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Petmaking 101

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Where to Start

The first step of the hatching process is to determine what your end goal is. If you don’t have specific talents in mind, it will be hard to know when you have finally trained your dream pet. If this is your first pet, I recommend going for what is known as a triple/double. The talents for this type of pet will be 2 universal resist talents, 1 universal damage talent and 2 school specific damage talents.

I like to start with this type of pet for a few reasons: First, it’s the most versatile pet. It helps you while questing at any level and can also be used in PvP. Second, it causes you to build base pets along the way that can be useful for creating other pets later on. Here are examples of a myth triple/double and an ice triple/double, the type of pet the talents are on doesn’t matter, as long as it has these talents, it is a triple/double.

The Pet Tab

If you view a pet on the pet tab, there are few different sections to look at. I’ll try to break down the important parts to look at and what they mean.

When you first open your pet tab, I recommend clicking the Full Talent View at the bottom to show you all of your pet’s talents as opposed to just the manifested talents.

This tab shows you everything you need to know about your pet. You can click on “Talents” and “Derby” to change back and forth between combat talents and pet derby talents.

Pedigree – the pedigree is the rarity of all of your pet’s talents, normal and derby combined, + 1 per talent. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you much about the pet, because a higher rarity talent isn’t necessarily a better one.

Manifested pedigree – this is like regular pedigree, but its only for your manifested talents. Also like regular pedigree, its not very useful except that this is how the hatching kiosk organizes pets. More on this later.

Stats – stats are determined when the pet is hatched. Each stat influences the final value each different talent can give you. For instance, damage talents such as pain-giver are calculated using this formula (2*strength + 2*will + power) * 2/400. Each talent has its own formula, but certain types of talents are always calculated using the same stats. Selfish talents are talents that increase the maximum value of your pet’s stat(s). The maximum stat values without a selfish talent are 255 strength, 250 intellect, 260 agility, 260 will and 250 power. Pets with these max stats are known as 2.0 pets.

The Hatchmaking Kiosk

The first place you should go to look for a pet to hatch with is the hatchmaking kiosk located outside of the hatchery. This kiosk allows people to put their pets inside for others to hatch with in return for hatching peppers. It’s unlikely to find the perfect pet you’re looking for in the kiosk, but it’s a great place to start. It still costs the same amount of gold for you to hatch through the kiosk and it functions identically to hatching with another player directly. The easiest way to find the pet you’re looking for is to enter the kiosk, go to “Browse Pets”, and find the type of pet you’re looking for. In this example I selected a clockwork paladin, so the kiosk will display all of the clockwork paladins it has at this time.

The kiosk organizes the pets in descending order by their manifested pedigree. Things worth looking at are the item cards the pet gives, the stats the pet has and the talents in the pool both manifested and unmanifested. Some pets give cards innately, these are known as item cards and function identically to cards given by other pieces of gear. Some pets give their cards at baby while others require you to level up the pet to unlock the cards. These cards are tied to the type of pet. So, all clockwork paladins, for instance, will give the clockwork minion spell. Certain pets can be put in the kiosk but will require crowns to hatch with unless you already own that pet. Some other pets aren’t available for hatch making at all, these pets will have a corresponding tag on them. I recommend avoiding crowns pets if you can or just hatching with these pets directly through a player.

Hatching Your Own Pet

So at this point, you should have an idea what kind of pet you actually want. Assuming you do, now it’s time to start looking to hatch. Look through your pets to see if you have any that have one or more of the talents you are looking for manifested already. If you do, look for either the pet with the most ideal talents manifested or the pet with the highest stats. If not, I recommend starting with a Wizard City first generation pet. First generation pets are pets obtained in the world that have never been hatched. These pets will always have the same talent pool and stats but do not always manifest the same talents. These are nice for a few reasons. For starters, you know exactly what talents are in its pool and where they are located which makes them easy to track. In addition, most of these talents are much easier to replace because very few pets you’ll be hatching with have them already in the talent pool.

Hatching The Other Pet

The best-case scenario would be to find the exact pet you’re looking to get to hatch with. However, that’s not always available when you aren’t lucky enough to have a helpful friend. So, the next best thing you can do is find a pet that has at least some of the talents you’re looking for. The tricky part is, you also want to make sure it has none of the talents you don’t want. Otherwise, those talents will be more likely to manifest in future generations. So, for example, if you wanted to make the triple/double from before you could look for a pet that has pain-giver and spell-proof to start. Once those talents manifest you could then look for a pet that has some of the other talents you are looking for. Continue doing that until your pet has all the ideal talents within its pool.

Pets in the hatchmaking kiosk go on cooldown for one hour when hatched with and are completely removed from the kiosk after they’ve been hatched with 10 times. Players whose pets are hatched with through the kiosk receive one hatching pepper reagent each time someone hatches with one of their pets.

Base Pets

Now while it might be tempting to hatch with the pet you want and train it straight to mega that’s a risky plan of attack. There is a “strategy” for creating pets known as base pets which make excellent checkpoints along the way. A base pet is a pet that has some of the talents your ideal pet wants with no bad talents manifested. This allows you to always have a pet to hatch with without introducing bad talents to the pool. If you were to train your base pet further, and it manifested a talent you didn’t want, you wouldn’t be able to hatch with it without risking the newly manifested talent showing up in the offspring.

If on your journey to creating a triple-double, you train a pet to ancient and it manifests three talents you want, it would be wise to not train that pet any further. Instead hatch with it again as an ancient base pet. Then, if that offspring makes it to epic with four ideal talents, you could either hatch again or train it to mega. If the newest hatch fails, you can go back to the ancient base pet and hatch again.

This could seem like a waste of resources at first because there’s a chance that ancient pet could have just been perfect had you trained it to mega. Let’s look at energy cost to show why I recommend this method.

To train a pet it costs:
baby to teen
2 energy per game and 125xp
to adult
4 energy per game and 250xp
to ancient
6 energy per game and 500xp
to epic
8 energy per game and 1000xp
to mega
10 energy per game and 2000xp
to ultra
10 energy per game and 2000 xp

As you can see, not only does the energy cost go up, but the amount of xp you need goes up too. This means training a pet from epic to mega is significantly more expensive than training a pet from adult to ancient. This is why I recommend having at least an ancient base pet before pushing to mega, some people like to be extra safe and use an epic base instead.

Becoming Self Sufficient

While the hatchmaking kiosk I mentioned earlier can be a great way to get started on your perfect pet, I wouldn’t suggest relying on it entirely. Since pets go on cooldown every time they’re hatched with and get removed after 10 hatches, you’re banking on the fact that you’ll get all the hatches you need to complete the project. Because of this, your goal should be to become self-sufficient as soon as possible.

This means getting all of your ideal talents manifested on two base pets. Ideally both ancient, the older the better. Once you do this, you can self hatch instead of using the kiosk. This way you are no longer at the mercy of the owner of the pet you desire, so you can hatch anytime. Another benefit is that your pets will have very similar pools. This makes preserving both stats and talents much easier and reduces the risk of accidentally introducing new talents to your pool.

The safest way to use this method would be to have two epic bases. They should both have three of the same talents you want, then each should have one of the last two talents you want. For example, if you were making the myth triple-double from before, one epic base might have spell-proof, spell-defying, myth-giver and myth-dealer. The other base might have spell-proof, spell-defying, myth-giver and pain-giver. As you can see, ¾ of the talents overlap between the pets, making them likely to manifest in the offspring which reduces the risk of a bad talent manifesting.

Pet Jewels

Once your pet reaches ancient, it unlocks a jewel slot. Pet jewels, or star jewels, in most cases just function as a sixth talent. While the jewel slot unlocks at ancient, different jewels require your pet to be different ages to socket them. For example, a Wisp Bonus Opal only requires ancient+ while a Spell-proof Opal requires ultra+. You will not be able to socket a jewel if your pet already has the same talent manifested.

Most Wizards don’t socket an ultra jewel, because training a pet to ultra does not grant you an additional talent, it only allows ultra jewels to be used. If you socket a jewel and then the pet manifests the same talent, the jewel will remain on the pet but you will not get the effect it provides. When this happens you have to shatter the jewel to place a useable jewel in the socket. There are many places to get jewels, but most school specific jewels can be crafted using the crafting recipes from Lowe Springfield in the Pet Pavilion. Opals, special jewels that give universal talents, are dropped from enemies or gathered from Jewel Blossoms. Kroger jewels have unique talents and give two talents per jewel, but can only be obtained by a select few Wizards.

Clean Pools

The bare minimum you would want to do before training a pet to mega is getting 5 ideal talents in the pool. There is something called a “clean pool.”  A clean pool means introducing talents that would allow you to make a different pet accidentally. For example, in your triple double pet’s pool, you may want to include pain-bringer, mighty or piercing talents. While manifesting those talents wouldn’t necessarily give you the pet you want, you could accidentally make a quad/proof or a piercing pet. Going for clean pools usually takes a lot more time and effort but a single clean pool can allow you to create a handful of pets using the same base.

Clean pools will not make it easier for you to obtain a specific pet. The purpose of a clean pool is to give your fails a chance of being useful. If you are just trying to make one specific pet, clean pools will not help you. 

Snacks

Each snack gives a variety of stats and counts as experience towards your pet’s next level. The snack rank gives you a general idea of how much xp the snack gives. Snacks rank 8+ are “mega snacks” and give 25+ experience.

Each snack also has a school and type associated with it. The types are fruits, vegetables, meats, munchies, candies, desserts and cereals. If the snack school matches your pet’s school, your pet will like the snack and will gain +1 extra experience. Each pet also has a specific snack type, if the snack you feed them matches that, they will also like it and gain +1 experience. If both the snack type and the snack school match your pet’s, your pet will love it and gain +2 experience.

With pet snacks It’s usually best to focus on the xp gained and not the stats themselves. This is what makes mega snacks so appealing. Here are a few ways to obtain mega snacks:

  • Arena Tickets – you can purchase rank 8 mega snacks from Broc Connery in the pet pavilion for 50 arena tickets each, which can be useful in a pinch.

  • House Gauntlets – Winterbane and Pagoda are both decent ways to get some rank 8 mega snacks. It requires combat so you need to be a decent level or bring a friend who is.

  • Mirror Lake – the final dungeon of Zafaria, Mirror Lake gives two rank 8 mega snacks when you complete it. The dungeon also offers other loot and the snacks drop every time.

  • Gardening – by far the best method for obtaining mega snacks, but also requiring the most prep. I recommend setting up a full garden from the start so you don’t spend more time gardening than pet training. Couch Potatoes and Evil Magma Peas both give rank 9 snacks at elder which are some of the best snacks in the game.

 

Fake Stats

You may notice some stats show one thing on your character sheet but do not give the full effect in combat. This is due to “fake stats.” These occur because the character sheet adds common values and then rounds values greater than 0.5 up, but the combat calculator adds common values and then does not round.

Piercing talents are the one exception and they actually round down to the nearest whole number for combat. For example, the formula for calculating the value of armor-breaker is (2*strength + 2*agility + power) * (5/2000). Which for this pet calculates to 3.5 and shows as 4%. The formula for calculating armor piercer is (2*strength + 2*agility + power) * (3/2000).

For this pet that calculates to 2.1 and shows as 2%. However, the combat calculator adds these two values together and does not round them. So 3.5 + 2.1 = 5.6 which means in combat I only get 5% effective pierce.

For all talents other than pierce, the individual rounded talents are displayed on the pet, the rounded sum on the character sheet, and the exact decimal value is used in combat. This means the difference between 9% damage and 10% damage is often smaller than it looks. 

FAQ

  • What is pedigree and should I care about it?
    • Pedigree just tells you the rarity of the talents in the pet’s pool. However, a higher rarity talent is not necessarily better, so in most cases you can just ignore it.
  • What kind of pet should I make?
    • The most standard pet you could make is a triple/double. For pvp ward pets are popular and for pve critical pets are popular.
  • What pet should I put my talents on?
    • The safest bet is either an enchanted armament or a pet with a blade as they will always be useful.
  • How long does it take to make a pet?
    • It varies a lot depending on what your starting pet is, what the pet you’re trying to make, how much energy and snacks you have and of course luck.
  • How are stats determined?
    • When two pets are hatched, the offspring rolls each stat individually. Each stat has a 25% chance to be equal to parent A’s; 25% chance to be equal to parent B’s; and a 50% chance to be the average of both parents.
      This means the only way to get a max stat is by hatching with a pet that has a max stat and that if both parents both have max stats, the offspring will always have max stats as well.
  • How does someone’s pet have an 11% damage talent or 11% resist talent?
    • The only way to get stats that high is to have a selfish talent. If a selfish talent is manifested instead of socketed as a jewel it won’t appear but will still affect the pet.
  • Why is a max stat pet called 2.0?
    • The original max stats a pet could have were 250 across the board and that was known as 1.0. However, since then higher stats have been introduced, and the new max stat values are now referred to as 2.0.
  • What are these weird names for pets?
    • Triple/double = three damage talents and two universal resist talents
    • Quad/proof = four damage talents and one universal resist talent
    • Ward pet = any pet with ward talents, usually also paired with universal resist talents
    • Quint damage = five damage talents
    • Quint resist = two universal resist talents and three resist talents of the same school
    • Utility pet = pet that provides non-combat benefits, such as fishing and gardening talents
    • Universal pet = pet with all universal talents

Corporal Tenni’syn Strategy!

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Corporal Tenni’syn is a Gold Skeleton Key boss found inside the Zanadu Sewers, Empyrea. He drops the best offensive robes for every school, except Storm. Storm wizards will still want to use the Malistaire robe even at level 130.

Initially, this boss seems difficult, but with enough knowledge and game sense, he is actually incredibly easy! So, here is how I killed Corporal Tenni’syn in 4 rounds!

The Cheats

Tenni’syn uses a couple of important cheats to note. They can be annoying, but there’s no way to avoid them.

Only Feint once per round

If you feint Tenni’syn more than once, you’ll activate a cheat that removes every single trap that the team has placed on him.

Natural attacks lead to random Wild Bolt spam

Whenever he uses his natural attack he will shout about how it is “time to finish this!” Now, this sounds rather silly, but what follows isn’t.

He will spam up to 7 wild bolts on a random member of the team each time this attack occurs. Be careful because he’s packing a lot of damage and pierce!

Gains 3 Pips after every turn

After every round, no matter what, Tenni’syn will gain 3 power pips. This gives him the power to spam spells such as Glow Bug Squall, Sirens and Storm Lord.

Don’t Dispel

Other sources may claim that using dispel is ok if it is only used once per round. In my experience this will trigger a cheat that clears all negative charms. A better defensive strategy is to use Juju or storm shields.

The Strategy

Now that you know the cheats, lets find out how to deal 80,000 damage in 4 turns every time. Even when blades are cleared by Glow Bug Squall, Sirens and Catch of the Day, it’s still guaranteed to work. Here are the key points.

Jade gear and Storm resist

Having a wizard that can tank all the storm hits is important. Send someone in first who has high storm resist. The battle order is decided by the order in which your team enters the key room.

Scion 

When you hit use Scion of Storm with a prism, or Scion of Myth with 2 stun blocks up. Scion will allow you to one shot Tenni’syn on the 4th round.

Feint

Have the team member with storm resist feint using Potent, regular, and a Treasure Card to make the Scion kill guaranteed, even if he clears all blades.

Critical block 

In my experience, he must not have much critical block. He has never blocked a single one of my critical hits!

The only additional note is that he may use blades, so your team will want to carry enfeeble in order to get that Scion damage doubled.

 That’s it! It’s honestly that simple. I wish you the best of luck while farming!

Legendary Storm PvP

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Hello, and welcome to Legendary Storm PvP. I know, shocking. Why Legendary Storm PvP you may ask? When I was playing Wizard101, back when PvP was popular among my friends, we all liked Legendary PvP. The not so high stats, the no use of shadow pips, the little grind we did to get House of Scales or Waterworks gear was all fun. As a Legendary Storm, it was definitely a journey. Why Storm and why not Balance though? Good question. I liked that nobody ever really chose this school to solo, nor do I need to be just like everyone else and make one. I liked Storm for its high damage and pierce and the way it handles itself.

PvP as a Legendary nowadays is easy, fun, and sometimes unpredictable. I can guarantee I don’t win every one of my matches, but most. To those reading, you have to either farm Loremaster for some spells, craft or buy packs, depending on your preference. As some spells are wanted in PvP. For example, my storm has Queen Calypso, a card I use to bring out the utility of my spells, and the Damage Per Second it provides. I suggest crafting to those who don’t want to farm or buy packs, as it is one of the fastest ways to get the spells, believe it or not.

Gear and Stats​

My Storm specializes in quick attacks, ending the rounds easily, and has high damage and pierce at 65. For a Storm, I would suggest going for high damage and pierce over critical, because of the critical nerf.

The gear that would be a good set up for Damage and Pierce would be:

  • Robe: House of Scales – Lower Zigazag Vestment
  • Hat: House of Scales – Lower Zigazag Headdress
  • Boots: Professor’s Hoard Pack – Halston’s Stormy Slippers
  • Wand: Immortal’s Lore Pack – Aquilan Velite Lance
  • Ring: Vendor: Brandon Mistborn – Duelist’s Daredevil Ring
  • Athame: Vendor: Brandon Mistborn – Duelist’s Fatal Razor
  • Amulet: Lower Zigazag – Condemned Soldier’s Charm
  • Mount: Avalon Outlaw’s Bundle – Vulpine Avenger Mount for pierce OR
  • Mount: Ghulture’s Hoard Pack – Storm Ghulture for damage
  • Pet: Any pet with all 5 talents being damage for maximum damage output, and socketing a Spell Proof Jewel

Pierce Jewels are needed on your Ring and Athame.

  • Circle Jewel: Plain Piercing Amethyst +3% pierce
  • Tear Jewel: Plain Health Opal +65 health
  • Triangle Jewel: Plain Pip Opal +6% power pip chance
  • Square Jewel: Plain Defense Opal +16 universal resist
  • Triange Jewel: Plain Accurate Amethyst +7 storm accuracy

With all the gear and jewels equipped your storm should have 125 Damage, 32 resist, 27% accuracy, 54% critical chance, 20% pierce and 79% power pip chance. We will also be using Infallible before we hit which gives an additional 15% accuracy and pierce over 4 rounds.

Spells Trained through Training Points​

  • Ice School  – Tower Shield
  • Sun School – Gargantuan
  • (Prepare for the weird one) Fire School – Phoenix, Infection, and Stun Block.

Main Deck Set Up​

  • 6 Queen Calypso’s
  • Max Damage enchants, thus being Gargantuan
  • 3 Lightning Bats
  • 5 Wild Bolts
  • 4 Tower Shields
  • 3 Volcanic Shields
  • 3 Glacial Shields
  • 3 Pixies
  • 3 Darkwinds
  • 2 Storm Dispells
  • 3 Storm Shark
  • 2 Insane Bolts
  • 3 Storm Lord
  • 2 Storm Snakes
  • 4 Storm Blades

Side Deck Set Up​

Now, for that phoenix spell I mentioned earlier – you are going to want to enchant a lot of them from the Mutate Phoenix spell.

The Spell Thunderbird has such high utility, as it gives you x3 +30% traps universally, pack 3 of them.

  • 2 Storm Lord
  • 4 Tower Shields
  • 5 Infallible
  • 3 Kraken
  • 5 side Queen Calypso
  • 3 Triton
  • 2 Storm Shark
  • 3 Triage
  • 2 Gargantuan

Strategy​

The goal is to hit as fast as possible, preferably trying to pull an infallible first round to get that maximum amount of Pierce through the first couple of hits. If you can get infallible up, you can then hit with multiple Queen Calypsos and small hits, dealing good damage, and keeping them on the defensive.

If your opponent hasn’t stun shielded, that’s where Storm Lord comes in play. Switch back from playing offensively and defensively as you will need to make sure you can be able to out damage per second them and survive. Don’t just hit randomly, as we’re built on strategy. Make combined hits that make sense.

For example, you have the pips needed for the 5 pipped Thunderbird. You cast that into a Queen Calypso, giving you a +30% and a +20% traps on your opponent, making use of that utility you have.

Avoid spamming cards like a wild bolt or insane bolt as you are wasting pips. Use a Wild bolt to get off a shield, or start off with a hit, or need to get rid of a card.
Infection is for your heal spammers, and with all the pierce you have, it’s fine to hit through shields. All your other hits, use in situations where you know your opponent is open, and you can do mass damage. All spells and all battles aren’t all the same. Different situations occur, just have to be patient and committed to learn and understand what to do in different situations.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the guide. If you got any questions, my Discord is 𝕴𝖓𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖓𝖆𝕲𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 #1999, and I will gladly answer all questions related to storm Legendary PvP.

How to Get “One in a Million”

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“One in a Million” is one of the most popular badges in Wizard101. Unfortunately, without the proper setup and strategy, you may fail at your attempt to earn it, wasting time and gold. So, here are my tips and tricks on how to achieve “One in a Million.”

Prisms

If you use a prism in your setup, you can double the number of traps used for your big hit. By using your counter school traps first (for example, a Fire wizard applying Ice school traps) and then casting a prism before placing fire traps, the fire traps will be triggered followed by the ice traps. This will double the damage your school traps can provide!

You can easily get treasure card traps for your opposing school at the Bazaar. With the help of a friend from that school, you will also have access to the regular trap and regular potent trap.

 Universal Traps and Blades

Bringing a Balance wizard along will make your life a lot easier. They can layer you with many blades, you could even end up doing 50 Million if that was possible! You also can get a few balance blades by using treasure cards.

Feints are super important to this strategy. If you use regular feint, potent, treasure card, potent treasure card, item card, pet feint, and mass feint, you’ll have a huge advantage in getting your damage up to one million!

All The buffs!

It’s really easy to forget a couple of blades or traps when you’re assembling over twenty, so try to write a list and quintuple check that you have packed everything. You may forget that one last sharpen or an elemental trap which could result in you not reaching your goal.

Some schools get especially useful spells like Supercharge and Backdraft that will make hitting a million much easier. Be sure that you include these in your setup if you can!

Some extra tips

You need to remember to bubble and aura. Combined, these provide a significant damage bonus.

Also, remember to pack a heal or two. Even max-levels may get too low on health. you don’t want to die and lose all of those carefully stacked blades.

Don’t forget to attempt this on an enemy that your school boosts on. It’s a free, easy damage bonus you wouldn’t get from a different creature. Also remember that if you’re using the prism as I previously suggested, you’ll want to face a creature of the same school that you are to get this boost.

Go to an empty realm if you are attempting this in an open area! I cannot stress this enough. Otherwise, unknowing or inexperienced players may run in and wipe out all your progress. Take preventative measures in advance.

That said, go out there and earn your “One in a Million” badge!

How to Create a Portal Hub

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Dedicating one of your castles to store the portals to your other houses can be a laborious task, especially deciding you want to begin a project like this. If you’re not sure what I mean by a “portal hub,” I am referring to a castle that is the central hub to teleport to your other homes. Successfully completing a project like this is a big accomplishment for any decorator, for your friends to tour your amazingly decorated houses and simply teleport to the next once they’re done.

The Math

Before we begin, there is a lot of math to be done. For this guide, I will be doing the most complex option of how we can interpret this project (and very much so the most impressive!).

Open your list of houses and count all of the houses you want included in this project. I want my Balance House, my Storm House, my Death house, and my Midday Estate included in this project, plus my dorm. My Storm House will be the Hub, and my Dorm will teleport the visitor to the hub. Once the person gets to the hub, there will be several portals they can enter. This is described in the main flow chart. The Marleybone and Darkmoor houses will not be a part of this tutorial.

This means we will need one teleporter for the Dorm, three for the hub, and three more to put in the houses. Therefore, all together, we will need seven portals. We need two for every house we have, plus one for the dorm.

The Portal Plan

Next, we need to figure out the route these portals are going to take. The flow chart to the left makes it look easier than it feels when actually doing it.

We must set up three portals to go back to the dorm, the dorm portal to go to the hub, and the three hub portals to go to the houses. Remember, when you click on a portal without the mark in the corner of its box in the decorating menu, it means you need to select the location it will teleport to first. If it does indicate a point has been selected, you may proceed to place it. 

An Example

To the right is one possible combination a visitor may take. After teleporting to you in your dorm room, they go through the portal in the Storm House hub, and then the Midday Estate. When they decide to leave the Midday Estate, they will go back to the Dorm Room and begin again to see the other houses.

This visual shows where the portals are going to. The violet portal heads to the Storm House. This is color association. By using violet, it is a hint without needing to use a sign where they are about to go.

This works rarely. Most of the time, we need to put a sign nearby, or in the portal to show where people are going.

An extraordinary example of Paige Moonshade’s Portal Hub. Find her Wizard’s Watchtower on the castle tours!

It is always amazing to see houses on the tours that are connected together. Seeing portals linked together like this makes the house feels that its a part of something much larger, and is a product of greater quality. In projects like these, the more houses you have, the more work it will take to maintain it, but there’s a bigger pay off. In the image to the left, it looks amazing to see the portals of every single house in the game linked up together.

Click here for more of our guides on decorating

Thank you, Starlights, I wish you the best in your Portal Hub creations! Please remember to email your lovely interpretations of this guide to us at [email protected] because we would love to see them. If you have any issues following along with this guide, please get in touch with me in the comments below or on the Ravenwood Academy Discord!

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Winter Fishing

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Every 3 months the seasonal fish change. 

From December to March, the winter fish are swimming in the spiral!

Cold Cod








Ice School | Rank 1 | Seasonal/Regular | 1600 XP

Small Fry: <10
Whopper: >40

Yuletoy Fish

 

 

 

 

Myth School | Rank 1 | Seasonal/Regular | 1400 XP

Small Fry: <15
Whopper: >45

Mistletoe Angler

 

 

 

 

Life School | Rank 1 | Seasonal/Regular | 1400 XP

Small Fry: <15
Whopper: >45

Locations

These 3 fish all have the same locations:

Wizard City:

  • Garden of Hesperides
  • The Commons

Krokotopia:

  • The Oasis

Zafaria:

  • Baobab Crossroads

MooShu:

  • Jade Palace

Avalon:

  • Caliburn

Grizzleheim:

  • Northguard

Housing Items:

  • All the Castles and Houses

How to Catch them - Best Locations - Spells

Cold Cod:  The Oasis is the only Ice school fish in the pond that season. Use Reveal Fish School or Winnor Ice Fish/Lesser Frost Lure or Minor Frost Lure.

YuleToy Fish: Use Reveal Fish School or Winnor Life fish/Lesser Fable Lure or Minor Fable Lure.

The Commons: There is only one Myth school fish in the pond that season.

Mistletoe Angler:

The Commons: There is only one Life school fish in the pond that season. 

Use Reveal Fish School or Winnor Life fish/Lesser Vitality Lure or Minor Vitality Lure.

Tips: If you don’t have the spell ‘Summon Fish’, go into the pond, scare away all the fishes and wait 15 minutes before attracting new fishes. That will save most of your energy. Don’t forget that each player has their own fish in the pond, meaning other wizards can not scare away your fish.

Used In These Recipes: Make your own music with the crafting recipe from Eudora Tangletree in Old Town. You can listen to the music player which is a house item! You can select different music for outside or inside the house.

The music items with fishes ingredients are:

Carol of the Bells Theme

Deck the Halls Theme

Jingle Bells Theme

I wish you all the best catching the seasonal fish, and Merry Christmas! 

Dorm Decorating: Death School

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I ’m sure everyone remembers struggling to figure out what to do with their first dorm room. I had no idea what to do with the original furniture. Honestly, it just wasn’t for me, but after a week or so of fishing, questing, and collecting treasure cards, I had figured out how to make the most of my dorm.

 

First, I started by removing all of the furniture and by selling it in order to buy some furniture I could work with for the style I had in mind. I had to think “What’s a good color scheme?” and “What items are an absolute necessity for a dorm?” and most importantly, “How could I fit everything together to work the best for my dorm?”

Well, after a few hundred trips to the Bazaar (on the fine edge of an exaggeration), I had gathered enough decor to achieve my goal. Some of the first few items I chose were the Wyrm Crowned Bed, the Long Narrow Table, and the Portrait of the Bone Dragon. After I had picked out the larger items, I started searching for others that would work well with them.

I decided on some Aero Dwarf Chairs for the center of the room; this would be the first thing your Wizard would see each and every time you entered. I wanted to make my focus simplistic and fill the outer edges with more decor.

One of the most important things to go by when decorating is to ask yourself “Does this look cluttered?” I don’t know about you, but I definitely like to keep things tidy, especially in my Wizard’s home.

One of my favorite parts of setting up my dorm was glitching. If you’ve never tried it before, it might surprise you how easy it is! This was my first time glitching while decorating and it turned out flawless, in my opinion. All you need to get started is one Maple Bookcase and a Black Checker, the best part is how they always have both of these items in the Bazaar!

 

To achieve the decorating glitch, first set down whatever object you want to float on the floor, then place the bookcase next to it. Then, you place the Black Checker on whichever shelf you want your item to be when it is in the air. Then, grab your Black Checker on the shelf and move it so your bookcase sinks into the floor. Once it’s there, you can move the item into the bookcase and then move the maple bookcase again, and your object is in the air! After this, to remove your bookcase, you grab the checker again and move it so your item stays in place.

My favorite glitch in this dorm room is definitely my Small Fry Keeper Tank. For this glitch, I used my Maple Bookcase to glitch some Purple Dewberries into the tank. Then I used it again to set it up in the window and out of the way! By using the glitch, I saved walking space in my dorm. Plus, it looks amazing, even if I do say so myself. To finish the tank off, I placed a Blue Angel plant on top of the tank to add a splash of blue to the area.

Every Wizard needs a study area, and for this, I completed three separate glitches. I decided to put the Telescope in the window sill with the Castle Magic Help tome beside it. It only made sense to look at all those beautiful Wizard City sunsets up close from the comfort of my dorm! Looking toward the desk area, I glitched the Arcane Rebooter (from Wizard101’s 10th-year-anniversary code) onto the table because it was almost too big to fit otherwise. That glitch definitely freed up more space on the desk too! I added a few specimens in jars, a Bottle Burner, Test Tubes, and a Venus Flytrap plant to complete the look. I found the flytrap in the Bazaar, but you can also get it from Fishing Chests!

I decided to not put too much of an emphasis on the doorway and to keep it fairly simple, I added the Nimbari Sword Rack, one of my favorite decorations in the game. The Dragon Skull, the Black Rock Fragment, and a couple of Glowing Mushrooms to keep things interesting.

Last but not least, I glitched the Wyrm Crowned bed into the wall and placed more glowing mushrooms underneath it! This is a really small bed in the game, so adding the mushrooms turned it into its own focal point! Next to the bed, I have the Elegant Hat Stand, and the Special Hat stand each covered in Darkmoor Cobwebs. You can thank my pet Moose for that one.

I hope you guys enjoyed the read because I loved writing it for you! I hope you all have a blast glitching and creating your very own personalized dorm!

This article was submitted by Guest Author, Jen Skullbreaker

Member Benefit Tier List!

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Everyone loves a good old-fashioned tier list!  Everyone loves Wizard101 member benefits! Why not combine the two and create our very own Member Benefit Tier List!

I will list all the member benefits under a category, starting at D  being the worst and finishing in the S tier being the best. Please note that these tiers are based on opinion only and are not fact. You may find that you love Double Animus and don’t care for Double pet XP. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

The D Tier

Double Monstrology Exp and Animus
Daily Assignment and Daily PvP Assignment Boost

I know Monstrology has its fans, including myself. But most of the players I have spoken with just aren’t that into it.  

As for the daily assignment boosts,  to me this is be the least useful of the bunch. I was only able to complete a few assignments within the time given, limiting the benefit from it significantly.

The C Tier

Free Chest Re-Roll
Training Point Buy Back

These are both nice benefits but they have some problems restricting their potential! First off, although this benefit can be useful for newer players it’s rare that you would want or need to buy back your training points once you have gained a better understanding of the game. This makes this benefit far more useful for new players than more seasoned wizards who have little need of it.  

The chest re-roll is limited to one re-roll per boss each day. Making farming a little nicer for one run but still not providing an amazing benefit.

The B Tier

Zero Energy Fishing
Double Reagents and Unlimited Crafting

This member benefit definitely has its perks. Whether you’re trying to level up, catch new fish, find a rare wand or even a new permanent mount to add to your collection, this benefit lets you go wild with lures!  

While fishing can seem boring for some, others find it to be a relaxing change from the usual game play. The hunt and grind for what you want is always worth it when you finally get it, and fishing is no exception since it offers some great rewards. If you haven’t tried fishing yet you may not find this benefit to be very exciting, but anyone who’s fished before will understand just how good unlimited fishing is!

Double reagents are just amazing. Every reagent you collect by gardening, gathering or fighting is doubled. Always paired with unlimited crafting, there is no cool down time when you craft items. With no timers, you can craft to your heart’s content whilst doubling your chances of getting some of those pesky, harder to get reagents!

The A Tier

Double Pet xp

Everyone loves double pet experience. It’s fortunately a common benefit, and everyone rushes to the Pet Pavilion to train up their pets which we all know will inevitably fail and leave us crying ourselves to sleep… no? Just me? With double pet XP every game you play or snack you feed to your pet gives twice the benefit that it would have normally. So, a Fancy Yogurt that would give your pet 50 XP will give you 100 XP during this benefit. Almost enough to level to teen in one snack! Even gold bought snacks like Shanta Pudding give significant boosts to your pets XP during this reward.

Either way, we all know and love Double Pet XP and we’re all praying it doesn’t go anywhere, anytime soon! 

The S Tier

Double Gardening Rewards

Welcome to the crème de la crème! This is undoubtedly the best and tragically the rarest of all the member benefits. We get this gem a few times a year and boy do we capitalize!

Whether it’s Couch Potatoes, Evil Magma Peas, King Parsley or Pink Dandelions, you will double every single seed, snack, reagent or housing item that your garden drops during this reward. 

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So that was my tier list of all the eight current member benefits available in Wizard101! Let us know in the comments if you agree!

Dorm Decorating: Xmas Edition

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It’s Christmastime in the Spiral once again! I’m sure all of you are just about as excited as I am (as if that’s even possible!). It’s the most wonderful time of the year and you can show your Christmas cheer with an exciting and original Christmas themed dorm room!

I am completely new at glitching and Castle Magic, but I’ve picked up a bunch of fun tricks this season to share with you all! For my dorm, I didn’t want to use any of the Christmas themed trees we all love so much. Instead, I decided to make my own original Christmas tree.

For my Christmas tree, I chose to use six of the Blue Holiday Ornaments and glitched them into the air using my trusty Maple Bookcase and Black Checker. For this glitch, all you have to do is set down whatever object you want to float and then place the bookcase next to it. Then you place the Black Checker on whichever shelf that you want your item to be in the air. You grab your Black Checker on the shelf and move it so your bookcase sinks into the floor. Once it’s there, you can move the item into the bookcase and then move the maple bookcase and your object is in the air! After this, to remove your bookcase, you grab the checker again and move it so your item stays in place.

I found all of the ornaments used for this in the Bazaar (and for quite a cheap price). All around my tree I have floating presents using the aforementioned ornament glitch. I thought this would be a really magical focal point and it turned out better than I had imagined. Speaking of the actual Christmas tree, it’s the Snowy Polarian Tree shrunk down twice along with the ornaments using Castle Magic. As you’ve probably noticed by now, my not-so-Christmas tree topper isn’t actually on the top of my tree. I did this because outside of Photomancy, the tree is too tall for it to show. For this, I just grabbed a handy Star Staff and enlarged it five times with Castle Magic as well.  

To the left of my tree, I made a cozy sitting space featuring one of the goodest of boys. Right next to him, I glitched a Regular Keeper Tank with a Red Cap Carpe (the perfect Santa fish!) into the floor using a rug and the Maple Bookcase. For this glitch, you start by placing your tank in your dorm and then set out your Maple Bookcase with the Black Checker on the lowest shelf. Once that is done, you grab the checker and move the opposite end on the bookcase into the tank. Grab the Maple Bookcase and set it down so that your tank is up in the air. After this you grab the checker once more and move it so that the bookcase is no longer touching the tank, which is now floating. Then you pick up your bookcase and then place it once more. This time you will put your checker on the second shelf and place a medium rug (either the Medium Magenta or Medium Purple). You then move the checker so your bookcase sinks once more and place the opposite end on the long side of your rug. Next, you move the bookcase and make sure that the rug is placed evenly inside of the tank. As you’ll see now, the rug fits perfectly where the wooden bottom stops and the blue base starts. Once this is done, remove the bookcase by grabbing the checker and place it somewhere else in the room. Pick up the bookcase. Grab the rug and move it anywhere in your room where you want your tank and you’ll see that the tank is sunk into the floor without the bottom wooden piece showing!

Inside the tank, I have a shrunk down Snowman and a Snow Pile. Remember that when glitching items inside of the tank, you need to place them where the tank will be first, which can get tricky if you need to float each item. That’s why sinking the tank is a perfect option if you want some extra flair! For the Snowman and Snow Pile, I shrunk them both using Castle Magic Reflectors and Start Detectors with the shrink cards in place (this is all trial and error, depending on how small you want an item. Using a Magic Reflector, you can use castle magic on up to eight items and you can shrink or grow a single item at least eight times!).  On top of the tank, we have another Snow Pile shrunk down. I also included some Yuletide Candy Canes and peppermints for all of the guests to enjoy.

One of my favorite glitches of all time would have to be putting the Silver Chest over the plain wooden one for your bank. It was revolutionary for me when I first tried it and it worked so well! I simply used two medium rugs and the chest. All you must do is place one rug on top of the other at different angles and rotate the first one until it is under the wooden chest. Once that’s done, you set down your Silver Chest (which is the one found under the furniture tab in the Bazaar) directly on top of your wooden bank chest.  You’ll never have a plain chest for your bank again!

Next to the chest, we have a matching table with the Cookies and Milk glitched on top using the Maple Bookcase once again since they wouldn’t fit normally, you always have to give a little something back to Santa! (even if he is trapped in your fish tank at the moment).

Next to my glitched chest, I used up my spare Blue Holiday Ornaments and glitched them into the air and placed the Azteca Basket underneath. For that, I used the Maple Bookcase and Black Checker glitch with the bottom shelf, one with the second shelf from the bottom. All ornaments were shrunk two sizes down and I enlarged the basket by a size. All the String Lights were enlarged twice with Castle Magic as well. Last but not least, in the window, I placed the Gingerbread House to finish off my dorm.

I hope you all enjoyed my article on How to Make the Most of your Dorm: Christmas Edition! Decorate those dorms and have a very magical Merry Christmas!

This article is by Community Contributor, Jen Skullbreaker

The Elements of Decorating

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Intended For the Novice Decorator

I have no doubt you’ve been to homes with phenomenal mazes that extend to places in the sky you didn’t think they could reach, or beautiful portal displays of every house in the game. Each portal with an angel plant at elder, dancing elegantly nearby, or player-made homes of building blocks that are realistic in exterior and interior design. They all grab something within us. A kind of magic different than anything else in the game. When we enter those phenomenal homes, we are pulled into their absolute splendor.

Whether it’s to find a housing gauntlet or be inspired by other decorators, we’ve all entered another player’s in-game castle and felt a sense of awe in its aesthetic. As an avid housing decorator, I have won contests and have earned positions on the Top Rated houses leader board. Today, we will delve into the elements of decorating and see how you can apply these skills of craftsmanship to your own interior and exterior decor.

The Elements

Scale

Evaluate the overall size of your decoration in comparison to your character as well as your screen. From creating three-story high towers that can’t fit in your screen, to the smallest flower pot, the element of scale is probably one of the most important considerations.

Depth

Similar to “Space,” we need to think about angles and balance between the items. We cannot be decorating too flat, but we also need to decide what should get the most attention with depth. Debatably, this element can also be considered the most important.

Space

Next, we must determine how much space there should be between your items. Where can people walk through? Where should people walk through? At times, I find the best use of space in my home is when I block off areas I simply don’t want to decorate in order to focus on the bigger picture.

Realism

The truthfulness and believability that your decoration style can be accepted as possible in the game. For example, this does not mean you cannot have floating candles, because that can be explained with magic. Therefore, that would be truthful and believable. What this rule suggests, is to justify your room or exterior, and try to think of it from a new perspective. We must justify how believable the design is by looking at it with our visitor’s eyes in mind. 

Originality

 Does that stunning, beautiful, masterful home you just decorated feel like it’s yours? Of course, incorporating other’s ideas doesn’t hurt, but what does taking that idea add? How do you develop upon the different styles and themes within your castle? Remember, context screams louder than the idea itself.

Texture

 Make sure nothing feels too repetitive in your decor. Try to find items that break up your texture and gather attention, or create textures that repeat well together. With repetition, the simpler an idea is, the better. With complexity, it is better for it to stand-alone.

Color

Color is quite powerful. I suggest knowing or learning some color theory. Learn about the emotional impact of colors, what colors represent, what different colored roses represent, which are the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors- the list goes on. Think about how different colors make you feel.

Palette

A palette is a collection of colors that are consistent throughout your design. As this is a video game where we cannot always pick specific colors, we should be lenient with where our shades and tones happen to fall within the overall color family.

Example: Garden of The Albion Enchantress  

 

My entry for Paige Moonshade’s annual Summer contest.
Honorable mention 2018.

Here is one of the dorm rooms I’ve decorated, entered in Paige Moonshade’s Ninth annual best little Wizard City dorm contest. Let’s go through each of the various elements to see how we employ them in this example.

The scale might be one of the first things you notice. Several well-placed items make the room feel more grandiose because of their stature. The objects barely fit into the frame. Next, let’s see the depth. We create depth through the garden between the archways. Very diorama-like, it sits with us having to peer in, with each one of us taking a different perspective. This technique is used in Mooshu, with there being a fence next to the sidewalk and bamboo plants spread out between the wall of bamboo.

By examining this space, we see it is very tight, crammed, and in-your-face, especially when viewing it from an in-game perspective. Standing there, You are filled with a view 360 degrees around you of items. You can barely find your way out, and it’s not the door you think it may be. It is overgrown and wild, the feeling, like an enchanted garden that belongs to an evil queen.

We may find ourselves questioning the truthfulness of this design. Would an overgrown, enchanted garden of a witch looks like this? I  believe it would be. It was very W.I.T.C.H. inspired, after I had binge-watched the short running television series for the second time, and I wanted to incorporate its dark and contrasting magical vibe into my own decor (notice how that also covered the color section too? These elements can correlate to each other in intriguing ways!).

 

Selfie!

Some of the ways I break up the texture of items in my design is by using wall lamps to pretend to hang them on pillars and wall-like items. In a similar fashion, the bright mushroom breaks apart the dark violet texture, while still being within the color scheme established. In our palette, we see bright greens, dark violets, vibrant and dark reds, and light blues. These are consistent and rarely fall out of line.

As decorators, we strive to create new worlds within our own homes or give homage to the ones we have quested in, and bring it to life. Each Wizard is given one dorm in Ravenwood and I hope this helps you make the best of it and the other castles that you own. Thank you, Starlights