Hm, the mysterious underworld trunk would not open. No matter, it is a solid piece of wood and it can now be crafted into 3 different weapons. The weapons are only usable in aftercore and each gives 10 substats to particular attribute and has other fancy features. I have not yet decided, which one I should choose.
The function of the underworld acorn remains unknown. Some speculate, it will be possible to plant it on next Arrrbor day and adventure in the shivering timbers again, chopping down the underworld tree again, get another trunk and craft a different weapon. It would surely be nice. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. And maybe it happens on Halloween instead on the Arrrbor day. That would make sense, since it would be possible to obtain the outfit and the ax again on Halloween. Finishing the whole quest is not hard even on a single day. We'll see.
Back to ascension stuff. Today was slow, at least I did the goblin king quest, got the glass balls, finished wizard of ego (nice timing here, I'll get 100 substats on myst day), made 4 shore trips and got all shore tower items, built chef, bartender and maid, cooked insanely enchanted bean burrito for the epic hat quest, got diamonds and chrome ore for the trapper. I also adventured in the cyrpt, but I did not kill any sub-bosses yet. Of course, I got the steel margarita.
Final stats:
Level: 8
Muscle: 43
Mysticality: 54
Moxie: 45
Days played this run: 4
Things are slowing down. I still do not have the LEW. I must obtain it and the epic hat tomorrow (need tomato for boring spaghetti). And then the chefstaff - I still need herbs (from road to white citadel), rib of the Bonerdagon (easy), bottle of whiskey (from a goat) and cherry (a problem - fruit golem or lemon party slot?). I also should do the goats bounty. Considering the tasks, it will be pretty hard if I wanted to save adventures for a myst day and make use of a milk of magnesium on 2 days.
Underworld trunk opens?
End of arborween
The shivering timbers are gone now and the trick or treating icon in town is inaccessible. Back to ascending.
I had a lot to do today. I managed to get Harold's bell and farm the beefy bodyguards, but a mushroom plot with the made money and do the friars quest. Unfortunately, there were not enough adventures left to meet the pencil-necked demon, so I did not bother collecting the toys and build a meat car and EW instead. I am still working on the LEW. Not that it is overly useful, but the epic hat regenerates MP and that is useful.
Final stats:
Level: 7
Muscle: 35
Mysticality: 45 (8 left to level 8)
Moxie: 39
Days played this run: 3
Priorities for tomorrow include getting the steel margarita, the epic hat, kill goblin king and bonerdagon, reach level 8 and get lump of diamond and some herbs to make myself a chefstaff.
Shivering Timbers closing
The Shivering Timbers are supposed to close today. I spent most of my day there, collection spooky bark to build a second set of the bark outfit (first in this ascension, of course). I guess it might be useful.
I managed to get the required 21 pieces in time, eating the chocolate beetles and drinking the cider, occasionally recharging MP with the wolfman nardz. I was also using the sugar chapeaus while they lasted.
Although I reached level 6, I did not complete much quests and I am very low on meat. I am not expecting this run to be fast.
Final stats:
Level: 6
Muscle: 27
Mysticality: 37 (3 more needed for level 7)
Moxie: 33
Days played this run: 2
Tomorrow, the priority is doing the friar quest, getting liver of steel and making lots of meat to buy mushroom field and Spirit of Rigatoni. I'd love to get the new chefstaff.
Up again
A bit of farming and then straight into a next life as Pastamancer. I permed Smooth movements this time.
As Pastamancer I decided to use 2 sugar chapeaus and 1 sugar shirt. Casting spells was fun with the MP regeneration. I adventures in the Shivering timbers blasting trees and I got 7 spooky bark and made the bracelet. I wonder whether I'll be able to get the other 14 tomorrow and have the whole outfit the entire ascension.
Final stats:
Class: Pastamancer
Level: 5
Muscle: 15
Mysticality: 23
Moxie: 20
Days played this run: 1
With a little luck
Battlefield until I reach the junkyard. The the junkyard. Then the battlefield until arena. My original plan was to skip the arena, but since the L11 quest is unfinished due to the Halloween content, I'll just put flyers on all the remaining L11 monsters.
The hidden city - done in 24 adventures.
Oasis for worm-riding manual, pyramid, back to island - the concert needs a bit more flyers. 2 adventures in the shivering timbers did it. A couple more adventures on the battlefield.
It would be nice if I met the Monty Basingstoke-Pratt, IV boss this time. So I am going to cleesh a few enemies. That will probably cost me an ascension today, but I am not so much in a hurry anymore. I cleeshed like 15 enemies, but no hero. OK, maybe some other time... The Man with superhuman sarcasm to be on the safe side.
The lair:
Gate of Spirit - OK
Gate of Zest - I had to fish for clover (5 adventures!)
Gate of That Which is Hidden - I had to gamble a little - fortunately I did not pick the drunkenness potion.
Hedge maze - lots of stolen pieces.
Tower:
best-selling novelist - 1 adventure
concert pianist - 1 adventure
Vicious Easel - 1 adventure
Bowling Cricket - 3 adventures
Bronze Chef - 3 adventures
Enraged Cow - 1 adventure
...not bad, I have obtained those missing items in 1 adventure each.
Shadow, Naughty sorceress - piece of cake with the brimstone boxers. But the stats I received after the fight were enormous: 574 Beefiness, 516 Magicalness, 1114 Roguishness. Did they increase her level?
I did it, but it was close. I only had few spleen hits left today.
I guess there is no point listing my equipment and exact stats. It is enough to state that I had the brimstone boxers and that is enough to outmoxie her. I mainly focused on equipment that increases level or damage like grungy bandana and goth-kit T-shirt.
So, this is my so far fastest ascension: 8 days, 1400 adventures. If I did not explore the shivering timbers, I would be faster by almost a day.
The question remains whether to ascend today or not. I guess not, because I want one of the high-level skills: Smooth movement or Superhuman Cocktailcrafting.
War won't wait but trees will
Back to questing. There will be time for farming the shivering timbers later.
Couple of adventures on the Poop deck and Belowdecks opened the way to the Palindrome and the level 12 quest.
Starting the war. Not wearing the brimstone boxers made the fights much harder. I'll take the hippy side again, because I would like to encounter a particular frat hero.
The organic orchard - 14 adventures.
The farm - the usual 25 adventures.
Bandits - 10 adventures with inhaler, 46k collected.
Back to level 11 quest.
Dr.Awkward down, hidden city found, looking for worm riding manual pages.
Semi-rare -> inhaler.
Bandits - another 10 adventures with inhaler, 93k collected. +3 adventures for the remaining meat.
The battlefield -> clearing my way to the junkyard. Sonofa beach is a no-go.
Final stats:
Level: 12
Muscle: 100
Mysticality: 100
Moxie: 143 (5 left to level 13)
Days played this run: 7
I still must:
- find pyramid - 10 adventures
- lord Spookyraven - 1 adventure (hope so)
- the hidden city - 25 adventures
- clear the pyramid - 50 adventures
- on battlefield - 40 adventures
- the junkyard - 12 adventures
- flyering in the shivering timbers - 50 adventures
- tower - 30 adventures
That is 317 adventures. So it looks like it will take 2 more days. I wanted to get Smooth movements or SHC this run anyway, so some leveling up time is needed anyway.
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.