Blaze of Glory: An Article on Single-Usefulness (and Fragile Weapons)

[professorelite]

Single-use and fragile weaponry are an often overlooked part of of the battledome. Some weapons have amazing strategic value and are surprisingly affordable. Due to the fact that I've retyped my single-use advice multiple times in the Weapons Advice and Comparison Board and the non-existance of a single-use article, I've decided to make one.

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Bang for the Buck
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Important battles may require that extra damage be done to win. Granted single-use weapons are expensive to use often, but so is it to buy an equivalent multi-use weapon.

These are usually used in place of bombs; For example, when you can't afford a Honey Potion and want something better than Illusens Earth Potion you could turn to these. (credit to raziel_03 for this note)

The following is a list of the best priced weapon (in ascending order) for that particular iconage compared with the cheapest multi-use weapon that deals atleast that damage ignoring icon types.:
Note: Prices are as found when that portion of the article was updated; if not available, then based on IDB.

9 Icons| Sand Snowball ~ 40 NP vs. Stone Club ~ 94000; 1:2350 ratio
9.65 (avg)| Icy Snowball ~ 120 vs. Scuzzys Comb ~ 360000; 1:3000
10.5 (avg)| Sticky Snowball ~ 330 vs. Goo Blaster ~ 1200000; 1:3636
11.5 (avg)| Snow Mudball~ 775 vs. Wand Of Reality ~ 3300000; 1:4258
12| Chocolate Chip Battle Biscuit ~ 1100 vs. Wand Of Reality ~ 3300000; 1:3000
13.5| Golden Muffin ~ 3200 vs. Werelupe Claw Necklace ~ 7200000; 1:2250
15| Ornate Fighting Fan ~ 7800 vs. Werelupe Claw Necklace ~ 7200000; 1:923

As you can see, the ratios are pretty big; all, except for one, are above 2000! Unless you plan on using these items a thousand times, you're getting a good value for that extra damage if it may make the difference between win or lose.

The downside to some of these is that may may be somewhat easy to block. If you're fighting a low-defense boost pet, such as lab rats, then you need not worry about anything besides faerie abilites =)

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Damage Icon Types
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It is not always going to be about the number of icons. Occassionally, you'd meet opponents with pesky shields that happen to block the icon variety of what you have. Just because it has less icons doesn't mean it's worse. Some of the ones in the Bang for the Buck section may deal less than these when pitted against common shields. Here are some alternatively iconed bombs; they may be more expensive:
Note: Items in the previous list will not be here. Icon images are put in for quick browsing.

8.2: Silver Fernypoo Battlecard ~ 50
9: Icy Eye Snowball ~ 200
9: Silver 00 Hog Battlecard ~ 260
10 (avg): Jhudoras Snowball ~ 280
10: Tortured Snowball ~ 300
10: Stink Bomb ~ 5000
12: Fire Muffin ~ 1750
12.5 (avg): Yellow Clockwork Grundo ~ 12000
12.5 (avg): Blue Clockwork Grundo ~ 15000
13 (avg): Extract Of Plum ~10000
13 (avg): Precise Throwing Cards
13.5: Stone Muffin ~ 3700
13.5: Radioactive Muffin ~ 6000
15: Icey Muffin ~ 11000
15: Ruby Elixir ~ 13400

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Dual-Duty
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These will deal a fair amount of damage, although not as much as thier pure-damage counter-parts, they have other noteworthy effects!

~750 NP: Steam Jug, 3.5 less icons than the simularly priced Snow Mudball, but will block ALL light and two water icons! Imagine how handy this is against weapons like Pike Pike. Great damage icon types too!

~750 NP: Nanka Bottle is a somewhat weaker alternative if you want 2 earth icons istead of water.

~450 NP: Slippery Floor Potion, 6 icons of damage may not be special but completely blocking two icons types is! (blocks fire and water)

~850 NP: Fire Jug is overshadowed by the above and is a bit more espensive... but I feel obligated to list it anyhow.

~500 NP: Starlight Potion, yeah, 5 icons is weak but will tie against a Sword of Skardsen for only 500 NP! Multi-use full dark blockers are all in the millions of NP!

~650 NP: Stream Of Light is an alternative to the above for full-dark defense. It has some extra earth defense and deals harder-to-block air icons.

~1450 NP: Potion of Concealment will make Carrotblade and Honey Potion users cry, who would otherwise feel safe after burrow is used.

~1800 NP (~180 avg/use): Ice Mote has a 20% chance of freezing, but upon freezing it has a 50% chance of breaking forever. This is comparable to the Snowglobe Staff or the strongest two frost cannons. Here's the testing from which I drew my information that IDB has neglected to post.

~8500 NP (avg/use ~ 4250): Ultranova (not the rods) is not too expensive after factoring in the great icon types and rough average heal of 20 hp before it breaks; One of the few in its class that heals and attacks simutanously. If you are stuck with a Greater Healing Scroll on a strong pet and can't afford the next level of healing then consider this: with a 200 boost pet, 9.8 icons can do 44 damage. If you're really lucky, it has the potential heal more than a GHS.

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Reflectors
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~4000 NP: Amulet Of Reflection is simply awesome against heavy dark items with some fire reflection. Great against Greater Tiki Amulet and SoS, even though SoS has no fire.

~3500 NP: Shield Of Reflection is fragile, not single use, but serves a simular purpose.


Fragile 50% reflectors won't win the battle for you (because you recieve the same as they do). What they can do is prevent you from losing by negating an enemie's advantage such as when a newbie meets a n00binator with a SoS.

~2200 NP: Double Dryer has no decent alternative to repell the likes of PCC or G-sword without millions of NP.

~3300 NP: Ultra Dark Reflectorb, though not as strong as Amulet of Reflection, this can potentially be used in a battle more than once which may make it better in some situations. If it breaks on the first turn though, you would wish you bought a AoR instead.

~2000 NP: Turbo Flame Reflector is good because mass fire defense is hard to come by. Good against: Chilli Sword, Portable Kiln, and Mask of Coltzan. Would recommend Slippery Floor Potion over this though.

~2000 NP: Super U-bend is simular to TFR except with water. Mass water is very uncommon and aside from the possibility of using this more than one turn, Slippery Floor Potion would be better than this as well.

~2300 NP: Dual Battle Mirror... Again, but for light... SoR looks more apealing to me.

~7000 NP: Shovel Plus is more expensive than PoC. Since Honey Potion is not multiple use, I definately like PoC more.

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For Not-Quite-Rich-Enough Folks
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Here are some that are pretty much in a class of their own which can utterly change the outcome of battles.

~10000 NP: Lucky Robots Foot/Jade Elixir/Amulet of Life, all do the exact same thing: full heal. Compare these to the price of Jade Scorchstone or Leaded Elemental Vial. Just refresh each of them in the wizard to find the cheapest of the 3, which varies.


~10000 NP: Thick Smoke Bomb, only comparable to Thyoras Tear, enough said.

~80000 NP (~15000 avg/use): Scroll of Freezing, fragile and averages roughly 15000 NP per use, but, to compare, the cheapest non-species multi-use 100% freezer is now around 7 million: H4000 Helmet

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Miscellaneous
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~400 NP: Super Poison Dart is included because using it is simply evil... If you hate the person you're fighting, this is a cruel way to make him to either fork over 25000 for a cure or hope for luck in the healing springs. Keep in mind that this won't help in winning a battle (besides for forcing him to sell his set to buy a cure, which would weaken his position in the next battle between you two... but then again it probably won't battle you again so...) and there is a chance of not giving disease when used.

~0 NP Pocket Lab Ray/Kacheek Flour/Chia Flour
Do these weapons exist only for evil? Has professorelite gone insane to proclaim that these items cost 0 NP? Did you know that when weapons are stolen in the battledome, even if it's a single use weapon, they don't actually go away after being used by the thief? When an item is stolen in the BD, it will always return to the pet it was equiped to when the battle is over. This allows these fragile transformers to be used a limitless number of times without breaking. The tough part is that people who own these are going to be very reluctant to loan them because they are expensive. If you're lucky enough to befriend an owner of one of these, you could have your battle pet transformed into a Kacheek to use the Kacheek Life Potion without expensive morphing potions or get rare colors without paint brushes or lab maps. Also, note that stealing weapons steal from the first slot.

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Final Notes
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As a final note, single use weapons should not make up the bulk of a battling set. It is best if no more than half of your set be of single-use items.

I plan to update this article periodically to fix prices or add new weapons. Remember to stock-up for those wars =D I hope this is bookmark worthy!

Credits:
thejoz - For constructive input.
raziel_03 - For suggesting that the reflectors section be less-blinding.
theonlysaneone - For pointing out 3 good fragile weapons, forcing me to tack on a bit at the end of the name of my article.
mattjcasey - For his unacknowledged testing of Ice Mote.
idb.finalhit.org - For making it comvenient to look up weapons and providing most of the information for this article.
professorelite - well duh.

[thejoz]

The main point that I don't think you address is what happens after you've had your single use used up?

If you don't have some kind of good multi-uses behind you, you won't win the battle simply because you'll run out of weapons with which to inflict damage upon your opponent, or to heal yourself with.

I do agree that many of them are useful, and do have their places...but they will not under any circumstances be any sort of real replacement for their expensive multi use counterparts.

[Cranberry]

Yeah, they're only really useful in one-player battles, because you need to fill all your slots with good multi-use weapons in two-player (especially since three slots are already taken up by your freezer, healer and bomb, leaving you only five open slots anyway). For example: a while back, I fought someone with a ghostkershield, and since none of my weapons did enough water or fire, I equipped a couple of tortured snowballs, which worked great... for a couple rounds. Then I was left with a useless multi-attacker and a bunch of empty slots, and I lost (two-player newbie mistake! I've learned. ).

It's a good article, though... very thorough. I always forget about the jade elixir.

[rylix]

thejoz Wrote:The main point that I don't think you address is what happens after you've had your single use used up?

If you don't have some kind of good multi-uses behind you, you won't win the battle simply because you'll run out of weapons with which to inflict damage upon your opponent, or to heal yourself with.

I do agree that many of them are useful, and do have their places...but they will not under any circumstances be any sort of real replacement for their expensive multi use counterparts.

He is talking about replacing bombs that are already once-per-battle... like Illusens Earth Potion. There is currently a giant gap in bombs between the IEP and Honey Potion. This is a solution to that gap after you've outgrown IEP.

And besides, even if we were to fully stock up on one-users, our opponents around this level would mostly be dead anywho ^^,

[raziel_03]

Nice article. But i feel it more like a list than a well rounded article. A little bit more of strategy is nice.

I guess adding new weapons could be useful. Changing prices not because if this weapons are welcome in the spotlight they will become more expensive. Furtermore if you stress [is the correct expresion?] the importance of looking the price-damage ratio or de damage-type of icon relation. Would be more educative.

Overall :thumbup: and bookmark worthy

PS: can you change the yellow of the headline of "reflectors"

[professorelite]

But if it ain't yellow it won't be reflective... okay fine, I'll change it, but because you bookmarked this =)

Writing all the possible strategies for every weapon would take forever especially due to the huge ranges of battling. (I had spent 4 hours simply writing this article, unknown number of hours researching.) Some are good across all fields of battle and would work equally well for the battledomer with 10k or 10 million... to research all of those would deprive me of sleep >.>

Also the lack of specific strategy, you guys can discuss it in here, which you guys already have begun. To preserve creativity, I tried to strike a balance between giving example and not giving so many that it would give the reader a rigid mind-set.

As for your suggestions for other charts, I do plan to add more when I find the time =)

Thank you all for the constructive criticism.

[raziel_03]

Thank you professor for the nice green headline

I thought than a short phrase like "any of this weapons can substitute a once per battle bomb or healer" or "you can think on this to get more variety on your icons type" could be considered like that bite of strategy that i feel lacks (this kind at least for the newbie ones).

[theonlysaneone]

I thought it was a great article, and it certainly made me relook the value of single-use items (especially those full blockers... a Starlight Potion/Burrow combo would be excellent). However, there is one flaw in your reasoning regarding the price of multiple uses. When you buy a multiple use item, you're making an investment. Usually, that means the weapon will either stay at the price it is at or inflate, due to the weapon inflation that plagues many of the weapons you mentioned. Once you've outgrown your multi-use weapon, you can sell it and get the NP you paid for it back (or more), so you really haven't lost anything. When you habitually use single-uses, the money you spend on them goes out the window, never to be returned. Also, you have to stock up before every battle, which will get pretty annoying. That's why I like to reserve single-uses for special instances.

By the way, you forgot a couple of single-uses that have some value i the BD also. A couple of motes (Ice Mote and Ultra/Dark Novas) are good, as well as Scroll of Freezing. They might not be the best at what they do, but they're certainly worth a mention.

[professorelite]

Thanks for the suggestions and 3 of the 4, except Dark Nova, have been added. Didn't add them before because they weren't single-use but you made me change my mind so I've renamed this article. Dark Nova is excluded because its price doesn't justify the single-use... it's over double a 100% healer O.o;

Also, I did not say the investment note simply because most people who would use the single-use option simple can't afford the investment anyhow. Since the price-level to compare them is usually a factor of a thousand or more most battlers simply won't have nearly enough battling opportunities to use them such that it is a sizeable portion of the budget for the multi-use equivalent; would have to use several a day, almost everyday, for a year before that happens. Plus, it would discourage people from reading my article at all if I put in bold letters on top that it would bankrupt them >.<; Okay, so I exagerated a little but you get my point.

LOL... I may have influenced the economy... some of these seem to have jumped a few np since the writing of this article two days ago.

[chicken]

professorelite Wrote:Since the price-level to compare them is usually a factor of a thousand or more most battlers simply won't have nearly enough battling opportunities to use them such that it is a sizeable portion of the budget for the multi-use equivalent; would have to use several a day, almost everyday, for a year before that happens.

But that's not really the point... you're comparing apples to oranges here, multi use weps can always be resold at (generally speaking) no loss at all, while single use is np gone forever. I remember it used to be quite a common arguement back years ago for people here and on PPT to say that single use items were a good deal as long as you didn't spend more than the cost of an equivalent multi-use weps. Finally someone (sirhatter maybe) pointed out the difference between the nps spent on multi and single use weps...

Anyway, pretty good article.

[Nightwind]

you do know that I intend to use your guide, as a list of what to stock in my shop, right?