Mutant Fire Ant

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Familiar number: 97
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Mutant Fire Ant
Aberrant mutant mordant, pustulant, puissant tyrant triumphant.

Attacks enemies and increases item drops from monsters

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Ability: Deals hot damage like a lime, attacking 20% of the time; inflicts poison with attacks; increases item drops like a Baby Gravy Fairy. The item drop bonus is multiplied by a factor depending on the moon phases.

Throne/Bjorn: +20 Hot Damage, sometimes deals 15-25 poison damage.

Hatchling: mutant fire ant egg

Familiar-Specific Equipment: ant antidepressant

	Ultimate Cage Match	Scavenger Hunt	Obstacle Course	Hide and Seek

Mumming Trunk Abilities:

+15% Meat Drop	4-5 MP	+4 Muscle statgain	+15% Item Drop	+4 Mysticality statgain	8-10 HP	+2 Moxie statgain
		Staggers*				Deals Sleaze damage*
*Hover for details

Cannot breathe underwater

Combat Messages

• Regular messages:

  <Name> latches his venomous mandibles on him, dealing X damage.

  <Name> wiggles its thorax and shakes its antennae. Huh -- looks like all forms of life know the Electric Slide.

• Enthroned in the Crown of Thrones:

  <name> latches its mandibles onto it and pumps it full of poison, dealing (15-25 poison) damage. Here's wishing Bret Michaels a speedy recovery, provided he stays off of television and out of a recording studio.

• Bjornified in the Buddy Bjorn:

  You're not sure how they get all that venom into one little ant, but if your opponent's reaction to that 15-25%-point%^[sic] bite is any indication, it's not a fun experience.

• With lucky Tam O'Shanter equipped:

  <name> clicks its mandibles beneath the Tam O'Shanter, then closes one multi-faceted eye.

• With miniature gravy-covered maypole equipped:

  <name> does the ants-in-the-pants- dance around the Maypole.

• With wax lips equipped:

  <name> pokes its mandibles through the Wax Lips.

Arena Messages

• When entered in an Obstacle Course:

  Fire Ants rely on swarming and climbing on each other to get over obstacles, and there's only one of <name>.

Notes

• The multiplier for the item drop bonus is equal to 1.30 –(0.15*(grimace darkness)). Note that this multiplier is applied after you calculate the item drop bonus from the familiar's weight, not to the weight itself.
  • What this means is the fire ant works better when Grimace is brighter.
  • Grimace darkness goes from 0 to 5, so the fire ant's multiplier goes from 0.55 to 1.30.
  • The Noblesse Oblige calendar doesn't report any of the inverted Grimace items directly, so here's an alternative way to figure out how good the ant is:
    1. Search for hairshirt in the mall, click it to see its +ML bonus, and divide by 10. That gives you the inverted Grimace darkness.
    2. The ant's multiplier is 55 + 15 * X percent, where X is the inverted Grimace darkness from the hairshirt.
• An opponent who takes damage from the fire ant becomes poisoned, yielding the following message in subsequent combat rounds

  Your opponent writhes as he takes X damage from the poison.

  • X is initially equal to 80% of the poisoning attack, rounded down, and is halved each subsequent round (rounded down) until it no longer deals damage.

References

• The Bret Michaels Crown of Thrones message refers to the sudden hospitalization of that sometime member of the band Poison shortly after the Crown was released.

See Also

• Items from Monsters

	Grimacite prizes
Grimacite Generation 1	glaive Weapon (2H) Mus/Weapon	goggles Hat Mys/Adv	greaves Pants Mox/Init	guayabera Shirt ML	gorget Accessory Mus/Items	garter Accessory Mys/Spell	galoshes Accessory Mox/Meat
Grimacite Generation 2	gasmask Hat Mus/Weapon	gaiters Pants Mys/Adv	gat Weapon (1H) Mox/Init	gown Shirt ML	gauntlets Accessory Mus/Meat	girdle Accessory Mys/Spell	go-go boots Accessory Mox/Items
Depleted Grimacite	(plans) shinguards Pants Mus/PvP	(plans) gravy boat Off-Hand Mys/Adv	(plans) ninja mask Hat Mox/PvP	(plans) hammer Weapon (2H) ML/Smithing	(plans) weightlifting belt Accessory Mus/Adv	(plans) astrolabe Accessory Mys/PvP	(plans) grappling hook Accessory Mox/Adv
Mutant Familiars	(hatchling) Mutant Cactus Bud	(hatchling) Mutant Gila Monster	(hatchling) Baby Mutant Rattlesnake	(hatchling) Mutant Fire Ant	Grimacite Food	wedge of gray cheese Food	Grimacite Bock Booze