11 Things I Hate About U is the Summer 2024 special challenge path, introduced on May 15th, 2024. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "Is are good for you and I, but Us are bad for you."
Restrictions
- You cannot adventure in The Sea. Attempting to talk to An Old Man gives the following message:
- That shack you saw on the main map was just a picture of a shack drawn on the ground.
Divergences
- Is and Us in most of the in-game text are colored blue and red respectively.
- Functionally equivalent to rotten dolphin thieves, ewes will steal items that otherwise would not have dropped. They then appear as a free wandering combat and will drop all items stolen. They are a scaling monster.
- Only non-conditional drops may be stolen this way.
- Only one item may be stolen per combat. If there are multiple valid items, one is chosen at random.
- An item will be a valid ewe target if it was 50 or less item% short from dropping naturally
- For example, if an item's base drop rate is 30%, and you have +100% Item drop, the adjusted drop rate will be 30% + (30% x 100%) = 60%, which is then compared against a randomly generated 1-100 roll. If the roll is lower than your adjusted drop rate, you get the item; if it's higher, you don't. For the purposes of ewe theft, 50 is added to your Item drop% (30% + (30% x 150%) = 75%). Let's say we get an internal roll of 70. Then the item will fail to drop naturally, but it will be added to the ewe's item pool.
- The chance of encountering a ewe is 10% multiplied by the number of items currently stolen, capped at 40%.
- After encountering a ewe, an adventure must pass before you can encounter another one.
- Every 30-40 adventures receive a random buff from Eye-eye-eye!
Equipment
- If a piece of equipment has an I or a U in the name, it receives an additional enchantment on top of what it already has.
- Is give a positive enchantment, while Us give a negative enchantment. The strength of both is multiplied by the number of the respective letters in the item's name.
- The enchantments vary by what kind of equipment it is:
Consumption
Food
- Attempting to eat food with non-zero Us gives: "The Us in this have made it rotten."
- Attempting to eat food with zero Is gives: "There are not enough Is in this food to be worth eating."
- Otherwise, adventure gain per fullness is 1.5 times the number of Is. The total is rounded up. Quality is ignored.
- For example, a four-fullness digital key lime pie has four Is and will give 4 * 4 * 1.5 or 24 adventures.
- None of the above apply to beverages. You can drink them even if they have non-zero Us or zero Is, and they give the usual number of adventures. This may be a bug.
Booze
- Each I in the item name raises the maximum adventures you get from drinking it by 1 (Effectively a 0.5 adventure increase per I.)
- Drunkenness is increased by 1 for each U in the name of the item. The extra drunkenness does not give more adventures, it just fills up your liver.
- However, the extra drunkenness does give extra adventures if you cast Ode to Booze.
- For example, the 3-drunk bottle of rum has a U and will give 4 drunkenness, but the same number of adventures as it would normally. Ode to Booze, if you have it, will work with the added point of drunkenness.
- An Imp Ale, normally only 1 adventure, will give 1-2 adventures in-path.
Spleen
- Spleen items do not seem to be affected by I or U.
Potions
- Potion duration increases by two Adventures for each I in the name. For example, Mick's IcyVapoHotness Inhaler lasts 16 Adventures instead of 10.
- Potion duration decreases by one Adventure for each U in the name. For example, future drug: Muscularactum lasts only 19 Adventures instead of 25.
- These effects are additive. For example, the two Us in tomato juice of powerful power give -2 Adventures, canceling out the +2 Adventures from the single I, so the duration is unchanged.
Combat
- Using a Familiar with I's in its type will delevel the enemy on the first combat round of each fight, for 5 ATK & DEF per I:
- Your foe trips over all the Is in your familiar!
 | Monster attack power reduced by X |
 | Monster defense reduced by X |
- Using a Familiar with U's in its type will deal Sleaze damage to you each combat round, for 10-20 damage per U:
- All the gross Us in your familiar's type rub off on you.
- Fighting a monster with U's in its name will cause them to deal damage to you when you use melee attacks, for 2-4 times your level per U:
- Ow, you jab yourself on some your foe's Us as you attack.
Text Editing
- Anywhere you can enter text into the game, Is and Us are removed when you save it. E.g. the notes section of your Quest Log or combat macros.
- adding
cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mark.js/8.11.1/mark.min.js to your adblocker will "fix" this, at the cost of removing letter highlighting entirely.
Text
- See The Council of Loathing/11 Things I Hate About U.
The Council text reflects the path restrictions.
Strategy
Combat
- Combat is mostly unchanged. There are a few minor factors to keep in mind, though.
- Be careful when using weapons with Us in the name, because of the increased Fumble Chance
- If a monster has one or more Us in its name, they will deal damage to you if you attack with a melee weapon. This includes the Naughty Sorceress. Keep an eye on your HP, and switch to spells if they get too low.
- Familiar with one or more Us in their type will repeatedly deal sleaze damage to you. Buff your sleaze resistance if you must use one.
- However, familiars with one or more Is in their type will delevel your opponents as the combat starts, which may let you tackle slightly more powerful monsters.
General
- If you need an item drop for a quest, pay attention to what the ewes pick up: if it's the last item you need, consider making progress on a different quest until the ewe shows up with your item.
- Equipment might end up with negative enchantments that cancel out the enchantments you wanted in the first place, so pay attention to your equipment as well.
- Some equipment pieces have a valuable function that isn't affected by changes in enchantments. For example, that F.L.U.D.A. you have might not boost item drops, but will still be able to force item drops.
- If you aren't using Lucky adventures on anything else, the distilled fortified wine from the Sleazy Back Alley is worth considering.
- Boris's key lime pie and Gnocchetti di Nietzsche will likely be your go-to food for most of the run. There are a few other options with three Is that may be available, including some of the evil golden arches food and recipes using white chocolate chips. The brain-meltingly-hot chicken wings have one more I, but they're not available until relatively late in the run. In Softcore, you have a few more options (see below).
- During the Island War, the Hippy side is at a disadvantage as the War Hippy outfit has several Us and the Frat Warrior outfit has no Us and some Is. An example is if you decide to do the nun quest; the War Hippy outfit has a slight meat drop debuff while the Frat outfit has a small meat drop buff.
Moon Sign
Astral gear and consumables
IotM
- Most of the IotM equipment isn't really affected too much by the negative enchantments, and it's easy enough to just unequip something temporarily when you need item drops or meat drops.
- The Spring shoes are a good source of limes for Boris's key lime pie.
- The Mini Kiwi familiar is quite suited for this path, as its Mini kiwi drops offering many I-filled items that benefit from the path buffs:
Softcore-specific advice
- When pulling food, take a look at the consumable before you pull it. Some food like the hi meins and spectral pickles are fine, while a grue egg omelette can't be consumed.
- Likewise, double check equipment pulls if you want something for its enchantment.
- The Mini kiwi-derived equipment is a solid choice in many cases and they are not difficult to obtain. The mini kiwi food and drink are also fine choices.
Rewards
- Finishing a run while it is the current special challenge path -- between May 15th, 2024 and August 14th, 2024 -- gives players 50 (in Normal) or 100 (in Hardcore) extra karma points the next time they visit Valhalla.
- Players will receive a Thwaitgold Illinigina illinoiensis model upon defeating the final boss.
References
