~ TRAINING: Memorize the following sentence: THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR TRAINING! Good weapons will only get you so far - if you want to fight the best, you're going to need the stats to back it up. Using a Ghostkersword with a 20 hp pet is useless if your opponent can take you down over 20 hp's in a round even while you're defending.

There are several ways to train your pet: the Training School on Mystery Island, the Swashbuckling Academy on Krawk Island, Kitchen Quests (Mystery Island), Faerie Quests (random events), scratchcards (level only), the Lab Ray (see Lab Ray section), shrooms, certain potions, and Neggs.

- Training Sch./Academy - should be done daily. I prefer Training School over the Academy - it usually costs less.
Note: You cannot train any stat, except hit points, over 2 x pet's level - if you have a stat over 2 x level, the schools will not let you train anything other than level. Your hp's (endurance) can be trained to 3x level, but there's a catch: If you train endurance to 3x level you cannot train any other stat until your level is trained back up to half your endurance.

- Kitchen Quests - complete one and you'll get either around 1000nps, an item, or a random pet will have a random stat raised. If the total of the items requested are more thatn 5-7k, it isn't worth doing the quest.

- Shrooms - a Purple Spotted Shroom can either raise 1 hp, 1 str, or heal 3 hp - kinda expensive, especially if you get the heal.

- Potions - certain potions from Kayla's shop can raise stats, among them Essence of Drackonack (1 or 2 str, or nothing), Bomberry Elixir (1 def or damages your pet), and Strength Serum (1-4 str). Downside - EoD and Bomberry have a low success rate and all 3 are pricey. The upside is that, unlike neggs and shrooms, they do not depend on your pet's hunger status to use.

- Neggs - a very expensive way to train - recommended only for high-level pets.

~ LAB RAY: Collect all 9 pieces of the Secret Laboratory Map (cost = 450-500k), go to 'Treasure Maps' in the Puzzles section of the Game page, and you will gain access to the Lab Ray, where you can zap 1 pet once per day. The ray will do 1 of the following: raise/lower 1 stat, change gender, change species (and usually color), or change color.

- For training purposes, you should NEVER use the lab ray as your only means of training. The ray does not raise your stats evenly and over time will leave your pet with stats so unbalanced that it will cost far too much to train to balance them out. Use the ray with your school training to help speed things along - training the other stats to match.
Note: Over an 8 month period of labbing a pet, its hp were raised over 100 pts, str and movement raised about 30 pts, level was raised about 7 pts and defence was lowered 20 points.

~ BATTLE SETS: There are many items you can equip you pet with to battle - and probably just as many theories on which ones to use. That said, you can only equip 8 to fight with. I believe there are 5 essential items that every good battle set should include: a multi-use attack weapon, a freezing item, a 'grenade' weapon, a healing item, and a defense item.

Many people would argue that a shield is optional, but I recommend using one at least until your pet is high enough level to get the burrow and sink abilities and can do enough damage per round to shorten most matches to only a couple rounds. Downsize! is also a great defensive item - it reduces damage by 50% for 1 round - however it is one use so you'll need to decide whether to use a slot on that or another offensive item. Also keep in mind that your opponent will sometimes dictate which weapons you should equip. Some are stronger at certain types of attacks and some defend certain types of attacks well while being very weak against others. If you lose to an opponent, pay attention to what they use and adjust your battle set accordingly.

A grenade weapon - is any high-damage, once-per-battle weapon such as a Honey Potion, Ghostkerbomb, Snowballs, and Muffins. Some of these (snowballs, muffins) disappear permanently after using them, while the others just disappear for the remainder of the battle and are available again the next battle (Gbomb, HPotion). Ideally, these are used when your opponent is frozen, for maximum effect.

For a starter battle set, I recommend the following: Leaf Shield (defence), Snowglobe Staff (freezing), lost desert dagger, Scarab Ring, Slime Potion (Healing), Downsize! (reduces opponents attack 50%), and 2x Sticky Snowballs (cheap 1 use 'grenades'). Total cost: approx. 33k.

The set I listed is a 'generic' set for any pet. Some pet species have some really good, cheap species-only weapons that are used in place of some of the items mentioned.

As you increase your stats and gain neopoints, of course, you will want to upgrade your battle set.
- Healing - see my Scorchstone Tips section below.
- Freezing - The next step up from the Snowglobe Staff are the Black and Rainbow Frost Cannons (over 150k), then its the 100% freeze items like H4000 helmet and Freezing Potion (3.8 mil†).
- Stealing - for around 100k you can get a Green Sticky Hand, which has a chance of stealing an opponents weapon. Comes in handy against many 1P opponents.
- Once per battle Grenades - Honey Potion (600k and up).
- Weapons - too many to list here. Again, your opponent may dictate which weapon would be best to use.

~ 100% FREEZING ITEMS - In my opinion, the first 'expensive' weapon every serious battler should save up for is a 100% freezing item (meaning it freezes your opponent for 1 turn every time it is used), the cheapest of which is the H4000 Helmet (h4k helm) at around 4 million neopoints. Having the ability to be able to hit your opponent with your strongest attack while they cannot defend or counter makes a *HUGE* difference in battling.

FAERIE ABILITIES

Overview - There are a total of 52 faerie abilities you can get for your pet. Of these 52, however, only 9 are of any real use in the battledome: heal, burrow, sink, drain life, fiery gaze, healing vapour, restore, regen, and diamond dust.

To get a faerie ability for your pet you must first raise your pet's level to the required pet level of the ability, then bless your pet with the appropriate bottled faerie. If your pet's level is too low, the faerie will fly away and disappear. You only need one faerie per ability, but the catch is that you have to get all the abilities of the levels below it first. For example, if you want the Earth ability 'Burrow' at level 10, you must first get the Earth abilities Magic Pebbles (lvl 1), Tough Skin (lvl 3), and Magic Berries (lvl 6). You can do this either one of 2 ways: bless your pet as you go (using 1 faerie at a time each time you reach an ability level), or all at once (raise your pet to the required level and bless multiple times - 1 faerie per ability).

Abilities Table - description of the abilities you will need (pet level needed, ability type/#, description)

Burrow	- Level 10 - 4th Earth ability - blocks earth, air, fire, water and physical.
Diamond Dust	- Level 28 - 8th Air ability - chance of freezing, although a very low chance (less than 10%).
Drain Life	- level 21 - 7th Dark ability - Drains 11% of opponents hp (up to a max of 100) and heals your pet with them.
Fiery Gaze	- level 6 - 3rd Fire ability - Same as Diamond Dust.
Heal	- level 1 - 1st Water ability - Heals 1-50hp. Only useful on low-level pets.
Healing Vapour	- level 27 - 8th Water ability - Heals 33% of lost hp (regen and restore have similar effect). Only useful on high-level pets (300†hp).
Sink	- level 30 - 8th Dark ability - Defends light, dark, water, fire, and physical.

Raising Ability Level (the level of the abilities themselves, not to be confused with the pet level needed for an ability) - There are currently 3 ways to raise the level of an ability: Landing on the Light Faerie on the Wheels of Excitement and Monotony, and by feeding your pet a Radioactive Negg. NOTE: The ability that's level is raised is random, there is currently no way to raise the level of an ability directly. Also, the level of an ability currently makes no difference in the battledome.