MERIDELL - With the Meridell War looming, many Neopets owners are struggling
to gather sufficient Neopoints to purchase weapons so that they can play a part
in defending Meridell and earn a badge on their user lookups. However, cool
weapons are expensive and the war rumours have driven the prices even higher.
This article offers you a way to make the best of the Neopoints your have: morphing
your pets.
This article is for owners who are not concerned about how their pet looks
but rather focus on their stats and fighting abilities. It will be useful to
read _corpse_'s
article on setting up your pet for the Battledome before beginning this
article.
The following four options of morphing and weapons for your pet are organised
in order of increasing cost.
Option 1 - Kau
Basic Kau Knight Helmet (25k)
Basic Kau Knight Helmet (25k)
Cost to Morph Red/Yellow/Green/Blue Kau Morphing Potion (6k)
Total cost: 56k
Advantages:
1. Average of 14-icon damage per round using two Helmets.
2. Attacks using 3 different icons (Earth, Fire, Physical) making it hard to
defend.
3. Good defence against Earth and Physical icons.
4. Extremely affordable! A non-specie weapon that has a similar effect will
be the Hand Painted Scarab and with 56k, you cannot even afford half a Scarab.
Disadvantage:
None
Comments:
This is a personal favourite and an excellent specie to choose for new and not
so rich battledomers. Considering the fact that Hand Painted Scarab is considered
excellent weapon, Kau Knight Helmets must be the most underrated weapon on Neopets.
This alone makes morphing your pet into a Kau worthwhile. Another weapon that
could be considered would be the Kau Mouth Blade that does an average of 7 icon
and costs 20k.
Option 2 - Kacheek
Basic Kacheek Pebble Lobber (95k)
Basic Kacheek Pebble Lobber (95k)
Semi Critical Kacheek Life Potion (50k)
Cost to morph - Kacheek Transmogrification Potion (6k)
Total cost: 246k
Advantages:
1. Hard hitting Average of 16 icon damage using two Lobbers. Good for cavaliers
who concentrate on causing maximum damage to the opponent.
2. The real value in this option will be for a owner with a pet of 60 health
but could not afford a scorchstone that matches its health. Scorchstones are
now very dear with a Purple one (heals 50) selling for 650k and a Blue (heals
30) selling for 105k. The Life Potion provides a much cheaper alternative for
it. From experience, it will heal 33% half the time and 100% the other half.
Disadvantage:
1. No defence.
Comments:
Some might suggest the cheaper Kacheek Ice and Fire Cannons (6 icons at 25k)
instead of the Pebble Lobbers. However, the introduction of the Lost Desert
Dagger (6 icons at 20k) overrides the need to morph your pet into a Kacheek
just for this. As this option is not much different from Option 1, I will advise
going for the much cheaper Option 1 unless you fall into the category explained
in the second Advantage above.
Option 3 - Elephante
Basic/Freezing: Elephant Stunray (150K)
Basic: Ultrasteel Attack Tusks (135K)
Semi-Critical: Elephante Unguent (150k)
Cost to Morph: Elephante Transmogrification Potion (6k)
Total Cost: 441k
Advantages:
1. This option is another step up from the previous option in that you do an
average of 2 more icons per round.
2. As mentioned under Kacheeks, scorchstones are expensive and the Elephante
Unguent could provide you a cheaper alternative for healing 50% of your health.
Do your sums before deciding on this option.
3. Stunray could attack as well as freeze. Hence, you could attack with 2 weapons
and freeze in 1 round instead of attacking with 1 weapon and a freezing item
for non-Elephantes.
Disadvantages:
1. High degree of variability of the Tusks. Tusks do 5+8 icon damage and hence,
you could do 5 icon damage in a round and 13 icon damage in another.
2. Stunray are not 100% freeze items. This adds to the variability of this
option. In addition, by equipping the stunray, you cannot equip another freezing
item (e.g. Hypno Helm). This could be turned into an advantage for those who
cannot afford Hypno Helms (350k).
3. No defence.
Comments:
This line-up is much more useful for 1 player fights than 2 player fights. A
human opponent will probably freeze you in round 1 but so far, no 1-player opponent
has freezing abilities. This will give your Stunray some time to kick in.
Option 4 - Lupe
Basic Iron Lupe Sword (350k)
Basic Iron Lupe Sword (350k)
Stealing Lupe Jaw Grabber (150k)
Cost to Morph: Lupe Transmogrification Potion (70k)
Total cost: 920k
Advantages:
1. 18 consistent icons per round using two Swords. These costs only 700k. The
closest non specie equivalent would be the Zaptwig that does 20 icons and costs
6 million for two.
2. Attacks using 3 different icons (Air, Fire, Physical) making it hard to
defend. Got to beware of opponents wielding Golden Scorchstones (defends all
Air and Fire) though.
3. Jaw Grabber costs a quarter of the Rainbow Sticky Hand and works just as
well. The added advantage is that your opponent has no chance of using the same
to grab some of your items unlike the Sticky Hands.
Disadvantages:
1. Jaw Grabber can only be used once a battle, if you miss... too bad.
2. Morphing into a Lupe is expensive. Choosing this option will mean forgoing
the lab ray.
3. No defence.
Comments:
This is not really a cheap option but it does maximise what you can do with
1 million Neopoints. A non-lupe alternative will cost many times more than this.
In addition, the mutant lupe looks cool.
Conclusion
I hope that this article will provide some ideas on taking advantage of
specie weapons by morphing your pets. Richer battledomers with non-specie weapons
could also consider changing their equipment to specie specific thereby freeing
up Neopoints to purchase more expensive equipment to be used in other slots.
Special tanks to everyone from Clockworks
for their ideas on the message board to this article. | 
