November 23, 2022 February 15, 2023
Wizard101 Pin System
With tons of new additions in Wizard101’s Fall 2022 Test Realm, various new systems and changes have been thrown into the mix alongside the release of Novus. One of these new features is the Wizard101 Pin System, a new system designed to help players customize their secondary schools’ stats. There are lots of combinations between damage, pierce, accuracy, and so much more.
What is a Pin?
Pins work a lot like jewels, they are small, collectable items that grant addition stats. They can be socketed onto a limited selection of gear pieces. Additionally, pins come in three forms: power, sword, and shield pins. Each pin offers its own unique stat. The Pin system looks to add customization to secondary stats to allow players to pick which school(s) they want to expand into. Following that line of thought, pins can not be equipped for your main school (similar to a mastery amulet). There are hundreds of pins added in this update, but only certain stats can be equipped by each school.
Power Pins – These are the utility pins. There are two stats on these accessories, Accuracy and Pip Conversion. These have the fewest limitations and allow anyone to equip any other school onto their gear.
Shield Pins – Shield pins will help increase defensive stats. Stats included on these are Resist, Block, and Outgoing. Shield pins are a bit odd because they don’t actually boost your secondary school, they add stats based the schools you counter.
Sword Pins – Last but not least, the sword pins. Critical, Damage, and Pierce reside on the offensive pins. Sword pins typically have 2 of the 3 offensive stats combined on one pin.
A Closer Look At Pins
Pins will have multiple variations starting as low as level 80. The higher the level of the pin, the higher the stats it will have. Some stats appear to cap out at lower levels similar to jewels to ensure no stat becomes too powerful while also keeping them usable for lower levels.
Power Pins
Accuracy Pins
Conversion Pins
Power pins are pretty simple and don’t have any restrictions outside of the main school limitations. There aren’t any universal pins as that would defeat the purpose. Otherwise, everyone gets the same value for each stat. There are no advantages for one school or another.
Shield Pins
Blocking Pins
Mending Pins
Resist Pins
Shield pins are the most restrictive of the three. Unlike power and sword pins, these pins are amplifying your main school. For instance, fire is suppose to have an advantage over myth, so one of their resist pins gives myth resist. Mending pins also come with a catch, they are exclusive to schools that synergize with life. Storm, Balance, Fire, and Life wizards will be able to use mending sockets, other schools will not.
Sword Pins
Punishing Pins
Crushing Pins
Disabling Pins
Stats on sword pins are scaled to your main school stats. A life wizard running myth pins will have weaker damage compared to a storm wizard running myth pins. This should prevent anyone from using natural school advantages such as Ice or Life from unfairly pursuing a mono school build.
Pin Sockets
Hats, robes, and boots will all offer sockets for the new pin system. Additionally, each of those pieces of gear will have 3 pin sockets. Sword pins are the most common, as the goal is to get players to hit with secondary school spells, not just use them for utility. If you’re familiar with the gear templates, the sockets will follow suit. However, if you aren’t, the easy explanation is that offensive gear will have more sword and power sockets. On the other hand, defensive gear is likely to have more shield and sword sockets.
Offensive gear
A Quick Breakdown
Let’s take a look at these two new pieces of gear added in Novus. The Aeon set (left) is similar to Merciless and offers a lot of offensive power. In comparison, the Eternal set (right) offers more utility and defense. You’ll notice that the Aeon boots offer 2 Sword sockets and 1 Power socket. On the contrary, the Eternal boots offer 1 Sword socket, 1 Power socket, and 1 Shield socket. In total the Aeon set is going to provide 6 Sword sockets, 2 Power sockets, and 1 Shield socket for a total of 9 pin sockets. Similarly the Eternal gear set has 9 sockets dispersed between 4 Sword, 3 Power, and 2 Shield sockets.
Defensive gear
Final Thoughts
Before the pin system, gear sets like the raid, highlands, or merciless sets had pre-set stats that couldn’t be changed. Combining that aspect with the fact that most players don’t run a complete collection of any given gear set meant that secondary schools stats were being spread thin between two or more choices. However, the pin system addresses this issue AND allows players to better customize these stats for effective builds.
Based off my limited experience in test realm, I think we are finally headed to a point where dual schooling may become the standard in PvP. Combined with other changes in this update such as archmastery, dual school viability has certainly increased and who knows, maybe players in PvE will feel obliged to dabble in secondary schools as well.
