Spellbreak Week Day 7 -- I did my ok-est!

Well, y'all . . . I had a lot of fun writing about my Spellbreak adventures this past week, and I hope you enjoyed reading along. There were a lot of great matches! 

For the week I had an overall average of 12th place and my placements were trending in the right direction, which makes sense. I hadn't played a lot of Spellbreak, and so I naturally learned and got better as the week went on.

I did my ok-est

Unfortunately for Day 7 here I don't have any updates because Steam stopped me cold in my tracks and said NO! You will NOT be playing any Spellbreak tonight!

I retry and I retry and I retry

Apparently Spellbreak was working fine from the Epic store front, but Steam wasn't doing so hot. It happens.

I think I learned a lot more about the game and I'm happy with where I ended up. I definitely will be back to play more Spellbreak and to level up my Blightbringer outfit. From what I can tell the new "chapter" of the game is overdue and players of Spellbreak are anxious to see Chapter 4 happen.

So the question is . . . what's next?  Well, there are two other Battle Royales I'd love to dedicate a week to: specifically Realm Royale and Fall Guys. I'm anti-Fortnite since it's so Top 40, and I'm edgy like that. They've got billions of dollars of revenue from millions of players and that ship sailed years ago, so . . . no need for the Friendly Necromancer to add his 2 cents to the billions of dollars pile. 

If you have a suggestion for a game you think I'd enjoy, leave it in the comments.

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak Week Day 6 -- The Blightbringer

Team . . . they got me . . . I looked in the shop, and there were some solid picks today.

Hello Blightbringer skin . . .

I couldn't resist buying the Blightbringer skin. I was 100 percent done for when I saw it in the shop. Also, look at that Clockwork Machinist skin on the far right in the picture above!  If Morgrim (aka my buddy Mercedes) is reading, that's YOUR SKIN!  That's YOUR OC! Look at that!

As for the Blightbringer skin, it comes bundled with a quest to do toxicology damage to level up its look. My fingers are ready.

I can't believe I paused to take a screenshot instead of smashing the buy now

I wish I would have been recording video at the time of purchase because you get a really quick cutscene for the unlock of your new skin.

Friendly Necro attacking with the poison gas!

So now the quest to level this skin is a part of my regular line up. Speaking of quests, the quests for today were a weird smorgasbord: ice skate for 20 seconds (m'kay?). Finish in the Top 15 twice as a toxicologist, and deal 500 Conduit damage. 

• Match 1 = 8th Place. This was a fun match, and I scored a couple of exiles . . . I did experience a lot of rubber banding, however, and that wasn't fun. In the end, I got bested by a Tempest mage. 

Blightbringer report: 282/7500 toxic damage . . . that's a solid 1/27th of the way there! We got this!

Whoops. They're about to get a point blank face full of toxin

• Match 2 = 3rd Place. zero exiles . . . but I got some really good hits. I'm also proud of myself for taking the time to find a sneaky spot or two to do some really good healing. By the end I had dealt a surprising (for me) 967 damage. I might have done better but it was mayhem at the end, and I panic 'ported a bit too far into the storm by accident. After this match I had unlocked toxicologist rank 5, earned mage rank 12, unlocked wellspring, and finished my quest to finish in the top 15 twice. 

Blightbringer report: 588/7500 toxic damage. OK! 1/12 of the way there! That was a great round!

Tsk. Just a bit too far on that teleport. 

• Match 3 = 6th Place. Gonna be honest team. I wasn't really even trying this round, but I did manage to still get an exile. I was more concentrated on skating, and in fact I completed my smooth skating quest for 10 gold from all the fleeing I did this round. :)

Why fight when you can just skate away?

And that was it for the night. At that point. it was time for bed, and I felt pretty good that 2 of my 3 quests were done for the day. I had purchased a super cool outfit that fit the Friendly Necromancer vibe. Yup, it was a short but sweet night in Spellbreak.

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak Week Day 5 -- When Quests Collide!

Yesterday's quests had a TON of synergy to them: I really liked how these three lined up! Check it out:

Deal 500 fire power, Activate 5 mana vaults, and finish in the top 15 twice as a pyromancer.  

Now THAT is synergy!

I've never seen quests line up so perfectly. When you see something like this, it feels like you hit the jackpot because I could probably knock these three out in just a few matches if the stars align. Right? The game was like, just play as a Pyromancer and do the stuff you usually do, kid. You got this!

• 1st match = 17th place. You know, I should have fled after another wizard came in and stole my kill, but my wife was standing behind me waiting impatiently for me to finish up, so . . . suicide attack it was!

Open 5 Mana Vaults?! Easy Stuff.

Intermission: The wife and I went out for a bit and I had a big break. We even ended up at the Austin Record Convention in downtown Austin, and I picked up the Early Demos record from Depeche Mode. (Side note: I love it. Minimal mixes of Depeche Mode before all the glam and lipstick of production were put on.)

crates and crates and crates of old records at the Austin Record Convention

• 2nd match = 3rd place and 198 damage dealt. I had 0 exiles, but I completed opening 5 mana vaults and my first 1 of 2 top 15 finishes. Again, 3rd place . . . I really need to stop doing this thing where I don't heal up before the final fight. Maybe I'd actually have a shot at 1st place some day.

Exiled as I exile! But remember kids, when rebirth saves you, that's the time to run away . . .

• 3rd match = 6th place with 614 damage dealt and 2 exiles. It was a great match, and there you go . . . I completed both my remaining quests and I was DONE with quests after 3 matches . . . what magic is this?

I was legitimately tempted by an outfit yesterday. The Farseer is so cool looking.

The Grim Farseer -- Oo! I like this one.

This soothsayer has a super cool looking feathered hat and features these "eye" decorations on head, chest, and belt and the bundle comes with a fortune teller's ball.  It's not "necromancer," but it is awesome.

I found out something yesterday . . . actually two somethings.

1- I google searched outfits and found out there *is* a necromancer skin in Spellbreak called the "baleful necromancer skin."

2- Your breaker's gender bends with the skin. Meaning, there's no male version of the baleful necromancer skin. So if you chose a male look at the beginning of the game and you want to switch, just purchase any skin that has a female base.

Good to know, good to know. 

I also found four other outfits I'd consider Necromancer worthy:

• The Arch Lich
• Death Incarnate
• Prince of Pestilence
• Venomous Corruption

I'd totally wear any of those, but Death Incarnate and Prince of Pestilence are MWHHAA *chef's kiss*. The cool thing about the Prince of Pestilence and Venomous Corruption outfits is that they evolve as you play with them equipped.  As you deal more and more damage, these outfits get cooler looking. The catch is, it has to be toxic damage that you deal.

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak Week Day 4 -- You Exiled Yourself

Since I only finished one of my quests yesterday, the game simply added a new quest and kept my other two quests. "Triple Exile" was the new quest, which meant all I needed to do was Exile 3 people. Fair enough.

So, with it being Saturday, I logged on in hopes that the queue times would be lower than normal and that I could make some good progress. Here's how it rolled out.

• Match 1 = 3rd place. 3rd place or 30th place seems to be where I'm ending up pretty consistently these days. It's a mood, but honestly I felt great about this match. I had 3 exiles and my frost arrow aim was on point. I just wish it would have been toxic damage, but that's fine since finishing that triple exile quest on the first match felt pretty good. . . I'll take it! This also allowed me to rank up to toxicologist rank 4. The damage I had dealt as a toxicologist wrapped over and all I needed was just 81 more points of toxicology damage, and that quest would be finished as well.

• Match 2 = 7th place. I managed to get an exile, but at the end of the match I was surrounded by wizards with nowhere to hide. Thankfully I was able to FINALLY finish the toxic ruin quest and claim my 5 gold. After this it was time to switch to Conduit to start working on that last quest.

• Match 3 = 16th place, but man was this a frustrating ending. I actually got stuck and couldn't get out of map view and the options UI. so I had to just sit there for a minute and die as a guy took me from full health to nothing . . . and I was just frozen in place. I was having such a great match to. Pressing escape brought me out of the map view into the options UI. Pressing escape from the options UI brought me to the Map view. I was stuck in a loop and there was no way to break free.

sigh . . . 

• Match 4 = 31st place. Um, I jumped into a pit by accident and died . . . I'm an idiot.

"You exiled yourself"

• Match 5 = 5th place . . . ok, this was a good match. I had lots of fun, did 508 damage, and reached conduit rank 4, which unlocked the Conduit card. My damage was evenly split between two elements, so just like that I was half way done with the 500 lightning damage quest. Obviously the dudes at the top of the leaderboard were there to play ball and were great at getting away from me, circling back, and then ultimately destroying me.

Intermission: It's was a Saturday, so I took a big break, ate, and went shopping with my wife. She also put me on a quest to clear her old iCloud account of pictures and save them to storage. Good times.

• Match 6 = 5th place with 2 exiles, but eventually some wizzy in a really cool suit of armor got me. I reached mage rank 11 and got 50 gold and ended up with 405/500 conduit damage toward quest completion.

Chucking lightning is pretty fun

• Match 7 = 36th place . . . yeah, I picked an early fight and didn't win. I literally got nothing out of this match. It happens.

• Match 8 = 12th place with 279 damage dealt. I got in a couple good scraps, but didn't get any exiles. The main thing was that I completed my conduit damage quest and received 10 gold for my efforts on the battlefield. At this point there was another 15 minutes until the outfits in the shop cycled over, so I decided to switch to a class I hadn't played before: Tempest Wizard. 

• Match 9 = 15th place with 330 damage. Not bad for my first foray as a Tempest Wizard. I didn't get an exile because right as I was about to exile a guy, another wizard swooped in and stole my kill . . . and then killed me.  That's battle royale for you! 

All in all, it was a good day of Spellbreak. The outfits in the shop rolled over while I was playing, and there was yet again a necromancer-esque outfit in the shop called "the Doom Prophet."

Doom Prophet is pretty close, but not really what I'm looking for.

. . . but just as the name implied, this was more "evil priest" than "necromancer," and since that leather strips over the hood look really isn't my jam, I took a hard pass.

Close, but it's not really hitting the right notes for me.

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak Week Day 3 -- Toxic Relationships

I only had time for four matches yesterday when playing Spellborn. I would have had more, but after dinner I watched Titans with my wife and my body was like, NOPE, you're going to sleep. So, there you go, I didn't complete my quests yesterday, but that's fine. It didn't look like I was going to complete my quests quickly anyway.

Yesterday the objectives were to open 10 chests as a Frostborn, deal 500 toxic damage, and deal 500 conduit damage. Here's how it played out:

• 1st match = 3rd place. This was a fun game and had a great fight at the end where three of us were dancing around in tight circle trying to survive and destroy each other.  I should have found a way to heal up more often. The best part of this match was when I had two exiles back to back. I swooped in while two wizards were fighting it out and poison bolted one for the kill and poison bolted the other for the second kill quick in a row.  Yup, I was THAT guy finally instead of the one being THOSE guys. Ultimately I opened my 10 chests in one match, reached Frostborn Rank 5 and unlocked the "athletic" talent.

• 2nd match = 14th place. This was my first game as a toxicologist, and it wasn't too bad! I ended up dealing a total of 232 damage, 145 of that was toxic damage. I ended up making rank 2 in toxicology and won two legitimate duels back to back. I should have been smart and used my invisibility to get away from the heat. Small thing I learned was that invisibility and toxicologist pair well together. on the back half of a match you can do extra poison damage when you attack from invisible.

Invisibility is nice. I like it.

• 3rd match = 11th place. As I was playing I was really feeling the Adrenaline kicking in. I actually ended up dying in the storm while trying to flee a fight so I could heal up. I only did like 80 points of poison damage during the match. It seemed quite a bit harder to move the needle on completing this 500 damage dealt quest.

The math's not in my favor here -- maybe I should have used the minor health first

• 4th match = 8th place. I did pretty good damage this fight (for me), but sadly most of that damage was fire based instead of poison based, so . . . again, not much movement on the quest needle. I did end up reaching Toxicologist rank 3 and unlocked the Dexterity talent.

A Toxic Exile!

. . . and that's it.  Unfortunately I only finished one of my quests for the day, but there's always tomorrow since it appears that if I didn't finish my quests, they just roll over to the next day. (I don't know if I like that -- well, at least I won't lose progress on my toxic quest.) 

Today's outfit choices in the shop are pretty good, and one that seems pretty close to a necromancer!

Oo . . . that Gaunt Slayer Bundle is the closest it's come to necromancer so far.

It even comes bundled with the "inky surge" trails, which are pretty awesome looking. Although, ultimately this outfit looks more like an emo pilgrim than a necromancer.

There's no disguising where you're dropping or floating with that inky trail

Again, I don't know if I'm ready to drop 25 bucks for the outfit and a couple trails. If the outfit had a bit more bone on it and read more necromancer than emo assassin, I'd probably grab it . . . that inky trail though . . . that's pretty awesome.

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak Week Day 2 -- The Satisfactory Shock-o-mancer

Hello people! It's Day 2 of Spellbreak Week for me, and I once again stared down 3 quests . . . and decided to re-roll them since I didn't want to do 500 earth damage. However, my re-roll of 3 quests gave me an additional "500 damage" quest, so I kinda screwed myself there. No worries, I got this!

Whew . . . narrow escape

I mean, I did make my life a little more interesting because now I was playing an unfamiliar "main," since two of my quests involved playing as a storm wizard (aka a Conduit). Eventually I'm going to need to level all of these classes because it leads to unlocking your Mind, Body, and Spirit traits for your account.

What are those you ask?  Well I'm glad you asked. Your character gets to spec themselves down the Mind, Body, and Spirit trees with a total of 7 points. You can change these at any time, but you only unlock the depths of these trees by leveling in each available class. Clear as mud? It shouldn't be if you've spent any time in any RPG investing in a skill tree. What makes this different is that you can make changes to your skill tree on the fly outside of the game and it's not really a "tree" per se, it's just "ability possibilities" that you unlock and spend points in.

Anyway, as you're playing the game, you'll be finding scrolls of Mind, Body, and Spirit, and you basically level up your skills in the game as you collect these.  It gives you a bit of an advantage, which is nice. I'll take any kind of advantage I can get. I need 'em.

Reading a Scroll of the Body during gameplay -- more health please!

Here's how it all unfolded yesterday:

• 1st match = 3rd place finish. This 3rd place finish was pure dumb luck. I was afk for most of the match. Don't ask me how I survived because I came out of AFK right as the storm was closing in and had sat in one place for like 10 minutes.

• 2nd match = 7th place. Lots of people survived right up until the very end. It was a crowded, explosive mayhem match at the end, and I fell between two dueling wizards. Ouch.

• 3rd match = 3rd place finish.  This was a very normal match that was actually very quiet at the beginning. I was all alone out there with no one to fight. After completing this match, I had completed my "deal 500 fire damage" quest. I also hit Mage rank 9 on my account and earned another 50 gold. Woot! Gimme that gold!

• 4th match = ?? place finish. Um, I clicked too fast at the end, and I have no idea what place I ended up, but I know it wasn't high at all. Probably in the 30's somewhere. This was my first time playing as a Conduit wizard and . . . yeah, not good.

An electrifying experience in dueling

• 5th match = 30th place finish. Even though I didn't do good, this was a fun match. I ended up racing another person to the lightning portal trying to get a good buff for the match. It was an epic fight that . . . ended in my loss. Afterwards though, I leveled up to rank 2 as a Conduit wizard. Awww, my first level as a Conduit. *cute face*

• 6th match = 30th place finish. Really hard to get used to playing a conduit wizard. I got my butt handed to me. 

• 7th match = 7th place finish. I got an exile as a Conduit wizard woot! I also, again, got caught between two duelers and paid the ultimate price. Finishing this match helped me complete a quest for opening 10 chests as a conduit wizard (I was really not doing well those past 3 matches -- typically it's pretty easy to open 10 chests in one match). I also ranked up to 3 as a conduit wizard. GO LITTLE WIZZY! GO!

Almost dying in an explosion of winning!

• 8th match = 4th place finish. Man I was hungry this game.  I got a kill and did some really good damage, which helped me complete my 500 damage as a Conduit wizard quest.

So there you go. Slowly by slowly I'm learning more about Spellbreak and having fun playing the game. Today's shop offering didn't have a necromancer outfit, but it did have a pretty cool, pirate-y looking Illusionist outfit. Slightly tempted, but the outfit is like 25 bucks . . . no thanks.

It's all about that hat.

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak Week Day 1 -- I need a fresh look

 I decided that this is my week to (once again) really give Spellbreak a go.  I played it for Blaugust and quickly wrote about it, but now that I've kind of divorced myself from Champions Online, I'm really feeling the pull for some quick, competitive Battle Royale play.

Swooping in for the kill

Every day Spellbreak gives you three daily objectives, and I'm going to let that be my guide during play this coming week. For yesterday, that meant dealing 500 points of Frost damage, opening 10 chests as a frostborn, and opening 10 chests as a stoneshaper.  

Dropping in to grab the BIG chest -- bold move, sir

The hardest of these daily quests was dealing 500 points of Frost Damage because . . . gonna be honest here team, I'm not that great. THAT SAID! I did get a couple max damage shots here and there with the ice arrow, and that felt pretty great.

I never got a first place victory in my games yesterday, but I did get pretty close a handful of times. For a Battle Royale, most of the time you're NOT going to win . . . that's just how it goes. My placements yesterday were as follows:

• 2nd
• 8th
• 10th
• 36th <-- ooph
• 22nd <-- ugh
• 36th <--dang
• 4th
• 2nd

To be honest, those losses in the middle were more from me trying to complete the daily quest than anything else. Concentrating on dealing frost damage put me at more of a disadvantage than trying to tactically have a better placement on the leaderboard.

In exchange for completing my quests, I got a whopping 15 gold, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. To buy anything really noteworthy in the shop, you're going to need at least 1000 gold and that would buy you something basic.

I do like the look of that Wayward Sorcerer

As you rank up, you get a lot more gold (I think 50 gold per rank), and that's probably where the majority of your earned income comes from in game. If I found a suitable "Friendly Necromancer" skin for my character, I'd probably dive into the cash shop so I could stop looking like a noob and get a skin I really want to wear.

That Arcane Trickster outfit though!

Spellbreak truly is the first Battle Royale that I've really wanted to get into, so I'm happy to finally be playing. 

Happy Dueling!

Spellbreak, a Battle Royale I could love -- #Blaugust2021 Day 23

Typically I've avoided playing Battle Royale games. I've never played Forknife. I mean, I've eaten with a fork and a knife, but I haven't played the game. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the dad joke) You can't live in this day and age and not know what Fortnite is, but my natural tendency is to have a revulsion to the super popular. I'm sure if I played it, I'd have fun with it, but up to this point, it's been more of a sport that you watch instead of a game that you play. 

A few of my peeps have even tried to get me to play it with them, but I've managed to sidestep my way out of playing at every turn. My fascination with Fortnite is merely at the successful monetization end of the equation. What game makes billions of dollars? It's insane. 

Before Fortnite, I would watch a streamer play H1Z1, and it was a lot of fun to watch. But actually playing PUBG? H1Z1? Fortnite? I don't know they're not really my cup of tea. I did play a couple of mobile battle royales, like Brawl Stars and Bullet Echo, and I really enjoyed both of those.

. . . and that leads me to the topic at hand. On my previous computer I had loaded Spellbreak because this was the one Battle Royale that actually looked really good to me. It's like you take the Wizard class based system of Wizard101, mix it with an Apex Legends style Battle Royale, throw in a synergistic spell combination complexity, but you also make it so every character plays a bit like Pharah from Overwatch. Amazing. That's exactly the battle royale I want to play.

Stingite, as a Stoneshaper

So my old self played through the tutorial of Spellbreak on my old computer and I noped out because of the lag. On my new computer, it was game on, and so yesterday I loaded up that crazy, chaotic spell casting Battle Royale and gave it a dozen plays or so.

The verdict? It was every bit of fun as I expected it to be. I even won my second game out of the gate . . . there's absolutely no way that wasn't versus bots. LOL. After this win, I started into exactly the pattern I thought I would when playing this game: generally NOT winning. Because with Battle Royales you have to understand that for the most part you're not going to win, that's just expected.

This duel didn't end well for me

I also experienced exactly what I thought I would from the game queues, which was waits of 3-5 minutes per match. From what I understand it only gets worse as you get higher rank as well. If you look at the Steam Charts for Spellbreak it paints a grim picture the past three months of downward decline  . . . and that's DURING the summer months. 

A had a couple great kills or "exiles" yesterday and a few intense battles that felt amazing. This two person kill where I flew in between a couple people battling and got a 2x kill was a really satisfying moment. Haha!

I'm happy my new computer can handle the game, and that I can finally try out the one Battle Royale I always wanted to give a spin.

Happy Dueling!

Should a Low Level Warlord Level Up? (and some pvp riffing)

I have a pvp question from David:

Hey Necro I've been reading your posts for sometime now and there are really amusing! Well probably you get this question over and over but I haven't had the time to look for an answer, well my question is I have a lvl 16 warlord and wanted to know if it is a good idea to lvl up I'm thinking to lvl 22 since I'm dueling wizards in lvl 40's and up and not getting any easier. Thanx for taking the time to read this!

Oh man . . . I'm so not the guy to ask pvp questions to! I'm probably the biggest pvp noob on the planet, but I think I might have an answer for you.

I was over at Central reading this thread and it has a direct quote from Professor Greyrose about pvp matching. This was enlightening since I had no idea how that pvp matching worked. Here's the quote:

The Ranked Player vs Player (PvP) matching system in Wizard101 is based on two very important factors: the Level of your Wizard character and the current PvP Rank of your Wizard character. The Level of your character is more important than the Rank, but your Rank is still a significant determining factor.

When you join a Ranked match, the system takes your information and tries to pair it up as closely as possible with other players who are currently waiting to compete. If no comparable players are waiting to compete, the system will widen the search. The longer you wait, the wider the search, and the bigger the difference between yourself and your opponent.

For matches of 2v2 or higher, the system will average out the determining factors for all the participants and attempt to match up players to the best teams and opponents that are available. The more players who are online and participating in the Player vs Player feature, the more closely the teams will be matched. When there are fewer players participating in the Player vs Player feature, the team members will be more varied and the differences between opponents will be larger.

I hope that helps our players understand a little better why not all the match-ups seem equitable . . .

Hmm, so it all comes down to time of day and a formula that figures in level and rank. Interesting.

You know, maybe one of my readers has a better answer for you, but I'm thinking if you're a warlord at level 16, then leveling will only bring you harder and harder opponents? But, really, wouldn't it be best to level to level 50 now with your warlord ranking so that you can even the playing field?

/shrug

You know what game's pvp I thought was fun? Guild Wars. What I loved about Guild Wars pvp was that ranking seemed pretty well matched. Level 20 is the max level in Guild Wars, so pretty much everybody was level 20. In Guild Wars you can only bring eight spells into the fight so you have to plan your strategy early and come up with a "build."

Now this wouldn't be anything to replace the current dueling system, but imagine applying this to Wizard101 . . . When you log on the screen to this alternate pvp, you are greeted with this interface:



Only spells from your spellbook would be allowed (no treasures). Then you assign point values to each card or perhaps you bend the rules so that shields only last one round or perhaps players have 10000 life, so no one is defeated and victors are declared on point values from card use, timing, and ending life value. /shrug Or maybe the game looks at your spellbook for you and then you randomly get 6 spells from your spellbook to play for the whole match. /double shrug

I'm just riffing here and it's not my job to invent any new kind of pvp game for Kingsisle, but here's the thing, think of all the countless card games that have been invented over the years around a simple deck of cards. Wouldn't it be cool to have more than one pvp option in Wizard101? Or if I was to ask that poetically, "Wouldn't it be cool to have more ways to duel?" Think of what a simple game Blackjack is, yet people constantly play it. Why shouldn't we get a version of blackjack for Wizard101 as an alternative to the current pvp? Something quick. Something repeatable. Something with a different strategy applied.

It would be kind of nice to have more pvp choices in the game we all love, wouldn't it?

Meh . . . I digressed big time there.

Anybody have a good recommendation for David on leveling when you're a level 16 Warlord? 22 seems to be the next logical step so you could open up the next tier of cards, but my thinking is why not just level all the way to the top now that you're a warlord?

Someone help a pvp noob like myself out, would ya?

Happy Dueling!

How do I obtain good rank as a grandmaster ice wizard?

Question from Blaze: MistShard

Hey Friendly,Blaze MistShard here, I was just wondering how to become a GOOD Rank Arena Master in the Arena as a Grandmaster Ice such as myself. Hope to hear a answer soon, Cya! ~Blazey Lazy~

I don't know if I have a good answer for you, but I do have a story!

Gather round, kids! It's story time from Friendly!

*pops popcorn*

Today's story is a scary tale of how I was soundly defeated in a 2v2 battle by a pair of grandmasters.

It was a good day in Wizard City (they're all good days in Wizard City) and I was out and about just doing my thing . . . being friendly . . . dancing for people . . . hanging out. When all of a sudden some purple text floated across my screen. It was an invitation to duel with an inexperienced grandmaster friend of mine who was a fire wizard. I said, "okies!" and she said, "OKIES!" and we went down to the arena, skipping and laughing the entire way. That's what you do in Unicorn Way . . . you skip and you laugh.

Anyway, we entered the arena and the mood was definitely different there. You know how it goes when you're sitting in front of the arena guards and everyone standing in there thinks they're number one and you're thinking, "NO! I'M NUMBER ONE!"

Anyway, we signed up for a duel and were whisked away to an available arena. Our opponents were an ice wizard and a fire wizard. Both had multiple pvp stripes by their names and we . . . we had none. My friends, this was to be a lesson in fast food service.

"Fast food service?" you ask? Yes, our team was the customer and we got served . . . and quickly. It was actually very pathetic. Here's what I remember of the duel.

(a stage hand in the distance whispers "CUE DREAM SEQUENCE" *FOG MACHINE*)


The other team had a "strategy." (I've preached the use of strategy before.) In other words, they had planned out a method of attack beforehand and used it on us. It was possibly the most beautiful execution of "win" I had ever seen before in Wizard101.

Now, I must remind you that this was back in the days where you could stun lock your opponents. So, the rules have changed a bit now . . . but I think you'll see where I'm going with this story.

1- The ice/fire combo began alternating shielding themselves and buffing their attacks. One round blading/trapping. One round shielding. over and over until they both had a full row of power pips.

Meanwhile my partner, the fire wizard, was doing things like wasting pips by casting vampire and I'm fumbling around only casting blades and traps, no shields. You can see where this is going, right?

2- The fire wizard unleashed a smoke screen spell (this minuses a ton of accuracy, so that you will most likely fizzle).

3- The ice wizard unleashed a Frost Giant (this does damage and stuns us)

we pass . . . because we're stunned.

4- The fire wizard unleashes a fire dragon (this does damage and puts a big 3 round DoT on both of us)

we try to cast, but we're debuffed with smoke screen and fizzle.

5- The ice wizard unleashes another Frost Giant (once again this does damage and stuns us) . . . it doesn't quite kill us because this time it's unbuffed . . . but it stuns us.

The DoT ticks away.

6- The fire wizard stuns us . . .

We are defeated from the DoT while we were stunned.

"Would you like fries with that? Thanks and come again!"

Nowadays there's something called stun block, so you can't be stunned twice in a row like that, but I have to tell you that there's a lot still to be learned from these guys.

What I liked about being served like this is that it was so beautifully executed. Casting smoke screen back to back with a frost giant meant that we had two rounds where we could basically do nothing but fumble around. The DoT from the fire dragon ticking away at us while we were stunned was brilliant. It was like you could do nothing but sit there and watch as you were soundly defeated.

Take from the story what you will (alternating buffs and shields . . . using stuns and chokes), but my main suggestion to you is find a partner and work out a strategy. I think ice wizards do best when they're paired with someone else.

My friend and I talked after our defeat and we decided to try a different strategy next time we dueled since we had seen that excellent service there.

If you want to become good at pvp, probably the best thing you can do is get out there and learn from what other people are doing.

I can't comment specifically on ice wizards too much, but I can tell you that you have all the right spells and EXCELLENT defensive powers to win a 1v1 easily. It's all in the execution. Your spell list seems tight from a distance: Ice armor, steal ward, minion, frost bite to break shields, colossus, tower shield, volcanic shield . . . ice wizzies have all the right stuff . . .

Feel free to comment and add your two cents my ice wizard friends!

Good Day virtually . . . not so great day for some neighbors

Hi all,

Well, as the Evil Twin Chat cartoon below indicates, Bailey and Molly hit the 20th level mark and entered Grizzleheim.


We also spent some time gathering up a few of the spells that we're sitting in our quest log. This included a visitation from the heckhound for Bailey!


Which of course, led to the heckhound spell being added to her repertoire.


It's time to put all those mobs in the doghouse. Word.

ALSO . . .

I went last night to meet up with a few people to do a 3v3 pvp battle for a tournament match via the Wizard101 Central tournaments. Even though I was 30 minutes late due to being delayed from visiting my mother in the hospital (she recently had her knee replaced), I ended up being the only person on my team to show. Oh well.

Paige Moonshade from the other team took us all to the old school arena and we did a number of pvp matches just for fun. Most of the people in attendance were members of the wizened wizards! That's a group of older peeps playing this game who have pretty much formed their own guild. You can read more about them by clicking here.


This ended up being a really good time for all, and by an incredible stroke of luck, I was on the winning team every time. LOL!


All these matches ended with the traditional "gg" (that's short for "good game" if you haven't been around the block in the gaming world) and some good laughs.

This exercise in pvp awesomeness led to meeting a lot of the big names from Wizard101 Central, either again or for the first time. For example, I finally got to add Alex Jaderider to my friends list.


Alex Jaderider you ask? pfffft. Let me refresh - your - memory. (That's three different instances that I've mentioned him for the record . . . I'm a total fanboi.)

Anyway, it was really cool to end up on the same team as Alex last night.

ALSO . . .

I just have to make this note because I'd feel a little strange not. I sit inside my comfortable house with my loving family a lot and we play games and laugh and eat and play games some more. But, I take for granted all the horrible things that could happen and don't. Yesterday morning we woke to the sound of fire engines racing past our house. My boss from work called and had seen the fire engines racing toward our house. "Are you guys ok?"

We were ok, we were fine, but our neighbors on the next street over were not ok. Their house was pretty much gutted out and burned through in a fire. This was the picture I took from our drive way.


Something simple like an iron being left on can do major damage. My heart and thoughts go out to this poor family. Please be safe all!

Happy Dueling!

Some quick catching up

Hey all! I just wanted to raise your attention once again to my other blog, where I have some articles up about Nanovor and Dragon Blade.

I'm not writing much here this morning because I want to get into Wizard101 and play Isaiah and the Evil Twin a little before work. :-)

Happy Dueling!

OH, and feel free to leave a note below in the comments to let me know what you've been up to. Catch me up on what you've been doing . . . especially those I haven't heard from in a while.

Here are a couple screenshots from this weekend.



Bailey and Molly were at it again. They've made it to the krokosphinx now! I always have a good time playing with my wife on Wizard101!



This is a bunch of us waiting around for Lady Shy to wake up from her slumber to join us for a 3v3 match. About the time I left from waiting is about the time I think she showed up to play from what I'm reading. :(

And now I'm off to play!

HAPPY DUELING!

Battle of the Sexes! I mean . . . Admins!

Hey all,

I don't know if you've seen the battle between Jester and his wife Olivia, but you gotta watch this . . . at least for the ending. :-)


(if you don't have enough time to watch the whole fight, at least fast forward to the last minute . . . good stuff)

For those of you who are not familiar with the awesomeness of Jester and Olivia, they are the husband and wife team of creators/admins for the Wizard101 Central website.

They sound as good at dueling as I am. LOL. Go check out Olivia's blog and look at the graphic they created on the right hand side of this post. LOL they are hilarious! (In fact, Olivia's entire blog is worth a look!)

I'm they are dumb and dumber, I assure you I'm dumberest.

I can't wait to see the next round of . . .

happy dueling!

What if my friends don't want to PvP?

Got a question From a long time reader here:

Well Friendly, I'm just getting closer and closer to canceling. I want to do so many things, yet no one EVER does anything with me. Even my close friends on there always ignore my requests for fun. I want to PvP so badly, yet no one will ever accept, and no one is ever online. As of now the whole game is a complete waste of money. Do you have any suggestions?

C&C, I'm torn. This is a tough one. I've typed you three responses already and deleted them all. yikes.

Don't talk in Extremes
I can sense you're really feeling some emotions here because you're talking in extremes like: always, ever, no one, anything, whole, complete . . . . Do you see those words in your message? I do, and I know it's not the whole truth because of them.

So my first suggestion is, relax a bit on these extreme feelings. I know the game hasn't been a complete waste for you. Even if you leave now, you've had many months of fun. Don't forget that and don't let the thirst for PvP ruin that.

Talk to your friends like they're friends
Next, you mention a problem of getting your friends to PvP with you. Here's my suggestion. Talk to your friends about playing PvP with you, differently. If someone kept bugging me about "let's pvp!" all the time, it would become a bit . . . ignorable.

You need to really talk with them and find out what it would take for them to pvp with you. You need to tell them why you want to pvp and why you specifically want to pvp with them. It's not just that they are a warm body and a means to your ends.

You know, and maybe they don't really like to PvP because it's draining. Sometimes it can take a lot of time and maybe your friends just don't have that kind of time. Sometimes it can be that they don't like the smack talk factor of PvP. Sometimes it can just be a little nerve wracking to duel a human opponent. It's a lot harder than dueling the computer.

Once you find out what it is that's bugging your friend about PvP, then you can try to work it out. (because PvP can also be a TON of fun, right?)

In a perfect world, all my friends would be on the same energy level and vibe as I am about whatever it is I'm doing at the moment. In reality, we don't always feel the same at the same time.

You've got to persuade them, not with appeals to pity (like "As of now the whole game is a complete waste of money") or appeals to consequence (like "I'm just getting closer and closer to canceling"), but you need to persuade them because you are awesome, which I think you are!

The Bottom Line
I know you're awesome. You have three grandmasters and have played this game to the ground! You've tried to pass along information in a blog. And, you've followed my blog for a long time!

All you need to do is try a few different strategies with your friends and see if you get results.

Also have you considered any of these:

- scheduling a few times to PvP with your friends during the week? (if someone knows in advance that there is a "pvp date," then you may have better success)
- offering a reward for your friends pvp'ing with you. I know that may sound strange, but reward power can be a very powerful thing. The next time someone pvp's with you, drop a cool treasure card on them after the fact and tell them thanks for coming. You don't have to do that every time . . . it's just a little something to say thank you.
- taking a break. You've definitely earned it. Maybe taking a month off wouldn't be so bad, you know? When you put some distance between you and the game, maybe you'll see it wasn't so important after all.

Beyond the Bottom Line
If you're friends don't want to pvp and you *do* want to pvp, then perhaps what you need to do is go to central and put up an advertisement that you want to build a team for pvp and spell out your intentions, like . . . I want to pvp most nights for two hours, my goal is to make xx rank, I need teammates that aren't going to flee in fights, etc.

Your plea actually reminds me of how a lot of people can feel about raiding in other games. Let me try to explain.

In Everquest I first started the game in a guild of friends and family. When you're in a guild, you all share the same tag on your name and you all have a special chat channel dedicated just to you. Someone is the guild leader and they usually have officers. Then there's everyone else.

Our friends and family guild raided once a week on Thursdays. We did pretty good at raiding for our small guild, but here's the thing . . . other guilds were raiding pretty much every night of the week.

Now raiding usually isn't a light-hearted happy thing. It's a "hardcore" gaming experience with a small margin for error where you usually throw yourself against very difficult scripted events for a small reward . . . usually a piece of gear for one or two people and that's it.

Naturally, people began to see the disparities between the way our guild was outfitted in loot compared to how the other guilds were outfitted in loot. And they got the thirst for loot. It's a scary disease. So, our long time friends would leave our guild and go join a raiding guild.

Well, when whole families of people are being fragmented, then it starts to become a problem socially. The guild fell apart and we all flocked to other guilds based on what our interests were. Some went to raiding guilds, some went to other family oriented guilds, etc.

When you build a pvp team . . . you would basically be building a mini-guild of four people or so. You become committed to those people.

I'm pretty much proposing that if it's not working out with your friends that you search for new friendship with people that pvp. You metaphorically leave your guild for a new one. Now, THAT's a tough decision to make. You need to figure out if your thirst for pvp is really that strong.

I hope *something* in that mess of a long post held something of value for you.

Happy Dueling!