The Shivering Timbers

New content! Hooray. Or not. It will surely prolong my current HC run. No matter.

Most of the content has been at least partially spaded, so here is a short summary of what needs to be done to get the (presumably great) new items.

1. Adventure in the The Shivering Timbers killing spooky trees and collect 21 pieces of spooky bark. (You also get other drops.) The drop rate for bark seems to be 9%, and I got about 2/3 the amount of all the other items as I got tree barks. If you are not in HC, unlike me, it might be a better idea to just buy them in the market.
2. Use 5, 7 and 9 pieces of the bark to make the Vestments of the Treeslayer outfit.
3. Trick or Treat in the outfit to get the Ax of L'rose.
4. Equip the Ax of L'rose and kill 20 more spooky trees with the axe.
5. Kill the big bad boss tree and collect the Underworld trunk and Underworld acorn

...and then wait what happens on 31st.

Other useful drops from trees include:
* spooky sap - potion
* petrified wood - combat item
* mummy costume - exchange it for chocolate-covered scarab beetle by trick or treating
* wolfman mask - exchange it for Wolfman Nardz by trick or treating
* pumpkinhead mask - exchange it for mulled cider by trick or treating

When trick or treating, do not forget to equip another hat to get the reward each time.

Fighting the trees effectively

It seems like the trees scale to your stats to a certain cap. If you can buff your moxie to more than 200, they will only hit you on critical hits. Similarly, if you can buff your muscle/moxie to more than 200, you'll hit always.

If you are unable to buff your stats high enough, try using the general scaling-monster strategy:
* do NOT wear equipment that increases muscle or moxie
* having the beaten up effect actually helps (but it is impractical to have it on for dozens of adventures) (goofball withdrawal?)
* wear equipment with highest possible power that directly adds to damage/defense -> wear equipment with damage reduction/absorption and +weapon damage/elemental damage
* use spells, deleveling or always-hit skills or combat items if you have trouble hitting targets
* if you must, use an attack familiar like the MAS, but en elemental fairy would be better, because you need the +item drop in this particular case

On the other hand, the standard scaling-monster mechanic might not be actually used. If you find out more, please leave a comment.

Back to ascension stuff

The speed of this run is ruined, so I may as well collect a lucre today. So I did and I spent the few remaining adventures treat or treating with the hats. At least, there is now enough time to collect the second inhaler.

Final stats:
Level: 12
Muscle: 86
Mysticality: 86
Moxie: 127
Days played this run: 6

Well, the war and NS would be a piece of cake when I get to them. But that will not be tomorrow.