Difference between revisions of "Transmogrification (user guide)"

Revision as of 22:48, 17 June 2009

Transmogrifying. What is it?

Transmogrifying is a process by which one changes class in this game. This is done by going to your hideout, and accessing the Talismans section, switching to your starting Talisman (if necessary) and then selecting the option to change your Talisman into that of another class. This reduces your Strength, Intellect, and Reflexes back to their starting values, removes all your buffs and returns you to level 1 with 50 experience points. Your inventory and quest progress are unaffected.

Why Transmogrify?

There are numerous reasons one might wish to Transmogrify. Primary among these is boredom. If you're not sufficiently entertained by your current class, a change of pace might be just what you need to reignite your interest in the game. However, if entertainment just isn't your thing, transmogrifying can also get you on the leaderboards (we'll get more into these details later) or just give you more turns each day to play. There are even rumors that a healthy amount of transmogrification may lead to the acquisition of certain Merit Badges that are otherwise unobtainable.

But it's taken me so long to build up my character!

You're in luck. This guide, is intended to give you the tools you need to level up at a rate higher than you thought possible! If you follow these rules, you should have no trouble with both reaping the benefits of transmogrification while feeling powerful and capable, even at low levels.

What to do and how to do it

Use Good Equipment

When you were first playing through, your equipment was mostly limited to what you could find as you were adventuring. Transmogrifying, you're not held to such restrictions. With that in mind, before you attempt your first transmogrification, you should try and acquire equipment that is good at low levels. My level 1 outfit usually looks like this:

Helmet: football helmet
Main Hand: hedge slammer
Shirt: leather jacket
Gloves: Roderick's Gloves
Pants: leather pants
Boots: Roderick's Boots
Off hand: Aegis Flux Incapacitor
Accessory: silver star
Accessory: silver star

That's a lot of donation items, I know. They're not necessary, but they help. Notice though, that I wear a football helmet instead of a biker's helm, leather pants instead of denim pants, and a hedge slammer instead of a badly bent knife. They may all be weak, compared to your high level equipment, but the difference of a few power points will really make survival easier. Also, higher level Talismans can be a huge help, and if you switch into them at level 1 will only cost 5 xp to equip. I like my Thunder in a Bottle for the Elemental and Psion classes, and the Paradox Naught for Naturalist and Gadgeteer classes. The Equipment Summary Tables are indispensable tools for finding equipment that's ideal for each stage of your run.

Alternatively, if having the means to do so, you could wear:

Helmet: Virtual Reality helmet
Main Hand: hedge slammer
Shirt: VHF-1 Exosuit
Gloves: Roderick's Gloves
Pants: VHF-1 Exosuit - part of suit
Boots: Roderick's Boots
Off hand: Aegis Flux Incapacitor
Accessory: silver star
Accessory: silver star

As for Transportation, both the old-style ambulance and VHF-1 Fighter restore PP per turn. The Lexura Infinides D-8 will give you +hp per turn.

As either a Psion or Elementalist, wearing a hero's cape is an option, as the bonus PP will help with spells.

Use Good Buffs

Getting your friends and fellow citizens of twilight to aid you with buffs can make a huge difference in how powerful you are. Now, they're not necessary unless you want to go as fast as possible, but they do help. Since I am interested in going as fast as possible, I usually don't take any turns until I have at least these buffs:

- Wind Warrior (Psion)
- Air Shield (Elemental)
- Fire Shield (Elemental)
- Ant's Strength (Naturalist)
- Spines of the Echidna (Naturalist)
- Summon Water Buffalo (Naturalist)
- Armadillo Armor (Naturalist)

Other buffs can be nice too, especially Snout of the Swine (Naturalist) and Metal Detector (Gadgeteer), but the first list are all the ones that will allow you to fulfill rule 3:

Fight Tough Dudes

This is the most important part, but the hardest to explain in exact terms, as you'll need to determine for yourself how tough of an opponent you can handle. However, this is what all your preparation with equipment and buffs was for. Compare Cannonball Tavern's experience gains with those of Bayside. Both can be patrolled at level one relatively easily, with proper preparation, but the Bayside will give 3 times the experience that the drunks at Cannonball Tavern. And unlike your first time through, you can get to all these places (except the Pit) immediately. You could adventure in the Cube at level 1 if you were so inclined.

So how do I fight such tough dudes? I can't even hit them!

Remember that list of buffs I gave you? Well, Wind Warrior and Summon Water Buffalo can fight a lot better than you can at low levels, and Fire Shield and Spines of the Echidna (and sometimes the Paradox Naught) do damage to your opponents every time they hit you. That can be enough damage to kill any opponent so long as you can stay alive long enough for them to do the job. That's where the Armadillo Armor and Air Shield come in, to reduce the damage you take, and where Ant's Strength comes is, to increase your maximum HP. Particularly helpful for this strategy is the Aegis Flux Incapacitator, which reduces the damage you take, adds to the damage your opponent receives when he hits you and adds 20 to your base hp. With 2 silver stars, you get another 40 hp, which can have you sitting at 90+ HP at level 1. That's a lot for an opponent to take down when it hurts so bad to attack you. And it only gets easier as you gain levels, and get more HP and more damage resistance from better armor (and if you throw a crooked speedo on at level 2, more damage). This isn't easy, it isn't cheap, you'll spend a lot on healing, but you'll gain many more levels a day than if you fought enemies who didn't hurt you. This makes classes with healing abilities at low levels, the Gadgeteer and Psion, much cheaper to run a day's play than the non-healing classes. Spellcasters (Psion and Elemental) get even cheaper, since they can start dealing out damage on their own relatively early on; for them, the pandimensional scepter (equipable at level 3) is indispensable, as it both reduces the cost of attacking spells and increases their damage.

How does this help me get on leaderboards?

Adrenaline Rushes.

Every time you gain a level you get +60 minutes added to your bedtime. If you drink Brays and Pepperjuice, just by levelling from level 1 to 7 (a relatively trivial task) you can actually play until 7am every day, and have 15 turns extra to bank and take with you to the next day. If you really really try to get every bit of experience you can manage you may be able to get as far as level 10 in one day. What this means, is come Frayday, you will have a backlog of adventures to start your day, in addition to what you earn from adrenaline rushes. This can be a an absolutely huge amount of turns. With the SUIT and ASX boards, turns equal SUIT points and ASX chips, so if you're maximizing your turns you're maximizing your leaderboard potential. That is how I went from not on the leaderboards to the top within a week. Even now, it would not take an an inordinate effort to get on these boards, as very few players use the transmogrification ray for extra turns.

Mad Hamish (#1877) I think that covers just about everything. I tried to keep it coherent, but there's a lot of stuff that I had to cover, so I may have left something out. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.