Training Your Pet On A Budget

I'm not sure about you, but I've been eyeing those new, craftable spells! At a recipe cost of 60,000 gold, and having requirements like 100 Blood Moss, 100 Diamonds, and Treasure Card versions of the spell, it doesn't come cheap, though. And there's also about a million new versions of pets being released through Pet-A-Palooza, so you'll want to be hatching left and right! That raises a question, though... when it comes to leveling your pets, where does THAT cash come from?

The trick is to be thrifty with your spending! When you need to train a pet, you're going to be spending time and money on that training. The first step in training any pet is finding your balance. If you've got a short fuse, so to speak, and become easily bored with one activity, you're going to be throwing a whole lot more cash into a pet than someone who is much more patient. On the other hand, if you're quite tolerant, you may be able to build a certain resistance to the tragedy that is... pet training!

The main costs of pet training involve snacks. While playing a game can earn you up to four experience per game, snacks can give you far better numbers, and will, therefore, be the main form of training.

You've got to pick out the right snacks, though. The way I see it, there are four good ways to get pets snacks.

The first is the Bazaar. If you've got spare gold around, this will likely be your number one resource for snacks. You can also sell items directly from your bank at the Bazaar, which makes things even more convenient.

The following snacks are rank five and six and give five or six experience per snack.

I highly recommend the above snacks. There's plenty of them, and they're very cheap. Rank five snacks can cost you upwards of 1,000 gold, but these snacks range from 200 to 270 gold.

These snacks below are ranks six and seven, but take a closer look! You get seven and eight experience! Keep your eye out for snacks like these - for a discounted rate, you'll get snacks that give you more experience!

Of course, if you don't have the spare cash, maybe you've got a few extra reagents! The following vendors sell snack recipes:

Jackie Whisperflame - Snack Shop, Pet Pavilion, Wizard City

Notable Snacks: AmbrOs Cereal, Rank 6

Shazz'am - The Oasis, Krokotopia (In the shopping area)

Notable Snacks: Many cheap Rank 4s

Desmond Fanshawe - Digmoore Station, Marleybone

Notable Snacks: Ranks 4s training only one stat - Huge Ice Cream, Golden Biscuit, Spicy Popcorn, Swirled Lollipop, Fairy Cake

Yachi - Jade Palace, MooShu

Notable Snacks: Many cheap Rank 5s

Darina Bloodflame - Shoe and Pet Shop, The Atheneum, Dragonspyre

Notable Snacks: Three Rank 6 snacks

Hamund Vittlecrafter - Ravenscar, Grizzleheim

Notable Snacks: Three Rank 6 snacks

Clarence Cavendish - Survey Camp, Celestia

Notable Snacks: Many cheap Rank 5s

The recipes for these snacks are like paying for them only once. You'll have to use reagents to craft them, though. This is a nice alternative to those who've picked up many reagents and never taken up much serious crafting.

One of the greatest ways to get snacks - and not just your Rank 5 and 6 snacks, Mega Snacks - is to garden. This requires a fair amount of time - first you've got to train to the required level for good plants that drop such snacks, then you've got to care for your plants, which means less energy to train pets. Ultimately, if you decide to garden, it can be the most rewarding, but is also the most time-consuming. Here are my recommended plants for Snack Gardening:

Start Small - Regular Snacks

Baby Carrots (Bazaar)

Slightly Harder - Chance of Mega Snacks

Prickly Bear Cactus (Bazaar)

Guaranteed Mega Snacks

Evil Magma Peas (Crowns or dropped)

Deadly Helephant Ears (Crowns or dropped by Avalon mobs)

If all else fails, or you're completely broke, you can always farm for your snacks!

I suggest trailing through Zafaria. Several of the bosses drop worthwhile snacks. You can also check resources like the Wiki for information drops on high-rank snacks.

The other part of training is energy. You begin at level 1 with 40 energy, and gain a bit as you level, until you end up at 80 energy at level 80. Increasing your max energy isn't easy, but it is possible. With gear from the Crown Shop, either from packs or by itself, you can increase your energy. Using this method, it's easy to have over 100 energy. We ARE on a budget here, however, so it's time to rely on those extra reagents again!

In Wintertusk, there's a recipe vendor that sells recipes for rings and athames that give decent stats, including health, mana, power pip chance, universal block, universal damage, and incoming and outgoing healing bonuses. These items also give an energy increase! You see, with an outfit, to have the energy, you have to keep it on, which means a slight setback is questing and fighting. With these items, they're good enough to use all of the time, and give a slightly energy boost.

If you're a member, your energy will restore faster. If you don't want to wait, you'll have to buy an Energy Elixir from the Crown Shop. You can also hit up some of the Pet-A-Palooza contest for them at this point. AND, if a fansite is ever asking what its users are interested in for gifted prizes, tell them - Energy Elixirs!

These and other tricks are all part of training a pet, and you'll learn your own as you go. In fact, you'll likely develop your own special techniques! Whether you're a Pet-A-Palooza enthusiast, or training for the European Pet Derby, enjoy pet training, and good luck!

Thanks for reading, and see you in the Spiral!