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Neopia's Fill in the Blank News Source | 28th day of Running, Yr 26
The Neopian Times Week 37 > Articles > Theory of Battledome Set-ups

Theory of Battledome Set-ups

by _corpse_

This guide will give you a chance at evaluating your pet set-up and allowing you to balance your items better. Please understand this is only a guideline, some pet owners go to extremes but if you stick to these you can outclass most opponents that are your level with ease (even if they have hidden tower weaponry). As for the validity of this data, my pets have won over two thousand battles between them and from my experience this set-up system works.

OK, now that's over, I'll take you to your pet. Take a good look at its equipment. What do you see? Something like this?

1. Improved lightning beam
2. Improved lightning beam
3. Radioactive snow
4. Level 2 bubble beam
5. Fire snow
6. Dirty snow
7. Mad clock
8. Large metal shield

I'm guessing if you're new, you will have been told that these weapons are great. Well that's true. Each of these has a good quantity of power in the dome, but they only have a certain max damage, and your not going to stand a chance without something to pull you out of a critical situation. So what's wrong with it? Firstly ill break down weapons into classes and explain each class.

BASIC WEAPONS

The basic weapon, two of these are necessary unless you are an extreme fighter that can afford a Rod of (dark/super) nova. You do sometimes see people with a set-up full of one-use items with only one basic weapon. Sometimes set-ups with no basic items at all. People like this usually wind up dead unless they are really good. So I recommend you get some basic items. "But what are they?" I hear you say. A basic item is something that can be used every turn without ANY chance of breaking or running out. Basic items include Things such as firesnow, wand of the air faerie, grand lightning beam and large metal shield. All of the above set-up was composed of Basic items. As for power, the basic item is very weak. The more NP you inject into your Basic items, the better your pet will be in long battles. Basic items tend to deal very few icons in comparison to CRITICAL and SEMI CRITICAL items. Some basic items also fall into other classes such as healing (Rod of Nova heals every turn when used). Basic weapons come with a large number of "sub-classes" attached to them. For example some basic weapons might heal you or generate other items for use in battle.

SEMI CRITICAL

These items are quite rare compared with basic weapons. Items in this category include sonic beam, brain tree splinters ummagine bomb etc. "Why are they different to basic items?". Well for a start they have a limited quantity of uses in every battle. This limit is usually 1 use. When used they disappear for the current battle, but come back for use in the next fight. They are particularly useful for that extra kick to surprise your opponent when they were getting used to your basic items. Using these on average hurts your opponents more than if you used a basic weapon. My personal favourite item falls under this category (Thyora's tear). Good weapons in this class for starter players are caustic potions as they heal a small amount of hp while dealing quite large damage.

SEMI CRITICAL (healing)

Ah, the most useful class to have in most people's opinions, these items are mainly scorchstones and one use per battle healing items. These allow you to regenerate lost hit points in combat. They can only be used 1 time per battle but usually they are strong enough to fully heal you. Depending on power and rarity these can heal the toughest pets. Some examples are jewelled scarab ,slime potion, bronze scorchstone, blue scorchstone, jade scorchstone and all the scorchstones in between. Only one can be equipped. If you are a starting player, slime potion or bronze scorchstone are the best items to have. Warning- you may only equip ONE healing item.

CRITICAL

For the newbie with no good basic items or semi critical items the critical is the best option. Think of these as grenades or missiles that you can buy cheaply. As with a missile you cant blow somebody up then go collect the missile again. So critical items are only one use. You may find you spend a lot of money on these if you use them frequently, so use as often as your income allows. Good critical items for beginners are peach snowball, exploding snowball and icy snowball. Each one of these contrasts with your basic weapons MASSIVELY, so if you use critical weapons you can take your opponents by surprise and take the win. For richer fighters water/radioactive/stone muffins and downsize power plusses are very useful to have in stock. The more critical items you have the more "cheap" rich fighters will think of you. So be warned if you defeat the ultra mega millionaire Battledome master with a well placed muffin he will throw some hate mail at you saying you was cheap and cowardly etc. That's just because s/he's mad that you outsmarted him/her.

CRITICAL (healing)

This Small category contains elixirs and lucky robots feet. Not really worth bothering with. Robots feet are great for high-level pets that cant afford a jade scorchstone. Only one can be equipped. Elixirs also fall into this category.

BREAK

These items break randomly after use. Such as force shield. Plus they never come back. Wand and staffs of nova are in this category. (To the bright observer, this class is really a part of the basic weapons group, but I decided to give it its own class because when it does break the flow of battle will turn in your opponents favour.)

SEMI BREAK

Now we are into the bows. These items randomly break when used. This category includes battle chives. Try to avoid this class unless it's a really good item. Professional bow is a good example if you wanted to try this class out for yourself. (Some GENERATORS do this)

FREEZE

These things are used by master players and weaker ones alike. But the idea stays the same. You opponent gets disabled for one whole turn. In that turn you can do as you like and your opponent wont be able to stop you. I suggest if you are lucky enough to freeze, you use CRITICAL items while the opponents defence is broken. In other words kick them while they're down. In an ideal world you could freeze somebody and get away with it. But in the Battledome most people can freeze and most people do. This is why items such as hypno helmet are so highly prized. There is a limit to only one freeze item per pet.

STEALING

You have an opponent with more powerful items that you. What do you do? You take them. Stealing is the ultimate form of mockery in the Battledome Steal then defeat the person with there own items. But wait. There's one big downfall. Stealing is unreliable. Yes that's right, stealing items rarely work. If they do steal, you get the worst item your opponents got. Plus sticky hands get passed to your opponent when you grab something. Using them also wastes a turn. Plus if you DO steal an item its only for the current battle. Your opponent gets their item back and you get your sticky hand back. So in all don't steal unless you got a BASIC weapon with the added stealing capability (tornado ring). NOT crystal boomerang. These items "can" cause serious harm to an opponent if you steal either their freezing item or their healing item but remember its rare to steal them unless you have a very good theft item such as rainbow sticky hand.

GENERATOR

When you fight somebody with a generator you will be in trouble. Every turn these items make another item to use. Thing such as wand/staff/rod of(dark/super/ultra) nova. Also includes bombaberry bags, tiki bags, snowball machine, poison snowball wand, cement mixer etc. These weapons are intimidating; knowing your opponents generated a powerful CRITICAL item each turn is quite scary. This trick puts people onto their defence and can be used in all type of strategies. Works especially well if you use it with FREEZE. The most commonly used item in this class is the tiki bomb bag as it produces highly explosive critical bombs that does large quantities of icons.

BREAK GENERATOR

Same as above but they can break.

MORPH

The only known morph weapons are the Aisha myriad that was retired from the hidden tower and Hubrid's odial sphere. The myriad morphs into a random weapon from the hidden tower for the remainder of the battle and the sphere will generate a random hidden tower item at the cost of half your current HP.

REFLECT

These weapons are quite interesting. Icons thrown at you can be bounced back to your opponent to inflict damage on them instead. These items only block a certain element, so unless you know your opponent is going to throw a tiki bomb.

CHANCE

These items are basically unpredictable, they can do many things. For example snow globe staff can do any of the following randomly:

A 6 icon attack Break for the battle Make a yellow snowball to throw Freeze your opponent These items are very risky to use, make sure you know EXACTLY what they do before you equip them.

OK that's over. Lets take you back to the Battledome set-up we had before.

1. Improved lightning beam
2. Improved lightning beam
3. Radioactive snow
4. Level 2 bubble beam
5. Fire snow
6. Dirty snow
7. Mad clock
8. Large metal shield

As you can see, each item in here falls into the BASIC item category. This would win against pets with REALLY weak weapons but more advanced players would walk all over you.

When fighting you will notice opponents will begin to anticipate attacks and block against them. Basic weapons alone wont surprise them much, even with a lot of variety. This is where critical and semi critical weapons fit in.

Your overall Battledome set-up should look something like this:

1. BASIC
2. BASIC
3. SEMI CRITICAL (healing)
4. FREEZE

These first 4 are VITAL. 3 must be a healing item and 4 must be freezing. Else you will find yourself outclassed by people with these items.

5.
6.
7.
8.

These 4 are slots that you personally choose. You may be a player who prefers four critical items; this would cost more NP but be more explosive. If you battle a lot of people repeatedly semi critical items would benefit you more as you wouldn't have to replace them. Some people also fill these slots with generators, stealing etc. I recommend you keep them to either Generators or chance items (genie orb).

My personal set-up:

BASIC
BASIC
FREEZE
SEMI CRITICAL (healing)
SEMI CRITICAL
CRITICAL
CRITICAL
CRITICAL

When you have decided on how you are going to fight, build a set-up around this theory and you will be a wonderful fighter!

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