The Advantage of Being a Longtime Active Player

       With the return of the Portal of Peril, there's one particular item that is super useful and makes these gauntlet runs so much faster: Dworgyn's Havoc Hood. For newer players not in the know, Dworgyn's hat is a piece of gear attainable from opening Professor's Hoard packs. It scales to the level of the opener up to level 150, so you'll want to at least be level 20 (the level 10 version only offers the Feint item card); and the reason it is so desired is that, besides the above version, it offers a Mass-Feint item card. This card puts a 75% version of Feint on all enemies, and one on the caster. The Mass-Feint stacks with all other non-gear versions of Feint, making a number of enemy bosses susceptible to first turn kills, including Lucia in this month's Portal of Peril gauntlet.

       Now any reader who has followed me may know that I never advocate spending money on pack gear as I eschew pay-to-win strategies. The caveat here is that Professor's Hoard packs are free rewards for completing the Spiral Scene and Spiral Showcase monthly events. If you're playing most events weekly on all your wizards, you're getting 12 free packs a month (6 for the Scene and 6 for the Showcase). 12 packs a month, and the law of averages is you're gonna get at least one Dworgyn's Havoc Hood soon enough. In my case, since I'm regularly doing events, I have a level 150 version on every one of my wizards. They are always in my backpacks, ready to swap when there's a need for one, even on my storm.

Old blog, older blogger

 Still around and still playing! I had a couple posts that I wanted to make in-depth, but got sidetracked, and I hope to still visit with them (namely Castle Magic).

Fishing Tournament Results, pending

 The tournament has ended, and the results are currently being tabulated. I will update this if I get something good. However, I discovered I did NOT catch all the fish that I could. Wiz staff held a special event and hosted a party house with special fishing and prizes on Friday. Of the fish that could be caught in the house, there was a Black Catfish, a seasonal fish only available around Halloween. Since I didn't know about this special event, I didn't get a chance at this fish. If someone caught that fish and all the rest of the available fish, that automatically drops me out of the running.

I'll be watching my email for any message, though I'm now a little pessimistic.

ADDENDUM: I can't believe I (we) won! Congratulations to the other two wizards to win in our category of widest variety of fish caught - Cameron Sandblade and Michael! I'm guessing that they didn't know about the special party house event either...

Here are the complete list of winners:

The most Epic fish: Alex MoonThief with 590 caught

The most Rare fish: Jack FireTail with 709 caught

The widest variety of fish (tie):

• John Cloud (my Necromancer)
• Michael
• Cameron SandBlade with 198 types caught

The most Dekoi type fish: Patrick with 252 caught

The smallest Jellyfish type fish: Elizabeth RosePetal at 22.756 inches

The smallest Eel type fish: Brian WaterSpear at 11.553 inches

The largest Codfather: Saffron SpellThief at 37.340 inches

The largest Todd Pole: Ryan LifeBloom at 42.397 inches

10 Honorable Anglers

• Gavin EarthMender
• Jason ShadowMancer
• Kane LionHeart
• Mackenzie GriffinWeaver
• Madeline DreamThief
• Mary SeaBreeze
• Michelle
• Monica ShadowThorn
• Trevor GoldBane
• Wolf ShadowFlame

Conclusion

So, having gone through the tournament and fishing all over again for these guys, what was the hardest fish to catch? For those familiar with the concept of RNG, the chances for an epic fish to spawn are all probably similar, which means if you're having bad luck spawning a particular fish, it's just that, bad luck. I think on average, it took about... 13 Summon Fish refreshes to get an epic fish to spawn. Sometimes, I wouldn't even need to resummon, and sometimes... such as the case of the Silver Streak, I would need to cast Summon Fish around 70 times before he spawned. Silver Streak was the fish that almost broke me. I also had a hard time catching the Ecto Slime Skate and Goldfin-ger, and that's to be expected. Both of those fish have other fish of the same school and level spawning around them, which forces you to observe their behavior to distinguish the rare from the rest. Boss Hog took a long time for me to finally summon as well, and I had a pretty hard time with a lot of the Dragonspyre fish, because of the large area to search and the difficult terrain to cover. It was a challenge, and it was fun. I want to do it all over again, but I do want to give others a chance to win too. Maybe I'll go for a different challenge, like one of the largest or smallest fish next time.

Good luck and good fishing, wizards!

Wizard 2021 Fishing Tournament

 There are 3 winner spots, one for each of the following categories

• Most Epic fish caught
• Most Rare fish caught
• Widest Variety caught

I went for the widest variety, and at 12:10 CST, on the 12th, I caught Ecto Slime Skate to (what I think) completes all the non-seasonal fish in the game. I had already caught all the Stubby Sharks, the Fall Foliage Fish, and the Gobbler Fish. I COULD BE WRONG. I may have forgotten a fish that can be caught from player's castles, but I THINK I got them all.

Some Observations.

1. When you use the Fishing Benefit Elixir from your gift box, it doesn't automatically start. It instead goes into your backpack. I wrote a support ticket for it, and had to write back to tell them I done goofed.
2. The Fishing Benefit Elixir gives you a free hour of zero energy fishing. I can totally see the joy of fishing during the zero energy fishing times for members. With only one hour, I was able to collect four hard-to-get epic rares.
3. You need to know when it's smart to stay and refresh the fish, and when it's better to move to the next fish on your list. Energy isn't unlimited unless you got the crowns to spend through. Make a plan to visit all your rare and epic fish spots in a circuit. That keeps you from spending energy on the Summon Fish spell, the most energy cost on your fishing tour. 
4. DON'T FORGET THAT CERTAIN FISH ARE SENTINELS. I'm looking at you, Devil Ray. I'm embarrassed at how much energy I burned before realizing my mistake there. The one time Banish Sentinel is NOT your friend.
5. If you craft snacks, this event has synergy.
6. Aero Village. Those who know, know.
7. If you have Private Fishing Retreat, it's never been easier to make new friends! Thank you, Rowan Starsong!

A lovely fish caught in a lonely place.

Can you guess what I'm about to fish?

Castle Magic Experiments

 I've already used some Castle Magic in my houses, but I'm embarking on a more intensive project for my Pyromancer that will involve moving parts. So I decided I would describe some of my findings here. Parts of this will be written as if you don't know anything about Castle Magic. Forgive me if it reads like I'm dumbing things down.

The last time I used it, I had some uneven results. I got things to work eventually, but I didn't understand why the counters weren't working like they should. I will still need to investigate the use of Counters and Computers.

My house will be a sort of Twilight Zone affair with clocks moving about all over the place and doing freaky things. I plan on having them spin, grow and shrink, rise and fall, move about, and fade in and out.

If this is your first time figuring out what to do with Castle Magic, you purchase the items from Babbage Basset in Regent's Square of Marleybone (near the museum). In one section of his "shop", you buy the items that you place in your house. These are house decorations and count toward your house item limit. In another section of his shop, you buy what are essentially treasure cards that are the "spells" that you insert into your Castle Magic items to make them work. These count toward your treasure card limit. The average cost of the items is about 2000 gold, and the average cost of the spells is 1000 gold.

Spinning Clock Tower

I started with the easiest thing - making a clock tower spin. When you want something to occur only once, you can use certain kinds of trigger items, like pressure plates or switches, or items that detect players getting close. I tend to use a Magic Start Detector that triggers when the player first arrives to the house. But for spinning, I want the magic to be continuous. So I use a Magic Timer.

Once you buy your items and spells from Babbage Basset, you port to your house and then open up your house inventory so you can place your Castle Magic decorations (such as the Magic Timer item). Technically, they can be anywhere around the house as long as in same house zone as the items you want to activate (outside Castle Magic affects outside zone and items only), but it's a good idea to keep your Castle Magic items near the objects you wish to affect. A quick way to figure out which items any particular Castle Magic decoration affects is to left click on the item itself and watch the yellow arrows flowing away from the decoration to those items being affected.

Here you can see a blue box and an orange ball, joined together, as well as my house inventory open, since I'm placing Castle Magic items into my house. If that menu isn't open, you won't see any of your Castle Magic decorations. You can move these Castle Magic items into other objects, but that doesn't have any affect on their behavior. People tend to move Castle Magic items into each other to make it visually apparent which items are affecting each other. You click on the Castle Magic item to show a menu where you can move the item, pick it up, but also enter that item's specific Castle Magic menu (a symbol at the top).

Here's the Magic Timer. I wanted continuous spin, so I used that instead of the Magic Start Detector. The first tab at top is for what spells you are using, and what items they are affecting. The Magic Timer usually goes through an intermediary Castle Magic item to start spells that affect your environment, the Magic Reflector, which can perform multiple simultaneous actions. And that's what I've done here. I cast to Activate Reflector (by putting the treasure card in that top area), and then pointed the spell to the item I wanted activated, the Magic Reflector. If you click that little circle containing stars, you can then click on the card or object you wish to affect, and that fills in the spell or item.

The second tab (if there is one) controls the behavior of the Castle Magic item, and in the case of the timer, you have the power to adjust how long before the spells are cast, whether the spells cast only once or whether they repeat, whether the timer starts on its own when the house is visited, and if you visually show the timer to visitors (including you). I keep that timer display turned off unless I want to see if it's actually working. Usually people want the timer set to one second for the On setting and zero seconds for the Off setting, because the majority of Magic Timer uses are for growing objects or making them trigger immediately upon visiting their house.

Here is the Magic Reflector's menu (the one that I linked the Magic Timer to). You'll notice at the very top, it says "When Activated Do #2 Cast Spell". This is the second spell I'm casting. You can toggle between up to eight different spells using the scroll arrows at top. There are three different turn spells for each direction, left or right: 15 degrees, 45 degrees, and 90 degrees.

Here is the part of the experimentation that might be new information to some experienced Castle Magic users. If you put only one spell in for turning an object, it will start and stop instead of turning smoothly. You may want that affect, like the way a clock's second hand moves around the face. But I wanted a smooth spin. I had to look around on the web to find videos on how others did it. I found a video that used multiples of the same spell, four Turn Right 90 Degrees spells. But how many are are required? By the math, I needed to achieve at least 135 degrees of turning between the spells I used at the settings I had (one second timer On, zero seconds Off). That means you could use two Turn Right 90 Degrees spells, or one Turn Right 90 and one Turn Right 45 Degrees spell, or three Turn Right 45 Degrees spells. 

If you want to achieve a smoothly continuous spinning object, you will need a Magic Timer set to one second On and zero seconds Off, with Repeat checked, and point it to a Magic Reflector that casts a pair of Turn Right (or Turn Left) 90 Degrees spells to affect your intended target. You can use other triggers to turn on and off your spinning object by turning on and off that Magic Timer, or you can just have the Magic Timer checked to be turned on at the start.

Automated Up and Down Magic

Most Castle Magic that uses elevator type effects utilizes a Jump trigger to raise or lower a platform. I wanted instead a Clock Tower that would smoothly float up and down continuously. This required more Castle Magic items to make work, and some adjustments to the timers to make them flow smoothly.

First, here's my setup:

I start the whole thing with a Start Magic Detector item. This will start the whole magic chain as soon as someone visits the house, which by now you can see is the Red Barn Farm. The Start Magic Detector will cast the spell Start Timer on the Magic Timer I'm pointing at with the yellow arrow. That will be my timer that controls the upward motion of the Clock Tower. I did not check the box to have the Magic Timer automatically start, not for this timer or the other one that will control the down motion.

The orange balls you see in the above picture are all Magic Reflectors that are affected by the timers and counters they are attached to. It's probably a good habit to attach them to avoid confusion of which item is affecting what; but it's important to know you can have multiple items affecting the same reflector!

Magic Timer #1 was set to repeat at two seconds On and zero seconds Off, pointing to the Magic Reflector #1. Magic Reflector #1 had the spells Move Up 250 and Add Counter. So what are the spells for the Magic Counters for? The Counters will add up to a certain point, and when they reach that point, they will shut off the magic from one timer, and start the other. Thus the Magic Counters control when to float the object up and when to float the object down. They say, "I'm full; go the other way."

The Add Counter spell from Magic Reflector #1 was pointed at Magic Counter #1. I set that counter to 5 (see below).

Also, I didn't want to display the counter's value on the screen. There are reasons to do that, like if you want to set up some sort of scavenger hunt game in your house, or if you're trying to make sure things are working, but I didn't want counter numbers showing up for visitors. With a value set to 5, it meant my timer/reflector combo would raise my Clock Tower five times before the Magic Counter would reach it's limit to cast the new spell. Magic Counter #1 has the switch to the reflector I've labeled Counter Reflector #1 once it reaches it's set value (5).

Magic Reflector #1 does the following spells: Stop Timer (pointing to Magic Timer #1, Reset Counter (pointing to Magic Counter #2), and Start Timer (pointing to Magic Timer #2). Now the new timer/reflector combo goes through its job of lowering the Clock Tower using Move Down 250 while adding counters to Magic Counter #2.

After some experimentation, I noticed a problem. My set up is good, except for the timer values set with the Move Up 250 spells. Every 100 units takes about a second to complete. If you set your timer to 2 seconds On, and use Move Up 100 or Move Down 100, you will get a second of pause after each movement. So a jerky motion instead of a smooth motion. If you set it as I did for 2 seconds On, but are using a Move Up 250 or Move Down 250, the motion will be smooth, but you are getting excess time added on to the process, and that messes up the timer on it's way down. You don't get the object arriving back to it's starting position before it starts back up the upward movement path, and probably vice versa. I changed my numbers to match each other.

My timers are set for casting spell with 1 second On, and zero seconds Off, and I use the Move Up 100 and Moved Down 100 spells. This ensures my floating object moves smoothly, and arrives to the same top and bottom points every time. If you were to use this, you can adjust the height using the Magic Counter's value... a lower number for a smaller rise. Just make sure your Magic Counter values match!

Conclusion

That's a lot of words for only two Castle Magic effects. I learned that you can make your house decorations move smoothly, but there are some number values you need to know to make that work. Spinning requires more than one rotation spell, and that value of the combined spells in degrees must be at least 135 (it can be more, and the spell still works fine). If you are moving items up or down, they move at a rate of one second for every 100 units. That probably applies to other directions, too; but I have yet to run those experiments.

Balance Deckathalon: Making Progress

 Let's get this out of the way right at the top. Here's Ferricord's youtube video on strategy and advice for completing this Deckathalon. Also, he says it's the hardest one, and I had been stuck on stage 5, so I believe him.

I had been stuck on stage 5, and just today, trying to get through it, I got hit with four Mana Burns while trying to build up for a Scarecrow hit. Well, that was trash. And my equipped pet is quad may-cast heal pet, with a side of may-cast Sanctuary. I was seriously frustrated. I had NOT seen this video yet, and I'm currently contemplating his advice; but I DID get through the level, and this is how I did it.

The first fight isn't hard, though the likelihood of a Mana Burn is high, and yes I got hit with it on the second turn. I trapped twice, bladed once, and hit with either Vampire or Wraith if I magically got my pips high enough.

And then that second fight. The run killer. I was using the death drain strategy as I think that's the most pip efficient one. However, as I had already seen, I would never be able to do a Scarecrow. I built my deck to get past this one stage only, which is a huge deviation for counting and planning which cards would be used on which stage and fight for longer runs. You just can't do that for the Balance Deckathalon. I instead relied on getting a minion out (Storm Elemental!), using both Tower and Elemental Shields, Fortify if I had the luxury, and spamming low drain hits. I would keep loading traps and blades where I could, making sure to have shields up as well, and then hitting with either Ghoul or Vampire opportunistically.

It was somewhat similar to Ferricord's strategy, in that he was dumping his pips down when one of the enemies showed 5 or more pips at the start of a turn. I wasn't trying to avoid damage - I was simply using any attack I had, expecting that I would lose those pips.

This wound up being a LONG fight, with my pet healing making a major difference. I used up all but 2 of my Tower Shields, all of my Elemental Shields, and nearly all of my Ghouls. It was VERY frustrating, as I would only do around 150 damage with an unbuffed Ghoul, because I was carpeted with Weakness. And I fizzled a few times because of Black Mantle. The shields were mandatory, and the minion gave me the breathing room to isolate one of the the mobs to grind down and kill. And it still came down to pet healing luck.

After reviewing his video, I am very afraid to start stage 6.

Things I Like to Do in Wizard101

When you first start playing Wizard101, there's the excitement of creating a young wizard and training up while exploring magical new worlds. It's exhilerating and wonderful. Then, after awhile, for new players anyway, you get stuck. You're somewhere maybe in Mooshu or Dragonspyre, not knowing the maps intimately, so you're lost going in circles trying to find something the map arrow won't work for. Or just a bit tired of the level grind, and that magic feeling slips away.

Maybe you take a break for a bit because of that. Maybe you cast about looking for a leveling partner. Or maybe you start exploring the game for something different. What else is there in the game besides training to be the most powerful spellcaster the Spiral has ever seen?

Well, for many, they start to look at PvP (player vs. player to the uninitiated). The Arena offers endless opportunities to battle in ways that an AI opponent could never offer. This is where you can truly test your mettle, and your wizard level doesn't matter. That's not to say gear, pets, or treasure cards are unimportant. Quite the opposite actually. Good PvP players spend a great deal of time preparing their setups to dominate the rankings. And outside the game, you can find videos on social media like certain youtube channels where players offer streaming clips of their battles, including tips, commentary, and one-upmanship. There's also the Pet Derby, a sort of PvP for pets! 

Neither of those are my thing.

I like Castle decoration.

I'm not necessarily good at it, mind you; but theres a ton of stuff that goes into decorating, and many hours of grinding for hard to find house pieces. Not to mention Castle Magic, which offers so much more variety to make your virtual homes pop.

This post won't go in-depth into all of Castle Magic, but I will touch on the various aspects of Wiz101 houses, and how I interact with them.

Castle Tours

You can visit player houses and rank them. I find this to be fun; and there's also a reward for doing it, too. After visiting and rating enough houses, you get badges; and those unlock a shop from Myrella Windspar, which offers new pieces and recipes like new skins for your player bank, invisible furniture pieces like stairs and platforms, a personal Castle Magic vendor to place in your house, a separate world gate, and an entire apartment.

What your own personal tastes for rating will vary, but I have my own internal system to be as fair and responsible as I can. I tend to rate houses in the Decorated category, but you might enjoy Collections or Magical categories. Things I look for:

• Creativity (designer finds interesting uses for space and furniture, including using imaginative merges and Caste Magic)
• Originality (there are loads of Christmas houses and hotels, but far fewer zoos and battle stations)
• Theme (how strict does the designer stick to a theme rather than just throwing in a mix of different pieces from different worlds)
• Good color coordination (elegant vs. eye-sore)
• Wow factor (it's really hard to have a wow factor, but it's nice when I see it)
• Clean and sharp (there's a difference between an absence of clutter and basically bare, and a Castle can have a high item count with things still looking orderly)
• Easy to navigate (getting hung up or stuck on furniture really kills the mood, and sometimes my slow and laggy computer ports me into a castle where the expanding castle-magicked tree roots me to the spot)
• Utility (Castles that provide item-granting furniture, crafting tables, kiosks, gauntlets, mini-games, monstrology tomes, and ports to other castles are all nice bonuses)

I will rate lower houses that look like no effort was put into it. Empty rooms, no music playing, all the pets dumped on the front lawn just to get the item count up, those bug me. It's really not hard to make a basic effort to make your Castle presentable, even if its just to have it up for friends to use your gauntlet. In fifteen minutes, you can wallpaper your entire house, hang up some clocks and put couches, chairs, carpets, and tables throughout. If you have 70k gold, you can buy a set of three world furnishing packs from the Crown Shop and make your place look decent.

I use two rating systems, generally, that depend upon my mood.

System 1 (easy system)

• 1 point: no decoration, items dumped in one spot to make minimum item count
• 2 points: reallly basic, unfurnished rooms, no thought to any kind of design
• 3 points: effort put into house (I say house and castle interchangeably). House can look otherwise cookie cutter basic, or really really good
• 4 points: solid effort put into house and house also shows something with Wow factor, or is super original, or is so dang elegant I want to live in it

System 2 (stricter system)

• 1 point: no decoration or is sloppy and under-furnished
• 2 points: average house, and effort not enough, but a 2 here isn't bad. A pretty good job
• 3 points: house has to look good, have good design and consistent theme
• 4 points: house has to not just look good, but must include something big and distinguishing

I think there are arguments to be made for either system, but I think that decorating purists would push to have a stricter system.

So what else do I like to do in Wizard101?

Collect Things

1. There are a lot of things to collect in the game.
2. Gear for stitching. This can be an endless grind, depending.
3. Fish. Gotta catch them all!
4. Monstrology. Gotta catch all these too!
5. Max shared bank with reagents. Maybe I have a problem...
6. Play Grub Guardian for rare furniture pieces. Ya, I got a problem.

A lot of the above activities feed back into Castle improvements. You can utilize Monstrology for house guests. Reagent farming can be critical for crafting unique furniture pieces, or even a new castle recipe, and you can add Fish for decorations and Castle collection pieces.

Collect Things Using Item-Granting Furniture

Every day I run a castle tour circuit of favorited houses on all my wizards. These houses include Blacksmith's Fjord, Nomad Camp, Castaway's Bungalow, and Everafter Village for amber reagents, Aero Village, Briny Deep Retreat, Heavenly Palace, and Polarian Shipwreck for unique furniture pieces, and Darkmoor Manor during clothing drop days. Also, I have a Castle favorited that has Iron Sultan, since he can drop amber as well. The amber collecting is slow going, though with the addition of the Blacksmith's Fjord on my circuit, that has increased. I think between all my wizards, doing this daily tour routine, I get around 5 amber a week, though some weeks I get pretty lucky. Although I have my reasons to run this circuit, there are other item-granting furniture and house pieces besides these, and as you tour the Castles, you can mark any houses you find them as "favorite" using the little heart icon at the top of the castle tours controls. Then you can always return to the house to use that item (like the Fantastic Fish Bowl, or the Magic Treehouse) once a day. Unfortunately, some items can only be used if you are friends with the Castle's owner, just like how it is with gauntlets, but do look for those on your friends' castles. If you are running low level wizards, doing your own daily house circuit can be a good way to build up your character, receiving bunches of snacks, seeds, some gold, treasure cards, reagents, and sometimes even some pets. What you can't use, you can sell at the bazaar, and this will add up.

Castle Magic

I'll end this post with a bit about Castle Magic, and hope to talk more about it later. I was late to start learning this, and there are parts I still find difficult, but I've put more effort to learning Castle Magic, and I'm starting to get the hang of some things. It is definitely worth using to make your castle shine. Most people use the spell to make their furniture pieces larger, but if you want to make your castle interactive, Castle Magic is a necessity.  Puzzles, sliding doors, and the visual spell effects all can be used with it.

Pet. Bread. Crumbs! I guess not technically Castle Magic, but I decided to use them in conjunction with it for a summoning effect. I learned two new things this week. First, pet bread crumbs have facings, and you can assign your Monstrology house guests to single bread crumbs, and you position their facing via the bread crumb. This was significant for my summoning circle so that the house guests all faced the center of the circle, instead of all facing the same direction west. Second, you can use a bread crumb as point to cast your spell effects on instead of a physical furniture piece. Bread crumbs are cheap and very useful for making your castle more dynamic!

Hypothesis on Fourth Arc Storyline (Spoilers)

 

(image courtesy of u/SageMerric)

Next World? Lemuria!

Having read all the clues since defeating the Aethyr Titan, going through Karamelle, and now having seen what's on the other end of test realm, I think I've put together a picture of what the fourth story arc entails. And that includes going to the lost world of Lemuria as the next world. If you don't want spoilers, look away.

What is Lemuria?

Lemuria is what the Cabal made from stealing parts of other worlds. Their plan was to destroy the spiral and have it remade into some sort of paradise; but in order to weather that destruction, they didn't just need to build a ship to escape onto while Grandfather Spider sundered and re-wove the Spiral, they needed a pocket world to escape to until that job was done. The ship would lead them to that world, and that world was hidden outside the spiral. Thus was Lemuria born.

Why is the Nothing trying to get back to Lemuria?

The Nothing consumed the Old One at the beginning of Karamelle. This was sort of an accident on its part. It was creating void holes trying to pull the player wizard into its own world to confront it. But by grabbing and basically consuming the Old One, it integrated his memories and feelings into its own. The Old One was really trying to unite the schism of the Arcanum, and knew of Lemuria. Perhaps it was his idea of a promised place for the Cabal to retreat to and allow for a truce with the rest of the Spiral, or maybe a different offer of a constructed paradise. Maybe he was going to offer the rest of the Spiral a way to remake their worlds. But once the Nothing gobbled the Old One up, Lemuria began to die. The Old One is Lemuria's architect, its own pocket god, and without him to sustain it, it's dying. Perhaps because the Nothing has assumed some semblance of the Old One, that rate of decay has slowed; but he's not the real deal, and the part of the Nothing that is still the Old One wants the player wizard to save it.

What is the Nothing?

Piecing together what I know from the clues of the new quests, the Nothing is a being of pure thought born outside both the Spiral and from our own universe. It's own universe is a void. It IS its own universe, basically. But what brought it notice of the player wizard? I think that started when Ambrose pulled the player into the world of the Spiral. That imbued the player with an interdimensional specialness, so the player has a sort of energy signature to themself. And the battle with the Aethyr Titan, where the player united Shadow and Light into the Divine Paradox emitted a transdimensional beacon, alerting the Nothing. The Nothing saw the titanic battle from that signal, and so all it knew was elemental and spiritual violence. It's first contact with the player was thus in the form of battles with all the schools of magic.

The reason that other beings in the Spiral cannot detect the Nothing (except for the headaches characters mention when it's around) is that it's a transdimensional being where they are not. It operates on a different or higher plane of existence, and so does the player wizard. Sybil CAN detect it to a degree as well as Bartleby, as they are primal and attuned to the Spiral, with spiritual and dimensional roots that connect all the worlds in it. In Sybil's case, she is rooted between the worlds of the Spiral, touching just barely the edges and the outside of it. That is why she detects the Nothing clearer than even Bartleby. She felt the Nothing breach the Spiral, and she detects it's signature (maybe by the absence of the Spiral's essence that it leaves) when the Aethyr Titan is vanquished. She specifically summoned the player wizard, the only other transdimensional entity in this universe.

Is the Nothing a bad guy or good guy then?

I don't know. That may not be the right question. It's a reflection of what it experiences in the Spiral. It was a villain at first, because that's all it knew. Now, since it has absorbed the Old One, it is basically a ghost of the Old One. This is problematic in that the Old One was at least once antagonistic to the Spiral. If the Old One was on the up and up with trying to bring peace once again, that could mean the Nothing has learned something of redemption and goodness. There's still the problem that the Nothing isn't just the Old One; that's just one thing it's consumed. It still has the memory of the Aethyr Titan fight as well as the Aberrant Paradox fight. It still considers consuming an act of integration. I don't think that makes it evil, but it could make it inimical. If Lemuria is saved or otherwise dealt with, the Nothing might not yet feel appeased. Or it may find it loves the Spiral. So much that it wants to consume it!

Speculation on the end of the fourth arc

How can we know when we haven't seen the second world yet and all that happens there? I can make a hazy guess. This story so far is a journey of reflection. What does it mean to exist? What is the state of the universe? The multiverse? What gives a being or a world a right to exist, especially if that being or world exists at the expense of others? I think that things will go sour on Lemuria, and the Arcanum's schism may be renewed, but that journeying to another world for guidance will restore balance once again. Wallaru is where Zander and Jaki hail from, and they embody spirits of wisdom and wonder. Were the Nothing to eventually take something from Wallaru in the form of knowledge, it could perhaps find the peace that it's looking for. It may learn that you can enjoy a thing without having to eat it (own it). And that in turn teaches the player wizard something too.

This is what the fourth arc is about: a deeper understanding of life around us, and the echoes of our actions across what we know.

I wonder if we'll meet King Julien in Lemuria?

Addendum

A further clue of sorts. Going into the Reverie and completing the Dream Hive, the echo of Malistaire gives us some help to escape. He lets us know that we have the power to control our mind and focus on Mellori, to cast out with our minds and search for her. Isn't that the same thing that the entity we call the Nothing? Maybe having gone into the Reverie inadvertently broadcast the player's presence to the Nothing. "All minds touch here on the edge of the Other Side." Coming from Malistaire, without any other context, players might have assumed that this Other Side is the realm of Death or some sort of afterlife. But it is perhaps the other side of the Spiral's borders into parallel universes. If this echo of Malistaire is able reach across the void, since all minds meet (especially powerful ones), then this may have been the first moment that we signal our presence to the Nothing.

Universal Damage Build

This is a follow-up on my attempts to gear up for utilizing shadow attack spells, namely Dark Fiend, Dark, Nova, and Dark Shepherd. If you decide to utilize the gear for your Pyromancer, you'll want to make sure to have a good number of sideboard spells to accommodate your universal blades and traps.

Really, this set up is perfect for Sorcerers, not only because they naturally have so many universal damage buffs, which frees up the sideboard for keeping shadow-based attacks from every school. The 5 pip attacks are cheap in the Bazaar, and if you wind up holding onto the rare 6 pip treasure cards you get from drops, now you can stuff the in the sideboard as well. Gem up with universal accuracy, and you can attack targets using any school! Stuff it with every school for surprise rainbow attack style!

There were two roadblocks previously to making this build viable. First, the wizard's own base damage boost. It's pretty hard to get a high universal damage score. Second, and the larger problem, was getting the shadow pip generation high enough to get shadow attacks off. However, now with the changes to shadow pip production, it's easier to quickly get double shadow pips as long as your gear is at the top end. Please note, you will need a Karamelle wand or maybe some very new wand, as those have a shadow pip rating where the older ones do not. 

On to the gear you'll need! 

I am usually loathe to recommend gear other than from quest rewards or loot drops, as I'm not down with the pay-to-win play style. None of my wizards have the gear from the Primeval Hoard packs, which automatically drops them down 8 or so points in top end damage. Every witch and her mother has the dragoon setup accompanied by a Frillasaur and some fossil wand (or occasionally a Bronto mount). That just isn't me.

But this isn't an exercise in crown frugality! It's a what-if for a higher end build different from most everything out there.  All the classy blogs have in-game pictures of the gear with the stats, but since I own very few of the pieces, I can only instead link them to Wiz Central stubs, and jot down the stats beneath each one.

And,since I don't have any eye-catching pictures of gear, here's a nice picture of a rainbow flower.

Imagine it's attacking you with a Raging Bull, followed by a Call of Khrulhu.

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These first three items all come from the Candied Isles Bundle. The mount was chosen from here, rather than using a Battle Narwhal, which gives +2% universal damage, because the set bonus for 3 items is +4%.

Sweetish Chef Hat        (level 130) 28% damage, 16 shadow pip

Sweetish Chef Clogs     (level 130) 34% damage, 13 shadow pip

Sweet Ride!                    0% damage (4% for third piece) 

The next items are from packs, but for 2% less damage you can instead farm for the Candymancer Staff, as the other wand I've included does not have a shadow pip rating. It depends on whether you want this build for using the shadow attacks or not.

Royal Fusilier's Dress Coat        (level 130) 26% damage, Yuletide pack

This is another item that pushes up the universal damage (by a lot) but includes no shadow pip rating. If the shadow rating is what you're shooting for, you have to consider forgoing the damage boost and getting one of the pack or bundle robes (like the Sweetish Chef smock). You will get a 20 and 21 shadow pip ratings for level 130 or 140 items.

All Souls Cranium Wand            (level 120) 18% damage, Gloomthorn Nightmare pack

Uber Candymancer Staff            (level 140) 16% damage, 18 shadow pip rating, Karamelle drop

Darkmoor Graveyard athame    (level 100) 16% damage

(such as the Athame of the Dark Usurper)

Director Hazmat Ring                (Level 138)  12% damage, Karamelle drop or Bazaar

The amulet is whatever you wish. A school mastery amulet could be nice. None of the amulets boost universal damage, nor shadow pip rating. Same with the decks.

That leaves your pet. For pure universal boost, you'll want a pet with max stats in strength, will, and power. The talents needed are Pain-Bringer, Pain-Giver, Mighty, Thinkin' Cap, and Cautious. This should give a universal damage boost of 13%. 

Utilizing all of the above pieces gets you a universal damage of 151 damage. If you switch out the wands, you lose 2 universal damage but gain 18 shadow pip rating. The cost of replacing the robe is much steeper in damage.

So there you have it. A potential of 151 universal damage. Replacing the wand definitely boost your chances of gaining early shadow pips. And replacing the robe will drop your damage down to 125% universal damage boost, but up your shadow pip rating in a huge way.

Willy Wonka costume attempt

I had to change the hair up, and the suit isn't exact because Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka had a purple blazer, beige-white slacks and vest, a tan brown floppy bow, and matching tan brown shoes. His hat was a sort of burnt orange color, with a matching tan brown band. And he had a gentleman's cane, which in the Wizard101 game has an approximating match with what Marleybone gentlemen dogs carry, but I don't know if there's any wand that matches that.

So I came up with this:

Of course, I blinked.

Soloing Judge Veg

 

I'm going to just come out and say it - this isn't a nuanced 100% approach. Maybe there's a strategy to easily do this using another school's proficiencies, but with a Pyromancer, it's about timed brute force and a hell of a lot of luck.

For those that don't know Judge Veg's cheats, let's break it down. The big one is his polymorph. At the end of the first round, he polymorphs one wizard at random. It SEEMS the majority of time he polymorphs the first position, but that's not the case every time. This polymorph is to one of 4 forms of vegetable representing the schools of Ice, Life, Death, and Storm. There are only two ways the polymorph ends: after the duration expires (15 or so rounds), or the player gets hit with a single target shadow spell (Grrnadier or Lamassu). He casts the shadow spell Wings of Fate, but this doesn't break polymorph. At some random interval later (after one test it was at the end of the 9th turn), he will again cast a polymorph, and it can be on a different wizard, or the same previously polymorphed wizard. The form is again random, so while polymorphed as a Life vegetable, you can be polymorphed again as a Life vegetable, for example. That will reset your vegetable spells and polymorph, but not your current life total.

When going in as a group, you can guarantee the first position is polymorphed if everyone else waits a turn to enter. There is a late cheat, but it doesn't trigger until after the second turn is started. That late cheat is a free-cast Grrnadier to the face. From the wizard101central page I linked to, it mentions a turn skip, but I haven't seen it actually do anything (Judge Veg says "I hold you in contempt of corn"). The last notable cheat is that if a player casts Feint on Veg, he will clear the Feint and all other unprotected traps on him, which likely includes prisms. You can use Indemnity on the Feint, and the preceding traps to protect them, but it's easier to cast Indemnity Feint first.

So how does one take down Judge Veg without help? If you go in solo, there will be only a Death minion (Dead Beet) with him. While you're polymorphed, having to deal with Veg AND the minion will be tough. So here's what I did to complete this solo.

0. The zero step (I didn't do this, and I should have): equip a defensive may cast pet. Shields and heals will help you while you're polymorphed.

1. I built my deck small so that I can kill the minion as fast as possible. I used Fire Dragon, Epic, Indemnity, Feint, Sharpened Blade, and two Fireblade. Indemnity Feint went on first.

2. While polymorphed, I used the form's spells to either put traps on Judge Veg; use defensive spells like shields, threat reduction spells, and heals; and/or throw away attacks in hand to cycle through the deck.

3. When (if) I finally got hit with a single target shadow spell, I put the rest of my spells up and cast the Fire Dragon.

4. If you get lucky and Judge Veg hits you early with the right shadow spell to take you out of polymorph, you can go for the kill, rather than quick killing minion. I had a Weakness on me in one battle, so pulled my tc Fireblade, put on my three blades, and hit with Fire Dragon. It wasn't quite enough for the instant kill, but he died in a two turns from the damage over time. Which is good, as he polymorphed me at the end of the hit turn.

What am I leaving out from this. It NEVER went down straight forward. You'll take a good amount of damage before coming out of your polymorph, since you're getting hit with either Lamassu or Grrnadier for around two thousand damage on top of the beating you've already gotten while polymorphed. You might not have the time to set up blades before using the Fire Dragon. If you won't last another turn, use the Fire Dragon to clear the minion. Dying and using the dungeon recall feature, the minion will stay dead, and that gives you more time the next time you come out of polymorph.

Constructing your sideboard depends on how you want to play out the rest of the battle. You could equip a mix of heals and Life Shield, even a Reshuffle or a Fire Dragon treasure card if you had to prematurely kill the Death minion. The only debuff that the Dead Beet and Judge Veg have is Weakness at a set -25, so a single extra Fireblade treasure card easily compensates for that. 

So what usually happens? I usually get polymorphed more than once. If I live long enough, by the time I come out of the polymorph, I have less than 2000 life remaining. His attacks are all life so Life Shield helps, but he frequently casts Wings of Fate, a great shield killer as well as a good way to keep the Judge's life high. I find it too hard to kill Veg while in polymorphed form. Storm cannot stack enough traps to kill, even with Storm Owl and a previously placed Feint, as the player doesn't give any equipment boost to the Storm's power, and the Judge is a great healer, so chipping away is ineffective. One reason I used Fire Dragon is that it's an attack all enemies spell that circumvents the Pacify ability of Grrnadier, and it's not a shadow spell. While you are polymorphed, you will receive almost no power pips and never a shadow pip. Coming out of your polymorph, you will want to kill in 3 turns time, and if Veg hits you with Grrnadier, either to take you out of polymorph, or just hitting you again with it, the Pacify effect lasts 3 turns. and I think pushes you to a four turn wait. That just might kill you. Also, Fire Dragon isn't a shadow spell, and depending on your shadow pip generation, you might not be able to get a Fire From Above off in 3 turns time.

There are reportedly badges for killing Judge Veg while polymorphed, depending upon the form, so that's a task for a group. Unless you're crazy (see below).

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A super longterm fight would be using the above strategy to kill the minion (use a Helephant or some such), die, then redo your deck to have your main hand equipped with a variety of Life Shields, Tower Shield, Pixie, and Satyr, while equipping your sideboard with universal blades and traps. You will want to be polymorphed at least twice, hopefully having built up at least 3 power pips before this happens, and utilizing the extra blades and traps for a one-hit kill in the polymorphed form to earn your badge.

Who knows? Good luck in whatever you do. But if you're polymorphed into the Storm form? Forget about it.

Karamelle Cheating Bosses: Treemugger, Jamburglar, and Quake Charmer

Let's get started with some of the first cheating bosses you'll meet. The very first is in a side quest. Meet Treemugger.

This little pugilist has no minions with him. He's a life boss with a unique cheat (until Jamburglar). Wizards will get stunned on the first turn and have their pips reduced to 0. They will have a special no-pip-generation aura that lasts 99 turns. After every turn, all pips wizards have get wiped out and replaced with a set number of pips according to the number of active wizard turns played so far (from the second turn onward). So, on the second turn, wizards will start with 1 pip, on the third turn, 2 pips, on the fourth, 3 pips, etc. Spending these pips doesn't change how many pips you will have on the following turn. After the eighth turn, the wizards will start experiencing power pips. 

Here is an elaboration of the fight and cheats for Treemugger on Wiz Central: http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Treemugger

It doesn't appear there is any penalty for latecomer wizards, besides that initial stun.

How I soloed - I planned for a fast big hit while dropping sideboard life shields. He does have pierce, and he does like to Wings of Fate, but slowing up his damage enough allows you to take him out in pretty short order. Three blades and a strong attack may be enough, or you can stack some feints. The good thing about the pip mechanic is heals aren't going to hurt your potential to hit on the next turn should you want to. You can keep casting ever increasing heals without penalty.

The next cheating boss is The Quake Charmer.

He's also got a page on Wizard101 Central: http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:The_Quake_Charmer

At the time I started making notes on these bosses, there were no pages up yet, so me adding the cheats here is redundant. But to reduce your click-throughs on my links, the important two cheats are that Quake Charmer frequently free casts Earthquake, and that he will cheat cast a special "bomb" dot that does around 2,000 balance damage when it goes off after the third turn it's on a wizard. It is an AOE dot that does no damage until it expires, and it can be removed via Triage.

Quake Charmer isn't too hard with multiple wizards battling him, but does a good amount of damage for a solo wizard to deal with. Because of his frequent use of Earthquake  and tendency to cast big spells, such as Orthrus, Adapt is a very nice aura here. You can opt to spam damage on him, but it is a race against time to hold up against his damage. He can Earthquake two turns in a row, but doesn't do this frequently, so you might try to time your blade casts. Shielding isn't going to do any good, so you can try to stack feints and throw a strong 7 or 8 pip spell on him. Triage in your sideboard can give you an extra turn or 2 of health enough to ensure you can get off your spell. You also still have to deal with his minion so you have to think about how fast you take out Quake Charmer and have enough health to also get his minion.

Next, let's get to the fun little guy known as Jamburglar.

Yes, he's just like that other robble robble guy. He is a shadow school boss, and he has no minions.

It would seem the link for him is only a stub (http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Jamburglar), so let me write out what I know of his cheats.

He has a similar mechanic to Treemugger, but in this case, you start with maximum pips that never get replenished (the Impede spell aura). You are also stunned on the first round. Easy to deal with as a full group of wizards, but as solo, there are some tricky elements to him.

The biggest besides the finite pips for your battle is that he cheat casts a shadow version of Power Nova every turn, and its damage is a percentage of your total health (between 18% and 20%? maybe?). This wound up dealing around a thousand damage to me every turn. It also strikes him! I think this kills universal traps like Feint that may be on him, but I'm not super positive about that. Trial and error. (edit, see below) Being that he's shadow, shielding isn't going to do much good, and on a Reddit forum, I read that he has strong pierce, so resistance gear won't do much good. However, from play, my resist did help me out, so having resist isn't bad. Tower Shields are likely a waste of time unless you go in with super high universal resist. Huh. Just a thought. High resist, Brace to reduce damage, Tower Shield spam... well, the Towers may not work, because I just playtested the fight, and Feint's were not used up on his self-strike from Power Nova.

This is how I beat him solo during my playtest. I went in with various Fireblades and Feints to see if he dispelled the blades (he did not) and if Feints got used on the self-strikes (edit: they were not). I finished with only a hundred health, so be prepared for lots of damage. I had in Fire Dragon, S'More Machine, and Scion of Fire, and threw in a couple Fuel to trigger the Scion. The Fuels and Feints were a mistake, because that took me under the pip threshold to cast Scion. Loading up enough traps to trigger the Scion special critical is a waste of time, as you'll die before you can get your cast off. Double Feint will also take you out of Scion casting, since none of your pips regenerate. Double or even triple Feint is a viable strategy if you are casting an 8 pip spell. Shadow spells, however, are likely not going to save you unless you generate those shadow pips fast. What I eventually wound up with was a regular Feint, a Potent Fuel, as Sharpened Fireblade, a regular Fireblade, and hit with an Epic Fire Dragon. Jamburglar had already take around 4k damage from self-inflicted Power Novas, and my hit did not outright kill him, but he died on the dragon's dot, which is good, because I wouldn't have survived another hit.

There's the first three cheating Karamelle bosses. More to soon follow.

New World Karamelle! Thoughts after a week

 So the new world is out, and... I like it! Yes, it's short. Part of that may be the way the critical system seems to have changed. Wizards critical much more often with lower threshold scores, but the damage isn't a full doubling. It's still great enough that many of my wizards are doing phenomenal damage to the creature mobs and bosses throughout the world. However, the mobs are doing strong damage in return, even on weak hits. This means play is sped up. I personally like this at least in regards to the world mobs, as long battles over collection quests are a real pain. Speaking of, the collection quest drop rates are good. There's no endless battling to complete a single collection quest.

In subsequent posts, I'll note boss battles and their cheats. IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE: some of these boss battles have an instant death cheat mechanic to late arrivals! 

One big factor for why I like Karamelle is that the story is strong, and the music and graphics harken to a wonderful Swiss candy amusement park theme. Some of the scores are variations on older music pieces, but one in particular, the Karamelle City Combat theme, is what I imagine to hear in a Bavarian brew house and really cements the feel of the new world. It's a world filled with Gnomes, Fairies, moles, and hamsters, plus a sundry of cute confections as critters. And a series of mysteries that all share some common threads!

Avoiding spoilers, I will say that I was quite surprised to see Karamelle's end quest and battle, and I can't wait to see where this continues!

Though there are no real gear upgrades, the gear drops are fairly solid and can backfill equipment for wizards who hadn't bothered farming Wizard City's catacombs.

Thoughts on the Ice Deckathalon, now that I've done it

First, I didn't see in the rules about tc that you make using things like Monstrous/Gargantuan/Unstoppable, etc. Don't do this. They won't appear in your deck during the event, even though you can see them in your sideboard outside of the event. My very first fight, and I had to flee (sad trombone).


Second, the difficulty is good. I've noticed some winning strategies out of this. The may-cast healing pets are a big help. Also, hint hint, lots of Snow Shields, some Fireblades, and several Fire Dragons will help you get through the fourth tier. If you don't have the higher crafted decks, you may want to have some other blades in as well, like Balance Blade, or Elemental Blade (though that extends the fight a turn).

Third, so far, the event progress bar has barely filled and it's the second day into the event. I will be surprised if the bar crosses the half-way mark by the end of the week. It could be the initial difficulty of the event, or the gold sink aspect (continually buying treasure cards will drain your coffers quick), but it just doesn't look like that many people are participating. I'm ranked 700ish with only 140 points. The top ten (as of midnight central time 5/15) was a range of 1800 points to 3300. That's a steep drop off in points in the first ten. A dedicated few are spending all day racking up points, but where does that leave the rest of the player community?

Which brings me to my fourth point. I'm not one to complain too much about the game, but... this post will be one such rarity. The mechanics are great, the prizes stink. Well, that's a bit harsh. Let me rephrase. The prizes stink for the amount of effort those top 10 guys are putting into it. Breaking down the things you can get from the event:
- a variety of treasure cards that can only be crafted using the reagents you get from the event itself
- 3 different wands that look like oversized fists that give no stat bonuses, but rather a single gear spell (good for stitching if you are into the big hands thing)
- 4 specialized decks of which the last is powerful, but of a very specific and limited use
- players who fall between the ranks of 25 and 2500 get a cool-looking pet that has unknown stats (sort of a tawny hamster)
- players in the first 25 rankings get an ice version of that hamster
- the top 10 also get a perm gobbler mount and a special booster pack

Now that booster pack may be AMAZING, especially since they are so limited, they can be specifically packaged instead of random, the cards carefully chosen by the devs for the event. But if you're not going to earn several thousand points in the next five days... there's not too much to look forward to for burning through your time and gold. The costs to craft those fists and decks are quite high with the amount of farming you have to do to get the reagents (random drops, I could do the math, but you need a LOT of fire runes to craft the final deck). And all those cool treasure cards you can craft, like Power Link, Scald, and some high damage low-pip spells, those all require the same fire runes that you need for the equipment.

The incentives just don't seem to be great to want to farm through this. I had THOUGHT from the description that the wands that resemble hands would be very powerful, as that was in the description of the event before it came out. But it doesn't look to be that way from the crafting recipes. Plus you get the first one automatically from one of the stage rewards. And it has no stats. That puts me in a quandary. Do I try and farm through and craft the final Ice Glove (that gives an Ice Blade gear card), hoping that KingsIsle soups it up during/after the event? Or just forget it? I've already beat tier 4. I've bought the recipe for the Treasure Card display. What else is there, besides lost time and gold?

ADDENDUM: I looked over my last post, and I'm sure most already know by now, the cost of additional plays is not bad at all. You get four more attempts per 1000 gold. Ad infinitum.

Upcoming Deckathalon in Wizard101

It was announced in the Spring Update for 2019 that the Deckathalon would be coming to the spiral. Since I don't play on the test server, I don't have any first hand knowledge of the event. However, I have read the rules and looked over some videos of people who have played it.

Here's what I know.
- The first deckathalon event will be ice based. That means you will want to use fire spells for best effect.
- Everyone will automatically convert to a low level wizard and none of your gear will count toward your stats during play EXCEPT your deck.
- Your pets stats will be discarded, and I think so will any cards that the pet normally gives EXCEPT all of your pet's may-cast abilities will count.
- There seems to be four stages per event, with each stage consisting of three rounds.
- You will have no normal spells in your spellbook, being only able to cast what Treasure Cards you put into your deck.
- You will not regain any health or mana after a round is done until the end of a stage.
- You will not be able to alter your deck after a round is done until the end of a stage. This means you will need to have enough Treasure Cards to last through 3 rounds.
- At the end of each stage, a vendor offers a deck recipe. They will help versus the school you are fighting (in this case, the crafted decks will boost fire). You will also get special reagents pertaining to the specific deck crafting as drops from the round victories.
- You will be able to play the event twice per day for free. Thereafter, you will need to spend 1000 gold for subsequent event playthroughs for that day. (I do know it starts at 1000, I don't know if it stays at a thousand. The cost may rise with additional plays).
- You won't generate power pips. I noticed in a video that shadow pips can appear, but I don't know if this was a fluke.

So, without having played yet, a good strategy seems to be working toward one of these crafted decks, which will require multiple playthroughs of the event to get enough drops. If you're fire, using tc enchants for your known spells can help you craft good tc's for the event. You'll need to craft the spells before hand.

Additionally, monstrology can be a tremendous boon here. Good summons will overpower the enemy and will only cost you two pips.

Another pre-deckathalon strategy is to get a specialized may-cast pet setup beforehand. The kiosk is super helpful here, since you're gonna have an easier time to browse through the pets looking for one with a lot of may-cast talents to hatch with. Talents that would appear to be good fits would be: Guardian Wall (tower shields), Charm Chopper (for their blades), Ward Wrecker (for their shields), Fairy Friend, Spritely, Energizing Battery, (for self-heals), and Incredibly Infallible (to boost accuracy and blunt enemy shields). This is what I am currently doing on my wizards to prep for the event.

Finally, constructing your sideboard right is really going to be the key to doing well in the event. Too many cards, and you'll potentially fail to draw the right cards in time. Too few cards, and you won't make it throught all 3 rounds. Shields will be helpful until they start casting a lot of dot spells

Empyrea introduces expanded inventory for backpack and bank

In case you were wondering, your wizards all automatically get an additional 50 item space to their personal banks, raising the maximum from 100 slots to 150. As well, you can purchase an elixir from the crown shop for an additional 50 slots to your backpack. This only applies to one of your wizards, though.

The elixir costs 2500 crowns AND it is repeatable (you can continue to increase your maximum by 50 item slots for every 2500 crown purchase). 2500 crowns isn't cheap, but if you're constantly bumping into the maximum because you're farming dungeons or just forgetting, this could be a big help.

Wizard101 Hovering to See What Blades and Traps a Player Has

Sometimes in battle with friends, you get distracted and don't know which blades have already been cast on your hammer (player designated to hit). You have a Sharpened Blade spell and a regular Elemental Blade in your hand, and you can see that your target already has one Elemental Blade cast on them. You can chat and ask. That works. But sometimes, chatting can take too long and the turn might end before you get the answer with enough time to cast.

Some players already know this, but not everyone... You can check yourself! If you take your wand cursor and move it over the left side of their nameplates (where the symbol in the diamond is), a box with stats will appear. Programmers call that a tooltip. As long as your wand cursor is hovering over that spot, the tooltip will stay up. As soon as you move it, the tooltip will go away. The part of your wand cursor that needs to hover over the diamond symbol is the star atop the wand. It can be picky, so you will want to move the star of your wand completely inside the diamond area.

I took some screenshots to help visualize this. I can't show the wand cursor in my screenshots, because the cursor always disappears from the screenshot. You won't see the wand in any of the following pictures.



You can see the sun from the starting position on the combat circle. I highlighted the area where you want the star part of your wand to hover over. You can hover over any other player's diamond symbol, as well as the symbols of the enemies.



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Let's take a look at what traps and shields look like in the tooltip.



I placed a regular Fire Trap and a Potent Fire Trap on this hall servant. On the tooltip, you will see the Wards symbols at the top (one Positive which designates shields and one Negative which designates traps). Traps will show up as a positive number, because you will be boosting your damage when you hit them. In this case, any fire spell this enemy is hit with will get a boost of +25% and then +35%. Note that the +35% is shown in purple, since it is a spell that has been modified with an enchantment.



This is what it looks like on the tooltip for an enemy with a pair of Fire Shields. The number is negative, since any fire spell that hits this hall servant will be reduced in power by 80%. The reduction will not stack, and that is depicted with the (x2) symbol.

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Blades show up in the Charms section. The top line shows the symbols for positive charms (blades) and negative charms (weaknesses). Here I have a couple of Fireblades on myself. They are Sharpened Fireblades; and since they are enchanted, they show in the tooltip as purple. So why don't they show as (x2)? This is because the source of the enchants. One Sharpened Blade is my trained spell, and one is an item card from my amulet. Since the same spell from different sources stack (usually), they show up on the tooltip on separate lines.



In the above picture, you can see I have all sorts of blades cast upon myself. The top blade in the tooltip is a Fireblade from a pet card. Pet card blades show up in blue. Next, the tooltip shows two Sharpened Fireblades. I chose the wrong Sharpened Blade card, so they didn't stack. That's one downside of the system... you can't tell the source of the enchantment. This is why it's a good idea when playing with others to call out what your casting if it's from an unusual source. It helps players keep straight what's been cast. The one that looks like there is no symbol for damage type is actually a Shadow Blade. The shadow symbol is there but very faint. Finally, I have three regular Fireblades cast upon myself, all duplicates, so none of them stack. The very top blade in the picture is a Fireblade protected with Aegis. It will show up on the actual blade graphic surrounded with a light blue highlight, but that will not show up in the tooltip. It will just count as another regular Fireblade in the tooltip to determine what stacks and doesn't stack.

One final picture... what does it look like when hovering over a player or enemy that doesn't have any wards or charms on it?



There you go. A shark in Celestia in a fresh battle.

There are other effects that are represented in the toolip that I didn't get screenshots of. One big one is from global circle effects.

So the next time you're playing, move your wand cursor around the battlefield to discover what everyone's tooltips look like during play. It's a good thing to know for those times you need to make a decision on what to cast. It can also be useful if you didn't notice a shield up on an enemy or a weakness on yourself, and you need to know how bad it is.

Fire Soloing Eerkala in Eerem Gardens

I teamed up for Eerem Gardens, with the hope of doing it fast. As is the usual, something goes wrong, and it takes three times as long to get through it. On the second battle (the one with the Life djinn Nashkurgal), I received a critical hit from the Balance minion on the same turn my ally was set to kill the boss and minion with a Raging Bull. I died, didn't get credit for the kill, and would have to start the dungeon all over again. I decided to help my fellow wizard finish the dungeon, and then join again. We finished the fight, stacking a couple Feints, a Backdraft, a Fire Trap, and an Elemental Trap, finished off by Fire From Above (I think). Oh yeah, I put down Wyldfire which prompted Eerkala's blade cheat, so I got the Curse and big Weakness. Luckily, I wasn't hitting.

I joined another Eerem Gardens group that was already in progress, and unfortunately, they were past Nashkurgal, so again, I got no credit for completing the quest.

I finally just did it solo. Being lazy, I did it the hard way. That is so counterproductive. Each of the bosses before Eerkala only cast from one school. I could have tweaked my simple boss deck with the appropriate TC shields in the sideboard and coasted along, but instead, I went with the Power Link deck. I had some very unlucky rounds doing that.

My Powerlink deck is set up as follows:
6 x Powerlink
1 x Fire From Above
1 x Efreet
4 x Epic
4 x Colossal
4 x Empowerment
2 x Reshuffle
2 x Fireblade
2 x Feint
1 x Potent Trap

Yes, it's sloppy. The problems arise when you decide you don't want to drop cards when you have cards in hand you don't want to get rid of. My plan was to use the Powerlinks on the minion and boss until I had the Feints and Fire From Above in hand. Kill the minion down, while maintaining my health, then quickly hit the boss with the FFA and stacked Feints. It eventually worked out.

When I got to Eerkala, this was a GREAT deck setup. Well, except for the blades which I pitched when they showed up in hand. By not bothering to lay down any traps (until near the end), Eerkala wasn't able to boost her damage. Since I was solo, her fifth turn cycle cheat cast Diablo Qarin didn't do much damage to me. My health was constantly being refreshed by my heal dots, and the critical hits were a good bonus for those heals. I whittled her down until I got my Feints and Fire From Above in hand. The Empowerments really kept my pips full, so I was able to attack Eerkala either every turn or every other turn.

I did make a mistake in this battle. Which seems to be a theme for me...
I forgot to change my pet. My pet has may cast blades and traps. Ya, that's not good to have when fighting a boss that punishes you for casting blades and traps. The may-cast spells from your pet DO trigger the cheats here.

Shadow Magic Build, Part Two

I had just finished Eerem Palace, and looked up the boss fights that lead to getting Scorching Scimitars. Those two creatures are the Void Elemental and Zuliman Mongu (Fire). I looked up Void Elemental's boost and resist schools and noticed something interesting. A Shadow school creature, the Void Elemental casts Ice, Death, and has a natural attack of Shadow. He resists every player school, and also Sun school (only damage I could find that a player can do is from a few may-cast wands). But not Shadow! I decided I would try out my Shadow Magic deck on him.

The gear I used that was helpful for the deck
- Robes of Malistaire's Ire (Shadow Trap item card, 2% shadow pip chance)
- Dragoon's Leather Boots* (Dragonblade item card, 16 universal damage, 2% shadow pip chance)
- Edge of the Raging Daystar (16 universal damage)
- Jewel of the Apiary (Balanceblade item card)
- Imperial Walrusk Deck (triangle jewel socket, for Shiny Pip Hematite 3% shadow pip chance)

The deck setup itself
1 x Potent Trap
2 x Feint
1 x Dark Nova
1 x Dark Shepherd
1 x Shadow Shrike
1 x Reshuffle
1 x Empowerment
5 x Pixie

Sideboard
1 x TC Feint
1 x TC Shatter

* I'm not a fan of advocating crown gear use. I do have some crown gear because I like getting the gauntlets to share with friends, and why let the gear you get along with it go to waste. But on an intellectual level, I dislike the "pay to win" element that can exist in the game. I decided to be honest with what I was wearing. It's a bit sloppy anyways, and you can decide to throw in a TC Dragonblade, or any other universal blade/trap as a substitute. There are definitely better gear choices, but you can see that the item cards help for the big hit.

What makes the combo work is the same thing that makes nearly every combo work in the game - stacked Feints. The bonus of the Feints is that they feed the shadow creature if you've already cast him. There really aren't many blades and traps that power this up. With just one Feint, both blades, and the Shadow Trap, I was doing 11,000 damage with Dark Nova. The Empowerment is for the Pixies, and the heals helped me immensely for keeping my head above water while waiting for the pair of shadow pips. It's important to try and get all but two of your blades and traps stacked before casting your shadow creature if you're going for the one hit kill.

I had initially wanted a deck with more shadow creatures in it, so I could keep launching Dark Shepherd attacks, sort of like a Necromancer frequently casting Scarecrow or Call of Khrulhu. That deck setup really won't work unless you're a Sorceror. Blades are vital for attacking crowds.

Alright. So what was the verdict. How did the deck do against the Void Elemental? Actually, not bad. And that accounts for the glaring mistake I made. I forgot to actually put the Shatter into my sideboard. Let it be known, the Void Elemental very much likes to cast Abominable Weaver. There's not much defense against a shadow creature deck - especially Dark Nova with multiple Feints stacked. The main defenses against a shadow creature deck would be large negative charms, like Bad Juju, or big Tower Shields. Exactly like the one the Abominable Weaver leaves behind. You can probably tell, I needed the Reshuffle.

When I faced off against Zuliman Mongu, I didn't have to worry about such a shield, and he doesn't cast Efreet, so I didn't have to worry about any defensive cards like Cleanse or Shatter. I made the addition of multiple Fire Shields to my deck, and he went down easily while I maintained high health.

All in all, the Shadow Creature deck is gimmicky. You can do the same things with prisms and Shrike and other piercing spells and gear. If you are generally getting shadow pips fast, it might be a viable deck alternative for doing quick damage with Dark Nova. If you're super lucky, you could get a 4 turn kill, as long as you get a shadow pip on your first and second turn. That's a really nice trick for a solo wizard, but a near impossible feat against bosses with minions (which are most bosses). Having to throw in a ton of shields and heals and then waiting on pips feels like the wrong way to play.

Comments on different ways to play shadow creatures appreciated :)

Fire soloing the Underden

I ran through the Underden like I usually do dungeons - I queued up for Team play, then entered the dungeon solo to see how far I would get. Then I toggled out of the game to peek at wizard101central to look at the fights to adjust my deck on the fly.

BUT! I did know that the last fight would be against a storm boss, so I had pulled my storm resist gear out of my gear vault to hold in my inventory.

There are 3 fights in the Underden, and with preparation, they aren't too bad. A special note about this particular dungeon, if you leave the dungeon and return (for example, you're killed and port back), you will have to fight the entire dungeon all over again.

The first fight is with Gobblorean Guards. They are myth and just under 3000 health. They have a couple stun attacks, have a good myth damage bonus, shield against life and death (if you have those attacks, be prepared), but have no earthquake. You can blade up and hit them with any attack all enemies spell you may have.

The second fight for me was the hardest (since I had the resist gear for the final fight). Boa Fett. He has a Gobblorean Guard with him, so you'll get some stuns from the both of them. Boa is both Fire and Ice, and he cheats. His resistance to fire didn't seem that high (maybe 30%?) and since he resists ice as well, there's no need for prisms. He does cast Efreet and Abominable Weaver... so unless you have some Cleanse and Pierce treasure cards, building up for a one hit kill isn't going to work. He also has cheats, one in particular that affects pyromancers greatly.

Cheats:
- First round, he casts a fire version of Ice Armor with Aegis. It doesn't seem to absorb that much damage... 800 to 1000.
- He has the cheat for late wizards... in this case, an additional Mander Armor (the spell above) for each late wizard.
- If you cast a trap on Boa Fett, he automatically removes all traps on him AND his minion(s). I didn't experiment to see if this could be thwarted by either a Vaporize myth dispel or Indemnity on a trap. According to the wizard101central page, wizards CAN get non-Feint traps on Boa Fett during the first round without the cheat going off.
- Dots (damage over time spells) cast on Boa Fett get moved to a random wizard. As a solo Pyromancer, it's not so random.

Boa also casts the following randomly.
- Powerlink
- Smokescreen
- Freeze

The best strategy I had was using Empowerment, Epic enchant, Fireblade, Sharpen Blade, and attacks of varying sizes like Meteor Strike, Efreet, Raging Bull, Fire From Above, etc. No Powerlink, no Fire Dragon, no Rain of Fire. In addition, Shrike will provide some bonus to damage with the pierce, but can work against you should you get stunned. I SHOULD have loaded up my sideboard with Thermic Shield to ward off his fire and ice attacks, but I just kept up my attacks at a constant rate until he died.

The final boss is the Rain Core. He has no cheats, but does hit hard with storm spells, some of which remove blades. If you have good storm resist, or a sideboard full of storm shields, you can stack traps on the boss, throw on a couple of blades near the end, then one hit kill. I had 114 storm resist with my gear, and was mostly immune, but he does cast a Flawless aura that gives him an additional 20 pierce. His natural pierce is 2, so he was able to get 8% damage on me occasionally.