KoL - Bugbear Invasion + Tips!

So it's been over a week or two since the new ascension path was released, and it is the Bugbear Invasion path. It is an interesting path that completely replaces the Naughty Sorceress' Lair with the Bugbear Mothership. This offers many advantages in that you do not have to worry about any of the item tests for the 3 gates and the tower monsters, nor do you have to collect any keys either, allowing you to skip many areas in your run like the 8-bit world, the Hole in the Sky, and the Daily Dungeon completely. Instead, you will be presented with some new tests that are more combat oriented than farming up items.

So there are 9 areas in the kingdom that have new bugbear encounters that are fairly strong. One of the important things to note is that the stronger ones are immune to Entangling Noodles. That is a pretty big deal, and for some classes, might be considered essential. Their stats are also stronger than the monsters in the area as well, so you may have trouble hitting them with normal attacks, and might take quite a bit of damage from them as well.

So here are the overall goals to work on.

1. Collect 5 BURTs from any Bugbears to make a Key-o-tron. 
2. Defeat Bugbears of every type to get enough data on the Key-o-tron. That includes...
1. 3 Scavenger Bugbears from The Sleazy Back Alley
2. 3 Hypodemic Bugbears from The Spooky Forest
3. 3 Batbugbears from any location in The Bat Hole
4. 6 Bugbear Scientists from the Laboratory in Cobb's Knob
5. 6 Bugaboos from either The Defiled Nook or the Misspelled Cemetary
6. 6 Black Ops Bugbears from the Lair of the Ninja Snowmen
7. 9 Battlesuit Bugbear Types from The Penultimate Fantasy Airship
8. 9 Ancient Unspeakable Bugbears from The Haunted Gallery
9. 9 Trendy Bugbear Chefs from either the Battlefield as a War Frat, the Bombed Hippy Camp, or the Bombed Frat House
3.  Restore power to the elevator in the Bugbear Mothership in each of the 9 areas to access the final boss.

Here are the methods of restoring power, copied from the KoL Wiki. 

First Level

• For the Medbay: Sniff the anesthesiologist bugbear. Keep fighting them until one of them activates the robo-surgeon, then kill it. 
• For Waste Processing: Sniff the tentacle monster, and boost item drops. Keep using the juicy garbage until you get the badge. Equip the badge and click the zone again to shut down the trash compactor.
• For the Sonar: Boost non-combats. Set the first knob to 2, the second knob to 4, and the third knob to 8.

Second Level

• For the Science Lab: Boost item drops. Kill spiders to collect quantum nanopolymer spider webs. Use the webs on the scientists.
• For the Morgue: Kill bugbear morticians to collect 5 bugbear autopsy tweezers. Boost non-combat and remove each body part from the corpse. A set of tweezers is used up for each non-combat. Banishing the bugaboos seems to work.
• For Special Ops: Use 50 BURTs (Reynolds) to create a UV monocular. Shoot a flare if you got a flaregun from the pirates; equip the monocular, and look for a fight. Equipping a magic lamp and/or a Rain-Doh green lantern may also help (both give an appropriate message). 

Third Level

• For Engineering, kill drones to get drone self-destruct chips, and use the chips on the liquid metal bugbears. (You will need to kill about 6.) Banish or ignore the battlesuits.
• For Navigation, kill the N-space assistants, and banish or ignore the unspeakables. Each assistant you kill will inflict you with 2 turns of an effect that prevents you from continuing in the zone. Either switch zones at that point, or remove the effect with a bugbear purification pill, soft green echo eyedrop antidote, or taking a Disco Power Nap. After killing about 10 assistants, power should be restored.
• For the Galley, fight the angry cavebugbears. Each cavebugbear you kill will increase the difficulty of all cavebugbears in the area. Conversely, using a Pacification grenade on a cavebugbear will decrease the difficulty. Killing stronger cavebugbears will progress the area at a faster rate. Without pacifying, you will need to kill a total of 15 cavebugbears, with the last one being a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very angry cavebugbear.

After that, you must be at least level 13 to fight the boss at the bridge of the Bugbear Mothership. There is only one form, and your buffs will not be removed upon starting the fight, unlike the Naughty Sorceress.

Finally, here are some of my tips for playing in Bugbear Invasion.

• Saucerors with Sauce Synergy will give you the easiest time against the strong Bugbears.
• If you don't have Sauce Synergy skills permed yet, consider muscle classes instead.
• Since Entangling Noodles doesn't work against most Bugbears, any strategy that revolves around using it will fall flat. Pastamancers are not recommended as some of the Bugbears will have high damage resistance as well, costing you more MP to defeat them. 
• As Moxie classes, even with buffed Moxie, you may have trouble hitting some of the Bugbears. With no auto-hit skills like spells or Shield Bash to take advantage of effectively, except maybe Disco Dances, it would be too difficult. Disco Dances costs too many turns and MP to lower the Bugbears' monster level to a point where you can hit them, while you continue to take damage as well. Accordion Thieves will have nothing to take advantage of in combat. 
• If you have access to methods of copying bugbear combats, like the Obtuse Angel or Artistic Goth Kid familiars, they may speed up your run by some decent number of turns.

As I learn more about the path, I will edit this post to add more tips in the future. For now, I hope you all enjoy fighting a boss other than the Naughty Sorceress for a change.