Monday, January 30, 2012

Call for Spell of the Week

Ok folks, it's time to run another spell of the week, and even though it seems like I'm preferring fire spells 3 times out of 10, I gotta do another fire spell. LOL. Time to cast up your best FIRE ELF!


I think there's going to be a lot of competition on this one since it's so easy to find and we're only choosing the five best fire elves! Make it awesome! Good luck!

Send a screenshot of you casting a Fire Elf to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (31 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 01 February.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Angus Wins by a Hair in Grand Chasm Past

I've been inspired lately by a reader of this blog named Rylee Icehaven. Rylee is a really nice wizard of the spiral who's been taking on the Angus Unicornpants challenge. Rylee says there's a swear jar for this character (you know, a jar where you toss in a dollar every time you accidentally let loose with a swear word) but has made it to Newgate Prison in Marleybone. :) I've been there, done that. Playing an Angus character is tough.

That inspiration coupled with the fact that I've taken enough time off from playing Angus to recover, made me ready for more this morning! BRING ON THE PAIN!

It wasn't too bad actually. I started off with a sidequest involving taking out General Greystone in the Plaza of Conquests. He fell easily enough, and I was feeling pretty good about that win since it was coupled with a Death Cyclops pet! That'll go nicely in the shared bank for Thomas. I think that'd be his second Death Cyclops if I remember right.


Next, I went back to my main quest line and finished out the current and past versions of The Grand Chasm . . . including the grueling march through the security tower to charge the crystal that powers the time machine. Again, not too bad!


The Firetusk fight in Grand Chasm Past was an interesting one, but nothing too terrible other than those hitpoints I had to chew through. That's definitely something about Dragonspyre . . . everybody has enough health to make them dangerous, even Vasek Ashweaver. He's solo, but he still has 7,000 health.

I actually made the mistake of going into this fight at half health, which for Angus is like 500 health. whoops! I recorded the entire fight, but it's really the last few moments you have to catch.


:)

Now it's on to the Necropolis and our old friend Sylvia Drake. :) I'm not really looking forward to the Labyrinth. Gulp.

Happy Dueling!

Falmea . . . NOW THAT'S SOME HOT SAUCE!

Imagine my surprise as a gift arrived in the mail from a local VIP on the Friendly Necromancer blog, Mr. Todd Rogers. Todd is awesome sauce, but I had no idea of the lengths he'd go to pull off the most awesome wizard101 fan gift ever!

LOL

I remember Fred Howard one time saying to me back in 2009 that he wished fans would "do more" for Wizard101. Since that time I think it's pretty safe to say the fans have gone the extra mile for their favorite game.

This is the latest example:


HAHA! It's a bottle of Falmea Hot Sauce. I really got to hand it to Todd here. This is awesomesauce at its finest . . . goes well with taquitos.


I probably shouldn't have opened that bottle. (Actually, I didn't open that bottle. Amber opened it when I had my back turned.) It is labeled after all . . . it's bottle 49 out of 48. I ain't kiddin'.

Todd tells me he shipped the other 48 to KingsIsle's offices as a holiday gift. He reserved the 49th bottle for me. Is there a 50th bottle for him? I think he told me he did that if memory serves me on that particular conversation.

Anyway, I will definitely keep the bottle, but for now it's in with my collection of hotsauce in the fridge. I gotta have me some hotsauce.


Thanks for the gift, Todd! *toasts with another bite of falmea'd taquito*


RAWR! TAQUITO BITE!

SPICY Dueling!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Spell of the Week -- Minotaur

This week's spell is the mighty . . .

Minotaur!



It's truly an awesome myth spell and what many would call a "class defining" spell for Myth wizards with its shield breaking strike before delivering a final blow (although, Myth wizards have many unique spells in general--stuns, minions, etc.). Once you cast a few minotaurs you start to understand the real value of a blade over a trap. ;) Deadly in PvP and against single targets, Minotaur is a spell that totally says in your mind as you cast it, "HEY! *point* Don't freaking mess with me!"

You can find this spell not only in the Myth line (available at level 33), but also on treasure cards and on about five different items in the game.

We received 15 entries from wizards around The Spiral, each casting the Minotaur spell with much awesomeness. However, in an effort to narrow this down, my family helped me select our five favorite screenshots. Check 'em out!

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Mitchell Battleflame:


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Alexander Dragontamer:


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Blaze Shadowhorn:


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Julia Dragonsword:


Julia adds, "I have added some items from Greek mythology such as the minotaur's lair in the labyrinth (thats where the fight is located), the minotaurs brother getting revenge on Theseus (a guy in greek mythology who killed the minotaur), and lastly the string as the compass! Thanks for having this contest and have a great week! :D"
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Kyle Firesword:


Kyle adds, "Hello Friendly, here is my Minotaur screenshot! My quote is "This is what happens when you drink too much Red Bull, you become a Minotaur and start wanting hugs!" (the minotaur in the picture looks like he is going to hug the other minotaur) Thanks! Kyle Firesword :D You probably cant see my pet life Minotaur I have equipped or my Blood of the giants badge, but they are both there!"
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Thanks everyone for the great pictures!

Happy Dueling!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Call for spell of the week

Ok folks, it's time to run another spell of the week, and this week I'd like to give our Myth folks a shout out with the Minotaur spell!


Look at that! It's me with a minotaur casting a minotaur on a minotaur. ;)

Send a screenshot of you casting a Minotaur to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (24 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 25 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

This time I'll be narrowing it down by asking my family help me choose the top five, so do your best work!

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Happy Dueling Hour Podcast

I announced this over Twitter yesterday, so many of you already know about the new podcast Bailey and I did for Happydueling.com, but in case you didn't hear about it or don't tune in to Twitter, here's the link!

*Click for Happy Dueling Hour*

For now we're only planning on having this be a monthly show . . . or whenever we can convince nanamancer to watch the kids for us and we've got the time. Eventually we'll figure out how podcast RSS feeds and Itunes podcasting works, but for now, this is what you get. LOL.

The show itself talks about all the games we play (including Wizard101) and even dabbles in board games and classic gaming. (It's just basically me and Bailey getting together to talk about games hehe.)

Send in ideas for the show here: happyduelinghour@happydueling.com

Thanks everyone!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

spell of the week -- Centaur!

Hello readers! We have a great spell this week:

Centaur



Centaur is simply a straight up damage spell, a classic spell, that for the cost of six pips will unleash a powerful life attack that does 515-595 damage. At 90 percent accuracy, it's hard for Centaur to miss. :) This card is available as a treasure card and an item card, and you can find all about where to get those from visiting Wizard101 Central's wiki page for Centaur.

The best part of this spell though has to be its animation, and the readers of The Friendly Necromancer did not disappoint. I couldn't bring myself to pick just five of these. I will be doing that eventually, but here they all are! Thanks everyone!

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Mark Deatheyes:


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Timothy Shadowslinger:


Timothy adds, "Here my centaur screenshot. Although I didn't catch it I love how the arrow makes a tree grow which then explodes and implodes."

Awesome job!
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Destiny Soultamer:


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Edward Lifegem:


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Diana Wildheart:


p.s. here's Diana's blog addy: http://dianawildheart.blogspot.com

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Allison Deathwielder:


Allison adds, "LOL. ever since i had chosen life as a secondary i had regreted it because there were so much better things i could have trained. I would have bought back my tp's, if i had the crowns, but i am kinda glad i didnt at the moment, because thx to my lousy tp use early in the game, i had a centaur that i could just cast, yay.

Also, Friendly, I would like to know what made you choose this spell. Just a simple question, was there any reason behind choosing the specific spell?"


Thanks Allison! Well, at least as a life secondary, you'll always have a heal spell for when you're in a group! I actually chose this spell because I was playing Molly Earthsong this week. She's one of our life wizards. :) That and I haven't done a Life spell yet for spell of the week . . . Myth is next!

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Blaze Shadowhorn:


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Eric:


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Slibs Hobbleface:


Slibs adds, "Since I couldn't cast Dr. Von's Monster, now I can redeem myself with a 5,406 damage centaur! YAY!"

Nice redemption hit! :)
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Heather Blade:


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Cassandra Dragonheart:


Cass adds, "Here is MY shot of 'ol IronHawk --reference to one of THE best guide writers from Wiz101central who has since retired."

I really REALLY miss Ironhawk.

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THE Joseph BlueFlame (life wiz):


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Elijah Stormheart:


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Seth Hunter:


Seth adds, "woo stringless bow attack!"

ROFL!
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Alric Dragoneyes:


Alric adds, "Hey Friendly,

It took a couple of tries and some editing to get this shot.

Keep doing what you’re doing, it’s awesome."

I shall Alric, thanks for participating!

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Fin Deathfinder:



Finn adds, "Hi Friendly. Thanks for the amazing blog, and this fun spell of the week thing. It must be very hard to organize it. Thank you for working so hard on your blog. We can all see the amazing job you do on each post.

-Fin Deathfinder

Oh ps the people in the first picture is Rush.(From left to right. Alex Lifeson. Geddy Lee[as the centaur]. Neil Peart. Oh and every one knows Kermit the frog.)"


NIEL PEART! :) Hey! I'm a drummer . . . of course I know who Niel Peart is. LOL.

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Kyle Firesword:


Kyle adds, "Hello Friendly! This is my picture for the spell of the week of centaur! I decided to do it in the Elephant Graveyard, because I thought it looked creepy, sacred, and awesome all at the same time! :D Have a great week to you, your family, and all of your readers!!!"

Nice one, Kyle!
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Alexander Fuego Audaz!


Alexander adds:Hi Friendly!

This spell of the week event is very fun! It's to sad that you have to upload to many pictures...

Well if your going to start choosing just some pictures I'm going to put extra effort on them.

By the way, thanks for the codes you game in previous weeks for this, but where can I change them?


thanks for the extra effort, Alexander! If I've ever given you a code, just go to www.wizard101.com, log in, and click the "redeem card or code" link that pops up on the left hand navigation column. Thanks!

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Chris has the perfect trifecta of pictures:



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Thanks everyone for your submissions! Centaur is a great spell and you all didn't disappoint. :)

Happy dueling!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Call for Spell of the Week

Love this spell . . .


Send a screenshot of you casting Centaur to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (17 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 18 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Molly Gets Her Gnome On!

Uber Wife and I have been trying to take a second and third set of wizards through Zafaria. It's always a bit difficult coordinating our schedules.

I got to hand it to Bailey though, she's done the "lionblood's share" of the work preparing her storm wizard and Molly (a mutually claimed life wizard -- it's a long story involving my wife swiping my life character and claiming her as her own hehe) by getting them through both Celestia and Wintertusk.

Last night though, I played Molly and Bailey played Bailey (her storm wizard named Bailey that is) in the big Z! Zafaria! By the end of the night we were finished with the Savannah. Man that's a lot of fire lion people defeating. whew.

We were both psyched when Molly earned her Gnomes spell and was treated to the Gnome visitation in MooShu.


It's too bad these new spell appearances don't stick around longer like the old ones, right? I love to hold my visitations open for as long as possible. :)


So, we now have a gnome caster in the Team Friendly family!

If we could inspire Amber to play her character more, we'd have two gnome casters! ;)

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

(Guest Post!) "Prince of the Forest" Spell from Lady Blade

I have a special guest post to share with you today from @LadyofBlades who keeps a great blog over at Lady of Blades. She shared with me an idea for a Life AOE spell that I thought was a pretty great idea. Check it out!

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Hello everyone, this is LadyofBlades. First, I would like to thank the Friendly Necromancer for giving me the opportunity to discuss my spell idea with you. Now onto the idea.

New Life Spell Idea

A few weeks ago on Twitter, J. Todd Coleman asked people to submit new spell ideas. I submitted one or two but a couple of days later, one came to mind that I really liked and have not been able to get out of my head.

If you have ever played a Theurgist (Life Wizard), your biggest complaint is probably, “No AOE until level 58.” Oh the glorious moment when you arrive in Shoshun Village and see the Forest Lord for the first time. Sure he costs 8 pips but what a spell. However, like everyone else, I would love to see Theurgists get an AOE at either an earlier level or that costs less pips so I came up with one that fits both criteria.

Some of you will get the reference but the spell is called “Prince of the Forest”. He is a giant stag that emerges from a forest, deals 350 damage to all enemies for a cost of 5 pips, and then casts Brilliant Light on the Caster’s team. Do I have your attention yet? Keep reading then and I will explain the details.

Casting: When cast, the battle circle becomes a forest clearing and the Prince emerges. He stares at the opponents for a second, then his eyes glow green and he charges head down, antlers first. He stops just as he gets to the enemy and moves his head back and forth, scratching the enemy with his antlers. To attack another enemy, he rears on his hind legs and comes down in front of the next enemy to scratch them as well. When finished dealing damage, the Prince turns and bows to the caster and each of the caster’s allies, leaving behind a 15% Brilliant Light.(Special thanks to Katherine Light for the Brilliant Light idea.)

Since it only costs 5 pips, the damage should be equal or close to equaling that of level 3 and 4 spells. I wanted to get the same effect as other AOE’s without going overboard. For example, Myth’s Humongofrog does the same amount of damage as Cyclops and Death’s Scarecrow does 400 damage but costs 7 pips so the Prince needs to do less damage than Scarecrow but more than a level 3 spell because of the pip cost.

The reason for only 15% on the Brilliant Light is that a normal one is 30% but it is a level 55 spell which is way beyond what I think Prince of the Forest should be obtained. The other AOE spells are all obtained around level 22 (Balance excluded since theirs is level 16) Regenerate is obtained at level 28 so possibly around level 30 or 32.

That’s my idea to get Theurgists an early AOE. Thanks for reading and may your days be filled with blessings and magic.

~Lady Blade

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Thanks Lady Blade! Keep up the great ideas. :)

Happy Dueling!

Friday, January 13, 2012

What time is it? (um, Game Stratagyst came in the mail time?) (um, Test Realm Time?) um . . . ?

It's pack-a-palooza time!


Great timing on behalf of KingsIsle! Just as I'm receiving my new Game Strategyst magazine with an article all about the packs in the game, what happens in the spiral? The Raven's Hoard Pack is released. WOOT!

Although MOG is dead, Game Strategyst is still alive and kicking, and it's a fun issue with articles on Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Webkins, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Club Penguin, Max and the Magic Marker, Free Realms, Super Mario Island, Poptropica, and just a ton more . . . including Wizard101 of course with an article from me.

The code in the magazine this time is one that gives you two random packs from their collection of packs. Let me know what packs you get from the code! I got the Hand of Doom Pack and a Mega-Snack Pack.

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The Raven's Hoard pack that is in game now is wild. I'm sure you've heard all about it, but there's a two-seater blood raven mount hidden in it that's amazing! Bailey got to take a ride in one.


I'm still hunting for my own. This pack has a Grizzleheim/coldness/bird theme going to it. From feather wall hangings, to frozen Grizzleheim warriors, to crow pets of every kind (including the exclusive black crow derby pet). There's a whole list of things over on the Central wiki. More info on the packs here.

Another main want from the Raven's Hoard Pack is the bow! This weapon is AWESOME! That's another one I'm hunting for still. I got the two-handed axe and a full set of gear, but no bow yet. hehe . . . check me out in my raven's hoard pack outfit.


It looks like I've got owl eyebrows.

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And LAST BUT NOT LEAST . . . the test realm is back online again and this time you can test out a ton of transformations (20 of 'em to be exact!).

Angus is NOT liking the change to starter wands at all, but whatever. That wand full of one pip damage spells from all the different classes is what made him get past Meowiarty. Recommendation? Start your Angus Unicornpants character before the test realm goes live!

There's all kind of exciting things going on in the Spiral this week. :)

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Spell of the Week -- Dr. Von's Monster

The Spell of the Week this week is currently the highest level spell in the Necromancer's arsenal. It's also the reason why I didn't get many responses for the Spell of the Week this week. You can't craft an item with it (yet) or cast it as a treasure card (yet). All in good time.

BEHOLD! DR.VON'S MONSTER!


As the card shows, it's a 9-pip life-stealing death-magic spell with the typical 85% accuracy and a little bit of a surprise punch at the end in the form of a -25% healing debuff kicker. Dr. Von's Monster is a nice replacement to Wraith in the progression of single target spells in the Necromancer's health drain line. It's definitely up there with pip count and is meant for larger and harder monsters than you'd find in any pre-Dragonspyre area, but luckily spells like Empower can help you get up to that 9-pip count quickly.

I received four entries into the spell of the week by four awesome necromancers. Check 'em out:

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First up is a picture from Claire:


Claire adds, "I never realized how hard it is to get the perfect shot. The first one criticaled, but i didn't get the picture with the hit. And then he had to go and death shield. If I could have gotten the words in, it would have said 'A little overkill never hurt anyone... except you.'

Thank you for giving me a reason to set a new record for myself. (Though I know it's not all that impressive)"


Claire! NICE HIT! You're right. I had to take my Dr. Von's picture at least 4 times until I could find one I liked. Thanks!

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Justin Shadowblade:


Yes! Definitely go check out Deathwiz.com.

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Eric:


OH MAN, Taunting the Storm wizards! LOL
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Allison Deathwielder:


Allison adds, "This spell was easy to find because, well, i am a necromancer lol. Anyway, You knew about Frank being the death spell before many of us. When its school was revealed, many people saw it as a rejected storm spell that was just dead enough to be a death spell. (or something like that.) I would really like to hear your thoughts on those ideas against Katz."

Some Death students seem to be burnt on this spell, and a lot of people at first thought this spell was a Storm school spell because of its original name (Dr. Katzenstein's Monster) and its lightning filled look. But, as we know, KingsIsle likes to take us to the movies. If there was ever a screen representation of classic reanimation of the dead, it's in the original Frankenstein movie where Dr. Frankenstein explains how he has stitched together dead bodies and found a way to use light beyond the Ultraviolet spectrum to bring random dead flesh back to life (even keeping a human heart beating without a body).



Truly a classic tale of necromancy. Reanimation of the dead (or creation of the undead as shown in that clip) is what we're all about, right? Makes sense to me!

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Thanks everyone for your participation!

Happy Dueling!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Call for Spell of the Week

It's time to take a look at the Death school of magic, and why not start with the newest necromantic spell of them all: Frankenstein!


LADY BLACKHOPE, Y U NO FRANKENSTEIN GIRLFRIEND?

Send a screenshot of you casting a Frankenstein to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (10 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 11 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Show me what you got!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, January 6, 2012

At long last . . . Grub Guardian

Sometimes KingsIsle just doesn't say a word. You know? It's not very often, mind you, that a press release or a community leader note doesn't show up when something new happens in game, but today was one of those days. I'm sure the announcement will happen in the next few days, but the most I've heard about Grub Guardian up to this point from KingsIsle has been, "It'll be done, when it's done." Well guess what . . . it's done--or at least close to being done. :)

I was casually browsing Twitter when I saw a few tweets about Grub Guardian being "live" from the awesome #twizard people. I immediately went to kifreegames.com and indeed found a Grub Guardian game on the site with a "beta" note by it, but it seemed to be working just fine, and before you know it, I was playing up my pets outside the confines of Wizard101.

I was bummed when I found out it actually wasn't in the game yet, just on KIFreeGames. I was also bummed when I found it wasn't in the appstore for my iPhone. Then again, perhaps kifreegames.com is the perfect place to run a beta like this.

If you're looking for Grub Guardian guides, there's already a dozen threads going over on Wizard101 Central. :)

Basically, Grub Guardian is a Tower Defense Game. You stack up your different types of guardians (each from a different school of magic) and they blast away at the hordes of baddies pouring forth and heading for your pet's food at the end of the trail.

What's extra cool is that your pet actually plays a part in the tower defense and at the end of the game, they gain pet experience and can even be fed pet snacks from your in game inventory (if you decide to play that way instead of for prize codes).


This can in fact lead to leveling your pet (although you don't really get to see what skills they gained . . . you have to log in to do that).


If you do really well at a level of Grub Guardian, you'll end up unlocking new, more difficult levels of play.


It's a ton of fun and can be really challenging. Once you develop a pattern of where to place your spells on the map and which spells to upgrade along the way, I'm sure it will become a lot easier. I expect YouTube videos of the patterns to be forthcoming any moment now. LOL.

Oh ok fine . . . let me be the first . . .



Woot! Oasis level done! Whew, now if I can just keep going. Some of these levels are tough!

Happy Dueling