Alternatively Titled: I am Woefully Underprepared For This and My Sons Keep Dying Help

I imagine there's already a thread or two (or ten) for this floating around somewhere but I can't find them, so here I am, making my own. The only times I manage to get past multiple (I mean,, so far only two but that's still more than one) battles is with light/fire/[shadow/wind/fire2] and I always, always die when faced with more than one enemy at a time. I'm probably being impatient with my progress considering I've pretty much literally just started but?? my boys (and girl) are suffering and I Am Sad

Am I being...
a) too impatient
b) kinda stupid
c) stupidly impatient
d) impatiently stupid
e) all of the above

TL;DR: I know the obvious answer is probably level up my team more first but I'd like other input before I decide to do that because I was hoping to level them in TLG but that's looking like a Not Great Idea in retrospect

There's no shame in using items or in wiping out in the LG. We've all done it. The Lost Grove is meant to be infinitely tougher than the rest of the earlier storyline. Here's some things you should know.

Your team configuration matters. The most common configuration is tank/healer/attacker. I recommend going with that one until you know enough to experiment on your own. Your tank, most commonly shadow or earth, should always be in your first party slot. This will put them closest to the enemy and therefore most likely to be attacked. Give your tank health and agility. Healer is almost always a light pet. Give your light pet intelligence and dexterity. The attacker (aka dps pet) does the majority of the damage. This is usually a fire or air pet. Give them intelligence (for fire) or strength (for air) and dexterity.

The LG introduces things called ranks. Basically, your pets' moves can level up now. You level them up by using them repeatedly in The Lost Grove. It will take a loooong time to rank up but the power boost you get from it is worth it. Until you rank up your moves a bit, doing some of the bosses is near impossible. For the rank reason only, I recommend training your pets in the LG as much as possible. Regular levels are nice but those ranks are better.

The LG also has some better equipment that, if you haven't bought it already from the broker, you'll want to get your hands on. You can save money and wait for the mobs to drop it or just purchase it. It'll help a lot.

Yeah, you'll want to start out with the base tank/healer/attacker until you get better.

One trick of the Grove is that the top section (all of the stuff before the 'hedge maze' thing, the area where the Crazed Druids are found) only ever throws one enemy at you at a time (save for battles triggered by Tasks you can get once you've built the Barracks)

You can level up your pets using that trick, and the other region 3 areas, and the Dungeon of the Forsaken- level 65 is generally considered to be the base Grove level.


Looking at the three pets you currently have in your party, one thing you desperately need is to upgrade the equipment, since they have no Grove equips, no non-grove equips above Epic rarity, and some of their equips are severely under the level you should have (lv60).

Higher stat pets make it easier, but aren't necessary, but the proficiencies chosen, and the party order, are also very important in the Grove.


Stupid, no, the Grove was a learning process for every one of us, but a bit impatient, yes. Train up pets, gather Grove equips (Grove equipment is pretty much the best stuff in the game, though lv70 non-grove stuff might beat the Exotic equips (but not the Vinethorns)). Be prepared and accepting of the fact that you can and will lose fights. Keep at least some stock of Grove healing items.
Pay attention to buffs and debuffs, too, Elites and Bosses and some groups of Nightfall enemies, and high-rarity pets can demolish you if you don't pay attention to them.


Here are our Grove teams so you can look at how they're set up:
Main
Tank, Healer, Attacker

in-training
Tank, Healer, Attacker

USe the switching mechanism. And mission 24/7 for revivals. You will need them.

Open every chest

After a while you can skip some battles

Level up.

Use tlg gear

And listen to everyone else on party setups. I have a stupid setup and ever worse stats. Don't follow my lead (although it works fo rme :) ) Light/tank, fire/attack, and air/attack is not a popular setup. Which is why i'm always switching who's tank. Weirdyy my fire pet is a better tank then my light....odd.

Okay, so, what I'm getting is go with tank (health, agi)/healer (int, dex)/attack (str, dex). Will it be super problematic that my healer has higher agility stats that my tank and the other way around for dexterity? Sounds like my attack stats should do okay, though(?)

To Do List:
-get LG equips and healing stuff
--or at least use things on level with the pets using them (didn't even realise I never really kept up with that oops)
-stay in the relatively safe(r) top area for now
-level up pets and gain ranks for their abilities (I'd actually been wondering about that but I kept forgetting to ask, so thanks for explaining)
-finish out the second dungeon
-Be More Patient With My Team

(Also thank all of you for the advise; I appreciate it a lot ^^)

Proficiencies of pets? Light is almost always healer btut attack could be fire, air, shadow.....

Tanks can have just about any combo of HP/attack/Agi- not just HP/agi (after all, if you look at my own tanks, there's a total of 1 HP point between the two of them, and I added that at lv70)
They generally don't have Dex because, well, crit chance isn't what Tanks need. They need the ability to avoid attacks and mitigate damage more.

Attackers need Dex- Air and Fire pets specifically use dex because they use crits to inflict Debuffs, and they don't generally need any HP points or Agi points because the tank and healer (or buffer, in a tank/buffer/attacker team) draw away attacks, shield, or heal them.

Healers use Dex on the chance that Beam or Fairy Light crits on the enemy and heals the party for more HP


Also, attack ranking can take ages, and that's with a team that can take out Elites and Bosses (who take more turns, meaning you use attacks more to get more useage exp, and who have a higher rank exp output for their defeat) (attack rank exp is gained in two ways, and each move slot gains exp at a slightly different rate: each usage of the attack is a very small fraction-of-a-percent of rank exp (I believe 4 uses = .01%, for rank 1 base attacks?), and each enemy gives a flat rate of rank exp upon the end of battle against them (not sure if the amount differs between all the regular enemies, but Elites and Bosses give more).

Okay so a tank ideally is very defensible. You want them able to take a lot of damage. Agility helps with dodging and thereby lessens the amount of damage they take. Health... obviously allows them to take a lot of damage. Ideally you want to put points into only these two stats.

You want your healer to be able to, well, heal. A light pet can heal more the higher they hit. Intelligence gives them higher magic attack. Dexterity gives them a greater chance for a critical hit. If you use your tank properly they shouldn't have a need for agility to help them dodge attacks.

If you've put your points into ONLY the stats above and your tank still has higher dexterity than your healer, you may want to check their equipment. Giving a tank the right tank equipment (equipment that has high points in agility) can help a lot.

Right, okay, sweet. I'll get to work on rearranging stats and whatnot when my healer comes back from his mission. Low key thinking I'll just switch proficiencies for my tank and healer? but idk yet though since I'm not sure how that'll work out

Also @orca the proficiencies in my set up are shadow (tank)/ light (healer)/ wind (attack). Got two fire that I've been kinda leaning on for most of my levelling, too. Might keep switching them in sometimes