School Roles
The Good and Bad

Role: The buffer, secondary healer. AKA: Jack of All Trades, Master of None

Pros: Balance wizards can do a little bit of everything. Their greatest strength comes from their Balance Blade and Bladestorm. They can learn elemental/spiritual blades and traps for free. Their small assortment of heals can be a good back up if Life goes down.

Cons:  Their greatest strength is also one of their greatest weaknesses. They can heal but aren’t as strong as Life wizards. They can use Elemental and Spirit Shields but Thaumaturges have better defensive capabilities.  One of the greatest downfalls of the Balance School is that it lacks a prism. This makes battling Balance mobs very difficult in low level worlds. It isn’t until Polaris that we finally get an AOE (Nested Fury) that allows us to circumvent this flaw.

Thoughts and tips: The primary duty of a Sorcerer is to buff up the hitter. They are the true support class of Wizard101. When playing a support Balance wizard, make sure to have gear that gives solid resistance. Balance was never designed to be the tank so don’t try to act like it. Simply survive long enough to help your hitter build up to the big hit. When you’re the support, you should prioritize getting out Balance blade and Bladestorm first. If you have other players, they can Elemental/Spirit Blade the hitter.

Pack Helping or Availing Hands in your deck. If your Life wizard is busy building up pips for Pigsie or Rebirth, your HOT can help players who may be running on the lower side. Many people underestimate the power of HOTs, so make sure you put them to good use!

Role: The hitter,  AKA: The DOT King

Pros: Much like its stormy cousin, the Fire School can do plenty of damage. They also have a wide variety of AOEs.

Cons: The greatest weakness of this school is its reliance on spells that have DOTs. At higher levels, this because even more of a problem because many mobs and bosses can simply cast Triage.

An alternative is Raging Bull, but you don’t get this until Polaris and it requires a shadow pip (which can take forever to get). This means that Pyromancers must rely on their good old fashioned Meteor Strike or build up enough damage to one shot with Fire Dragon. Much like storm, they sacrifice defense for a more powerful offense.

Thoughts and tips: This may sound foreign but I would recommend packing Detonate into your spell deck. DOTs can take time to kill of the boss (if they don’t triage it off), which can allow the boss to build up pips for devastating hits. Higher level bosses tend to enjoy spamming the players with lower level spells while causing massive damage. Detonate allows you to cause the damage all at once, killing the boss and making you the hero of the battle.

Also, Pyromancers, feel free to fight for your right to hit! Don’t let the Diviners call all the shots. When you’re facing an Ice or Life boss, you’re going to end up doing more damage than they will. I’ve seen too many Fire wizards pushed to the side when they could contribute heavily to the fight. One of the most important battles that Pyromancers can really contribute to is the Storm Titan’s Trident at the end of Empyrea. Since the Titan require three hits of high damage, DOTs are the best option. That means Heckhound finally gets its day in the sun!

Role: The debuffer. AKA: The Deathly Debuffer

Pros: The Death school provides some of the greatest defensive spells in the game. The addition of Bad Juju has made fighting high damage bosses such as Storm Titan’s Trident so much easier (-90%. It doesn’t get much better than that). Since debuffs aren’t susceptible to pierce, they can lower the damage immensely. Hands down, Bad Juju is a must for many of the higher level battles (*cough* Titan’s Trident *cough*)

The School of Death is also the perfect school for solo playing. Their ability to heal themselves with their hits makes them the easiest to forge ahead with questing. If you want to zip through worlds, this is the wizard to do it with. Farming dungeons for Alchemical Extracts or Flying Squid Ink alone? Use Death.

Cons:  The newest rework to Dark Pact may be a problem with some Necromancers. Instead of Death damage, Dark Pact and Sacrifice now cause Moon damage. Many have tried to build up to that Death immunity, where they don’t have to worry about damaging themselves. Taking Moon damage means that the time spent getting to that Death immunity has been wasted. Much like Life, unless you’re willing to put in the crowns for Celestial Spellement Packs or Knight’s Lore Pack, Necromancer’s don’t get an AOE until Scarecrow. While Necromancers can sustain themselves in long battles, without that AOE, worlds up to Scarecrow can be tedious.

Thoughts and tips: When bosses were introduced with high pierce and damage output, Death wizards became a hot commodity. Virulent Plague and Bad Juju turned Death players into some of the most popular in the game. It isn’t uncommon to see at least one Necromancer in each final boss team, starting in Mirage.

For those Necromancer mains, Take advantage of this! Tell everyone that you’re willing to spam Plague and Bad Juju. You won’t have any issues getting assistance in dungeons. Have gear where if you damage yourself, you’re not hurting yourself too badly. Remove all gear that may boost your damage! With a high enough resist and little to no damage output, spamming those Jujus and Empowers won’t be a problem. In higher rank battles, I’d recommend putting up an empowerment aura, that way you’re gaining pips as the boss and mobs attempt to eradicate you.

Role: The tank, AKA: The Paladin

Pros: If done properly, this school has the highest defense in the game. I’ve seen many Thaumaturges with high resistance to complete immunity to schools. They can take hit, after hit, after hit. They have ridiculously high health.

Cons: Ice is the opposite of Fire and Storm. They sacrifice offense for a strong defense. Thaumaturges don’t have very powerful spells and have to rely on a bit of setting up to get that one shot AOE.

Thoughts and tips: It is absolutely ok to play the tank. Use Taunt to focus the enemies damage on you. If you have the right build, you can take hit, after hit, after hit. Use Shadow Sentinel! Soak up some of that damage from your teammates. You have the resist that will allow you to do it. As an Ice tank, I’ve used Shadow Sentinel to great success. I have gear setups for each school, that way I can be bullied by the bosses while taking little to no damage.

The newest buff to Legion Shield makes in invaluable in team fights. Tower Shield has already been useful in many fights, so the new and improved Legion Shield is going to be a necessity. I would also highly encourage that all Thaumaturges train all of the school shields found in the Commons.

Finally, pack some heals! If the main healer goes down, tank the hits and bring that healer back to life. Otherwise, focus on shielding and protecting your team. If you can, divert the attention away from your teammates and to you.

Role: The healer, AKA: The Cleric

Pros: This is the healer of the game. They have the greatest healing diversity and can easily revive the team back from the dead. When facing powerful bosses that can one shot players (such as Aberrant Paradox), Theurgists are a must have on the team. Since Theurgists don’t require a life mastery amulet, they can equip an amulet that provides a different spell.

They are also the weakest school in terms of damage, and unless you get Ratatoskr’s Spin from Grizzleheim Packs or spellements, Life doesn’t get an AOE until Forest Lord. This makes questing in worlds under Dragonspyre an absolute pain.

Thoughts and tips: I’ve seen many battles where Theurgists keep on their damage armor from Darkmoor and Dragoon when they should be focused on healing. Invest in good healing gear such as Jade gear. If you have great outgoing healing, every team is going to want you. You will be the lifesaver of the group. I’ve seen Theurgists with absurd healing output. When I did dungeons with them, my health rarely dropped into the orange.

Don’t use Pigsie or Rebirth unless the entire team is low. If only one player is low, use Fairy or Bless to boost up their health. Keep a Triage or two in your deck, that way if you run into a DOT, you can remove them without trouble. I’d also recommend packing a Guardian Spirit or two into your deck. That way, you have a means of getting back up if the boss slaughters you. A dead Life wizard can be detrimental to the team, especially if you don’t have any backup healers.

Cons: Tragically, so much of a Conjurer’s repertoire is built off of minion summons. Unfortunately, all of the summons we learn are pretty useless. The only summons worth conjuring are Monstrology summons but once the Sun School enchantments are made available, no one is going to enhance their cards with Monstrology extracts. They can do decent damage but teams are more likely to focus on blading up a Fire or Storm. Due to this, we sadly don’t see many high level Myth players.

Thoughts and tips: Honestly, I feel kind of bad for Conjurers. At higher levels, summons become completely obsolete. The minions don’t contribute much to the battle, making them a waste of pips. While they can make a good tertiary hitter, they fall short of causing the major damage that Fire and Storm deal. Otherwise, to the high level Myth wizards, I’d recommend packing spells such as Blinding Light to do some crowd control. Use Pierce or Shatter to get rid of shields. Push around those DOTs. Manipulate the battlefield to your advantage. Of all the schools, Myth requires the most creativity and thus, in my opinion, is one of the most fun to play.

I’ve also noticed that Storm wizards don’t always play well together. Everyone wants to be the killer so it becomes a “who’s damage is highest” fight. They like to speed through fights and sometimes take out the enemies before other players have a chance to enter the battle. Make sure that everyone is in before you hit! That way everyone gets the drops. For more details, check out my article on proper farming etiquette. Storm wizards also tend to favor building up blades and trying to go for that big critical hit.  Many Diviners rely too heavily on their critical and I’ve seen them get upset when the boss blocks and they don’t do the damage they want. Personally, I never focused on critical ratings. Too many bosses block it so I focus on higher damage output.

Thoughts and tips: My recommendation is don’t worry about critical so much! As you move up in difficulty, bosses are more likely to block your critical, making it useless. Invest in higher outgoing damage instead. Equip gear and pets that will help you do devastating damage.

Finally, recognize when someone else may be the better option for hitting. For example, if you’re going up against a Storm boss, you could either use prisms or help that Pyromancer get a cool hit off.  I know that it may go against the nature of many Storm wizards but it’s important to recognize strengths and weaknesses. If the Fire wizard is going to do more damage more quickly, then help them.