Hmm, training after an OD is worse than I thought, even after the stat cap.. I'll have to keep that in mind :o

I cringed when I did the zero happy trains, because who in their right mind trains when happy is at or near zero anyway?

Very nice and interesting read

R+

Well this im saving as its useful.....So much wasted time...and such wasted stats.

Great work buddy!

WEE!

Useful information, clearly laid out. I like it.

I do disagree about the "Training with ZERO happy is not worth it at all" thing.

Obviously, it's not ideal. But it's not like you get nothing out of it, either. You still get 80% or 90% of your normal train.

I almost always use 3 xanax a day. And sometimes, I've OD'd on that final xanax, just before bedtime. Since I'm going to bed, I don't have time to rehab right then. When I wake up, I have a full energy bar, very low happy, and need to go to rehab.

Heck yes I'll train. It's going to take me a minimum of 4 hours to go to rehab and back, and if I don't use the energy, then I'm not going to get any more until I get back. I'll train that energy, gaining a lower % than usual, because that's better than just letting it go to waste.

If I OD and don't want to rehab the least I will do (if I remember) is to use 1 edvd then continue training. You are right training at zero happy is not completely useless, but it's about as bad as training in an earlier gym. If the goal is to maximize stats, I would want at least an edvd's worth of happy.

Nice reference r+

Nice guide!

A correction:

You do not get kicked out if you take a xanax in SSL. Only if you exceed 150 total.

*150 total of xanax and ecstasy,

With the gyms that require 1 or 2 stats to be greater than the others, do you have to maintain the imbalance to keep your membership or can you restore balance after joining?

You'll get "locked out" where you can't use it but if you can fix your ratio then you come back in without having to buy it again.

To actually use the gym, you have to maintain it.  If you train your lower stats enough so that those stats which are required to be higher are no longer higher, you won't be able to use the special gym again until you've met the requirements again.

You won't have to pay to open the gym again.  Once you've paid that fee once, you're done, and the gym will always be available as long as your stats meet the requirements.

Using the special gyms is worth it, since you'll gain more overall stats for the same amount of energy used.  But it does mean that you'll never have completely balanced stats.

I don't consider that a problem, because you can still be mostly balanced.  When people say "balanced is better", it doesn't mean that it needs to be exact or close to exact.  It means that you can't focus on one stat and let the other three just stay low, and you can't pick one stat which you ignore and just train the other three.  You need to train all four stats so no stat gives you a huge weak spot.

I use two special gyms.  I train my Strength using Gym 3000, and my speed using Frontline Fitness.  Dex and Defense get trained in Georges.

To do that, my Strength has to be 25% higher than speed, and speed + strength have to be 25% higher than Dex + Defense.  (And if I were doing it again, I'd probably swap them around so that speed was my high stat, using the Total Rebound gym, with my Strength as my second highest stat.)

Using this, my strength ends up as about 31%, speed  24%, and my dex and defense are 22% each.  

Using different gyms, you can do similar with Dex and Defense as your high stats.  All end up with the same "mostly, but not completely balanced" thing, and make up for it by giving you higher overall stats due to better gym gains.

The really tricky balance for 2 opposing special gyms is when you want to for example: Have Frontline Fitness for strength and speed and Elites for dexterity. Something I want to do, but not sure I want to keep 1 stat super low just to achieve that. So in the meantime, I do something like what Baldr mentioned above. :)

Yes, I know some people that use one special gym for 2 stats, 1 for one stat, and Georges for the fourth stat.  I'm not a fan, because to make it work, your low stat has to be very, very low, around 9.7% of your total.  That's too much of a drastic hit for me.

I used to use that ratio and even after catching the stat up I'm complaining so definitely not going back xD

I do think it's good for getting over 1b though but for fighting higher stat ranges it doesn't seem as practical.

I needed this great reference today.

Bumping for awesomeness!