Pink Poogle Toy Forum

I am sirhatter, and used to be in IDB leadership. I am not a regular here, but I thought I might be able to help

After hearing from friends about the nature of questions asked, I thought id post some things here. I am currently the #2 ranked pet by statistics in all of IDB, and am best known in Neopia for advacned battledome strategies. So I will attempt to change gears here and write an easy to use guide for newer players. Any questions ask away, I will answer within 24 hours in most, but not all cases.

As an aside, this is the first war I have done absolutely no speculating on weapons for, which is why I can post this advice. I have no investment at all in any of the weapons I am writing about. I dont own them nor hoard them, and I dont know anyone who may be doing that. These weapons are good value for a new player and that is why I am staking my considerable reputation on them.


#1: Whats the object of the war?:

Simple really, put your opponent down to 0 hitpoints before you get to 0 yourself. Do this over and over and over, and you gain mor epoints

#2: How do my pet's stats influence proceedings?

Endurance, corresponds to hitpoints, and is the single biggest factor in how long you live each fight. The longer you live, the sooner you can knock out your opponent and win. Strentgh will make the weapons you use more effective. Defense will make SOME (not all) but SOME shields more effective when using them. Agility and Intelligence are not nearly as important and if you are a newbie do not worry about these statistics in a fight.

#3: Why must I equip weapons?

Unless your pet is really strong and considered at a high level and can go bruce lee style (meaning at a bare minimum 200 strength points), your pet will be overmatched. Weapons are one of the best investments possible, though prices tend to be highest at the start of a war. Since you can always sell your weapons if you are in a cash crunch, do not be shy about investing your neopoints in them.

You can carry 8 total weapons, and each round you get to use 2 of your 8. In high level fights you typically will go through all 8 weapons at some point in a fight, so each slot is important.

There are 6 major categories of weapons, and most sets will incorporate some sort of combination of these.

Attackers
Shields
Bombs
Hybrids/Dual Duty
Healers
Freezers
Miscellaneous weapons.


4: Wow thats confusing! Help me more!

To have a complete set, you will need to both attack your enemy, heal your own pet when things are going against you, and often block your enemy from hurting you. Here is what a sample set might look like:

Attack Weapon 1
Attack Weapon 2
Hybrid 1
Healer 1
Freezer 1
Shield 1
Bomb 1
Shield 2



5) wots a freezer?

A freezer is a weapon that puts your opponent on ice. THey are frozen for one move and you are free to go to town and hurt them badly. The best video game equivalent I can give you is from mortal kombat or really any single player combat game when you have your opponent stunned and can typically land one big hit. A freezer, when successful guarantees that shot for you.


6) Im broke! help me make a set cheaply and advise me on when to use it?

Gladly!

We will start out with the most obvious category: healers, since by definition everyone can understand what they do. I recommend one of two healers for new pets: Slime Potions, or Lesser Healing Scrolls. You get to use either of these weapons once per battle, but can only own one. The slime potion is more limited, but you are guaranteed to gain 10 hit points. If you have over 20 hp I would recommend the lesser healing scroll. It is no longer breakable according to very reliable sources, and can heal UPTO 25 hitpoints. Currently the slime potion is going for under 2,000, and the lesser scroll for around 5,000. Your healer is your single most important item in my mind, so dont be afraid to spend a quarter of your entire weapons budget on this item!

7) When should i use my healer?

Healers are best to use when you are in trouble and in danger of losing. Typically you should use a healer when you are under half of your hitpoints. Using a healer when you are already at full hitpoints is rarely going to prove useful. After you use your healer your pet should gain a reprieve, and be near max health again for a round or two, in which time you can hopefully finish off your opponent!


What kind of freezer should I buy?


A: Under normal circumstances, a new battler could reasonably consider a Green Frost Cannon or Snowglobe staff. Both are highly unreliable, but both are typically cheap. I cannot say that either are cheap right now. The green cannon runs at about 6,000, while the snowglobe staff is to be avoided ALTOGETHER at its current price. The alternatives that are affordable are so unreliable that you could skip out on this item for this war, in what is normally a must-have item.

Unrelated note: A 100% reliable Freezer that is usable by all species is worth a minimum of 7 million these days. Some species-specific freezers are cheaper, but not by much. That is how important freezing is for serious battledomers.


Q9: When shoudl I use my unreliable freezer?

I would not use it for your first few battles. If you can beat someone just by sheer force, then do it. If you find yourself struggling to win, start whipping out the freezer. The freezer I recommended only freezes 11% of the time and vanishes for the remainder of the battle, so it is not something to RELY on. It wont GUARANTEE you victory at all. Regardless, even when it does not successfully freeze, it will average about 4 icons of damage to your opponent, (which if you have a pet strenth of 13-20), will mean about 4 hitpoints of damage to your opponent.

Q10: lets leave weapons alone for a second, you mean these guys get stronger? youre just fighting the same person over and over again but stronger? doesnt that get boring?

Answer: Yes, it does get terribly boring at first. FOr someone such as myself, who can inflict 72 points of damage without using a weapon each round, and has well over 1,000 hitpoints, there is no drama, and just lots of very painful lag in fighting. It is not enjoyable at all. I can win several hundred times against each of the first few opponents in 1 turn, and not even worry about what I do. That isnt fun, and there are others like me. At the end of wars, there are 1 player opponents that are very difficult, even after just one or two battles, it is a real test of strategy to try and figure out the best approach to winning, and without the lag. It is a great rush and keeps so many of us coming back. Also, when there arent wars, to pit yoru pet against a worthy two player opponent is a true thrill, win or lose, as you are matching wits with some of neopias brightest and most dedicated.

Q11: ok enough advertising for the battledome. whats a bomb, and how should i use it

A bomb sounds just like its name. Its something you throw at an opponent, and you dont get it back after you use it. It will do much more damage hopefully than your sword, whcih you can use over and over and over. Some bombs come back to you after the battle is over (as if you had the secret but cheap to produce formula for carrying one), and some bombs are gone forever after you use them, and your neopoints are gone with them. The bombs that go forever are only worth it in absolutely desperate situations, when you need an avatar and need to beat a certain opponent just once.

The only bomb that truly makes sense for new battlers is the Illusens earth potion. It is obtained by completing level 32 of illusens quest. It once used to be a valued item, but due to advances in battledome technology, is available quite cheaply at 2,000 neopopints. Most battlers outgrow this bomb cheaply. If youa re on illusens quest, and get it, keep it. ANd go for level 35. If you get to there, you get the MUCH stronger Honey Potion. The honey potion is worth hundreds of thousands, and will serve many battlers well for their entire career.

Lastly, if you truly dont have many hitpoints, you may consider the dirt cheap mud mixture. It is a bomb that is weaker than most swords, but has the advantage of giving you a very small boost in healing as well. The price on these are also infinitely cheap.



Q12: Ok battledome dork, whats a miscelleanous weapon, and why should i have one

A: You shouldnt, yet. You may want to equip a purple sticky hand for fun (old advent calendar prize). Typically though, miscellaneous weapons are very expensive and/or not useful for wars/in general. So ignore this category new battler!

Q13: Whats a hybrid? And why?

A: A hybrid, or more commonly a dual duty weapon both attacks and defends. This can be especially useful for pets which have offense and defense ratings similar to eachother, and for a variety of reasons, are a great value for low levels of fighting. The all time classic dual duty weapon for new battlers is the SCARAB RING, the cheap scratchcard prize, which is surprisingly effective. does 6 icons and does some defense of fire and physical type attacks. The inflators have gotten a hold of this one and nearly quadrupled the price upto about 4,000 a pop. Only buy if you dont mind it falling. This weapon is inflated because it is so widely known and beloved. It is rated a 9 (out of 10) by IDB staff, which almost never happens because typically IDB staff tends to look down on newbie weapons. But this one is just that versaitile. Two slightly more dated, affordable and modest precursors to the scarab ring include the Immense Rubber Axe Of Doom and my personal favorite the attack fork. These are to be used when you are nearly ready to KO someone, but still have to cover yuorself a little bit.


[b] random plug: While I stepped down from leadership of idb over a year ago, it is still a great battledome site. you can go to idb.finalhit.org, and look up almost any weapon you want, and can look up details on weapons for your species, and get the opinions of staff there as well. so if this stuff interests you, do your homework!


q14: ok, we get it smart guy, i know what attackers and shields do, name me a few, and ill let you go!

Cheap attack weapons: bone sceptre, cobrall in a can, seasonal battle duck, rohanes armor polish. There are lots better if youre willing to spend some money. We can talka bout that anotehr day:

Cheap shields: Large Metal shield, and downsize!, the once per battle shield that is really rather effective.




any further questions? nothing is too stupid, ill do my best to answer!

I wouldn't classify myself as new to this, but, what's your take on the score you'd need to get to have a decent prize? And why have the variety and levels of prizes declined so much compared to, say, the 1st Darigan War?

well, its hard tos ay if this is a full out war or part of a plot. typically the wars were bigger than puzzles, with a truly unbalanced prize system. there were a large variety of truly fantastic prizes given to a very precious few number of players, while players in the top 100 or 200 but not top 20 were left with virtually nothing.


So they fixed that, and did a good job. The absolute best prizes arent quite as good, but more people can obtain them, often without a superlative war score.

My thing is, the groups seem too large.

Correct me if i'm missing something, but if the points-to-prizes went something like this:

1-5k points: Toy
5k-10k: weak weapon
10k-30k: Stronger than the last but still weak
30k-50k: Decent weapon
Higher than those: Really good prizes.

It doesn't seem like there are enough different groupings to make it really fair for people.

AN INVESTMENT ALL BEGINNER TO INTERMEDIATE+ BATTLERS SHOULD HAVE IS.....

HONEY POTION

Heh, no kidding. But those are running 1 mil+ right now, and as you can see from the first post of this thread, sirhatter is guiding BD newbies, people without a lot of NP to spend. They can't run out and get a HP.

A few decent weapons, some of which have unfortunately inflated quite a bit since the battling started: Earth Faerie Slingshot, Earth Faerie Bow, Stone Club, Ice Club. A little cheaper/weaker: Electro Sword, Gold Handled Katana, Von Roo Dice. Greater Healing Scroll is great if you have between 25 and 100, maybe even 150 hit points. These are things people with a bit more NP and the 35/55 boosts, or people who have stronger labbed pets but don't want to invest in really expensive weapons, can check out.

Good work Sirhatter! That answered a lot of the questions I've been seeing lately.

Here are some things NOT to do, no matter how much people try to convince you otherwise:

1. Buy Single Use items. This includes Lucky Robots Foot, Scroll of Freezing, and Muffins. They're great for Defenders of Neopia, where you only need one win to get a trophy, but the point here is to get as many wins as possible. A strategy that involves repeatedly using single use items is a waste of Neopoints and the time you use to buy them.

2. Make major weapon purchases. This is the absolute WORST time to buy weapons that you're planning to keep for a while, or invest in. Things like Scarab Rings or even Stone/Ice Clubs will be okay, because you can make up the difference by playing a few games, but anything above that is SEVERELY inflated. The Honey Potion is a great example. Normally it's at 700-800K, but a million is way too much for it. Similarly, if you have semi-valuable weapons in your SDB that you're never going to use, now would be a great time to sell them.

Obviously, great advice. But, what do you advise to someone if they don't have decent weapons and would like to have some for the current war/plot? You can't expect them to just sit around with Scarab Rings and wait until afterwards to buy major weapons (for future use in other wars).

This is a brilliant guide, guess I'm less of a newbie battler than I first thought!

well, if they have enough neopoints to make a real purchase they are less of a New Member than i would have predicted.

of course TOSO you and i had started to collaborate on something that will eventually end on the econotorium.

if they are going to make a wartime purchase, with a significant amount of neopoints, id try to find something they are going to hold onto for a long time and not look to upgrade from there. You will undoubtedly lose some significant short term value.

The best war hoarders arent the ones trying to sell at the inflated prices now, as that is the top of a bubble market. The top war hoarders have probably very quietly already liquidated their holdings not at the top, but on the way up towards it.

And of course, many of the bigtime money players tend to hoard weapons not listed here, things that had a starting price tag of over a mil, but the ones that did well in the lower market got out before the massive deflation, got back in

If you had millions, and really wanted a war weapon to compete with for the plot and are just getting into the battledome now, the first thing i can tell you is to start training endurance furiously and your other stats for that matter. from there, try to find obscure weapons on the idb page that do about 7-9 icons, have some defense, and arent super well known. Rare weapons tend to inflate less in war time. I could list some suggstions, but that might drive up the price.

Great advice as usual Dan. However I never expect to see another war on Neopets! I think they're all in the past. However, there is some battling to be done with the plots/puzzles sometimes so all is not lost.

I'm bumping this up, as it's one of the best guides I've ever read for someone who has never used the Battledome before but wants to participate in the war.

Does anybody know a good hybrid? My defence boost is pretty low though (18 defence points) but still it sometimes might help me. Or should I continue brute power?

I'm going to bump this guide, because it rocks. My pet is probably not ready for this war, but now tht I have some idea of what to do, I might be ready for the next one.

This is, of course, a great guide. However, it's outdated. Nobody should use Slime Potion anymore (go with Greater Healing Scroll or Blue Scorchstone). Illusens Earth Potion is also completely useless now, as is Mud Mixture. Immense Rubber Axe of Doom and Attack Fork are also not worth buying now. There are new cheap constant 7-iconers that any newbie can afford (Unstable Slime, Battle Ready Pencil Box), plus a number of buyable 8 and 9-iconers as well (look at my first post here for a list). Snowglobe Staff is also at a fair price now.

Basically, the advice is all sound (of course -- we're talking about sirhatter here!), but he wrote this before 9-icon weapons became the new standard, and since that happened, everything in newbie battling has changed.