iDB Community Forum

I think I originally heard this advice from Hatter during the second Meridell War. I might be wrong on that, but in any case credit should be given where credit is due (or thought to be due).

This advice is moreso for the battlers that are beating around the trees with a fairer amount of ease. It will apply to everyone but the newest newbies if TNT re-releases the Tombstones.

Let's assume for a moment that the Black Elms are worth 1 Point, Blathering Beeches worth 2, and the Savage Sycamores worth 3. (Given that the weakest Tombstone was likely worth 1, we may want to assume the actual value for the trees is 3, 4, and 5, or 4, 5, and 6. We'll address my example and the 4, 5, 6 example in a moment.)

Several of us can defeat the Savage Sycamore in one hit, at least to start. However, it eventually reaches the point where if the Savage Sycamore defends, it takes two hits to defeat it. Likewise, eventually its health will reach a point where it requires at least two hits (if it defends at this point, it may or may not take three).

However, at this point, we can bash in the Blathering Beech (or Black Elm, but for the sake of maximizing our points the most quickly we turn to the Blathering Beech first) in one hit. Thus, we're defeating twice as many Blathering Beeches as we would be Savage Sycamores (for that matter, we'd end up defeating more before it came to the point where it would take multiple turns to defeat them as opposed to their big-brothers).

The trade-off? 4 Points (for two Blathering Beech kills) instead of 3 (one Savage Sycamore kill). Now, assuming one point for the Black Elms, two hits to kill the Savage Sycamores again nets three times the points in the same amount of time as it takes to kill the Black Elms, and with the Blathering Beeches it's two points in the same time.

However, since we're all assuming that the trees are worth more than the Tombstones were, we'll check the 4, 5, 6 example.

With the Blathering Beeches, we're earning 10 points in the time it would take to earn 6 (Savage Sycamores). And, at this point, with the Black Elms we'd be earning 8 in the time it would take to earn 6 (Savage Sycamores).


Hopefully most of you were aware of this factor already, but I thought it might be helpful to those of you pulling out your hair due to the lag, and that have limited time compared to those of us that are devoting a tad too much time to this.

(And if this is already sitting somewhere in plain view where I missed it already being up, someone feel free to smack me.)

This is definitely my strategy, although I haven't yet been able to fight enough of the stronger opponents to get them past one hit kills. This lag is killer... and the worst part is that many newbie battlers aren't giving up when they max out. Some are bragging on the neoboards about how many losses they have. Others are assuming ties and losses still count for points (I don't know why). I guess this is what happens when TNT doesn't add up our battle scores as we go... nobody knows how much anything is worth, so nobody will stop.

This makes perfect sense (assuming your point estimates are roughly accurate, of course), except for one thing (and even then, it still works pretty well). So, it takes one pageview to click on the name of your opponent and start the battle, another to select your weapons and click 'Go!'. If you have to select your weapons twice, that's three pageviews total per battle. If you only need to attack once, that's two pageviews per battle. So, if it's taking you two hits to beat the hardest opponent, but only one to beat the next hardest, that's either three pageviews for a win, or FOUR pageviews for two wins. So, assuming the points go 1, 2, 3, you're still only getting a point per pageview. However, if the points go 4, 5, 6 (as they likely might), that's 2 points per pageview on the hardest opponent, versus 2.5 per pageview against the next hardest, which actually is an improvement. Though, you'd still only be getting 2 points per pageview against the weakest opponent, so you'd have no advantage there.

I just wish I had decided to accually participate sooner so I could rake in some more of the easy kills. I want to kill the 50 difficulty war opponent, but I get lag and have to restart (yeah, hard battle for my pet ) and so I have given up with the war altogether. I can't decide if I want to accually fight or not, but if the next wave is all 60+ then I know I won't participate...

I wish I could view the highscores and see how many of each people have killed...like somebody killed Chia Clown 5000 times, lol

Well the highest I've heard of so far is 109 wins against Sycamore(50 + difficultly) one. The lag is most harmful to people who rely on Bomb finishers e.g In order to kill an opponent at the start with a one hit K.O , I use the Honey Potion + Illusen's Earth Potion +Fierce attack, If I was to get hit by lag on my dial-up and IE shows the URL cannot be found , I have to hit refresh .When I do that however it shows up "The item is not attached to your pet"(or something like that) ,then you hit back and u try it again and it shows "This pet is not properly set up to fight" or I'm missing the HP and The earth potion for that battle and can't re-use it, This is really annoying against the Sycamore

My advice is not to face the Sycamore when Neopets is highyly laggy , try to fight him when it's a little less laggalicious.

I really have to upgrade that earth potion when I get more np

"Hi-Score Tables

oh dear...

ERROR : Sneaky... but you cant see this hi score table yet "

Heh, I should have guessed they wouldn't have let us see the high score tables early...

I have 54 wins against the Giant Sycamore, and yeah, I had to stop trying to bomb my first turn on account of constantly getting a blank page. At least if you're using two constant-use weapons and you have to refresh, you just reuse them.

I don't think the tables are available from past wars either?

thnx i was thinkin about it and its gettin tougher and taking a lot longer to beat the sycamore..


Black Elm 15 +11 11 11 0 0 1233
Blathering Beech 30 +9 9 9 0 0 1117
Savage Sycamore 50 +111 111 111 0 0 14311


ps-i will check back later and update this but also a pointer to anyone you can skip a couple steps by making a link directly to the page you select your opponent from and use it soon as you loose and skip the " and the winnner is ... " page. still there will be lag anyways to deal with but this will lessen it for some ppl who might not be doing it (i wasnt as first till it got unbearable) hopefully that will relieve a little of the stress good luck.

Once you get this page

You have beaten Savage Sycamore!
You have won this fight!

I click on a bookmark set to
http://www.neopets.com/battledome/battle...=challenge
to bypass screen you don't need to hit

Or you can just hit the back button. It takes you back to the 1-player select screen (in Firefox, anyway). Just don't do this to cheat and fight if you're poisoned.

One you reduce their HP to 0, you could go back to the previous link, and the iwn will be recorded.