August 5, 2022 August 6, 2022
Wizard101 Raid Strategy: Test Realm
Wizard101 has introduced its most challenging PvE content yet, Raids. With every new challenge comes a team ready to tackle new obstacles and Test Realm players did not disappoint. A collection of players from across the Wizard101 Community assembled to be the first group to beat a Wizard101 Raid. This group is made up of streamers, Ferric and Goomay (and their respective communities), members from the Atmoplex discord, who pulled most of the weight, and Final Bastion’s own Shadow. Given this was such a monumental challenge, we have some tips and tricks to share from our Wizard101 Raid Strategy.
Prologue
Before we dive into all the fun details, there are a couple things to point out. This was the first iteration of the Raid. Given that this is a testing environment, details featured below may no longer be accurate due to increased difficulty of the raid or other changes. The devs implied they won’t be making the content any easier compared to its current version but it may get harder. This strategy is also NOT the only winning strategy. As of test realm closing after the first week of raids, we believe there are multiple win conditions to the raid although we have not proven that. A large part of the raid looks to be optional depending on the goal of the raiders.
Raid Details
The Raid was completed on July 28, 2022 in test realm. This victory was the result of about 30 hours of experimenting on dozens of different runs. Going into it, not everything was clear – which was half the fun – and required testing on many parts of the raid. After that, we locked in a game plan for multiple attempts that barely failed and our final run that ended in victory. Although a raid can only be run with 12 people, this victory would not have been possible without countless more who cycled in and out of earlier raids along with those who contributed ideas and suggestions throughout the process.
Organization is key, before going into the raids there were many moments of explaining and strategizing. Below is a list of the 12 players who won the raid and other players who contributed to the process in some shape or form.
World’s First (TR)
| Vanguard | Combat Team Outside | Search Team Outside |
Ferric  Eric Thunderblade Mystery Wolf WaterFinder Play7122  Blake LifeWalker Shadow  Isaac ShadowMancer |
Koga Jordan StormHammer * Wolf StormBane DemonAxe Alexander StormBlood Ext Killswitch Connor GreenShard |
Goomay Vanessa Dusk Swift Malvin SwiftCatcher Yabitz Taylor TaleTail Moon Matthew MoonWard |
Responsibilities
In order to pull off this successful Wizard101 Raid Strategy, players went into the thick of it with set priorities:
- Vanguard players are responsible for constant combat. The only thing this group of the team will do is progress the raid through battling through 3 phases of enemies.
- Combat Team Outside (CTO) players are responsible for combat encounters in the outside areas separate from the Vanguard players. They also assist the STO with puzzles or other miscellaneous tasks.
- Search Team Outside (STO) players have one of the most important tasks, making sure the Mana Drain mechanic is deactivated by continuously solving the Drum Puzzle. They are also tasked with completing mana chest puzzles and finding important tokens in the raid.
Raid Strategy Phase 1
At the start of the raid players will split into the 2 groups by standing on the sigils to deactivate the barrier. The Vanguard barrier will deactivate when all 12 players stand on their initial starting points. After that the vanguard players break away from the outside players and interact with a second set of sigils to deactivate the barrier to the Mana Ranch for the outside team. This will commence the 30 minute timer and officially start the raid.
Our goals for phase one are simple. Vanguard players will defeat the first 3 bosses, collect their coins, and relay this information to the STO. STO and CTO will deactivate the Mana Drain and collect the Sprite Swarm inspire spell from combat. They will then use the icons relayed to them from the Vanguard team to disable the barrier at the end of the first street. This should take 10 minutes.
Vanguard Strat
On the Vanguard side, the team of 4 will break down into groups of 2. Mystery and Shadow will go fight the Honeycomb Horror who has a blind spot for traps. With Mystery’s advanced levels of cantrips, Shadow is able to enter the fight while Mystery casts Donate Power 3. Then he joins the fight so both players gain a shadow pip and power pip round 1. This is key to ensure access to Shrike for a Myth Scion trap stack strategy. The Death boss likes to use a Death variant of Sabertooth that leaves on a spirit shield and may cover those with additional tri-shields for an Oni gambit. Cantrips, in this case, were a safe way to ensure this fight went quickly. In most cases it lasts about 3 minutes, but minor hiccups could result in a 5 minute match.
Ferric and Play venture to take care of the myth/life boss. This boss is susceptible to blade gambits which makes it easy for Ferric to Storm scion while Play fills the role of life jade to support and heal. After both of these fights, icons are dropped for the Prayer Wheel puzzle on the other side of the map. It’s important to inform the STO players as soon as the icons drop because they are not as easy to see from the middle platform and may cost time if players aren’t sure what the icon was.
Jagging the Jaguar
The next step is for the vanguard to reassemble at the Jaguar fight. Similar to the Honeycomb Horror fight, Play, Shadow, and Ferric will join the fight while Mystery casts Donate Power 3 and joins again. With double storm hitters, our strat here is to pull off double Thundering Jinn. Round One Mystery will Darkwind and Ferric will aura. Round 2 we are counting on a Sprite Swarm inspire cast from the CTO, however, Play is also equipped to cast Sprite Swarm. Ferric and Mystery will shrike on round two. Round 3 will start with Play sending a Wings of Fate or a second Sprite Swarm to meet the conditions for the jinns. Shadow is equipped with shield counters in case the Jaguar uses Sabertooth or another spell granting a shield, as he is prone to do. Double Jinn spells will usually end the fight within 5 minutes.
Puzzle Palooza
A third and final icon will drop from the Jaguar to complete the barrier puzzle for the outside. Defeating the Jaguar will also unlock the barriers for the vanguard to move to phase 2. These barriers are disabled by the Jaguar and don’t require the other two bosses to be defeated. If STO has completed the mana chest puzzle, mana will spawn after the jaguar is defeated.
CTO and STO Strat
After sending away the Vanguard players, CTO and STO players will split into their teams to complete their tasks.
Mana Drain and Drum Puzzle
The first responsibility of STO is to disable the Mana Drain via the Drum puzzle. While this puzzle can be completed by all 8 players, a strategy was developed where 4 players can optimally complete it. Playing as your pet also provides a bit of a speed boost over typical player movement, so our players were in pet mode to complete this puzzle. STO divides the drum puzzle sigil spawns into 4 areas.
These areas are Close, Chest, Gate, and Far. Callouts were developed to help direct each player to their sigil spawn points in case they miss it on their screen. The majority of these callouts do not relate to the actual buildings but fit as distinct names. This image was created by Swift using the raid minimap that displays in the top right of the player’s screen.
Raid Mobs
At this same time CTO will start the fight for Sprite Swarm and possibly Donate Power. These battles can be a bit difficult so CTO will attempt to coordinate their roshambo advantages to quickly dispatch the roaming mobs. After acquiring the needed spells for the Vanguard team, CTO will meet back up with STO for the Mana Chest.
Mana Chest
The best way to tackle the Mana chest is for all 8 outside players to attempt to acquire power stars before starting the puzzle. The chest only allows 2 minutes to acquire all ten stars, and players can only hold one star at a time. By starting the puzzle with stars pre-loaded players can typically find the other 5 stars within the 2 minutes.
Miscellaneous
STO players will move back to doing the Drum Puzzle every 3 minutes to deactivate the Mana Drain again.
During any down time, players will play as their pet searching for inspire cantrips TCs or go fishing in the lava ponds.
Additionally, one player will focus on putting the icons into the Prayer Wheels and disabling the barrier with the lever once the Jaguar has been defeated. 
This will complete phase 1 for all 3 teams.
Raid Strategy Phase 2
Phase 2 will see 2 more bosses to tackle for the Vanguard team and a couple additional puzzles for STO and CTO to complete. This can take 5-10 minutes but this strategy usually left us with about 15 minutes for phase 3 if there were no hiccups (rarely).
Vanguard Strat
After the Jaguar is defeated and the barriers on the vanguard side are disabled, the vanguard will split back up into teams of two. The Unfun Guy resides on the left path and the Gobblorian Sentry will reside in the right tower. The Vanguard portion of the map will continue to branch out much like the Tower Archives did in Dragonspyre.
Unfun Guy
The Unfun Guy is a balance boss that counters all roshambo utilities except pips. Similar to the last two fights, Shadow will enter the fight and Mystery would follow up with a Donate Power Cantrip. This allows us both to enter shrike early in the fight with an aura and global spell up. Mystery would typically use scion to deal half the damage and Shadow handled the other 6k damage with a shadow enhanced hit and a ninja pigs.
Depending on the CTO, a second Donate Power spell may be triggered enable 3 shadow pips to be used within the 4 rounds the fight would last. Our greatest challenge here was keeping Shadow alive. Typically grabbing the aggro from the Honeycomb Horror in phase one and again from the Unfun Guy boss in phase two, this fight may end with low or no health for one of the hitters.
Gobblorian Sentry
On the other side of the Vanguard area, Ferric and Play were repeating a Storm Scion strat since the boss was unable to counter blades. With Play’s healing, both players were able to leave the fight with a good chunk of health, but of course not every fight is perfect.
After defeating each boss, both will drop another coin for a secondary barrier in the outside area. Vanguard players will once again inform the STO of the icons and move towards the last door. During this time mana can be gathered and in most runs we would take a minute to cast some radiance cantrips for healing or mana. Mystery’s superior cantrip spells could give us a 4000 health boost in about 60 seconds which really came in clutch before Phase 3.
CTO and STO Strat
CTO players would initiate the combat for the Donate Power spell used in the Unfun Guy fight. This fight can be started earlier in the match and finished when the Balance boss is started. After defeating the boss there is a bit of down time. Additional responsibilities can be shared with the STO team as they migrate between drums and other tasks.
Drums keep beating..
STO’s most important task is keeping up with drums. These remain in the Mana Ranch or Area 1 of the Outside. Speed farm, or area 2 of the Outside adds a bit more to the map and leaves players with more to work with. If the Mana Drain gets reactivated it can cause issues for the Vanguard players in phase 2, especially since the vanguard players are spread out a bit more than they were in phase 1. In preparation for this, there is a portal that can be opened to port STO players back to the drums puzzle. It’s a Cantrips Caltrop that requires 4 wizards to use Magic Touch on it. This was done by any players available at the time.
Swift Wisp Chest
While a second chest like the mana chest is available, we found it to be pretty useless at the time for our STO and CTO players to engage with it. Usually this time could be spent doing other tasks or sometimes STO would go back for a second mana chest to make sure mana wasn’t a problem in phase 3.
The purpose of this chest is to dispel the Wisp of Misfortune. These wisps are debuffs that will slow players down the more you collect. They roam around all around both the Speed Farm and the Mana Ranch, so watch out! Playing as your pet seemed to be a good counter to these as the speed debuff does not affect pets in any way. Pet mode could also disable the debuff if your wizard did pick one up. (This is likely a bug).
Third Piece of the Puzzle
Like the Mana Ranch, another barrier is separating the Speed Farm from the third area. Two of the icons are available through boss fights via the Vanguard. However a third token was alluding us for a while. Eventually we realized the third token was only accessible via pet mode. This third icon is hidden within nooks and crannies of the Speed Farm and can only be picked up by your pet. Once all 3 icons have been fetched, CTO and STO can access the third street and begin phase 3.
Raid Strategy Phase 3
To the best of our knowledge, this is the third and final phase of the raid. While there are obstacles and another barrier in the Vanguard area, no solution was found during our available testing time to access them. It’s preferred that the Vanguard have 10 minutes for this phase, but not necessarily a deal breaker if time dips below that amount. When our vanguard went into the winning battle they had 9 minutes to complete the fight.
CTO and STO Strat
Now comes the hard part. Along with everything else the CTO and STO teams have been dealing with, Phase 3 comes with even more challenges. STO’s main priority will remain to keep the Mana Drain turned off while navigating between the 3 areas. To assist with this another portal can be opened via cantrips to transport players to the second street near the first portal, which takes players back to the Drum Puzzle.
Hide and Key
Somewhere within the 3 outside areas is a pet mound hiding the Millispeeder key. This key can be accessed earlier in the Raid, but if it hasn’t already been found, this will be one of the goals of the CTO team. Once acquiring this key, players should shift into pet mode and head to the third area to find a hidden lever. When the time is right this lever will need to be activated.
Portal Plays
After finishing Phase 2 and unlocking street 3 and CTO should make their way towards the end. A Forest Demon attempting to walk toward the end of the street. CTO players should pull this monstrosity into battle. At the very end of street 3 is another cantrips caltrop. This will require all 8 players to activate and will create a special portal. Once unlocked this portal can send over 1 player from the outside teams to the vanguard players. If players do not stop the Forest Demon before he reaches the end of the street, he will port himself over to the Vanguard area to join the final fight.
Goomay pulls the Forest Demon on the third street.
Unleash the Beast
After defeating the Forest Demon, players can unleash the Millispeeder from their cage. Someone can already be in pet mode by this level to maximize efficiency. However, this is a risk. If players fail to pull the Millispeeder on the third street or are still in battle with the Forest Demon, Millispeeder will go straight to the Vanguard, do not pass go, do not collect $200. The Vanguard players will find themselves with a second boss to fight.
When Phase 3 starts, players should notice these quest goals. This implies that the Millispeeder may be a win condition for the raid. However, it’s not something that can be confirmed from our Raid, but something we hope to test in the following week of test realm.
Vanguard Strat
Vanguard players have 1 goal in phase 3. Defeat the Nullity. This boss will spawn at the top of the middle tower and if everything goes smoothly, it will be alone. The first round of the fight is automatically a wash as players will be forced to pass while the Nullity summons a minion. This minion will influence the fight and give the boss cheats to counter certain Roshambo spells. This is based on the school of the minion. For instance, a life mob would mean no traps or dots. In preparation for this, we planned to either blade stack or trap stack for Storm scion or Myth scion, respectively.
In our case, a life minion was summoned, so we could pursue the Storm Scion strategy. Ferric was able to do 62k damage with his storm scion. This was a bit of an overkill and left us at about 60 seconds to kill the minion. A quick wand hit would work, but storm owl did the job from Mystery. Our raid was won when the battle ended. While the Millispeeder was about to die the round we won, it’s assumed that the Nullity battle ended the raid. It’s unknown if the raid works in reverse, and defeating the Millispeeder would end the raid.
You can watch the Vanguard side of this Raid on Ferric’s Youtube Channel.
Defeating the Nullity concluded our raid. But is that the end? We don’t think so!
Wizard101 Raid Strategy: Unsolved Mysteries
While we were able to complete the raid with our strategy, we still think there are many mechanics to learn. For instance not long after our win, another group was able to complete a raid with different set of circumstances. Between the two groups to complete a raid, our strategies appear to differ quite a bit. Below are a couple questions we have yet to solve.
“Time for a Montage”
This line was repeatedly used throughout multiple raids regardless of how far we made it. It’s believed to be triggered by the timer around the 1:45 mark. Montage might have something to do with photomancy. While almost every other wizard101 mechanic is implemented into raids, photomancy doesn’t have a use yet. It may come into play here, similar to beastmoon mayhem and the time clock mechanic. Although hopes for a time increase seem to be in vain.
Mystery Cantrip Caltrop
While completing our victory run, we noticed, at the last minute, another ritual object. Due to lack of time, we couldn’t test it thoroughly but we know it requires 8 players to unlock, similar to the portal. It was also really out of the way, in almost a hidden fashion. This may also be an indication that it was unfinished as it is in test realm. But in the future, we hope to find the answer.
Fishing for clues
Fishing is another activity allowed in Raids. However, it doesn’t appear to grant any unique features. Besides catching fish, chests reward inspire cantrips tc. This is similar to playing as your pet and the pet mounds, but there we didn’t see any special reagents or icons to solve other puzzles. Additionally, we didn’t get to thoroughly test fishing throughout the raid and that may be another problem.
There’s likely even more we’re missing as this game mode seems to be an endless puzzle. Don’t hesitate to drop ideas or theories in the comments below!
Final Thoughts
Our Wizard101 Raid Strategy turned out to be very successful. With more practice and more experience we’re sure we could cut down on time and complete all of our goals, including the Millispeeder. We expect to see boss drops from every boss we defeat which makes this strategy pretty optimal.
For players looking to prepare for raids in live realm, Final Bastion’s Roshambo Spell Guide and Cantrips Leveling Guide are recommended by many of the players who succeed in this raid. Be on the lookout in the future for a more inclusive guide covering all Raid mechanics outside of this strategy. There were certainly a few topics that were skipped over in this overview.
I must once again reiterate that this accomplishment would not be possible with the extreme collaboration we saw across the community. Our success goes beyond the 12 members who beat the raid. It feels great to see multiple players from different aspects of the game come together for this challenge. I look forward to the scenarios live realm will create and the best strategies that will be designed if we haven’t already done just that. Shout out to Ferric, Goomay, and everyone at the Atmoplex for their contributions to this stellar accomplishment. Congrats guys, we did it!
