Apriling band helmet: Overview
2024-05-02 // IOTM Overview
The people have demanded a hat, and a hat they shall receive. The Apriling band helmet is the April IOTM, and it's filled to the brim with instruments perfect for Apriling along to the beat of your own drum.
General Summary
The Apriling band helmet is a hat with a variety of pleasant enchantments:
- Maximum HP/MP +25
- Never Fumble
- 75% Chance of Preventing Negative Status Attacks
- +40% Meat from Monsters
- All Attributes +10%
While the +meat% sounds impressive, the most important part of this hat is the final special enchantment:
- Conduct the Band!
The power of this ability is twofold. One, it lets you set one of three intrinsic buffs, all of which can save serious turns if used correctly:
- -10% Combat Frequency
- +10% Combat Frequency
- +25% Booze Drops, +50% Food Drops, +100% Candy Drops
Second, you can choose 2 melting Apriling instruments to take per day, each of which have slightly useful enchantments and a thrice-per-day usable function:
- Saxophone - Lucky! source
- Quad tom - summons a free Sandworm
- Tuba - sneak source
- Band staff - grants random effects
- Piccolo - gives your current familiar +40 experience
Speedrun Applicability
The benefits of combat frequency manipulation should be immediately obvious. What is not obvious, is that these three effects apply even without the helmet equipped! On top of being generally useful when hunting non-combats, the +combat frequency can help you find Ninja Snowman Assassins, or avoid useless non-combats in Whitey's Grove and The Upper Chambers. Finally, the +Booze/Food/Candy effect is helpful when looking for Chateau de Vinegar and blasting soda, bird rib and lion oil, and elsewhere. This enchantment can be changed every 11 adventures spent, so it is actually quite flexible, even if you'll rarely ever want to change it from -10% combat frequency.
While those are fairly useful, the main draw of the Apriling band helmet is the daily equipment. These melting equips are equipped with powerful 3/day functions that give you lots of fun options. There are three you really want to consider, with one honorable mention.
- Sneaks are always in-demand, and the Tuba grants 3 a day. This is good in every 95% combat frequency zone, and with so many extra sneaks available, you may even wish to use them in 90% or even 85% zones that you really don't want to spend extra time in.
- Lucky as a resource has been limited to 3 a day through hermit clovers, followed by 1 more from an August Scepter skill, and 3 rarely-taken but possible through the use of Astral Energy Drinks. The saxophone 3-ups the August Scepter, granting another whopping 3 shots of Lucky per day. In paths where you are unable to rely on the Model Train Set to get you a bridge, an extra 9 bridge parts per day for 3 turns can really put in work. Of mild importance, the sax has +2 hot/stench resist, which is sometimes helpful for reaching resistance thresholds in The Haunted Kitchen.
- Familiar XP is something that we've been getting more commonly now, and with 3x40 familiar XP available to be allocated, the piccolo delivers for those familiars that really want to gain poundage ASAP.
The quad tom receives an honorable mention for being a drum machine substitute for the Arid, Extra-Dry Desert, although that will not be needed as long as the cursed monkey's paw can net you a real drum machine for just one wish. Still, it's entirely possible that in future metas you'll want to summon up one quad tom on one day of your run for 2 free fights and avoiding the Oasis altogether.
2024 In-Standard Synergies
Almost everything about the Apriling band helmet is independently good. The only IotM synergy lies with the apriling band piccolo, which is a +10 weight familiar equipment that grants familiar XP. Here are some ideas for how to use it:
- +40 famXP transforms a 25-XP Grey Goose into a 65-XP one, instantly allowing for 3 drones
- +120 famXP allows a Chest Mimic to extrude two egg copies, or one egg "fax"
Because you get 3 shots of 40 XP, rather than 1 shot of 120 XP, you can really get creative with how you distribute the gains; this will benefit those who can use the experience at maximum utility by splitting their uses up and getting to exact thresholds rather than overloading your Goose.
Overall Rating
We'd rate the Apriling band helmet a tier 1 IotM. This IotM requires very little micromanagement and offers several on-demand instrument functions with no cooldowns. Sneaks alone are worth about 3 adv each, so the Apriling band helmet is going to save upwards of 10 adv a day. A very solid, very straightforward hat for very solid, very straightforward band geeks.