09-14-2007, 11:59 AM
this reply got way to long to neomail, plus my points here are general enough to apply to a lot of battlers:
First and foremost:
If you are only fighting 1p a big thing to watch is the incremental cost of improvement for both training and weapons. For 1p, you should *always* make the move that's more cost effective. In 2p, this will lose a lot of fights to folks who have overequipped, but in 1p, you have no reason not to be cost-efficient. Let me walk you through an example:
Right now you have a 35 boost pet and your weapons deal ~13 offensive icons. Since 35 Str deals 1.5 damage / icon you're going to deal ~19.5 base damage when you attack with both weapons (not counting the opponents defense nor either battlers stance). Assuming that you are training Str, Defense and Endurance all evenly, it will take you 72 codestones, or about 450k neopoints to get to the next Str boost at 55. If you do that, your offensive weapons will deal ~26 base damage. Alternately, you could just spend about 150k to upgrade to dual Ice Clubs, which together would deal 18 icons. Since 18 Icons * 1.5 per icon = 27 base damage, you'd get more damage for a lower NP cost by doing that first.
From there, you would then eventually have to decide whether to train to 55 boost or upgrade to 10 iconers. Training to the 55 boost would cost you roughly 450k np, and increase your base damage to 18 * 2 = 36. Whereas upgrading to dual scuzzys combs would cost slightly over 600k and increase your base damage to 20 * 1.5 = 30. Clearly, training is going to be the better option there.
I used to have a petpage detailing incremental costs for many circumstances, but my hard drive 'asplode and I lost the it, so you're stuck doing the math yourself. I can recommend that the calculator on Neohangout.com and the codestone price thread here on the IDB forums will help.
Secondly,
Icon quality is generally far far less important in 1p than it is in 2p. While a 2p battler should care that Ramtors Spellbook gets 5 more icons through burrow than Scuzzys Comb, a 1p battler really shouldn't. 1p opponents are going to be predictable, and if one has a defense that your set has problems with, you will know about it in advance and be able to swap your set around to compensate.
Thirdly,
Icon-based defense isn't really going to matter in 1p until you get a pretty high defense boost. As you fight 1p opponents multiple times, they get stronger and stronger, and eventually they will be doing enough damage to overrun icon based shields, unless you have enough total defense to block a decent amount of their damage when they hit the 700 Str boost (this varies with the opponent, but rarely occurs until you are at least 300 defense boost, and for some opponents never happens at all.). Many veteran BDers debate whether training defense is even worth doing at all for 1p battling.
This means that generally full-blockers (such as Enchanted Kiko Squeeze Toy, Winged Scarab and Pirate Captains Hat) and reflectors (such as Double Dryer and Shovel Plus) and percentage defense (Downsize!) are better defensive options for 1p than icon-based shields (such as your Leaf Shield) are.
Another point about reflectors is that they deal damage based on the opponent's Strength boost, so frequently in 1p, they can be more damaging than your attack weapons, especially for lower boost pets. This is also relevant for the attack weapons that attack with reflected icons. Prickly Potion, Glowing Cauldron and Bracelet of Kings can all be phenomenal weapons when fighting against strong 1p opponents.
Finally,
There are specific strategies to beat most of the DoN opponents by using relatively cheap fragile and/or single use weapons. (The Giant Ghostkerchief can be beat by burrowing through his G-bomb and using a double dryer against his G-Sword; Stealing is great against the GHM Chomby's T-Tear; Commander Garoo is surprisingly vulnerable to Shovel Plus, etc) In wars it may well be worth using snowballs, muffins and other one-shot bombs to beat the tougher opponents. The general pattern of using Freeze, Sink, Burrow, Heal, Downsize!, Thick Smoke Bomb in succession can let an only moderately trained pet survive for 6-8 rounds against most 1p opponents and have a decent shot at a win against much strong opponents.
Thus you don't need to worry about having a perfect, or all-purpose 1p set, you're going to want to swap things around to handle different opponents.
neomail Wrote:I'm really only interested in 1p battles, would that make my weapon choices different or easier to choose since I'd only be fighting the montsers in DoN and wars?Yes.
First and foremost:
If you are only fighting 1p a big thing to watch is the incremental cost of improvement for both training and weapons. For 1p, you should *always* make the move that's more cost effective. In 2p, this will lose a lot of fights to folks who have overequipped, but in 1p, you have no reason not to be cost-efficient. Let me walk you through an example:
Right now you have a 35 boost pet and your weapons deal ~13 offensive icons. Since 35 Str deals 1.5 damage / icon you're going to deal ~19.5 base damage when you attack with both weapons (not counting the opponents defense nor either battlers stance). Assuming that you are training Str, Defense and Endurance all evenly, it will take you 72 codestones, or about 450k neopoints to get to the next Str boost at 55. If you do that, your offensive weapons will deal ~26 base damage. Alternately, you could just spend about 150k to upgrade to dual Ice Clubs, which together would deal 18 icons. Since 18 Icons * 1.5 per icon = 27 base damage, you'd get more damage for a lower NP cost by doing that first.
From there, you would then eventually have to decide whether to train to 55 boost or upgrade to 10 iconers. Training to the 55 boost would cost you roughly 450k np, and increase your base damage to 18 * 2 = 36. Whereas upgrading to dual scuzzys combs would cost slightly over 600k and increase your base damage to 20 * 1.5 = 30. Clearly, training is going to be the better option there.
I used to have a petpage detailing incremental costs for many circumstances, but my hard drive 'asplode and I lost the it, so you're stuck doing the math yourself. I can recommend that the calculator on Neohangout.com and the codestone price thread here on the IDB forums will help.
Secondly,
Icon quality is generally far far less important in 1p than it is in 2p. While a 2p battler should care that Ramtors Spellbook gets 5 more icons through burrow than Scuzzys Comb, a 1p battler really shouldn't. 1p opponents are going to be predictable, and if one has a defense that your set has problems with, you will know about it in advance and be able to swap your set around to compensate.
Thirdly,
Icon-based defense isn't really going to matter in 1p until you get a pretty high defense boost. As you fight 1p opponents multiple times, they get stronger and stronger, and eventually they will be doing enough damage to overrun icon based shields, unless you have enough total defense to block a decent amount of their damage when they hit the 700 Str boost (this varies with the opponent, but rarely occurs until you are at least 300 defense boost, and for some opponents never happens at all.). Many veteran BDers debate whether training defense is even worth doing at all for 1p battling.
This means that generally full-blockers (such as Enchanted Kiko Squeeze Toy, Winged Scarab and Pirate Captains Hat) and reflectors (such as Double Dryer and Shovel Plus) and percentage defense (Downsize!) are better defensive options for 1p than icon-based shields (such as your Leaf Shield) are.
Another point about reflectors is that they deal damage based on the opponent's Strength boost, so frequently in 1p, they can be more damaging than your attack weapons, especially for lower boost pets. This is also relevant for the attack weapons that attack with reflected icons. Prickly Potion, Glowing Cauldron and Bracelet of Kings can all be phenomenal weapons when fighting against strong 1p opponents.
Finally,
There are specific strategies to beat most of the DoN opponents by using relatively cheap fragile and/or single use weapons. (The Giant Ghostkerchief can be beat by burrowing through his G-bomb and using a double dryer against his G-Sword; Stealing is great against the GHM Chomby's T-Tear; Commander Garoo is surprisingly vulnerable to Shovel Plus, etc) In wars it may well be worth using snowballs, muffins and other one-shot bombs to beat the tougher opponents. The general pattern of using Freeze, Sink, Burrow, Heal, Downsize!, Thick Smoke Bomb in succession can let an only moderately trained pet survive for 6-8 rounds against most 1p opponents and have a decent shot at a win against much strong opponents.
Thus you don't need to worry about having a perfect, or all-purpose 1p set, you're going to want to swap things around to handle different opponents.