So, if you aren't familiar with my Angus UnicornPants challenge, here's a link. (In short, it's my solo storm wizard that I play with no clothes on and only a starter deck and starter wand -- he beat Malistaire) If you are familiar with Angus, then you know I left off at Optio in Celestia scratching my head after several defeats. It left me thinking . . . maybe I should rethink the Angus Unicornpants challenge in Celestia. But I also left off with this thought, "Polymorphs seemed to be the answer to wearing no gear since they supposedly have their own statistics."
So today, while harvesting my Evil Magma Pea Garden, I got an idea from the harvested Ninja Pig Polymorph card I saw on my window . . . said I to myself . . . I wonder, self, if the Ninja Pig Polymorph might stand up to the challenge of soloing Optio with Angus?
It was a bad idea. No definitely not the Ninja Pig Polymorph, but then I started to think. I remember not being able to buy cool Polymorph treasure cards with Angus, but I was able to trade polymorph treasure cards to him . . . so . . . mind blown. THIS MEANT I COULD TRADE DRACON AND TREANT POLYMORPHS TO ANGUS!
And trade I did!
I started out with one treant polymorph and one dragon polymorph. This ended in defeat, but I had got farther than I ever had got before.
The beautiful thing about the Treant polymorph card has always been that final cast of Regenerate right before getting out of the polymorph. This tactic remained as awesome as ever.
The beautiful thing about the Dracon polymorph is the potential to stack up a big hit. You get a bubble up with the Ignite spell, you break a shield and lay a trap with the Cursed Flame spell, you blade up, you trap, and then the 4 pip Firezilla hits a big POW with a lot of efficiency.
It took two Treants and three Dracons to crack that evil Optio Crab in two! Here's the round-by-round play-by-play
So, that's that . . . it's on Celestia! I highly doubt I'll be able to say (as I have said so many other times in the past) "Your gearz don't matter none," but I'm a little bit further in the Angus story line than I was yesterday
The announcement that the rules on Reshuffle in Wizard101 were changing happened several months ago, and with it I mentally signed off Angus Unicornpants. I logged him on this morning and did a couple of Halloween quests and a couple of old quests I hadn't done yet. I noted that it was pretty funny he didn't look out of place doing his battle training quests at all even though he's level 49.
I have several old side quests in his quest log that I never finished, and perhaps now is a good time to look back at those and finish them off in an attempt to level him a bit before attempting Celestia. After all, my real interest in Celestia was the Polymorph spells with Angus, and I think going back and padding his level a bit might just be the key that will help me progress. Defeating Malistaire with Angus has definitely been my most grueling pve experience in Wizard101 to date, but Celestia would be near impossible for Angus because of the difficulty ramp. Polymorphs seemed to be the answer to wearing no gear since they supposedly have their own statistics, unfortunately, I don't think crit block and critical are amongst those statistics.
Perhaps it's time for some new rules for Angus as well . . . maybe a larger deck is now allowed because of the reshuffle rule change? Maybe he can only equip a base set of crit block and crit gear? I don't even know if that exists! Meh, or I could just keep him au natural and just see how it goes.
Last weekend I had a pretty humiliating string of defeats against Malistaire with Angus. This weekend? *wipes hands clean* Here's your video proof:
This was Angus's winning deck against Malistaire:
Doesn't seem like much, does it? It's not. It made for a long drawn out hour and 20 minute long fight. (Much different than playing Kyle, my son's storm wizzie, in a full group where the whole thing wraps up in a few rounds LOL)
Here was the basic strategy I had to pull off to win against Malistaire with Angus:
1- The first thing that needed to happen was a lucky two strikes of Insane Bolt treasure cards to take care of two of Malistaire's minions. Why not three Friendly? Hey, it's hard enough getting two lucky strikes of Insane Bolt out in a row as it is! I probably could have pushed my luck and swapped out one of the minion cards for an Insane Bolt card, but knowing the way the Damage flies out of Malistaire, I kind of figured I'd need an extra minion card. And at 2,000 gold a piece, Insane Bolt cards could have made me run into a monetary wall pretty fast.
2- The next thing that NEEDED to happen was to get my storm minion up and taunting, then do my best to dance a line between protecting the minion and taking out Malistaire's final minion. As you can see from the video it was a difficult dance, and though I took out Malistaire's buddy, he also took out mine. Good thing I had a back up minion card, eh? SMARTZ!!1!
3- Treasure card of Darkwind was definitely the most economical way to get a boost to my damage for the entire fight. What you don't see from this video is . . . the failed attempt against Malistaire that happened right before where I made a lame decision to use Supercharge instead of Darkwind and a regular Stormblade and RAN OUT OF MANA! I definitely had to play more economically than say someone sporting 400 mana. Yup.
4- Shield, shield, shield, and shield some more. I cannot say how important it was to cast every single shield in my deck before Reshuffle. The easiest way to play these was to cast all of the 80% Death Shields on myself and all of the 70% death shields from Life School's Legend Shield card on my minion.
5- One more fizzle and a bad roll on the damage output of Triton, and I would have been toast. It was incredibly close and intense, and I liked that. :) It made the victory all the finer. I think Uber Wife was pretty done with me as I screamed at the top of my lungs a few times, NO I FIZZLED! or TAUNT ALREADY! or GET ME SOME CHICKEN! Ok, I never yelled get me some chicken.
So, there you have it. The big long drawn out story of Angus that started out in December of 2010 has finally (sort of) come to a conclusion. Quoting that original post, "He hopes to see you in Celestia . . . with nothing but the robe on his back, hopefully, soloing the majority of the way--no outside help from other characters or anything." For me that's mission accomplished, he's in Celestia.
I HIGHLY doubt Angus will survive too long in Celestia . . . the whole world is one giant gear check with crit gear and enemies beginning fights with a slew of power pips . . . and not to mention the cheating bosses, but HEY, how about those cheating bosses? Although I really was just aiming to beat Dragonspyre, my plan has always been to test out the limits of Moon Magic and Star Magic here since MOST of the Polymorphs have built in statistics like Crit Block and resistance and the Auras are helpful, but I guess time will tell!
This weekend I spent a lot of time on Angus. In fact, I dinged 49th and sailed through The Crystal Grove, The Secure House, and The Forum without hardly any problems. Chronius and Valeska gave me a little bit of trouble, but nothing else really provided this angry-looking no-clothes storm wizzy much of a challenge.
I gotta say though, standing in front of Malistaire's Lair felt pretty epic yesterday.
Opening the back dungeon door was difficult. These days you're up against two back to back 3 vs. 1 fights with tower shield-casting and weakness-casting ice wizard draconians. There's really no time limit like there used to be, now you just have to win both battles. I was defeated several times until a successful insane bolt treasure card at the very beginning of each fight made it a 2 vs. 1 encounter instead of a 3 vs. 1 encounter.
The door opened and there I was staring right at Malistaire.
The 4 vs. 1 evil spirit fight was next, and I was defeated many times there as well until a perfectly timed fortitude card coupled with a minion that quickly taunted the heat off me, and tripled with a lucky streak of power pips that allowed me to cast a bladed tempest took care of the four evil spirits.
Then there I was, and Malistaire was casting dark pixies at me like the mad man he is.
Actually if that's all he did that would be wonderful, but his dps is evil. I had hopes that if I took out one of Malistaire's minions that it wouldn't reappear as had been the case with Big Ben.
Nope. If you take out one of Malistaire's minions and are defeated, they just reappear next time you zone in.
Finally after bashing my head against Malistaire a number of times, I simply ran out of time . . . it was time for me to log off Wizard101 and join my Sunday Night Static group for our weekly Diablo 3 game.
Angus was soundly defeated by Malistaire.
This time.
If I've learned anything from Angus, it is this . . . determination, patience, dumb luck, and creative strategy are the keys to winning when the odds are stacked against you every time.
Eventually I think I could either get two insane bolts to fire off back to back to make the final Malistaire fight be a 2 vs. 1 affair instead of the 4 vs. 1 slaughter that it is solo. Or perhaps I could have Angus take up gardening and get some death ninja pig polymorph cards for the fight in the hopes that the death spell resistance on the death ninja pig polymorph is astounding. Those probably have a level restriction, so I'd have to go back through the game and finish all my side quests to pad my level, which would also help in surviving the fight (every 50 hitpoints counts). /shrug **EDIT: Apparently that Death Ninja Pig idea won't work due to the polymorph having no death resists . . . dang, thanks readers! **EDIT** Perhaps I could cast a vengance aura and somehow score a lucky critical on a tempest to wash away the three minions. There's lots I could still try.
For now . . . I defintely can't say the words "Dragonspyre your clothes don't matter none." I do believe If I was wearing a full set of awesome gear and had a deeper deck with a wand that gave me an extra power pip to start, I could take Malistaire solo as a level 49 storm wizard. Even though these fights are designed to be a group affair . . . I think I could solo him with that advantage . . . even just adding one more wizard to my party would do the trick . . . but that isn't what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to see how far I can solo through the game with a Storm Wizard with no clothes on, a starter deck, a starter wand, no pet, and no nothin' but his treasure cards and strategy--so far that's level 49 and right up to Malistaire.
It's true! Angus bested The Labyrinth! He also dinged 48 out of the whole business as well.Woot! Stormlord here I come!
Was it easy? HECKHOUND NO! The Labyrinth alone for a regular character is a tedious experience. Any dungeon that warns you it's going to be a two-hour experience at the get-go is basically telling you to clear your schedule--this is going to be a while. Well solo on a no clothing storm wizard was . . . extremely long and, yes, painful. I think it took me a total of 3-4 hours to complete. I was sitting on the ground playing on a laptop for the entire time, and I was ready to be done by the end. MORE than ready to be done. Here's a quick breakout of how the instance played out:
I wasn't having too much difficulty at first. The Silver Sentinel went down easy, and I crossed the lava with no difficulty.
The next duel with Zora seemed likewise just as easy, which is strange. I figured her balance minion would give me more issues with shields, weakness, and traps, but my Storm minion played exactly as I wanted it to and life was easy.
Then came Andor Bristleback . . . let me tell you, he was truly a jerk to Angus. Look at him, thinking he's all super suave and stormy!
He didn't take it easy on me, and it took me four tries until I could finally overcome him. I totally felt like Ash getting rejected and made fun of by a Pokemon Connoisseusse (Burgundy is so sassy). Painful.
Since Andor is storm and he's paired with a myth minion, it's an insanely difficult fight for Angus due to the shields and damage output. He was relentless as well with his damage. What finally saved the day was a fortify treasure card played at exactly the right time after a lucky streak of pips helped me take out Andor's sidekick before he could play a storm shield. Fortify helped me withstand the relentless onslaught of storm spells from Andor until my storm minion buddy could grab agro. In essence, it was almost the fight that stopped Angus in his tracks.
BUT THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
Devora was a pushover (as always).
The Property master . . . made me fight him twice. A storm boss paired with a balance minion. yeesh.
The Gallium Paladin . . . made me fight him twice in two long battles. He plays defensively (like Angus) and is also paired with a myth minion, so the shields made for a battle that by the end had Angus earning 240ish experience points just for casting so many cards. LOL.
The Dean . . . made me fight him twice. I shouldn't have had as many problems with this fight as I did, but he has a surprisingly high damage output for a death boss, and at 8k hit points, it's a long fight. I can attest that his natural attack is pretty painful, and especially for a character sporting 1100 health.
It was worth it though because he dropped a Boss Banshee for me WOOT!
That'll go nicely in the shared bank!
I was so exhausted by the whole experience that I'm going to have to probably recruit uber wife's help to get back in to the instance to get the chest for Ashley's follow-on quest. I usually have someone sit in the instance and hold it open so I can finish grabbing that obsidian chest in the Dean's cell, but Angus takes too long to get things done, and I was done for the day. I'll make it happen :)
So this seems crazy, but Malistaire truly is just a couple zones away now! Will that finally be the instance Angus can't overcome? I don't know . . . Angus always seems to have a treasure card up his sleeve that makes the difference. :)
Yeah, I've been playing him again. :) Angus is currently hanging out in the Cruicible in Dragonspyre . . . still no clothes on . . . still holding a starter wand and starter deck . . . still throwing out hits like this:
Back in March I was playing Angus a lot and he got put on the shelf while I started my new job and played through Avalon. Now that we're in between projects (tons has happened btw . . . Purreau's Plentiful Pet Provisions Pack, Mega Pets, new PVP arenas, etc . . . jus' sayin'), and I have a little bit of time. I think I'll be playing just a touch more of Angus. (Although, GuildWars 2 is really wanting to suck away all my time like a Vampire bat spell on a mander in Krokotopia--thanks, I just came up with that one.)
Oh Dragonspyre . . . your towers are grueling--even though they were gimped a bit a couple years ago; here in 2012, Angus likes that they were gimped a bit. ;)
I still have a few nasty fights ahead of me in the Labyrinth that I'm not looking forward to, and that will definitely be the next newsworthy blog post you'll hear from me about Angus.
That's right! The Crown Shop just got crown-ier, with much crown-itude and crown-arific items crowning out its crown-ish-ness! Awww, look at this!
Now you know exactly where to go to get your cool running boots. ;) Those stack with your horse, btw. ~~~~~~~~~~
Have you guys checked out this article about what it's taking to even pitch Wizard101 to China? Holy Sheeeemoly that's pretty amazing.
Tell you what . . . call me a psycho necro, but I think I want to play this version of W101!
Sounds like our friends at KingsIsle are poised to make a lot of cash if this deal actually goes though, but wow! That's an amazing amount of work to go through to port this game over. hehe. I'd love to be able to play that version though, seriously. ~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of Psycho necros, I've been playing Angus again a touch! I've mostly been finishing up a few side quests that have been stacking up in his quest log because I got a little . . . bored? frustrated? annoyed? what's the word I'm searching for? . . . with Dragonspyre, and felt like I just wanted to level a bit.
We're talking little insignificant side quests like, oh, the oyster collection bit in Mooshu.
Ok, yeah, I had some big gaping holes in my quest lines that I needed to wrap up. Come to think of it, maybe I don't want to play the Chinese version on Wizard101! It appears I barely have the patience to grind though these quest lines anymore. Actually, when you're on your fifth or sixth character or whatever, it's a little different. hehe. when I was first going through the game, I was a huge completionist. I wanted to finish every quest everywhere. Over time that drive has gone down a bit, but with Angus . . . I'm feeling every level is going to count when it comes time to face off with Malistaire.
So, yes, Angus is just a hair away from level 46 as of this morning. I'd love to get level 48 on him for access to Storm Lord, that's for sure. Angus has enough side quests to get him to at least half way to level 47 if not level 47. I will say that's it's nice to be just a touch more powerful for some of these side quests with Angus. They're still dangerous for him though as he's still only running around with 1119 hitpoints. :) ~~~~~~~~~~
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.
Drew Simon the other day (from the Frostbite blog) said in a comment, "Friendly, your lack of theorys convince me that. . . You already KNOW what's coming up in Wizard101!"
My response to that is . . . what's coming up for Wizard101 is more spending of your hard earned money on CROWNS!!!! ;) That's a given isn't it?
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Hey look! My Beckett's magazine came in the mail!
Nice 4-page Angus article in there for you all. :) The free code in there this time is a free Eye of The Bartleby pack. Hope you get a cool EotB Feint in that pack! :) The second page of the article even has a shnazzy picture of Todd Rogers on it. ;) The rest of the mag is packed full of MMO news, tips, and previews. Uber Wife found another game she wants to play with me called Salem. It's not even in closed beta yet. Thanks to Sean Kavanagh for his great write up!
As a compliment to my article (or vice versa how ever you look at it), there's a great 2-page WoW article titled "The flightpath less traveled" that details five unique ways to play through World of Warcraft (no pets, solo, exploration, fashionista, and pacifist). Good stuff!
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On the good news front, we managed to get our Wii back from the repair shop. yup, $40 later we have a working wii (its laser finally gave out from reading the fingerprints of many sticky-fingered children). Also on the good news front, we managed to dislodge the three gamecube games Diapermancer stuffed in the wii the very next day we received it back from the repair shop.
Here's a tip if you run into the problem of a jammed Wii full of gamecube games. Shake out/pull out what you can. Then, press the eject button and insert a blank CD-R that you don't mind ruining into the console as it's trying to eject your stuck disk. Turn off the Wii when you have the blank CD-R inserted about 90% of the way. Turn your wii back on and with any luck your jammed game will eject along with the CD-R. You may have to try this a few times to get it to work.
;)
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I've been frequenting my real-life facebook page lately posting about 80's videos. Since I usually defer my W101 buds to friend add my Thomas Lionblood character on Facebook instead of my real facebook, y'all been missing out on the fun!
Here's a sampling:
A formal dinner party is harried by strange noises coming from the attic. Soon the strange noises turn to absolute mayhem as the butler delivers a gift of rats on a silver platter to the table. A guitarist from the band above crashes through the ceiling and finishes his solo on the dinner table, completely expelling any shred of formality left behind. The butler and the eligible bachlorette from the dinner party have a startling transformation into the rockers that were inside them all the while.
With a snap or five of his fingers, Lionel and his underground group of synchronized dancers rescue a lonely woman in red after she falls short of the bride's prized bouquet at a Spanish wedding. Forget the alley way, motel corridor, coffee shop, or balcony. Although these are prized hiding spots, the red light district is Lionel's favorite. Could a bride be tempted so soon by Lionel’s forbidden love?
The scene begins in a club. Night after night, Kajagoogoo and the waitress with the really great hair always meet eyes, but unfortunately the unassuming yellow tank top isn't enough to bring forth her inner tiger--she's too shy shy.
:) Ahhh, the 80's. LOL
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In other news, Wizard101 is DESTROYING Free Realms in the unicorn poll. I maintain that they used the wrong unicorn for Free Realms. Seriously, I mean check me out on my unicorn ride.
The mane of the Free Realms unicorn MOUNT undulates the full spectrum of the rainbow and the hooves sparkle as you run. There's a glow from the horn that's awesome and guides your way at night.
I still think the Wizard101 unicorn would win . . . just because it's Wizard101, but that little runty Free Realms pet unicorn doesn't even stand a chance. LOL
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. . . as for an update on Angus. He's now through the Tower Archives and Plaza of Conquests and into The Grand Chasm. Check out this one shot kill from Angus on the Sea Lord.
BOOM 3,000+ over kill. :) That's the power of a treasure blade, stormblade, supercharge, treasure feint, storm trap, windstorm, storm prism, and a fully charged tempest.
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Matt Daley from BigWorld sent me a link to a World of Tanks related video that was filmed at GDCO featuring an interview with Chris Keeling from Wargaming.net. As a summation of this video . . . Chris talks a lot about the juxtaposition of realism vs. fun they've brought to the game's weapons. A good quote from the video is this, "It's a game first and foremost, and not a simulation. In World of Tanks for example, we don't want it to be super realistic, we want it to be super fun! You play with tanks from all nations mixed together because it's a good time."
Stephen Spiritcaller had a chance to talk with these people as well, and he highly recommends the game. I've played it and have it installed on my computer currently as well. As with most "shooter" games, I spend most of my time being the easy target, but it is a blast to play. To be honest, it was Uber Wife who even got me to try this game out! She really thought the guy from World of Tanks from last year's GDCO coverage was (to quote) "Charismatic." Give it a shot if you like this kind of stuff! :)
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OHMYGOSH I was on a LOTRO podcast. I explain all about my stint on the Liquid LOTRO podcast over on my LOTRO blog called "The Minstrel Magnet," which actually happens to be a much older blog than The Friendly Necromancer here. I just let it kind of sit and do nothing for many years. :)
The podcast features me and Christie (Icywiz) jamming about LOTRO. Hope you enjoy me slaughtering all those LOTRO names! :)
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Ye' old DDO static group (dubbed "Team Spode") has been busy farming the heck out of Gianthold trying to get flagged for one of the final instances in that zone. Every monday I put up a post about our exploits there. If it sounds like something you might be interested in, click.
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My Halloween light show is going good. The neighbors keep dropping by throughout the night to check it out. I'd love to grow it beyond what it is now, but it's costly. Maybe one of these days I can add on an extra row of scare poles with a pumpkin top. Not much about the show has changed from the previous years.
I have added a spider on the roof with a flood light that flashes on him and a small cemetery in the front. It's growing . . . albeit slowly. there's a great OCremix that I want to add to the show's lineup. If I ever grow this, I'm going to either add a Boo Ghost cutout or maybe a video screen showing a quick run through a spooky Mario dungeon. :)
Think you might have heard that in my Red Ghost video before. ;)
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Hope you're all having a great time as we get closer to Halloween! I've run through the entire Halloween quest series a couple times this year. Good stuff. What have you peeps been up to?
Besides work, that's really all I got . . . oh yeah, one last thing . . . BLACK PANTHER MOUNT IN CROWNS SHOP!!!!! :)
A few things about securing your supercharge spell if you've stumbled here from a random Google search. You have to be at least level 35. You have to complete Vigrid Roughlands and Frostholm. You have to talk to Baldur Goldpaws in Olde Town to pick up the quest that sends you to talk to Erik Wyrndune. After that, it's just a matter of fighting a boss in Mirkholm Keep and finishing up the quest.
It can be a little confusing because it's not intuitive that you go talk to Baldur Goldpaws . . . nothing points you in his direction.
Best of luck!
So, beware crazy high health mobs of Dragonspyre! Angus is coming after you!
Angus needed a little distraction from Dragonspyre, so I took him back to Grizzleheim for some fun. It's been pretty laid back for the most part, just a matter of rushing through some of these quests. Check it out, I got an 808 hit. :)
Whenever you get an 808 hit on someone, you know it's TIME TO DROP THE BASS!
Though it's good for relaxing from Dragonspyre, the real purpose of Angus doing a little Grizzleheim is so he can get his hands on the Supercharge spell. That's such an awesome spell. Stacking any layer of percentage to damage is fantastic . . . especially against those high hit point freaks in Dragonspyre. Additional blade spell? OH YOU KNOW I WANT THAT!
Oh, I have to say this . . . with my fully geared characters, I never really noticed the hits from Shellek were so freaking beast.
Yeah, that guy, the end boss from Savarstaad Pass. His innate attack is 125 storm damage per pip. That's harder than most Dragonspyre boss innate hits. For example, General Firetusk's innate hit is only 100 damage per pip. Skellek not only hits like a boss, he hits like a BOSS! Like an 808 drop!
This morning Angus finished up the first big wall of Dragonspyre: Mavra Flamewing. Here's the YouTube video for the fight. :)
What you don't see in this video are the numerous failed attempts before this successful one. My deck had to be massaged a few times until I came up with a winning combo. The first few seconds of the video show what I was eventually packing in my mega awesome starter deck. ;) In retrospect I should have dumped one of those tempests for another storm shield, but it eventually all worked out (even if it meant an extra reshuffle).
You know what else needed massaging besides my deck? My patience. I kept jumping the gun on my cards, and I was doing exactly what shouldn't be doing (messing around with Wild Bolt). Once I straightened out my deck and got my head in the game, my cards fell in place and I pulled out a win! The Shatter treasure card, of course, was invaluable.
Congratulations for completing MooShu with Angus! Good Luck with MooShu's side quest, You'll need it! Oh yea, as on to Dragonspyre, you'll be tested by dueling with Prof. Cyrus Drake right? Why don't make a video of it?
PS: What's MooShu's last boss you need to defeat to complete MooShu itself?
Thanks Friendly! ~John L; Adept (26) Sorcerer
Heya John. Thanks for the kind note! I actually did battle Cyrus Drake already, but I don't really have time to upload to Youtube today, so here's a link to the raw footage of that fight on x-fire. Hope you like it!
And to answer your question . . . The final boss of Mooshu is The Jade Oni!
It is all true, a level 42 Angus Unicornpants, weighing in at a mere 1000 or so hitpoints with 100 or so mana and clothed in only what the dear headmaster gave him at level 1, has bested all of Mooshu (except for a few sidequests), including those pesky Onis in Mortal Kombat!
Angus . . . wins!
FATALITY!
Pretty much it all boiled down to Angus's regular play style: minion, shields, blade, traps, aura, Triton, and a reshuffle or three.
On to Dragonspyre! (Although, I might go finish up a few of those side quests now . . .)
Honestly, I knew Shirataki Temple would be a bear to beat. It's long enough as it is, but when playing a solo paper tiger like Angus, well, I knew it would take some time and patience, and it did.
Health totals on boss mobs are starting to sky rocket, and it was just a brutal experience. The worst part is dealing with an excess of storm, myth, and balance mobs, which are by far the toughest for Angus. If a monster shields, I have to break it quickly. If I get a -35% debuff charm, I have to dispel it. The short deck and lack of power pip percentage means I have to work twice as carefully and defeat sometimes is inevitable--but in the end I won. And with Angus, *eventually* winning is the only thing that matters!
Some helpful tips for this instance with Angus (and without really). You can kill Wavebringer’s minion early before you spawn him and make that a rather easy fight. If you’re going to die on the Plague Oni fight, take out his minion first, and the second time you face him, he will be alone as well.
Reshuffle was absolutely necessary. I had taken it out of Angus’s deck for Wysteria and hadn’t put one in since fighting Meowiarty to be honest. I needed Reshuffle for The Plague Oni because health totals juxtapose lack of power pips are becoming an issue, BUT! I have a new spell in my arsenal now thanks to the Plague Oni kill!
WOOTAH and THANK GOODNESS!
That spell is going to help a LOT with the challenges coming soon. I smell the burning books of Dragonspyre in Angus's future. Getting closer!
Check it out! Here's my latest video of Angus Unicornpants! As most of you are well aware, Angus is my no gear/starter wand/starter deck storm wizard that I'm taking through the game. This particular fight is with Chester Droors and his two side kicks. (I *still* smile about that name.) It's not the last fight of Wysteria, but I feel safe in saying it's probably the most challenging. Good times. I actually wanted to add two other fights to this video but Media Maker was hating all over my files.
Fun! I want to thank KI for a fun side world now that I've played through it with Angus. It was definitely a nice distraction from my exp quest grinding in Mooshu and helped pad Angus's level a touch. He's almost 40 now! Woot!
Heya Friendly! I've got a few questions (No duh) Ok so i was wondering, what realm do you usually play on as Angus??? I have a lv 36 Death guy ( Cole ShadowThorn) and maybe we could fight some bosses sometime. and also, do you have any tips for gardening? I'm rank 3 and i have a moderately sized garden. Thx a lot
- Nitasu987
YO Nitasu! Thanks for the note and thanks for the kind offer to play Cole side-by-side with Angus. Angus is kind of a loaner (and a rebel) since I'm trying to solo this whole gosh darn thing without none no clothes on.
If someone runs into my battle, it's no big deal, but his friends list is pretty much closed. He usually hangs out on the Unicorn server (he is a UNICORNpants after all), plays early early in the morning, and basically tries to avoid contact with other wizards . . . if you happen to see him, SURE, run in and say hi. :)
Tips for gardening?! Hmm, well I wrote this up a little while ago; although, I gotta say that the new placement of the circles has me a little thrown off.
I had a cool system for growing plants in a circle, and now KI has gone and removed the "snap to" feature from gardening. All I used to have to do was run into the middle and put my mouse over the snap dragon in the middle. Now you just hover your mouse anywhere to cast with no "snapping." I was tending to my frozen fly trap garden this morning and totally missed one of my plants because of this new method! GRR!
I wish they'd make "snap to plant" a toggle option for gardening instead of just removing it. meh. I'll get used to it. /rant off
Pink Dandelions will take you a long way in the early ranks of gardening. Spending any amount of time farming bosses in Krokotopia will yield a number of them. If you can shift to Silver Trumpet Vine to level up at rank 4, then you've hit gold. I'm sold on leveling up gardening with crown plants. It just goes so much faster.
I avoid growing more plants than my energy can handle, and I clump them all together in a nice circle. Uber wife is under the impression that you can skip the middle gardening spells and save yourself some money, and she's pretty much right. I've only used the medium-sized plant circle for situational reasons, like three or four plants near each other with an odd similar like.
The main thing I tried to do is try to get as many liked things to surround my plants as possible so I get that elder harvest faster! I've heard of some people planting stinkweed near their garden to slow everything down so they "maximize their rewards" as it were, but I'm not a proponent of that. The elder harvest is the harvest you want!
I'm working on a spreadsheet for gardening like I have for the pets and housing items that I may add in the future.
For you, Nitasu, at rank three, Rye Bread Bushes, Helephant Ears, and Baby Carrots are your best bet for the "free" plants for leveling (or at least the ones with the most exp rewards).
Kevin Battleblood has a good series of gardening guides going over on his blog, that are an interesting read. If you're interested in Wizard101 Gardening, you'll find some interest there for sure. (Note: Some of his older information involves floating plants, which I believe no longer works.)
I'm sure my readers will have lots of tips as well. :)
Someone asked how Angus was doing yesterday, so I logged him on after a long long hiatus yesterday to see what was what with Mr. Unicornpants. HECK, I even finished a couple more quests with him to get myself reacquainted. It was a good break, and one that I needed after that grueling run through Marleybone and Meowiarty.
I read a great article a week or two ago about punishing game play vs. challenging game play. It's a great read. At some points I have to tell you that choosing to play this way with Angus really feels punishing as I go along. At first it was challenging . . . now it's starting to get painful. I would never ask anyone to develop a game that was as unforgiving as playing through Wizard101 with none no clothes on . . . especially in Mooshu against those freaking ninja pigs that cast fire spells. LOL.
I’m glad I wasn’t recording audio last night during my Angus session. Such hate was spewing out of my mouth for those Oyotomi Supply Runners in Tatakai Outpost. It's so hard to defend against back-to-back-to-back fire elves. It took a quick monstrous card + tempest or two to finally get through those DARN DANG DAGNABIT DIDGERIDOO ninja pigs. XD
If I can build up the speed to play Angus again, I will definitely keep you informed on his progress. Just looking at his quest log, he probably was a little hasty in going to Mooshu, and maybe he should head back to Marleybone to finish up a bunch of little side quests that he skipped. It might make things like the Oyotomi Supply Runners a little easier. (Easy being a relative term)
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Timothy Icegem yesterday asked me if I could YouTube a video of my Dark Crow Derby pet casting up his Dark Crow card. SURE I SAYZ! HERE'Z ONE FOR YOU KID!
With a little Fire Elemental polymorph on the side . . . felt good to fry a couple Ninja Pigs after playing Angus.
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And my final offering today comes from Free Realms, not Wizard101.
Woohoo! Level 10 Soccer Star, y’all!
If you remember from a few posts ago I was going to go with Pet Trainer as my next job of choice, but come to find out . . . Sony broke their Pet Trainer class. *snicker* I wonder what they have in store for pets? I mean, I don’t get into claiming sides between Free Realms and Wizard101 like I’m part of some street gang or something . . . I just like both games actually. It’s just, I know and you know that Free Realms and Wizard101 are competitors, right? So I'm now looking at Pets through the eyes of Free Realms vs. Wizard101 . . . It’s kind of a "duh" at how Wizard101 currently blows Free Realms out of the water there. One would expect Free Realms to amp their game in response . . . not break it.
So, since Thomas Lionbolt of Free Realms will be stuck at level 8 pet trainer until its gets fixed, I decided to give the Soccer Star job a go.
FUN! It’s a fun minigame. It’s starting to get a tad difficult, but definitely not punishing by any means. I’m interested in seeing what levels 10-20 look like. :-)
I started out with one treant polymorph and one dragon polymorph. This ended in defeat, but I had got farther than I ever had got before.
