I Need Help Selecting Future Stud! newbie here

I'm stuck between two different stud candidates. I joined 5 days ago and still have no stud, I plan to put one up asap since it's tough to get money. I genuinely can't decide whether I should wait or not, and need some help.

The Silver Saint becomes an adult at the next rollover; I'd be able to stud him out immediately. He has a tier II base (Maltese) but horrible stats, below 300.

Alternatively, The Pink-Pawed also has a tier II base (Arkose) and a much nicer 377 stats. The problem is, he doesnt age up for a whopping 14 rollovers. Another issue is his massive lineage; several of his ancestors have like 1000 pups, and I want to avoid inbreeding.

I dont yet understand the studding system, is it possible to have Saint as a stud until Paw is of age, and later demote Saint without a monetary penalty? If not, does anyone have advice on what to prioritize? There are some other wolves that might make nice studs in my den, i just need help picking ^^ thanks for reading!

I’d say go with the marengo! If you wanna level him up quickly then have him scout or rescout difficult biomes (I did swamp and tundra, but glacier and rainforest are the best) for a couple of days - you’ll probably get him to roughly level 7 or higher in less than a week?

Thank you for the reply! Which wolf were you referring to by Marengo? I'm assuming Saint because you mentioned leveling up but just making sure!

Oh yeah, sorry, I didn’t notice the autocorrect to marengo - my bad!

No worries! Thanks for all your help!

I would have to agree, if you made Saint a scout I'm sure after a while he should have much higher stats. Especially because his current stats are pretty close to 300, I'm not completely sure but I'm sure he might be able to reach 300+ stats at Level 12(honestly I'm not sure how the stats increase in this game so it may be more or less, though I'm sure he'll be a somewhat pass 300 by lvl 12)

I'll be That Guy and caution you that studding may not be the money maker you want it to be, even if you have a handsome wolf with 10 markings and 300+ stats. There's a lot of competition out there, and adding custom markings to your stud gets expensive real quick- unless you have something like a confirmed mutation carrier or a leaderboard wolf with like 900+ stats, you might find business to be slow (which isn't uncommon, and doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your wolf!)

That said... Arkose is a popular base, but the majority of players I see on the forums want to avoid inbreeding, so a stud with a shorter family tree is probably the safer bet. Make Saint a scout and he'll be 400+ stats in no time. Even if you've already discovered all the biomes you can for now, rescouting old areas still gives loads of EXP so don't worry!

Retiring your active breeding male does cost GC and AFAIK there's no way around that, you should consider your stud a more or less permanent role until he reaches the end of his life.

Thank you both for your responses! It's a relief to hear his stats will go up. I've been unsure myself about if they'd change much at all, so to hear people confirm they will is nice :)

At this moment in time, I'm definitely leaning towards Saint! @briar don't worry, you aren't That Guy; i figured studding was going to be rough business based on how quickly i recognized the big stud names LOL I've only been here five days and I can recognize each of the big studs by their emojis alone O.o

I'd have to go against the grain here and say that I think Arkose is a much more desired base and would probably garner more requests than a Maltese would, given it seems to pop up much less? and it's pink, who doesn't love a pink wolf?

The advice you've received here about leveling and such is good advice, though, regardless of which stud you pick! Starting with a higher stat "base" will definitely give you a higher statted stud in the long run and will help others recognize your wolf and want to stud him. Not everyone is a stat breeder though, and not everyone is looking for the highest statted stud to breed with, but if they're not looking for that, then they're looking for a pretty stud with desirable markings.

It all depends on what you're trying to do, what your budget is, and whether you're trying to avoid spending actual money in game.