Mockingjay’s Strategy Series: Favored and Confidants

So yes, this week I thought I’d combine a couple strategy points, since they are more or less related to each other.

Starting with Favored. This title is pretty easy to claim, but requires a lot of patience and hoarding. Basically, all you have to do is keep track of the average intimacy points amassed during the last couple of rounds for Favored and start collecting jades (white, red, and hetian) until that combined total is at that number. Yes, hoarding other items like stamina pills, blessing intimacy gift bags, and daily tokens are a must too. However, since their intimacy value is given at random, they more or less provide an additional buffer to your overall increase. Hence why if you have the patience to hoard a minimum of 150k in jades (value varies by server), your hoard of randomly assigned items could give you a very conservative addition of 25k. This calculator is helpful too!

Or at least that was the case for me the first time I claimed the Favored title. I think it was about this time last year, that I decided to start hoarding again for both Dominant and Favored. My goal for Favored was 200k in jades and at least 222 in blessing intimacy bags. I based these numbers on a 50k buffer for jades over the average points dropped and a bag number a VIP9 was sitting on and accidentally dropped one day. But when I actually went for Favored, I was about two cycles short of my goal. It was just one of those the timing worked out to go for it.

In fact, I didn’t even decide I was going to do it until day three. 😂 Dropped all my stamina pills and bags which put me into the top 5, and then I just waited for the end. Literally. The last ten minutes I just started dumping all my jades on one confidant to finally get another one at level 400. Then I switched to others, giving them the much needed intimacy boosts. And done! Claimed Favored with a pretty substantial lead. 😅 I was more concerned with meeting intimacy level goals instead of only dropping enough to claim the title. 😂

Anyway, moving along to confidants. So favoritism aside, I do believe there is something to be said about prioritizing your confidants based on your favorite partners. (Yes, this is a strategy point I’m only just now trying to rectify after a year and a half of game play. 🙈) Why I say this, is those bond point bonuses begin to add up over time and are based on their bonded partners attribute totals. The higher the partner’s attributes and the larger the power increase given per bond percentage upgrade. So, say you’re favorite confidant is Yin Zhen, like me, but Xue Yuan and Rong Yin are not part of your top set of partners, you will almost in a sense be wasting the percentage upgrade when you activate it. Or at least that’s how I’ve felt with 14th Prince, Qing’er and Ertai. 🤦🏻‍♀️

This concept is actually one of my favorite parts of debating during Cross Server or guild wars. I know from my F2P that most new players, in order to get a ahead in the game fast, tend to prioritize partners with the Authority attribute as the main or secondary specialty. It’s not a bad approach and definitely has its long term benefits. My issue is that it kind of takes the fun out debate ‘cause I sort of always know which partners to avoid right from the start. 😏 That being said, I always get a kick out of losing to Yin Yin or some other “minor” partner. 😂 And when this happens I always wonder if one of their favorite confidants is Zhou Xiaoshi. Or you know maybe they’re just messing with everyone. 🤪

Maybe that confidant bonds concept doesn’t matter to most when choosing a favorite confidant(s), but it’s something I’ve come to consider as I reorganize my partner stack for the umptheenth time. At least more so, than say “fertility” or those confidant/partner combos (ie Lanling). I bring this up, because my main guy, Yin Zhen, rarely gives me children, they never seem to be balanced in attributes (which used to matter to me for my Cabinet Scholar) and doesn’t have the “strongest” partner bonds. And yet I’m still bound and determined to get him to the highest affection level instead of Lanling or (very soon) Shangguan, even if I do get those lovely 5% attribute bonuses for each affection level. 😅 I don’t know. I’m weird like that.

So yes, at the end of the day, your confidant favoritism and how you choose to take advantage of those partner bonds I think is what makes each LOP account very unique to each individual player. And in part why I’m not a huge fan of the whole “sell your account” thing. (Maybe I’ll rant about that in another post. 🤔😂) Personally, I think the reason why I’m so fond of Yin Zhen is because he reminds me a lot of one of my own characters from my fanfic, and I guess who are both very much like my husband. 😆 But I also love 14th Prince’s obsession with food, Murong for being the childhood best friend, and Fu Heng because of Yanxi Palace. 🙈 (Fun fact, I saved up and bought Consort Xian because of both the Yanxi and Ruyi shows. 🤪 Not because of Prince Yi. Nope, not that at all. 😅) Actually, this has really been the main determinant in my favoritism for both confidants and partners. Whichever ever characters I’m digging in palace harem dramas is mostly likely going to be getting love in the next Dom and Favored cycles. 😂

Anyway, in conclusion, you do whatever makes the LOP fun for you and I’m going to keep doing whatever makes it fun for me. Cause for me that seems to change about every week! 😆 As evidenced by the below photo. Have a great week!