High in the skies above Meridell lies the infamous Darigan Castle. On its grounds is a unique Battledome arena—the only one where petpets can test their mettle, build their strength, and gain glory and renown. Unfortunately, your petpets can't win you any Neopoints (despite what the game information says). It's just a casual pastime to, well, pass the time.
How to Play
The Petpet Arena is quite a bit simpler than its Neopet counterpart. There's no equipment to worry about, no faerie abilities to grant your battler, and not much you can do in the way of training. All you need is a petpet and a bit of luck.
When you enter the petpet arena, you will automatically battle with the petpet attached to your current active pet. The game will present an opponent within three levels of your petpet, and then all you have to do is win!
Note: If you change active pet in the middle of a battle, that new petpet will pick up where your previous petpet left off. The battle won't restart, and the opponent won't change, so beware when switching to a lower-level petpet.
Each move, you can take one of three actions: body blow, head shot, or shield. Here's the attack details:
- Body Blow: hits more frequently; inflicts 1-17% damage
- Head Shot: hits less frequently; inflicts 6-23% damage
Note that, while it's possible for a head shot to do less damage than a body blow, it's not common. Your body blows will usually cause single-digit damage, and your head shots will normally land in the teens.
Your shield is a little more complicated. You'll start with 100 shield points, and you can lose up to 20 of those points whenever you use it. Most of the time, all your shield does is protect you from damage. (Occasionally, a couple damage points may slip through.)
Sometimes, however, you can also reflect a bit of your opponent's damage back onto them. You can even win a battle with damage done by your shield! For every X shield used, you can do between 16-minus-X and 19-minus-X % damage. If you spend no more than 9 shield points on a turn, you'll also steal 10-minus-X % HP back:
| Shield Used |
HP Healed |
Damage Reflected |
| 10+ |
0% |
0-9% |
| 9 |
1% |
7-10% |
| 8 |
2% |
8-11% |
| 7 |
3% |
9-12% |
| 6 |
4% |
10-13% |
| 5 |
5% |
11-14% |
| 4 |
6% |
12-15% |
| 3 |
7% |
13-16% |
| 2 |
8% |
14-17% |
| 1 |
9% |
15-18% |
| 0 |
10% |
16-19% |
| -1 |
11% |
17-20% |
That's right—on very, very rare occasions, you can even use a negative number of shield points! That is, you can regain both health and shield points in the same turn and do a massive amount of damage to your opponent, all at once!
Finally, any time you inflict more than 10% damage from either of your regular attacks, you'll regenerate 1/3 of that damage (rounded) as shield points:
| Attack Damage |
Shield Gained |
| 11-13% |
4 |
| 14-16% |
5 |
| 17-19% |
6 |
| 20-22% |
7 |
| 23% |
8 |
You aren't limited by that 100 starting number, either. If you hit 17% damage with a full shield, you'll have 106 shield points. By the same token, if you steal 8% health with your shield when you're at 94% HP, you'll have 102% health. Both are only limited by your attack success.
Scoring
After every battle, you'll see your current score and your win-loss ratio. These records serve two purposes: 1) leveling up your petpet, and 2) winning a trophy.
Every battle you win is worth 1 point, and every battle you lose is worth -1 point. (You can't go below 0.) If you can make it to 10 points, your petpet will gain a level, your score will reset to 0, and for some reason your 10th win won't be added to your win/loss count. Never fear—even if you lose the next 10 battles in a row, your petpet won't lose that level it just won. Levels can only be gained here, not lost.
On this day, I lost my first battle, leaving my score at zero. I then won 8/4 of the remaining battles, giving me +8 win points and -4 loss points, for a total of 4.
Note: Your battle score and win-loss ratio are not specific to your petpet. Whoever strikes the winning blow when you reach 10 points gets the new level, even if a different petpet made every other attack but the last.
Whenever your petpet levels up, you're eligible to update your high score for a chance at a trophy. Your high score is your 10 level-up points, plus a bonus dependent on your win/loss ratio. That is, your trophy score is separate from your current battle score.
Your high score is only updated when your petpet levels up. This means that there will never be a user with a score lower than 10 on the high score table.
The exact trophy scoring system is a bit perplexing, but in general you'll score higher the fewer losses you have and the more times you level up. Gain one level, and you'll score 10-20 trophy points; two levels gives you 20-30 points; and three levels gets you 30-40.
Last but not least, you can play a maximum of 33 battles per day (total, not per petpet) for points, after which you'll need to start again from zero the next day. Nominally, the limit is 30, but because your level-up wins aren't counted, you can actually play 33 games if you're lucky enough to level up three times.
If you keep fighting beyond your limit, you'll receive the following message at the end of your 31st (or 34th) battle, instead of the usual score update:
You have played more then 30 games today. You can continue to play Petpet Battles but won't be able to get NP or increase the level of your Petpet.
This is both confusing and slightly disappointing since, of course, you weren't earning NP from the game in the first place.
It's also worth noting that the game doesn't carry points over from day to day, so you can't save that nice 9 point record and then level up after a single win the next day. It's 10 points in a day or nothing. A battle which begins on one day and ends on another will count for points on the day it is completed.
Strategy
Start playing when you have a petpet that has already gained at least one level from either the Petpet Lab Ray, the Turmaculus, or the Symol Hole. Level 1 petpets are at maximum disadvantage (in theory—see below) because they'll never be more experienced than their opponents, and so it takes a lot of luck to get enough wins to level up.
Use the active pet switching feature to your advantage. A given petpet of level n can only face opponent levels ranging from n-3 to n+3 (with no opponents below 1 or above 26).
Once you've got a petpet around level 4-5 or more, make sure to keep another low-level petpet equipped to a different pet. Use the low-level petpet to generate your opponent, then use the high-level petpet to defeat them. For example:
- After a few days of battling, my pet Sloth_Rules now has a level 5 petpet.
- My pet Boo_Sloth, on the other hand, still has a level 1 petpet.
- I make Boo_Sloth my active pet and start a new petpet battle. My opponents can only range from level 1 to 4.
- Once the battle has begun, I make Sloth_Rules my active pet again, throwing my level 5 petpet into the battle.
- My battle petpet is now guaranteed to fight only an opponent of a lower level.
Notice that this is the only way for a level 5+ petpet to battle a level 1 opponent. If I started the battle with my level 5 petpet, I would face an opponent ranging from level 2 to level 8. Yet, since the opponent does not reset when the petpet does, I can face opponents outside the normal range.
While it's perfectly possible to defeat opponents with a higher level than your own, it's difficult and tends to depend a lot on the particular opponent and your luck with the random number generator. Using the pet switch method will give you a much easier time achieving your 10 points for level up and will give you a better shot at a trophy.
Be warned, however: the game does make an effort to compensate for this trick by making opponents below your level range more skilled. If your battler is level 5+, you may find yourself running into suspiciously beefy Saffrons.
To mitigate this, keep your secondary petpet about 3-4 levels below your battler. For example, if Sloth_Rules's petpet (Minion) is now all the way up to level 12, Boo_Sloth's petpet (HappyGrundo) should be about level 8. HappyGrundo can generate opponents level 5-11, ensuring that Minion only faces lower-level opponents.
Using just Minion might leave you facing suspiciously beefy level 5 petpets, but those are (of course) fully within HappyGrundo's normal opponent range. So, let HappyGrundo fight opponents below their level, while Minion can take the level 9+ opponents. Use your best judgement about level 8s—these can really go either way.
Last but not least, there's a weird extra detail about those level 1 petpets: the suspiciously beefy Saffron mechanic goes both ways. If your opponent is of a high enough level, those low-level petpets start to be implausibly effective again. So, if you're finding your level 9 opponent trouncing your level 12 petpet, try a level 1 fighter instead and see if you have more luck.
Quick Tips
- Start with a petpet that's already level 2+ before battling.
- Keep a second petpet about 3-4 levels below your main battler to switch in as needed.
- When you're low on shield, use head shots to regenerate it. Body blows only rarely strike hard enough to get shield points.
- Focus on head shots for opponents at and below your petpet's level.
- Focus on body blows against stronger opponents who will strike and block you more often. And Biebo. Biebo is a pain.
- When all else fails, send in a level 1 petpet against a high-level opponent and see what happens.
Opponent List
A huge thanks to pangomon for sending in over a third of these challenger images!
Level 37
Noklen and Seymour
Level 38
Hubrid Nox (image is broken/missing in-game) and Dash
