Summary
- Wizard101 is launching from Xbox Game Preview today for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
- Learn which School to pick, how to construct a deck, and other useful tips to get started in this turn-based deckbuilding MMORPG.
- Unleash your inner magic and prepare to unravel the mysteries surrounding a death professor gone rogue.
Wizard101 has made its way to Xbox! While we’re eager to welcome new students into Ravenwood Academy, we know that starting such a massive adventure with so much history can feel a bit daunting. So, consider this article your first lesson: the 101 of Wizard101 to help you get started in the Spiral.
Choosing the Right School of Magic
There are 7 classes in the game, known as schools. The school you choose at the very beginning of the game will shape your style and the rest of your journey to come. Each school has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, as well as special spells and even pets.
Fire
“The All-Rounder”
- Strengths: Powerful hitter with lots of damage-over-time options
- Weaknesses: Moderate accuracy and health
- Great For: Beginners who want a balanced gameplay experience
Fire has a variety of powerful spells, many of which are damage-over-time. This makes breaking enemy shields a breeze while still packing that punch that players are looking for. Their survivability is not the best in the game, but it’s not the worst either. Therefore, Fire is a great school choice for those looking for a pretty straightforward and balanced game experience. Not too challenging, but not too simple either.
Storm
“The Glass Cannon”
- Strengths: High damage
- Weaknesses: Low accuracy and health
- Great For: High risk/high reward players, people who are up for a challenge, group play
Storm is known for its explosive damage from even the earliest of levels. The school is very powerful, but comes with the tradeoff of high fragility. This can make Storm an incredibly challenging school to play solo, but easier to adapt to if you’re playing with a group of friends who can help heal and protect you.
Ice
“The Tank”
Strengths: High health, resistance, and survivability
Weaknesses: Low damage
Great For: Group play, patient solo players
Ice wizards have the highest health in the game and are great at absorbing damage. This makes them tough to defeat in combat and a great tank to have in group play. However, since their spells have low damage, Ice wizards usually have prolonged battles since they’re unable to deal damage quickly. Solo Ice wizards should be prepared to have patience during combat.
Death
The Survivor
Strengths: Can steal health from enemies, access to many universal buffs
Weaknesses: Moderate damage, health, and accuracy
Great For: Solo players, beginners
Despite its name, Death is actually a wonderful school for survivability. Because many of their spells allow you to both damage enemies and steal their health, Death wizards can hold their own in a fight – making it a fantastic choice for solo players. They also have access to multiple universal buffs which helps amplify their damage, allowing for quicker battles.
Life
The Healer
Strengths: Wide array of healing spells, high accuracy
Weaknesses: Doesn’t excel in damage or other areas
Great For: Support players, especially in groups
Life, as you may have guessed, specializes in healing themselves and others. With their high accuracy and various different heals to choose from, Life wizards are extremely dependable support players. They’re always useful in group settings to help keep the gang in tip-top shape, but the school is also a good solo choice if you don’t mind the lack of damage options compared to other schools.
Myth
The Manipulator
Strengths: Variety of minions to aid you, lots of double attack spells, decent damage
Weaknesses: Moderate survivability and accuracy
Great For: Solo players
Myth wizards are great at manipulating battles. They can summon a vast arsenal of minions to aid them and cast highly functional spells that are difficult for enemies to deal with. Myth wizards also excel at removing shields, whether through spell after-effects or double hit attacks. Because they have a variety of tricks up their sleeve to utilize, Myth is a great school for solo players.
Balance
The Support
Strengths: Extensive access to universal buffs and utilities
Weaknesses: No school prism, often needs to carry a specific deck for Balance enemies, challenging school to play
Great For: Group play
Balance shines brightest as a key support player in groups. With their wide variety of buffs, Balance wizards can boost the damage of any school in the game. The main drawback is their lack of prism, which creates difficulties when facing other Balance enemies. As a result, Balance wizards often carry dedicated decks for these encounters and makes Balance one of the most difficult schools to master, especially for solo play.
Understanding the Art of the Duel
Now that you’ve selected a school that fits your desired style, it’s time to ready yourself for combat! At its heart, Wizard101 is a turn-based deckbuilding MMORPG. Your success will largely depend on how you build your spell deck, whether you’re fighting solo or with friends, and if you have a bit of luck on your side.
Only 7 spells will be initially drawn from your deck during combat, so constructing a deck that will allow you to get the right cards at the right time is instrumental. Overloading your deck may result in you not getting helpful cards when you need them, but packing too few cards could mean you don’t have enough spells to finish the fight. It’s a delicate balance!
Constructing Your Spell Deck
There are 3 main types of spell sources: regular spells, treasure cards, and item/pet cards.
- Regular spells are standard spells that you unlock on your adventure either through your professor or through quests. They get added to the “main” section of your spell deck.
- Item/pet cards are spells that come from equipped items and pets. They appear in a specific section below your “main” spell deck. You can choose which pet/item cards you’d like to appear in battle by clicking on them.
- Treasure Cards are single use spells that have a dedicated section in your spell deck. Once you use one during battle, it’s gone forever. You’ll need to continuously replenish your Treasure Cards if you find yourself using them often.
When it comes to spell deck strategy, we often find that less is more. It’s very common for new players to get excited and add as many spells to their deck as possible, but that makes it very difficult to fight battles effectively. For example, if you’re at full health, pulling heal card after heal card extends the battle length and doesn’t help you in that specific moment. Packing heal spells is fantastic idea, but make sure you’re keeping a good ratio in mind.
Don’t be afraid to leave some spots empty too … especially as you continue to level up and have access to larger decks!
How Combat Works
Walking up to any enemy will automatically trigger combat to begin. Once the combat starts, you’ll see a 30-second timer and 7 drawn cards from your spell deck. If you’re happy with those cards, amazing! If you’re not, you can always discard any undesired cards to make space for new cards to appear the following round. Discarding a spell also lets you draw a Treasure Card, if you added any to your deck beforehand. A max of 7 cards will always be shown at any given time whether they are normal spells or Treasure Cards.
When you’re ready to cast a spell, select it and choose which enemy (or ally) you want to play it on. You can also pass if you’d prefer to wait or if you don’t have enough pips to cast the spell you want. Pips are the energy/power you use to cast spells.
Once all players have selected a spell, the round plays out in a turn-based fashion where the spell cards are brought to life through whimsical animations. After all spells have been cast, the next planning phase commences with another 30-second timer. This continues until either you defeat all the enemies, or the enemies defeat you.
Helpful Tips for New Wizards
- Speaking of efficient traveling, utilize the Mark and Recall for locations that you know you’ll need to visit again. You’ll save yourself a lot of walking and time!
- The Bazaar is an incredible resource for obtaining good gear, especially early on. Check it frequently throughout your adventures to see if anything there provides better stats than what you currently have.
- The pet system is robust and can be overwhelming at first, but training a pet can come in handy extremely quickly. You never know when a pet spell might just save you in battle!
- When in doubt? Team-up! If you’re ever stuck on a particular dungeon or boss, you can ask for help through the Team-Up feature. This allows other players in the game to see that you need assistance and come running to your aid.
There’s so much more to explore in Wizard101, but hopefully you have a good understanding of the basics! We’re grateful to everyone who has played our magical MMO the last 17 years, and we can’t wait to see what the next 17 bring … this time on console!
Wizard101
KingsIsle Entertainment, gamigo group
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