Training

Right now I'm training my Lv 4x Thunder Dragon, and I'm stumped on decisions. Where should I train it?

Also, another question: Is it better if I kill as the Dragon or while mounted on the Dragon?

Depends how strong you are, relative to the dragon. It is best to train AS the dragon if you're not that much stronger... but if you're miles ahead, it is better to ride around on the dragon and then hop off to kill things. Taking the dragon along for a Rundal Normal Hard Mode run or so helps. As do Black Desert Bears. You can kill Black Desert Bears AS the dragon with a little patience (mostly by attacking, then taking flight before it hits you to break aggro, then repeating)... but I'm not sure if it is faster than having it attack Angry Black-Tailed Mongooses or not.

Uh, won't the Bear eventually re-aggro after I land?

The bear re-aggros pretty quickly, but not quickly enough to stop you if you land on top of it and immediately combo it (then take flight again). It is kinda slow, but it works. Another choice is to land some distance away, load up Smash, then use that on the bear before it re-aggros, followed by Counter or whatever. That may or may not take longer. Not sure yet. I usually go with the down, attack, up, repeat approach.

Pets (my battle pegasus) can oddly trigger the bandit hunting side missions next to commerce npcs, the signpost will allow you to 'hunt' a outlaw and trigger bandit spawns. With a little help from other players, pets can fight them to reap the exp bonus they would give, and collect the items they give. Though pets cannot go into shadow missions, they might not be able to pickup the outlaw homestead pass.

Veteran / Master bandits gives about 4000~7000 XP for goblins. They also have little to no def/prot so unlike a mongoose, your damage will go through better. A battle pegasus has a 175% exp rate so it's much higher. Of course, bandits has higher hp and less predictable AI than mongoose, but you don't have to run very far to spawn em.

But a lv40+ battle pegasus can have a r6 holy rush which can inflict over 1000+ damage to them, easily shortening the time if you can pre-emp them.

Edit: Lol august 30th 2011.

...that sounds really absurd and I'ma try on Xhu's Bone Dragon...

umm...under normal circumstances, you can endlessly hunt Black-Tailed Mongoose the Angry or w/e for 2x exp off them. since they are not as spread out as teh White/Black Desert Bears...yeah go nuts. Just make sure you hunt them sparingly, as camping penalty kinda kills the exp.

Why did I reply to an old thread...yikes them recent changes are blindingly awesome.

Dude...it works. I'm going to "report" this to my "superiors..." *coughcough*

Necro, but I've been able to abuse the bandit method because of my marionette skills.