u/DeirdreCitrine

They’re both yoinking Bel’s Verboten on the wiki

https://gbf.wiki/Odious_Raids

Typically, tanking is seen as not needed and less preferable to buffing in the Blade Feint AoE meta [this post is not targeted to self-made advanced combat strats] but I feel as if with some bosses like Balaur having very strong and frequent raidwides that having a Tank of sorts can be preferable [in bosses like Grandfather Spider for his Tankbuster cheat for ex] if trends like these continue.

However, the issue lies in action-econ in line of the support-hitter-tank-healer quad with support-hitter taking precedence over tank-healer as the majority of content can be sped-ran.

But if you’re an Ice or a self-made Tank through gear of substantial RES and HP for a huge mess of EHP & you really, really, really wanna be the incoming damage-sponge that you are then there are present ways to be a tank-support properly and make it work, I’ll be highlighting many spells that I feel are often underestimated in this regard.

As per any of the following recommendations, please coordinate with the team/group you are in so that they allow you to get these attacks off before any other Traps are placed so that any Feints and the like are not wasted & this can be as simple as asking someone to blade instead of Feinting on that round or letting you go first.

These recommendations are aimed at being able to be used Turn One, so max pip range will be 5 pips of use.

First of all, I would like to refresh some knowledge on how aggro is done on W101 but only to the parts relevant of this piece as this is focused primarily on threat manipulation:

A) Most relevant to duos and trios is that the resident Tank must go first as the aggro will be centred on them and then people can join thereafter, this is earliest as it gets but this info is only relevant to duos/trios as quads will prioritise all 4 joining to force the team to cast first.

B) Hitting & healing create aggro in Standard PvE, while aggro is dealt very differently in Advanced PvE as buffing and other actions redirect threat itself

Following Point B, I have found three spells which I believe will increase Threat Level for the resident Tank while simultaneously buffing hits on an adequate level.

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1. Deermouse Trap 0A-5A

https://preview.redd.it/rhayr4h2s2ih1.png?width=127&format=png&auto=webp&s=504182f46fa937eabc4b3d6432d3eb9a63f44bf6

Starting off with an Ice spell, this does 385 Ice Damage and places A 55% universal Trap on the targeted that can be enchanted to 65% or enchanted with a damage enchant for desiring greater retention of threat level; annoying to get due to Lightbane but with the return of PoP then farming this spell won’t be as annoying to get.

I consider this spell a must-have for Ices, for aggro reasons outlined above.

2. Dark Nova

https://preview.redd.it/e3xj2bm6t2ih1.png?width=127&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff768a7717fe0b02da7cae40d229833cae83f1f6

Up next is Dark Nova, this is a universal option to all especially when Shadow Gauge rolls over from previous fights for round 1 buffing [this is the outlined use case here, shad gauge rollover for t1 Nova -> pop it and draw aggro] but it‘s especially the specialised option to any Myths as it is the requisite fusion and you can stack TCs of these in your side deck with enchants as they become transformed that way but for Myths like me, maindecking them will be preferable for fusions such as Hex House A/B or Cursed Colossus A.

3. Sand Wurm 0A-5A / Abyssal Wurm 0A-5A

https://preview.redd.it/wbxv1htgu2ih1.png?width=127&format=png&auto=webp&s=0635aba9915c81506d6a7c217bb97e25791f9125

https://preview.redd.it/g8te5htgu2ih1.png?width=127&format=png&auto=webp&s=42e24e2b311c1e35589db08f95935fb10a9d8191

These are Balance’s Mirage spells and they are a select target spell, this means the Trap potency will decrease by 5% per enemy and in most situations this will mean a Hit + Mass Hex while very rarely others is a Hit + Windstorm, this is an extremely underrated spell in my opinion and any shad rollover from previous fights can have it be transformed with Dark Trickster for Abyssal Wurm for even stronger potency and damage at the cost of being unable to be unenchanted.

4. Dyvim’s Resurgence 2B-25

https://preview.redd.it/scpvumb3v2ih1.png?width=127&format=png&auto=webp&s=61eccb1bd9a3b89fe63ee4d5124968597ff1094d

Another Lightbane/Dyvim spell, this is the B path as it has less dmg but increased trap potencies by +10% yet despite this I would say Path A is still serviceable esp if you don’t have the spellements to have 2B and onwards.

5. Pops’ Knuckles 0A-5A

https://preview.redd.it/auxl9qhov2ih1.png?width=127&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fa745aa0a432202a1d44267b769af0bdfbdfd07

This spell was recently added in Marleybone Chronicles, being the only Blade spell here and essentially a Hit + Bladestorm, this spell is pretty decent even if Bladestorm‘s effect potency is weaker than anything outlined here so far but since Sharpened Blade can be acquired through pets early then I don’t believe it’s all nihil.

—————-

While not perfect of a solution, these spells are what I believe will help in a semi-perpetuation of the role of Tanking by utilizing the way Aggro is divested through hits and by properly using hit+effect spells to draw aggro, chip off HP and buff any requisite hitters then the Tank can be able to mitigate damage to other party members’ by themselves taking the incoming damage in full.

Or Why Fires [And Storms, Y’all Have Sirens & Bunyips With Reign Over Advanced Combat If I Ever Hear Y’all Weep About Damage, I’m Gonna Send Y’all To The Forever Cube] Need To Stop Having Complexes About Myth

———

Point 1: Myth is now the Pierce School instead of Fire

First of all, Myth is the sole pierce school now because I believe they realized that Fire’s DoTs function as both Damage and Pierce [ala Shadow Fiend being 25/25 on DMG & Pierce] and aren’t really wholly Pierce & this remains true as Fire owns the only Effect in the game that is *actually* Damage in it’s own right with a side-effect of annihilating shields for multiple rounds.

Myth’s 2x hits, like Minotaur, are a minimal hit to break shields and then Hit & this is a much more pure version of piercing a shield and hitting as this isn’t attached as an effect but more so a division of damage; Fire gambits to get more damage upfront while Myth can have these 2x hits but these 2x hits have their utility limited to piercing and not piercing with damage attached to bonuses and separate round bonus gauging

This, I believe, is why Myth is now The Pierce School and Fire is now the Pierce/Damage school, as is shown in their respective Shadow forms.

And truth be told, it fares much better for Fire than it does for Myth and functions as a nerf to Myth/buff to Fire due to a simple detrimental overflow named Overpiercing, when an enemy hits a point where their RES is pierced substantially near or fully then any extra PIERCE% is an active detriment as the only value that matters from that point on is DAMAGE% and Fire being askewed evenly means it will suffer much less overpiercing demerits than Myth & with proper reaping of the crop that is rending enemy defense through more DMG%.

——-

Point 2:

**Fire is a Trap school & Storm is A Blade School**, both for reasons I am to believe are for __Natural Balancing__ and proper synergy for Storm’s case

DoTs and 2x hits have benefits to them innately, in specific, shredding shields [removal of shields is a dmg buff itself] and dealing damage but for Damage Over Times, they have round bonuses which massively contributes to their overall damage dealt and in the modern system of Roshambo has contributed to massively buffing overtimes as a whole but especially DoTs.

Tenebrous Trebuchet B for example, is a shad HoT gambit [Damage per Value valuation of 22 pips btw] which totals up to 2740 DMG at 3B & this is the highest damage spell in the game split across 4 DoTs with a gap of 735 dmg vs Rusalka’s Flood 3A but unlike Rusalka’s Flood A, *it is allowed in advanced combat as it is not overvalued* and this is due to the fact that DoTs as an *Effect* massively benefits for a spell’s overall damage compared to any other utility divested in DpV valuations because it is damage itself, as said before.

Fire is a Trap school because of their DPP, their offense-askewed stats and how round bonuses work in tandem with Roshambo, unlike Life, the gap between Life and Fire is a 17dpp difference, not including gear damage% and pierce% stats that have Fire skyrocket over Life.

Every multiplicative % on a utility quickly racks up in damage, Traps have the highest amount of DMG% as a damage amplifying debuff compared to blades, the damage amplifying buff & most notable ones being Keeper of the Flame B, Hell Hound B, Feint, etc

As an example of every % mattering, I’ll use the school which suffers the most [Balance] from this compared to what people think is the weakest school, not using gear stats for this point for a reason:

Sandstorm’s average is 272 & it has a 25% Blade for usage

Blizzard’s average is 270 but it has a 35% blade

272x1.25= 340 DMG

270x1.35= 364 DMG

A 10% difference in values has Blizzard have a 24 DMG advantage over Sandstorm, practically speaking, you’ll only really feel this difference in arc one but I wish to show it as an example of the significance of % buff variances.

*If* Fire was a Blade School like Life, it’s blade-borrowing and DoT borrowing cousin, then any % bonus to an initial and DoT hit would be absurdly strong and it is for this reason that Catch of the Day B was a really core spell for when Smores was the Meta in PvP as that’s a 65% boost to a 2740 dmg spell:

2640x1.65=4356 divided by 6 is 726 across 4 DoTs per turn, add 165 for the initial non-DoT hit for the total damage

Now, if we did a Feint instead of a blade:

100x1.70 = 170 [initial hit] will absorb the Feint and only turn up with 170 dmg but this still leaves the other portion, this being the whopping 2640 worth of DoT dmg or 2640/6 = 440 DMG/round [total of all 4 DoTs doing 110 DMG/turn] is still a very absurd amount of damage esp when gear stats are factored in.

Life has demerits of all of its DoTs being bombs, and much more defensively askewed stats and 83dpp so unlike Fire, who has 100dpp and more immediately dealt damage *then* I believe why it’s understandable that they naturally balanced Fire around not getting Blades and Life not getting Traps because this would cause their respective damages to be absurdly strong, very easily.

The same of this all applies to Storm, who has an innate ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DAMAGE PER PIP, not including having access to HoT gambits [which are one of two of the strongest gambits in DpV valuations, other being DoT gambits] to further amplify their already absurd base damage to extreme levels.

I also believe Storm has Blades due to their high concentration of AoE spells [Hopelessly Carried By Enchants Aka Tempest, Glowbugs Squall, Musicology, Sirens, etc], as Storm is the school most capable of tanking AoE falloff demerits due to their absurdly high 125DPP and a transformation of Storm to a Trap school would end up causing Storm to be barely as fluid as it is with it’s high amount of AoE spells.

I think DoT traps need to be *buffed* to be +flat damage but this is something I’m currently brainstorming to have them be competitive at higher levels, +flat dmg traps would help every instance of damage akin to Supplemental Damage in Granblue Fantasy, which strongly benefits % Echo and % Flurry effects as they are +flat DMG effect gauged by a % and/or flatly applied such as through weaponry and buffs/debuffs/summon sub auras [it’s complicated-ish] instead of % damage for lesser damage and this is what allows setups for weapons like Rhomphaia [flirting] or Hraesvelgr [harassment] do all sorts of ridic bullshit that they do.

If you wish to read more: https://gbf.wiki/Supplemental_Damage

———

Point 3: Feints & Fire Dragon With AoEs

This one is true, Fire does notably suck at Feintslop because it’s initial damage can get pretty low on the AoE, but Fire is not calamitously bad at being a hitter because it doesn‘t synergise with feints well and in order to compare the schools we have to look at gear stats:

I’ll be using LV100 Gorgon Gear [Darkmoor stinky to farm, LV100 as it covers Arc 3-4 & DMG% Jewels varies per player usage at max] with Queen’s Guard Artavus, no pet or mount as those are more personal choices:

Fire gets: 95% DMG and 21% PRC, not inc PRC% gained from circles which gets it to: 33% PRC

Ice gets: 89% DMG and 12% PRC, not including PRC% gained from circles which gets it to: 24% PRC

PRC% becomes very important later on in Novus and while Ice can get through the mobs w/o PRC% utilities like Spears, it will likely run into a wall with bosses such as Basil the Brigand who has a 45% natural resistance to Ice and Fire, with a 21% PRC diff btwn Basil and Ice here idt I need to run calcs as to why Ice shouldn’t hit instead of the school who has a 12% PRC diff btwn Basil’s res and their PRC%

Now, for Arc 3 and early Arc 4 however, it can be debatable that Ice would be a better hitter than Fire because of the 690/890 diff esp when calc’d with Feint but only if you go by their initials and fail to account for the round 1 DoT tick into Fire’s average/detonating on the same turn.

To get absurdly mathematical, I will be using what I call the BT:F ratio which is a Blade-Trap: Feint marker, 0B0T:0F will be used to gauge how much standard buffs or feints will be present:

0B1T:0F, Fire outdamages Ice at the 3rd tick of the DoT by 151 DMG [2468-2317=151]

1B0T:0F, Fire outdamages Ice on the 1st tick by 94 DMG, not including subsequent 1026 unused DoT DMG remaining [2329-2234=95]

0B0T:1F, Fire outdamages Ice at the 3rd tick of the DoT by 58 damage [2872-2814=58]

Fire consistently outdamages Ice, consistently, even if some require a Fire Cat B or a similar Detonate if needed but I wanna compare 1B and 1F:

2329 is what I got by doing 690x1.95x1.35 and taking the result of the initial damage [1816] and adding it up by the first tick of the DoT, as this will he the speediest instance of DMG

The DoT was calculated by:

585x1.95x1.35=1540 then divide 1540 by 3 and you get 513, so add 1816 to 513 and you get 2329

Adding the remaining, unused 1026 damage onto 2329 nets us with 3,355 damage which skyrockets over 1F Giant by 541 damage, through a *standard blade*.

Fire Dragon is basically 2 AoEs in one & that makes it easily very broken but misunderstood, it’s different and because it’s not killing in the most cinematically fast way alongside the numerous skill issues of Fires failing to bring Detonates of any sort AND/OR not putting the time into understanding the mechanics of DoTs [even if the wiz playerbase is older and has developed cognitive functions] out of laziness, stubbornness and/or hubris in strategy.

Another point about Fire Dragon and normal Detonates, not Fire Cat B aka Hit+Detonates, but Detonate and Krampus B, is that Trapstacking still can occur on the same turn you detonate as is understood with the whole strat of Scaldcindate that you have a whole section on.

You can overkill-overkill this way, especially with Krampus B

—-–

Point 3: Utility, Myth and Hitting

First of all, Fire has the ability to rend shields with Oni’s Forge [as the most practical one] if you’re playing Blade AoE which may not be as early as Shatter or Betrayal for Myth but this is still an essential shield-removing tool that Fire uses.

Fire is *the* designated Shield remover in Roshambo and has absurdly strong shield removal spells such as Helephant B/C & Fire King Artorius B, alongside Fracture TC [unfort not a trained spell like Purge], are they STs? Yes, are they weak? No.

In my experience, I somewhat have to lend hitting to a Storm or a Fire because in team-up strats for farming people will often assume a Storm will be hitting and defacto pack Elemental Blades, not Spirit Blades, and if there’s any element that’d leave to a lack of change in strats and a deference to the Elemental triad then it’d be exhaustion and lazyness as people will not wanna change out their decks for specific blades just to Optimize Just A Wee Bit More by having the Myth hit, even if it‘s OPTIMAL TO DO SO LIKE ON FREDDIE KROAKER. THE STORM HITS REGARDLESS. AND THERES NOTHING I CAN DO BUT PLAY SHIELD PREVENTION AND CLEAN-UP.

There’s no such thing as a learnable cross school Myth-Balance-Storm blade, so Myths aren’t gonna hit as often as we should but even then THIS DOES NOT MAKE FIRE NOR FIRE DRAGON *WEAK* NOR UN-META IMO.

———

I think that should be all? To my memory at least, I feel like Fire’s greatest detractors are Fire players/mains themselves sometimes.

I would LOVE to use Heat more but with Prismatic Gem actively sabotaging my HI, I have to go through a lot of hoops to make it work very well & the removal of HI/rework of HI would make me so absurdly happy.

I feel like this would be a fix that would reenable Death’s low HP% gameplay, that has its risks, and also sidestep the issue of Deaths overhealing later on as they gain more DMG% and Res%.

When HP% is drained, it creates an Absorb of how much HP is drained & wether or not it should be capped is a whole diff question [absolutely so in PvP]

Absorbs are already effects that are basically HP made into a shield & if Drains become this then they’ll be able to leverage these effects as shield gambits as well and get more out of that -10dpp for a Drain.

I made a visual mock-up where the drain shields’s outer rims are composed of bones and the middle is a souley mass with a school casting symbol inside, it’d give the same fantasy as using Book of Bones in TboI but w/o summoning a skelly minion but I think it’d give some fantasy ID back to Death while also making it easier to stay low HP for low HP Death spells while not dying / add risk reward with shield gambits & sidestep overhealing by pouring it all into a shield instead of capped HP.

I decided Navigation over Earth was the best place to take the photo, my Magnetic Pull Ephemera doesn’t show unfortunately

Due to Prismatic Gem’s base +100% Status Duration, the Heat procs will not be shredding Armour fast as it moves the time it takes for the shred to happen from 1/2 a second to 1s & Archon Vitality is unable to influence this ftr, aside from having more Heat procs for when it shreds [despite this, Archon Vitality is far from loadbearing as once ACont shreds the Armour then the Heat shreds only 10%, for a total of 90%]

Archon Continuity giving Corrosive completely bypasses this for what’s detailed in the mod itself, without it, Citrine would be in a much rougher spot for armour stripping.

The other load-bearing qualities it has is that it increases Duration% and Citrine is primarily a Duration% based frame as aside from Fractured Blast, the majority of her abilities are on a timer and Crystallize has a loathesomely abysmal base duration of 8s in specific.

Ice has BLU because its the anchor of polymorphs, I debated it having MNK too but I think it fits Life more

DRG can go either Fire or Myth but I lean Myth personally due to HW being both firey and icey, aka where Myth is, GNB can be either Storm or Fire

BST, not shown, can be debated for Myth or Life

In a recent QnA in Update Feedback, I asked Mickey a query on Crowd Control Effects [Stun, Pacify, Taunt, etc, 2nd image] & this is the response [1st image]

& yes, Stuns were originally part of Fire, not Myth’s ID, you can see here: https://www.wizard101.com/w101playersguide/magic-schools

Image is my glam for the whole arc (yes ik its not a screenshot I’m lazy) and I have to say that its already pretty crazy, Bismarck is really pretty and so is the Sea of Clouds in general.

All of the areas are super large, pretty and very immersive with Boreas in particular as galloping around the cold and icy areas with an ice horse really fits especially if mount music is off

I got Ruin III and I’m super happy that its a unique animation to SMN after sharing Ruin II with SCH and its very cool