I don't think it makes any difference whether the other parent is special or rare, if you disregard the 50/50 of *which* special you would get. My understanding is that with the original system (before 'rare' and 'uncommon' were a thing), it made no difference to the number of special cubs whether you bred a special x special or a special x rare, or even special x uncommon. Back then they were all called specials, and it didn't make a difference.

Staff weren't totally transparent about it when the system was changed, so I'm not 100% sure if that is still the case, or whether numbers were tweaked. But the implication at the time was that the new categories were to help people understand how to get each base type, rather than affecting the actual mechanics. They certainly never announced or made public any change, and my hunch is that it's still the same but with the names changed. The wiki chart certainly still lists them identically in terms of 'very low' chance of passing specials.

For my own breeding I still treat all bases now called uncommon/rare/special as the same, and my experience is that their success for producing specials (bred from 1 special parent to another parent of any of those 3 rarities) is very comparable.

If you're trying to breed Orchid specifically I would personally avoid Ardor if it's easy to do so, because otherwise you're going to have a 50/50 shot of Ardor instead of Orchid each time screwing up your odds, which is just annoying!

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It's possible there are common misconceptions about this because the naming system does make it sound like special would be superior, even though it's just the name. I know a lot of people get confused about rare and uncommon for that reason, even though they're the same breeding-wise.

You might get a definitive answer from staff, if you asked directly? I think I tried that at the time the new system was introduced and they were noncommittal, but you might have more luck now, though you'd need to get admin confirmation how it is actually set up in the background, to be 100%...

But for what it's worth this link is the original news post from back then, which along with the wiki I think supports what I said. That's why I personally don't differentiate much between uncommon/rare/special for my projects and never have done (as long as 1 parent is special, ofc!)

The most relevant section is this imo:

"We want to make it clear that it is still essentially broken down to "Common" and "Special". This tweak only separates the different categories of "Specials" into more clarified sections, which should be easier for users to understand.

Below, we have included a rough estimate of the adjusted breeding passage rates.

Common x Common = Guaranteed common

Common x Uncommon/Rare/Special = Very high chance for Common, very small chance for Uncommon/Rare/Special

Uncommon/Rare/Special x Uncommon/Rare/Special = Good chance for Common, decent chance for Uncommon/Rare/Special"

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The problem with special x special that they might be referring to is that it gives the highest chance for a special base, but it's 50/50 as to which special base passes. So you'd have equal chance of it passing to orchid or ardor.

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Ok so now I'm super confused because there's different opinions here...

Mad hyena says that special x special has a better chance than rare x special

but Myriad and Terrinthia I guess say they have the same chance

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Thank you so much!! I also message Katze asking

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@ Myriad

That's actually huge if true. I feel like I didn't even pick up on this myself in my entire time playing this game after the revamp. I wish this was more widespread because I feel as though this makes Uncommon/Rare bases much more appealing, especially when you factor in Combo bases. I think a lot of people including myself just think "oh, well making my king Special is always superior" but if that's not actually true as long as the other parent is Special, that's really nice to know.

EDIT: Actually, looking over the wiki, it says this:

"Special bases will never pass unless one of the parents is that specific Special base. Your highest odds of producing a Special base would be to breed together two Special rarity lions."

but I think this may be a case of very confusing wording. This implies that you would have the highest chance of getting any Special base. In their example, they use Celestial and Divine, which would have a chance of giving either Celestial OR Divine, as opposed to using one or the other, which would only yield 1 possible Special base.

So again using that example, if you specifically wanted Celestial, it would probably be better to breed Celestial to itself, or Celestial x Slate, etc. for the highest chance of Celestials. Breeding Celestial to Divine or another Special (such as Ice) means you will have another Special base that can roll over Celestial.

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@Thalath - yeah, I'm surprised how disregarded a lot of uncommons/rares are these days tbh. With a few exceptions like Ebony, largely down to combo potential like you said. They're so much cheaper and easier for bulk projects than most specials (plus avoiding the 'wrong' special 50% of the time), but maybe people don't always realise their usefulness.

But hey, it's always possible I've completely misunderstood the specials system haha - knowledge is power so I'm very happy to be corrected if so! That's just how I was always told/taught it since before and after the genetics overhaul, and I can only assume that's why so many other players also often advise breeding special x rare or special x uncommon instead.

Edit to add: I agree, I think there's a few instances like that which muddle the issue and cause even more confusion. It's actually really tricky even to try to explain without any ambiguities, so I can see why! Special x Special certainly is going to give you a higher chance than Special x Rare of producing ANY Special, because you've effectively doubled the (tiny) opportunity for a parent passing it down. But like you said, that only helps you if they're both the SAME special like your Celestial example, or if you don't mind at all which of the 2 you get...

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Special bases have a little more chance to pass when bred Special x Special than Special x Rare. I dont know why people would say Rare is better, it is a common knowledge the highest odds to get a Special based cub is two Special based parents.

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Possibly, but I believe the odds are still higher to get a specific Special cub, over breeding Special x Rare which has overall less chance to give a Special overall. It may be 50/50 which special cub it would be, BUT Special x Rare has less chance it will be a Special, at all, and more chance it will end up Rare.

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