Gardening101

This article will introduce you to gardening in Wizard101. We will start with the basics a new Wizard101 gardener needs to know.
 

Why start Gardening?

There are a lot of reasons to start gardening in Wizard101.  The most common reason a young Wizard might garden is for pet snacks.  Pets play a very important role in your gear and stats, and to train one you’ll need snacks. Gardening is one of the best sources of Mega Snacks in the game!
 
Another popular reason is for reagents. You can harvest rare reagents including Amber, Blood Moss, and Springs by gardening.
 
Plants can also give gold and treasure cards. A well-maintained garden can supply your Wizard with constant gold!
 
 

Plant Stages

 

Seedling: A seedling is the plant as soon as you’ve planted it.  It won’t develop needs, and there’s not much to do but wait.

 

Young: The first stage of growth.  It will take longer to reach the next stage and will have needs you have to attend.

 

Mature: This stage takes the longest, has the most needs and requires the most work to maintain. In this stage you also start collecting rewards from your garden.

 

Elder:  At this final stage your plants will no longer require any tending and can be left for as long as you like.  It is here that you get the best rewards.

 

Wilting: This is the first stage of a dying plant and it occurs if you fail to meet a seed’s needs.  You can correct this stage by meeting the seed’s needs, but the plant will reset to the Young stage.

Dead:  This is the stage your plant will reach if you completely ignore it. It will cost 30 energy and the Revive spell to get it back if you let it reach this stage.

Soil Types

 
In Wizard101 we can’t plant any seed on any soil plot size. Each seed has a specific soil size. It is important to know that each size comes with an Enchanted version that some plants may need.
 

 

Small Soil

Medium Soil

Large Soil

Growing Spells

Sunlight

Water

Pollination

Magic

Music

You will often find your plants needing one or more of these five things. These are growing spells, they allow your seed to grow to higher stages.
 
You can access better versions of these five spells at higher gardening ranks. You will meet Farley’s many cousins in other worlds of the Spiral as you level up in game. These higher ranked spells will allow you to tend many plants with the use of one spell.

Pests

Pests are just that, pests!  They’re little bugs or other annoying beings that like to come and eat away at your healthy plants. 
 
Taking care of your plants by killing pests is a necessity.  Wizard101 pests can range from ranks one to seven. Stronger pests need stronger spells to treat them.
 
Learn these spells from Farley and his cousins like the other gardening spells you have learned.

Concepts to Understand

Likes

Dislikes

Needs

A ‘like’ boosts your plants growth speed.
 
A plants likes can be many things. For example, a furniture item, another seed, and even some houses can be ‘likes’.
A ‘dislike’ decreases your plants growth speed.
 
These can be anything from a furniture item, another seed or a specific house.
A ‘need’ is something your plant needs to prevent it from dying.
 
These include water, sunlight, music, magic, pollination and pest control.
 

Beginners Tips

There are many little things I wish I knew when I started gardening. Knowing these will make your life easier, so let’s have a look.
 

House:  Some houses provide an immediate Like to plants. The current houses to offer this benefit are the Red Barn Farm and the Botanical Gardens.  

 

Energy:  Do not try to plant a large garden without energy gear. Large gardens drain a ton of energy, and you’re going to need all you can get.

Liked plants can be dead:  This is a weird one. A plant that you use only as another plants “Like” doesn’t need to be alive to give the “Like” benefit.

What to Start With

At Level 1 your primary goal should be to advance in gardening levels as fast as possible. This is so you can start having bigger gardens and using better seeds.
 
An easy to grow Level one seed that gives 3000 XP at elder is Key Lime. Key Limes also drop gold and Shocked Keys. They have easy to meet likes, such as a Water-Mole Statue and a Tropical Garden Gnome to help them grow faster. Key Limes are my first choice for any new gardener.
 
 
I hope you find this guide helpful. Now take your new found gardening knowledge into the Spiral and sow some adventure!
 

Superstacking Medium Plants

Gardening is such an amazing way of  getting Mega Snacks, TC’s, reagents and of course GOLD!  Making the most of your gardens space is very important. Here is an  easy way to have a 64 medium plant  garden, and it’s basically error free.  When completed, it will be 4 plants high, 4 plants wide, and 4 plants deep.

Start with the Basics

The best way to get started is to  have a castle that is considered a plant like. Currently, the castles that all plants like are:

Botanical Gardens – The Botanical Gardens are available with the Evergreen Bundle Gift Card (Sometimes available during special events, in the Crowns shop for 12,500 Crowns)

Red Barn Farm – This castle is available from the crowns shop for 12,500 Crowns or 125,000 Gold

Everafter Village – This castle is available in the Fantastic Fairytale Bundle.  It can be found at Gamestop online and in stores for $39.00

You’ve bought your castle, so now it’s time to get the supplies you’ll need to get your stacked garden, “off the ground”…..pun intended! These are the items I use, most of  which can be found at the Bazaar.

Items for Stacking

12 Crates:
The preferred ones are:
*Crate of jellybeans
*Crate of hot dogs
*Crate of pudding
*Crate of pies
*Crate of ice cream
You can find crates at the Bazaar, usually costing between 300 gold and 1100 gold.  They are also available in the crown shop for 500 crowns or 2500 gold.

Dragonspyre Standard:
This can be bought from the Bazaar for 1600 gold.

Flat Wooden Platform:
You will find this item in the Crowns Shop for 350 Crowns, or 1750 gold

Stairs Castle Block:
Occasionally, stairs can be found at Bazaar for 75-125 gold
They are also available to craft from Lloyd FallingWater in the Shopping District. The recipe costs 2000 Gold for a narrow one or 10,000 gold for a wide one.

Tatami Mat:
The Tatami Mat is sold by Zhi Lan, Mooshu Housing Shop. The vendor price is 350 gold. 

Helpful Extras

Last, but not least, a little bit of research has to be done so you will know what your plants will like. In this example, I’ll be planting Trumpet Vines. Try to get as many of the likes as you  can.  The following items are the likes for Trumpet Vines. 

Your plants likes may differ from this list.

Deadly Helephant Ears
Decorative Gong
Helephant Ears
Gong of the Oni
King Parsley
Pixie
Tropical Garden Gnome
Ultra Helephant Ears,

After collecting all your needed items, it’s time to get started!  This video will take you through every step to creating your own 64 medium plant garden. I hope this helps you maximize your rewards from gardening!

These steps should get you on your way to maximizing your gardening space.  I’d love to hear what medium size plants you decided to use and the likes you added to speed up your harvest! Let me know in the comments.

Keep your eyes open for the next article where I will show you how to easily get 50+ large plants in one compact area.

Happy Gardening!

Aphrodite Strategy Guide

Now that we have mastered Darkmoor in my previous guide, the Ravenwood guide to Aphrodite is here. This boss is a key boss found inside The Graveyard. Once inside the gates go left around the battle with Yevgeny. You will find yourself at another gate which opens with a gold key.

If you are a Life wizard you will want to farm Aphrodite for “Sacred Charge” a spell that only she drops. If you are a Storm wizard you will want “Aphrodite’s Storm of Thorns.” This is the best damage athame for Storm at level 100 and beyond.

Wizards of any school may be here to enhance critical rating or improve their energy gear. With the staff for 10, ring for 8, and athame for 6 energy, you can increase your Wizards current energy by 24 points. A significant boost for any gardener or fisher in the Spiral.

Now let’s talk about how to conquer this overgrown flower and her Spirit School Tentacles.

There are four important roles in this battle. Each wizard must understand and fulfill their duty in order for the team to succeed. The positions we need to fill are

                                

Hitter
Healer
Spammer
Trapper

Hitter

The hitter will need to stack traps, then aura, Shrike, and hit. Do not use blades, this includes global rings such as Darkwind that act as a blade. Any school can hit, but over-time attacks such as Dragon are not recommended. Failing to kill on the first strike with an over-time attack, will trigger an overtime cheat from the Life School Tentacles.

A Storm attacker will want to stack different forms of the Windstorm spell. Use regular and Potent Windstorm along with any other Storm traps you can get your hands on. Four stacked Windstorms is a thing of beauty against this rampant vine. You can achieve this, by stacking Treasure Card, regular, Potent, and pet or jewel forms of the card.

If you are a Storm, and your damage is lower than you would like, keep a Supercharge in your side deck. Any blade will trigger an all one enemy cheat from the tentacle diagonally across from you. As long as that tentacle isn’t Myth this is the one blade you want to risk. With a full pip Supercharge and stacked Windstorms, you should be able to one-shot this boss. Your Treasure Card deck will hold zero-pip shields which you should use defensively while building up the Supercharge.

If you are the hitter, do not run in with the team for the first round of battle. Once the spammer lands a hit, it is safe to join the battle.

Healer

I have a specific strategy I like to use for healers with this boss. Like Storm’s strategy, it will serve you well in Darkmoor.

Round One: Cast Empowerment or Adapt

Round Two: Cast Sanctuary

After these two moves, you will have all the pips and all the power you need to keep your team alive. No matter if you don’t yet have the best gear. Even two strong Rebirths in a row can be possible if you make these two moves first. Do your best to replenish your Empowerment or Adapt when it runs out to keep the extra pips flowing in. The rest is up to you and your healing style.

An important note for Life School healers in this boss, you may get hit with Life Dispels. You should carry shields to take them off when necessary. If you have one, equip a may-cast healing pet. This pet might clear those Dispels allowing you to heal the team rounds sooner.

Regular Cards on the left and Treasure Cards on the right

Spammer

In Wizard101, when we ask for “spam” we mean: To hit each round with small attacks. As a spammer in this battle, the most important stat for you to focus on is accuracy. I like to equip a Sidhe Wand for this reason. Whatever equipment you choose, the important thing is to increase your accuracy in every possible way.

Missing or fizzling your spam hit will cause the flower to drop its spores. This means Black Mantle, Plague, and Infection along with an overtime attack on every member of your team. This can trigger a self-feeding loop where one fizzle causes another until the team just can’t win. As spammer, you need enough accuracy to overcome the Black Mantle every time.

You must hit every single round, like clockwork. I like to keep my Treasure Card deck full of one or two pip spells when I am relied on as the spammer, so that there is never any reason to not have an attack.

As I mentioned above, over-time spells are not OK here. If your spammer is Life or Death school, they could end up Dispelled a round. The healer or trapper should have a few small hits in to back-up the spammer, just in case.

It does not matter which Tentacle you choose to spam as long as you spam the same one each time. This will allow the trapper to do their job.

Trapper

The trappers’ job is to stack Feints and traps on the tentacles while the hitter builds the attack. Feints and Potent Feints should be cast on all the tentacles that aren’t being hit by your spammer. Hex, Curse, and Elemental or Spirit traps are all also ok to use. Ideally, the trapper should be next in line after the spammer in battle order. This way, on the hit round a final Feint can be cast.

If the team works together and everyone plays their part, this battle can be fun and smooth. Good luck getting those drops, and I can’t wait to see you in the Spiral!
~ Amber Ravynsong

Couch Potato Farming for all Levels

Anyone who has ever tried to hatch the perfect pet knows how important Mega-Snacks are. Mega Snack Packs are expensive and only help a little bit. The best and easiest solution is to grow Couch Potatoes, but how can we get them without spending all of our Crowns? Depending on your level, you have some great options old and new.

In my opinion, the absolute best place is the 5 Boxes quest box in Wizard City. This special event quest isn’t always in the Spiral, but when it is you will find it in a free to play area near the Bazaar. Meaning, even the newest Wizard with no membership has a pretty decent chance of getting this valuable Crowns seed. Super generous of KI! Be sure to take advantage of this opportunity the next time it comes to the Spiral!

Once you have reached level 20 you can access Grizzleheim. The classic mob to fight for Couch Potatoes here is the Splithoof Barbarians in Boars Camp, Savarstaad Pass. This is one of the first areas you open when you get to Grizzleheim. It can be a grind farming this area, but it is accessible at a pretty early level in the game. For better drop chances, I find that switching realms every 10 fights or so helps.

Hands down, the best and easiest place to get this drop if you have a higher level Wizard is from the Death Ghultures in Mirage. This is one of the very first quests you get when you open Mirage. If you head towards Caterwaul Canyons, starting from the World Door, they are the first mob you see. They are a pretty easy kill at the required level to reach them with only 2,450 health. The drop rate is far more generous than it is in Grizzleheim or Wizard City. As a bonus, Evil Magma Pea drops here too.

There are many more places to farm for this drop, especially in the two worlds I talked about. These are my favorites mainly because of ease of access and reliability of drops. With luck and perseverance before you know it, you will have a garden that looks like this!

Good luck Wizards, see you out there!
             ~ Amber Ravynsong