Bees Hate You/Strategy

This guide will list some tricks and tips for a Bees Hate You run, as well as an overview of significant "b" items.

Valhalla

The Degrassi Knoll signs (The Mongoose, The Wallaby, or The Vole) are highly recommended, especially in Hardcore. It is impossible to make a bitchin' meatcar in the others, since you can't open a Gnollish toolbox, so the others would have to buy a Desert Bus pass or make a pumpkin carriage.

The choice of astral consumables is mostly unaffected by this path. Choose whatever you would have chosen in no-path.

The choice of astral gear is less clearly defined. Gear with a b in its name will do extra damage to you at the start of every combat, but is otherwise usable in the normal way. Players who will struggle to heal that damage may wish to choose less painful alternative gear. The astral pet sweater will not give extra runaways, because none of the familiars that give runaways are available (currently). The astral belt is still optimal for speed, but the extra Attack and Defense on many standard monsters (and the stun resistance and damage resistance of many of the Bees) means combat is harder than normal, so be prepared.

The classes play similarly to how they normally play. One of the biggest things to watch out for is extra damage taken from equipment, from wandering Bees, and from certain mandatory quest items. This makes healing far more important than you may be accustomed to. Also, many MP restorers are unavailable. Muscle classes and Disco Bandits cannot use Knob Goblin seltzer or black cherry soda, so they must rely on more expensive MP sources or starfishing. Classes that can use magical mystery juice will be able to do so normally.

Familiars

• Many of the high-end familiars are unusable: Frumious Bandersnatch, Baby Sandworm, He-Boulder, Jack-in-the-Box, Obtuse Angel, Pair of Stomping Boots, Baby Bugged Bugbear, Knob Goblin Organ Grinder, Hobo Monkey, Hunchbacked Minion, Cheshire Bat, Cymbal-Playing Monkey, Blavious Kloop, Bloovian Groose, Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot, Rock Lobster, Disembodied Hand.
• Even many of the standard familiars are also unusable: Blood-Faced Volleyball, Hovering Sombrero, Baby Gravy Fairy, Cocoabo, Barrrnacle.
• The Green Pixie can be used, but the tiny bottle of absinthe cannot, rendering the Green Pixie pointless.
• The Mini-Hipster works, but you cannot pawn the fixed-gear bicycle to turn it back into the other equipment forms. You can have one of each equipment form by day 3.
• The Unconscious Collective, Llama Lama and Rogue Program are the only usable spleen-filling familiars.
• Neither the Bandersnatch nor the Boots are usable, so there are no familiar-based runaways.
• You cannot use the He-Boulder, Crimbo Shrub, pumpkin bomb, or unbearable light; so the yellow ray options are limited to Golden Light and via the Nanorhino.
• No Obtuse Angel means no badly romantic monsters.
  • The Reanimated Reanimator can now do the same job, however.
• Most fairychaun familiars are usable: Angry Jung Man, Piano Cat, Dancing Frog, Casagnova Gnome, Attention-Deficit Demon and Coffee Pixie are all B-free.
• Many volleychaun familiars are usable: Unconscious Collective, Dramatic Hedgehog, Chauvinist Pig, Uniclops, and Nervous Tick.

Restricted Items

Here is a small list of important items that you cannot use, craft, or equip without discretion in a Bees Hate You run. Especially important items are bolded.

Unusable Items

• A-Boo clue: As of February 18, 2013, the clue has to be used to trigger The Horror..., so A-boo Peak will take longer.
• bartender-in-the-box & chef-in-the-box: No bartender and no chef means you will have to spend some turns to cook or mix better foods, unless you have Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration available.
• Ben-Gal™ Balm
• black cherry soda and knob goblin seltzer: if you don't have magical mystery juice access, be prepared to do a lot of starfishing.
• Blue and black snowcones
• book of matches
• borrowed time, box of Familiar Jacks, unbearable light and many other Summon Clip Art choices
• BRICKO items
• bubblin' crude: you cannot solve the mystery of Twin Peak in this path; you must burn the hotel down.
• can of Ghuol-B-Gone™, half-rotten brain, rusty bonesaw: plus-sized phylactery is OK.
• chaos butterfly: You won't be able to use the shortcut for the Defowl the Farm side-quest.
• Chest of the Bonerdagon
• disassembled clover: Make sure to closet ten-leaf clovers instead.
• disposable instant camera: You must wait for the photograph of a dog to drop.
• divine blowout (but the other two combat favors work)
• Dungeons of Doom potions: You can't open large boxes or small boxes, so you'll not likely be using bang potions, unless you're willing to spend 5000 meat to kill mimics. Even then, you can't use bubbly potions.
  • However, bang potions are not required to enter the Naughty Sorceress's Lair in a BHY run.
• fruit basket & fruit bowl: Don't count on The Hippy Camp clover adventures for fruits.
• Gnollish toolbox: Non-Knoll signs cannot get an empty meat tank to make a bitchin' meatcar (see below).
• Harold's bell
• Knob Goblin lunchbox: Stick to tasty tarts or distilled fortified wine instead.
• The Knob Dispensary items
• Louder Than Bomb
• Love songs of vague ambiguity and disturbing obsession
• Medicinal Herb's medicinal herbs
• molybdenum magnet: you cannot do The Junkyard side quest.
• moveable feast
• pumpkin bomb
• All 9 resolutions from the Libram of Resolutions
• rock band flyers and jam band flyers: you cannot do the Mysterious Island Arena side quest (for either side).
• scrumdiddlyumptious solution: You can't use a delectable catalyst, so no hi meins or fine potions.
• shard of double-ice
• smut orc keepsake box
• sonar-in-a-biscuit: You must kill 3 screambats in order to face the Boss Bat.
• turtlemail bits, snailmail bits

Consumables

• badass pie (in fact, you can't use the Knob Goblin Organ Grinder at all)
• Boris's key lime pie, Jarlsberg's key lime pie: But not Sneaky Pete's key lime pie.
• bucket of wine
• pumpkin beer: Make pumpkin pies or pumpkin juice instead (or plant a different garden).
• Crimbojito (but the other 5 peppermint twist drinks are OK).
• Strikes Again Bigmouth
• Any dusty bottle of wine in the case any are left over from the Spookyraven Wine Cellar.
• Advanced Cocktailcrafting: fuzzbump, blended frozen swill, bungle in the jungle
• Superhuman Cocktailcrafting: yellow brick road, Gordon Bennett
• Pastamastery: boring spaghetti
• Meins: Knob sausage chow mein, Knob lo mein, bat wing chow mein. Also, elemental hi meins cannot be made (see above).
• Among spleen items from Mr. Store familiars, not-pipes, bottles of agua de vida, and globs of groose grease are unavailable in Hardcore, as you can not use a tiny bottle of absinthe nor adventure with a Baby Sandworm or Bloovian Groose.
  • However, Unconscious Collective Dream Jars, glimmering roc feathers, and coffee pixie sticks are obtainable as usual.
• 16 of the Happy Medium drinks, including the Sloe Comfortable Zoo, Sloe Comfortable Zoo on Fire, Black Hole, all 3 Goblin drinks, all 3 Hippy drinks, and Green Burlap (plus others that are less likely to be an issue in a run).
• All burritos (insanely spicy enchanted bean burrito, gunpowder burrito, etc.)

Equipment

While any piece of equipment with a B can be worn, players should plan to compensate for the HP loss from wearing one or more of these items. The following are equipment that you are likely to run into during your run.

• astral bludgeon, astral bracer, astral longbow, astral belt
• bag of many confections
• all boss drops: All equippable items dropped and craftable by Baron von Ratsworth, Boss Bat, Knob Goblin King, and Bonerdagon have "b"s in them.
  • In particular, badass belt
• Starting class weapons: disco ball, seal-clubbing club
• Class Epic Weapons: Bjorn's Hammer, Disco Banjo
• Class Legendary Epic Weapons: Shagadelic Disco Banjo, Squeezebox of the Ages
• Boris's ring, Jarlsberg's earring, Sneaky Pete's breath spray
• kickback cookbook, Cookbook of the Damned
• rubber band gun
• scratch 'n' sniff crossbow
• Staff of Blood and Pudding, Staff of the November Jack-O-Lantern, and the Staff of the Soupbone: Aside from the chefstaves with B's in their name, several chefstaves require elemental hi meins, which cannot be made (see above), depend on other chefstaves which can't be made (since you can't use bat guano, you can't get hippy herbal tea, which prevents you from obtaining a Staff of the Teapot Tempest). Only the Staff of the Greasefire, Staff of the Short Order Cook, and the Staff of the Midnight Snack can be created and used in Hardcore without penalty. Although only the Staff of the Soupbone can be made in Hardcore without a Pumpkin Patch or Pulverize.
• Most craftable shields: Players using Shieldbutt can make a meat shield or reliably obtain the giant clay ashtray from their pen pal (as a muscle class) or the hot plate (guaranteed).
• swashbuckling pants
• unstable fulminate
• Both the War Hippy Fatigues (3 B's) and the Frat Warrior Fatigues (2 B's) have outfit pieces with the letter B. Since the war is (much) faster as a War Hippy, you'll have to compensate for the higher repeated HP loss. (This can be mitigated by doing much of the ducks, filthworms, and lobsterfrogman out of uniform.)

Useful Skills

Some highly recommended skills to have in a Bees Hate You run:

• Tongue of the Walrus: Expect to get beaten up by bees several times. Tongue of the Walrus makes getting Beaten Up much easier to deal with.
• Cannelloni Cocoon: Very effective at later levels, and makes the Level 12 quest much easier to deal with.
• Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration: Since you cannot install a bartender-in-the-box or a chef-in-the-box, this skill will come in handy more than ever. Having this permed will save you a lot of turns.

General Tips

• Players will not be able to use much housing at all, except for the cottage, the ginormous pumpkin, sandcastle (only pulled) or house of twigs and spit.
• Players in hardcore without access to friendly Degrassi Knoll cannot make a bitchin' meatcar for access to the Desert Beach and must either buy a Desert Bus pass or make a pumpkin carriage.
  • You will also have to wait until you have instructions to gather the ingredients for wet stunt nut stew to obtain access to Whitey's Grove.
  • And if you want the Filthy Hippy Disguise or the Frat Boy Ensemble, you will have to get them from their respective zones.
• Because the monster level boost that "b" enemies receive is percentage-based, the increase in difficulty is minor in early zones, but grows increasingly dangerous in high-level zones. Monsters like Possibility Giants, Alphabet Giants, tomb bats, and Beer Bongadiers will be significantly stronger than they normally are, so try to keep your combat buffs running and your HP topped off.

Quests

Boss Bat Quest

You cannot use a sonar-in-a-biscuit, so you must kill 3 screambats or use a snow shovel.

If you cannot get a snow shovel, then fax a screambat before doing anything in the bat hole to skip 2 zones, and a big headache. Make sure you acknowledge the quest by talking to the council first, or the screambat doesn't count.

Pick up an enchanted bean while looking for the last screambat as you will need one for later.

The King of Cobb's Knob Quest

If you use the Harem method, you will take 40% damage. You'll also have to obtain the perfume effect from adventuring, rather than using the item. If you use the Elite Guard method, you will take 60% damage. Further, the Elite Guard outfit is not very helpful because everything in The Knob Dispensary will be useless to you. Either way, the best way to deal with The Knob Goblin King is to get initiative and then hit him hard or buff your Moxie to where he can't hit you.

Undefile the Cyrpt Quest

Remember that you cannot use the can of Ghuol-B-Gone™, half-rotten brain, rusty bonesaw, so it's a waste of adventure to get these.

Orc Chasm Quest

The smut orc keepsake box contains a B, so you can't use those to speed up the bridge.

A-Boo clues as of February 18, 2013 need to be used to trigger The Horror..., so A-boo Peak will take 49 turns.

• Those with Comprehensive Cartography can encounter one instance of The Horror... automatically, reducing hauntedness by 30% right off the bat.

You cannot use 12 bubblin' crude to make a jar of oil, so you cannot solve the mystery of Twin Peak. Instead, you must spend 50 turns there and choose to burn the hotel to the ground.
A wandering bee can override the necessary timed adventure, forcing you to spend another 50 turns to encounter it again if this happens. Using a honeypot is highly recommended to avoid this issue.

• Pulling a crude oil congealer in a normal ascension can serve as a workaround to create said jar of oil. However, due to their untradeable status, you will have to do a G-Lover challenge path run to get this ahead of time.

Giant Trash Quest

To plant the enchanted bean, you must click the coffee ground.

• Also, you don't need any letters, so you might be able to quit earlier than usual and avoid alpha-beatings.

Quest for the Holy MacGuffin

In The Hidden City, you cannot unlock The Hidden Tavern, since you'd have to use a book of matches. So you may as well knock over the dumpster at your first opportunity.

You can't use a disposable instant camera to acquire a photograph of a dog, so don't bother looking under the nightstand while you're in Spookyraven.

In A Small Pyramid, tomb ratchets can be used in Control Freak, since they are not being used from the inventory. This is a change since the Pyramid update on June 2, 2014.

If survival is an issue, sniffing the Iiti Kitty in the Upper Chamber will reduce the number of Tomb Bats you encounter, and ideally leave you with a supply of ancient Magi-Wipes to make the war less painful.

Mysterious Island Quest

Possibly the hardest quest in a Bees Hate You run.

It is important to remember that you do not have to be in the uniform of either side to adventure in the Orchard, Farm, or Beach areas. You only have to wear the uniform after doing what is necessary to complete the quest, and to get the rewards for doing so. However, you cannot adventure in the Themthar Hills without wearing a uniform.

For choosing sides, doing the Hippy side is highly recommended over the Frat Boy side. Because you can't complete The Junkyard and the Mysterious Island Arena sidequests due to letter "b" in the required combat items, it'll be much faster on the Hippy side. To compare, it takes 67 turns minimum as a Hippy and 132 turns minimum as a Frat Boy to clear The Battlefield. You do take 30% damage per turn as a Hippy compared to the 20% as a Frat Boy, so keep your health up.

For the McMillicancuddy's Farm side-quest, you'll encounter one "b" duck for whatever option you choose for Cornered Again!, so choose according to your taste. You can't use the shortcut for this quest because it requires a chaos butterfly.

Naughty Sorceress Quest

Fighting the wall of skin, you can use the beehive without penalty.

Your Shadow's HP will be boosted if your current title includes one or more instances of the letter "B." Plan ahead if you are a Seal Clubber, a Turtle Tamer at level 13, or a Disco Bandit at level 15+.

Fighting the wall of bones, you can use the electric boning knife without penalty.

The last form of the Naughty Sorceress will be replaced by the guy made of bees. A Wand of Nagamar will not defeat him; however, an antique hand mirror will still do the trick.

Ascension Strategy
Rankings:	HC Skills - HC Familiars - HC IotMs
General:	Class selection - Familiar usage - Lucky adventures
Paths:	BHY - Fist - AoB - BI - ZS - AoJ - BIG! - KOLHS - CA2 - AoSP - SS - HR - Picky - Ed - Random - AoWoL - Source - NA - GN - LtA - L.A.R. - PF - G-Lover - DD
Additional Paths:	DG - 2CRS - KoE - PotP - LKS - GG - Y,Robot - QT - WF - GY - JM - FotD
IotMs:	Tomes - Faxing - Copying - YR - Garden - Correspondent - Workshed - Tea party - Florist