That's not really true. I beat all but the last two Defenders of Neopia enemies with good weapons and the 200 strength boost (and the last two with the 250 boost) -- I didn't train my defence up until after beating DoN. That means I beat enemies with 400-550 strength (and this was back when they could use their one-use weapons over and over, too). That said, defence will certainly help you beat enemies around your own boost more easily and cheaply, and if you ever want to play 2-player (which you might, in the future), you'll pretty much need it.
I always recommend people train defence, because if you don't and you decide you want it later, it's going to cost a lot of NP and take a lot of time to balance your pet (trust me, I went through that). Do it now while it's fast and cheap.
And basically, the best way to train is to take advantage of the Mystery Island school's HP rule -- your HP can be up to 3x your level (although you must bring your level back up to half your HP to train anything else). This is the cheapest way to codestone train:
Level to 20 (one codestone)
Strength and Defence to 40
Hit Points to 60
Level to 40 (two codestones)
Str and Def to 80
HP to 120
Level to 80 (three codestones)
Str and Def to 160
HP to 200 (be careful here -- note that the next pay level starts 20 levels later, not 40 like before, so you can't train the max 3x)
Level to 100 (four codestones)
Str and Def to 200
HP to 240
Level to 120 (five codestones)
Str and Def to 240
HP to 300
Level to 150 (six codestones)
etc. I'm sure you can figure it out from here.
See, that way you are getting more hit points while still paying the lower codestone price. If you simply train hit points to 2x your level like everything else, you're going to end up paying more than you need to.
NOTE: You may not want to go exactly to level 20, str/def 40, etc., because you want to be wary of super bonuses. If you're training that last hit point and a super bonus gives you 121 instead of 120, it throws everything off. So perhaps leave one or two stats untrained (go to level 19, str/def 38, HP 57) in case of a bonus, or a faerie quest or a kitchen quest or random event.
That said, the cheapest way to train is to lab while you train (and also do kitchen quests and scratch terror trove scratchcards). Let the lab raise strength and hit points, and pay to train level and defence. Yes, sometimes the lab will take away levels and defence points and you'll have to retrain them, which is annoying, but you will be saving SO MUCH NP by not having to pay for strength points or HP that you're still coming out ahead. Just stop labbing for a while if your pet starts to get unbalanced -- don't let the lab shove you into a new codestone range before you're ready.
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