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Empyrea Crafting Quest:
Revered Crafting

There’s an all new rank in Crafting: Revered Crafter. There are two parts to the quest to get this badge.

1. Legendary Tomfoolery

Librarian Fitzhume will give you the quest “Legendary Tomfoolery” and direct you to Ignus. Ignus will require you to craft a wand. It looks like every school has a different wand to craft, with different ingredients. As a Balance, I got to craft Jaki’s Legendary Bow. Here’s a link to the quest dialog.

This first quest isn’t very difficult. The three most difficult ingredients are perhaps the 25 Antiquities, the Stardust and the Vines that every recipe requires.

2. Legendary Tomfoolery

Once you craft the legendary wand, Ignus will give you a new quest to improve this item. He gives you a quest called “Hi-Yo Silver Chest!” For it, you will use the wand from the first quest in the recipe for the second quest! Quite cool! We’ve had something like that before in Aquila, but here it seems actually useful, because the second wand you craft will give you 11 energy! That’s more than Aphrodite’s wand (which gave 10) and less than the Winter Wonder pack wand (which gave 12).

However, this new wand is tricky to craft! It has many new reagents. The Revered Crafting quests have new kinds of reagents you’ll need to find:

• Squid Ink (A reagent you can get as a drop in combat in Empyrea)
• Shiny Scales (A reagent you can only find in fishing chests)
• Participation Trophy (A reagent you can purchase with 1000 arena tickets in the pet pavilion)
• Aether Ore and Dust (A reagent you can find as a ground spawn item in the Spiral)
• Shocked Key (A reagent you can only find within silver chests)

Crafting Recipe Vendor

You can use your crafting badge to craft housing items and fairly bad gear. Go visit Loligo in the Aerial Shores.

What do you think of the new reagents? Are they too hard to get?

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Another fall test realm is in our grasp! The first part to Empyrea, new shadow magic, revered crafting, bank space increase, and much, much more! Read further to discover what lies ahead of us in this new update!

For a full list of notes – go HERE 

Empyrea Part One:

A new world is upon us .. or at least part one of it! Much like Khyrsalis, Empyrea is being released in two parts – with part one in the test realm at the moment! Wizards can level to the level cap of 125!

Empyrea was created by Grandmother Raven to keep the Chaos Heart in and The Spider (Old Cob) out, but now with Mellori being captured, anything is up for grabs. The heart sits in the middle of the world, with storms that even Raven herself cannot pass through. With the help of ..well.. you, the Arcanium teachers hope you aren’t too late in saving Mellori, and the spiral.

A few notes about Empyrea, as per the patch notes:

• Training point at 125, as long as a quest from Zeke and Eloise.
• Eloise has new, unique stitchable gear.
• “Within Empyrea, players who are seeking a greater challenge and excellent rewards will find both within a new side quest encounter called the Beastman Fight Club Gauntlet. Good luck! The struggle herein promises to be our hardest content to date.”
• New roaming bosses with new pet drops.
• As per newer world releases, the final boss will be released later in the cycle.

New Shadow Magic

Shadow Trickster is back ..and actually for real this time! Wizards who begin their quest into Empyrea will come across the infamous Shadow Trickster. After completing the quest, you will be awarded the Shadow Trickster spell and have the option to get a “Donate Shadow Pip” spell!

Revered Crafting

A new crafting title beyond Legendary has you opening your crafting book to all new sorts of ways to collect reagents! Talk to the Librarian Fitzhume to begin your adventures toward a Revered crafter! With this new rank, come many more ways and types of reagents, such as:

• Squid Ink (A reagent found from combat in Empyrea)
• Shiny Scales (A reagent only found in fishing chests)
• Participation Trophy (A reagent that is purchased with arena tickets in the pet pavilion)
• Aether ore and dust (A reagent found as a ground spawn item in the Spiral)
• Shocked Key (A reagent only found within silver chests)

Also, if you are looking to craft higher level gear, you must seek out Loligo in Aerial Shores in Empyrea!

New Member Benefits

Not much is said about this in the patch notes itself, but it is mentioned there are a few new member benefits coming our way after this launches to the live realm, so keep an eye out for those!

Various Other Updates

Backpack elixir and bank size increase

• Your bank space has been increased for 100 to 150! (bless wu)
• There is an elixir for 2500 crowns that expands your backpack space by 50, 2 uses max per character.

Daily Assignment Addition

• With Empyrea, a new classification of quests is here: Heavyweight! Also, there is a new quest once you hit day 12, so get those pekron investigations going!

Realm Locking

• This function allows you to lock your realm, so that when you are moving around worlds, you won’t get bumped into a more busy realm!

Castle Magic

• 36 new spells for all you enthusiastic castle magic junkies!

and much, much more! Make sure to give a look of the full list of changes!

What is your favorite part of the new update?
Are you excited for part one? Comment down below!

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Monstrology Rewards

Monstrology was launched in Wizard101 in the April 2017 Spring update and has ever since been a wonderful addition to the game. Unfortunately, a lot of players don’t share the same opinion. After a quick look at the game and/or social media sites related to Wizard101, I could conclude that a huge factor were the rewards. 

Let’s take a quick look at the rewards…

House Guests

Nothing wrong with this idea. I’m sure that decorators everywhere can back me up here. House guests offer a lot of possibilities for housing especially now that castle magic has hit the Spiral.

Additionally, we have the Monstrodome. As great of a feature as it is, the rewards it offers are limited. Mostly, you will get low rank pet snacks and reagents, not to mention gold! Finally, we have some unresolved bugs that restrict us from collecting them all. I’m not suggesting some sort of system overhaul, but changes can indeed be made.

A 4th reward type… Transformations!

Our very own misthead happened to point out a (in my opinion) very brilliant idea – make transformations a reward for Monstrology! For a long time, there have been multiple requests by players to introduce more transformations in the Crown Shop. What if instead of them being in the Crown Shop, they could be a reward from Monstrology? This would bring tons of new transformations in addition to those that are already available in game.

This reward would work just like the other rewards: you gather animus from a creature and create the transformation of them. I am going to leave the duration and other technicalities to Kingsisle, but it would be more than amazing if the transformations lasted longer than 1 hour (especially if you’re going after Malistaire). Only one question left to answer now, which creature will you transform into first?

Do you have any other Monstrology reward ideas?
Share your ideas in the comments below!

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Happy 5th Birthday Pirate101!

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of YUM! Can you believe its been 5 years since Pirate101 came into the spiral? Happy 5th Birthday Pirate101! Imagine  the amount of looting and ship battles in all that time! Boy, time sure does go by fast but let us take a moment to just reflect on our beloved game.

With the implementation of Ship PvP battles and some new storyline added to pirate, I’m looking forward to pirate receiving more updates. I want to see more bundles and gauntlets (even if they’re only available online) and I would love to see more levels added until we one day hit that elusive level 101. 

I want to know how everyone feels about pirate so for a chance of getting an random AMAZING prize let me know what your pirate wish list is. Who knows, maybe KI will stumble across all these ideas and feedback and make an effort to make these changes we want to see.

Once again, Happy Birthday Pirate101 and to all the staff members who put countless hours into the game, you guys are simply amazing.

* Redeem the code fifthoween to receive cool prizes on pirate, including the following:

• New Darkling Duck Petp
• Parrrrty Hat
• Birthday Eyepatch
• Mega Snack Pack
• Ashes of Armada Pack
• Rainbow Friendship Mask

Let us know what new additions/ changes you would love to see for Pirate101 in the comments below!

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2017 Gloomthorn Nightmare Pack

The long wait is over!   As most of you are aware, when Halloween season started on Wizard101 this year, the gloomthorn nightmare pack was suspiciously missing and now we know why!   KI has finally released it and it is full of new items as well as the originals from last year.

So what exactly is new?   Well lets take a look!

New Spell!

This pack now includes a chance to drop the Headless Horseman spell!!!   Death wizards have been waiting awhile for this one and it is finally here.

New Mount

Frankenbunny Bride Pet

New Gear Sets

Gear Set 1 – All Souls Death/Ice

Gear Set 2 – All Souls Fire/Myth

Gear Set 3 – All Souls Life/Storm

Weapons – One from Each Set

New Wigs

Unicorn Wig

Giraffe Wig

Have you opened any 2017 Gloomthorn Nightmare Packs? Let us know what you got in the comments below!

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Comparison of the Main Quest Lines
of the Wizard101 Worlds

Part 2: Celestia – Zafaria – Avalon – Azteca – Khrysalis

Anyone who has quested through the Spiral has noticed that not every world is the same. Some are much longer than others. Some have more dungeons, while others have more Defeat and Collect quests. This article will add some specific numbers to how the worlds differ from one another. In part 2 we will look at the second arc, so Celestia through Khrysalis.

Quests and Tasks

Little recap from the previous article! As you know, a quest is a series of tasks that have to be completed in order to get xp and advance in the story line. As such, you may have realized some quests have only one task (e.g. talk to Ceren Nightchant), while others might consist of many things (talk + mob + boss + interact + talk).

If this reminds you of my main quest line guides, good! This article is based on the information from my main quest line guides. We have these guides:

Wizard City, Krokotopia, Marleybone, Mooshu, Dragonspyre

Celestia, Zafaria, Avalon Azteca, Khrysalis, Polaris Mirage

Wysteria Grizzleheim Wintertusk

Amount of Main Quests

The Average World

The “average” world is the world you would get when you calculate the averages of all the worlds in the Spiral. This world is just fictional, it doesn’t exist If you want more detailed explanations of what the “average world” is like, check part one of this series!

The Second Arc’s Main Quest Line

Talk Tasks

Just like in part one, the task that takes the largest chunk of our quests is talking. Of the worlds in the first arc, Dragonspyre had the least talking tasks: 44%. Two worlds of the second arc dip even lower than that, with only 38% talking in Celestia and 41% talking in Azteca. Celestia is in fact the world in the whole Spiral where you do the least talking! This comes with an increase in interact and collect tasks.

If you ask me, Avalon is the perfect world for talking, as exactly 50% of the tasks there are talk tasks. I love this world also because of the content of the talking, as there are many Monty Python references in Avalon. The musical references in Zafaria are cool too though!

Explore Tasks

The amount of explore tasks in each world of the second arc is higher than in the first arc. Khrysalis has the most of them: 17% of all the tasks in this world are explore tasks. While Khrysalis is super long, it’s still rewarding to get the “task complete” sound just for entering areas. Do any of you remember the quest in Khrysalis where you follow a mouse until it goes into a cave where you fight it? I kind of liked that quest xD It’s similar to the chase after Meowiarty in Marleybone.

Avalon has 14% exploration tasks, Zafaria and Azteca have 13% each and Celestia has 11%. This means none of these worlds are anywhere near Polaris yet, which has 24% explore tasks.

Interact Tasks

Interact tasks are tasks where you have to press x close to a certain object. While in the first arc the amount of interact tasks keeps going up (1% -> 3% -> 10% -> 14% -> 22%), in the second arc they go down again. Celestia continues the upward trend with 30% interact quests, but then we take a dip with 19% interact quests in Zafaria, 16% in Avalon, 15% in Azteca and 14% in Khrysalis. This downward spiral continues into the third arc as well, as you will see in part 3.

At this point in your questing journey, you’ve surely thought about how we can fit all those huge items into our backpacks to bring them to the people that asked for them. Azteca takes that to the extreme, with the GIANT statue in Mangrove Marsh and the wonderful Azure Moon Stone. Check out that last link, it explains so much!

Collect Tasks

By collect tasks I mean the following: “interact tasks where you interact with more than 2 of the same item in a row”. I had forgotten that Celestia had so many of them: 3% of the main quest tasks in Celestia are collect tasks! It sure felt like a lot when I recently quested through Celestia after a pause of several years. The pieces of coral in the Grotto were the most annoying, as I kept getting pulled into battle. Some of the things that you need to collect do respawn very quickly, which I felt very happy about in the Science Center.

Zafaria and Avalon didn’t have ANY collect tasks according to my main quest line guide, which seems suspicious. I must have missed some there, right?!

Azteca has 5% collect tasks, making it the world in the Spiral with the biggest percentage of collect tasks. There’s the mushrooms and the Fire Quetzal cages in Cenote, the Orbs of Natron in Mangrove Marsh, the Moon Flowers in Saltmeadow Swamp, the Sea Cucumbers in Pitch Block Lake etc. It’s been a while since I last quested in Azteca, but 5% sounds like a lot, if the 3% in Celestia already felt tedious.

In Khrysalis you have 1% of collect tasks. The only one I remember of those is the one in Fort Rachias where you destroy 5 shadow weapons. They were nice weapons!

Mob Tasks

Avalon has the least mob battles: only 4% of all the tasks are the kind where you have to defeat a mob. I remember actually liking the mob battles in Avalon. They were rare enough for me to like doing them!

Celestia and Zafaria each h ave 8% mob battles, while Azteca has 10% and Khrysalis 11%. I’d say we go back to the way it was in Avalon, please?

Defeat & Collect Tasks

Now we get to the part you’re probably most interested in, if you’re interested at all! Defeat and Collect tasks can make us very frustrated, which was especially the case in Zafaria. Since the release, Kingisle has reduced these quests, to the point where it didn’t feel half that bad last time I did it! However, please note that Zafaria only has 5% D&C tasks! The problem in Zafaria wasn’t exactly the amount of D&Cs, but rather that it was so common not to collect anything battle after battle.

Celestia has the most Defeat and Collect tasks in the second arc: 7%. The ones I dislike the most are in the Science Center. It’s bad enough that you don’t always collect, but do these D&C mobs really have to be mixed with OTHER mobs? It’s very frustrating to only get ONE mob creature of the correct type and three useless ones.

Avalon has 6% of D&C tasks, Azteca 5% and Khrysalis 4%. Spoiler for part 3: the downward trend continues in Mirage and Polaris, yay!

Boss Tasks

In the second arc Avalon and Azteca tie for first place with 9% boss tasks. That’s nothing compared to Krokotopia with 24% bosses, if you remember from part 1 of this series. Celestia has 8% boss tasks and Khrysalis 6%. I liked the amount of bosses in all these worlds, no complaints from me!

In addition to regular bosses, you also have cheating bosses and battles with multiple bosses. From Celestia till Azteca, we have a consistent 1% of cheating bosses. In Khrysalis there’s an increase to 2% cheater tasks. Part 3 of this series will reveal that Mirage takes the cake with the biggest amount of cheating bosses, but you’ll have to wait for that for a while!

Complex battles are battles where you face several bosses at once, or even several cheaters. This is the case at the very end of Zafaria, in Mirror Lake. Zafaria is quite simple when it comes to bosses, with only 4% boss battles and 1% cheaters. Mirror Lake is our first contact with battles with several bosses while questing. You could say it’s our second encounter, because there’s Waterworks at level 60, but since Waterworks isn’t in the main quest line, it doesn’t show up in my data.

Azteca has 1% complex battles, which comes down to three battles with a double boss: one in Cloudburst Forest, one in Pitch Black Lake and one in Twin Giants. While you do face two bosses in these battles, none of them cheat, so I don’t even remember these.

Khrysalis also has 1% of complex battle tasks, which means eight battles. One of these battles is against the 4 Deep Spawns in the Starfall Sea (the amount of them differs based on how many wizards are doing the instance). Those guys were STRONG Storm creatures! You fight two of them again in Ruined Alcazar. The last five complex battles are in the Shadow Palace. In these you don’t only fight multiple bosses at once, but they cheat! Quite the shock when it’s the first time you do this! It starts with the doom tree, which I absolutely love. After that, you face a double cheat three times in the Galleries: Kravenly the Hunter + Ghost Dog, Balor the Broken Fang + Santa Muerte and then Archmagus Lorcan + Lord Ombra. After that there’s Morganthe herself still! These complex battles form an excellent ending to a way too long world.

Puzzle Tasks

Sadly, puzzle tasks are rare in the second arc. In Celestia, you have four in the final instance, Sanctum of the Sun. Honestly, I still don’t know the solution to one of them, I just keep pressing x here and there until it says the puzzle is completed. I love the one where you open the chests and bring the swords to the statues. There’s also the small puzzle in the Stellarium.

In Zafaria, you have the one puzzle task in the quest So You Think You Can Drum, which is lovely as well! It took some arguing the first time to agree who would complete the puzzle, but that’s usually the case with puzzles, isn’t it?

Avalon has two puzzle tasks; one in the Wild and one in the Wyrd. The one in the Wild, inside White Owl Tower, is another one of my favorites. It’s the one where you have to put together a potion by selecting the correct ingredients. I’ve messed it up a couple of times, but it’s just a lovely task. The other one in Avalon is lovely as well! (Who am I kidding, they are ALL lovely! I love puzzle tasks!) It’s the one inside the Tomb of the Nameless, where the clues are on a tapestry on the wall and hidden on items inside the room.

Azteca and Khrysalis have zero puzzles, if I can believe my main quest guides. Misthead == sad.

Conclusion

The second arc gets harder the further you get, with more cheaters and more complex battles. It’s interesting to see how the different task types develop through the worlds. It’s been ages since I quested through these worlds, so I only had vague memories about these quests. It was nice to refresh my memory while writing this article!

Was anything a surprise in this article?
Let us know in the comments!

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PhD in PvP: Introduction

Duelist readers, I want you to think back… way back… all the way back to elementary school.

In those days, school tended to be designed towards the average student. This meant that if you were smarter than average, it wasn’t particularly hard to excel. Sure, the rules might change a bit from year to year. Think for example of that fourth grade teacher who insisted that you write every assignment in longhand cursive – and the sigh of relief the next year when you were allowed to type your assignments for a change. Still, most of the time, it did not take that much energy or effort to do respectably. And the system was designed so that you really had to *try* to fail!

The first real change to this system happened in high school: the classes became more involved, the work became more challenging, and you were expected to take on more responsibility as well. Nevertheless, though, you were still competing against the same people as you had been in grade school. So even if class rankings looked a little different here than in grade school, failure was still pretty rare and it still was very attainable for most to do well.

But it’s in college that things really changed. Because of selective admissions, the people who were in the bottom of the class before are no longer there. So that means that if you were in the middle of the class in high school, you’re probably going to be in the bottom of the class in college. That said, enough people are still in the game at this point that you don’t need to be *that* exceptional to be near the top!

Finally, we move from college onto graduate school. The only people left in the game at this point are those who not only have shown significant aptitude for the subject, but have enough inclination for the subject that they’re willing to turn it into their entire lives. So even if you were at the top of your class up until this point, you’re not going to be exceptional… or even average… unless you’re as willing to invest enormous amounts of time and effort as your classmates.

Now what does this have to do with the game known as Wizard101? The answer: I feel that the evolution of PvP over the history of Wizard101, from the first age to the second age to the third age to the fourth age, very closely mirrors the transition from elementary school to high school to college to graduate school.

I) First Age (2008-2013): The Grade School Years

If you were lucky enough to PvP in the earliest days of the ranked arena, you’d notice that the majority of people didn’t really prepare for battle at all. The average PvPer would show up with standard dropped gear (mostly from mobs) and the type of predictable strategy people would use for PvE mobs or bosses. And it would be a select few players that would go onto strategy websites at all to learn how to play much better than that!

So if you were new to the arena in the beginning of first age and were serious about PvP at all, here’s probably what went down. A simple Google search would probably take you to some Central strategy guides for your school of choice. Following the guide for deck and spells, your first few matches would probably be very easy wins against unskilled opponents (with the possible exceptions of the occasional challenging match against a Warlord 15-25 levels below). You wouldn’t start seeing serious competition until somewhere around 700 rank, and things wouldn’t get particularly hard until you did well enough to start facing 800-rank opponents (as the cost of full Arena Gear was 158 wins and 800 rank).

Nevertheless, one day you’d hit 800 rank while having at least 158 wins to your name, at which point you’d go to Diego, buy your Commander Gear, and no longer be at a physical disadvantage. From there, it would be smooth sailing onto Warlord. Eventually you’d start facing opponents sufficiently challenging that you’d struggle to win half of your matches, but you’d probably solidly be in the Warlord range at that point.

Over the years, a number of changes affected PvP: the addition of a trainable, hatchable, grindable form of gear known as “Advanced Pets”, the increase of the level cap (replacing Arena Gear with Waterworks Gear or crafted gear), and various changes in the ranking system.

But, at top level, none of them really increased the difficulty of getting to Warlord at top-level PvP; after all, most of the average PvPers didn’t really put in any effort into being hardcore/competitive. (In fact, even a year or two after Advanced Pets came out, you’d be well above average at these ranks in the Arena if you had an Epic Pet with Spritely, Spell-Proof, and any two other talents!)

The only thing that really changed the difficulty of getting to Warlord was the changes in the ranking system, and then only at mid-level: for a year or two in the 2010-11 range, the PvP ranking system did not factor in level when determining point changes after rank. So by the time you reached 700 rank or so, most of your opponents would be Privates about 10 levels ahead of you. While the system prepared matches designed to give you a 50/50 chance of winning, you would actually need to win about 3/4 of those matches to maintain your rank as wins would give you 8 points and losses would cost you 24. Similarly, by the time you hit Warlord, you’d be looking at opponents about 20 levels ahead, 2 points up for a win, and 30 points off for a loss. As such, many mid-level (Adept and Magus in those days) might find getting from Commander to Warlord to be a tedious, meaningless slog: once they reached 800 rank and got their Arena Gear, they might search for more interesting PvP challenges than “defeat nearly all Level 60 noobs in Waterworks Gear”.

Nevertheless, that PvP glitch was fixed in mid-2011 and with it, the only real obstacle to making Warlord in First Age. If you’ve been with Duelist from the start, you’ll notice that Duelist came into being around 2012 with PvP strategies, as did Mega Pets (which made it easier to have a good pet but harder to have a perfect pet). As you can see from the guides in those days, it wasn’t much of a challenge to be enough better than the average duelist to make Warlord. The focus was either on “easy” ways to make Warlord or on more challenging strategies/guides/narratives: dueling well above Warlord level in rank, challenging 2v2 setups against “puppet teams” featuring a top level wizard when your own team probably only has Adepts and Maguses, and winning against the skilled competition you’d find in a Central tournament. Oh, and there was also Kevin the Noob…

Part two will be here soon!

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From Zero to Hero:
Beginners’ PvP Guide

Part 2 – Non-Fighting Essentials

PvP is a fantastic Wizard101 endgame activity but it’s also the hardest one. Requirements to even survive in private ranks are insanely high, not to mention obtaining that shiny warlord badge. Sounds pretty scary, right? Don’t get discouraged, we’ve got you covered.   In this second installment of the Zero to Hero Beginner’s Guide we will be covering PvP non-fighting essentials.

This From Zero to Hero guide is divided into four parts and we’ll cover everything you need to know to start being competitive in the Arena. Don’t get scared about this wall of text, which is aimed at privates. The road to higher ranks becomes significantly easier once you master the basics. Imagine this as a life process. It’s really hard to learn how to walk. However, once you do learn it, figuring out how to jump and run becomes a much easier task.

Before Starting With Ranked PvP: Part 1
Part 3 link coming soon!
Part 4 link coming soon! 

Have a Lot of Gold!

And no, a lot of gold isn’t only to supply your tournament shenanigans. You’ll need gold for them, that’s for sure, but that’s just the beginning. Pets are another costly thing and these two things alone can make your hard earned gold disappear in no time. And when you get all the gear you need and a good pet… well you’ll need to waste some more gold. You’ll need to purchase all those sweet treasure cards in order to maximize your chances of winning PvP matches.

If you have a high level wizard or own several gardens you might be good, but obtaining large amounts of gold on lower levels can be an issue. That’s why it’s highly recommendable to have at least one high level wizard. It’s going to make your farming life much easier. There are plenty of good places where you can farm for gold, but Halfang in Vestrilund is by far the most popular choice among wizards.

Make a Good Deck

Having a well-constructed deck is quite important. There are plenty of spells to choose from and you need to find out which belong in PvP and which don’t. The number of available spells is way too long to list, but here are some basic things (besides attacks) you might want to add:

• Spells that buff your attacks (blades, bubbles);
• Spells that de-buff your opponent’s attacks (weaknesses, shields);
• Minions;
• Auras (infallible, fortify);
• Heals and heal de-buffs;
• Sun enchant spells (damage enchants);
• Shield breakers (shatter, DoTs, double hits, off-school attacks).

Be careful that you don’t fill your deck with too many attacks. You need utility spells to build up your pips and include more strategy into the fight. Just think about how many attacks it usually takes to finish the fight. You definitely don’t need 30 attacks clogging your main deck, especially since you’ll most likely have plenty of back-up tc’s anyway.

If you’re struggling with creating a good deck set-up, you might want to check some set-up videos on youtube or check some guides on our site or other forums, such as this or this.  Just keep in mind that this should give you a general idea of how a deck should look. What works for someone else might not work for you. You can try adjusting it right away or try some ranked matches to see which spells you don’t need and which ones you’re missing.

Know your opponent

The first thing you should do after entering the battle ring is check what school your opponent is. You can do that by clicking on the Menu chat bubble -> Battle -> Battle orders. You’ll see the position (Dagger, Key, Moon, Eye,…) along with a wizard’s head. In 1v1 you can ignore the position because only your opponent is displayed, but in team matches you should pay attention to not mix up the schools.

The most important thing is the color of the wizard’s outfit. This will tell you what school you’re fighting:

• Death: black;
• Myth: yellow (Careful! female Myth colour can be easily mistaken for life school);
• Life: green;
• Storm: purple;
• Fire: red;
• Ice: blue;
• Balance: brown or white, depend on gender, females have a white hat

Now when you know the school, you can start discarding according to this knowledge (for example you don’t need fire/storm shields when fighting a death wizard).

The next step is determining your opponent’s playstyle. If they never heal and like to keep hitting you, you may want to discard all infections/dooms and focus on shielding. On the other hand, if they’re hyper-defensive you can play a bit slower and set up your attack. Forcing your opponent into your playstyle is an important aspect, but in order to achieve this you’ll often need to adapt to them first.

The best way to figure out how your opponents playstyle is by watching matches. Watch matches around your level and rank – scout your possible opponents so you’ll be prepared for them before even starting the match. Now, I’m not saying that you should watch matches all the time, but to choose appropriate ones when you do.

Chatting?

Did you ever wonder why there is level 1 talking instead of the player in  the fight? Or why they don’t say a word, despite you being polite and saying “Hi”? It’s connected to the previous paragraph: they don’t want you to know anything about them. While chatting is nice, it can wait until the end of the match or at least until you both have figured out what you’re wearing and how you’re playing.

If you talk, people can and will click on your name and check your damage, resist, pet, etc. Then, they will play according to what they see. For example, if you have a pet with enfeeble they’ll be careful with blades and use extra storm dispels. If you have no resist they’ll save one round by not casting infallible. Having a large healing boost will make them pay some extra attention to infecting or dooming.

DON’T give your opponents any unnecessary advantage.

Sportsmanship

Treat others the way you want to be treated. The wizard101 arena is no exception. If you are much better at PvP than your opponent, don’t trash talk or discourage them by talking down to them. Instead offer them help or at least provide some tips on how to improve themselves, even offering a hatch works. Many players want our pets, but are simply too afraid to ask. You’ll do much more than just helping a player out. You’re spreading positivity, which can work like a chain reaction. After you help them, they’ll help someone else once they become better.

The same rule applies to losing matches. Especially if it was unfair and your opponent rubs their win to your face.  Don’t encourage them, just take a few deep breaths, say “gg” (if you want) and port away. A Lot of players want you to get upset and start talking back. You know what they say: don’t feed the trolls. It can be a hard task, but you’ll feel much better once you learn how to avoid talking to them.

So, what should you say after the match? There’s nothing wrong with remaining quiet, but a simple “gg” is a nice gesture. If you feel that “gg” might be a little inappropriate due to the flow of the battle, you can use an alternative like “Well played” or “You did well”.

Learn from Mistakes

We all love to blame RNG and the turn system for losses. While there is some truth in that, that’s far from the only reason for losing. Was there a situation where you bladed instead of putting up a shield? As a consequence you got hit, and the battle snowballed from there on? Or did you put up a shield and your opponent simply removed it with a fire beetle? There are so many things that influence the battle, even a small change could make it flow completely differently.

The best way to analyze your matches is by recording them. Record them and rewatch them later, you’ll get a totally different perspective when you’re not actually fighting. In addition, while watching, always ask yourself “what could I have done to prevent my opponent from doing what he did”. In the example above, you could have waited for your opponent to start blading and then placed the shield. Wasting blades for a 2 pip attack is simply not worth it. Of course this is going to cause a different reaction, but you’ll analyze that after the next battle.

What if you can’t record your matches? Then you should analyze your matches right after they end. You could wait until after a few more matches, the important thing is that you don’t wait too long so you don’t miss any details. You can even write down your ideas on a piece of paper or in notepad on your computer. You’ll probably go through many iterations for certain events, but that’s part of the learning process.

When all Else Fails

Sometimes things just will not go your way, it happens.  Do not play angry or upset, walk away, take a break.   If you play when you are angry or upset you are almost guaranteed to make more mistakes, so just do not do it!  Most times stepping back will help you see where things went wrong or what you could have done better.  Remember at the end of the day PvP should be enjoyable!

Are you still determined to work your way to the top?  Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

The post From Zero to Hero Part 2: PvP Non-Fighting Essentials appeared first on Duelist101.

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Bringing Newbies Back to PvP

Part 1: What Happened?

As many people have noticed, PvP is not the same as it used to be. The player population has declined significantly and less and less pvp matches are being played. It has gotten so bad that KI is actually making a dedicated effort to revive PvP, something that tells us that they’ve realize how much potential money they stand to lose from a failed PvP system. While there are many reasons the arena is the way it is today — one of the biggest factors is the disappearance of the new player(Newbies). This series of articles will explore the causes for this disappearance, how we can bring new players back to pvp and why a healthy newbie population is good for the game.

What Happened to the Newbies?

A quick look at the message boards, the forums or even in game will tell you that lots of new players are still playing the game — at least in PvE. So why aren’t they joining PvP? There are a number of factors.

Toxicity

This has been a complaint since almost the dawn of PvP but it is still just as valid as it once was. Players who set foot in the arena will likely encounter some form of toxicity. Toxicity takes many forms in the arena. It can take the form of insults or taunts. It can take the form of constant harassment or deriding a player’s chosen playstyle. It can revolve around something as small as looking down on someone for having a failed pet or imperfect gear. In the worst case scenarios, the toxicity can devolve into racial slurs, threats and emotional abuse. While many with experience in competitive games outside of wiz know that this toxicity is unfortunately par for the course, it comes as a massive culture shock to the player base of Wizard101 (which is made of newer players and players not familiar with the competitive mmo scene). Many of these players use Wizard101 as a way to relax and de-stress. As such, the stress created by a toxic arena environment runs counter to many of these players’ reasons for playing wiz in the first place. Thus, many of these players will leave PvP as soon as they encounter this type of toxicity or avoid PvP from the start.

Consequences of toxicity

-Deters PvE players

-Deters new players at all lvl ranges

-Leads even experienced players to quit PvP

Barrier To Entry

The barrier to entry refers to all the busywork that must be done before a player can even set foot in the arena. It refers to the gear you must acquire, the pet you must train, the spells you must craft, the jewels you must acquire etc. I have previously written in detail about the barrier to entry and ways to alleviate it. KI has addressed the scenario to an extent with the addition of a level 50 elixir and decent max lvl wands available via crafting. However, the sheer amount of work necessary to become battle ready deters may players from even setting foot in the arena in the first place. Other motivated players may take months acquiring all the prerequisites by which time the meta may have changed, a new world may have been released etc. This usually means that the player will have to hunt for new items, new pet talents and the like which can be incredibly de-motivating. The barrier to entry is the gift that keeps on giving and it will continue to become more and more pronounced as the game expands.

Consequences of the Barrier to Entry

-Deters max lvl players from participating

-Delays motivated players from joining pvp

-Exhausts players every meta shift(they have to hunt for new meta effective gear, design new pets etc)

Inequitable Gear

The inequitable gear problem refers to the massive stat advantages commander gear gives compared to any other acquired gear at the lower level. As a result new players attempting to enter low level-magus pvp are put at a humongous statistical disadvantage. This disadvantage remains even after a new age rank reset, as commander gear requires a commander rank to purchase but can be equipped by any rank. This means that at all times a new player coming into PvP at a lower level is going against a vast experience gap AND a vast equipment gap.

Consequences of Inequitable Gear

-Deters low level and mid level wizards from joining pvp

-Puts newbies at a massive stat disadvantage even after a PvP Age reset

-Prevents newbies from acquiring the very gear they need to be competitive

Matchmaking System

Kingsisle’s matchmaking system has always had flaws and this age is no exception. Thanks to a lower player population and the algorithms of the matchmaking system- players with vast level and rank disparities often end up getting matched. A rank 0 lvl 120 vs a rank 2000 lvl 50 is sadly not an uncommon occurrence. This match-up is unfair to both parties but especially to the lvl 120 rank 0 wizard. Why? Simply because that wizard has nowhere near the vast experience that the lvl 50 overlord has and is consequently summarily dispatched. In these matches it is a lose-lose scenario for the inexperienced level 120. Oftentimes the level 120 will endure taunts and jeers from the opponents and spectators who note the massive level disparity. If the inexperienced 120 wins(a rare occurrence), the level 120 will blame the victory on rng or shadow magic. If the 120 loses he/she is taunted for losing a match against a wizard more than 50 levels below.  This kind of match-up is very prevalent and is the main reason many lvl 50’2 can obtain 2000+ rank. They simply “farm” the high level-low ranked players to quickly and consistently gain rank. As can be imagined, losing consistently to lower level wizards is incredibly demoralizing and turns many inexperienced high levels away from the arena for good.

Consequences of the Matchmaking System

-Creates unfair match-ups for both sides

-Deters and demoralizes new, max level pvpers

-Prevents max level newbies from learning strategies applicable to their level range

Interview with Vanessa Mythdust

Recently, Vanessa Mythdust(PvE and Pet Derby extraordinaire) decided to give max lvl PvP a try for the first time. I was fortunate enough to act as her mentor for her first time through PvP. Vanessa was able to give us an interview offering her unique perspective on what it was like being a newbie entering PvP.

Eric Stormbringer- What motivated you to give PvP a try?

Vanessa Mythdust- I decided to give PvP a try in hopes of earning a PvP Warlord badge to match my Pet Warlord one. In the process, I also hoped to better understand the system and challenge myself in a different type of atmosphere. 

Eric Stormbringer-You started Pvp relatively late in your career. Why did you wait to start?

Vanessa Mythdust-  There are 2 reasons why I decided to start late. The first is that I was already involved in so many different aspects of the community. Between moderating, running derby tournaments, and helping people quest, I didn’t know if I could take on another KI hobby. So, I only decided to dip my feet in when things started to calm down for me. The other reason was PvP’s “toxic” reputation. The PvP community isn’t known for being a welcoming one, so I will admit that was somewhat of a turnoff for me.

Eric Stormbringer-What did you do to prepare for PvP? How long did it take?

Vanessa Mythdust-  After my first few matches, I did start to feel a little more comfortable. I was still losing, but I thought I was improving from match to match. I immediately started to realize how fast I needed to make deck decisions. As someone who has a tendency to hold onto my cards until later (from PvE), I ran into some trouble with that. To succeed in PvP, I would need to have a good grasp on when I needed certain cards and how to get them. I think you referred to that as tempo. Although I was fine in the gear and pet department, it became clear that it would be hard for someone to compete without the “best of the best.” A lot of my opponents had fantastic builds. 

What Are Your Thoughts on the Declining Newbie Population in the Arena? Let us Know in the Comments Below!

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Wizard101’s Birthday Tournament:
Event Recap

Our tournament is over and now we’re left with nothing but memories! I hope they’re good memories for all of you! They are for me, though I did a lot of hard work behind the scenes. In addition to memories, some of the participants got something extra in the form of a code sent to their email. If you think you won something, be sure to check your email!

The Tournament

For the tournament, we had a lot of people sign up at the very last minute. The latest submission was half an hour before the event began! Please try to sign up a little earlier next time. I know it’s fashionable to be late, but it would make things easier for the crew if you did it on time. Still, better late than never.

I personally didn’t get to see much of the matches, sadly. I was too busy making sure everyone knew where they had to be and informing the participants of what they were supposed to do. There was some confusion as to why everyone couldn’t just watch the tournament, but I’m glad we made that decision. It reduced the lag in the tournament house dramatically and kept everyone off the battle circle. We let everyone port in to see the last match and I’m glad to say everyone behaved perfectly! I’m a worrywart: I always worry everything will go wrong. Thank you all for proving me wrong! Also: nobody broke the PvP rules, you guys are awesome.

All matches ended within the 20 minutes that we considered the maximum amount of time allowed. That made our job a little easier, because we didn’t have to play Diego and pick a winner. If you remember, we planned to count who did the most damage in total and let them win if the match wasn’t over by the 20 minute mark. So Angel Dawn did all that math for no reason at all!

Here’s an image of the participants of the tournament:

Our grand winner was Michael DragonRider, who received a code for 50k crowns for his efforts. Everyone that participated in the tourney did get a prize, so nobody went home empty handed. I hope you all had fun! Chris Moonhunter already told me he definitely wants to join again next time, haha.

The Live Stream

Our first live stream went well! Our very own Alex Thunderstaff did a great job of keeping everyone informed about the tournament. He was definitely entertaining to listen to! Cody Raventamer joined him for a little while as well. There was an average of 40 people watching the stream, which we think is pretty good for our first stream ever. Alex dropped some codes into the Twitch chat now and then, which were redeemed by faster-than-light code ninjas. Congratulations to those who managed to snag a code on Twitch!

The Fashion Contest

You guys have an awesome fashion sense! However, this contest caused some confusion for people not following the live stream. All participants seemed to feel a little bit awkward about standing on the giant chess board, waiting for our verdict. There was only one winner for this contest, which was kind of sad, as so many of you were dressed up uniquely! You really put some thought in your outfits!

Eventually, after some debating, we picked Paul Sunbright as the winner for the fashion contest. He was either the first or second choice for everyone who participated in voting for the winner. Some other names – including John Dragonrider, Vanessa and Madeline Rose – were mentioned as well, but sadly didn’t quite make it.

The Hide and Seek Contest

Surprisingly, not very many people went looking for the hidden items! Or maybe they were too well-hidden?

Four people emailed us a picture of the Raven. Madeline Rose was the first, with a 15 minute headstart on the second finder. The raven was also found by four people, with Andrea Drake being only four minutes faster than the second finder. Close call! The beach ball was apparently the hardest to find, because we only got two emails about that one. Blaze Fire Wizard won that price, well in advance of the second finder: 44 minutes faster!

All three winners got a code for 9k crowns emailed to them. Congratulations to you guys!

The Casting Symbol Screenshot Contest

This contest is still open, actually, as we have received only five submissions so far! The idea is that you take a screenshot of yourself casting a spell, with the casting symbol shown (see example here). We will pick two random winners from the submissions, who will get 2.5k crowns. So if you haven’t done this yet, please send us your screenshot as an email to duelist101.pvp@gmail.com. I’m hoping to make a new article, in which I would like to show off all your beautiful submissions.

The Organizers

So what did the rest of the organizers think? Here are some of their thoughts:

Jeremy Ravenhunter
I really enjoyed the event. It’s nice to see so many people at one place. Seeing them hanging out, playing mini games and searching for items we’ve hidden. Seeing fans and players happy is something I value the most and the event provided that to us. It was also a nice learning experience for myself and I’m sure that the next event will be even better!

Cody Raventamer
The event had a really great turnout of people from the very beginning. I loved people wondering around my house and having a good time, especially when everyone started playing wildfire tag. The PvP was superb! The fact that everyone was friendly to each other demonstrates how Wizard101 has some of the best players and best online communities. To top it all off was the amazing fashion contest which to be completely honest was really tough to judge since there were so many great outfits. Kudos for originality guys!

Angel Dawn
It was fun! I’m not usually into fashion, but seeing everyone in all their unique dress-up was interesting. I enjoyed the PvP matches as well, they were a good example of how RNG dominates PvP -especially at max level- and how the participants handled it. All in all, I had a great time collaborating with the Duelist101 team and can’t wait until the next event.

Alex Thunderstaff
I loved being able to stream and interact with everyone who joined me via Twitch. I believe the quality of the stream was perfectly acceptable and was at loss of words when at one point of the day we had 60 viewers! Watching everyone PvP and participate in our fashion contest went pretty well.

The Next Event?

Alex said it best: “I know we can improve and it is possible to throw even more tournaments in the future. First off we need to poll players and learn whether the majority of our audience prefers YouTube or Twitch and if our audience wants to PvP at some later time in time. For the matches itself, we need more people willing to sign up before the event starts, I had some people who looked interested to join during the tour. Besides our little bumps, I do want to see Duelist101 PvP some more and next time hand out even MORE codes! Thank You KI, you guys are the best!”

Thanks to everyone who was involved!

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