February 9, 2015 December 9, 2018

Duelist Dilemmas are Wizard101 (or Pirate101) PvP scenarios that we will post and ask the community what is the best way to respond. We’ll be posting them regularly, and are looking forward to hearing what you think! Do you have trouble with certain situations in PvP? Send an email to Duelist101 with your Duelist Dilemma scenario, and we’ll see what the community says!

Mana Burned!

Situation

Today’s Dilemma will pit our users against a common scenario in top lvl PvP.

You are going first against a balance wizard. Both of you are at 3/4 health (about a 3,500 health buffer). You have 2 blades, 3 power pips, and a white pip. The balance has the same pip count. The balance wizard has high heal boost and is a conservative player that is fond of mana burns. As a result you need to use your 10 pip attack to create a one hit knock out. You predict that the balance wizard will use mana burn this round.

Your Hand

Which choice this round will allow the highest chance of a speedy one hit knock out?

Eric's Answer and Explanation

Eric’s Answer

Empower

Explanation

The correct choice in this scenario is empower? This seems counter-intuitive. After all, you are damaging yourself and then increasing your pip count-causing the mana burn to do even more damage. Well lets look at your options and see the results of each choice.

a) Stun

Round 1- You choose to stun the balance wizard. The balance wizard passes due to the stun. You take no damage.

Round 2- You now have 4 power pips a white pip. Unfortunately this is 9 pips(one away from the 10 you need) and the balance wizard chooses to use mana burn this round. You take 2 pips more damage than you would have if you had not stunned.

Round 3-You now have 6 power pips and must wait 2 more rounds to achieve 10 pips.

b) Tower shield

Round 1-You choose to tower shield and the balance wizard casts mana burn. You take half-damage from the hit.

Round 2-You now have 2 power pips and must wait 3 more rounds to achieve 10 pips.

c) Empower

Round 1-You choose to empower and the balance wizard casts mana burn. You take a total of 250 damage from empower and mana burn deals 1 pip more damage than it would have due to empower.

Round 2-You now have 4 power pips and can use your 10 pip attack the next round. You now utilize the stun you saved in hand to prevent the wizard from casting anything.

Round 3- GG

d) Balance Dispel

Round 1- You cast balance dispel and the balance wizard fizzles mana burn. You take no damage.

Round 2-You now have 3 power pips and must 2 more rounds to achieve 10 pips.

As you can see the choice that damaged you the most is ironically the best choice in this scenario. Due to the nature of the max level meta-counter intuitive choices must be carefully considered with the end goal in mind. Remember that sometimes a small loss in one area(in this case health) can lead to a big gain in other ways.