- yay pirates!

I think it's a Subeta conspiracy to keep Tos from battling Vintage Prodigy. :-) The pirates, who leave a few weeks before the TBT challengers, were announced about a minute after Tos finally managed her fifth win against Maliss Bopper (sooooooo glad to have that finally done!!! - I really missed healing and even my limited freezing). I have no pets that are ready for Captain Fishbreath Jacques - big congratulations to you on beating him five times! We'll see if Tos can manage five wins on Rita (that might be a stretch) and I have no clue how far the other pets will be able to get. Battling across so many tiers is very interesting. It really lets me appreciate the power and usefulness of some of the features that get added as tiers go up,

Hope you are having some good luck in getting pirate items, either from the quests (it seems all of them have at least a small chance of giving out the new items this time - so people are getting them from Nori and other rarity quests, as well as Major Drill and vending, although Carl is still the best source, of course) or vending or from the Freyalise. - lots of sources for pirate stuff this year. :-)

- for what it's worth, lists Captain Fishbreath Jacques as mid-tier 12. Not sure what level your battle pet is, but that should give you some idea whether or not you have a chance to beat him. Good Luck.

Thanks. My top pet is T12, rank 331. But he couldn't beat him. Might try again over the weekend.

- good luck!

Conspiracy!!!! Fishbreath was a major pain in the butt! He just kept freezing and healing which is really annoying!

I have gotten a couple of items, but nothing I really wanted to keep except for 1 sticker.

- especially when you remember that the boppers showed up right when I was about to battle him the first time - and they also leave first. :-)

You must have been lucky. I hear he loves to steal too.

No books yet? The good news is that is usually gets quite a bit easier in a few days. :-)

Thankfully I got some books from battling :D

Ugh I forgot about that part! I had a few battles where I ended up with NOTHING to fight with!!!! All I could do was just click till I lost. I bought a bunch of throwing vials and after about 20 tries I finally got lucky enough to beat him :D I wont try for more than the 5 lol.

- I've hear that Natasha (or Turkey Quill for a much more reasonable cost) are good for stealers because they generate other weapons so give the stealing opponent other targets. Or people just bring several junk weapons as steal bait.

And, Blessing of Natural Armor Tear Crystal mods are good because their blessing protects from freezing and stealing for three rounds. (Parched mods are preferred for non-stealers because their blessing lasts for five rounds.)

And there is always the Extremely Emo Spork trick - if you are brave and also have PRESELECTION carefully turned OFF. The spork is a single use item, so don't ever use it yourself or you will need to purchase another one and they are expensive. However, if you are really stuck against a stealing opponent, you put the spork in your weapon set and then wait until your opponent steals it. When they use it, it will damage them for 99% of their health, so if you have done any damage, they will die. That's how I wound up getting Tos' fifth win against the Gelatin Wizard this year. I didn't even want to try it because I was afraid I would accidentally use it, but another battler talked me into trying it and then loaned me a spork - I was petrified each turn that I would use it by mistake, LOL. I think I checked each turn about a dozen times before submitting, but it worked! And I'm very pleased (and relieved) to report that I was able to return the spork to it's owner. The trick can take several battles though, so you have to expect to have a bunch of losses.

I don't see how people can put extra stuff in their set. I use all 8 weapons and stuff that I have in mine. I would modify some of my new weapons if the dang battle shop wasn't closed! I didn't even know they were going to do that :( I hope it wont stay closed for long.

- for stealing opponents you aren't going to get to use all of your weapons yourself anyway, so you modify your set accordingly. Better for your challenger to steal some junk weapon than your Phoenix Quill (which he will then use against you).

Hopefully, it will open again in a few days, as planned.

I wonder if there are going to be new items in there. I am just glad I got my helmet and suit before they made changes.

- there should be some new items, but I expect the Mecha will still be there. On the other hand, nothing is certain until it reopens. :-)

I am sure a lot of people still need it :)

- needing a weapon (or scroll) doesn't stop them from becoming unavailable. On the other hand, there are often alternatives, so it might depend on whether a new alternative replaces it.

Open again! Wow that was fast! I can't wait to see what it is like now.

- very different - I hope you like it. Certainly a lot more weapon choices. I have too much battling still waiting to pay too much attention to it yet (although it may be nice to be able to get Blessing of Natural Armor or Critical Strike Mods for weapons I haven't used much or need to borrow).

Today Shinwa gave me an .

She gave me another bleh

I was hoping more of the crystals would still be in the shop. I need to figure out which ones would be good for my weapons.

- I've had several days in a row when I don't get boosters, but then it eventually evens out. I'm sure it will for you too.

The ones that aren't still in the battle shop will be available some other way soon. From what I've seen most battlers use Parched Baguettes and Critical Strike Tears (with some Singed) and Blessing of Natural Armor replaces the parched for challengers who steal. And then if there's a fourth mod slot, it seems to depend on either personal preference or the current challenger.

I had a parched on my Ancient Hydrus Staff, but I don't use that weapon anymore. I got the other ones and slapped them on some weapons. Yay Potion Of The Robot is in there! I need it for my ❤ gallery :D

- I tend to make do with Parched Tear Crystals which are affordable right now because I'm still experimenting with my weapons. You might want to figure out which will be your default weapons and then mod them. I have baguettes on both my trident and my Shinwas Short Sword because I use them all the time. But there are lots of other weapons (including the core from the recent Gelatin War - well, in my case the previous Gelatin War) that I only have tears on because I'm not sure it's worth putting baguettes on them.

Glad you found something good for your gallery.

I will play around with some stuff and see what works :)