April 21, 2014 June 7, 2021

Khrysalis Part 2:
Moon School Shift Spells
Boost Mechanics

Khrysalis Part 2 brought Shift Spells with it, and left many people wondering how exactly these spells work. As they are Moon Spells but with specific school damages many questions are raised. Will these spells use my blades? What about my traps, auras, bubbles? Will my gear damage boost be added to it? What about my critical, my block? Can I resist these spells? This simple guide will attempt to answer these questions using in game examples from spells we already know.

All Attack Spells in Wizard 101 use 2 Components to determine the spells school, type of damage dealt and how and when buffs and debuffs are applied.

Component One: Spell Type

The spell type is the symbol found in the upper right corner of all spells in the game. This component tells you what type of spell it is and is important in regards to what buffs are applied to it.

Component 1 Determines:

Whether you use power pips for the spell- If Component 1 is the same type as your school or your mastery amulet then power pips are applied
Any school specific boosts from gear- Any school specific attack boosts and critical boosts are applied to spells here.(Example: Component 1 is Storm. This means Storm critical and Storm attack boost will be applied to this spell)
On the defensive side, the school specific block will block the Component(Example: Component 1 is Storm. This means Storm Specific Block will block this spell)

Component Two: Spell Damage

This is the attack text of the spell and is useful in determining what type of damage the spell deals and what in game buffs(blades, traps, bubbles) the spell will trigger.

Component 2 Determines:

Whether you activate charms on wards on this spell(Example: Component 2 is Moon damage, you will not activate storm specific blades, traps or wards)
Whether your damage specific bubble or damage specific aura will boost the spell(Example: Component 2 is Moon damage, Galvanic field and Darkwind will not affect it)
Which resist you will be hitting into.(Example: Component 2 is Moon damage, you will ignore storm specific resist)

General Rule

From these observations, we can form a general rule.

Component 1 is used to determine which gear boosts are applied to outgoing spells and which block is used for incoming spells. Component 2 is used to determine which spell effects (charms, wards, damage bubbles, damage auras) are applied to any spell and which gear resist is applied to incoming spells.

*A note on Universal Stats; Universal Stats affect both Component 1 and Component 2. Any Universal Block and Critical will apply to Component 1. Any Universal Buffs or Debuffs will apply to Component 2.

The Proof

Testing with Hydra and Insane Bolt

Hydra has a Component 1 that is Balance: This means it uses power pips from balance school, balance specific attack boost from gear and balance specific critical and block.

Hydra has a Component 2 that is Elemental: This means it will activate elemental blades and shields and hit into elemental resist. This also means it ignores balance specific damage boost from spells(such as from Chastisement)

Insane Bolt has a Component 1 that is Storm: This means it uses power pips, critical and attack boost from storm and is blocked by storm block.

Insane Bolt has a Component 2 that is Moon: This means it will not activate storm blades and shields and will only hit universal resist and shields(as any arena player can tell you)

What it means for the New Shift Spells

The New Shift Spells are Moon spells with school specific damage. Using the Component Rules we can now attempt to deduce how these spells will function under current mechanics.

Component 1 of the Shift Spells is Moon: This means that it will use Power Pips only for Moon school or Moon Mastery. This means that only Moon Specific or Universal gear Attack boost can buff it and only Moon specific or universal Critical and Critical block will affect it.
Component 2 of The Shift Spells is School Specific: This means that the shift spells will use school specific and universal charms and wards. The Shift Spells will use school specific spears and school specific damage bubbles. The Shift spells will be resisted by school specific and universal resists.

Unknowns

The Shift Spells contain a transformation element as you transform into the creature before you attack. This creature may or may not have offensive boosts. If the creature does have any offensive boost would this matter to the spells final damage?

The New Bubbles contain elements that are affected by both Component 1 (Critical) and Component 2 (Pierce).