To buy a set? Or Train? Or Save?

[jussy]

Well, i've been around neopets for ages, but never really did much of the battling part of it until much later.. Despite that, I still did the lab quite a lot, so i've got a pet that's seriously undertrained in levels and defence..

Level : 29
Health : 313 / 303
Strength : ULTIMATE (177)
Defence : EXCELLENT (52)
Move : LEGENDARY (116)
Intelligence : master genius (69)

Also, i've managed to save up a bit over time (5mil or so..)

Do you think I should invest in seriously upgrading my set?

Leaf Shield
Essence of Esophagor
Downsize!
Purple Sticky Hand
Flaming Oven Gloves
Essence of Esophagor
Tooth of Terask
(yeah, most of it i picked up cheap with the possibility of reselling later)

Or should I save up for even bigger and better weapons in the future?

I've been considering getting a ROTL, or saving just a bit more for a G-bomb.. or even really get serious about saving and go for a SoS or some 100% freezer.. The descisions are so difficult to make.. To spend or save and get something better..

What would you recommend? Any suggestions?

[CadaverGrey]

Dear, oh, dear...

I'm gonna suggest to you something that you probably might not like but, I'm gonna say it anyway:

Start with a new pet.

Reason 1: Your pet is badly labbed. Low level with high health, and neither here nor there strength boost. I'm not even sure that 5 million is gonna be enough to cover much ground in trying to balance your pet stats or equip with better weapons.

Reason 2: Your set is generally too weak for a pet like yours to battle with. You have no healer, bomb nor freezer, which are three very important weapons that ANY battler shoudl invest in, especially in the lower and mid range. And some of the weapons you have are just plain useless with your kind of stats (defensive ones especially).

So starting a fresh will be a decent idea actually. You can equip your new pet with the set that you have, albeit some changes that I will only suggest after I find out the following from you:

1) 1-player or 2-player?

2) Planning to train defence?

3) Are you particular about species?

4) Do you intend on labbing the new pet?

Of course, if you think my idea of starting anew is crap, then you can also tell me that and I will suggest a set best suited to you with your current pet, but still the question I ask applies

[rabid_schnauzer]

Well if you plan to battle 2p much your best bet is to train your stats back to even, as it will only get more expensive the longer you wait, 123 levels behind may seem like a lot, but codestone training is still viable at that point. If you do what I did and wait until you're over 300 levels behind, then codestone training will actually end up more expensive than negging.

If you're just into 1p, it's not such a big deal and for the costs I'd just recommend using dubloons, terror trove scratchcards and kitchen quests to train slowly and cheaply. The biggest point for 1p is that you should really get your level to 50+ so you can berserk.

Again, if you plan to do 2p much, your first consideration needs to be a 100% freezer, unless you want to fight only in guilds with no-freeze rules. You're close to the cost of a h4000 helmet, and easily able to afford Icy Chia Goggles, but those would require that you stop labbing.

As to your set, you have serious problems. Your defense is 3 boosts behind your Str (likely to be 4 behind soon) and yet you have 2 icon-based shields and a low-end dual duty. You have no freezer and no healer, and while you have a pair of 9 icon offensive multiuse weapons, the icon types you deal are really easily blocked by other sets of your own or lower level. Leaf Shield by itself blocks half or more of any offense you can launch.

Quote:Leaf Shield

Put this in your SDB until you get more defense.

Quote:Essence of Esophagor
Essence of Esophagor

Against my better judgement, I'll say hang on to these for now.

Quote:Downsize!

Keep this, as a lab pet with low def, you'll find the non-icon based defense useful

Quote:Purple Sticky Hand

Put in the SDB. It's useful in many 1p matches, but not all of the time, so you'll want to rotate it in and out of your set

Quote:Flaming Oven Gloves
Tooth of Terask

Donate these to the money tree. They are worthless to you.

Now, that leaves you with a set with 3 weapons and a fourth in sometimes. What to do with your other 4-5 slots:

1. Get a freezer. If you only plan on doing 1p, the bargain basement Snowglobe Staff will work, even if it is very frustrating. Otherwise move up to the Icy Chia Goggles or H4000 Helmet
2. Get a healer. Sadly, you're at the point where only species healers are cost effective, so the cheap but not-so-good option is Greater Healing Scroll, the slightly better option is Short Sleeved Yellow Tunic and the good, but too expensive options are Bag of Healing Dust or Crisp Blue Tunic. For important battles, consider single use full healers such as Jade Elixir or Lucky Robots Foot
3. Get weapons that aren't blocked by leaf shield In addition to your dual EoEs, get at least one of these as a back up weapon: Psellias Fighting Fan, Golden Compass, Staff of Righteous Fury or Ramtors Spellbook. If you want to spend a lot more here, then consider Sword of Apocalypse
   Bzzt Blaster, Portable Kiln or even Wand of Reality. Alternately Prickly Potion may be a consideration for 1p, but I recommend waiting for the price to stabilize on that one. Or for 2 player Jittery Jipple Potion or Steaming Skeem Potion may be options, but I keep seeing conflicting reports on the actual stats, so be careful on those.
4. Get a bomb Honey Potion is well within your budget and will serve you very well. Additionally, single use bombs such as Snow Mudball, Chocolate Chip Battle Biscuit or Shooting Star Muffin will serve you well and provide an offensive boost in important battles.
5. Use defensive options that work for lab pets This means getting full blockers and reflectors.
   • The relatively cheap Winged Scarab offers full physical blocking, which can be huge for lab pets. I'm positively in love with my own Yooyuball Players Sling, which is the more expensive upgrade.
   • You're right that Ring of the Lost is an excellent option, but it would eat up most of your budget, so I'd have to say wait until you have a freezer before buying one.
   • Give reflection a go. Sadly recent inflation has probably pushed the Clawed Shield out of the range where it would be worthwhile for you. So the only non-fragile reflectors that might be worhtwhile for you are likely Mega U-Bend or the U-Bend of Great Justice, and those will only be useful if you're running into a bunch of opponents who are also carrying dual EoE (and/or Pikepike). Thus your best reflector options will likely be to collect a number the fragile 50% reflectors (Shovel Plus, Double Dryer, etc) and keep a stockpile in your SDB. If you know that an opponent is heavy on an icon type, rotate the appropriate reflector in. 50% reflection can still be very worthwhile in both 1p (where the opponents can be a lot stronger) and in 2 for lab pets (as the unbalanced stats mean that you will frequently be facing higher str/lower hp opponents against which returning 50% of their attack is a beneficial damage ratio).
     

Edit: lookee, nested lists

[CadaverGrey]

Rabid's suggestions are nice (as always, heh). NOTHING wrong with balancing your pet up if you choose to do that.

Do note though that it will be a LOOONGGG time before you get see to his suggestion being realised. I have some doubts that you are someone who gain much neopoints on a daily basis, so that is gonna make it even tougher.

I'm not saying that my suggestion is better (I hope nobody will think I am implying it), but the thing about starting with a new pet is simply because of the whole satisfaction that you get to experience as you grow to be a battledomer from the bottom up. As your pet grows stronger, you wil realise that the battling strategies of a balanced pet is very different from a labbed pet. And thus you get to have the wisdom of TWO types of pet to battle with; you would already know what to do against a labbed pet  with your new battling pet cos you have one yourself!

rabid_schnauzer Wrote:Edit: lookee, nested lists

The thrills of trying something new...

[WiltChamberlain13]

My ex-girlfriend is in approximately the same situation as you. Stats:

Level : 7
Hit Points : 125 / 302
Strength : LEGENDARY (134)
Defence : GREAT (30)
Movement : LEGENDARY (105)
Intelligence : ULTIMATE GENIUS (194)

Yep, really screwed up, but she continued to lab. I think you should do the same too if you don't want to make a new pet, though I am somewhat neutral between new pet and training. I personally would just continue labbing and go all-offensive, but since I don't play Neopets a lot now, I don't really care. All your defensive weapons become useless now, which means you can sell the Flaming Oven Gloves, though it's not worth much. In my opinion actually, you can still save your defence. That would require you to stop labbing for the moment though. If you start a new pet, training it to these stats will cost you approximately the same as you training your defence up anyway, even less. I might need back up information on this though, since I haven't done calculations.

You really should tell us whether you have the patience to train defence or not.

[rabid_schnauzer]

Upon a bit of reflection, I really do have to take serious issue with your suggestion of a new pet, Cadaver.

When my lab pet began looking impossible I started on a second pet myself. While that gave me some key insights into defensive battling, it also served to dilute my quest results in half, and I'm regretting that loss now. Since I'm not about to let go of my due to the expense incurred in training her up the 250 boost (without using the lab), I'm stuck with reduced quest benefits for my lab pet. Since it's financial madness to try to codestone train my lab pet and Neggs are generally out of my price range, that really puts a crimp in my training.

Also, while 5 mil is not going to be enough to even out Levels Def and HP from a 100+ level deficit, 5 mil is also not enough to train a pet to the same point Jussy's pet is at now. At current prices, 5 mill will only barely pay to train a pet to 125str/125def/125hp without leaving anything for weapons.

The one bright spot here is that since I got serious about training/K-questing last October, and even with the second pet diluting things, my Kitchen Quest, Faerie Quest and Random Event stat gains have actually produced a slow but consistant net gain in Defense, even as I continued to lab. So while it is excruciatingly slow it is at least possible to gain defense that way.

[Shattered Rift]

I'm tempted to immediately disagree with Cadaver about creating a new Pet. However, there are two things to consider with that option: one, run the time/cost requirements of getting your current Pet back up to Level, and two, do you want to do serious Two Player?

The latter requires defense, and that's the main problem I see with your situation. I's completely possible to train (which I would recommend over a set), but also pulling your defense up is going to be almost as difficult. You're going to break Level 151 before you're done (seven Codestones, eighteen hours per course), leaving the only option of fast (reliable) training being once you crack Level 250 for Ninja Training (which, entirely for the sake of time, is what I recommend shooting for past Level 100). However, this points out something else: I would argue that someone should start K-Questing past Level 100 (due to the time constraints), and since you will hit that point before you're done, I would recommend starting now.

However, this is for the sake of time. Whether you want to put or exceed the entirety of your five million is up to you. I'm a strong advocate of abusing the Lab as much as possible, and even though it's screwed over most of us at some point or another from our laziness, it's still very beneficial when used properly.

Again, for the sheer sake of time, once you break Level 250 and hit Ninja Training, courses take four hours to complete, which is less than half of the time it would take if your Level was already caught up to manage your HP. This comes at a 51K cost per non-Zed codestone. The benefits of targeting this range are that you can still Lab even while you're boosting your Level up, you can K-Quest which would benefit both your Level and Strength (and Defense and Speed), and it would be a more "comfortable" trip. Money being the object.


In regards to sets, past the ten-iconer range there's a steep price increase. Honey Potion being 800K (or maybe a bit more), the eleven-iconers being around 1.1 (again, maybe more), and WoR/BoD being at 3.5 (unless they're just temporarily inflated). A freezer, the "best" choice for a set upgrade, would eat up more money than you even currently have, while just brushing your problem under the table.

As for your current set: dump the Leaf Shield, Gloves, and pick up a Greater Healing Scroll. Assuming you're doing One Player, dual-Scuzzys Combs are going to be the best route you can probably take for your main offense (I'd hang onto one of the Essences for icon variety).


Again, a lot of this gets thrown out the window to a degree if you prefer Two Player. That route's going to double or triple your costs regardless which way you look at it.

[CadaverGrey]

I would like to add that my suggestion to have another pet does not mean that I am leaving labbing out for the new pet. By contrast, I would say that the labbing AND dubloon/codestone training WITHOUT the defense would be an option to consider. It won't make it that much easier to have a decent battle pet, I realise that. But, I am taking into consideration that the problem with your pet is both training AND weaponry, which your budget of 5 million is severely short handed at the moment.

However, I do recognise the merit of what both Rabid and Shattered said. Rabid would have the experience to back him up, while Shattered's idea about the time factor of labbing makes sense. Also, I have not been in your situation of an ill-balanced pet, so I have the least experienced to say much.

I think by you elaborating on the questions that I asked at the end of my first reply, though, all of us would be able to give you a more defined suggestion for you.

[Shattered Rift]

Originally I was going to run the figures for both a new Pet and your current Pet as far as getting both to 300 Strength/HP, but I forgot how annoying this is, so I've only gotten through your Pet. Note that this assumes no Lab, K-Quests, Terror Troves, Faerie Quests, etc.

Current: 12 Levels @ 2 Codestones and 3 hours
40 @ 3 Codestones and 4 hours
20 @ 4 Codestones and 6 hours
21+ @ 5 Codestones and 8 hours

127 Strength @ 5 Codestones and 8 hours

Total: 964 Codestones, 1500 hours

(Someone should double-check my math on that.) At 5K per Codestone (I think they average more than that, but given that I didn't factor in Terror Troving...) that'll cost you 4.82 million. Completely within your budget, assuming you want to forsake Defense (and Two Player battling).

Edit: Adding the time in there, that's 62 and a half days, on the chance you could undergo constant training. Since odds are you won't be on for more than twelve hours a day, let's double that timeframe to four months for your stats to be caught up.

[rabid_schnauzer]

Here's the ballpark on a new pet, using similar assumptions (stats from training only, only 1 stat per course, keeping Str/Def/HP even and level at half of stats, 5.2k per codestone):

# 8/8/8: 24 One Dubloon Coins (~75k, really likely much cheaper)
# 13/13/13 boost: 21 One Dubloon Coins (~65k)
# 20/20/20 boost: 24 One Dubloon Coins (~75k)
# 35/35/35 boost: 53 Two Dubloon Coins (~165k)
# 55/55/55 boost: 17 Two Dubloon and 53 Five Dubloon Coins (~545 k)
# 85/85/85 boost: 87 Five Dubloon Coins + 45 Codestones (~1.045mil)
# 125/125/125 boost: 520 Codestones (~2.705 mil)

Total: approx 4.675 million to get to 125 even stats.
Time: ugh, I'm not going to calculate precisely, but just to set a lower bound: 799 courses, at a minimum of 4 hours per course, so it will be over 3196 total hours of training, which is 133 straight days with no breaks for sleep. The actual time will be notably greater.

That's also within your budget, but it takes more than twice as long and would leave you with only a 125 boost pet instead of the 300 boost pet you could have by evening up your current one.

[dbml]

I think we've all been in this position at one point or another

My own lab rat is in a far worse position (500+ hp, 200 boost) so I made a choice to forgo all training, with the exeption of level which I keep a bit over 50 for access to berserk. Otherwise it's all about labbing and weapon upgrades.

I made the lazy choice, but your pet is in a much better position. Given the time tables posted for training given by Shattered Rift and rabid_schnauzer (which aren't nearly as bad as I expected), I'd say training your current pet is the best option. I guarantee you'll regret not training, I certainly have