you can hope for, but still mediocre.

I guess that's it. I ended up typing a lot.

OK, here's another resource that is immensely helpful. The original work is done by Kittiwake, with slight input from many others. See threads here and here (about 3/4 of the way down)

Moxie needed to not be hit/Muscle needed to always hit (your results may vary)

15 for Tavern
24 for Guano Junction
28 for Fun House
28 for Cemetary
27-28 for Kitchens
35 for Treasury
40 for Boss Bat
45-50 for Hippy Camp
50-55 for Friar's
60 for Goblin King
60-65 for Menagerie Level 1
68 for Defiled Cyrpt (non-bosses)
70-75 for Pirate's Cove
74 for Mine
75 for Goatlet
90 for Ninja Lair
95 for Bonerdragon
100 for Orc Chasm
115-120 for Airship (115 random encounters, 120+ MechaMechs)
120 for Icy Peak
148 for Raver Giants
152 for Alphabet Giants
170 for Hole in the Sky

These are not perfect numbers, but should serve as a guide for when you are first able to tackle these areas.

Don't forget to add mind control setting to those numbers if you're a myst sign. The general rule I use is that you stop missing/getting hit when your muscle/moxie is 5 or 10 points above monster level, which you can calculate as 5 times base total stat gain (non stat day). So if I get 10/8/15 from a monster on a moxie day I can adjust to 10/8/10 for a total of 28 points, and if I know my stat boosters (vb or sombrero familiar/MC setting/wax lips/antiphon) give me +14 for that battle then the monster power is 5*(28-14)=70. So I need 75-80 muscle/moxie to always hit/never get hit. If I have excess, or if healing is cheap (i.e., access to MMJ), I increase MC. This is harder when useing stat boosting signs, since their stat boosts are variable, but the low frequency of stat boosts helps. Also, you can get accurate base stat gains for most monsters from the Visual KOL wiki site. I would add from my memory that topiary golems are 180 power, so it takes 185 or 190 to overpower/dodge them.

Also, I just HC ascended with my TT multi using furry suit and dodecapede. My accessories proved irrelevant, so an acid flower would have given me more margin. I used indigestion exclusively on first form, healing with homeopathic elixirs whenever >20HP below max. Out of 4 plot holes, a torpedo, and a wussiness potion, I only hit with one plot hole; then I began swinging repeatedly at second form and only hit once (it was critical, so perhaps brass knuckles would increase hit chance). My dodecapede finally killed her before she killed me. For those without dodecapede, train the ghost pickle; it's even better since its caustic juice attacks reduce her level, making her more hittable and more likely to miss you.

I just beat the NS with Accordion Thief...

Stats: 79(75), 82, 32(108)
Wearing:
furry suit, wand, 2 bejewelled accordion straps, amulet of extreme plot significance
Had a 23 lb flaming fairy that hit a few times.

I skipped straight to attempt 11 by 'attack'/ 'run' 10 times.

1st form: connected w/ a plot hole, then chronic indigestion the rest.
2nd form: did plot holes, frigid ninja stars and chronic indigestion.
No healing required on either form.

Ended the fight with 15/132 HP and 29/162 MP.