Now, battling in 2-Player is rather straight-forward. Click - Click - Click - GO! ....until someone is knocked out.
Stats are necessary. Weapons are good to have (if you want to win). Strategy is employed for the most part.
Yet, an important aspect of battling that is often overlooked or disregarded is the one that deals with "toying" with your opponents thinking.
How are these tactics used in the dome? ARE they used in the dome? Few can actually successfully play games with their opponents and win. Others do it for fun.
The basic premise is to do one thing to make your opponent think another thing or second guess themselves while you set yourself up for the win.
Surprise attacks? Making your opponent think your weak when your strong? Purposefully holding back?
How about off the dome if or when your opponent is looking over your pet or account? "ghost" weapons?
Anyone ever think they had the battle in the bag, then suddenly POW! your on the defensive? You just stare at the screen
thinking "where the heck did that come from?"
while your opponent may be sitting there watching with a smile as the refresh box moves past 2 minutes thus letting them know your in shock since you moved so much faster when they let you think that you were winning?
I won't go into further detail for now. Just want to hear some input for any battlers who have either used any "mind game" tactics in the dome or were subject of such. For the "victims" were you able to recover or did you walk straight into it?
Feel free to share strategies or tactics or personal experience. Though caution
if you don't want your secrets to be leaked
One Player is straight-forward. Two-Player not so much,
. I'm not much of a Two-Player battler, but Neo doesn't incorporate the psychological aspect as much as some games do: there simply isn't enough variety in weapons. Hold back, without a reason (and tricking your Opponent generally isn't a good enough reason), and you lose. I suppose it would be possible to not use an SoS until the end of a fight, in an effort to make sure the Opponent doesn't use RotL or G-Shield, but...
There are only a handful of weapons that really achieve the conscious awareness factor. I think that knowing the person you're fighting has a much larger impact on the psychological aspect, since you tend to care more about your victory. Even then, it only affects the battle to the degree that you anticipate specific tactics or weapons.
But we'll see how long it takes for a serious Two-Player person to disagree with me.
Sirhatter's Battle Analysis series includes this kind of thing... keeping your weapon set a secret, having some unexpected or rare items in there and springing them on your opponent when he's not expecting it, stuff like that. They're mostly about general strategy, though. They're really neat to read.
First few in the series
Another (my favorite, haha)
Latest one
Sure I've done some of the things you've mentioned, but like shattered said, it usually isn't done. When I do those things it is with friends, usually when I have a new weapon and haven't told them about it, or I want to "surprise" them with my new toy. And of course in limited weapons tournies when you can only use certain weapons, you have to mix it up so they can't just lay against your weapons with superior defensive weapons. But most 2 player people just try to go for the win. Strategy is less and less than it use to be with the downgrade to fairy abilities, and the increase in powerful weapons. Basically any serious battler has to have a freezing weapon, a healing weapon. a good defensive weapon or more, and 2 good offensive weapons, and a good bomb type weapon if they don't have a powerful multi use weapon. So with those choices its hard to surprise people without anything other than what icons your weapons do. That part is where the strategy comes in. For instance, I use the same 2 offensive weapons for most of a battle until my opponent decides to play to them, then I keep a third one available with different icons and get through their defense that way. There's strategy and I do that all the time. But I always try to win, I never play with my opponent unless it's a fun match.
I must say I am a master at these type of mind games. I can easily guess what my opponent will do. When you fight a 2-player opponent for the first time, use your original set. Do not attempt to change anything for now. Normally, your opponent will attack on the first round rather than defend. That means you should defend. But of course, now that people are reading this post, they will start defending on their first round, meaning you should attack. However, defending is the best thing to do as you will not lose anything. You can always try to steal from your opponent in the first round because hopefully, you have chosen an opponent of the equal boost, meaning he/she will not be able to kill you in the first round. Continue to defend until your opponent either defends or shows their weapons. Now you know what attackers your opponent uses! This will be the key for your next battle against this opponent. If they defend, however, you should choose your attackers which your opponent will not be able to block using his/her shields. If you use a freezer, freeze and bomb at some point, preferably when you are low on health so you can heal and bomb while your opponent is frozen. Do not forget the ability Drain Life. If you do not use a freezer, wait until your opponent has used their
Downsize! and then bomb. When low on health, heal. The right decisions will always help you to defeat your opponent. Now that you have finished the first battle, you can now shop for some shields and attackers which can defend/go through your opponent's weapons/shields. But beware, do not change your set completely as your opponents might make changes too.
I kind of regret making this post now... People now know my secrets of 2-player battling. The psycological tactic above helps me a lot, but I am not sure whether it will help you or not.
Well, maybe first-round defense is rare at your level, but at my level (not that I do much 2-player battling right now, but when I do), my opponents tend to freeze+defend first round. I actually can't remember a single one that went with an all-out attack, because that's basically suicide at the 250 boosts.
And at this level, it's a lot harder to just run out and buy weapons to counter your opponents' set, seeing as they can cost millions, so you have to build a well-rounded set and learn to work with what you have. But what you and I are both talking here is basic BD strategy, not mind games.
Edit: Haha, I just noticed my custom user title. I like it!
I just have a pet with a whole lot of hit points. Surprisingly, most people don't know how to fight against that and get seriously intimidated even when I get grouped into leagues where the extra hit points are more than offset by the additional Strength boosts my opponents have. More than one of my opponents has made the mistake of comparing total hit points instead of comparing the number of unblocked and unhealed icons needed to win. I'm planning on writing an article about this, but I want to wait until munster's tourney is over before writing the guide to beating my pet.
Quote:I actually can't remember a single one that went with an all-out attack, because that's suicide at the 250 boosts.
Thanks for this example Cran. In actuality, this depends on both Str and HP. For balanced stat pets, the 250 boost is alot safer than lower boosts - and this safety is paradoxically why all out attacks are suicide. At 5.5 damage per icon, it takes 45.45 unblocked/unhealed icons to deal 250 damage or (54.54 u/u icons to deal the 300 damage that your battlepet has.). For comparison it takes an 85 Str pet only 34 u/u icons icons to deal 85 damage, and a 55 boost pet only 27.5 u/u icons to deal 55 damage.
You'll note that the 54.54 u/u icons are well within what an opponent can be expected to do during a freezebomb. With Berserk, they only need dual SoS/PCC or GBomb with a 10+ iconer. And while technically they're within what an opponent could do on a first round all out attack, not by so much that you couldn't survive it by choosing Freeze + <anything> + Defend stance and then get the win on them while they're frozen. Even GBomb+PCC is only going to average ~66 icons, which drops to ~52.8 icons against Defend (~ 46.2 against Improved Defend).
At the lower HP to Str ratios (and the boosts where they occur) that many icons can only be effectively blocked by Sink/Burrow/Tear/Heal or other move you might not use on the first round you see more of the full offense opening. Likewise at the much much higher HP to Str ratios you begin to see it again as part of high-risk late-freeze stratgies.
I think what everyone is highlighting, though maybe without meaning to do so, is that different strategies are popular depending on the level of fighting you're at. In higher level fighting, the all out attack is sometimes used, but you're talking about people taking a gamble, but who can knock out an opponent by doing over 500 hps damage in one round easily. Also, at that level, your freezer tends to become more of a defensive weapon than of value for any freeze bombing, as both opponents will tend to have a 100% freezer in two-player, and neither can afford to sit on it against an opponent who can berserk and do over 1,000 hps of damage in a round on a frozen player. Thus, the freezers are often trotted out in the first round with the result of a double freeze occuring, a defensive oriented move. The battle then moves to a much more strategic one, as both players are often down to 7 weapons, and both are likely to have a single-use bomb of undetermined origin that can be tossed at any time, and and a single-use healer. That leaves 5 multi-use weapons and a lot of hit points on both pets (due to neither getting in a freeze/bomb), and often several rounds of give and take. Not that I'm there, nor likely to get there, but I suspect that at the HIGHEST levels, the single freeze becomes less of an overall factor (the pets have huge amounts of max hit points, and usually a full healer, so that the loss of 1,000 hps is certainly noticeable, but far less critical, and NEITHER player has a worry of being frozen in the first round and wiped out in the second.
Wilt, your example assumes that you'll be fighting the same two-player opponent on a semi-regular basis. It's also a very patient approach, and may work to your advantage over time if you do fight the same player over and over, but at higher levels, you'd still be doing your research and information gather when they'd be carrying you off on your shield after either the first or second rounds.
Again, I think that what makes sense at one level, doens't necessarily make sense at another, and one of the keys to being a good battler is to make the adjustments in strategy that different situations require.
Some very good battlers I see around here with some very good posts.
Wilt made a very good point of being able to predict what your opponent is going to do. To further expand on that to make it more clearer what the thread was intended for, I'll give you an example from my one of my own battles, and what I meant about pysychological tactics.
Around a couple weeks ago I found myself lucky enough to battle a tank (a pet who overtrains DEF followed by HP to make use of defensive strategy.)
A No-freeze battle. They were very respectful on my request since I didn't have a freezer at the time, and considering it wouldn't have made a difference if I just went out and bought a Scroll of Freezing. We'd both be stalemate either way and it'd save him the trouble of worrying about a potential late-freeze, which I would have been able to pull off successfully with a little defensive work for the first round.
My Pet: 330hp 125str 55 def (a decent set)
Opp Pet: 275hp 125str 250def (a very nice set) - Kacheek
Considering their high DEF I fully expected a Gshield. From the boards I'd been able to gather that they did not have a Tabard at the moment, which would make this strategy more favorable.
1st Rnd-
Me: Kiln + Purple Sticky Hand + Defend
Opp: Drain Life + PCC + Gshield
Well my Sticky Hand failed...like always.. but my fire went straight through. May sound like a bad move, but it was a good setup.
2nd Rnd-
Me: Kiln + Purple Sticky Hand + Defend
Opp: PCC + Gshield + Species
3rd round I alternated with Downsize! and Kiln then 4th round with Kiln + Greater Healing Scroll + Burrow to which they had given up on Gshield and opted to SoS + PCC.
Stat wise, they'd opt to heal at 91hp and by now the opponent had started using PCC + SoS giving up on Gshield since the first several moves I was playing like a "newbie". The win in their mind was just all a matter of time.
My HP was high enough for me to berserk (around upper 250s) and survive while their's was within my kill zone (160ish).
A burrow was possible, but I couldn't go one more round in without pulling out my Gshield and making them second-guess me so I opted for an all-out attack.
I got enough icons off my PCC and Gbomb to get the KO knowing that the possibility of them shielding was slim to none. They had opted to PCC + SoS.
Managed to scrape off the win.
I received a mail later asking why I held back to which I replied.
"because of your DEF I figured you had a good shield....why should I have given you any reason to use it?
Just an example of some psychological tactics. Because of my pet's high HP I was able to pull it off more successfully than others would have in my position.
Rather unusual choice of moves, but still had an overall purpose in the end.
Going against common tactic is a tactic in itself but you have to be sure it will work.
2 player battling includes a lot of thinking and tactic. You have to not only be able to beat your opponent but in a good battle you will most likely have to outwit your opponent.
If i go back a few years. Bunnylover and I would battle each other 3-4 times per week. Well after a few months I could tell exactly what he was going to do. Even if his tactic was different i could still tell what he would do. You have to learn to read people and know how they battle. There are little things they do that they might not even notice but it allows you to maybe know when that person will throw a bomb and then you know how to put on a proper defence. If a battle is long enough you need to get to know your opponent during those first couple of moves. Examine his moves and then try to work out what kind of strategy he will most likely use.
That's what Mr chuckles did. After beating him 10 times in a row, I suddenly felt a false sense of security and I'm no longer interested in using the leaf shield to defend myself since my pteri has 40% air resistance and so I set off my first turn using my scarab ring + golden compass + defend and...POW!I got killed immediately...all my 14hp is gone
Then there's the Jelly Chia whom I always used leaf shield + defend + (attacking weapon) every turn...after about what like 20 turns and he still did nothing(he only uses fierce attack or jump and attack..) and I expect him to bust out something dangerous during his last few hp but........he still did nothing...and I trashed him