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Best time to upgrade companions

AuthorMessage
Ensign
Sep 12, 2013
24
I am currently a level 13 Buccaneer and really wanna upgrade some of my companions (I don’t have problem winning matches but upgrading companions seems fun) but since the companion training points don’t give much xp if the difference in levels is less, when is the best time to upgrade them so that they remain strong as well as I get more xp from each triangle point. I currently own around 40 companion training points.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
brian angel grove on Mar 5, 2021 wrote:
I am currently a level 13 Buccaneer and really wanna upgrade some of my companions (I don’t have problem winning matches but upgrading companions seems fun) but since the companion training points don’t give much xp if the difference in levels is less, when is the best time to upgrade them so that they remain strong as well as I get more xp from each triangle point. I currently own around 40 companion training points.
By up-grading do you mean promoting? As a buccaneer, I encourage you to promote Barnabas (when he reaches level 15) His first promotion is a level-valued one, if you wait until you're level 30, you won't be able to promote him and need to get help from Support.
You can let your companions lag in levels at 2 - 3 levels less than your own without too much trouble; but I wouldn't let your main companions go below that.

Gunner's Mate
Sep 04, 2018
268
The higher the pirate's level is relative to the companion's level the more experience will be obtained from a tome. Companions tend to get a new point choice of talent point every four levels. As such, it is wise to wait until a tome buys a companion two levels before leveling it.

It should also be noted that tasked companions will never show up in battle unless their task has completed. So if you send everyone you don't want to use out on missions, or place them into your ship cabin/dorm/house, then you only need to train those that aren't tasked assuming you have chosen a more random option of who shows up. If you have options set at using your top three positioned companions every fight, then those are the only ones you need to level until you are at max, but even if you play like that you will likely want to level up your companions so to the point where they bring back good returns. In that case you will likely be best off to wait until each tome buys them a full four levels.

So for the most part you want your companion levels to be evenly divided by four. The exception being when a companion promotes at a level not divisible by four and you really want them to promote early as they are ones that you use.

Play like this and its quite likely that you will never have a need to buy a training tome for gold ever, even maxing out all companions after maxing out your pirate. Though, if that is your goal, then its wise to not do quests that will give you a new companion until you reach max level. Companions picked up at max level will be one level higher than your pirate even when your pirate is already at max level, so that is nice.

Ensign
Sep 12, 2013
24
anecorbie on Mar 8, 2021 wrote:
By up-grading do you mean promoting? As a buccaneer, I encourage you to promote Barnabas (when he reaches level 15) His first promotion is a level-valued one, if you wait until you're level 30, you won't be able to promote him and need to get help from Support.
You can let your companions lag in levels at 2 - 3 levels less than your own without too much trouble; but I wouldn't let your main companions go below that.
Is this a problem for other companions too?

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
brian angel grove on Mar 10, 2021 wrote:
Is this a problem for other companions too?
Ratbeard (level 28?) and Bonnie Anne (level 31) have promos that require you to talk to Catbeard; if you wait too long and Catbeard isn't on his ship, you'll need to wait until you free him in Marleybone.
Otherwise there are no other level promos that cause this problem.

Gunner's Mate
Sep 04, 2018
268
brian angel grove on Mar 10, 2021 wrote:
Is this a problem for other companions too?
I've never ran into such promotion problems waiting to level up and max out companions at much higher levels. Barnabas however is a companion I've always used, and so he got promoted early for me.

Gunner's Mate
Sep 04, 2018
268
Takhethis on Mar 9, 2021 wrote:
The higher the pirate's level is relative to the companion's level the more experience will be obtained from a tome. Companions tend to get a new point choice of talent point every four levels. As such, it is wise to wait until a tome buys a companion two levels before leveling it.

It should also be noted that tasked companions will never show up in battle unless their task has completed. So if you send everyone you don't want to use out on missions, or place them into your ship cabin/dorm/house, then you only need to train those that aren't tasked assuming you have chosen a more random option of who shows up. If you have options set at using your top three positioned companions every fight, then those are the only ones you need to level until you are at max, but even if you play like that you will likely want to level up your companions so to the point where they bring back good returns. In that case you will likely be best off to wait until each tome buys them a full four levels.

So for the most part you want your companion levels to be evenly divided by four. The exception being when a companion promotes at a level not divisible by four and you really want them to promote early as they are ones that you use.

Play like this and its quite likely that you will never have a need to buy a training tome for gold ever, even maxing out all companions after maxing out your pirate. Though, if that is your goal, then its wise to not do quests that will give you a new companion until you reach max level. Companions picked up at max level will be one level higher than your pirate even when your pirate is already at max level, so that is nice.
Sorry, I wrote this a bit wrong.

On my main companions I wait until a tome buys two companion levels, and then I use two to three more tomes to bring them up to an increase of four total levels so that they may receive their next improvement (perfectly divisible by four, as explained above).

Ensign
Sep 12, 2013
24
By the way I have never purchased tomes and saw on google that their price increases with increase in our level

So will it be wiser if I just stash a lot of training tomes right now?

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
brian angel grove on Mar 15, 2021 wrote:
By the way I have never purchased tomes and saw on google that their price increases with increase in our level

So will it be wiser if I just stash a lot of training tomes right now?
You can only buy up to 10 tomes at a time. You can find tomes scattered throughout the game, check the P101 wiki for locations, you can also gain tomes through quests or from booster packs (Tribal & Beastmaster) but they're rare.
When you recruit a companion, they will be 1 - 2 levels above you, you can then set them "Keelhaulin'" to gain you a tome. This will take 24 hrs, (less if they have a rank or more in "Officer") and you can only set a companion to Keelhaulin' if you have less than 10 tomes.
Good Luck!

Gunner's Mate
Sep 04, 2018
268
brian angel grove on Mar 15, 2021 wrote:
By the way I have never purchased tomes and saw on google that their price increases with increase in our level

So will it be wiser if I just stash a lot of training tomes right now?
First thing I would do when making a new pirate would be to use the shared bank to transfer items onto the new pirate and be able to sell stuff for gold. Then I would friend someone to get into the area with the bazaar, and then after buying some equipment, I'd head over to the training tome building and max out training tomes to 10 while they were still cheap.

Problem with the notion of buying a lot of training tomes is that you can only buy them up to 10. Since companions can now farm for tomes at high companion levels, the need to conserve tomes has diminished. You don't really need to wait to level up your companions as you can easily get gold quickly at high levels, and you can easily send the companions you don't use out on quests.

It is however kind of fun to see just how many tomes you can get built up on a character before spending them down to max out all companions at max level.

One bit of advice though, is it is very nice to wait to cash in quests that give companions until you are at max level, cause not only do you save on having to train them, but they will be at least one level over max.

Gunner's Mate
Sep 04, 2018
268
brian angel grove on Mar 15, 2021 wrote:
By the way I have never purchased tomes and saw on google that their price increases with increase in our level

So will it be wiser if I just stash a lot of training tomes right now?
Yes, by all means stash what you can. The higher your character level is relative to any companion that you are training determines the amount of experience purchased from a tome for it. If a companion is only one level below your character level, it may take a good five or six tomes or so to increase it one level, but if the companion is much below your character level, then one tome can increase it a good two to four levels. When you have tons of companions and reach max level, its so much quicker and easier to max out all your companions when you have sat on tomes rather than had you used them when leveling up. The exception to that is when you level everyone up through tasks. If you take little real time to level up your pirate, then the latter is slow and doesn't work so well. Either way, I'd still be inclined to send my companions out for nautical experience, pet quests, and equipment quests to sell such equipment for gold upon obtaining. Granted, if you want to use all your companions during leveling up and have who shows up set upon random, or random with first mate chosen, then keeping your companions leveled up becomes important.

Ensign
Sep 12, 2013
24
I tried buying times from professor Byron however it shows a Cross on it and I can’t buy it even though I have enough gold and have never bought a time from him

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
brian angel grove on Mar 22, 2021 wrote:
I tried buying times from professor Byron however it shows a Cross on it and I can’t buy it even though I have enough gold and have never bought a time from him
How many tomes do you have now? If you have 10 or more tomes, you won't be able to buy more.

Ensign
Sep 12, 2013
24
anecorbie on Mar 22, 2021 wrote:
How many tomes do you have now? If you have 10 or more tomes, you won't be able to buy more.
Oh, thanks for clarifying. I actually misunderstood before.
I currently possess around 50 tomes.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
brian angel grove on Mar 24, 2021 wrote:
Oh, thanks for clarifying. I actually misunderstood before.
I currently possess around 50 tomes.
Your companions must really be suffering for levels/promotions. I suggest using some of those tomes (not all!) but enough to level them to within 2 - 3 levels of your own.
The higher the level of companion & with a promotion, the better they preform!

Ensign
Sep 12, 2013
24
I made all my companions at least level 12 now.

I was actually using a monquistador crossbow man (level 16), ratbeard (level 13) and Milo graytail (level 11).
So I upgraded all my companions and have selected ‘random’ in the combat unit selection.