Adventures in Aquila

More often than not, I'm talking about the specifics of KingsIsle games in a less conventional way than most bloggers. The idea of following a character through content  ...even MY character through content... is not appealing to me. In a poll I had on the site once, those were the type of posts people were least excited to read. But, Aquila has some interesting twists, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Olympus

Wizard101's Aquila is very different from Pirate101's. In Pirate, the closest we get to the gods is communication via statue. In Wizard, it's quite the opposite. We're dealing with and even defeating the gods of Olympus, Atlantea, and Tartarus - at a fraction of their power, of course.

Before Aquila (AQ) came to the live realm, I'd not done much more than a few of the "secret" bosses. I was interested to follow the storyline, discover cheats, and fight my way through. Because Olympus is for wizards level 30+, it wasn't very difficult. I haven't tried Atlantea or Tartarus yet, but I'm sure they'll be a step up.

Farming Fun

The Gladiator in Olympus is a farming hotspot, as he drops a rare ring, a pet, Amber, wands, and more. In fact, I believe that's one way to be able to get people inside Olympus with you where you normally can't teleport - just go into his chamber, then have them "port" in.

I've been trying him and the Loremaster, because my main character, my Death, would love to have Deer Knight. Months of gardening have yielded only 11 Amber - one less than needed. However, I'm told that Cronus, in Tartarus, drops Amber just about every other fight, so I'm interested in progressing to that location to try my luck.

Quiet Before the Storm

Besides Death, I have a Storm character, who is all about damage and power. I play the two together, so my Death can be the defensive one who takes the bulk of the damage and heals. My Storm hasn't been too closely watched, so when I decided to optimize him for farming, I knew I'd have plenty of work to do.

And now I am jumping in with a random paragraph as a test. If you decide to leave a comment below, include the phrase/mashed-up-word "stormowl" in your response. Hehe...

That started in Zafaria, finishing the two crafted quests there and training Colossal. It was followed by Azteca's quests. The first was relatively simple. I completed it quickly and learned Galvanic Field. Following that, the difficulty picked up. My Storm was designed for damage, not resistance (even though he has two Waterworks pieces). When he went in to the battle with three Fire monkeys, it was a surprise.

They were much harder than I imagined. After few shots, I finally stocked up on Fire Shield TCs (I'd already had a good 20 Fire Shield in my deck) and went in. Without my Death for Feint or other power-ups, it was still difficult, but with a couple of lucky heals and hits, I did finish it.

I trained Sharpened Blade on my Storm. I left out Potent Trap, because with just the power-ups in the decks of my Death and Storm (no TCs) before Galvanic Field and Sharpened Blade, we could already do hundreds of thousands of damage. Sharpened Blade was quick and efficient. Potent Trap was a better fit for my Death (who actually trained both), who can use it on Feint and Curse.

And Following That...

I headed back to Gladiator Dimachaerus with both characters for another run. At this point, I had about five Enchanted Armament pets and a variety of interesting other items from him. I noticed that in the Test Realm and the live realm, I'd only received my level 90+ lightning bolt wands on both characters after fighting him the first time, and never after that. So I assume they're guaranteed drops.

This battle, we did a fairly quick setup and did about 500,000 damage on the boss just for fun. And I received an Amber reagent. You know what that means...

Deer Knight will be a huge help to me in all areas. From now on, when my Storm and Death both hit "mobs" with AoEs, this will be handy. Or even better, using it in situations where a certain quest must be done alone will be very effective. I haven't tried for my level 75 minion yet, so that might be interesting. 

But more than anything, I'm ready to have this for PvP. It's like a Poison to all enemies for one more pip. This will be my best friend in taking out minions while also cleaning shields and dealing damage to my opponent in 1v1. And if I ever decide I have enough time for a 4v4, I'll be all the better off!

More Adventures?

What have you been doing in Aquila - and how do you plan on buying it? I'm also curious about whether or not you're interested in hearing more character adventures from me - or do you prefer the usual?

Thanks for reading and see you in the Spiral!