Tales from a dad (Thomas Lionblood) and two kids (Amber Deathsong and Kyle Skystaff)
playing Wizard 101, an MMO from KingsIsle Entertainment

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The bloggers meet and greet?

So I've been hearing a lot about a meet and greet for bloggers sponsored by The Evil Theurgist himself. Here's what I could lift for the details:

Blog Meet and Greet!
When
Sunday, July 12 at 5pm eastern time

Where
Mooshu Jade Palace under the roof of where Mini Games are, Realm, Wu Area 1 if Area 1 is full we go to the next area down and so on

What to do
Meet other bloggers, bloggers meet fans, Trading cards, and a best Grizzleheim outfit contest hosted by me (Evil Theurgists)

Contest? Prize?
Winner gets Rebirth treasure cards, Scarecrow, and anything else I can find lol.

2 Rules
1: Must be Grizzleheim clothes
2: Have Fun

Teleport bus
Autumn Duskhunter will be running a "teleport bus" service for players that haven't yet unlocked Moo Shu. Meeting BEHIND Golem Tower from 4:55 -5:10pm EST

I think I got everything right there.

Oh YEAH! And Autumn Duskhunter even made a cool flyer.



Now the big question for me is . . . will I be there? Um, I will see what I can do. No promises from me since the diapermancer may have me occupied, but I will try.

Happy Dueling!

How do I disguise a life wizard in pvp?

Interesting question here from Brooke DawnCloud:
username=Brooke DawnCloud :D
Question=I am a life wizard, and i always get
killed first in arena. I don't have
enough money to dye my clothes, so is
there another way to make me not look
like a life wizard?

Hmmm. Good question. Well, at least your name doesn't have the word "healing" or "pixie" or anything healer'y in it. It's too bad your name isn't something that sounds more like another class. Like Brooke Stormweaver or Brooke Hexblood. Names can be a dead giveaway.

Let's see . . . I got it! How about if you use a treasure card from a different class that would normally be a locked spell (meaning you can't get that spell by choosing that class as a secondary). The damage might give you away though.

Tempest would be a good one since everybody is usually busy putting up storm shields and you can't really buy that at a library. Actually tempest is your best bet since you can cast it early. It's a much better choice than say a poison treasure card from a necromancer.

I don't know outside of that. Good question. Hey readers! Do you have any ideas on how to disguise your life wizard outside of these and given the clothing restrictions?

Happy Dueling!

how do you take pictures of your character AND oni and minotaur statues?

I received another awesome e-mail today that I'd like to share with you all:
hi friendly! love you blog!! lol
well i was just wondering how you take pictures of your character? um not with a digicam of course, (deleting this part of the e-mail to keep the secret secret) so can you help me out?
and oh btw, i dunno if this is on the blog yet but do you know where the oni statue can be found? and the minotaur statue?
thx so much, and sincerely, destiny deathgem (fellow necromancer)
NECROMANCERS RULE!

hehe. Thanks and YEAH NECROMANCERS RULE! /cheer

SCREENSHOTS
Taking pictures of your character is as simple as clicking the print screen button. The real trick is knowing how to make those screenshots look good and where to find them after you've taken a screenshot.

Here's a little trick to removing all the little window elements before you take your screenshot. Press Ctrl+G, and use the left mouse while dragging to circle around to the front of your character before pressing Print Screen. That hides all the chat windows and health indicators and yada yada yada.

Finding the screenshot means going into the Wizard101 folder on your harddrive and then going into a little folder called "Bin." That's where you'll find your screenshot.

STATUES
Yup! I know where those are.

Minotaur Statue--Dragonspyre--Plaza of Conquests--Karuvian Scargiver
Oni Statue--Dragonspyre--The Crucible--Katia Firewinter

Have fun farming those up!

Happy Dueling!

What do disarm and infection do?

I've got a couple spell questions here from our friend, Silverheart:
Question=I've got two queshtons. the
first is I have a spell called disarm
it's a storm spell I've tried useing
it on a few undead just to see what
happend nothing happend and also
what does infecion do i got one the
other day when the death tree was
giveing them out for free.


Here are the cards in question:



DISARM
This is a storm spell that's been in the game since the beginning. It's purpose is to remove a blade spell or healing boost from your target. You know, those cool spinning orbs around your opponents head. Cast that and the blade goes bye bye. Personally I think storm wizards got the short end of the stick with that utility spell. Look how cool the fire wizard version of that spell is.


This is one of the reasons why fire wizards win over balance wizards in pvp. Balance wizards buffing their judgement spell against a fire wizard is just giving the fire wizard free ammunition. I'd much rather steal a charm than bust it.

INFECTION
This is a brand new death card in the game (available from Mortis the death tree) that casts a debuff on your target. It is consumed when the player (or creature) casts a healing spell. Their healing spell will then be at 50% effectiveness . . . just like it was cast under the hood of a doom and gloom aura.


Infection is very specific where as doom and gloom is an over sweeping effect. You'll notice both of these spells have no affect on death school wizards. It's because we drain life not heal. That's a distinction that makes these spells ineffective against us.

Hope that answers your questions and gives you a better idea how those cards work in relation to other cards!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Reagent Map--Chamber of Fire

I did some running around in Chamber of Fire last night collecting nodes.



There's what I came up with! Let me know if you find any more there.

Happy Dueling!

What's the best way to use treasure cards?

I have a question here that I hope I can do justice.
username=Victoria Silver
Question=Maybe you can help me - what is the
best way to use treasure cards?
Right now I barely use them, because
they seem just a random assortment of
cards, and my main deck seems pretty
solid, I've got a lot of 0 cost things
I can use if I have a bad draw. What
should I be doing with treasure cards
to make them more useful?

I know, right?! I've got like a ton of these that I don't use. This has been talked about by a lot of people, but I'm going to give you friendly's version.

Consideration #1: You can beat the game without ever using one treasure card.

Consideration #2: There's usually setup time to using treasure cards "the best" way.

Consideration #3: Treasure cards in PvP is essential.

OK, with those three things in mind, let's talk.

Most treasure cards are junk. The best treasure cards are the cards to make new cards yourself; high level cards from your class; or situational shields, debuffs, or effects. Let's talk about each

CARDS TO MAKE NEW CARDS YOURSELF
Here's an example of the types of cards you can use to make your own cards with.



So the deal with those is you load a deck with your best card and you put a whole slew of these in the sideboard. Then go to Unicorn Way and find a spot where a bunch of noobies won't join in your fight. When the battle comes up, you discard a wand spell, and draw one of these treasure cards and apply it to your regular card. You keep doing this until you can't anymore . . . wand the monster that's been picking away at you to end the fight, and then start over.

Keep doing this until you build a huge stockpile of these self-made cards. Hopefully you have a friend to chat with or something else to distract you while you do this because it's time consuming and a little boring. But, having these cards will cut down your time when you're in an actual battle and will be using them.

So, to use these cards you set up your regular deck with only blades, traps, debuffs, and a couple emergency damage cards. You fill your sideboard with as many of your self-made cards as you can. AND YOU KEEP REFILLING YOUR SIDEBOARD AFTER EVERY FEW FIGHTS!

What does this do for you? I think you know the answer. Having these in your sideboard takes some of the randomness out of the game. When you have enough pips, you just discard an unneeded card, draw your monster card, and play it. No longer will you have to keep discarding and waiting for the turns to pass before your monster card *finally* shows up. It's just right there for you and it's a stronger or more accurate card than your regular card. perfect . . . except for that dreaded setup time I mentioned earlier.

HIGH LEVEL CARDS FROM YOUR CLASS
Notice I said "from your class" in the title of this section. You really don't want to be wasting your pips on a spell that isn't from your class. Sure it may look cool and it may "seem" to do more damage than a spell from your own class, but it's all about the power pips. The only time it might make sense to use a spell outside of your class is if you cast one of these three spells.



Those spells give you a short line of single pips. NOW, in that case, it makes sense to use a more powerful spell outside of your class; otherwise, you're just wasting power pips. I digress.

Say you're a level 40 something necromancer who does not yet have access to the ultimate AOE power for your class: scarecrow. It would be a very good idea to load your sidebar full of scarecrow cards.

I know that Myth wizards love the Ninja Pig treasure card. It's myth based, it's awesome, and they don't have a "single hit" 5-pip card outside of it. Do your myth wizard friends a favor if you find one of these Ninja Pig cards: open up a trade window and give them all your Ninja Pig cards. They'll love you for it.

SITUATIONAL SHIELDS, DEBUFFS, AND EFFECTS
Check out these treasure cards:



Those are just a few I had in my bags on Thomas this morning. In regular PvE play, I'm not going to be using these a lot, but in PvP, timing one of these is everything. Blocking damage is huge in PvP . . . and timing when you're going to block damage is everything. If I play a lightning shield card too early, most likely my opponent will break it with a weak lighting spell or wand cast. But if I play a lightning shield the moment before my opponent plays a Triton card against me . . . I win! In that case, once again, I'm using my sideboard treasure cards to take some of the randomness out of the game and adding predictability.

So, to sum up this big long post . . . THE BEST WAY TO USE TREASURE CARDS IS TO HELP REMOVE RANDOMNESS AND ADD PREDICTABILITY. And that's about it. Drawing from your sideboard will help you time your attacks and defenses.

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Reagent Map--Shoshun Village

I was in Shoshun Village checking out the reagent map made by Evil Theurgists and noticed a few additional spawns not noted on his map. Here's my update to it after about 80 cattails and 20 mistwood later.



Happy Dueling!