OUT OF DATE - The thought process is probably still helpful, but the details are probably no longer perfect.

I see a lot of people asking about the best way to gear out their T10+ pets for the end game, and I think people often give pretty generic advice of essentially saying that you should buy everything. When the truth is there are tons of items that people commonly recommend (and I still own) that I literally never ever touch anymore. Omitting these "Staples" from your buy list can probably save hundreds of millions of sP that could be redirected towards true staples. Based on the availability of the weapons, there are certain weapons that really I am not going to touch on at all, because quite frankly they are never for sale anymore, and even if you were to go out seeking them you probably cannot find them for sale. If you can get ahold of any of these things, you don't need me to tell you. To get them out of the way early here they are:

[Spoiler=Essentially Unobtainable] [Item=Keiths Ultimate freezewand of doom][Item=Oracles Staff of Enlightenment][Item=Malerias staff of destruction][Item=Wand of the Phoenix][Item=Blackmoons Staff][Item=Shinwas Sacred Bow][Item=Sandreaver] [/Spoiler]

True Staples The next set of weapons I would highlight are what I would call the true staples of the game, the weapons that even at the endgame every pet should have available. I would argue these are all safe buys that you will not regret.

[Item=Intricate Energized Helmet][Item=Soma Tablets][Item=Bear Head Bomb][Item=Phoenix Quill]

Intricate Energized Helmet is an essentially free freezer that activates a powerful freeze blocking blessing against one of the most important to beat challengers in the game: General Error. This is most peoples go to freezer, although there is some niche uses for Scientist Specs and Poisonous Blow dart, for the price this thing cannot be beaten.

Volatile Energized Mecha: When It comes to maxing out on the hardest opponents in long fights, the Mecha is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, potentially dealing hundreds of icons, and healing for thousands of HP over the course of a long battle.

Recycle Blaster/Soma Tablets Blasting weapons are almost is almost always beneficial, causing the opponent to frequently drop large amounts of damage over the course of a battle, and potentially with resets, cuts off access to certain icons when maxing challengers

Acorn bomb/Bear Head Bomb: These are the most controversial pair on the list since they don't help you win battles you wouldn't already win, but I consider these to be essential because they have the ability to speed up battle quests by giving you the best chance to OHKO early opponents, and I use them as my default opener in my BQ set.

End Game Constants Efficiently upgrading in the last few Tiers can be tricky, because many of the best/cheapest Tier 9-10 weapons are opponent loot drops that you earn as a t11 or T12. So even if you buy them cheap, you are eventually going to get them for free. Depending on how fast you train, even if you only spend 50mil on some of these weapons, if you buy them only to sell them, its not exactly efficient. If it is going to take you several months to progress through T 9-10, it might be worthwhile to buy these items on the way through the tier to make your life easier, but if you are planning large boosting sprees through the higher tiers, its probably better to just stick with something like Reborn Icewand of Doom from lower tiers, and upgrade at t11.

Two weapons to consider would be Trident of the Banished One and Replica Minotaur Knocker. I think these are currently very expensive for what they do, and their usefulness as low-tier weapons has been called into question with the release of the higher teir mods, which make things like Shinwas Quill much more attractive and price-efficient. Use them if you have them, but I'm not sure I would buy either today and I haven't used either of them in any teir in the last 3-4 years. Trident in particular is a popular alternative to Swashbuckle that is often debated. [Item=Replica Minotaur Knocker]

Tier 10 has 2 budget picks that are worth considering in Maleria's Cursed Arm Bangle and Prodigy's Eyeball. The are currently both under 20 mil, with the downside being that you will eventually be able to win these items from challengers, and you will eventually outgrow them. If you are slowing upgrading your set or will never have a ton of sP to dump into some of the other weapons on this list, these are great pick ups. Unstable Sample Syringe would be another consideration here as currently one of the most affordable Ice Blockers in the game, but it is not a great ice blocker. Depending on your budget I would pick up either Prodigy eyeball and Unstable Sample Syringe or Prodigy Eyeball and Malaria's Cursed arm bangle. If your on a very tight budget you can also always stick with the lower tier weapons and work towards beating Maleria and Prodigy. Pretty Big Tooth hisotically has been a decent budget weapon, but is currently too expensive to have much utility. [Item=Malerias Cursed Arm Bangle]

In the past I would advocate for buying an Ornamented Hook Swords right as you enter Tier 10, and there is still an arguement for doing so which can let you bypass the hassle of trying to sell of the budget weapons. However, if you have access to 2 Maniacal Cores, it may be worth passing on the hook swords and sticking with the budget weapons in T10 and upgrading to the 2 Gelatin War Prize weapons when you hit Tier 11. If you have the budget for it, the Hook Swords still have utility even after you earn the Maniacal Slappy Hand, and many people will probably go a few years without an earth blocker if they skip this due to the infrequent release of Gelatin Wars.

Once you hit T11, if you are looking for purely price efficient weapons to pick up, the four items to keep an eye on would be Swashbuckle, Malerias Cursed Arm Bangle, Paintbrush Blades, and Malignant Rift Staff. If you didn't pick up Ornamented Hook Swords in Tier 10, you now have a choice between The Ether and Ornamented Hook Swords, I would maybe give the edge to The Ether depending on how close you are to a second Maniacal Core to make the Maniacal Slappy Hand. [Item=Ornamented Hook Swords][Item=Swashbuckle][Item=Paintbrush Blades][Item=The Ether]

Filling in the Gaps At this point, you should pretty much have a pair of constants and all the staples. You basically just need to pick up opponent-specific weapons to cover different icons against the hardest opponents in the game. These basically fall into 2 categories: Items you buy vs Items you win/earn. Items that you can buy pretty much as soon as you hit T11 would include Swashbuckle, Ornamented Hook Swords (if you didn't get them at t10), Natasha, and The Ether to cover Wind, Earth, Fire, and Physical respectively. (You can potentially win a Swashbuckle through Item Hunt, but it's probably going to be cheaper and less of a hassle to just buy one.) [Item=Swashbuckle][Item=Ornamented Hook Swords][Item=Natasha][Item=The Ether]

The items you can earn that are great for the late game would include Cronus Blade, Manifesting Weapon, Maniacal Essence, Dark Goddess Rod, and Unstable Sample Syringe. These cover Magma, Water, Dark, Light, and ice respectively. USS partially covers magma and ice, but is really, unfortunately, the best readily available ice blocker. [Item=Unstable Sample Syringe]

Maniacal Slappy Hand vs Ornamented Hook Swords vs Maniacal Essence Since we now have multiple uses for the Manaical Core, a common question is which to get first if you need to choose. I would probably go with the Essence first 99% of the time, since Ornate Hooked Swords exists for a earth blocker and there is no equivilent Dark blocker. It's a slightly better weapon all around too I think, without having the small split defense. If you do find yourself in a situation where you have access to 2 cores for some reason, it probably reasonable to skip Ornamented Hook Swords and go straight for the slappy hand.

Putting it together Without any of the upgrades in the middle this is what I would picture as the cleanest possible version of a late game armory, without having things that you just never use:

[Item=Intricate Energized Helmet][Item=Soma Tablets][Item=Bear Head Bomb][Item=Phoenix Quill]

The Traps These are the items that I see on everyone's list of endgame staples, but these are items that while I often have sitting in my sets while fighting in T12, I almost never actually click on them, and are often very marginal includes in any set. I own every one of these weapons on this list, they have corner cases where I will try them out, but I think they are overall pretty low yield. Not buying these could save you almost 1bil+

[Item=Reviver of the Lion] An amazing healer, but in T12 battles if I am using this thing, I am probably losing the battle either way. Phoenix quill is much cheaper, and probably better. This is the most marginal to include here vs a true staple, but if you are on a budget, I would want to have a good chunk of the rest of the list before getting this thing.

[Item=Rainbow Vortex][Item=Amulet of Neutrality] These are all the best 100% blockers in the game. However, battles are rarely short enough to make them game breaking. At 100mil, 250mil, and 500mil+ none of these things are worth keeping around in the late game, unless you just have the sP to burn.

[Item=Truth Serum] No opponents at the end game have weapons that you can use, that are worth stealing. Even if this is the best stealer in the game, it is not worth ever using stealing.

[Item=Sword of the Seven Seas] This doesn't get suggested a lot, but it is obtainable in the very long run. If you are staying in T11 a very long time or have multiple pets, it is a common icon type worth blocking, but in T12, the lines between which is better are very blurry between SoSS and MW, especially when MW is readily available between 350-500mil vs 3.75 billion.

[Item=Possessed Bow] These are the 2 alternative fire blockers. Some people really like PBow for the attack, the problem I have had with it is that with only 3 mod slots, when I have needed to put blessing of natural armor mods on it (which seems to be most opponents that need a fire blocker for some reason), it doesn't have enough mod slots to help sustain in long term. It's not a terrible buy, especially if you have picked up everything else on my list, but I think people rate this too high for what it does.

[Item=Wrath Of Kahaleitzli] I think this is probably the actual best fire blocker in the game. But it is really expensive. If you think you may eventually be able to afford this, it might be worthwhile to pass on Natasha for a bit. This has a narrower, harder to block set of icons that stack easier, and has the 4 mod slots vs Pbow. These are probably relatively minor considerations though for ~5x the price of Natasha.

Scrolls next please!

As requested:

Endgame Scroll Guide Buy a attacking/healing scroll Buy some freezing scrolls Buy some Gift of the Forj Scrolls Get more AP Repeat.

I was hoping you would go a little more in depth for people since there are so many infinite use scrolls out there that do attack/def/% heal like you did for weapons =p There are also instances when the defensive scrolls come in handy, like when you are blasting or using something like the mecha

Honestly, even though I have probably one of the biggest scroll collections on the site, and I have experimented with stuff like cobalts, sancts, typhoon of valor, perilous whirlpool, Gigan blow, oblijian, Spacial abyss, and the void.

I honestly think the only ones worth using at the freezing and gotf maybe morosbane.

As for the attacking scroll, you either go for the cheapest one or a TA. Mana surge or maelstrom if you can find it.

Scrolls have the potential to be a really cool mechanic, but they are currently a really simplistic one. Espcially endgame. There might be a role for some of those other ones early on, but I think they are too weak compared to constants to really consider in the endgame.

I cover all my blasting with a freeze or a nacho curse.

[edit] thinking about it, there is probably some more nuance to it when you don't have as many GoTF and Freezing scrolls as I do. But I have 700+ AP worth of freezing scrolls and several hundred AP worth of GoTF, and have never needed to use some of the smaller defensive scrolls. I'm probably not the person in the best position to write a budget scroll guide.

I agree the more AP you have the better. Unlike weapons that are limited to only 8 weapons, scrolls are only limited by the intelligence of your pet so you could equip 100 scrolls if you really want. However, not everyone can afford tons of freezing or forj scrolls. It also seems impractical after a certain point to carry a lot of healing scrolls instead of cheaper defensive scrolls. 1500 hp is a small gain for a pet that has 4K+ health.

I use one of two scroll sets when I battle - a default set and a freezing set. My default set is comprised of an infinite use scroll, defensive scrolls and healing scrolls. I use this set against new opponents when I don’t know if healing is enabled, if freezing is enabled or if an opponent has a blessing that protects from feeezing for the entire battle.

Takeaways (tl;dr) :

• You always want an infinite use scroll in your set
• The best strategy to beating an opponent is through chain freezing
• Defensive and healing scrolls can be useful if you can't chain freeze your opponent, but don't rely on them for every turn, especially when you don't have a lot of AP -The more AP you have the more scrolls you can equip. A low tier pet could equip whatever scrolls you want if they have a ton of AP since there is no tier restriction on scrolls.

Sample default set: item=cobalt eternal scroll

Sample freezing set:

low budget: infinite use scroll + (x4)

ideal: infinite use scroll + as many as you can equip. Potentially with high speed

I guess I have run the math on GoTF vs cobalt/sanct, but in practice it has always seemed very lackluster, even using 20+ of them at a time.

GotF becomes pretty underwhelming the closer you get to 10K HP, where a 9% scroll heals 900HP and GoTF only heals an extra 600, which is only 6% of your total HP especially when adding another GoTF scroll costs about 300mil when taking into account the cost of the scroll and AP.

That being said, a low roll or a miss can cost you HP on a cobalt/sanct and never has the benefit of increasing your hp when the opponent rolls low, especially if you are using 20+ of them.

Like I was saying scrolls have the potential to be a very interesting mechanic, but I honestly just don't think they really are right now. The effects and variety do not scale well end game.

Yeah it takes a while to get there though or someone may choose to never have a high health build so it's worth having a couple. I just wouldn't go crazy investing in a hoard of them. I didn't bother mentioning that fact when I first talked about it but I probably should. Better to invest in one of the hard to find infinite use scrolls or weapon upgrades.

I was going to put together a sample set, I have just been busy with irl things and haven't gotten to it yet. One of my takeaways though is to not rely heavily on defensive scrolls or healing scrolls. You should be relying heavily on your infinite use or freezing scrolls when possible. Stuff like cobalt and SE you shouldn't be using every turn. It's just there if you need it, depending on your opponent's weapons and strategy. For example, Meatslab doesn't have freezing enabled so you could do something like cronus + mecha + cobalt turn 1, blast + cronus + cobalt second turn, blast + cronus + cobalt 3rd turn. From there you could use your infinite use and a heal if or when you need it. Similarly with the castle, it was nice to have an SE or two towards the second half of the battle when it likes to use the loyal dragon guard a lot. My default set has yet to let me down so I must be doing something right lol

[edit]

Scrolls like cobalt are also more useful if you have a high defense build. If your scroll only blocks 15 dark, a pet with 10k defense will still defend 375 dark.

Would Item Hunters Bomb possibility to be used multiple times make up for its slightly lower damage compared to the Acorn Bomb?

honestly I forgot that was even a thing. At less than 10K its not going to hurt to keep around financially, but my only thought would be that it might be annoying for it to stick around if your using it as part of an opener like a freeze bomb that you might need to get back to using a healing weapon after the first couple turns.

this is a great guide. Thank you for making this. Made me think about my current set and staples ... and weapons i barely use hahaha!

Any chance this and Sov’s scrolls regardless of tier guide can be pinned?

Thank you for this. Its been awhile, (around a year give or take) - much has changed. After stumbling around the coliseum for a few days I found this - your breakdown and explanation is more than appreciated.

I think should be added to this set for the endgame. It is a nice ice blocker :)

This guide is getting a bit dated in the last year or so, once we get a few more iterations of revamps they will probably all need to be rewritten.