The Road to Mirage, Week 6

I hope you all had a happy Christmas, readers! As for me, my Wizard101 experience had been sparse at best and frustrating at worst. I had some obligations to my other non-online games and I also had some other issues: After all, the Spiral just became more dangerous for my little Diviner, Destiny. Being the most glass of glass cannons in magic terms is NOT a fun thing, but the "cannon" part was way too tempting to her, so she rolled with it.

 

Needless to say, this is the one wizard I funded the most with my real cash - the Level 120 henchmen are worth every crown. I would have just ignored the pet quest for my Kraken pet had it not been for these guys. (And yes, I will have to buy more crowns to keep up the addiction.)

First off, I decided to spend all day Tuesday(until my dentist appointment) getting through the rest of Zafaria. It wasn't too hard with Sierra's help, just four annoying mini-bosses, a dungeon which ended in a mob fight, and then MIRROR LAKE.

Yeah, I got a LOT of rare Xmas drops in Mirror Lake - including three Xmas pets(and a Nutcracker which I had always wanted because it has Fairy Friend as a talent) and two Xmas aquariums. WTF, Spiral?!?! O_O

Mirror Lake was dealt with the same way I dealt with all other dungeons after Dragonspyre - I teamed up with strong strangers. :) After that, it was time to head to the next world, Avalon, which is now tied with Zafaria as my favorite world.

The Death Skullrat minion really saved my bacon against the Good Jade Oni. Life isn't weak!

After getting the quest to learn about the Council of Light, I put away my wand and hat for the rest of the week - I had to platinum inFAMOUS Second Son on Wednesday and took my Pokemon games and Adventures of Mana to Houston for a night to open gifts and have lunch with my little sister and her son. I gave MJ a lovely Popplio plushie thanks to my dad's investigative powers of Amazon. ^_^


One of the gifts I got was a Gamestop Card... which immediately went to Pokemon Moon #2. Sorry, no Mirage Bundle. Not like I care, those bundle houses are Mudbray dookie anyways and took expensive for their rewards. :(

Worst solo battle ever, this was the lowest my HP was... and I got knocked out by the next hit! (However, KI updated so you don't automatically lose if you have a minion, so the Life minion saved Destiny for a terrible fate.)

Time to take on the wilds of Avalon! I did manage to get Destiny knighted as a Squire before leaving for my sister's place and got the first Avalon spell... which is complete GARBAGE, but...

It had to be done to get the second Avalon spell quest, which gives Destiny her own storm-type healing spell. Yep, it's as random as Wild Bolt...

But Wild Bolt can surprise you. :) (And yes, I know this is Tempest, but just showing how uber Tempest can be with enough buffs.)

Tested this Anti-Santa guy out... never using it again. :\

The day I got back from Houston(I got back a little past noon, to my surprise), I got on Wiz and knocked out Destiny's promotion to Armiger quickly. Caer Lyon is pretty small and if you ignore sidequests can be done in a day.

 

The Wild, however, was not so short or simple - first you have to do a dungeon to rescue a knight (luckily, I wasn't as dumb as Zenmaster B and got the potion puzzle correct so I skipped one boss fight; as a plus, Destiny's attack deck now has a protocol against Storm mobs now) and someone whined about needing help in the Savannah. I was trying to get over my car lag so I stopped playing for the rest of the day after that.

 

On Christmas Eve I finally got to the Winter Wyrm but didn't fight him until Christmas Day due to the fact that I was restless - I had to go to Midnight Mass and then I had to go to bed after getting back. It was three AM when I got to sleep, so I overslept and woke up at 11 AM on Christmas Day.

Hey, nice head dude. XD

 

 
After presents and holly, I did get some Wiz time before Christmas Dinner(which happened at 9 PM because my sister Ruth works the night shift as a candy-striper at the local hospital) and finally helped build a war ostrich(???), find a minstrel's lute, and was set on the path to one of the two obstacles to completing the story of this world and gaining Azteca... The Jabberwock.

And nobody was insane enough to fight him on Christmas Day. Figures. :(

This is my first wizard who actually got max gold! Those junk gear drops in Avalon are worth a LOT.

 

"Twas a long, hard, bloody road... and I had to rely on a double-wizard and a Level 120 Storm Minion to save my hide."

As you can tell, my attempts to get help for the Jabberwock had me teamed up against a group that died to the fiend's Uber Meteor Strike. I realized that super bosses like this can't be blitzed through, you have to have a specific deck setup... and a lot of Crowns. KI has found the means to force us to pay money; make enemies with stupid gimmicks that cannot be cleared by bum-rushing. I'm down to 1900 crowns now because I used some to restitch my robe, as it's not seasonal to wear a Santa Robe on the day AFTER Christmas.

I eventually reached the Wyrd and got to the Tomb of the Nameless Knight... but I had to go buy food in 15 minutes and after that I swore I'd work on my platinum trophies, so that was it for Wizard101 that day and the last day of the week. Have a Merry Quest-mas and a happy New Year! ^_^

The Road to Mirage, Week 5

We actually started on Day 27, because of technical difficulties. Anyways, Destiny had her first run-in with Morganthe(who was kind enough not to smear our young Diviner's guts all over the Chancel floor) and that basically ended the cinematic zooms as Zafaria and Avalon didn't have any. :( Here's hoping for more cinematic zooms added in Zafaria, Avalon and Azteca when KI promotes the third new world(probably Empyrea, it has to be).

With that and the Trial of the Spheres(with the help of two nice young Necromancers up to Mithraya), Celestia was in the books and it was time to sweat it out in the jungles of Zafaria. Just kidding, this is one of my favorite worlds - it's the borderline between decent and Nintendo Hard when we hit Avalon, where even the mobs gets four powers pips out of the gate. It's nice to hear Inyanga Whitestripes say jambo to you for the first time all over again, and help Koyate Ghostmane out again... even if the Spirit Caller drums take FOREVER to craft. Even with the recipes nerfed, getting 18 Sunstones was NOT easy - I was very lucky someone decided to Wonder Trade their stash to the Bazaar so I could get enough so the Sandstone transmutes filled it out.

Destiny and Sierra started their journey into the Savannah, and Destiny started her collection of ingredients for those two blasted Spirit Caller Drums to become Legendary. Not like it matters - the Storm Lore Spell, Catalan, is completely manure compared to Deer Knight. :p

Sadly, expect to see a lot of the horned helm for a while - Waterworks was not kind and refused to cough up anything other than the slightly weaker Skyscream Shoes. Still, Destiny took them as they boosted her power pip % and damage for a loss of 1% universal resist. Pet hatching was still not kind as the third egg had the stinking May Cast Ice Trap from the pet's grandfather. (Sierra's Armament with Fairy Friend was hatched with Christina Dawnblade's Armament whose grandfather had May Cast Ice Trap. Bleh!) And the Wintertusk crafted hood has only 4% Universal Resist while this helm we got from Vestrilund has 6%.

At least we got a much better mod for it - the new holiday pack(Winter Wonder) gave a nice little ice shard hat so Destiny doesn't look like a viking. As for the Santa suit, well, it's Christmas in the Spiral, why not? Besides...

I FINALLY GOT THE SKYSCREAM ROBE! (Yep, modded the Santa Robe into it for the looks.)

This shot was just after Sierra used Satyr and the other Myth took out the big guy

Sadly, it didn't help jack against Poseidon, who completely raped Destiny after she tried to do some damage. Storm Wizards have met their match against the Kingfisher God, which dispels all Feints and Storm Prisms. (cries) Luckily my alt, Sierra, healed her as the others in the group(another Storm and Myth combo which I abandoned as they wanted to fight the Sand Squid, not having it now!) took Poseidon down. At least I got a couple of helpers. NEVER DOING THIS DUNGEON AGAIN. X(

 

With that out of the bag, I did not spend much of this week in-game; it WAS Xmas after all and that meant road trip to my little sister's place in the next city to open gifts so my little neph could have pictures to remember me by long after I am cremated. But I did manage to clean up Stone Town, Waterfront and the Drum Jungle, finally getting into the Elephant Graveyard, the last main area of Zafaria. I was spending time farming Sandstone with my Death Alt in the account, but...

Natalie's search for Sunstone harvests was slim pickin' at best. :(

I decided it would be better to wait until Destiny could use the Stiela herself before I finished Legendary Crafting. That or hope for lucky RNG. I did re-install MapleStory because of the awesome new update that gives a fifth job level but I am trying to avoid playing that until I can set a schedule so all my games get some attention. I haven't even finished the story of Pokemon Sun/Moon yet!

Well, ciao for now!

The Road to Mirage, Week 4

Week 3 of the Road to Mirage ended just before my birthday. Week 4 starts with my 44th year of existence, and boy howdy are we moving! I made an effort not to do any sidequests that involve combat until I completed the world so I could get to the end, have a bit of challenge, and be ready for the next world. Now that worlds don't care if you do their sidequests or not, it's only viable to do them if they don't get in the way, like the Zeke Scavenger Hunts(I need the Training Points badly) or the history quests(since I'll be in the neighborhoods anyway). I also do parts of sidequests that don't involve battle, like searching for rare and exotic items or talking to NPCs. I'll get to the battling later.

Not like it matters much... now that Destiny has reached Grandmaster Artisan level.

Of course, I had to rope and cannibalize my poor Necromancer and Sorcerer to get the reagents - I forgot that the Grandmaster recipe I needed to complete was the first involving the Dread Reagent, Sunstone. X( Natalie Owlwraith spent two hours of real time getting enough Sandstone and lucky drops to get the six Sunstone for the Seal of the Seven Seas. She also got harassed by Babbage's castle magic, but she ain't for that s***. (Considering that's she nerfed to gardener and gatherer now. I know I should try to get her to Mirage but man, I don't like Khrysalis.)

But all in all, Destiny finally got her universal resist... robe. Yep, the only gear I crafted was the Chief's Garb of Gales. Destiny's Puppeteer Boots(a rare drop from Marleybone) and Grizzled Helm(which she got early in Austrilund) give far more universal resist at the cost of Storm-related goodies. I also bought the Garnet Bear Claw and Ring of Battle recipes, but the former needs more freaking Sunstones. Argh! Still, 18% resist across all boards is nothing to sneeze at...

Considering that she REALLY needs to reduce damage from spells... THIS is how badly she came out of that one fight with Mimir Winterbane!!! O_O

The goons in Celestia are not going to be kind to her if she continues wearing Malistaire's Wraps. :(

 

It seems that the Daily Assignments are giving out holiday-themed items now - Destiny got this halo hat just for visiting the Wizard City athame shop. ^_^

More birds than you can shake a stick at.

Oh come on! I got rid of you, you ugly crow! X(

Seriously, this is all Wintertusk was, just spamming the Colossus.

The birthday was spent completing Wintertusk and avoiding all sidequest but picking them up for later. I was surprised by the Sons of Ymir dropping the Delectable Hooves, part of the Ninja Pig costume. It was great because it boosts Destiny's energy and gave 7% universal resist, one better than the Puppetmaster Shoes she had.

I also crafted the robe, but not the boots or hat - their universal resist was actually worse than the Delectable Hooves and Grizzled Helm. So I only had the Storm Trap item card. (This was actually from before Nastrond, so ignore the boots.)

I never realized how creepy her smile was until they gave a close-up. O_o

THIS GUY. (Claims three easy training points)

I speak for the trees! NOT! :p

I know a good plumber, and he's good at stomping on fish too. ^_^

After that, the rest of the week was basically Celestia-Celestia-Celestia and Waterworks runs. (I'm not crazy enough to challenge Tower of the Helephant, even with my Exalted Wizards! The first encounter there is a cheat-gimmick boss which can rekt you if you fizzle a lot. Also, still not doing Briskbreeze yet. I'm not confident, even with my new gear.)

Destiny: "No, it wasn't washing my hands which makes me angry... WHY DID YOU NOT WARN ME?!!" X(

Destiny: "Nice sea serpent, I don't taste good." O_O

 I also got the Leviathan spell, but not the Kraken egg. To say that Storm Wizards have the roughest time with their Level 58 Spell Boss fight is being kind - even with the boss being Fire(and thus weak to Storm), Destiny was defeated no less than two times. I had to spam Wild Bolt to get rid of the damn ninja pig servant, and it luckily got the best RNG. Then it was just mano-a-mano with Khai Tangiri until he was roast beef.

So with that, I bid you adieu for the week. See you in a couple of weeks!

PROGRESS: Doing well. The help Sierra provides is getting more and more prominent - no longer can I just spam Tempest; bosses have health in the 3000+ range.