Extreme Gardening

You know, I really didn't see the value in gardening.  

Treasure cards, snacks, reagents...these things were scattered everywhere and it seemed all they were good for was selling.  If the only thing that seeds give you are more seeds as well as more of the above then it was just a waste of time!

Then I started crafting.  It was that there weren't reagents everywhere, but they were the wrong ones!  If I wanted to craft, I needed very specific reagents, and, while many can be found in the bazaar if you are patient enough, the easiest way to get some of the trickier ones was gardening.  

Oh, and then there is pet training.  You get a maximum of 4 points for the event, but you can get up to 50 points for a single snack!  And the best snacks come from - gardening!  

Then it was PvP?  Treasure cards are a valuable part of the battle, and some of the best come from, you guessed it, gardening!!

I realised I had to get into this gardening thing quickly and figure out how I could maximise my efforts to gain the most of these precious reagents.  It is a lot of effort to nurture a garden, so you really want it to be worth your while.  After speaking with a few friends and watching other wizards, I found that the best bet was to plan carefully and plant LOTS.  That is when I started my extreme gardening.  

There are some rules - know what you want to get from your harvest, and know what spells you need to care for your plants.  There is no use planting a seed that can get a Rank 5 pest, if your best spell is a Rank 3 pest.

So, plan your garden well.

When you lay out your plots, only plant enchanted ones - any seed can be planted here, whereas enchanted seeds cannot be planted in a normal plot.  

Make sure you plant fields of similar seeds, or at the very least, seeds with similar needs.  Once you have been doing this for a while, you can start to maintain some very big gardens with only moderate effort.

The picture below shows a field of White Tiger Lilies.  All of these were from the bazaar, and at 6300 gold per seed - it represents a fair investment of time and money, but it is worth it.  In shot there are 36 of these little guys (and there is a clue as to how many there really are, that is the top of a door at the back) - but look at those needs!

These little babies need water, magic, pollination and music.  You can even see a Rank 5 Imp in there.  That means, to satisfy this garden, you need 85 power.  I'll talk about gear in another post, but my gardening gear is what helps make this possible.

So why?  If they are so hard, why plant them?  

The answer is simple.  Amber.  Extremely rare, and needed for all the best spells, Amber is reason for extreme gardening - and White Tiger Lilies give the best chance of Amber.

I have now crafted the two spells I wanted - Deer Knight and Lord of Night, but I still want and need more.  As more spells that come out, I want to be right there, ready to learn them.

Well, that is all for now.  If you have any questions on gardening, feel free to ask!

See you round the Spiral!

Morgrim

An Added Bonus

Been having a big couple of days, and thanks to Alia the big reveals around the spiral have continued.

First up, I hit the Bazaar, and sold those cumbersome pet snacks - in fact I sold so many I suddenly had enough to buy a house! I have recently leveled up to 15, and just needed more gold. So thanks for the tip on selling at the Bazaar, Alia - I had thought about it, but did not think it would make much of a difference to how much gold I had. How wrong was I?

And here it is - my first house in the Spiral:

My pets are already playing outside, and I've started dressing the inside with what little I have - we'll just call it a work in progress at this stage! And it comes with it's very own world gate, that was an added bonus.

The Spiral is starting to open up now. Time to get some gardening skills and explore Krokotopia!!

Until next time,
Tabitha

Alia's Sightseeing through the Spiral - B

B is for Bazaar

The Bazaar is a great place to buy and sell items.  You can find the Bazaar in Olde Town in Wizard City.  When you level up remember to check in to the bazaar and see if there are any better items you could be wearing.  

The bazaar is also the place to pick up housing items, treasure cards, and reagents. Remember to sort the column by amount and that way the more unusual items go to the top of the list so you have a chance to beat others to buying them.  To make money sell all your unwanted gear, or gear for schools you can't wear.  Anything that says No Auction you need to take to a shop in the Shopping District to sell.

You can also make heaps of money by selling your snacks here, and buying better snacks for your pet.  Sell all the lower ranked snacks that are ranked 1 - 4 (see in the top left corner for the rank) and buy the Delicious Cookie, Glowing Taffy, Spicy Drumsticks and Strawberry Cupcakes depending on which attributes you are trying to develop in your Pet (Strength, Intellect, Agility, Will or Power).  These are all 'special' Rank 5 Snacks, meaning they not only increase your pet by 5 points instead of 1 to 4 but only cost 200 Gold instead of 1000 Gold for most rank 5 Snacks.  In fact, a normal Rank 1 snack can cost you 200 Gold if you are not careful enough when selecting your snack.  

Good snack selection can make the task of levelling up your pet much faster and less frustrating.

 Alia :)

A Secret Learned

I don't have a lot of time right now, but I just had to pop on and let you all know that I feel like I have been let in on the secret! I know it sounds weird, maybe strange, but I did kind of wonder how you got from world to world.

But there was always so much going on that I never gave it much more thought than that. Certainly I never asked anyone - I guess that would have spoilt the story a bit.

So now I know - how and where!

And it's pretty cool that there is a whole new world waiting to be explored, but I still have so much to do in Wizard City! Of course I have been over to check it out, and I must say - looking very interesting.

Oh and I found my death school too. Been a big couple of days!!

Until next time,
Tabitha

Alia's Sightseeing through the Spiral - A

A is for Angel Oak

These are my favourite plant in Wizard.  They are dropped by heaps of creatures and look fantastic.

 The first picture is what they look like as adults, with the angel hidden behind her wings.

The second picture shows them when ready to harvest.  When ready they open their leaves/wings and flap them, while holding a golden orb.

You only get a treasure card or snack when harvesting and really grow them more because you like the look of them than for getting anything useful from them.

I have these two at the entrance of my fantasy palace.

Alia  :)

The Band

You know, it is funny when you remember back.  Tabitha, being the newest Wiz to the Keep, reminds me of many of the thoughts I used to have.  Back then, when 28 mist wood was a lot, who would have thought that you would end up buying mist wood because to craft some of the higher level items, you might just need it!

Anyway, crafting is one of the things I really enjoy doing too, and as a Grandmaster Artisan, I have crafted a lot of things!  In one of my houses, I decided it needed a stage, so I bought and crafted every instrument I could.  At Alia's suggestion I added a drummer for his 6 different drums, and here is the result -

The one thing that is missing is the Antique Cello.  It has avoided my many, many attempts to get it as a drop.  If anyone has one they don't want or need, I'm happy to trade for it!

I was very happy with the band, forming part of the great hall, and then KI bring out the 'new instruments' - all of those wonderful new instruments that you can play and compose music with - and for gold, not just crowns! WOW!

I have purchased them all.  The trouble is - what to do with them?  This house is full, and they wouldn't quite work with the overall design anyway.

Perhaps I'll have to craft a new house, just for them? What do you think? Any ideas?

See you round the spiral!

Morgrim

Cyclops Lane & Firecat Alley

So I took a wander into Cyclops Lane and Firecat Alley the past couple of days, and I have to be honest I am feeling a little battle worn! There are a huge amount of battle quests in these two areas, many with some pretty huge brutes, although pretty is not the word to describe these fellas!
See Eyus-Maximus below - one ugly dude!

And how frustrating is it that you keep winning those battles, but do not get your bounty! I find I get caught up in the "oh no I need to kill another" or "not again!", that I am taking less notice of what I am winning - treasure cards or gear for example.

For the first time I found a wooden chest that gave me not just gold, but also a treasure card! Exciting day - I did not know you could get stuff other than gold in those :) So off I went to my deck to pop that treasure card into my hand, and what do I see? Another 5 treasure cards just sittings there!
I really need to get better at this ha ha!!

One bonus about these areas is that they seem to be abundant with reagents, though my 28 pieces of mist wood probably do not need adding to right now! Once I have got through a few more battle quests, I will turn my attention back to crafting. It is a skill I would very much like to learn more about :)

Until next time,
Tabitha

Blaze's Tips and Tricks No.1 - How To Make Money

Ever wanted that bigger castle? Ever wondered why all your friends could afford more than you? They may have been through a lot of street fights but mostly likely they know something you don't.

Haflang Bristlecrown is a boss located near the back of Vestrilund. To get to Vestrilund you must have completed Grizzleheim and Wintertusk's Hrundle Fjord and Austrilund. Vestrilund does cost 1995 crowns to unlock but is definately worth it. If you haven't unlocked Vestrilund you can ask to teleport to a higher level friend.

The reason that halfang is the boss to fight is that he has less than 2000 health and can drop 2+ items for 2000+ gold every time. He can also drop an amulet for 8000+ gold. As a Fire wizard you can usually finish the fights in 2 rounds with a critical colossal meteor strike with a Fireblade. A high level wizard like Morgrim can finish the fight in a single round.  As a Death wizard (if you are lucky or have crafted Deer Knight) you can finish fights in 3 rounds with a colossal critical Deer Knight with a Deathblade otherwise a four round Scarecrow works the same.

If you aren't getting all the money I said you would make sure you are selling the items at the bazaar in Olde Town.

I hope you have enjoyed my first issue of Blaze's Tips and Tricks I will try to get at least one issue out every week.

Until next time!

Blaze

Morgrim and the Mission for Turquoise

It's fair to say, I like collecting stuff.  In this instance, the main driver is Spells.

Being Fire, I feel a little disappointed in the crafting spell for Fire.  There are currently 12 spells available and Fire only get one, and let's face it, Brimstone Revenant just isn't a great spell.  4 pips for 440 damage to a single opponent...hardly seems worth it?

However, there are some other spells that definitely interest me.  Death have clearly gotten the best out of the crafted spells available right now, with Deer Knight and Lord of Night being very useful spells.  For a Firey, it also provides some versatility of attack when fighting an Ice opponent with a high Fire resistance.

Crafting spells poses two challenges.  The first is Amber.  Any spell that is crafted needs this reagent.  Very hard to get and an essential part of this kind of advanced crafting.  Gardening and lucky pack drops seem to be the best approach here, but more on this later.

The other is Turquoise.  For any Azteca equivalent spell, this is also a key reagent, and because you need 25, it is normally no small feat.

There are three ways to get this reagent: dropped, purchased or in a lucky pack drop.

Pack Drops - These are hard.  Currently the Pharaoh's Hoard Pack is the only pack to drop this one and it is filled with Krok housing items.  Now, I like housing - a lot - but the Krok stuff just doesn't work in any of my houses to date, so this is an expensive and low probability option for me.

Dropped - Only really dropped at the end of tough fights.  Being Fire, there are not many tough fights really, but they all take time, and at the end of that time, you still have to be lucky to get the drop.  I have participated in many fights with Alia where she has gotten a drop and I have not.  A little frustrating sometimes...

Purchased - For me, this seems to be the best pay off for time versus outcome.  When I finish playing for the day, I return to the bazaar, refresh the Reagent list 20 times and then log off, so when I come back in, I can check again.

When I log back in, again, it is into the Reagents area and 20 more refreshes.  Typically what I find is that, after 20 refreshes, I have had a chance of turquoise a few times.  This is not always the case, it can be that none appear, but more often than not, it will show up.

Then the fun starts.  How quickly can I buy it?  Don't get me wrong, even at 4000 gold, this stuff does not last.  One half click or incorrect mouse move and it's gone.  The lag from Australia doesn't help either!  That said, I have still managed to pick up a fair bit of this precious reagent.

I have crafted the Deer Knight spell, and Lord of Night will be next.  I have the turquoise I need, so it is off to the garden again to see how my next harvest of Amber bearing plants are going.

So, if you see me in the bazaar, there is a fair chance you'll know what I'll be doing!

Farewell for now,

Morgrim

The Red Barn Farm

You know, I have been a keen gardener for quite a while.  It is a great source of snacks (including mega-snacks), treasure cards and reagents, but it is important to understand a little about what you are planting before you turn a sod.

Pick your seed, then head over to Wizard101Central.com and enter the name of that seed.  Here you will find a wealth of information on the plant - what it can offer you when it can be harvested.  It is also important to note the 'likes' and 'dislikes' as these have a huge bearing on the length of time a crop stays in the ground.

I am always keen to make sure I have the maximum number of 'Likes' around my gardens to make the plants grow more quickly, so you can imagine how happy I was to hear about the Red Barn Farm.

To learn that this will give an extra 'Like' to all seeds that are sown here meant it wasn't long before I had the gold to grab this beauty.   It is a simple structure, with a number of hidey-holes, making it perfect to plant a garden without getting distracted by other housing items taking up your valuable housing item slots.

My new gardens are now in place (always plant 'enchanted' plots if you have the Energy), and my King Parsley's all have 6 'Likes'!  Let's see how quickly they grow now :)

Hey Tabitha, don't worry about hitting the Bazaar for reagents...I do it all the time.  If it is not available at the Reagent Vendor, sometimes the Bazaar is just the fastest way.

FFN,
Morgrim

The Iron Golem

At long last I have defeated the Iron Golem. Seemed to take forever, but in reality it was about the 5th try - it's just that you have to go through all those other quests before you get to him!

I realised that I needed to increase my health, as that is what I always run out of! So on my last attempt I changed my gear and concentrated more on higher health and less so on damage and the like. I managed to increase my health over 100 what I had.... and it turns out this was enough to see me through to the end. Good-Bye Iron Golem!!

Makes me wonder though, how do you figure out the best gear? Is it really just a chance, do you plan before going into battle? Does it matter what cards you have in your deck even? I'm still so new to this........

Until next time,
Tabitha

A Lot to Learn!

I gave up looking in the end, went to the Bazaar and bought the sapphire and coal I needed. So I have crafted one dagger, but silly me - I need to create 2 to complete my quest! So I'll be popping back to the Bazaar again soon.

While at my dorm room, I placed some of the items I picked up while questing around the spiral. It's then that I noticed "Open the Attic" - not seen it before. So it seems I still have a lot to learn about the very basics!

I'm looking forward to getting my first house too. Need to start saving my money I think!

Until next time,
Tabitha

Introduction of Tabitha

Hi everyone!

Tabitha here, a Death Wizard.

I am very new to Wizard 101, not even in double digits for my level yet. I have taken a break from battle questing as I want to look at crafting items for a little while. I have my table but am in need of a few items before I can complete my first crafting quest, as you can see:

So I find myself running around but mostly picking up mist wood and cat tails! I hope to pick up the other elusive items soon so I can complete my first crafting quest.

Oh and I have a pet imp called Sir Bruno, but have not done much with him yet  :)

Until next time,
Tabitha

The Coldfire Dragon

I was farming Halfang the other day with Alia and during one rotation, we joined up with a third person - another Firey.  Typically, a critical colossal meteor and we're done in round one, but as the luck of the draw would have it, even though I am stacked with meteors, I didn't draw one.  Round 2, again, nothing...frustrating.  This fight is already going too long!

One of the curious things about being based in Australia is that there is a fair lag going into fights, and with Halfang, this is no different.  Alia and I found ourselves in slots 2 and 3 (Eye and Star), with our new friend in the Sun spot.  After feeling somewhat relieved to see my colossal/meteor combo finally available, I scanned the spells for the round, and saw some strange kind of spell in the hands of the Firey.  Before I could check out what it did, the fight was on.

A strange creature emerged and proceeded to slam into Halfang and his cronies for 1044 damage, but then threw in a smokescreen for good measure.  "Nice spell" I thought, but it wasn't finished.  As a finale, it also gave the team a +9% piercing for all schools!  Amazing!

I had to find out what the spell was.  Our new friend wasn't particularly talkative, but did stay to farm, so next time I was ready.  

Aha!  The spell was called "Eirikur Axebreaker" and it was a fire spell!  A quick trip to Wizard101Central and I knew I needed to get back to Winterbane Hall as that was clearly the source of the spell.  It was an ItemCard attached to a strange pet that I had never heard of...something called a Coldfire Dragon!

None of the authors on this blog have Winterbane (yet!) as we cannot buy it in Australia, however, one of our friends did.  It was good to see that he was on, and he keen to go for a run through the dungeon.  The only problem was, two runs later, and no Coldfire Dragon in sight.

Hmmm...

Plan B (in hindsight, should have been Plan A!)

So, it was off to the Pet Pavillion and as soon as I walked in, I spotted a Coldfire Dragon off to the right.  My standard pet is a well bred Penumbra Drake, which many people seem to like, so I asked for a hatch.  He was keen, but had just hatched.  It was tantalisingly close.  While gifting people is pretty much off limits for us, Purreau's Potion #9 was on special for 300 Crowns.  It was like it was meant to be :)

It didn't take much convincing to buy a potion for my new friend and enter the Hatchery.  Now, it was all in the lap of the KI 'formula for figuring out what pet you get' when you hatch.  Something I have to say, I have never been able to figure out! (if anyone knows, please leave me a comment!)  It would be either a Penumbra or a Coldfire.

Yes!  A Mysterious Egg!  

 

It seems that this time, my quest for the Coldfire Dragon was a success.  There will be some long weeks ahead of me to get his stats and talents right, but at least I have made a start.

My New Wizard

Hi I'm Blaze and my favourite school is Death. From completing the test on day 1 I have loved being a Death wizard travelling around the spiral. Now that the end is nearing and Azteca is getting close I am starting to slow down waiting and hoping for a new world. While at the same time crafting, gardening and pet training. 

Another way to slow things down and enjoy the spiral from a different angle I decided to start a new wizard. Doing the test three times and getting Death every go I tried answering the questions in the opposite way. I kind of may have guessed that I would get the opposite of Death, Life. I quickly chucked some gear, a mount and a pet into my shared bank and off I went. 

I started my questing and fought a few guys. Even though I remembered some things reliving a wizard is much more detailed and fun. I did some questing with Alia and Morgrim and eventually finished Unicorn Way. I got the Fairy spell which I could actually use to heal others then got the Leprechaun from my new professor Moolinda Wu. 

I have so far enjoyed being a life wizard and can't wait to play again and continue my journey around the Spiral.

Blaze  

Fire v Death?

I logged on and tried to PVP but there were none that would start so I did the test, created a new fire wizard and did the first 3 quests instead. I wonder how good fire is compared to my death wizard?

Welcome to Wizard's Keep

Hi fellow Wizards and welcome to Wizard's Keep.

After being avid fans and players now for more than 18 months, we figured it was time to start to share some of our experiences in the Spiral.  Needless to say, we love it and our only regret is that we are close to finishing Azteca.  Hopefully KI will surprise us with a new world soon...we just don't want it to end!

I guess we should start with some introductions:

In the Keep, we have Morgrim, Fire and the lovely Alia Starshade, Life.  A great combination btw, and we have quested together since the very first days of our time in the Spiral.

We are joined here by Blaze, Robert Shadowgem and Edward Stormglade, all Death, and finally, the pretty Sarah Green, the Ice princess.  We each like different parts of Wizard,and that is what makes it so enjoyable for us all.

...and then there is the newest member of the Keep, Tabitha, another Death Wiz, and a new player.

Over the coming months and years (maybe?) we'll be discussing interesting things that we find, tips and tricks that we uncover and generally the things we enjoy about this awesome KI game. Between us, we cover all aspects of the game and hope to be able to help Wizards, new and old, to discover what a truly wonderful place the Spiral can be.

Thanks for joining us here.  We hope to see you again really soon.