Wizard101 Fire School Tips and Tricks

Wizard101 Fire School Tips and Tricks by BWildheart

I’m certainly no expert as this game and the following notes are based on my experiences with my Fire wizards: Justin Darkflame, who was one of my first and is now Legendary but worked mostly in a group and Amanda Wildheart, who has been soloing since Ancient Burial Grounds inMooshu. Amanda has also been using the Starter Deck for mobs and a larger deck for bosses. Everyone has their own approach to Fire wizards and ultimately you need to figure out what works for you. Hopefully other Fire wizards will offer their tips and tricks, which I will try to incorporate into this write up.

Overview
I’ve had a lot of fun with my second Fire wizard, Amanda. Fire wizards have a lot of things going for them. They can dish out a ton of damage. In fact, they are probably the #2 school in raw damage output. In addition, Fire has a nice suite of Damage Over Time (DOT) spells, which make it very hard to shield against. In the negative column, Fire’s health is nothing to write home about and the base 75% accuracy for most of their spells means that you’re going to fizzle one in four spells.

Facts
– Fire wizards start off with the second lowest health and gain health more slowly than any other school other than Storm. At L50, you’ll have 1500 base health, equal to Myth and 300 better than Storm … and you thought you had it bad.
– Fire spells tend to have to very high potential damage but this is offset by the second lowest accuracy (75%) compared to 70% – 90% of other schools.
– Fire wizards have the broadest array of DOT and AOE spells, 3 pure DOTs, 1 pure AOE, and 2 combined DOT/AOEs.

Must Have Spells. These are spells that I always have in my deck.
Fire Cat 1 Deal 80 – 120 Fire damage to target 1 pip
Fire Elf 5 Deal 50 + 210 Fire damage to target over 3 rounds 2 pips
Sunbird 10 Deal 295 – 355 Fire damage to target 3 pips
Phoenix 33 Deal 515 – 595 Fire damage to target 5 pips
Helephant 42 Deal 625 – 705 Fire damage to target 6 pips
Fireblade +35% to next outgoing Fire spell 0 pips Enrollment Level 2
Meteor Strike 22 Deal 305 – 345 Fire damage to all enemies 4 pips
Fire Dragon Deal 440 + 351 Fire damage over 3 rounds to all enemies 7 pips

Notes: As I gain levels, I usually run a combination of the highest pip attack card I’ve earned and the one just before. I typically run multiple Meteor Strike.

Special Purpose Spells. These are spells that I swap out depending on the enemies I expect to face.
Fire Elemental Summon the Fire Elemental Minion 3 pips Burning Books Level 28
Fire Shield 10 -80% to next incoming Fire spell 0 pips Sabrina Greenstar
Glacial Shield 8 -70% next incoming Ice and storm spells 0 pips
Fire Trap 16 +25% to next outgoing Fire spell 0 pips
Wyldfire 26 +25% to all outgoing Fire damage spells 2 pips
Fire Prism Convert next Fire spell to a Ice spell 0 pips Introduction to Fire Level 7
Link Deal 180 Fire damage and receive 120 over 3 rounds 2 pips Fire It Up Level 12
Heck Hound Deal 130 Fire damage per pip over 3 rounds X pips Heck of a Spell Level 18
Immolate Take 250 Fire damage to deal 600 Fire damage to target 4 pips Back to Balance End of Krokosphinx
Scald Deal 465 Fire damage over 3 rounds to all enemies 5 pips Bad News… End of Marleybone
Shard Trek/Goldfinger/Tower of the Inferno Level 48
Efreet Deal 895 Fire damage and -90% to next incoming attack spell 8 pips I Call Your Name Level 58
Quench 22 Dispel next incoming spell from target 2 pips Mildred Farseer

Notes: If you’re read any of my other Tips & Tricks guides, you’ll notice that this section of spells is considerably bigger than that of other schools. The spells I use really depend on who I am fighting and whether or not I call my minion. If I use the minion, then I toss all of the traps since the minion uses a lot of Link and Fire Elves.

Spells I Never Use. Other than experimenting, I’ve never really run these spells in my deck.

Steal Charm Steal 1 positive from target 1 pips The Sixth School End of Wizard City
Choke Stun all enemies for 1 round 2 pips Temple Dweller End of Krokotopia
Smoke Screen -40% to all enemies 1 pips Bird of a Feather/Fire Creature Feature Level 38
Tranquilize 15 Reduce Threat on Target 2 pips Mortis, the Death Tree
Take Power 25 Sacrifice Minion for 3 pips 1 pips Croaky

Notes: I just don’t use these spells because I don’t find them to be efficient uses of turns or pips.

Spells from Secondary Schools
For Amanda, I went Life to Sprite and Death to Dream Shield and Balance for Elemental Blade as my secondary schools. Combined with the basic shields available to the Fire school, she has shielding against every school except Balance. She still has a ton of training points, I’m just not sure what she really needs. This may not fit with everyone, but it worked for me. Your mileage may vary. Other spells that are popular:

Tower Shield (Ice)
Volcanic Shield (Ice)
Sprite (Life)
Fairy (Life)
Satyr (Life)
Legend Shield (Life)
Feint (Death)
Dream Shield (Death)

Notes: I like Fairy and Sprite for healing because of their low casting cost. A lot of people like to train up to Satyr, but I’ve never really found it to be pip efficient. I either use a Fairy or if I feel the need to heal others, I’d go with Sprite, though to be honest, a Fire wizard should be the last one you look to for healing.

The shields are a must. A Fire wizard’s weakest attribute is low health, so you need protection that won’t take up pips needed for the attack. Amanda, who runs the Starter Deck, always packs 3 shields. I drop in Legend, Dream, Fire or Glacial Shields based on the expected enemy. All have a 0 casting cost and make great fillers if you’re not attacking or setting up for an attack. Legend Shield in particular is important because it’s one of two shields you can use to defend against Death attacks and many Death opponents cast Myth spells as well.

Other sources of spells
Look around the Bazaar for amulets that grant additional spells. So far, my favorite has been Mugsy‘s Meteorite Amulet, which gives you a nice Meteorite Strike. If you have the cash, the gift card that gives you Firezilla is awesome. In addition to 5% accuracy, it gives you a 4-pip Firezilla, which is quite usable by lower level Fire wizards and deadly in the hands of higher level wizards for those quick minion kills.

Miscellaneous Spell Discussions
Fire Minion

I like my Fire Minion. It does what it’s supposed to … cast a lot of DOT spells (Fire Elves and Link) to continuously whittle your opponent down, while you buff up for larger hits. He even throws a Sprite your way on occassion. Before you add Fire Minion to your deck, consider how he’s going to behave in a fight. He throws a lot of attacks, As such, if you place traps, he’s going to use them. If this is going to make you mad, take one or the other out of your deck.

Link

I am a big fan of Link as it is a very efficient spell, meaning that it heals AND damages AND suppresses shields. It’s also a low pip option toclear off Infections and Weaknesses.

Fire’s L58 Quest
This was a pretty easy fight. The boss you fight is Ice, so you boost nicely against him. I used my minion to swamp him with with Fire Elf and Link and hit him with some pretty big Helephants and Heckhoundss. Even though he has 15,000 health, it wasn’t a bad fight at all.

If you don’t have the dual shields trained, then visit the Library in Wizard City and buy some Ice Shields and stack your sideboard.

Enter the battle circle and if you end up was going second, quit out of the fight. Immediately shield against the initial Ice hit and then take down the minion. Thereafter, shield, buff, shield … until you wear him down. Here is the deck I used:

Playing Your Fire Wizard
Early Game (Level 1-21)
I don’t remember having many problems in the early game, only that it was slow. Fire wizards earn their blade very early (L2), so you hit pretty hard right out of the gate. However, your strongest 1-hit spell is Sunbird, which you get at L10 and then you really don’t get another one until L33, when you earn Phoenix. The exception is Immolate, which you earn once you finish the Krokosphinx, around L20-22. However, this presents a bit of a conundrum in that it deals 250 Fire damage to you in exchange for greatly increasing the amount of damage you can deal. At the higher levels, 250 Fire damage isn’t that big of a deal, especially with Fire resist from gear, but at L22, your base health is only 880, so using Immolate is a bit scary. A little bit of forethought into your deck though, can help offset some of this and keep Immolate as a useful tool in your kit.

Mid Game (Level 22-Late Mooshu)
My game accelerated when I hit L22 and earned Meteor Strike, your first AOE, allowing me to kill 2 mobs just as fast as killing one. As the mobs got bigger, in Marleybone and Mooshu, I’d buff up a little more with Elemental Blade. If you have crowns, the Phosphorescent Maul is a great piece of gear that will give you an extra power pip, starting with L25. Blade-Meteor was my bread & butter up until the end of Mooshu, where I couldn’t one-shot mobs any more.

I also started working with a group near the end of Marleybone, so the Meteor Strike was a fast way of taking down mobs at the same time.

Your gear choices will make a big difference. I’ve noticed that a lot of Fire wizards choose health maximizing gear, where as I’ve gone the other route and emphasized accuracy, power, and power pip enhancing gear. As a result, my mana levels are low to moderate, and my health is probably lower than the average comparably ranked Fire wizard. You can farm bosses for gear, or you can just buy it from the Bazaar, which is what I did. So I have weaker health and mana, but I’ve tried to boost my offensive output as much as possible. The rationale is that if I can kill enemies fast enough, I don’t have to worry about shielding or healing.

End Game (Late Mooshu-50)
I started soloing again near the end of Mooshu, I think the Ancient Burial Grounds. Once I got to Dragonspyre, the first thing I realized was that I needed multiple Meteor Strikes to take down mobs. As a result, I changed my deck and approach to taking them down one at a time. For bosses, I also started using the Fire minion. Prior to that, I was able to handle most bosses on my own.

Choosing A Secondary School
As mentioned earlier, I went Life and Death for my secondaries. Balance and Ice also seem popular. My take:

Life
I like Life because it offsets Fire’s greatest weakness, low life. However, there is quite a range of opinions about what Life spells to use. I tend to favor Sprite and Pixie for their low casting cost while others like Satyr for the amount of healing it provides. If you do train all the way up to Satyr, remember that it can fizzle, so thing about making treasure cards out of them. Legend Shield is a must have as it gives you protection against the two hardest hitting Spirit schools, Death and Myth. One of the reasons for the Death Shield is to blunt any life stealing attacks which not only hurt, but prolong the fight, which normally works out to your detriment.

Ice
A lot of people train in Ice up to Tower Shield. I haven’t done this with either of my Fire wizards and so far it’s been ok. The versatility of Tower Shield is very good and I’ve trained this for all of my other wizards, just not the Fire wizards. However, between Tower and Volcanic Shield, you get very good protection. Volcanic Shield is a very efficient spell as it shields you from the two most destructive schools. Oddly enough, you run into a lot of enemies that use both Fire and Storm attacks.

Death
There is nothing that complements Fire’s damage output than Feint. The question is whether it’s worth 7 training points to get there. Additionally, remember that Feint adds a 30% damage buff on yourself. In the Early Game, Ghoul is a nice complement as it diversifies your damage output and provides life stealing. In the mid game, my opinion is more mixed as you could get Vampire, but 4 pips is expensive and can probably be better used for casting Fire spells. I would highly recommend getting Dream Shield as it’s a good shield when fighting Life enemies, who will often use Myth attacks as well.

Balance
A lot of people go Balance for Weakness and Reshuffle. Personally, I don’t use it much as I’m not much of a PVPer. It is available to everyone. Weakness will cost you 3 training points, so not a huge investment. However, you can also get two weakness cards from Lord Nightshade‘s Choker, which you can find in the Bazaar or various stores. The elemental and spirit traps and blades from Niles are an interesting proposition. I don’t use traps much, but the Elemental Blades are almost always in my deck.

Storm
Can’t really recommend Storm. The spells share the same weakness of Fire, namely the low accuracy where as all you’re getting is potentially higher damage.

Myth
I haven’t had any of my wizards use Myth as a secondary. To be honest, I don’t see any of the spells giving me a capability that I don’t already have in the base school.

Deck Construction
I won’t spend a lot of time here as it’s been covered in other posts. However, efficient deck construction is a must. I want to be able to execute an attack as soon as possible. I want to get a Fire Blade on turn 1 so that on turn 2 I have the option of firing off a 4-pip Meteor Strike or Helephant, with shields being available to protect myself after the first attack. Having the extra power pip from the Phosphorescent Maul (crown item) here is critical. The faster I get the attacks off the lower the chance of having Weakness or Shields being put up.

Gear Selection
Gear selection is important. If you take a step back, you can boost Health, Mana, Accuracy, Power, Resistance, and Power Pip %. I figure that I’ll never really gain enough additional health to become competative with peers from other schools, so I tend to put less emphasis on Health enhancing gear. I mark my location often and port back to commons for Mana, so as long as I have 100-150 Mana, I feel pretty comfortable.

That leaves the other 4: Accuracy, Power, Resistance, and Power Pip %. Let’s set Resistance aside for a moment. The other 3 have direct implications on damage output. Power Pip % and Power % basically improve damage on a point for point basis, e.g., a 10% percentage improvement in Power Pip % gives you 10% more pips and therefore 10% higher damage output (assuming consistant damage per pip). Accuracy boosts however, improve your damage more than that. A 10% point boost in Accuracy raises your Accuracy from 75% to 85%, or it raises it by over 13%. It also makes your play more consistant. If you create treasure cards to this, even a basic Keen, then you’re throwing spells with a 95% accuracy, which makes you very deadly indeed.

At the higher levels, you’re going to get clothes that provide resistance to Fire. I get what I can from it, but prioritize Power Pip %, Power %, and Accuracy ahead of it.

L20
Krokenkhamen’s Cloak 120 health 2% accuracy 3% power 0% resist
Krokopatra‘s Shoes 40 health 1% accuracy 1% power 0% resist
Krokhoteps Cowl 80 health 1% accuracy 2% power 0% resist

L25
Pop O’Leary’s Sun Visor 80 health 2% accuracy 3% power 8% resist 8869 gold
Smokey’s Cultured Cloak 120 health 3% accuracy 5% power 10% resist 11874 no auction no trade
Nail’s Singed Tunic 60 health 3 ??? no auction no trade
Smoggers’s Affected Boots 40 health 1% accuracy 3% power 6v 4218

L35
Fushiko‘s Shroud 53 health 3% accuracy 5% power 10% resist 10347
Youkai‘s Cap of Brainstorms 160 health 3% accuracy 6% power 10% resist (No Auction?)
Fushiko’s Prospective Vest 60 health 3% accuracy 7% power 14% resist 9096;
Yakedo‘s Brainstorming Robe 160 health 2% accuracy 7% power 14% resist (No Auction?)
War Oni‘s Footwraps 26 health 2% accuracy 4% power 8% resist 4969

L40
Hat: None
Robe: Jerkin of the Firestar 160 health 3% accuracy 7% power 14% resist No Auction;
Jade Oni‘s Garments 240 health 3% accuracy 8% power 14% resist (No Auction?)
Shoes: Oyatomi’s Shoes of Egoism 80 health 2% accuracy 5% power 8% resist (No Auction?)
Ring:

L45
Hat: Dean Darkflame’s Fiery Mantle 132 health 3% accuracy 7% power 13% resist No Auction
Robe: Vestment of the Inferno 300 health 3% accuracy 10% power 0% resist
Shoes: General Firetusk‘s Flameboots 100 health 3% accuracy 7% power 0% resist
Athame: Spiderkeeper’s Flamestinger 176 health 15% power pip No Auction
Ring: Kraysys‘ Ring of Betrayal 176 health 15% power pip No Auction

L50
Hat: Snowcrusher’s Mantle of Embers 200 health 3% accuracy 8% power 13% resist No Auction
Robe: Malistaire’s Dragonfire Cloak 300 health 4% accuracy 10% power 17% resist No Auction
Shoes: Spiderkeeper’s Charstriders 100 health 3% accuracy 7% power 10% resist No Auction
Athame: Gurtok Firetusk 188 health 170 mana 15% power pip No Auction
Ring: Gurtok Ring 188 health 170 mana 15% power pip No Auction

For athames and rings, read my list of power pip maximizing gear: http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/blog.php?b=697

Other Gear Option
Malistaire Drake‘s Deathedge 188 health 10% power pip, 15% incoming health no auction
Malistaire Drake‘s Ruby Signet 188 health 10% power pip, 15% outgoing health no auction

Pets

My first Fire wizard, Justin, really only had his L48 pet, which was serviceable. He got the Helephant card, pips, and some Fire resist. Amanda however, hit the starting gate with Burnzilla (gift card), which is excellent for any Fire wizard. Not only does it give you 5% global resist, but for 4-pips, the Firezilla is one of the most efficicent spells available, doubly so for Fire wizards.

There are also a number of gift card pets that provide Dragon Blades, which is a nice 30% blade to stack on top of your other attacks.

If you have a pet with Spritely, that is certainly a pet that will cover a weakness and keep you alive, particularly in the Early and Mid games.

Working With Other Schools
This is really just a compiliation of ideas and thoughts about how I’ve worked with other wizards and how others have worked well with me, or how I wished others would work with me.

Location, Location, Location. A Fire wizard should NOT be the first one into the ring. At the beginning, that position will probably be the focus of a lot of attacks. If the Fire wizard takes that spot, you can force other players to spend time and resources shielding and or healing you. If possible, take the very last position. If there is a Storm wizard in the group, you might thing about taking the 3rd position so that you can buff them with Elemental Blade.

Communicate. This is especially true if you’re going to use a mass effect or DOT spell (e.g., Fire Dragon or Meteor Strike) since this will use up Feints, Hexes, and Curse. Also, if you have other schools that can cast AOEs, then coordinate your attacks so that you can take out the mobs in one shot.

Let the rest of the party know if and when you need healing. It never hurts to tell people that you need healing, but it’s also just as important to let them know that you’re OK, so they don’t spend turns giving you unneeded health.

Tell other players when you can finish off an opponent. Because Fire attacks are so powerful, you can very easily toss a 3-500 point finisher that would require other schools to spend a round or 2 buffing. This enables the team to finish off an opponent faster and move onto the next target.

If you are working with other schools that have AOE spells, then coordinate what you are going to use for your attacks. Fire Dragon is nice, but if the team is going to clear out mobs with 4-pip AOEs, you’ll never get to cast your Dragon.

General Tips
– At the lower levels, Fire wizards are fragile because you don’t have enough gear to offset both your low health and low accuracy. Pick your fights carefully and make sure you fill up on wisps after each battle.
– Low health and accuracy can be offset through gear acquisitions later in the game, particularly at the higher levels. However, this may be a hard balance to strike as sometimes you’ll gain accuracy at the expense of higher health and visa versa
– Low accuracy can also be offset by using treasure cards, such as Keen to develop a sideboard of attack cards.
– You can compensate for low health by pairing up with other players and taking up the last position in the battle circle. Other players will appreciate your additional damage and at the same time, you get shielded from a lot of return damage and probably get access to healing.
– Picking and choosing where you fight is important. This was especially important when I hit DS and was soloing. Watch the patrol patterns and pick off the last member in a file of mobs. Often, you’ll get 1-3 rounds of 1 on 1 before another mob joins, which gives you the time to buff up or get ready to take out the first one. Late joining enemies are also less likely to have shields up.