Pack Analysis: The "Wyvern's Hoard" Pack

Pack Name:                      Wyvern's Hoard
Pack Type:                       Gear
Number of Cards:            7
Total Number of Items:   143
Cost:                                   399 Crowns, on special from time to time and up to 50% off
Availability:                       Currently in Crowns Shop

Description

Now this one, for me, is pretty special.  While I got my robe from the Raven's Hoard pack, I got my mount from this one.  I love my big, beautiful Cloud Wyvern.  He was brutish to ride at first, and got me into no end of trouble in Dragonspyre, but once you master the sway of the beast, it really is a great mount.

Then, of course, is the Energy.  I consider this pack the "Energy Pack" as it has the best drops to send your Energy into overdrive - but more about that later - or just read my eBooks, click on the links on the side of this blog if you haven't read them,

This is predominantly a Life focused pack, but it really does have something for everyone.

OK - Let's check this pack out and see what wonders it contains...

Pets - 6
Given the age of this pack, there are a couple of good pets in here.  Out of the six pets, two of them, the Earth Walker and the Pixie Queen are both high stat, high pedigree 1st Generation pets.

The Pixie Queen that comes with this pack is an incredibly rare drop.  You can tell the difference between this pet and the normal Fairy Queen, as it is a pedigree 57 pet with a Fairy card.

!!Update!! Thanks to our good friend Scarlet Frogslinger, I have been informed that the Pixie Queen can now be purchased from the pet vendor, Kellen ForestTail, in Khrysalis for 10,000 Gold.  It seems that she just won't be that rare anymore!!!

Mounts - 11
Ahhh, the mounts.  There are five wyvern mounts in this pack, and I have four of them  The Night Wyvern still escapes me.  My favourite two are the Cloud Wyvern and the Night Wyvern, so I can see that I'll be buying a few more of these packs as time goes on!

Other than that, there are some pretty Fairy Wings...not really my thing, but a lot of people do like them.  There are 3 different types of these wings, and they in both Permanent and 1-Day options.

The mounts are a big part of this lucky dip, and you never know what you are going to come up with...

Snacks - 0
OK, probably best to know that if you are after Snacks, don't buy this pack!!

Treasure Cards - 18
The Treasure Cards that come with this pack are top notch.  From Baby Sunbirds to Rebirth, from the Massive Pest Zapper to Satyr, the only poor card is Leprechaun.  Not bad when there are 18 cards to potentially drop!

Seeds - 21
Now for the seeds.  When you take out the ones that you can buy from the various gardeners, there are 9 seeds left, slightly less than half.  It is when you see what seeds they are that it is pretty impressive.

My favourite seed, the Couch Potato, is in there, as is the Evil Magma Pea - considered by some as
the best seed in the game.  There is the King Parsley - useful in large numbers for Amber, and Key Limes, the best seed to level up quickly in Gardening (just ask Tabitha!).  I often call these two "the gifts that keep on giving" as they multiply rapidly, but can be used to level up your pet if you feed your surplus to it.

There is even the DHE or Deadly Helephant Ears, and the (potentially buggy) Silver Trumpet Vine.

An amazing array of high quality seeds in a single pack.

Reagents - 7
Every pack has its weakness.  For the Wyvern's Hoard pack, that weakness is the Reagents.  You really don't want to get these after spending your hard earned Crowns.  Probably the less said about these the better!

Clothing - 9
This pack was one of the 'transitional' packs where the different items started to be grouped together. In this case, it is the "Brilliant", "Energetic" and "Peaceful" sets of Greenwarden's clothing.

There are some upsides and some downsides with this clothing as there often is with any item.  The main downside is that it looks terrible unless you are a tree!  Also, given it is an older pack, some of the critical / block combinations are a little different.

Greenwarden's Brilliant Gear - This gear is pretty balanced.  It is a good generic set of gear.

Greenwarden's Peaceful Gear - This gear is not bad, a little bit of Energy, and some attack, some defense, some accuracy.

Greenwarden's Energetic Gear -  Now this is the good stuff.  The real gold. I don't know how many packs I purchased for this.  It is *easily* the best Energy gear in the game.  At level 100, this gear adds a mighty 69 points of Energy to your total.  Amazing stuff.  With the extra emphasis on Energy for Fishing, this is even more valuable now!

Wands - 11
The wands continue the naming trend and are all pretty similar.  The Brilliant Wand ends up with a nice big Block, while both the Energetic and Peaceful have both Critical and Block, with the Energetic with a bit more Critical and the Peaceful with a bit more Block...as you would expect.

Housing Items - 60
The housing items are largely focused on trees.  There are lots of them!  Most of these you can get from the Bazaar, along with many of these housing items.  That said, there are even great housing items in this pack! The Porters drop pretty regularly and it certainly saves crafting or buying them in the Porter Pack.  Great when you start to have a few houses!

Morgrim's Verdict

Low Level Wizards
Buy this pack! The pets can give useful cards for low level Wizards, the mounts are impressive and the gear is excellent.  The treasure cards are powerful, and even the potential seed drops are first class.

As an all-rounders pack, this is arguably the best.  A low level life Wiz casting a Rebirth is always great fun - especially if it is their first time!

High Level Wizard
If you need Energy, buy this pack!  It is just amazing the difference it can make to your overall energy.  Mega-snacks, this pack can ensure you have a never-ending supply! Graceful mounts? Yep. Even looking for a rare pet? ...got that too.

You may have guessed by now, I am really impressed with this pack, but that is because it drops the things that I value.  What do you think?  Are these things useful to you too?

Let me know if you agree with my Verdict!

See you 'round the Spiral.

Morgrim

(This post is accurate as of September 2014)

School Battle Strategy

I've been thinking a bit about how I approach battle quests recently. Certain schools definitely cause certain decisions.

For instance, my first thought when fighting Storm is to get the Storm shields into my deck. Then make sure my Myth cards are in and my Amulet is on. I actually trained in the Storm shield - it is the only school I did that for.

Fighting Death is just about having those Prisms in the deck, along with a few Humungofrog cards just in case those Prisms don't appear quickly.The other problem with Death enemies is that they replenish their health constantly, which I love for me - but not my enemies! For this reason I now include Feints in the side deck. I prefer the TCs because the hit on me is 20%  instead of 30%. I put everything in place to defeat them in one hit. There is nothing worse than getting a good hit in, waiting on the pips only to find that they have taken the opportunity to replenish their health!

When I see an Ice fight I always get a little nervous. Prolific use of Tower shields has defeated me many a time. Strategy wise I always load up on Tower shields and Poison. The hope is that a powered up Poison will take care of those Tower shields while I get ready for a big hit.

Balance and Fire I really don't have any strategy in place yet. Neither of them cause a big problem in the way they use spells in a battle - so far anyway! So I just have a standard deck. If the Fire fight is a boss fight then I usually add some Volcanic shields, but that is about it.

Then there is Myth. I really do not like fighting Myth. They have 2 spells that irk me - Earthquake and Myth Imp. Strategy for Earthquake is not to use blades, but use Feints to get extra damage. If the Earthquake spell is cast at the right time, then then 20% or 30% self hit disappears, which is fantastic! Unfortunately there is little I can do about the Myth Imp. Dispel Death - a terrible thing for a Death wizard! I make sure I have a Death wand on, so I can use the zero pip hits if that nasty little Imp has me cornered. It also dispels Life, but I rarely use Life spells, it affects Patch or Winston sometimes though.

How about you guys? How do you approach the different Schools? Would love to hear from you.

Have fun, until next time,
Tabitha

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

Astral Treasure Cards - no longer just Level 84+

Hey Everyone,

I have recently become aware of new Treasure Cards.... now this happens sometimes as I level up. All of a sudden cards I have never seen before are available in the Bazaar. I tend to buy now and look up later. So I have been buying them, most of them and whenever I see them. I haven't actually looked them up.

But then I started to run short of Gold - that hasn't happened in ages, so I thought it best to check these cards and make sure I am buying them for a reason and not just because they are new! And thanks as always to Wizard101 Central, I quickly found that these spells are pretty much school dependent.... I have popped their images below. Note that the cards I have been buying have the "No PVP" cross on them, so they are slightly different.

Looking into this more, I have found out that I should really be looking at Virulence - luckily I had bought more of these than any of the others - see it in action below; 

Now these were level 84 Treasure Cards only, so I wondered why I was seeing them. After a bit of research I found out that ever since Khrysalis part 2 came out there are two types of these cards.

The original ones that drop in Azteca still drop and they are still no auction or trade, but the ones that drop in the new areas can be traded or sold at the bazaar, but can't be used in pvp. Both types can be used in crafting.

I have used Virulence a few times now, and my hits have been great - this is definitely one I will continue to buy. My only advice is to check the last part of each one, as that is incoming to you - not to the enemy! Virulence gives me 10% increased life hit, so not one I would use against a Life boss for instance.

That's all from me right now.

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

Monstrous? That's so Yesterday!

One of the BIG reasons that I wanted to get my new crafting badge was to upgrade my trusty Monstrous card to Gargantuan. I have mentioned before how handy these enchantment spells are. I have been buying these at the Bazaar and they have been costing me minimum 338 gold each time. Gold I could use elsewhere, and less time hanging out at the Bazaar refreshing the Astral Spells page = WIN WIN !

So last night I popped over to Celestia (using my marked location, as I still haven't got the world) and bought the recipe. It cost 500 gold.

You can see that I already have enough reagents to craft 16 of these without any further outlay. Again, I have my gardening to thank for that!

I'm sure Monstrous will still get a look in, depending on the reagents I have available down the line, that 175 extra damage is still worthwhile. But right now.... that is so yesterday..... must go. Crafting to do.

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

My new Best Friends!

Friends are those that help us right? Maybe make things a little easier? So I don't think I'm stretching the limits too far declaring these 3 beauties as my new best friends!

Let me introduce them to you - they are three astral spells....  Vengeance, Gargantuan and Elucidate. If you've been reading the blog then you''ll know that I craft those Monstrous cards all the time. Every day. And I still do. When I eventually get the Celestia, I'll upgrade that recipe to those that give more bang for my gold.
But for now, these I get at the Bazaar.I'll show you each of them, so you can understand just how useful they are....

First up is Vengeance... It increases your chance of going critical by 25% over 4 rounds. I currently have critical rating stats of about 110-130 for death school, depending on what gear I am wearing, and with a vengeance card played, I can almost guarantee that critical hit.

Next up is Gargantuan. This is the big brother of Monstrous... it will increase your spell by 250 damage.That is a significant increase, and with a critical too - those enemies won't stand a chance! These are slightly more difficult to get hold of in the Bazaar, but they do show up - with a bit of patience you can pick up a few. And every now and then you'll see 25 - and the race is on to see which wizard gets their hands on them! My wizard level is high enough to buy the recipe for this card now, but my crafting level is not. You can train in these spells, but you have to work your way up through the family: Tough, Strong, Giant, Monstrous.... that is a lot of training points!

The last one is Elucidate, which quite simply reduces your spells Pip cost by 2. This treasure card is not easy to get hold of in the Bazaar. I am told that they are in the chests in Celestia and you can get them as drops. I have only seen them a few times in the Bazaar and I buy them as quick as possible. Make sure that the battle you use them in is worth using them though, in case you can't get any for a while. This card also has a little sister - Simplify, which reduces the Pip cost by 1. Again very useful and I will buy these as soon as I see them too. You can't train in these spells anymore due to PvP abuses, but they are out there if you search them out.

Would love to hear of your favourite enchantment spells, so drop me a comment!

Until next time,

Tabitha.

What Spell is THAT???!???

The other day, I found myself browsing a part of Wizard101Central that I check out every now and then - the "School Spells" section.  You can find it here: http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Category:Spells Then I check out the Fire spells, and just see if there are any I might have missed in my journeys...

One of the spells that stood out to me was called Inferno Kraken.  This is a treasure card that you see from time to time and I had always dismissed it as simply turning a Storm spell into a Fire spell...but I should have known better!

I have often used the spell Mutate Thunderbird to turn my Phoenix into a Thunderbird, and I gotta say, it looks great and leaves a little gift that you don't get from a Phoenix ... three +30 traps!  Just like a Fuel but for any school.  I mean this spell really is quite spectacular!

I should have realised that the Inferno Kraken was not like a normal Kraken!

Well, this little baby is considerably more useful.  For 4 pips, the Inferno Kraken will do 695 damage!  In fact, it will actually do 245 + 400 over 3 rounds.  Pretty good shield stripping and payback for the 4 pip investment!

Then I realised the catch.

I cannot apply it to anything but the actual spell!  Oh no!  That meant a huge Training Point investment, because I needed to train in all the Storm spells leading up to it.

In the end, and disappointed, I realised I wouldn't realise the dream of owning this spell.  I simply couldn't go through with it.

Still, it was an interesting exercise and I know I'll continue go through that page about once a month, just in case a great new spell appears - one that I can hopefully use!

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

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