Pastamancer lvl 7-13
Feb. 27th, 2010 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoAround level 7-8, the Pastamancer goes from an impoverished wimp to an insane killing machine. That is, if you've played your cards right.
When you get to level 7, you should have the following (in rough order of obtaining):
- entangling noodles (cost: 800 meat)
- at least 2 cookbooks (1 bought from store for 4000 meat, 1 obtained from Haunted Library)
- ravioli shurikens (cost: 200 meat)
- legendary epic weapon quest completed
- pastamastery (cost: 5000 meat)
- epic hat obtained & all other guild quests completed
- springy fusilli (cost: 6000 meat)
- chefstave (catgut + spices, cherry + boxed wine, guano + herbs, concentrated magicalness pill, MMJ for 100)
- spirit of rigatoni (cost: 7000 meat)
- cannelloni cannon (cost: 3200 meat)
- unlock mushroom fields for 5000 as soon as possible as you'll need 6 days or so to do Mayor Zapruder's second quest to unlock spooky gravy barrows
Total meat cost: 31.3k (plan accordingly)
I list Cannelloni Cannon after obtaining the lvl 7 skill & chefstave because that attack is not really worth casting considering the damage/MP until you have both a stave and the epic hat and a fair sized MP pool. Remember you'll also be upkeeping springy fusilli at 10 MP/10 turns throughout all combat rounds except low level areas you can naturally out-moxie.
After the above, you hardly need to buy skills at all until near the end. Leash of Linguini for buffing your leprechaun at the lvl 12 nun's sub-quest & for the tower familiars. Spirit of Ravioli and Cannelloni Cocoon for the gremlins sub-quest and NS/Nemesis boss fights. Don't bother buying Weapon of the Pastalord unless you're planning to do aftercore to lvl 30 or something. At under lvl 15-ish, it does not do appreciatively better damage/MP than Cannelloni Cannon. AND, you can get an almost equivalent attack for free from the Spookyraven Manor quest.
Overall focus:
The main focus on the earlier levels should be more on getting all the guild quests completed, as they provide much more important rewards than the normal per-level quests. Secondary focus is on getting money, so you might also consider leaving the tavern quest incomplete to farm the rat whiskers until you can take the knob goblin treasury (or got lucky at Tower Ruins and got a disembodied brain for bartender).
Equipment:
In the really lower levels, go for moxie gear as usual. Once you pick up springy fusilli/chefstave set at lvl 6-7, you should start dropping moxie and going for spell damage gear. Some general tips...
Hat - chef's hat > epic hat > spagetti cult mask (first part of volcano after 90 mainstat)
Weapon - shiny butcherknife (haunted kitchen) > legendary epic weapon > chefstaff
Offhand - cookbook of given element (more on this later); against bosses in late game, use a good shield (wonderwall shield, battered hubcap)
Pants - Angelhair Culottes from Nemesis island (not final boss fight)
Accessories, in order of preference...
blackberry slippers (for 10 blackberries in Black Forest)
woven baling wire bracelets (lvl 12 junkyard subquest; zap if you got a different reward)
clingfilm slippers (if you've got enough clingfilm from pirates area)
enchanted toothpick (from spooky gravy barrow)
silver tongue/tarnished charrrm bracelet (from pirates)
ring of increase damage (zapping ring of aggravate monster from DoD)
bonerdragon necklace (for +initiative)
For the cookbook, there are 6 flavors. 5 which also forces attacking element, and 1 which doesn't. Don't bother with the vanilla kickback cookbook unless you have Flavor of Magic permed already. Instead, use elemental ones so you can aim for elemental weaknesses for double damage. Note that if you attack a mob in the element it has resistance, you'll only do 1 damage even though the spell usually hits for 100+. So this is important...
- Spookyraven Manor (except for Pantry/Kitchen), Misspelled Cemetary, Spooky Gravy Barrow, Oasis, Ancient Pyramid has mobs with resistance to spooky, weakness to hot/stench.
- Harem, Ruins, Frat House/Battlefield(as War Hippy), Hole in the Sky has mobs with resistance to sleaze, weakness to cold/spooky.
- Friars & all sub areas, Arid Desert has mobs with resistance to hot, weakness to stench/sleaze.
- Hippy Camp/Battlefield(as Frat Warrior), Orchard has mobs with resistance to stench, weakness to cold/sleaze.
- Lair of Ninja Snowmen, Icy Peak has mobs with resistance to cold, weakness to hot/spooky
Fun House & McMillicancuddy's Farm have mobs with different resistances/weaknesses, so just use combat items or physical damage or run flavor of magic. eXtreme Slope has hippies and orcs. Orc Chasm has spelling as the element, so ignore that. I ignored areas under lvl 5 as you can just use physical damage there anyway to save mana. The rest of the areas have mobs with no elemental resistance/weaknesses.
Of the two store-bought tomes (hot and cold damage), I prefer to buy the cold damage book because the only areas resistant to it are not related to any quests. Then get Cookbook of the Damned for stench damage from the Haunted Library. That covers my bases for pretty much all of the areas I need to go through.
Tonight, I'm going to try to get to lvl 13 and complete the Naughty Sorceress. It'll be interesting to see if I can kill her without having to level my moxie.
Nemesis Boss Fight:
I did the Nemesis fight first for no real reason than to see if I could. Now, I'd had my butt kicked by the Nemesis several times yesterday, so I knew it was tough to stay alive. In the end, the strategy ended up thus:
- Bought and used Mer-kin roundshield and bottle of Mystic Shell for +49 DR. This brought the normal damage per round from the boss from ~40 to ~20.
- Rest of the outfit was: reinforced headband for HP, Angelhair Culottes pants, blackberry slippers, woven baling wire bracelets, bonerdragon necklace
- Had about 10 filthy poultices/gauze garters on hand (only needed to use about 3-4); red pixel potions would've been better, but I was saving those for NS
- Used the macaroni duck with full buffs as extra damage and mana regen
- Was also fully buffed by buffbot :-/
The sequence of attacks used was: entangle > noodles of fire > entangle > cannelloni cannon > entangle > cannon > entangle ... etc., with occasionally a filthy poultice in place of cannon if HP got low. (In retrospect, Fetucinni was a better attack to use than Cannon.)
Granted, in a HC run, Merk-kin roundshield isn't available. Hopefully a Wonderwall shield will do with the extra HP. The bottle of Mystic Shell is a semi-rare, so it is obtainable in HC with some prep using the fortune cookies.
However, since the items obtained from the Nemesis fight isn't all that useful for the NS fight, it's probably better to wait until after breaking the prism to complete this fight.
Naughty Sorceress Fight:
Again, I followed the advice on the forums and let her beat me up 4-5 times first to reduce her blocking.
Equipment used was: reinforced headband (for HP), wonderwall shield (for DR & HP), staff of the well-tempered cauldron (bought the lvl 15 skill component), angelhair culottes, woven baling wire bracelets, blackberry slippers, shiny hood ornament (for HP/MP).
Stats (with only EQ bonus) were: 116 musc, 195 myst, 118 mox, 299 HP, 322 MP.
I had a bunch of sausage bombs and macrame nets on hand, but as it turned out I didn't need to use any of them. I also had 2 red pixel potions left over as well as some filthy poultices/gauze garters. I ended up using 1 pixel potion (the other one got blocked) and 2 (1 blocked) poultices, but managed to kill her without using any nets/bombs.
Fight went like this: Keep casting entangling until it gets in. Then keep casting Fearful Fetucinni until it gets in. Recast entangling if she throws it off. The spells get in about 1 out of 2-4 casts. Entangle lasts about 4 rounds after it gets in. Fetucinni does about 350-390 damage per cast, so it only takes 2-3 hits to kill her for either form.
All in all, the NS fight was easier than I'd thought it'd be, as I killed her in the first serious try (before the first few throwaway fights) without having to use items.
In other news, I broke the prism with exactly 1 turn left. However, I hadn't eaten yet for today except for 2 fortune cookies. ^_^
When you get to level 7, you should have the following (in rough order of obtaining):
- entangling noodles (cost: 800 meat)
- at least 2 cookbooks (1 bought from store for 4000 meat, 1 obtained from Haunted Library)
- ravioli shurikens (cost: 200 meat)
- legendary epic weapon quest completed
- pastamastery (cost: 5000 meat)
- epic hat obtained & all other guild quests completed
- springy fusilli (cost: 6000 meat)
- chefstave (catgut + spices, cherry + boxed wine, guano + herbs, concentrated magicalness pill, MMJ for 100)
- spirit of rigatoni (cost: 7000 meat)
- cannelloni cannon (cost: 3200 meat)
- unlock mushroom fields for 5000 as soon as possible as you'll need 6 days or so to do Mayor Zapruder's second quest to unlock spooky gravy barrows
Total meat cost: 31.3k (plan accordingly)
I list Cannelloni Cannon after obtaining the lvl 7 skill & chefstave because that attack is not really worth casting considering the damage/MP until you have both a stave and the epic hat and a fair sized MP pool. Remember you'll also be upkeeping springy fusilli at 10 MP/10 turns throughout all combat rounds except low level areas you can naturally out-moxie.
After the above, you hardly need to buy skills at all until near the end. Leash of Linguini for buffing your leprechaun at the lvl 12 nun's sub-quest & for the tower familiars. Spirit of Ravioli and Cannelloni Cocoon for the gremlins sub-quest and NS/Nemesis boss fights. Don't bother buying Weapon of the Pastalord unless you're planning to do aftercore to lvl 30 or something. At under lvl 15-ish, it does not do appreciatively better damage/MP than Cannelloni Cannon. AND, you can get an almost equivalent attack for free from the Spookyraven Manor quest.
Overall focus:
The main focus on the earlier levels should be more on getting all the guild quests completed, as they provide much more important rewards than the normal per-level quests. Secondary focus is on getting money, so you might also consider leaving the tavern quest incomplete to farm the rat whiskers until you can take the knob goblin treasury (or got lucky at Tower Ruins and got a disembodied brain for bartender).
Equipment:
In the really lower levels, go for moxie gear as usual. Once you pick up springy fusilli/chefstave set at lvl 6-7, you should start dropping moxie and going for spell damage gear. Some general tips...
Hat - chef's hat > epic hat > spagetti cult mask (first part of volcano after 90 mainstat)
Weapon - shiny butcherknife (haunted kitchen) > legendary epic weapon > chefstaff
Offhand - cookbook of given element (more on this later); against bosses in late game, use a good shield (wonderwall shield, battered hubcap)
Pants - Angelhair Culottes from Nemesis island (not final boss fight)
Accessories, in order of preference...
blackberry slippers (for 10 blackberries in Black Forest)
woven baling wire bracelets (lvl 12 junkyard subquest; zap if you got a different reward)
clingfilm slippers (if you've got enough clingfilm from pirates area)
enchanted toothpick (from spooky gravy barrow)
silver tongue/tarnished charrrm bracelet (from pirates)
ring of increase damage (zapping ring of aggravate monster from DoD)
bonerdragon necklace (for +initiative)
For the cookbook, there are 6 flavors. 5 which also forces attacking element, and 1 which doesn't. Don't bother with the vanilla kickback cookbook unless you have Flavor of Magic permed already. Instead, use elemental ones so you can aim for elemental weaknesses for double damage. Note that if you attack a mob in the element it has resistance, you'll only do 1 damage even though the spell usually hits for 100+. So this is important...
- Spookyraven Manor (except for Pantry/Kitchen), Misspelled Cemetary, Spooky Gravy Barrow, Oasis, Ancient Pyramid has mobs with resistance to spooky, weakness to hot/stench.
- Harem, Ruins, Frat House/Battlefield(as War Hippy), Hole in the Sky has mobs with resistance to sleaze, weakness to cold/spooky.
- Friars & all sub areas, Arid Desert has mobs with resistance to hot, weakness to stench/sleaze.
- Hippy Camp/Battlefield(as Frat Warrior), Orchard has mobs with resistance to stench, weakness to cold/sleaze.
- Lair of Ninja Snowmen, Icy Peak has mobs with resistance to cold, weakness to hot/spooky
Fun House & McMillicancuddy's Farm have mobs with different resistances/weaknesses, so just use combat items or physical damage or run flavor of magic. eXtreme Slope has hippies and orcs. Orc Chasm has spelling as the element, so ignore that. I ignored areas under lvl 5 as you can just use physical damage there anyway to save mana. The rest of the areas have mobs with no elemental resistance/weaknesses.
Of the two store-bought tomes (hot and cold damage), I prefer to buy the cold damage book because the only areas resistant to it are not related to any quests. Then get Cookbook of the Damned for stench damage from the Haunted Library. That covers my bases for pretty much all of the areas I need to go through.
Tonight, I'm going to try to get to lvl 13 and complete the Naughty Sorceress. It'll be interesting to see if I can kill her without having to level my moxie.
Nemesis Boss Fight:
I did the Nemesis fight first for no real reason than to see if I could. Now, I'd had my butt kicked by the Nemesis several times yesterday, so I knew it was tough to stay alive. In the end, the strategy ended up thus:
- Bought and used Mer-kin roundshield and bottle of Mystic Shell for +49 DR. This brought the normal damage per round from the boss from ~40 to ~20.
- Rest of the outfit was: reinforced headband for HP, Angelhair Culottes pants, blackberry slippers, woven baling wire bracelets, bonerdragon necklace
- Had about 10 filthy poultices/gauze garters on hand (only needed to use about 3-4); red pixel potions would've been better, but I was saving those for NS
- Used the macaroni duck with full buffs as extra damage and mana regen
- Was also fully buffed by buffbot :-/
The sequence of attacks used was: entangle > noodles of fire > entangle > cannelloni cannon > entangle > cannon > entangle ... etc., with occasionally a filthy poultice in place of cannon if HP got low. (In retrospect, Fetucinni was a better attack to use than Cannon.)
Granted, in a HC run, Merk-kin roundshield isn't available. Hopefully a Wonderwall shield will do with the extra HP. The bottle of Mystic Shell is a semi-rare, so it is obtainable in HC with some prep using the fortune cookies.
However, since the items obtained from the Nemesis fight isn't all that useful for the NS fight, it's probably better to wait until after breaking the prism to complete this fight.
Naughty Sorceress Fight:
Again, I followed the advice on the forums and let her beat me up 4-5 times first to reduce her blocking.
Equipment used was: reinforced headband (for HP), wonderwall shield (for DR & HP), staff of the well-tempered cauldron (bought the lvl 15 skill component), angelhair culottes, woven baling wire bracelets, blackberry slippers, shiny hood ornament (for HP/MP).
Stats (with only EQ bonus) were: 116 musc, 195 myst, 118 mox, 299 HP, 322 MP.
I had a bunch of sausage bombs and macrame nets on hand, but as it turned out I didn't need to use any of them. I also had 2 red pixel potions left over as well as some filthy poultices/gauze garters. I ended up using 1 pixel potion (the other one got blocked) and 2 (1 blocked) poultices, but managed to kill her without using any nets/bombs.
Fight went like this: Keep casting entangling until it gets in. Then keep casting Fearful Fetucinni until it gets in. Recast entangling if she throws it off. The spells get in about 1 out of 2-4 casts. Entangle lasts about 4 rounds after it gets in. Fetucinni does about 350-390 damage per cast, so it only takes 2-3 hits to kill her for either form.
All in all, the NS fight was easier than I'd thought it'd be, as I killed her in the first serious try (before the first few throwaway fights) without having to use items.
In other news, I broke the prism with exactly 1 turn left. However, I hadn't eaten yet for today except for 2 fortune cookies. ^_^
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-28 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-01 10:39 pm (UTC)I'll probably ascend this one into a SC Sauceror run after this to test that class out also. What should I perm? Pastamancy doesn't seem to be as high priority in SC... Springy Fusilli? Entangling Noodles? Spirit of Rigatoni? Hrm.