Wizard101 Balance School Tips and Tricks

Wizard101 Balance School Tips and Tricks by winicott1001

There was a great deal of information floating around the forum that was helpful to the Balance wizard. MLHagan, SMlayne and I determinedthat it may be helpful to have all of this info brought together to one place. You are looking at the result. This thread was edited by me, but I am not the main contributor of information. Many members of the Central community contributed to the creation of this thread. Their contributions are in the posts on the following pages. This was a group effort. They all deserve the credit for submitting their excellent strategies.

The idea was not to tell you how to run your Balance Wiz, but instead to give you an idea of what they were capable of. When supplied with the information, you could decide how best to play your character. What lies below is by no means the only way to be a successful Balance wizard. If you come up with something that we as a group missed let us know by posting here.

This collection is meant to compliment Tarlac Sandweavers Balance Guide. Tarlac’s guide is great. Many, like me, can cite this as the reason they became a Balance Wiz in the first place. Some of the info, like how Powerplay works, is out of date, so be advised.

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Balance is not the best at creating big hits or massive healing, not the best at tanking out or being the decoy. Our place is not set with in the standards of “normal” strategies. However everything that others do we can make better.

Balance is the red headed step child of Ravenwood. We have no markers around Ravenwood, our first teacher is a vagabond that wondered through the Spiral Door one day, sat his steamer trunk down and started pestering little kids as they ran around school. Others see us as being “unfair” as the only real defense from balance is balance or tower shield Even KI has the habit of overlooking balance on a regular basis with the level 48 spell issue and the lack of a master of balance badge for months while other classes had theirs.

We are often called “Jacks of all trades”, students of everything yet masters of none. Most see that as a bad thing while we here like to think of ourselves as the Swiss army knife of the spiral, not a meat clever, a screw driver or a scalpel. We can fake it all pretty well. 

Its said that balance is slow to learn, hard to master with great power being promised at the end of the tunnel. In reality, every spell after lv 28 goes unused for the most part. It seems quite a letdown to most until you think about the fact that Judgement, Spectral Blast, Hex, Balance Blade, Helping Hands and Reshuffle are all learned before that point.

No we may not be the best hitters, healers, stealers and the like. We may not be the most popular or well understood. Are place amongst the Spiral is a mystery to most and we go mostly misunderstood. With our heckling we are the class clown and our versatility make us valuable allies. 

We may not be the prom kings or queens but we are always welcome to the party. And while we thrive in a group we can more than handle our own in one on one. We are unique, embrace that and enjoy it, don’t worry that it is not for everyone. If it was then it would not be unique.

The most important piece of any class is the player.

This is a collection of strategy, tips, and tricks that will help you to get the most out of your time as a Balance Wizard. This resource is not intended to show you the only way or the best way. It is a collection of what others in the community have been doing that they find to be helpful.

Using Balance Spells:
Judgment
Judgment rules all, (save against balance bosses). Once you get to know our fine lady of Judgment you will follow her through fire and brimstone and she will always bring you back safe and true. Without Judgement the Balance class as a whole would be unviable for long term play. Every class has there crown jewel of a spell and this is ours, good in any situation regardless of how many pips you have, ready at a moments notice. What more could you want (other than a Balance prism)?
Don’t undervalue the flexibility Judgement gives. While Judgement is a one-target spell, the versatility is likewise very valuable. Need a finisher, use a 2-pip attack. Have a larger target, blade and wait to accumulate 4-5 pips. For larger bosses, you can take a few rounds to prep a big attack. Add keen to make Judgement treasure cards and you have a 95% accuracy attack. Many player have indicated they will use the spreadsheets to calculate the damage for Judgement so they know exactally how many pips it requires to dispatch the enemy.

Spectral Blast (SB)
This is a great spell at 4 pips. Depending on your style, this may be your main damage card. It is a great spell to use on higher level Balance bosses since they can have really high Balance resistance.

Sandstorm
We are the first school to get a spell that damages all enemies. Due to its low damage it may need tweaking to remain relavent to your playing style.

If you make treasure cards (tc) of it via tough enchanments, it packs a bit more punch and is also ready at a moments notice. While not as strong as power nova over all it is more effecent to cast 2 sandstorms (especialy tough sandstorms) rather than the time that it takes to build up a power nova.

Don’t worry about buffing the heck out of them, you would be better off cranking out several small sandstorms than trying to hex everyone, balanceblade, bladestorm and then blast them. In the same amount of time you could have cast 3 sandstorms and they would be dead. Save the bulk of your buffs for Judgement and SB.

Gargantuan Sandstorm does more damage than Power Nova.

Hydra
This spell is three individual elemental attacks all in one cast. Others in the forum have determined that it is good for breaking shields. At the same time, it is not very popular due to its high pip cost and low damage. It is less than 100 dam/pip. I really like to us ethe amulet Hydra or the card you get from the Pet Hydra. The damage is 220/head. IMO this makes this spell an effective multihit spell.

When using universal traps (hex, feint), know that the trap only works on the first attack of the three. Blades like BB and SB boost the whole spell.

Helpful mander is helpful when using this spell. Mander casts elemental blades and traps, saving you rounds & pips.

If you use elemental blades and traps in combination with SB then Hydra is good for cleaning up the extra blades and traps.

When playing with an elemental Wiz using their damage bubble, you get a boost for the matching head of Hydra.

Using Judgement as the benchmark at 100 damge/pip, Hydra underperforms. However, the damage curve is probably a little less variable. Hydra tends to be less vulnerable to defenses. The only thing that really affects the entire Hydra attack is Weakness. In reality, if your facing an elemental enemy, you can probably count on being blocked with one head, but overperforming on another.

Once your gear aproaches max boost (lvl 50+) Hydra can regularly do 330+ per head with only a BB. That is a solid 1k damage for only 6 pips. This will kill a great number of the mobs int he game. The added bonus is that in many ways you can disregard any TS that a Mob plays.

Power Nova
If it was not for the fact that Judgement and SB are such great spells earned so early, the Balance community may have begun a revolt due to this 48th lvl spell. Its pip to damage ratio is low, so many do not think it is worth carrying. When used under certain circumstances it appears that it can be a valuable part of your arsenal. I personaly dislike this spell and use boosted sandstorms instead.

This spell can be used as as an opener, to forestall a bit of damage early on, to give you more time to set up for your heals and allow you to set up some defenses without being pummeled before they go into effect.

It important to remember that Nova is a Charm and not an attack spell. Check in the corner of the card and you will find a green clover. This means it is a charm. What this means is Nova can not be enchanted by Tough/Giant/Monstrous. What you see is what you get damage wise. Congratulations on having the worlds toughest charm.

Still there are reasons to forget this spell even exists considering our 58 spell.

Originally Posted by nesogra
With the sun school making damage enchantments practical for most players and now that we gain Ra at level 58 for pve Power Nova is now obsolete as a damage spell. A gargantuan sandstorm deals more damage than power nova for pretty much half the cost. Also with monstrous only costing 250 gold a pop at the archivist you can pack your side board with them for 450 (average) damage sandstorms on demand. If you do want a bigger hit or an easier to blade aoe Ra is far more efficient than nova. If my pips and deck are nice to me I personally can use a dragon blade, balance blade, then cast a gargantuan Ra for 2079 to 2291 damage in 3 rounds (usually more like 4 or 5 though). I just don’t see any way for power nova to compete with either spell.

Power Nova: The Kraysys Example
While farming Kraysys, start off with a wand blast or balance blade. Based on likely equipment, round two has you with six pips. Cast a hex on Kraysys. Round four you have seven or eight pips. Unleash the Nova. With balance blade damage hits at 764 on the minion, and with the hex it hits for 993 on Kraysys himself.

In three rounds you have knocked off a fifth of his hit points, half his minions, and saved yourself a bunch of damage from the kraken he’s going to throw at you next round. After that continue on with your normal guiding light/helping hands combo, and begin buffing him for a big judgement.

Since you dealt so much to his minion, you can usually take it out by round 5 with an unbuffed judgement. From there simply wait a bit and knock Kraysys himself out.

RA
AoE spell that costs 8 pips. This 58 lvl spell can be enchanted by tough/gargantuan. This fact alone makes it a better spell than Nova. If you are running 85% or more power pips this spell can cost the same as Nova for buckets more damage. If you draw 4 power pips and cast Nova it will use all your pips. If you have 4 power pips and cast Ra it uses all your pips. Weakness is nice, but the best defense is to ensure the mob across from you is not casting.

Valatar has a nice write-up here that describes how to effectively use Ra IMHO. Long story short: When using RA use a small deck. Ra, Gargantuan, BB, and Amplify. This allows you to get Ra off by round 3 with a goodly amount of boosts. This should allow you to get a shot off by round 3 that kills almost any mob in the game. Enjoy. Scroll down to get Nesogra’s input on The Talented Piggle. This pet gives you a Dragon Balde card as well. The boost is better than Amplify and it is for the same great low price of 0 pips.

Black Mantle/Weakness
Some have questioned Black Mantle’s usefullness at higher levels, since it just puts off this round’s attack until next round, only this time with more pips.
Very Specific Conditions: When encountering an enemy that is likely or known to spam or repeatedly use Weakness or Black Mantle themselves and try to time it so that when the enemy as 1 – 2 pips and is at the stage where they are very likely to use BM/W on me. That is when to cast BM on them if possible. Hopefully it will fizzle their BM or W attempt and make it so that you don’t have to waste some other utility move to remove the BM off of yourself or overstack blades to counteract the weakness. It also means that next round the monster will have 3 or so pips and will be less likely to try recasting BM/W on me as they can use other moves.

Helpful Mander
Arguably the best minion in the game. He casts Elemental Shield, Elemental Trap, Balance Blade, Weakness, Donate Power, Locust Swarm, and on the rare occasion, Sandstorm. Balance gets him early in the game compared to other schools, which is good in that when we are at lower levels our damage is weak. He attracts little attention from the bad guys in that he rarely casts offensive spells, so he lasts longer than you would expect from a 300hp minion. He is great in that he saves you rounds by casting boosts and shields that you would normally have to waste a round doing yourself. Over time, he attempts to repay you for the 3 pip investment by casting Donate Power, which in my experience, he does often. Some may argue that he is not helpful at higher levels (post Judgment) in that you can set up your deck to dish out damage fast. Casting Mander burns through three pips which is 390hp of Judgment bosted with BB and Hex.

Originally Posted by DerHund
I think that you can make a decent case for Mander in the Lvl 18-25 range, until you start getting the SB. You certainly don’t need it after Lvl 28, when you get Judgment. Mander supports well, so if its a long fight with a huge boss, you get lots of elemental shields, Balance Blades, elemental traps, and black mantles.

Mander In Celestia
I have been using him in CL a bit. I his shields and donate now come in much more handy than they did in MB, MS, & DS. This is much more important now that the CL mobs are so aggressive and crank out damage fast. You need the time to set up the attacks. Mander can take the edge off a little and reduce your need to heal by casting shields. He keeps your offense moving by casting the donate power spell. Donate glitch has been fixed! those 2 pips can make a big difference. Example: You cast Hydra with 6 pips and end turn with 0 pips. Now mander takes his turn. Mander casts Donate. Next turn you grow a ppip. You have 4 pips to cast with in one turn. You an now cast a HH to save yourself or a SB to finish the mob.

Spectral Minion
The Spectral Minion, just like Spectral Blast, is a mini-game of chance. The possible outcomes include the Storm Minion, 400 Health, the Fire Minion, 450 Health, and the Ice Minion, 500 Health. Each minion is like a D.O.T. Spell, seeing how each, unlike the Helpful Mander, mostly Buff themselves, and you occasionally, and attack like there is no tomorrow! Also, on rare occasions, they will give you their respective school’s shield. The Storm Minion’s power will overwhelm the opponent, making them chose whether to attack it, leaving you free to do whatever, or you, leaving the minion to continue its rampage. The Fire Minion’s Fire Elf Stacking can really add up over time and break those annoying Tower Shields/Fire Shields/Absorbs/Ice Armors. The Ice Minion’s Health forces the opponent to either try to take it out, which may take a while due to its health, depending on their spells, or take hits, which do add up after a while(Repeated Snow Snakes can really hurt after a while!)

Fire Minion
Health
Spells: Fire Shield, Sprite, Link, Fire Elf

Storm Minion
Health
Spells

Ice Minion
Health
Spells

Power Play
Beware of Power Play! It is global. That means that the enemies get the benefits of the spell as well. If you have a fast deck then this spell may be very helpful to you. It is expensive at 4 pips. That is 648 worth of Judgment with BB and Hex. At lower levels this spell can get you into big trouble as the mobs and bosses use the pips you give them. See the PvP section at the end of the guide for more uses of this spell. This spell can make minions deadly!

Helping Hands
This is a more than capable healing spell. Do we even have to learn Life Spells now?

Originally Posted by DerHund
Helping Hand now revives with a 50 point initial heal. It works exactly like a super sprite now.

Get The Troll Ear Pendant. It gives you two Guiding Light cards. You can farm it from The Great Troll in Colosuss or you can buy it from the Amulet Dealer in Marleybone. It is not that expensive… Guiding light + Helping Hands is 252 heal/round. Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! Cast the Guiding Light buff early in the match if you are able. That way you are not struggling to make time to cast it when you really need it.
My balance GM wearing the Mali Blade and a ring that give 13% incoming heal boost well get over 400 health a round from HH. I like to think of it as a Pixie a round for three rounds for only 3 pips.

Blade Storm
This is a good spell when working with a group. Your cohorts will appreciate the boost, but when it comes to soloing be careful when using this spell. It is not effecent to use Blade Storm if you are casting Judge at 5 pips or less due to the cost. You are better off to grow pips instead. See MLHagan’s explaination on page 2 of this post for the round by round reasoning as to why.

Donate Power
This spell has a limited application in PvE. It can especially helpful to set up another players big hit in a short time period. There needs to be communication ahead of time and the decks need to be really really small. Really small. Read BWildheart’s blog post on running Briskbreeze Tower. It outlines how you can kill a tower mob in 2 rounds. Balance has a critical role to play.

I ran through CL with a storm Wiz. I spent my time casting donate and Eblade. This allowed for Storm Wiz to cast Storm Lord or Tempest on round 2. You deafeat Mobs very quickly this way. This set up did take coordination with the storm wiz. It helps to have a smal deck. Small Small Small. I ran 3 donate, 3 Eblade, 1 reshuffle (that I never use), Wand, Mali Judge and Pet Hydra. I am not even sure what is in my sideboard. I never use it.

Reshuffle
The Deck Refresher! If you worry about running out of cards then pack a reshuffle. Casting this sepll will bring the cards you used or discarded back in your deck in the order they were used. If you cast this spell and you still have cards in your deck you have to go through those cards first before you see the cards you reshuffled. One reshufle will ensure that you have endless cards. If you do only pack one, be sure to remember that when you play reshuffle it will then be put to the bottom of your draw deck. Many people pack 2 so they can see them more frequently. I reccomend bringing only one when farming or battling mobs. For big Boss fights you may want to bring 2 if you insist on playing a large deck. If you play a small deck (what I reccomend even in boss fights) one is plenty.

Deck Building:

Rule 1) Keep a small deck.
Rule 2) Keep your deck small.
Rule 3) Small is better.
Making your deck small is the best way to make sure that the cards you want will come up when you need them. This is a difficult concept to handle if you have been happily filling your 50 card deck to the top with a whole cadre of spells. Many Wizards have reported using 12-15 card decks for farming/mob hunting. Sound Scary? Well the idea is that if you have a smaller deck you can make the buffs happen when you want them to (round one or two), give a wand blast (round one or two, but before the sheild of course)when you want to, and then drop the Judge at the minimum pip required to kill the enemy. You may ask: “What about the heals? What about my shields? What will I do?”. If you play a small fast deck then you kill the mobs in 2-3 rounds. Mobs in MB have 525 HP. If you have 50% pip rate you are getting pips rather fast. Drop hex round one, drop SB in round 2. Between your clothing boosts and Hex, even if ice comes up, you can drop one member of mob on the second round. You will require fewer sheilds and healing because not many mob members can do much to you in 2 rounds. Depending on how you engage the enemies you may drop one before the second mob member arrives.

Read this WHOLE link. This is required reading.

Here is an example of a small deck. Scroll down to eberle’s post. He has a screen shot.

Bwildheart is using his Starter Deck in DS with success. He is death in this case, but the principles are sound and will translate to balance. This is a practice that I endorse. When I am running over 12 cards (not countin wands and cards from items) I find that I struggle to draw exactly what I need. Less is more.

Strategies to maximize your enjoyment of the class.

Spreadsheets
Here is a link to a spreadsheet to help you calculate your SB damage. Others have found this helpful.

Here is a link to a superior table to help you calculate your Judgement Damage. Be sure to scroll down a few posts.

Here is another spreadsheet that you may find helpful. It has all the Balance Spells on it.
Attachment 6502

Discussion Example on Character Building
Here is a link to a good discussion on developing a character in the early stages. You may find it helpful.
Created a Balance Wizard not too long ago 
http://www.wizard101central.com/foru…ad.php?t=32071

Another discussion about character Building at lower levels.
http://www.wizard101central.com/foru…ad.php?t=41274

The Judgment Spectral Blast Debate Rages!
This is a great discussion that examines the pros and cons of Spectral Blast vs Judgement. If you want to learn about these two spells, read page two and three of this thread, they are excellent.

Posted on Thread Everywhere in Forum: “What Should I Choose for My Secondary School?”

Before you pick a secondary school remember this: You can solo the whole game with out choosing a secondary school. Once you limp your way to 26th level with using only 255-305 Locust Swarm (there should be a badge for you if you do) you get SB. Once you get SB power no longer becomes an issue.

But, many may find that answer to be unsatisfying. For those, read on.

Currently you get a total of 24 training points (Including all the zeke quests):
7 for zeke
1 for enrollment
3 from Odgen Peake (in CL Commons)
and at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60.

Death:
7 points for feint is by far the most advantageous thing you can do for your wizard. You may never need to cast another death spell.

Ice:
If you want to pvp then spend 5 points in ice up to tower shield. It is also helpful in pve as it helps against balance bosses casting Judgement on you (How could she!). Most mobs up until CL do not cast a judge that is more then 2 pips (200 damage). This low damage in conjunction with your gear resist means that you will not be that hurt by mobs casting balance spells. It is very nice to have to cast on others. 

Sun:

Originally Posted by Bwildheart
I am going up the Strong to Gargantuan trail

Originally Posted by Halecta
Makes RA better then Stormlord, makes Sandstorm better then power Nova, makes Hydra better then Stormzilla, and makes Judgment the best one pip spell

Originally Posted by Hidrac 1316566
Sun up to Gargantuan. The power increase is worth it.

But the main thing to remember is the order
First go for feint (important)
Second tower shield (useful)
Third learn some life (totally optional).
Fourth Learn some sun spells (gargantuan is nice)

Don’t waste your time with myth as minions do more harm than good for us. Storm is too flaky and SB is more efficient so no need to waste any there either.

Fire is okay for shield breaking, the fire elf for 2 pips to clear the way for a Judgement but that would rule out the use of feint and hex.

Other members of the Balance community recommend the following use of training points:
– Life up to (only) Legend Shield
– Fire up to Glacial Shield, which includes fire elf.

Treasure Cards, Your Sideboard and You!
For those interested in making treasure cards, but a little lost on how to do so, read below.

First thing’s first, get a hold of the deck that will hold the most of whatever card you want to make treasure copies of. Once this is done, cram it full with every copy of said card that you can. This example describes the process for Sandstorm with the Deck of Perfect Harmony. It holds seven copies, so put seven sandstorms in, and two reshuffles(Infinite cards, ahh yeah.)

Once that is done, head to the library in Wizard city and buy as many toughs as you can afford. At 50 gold a pop, that’s quite a few. With these in hand, head to Golem Tower. Golem Tower is an excellent treasure production facility because the first floor is all yours, and the enemy is laughably weak.

Prior to starting the fight, load up all the toughs into your sideboard, then head into combat. Bring one card that can defeat the Golem, be it a wand or what ever you have at hand. Discard one reshuffle and hang on to the second one.

With this complete, and the fight going on in earnest, then begin to draw Toughs from your sideboard. When you do this, use one to make a Sandstorm, which will now become a 330-380 damage card(Not a bad chunk of damage for 50 gold!) and repeat this process until the end of your turn. Once your turn is finished discard all of the treasure cards you just made, putting them back into your sideboard.

This process repeats until you run out of sandstorms, at which point you hit yourself with Reshuffle and start over again. Continue this until you’ve used all the toughs in your sideboard and all you are drawing is your pumped-up sandstorms. Then pop off your wand to take out the golem, quaff a potion, and empty the sandstorms from your sideboard, refill it with toughs, and start the process all over again.

Making treasure cards is a great way to improve your secondary school. For those of us who have taken Fire use Keen to bring the accuracy up on Damage Over Time (DOT) to to a much more dependable 85%. The Fizzle bite of Storm can me lessened to a degree by adding Keen to Storm Bat and the like bringing it up to a nearly bearable 80%.

Weak spells like Sandstorm can remain relevant in your game by making them into Tough versions. See sandstorm example in Spells section.

Cards like Tough only add 75 damage to total of Judgement, not to its 100/pip. So a Judgement with tough will look like 100/pip+75 points (5 pip judge will be 575 points damage). Adding Tough to a Hydra splits the 75 points evenly between the 3 heads, for a boost to around 220 per head.

Balance Will Never Require this thread: “22 million Damage with Judge!”
The damage from balance is not the highest, but is is very consistant. You do not need to overkill the boss, you only need to do enough to defeat them. Use this consistencey to your advantage. Sorcerers can plan ahead and know how many pips of Judge it will take to defeat thier opponent. If the mob is 625 HP, you know yo do not have to wait for 6 pips if you cast boost spells. Check your math first!

Edit: Uh, just found this post… LOL
http://www.wizard101central.com/foru…ad.php?t=31846

Dealing With Weakness and Tower Shield (PvE)
When dealing with enemies who know how to heckle (constantly casting weakness and tower shields) when fighting them just pretend they have twice as many hitpoints (if they are going first in battle) so they actually die when they are supposed to. This may limit your frustration and allow you to stick to your original game plan.

Here is another option:
1) When your opponent has a big pile of pips and you don’t. Cast shields first, but there are times when you don’t have any more towers left (stolen, pierced, fire elf) and the weakness will stay in place. This can be important if you are facing 2+ opponents. You can place the weakness on the opponent with the big pile of pips, even though other opponents may go before him and clear out your shields.
2) You believe they are going to use a damage-over-time (DOT) card.
3) You believe they are going to use a multiple attack / area-of-effect (AoE) card. 

You can stack three types: 30% necklace weakness, the 25% Power Nova weakness, and the 25% (normal balance) weakness. Yes, they can be cleared by a wand spell, just like a tower shield.

Dealing with Balance Resistance: The Mushu Example
Use a balance wand and hit the enemy in question with a wand blast just to get an idea of what kind of balance resistance they have. An exploratory hit if you will. If they resist 50% or less then totally go with a Judgment over the Spectral Blast. You’ll find that once the elemental shields are up its better to use Judgement pretty much through mooshu save for some of the later half bosses.

The exploratory hit is also good to give you a general idea about how much over kill you will need with Judgment. Example: normally you do 90 points with your wand and you hit the bad guy and it only dose 60 point (33% resist, or 1/3 is what i will use in my head.) The type of monster has a base hp of 800, ((800/2)*3)=1200. If there resist is about 1/4 the ((800/3)*4)=1067. Although just a a rough estimate, round 800 up to 900 as it simplifies the math. So the formula reads ((900/3)*4)=1200. Now that’s much easier to do in your head head on the fly.

You don’t need to get too specific, just a ball park idea. Once you take out a couple of ninja pigs keep track of how many pips it takes defeat them. That will save you from having to redo the math every time.

And don’t be afraid to adjust your tactics for enemies on a particular street, the most noticeable has already been mentioned of the diseased villagers in mooshu. Heavy on the Spectral Blast and not they are also heavy with elemental shields, there resistance is just about the 50% mark so its like dealing with enemies that have 1500 hp each, which is a bit hard at that point in the game, you get used to it though and the rest of the area seams that much easier.

Balance vs Other Schools in Damage per Pip.
This is a great chart to refer other’s who may feel that there is a power difference that they may deem unfair. It also shows how great we are (after 25th level) compared to other schools. Thanks BWildheart for the work on this chart!

You Talk too Much!
When in a group remember that communication is *key* to pulling off your Judgements and Spectral Blasts well. Keep your teammates on the same page as you and it’ll move the fight along so much quicker.

Most people do not realize how quickly we can take down an enemy, and will waste our traps on lesser hits, or even worse, wand attacks. Try to make it a habit of saying something like “I can kill key in three rounds, please don’t hit him.”

Doesn’t always work, but it’s good to keep communication open.

Thread Posted everywhere: “Balance is not Fair” or “Judgement Getting Old”
Now the debate about Judgment has been going on for some time now. It seams to me that but what others have been saying that it’s not a question of it being an “X” pip spell or the damage level of the spell. The major issue that I hear is the fact that there is no balance specific shield. Now it seams to be a question of buffs vs debuff’s. Lets take a chance and look at each schools buff’s vs debuff’s.

For the purpose of this study I am only including spells that can be trained and cast from the main board of the decks of the school in question. This works nicely for buff’s however in the case of debuff’s we have no idea what school so all debuff’s will be applied. This is even across the board so should be “fair” in comparison. I am also only including debuff’s that specifically effect the buffs in question, so while storm may be effected by tower shield it is not included in there debuff’s as a wand from a different school can remove tower shield without effecting the buffs already in place. It should also be noted that the use of prisms can be used to circumvent shields.

All spells (and variations of spells) from gear and treasure cards (in spite of the fact that every school can receive buff spells from amulets except for balance) are not recorded in the fallowing lists.

We will also be ignoring spells like spirit amour and ice amour as those are more bonus hit points rather than debuff’s.

Okay seams pretty clear so far let’s get into looking at each school in alphabetical order.

Balance

Buff’s.

Balance Blade + 25%
Blade Storm + 20%
Hex + 30%
Feint + 70%

Debuff’s

Tower shield -50%
Weakness -25%
Plague -20%

Death

Buff’s

Death Trap +30%
Death Blade +40%
Curse +20%
Feint + 70%
Death Prism
Life Trap +25%
Spirit Blade +35% (for Death)
Spirit Trap +25% (for Death)
Spirit Trap +25% (for Life)

Debuff’s

Death Shield -80%
Either Shield -70%
Legend Shield -70%
Spirit Shield -50%

Fire

Buff’s

Fire Trap +25%
Fire Blade +35%
Fire Prism
Feint + 70%
Wyldfire +25%
Elemental Blade +35% (for Fire)
Elemental Trap +25% (for Fir)
Elemental Trap +25% (for Ice)

Debuff’s

Fire Shield -80%
Thermic Shield -70%
Volcanic Shield -70%
Elemental Shield -50%

Ice

Buff’s

Ice Trap +30%
Ice Blade +40%
Ice Prism
Feint + 70%
Fire Trap +25%
BaleFrost +25%
Elemental Blade +35% (for Ice)
Elemental Trap +25% (for Fir)
Elemental Trap +25% (for Ice)

Debuff’s

Ice Shield -80%
Thermic Shield -70%
Glacial Shield -70%
Elemental Shield -50%

Life

Buff’s

Life Trap +25%
Life Blade +40%
Feint + 70%
Life Prism
Spirit Blade +35% (for Life)
Spirit Trap +25% (for Death)
Spirit Trap +25% (for Life)

Debuff’s

Life Shield -80%
Either Shield -70%
Dream Shield -70%
Spirit Shield -50%

Myth

Buff’s

Myth Blade +35%
Myth Trap +25%
Feint + 70%
Myth Prism
Storm Trap +25%
Wind Storm +20%
Buff Minion +40%
Time of Legend +25%
Spirit Blade +35% (for Myth)
Spirit Trap +25% (for Myth)
Elemental Trap +25% (for Storm)

Debuff’s

Myth Shield -80%
Legend Shield -70%
Dream Shield -70%
Spirit Shield -50%

Storm

Buff’s

Storm Trap +25%
Storm Blade +30%
Wind Storm +20%
Storm Prism
Myth Trap +25%
Feint + 70%
Dark Wind +25%
Elemental Blade +35% (for Storm)
Spirit Trap +25% (for Myth)
Elemental Trap +25% (for Storm)

Debuff’s

Storm Shield -80%
Glacial Shield -70%
Volcanic Shield -70%
Elemental Shield -50%

School, Buff’s, Debuff’s
Balance, 4, 3
Death, 8, 4
Fire, 7, 4
Ice, 8, 4
Life, 6, 4
Myth, 10, 4
Storm, 9, 4

Pets
Here are links to Balance pets and their talents. As I find them I will add them. One of the best places to look is the wiki. The wiki is assembling all of the pets Traits and records them for our reference pleasure.

Hydra Talents Thanks to Cassandra Storysmith for assembling this. It has the (52) preupdate Hydra and both versions of the (53) Hydra. Who knew there were 3 types of Hydras?

Crabling Talents Burried deep in the Pet Pavilion Forum.

Green Cat Thug

Spider Golem Thanks to Lady Judgement for posting this picture. Her Spider Golen features the Cloud ‘o Bugs talent. This is a ‘may cast’ talent of Locust Swarm for 305. A swarm at 100/pip is worth casting in my mind.

Feeding Pets. This is a great link by Saffron Skycatcher on where to find what snack to craft. Stick with the Honey Tombs Cereal. You get 7 Xp per feeding. Add that to the perfect game and you get 11 XP per minigame. At the time of this writing there is no way to level a pet with intention, meaning, there is nothing you can do to get the Traits you want. They are all random. Look for rank 5 snacks at Bazaar. When they are priced under 300 per snack it is a good deal.

Balance in the Arena
This is a topic that is vast and complicated. While have dabbled in the arena some, my rank is in/on/at/around 1000, I am by no means a expert. There is a great discussion thread Stickey’d in the forum that was set up by DerHund. He has done a great job of presenting his own strategies and facilitating the discussion with other Balance PvP’ers. There is also a great deal of discussion about other deck set-ups for high level and low level PvP. This is a great Balance PvP Resource.