Have you been around for a while but never put paw or hoof into the battledome? Sometimes too much information can be overwhelming. This page covers what you need to do before you jump into a battle. There are a lot of great battledome petpages out there, but you need to know the basics first before you can utilize them.

There are five basic steps to follow before you are ready for your first battle:

1. Set your goals 2. Train your pet 3. Bless your pet with Faeries for abilities 4. Activate Faerie abilities 5. Equip with weapons

Step 1: Set your Goals

The first thing you need to do is set your goals. Your goals will drive all future decisions about how to train and what weapons to buy.

1P or 1 Player fights are all fights against a computerized opponent. This includes DoN (Defenders of Neopia) and fights to obtain Avatars. 2P or 2 Player fights are battles against other players. While the overall strategy is the same, the weapons that are ideal for each type of fighting is different.

Your first decision to make is: 1P or 2P, and what is your current budget?

Step 2: Train your pet

Training your pet is the most important part of fighting in the battle dome. Some people like the challenge of having a pet with low stats and expensive weapons, but it is actually cheaper to train your pet then get expensive weapons!

Which pet should you train? Do not use your well painted, limited edition, or unconverted pet. If you get serious about the battledome later, you may want to switch species as there are different benefits to each species. Most people with battledome pets end up changing species to take advantage of different strengths and weaknesses, so be prepared for this possibility.

The second thing to consider is the name of your pet. Everything about your pet is changeable - except the pet's name. Make sure you are happy with your pet's name before spending a lot of neopoints on training.

If your pet has very low stats and you aren't sure where to begin, start out by training level to 1/2 your highest stat. Then even your stats out. For a guide to training a new pet check out Nootrishus's petpage.

A lab rat is a pet that has been zapped with the secret lab ray for a long time. Lab Rats end up with high hitpoints, good strength, weak defense, and low level. The problem with a lab rat is that if you decide to raise defense, it will be very expensive to raise, and might be cheaper to start with a lower but even statted pet to train. However, a powerful lab rat can be great for fighting 1 Player battles, because the high hitpoints tend to make up for the lack of defense. If you are lab "training" your pet, train levels and defense as you go.

If your goal is 2P fighting, you'll want more evenly balanced stats. There is a system that divides pets up into different so "leagues" so they face more equal battles. If you are interested in 2P battles, you may want to train your pet's statistics to match one of the suggestions on Yontath's petpage.

In lieu of training, some people will choose to trade their current pet for a "BD Pet". This is generally an option someone who would like avatars but does not want to make the time commitment to train a pet. Please note that trained pets, even lab rats that have been zapped a long time, have a high trade value, and are not easy to come by.

Step 3: Faerie Abilities

The three abilities everyone needs are Burrow, Sink, and Drain Life. Get these abilities as your level gets high enough. When you are more experienced in battle you can study the other abilities to find ones you might want to use.

*Burrow can be obtained once you are level 10 by using 4 botted earth faeries. Gives you a strong defense for one turn. *Drain Life can be obtained at level 21 and takes 7 bottled dark faeries. This will do some damage to your opponent and heal you. *Sink can be obtained at Level 30. It takes a total of 8 bottled dark faeries (or one if you already have Drain Life). Gives you a strong defense for one turn.

Step 4: Activate your Abilities

To activate your abilities go to the Quick Reference page. Using the drop down box next to your pet's name, click on View Abilities. Click on the ability to activate it.

Image Glitch for Firefox Users: If you can't click on the ability because the images are no longer showing up, do the following. Highlight some text on the page above the ability you want. Then hit the tab key on your keyboard. A small dot should appear above the ability. Keep hitting tab to get to the right one. Then hit the enter button on your keyboard.

Step 5: Equip your pet for Battle!

You're pet won't do very well without the right weapons! What you choose depends on your budget and your goals. If you are doing 1-player challengers, the best weapons are different then if you doing 2-player challengers.

You're weapons are called your "set". You can have up to 8 items equipped. Most sets have a combination of:

*2 - 3 weapons that do consistent damage. For 1 Player, you want the weapons that are the strongest in your price range. For 2 Player, you need weapons that are hard to block. *A healer to restore hitpoints *1 - 2 shields to block damage *A bomb - an item that can be used once per battle that does a larger amount of damage then your regular weapons. *Optional: A Freezing Weapon. There is a lot of variety in the category, but the outcome is the same: if your opponent is frozen you get one turn where they can't attack you! Freezing weapons either don't work every turn, or are very expensive. If you do 2P battles, many people will ask you to do "no freeze" - so this tends to be one of the last items people add to their sets. *Optional: A Stealing Item to take weapons from certain 1-player challengers.

For now, you can skip the freezing and stealing items, they have situational uses which will be discussed in a future petpage. Head on over to Ssamssam_2004's petpage and get some weapons. Remember you can sell your weapons later, you just need something to start with for now.

Once you have weapons, you need to equip them. Go to your inventory (click on your NP amount is a short cut there), then click on the item you want to equip. Click equip your pet name.

Special Thanks:
This page was inspired by Project Bootcamp, a guild dedicated to bringing new battlers into the BD.