Battling and whatnot..

[Aaron]

Sorry if there is a discussion about this somewhere, but I couldn't find one :s

Anyway, I was just wondering what weapons people use in the battledome and the such..? I've been meaning to upgrade my weapons for a while now but have no idea where to start, so I thought here would be a good place to ask

So yeah, any suggestions would be appreciated

[Officer 1BDI]

My battle set is in a sorry, sorry state, but here's what Capi has equipt:

Earthen Scorchstone, Greater Healing Scroll, Leaf Shield, Green Frost Cannon, Scarab Ring, Illusens Earth Potion, Purple Sticky Hand, Earth Faerie Bow

The bow's my most recent upgrade: I think I got it for around 100k, but I honestly can't remember. The green frost cannon is an ok freezer for its price, but it's nowhere near as reliable as some of the others.

Capi's not very well trained (only 53 strength, 99 HP, and level 23; i.e., I am NOT wasting NP on balancing her out just because I labbed her for robot), and I'm not a huge battler, but it's been a decent set against the easy and intermediate enemies.

[duenorth]

My battlepet is a Cybunny with okay stats-- most of her training's been from the Shrine, Faerie quests, or through Pet days, so nothing too spectacular, but enough to let me take on the low-to-midrange opponents.

For equipment, I use Scuzzy's Comb, two Halos of Devilpuss...es, a Leaf Shield, Illusen's Earth Potion, Psellia's Fighting Fan, a Greater Healing Scroll, and a Scarab Ring.

[Trouble]

I've got a Golden Compass, an Essence of Esophagor, Downsize! and Greater Healing Scroll equipped. I had a Honey Potion last plot, but if I need a good bomb now, I just use a Shooting Star Muffin or two. I've also got a Green Frost Cannon, but I hardly ever use it.

I've no idea what your budget is, but for around 100-200k each you could chose between the following 9 iconers: Golden Compass (9 icons damage + 2 icons defence against dark), Psellias Fighting Fan (9 dmg), Stone Club (9 dmg), Pike Pike (9 dmg) and Essence of Esophagor (10 dmg).
Two of these, an ok Healer, a Downsize!/perhaps a shield (or even a Scarab Ring or two if your pet has been training lots of defence), and a bomb or two, and you've got a good set for a medium battler ;p

EDIT: Scuzzys Comb (10 dmg) is also a good. If you want a further upgrade for your attack weapons, you might want to consider the Wand of Reality (13 dmg), Bow of Destiny (13 dmg), Ring of the Lost (9,5 dmg + blocks all dark icons), or even the Sword of Skardsen(17+ dmg). These all cost a few million each, but that's battling for you...

[zebru]

I have a 200 boost strenght/defence/hp pet. My weapons consist of Wand of Reality, Ramtors Spellbook + regular cheepy stuff: Greater Healing Scroll, Green Frost Cannon, Downsize! and Leaf Shield.
Before my lucky venture into Neoquest II (with expert guidance from Kamil) to which I can thank my first two weapons I used to fight with dual Stone Clubs (9 icons a piece for 100k).

I resort to one Shooting Star Muffins and Thick Smoke Bombs when I need the extra boost for a particular fight.

Oh, and Sink, Burrow and Drain Life abilities are an absolute must (particularly the first two).

[Sagrei]

I haven't tweaked my battle set in ages, and I won't be doing it anytime soon - with this plot going the prices will be all kinds of wacky.

My battle pet's stats are all around 63 (I'm lazy at this, yes) and he's equipped with: Scarab Ring, Obsidian Dagger, Iron Lupe Sword, Illusens Earth Potion, Blue Scorchstone, Leaf Shield, and Downsize! The spare slot is for one-time stuff like snowballs or muffins.

[Cranberry]

Would anyone get mad if I told Aaaaaron to register at the IDB forums and post a thread in the weapon advice forum? Because that's what I'm doing. I'm a rater over there and also give weapon advice, and there are a bunch of others who love to help, too. It's the best place to get a variety of opinions and good solid BD advice. Plus, when we mention weapon names, we have a special forum system that can turn them into links that open in little popup windows so you can look at the weapon stats as you read the thread. Ooh, fancy.

[adi_gallia]

Ooh Cranberry you devil, how dare you advertise another forum here. tut tut

Although I'm not a member myself, I'm going to say the link Cranberry gave its helpful, since I can use that site for my limited BD needs.

As for my set I have my Psellias Fighting Fan, Scarab Ring, Downsize!, Leaf Shield and Greater Healing Scroll. I'm not a big battler so it's not that impressive.

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

Would anyone get mad if I told Aaaaaron to register at the IDB forums and post a thread in the weapon advice forum? Because that's what I'm doing. I'm a rater over there and also give weapon advice, and there are a bunch of others who love to help, too. It's the best place to get a variety of opinions and good solid BD advice. Plus, when we mention weapon names, we have a special forum system that can turn them into links that open in little popup windows so you can look at the weapon stats as you read the thread. Ooh, fancy.

And from what I'm aware, they play a decent game of Werewolf.

[Illuen]

My set is pretty decent, probably too good for the low stats my battle pet (Niva16) has xP.

Honey Potion
Ramtors Spellbook
Scuzzys Comb
Greater Healing Scroll
Leaf Shield
Downsize!

If you want some incredibly good, free weapons, beat Neoquest II. The weapons you can recieve range from about 200k-500k, and they're (mostly) 10 iconers, which is rather good for the average person who wants to battle in wars and such.

I must also greatly recommend IDB, with one reservation. Most of their commentary on weapons is from when the items came out, which leads to issues (paranoia about NQII evil weapons being downgraded, which hasn't happened in the three years they've been out), but if you can ignore that, they're a great place to check.

[Vhendi]

I'm not a very intense BD person, my battle pet can only handle foes up to difficulty 100 (I think, I've yet to defeat the Meerca Henchmen which is my current goal)... I mostly just battle enough to participate in plots/wars and have fun.

Here's the weapons I have and use: Honey Potion, Purple Scorchstone, Sword of Apocalypse, Dark Battle Duck.

I use the abilities Burrow and Beserk Attack. That's pretty much it. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't.

[Kamil]

If you're really cheap, like I am right now, sand snowballs and a scarab ring got me to 30 wins on the buggy, with a pet that doesn't even have the 35 strength boost. =D

But does have 77hp. And around level 24 or so. Gotta love those lab pets.

But no burrow or sink, because I'm not even sure which faeries and what levels anymore.

[Cranberry]

I must also greatly recommend IDB, with one reservation. Most of their commentary on weapons is from when the items came out, which leads to issues (paranoia about NQII evil weapons being downgraded, which hasn't happened in the three years they've been out), but if you can ignore that, they're a great place to check.

We just hired 11 new raters and they'll be doing 100 weapon ratings each (minimum) in their first three months, so that should not be a problem for much longer. I've also been going through and updating some of the outdated ones, myself. And of course, if you post in the forums, you'll get up-to-the-second information and good advice.

/promotion

Anyway, what to use in the BD completely depends on your pets' stats, your budget, and whether you do 1-player or 2-player (or both). If you just want to get as many wins in 1-player as you can and you don't have a huge budget, you need to grab a couple of cheap 9-iconers. Stone Club and Ice Club are buyable (probably not right now, though, as there's battling in the mini-plot and prices shot up). If you can't afford solid 9-iconers, tyrannian lupe tooth and earth faerie slingshot/earth faerie bow are cheaper and okay. Get yourself a healer (greater healing scroll works until you have 150 HP or so; blue scorchstone is also good for pets under about 100 hp), a freezer (snowglobe staff and black frost cannon are the best percentage freezers), downsize!, and some sort of bomb (honey potion is the best until you get into the high-budget fighting, but if you can't afford that, one-use bombs like chocolate chip battle biscuit or shooting star muffin are good). Scarab ring is a nice cheap little backup, and leaf shield/patched magic hat/sophies magic hat are decent if you've trained defence.

Another interesting weapon to watch is the new prickly potion -- if you use it against a one-player opponent, it attacks with six icons, but uses THEIR strength boost, not yours. That means that if your little 55-boost pet goes up against a 500-boost opponent, you'll use his own strength against him, making your little six-iconer act like a much more powerful weapon.

Battling is all I really do on Neo (besides the world challenges and food club/stock market stuff I do to earn money for weapons and training), so my set's pretty decent... Sword of Skardsen, Wand of Reality (to be a Pirate Captains Cutlass soon), Ghostkerbomb, Freezing Potion, Ring of the Lost, stuff like that. My pet's a mutant gelert for the nice 50% healer, which is one of the most important parts of my set, and by far the cheapest! I love that thing.

[Aaron]

Cranberry I must say you are incredibly helpful (and everyone else too! thanks! )

My pet currently has the stats:
Level : 139
Health : 180 / 360
Strength : ULTIMATE (151)
Defence : GREAT (28 )
Move : AWESOME (69)

Its so uneven because I labbed him for close to 3 years, but have been using the training school for the last few months to get the level up, so I can finally start training up the strength and defence -_-

I actually have a Honey Potion, I must have bought it years ago when I had my last wave of inspiration but thats about as far as I got I've been hearing good things about this Wand of Reality so I'll probably get one of them (I have a fair amount hoaded away ). Oh and I forgot to say, I generally only do 1 player battling, because I'm not even close to being ok for 2 player haha..

So yeah, Wand of Reality? If I were to get one of them, what else goes with that sort of thing that is a permanent weapon? Seeing as the Honey Potion only lasts for one go..

I think I need to go buy some faeries too :/ (I have drain life, but not burrow or sink..)

Anyway, thanks for all your help its reaaally appreciated (I'll join IDB over the weekend, I don't have a huge amount of time now heh ) thanks!

[Cranberry]

Ah, a lab pet! They're not bad for 1-player, actually, as defence isn't as useful in 1-player (in a war-type situation, as you keep beating an opponent over and over, he gets much stronger than you and pretty soon his strength boost is so much higher than your defence boost that he overloads any normal shields anyway).

Wand of Reality is a great weapon, and if you only do 1-player, any cheap 9 or 10-iconer (one of the aforementioned clubs or a scuzzys comb, for example) would be fine with it. I generally advise people to skip the 11-iconers (goo blaster, garoo elite blaster, and the other TCG blasters) because they're just not enough extra power for the price (1.2-1.5 million last I checked, maybe more now). Eventually, if you plan to do quite a bit of 1-player battling, you could pair a Bow of Destiny with that WoR.

Your hit points are too high for the GHS or blue ss to be any use at all, so your healing options are a bag of healing dust (runs about 8 mil) or a species healer -- gelert, elephante, and kacheek have the cheapest. Lennies have a good one, too, as well as a 100% species freezer. The faerie abilities restore/regeneration/healing vapour (pick one or two) will also help, healing 33% of lost hit points. What is your pet's species, and would you consider changing it?

Bombs are best when used on a frozen opponent, so pick up a freezer. A 100% freezer like H4000 helmet would run you about 5 mil nowadays, so snowglobe staff and black frost cannon are probably the best alternatives. With those, you may sometimes have to withdraw from a tough fight and heal if you don't get the first-round freeze... but when you do get a freeze, you can go all out with your WoR, Honey Potion and berserk attack and really damage an opponent.

Since your pet's defence is so low, you'll need percentage defence (doesn't depend on your defence stat) -- Downsize! is cheap and great; it blocks 50% of an attack (for one round). Winged Scarab is also a good weapon for people with low defence; it works in a really weird and hard-to-explain way, but the gist of it is that the lower your defence, the better it works. It blocks physical icons, which many 1-player opponents deal.

And like I said earlier, prickly potion is pretty awesome for a war-type situation once the opponent gets tough. It could be a decent backup weapon. And... I believe that covers seven of the eight weapon slots -- you can stick whatever you want in the last one. Purple sticky hand is great (stealing is disabled during neo plots, but a lot of Defenders of Neopia opponents have good things to steal), and a one-use bomb or a thick smoke bomb (one-use item that blocks all damage for one round) can come in handy during a tough battle.

Faerie abilities... burrow, sink and drain life are absolute musts. Regeneration/restore/healing vapour, as mentioned, are also great for pets with higher HP. Diamond dust (or fiery gaze) can sometimes freeze an opponent, so they're good, too.

Hope that helps. But yeah, definitely sign up at IDB, because I think all battlers really benefit from getting a variety of advice -- sometimes the other raters/posters think of good ideas that didn't occur to me.