When do you breed YOUR holiday event dragons?

[Twimm]

Just curious on how other people strategize during the events! 

 

I'm always in a tizzy deciding how to balance breeding holiday lineages vs. catching eggs from the AP vs. catching new CB holiday eggs! Do you guys massbreed your holiday dragons at the beginning or the end of the event?

 

What do YOU do during the holiday events? =D

[Fuzzbucket]

Beginning. So that I have plenty pf space for new stuff and for the FAB stuff in the AP for the week or so afterwards.

[Sazandora]

I breed a good chunk of them at the start of the event, at least the CB ones. The rest... if I happen to remember to breed them. I'm kind of forgetful and haven't really made any holiday breeding plans in the past, but that might change soon.

[Jazeki]

I do my best to do all breeding at the beginning, but I have so many dragons now that I have to space it out through the week.

[littleangelamy22]

I breed the ones I want for me at the beginning, as well as ones I need for trading. Others will be later, so I've got room/time to get extra CBs and raid the abandoned page!

[osean]

I breed all the requests and things I want first, then whatever is left over gets bred the day of the holiday directly to ap

[HeatherMarie]

I don't keep any of my bred eggs, but I breed any requests the first day. I used to try to breed the rest at the very last minute, I like the idea of my eggs being among the last in the AP, but two holidays of forgetting and scrambling means I now do it earlier, though still on the last day.

[Draco Knight]

I have a small handful of dergs I actually breed, and I tend to do those right at the beginning.

 

I don't breed most of my CBs unless by special request, except I do breed a few at the last possible second so I can keep track of the end of the Wall.

[Shadowdrake]

I hang onto most of mine in case of requests and breed whatever's left on the last few days. The messier ones can get bred immediately and contribute to the lowering time instead xP

[Ruby Eyes]

Breeding and trading for lineages on days 1, 3, and 5. Catching CBs on day 7 if Halloween (only 1 day of new CBs), otherwise breeding on day 7 and catching on day 9 (because of 3-day drops for Valentine and Holiday).

I don't really have a lot of totally undesirable lineages, so I keep most of mine available for trades or gifts until almost the end, then I breed the leftovers to the AP throughout day 7 (with the risk of some of them misgendering because of low-time un-influencability near the end of the holiday wall).

Since I have all CBs of Valentine and Holiday, it's only old Halloween CBs I might be looking for, which I try if I happen to have eggspace left in my plans.

[Justie]

I usually breed day 1 and every day afterward as each egg slot comes free. And breed another when I can, till I have to stop to pick up 2019 breed. Then I try to grab/trade for any interesting lineages or nice AP stuff and hopefully have enough space to catch 1 or 2 of the wall, getting to use my Aeons. 🎃

 

This year is a bit different. I am in desperate need of CB Arcana Females, so I will be spending a lot of time in the Halloween biome trying to catch them, or trade for them, and I will breed mostly Arcana 2-gen.

[Lyncerta]

I breed all of my paired event dragons and it is usually at the very end. I'm not strictly organised on holiday events (more like not organised at all ), so I'm never sure which dragons' offspring I will need at the end. But in case of ones that I'm certain about, I try to breed them at the very beginning

 

Also, I'm going to catch some CBs of older Halloween dragons at the beginning of event unless everyone else have the same idea

[The Dragoness]

I breed mine at the very beginning of the event so that I can focus on grabbing more CBs and 2Gs. When I remember, I send a bunch of checkers to the AP on the last day of the event.

[Seriva Senkalora]

I breed what I want to keep or is reserved for trades preferably in the beginning of the breeding period (for trades it depends on the other person).

 

Everything else will be bred on the last day and dumped into the AP, so others can enjoy them during the holiday wall afterwards.

[olympe]

Well, this is a tricky question because I have a whole lot of dragons to breed. Sooo...

I start breeding my first batch (that I'm going to keep) on day 1. Incubate and Hatch. AP eggs at that time are at 7 days (minus a few hours, if you're lucky) just like bred eggs, so you don't lose any time by breeding for yourself at that point in time. There's also the added bonus that this prevents me from doing stupid things like breeding stuff for the AP that I want to keep.

I'll breed the 2nd batch (that I'm trying to keep) on day 3, as soon as my first batch grew up hatch. Incubate and Hatch...

On day 5, we'll have  the AP at about incu-hatchable stage, so I tend to grab a batch of eggs from there until I'm totally locked with 24/24 growing things.

On day 6, my first batch of eggs should have grown up. So, I'm at 0 eggs and 16/24 growing things - meaning I can either breed or catch another batch of eggs. Depends on what I need.

I'll usually breed everything else on day 7 to spread the joy, although I tend to breed a couple of dragons whose offspring I don't need for myself in between. (Remember, lots of holiday dragons, lots of lineage projects so lots of things to work through...) Truth to be told, though, I'm known to get fed up with the whole wall-breeding shenanigans sooner rather than later, so I don't usually breed all of my lineaged holiday dragons that actually have a fitting mate.

Normally, I grab my *new* holiday eggs on the last possible day to make the best use of the AP wall (which should be insta-hatchable).

Edited October 19 by olympe

[Kelkelen]

22 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

I don't keep any of my bred eggs, but I breed any requests the first day. I used to try to breed the rest at the very last minute, I like the idea of my eggs being among the last in the AP, but two holidays of forgetting and scrambling means I now do it earlier, though still on the last day.

This!  Pretty much exactly this, except that sometimes I breed 1 or 2 of my own eggs to keep -- also right away, on the first day.  I've had that last-minute scramble several times, too!  Trying to breed them while falling asleep at the keyboard, in the final 20 minutes...there's nothing else quite like it.  Hehe!

I always tell myself I'll wait and grab my holiday eggs on the last day, that I'll pick some up regularly, drop/gift them, and re-catch in the final hours... buuut then I always end up getting attached to my codes, or to the idea of having a dragon whose egg dropped on the holiday, and so my beautiful plans of generosity inevitably fall through. 

[Aqub]

I always massbreed everything on the last day, so they'll be in the AP for people to pick up even after the event has ended.

[miaou]

On 10/10/2019 at 10:33 AM, olympe said:

Well, this is a tricky question because I have a whole lot of dragons to breed. Sooo...

I start breeding my first batch (that I'm going to keep) on day 1.

 

snipped to save space -- but i just want to say a hearty thank you for this! almost 10 years on dc and this is the first holiday i'm going to have incubates. i was trying to do the math on it, but this beautiful post saves me all the work. i hope you don't mind, but i'm going to use this as a roadmap for this year! 

[tjekan]

The problem with Halloween as opposed to the other two holidays is that if you wait till the 31st to breed anything, the eggs will get stuck behind the wall till they're too low time to influence, which defeats some of the purpose of breeding nice 2nd-gens and checkers. For PB's, it doesn't matter. 🙂

[Ytak]

My personal breedings have gotten so big, I've taken to writing out lists and I breed the first batch on the first day possible and then the second batch as soon as those have hatched.  If anyone needs anything, I'll breed them before my second batch and send the teleport links out.  I spend Halloween catching all my CBs.  After they hatch, I troll the AP for bred Halloweens. 

[celis]

Mine varies.  I've a lot of holiday dragons and a lot of my lineages are one holiday vrs another holiday, so I try to breed a few ones the first day for trading fodder that are higher gens.  Then I breed some 2nd gens for trading that I know I can hatch just before the holiday comes around.  Then I snag at least 6 of the new eggs leaving two spots open for the last of my breeding on Halloween.  The rest of the time I spend trolling the AP for cool pairings that I can hatch and continue on.

Edited October 19 by celis

[olympe]

12 hours ago, miaou said:

 

snipped to save space -- but i just want to say a hearty thank you for this! almost 10 years on dc and this is the first holiday i'm going to have incubates. i was trying to do the math on it, but this beautiful post saves me all the work. i hope you don't mind, but i'm going to use this as a roadmap for this year! 

Glad it was useful to someone. I've been doing things like this for a while, although some things always get in the way - trades/gifts that don't get picked up in a timely fashion, eggs being stubborn and refusing to hatch in time... you get the idea.

 

12 hours ago, tjekan said:

The problem with Halloween as opposed to the other two holidays is that if you wait till the 31st to breed anything, the eggs will get stuck behind the wall till they're too low time to influence, which defeats some of the purpose of breeding nice 2nd-gens and checkers. For PB's, it doesn't matter.

Very true, but breeding way early doesn't really help much, either. It'll just shift my eggs a little bit forward. Which means that it will be other eggs that get shifted to the end of the wall.

[tjekan]

Yeah, but most people hope for their OWN eggs to be picked up and valued, not used for freezing when it invariably misgenders. 😉 There's a better chance of that if you breed before Halloween, that's all. But I picked some lucky low time eggs off the AP that gendered right last year, so it's certainly not a lost cause... I bred more aeons this year to give myself a better chance. 😄

 

At Christmas, I would definitely recommend breeding CB hollies early in the event. People want 2nd gen hollies so much and they have to be influenced, so it would be too bad for half of them to be wrecked by misgenders...

Edited October 19 by tjekan

[olympe]

2 hours ago, tjekan said:

At Christmas, I would definitely recommend breeding CB hollies early in the event. People want 2nd gen hollies so much and they have to be influenced, so it would be too bad for half of them to be wrecked by misgenders...

Hollies and Mistletoes both - even though there's probably way less demand for Mistletoes. Even though hollies are really easy to come by by now.

[tjekan]

I feel like hollies are still going to be a big deal this year because there was such a bottleneck for so long. Each of us can only have two CBs, and most of us didn't have any we could breed till last year, so the number of 2nd-gens collectors have right now is far less than mistletoes or other breeds. I know there are a lot of holly 2g's I still want, and I don't have any checkers yet. It could just be me though. 😄