Pretty self explanatory question. Am I stupid or are we supposed to blindly purchase thing in the hopes that they'll be useful?

You have to do some research of course ;)

Subetalodge.org is a fairly reliable place to check. Otherwise, you can ask the seller.

Some weapons are conditional with the pet's stats, so they wouldn't easily fit into an item preview anyways.

So if we're looking at a shop with a hundred or so items in it, trying to find something either specific or generally strong, we have to go to a separate site and search the item name... for EACH item in the shop, then compare all their stats to decide which we should buy? o_o

I absolutely love this site but that is the biggest inconvenient load of crap I've ever heard of. There's "Hey battler, put some effort into it!" and then there's "Here, run around searching for stats on other sites for absolutely no reason"

there are guides on this very forum you can look at. you generally don't go and buy weapons by searching through shops or just blindly looking at weapons.

I was out for a while and came back and a lot with the battle system changed! So I know your frustration.

Honestly if you're looking for weapons you should be intentional with your efforts. The best place to weigh out which is the best weapon for your pet and their tier is HERE

That link will provide you with the absolute best weapons for each tier and even go into detail explaining which weapons can have stat changes and what those changes are. Very good place to reference and I still use it personally.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for helping everybody :) it sounds a bit overwhelming trying to learn what every weapon out of thousands does, but the list of best weapons for each tier looks really helpful and hopefully I can learn over time.

Your pet's tier will help narrow down that focus for now while you get situated with battling. As you train your pet and become more familiar with battling, you'll quickly learn which weapons to save up for!

When in doubt or if you'd like recommendations, always feel free to ask on the Battle Chat thread. We'll gladly give any advice you need on particular weapons!

Thanks :)