My main battle pet is now tier 9 and I haven't updated my set in over a year. However, I am clueless about good tier 9 (and tier 8) weapons because they have always been out of my price range. Some advice would be appreciated.

Main weapon set: almost everything is maxed out with blessing of natural armour tear crystals

will probably replace something in my main set soon; I forgot I had this in my wardrobe

Other weapons:

Scrolls: Almighty Squall (6) Basalt Blast (7) Corroding Dew (6) Divine Denizhen (7) Cobalt Eternal (8) Terra Focujin (8) 42/63 alchemy points used

I'm mostly looking for general set advice because I'm having trouble with the extremely hard opponents. Is there any chance I could get 5 wins on Nightlady come Morostide with a T9 pet? If so, are there any weapons I should look into either buying or borrowing before October?

Is a 100% stealer worth investing in, or are Soma Tablets + Recycle Blaster good enough? The tablets seem to work well in general, but I've never owned a 100% stealer to compare to.

My budget is around 50-70 mil.

October Update: Thank you for all the advice, everyone! Zihark hit tier 10 a few days ago after a lot of BQs and boosting. Here is my updated set after reading everyone's suggestions: and I will be adding a Shinwas Temple Shard to that set within the next couple of days. (I'm about 4/5 of the way there on crystals. I would have been there already except buying 5000 fraggable items one-by-one is doing a number on my carpal tunnel problems.)

I'm hoping I'll be able to beat Nightlady... if not with my current set, then at least with borrowed weapons. Are there any one-use items (vials, blockers, etc) I should consider purchasing before Nightlady arrives?

You are very close to Tier 10 (less than 400 stats) so I would recommend waiting until then or investing in the T10 weapons now. I don't think T9 has any standout weapons that you must have anyway. Nightlady will be here in ~40 days so with training and BQs each day and some bonus EXP from the first Morostide opponents you can make it in time and it will be much easier.

Weapons Remove Mist, Reborn Icewand of Doom, Item Hunters Bomb. Instead of the Bomb you should look to add in a Rainbow Vortex (expensive), Shinwas Temple Shard (currently in frag shop) or Reviver of the Lion (also expensive). The Temple Shard would probably be the best choice but it doesn't matter, any of those 3 you will use in your final T12 set. For your two main attacking weapons you have a few choices. Given your budget I'd suggest Malerias Cursed Arm Bangle and Plague Claw. The Plague Claw is a loot drop from the Vile Carrier if you have him unlocked. The Bangle is a prize from Malerias Familiar but she might be too difficult to beat at the moment. That puts you at budget now. Future goal would be to upgrade The One Ring to either the Rainbow Vortex or Reviver of the Lion. Keep the Malignant Rift Staff for the future. At Tier 11 it heals your pet which is the only thing that makes it a worse choice than the MCAB and Plague Claw. I don't think you should invest in a stealer, there are few opponents that need one.

Scrolls are fine really. You can add in / borrow some more Cobalt Eternals. Morosbane / Psycho Smasher / Shriek of Despair will make good additions when you can win them from the challengers.

I didn't realize I was so close to tier 10 already.

Unfortunately, I don't have enough remaining RD points for Reviver of the Lion. I guess that leaves me with the option of Rainbow Vortex or the Temple Shard. Why do you say the Shard is better than the Vortex? I thought the Vortex had a small chance to freeze without taking up a freezer slot, but otherwise they did the same thing. Or does the Shard do something else that I'm not aware of?

I do have the Vile Carrier unlocked, but I haven't tried to beat him yet. I assumed he was too high for my current tier and weapon set.

Thanks for all the advice!

The Rainbow Vortex is better because of the small chance to freeze. The difference is it costs 2000 CSC (70m) compared to the Shard which is ~30m depending on how much you value crystals. That's the only reason I recommend the Shard, it's hard to justify an additional ~40m sP for only that freeze.

I agree with everything that's been said. If you'd like more ideas, I would add RoE. It is a loot drop from Gen. Error, but I bought mine long before I won one. Last time I looked they were selling for 5 mil -- a steal. It does have a small chance to freeze, but it's the curse that makes me keep using it (I'm T11 now). For what it's worth, I have soma, RB,and truth serum. I can tell you that you don't need the serum. Lots of foes have stealing disabled, so it won't do you any good there. Soma's blessings/curses and disabling of a weapon is far more useful than stealing a weapon which is likely to KO you if you try to use it anyway. The few times it does come in handy, you can most likely borrow one. Ping, comment, or smail me and I'll lend you mine. :)

I also have both STS and RV. I use RV for most of my pets, but the STS has full block right away at T4, if that matters.

Just a heads up on the scrolls -- you've got good ones, but if you're about to start collecting some loot drop scrolls, you'll want to up your AP. I have almost 90 AP and I'm WAY behind where I should be and don't have enough for all I want to equip.

Thanks so much for the advice! And for the lending offer. I'll look into RoE. What curse does it have? I tried to look it up on Subetalodge and other sites, but the only info I found was "10 icons, 5 rounds". Are the icon types random?

Full block at T4 could be useful for me. My main battle pet is almost T10, but my secondary is T7, and I have a few T2/T3 pets that I plan to train up in the future as time/sP permits. I've decided to go for STS since it's cheaper at the moment. I'm about 1/3 of the way there right now. The fragging is such slow going.

AP is the bane of my existence. Zihark has read most of the cheap books already. If I was smart, I would have upped intel with boosters and saved the books for every 16th point.

Don't beat yourself up about the intel. That's a lesson we all feel that we learn too late. LOL

As for the RoE curse, it's 5 dark and 5 fire for 5 rounds. It's also surprising how often that comes in handy.

You probably already know this, but just in case -- the revamped weapons guide that you link to from the Useful Battle Threads list is really helpful in pointing out the best options at each tier. I've consulted it TONS of times. Quest also has a weapons guide by tier, but he doesn't do much after T8. Still, it's a nice refresher for when you decide to battle with those lower tier pets you haven't used in a while. Plus, he lists cheaper alternatives for those of us on budgets. :)

If you want some book ideas, try looking at other battlers pets and see what they've read. Sometimes there's a gem or two you overlooked, or didn't know about. My best read pet is Killer Threat, if that helps.

This has been a very useful thread for me too, although I probably won't make it to T10 by Morostide D-: Is Nightlady not even worth trying with a pet under T10? I am seriously going to juuust miss it, I think, but I really want to beat her 5 times to get her drops. I feel like I'm too close to wait until next year!!

I highly recommend saving for a !

Yeah, I'm starting to see the error of my ways on that one. During the Reading Drive I stupidly went for weapons that doubled as wearables. I picked The One Ring over the Reviver because "the One Ring is prettier and it will be a long time before my pet has enough health to make a difference." I think my battle pet was around 300 evens at the time. I didn't expect to still be battling after I hit 1000 evens because I assumed the weapons would all be out of my budget.

I still have some RD points, but not nearly enough for the Reviver. I wish there was a way to buy more RD points like you can with the Epiccon points. ;__;