Things I Wish I Had Known....

This game. Wizard101. It's not all that easy. Especially for people like me, who are novices when it comes to MMOs and "serious" gaming. I've been thinking a lot lately about how the game has gotten much easier than when I started playing it almost three years ago. Then I thought about how my friends that I met after I became a grandmaster really helped me out. They introduced me to concepts and styles of gameplay that made the game much more enjoyable. I've met some players recently who haven't been playing as long as I have and it's really taken me back to the days when I had no idea what I was doing! It was a lot of fun to be figuring it out on my own, but it was also really tough (I don't think Nightside was meant to be a four hour dungeon....). So I wanted to take some blogging time and talk about the features of the game that I wish I had known about back when I was starting.

The biggest thing I learned that saved me much heartache was the difference between crowns gear and school specific gear. Granted, it took me until level 50 when I got my Malistaire robe to figure it out, but from there it was onwards and upwards. Let me explain.

Here are two pairs of level 60+ shoes. Take a moment to look at the stats. Which one would you wear? Maybe you picked the Kozane Boots because they give better health, accuracy, block, and incoming health. Plus the have this spiffy spell card. But look, they don't have any additional strength at all. Strength is important (and this is something that I found out the hard way). Lets say I cast a Humongofrog with only my Kozane Boots on, and that I haven't enchanted it and I'm not using any blades or traps. This humongofrog will hit between 265-325 damage points. Eh, not bad but definitely not great. If I put on my Tricksy Boots it will it between 353-421 damage points. That's your fourteen percent at work right there. And that's quite a lot when your trying to get your 8 Conga Drums from Restless Lion Spirits.

"But look at the spiffy card!" you might be saying. Well, it certainly is spiffy and I'd love to try it out, but it's 5 pips and a Balance spell, so I'm probably never going to use it. Five pips is a lot when you consider that when you're 60+ they are mostly power pips. So that means if I cast Obsidian Colossus with 5 power pips I could've casted...

I think when you illustrate it like that you can see why using spells from your own school is smart. This is another thing that took me forEVER to learn. But I'll talk about that at length some other day. 

So in conclusion, the reason it's good to wear clothes that are tailored to your school is because they meet your school's needs. I don't need a ton of accuracy as a myth wizard, but my storm wizard does! Her clothes are suited to meet her needs. Crowns clothes however, aren't tailored to meet any one school's specific needs and therefore can be less beneficial to use. You might have cool new cards and a snazzy matching outfit, but it doesn't matter if you die all the time in battles!

And that's something I've learned.

~Heather