Gear Shocker

Some friends and I were dueling with a Myth, Storm, Life, Balance combo of wiz tonight.  After the duel and the usual rudeness dispensed by the more stunning team... I "statted" their myth wizard.  I was more than a little shocked to see 48% resist all myth gear!!!!!!!!!!
The best outfitted Ice I know has about 55%!  Maybe it's possible to set up more than that for ice gear but I've not seen it yet. 

I have to admit it's frustrating to be the "tank" class and not actually be a tank compared to bigger hitting classes.  What's good for Myth is certainly good when they get together with storm it seems.  Frustrating that the health/shielding isn't really working for ice with pierce stat and the pierce that comes with accuracy boosts.  And that's just on the shield side... a lot of the wizards now have roughly the same health as Ice.  In the old days Ice had at least 30% health on most of the schools.  Now it's lucky to have 5%.  But the sadness doesn't stop there... the main damage schools are hitting harder percentage wise as well with incredible tough plus and insane critical.  This leaves ice in the dust in several statistics where ice's shielding would usually put it on par or close footing.

Critics would say the big per-pip ice shields are the balancing factor, but with pierce, and the other shield breakers readily available and quake and readily available, steals etc, you can't keep them on for long. (believe me, I've tried)
Something to ponder if you're about to start an ice wiz with the intent of growing him up for arena.  Other schools are almost as good at tank and hit way harder.
Vale

p.s.  This last post is a lot of frustration talking.  I'm frustrated in general with PVP at the moment.  Death weakness spam seems to be the staple of 3v3 and 4v4. Paired with a storm to throw Siren that makes all your blades go away and hits you for an insane amount and put a fizzle on everyone.  I've also been gearing up for a rant about insane life dispel casting as well but that's another story.  Maybe in time I'll see some way around the spam, but for now I'm leaning toward bringing back the wall of shame that I used to have for chainers.  I'm not going to say who was spamming tonight but his name rhymed with Jeffrey Dragonbunter ;D  Thanks Jeffrey for reminding me to speak up about a growing problem.

Merry Christmas! - Peace and good will toward all

I was having so much fun today I almost forgot to post.  The twins Cody and Logan were not thrilled about having Christmas on a Sunday.  This year being the first that we haven't had guests or family to help the time feel extra special. Add on to that, we didn't have snow this year and everything seemed a little odd!  However the spirit of the season and pumpkin pie fix just about everything even snow-less, guest-less holidays.

From our IRL family and Wiz family to yours, we wish you peace in this new year.  I hope you will also find opportunities to be charitable as it seems like there is a lot of trouble in the world these days and extra kindness is needed in a big way.

If you have any projects or ideas on charitable causes via your blogs etc please let me know and I'll try to help you promote them and or assist.  All in all, make this the year of making a difference.

Peace and good will to you!
~Vale

Changing realms for fun and profit

Wizards who have played Wizard101 for a long time know things that are hard for new players to figure out especially for those without open chat.  So in answer to a question on a crafting post I thought I'd show those that don't know how to change realms a quick how-to.

Changing realms can help with:
a) finding more crafting material including more items per pick-up unless someone has beat you to it
b) getting away from a crowd if you can't get your team into an instance because there are too many random people joining
c) help you collect more items quickly in collecting quests
d) can help you find more of a particular kind of monster to fight
e) can increase your chances of collecting drop items

 First click on the Gear on the far right tab.  Then click on the dark spheres on the top tab set. (These are the realms)  You will then see the Realms controls below...

You will generally want to pick a realm that is in the normal to perfect range.  If the computer serving up the realm is big it may have several areas within that realm.  They're basically like additional realms just on that same server.  When you pick a realm and go to it you will notice that everything is the same except there may be fewer or more people.

So play around with it if you haven't used it and if you do use realm hopping you probably know these tricks plus a few.  Do write us with tips or ideas you think new and old wizards need to know.

Thanks!
Vale

It's about time I decorated for Christmas!

My friends were prompting me to get into the spirit and change my header.  They were sporting some holiday colors so I dug up some old clothes out of my backpack, ironed them, dyed them.  We tried to get some photos in the commons in front of the big tree but ended up having to go to Amber Song's house to get pictures in front of the Christmas tree.

Duncan, Kestrel, Amber and Kelly were kind enough to wait through about 20 minutes of photo taking (or so it seemed).  In the end Kestrel, the photographer in real life, got better shots than I did.
I appreciate my friends and how they make my life brighter.  I appreciate my readers for being willing to put up with me and make my job feel worthwhile.  I hope that you all get to be near family and friends whether IRL or on Wizard and make some memories. (And maybe take some pictures!)  See the post Virtual Tourist in a Virtual World to find out about taking pictures and how to get good camera angles and get rid of the clutter on your screen.
See you around the wintry spiral!
Vale

Code for Wizard free lights

Wizard101 is giving free Christmas lights to decorate your house with.  Sign into the web site and redeem your code lights

https://www.wizard101.com/game/twelve-days-wizard/free-lights

I had trouble getting in with IE9 so you may want to try Chrome or Firefox if the page won't load.

On the 11th day of Wizard...

Check out the Wiz poetry contest!  The winner gets 60,000 crowns and a special mystery holiday pet!

So be thinking up some good winter themed rhymes and go to Wizard's facebook page to enter or to this URL: poetry contest entry page

Have fun WINNING!
~ Vale

The 12 Days of Wizard

On the twelfth day of Christmas Wiz gave to us... a moose?  Well, that's how the song goes anyway.  This one is not a promo for them to give away, but it's for sale. Proceeds go to charity so this is a good moose to have if you want to have a nice ride and know that you're doing some good at the same time.
This one seems to go 40% faster than your wiz and provides presents of some mysterious type.  We'll have to wait and see what that's about but I'm guessing maybe it gives a crafting or few wiz coins each day.  IDK.  Let me know if you get one before me.

https://www.wizard101.com/game/twelve-days-wizard/chrismoose

See you around the spiral ~ Vale

Spells I most want to see

Do you have any cool spell ideas?  Here are a few that I'm hoping KI will consider adding.

Spy - Allow you to peek at an opponents spell selection.

Immunity - Pick a player on the opposing team. See a standard set of their school's attack spells.  Pick one and if it's the one they actually cast you have immunity against it.  Doesn't work on non-attack spells.

Blind - Make an opponents card hand appear greyed out.  They have to guess which of several cards they can't see is the one they want.  They can still cast but they don't know what it is they cast.

Proc My Pet - Make your pet have a 90% chance to cast it's may cast spells for 3 turns.

Rescue Pet - Put your life force into your pet for one turn. X-pips.  This makes you immune from hits for one turn. Your health is returned from your pet on the next turn.

Reverse - Just like in Uno, this spell changes the caster's turn from second cast to first cast.

Love spell - Make someone on the other team your helper for the entire battle. 14 pips.

Switch lives - Put your opponent into your spot where they receive the hit meant for you. (kind of like beguile but puts you on your opponents team as well for 1 turn.

Poisoned pill - Cast on yourself for 1 turn.  If an opponent kills you it kills them instead even if you only had 10 health and they hit you with a minor strike for the killing blow.

Ultra-charge - sacrifice yourself to add the ultimate blade 100% to your team mate.

Upside down - make the tough rating on cards opposite so that strong hits are weak and weak hits are strong.

Final sacrifice - give up your remaining life points in a match to fully heal your team.

Violence ward - increase likelihood of being missed by a spell entirely.

Bull in a china shop - a huge bull runs around critically and randomly damaging players unless they have a significant amount of Violence warding.

If you have some cool spell ideas please comment and I'll add them.

Vale

Fire PVP and Rowan's book launch

My buds and I jumped into all fire PVP tonight with a couple high level wiz and a couple level 60.  Except for a lot more fizzle and therefore some untimely deaths it was pretty easy pickings.  It seemed to me that my fire was missing some gear but I haven't heard that's been a problem so I have to assume my memory has gone bad or something.  (7 crit block is just nasty for pvp)  It also felt like crit procs are down even though my wiz stats are the same.  Has anyone noticed this?  Storm wiz didn't have any problem throwing crits constantly which is great if you're questing with one but not so cool on the receiving end in pvp.

We took some turns in 3v because there were no teams in 4v and reported a few people, complemented a few people, won some and lost some.  But most of all it was nice to see my buddies again.  It's been a busy week with the launch of Rowan's YA paranormal book "Become". (Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com)  We just got through with her IRL launch party and book signing at the karate studio.  That was fun!  Wish you all could have been there to join the fun and see the demos.

See you online!
Vale

Pet for long-time Wizards

Wizard101 is sending out a major thank-you to LONG TIME players in the form of a new rare pet.  What does it look like you ask?  Something like this!

So if you're a long timer... check your email. 

Enjoy!



Vale

My conversation with Morganthe

It's not so much that I oppose you but I really need the XP!

 I told Ambrose he should have added a school locker combination lock! Those things never open on the first try. 

Big deal. I think I have about 5 of those in my bank.

Well, maybe you're getting closer to being a match for me then!

 Snack?  I'm more like a happy meal... I hate spiders but squishing them is what I do best.

 Hear the horn?  Just send a text it's easier and you can send little frowny faces with your evil messages.

A thousand wild bolts and leviathin later... victory!

Why do rhymes always go with evil plans and not with good plans?  I'll think one up, just give me a minute...  Like to hear it?  Here it is: "Ice team will form, frost will fall, Morganthe will get pwned and give lots of XP for all..."  Yeah!  That's my un-evil plan rhyme.

~ So Morganthe becomes super powerful after getting her deck of shadows.  It seems to me that she is inferring our next encounter will have something to do with Darkside.  I guess we can't be certain but it might make sense that she would try to attack Wizard City by way of Darkside. 

What is your theory about how Morganthe will return?  In a new world or in an existing one?

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!
~Vale

Finishing Zafaria

A couple friends were kind enough to give me a trip to the end of Zafaria on a private safari if you will...  We got a video of the drum puzzle at the Elephant Graveyard.  It's tricky so you might want to check it out before you spend too much time.
After that we went to the final instance to chase down Morganthe who seems pretty shy about facing us for some reason.  Ultimately her minions are quite the pain... first a set of ice minions then a set of storm with around 10,000 health give or take a little.  They get good power pips and throw some big spells.  Not to mention they will really pick on a person especially if their health is low.  You can generally redirect them if another person hits but beware giving them too much time to focus on one person.  We took some crit bolts and some tritons and leviathins.

I got some video of some of the battle and the final scene cut with Morganthe.  It's pretty short but lets us know that she's perhaps growing more powerful than ever.  (not good)
Anyway, I'll try to post those up as soon as I can get Youtube to convert them.  If not I can host them on one of my sites. 
There is big XP to be had in the final battles!  Be sure to pop an XP elixir and go have some leveling fun.  I didn't use an elixir but leveled twice!  It's good to have buddies who have lots of time on their hands!  (A hand-up is always appreciated)

See you around!
Valerian

ps: Here is the location of the first Monkey in Zafaria.

Rumor has it new world is being released in the morning!

I've heard it now from several reliable sources (Suri, Duncan, and Fallon and Wizard 101's book of faces... facebook) that the new world is being released in the morning.  KI does like their Friday releases!

If only I had enough warning to take the day off to celebrate!

See you in Zafaria tomorrow!
~ Vale

Book Party Launch

We got together at Suri's house last night for the book launch.  We gave away some pets and customizeable signs and a book!  Rowan Watertamer (Ali Cross) did an intro to her book and did a reading from it.  We also did some impromptu duels at Suri's arena.

I recorded a video but it turned out slightly too long to play so I'm posting some pictures instead. 

If you like young adult paranormal fiction why not go check it out?  Personally, Ali's writing is engaging and immersive. She writes great action and has put out the first book in a series that is intense and will keep you reading.  http://www.alicross.com/p/become.html

If you have an amazing "first" in a virtual world, be sure to contact us to help you pull it off!

~ Vale

Another first for our blog!

To check out more about the book Become and attend the online launch party and our wizard launch party go check out this YA/A thrill-ride on: http://www.alicross.com/p/become.html

Getting ready for Zafaria

For those that are not yet done Celestia you might want to get a move on!  To get into Zafaria you need to be done the Trial of the Spheres in order to unlock the new world.  So for those of you grinding through the Science Center or the Crustacean Empire (less frustrating than the Science Center)... you are almost done!  Don't give up!  Organize a questing party with your friends and finish up.

See you there!

Here are some pictures from my last tour there :)

~Vale

Zafaria coverage Day 3.

Welcome to zafaria day three! Lot's more has been found, but like yesterday, today is about spells.

Today we have the last of the spells!


I can't help but be sad by the death one.

it does around 825 to a single enemy and convert. thats all. not really much.





This is a pic of chimera,



310 damage of life death and myth to a single enemy.







I'm still waiting for a video of basillisk, to see what it's really like, but hopefully coming soon!

Zafaria Coverage Day 2

Hey guys! This is day two of zafaria test and we have some spell pics!

More coming soon!










We're still missing exact numbers on the death spell, the katzenstein type one, but it looks good. also, missing balance spell stats.


We have seen myth spell, but I Havent got a pic of it yet.



We also have 2 new astral spells:


Mend; +20% heal

Berzerk; +40 outgoing heal +30 ingoing heal.



I hope you guys have fun in Zafaria! Keep testing!

New world Zafaria and new spells!

By Cody Scoop Writer

Wizard101 has given IGN a spoiler video showing the new world zafaria and new spells!

Here's my guess on names and effect.

Balance: Chimera (Spirit Hydra.)

Fire: Volcano (Huge damage to all enemies or to one.)

Ice: Stampede (Big damage to all enemies or to one.)

Storm: Frankenstein (HUGE damage to one.)

Myth: Basilisk (DoT to all or to one.)

Life: Gnome Attack (damage to one, or all.)

Death: Not spoilered? WHAT?



Massively Zafaria
MOG Zafaria
MMORPG Zafaria

More Wizard101 Videos

Happy Halloween

Any spooky spook who doesn't have school in the morning is playing Wizard101 tonight.  Let us know about any big Halloween bashes you have.  For the crew in the pictures below, along with Keira and others like to get together and read fortunes and just have a spooktacular time.

Happy Halloween everyone!  Stay safe.

I'll post some pics of our real and virtual Halloween

~Vale

Getting ready for book launch banner

One of our fellow wizards Rowan Watertamer has a book coming out on 11-11 that will have a live Wizard launch party on 11-12!  I'll post the info and you're all invited! 

So we were toying around with a banner picture to use for the promo ad.  Of course we got a bunch and will be making one into a banner ad for the book BECOME. I'll tell you more about it soon but for now here are the pics of Rowan with our gang of usual suspects.  I tend to think of us as Ice team or as the Duncan posse.  We'll be your book launch party escorts so be sure to stop in on 11-12 and we'll give rides to the the house where it will be hosted.
Keep in mind it will be trimmed to a narrow banner and have text added but which ones do you like?

1

 2

 3

 4

 5

 6

 7

 8

 9

 10

 11

 12

 13

 14

I think I had my eyes closed on that one!
Post a comment and vote for your favorite.

Valerian

Don't forget these amazing Wizard cards with gear and crowns

Super Bundle

• Enormous Safari Palace
• Great Hornoceraus Two Person Mount
• Great Axe
• Chieftan's Outfit
• Pet Giraffe
• Mystery Teleport Tapestry
• 1 Month or 5000 Crowns

See Super Bundle Retailer »


Hawk Rider Bundle

• High Flying Hawk Mount
• Night Hawk Pet
• 2-Handed Clay More
• Ranger Outfit
• Teleport Tapestry
• 1 Month or 5000 Crowns

See Hawk Bundle Retailer »

More Spoilers?

Wow! We have two more spoilers! Comment if you would like to know their translations!

mmorpg.com: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4517555#4517555
zam.com: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=28089

The first spoiler code was:  Down in the depths

The second spoiler code looks like: At the top of the world

The last spoiler code says: Find her here

This is obviously a reference to Morganthe as Alex Rivera one of our astute readers hinted.  So in the depths at the top of the world?  What could that refer to other than perhaps the depths of Celestia.  Maybe it's a center of the earth thing like the old tale of Pellucidar.  I have to admit it's a mystery.  Let us know what your guesses are as to where we could find Morganthe?  Maybe this links off of a dark reflection of Wizard City under Wizard City?

Hmm.  Let the speculation begin!

Death arena teams

In arena Death wizards are having a bit of a hard time in 3v3 and 4v4.  I'll attempt to explain why.

Most teams now depend significantly on the use of gargantuan on their arena spells.  But most arena players now use gargantuan on smaller multi-hit spells.  This means you are getting hit even on the first turn and probably every turn for the first three passes.  Meaning that as a death wizard with poor resist and poor health you'll take about 2200 damage before you even get a chance to hit with a multi-hit spell.  So either you need to use wraiths and just chip away at one single player which isn't a viable strategy in 3 and 4v or you have to cast crow as often as possible with or without blades.  The Wiz makers did in fact add a sweet new spell to Death that decreases the opposing teams hit.  However, that spell costs 3 pips, and crit often makes it less effective, which means that to keep the other team dampened you basically have to use all your pips keeping dampening up or you just have to let them hit and try to save your pips and hope to survive and get an unblocked crit.  And the irony is that Death probably has the least crit block of all the schools too. :(

One for instance was that we fought a storm team that:
1) stunned us
2) did a tempest (each of them) 2600 total damage total even through shields
3) then each did a tempest again on one pip
- Game over -

On the last pass we assumed we were safe because each of them had a snowball pip but to my surprise the single snowball pip tempest without blades from the first player hit 490 after a critical block!  I thought those were supposed to be 80 per pip but it seems that with gargantuan and the incredible 70-90% tough plus that storm wizards can juice up to using special gear that if they have the right tough rating you're just plain dead.  But even so it makes one wonder if there isn't a miss calculation somewhere and maybe the critical block didn't actually block the critical completely? Who knows.

So far Death and life are the only schools that don't have low-pip multi hits even though life still has a low pip multi-heal.  Without a low pip multi-hit and with poor shielding and poor health Death wiz are having a super hard time in multi-v arena and still just so-so in 1v1.  Since the changes in the game my death wiz has dropped rank faster than a court-marshaled General.

In all the doom and gloom (pun intended)... death minotaur is certainly a bright spot. Without him there would be no chance in 1v1 and 2v2 pvp.

If there are any death wiz out there that are still doing well (1400-3000+ rank) in 3v3 and 4v4 please comment and I'll contact you for an interview.

Valerian Nightbringer

I think I cracked the Code!

I think it says Central moderators are on a power trip.  This weekend I'm closing my Wizard101 Central account in favor of DiaryOfAWizard.com.  Why you ask?  - good question -

Central banned Cody Skyrider (scoop writer) -  yes! our very own Cody got banned and our IP address along with it.  So I can't log in without using TOR or something like that.

In any event, in solidarity with Cody I'm going to close my account with them.  I've had my run-ins with their mods in the past as they didn't like something I had to say or I commented that some were allowed to break the rules while they threatened my account being banned over silly things. (once I made the horrible mistake of referencing a friends blog)  It seemed as though the world was about to end and I had to beg forgiveness for a good while before I was allowed back on.  Cody's been banned a couple times for innocent comments and this most recent one for telling the moderator that there were several threads covering the same topic of a thread he opened a couple days earlier.

While I don't make it a policy to take things out on people publicly for their questionable decisions.  In this case I'll make an exception because Central mods didn't consider that by banning Cody by IP address they'd also be banning 3 other wizards in the family including me.

Anyway, farewell Central!  But all is not lost!  I love DiaryOfAWizard which is a super great site that offers more than Central and does it while allowing you to talk about, link to and create your own blogs! (all ban-able offences on Central)  My good buddy Fallon Shadowblade runs DiaryOfAWizard which has a really nice interface and she does a fantastic job of keeping it up.

See you on www.diaryofawizard.com

Valerian Nightbringer

New world code

In case you didn't zoom in on the picture below.  There's a code on it to decipher.  It's a code is used sometimes for emergencies.  See if you can crack it!

Vale

New World Spoiler!

Wizard finally saw my mayan/aztec idea, and decided to take thier own spin on it.

- Cody Scoop Writer.

Tons, And Tons Of Stuff!

Well, as most of you know, Wizard has just released a special "Nightmare" Pack.

This pack comes with lots of great new pets, Like the golden armored skeleton, the Gob-o-lantern, and Myth Banshee!  It also has an awesome set of gear called the dark wraith gear.  The dark wraith gear is really cool, both looking wise, and stat wise!  It also comes with an amazing nightmare mount, with very good detail and beautiful art.  And the best part? It's only 300 crowns! So now you get even more bang for your buck. 
There is also a new Walmart mini mega card, The Hawk rider set!

This is an awesome set, with a really cool flying hawk mount that looks amazing, an awesome new set of gear, an awesome hawk pet, And a sweet two handed sword!  You can find this at walmart for 30$ about.  And the most amazing?

The new Gamestop MEGA BUNDLE!

This amaaaazing new bundle comes with an awesome TWO seater Great Hornacoreus (Sorry Idk how to spell it XD ) that's really amazing, and so much fun.  A 1 month membership OR 5000 Crowns, great set of gear called the chieftain gear, an amazing blade with amazing art called the dancing blade...

And 1 Humongous house!

The house is really awesome. I truly love it, and I'm also happy because i think wizard got it from my Mayan/Aztec type world idea!   It has a couple secret passages, as well as a giant ape that will give you a gift once a day!  This is really a must buy, and I'm so happy wizard was nice enough to give vale a code as well as extras for family!

These are all amazing sets!  Check out some pics from Vale's place:

You could say I'm a "hawk" when it comes to defending the spiral

I don't ride, I glide

                                                                                
The jungle force is strong with this one 

 A little Mayan vibe mixed with King Kong

 Oh, wait! There IS King Kong! - oh and he gives you stuff -

 What's a Wiz house without a waterfall?

 I'm in awe.... aaaahhh!

 Checking to see if the roofers fixed that leak from last monsoon

 A balcony that's perfect for eating out

 An arena so you can beat up on your guests

 One last look at my island paradise

 oh, wait... there's more!  a back balcony.  (can see the hawk pet here)

 Admiring the new summer house with my new pet giraffe

 "opulence... I haz it!"

 chillin with my wild pets, you know, like in the jungle...

 Some pets fly more gracefully than others when shot from a cannon

 sweetness!  and this is only the half of it.  I'll post more pics soon.

- Cody Scoop Writer.