Hi, this is my first guide/post on the forums. This is not a full guide and is meant to compliment existing information. I recommend looking at the Mabi wiki, "Giving to your Spirit Weapon," and reading the spirit food guide by Skybon (Can't post link because I'm a nub) first to have some general knowledge about feeding egos.
Before deciding on an ego, please keep in mind that egos will eat your money and flush it down the toilet. I've been spending around 100k+ every day on ego food/ preparing for ego food. Egos are generally outclassed by specially upgraded weapons and other strong weapons, and cost many times more to even be on par with them. But you know what? My Little Sword Spirit Can't Be This Cute
Anyways, I've been feeding my female sword ego for a while (all stats level 18, still new but yea) and thought I would talk about some misconceptions about feeding at lower levels. Because female sword spirits aren't able to reach all 50 without capping social first (insert link here :/), most of the content will revolve around giving your spirit weapon as much exp without boosting its social too high.
I'll seperate this guide into three sections: general tips, ego food tips, and feeding methods.
[SIZE="4"]1. General Tips[/SIZE]
Feeding: When feeding your ego, I recommend to level all your stats evenly if possible. Especially for female sword spirits as there's a way to get over a 5 stat exp to 1 social exp ratio (5:1) with diamonds.
The reason you should level it evenly is that when your social is higher than your stat exp, you'll get less stat exp and vice versa. You'll be able to see this when feeding your ego, and you'll be missing out on around 2-5 exp iirc from not having a stat and social at the same level. Example: 128:26 experience (4.9:1 ratio) at one level lower compared to 130:26 when both social and the stat are the same level (5:1 ratio). Try not to feed your ego something that's less than a 4:1 ratio (ex. 25 exp to Str, and 25 exp to social). Keep in mind that the higher the level for the stat, the more exp you'll get from an item than if you fed it the same item a few levels lower.
[SIZE="2"]Exp Caps at low levels:[/SIZE] (Apparently, I can't put this link either because I'm a nub qq. Search Spirit Weapon Item List on the wiki)
This list is your friend. If you scroll down to the bottom, you can see the experience cap for each level and the cost for an item to reach that cap. As you can see, it only takes less than 115 gold to get capped exp per feed at level 1. For these low cap levels, I recommend the gift items that you buy from npcs such as socks, bouquets, candlesticks, and etc. These can be bought from Nora at Tir Chonail's inn, and Walter and Kristell in Dunby. You generally don't want to feed it an item that's worth more than 500 gold until level 8 unless your ego is mad/fine and has lower growth rates. During those stages, you can feed it a little more expensive items so you can still get capped exp. Use the chart to see which item is best for a particular stat. Much cheaper than feeding it 800-900 gold items from the start, right?
Price efficiency: If you can get an expensive item for a low price, but it would give less exp per mood stage, just go for it. The best example would be free totems from doki doki island darts. Point is, 120 exp costs a little less than 1k gold. So 600 exp for 4-5k gold compared to doki doki totems 500 exp for 0 gold through one mood stage feed; time to feed your ego crap totems.
Gems: The gem calculator on the wiki is wrong. You actually get more exp than what's calculated. For example, feeding 5cm jaspers to my female sword ego gives it 1062 exp instead of the calculated 883 exp. You'll want to save the gem until you're one level above the recommended level.
(I guess I can't put even one link. search mabinogi gem calculator)
Mad egosWhen at the lowest mood stage, feeding your ego 11 socks from Walter in Dunby or one sock and two traveler suits is the cheapest/fastest way to get it out of 0% exp gain.
[SIZE="4"]2. Ego Food Tips[/SIZE]
1. Traveler Suits M and F from the ducat shop cost only 2500 ducats but feed for an 18500 gold value. You can replace your normal feeds for a stat with this. Recommended level 15+ for B growth rate.
2. Doki Doki Totems such as sweetheart notes and etc. are worth 10k (?) to the spirit weapon and give around 500 exp. Best part is that they're free when you do darts. Recommended level 14+ for B growth rate.
3. Teeth-patterned Ankle Boots from rafting have a 40k value. If you happen to raft for exploration exp, this is probably good free food, though I haven't tried it yet. Recommended level 16?+ for B growth rate.
4. Drops from the Fishing boat in Iria have equips with high value. [S]I don't recommend it since you can't fish with your ego out.[/S] You can fish with your ego out if you use a fishing chair. If you want to rank up fishing, this is a great way for food.
5. Signs from Price are great food when your on the go. I can usually carry around 30 signs and just feed my ego when she gets hungry. Recommended for whatever level you can effectively feed close to 1k items. So around level 9+ depending on your growth rate
6. When in doubt just stick to less than 1k items. Feed items less than 500 gold if your ego is less than level 9.
[SIZE="4"]3. Feeding methods[/SIZE]
4/1/1 This method uses unhappy stage 1 to get the most growth from gems. What I do is feed four items under 1k and one gem; then, I feed it one more item under 1k for 80% to fix the mood stages. The reason I do this is because gems satisfy one mood stage, meaning that's five feeds from <1k items lost. So this method allows you to fit as many feeds as you can. You'll have to leave the ego out, to go down two mood stages, a while longer though. This is mainly for a quick boost in exp.
Commercing with your ego out Pretty self explanatory, just go commercing with your ego out. If you can make more than 10-15k per trip, you can usually cover all ego your ego food costs with the gold and ducats made. This is the money making alternative to afking with your ego out but requires mid-high level commerce to be effective.
Doki Doki DartsThis is the best way to feed your ego as of now imo. You get gems, materials to trade to your friends for gems, and totems which you can sell for money/ feed to your ego if they're crap. Best part? Costs 0 gold. 5cm gems everywhere; even 5cm diamonds. You can do this with your ego out and get plenty of food while it goes down mood stages
Female Sword Ego Diamond Feeding Now with those 5cm diamonds, it's time to feed them to your low level ego (like around 17+). Waste of exp? Not when this ego has the lowest growth rates and other sized diamonds are rarer. To get more than a 5:1 ratio, you want to have all of your stats at the same level except one or two. For example 18/17/17/17/17 and 17 social. The point is to get capped exp for every stat. Having a few more stats a level above social will yield an even better ratio. Now let's see; you'll get 1379 Str/ 1130 Int/ 1130 Dex/ 1130 Will/ 1130 Luck/ and 1130 Social. That's a 5.22:1 ratio despite the low growth rates. Unfortunately, this method is expensive; but since your using the diamonds you get from darts for free, why not? This is for if you care about getting all 50 on your female sword. Otherwise, stick to normal feeding because this is probably a waste of money.
Anyways, that's it for this guide. Feel free to give me some feedback; be nice to me D:. I might also do a guide on windmill for beginners less than 300 to get r1 in less than a day (took me a maybe 6 hours total doing it without 2x, but I used a couple training seals) .