My friend Michael Stormpyre and I were farming for grandmaster gear the other night. I was on my myth wizard, Marissa Spiritcaller, and I was getting a little frustrated by the awful nature of the higher level myth spells. My Minotaur and Orthrus spells did a trap-destroying weak attack before the now-debuffed main attack. Setting up an attack required casting two myth traps, two feints and so on, so that, having wasted traps on the weak hit, I would still have some left over for the main damage. Otherwise, I would be very lucky to break 1K damage on blades alone.

You can’t farm effectively on 1K damage, not in Dragonspyre, not even after the general hit point nerf meant to make DS more tolerable. I tend to run a very lean deck. For farming, nine or ten cards in the main deck, plus whatever ends up in the sideboard, is all I want.

What I really wanted was a ninja pig.

You get them occasionally as treasure cards; five pip myth spells that do 650 points of base damage in one attack. Since this attack doesn’t waste traps, you can easily buff it up to 3K or more if you have a balance wizard helping (which I do). For a two mob fight like Yeva or Snowcrusher, I could eat the weak add with an Orthrus and still have fun with the boss.

Treasure cards are kind of hard to come by, and the good ones are never so common that you would be able to use them as a matter of course.

Then, I remembered The Hat.

The Wayfinder Hat, found at the top of the tower in Marleybone that is the prequest to Celestia. The Wayfinder Hat is part of the Wayfinder collection, which also includes a Uniform and Boots. In the top picture, Marissa wears the entire set. The only notable aspect of any of the pieces is the hat — which comes with a Ninja Pig card.

Salvation.

I excused myself for a moment, ported home, got the hat and returned. I slimmed down my deck even more so that I would be certain to draw the ninja pig from the sideboard during any given fight.

The rest of the night was spent buffing up the ninja pig and debuffing the mob, and the pigs flew again and again and again. They were so effective that I decided to pack away the grandmaster hat, and use the pig hat. Sure, it’s missing some stats… but the added damage MORE than makes up for it.

Solo, myth wizards are fairly powerful, due largely to our golem minion — the first one we get. For zero pips to summon, a golem minion is the gift that keeps on giving, pumping out those 1-pip monsters turn after turn. Beats wand attacks seven ways from Sunday. But in groups, setting up a Minotaur or an Orthrus takes too long. By the time we have double traps all set, the other wizards in the group have killed the boss, all the adds, and wonder why we never bothered to cast a spell.

Well, because our best direct damage spell is Cyclops — or Humungofrog, if we’re facing a group. It’s really embarrassing to see everyone unleash their scarecrows and dragons and ice gods and whatever, and then we pop Orthrus and it does 150 points on the first hit (as it swallows the traps) and then follows it up with a 1K kiss good night. And now all the other wizards are angry because we ate their feints.

So, Myth wizards… learn to love the pigs. They love you!

Michael said afterward that he just knew he’d be dreaming about Ninja Pigs. So, Michael, this one’s for you.

I probably shouldn’t have titled this post “First Night in Grizzleheim”, because I hardly went there after doing the quests to open it. At 50, Tara doesn’t get any experience rewards from defeating monsters or completing quests, nor are any of the gear rewards any upgrade, so she has no reason to go. Allison, my Balance wizard on my second account, just hit 30 and is a perfect level for Grizzleheim — but she’s been partnering with my level 13 Myth alt, Marissa. And level 13 is too low for Grizzleheim — she can’t get any of the quests yet.

So, I explored all the OTHER things that came new with the expansion, instead.

First, top of the page, the sprawling neighborhood of the Marleybone Royal Estate. The new Bazaar makes it easy to overindulge on house items, and combined with the loot she was siphoning from Marissa’s completed quests and monster drops, and her own equipment, she’d outgrown the modest Marleybone mansion where once she dwelt.

Next down, Tara proudly bears her “Apprentice Crafter” badge. This took awhile, not because harvesting takes too long (more on that later), but because the cooldowns on the crafting slots is so onerous. Thankfully, they want fewer items made for the first tier than they did on the test realm. But it’s still pretty bad. I’m working on the Marleybone crafting quests now — five rings and five athames for the FIRST quest, and each takes an astonishing number of harvests.

EVERYTHING takes an astonishing amount of harvests. Crafting would be utterly impossible if there weren’t a trick to harvesting, and here it is. Enjoy it before KingsIsle nerfs it :)

First, find a place AWAY FROM OTHER PEOPLE where a harvest spawns. I like the room outside King Djesserit’s Chamber in the Djesserit Tomb in the Temple of Storms in Krokotopia for Stone Blocks and Parchment. There are two Stone Block spawns and two Parchment spawns in that room, and there is a third Parchment spawn in his chamber, along with a possibility of two Wooden Chests, one in each room.

Start in the Ambrose realm. Check out the room, harvest anything you find, then switch realms to the next one down — Bartleby, or whatever. Continue this until you have enough. You can speed this up with a partner checking realms, too, since you can port to someone in a different realm even if your realm change cooldown timer is still running.

I got all the Cattails and Ore I would need in the Cave of Sorrow in Moo Shu, and Newgate Prison gave me enough Deep Mushrooms to fry a hundred steaks.

I haven’t found a good place for Mist Wood yet. I got the bare minimum from just running through Moo Shu’s wooded areas (Grizzleheim may come to the rescue, here). And Marleybone crafting needs metric tonnes of scrap iron. I haven’t found any of that yet.

The key here is to hang out in an isolated area. Other wizards will harvest whatever they come across. The guides on Wizard 101 Central point people to highly populated areas to harvest. That leads only to frustration. Harvesting is a solitary activity.

While waiting on crafting cooldowns, I took Allison and Marissa back to Wizard City to finish some quests. Since Allison has been Tara’s constant companion through Moo Shu and Dragonspyre, she has leveled to 30 mostly by doing high level quests and instances and actually never — tis sad but true — even finished Wizard City. And Marissa needs everything, so last night, both wizards received the Three Streets Savior badge for brave deeds in Wizard City, finished their quest robes (pictured), and are poised on the edge of Colossus Blvd and the Sunken City before moving on to Krokotopia.

When Marissa turns 15 in two levels, I’ll see if Grizzleheim has opened up for her. If so, I’ll start mixing in those quests along with Krokotopia.

I spent some time in the Bazaar looking for fire resist gear. If I could get fire resistance up past 100%, Malistaire’s devastating attacks couldn’t touch me. Sadly, I was only able to get unbuffed FR up to about 45% — far short of what I’d need. I haven’t yet found anything that will ameliorate his meteor storm, but I’m working on crafting precisely because I think there is something that a master craftsman can make that will help. The forge RIGHT OUTSIDE Malistaire’s instance is an obvious clue.

The sad thing about crafting, and what I hope most they will change, is that crafters cannot be fairly compensated for the things they make. Either they use their crafted items for themselves or their alts, or sell them for a fixed price on the Bazaar. And I assure you, the vast material requirements for the highest level crafted gear far outstrip the meager price you can get for them in the Bazaar.

The Bazaar is a good first attempt. But it is not a rewarding experience, and by a rewarding experience, I mean one that results in gold. In a non-managed Bazaar, wizards who harvest what they come across could then sell these items in the Bazaar at a price they set, and the prices for these resources would quickly reach a natural level, quite higher than what they are today. Crafters would buy these resources at inflated prices so they wouldn’t have to go out and harvest on their own. The harvesting wizards would make good amounts of money, and the high cost of materials would tend to keep dabblers out of crafting and more inclined to sell their harvests.

Crafters could then make items and sell them for their natural price, which would likely be below the cost of materials in most cases. People looking for unique gear or home furnishings would have the chance to buy items they normally could never see, as currently, there is absolutely zero incentive for a crafter to make something for anyone’s use but their own.

A managed market is never a good thing. An open market could spark a thriving community of artisans. It’s just that simple.

Welcome to my island!

This was truly LATE breaking news! After midnight my time, checked my email one last time before bed and read this:

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To our Subscribers and players who have made a Crowns purchase in the last 30 days, we invite you to test out some of our new features on the Wizard101 Test Realm.

We will be looking to you to test out the following additions to Wizard101:

• Housing – Housing and housing item vendors can be found in all the worlds of the Spiral. Decorate your house or your Dorm room!
• Voiceovers have been added for Marleybone, MooShu and Dragonspyre
• Tips will appear to alert you to any items you have received as a reward.
• Run Speed modifiers can be found on Crowns items and as boss drops.
• Markers can now be placed that will allow you to recall back to a marked location.
• New messaging for Dungeons when you enter and if you log out while inside.
• New messaging for Quest drops such as ‘Collect Armor’.
• Boat and Balloon rides are now optional.
• Friend Requests show more information about the character.
• The ghosts have fled from Firecat Alley and Triton Avenue to be replaced with different creatures.

Naturally, I went right for the housing, though I’ll be sure to check out the other changes soon. I’m sorry this has to be pretty much just pictures, but I’m dog tired so it will have to do for now.

I started off with 99,999 gold; I ended with under 15,000 after buying up everything I could find for the biggest islands in Wizard City and Marleybone. Additional items are available for purchase with Crowns. The turtle names are NOT the final names, they are just placeholders.

Any questions about any of the pictures, let me know. All the furnishings inside and out were bought with gold from the furniture vendors in the house/furniture shops. You can buy floor and wall designs as well as more standard fare.

Wizard 101 is built around a card game, and that card game is built around your deck. Deck construction can be tricky. I was talking with a friend about building decks for collectible card games last night, and he told me of some people who would bring massive decks of eighty or more cards to a tournament. How could that player ever get the card he wanted?

How indeed? In the best Wizard 101 decks, you always get the card you want.

These are the cards I turned up in my first round against two Ice school cats in Marleybone, as my 27 Balance wizard, Allison. Every single card in that draw, I will use.

If you’ve ever found yourself madly discarding cards to get to the card you want, you’ve probably been listening to the knowing professors of Ravenwood. But I’m here to tell you that these professors in their little classrooms and their magic trees don’t know about life on the STREETS, man. They don’t know how to keep things REAL. It’s easy to push ever larger decks on students and advise them to put every new spell in their deck when you’re sitting behind a lectern while magic chalk writes your lessons for you. It’s easy to slip new cards into a student’s deck without even telling them, when it’s not you that’s going to be going face to face with Malistaire and let me tell you, he doesn’t waste much time casting Dark Pixies.

Even though each new world gives you newer and bigger card boxes, even though you have so many spells available, you can easily win normal fights with just a few copies of a few cards and never get a card you don’t want to play.

This is Allison’s regular deck. It can’t hold all that many cards, but even so, it only uses just over half. Aside from the two heals from the Life school, there aren’t even any spells from another school in the deck. Her secondary school is death, but there’s no death school spells that are better than the equivalent balance school spell until Feint, for which she needs one more training point. After which Feint (+70% damage to target, you take +30% damage, costs 1 pip) will be in the deck.

Truth is, I could do with far fewer cards. Mobs in Marleybone’s Hyde Park have around 500 health, give or take. I will pull two at a time, so I need to do around 1000 damage (more or less) in a fight to win. To be safe, I should probably have 2000 points of damage in my hand to easily win any normal fight in the entire zone.

Balance school is fortunate in that they can cast spells out of their school easily. Spectral Blast delivers a shock of ice, fire or storm to the opponent. Hydra does all three. Balance is the only school that is strong against creatures of the same school. But the concept is similar with other schools. Figure out how much damage you need to do, put double that in your deck, and no more.

Now add in your traps, blades, shields, heals and other similar cards. You need to have zero pip cards to play while you power up your damage cards. Just like your damage cards, you’ll only want to put the zero pip cards that you’ll actually need. Allison’s deck contains the elemental shield because she is facing elemental mobs. There are no spirit shields in the deck because she is not facing spirit mobs. They could cast a random Death or Myth spell, but the bulk of their damage will come from their main school.

There are seven damage cards in her deck and nine zero pip trap/blade/shield spells. Doesn’t she need more zero pip cards to charge up her damage spells?

No, because she has a little extra selection of cards that come from the items she is wearing or wielding. Her staff gives a bunch of nukes that are perfect for charging up spells, removing enemy traps (especially that -50% damage shield ice mobs are so happy to cast), and finishing off mobs who aren’t yet ready to find honest work.

This is a good time to mention choosing the best pet and amulet for your wizard.

The sole purpose of amulets are to give you an extra spell. That’s it. So which extra spell to choose? A six pip Minotaur? Well, maybe if you’re a Myth wizard. But for his base damage (around 575 over two hits?), Allison could cast two Spectral Blasts for potentially double the damage.

While Fire Elf isn’t a balance school spell, it IS one of the most efficient damage spells in the game, and is well worth the two pips necessary to cast it, especially if you don’t have to waste a power pip to do so. Plus it effectively prevents enemies from keeping fire shields up, which is handy if your attacks include a fire component, as those of balance wizards can, and you’re facing ice mobs, who will happily waste their time putting up fire shield after fire shield.

Pets are very nice and it’s lots of fun to collect them. But the ones you use in battle should also be helping out in the fight. Allison uses the Jade Oni from Dragonspyre, which adds a five pip balance spell to her deck. She had to fight a lot of monsters, open a lot of chests and sell a lot of trash loot for the money to buy that pet, but if you’re going to get a pet for the card it gives, it should be the best one, right?

But wait! We can’t forget treasure cards! These live on your sideboard and are the one reason why you might want a larger deck — to put more treasure cards into play. These cards just sit around doing nothing until you really need them. So, the treasure cards you choose should be the ones that you use when you REALLY have to have a specific card RIGHT NOW.

Heals, I choose you?

The Life school Dryad card heals 200 points of damage per pip spent, can be cast on other people, and can bring people back from the brink and put them back in the fight. These cards are not easy to get, but I know whenever I really, REALLY need a heal — I can have one.

Like everyone else, I have many, many treasure cards, but aside from heals and spells in my own school (like the Hydra), how many would be better than just casting my regular spells? Maybe AE spells, especially in PvP. Or traps/shields/blades that I need only occasionally and can’t easily get any other way. Most of the other alter school treasure cards should probably be traded to friends of the appropriate school for their treasure cards in YOUR school.

That’s, after all, why we can trade treasure cards, right?

But what if things go horribly wrong, just disastrous, and you run out of cards? What then?

There is a little old lady in Colossus Boulevard that has your answer. You can buy a Reshuffle card from her for one training point (free if you’re a balance wizard). When you play Reshuffle, all the cards you have played or discarded, except for treasure cards, are placed back in your deck. If you’re daring, you could even have fewer cards in your main deck and just always plan on using a Reshuffle during a fight.

That would be living on the edge.

The little old card seller, who also sells Life Trap and three counterspells for elemental magics, sits in a huge house at the end of a long alley near Mandy in Colossus. Pay her a visit sometime, I understand she loves visitors. She’s so lonely, living there, far away from the Commons, selling spell cards that are available no place else in the Spiral!

Remember, the best decks contain only the cards you will need. Don’t be afraid to discard spells you won’t need and add new ones that you will when about to fight a new type of monster. Decks that have every kind of spell in them turn out to not be really good at anything. Small, focused decks keep fights short. Choose your pets and amulets to complement your deck, and get a Reshuffle card just in case things go wrong and you run out of cards.