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.

______________

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).

---

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.