New Banner Plus Three Grandmasters Are Made Today!

Hey, all! Hopefully I haven't lost anyone following this blog since I very recently changed the URL(like last night.) I think it needed changed. As one friend pointed out last night; it was really long! So I am hoping that this shorter version will be easier to remember since it's just my main wizard's name :)

And to celebrate the new, shorter version of the blog's name I have made a newer version of the banner(see top of blog) with updated pics of all my wizards, and Mom's too(though she may change her's again sometime...she can not decide on a look.)

Been a busy day for me in the Spiral. I took Luis to do Sunken City. Here he is finishing off Grubb:



...yeah with Dragon. No he doesn't actually have the spell yet(only level 41) but I made a ton of cards, probably more than he will need to get to the point of it actually being his spell...so he had fun with his future spell today.Might as well burn those enhanced cards that are in-school types and taking up vault space...it's the out of school ones that you want to hold onto like gold right now(use when you absolutely have to, cause who knows if KI will ever let us trade them again...I am not counting on it at all.)

Then I took him to Tomb of the Beguiler. I figured I might as well get this stuff out of the way, and nothing gets me more hyped up than a fun weekend of relaxing dungeon runs when I can just sink right into it and forget about anything else in the world.

Here is Luis finishing off with Ngozi:



After all that Mom(wizard: Gabrielle Iceweaver) was on so I decided we could take Savannah and Kaitlyn and continue the journey with the three of them.

We hit the Drake hatchery for the second round there; busted through the Safe House, defeated Viktor Snowcrusher, talked one more time to Castamir Silverdrake. We all hit Grandmaster(Savannah and Gabrielle at the same time, and Kaitlyn a little while later.)

Grandmaster sandwich, anyone?...

...Very crunchy; armor and swords are bad for the digestive system ;)

So, now what? Hmmm?...well, I plan to relax for the rest of the night, maybe get the Vampire Twins out a little, but I think I did enough hardcore(haha) Wizarding for one day.
Emeraldflame has a mannequin to work on, so I may just relax and do some reagent hunting while listening to some music; good times :)

Oh, on a side note; I did get to watch Avatar, finally. That is THE BEST movie! It's a bit sad, but the beauty of the film overrides all the sadness for me. I mean from an artistic point of view is truly amazing! And the story is one that people should pay attention to. I know it got sort of a bad rap on the story, but it also depends on what you take that story to parallel. To me it covers a lot more things that have happened in history, not just recent events. I think there are lessons that could be learned from this film; if only people would listen. But I won't go all into politics and such, this isn't the place for it. No matter how you view the movie, even if you see it as just it's own individual story and don't see the parallels, it's still a wonderful film. So go buy it if you haven't seen it...and even if you have seen it: GO BUY IT! :D

Nice Ending to a Slow Few Days :)

The last few days I haven't had as much time to do things, like blog here. I think it's mainly I am lacking a LOT of sleep. I have been waking up to the sounds of "construction" going on in the apartment next to mine. Waking up to the sounds of hammers and sawzalls is not a good thing. I had such a huge headache after I woke this past day. I sure hope they get done gutting the place next door soon.

In game I have been playing mostly with getting Alric his Grand gear. He now has his Athame and his robe. I also did find that the Headdress of the Heavens drops from the Ice Gurtok. It's not something I even care about having, but I got it there and I am always happy to have got Crowns gear/items on a drop(except that silly Ruined Painting.) You can see the drop listed in Danielle's log here and then a picture of the stats on it below that. Sorry I don't have a screen shot of actually being in there and getting it, but I think you can tell from what is in the log that it came from there. I always do Fire Gurtoks first, then Ice, and as you can see it was before Malistaire and Cyrus' dialogue began. I just didn't even pay attention to it when it dropped, else I would have screened it right there and then. Hard to watch EVERYTHING that drops when you are running more than one wizard and more concerned with what the other gets.


I think Alric's ring will take a very long time and may require adding in another wizard and rearranging the order during that ONE FIGHT. Alric is usually in the first position with Danielle in second. After every battle with the Fire Gurtok crew he either gets junk or...*gasp*: NOTHING! Danielle keeps getting more and more rings she doesn't need for ANYONE on that account. It would be nice if Alric could at least be getting some rings so I know he is really getting a chance. The only Grand ring he has gotten at all was the Death ring.

I think when I try again later I am going to do a quick farm session. I will take Sandwalker, Danielle, and Alric. Alric can go last. Maybe it will give him some luck. Since he has his robe now there really is no need to run the entire dungeon. I will just take them in and do that fight, then exit, then go back and do it again. As I have said many times; the Fire Gurtok Second-chance chest never gives the Grand rings, it only gives junk.

For right now Alric is using Malistaire Drake's Ruby Signet. It's not near as good as his school ring but at least it gives the same pip percentage.

I still like the rings from the Gurtoks much better than the ones from Briskbreeze.

Kevin Battleblood and another friend of his, Cheryl Fire, and myself did Briskbreeze the other night. I used two wizards. See picture below:


Emeraldflame actually got her ring, which I am happy to have it, BUT I have decided against using it. It would only give me 8 more health, of course it gives no mana(unlike the Gurtok one,) and I would actually LOSE 5% power pip chance by wearing it! Even with the added Tough, to me, this is not worth all you lose. I think, maybe the only schools who don't suffer such a loss on their rings(from one to another) might be Myth and Life. Life gets the same power pips on both, and Myth gets the most of any on those Briskbreeze rings, they get 15%! My normal Gurtok Storm ring is 15%. Being that Storm is supposed to be a fast hitting powerhouse I do not see why I would want to lose power pip chances?!?! Actually most of my wizards kind of run on that whole mindset of quick power and all have pretty high percentages because of it. I have seen some people with higher but only by maybe 3 points, tops. And usually if it's like that they did sacrifice a lot of something else I would never give up.

I think if I ever tried to do some kind of high hit that I might use the Briskbreeze ring, but if I was to use it with wanting to get a high Tempest hit I would be running the chance of not getting as many power pips as I should...which would be a real problem with Tempest being pip-based damage. There are ways around getting rid of the single pips and hoping for more power, but it sure is not guaranteed. Why on earth would the Storm ring be so low on pips? We are supposed to be THE POWERhouse. Is it not bad enough we have the lowest health? They needed to take pip percentage away from us too on these rings?

I also notice that these rings look like they should have been dropped in Grizzleheim. Is this yet another mistake that was made when GH was released? I mean in that they seemed to have rushed getting GH out there to us. There is so much in GH that seems to remain unfinished or a mystery. So many NPCs(for one thing) that seem to have no purpose. I wonder if these rings were not originally meant to be dropped by the Coven? It would make some sense; getting Grand gear from the Coven. Seems to me that the best things the Coven drop are only good for resale. All those swords they drop that are not so exciting to look at, but great for someone who needs a sword and just turned level 45.

Other than thinking on things like that and working on Alric's gear, I have had Savannah working with Gabrielle. Also I have been working on Luis a bit. Really did a marathon with Luis the other day with a lot of leveling. He is just starting the Tomb of Storms now. Luis got a couple lucky pet drops, he got the Fire Salamander from the Throne Room of Fire, and then he got a regular Ghoul(crown item) from the Emperor's Retreat.

Savannah and Gabrielle finished up the Village of Sorrow today, in Mooshu. Next stop is the Tree of Life. Poor Mom will soon be in Dragonspyre; I know she isn't looking forward to that, and I don't blame her...it's such a hideous place.

This past evening was lots of fun with Ravenwood Radio's Live show and chat. I met some more "new" people and befriended them. Thanks to those who added me this past evening, it was a pleasure to meet you all :)
Everyone seemed to show up for the party in Nightside. Mr. Friendly Necromancer(aka Thomas Lionblood, etc., etc.,) Stephen Spiritcaller, Leesha Darkheart, Fallon Shadowblade:The Death Kids foursome were all there, as were many other great people and bloggers.

Friendly played dress up for us as Chief Friendly and as Nolan Stormgate. He also brought in Kyle Skystaff with his very extremely rare and special Sheep pet. Here are some little pics of things and people seen at the party:
I can't wait until the next RR broadcast!
I hope all that were at the party had fun and I will see you guys in the Spiral!

Alric Finished Dragonspyre, Defeated Malistaire - NEXT?!

There wasn't a lot left for Alric today in Drqagonspyre. He and Emeraldflame did the Father Drake tower to get the scales for the armor for the baby drake. Then it was off to talk to the dragon mommies once more., then to Ashley for her last words of encouragement. Emeraldflame let her Storm sister, Danielle Thunderblade, step in for most of Malistaire's. I brought in Fireslinger to do Tumok Gravelbeard(the two times we made the run.) I've done it plenty of times with my Storm girls but it's is really heavy on the need to use Pierce there(those myth guys with their 80% Storm Shields are kind of a nuisance and you really need to do them fast so as not to let them use earthquake on you.)

Danielle stayed to watch until Fireslinger and Alric were done, then Fireslinger left, and the original pair finished it up. I really didn't feel like messing with the pierce over and over today...then making poor Taryn make even more of them.

Alric & Malistaire(I think they are going to become really "good friends," at least for a while)




I have here a couple ending videos of the first two runs. Alric, unfortunately, had no luck on getting his gear today. But he did get LOTS for Luis to use in the future...plus some for a future Necromancer ;)
The reason you see the Storm minion in the first is that I often like to bring them out to take the flack off the Life person. It gives the Life person a chance to gain some more pips and heal some more if needed. It also keeps the enemies from wanting to put weakness on my Storm wizard when she has Dragonblade or any other balance-school blades that might get used. Also, this was the second minion and she had just called him up this time, really to get rid of one regular pip so she could have full power on that hit.


Second run. No minion used here...I didn't care about the one regular pip that time, I guess...lol...



So, what IS next? Well, it's Kaitlyn's turn now to do Dragonspyre. I will also be farming Mailstaire's at least one time a day, until Alric gets his robe, athame and ring. (It's always the first wizard on an account that has to do all this farming, any others will probably have all their gear by the time they reach 50.) I will probably be using a mix of wizards with Kaitlyn. Ice and Balance work very well together so Winterbane may be helping quite a bit, and sometimes Danielle might help, as well as Fireslinger is always good to have in certain situations.

Savannah and Gabrielle did meet up yesterday. They completed all but Frosthelm in the Vigrid Roughland. They might be doing Frosthelm today...hopefully. Then they will probably go back to Mooshu and continue on there with starting in the Village of Sorrow.

Also, there is always Luis to work on. He is still, basically, just starting in Krokotopia in the Pyramid of the Sun. Well, actually he has done quite a bit of that area and doesn't have a lot left of it...but it's still the beginning of Krok ;)

Have a great rest of the weekend, everyone!

Ice Blade-Aquired!

As anyone who has ever played an Ice wizard knows; getting the Ice Blade is your first real step to getting some real power in those Ice spells(not including stuff you might use that is out of class.) Us poor Ice wizards have to wait all the way to level 38 to get our precious blade spells, which other schools totally take for granted. Life has to wait too, but they get their blade more than an entire world before us. This is what I was talking about the other day when I mentioned the comment Friendly Necromancer made that came straight from Greyrose herself. This is part of what makes Ice a true challenge...which is what makes it so fun and interesting. Ice is not for the feint of heart.

This past day both Savannah Icewraith(my newest Ice) and Gabrielle Iceweaver(mom's) traveled to the Crimson Fields to both complete the quest to defeat the Death Oni AND to defeat Udo Jin-e(a 1300 health Storm boss with Balance minions) to collect the Mushroom of Confusion, a very dangerous reagent...according to our Professor.



After we completed that we got on with the rest of Crimson Fields, including fighting the secret boss, Yakedo, with the help of Kaitlyn Dunerider. The little pig minion at the end was being stubborn, but he finally went down...lol. Then we went to Katsumori's and defeated him and his demon-self, The Death Oni. For kicks I transformed into a Evil Snowman disguise for our battles there.







Since we had to exit out of the dungeon one at a time to go complete the Ice Blade quest we also took a break so mom could go eat(lol) we went AFK before the Yakedo fight and spun for a while. So I went and worked on Kaitlyn and Alric for a little bit.

Kaitlyn and Alric are now up to having the Tree of Life as their next quest. But, of course, we had a little fun with Oyotomi the Defiler while finishing up on quests in the Village of Sorrow. Alric got a pretty decent hit, for a Life wizard, using Centaur(no treasures used or it could have been higher, but I really don't wanna waste them on this guy.) Then, just for kicks, I went back and had him use Earthwalker.





I still think that Earthwalker is a cool spell, even though it's damage doesn't compare to Centaur. It's just not a spell you see every day and everywhere.


Well, it was a fun day, yesterday, and I am glad we finally got our blades. I feel much better now...lol.
I am hoping to get the Tree of Life later today, but not sure I will be able to or not. I still want to get to pounding more on my Balance Grand's final crafting quest too. She has all the Pearl she needs, now just need Blood Moss...20 of them :)

We are the Three Horse Riders of the Apocalypse...lol

Wow, what a day! It was really cool to finally be at one of the events with Friendly Necromancer, Stephen and Leesha From Ravenwood Radio! Really nice to see you guys! I really enjoyed watching the Livestream, though I will say that I had to watch it again to fully take it in as there was just too much going on between you guys fighting, the chat room, and the people outside the tower.

I always find it interesting to see how others duel so I really enjoy the videos that people post of their battles, whether or not they are "famous."

Which leads me to something a few thoughts:
As much as I am sure that at times some of the attention that these guys get might be fun for them, I am also sure it could drive one bonkers...lol. I don't really get the "famous" thing either. I mean no offense by that, but I don't get it. We are all players, just some people have taken the game out of the game and made it known and really been helpful to others too. I'd rather say they were just special people for doing that kindness to the community. I know I am happy to get on my lesser knowns, sometimes, where everything is quiet. I look at some of the noobs and think "I want a noob again"...lol. Seriously, there is something about a nice, new wizard to start on. And by now it's such a breeze to go along in WC, KT, MB...I actually enjoy doing that cause as much as I love the game cause it makes you think, sometimes I just don't wanna think too much. I mean I could easily go through WC in my sleep, but it's so fun and simple, and I even sometimes like to listen again to the dialogue of the NPCs there.

I see all the real newbies out there and they think it's so awful and I remember being in their shoes once as a young Storm wizard. Boy, if you want a challenge; that is the one, especially if you know nothing about the game coming in, and especially if you have no crowns/crown gear and are soloing. It was a rough start, but I met some good people back then, too bad many of them are not around anymore. And, for an adult, it is really hard to find other adult friends to hang with, battle with and talk to. I mean I go around assuming everyone is a kid. I do have younger friends on here too, but am always happy to meet other adult players when I do...we are few and far between!

What Friendly said that Greyrose said about Death and Ice, though, I think that is so true. Death is pretty easy most of the time. For the most you accomplish in one move what takes another solo wizard to do in at least two moves, and with a lot fewer pips(cause you have to account for pips for healing and pips for attacking with any other wizard) when you are death...you kill and heal in one shot.

And Ice; SO TRUE. It is a good challenge. Just getting to the point where you FINALLY get your blade quest(I will mention more on in this post) is a bit of a struggle. But it's a good challenge, and I honestly think it makes you a better player because you HAVE TO learn to work around not having all the best stuff in the beginning, and for half the game too! If you play smart you will really learn what will make your Ice wizard a lot stronger than what most people think it can do.

But, in my opinion, the hardest school is Myth. I mean it's fine up until you start getting those double attack spells, cause at about that time, assuming you finished all your quests and are the appropriate level for the area, things get to be bad. They get to be really AWFUL once you hit DS too. My only rationality to why Myth is the way it is is that they truly intended Myth as a PvP school. But the problem in that is that we ALL have to get through the game to get those higher level spells, pets, etc. This makes it especially tough to solo Myth. And that level 48 Myth quest; I think it might well be the toughest one for getting your level 48 spell and pet. And while I am proud of my Orthrus I really don't use him. I keep one of the ninja pigs that gives some extra health and accuracy. Myth REALLY needs all of that stuff they can get.

When I did Myth I soloed all the way up to about 3/4 of the way through MS(about when I got the Minotaur spell.) Then I was like "this is just taking too long and it's no longer any fun." So I brought in my Balance Grand and that pair went all the way through the rest of the game together. I was worried about the combination in Maistaire's, but they did just fine, and it wasn't so bad at all. Besides the fact that I have Malistaire's down to a science at this point....which really helps! I also used the Frog the whole way through DS...if you ask me it's the best way to go...provided you have a Balance wizard around to help boost it.

I had a Myth wizard previously, before Taryn, and I hated it so much that I deleted her at level 47. But that last time I was determined to make it. And now I have my Myth Grand, whose job it is to make cards for my other wizards. She makes so many Pierce cards...you wouldn't believe it. People think Steal Ward is great...in my opinion...for a wizard using it "out of class" Pierce is much better; only costs 1 pip, not 2. Yes, you don't get the shield or absorb, you break it instead, but most of the time your only aim is to get it out of your way anyhow.

Taryn was also the reason why I was able to make my Carousel, as she was the only one that could make Earthquakes. So I am really proud of getting her to GM.

I will have more newbies at some point, but not right now I am jealous of Friendly's Flint Stone dude. I hope he has fun with his noob...sounds like he already is!

Well, after all the excitement I needed something to chill out and do. Not sure if I accomplished that...lol. Mom came on and we did a little more than half of Savarstaad Pass.
You guys know she is kinda going through a real rough time right now, so it's all kinda rough going in game too, and I don't want to push her.

We did get our Ice wizards to their Ice Blade quests. Our next move will be to do Crimson Fields. See, this is why I should have Emeraldflame Tours, cause I KNEW from experience that we had to go in Crimson Fields to fight some dude to complete our quest. See; I DO like to COMBINE QUESTS. We already had the regular quest to go in there...so, hey; we run this one time, get it done, and it's gonna be outta the way. BRAINS....lol....and none for those skeleton-zombies either ;)
...None for Craig Ferguson's Robot-Skeletons either...lol...

After we leveled up and I said to mom something like "see, now we have two quests for that place," she said "I knew there was a method to you madness...there always is"...lol. Yeah, that comes from having 12 wizards of your own...and I love them all in a different way.

So, we took some pics. We needed to while we are all still in our MooShu garb. I will probably be getting Alric and Kaitlyn out of MS together, figured they could finish up Village of Sorrow and Tree of Life together, then I will split them up again and have them work with other wizards who compliment their styles a little better. Having two one-hitters would get real old, real fast in DS. They both need someone with some fire-power, and I have an arsenal of attackers that will be happy to help out and get some extra loot.

Here's the pics, anyhow...Oh, the first one we did some dude ran by and said something like "Wow...it's the three horse riders of the Apocalypse"...lol. *Ah...if only Alric had a horse he could have joined us and it would have been even more appropriate....



...we looked like we were guarding the way to the Jade Palace commons area there...lol...


I noticed this weird sorta glitchiness too...the flowers on the ground around the above area, near the Shoshun Village temple entrance, kinda float. Iknow it's not a big deal, but it's just weird. Take a look in this pic...

...See how the flowers are almost at the horses knees? I always thought these things were just supposed to lay on the ground. It would make sense more if there were stems, but there are none...lol.

One last thing.
It's always funny how one of the most popular questions is "what is your favorite world?" During that big event it seemed that 99% of people(or close to that) said MooShu. I think KI should think about that a little.
I can't speak about what Celestia will be like cause I obviously have never actually seen it yet. But they should think of "why" people like MS so much. In my opinion it's because it's a beautiful, bright and happy place, and the battles we fight there are challenging, but they are not frustrating. The entire Briskbreeze Tower thing, to me that is one big ball of stress. I didn't enjoy when I did it, though we made it through. But I play this game to escape stress, and that place is just full of it. It's like the same thing with PvP, it's just stress. I am thinking people that actually enjoy that stuff obviously haven't had enough stress in their lives...yet...and they are lucky! I've had more than my share with my health and just the way things have been for me for as long as I can remember.

But KI should think about that when designing these worlds. I noticed that no one said they liked DS. In my opinion DS is about as dreary as a palce could be. I never wanted to travel through heck, personally...lol. Also noticed that no one said MB. But that is where I differ a little. I do like MB....now. I absolutely hated the palce when I was on my first Storm wizard....those freakin' gearheads! But now I laugh at them...haha! But, really, it's anot a bright, happy place either, and the fact that cats are the bad guys is so beyond "not cool."

My favorite places are MD and KT. I can't see how anyone hates KT....but I guess there are some that do. I guess those people aren't much into Egyptian Culture either...otherwise maybe they would enjoy it for that.
Though, hey...notice there are no cats or cat statues in Krok? Egyptians worshipped cats. *More reasons why I think someone doesn't like cats....though I am trying my best to give some benefit of the doubt on that.*
Even though there was a entire building dedicated to Storm in Krok, I still loved that place. The music, for one...heck, I would go there just to hunt reagents and listen to the background music. And the battle music in there is epic! I so wish they would sell Wizard 101 music CDs or downloads on iTunes. I would buy them so fast....you have no idea! I would listen to that stuff in the car and everything...it's so well done!
Anyway, I can sorta understand someone hating Krok if you are a Elemental school wizard...but if you are of the Spiritual Schools or Balance...why would you hate it?...Seems that place would be easy for you?!?!?!?

That's all for now. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter Sunday...for those who celebrate it!

Here Comes the Sun...

Such a beautiful day here!...Yay!...Sorry, but that is so rare here, so I am really happy about that :)

Anyway, cool day, though I didn't get a whole lot done...lol. I finished up Alric in Savarstaad Pass, then I got him started at Ancient Burial Grounds.

I got to meet Mr. Malorn WS for a few minutes, joined in chat for a little with some others. Was nice to meet Malorn :)

Then I sorta started doing a bunch of stuff...got paid a day early, I found...So I bought that 60k crowns for Alric's account, then did all those real not-fun adult things with the rest of the money(aka paid bills.) Met up with Mom(Gabrielle Iceweaver, she's the one in the pink and blue in my banner) for a little bit in game. I made the Easter Bunny visit her early...so she has a one month sub right now. I figured this will give her a chance to get that training point in GH...doubt she will ever care to buy GH...maybe. Boy, that place is way expensive to buy for Crowns players! I mean 1995 per area?!?! I bought it all with Alric and thought it was kinda stinky that you have to buy Nidavellir separately. I guess it makes *some* sense, though. I mean as a Crowns player you buy every other dungeon, so I guess that ONE place is actually "cheap" compared to the way you gotta buy all the others.

Anyway, I got Mom to all the Yardbirds, except the one you gotta fight for. We really didn't have time for that, as I had just took her through the Ironworks, again, so she could work on leveling up a bit. I want to get her Ice and my newer Ice, Savannah, to the same level together. We need to get to 38 so we can go get our Blade quest before we do Crimson Fields.

After that we hung out at her place for a bit. Then an old friend popped in. So I took him away to show him a couple of my houses.

Somewhere during all this I found/remembered that my Balance Grand(Heather Sandwalker) STILL needs to work on her Master Artisan badge. She is on the last crafting quest. So I think I might pound away at that a bit, finding reagents. I mean, I REALLY want to be able to make my own Balance Treasures(not buy them from the bazaar...or beg them off people, not my style)...going to be needing them for some future projects.

I know; part of my problem is I am going in too many directions all the time and never have time to just get one thing done. It's a little here, a little there....or sometimes a little of everything at once. It happens when you got so many wizards. At least it keeps me from getting bored though, right?

Well, I am going to go work on that crafting quest, then maybe go back to Alric for a bit. Hope you all are having a beautiful day/evening!

Laterz :)