Thomas Lionblood says, "Avalon est fini!"

Ding level 80!

As you can see from the text on the right hand side of that screenshot, I had help from a knight who said nee! (actually that's Neela Lifegiver wearing her Knight of the Silver Rose badge . . . worked out perfectly for this screenshot LOL).

The final fights with the white and black dragons to save King Artorius, who--spoiler alert--was the Pendragon, seemed like nothing compared to the awesome battle with Young Morganthe.

Thanks to the Neelas and Mother Mistshard for the hand there with the final dungeon! To convey how that happened to all of you, it was like I just casually mentioned to Ms. Mistshard that I thought I was pretty close to the end of Avalon . . . and TADA she snagged the Neelas and from that point forward I was just there for good looks. WOOT!

BTW, speaking of good looks . . .

So if you follow this guide over on Central, you should be fine in the Young Morganthe fight. If it seems overly complex, here's what we did (I guess it'd be a mix between the Krag and the Nergel methods lol)

1- We all basically loaded our decks full of five pip strength (or less) damage attacks and sun school damage boost spells and had sideboards full of melt treasure cards . . . and that's it. No blades, no traps, no shields, no nothin' but attacks and melt (oh yeah, and I had some sacrifice too . . . it seemed to work well).

2- The first few rounds all we did was load her up on Melt debuffs. Ms. Morganthe loves to spam the Wooly Mammoth spell, and she'll spam that spell for no apparent reason at all. It just seems random. /shrug. I put myself on Melt duty the rest of the fight until I ran out of Melt treasure cards. she only managed to get one Wooly Mammoth off on us before she was defeated.

3- The main thing here is that you don't allow yourself to get above an eight pip count (as in four power pips) because she'll mana burn you.

4- Bring a pet that has a blade spell, those particular blade spells seem to not trigger any cheats.

~~~

Looking back now, Avalon was a very entertaining expansion to Wizard101. I loved the mix of high fantasy and high-fantasy humor from all the Monty Python and the Holy Grail jokes in the game, but what I liked even more was how near the Crystal Caves this humor was mostly side stepped in favor of pursuing the more serious side of the plot. It gave me the long-awaited story background with Morganthe that I've been longing for. (Thank you writers!)

Art and Design in Avalon was equally impressive. The amazing cast of characters that was developed for this expansion is awesome and the new gear looks that are available to us are impressive. I think some of my new favorite zones in the game are in Avalon! The winding paths of High Road, the lower and upper sections of Caer Lyon, Cassie the Ponycorn and the Mushroom Village of the Wild, The swirling fall leaves and druid cages of The Wyrd, The Silver Rose garden and Bone Dragon protector of Dun Dara, The Knights in their hall at Abbey Road, The evil crab house of Lakeshore, the open dueling circle of The Outer Yard . . . I think you get the picture.

There's just so much to love about Avalon. I also appreciated that there weren't too many collect quests and instead many more bosses to defeat. It was a good mix.

Speaking of defeating bosses, it seems my attention is going to turn to two things . . . acquisition of Amber and Deer Knight treasure cards. I want that Deer Knight spell, and that's going to put me in farm (and garden) mode for awhile.

Happy dueling!

Almost there!

Only one more level to go and I'll be 80!

That's right, I dinged 79 yesterday when I was hanging with the Lady of the Lake. We were busy reconstructing a teleporter arch. Of course the three pieces of the teleporter arch were guarded by various nasty bosses: an undead drowned knight, A Loch Spriggan named Kerr Knucklebones, and Tarn (an undead drowned giant).

After gaining all my various teleporter pieces, I was just an X click away from being transported into the catacombs beneath Avalon, what I found there were poisonous hobgoblins. Thankfully Sir Patrick was also there to help guide our way (he just needed a bit of saving himself since the Hobgoblin Blood Captain had captured him and all). He was full of excuses . . .

When I had finished my adventures for the day yesterday, I had taken a nice long drink from the Well of Annwn, which put me near enough to death that I was able to traverse the edge of the abyss--all in the pursuit of restoring the final shrine. The Shrine of Justice!

All I know is that I gotta finish this thing up! Why? Because the giant Easter egg told me I was the one!

The giant Easter egg knows all! :)

Mad props to Sierra Mist, Joshua Lionbane, Tara Darkgem, and all the other people I ran into yesterday. Good times were had in Avalon.

Happy Dueling!

Ding 77 -- The Greater Paul!

The Led Zepplin metaphors in Avalon are hilarious. Here I am wielding the "Greater Paul" Axe that I received as a quest reward from Page Jimmy.


It's so cool that there's no doubt it's an ice weapon! ;)

Level 76 for me was full of side quests. I have to admit, I got a little lost in the quest line here in Avalon and instead of playing it smart and refering to the Wiki to find my way back on track, I just started completing side quests. That's ok though. :) The side quests were entertaining and I was still earning exp for them. No worries. It's not like I wasn't having fun. lol.

Anyway . . . now that I took the two seconds to look that up, it appears I'm on the quest Over the Hills and Far Away where I need to defeat more . . . Scurvy Skirkers!!!


Wait, isn't that where I left off last blog post? Defeating Scurvy Skirkers? But that was for Cassie the Ponycorn?

DUDE! I've got some serious trouble with these tribbles!



The Star Trek gang know what I'm talking about. ;) See you at Ding 78 if I'm not overwhelmed by the Scurvy Skirkers!

Happy Dueling!

Ding 74 and Solo'd the Jabberwock

Hoorah! Ding 74!

It's been a super active two levels in Avalon. I've met with Cassie the most ultimate awesome ponycorn EVER!

She threw down the mass prism spell for me. That's ponycorn-rific! I'll be sure to use that next time I'm facing off against multiple death enemies like . . . hmmmm . . . Malistaire and his three spectres? /shrug Just the fact that it was Cassie the ultimate awesome ponycorn that gave me that spell means that I will cast it whenever I can. :)

I also picked up some bad juju from fighting Hrefna Nightfeather at the direction of my favorite new owl buddy Fionna Yellowknife. Check this out:

Pfffft . . . Uber wife and her Djinni debuff . . . pfffft. The coolest part about fighting Hrefna was her awesome natural attack move. She goes to the center of the battlecircle, hovers up all ghosty like, and then puts the blue strands of death out of her chest LIKE A BOSS!

I want that attack! Give to me, KI! :)

Avalon's Bosses are reminding me of Dragonspyre bosses, only without the exhausting tower mechanic. I really like these fights. In essence, there's a slew of cool boss fights that feature the initial power pip madness of Zafaria coupled with the mega hit points (and then some) of Dragonspyre bosses. Stacking blades and traps is back in a big way for me! I'm loving it. :)

And then they throw the the evil Jabberwock at you.

Just look at that thing. Crazy town. I fought him a few times until I was able to get it through my thick skull how I needed to both attack and stack my deck before I was able to solo him. If I had been paying better attention to the quest text, I probably would have realized that Friar Nolan had TOLD me that the Dark Knight was going to tell me how to defeat the Jabberwock and then likewise I would have actually paid attention when the Dark Knight was spouting the good information. :) LOL reading.

I only discovered these clues as I was going back through my screenshots and realized that . . . oh . . . that actually meant something. It wasn't just fancy talk. Right! I probably could have gone and refreshed my memory on Central too (I know there are many great guides there), but you know . . . I like to minimize the spoilers when I can.

To those extents, please feel free to skip the rest of the post where I talk about how I soloed Jabberwock (bye non-spoiler people! happy dueling!)

Ok, so The Jabberwock fight goes in rounds of three. On the third round Jabberwock sends out a horrible meteor strike that pounds you for 1,500 or so damage and all while you're still being pummeled with all the fury of a full row of power pips from both the Jabberwock and his storm minion buddy. It tends to deplete the health, yo. Jabberwock's powerful attack also leaves him vulnerable with a MASSIVE +200% trap, but only on the third round--on the fourth round that trap gets popped and doesn't come back until the sixth round . . . and so on. Also, if you have any traps on Jabberwock, that +200% trap? Yeah that goes away with all of your traps you cast on him, so don't cast traps on Jabberwock.

I kept track of the spells I used on my fight, so I could share them here with you

Round 1-3: Death Blade, Dragon Blade, Vampire (on Jabberwock)
Round 4-6: Vengence, Empower, Dr. Von's (on Jabberwock)
Round 7-9: Empower, Fireshield, Deathblade
Round 10-12: Dr. Von's (on Elemental), Death Blade, Vampire (on Jabberwock)
Round 13-15: Deathblade, Tower Shield (TC), Gargantuan Vampire (on Jabberwock) *FIZZLE*
Round 16-18: Garg'd Scarecrow *CRIT* (Killed Elemental Minion woot), Fire Shield, Empower
Round 19-21: Tower Shield (TC), Vengence, Gargantuan Vampire
Round 22-24: Tower Shiled (TC), Fireshield, Colossal Vampire
Round 25-27: Deathblade, Fireshield, Scarecrow
Round 28-30: Tower Shield (TC), Tower Shield (TC), Colossal Vampire (Killed Jabberwock)

There's a few things you can probably see happening by looking at that.

1- Try to attack every third round and use that trap against Jabberwock -- as a death wizzy, this will heal you up quickly.
2- Shielding damage is your friend . . . especially that attack that happens at the beginning of the third round.
3- Go for the elemental minion if your attack fizzles or if your cards aren't showing any attacks on the third round. The faster you can put Jabberwock's buddy down, the better, but it's more important to use the +200% trap on Jabberwock when it comes up for Life Draining.

YOUR MILEAGE MAY AND WILL VARY

How to solo this as any other class? I'm not sure, but I'd suggest buying yourself the best set of fire resist gear, pack a lot of fire shield and heals, and wear a spritely pet. Good luck! Be sure to check the comments to this post. Whenever I post a strategy, it never fails that I've missed a facet of the fight or that a reader has a great comment to add. I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to suggest strategy and help you out.

Happy dueling!

Thomas Lionblood Steps Into Avalon!

Yes! Avalon is live! Unfortunately I didn't have much time to play through Avalon when it was on the test realm, but that's ok. It's live now, and I'm ready to rock! Everything I've heard about Avalon from people on my friends list and on Central has been good news, so I'm excited! I'm also excited to be leveling Thomas again! Here's a great screenshot from this morning's playtime:

Yes! That is a dragon casting a dragon on me and my dragon. EPIC! If only I had been in a draconian transformation! That particular boss is named Caoranach The Fire-Spitter. I had to look that up to see if I could learn something about that name. As it turns out the name Caoranach comes from Irish Folklore. As it also turns out Caoranach is not to be confused with Coronach, which is THE SONG OF DEATH . . . which is what I was singing to Caoranach as I froze his fire spells with my pasty white skin, something like that.

So far my quest has been epic! I feel like I'm just beginning a great journey into Avalon . . . land of square trees! Is it just me or do you feel like jumping from tree top to tree top like you're Mario when you see those trees? Or maybe that you've come upon a minecraft easter egg? Those goblins are kind of like mini-creepers, right? ;)

Honestly I can't wait to keep going on in Avalon and experiencing all this new world has to offer. Now all I need to do is convince Uber Wife to come along for the journey. :) The kids have been capitalizing a bit on her computer time lately.

How's your play time in Avalon been going my wizzie buddies? I know some of you have probably already beat it in a day! uber. I wish I had more time to play. Tell me about your journeys! :)

Happy dueling!

Avalon Information Spilleth OVER! Wizard101 Central's amazing info dump to the rescue!

As to be expected whenever KingsIsle releases a new world on test, the fans over on Wizard101 Central start kicking some major booty and publish some of the most wicked information out on the net.

The splurge of information that happens right after a world hits the test realm always ALWAYS astounds me. It really shows the power of a mega community like Wizard101 Central and what a great job that community's members do.

The test realm forum is exploding with information, of course, but here are a few threads that really caught my eye.

Hot topics:

Is Guardian Spirit Overpowered? click

Omnipotent was changed to Archmage as the level 80 title. click

Fans seem to really like Avalon with few varying opinions. Overall difficulty level is appreciated. click

Guides:

Kathrine Light's guide to Young Morganthe fight. click.

Nicholas's guide to fighting Matkis Axethief. click

Guide to new spells in Avalon. click

Guide to the level 78 pets and hybrids. click

Guide to The Mysterious Well and Flevur Flave by Kathrine Light. click

Guide to Sword of Kings weapons and poll on which you like best. click

A plethora of guides including and above and beyond those above. click

Crafting:

Reagents needed to craft the Tag Game. click.

Level 70+ gear recipes. click

Gardening:

Blue Huckleberry plant. click

Disappointments expressed:

Disappointment over the Treasure Card shop expressed. click

Disappointment over bank restrictions. click

Disappointment over the lack of a fourth Balance utility spell. click

Disappointment over the skeletal dragon pet looks. click

Cool pet drop:

Pet Book. click

As you can see, in the short time that the test realm has been out, there's just been A LOT of information sharing going on. No one is really sure how long the test realm will remain up, but if you're a subscriber, you should take it for a test drive and see why the majority of the fans are calling this one of Wizard101's best expansions to date.

Happy dueling!