Overview
An unlocking of the Overworld Helm, reveal of its description, and an offering of tips on how to achieve this feat yourself. This guide assumes that you are an experienced player in Magicite, already had an idea of how to avoid ever getting hit, and just need a little information to help you refine your strategy as you advance. Updated to include the Gooey Ghost and Flame of Hope Companions (but not the Djinn race)
What It Is
A hat earned 100% of the time for beating the game without taking damage, it is (as of Build 1.2.5) the most difficult hat to unlock.
The Overworld Helm halves damage received, rounded down, and stacks with Guardian’s Aura.
Effects
The exact effects of the Overworld Helm were tested, and here are the results:
Without Guardian’s Aura
-Slimes (and anything normally dealing 1 damage, including hunger) will do no damage instead, but will still interrupt melee attacks, cause knockback, and give you the usual 1-second invulnerability window.
-Boars, Percyl and other mobs that do an even amount of damage, have their damage cut exactly in half. (Image not shown.)
-Tyrannoxes (and anything doing an odd number of damage greater than 1) will have their damage halved and rounded down (3 becomes 1; 5 becomes 2; etc.)
With Guardian’s Aura
-The buff subtracts 4 damage from an enemy’s attack before the Overworld Helm halves the remaining damage, allowing up to 5 damage in a single attack to deal no damage.
-Normally, the Guardian’s Aura allows at least 1 damage to get through to buffed players.
Therefore, the Overworld Helm always removes at least 1 damage from an enemy attack.
A Good Roll for a Good Game
I went with this build:
The ideal roll, hat and race: Buffed DEX and ATK; Artisan and Swiftness traits; Wasp Glasses hat; Dwelf.
EDIT: As of version 1.2, the Defensive trait no longer provides a +2 DEX boost. Instead, you should roll the Artisan trait for boosting your chances at crafting bows out of string from the Caves until one offers a DEX boost. Swiftness is still an important trait to roll for.
A poor ATK roll is acceptable if you were to fight with a wooden sword and level up off pigs to help overcome this penalty.
The Wasp Glasses hat slows falling and greatly increases movement speed, perfect for navigating terrain and avoiding falling onto enemies by accident. If your DEX is high enough, you’ll actually move faster than dashing.
Unlike other races, Dwelves don’t need to tangle with a spider or harvest enough grass to get 2 spider webs for string. All they need are two pieces of stone or 2 monster bones, and they can start firing arrows to (with a great build) kill a boar in 4 shots and bees in 3, and usually fewer arrows by level 5. Their +4 DEX often comes in to barely kill enemies in 2 or 3 arrows, while -1 HP doesn’t matter if you don’t ever get hit in the first place. In short, Dwelves are the perfect choice for archers with a plan to unlock the Overworld Helm.
NOTE: with the inclusion of the Flame of Hope Companion, this section of the guide can be disregarded due to the sheer stat bonuses that Companion offers. (Explained in Companions section.)
“Never heard of the Companions?”
“An order of helpers. And we show up to solve problems when the player is good enough.”
-Aela the Fairy
A brief coverage of each Companion as of Build 1.2.5, and their relevance to a no-damage run.
Summaries are in underlined, bolded text.
The Regen Fairy is good only for for unlocking Pigfolk and nowhere else, as the Ancient Bat sometimes spits out big HP potions to out-perform the Regen Fairy on top of the variety of useful items the Ancient Bat already spits out. The Regen Fairy is a worthless Companion for unlocking the Overworld Helm, try a different one.
The Ancient Bat is among my favorite Companions (though the Flame of Hope is better), even for a no-damage run as a gold blade or diamond ore will boost the chances of getting enough for diamond leather as soon as possible. Wasp Glasses and dexterity bonuses – especially from wearing high-quality leather – should cover evasion well enough. Excess blades and ore can then be used for axes or great axes, and string or spider webs can help with getting bugs for drums/enchanting Zweihanders. In short, the Ancient Bat can assist with a lot of material needs.
The Haste Beetle seems useful enough, but combining it with Wasp Glasses and a dexterity build will make movement difficult to control. Requiring a Companion to help with evasion in melee is wasteful, since dashing is not slown down during melee attacks (which you shouldn’t do in the first place). Simply practicing with dashes during melee will free up your Companion for a different one. Magic builds wearing the Wizard Beard may appreciate the Haste Beetle, but there’s other choices.
The Gadget Guard is a risky option. On one hand, it can be used defensively to deal damage to approaching enemies while escaping. On the other, players would be more likely to let enemies get near them. It also takes some foresight to keep its damage reliable: it only calculates damage whenever you level up, and whenever you enter a new district. That means you need to wield your strongest melee weapon for those two times… and that will pose a distraction which is dangerous to no-damage runs. Usable, but the Gadget Guard is not the premiere no-damage run Companion.
The Gorgon Eye is a powerful solution to the biggest woe of a mage: not unlocking Clairvoyance and facing the final boss and his minions without enough mana. Take this companion if you really want to rely 100% on magic all the time and want to wear something other than the Wizard Beard hat. Since you never need to worry about not unlocking Clairvoyance, the Gorgon Eye makes pure magic in a no-damage run a viable option.
An enemy projectile, fired at the wrong angle, can trap a Wasp Glasses wearer against his own hat. The Floaty Slime can avoid that scenario ever happening, with the benefit of flying all the time. Offers opportunities to switch up your style, such as the Wizard Beard with the Floaty Slime on a mage, or perhaps a Miner’s Helmet to make up for not having an Ancient Bat’s free blades. In short, the Floaty Slime offers a unique alternative to the Wasp Glasses.
The Gooey Ghost is an interesting little Companion, granting unlimited jumps to the adventurer it follows. It also causes all mid-air jumps to cost no stamina, so you really can do unlimited jumps over and over, saving your staminas for dashing around. Combine this Companion with the Wasp Glasses, and you’ll have some pretty powerful mobility and evasion. Good for a no-damage run, but the next Companion might be better.
You’ll be part of Daft Punk’s ‘Harder Better Faster’ song with the Flame of Hope. All of your stats increase by 1 whenever you level up, on top of natural stat gains. This translates to +20 ATK, DEX, MAG and HP by level 21, and +40 to those same stats by level 41. You’ll hit harder, you’ll cast better, you’ll move faster. You’ll crit or 1-hit enemies more easily in melee, you’ll spend fewer arrows, you’ll even have more MAG as a hunter than a mage without the Flame of Hope would. The stat gains are so incredible that almost any race, trait set or hybrid class becomes acceptable for a no-damage run. Take this Companion, I beg of you.
Strategy Wins Wars
…and more importantly, nets you a helmet that makes getting the hardest companions look possible, if you don’t have them already.
Beautius Maximus.
Shoot them all? Good idea!
-Really. Rocks, slimes, chests, all of them. The whole playthrough can turn sour if your sword falls short of a cave spider’s head and he nicks you. Don’t be afraid to use the last 5 arrows you’ve got. Ironite ore deposits offer just as many arrows’ worth of ore if you have a stone pickaxe.
-The only things you shouldn’t shoot are passive mobs that don’t have any enemies or biome traps near them, or Goldium- and Diamondite-encrusted rocks (as of Build 1.2.5 they’re never fake). If those critters are protected, it’s better if you just shot the whole place and dashed through for the monster hide. Safer than risking getting hit whacking them over the head with a piece of cooked meat. Remember, it’s all for the sake of never getting hit. Minimize risk if you don’t want to restart twice.
Know the Land
Below, the biomes are listed from safest to most dangerous, specifically to hunters trying not to be hit, with respects to risk versus reward, and to danger versus biome rarity.
–Swamps, surprisingly, are safer than Forests on account of simple AI, no bosses whatsoever, narrow and obvious traps, and lower max-HP enemies (15 damage is enough for all of them.) They’re also chock-full of monster hides for drums and leather armor. Take a path through Swamps whenever possible for the loot and safety, but keep an eye out for rock monsters and mimics as they are much more common here than in Forests.
–Forests are among the safest of biomes once you establish a healthy stockpile of arrows and the gear to back it up. To new characters however, everything is a game of chance, as befell this archer in the image below. Avoid Boars and Bees until you’ve got arrows, skip time-consuming bosses like Percyl if you have to, and refrain from ever fighting anything around the Thwomp-like traps. Those spiky blocks tend to push things around – most commonly Slimes – and they’ll stop your melee knockback or cloud enemy movement. Rock monsters and mimics – while extremely rare – may still appear in forests found in the later Districts. Take your time, choose your fights carefully, and let the enemy come to you.
–Caves are the next-best thing to the jewels above. Spider webs for making string are in huge supply here, perfect for crafting bows as an Artisan to get a DEX bonus. Enemy AI is healthy and a little tricky (due to a patch increasing Spider aggro range), experience is plentiful, and Spider Queens are trivial with the right abilities, a little footwork, and enough arrows. Beware of rock monsters and mimics, as usual.
–Veldts offer plenty of arrows’ worth of Monster Bones from just about everything in there, but enemy AI is a little trickier, they’re healthy enough to match it, and often spawn in groups. It’s not bad for experience either, despite having no bosses. If you’re feeling lucky or if Veldts are the easiest biome to pass through, you may find a Jelly Blade from the flying jellyfish. It’s the hardest-hitting 2-handed melee weapon apart from Fire/Ice/Thunderbrands, and – like all 2-handed weapons – share a hefty range. It’s usable for the risk-taker who wants to save some arrows but don’t want to hit twice.
–Volcanoes are dangerous, but surprisingly managable so long as one keeps an eye out for dragons, rocks, and other threats before they assault the player. Plenty of ores to stockpile for the final boss ahead, and Black Dragons are worthwhile experience so long as you have the best abilities available and fight them from a safe position.
–Quarries (commonly called Crystal biomes) are relatively fruitless for the danger, as their only real offer are the rare Crystal bows. Finding one will even conflict with the Artisan trait. Crystaline knights hide in a small field of stars along the floor. When close enough, they’ll appear and attack you with leaps and range, so tread carefully. In general, the traps and AI are among the more dangerous ones out there, and either one can distract you from the other. Avoid this (fortunately) rare biome, if possible.
–Dungeons are very dangerous with an uncommon flying boss, Mimics, rock monsters, ranged opponents, and numerous revolving flails with enough chests to clutter players’ inventories and distract them from danger. However, they have reliable rewards and appear late-game with the more-managable Volcanoes. Shoot everything, scout ahead, and don’t worry about missing out on experience if an enemy is shot in a tricky spot. Avoid these places if you can. If you’re the medieval equivalent of Neo though, you just might come out a little better-equipped if you’re forced through one without taking damage.
–The Scourge Lair, while it’s the light at the end of the tunnel, there’s tons more danger from updates since when I first wrote this guide. With the minions getting buffed to have increased aggro range, there’s only one really sound strategy: kill all of the minions before finally focusing on the boss. All of them, worms included; don’t even bother assaulting the boss until then. This is the place where drums are used, abilities are used together, and arrows fly everywhere you’d walk to. Shoot along the ground to find and damage invisible worms before they reveal themselves. Make sure you’ve got a stack of over 200 arrows already in your quiver when entering the Lair. Ironite, stone, bone, it doesn’t matter; you could shoot around 8 arrows in the time it takes to realize you’ve emptied your quiver and replace it. This place was once preferable to a Veldt, but now I rank it as dangerous as Craters, being barely better as it’s the last level.
From personal experience in the Crater, it’s fair to say that it’s a rather fruitless biome to hunters for how dangerous it is, and therefore hunters should avoid it if they don’t want to ever get hit. Which is fine, because it’s an extremely rare biome. In Build 1.2.0 it was a worthy biome for hunters because of the Laser Crossbows as they had a straight +20 DEX/MAG and didn’t cost anything to shoot. However, now that the Laser Crossbow costs a whopping 5 mana to shoot with and Build 1.2.5 also patched a glitch to apply dexterity bonuses to bows from the last in-inventory item held, fighting moths and spacemen for only 4-6 shots of +20 damage isn’t worth it. While it’s rare, it still boosts the chances of getting forced through Dungeons if it steals at least one of the three exits from the other biomes.
[No image, may update later. It’s full of light-purple enemies and trees and the volleys of orbs that follow.]
–Tundras are absurdly difficult for what little they can offer to low-level hunters. Mostly it’s magic-related rewards like ice bugs and mana potions, yet an Ice Queen or a Yeti can send players off in style or delay them from collecting resources. The falling snowballs have randomized both in speed and size, which may stop even a simple plan to advance or evade. Worse than Dungeons and Craters for having dangerous enemies as an early-game biome, and for offering no biome-specific rewards to hunters.
Go Abilify yourself
-Cruel, inappropriate, unfair and uninformed mockery of pharmaceuticals with side-effects aside, the 5 abilities Hunters can unlock are described below, with their strategies explained:
–Fire Wisp: by far, the best ability of the five. Creates a Fire Wisp at the cursor. Arrows passing through the Fire Wisp are set aflame, doubling their damage. Synergizes particularly well with Hunter’s Roar and Triple Shot, and is considerably easier to shoot through while airborne when wearing Wasp Glasses. The short cooldown on this ability allows for usage on just about anything that doesn’t die in one shot, but don’t get carried away trying to line up the shots if your surroundings are dangerous.
–Hunter’s Roar: a must-have ability. Raises your and your teammates’ DEX by 10 for 10 seconds, thereby boosting movement speed, melee critical hit chance, and damage done with bows. Works well with all Hunter skills (assuming the Druid’s Arrow now properly scales with DEX in v1.0), but synergizes particularly well with Dire Wolf and Fire Wisp to increase their usefulness. Has a long cooldown, so save it for when you’ve scouted multiple enemies ahead, or for bosses where you’re about to use your other abilities.
–Dire Wolf: a difficult ability to get used to, but highly rewarding if used properly. Summons a Dire Wolf inside of you, which rushes in the direction you’re facing. Pushes enemies and players around and does half the summoner’s DEX in damage. Also pushes Mimics and Rock Monsters. Enemies pushed into a corner by the Dire Wolf, if of similar enough size and don’t move at random like Slimes do, may all be hit by a single arrow. Consistently deals damage against large enemies, but has trouble damaging smaller ones. Strongly recommended that you’re airborne while moving away from where you’re facing when summoning a Dire Wolf, lest it takes you along for the ride. Has a rather short cooldown, allowing for frequent use to simplify an area’s dangers.
–Triple Shot: Handy in a pinch, but not an ability for sustained damage-dealing. Next shot fires 3 arrows at once, but only the first arrow that touches an enemy or terrain will do double damage. Ability can be cast and used later, giving its medium cooldown a chance to ready another Triple Shot.
–Druid’s Arrow: Usable, but largely a junk ability and dwarfed by the other four abilities. V1.0 may have given it proper damage scaling with DEX and make the damage boost worth trying to jump over a boss, but I haven’t paid attention to it whenever I did unlock the ability. Prior to V1.0 it was essentially just a free jump. Useful if you’re slowly falling down with no other escape from damage, but using it in v1.0 for damage may be too risky to be worthwhile in a no-hits playthrough.
The Magic, The Final Boss and The Overworld Helm
While magic is, indeed, a viable way to get the Overworld Helm (and I applaud anyone who manages to do it) I feel that a 40% chance to not get the Clairvoyance ability by level 15 in order to regenerate mana quickly is too risky to make magic builds a completely reliable tactic in the face of never getting hit. (One could get Clairvoyance and still get hit, or do well only to not get Clairvoyance. Take it a step further and risk a 6.4% chance for your next three good runs to not unlock Clairvoyance. That’s happened to someone, I’m sure!) Then you would need the Remnant race. (10.7% chance to not unlock him after beating the game 10 times)
Meanwhile, players can play as Dwelves much sooner, and Wasp Glasses are relatively easy to unlock. Hunters have about a 10% chance to end up with Triple Shot, Dire Wolf and Druid’s Arrow as their three abilities – not Fire Wisp or even Hunter’s Roar – and yet they’ll still manage if they have a stockpile of 200+ arrows of a single material so that they shouldn’t have to change arrows during the final boss fight.
Again, I applaud the mages who do it – and would shuffle in my chair in awe at the melee achievers among you – but there’s no hat to show for not taking damage without using bows, so no such guide is necessary. Yet.
Summary
This guide has covered the existence of the Overworld Helm, how to obtain it, and has offered advice on how to achieve it yourself – by playing a Hunter, spending your arrows freely, taking the safest biomes possible, and being paranoid about rocks, chests, and Slimes whilst using your abilities to their fullest.
Magic is good too, but not unlocking Clairvoyance is too much of a gamble (for me, at least.)