Lab Ray Battle Pets: Your Opinions

[LizyMarie]

I wanted to come by this forum and ask a question that's been on my mind for a long time.

For battle pets would you consider using the Lab Ray? Why or why not?

 

I would like this to be a discussion because I currently have the map already, but have been curious to know if it's worth using to make a LabRat for the Battledome. Especially because of this new plot I see a lot of talk about how pets are in the 200's or 300's on stats but their levels are below 80.. or even less. While I can see the advantage of leveling up stats quickly (on a daily basis with no extra charge), it's quite a gamble.

I also ask for opinions because I'd like to see how many of you TDN users have tried this yourselves and to share your experience.

And then there is the problem where I have 4 very nice pets (seriously, go have a gander!) and would hate to think that I have to possibly sacrifice the race/color of my pet! :rolleyes_anim: I'm a girl, so I think about these things.

 

So, is it worth it? Why? Why not? Have you tried it yet?

 

 

 

(Note to Forum staff, I looked for a topic to talk about this but did not find one. If there IS one, please point me in that direction and delete this one as you see fit. Thank you very much!)

[Batman]

I personally love my lab maps, so much so that I have three of them. I also have an actual battle pet with even stats though. They can be nice battle pets you just have to plan your set accordingly. If you don't mind the species of the pets then I would say go for it. What is the worst that can happen really? You have to make a different pet a battle pet if you want to go even, but it is like free training if you don't want to do all that work.

[Realcar]

You WILL have to sacrifice the gender/species of whichever pet you use. It takes a long time, even with the lab ray, to get pets up to legitimately good stats. Chances are your gender/species/color will change several times during that period.

 

My advice would be to pick your least favorite pet and just start zapping.

 

I did it for a while. Went from a nice looking male scorchio to an absolutely absurd looking phephin female. Oh well. I actually got rid of that pet, just cuz I wanted to pare it down to only two. Now I've got a different lab rat. He has changed genders a few times but that's about it thus far. No biggie.

 

For me I run it as more of an experiment/sideshow. My main pet I train traditionally. I like it because I can "pick" his stats. I can also buy species weapons. That said, if my lab rat ever becomes stronger, rest assured that I'll be happy to battle with him/her/it instead.

 

Again, just pick your least favorite and start zapping. Do so with the knowledge that it's species/color/gender WILL change (don't even think about spending lots of money on species healers/freezers). Not might. It WILL at some point.

[LizyMarie]

I already chose my "even battle pet". Bloo_dust has been my battle pet forever now. But I suppose I just really want to know what everyone else has encountered with the lab ray. I would like a second battle pet, one that I'm not paying arm and leg on training for. I have to buy the weapons as is and my stocks don't make enough for what I want. :P

[Lamppost]

I love my lab rat. I probably never would have gotten to over 800 HP if I hadn't labbed her. I ended up investing in some strength potions, and she's quite a formidable Battledome opponent now, despite having low defense. It's just a different strategy in the BD. Shields aren't much use, so I concentrate on taking out my opponent before they have a chance to hit me much. And they have to hit me a lot. Even 1-P challengers like Balthazar, the Space Faerie, and the Snowager can only hit me about half of my HP, and they don't do that every turn.

 

Since you're just starting, I would recommend that you keep the level up while you're zapping. That's what I wish I had done. That way, my pet would still be trainable. I gave that advice to my boyfriend when he re-started playing Neo about two years ago, and he has had very little trouble keeping his stats up, too. Plus, he's got a better pet than a lot of 2-year-old accounts because of that.

 

If you keep your stats balanced while you're zapping, it's pretty much free HP. It's frustrating when you get those decreases, but overall pets tend to gain stats as they are zapped.

[LizyMarie]

But i thought zapping a pet meant you can DECREASE it's level? Why risk that factor? I thought it could bump you down all the way to level 1 again. (Maybe I'm mistaken..)

 

But I think the idea of zapping for large stats may be a good idea if I can keep up with levelings... and I don't get crappy zaps too often.

[Anxious Zombie]

At about lvl 30 or 40 'back to level 1 stops happening. My experience isn't 'the best' because I've just started but it's still pretty good

[karmacow]

It can take away levels, but as long as you keep it over -was it 25? it'll only take a few at a time, maximum. And you can just make sure that you never zap if its level is below that threshold. I so wish I had done that with my labbie. I zapped her for a long time and she got some pretty ...diverse... stats from that. But high hp and strength, which makes her a pretty decent battler. I've now stopped zapping her, because I morphed her into a krawk, and I'm now training at the training school. But it'll be a long time before I can train anything but level.

[Lamppost]

I've been zapping my pet for over 10 years, and I've never had that "down to level 1" happen. My pet is over level 100, so I'm sure she is past the threshold where you can no longer get that.

 

With lab rats, there is a tendency for HP to increase (a lot, because you never get decrease zaps), strength to increase, and level and defense to decrease and/or increase at a very low rate. You can always tell a lab rat if they have high HP and low defense.

 

Also, you will get crappy zaps, but that's not what it's about. You'll get good zaps, too, and overall there is a gain. You can always stop zapping for awhile, too. Right now my pet is just over a strength boost, so I stopped zapping because I don't want her to fall back down. After the war I'll probably start zapping her again.

[Aquamentis12]

I've heard about the infamous zap back to level 1, but as I don't zap, I don't know if it's true.

 

Even though I could assemble the Lab Map, I haven't used it. i might to get the Lab Ray Scientist as an opponent, but I'll throw a different pet than Kaibajouryuuki to it for that. ;)

 

What I've read about the lab ray, is that as far as stats go, it increases HP and Strength while usually decreasing Level and Defense. I'm sure Lamppost is right about what she said about keeping things balanced, but that's still the cost of training, or retraining level or defense, possibly multiple times, so that must have an np cost as well. I decided to just stick with training, doing Kitchen Quests, Terror Trove (and above) scratchcards, and now I've been employing the Faerie Quest Fortune Cookies. 1 random faerie quest a day for 7 days. (7*24 hours). You can even get Fountain Faerie Quests from it. (VERY rare)

 

You would definitely want to keep your level up, unless you do not intend to use many or hardly any of the new faerie abilities. Even though my pet is a balanced build, I do not like the whole Level Tiered system. But nothing anyone can do about that.

 

The other drawback is that you really don't want to use species weapons on a lab rat. So the non-species healers and freezers mainly, are going to cost you too.

 

However you wanna go about training is fine. These are just the thoughts I've had when I've thought about labbing. Personally, I think I've got a great pet that I put a lot of work into. I like the species, and the species only gear he uses. If I keep training him, he can only get stronger. Slow and steady, and all that. ~_^

But there's no right or wrong way really with training, as long as you keep on top of things. Good luck with however you decide to train your pet! :D

[siniri]

My lab- and school- trained pet's stats:

Lvl : 307
Str : 604
Def : 605
Mov : 603
Hp : 614 / 614

 

I kept track of my zaps for several months and calculated the cost of zapping (and losing species/color) vs. training without zapping, and the extra stats gained "paid for" the Mynci MP to get back to the species I wanted, plus the MI pb to get her to my dream, in less than a year (because 8 codestones/training). Plus I've gotten free pb clothes for some of my other pets along the way (such as zombie flotsam, and even Halloween Mynci for when I morph her back). She's gotten some pretty cool looks that I wouldn't want permanently, but were nice for a while (such as several robot pets). And an avatar or two (still waiting for her to get zapped Jetsam). She has gotten stuck once or twice on some really ugly looks, but only once was I desperate enough to transfigure her (only because I had to stop zapping to avoid bumping to the next codestone level, and I got an avatar anyway, so it was okay)

 

If you want a balanced pet, the lab can still help you. Its main benefit is allowing you to train faster. It saves you money, but you won't actually see the money you saved since you'll just have a stronger pet sooner than you would otherwise. And the more expensive your training gets, the more you save. You can also slow down or stop one or the other at any time. If my HP were rising too fast (which happened a few times before I realized I don't really need to train them much at all, especially when I was on once-per-day TS training), I could stop zapping for a while. When I didn't have a ton of time for Neopets and couldn't afford the codestones (or there was high inflation), I could train only once I got the requested codestones from KQ/Tombola/etc (this was obviously pre-BD drops), while still increasing my stats by zapping.

 

Some food for thought: on January 25, my stats were all around 560 with level around 280; I needed ~180 stat increases to get to the 600 boosts (the SNTS bumps up a codestone with the boost, so if I didn't want to pay double too many times, they all needed to bump up together); let's call that ~168 trainings because of the occasional +2 and +3's. I could train (theoretically) 6x/day, so it should have taken me 28 days (i.e., I could have finished at the earliest on February 22. I actually could only train 2-4 times/day (average = 3) because of life, so that would have pushed me back to March 22. Thanks to zapping (and 13 stats from faerie quests), I reached it on February 25. So zapping saved me ~3*28 = 84 red codestones* in 31 days (I actually had ~13 "extra" stats above the boost across a few different stats, so the faerie quests were a wash). (Granted I was luckier than usual during that month, but still... I might need that 600 boost for the next wave, and I only have it because I zapped.) The time saved was even more incredible when I was at the once-per-day training stage.

 

Sure, I miss my Mynci, but she's getting close to the max boosts (at which time I'll stop zapping her), and I saved years and millions of NP on training by zapping her, and got some amazing free clothes for my other pets and a few avatars to boot.

 

*Keep in mind this is the NET effect of lab-training, including any losses I've incurred. Grainne's level was already a bit high (definitely over 50, and maybe even over 100) before I started zapping her, and she's never lost more than ~2-4 levels, although my avatar-sometimes-labbie pet has been reset to 0 or lost a lot of levels multiple times. It doesn't seem to do that to higher-level pets.

[deadninja6]

I love using the Lab Ray on my battle pet. For one, I'm pretty sure it's past the point where it could be zapped back to level 1, lol, and it's also given me WAY more stats than it's taken away, and I've only had the Ray for a few weeks.:P The only thing that bugs me about it is when it affects my agility.:P It's like, "Gee, thanks. I've just wasted today's zap.-_-".

[savamal]

I have 2 BD pets:

• My spoilt pet which is currently training to get the best defence boost
• My lab rat which is daily zapped

 

I wanted to test which is the best approach for the Battledome. And this is what I come to the conclusion:

• For the old Battledome, both approaches are good, even though I prefer the labbed pet (huge amount of stamina, i.e. can take more damages)
• For the new Battledome, both approaches are good, but this time I prefer the training pet.

 

There are some new Faerie abilities that makes you want to keep your pet's level high. Imagine you've reached level 200 and you can train Warlock's Rage. The Lab ray then randomly reduces your pet's level and you end up with a level 199 pet. You can no longer use that Faerie ability (and I don't know if you lose it by forgetting how to use it...) and since labbed pet cannot train level (health points being too high) you are forced to buy items to increase the level of your BD pet (meaning the price of those items would skyrocket because of the new demand among Neopians). Or you're rather unlucky with Count Von Roo and your pet's level decreases more... And that's true for each set of Faerie abilities. Moreover, for those who have low level pets, the risk to go back to level 1 cannot be neglected (and being forced to train with dubloons or codestones because you've lost a few Faerie abilities)

 

 

Stances are unavailable now and I wonder if TNT will bring them back. Which means that the strength boost fixes the amount of damages. No doubled damages (when both fighters used Berserk, the damages were multiplied by 1.5 x 1.5, i.e. 2.25). Having a good defence boost is now an advantage. I like using shields and dual-duty weapons. The Lab ray favor health points and strength boost, meaning low level and defence boost. If you have also NP to buy Armoured Neggs to increase your pet's defence, then it's fine, but the Lab ray can cancel your efforts by reducing defence points of your pet, meaning you're wasting your NP for nothing.

 

Training pets is safer even though normal codestones are expensive now. When you can enter the Ninja School (level 250+) then it's ridiculously cheap (and also faster) to train.

 

The current war enables me to test my BD pets:

Waves #1 and #2 were easy for both BD pets.

Waves #3 is harder for my labbed pet because the damages taken are as high as the damages it does. The only difference is that my labbed pet has nearly 4x more health points than the opponent (mighty). And since his level is 1, I cannot use Faerie abilities. Maybe the next wave will be the last one for my labbed pet.

[LizyMarie]

Aquamentis12 -- I never got the lab scientist as an opponent from zapping the past 4 years... What am I doing wrong? Lol

siniri - You definitely gave good stats there, that really does put things into perspective. Thanks for that! I think if I were to go ahead and do this I'm going to start keeping track of what happens every day and really see where to go next. Besides,... having the avatars wouldn't be too bad :)

savamal That I didn't think about at all... But then if you think about how it can effect the level then don't zap unless it's at least 4 levels above that marker (like 204 to be safe from the 200 cap for the abilities). It may be worth the struggle to keep up leveling just to have the high stats and abilities. :) And even though the stances are gone, I prefer the new abilities. I think... it may be more than worth the struggle for me. :)

 

Thank you everyone, please give me more of your experiences! I really do love to read about this. So completely facinating.. I keep learning something new when I read what you guys put up.

[Anxious Zombie]

In the matter of the abilities, that was covered in an editorial or a F.A.Q or something... You don't lose it, you just can't use it until you're the minimum required level again.

And also, with really high HP from lab stats, level is the only thing you can train... Not something you can't. You could train level to the max and not touch your other stats if you wanted to.

 

In personal experience, I haven't had my level or defense touched at all, the only things affected negatively so far were strength (already high) and movement (useless)

[Rune Valentine]

This thread is slowly convincing me I should lab my battle pet. I've been considering it for years but I just haven't had the heart to zap my dear little zombie bunny, whom I love as a zombie bunny, but seeing the benefits of it, I might just cave and zap him, and just stash an MP for when I'm ready for him to be permanent again. It's an interesting read, thank you all for posting your experiences about it. I'm learning a lot too! :)

[sara1elo]

Well, obviously it is not the best way to train a neopet, specially because the random acts of the lab... but my only "battle pet" comes from there. I have never paid a single codestone for training I think.

[kris10ly]

I'm a girl, so I think about these things.

Ugh.

 

 

As for the topic, I don't think it's worth it to lab a battle pet unless you're willing to commit to doing it for a while - I've had lab rats for stretches of about a year at a time, and none of them have become that impressively statted during that period. I'd guess it'd take 18 months at least to be really worthwhile.

[dummydumpty]

I zap and train my BD pet, and I don't mind how she looks. Personally, I love the lab ray and its randomness, and I like seeing her species and color change from time to time. The level and defense decreases can pretty bad, but I'm fine with that, heh.

I never train her HP (it is relatively low though, but I'm hoping it'll go back up once training starts to be really slow), but I train her defense, level and strength (in that order).

(This is from SunnyNeo's Lablog if you're wondering about that.)

 

My pet's stats:

 

Age: 163 days

 

Level: 95

Health: 145 / 145

Mood: delighted!

Hunger: very hungry

Strength: ULTIMATE (199)

Defence: ULTIMATE (175)

Move: AMAZING (85)

[Rea]

"At about lvl 30 or 40 'back to level 1 stops happening."

 

Nope nope nope. My friend learned the hard way with her lv200-ish pet. :sad01_anim:

Don't zap pets that you're legitimately training.. it's a terribly frustrating thing to have happen to you, apparently. :mellow:

[dummydumpty]

Rea, do you when that happened? I've never heard of this happening to anyone with a high level pet, so it might have been true years ago? I think the lab ray used to zap pets to Draik and Krawk, but it stopped doing that (or it's just way too rare—but I think it's no longer a possible zap).

[feeble_iq]

I recently stopped zapping my battle pet because I was getting frustrated with the decreases and I legitimately haven't had any stat increases that haven't gone back down in the past couple of weeks. It's just my bad luck. I'll probably start zapping again due to all the comments here but when my NP has been spent on Faerie Quests and codestones to see it decrease to the way it was it became rather disheartening. Although I do understand that if I didn't spent my NP on training it would be even lower than the lab decrease, but still, I feel like I paid for an increase, not for insurance. *goes to zap*

[Lamppost]

My pet's stats, thanks to the lab ray:

 

Health: 855 / 855

Strength: ULTIMATE (451)

Defence: LEGENDARY (103)

Move: ULTIMATE (243)

Intelligence: ULTIMATE GENIUS (439)

 

I've never paid for any health increases, and I barely worry about my low defense because I can take the hits. I've paused zapping for now because I don't want her strength to dip below the 450 boost, but I'll probably start again once the war is over. I've spent some NP on strength potions, but even without them she was pretty strong.

 

Sometime I wish she had more balanced stats, but I really think that her HSD wouldn't be as high without the lab ray.

[LizyMarie]

My pet's stats, thanks to the lab ray:

 

Health: 855 / 855

Strength: ULTIMATE (451)

Defence: LEGENDARY (103)

Move: ULTIMATE (243)

Intelligence: ULTIMATE GENIUS (439)

 

I've never paid for any health increases, and I barely worry about my low defense because I can take the hits. I've paused zapping for now because I don't want her strength to dip below the 450 boost, but I'll probably start again once the war is over. I've spent some NP on strength potions, but even without them she was pretty strong.

 

Sometime I wish she had more balanced stats, but I really think that her HSD wouldn't be as high without the lab ray.

I decided to go ahead and zap away at my Island Aisha and make her my battle pet. (Maybe i'll be lucky enough to keep color/spieces)

 

I'll be actively training her level though. From everyone's recounts, it seems worth it in the long run.

[Neomancer]

The increase in Health is just too good to pass up. Sometimes you jump like 4 or 5 points and it never takes it away. There just is no better deal.