I will admit that I understand very little about battling. My question stems from getting absolutely nailed in BQ's. I have a tier 9/10 pet whose stats currently look like this:

Level: 636 Strength: 1499 Defense: 1499 Health: 1595/1595 Speed: 1500

A few days ago she had completely even stats, but I started upping her HP after reading on the boards here that it should be higher than other stats? (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), training her on HP is no longer an option available at the training center (I assume it's because she's so close to tier 10, but again, I'm not sure.) Should I just level her up and keep training HP?

I can one-shot BQ opponents until about the 15-16th round, and then I can win until 21. Once I hit 21, I just get absolutely CREAMED every time. Should I continue to train HP or keep her stats level and just be patient with the BQs? I would eventually like to cap her, but it's been a long process of me forgetting to train her pretty frequently.

Any and all help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Books are good Never stop reading books. your stats, could use some evening up. level your health up at 1600 and leave it alone. then work on the others to even up with that n' go from there.

You're weapons and spells should be a focus to make sure everything is at the same level as your pets Tier . what weapons are your working with?

There's several things happening. One is there's a pretty big difficulty jump after every five quests, so it's not really uncommon for someone to clear the 'boss' level fight and then get smashed into a greasy smear by the next challenger. You'll enjoy this experience again at level 26!

Second is that you're tier 9. Tier 10 is when you start getting to use weapons like Ornamental Hook Swords or Prodigys Eyeball that offer a nice chunk of defense in one element, letting you deal more effectively with challengers that do a lot of damage in a few elements. Also, have you refreshed your weapon set recently? ">Jess' old post with budget recommendations might be of use Except, Malignant Rift Staff is.. well, not a budget buy anymore.

Whether or not weapon tier matters depends on context. Freezers, healers, blasters, and stealers are items you are using because they do what they say they do. It doesn't matter that Phoenix Quill is T1, it's still a 100% heal with like a 9999 cap. Gorgon is T4, but if you don't want to bother buying or making another freeze, it's still a 100% freeze. Aside from that, weapons can be desirable based on what they block and how much, even if the weapon is a couple tiers below your pet. That's because it becomes a better strategy to block 50-100 of one icon than it is to face tank the damage, even at the expense of doing more yourself. But at the same time, if you're T9 you probably don't want to be using the same attackers you were using at T5 simply because much better stuff is available to you. And once you get something like Chronus Blade you may just use that to murder everything (plus you're kind of a juggernaut by T12 anyway....)

So about your stats. You're not being prevented from training health because of your pet's tier, but because of its level. Stats can only be trained 2.5 times your pet's level. Raise the level, and health will be a training option again. Kind of an easy, no-think way to build a pet is to dump all the experience from battling and quests into health and then train the other stats in the training center. Everyone has an opinion on this, but high health builds work because most healing items are percentage based. The more health you have, the more you heal per turn.

: You're not going in the wrong direction. Not that an even build is bad, but if you want to fight strong opponents earlier than you could with an even build, then a build that leans more toward Health/ Strength is your best bet.

The reason why you're having trouble with BC opponents from level 21 could be due to two factors: (1) your weapon set might not be optimised and (2) they're just simply too strong. There is indeed a big gap between Levels 16-20 and then levels 21-25. I'm pretty sure many people without the advantage of lots of good scrolls and expensive weapons would face the same problem as you do right now, so I'd say just keep doing those BQs and train when you can. Keep focusing on Health and a bit on Strength for now. You can use the Training Centre for Defense and Speed, but doing BQs would speed up the progress a lot when you're still in T11-12.

If you can share your weapon and scroll set it would help a lot, since from Level 21 you just don't bulldoze through your BQs anymore, but will need to rely on strategy and suitable weapons, and this will last until you're strong enough (early T12) before you can beat those between L21-25 without too much trouble.

Thanks for responding! My default set right now is

I occasionally swap out the clawed glove when I get bored with it, with one of these

scroll-wise I use x2 x2 I'm currently working on restocking enough items in Spells Galore to Make the Terra Focujin scroll and the Sancturia Exodin Scroll.

Thank you so much for explaining things to me, especially the BQ levels.

Maskros probably has better suggestions, but if you want to keep using three attackers in your set you may consider replacing Malerias Clawed Glove with It does about the same damage, but offers some light block and 7% heal. If you're interested in a second near full heal and are willing to spend Heals about 90%, blocks 1-5 of each icon. It's like having a second Phoenix Quill. This is sort of a side-grade to your acorn bomb. It does some damage, yeah, but what can be more useful is the 250 strength boost you get when using it. Can be bought in the battle shop for 210 Very Hard Tokens. An upgrade from your Gorgun, these not only have a 100% freeze chance, they have two mod slots and will boost your strength, speed, and defense by 50 when used. Also an upgrade from your Gorgun. This one offers 2 mod slots, and gives you an two turn anti-freeze blessing when used. This is made from Aboxalypse's loot and items bought in the battle shop rather than something you buy.

You've outgrown Singed Stuffing and Divine Denizhen, so consider 7% heal, some damage and block, takes 20AP but is a cheap upgrade. Also 7% heal, different damage and block icons, however it takes 15AP and costs a ton more. It's a side-grade from Feather Explosion, unless you're min maxing scrolls to squeeze in all the freezers you can.

: I completely agree with 's recommendations ;). Don't worry about the Spell Galore! You can just buy the Feather Explosion instead, and work your way up to earn the Aftershocks yourself (dropped by Crithbolcan from the Cash Shop, defeatable at high T11 with an inflated health-strength build).

Right now if you swap one of your main attackers out for , you'll find yourself ready for Mornrise Serpent. Actually you should be able to beat him (it might come with some difficulty now but with Feather Explosion, Blessed Trident and Prodigys Eyeball you should see lots of improvement as you keep dumping EXP into health and strength.

Prodigys Eyeball will keep being useful until you are ready to face level 25+, Mornrise, Sanddragon, Surge and Ancient Sphinx can all use a bit of that Eyeball. Some of these can be beaten with Blessed Trident + Prodigys Eyeball plus a good infinite scroll (such as Feather Explosion) as well.

You will need a dark block for Gate Keeper and later Saggitarius, but don't fork out too much for one because you will likely earn yours in a Gelatin War with lots of patience (and clicking). Actually Saggi should be the last opponent among this group that you can beat, mostly due to a lack of effective weapons you can now use at T10, and even at T11 he will require effective blocking, so don't be deterred if it takes a bit long to beat him because he's indeed hard.

So just keep focusing on health and strength for now. When Moro comes and if you keep going at this rate you should be able to beat Nightlady into oblivion and increase your chance at earning a Shriek of Despair, which is a good freezing scroll. For a starter, I'd recommend earning a yourself. It's worth having a good freezer scroll in your scroll set!

[Edit] ETA: I forgot to add. You can retire the Legendary weapons you've got now. They have served you well enough. From this point on there are better (like, much much better) weapons for just a part of their price tag. From T10 you should always look to use main attackers with some percentage heal most of the time, and should pay attention to the opponents' icons to know which weapons to use to best block their damage. You will be using this strategy until mid-T13 where you can just bulldoze through BQs again (for the most part, but yeah).

Thanks so much for the upgrade suggestions! I'm still working on finding Mama Mush at the ice fields. I've gotten like 5 buckets of polar water but I still haven't been able to unlock her, go figure.