What is BO?

BO, or Breed-Only, is a term that refers to attributes in game obtained only through, or primarily through, breeding. These attributes can usually only be passed from parent to cub, but there are certain BO attributes obtained through combining two attributes to get a new one, you can find more about these attributes here for combo bases and here for combo eyes. There are also random rosettes, which you can read about here, alongside normal rosettes.

In order to be considered a BO attribute, there cannot be an applicator specifically the individual attribute. For example, Dim Saffron is considered BO, despite being able to be obtained through RMAs, because there is no applicator meant specifically for Dim Saffron, nor is it included in any applicators with a set of markings. As such, markings like Ice Crackle aren't considered BO because it's included in an applicator meant specifically for it and its set of markings. It also cannot be included in the Oasis Applicators, meaning that despite Peach eyes not having a unique applicator, they're not considered BO due to the fact they're in the Oasis Eye Changer.

If you want to find studs with BO attributes, check this thread out! It's a masterlist with many studs with different BO bases, markings, eyes, skins, and more. It's a great place to start when it comes to finding the perfect studs for your breed-only girls, or for breeding your own breed-only girls.

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BO Bases + Combo Bases

Arguably one of the most important things in breeding for BO is BO Bases. Having a BO base, depending on the base, can easily put you a step above other studs, or add a lot of extra value to an already valuable lioness. It can also make a not-so-great lion become super valuable.

Bases considered BO are all Rare bases, Raffle Bases, Groupie-Exclusive Bases, July Celestial Lioness and August Maneater Bases, and all Combo Bases. To check if an individual base is BO, check the wiki page for base genetics! Any base with a 'breed only', 'combo', or 'exclusive' tag is BO.

Combo Bases are bases bred from breeding certain combination bases together, called factors. You can also breed Combo Bases to their factors for a chance at the base to pass, for example, breeding a Soul to an Ebony can result in a Soul cub! For a full list of combo bases and their factors, go to the wiki page for Combo Bases! All combos, except for Nadir, Cloudburst, and Smog have the special rarity, meaning they're great for attempting to pass other BO specials in their genetic group! They can't overwrite the other base you're attempting to pass, but they still do up the special pass chance like other special bases.

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BO Markings

The real meat and potatoes to BO breeding is the markings! Having a BO base, mane, eyes, and skin won't get you nearly as far as having a ton of BO markings. So, what exactly are BO markings?

BO Markings are all Raffle Markings, NCL Exclusive Markings, July Celestial Lioness, and August Maneater Markings. Mottled Rosette and Mottled Stripes are also BO, and are the only markings on site that can strictly be obtained through breeding. For markings some users may consider BO that others may not, view the section for Rosettes, RMA Exclusives, and Event NCL Markings. This doesn't mean these markings aren't BO per say, but it does mean they are subjectively counted on an individual basis. Like other BO attributes, these markings are only available through breeding, but can very rarely be obtained through Random Marking Applicators. This is one of the main ways, other than Raffle Lionesses, that new marking slots are obtained. For more information about new or rare markings, view this section of the thread!

If you want to know if a specific marking you have is BO, you can find Event BO here and other BOs here.

An important thing to note is that there are no uniquely BO marking shapes or colors at the moment of writing this guide. In the future, there may be, and the guide will be updated to reflect that!

UPDATE: Bushveld Markings are the only marking color to entirely be BO as of their introduction.

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Rosettes, RMA Exclusives, and Event NCL Markings

The ever elusive semi-BOs. These markings are usually considered to be BO, but many BO breeders don't count them as BO. However, as stated earlier, counting them as BO isn't wrong. It's up to your interpretation on if you consider these individual markings as breed-only. I personally consider rosettes as BO, but not RMA Exclusives or Event NCL Markings.

Rosettes are, well, rosettes! All Tier 4 markings, as well as Mottled Rosette, are considered to be rosettes, including Inverted Rosettes. These markings pass at a reduced rate, estimated to be 1% per parent. They can also occur randomly, and these are known as Random Rosettes. The powers that be have teased us with the fact that there is a pattern to how these occur, but despite countless theories, none of them have been confirmed as correct. If there is a confirmed theory, I'll be sure to update this thread!

RMA Exclusives are markings primarily obtained through RMAs. These are all Tier 6 markings. Once obtained through RMAs, they are usually passed through breeding, which is why many consider these to be BO.

Event NCL Markings are, well, markings found on NCLs during February, April, and September. Many BO breeders don't consider these to be BO because of the fact they're applicable during November, by using piety rewards. All of these are Tier 3 markings. You may hear them referred to as piety markings!

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BO Mane Shapes and Colors

I'm going to be honest, this is one of the more simple parts of the guide. There's a very limited selection of BO Mane options, even once you consider the recent (as of writing this) expansion that gave us around fifteen more BO mane colors.

BO Mane Shapes are Royal, Pariah, Tsavo, and Savage. Of course, if more are added I'll update this guide as necessary. Those four are currently the only BO shapes.

There are more BO Mane Colors, but these are also very limited. BO Mane Colors are almost spread exclusively through Raffle Lionesses. All BO colors are not found in the Oasis Mane Color applicator, nor are they found in unique mane color applicators. Here are all mane colors only obtainable through breeding. There are also 6 mane colors known as Combo Manes, which have a 50% chance to spawn on any cub born with the respective combo base. These are Cairngorm, Citrine, Elysian, Madagascar, Qahir, and Soul. Combo Manes are considered to be BO.

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BO Eyes and Skins

Like Mane Shapes and Color, very few eyes and skins are BO. There's a decent variety of BO eyes, though, however there are currently only four BO skins.

The BO skins are Clouded, Greige, Peach, and Pale. All of these are obtained via NCLs and are NCL Exclusive Traits.

BO Eyes are all NCL Exclusive Eyes, Breed Unique Eyes, Event NCL Eyes, Groupie Exclusive Eyes, and July Celestial Lioness Eyes. They also include Cosmic eyes, which are considered Combo Eyes. Cosmic eyes are obtained through breeding a Galaxy or Jasper lion to a lion with Sunglow, Draconid, Starshine, or Dawn eyes. Another version of combo eyes are the Sectoral eyes, which are obtained through breeding the colors that make them up together, for example, breeding Amber and Ice eyes to get Sectoral Amber and Ice. For a full list of BO eyes, view the wiki page for eyes.

CHANGELOG
07.02.2021 - A new type of BO eyes, called Breed Unique eyes, were added into the game! These eyes can only be obtained through eye fails. These are NOT combo eyes.

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Marking Opacity and Pass Rates

First things first, marking opacity does NOT effect marking pass rate. This has been proven false on multiple occasions, yet it is still spread around. Opacity only refers to the opacity of the marking on the actual lion. When a cub receives a marking from their parent, it is within a certain percentage of the parent's marking.

So, now that we know opacity doesn't affect pass rates, what does? Usually, the other parent's markings. When two lions are bred together, let's say one has Slot 3 White Lace, and the other has Slot 3 Hirola Indri, they have an estimated 25% chance of each marking passing, and a 50% chance of that slot being empty. However, when that same Slot 3 White Lace parent is bred to a lion with an empty Slot 3, the chances of that marking passing goes up, however, it's not confirmed by how much.
If both parents have the same Slot 3 White Lace, then the chance of White Lace to occur on an individual cub is 75%, see proof here.

If two parents have the same marking but on different slots, the marking on the lower slot can block the higher slot from passing. Meaning that if you breed two parents with say, Slot 1 and then Slot 9 Sidereal Shine, if the Slot 1 passes, it makes the Slot 9 impossible to pass since lions can't be bred with more than one marking, without the use of Gnawrocks.

It's also important to note that if you breed to a lion with rosette, it does NOT act as if the slot is empty, as many believe. The rosette still passes like a normal rosette, meaning the other lion still passes its marking at the estimated 25% of the time.

Another thing is that BO markings pass at the same rate as applicator markings. As of right now, there is no evidence that non-rosette markings pass any differently when compared to each other. If evidence does pop up, I will amend this section of the guide.

In the case that you want to guarantee a marking passing, your best shot would be to breed that lion to a lion with an empty marking slot, but you can always throw on a Gnawrock if it's that important!

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Marking Slot Rarities

Arguably one of the most important aspects of BO breeding is rare slots! Rare Slots refer to individual Marking Slots that have under 200 lions with that marking in that slot. They can often be pretty valuable, and are usually released on Raffle Lionesses! Another big source of new or rare marking slots resurfacing are May Groupies, and a slightly less common source is RMAs. Keeping rare slots alive is a challenging task, though, and many slots die either due to shitty RNG or their owners just simply not realizing what they are.

For a complete, compiled list of slot rarities, you can view raffle marking slots here! You can also view the rarities for rosettes, RMA Exclusive, and Event NCL markings here! However, rare slots for those three often aren't as valuable or even wanted, as they can generate pretty randomly.

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Raffle Lionesses and Where to Find Them

So, raffle lionesses (shortened as RLs). What the hell are they? Are they just pretty trophies to keep around, a little incentive to keep players active? Well, yes, but they're also the main vector to spread a lot of BO attributes, especially bases, manes, and markings. RLs are the origin for every single raffle marking in existence. This makes them insanely valuable, because even if they don't have brand new markings, they spread ultra rare or new slots. This makes them, and their cubs, pretty valuable, especially if those cubs inherit the RL's rare slots.

Most RL winners are aware they're pretty valuable, but even if they're not, don't fret! New Markings are always added to the RMA pool after a RL is drawn, so those markings will come around again. Even if an RL lands on a dead account, you can always request the slot to come out again on the raffle lioness attribute request thread!

If you're after an RL or an RL Clone, they're usually bountiful, but if you have a certain RL Clone you're after, those may be harder to find. Many RLs and their clones are private, friends-only, or even just existing on frozen accounts because they're so valuable. Plus, even if you just want a heat, they can usually run you about 70GB, not counting the cost of other items you'd want to use. Even buying clones can cost you around 200gb for a long heritage clone, the shorter the gen the higher the price goes, and the price can also very depending on which RL its a clone of. But, it's important to note that near clones are never even close to the value of RLs or RL clones. Even just missing the base can knock its value down exponentially.

Now, let's say you won an RL and don't know what to do with her. If you breed her, you'll want the best conditions possible for a clone, either for you or to sell. For the best breeding conditions on an RL, you'll need a Crunchy Worm, Buffalo Scrotum, Opal Saltlicks and Rock Salts (if she has BO eyes and skin, or if the stud you chose does), maybe even an Ochre Gnawrock if they have a certain marking you really want. But if you want to sell? You can usually expect to get at least 400gb for her, maybe more, maybe less, but all of that depends on the individual raffle lioness you get. I'm not here to give you a value guide for RLs as a whole, because they're all very different and go for very different values depending on what attributes they have.
Another option you have is to sell heats, which can usually earn you more than outright selling her, but then you lose control over the RL's appearance, which some users may want to keep if they plan on later kinging a clone of their RL.

There's pros and cons to everything you can do with an RL, and I'm not here to tell you which option is objectively better, because truth is, there is no objectively better option. Every option will fit different players in different ways.

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Breeding Projects and Standing Out

Now that you know about BO, you probably want to play around with it, right? You also want to have a unique King, no doubt about that, everyone wants their guy to be extra special. Let's say you have a handful of markings you really want to have on a King, but you can't find them together anywhere.
That's where the magic of breeding projects comes in! Please note that you should be happy with your breeding project. Don't do it for value, or because it'll earn you beetles, because you'll rarely get back what you put in. Make sure your king makes you, and only you, happy.

How do you get started on a breeding project? I'm glad you asked! First things first, save up beetles. If you choose to have BO eyes and skin, you'll want to start out with those and keep them on your steps. Thing is, Opal Saltlicks and Rock Salts add up really fast. You'll want enough beetles to keep a stockpile of these on hand all the time. Depending on what your project entails, you also may end up needing Crunchy Worms, Ochre Saltlicks, Ochre Gnawrocks, and other items. If your breeding project involves a BO base, you should likely started with a naked or low marking lion with that base, after all, Kings get more chances to pass their base compared to lionesses, who only get up to eight (with IBFs), and seven naturally. I'd also recommend not dropping any attributes as you go through your steps, because then you'll be stuck breeding those back on later down the line. In all, you want to start with base, eyes, skin, and mane shape + color all on your original step, if at all possible. If you can't start with all of those, start with as many as you can. I promise it'll make it easier, and cheaper, in the long run.

Now that you have your breeding project in mind, you probably want your king to stand out. The best way to have a stand out king is to use rarer BO attributes, such as uncommon eyes, rare markings, or even unpopular and rarely used mane colors. Unfortunately, keeping a tally of that would take a lot of work and a lot of consistent updating, so I won't be logging that here for you. What I will be logging, though, is at the time of writing, Sectoral and Draconid eyes are the least popular BO eyes, and Prune, Qahir, and Ashen are some of the rarest BO mane colors. If a super big, major shift happens, I'll likely update a little bit, but I highly doubt that major shift will happen.

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Miscellaneous Q&A

Do you still have questions that weren't answered in the thread? Post them on the thread and they'll be answered here!

Q: TEXT HERE
A: TEXT HERE

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