Why is max stat so expensive? How do you make a pet max stat? Is there a guide or something on max stat?

A max-stat breeder will probably be able to answer this in more depth than I can, but in short:

- There are only a few ways to raise pet stats. You can use a philter on a pet when it hatches from an egg, and hatchlings get a stat point for every five nurture clicks. Once a pet becomes an adult, that's it, its stats are locked in.
- Most wild and generated pets start with pretty low stats. Fabled pets (Ferrikki, Lighira, Griffi, etc) are a bit better but still far from max. There are some events like the Sylesti Garden that let you get pets with higher stats but they can still be far from max-stats.
- Thus, the only way to get a max-stat pet is to breed one. This is a very long and expensive process. You need to buy philters, which aren't cheap (the best ones cost gems) and it takes about a month for a pet to grow to adult and become breedable. You also need stable space for all of the pets you are breeding together.
- This also isn't counting the work and cost of breeding a specific look first, because there are only so many ways to alter a pet's appearance once it exists.
- So all in all, it takes months (even a year+) for a max-stat project to be finished, and who knows how much money. 300k is actually very small compared to the time and money it takes to make a breeding pair.

There is a guide on max-stat breeding over here, but I am not sure how current it is.

Having completed two max stat projects, and coming up to the end of a massive third, I can say that Otter was pretty accurate in their reasoning, but I'll get a little more in depth and correct a couple of small things:

To start a max stat project, most people get the visible look out of the way first. A 6 visible project, depending on how kind RNG is, can take an average of about 8 months to complete. This is actually pretty good as this means the project only took about 8 generations to complete (since it takes 27 days for a pet to go from freshly laid egg to adult with no help).

Once the traits are locked in, the creator may use dyes to colour correct the two unrelated pairs they create (yes, two final pairs to max most effectively). That's 48 dyes if you're lucky with the colour swing, a lot more if you're not. This is why those who are not planning to sell non-maxed offspring will skip this part and only colour correct the final maxed pair. Cuts the number of dyes needed in half.

After the two pairs are adults (so let's say we're at 10 months of the project now), each pair needs to be bred twice to create the next generation's pairs. Each of these four babies are given stat philters (most often prismatic philters as they raise all stats a bit when used, rather than just one), and a gender swap phlter might be required too if you don't get two males and two females right off the bat.

With those four babies, you now need to try and get them as many nurtures as possible. For every 8 correct nurtures (this used to be 5, but was changed when the new nurturing area was released), the baby gets an increase to whatever the lowest stat is. They get +1 to either strength, intelligence, dexterity, or agility until those stats are maxed. Once these stats are maxed, every 8 nurtures will give +10 to health. Once health is maxed, ever 8 nurtures will give +1 to mana. However, there is another problem: for ever 1 view of the pet's page, and ever 4 correct nurtures to the hatchling they earn +1 of maturity. So, if the hatchling is being shared in a way where people view the pet's profile to nurture, for every 8 nurtures (1 point increase) the pet is aging +10 maturity. And the pet naturally increases in maturity +1 every hour. Once the hatchling hits adolescence, the window to increase stats is over until the next generation is bred (which, again, is approximately every 27 days).

However, to combat the issue with hatchlings growing up before they can get the max number of stat increases (72 is the magic number, but I don't know anyone that has reached this), you can purchase a nurture boost. This puts the pet at the beginning of the nurturing queue, where they're more likely to be nurtured (and not incur the +1 maturity for every profile view), and the person nurturing gets two scales for their time. These boosts can get costly, though. The minimum price for the minimum average is 50 Diamonds or 3,500 Scales. The maximum price for the maximum average is 100 Diamonds or 7,000 Scales. (The meaning of 'minimum average' is explored in the nurture grounds announcement thread, but it doesn't really matter. The nurture boost pop up when you go to pay tells you what the current day's rate is.) So, that's anywhere from 200 - 400 diamonds per generation, or 14,000 - 28,000 scales. Either way, a huge investment when you figure most pets will need between 8 and 10 generations to get from fully traited to fully max stat.

There are also magical pies that can add 6 days of maturity to an adolescent every 6 days. This can drastically reduce the number of days between hatching and adulthood, but, again, if you max things out and use two per pet per generation.... well, they're 100 diamonds each in the diamond shop, or approximately 150k gold each on the broker. Multiply that by 8, then by the 8-10 generations... yeah, costly.

And while fabled pets start with higher base stats naturally, they also take 7 days between breedings instead of 3 days between breeding like non-fabled, so that factors into how long it takes to do the initial breeding stage.

Add in the cost of buying/creating/catching the original parents..... it just gets to be an exorbitant cost. Max stat breeders almost always sell at a massive loss.

Let's see if I can guesstimate how much a max stat dye project costs.

So, let's pretend the starting pets are all wild caught and caught with one blue trap each. If you get lucky and have all the traits needed on three pets (with a mix of male and female), then that's 7,500 gold for the starting parents.

Cost of feeding, say, an average of 20 pets at a time (if you're really good at pruning your breeding pool) for 10 months (assuming you have the highest tier of stablehand) as you breed to the correct look:
2 gold x 20 pets x (30 x 5 + 31 x 5 days) = 12,200 gold

Cost of feeding to max stat (assuming you release every prior generation once you have the new one). 10 months used as that final month the last pair is growing up:
2 gold x 4 pets x (30 x 5 + 31 x 5) - (2 gold x 2 pets x 30.5) = 2,318 gold

Cost of prismatic philters for 9 generations (assuming prism philters are 100k gold, though they can be more, and sell for 80 diamonds each in the diamond shop):
4 pets x 9 generations x 100,000 gold = 3,600,000 gold

Cost of gender swap potions (assuming one is needed every two generations)
1 gender swap x 4.5 generations x 200,000 gold = 900,000 gold

Cost of mana philters if you need them at the end (haven't used these yet in my own projects, so I'm going to assume two generations of needing them):
(4 mana philters + 2 mana philters) x 250,000 gold = 1,500,000 gold

Cost of nurture boosting (which might cut out a generation or two of prismatic philters needed?):
4 pets x 9 generations x ((50 diamonds + 100 diamonds) / 2) = 2,700 diamonds x 2,000 (gold to diamond ratio) = 5,400,000 gold

Cost of 35 dyes to colour correct all 24 slots on final pair (using lesser dyes):
35 dyes x 50,000 gold = 1,750,000 gold

Cost of 24 dyes to colour correct all 24 slots on final pair (using greater dyes):
24 dyes x 150,000 gold = 3,600,000 gold

Cost of magical pies to speed up growth (assuming average of 1 pie per pet per generation. Not optimal, but more cost-effective):
(4 pets x 1 pie x 9 months + 2 pets x 1 pie x 1 month) x 150,000 gold = 5,700,000 gold


I think I've caught everything (could be wrong, I'm kind of writing this on the fly haha). So, averaging the price for dyes, a grand total of approximately 19,797,018 gold (give or take a couple million depending on how much nurture boosting lowers the number of prism philters you need, whether you just use nurture boosting for health/mana at the end, whether you need more dyes, whether you purchase pets rather than catch them, whether you use essences to start the project, whether you use themed pets, etc.) But yeah, 300k gold to buy a pet that could cost someone around 20 million gold to make? I think that's pretty cheap, don't you?

Edit: corrected some math

Wow. That's a lot. I just have one last question. Does the parents' stats affect the offsprings' stats?

yes. Offspring have stats between their parent's stats, that's why stat breeding works
if you have two pets with 100str, all offspring will have 100 str, if you have one parent with 10 str and one with 100, offspring could have anywhere between 10 and 100, if one parent has 34 str and one has 67, offspring will have between 34 and 67 str

Yes. The offspring's stats will be a random number between the two parents' stats. So if the mother has stats of, say:

Health: 800
Mana: 105
Strength: 88
Intelligence: 75
Dexterity: 66
Agility: 90

and the father has, say:

Health: 1,586
Mana: 92
Strength: 100
Intelligence: 55
Dexterity: 85
Agility: 67

The offspring can have:
Health between 800 and 1,586
Mana between 92 and 105
Strength between 88 and 100
Intelligence between 55 and 75
Dexterity between 66 and 85
Agility between 67 and 90

What actual base stats the offspring will get is down to RNG within the ranges, and will be affected by how you hatch it (help it hatch +20 health; let it hatch adds stat points to a random stat (can't remember how many because I never use this, haha; use a philter adds stats based on the philter used; do nothing for 24 hours after it is ready to hatch and it gains no extra stats and hatches on its own).

Hope that helps!

I see. Thanks for your help!