Frustration!

Hey everyone!

I'm over at Dragonspyre at the moment. Got to say I am loving it. After the brightness of Moo Shoo, it is nice to have a world that is a little less so. But I am also loving the story - the fact that they let you see the world before the troubles started. I am loving moving around the stone pathways and towers. This world suits me :)

I recently leveled up to 48, and now have the quest to get my next spell - the Scarecrow. As a death wizard it will be my first all enemy hit spell, so I am looking forward to becoming more effective. Of course the fact that 50% life is given back is a total bonus - this card should be a game changer!

Have been questing a bit the last couple of days - I want my spell!!

So tonight I set about clearing some of the smaller quests out so I can move onto the Labyrinth - this is where I need to go for the next part of my spell quest. Moved up to the' The Collector'. The minion was taken care of very easily, so I set in to take care of the Boss. A little tricky due to Balance school and the incessant need to throw weakness at me. But I wore it down, kept my life about midway. Then one of my Wizard mates joined. All good - I have completed some dungeons with him, and they were good quests. I wasn't concerned that he joined - the minion would soon be taken care of.....

And then - frustration!!! He fled the fight. Didn't play any spells, didn't say anything - just fled. So now my battle was very tricky. Although a low level minion (just 1010 health) - I had been battling for a little while and had run through quite a few of my treasure cards, as well as my pack. I held my ground, my health dwindled very low, but luckily I had packed a few Sacrifice. I kept going. The fight took another 10 minutes to finish. It should have taken about two more spells had my 'friend' not joined. So it was very frustrating. A number of times I thought it was all over. But I did it. I completed the quest.

A great outcome, but the frustration caused by the 'flee'....... grrrrrrr! I know this is something we all have happen to us, but this was probably the worst time it has happened to me so far. What about you guys? Have you had a wizard friend do this to 'at just the wrong moment'? Did you win? Would love to hear your stories!!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

Khrysalis - The new World...and Halloween

The new world, Khrysalis, is sounding very, very interesting.  I personally don't play in the Test Realm as I love to see the surprises that KI has for us in the live Wizard101 environment.  I just love the atmosphere of it all.  However, my main informant, Blaze, has been monitoring progress and what he is reporting on the Shadow magic is quite intriguing.

Let's just say, I am looking forward to what this new world has to offer us!

It is good to read about how Alia and Blaze are going with their pets.  Remember, *your* perfect pet will take time, a little luck, a lot of planning and (potentially) a LOT of gold.  More on this later, but rest assured, if you are prepared to put in the time, everyone can have their perfect pet.

It is getting late in the month, and here in Australia, that means it is warming up nicely.  It is also getting closer to Halloween!  For all of our US friends out there, you may be interested to know that Halloween comes and goes with very little fanfare here in Oz.  Here at Our Wizard's Keep, the kids love to dress up and we keep a stash of lollies (candy) here for the very infrequent trick or treaters.

Something that I thought I would share is an interesting screensaver for your PC.  It is just right to get in the mood for Halloween :)

Even the site is kinda interesting.

Skeleton Adventures

Tell me, is there anything interesting you do at Halloween?  What about other parts of the world?

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Blaze's Pet Stats

I have, like Alia, been doing some recent pet training. I hatched again with Morgrim hoping to get a Penumbra Drake but failing, yet again.

I did manage to get another Coldfire Dragon with some decent stats however. My Couch Potatoes have been harvested twice since my last lot of pet training so I had around 30 or so Megas. I trained to teen and wasn't disappointed!

I kept up the Megas and maze game and again wasn't disappointed when Jackson hit adult!

If again I get something good at ancient then we may have a little renaming to do...

Until next time!

Blaze

Pet Training - Part 3

Day 3 with little Lacey and we are now up to 1373 from 822.  So hopefully within the next day or so we will have her last talent.

I am now using my Golden Wheat Bread snacks, which give 40 points.

I have about 20 of them left, so that should take me through to the end of Lacey's training.  After this lot of training I'm going to have to concentrate on my Couch Potatoes again to get more mega snacks.

Cross fingers that the last talent will be worth it.
Anyway I'm off to check out the bazaar to see if there is anything new to buy.

Alia :)

Pet Training - Part 2

Ok, have used up all my energy again for today.  Just did the minimum gardening keeping my 2 Evil Magma Peas alive and well, then went to pet training.

Lacey is now at 822/2000.  I have only trained one other pet to Mega and as it's last talent it got Mana Gift. lol  Couldn't believe that I had trained it that far and got the measly talent of Mana Gift.  A huge let down.

The last time I did that I hadn't discovered couch potatoes and the mega snacks they give you so it was a very long process using snacks worth 6 or 7.  That is very different to the 50 and 45 point snacks I am using this time, although I did run out of my 50 snacks tonight and am now feeding Lacey the 45 snacks.

Until tomorrow's update

Alia :)

Pet Training

Found that my couch potatoes turned Elder today so after harvesting them, I thought it might be time to use some of my pet snacks.

Poor Lacey has been waiting for her last talent to be revealed and I have been trying to get enough good pet snacks to make the 2000 needed not seem so daunting.  She has good stats with Intellect, Agility and Power all at 250, and Strength and Will just short of the 250.

Unfortunately, I had to garden a little first but managed to get Lacey from 4/2000 to 470/2000 today and still have plenty of 50, and 45 point snacks to use.

Although most people go for the 2 shields and 3 heal type of pets being a Life wizard I find that I don't really need the heal ones as much.  So, although Pip O'Plenty and Sharp-Shot may not be what everyone likes, for me, at the moment, it works.

Ok, so Pip O'Plenty helps with my power pip chance getting it to 96%.  Why do I want it that high?  For a life wizard needing 8 pips for a Forest Lord I want to be able to start a fight with 2 power pips, blade up in round one, blade up in round two then hit with Forest Lord.  Great for a quick fight.  It also helps when I want to heal me or someone else.  A fairy for one power pip heals for 683 or 1366 when criticalled - pretty useful for one pip.  I really don't want to get the noob pips.


Life wizards have accuracy of 90%, add another 6% from my pet (Sharp-Shot) and 1% for my boots and it makes my spells a lot more reliable.  Going into a fight and knowing that fizzling will either not happen or will be a one off is something that I have grown very used to :)

Now the only surprise is what the final talent reveal is.  Energy seems to come back so slowly sometimes lol

Will keep you updated and have my fingers crossed for her last talent.

Alia :)

Quick Tip for Aquila!

Have tried this a couple of times, and it continues to work - so time to share with you guys! I have some wizard friends that I have quested with from time to time, and we have tried in vain to conquer Aquila. Two wizards are mid 40 level, and two are mid 20 level - and we find that first battle a struggle. Once the awful belching frogs start to flow and more in one round we are defeated fairly quickly. Even with three of us, we have the same problem. Three wizards also means 3 cyclops along with the boss.

But the last couple of times we attempted the battle we were out on our timing. One wizard went into the room and started the battle before the other 3 wizards. So the rest of us hot-tailed it into the room to join the battle. The battle had 1 boss and 1 cyclops...... and that's the way it stayed. We all joined the battle, but the number of cyclops enemies did not increase. Not like it does in the street fights. So now the battle was much easier - 4 against 2.

We have tried this a couple of times and it works a treat. So next time you are in Aquila with 2 or more friends, let one start the battle and join in after it has started. You need to stay out of the room though - until the battle has started, else it does not work.

Good-Luck! Be nice to hear how you go.

Until Next Time!

Tabitha

Tabitha's Nightmare Pack

Thanks Morgrim! I too have delved into the Nightmare Pack.... being all things death I was keen to try my luck on a couple of packs with some spare crowns I had. And it seems I got pretty lucky......

Not only did I get a totally awesome permanent mount - yes permanent!! It is the Cloudstrider Pegasus Mount - and it is an impressive beast.

But I also scored a new robe and boots. Although my health stats are much lower than they once were, the new gear has given me better resistance, damage and accuracy.
I also now have my first critical rating stat too! It's only a 15, but I have already gone critical in one battle!

The mount is the best though. Certainly is getting me noticed around the spiral... Just as well I have no crowns left, or I might be tempted to try my hand at an awesome pet to complement my new gear!

Hope you get lucky too! Would love to see some photos!

Until Next Time!
Tabitha

Nightmare Pack and Dragontooth Gear

Well, it is back again for another year...the NIGHTMARE PACK...(cue spooky music!)

This year, we have something new - the Dragontooth Gear.  There is also the Dragonbone and Dragon's Eye gear here as well.  I figured, I needed to know more about this.  This does sound interesting :)

After some simple research, I found that the guys at Duelist101 were already on the case and had the stats up for the Promethean Level version of the gear, and then we got a drop of the level 80 Dragonbone Mantle thanks to Blaze, so we can report on those stats too.

http://www.duelist101.com/news/updates/wizard101-nightmare-pack-returns/

For Level 80, the Dragonbone Mantle has :

• 5% Power Pip
• 5% Accuracy
• 5% Armor Piercing
• +50 Critical
• +7% Damage

It also has the massive +30% Vengeance Card

It seems that Fire is the biggest loser here, much to my dismay.  We get a helm that is worse than the crafted helm from Avalon! With a Fire Dragon that is only slightly better than the standard one and all other stats on par or worse, there is zero advantage in this gear.  It is very disappointing.

However, Death and Ice both come away with some very impressive Critical Boots, so that will be a big bonus for them, making both schools even more formidable in the PvP Arena.  Of course, you have to get a lucky drop, but if you do, it is very useful drop.

Even Alia is happy.  Life get a very nice bonus.  A hat with +120 Critical, but also a 7 pip Spinysaur.  That should help with the few Life Shields she encounters in PvP!!

Good luck if you are buying the Nightmare Pack.  If you have any thoughts on winning and losing schools with this version of the pack, leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Time to Start Crafting?

Hi Everyone!

I have been away on vacation for a little while. On the run up to my trip, one of the things I wondered about was the state of my garden when I got back. I had been working towards having very little left to harvest and care for while I was away, and made sure I did not plant anything new. So when I went away I had four plants still going strong, I had hoped for one more harvest out of them before I left as I was convinced they would be at elder stage then. But the timing did not quite work out!


I was a little anxious on my return. I did not want to find 'time to dead' on any of them, so it was a huge relief that they were all at elder stage! 2 King Parsley and 2 Alligator Pear Trees.


Time to re-plant. Morgrim was right about the King Parsley's re-seeding themselves.....

 I now have 7 of them growing - along with 3 Couch Potatoes, 2 Alligator Pear Trees and a couple of the Halloween plants. I have the large spells for all the caring needs, so gardening is a very quick process now.

So, now I am back, I am considering starting some crafting. Having read about Morgrim and Alia's crafting and the very fact that I have 6 pages of reagents in my back-pack - I believe I am ready!!

The only problem is - I have no idea where to start? 

I already have a few crafting tables just sitting there waiting to be used!!
I am wondering what other Wizard's chose as their first non-quest crafting item? Was it something for your house, or was it something to help your stats?


Would love to hear from some fellow Wizards!
Until next time!
Tabitha

Ancient! Pet Training

Hey everyone, Blaze here and I have recently been hatching a bit with Morgrim. I always wanted a Penumbra Drake because of the awesome spell at Epic/Mega but by hatching with Morgrim's Coldfire Dragon I now have something new.

The first Coldfire that I got had pretty good stats and learned Unicorn at teen and Fairy Friend at adult. It was off to a pretty good start but I didn't want to train it further in case of getting something bad. I hatched again and by adult the two pets had exactly the same talents. I chose the one with the highest stats and this is what I got.

/\ Click to enlarge. /\

YES!! Finally a pet with Fairy and Spell Proof. This was definitely going well and now it is time to train my other Coldfire. Once I get awesome talents I can hatch with a Penumbra to try and get one. I hope it my pet training keeps going well (those Couch Potatoes are working overtime) because I'm starting to get low on Mega Snacks!

Good Luck with your pet training!

Until next time!

Blaze

Hard Dungeons

Note: This happened a long time ago.

You know, I always thought that Wizard101 was a little bit easy. I breezed through fights, smashed the bosses (who were easy) and still had plenty of health left. I was just about to finish Wizard City so I decided to look at my quests.

Marla Stinger wanted some help in a dungeon called Sunken City. Another easy dungeon I thought to myself. I entered and started a fight. These guys had 575 health. Must be a boss I thought. Soon after another two joined the fight and I was in a 3v1 against Death guys.

I barely managed to finish the fight when I realised that these were street creatures. The next fight was a boss and well... I died. For the first time since I could remember, I died. I knew it was going to be tough so I asked for some help from Alia and Morgrim.

We were all around level 20 or so and I wasn't sure we could make it. We got through the first few fights and were about to die. Alia tried healing but to no avail. We gave up for then and decided to come back later.

I meanwhile was determined to finish this dungeon and called upon a high Life friend that I had. We struggled sometimes and I died a lot but eventually we made it to Grubb. He looked absolutely hideous and disgusting which made me even more determined to kill him.

After a few big hits the fight was over (finished by my amazing 65 no pip spell) and I had done it. completed Sunken City. I was especially happy that I could tell the world that I had aswell. With the new badge 'Sunken City Survivor' I was a new Wizard!

From then on I knew that Wizard101 was going to become much more of a challenge in harder worlds (and boy, was I right!).

I'll be back with more dungeons later.

Until next time!

Blaze

Friends

A big part of Wizard101 is your friends list. Friends help you in dungeons, show you their house, you can talk to them and they make the game more fun!

Something that I love most about friends is the fact that you can Teleport to them almost whenever you want! This means that you can help them doing quests and have a good time with them. Friends are almost a must have on hard dungeons like the WaterWorks, Tower of the Helephant and more. With these hard dungeons soloing is almost impossible and friends really speed up the process.

Some players friend everyone they meet, whereas others make sure they only friend people they know in real life. Then there are people like me who do a bit of both. I friend active players that have helped me out a few times as well as those that I know outside of the game.

Make sure that you get a decent amount of friends that can help you out, just in case your in some trouble. I think that KingsIsle have done a great job with these Friends Lists and they really do pay off.

Until next time!

Blaze

Level Up!

Hey guys, Blaze here and yes you guessed it! Level 84 now and am well and truly into Azteca. I just had to hop  on to tell you about a new quest!

When I levelled up Dworgyn popped his head up on the side of the screen and let me know that he had a quest. I talked to him and he told me that it was Harvest Time in Wintertusk so The Harvest  Lord would take his annual trip to Austrilund. I can't wait to get this new Harvest Lord pet and I know it will be great.

Notice what I'm wearing? It looks pretty strange but there is a reason for it...

Until next time!

Blaze

Blaze's Tips & Tricks No. 5 Halloween Goodies!

You know, I agree with you Tabitha, KingsIsle does an amazing job celebrating all the festivities throughout the year and I have a tip or two for this Halloween (this is only valid while the Halloween season lasts).

The new pet named Frankenbunny is a pet that can be earned only by Wizards level 13 and up. If you are a high enough level then take a trip to Dworgn, the Death Professor, in Nightside. He will tell you something that I have always wanted to know, What the gate at the back of the Haunted Cave is for!

When you arrive you see vegetables scattered everywhere and drained of energy coming from the gate. When you pass through the gate and enter the dungeon you meet a few farmers whose plan has gone completely wrong. You must help them to figure out why their plants have gone haywire and defeat the evil Nosferabbit to save Wizard City yet again.

Dworgn will hand you your reward of possibly the best pet for Free To Play Wizards in the game (not including hatching)!

The Frankenbunny gives you a Healing Current card at baby and can learn some amazing talents like May Cast Healing Current!

Also look around the Commons for Jack Hallow to get even more Halloween quests!

Until next time!

Blaze

First Halloween in the Spiral!

Being kind of new to Wizard101 still, I have not experienced any of the holidays in the Spiral.

I was impressed with the Birthday celebrations, but little did I know that KingsIsle go to that level many times during the year! How cool, and well done to KingsIsle.


When I signed in today there was the message about a new quest. I popped over to Dworgyn and it was a busy place to be!! Seems everyone has been 'dying' to see what the Halloween treats for 2013 will be!

I have already seen lots of the new 'FrankenBunny' pets hopping around, and ghosts floating around everywhere.

Looking forward to this month of spooky festivities! I'll be back on later to see what the quest has in store. Lots of Tricks and Treats to be had, I'm sure!

Until Next Time!
Tabitha

Treasure Cards and PvP

You know, Treasure Cards are one of the more controversial parts of the Wizard101 game.  Some people simply hate them, especially for PvP.

I can completely understand Ed's position on using them in PvP.  If you goal is to level up, they can really help.  Here are some interesting cases of use (abuse?) of treasure cards in PvP.

• Wild Bolt - There have been experiments with Level 1 Wiz just buying a heap of Wild Bolt treasure cards and casting nothing else.  You can go a fair way with this tactic and there is little that can be done to combat it.  Esp. if you don't look like a Storm wizard.  They normally kill quickly against opponents at that level, before they realise they need to shield.  Is this a fair use of Treasure Cards?  It certainly takes the skill out of the game.  There are several YouTube videos that relate to this.
• Dispel Life - Another common spammed spell.  "Everyone pick on the healer".  This pretty much takes the most powerful healer out of the game, and almost everyone carries them.  
• Weakness / Plague - This one is designed to frustrate the hitters/hammers in the team.  It is a very effective tactic, especially combined with a Virulent Plague, it can really take the sting out of an attack.  Any attack boosted with balance cards will find a sustained defensive move like this difficult to deal with.

It is worth noting that both of these spells are fine as normal spells, but it is when there is no other tactic but to turn off the brain and play the next Treasure Card, there are no real tactics, just a reliance on blind luck.  It is no wonder people get annoyed with PvP when that is the case.

So, when can Treasure Cards be useful in PvP?  Combined with good timing and tactics, treasure cards can be a game changer in PvP.  This is where the real tactics can be found.

• Doom and Gloom - If you play PvP, you really should be packing this card.  It all but takes pet healing out of play.  A good Life Wiz can work around a Doom, but once you have your opponent on the ropes, you need to keep them there.
• Scald - In a multi-player PvP, especially as you are starting to build for your attack, this can be a very handy spell to wear out an opponents shielding.  Played in round 2 or 3, while it prevents effective use of big traps, it can break down a defensive player quite effectively.
• Guardian Spirit - Another spell that can get a fair bit of airplay from non-Life Wizards as being unfair.  This is just a really nice tactic for PvP for a school that typically doesn't hit hard and cannot defend like an Ice Wizard.  It's spell cost is high enough for it not to be easily spammed, but if this is the only tactic used, the Life Wizard will die, it is not a true game changer.
• Tower Shield - The most useful shield.  Any attack, any school.  Pack these and use them at will.  This isn't a spamming technique, this is just good common sense.  Anyone who doesn't have at least a few of these will regret it.
• Reshuffle - The only card that has to be mandatory in any serious PvP deck.  How silly would you feel if you have been battling for an hour, only to realise you are out of cards?  And with the recent changes, you need to consider whether packing one is enough....and then there are the people that have 15+ of this card...but that is a topic for another day.

Treasure Cards and PvP.  The discussion / argument / debates will continue as long as PvP is a part of the whole Wizard101 experience!

If you have any cards that you like to spam (or hate when others do) or any others you feel a 'must haves', why not let us know?  Leave a comment below.

See you round the Spiral!

Morgrim