Introduction
As a member of the BD Chat, on countless occasions people are making boards and help threads asking ‘what weapons to buy’ or ‘what weapon is the best’.
Now, I will first and foremost tell you that this guide, for now at least will only be focused on 2P, for 1P opponents such as the DoN and Space Faerie I highly recommend this guide written by one of the best and most well known 1P battlers there is.
http://www.neopets.com/~richardnub
Furthermore, in this guide I will be mostly covering ‘cheaper’ sets and strategies, usually if your set is worth quite a few neopoints, you tend to know enough about the BD to make a good set on your own. ;P
This guides purpose is to help one become a better overall 2P battler as well as have a kick butt set that can come on top of much more expensive setsif played correctly.
The First Steps
2P battledoming, is like Pokemon battling. (Sounds crazy right but hear me through)
It requires several things to be victorious in both cases. Think of your pokemon, being like your battledome weapons. Charizard is obviously better than pikachu, but if pikachu uses thundershock, its super effective and can beat charizard. Same thing works for the BD, even though your weapons aren’t as strong, if your use them correctly you can still win. ;P
Fear not the weapon, but the hand that uses it ~Unknown
A complete battledome set, is as you guessed, like a good pokemon team.
You need a balance of defenders, attackers, healers, and support, and most of all make sure your pokemon, err… I mean weapons, can work together effectively, and cover each others weaknesses, but we’ll get to that in as sec, which in pokemon is called /Synergy/ which I believe is key in both.
Now, I’m not saying that a nice set will make you win every battle, but having a nice, complete set will help make predicting and your battling easier, and therefore making you win more battles. For starters, I will list good weapons, shields, and other under/around 1 million neopoints that I highly suggest you use to make your battledome set.
Now, 2P battledoming is about the type of icons, not the number of icons.
Constants are your main attacking weapons and are what your going to most likely be using most, choose carefully. ;P
Which is why I will start with offensive weapons, try to pick a variance that will be able to get through most shields as well as sink and burrow, which I will list also list later.
Chili Sword: Does 8 fire icons, great for getting through Ghostkershield, costs roughly 450k-800k, this weapon is rarely expected but can literally win games if your opponents only shield is G-shield, which happens to be the most common shield there is.
Ramtors Spellbook: 5 Light icons and 5 dark icons, a must have weapon for pretty much everyone, gets 100% through burrow and goes great combined with weapons that are blocked by burrow, but get through sink, such as Ylanas blaster, honey potion, chili sword, etc. This weapon also has greatly deflated to only 120k, truly a great buy.
Scuzzys Comb: Another great 10 icon item similar to ramtors spellbook, does 5 light icons and 5 physical icons. This sells for around 100k.
Ylanas Blaster: An amazing 13 iconer that is a staple and has been in almost every person’s set at one time, although it is completely blocked by Faerie Tabard and burrow, pair this weapon with ramtors spell book, or scuzzys comb and its a force to be reckoned with, definitely the best bang for your buck if you can afford it. At around 750k, this weapon is amazing.
Steeming Skeem Potion: 11 icons (3 air, 5 fire, and 3 water). CAUTION: In battles, this will do 8 icons if your opponent has 19 intelligence or less, otherwise it will do 11 icons, so if your opponent does have less than 19 intel, its best to not use this weapon if you have better options. Still though, for 30k this weapon is worth the price.
These are only a few great constants I would post more but my picture count is very limited, others include-
Psellias Fighting Fan
Stone Club
Essence of Esophagor
Ice Club
Pike Pike
Sword of Apocalypse
Unstable Slime
Dual Duty
Dual duties are weapons that block and attack at the same time, pair them together with other dual duties, shields and constants and you can have some nasty combos and hard to beat icons in defense /and/ offense.
Scarab Ring: Deals 2 water, 2 dark, 2 physical / blocks 3 fire, 3 physical. This is the poster child of cheap but amazing weapons, this weapon is around 2k, and is THE best weapon for the price and I’ll be referring to it later in this guide.
Golden Compass: 3 air, 3 fire, and 3 light / blocks 2.6 dark. This is another amazing dual duty for the price, overpowers Ramtors spell book and is buyable at around 40k.
Dusty Magic Broom: 3 air and 5 earth / blocks 5 light. This is the most expensive weapon I will suggest in this guide, its around 1.1 million neopoints and goes great paired with Sophies magic hat. This weapon gets 100% through sink and overpowers Ramtors spell book and scuzzys comb and is another get option to consider if you can afford it.
Shields
These are your main defense against other weapons. Pair shields with dual duties and constants, this require prediction though of what your opponent will use though.
Downsize: Blocks 50% of all icons for 1 turn each battle. Wow, just wow. See this weapon right here, PUT IT IN YOUR BATTLEDOME SET. Seriously, do it. This weapon is a MUST have until you can afford a Thyoras Tear, which is rather pricey.
This weapon only costs only 7k, no excuse not to have it.
Leaf Shield: Another incredibly great item for the price. This blocks 5 earth, 3 physical, and 5 water. I mean this takes out a good chunk of SO many other weapons including Scarab ring, honey potion, stone club, ice club and it just keeps on going. Another must until you can afford something better. And for only 12k, one should be able to afford it.
Sophies Magic hat: Your next cheap upgrade to leaf shield, it blocks 3 darkness, 5 earth, 3 fire, and 3 physical icons, and is another great shield for under 150k.
Lesser Healing Scroll: Simply heals 25 HP, very cheap, around 5k
Greater Healing Scroll: Heals 50 HP, more expensive, around 50k but worth it if your neopet has more HP.
Now, here’s the tricky part, if your neopet has over 150+ HP, you need to either morph into a kacheek, gelert, or elephante unguent and use a Kacheek Life potion, gelert healing remedy, or elephante urgent OR save your neopoints and buy a Bag of Healing dust for 10 million neopoints, of if you can somehow afford it a Leaded elemental vial for roughly 40 million neopoints.
The Gelert Healing remedy and elephante unguent both heal 50% of health and the kacheek life potion will heal 33% if your pets HP is under 33%, or will heal 100% if your pets HP is over 33%
Honey Potion: For a mere 700k, this item will do 13.3 to 16 icons 13 earth and 0.3 to 3 physical. The only real upgrade to this is Ghostkerbomb and maybe Jhudoras Potion, it does almost get almost completely through sink and is good paired with ramtors spellbook.
Suggested Sets
First off, if your one of those people who’s not really sure if they want to start BDing or invest real neopoints, or just wants to get started, or IE “I have 100k, what should I buy in weapons”.
Buy this- Scarab ring x2, Downsize, Leaf Shield, and a lesser/greater healing scroll. Save the rest and spend it all on training/save it.
or if you like pictures like I do-
Total cost 30k-70k.
or if you have a few more neopoints, try maybe
Ylanas Blaster, Ramtors Spell Book, Spohies magic hat, downsize, grater healing scroll, honey potion, leaf shield, golden compass.
Total cost: Around 1.7 million neopoints, or get rid of the honey potion to make it 1 million neopoints if you can’t afford it.
Tips/Strategy
Now, as I said in the beginning, strategy can overcome a much stronger and better set, PCC + Gshield may seem impossible to beat when your set is less than 2 million neopoints, but Dusty magic broom+ Chilisword for example can beat that.
Which is why, like in pokemon, prediction is a HUGE factor. Like if you know your opponent has gshield+ftab, which is why you need to make yourself unpredictable, and force your opponent to be predictable.
For example, for the first turn of the battle, you could use an item like ramtors spell book, the next turn, your opponent will probably use their G-shield or something to block that, so a smart move would be to switch all of a sudden to your chilisword, which gets 100% THROUGH G-shield really hurting your opponent.
Furthermore, like with pokemon, when making your set/pokemon team, make your set tending to your style. Whether that be more offensive for defensive, like if you want to play defensively, use more dual duties or shields, or if you play offensively, maybe add an extra constant or bomb and just pile on the damage each turn.
Whatever it is when you make YOUR set, check to make sure in your set you have at least…
1. 1 weapon that can get past all common shields such as Ftab, G-shield, Leaf shield, and SMH, getting completely walled is not fun.
2. A shield or two to block other common weapons
3. A healer to heal yourself
(This actually is the same thing I do when making a team for pokemon, I get a list of common pokemon and make sure I have a counter to each one in the team I’m building, same thing applies here for BDing)
You don’t need to take my suggestions, search around for weapons and you might just find a kick butt combo of weapons yourself that works better than what I have suggested.
Pairing certain shields like Leaf shield with the ability sink, will make it so you will nearly take NO damage for that turn.
Quench, Water breathing, and steam shield are also great for blocking weapons such as Kelpbeards trident, Mask of coltzan, Chili sword, portable kiln, etc to also help you.
TIP**Always use Quench, Steam shield, and water breathing on WEAK to save your power, this will only use 10% power. Without any power, you can’t use abilities and you usually want to save 80% of your power for burrow and sink, and 10% for quench/steam shield/water breathing. Which its always a good idea to make note of your, and your opponent’s power level.
ALSO, for steam shield and Quench, you must CLICK FIRST to only use 10% power, and for water breathing you must CLICK SECOND to only use 10% power, otherwise you will end up using 40% of your power, which is not good and could cost you the game. Which is why its usually good to click as fast as possible when using weapons that could be blocked by those.
Also, with ‘clicking first’ you always want to try to be the one clicking first to therefore thwart your opponent from of course using the abilities, the downside is that therefore you don’t have any time to carefully choose your move.
In addition, another option as some have suggested is to use weapons that ‘reflect’ icons such as Pricky potions or voidberry potions, since the upside they are unblockable IF YOU CLICK FIRST and can be used to get through a burrow/sink turn. The only downside is that they are only 6 icons, and can therefore usually be overpowered anyways, and your not always guaranteed to click first, which is usually why reflected icons are not normally used unless one can afford 2 glowing cauldrons in there set, but they are of course very pricy are sell for around 18-19 mil.
Also take note of certain species attacks, such as Pteri Dive for pteris which does a decent 6 icons, these don’t make that big of a deal but can be helpful in certain situations, like if your opponent has 1 HP and you want to do just enough to beat your opponent but not get the lame tie since your opponent will probably beserk you praying for the tie.
