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New blade for balance

2
AuthorMessage
Delver
Aug 21, 2013
234
dayerider on Dec 13, 2013 wrote:
1) yes, I mean free for Balance and costing a training point to everybody else
2 & 5) agreed
4) yes, one attack spell

Maybe I did the math wrong, so let me ask, does Hyrda get the benefit from Spirit Blade? I thought it did.
Spirit blades are Life, Death and Myth blades (35% each).
Elemental blades are Fire, Ice and Storm blades (35% each).

Using Hydra with Elemental blades, Balance Blades and Bladestorms, you would have 25%/35%, 20%/30%, 35%/45% (for each of Fire, Ice and Storm). That comes out to 515% boost (regular and sharpen for each of the blades). However, that's an unfair example, as that's not doing balance damage, that's doing fire, ice and storm. After all, it's unfair to expect us to always use elemental or spiritual attacks and ignore spells that deal out balance damage.

For a fair example, you need to use just balance damage, so let's pick Judgment (strongest balance spell there is when used properly). With the blades, you have 25%/35% and 20%/30%, for a total of 263%.

I'm not sure how to quite phrase it, but I believe I see where you are coming from. If I'm right, then that explains why you think balance has too many blades already. However, you're forgetting that element and spirit blades only benefit us if we are using chimera (spirit) or hydra/elemental blast (elemental). Otherwise, those blades are a waste to us. If I put up elemental blades and then attack with Judgment, those blades won't get used. It's akin to buffing up an enemy with a bunch of storm traps and then expecting a fire spell to cause a great deal of damage.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
seethe42 on Dec 8, 2013 wrote:
Balance already has more blades than any school, there's really no need for this.
lolwut?

we obviously aren't playing the same game, because every school has more buffs than balance does. The other schools all get their buffs, plus ours, plus the sharpened ones.

without sharpened, balance only has 2 blades: balanceblade and bladestorm, both of which are weak, compared to what the other schools have. the other schools all have way more than that, too, as they can use ours in addition to their own.

in an age where we are forced to rely on off-school treasure cards more than on our own spells, have significantly fewer resources available than the other schools, and being pushed into buying mastery amulets to even compete, never mind do things the other schools can do for free, I would say that we are slowly but surely being phased out.

In order to survive, we balance wizards need something, anything, that benefits us exclusively. the other schools don't have to share their buffs with everyone else... why should we be the exception?

-von
95 balance

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
Dr Von on Dec 15, 2013 wrote:
lolwut?

we obviously aren't playing the same game, because every school has more buffs than balance does. The other schools all get their buffs, plus ours, plus the sharpened ones.

without sharpened, balance only has 2 blades: balanceblade and bladestorm, both of which are weak, compared to what the other schools have. the other schools all have way more than that, too, as they can use ours in addition to their own.

in an age where we are forced to rely on off-school treasure cards more than on our own spells, have significantly fewer resources available than the other schools, and being pushed into buying mastery amulets to even compete, never mind do things the other schools can do for free, I would say that we are slowly but surely being phased out.

In order to survive, we balance wizards need something, anything, that benefits us exclusively. the other schools don't have to share their buffs with everyone else... why should we be the exception?

-von
95 balance
Last I checked 4 blade spells is MORE buffs than the 1 blade every other school gets. You get balanceblade and bladestorm and spirt and elemental. Everyone else gets 1 blade and must buy another with a training point. Only balance gets them free. As for other schools using yours, they can't learn them just the same as you can't learn theirs. Your blade is usable on every attack and provides boost for all parts of your multiple attack spells, it's only 5% lower than storm's blade but has the extra funtionality as payback.

Delver
Aug 21, 2013
234
Dr Von on Dec 15, 2013 wrote:
lolwut?

we obviously aren't playing the same game, because every school has more buffs than balance does. The other schools all get their buffs, plus ours, plus the sharpened ones.

without sharpened, balance only has 2 blades: balanceblade and bladestorm, both of which are weak, compared to what the other schools have. the other schools all have way more than that, too, as they can use ours in addition to their own.

in an age where we are forced to rely on off-school treasure cards more than on our own spells, have significantly fewer resources available than the other schools, and being pushed into buying mastery amulets to even compete, never mind do things the other schools can do for free, I would say that we are slowly but surely being phased out.

In order to survive, we balance wizards need something, anything, that benefits us exclusively. the other schools don't have to share their buffs with everyone else... why should we be the exception?

-von
95 balance
I think what is being counted against balance wizards is that we have the two balance blades and the elemental/spirit blades. What they are forgetting though is that only the balance blades (Balance Blade and Bladestorm) help out with all spells (including balance), while the elemental blades help out with Fire, Ice, Storm and the spirit blades help out with Death, Myth and Life.

So all balance supplied blades can be used by other schools (the balance blades and elemental blade can be used for storm spells, for example), but the reverse isn't true. We can't use blades from another school to help a spell that does balance damage. If I have Judgment ready to use, I can't make use of a storm blade to buff up the damage.

It's akin to an Ice wizard asking for legion shield to be available as a trainable spell and someone saying that ice has too many as it is. The tower shield protects against any kind of attack and can be used by any school, where as no other school offers the same sort protection (that I'm aware of). If a Fire wizard puts up a shield on an Ice wizard but they are attacked with a death spell, that shield isn't doing any good.

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
Fangs McWolf on Dec 15, 2013 wrote:
Spirit blades are Life, Death and Myth blades (35% each).
Elemental blades are Fire, Ice and Storm blades (35% each).

Using Hydra with Elemental blades, Balance Blades and Bladestorms, you would have 25%/35%, 20%/30%, 35%/45% (for each of Fire, Ice and Storm). That comes out to 515% boost (regular and sharpen for each of the blades). However, that's an unfair example, as that's not doing balance damage, that's doing fire, ice and storm. After all, it's unfair to expect us to always use elemental or spiritual attacks and ignore spells that deal out balance damage.

For a fair example, you need to use just balance damage, so let's pick Judgment (strongest balance spell there is when used properly). With the blades, you have 25%/35% and 20%/30%, for a total of 263%.

I'm not sure how to quite phrase it, but I believe I see where you are coming from. If I'm right, then that explains why you think balance has too many blades already. However, you're forgetting that element and spirit blades only benefit us if we are using chimera (spirit) or hydra/elemental blast (elemental). Otherwise, those blades are a waste to us. If I put up elemental blades and then attack with Judgment, those blades won't get used. It's akin to buffing up an enemy with a bunch of storm traps and then expecting a fire spell to cause a great deal of damage.
I'm glad you can see where I'm coming from, and I can see your side too. Balance specific spells, there aren't as many as other schools because of the extra schools' spells you guys do have. While we can't ignore all the blades you guys get, we also have to understand that for BALANCE school damage, you have minimized boosting. I guess the only real way to fix it would be to give you guys a balanceblade that is Balance spells only and let the other ones remain neutral and work to add to it

Survivor
Aug 07, 2010
22
Dr Von on Dec 15, 2013 wrote:
lolwut?

we obviously aren't playing the same game, because every school has more buffs than balance does. The other schools all get their buffs, plus ours, plus the sharpened ones.

without sharpened, balance only has 2 blades: balanceblade and bladestorm, both of which are weak, compared to what the other schools have. the other schools all have way more than that, too, as they can use ours in addition to their own.

in an age where we are forced to rely on off-school treasure cards more than on our own spells, have significantly fewer resources available than the other schools, and being pushed into buying mastery amulets to even compete, never mind do things the other schools can do for free, I would say that we are slowly but surely being phased out.

In order to survive, we balance wizards need something, anything, that benefits us exclusively. the other schools don't have to share their buffs with everyone else... why should we be the exception?

-von
95 balance
Yes! That's exactly what I meant by this post. I'm talking about balance ONLY usable blades, and elemental and spirit are pretty useless to a balance wizard

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
seethe42 on Dec 15, 2013 wrote:
Last I checked 4 blade spells is MORE buffs than the 1 blade every other school gets. You get balanceblade and bladestorm and spirt and elemental. Everyone else gets 1 blade and must buy another with a training point. Only balance gets them free. As for other schools using yours, they can't learn them just the same as you can't learn theirs. Your blade is usable on every attack and provides boost for all parts of your multiple attack spells, it's only 5% lower than storm's blade but has the extra funtionality as payback.
sure, but all 4 of those blade spells can all be used (and, in the case of the tri-blades, learned) by the other schools, can they not?

Fangs and dayerider both got the point I was trying to make: as a balance wizard, I can't use another school's blade to boost balance damage, yet ours are useable by everyone else. An elemental blade will boost spec or hydra, but that isn't balance damage... that's fire/ice/storm damage; same with chimera and the spirit blades, hence my annoyance at having to rely on other schools' damage more than on my own.

It's no different than being forced to use shatter and cleanse charm because I have no DoT, nor do I have an efficient way to get rid of weakness or shields. we aren't even in the same league as the other schools. I have just learned to make do with what I have.

-von

Explorer
Dec 18, 2009
58
dayerider on Dec 12, 2013 wrote:
1) by Free, I mean Balance trains it for free while all other schools need to spend a training point to obtain it
2 & 5) we are in agreement here
4) yes, one attack spell. if you'll notice I used Chimera as my example. The way I got that total was from adding all of the traps and blades. The ones that cover the whole spell and the ones that cover each attack because chimera has 3 separate attacks. if my math is incorrect, please, correct it. The fact remains, if I understand it correctly, Chimera would get a total of 18 different boosts without stacking any other school's boosts on top of it. That's more boosts than any other school has.
yeah. a wizard is going to have enough time to stack eighteen blades in a fight. Let's be realistic. Nobody carries enough spirit +elemental blades, traps, sharpens, potents, yada yada, do get that many blades. That's how the high level privates fight, lol.
Bladestack, then attack, and if it doesn't kill... :) then gosh darn it for them ....

Seth Legend

Explorer
Dec 18, 2009
58
dayerider on Dec 10, 2013 wrote:
Balance DOES have more blades. First, we must understand the formula I'm using:

1) using only blades or traps that are free to learn for each school
2) Ignoring Supercharge and Backdraft (they work totally different than standard traps/blades and only 2 schools have these - though yes, it would change the results, but not as much as you would think)
3) Using Potent Trap and Sharpened Blade versions stacking up
4) for a single spell
5) Not counting pet or item blades/traps

Here's what we have:

172.69% Boost (Balance)
16.37% Boost (Death)
5.57% Boost (Fire)
4.70% Boost (Storm)
3.82% Boost (Ice)
3.54% Boost (Life)
3.30% Boost (Myth)

So, Balance really is the weakest? How about a Chimera using:

3 blades from spirit blade
3 blades from sharpened spirit blade
2 blades from Balanceblade
2 blades from Bladestorm
3 traps from spirit trap
3 traps from potent spirit trap
2 Traps from Hex

So you're going to tell me, that Balance, with potentially 10 FREE blades and 8 FREE traps is the weakest school? I guess a Chimera with the damage power of close to 12,000 is something to laugh at. For 13 pips, that a HECK of a lot of fire power! Sure it would take time to build that all up, but it would take longer for Storm and Fire to utilize everything they had, and in that time, they couldn't do anything. Almost 20 rounds is a long time to wait, compared to Balance's 10 rounds
What are you talking about? It takes way more than ten rounds to cast those blades, and honestly, the storm wizards these days can potentially do twelve thousand damage on their fifth turn. To add to this, balance doesn't really use chimera that much...

Hero
Nov 14, 2010
760
sethlegendperson on Jan 18, 2014 wrote:
What are you talking about? It takes way more than ten rounds to cast those blades, and honestly, the storm wizards these days can potentially do twelve thousand damage on their fifth turn. To add to this, balance doesn't really use chimera that much...
storm is the school of damage that is all i am going to say cause i have read this thread and there is no logic to any of these posts

Explorer
Mar 24, 2011
69
WOAH WOAH WOAH! you guys are digging way too deep into this. he was claiming we have less blades than all other schools. he is CORRECT. all other schools have blades that affect all of their earned spells. Therefor, we must only count those as well. Balance only has 2 spells. Balanceblade and Bladestorm. no adding percentage. this is blade amount, not blade damage. IN CONCLUSION, balance has far less blades that fit all balance spells (that is to include hydra, Chimera, etc.) again for any confusion, I am only counting blades that effect ALL balance spells. Elemental and spiritual blade only support elemental and spiritual balance spells. KingsIsle if you are reading, please make the SCALETIPPER blade. it has +50% to any spell and -25% to next incoming spell. level 96 spell (not to substitute level 98 spell)

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
The NightCaster on Jan 19, 2014 wrote:
WOAH WOAH WOAH! you guys are digging way too deep into this. he was claiming we have less blades than all other schools. he is CORRECT. all other schools have blades that affect all of their earned spells. Therefor, we must only count those as well. Balance only has 2 spells. Balanceblade and Bladestorm. no adding percentage. this is blade amount, not blade damage. IN CONCLUSION, balance has far less blades that fit all balance spells (that is to include hydra, Chimera, etc.) again for any confusion, I am only counting blades that effect ALL balance spells. Elemental and spiritual blade only support elemental and spiritual balance spells. KingsIsle if you are reading, please make the SCALETIPPER blade. it has +50% to any spell and -25% to next incoming spell. level 96 spell (not to substitute level 98 spell)
More blades is never less. Storm is the exception, because of supercharge, but all other schools get 1 blade. That 1 blade plus elemental/spirit blade makes 2 usable blades per school. Balance has 2 usable blades PLUS they are usable for any school, plus they get all the elemental/spirit blades/traps/spears for free, giving them more training points to spend on other spells.

Delver
Apr 21, 2012
252
sethlegendperson on Dec 10, 2013 wrote:
Are you kidding? You think balance has more blades?
Every other school has a blade that gives at least five percent more than balance-ice, death and life, which do just as much damage as balance, get +40% blades
Let's do the math, incorporating sharpened blade.
. So tell me, which is better: 25% blade and a 35% blade=+60% to a spell. OR
40% blade and a 50% blade=+90% to a spell.

To add to this, how many traps does balance have? hmm ... let me count ...oh, nevermind, its only ONE. Death has, what, FOUR, fire has THREE, storm has THREE, ice has TWO, life has TWO, myth has TWO...but your right, balance has enough blades. They're fine.

Peace.
Seth Legend
Blake Fireshade
does have more blades, Elemental Blade, Spirit Blade,

Mastermind
Jan 05, 2014
300
I'll add a newb perspective. I am running a level 25 balance wizard, finishing up Krokotopia at the moment. All through my Krokotopia questing, I have been CONSTANTLY bombarded by other players asking me for help. As a balance wizard, I find these fights almost ridiculously easy to solo.

To be sure, my advantage in Krokotopia is mostly that I got sandstorm, my first area of affect spell, at level 16, earlier than any other school. Fire gets its AOE Meteor Strike at 22, other schools even later. I really pity Necromancers and Theurgists in this regard, Death gets its first AOE no earlier than level 48, Life has to wait until 58.

I get that over time, other schools will more than overtake my current advantage. When Fire gets Wyldfire at level 26 it overtakes Balance's damage potential in nearly every way; when Storm gets Tempest in its level 28 quest it makes other school's AOE spells look lame.

Balance is a specialist school, designed for support, not raw damage. As a balance wizard I understand that at higher levels my value will be in providing extra blades and other support to other wizards on my team, not dealing tremendous raw damage myself. Balance damage at higher levels is clearly less than what the fire and storm schools can produce, but thats ok, because I can provide team support in ways they cannot. Balance damage output compares well to that of Life and Ice, the other two main support schools.

But at the moment, its hard to take complaints of my school's weakness seriously when I find it so much easier to win solo battles than other wizards in my own zone.

In the long run, I expect to remap my training points when I reach level 26 and train Death to Feint. Feint seems ideal for balance wizards since it applies to all damage, just like the balance school blades, so it will apply to my balance damage spells. I will also be able to throw it on teammates in my support role.

Survivor
Mar 13, 2013
3
seethe42 on Dec 8, 2013 wrote:
Balance already has more blades than any school, there's really no need for this.
It does not even matter because when you cast balance aoe's, you wont have enough damage buffs to support it.

Survivor
Dec 09, 2009
40
Balance isn't a power school. It's a balanced school(see what I did there).

Adding another blade is not realistic considering their is no shield to block a balance damage attack save for a tower shield. So you can figure all the damage output you want but if you attack me with a big storm spell and I have on a minus 80 storm shield then how big is that attack then.. Yeah not very. In the same instance you hit me with a big judgement spell the best you can do is a minus 50. Your argument is tough to swallow for me.

Balance gets universal blades and traps plus blades and traps to use for Hydra and Chimera to fight a balance boss as you have no prism and you get arguably the best spell in the game in Judgement and you want more. Plus balance is the best school for team play as you can blade and trap universally to help the big hitters. No way balance needs another blade in my opinion.

Survivor
Jan 10, 2012
1
My thinking is Balance needs a way to get rid of a weakness without resorting to using a cleanse treasure card. I can use a different spell like my wand spell to get rid of the weakness with my Storm and leave my storm blades intact but with balance there is no way to do that without using all of my balance blades that are already cast unless I use the cleanse. Balance should have either its own spell or some other way to get rid of the weakness.

Geographer
Apr 29, 2012
861
CC1403 on Jan 21, 2014 wrote:
Balance isn't a power school. It's a balanced school(see what I did there).

Adding another blade is not realistic considering their is no shield to block a balance damage attack save for a tower shield. So you can figure all the damage output you want but if you attack me with a big storm spell and I have on a minus 80 storm shield then how big is that attack then.. Yeah not very. In the same instance you hit me with a big judgement spell the best you can do is a minus 50. Your argument is tough to swallow for me.

Balance gets universal blades and traps plus blades and traps to use for Hydra and Chimera to fight a balance boss as you have no prism and you get arguably the best spell in the game in Judgement and you want more. Plus balance is the best school for team play as you can blade and trap universally to help the big hitters. No way balance needs another blade in my opinion.
How about we get a new blade, but it's no PvP, that way people can't complain about being beaten by a balance, and you think we don't need another blade? At the very least, we should change the current blades to balance damage only, that way we can destroy a weakness or tower shield without using up all of our current blades. And the actual maximum that can be removed just from spells is 135, tower shield, weakness, plague & virulent plague.

2