Wintertusk Checklist and Analysis

Wintertusk is coming out today!  Too bad for me, I'm stuck with studying for a final for Thursday... -_-  I'll try to manage my time best to maybe even squeeze in some time for Ravenwood Radio 40 tonight, but no promises!  We'll just have to see if I can plow through or avoid some unnecessary chapters...

BUT, nevertheless, I've created a personal checklist while playing the Test Realm to remind me of some in-game obligations and duties for the Live Realm (once I'm free from academic burden).  This list is made public to help some of you PvPers manage your time, decisions, and resources to efficient use:

Concept to Grasp

A new generation of PVP has arrived, with 15 new spells.  Eight are completely new utility spells, and seven are upgraded versions of existing spells.  Various mechanical changes have been implemented, such as Earthquake no longer removing Stun Blocks, but stunning spells providing just one Stun Block of protection, opposed to four.  To balance this, Stun Resist gear has been added to Dueling Diego's supplies.  Also, the gear that's dropped within the Waterworks dungeon is for Legendary Wizards (Lv. 60), and provides Universal Resistance regardless of school.  New Crafted Gear is also available, allowing for an expansion of many new strategies (which I'll extensively be exploring and developing over the next few months).  Level 58 pets will also take us into a new dimension of PVP with new abilities and unique Innate Cards.  An additional Training Point will be provided through a new Zeke's quest.

The following checklist will be completed before my Ice Wizard returns to the Arena:

• New Spells
• Obtain Level 35 spell (Legion Shield)
• Great counter against Area of Effect (AOE)-Damage over Time (DoT) spells, allowing me to protect allies for an addition 30% resistance to next incoming damage.  Also helps me reduce damage for all allies if I can't make up my mind on who to protect.  A must have.
• Learn an additional spell from Zeke's Trogg Finder quest.
  
  
  
• New Items/Gear
• Purchase Stun Resist Amulet from Dueling Diego
• Replacing my Life Mastery Amulet, since Perfect Catch has vigorously trained and adapted to a Pip-building style before the Amulets were released; it shouldn't be unfamiliar territory.  I'll then have a 15% reduced chance of getting stunned.  Because stunning spells will provide just one Stun Block, the number of Chain-Stunners can be expected to increase.  Thus, having an innate chance of resisting a Stun can be advantageous against a team expecting to win by pure immobilization.  I would rather keep my Stellar Signet and Cosmic Kris for massive Incoming/Outgoing boosts to complement Spritely, so I will choose to stay at just 15% max Stun Resist (as opposed to 30%).
• Stitch Wands
• Personally craft one of the new weapons with help from someone who has access (going to port to them; thanks to Aiden for helping with clarification) to the wand recipes, stitch the Hammer of the Stone Sky to my "Banhammer" (a promo wand called the "Galvanic Hammer" from Beckett's).
• This wand allows for a variety of AOE support spells such as Bladestorm (increase team's damage), Brilliant Light (increase team's recovery rate via casted spell/Spritely), Legion Shield (increase team's resistance), Unicorn (increase team's damage recovery), and Guidance (increase team's accuracy).  All these spells have 100% accuracy, so the chance to fizzle will be very low (given that there is a Smokescreen or Black Mantle upon us).
• Will stitch my Lifeforce Sword to another model
• Just for aesthetics
• Repeat Waterworks with Perfect Catch until all members have their complete Legendary Gear before questing in Wintertusk.
• Gear boosts will allow for faster questing (higher critical rating without sacrificing survival via resist)
• Ronan's boots, hat, robe
• Fallon's boots, hat, robe
• Cassandra's boots, hat, robe
• My boots, hat, robe
• Create a new generation Perfect Catch Defender Pig, and research the Weakness talent more.  (Spell Proof, Spritely, Snow Shield/Weakness, Sharp-Shot)

Vlog #1

Trying out something different...

Topics: Battleblood Updates and News (BUN), Petnome news, small mention of the upcoming Smash 'n' Bash, and my best route for Black Lotus.

(captions provided in near future)

Test Realm: CL Housing Ingredient Totals

**UPDATED BY KINGSISLE**:  Instead of 2 Stars Icons, the recipe will replace them for 2 Celestian Shields.


**UPDATED AGAIN**:  Thanks to Bailey Skystaff for catching the Cards/Reagents missing from the list for the House Recipe!  They've been added into the picture below now!


**UPDATED**:   Fixed the gold amount to include the House Recipe and Furniture Recipe costs.

75,000 G  House Recipe

9,690 G  CL Tree Sprig Recipe

13,005 G  CL Sconce Recipe

14,430 G  Star Chalice Recipe

16,950 G  Crystal Street Lamp Recipe

Over the next few posts and days, I'll go over a few of the unannounced updates made to the game.  For now, here's a chart for you Grandmaster Artisans for that new Celestian Observatory:

The Star Icons are dropped from Astraeus in the Trial of Spheres.  
The Celestian Shields are dropped by Charmtooth
Good luck on gathering and sniping!

BUN: Adventures in Celestia (Tales and Tips)

The past few days have been such a blast with all the new spells, equipment, monsters, quests, income rate, challenges, pets, and strategies that have flooded into the Spiral on the Live Realm.  As with our characters, we were submerged into a whole new world called Celestia, and my PVP team "Perfect Catch" and I were ready and anticipated surprises or twists along the way.  True, some of us were able to touch on the new features in Test Realm (TR), but a few changes, such as the removal of the spells Simplify and Elucidate and the adjustments made to Level 55 weapons, meant our experience was going to be much different.  Similar to how we explored the new world in TR, we split up and played "individually" instead of as a group.  Different schedules called for varying progression rates.

Normally, I am a solo-type gamer, meaning I usually dislike playing with others.  However, the aspects of Wizard101 have undeniably shown that this game was developed with a lot of hindsight to the negative factors of multiplayer interaction.  Instead of a "Greed or Need" system, everyone has the same chance for the same loot, regardless of party size or damage dealt.  Without competition amongst companions, more focus can be placed on similar (if not the same) goals.  If one of the ingredients is a great friendship, then you've got a recipe for success as a team.  With the amazing people I often play with, there was not an excuse for me to jump back into being a hermit.  So, I took on Celestia with mainly Missy, and tripled up with Ronan Dawn towards the end.

Armed with some experience from the TR, Missy and I set straight off to picking up some core, utility spells:  Conviction (Star) for PVP which increases the chance to avoid Critical Hits and Stuns, Fortify (Star) for increased resistance, and Strong (Sun) for increased damage on applicable cards.  I took on the Damage Tier of Sun School since I could rely on a Pet for Accuracy if necessary.  +100 damage to a Blizzard is adding nearly half its minimum value to the spell.  At the highest rank, Gargantuan does +225, which is a 90% boost to my Rank 4 AOE's minimum.  I think farming as a group in Kensington by killing on the first turn is more than possible now!  Seraph, here I come!

On my first day and first fight against Cuthalla in the Grotto, this dropped for me:

I still haven't trained it, surprisingly, but it's most likely because I'm currently working on a new PVP/PVE-based pet.  Surprise, surprise.

I love the new Spritely animation, by the way.  It's somewhat comical, because I don't think any of the other healing spells create this visual:

Looks like a cool effect to use for a new Mistblood logo, huh?  Hmmm...anyway...

What was notably different about the Base Camp Astral trainers on the Live realm was that some spells were relocated to "secret trainers," while others were discontinued/removed.  (On TR, you could see the entire "Tier" or "skill tree" of the Sun enchantments, all of the "basic" Polymorphs, and all Star auras that weren't PVP-based.  Empowerment, Vengeance, and accuracy/damage boosts above Keen Eyes/Strong were viewable in Celestia's "Commons" trainers.)  Also, the Pip Reduction spells of the Sun School (Simplify and Elucidate) were removed.

Thus, my Astral build changed slightly, leaving me with 3 free Training Points after picking up all the new spells that I needed.  I've maxed out on Sun School's Damage tier (Gargantuan), picked up the Fortify and Empowerment auras from Star, and naturally adopted the Gobbler Polymorph from Moon.  Through these combined powers, I became Captain Tank-It!  With Empowerment, I'm getting a faster Pip generation; whenever a Rank 4 (or above) spell is casted on me, be it damage or a heal, I get 1 Pip!  The only catch to this spell is that X-based cards do not trigger the special effect; if Judge, Dryad, Heckhound, or some Boss's natural attack that uses all of its pips is targeted at me, my aura does nothing.  Neat balance!

Before I forget, if you're wondering where you can find additional Astral spells, keep in mind that two trainers are inside their respective instances:  Stellarium from the District of Stars has the Star Trainer, while Lunarium (entered from "Using the Moon Portal") has the Moon Trainer.  There are multiple posts in each of these instances to pick up the spells from; you just need to do a little exploration!  As for the Sun Trainer, you have to go outside for a little tan on the beach to find that kind of magic.  What better place to do that at than the Floating Island?  Just walk up the ramp next to Pierce and past the Teleporter posts to find it.

Speaking of the Floating Island and Pierce...

Mmm, I love Kelp!

With a higher rank in Crafting, I managed to keep my promise of obtaining this:

With the Iceblade Vial, I can stack two Rank 0 blades for +40% and +45%, more than doubling my damage!  Adding Gargantuan onto that, and I'm more effective than a chill pill.  

On the subject of Amulets, Jewel of the Feint dropped for me after fighting Ptolemos, the Moon Boss of the Trial of Spheres.  I think there are some other places where it drops, too (Solar instance, according to new friend Lauren Ironbane), so keep an eye out and cross your fingers!

So, with the mention of making it to the Trial of Spheres and doing every side quest along the way, Ronan, Missy, and I became Spiral Geographers and Legendary Sorcerer, Diviner, and Thaumaturge together, on Friday.  In my next post, I'll elaborate on our reasons for advancing through the world so quickly, but keep in mind, we're not yet through with this new world!  The content is still fresh and fascinating; beating Celestia once or twice or seven times still would not be enough to quench my curiosity on every story on the game (well done, KingsIsle!)  It may be purely coincidence, but I still can't get over the similarities between the nature of Astral Magic and the general nature of magic in my fan fiction comic Mistblood:

"Mind, body, and soul" used in Astral Magic and Mistblood

But that will be another post for another day...

Before we part from this transaction of communication, here are a few helpful Tweets I've made that just can't be elaborated on further:

Star Auras

Every Turn Counts

New Snacks Are Better

In Regards to the Crafting Quest

Critical on a Hydra/Orthrus vs. Block *confirmed*

Repetition is Sometimes Good

False Experience Displayed

Why Celestian Fashion Fails

How to Gain Training Points (part 1) *must read*

How to Gain Training Points (part 2) *must read*

New Endgame Badge *unconfirmed*

Two Sets of Level 58 Armor

Post a comment if you have any questions or thoughts....thanks for reading!

Grandmaster Crafter Preparation on Live Realm

Good news!  The latest Test Realm update reduced the difficulty to advance to Grandmaster Crafter!  Check out this table I've made showing how you can prepare in the Live Realm before Celestia is released (click to enlarge):

Of course, these numbers are for the dedicated Artisans who want to obtain that badge within the first hour of Celestia's Live release.  I'd rather farm mobs and nodes for most of those Pearls and Stones...

In case you didn't know, you can transfer reagents from one Wizard to another in this update.  So, if you've been doing lifelong collecting sprees on your main or alternates, you're well on your way to the next badge.  Good luck, happy hunting!