Jill-of-all-Trades: Overview
2023-09-30 // IOTM Overview
Remember the Jill-o-Lantern? You know, that familiar from 20 years ago that revolutionized KOL, with the bleeding edge combination of a volleyball and a hot lime? Well, she's back, and she's better than ever -- now she knows a few more trades, and a few more tricks.
General Summary
Naturally, without its familiar equipment, your Jill will behave as a 1x Fairy, Mosquito, Leprechaun, Lime, Volleyball, Ghoul Whelp, Barrnacle, Potato, Cocoabo, and Pet Rock. That means it has each of the following features:
- Increases item drops
- Heals your HP (both in and after combat)
- Heals your MP (after combat)
- Increases meat drops
- Attacks your opponent
- Increases your stats gained per fight (by either the sombrero or volley formula, whichever is better for you in that fight)
- Blocks your opponent from attacking you
- Occasionally throws meat at you randomly during a fight
So... it certainly does some stuff, folks. Not only that -- it can do it better than anything else. The first "dude" phylum monster you defeat with your Jill will drop an LED Candle. This is the Jill's specific familiar equipment, a toggle-ready item that will change the multiplier from 1 to 1.5x on any of the following options:
- Disco Ball Light (1.5x weight fairy, more item drops)
- Ultraviolet Light (1.5x weight lep, more meat drops)
- Reading Light (1.5x stats volley/sombrero, more stats)
- Red Light (2x combat actions, letting it do its combat stuff a bit more often)
In addition to the LED candle, the Jill will randomly drops a Map to a candy-rich block upon kill. This allows you to access one trick-or-treat block at any time upon use, once per day.
Speedrun Applicability
It's pretty funny to look at a familiar that is very literally better at generalized "familiar tasks" than any other familiar that's ever been printed and go "eh, not that great." But, hilariously, the Jill isn't really that great, with the important exception of low-shiny players. In any given speedrun, it's worth a good 30-50% more item drop than your next best fairy, which is OK. And it can get up to about the same amount of meat drop versus a Hobo Monkey. It's also pretty good for stats, which is nice for low shiny players, though largely an unnecessary boon so long as the Model Train Set remains in standard. But the fact that you don't really get major benefits beyond 30-50% item/meat drop make it a pretty low value IOTM in the grand scheme of things, as you'd rather be using a more powerful turnsave/turngen generating familiar for most of the run (IE, your cookbookbat, goose, or eagle). You do definitely want to get one map to a candy-rich block per day, though, as it provides truly excellent synergy with the Book of Facts, giving you an easy monster to throw in as your Recall Habitat monster in other zones. Long story short, though? Use it for your nuns quest, use it for a few important item sprints, but otherwise top-tier speedsters will probably be spending a paucity of turns with your Jill by your side.
2023 In-Standard Synergies
- The halloween monsters from trick or treating are inherently free, giving an easy free copy target for Recall Habitat from the Book of Facts
Overall Rating
We'd rate Jill-of-all-Trades as a tier 4 IOTM, with less than 2 turns saved daily in your average run. This is pretty surprising, given how good it is at the basic familiar functions, but it's a mark of how far the game has come that something this obviously busted to a player 10-20 years ago is in the lower half of IOTMs in modern standard. Maybe next time, Jill!