Wizard101 Treasure Cards you've never heard of (...maybe!)

(OK, I concede you may well have heard of these, but hey, they are pretty rare!)

Recently, Tabitha has mentioned her Bazaar stalking and her timing that allowed her to pick up a number of higher level Astral spells.  For those Wizards in Azteca, this isn't really something unusual (assuming you have the available Training Points!), but for those who are not there yet, this is a way to access to these higher value spells.

Well, as any long-term readers would know, I also frequent the Bazaar.  Today, it was a good day for it, and as you can see there are a number of these higher level Astral spells available.  Furnace is clearly my weapon of choice, but I don't need the tc seeing as my level is high enough and the fact I spent one of my training points on it .

When you remember that there are only 7 Wizard schools, and that Balance gets two of these spells, to have 6 spells out of the 8 spells possible appear in the Bazaar at the same time makes it what it was...it would be a great day for people that use these tcs.

However, I don't believe these are not the unknown tc you may be looking for!

For me, the best Treasure Cards to get, (and I am ALWAYS on the lookout for more) are those that can surprise your opponent, and these two cards do exactly that.

Of course, I am talking about the elusive "Simplify" and its big brother "Elucidate".

These two cards have a very specific purpose - to reduce the pip cost of a spell.  Simplify takes one pip off the cost of a Spells, and Elucidate takes off 2 pips.  That means that a big scary Efreet (worth 8-pips) can win a fight when you only have 6 pips! (normal Efreet = 8 pips, Efreet with Elucidate = 6 pips)

This is a hugely powerful part of the game, especially PvP.  This is where you can hope your opponent is watching your pips and trying to guess your cards.  All of a sudden you are playing a game with someone who throws up a buff after seeing you still have one more round to to really hurt them.

So yes, I will confess, I am often stalking for these two cards.  It is interesting, but I hadn't seen them in the Bazaar for such a long time, I was wondering if they still existed as an Auctionable item!   Still, I thought it would be worth trying again...and...SUCCESS!  I couldn't believe it, but there were some on my second refresh...and on my 5th.  It was great!

When you can pick up both of them on the same day, and a few of each at that...it is a good day!

Oh, and before I sign off - the most interesting part of all of this was that there was another Wizard stalking for these cards too - but for a very different reason!  I did capture the conversation, but I don't think I'll post it.  Let's just say, he was after 700!  The reason for his passion was driven by Crowns!  It seems he has a benefactor that would pay 60K in Crowns as a reward for his efforts.

From experience, I know this will take some time.  I have about 30 of each card, and a number of 6-pip Efreets and 6 pip Fire Dragons in my side deck - but 700?!?  I wished him luck on his mission (but I'm sorry to say, I was too selfish to share any lol).

So, do you use these rare cards?  They can really change the course of a fight...let me know if you have any tactics you want to share :)

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

The Bountiful Bazaar

Hey Everyone,

Just come from the Bazaar, and this one was a particularly bountiful and expensive trip. I haven't done much

leveling up and I knew looking at the gear wouldn't yield much..... so I skipped straight to the Treasure Cards. Then straight to the Astral cards, my first purchase was 30 Virulence. 30 of them! I have only ever seen 1 or 2 before. That made me wonder if there was many Gargantuan cards around, Sometimes there might be 14 or so of them, but never more than that. OMG! There were over 100! So I bought 50 of them at 200 each. Bargain :)

Hmmm ...... this was good, I wondered if there were a bounty of reagents to be had too. And the answer was a resounding yes!

One thing you need to know (if you didn't already!) is that I buy things at the Bazaar that I don't need. If I see them, and they are few in number and expensive then I'm clicking BUY!

Morgrim once wrote about his quest for Turquoise... they do not show up often. But tonight... well I bought 22 of them. They were mainly in batches of 4, but they totaled 22, and now I have 84 of them.

And then there are those reagents that appear - you have no idea what they will ever be used for, but hey! they are few in number and cost a lot - therefore? Well therefore they should be bought!!

Agave Leaves and Agave Nectar  are two of those. I have absolutely no recipe that needs them, but they do not show themselves too often. So when they are there..... and I have the gold....... I buy them!

And when a new world appears, then new things show up in the Bazaar.... Take, for instance - Comet Tails or Astral Shards - sound cool, no idea what they are needed for - but you know what? I buy buy buy !!

Consequently my Gold reserves are falling short again right now. But I know that the purchases made tonight will serve me well later in the game, Gold can ALWAYS be re-stocked!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

The Eternal Reagent Struggle!

Reagents and crafting...it is difficult to determine just how much time I have devoted to the art of crafting.  Whether it be Quest crafting, house crafting, crafting for TC or crafting for pleasure, sometimes it can just be plain HARD!

Tabitha once described her actions as Bazaar lurking.  I know that feeling very, very well.  Sometimes you'll see me online and I won't respond.  Check my location, you might find that I am sitting in the Bazaar and Morgrim is left to himself - the person behind the keyboard just isn't there!  It is a good tip to know that if you talk to me, I talk back...so when I don't, there is a reason!

If that is the case I am typically lurking for seeds or reagents.

I have been lurking for Black Coal, Pristine Vials, I can even remember once waiting for Perfect Onyx in the Bazaar for many hours until I got the number I needed.  Those are hours of my life that I will never get back. But, here's a BIG tip!

When you are looking for reagents, the Bazaar is the logical place to start, but if you find the reagents you are looking for seem pretty rare, you really should have a quick run through the Spiral and check with each of the vendors.  You might be surprised what you will find!

For me:

• Black Coal - Wizard City!! Doh!  
• Pristine Vial, Perfect Onyx - Celestia

Seriously!?!?!

So next time you are in the hunt for that key reagent, by all means start in the Bazaar, but if you cannot find it there quickly, go for a quick Spiral run and see - you might just save yourself hours!

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

The Barn

Do you know when I first started my Wizard journey I did not know about the Bazaar? Seems crazy to me now, but it was actually Morgrim who pointed it out to me.  I can't remember the context of the conversation now, but Morgrim had to talk me through how to get there!! I had passed that little shop by many many times - just never noticed it! So I guess I have Morgrim to blame for what has turned into a bit of an obsession.

Decorating houses in different styles has been a fun side of the game. At least now I have unlimited gold from Halfang! I've been working on the main room at my Barn for the last couple of months, and I think it is pretty much done. Of course, as always, working on means hanging at the Bazaar for my chosen style! Well today I picked up a new wall trophy - the first I have seen in a while. There was just enough space for the "Earth Dino Shield". The style of the room is "Trophy". A place to display all shields, masks, armour and many other items.

I took a quick picture of the room, but realised that you can't really see the items I have on display. Take this "Ornate Mask" - you can't see it in the room. So I decided to take some video of the room, so you can see the trophies, armour and unusual items I have been picking up. The Fur Lined floor fits in with this style, and the Stitched wallpaper is sufficiently plain to show off the items. I have developed a love for moving items, such as flames or steam, so you'll notice a few of those objects in the mix. My biggest problem is that the barn is big, but only allows 250 items inside, and I'm completely full. If anything else shows up then I will have to cull from other places to fit more in!

I am very happy with how it's all come together, but would love to know what you guys think!

Until Next Time,

Tabitha

Wizardly Competitiveness

Hey Everyone,

By now you all know that I am a bit of a lurker when it comes to the Bazaar. Always on the look out for any rare items, I usually start and end my Wizard101 time with a trip there. And I have been quite lucky, that or my patience has paid off. Take the snow globes. I now have 26 of them, the inside of my Winter Wind Palace is slowly filling with snow, to mirror the outside. If there is one there, I will buy it.

Well it seems that one of my Wizard friends has decided to challenge me!! Galen has decided that he will try and out buy me at the bazaar and buy all things rare. Daily I get the call "Have you seen this?" "Have you got this" "Bet you don't have this!". And unfortunately quite a few items I don't have and haven't seen in there. Of course there are a lot that I have already purchased. The worst thing is my luck seems to have deserted me somewhat too! I tell you I have to keep quiet about what I am after in case he gets in there before me.
For instance the Low Jade Table.... it has taken a while to get the number I required for my Myth House. For two weeks I have been very quiet about these tables, never mentioning them. But now I have enough it's all good. Although the Jade Chairs are costing me a small fortune to craft, but that's another story! The banners you can see in the image below can be trying to get hold of, but in saying that there were 23 of them in the Bazaar this morning - funny how that happens sometimes.

Trouble is, with Galen buying these other items that I don't have, I just have to search for more things. More time spent at the Bazaar - there won't be any time for questing soon! So the race is on, as soon as he knows he has something I don't - well he just wants to buy them every-time he sees them - just so I can't! 

It's all good fun though, and it goes to show how Wizard101 has something to suit everyone. It's not just about winning those fights! Maybe you can catch me at the Bazaar or Halfang - I need gold to get the reagents for those Jade Chairs!

Oh and Galen - if you're reading..... it's on!!!

Until Next Time,

Tabitha

My Advice - Look Closely....

 If you haven''t yet got to Wintertusk, then you'll probably be leveling up at a fairly steady rate. Wintertusk changes all that. All of a sudden you will get between 6,000 and 15,000 XP - you start to level very quickly. So it was of no surprise that I leveled to 60 last night.

This is a big level to get to because Waterworks is now open. I am told by Morgrim that this dungeon is very hard, but that it has arguably the best gear drops in the game. But I will leave that for another time, I haven't even contemplated this dungeon yet.

What I do like to do on a level up, is pop over to the Bazaar to see if there is any gear worth buying for my new level. After all there is always room for improvement! And there was one item - a hat. I had 195,000 gold, yet I still took a second to consider spending 15,000 on a hat. Was it really worth it? Having access to Halfang did help with my choice though. I hit the Buy button, and then head over to the Treasure Cards to see if there was anything worth buying.

It was then that I noticed my gold balance was now 49,000. What? Back to the Hats list and there it was - that hat had cost me a staggering 155,675 gold - ten times more that I had thought I was spending.

And as you can see from this picture, it is quite a look - not one that I liked at all. So not only had I spent nearly all my gold, but I would also have to re-stitch! Another 32 Gold on a cheap hat and 100 crowns to re-stitch. This was an expensive 10 minutes.

This is how it looks now.... I like these style of hats rather than the helmet style that hide your face and hair.

So my advice is to look closely at that price tag. Or be prepared to spend a lot of time at Halfang if you get it as wrong as I did!

Would love to hear of any Bazaar stories you guys have? I can't be the only one to have made such an expensive purchase by mistake?

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

Let it Snow!

I'm on a quest. For snow..... In the 12-days of Christmas giveaway I won a snow globe. Snow globes are cute. I thought I could place it on a table somewhere, probably forget it was there. So I had a pleasant surprise when I placed the globe and the area around me started snowing. How fantastic!! I have bought a heap of Yuletide packs, just in case there was a possibility of getting another one.

Every-time I am at the bazaar I have a quick look to see if there are any in. Once in a blue moon one appears. And then I try to buy it and.....

But the good news is that they do appear so the chances are there. I was lucky enough to buy two on Christmas Eve. As you can see they are pretty pricey, but thanks to Morgrim I have had excess gold from farming Halfang recently.

I picked up another one this morning. So that's 4 I have. I wonder if more will become available as Christmas goes and people sell? I intend to keep buying. You can have a maximum of 20 in your house. So that's the goal. Make a snow palace!!

Wish me luck!!

Until next time,

Tabitha,

Oh Man...... I'm Addicted!!!

 Now, if you remember, I have been talking about crafting for a while. Debating what to craft, and spending (probably too much) time visiting any vendor I see to work out what to craft. After defeating Zeus I realised that the gear there is useless to me.

And then, an impromptu visit to Celestia and my choice was made. The Star Chalice.  I knew that it would help gardening, and I knew that it was only available as a crafted item.

As you can see, the first problem was that I was short of a couple of reagents. The fish fins cost a bit of gold to sort out, but everything else was fairly easy. I decided that the Monstrous Card would be a useful card to have on hand, so instead of just buying the treasure card I decided to buy the recipe. For 250 gold, it wasn't a hard choice, especially good because I had all the reagents needed to craft one.

 It did take an hour or so, but it was fairly painless. My last quest in Dragonspyre took weeks because I needed so many Diamonds!

It was a great addition to my garden, and was actually much bigger than I had expected. 

 

I really enjoyed crafting. It is great that KingIsle have created this side activity to complement the game and the gardening.

I kept a link to Celestia and went back over to see what else might be useful. That's when I found the Transmute cards. Now I had researched these when I was pulling hair out sourcing Diamonds. That's when I found out about the Transmute Diamond card, however I hadn't realised how many Transmute cards there were. So I bought a few. And then I bought a few more. And another couple for luck.....


As you can see, I have now more than one page of Transmute cards. And I can tell you that I have used nearly all of them already. I have been spending so much gold in the Bazaar..... probably 60,000 or more in the last couple of days. I need my King Parsley to harvest more so I can sell the snacks to get more gold!!

 That's not where it ends, but I'll leave the rest for another post. Whenever I visit the Bazaar I pop over to the reagents page and find myself buying 250 Deep Mushrooms, or maybe even Mistwood. Every-time I see a Diamond, I click that Buy button as quick as you like.  It is a good job that backpacks do not count the number of reagents!!!

And those Monstrous Cards, I have made more than 10 already. I'll post more about that another time too.

Safe to say I am addicted to crafting.... are you?

Until next time,
Tabitha.

Unexpected, and Liked!

Well, Well, Well. Sometimes things just happen and you don't quite believe them, until they happen again. What am I talking about? A very helpful Balance wizard I know, Emily RoseBlossom decided to decorate her garden, and just placing the item seemed to speed up her plants growth to Mature. I wasn't convinced, and then she showed me the 'Like' she had gained on her whole garden.

So off I went to the Bazaar to check out this phenomenon..... I bought two of them and placed them in the garden.... next thing I knew - 3 plants went to elder, and 3 seeds went to mature!! All because of this tiny insignificant item purchase at the bazaar. You can hardly even see it.... so look for the big yellow arrow :)

Thanks Emily, huge help in my garden. The item, by the way, is a "Tropical Garden Gnome" - go get one, and reap the rewards! I'm off to research more items.... only trouble is my garden is becoming bare and my energy is low. Oh well - I'll find a happy medium at some stage.

Until Next Time!

Tabitha

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 :)

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