Wizard101 Schools

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Category: Wizard101 Articles
Published on Thursday, 10 March 2011 15:11
Written by Kyle Wilson
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This is my personal take on the various wizard schools.  I've run some of these extensively, fought beside or against others, so there's a decent amount of depth to these opinions (but they are only my opinion).  Feel free to email me if you think something more needs to be said or that I've got something wrong here Smile

In terms of wizard schools:

  • Myth: Pretty good spells early on.  The frog is gross, but pretty effective as a mass damage attack spell and myth gets him pretty early.  Overall weak in terms of damage and has a hard time using traps and prisms because the more powerful spells mostly hit twice, first a small hit followed by the main attack.  This was clearly intended to let you bust off a shield and then slam the target.  In practice is means you have to have two traps or prisms on a given target in order for them to be useful.  My first wizard was myth and I took him to 60, but I don't run him much.
  • Balance: Pretty balanced school (chuckle).  Does well against monsters and in PvP.  Very good when working with others because balance traps and blades are usable by anyone.  Not the strongest in anything, but pretty respectable everywhere.  My second wizard was balance (also now at 60) and I'm pretty happy with him.  I've done a bit of PvP with him and he seems to work pretty well in the arena.
  • Storm: Does lots of damage but has very low hit points.  At lower levels spells fizzle a lot, but towards the end you can get gear that adds enough accuracy that they almost never fizzle (my balance fizzles more than my storm).  Very very good against monsters.  Get the sun school fist spells in Celestia, use them with tempest and packs of regular monsters just go poof (gargantuan adds 225 points of damage per target to the base spell damage).  Not all that great in PvP as the low hit points makes a storm very vulnerable.  Probably works ok in 3v3 or 4v4 where the big hits make up for the low hit points.  I'd suspect especially good if there is also a life in the mix to patch them up if they get hit badly.  My storm legend wizard is my farming specialist.  Drop him into a crowd of monsters and in a couple of turns they're dead and we can take their stuff and go looking for more.  Quick way to get loads of gear to sell (and gear can be transferred to other wizards on your account, so you can finance your new ice wizard with gear that your legend storm wizards pulls in).
  • Ice: Pretty good all around school too.  Top of the heap in the arena.  Lots of hit points and damage resist.  Pretty good damage spells, particularly with a blade or trap added.  Slower battles because you've can take lots of punishment, but take longer to kill your targets.  Top level spell is pretty nice.  Hits all targets with a big damage over time effect and (I think) stuns them.  I'm working up an ice, but he's just finishing MarleyBone.
  • Life: Better than I expected when I started Brand.  He seems to do pretty good damage when he gets blades and traps up.  Being able to heal up in the middle of the battle is nice too (other schools have some healing, but often it costs enough pips for little enough healing that the extra damage you take as you regain pips more than makes up for the healing you got).  Maddening as an opponent in PvP as the big tree spell (I'm still trying to figure out how Brand gets this) heals all wizards on your side and puts a damage shield on them too.  Not sure how well they play in 1v1 (certainly not in the league of ice wizards though) but in 3v3 or 4v4 with one or more ice and balance they seem to add hugely to the power of the side.
  • Death: Seems pretty good, especially as a solo wizard against monsters.  The ability to hit a monster and heal up at the same time is really handy when you're alone.  I've seen some death in PvP, but not all that many.  Not sure how well a properly played death would do in the arena.  My death is still in Krok (I was playing him with someone who dropped out of sight and I've left him parked there for a while as I work on my life and ice).  Death also gets its mass attack spell pretty late (scarecrow) and so fighting groups of monsters is slower (but you can still do pretty well as you get to heal as you kill).
  • Fire: This is the one school that I haven't got represented on my account.  If I were starting fresh I'd probably skip myth (you have six seats and seven schools, so a full set of wizards has to skip something).  Fire seems to specialize in damage over time spells.  I've heard somewhere, 'give someone a fire and you keep them warm for an hour, light someone on fire and they'll be warm for the rest of their lives'.  Fire covers this by having lots of spells that light the target on fire and keep hurting them for several rounds.  Good for lots of damage and good for stripping shields off.  Probably had some of the same traps issues as myth because of this, but the damage for DoT spells seems to be enough higher to make up some of the difference.  Sometime I'll have to give fire a try and see how it plays.  I do have access to my wife's account (tried to get her interested in wizard101, but she really isn't into fighting games) and might run a fire there to see how it plays.