Okay, let me start of by saying this is partial rant, and partial KingsIsle needs to fix this!
I have a level 50 Necromancer, I basically solo'd the whole game(besides Jotun and Malistaire) which I done with a Necromancer friend. We rocked, like usual. Anyway, lately, it has become more apparent that KingsIsle has changed the AI(artificial intelligence) of the enemies. What I mean by this is, before recently, most enemies would never use weakness, I personally only ever got it used on me by balance enemies, but weakness isn't even my concern here. Shields go up too often to really fight anything solo anymore unless you stand there and battle forever if it has anything over a couple thousand life points. Before, you could simply use your wand to knock the shields off and you were good to go, but now, they never use the shield until you have a bunch of buffs(traps, blades, etc.) up, and in most cases, the minute you select an attack card(in cases they act before you). This is not only annoying, it is downright infuriating! While the enemy knows exactly when to throw up that 80% shield, and weaknesses like mad, your minion constantly knocks your traps off the enemy with 1 pip spells! If it actually used 3,4,5, and 6 pip spells, I'd even buff it! I don't bother summoning my death minion, as it is absolutely useless in all it does, knock off my traps with dark fairies and then use a ghoul or vampire now and then when it has no traps up! The life minion sits there and heals itself when you are next to death and it's at full health. The life minion also uses guiding light on players who can't heal, instead of using it on a life character, it chooses myth, storm, or whatever else most of the time. If you make the enemies smart enough to know when to throw up shields to shield 80% of your attack, then you need to make the minions actually HELP you instead of hurt you! Here is my case in point about the enemy shielding and what not perfectly;
I was soloing the Jade Oni for an alt character. It is life, I am Grandmaster Death. I killed it several times, getting worthless level 35 junk. Mind you, each time got harder and harder. On the last fight, the one cause for me writing this, it really enraged me! I am ending my sub because of this, and if KingsIsle makes changes, I may just come back, but not until then. I filled my deck with storm and life shields, wraiths, spirit blades, spirit traps, feints, death traps, death blades, satyrs, and of course, a reshuffle. I also had bastillas deadly choker equipped which gives me two better death traps of 35%. A full buff(placing all traps, blades, and feint, I hit for well over the Jade Oni's max life points(7500). The problem was, the minute I got a few buffs on, it would put up a death shield, I'd knock it down, either with my wand, or with a wraith, depending on how many pips I had(meaning if I had full pips, not point not hitting with wraith as it still did like 1500 damage and I healed for about 700-750). Well, the last fight, I counted the death shields and weaknesses used by the Jade Oni. 15 death shields went up, and 13 were perfectly placed, meaning it put them up on the round I was picking my wraith(reguardless if it was fully buffed, or I left off a couple buffs to "trick" it into not shielding!), and the other 2 were placed back to back(it placed one perfect, then threw another up the very next round). Without buffs my wraith hits for 800 to almost 1000 depending if I use the normal(500 damage) or the pet card(575 damage). So it seemed to place those two in case I decided to hit it back to back with wraiths. You can't sit there and say it is a coincidence to happen that many times, and if you do, you my friend, are in denial. As a topper to this cake, I was on my third deck(I had to reshuffle a couple of times) when all the sudden, I had no reshuffle card to shuffle again! So with 2400 life left, 3 satyrs, a death trap, and a feint, I was forced to flee from the Jade Oni who sat at 1300 life still. Keep in mind, my deck holds 6 of each death card to which I filled, so in each deck, I used 6 wraiths, plus my pet card for a total of 7, in total after reshuffles 21 wraiths were used and was forced to flee when I somehow did not have a reshuffle left in my deck while Jade Oni sat at only 1300 life. So, that said, KingsIsle, fix the problem, or I'm sure many more will take the same route I am and say forget this. I am a grown man, and play online games for fun and to relax. When it becomes like a second job, or is aggrevating enough to make you angry in real life, it is not relaxing you, but in fact causing you more stress in your already stressful life, it is time to quit. As others come to this conclusion, your game will become a ghost town. Fix the problem before this happens and all will be good and well. Good luck and good-bye!
so basically your saying you want the jade oni fixed so its super easy to get a bunch of gear and not waste much effort on killing him, you want them to remove his shields basically
i also have a lv 50 grand death and i must say i am not impressed with your complaint the reason you run out of cards is simple all level 40 students and up only wanna use 5+ pip spells i use ALL my spells from main AND secondary i dont just sit there piling buff after buff after buff them Surprise suprise they shield if you want easy wins then get off wizard101 and go play pokemon or something, Wizard101 was designed to get progressively harder the further you go even at 50 your whining about how unfair it is a boss has a shield to block your attacks.. its sad your complaining about one of the easiest bosses i know of that i farm it seems like grands are getting more and more lame ( no offense to OTHER grands) because you spend all this time trying to go all out assaults trying to 1 hit a boss if you didnt spend so much freaking time wasting turn after turn after turn piling feint,hex,curse,death blade,spirit blades,spirit traps, & etc etc etc and yet there are lower levels who can beat him just fine and ytou know why? because they dont spend all this time trying to go all out with a SINGLE attack like you are you know whats a good strategy 1st you got 2 power pips you blade, he puts up a life charm 2nd turn you get a 3rd power pip USE WRAITH deal a bit over 1,000 health and so forth stop trying to act all high and mighty trying to one hit these bosses when they can cut your power from what could be 12,000 to like 3k damage with a shield because you want to try and one hit it ALL the time
if your going to complain because KI wanted to make a boss harder,then thats your problem, but its your loss if you want to quit wizard101 because its not easy enough for you EVEN at 50 then you got issues
well, i have a simple simple yet simple and uh simple you need to find a ice wizard or simpley make another account and make it ice, you see us thaumuturges get a spell at the end of krokotopia that is quite simple, actually we get to spells but one is steal ward, this spell removes the shield from your oponent but it only removes they're FIRST shield on them, say if they had three shields, the first they had is death second life and third myth if you are meaning to steal the myth you must either death and life spell or steal the life and death and then steal the myth before he can do anything else, solution number two: earth quake, it shall attack all enemies and at the same time remove all there traps blades shields weakness's and everything but it shall remove all your blades to, i think.
well there are all my solutions of the annoying traps
please post whenever you find the time
this is joseph nightflame grandmaster thaumuturge signing off!
wow i thought i was goint to be a powerfull wizard that does not need to complain about stuff like this when i was a grand. i have a solution to the minion problem go talk to craoky in that underground bar in mb to get a spell that kills minions for life. if it makes a move to waste a spell just use it and you can either get pips or hp from it. ta da! 8) well there you have it a magus giving advice to a grand. the bar is in the stairs down in digmoor station go on the right behind mayor pillsberry go down and get the card for your school.
I filled my deck with storm and life shields, wraiths, spirit blades, spirit traps, feints, death traps, death blades, satyrs, and of course, a reshuffle. I also had bastillas deadly choker equipped which gives me two better death traps of 35%. A full buff(placing all traps, blades, and feint, I hit for well over the Jade Oni's max life points(7500). The problem was, the minute I got a few buffs on, it would put up a death shield, I'd knock it down, either with my wand, or with a wraith, depending on how many pips I had(meaning if I had full pips, not point not hitting with wraith as it still did like 1500 damage and I healed for about 700-750). Well, the last fight, I counted the death shields and weaknesses used by the Jade Oni. 15 death shields went up, and 13 were perfectly placed, meaning it put them up on the round I was picking my wraith(reguardless if it was fully buffed, or I left off a couple buffs to "trick" it into not shielding!), and the other 2 were placed back to back(it placed one perfect, then threw another up the very next round). Without buffs my wraith hits for 800 to almost 1000 depending if I use the normal(500 damage) or the pet card(575 damage). So it seemed to place those two in case I decided to hit it back to back with wraiths. You can't sit there and say it is a coincidence to happen that many times, and if you do, you my friend, are in denial. As a topper to this cake, I was on my third deck(I had to reshuffle a couple of times) when all the sudden, I had no reshuffle card to shuffle again!
Pal to get rid of death shields get tresure card pierce and weakness: get a wand/staff that is not death. I myself have scepter of the ages, blade of the silver sentinel, and dragon rider's staff. Three just in case.
"Pal to get rid of death shields get tresure card pierce and weakness: get a wand/staff that is not death."
While what you say is good advice in general, it doesn't work in that specific fight/example.
During the fight the jade oni can throw up several death shields. It can quickly get Very expensive to use a pierce treasure card every time it does so. Also while a non-death wand is great - their is only one opponet when fighting the Jade Oni so you have to hit him. A non-death wand won't take down our blade, it will take down the death schools strongest and weakest traps (feint and curse).
That said, beating the jade oni as death is easy. DON'T rely on a big hit. This works for most things, but it takes many turns to set up and as you know it WILL eventually throw up that shield making your time wasted.
If you are not willing to use the TC pierce - Avoid your traps and use Poison. A few bladed (death blade and spirit blade) poisons and it will be hurting. Throw in a Vamp or Wraith every now and then to keep your health decent.
Poison will keep the shields down, and it is a DOT. DOT spells get the BOOST benefit twice (no gear bonus though) on the pulses so it will rock a life boss.
Okay, let me start of by saying this is partial rant, and partial KingsIsle needs to fix this!
I have a level 50 Necromancer, I basically solo'd the whole game(besides Jotun and Malistaire) which I done with a Necromancer friend. We rocked, like usual. Anyway, lately, it has become more apparent that KingsIsle has changed the AI(artificial intelligence) of the enemies. What I mean by this is, before recently, most enemies would never use weakness, I personally only ever got it used on me by balance enemies, but weakness isn't even my concern here. Shields go up too often to really fight anything solo anymore unless you stand there and battle forever if it has anything over a couple thousand life points. Before, you could simply use your wand to knock the shields off and you were good to go, but now, they never use the shield until you have a bunch of buffs(traps, blades, etc.) up, and in most cases, the minute you select an attack card(in cases they act before you). This is not only annoying, it is downright infuriating! While the enemy knows exactly when to throw up that 80% shield, and weaknesses like mad, your minion constantly knocks your traps off the enemy with 1 pip spells! If it actually used 3,4,5, and 6 pip spells, I'd even buff it! I don't bother summoning my death minion, as it is absolutely useless in all it does, knock off my traps with dark fairies and then use a ghoul or vampire now and then when it has no traps up! The life minion sits there and heals itself when you are next to death and it's at full health. The life minion also uses guiding light on players who can't heal, instead of using it on a life character, it chooses myth, storm, or whatever else most of the time. If you make the enemies smart enough to know when to throw up shields to shield 80% of your attack, then you need to make the minions actually HELP you instead of hurt you! Here is my case in point about the enemy shielding and what not perfectly;
I was soloing the Jade Oni for an alt character. It is life, I am Grandmaster Death. I killed it several times, getting worthless level 35 junk. Mind you, each time got harder and harder. On the last fight, the one cause for me writing this, it really enraged me! I am ending my sub because of this, and if KingsIsle makes changes, I may just come back, but not until then. I filled my deck with storm and life shields, wraiths, spirit blades, spirit traps, feints, death traps, death blades, satyrs, and of course, a reshuffle. I also had bastillas deadly choker equipped which gives me two better death traps of 35%. A full buff(placing all traps, blades, and feint, I hit for well over the Jade Oni's max life points(7500). The problem was, the minute I got a few buffs on, it would put up a death shield, I'd knock it down, either with my wand, or with a wraith, depending on how many pips I had(meaning if I had full pips, not point not hitting with wraith as it still did like 1500 damage and I healed for about 700-750). Well, the last fight, I counted the death shields and weaknesses used by the Jade Oni. 15 death shields went up, and 13 were perfectly placed, meaning it put them up on the round I was picking my wraith(reguardless if it was fully buffed, or I left off a couple buffs to "trick" it into not shielding!), and the other 2 were placed back to back(it placed one perfect, then threw another up the very next round). Without buffs my wraith hits for 800 to almost 1000 depending if I use the normal(500 damage) or the pet card(575 damage). So it seemed to place those two in case I decided to hit it back to back with wraiths. You can't sit there and say it is a coincidence to happen that many times, and if you do, you my friend, are in denial. As a topper to this cake, I was on my third deck(I had to reshuffle a couple of times) when all the sudden, I had no reshuffle card to shuffle again! So with 2400 life left, 3 satyrs, a death trap, and a feint, I was forced to flee from the Jade Oni who sat at 1300 life still. Keep in mind, my deck holds 6 of each death card to which I filled, so in each deck, I used 6 wraiths, plus my pet card for a total of 7, in total after reshuffles 21 wraiths were used and was forced to flee when I somehow did not have a reshuffle left in my deck while Jade Oni sat at only 1300 life. So, that said, KingsIsle, fix the problem, or I'm sure many more will take the same route I am and say forget this. I am a grown man, and play online games for fun and to relax. When it becomes like a second job, or is aggrevating enough to make you angry in real life, it is not relaxing you, but in fact causing you more stress in your already stressful life, it is time to quit. As others come to this conclusion, your game will become a ghost town. Fix the problem before this happens and all will be good and well. Good luck and good-bye!
Very simple use the low level death minor. It is a sure thing that is will blow of the shield . then eat him for pops or hot points. reshuffle can handle the lack of cards.
You know, I've been wondering since I started playing how the enemy knew just when to throw up a shield - this is nothing new at all. I've also noticed days when it seems like every mob has a whole case of Weakness spells to use on you, and then there's days when I never get Weakness put on me. I love my minions of every school. You need to work with them to learn their play styles, but there is value to each and every one of them. I HAVE learned that my traps are pretty much fair game, so I rely more on blades when playing with a minion, but even traps can be used strategically if you pay attention to what the minion is doing.
Sorry to hear that this one battle made you want to quit the game. Maybe what you need is a break from that Grand Death - try starting a new wizard and doing the "no-gear" challenge or some other variation to make it more interesting. Farming Jade Oni (in my opinion) is one of the most boring things you can do here.
Let me sum up your post: "I'm so MAD! I keep doing the same thing, over and over again, and I keep getting the same results!"
Um, how about using a different strategy?
We all have trouble soloing enemies who shield against our primary school. Here's one suggestion: Stop trying to go for the HUGE hit, and go for a big hit.
Load up on blades, traps, ghouls and wraiths. Get two blades up, a couple of traps on him. If he shields, cast a ghoul (or an imp, to get rid of the shield), then cast a Wraith the next round. With a 50% boost, this will still cause quite a bit of damage.
Here's another suggestion: Pick a different enemy to farm. You only need to fight Jade Oni once. Stop fighting him!
And, one last suggestion: Make a new friend. Camp out in front of the Jade Palace, and go in with someone else. Plenty of people farm him. A Death wizard offers great support. With Hex, Feint and Sacrifice, you can trap and heal. Plus, you've got shields. Let the other player do the damage.
I don't bother summoning my death minion, as it is absolutely useless in all it does,..
I recently discovered why minions are so useless. I always ended up getting the dark fairy who just puts shields all over herself while waiting for me to die. I always summoned the minion as soon as possible at the beginning of a fight. That is where I did not know that I was messing up.
Here is the trick to getting a good minion: Use more pips in summoning it. Minion cards use X pips or all the pips you possess. The more pips you use the better and more stronger the minion you get and they have more health too. They will still do seemingly stupid and annoying things but you will get a better minion for the pips and that tends to compensate for some of the contrary things that they do.
I for one am glad that the enemies are getting smarter. It's more of a challenge when you're soloing, and it's good practice for people who may want to pvp.
I agree, though, that the minions are incredibly annoying. I almost never use my life minion. She sits there and heals herself instead of me, when she already has full health, and then a couple turns later she'll get one-shotted by a meteor strike or something. She also does nonsensical things like putting a life blade on a wizard who has no life spells or putting a guiding light on a player who's expecting me to heal him. Why wouldn't she just put her buffs on me?
well, i have a simple simple yet simple and uh simple you need to find a ice wizard or simpley make another account and make it ice, you see us thaumuturges get a spell at the end of krokotopia that is quite simple, actually we get to spells but one is steal ward, this spell removes the shield from your oponent but it only removes they're FIRST shield on them, say if they had three shields, the first they had is death second life and third myth if you are meaning to steal the myth you must either death and life spell or steal the life and death and then steal the myth before he can do anything else, solution number two: earth quake, it shall attack all enemies and at the same time remove all there traps blades shields weakness's and everything but it shall remove all your blades to, i think.
well there are all my solutions of the annoying traps
please post whenever you find the time
this is joseph nightflame grandmaster thaumuturge signing off!
As a grandmaster thaumaturge myself, I agree with the ice wizard help, but there are a few mistakes in your post. First: If they made an ice wizard, it could not help his death. Second: It is not always the first shield. I believe it is randomly selected. (I use this spell every battle and it drives pvp opponents into fits.) Third: You have explained Earthquake in either a very confusing or completely wrong way. Earthquake attacks the enemy, removes all of THEIR shields, THEIR blades, YOUR traps on them, and YOUR Weaknesses on them. It will not affect your blades, shields or the traps the enemy placed on you. Last: I don't believe it is the annoying traps, just the annoying shields.
I agree, very annoying shields. But this is no reason to cancel your subscription for a few shields. You just have to tough it out and be smart.
i have a solution to the minion problem go talk to craoky in that underground bar in mb to get a spell that kills minions for life. if it makes a move to waste a spell just use it and you can either get pips or hp from it. ta da! 8) well there you have it 
a magus giving advice to a grand. the bar is in the stairs down in digmoor station go on the right behind mayor pillsberry go down and get the card for your school. 