Faerie Abilities Guide Series: Level 1

Good morning, Neopia! We would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our comprehensive, in-depth series examining the different Faerie abilities released in Y15 to supplement the new Battledome! In this series, we will not only provide descriptions of each and every ability, but provide you a full breakdown of their advantages and disadvantages relating to their tier, the other available abilities, their cost, and how you can best utilize them to enhance your battledome set and skills! This week, we will be looking at the Level One tier abilities: Static Cling, Halitosis, and Drizzle. Note that all three abilities in this tier are free! That means that even you can afford one of them!

The Abilities

Static Cling

Static Cling is a pretty straightforward ability: it attacks with 3 light icons on the turn it's used. A huge benefit of Static Cling is that it has no cooldown, meaning you can use it every turn to supplement your other weapons. That advantage separates this ability from the others in this tier, which both have a cooldown.

Since Static Cling attacks using light icons, you can pair it with another weapon that attacks with light icons, such as Carved Qasalan Blowgun, Rainbow Scroll, Festive Holiday Scroll, Scroll of Virtue, or Pike Pike. Attacking with large amounts of the same icon type makes it harder for your opponent to defend, unless they have a shield that blocks a percentage of icons or a reflector. Though those are rare at this level, unfortunately, there is an inexpensive full light blocker: Parasol of Unfortunate Demise. This parasol blocks all light attack, regardless of strength and defence boosts, and it only costs about 1,000 NP. Beyond just the Parasol, light is a fairly easy type of icon to defend against. Your opponent could use a 50% light reflector such as the Expert Lens, which you can typically find on the Shop Wizard for a whopping 1 NP. This would not only prevent them from taking half of the damage from Static Cling, but it would turn that damage back onto you! Other shield options include Parchment Cloak, Patched Magic Hat, or Ancient Gnarled Wand, all of which defend against 3 light icons. Thus, if your strength boost is close to your opponent's defence boost, they would successfully block most of your Static Cling attack by using any of these shields. So, if you're using Static Cling in 2-player, it would be best to diversify your attack. You could use weapons that attack with other types of icons, such as Ridiculously Heavy Battle Hammer, Throwing Cutlass, or Scroll of the Fool, or you could pair it with some one-use 15-icon muffins that don't use light attack, such as a Robot Muffin or Water Muffin.

Drizzle

Drizzle's effect is an interesting one. Unlike Static Cling, this ability will attack with 4 water icons on the turn after you use it. That means if you use Drizzle on the first round of a battle, you won't see any effect at first. But in the second round, in addition to whatever weapons or faerie abilities you use, you will see the 4 icons of water attack from Drizzle. One of the benefits of this delay is that you can pair it with freezing, so your opponent won't be able to block the attack. If you start out your battle attacking with a freezing weapon and use Drizzle, Drizzle will attack during the next round, when your opponent could potentially be frozen. However, Drizzle does have a cooldown of 1 round, which means that you won't be able to use it again for 1 round. (As you'll see later, some other abilities have cooldowns of 4 or even 10 rounds!) After the cooldown rounds are over, you're able to use the ability again just like it's the first time!

Since Drizzle attacks using water icons, you could pair it with another weapon that includes water damage to boost your attack. Luckily, there aren't any cheap 100% water blockers, so you've got a pretty good chance to get at least some damage through a shield, especially if you increase the number of water icons you attack with. Most of the inexpensive shields defend at 0-3 water icons each, with Leaf Shield and Flaming Bronze Helm defending 5 water icons each. Depending on your strength boost and your opponent's defence boost, you may only need 1 more icon of water to overcome their shield's water defence. Pocket Feather, with its attack of 2 water icons, could help push you over that edge. For something with a little more power, Oversized Maractite Rune Sword, Rainbow Scroll, or Pike Pike all deliver at least 3 water icons, plus some other icons that could do some additional damage to your opponent.

Halitosis

Halitosis combines some of the benefit of both Static Cling and Drizzle, as using the ability will inflict 2 earth icons on the turn you use it, as well as 2 earth icons on the following turn. One of the biggest advantages to using an ability that affects two turns rather than just one is that you essentially have two chances to damage your opponent: the turn when you initially use the ability, as well as the next turn, unlike with Static Cling or Drizzle where any advantage is only effective during one turn. This can be good when battling against an opponent whose weapons are heavily defence-focused. The main disadvantage to Halitosis is having a cooldown period of 1 turn, meaning you can use it, at most, every other round.

Since there are quite a few weapons (and inexpensive ones at that) that are able to block or reflect a minimum of 2 icons, if you are planning on pairing the Halitosis ability with another earth-centered weapon to give your attack a little extra boost, you're going to need to choose a weapon that delivers enough earth icons that, when combined with the two from Halitosis (remember, it only delivers 2 icons per turn), can overpower your opponent's defence. When battling an opponent with a similar boost to your own or certain 1-player challengers with minimal earth defence, you would be fairly safe pairing the ability with a weapon that only does 4 or 5 earth icons of damage, because there are few weapons (even fewer that are affordable for the average Neopian) that defend more than five earth icons. An inexpensive option would be Cheap Earth Ring (4 earth icons), or if you're looking for something that delivers a little more than just earth damage, Illusens Bottled Magic and Brain Muffin are two affordable options. Both offer 5 icons each of light and earth damage, while the Muffin carries an additional 5 physical icons. An added bonus is that each of these weapons can usually be bought for under 500 NP, making them accessible to anyone.

When facing an opponent with a significantly higher boost than your own, the method we prefer is to focus more on breadth than strength. Since Halitosis delivers earth icons, pairing it with weapons that do other types of icons will increase the chance that your opponent will be unable to block at least some of your attack. Some possible options for lower-level opponents are Extract of Plum, Darigan Muffin, Scroll of Ultranova and Rainbow Scroll, which are all very affordable and offer a range of icons. For stronger opponents, you're going to again want to look for weapons with more icons. A Rainbow Clockwork Grundo could be useful here, as it covers many different types of damage besides earth, and is still moderately affordable compared to others that deliver a similar number of icons.

Recommendation

If you are not going to get any other abilities and especially if you only battle in 1-player, we recommend Static Cling. With Static Cling, you can augment your attack by 3 icons every turn. If you were to choose Halitosis, you could use it every other round, but you would only get 2 extra icons per turn, which is less than the 3 icons Static Cling would give. If you were to choose Drizzle, you could again use it every other turn, and so you would attack with 4 icons every round that you don't use the ability, which averages 2 icons per turn. Again, that's less than the 3 icons per round Static Cling offers. Plus, in 1-player, your light icons will not be as easily blocked as they might be in 2-player, since not every opponent has access to the Parasol of Unfortunate Demise or other good light blockers. Thus, if you plan to use one of these three abilities every turn, Static Cling is the best option.

On the other hand, if you plan to use other abilities or fight in 2-player, you may want to choose one of the other two abilities. With either of the other two, you could potentially pair them with an ability like Cranky (a Level 10 ability) that would increase the amount of damage caused by the delayed icons by 5%. Both Drizzle and Halitosis are easily blocked by Leaf Shield, which is a very popular shield among beginning and intermediate battlers. Thus, we recommend Halitosis for its benefit of having two chances to get through your opponent's shields.

Luckily, you really can't go wrong with this decision. Since these abilities are free, you can change your mind as often as you'd like at no cost!

Conclusion

There isn't always a fast and easy answer for which faerie ability to select. It often depends on your battling style and strategy. However, hopefully our examination has helped you in choosing your first (and free) faerie ability! Stay tuned next time as we delve into the Level 5 abilities!