darkSpyro

I love this game and I have always been trying to best utilize each character and use them to their corresponding houses. Here is a little guide from me to help you out, or help you think about, on what I feel is a good strategy to use. I have yet to finish it, I still have yet to buy any Dark Houses or Dragon Lairs, but I am thinking ahead as to how many of each to buy.

Giant Houses/Alter Ego Houses/Sidekicks... 19 so far:
1. Ninjini
2. Swarm
3. Crusher
4. Bouncer
5. Hot Head
6. Eye-Brawl
7. Tree Rex
8. Thumpback
9. Buddy Wrecking Ball
10. Birthday Bash
11. Grill Master Chop Chop
12. Snowler Brawl
13. Cupid Flameslinger
14. Autumn Stump Smash
15. Fireworks Zook
16. Surfer Slam Bam
17. Skeletal Cynder
18. Trigger Snappy
19. Whisper Elf

Hall of Legends... 14 so far:
1. L. Trigger Happy
2. L. Bouncer
3. L. Spyro
4. L. Slam Bam
5. L. Chill
6. L. Ignitor
7. L. Bash
8. L. Grim Creeper
9. L. Night Shift
10. L. Chop Chop
11. L. Stealth Elf
12. L. Zoo Lou
13. L. Free Ranger
14. L. Jet-Vac
Some of these could be used with other Houses, but keep in mind, you only have to spend Wish Stones and not Gems on these.

SWAP Force Houses (always leave one of each element available for sugar bats)... 13 so far:
1 and 2: Tech - Nitro Magna Charge, Spy Rise, Magna Charge (only use 2)
3 and 4: Magic - Trap Shadow, Hoot Loop, Enchanted Hoot Loop (only use 2)
5 and 6: Water - Dark Wash Buckler, Freeze Blade, Wash Buckler (only use 2)
7, 8, and 9: Fire - Jade Fire Kraken, Dark Blast Zone, Blast Zone, Fire Kraken (only use 3)
10 and 11: Undead - Quickdraw Rattle Shake, Night Shift, Rattle Shake (only use 2)
12: Life - Stink Bomb, Grilla Drilla (only use 1) you could prob buy one for Builda Grilla Drilla, but I'm still hoping they get his specific Alter Ego House, along with one or two others they haven't done.
13: Air - Boom Jet, Free Ranger (only use 1)

Bird Houses... 8 so far:
1. Sonic Boom
2. Polar Whirlwind
3. Whirlwind
4. Jet-Vac
5. Fright Rider
6. Jade Flashwing
7. Flashwing
8. Sunburn
You can use Flashwing and Jade Flashwing in the Dragon Lairs if you want, but the Bird Houses were cheaper, which I prefer. But you gotta get the Bird Houses while they are still available!

Dragon Lair... 6 so far: I'm not 100% on all of these because I have not bought any yet
1. Camo - this should work, it says he is half dragon
2. Cynder
3. Bash
4. Zap
5. Spyro
6. Drobot

Dark Houses... 3 so far:
1. Dark Spyro
2. Dark Slobber Tooth
3. Dark Stealth Elf
You can also use Dark Blast Zone and Dark Wash Buckler, but I am already using or saving them for the SWAP Force Houses

The only thing left is the Cadettes HQ and Scouts HQ, which I only got one of each just to finish the quests. You can finish off the rest of your characters by getting a bunch of these if you wish, but personally, I don't care. If i don't have anything else to spend Gems on, I may do this. Just remember to keep 3 of each element for your daily Sanctum/Sanctuary. Also, keep 1 of each element for the totems, at least 1 sidekick for the chompy pods, and as I said before 1 of each SWAP force element for the sugar bats.

Naturally, you do not have to follow this, but this is the way I am doing it. If I am mistaken or forgot anything, please feel free to respond.

Thank you

Good list. There's also Holiday Wash Buckler. And keeping 1 swap force per element for bats also takes care of totems. Sunburn and whirlwind/polar whirlwind can also do dragon lairs.

Wow . It sounds like you dont have much space left .

I have 24 so far if you include diggs. I definitely agree on using the dark swappers in the swap house vs dark house. Generally the individual payout is lower in the dark house which can be okay if you are on top of your houses, but for me, the swap house a better deal because I am not one to check in all the time to the game which means I can't get the maximum payout and benefit of that purchase.

I am also assuming you deem these worthwhile at the sale price for all of the premium houses, not the full price price. I have only one dragons lair (just to have it) and there is no way it's worth 1200 gems. I don't think it was even worth it at half price. I can only see buying more than 1 if you are running out of things to spend gems on.

I will probably get more swap houses the next sale that rolls around and definitely a few more bird houses now that I've seen this list. This was useful thanks because I didn't realize a few of those characters could go into the birdhouse which gives me something to do with them now.

For some reason I always hate using the scout houses and am not going to get any more. I seem to often confuse who the boy vs girl characters are and usually the game defaults to trying to get me to put ninjini in instead of one of my regular non-special girls. Just that little bit of extra effort is tedious when you have over 20 houses to fill. Plus the payouts aren't great. I do like the bird houses Better but the game also often tries to get me to put hoot loop in instead of the standard birds.

So....question to the readers...I am only missing alt houses at this point. I have all but 3 of the alts already. Would you buy the houses ahead of time when they come available, with the optimistic hope that you will get a shot at the alt someday? So far, I havent, but I am wondering where others are parked on this.

Very nice list! I went with 5 dark houses for a few reasons. 1. I like the way they look! 2. They were on sale for 66% off and 3. I am able to check mine every 2 hours, no problem, so they pay out quite nicely. 4. From what I heard, they had never been on sale for that much off. I totally agree, at full price they would not be worth it.

Quote: P024008

For some reason I always hate using the scout houses and am not going to get any more. I seem to often confuse who the boy vs girl characters are and usually the game defaults to trying to get me to put ninjini in instead of one of my regular non-special girls. Just that little bit of extra effort is tedious when you have over 20 houses to fill. Plus the payouts aren't great. I do like the bird houses Better but the game also often tries to get me to put hoot loop in instead of the standard birds.

So....question to the readers...I am only missing alt houses at this point. I have all but 3 of the alts already. Would you buy the houses ahead of time when they come available, with the optimistic hope that you will get a shot at the alt someday? So far, I havent, but I am wondering where others are parked on this.

The question first - since it's relatively safe to assume you're goal is to get them all and you're somewhat limited as to what to spend gems on - yes, buy the alt houses whenever they're available. I think someone else stated they've never seen an alt house in the well (only giant houses).

Regarding the loading, on my islands I've set up the houses to faciliate the load order to be quick (probably some room for improvement, but it's fairly efficient). For example, I put all my HOLs together and load all legendaries first, then I move over to Giant/Sidekick/Alt/Dark/Swap/Dragon arranged by element in that order. Following this, I just have to do some minor distinction, like loading eyesmall, minijini, thumpling, and barkley into the giant houses instead of the giant. In my case, I put my dark swappers in dark houses, so I load them before swap houses, but I load my swappers before dragons since you can only have 8 dragon lairs and there are plenty of other dragons to choose from without the swappers. After those, I load my sanctuaries/sanctum, usually loading with all the remaining bonused skylanders. Then I load the HQs picking from what's left. Lastly I load airships whenever I run them. The only skylanders I always keep available are: 1 swapper of each element and gill runt.

This helps to maximize my gem income while still providing a decent gold/energy output while removing some of the tediousness of having to figure out which skylander to select for a house/airship. Usually, when I check in, I kick off Quigley first, Beatrees second, then start collecting houses/sanctuaries/airships/shrines, and finally reload the houses/sanctuaries/airships/crops. I'm generally done reloading before Quigley finishes.

Quote: Kalamath

Very nice list! I went with 5 dark houses for a few reasons. 1. I like the way they look! 2. They were on sale for 66% off and 3. I am able to check mine every 2 hours, no problem, so they pay out quite nicely. 4. From what I heard, they had never been on sale for that much off. I totally agree, at full price they would not be worth it.

I agree, I went with 5 dark houses also, as well as 8 dragon lairs, all purchased on sale (because they are not worth 1200 gems). I believe this was the first time dark houses had been on sale. I had previously gotten a dark house from the well during the problematic updates last fall.

I have two alt houses in my well as we speak. Buddy wrecking ball and birthday bash' shut. Coincidentally when I won skeletal cinder during the alt weekend, the hut was in the well als, but now it's gone. Perhaps you can only win alt houses of the characters you don't have yet..as a way to fork over the 1500 gems when the alts come back temporarily later in the game.

Yea I wish I had Holiday Wash Buckler. I have certainly gone the most economic route, only buying certain things when they are on sale. I have yet to buy any of the Dark Houses and Dragon Lairs because yea... I do not think they are worth 1200, hardly even 600, but if i have the gems to spend when they cost 600... I will consider it. As of right now, I am content on where I am in the game. They FINALLY have started updating more and making the game more enjoyable. We have until the end of this year at least (once a month) to get the new Sanctums, so with that in mind, I have the rest of the year to save up gems I earn from the houses and buy them when I feel most convenient...Hopefully at a really crazy deal (4th of July perhaps?). Anyway... yea i made this list just to help some people out so they don't buy too many and end up wasting gems.