Dave’s stats can be confusing because the best setup changes depending on whether you’re leveling Dave, farming GP passively, or actively farming GP in Birb.
There isn’t one setup that is perfect for everything. I recommend changing your Dave stat distribution based on what you’re currently trying to accomplish.
Leveling Dave
Before unlocking Dave Babies, a good stat distribution is:
98 : 2 : 0
This heavily focuses on the first stat while putting a small amount into the second.
Once you unlock Dave Babies at 100 Rebirbs, switch to approximately:
90% : 10% : 0%
You can also use around 50 Seed Snacks during this progression.
I wouldn’t go too far beyond that without checking your reserves first. The 51st Seed Snack costs 1 Qa, and the price continues doubling after that. For most players, this can quickly become a very significant amount of their saved resources.
Passive Dave GP Farming
If you’re using Dave mainly for passive GP generation, the recommended distribution is:
450 : 30 : 520
You should increase your Seed Boost whenever you can reasonably afford it.
This setup has been tested by players including Yukon and others and is designed around getting strong passive GP generation from Dave.
Active Birb GP Farming
For active GP farming, the recommended setup is:
0 : 0 : 1000
You can experiment with putting a small number of points into Travel and Forage, and they may technically provide a tiny improvement in some situations.
However, once Dave reaches this level of investment, his GP generation should already be far ahead of what those small adjustments can meaningfully improve.
How to Spend SP in Birb?
There isn’t a single SP build that will always be the best in Birb.
Your ideal Parrot setup changes as you progress through the Expedition, unlock new upgrades, and start fighting stronger enemies.
The main idea is simple: survive comfortably, then put as much SP as possible into damage.
Early Expedition SP Build
When you first enter the Expedition, don’t immediately put every point into Strength.
Instead, get enough Vitality and Recovery to survive while killing enemies comfortably.
Once you have enough survivability, start investing heavily into Strength.
This gives you a much better balance between staying alive and killing enemies quickly.
You don’t want to spend most of your SP on HP and Recovery if you can already survive the enemies you’re fighting.
After Defeating the Floor 2 Boss
After defeating the Floor 2 Boss for the first time, you unlock a new progression area: the Desert.
At this point, I recommend spending some time progressing through the Desert before immediately returning to the Expedition.
There are two particularly important upgrades you want to reach:
- Emergency Flask
- Maub’birb
These upgrades can significantly change how you build your Parrot.
Rebirb 1+ SP Build
Once you unlock Emergency Flask, it becomes your main source of healing.
This means you no longer need to dedicate as many SP points to Recovery.
Instead, you can focus much more heavily on Strength and push through the Expedition more aggressively.
At this stage, players commonly end up with ratios such as:
1 : 0 : 4
or even:
1 : 0 : 10
The exact ratio isn’t fixed. You should adjust it based on the enemies you’re currently fighting and whether your damage is actually helping you reach the next one-shot breakpoint.
Floor 7 and Floor 9
There are a couple of floors where you may need to change your usual Strength-heavy build.
Floor 7 and Floor 9 can be particularly dangerous because of enemies such as flies and fireballs.
These enemies can require significantly more HP than normal enemies.
Instead of something like 1:0:10, you may want to use a more defensive setup such as:
1 : 0 : 2
or even:
1 : 0 : 1
The goal isn’t to follow a specific ratio blindly. Put enough points into Vitality to survive the enemies you’re facing and then put everything else into damage.
Don’t Waste SP on Strength
One of the most important things to understand is that more Strength isn’t automatically better.
What matters is whether the extra Strength actually changes how many attacks you need to kill an enemy.
If an extra amount of Strength doesn’t let you one-shot the next enemy tier, you may get more value from putting those points into Vitality or Recovery.
Respeccing is cheap, so don’t be afraid to change your build.
For example, if you can’t reach the next one-shot breakpoint yet, you can temporarily move some Strength into HP or Recovery. Once you have enough SP to reach the breakpoint, respec back into Strength.
Why Is One-Shotting So Important?
One-shotting enemies is extremely valuable for two major reasons.
More SP Per Hour
If an enemy takes two attacks instead of one, you’re spending roughly twice as much time killing it.
Being able to one-shot an enemy can therefore potentially give you close to double the SP rate, depending on the exact situation.
This makes damage breakpoints much more important than simply looking at your total Strength.
Less Damage Taken
There is another obvious advantage:
Dead Fishmen don’t hit back.
The faster you kill enemies, the less damage they have time to deal to you.
That means:
- You use fewer potions.
- You spend less time recovering.
- You can stay in the Expedition longer.
- Your overall farming becomes more efficient.
There is also an additional benefit from Health Regen because it becomes more effective when you haven’t taken damage for a few seconds.
Regen vs Vitality
If you’re deciding whether to spend SP on Recovery or Vitality, Vitality is generally more valuable point-for-point as long as you have enough potions.
Recovery gives you free long-term sustain, but its healing is a flat amount.
Vitality, on the other hand, increases your maximum HP, and your potions heal a percentage of your maximum HP.
This means increasing your HP can also make every potion more valuable.
Vitality also benefits more from the higher-level Body upgrades.
Recovery has another downside: its effectiveness is temporarily reduced after you’ve taken damage.
So if you are actively taking hits from enemies, Recovery may not provide as much practical value as you expect.
You also receive a full heal whenever your Parrot levels up, which gives you another source of free healing during progression.
Simple Rule for SP
If I had to simplify the entire SP system, I would use this approach:
Early Expedition: Get enough HP and Recovery to survive, then focus on Strength.
After Emergency Flask: Shift heavily toward Strength because Flask handles most of your healing.
Before a one-shot breakpoint: Keep your Strength if it gets you closer to killing an enemy in one hit.
If Strength doesn’t change your kill count: Put those points into Vitality or Recovery instead.
Against difficult floors like 7 and 9: Add more Vitality so you don’t get overwhelmed by flies and fireballs.
The most important thing is not copying someone else’s exact ratio. Your ideal SP build depends on your current Body upgrades, equipment, potions, enemy tier, and whether your next Strength investment actually lets you one-shot the enemies you’re farming.