It's been more than 5 years since I've been on Sylestia. Much has changed, though some things are still familiar!

It looks like the lost grove has more stuff, and a high level cap too. I'm sure I've forgotten most battle strategies, etc, so I anticipate it might be a bit of a challenge.

Before diving in to the lost grove, I thought I'd ask you all about what is important in battle teams.

There seems to have been stat inflation over the years. Even Krin's festival message talked about the value of wild stats. I have some old "max stat" pets (120 base mana, 100 base stats, no wild stats) that I previously used in the lost grove. They have base stoneweaver gear and ability expertise of level 3 in the first four attacks.

My question is how valuable is ability expertise? Should I just continue with them because they already have a decent level of expertise?
Or would it be wise to get some of the supermax stat pets that are available now, and start over?

I'm curious if anyone has trained their starters, etc to a high level of expertise? If so, is that more important than base stats? Or are high stats key?

Based on my personal experience, I would say expertise matters more than stats when comparing them directly.

The main issue with old max stats that could become a problem much, much further down the line is the low amount of mana.

However, a team of maxes would definitely be able to get you very far, especially with that level of expertise.

Expertise and exp grinding is painful until you reach the temple, so since you already have so much investment in your current team, it wouldnt be a bad idea to use them until you reach the temple and then work on building a new supermax team there, helped by the better XP and expertise drops.

This isnt to say you should not switch now itself. It really depends on your playstyle and if you would rather get through content fast or build up a new team for long-term benefit.

The reason I say long-term benefit is that some of the bosses you might end up facing may be nearly impossible with low levels of expertise. The point you are at now is where many of them start to shine and have fundamental mechanic changes, and having higher stat pets would not help much.

Example: a full team of +70 superstats at no skill expertise would struggle against a boss that a level 3 proficiency 100 max stat team would be able to get through.

Thanks for sharing this C0smos!

So it sounds like the crystal worm thing is the gatekeeper for a whole new section. And my current team (with expertise) is better suited for the crystal worm. But that the next area would be better placed with as high mana as possible. Sound about right?

I was reading some of the posts here on the forum, and it looks like there was someone with an original team (starter and the first 2 random tamed) who made it past the crystal worm but got stuck in the next (temple?) section. Hmmm... ideally, the game would reward sticking with a pet the whole way through!

I have some things to think about, and I think I might try your suggestion. I gave the crystal worm a go at level 70. Surprisingly, the bosses strategy didn't seem too crazy, but I didn't have the strength to beat it. I could see what I needed to do, but I couldn't. I could see strategies that would work, but I couldn't make use of them.

I used a rank 3 water tank, that only gives +10 mana. I think if I had +15 mana per turn (rank 4), I would have had enough to make it work. Also, I think I might need more damage ability. My plan is to grind until I think I can take on the worm, possibly rank 4.

Also, how bad is 120 base mana in the next section? Crippling? What is the mana used for in the next section anyway? Is anyone thriving there with weaker teams? I'm wondering how feasible it would be to only replace 1 or 2 with higher mana, and not the whole team...

It's just that expertise grinding is a bit painful. I don't want to do more of it unecessarily. But it would be even worse to grind my current team to rank 5, and find out it's not enough!

Ok so mana:

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I remember as far as mana goes:

120 mana should be totally fine until you get to the veryyy last boss in the game, just due to some mechanics that benefit higher base mana (I don't want to spoil too much, but for a convo about mana, that's required to state :P), and other than that, having a lot of mana is good for floor 3 and 4 of the temple, but not a deal breaker unlike the final boss.

Scatheorite, iirc, has beaten the whole game without even max stats, but they did acknowledge it was difficult, and Krin themselves has acknowledged in their dream pet raffle that wild stats are a soft requirement (meaning it makes it more possible, but not necessarily impossible without) to progress through.

However, I do believe it is totally ok to start working on a new team once you reach the temple just because grinding gets easier.

If you did your current team to rank 5 expertise, then that would definitely be enough for a while, and possibly even the whole game, although some stages would be more difficult.

It is important to note that each proficiency level is double the requirement of the previous, so even if you got to level 4 proficiency, you are less than halfway of the grind to level 5. This means that if you decide 4 is a valid stopping point for your current team and then get past the worm and decide to switch teams, you only are restarting <50% of the progress.

A thing about the temple is that as soon as you beat the worm, getting through the temple is very difficult just because it is a huge spike, like normal enemies are about as hard as bosses and elites in the forest.

There are special mechanics in the temple that make it easier over time, that you will learn of if you get there, (I don't want to spoil too much in case you want to experience it yourself, but if you really want to know I will tell you haha), so you will spend a good amount of time in there and definitely would have the time to get a new team up in proficiencies.

(Just for background, clearing floor 1 of temple took me about as much time as it took to get all the way past the worm, albeit I played at a time when everything was unlocked so it took me about a month), so time is not the limiting factor for sure.

One other thing I recommend, if you have the gold, is to start investing in primordial armor once you enter temple, especially relics. They provide a gigantic damage increase, and those you could buy for around 200350k based on who's selling and who has what available.

I hope I covered everything, and if I missed anything please let me know :)