Advice for upcoming war (?)

[bethi]

All,

I'm looking for advice for how best to upgrade for the upcoming war (if there is one) or for 1-player BD, possibly DoN. Currently, my usul is at:

Level: 36
Health: 45 / 45
Strength: EXCELLENT (46)
Defence: EXCELLENT (45)
Move: EXCELLENT (45)
Intelligence: ULTIMATE GENIUS (136)

Current abilities are:
Song of the Volcano
Fireball
Water Breathing
Steam Shield
Thunder Tail
Boil
Meteor Shower
Night Vision
War Cry
Lava Spit
Burrow
Ascension
Magic Berries
Tough Skin
Water Jet
Haste
Restore
Flight
Negg
Quench
Water of Life
Magic Torch
Spark
Air Shield
Dive
Invisibility
Diamond Dust
Psychic Blast
Sun Ray
Bubble Shield
Mote Dance
Magic Pebbles
Fiery Gaze
Smoke Screen
Fiery Roar
Flash
Bless
Heal
Nighttime

Current weapon set is:
Usul Armour
Scarab Ring
Warriors Round Shield
Altadorian Initiate Sword
Sword of Domar
Shiny Shoal Shell Shield
Yellow Frost Cannon
Scarab Ring

I also own:
various junk freebies/cheapies
Rainbow Gun
Blue Frost Cannon
Trumpet Of Deafening
Coltzans Gem
various snowballs
various motes
MechaBerry Bomb
Sparkshooter
Supersize!
Supersize Mega Ultra Plus
Attack Fork
Luperus Teeth
Luperus Tooth
Super Luperus Tooth
various battlecards
Blue Scorchstone
a few muffins
Purple Blob Potion
Noxious Nectar
Cheap Earth Ring
Bucket Of Mud
Rotten Artichoke
Firebolas
Scroll of Flame Strike
Purple Sticky Hand
Space Fungus Spore

In addition to that, I have some 65 codestones cluttering up my SDB, with 7-9 of most of them (except for Lu, which I have 1 of). I can also get the weapons from ToW and the Poisonous Flower from the last plot.

With all that in mind, and a budget in the low 5 figures (unless the Stock Market suddenly starts going crazy and I get the Adam avatar), how should I best prepare myself for the upcoming battles (weapons, training - or should I bother, abilities, etc)?

Thanks,
Beth

[rylix]

Your budget and "wartime" inflation is gunna constrict us a bit.

First thing: abilities you should use are burrow (block most of damage from all icons but light/dark), use some dark faeries to sink and drain life (sink works the same as burrow but everything but earth/wind, drain life steals 11% of their hp). That takes care of that (and you'll use them every battle from now on ). Keep Diamond Dust/Fiery Gaze unlocked to use for the occasional chance freeze if you need it for DoN and Regeneration for a 33% heal.

Your "useful" weapons include Scarab Ring x2, Shiny Shoal Shell Shield, Blue Scorchstone, Purple Sticky Hand and your muffins. Keep the muffins for DoN fights though, or sell them now while their inflated for the war. That means right now your at:

Scarab Ring
Scarab Ring
Shiny Shoal Shell Shield
Blue Scorchstone
Purple Sticky Hand

One useful item you'll find for 1-p battles like you suggested is Downsize! which you should like as it's dirt cheap. Another dirt cheap weapon is the GREEN Frost Cannon which has the best freeze percentage from dirt cheap weapons. That will knock about 6k from your budget, leaving you maybe (low five figures = 30k?) 24k to go with for weapons. 2x Unstable Slime will set you back 5k for 7-icon damage a piece. You could try 2x 17-Pound Trout which average about 7.65 damage a piece of lower-quality icon types (which doesnt matter in 1-p) but spending 12k. [db]Obsidian Dagger[/idb]s are worth considering also, for an average of .05 but only costing you 1k.

So your set:
Purple Sticky Hand (you have, replace with Scarab Ring if TNT bans stealers like in most wars)
Shiny Shoal Shell Shield (you have)
Blue Scorchstone (you have)
Downsize! (~5k)
Unstable Slime (~3k)
Unstable Slime (~3k)
Obsidian Dagger (~500np, replace with Green Frost Cannon (~2k) when the need arises to freeze)
Scarab Ring (you have)

That will cost you at most 15k, more of which will go to those dark faeries you need for sink/drain life and the rest to train your pet further.

[betenoire]

Well, you can start by training both Defense and Strength up to 55. Right now you do 1.5 damage per icon - at 55 you'll do 2. Right now training on Mystery Island is costing you 2 codestones and 3 hours - so that shouldn't be a huge stretch for you.

Out of the list of faerie abilities you have, the useful ones are:
- Burrow. Blocks 97.5% of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Physical.

The sometimes useful ones:
- Quench can be cool because it blocks Fire icons - but only if your opponent is actually DEALING fire icons.
- ditto for Boil and Water Breathing - both all water icons on that turn. but again, only if your opponent is actually dealing water icons.
- Steam Shield - blocks all light icons that turn.
- Fiery Gaze and Diamond Dust both have the potential to freeze your opponent for one round, but it's not a guarantee and maybe not something you want to risk until you have loads of HP to play with. And even then if you want to freeze you probably want to go with an actual freezer and not a faerie ability.
- Restore. But I don't think it actually WOULD be useful in your case. it heals up to 33% of your lost Hit Points...and even if you were down to, say, 5 HP - the most it would give you is a 13-14 point heal. That doesn't seem like a whole lot.

Useful Faerie Abilities you don't have:

- Drain Life. Nifty against opponents with WAY more HP than you. It steals 11% of their HP and heals you with it. Fun. Get this from Bottled Dark Faerie.
- Sink. Also from the Dark Faerie. Blocks 97.5% of light, dark, water, fire, and physical
- Regeneration (Earth Faerie) and Healing Vapour (Water Faerie) both work the same as Restore.

For weapons, I would:

- Ditch the Yellow Frost Cannon in favour of a Snowglobe Staff. Yellow Frost Cannon only freezes 6% of the time - Snowglobe Staff is slightly better at just shy of 20% of the time. Much better odds.
- Ditch the Usul Armour. If you like the icons it defends (air, earth, physical) and are really attached to the idea of having an Usul item - go with Ornate Usul Shield. It defends the same icons but more of them. (I used to have an Usul - so I understand the affection.)
- Keep the Scarab Ring
- Ditch Warriors Round Shield. Get Leaf Shield.
- If you keep Shiny Shoal Shell Shield, then get rid of the Usul-specific sheilds altogether. Too much icon overlapping there.
- You want to actually equip your Blue Scorchstone as you'll need a healer. Or sell it and go for Greater Healing Scroll once your HP gets over 50.
- Ditch both Altadorian Initiate Sword and Sword of Domar neither of those hit very hard. At all.
- Consider Downsize!

Go to "weapons spotlight" here on IDB and click the "1-1000np" and "1001-10000np" links and scroll through those to find some stuff that'll hit harder than what you've currently got and is in your price range.

I tend to learn toward Bone Sceptre, myself. It ssw's for like 10np and does 6 icons. HELLO DOLLY!

Now I'll sit back and let the real experts take a stab at this.

[Cranberry]

I'm with the other guys -- get your str and def up to 55, and use burrow, sink, drain life, and diamond dust as your faerie abilities (regeneration, restore or healing vapour -- they all heal 33% of lost hit points, so pick one -- will be useful when you have more HP, but not so much now).

As for weapons, keep the Scarab Ring (just an all-around great little dual-duty) and Blue Scorchstone (it's a very nice healer for your level). You can hang onto the Shiny Shoal Shell Shield if you like, although I don't have much use for pure shields in 1p until you get up to the higher boosts (the enemies you'll be fighting will hit too hard for your shields to help much). Since we're talking 1p here, you just want some main attackers that do as many icons as you can afford, with icon types not a huge consideration. Here are two very inexpensive weapons that would be nice together:

Unstable Slime
Battle Ready Pencil Box

And more expensive but still buyable weapons (usually, anyway; they can inflate during wartime):

Earth Faerie Slingshot
Earth Faerie Bow
Tyrannian Lupe Tooth
Stone Club
Ice Club
Psellias Fighting Fan

You could also use a freezer, such as Snowglobe Staff or Green Frost Cannon. I'm going to recommend Downsize! for the future, but not so much for right now because it only blocks half of the icons thrown at you, and that can be a death sentence when you have just 45 HP. And finally, if any of those muffins in your SDB do 12-15 icons, they will work well as a bomb until you can eventually save up enough for Honey Potion.

To sum up: Just make sure that in your set, you've got two main attackers that do at least seven icons each, a healer (which you already have), a freezer, a muffin (or Chocolate Chip Battle Biscuit) to use as a bomb, and some kind of defence tailored to your opponent (perhaps a reflector, or Downsize! a little later, or a pure shield if the opponent isn't too strong). A Purple Sticky Hand is also a good thing to toss in there, because some 1p opponents have good items you can steal (stealing's disabled during wars, though). I feel like I'm forgetting something, so let me know if you have any questions.

[bethi]

So as I was browsing another site forum, I saw the recommendation that it was better to prepare for the war (if it ever comes) by adding hp rather than increasing defense because opponents' strength goes up with their difficulty, making it better to hit them harder and have more hp than have better defense. Thoughts?

[Steelersfan1243]

A pretty good set for just 25k is:
Scarab Ringsx2
Leaf Shield
Lesser Healing Scroll
Downsize!
And since you said you have some muffins add 3 of them in, you might want to stock up on them


By the way can any of you guys help me with my question, i posted it but no one has answered yet

[twilight master]

try puting up ur stats than change weapons depending on you enemy

GREAT weapons: us a leaf shield, golden Compass, downsize, purple sticky hand, and a over heal item like everlasting crystel apple or a scorchstone

IF I WAS U: my fav stat is defence and hitpoints it helps alot if u fight like that.

[Cranberry]

bethi Wrote:So as I was browsing another site forum, I saw the recommendation that it was better to prepare for the war (if it ever comes) by adding hp rather than increasing defense because opponents' strength goes up with their difficulty, making it better to hit them harder and have more hp than have better defense. Thoughts?

True. If you ever want to do 2-player, make sure you have defence, because otherwise you'll be at a big disadvantage. But in 1-player, you can get by with burrow/sink/drain life/Downsize! and reflectors or blockers. I have the 250 str and def boosts. When I'm maxing out on an enemy, by the time I need to hang on for enough rounds that I've exhausted all my ability power, the enemies hit too hard for my shields to make much of a difference. (Note: This changes in higher leagues -- by 550 def, a pet can apparently get infinite wins against some opponents by using Faerie Tabard or Ghostkershield to block their attacks.) So, yeah, you could train str and HP for now... but make sure you don't let your pet get too unbalanced, because chances are you'll want to use def in the future, and you don't want it to cost too much to train.

[bethi]

OK. My stocks did well (yay!), so I'll chip in another 150k toward the war effort. Here's my current info:

Set:
Scarab Ring
Shiny Shoal Shell Shield
Scarab Ring
Obsidian Dagger
Unstable slime
Battle Ready Pencil Box
Blue Scorchstone
Green Frost Cannon

Stats (still training Endurance, but down to just a few codestones left in the SDB):
Health: 58 / 58
Strength: EXCELLENT (55)
Defence: EXCELLENT (50)
Move: EXCELLENT (45)

Abilities:
Drain Life
Burrow
Restore
Diamond Dust
Sink
Fiery Gaze
Heal

Here's what I'm thinking. Upgrade the Green Frost Cannon to a Snowglobe Staff and possibly get some Chocolate Chip Battle Biscuits (unless there are any muffins that are cheaper? I'll have to check) instead of the Obsidian Dagger. I'll also probably get a better weapon, possibly a Tyrannian Lupe Tooth unless anyone has a better suggestion for the money - or unless I run across more NP, probably replacing my second Scarab Ring. After that, I'm debating whether it's worthwhile switching to a Leaf Shield - the prices look about the same right now. I would love to beat the Riilian, but I realize that with my current stats, that's not likely. Suggestions?

Edit: I just got an Earthen Scorchstone from Tarla; helpful or not so much?

[parondante]

Get rid of that green frost cannon and get some real freezer ( a freezer that may actually freeze sometimes) like snowclobe staff or black frost cannon (though i recommend of getting snowglobe staff since they are near identical in the freezing percentance and it's much cheaper). I have currently 9 wins against riilan and i have same boost as you but 110 hp, so i think that you could be able to beat him with your set.