I understand that the stat cap is currently at 22k (strength + defense + speed + health). How is it that some pets like Asura have stats way beyond that?

Just curious. My battle pet is only at tier 5. Lol.

They reached these stats before the cap was released.

Thanks! I was under the impression that those pets would have their stats lowered. Silly me. Do those extra stats make a difference during battle as compared to a pet with capped stats?

there was talk of having a "phantom cap" instead of the real one we have now that would allow you to train your pets endlessly but which wouldn't count more than the cap in battle. Neopets is kinda like this, their step function stops at 750 but they let you add infinite hit points over there. This kind of thing was rejected here, I think there was no way to implement this.

Long before the cap was in place, Jim put in a limit of 5000 on how high a level you could be. There were already some pets boosted higher than that and some of the battling players quit over that.

I suppose that means the extra stats that the boosted pets already have give them an advantage over capped ones?

Thanks for the info!

there are very few opponents that their extra stats matter with.

First of all the increase in power you get with each increase in STR is not linear nor is it stepped, it is a smooth curve that approaches an asymptote. After around 3000 is serious diminishing returns. Health and INT are the only stats that don't do that. Health is linear and INT is stepped by 16.

Second, I can take Prodigy with my capped pet. I could probably take it to five wins if I were willing to go on a massive INT boost so I could Shriek-freeze it to death. The CS challenger Baenwurath and the Morostide challenger Rouland are the only challengers I can think of offhand where it would help all that much to be over-cap. Pets that won against Maleria Saggitarius and Prodigy waaaay back in the day before their stats got massively inflated and Jim put his limit on, did so with reflection. A pet that could take those challengers would be like Tier 6 today. Reflection is no longer part of today's battle mechanic.

Wow! You've demystified battling for me. Thanks again for all the info. :)

you are welcome