Kaitlyn finally got her Krokotillian!

Well, she didn't get it herself, but her "sister" got it for her. I took Heather Jadeblade and Danielle Thunderblade in Big Ben, second time today. Didn't get the pet on the initial drop, but hit the second-chance chest 3 times and FINALLY got it! It's about time!...lol. Now Kaitlyn feels complete...for now, anyway xD

Here's a video of the ending of the fight and then a pic of the pet "catch" as well as a pic of Kaitlyn Dunerider in her, much-too-crowded, dorm room with her new pet:


Kaitlyn will get a house sometime...all mine get them, but I am not sure I want ANOTHER Balance house, though I like the one Sandwalker has... A LOT. But I would like to see something different. Currently I have every school themed house, except Fire...I donno, I just never bought it...and it never went on sale either! And as for the old-style houses...I have or have had all them at one time except the small DS house and the big MB house. Hmmm...maybe Kaitlyn will get the big MB house....that's an idea!(she does have LOADS of MB stuff)...But not today...lol. She has plenty of gold for it but I still want to wait a while.

Meowiarty-Dropping the Hop-Hopping Wand!

This time I decided to take in Keira with Emeraldflame, figured Kaitlyn was gaining too much XP and wasn't having luck getting the Krok pet anyway...so maybe one of those "Green People" might bring some luck to me.

Well, Keira did bring us some luck, though not with the pet. Emeraldflame ended up bagging the Easter wand called Hop-Hopping Wand. This is actually a nice drop for level 25, I mean the wand does give a pip, so that was cool. The wand usually retails for 1500 Crowns, so; nice drop!

Not so quick getting the screen shot, but if you enlarge the pic you can see the drop named in Emeraldflame's chat window, and her holding it. Too bad all the wizards on that account are way past 25, but it's still nice to add to the collection :)

Much, More Better! And My Secret Carnival...

I finished up my banner today and got the page looking nice too, so I hope anyone that might read this likes the way it is looking :)

I also wanted to post these pics and videos of My Secret Carnival as well as Emeraldflame's main house. Most of the items at the Carnival(outside, and at least one item that is inside) were crafted by me and most are extremely hard to craft, in other words: time-consuming. There is no way I would sell any of it, and of course the carousel can't be sold anyway >:)

Make sure and press the "play"(arrow right) button at the bottom of the videos so you can view them, otherwise you might be steered away from here.







The Carnival is secret because no one, save for Mom, has actually seen it yet. Well, I had shown one other friend the Carousel when I finished it, but since the rest was added no one has seen it. I wanted to wait until I was completely happy with all of it before showing it to anyone again. There is still a little I am working on inside the big tent, but the outside is pretty much finished. I really like to come hang out here after a lot of battling, it's a great escape with all the happy colors and the peacefulness of the Oasis.

Yay!...Frost Cat!

Yep, my shopping trip to Target was successful! Finally my local store got the cards in, I got two cards, would have got three...wished I would have now, but who knows! These first ones will have to go to my Ice Wizards, though the money will be donated to Alric, for the most...he needs it with pay by area...lol.

Anyway, the gift cards they got set for April at Wizard101 look pretty AMAZING! I mean there are gonna be two different cards with extra resistance! We all LOVE extra resistance!!! They are bringing back Defender Pig and having Burnzilla, which will have 5% Resistance(not as much as Defender Pig, with 6%, but still nice!...)plus it comes with the very highly desired Flamezilla(Stormzilla mutation) Card! My new Fire wizard is gonna be having a great time...when I make him ;)
Man, I can't wait for next month! Good news it's in just a few days :D

Mom had got me some cards from Florida that gave Guardian Dragon, which was awesome too. Especially since we have no 7-11's here. For some reason our Toys R Us don't sell gift cards either...no idea why, as they sell really well in this area. If you ask me TrU is missing out on a money-maker there, and therefore making lots of W101 fans sad when we can't buy cards from them when they have a good pet.

A Break...Dragon Fable

Ok, I wanted a little time away from W101, not that I am bored with it...not at all! But it's going to be a little bit before the new stuff is released, and the way I play I would have 2-4 more Grands before then and no adventure left. So I thought maybe I could try another game out, and maybe I will also re-visit Free Realms a little. I played FR when it was new. All my jobs on FR that matter to me are maxed, except the newer Fishing one, and one can only stand fishing for so much time each day. I never have touched the Soccer Star job on there...not a fan of that, but all the fighting, crafting, and the racing job are maxed. I really wonder if FR isn't aimed more towards boys/guys? I mean the pets they just came out with include some really nasty stuff, which, I for one, don't care to see huge versions of. The beetle, to me, is especially horrible. Spiders don't usually bother me at all, but they made that new pet one especially UGLY.

Well, I haven't went back to FR yet, but I did try out BattleOn.com's Dragon Fable. It's about as simple of a game as can be, it's nowhere near as cool looking as either FR or W101, and it's mostly not an MMO, though they do have some PvP for people who like to kill each other...lol. Hopefully it's not like W101's PvP where not only do you kill each other but you also be generally hateful towards others.

Dragon Fable is mostly a one-player RPG. It's very 2D(flat) in appearance, no 3D action there. Most of it is very story-based, which I like a lot! It doesn't look like much, but as I found out last night it can really pull you in! It's also nice, sometimes, not to deal with other people. Especially when your "friends" seem to stop talking to you for who knows what reason?!?!?! (I get the feeling someone is blaming me for having their wings taken when that whole thing was way bigger than me...they say don't shoot the messenger, well someone sure did!) Well, I played DF for about 4-5 hours last night and got my little Mage character to level 7. Some parts of the game are not quite as easy to figure out as W101 and FR had been. Looks like I am going to have to do some digging on info for certain things, but I am figuring most of it out pretty well.

I do think I will return to W101 later in the day, maybe work on Alric. I really want to get at least one Grand on my third account, as I have some plans for that. Alric still has a ways to go, but I know how quickly MooShu goes too. He will soon be to Crimson Fields, after that it always seems to go way too fast. Like Kaitlyn, she is now level 42 and working on Village of Sorrow, then it will be Tree of Life, Jade Oni, Cyrus Drake battle, and BOOM: Dragonspyre. It's all really easy and goes too fast. Then DS just drags along, well, not really. I just HATE the place, it's so dull, dark, and ugly. So I make it go as fast as I can, especially Crystal Grove....that could drag on for(what seems like) forever if you let it. But lately I do the Grove in a day...get away from it as soon as possible. I mean how many spiders do we REALLY need to kill???

I am going to check out my local Target, see if they ever got those Ice Cat cards in. I called them a week and a half ago and they still didn't have them. I am starting to think you have to be "special" to get one. I might pick up a card for DF too, it's a nice little game to play to take a break from W101 now and then. And they do have some cool premium stuff on DF too. But one other thing I like about DF is that there is no monthly fee. There is a one-time cost to those who want to upgrade and go to special areas and have the ability to buy special equipment, etc. I mean W101 gets awfully expensive, so this is a nice little game to get away from throwing so much money around.

I have been working on pics for this site, very slowly, by the way. I spent most of the day yesterday watching the Merlin marathon on SyFy channel. I am really happy they picked up that show and a new series will be starting Friday, the 2nd! I've always been a huge Merlin/King Arthur fan :)

Better Late than Never...Myth Fashion

I am back home now and just able to post this, if anyone cares...

Here is my Myth Grand's outfit. I believe the hat is Yakedo's Hypothetical Helm, the robe is The Sneak's Puzzling Robes, and the boots are Krokopatra's Footwraps. I have stitched them all into higher level gear, so I no longer have the stats on them. I do know the stats can all be found at:
http://wizard101.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard101_Wiki


It's hard to tell from the pic, but there are some Myth designs on the hat. Click on pic for larger image.

Piggasus? Celestia News!

So, I wasn't gonna post again yet....but...

Awesome news on Celestia at W101 today! I just got on the computer at mom's so, I first checked there to see if anything was new...and YES!..there was!

Just check it out there. I'm not gonna copy all that into here when others already have in their blogs and sites. But it all sounds very awesome and exciting!

What I did want to touch on is that I just received my new FOG(FUN! Online Games) magazine today. There is a really good little interview in there with some of the same guys who did the MOG interview. In fact some question and answers are the same, but if you read it; some are not!

When asked about favorite mounts Todd Coleman answers "My favorite mount is the Piggasus! But that's not a fair question, because you guys haven't seen one yet!"

So is this really going to be a new mount sometime? ...I do wonder. I'm not a huge fan of pigs, save with the Ninja Pigs(who doesn't love them?..lol) But I am sure some kids might enjoy a pig mount of some type, especially if it flies!

I, personally, would like to see a few more variations on wing mounts. Like raven wings would be very cool! I mean black, feathery wings!...That would be so cool! I would have to get them for Emeraldflame so she could have double-wings, and for Nightshade as that would be perfect for Death.

Anyway, get your hands on that FOG magazine and have a read for yourself. No freebies in that issue for W101, but the article in good.

What a day!

(Ok, so I am making the font bigger now, this is so much easier to read than tiny little words...lol.)

Well, I came home for the afternoon and night so I can sleep comfortably tonight, maybe even get 8 hours?!?! And I needed to check in on my own pets. I have been watching mom's cat, a very old Maine Coon...wonderful cat, a real sweetheart, but she is really old and not in too good of shape. She sort of has the opposite health issue from me, which isn't good either, along with her having some other health problems as well. I have always loved that cat and I hate seeing her looking the way she does now....it's kinda sad, really.

Anyhow, since I got to come home and be on my own computer I got some things accomplished, but I feel like part of it was work :-/
Playing Wizard shouldn't feel like work, right? Well, I had all my wizards I am really working on sort of at a point where I knew that they might need some help and I was not about to try that on Mom's little laptop. I know it can run two windows of the game, but even running one on there is really jerky, so to really run two(or more) would be a real headache...not at all fun.
I wanted to at least get those wizards over these humps and to a point where I know I can at least have some fun playing it when I go back to mom's later.

Kaitlyn Dunerider did Crimson Fields with Heather Emeraldflame's help. Sure, I know I could have run Kaitlyn through there on her own, but I've soloed it enough times and really didn't want to spend that much time there. It's not one of my favorite dungeons to solo. You really DO do more work there when you solo, as you really do have to beat 10 of the battlefield, where if you have more wizards it counts as double, triple, etc. Well Kaitlyn and Heather battled the secret boss, then just had to do one more fight after that for the battlefield and they were done with that part. It's so nice to have that extra help whenever you want or need it. I really like that you can make this game a more independent playing experience at times, though it doesn't mean I don't enjoy real friends on there too :)
So, Kaitlyn is set to move on to the next ares in MS. I always like getting past Hametsu.

Alric had a very long day. First he soloed Katzenstein's. This is really only the second time I soloed a wizard through there at that level. The last one I did that with was Kaitlyn. I did it just to see how it would go.. Yes, Life and Balance do very well going through there by themselves at that level. I hated that place when I first went in there as Emeraldflame, then when I did it as Nightshade I just had bad memories of doing it with Emeraldflame. I am over that now, I would not be afraid to try it with any now. But I am much more experienced now, and I also know the layout of it very well and I have memorized all that needs to be done in there.
Alric even soloed killing the secret boss in Katz, Smogger. So he has the Smogger Smasher badge now. He doesn't have Feint yet, so he did it with basically what he has, no treasure cards were used save for Centaurs with Tough added. It took three Centaurs to kill Smogger, himself, but it was really easy. All Alric has are his blade, trap, and Spirit Trap and Blade. He doesn't have access to any other traps or blades from pets or anything. He is really new. I just made him at the end of last month, and he is the first on his account, and I really hadn't worked on him that much. His account is doing the pay-by-area thing(*was not going to even think about paying for 3 subs!*,) so I have really tried to take it slow. But this week it just happened that he was the easiest to work on this week, so he got a lot done.


I love the way Katzenstein's looks in the actual lab part of it...it's sooo....Electric?...Stormy(lol) ? Very Steampunk looking and fits the whole Storm theme. Reminds me of Danielle's Storm House...love that place!

After Katz., Alric continued on to the Counterweights. I gave him some help there cause I didn't want it to take forever. Heather Emeraldflame to the rescue again...lol. Ahh...she needs the loot though, all those crafting projects she did in the last couple months, along with decorating her Secret Carnival place, really ran the coin down. I hate seeing coin go below 80k, I donno why. So when it started to get down in the 60's I started farming a lot, and the others on her account helped to contribute too. Emeraldflame managed to get the Marleybonian Pilot Painting this time...LOL! I seem to like to get repeat drops, once I get a certain item it seems to happen more and more. But, like I told Friendly when I emailed him about it' I do love that painting! It's probably because of my love of planes and flight and the memories I have of spending time with Dad and him talking to me about all the stuff he use to do in the USAF. Wow, those days are so gone :-(




So they ran through the Counterweights. Then Alric went to Big Ben with Heather. They both did all of Big Ben, but I brought in Kaitlyn at the top, not cause help was needed, but I keep hoping Kaitlyn will get the Krokotillian pet. I have been trying with her since she HAD TO do it. But this week I hadn't been able to do that at all with her. Well, with three wizards it was completely cake in there. Kaitlyn went in first, Alric went in last, and they made a Storm Sandwich out of Heather. Stinkin' Meowiarty managed to sneak in a Storm shield somewhere in there. I thought I had them all cleared with Pierce, but he snuck one in at some point. It gets really hard to watch things when running three wizards.

BUT, Heather still killed him in one shot, very easily with over 5500k damage by The Lord...which is not so great sounding, but with that 80% shield in there it was very good. The Agony Wraith was hit at over 18k. I know these are not huge hits like some people do, but I am really into using what you have and not adding in and spending all kinds of coin on Treasures. I actually have quite a few Treasures I could use, traps and whatever too(which I got all of them free,) but I haven't felt the care to try it. Part of the reason is because there is always some weirdo that seems to have to run into a fight(uninvited) when I am trying to do something and they never respect what I am trying to do, even with normal stuff. I would hate to lose Treasures because some noob came in and used their wand and messed up my entire set-up. I think I would have a conniption if that happened D:

So Alric got his new gear and is off to MooShu. Finally, I can have a wizard with the Samurai outfit with two flags, instead of the single, lop-sided one that girl wizards get.



Oh, and Kaitlyn still didn't get that pet :-(
I wish I could give her the one I have on my Balance Grand...it would have been fun for her to have, to use the spell for a little hit every once in a while. I will keep trying with her, but I know I won't get another chance until the weekend. She did get, yet another, Watchdog Statue...lol. She is going to give that one to Keira, as Keira seems to be collecting Statues.

While I was between dungeons I had Heather out in Regent's Square and some guy came up and made some nice comments on her stats and gear. Wow, that was rare! Usually they say nothing and just want to friend you. Well, he had some pretty spiffy gear too, for his level, so I told him that. He was a Necromancer and had the old Astral gear hat and robe stuff with the stars on it. Well, he had changed the stats on the hat, but it was still that look, which is what I REALLY like. I am so jealous of anyone who has that stuff...lol. I was not around when they sold that stuff. I really wish that they would at least release the pattern again. I don't care about the stats the stuff has, but I would love to have that look on at least one wizard! Well, the guy didn't ask, but I could tell he probably wanted to friend me, so I added him. I generally keep the requests off as I would have huge lists of people constantly wanting help if I didn't and I just added anyone. The guy said he was gonna go work on his wizard so he could someday have a wizard like mine....that was kinda cool. And I like seeing someone who really is willing to work on things themselves and not just begging for help all the time.

I am thinking I "might" some day make another Pyromancer, and MAYBE a Necromancer, but I donno about that latter one yet. I can see a need for a second Pyro, in my arsenal of wizards, but not sure about the Necro. Necromancers tend not be as good in a team, in my opinion. I mean there isn't a lot they can contribute, save for with other Necromancers. I don't mean anything bad by that, but they really aren't very good support, and they aren't the best attackers either...well, not like Fire, Ice, and Storm are. Death is kinda in that grey area with Myth, but Death is so much more fun and hard-hitting than Myth. I'm not a huge Myth fan. I deleted my first one at level 47...lol. At the time I thought "if all I get at 48 is a spell that hits one thing and is just as much trouble as Minotaur to set up, then why would I want to keep this wizard?"

Well, I made a second account some time later and figured I'd give it another whirl, and then being able to easily give a Myth wiz help, Taryn came to be. I ran her with my Balance Grand, Sandwalker. And I actually used Humongofrog from the time I got it to the time I took her through Malistaire's. It actually worked real well like that. balance sure helped to make Myth a lot easier to use. I am not a fan of one-hitter spells, and Myth has too many of those that it relies on. Not only that but they got those two spells that you have to set up double traps for....such a nuisance. When they made that class they had to have 1v1 PvP in mind, cause it's near useless as a solo wizard on quests, after a certain point. I took Taryn all the way up and through most of MooShu by herself, but it really got to be a drag, so I brought in Sandwalker for the extra help and it worked out so nicely :)

Taryn even has a job now: she is the Myth card maker...lol. Seriously that is all I use her for now. She became essential on one particular crafting recipe that Emeraldflame worked on. I honestly don't think I could have made one item, in particular, without her. I also use her for making Pierce cards...one of my favorite little tricks to the game!

I do like Death, though, so don't get me wrong on that. But I am trying to have wizards sorted out in a particular way so as to benefit each other in certain situations and I don't see a place for another Necro. But it's something I will think about, I did have fun when I ran that first one, Nightshade. I just remember wishing I had a AoE attack a LOT earlier though. If I don't keep one I might make one sometime just for fun, then delete them.....who knows. But right now I have a lot of projects I am working on, within the game, and already have plans for another Pyro, but right now I want to finish off at least 2 of the 3 I am working on. The one I have going with Mom might take a while. She doesn't get a lot of time. I am really surprised we have made it this far already...lol. Our next thing is to do Crimson Fields, but I want to level us up to 38 to get our blade quest before we do that.

Well, this is more than enough blogging for the time being. I probably won't write too much more until, maybe this weekend. I will be playing on that laptop again, starting this afternoon. Yes, I am up way too late and it's time to go to sleep now.

Have fun out there!

Finally, a little introduction here...

Hello to anyone who gets lucky enough to wander upon this page! I am Heather Emeraldflame, Grandmaster of Storm.....

Ok, so I'm NOT REALLY HER, but my name IS Heather, for real. I run quite a few wizards at Wizard101, but my favorite is Storm. So if you hate Storm and only want to sit there and tell me how much it stinks...then you are in the wrong place and you can just move along and go back to your little hate-corner. I think all schools are great in their own ways, and this will NOT be a Storm-only blog, but just know Storm is my favorite and I have had a lot of experience, both good and bad...though in the end and after all this time it's all good, with it.

I plan to post some pics and make this blog look a little cooler but it's going to take some time. Currently I am unable to work on this too much as I am cat-sitting and do not have access to my own computer much at the moment.

My current wizards are:
- Heather Emeraldflame - GM Storm
- Danielle Thunderblade - GM Storm
- Heather Jadeblade - GM Life
- Keira Willowsong - GM Life
- Alric Dreamhaven - Magus Life
- Heather Sandwalker -GM Balance
- Kaitlyn Dunerider - Magus Balance(and happy contributor to Friendly Necromancer's Housing Item of the day at this link: Dog Pilot Painting )
- Heather Nightshade - GM Death
- Heather Fireslinger - GM Fire
- Savannah Icewraith - Magus Ice
- Heather Winterbane - GM Ice
-Taryn Griffinhaven - GM Myth.

I run three accounts, sometimes run two or three wizards together, usually two max, but once in a while three. I rarely find a need to run three together. If I run three then I am probably completely by myself and doing something very, very hard for the level of the wizards in the battle. It's way too hard to work with any other real people if I'm running three wizards, but I can do that with two and will often help my friends using two of mine.
I am helping my mom, who is even older than me(lol) play the game. Her wizard will also appear here, and is one of the "Friends" included in the blog title. She is sunning a Ice wizard, who is always around the same level as Savannah, since I usually have the two work together. I never intended for Alric to start to catch up to the lower level girls, but because of circumstances this past week I have had more time to work on him while the others have been waiting to do some dungeons while I haven't had my own computer to play on. Laptops are just no fun to play on, at least in my opinion...makes it feel more like work. I never feel comfortable sitting with one, I tend to fidget too much with them and move around more than I get to accomplish anything.

I have some health issues, I won't bore you with details, which is why I get so much time to play this game. I haven't been around the game quite as long as some people, but I have learned a whole lot in the time I've had...mostly because I can play for hours and hours. Playing this game has been so much fun for me and lets me take my mind off real life troubles :)

In my non-playing time I do a lot of reading about the game. I also enjoy movies, any music with a good rhythm, animals(I have two cats(Saturn and Baby Girl(whom I did not name,) and a Betta fish named Daytona)and sci-fi/fantasy books, though for medical reasons I can't read books as often as I would like. I really enjoy meeting others who can work as a team and also know a lot of the tricks I do. It's really fun when you have a friend that you can play this game with that is on the same level as you....as far as what they know about the game.

I am not a PvP player. I absolutely HATE the thought of it because of the way I have seen people treat each other in there. To me there is enough hate and anger in the world without making it part of my "fun-time." If you like to PvP, that's cool and I have nothing against you, but it's not my thing. I like adventures and questing a lot more. I also love to farm for and get unique and rare items. I am willing to come watch friends in PvP, but I will probably turn off all my chat while in there. I do find watching others battles to be interesting, especially if they are really smart players.

I also love crafting. Yeah, I know a lot of people want to put that down and say how boring it is. Well, it does take a whole lot of patience and time, and you really got to want to make those items because YOU want to make them. One great thing about crafting is that KI has made it oh, so much easier than it use to be! I mean those mutate recipes and them asking for less items to be made in the quests...it has made a HUGE difference in the fun-factor of crafting. I just wish KI would come up with more recipes/items that you can make...I have almost made everything that I would want to. I HAVE made all the really big, awesome items that you can, you will see that when I get pics up.
I have one main crafter on all my accounts, the other wizards do very little crafting and if they do it's usually cards for the crafters, or cards for battling. Though on my first account I have had two of the others do some crafting too, as they have been around long enough to obtain lots of reagents.

My little advice for the day:
People sometimes wonder what to do with all those extra treasure cards they end up with; don't sell them! A lot of those cards can be used in recipes! The only treasure cards you probably want to sell are mutates, unless it's something like Lightning Elf, or Ice Elf, and you are Ice or Storm, cause they might actually be useful then(if you can make the mutations into the full versions, or have someone make them for you.) Also, sell those useless Ghost Touch cards...those are a complete waste at this point. I like to collect, keep, and use the special treasure cards like Krokotillian, Ninja Pigs, Krokomummy, etc. The Pigs, especially, are great for Myth Wizards. It gives Myth an alternative to having to rely on spells like Minotaur and Orthrus, which make you have to double-trap everything. (Ugh...*hates double-trap spells* D: *serious PAIN*)

Another thing I love about this game are the little Silver Chest games. Those are such a nice break from constant battling, and often times you get a card and nice little bit of coin for playing. Sometimes while looking for reagents I will look for these chests as well, it's a nice break to the monotony of hunting reagents.

I really enjoy most all dungeons in the game, I am not a fan of the DS towers, though. To me the towers are just long and have no real point. I mean they prove nothing but that you can battle the same stuff over and over...who cares? At least dungeons usually have some kind of story to them. I am also weird as I tend to love the dungeons that it seems everyone else hates...like, say; Kensington, Labyrinth, Katzenstein's, etc. And I actually don't mind doing Sunken City, though that one is a waste as far as drops...best you can really get is the Wraith Statue. I like to use two of my wizards in these dungeons(usually, but sometimes one) at a time, and with no one else, usually. I am happy to help others in these places but don't ever expect me to do ALL your work for you and to help you all the time. I don't say that to be mean, but I do get on Wizard because I enjoy it, not because I want to be everyone's helper all day.

I guess that is it for now. More to come soon!

Have fun out there!

Help for Soloing Life wizards

Friendly Necromancer had a question from a level 20+ Life wizard and asked his friends/followers if we had any other advice, so here is mine:

I like to run life wizards, on my third one right now...my one dude I've made to keep(after so many girls I wanted a wizard that could wear different clothes :) )

I usually take death as a third as my aim is for them to be both strong and useful for support in the end. I just take death for feint. I take ice for a second, only up to tower shield. Having Ice as a second covers most shields you would want through Krok. Eventually, toward the end(DS levels) I get Ice shield(mostly to use for supporting others as tower is usually good enough against ice) and reshuffle. I mostly use Life for support in the end, but I still take my Life wizards for solo farming, they are really good for that as healing is cheap for life and won't eat up all your pips if you need to heal while you are setting up. Plus; Life has really good health, my two Life Grands have 3049 health, each. Feint is kinda the key, though. It's really going to help you be able to solo at later levels.

As Life you will never get a big AoE attack(at least as the game stands currently.) If you took Fire earlier for that meteor strike it WILL help up to a point, except against any fire mobs...well, it will still damage, but probably won't kill them...lol...and if they are still alive then prepare to be retaliated on, heavily, after that. After those low levels using meteor it gets to be about as much of a pain to set up at higher levels as Humongofrog is in DS to kill something...and really benefits more if you have a balance person with you. For Life it just doesn't make a lot of sense as you will be wasting power pips in later levels to be able to cast a fire spell. Also Fire in DS isn't so beneficial...too much there already and since it's not your main school you don't(usually) have a prism(s.) I would try to stick to my main school spells, but that is me.

Life does take longer in a solo fight, it's just a fact. Same with Balance, same with Death, up to a point, and same with Ice, also to a point...Ice is more about survival and defense...it can outlast others when run right.But most of these schools just don't have or get a big attack AoE until much later(Ice gets blizzard, but until you get your blade at 38 it's not a lot of fun to set up)...Death and Balance don't get their AoE attacks until level 48. And, really Balance's is rarely useful as a real attack. I use Nova more as a taunt and way to clear tower shields..lets my fighters do their thing(very useful to make those DS myth guys mad enough to attack you instead of saving up pips to use Earthquake on you.)

Most schools are not as quick as Storm or Fire because they don't get the big AoEs or have very heavy attacks, so take that into account.

My life guy, right now, is without the benefit of a dragonblade or any other extra traps or blades. I made his account after they stopped with that gift card, unfortunately. But he is level 32 right now and I have had him completely solo everything so far...so it CAN be done, it's just slower than running a wizard who's main school is attack-based..at least it's slow as far as time of battles.

One thing to remember is to keep as little as you need in your deck, don't have a bunch of extra junk in there that will have you discarding a lot. Like I know I can kill off the average street monster in MB with a seraph, life trap, and Life blade. So I just have those, a couple heals, and 4 shields in my deck. And I change shields sometimes depending on who I fight. If I go to boss fight I add in spirit traps and spirit blades, but not too many as I don't want them clogging up my deck. In my sideboard I have some treasure cards my other life wizards made, but I know this probably is not so easy for everyone to do. I keep a couple Centaurs, a couple Seraphs that have had tough added and one Satyr, for emergency(lol.) If you have any higher level Life friends ask them if they can make some cards for you if you buy them some keen eyes or strongs to make them for you. Then you can have that stuff as back-up if you run across an especially strong boss...like that stuff would be great against Krokopatra ;)

I have been using the crown weapons with my guy. But one huge problem is that these weapons are not death wands, which is what you want if you have to fight a Life creature. I end up having to change to a old low-level death wand whenever I fight a Life creature, in case they put up one of those darn death shields before I can get a life prism on them. I also have some Poison cards my death wiz made for him, just in case. But normally you really want a death wand, and as it is right now you can't get a death wand until level 35 that gives a pip bonus. So every time I fight Life I am starting with one less pip or power pip than normal. It sort of evens out though, as having to get that prism on is one more step than I usually have to take, and since it's a zero rank spell, it doesn't really mess with me too much. Often times I can skip traps at this level with having the prism there...unless it's a boss. I just really wish that there was a good Death wand/staff available with a pip or power pip before level 35. Every other school is covered, so I wonder why they skipped death?