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Do not attack out of school

1
AuthorMessage
Squire
Apr 11, 2010
575
An important announcement for all wizards who are halfway through the levels and above.

Any wizard around level 30 and up really needs to stop attacking out of school. I have seen many wizards doing this completely wasting their power pips, making terrible choices simply because they happen to like a certain spell from a different school. This is the worst thing you can possibly do and makes things much harder on yourself for the following reasons:

1: If you are not attacking in your school you are eating up twice the potential pips you gain which can slow you down very much in a fight. When you do this, you not only do less damage in total but you leave yourself completely vulnerable to an oncoming assault from your opponents whether they be computer or other players.

2: You are also not taking advantage of the gear and spells your schools have. There is a very good reason why your school has certain "Gear Only" items. They are designed to help you use your own spells and not the spells of another school!

Don't forget that when you reach a certain level you are given blades to increase the damage of your own spells from your own school and not spells of another school. If you keep on rebelling against your own schools spells and your own schools design, you are only going to continue having a hard time playing the game.

I promise you very much, I am absolutely certain that if you follow the design of your school you will be a better player for it. You will improve if you just trust your own spells and work with them as they were designed.

Attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do. Secondary schools should function as either defense or support for your main school attack spells and should not serve you as offense.

If you are fighting enemies of the same element and worry about resist, you have a prism in your card list. Use that prism to change the element of your attack. It functions like a trap.

One more time: attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do, especially if that attack costs 3 or more pips.

A death student with 5 power pips can hit with wraith twice, doing more damage than a death student wasting all those pips on a stormzilla in two turns. And with the gear designed to boost your death attacks, it should be an easy decision to make. Get rid of the out of school attack spells and focus on your own. I promise you, you will improve as a player overall for it.

Defender
May 25, 2009
121
I disagree with you on this with some parts. In the pip wasting, you can overcome that. I am Life/Ice/Myth and I use Myth a lot. When I use the spirit blade, I ALSO get a Myth and Death blade. As I have trained up in Myth and Ice all the way, I save up pips (7 I think you can hold) and Minotaur costs 5. I use the spirit blade, Myth bubble, Myth trap, and i'm all set for damage. After I have hit with Minotaur enough, I use the other 2 pips to use a Seraph. This stragety might works with the 3 primary schools.
Just sayin'

Survivor
Sep 10, 2010
12
GOOD TIP for newer players!

Long (but well spoken) way of saying: think about what you are doing and what your wizard's potential is!

My personal strategy (used to greater effect on my Theurgist than my Necromancer) involves keeping nothing but the "tough" treasure card in my treasure deck sideboard.

In a pinch I discard a useless spell and always (because it's the only card I HAVE in my treasure deck) draw a "tough" treasure card to 'buff' an attacking creature. Even if the spell 'fizzles', I still win, since it rotates back as an already 'buffed' treasure card. "Tough" grants a 35% increase to the critter, when added to any trap/charm you have, you can pack quite a wallop!

Here's something else that bugs me too. Players who use 'global enchantments' too readily! BE CAREFUL when/where you use them! Using increased power pips (Balance spell) when you are two wizards fighting three or four, you should realize the enemy benefits as well; and will actually far outstrip the pips YOUR team is getting!

For example my Life wizard can make great use of the global charm to increase the healing spells cast. But I never use it if my opponents are 'life' school. It simply makes it easier for them to survive and drag the fight out longer.

I got in a big fight with a (friend) pyromancer one time and got toasted trying to help him. Yes he was able to boost the effect of his spells, but all three of our opponents were fire school as well. I didn't last long.

Historian
May 28, 2009
653
CorbinW wrote:
An important announcement for all wizards who are halfway through the levels and above.

Any wizard around level 30 and up really needs to stop attacking out of school. I have seen many wizards doing this completely wasting their power pips, making terrible choices simply because they happen to like a certain spell from a different school. This is the worst thing you can possibly do and makes things much harder on yourself for the following reasons:

1: If you are not attacking in your school you are eating up twice the potential pips you gain which can slow you down very much in a fight. When you do this, you not only do less damage in total but you leave yourself completely vulnerable to an oncoming assault from your opponents whether they be computer or other players.

2: You are also not taking advantage of the gear and spells your schools have. There is a very good reason why your school has certain "Gear Only" items. They are designed to help you use your own spells and not the spells of another school!

Don't forget that when you reach a certain level you are given blades to increase the damage of your own spells from your own school and not spells of another school. If you keep on rebelling against your own schools spells and your own schools design, you are only going to continue having a hard time playing the game.

I promise you very much, I am absolutely certain that if you follow the design of your school you will be a better player for it. You will improve if you just trust your own spells and work with them as they were designed.

Attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do. Secondary schools should function as either defense or support for your main school attack spells and should not serve you as offense.

If you are fighting enemies of the same element and worry about resist, you have a prism in your card list. Use that prism to change the element of your attack. It functions like a trap.

One more time: attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do, especially if that attack costs 3 or more pips.

A death student with 5 power pips can hit with wraith twice, doing more damage than a death student wasting all those pips on a stormzilla in two turns. And with the gear designed to boost your death attacks, it should be an easy decision to make. Get rid of the out of school attack spells and focus on your own. I promise you, you will improve as a player overall for it.


If you are battling someone who have your school, he will have resistance so you'll need to use another school's spell in order to defeat it quickly. Is fine here if you don't have another school but in DF, the creature will have healing if you attack with his school. And you can't flee. So, using another school's attack is legal and is a strategy.

Defender
Apr 30, 2010
114
Of course you must take into account exactly who you're fighting. If you're a fire wizard fighting a fire villian it is extremely hard to attack with your school, even when you have converts. I don't like taking the time to shove all the converts in my deck before a fire battle because I almost never find them, adn it takes a lot longer to set everything up. Not to mention that they might put on an ice shiled before i even use my convert. It makes it much easier for me just to use the three balance blades, put down a storm trap, and then use stormzilla to kill it. The reason you can learn spells from other schools is so you're not stuck with just one element when fighting. Personally, 'wasting my pips' has saved me on more then a few occasions.

Aaron Firestone Grandmaster Pyromancer

Delver
Feb 18, 2010
252
i think not attacking out of school is kind of naive. you need a secondary school if you cant find prisms or forgot to put them in your deck. i am death and life so when i'm fighting death enemies prisms do come in handy but they dont show up that often. i have to put nearly all of them into my deck which takes up space for more important spells. so a secondary school like life is neccesary. so what if you take up power pips, if the enemies dies, its worth it isnt it? if there's a shield just use a wand spell to get rid of it then attack using a higher ranked spell. secondary schools are a kind of backup and thats what they were made for i guess. if you dont want to attack out of school then i dont give a hoot but its up to other peoples to decide if they want to or not.

Mastermind
Sep 11, 2010
369
This issue, I find, is actually mainly with people who have tried a fire/storm wizard, and who have switched to a "lesser" school, such as life or death. Lesser, that is, in terms of raw damage output. The people playing grow used to the high damage output from the storm or fire schools, and choose to continue relying on those spells with their new character; even if it means they cannot use the advantage of power pips.

The problem, of course, is that all schools have their advantages in different areas - the storm and fire schools just rely far more on damage than the others (storm for direct damage, fire for damage over multiple rounds). People simply forget to play according to their own schools, and instead rely on brute force.

Ice, Life and Balance have the lowest base spell damage in the game - and I often see these schools rely on other school spells to damage enemies. Balance is less prone to it than the others due to the powerful Judgement, but, still, I see many lower-level balance wizards prefer Storm Bats over their own spells. The problem is mainly that people keep forgetting that those schools aren't meant to do massive amounts of damage. Storm and Fire are built around that idea - Life is almost impossible to take down due to their healing spells (you'll simply run out of cards first); Balance will laugh at your attempts of putting up shields; and Ice can get so much potential health that you will actually sigh in relief if they choose to Transform into a Gobbler.

Those three schools, I find, are also designed towards teamwork. In fact, couple any of those three schools with a more offensively-geared school, and you'll be tearing a path of destruction pretty much through whatever area you happen to be passing by.

Raw power isn't always the solution. In fact; I grew quite fond of the Life spells as a lower level Storm wizard. I hardly ever experienced any fizzles with them.

Adherent
May 20, 2010
2902
There are a lot of exceptions to your rules.

One of them is that most enemies in your school will cast an 80% Shield of the opposite school. That neutralizes your school, with or without a Prism. In such cases, an out-of-school spells might be best.

Another case might be if your school has weak attack spells (i.e. Ice), and all or most of the pips you have are singles. In that case, an out-of-school spell might be best.

Those are just two of the reasons.

Illuminator
May 22, 2009
1310
Interesting post. Now if people will actually take that advice.

I have several different wizards. I very very seldom cast out of school spells. Even when fighting same school. THAT IS WHAT PRISMS ARE FOR.

In many battles, the enemies focus on the last person that hit or healed. Since I mostly play my Life wizard, that person ends up being me. While a myth wizard is saving up pips just so he/she can cast a wraith he/she thinks is so cool, someone in that group is taking all the damage.

One time, i had a fire person saving his pips just so he could use a rebirth treasure card. Even when i told him I was life and i could cast rebirth easier and without the use of a treasure card, he insisted. In the process, several of our teammates nearly died because he would not help attack. I call these people glory hounds. But in their search for glory, they tend to cause more problems for the people around them.

Hannah Lifebringer Level 60 Life

Delver
Jul 04, 2010
294
A couple of other things I use that I've not seen mentioned.

Do not carry a wand of your school, carry the opposite school wand. That way you don't use you buffs when you need to use your wand spell to break a shield or lose a weakness. Also, if you don't get your prism up before they get their shield up, you can use it your wand spell to break the shield without wasting your prism or any other buffs/traps.

I generally carry as many prisms as my deck will hold so finding them isn't a problem. If I get some while not fighting a death enemy, just discard them. It's easier with my grand necromancer because they only thing I attack with is wraith. But, the problem comes with death shield so finding poison and strong is the hard part.

The biggest problem with prisms comes for fire because DoT spells don't work with prisms even though they are triggered.

Also, another point that goes against the original post is that balance does not have a prism. So, what do you do when you don't have spectral blast or hydra yet and fighting a boss with a strong resistance to balance spells?


Squire
Apr 11, 2010
575
A couple of points have been made that I neglected to mention:

Use a wand opposite of your main school to support your prisms.
If you are having problems finding prisms, shorten up your deck a little bit for one thing. Another tip would be think about where you are in the spiral and adjust your deck to fit the area. Not doing so just laziness and is no excuse to sudddenly abandon your schools spells to attack with other cards. It is just not efficient. of course if the shot is a guaranteed kill it will not matter, but a lot of what I have seen does not show to be guaranteed kills. These wizards use random spells with complete abandon to strategy and when they enter groups they slow down the group.

I never ever attack with schools other than myth and being a different school like fire is no excuse to use other spells either.

You have the sun bird, the phoenix and the helephant that can all do very well with prisms against enemies of the same element. These spells will do you fine. if you are worried about shields, carry a wand opposite of your school to match your prism. It also helps you preserve your blades and wipe off weakness.

There is no naivety in this strategy. And worrying about your enemy shielding is not an excuse either. Just push through it. If they shield do what you can to get rid of that shield and continue on the best you can, with your own schools spells. There is no way this can fail you. If it does then it was a very very high chance that no matter what you did, you would have lost that fight. That's just how it is.

I promise you wizards. Stick to your school and count everything. Count the percent boost to attacks and defens, count your pips and stick to your school, except the wand of course. And you will have a much easier time getting through those trouble spots.

Use whatever out of school spells you can to aid you in defense and safety.
If you have no other option to use an out of school attack spell then let it be one that comes from certain gear you may have equipped or just have one really big spell from out of school. But by all means try to avoid using them for the sake of efficiency..

Explorer
Oct 22, 2009
65
Leave those people who believe that using the secondary schools for attack is better. :P

I love when someone uses that strategy in PVP against me, They just signed their death warrant when they do.

They just don't understand the benefits of power pips.

I use all my training points for shields and blades, and trust me, it works!

Survivor
Sep 30, 2010
48
heres what i have to say on the subject:

at low levels it doesnt really matter, there are almost no clothing clothing buffs and only one boost.

at higher level the only time you might use something out of your school is for death's feint or a healing spell, or a tower shield

it is kind of silly to use something out of your school just cause.

Hero
Jul 27, 2009
755
oh gee i am a fire wizard and there are time i can not play a fire deck because there are not enough conversions in it
so what i suppose to play...

i think you need to re examine your reason for thinking this way.

you may be limiting your self in your quest victories...

Illuminator
May 22, 2009
1310
hobi wrote:
oh gee i am a fire wizard and there are time i can not play a fire deck because there are not enough conversions in it
so what i suppose to play...

i think you need to re examine your reason for thinking this way.

you may be limiting your self in your quest victories...


You can always add more conversions or make a separate deck to use for fire enemies. At one time i had a grandmaster fire wizard and very seldom used out of school attacks even when fighting fire.

As for keeping with same school limiting my victories...That is so far from the truth. I often solo with my wizards. So far, with my life wizard i have soloed the lunarium, calypso, and Astreous, just to name a few. I did not use a single out of school attack. Just a few days ago I soloed the stellarium with my Balance wizard...using nothing but balance, life for healing, and out of school shards. To me, using out of school attacks is a waste of power pips and hinders more than it helps.

Hannah Lifebringer Level 60 Life

Delver
Mar 18, 2010
260
I rarely use out of school attacks. Even on my "little" Storm I only use school attacks and have been since the early teens. On my Life I get all power pips and hate wasting them on out of school attacks.

Megan

Astrologist
Jun 04, 2010
1008
superluther wrote:
hobi wrote:
oh gee i am a fire wizard and there are time i can not play a fire deck because there are not enough conversions in it
so what i suppose to play...

i think you need to re examine your reason for thinking this way.

you may be limiting your self in your quest victories...


You can always add more conversions or make a separate deck to use for fire enemies. At one time i had a grandmaster fire wizard and very seldom used out of school attacks even when fighting fire.

As for keeping with same school limiting my victories...That is so far from the truth. I often solo with my wizards. So far, with my life wizard i have soloed the lunarium, calypso, and Astreous, just to name a few. I did not use a single out of school attack. Just a few days ago I soloed the stellarium with my Balance wizard...using nothing but balance, life for healing, and out of school shards. To me, using out of school attacks is a waste of power pips and hinders more than it helps.

Hannah Lifebringer Level 60 Life


Hey superluther/Hannah. Being that he is fire, he's probably using a lot of DoT spells. Unless KI has fixed it, there's a bug with converts where it will only convert damage on the initial hit and then no matter what you do, it will stay class damage for the over time part. They may have fixed it by now, but if he gained his convert experience during that period, he would have a skewed perspective of "enough" converts.

Squire
Aug 12, 2009
593
gtarhannon wrote:
superluther wrote:
hobi wrote:
oh gee i am a fire wizard and there are time i can not play a fire deck because there are not enough conversions in it
so what i suppose to play...

i think you need to re examine your reason for thinking this way.

you may be limiting your self in your quest victories...


You can always add more conversions or make a separate deck to use for fire enemies. At one time i had a grandmaster fire wizard and very seldom used out of school attacks even when fighting fire.

As for keeping with same school limiting my victories...That is so far from the truth. I often solo with my wizards. So far, with my life wizard i have soloed the lunarium, calypso, and Astreous, just to name a few. I did not use a single out of school attack. Just a few days ago I soloed the stellarium with my Balance wizard...using nothing but balance, life for healing, and out of school shards. To me, using out of school attacks is a waste of power pips and hinders more than it helps.

Hannah Lifebringer Level 60 Life


Hey superluther/Hannah. Being that he is fire, he's probably using a lot of DoT spells. Unless KI has fixed it, there's a bug with converts where it will only convert damage on the initial hit and then no matter what you do, it will stay class damage for the over time part. They may have fixed it by now, but if he gained his convert experience during that period, he would have a skewed perspective of "enough" converts.

Honestly, as my first Grandmaster was Fire, I had to master when to and when to NOT use my DoT spells. Fire Enemies? Single hits and Meteor. Ice Enemies? DoT all the Way. Anything else? A balanced deck of Meteor and Scald takes them out.

Mastermind
Jun 06, 2009
398
CorbinW wrote:
An important announcement for all wizards who are halfway through the levels and above.


Generally, "important" announcements come from the Faculty.

Any wizard around level 30 and up really needs to stop attacking out of school.

Pardon me whilst I ignore this bit of advice.

I have seen many wizards doing this completely wasting their power pips, making terrible choices simply because they happen to like a certain spell from a different school. This is the worst thing you can possibly do and makes things much harder on yourself for the following reasons:

Has it never occured to you that this can be a boon?

1: If you are not attacking in your school you are eating up twice the potential pips you gain which can slow you down very much in a fight. When you do this, you not only do less damage in total but you leave yourself completely vulnerable to an oncoming assault from your opponents whether they be computer or other players.

A Necromancer generally won't have to worry about those pesky DeathShields when casting a StormZilla or Centaur. As for the Pip argument, Power Pips are in no way guaranteed, and, in PvP especially, one can use (and I quote) "superior deception;" in other words, get a few Power Pips on your field and Attack with a powerful off-School Spell, and your opponent will most likely not have decent protection against it.

2: You are also not taking advantage of the gear and spells your schools have. There is a very good reason why your school has certain "Gear Only" items. They are designed to help you use your own spells and not the spells of another school!

Those Robes, Hats and Boots you can craft from the recipes given in Krokotopia onward are literally designed for use with one's primary and secondary School.

Don't forget that when you reach a certain level you are given blades to increase the damage of your own spells from your own school and not spells of another school.

:? It's not as if we only use Attacks from otehr Schools, you know.

If you keep on rebelling against your own schools spells and your own schools design, you are only going to continue having a hard time playing the game.

Rebelling? Definitely not the right word for that situation... not to mention the fact that the whole passage here was 100% opinion.

I promise you very much, I am absolutely certain that if you follow the design of your school you will be a better player for it. You will improve if you just trust your own spells and work with them as they were designed.

"Trust our Spells?" The only thing we can "trust" in our own strategy; if that strategy involves off-School Spells, so be it. As for the "School's design," Ice is "designed" for defense. That in no way means that Ice cannot Attack or Boost; ergo, the "design" argument makes as much sense as another theory which also contains the word "design."

Attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do. Secondary schools should function as either defense or support for your main school attack spells and should not serve you as offense.

And if one's secondary School is Fire or Storm? Offense is quite literally the only thing those can provide as secondary Schools.

If you are fighting enemies of the same element and worry about resist, you have a prism in your card list. Use that prism to change the element of your attack. It functions like a trap.

Provided, of course, KingsIsle's AI programming has failed sufficiently so as to prohibit Mobs from Shielding.

One more time: attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do, especially if that attack costs 3 or more pips.

One more time: no.

A death student with 5 power pips can hit with wraith twice, doing more damage than a death student wasting all those pips on a stormzilla in two turns. And with the gear designed to boost your death attacks, it should be an easy decision to make. Get rid of the out of school attack spells and focus on your own. I promise you, you will improve as a player overall for it.

All of which has already been refuted.

Defender
Mar 01, 2009
145
FoxFyr wrote:
CorbinW wrote:
An important announcement for all wizards who are halfway through the levels and above.


Generally, "important" announcements come from the Faculty.

Any wizard around level 30 and up really needs to stop attacking out of school.

Pardon me whilst I ignore this bit of advice.

I have seen many wizards doing this completely wasting their power pips, making terrible choices simply because they happen to like a certain spell from a different school. This is the worst thing you can possibly do and makes things much harder on yourself for the following reasons:

Has it never occured to you that this can be a boon?

1: If you are not attacking in your school you are eating up twice the potential pips you gain which can slow you down very much in a fight. When you do this, you not only do less damage in total but you leave yourself completely vulnerable to an oncoming assault from your opponents whether they be computer or other players.

A Necromancer generally won't have to worry about those pesky DeathShields when casting a StormZilla or Centaur. As for the Pip argument, Power Pips are in no way guaranteed, and, in PvP especially, one can use (and I quote) "superior deception;" in other words, get a few Power Pips on your field and Attack with a powerful off-School Spell, and your opponent will most likely not have decent protection against it.

2: You are also not taking advantage of the gear and spells your schools have. There is a very good reason why your school has certain "Gear Only" items. They are designed to help you use your own spells and not the spells of another school!

Those Robes, Hats and Boots you can craft from the recipes given in Krokotopia onward are literally designed for use with one's primary and secondary School.

Don't forget that when you reach a certain level you are given blades to increase the damage of your own spells from your own school and not spells of another school.

:? It's not as if we only use Attacks from otehr Schools, you know.

If you keep on rebelling against your own schools spells and your own schools design, you are only going to continue having a hard time playing the game.

Rebelling? Definitely not the right word for that situation... not to mention the fact that the whole passage here was 100% opinion.

I promise you very much, I am absolutely certain that if you follow the design of your school you will be a better player for it. You will improve if you just trust your own spells and work with them as they were designed.

"Trust our Spells?" The only thing we can "trust" in our own strategy; if that strategy involves off-School Spells, so be it. As for the "School's design," Ice is "designed" for defense. That in no way means that Ice cannot Attack or Boost; ergo, the "design" argument makes as much sense as another theory which also contains the word "design."

Attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do. Secondary schools should function as either defense or support for your main school attack spells and should not serve you as offense.

And if one's secondary School is Fire or Storm? Offense is quite literally the only thing those can provide as secondary Schools.

If you are fighting enemies of the same element and worry about resist, you have a prism in your card list. Use that prism to change the element of your attack. It functions like a trap.

Provided, of course, KingsIsle's AI programming has failed sufficiently so as to prohibit Mobs from Shielding.

One more time: attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do, especially if that attack costs 3 or more pips.

One more time: no.

A death student with 5 power pips can hit with wraith twice, doing more damage than a death student wasting all those pips on a stormzilla in two turns. And with the gear designed to boost your death attacks, it should be an easy decision to make. Get rid of the out of school attack spells and focus on your own. I promise you, you will improve as a player overall for it.

All of which has already been refuted.

lol!
I totally agree with you even though i don't attack out of school often.
Every person is different and uses his/her own strategy so while some people don't attack out of school others do. It really isn't up to some person's post to decide what people's strategies are. So don't let these guys tell you to be someone you are not . I do understand the power of power pips and all cause heckhound is one of my favorite spells cause it can easily do over 1,000 a turn . Power pips are given based on a person's power pip chance so if someone has a low pp chance they won't waste power pips by doing a spell out of school. And as for converts, most decks have a 4 or 5 max amount of a certain spell so that means only four or five converts out of the 30+ amount of cards total that means a very low chance of getting a convert. As for not having blades of the other schools there are balance blades and traps as well as feint curse tons of other balance blades dragonblade and friends that could give them to you. Wizard101 is a place where you can meet friends and help them out while they help you so obviously your friend can lend you a blade or two.
wow! i made a long rant! anyway the advice people should listen to is...
DO WHAT YOU THINK IS YOUR STRATEGY!
Thanks for hopefully reading this message
Scarlet RedThorn grandmaster pyromancer
Chris DeathBringer lvl 36 uh... take a guess

Hero
Jun 11, 2010
729
I think that it's good that you are allowed to choose other schools. For instance, if you are a life wizard, you may want to back it up with a school with high damage like storm or death. Or if your storm you may want to choose a school with good defenses like balance or life. Really if you choose a good school, you can actually ENHANCE your attacks and defenses. I want a secondary with strong attacks since balance doesn't do THAT much damage.
Jasmine StormBlood

Delver
Feb 18, 2010
252
CorbinW wrote:
A couple of points have been made that I neglected to mention:

Use a wand opposite of your main school to support your prisms.
If you are having problems finding prisms, shorten up your deck a little bit for one thing. Another tip would be think about where you are in the spiral and adjust your deck to fit the area. Not doing so just laziness and is no excuse to sudddenly abandon your schools spells to attack with other cards. It is just not efficient. of course if the shot is a guaranteed kill it will not matter, but a lot of what I have seen does not show to be guaranteed kills. These wizards use random spells with complete abandon to strategy and when they enter groups they slow down the group.

I never ever attack with schools other than myth and being a different school like fire is no excuse to use other spells either.

You have the sun bird, the phoenix and the helephant that can all do very well with prisms against enemies of the same element. These spells will do you fine. if you are worried about shields, carry a wand opposite of your school to match your prism. It also helps you preserve your blades and wipe off weakness.

There is no naivety in this strategy. And worrying about your enemy shielding is not an excuse either. Just push through it. If they shield do what you can to get rid of that shield and continue on the best you can, with your own schools spells. There is no way this can fail you. If it does then it was a very very high chance that no matter what you did, you would have lost that fight. That's just how it is.

I promise you wizards. Stick to your school and count everything. Count the percent boost to attacks and defens, count your pips and stick to your school, except the wand of course. And you will have a much easier time getting through those trouble spots.

Use whatever out of school spells you can to aid you in defense and safety.
If you have no other option to use an out of school attack spell then let it be one that comes from certain gear you may have equipped or just have one really big spell from out of school. But by all means try to avoid using them for the sake of efficiency..


i think it is a little naive. you need another school not just for the attacks, but for healing if its life, plus the shields and traps you can get from other schools. "Just pushing through" an enemy thats the same as your primary isnt enough. you could die allot if you do that (which i bet you do ) using another school does seem to waste pips, i'll grant you that, but most people here seem to think its worth the waste. besides, the same element enemies will resist your attacks, which makes it a long fight. when i had storm as my secondary, it saved my behind on more than one occasion when i fought enemies, and not just death ones. whats the chance of getting a spell from a pet or clothes? i know that mine takes forever to show up. using a different school saves you time and as long as you do that, (unless you like long battles) who cares about efficiency? like i said before, i'm going to keep using spells outside of death, whatever you say. and like a said before, i dont give a hoot if you do or not. its up to the individual to decide if they want to use a secondary school or not, and for the sake of good strategy, i hope they do. dont just be efficient, be creative and diverse and have fun with secondary spells. besides, if your life, ice, or storm, you REALLY could use a second school.

Survivor
Sep 20, 2008
16
Sorry i did not read all the posts,maybe this has already been pointed out......

The one time it is ok to use pips on secondary school is when you are fighting the same school.Depending on deck type/size you may only have 4 converts,the chance of drawing one may be rough.If you sit and wait too long for the convert to come out you may take too much damage,especially if fighting 2 or 3 at same time.The focus early on is to get rid of at least one mob,you can't take damage from 3 over and over,it will out last your healing.
So i suggest always having a few secondary opposite spells and several in sideboard.
One other thing i like to do is use the opposite weapon for my school ,example Life using a Death weapon.The reason is kind of obvious,there are two very good chances of seeing that shield pop up from either a mirror fight or the opposite school.
Example a Life npc will probably cast a death or life shield,you don't want to have to waste your spells/pips on a shield.

Explorer
Jun 03, 2009
77
CorbinW wrote:
An important announcement for all wizards who are halfway through the levels and above.

Any wizard around level 30 and up really needs to stop attacking out of school. I have seen many wizards doing this completely wasting their power pips, making terrible choices simply because they happen to like a certain spell from a different school. This is the worst thing you can possibly do and makes things much harder on yourself for the following reasons:

1: If you are not attacking in your school you are eating up twice the potential pips you gain which can slow you down very much in a fight. When you do this, you not only do less damage in total but you leave yourself completely vulnerable to an oncoming assault from your opponents whether they be computer or other players.

2: You are also not taking advantage of the gear and spells your schools have. There is a very good reason why your school has certain "Gear Only" items. They are designed to help you use your own spells and not the spells of another school!

Don't forget that when you reach a certain level you are given blades to increase the damage of your own spells from your own school and not spells of another school. If you keep on rebelling against your own schools spells and your own schools design, you are only going to continue having a hard time playing the game.

I promise you very much, I am absolutely certain that if you follow the design of your school you will be a better player for it. You will improve if you just trust your own spells and work with them as they were designed.

Attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do. Secondary schools should function as either defense or support for your main school attack spells and should not serve you as offense.

If you are fighting enemies of the same element and worry about resist, you have a prism in your card list. Use that prism to change the element of your attack. It functions like a trap.

One more time: attacking out of school is the worst thing you can do, especially if that attack costs 3 or more pips.

A death student with 5 power pips can hit with wraith twice, doing more damage than a death student wasting all those pips on a stormzilla in two turns. And with the gear designed to boost your death attacks, it should be an easy decision to make. Get rid of the out of school attack spells and focus on your own. I promise you, you will improve as a player overall for it.

You are completely wrong.A secondary school is really useful in battles,especially when you're battling a enemy with your schools resist.I'm a storm\life who soon will train at the sun school.I like my secondary because I can heal and damage balance+death as a boost.Also,I can attack without worrying about resist.I suggest you get a secondary school.
Michael ThunderStaff lvl 44 Master

Defender
Feb 28, 2010
114
Once you start receiving more power pips than white pips you will understand why you should only be using your primary school.

A spell for your primary school that cost 6 pips can be used with 3 power pips. A spell from your secondary school that cost 6 pips cannot be used with 3 power pips, it costs more to use. Therefore, you will be wasting pips using the secondary school.

When you are at a higher level and enemies are casting spells at you that damage you to the tune of 500+, you don't have the time to be accumulating pips after wasting them all for one spell.

Continue playing the way you do and you will never make it in Celestia, you will be dead in a few rounds.

saphirathedragon wrote:
I disagree with you on this with some parts. In the pip wasting, you can overcome that. I am Life/Ice/Myth and I use Myth a lot. When I use the spirit blade, I ALSO get a Myth and Death blade. As I have trained up in Myth and Ice all the way, I save up pips (7 I think you can hold) and Minotaur costs 5. I use the spirit blade, Myth bubble, Myth trap, and i'm all set for damage. After I have hit with Minotaur enough, I use the other 2 pips to use a Seraph. This stragety might works with the 3 primary schools.
Just sayin'

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