BATTLEDOME - Why fight in the dark when you can use logic to spot weakness
before the battle even starts! =) This guide will shed light onto how skilled
your opponent is before combat commences!
Side note: To look up an opponents pet, type its name exactly into the search
box on the yellow Neopets sidebar to the left of the main site. If you get 2
results click on "petname the petspecies", If you were to click on the username
it would display the user information, but we're after the pet data.
When you go to QuickFight, type in the value you want to be limited to. Then
wait for it to find an opponent. This guide will begin when you find an opponent.
I presume you already know how to fight fairly well and have brought countermeasures
such as snowballs to beat defensive players and downsize power plus/thyoras
tear to beat snowballers. It also helps if you have a healing item (scorchstone)
and a freezing item (hypno helmet/terror stone) as well as some basic weapons.
If you don't have any of these the guide still applies but you must be able
to at least use the Battledome for any of it to make sense.
So QuickFight has located an opponent. The best thing to remember is that
the person over the other side of the line is a REAL human; they have thoughts,
tricks and strategies and plan to end your pet as quickly as possible. Fighting
without first checking out your opponent is like fighting in the dark. So let's
see what we're up against before we jump in the deep end.
When you opponent is located, quickly type their pet name into the search
box and click go. If two blue links come up, click on the top one. Now you should
be on your opponent's pet page. There is a LOT of information available on this
page. After you have read this guide you should be able to read this information
like a book and derive your opponent's strategy and skill level from it. Let's
begin.
Opponent's pet name:
Stupid as it sounds, you can tell a lot from what the opponents pet is named.
People who name their pets like fearsome creatures/fighters "masta_killa834892389"
or "dem0nf1ghter111" are usually newbies who are having their first battle.
There are some pets that are hideously strong with names like these, but you
will find a LOT of them are weak but just have over inflated egos.
Also beware people who have NO numbers is their pet name. People like these
have old accounts or are perfectionists. This symbolises wealth or power. Depending
on other factors you may well be in trouble.
People with names such as fluffy_bunny_738 or cutieangel458 are usually the
"none battle" sort. These people are usually new or tend to perform other activities
on Neopets such as collecting. You'll find that these people are 90% newbies
and therefore no trouble in the dome. These tend to be RPers.
The final group are those named after TV programs or video games. They are
usually quite good fighters because they are accustomed to this sort of game.
Be careful for pokemon and digimon fans as these games are similar to Neopets
and people with these names are either very young age wise and therefore not
good fighters or the complete opposite.
Opponent's pet Species and Colour:
A little bit of background knowledge is required here. It's a well-known fact
that an opponent's colour is obtained by buying rare paintbrushes OR from the
secret lab. The same goes for species, as this is obtained by feeding your pet
a morphing potion OR going to the secret lab.
As you know, some paintbrushes cost a lot of NP. E.g. - Faerie paintbrushes
cost 100,000 NP to buy in auctions. Also some pet species are very rare - this
mainly applies to Krawk. If you fight a Krawk you know that you're fighting
somebody rich and are therefore in trouble.
Looks also symbolise fighting style. Mutant pets are cheap to buy and fearsome.
Battlers like to have strong looking pets to fight with! So beware mutants as
these people usually have quite good knowledge. But mutants can also symbolise
poorness, as mutants are good looking and cheap less well off fighters buy them.
So on the whole mutants usually have good knowledge of fighting but poor equipment.
Look out for faerie and fire types. These people have paid a lot of NP to look
how they do, so they usually have a fair share of power and good weapons. A
good idea here is to just check if they are a Neopets basic colour type. Such
as red, blue, green or yellow. If they are a basic colour then chances are that
they are new. The main species to look out for is any Shoyru, Lupe or Kacheek
that has been painted and is not a basic colour. Also worth noting is that Kacheeks
have incredible species weapons for a relatively low cost. So expect to fight
these right away if you see a Kacheek - also expect to loose.
Opponent's pet age:
You can't really derive much information from this unless it's a REALLY old
pet. If you fight a really old pet with weak stats - don't fear, these people
are usually players who signed up ages ago but don't visit much. New pets with
high stats could also suggest your opponent is rich. Older pets "may" have improved
defend which is an ability given out a long time ago by a sponsor of Neopets
But this really requires a user lookup to see, as pets can be adopted with high
ages.
Opponent's pet level:
This is one to look out for. Remember no stat can be more than twice your
level when you use only the training school to train your pet. So if your opponent's
stats are MORE than twice its level, you are fighting a secret laboratory user.
The lab costs about 70,000 NP to buy and randomly increases statistics daily
and has various other effects such as species or colour change. The lab rarely
increases level OR defence. So if these stats are low compared with HP and strength
you are fighting a lab rat. This suggests you're not fighting against a newbie.
Whoever this guy is - he's going to fight back hard.
If your opponent is above level 30 he may well have strong in battle abilities
such as drain life, diamond dust, sink etc. See the Neopets ability list found
in pet central as this tells you which level pets gain certain abilities. Usually
pets below level 20 only have fiery gaze and burrow.
Look out for opponents who are OVER level 50! This means their fierce attack
has been upgraded to a stronger ability named berserk attack, which is hideously
powerful.
Opponent's Username:
Who owns the pet is vital. The same principle applies to usernames as pet names.
But in fact user lookups can prove very very useful - things like age, shop
size, trades and other pets can be used to derive info on the player. Look out
for people's one player battle record this can give you an example of how strong
they are. If they can beat a one-player opponent you can't, chances are they
either got lucky or are better than you. I am not going to go into user lookups
in detail, as this guide is already very large.
Opponent's height, weight and gender:
You guessed it! These mean nothing at all.
Opponent's Hit Points:
This may sound far-fetched but HP is by far the most useful statistic on Neopets
(in my opinion anyway). Strength comes a close second, but with high HP you'll
find people who go for freeze kills are otherwise thwarted. When you look up
an opponent the first thing that should hit you is their HP. If it's higher
than yours you're in for a rough ride, especially if you KNOW that you can't freeze
then kill them. If a pet has a LOT of hit points but low defence this means
it has been subjected to the secret laboratory ray. Also note if you have drain
life, people with high HP may well loose their advantage =) Note: Don't be
fooled, some incredible fighters have very low HP. Examples I have met such
as hesperonis, newbinator, krawnik and my own pet newbzilla illustrate my point.
Opponent's Strength Points:
Generally the higher the strength of your pet, the more damage inflicted on
your opponent (this much is obvious). High strength is definitely a plus point
in combat. Pets with high strength to HP ratios are nearly ALWAYS freeze killers,
so if you have a hypno helmet use it first turn to nullify theirs out and destroy
their advantage.
Remember if they fierce attack it means they will sustain more damage as well
as deal it. Use a snow mudball and a downsize power plus on the same move with
fierce attack. This will completely nullify their attack and hit them while
their defence is down.
Opponent's Defence Points:
This is possibly the give away to how good your opponent is. If they have similar
defence to their strength then the pet is trained using codestones. BEWARE pets
like this - The owners can afford codestones, which are actually quite expensive,
this usually means they can afford other, rarer more dangerous items.
If the pet has low defence and high strength this means they have been subjected
to the lab. Remember lab pets are of a medium to high danger level. Depending
on their battle record they could be very deadly.
Opponent's Speed Points:
This is by no means threatening because speed does not do ANYTHING in battle.
But what it is useful for is telling us if the person is a lab user. Lab rats
usually have incredible speed as the laboratory usually gives this out frequently.
As most people know speed is not useful, people who have trained pets for example
ones where HP, strength, defence and speed are all similar suggests that they
don't really have much knowledge of the dome. But in some circumstances people
like to have all their statistics fairly equal just for show. People who can
afford to do this could well be very strong. Check out other factors before
you judge them.
Opponent's Intelligence:
To get intelligence on Neopets, your pet must read books. This obviously costs
hard earned NP and does not do anything to aid you in the Battledome Most people
with high intelligence are either posers or none Battledomers. Also note most
super strong pets have high intelligence just to look good, or as a side project.
So overall intelligence is not a deciding factor on how good your opponent is,
so just ignore it.
Opponent's Employment Agency Status:
Generally pets with employment agency status are very old. This is not because
the employment agency is gone. It is because pets rarely visit now. If you see
a pet with a lot of jobs completed this person is obviously dedicated to Neopets
and therefore may pose a threat.
Opponent's pet description:
The main description of your opponent's pet will help determine how serious
the opponent is about Neopets If you see things such as computer artwork of
the pet fighting in battle, this person is obviously going to be a serious fighter.
This area has so many possibilities. Just use common sense and decide if what
you're looking at was done by a genius or an idiot. Remember, smart people are
usually a lot better in the Battledome Also note that people who have won the
beauty contest will be generally harder to beat.
Opponent's Battledome Record:
OK, this is the singularly most important statistic to look at. First things
first. Go and look up the owner of the pet. Look closely at how many one-player
battles this person has won. Subtract this from the number of wins that the
pet you're looking at has (notice this looses accuracy if the opponent has more
than one pet, but it serves as an approximation). This will give you an insight
into how many one-player battles the person has took part in and how many real
opponents they have beaten. If you deduce they have a large percentage of one-player
wins - but low QuickFight wins, this means the opponent is not very qualified
against other players. If this is the opposite way round then you may be in
trouble. Basically - Just use common sense while observing this. High win percentage
as compared with losses usually means that the opponent is pretty good. Played
matches over 300 is usually an indicator to your opponent's skills also. | 
