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Icy Conditions

With the release of Polaris, one school has risen from the obscurity of mid-tier to the very top of the pile. Once regarded as the King of the Defensive First Age meta, it has now firmly established itself as the Queen of the Offensive Third Age meta. That school is of course Ice.  This post will examine the unique circumstances created with the sequence of updates culminating with Polaris that allowed Ice to ascend to the top of the arena. (Note that this post is made from a 1v1 PvP perspective)

Ice’s Position in the Darkmoor Meta

To understand how exactly Ice ascended in Polaris we must first look at Ice’s position in the Darkmoor meta. Prior to the jewel updates, after the release of the first tier of shadow enhanced spells and with the availability of a better waterworks gear in Malistaire’s set: 3 schools established themselves as top tier. Balance and Life became top tier due to their offensive/defensive utility, high health buffer and ability to effectively heal thanks to critical. Fire established itself as top tier due to its amazing ability to string together combos and numerous utility options.

Ice on the other hand was typically regarded as a mid tier in this meta. While it did have the high health buffer and resist that makes it famous in today’s meta, it was once much more limited. Without jewels Ice’s pierce was in the teens and before the Winterland and Terror’s Hoard pack Ice’s attack was similarly limited. This made it relatively harder for Ice to generate a significant offensive presence. With the old critical system Ice had no chance to critical whatsoever on the other schools and while it had the highest block, some schools could still critical on it. TC’s commonly seen today such as coldiron were not readily available. Finally Ice had no heal while 2 top tier schools (Life and Balance) had easy access to critical heals allowing them a greater defensive presence despite their lower health and resist stats. As a result of these limitations and a few more (Full Analysis of DM Tier Here) Ice saw itself sitting in mid tier – a comfortable position for sure, but far from its Pre-Aquillan throne.

The Small Changes that made Ice Great Again

The Jewel Update

The Jewel Update greatly assisted Ice’s relatively weaker offense. With the ability to acquire an extra 18% pierce Ice could finally begin to pierce off a majority of their opponent’s resist. With most school’s standing at 50%+ resist in this meta ice gaining the ability to have pierce in the 30’s proves to be a major boon, allowing ice to apply significant offensive pressure even without a blade stack.

Hoard Pack Wands

The hoard pack wands offer great utility to the ice school in particular. When Darkmoor was released the Malistaire wands were the exact same across schools except for pierce with Ice receiving the lowest amount. While this proved to be a disadvantage in the early DM meta it became an advantage with the release of hoard pack wands. Starting with the Beacon of Arund Vale which offered extra damage and a higher block, Ice then received the Terror’s Hoard pack wand which offered more damage, more critical, more block, more power pips or the same pierce and an off school wand with a may cast to boot. Finally the new Roadwarrior’s pack offers a wand that is competitive with the Terrors Hoard wand.

Ice is in the unique position to utilize either of these wands without sacrifice since their DM wand did not offer much pierce to begin with. The wands also assisted Ice indirectly. Since the wands offer several statistics that are higher than the Darkmoor Wands, many schools opted for those wands. This significantly lowered their pierce (Ice made no similar sacrifice) allowing more of Ice’s already high resist to come into play. In other words, with the release of these wands, Ice’s offense and defense rose while other schools had to make offensive sacrifices that worked to Ice’s advantage.

TC Utility

Treasure Cards have always played an important role in PvP allowing schools and lvl ranges options they would not otherwise have access to. Treasure cards play an understated role in Ice’s rise to dominance. Every duelist should be familiar with Icebird: Ice’s premiere pressure tool that accelerates its offense and acts as a potent answer to specific shields.

With the release of the Five Boxes event Ice gained another amazing utility: Coldiron. The Coldiron Treasure Card allows Ice to deal a decent amount of damage while also placing a Volcanic Shield on the aforementioned player. This gives Ice some strong offensive/defensive utility allowing it to apply pressure and remain defensive at the same time (a huge boon this meta).

This spell allows Ice to defend itself effectively against Fire and Balance – two of the top tier schools in the meta – with the added benefit that it also defends from the rare Storm in Ranked PvP.

The One RNG to Rule Them All

The single biggest change that had the largest impact on Ice’s Tier position is the critical system change. With the release of Polaris the critical system was turned upside down. Previously critical and block were interdependent. As long as you maintained a higher block than your opponent’s critical you could be sure that you would block your opponents critical in the vast majority of cases. However in the new update critical and block were made independent. This means that your chance to block is a static percent that is consistent regardless of your opponent’s critical. It is entirely possible for an opponent with 10% critical to critical on someone with 90% block. What this means functionally is that unless you are at 100% block any opponent can critical on you.

This is a humongous change for Ice. Previously Ice absolutely could not critical on any opponent with balanced gear. Now Ice can critical on schools with much lower health buffers allowing them to turn a match on it’s head instantly or to close out a match much more quickly than previously possible. On the defensive end Ice is in the best position to cope with this change. Ice’s gear naturally has more block than any other school’s. This means that with a good pet an Ice can sit on mid 80’s-90’s block allowing it to prevent most criticals from landing. Ice also has the highest health (7000+) and resist (60+) in this meta meaning that it is in the unique position to be able to tank a critical shadow enhanced spell and still have a survivable health buffer.

Finally the critical update had an indirect positive effect for Ice. The update significantly reduced the critical percentage of most schools in balanced gear. Now most schools are sitting at critical percent in the 20s-30s if they hope to maintain survivable levels of block.  This reduced both Balance’s and Life’s ability to heal effectively especially against Ice. Whereas in the prior meta Life and Balance could depend on critical heals (Balance had to beware snowdrift) to outlast Ice, they no longer have heals that can reliably outpace Ice’s damage output. As a result Ice has once again established itself as the primary defensive tank while still being able to hit like a truck.

Ice’s Position in the Polaris (Current) Meta

Favorable Offensive Traits

Offensive/Defensive Spells in Coldiron and Abominable Weaver

Offensive Pressure/Combo Spell in Icebird/Ice Bats

Combo Spell in Winter Moon, King Artorious

Pressure/Combo Spell in Frostbite

Finisher in Abominable Weaver, Lord of Winter, King Artorious

Favorable Defensive Traits

Highest Health Buffer(7500+)

Highest Resist(60%+)

Multiple Offensive/Defensive Spells-(Coldiron, Abominable Weaver)

Overview

The Ice school has a potent combination of stats that allows it to thrive in today’s meta. A prime gear Ice is often sitting on 95% damage, 7200+ health, 64%+ resist and 34%+ pierce. This combination of stats allows it to maintain a significant amount of offensive presence while still having great defenses. With these stats a Weaver will hit 2000+ on most of the meta while leaving a 75% shield.

The health buffer is no joke either. Consider this- A Storm using Rusalka on Ice will deal about 3400 damage. An Ice hitting Weaver into an unshielded Storm will often hit roughly 2000 damage. Man that seems unfair-After all, Storm’s Attack did 70%+ more damage than the Ice’s. However consider the end result. The Storm now has a remaining 2500 health while the Ice is still sitting comfortably at 3800+ health. This ability to comfortably tank blows that other school’s would be hard-pressed to survive gives Ice many set-up opportunities. Whereas a Myth would be pressured to shield from a Life with a Shadow Pip lest they lose 40%+ of their health buffer, an Ice can choose to tank the move using the “free” round to set up a combo or to deal even more damage in return. The ability to be offensive and defensive at the same time is also a great boon. Abominable Weaver puts most schools in an awkward position even when they are first and when second…attacking into an Abominable shield is often a game ender due to loss of pips and tempo.

Ice also has more marginal utilities that are nonetheless very useful. Ice dispel prevents most schools from tower shielding or utilizing stun blocks. Steal Ward can turn an opponent’s tower shields and even certain segments of dual shields against them. Finally Ice benefits from the fact that many of its attributes act as a partial counter to all 3 of the other top/mid tier schools. Ice can utilize Snow Drift to steal Balance’s heals, Life’s Regenerate or Fire’s Power Link. Cooldown addresses Burning Rampage, Coldiron counters Fire and can counter a hit of Gaze while Steal Ward can steal Hungry Caterpillar’s absorb.

The combination of defense, offense and utility has propelled Ice’s rise in the Polaris meta. Small changes made over a number of worlds have helped to give Ice the push it needed and it’s success in today’s critical system has helped it to cement it’s spot at the top. Whether the anticipated dungeons will release gear or spells that shift the meta remains to be seen but for now Ice once again reigns supreme.

What Do You Think Of Ice’s Position in the Current Meta? Do you agree with this Assessment? Let us Know in the Comments Below!

 

 

The post Icy Conditions- How Ice regained it’s footing as the Top Tier 1v1 school in the Polaris Meta appeared first on Duelist101.

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The newest hoard pack has entered the spiral – the Road Warrior’s Hoard Pack! A chance to win a new speedy mount, various gear, a cool Road Hog pet, and various goodies – including some new treasure cards!

Introducing the FASTEST mount in the Spiral…
the Road Warrior’s Chopper in this bad to the bone new pack!

With a chance to get the Road Warrior’s Chopper Mount (at +50% it’s the fastest mount in the Spiral!), the Road Warrior’s Hoard has cool new epic and ultra rare items for your Wizard. Here are just some of the cool items you could receive in the Road Warrior’s Hoard:

• New Road Warrior’s Chopper Mount (+50% Speed Boost)
• New Road Hog Pet
• New Road Warrior’s Biker Gear
• New Legend Skull Weapon
• New Khyrsalis and Aztecan House Guests
• Much More!

Have you ever wanted to become part of a bike gang in Wizard101?

Do you have a bad-to-the-bone side you always wanted to express?

Do you wanna go FAST?

If you answered yes to any of these 3 questions, this pack is FOR YOU.

The mount, Road Warrior’s Chopper, is the fastest mount in the game, giving you 50% extra speed (compared to the usual 40). Also, you get to look like this with a set of the new gear.

Also, it has an adorable Road Hog pet – which gives a fuel card at baby.

This pack also gives new school specific fuels and new school specific minions (one for each school, seems pretty cool – we’ll look more into it and if we find anything interesting, we’ll have a post on it.) Most of these are no pvp, however. It also has a bunch of new housing items, including some more animated ones.

The real nifty thing about this pack (besides ..everything else so far) is that the new wands that come with this pack give a jewel slot! (The one I got is square, but there might be others). They can also may cast the skull-variants of Cyclops spells.

Overall, this pack is totally worth it – I would pick up a few if I were you.

What is your favorite part about the pack? Leave a comment down below, and enjoy the new goodies!

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What kind of pet jewels do overlords use?

In this guide, we will be looking at pets and pet jewels! I have spent two weeks collecting screenshots of pets that fulfill the following requirements:

• The pet has been trained to mega or ultra.
• The pet has a jewel attached to it.
• Their owner is an overlord (rank of 1000+) of any level.

I’ve collected 200 different pets. Please notice that the fact that an overlord has a certain pet equipped doesn’t necessarily mean they use that pet in PvP. However, I think it’s still close enough to give some information worth analyzing.

To start with, I have divided the pets into 4 categories. While putting them in categories, I have ignored the jewel completely, and only looked at the talents the pet has gotten through being trained to mega.

 

Here’s what kind of pet my 200 overlords used:

• 97 mixed pets 
• 49 defensive pets
• 32 ward pets
• 22 aggressive pets

 

 

 

Pet Jewels Overlords Use in General

The overlords I snapped pictures of had a total of 52 different pet jewels on their pets. Of those 52, there are six jewels that appear more than ten times in my data. The top ten is quite interesting.

1. Ice-Proof (19 times) 
2. Ice-Dealer (18 times) 
3. Ice-Ward (16 times) 
4. Balance-Ward (14 times)
5. Unbalancer (11 times)
6. Balance-Dealer (10 times)
7. Fire-Proof (6 times)
8. Hearty (6 times)
9. Fire-Dealer (5 times)
10. Fire-Ward (5 times)

You can see that there are clearly three schools people pay more attention to: Ice, Balance and  Fire. For these, both damage and resist talents are present, suggesting these are the most common schools to face in PvP currently.

There is also a selfish talent in the top 10: hearty. Hearty is a talent that adds 25 strength to the pet’s stats. The amount of strength a pet has affects its damage and resistance. The Hearty Opal has something else going in its favor: you can simply buy it from the Pet Shoppe Boys, so no farming needed. The perfect talent for the lazy!

 

Aggressive Pets’ Jewels

I didn’t find very many purely aggressive pets. Many pets ended up in the “mixed pet” category, due to having two defensive talents in addition to 3 aggressive talents. More about those in the part of this guide that addresses mixed pets.

Of the 22 very aggressive pets I collected, 63 % used a damage jewel (14 pets) and  22 % a critical jewel (5 pets). The other 3 pets had a 5 % pip chance, Balance-Ward and Hearty talent.

Of the 14 damage pet jewels, 50 % were for Storm damage talents: Storm-Boon 3 pets, Storm-Dealer 2 pets and Storm-Giver 2 pets.

 

Defensive Pets’ Jewels

I collected 49 especially defensive pets. Just like in the previous category, pets with 3 defensive and 2 aggressive talents did not end up here; they’re among the mixed pets.

Of these 49 pets, 59 % have a resistance jewel (29 pets) and 33 % a damage jewel (16 pets). The remaining 4 pets have Hearty, a health opal, myth striker and a tower shield sapphire.

The 16 damage jewels were spread as follows: 5 for Balance, 4 for Myth, 4 for Ice, 2 for Life, 1 for Death and 1 for Fire. The 29 resistance jewels were for the following schools: 18 for Ice, 7 for Balance, 3 for Storm and 1 for Fire.

 

 

Ward Pets’ Jewels

I ended up with 32 Ward pets, of which 78 % had an additional resistance jewel (25 pets). Resistance to Balance and Ice is equally common, with 8 pets of each kind. Fire resistance occurs on 5 pets and Storm resist on 4 pets. Of the remaining Ward pets, 4 had a damage jewel: 3 Ice-Dealer and 1 Fire-Dealer. The remaining 3 had a selfish jewel: 2 sported Hearty (+25 max strength) and 1 Steadfast (+40 max agility).

 

Mixed Pets’ Jewels

I tried to divide this huge group of 97 pets in groups based on different criteria, but there was never a clear correlation between the pet jewels used and the type of “mixed pet” in question. It seems this group is quite homogenous, with both the more aggressive and the more defensive pets sporting the same pet jewels in more or less equal quantities.

When it comes to jewels, damage jewels are the most common and occur on 52 % of the mixed pets.

Resist jewels occur on about 30 % of the mixed pets. The variation between the different strengths and schools of resistance is not as larg as with damage talents. For mixed pets (as well as most other kinds of pets) the most common schools for resist are Ice and Balance, with a smaller amount of Fire-resist coming as a third.

 

In Short

1. Aggressive pets tend to have aggressive jewels: about 86 % of the ones I collected have an aggressive jewel (damage or critical) attached to them.
2. Ward pets are more often than not made even more defensive with a defensive jewel: in 78 % of the cases.
3. Of the defensive pets, 59 % had a defensive jewel, and 33 % an aggressive jewel.
4. Of the mixed pets, 52 % had an aggressive jewel and 30 % a defensive jewel.
5. In addition to clearly aggressive and defensive talents:
   • A selfish talent occurs on 10 pets.
   • A health boosting jewel occurs on 2 pets.
   • An accuracy boosting jewel occurs on 2 pets.
   • A tower shield card jewel occured on 1 pet.
   • A pip chance boosting jewel occurs on 1 pet.

 

 

Contest time!

Look at the screenshots shared in this post. Do you know which overlords these pets belong to? Choose ONE pet and let me know who you think the owner of the pet is! If you’re your answer matches the screenshot I have of the pet and its owner, you win a Dragonclaw Blade! The code will be emailed to the e-mail address you used to sign up for Disqus.

Here it is once again:

• Choose one pet from this article;
• Comment with the pet’s talents and jewel;
• Tell me the owner’s full in-game name;
• Be among the ten fastest to answer correctly;
• Win a Dragonclaw Blade!

 

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Shadowfishy here with another contest for you! This time it’s the Perfect Pairs contest. My fishy friends and I have gotten word of some lonely people out in the Spiral. Friendship Month is at aclose, and they still haven’t found a friend. I’ve done my best to pair them up with someone that might be their friend, but I need some help checking the list to see if my logic holds up. 

Your job is to look at the pairings below, and figure out why they would make good friends. Every pair has something that ties them together. When you’ve figured all the pairings out, send an email to morgrim.shadowfist@duelist101.com with a list of your answers (in order, numbered). 

Here’s an example:

Meowiarty and Jacques the Scratcher. Answer: They’re cats in Marleybone.

Fairly simple example. None of the pairs below are as simple as that. Reasoning is often flexible and you won’t be punished for a ‘not quite right’ answer. 

Here are the pairs that I think would make great friends:

1. Fianna Yellowknife and Friar Nolan
2. Quinn Legendbreaker and Declan Wyrmdust
3. Officer McRuff and Wei Pei
4. Belloq and Loremaster (Myth)
5. Shane MacGobhann and Lewelyn
6. Hound of Heck and Tamworth BrickHouse
7. Frode Silverscale and Yuri Smokesnare
8. Ulantor Starmist and Arkyn Moonblade
9. Tupa Taua and Ceara Ashbury
10. Khalkos Coppersmith and Rose Piper

You have until March 12th to get in your answers! Rewards will be given in order of the time the email was received:

First Place:

10,000 Crowns

1 Lovely Leopard Pet in Wizard101

Second and Third Place:

5,000 Crowns

1 Lovely Leopard Pet in Wizard101

Fourth Place:

1 Lovely Leopard Pet in Wizard101

Anybody who does not place Third or higher will also be eligible for 1 random 5,000 crown code draw.

Good luck and thanks for the help with these Perfect Pairs!

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It’s about to be spring time, and you know what means.. a Spring Update looms.. and that brings us new teasers to look at them!

So far, we have 3 teasers, each of what looks to be new bosses (key bosses perhaps?) in 3 different worlds.

Teaser 1 – Azteca related (insert isn’t Azteca dead/destroyed/non-existent joke here) – nothing too revealing or striking of this boss.

Teaser 2 – Krokotopia related (insert “Krokopatra is the new Malistaire” joke here) – more interesting – the concept we’re fighting a spell is cool. Also looks to be for lower levels (not 100% sure, since key bosses tend to be harder than the location they are in, for example Simon in Sunken City). Also a common theory is that this fight may drop a new “mashup” spell for balance, since it IS a Ra boss, but no one knows for sure, so take the theory with a grain of salt.

Teaser 3 – The most interesting of the three. There are mob versions of the 1 shadow pip spells, and it’s in Polaris, which means this is going to be a tough fight. Also, it should mean good drops (or at least we can hope..!). I personally hope there is some backstory to this teaser, since it seems cool to incorporate the shadow minions. Also, expect the cheats (which there better be some) to be crazy, as this is our first taste as new end-game content.

What are your thoughts of these teasers? Who are you most excited to fight? Sound off down below, and as always, have a great day in the spiral!

(PS: If there are any additional teasers, I’ll add them to this post, so check back now and then to see if KingsIsle has officially teased anything!)

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Following my post on Shadow Lock Spells, I had some more ideas for unique spells to improve the various schools. These spells are not designed to address any particular imbalance in the current meta but are simply designed as cool new spells with never before seen mechanics. Of course as with any new spell idea I will balance it to the best of my abilities so leave your feedback!

New Spell Mechanics!

Priority Spells

Priority Spells would be spells that activate first regardless of your turn position. For example if you are second and use a priority spell your spell will activate before your opponents. This spell will literally reverse the turn order as it casts so it will activate before any dot’s trigger(and any other notable activation such as cheats). This type of Spell would be balanced by being lower dpp or higher cost than average. If 2 priority spells are cast on the same round the second turn player’s spell would activate first.

Trigger Spells

Trigger Spells would be spells that are cast on the field and remain there for a number of turns. Once the turn counter is expired the spell activates at the very end of both player’s round similar to guardian spirit. Trigger spells would be balanced by only remaining on the field for a certain number of turns and also having very specific conditions which trigger the spell’s effects.

Tandem Spells

Tandem Spells would be spells that could be cast one after the other on the same round while only consuming the pips of the first cast. In other words tandem spells would act as a double or triple cast for the cost of one spell! These spells would be balanced by having a significantly lower dpp or higher cost than expected of the school. The maximum tandem would be 3 and all the spells you intend to use in tandem must be in your hand at the time of cast and will all be consumed. You would activate a tandem by clicking the spells in your hand in order and hitting the done button once those spells are highlighted.

Conditional Spells

Conditional spells would be spells that drastically increase in power when certain conditions are met. These spells would be balanced by being weaker on their own than normal spells. An example of a conditional spell would be: If this spell is dispelled: Recast the spell at double the power with no additional cost. Conditional spells would rely heavily on prediction to be most effective.

Charged Spells

Charged spells would be spells that automatically apply enhanced versions of certain effects or entirely new effects as soon as they are cast. An example of a charged spell would be: This spell will always critical when cast. Charged spells would be balanced by being higher cost than average often imitating the exact damage of a lower ranked spell.

 

Have any more ideas for spells or mechanics? Let us know below!

 

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So you want to build a 3 layer stacked garden? You’re in luck, we have a guide just for you!

Beginners’ Guide to Gardens With 3 Layers

 

Step one: getting the things you will need

You will need 8 crates of some kind. You can get any of the following:

• Crate of Hotdogs
• Crate of Ice Cream
• Crate of Jellybeans
• Crate of Pies
• Crate of Pumpkins
• Dark Wood Crate

Don’t get the Crate of Chickens. I know, I know, that one is super funny, but the chicken heads poking out of the top make what we’re trying to do impossible. If you don’t feel like going to the Bazaar, check the Crowns Shop and rejoice! You can buy Crates of Ice Cream for GOLD from the Crowns Shop under the “furniture” tab.

The second thing you will need is a house. We recommend the Red Barn Farm, because it’s a like for any plant you choose to plant. “Likes” make your plants happy, so they grow faster!

You will also need energy. The construction of a garden with 69 regular medium plots plots will cost you 69 energy (1 energy per plot). I recommend spreading the process over multiple days, because it can be frustrating and you will save your sanity if you don’t stress about getting it all done in one go.

You should also make sure you have enough energy to take care of your garden once it’s been planted! Planting one seed will cost you 2 energy, so a plot of 69 takes 138 energy (look Mommy, I’m doing math!). Taking care of the needs once your plants have been planted will not be as energy expensive, don’t worry about that. So 138 energy. At level 110, you have a base of 110 energy. So 138 energy is achieved by getting some items that give you energy. There is a lot available, and we have this guide, which takes a look at the energy gear available in the game. Here’s what I did to get the extra 28 energy:

1. Hatch to get a Dapper Corgi. It gives 8 energy at baby!
2. Farm the Spiral Cup to get Greenwarden’s gear. I got the hat, which gives 18 energy. You don’t need to do the whole thing, just fight your way up to the second fight. Piper StormTree drops Greenwarden’s Energetic Mask.
3. Craft the Wintertusk Ring of Courage for 4 additional energy. Ingulf the Grower in Wintertusk, Grizzleheim has the recipe.

 

Step two: Know your limitations

1. Don’t put too many plants! The large circles that take care of plants’ needs can only cover 69 plants. If you put 70, one plant will not get pollinated. Don’t be greedy, be thankful for the 69 that are covered! A garden with 4 layers is technically possible, but with the circle only covering the needs of 69 plants, there is really no point in going for that.
2. Don’t space out your plants too much! You will only be able to fit in 69 plants if you position your plots exactly like they should be.
3. Don’t try to start with the second layer before you’re completely done with the first! You won’t be able to add more plots to a layer once you start to add plots to a layer below it. From top to bottom, please!

 

Step three: Building your top layer

Notice how the plot doesn’t fit right in the middle of the 4 boxes. It’s situated on the edge. Sometimes it helps to remember which edges touch the side of the box when you’re repositioning them.

After that, move the crates yet again for the length of HALF crate. Keep going like this until your top layer is done. What we’re looking for is a layer of 23 plots. This can be achieved by first putting a 3×3 square of plots in the middle (the beige ones in the picture below). Then, add 3 at each side of our square (the green plots), making the total of squares 21. You can add 2 more (the yellow ones) in any of the corners left open. Don’t bother placing one in each corner, as your plot count will go above 69, which is beyond what a large gardening circle can cover. The next layers you place under the top one will look exactly the same as this first layer.

 

 

Troubleshooting tip 1:

“Help! My plots don’t line up perfectly next to one another!”

 

Step three: Building your middle layer

This one is the most annoying and time consuming layer, because the top layer keeps us from seeing what we are doing. It also makes placing the plots hard. My game doesn’t like this layer very much and sometimes doesn’t allow me to put gardening plots down even when I’m 100% sure I have my crates in the right position. Just keep going, keep trying (just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming). It will work eventually. Take breaks! Vent your frustration!

 

For the second layer, remove the 4 top layer boxes, so you’re only left with 4 crates. Plant plots on that layer. Once again, to find the right location for the next plot, move the crates half a crate length to whichever side.

 

Troubleshooting tip 2:

“There is a red plot showing where I would like to put my crate! It won’t go away!”

Solution: Yes, this is a really annoying problem. On my computer, it helps when I close the housing tab and open the gardening tab, and then switch back to the housing tab (so I press “H”, then “G” and then “H” again on my keyboard). For some people, this is not enough, and if you’re one of them, you will have to go to the character selection screen, sign back in and port back to your home.

 

Troubleshooting tip 3:

“I can’t place a plot on the boxes. The red plot will just not move into the right area.”

Solution: When this happens, move the boxes half a crate length (towards my wizard, in the picture above). It may take some trial and error to get it right! You’ll find the right position eventually.

 

Troubleshooting tip 4:

“I can’t see what’s happening on the second layer.”

Solution: I hear ya! Not much can be done about this. One tip is to go a bit further away from the plots. The field in the Red Barn Farm is placed on a slope, so you can usually get a little lower by backing up a bit. Another thing you could try is to “fall” between the cracks of the top layer. It will give you a different perspective, which helps occasionally.

 

Step four: Building the ground level layer

Yay, the hardest part is over! Now you can move all the crates out of the way and place the plots on the ground level. Placing the first ground-level plot is usually a little difficult. Be prepared to have to plow the plots you place in the wrong place a couple of times. You just did the hard middle layer though, you’ll get the bottom one right through trial and error.

 

Step five: Wait! Don’t stop reading yet!

There is one more thing to take care of. In order to be able to reach all three layers with your gardening spell, you will need to place a gardening gnome in the middle of your middle plot.

For this, you will need:

• a Large Watcher Rug, available in the Bazaar under “Furniture”
• a Tatami Floor Mat, available in the Bazaar under “Furniture”
• a Tropical Garden Gnome, sold by Farley in Wizard City, Golem Court

 

 

 

Happy gardening, wizards!

Any questions? Leave them in the comments!

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As Wizard 101 approaches lvl 120 I believe it is time for us to receive some more utility spells. The Avalon update added a significant number of usable utilities to all classes. That meta also had the most balanced gameplay short of Pre-Celestia with 2 notable exceptions(Ice’s resist advantage and the advent of jade gear). I believe that an addition of suitable utility to each class could go a long way towards making schools more competitive although a real fix to the current meta would require a more comprehensive change to the PvP system. As such I have come up with some new ideas for spells using an entirely unique mechanic I will refer to as Shadow Lock Spells.

What is a Shadow Lock Spell?

A shadow lock spell would be a new type of manipulation spell.  Rather than costing resources(all shadow locked spells would cost 0 pips) they could instead only be cast when certain resource conditions were met. For example a shadow lock spell would require you to have  3 power pips and 1 shadow pip before you could cast the spell. Shadow lock spells would remain in effect until the caster no longer meets that resource requirement ending immediately if the caster does not meet the resource requirements.

This new resource mechanic would be referred as maintenance and would appear on the card above the spell description. The caster would also be able to end the lock prematurely but would have to pay the spell’s maintenance fee(in other words canceling a lock spell would require you to pay a price whereas casting and maintaining the spell comes at no direct cost) 

As shadow lock spells are shadow spells they will have a downside. However, instead of backlash, shadow lock spells would restrict the caster or assist the opponent in some way while in effect.

Shadow Lock spells would also be further restricted by being single target only. In team PvP Shadow Lock spell’s of different schools can stack on one opponent but same school shadow lock spells cannot be stacked onto one opponent. 

Note that while utilizing a shadow lock spell the caster would be unable to acquire any further shadow pips.

How would the Shadow Lock Spells help the current meta?

As I envision it, shadow lock spells would be designed with utility effects that are on par with shadow enhanced spells making them a viable choice in this meta. By having the cards focused on maintaining resources rather than using resources, it encourages people to slow down the meta saving pips and  creating combos rather than simply spamming a shadow enhanced spell as soon as they have the opportunity. Shadow Lock spells would also add restrictions to the caster while they are in play further diversifying the scope of options available.

The Shadow Lock spells share some characteristics based on the triangle of magic they draw from. The elemental shadow lock spells are very powerful addressing the weaknesses of those schools at the cost of being more expensive to maintain and restrictive(keeping with the theme of elemental schools drawing their magic from the powerful sleeping Titans). The spiritual shadow lock spells are less powerful but cheaper and less restrictive. Rather than addressing the weaknesses of the school they instead augment that school’s strengths(keeping with the theme that the spiritual magics are self maintained thus less powerful but more versatile). The balance shadow lock spell will have a median maintenance cost and focus on altering the rules of combat.

How would Shadow Lock Spells be Acquired?

Shadow Lock Spells would be acquired at specific questing intervals in the next world much as how the original shadow spells were acquired. They would be school specific and would not be able to be trained outside of the school of focus. Shadow Lock spells would come in several Tiers. First Tier Shadow Lock Spells would have a maintenance cost of one shadow pip and a certain amount of pips and are all single target spells. Second Tier Shadow Lock spells would come with a 1 shadow pip maintenance cost and a certain amount of pips and be more team oriented. This post will examine Tier 1 Shadow Lock Spell Ideas.

Shadow Lock Spell Ideas

Tier 1 Elemental Shadow Lock Spells

 

Tier 1 Spiritual Shadow Lock Spells

 

Tier 1 Balance Shadow Lock Spell & Counterspell

 

Have thoughts on Eric’s Shadow Lock Spells? Have your own spell ideas? Let us know in the comments!

 

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Mysterious Character Teaser Revealed!

If you happen to have a Twitter, or stalk the Pirate101 message boards, you may have come across a certain post today.. a Falmea Friday! (Here‘s the link for those curious)

While it contained a recap of the winter PvP season, and what the winter season has brought to Pirate101, the end has quite the surprise for us all.. concept art of a mysterious character! What purpose he exactly serves remains to be a mystery, but he sure does look pretty cool.

At first glance, you will notice he has no legs, and is missing a hand, quite pirate-like! Here’s the context given with the picture:

So, this fateful Friday, let me share with you a fine fellow who will be making his way to the Spiral in the near future. My question is… tell me his story, if you were the one weaving the tale.

All’s aboard who’s going aboard… I must set sail now, but until next time, Pirates, I wish you smooth sailing and clear skies.

Whether it’s a new book or side content remains to be seen, but time will tell where, or whom, we meet next in our travels.

Who, or what purpose, do you think this mysterious character serves? Comment down below!

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Card-Giving Triangle Jewels

 

Welcome to part 2 of this guide!

In part 1, we looked at triangle jewels that give attack, aura and enchantment item cards. Now, we continue with healing, shield, prism, trap, blade and minion item card-giving jewels!

Triangle jewels can currently offer you three things: an added pip chance percentage, an added accuracy percentage or an item card. In this guide, you can find all the card-giving triangle jewels, organized into categories based on what kind of a card they offer. There are also pet jewels (star-shaped ones) that offer an item card as a pet talents, but those will be added in a different guide.

Listed for each of the triangle jewels are the level of the jewel and where to get it. For jewels that are dropped by bosses, I have added a handy link to the wizard101 wiki, so you can find out more easily where these bosses are located. Some information may still be missing, because jewels are still a fairly new thing.

 

Some of these jewels can be crafted. Here’s a list of where to find the crating recipe vendors:

• WC: Eudora Tangletree (Olde Town)
• Krok: Wul’Yahm (The Oasis)
• MB: Felicia Worthington (Regent’s Square)
• MS: Toshio (Jade Palace)
• DS: Balthazar Dragonthorn (The Atheneum)
• CL: Aegeus (Crustacean Empire)
• ZF: Marwa Jadetusk (Baobab Market)
• AV: Shane MacGobhann (The Wild)
• AZ: Yaxche (Cloudburst Forest)

Healing Item Card Jewels

 

Bubble Item Card Jewels

Dispel Item Card Jewels

Minion Related Item Card Jewels

 

Utility Item Card Jewels

 

Blade Item Card Jewels

(there is no entry in the wizard101 wiki for a single mythblade or balanceblade)

 

Trap Item Card Jewels

 

 

Shield Item Card Jewels

 

 

Prism Item Card Jewels

 

 

It’s important to note that, once you affix a jewel on an item, it automatically becomes no trade. This means you can’t farm for these jewels on a higher level and then pass the piece of gear on to a lower level wizard.

 

Are any of these jewels worth getting?

At what level and for what purpse?

Let us know in the comments!

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