The Casual Neopian's Guide to Battledoming

However, most guides for battledoming are made for players who want some extra knowledge, and if you're one of those people who feel like banging their heads against the wall trying to figure out all that most of the guides say wondering if you'll ever need it, this guide is for you, because, here, I present only what you'll need to know for beating most of the avatar opponents or the Defenders of Neopia challengers.

Through the guide, I'm going to assume you've read a few guides from before, and do have some knowledge of the battledome, which really isn't hard to obtain. I'm also going to assume that you want to battledome mainly for the avatars, trophies, or only during plots if there's a war.

Training

Ah, there are probably thousands of guides regarding training all over Neopia, but let me tell you one thing, if you only want to battledome for a few avatars, trophies, or maybe during times when there is a war, you don't even need to visit the training schools even once. Honestly, the lab ray is the only training source you need.

True, the ray does give out uneven stats, but the stats that the lab ray gives out the most are health and strength, with defence usually being the weaker stat, and speed rather neutral. That's not a problem at all. Most fights against one player opponents require a pet with high health, a good strength boost, and rarely require defence at all. Not that defence isn't useful in the battledome, but it's not going to be really useful to you.

The lab ray gives all the stats that you need, and all for free, aside from the initial fee to purchase the map. I would simply recommend taking a single pet and zapping him or her every day. Another advantage to this method is that you may get a species change or colour change which can provide you with an avatar. It may take some months to get good enough stats to take on some of the harder opponents, but after some zapping, it will get easier.

The only serious drawback is faerie abilities, so a possible strategy to training is to train your pet to level 30 (training only levels) at a training school, and then opening bottled faeries until you get the desired abilities. Remember to not use the lab ray during this period, because the lab ray can and probably will take away those hard-earned levels. Be sure not to open bottled faeries if your pet is at a lower level than the required level to gain an ability, or you'll get nothing. The safest strategy is to train your pet to level 30 first, and then to open the required number of bottled faeries.

The abilities that you'll be wanting are:

1. Dark Faeries: You'll want both drain life and sink, which you get at levels 21 and 30 respectively. You'll need a total of 8 bottled dark faeries for sink and drain life.

2. Earth Faeries: The only really useful ability that you'll need is burrow. For that, your pet must be at level 10, and you'll need a total of only 4 bottled earth faeries to get burrow.

Honestly, that's all you'll really need. Just three abilities. There are some other abilities that are of some use, but you probably won't be needing them.

If you've already zapped too much and don't have these abilities, don't sweat it. You don't need them against most challengers, but they come in hand sometimes.

Weapons

I'm going to list some of the weapons that you'll probably be using. While reading through the list, remember two things. First, most of these weapons are only good when they are used correctly and against the right opponent. Purple Sticky Hand is a great weapon, but useless against the Meerca Henchmen. To figure out what you should do on a turn-by-turn basis, remember that the training guides are your best friends. They'll give you everything that you need to defeat most opponents, as well as required levels and stats your pet should have. Secondly, you don't really need powerful and expensive weapons to fight, and in one player battling, stats are more important than weapons. You can beat the toughest opponents with a weak set if you just keep zapping long enough. Just remember this list doesn't include everything that can be useful.

1. Randomly Firing Freeze Ray: This is a bit expensive, but still pretty useful. This is a relatively new weapon to the battledome, so some of the older guides may not include this weapon. Commonly abbreviated as the RFF, this weapon has a 50% chance to freeze your opponent, much better than some other weapons. If your opponent is frozen, it means that your opponent can't move for one turn, and gives you an opportunity to deal massive damage!

Common weapons that will be listed in guides are Green Frost Cannon and Snowglobe Staff. If you have an RFFR, replace it with these weapons. On the other hand, the Green Frost Cannon and Snowglobe Staff are pretty good freezers, though they have a slightly lower freeze rate than the RFFR.

Lastly, there are some freezers which are extremely fragile, like Scroll of Freezing, and that means it can break permanently in battle. If that happens, your weapon is gone, and you've lost it and all the neopoints you used to pay for it went down the drain. However, the Scroll of Freezing is a guaranteed freeze, which is useful at times, but I really think the RFFR would be a better option. However, it is good for some of the crucial fights in which you absolutely need a freeze. If you have a Lupe, the Ancient Lupe Wand does the same thing, for lower damage too.

2. Purple Sticky Hand: This weapon has around a 50% chance to take the weapon in your opponent's first slot. Be very careful to study on whoever you're going to fight before battling, and get to know the first weapon they keep. This is immensely useful against some opponents like the Black Pteri, and useless against others like the Meerca Henchmen. This is a bit expensive, but worthwhile, you're probably going to be using this in many fights.

3. Thick Smoke Bomb: This is a one use weapon that costs around ten thousand neopoints. After you use it, it's gone, but it is useful in some important fights. Once again, read a guide to know if you might need one. You might need one or two while fighting some tough opponents like the Space Faerie, because it blocks all the damage you would take for a single turn.

4. Jade Elixir: Currently, this is the cheapest single use full healer available. Using it will fully heal your pet's health, but it's not really that useful until you have a lot of hit points. Aside from this, healers are rarely required.

5. Smelly Dung Muffin: I see a lot of battledomers who underestimate or underrate this weapon. Let me tell you, it is quite good, and I can attest for its usefulness.

To the point, this weapon is also one use, and always does fifteen icons of damage, the cheapest way currently to do that much. I used to use other weapons like Brain Muffin and Shooting Star Muffin that do the same number of icons but cost twice as much until I discovered this weapon.

The reason it is unpopular is because the type of icons that it does isn't very good, but that doesn't matter at all in one player battling. These are for use when your opponent is frozen, throw two of them and use fierce attack, you will deal massive damage. If anywhere in a guide it is said to use a weapon like Shooting Star Muffin, Water Muffin, Radioactive Muffin or something like that while your opponent is frozen, use Smelly Dung Muffins instead.

I must also note that Jar of Meepit Eyes is slightly weaker, but also pretty cheap. You might want to go with them when your attacks don't need to be too powerful against an opponent.

Aside from these, I think the usual weapons for offensive like Golden Compass and Rainbow Scroll are good for attacking. Defensive weapons are rather useless if you're labbing, so I won't mention them.

Some Final Tips

First of all, feel free to ask around the Battledome Boards at any time. Some people there are usually willing to either link you to a guide, or give some advice. I haven't touched on Voidberry Potions in this guide, but you will probably need them against the Space Faerie, so I guess you'll have to look elsewhere to understand them. Good luck training and battling!