I am back

Yes, I am back.

I don't know how frequently I will continue to post.  But I will whenever I feel like it.  I might also post on Facebook.  Look for my picture under the name Giovanni Francesco (not my real name). Work is keeping me busy and most of my online time, I try to spend it in the spiral.

During the last holidays, Gilroy made it to Legendary and completed Celestia.  Wow, we have been talking about Celestia for a long time and it's already done.

I have taken up gardening.  It's more fun than I thought it would be.  Mostly thanks to the Giving Tree that made me level up very fast.  I am now level 9, Master Gardener.  My favorite plant so far is the King Parsley.  He literally rocks!!  The Orange Dandelion is also very cool with its swirling pixie.

We can see the little pixie just above the Orange Dandelion.

I hope my next post will be won't take too long to come.

See you ITS!!

Not much happening

Nothing much is happening.  I played mostly my Storm Wizard, Kyle Darkflame.  He's now level 22.  He just got his Kraken spell.  Did Savarstaad Pass in Grizzleheim and now he's starting the Grand Arena in the Krokosphynx.  Fizzle rate is quite annoying with Storm wizards.  But since he's level 22, fizzle seem to have come down to a more acceptable rate.

Gilroy has found a new place to farm for gold.  He does the first two level of the Warehouse.  Each fight give him about 130 golds.  It's quite fast too.  He brings a small deck with only Scarecrows and blades.  When everything goes well, it takes only two Crows to defeat the bad guys.  The second fight is usually longer, the ice monsters will cast tower shields and the life ones will cast more desth shields.  And then, I like to take a shot at Boss #1.  The best I have done is kill the first two minions and half way to the last one.  I am sure this is soloable.  If only I could use blades. 

Gilroy Darkflame is 2 year old

Two years ago, I was looking for a new online home after Disney's VMK closed its doors.  I had registered to beta test a new game, Wizard101.  Here's my registration acknowledgment, received on May 31st 2008:

Congratulations, you are on the waiting list for the Wizard101 Free Beta Test at http://www.wizard101.com/.

You will receive another email when you have been accepted from the waiting list.
You cannot login to the website or play the game until you receive this second email.

In the mean time, visit www.Wizard101.com to see pictures, movies and downloads from Wizard101.

Thank you,


Merle Ambrose
Headmaster, Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

And two long weeks later, on June 12th 2008, I was admitted the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts:

Congratulations! You are one of the select few that have been accepted into the Wizard101 Free Beta Test at http://www.wizard101.com/!

You may now activate your account in order to login and download the game. Once you login, you can click the "Play Now!" button to download the game and begin playing. When you login to the game, you will use the same login and password you used for the www.Wizard101.com web site.

In order to activate your account and begin playing the game, please click here.

If you cannot click on the above link in your email client, you may copy and paste the following link into your browser:

http://www.wizard101.com/site/user/registration/validate

In order to change your account settings, please click on the "My Account" link on the web site.

Thank you,

Merle Ambrose
Headmaster, Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

 When Gilroy was admitted, the admission test put him in the Death School.  Then he chose Fire as his second school.  Hence the name "Darkflame".  He chose Fire mostly because he loved the Fire spells.  But when the game was released, he decided to change his second school to Life.  Because he had experienced the higher world like Marleybone and Mooshu and found them quite difficult.  Now he wishes he had not done that.  The game was made much easier since then.  Who remembers Maleybone with no sidewalks?  I mean, there was almost no safe area on the sides...

I still love this game so I am in no way planning to leave yet.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank some people who are part of this incredible experience:

• Of course, everyone at KingsIsle for this awesome world!!
• Admins and all members of Wizard101 Central for this incredible bank of knowledge.
• The Friendly Necromancer for his wonderful blog.
• Fallon Shadowblade for Diary of a Wizard ConnectX and event organizer extraordinaire.
• Steve and Leesha for  Ravenwood Radio, the best radio show in the world.
• My friends from the DISboards, all former VMK citizens.
• And of course all the bloggers out there who all contribute to make Wizard City a wonderful and friendly place.

So see you ITS for a long time!!

PLOX!!

Blue Dragon!!

The new updates are now online and Woohoo!!  Gilroy finally got his permanent blue dragon!!

His pockets are 85K gold lighter, but he got what he wanted.

I did not get to try the test realm as much as I would have liked to.  But I was happy to see that some of my pets had a nice pedigree.

Gizmo, Gilroy's Pioneer Dragon has a pedigree of 59.  That seems to be quite a lot.  And it's higher than my Wraith.

Another surprise was my minotaur, Lord Maximus, he got the ability to cast Myth traps.  Although I don't have any Myth spells, I will definitly try some fight with him at my side, just to see him cast a spell.  :D

OK, got to go train Gizmo!  See you ITS!!

PLOX!!

Vasek Ashweaver met my Wraith

I decided to go take a look at Vasek Ashweaver as suggested by The Friendly Necromancer. According to Friendly, this guy is the one to farm for necromancers. As usual, every one's favorite necromancer is right. As the next picture shows, my Wraith hammered the poor Vashek with a 10,568 damage hit.

Here is my recipe:

1. Feint (70%)
2. Life trap (25%)
3. Death Prism
4. Death trap from gear (35%)
5. Death trap (30%)
6. Curse (20%)
7. Dragonblade (30%) (Pioneer Dragon)
8. Spirit blade (35%)
9. Death blade (40%)
10. Wraith from gear (575 damage) (Malistair's robe)

And adding to all this, 30% more damage from my gear and the boost for attacking with a Life spell. I was lucky, he fizzled his debuff on me, so I had a clean shot. I don't have the Spirit trap, I could have added 30% more to this.

Woot for my personal record!!

I could easily defeat Vasek in around 5 minutes. And at the end, being a necromancer, I would be at full health. No need to look around for wisps, I just got back inside right away to face him again. Just this evening, I was able to get almost 10,000 golds.

Thank you Friendly, I this is really the place to farm for gold!!

Here's Friendly's blog: http://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/

Gilroy Darkflame, Death with an Ice ring

Gilroy is my main wizard. He is a Grandmaster Death with Life as a second. He's been my main wizard since I started playing Wizard101 in beta, in June 2008. During the beta period, he was Death-Fire, hence the name Darkflame. He has been through a few wipes, and after the final wipe before the launch of the game, he switched his second school from Fire to Life. Since he likes to solo a lot, I was afraid he would have too much trouble in the new worlds that would be coming. It's a choice I came to regret, since he had no problem soloing using almost only his main school spells. I thought about changing back to Fire when it became possible, but it was expensive and housing was coming. Now that I have enough gold again, the mounts are here...


I am proud of Gilroy, he as been everywhere in the spiral and done every quests possible.




The Ice ring

Gilroy has a secret. He's probably not the only one, but still there must be a few like him. He is a Death wizard and he wears an Ice ring. Yes, he is wearing the Rime-Edged ring with +277 max health and +170 max mana. I have been asked that question a few time in the game, how come a Death wizard wears an Ice ring?

When Dragonspyre came out, KI forgot to make the new DS rings school specific. So at the time, He went to the DS ring store and bought the most powerful ring available. A few days later KI made the correction, and Gilroy was still wearing the ring. So the ring was now school specific but he was still wearing it. The only problem is, if he ever removes it, he won't be able to put it back on his finger. Since then, I have never found a Death ring as powerful as this one. Until he does, he will continue to wear it.

Gizmo

Gizmo, the pioneer dragon, is Giroy's favorite pet. He also likes Lord Midnight, his wraith pet. But the Gizmo reminds him of the adventure of beta testing. Pioneer dragon were given to the beta tester just before the game the game was open to public.


Next post, I will present my second wizard, Liam HawkHeart.