On the Importance of Resistance Gear

First, let's start with a picture. This is me.

Forget those other two chumps. They just get my hand-me-downs as they level.

For awhile now, I've been running around with the same gear. I've had that gear since before my year-long hiatus (except for the shoes, just picked those up in Atlantea). I've liked the combination of accuracy and power that my gear gives me. I hate fizzling, so have resisted switching gear with more critical chance in favor of always hitting.

And if you know me at all (by reading through the blog posts), you know that I will die fighting a boss twenty times before asking for help. I won't try and solo dungeons, unless of course I already out-level it, but it's in my nature to try and puzzle bosses on my own.

Enter Clemente Moraga and his two fiery monkey companions Primo Ortiz and Segundo Ortiz. I'd been only half paying attention to quest text and just following the arrows to beat up the next boss. That's too bad, because the Azteca drama seems to be pretty interesting when I stop and read the story here and there. I couldn't remember why I had to fight these guys, just that this was the next boss fight in a chain. Well I got my face smacked pretty hard in this fight. I tried it three times, and after the third loss (and this time killing both minions before falling), I was tired of it and decided to move on. I was pretty disappointed in not being able to port back in after death, so I knew I'd eventually have to come back with a better strategy or at least come in with friends.

Later, when the time came, I looked up Clemente Moraga on the web to get better info and form a strategy. I was a bit disappointed. I realized I had to beat him to open up the next set of spells, this time from the Sun School. I also noted that there was no way to port back in, and friends can't help out. This was a solo boss, and I was failing. I had tried stacking fire shields in my sideboard and in my hand, but it was never enough. One battle, I failed to block four critical hits... I was dead in three turns. They just simply could outpace my damage mitigation and any healing I might be tempted to load into my deck. I was at a loss; and for the first time, I doubted I could move forward.

And then I came across a post in a help forum. The helpful voice (actually there are quite a few who say this) said, "Go to the Bazaar and buy fire resistance gear..." I thought, I got some funds, as long as it isn't too expensive, how bad can it get?

I bought three pieces. Molten Mantle, Torched Tunic, and Fiery Chac's Great Boots. This gave me 74 Fire Resistance. I could have done Reckless Runners for boots... they had 2 less Fire Resistance and gave accuracy, but I wanted to fully mitigate against fire.

I then prepped my deck (Cinder Deck)
Fire Shield x7
Colossal x4
Efreet x4
Fireblade x5
Empowerment x5
Pixie x3
Power Link x3
Fire Prism x3
Fire Trap x2
Mass Fire Prism
Fuel
Backdraft
Elemental Blade
Elemental Trap
Furnace
Reshuffle

Sideboard: All treasure card Fire Shield

This is how I looked for the fight.

So how did it go? Well I knew from the very first hit how it would go. The enemy got to go first in the turn, which worried me; but instead of taking around 500 damage from the first cast Meteor Strike, I took 113 damage. I did put up some Fire Shields that came up in my hand, and occasionally I cast a Pixie. At one point, my pet cast a Sprite on me, and I healed enough to mitigate two attacks entirely. I only suffered three unblocked criticals that were around 300 damage total. I took my time and knocked off each minion one at a time. Before concentrating on the boss. I did wind up using my Reshuffle. From that point I built up for a big hit. I dropped a regular Fire Trap and a 15 pip Backdraft on him after using a Fire Prism. And I had my standard three blades up (Fire Blade, item card Fire Blade, Elemental Blade), and also used the Furnace aura. That means when I sent my Colossal Efreet to knock on Clemente's door, I wasn't even fully loaded. It was more than enough. I finished the battle 100 health short of my maximum.

What did I learn? I learned that I've been playing this game several years without utilizing one of the best strategies in the game: resistance gear. When you are high enough level, you shouldn't be hurting on coins. I often burn off my extra on treasure cards or crafting reagents. Now I'm considering buying resistance gear against as many schools as I can... Just. In. Case!

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Addendum! If you want a good list of resistance gear by school type and which schools can wear it, this site provides it for you:
http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/showthread.php?322768-Bazaar-Found-High-Resistance-Gear

The page is two years old, but the list is still useful.

Belloq in Azteca, first time

I'm noticing a theme in my soloing bosses. That theme is Efreet. The 90% debuff to enemy attacks keeps me alive, since I'm not using much healing.

On several bosses, what I've been able to do is load up my sideboard with shield treasure cards. This is pretty good for being able to stack a bunch of blades and traps until I'm ready to fire off my Colossal Efreet, and with a prior-cast fully-pipped Backdraft, I'm typically hitting for around 45,000 damage. I don't add traps or blades into my sideboard, because I'm going to need to reliably draw shields. I'm utilizing the Empowerment aura to generate pips fast enough, and along with Power Link for a boost to my life, I generally can dispatch his minions fast enough, hold the boss off, and finish him off with a couple hundred life to spare.

Belloq though can't be shielded against. He has the ability to cast Hydra or Chimera or Spectral Blast, which requires all the other schools to defend against, but his biggest hitters have no shields to protect me. The strategy then changes. You don't build up for one big hit (and luckily he doesn't heal). You load your deck up with as many Efreet as possible, as well as Power Links for equal damage and healing, and you trim out extra traps and blades that will delay putting the Efreet debuff on him. Backdraft? Too time consuming and expensive. Elemental blades and traps are just going to delay your Efreet or Power Link. Power Link in itself is a bit of a risk. When I faced him, I died the first time; but since I killed his minion, I was able to use the instant port back (through the Dungeon Recall button) and handle him fairly easily the second time without having to worry about the minion's extra damage.

Skurkis in Azteca, the first time

Note, this is for the first meeting in Cenote, not in Xibalba. I didn't know there were two until I googled Skurkis.

So I've finally broken free from the quick and easy fun of killing Loremaster a gazillion times with only a couple spells to show for it (only that life spider for Alexander, and my theurgist now has two spells, neither of which are life)... and finally started to quest again.

As can be expected, the creatures in Azteca are hitting fairly hard. They have added spell penetration and score more criticals than in Avalon. As I started questing in Cenote, the easiest thing for me to do was construct a deck that loaded with Empowerment/Meteor Strike/Colossal. I would clear the field in around 4 turns, 2 if I were extremely lucky (scoring at least one critical that they don't block).

The bosses in this area range from 13000 health to just under 20000 (so far). I was forced to tinker with a deck to get the right set up to beat Skurkis Screaming Moon. She can heal back up pretty fast, and she is going to dish a lot of damage that will be hard to soak up if you solo. She has a Moon Skull Zombie helper with 3000 health, and she has just under 14000 herself. I toyed with sending lots of Efreet to keep her attacks small, but I wasn't able to generate enough mana pips to constantly send them her way. Thus I was forced to load up Death Shields in my treasure card slot.

My equipment is geared for accuracy, so I don't fizzle often, but it's at the expense of critical and power pip chance. Also, Skurkis was overcoming my critical block more times than was comfortable for me. I needed to go first this battle, and I needed to drop the zombie helper quick.

I used an Armillary Deck with these cards stocked:
6 Colossal
6 Efreet
5 Empowerment
5 Fireblade
3 Fire Trap
1 Fuel
1 Backdraft
1 Elemental Blade
1 Elemental Trap
1 Wyldfire
1Reshuffle
11 Death Shield treasure cards

I also have these Item Cards from my gear:
1 Fireblade
1 Fire Trap

Besides hitting hard and healing back up with Scarecrow, Wraith, and Satyr (it says she's equipped with a life amulet, so she has the Satyr and the heal charm too), Skurkis likes to drop 30% weakness spells on you. You will need to decide if you want to just add more traps and blades to overcome them or save your wand shots to get rid of them.

The way I worked the fight was dropping Empowerment often to get extra pips. Each time I put a Colossal on an Efreet, I would use the extra card slot to draw a treasure card, which would be a Death Shield. She does have a Skeletal Dragon, so be careful not to have more than one shield up at a time, or she may cast that and eat through your shields too quick.

To kill the Zombie, I used one Colossal Efreet after I was bladed. It was enough to outright kill it.

Then the trick was to just keep dropping traps and blades while keeping a shield up as often as I could. It sounds so easy, but I had only around 500 life left at the end of the battle.  I made sure to get my Backdraft up to full pips before casting (it wound up being a 10 pip spell, as I wasn't generating many power pips that battle).  I dropped every trap and blade I had on her, except Wyldfire. I was a bit risky in the end... Instead of waiting one turn, drawing a Death Shield and laying it down, I was impatient and cast the Efreet. Only a 6 percent chance of fizzling while she had 6 pips on her end...

It wound up being overkill, even without dropping the Wyldfire. It was 30000 damage spell once everything was tallied. I found this strategy to be best, as I didn't have to worry about whatever health she was siphoning off me or if she would try and heal up... one shot would take care of it, rather than trying to compete with her life gaining. But I would have gone nowhere without the shields. I wound up using all but 3 of my treasure cards.

Sorry for not posting in forever... (someone watches this!)

But guess what I've been doing? Same thing everyone seems to do recently... I run Loremaster over and over, hoping for a spell. It's fun to do, and perhaps a good way to build up a little gold if you need it, since it's rare to make an attempt that doesn't fill almost immediately with other spell seekers.

Admittedly, I haven't run it very often with Alexander. I have some other characters, namely Tyler and John, who have been running it far more often. Tyler is my Theurgist, and it's rather fun to go in healing everyone while they concentrate on doing damage (plus Tyler has a Feint item card spell). But really, John my Necromancer has done the most runs. The thought of getting a Deer Knight before ever setting foot in Celestia is very tantalizing. I do already have my Scarecrow, so it's not at all mandatory. I just like the choice of damage over time spells or drain spells hitting all enemies.

Unfortunately, the drop chance for the spells is very small. And attempting to get them on multiple characters is... not very likely. But the upside is that the battle is so quick.

Here's some strategies that I've noticed for getting the fights done with the best outcome.

If you're low level:
- It's probably a good idea to have a few powerful attack all treasure cards stashed into your sideboard in case you get the misfortune of being in a group with everyone being low level.
- Consider having Reshuffle in your deck.
- Bring a good amount of traps and blades that can be used by others.
- Because damage can be from any and every school, bringing a bunch of shields is counter productive. You'll be better off having half as many as heals, leaving your deck filled with cards more suited to taking down the enemies, including buffing your friends.
- Your blades cannot be dispelled. Others may use your traps, but that is a good thing!

For all players:
- The single worst thing about the encounter (other than every 3 or 4 turns someone being pounded for 600 plus damage by the Loremaster) is the amount of negative charms placed on you by the Font of Weakness. If you have the patience, keep putting on blades and save up a wand charge for getting rid of the negative charms without removing the blades. The weaknesses will affect Sorcerers more, and most players have the Font of Weakness as a priority target above all others (including the Font of Life).
- Saving up your attacks for large hits negate the power of the Font of Life.
- Don't be selfish! Traps for everyone! Blade up the obviously powerful wizard who has a lot of pips up. The sooner he hits big, the faster everyone's done.
- Play to your wizard's strength. If you're a Thaumaturge, get the Loremaster's attention on you. If you're a Theurgist, Rebirth and Satyr freely. Sorcerers are loved by all here with their extra blades.

Spiral Geographic Society Warehouse

This is the quest location in Marleybone where you retrieve a key to open up Celestia. You get this quest after completing Dragonspyre. However, it no longer is necessary to get this key to go to Celestia. I like to do this for the experience rewards, and some nice loot drops. I'm not so sure this is a solo-able experience at the "appropriate level" of a character just finishing Dragonspyre. There's quite a number of levels to traverse to the top, and all the battles are with four opponents. There's a lot of life, balance, and frost enemies, so count on shields galore, and weaknesses on yourself. If you're able to bide your time with shields and cost-effective life gains, you could try and build up for a single large multi-hit spell. They will be shielding, and if you're death, often with combination shields that will really mess up your spells. You will need to do a hit that is generally at least 2500 damage (to overcome the shields). Even if you don't take them all out, you will be able to pick off at least 2, which will make the rest of the fight easier. The enemies will sometimes do vampire spells, but I don't remember seeing any life gaining (at least for non-boss encounters).

The tower levels
Here's the overview of the tower: http://wizard101.wikia.com/wiki/Warehouse_(Spiral_Geographic)

One: NPC, can be ignored
Two: four monsters
Three: four monsters
Four: puzzle encounter
Five: mini-boss
Six: four monsters
Seven: four monsters
Eight: puzzle encounter
Nine: four monsters
Ten: boss encounter

Level Four Puzzle
If you read the book near the entrance, it will have a story with the clues on what to do (they will be the bolded words). Looking at what else is in the room, you have 5 crates in a horizontal line - one center crate, two to the left of it, and two to the right of it. You will click the crates in this order: center crate, the crate to the left of that, the next crate to the left of that, head back to the right and click the next crate, and the last crate to the right of that.

For those more visually oriented: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (order of crates from left to right)... click in this order: 3/2/1/4/5.

If you get the puzzle right, you get red health wisps. If not, I think a four monster fight. It's in your best interest to get it right!

Mini-boss General Stormclaw
He starts out alone, but after the first turn, he will cast a free earthquake and summon his 3 skeletal minions (lazy, tired, and dimwit). He will also cast a free tower shield on himself that gets replaced every time it goes away. While his minions are up (and occasionally after they are killed) he will automatically remove traps and weakness on himself and his minions (if they are up). There's a bunch of cheats and rules about targeting him while his minions are up, so it's best to either use multi-hit spells or just go after the minions first. In other words... just use big multi-hit spells in the same way you were doing with the regular four monster levels. You must kill the minions before you go after Stormclaw, or all sorts of extra spells will be fired on you. Plus, if you need to put a myth prism on him, you will need those minions gone for a chance to keep the prism trap on him.

When his last minion is dead, he will cast a free Frost Giant on you, so be prepared for a big hit and stun.

Level Eight Puzzle
This is impossible to solo and not trip the trap to fight four monsters. The floor is arranged with a maze of floor pressure plates: 3 of them are sun sigils and the rest are snake sigils. Hitting a snake sigil will fire off the trap and the four monsters will appear. Stepping on a sun sigil will activate it, but the character has to remain standing on it, or else it will go back dark. When all 3 suns are lit, a fourth character can pull the lever. If you do have four people, send the first character through the maze to the lever by the gate. Don't step on snakes! The second one goes to the third sun farthest along the maze. The third character goes to the middle sun, and the final character goes to the first sun. Then pull lever. Since I solo this, I never see what happens (I expect wisps to appear).

Boss Estrakir Gloomthorn
He's a robed insect minion of Morganthe. And this room is one of the more difficult cheat boss encounters in the game. Even a high level character may find this encounter to be quite difficult. In the accompanying dialogue, he drops a vital clue: you must at some point cast a global bubble spell of any kind. Otherwise, Estrakir will cast free Power Novas (that are fire based) every other turn. It might be a good idea to hold some bubble spells in the treasure card section of your deck so that you can get one out quickly.

Like General Stormclaw, Estrakir will automatically remove traps and weakness from him and his minions for free (at least while his minions are up). His rat minions will sometimes cast special tower shields that reduce damage by 90%. Multi-round damage spells could be a nice solution to that. He also has a minion named Knuckles who likes to cast free heals if your or your allies cast a heal. He will do a free Rebirth (but with no extra damage shield) out of turn when that happens. Drains and damage spells like Link and Vampire don't trigger this.

If you do target Estrakir while Knuckles is still alive, Knuckles will cast a free Helping Hands heal on Estrakir, and Estrakir will cast a free Fire Dragon.

You need to kill the rats first (since those shields they cast are too powerful), and then kill Knuckles. Multi-target spells are acceptable and won't trigger the above effects. Once the rats are down, you should probably heal up, unless Knuckles is low on health. Likely because of the shields, Estrakir will still have lots of health, so Knuckles healing him back up won't make much of a difference. Once all the minions are dead, Estrakir will start casting free Scarecrows on his turn (not sure if he does this if you have your bubble up or not... I'll amend this if I find that to not be the case). You may want to have some death shields prepared in your deck for this.

You'll need a lot to go right to defeat this encounter solo, unless are significantly high level. If you have a bubble aura up, and you take down the minions in the right order... you should have a solid shot though.

Good luck!

Coming back to Wizard101 after a year

It's been awhile since I've played. I would have kept up, but I got sucked into a new (old) game again, and the demand on my time left Wizard101 out in the cold.

Things that were nice about coming back.
- I didn't have to pay any subscription to start playing again and pick up where I left off. That's because I've been spending money to open areas rather than pay subscription. There are obvious benefits to a subscription, but I think if you start playing, it's better from the outset to pick one model or the other and not dip into both. For better or for worse, this is what I picked. I am able to pick up the game, play it, and then put it down for later without worrying about the money I lose by paying and not playing.
- I also like that a new area has been implemented (actually a multi-level area that one revisits in stages, like Grizzlheim was). I easily soloed the first area with Alexander, though I was rusty on the play. Probably because it's a level 30 instance.
- It was nice to see a familiar face popup and say hi, even though I was gone for a year. Time marches on, and hopefully so will Wizard101!

Things that were tough
- As I mentioned above, I sort of forgot how to play efficiently. I have to re-remember the good combos, how to walk the streets, where things are located, order casting (oh, Balanceblade - you so crazy!). More than once I put my traps on before dropping my prism to filter my incoming spell. Whoops. Also, you play a bit to remember the general damage "brackets" that your spells will do, such as "this is what my Meteor Strike does with a fire trap, this is what it does with just a blade, this is what it does with both, this is what it does with a Fireblade and an Elemental Blade" (etc.). I ran into a few problems fighting some bosses, as I was afraid to cast and not do enough damage when my life was low. This caused me to often use an extra turn and risk dying rather than casting, but once or twice I did the opposite and fired too soon, which left me short on damage and dead before I could get another damage spell off. The game rewards the player who has a good guess to how much damage spell combos will do, and to the player who can always remember to cast in the right order.
- What's easy on my pyromancer isn't so much for other wizards. Especially now that he's past level 80. After having no problems in Aquila, I hopped on my sorcerer who is just past level 40. He was doing admirably in some other areas as I warmed up (currently leveling in MooShu), even dispatching every boss with ease. However, the first real problem arose when I had to fight the Praetorian Guard encounter. Oh my! I wound up buying some treasure cards to put me over the top, but it still took me over an hour to best this fight. The fight has three minions supporting the mini-boss, and that's just too much damage to overcome one at a time. It would also take too long with Sandstorms (the only multi-hit damage card available for that level)... so I realized I needed to do one large, augmented damage spell to do enough damage to all of them before I died. Also, though Balance has a variety of blades (and I have gear giving me bonus item cards), I was going to have to spend some of my mana pips on blades. If I didn't get the right pip combo, or if I took a critical hit from any of my opponents, or if they went first, I was likely to lose. I wound up using a Power Nova with two Balanceblades (one of them an item card) and two Bladestorms (one of them an item card). I had planned on dropping an Amplify Treasure card as well (which I did once, but that wasted a turn and I died before I could cast my Power Nova). Like I said - it took me an hour, but when everything finally went right, I got off the Nova, and it was just enough damage.

Things I learned (or re-remembered)
- Be patient. Watch for "cars" (monsters) before crossing the street. Don't be so impatient that you lose time rushing toward your goal because you got caught up in wandering monster battles. Don't shoot your spell off looking for a kill unless you know it's going to be a kill. If your plan is multiple damage spells, make sure you're timing your offense and defense right.
- Look at your opponent's school of magic before engaging it.
- For that matter, look at the deck of spells you're using before you wander around. If you're like me and have multiple pre-made decks for different situations, you'll wind up swapping them around depending upon the area you're in.
- Look for information on the internet before battling a boss. Some people like the novelty of facing the unknown; but some of these bosses are tricky and have particular "rules" to obey (cheats to avoid). Why spend hours trying to figure it out, when others have gone there before you?
- Play to your school's strength. If you're a high damage class (Diviner), build up for big hits and fire them off as soon as you can. As a Pyromancer, consider when multi-round damage is optimal. Pyromancers have many ways to control battle through kinds of damage they do, so know when to play what. If you're a Sorcerer, Theurgist, or Thaumaturge, keep your shields and life spells up and look for your opportunities. If you're a Necromancer, watch your life to know when you have to cast your drain spells. If you're a Conjurer... all of the above? I think those rules really apply for all classes (shields are very helpful against most bosses, so stock up, even if they're treasure cards!).
- Pets that have powers are great. However, mine don't fire them off nearly as often as I remembered them doing before. When you're planning your battles, it's best not to rely on your pet's intermittent power to get you through the day, although in a long battle, you're probably going to see that power at least once.

I may do some more write-ups soon, as I progress through more areas. Alexander is now finished with all of his quests from Avalon on down. He has not yet entered Azteca. I figure I will have to finish that before having a chance at the rest of Aquila, and then I see that Khrysalis is the next world to encounter. So much to do!

The End of Zafaria

We defeated the bosses in Elephant Graveyard pretty handily (Rachel and I) and weren't really having much trouble at all. There were a few close battles where health got low, but those were more due to inopportune fizzles than anything.

We get the quest to go to Mirror Lake, which is accessed right from the Crossroads near where you start Zafaria. In we go. Right away, we find ourselves facing Tse Tse Snaketail. We load up a couple of storm shields and make short work of him and his death minion. He does have a rather high health total (7000) for a storm guy.

Next, we listen to Morganthe blather about this or that, then she summons four spectral guardians to fight us. This fight took a little while, and I wasn't familiar with the cheat mechanic. As far as cheat mechanics go, it was rather easy to deal with. I told rachel it would be a good idea to load up on treasure card blades for the fight, and then we started it up. What I initially assumed was that at any time the spectral guardian boss (Elephant Spectral Guardian) might catch you flat-footed without a blade and hit you with all the cheats (smokescreens and blizzards). What really happens is he randomly targets one player, puts a mark on them, and that player needs to drop a blade when marked. That player has to do it at their next opportunity. The other cheat he has is his super tower shield, which operates like every boss with a super tower shield. If you damage him, he interrupts and replaces it, and if he's the last creature up, he stops putting the shield up. Spells that remove shields without damage don't trigger the interrupt to replace them. So all we did is AOE damage spells until he was last guardian standing. The myth guy will cast earthquake and remove your blades and stuff! Just saying.

There were two more fights after this, each with four identical monsters. These guys didn't even cheat! The first group was 4 Goliath Bruisers (big bugs, ice, just under 8000 health each), and the second group was 4 Starburst Spiders (storm, around 6500 health). Easy! Right? This is where Rachel and I stumbled. Both groups hit hard and hit often. Figure on taking on average 500 damage every round from each of the Goliath Beetles. We each died and had to run back into the instance (luckily, not dying at the same time). Then the Starburst Spiders. There was a lot of dying. They score critical hits often, and one time we both died near same time and had to start the whole thing over. We took advantage of this, refilled our potions, threw in a couple more heals and shields and went again. It was ugly, but we limped through this. With a party of four and a dedicated healer, this wouldn't have been nearly so bad, but be warned! Lots of damage. Not quite sure how this might be soloed.

Katherine Light offered some words of advice here: http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226370

She mentions picking up some resist gear and building your hits with multiple blades and traps before firing off. She also suggests that players save their attacks to go off on the same turn, so that one person doesn't become the target of all four monsters (which happened often between Rachel and I). Also, don't forget that these guys have stun cards (notably, Frost Giant and Storm Lord). Also of note, after these battles, lots of different kinds of treasure rewards :)