The whole point of IVAN is not just boosting your stats through the roof, but also getting as many special effects as possible. Even with hundreds of points worth of stats, certain enemies can stuff you harder than that bald guy with 10 jobs. Your abilities play an incredibly important role, and here's stuff that you really should have, permanently (or period, I suppose). These are the most important ones, and are not ranked by importance, but instead ease of access. Despite that, it should be generally clear which ones are best. With enough special effect, the game will be much more relaxed.

[[Telecontrol]] provides the simple ability of being able to choose where to teleport when you get teleported, and the range is based on the user's current intelligence. This sounds simple, but can be innumerably helpful later on (see RUN AWAY). To get it permanently, a ring of telecontrol would do the trick, but it is much easier to remember the phrase "friends, and food". By making [[Blink Dog|blink dogs]] teleport around either as a friend or foe, they generate more of their kind. Killing and eating three of them in quick succession will give you telecontrol permanently.

[[ESP]] enables the user to detect intelligent enemies, no matter their location or current visibility status. However, if their [[intelligence|int]] is below 5, they cannot be detected (including veteran kamikaze dwarves, golems, and [[Invisible Stalker|invisible stalkers]])

In contrast to [[haste]], nearly no strong enemy has levitation except for One-eyed Sam, but it practically serves as it's own psuedo-aols (see wishes for a larger rant). You could get unbelievably lucky on a fountain, but it's often not worth the risk, so you are forced to either get a [[belt of levitation]] or a cloak of flying, both rare, rare items.

The former enables the user to choose what they want to polymorph into. At a certain point, your strength will attract named enemies. One in particular has survived a night with a god herself. Yep, it's Sherarax. If you choose to take Sherarax head on, have some form of polycontrol, as her chameleon whip could end you despite having all the top-tier items. You could waste a ring on polycontrol, but my preferred method is to pray to [[Infuscor]], who will eventually make you end up with permanent polycontrol. Besides fending off Sherarax, polycontrol is helpful in situations where you need to have high intelligence for a short while or need to quickly run away or overpower an enemy, in which polymorphing into an appropriate unit can be lifesaving. It also serves as a counter to lycanthropy.

The latter prevents the users from polymorphing. It's similar to polycontrol when in human form, but its benefits truly come from staying in a polymorphed form. You will retain the polymorphed form's stats for as long as you are unchanging, and will even increase your stats based off theirs. For top-tier entities such as the [[dark knight]] or [[mistress]], their stats triple or even quadruple the default player. Unlike polycontrol, the ring of unchanging is absolutely worth the wish- not that you can wish for one anyways due to its awesome power, but you can sometimes find it for a high price in [[One-eyed Sam]]'s market or rarely receive it from a prayer to [[Seges]].

Prevents panic. A new ability, and also the least needed one, assuming you get strong enough. However, if you don't, or if somehow [[Petrus]] chops off 3 limbs, it helps to deal just a little more damage, or to run away. Can only be acquired permanently with a ring of bravery or the [[Filthy tunic of martyr Bessica]], but a horn of bravery usually works better and doesn't take up a ring/armor space.

If they can't see you, that's good. It decreases their accuracy against you, and increases your accuracy against them. About 50 zaps of wands of invisibility are required for permanent invisibility, but be careful that it, as its own drawback to go with it. I personally would just go with a ring of invisibility off an elite guard (which can be acquired with a prayer to Dulcis, having fun figuring out how to do that).

Haste will speed up everything you do, from combat to reading, so acquiring it is a '''top-tier priority'''. Every strong enemy in the game has some form of haste. [[Petrus]] has the [[Justifier]], [[Ischaldirh]] can haste himself, [[Sherarax]] has inherent haste, the rulers of [[Aslona]] have mystic frogs, [[One-eyed Sam]] has the ring of ludicrous speed, etc. Again, you could get lucky on a fountain, but you could also get permanent slow, so forget that. Instead, with approximately 70 zaps with wands of haste will do the trick, or a bit more with 'a'pplying wands or prayers to Cleptia.

A recent and decent ability added that greatly speeds up your healing rate and even eventually grows back limbs. Concurrently the only source of permanent regeneration is found in a belt of regeneration, but its help is unmistakable.

There are only 3 ways to acquire this power: Body swap to an archangel, the [[Blessed Shield of the Phoenix]], and an Amulet of Life Saving. While the first one is just stupid, the other two provide the ability to survive death itself and regenerate to full health instantly. If your character gets really strong, '''you want this'''.