Spell of the Week--Wraith

*Tombstones pop out of the ground*
*A skeletal figure draped in black emerges from the ground*
*A blue strand of life draining magic pulls out from the target's body*
*The wraith takes its share and passes the remainder to the necromancer as a gift of restoration*

Wraith

Today's spell of the week is one that's very near and dear to the heart of Wizard101 Necromancers. It's one that I remember looking at from being just a lowly low level necromancer and being excited to hit level 42 so I could train it and put it into my spellbook.

Wraith is a single target spell that drains a base of 500 damage and returns half of the total drained back to the caster. After adding blades and traps and buffs, a necromancer can heal back up to full health and destroy his target all in one spell. I would say that wraith is a class defining spell for Necromancers, not only in looks, but in the essence of its life draining nature. When I think of Necromancers, I instantly think of two spells: Scarecrow and Wraith . . . and dark pixies. ;p

Because of its life draining nature, you used to not be able to add tough and strong cards to this attack. It's part of what made the Sun School less valuable to Necromancers back when Celestia was released. Eventually KingsIsle saw this was not working as intended and allowed both strengthening treasure cards and the sun school spells to be applied to Wraith and all the other life draining spells in the Necromancer spell line. Now we can bump that base damage from 500 all the way up to 683 with a Colossal buff applied. That may not seem like much, but when you're talking base damage in a game that's all about multiplying damage through blades and traps, that's highly important.

I asked the readers of the Friendly Necromancer to shoot me a picture of them casting the Wraith spell, and (again) they did not disappoint! I have fifteen of them to show you. Check 'em out!

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Terri Nightshield:


(actually using the Lord Nightshade card, not a wraith card, but that's alright . . . close enough. [The lack of tombstones gives it away])

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Alexander Dragontamer:


(Again, this is the Lord Nightshade card . . . no worries)

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Rachel Windtalon:


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Autumn LotusSong:


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Shocker1217:


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Eric:


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Mitchell Battleflame:


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Blake Dragonblade (aka Cheats and Crackers):


LOL! That pun was painful and awesome at the same time. ;)

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Seth Hunter:


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Ben:


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Joshua Lionbane:


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Kyle Firesword:


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Jason Thundershield:


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Courtney Silverflame:


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Julia Dragonsword:


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Thanks everyone!! Those were great!

Happy Dueling

Call for Spell of the Week

Join me, my fellow necromancers (and necromancer wannabes), for we shall be summoning the WRAITH this week! MUHAHAHAHA!



I've got a fever! And the only prescription is more wraith!

Send a screenshot of you casting Wraith to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (28 February 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 29 February.

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

Show me what mischief your wraith has been up to these days. :)

Happy Dueling!

The Crown Shop Gets Crown-ier! Wizard101 in China? Angus Strikes Back!

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.
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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.
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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. :)
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Hope you have a great day and . . .

HAPPY DUELING!

PvP Scoreboards!

I can't take credit for this idea at all, but I have to say, I wish I could. So the other day Uber Wife was hanging out in the pvp ring and she leans over to me and says, "I wish they had a scoreboard so I could see the health of the people fighting." OH MY GOSH YES!

After that she kind of started to flesh out how this thing would work. Basically this wouldn't be anything that the pvp'ers in the thick of the battle would need to see. What this would be is . . . kind of like a jumbo tron when you go to a basketball game, right?


Or perhaps something like a laser tag scoreboard near the pvp ring for all those sitting outside the ring.


It would show the name of the person in the ring and their health, and that's it. You don't need to show off a person's class or any other stats (you know, to avoid people yelling out what classes people are) . . . name and health alone would be just fine.

It's incredibly hard to look down at the ring and try to guage what's happening as it is currently. A quick look at the names and the health would be a huge boost to viewing pvp matches as a bystander. And maybe to make a little money for KI, throw it into the crown shop and allow us to buy them for our houses to put by our PvP rings. /shrug

What do you think?

Happy dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Judgement

BEHOLD THE MIGHTY SPELL OF THE WEEK!

Judgement

That's right! Lady Judgement in the hizouse! Balance wizards pick up this spell as early as level 28 if you can believe that. It's been known in Wizard101 from the beginning as the best single target killer spell out there, and that's because of it's "X damage" nature. A full row of power pips in front of a balance wizard usually equates to something being very deaded very quickly. To block this spell, it's usually necessary to tower shield and debuff the caster (you know with things like plague, weakness, unbalancer, etc.) since there is no balance shield to guard against its power.

You can find this spell on treasure cards and items as well if you aren't a balance wizard, and if you absolutely love casting this spell outside of your class, then perhaps the balance mastery amulet would be your best friend. :)

I asked readers of The Friendly Necromancer to supply me with a few screenshots of them casting a Judgement spell, and they did not disappoint! Thanks everyone for your pictures! (You can click on those to make them bigger and get a good look at what they're saying.)

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Rachel Windtalon:


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Gorman Ravenhunter:


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Seth Shadowcloud:


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Valudus Lifeheart:


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Chris Battleblood:


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Shocker1217:


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Destiny Stormstone:


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Jason Thundershield:


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Terri Nightshield:


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Seth Hunter:


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Those are great! Thanks again everyone!

Happy dueling

Call for Spell of the Week

I JUDGE THEE ABLE TO CAST THIS SPELL FOR SPELL OF THE WEEK!


Send a screenshot of you casting Judgement to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (21 February 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 22 February.

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

Show me what your lady judgement looks like blasting into the battle circle!

Happy Dueling!

Spiral Live Episode 15 Comin' Atcha!

Heya all,

Yes, it's true: WITH MUCH URGENCY!!!1!11!!

The fine peeps from Spiral Live have invited me on to thier podcast to chill with them for an hour or so and chat about all things Wizard101. :)


Date: 25 February 2012
Time: 8:30 pm Estern
Place: http://livestream.com/spirallive

It should be a lot of fun. We'll be talking about the Tag game and a bunch of other stuff. I think they've got a whole interview lined up for me as well. There's going to be a standard Q&A session from the audience as well, so come prepared with your crazy questions.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Dueling

Test Realm Up! TAG YOU'RE IT!

KingsIsle opened up the Test Realm yesterday afternoon, and as to be expected, there has already been a lot of talk about it.

I don't have much more to add than what these fine bloggers have already said:

- Wizard101 Madness

- A Pyromancer Say

- Secrets of the Spiral

- The Unicornflower's Type - Great guide to Tag Stars here.

- Around the Spiral with Edward Lifegem

- Paige's Page

- Diana Wildheart: Guardian Theurgist's Journal - Talks about playing tag at Bailey's house yesterday.

- Valerian's School for Wayward Wizards - reminds us to train our pets while we're in the Test Realm.

The fine people at Central are also talking up a storm on the test realm forum: click. Seems like there's already talk of coordinating massive tag games here. :)

The Tag game is currently priced at 2000 crowns on the Test realm. That seems reasonable for the hours of fun people are reporting from this housing enhancement.


I can already imagine how this will redefine some people's decorating choices. hehe. BRING ON THE HOUSE MAZES! When derby was introduced into The Spiral, it seemed like a lot of people wanted to have derby races in their housing. I have to say this is BETTER than having a derby track for your house. Nicely done, KingsIsle!

Be sure to report those bugs and have a good time playing tag on the test realm. :)

Happy Dueling!

Happy Dueling Hour Episode 2

I announced this over Twitter a couple of days ago, but I realize not all of you check out Twitter. Uber Wife and I are at it again! We've cooked up Episode 2 of the Happy Dueling Hour over the weekend, and it's now available for download.

click!

Episode 3 is penciled in tenatively to occur March 10th, 2012.

Thanks for listening!

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the week -- Snowball Strike!

The spell of the week is a great one hidden on a cute little lovable snowball pet! Check it out:


Oh yeah, ice wizards should love having another AOE in their back pocket thanks to the snowball pet! I know my ice wizard, Myrna Lionblood likes this pet AND this spell. :) AOE spells are possibly the most dangerous spells in the game. What I like about this spell for Ice wizards is that not only does this AOE grab the attention of all the monsters for the cost of three pips, but it also leaves the caster with a +20% blade to set them up for the next attack. That's a handy spell to have with you!

I asked my readers to join me in celebrating this spell (and the winter season while we still can) by sending in a picture of them casting the spell of the week, and they didn't fail to fill my inbox with some great pictures. Here are the awesome spells I received for the spell of the week.

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Alan Nightstone:


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Sierra Mist:


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Autumn Lotus:


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Jason Thundershield:


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Terri Nightshield:


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Paige Winterbreeze:


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Seth Hunter:


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Kyle Firesword:



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Kyle (a different Kyle):


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Rachel Windtalon:



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Thanks readers! Those were some frosty fun pictures showing off the Snowball Strike spell! Be sure to come back next week for another episode of spell of the week.

Happy dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week!

We gotta do this one!


Send a screenshot of you casting Snowball Strike to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (14 February 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 15 February.

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

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

Happy Dueling!

Petnome the Foo, Get Something Special

Ever since the new Kirin's Hoard Packs hit the street, Foo Dogs are the new pink! (Or lavender as the case may be)


And to those ends, petnome is trying to uncover every last talent they can for each of them.

Here's how the tally stands as of this morning:

Elemental Foo Dog (14/20 abilities discovered)
Fiendish Foo Dog (11/20 abilities discovered)
Guardian Foo Dog (12/20 abilities discovered)
Imperial Foo Dog (4/20 abilities discovered)
Lavender Foo Dog (16/20 abilities discovered)
Sunfire Foo Dog (15/20 abilities discovered)

Bailey and I have been pitching in with our foos, but I think these things could be completed today with the help of everyone!

The promise is that once all these abilities are discovered, "something special" will happen! Hmm?!?! I smell raffle or contest!! I LOVE THE WORD "SPECIAL!"

If you have a first generation foo with an undiscovered talent, submit it to petnome because the special sauce must be allowed to flow!

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Sirens

The spell of the week is one with an incredible punch, check it out:

Sirens

It's currently only available to storm wizards at the top levels of the game. After hacking away at the Hoarder (like you do for all level 68 spells), you return to Professor Halston Balestrom to receive your level 68 spell. Who knew these sirens were living under the pond in Cyclops Lane this whole time? ;)

The hit part of this spell is a couple hundred hitpoints worth of damage more powerful than Storm Lord at 880, but instead of stunning the opponent, it dispels a charm, throws on an accuracy debuff, and reduces threat at the same time. Usually stuff ends up extremely deadified whenever I have Kyle cast Sirens. There does seem to be a couple issues with the spell currently, but it's still a great new spell, and I'm sure KI will work out those bugs soon.

I asked readers to ship me screenshots of them casting sirens, and I would choose the best five to be featured here . . . funny enough, I received only five screenshots in total. LOL. Thanks readers! Here they are for you to check out:

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Rachel Windtalon returns with a fun shot of the sirens:


My response: LOL, that spider totally has a crush on the red head, but he's gonna GET crushed. I feel sad for the spider!
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Chris:


My response: LOL! YEAH! WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE CAST OF LITTLE MERMAID!!! :) They should make an appearance too! Maybe that'll be the level 78 spell . . . Flounder's Revenge.

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Jason Thundershield:


My response: Ouch! Yeah, that's gonna leave a mark. ;)

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Kyle Firesword:


My response: OH! nice location. :) How in the world did you find the Kraken Pad empty? hehe.

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Matthew Emeraldfist:


My response: . . . and the size of their hair!

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Thanks everyone!

Happy Dueling!