User:Yatsufusa

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He's right, you know.

„Das ist schön bei den Deutschen: Keiner ist so verrückt, dass er nicht einen noch Verrückteren fände, der ihn versteht.“
 – Heinrich Heine
“That's so nice about the Germans: There's nobody as crazy, that he wouldn't be able to find someone even crazier, to understand him.”
 – Heinrich Heine

Greetings. My Character in game is also Yatsufusa (#1617484).
Back when I was active, I played KoL on a daily basis when possible, but sometimes just every 3 to 4 days.
My favorite classes are Pastamancer and Disco Bandit, both for their style.

Gadgets

Classic Wiki Skin

After... a certain event I took a long break from both the wiki and KoL, because the whole thing is just too frustrating for me to enjoy playing. Now a friend offered to have a look at my problem, so I logged into the wiki to collect some data and links for him. In case he finds a wiki-able solution, it will be published here. Otherwise it will most likely be a Greasemonkey script.

Advice

My advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now, but by the time you're reading it, some information, especially about prices or best available familiars might be outdated. You can look at the history tap up there to see when I last updated this page.

To spell it out for you: I have not been an active player since 2016 (or 2015?). Take that into consideration when reading this page. (Especially things that are labeled as best/optimal in KoL guides don't age well.)

Novice

  • "Help!" – If you have absolutely no idea what you're doing or what's what after completing the in game tutorial, read the Beginner's guide for more detailed answers or The Help Forum FAQ for shorter ones.
  • KoL is complex! – The stickman graphics might make you think otherwise, but KoL is a game with great depth, unputdownable texts and awesome humor. It truly is the Best Game Ever.
  • Your name – This might not concern you, but the developers of KoL have a policy of never ever letting someone change his account name. Of course the community accepts players for who they are, independent of their name – but if you just typed something in that box to get an account as soon as possible, starting over on a new account after a week will be far easier than starting over after a year. (Just saying...)
  • Read this wiki – It will help you understanding the concepts KoL is based on and it is almost always right. However, KoL is a huge game with years of history and thousands of items. Most of that will be an interesting read, but otherwise completely irrelevant to you – especially right now. If you manage to focus on the tasks at hand, the wiki will be a whole lot less confusing and intimidating.
  • Use your watchlist – Get an account on this wiki, so you can use the watchlist.
  • "Your results may vary" – Because a certain strategy or skill works great for someone else, doesn't necessarily mean it will be the solution of all your problems. You play style might differ greatly from what other players see as normal. In fact, you might even hate what more seasoned players perceive as optimal. This is a game, which you play for fun. Don't follow advice blindly – especially not mine!
  • Eat & Drink – Those things are more important than they look like at the first glimpse. They don't regenerate HP & MP, but grant you more adventures per day. Try to stash enough food and booze of acceptable quality for at least a day in advance, so you don't run out of adventures with an empty stomach and unabused liver.
  • Nightcap – At the end of your day, always overdrink. In case your budget doesn't allow fancy drinks yet, you can use Fog Murderer to get the job done.
  • Explore! – Visit the council as well as your guild's trainer after each level up. Explore those new zones and skills.
  • Have a plan – Have a general idea what you'll be doing with your adventures today as well as tomorrow.
  • Take notes – Sometimes keeping track of your current tasks and counters can get kind of messy – even when using the Quest log. When you make some notes about what you still need to do, you can better organize your buffs and avoid fighting strong monsters when you could still collect stats from weaker ones you've had to fight anyway. You don't have to keep track of every little detail, but sometimes there's a lot going on in the kingdom and some short notes will become really helpful.
  • +Items – +X% Item Drops from Monsters is the most important stat in the game.
  • +Adventures – +X Adventure(s) per day when equipped is also the most important stat in the game.
    Important Note: You only need to wear this equipment during rollover to get the adventures.
  • +Stats – +X Stat(s) Per Fight or +X to Monster Level. This one is a little bit trickier: Once you reach level 15, leveling up becomes a lot less important. Still, leveling up fast during your early levels is one of the important tasks in the game. While, once you have access to the mall, there is no shortage on items that provide you with a +stats or +Monster Level (which equals +stats / 3 but makes the monsters you fight a little harder), the best way to level up is through familiars. (More about this further down.)
  • Understand the Elements – You might have noticed those fancy colors you see once in a while during combat... There are things which are more important to read up on, but you should learn how the elements work, eventually.
  • Market – The flea market can give you some sort of overview what kind of items there are, but don't buy there – buy from the mall, once you're level 5.
  • Store – A store at the mall is the best investment you'll ever make. Most new players get it to pay for itself in less than a month. In doubt: Sell clovers at the flea market until you can afford a store. Ownership of a store will also grant you access to the /foodcourt chat channel.
  • Pulverizing – Pulverize equipment you don't need, if the estimated outcome is higher than their mall value. If you don't have the skill, there are Bots that can do it for you.
  • Buy stuff – Sometimes, you just need one specific item. More often than not, simply buying an item from another player will be cheaper than farming for it yourself. Get a general idea how much meat you can farm on average with an Adventure, so you can estimate what makes more sense for you in a given situation.
  • Buying X items – Before you buy large numbers of items from the mall (maybe to craft something), take the time and calculate if this would leave you almost broke. If so, be sure you are okay with that.
  • Get some Familiars – They are always* by your side and the most awesome equipment-slot the game has to offer. You might like your Mosquito now, but you can get some (very affordable) familiars from the mall you might like even better.
    Specifically you should get...
    • a Blood-Faced Volleyball for leveling up
    • a Hovering Sombrero, which you'll want to use instead of a Volleyball after about when you reach the Pyramid (Switching your trusty 20 lbs. volleyball for a 1 lbs. sombrero may sound stupid or inconvenient at the time, but it will pay off in the long run.)
    • a Baby Gravy Fairy for farming items (This one really gives a massive bonus, compared to +item drop equipment.)
    • a Leprechaun for farming meat (Again: Massive bonus when compared to equipment.)
    • Many new players love the rather random Cocoabo. It's cheap – so there you go...
  • Clans – There are many clans. The 10 you can see when you visit the Clan District in Seaside Town are just the 10 spending the most meat on ads. Choose your clan carefully. If the description doesn't fit you, likely won't the clan. If their rumpus room doesn't suit your taste, you will likely be stuck with it. Forget about furniture members can pick meat from. Those might look good to a new player, but they aren't. There are also some clans that stand out by being big in numbers but rather clueless. It's not a crime to enjoy KoL without understanding the basics. Nobody plays a game wrong if he's having fun without ruining the fun of others. However it might not be the right thing for you. If you don't want to wait until you found the right clan to get your hands on some of the technical benefits the game has to offer, you can join Bonus Adventures from Hell, an automated clan created by bumcheekcity.
    • Get whitelisted – Once you found yourself a clan, ask one of the players in charge to whitelist you. This means that you can visit other clans for a while to help them out – or to let them help you out. If you're whitelisted for a clan you won't lose your current clan title and clan karma when you leave and you won't need to wait for somebody to accept your new application. It's a very common request and most clans do it per default, but if you take it for granted without checking, you could be in for a rude awakening.
  • Zapping – Get a zap wand as soon as you can spare the adventures.
  • Like a boss – The Raiments of the Final Boss are relatively good, relatively easy to get and have no stat requirements whatsoever. Just buy a few issues of GameInformPowerDailyPro magazine from the mall and get started. You don't necessarily have to collect everything. Just get everything you'd like to add to your custom outfits. Don't forget: You can use your zap wand should you get the same part multiple times.
  • Water to wine – Pastamancers, Saucerors and Disco Bandits can summon stuff from thin air that helps them create tasty food or drinks. If you are one of these classes use these skills every day, because even if you think you're oversupplied you can still sell these items to other players.
  • Social stuff – As with most online games, other players are a part of the game as well.
    • The player base loves you – So love it back. You don't have to love each and every one of them, but there are lots (and lots) of nice people out there.
    • Your Profile – Look at your profile. Look at other players' profiles. Are you happy with your profile? There are some options that can help you to express yourself via your profile. ...Under Options.
      • Tattoos – Once you've completed the Pretentious Artist Quest, you can get tattoos from those outfits you collected. One of these can be displayed on your profile-page for everyone to see. Some tattoos are rather hard or expensive to get, but have a look at that wiki page and maybe you'll find one that fits both your taste and your wallet.
      • Profile Decorations – You can either use a huge pumpkin or a magnetic sculpture kit to decorate your profile. Both are readily available in the mall.
      • Wishlists – Some players think, they'll get items bestowed on them from other players for just listing them on their profile page. This isn’t going to happen. It will only make you look like a demanding child. If – on the other hand – you are in fact a demanding child, by all means: Carry on...
    • Chat Channels – There are a lot of channels to choose from and each channel has a different personality. Find out which channels suit you best and close the rest.
    • Collaterals – Just because somebody has 125 ascensions doesn't mean, you can trust him or her blind. There are lots and lots of nice people in the Kingdom, but we have our fair share of bad apples. If you're borrowing valuable items to strangers, always ask for a collateral of at least equal value.
  • Custom outfits – The more equipment you'll get the more time will you need to find the parts you're looking for, even when you order and filter your items. Creating custom outfits will save you this time. Have outfits for item and meat farming, leveling, beating up hard monsters as well as outfits for recurring special occasions, like the daily dungeon.
  • Combat macros – Writing yourself a macro, even the most basic one, will save you hours of clicking a week. Should you discover it's messing things up for you, identify the troublemakers and write exceptions for those. (In doubt, use "abort" a lot.)
  • Coping with loss – In general, KoL is quite a forgiving game, but sometimes there are great opportunities that you'll miss, unique items you don't get (despite best efforts) or stuff you'd so love to have that's untradable and gone forever, because it was a one time thing. Even when you get disappointed, try to remember that for everything that might went wrong in the kingdom, there are like 11 things that go right. Whatever sh*tstorm today might bring, tomorrow there'll be plenty of awesome left for you.
  • Find your own pace – There are some serious players in KoL that have mastered playing it in ways I sometimes don't even knew about. I don't let that stop me from enjoying it and neither should you. Logging in every single day is what most active players do, but if you only log in every five days or once a month because you don't have time to play, it won't make the game suck for you.
  • -X MP to use Skills – Once you've cast a buff the thousandth time, you'll notice you're spending quite a bit of MP on that. If you equip some Skill MP Cost Modifiers, you can conserve up to 3 MP per cast. Since you're doing it out of combat, you can use the cheapest (and crappiest) pieces of equipment you can get your hands on – just remember to switch back before you charge once more into the breach.
  • S'mores – During an average ascension you can eat up to 15, 16 or even 17 s'mores. Do so! Because these get better and better the more you've eaten this ascension. Just buy a s'more gun, a bunch of marshmallows and fire them at yourself.
  • Weapon types – Clubs, swords, utensils and knives are weapon types that interact in special ways with certain skills and game mechanics. If you get your hands on a good weapon of those kinds, compare it to other weapons of the same category you own, before you sell it. It might likely come in handy later.
  • Smiling Rat – Sell these in the mall and use a volleyball instead. You can always get another one later on as long as you don't have one in your Terrarium.
  • Sewing kit – Get yourself a sewing kit from the vending machine over at the Dungeoneers' Association and you'll have one hefty out of combat heal every day for free – no matter what class you are.
  • Mind Yer Binder – Get yourself a hobo code binder from the Hobopolis clan dungeon before you ascend and take some time to fill it. Once you need one, just buying it then won't do you much good. It will seem inconvenient now, but you'll thank me later.
  • Should I do PvP? – Well, you should at least try it for yourself to find out if you actually like it or not... First, learn the basics about PvP. Then, get some appropriate gear and familiars for the current season. Put items which can be stolen and that you don't want to lose into your closet – only the stuff you don't frequently need. Install a Meat Golem. Buy some toast. Then break the stone. Have fun!
  • Back in my days... – Fun little history lesson: Actually, often enough, it was "uphill both ways"... Respect your elders, for they have put up with stuff nobody would today – but feel free to remind them that the past is in the past as well. ;)
  • Multi Abuse – It is forbidden for good reasons and you would never do it. Should you ever feel the need to learn what not to do, you can read all about it here.

*Except for certain challenge paths. But don't let that bother you now.

Hidden Stuff

Good measures of rewarding and helpful things are right in plain sight, but some are sneakily hidden away – or just placed inconveniently... Since you can't unread these spoilers, you might want to consider saving them until after you've finished all the council's quests to see how you did on your own.

  • The Baron – After solving Bart Ender's rat problem, you should explore the darkness down in the cellar some more. There's a tiny mansion hiding in the darkness with a rather sophisticated-looking rat inside.
  • The Deep Fat Friars – After you have helped the Friars, you can get a helpful and pretty unique buff from one of them once a day.
  • A Ruined House – As soon as you reach the Desert Beach you can collect a free piece of anticheese from a ruined house, which can be used to craft a cottage or a goat for example. The house will refill the anticheese 5 days after you collected it.
  • The strange leaflet – Once you reach level 9 the council will hand you a strange leaflet. Don't dismiss it: It is a fun little text adventure, with some secrets well hidden. Most of them can be found without getting crazy, but there's one secret you may never talk about in the forums or this wiki. Since we spoiler basically everything here, we respect the developers' wish when they ask us to keep something a secret for a change.
  • More? – Of course there's more, but I'm not going to list any more here. What I listed were altogether secrets I would feel sad or frustrated about, had I missed them or just really inconveniently placed things. In fact, there was a time where it was very likely to permanently miss the Baron, which happened to me and it made me very sad, when I found out.

Advanced

  • TPTB are evil geniuses! – One day you think you are prepared for everything... The next day you are in a situation where you can't use items with the letter B in it! Expect to be surprised.
  • Equipment – Having a large variety of items is always helpful. I remember it like yesterday when the price for everything with +Combat Initiative went through the roof. Because "Who ever needs +Init? Right...?"
  • Get a variety of familiars – Find out which familiars are best at what they do or do something unique. I don't want to dig into familiars that are already discussed at great length in Hardcore Familiar Analysis, instead every one of the familiars listed here could also be described as "Yes, it's good at what it does – but wouldn't you rather have a sombrero or a fairy with you?" While most of the time, your answer to that would be "Yes." you will rarely find a niche where you'll want to make use of these variety familiars. And none of these will cost you nearly as much as a Mr. A...
    Note that these familiars are ordered taking into account their desirability and accessibility. This means that not the best one is listed first, but rather the one that has the best combination of useful and affordable.
    • Worth mentioning are the following unique familiars:
      • Exotic Parrot – Parrots cost a small fortune when you're still trying to find your way around in the game and you'll use them only on rare occasions, but the investment will be well worth it.
      • An Elemental Fairy (Hot, Cold or Stench) – You'll have to ascend for it, but you'll get Sleazy and Spooky on top of it, so now your fairy will fight for you as well, which is a pretty nice upgrade.
      • Grouper Groupie – Get one of these before you ever set foot into the sea. You'll need it and it will pay itself off in no time. It works on land as well, so you can level it before you get wet. It will also be helpful within the Heavy Rains challenge path since, as a water-breathing familiar, it doesn't need to equip a miniature life preserver to overcome that path's restriction. The Groupie will be particularly helpful during the first few adventures – before you can afford a life preserver.
      • Nosy Nose – It takes several months to get the Manual of Transcendent Olfaction (see below), so this nose can be an alternative for tracking monsters that don't have terribly low % item drops or are needed for the quests to get said Manual. It's also surprisingly inexpensive.
      • Oily Woim – Increases +Combat Initiative by twice its weight, which means "Woosh: You're first!" and that's all there is to it. This can be really helpful when you need +40% for To Catch a Killer (during the level 9 Quest), but unless you're trying to get an item that can only be pickpocketed or fight things that could crush you with a single blow, there's no reason to choose the woim for a fight. So far, PvPers are seasonally fond of the Woim. Still it's best at what it does. (The Xiblaxian Holo-Companion includes the functionality of the Woim, making it superior. But it's more expensive as well. As long as you only need the initiative bonus, you will be perfectly fine with just the Woim.)
      • Lil' Barrel Mimic – It's a Volleyball that gives out relatively inexpensive but still useful items 30% of the time and can also restore HP and MP when equipped with its familiar-specific equipment. It is also really cheap.
      • Magic Dragonfish – If it is in the mall for a sane, affordable price and you like casting spells during combat, don't dismiss this little guy. This is one of those familiars that you'll only need once or twice, but will be so happy to own one when that time comes.
      • Peppermint Rhino – It will act as a normal fairy and as a fairy of twice its weight for candy. While this is very specific and not ascension relevant, it is a unique quality that deserves mentioning.
      • Purse Rat – Increases +Monster Level by half its weight. While this ability in itself is pretty underwhelming it allows you to convert +familiar weight into +ML, similar to the Oily Woim converting it to +init. This can't compete with a volleyball or sombrero but there are certain zones where reaching a certain value in +ML is very beneficial – with the slime tube clan dungeon on top of the list. As the Purse Rat hatchling is a gift item, you can't buy one from the mall. Try the /trade chat channel or ask around in your clan. (About 10,000 meat was an agreeable price in 2015.)
      • Dataspider – While there is quite a variety of Starfish typed familiars around, this one stands out for having a familiar equipment that's a whopping +10 lbs. If you just need a burst of MP, have no interesting elemental monsters around and have access to this familiar's equipment, it will be quite useful. Notice how those are a lot of ifs...
        Maybe I just like spiders. But you can't judge me: You're playing a game with literal stick figure graphics. ;)
    • And then there are damage familiars that do good amount of damage at the cost of not granting any other benefits. Sometimes, and especially if you're just getting started with ascending, you might want a familiar to deal additional damage for you. You don't want to use it all the time, but for monsters like Baron Rathsworth, you might want some help, so you can beat them up at first try. You don't need all of these and the more experience you get, the less you'll need them. Just pick one or two you like and you're good.
      • Imitation Crab – When you need reliable physical damage on small lbs., this is a pretty good (and affordable) choice. Also, like the Grouper Groupie, this is a water-breathing familiar, which makes it comparatively stronger during a Heavy Rains run.
      • Warbear Drone – It delivers prismatic and physical damage, which means up to 6 simultaneous attacks per round of combat. The downside of this elemental diversity is that it needs several combat rounds to reach its full damage capacity. But if you ever want to do a Heavy Rains run, get one of these beforehand. Even unleveled, it will be quite helpful during the final battle.
      • Misshapen Animal Skeleton – Deals the highest spooky damage or delevels monsters. It is not too expensive to assemble and will act every round.
      • Flaming Face – Deals the highest hot damage, with up to 2 simultaneous attacks – 3 with familiar specific equipment.
      • Sludgepuppy – Deals ???(unspaded) stench damage, with up to 3 simultaneous attacks and acts as a Potato on top of it. While this familiar is still being spaded, it looks like a valid candidate for this list. I added it under the Flaming Face since both are thematically similar. Since the Sludgepuppy was added for completion rather than known quality, it might not be worth the current asking price.
      • Elemental Starfish – If you don't have the funds for certain elemental damage familiars, elementally tuned variants of the Starfish might be an affordable option. (Currently only the Midget Clownfish and Rock Lobster fall into that category.)
      • Mutant Gila Monster – Deals good physical damage overall and continuous poison damage as well. Unfortunately it costs a small fortune one way or the other.
      • Feral Kobold – One of these will deal truly brutal physical damage (for a familiar), but getting one will cost you an equally brutal amount of meat as well.
    • There are some protective familiars as well. These are the ones you'll use the least and only if you gear up for something that could kill you with just a few blows.
      • Levitating Potato – It has a chance to completely prevent you from taking hits from a monster. Unleveled, it isn't very good, but it's still the best kind of protective familiar.
      • Origami Towel Crane – This one blocks monsters' attacks as well, but has to be charged up with familiar experience first, which makes it very impractical. On the other hand the familiar itself won't cost you a lot of meat.
    • If you checked off these variety familiars, you're already very flexible, familiar wise. That being said, you can still get all the overall inferior but cheap familiars from the mall if you want to – just for the fuzzy feeling. There are far worse things that you could be wasting your meat on...
  • Stock up – Have enough of the items you use on a daily basis to last you at least a week. A month would be best. If there's a world event or the mall decides your much needed items deserve a steep price increase, you can wait it out or have enough time for a change of plans. Also: Crimbo.
    • Adventure fuel – Stash enough food and booze of epic quality for several days. Some good Spleen items and maybe some chocolate as well.
    • Magical mystery juice – It's untradable. Next time you're a Mysticality class (or an Accordion Thief), stock up on some of those. From time to time there might be better or cheaper options in the mall, but MMJ is reliable, inexpensive and usable in combat.
    • Soft green echo eyedrop antidote – Somehow, you always seem to end up needing these. Luckily they are rather cheap, so if you can afford it, have a supply so big that it most likely won't run out within the next few months.
    • In-combat healing – There's a hand full emergency items in the game that will fully heal you during combat. You won't need those very often, but will be glad you kept a few in your inventory when the need suddenly arises. The full heal options are soggy used band-aid, scented massage oil and Dreadsylvanian seed pod, while New Age healing crystal, Mer-kin healscroll and extra-strength red potion are less pricy alternatives for low level characters who don't run around with a 4 digit max HP.
      (For a full reference see this list.)
    • Copying mechanisms – Just having two 4-d cameras with you can be enough: One for now and one for when you fight the copy and realize, you completely forgot to build a replacement for the one you used the last time. ;)
    • The Spectral Pickle Factory – The pickle factory will likely appear on the the first of April (or April 1st). Ideally, you will want to have a lot of adventures and at least the same number of clovers on hand that particular day.
    • Announced events – The day you need a bots services the most, all bots will immediately stop working. This is because on such an occasion, everybody needs them and they run out of mana or right into some exception or because of your bad karma. Whatever the case: Announced events are no surprise! Please, don't act like you were super screwed and had to drop out of hardcore with only 40 Adventures and half of your gear unequipable. When you know weeks in advance, that there's going to be a Twitch event, be out of Hardcore/Ronin, have decent stats as well as 200 Adventures after rollover and get the buffs for one or two days the day before. But if you didn't: Don't complain about it. You'll only embarrass yourself.
  • Yellow Ray – Learn about the variants of this yellow laser beam. It can make you some profit or save significant amounts of adventures when you're using it right.
  • Get some spellbooks – Get The Joy of Wassailing, Tales of a Kansas Toymaker, a warbear metalworking primer and some warbear whosits – suddenly you've obtained some spells you can relearn every ascension, even if you haven't permed some from a Mysticality class. If you need elemental spells you can get some Hobopolis skills from the mall as well. All those are not exactly optimal but sometimes you just need a spell.
  • The worth of your adventures – Find out that the average worth of one of your adventures (farming wherever you farm) is. If you need items from somewhere else, compare their prices with your estimated income there and consider just buying them from the mall.
  • "Buy low, sell high" – If you have a pile of meat, you can make (or lose) some of it by investing it in the mall. Be prepared to wait for quite a while before you see any returns, though.
  • Risk – Playing the market means you can lose. If you have one million meat you shouldn't risk the whole million. Also try to spread your investments, so you won't lose most of what you have, just because everybody just started to farm the same item.
  • Study the market – Before you buy an item for which you've spend a whole week with mindless meat farming, why don't you take a mere 3 minutes to check that item's price-development. Just click "View market statistics" on the item's wiki page. There is always a chance that the item you're looking for is experiencing a temporary price spike. Just know, that reading the graph right can be a form of art...
  • Under The Sea... ♪ – As soon as you get a bubblin' stone, buy whatever is still missing for the aerated diving helmet. This will work much better than farming the pieces with an old SCUBA tank.
  • Do hard trophies; they're fun! – There are some harder trophies. Harder means more satisfaction. (But also more groaning on your way there...)
  • Sidequests – There are lots of additional quests, both from items and from NPCs. Do each at least once. They are fun and, as always, the writing is extremely entertaining. Also that way, you can make sure won't miss out on any cool rewards you hadn't been aware of.
  • Your Workshed – One of those things you might not know about if you haven't been around when they got implemented is the workshed. Just get yourself a warbear auto-anvil, induction oven or something you like from the mall (maybe even a snow machine if you already have a garden) and you've gotten yourself a tool you'll never want to live without ever again. A rather straightforward flow chart for choosing the right item for your situation can be found here – if you want the decision to be made for you.
  • The Game Grid – Seaside Town's Arcade has some fun games that even unlock some cool stuff, once you beat them. Buy a few Game Grid tokens from the mall and you're ready to go. The games themselves are pretty good as well (some are even better than the original). You probably won't like every game, but you might love at least one.
  • Fernswarthy's Basement – Reach the basement's 500th level at least once. It's a nice challenge that can show you what end-gamey skills and items you might still be missing. Plus: There is a unique reward at the end. Just make sure to flip through the Basement Diving Guide first.
  • Clan Dungeons – Even if you don't want to join your clannies right now, there are some things you might want to consider getting done already, as they will take some time:
    • "Should I?" – Well, that depends on your priorities. Some things from clan dungeons sell for a lot of meat, others are great keepers. But you and the rest of your clan will have to invest a good amount of meat and adventures before you get anywhere with your collaborated progress. Make sure you can spare both for a while before you begin.
    • bumcheekcity's Basements – This is another automated clan created by bumcheekcity. It offers certain items from clan dungeons for meat and a lot of stuff for free. Amongst other things it's great for collecting ghost pencils for Dreadsylvania (read below), but you'll figure out how you can best benefit from that clan. Check out bumcheekbasements' profile (#2327628) to learn how this clan works.
    • Slime stuff – If your clan does regular Slime Tube runs, ask if you can slime some items, because covering everything you want in slime will take a while. Alternatively, you can use bumcheekcity's Basements.
    • Dreadsylvania – Here's what you'll want to do: Buy a Dreadsylvanian skeleton key from the mall. Visit bumcheekcity's Basements, adventure in the Dreadsylvanian Village until you get the Dreadsylvanian Village Square non-combat. Get a ghost pencil (and don't forget to send the meat for it to the bot). Now stop, return to your clan, and do what you where just doing before visiting Dreadsylvania. In a day or two that instance of Dreadsylvania will have been cleared and you'll get a message from the bot. Visit bumcheekcity's Basements again, massacre your way through the Village once more until you reach the Village Square again. Select Use a ghost pencil. There is now a direct link to the Village Square on your Dreadsylvania map that will never ever go away, even when the dungeon is restarted, you switch clans or ascend: This shortcut will stay there for you forever. Now, click that shortcut and get yourself another one of those pencils. Get back to your home clan and return for another pencil, once the dungeon was reset. Repeat this until you've got 8 ghost pencils in your inventory. Now you can adventure in every zone of Dreadsylvania until you encounter a non-combat, create the shortcut with a pencil and map out all of the non-combats for later use. By doing this on the side you have saved a lot of Adventures and time once you want to approach Dreadsylvania in earnest. Getting certain rare materials and equipment pieces from there has also become much easier. You're welcome.
      Fun fact: Using a ghost pencil won't count towards your limit of one visit to each Dreadsylvanian non-combat, so you can revisit each place once more, right after you created the shortcut.
  • Ascend, dammit! – When you think you have explored the world enough and defeated a certain Boss (spoilers), go and ascend. Yes, you will lose all but one skill and yes, your familiars go back to 1 lbs. You won't lose your items; they will just be put away for a while. After ascending you will find that you have won much more than you've lost. Also doing the council quests the second time will consume a lot less time and energy, so don't worry too much about having to do those again.
    • Again: Have a plan – Trying out different classes is fun, but consider taking a look into their skills, so that you know what skill you'll want to perm. Knowing what class you're probably going to be the next few ascensions will help you determining a general perming strategy. (*Pst...* You want Pastamastery and Advanced Cocktailcrafting first...)
    • Back to back (and belly to belly) – If you're doing two ascensions in the same class right after another, perm the higher level skills on your list first, even if they are less powerful. You will benefit more from having that level 15 skill available right from the start during the second run than having a level 5 skill.
    • Disco, baby! – Some challenge paths are based on isolation, so you'll only get to use the skills of the class you're choosing. In doubt, the Disco Bandit is the best stand alone class, because it has skills for most problems you're going to encounter as well as some great passives. Other classes are fine on their own as well, but in my opinion, the Disco Bandit is the best.
    • "Have you tried the air? The air is great!" – If you feel like you haven't as much (real world) time for playing as you would like to have, playing a HCO ascension once in a while might just be the right thing to balance your time management out. The restriction isn't as bad as it might seem at first: This path feels rather relaxed and you have more real life time to make your decisions. And let's not forget the powerful rewards...
  • Buying old stuff – Tradable items that no longer drop will still be available from the mall. Depending on their availability back then, usefulness and how over-invested they were, those can keep a stable price level for years. However eventually, even something like the Deactivated O. A. F. will double in price. On its way there, as with every mall-able item, prices will go down again. Not by much, but it will happen. This is caused by their current owners needing meat right now and that useless thing has been sitting around forever. But in the end, the supply will run shorter and shorter, until only the most overpriced stores remain. There's no secret formula by which you can determine when would be a good opportunity to buy something, but aside from aforementioned singular exceptions those prices know only one direction: Up. If you want something that's no longer obtainable and have already made your investments in stuff like good farming gear, you should consider buying the items you want for cheap (haha...) now, while you still can. This applies double to things that bind to your account, like familiars or items that grant skills. The only exception to this are items that just recently became unavailable. Recent Crimbo items for example tend to become a lot more affordable during February. This is probably because most players don't spend much time with updating their stores, resulting in a steadily increasing supply for the months right after the event.
  • Fulfill your dreams – If you really want something, have the persistency to pursue your goal.
  • I'll be back... – You might know the problem from other online games you've been playing: Friends you've once played with play less and less until they disappear. In KoL disappearing from the radar is just about as common. The difference is that nobody seems to be gone forever. A few weeks or months and people will pop back up. Some players have even returned after years (discovering that some of the stuff in their inventory had become extremely valuable while they where gone). Magical.
  • Contribute to this wiki – I do some edits here, and sometimes I get the feeling that users don't edit certain pages because they don't dare. Nobody will blame you if you don't do something right on the first try. In case you make mistake the wiki community is very helpful and will explain to you, what you did wrong if they change something you just wrote. Don't take it personally – it's the nature of a wiki on a changing topic, such as KoL, that lots of things get changed or rewritten over time. That doesn't mean your contribution doesn't count. Quite to the contrary: You can help and take part in that very process to help other players that enjoy KoL just the way you do.
  • Drink some water. – Not in KoL; in real life. Dehydration is no joke.

Especially helpful Wiki pages

  • Maximizing Your ... – The right equipment for the right situation.
  • Hardcore Skill Analysis‎ – Skills to get once you have some karma.
  • Hardcore Familiar Analysis – Familiars to get when you have the meat.
  • Bots – These are some automated Accounts set up by friendly players. Bots help players to get certain services done in a short amount of time without having to negotiate or coordinate. Beep boop.
  • Game Mechanics – Those can be rather boring, so don't try to read all of them at once. You can search them for specific answers as well.

Professional

  • Mind the source – Note that I'm not a particular professional player. There are topics that I don't fully understand or don't think 4 dimensional enough about. But if you are reading any advice, there's a good chance you can learn something from it – especially on such a complex subject as KoL.
  • No really: Edit the wiki – If you consider yourself somewhat of a professional player, chances are you've already noticed errors in the wiki or read passages that could use improvement. An editor's work is never done and it would be great if you could contribute to the wiki. Even the tiniest improvement saves other editors time they can use to improve stuff that would be interesting to you.
  • Gifts <3 – The chat command /go the gift shop will take you to the gift shop, even if you didn't get access to the beach during this ascension.
  • Defective Game Grid token – Check the coin return of Jackass Plumber once per day, if possible.
  • Faster Familiar leveling – When you want to level up a certain familiar really, really fast, it is worth to invest into some free combats, like the ones you get from clubbing seals or BRICKOS, rather than buying lots of icy love songs. Buff up with some cheap +familiar experience effects and multiply the adventures worth of experience for it.
  • Your situation – For all intends and purposes, analysis pages like the Hardcore Skill Analysis are about 90% right at any given time. Compared to not having that page at all, that's a huge help. However, most active players own at least one or two iotms. Some of those make you stop worrying about certain things. MP in hardcore are a good example: Some iotms help with MP regeneration. You can never have enough +item drops, but you can have enough MP. So Inner Sauce, which you would basically perm for 1 MP per adventure, gets more interesting in comparison. I'm not saying Inner Sauce or other skills are ranked wrong right now; I'm saying that your needs will sometimes differ from other players' needs. We try our best, but we are all just humans – except the robots of course...
  • Mer-kin darkbook – Most of the time you won't need the skill from this, but it's one of a few untradable skillbooks. Since the item is used up in the process of learning the skill, use a few pulled yellow taffy and stuff some into your closet. +50% Spell Damage is nothing to look down on, should you ever face a boss or world event without having access to the zone. Save your karma for something more pressing.
  • Rumpus Room Strategy – There are some things I want to say about the rumpus room that I got originally tired mentioning after the first few clans I visited for dungeon reasons:
    • Adventures over meat – First and foremost: Additional Adventures can be converted into meat at a better rate than meat can be converted into additional adventures. If you can farm more that 500 meat with one adventure (which you most likely can), you're losing meat by having a meat orchid or a meat bush around. During events, adventures will become even more valuable.
    • The comfy sofa – Nobody actually uses that one, they just have it around because it looked nice back then. You probably have already forgotten, but you get HP and MP for Adventures by using it. The tanning bed is almost equally useless, but at least it has some niche uses. If there is just a remote possibility, that you or your clannies are ever doing PvP for longer than a day at a time, even if it's just for the skill(s), install a wrestling mat. An extra PvP fight per day for free is nothing to look down on.
    • The meat tree – This is more of a personal preference. I prefer to come prepared, so I pass on 1,000 meat per day and rather stash my untradable chips: An extra +30 to all Attributes when I need them has already been pretty useful for me in several situations.
  • MC Frontalot – He made some songs about the Kingdom and some quests involve some of his songs. You might not be into Rap, Nerdcore or even music, but listen to some of his songs at least once. If you like KoL, you might very well like his music too. (He also seems to be quite a nice person.)
  • KoL Night Sky – Just look at it... Crazy awesome, isn't it?

Items that are worth it

There are some investments that you either might not know of or that seem so expensive that saving up for them right now seems inconvenient. But in reality they will aid you so much, you should get them as soon as you have a decent farm outfit (and the time to farm of course).

  • Farming:
    • The Bounty Hunter Hunter:
    • Order of the Silver Wossname – Part of pretty much every kind of farming outfit. Everything that's better costs a Mr. A.
      Update: There will be a revamp of the level 12 Quest in the foreseeable future (after the level 13 Quest revamp), so this item might possibly be gone forever very soon. Get one while you still can.
    • The Legendary Beat – +50% item drops for 20 adventures per day for the rest of your life.
    • tiny fly glasses – In a nutshell: "Makes leveling familiars take only half as long."
    • gnawed-up dog bone – +5 Familiar weight is almost always the right decision for a slot when you farm. And this one even has the tiny fly glasses' enchantment as an additional bonus.
    • ittah bittah hookah – This single piece of familiar equipment will not only save you having to get and equip 90% of the different familiar equipments, but is also a tiny little bit better. You can get the parts via /clan, /trade or sometimes by using sellbot or HeartBot.
    • Slimeling – Most of the time, the optimal choice for item farming is either the Slimeling or the Hound Dog. Buy a Slimeling in /trade (some logistics will be required) and never worry about not having one during a world event.
  • Ascending:
  • Other Situations:
    • sugar sheets – Really strong, really inexpensive items. They break after 31 combats, but for fairies, bosses or stat tests, they are a great choice.
    • fossilized necklace – In a nutshell, this is what you'll equip if you want something dead that you'll encounter before level 13 and don't want to spend too much thought. Upgrade this to the max and you will have the means to kill pretty much anything during a softcore run, or if you need to drop out of hardcore prematurely.
    • Miniborg Destroy-O-Bot – You want one! Two, once you can funksling them. It is the most flexible reusable combat item and amongst the best methods to defeat monsters if you're outleveled by them – for example when you're fresh out of hc and run unhealthy levels of +ML. Deleveling, Physical- and Hot damage... If I could choose only one combat item, this would be it.
    • tin snips – No Miniborg Destroy-O-Bot, but they are still nice. On average, the Destroy-O-Bot would have finished a fight faster, though. On the flip side, buying the tin snips won't turn a rich player into a poor one...
    • time shuriken – These have an interesting niche use: If you are fighting in the Time-Twitching Tower, they deal more damage than the Miniborg Destroy-O-Bot. For owners of Destroy-O-Bots and tin snips, these are in no way mandatory, but still worth considering if you are a constant visitor and can spare 200 or 400 Chroners.
    • jewelry-making pliers – You'll need them for any kind of Jewelrycrafting. To get a pair of those you'll need to do an ascension under a moon sign with Little Canadia access.
    • super-sweet boom box – Another flexible item: Top-notch bonus to all Attributes, allowing you to keep 4 songs in your head instead of 3 and deals great damage – something you don't find in one-handed ranged weapons very often.
    • Space Trip safety headphones – This grants the biggest available -ML (100), which is paired with a -5% combat rate for your convenience. This is not as important anymore as it was once, and not mandatory, but it's still a rather nice piece of equipment to have at your disposal.
    • Crimbot ROM: Rapid Prototyping – Save up to five Adventures per day that would otherwise be spend on crafting. Unlike Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration this passive skill requires no MP, but can't grant as much free craftings as Inigo's could.
    • Ellsbury's journal – 5 turns of free mining a day. However, it's a lot less helpful if you forget that you actually have the skill, all the time – like me...
    • How to Tolerate Jerks – The 10 bonus MP alone are worth the effort since they will be noticable during most of your ascension. The 10 bonus HP add to your early ascension survivability but aren't nearly as esseential. Most PvPers don't attack for items, so your losses won't be that bad. And since the skill will perm automatically when you learn it, you don't need to save karma for it. This is well worth the effort put into getting it, but it will suck a crazy number of Adventures out of your day.
    • burrowgrub hive – Some classes have no ability to heal themselves and some players are constantly forgetting to refill on decent healing items. The hive is far from awesome and also costs quite a stack of meat, but if you're losing combats by a hair's breadth because you forgot to get a refill between combats and can't or don't want to change your gear, you should consider this.
      It is also positively revolting – which is great! :D

Items that are not worth it

For some reason, some expensive items seem great until you get them. Just because you can afford them (once you made your first little fortune) doesn't make them a sensible investment...

  • Throbbing rage gland – There are still some around, but in 5 years, I've had a single situation where this was useful – and it was a little bit helpful rather than saving the day. In short: You don't need it; you don't want it.
  • Rainbow's Gravity – The skill Rainbow Gravitation is neither a good source of meat, nor will you nibble on prismatic wads from the moment you get it, and it's not in the slightest ascension-relevant. Prismatic wads can be nice if you absolutely positively need the buff. They smith into some nice equipment as well. But all those things can be made for a fair price or bought from the mall. If not, just ask around who is willing to use his skill-charges for you, because pretty much nobody uses the skill.
  • Belch The Rainbow – Fully upgrading this skill will require 11 beautiful rainbows, which all together cost more than a Mr. A in the mall. As such, the fully upgraded skill is not bad, it's just nothing you'd use... The problem is that it doesn't receive bonus damage from anything, so the most damage this skill can ever do is 55 (or 56 against elemental monsters) for 5 MP. These figures don't compare well with Saucestorm ((20-24)+floor(0.2*Mys) – twice (as Cold and Hot Damage)), which will always hit as well and can benefit from several sources of Mysticality and bonus spell damage, including passive skills, intrinsic effects and tons of potions you'll find all over the kingdom. Even very early on, Saucestorm will deal more damage than Belch The Rainbow. To top it off, Saucestorm will only cost 1,250 meat and can even hit critically, for double damage. Each part of the spell can crit individually, so critical hits will do less damage overall, but are about twice as common in exchange. This makes Belch The Rainbow neither worth your meat, nor your karma. (Belch The Rainbow is a skill that was solely added as a fun reward for dedicated Heavy Rains ascenders – not as a game breaking Uber-skill. Be glad that it's not mandatory for anything.)
  • Game Grid valued membership card – We talk at about 2 days per year in /arcade. You'll get a lot more action in /foodcourt...
  • Adorable Space Buddy – By the time you get the stat bonus, it will hardly be noticeable. You will benefit more from the classical volleyball and sombrero combo.
  • Pottery Barn Owl – Even a Ghuol Whelp that does Hot Damage suffers from a fatal flaw: It's a Ghuol Whelp. You will manage without the volcanic ash. ;)
  • Mechanical Songbird – A Jumpsuited Hound Dog than only receives its bonus while in Dreadsylvania and gets you a little something extra every 150 fights.
  • Underworld Bonsai & Snow Angel – Too expensive and actually not very useful: The utility of the elemental starfishes is to get MP much greater than the HP of the monster. Near the start of a run, at level 6, a midget clownfish can easily give you 100+ MP per turn. Granted, in the frat war, a Snow Angel can give you a solid 350 MP per turn; however, the impact of that 350 MP at level 12 is far less than the impact of 100 MP at level 6. Additionally, you can also consider what a regular starfish might give you at that point. Maybe around 70-80 for level 6, and maybe around 300 at level 12. (A big thanks to RoyalTonberry who explained this to me in the first place.)
  • Mutant something-something – Mall price and luck aside: While they are stronger than standard familiars at certain times, they are also weaker than standard familiars at certain times. Being restricted to certain dates is inconvenient. If you get one of these familiars you have to swim with the tides if you want to use them for their full potential – which isn't everyone's idea of having fun...
  • Homemade Robot – "But, but, but... It's the most powerful Pet Rock out there..." This serves more as a placeholder: With meat or effort you could get your hands on some very expensive, potentially useful familiars, like the BRICKO chick, the Putty Buddy, or the Helix Fossil which you'll never use. Usually you will already be unsure if you'll ever use them the moment you read their description. Unless your goal is to fill up your terrarium with as many familiars as possible, you can skip most of them without any regrets. Trust me – I own most of those.

Aftercore Skills

You can read all about which are the best skills for hardcore and speeding your ascensions up elsewhere, but there are some skills you specifically might want available during aftercore. Even though they aren't that useful during your regular runs you might want to get them, once you manage to ascend in a timely manner. Hardcore players will also find that soft-perming such a skill comes cheaper than usual to them, which isn't as much of a karmic sacrifice.

  • Class Skills:
    • Ambidextrous Funkslinging (DB) – There is no way around this: Most strategies that explain how to kill something big start with the word "Funksling". Also works great with libram summoned combat items during a run.
    • Cannelloni Cocoon (PM) – This will save you a small fortune in healing items. Or a big fortune... Depending on whether or not you do clan dungeons. Getting this skill permed early will save you more stress and meat in the long run than most farming skills would.
    • Crafting skills (every class but AT) – Generally speaking, you'll need every kind of crafting skill at some point and usually not while you happen to be the appropriate class. The only ones you don't need to perm are the ones aimed at the sea and Really Expensive Jewelrycrafting – just have a skillbook or two in your closet for when you'll need it again.
    • Untradable buffing skills – There are skills that grant you effects you can't get from other players. Think about which of those you'll need.
    • Combat skills – Those look boring until you need them, but at least one big physical combat skill and one uncapped spell and you'll always be prepared. In emergencies, you can get spells from tradable Hobopolis skillbooks, but those require a huge amount of MP. Also consider (the otherwise utterly useless) Spirit of Rigatoni.
    • Double-Fisted Skull Smashing (SC) – Adds more possibilities to the way you dress up. Being flexible is always nice.
    • Passive +Meat drops skills – You know... For farming meat.
    • Free Rests (mostly DB) – Even only having Adventurer of Leisure will grant you some free healing and MP which can be very convenient.
  • Class-Skillbooks:
    • Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration (AT) – Like with Rapid Prototyping, you get some free crafting done per day – provided you have a good amount of MP to spare. If not, you can always skip this skill and use recordings or singles from the mall.
    • Uncle Romulus (TT) – The Tarrypin will greatly increase the speed you level familiars in aftercore. Currently, all BuffBots that have this skill are either offline for longer than half a year or aren't active on a regular basis. And there aren't many players that permed this – or at least not that many that will buff you... (You can possibly mooch a few turns from me, but don't bet on it.)
    • The Art of Slapfighting (SC) – You'll only ever need this skill as a SC, so you don't need to perm it for quite a while. Having it readily available in aftercore doesn't hurt, though...

Iotms that are worth it

Preliminary remarks: Almost every iotm is fun to use and fun to have.

  • The servers don't run on love alone – I'm not going to sugar coat it: Giving money away for virtual goods seems strange to some. (Because that piece of paper is totally worth 10 dollars – nothing virtual going on here...) But our donations keep the game alive. Jick didn't want us to feel obliged to donate, but if players hadn't been donating all these years (11!) there would be no game for us to play – you included. Also the iotms we get in return tend to be pretty cool.
  • Become a VIP – If you'll only get one iotm ever, let it be the VIP invitation. Even with just the basics plus a fax machine it would be worth it. If your clan's VIP Lounge is not optimal enough for your taste, get whitelisted for Bonus Adventures from Hell – just keep in mind one day clanhopping might stop working that way.
  • Abuse your Spleen – A Spleen familiar will speed up every run considerably. It also makes HCO runs noticeably faster.
  • Even more Familiar – Chances are, you won't want to use your Spleen familiar after you've received your daily spleen items. It might sound decadent, but a second iotm familiar will do you plenty of good, if you choose the right one. Don't get impatient. You'll know it's the right one for you when you see it.
  • Get a garden – So far, every garden had been great. If a new one comes around, it will most likely be great as well.
  • Books – Ideally, you'd get one Tome, one Libram and any number you like of Grimoires.
    • Tomes – Tomes go all out. You'll only get 3 items per day, but what you get is condensed iotm-goodness. Unfortunately, that limit counts across all your Tomes, so getting more than one, will do a lot less for you that the first one did.
      • Bloody overpowered: The Smith's Tome – Incredibly powerful but insanely overpriced already. If you're not on a budget this is pretty much the tome to get. (This got very likely outranked by another "best" Tome by now. Check more current sources on what Tome to get in your situation.)
      • Honorary mentioning: Clip Arts – It came out September 2011 but was still really affordable for an iotm (at the time of writing). If you can't or won't afford the Smith's Tome think about this as a very good alternative. Plus the Tome of Clip Art will work even better for you once you've learned Kung Fu – which is something you probably might want to do either way.
    • Librams – Sooner or later you will manage your run good enough to have some MP to spare. By that time you'll want a Libram. A few summons now and then will improve your whole run in numerous ways. Unlike Tomes, a second Libram could still be a reasonable investment since you could do more mix and match. Personally, I'm fine with just one.
    • Grimoires – They are fun, but not particularly powerful. I own 3 Grimoires but they improve my runs only in rather subtle ways. I'm not saying you shouldn't get one, but power-wise there are better options for a Mr. A. Fun-wise, they rank pretty high up, though.
  • Overlooked treasure of the past: The Sugar Fruit Fairy – The candy cornucopia is (currently) half the price of a mysterious chest (Li'l Xenomorph) in the mall – and with good reason: It's pretty demanding. Getting your MP sucked out of you in the middle of your ascension can be rather annoying, especially when you would need more MP for your buffs than the Fairy's current per round demand. But once you've passed that point and keep your MP low, you can collect sugar plums instead and decide for yourself when you want to sacrifice MP. Even more important: The plums grant you substats based on the current weight of your fairy, making it possible to save them up strategically for higher gains, if you don't need them right now. But the main drawback of the Xenomorph is, that its familiar equipment always makes it 5 pounds lighter – or 10 pounds if you can work with sugar shields. While both familiars can gather experience at twice the rate switching between volleyball and an average fairy would allow you to, the Sugar Fruit Fairy will always be the heavier one of the two and can be equipped with iotm equipment during a softcore ascension.
    Disclaimer: I happen to have a Frumious Bandersnatch and a Pair of Stomping Boots (amongst other shiny familiars) which in combination are more powerful than this fairy. But those familiars are expensive as hell nowadays, so I won't advise you to farm for an eternity, just so you can use those...
  • Mr. A Jr. – You're going to get one eventually, so if you do, check the mall price first. Five Uncle Bucks might currently be worth more than a Mr. A Jr., so when you donate 5 dollars to get one, you can get/save some additional meat by using the mall.
  • Think of tomorrow's challenges – There are some iotms that are tailored to add significantly to a certain challenge path. It is always something in addition to what that iotm already is and it won't become worthless outside of that challenge path, but when you think about those items always ask yourself "How much would I use it in an average hardcore run?"
  • The clock is ticking – In about three years from the time you buy an iotms, it won't be usable during in-season challenge paths. Whether you will care by the time that will happen is hard to foresee today, but even if your favorite pastime today is hardcore ascending in different paths, think about potential aftercore uses as well. Familiars and other items that become untradable once you add them to your character might become more interesting to you, since you can't just buy what you want from them through the mall.

Highscores

I like Highscores. Not for the sake of proving I'm better than someone else, but for the feeling of achievement, once I reached my set goal. That's one of the reasons I collect items. Obsessively.

The first item I ever collected were sticks of "gum". Now I'm done.
Yes, that's right: I'm done collecting it. The number is fine that way.

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My Snapshot Maker-Profile

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