The Fall 2019 Test Realm has been out for a couple weeks with many exciting new features and changes!
We now have a new dungeon in Wizard City for Gear Farming!
A new Backpack Butler (to help us find items)!
Upgrades to the Pet Hatching Kiosk!
Spellwrighting is a new option for your spells!
New Castle Magic spells have arrived!
They have also done expansions to Beastmoon Hunt and the Deckathalons!
(You can read all about these updates on RA right here)
November 2019 Update Notes Wizard101
Fall 2019 PvP Updates
In the Fall 2019 Test Realm PvP Update, there are some changes made to several spells in an attempt to rebalance PvP. In this article, we will look at the proposed changes to the spells. I’ll be talking about how they will impact PvP, if they go live, and my personal thoughts on these changes.
Guardian Spirit
Guardian Spirit is one of the most powerful and controversial utility spells for the Life school. The way it works is, you cast it on yourself or an ally. When you die, you come back with 15% of your health.
You can increase how much health you come back with, in many ways. You can have it boosted by landing a critical when you cast it, by having a Sanctuary dome up when you die, by having a high healing boost on the gear you’re wearing, or having an aura that increases outgoing heal. All of these will boost the healing percentage of Guardian Spirit. This spell can be cast an infinite amount of times during a battle. When you die with a Guardian Spirit up, you will come back to life. Then you can cast another one so you come back to life again, and again.
For schools other than Life, you can receive 1 Guardian Spirit card from the Mandolin of Evermore. This wand is available in the Hoard of the Hydra Pack, in the crown shop. The Mandolin of Evermore is a popular wand for low level defensive setups in PvP.
There are no changes to the mechanics of Guardian Spirit in the test realm as of right now. However, the card is now flagged with a no-PvP symbol.
Many higher rank PvPers, between the levels of 50-90, resort to Turtling with Guardian Spirit. That’s because they can’t survive long enough to kill due to the significantly higher pierce, damage, and health of their opponent. It’s an uneven match-up in these situations, and taking away Guardian Spirit would cap these players at a lower rank.
In PvP, at level 100 and beyond, players can get high amounts of pierce in addition to shrike and shadow spells. This makes high level PvP extremely fast-paced and offensive. The removal of Guardian Spirit would perpetuate the high amount of offense in high level PvP even more.
We must take into account that aggressive Life at higher levels isn’t in the best place because Scion of Life is a healing spell, and the last particularly strong hitting spell the Life school has had is Hungry Caterpillar.
Guardian Spirit is a bandaid to these issues. In no way am I saying it’s fair and balanced, because it’s not. The main problem with Guardian Spirit, are the massive resists and heal boosts that are available for the caster. To address that issue, I would change the amount of healing boosts and resists that you can get in PvP. I would then buff Guardian Spirit to a revival of 25% of your health regardless of stats, aura, or bubble. You would also not be able to land a critical on a Guardian Spirit. To ensure an even amount of offense and defense in PvP, there would also need to be an update on pierce.
Loremaster
Loremaster is one of the strongest spells available in PvP. According to game developer and designer, Matt, Loremaster is the second most used spell in PvP. The first being Tower Shield! Loremaster costs 4 pips, deals 390-470 damage, and leaves both a -20% Weakness and a -35% Black Mantle. That makes it a decent move in almost any situation, at all levels of PvP, Magus and beyond.
In the test realm, Loremasters damage is lower at 235-315 with the Weakness reduced to 15%, and the Black Mantle reduced to 25%. Higher-level Balance Wizards will now become more dependent on reacting to their opponent with Mana Burn or Supernova. (excluding shadow hits)
Balance at Grandmaster and below will be using more strategies that involve masteries for secondary schools.
Legendary balance will feel the effects of this change. They will have to level to Transcendent for trained Mana Burn and Supernova. Even with the trained spells they will still face defeat by Exalteds with Shadow Magic at a lower rank. This may seem like a significant damage nerf, but KingsIsle did it that way to maintain it as a two-utility hit. But, I would have gone about it differently and lowered the damage to 395 (balance damage per pip is, on average <100, so I’ve lowered it to that amount to be consistent with that), removed the mantle, but kept the weakness the way it is at -20%.
Burning Rampage
Burning Rampage is one of the strongest PvP spells, available to the Fire school today. It’s a 5-pip DOT (damage over time) spell that does 70 damage for the initial hit, then 700 base damage on the ticks for two rounds after it’s cast.
Burning Rampage is especially strong in PvP below level 100 because it can easily one-shot your opponents with all the damage the ticks do. You can follow it up with other spells, including a Fire Beetle or two, a Brimstone Revenant, or you can summon the Fire Elemental Minion and cast Burning Rampage the same round the minion casts a DOT (damage over time) spell .
In high level PvP, it’s more situational, but it can be strong when you pull off combos like Rampage then Fire from Above, which is one of the most difficult combos to counter.
In the test realm right now, Burning Rampage does 70 for the initial hit then does 700 base damage after three rounds instead of two. Fire may become even more powerful with this spell, because it gives you more time to stack two traps before the tick goes off, or to cast a Fire Elf or a Link to prevent the opponent from reacting.
I would suggest making the DOT (damage over time) spell go off after two rounds, but redistribute the damage to be close to even, but still a bit on the back-loaded side.
What do you think?
These spells may change, because as the Test Realm notes state, they have them this way for now for testing purposes and to see what the community thinks. With that said, what do you think of the Fall 2019 Test Realm PvP Update? Do you have any alternative ideas you would do with these spells? Let me know in the comments!
