to rush or not to rush?

[GillyTook]

I've read a lot of people rush train their pet's level to 250 to save on codestones.  Currently my battledome pet is at level 113, and str/def are close to twice that, but her hp is still only 165.  At what point does it become more economical to rush train to 250?  Reds are more expensive, but I'm using more at the moment (and could sell unusable tans when I get them from the battledome).  On the other hand, the stash of reds I have would probably go really super quickly if I was only using them (and with the quicker training time again, right?)   Is it just personal preference, or has anyone out there actually calculated it out somewhere?

[ranga_muffin]

I haven't properly done the maths, but my understanding is that it's generally considered better at roughly the 100 level point to rush level training to move onto the red codestone training. My battle pet is at level 103, and it currently takes five tan codestones to train one level. I have a stash of them but if you work out the cost per level it's pretty expensive (and the potential is always there to need all/several eo codestones for any given training session). I also think it can be a bit easier for people to just need to buy one red codestone as opposed to five/six/seven/eight tan.
Either way it's pretty expensive to train. I'm still considering just zapping my battle pet a bit and then changing him back to a Christmas Kacheek when i'm at/nearer 250 (although kacheek MPs are pretty expensive too!).

[Aquamentis12]

Hi @GillyTook, I think it's a matter of preference. I've never done the math on it, but the arguments I've heard FOR doing it, is that you're at 1-red stone training for a VERY long time, until your stats catch up with your level. The proponents would continue to say that you would save NP in the long run, because you'd be level-training only through the higher tan-codestone tiers, and then you'd only need to buy 1 red stone for the other stats. Of course, red stones WERE much cheaper the last time I saw this topic brought up.

PERSONALLY, I've never liked the power-leveling idea because I felt, and mostly still do, that it unbalanced the codestone market. I must point out there were fewer Red stones available when I first started with that opinion. But the point is, tan codestones would fall in price as more people power-leveled to 250+, and red stones would increase in price due to the increase in demand. Right now, most of both types of stones are higher than usual due to people training for the on-coming war.

What I would suggest is this. You can power-level if you want. However, I would suggest you try to figure out how long it will take you to get to level 250 first. It won't do you much good in the upcoming battle plot if your level is high but your stats haven't gotten much higher.

Ok, so because I was curious, I tried the math. To train to Level 251 will take you 2,524 HOURS. That's a few hours over 105 days. I stink at math, so feel free to check it. The last 50 levels of the training school will take 24 hours per session. Granted to you can get some levels if you're good at beating Von Roo at Deadly Dice, but that will hardly do much unless you have a LOT of ties and then are lucky enough to win a lot. Plus you have to be on at midnight to 1am NST for that.

So I think your best bet will be to focus on your stats for this battle plot. I think working on your HP makes the most sense, and then Strength and Defense to the next boost for each of them. Maybe you can get to the 250 or 300 boost(s)? But you definitely will want more HP, which as you probably know, can be trained to 3x your level.

Just for reference, here is the link to the article on BD boosts for Strength and Defense.
https://thedailyneopets.com/battledome/strength-defense-boosts

Good luck with your training. Feel free to ask any more questions you might have.

As far as power-leveling goes. I did that for the last 20-30 levels when I was in the 8-tan stone tier, just before the Obelisk War. I would suggest that it becomes a more viable and economic strategy when you get to the 7 and/or 8 tan stone training tier. Sure Mag and Sho red stones are generally pretty cheap, but the other 4 are not.

[granny63020]

Hello! Nice to see you on and giving advice.

Aquamentis12 I could use your help with something.

What should I use to fill in this blank spot?   Thank you!

[GillyTook]

59 minutes ago, Aquamentis12 said:

But you definitely will want more HP, which as you probably know, can be trained to 3x your level.

 

I read somewhere (and can't find it now) that if you train your HP to 3x your level, it'll put you in the next training spot.  So like, if I get her to 300 HP now, I'd have to up her level and/or use more codestones to train the next level.  Is that true?  

I WAS hoping to get to the 250 mark before the next plot, though of course since we don't know when that'll be, no idea if it'll actually get there or not

[Aquamentis12]

1 hour ago, granny63020 said:

Hello! Nice to see you on and giving advice.

Aquamentis12 I could use your help with something.

What should I use to fill in this blank spot?   Thank you!

Well @granny63020, depending on how much you want to spend, you might add a Freezing weapon. Sleep Ray is around 1million NP these days I think. or, you can save the slot for a defensive piece of equipment that you can swap out depending on your opponent. If you're only fighting opponents that you can beat easily, say for the daily prizes, then you can leave it empty for now. IF/WHEN TNT fixes Stealing, if your Agility stat is 201 or higher, the Heavy Robe of Thievery can be fun. There's a very low intelligence stat requirement for it too, But I think it's only like, 35 or some crazy low number.

1 hour ago, GillyTook said:

I read somewhere (and can't find it now) that if you train your HP to 3x your level, it'll put you in the next training spot.  So like, if I get her to 300 HP now, I'd have to up her level and/or use more codestones to train the next level.  Is that true?  

I WAS hoping to get to the 250 mark before the next plot, though of course since we don't know when that'll be, no idea if it'll actually get there or not

I don't know if that's accurate @GillyTook. Though I've never trained my HP to 3x my level before, but I have heard that if your HP is beyond 2x your level, then you have to increase your level before you can train your other stats again. IF I'm remembering that correctly. It's been many MANY years since I last read that. So I MIGHT be misremembering it. So I've kept my stats within 2x of my level, even HP. Now since I have the max boosts, it doesn't really matter if my HP is 3x my level, but that'll take quite a bit of training and time. Once you get your Strength and Defense to 750 it won't matter for you either. That will take some time though. I didn't do any hardcore training, just some light stuff, and it took me until the Obelisk War to reach level 250. Some players, focused a TON on their training and far exceeded my pet during the same roughly 8-10 year period from the time I started playing Neopets. If you have the NP for the codestones you can train your rear off. If you buy NC at all, the Training Fortune Cookies can reduce your training time by a random amount 35%-50% I think, it's different for each training session, but within that range, for .. I think it's 5 days. It's been a long time since I last used one, so I'm not 100% on that anymore.

Anyway, since the tiers in the training schools go by level, I think it's ok to train your HP beyond 2x your level, just know you'll have to raise your level to make your HP back to only 2x your level to train your other stats again. (I hope that makes sense).

You might not get to 250 in level, but if you buff your stats to the next boost and get your HP up a bit more, you'll be more formidable during the battle plot than you would be if your level was 250 and your stats were relatively close to what they are now.

[granny63020]

If I wait until the war starts my concern is the price of items will double. Is that what the item is called?   Freezing weapon. Sleep Ray

OK I checked JN and it says  This item has been mass-released as a weekly bonus prize for the new Quest Log system, which has brought it down into (or even below!) the price of comparable 100% freezers! I haven't received this item so I am going to buy it. They estimate it at 2M but I'll go look.  None on the TP but the Auctions are 1100000 NP's / 1025000 / 1020000 / 1021000 / I might have to think about this! Wow!  I wasn't thinking more than 1M.

[ranga_muffin]

I'm one of those people whose battle pet has very uneven stats: HP: 501 Strength: 348, Defence: 155, Move: 247, Intelligence: 2808 and Level: 101. I can confirm that due to my pet's insane HP I do have to up my level to 251 before I can train other things (defence). For me the rushing to 250 is a bit more tempting and necessary as I can't do anything else until then. 

Whatever you choose to do, keep an eye on those weird little rules and keep your stats fairly even as you go! 

Also, look into kitchen quests maybe. They give out stat increases which from memory are fairly decent. Some quests are expensive, but not all so it might be something you think worthwhile.

[GillyTook]

I'll look into getting up to 250 def/str.  Depending on the start date, it could be doable.  And then work on HP for whatever time I've got left before level grinding. 

I keep hearing about the kitchen quests, but haven't done any yet.  I'll need to look into those, I think.  

[Aquamentis12]

@GillyTook, that sounds like a good plan!

Regarding Kitchen Quests. At least there's no penalty if you don't feel like finishing them. I recommend price checking each of the 3 or 4 items your asked for before you buy any. Lately I've been getting thrown some curve-balls when trying to do a Kitchen Quest. There'd be 2 or 3 reasonably priced items requested, 1k-2k or so, and then one that is over 10k. While it'd be worth it NP-wise to try it for a random stat point, I only need to work on my HP, so if I get a worthless item or low amount of NP back, or the stat point goes to some other stat, it's not very good. So I keep checking and hoping for a lower priced-quest. As I'm trying hard to save my NP to upgrade my battle gear.

My point is, just be wary of how much each item costs and do what you feel you can afford per quest. You can complete up to 10 on-site quests a day. Snow Faerie, Edna, Kitchen Quests, all count toward the 10. The counter resets at midnight NST. And the time to complete the quests seems to be between 2 and a half to 3 and a half hours pretty often.

Good luck!

[discobiscuit]

On 2/23/2024 at 9:56 PM, GillyTook said:

I read somewhere (and can't find it now) that if you train your HP to 3x your level, it'll put you in the next training spot.  So like, if I get her to 300 HP now, I'd have to up her level and/or use more codestones to train the next level.  Is that true?  

I WAS hoping to get to the 250 mark before the next plot, though of course since we don't know when that'll be, no idea if it'll actually get there or not

This is 100% true.  If you're at level 100, you can train your strength or defense (or movement) up to 200 and your hit points up to 300.   However, once you go over 2x with hit points, you can only train hit points further (up to the 3x level maximum).  No more strength or defense while you're doing this. 

I did do this, thinking I wanted it, but I was wrong.  In my humble opinion, you should increase HP to 3x at the end of your training journey not the middle!

I kept strength, defense, and hit points 2x my level up until about level 280 when I noticed for the first time that one could up the hit points to 3x the level, so I went wild and got my hit points to 840 before I realized I could not train my strength or defense until I reached level 420.  All I could do for 100+ days was to train level and nothing else. 

I have done the math (after doing all this, not before like a sensible person) and depending on where you stop training strength and defense (there's no reason to go higher than 750), it's between 11 and 14% cheaper red codestone-wise to train everything up 2x until you hit level 500 and then increase hp as much as you want. 

Realize that no matter what, you're in for finding 1200 to 1500 red codestones.  Not having to buy 200+ extra codestone is obviously cheaper and will take several weeks less to complete, but that's not why I'm warning against going 3x early.  I can tell you the sad grindy-ness of level day after day made me hate the game:

• If I got to do a faerie quest that gave me 3 HP, I got mad!  You should be happy something that would cost 300K np to do cost nearly nothing, but my joy had been ground down to a nub. 
• In those days and days of grinding level out, I passed the Adept and Advanced levels of training, so once I reached the 2x limit, all my progress on strength and defense cost 3 red codestones.  I had to skip over the 2 codestone cost entirely.  I felt that I'd missed out on the cheaper tier even though mathematically it was only for 14%, it still made me grumble.

Maybe if I'd chosen the path purposefully at the start, I wouldn't have felt that way, but all of a sudden realizing I had to level up about 200 times before I could change anything else wore on me.  And, of course, some players are going to be fine with it, but I think you're better off knowing what you're up against beforehand.

(I'm better now that my pet's levels and stuff are properly aligned)

 

[Aquamentis12]

Thanks for adding your confirmation to the conversation @discobiscuit! So did you finally max out your Strength and Defense, so you could focus on HP? All that training of nothing but level, man I can imagine how frustrating that must've been!

[GillyTook]

@discobiscuit  That was exactly what I was concerned about.  Thank you!  I know it was annoying when I got a couple faerie quests that put me from 4 codestones to 5 because my strength was too high, so I can't imagine doing it with the reds.  I'd likely cry.  Of course I'm also a girly little thing, so it's a bit understandable.

[discobiscuit]

22 hours ago, Aquamentis12 said:

Thanks for adding your confirmation to the conversation @discobiscuit! So did you finally max out your Strength and Defense, so you could focus on HP? All that training of nothing but level, man I can imagine how frustrating that must've been!

I did! Mintyfish is at level 503, with strength and defense just above 750.  I did move HP up to 1008 but I don't think I'm going to push it to 1500.

There's no increase in multiplier after 750 for strength or defense so one could safely stop at level 375, but because I had put HP at 840 on my own, I had to bring level up to at least 420 in order to do anything with strength/defense.  Once I did that, I made a goal of getting to level 500 to be able to get the last level of faerie abilities.  I'm collecting my bottled faeries for it now.

I should mention that by the end, I'd invested into Faerie Quest Fortune Cookies, so I spent the last few months doing a faerie quest every day (sometimes twice - thanks faerie festival!) and upgraded randomly for much of the way and trained to even things out.  To be honest, the FQFC path was more fun than the full-time training grind, but you might have to spend real life money for it.  There have been in-game gifts of NC lately and I happily spent it all on fortune cookies.

[Aquamentis12]

Sounds like your pet has some very nice stats @discobiscuit!

Why wouldn't you increase your pet's HP further? Sure, you can take on MOST 1p opponents on easy and many on Mighty right now, but it might come in handy if you want to challenge opponents on stronger difficulties. Who knows what TNT has in store for us with the battle plot?

Good luck getting enough faeries for the level 500 ability! I chose Summon Monoceraptor for my peophin. It's not bad, though I wish it was more than once per day.

I use FQFCs too. It can be quicker, and when you do get the faerie you want, you get more points than simply training. Also, one thing to consider, a FQFC is basically $1 of NC for 9 days. But that can be better if you don't have, or don't want to spend millions of NP on Red Codestones. Especially in this pre-war economy. I augment with occasional training and Kitchen Quests, when they're under 5-10k. I only need to work on HP right now too.

[granny63020]

Aquamentis12  I got the Sleep Ray from a friend that got it as a weekly Quest prize today. Will you take another look at my stuff and tell me what you think?

Anything I need to change or add? Thank you, I appreciate all you do!

[Aquamentis12]

13 hours ago, granny63020 said:

Aquamentis12  I got the Sleep Ray from a friend that got it as a weekly Quest prize today. Will you take another look at my stuff and tell me what you think?

Anything I need to change or add? Thank you, I appreciate all you do!

For now @granny63020, I'd say it looks good! Not a lot of defense, but that's ok when you're fighting opponents that you can beat in a couple of turns.

[granny63020]

6 hours ago, Aquamentis12 said:

Not a lot of defense, but that's ok when you're fighting opponents that you can beat in a couple of turns.

Also, I only train with cookies so that's part of the reason my stats are what they are. Good to know I am good to go other than that. I'll need to check out the Sleep Ray and see how it works on JN. Glad I got one. Most opponents I beat in one turn. I'm worrying about what's coming. Want to be ready! Glad I got one. I appreciate not only or opinions put the effort you put in to help everyone. Thanks so much!

[Aquamentis12]

On 2/29/2024 at 6:56 PM, granny63020 said:

Also, I only train with cookies so that's part of the reason my stats are what they are. Good to know I am good to go other than that. I'll need to check out the Sleep Ray and see how it works on JN. Glad I got one. Most opponents I beat in one turn. I'm worrying about what's coming. Want to be ready! Glad I got one. I appreciate not only or opinions put the effort you put in to help everyone. Thanks so much!

Hey @granny63020, sorry I didn't see this sooner. I just wanted to clarify, thatI didn't mean your defense-stat when I said "Not a lot of Defense", I meant defensive items. Your defensive stat, like your Strength stat is already above the maximum of 750. But since, like I also said, you can beat your opponents easily so far, you probably don't need other defensive gear until you have an opponent you can't beat in a couple of turns. Which MIGHT be the battle-plot TNT says is coming. Your set is good for now though. IF there's an opponent you need more defensive items for in the battle plot, you can worry about it then, since we have no way of knowing what defensive items will be effective before then.

[granny63020]

50 minutes ago, Aquamentis12 said:

Hey @granny63020, sorry I didn't see this sooner. I just wanted to clarify, thatI didn't mean your defense-stat when I said "Not a lot of Defense", I meant defensive items. Your defensive stat, like your Strength stat is already above the maximum of 750. But since, like I also said, you can beat your opponents easily so far, you probably don't need other defensive gear until you have an opponent you can't beat in a couple of turns. Which MIGHT be the battle-plot TNT says is coming. Your set is good for now though. IF there's an opponent you need more defensive items for in the battle plot, you can worry about it then, since we have no way of knowing what defensive items will be effective before then.

Oh you are so right! I did misunderstand what you were telling me. Is there any one item that would stand above others for defense that I could replace one or both of my swords for? Something I can have on hand,  just in case. I use the Sword of Malum most every time so I would keep it but I could possibly replace the other 2 swords for defense items. You've been right so far so I will absolutely pay attention. Would replacing both of the 2 swords with 2 defensive items help me. I know you said we don't know what defensive items we will need but there must be a couple of general, all around, items that I could buy and get them replaced. I only have the 3 swords because I never knew what to have until talking to you.  There were more swords! LOL So let me know your thoughts please and I will work of getting them into my line up.  Thanks!

[Aquamentis12]

12 hours ago, granny63020 said:

Oh you are so right! I did misunderstand what you were telling me. Is there any one item that would stand above others for defense that I could replace one or both of my swords for? Something I can have on hand,  just in case. I use the Sword of Malum most every time so I would keep it but I could possibly replace the other 2 swords for defense items. You've been right so far so I will absolutely pay attention. Would replacing both of the 2 swords with 2 defensive items help me. I know you said we don't know what defensive items we will need but there must be a couple of general, all around, items that I could buy and get them replaced. I only have the 3 swords because I never knew what to have until talking to you.  There were more swords! LOL So let me know your thoughts please and I will work of getting them into my line up.  Thanks!

@granny63020, your set looks fine for now. The only defense item I could suggest would be a Thyoras Tear. It blocks 100% of damage for 1 turn Once Per Battle. But it's super expensive right now like every other good piece of equipment with the impending battle plot. You could possible go with the one use version, the Thick Smoke Bombs which can be bought from player shops or from the Secret Ninja Training School. They do the same thing, but once they are used, they are gone for good. I think your set is fine for right now, so don't worry too much about it. When the battle plot comes out, I'm sure we'll be testing the opponents for their arsenals and abilities. I'm sure that neither of us will likely need to change your gear for most of it. Even for the final boss, we might be ok, if it's like the Wraith event where we got Sword of Malum and Blazing Embers from.

I'M hoping it will be a little more epic than that though, more on the level of the Obelisk War would be my preference.