Maxing Out: The Battle for Hi-Score Table Supremacy

Why bother with 1-player battling?

There’s not much to do while you’re waiting around for a good Neopets war and you can only spend so much time refreshing the shop wizard or the stamp shop without going bonkers; you’ve got all of the Defenders of Neopia trophies, and scroll potions have turned 2-player into a wasteland. You have to use those new weapons you got, so there’s only one left thing to do:

//www.neopets.com/battledome/bd_oneplayerscores.phtml

The One Player Hi-Score Tables! They're pretty simple, really; the 50 players with the highest amount of wins against an opponent appear on the table for that opponent. The top spots are dominated by the usual Battledome suspects, but there’s plenty of room to get a foothold. You don’t get any trophies and you don’t make any neopoints for it, but it never hurts to have your name out there, especially if you’re malling or looking to sell trades. Not to mention your name will stay there until someone bests you; there are no resets that clear your score every month.

You don’t have to get all those wins in one sitting, but you do have to jump in and get started:

Bashing! (Spyder Squashing! for all you old pros)

You will need some music or a semi-good tv show, a comfortable chair, and possibly a soda and sandwich depending on how long this session is going to be. Here’s the basic technique for doing as much battling as possible while minimizing wasted time.

stoicjohn has made an offer on Lot 295981698 NO! *smack* You can check that later. You’re battling now; don’t get distracted.

Take your two best weapons and Fierce/Berserk attack, do it again, repeat and keep going until the opponent is toast. Here’s the optimal way to do it:

Step 1: Select your battle pet and select your opponent

Step 2: Hit the space bar (to scroll to the bottom of the screen); this gets more important after the first round when screen gets longer.

Step 3: click your two strongest attack weapons, select Berserk/Fierce and click the Go! Button.

Step 4: Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until you win!

Step 5: As soon as your opponent has zero hit points you’re going to hit BACKSPACE on your keyboard (to take you back to the 1-player screen) then hit ENTER. If all goes well, it take you to the next battle with the same opponent and save you a few clicks.

If you plan on doing a lot of bashing you should rearrange your weapons into optimal positions for clicking, and if you don’t need all of your weapons, leave them at home. Keeping your weapons to just one row (5 items) will also speed things up. Keep up the bashing until you accidentally lose a battle because you weren’t paying attention; now it’s time to create your first strategy.

Strategies

1) Finding your stride – No more bashing

When your opponent gets too strong for bashing, it’s time to retire the Berserk/Fierce and start using your other tools. Do you have a freezer or a healer? Don’t forget about Sink, Burrow, Drain Life or your species abilities. Start tossing in your other weapons and build yourself a good routine. Let's say:

Round 1: freezer + weapon + species attack

Round 2: weapon + weapon + berserk/fierce (only because you froze last round)

Round 3: weapon + weapon + sink

Round 4: weapon + weapon + burrow

Round 5: weapon + healer + species attack

Round 6: weapon + shield + species attack

Find something that works and stick with it until it’s not letting you win anymore.

2) Long Battles – really good for boring tv and long commercial breaks

Eventually the battles are going to start dragging out and there are a couple of precautions that you should take. Don’t waste all of your one-use items right out of the gate and the same thing goes for abilities. If you use up all of your power, you’re seriously going to limit yourself; you should ride that species attack all the way to the end.

Round 1: stealer + weapon + species attack

Round 2: freezer + weapon + species attack

Round 3: weapon + weapon + berserk/fierce (only because you froze last round)

Round 4: weapon + defense + species attack (repeat this until you need to heal)

Round 5: healer + weapon + species attack (repeat until you risk getting KO’d)

Round 6: weapon + weapon + burrow

Round 7: weapon + weapon + sink

Round 8: weapon + defense + species attack (all the way to the end)

3) Weaklings Strategy - Pant Devil, Kauvara, Flaming Meerca

These opponents are going to be the easiest for you to beat, but easy means it’s going to take more wins to reach the high score table. These challengers either spend all of their money on stamps or were created before TNT made good weapons; they’ll get more hit points and they’ll get a little stronger as you continue to beat them, but they’re still just packing newb weapons. If you’ve spent even a little time testing out weapons, then you’ll have the advantage on these opponents.

4) Lenders Strategy – Down for Maintenance Pteri, Evil Sloth Clone, Highland Chia

Can’t afford a Thyoras Tear? Then just take it from your opponent. A few Battledome challengers are packing a really good weapon that you should steal first thing in the battle. If you can get the Sloth Clone’s H4000 Helmet, it stops him from freezing you and gives you the option to freeze him (double bonus!). It’s not as impressive to steal Kauvara’s Grand Lightning Beam, but it will stop her from using it on you.

5) Bombers – Meerca Henchman, Kasuki Lu, Commander Garoo

Similar to the weakling opponents, these guys don’t have the most impressive set, but they do have one star weapon that you need to watch out for. The Meerca Brothers Water Pistol packs a pretty good wallop and will eventually freeze you. If you can survive that freezing, then they won’t use the pistol on you again. Play defensive until Kasuki Lu throws that Red Clockwork Grundo, then open up and do some heavy hitting.

6) Full Healers – Giant Ghostkerchief, Qasalan Mummy, Snow Beast

Why do they get a Jade Scorchstone? *stomp* These fights will get more annoying as your opponent gets more and more hit points. Play it close to the cuff with lots of defense until your opponent heals; any one-use items or abilities are just a waste if you use them before they heal.

Elite Considerations – just for the record, I don’t own this stuff

Hubrids Puzzle Box

This is going to take away 33% of your opponent's health but it’s going to take three rounds to use it. If your second best weapon does less damage in three rounds than your opponent’s hit points divided by three, then it’s time to start thinking about buying one.

Slumberberry Potion

Multiple freezes without losing too much from your attack strength every round. Every free round counts if you’re trying to whittle down a 10,000 hp opponent.

Tornado Ring

Multiple steals; you don’t have to worry about defense when your opponent has no weapons.

Where to start?

So what are the easiest high score tables to reach? The Pant Devil is an easy opponent who doesn’t have good weapons but you’ll need 1240 wins to reach the table. Kauvara is a pretty easy table to reach too at 700 wins. That’s a lot of battles, but Kauvara doesn’t attack too hard; just get a little Kauvara Tipping in every day and you’ll be on the table in no time.

The most important thing is to practice and battle whenever you have the opportunity. You'll want to master your Spyder Squashing skills before Dr. Sloth's minions attack again. *stares at TNT* Which could happen any day now, right?