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Noob question about secondary schools

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Feb 08, 2014
2
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!

Defender
Jun 02, 2013
164
hello Valkoor, and welcome to Wizards

This is a matter of opinion, but I believe if you are using your secondary's school's spells as a means to defeat your enemies, you are actually playing at a disadvantage. There are spells, gear and pets, which are specific to each school and you will lose out on acquiring those if that school is not your Main.

Popular choices for secondary schools are Life, and Death for the healing spell Satyr, and Feint for additional damage, as well as Ice for Tower Shield.

You may be able to acquire somewhat comparable gear through crafting, or drops while questing, or even purchasing Crowns, but the spell choices of your secondary school are limited to those that are "Trainable" by using your Training Points.

Your example of combining Ice, and Storm/Fire may seem like a good choice at first, but you will find that none of the three offer substantial healing like the Life school, nor do they offer significant damage boosting like the Feint spell from the Death school.

You will have to spend seven training points to acquire either of these spells, but combined with your Main school choice as Ice, you will be very formidable.

Many players choose to purchase Crowns for "Mastery" amulets which assist them with their secondary spells requiring Power Pips.

Prism spells will assist you in maximizing your damage against same school adversaries. Ice school gear often offers Global resistance, and as you mentioned, you will have a larger health pool to help in survival.

In my experience, it also seems like the harder a School hits, KI uses the "Fizzle" factor as an early means of balance. Your choice as a second school may actually increase time of your duels due to failed spell casting until you acquire gear to counter this.

As a Death school wizard, I have not used a secondary school, and I usually play Solo, but my advantage is the various self-healing spells at my disposal.

I hoped I helped you, best of luck

Gabriel Archmage

Survivor
Mar 26, 2010
37
This is actually a great strategy. I'm an Ice Wizard and I use the same strategy. There's only 1 thing I do differently. I chose a secondary and third school. Fire is my secondary and Storm is my third. I just chose them early in the game. Whenever I make a wizard, it's always a great first move to choose your secondary school that's the opposite of your main school.
Ex: +
+
+
The only thing that kinda sucks is doesn't have an opposite. But, with the schools that do, I think it's a good strategy because then you don't have a direct weakness. You can have resists even on your opposite school.
Hope this helps!

Fiona IceDust
Level 48 Thaumaturge

Defender
Jun 15, 2013
136
i also chose storm ( i'm death ) and i regret it mostly because at lvl 78 storm really doesn't help that much anymore so if i was ice i would chose life for heals or chose death to steal health.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
That strategy will work fine for Wizard City and maybe into Krok. The biggest problem with it is that you won't have the blades, traps, gear boosts, power pips, critical, and powerful school-only spells as you progress. Using a secondary school as your main attacks will always end up weaker for every type of wizard. In my opinion, you are better off using secondary school spells mainly for support spells and rely mainly on your native school for attacking.

Delver
Jan 21, 2014
284
You now? thats a good idea i did that with life as primary and death with balance as secondary, i have the heals of life, the equaly of balance, and the steals of death
well from my opinion i think its great.

Isaac Gold Heart. lvl 19 theurgist

Survivor
May 04, 2011
43
Well I wouldn't do balance but you should get the reshuffle card and the shields to help attack. Life would be good too. But I wouldn't get storm or fire because once you get high enough level you probably wont even use those other secondary schools. If I were you I would probably get the life or death spells or try to get shields for every school. If you get the shields it will help you a lot later if you spam them-trust me. But also, if you do, you should try do get satyr and later get feint if you can, those have helped me a lot and are really useful.

Survivor
Jun 24, 2011
2
There is an issue with that because you cannot use power pips with other schools that are not your main school unless you have a mastery amulet.

Astrologist
Sep 19, 2013
1006
You won't notice much in the beginning, but it will come back to bite you in the rear. You can't use power pips with other schools other than Ice, and you won't be able to get blades or traps for them either. Long term, this is not a sustainable strategy. I personally never deviated from Death school, I'll save my training points for Celestia.

Adherent
Jul 03, 2010
2634
Valkoor Dragonbloo... on Feb 27, 2014 wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!
The main disadvantage to choosing out of your school spells is once you get more power pips chance into your gear these out of school spells become more expensive to cast meaning you can more easily cast in school spells sooner avoiding wasted rounds of play where you could be defeated in. Unless you invest in the amulet for that school so that the power pips count toward those spells also. Personally I use several different amulets though out the levels of the game so being restricted to one may become a problem for me.

I have found it's easier to stay true to your school and only spend points on spells that will enhance my school given ones. Every school has it pros and cons. All schools have the potential to progress in the game. Your goal is to learn how to use the school you choose to the best of it's ability. I usually start with the Tri Blades offered by Niles in Krocotopia. Expect time to get the school off the ground, this usually starts happening for me around level 40-45.

I have found I play certain schools more natural then others. Life and Death are easy for me. Balance I don't think I will ever get the hang of, I flounder too much deciding on spells. Fire was ok but I am sure I didn't make it as strong as it should be. Ice I had a very weak start and felt at sorts with and now several worlds later I seem to have it nailed and use that wizard for all high level dungeons helpings, I have honed it into a heal and deal wizard. I gave Myth a go but found I created a so so weak wizard so am trying that again. I have a Storm I am currently trying to see how far I can totally solo with and am in Crustation Empire CL with it, Trial of Spheres may be my stopper. I like the raw power of Storm. Solo play in big dungeons has to be planned and is a slower go then with at least one other wizard with you.

In the end there are no clear cut rules on how to play the game, just general stuff and suggestions from others who have had things that work for them. It is up to you to pick up bits from there and there to figure out how to get acceptable game play out of your wizard that works for you. The more you reach out side of the game for information the better understanding you will have on what makes the game tick. I started with Wizard101Central.com as my go to site. A lot of the experience you have will depend on how you build your wizard as you go a long. If you are going to end up a solo mostly player equipping your wizard as best you can for the long haul will make game play much more pleasant.

No matter how you go about it enjoy the game and what is presents, especially in the first arc while you build your wizard for the longer haul of the second arc.

Mary

Explorer
Jan 27, 2011
97
Well, my Ice has only dabbled in Life for Satyr and Death for the Feint. This being because Ice is primarily a defensive school, so your natural damage will most likely be weaker than all the other schools (depending on your gear of choice). After I got those two spells I saved my training points for Celestia where I learned Fortify and the 'fists' (damage boost sun enchants). Also, once you hit Zafaria and Azteca you have an Ice Aura spell you can learn as well as Sharpen and Potent enchants for Blades and Traps. As far as my Ice goes personally I will have:

Jade Gear (maxed, not high enough level to equip it yet)
Misty Mountain Mandonlin (Maxed, not high enough level to equip it yet)
Alpha and Omega Ring (Lvl. 90 Aquila Secret Bosses Drop)
Felled Titan's Athame (Lvl. 90 Cronus drop)
Life Mastery Amulet (I find the Exalted Amulets to be eh not so good)

That gear set up alone brings my resist (the stat Ice is most famous for) to a MINIMUM of 59 universal resist (not counting pet talents, which if I'm lucy can raise resist to a whopping 89 uni resist at max double spell proof to start). Yes, Jade Gear is entirely a defensive set which means you have no damage, accuracy, and critical boosts, however that's what I was going for. Since I'm always with my friends I'm the rock of the group, so I take most if not all of the damage for them while also healing/blading/shielding them.

So ya, like others have mentioned on here, if you're going to be Ice I would suggest learning Satyr and Feint, Fortify, Sun Enchants, the Tri Blades from Niles in Krokotopia on the Krokosphinx, and go from there. I try to stick with the original concept of each school, and since Ice is the big shield I decided to go along with it. Now it's nearly impossible to kill me without pierce XD

Just thought I'd show you another way you could go about with Ice XD

R.I.P.
Morgrim, Lvl. 91

Survivor
May 20, 2010
4
Valkoor Dragonbloo... on Feb 27, 2014 wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!
The biggest disadvantage is, as others have pointed out, the additional cost of spells once your power pip percentage starts to rise. A Mastery amulet can help, but obviously only for one other school at a time.

Second disadvantage - lack of buffing spells.

I tend to play defensively, so with that perspective in mind, I generally choose secondary schools not based on their attacks but on what other useful spells they have.

A frequent piece of advice is to take "Life up to Satyr, Death to Feint, Ice to Tower Shield." Clearly the third doesn't apply as you are an Ice Wizard. With my Pyromancer, I chose Life as a secondary school (I do have an amulet, but I also play solo most of the time and I don't like wasting power pips to heal). My usual strategy is to have at least a couple of spells in a school that is in the opposite "triangle" - Elemental vs. Spirit, giving shields to some of those spells. Then I recommend using the rest of your training points in balance (buffing spells) or Astral spells (once you get to Celestia). I then usually pick a wand from my school's opposite, to use for breaking shields so my prisms are effective.

A good thing to remember - you don't really need very many spells from other schools. My lvl 15 Ice wizard hasn't used any training points so far, though I may once I get much farther in Krokotopia. Both my lvl 74 Pyromancer and my Lv 60 Life wizard have quite a few training points waiting to be used.

One of the fun parts of this game is figuring out good strategies for the different schools, so don't miss out on the interesting parts of an Ice wizard - have fun with their strengths. Storm the school I chose to leave out of my classroom...the failure rate is bad enough with my fire wizard, I didn't have the patience to develop Storm far enough to counter the fizzles with gear.

Don't forget you can start multiple wizards - build a couple from other schools and play them through a few levels to see what best suits your style.

Have fun!
Heidi
Moira Moonsinger, Lv 74 Pyromancer
Rowan Jadebright, Lv 60 Theurgist
Sarai Sandcaller, Lv 33 Sorcerer
Tavia Duskriver, Lv 32 Necromancer
Iridian Winterwalker, lv 15 Thaumaturge
Tatiana Griffinrider, Lv 9 Conjurer

Survivor
Feb 08, 2014
2
Thanks for the great feedback, everyone. Very helpful and I learned a lot.

FWIW, I decided to try Fire School because the health and fizzle rates are both a little bit better than Storm. I wasn't necessarily attracted to the defensive playstyle of Ice, just the maximum health. I will probably train Ice to Tower Shield and Health to Satyr, though; that appears to be universally accepted as good advice.

Hero
Aug 18, 2011
776
If you aren't going to PvP,. I wouldn't waste points on Ice to Tower. It's a must for player vs player, but not often needed questing, and you can get treasure cards. Life to Sprite is a good idea. I'd go to Satyr only if you plan to buy or farm a Life mastery amulet.

"Ice to tower, life to Satyr, death to feint" is very common advice, but not right for everyone, especially outside the arena.

I think you'll enjoy fire. It is a fast, fun school, and it is about to get a little boost in health and damage.

Delver
Jan 21, 2014
284
InfiniteMonkey260 on Feb 28, 2014 wrote:
There is an issue with that because you cannot use power pips with other schools that are not your main school unless you have a mastery amulet.
whats a mastery amulet? i now noobish

Survivor
Jun 11, 2012
21
It is definitely a good idea. I have a life wizard whose secondary school is myth and their third school is death. Here are some words of advice:
Stick to your school's area- (elemental, spirit, balance) Ex: If you are life, don't choose storm, choose a spirit school.
You need to do this because when you get to Krokospinx, there are balance spells you can learn and it would be better if you just didn't go to a totally different school.
Pips- When you get a higher power pip chance it gets annoying because only your main school will take them. For your other schools, they do not use the power pips, you have to have that number of pips.

Good Luck!

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Valkoor Dragonbloo... on Feb 27, 2014 wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!
hi there, and welcome~

you don't need a secondary school; it can help, sometimes, at the low levels, but you're much better off to save your points for the enhancement spells at level 50+.

there are exceptions, of course. my wizards all have:

reshuffle
stun block
feint
elemental or spirit tri-blades/traps

my first-ever wizard (balance) had fire as her secondary school and i ended up buying all of her points back at level 80, which cost me 12,500 crowns; needless to say, it was an expensive mistake that i will not be repeating.

-

life and death wizards.

because you don't get an attack-all spell until well into the game (level 48 for death, 58 for life), myth is a good choice because your spirit tri-blades/traps are good for both.

storm wizards may also want to consider ice to tower shield, due to low health and awful base stats.

-

keep in mind that, when you use off-school spells, you don't get all the boosts that someone from that school has. plus, it costs more to cast an off-school spell because your power pip chance (if you don't know what that is yet, check out the players' guide) increases substantially as you level up and it amounts to a huge waste.

to use off-school spells efficiently requires a mastery amulet; this lets you use power pips (which count double for your school only) with another school's spells. these cost about $20 apiece and, unless you plan to pvp a lot, it's not really worth it to have one. so, if you must go that route, choose wisely.

whatever you decide, i do hope that you'll consider the above. you and your (or your parents') wallet will thank me later.

-von
level 95 x3


Survivor
Mar 04, 2012
36
It's a very good idea, although a problem you might come up with is that they're all in the Main Triangle' as I like to call it, therefore you might fall into some problems where you can't heal yourself or others, which is why I always ask someone for some help so I don't get very low on health and can't get a Pixie into my deck so I can heal myself.

As a fire wizard it's very hard to get healing spells, which is my my third school is Death.

And just a tip for duels, try to always check your deck before fighting a Boss, because I actually came up with a problem once where I had no treasure cards in my deck and I was fighting a boss, and if you equip a new deckimmediately fill it with cards, because if you forget you could end up in a battle and not have any cards and may have to flee, and worse, in the middle of a dungeon.

I wish you good luck!

Katie Moonflame Level 46 Pyromancer.

Defender
Jul 27, 2011
132
For me, a secondary school is used to help me minorly (healing from life, blades and weaknesses (balance), feint from death, tower shields from ice, and maybe using one of those school's attacks for when I face the boss of my school. But prisms are more effective for that.)

To use a secondary school as your main attacking, well, it seems difficult. For example, choosing storm or fire as your secondary will mean you would most likely fizzle, and finding ice gear for accuracy would be hard, seeing as the best accuracy gear is for fire and storm wizards only. On top of it, once you get to level 50+, this might mess with your stats for critical. Plus finding plus damage percent for your secondary schools would be harder than finding it for your own.

Though ice has the weakest attacks, it makes up for it by having 50% blades and by having insane defense to the point where, even if it takes longer to kill an enemy, your health would not go down as much.

Honestly, I don't worry about health that much. Coming from a fire wizard (second lowest base health out of all schools), having higher health is the last thing on my mind since I concentrate on my strengths of attacking and kill before my health is too low.

In my opinion, it is best to play to the strengths of your main school of choice. Ice, focus on defense. Storm/Fire, focus on attack (for life, the damage over time spells are useful to get rid of shields). Life, focus on healing. Balance, focus on support and weakening enemies and strengthening friends. Death, focus on the spells that give health back and having good health/resist to withstand damage from feint or sacrifice. Myth, the strengths for that are minions, but if you're playing with friends, myth has a few spells in the higher levels to play strengths to.

If you ever want to meet up in the game, let me know and I'll get you a true-friend code or make plans to meet up on a day.

Feel free to ask more questions, I'll do my best for input,
Seth NightFlame 95

Astrologist
Jun 04, 2010
1008
Valkoor Dragonbloo... on Feb 27, 2014 wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!
As the others in this thread have been saying, you will eventually have issues with this strategy. Putting aside power pips (because you can always use a mastery amulet), the bigger issue is gear damage boost. There is craft-able gear in the game to give you dual school boosts and global gear available at the bazaar and vendors around the spiral, however, it always has a drawback. For instance, ice might not have global resist, life may not have power pip boost, and on and on. You can mix and match but you will always be at a much lower stat level for your school than you otherwise would be.

While you do have an issue regarding blades and traps, I don't see that as that big of an issue. There are always elemental/spiritual blades/traps, gear spells, pet spells, and treasure cards as well as old standbys such as feint. However, your overall boosts will be more limited for a second school than for your primary and configuring your gear to adequately support secondary schools means compromising the stats for your primary. I don't want to discourage you from this strategy, but in my opinion it is one for advanced players with a good grasp of all the various game mechanics. I feel that for most players, they will be happier if training points are spent on utility spells (such as feint, tower shield, and gargantuan) to augment their primary school spells.

Survivor
Nov 05, 2011
49
I would like to first begin by saying that using any school other than your school of focus as your main form of attack will not have same effects in lower levels as it does in the higher ones

For this method to work to its full potential, one must acquire gear that boosts other schools (usually acquired through Crafting, Farming bosses, or purchased through Crowns) as well as your school of focus.
In later levels, a Mastery or Exalted amulet is a MUST; you will not be able to kill anything efficiently in Celestia or beyond if you don't have one.
The secondary school actually should NOT be the opposite of your school of focus, because if you fight the opposite school they are likely to use shields (opposite their school of focus), so you would have the problem of there being a shield on the enemy to your focused school and resist to your secondary school, or vice versa.
Using a secondary school would be limited in its output, due to the fact that you would miss out on many spells (such as blades and traps) and gear boosts that would be associated with it being your school of focus.
Mega gears such as Waterworks or Hades would be of no use to your secondary school.
Training points can better be spent on training a school to a certain point for a particular spell, and then saving them until you can get another spell you want. Examples: until Feint (+70% damage to enemy, +30% damage to self), until Satyr (860 to self or allied target), until Tower Shield (-50% to next incoming attack), and until Colossal (275 damage boost to any attack spell).
In conclusion, my final recommendation is that, as an Ice wizard, you train the following: Life to Satyr, Death to Feint, Sun to Colossal, and save a couple training points for Amplify and Sleet Storm. This would require you to use Ice as your damage focus, which is definitely for the better in the long run. Hope this helps!

-Aerier

Defender
Jul 26, 2009
168
Valkoor Dragonbloo... on Feb 27, 2014 wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!
The downsides are:

1.) Mastery amulets are needed, as by level 50 you will have 80% Power pips on most schools.
2.) Damage becomes weak after level 50, Storm Zilla wont be able to compete damage wise. Even your rank 4 Blizard will do way more damage than a storm zilla later on that you trained for damage....

Although, Its more efficient to run an Off-Tank for the best of both worlds approach. Death, Myth, And balance tend to have a high number of damage spells, Sustained health and armor.

High level Off tank stats:
70%-90% Damage (Death, Balance or Myth, Off-Tank Life)
30-48% Resistance
5% Armor Pierce
30-40% Critical (200-400 Rating)
70-90% Block (200 - 500 Block Rating)
4000-4500 Health

High Level Tank stats:
0 - 50 Damage (Ice)
40%-50% Universal resistance
40 - 150% Fire and storm resistance
4500-5500 Health
200-500 Block
>40% Critical

High Level offensive stats:
80+ Damage (Fire, Storm)
10-30% Resistance
10-30% Armor Pierce (Lowers shields and resist)
70% - 100% Critical
~10% Block

High Level Health Tank:
0%-40% Damage
50-80% Universal resistance
50%-80% Incoming / Outgoing healing
~300 Block

Realistically, You seem to be looking for Balance Death or myth, With Ice as a side school to tower shield. The rest of your training points should go to death to feint, then later to Star / Sun / Shadow spells.

Gear, Should Provide stats in range with what i gave you, Giving the damage boosts and Armor for each school.
Best gear only boosts your school

Mastery amulets and Exalted Amulets are Totally optional and falling out of favor

Secondary schools should be utility. (Tower Shield, Satyr (If not Death, Or Balance), Feint, Elemental / Spirit blades)

Explorer
May 13, 2013
58
Valkoor Dragonbloo... on Feb 27, 2014 wrote:
Are there any disadvantages to using secondary school spells for your main form of attack? I'm thinking about making an Ice wizard and choosing Fire or Storm as secondary, then using Fire/Storm as main form of attack. This will give me the higher health of Ice and the higher damage of Fire or Storm.

Seems like the best of both worlds... so I must be missing something! New player here, so any advice from experienced wizards would be most appreciated!
Well, for starters, welcome to the world of wizard101! I wouldn't suggest doing what you said. In the end, when you are at lvl cap or somewhere in that zone, you secondary school spells will be useless. And the good gear you get at high lvl ONLY supports mostly your main school. Here's what I would suggest to go up to:

Death school: Feint

Life School: Satyr (though if you are in a group and tanking and healing, I would suggest going up to sanctuary)

Ice School: Tower Shield (though you will get this anyways since you are ice)

And I think that's it (in terms of beginning stuff you should get)there's many other things you could get (such as stun block or cloak if you plan on pvping and/or sun/star/shadow/moon spells, though I wouldn't suggest moon spells), but these are just the basics. Hope this helped!

Pokebow
Lvl29

P.S.Dont get confused by all this information! You will understand it in the future!