Kingdom of Loathing

[Ben-San]

i see you all the time on the forums, and i mean to wave, but gameplay is so horrid.
you should bring back the nethack avatar.  is the squid buddies meme sarcastic or sincere?

The Squid Buddies thing is basically sincere. I think the squid is one of the best familiars, and I think it's a little sad that if you want to ascend quickly non-stat familiars will be spending all their time in the terrarium. I have 42 familiars and I only ever use four per run: Cheshire Bat for most of the run, Inflatable Dodecapede for the Sorceress, an item-drop familiar for the Hole In The Sky, and a combat familiar for the other bosses. I try to mix up which item and combat familiars I use (this time it's the Frozen Gravy Fairy and the Emo Squid) but I can't remember the last time my Spooky Pirate Skeleton saw the light of day. Some of them have never been taken adventuring, and that's too bad. At least this way my squid knows he is loved. I also collect Rubber Emo Roe.

[misterqueue]

Jeezus.. I just use the cocoabos... clearly I'm doing something wrong.

[Ben-San]

Jeezus.. I just use the cocoabos... clearly I'm doing something wrong.

The Cocoabo is a fine familiar. The problem is that the limiting factor on the speed of a run, for the most part, is stats, and the stat-gaining familiars (Blood-Faced Volleyball, Hovering Sombrero, Cheshire Bat, Cymbal-Playing Monkey, Jill-O-Lantern; to a lesser degree, Pygmy Bugbear Shaman and Wild Hare) are among the very few ways of improving how quickly your stats grow. The advantages that other familiars give (easier fights, healing, etc.) can usually be made unnecessary by accumulating sufficient skills from multiple ascensions, but only two skills increase your rate of stat gain, and not by nearly enough to make a stat familiar redundant.

[misterqueue]

The Cocoabo is a fine familiar. The problem is that the limiting factor on the speed of a run, for the most part, is stats, and the stat-gaining familiars (Blood-Faced Volleyball, Hovering Sombrero, Cheshire Bat, Cymbal-Playing Monkey, Jill-O-Lantern; to a lesser degree, Pygmy Bugbear Shaman and Wild Hare) are among the very few ways of improving how quickly your stats grow. The advantages that other familiars give (easier fights, healing, etc.) can usually be made unnecessary by accumulating sufficient skills from multiple ascensions, but only two skills increase your rate of stat gain, and not by nearly enough to make a stat familiar redundant.

This is quite likely why I've had more success with the cocoabo then as my most successful char is only at the tail end of it's 2nd ascension run. 

[Ben-San]

This is quite likely why I've had more success with the cocoabo then as my most successful char is only at the tail end of it's 2nd ascension run. 

Yeah, the way it goes is sort of that eventually you start thinking "Hm, do I really need my cocoabo/raincloud/squid/pickle/whatever to get me through this part?" So you try it with a volleyball instead, and the answer is either "yes, you do, so get that combat-support familiar back out" or "no, not really, and so the volleyball gets you to the tough stuff faster". If your interest in going quickly grows, you start pushing the envelope and looking for new ways to get through stuff before you thought you could. Eventually, maybe you bite the bullet and ascend with your volleyball at 20 pounds, bring it to the starting areas and find yourself getting the first few levels at ludicrous speed. At that point, when you try to go back to not using a stat familiar, those first few levels start seeming exasperatingly slow. At that point.. you've been hooked.

The cheshire bat or cymbal-playing monkey makes this doubly seductive for hardcore mode, because it also gives you piles of meat. You don't notice them when you're using it, but then you unequip it and suddenly not only are your stat gains crap, you can't afford anything either.

[V-Adore]

I've started using stat familiars more and more, but I'm sort of overly fond of my ridiculous killcounts on my multis' kept familiars at the moment; I figure I'm only an ascension or two away from breaking 10K kills on my squid. That said, I probably will start taking my monkey on my HCO alt; even with 4000 kills on the Pickle... well, I don't know. I'll think about it.

[misterqueue]

This is just a note to say that "4000 Kills on the Pickle" would be an excellent name for:

• A sexual position
• A covered dish
• A punk band
• One of Frank Zappa's kids
• A Phillip K Dick novel
• My Car