Continuing the last post of
Companion Levelling Part 1, here in Part 2 I will describe specific strategies for levelling specific pets. The strategies include discussion of what setup should we use and where should we hunt to maximize your benefit of that certain pet.
Loot Multipliers: Special Pixie - Leprechaun
Both Pixie and Leprechaun are generally safe to be used anywhere, thus the setup is somewhat flexible. If you can manage to achieve 2 min hunts using either of them, then go for it. Our fastest raw setup DM/NL/SHQ/Lepre/Cosmic/MCC will give 11 min reduction, so to achieve 2 min setup we need to use -2 bait (black widow) for example. If you intend to use this setup, Count Church will be the place since the raw is just enough to do 100% catch rate there.
However there will be some people who don't have an enormous stock (or recipe) of Black Widow, and maybe reluctant to use Midnight Riders, so we have the second alternative. We use mystic setup for this purpose. MM/BDB/CW/Nessy/Lepre/Twilight/MCC is already a 2-min setup. Since we use Nessy, Count Church is yet again preferable due to the amount of mystic-immune ghosts there (2 out of 5 types).
Another possibility if you can reach Morgue is to use Scarecrow/NL/SHQ/Lepre/MCC/Cosmic. It will leave you with -3 mins to reduce, hence you can use Nightcap to cover for that. Hunting in Morgue will replenish your supply of Mystery milk so you should not hesitate to use Nightcap. There are ghost plasmas and ccf in Morgue as well, to give you more incentive.
There are bio setup possible too for hunting in Morgue, which is Shark Basin/NL/Lorelle or EPH/Lepre/MCC/Cosmic. Same 2 min hunt but with additional benefit of Hidden treasures from voodoo ghosts. Bait can be -2 (black widow) or -3 (nightcap), I personally prefer nightcap since you can replenish your stock of milks.
Raid: Snake - Phoenix - Seahorse
I decided to discuss about these three guys since they have good stats (x2 loot multiplier) which is considerable, and now they can be easily obtained by the badges in Bayoushi's shop. The loot multiplier and -1 t/sc generally made them to share the same strategy as Leprechaun above.
Special mention goes to Snake, since it has the +10 vintages bonus, you have to make sure you hunt in vintage-rich regions to maximize its potential. And yet again CC is the highest vintage-rich region that you can afford with your fastest raw setup (DM/NL/SHQ). As for Phoenix and Seahorse, since they are XP and GTP based, thus to maximize their potential you just need to ensure that you hunt in the highest area that is allowed by your setup's raw power.
Bayoushi Cheap Whelps: Amber Dragon Whelp - Diamond Dragon Whelp
Here the strategies for these two little dragons are a bit different. Since they both have -3 min reduction, we can modify setup a little bit. First for the Amber, since it has the plasma hunter we should hunt in plasma-rich regions. The most well known plasma-rich region is Kirkyard Morgue, thus we try to craft a setup to hunt here.
Since DM/NL will not giving 100% catch rate in Morgue, we must compromise it by using another circle (Laughing Skulls) or another trap (Scarecrow). DM/LS/SHQ/ADW/Cosmic/MCC will give you 3 min hunts (2.5 if you have the tombstone), but with a burner inside. However in Morgue it is well known that SSG will do well, can even attract Barkeepers with almost no FTA, burning SSG is not a big deal. If you want to use -1 mocktails (Braveheart, Frozen mist) then you can use DDW instead or Scarecrow, both still maintain 100% catch rate in Morgue.
Special mention for DDW, since DM/LS/SHQ/Nightcap/Cosmic/MCC will do very well in Crypt you may consider to go to Crypt instead of Morgue. The XP gained from crypt is higher than Morgue of course, and the catch rate there is still 100%. DDW will synergize with Nightcap in terms of +XP. You can even try DM/LS/SSP/DDW in Morgue to have great boost of money, since DDW cancels out the burner so you can peacefully observe your money increasing quickly.
Bayoushi Expensive Whelps: Lightning Dragon Whelp - Chrono Dragon Whelp
Place to hunt: Morgue. Setup: figure it out yourself! :D
Incubators: Special Little Crystal Spider - Special Little Spookie
I'm not judging that these two is the best among other incubations, but it is their loot hunter which make them very valuable. Spider will give you more ccf and Spookie will give you more plasma. The most well-known place to hunt for CCF is either McKenny, Count Church, and Morgue (practically speaking McDougan and fake High Security Section should be included).
We've already covered Morgue setup above, those options are applied for Spider as well.
As for plasma, I don't know other places to hunt plasma better than Morgue, well maybe fake Crypt can be considered. Besides using the spookie, the same setup still applies!
Nessy Hunters: Ghost Seal - Ghost Goat
These two cute companions (dropped by Selkie and Glaistig) are gifted with +10 Nessy hunter. Thus if we want to level up them we must not waste their great potential. Therefore it is recommended to Nessy-hunt with them, setup will be MM/BDB/CW/Nessy/Twilight/MCC or LR/BDB/EPH/Nessy/Twilight/MCC. Both have roughly the same amount of mystic power. And place for hunt will be Count Church (yet again!) since 2 out of 5 ghosts there are mystic immune, thus it will not waste your Nessy too much. In fact, your stock of Nessy will surely increase!
Power Enhancers: Little Kelpie, Little Cusith
These two companions are a bit different. They are useful AFTER they reached level 5, so practically they are less useful while levelling. I'm talking about the +raw stats for kelpie and +mystic stats for cu sith, of course. However both of them have +1 attraction, which can be exploited to prevent yourself from getting FTA's if you are going to use cheap baits, or to increase your attraction to attract higher-and-rarer ghosts such as temptresses or the
villains. Their loot multiplier is good (Cu sith is good, kelpie isn't that good), thus their setup will be more or less the same as Pixie or Leprechaun above.
Two Minutes: Little T-rex, Little Nessy
These two are the only companions which have slightly 'weird' stats, since -2 minutes reduction is uncommon. T-rex is better though (even better than Little Kelpie) since it has extra malty mist bonus. Oh and I forgot that Little Nessy has malty mist too. T-rex will be good to hunt monsters. While T-rex is raw power-wise, Little Nessy is mystic power-wise with the same -2 mins but +1 attraction. Best possible setup will be DM/NL/SHQ/T-rex/Cosmic/MCC with any -1 mocktails in CC. If you notice small details, you should use Braveheart/Frozen Mist since Widow Tears is plenty in CC too.
Wow it's a great wall of text... but I hope it can give you some inspirations... See you on the next post! :D
