Beginners' Guide to Battling
One of the most important things to think about in the Battledome is doing damage. If you are unable to inflict damage upon your opponent, you have an extremely small chance of winning. The damage you can inflict is represented by the attack icons you deal in battle.
There are seven types of icons:
- Air:
- Earth:
- Dark:
- Light:
- Fire:
- Water:
- Physical:
The more attack icons you can deal, the more damage you will inflict. For example, a weapon like Sparkshooter, which does three icons, is substantially weaker than an Ice Club, which does nine icons.
While the number of icons gives some indication of how much damage you will deal out, the actual amount also takes your pet's Strength stat into account. Look at the table below and check which category your pet's Strength falls into; this will tell you how much damage each icon represents.
| A pet whose Strength is... | will inflict... |
| 7 or less | .5 damage per icon |
| 8 to 12 | .75 damage |
| 13 to 19 | 1 damage |
| 20 to 34 | 1.25 damage |
| 35 to 54 | 1.5 damage |
| 55 to 84 | 2 damage |
| 85 to 124 | 2.5 damage |
| 125 to 199 | 3 damage |
| 200 to 249 | 4.5 damage |
| 250 to 299 | 5.5 damage |
| 300 to 349 | 6.5 damage |
| 350 to 399 | 7.5 damage |
| 400 to 449 | 8.5 damage |
| 450 to 499 | 9.75 damage |
| 500 to 549 | 11 damage |
| 550 to 599 | 12 damage |
| 600 to 649 | 13 damage |
| 650 to 699 | 14 damage |
| 700 to 749 | 15 damage |
| 750 to Greater | 16 damage |
As you can see, raising your pet's Strength stat does not always make him or her immediately able to do more damage; you won't see a change until your pet's Strength reaches the next category on the table. A pet with a Strength of 35 will do the same damage as one with a Strength of 50, and a pet with 750 will match a pet with 5000.
These categories (8-12, 13-19, and so on) are often called strength boosts, and referred to by their lowest number. So, a Neopet whose Strength was somewhere between 35 and 54 would be described as having the 35 strength boost.
Example Damage Calculation
My pet has a Strength stat of 100, and is using two Bzzt Blasters. To know how much damage she can expect to deal, I need to look at her stats and her weapons. (We'll discuss battle stances, which can also alter this calculation, a little later. For the purpose of this example, assume the pet's damage isn't being affected by stances at all.)
The Bzzt Blaster does 11 icons' worth of damage. My pet is using two of these at once, so her weapons produce 2 x 11 = 22 icons.
A Strength stat of 100 falls between 85 and 124, meaning it's within the 85 strength boost. Looking at the table, this means that each icon will inflict 2.5 points of damage.
Multiplying the two numbers shows us how much damage output to expect. In this case, my pet will inflict 22 x 2.5 = 55 points of damage.
Take THAT!
Also, one last thing to note: Many weapons do fractional icons. You may find that while a weapon displays five icons, it inflicts fewer points of damage than this would lead you to expect. The weapon is actually producing "four and a bit" icons' worth of damage -- more than four, but still less than five, even though five icons are being displayed. This can be a common situation, so if you don't have your weapon's stats to hand, be sure to keep an eye on how much damage is actually being done rather than just looking at the icons.
This article was written by: In-Depth Battlepedia
