Defence, or not?
Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:54 pm
Many people don't seem to train up their pet's defence. Is there any advantage to using an "Attack Only" stratagy in the BD?
Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:35 pm
Short answer: in one-player, yes (although it's really just the advantage of saving training time/NP, not a real battling advantage). In two-player, no.
Long answer: In one-player, all you really need is HP and strength. You have the advantage of knowing every weapon each challenger carries and exactly how difficult they'll be to beat, so with a strategy involving a double-freeze (diamond dust/fiery gaze one round and a real freezer the next) and some reflectors or a 100% blocker like Ring of the Lost, a 200-booster can take down even a 650-booster. And if your strategy depends on him using a certain weapon at a certain time and he fails to, you can just withdraw and try again without penalty. Of course, defence helps, and probably makes it easier to beat harder opponents earlier (my defensively-minded friend took down the 125-boost Tekkitu when she had the 35 boosts, thanks to some dark-defending dual-duties), but it's not necessary.
In two-player, you can't withdraw. You can't count on a double-freeze, and if you flash a reflector, your opponent will switch to an unreflected weapon. If two pets with roughly equal weapon sets and the same strength and HP go up against each other, but one pet has a high defence boost and uses that to his advantage (while the other can't use shields at all), the defender is probably going to win.
Consider this fight I had a while ago, before I trained my defence. I had the 200 strength boost and 230-ish HP, and 43 defence. My opponent had the 200 strength boost, 230-ish HP, and the 350 defence boost. I could last a few rounds: in round 1, both people freeze and there's no real damage done (usually), so that's okay, and after that I could last one round using burrow, one using sink, one using my thick smoke bomb, and one using downsize. I could maybe get through another couple rounds by healing (although he could heal, too, so it was just prolonging the inevitable). But after that, I was totally stuck. I was out of defense abilities and items. And he had a ghostkershield that he could use over and over and over to stop good chunks of my attacks. He could last many more rounds than I could... so he won. And that's the way it goes. Defensive battlers are a nightmare for all-out offensively-minded people. And that's why I just spent a couple months bringing my strength and defence both (soon) to 250!
(Another note: it's bad enough if the opponent is using just a shield. It's even worse if they use dual duties! At least with a shield they're only using one weapon -- in lower-level battling let's say they're using a Scuzzys Comb and hitting you with 10 icons from that, but they're also using the Leaf Shield and they're sacrificing hitting you with more icons so they can defend a bunch of yours. If they're a dual-duty fan, they're smacking you with two weapons (let's say Golden Compass and Dusty Magic Broom, for a total of 17 icons) while also defending, and you're really toast.)
Long answer: In one-player, all you really need is HP and strength. You have the advantage of knowing every weapon each challenger carries and exactly how difficult they'll be to beat, so with a strategy involving a double-freeze (diamond dust/fiery gaze one round and a real freezer the next) and some reflectors or a 100% blocker like Ring of the Lost, a 200-booster can take down even a 650-booster. And if your strategy depends on him using a certain weapon at a certain time and he fails to, you can just withdraw and try again without penalty. Of course, defence helps, and probably makes it easier to beat harder opponents earlier (my defensively-minded friend took down the 125-boost Tekkitu when she had the 35 boosts, thanks to some dark-defending dual-duties), but it's not necessary.
In two-player, you can't withdraw. You can't count on a double-freeze, and if you flash a reflector, your opponent will switch to an unreflected weapon. If two pets with roughly equal weapon sets and the same strength and HP go up against each other, but one pet has a high defence boost and uses that to his advantage (while the other can't use shields at all), the defender is probably going to win.
Consider this fight I had a while ago, before I trained my defence. I had the 200 strength boost and 230-ish HP, and 43 defence. My opponent had the 200 strength boost, 230-ish HP, and the 350 defence boost. I could last a few rounds: in round 1, both people freeze and there's no real damage done (usually), so that's okay, and after that I could last one round using burrow, one using sink, one using my thick smoke bomb, and one using downsize. I could maybe get through another couple rounds by healing (although he could heal, too, so it was just prolonging the inevitable). But after that, I was totally stuck. I was out of defense abilities and items. And he had a ghostkershield that he could use over and over and over to stop good chunks of my attacks. He could last many more rounds than I could... so he won. And that's the way it goes. Defensive battlers are a nightmare for all-out offensively-minded people. And that's why I just spent a couple months bringing my strength and defence both (soon) to 250!
(Another note: it's bad enough if the opponent is using just a shield. It's even worse if they use dual duties! At least with a shield they're only using one weapon -- in lower-level battling let's say they're using a Scuzzys Comb and hitting you with 10 icons from that, but they're also using the Leaf Shield and they're sacrificing hitting you with more icons so they can defend a bunch of yours. If they're a dual-duty fan, they're smacking you with two weapons (let's say Golden Compass and Dusty Magic Broom, for a total of 17 icons) while also defending, and you're really toast.)
Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:12 am
Cranberry wrote:(Another note: it's bad enough if the opponent is using just a shield. It's even worse if they use dual duties! At least with a shield they're only using one weapon -- in lower-level battling let's say they're using a Scuzzys Comb and hitting you with 10 icons from that, but they're also using the Leaf Shield and they're sacrificing hitting you with more icons so they can defend a bunch of yours. If they're a dual-duty fan, they're smacking you with two weapons (let's say Golden Compass and Dusty Magic Broom, for a total of 17 icons) while also defending, and you're really toast.)
I LOVE Golden Compass. It's not a whole lot more than PFF or the like, but it defends also. I'm glad I trained up my defence early when I had the chance, because a lot of otherwise great weapons would no longer be realistic options. I'm actually looking into getting an Air Faerie Crown too. Look at it this way. If you pay the same price for a 10-iconer or a 9-iconer with defence, and you block even one icon of theirs, the value is equal. Block any more, and your weapon is STRONGER than theirs. That is why people pay through the nose for things like Mask of Coltzan and Air Faerie Crown.
Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:22 am
Exactly. I trained up my defence, and I decided to buy a mass fire weapon to cut through people's Ghostkershields. My choices were pretty much Portable Kiln, which does 11 fire icons, or Mask of Coltzan, which does just 8 fire icons but defends 6 dark and 5 earth. I went with the MoC -- if my opponent tosses a Honey Potion or G-bomb at me or uses a SoS, I'll block a nice chunk of it while also being able to break through their g-shield. Lots of other weapons use earth and dark, too, so I'll often be blocking something. MoC costs around the same amount of NP as the kiln, but to me it's worth much more.
Mon Jun 26, 2006 10:58 pm
Cranberry wrote:Exactly. I trained up my defence, and I decided to buy a mass fire weapon to cut through people's Ghostkershields. My choices were pretty much Portable Kiln, which does 11 fire icons, or Mask of Coltzan, which does just 8 fire icons but defends 6 dark and 5 earth. I went with the MoC -- if my opponent tosses a Honey Potion or G-bomb at me or uses a SoS, I'll block a nice chunk of it while also being able to break through their g-shield. Lots of other weapons use earth and dark, too, so I'll often be blocking something. MoC costs around the same amount of NP as the kiln, but to me it's worth much more.
Amen - love my MoC.
Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:05 am
Defense is necessary in 2-player. Those that think otherwise should try facing an opponent with high defense and a good defense item such as Ghostkershield, or even Bottle of Magic Sand.
Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:20 am
Nobody's arguing, GIR. 
I think people who plan to do only 1-player should train defense, too. I know I said it's not necessary in 1-player, and it's not, but it does make things easier -- like I said, you can defeat harder opponents earlier, and it'll also help in wars. In Defenders of Neopia you only have to kill each guy once, so it's fine to just use some strong one-use items and a reflector or whatever, but in a war, you're going to need to kill opponents over and over for good points, and if you've trained defence and bought some nice shields, that's going to be a lot easier for you.
And of course, you may be like me and think you only want to do 1-player, but then end up changing your mind a couple years down the road and want to get into 2-player. Don't leave it until you have to pay 5 codestones and wait 8 hours to get each defence point. Train now.
I think people who plan to do only 1-player should train defense, too. I know I said it's not necessary in 1-player, and it's not, but it does make things easier -- like I said, you can defeat harder opponents earlier, and it'll also help in wars. In Defenders of Neopia you only have to kill each guy once, so it's fine to just use some strong one-use items and a reflector or whatever, but in a war, you're going to need to kill opponents over and over for good points, and if you've trained defence and bought some nice shields, that's going to be a lot easier for you.
And of course, you may be like me and think you only want to do 1-player, but then end up changing your mind a couple years down the road and want to get into 2-player. Don't leave it until you have to pay 5 codestones and wait 8 hours to get each defence point. Train now.