An entertainingly silly MMORPG

[wolf]

If work would cease sucking, I would get back to playing ...

[vsp]

Wow. Easily my best Day 1 ever. Love those Muscle Days. If you've ever wondered if two Mr. A's are worth the expense, they are.

TT->PM->SA->TT->DB->DB-> L7 TT
Muscle: 95 (47) Myst: 54 (24) Moxie: 58 (24)
Ronin remaining: 790 Turns remaining: 10 (too drunk to continue)
Equipment: Crown of the Goblin King, Turtleslinger, Knob Goblin Elite Pants, Porquoise Necklace, two Mr. A's, Palm-Frond Toupee
Quests complete: Mosquito Larva, Tavern, Meatcar, Bat Hole, Goblin King, Deep Fat Friars. Cyrpt is available, but too hard for me until I can wear the Lihc Face.

[vsp]

If there is one zone that I loathe more than any other in KoL, it's the Itznotyerzitz Mine.

The items you get there for your outfit aren't bad and are appropriate for your level at that point, but obtaining the required Linoleum Ores sucks hard.

An inexpert swing of your pickaxe causes a tremendous cave-in! You take 105 damage.
(3 turns at the Gym to make Beaten Up expire)
(Rest at Campground)
You get Asbestos Ore!
An inexpert swing of your pickaxe causes a tremendous cave-in! You take 105 damage.
(four more adventures wasted)
(lather rinse repeat until it decides to give you three linoleum)

From now on, 5K apiece or not, they'll be among my items-to-pull-from-storage for Ascension runs.

[Happy Monkey]

You can save one Gym adventure. Beaten Up expires before the campground effects are applied, so if you have one Beaten Up turn left, you can be at full HP/MP after one nap, assuming you have few enough HP/MP for one rest to fully heal you. If you don't, you can save even more adventures by resting while beaten up for one or two more adventures.

[vsp]

True, but I'd rather gain _something_ from those turns, and the Gyms give me a couple of stat subpoints for my time.

The alternative is something like:
{Use MPs for self-buffing, Rest} x3, if I have a buff that needs to be reapplied. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

It's just annoying wading through turn after turn of useless Asbestos and Chrome Ores and cave-ins when the RNG is in a bad mood. I don't think there's another roadblock that's quite as annoying in the game; at least if the 334 scrolls, Goat Cheeses, Immateria, Giant Wheel, Butterknife et al. aren't popping up in their respective areas, you're getting stat points and items and meat from what is popping up. Even plowing half a day into the Friar's Gate waiting for the fucking Map gives you Hellion Cubes.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by vsp

True, but I'd rather gain _something_ from those turns, and the Gyms give me a couple of stat subpoints for my time.

You're not gaining anything if you then go on to the campsite for the same nuimber of turns anyway. One thing I do, since (due to a fondness for lucky surprise eggs) I have a lot of Scrolls of Drastic Healing, is go to the gym for two turns, then use the Beanbag, then use a scroll.

But I do agree about the mine. Very annoying.

[vsp]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

You're not gaining anything if you then go on to the campsite for the same nuimber of turns anyway. One thing I do, since (due to a fondness for lucky surprise eggs) I have a lot of Scrolls of Drastic Healing, is go to the gym for two turns, then use the Beanbag, then use a scroll.

If I've gotten as far as the Airship, I can use a Soft Green Etc. and then a Scroll to wipe out Beaten Up in one turn.

Alas, if I'm stuck at the Mine, I'm not far enough along to have Airship items without pulling them from storage.

Remind me to go get Tongue of the Walrus on one of these runs.

[vsp]

Originally Posted by vsp

3) Turtle Tamer
PROS: This class _used to_ be a contender for the top spot, but it's been nerfed. However, it is still a familiar-boosting machine, with Amphibian Sympathy and Empathy of the Newt each jacking familiars up 5 pounds; a lot of people will take a turn or two through this class just to acquire those. Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises is a much-needed MP boost, vital for any class. Tenacity of the Snapper and Reptilian Fortitude are nice but expensive, Spectral Snapper even more so.
CONS: Armorcraftiness is useless once you have the Mall available, and not very useful even then. Headbutt is dependent on normal attack to-hit rates, so it won't let you jump ahead like DFS will. The Shell skills used to be great, but have been nerfed into uselessness even when fully jacked-up.

4) Accordion Thief
PROS: A very wide variety of buffs. You can jack up your (or anyone else's) stats, meat drops, item drops, combat initiative, melee damage or MPs. Ode to Booze gives a couple of extra adventures per day. Polka of Plenty is vital for building up huge stacks of meat once you have access to some of the big-drop areas.
CONS: You can only have three AT buffs running at any given time, and they get expensive in terms of MPs to begin with. The fact that large numbers of players are in Ronin at any given time lowers the usefulness of buffing others dramatically. The skills boost combat ability indirectly, but aren't as effective as spells or DFS. You'll be able to avoid a lot of damage, but not deal much out.

Now that I'm taking my secondary down the AT route, I may end up revising this a little, maybe going 3A and 3B rather than 3 and 4.

The Tamer analysis stands: Headbutt + Chrome Helmet Turtle is a nice combo and cheap to buy, the familiar skills and Wisdom rock, the rest is a wash.

The AT, on the other hand, is surprising me with its ability to do damage. Part of it is that Moxie is super-easy to build up as an AT, but I'm hitting for more than I thought I would with a very-high Moxie and low Muscle. Instead of pumping up Muscle via candy, Thin Black Candles and Super-Spiky Hair Gel just to be able to damage Giants, I'm hitting for 20-25 a shot with Muscle around 100 and Moxie around 150, with my Star Crossbow. THAT was a surprise; it's almost as if Crossbow Fever is inherent in the class or something.

Moxious Madrigal is a must for any class; it's +10 Moxie for a mere 2 MP, something that everyone will benefit from. I'm on the fence about Stevedave's Shanty of Superiority -- an extra 10% to each stat is very nice in the later levels, but it won't help much early on. Aloysius's Aptitude looks like a no-brainer until you stare at its 40 MP cost for 5/15 turns.

But since high Moxie > high anything else... damn. My AT's base right now is 91; after figuring in Butt-Rock Hair, Stevedave's, the Madrigal, a Star Crossbow, a Chrome Helmet Turtle, Sneaky Pete's Breath Spray, a Badass Belt and a Mr. A., it's _167_ pumped up, and I could take it even higher if I wanted to. Hell, that's enough to handle the Hole in the Sky already, and I can drop down to eXtreme Cold-Weather Gear _much_ earlier than a Muscle- or Myst-centric character can to rake in meat from the Peak.

[vsp]

Sorceress == dead again x2, both with about 100 turns left in Ronin. Got a little lucky with the AT after whiffing several healing items in a row; won with 6 HP left on three consecutive turns. That's seven Ascensions for each character.

So now I'm undecided...
TT->PM->SA->TT->DB->DB->TT->xx will probably go to AT to pick up Moxious Madrigal, as that will be a godsend for later spellcasting runs. No major holes on this character; he has Wisdom, Pastamastery, Advanced Saucecrafting, Sympathy, Mad Looting, DFS and Empathy to carry over, plus about a hundred-plus DB drinks stocked away.

Not sure on the SC->DB->TT->PM->DB->TT->AT->xx. Saucecrafting would fill in the Reagent Potion hole, I could go back for Leash of Linguini or Empathy, or pick up another AT skill.

[Happy Monkey]

How about running through an ascention just to get permanent Torso Awareness?

[vsp]

I'm not sold on its usefulness yet to the extent that'd make it worthwhile. I'd probably take Powers of Observatiogn first.

None of the shirts have much in the way of bonuses; I think the Supportive Bra is the highest at +5 Moxie. In terms of being extra armor, most of them are pretty low-level stuff (40 or 50 power), which is no more than an unboosted Ghostly Shell adds, and I've been pretty unimpressed with what _that_'s done for damage reduction. The big one is the Star Shirt, 165 points of armor, but is that plus +1/All Attributes worth an Ascension skill slot?

Maybe if I was building a defensive monster, stacking Astral Shell + Ghostly Shell + Tao of the Terrapin + best armor available + best shirt available + Hippo Buckler + Star Buckler, it'd be a help, but I'm not sure that I'll ever want or need to do that.

#1 is up around 1.7 million meat and #2 is just over a million. Not bad, especially since prices on Mr. As are dropping, but it'd still take me forever to work up to a Cheshire Bitten (currently at around 12 million). I have some decent meat-making rackets, but they're not THAT fast, particularly if I keep going right back into Ronin.

[Happy Monkey]

I've sold a couple of clockwork items, to finally bump past the M100,000 mark. It's hard to figure the prices out, though. A clockwork bartender head is worth more than a clockwork bartender head in a box which is worth more than a clockwork bartender in a box. Weird.

[vsp]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I put a Goth Kid T-Shirt in the Mall for 500,000 meat... AND SOMEBODY BOUGHT IT.

[Happy Monkey]

Damn...

On a related note, someone once offered me two shirts (I don't remember what kind, they may have been Goth Kid) for my Mr. A. Their justification was that the minimum price on the mall was a billion meat. Of course, that was also the only price on the mall, and nobody was buying it...

[vsp]

Now that I looked at _who_ bought it, it's even funnier.

Yesterday, for some reason, the market on Goth Kid shirts was nearly dry; the lowest price out there was 200,000,000 meat. I had one, so I put it up as a joke at 199,999,995 meat.

Another seller popped up a few minutes later with 60 of them for sale, and put his at 100,000,000 meat.

I dug the concept of a ridiculous undercutting war, so I put _mine_ at 50 million.

He dropped his to 10 million.

I dropped mine to 1 million.

He dropped his to 250,000.

I dropped mine to 100,000, then figured "screw it" and put it at 500,000 and left it there.

HE BOUGHT MINE AT THAT PRICE.

Now, a REALLY funny bit. Check the market now, and the guy has 60 of them at 10 million apiece. There are a couple of dozen at 1 million or less, with the lowest at 75,000 meat. So much for the "corner the market" strategy.

Now the REALLY REALLY funny bit. Do you know how one acquires a Goth Kid T-Shirt in the first place?

1) Ascend.
2) Select a Moxie sign.
3) Buy the Torso Awaregness skill for 5,000 meat.
4) Obtain a Warm Subject Gift Certificate, which can be bought from the mall for as little as 445 meat if you don't have one or don't feel like adventuring for one.
5) Use it.

It's that simple. It's not that great of an item, it's not hard at all to obtain, and every single player can get one every time they go through a Moxie path.

Five hundred thousand.

I love this game.