Basement Diving Guide

For Loathers wanting to do a basement dive to upgrade their telescopes (or for other reasons), this article aims to provide strategies for doing so efficiently. While the focus will be on reaching floor 500, the strategies will also be applicable for those who want to go deeper.

Fernswarthy's Basement consists of several different types of challenges, which get more and more difficult the deeper into the basement one goes. Every fifth level is a reward (usually a stat reward, whose magnitude scales to your main stat).

Overview

Fernswarthy's basement contains monsters to fight, stat tests, damage tests (physical and elemental), and MP draining tests. Difficulty progresses exponentially as a function of your depth in the basement. All the challenges follow the basic formula:

StatRequired = Depth1.4

There is typically some variance in the exact requirements, but this formula gives a rough approximation.

Buffing

Getting your stats up to Depth^1.4 (or in some cases a bit higher) will usually require several effects.

The first and most important effect is the equalizer. There are three different equalizers, one for each stat:

• oil of stability -- equalizes everything to Muscle -- calculates percentage Moxie/Mysticality boosts using your black Muscle stat instead of Moxie/Myst
• oil of expertise -- equalizes everything to Mysticality
• oil of slipperiness -- equalizes everything to Moxie

Once you're past the early basement levels, you should be using an equalizer all the time. This means that you don't need to raise offstats at all (except to meet equipment requirements) -- your ability to progress will depend only on your main stat.

The Maximizing pages (Muscle, Myst, Moxie) have comprehensive lists of the available effects, but they are not presented in an economically efficient order, nor with indications of which effects are limited (X times per day, or Y fullness, or Z spleen).

The affordable, unlimited potion- and skill-based buffs include:

• 200% The Way of Sauce potions (Ferrigno's, Hawking's, Connery's)
• 100% Advanced Saucecrafting potions (philter of phorce, ointment of the occult, serum of sarcasm)
• 100% potion of temporary gr8ness
• 100% Cold-filtered water
• 100% Trivia Master (use one of each card: What?, When?, Where? and Who?)
• 10-67% Blood of the Wereseal (Muscle only) (depending on moonlight)
• 50% tomato juice of powerful power
• 50% funky dried mushroom (Mysticality only)
• 25-85% Flaskfull of Hollow (increases with additional Smithsness)
• 25% Dungeons of Doom potion
• 25% seal-brain elixir
• 15% Song of Bravado (must know the skill)
• 15% hair spray -- Moxie
• 15% Ben-Gal™ Balm -- Muscle
• 15% Glittery mascara -- Mysticality
• 10% Black Market item
• 10% Pirate Bookstore item
• 10% Stevedave's Shanty of Superiority
• 10% Rage of the Reindeer (Muscle only, must know the skill)
• 10% Disco Fever (Moxie only, must know the skill)

Some other powerful but pricier buffs are:

• 400% Rümpelstiltz
• 300% Deep Saucery potions (mutually exclusive -- you can only use one at a time)
• 200% warbear rejuvenation potion
• 200% Mer-kin potions:
  • Mer-kin strongjuice -- +200% Muscle, -100% Mysticality/Moxie
  • Mer-kin smartjuice -- +200% Mysticality, -100% Muscle/Moxie
  • Mer-kin cooljuice -- +200% Moxie, -100% Muscle/Mysticality
• 100% Arrrbor Day rewards
• 100% Dependence Day fireworks (Dependence Day Only)
• 60% mafia aria -- Muscle/Moxie
• 50% Pork Elf gem potion
• 50% extra-potent gremlin mutagen
• 50% Red Misty-Eyed from sealhide seal doll -- Muscle (untradable, acquire as Seal Clubber)
• 25% gremlin mutagen
• 20% Worm Wood item:
  • bellhop bell -- +20% Muscle, -20% Mysticality
  • bottled inspiration -- +20% Mysticality, -20% Moxie
  • sensitive poetry journal -- +20% Moxie, -20% Muscle

Saucerors may use vials of slime (from the Nemesis quest) as well:

• 200% Tertiary color slime potions
• 100% Secondary color slime potions
• 50% Primary color slime potions

Limited buffs:

• 200% A Contender from rocky road ice cream (2 fullness, 40 turns)
• 100-200% queen cookie (1 fullness, 30 turns)
• 5%-200% ChibiChanged™ (once per day, 5*X turns)
• 100% Prince of Seaside Town from vamping out (once per day, 30 turns, takes 1 turn)
• 100% (approximately) for 30 turns of the six regular wad effects (1 spleen per wad)
• 1-100% Having a Ball! (clan ball pit) (once per day, 20 turns)
• 50% Amorphous Cheer from blob-shaped Crimbo cookie (2 fullness)
• 50% In Vino Vires from canteen of wine (3 drunkenness)
• 50% Yuletide Industry from elven limbos gingerbread (3 fullness)
• 50% Pasty from protein paste -- Muscle (2 fullness)
• 50% Cake Caked from cupcake-in-a-cup -- Mysticality (2 fullness)
• 50% Shamboozled from sham champagne -- Moxie (2 drunkenness)
• 50% Nanobrawny, Nanobrainy or Nanoballsy (you and the Nanorhino must spend 33-50 combats, or a rollover, to recharge)
• 5-35% Starry-Eyed from A Telescope (once per day, 10 turns)
• 30% Rainbow Bright from prismatic wad (3 spleen)
• 10-30% Single-element wads (1 spleen)
• 1-30% The Pleasures of the Flesh from the Pain Enjoyer (once per day, 30 turns, 1% for each turn left)
• 20% Flower Power (3 fullness or 3 drunkenness)

Outfits

In addition to buffs, you can get huge stat-buffing boosts from your equipment. It is well worth the time required to set up some custom outfits specifically for basement diving.

Some players make more basement-diving custom outfits than others. A reasonable starting point is to make 7 outfits: Muscle, Mysticality, Moxie, Elemental resistance, HP, MP, and Combat. Players who lack major elemental resistance gear may choose to make specific elemental resistance outfits for each test (e.g. one for the Hot/Spooky test, another for the Cold/Sleaze test, and so on) rather than a single generic elemental resistance outfit. Some players may also choose to make a Damage absorption outfit for the Gauntlet test (if they lack the Tao of the Terrapin skill for example).

The Maximizing pages (Muscle, Myst, Moxie, Elemental Resistance, HP, MP) will give you comprehensive lists of the equipment choices for each slot, so that you can construct your outfits depending on what you have available.

If you lack most of the great equipment on those pages (in particular, the Slimesuit), you might consider delaying your basement dive until you've had the chance to gather some of it.

Combat Challenges

Monster Level in the basement scales as twice the basement level (Depth) to the 1.4^th power. That is,

ML = 2 * ceil(Depth1.4)
Defense = ceil(ML*.9)
HP = ceil(ML*.85)

Because of how quickly ML (and hence monster defense) scales, and how Hit Chance is calculated, it will eventually be impossible to hit with a "normal" weapon attack. This includes attack skills like Thrust-Smack (normally). By Depth 300, a character will need almost 5900 attack strength to hit the monsters. The story gets worse, because monster defense also absorbs damage due to Muscle. Fortunately, there are ways to beat the monsters without out-statting them.

Note that combat with basement monsters can last up to 50 rounds, rather than the usual 30.

Monsters have 70% Combat Initiative unless otherwise stated.

Encounters

Monster	Notes
The Beast with X Ears
The Beast with X Eyes	∞ initiative.
X Stone Golem	Has 50% Physical Resistance. Has only 50% of the HP of normal basement monsters.
X-headed Hydra	Can do hot, cold, and stench damage.
The Ghost of Fernswarthy's Grandfather	Has 100% Physical Resistance, and thus is auto-killed by scroll of ancient forbidden unspeakable evil. Has only 25% of the HP of normal basement monsters.
X Bottles of Beer on a Golem	Blocks a high percentage of spells.
X-dimensional horror	0% initiative, and thus never gets the jump. Blocks weapon attacks and weapon-based skills.

Strategy

If you've been working over a run with Lunging Thrust-Smack or Shieldbutt, you can basically keep doing whatever you're doing up to a point, but as the monsters go past a few thousand ML at higher levels, here are a few strategies to deal thousands of damage even when your stats are much lower than the monster's.

The main idea is, be the David to their Goliath. Don't try to out-stat the monsters.

General tips

• Most classes have a skill that can stun, allowing you a few more hits than you might be able to get otherwise (beware: Entangling Noodles doesn't work well on beer golems). Mesmereyes™ contact lenses, in particular, will stagger any monster that gets the jump on you.
• See Maximizing Your HP, Maximizing Your Moxie, and Maximizing Your Damage Absorption to help survive long enough to kill.

Spells

• If you didn't know, spell damage is based off Mysticality.
• Regular spells don't work well on beer golems, but it's easy to switch to combat items for one battle. Non-spell skills can also be used (Bawdy Refrain, Lunging Thrust-Smack, Spectral Snapper and Turtleini are all useful, depending on your class, equipment and stats).
• With a good chefstaff and/or a Stick-Knife of Loathing (plus tobiko marble soda), it's increasingly trivial to get over 500% bonus spell damage for pretty cheap. At that point, damage for the high-level class spells are more than 2.4 times buffed Myst. See also: Maximizing Your Spell Damage.

Combat items

• None of the monsters block combat items (which is kind of sad), so this works on everything.
• If you have a mercenary pistol or mercenary rifle, you can use specialty ammo clips. They all deal 3 times your buffed moxie in elemental damage, and cost 100 meat in the mall.
• Party favors deal damage equal to buffed mainstat, for all three stats.
• Love songs deal damage equal to buffed mainstat, for all three stats. Additionally, some do elemental damage.
• Ambidextrous Funkslinging makes combat items even more efficient. It allows stunlock and damage at the same time.
• The V for Vivala mask increases combat item damage by 50%. The skills Deft Hands and Mathematical Precision increase combat item damage by 25% (passive) and 50% (10 MP/20 turn buff) respectively.
• Shrinking powder cuts a monster's current HP in half.
• Shards of double-ice deal cold damage equal to your highest buffed stat, stun monsters for 1 round, and makes them cold-aligned for the rest of the combat.

Birdform

• Birdform grants various skills that scale well with buffed stats.
• Vicious Talon Slash does Muscle-based physical damage, and always hits. Only the Ghost can cause a problem.
• The various other skills do Mysticality-based elemental damage. However, they require use of certain items before combat, and don't scale as high as Vicious Talon Slash. See Form of...Bird! for more details. The strongest of these is The Statue Treatment.
• Warning: Birdform prevents the use of other skills and combat items. This means no stunning, and the only way to heal is to use Feast on Carrion. Survival, then, is based on Maximizing Your HP and Maximizing Your Damage Absorption.

Elemental Challenges

There are five different Elemental Resistance challenges, which test two elements at once. The same amount of damage is done in both elements; failure results if HP is reduced to 0. As with the combat challenges, the damage scales with basement level:

 Elt = 4.48 × Depth1.4 + 8

To repeat, the above damage is applied using both elements of the test, so the total raw damage is twice the calculated value. Additionally, there appears to be about a 5% variation in the equation, so having exactly enough HP and resistance to match the calculation does not guarantee the test will be passed. This also means that it is possible to pass the tests with fewer HP than implied by the equation.

If you are truly struggling with elemental resistance, you can use phials made from elemental clusters (e.g. phial of coldness). These force elemental damage rules to be followed, so that one of the two prongs (the elemental forms cannot stack) of each test can be reduced to one point of damage, effectively cutting total damage in half. However, care must be taken to choose the form which won't double the damage received from the other prong.

Damage Absorption has no effect on these challenges.

Encounters

Elemental Test	Elements	Optional Elemental Form
Singled Out	cold and sleaze	Coldform (phial of coldness)
Peace, Bra!	sleaze and stench	Sleazeform (phial of sleaziness)
Still Better Than Pistachio	stench and hot	Stenchform (phial of stench)
Unholy Writes	hot and spooky	Hotform (phial of hotness)
The Unthawed	spooky and cold	Spookyform (phial of spookiness)

Strategy

Elemental Resistance levels decrease damage by a percent of the raw damage, but more levels asymptotically increase the percentage to 90%.

Mysticality classes have an extra 5% resistance added to their effective elemental resistance (for example, turning 85% to 90%), and at the same high elemental resistance levels (25+, or 88.91%), they take nearly 50% less damage than other classes take.

Phials became very expensive due to a game change in July, 2013. Consider using a good elemental resistance outfit (and buffs) instead. The Exotic Parrot also helps.

In order to pass these tests a basement diver may wish to maximize their effective HP. Effective HP is the amount of unreduced elemental damage it would take to reduce a player to 0 HP. Effective HP is found by the formula: EHP = HP/(1-resistance percentage). HP in this formula is the player's current HP including any bonuses from equipment, buffs, etc. A player can raise their EHP in two ways: HP Modifiers and modifiers to Elemental Resistance levels. As the resistance level gets higher extra resistance becomes less useful. As HP gets higher extra resistance becomes more useful.

Res Level	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29
Res %	78.4	80.3	81.9	83.3	84.4	85.3	86.1	86.8	87.3	87.7	88.1	88.4	88.7	88.9	89.1	89.2	89.4	89.5
HP	EHP
2000	9247	10157	11065	11955	12814	13630	14394	15100	15743	16322	16838	17293	17693	18039	18339	18596	18817	19004
2250	10403	11427	12448	13449	14416	15334	16194	16987	17710	18362	18943	19455	19904	20294	20631	20921	21169	21379
2500	11559	12697	13831	14944	16018	17038	17993	18875	19678	20402	21047	21617	22116	22549	22924	23246	23521	23755
2750	12715	13966	15214	16438	17619	18742	19792	20762	21646	22442	23152	23779	24327	24804	25216	25570	25873	26130
3000	13871	15236	16597	17933	19221	20445	21592	22650	23614	24482	25257	25940	26539	27059	27509	27895	28225	28506
3250	15027	16506	17980	19427	20823	22149	23391	24537	25582	26523	27361	28102	28750	29314	29801	30219	30577	30881
3500	16182	17775	19363	20921	22425	23853	25190	26425	27550	28563	29466	30264	30962	31569	32093	32544	32929	33257
3750	17338	19045	20747	22416	24026	25557	26989	28312	29517	30603	31571	32425	33174	33824	34386	34868	35281	35632
4000	18494	20315	22130	23910	25628	27261	28789	30199	31485	32643	33676	34587	35385	36079	36678	37193	37633	38008
4250	19650	21584	23513	25404	27230	28964	30588	32087	33453	34684	35780	36749	37597	38334	38970	39517	39985	40383
4500	20806	22854	24896	26899	28832	30668	32387	33974	35421	36724	37885	38910	39808	40589	41263	41842	42337	42759
4750	21962	24124	26279	28393	30433	32372	34187	35862	37389	38764	39990	41072	42020	42844	43555	44167	44689	45134
5000	23118	25393	27662	29888	32035	34076	35986	37749	39356	40804	42094	43234	44231	45099	45848	46491	47041	47510
5250	24274	26663	29045	31382	33637	35780	37785	39637	41324	42844	44199	45395	46443	47353	48140	48816	49393	49885
5500	25430	27932	30428	32876	35239	37483	39584	41524	43292	44885	46304	47557	48654	49608	50432	51140	51745	52261
5750	26585	29202	31811	34371	36840	39187	41384	43412	45260	46925	48409	49719	50866	51863	52725	53465	54098	54636
6000	27741	30472	33195	35865	38442	40891	43183	45299	47228	48965	50513	51880	53078	54118	55017	55789	56450	57012
6250	28897	31741	34578	37359	40044	42595	44982	47187	49196	51005	52618	54042	55289	56373	57309	58114	58802	59387
6500	30053	33011	35961	38854	41646	44298	46782	49074	51163	53045	54723	56204	57501	58628	59602	60438	61154	61763
6750	31209	34281	37344	40348	43248	46002	48581	50962	53131	55086	56828	58366	59712	60883	61894	62763	63506	64138
7000	32365	35550	38727	41843	44849	47706	50380	52849	55099	57126	58932	60527	61924	63138	64187	65088	65858	66514
7250	33521	36820	40110	43337	46451	49410	52180	54737	57067	59166	61037	62689	64135	65393	66479	67412	68210	68889
7500	34677	38090	41493	44831	48053	51114	53979	56624	59035	61206	63142	64851	66347	67648	68771	69737	70562	71265
7750	35833	39359	42876	46326	49655	52817	55778	58511	61003	63246	65246	67012	68559	69903	71064	72061	72914	73640
8000	36988	40629	44259	47820	51256	54521	57577	60399	62970	65287	67351	69174	70770	72158	73356	74386	75266	76016
9000	41612	45708	49792	53798	57663	61336	64775	67949	70842	73447	75770	77821	79616	81177	82526	83684	84674	85518
10000	46236	50786	55324	59775	64070	68151	71972	75499	78713	81608	84189	86467	88463	90197	91695	92982	94083	95020
11000	50859	55865	60857	65753	70477	74967	79169	83048	86584	89769	92608	95114	97309	99217	100865	102280	103491	104522

For example, a player with 2000 HP and 12 resistance (78.4%) has 9247 EHP. If this player puts on a battered old top-hat (+500 HP,) their new EHP would be 11559, an increase of 2312. If this player put on an orange peel hat (+3 resistance) instead, they would have an EHP of 11955, an increase of 2708. If the same player were to buff their resistance to 25 before headgear, they would have an EHP of 18039. The top-hat would increase EHP by 4510. The orange peel hat would increase EHP by 557.

Attribute Tests

The remaining challenges are passed or failed based on buffed Muscle, Mysticality, Moxie, HP, or MP.

The stat tests are thought to scale as:

 Stat = Depth1.4 + 2

The HP test probably scales like:

 Phys = 10 × Depth1.4

The MP test likely scales as:

 Drain = 1.67 × Depth1.4

The stat tests seem to have about 10% variation. The MP drain test is believed to have less than 5% variation.

Attribute Test			Notes
Lift 'em!	Push it Real Good	Ring that Bell	Muscle tests
Gathering: The Magic	Mop the Floor with the Mops	Do away with the 'doo	Mysticality tests
Don't Wake the Baby	Grab a cue	Put on the Smooth Moves	Moxie tests
Throwin' Down the Gauntlet			HP test Damage Absorption applies, so maximizing DA and Muscle/HP helps
A Festering Powder			MP test Maximizing your Mysticality/MP helps

Strategy

For raw attribute tests, there's nothing more to say than "buff up".

For the Gauntlet, increase Damage Absorption as close as possible to 1000, if not above. Once that's accomplished, then increase HP (when you must choose between the two, DA is more important). Ghostly shell and astral shell buffs are a nearly-free 160 points of DA. Having Tao of the Terrapin can effectively increase your DA by 400, making the Gauntlet test nearly trivial. Torso Awaregness allows an increase of up to 240, in addition to the HP or Muscle boost of the shirt being worn. As an alternative you can also use too legit potions for a DA-increase of up to 600.

For the Powder, to refill your MP after maximizing it, you have a few choices:

• Platinum Yendorian Express Card (once a day)
• Jumbo Dr. Lucifer (costs 1 fullness)
• Get Hooked Up from the hobo marketplace
• Eat your own black heart (you can only generate 1 per day, but they can be stockpiled in advance)
• Egnaro berry restores half of your max MP
• Use the April Shower on the Hot setting (once per day)
• Failing all those, you can use traditional MP Restorers. This will become terribly expensive as you dive deeper. CSA all-purpose soap and (at very high levels) magical mystery juice are the most reasonable choices.
• If you have something to do in the meantime, maximize your MP Regeneration, take a Star Starfish or other mana-restoring familiar with you and spend a few dragged-out adventures elsewhere. This is most effective as a sauceror with Curse of Weaksauce or a turtle tamer with Boon of the Storm Tortoise.

Number-Crunching

Assuming that the combat challenges can be handled, the major hurdle for most divers will be the non-combat tests. Recall the basic formula:

StatRequired = Depth1.4

All the basement challenges scale using this formula.

• For the stat tests, the formula is applied directly (with 10% variance).
• For the Gauntlet challenge, the damage done is 10 times the formula, but 1000 Damage Absorption reduces it to 1/10, and so one is back to the formula.
• For the elemental tests, the total damage done is 9 times the formula, but elemental resistance reduces it to around 1/10 (muscle/moxie class) or 1/20 (myst class) -- depending on one's resources -- so this is typically even simpler than the Gauntlet, even without phials.
• For the Powder challenge, the MP required is 1.67 times the formula. Having the MP increasing skills permed gives you 1.65 times the MP you'd normally have, so with those skills you're nearly right back to the formula; if you're a myst class, that's another 1.5 times the MP, so getting your max MP high enough is a non-issue compared to actually generating the MP.

Given two basement levels m and n, one might wonder how much more difficult the basement is at n compared to m. Some math will show us how far one must dive in order for the basement to become twice as hard:

n1.4 = 2m1.4
e1.4 log n = 2e1.4 log m
1.4 log n = log 2 + 1.4 log m
1.4 (log n - log m) = log 2
log n - log m = (log 2)/1.4
n/m = e(log 2)/1.4 =~ 1.64067

So, if you dive to a level that is about 1.64 times as deep as your current level, you will need 2 times the stats.

The question of whether basement diving is feasible can be asked in two related ways:

• How much damage is done/how big do player attributes have to be to pass the non-combat tests at a given basement level?
• Knowing the stat/damage results, what main stat will be required to reach a particular basement level, given the buffs a player is willing to run at all times?

Table of Test Strengths

Knowing the approximate values of the tests as discussed in the outline, it is useful to have a reference of the stat strength/damage done at several common stat levels.

The following table shows the approximate ranges of stats, HP or MP required for the basement challenges just before every 25^th level. The Gauntlet damage is reported at 60% and 90% Damage Absorption levels; the elemental tests are shown at 70% and 87% resistance (corresponding to 9 and 20 points of resistance).

Stat tests are believed to have 10% variance. The variance on the Gauntlet and MP drain tests is not fully known yet; therefore only the mean damage is shown.

Depth	Stat tests	Gauntlet (60% DA)	Gauntlet (90% DA)	MP Drain	Element (70% Res)	Element (87% Res)
24	77 - 94	342	86	143	231	100
49	209 - 256	930	232	388	628	272
74	373 - 455	1656	414	691	1118	484
99	560 - 684	2489	622	1039	1680	728
124	767 - 938	3411	853	1424	2302	998
149	992 - 1213	4411	1103	1842	2977	1290
174	1233 - 1507	5481	1370	2288	3699	1603
199	1488 - 1819	6614	1653	2761	4464	1935
224	1756 - 2147	7806	1951	3259	5269	2283
249	2037 - 2489	9052	2263	3779	6110	2648
Depth	Stat tests	Gauntlet (60% DA)	Gauntlet (90% DA)	MP Drain	Element (70% Res)	Element (87% Res)
274	2329 - 2846	10349	2587	4321	6986	3027
299	2631 - 3216	11695	2924	4883	7894	3421
324	2944 - 3599	13087	3272	5464	8833	3827
349	3267 - 3993	14522	3630	6063	9802	4248
374	3600 - 4400	15999	4000	6679	10799	4680
399	3941 - 4817	17516	4379	7313	11823	5123
424	4291 - 5245	19071	4768	7962	12873	5578
449	4649 - 5682	20663	5166	8627	13948	6044
474	5016 - 6130	22292	5573	9307	15047	6520
499	5390 - 6588	23955	5989	10001	16170	7007

If you're on a Unix-like system, this command will generate a table of the maximum stat requirement, and the mean Powder MP drain, for every level from 1 to 500:

awk 'BEGIN {for(i=1;i<=500;i++){L=exp(1.4*log(i));printf("%3d %8.1f %8.1f\n", i, L*1.1, L*1.67)}}'

You can save that in a file, or pipe it through your favorite pager program. Either way, it's a handy reference to have open in a window while you're diving.

Main Stat Requirements

This section is completely out of date and needs to be rewritten. Until it has been rewritten, readers are urged to ignore it.

I mean it.

Knowing the stat/HP/MP requirements for the tests at particular basement levels allows for the conversion of the challenges into statements about main stat.

The following table then calculates the required main stat for every 25^th basement level according to the equations listed previously, as well as the required stat with a 5% safety margin, given the easy buffs shown. Because of class differences, several common scenarios need to be spelled out for the HP, MP, and element tests.

• Class differences do not affect Muscle, Mysticality, or Moxie tests, and thus there is only one column.
• Muscle classes get an innate 50% HP bonus. Tao of the Terrapin enables a large boost in DA. Hence the HP test has four columns.
• Mysticality classes get an innate 50% MP bonus. The MP test can be divided into Mysticality/non-Mysticality.
• Mysticality classes have an additional +5% resistance to elements, which is ADDED to the reduction percentage. For example, if a a non-myst class would only take 50% of the raw damage, a myst class would take 45%. If a non-myst class takes 10.1%, a myst class takes 5.1%. When resistances hit the high 20s, this very nearly cuts elemental damage in half.
• Moxie classes lose out on both the HP and 5% bonus resistance, so in practice there are three elemental categories: Muscle (89.9% resistance, +50% HP), Mysticality (94.9% resistance), and Moxie (89.9% resistance). The numbers in the table assume that the correct powder potion has been imbibed to reduce one element to negligible damage.

While the above does not capture the full range of possibilities given the passive skills available, it gives a good idea of what is possible.

Ignore elemental damage numbers, because they are way out of date and use a deprecated mechanic.

BL	Stat	Phys (Mus, 60% DA)	Phys (Mus, 90% DA)	Phys (Other, 60% DA)	Phys (Other, 90% DA)	Drain (Other)	Drain (Myst)	Elt (Mus)	Elt (Mys)	Elt (Mox)
24	12	31	8	47	12	20	13	14	11	21
24 (5% padding)	13	33	8	49	12	21	14	15	11	22
49	32	84	21	127	32	53	36	38	29	57
49 (5% padding)	34	89	22	133	33	56	38	40	30	60
74	57	150	38	225	56	95	63	68	51	101
74 (5% padding)	60	158	40	237	59	99	66	71	53	107
99	86	226	57	339	85	142	95	102	76	152
99 (5% padding)	90	237	59	356	89	149	99	107	80	160
124	117	309	77	464	116	194	130	139	104	208
124 (5% padding)	123	325	81	487	122	204	136	146	109	219
149	151	400	100	600	150	251	168	180	135	269
149 (5% padding)	158	420	105	630	158	264	176	189	141	283
174	187	497	124	746	187	312	208	223	167	335
174 (5% padding)	197	522	131	783	196	327	218	234	176	351
199	226	600	150	900	225	376	251	269	202	404
199 (5% padding)	237	630	158	945	236	395	264	283	212	424
224	266	708	177	1062	266	444	296	318	238	476
224 (5% padding)	280	743	186	1115	279	466	311	333	250	500
249	309	821	205	1232	308	515	343	368	276	552
249 (5% padding)	324	862	216	1293	323	540	361	387	290	580
274	353	939	235	1408	352	588	392	421	316	631
274 (5% padding)	370	986	247	1479	370	618	412	442	332	663
299	399	1061	265	1591	398	665	443	476	357	713
299 (5% padding)	419	1114	279	1671	418	698	466	499	375	749
324	446	1187	297	1781	445	744	496	532	399	798
324 (5% padding)	468	1246	312	1870	467	781	521	559	419	838
349	495	1317	329	1976	494	825	550	590	443	886
349 (5% padding)	520	1383	346	2075	519	867	578	620	465	930
374	545	1451	363	2177	544	909	606	651	488	976
374 (5% padding)	572	1524	381	2286	571	955	637	683	512	1024
399	597	1589	397	2383	596	995	664	712	534	1068
399 (5% padding)	626	1668	417	2502	626	1045	697	748	561	1122
424	649	1730	433	2595	649	1084	723	775	582	1163
424 (5% padding)	682	1816	454	2725	681	1138	759	814	611	1221
449	704	1874	469	2811	703	1174	783	840	630	1260
449 (5% padding)	739	1968	492	2952	738	1233	822	882	662	1323
474	759	2022	506	3033	758	1267	845	906	680	1359
474 (5% padding)	797	2123	531	3185	796	1330	887	952	714	1427
499	816	2173	543	3259	815	1361	908	974	730	1461
499 (5% padding)	856	2282	570	3422	856	1429	953	1022	767	1534

The last row, 499, is most informative. It shows that all classes really need Tao to survive the HP test. Muscle/Moxie classes really need Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises in order to make diving feasible. Mysticality classes fare best against the elemental tests. Moxie classes are the worst in every category.

Strategy

From the information above, conclusions can be drawn about configurations that are very useful to have in a basement dive.

Permed Skills

Doing a dive without these skills can significantly increase the time and Meat costs of reaching level 500.

• For most of the combat challenges, an uncapped combat spell will help: Fearful Fettucini, Saucegeyser, or Weapon of the Pastalord. Pastalord normally does only physical damage, which can be a problem for the ghost, but this can be rectified with Flavour of Magic or by using powder potions.
  • For those without these spells permed, Toynado can be learned (from Tales of a Kansas Toymaker or the used copy thereof), without destroying the book. The uncapped spells from Hobopolis, such as Grease Lightning or Inappropriate Backrub, do not generate used books, but can generally be purchased cheaply from the mall. Note that Toynado is physical damage, so it won't work on the ghost.
• Spectral Snapper is considered a weapon-based skill and not a "spell," so it will always hit the beer golem. The golem often blocks spells, and at higher levels it can become difficult to survive against beer golems long enough for spells to get through. However, uncapped spells scale to a larger portion of their associated stat and benefit from percentage-based spell damage increasers, so spells are a more efficient choice than Snapper when fighting anything other than the beer golem.
• Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises gives a 50% MP bonus, making the MP test much easier.
• Spirit of Ravioli provides a 25% HP bonus.
• Impetuous Sauciness gives five extra turns when drinking Sauceror potions, driving down costs.
• Ambidextrous Funkslinging enables a player to use two combat items per round. Funkslinging the divine combat items (divine noisemaker, divine can of silly string, divine blowout) is an effective (though somewhat expensive) alternative to scaling combat spells. Remember to use powder potions if fighting a physically resistant monster. Love songs can also be used to the same effect, without requiring a powder potion.

Several buffs help in diving, but are available via buffbots and do not need to be permed.

• Stevedave's Shanty of Superiority grants +10% to all attributes.
• Elemental Saucesphere gives +2 resistance.
• Scarysauce gives +2 sleaze and cold resistance.
• Astral Shell gives +1 resistance, and helps to reach the 1000 DA cap.
• Ghostly Shell helps with DA.
• Empathy of the Newt provides +5 familiar weight if familiars are a part of the diving strategy.

Several other skills are not "must-have" like the above, but do simplify a dive.

• The five passive resistance skills can free up equipment slots for more Muscle/HP buffing.
• Torso Awaregness allows the wearing of shirts to help maximize resistance/DA, as well as buffs from the shirts themselves.
• Tao of the Terrapin helps a great deal with maximizing DA which can be expensive without it, and is helpful with combats as well as the HP test.
• Spirit of Rigatoni enables the wielding of chefstaves, the bonus spell damage of which is nothing to sneeze at.
• Rage of the Reindeer gives a 10% Muscle boost.
• Disco Fever gives a 10% Moxie boost.
• Gnomish Hardigness and Cosmic Ugnderstanding provide a modest 5% bonus to HP and MP.
• Amphibian Sympathy and Leash of Linguini increase familiar weight.
• Springy Fusilli and Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation help with winning initiative.
• Entangling Noodles provides a low-cost way of getting free hits as monsters get tougher.
• Cannelloni Cocoon heals all HP; scrolls of drastic healing accomplish much the same thing pretty cheaply.
• Abs of Tin and Marginally Insane from Hodgman's journal 3 and 4 provide +10% to HP and MP, and can be permed, or purchased for each run.
• Sweet Synthesis consumes candies and spleen to give 30 turns/spleen of a whopping +300% boost to Muscle, Mysticality, Moxie, HP, or MP, making many tests significantly easier. (Or +9 resistance to any element, but beware of diminishing returns.)

Class Choices

There are several innate differences between character classes that can help one decide whether to do a dive on the current ascension.

1. Muscle classes have an intrinsic 50% HP bonus.
   • Seal Clubber: The class with the fastest low- to mid-level powerleveling (averaging over 450 muscularity per turn without clovers). Fast powerleveling leads to being able to start the basement at a higher level in the same amount of time.
   • Turtle Tamer: Characters with low skills can benefit from having the natural 50% HP bonus, a class skill for a 50% MP bonus, and a skill to double Damage Absorption from hats and pants (effectively up to 400 extra DA out of 1000 max).
2. Mysticality classes have a resistance bonus of 5%, and also an MP bonus of 50%.
   • Pastamancer: The Elbow Macaroni and Penne Dreadful Pasta Thralls equalize Muscle and Moxie, respectively, to Mysticality with no limit on duration, essentially eliminating any need for oils of expertise.
   • Saucerors get a five-turn duration bonus when imbibing saucecrafting potions (on top of any Impetuous Sauciness bonus), and additionally cook potions at a 3:1 product-to-ingredient ratio. These help give them more efficient use of effects, making them the cheapest class to use. Saucerors also get Slime Potions, which stack on top of sauce potions, letting them reach up to +350% more in stat bonuses than any other class. Also Saucemageddon, a spell more powerful than the normal class spells.
3. Moxie classes have basically no relevant advantages. Unless dance card-leveling counts, but it doesn't.

Familiars

Given that there are no item or Meat drops in the basement, and monster levels ramp up so high so quickly, very few familiars are actually useful in a dive.

• An Exotic Parrot helps with the elemental tests, without taking up an equipment slot. Back when elemental resistance had a maximum value, however, it was easy to max out one's resistance with cheap buffs and ordinary equipment. Now that the elemental resistance has no upper limit, any extra elemental resistance will help with the elemental tests. Every 20 lbs of parrot adds 1 increment of resistance to each element.
• A Levitating Potato can block attacks, which may be particularly helpful against the beer golem.
• A Hovering Sombrero may be a good choice for increasing the already large stat gains at deep basement levels.
• A Crimbo P. R. E. S. S. I. E. can act as an improved Sombrero. It can boost stat gains like a Sombrero, buff your stats, restore MP, block enemy attacks, attack, and delevel.
• A Disembodied Hand allows you to temporarily trade out your familiar slot for an extra one-handed weapon. This is helpful for cases like equipping another Brimstone Bludgeon, stainless steel shillelagh, Grimacite gat, bottle-rocket crossbow or Hodgman's whackin' stick in order to pass a stat test.
• Among familiar equipment, a Mayflower bouquet is especially useful for basementing since it has a decent chance to block enemy attacks on any familiar.

Useful items

Equipment choices

The Dressing For Success pages should be the main resource for meeting the requirements of the challenges. However, several pieces of equipment deserve explicit mention.

• The El Vibrato Relics outfit, when properly charged, will give 1000 HP or 1000 MP (or a combination in between), which makes the damage tests much easier. Note that this outfit requires 200 Muscle and 200 Moxie to equip, plus the appropriate punchcards. It's much less expensive to increase MP than HP.
• A scratch 'n' sniff sword/crossbow with 3 wrestler stickers provides 30% bonus to all stats. They last 20 battles, meaning you can use it for tests without using it up. The stickers are cheap at the Mall and the sword / crossbow is free when you use the stickers.
• Sugar shorts provide 25% to all stats for around 30 battles. Like the stickers, they are also cheap.
• The Sea salt scrubs are very useful if you have Torso Awaregness, giving +400 HP and +400 MP, in addition to a Mysticality boost.
• The super-sweet boom box gives great stats for one hand (meaning it can be dual-wielded) and an extra song slot (if you really need it), as well as MP regen (which is good to have during stat tests). It costs 1000 Game Grid tickets, making it an investment.
• Equipping the entire Clothing of Loathing outfit grants you +128% to all stats, plus +10 resistance to all elements. You also get +500 HP/MP from the Jeans of Loathing, plus a dozen other effects. It will take at least 13 ascensions to get the entire set, however.

Ascension

• The Ascension Rewards for Hardcore, HCO, and Bad Moon runs give very good stat buffs, often among the best of any equipment available.
• Astral Pets grant a good percentage increase to a single stat, but must be chosen before the ascension.

Clan Basement

• Hobopolis: Hodgman's Regal Frippery can boost all your stats evenly for 60%, as well as providing difficult-to-get Mysticality bonuses for your hat and pants slots. Getting two Hodgman's whackin' sticks can boost your stats by 40% more if you have dual-wielding (or 60%, if you have a Disembodied Hand familiar). If you don't, Hodgman's cane can be useful for maintaining MP buffs, and Hodgman's disgusting technicolor overcoat will really help your elemental defenses.
• The Slime Tube:
  • The Slimesuit (which can be obtained by doing three Slime Tube runs) gives a whopping 12 levels of elemental resistance. Stacked with other sources, this makes the elemental tests significantly easier, typically negating the need for phials altogether.
  • The big slimy cyst and medium slimy cyst both give random high-level equipment which significantly boosts stats and/or combat ability.

Consumables

• Divers having problems with combat encounters can always make use of the divine combat items (divine noisemaker, divine can of silly string, divine blowout). Each of those items deals damage equal to the player's (buffed) stat. They can even do damage to physically resistant monsters if the player has an elemental form. ie Hotform. Love songs or shards of double-ice work as well, providing elemental damage according to (buffed) stat.

• If the elemental tests are proving difficult, the +9 resistance semi-rares can let off some pressure. Again, this could get expensive:
  • SPF 451 lip balm (hot)
  • bottle of antifreeze (cold)
  • black eyedrops (spooky)
  • Dogsgotnonoz pills (stench)
  • donkey flipbook (sleaze)
• Stunning items -- in particular items which stun monsters for multiple rounds -- can be a help if monsters cannot be killed quickly.

General Strategy

• Characters willing to use up their fullness can drink Jumbo Dr. Lucifers to cheaply refill their MP for the MP tests.
• Those having trouble passing the tests should save the diet buffs (e.g., wad effects, Flower Power) for basement diving later in their KoL day, after they've had a chance to raise their main stat some more.
• The attribute and damage tests are not necessarily constant; due to the variations, one can pass a test with the exact same stats that have failed previously.
• Doing the Mysterious Island Quest's side-quests as a Frat will be helpful. Mysterious Island Arena's Frat reward includes the Elvish buff, and the Nunnery's Frat reward heals up to 3,000 HP and MP per day.

Optimal Time to Start a Dive

Many players choose to do their dives concurrently with attaining their level 30 class trophies (e.g., the Seal Clubber's Scourge of Seals), as the high main stat at level 30 makes for an easier dive. However, a dive need not start at level 30, because the stat rewards over the course of finishing 500 basement levels are considerable, due to scaling monster levels. At level 100, 300 stats per combat are expected, roughly half of which will be distributed into the main stat. At level 400, over 2000 stats per combat will be earned.

Here is some rough math:

 Monster level = 2 * Depth1.4
 Sombrero weight = 40
 Sombrero bonus = sqrt(40 * monster level) / 10
 Total stat gain from monster = (monster level / 4) + sombrero bonus
 Chance of combat on a non-reward basement level = 0.46 (estimated)
 Expected mainstat gain on a non-reward basement level =
   0.46 * (total stat gain from monster) / 2
 Expected mainstat gain on a reward basement level = current mainstat * 2 / 3

If we approximate your current mainstat as 780, then you can expect to gain 168K mainstat from the Basement, assuming no stat days. This is enough to move you from 738 to 845. In other words, if there's no stat day in the near future, mainstat 738 might be a good point to enter the Basement.

Note: if you are leveling using a Gym, the number of substats gained per turn increases with your mainstat. It might be a good idea to run the Basement earlier than strictly necessary, so as to gain the substats from combat sooner and thus level faster. This must be balanced against the increased expense of running the Basement at a low level.

Cost Expectations

This section is outdated, and is inherently subject to incorrectness when new basement-relevant items are released, or when mall prices change.

Here is a rough table for computing how much a Basement dive might cost. We assume that the character initially has a mainstat of 750 and offstats of 200. We assume the character has equipment-based stat buffs totaling 100% to each stat (for example, a full Brimstone outfit). For each section of the Basement, the table gives the potions that would be required to pass all stat tests in that section. After 330 basement levels have gone by, we assume the character has reached a mainstat of 800.

For Meat-per-adventure calculations, we assume that each potion grants 10 turns of its effect.

Basement Levels	Active Potions	Lowest Stat	Meat/Adv	Cost
1-70	(none)	200*2=400	0	0
71-180	oil of stability or oil of expertise or oil of slipperiness	750*2=1500	100	11000
181-210	the above, plus tomato juice of powerful power	750*2.5=1875	160	4800
211-280	the above, plus potion of temporary gr8ness	750*3.5=2625	310	21700
281-330	the above, plus philter of phorce, ointment of the occult, serum of sarcasm	750*4.5=3375	490	24500
331-450	the above, plus Ferrigno's Elixir of Power, Hawking's Elixir of Brilliance, Connery's Elixir of Audacity	800*6.5=5200	1010	121200
450-500	the above, plus the five elemental wad effects (requires rollover to refresh spleen)	800*7.5=6000	1010	50500
Total:				233700

Players might be able to save some Meat by employing food-based buffs (such as flower petal pies or roasted marshmallows), but these come at a substantial cost in that they prevent the player from gaining adventures from higher-quality food. In general, it is more efficient to eat the higher-quality food, use a few extra potions, and make up for the cost by spending the extra adventures Meat-farming.

Other buffs, such as those gained from Dungeons of Doom potions, are inefficient compared to sauce potions, and should only be used as a last resort.

On the other hand, players can save some Meat by having better equipment, or being more careful about their buffs (using wad effects, hair spray, and Ben-Gal™ Balm to best advantage). Players can save quite a lot of Meat by playing as a Sauceror, which makes all sauce potions last 15 turns instead of 10.

Still, it's reasonable to expect that a basement dive will require roughly 250K worth of potions.

Notes

• The original spading and strategizing for basement diving was largely done in the HCO forum.