player guide for Wizard 101 by Keelan Stormcaster

Wizard 101 includes a significant population of over-50 (and female) players. We older players like it for the great humor, the slow pace, and the easy interface. It doesn't require high stress, fast reaction, or carpel-tunnel-inducing keyboard usage. That combination of features is good for old and young players alike. It also trains memory, pattern recognition, and planning, just like any other card game.

There is a lot to do in Wizard 101.  I'm still playing the game periodically after many years, and I'm still playing with my former database administrator from a job 15 years ago. She is a bit older than me with sensitive hands and wrists, yet she can play this online game too.

I'm writing this hint guide for myself, for her, and for any other players (old or young) who would like to see some suggestions for getting familiar with this game. I'll keep updating this article over time to add improvements.

Picking Your Primary School Of Magic: Find something that appeals to you. Each school has an "opposite": Fire opposes Ice, Storm opposes Myth, and Life opposes Death. When you combat enemies of one school, they will have a weakness to their opposite school. The one exception is the Balance school; it has no opposite. Each school has something special it can do that nobody else can: Storm: does the most damage, but you earn the least health points. also, your spells will frequently fail to cast. Fire: has a damage-over-time spell card that is very efficient. better casting success rate than Storm. Ice: earns more health points than other schools, and has a spell to resist damage from any school of magic Balance: does damage that cannot be warded against like other schools (except Ice can still ward against it) Life: can heal all players simultaneously Death: can simultaneously damage an opponent while stealing health to heal yourself Myth: you work with more minions than other schools; minions are pets that you summon only during combat All 7 schools are good. Each of them is fun in its own way. Just pick one that seems to "fit" your personality.

Always Train Life Magic To Get The Sprite: No matter what school of magic you learn, always spend your first training points to get the Life Sprite spell. Not because it might help heal your mage (it will), but because it will let you restore your fellow players who lose in battle. You can heal them, and that's important in this game where everybody can play together cooperatively. Be a friendly player, and learn the Sprite healing spell. Sometimes you have to choose whether to cast your Sprite in time to save your teammate, or let them go ahead and lose in combat... then revive them again immediately afterwards.  The Sprite doesn't heal much damage.  If your neighbor is taking heavy damage, Sprite will not save them. Consider saving your card until after they falter.  You can use it to revive them instead of trying to save them.

Always Train Fire Magic To Get The Fire Elf: After the healing Sprite, you should get the Fire Elf, no matter what school of magic you have. It costs only 2 pips to cast, but it does more damage-per-pip than most spells in the game. It's very efficient, so it's good to have and use as backup.

Casting Spells: Whenever you enter a combat circle, all players will take turns choosing from their available cards to play. Playing a card will cost "pips" which are power points. Each round of combat, you get a new pip. Gold pips are special. When you cast a spell card from your Primary School, then that single gold pip is worth 2 of the regular silver pips. In this image, notice both the silver pip (worth 1 point) and the gold pip (worth 2 points with your primary school) at the feet of the player's combat circle.

Dismissing Spells: It took me a long time to realize that I could dismiss cards during combat, then I get new cards to replace them. You see 7 cards during each combat round. Unused cards remain the same from one combat round to the next, so you're stuck with the same 7 cards if you do nothing to change them. You can use a card by left-clicking on it to cast that spell. You can dismiss a card by right-clicking on it instead. If you are in a hurry to find a particular card, you can even dismiss all 7 cards if you want. They will be replaced with new cards in the next combat round.

Picking Your Main Weapon: Your character can wear different inventory items, but the weapon is special. The weapon will give you many low-damage spells that you can cast without having to train for it. Just choose a different weapon and you get different spells. 1. Some weapons give you many spells that cost 1 pip to cast, while other weapons give you just one spell that costs zero pips to cast (so it can cast for free). When you first start out, it's good to experiment with a 1-pip weapon so you can see what the different spells do. By level 10, though, I recommend sticking with the zero-pip weapons, because you need to conserve your pips for bigger and better spells. This pictured weapon gives 6 cards from different schools, and each card costs 1 pip to cast. Throughout the game, you get only 1 pip per combat round.  If you use the spells from this weapon and use 1 pip to cast the spell, then you will not be able to collect enough pips to cast bigger spells that you learned from your school.   2. Some weapons will also give you a bonus pip at the start of combat. It's like starting a round early and getting to keep the extra pip. The bonus pip is good, since it gives you an advantage over your opponent who will have to wait until the 2nd round to get a 2nd pip. This pictured weapon gives "+1 Silver Pip" at the start of combat, and notice that the attack spell card costs zero pips to cast. It allows you to cast an attack spell for free, saving your pips so you can spend them later to cast a bigger spell. 3. I also recommend picking a weapon for a school different from your Primary school. You'll be casting bonus spells on yourself and weakness spells on your enemies. These bonuses and weaknesses will be for your primary school. If you cast any damage spell (even a weapon), it will use up those bonuses and weaknesses. It's better to save them for your heavy damage spells instead, where it will count for more damage. So, for instance, a Storm mage may use a Myth weapon so it doesn't use up the active Storm bonuses while waiting for more pips.

Picking Your Secondary School Of Magic, Or Not: You learn many spells in your primary school for free. You also occasionally earn some training points that you can spend for any school. Early in the game, it seems like you want some spells from each school. Don't do it yet. Save your training points for other bonus spells like wards, minion bonuses, and eventually Moon magic bonuses. You don't want to spend your points on combat spells now because later you will seldom use those spells. You will be casting spells from your primary school that cost 4, 6, or 8 pips to cast them. Because they're from your primary school, you can use gold pips. Spells from other schools, however, will not benefit from gold pips. You'll have to use gold pips (worth 2 points normally) as if they were just silver pips (worth only 1 point for these other schools). It's very inefficient. If you wait 4 rounds of combat (while your opponents are casting spells at you), you might get 4 gold pips. That would be 8 points you could spend on your own school of magic, but it's still only 4 points that you can spend on other schools. A big exception is if you spend Crowns (real-world money) to buy a special necklace. The necklace will let you use gold pips for 1 other school of magic. In that case, you could train more spells in that school, and you still get to use all of your pips at their full value. There's no need to play this way, but if you do then a Mastery Amulet will help you a lot... if you can afford to buy it with real money. Sometimes during the summer birthday celebration for Wizard 101, you can undo all of your spent training points for free. During the rest of the year, it costs Crowns (real-world money) to undo your training points. It's better to save points than to keep spending them on things that you might want to undo later.

Tips On Travelling Safely: It's easy to avoid combat, but it requires attention.  If you stay on the sidewalks, then you can easily avoid the opponents that walk in the center of the streets.  It can be tricky, though, to stay on the safe sidewalk while traveling around corners or obstacles.  Here's what I do to move safely: First, hold down the right-button on the mouse.  Keep holding it down continuously.  Now move the mouse around, and notice that your character looks in different directions while you hold down that button. Second (while still pressing that right-button), you can move forward by also pressing the left-button on the mouse.  Keep holding both buttons, and you continue moving forward while changing directions as you move the mouse.  This method is easy because it uses only one hand, but it's also hard because it requires your hand muscles to work both buttons and the mouse at the same time. Alternatively (while still pressing that right-button), you can use the up arrow on the keyboard.  This method requires two hands, but it offers better control.  When you cross a doorway and zone into a new room, using the up arrow key (instead of using the left-button on the mouse) will help keep you from accidentally continuing forward inside the new zone and unintentionally bumping into opponents for combat.

Arranging Your Spells: (to be written later; be sure to mention keeping decks and using treasure cards)

How To Play Solo, And How To Easily Find Group Help: (to be written later, be sure to mention prism spells, pets, and the important Team Up button)

Combat Against Your Own School Of Magic: (to be written later; be sure to mention prisms spells and wards)

Train Your Pet: (to be written later; be sure to mention stats, special-cast abilities, and school quest pets)

Grow Your First Garden: (to be written later; be sure to mention energy and pests so don't overplant at your level)

Get The Free Housing Items: (to be written later)

Fishing: (to be written later; mention trophy fish like the Bearacuda)