Tower of the Helephant: Two Floors of Awesome!

The Tower of the Helephant (ToH) is an interesting place. I had my first experience going there just the other day. Good times! (Mostly because I had good company.) In the end, I'd say ToH is "interesting" because I’m not really sure why the floors between the first floor and the top floor even exist. They're totally filler. Sure, there’s a puzzle in the middle, but it’s not really even difficult . . . you just run to the teleporter that has the cheese next to it. That’s cool, no biggie. Even if by some random chance you don't follow the cheese trail and you fail the maze, the resulting fight isn’t too bad. Six floors isn't going to run you out of mana, so those floors are . . . useless.

All you really need to know to beat The Tower of the Helephant is the right cards to play and the right strat, which has all been provided for you over on Wizard101 Central. That guide was super handy! OH yeah, one more thing . . . time . . . lots of time.

Anyway, in case you can’t or don’t want to follow that link, let me break down the needed cards for you.

1- Accuracy treasure cards. These are a dime a dozen now. Easy to get at the bazaar but you probably already have a backpack full of them . . . it’s not really a “needed” card on this fight, but you might as well throw a couple in your sideboard if you have a bunch just hanging out and use them on your damage spells. Better safe than sorry.

2- Quench. This one is needed. Every three rounds, Taurus the minotaur casts a smoke screen in addition to his regular spells. Keep plenty of Quench debuffs on him, and you’ll never have to worry about what happens if you don’t.

But Friendly, you cry with your choir of angelic blog-reader voices, what happens if we don’t keep said minotaur debuffed? Fine! I'll tell ya. :) Every time you fizzle a spell, this cues our good buddy Ervin the Boar to cast a skeletal dragon on the person that fizzled. Oh yeah, speaking of that . . .

3- Keep Strangle and Dissipate debuffs on Ervin . . . also Storm Shield on your healer (or whoever has agro).

But Friendly, why use a lightning debuff and Storm Shields against a Death mob? OH, well, k, once Taurus the minotaur dies, Ervin the boar casts Leviathan every other round. Have fun with that! (I like saying "the minotaur" and "the boar" after their names btw, could ya tell?).

Anyway, the final floor is even more awesome than the first. It involves a pesky Draconian named Lyon. Lyon the Draconian is almost completely resistant to Storm attacks and doesn't allow you to Prism (or trap) him. Sorry Storm wizards, but guess what? It's ok because Storm wizards are super effective against the minions that Lyon summons out at the speed of one per round. The thing is, you don't want to let Lyon summon all three minions or else BAM! You eat a supercharged Blizzard spell each round while he has those three minions on his team. I guess this means these would come in handy:

4- Ice Shields and Melt Debuffs.

But Friendly! BUT FRIENDLY! Earthquakes from minions!! I know I know . . . just do your best. :)

Here's a video I made of our trip in the Tower of the Helephant.



It was pretty great to play with my wife again (and Ms. Mistshard as well). We've been kind of playing separately lately for some reason. I think it has to do something with me getting up early, her getting to bed late, and the kids taking up all the time in between. ;)

If you have any additional tips or just want to say hi, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

**Update** I fixed a couple incorrect things in this post thanks to Cody in the comments. He adds that Melt would be a good idea to have in your arsenel to block Ervin's 95% tower shield and that arming a death wizard with Steal Ward could be a nice trick! **Update**

Happy Dueling!

Wysteria Going Live and Teleporters!

I hope everyone had fun in the test realm. To those who went into the test realm and reported bugs, thank you! Thank you for helping to ensure our game is awesome. For the full list of updates being implemented into the game today, please check the patcher notes.

Definitely one of the coolest things bundled with this expansion are the new teleporters being introduced into the game. The community has already developed a number of great guides on their set up and use: Diana, John, Paige . . . I'm sure there are more . . .

I played around with them a bit too! I made my dorm room into a teleporter chamber leading to all my houses.


Then I put a teleporter in each house leading back to my dorm room. I think I may have to do something like that in the live realm as well.

Also coming to the spiral are two brand new houses! Luke Goldhorn gave a great run down on the Wizard's Watchtower house, and I liked this Slideshow of the Underwater Palace from Vanessa at The Diviner's Lane.

I think it's so awesome we have a sunken ship in our housing options now! That was totally something I wanted to happen ever since stepping into Calypso's area.

Hope you all enjoy this update! I think the level 25 people are going to love the break from Krokotopia to go play in Wysteria.

Happy Dueling!

New plot opportunities from Pigswick?

We're all very familiar with Diego from the Dueling Diego mini-game from both inside Wizard101 and at KIFreeGames.com, right? Right! We've even talked a bit about Roberto and Franchesca here on this blog before.

At Pigswick in Wysteria there is another Duelmaster we are introduced to--one who appears to be a rival of Diego's. His name is Benedict Glendemming!


Awesome unicornman there, right? To be expected, I like Benedict's style. As with all Pigswick NPCs, he also shares the air of disrespect for Wizard City and specifically Diego. It is a civil rivalry though . . . no malice, just contempt.

It all makes me wonder about Diego's true nemesis, Roberto. At one time we were searching for clues to who would be the "new Malistaire" after his defeat in Dragonspyre. Roberto's name came up from the fans as an option, but that was only because we really had no clues to make us think of Morganthe (Some would argue Merle's name is similar to Merlin from the King Arthur legend, whose nemesis was Morgan le fay). Unfortunately we haven't even seen a hint of the Morganthe story in the past two adventure areas.

Given the dimension of "Pigswick" as an alternative school of magic in The Spiral's lore, the sheer existence of that school makes one think of other possible schools in The Spiral. Likewise, it isn't too big of a stretch to wonder if Roberto could be the duelmaster for an evil school of magic where Morganthe is the headmistress . . . and perhaps this is why we were introduced to the lore of Pigswick now. Probably not, but I think the possibility exists.

It also makes me wonder if the second chapter to Pigswick could be one where Morganthe's evil school of magic strikes down upon Pigswick with all its fury, insulted they weren't invited to the magic duel competition? And what of Franchesca? Could she be a duelmaster for a school similiar to Beauxbatons Academy of Magic? Again, probably not, but it is something to think about.

~~~~

ANYWAY, the point of this post is simply to point out that Pigswick adds a lot of thickness to the overall plot of Wizard101.

For a few, it seems that the existence of Pigswick may be a sore spot . . . Uber wife ran into a guy on the Test Realm that was pretty upset Wizard101 would "copy" Harry Potter's competitions from The Goblet of Fire. I would agree that the likeness is there, but I also think there's potential for much more to be added to the original story of Wizard101 because Pigswick has been introduced to us.

What do you think?

Happy dueling!

Wysteria's Wand Displays

I was playing through Wysteria tonight with Myrna (earned my Spiral Cup :)) and noticed that Wysteria has three different types of ways to display wands and staves.

The first is the more traditional method found back in Wizard City: Wands on a rack.


The second method is to place them all on a long table . . .


The third method is in these really awesome shadow boxes:


We've asked for a way to hang our weapons in our housing before, but seeing all these alternate methods made me think perhaps it's time to bring it up again. I continue to collect wands and staves, and it would be super dooper awesome if I could put those in my housing and get them out of my bank and bags. You know what I mean?

I think I prefer the shadow box method for looks. Those are awesome! Although for space conservation purposes, perhaps a simple weapon rack would be best.

Which is your favorite?

Speaking of wands, did you happen to notice the pip giving wand you can get at 20th level from the "Let's Dance" quest in Wysteria?


Add another to my collection! That's a cool new beast right there. Before this, you weren't seeing a pip giving wand outside of the crowns shop until Marleybone. Nice! That wand is definitely a reason to side step from Krokotopia to Wysteria.

Happy Dueling!

Wysteria up on the Test Realm! (Birthday Present!)

Twitter was fun to watch yesterday. :)

The news came down over Twitter yesterday that the door to Wysteria was open on the Test Realm.


There was also a scoop from IGN on the patcher. Ahh, KingsIsle, that's some good media coverage. The IGN crowd was like "people play this game?"


laugh. Keep it up, KingsIsle! IGN is right there with Kotaku, 1Up, Gamespot, and all the other premium game reporting sites. That's some awesome candy for the marketing team.

On a few mini-breaks at work, I'd tune in to my own Twitter stream and watched as Uber Wife and Amber took over and started posting a ton of pictures from the test realm. Quite awesome to actually see Wysteria since all I had seen before this were words.

Yeah, I've been under embargo about Wysteria since the next Beckett's article talks about it. :) That's also why the day before yesterday I couldn't participate in any theorycrafting about what the new content might be . . . since, well, I already knew what it was. BUT had I not known, I wouldn't have been able to guess what it was. A new door on the spiral like this is a complete surprise, right? I would have guessed they would be doing something with that fifth floating island in Krokotopia.

Yup! I had a great time playing through the first area or so with Myrna last night.


This whole world just feels like Easter to me for some strange reason . . . perhaps the bunnies and pastels? Nah! Must be some other reason. I wonder if there could be an Easter event in Wysteria next year? could be fun!

Amber went on yesterday to complete the main storyline in Wysteria and earned her spiral cup!


Nicely done, daughter. You rock! Didn't seem to take her too long with all the power of level 60 behind her, but Uber Wife made the comment that perhaps it would be a difficult challenge for someone in their 20's (especially the fight against Kisai Shugenja where he keeps putting up a 90% tower shield)? I'm not sure. I don't know if I have a character currently in that level range. hmm!

So is it just me or do the new areas that KingsIsle is releasing seem to be getting smaller and smaller? I wonder if that means that eventually they'll unleash a huge monster of a world so we can finally fight Morganthe?

My main question when I saw the name Wysteria was, "Why does KingsIsle keep naming worlds after My little pony characters?"


. . . word to the bronies. :p I'm just kidding by the way . . . I think they are a completely separate phenomenon, kind of like crop circles and aliens. O.o

Anyway, as it so happens, today is my birthday! Thanks for the gift of Wysteria KingsIsle. ;) And thanks to my old pal Cassandra over at Witchwarrior for this cool birthday gift portrait.



WINKS AND PEACE!

We're totally winks and peace on my birthday!

Happy Dueling!