From the Bleachers to the Track: Knowledge is Power

Welcome back to the last installment of “From the Bleachers to the Track!”

Before you begin reading this installment, make sure to check out the first two posts in this series:

Part 1: The Racer's Handbook

Part 2: Can't Rush Perfection

This time we take a look at derby abilities!

Any pet has the potential to be a great racer, but knowing what each ability does and how to use it, allows you to have many options when it comes to creating your perfect pet!

Removes Jump/Duck

Abilities: Baffle, Befuddle, Disconcert, Distract, Dumbfound, Flummox, Perplex, Stumble, Stumble On, Stupefy, Super-Dizzy, Think Fast!

What they do: Removes jump or duck from your opponent for a certain amount of time.

How to use it: Timing needs to be perfect to use these well. Try using these abilities when your opponent is near many hurdles or attempting to jump many in a row. Not only will doing this possibly cause your opponent to run into hurdles and slow down…but it also prevents them from gaining precious morale!

Lane Drops

Abilities: Banana Peel, Bananas!, Bombardier, Bomber, Dead End, Oil Slick, Slick-N-Slide, Stonewall

What they do: These abilities drop items into one or all the lanes. 

How to use it: No matter what the item is, running into any obstacle on the track causes your opponent to slow down or maybe even change lanes. For these abilities, try to drop items when your opponent is directly behind you. If you have a decent lead, try “hiding” the items by placing them behind walls or hurdles. Another good strategy for these abilities is to place them in front of hurdles, causing your opponent to either bypass the hurdle or suffer a slow when attempting to jump it.

Speed Boosts

Abilities: Big Boost, Big Hurry, Boost, Hurry, Mega Hurry, Mega-Boost, Super Hurry

What they do: These abilities give you a speed boost for a limited amount of time!

How to use it: These abilities are good to use any time in the race! Although, if you find yourself way ahead of the other racers, it may be a good idea to conserve your speed boosts in case an opponent has spiffy pop. (See below for details on that)

Removes Positives

Abilities: Big Downer, Downer, Killjoy

What they do: These abilities remove “positives,” or “speed boosts” from your opponents.

How to use it: The best way to pull these abilities off is to keep a lookout on the bottom of your screen. If you see your opponent use a boost or hurry….quickly use your ability to take that boost away!

Removes Morale

Abilities: Big Drain, Big Exhaust, Deplete, Drain, Exhaust, Exhausted, Mega-Deplete, Siphon, Siphonizer

What they do: These abilities remove morale from your opponent.

How to use it: These abilities are good to use almost anytime. The only thing I would be aware of is where the stars are on every course. If you see an opponent near a spot with a star on the corner map, wait a bit….they might have a star and have immunity.

Lessens Cheer Cost

Abilities: Big Rally, Clay Post, Dirt Post, Grass Post, Huge Rally, Rally

What they do: These abilities lessen your cheer cost on certain terrain (or all terrain) for a certain amount of time.

How to use it: These abilities can be used any time. Although, these abilities are best used when you are on or near the surface(s) that you will be decreasing the cheer cost on.

Morale Chance Increase

Abilities: Big Recovery, Recovery, Restorative, Restore

What they do: These abilities give you a morale chance increase when jumping or ducking hurdles.

How to use it: Morale is the key to winning races, if you have these abilities and have the opportunity to get even more…do so when there are tons of hurdles up for grasp!

Slows Speed

Abilities: Big-Check, Check, Dawdle, Delay, Freeze Frame, Halt Leader, Overtake, Slow Leader, Slow Motion, Slowpoke, Stall, Stop Leader, Super Delay, Super-Pass, Super-Stall

What they do: These abilities slow down your opponents for a limited time. 

How to use it: These abilities are good to use almost anytime. The only thing I would be aware of is where the stars are on every course. If you see an opponent near a spot with a star on the corner map, wait a bit….they might have a star and have immunity.

Steals

Abilities: Bummer, Leech, Mega-Leech, Sap, Super-Sap

What they do: These abilities steal morale from your opponent(s).

How to use it: These abilities are good to use almost anytime. One thing I would be aware of is where the stars are on every course. If you see an opponent near a spot with a star on the corner map, wait a bit….they might have a star and have immunity. The other thing to be aware of is how much morale your opponent actually has. If your opponent is already out of morale, don’t use your ability, it will be useless and take away nothing! Wait until your opponent jumps a hurdle or uses an ability like “Charge” or “Supercharge” (Which replenishes their morale) to do more damage.

Lock Lane/Lane Changes

Abilities: Catch, Catch Leader, Clear Path, Eat My Dirt, Eat My Dust, Lock, Move-It!, Musical Lane , No 

Passing, Scoot, Super-Lock

What they do: These abilities lock the lane of your opponent or force them to change lanes.

How to use it: Timing, timing, timing is what these abilities are all about! If you have any of these abilities you want to wait until the precise moment in which you can do the most damage. Try locking or switching your opponent into a lane with lots of obstacles such as walls, or the best of all….mud! Locking your opponent into a mud lane is HUGE! They can’t cheer AND it slows them down! It takes practice, but it’s a great tool if you have one of these abilities. 

Increases Morale

Abilities: Charge, Charge Up, Supercharge

What they do: These abilities replenish your morale!

How to use it: Another ability that’s good to use anytime, but I recommend using it as soon as you think you need it. An important note: Never, I repeat, NEVER use these abilities at the start of the race! I can’t tell you how many times I see these abilities wasted at the start when you already have full morale! Wait until your bar is half empty to use these abilities. That way, you’re not wasting the ability and you can get the most out of the ability. The more you use it, the more morale you can gain back. 

Removes Negatives

Abilities: Clear

What they do: These abilities remove negative effects on you, such as slows.

How to use it: If you have clear, feel free to use it whenever you have any type of slows bringing you down. If you don’t have any slows initially, wait until you do! Don’t waste it!

Decreases Attributes

Abilities: Enfeeble, Enfeeblement, Mega-Upset, Sideswipe, Weaken, Weakenizer, Wipeout

What they do: These abilities decrease your opponent(s) stats on terrain, often resulting in an increase of cheer cost.

How to use it: Try to use these abilities when you know that your opponent is on or near the surfaces you will be affecting. Also try to make sure your opponent is not near any stars. BE WARNED: Both Enfeeble and Enfeeblement are glitched! Even when time expires, your opponent’s cheer bar will remain locked in at cheer cost 10 (as if you were still using your ability.) This is a graphic glitch, it doesn't actually take away 10 cheer, even though it says it is. Newbies are often shocked and terrified when they first encounter this.

Immunity

Abilities: Immunity, Unbreakable

What they do: These abilities grant you immunity for a certain amount of time. This means that your opponent’s abilities can’t affect you, and walls, obstacles and missing hurdles won’t slow you down. 

How to use it: Anytime is good to use immunity! It might be best to keep track of your opponent’s cool down time to use it just before they zap you though! :)

Removes Cheer

Abilities: Mute, Pipe-Down!, Shh!, Shush!, Silence, Ultra-Mute

What they do: These abilities restrict your opponent(s) from cheering. 

How to use it: Use these abilities wisely as they can be very effective! Almost any time is good to use these abilities. The only thing I would worry about is using them when your opponent has immunity either by using an ability or by catching a star. (Don’t waste it!)

Teleport

Abilities: Spiffy-Pop

What they do: Allows you to teleport to a racer further ahead. 

How to use it: Ah, Spiffy-Pop, the game maker and game breaker. 

Using Spiffy-Pop: The number one mistake is letting people know you have Spiffy-Pop! Don’t alert people that you have it by using it near the beginning of the race, hold off as long as you can. You ideally want to stay in second as long as you can without using the ability at all. If you must use it to get into second, then use it, but try your best not to. Whether you have used it to get into second, or have held on to second the entire race, start saving your morale and any hurries near the final stretch of the race. It’s at this point when you want to unleash anything you can on the leader. Mutes, saps, anything that can make them suffer…do it! Then, at the same time you’re teleporting, use any and all your hurries and cheer like mad! This method isn't fool proof, but will give you the best shot at winning with Spiffy-Pop. Basically the key to using it is saving all your morale and helpful abilities and unleashing them all on the final stretch! 

Defending against Spiffy-Pop: People who know how to use Spiffy-Pop correctly will lag behind you on purpose to save morale and abilities. If you notice a significant lead or have seen your opponent use Spiffy-Pop earlier in the race, start saving YOUR morale and abilities too! On the final stretch, if you have immunity-use it! When your Spiffy-Pop opponent teleports, use all of your hurries and morale to try to outsprint them to the finish line! The biggest mistake to make against a Spiffy-Pop pet is using up all your morale and hurries before the end of the race. If you do that, you won’t have anything left to use when your opponent teleports! It seems that is the end of this derby series! I hope you all enjoyed it and I wish you all the best of luck in your future derby endeavors! 

~Vanessa Mythdust

I would like to personally thank Vanessa for her awesome work with this series!  I wish you all the best with derby and hope you've learned a lot from this series!  If you are 13 years or older, make sure to tweet @VanessaMythdust thanking her for the series (you can comment below or send Vanessa a visitor or private message over on Wizard101 Central as well)!  If you didn't know, Vanessa is a Derby Tournament Master over at Wizard101 Central.  Whenever you are ready for some Central Derby Tournaments, make sure to go try it out!

~Sophia

Something Nefarious This Way Comes...

With the addition of the new Spring update to the game, there’s a mysterious new tower located in MooShu. After receiving a variety of hints, we are able to speculate on what this tower could bring to the game.

Something Nefarious This Way Comes

The word “nefarious” has been used over and over to describe this new tower. While it may just be a creative way of saying “evil”, it certainly could mean much more. Perhaps, it could be alluding to a new villain’s name or plot who is planning something inside of the tower, or maybe just the quest name. However, it seems very likely that this will be side content rather than main – the whole idea of a MooShu tower just doesn’t make sense with our return to Valencia. This isn’t to say that Book XV isn’t coming soon, though – perhaps both the tower and a new world could be released at the same time!

Describing it as nefarious over and over has striking similarities with the barmy update. While it didn’t completely shape the questline, it pointed out a certain line that gave insight as to some of what it would be about. That could very well be what will happen here, with various MooShu NPCs simply describing the plot as nefarious. There are unlimited possibilities at what we’ll find, so only time will tell.

A High Level Gauntlet?

Wizard has the Waterworks. The Tower of the Helephant. Briskbreeze. The Warehouse. Tartarus. So many optional high level gauntlets – as for Pirate, however, there really isn’t anything like that at this point. It would add a lot more to the game, for sure, as optional high level content doesn’t necessarily have to be fit for the “average” gamer. It can be extremely hard for those looking for a challenge and great rewards to go with it.

What would these great rewards be? High level gear, most likely. The issue with this, however, is that it would slowly eliminate the diversity between players’ equipment.  Where Pirate differs from Wizard is that there is no “best” gear – this results in plenty of unique and diverse strategies. Having one best item may not be such a change from what we have now, however; the Dragoon Autocannon (or perhaps the Armada Pistols) was the choice of most Musketeers prior to it being nerfed, and most of the new class weapons from the Crown Shop are better than any regular gear out there.

Having one set of gear that is strictly the best, though, may very well be a great addition to the game – it brings a great amount of potential for even new types of strategies to emerge. Players who are more content with their current playstyles can continue to fight as they normally would, while others may be more willing to adapt to new changes in the meta game.

Additionally, we need something new to farm for! Sure, there’s plenty of unique looking boss gear, but many players would simply want something to stitch to and would have no real use of any of the remaining gear, especially with no way to truly show the rest of it off. Gear with great stats, on the other hand, can be used and even stitched with that unique looking gear. Overall, there would be a much greater incentive to farm for new items, giving players something to do while waiting for a level cap increase and a new world.

Why MooShu?

This is a good question that many might not have even considered: Why was MooShu chosen to be the location of this new gauntlet? Surely there was some reason; game designers don’t just put large instances in random places!

The answer might actually be right in front of us. If we look all the way up to the top of the tower, we can see something that resembles a vortex near the top. While we’ve seen Aquila heavily focused on Greek beliefs (as with the gods), this hasn’t necessarily been true with MooShu (or most other worlds, though Monquista, for example, has many mentions of the Church).

What separates MooShu from these other worlds, however, is its potential is much greater. The Celestial Heavens of MooShu haven’t really been touched upon at all, and stealing power from it would make for a great questline and a nefarious villain.

This also raises even more essential questions: What is the vortex truly for? Where did it come from? How will the villain inside of the tower harness its energy and what will he/she use it for? And, most importantly, can they be stopped?

It would be pretty boring to just walk inside, defeat a few enemies, reach the final boss and then defeat them. What would be extremely cool would be to actually find a way of cutting off the source of power from the vortex, close it, and then defeat the final boss (who is now enraged that their plot has been thwarted though believes that they can find another way to succeed – so long as we are eliminated). Good thing we have a history with insane bosses in the Spiral!

Why?

Why would the villain inside this tower carry out this scheme? Surely there’s some reason – every enemy has one! Whether it’s Ratbeard’s to steal Gunn’s gold for himself, the Wild Bunch’s to take over Tumbleweed Skyway, or Bishop’s to eliminate the Marleybonean Royal Navy, there’s always something.

It could be very similar to General Tso’s drive – with the Emperor out of the picture, it would be a great time to wreak havoc in MooShu so that it can be taken over. However, it could be something even greater. Does the nefarious villain inside of the tower have a history with the Emperor, or perhaps another character we’ve met or heard about in MooShu? Do they just want power? Or maybe having immense power would lead them to pose a threat to the entire Spiral, much like the Armada.

Conclusion

Regardless of what it is, we’ll have to come in and stop them. In whatever manner that may be, it’s sure to be epic. With the tower being mentioned in the Newsletter this month and it being the focus of a recent Pirate101 Vine, it can’t be too far away. Open the doors and let’s find out what’s behind this nefarious scheme!

Pets, Pets, and more Pets!

 A couple weeks ago, the newest update to Pirate101 brought us Advanced Pets, along with that, I took you through the art of Training and Sparring pet. This post, however, is about the newest pets, First Generation and Hybrid Pets that have made their way into the game.

We’ve had a few hints from Decius, the newest developer to make it on to the Message Boards and the guy who knows anything and everything about pets about how many pets there are, but nothing, absolutely nothing (ok, maybe a little hint) about what pets make what hybrids.

Speaking of new pets! There are three new pets to the Crown Shop;

the Clown Fish: 4500 Crowns;

the Thresher Shark: 4000 Crowns;

(and) the Hammerhead Shark: 4500 Crowns. 

Who knows what hybrids and talents can come from these pets? 

Pets that were you pets before the update were given a special additional talent that is exclusive to them, this talent is called "Loyal" and all previous pets have Rank 3 of this talent which means that they have a 30% more chance of showing up in combat (at any round, not just the start!).

It's important to note that these pets are unique, or "Legacy Pets"; they cannot be reproduced through morphing or any other means. Pets that you also obtained before the update are automatically leveled to 65, along with the 3 Powers and the 3 Talents, a special added bonus!

There are three pets (so far) that you cannot get back through morphing, Loyal Pets (obtained before the Update ), the Ostrich and the Skarakeet. 

Much like the Sheep pet in Wizard 101, the Ostrich (from the Bestia Pre-Req Quest) and the Skarakeet (Retired Boochbeard Bundle)  cannot be hatched back, however, when you hatch them with any other type of pet, you get the "Blue Ostrich" (Ostrich + Any Pet) and the Skull Island Macaw (Skarakeet + Any Pet). 

                                              

On the left, the Original (Red Ostrich) and on the Right, the hatched (Blue) Ostrich

On the Left the Original Skarakeet from the Boochbeard Bundle and the left, the Skull Island Macaw.

Now, along with many new First Generation Pets, some of which are still to be discovered (Bunnicorn and Mechanical Owl, to name a few), there are new, exciting looking hybrid pets! 

So far, there has been only one hybrid pet that has been discovered (that comes from two specific parents, and not one parent and any pet) and that pet is the Grimtooth Shark, a combination of the Ebon Spectre and the Not so Great White Shark. It's pretty awesome looking don't you think?!

There was a "Golden Sky Rattler" Hybrid, Deathstalker Scorpion + Golden Skyrattler that produced a Golden Dragon of some sorts;

But, unfortunatley, we were informed by Decius that this was in fact a bug, but it has given them ideas for a Golden Dragon Pet! Please note that if you have this "hybrid" it will return to a Golden SkyRattler when they address this glitch.

Check out the Pirate101 Central  Wiki and Petnome  for a whole host of information on pets! 

Thank you to Chrissy the Blesser for Ostrich, Golden Dragon* and the Skull Island Macaw, also thanks to Kelsey Fireheart for discovering the two hybrids along with Chrissy. 

Thanks to Alura Silver for the Not so Great White Shark.

What other pets have you discovered, First Generation or Hybrids? Let us know in the Comments!

*Soon to be fixed pet

Spring Pirate101 Update!

With the new Pirate101 spring update now upon us, we wanted to provide a breakdown of the new features:

Advanced Pets

The long awaited update to pets has finally arrived! Your pets can now train talents and powers themselves to improve their usefulness in combat. By accepting a new quest from the Town Crier, Mickey Dugan, you'll gain access to Bestia - here you can morph new pets, buy pets, snacks, or gear for them, or participate in pet sparring matches, both practice and against other players' pets!

Pet training is far less boring and tedious than you may be used to in Wizard101, so be sure to give it a try! You might be surprised at how easy it is to master and how effective your pets, both new and old, will be in combat.

Advanced/New Companions

Ever wanted your underused companions to be more useful? Now they are! Not only can you set them so that they'll be randomly drawn from your entire list if you choose, but they can now go on special job orders that could reward you with anything from gold to pets! They can even farm for nautical experience or gear for you - make sure you recruit all of your companions so that you can maximize your crew's potential!

You'll also find companions like Shiruku Neko to have been improved, and you'll be provided with a free reset for all of your companions as well as your Pirate's own practice points. When you first log in, too, you'll receive free companion training tomes equal to your number of companions!

New Free to Play Zones

There's a new area for all free to play players out there - Xol Akmul! Not only does it expand upon Pirate101 lore, but it also draws intriguing connections to Wizard101's Azteca. Speak to Lasko in Traitor's Cave (who will send you to Manny... who will then send you to a certain "barmy" character) in order to obtain these new quests.

Paying members will also be able to access two additional chapters that have been added to the Skull Island questline. If you're already past that point, you'll be able to access these areas for free!

Much, Much More!

Doubloons. Mark and Recall. New class badges. Skyway chat. Combat graphical effects. A new accessory slot. New interfaces. Expanded dungeons. New (awesome!) Crown Shop weapons for each level and class. There's so much to list that it wouldn't be possible for us to say it all - check out the entire update notes to read more!

https://www.pirate101.com/free_game/update_notes/

Update to the Companion Database!

Hey there guys! We're very excited to announce the following update to the Companion Database:

New Companion Information!

A much wanted update has arrived to the Companion Database: new format to companion pages!

The Epic Talent, Powers and Abilities box on each page has been updated to a new improved version, with thanks to Legends from Legends of the Spiral.

Go take a look for yourself today!

Adding this new format allows us to give you a better idea of what companions can actually train. We will continue to modify this feature, particularly by indicating which companions can train rank 3 Epics, in the future.

A new format to the Basic Information located at the top of a Companion Page will be updated in due course.

As a result of this update, the Promotion Quest Buttons have been removed from the posts for the time being.

The new Abilities that contribute effects to Companion Orders have been added in preparation for the Test Realm going Live.

When you hover over a power, you will get all variants of this power (Rank 1, 2 and 3 or the upgrade of it) this is so the box was not cluttered. Generally, (except from Nausica) the Powers are replaced by their upgraded version.

The Epic, Power and Ability Pages will be updated as well, but this is an update we can bring without taking down the Database.

The Front Page will also be updated in the coming week.

Happy Sailing!