Class Act II: A Class For Pigs/Strategy
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This page discusses strategies for the Class Act II: A Class For Pigs challenge path.
Contents
Astral Consumable
Astral hot dogs are sometimes used for early leveling in no-path, but are not needed here (monsters give more stats than normal). This makes astral pilsners the ideal choice for turn generation, if you have a Spleen familiar.
Astral Equipment
The astral belt gives +20 ML which translates to +10 stats per fight in this path. At first glance, this would appear to be an obvious choice, but you may not need that much +ML to avoid power leveling after quests are completed. It depends on how quickly you're finishing the quests, and how much additional +ML you have.
For less experienced players, the astral shirt is still an option (Torso Awaregness is usable when permed, unlike in Class Act I), although the belt will far outdo the shirt in stats.
The astral mask is always useful for its +item boost, and is especially suitable for Moxie classes due to their heavy dependence on Moxie for surviving higher +ML. For some classes and playstyles (particularly in Hardcore), the +item bonus may save more turns than the belt's +ML.
For classes that have no familiar weight skills, the astral pet sweater is a good choice in Hardcore. If you can summon sugar shields, this goes a long way toward negating the sweater's usefulness, but the sugar shields must be used sparingly lest they break. Familiar weight is most important on your primary item-drop familiar, so this choice also depends on which familiar you plan to use in that role. You can't use the sweater on a Fancypants Scarecrow or Mad Hatrack for example.
Some other astral equipment (pets) may be viable for specific classes; see the class strategy sections below.
Consumables management (HC)
For those who own a Knob Goblin Organ Grinder and/or a Happy Medium, they will be important sources of food/booze. If you lack one or both, finding good food/booze will be harder.
Food
- Pastamancers can really easily and cheaply get nice food with painful penne pasta (only needs a pepper from the hermit). Once your Spice Ghost is up and running you can upgrade to olive lo meins or even buying a mushroom plot and going for knoll lo mein, which is a bit better. (Warning: lo meins require 2 turns to cook, without a chef-in-the-box.)
- Turtle Tamers might get some mileage out of Pizza Lover. The best way to exploit it is to harvest knob mushrooms, and is a pretty cheap option after the initial expense.
- If you have Transcendent Olfaction, farming limes for key lime pies is a viable option (you might find Brother Flying Burrito's Blessing useful!).
- As one would expect, food/booze semi-rares are excellent turn generators.
- For those with Summon Clip Art, the ultrafondue is great, and the ML boost is even more useful in this path.
- If all else fails, eat fruit pies if you are struggling to find anything better and have access to The Hippy Store.
- Something to consider is enchanted bean burritos. Farming an enchanted bean is easy, and if you somehow get some spices it's cheap to upgrade them to insanely spicy enchanted bean burritos. Essentially this is like a fruit pie but available a bit earlier and costs a turn to get the bean.
Booze
- Using your garden for booze might be their best use for a number of people, with the beer garden and peppermint patch being excellent in this regard. All of them will work though. Watch out as peppermints do need some extra base booze and a fancy cocktail mixer which non-Disco Bandits can otherwise avoid buying, but are otherwise one of the better turn generators.
- Disco Bandits clearly want lots of base booze and fruits to upgrade in the still for super advanced cocktails. Open the Hippy Store ASAP and run a fairy in Barrrney's.
- Bart Ender's overpriced "imported" beer is the de facto fallback for booze, though 100 meat per drunkenness does add up over the run.
- If you do go for basic fruit mixers (which are worse quality than imported beer) you'll need both fruits (early Hippy Store access required) and lots of base booze, or a bunch of turns on the top two rows of the barrels, so the imported beer looks like a better option all round.
- For nightcaps whatever ends up in your inventory will probably suffice, but those with Clip Art can still get a lot out of buckets of wine, especially if you are an Accordion Thief. Disco Bandits can mix their own nightcaps.
- Once you hit level 11, open The Hidden Tavern as soon as possible because Fog Murderers are both excellent nightcaps and regular drinks. Non-moxie classes can save a bucket of wine tome summon to spend on something else at this point.
- If you have nothing important to use a demon summoning on, don't forget about Ak'gyxoth.
Class Strategy
Seal Clubber
The Seal Clubber lacks +item, +meat, -combat, +weight and turn generation skills (wads barely count). Making up for these shortcomings will be the goal. Take the astral mask or the astral pet sweater. Use the Happy Medium a lot if you have her.
A club should be worn upon entering (almost) any new zone, so that Batter Up! may be used against the least desirable monster. Clubs may also be used any time an autohit attack is needed (any of the Smack skills), or simply for greater damage, to save healing costs.
When a club is not needed (a monster has been banished, and you can survive empty-handed), a frosty halo gives a large +item boost (make sure your offhand slot is also empty). Expect to switch back and forth between clubbing and punching as needed.
Concerning clubs: even the seal-clubbing club serves well enough for banishing. Bjorn's Hammer is a rank up from it, but is not a necessity. A bad-ass club requires some effort to create, but the +ML will come in handy (as are the elemental upgrades, which will require a Yellow Ray to get efficiently). Pride of the Puffin is also great to have, if you have enough MP to maintain it.
Seal Clubbers are great at combat, thanks to their Smacks, and even Northern Explosion for elemental damage. Furious Wallop serves a great primary combat skill, as it costs no MP. SCs are also good at maintaining HP, thanks to Tongue of the Walrus and other sources of HP regen. In addition, Northern Exposure helps you reach the Cold resistance required for the Icy Peak.
Lack of Combat Initiative is their weakest point in combat; use cheap wind-up clocks, Walberg's if you have it, and any +init equipment you happen to find. Lord Spookyraven's ear trumpet is one of the best sources.
Turtle Tamer
Turtle Tamers have it harder than Seal Clubbers due to their lack of a reliable healing source besides the Hot Tub, which has limited uses and is an IotM content, or medicinal herbs, which uses up Spleen. Their only real healing source (besides Spirit Vacation) are from combat (Shell Up or Shieldbutt with She-Who-Was or Boon of the War Snapper), which can get very expensive MP-wise if you rely on them constantly.
As such, the best combat option for TTs is to go offense with Storm Tortoise and using Headbutt as your main combat skill, which is very efficient and the +initiative helps a lot. Swapping Blessings constantly is not efficient, so it may be best to stick to Storm Tortoise all the way. Use Turtle Power with discretion.
At 50+ ML, maintaining HP will be much more difficult. Crafting a turtlemail hauberk will help alleviate some of the problem. The astral shield also works for HP regen and Damage Reduction.
Also, be wary of using Shell Up with a blocking familiar, since familiar block overrides Shell Up and its effects.
Pastamancer
In Hardcore, going empty-handed with a frosty halo is viable; you shouldn't need a weapon or cookbook for damage or for tuning, but you will definitely want all the +item you can muster.
The Vermincelli thrall gives consistent MP regeneration, making it a good early- to mid-game choice, until you can manage to scrape up the max MP for a Spice Ghost. You want to get the Spice Ghost running as soon as you can. Lumineux Limnio gives a whopping +100 max MP effect, but you'll still need to stack this with several other sources to hit 250.
The Staff of the Soupbone is a reasonable chefstaff target if you want to pursue that route (though it will require a bunch of farming turns for some of the ingredients). Speed playstyles will skip this.
Sauceror
Disco Bandit
Accordion Thief
Quests
| 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 |
