Training Pets - Questions for those who know

[Bif]

Fellow NCers,

I have some questions about training pets for the battledrome and I know that quite a few of you have awesome battle pets so hopefully you'll be able to help me out with this.

I mainly want to train my pet/pets in order to get any battledrome avatars, for plots and trophies from things like DoN. I think that I have gone fairly ok so far. The only battle avatars which I don't have at the Meecra brothers and the Space Faerie (I don't have her as a challenger yet either). I finished DoN 2 and am working through DoN 1, just have to get the Brain Tree as a challenger but so far his quests have been in the 100K range so I haven't been completing them. Perhaps I should just suck it up and do them anyway.

Sorry for the tangent. Here are my questions:

The Daily Neopets Battlepedia suggests having a pet at level 50 and 120HP in order to beat the Meecra Brothers. For the most part I have been using my former lab pet to battle...

Stats:
Lvl : 3
Str : 48
Def : 9
Mov : 60
Hp : 125 / 125

..because of their high HP. However, the brothers are murdering me so I realise that this is not enough.

My active pet who I have had for many many years has had the benefit of receiving all fairer quest and Coltzan's shrine etc rewards for all of those previously mentioned years. So their stats are:

Lvl : 43
Str : 55
Def : 45
Mov : 42
Hp : 35 / 32

Being that my active pet is much closer to being level 50 than my battle pet, should I start trying to up their HP to 120 or should I focus on upping my battle pet's level?

I was thinking of possibly zapping my active pet with the lab ray in order to up their HP (He's a Christmas Shoyru so it wouldn't be too painful to get this colour and species back when I've finished zapping) but I know that the lab ray can return your pet to level 1 which has scared me off of that line of thinking.

So, thoughts? Who would be easier to train up? Any suggestions on which school I should use? I don't quite understand the training side of things at the moment.

Sorry for the long post.

Edited for grammar

[_neo_kami_91]

The lab ray doesn't send the level back to 1 if the level is already above 30 or so, so you're safe

I'd focus on upping the active pet's HP, because it could take you a long time to raise the battle pet's level to 50, considering it's only on 3 at the moment.

[Fjorab_Teke]

I looked back through my records for when i labbed my battle Eyrie for 2 years.

Here were the overall results, stat-wise:

Level -38
Max HP +269
Strength +120
Defense +6
Movement +60 (last of course because i don't see it having any effect on battling)

I still zap other pets, but only for the fun of it and seeing if i can get interesting species-color combos to adopt out. I don't bother with their stats, but i do post the zap results each day here on my thread in this same "Miscellaneous" subforum if you're curious.

[Bif]

Thanks! I'll take a look through your thread.

Do you know if what neo_kami said is true though? Do you stop getting "back to level 1" after level 30? Is your -38 overall so that they started on Level 5, lost 5, went to 3, lost 3 etc Or did they loose -38 in one go?

[Fjorab_Teke]

My Eyrie started at about 60-something, and the net loss over three years of zapping was 38. So it was just little bits here and there that he'd gain or lose. I don't think he ever went to 1 during that time. I think it only happens if your pet is 6 or lower at the time of the zap, as it just goes to 1 if it would otherwise go below that.

[Jazzy]

To corroborate what Fjorab says, I've never had "goes down to level 1" when my pet's been above level 6 or so. I've heard it's possible at higher levels, but on the other hand there are also sources that say it's possible to get a draik or krawk from the lab ray and I'm fairly sure TNT have specifically denied that. I've never seen any proof (screenshots, etc), and I've been zapping for about eight years now so that's the sort of timescale we're looking at for never having had a dramatic "goes down to level 1".

Level is not hugely important apart from for two things:
- once you've got a lot of HP or you have a freezing weapon you can safely berserk attack, which you only get at level 50 (Berserk increases the damage you do by 50% but also increases the damage you receive by 50% so unless your opponent's frozen, it's quite risky if you have low HP or are underpowered vs your opponent)
- you have to train level to half your highest stat before you can train anything else

One thing is, if you train the level of your lower levelled pet, it will be a lot cheaper than training the hit points of your higher-leveled pet, and also faster. That's because higher levelled pets have a higher training cost and a longer training time per stat point. That said, given my points about level above, you might agree that the only real reason to train level is to be able to train other stats.

So, the next thing is, I think the reason you're getting trounced is your pet's strength is low. Here's a good guide to strength boosts:
http://www.neopets.com/~beatmetoapulp
If you can get to 55 strength - or even better, 85- you'll be doing quite a bit more damage.

Are your weapons decent?

[Bif]

Thank you both for all the great advice so far. I think that my weapons are "ok":

Snowglobe Staff
Bronze Scorchstone
Scarab Ring
Leaf Shield
Battle Ready Pencil Box
Thief Dagger
Purple Sticky Hand
Ylanas Blaster

The best part of my weapons is of course the Ylanas Blaster and how I have managed to get this far so far.

That guide was really helpful, it looks like I should certainly be concentrating on strength.

[Jazzy]

Do you have some money to spend on upgrading your set? Here's a few things that I think might help:
- The Snowglobe Staff is fine, but a Randomly Firing Freeze Ray is more reliable.
- Bronze Scorchstones are a bit underpowered given your HP; try a Greater Healing Scroll (or a Lesser Healing Scroll if you don't have enough np for the Greater one, as it heals 25hp rather than the 15hp of your scorchstone). You may find that you have one of those in your SDB from the Wheel of Knowledge.
- Your defense is very low (comes from having a lab pet) so there's no point in using defensive weapons, really. That's why I think it'd be fine to replace the weapons which you've got (which do a little defense but fewer attack icons as a result) with ones that just attack more.
- So, here are some upgrades to your Scarab Ring/Thief Dagger/Battle Ready Pencil Box: Scroll of Knowledge (8 icons), Rainbow Scroll (9), Ridiculously Heavy Battle Hammer (9), Golden Compass (9), Scuzzy's Comb (10), Carved Qasalan Blowgun (9). Definitely keep the Ylanas Blaster.
- Take the Purple Sticky Hand out of your set for fighting the Meerca Brothers, as you only steal an apple. Consider replacing it with a snowball of some sort, though remember of course that they're only one use, especially if you're withdrawing if you don't get a freeze.
- I would do the same with your offensive weapons: right now, you have four (Y-blaster, Scarab Ring, Pencil Box, Thief Dagger) and you can only ever use two at once. So, keep the Y-Blaster, add one of the weapons I listed above, then take all of the rest out. (If you can't afford a new weapon, then keep the Pencil Box and Y-Blaster). Ditto the Leaf Shield given your low defense. Put snowballs in any remaining slots.

I also definitely recommend Burrow as a faerie ability if you don't already have it.

[Fjorab_Teke]

I use Burrow and Sink regularly...but my Eyrie has pretty good defensive stats.

I keep two constant big-hitters, a "bigger once-per-battle" bomb-type weapon (which i use on a frozen-opponent berserk attack with one of the big-hitters), Downsize!, and a freezer in my equipment. I've beaten every 1-player always-available opponent now with the set and stats my Eyrie has.

Jazzy has good advice there.