Great Minds of iDB, please help w/Set Advice!

[PilotGrarrl]

Grarrl
HP : 297
Str : 239
Def : 243
Mov : 58
Intel : 750

My pet has all the faerie abilities.

1P only. If I take a break from training, I "should" save about 3m a month. (currently spending 100-120k daily for training); 1m in savings; don't want to change species; don't lab.


Current BD Weapons Set:

Snowglobe Staff
Greater Healing Scroll
Bow of Destiny
Honey Potion
Downsize!
Leaf Shield
Goo Blaster
Neutralising Ray*

*rs'ed this and am just checking it out. Not really suited to 1p.

Extra weapons for occasional use:

Purple Sticky Hand
Scroll of The Dark Star
Earthen Scorchstone
Enchanted Wooden Bow
Fish Scale Breastplate
Calculation Device (1 use, will sell)
Double Dryer
Scarab Ring

My question(s): If I take a training break once I'm at 250/250/300, what would be the best use for the money I save? I really dont want to stop training for more than a couple months, so that should give me about 7m to spend.

My thinking is I probably need a better healer. The Jade Scorchstone, Leaded Elemental Vial and Crisp Blue Tunic cost much more than I'm willing to save for at present. The Ice Scorchstone is affordable, but it seems mighty unreliable even for 1p. I don't like to withdrawl, it seems cowardly . What do you all think of the Short Sleeved Yellow Tunic? I'd only be gaining 25 hp over my GHS? But then, 100 out of 300 hp isn't all too bad is it? (although I will be trying to get as close to 450 hp as possible before going over level 150 and into the 7 codestone zone). Is there something better suited to my stats that I'm missing?

Another option would be to go the defensive upgrade route. My budget would probably allow either a Ghostkershield (8m) or a Faerie Tabard (7.5m). I suspect the difference in icons (dark vs water) wouldn't make that much difference in 1P -- but would a shield be better than a healer? Or, more specifically, would a Short Sleeved Yellow Tunic be better for me than a Faerie Tabard ? (or something I've failed to consider).

Then of course there is the option of beefing up my offensive capabilities. Given my current set & my budget, the Ghostkerbomb (7.5m) looks like the best bet, but ?

And lastly, doesn't everyone want a 100% freezer!? The Heavy Blue Tunic at around 13m wouldn't be an option w/o some considerable earning luck, but it is awfully appealing! More realistic would be a H4000 Helmet (6.5m). Then again, the Snowglobe Staff probably answers well enough for 1P especially since I can only afford one item for now.

What would you do? Thanks in advance for all your help.

[VermontHermit]

First, definately do train your strength and defense up to the 250 boosts before worrying about any of this.
   Ummm...your current set - too many weapons, not enough good ones, though I know the feeling and have the same problem myself.   The Snowglobe Staff is pretty awful.   You should never be speaking of things like G-Bombs and G-Shields in the same set with a Snowglobe Staff.   When I first started out I used both it, and the Green Frost Cannon and personally I liked the Green Frost Cannon better, though both are basically beginner items.   Poor freezing ability (you have that now with the Snowglobe Staff) and Healing ability are both available in faerie abilities and might present you with inexpensive upgrades or utilize better what you already have.   Granted, there's a limit to how many times you can tap your faerie abilities, but at your level, the fights you're in aren't likely to go a great many rounds, and with your balance of stats, including defense, you're probably stronger passing up a sink or burrow for a healing upgrade (1/3 hit points) or a better freeze chance and that frees your two weapons slots for stronger items, which you DO have.
   Bow of Destiny, Honey Potion, Goo Blaster, Downsize!, Leaf Shield and situational Purple Sticky Hand are all acceptable weapons.  The N-Ray, umm...better you than me!   When I look at your set, I see it this way.   You have a poor healer, a poor stealer, and you have one fewer good offensive (or overall power) item than you need.   You also have a bunch of situational defensive items, but nothing that's going to scare anyone, or do much to win you a battle, though they might save you from losing (there IS a difference by the way).
   That you need a better freezer and healer goes without saying.   As much as you want to/can save will dictate which option you want to go with those items.   Elsewhere, I think you might want to consider something like a Ring of the Lost, which would be a nice third option attacker/with full dark defense, and is priced lower than some of the other things you're looking at.   Your Bow of Destiny fills your #1 slot, and the Ring of the Lost wouldn't be bad for the #2 slot, with the Goo Blaster in #3 to be rotated in.   I'd tend to stay away from the lesser pure shields (short of the Faerie Tabard or G-shield), and go more for some of the lower expensed dual duty weapons.   There are several good (5 icon) light defenders with an attack, at various price ranges including things like Sword of the Dead which are quite affordable.   The Frozen Wand of Crystals for water defense, Cloudy Wand of Storms for earth defense, etc.  
     In sum, you have multiple holes in the battleset and the easy remedies call for more nps than you have.   Your assets are a well trained, and balanced pet, along with a few good weapons and some others that make good sources of nps.   It's going to cost LOADS to make a significant upgrade in weapons to deal with healing and freezing and I think you might find "creative use" of faerie abilities to be helpful.   I think you need one additional strong weapon (RoTL would do it), and dual duties would present upgrades at affordable prices.   I'm not sure but continued training might be your best bet beyond that at the moment.

     UGG!!!   And I forgot....where is your Scarab Ring???   It's a better situational item or #4 slot item than you have now.

[rabid_schnauzer]

1. Don't totally stop training, just switch to bargain price/lucky training. By which I mean scratch 5 terror trove scratchcards a day, visit coltzan's shrine twice a day, visit the turmacoulous whenever you can, do k-quests constantly and cut back on codestone training so you only pay with stones you find or on days when none of your k-quests are worth doing. A k-quest has a roughly 25% chance of giving you a useful stat, so do any that cost LESS than 1/4th your current cost for a training course, and it will be cheaper. You'll save a little slower, but you will be getting cheaper stats, so you'll have saved for when you resume training. If you want to make saving a bigger priority, set your limit lower than that. If you pass on any quest over about 3500 you'll be slowly gaining stats for less than half your current training costs.

2. If you 1player only, stock up on the cheap utility weapons first. Get 2 of each of the buyable 6 icon mono-icon weapons (Scroll of Moonlight, Spider on a String etc) and a couple of each of the 50% fragile reflectors (Shovel Plus, Dual Battle Mirror, etc). These aren't great, but they have enough situational use for comparatively low prices that they are well worth hording in your SDB

3. As for a healer, the best answer is to morph and use a species healer. You are not doing that however, which leaves a number of not quite so good options. The Short Sleeved Yellow Tunic is an upgrade, but I don't terribly like the price for a pet at your current hit points. I think you'd be better served by the pricier Bag of Healing Dust which will heal more and grow with you. However, my problem with the BoHD is how it stacks up against the single use healers. Even at the low end of the BoHD's price range, you could get almost 1,000 Jade Elixirs or just buy a Jade Elixir every 3 days forever with the bank interest off of that many neopoints. And the elixirs will heal twice as much. So it really comes down to how often you battle. If you're doing competitive NCW 1 player battling where you're trying to climb the high score tables with hundreds of wins every month or so then get the Bag of Healing Dust. If you're just dabbling and having fun, stick the NP in the bank and use the interest to buy full healers.
Another small issue I have with the BoHD is that the appearance is just close enough to that of the Honey Potion that when I was doing repetitive stone smashing late at night for the Tale of Woe battling, it was surprisingly easy for me to accidentally pick the wrong one. If you're going to be battling wide awake, this shouldn't be a problem, but I battle late at night enough that it was an issue for me.

4. I agree with you in that your next real weapon priorities after a healer should be a 100% freezer and a ghostkerbomb. Doing 400-500 damage in the first 2 rounds makes 1p spider squishing/stone smashing pretty easy.

5. However, for 1p, there are some defensive options you need to consider. You should start building a set of full blockers and effective reflectors to use against predictable 1p opponents. Enchanted Kiko Squeeze Toy is very cheap, and I am positively in love with Yooyu Players Sling for 1p (although you have enough defense that the Yooyu Keepers Chest Guard would be a viable option). It's a little pricey, but the full earth and light block of the Pirate Captain's Hat can be very nice, the semi-fragile defense is a little iffy, but more than adequate for 1player. I'm also thinking that Ring of the Lost is a downright steal at the current price of 3.7 to 3.8 million, Ghostkershield might be better overall, but it's clearly not twice as good and it's twice the price now. For fire, there's no cost-effective full blocker so the best option is probably the Clawed Shield. And for Air, the best option is probably the Shield of Soaring at around 12 mil, so you're probably stuck with the Double Dryer for a mere 50% reflect there until new weapons are released.

[PilotGrarrl]

VermontHermit Wrote:First, definately do train your strength and defense up to the 250 boosts before worrying about any of this.

Yep, continued training to 250 is a given. At my current rate it should happen in about 18 days.

VermontHermit Wrote:You should never be speaking of things like G-Bombs and G-Shields in the same set with a Snowglobe Staff.

Fair enough, but remember, I only ever battle 1P. If I don't freeze first time out, I can fight again until I do. My problem is that even after I freeze a stronger opponent, like the Giant Hungry Malevolent Chomby or Kastraliss, they're still standing and I need to survive several more rounds to whittle them down & out. I get close -- sometimes -- but I need either more staying power or more punch. I use faerie abilities to freeze & heal, but I also need the sink and burrow over the long run against these stronger, higher hp opponents.

VermontHermit Wrote:The N-Ray, umm...better you than me!

Hmmm, I thought a r99 weapon for 55,555 nps was a decent value!

VermontHermit Wrote:Elsewhere, I think you might want to consider something like a Ring of the Lost, which would be a nice third option attacker/with full dark defense, and is priced lower than some of the other things you're looking at.

Rabid suggests the RoTL too so I'll definitely consider it: damage & dark icons blocked...seems like it will work well with burrow for a fairly solid defence. As far as dual duties go, I had a both a Sword of the Dead and a Golden Compass for awhile but sold them as they never seemed to help quite enough.

VermontHermit Wrote:It's going to cost LOADS to make a significant upgrade in weapons to deal with healing and freezing....

So, what say I forego the freezer and buy a G-Shield instead of a healer that I can't afford anyway? Then maybe I could raid my neocard deck and get a RoTL too? That would give me:

Snowglobe Staff
Greater Healing Scroll
Bow of Destiny
Ring of the Lost
Honey Potion
Ghostkershield
Goo Blaster

Yeah, I know I have a Snowglobe Staff in there with the G-Shield!?

[rabid_schnauzer]

The problem with RotL and Gshield is that you are fully blocking dark twice over.

You'd be better off using RotL and Faerie Tabard to fully block dark and fully block water and also get some defensive icons.

Or using G-Shield and Wand of Reality to get the same overall defense and 3.5 more offensive icons

Or using G-Shield and Hobans Hat to defend an icon type that G-Shield doesn't

Or using RotL + YYPS to block all dark and all physical (regardles of def) while dealing 15.5 icons. I'm biased as I have a no-defense lab pet as my primary battle pet, but I think both of these weapons are considerably undervalued right now.

[PilotGrarrl]

rabid_schnauzer Wrote:The problem with RotL and Gshield is that you are fully blocking dark twice over.....

Thanks rabid! I am digesting lunch and both of your posts. I will respond after I have time to look up and look at your suggestions. I really appreciate your input! Ohhh, yeah, I see exactly what you mean about the RotL & the Gshield -- not at all a good fit!

[VermontHermit]

Well, with the 250 boosts, you'll find a real help in both having a bit more knockout punch, and being able to last a little longer, particularly if you move more to take advantage of your defense, which is one of your assets, though your set doesn't do a lot to utilize it.   Ring of the Lost with say the inexpensive Sword of the Dead makes a pretty good package when used with Burrow, which shuts down pretty much everything except dark (which the RotL will cancel out completely) and light (where you block 5 icons).  
    My problem with the Snowglobe Staff is it's so darned unreliable that you never know when (if) you're going to get a freeze, and everytime you don't, it's a poorer option than other items that you have and could be using.   I understand that people will restart in one-player (if they don't get a freeze), though personally I've never done that, as I find it distasteful.   Further, if you get to be fighting in a plot or war (I remember those, I just wish Neopets did too), with the lags you get, the last thing you want to do is take four or five attempts at getting into the Battledome and getting  a fight in to get that freeze.
    Your inablilty to pick up wins against strong challengers stems in part from three things I'd say.   One, you don't have a great healer; second, your set needs to take advantage of your pet's defense, but also needs to be whittling down the opponent at the same time - hence the value of dual duties over pure shields, and third, some of the stronger challengers (or even weaker ones whom you've beaten repeatedly will advance to have more strength and better defense than you have.   Training is the only answer for this last event.  
    The Neutralising Ray is actually a better weapon for 2-player fights (hard to predict for you or your opponent what it will do), but it's simply not strong enough, nor predictable enough to be a part of your battleset.   It's better as a source of nps than a weapon.   I have no idea on the pricing but as a weapon, it's less good than the Sword of the Dead we've spoken of.
    I think for where you are, the faerie abilities provide more relief in the healer area than the freezer one.   Given your budget, and lack of desire to change species of your pet, for the short to intermediate term, using something like Restore (faerie ability) as a healer, and building up your set seems o.k.   Keep in mind though, that this a problem you're deferring, not solving, and the lack of a good healer is going to keep you from ever having an elite battle pet.  Sirhatter had a wonderful article a few years ago (probably, or hopefully anyways, available on archives somewhere) about his belief that your healer is your most important weapon at elite levels, which I agee with.  
   The problem with something like a G-Bomb for you at the moment is you don't really have a dependable freezer to set it up with , and if you go beserk with it in open battle, you're likely to be hit with enough force to be taken out yourself.   I agree that it's a wonderful weapon, but I don't think your budget warrents spending for it to set it up with a Snowglobe Staff.
   The G-shield is also a FINE weapon.   But given your budget, and stats, I question it's value to you at this point.   It will defend, though even at 250 defense, your defense won't be strong enough to override attacks from powerful opponents.   It will, however, cut down damage and lead to longer fights for you.   This would be good if you had a great healer, but really plays to your weakness.   Ideally, with a sub-par healing system, you'd like to make your fights SHORT and QUICK, though this again is a problem without a dependable freezer.   If I'm going to save and sink BIG nps into either a freezer or healer, I'd opt for the healer.
    Also, it's your pet, and the idea is to play the game whatever way you enjoy doing so.   But I have to ask, what's the rational or desire to have a Grarrl?   The decision to have one, rather than a Kacheek, Lenny, Elephante, etc. is going to cost you millions and millions of nps, and/or prevent you from ever having an elite battle pet unless you can significanly generate more nps than you've been able to thus far.  
    Finally, you don't need a G-shield AND a Ring of the Lost, as both are full dark blockers.   For the kind of nps we're talking here, that would be overkill on one icon type.   Again, I'd prefer (given where you are now), the Ring of the Lost, and some dual duty help to try and shorten the length of battles, rather than a G-shield to make them go longer.

[PilotGrarrl]

Yow! Yet another post *loaded* with key advice. I'm feeling way in over my head, out of my depth....really slow at typing . I knew my set failed to take advantage of my defence, but never really *considered* it before. I've only been on neopets for 7 months and what I don't know is huge. I spend a lot of nps on gallery items and neodeck cards and will be stopping that starting now.

I never restart in 1p if I don't get a freeze; I too I find it distasteful. I just fight it out and heal with Essence of Everlasting Apple -- its only 100nps a pop. But, I never considered that this won't serve me well at all in a plot or a war. That's a very important consideration and I appreciate you drawing it to my attention.

I just like my grarrl. I won a fountain faerie quest early on and painted him "faerie" and I just really like how he looks. I foster no pretensions to elite status, but I've enjoyed myself so far! Maybe someday I can have one of the top battling faerie grarrls around

[shadownight]

[quote=rabid_schnauzer]

Even at the low end of the BoHD's price range, you could get almost 1,000 Jade Elixirs or just buy a Jade Elixir every 3 days forever with the bank interest off of that many neopoints. And the elixirs will heal twice as much. So it really comes down to how often you battle.[/u]

mmm shouldnt be cheaper [idb]Lucky Robots Foot[idb] for single use full healers?

[PilotGrarrl]

rabid_schnauzer Wrote:1. Don't totally stop training, just switch  to bargain price/lucky training.

Excellent advice and I would of course continue to do the free dailies. I now do 10 k-quests a day but I have 2 pets and my main pet only gets a stat 15% of the time. My "secondary" pet gets a stat 26% of the time! -- I though it was supposed to come out even-ish? (I created a side account but the 2nd pet is a Hissi and I have to wait to move her). The average cost per main pet stat is about 10k nps (based on 142 k-quests) and that's much cheaper than the 35k or so it takes in codestones -- to say nothing of the hours saved. But, it still runs me 35-45k a day. Plus, although I've only been training for 7 months, I've been working at it and wouldn't mind a change of pace . The time I'm not spending on k-quests can be spent rs'ing too!

rabid_schnauzer Wrote:2.  If you 1player only, stock up  on the cheap  utility weapons first. Get  2  of each  of the buyable  6 icon mono-icon  weapons (Scroll  of Moonlight, Spider on a String etc) and a  couple of each of the  50% fragile reflectors (Shovel Plus, Dual  Battle Mirror, etc). These aren't great, but they have  enough  situational  use for  comparatively  low  prices that  they are well worth hording in your SDB

This is a new idea for me and I will definitely look into it.

rabid_schnauzer Wrote:3. As for  a healer...  I think you'd be better served by the pricier Bag of Healing Dust which will heal more and grow with you. However, my problem with the BoHD is how it stacks up against the single use healers. Even at the low end of the BoHD's  price range, you could get almost 1,000 Jade Elixirs or just  buy a Jade Elixir every 3 days forever with the bank interest off of that many neopoints. And the elixirs will heal twice as much. So it really comes down to how often you battle. If you're doing competitive NCW 1 player battling where you're trying to climb the high score tables with hundreds of wins every month or so then get the Bag of Healing Dust. If you're just  dabbling and having fun, stick the NP in the bank and use the interest to buy full healers.

The Jade Elixir analysis/suggestion is solid, but I like the idea of simply owning a Bag of Healing Dust. (You're right too that it would "grow with me" as I kept working on increasing my HPs. Plus, it beats the pants off the Ice Scorchstone). The cheapest BoHD on the Trading Post is 9m and I just can't see myself leaving that kind of money alone in order to earn interest to buy Jade Elixir. Doing that makes good sense, but I would be extremely tempted, daily, to spend it!  

[PilotGrarrl]

shadownight Wrote:[quote=rabid_schnauzer]mmm shouldnt be cheaper Lucky Robots Foot for single use full healers?

A quick check on the Price Wizard just now showed Lucky Robot's Foot costing 2-3k more than the Jade Elixer...