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?