The Hardcore OxygeNation

[Smidge]

What's a 'Skill Guide'? I have no idea, but I needed a name for this write-up of skill information, strategies for use, and advice on usefulness, and 'Skill Guide' was the best I could come up with. Mostly I've just said anything and everything I know about skills and included the odd bit of non-skill specific information wherever it's relevant.

You should probably check out Synkronos's Hardcore Ascension tips and tricks before reading this, because I've mostly assumed knowledge of basic things like using a volleyball-type familiar.

I've named the strategy of bumping up your moxie till you can't be hit, ditching your weapon, and using a starfish on some high HP monster (the menagerie is a good place for most of the game). I've called it starfish farming, mostly because I wanted something to call it as I've referred to it so often here. I didn't think up the idea or anything, but I know of no definitive name for it, and wanted one to use.

Thanks to the wiki, which I grabbed a number of skill descriptions from.

Seal Clubber skills still not done.


Contents


Seal Clubber

- Seal Clubbing Frenzy
- Hide of the Otter
- Claws of the Otter
- Tongue of the Otter
- Thrust-Smack
- Super-Advanced Meatsmithing
- Eye of the Stoat
- Hide of the Walrus
- Claws of the Walrus
- Tongue of the Walrus
- Lunging Thrust-Smack
- Rage of the Reindeer


Turtle Tamer

- Patience of the Tortoise
- Headbutt
- Skin of the Leatherback
- Amphibian Sympathy
- Ghostly Shell
- Armorcraftiness
- Tenacity of the Snapper
- Tao of the Terrapin
- Empathy of the Newt
- Reptilian Fortitude
- Spectral Snapper
- Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises
- Astral Shell


Pastamancer Skills

- Manicotti Meditation
- Minor Ray of Something
- Entangling Noodles
- Lasagna Bandages
- eXtreme Ray of Something
- Pastamastery
- Springy Fusilli
- Spirit of Rigatoni
- Cone of Whatever
- Spirit of Ravioli
- Weapon of the Pastalord
- Leash of Linguini
- Cannelloni Cocoon


Sauceror

- Sauce Contemplation
- Stream of Sauce
- Saucy Salve
- Expert Panhandling
- Elemental Saucesphere
- Advanced Saucecrafting
- Saucestorm
- Jalapeno Saucesphere
- Wave of Sauce
- Intrinsic Spiciness
- Jabanero Saucesphere
- Saucegeyser
- Impetuous Sauciness


Disco Bandit

- Disco Aerobics
- Disco Eye-Poke
- Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation
- Disco Nap
- Disco Dance of Doom
- Advanced Cocktailcrafting
- Nimble Fingers
- Disco Dance II: Electric Boogaloo
- Mad Looting Skillz
- Disco Power Nap
- Disco Face Stab
- Crossbow Fever


Accordion Thief

- Moxie of the Mariachi
- The Moxious Madrigal
- The Magical Mojomuscular Melody
- Cletus's Canticle of Celerity
- The Power Ballad of the Arrowsmith
- The Polka of Plenty
- Brawnee's Anthem of Absorption
- Fat Leon's Phat Loot Lyric
- The Psalm of Pointiness
- Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction
- Stevedave's Shanty of Superiority
- Aloysius' Antiphon of Aptitude
- The Ode to Booze


No-Class

- Chronic Indigestion
- Torso Awaregness
- Gnefarious Pickpocketing
- Gnomish Hardigness
- Cosmic Ugnderstanding
- Powers of Observatiogn

[Smidge]

Seal Clubber Skills


Seal Clubbing Frenzy

By clubbing a stuffed seal at your campsite, you can work yourself into a frenzy. Your Strongness will increase for a period of time. +2 Muscle for 5 Adventures at 1 MP.

Two Muscle. A small gain, though it can put you over some stat requirements (Mining while beaten up, Daily Dungeon stat tests).

When you're actually hitting with your weapon more than 50% (assuming it isn't ranged), you'll get an extra damage point for every Muscle you have. It'll also make you a bit more likely to hit with your melee weapon. The number of times you'll actually want this boost for combat will be few, though the cost of the buff is small so you might find you may as well have this on more often. The extra Muscle will give you a few HP points, so there may be times when that is useful even if the Muscle boost itself isn't.

Another potential use for this skill has come with the new Hero of the Half-Shell skill for Turtle Tamers. This skill makes Muscle much more useful when using a shield, however it may also make shields useless for Moxie classes, so not not everyone may want the skill so Muscle's usefulness for this purpose won't apply.

See also: Patience of the Tortoise, Manicotti Meditation, Sauce Contemplation, Disco Aerobics, The Power Ballad of the Arrowsmith, Hero of the Half-Shell.


Hide of the Otter

Your skin becomes as thick as the skin of an otter, affording minor protection against enemy attacks. Passive +20 Damage Absorption.

In general: Damage absorption reduces the damage you take, individually damage absorption adding skills probably won't make much difference, but with several they can add up to give a decent effect (well, noticeable at least). Reducing the damage you take is a nice all-round benefit, which can help with many strategies, notably 'Stasis'. Damage absorption can helpful for anyone getting hit - mostly this will be anyone but Moxie classes unless they're using the 'Stasis' strategy.

This skill in particular: +20 is a pretty small amount. As the weakest damage absorption skill, this should be the one obtained last. Due to this, you'll probably have a bunch of damage absorption already which will mean the actual % absorption gain from this skill is tiny. This page describes roughly how effective damage absorption is at different amounts.

See also: Skin of the Leatherback, Hide of the Walrus, Ghostly Shell, Astral Shell, Tao of the Terrapin, Brawnee's Anthem of Absorption


Claws of the Otter

You become infused with the fighting spirit of the Otter, adding 3 damage to all of your melee attacks. A passive +3 Melee Damage.

Plus Melee damage. The slightly weaker of the two claw skills, if you're keeping them you'll want this second.

The most notable advantage of having increased melee damage (and the real reason to get it) is how it works with Thrust-Smack and Lunging Thrust-Smack - its damage is doubled and tripled respectively. So for Thrust-Smack this skill will increase damage done by 6, and for Lunging Thrust-Smack by 9.

The other nice thing about this skill is that it is passive, so it'll be there even when you're not using the Smacks. This means killing stuff quicker, especially with ranged weapons - funnily enough increased melee damage works with them. So essentially this means you'll be able to win low-level fights more easily, and ranged weapon out-moxie fights will be over sooner, meaning less real-time spent.

The disadvantage, however, is that it's passive and always active. Yes, the same as one of its advantages. The reason it's also a disadvantage there are rare times when you will want to *not* do damage. When you're using your starfish to get MP, if you have high enough Muscle to hit you will probably want to have your weapon unequipped - it'll mean you'll only do 1 damage. With this skill you'll be doing more, which can make the starfish less effective.

The main thing to consider about this skill is: Do you need it? With a possible +12 from Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction, +10 from Rage of the Reindeer, and +8 from Tenacity of the Snapper you may not need the extra damage to kill whatever you need with Thrust-Smack/Lunging Thrust-Smack.

See also: Claws of the Otter, Claws of the Walrus, Rage of the Reindeer, Thrust-Smack, Lunging Thrust-Smack, Rage of the Reindeer, Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction, Tenacity of the Snapper.


Tongue of the Otter

This skill gives you the ability to lick your wounds, healing 10-20 Hit Points and making you feel less beaten up. Heals 10-20 HP and Removes Beaten Up effect for 7 MP (noncombat).

Since Lasagna Bandages give better HP restoration for less MP, and Medicinal herbs give full HP restoration for cheap, this skills real use is not in its healing at all, but in its ability to remove beaten up. Since the skill isn't useful for its healing, its higher-powered buddy, Tongue of the Walrus isn't particularly useful for just removing beaten up, since it has a higher MP cost. You might want the other though, there isn't much between the two choices.

This skill is not nearly as useful as most beginners may think, owing to this fact: The more skilled a player gets, the less they tend to get beaten up. A bit more practice at the game will be a better idea for stopping beaten up turns for the newer player. Nevertheless, being able to remove beaten up can still be useful. There are areas like the Mine where players have a good chance of getting auto-beaten up from rockfalls, or there are just those occasions where one decides to take a risk in combat and it doesn't work out due to bad luck. Since there are plenty of things to do during beaten up turns (sewer for trinkets, farm for necessary trinkets, whatever) this skill is quite a low priority.

See also: Disco Nap, Disco Power Nap, Lasagna Bandages, Cannelloni Cocoon, Tongue of the Walrus, Saucy Salve.


Thrust-Smack

This is a thrusting smack with your weapon. It will do double the usual amount of damage to your opponent if it connects. 2X Melee Damage combat skill, costs 8 MP.

Coming soon. By soon I mean a few days, I want to sort out how I'll describe the LTS/TS Stoat strategy properly without repeating the strategy exactly in every skill description.


Super-Advanced Meatsmithing

This skill allows you to use Ores to make advanced meat stacks and weapons. Allows you to make advanced weapons.


Eye of the Stoat

This skill imbues you with the spirit of a tenacious and vicious (and incredibly accurate) stoat. Your Thrust-Smacks and Lunging Thrust-Smacks will never miss, you'll fumble less often, and your chances of scoring critical hits will be improved. Thrust-Smack and Lunging Thrust-Smack always hit using Melee weapons, half the fumbles, +0.5x critical hit rate.


Hide of the Walrus

Your skin becomes as thick as the hide of a walrus, affording additional protection against enemy attacks. A passive +40 Damage Absorption.


Claws of the Walrus

You become one with the spirit of the War Walrus, adding 4 damage to each of your melee attacks. A passive +4 Melee Damage.

Since this skill is almost exactly the same as Claws of the Otter, I'll just paste a slightly edited version of what I wrote for it:

Plus Melee damage. The slightly stronger of the two claw skills, if you're keeping them you'll want this first.

The most notable advantage of having increased melee damage (and the real reason to get it) is how it works with Thrust-Smack and Lunging Thrust-Smack - its damage is doubled and tripled respectively. So for Thrust-Smack this skill will increase damage done by 8, and for Lunging Thrust-Smack by 12.

The other nice thing about this skill is that it is passive, so it'll be there even when you're not using the Smacks. This means killing stuff quicker, especially with ranged weapons - funnily enough increased melee damage works with them. So essentially this means you'll be able to win low-level fights more easily, and ranged weapon out-moxie fights will be over sooner, meaning less real-time spent.

The disadvantage, however, is that it's passive and always active. Yes, the same as one of its advantages. The reason it's also a disadvantage there are rare times when you will want to *not* do damage. When you're using your starfish to get MP, if you have high enough Muscle to hit you will probably want to have your weapon unequipped - it'll mean you'll only do 1 damage. With this skill you'll be doing more, which can make the starfish less effective.

The main thing to consider about this skill is: Do you need it? With a possible +12 from Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction, +10 from Rage of the Reindeer, and +8 from Tenacity of the Snapper you may not need the extra damage to kill whatever you need with Thrust-Smack/Lunging Thrust-Smack.

See also: Claws of the Otter, Rage of the Reindeer, Thrust-Smack, Lunging Thrust-Smack, Rage of the Reindeer, Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction, Tenacity of the Snapper.


Tongue of the Walrus

This skill gives you the ability to lick your wounds, healing 30-40 Hit Points and making you feel less beaten up. Heals 30-40 HP and Removes Beaten Up effect for 10 MP (noncombat).

This skill is a hair better than Lasagna Bandages for healing. Though with MP costs reduced by 1 with a baconstone bracelet Lasagna Bandages becomes better. Still, this skill's strength isn't in healing, but in its ability to remove beaten up. As such, you may find that you'll want Tongue of the Otter instead. Still, this skill gives far better HP per MP than the other Tongue skill and if you want *both* the beaten up removing and the healing, this could be the way to go.

If you want healing, Lasagna Bandages is a better skill to go for when healing smaller amounts of HP, and Cannelloni Cocoon is better skill to go with for high HP. That said, healing isn't really a particularly necessary thing as a skill - Muscle classes have medicinal herbs, accordion thieves don't get hit enough for it, Pastamancers already have healing skills they can just buy, and that just leaves Saucerors. Saucerors are the only class that will be likely to find some use in a kept non-combat healing skill due to their access to MMJs and the fact that Saucy Salve is a combat-only skill.

Here's what I said about removing beaten up under Tongue of the Otter:

This skill is not nearly as useful as most beginners may think, owing to this fact: The more skilled a player gets, the less they tend to get beaten up. A bit more practice at the game will be a better idea for stopping beaten up turns for the newer player. Nevertheless, being able to remove beaten up can still be useful. There are areas like the Mine where players have a good chance of getting auto-beaten up from rockfalls, or there are just those occasions where one decides to take a risk in combat and it doesn't work out due to bad luck. Since there are plenty of things to do during beaten up turns (sewer for trinkets, farm for necessary trinkets, whatever) this skill is quite a low priority.

See also: Disco Nap, Disco Power Nap, Lasagna Bandages, Cannelloni Cocoon, Tongue of the Otter, Saucy Salve.


Lunging Thrust-Smack

This is a thrust-smack with a lunge added to it for good measure. If it connects, will do triple damage to your opponent. 3X Melee Damage combat skill, costs 8 MP.


Rage of the Reindeer

This skill fills you with the rage of thousands of subjugated reindeer. This rage will make you stronger, especially when fighting guys with beards. +10% Muscle and +10 Melee Damage for 5 Adventures at 10 MP.


Double-Fisted Skull Smashing

This skill allows you to wield a one-handed weapon in each of your hands. It'll make it much easier for you to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women. Allows dual-wielding; passive.


Northern Exposure

This skill allows you to remember your upbringing in the Frigid Northlands. You'll be as snug as a bug in a rug, even when the wintry wind whips willy-nilly 'cross your nose. Think... the opposite of Sam McGee. Grants passive minor Cold resistance.


Musk of the Moose

By concentrating very hard, you're able to exude moose musk from your pores. The smell of the musk will make you more likely to encounter monsters when adventuring. Makes combat adventures more likely for ? adventures at 10MP.

[Smidge]

Turtle Tamer Skills


Patience of the Tortoise

By reflecting on the nature of the Tortoise, you can gain temporary enlightenment. Your Strengthliness and maximum HP will increase for a period of time. +1 Muscle and +4 HP for 5 Adventures at 1MP

One Muscle and 4 HP. A small boost, and since Turtle Tamers don't have MMJs, it's best not to throw around MP when you don't need to. Could be helpful for a muscle test in the Daily Dungeon. While 1 Muscle isn't very much, it could still be helpful when you're fighting tough monsters, as could the 4 HP. Only worth keeping if you're going for the trophy.

See also: Seal Clubbing Frenzy, Patience of the Tortoise, Manicotti Meditation, Sauce Contemplation, Disco Aerobics, The Power Ballad of the Arrowsmith.


Headbutt

This skill allows you to follow up a successful attack with a vicious headbutt to your opponent. The damage done by the headbutt is increased if you're wearing any kind of turtle as a helmet. Does a second headbutt attack on top of a normal attack. 3MP

Without a turtle-type helmet, (which will probably be before the mine) it may do ~13 (+/-5) average damage, with a decent mid-range helmet (goblin king's crown is a good helmet to be using for its muscle boost). I'll do some testing as to how it works and get some better numbers later.

With a chrome helmet turtle on, you're getting an extra ~30 damage, on top of your normal attack damage. Apart from perhaps thrust smack, this is the highest damage you'll be able to get with 3 MP, and can be the strongest low-cost MP skill. Unfortunately, it requires a to-hit check, meaning it isn't useful for hitting things you can't normally hit, as spells, items, and the Thrust-Smacks plus Eye of the Stoat. This makes headbutt not useable with many strategies, and it becomes more of a damage booster in ordinary combat (helping end fights faster, and take less damage), unuseable when fighting anything you can't normally hit.

Not terribly useful without Armorcraftiness, as it is most useful with a turtle-type helmet, and chrome helmet turtles are the only worthwhile one of these.

As a Turtle Tamer (without reagent potions), if you're able to hit (which should be fairly easy on good blood of the wereseal days), this skill is the best to be using in the Castle and HitS, as it has a low MP cost, and can do comparable, or better damage than Spectral Snapper. It's also nice for yeti killing to reach level 9/10 (wereseal blood on the right days helps), if you have a chrome helmet turtle (two uses should be able to kill).

Works well with Stainless Steel Solitaire (or the Plexiglass Pocketwatch), which turns its 3 MP cost into a 1 MP cost, making it a nice skill to pretty much replace your ordinary attack for extra damage.

Also works well with Stainless Steel Skullcap and Plexiglass Pith Helmet, as they both count as helmet-turtles. Both give a good bonus to Muscle, and thus to-hit/damage. Some people advocate using them with headbutt as an alternative to the furry outfit against the Sorceress. If you've got one of these, there isn't much point in making a Chrome helmet turtle, as these are better.

As a kept skill this really wouldn't be too useful for other character classes - Moxie classes won't really be able to use it (nor need it), Mysticality classes can just use their spells instead, and Seal Clubbers have thrust smack. Because it's the first available skill, costing only 1000 meat, Turtle Tamers won't gain much by keeping this either.

See also: Armorcraftiness, Thrust-Smack.


Skin of the Leatherback

This is a passive skill which increases your defense against enemy attacks. +40 Damage Absorption, passive.

As far as other damage absorption skills go, this is one of the better ones. Theres Hide of the Otter (+20, passive), Hide of the Walrus (+40, passive), and the two Turtle Tamer buffs, which are analysed under their own sections.

Damage absorption reduces the damage you take, individually the skills won't make much difference, but with several they can add up to give a decent effect (well, noticeable at least). Reducing the damage you take is a nice all-round benefit, which can help with many strategies. Effectively damage absorption can be like a HP boost, but with other benefits. Damage absorption is more useful in combats with lots of rounds - where you get hit a lot, because the reduction of damage comes into play multiple times.

Because it reduces damage, damage absorption is particularly useful when used in combination with skills like Jabanero and Jalapeno Saucesphere - their damage and effect will stay the same, but the damage you need to take for that effect is reduced. This makes them useful for longer in some ways, and makes particularly Jalapeno Saucesphere's healing effect more useful at low levels.

It can also help with using Stink Bombs, Entangling Noodles, or the Disco skills - It may allow you to survive long enough to reach the point of not being hit any more.

Obviously, it's not going to be particularly useful for Moxie classes when they're not getting hit, because, well, there's no damage to be reduced. Likewise, Muscle classes will tend to get more use out of this, because, well, they tend to get hit more than other classes. Mysticality classes tend to emulate Moxie classes as low levels, so they'll be getting limited usage out of it,

See also: Hide of the Otter, Hide of the Walrus, Ghostly Shell, Astral Shell, Tao of the Terrapin, Brawnee's Anthem of Absorption


Amphibian Sympathy

Being sympathetic to the ins and outs of the amphibian lifestyle makes you more sympathetic to the lifestyles of all creatures. Your familiars will be more sympathetic and more powerful as a result of your powerful sympathy. Passive +5 to Familiar Weight

An awesome skill; highly recommended by many Hardcorers. Since it's passive, it's the best familiar skill, and all classes will benefit from it. A permanent plus five means hundreds of substats gained with a volleyball-type familiar (if you're trying to speed ascend, you should be keeping one). It also means all other non-kept familiars will be more effective, especially early on, before they've had a chance to gain many levels.

It also helps with the NS tower familiars. As this should be your first familiar skill, it will mean you will only need to level your familiars to a base of level 10 (with +5 for the familiar item, and +5 for this skill) instead of level 15 (+5 just for the familiar item). This takes 40 perfect (+5 kills) arena turns (20 for each familiar) instead of a total of 90. This alone means this skill can take 50 turns off a run, with many more for the substat gains.

A lot of people like to use the starfish to gain MP by making sure they can't hit or be hit and letting the starfish kill the monster. A level 1 starfish won't be very effective at this (ie. it won't be able to do enough damage to make a kill), and if you're trying to get MP, chances are you don't have enough to pay for the MP cost of one of the other familiar skills. The extra 5 pounds from Amphibian Sympathy should be enough for the starfish to have a decent chance at fairly low level kills.

A nice skill for Oxygenarians to pick up early. The boost to the NS tower familiars means it'll be taking a day off the run, and probably more for its substat increase with volleyball-type familiars.

See also: Empathy of the Newt, Leash of Linguini, Aloysius' Antiphon of Aptitude.


Ghostly Shell

This skill conjures the shell of a ghostly tortoise, which envelops you (or another player) in a protective shield, greatly reducing damage taken in combat. +40 Damage Absorption for 10 Adventures at 6 MP.

Another absorption skill. If you want damage absorption, you'll want Astral Shell first, as it gives double the boost. As there are two passive damage absorption skills that give an equal boost to this, you'll either want them first, or Tao of the Terrapin first.

This skill can be useful to cast before any particularly tough spots, or when using any absorption strategies. Every bit helps, right?

As a Muscle class, MP is pretty expensive - any buff like this should probably be for special occasions until you get to the icy peak.

See also: Hide of the Otter, Hide of the Walrus, Skin of the Leatherback, Astral Shell, Tao of the Terrapin, Brawnee's Anthem of Absorption


Armorcraftiness

This skill allows you to make advanced helmets and pants. Advanced pants. Allows you to make advanced Helmets, Pants and Bucklers. (Costs 1 adv.)

This can be a pretty useful skill. Of note of the items that can be made with this are the chrome helmet turtle, penguinskin shorts (or skirt/kilt), hippopotamus pants (or skirt/kilt), and notably the furry pants.

The furry outfit is very helpful in fighting the Sorceress, it reduces the damage she does significantly. The pants in the outfit can be acquired by using this skill, or by zapping a wolf mask. The wolf mask is however significantly rarer than the furry fur, and you will be needing at least one furry fur for the giant castle map to open up the HitS. Without this skill you'll need two wolf masks to make the outfit, as well as using up a zap in your wand. Often (most of the time, it seems), you won't get two wolf masks before being finished with the Castle. You might find that with this skill you may actually need to zap some furry pants into a wolf mask. The only reliable way of getting the furry outfit is having this skill, so if you really want the outfit, get this. That said you should be able to do without the furry outfit most of the time, though it could take significantly longer to beat the Sorceress - long enough to make this skill worthwhile.

The chrome helmet turtle is a nice hat to wear - 5 boost to all stats makes it quite possibly the best, and 120 power is quite decent. It's especially useful if you don't happen to find a f3d0r4 later, or even the draggin' ball hat. It does cost a dense meat stack - the vast majority of the time you will get a chrome ore from the mines while looking for your 3 linoleums. It works well in combination with headbutt.

The penguinskin shorts (or skirt/kilt) give a nice 20% initiative boost, which can be very useful, even necessary for some classes to be able to kill high level monsters. Initiative is awesome, and this is a good bonus to it (the cost of a pants slot tends to be worth it). The initiative boost you can get from these makes Armorcraftiness useful for those looking for an initiative skill. The boost is equal to that of Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation, and less than the other initiative skills. This may be made up for by the other useful items that can be made with Armorcraftiness.

Hippopotamus pants are a nice HP boost (+25). Not much can be said about them but they may help you survive long enough to be able to kill monsters you otherwise couldn't. Obviously you can't make them until after the trapzor quest is done.


Tenacity of the Snapper

This skill makes you (or another player) relentless in combat, like the fierce Snapping Turtles of the Days of Old. It will increase the damage done by each strike. +8 Melee Damage for 10 Adventures at 8 MP.

If you're having trouble against tough monsters, +8 damage may help. This is actually a pretty decent boost - Claws of the Walrus (+4, passive), Claws of the Otter (+3, passive), and Rage of the Reindeer (+10, +10% muscle) are the other + Melee damage skills. Rage of the Reindeer would probably be the most useful due to its Muscle increase.

Note that while increasing Melee damage can be helpful, it's completely useless if it doesn't reduce the number of rounds it takes to kill something. For example: If you're doing 35 damage each round to a monster with 100 HP, getting an extra 8 damage is completely useless, as it doesn't make killing things any faster.

For Muscle classes trying to increase melee damage may be an alternative to increasing HP. Where you can kill things in less rounds, you'll take less damage. Any boost to Melee damage will be more effective in longer battles, as the increase will be factored in for each round.

At present + Melee damage things also increase ranged damage. Since ranged weapons tend to be doing low damage, some + Melee damage stuff might make monsters killable at a much lower Moxie. If you've got too high Moxie to be hit though, it's useless. Keeping a skill like this for ranged weapons could be pretty risky too, as it's relying on + Melee damage not being fixed.

Plus Melee damage works best with skills like Thrust-Smack and Lunging Thrust-Smack, as they multiply the damage done, getting more use out of the plus to damage.


Tao of the Terrapin

By studying the secret martial arts of turtles, you've learned how to fend off damage more effectively. This skill will make Ghostly and Astral Shells twice as effective. Doubles the Damage Absorption of Ghostly Shell and Astral Shell (+40 and/or +80).

Nice to have in combination with Astral Shell, as Astral then gives +160 damage absorption. Once you've got this skill for Astral Shell, it can make Ghostly Shell worthwhile. Extra nice because it doubles effectiveness without any MP cost, as MP can be pretty scarce for Muscle classes.


Empathy of the Newt

This skill makes you (or another person) temporarily gain an uncanny empathy towards your (or their) familiar. +5 to Familiar Weight for 10 Adventures at 15 MP.

Familiar skill, yay. You'll most definitely want Amphibian Sympathy first. The MP cost of empathy is a little more than leash of linguini, but it's close enough that your second familiar should just be a matter of which class will be better at the time (moon phases, HC reward item).

Useful for manipulating familiar level (with SGEEAs) while leveling familiars in the arena. It will take turns off from the NS tower familiars, can be used to gain more substats from your volleyball-type familiar, and can make your other familiars more effective.

Works well with classes with MMJ access, though post icy peak the cost in soda water may be affordable (because the peak gives a *lot* of meat).


Reptilian Fortitude

By imbuing you with the physical strength of 1000 snakes and lizards, this skill temporarily boosts your maximum HP. +30 HP for 10 Adventures at 10 MP.

HP boosts can be nice to be able to survive enough hits to kill tough monsters (though much less often necessary for Muscle classes due to intrinsic +50% HP), but except perhaps at low levels, Spirit of Ravioli would be a more useful HP boosting skill. If you really want HP, the pair of them would work well together.

HP boosts tend to be most useful for Muscle classes, due to their access to Medicinal Herbs and tendency to get hit a lot more than other classes. Muscle classes also tend to have trouble getting MP, so until the icy peak, it's probably not worth using except in special cases. This boost might help Saucerors and Pastamancers survive an extra hit in the Castle/HitS, or just let them be able to take more damage at low levels. Moxie classes tend not to be hit much, so unless they need the boost to survive while lowering a monster's hit rate, this won't be very useful.

Now that Muscle classes get a 50% boost to HP, this skill is less necessary, but gives a bigger boost when you're using it - 45 HP for Muscle classes. You're probably not going to need all this HP, but it can mean being able to battle more before needing to use Medicinal Herbs, saving spleen usage, and thus allowing you to go longer without needing Doc Galaktik's.


Spectral Snapper

This skill summons a spirit Snapping Turtle to bite your opponent. It does 30-80 hit points of damage, and never misses. 20 MP

55 average damage for 20 MP. This will average 3 hits to kill in the Castle/HitS, with a skill that always hits (excepting against the bonerdragon/Sorceress). This is a way for Turtle Tamers to hit when their Muscle is too low. Chronic indigestion is another useful skill for this purpose - it makes a good low level equivalent.

As a Turtle Tamer, if you have enough Muscle to hit in the Castle/HitS (good blood of the wereseal days), headbutt with a chrome helmet turtle can do comparable damage, without such an unreliable range.

If you're at a bad time for blood of the wereseal, this skill may be your only option for killing things in the Castle as a Turtle Tamer (without carried over combat skills like LTS + Stoat). Note that it is *expensive*. If you don't have a big stockpile of meat from the Icy Peak with a Bitten, you'll need another way to fight in the Castle/HitS, because getting MP with soda water costs a LOT and you'd need to starfish every second battle to pay for the MP costs without soda water. HP boosts can help to be able to use Chronic Indigestion more in place of this. If you really know what you're doing, you can use goofballs and Mick's IcyVapoHotness Rub to get a +45% boost to muscle, which should be enough to be able to hit in the Castle with Headbutt.

Unfortunately, + spell damage will not make this skill more effective. Compared to spells it has decent base damage, but there is no way to increase its damage, which would make it less useful than spells which can be used for 2 hit kills in the Castle/HitS.


Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises

You have achieved a level of awareness that almost matches that of the Elder Tortoises in the Days of Old. Your maximum MP is dramatically increased. Passive +50% MP

There are three main things that increased MP is useful for:

- Killing the Sorceress. The Sorceress fight can use up a lot of MP, this skill can help to not need things like amulets of plot significance, or make them more effective. It can reduce the number of attempts you'll need to beat the Sorceress where you're running out of MP during the fight.

- Getting a high enough max MP to use high MP skills at low levels. It can take a while before you are able to cast any high MP skills, as your max MP won't be sufficient to use them. This skill allows you to potentially use these skills earlier.

- Making the starfish able to get you more MP - where your max MP is lower than the HP of what you are able to fight with the starfish strategy.

Being able to use Antiphon of Aptitude at a low level can be especially helpful, as the substat increase will be relatively more significant the lower your level.


Astral Shell

This is a vastly improved version of the Ghostly Shell skill. It increases the amount of damage absorbed by your (or another player's) hat and pants in combat. +80 Damage Absorption for 10 Adventures at 10 MP

The highest skill boost to damage absorption (except perhaps torso awaregness). Since it is a level 12 skill, it really isn't much use unless you're going for it as a kept skill. If you do so, Tao of the Terrapin would make a very nice next damage absorption skill to take, doubling this skill's effectiveness.

With the boost from Tao of the Terrapin it can be a useful skill in any damage absorption strategies. It may be worth keeping the buff on for Mysticality classes where they're getting hit a lot - the lowered damage may pay for the MP cost due to not needing as many healing items.

[Smidge]

Pastamancer Skills


Manicotti Meditation

By meditating on your Manicotti Mandala, you can achieve oneness with the pasta which makes up the underlying structure of reality. Your Magicalness will increase for a period of time. +2 Mysticality for 5 Adventures at 1MP.

The only real use for buffing Mysticality in this game is to meet stat requirements. If you're doing a Mysticality test as a low level in the Daily Dungeon you should remember to cast this. There is also the requirement of 90 in your main stat to get into the Penultimate Fantasy Airship, and 95 to get into the Castle. If you're really rushing through, and using only cookbooks, you may find you don't have enough, and keeping this on can help you get that other cookbook back on faster.

The only tangible reason for keeping this skill is if you're going for the trophy.


Minor Ray of Something

This shoots a ray of something at your opponent, which will do 5-8 points of damage. Damage increases with Mysticality. Costs 4MP.

An alright low damage, low MP skill when you get it. It's cheap, but unless you're oxy or Boozetafarian, chronic indigestion tends to be more useful, and cheaper (ie. free). Useful to finish off monsters to waste less MP, when its damage is enough to do this. Updated: I've reconsidered a bit. Chronic indigestion is obviously not much of an option for boozetafarian and oxygenarian, so this or stream of sauce may be the best alternative. This skill will be costing 70 meat on average if you're restoring with soda water, a lot cheaper than using hairspray. As a low MP skill, this can work well with Entangling Noodles.

Since spells are now all capped against the Naughty Sorceress, this skill is fairly useful against her, as you can probably hit the cap with it and maybe 2 cookbooks. As a Mysticality class, max MP will be pretty high when you face the Sorceress, so you might want to go with something a little stronger and save an accessory slot.


Entangling Noodles

This spell allows you to conjure a wad of sticky noodles, which slow down your opponent and make its attacks less effective. 3MP

A pretty awesome and underrated skill. Can stop a monster attacking for the turn you use it, and reduces the monster's muscle, making it do less damage and hit less. Similar to Disco Eye-Poke, Disco Dance of Doom, Disco Dance II: Electric Boogaloo, and Disco Face Stab, however it does not reduce the monster's moxie, so the monster does not get any easier to hit. Entangling noodles seems to lower the monster's muscle by ~6.

When fighting monsters that you cannot hit with this skill, critical hits, items, or combat skills/spells are useful, though not things like headbutt which don't always hit. If you have no kept combat skills, fighting tough monsters can be done by using entangling noodles until they can't hit you, then using hair spray, stink bombs* (See note), or chronic indigestion. Another way is raising your critical hit rate* (See note) - normally the rate is 10%, meaning after using entangling noodles a few times, you'll get a bit under 3 critical hits in the battle. Eye of the Stoat (giving +0.5 times critical hit rate), and a hamethyst bracelet or enchanted brass knuckles can make this viable, though it is a lot tougher without something to reduce or get rid of fumbles. It should take three casts of entangling noodles to stop something hitting you when you're at the minimum hit rate using a ranged weapon (though three casts may stop them hitting you a little before the minimum hit rate.)

Useful for Mysticality classes pre-beanstalk where they tend to be played like moxie classes, their having plenty of spells and MP make this viable.

Useful for Muscle classes as muscle strategy is usually to try and get combat initiative and be able to hit things. With initiative you can use it before the monster's first attack, reducing the damage or stopping it hitting you. You can use it until the monster can't hit you any more, then kill it (mostly useful if you don't have a way to kill the monster in a few hits).

For Accordion thieves, if you can get initiative it works well to stop monsters from hitting you if you don't have enough moxie for it, as long as you have enough to still hit them sometimes. For Disco Bandits, it's a nice, cheap alternative for their Disco level reducing skills, because MP is expensive for Disco Bandits.

Entangling noodles is especially useful in The Cyrpt, and The Penultimate Fantasy Airship. The Cyrpt minibosses, and the Mechs in the Airship are both monsters significantly stronger than the rest in the area, so if you're just fighting normally without using any skills, having entangling noodles helps to take out the stronger monsters.

A virtue of it's low MP cost and only lowering a monster's to-hit is that it works well with starfish farming. Since you'll be getting MP while fighting, you'll be able to pay for the cost, and since it stops the monster hitting you, while still not letting you hit the monster, it's quite perfect for it. With this skill, you'll be able to fight tougher monsters than without, and those tougher monsters are likely to have a HP much higher than the weaker, enough to pay for the cost of entangling noodles and then some, as well as giving a higher substat gain.


Lasagna Bandages

This spell summons some enchanted lasagna noodles, which can be used as bandages, healing some of your HP. 10-20HP in combat, 10-30HP out of combat. 6MP


Most useful out of combat, though with Medicinal Herbs available at the Muscle class store now, the only class that it is worth keeping for is Sauceror, as MP is too expensive for other classes, and Medicinal Herbs are much better for restoring large amounts of HP.

Useful for using Magical Mystery Juices to heal HP between battles cheaply. Its healing HP in battle is not really enough to be useful except maybe in rare circumstances. It can be used with an item or skill that causes the attacker to take damage when hitting you, however it is usually cheaper to just kill monsters with combat spells.

In combat you can use this with skills that make the monster take damage when it hits you (Jalapeno and Jabanero Saucesphere, and the Acid-squirting flower item).

It could be used (if you're feeling particularly lucky) on the shadow in the tower to save a red pixel potion, though obviously if you fail, you've wasted your red pixel potions. A homeopathic elixir would be better for this, and is only 240 meat, so I'd suggest not bothering.


eXtreme Ray of Something

This spell fires a powerful ray of something at your opponent, dealing 10-16 points of damage. Damage increases with Mysticality. 7MP.

Similar to Minor Ray of Something, however it does more damage. Its damage increase over Minor Ray is enough to make it the more worthwhile skill. It's nice as a low level spell for killing those tougher-than-usual monsters. It's also useful for when facing higher level monsters with spells, and only needing to use a small spell to finish them off, to use less MP.

At low levels, chronic indigestion is probably more useful, however at high levels in combination with cookbooks or other +spell damage items (using spells to kill things past the beanstalk), this becomes much more worthwhile.

With the spell damage cap against the Naughty Sorceress, this skill could be fairly useful for killing her. You could probably hit the cap with one cookbook, and you're not likely to be short of MP as a Mysticality class, so you may as well use this.


Pastamastery

This skill allows you to summon forth noodles from thin air, and to cook delicious food by combining them with sauces. Allows you to cook with dry noodles. Allows you to summon dry noodles three times a day (10MP each).

Considered by many to be the most useful hardcore no-path and hardcore teetotaler skill. The ability to make Chow Mein and reagent dishes (when used in combination with the Sauceror skill Advanced Saucecrafting) is extremely useful. Noodle dishes can give more adventures than any other food and they give good stats. If you're hardcore teetotaler or hardcore no path and don't have this, I'd strongly advise you get it soon.

If you have Pastamastery but not advanced saucecrafting, you can still make some pretty useful foods out of dry noodles. Note that once you have access to herbs, and have some spices stocked, you should not farm for spooky mushrooms or knoll mushrooms, unless you're getting them from the Muscle sign plot. It is better to get knob mushrooms from the kitchens, getting them from grab bags with a clover if you're high level, then you can get bat wings from the entryway. If you have Advanced Saucecrafting however, you're better off not making Chow Mein if you don't have the ingredients (aside from knob mushrooms).


Springy Fusilli

This skill infuses your body with the springy spirit of spiral pasta, putting a spring in your step and making you more nimble in combat. +40% Combat Initiative (10 Adventures) 10MP

Combat initiative is useful for Muscle and Mysticality classes, it isn't as useful for Moxie classes, however helpful if using skills like Disco Face Stab. Springy Fusilli is also the skill which gives the biggest combat initiative boost. There are three skills you should consider if you want a combat initiative boost: Armorcraftiness, Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation, and Springy Fusilli. Cletus's Canticle of Celerity (+30% initiative) uses up a song space, and there are more useful Accordion Thief skills. Armorcraftiness allows you to make penguin shorts (+20% initiative), and is useful for other things you can make with it. Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation (+20% initiative) is passive, and thus requires no MP, ever. Springy Fusilli (+40% initiative) gives the biggest boost to initiative.

For most of the game, Mysticality classes tend to play as a moxie class, so it will not be very useful at low levels for a Sauceror. After the bean stalk it can be very useful for Sauceror's, because they often can't survive two hits (Castle and HitS), and need it to get two spell hits in.


For muscle classes, it's not as useful. They still need initiative, but they don't have as much MP to use on buffs. They can still use it effectively after the bean stalk, but they could use Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation for the whole game.


Spirit of Rigatoni

This skill greatly improves your ability to handle staff-type weapons. Your Magicalness will be used instead of your Strongness to determine whether or not you hit your opponent in combat. Chance to hit an opponent is based on Mysticality rather than Muscle when wielding a staff.

Mostly useless. Mysticality classes work best for low levels at the moment by using ranged weapons and increasing their moxie. At high levels they use spells, +spell damage, and initiative.

Some say it is somewhat useful in that you could use it by equiping a staff for a Muscle class when you're using a starfish to kill something for MP. Moxie classes can just use melee weapons, and Mysticality classes can just use Magical Mystery Juice.


Cone of Whatever

This spell allows you to call forth a powerful Cone of something, which will rain down on your enemies and hurt them very badly. Er, comparatively badly. 39-60 damage; increases with Mysticality. ~45-70 damage at 100 Mysticality. 19MP

Nice for two hit killing monsters in the Castle and HitS (with 3 cookbooks, or other +spell damage items). Use it when you don't need to do as much damage as Weapon of the Pastalord, as it uses a lot less MP.

No longer very useful against the Sorceress due to the spell damage cap, so use a lower MP cost spell as it can do the same damage.


Spirit of Ravioli

This skill infuses your body with the essence of ravioli, making it much sturdier. It will increase your maximum HP by 25%.

Nice for Muscle classes and Saucerors. Saucerors can use help surviving hits in the Castle and HitS, and Muscle classes use up a lot of HP. It'll also give them a bigger boost since they have more HP to increase. It would also make Medicinal Herbs and Scrolls of drastic healing slightly more useful. Moxie classes shouldn't be getting hit enough for this to make a difference.

Note that like Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises, it's only really useful when you use all of your HP/MP in a single fight.

This can help in all Sorceress battles, though some say the Sorceress's damage scaled a little to your HP.

With Muscle classes getting an intrinsic +50% HP, they'll need this much less, though it can still help get more out of their Medicinal Herbs.


Weapon of the Pastalord

This spell will summon forth one of the myriad randomly-generated weapons of the Pastalord, the sworn protector of the order of Pastamancers in the Days of Old. That weapon will then beat your opponent about the head or head-analogue. 50-60 damage; increases with Mysticality. ~70-100 damage at 100 Mysticality. 35MP

Huge MP cost. Only Saucerors and Accordion Thieves could really afford it, and neither needs it. It's also not useful for the Sorceress, as it's nerfed against her. A powerful spell, but not really worth keeping, since no other class would really be able to use it.

Used in the Castle and HitS, as you can't always two hit kill with Cone of Whatever. One cast of this, and one of either Cone of Whatever or eXtreme Ray of Something can be used to kill monsters there. Make sure to use some +spell damage items.


Leash of Linguini

This spell allows you to call forth an enchanted leash made out of noodles, which is placed around the neck of your familiar. This effectively raises your familiar's level by 5, but the noodles will deteriorate after 10 turns have passed. +5 to familiar weight for 10 adventures. 12MP

Another very useful skill. You'll be getting an extra stat from your volleyball-type familiar when you've got this on (which can add up to hundreds in a run), or an added +% when using your item drop familiar.

Obviously it can shave tens of turns off from leveling your familiars to beat the Sorceress' in the tower. With no familiar skills (or tiny plastic familiars), level 20 takes 90 perfect arena turns. With one (Sympathy should be your first), it's 40 arena turns. With two it can be done in 20. With all three it can be done in 10 (or 2, if you get a lead necklace instead of the +5 item for your volleyball-type familiar). Tiny plastics or a certain HCO reward item can also be used to reduce the turns. Leash of Linguini can also be used with Soft green echo eyedrop antidotes to make the cake-shaped arena turns more efficient.

A nice skill to have, it can be used best by Mysticality classes and Accordion thieves, as they have MMJ access, but it's still often worth it for all classes in the late game.


Cannelloni Cocoon

This spell summons forth a huge Cannelloni, which envelops you and heals all of your wounds. Heals all HP. 20MP.

While healing all HP is useful, the only classes that really would need it are Muscle classes, and now they have Medicinal Herbs. There isn't really any reason to get this, especially since it's a level 12 skill - getting it would be a bit of a waste of time.

It could (if you were to keep it) be used to heal for those with MMJ access, as at late levels it would give more HP per MP than other healing skills.

-------

*Critical hits. The chance to make a critical hit is 10% without any modifier. Critical hits always hit, however it is not possible to make a critical hit where your 'to hit' stat isn't high enough to make a hit. When your stats are at the minimum possible in order to make a hit (9 below the monster's level?), they have about a ~3% chance (my estimate, probably wrong but it's insignificant here, so I'll just use it) of hitting. This means with 10% critical hits, you've got a 12.7% chance (if you have an item stopping fumbles) of making a hit. If you increase your critical hit rate, with enchanted brass knuckles (x2), hamethyst bracelet (x3), or stainless steel shillelagh (x4), which will increase your critical hit rate to 20% (meaning 22.4% hit rate), 30% (32.1% hit rate), or 40% (41.8% hit rate), you'll also get another +5% chance of critical hits if you have eye of the stoat. This is a good way to boost your hit rate.

Check the Moxie Survival Guide for values - Monster's moxie is not necessarily equal to their muscle. You should need to take about 15 from those values to get an approximate minimum hit value.

*Stink Bombs. Bought from the Laboratory with the Knob Goblin Elite outfit - You'll also need the lab key, but you'll probably have found it by the time you find the outfit. How they work? Essentially they're an item version of Disco Dance of Doom. They lower monster level by 3, and have a chance of stunning for the turn they're used. Lowering monster level by 3 can be too slow - you may be dead before you can lower the monster's muscle to the point of not being hit, hence you can use these with Entangling Noodles to lower a monster's moxie after you've already lowered it's muscle to a point where you're not getting hit.

[Smidge]

Sauceror Skills


Sauce Contemplation

By reflecting on the nature of the Cosmic Sauce, you can become more closely attuned to its mysteriousness. Your Enchantedness and Maximum HP will increase for a period of time. +1 Mysticality and +4 HP for 5 Adventures at 1MP.

The +1 Mysticality can be somewhat useful for being able to adventure in the Airship and Castle without needing + myst equipment sooner. The +4 HP is more useful, as Saucerors tend not to have much HP, and every little bit helps. It's worth keeping on most of the time for the small HP boost, but not very useful for keeping unless you're going for the trophy.


Stream of Sauce

This spell creates a stream of sauce, which will do 3-4 points of damage to an opponent. The damage done by this spell increases slightly with your level. 3-4 damage; increases with level. 3MP

This does about 10-15 damage at level 10-11. With Intrinsic spiciness it gets another 10. 20-25 base spell damage at 3MP is pretty good. Unfortunately you only get that damage at level 10-11, where you will only be using a skill like this to finish things off. This is the lowest MP spell in the game, so if you really want something just to hit with (except against the Bonerdragon and Sorceress) this will be the cheapest. If you are using entangling noodles, this skill can be fairly efficient to hit the monster with, though efficiency is its only real quality.

With spell damage capped, this is now the most useful Sauceror spell against the Sorceress with Intrinsic spiciness and a 1-2 cookbooks equipped. You'll probably want to alternate between using this and Homeopathic Elixirs in the fight. The furry suit is also more useful, if you can make/zap it.


Saucy Salve

This skill allows you to conjure up a healing salve made of healing sauce, and heal some of your wounds. Healingly. Heals 10-15 HP in combat. 4MP

The combat only really hurts this skill. It's the cheapest healing skill, and most efficient in combat. Unfortunately, there is rarely any chance to heal in combat - Moxie classes won't be getting hit much at all, and Muscle classes will be hit too much, and usually for too much damage to be able to use this skill. Mysticality classes will be the only ones that can possibly get much use out of this skill, and since Pastamancers have Lasagna Bandages it isn't a very good skill to keep.

Being the most efficient combat healing skill (as well as being available to Saucerors along with the Jalapeno and Jabanero Saucespheres) makes this skill useful when using a porcupine strategy. To do this you'll want to be using at least Jalapeno and Jabanero Saucesphere. An acid-squirting flower will also make this effective, as will more damage absorption. Using this method, you fight mostly by healing, and letting monsters hit you, while your various attacker-takes-damage things kill it. Your saucespheres will help you heal, and get you back most of the MP you spend. An attack familiar can also add to the damage done here, but you shouldn't need it if you're healing as much or more damage than you're taking. The trouble with this strategy is that most of the time you can kill monsters with attack spells wherever you can heal enough to use this, however you *may* use less MP this way, especially if you have anything -spell cost, which is obviously more effective for low cost skills. This strategy will hopefully become more effective with combat changes (The way Moxie and damage absorption work will change sometime in the future, though that could be a long time in the future). At present it's only really effective use is for fighting and getting a bunch of MP when using -MP cost items, otherwise you can use more powerful skills like TS / Stoat, once you've got them.


Expert Panhandling

You've got mad skills at handling the pan. This skill increases the amount of Meat you get when fighting monsters by 10%.

Not near as effective as The Polka of Plenty (+50%) and Nimble Fingers (+20%), and equal (I think) with Gnefarious Pickpocketing (+10%?), this skill really isn't worth going for, unless you really, really want to get as much meat as possible. If you're only picking it up for farming, Advanced Saucecrafting (for selling reagents) and Elemental Saucesphere (to be able to adventure at the peak without cold weather gear) are better to have first.

In my opinion, the only reason to go for this is if you have all the other Sauceror skills you want, and want to do another hardcore Sauceror run to pick up the Scarf for a speed run.

Meat is a problem early in the game, but +10% is only going to get you ~100-150 meat in the whole of getting to level 8, if you do it efficiently.


Elemental Saucesphere

This spell conjures a shell of sauce around you (or another player), which will protect you (or another player) from all elemental attacks. Resistance to fire, cold, stench, and spookiness for 10 Adventures at 10MP.

A pretty useful skill. This skill can shave turns off your run similar to the way familiar skills do by reducing arena turns. The areas in the game where elemental resistance can help you:

Guano Junction - no farming for air freshener or an asshat
Daily Dungeon - passing resistance checks, which saves some meat for healing
Hippy Camp - Their stench damage will be reduced
The Cyrpt - Spooky damage will be reduced
The tr4pz0r - 5000 meat for having cold resistance
The Icy Peak - Required to adventure there.

The biggest bonuses to keeping this skill are being able to adventure at the Icy Peak without cold weather gear, there's no need to find stench resistance items, so you can skip straight to Guano Junction, and 5000 meat, as well as skipping the extreme slope; probably in that order of usefulness. The other things are mostly just gravy.

Obviously, Elemental Saucesphere makes adventuring at the peak much nicer, you have the opportunity sooner, and you can get the benefits of your normal outfit, making the yetis easier to kill.


Advanced Saucecrafting

This skill allows you to use scrumptious reagents, in combination with various food items, to cook up a wide variety of sauces and salves. Allows you to cook with scrumptious reagents. Allows you to conjure a reagent three times a day at 10 MP each.

Another extremely useful hardcore skill (except for oxy and boozetafarian, again). Works very well in combination with Pastamastery to make reagent dishes, which require less cooking and less looking for than Chow Mein. You can also use this skill to make reagent potions, giving huge temporary bonuses to your stats.

Unless you're a muscle sign, you probably won't have enough resources to make as much Chow Mein as you can eat, which is why reagent food is so nice. On clover days you can get knob mushrooms or sausages from grab bags, which means very little turns spent food farming. For this reason it's good to keep a stock of a few clovers so you can get food on non-clover days. Note that although reagent dishes give less adventures for their fullness than Chow Mein, they make up for that in not requiring food farming. Essentially, if you have Advanced Saucecrafting, don't farm for Chow Mein ingredients. The hippy outfit is also not as essential with this skill for making food.

For reagent potions, it's general opinion that the only spot you should use them before the beanstalk is for killing the bonerdragon and goblin king (usually at the same time). They are much more useful in the Castle and the HitS.

Certain classes find reagent potions more helpful than others. Notably the Sauceror and Turtle Tamer. When playing these classes it's useful to save about 40 turns worth of reagents for the HitS (it should take about this long with a ~20 pound item drop familiar with buffs) and the rest for when starting the Castle - it will be more manageable later, after you've gotten some wheel stat adventures. You may want to use them for topiary golems but it's not necessary - goofballs can be used for these, as the Sorceress can take away withdrawal if you take another day, or buying a second lot to get rid of it on the next day will only cost 1k meat.

The hippy outfit can be useful for getting fruits to make reagent potions out of, but there are alternatives. You might pick up some fruit while trying for the disembodied brain in fernswarthy's tower, and you can spend some adventures in the menagerie fighting fruit golems when you need somewhere to level. Don't forget that you can make arse-a'fire elixirs (+200% muscle) with jabanero peppers. Spending a little more time than you need to in the Valley beyond the Orc Chasm to make an extra 31337 scroll or two can be a nice source of these, as well as clovers.

More under Impetuous Sauciness on managing your reagents.


Saucestorm

This spell creates a violent cloud of sauce, which engulfs an opponent and does 6-8 damage. The damage done by this spell increases slightly with your level. 6-8 damage; increases with level. 12MP [Awaiting exact level 10-11 damage]

A mid range Sauceror spell, this is the skill to use when you don't need as much damage as Wave of Sauce can do. It does decent damage, especially with Intrinsic Spiciness and a bunch of cookbooks. Not quite high enough damage reliable to two hit kill things in the castle and HitS. A good hit with Wave of Sauce and one of of these can, which will save a bit of MP (with Intrinsic Spiciness and 2-3 cookbooks). Also a nice skill to kill things quickly at low levels, though chronic indigestion can do comparable damage for less MP, unless you're boozetafarian or oxy.

Now that Sorceress damage is capped, this skill is much less useful for killing the Sorceress. If you have a bunch of MP to spare, you could use this a bit instead of Stream of Sauce.


Jalapeño Saucesphere

This spell will conjure a shell of spicy sauce around you (or another player.) Any monster who attacks the enchanted player must pass through the shield, and take damage. Monsters attacking you take damage which is converted into an HP gain for 10 Adventures at 5MP.

What it does is 1-5 damage to monsters when they hit you, giving you that amount in HP. So an average of 3 damage/hp every time a monster hits you. When fighting strong monsters which are hitting you, it can act effectively act like a max HP boost, as it'll be subtracting 1-5 from the monster's damage every time it hits you. The actual damage it does to monsters isn't really very much, but it can be enough to take a round off the fight.

Obviously this will be most effective for Muscle classes, since they tend to get hit the most. One cast will cost about 100 meat on average with soda water, equal to Medicinal herbs in price. So if you're getting hit once per battle it adds to 30 HP, twice a battle 60 HP, etc. As a HP restorer it tends to be much more effective than Doc Galaktik's, and a bit less effective than Medicinal Herbs. But it also does damage, and restores that HP in battle, without taking any time, which helps when fighting tough enemies.

For Moxie classes it's only useful when you're actually getting hit, which shouldn't be very often. Useful when using the Disco monster level lowering skills, or entangling noodles, because if you need to be using them, you'll sometimes be getting hit in the first few rounds of combat, so this can help survive past those hits, or just make it mean less meat spent on Doc Galaktiks.

For Mysticality classes, you might be getting a fair bit of HP and damage in early levels - before you could normally buy this skill. As long as you don't have enough moxie to not get hit. At low levels, this would be a pretty useful skill in pushing the limits of where you are strong enough to adventure. The HP gain (average 3) is significant when fighting knob goblin elite guards doing 6-8 damage (varies with moxie and damage absorption) at the time, and it's cheaper than using a combat skill to kill things every fight. At high levels for Mysticality classes it's a small boost to HP if they don't get initiative, though it likely won't help them survive two hits in the Castle/HitS if they can't already.

It can be used for its damage to monsters when attacking you in the tactic I've named the 'porcupine', more on that under Saucy Salve.

Now that Muscle classes have a 50% increase in HP and their first free attack in combat with initiative is gone, they will be hit more. This means this skill is a little more effective for them than before.


Wave of Sauce

This spell will conjure an immense wave of sauce, which will wash over your enemies and cleanse them from the face of the Cosmos. 23MP [Awaiting exact level 10-11 damage]

The most useful high damage spell that Saucerors have. With cookbooks and Spiciness you'll be able to two hit kill stuff in the Castle and HitS with this, so with initiative you'll only be taking one hit - most Sauceror's can survive one hit.

Spell damage is capped against the Sorceress now, so this skill will currently be a waste of MP when used against her.

Not a very useful skill for anyone but Saucerors (because Pastamancers have their own spells).


Intrinsic Spiciness

This skill makes you spicier, in general, than others. Your Sauce spells will do more damage to opponents. +1 spell damage per level; maximum +10. Only works with Sauceror spells.

When you can buy this, it's like a cookbook which you don't need to equip. Obviously, that's a pretty nice benefit when you need more spell damage.

As a kept skill, this really isn't too useful. It only works with Sauceror spells, so unless you have already kept the Sauceror spells you want, there isn't any point in having this for another class (Duh). If you were to keep this and other Sauceror skills, it would not be as effective at low levels. You shouldn't really be needing spells for anything much before level 6, save perhaps the boss bat, so the boost is still decent.

It helps in getting more damage per MP (efficiency), especially with Stream of Sauce.


Jabañero Saucesphere

This spell will summon a thick shell of extremely spicy sauce around you (or another player.) Any monster attacking a player with this shell will take damage. Monsters attacking you take damage which is converted into an MP gain for 10 Adventures at 10MP

The only skill in the game that can help you *restore* MP. (Unless you count +% meat drop skills for buying soda water.) Since soda water is such an awful MP restorer, and the only thing non-Mysticality classes can buy (except Accordion Thieves after level 9), getting enough MP to use skills and maintain a growing list of buffs can be difficult. This skill can help out with this, when used properly, and is the only skill that can do so.

Though it costs 10 MP for 10 turns of this skill, if you use it where you'll be getting hit once every battle, that's 20 MP 'profit', as well as some free damage. Muscle classes can usually just have this on when they are adventuring in areas that they get hit.

For its MP restoring qualities, it is not particularly useful to Mysticality classes as they have access to MMJs, it can be helpful for Muscle classes, and (when used carefully) for Moxie classes.

Some people like to use a weapon they can't hit with and switch to starfish for a battle, letting the starfish kill the monster to get MP. A similar, though much more difficult, thing can be done with Jabanero Saucesphere. It really only works at low levels, and you'll need to be able to get your Moxie to a level where the monster is still hitting you often, yet high enough to reduce its damage. It will also need to be as monster weak enough to be doing You'll want a bunch of Doc Galaktik's items, the 60 meat ones are the most efficient. Now, you'll let the monster hit you, healing with Doc Galaktiks while it does so, and letting the Jabanero Saucesphere kill it. If the monster is doing ~6 damage or under (add another three if you have Jalapeno Saucesphere as well), you'll be getting MP cheaper than soda water. Obviously, more damage absorption will make this more viable. A better option for Muscle classes (if they have some spare spleen to use) is to use a weak weapon with Jabanero Saucesphere (so the monster hits you more), then heal with Medicinal Herbs after the fight.

For the most part, this skill is best to just use when you're getting hit anyway. If you get hit once every three battles, it should pay for itself, more frequently and you're gaining MP.

It can be used for its damage to monsters when attacking you in the tactic I've named the 'porcupine', more on that under Saucy Salve.

Now that Muscle classes have a 50% increase in HP and their first free attack in combat with initiative is gone, they will be hit more. This means this skill is a little more effective for them than before.


Saucegeyser

This spell will call forth a tremendous geyser of Sauce from the ground at your enemy's feet. Few foes can withstand the savage combination of beating and drowning that this spell delivers. 40MP [Awaiting exact level 10-11 damage]

Though this is the highest damage spell in the game, it is also the highest MP cost spell in the game. Because spell damage is capped against the Sorceress, there is nothing you need the extra damage for. Its high MP cost and uselessness make this a fairly pointless skill to have.


Impetuous Sauciness

This is a passive skill that makes reagent potions give you 10 turns of their particular effect, rather than just 5. Reagent potions give 10 turns of their effect instead of 5.

Since reagents are so useful for making food, as well as for making reagent potions, it's easy to run out of them. This skill halves the amount of reagents you'll want to use for reagent potions. Obviously, this means you can eat more reagent food, and still have plenty of turns worth of reagent potions.

Note that it can be useful to fight a bit in the laboratory if you have nothing left to look for and are an appropriate level. Reagents can drop there, as well as MP restorers. An extra two or three reagents found here can be a big help after the beanstalk.

Some people say that this skill isn't worth bothering with, because every class can get through the Castle and HitS without reagent potions. The problem is that doing so can be extremely expensive. With Medicinal Herbs, it is not as bad for Muscle classes any more, but adventuring there still remains expensive, and for some classes extremely difficult (or not doable without getting initiative). Reagent potions make adventuring there cost barely anything, and you shouldn't ever lose.

If you are a Mysticality sign (Mind Control Device), or have the Stainless Steel Scarf, or a ring of aggravate monster or two, you should be able to use these while you have your boost from reagent potions. Without the potions, it's generally not worth it to use these in the Castle or HitS.

[Smidge]

Disco Bandit Skills


Disco Aerobics

By disco dancing at your campsite, you can put youself in a Disco State of Mind. Your Moxie will increase for a period of time. +2 Mox for 5 Adventures at 1 MP.

+2 Moxie. Of the starting skills, this is probably the best. +2 Moxie is starting to get somewhat useful. While still not much compared to Madrigal, this skill could be useful for the day 1s where you can't get an accordion (if it's not a clover day and you're unlucky in the sewer).

An okay boost to have on top of hair spray, and cheaper per turn to have on. For comparison of price: hair spray is 8 meat per turn, this is 3.5 meat per turn with soda water - Madrigal would be 7 meat per turn, or 2.333 with R&R Legend. Obviously the bonuses to moxie they give are different, but with Moxie, there's a point after which more is useless for a given monster, so you may just want to use the cheapest option to reach that point. This skill is worth remembering to keep on, whenever you might need it.

So if you're going for the trophy, I'd recommend this skill to be the first of them. It's also not as useless as the others, so once you've run out of useful skills to pick up and you're doing things like picking up damage absorption skills, you could get this without it being a waste.

See also: Seal Clubbing Frenzy, Patience of the Tortoise, Manicotti Meditation, Sauce Contemplation, Moxie of the Mariachi, The Moxious Madrigal.


Disco Eye-Poke

In the course of your disco dancing, you can poke your opponent in the eye (or eye analogue,) doing a small amount of damage and throwing your opponent off guard. 1-3 damage and monster level -1, combat skill costing 3 MP.

1-3 damage, monster level -1. Pitiful. But then, if you're 1 moxie short of being able to not get hit by a monster, you could use this as you wouldn't need anything stronger. But then, for the same MP cost you could use Entangling Noodles, which will reduce the monster's muscle by 6 - practically 6 times the effectiveness for the same cost.

This skill really isn't very useful at all. If you want something that can reduce monster level, and not just a monster's Muscle, grab one of the higher level Disco skills.

See also: Entangling Noodles, Disco Dance of Doom, Disco Dance II: Electric Boogaloo, Disco Face Stab.


Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation

This skill makes you less likely to be taken by surprise in combat, and increases your chances of successfully running away from a monster. A passive +20% Combat Initiative.

This is a pretty awesome skill, the fact that the +20% initiative is passive makes this the only good boost for initiative at low levels - fusilli is a great initiative boosting skill, but the MP cost it just too high to be practical at low levels. So it lets you get initiative more often at low levels, and makes Fusilli more certain of giving you initiative at later levels.

Initiative is a pretty useful thing; getting it is practically required for Mysticality classes if they are to kill things with spells in the Castle/HitS. It also helps Muscle classes take a *lot* less damage. It's not as useful for Moxie classes, as for the most part they won't be getting hit, though it can be nice when using skills like Disco Face Stab or Entangling Noodles. If you're able to 1 hit kill things, initiative is especially nice, as you'll be invincible.

Depending on your run order you might want this or Fusilli first. Both are not a high priority if you're Teetotaler or Oxygenarian going Mysticality sign, as you can get a bonerdagon necklace, which should serve most of your initiative needs. Otherwise, you'll probably want both.

See also: Springy Fusilli, Cletus's Canticle of Celerity, Armorcraftiness.


Disco Nap

This skill allows you to take a quick Disco Nap, and heal some of your wounds. Noncombat, heals about 20 HP. Removes Wussiness, Sleepy, Embarrassed, and Confused effects. Costs 8 MP.

If you want to restore HP for MP, Lasagna Bandages would be a better skill to have. If you're paying for this with soda water, it's not at all worthwhile, in fact it's a little cheaper to use Ailment Ointment.

So is this skill completely useless? Not quite, as it "Removes Wussiness, Sleepy, Embarrassed, and Confused effects." Sleepy, Embarrassed and Confused are all ! potion effects, and being able to get rid of them makes using any ! potions you get while going for the wand more worthwhile (drunkeness unless you're Oxy/Teeto and Teleportitis remain).

See also: Disco Power Nap, Lasagna Bandages, Cannelloni Cocoon, Tongue of the Otter, Tongue of the Walrus, Saucy Salve.


Disco Dance of Doom

You can bust a disco move all up out the joint, damaging your opponent all the while. This skill will inflict 6-8 points of damage. 6-8 damage damage and monster level -3 combat skill, costing 5 MP.

These lowering monster level skills really aren't useful for the damage, they're useful for... lowering monster level. So -3 for 5 MP is getting to be somewhat useful, unlike Eye-Poke. If you're only 3 moxie away from being able to avoid getting hit at all, using this instead of Disco Dance II would be worthwhile, otherwise using this skill repeatedly is much less efficient.

See also: Entangling Noodles, Disco Eye-Poke, Disco Dance II: Electric Boogaloo, Disco Face Stab.


Advanced Cocktailcrafting

This skill focuses your disco groove into the ability to make special high-quality cocktails. Allows you to make advanced booze, and summon 3 garnish ingredients a day at 10 MP each.

I'm gonna leave this evaluation until I'm done with my Teetotaler runs. Right now I've done 2 no path runs (my first 2), and 17 Teetotaler runs, so I really don't have enough experience with this skill to definitively say much about it. Sorry.


Nimble Fingers

Your mad looting skills will cause the amount of meat dropped by monsters to increase. A passive +20% Meat drops.

+20% meat drops really isn't that much. 32-48 extra meat on every icy peak adventure. In getting from level 1-8 is where you'll really be needing meat, however the base meat drops from level 1-8 are small (meat drops starting getting decent at 8 with the mine, goatlet, and peak). This skill will only give you a couple of hundred meat in all of levels 1 through 7, so if you want more meat then, this skill really won't help you much.

I approximate a passive +20% to give about a maximum of 7000 meat in a speed run, so it's not much. Not worth buying on the run you're on, perhaps worth keeping once you've got all the good skills. A quick calculation says ~+47 substats from the hall of legends, perhaps *1.5 if there's a handy stat day. So it saves you 1-2 adventures off a run. Better than nothing, but low priority.

Compared to the drops you'll get from a cymbal monkey/bitten, +20% is tiny. If you don't have a bitten/cymbal monkey, uhm, why are you getting meat drop skills in hardcore? Seriously, you're better off spending your time doing a couple of runs for canned air and selling them to buy one. Entering contests (radio, forum, or /games) is also worthwhile.

See also: The Polka of Plenty, Gnefarious Pickpocketing, Expert Panhandling.


Disco Dance II: Electric Boogaloo

This advanced form of the Disco Dance of Doom is sure to leave your enemies both smacked around and confused. 8-10 damage and monster level -5 combat skill, costing 7 MP.

So now we're getting to good monster level reduction (damage is still pretty useless). Of the Disco Bandit monster level reduction skills, this is the most efficient in terms of monster level reduced per MP. Disco Face stab comes in a close second, so it's really a matter of using the skill that gives you the closest reduction to what you need.

For example: Say you're 3 moxie short of 100% dodging a monster, you could use Disco Dance of Doom because you don't need any more monster level reduction. If you're 12 short, you might use one Disco Face Stab, and a Disco Dance II. Okay, I'm sure you get the idea 'cause you're obviously incredibly clever if you're reading this.

While -5 monster level is nice, Entangling Noodles gives -6 monster Muscle for less than half the MP cost - If you only need to be able to dodge, keeping that is probably a far better choice.

See also: Entangling Noodles, Disco Eye-Poke, Disco Dance of Doom, Disco Face Stab.


Mad Looting Skillz

This skill will increase the rate at which the monsters you slay drop items. A passive +20% item drops.

+20% item drops, the best item drop skill there is. Most people try and get this skill fairly quickly, because being able to find whatever item you want quickly helps a lot. This would be one of the top hardcore skills to get.

Anyone who has played a few runs will surely have stories to tell of the item that just wouldn't drop, which is why most people go after this skill so quickly. Hell, it's why so many people that don't know better decide to get this before Pastamastery, which I wouldn't recommend at all, 'cause more turns means more time to look for stuff. (I say this mostly because it was my first hardcore skill, but people didn't know any better back when ascension was first out and everyone was a newbie)

So most people rank this somewhere around the 5th hardcore skill to take.

One of the perks of a skill like this is not just getting what you *need* sooner, but being able to more often get what you *want* when you're just passing through. That includes getting things like the baseball when getting your sonar biscuits, so you won't need to backfarm if you get a certain tower monster.

As I said under Powers of Observatiogn: Finding the right items can be a big part of Hardcore, and aside from using an item drop familiar (which can cost stats or meat/MP) item drop skills are all you can do to help get the right items.

With item drops, every extra bit of increase helps.

See also: Powers of Observatiogn, Fat Leon's Phat Loot Lyric.


Disco Power Nap

This is an improved version of the Disco Nap. Noncombat, heals about 40 HP. Removes Wussiness, Sleepy, Embarrassed, and Confused effects. Costs 12 MP.

Well, this skill is a bit better than Ailment Ointment in terms of HP per meat (with soda water). It still, however, is not worth buying - 9k meat? Blech. In terms of kept healing skills, you'd be better off casting Lasagna Bandages twice, since it's more flexible.

So, this skill isn't worth buying as a Disco Bandit, and not worth keeping as a healing skill. If you want "Removes Wussiness, Sleepy, Embarrassed, and Confused effects", then get Disco Nap since it's cheaper.

See also: Disco Nap, Lasagna Bandages, Cannelloni Cocoon, Tongue of the Otter, Tongue of the Walrus, Saucy Salve.


Disco Face Stab

This is a vastly improved version of the Disco Eye Poke. Instead of poking your opponent in the eye, you stab him (or her, or it) in the face. This is sure to cause him (or her, or it) some problems. 15-18 damage and Monster level -7 combat skill, costing 10 MP.

The highest monster level reduction you'll get from a skill (-7), and some fairly irrelevant damage. So, being the highest this skill is the most useful when you're fighting something much stronger than you - Say you're 25 moxie short of out-moxieing it, you're more likely to survive through using this skill 4 times than through using Disco Dance II 5 times.

If you're only buying one of these skills, it should probably be this or Disco Dance II. Both are fairly similar in MP cost per monster level reduction, so which to use is mostly a matter of whichever is more appropriate for the amount of monster level reduction you need.

See also: Entangling Noodles, Disco Eye-Poke, Disco Dance of Doom, Disco Dance II: Electric Boogaloo.


Crossbow Fever

This skill makes you significantly less likely to miss when firing a crossbow. Decreases chance of missing with a crossbow. Essentially +10 Moxie when calculating to-hit when using a crossbow, though only when you're doing the hitting.

While this *may* seem useful, it's not. So all this skill does is increases your chance to hit with a crossbow. If you're using a crossbow, chances are that you're trying to out-moxie whatever you're fighting, and when you're doing that, chances are your hit rate is practically 100% anyway. So the only place this skill will do anything is if you're being hit by a monster and want to hit back with your crossbow but can't get enough moxie. One problem with that though - crossbows do a pretty pathetic amount of damage, whatever you're fighting will most likely kill you before you've put much of a dent in it.

So is there any usefulness to this skill at all? Perhaps. If you're using Entangling Noodles in order to out-moxie something, you might have trouble hitting it, this'll help with that problem.

But there's also a problem with it - if you're using Entangling Noodles several times (4 and above) when using a starfish (where you don't want to be able to hit), you might be able to still use a ranged weapon and not hit. Whoops, not with this skill.

See also: Entangling Noodles.

[Smidge]

Accordion Thief Skills


Accordion Thief skills are unique, as such, I'll say a bit about them in general.

Firstly, all Accordion Thief skills save Moxie of the Mariachi require a stolen accordion or Rock and Roll Legend to use. As such, it is extremely useful to have a clover day on day 1 once you've picked up a few Accordion Thief skills, both because a clover is required to make a Rock and Roll Legend, and because being able to use a clover for a spice loop can make getting a stolen accordion much easier.

Unless your only Accordion Thief skill is Moxious Madrigal, you will very probably want to get a Rock and Roll Legend as soon as possible. Triple the duration is *very* helpful, especially since many Accordion Thief skills have quite a high MP cost. Since you'll be getting a Rock and Roll Legend every run, you'll be able to make the epic weapon for any class fairly easily, since you can untinker your Rock and Roll Legend when you don't need it for the big rock to make other epic weapons, which can make skipping a kentucky fried weapon a lot easier. For Accordion Thieves, the Rock and Roll Legend is even useable up to getting a star crossbow from the HitS.

Excluding Moxie of the Mariachi, you can only have 3 effects from Accordion Thief skills at a time (unless you have the HCO AT reward, which bumps it up to 4). This means you'll want to manage the skills well - you might want to only have a skill (like ode to booze) going for a short period, so you can free up the song slot sooner. Equipping a stolen accordion to get 5 turns from any Accordion Thief skill (even while you've got a Rock and Roll Legend in your inventory) is useful for this. It also means that some skills, while they may give good effects, can be rather useless because there are 3 other better skills to be using.

The three main skills I'd recommend having on the majority of the time are Madrigal (or perhaps Symphony for Muscle class, or Power Ballad), Phat Loot, and Antiphon. There will be times when other skills may be preferable, but these are what I'd recommend getting first, and having on when you don't especially need something else.


Moxie of the Mariachi

By diligently practicing playing the accordion at your campsite, you can channel the Moxie of the Mariachi -- your Moxie and Maximum HP will increase for a period of time. +1 Moxie, +4 HP for 5 Adventures at 1 MP.

1 Moxie is a pretty small boost, though since Moxie is such an awesome stat, it's worth remembering when you're trying to out-moxie something tough - 1 Moxie can make the difference between being hit rarely, and not being hit at all. Mostly, just have this on if you're being hit.

Not really worth keeping unless you're going for the trophy, unless in the fairly distant future where you've got all but the crappy skills kept.


The Moxious Madrigal

Hearing this song will fill you (or somebody else) with great Moxie. +10 Moxie for 5/15 Adventures at 2 MP.

+10 Moxie is an awesome, significant boost to a useful stat. This skill is most people's first kept Accordion Thief skill with very good reason.

The +10 Moxie can be useful for doing the Daily Dungeon earlier and meeting stat requirements, particularly that of Itznotyerzitz Mine while beaten up.

If it's your first accordion thief run, buy this ASAP, if it's not, you should probably have it already kept .

Madrigal is very nice for Disco Bandits as it can mean being able to fight tougher monsters, or not needing to use as many face stabs/disco dances/etc.

Mysticality classes can use this skill to more effectively use Moxie strategies pre-beanstalk. After, it just means taking a little less damage.

For Muscle classes, it's probably just a little damage reduction, with the Seal Clubber skills Eye of the Stoat and Thrust-Smack/Lunging Thrust-Smack, Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction may be a better skill to be using, once you've got it. Madrigal is still a higher priority for keeping though.


The Magical Mojomuscular Melody

This song will attune you (or somebody else) with your (or somebody else's) spirituality (hippy) and increase your (or somebody else's) maximum MP. +30 MP for 5/15 Adventures at 3 MP.

30 MP is a decent boost, though Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises is a more useful one which should probably be kept first. The combination of the two could be quite nice - casting this skill once would give you a high enough max MP to cast *anything*, while potentially making low level starfish farming much more effective.

So, +30 MP. There really is only one good, practical application for this skill - getting a high enough max MP to cast very high cost skills like Antiphon and Ode. The best place to use this would probably be as a Moxie class in the Menagerie as soon as you are able to get the lab key (very start of level 5, hopefully). There, the starfish can be used to fill up that new high MP to be able to use those good skills. This may work well in place of phat loot when starfish MP farming, since you'll still want Antiphon for the substats, and Madrigal to help with not being hit. Muscle classes may have a bit more trouble using the starfish in this manner, especially at such a low level. Entangling noodles (this skill has a pretty low MP cost, so it can still be quite effective with starfish farming) and Madrigal, with some nice Moxie equipment should however make it fairly doable. Mysticality classes won't need it, especially once after keeping Wisdom.

Mostly, this is just a skill to sometimes use with your starfish, you should only need 5 turns of it, so put away the R&R Legend and get out your stolen accordion.


Cletus's Canticle of Celerity

Upon hearing this song, you (or somebody else) will begin to move very quickly, and with improved combat reaction times. +30% Combat Initiative for 5/15 Adventures at 4 MP

While combat initiative is definitely useful, so are your 3 song slots. As such, the other initiative skills, notably Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation and Springy Fusilli should be a higher priority. After getting those skills, initiative won't be a problem.

The best use for this skill seems to be against the shadow to save a few red pixel potions (which really isn't that useful, anyway), though this should be the last initiative skill acquired (armorcraftiness included). If you can get wind up clocks (from the Muscle store), infernal insoles (if you find them while doing the quest), or a Bonerdagon necklace, you may not need this skill at all, for any purpose.


The Power Ballad of the Arrowsmith

This song will fill you (or somebody else) with passionate intensity, and great Strengthliness. +10 Muscle for 5/15 Adventures at 5 MP.

Muscle Boost. A nice one for getting past stat requirements, such as the Daily Dungeon. This skill alone may not be sufficient for doing the Mine while beaten up as a Muscle class, however with either Boris's ring, Rage of the Reindeer (kept), or Stevedave's Shanty of Superiority (kept), it should be.

There may be cases where you might want to use this instead of Symphony to save MP. If you need help to hit with normal attacks, this skill will be useful, but if you need more damage, especially using TS/LTS, Symphony is more appropriate.

If you don't have the Stoat and TS/LTS combo, this skill may be more useful than Symphony, though this skill should be a lower priority than Stoat and LTS/TS, so that doesn't really matter.


The Polka of Plenty

This song will fill you (or somebody else) with greed, and make more Meat drop from monsters in combat. +50% meat drop rate for 5/15 Adventures at 7 MP.

+50% meat drops... This skill really isn't likely to be worth using unless you're at the icy peak, where it'll give +80-120 meat per yeti. Earlier, it really doesn't do enough to be at all that useful, especially since it uses up a song slot and costs a decent amount of meat in soda water. Later, you'll probably be wanting the song slot for Madrigal or Symphony.


Brawnee's Anthem of Absorption

Upon hearing this song, you (or somebody else) will gain a strange absorbency. Monsters will do less damage to you (or somebody else) in combat. +40 Damage Absorption for 5/15 Adventures at 9 MP.

Wow, so let's take something as useless and ineffective as damage absorption, make a skill that gives a small boost to it, and make it take up a valuable song slot... I'm not really sure why this skill bothers existing, it should probably just give up and die.

[Smidge]

Non Class-Specific Skills


Chronic Indigestion

You have chronic indigestion. Your occasional fiery belches might be useful in a combat situation. 5 MP. 5-10 damage +1 for every fullness point you have for the day. You get it by eating an insanely spicy enchanted bean burrito.

Comparable to low-level spells. 20-25 damage when full without stomach of steel, and 25-30 with it - Considering it always hits (except NS and bonerdragon), costs 5 MP, and is free, it's a pretty nice skill. A lot of its usefulness comes from the fact that it is free - ISEBB are a pretty decent food, and there may often be a need for a 3 fullness food, especially without the stomach of steel where two reagent foods gives 12 fullness.

Mysticality classes can get this instead of a low level spell - meat can be tight in the early game, so not having to buy a low level spell can help. It can do good damage for a low MP cost, without needing +spell damage to do so. It is especially nice since the low level spells scale - they do lower damage at low levels. Chronic indigestion does a relatively good amount of damage with a small, thus reliable, range. With +spell damage equipment more damage is possible spells, but this obviously takes up accessory slots.

For Moxie classes Chronic Indigestion can be a way to get a good hit, all the time - when fighting something tough where you don't have enough Moxie to dodge much, it can be useful to get a good damage hit, instead of the very low damage of ranged weapons.

For Muscle classes, it can be a skill used to hit, at least before Eye of the stoat/Thrust Smack or Spectral Snapper. Muscle classes won't always be able to get enough Muscle to get a good hit chance on normal attacks. This skill can be nice at those times, both because it does decent damage/MP, and it doesn't cost any meat to get the skill - Eye of the Stoat + TS can be fairly expensive at very low levels, this can be an alternative. This skill is much more efficient in damage/MP than Spectral Snapper where you can afford the combat to take more rounds.

It can make a nice skill to use to kill the Sorceress - fairly low MP cost with middling damage. Now that all spells are capped agaisnt the Sorceress, it is only a little weaker than them. Thrust-Smack is still strong, so Indigestion will probably only be a good skill against the Sorceress until you've got Thrust-Smack and Eye of the Stoat.

All character classes can get this easily, thus it works well in combination with Entangling Noodles - after lowering a monster's muscle so it can't hit you, you may not be able to hit with a normal attack. Here, Chronic Indigestion can be used to hit. Especially useful for Accordion Thieves and Turtle Tamers since they have no skills that can always hit (Turtle Tamers have Spectral Snapper, but that's level 10 - Entangling noodles probably won't be a very effective strategy at that point).


Torso Awaregness

This skill allows you to understand how to use the middle part of your body to wear things known as "shirts."

Shirts can give a small stat boost, and damage absorption. Without going out of your way, the shirts you *may* find are the frilly shirt (+3 Myst, 20 damage absorption, harem girl t-shirt (+3 Moxie, 25 damage absorption), Knob Goblin elite shirt (+3 Muscle, 35 damage absorption), pirate shirt (+3 Moxie, 50 damage absorption), and the goth kid t-shirt (+100 damage absorption). Of these, the goth kid t-shirt is the only one you will reliably be able to get.

So after the Castle, this can effectively be a damage absorption skill. Before, if you're lucky, a bit of damage absorption and + stats. If you're going for damage absorption, this skill could be useful, and the possibility of +3 Moxie or +3 Muscle would be fairly nice.


Gnefarious Pickpocketing

This skill lets you gaffle a little bit more Meat from monsters you defeat. +10% meat drops.

An extra 10% meat. This will give 16-24 more meat for each adventure at the icy peak... yay? This skill isn't likely to pay for itself in a hardcore ascension - I'd estimate it could be making ~3500 meat per run at best, in which case you'll likely have enough meat for this extra to just be more Hall of Legends donation meat. Thus its only value would be as a kept skill for a tiny amount of substats. Except perhaps Polka of Plenty at the peak (80-120 extra meat), none of the meat drop skills will really be effective enough to be worthwhile to keep for a long time, and they're all useless as non-kept skills because they aren't likely to pay for themselves.

This is the equal most useless of the meat drop skills (panhandling). Unless you're in a hurry to get the trophy (in which case a few softcore runs would probably be better), this skill will not be worth keeping for a long time.


Gnomish Hardigness

This skill makes you hardy, like a gnome. A hardy gnome. A hardy boy gnome, or a hardy girl gnome. Doesn't really matter. +10% HP.

10% more HP. More HP can be useful to be able to survive long enough to kill tough monsters. It also can help reduce the frequency Muscle classes need to use Medicinal herbs, meaning they can go for longer without needing to resort to Doc Galaktik's due to a full spleen.

Obviously Spirit of Ravioli is a better bonus (+25%), and if you're going for HP boosts, you'll want it first. Actually, Spirit of Ravioli should be plenty of extra HP, but different combat styles may necessitate different skills.

Note that many believe that increasing your HP increases the damage the Sorceress does, rendering healing items relatively less effective.


Cosmic Ugnderstanding

Like a mystical, mystical gnome, you're more in touch with the Cosmos than most people are. And with the Redbooks. +10% MP.

+10% MP is peanuts compared to Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises (+50% MP). Obviously, if you want a higher max MP, you should get Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises first.

Essentially this can help in the same ways as Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises, just to a much lesser degree. After you have most all of the other skills you can use, this can add a touch more to Wisdom's effectiveness.


Powers of Observatiogn

This skill makes you observant, like a very, very observant gnome. It increases the number of items you find when fighting monsters. +10% item drops.

Passive item drop boost, awesome. Not as large a boost as Mad Looting Skills (+20%) or Phat Loot (+20%), so you may want both of those first if going for item drop skills.

Increased item drop skills can be great to have - Mad Looting Skills is considered one of the top hardcore skills. With half the boost of Mad Looting skills, this skill is still useful, however not as high a priority - Most people will probably also want Phat Loot before this skill, and Madrigal before Phat Loot, and a bunch of other skills higher priority than Powers of Observatiogn.

Item drop skills can help you find the items you need more quickly (the letters, for example), and make you more likely to find what you want while you're passing through. Item drop skills can help to not have to go back for necessary items with an item drop familiar.

Finding the right items can be a big part of Hardcore, and aside from using an item drop familiar (which can cost stats or meat/MP) item drop skills are all you can do to help get the right items.

With item drops, every extra bit of increase helps.

[Macman104]

Smidge, any chance you'll be revamping this to reflect new skills and such?
_________________

[PatMcRotch]

The answer to your question.