#malistaire

[malistairedrakes]

just got reminded of this side blog i made like (checks watch) ago. hard to believe im 20 and kinda know how to draw now hey guys. let me know if you want me to keep posting or smth lol

[dworgynisbabe]

why did this dialogue make me cry a little

[eliks-edge]

I love the idea of a death wizard who parallels Malistaire pre-Sylvia’s death working together with Cyrus so much. Cyrus sees his brother in this child and it hurts because he misses his brother so much but it also worries him deeply. The wizard and Malistaire are so similar he can only hope that the trauma the wizard will have to live with after dragonspyre (and even more so after future worlds) will not make them into the man Malistaire is now. And really and truly, Malistaire is just a man overrun with grief over a loved one, which could so easily happen to the wizard. I think it would so interesting to see a villain arc very similar to Malistaires with the wizard

[anton-constantin]

Some cursed @wizard101game edits I made

A snake tail mount I'd die for. Like Medusa.

I want to do more edits/art like this!

[oneriderratbug101]

Alright, so I've been thinking a bit too much about the connection between schools of magic in the spiral, and more specifically where the witchdoctor magic we see in Pirate101 can fit in with the magics of Wizard101. After spending a good bit thinking about it and looking into it I think I finally have my own explanation that I can be satisfied with.

So, obviously the witchdoctor class deals with things related to death, right? It has similar spells to the death school in wizard101 as well! However, it's obviously not actually 1:1 the death school for a number of reasons. The largest overarching one is the intense focus on spirits though, which I'm going to break into two parts-

1: So to begin, magic in the spiral is differentiated based on schools of thought, and how one interacts with natural forces. The school of death in the spiral tends to split its focus between reanimation, and summoning agents of death, reflecting its focus on controlling the natural force of death. There is a clear focus on, and respect for, death as a concept. However, in witchdoctors, we see a greater focus on the dead themselves, spirits, etc. Old Scratch and Madame Vadima place a heavy emphasis on communing with the spirits, respecting the spirits, and the emotions of the spirits, taking a step away from the emphasis on death as a concept and basing the magic off of a separate school of thought and method of interaction.

2: Now, of course, the actual gameplay mechanics and combat style. I maybe went on a bit too long in section 1 and said some of the points I planned on touching upon here, so I'll keep this relatively brief. So, of course, where death's combat has you interacting with all sorts of forces of death, witchdoctor for the most part exclusively has you summoning spirits, ghosts, etc. Both have a well rounded batch of support, lifesteal, and damage. Death appears, however, to have a level of detachment from the forces it's commanding. As we see with Malistaire however, a level of distance might be all that keeps a student of death sane. Nevertheless, death students seem to have little regard for the actual soul behind what they're reanimating, and merely focus on the broad creature they're summoning. Witchdoctor spells are either summoning specific spirits, calling upon the power of spirits, or summoning a spirit as a companion, rarely seen in any wizard101 school through the minion system. The companion, though, forces a cooperation and sense of teamwork with the individual spirit (will expand on all this later in the post).

Now if you're a fan of the worldbuilding provided by Wysteria, you might be thinking similar to me when I was first looking into this dilemma. Spirit this, spirit that, clearly this is the spirit school from Pigswick Academy, right? In the Rogue's Gallery video description, it's even stated that rumors say Vadima attended Pigswick! If it's the spirit school, that would make Vadima perfect as an instructor! This theory is missing one crucial detail, however- multiple quest dialogues in Wysteria state that (despite them participating in a magic tourney) Pigswick heavily frowns upon the practice of magic, and all of its schools are theory! However, utilizing what we know about the spirit and death schools, we can come to a rough conclusion that witchdoctor is a 75/25% blend of spirit and death, respectively. Given its extreme emphasis on spirits, the nature of thought evolving, and its apparent pre-Vadima history in the spiral, we can also assume that it might have originated with an even larger emphasis on spirit, but Vadima's knowledge from the wizarding side of the spiral and Darkmoor heritage could have brought a few more touches of death.

This still doesn't feel fully correct though, and I believe small pieces are still missing. So, we have to dig even further. To begin with, why does witchdoctor have some more shadowy spells? They're few and far between, but there is certainly a touch of shadow magic on the witchdoctor school. Its presence can be lightly felt in a good chunk of spells. And while thinking on this, I actually stumbled across some tumblr posts that reminded me of this question's missing piece! Morganthe, known lover of shadow magic, was a pirate at some point! There is an incredibly large chance Morganthe's shadow magic had some sort of small but noticable influence on the pirates' magic school of witchdoctor! And now there is but one final piece I would like to note, where I will expand on the haste of wizard summoning as promised earlier.

It has been hinted at this entire time, but the world of wizards and the world of pirates is vastly different. Wizards prioritize structured duels, wizard vs wizard, generally forcing the hasty use of summons and emphasis on the wizards. Pirates, however, engage in a more freeform style of combat, casting aside the idea of duels unless deemed necessary or fun, and generally opting to win by whatever means necessary, with a crew to back them up. The world of pirates is filled with outlaws and rule benders, and the skyways are filled with thoughts, personalities, and ideals rarely encountered in a wizard's typical interaction with the spiral. Witchdoctor primarily being used by magicians in the world of pirates most likely slowly added the loose and morally grey nature of piracy into its practice, further separating it into a school of its own. Why witchdoctor became the most popular magic among pirates is anybody's guess, but I at least view the death vs spirit choice like this- Pirate101 is a world emphasizing the pursuit of the individual and individual's goals, as opposed to The Wizard's pursuit of saving the world and the general world of wizards focusing more on what the individual represents. Even further, pirates seem to live in a world where death is someone to be challenged, or escaped. In the world of pirates, why WOULD you choose death over spirits?

So to summarize, I have come to the conclusion that for a variety of reasons, pirate101's witchdoctor is a rough 75/25% blend of the schools spirit and death respectively, with sprinkles of shadow magic and piracy.

[annaleigh]

back on my wiz101 bs

based on this post by @somethingscarlet13 because it gave me a good laff

[torranoglethorpe]

Listen I'm a firm believer that Malistaire got his eye color changed at the mirror shop like the rest of us

[sandswirls]

Commission for @malistairedrake

[mdame-art]

gay ass pose ;p 

[medukathemeguca]

The did nothing wrong trio

(Homura Akemi, Rob, and Malistaire Drake)

[oldestenemy]

The wizard doesn’t like to admit that they are beginning to resent Azteca by the time they drag themselves back to Ravenwood for their first class in what feels like an eternity. Being told by creatures a hundred thousand times their own age to negotiate peace when— aren’t there bigger things to worry about than infighting between birds and their scaley ancestors? Why is it nobody seems as worried as they should be about Morganthe’s movements through the spiral, her goals, her motivations—

They pour all of this out to Cyrus Drake when they return at his request—something about being on time. They willingly run back to Avalon, collecting the sundail that has no business being there, and placing it gently into the center of the Zocalo.

Even this, too, shall pass.

The calendar feels like an omen.

The wizard doesn’t like it.

So when Cyrus has finished teaching them how to call it back, they bring up the thing that has truly been pulling at them since they put a hold on yet another apocalypse to attend the school that was supposed to be their full time engagement.

“Morganthe had… a minion. Some summoned darkness like—” The wizard stops, draws a handful of sigils in the air that shimmer a moment before reflecting the vision they had seen in the pyramid. The shadowy figure who stood with Morganthe. The odd familiarity. The tug of something…wrong.

“—Malistaire.” Cyrus’ confirmation just makes the wizard’s heart sink.

They had wanted so desperately to be wrong.

The wizard banishes the vision with a wave of their hand, swallowing hard around the lump beginning to form in their throat. “Right. I—…” Their voice dies, they can’t look back up at Cyrus again. They can’t look at their professor and see him come to the realization that again they are the one who is going to kill his brother.

No.

No.

It’s not again.

Malistaire is dead.

This is just some sick projection Morganthe is using or—

“—I need to go.”

Cyrus doesn’t stop them.

He never has.

That at least remains a comfort.

The wizard throws themselves back into Azteca with a violence that has those giving them direction a little concerned. They don’t care. If Morganthe wants to pull at the strings that hurt—she had better well be ready to pay the price.

It’s in facing the kindhearted poet king, deep within the pyramid of Mother Moon that the wizard finally lets it sink in what is going to happen. The spirit of someone dead brought back in whole but only for battle. They know it’s going to be too late to catch up. They know they will be left behind in a moment like back in Big Ben. With Morganthe this time, leaving them to her minion—

Leaving them to Malistaire.

Or whatever was left of him.

It doesn’t matter how hard they fight, or how fast they run.

Maybe it’s the insight of the celestial calendar they can feel at the edge of their thoughts. The knowledge of that which is yet to pass. The understanding that history is doomed to repeat itself for all those who do not change the ending. And what has the wizard ever done but go where they are told, and follow the path laid out ahead.

Maybe there is enough time left to change things.

Maybe.

But the wizard thinks, more likely there is not.

[deathblade]

you know i think we need to give malistaire drake some credit for being so determined like he supposedly got an arm or leg ripped off to save his students and did all that for his wife like the guy put his whole pussy into his plan to revive her and that takes real wizard dedication 

[eliks-edge]

“But all I’ve been since I was a young wizard is a soldier”

Malistaire’s duel with Nico (click for better quality)

[anton-constantin]

lois casts a fire spell 

[oneriderratbug101]

Alright so, in part because I see my tempest post gaining some traction, I want to talk for a second about Wizard101's aoe meta.

Nono come back, I see you walking away already, this isn't just going to be a rah aoe bad aoe meta bad post. There are way too many pieces of content about this issue that don't actually make any points and just say the issue is there. We know the issue is there, we all feel it, that's why a shitpost where I spent 5 minutes manually typing out the word tempest (that's right, not a single word was copy pasted) is doing so well right now.

Part 1 - Why hasn't anything been done?

I'm going to say it right off the bat, I don't think a lot of us really tend to think about how much of a nightmare aoe must be to balance. In the current state of the game, aoe is basically necessary for quality of life. This raises what seems like one of the biggest dilemmas in balancing history though- there is no middle ground for these spells. The only point in which these spells would be nerfed enough for the community to not spam is if these spells were made practically unusable. Because of the unique amount of time battles take in a turn based mmo vs literally any other mmo, using single target spells can feel like it takes forever, and is wildly inefficient. Other games with more traditional gameplay loops can make up for aoe's effeciency by having it in a middle ground, but because we have long turn based instances rather than open world quick fights as our main battles, if the aoe is in a "middle ground" we will still spam it as if it's op. There isn't a pure balancing fix to the aoe problem. In order to fix the aoe spells from a game design perspective, a system is going have to be added, changed, or the entire gameplay loop get reworked. Needless to say, that's probably not happening, and I can't really blame KI on that one.

Part 2 - What's the problem?

Alright, so we've established that, for the forseeable future, an aoe dominated metagame is here to stay. However, aoe makes up an incredibly small portion of the vast array of spells we can obtain. Not even just wiping off single target spells from the table, for efficiency's sake, the main aoe spells used are ones we obtain relatively early on in the game. This branches into two very heavily interwoven problems I've seen a lot of people reblogging the original tempest spam bring up.

2a:

This aoe domination greatly thwarts gameplay diversity. That's the main appeal of the post that started this all, really. It becomes a chore to play the game after a while when all it boils down to is the same exact gameplay loop you have been using for years, with no change despite the addition of more and more spells into your repetoire. It becomes tiring, and it makes the obtainment of new spells lose a lot of excitement, getting not only in the way of fun gameplay but also in the way of core progession mechanics. Other games can avoid this issue becoming too large, as the traditional MMO combat style puts you in more control of your character and adds another layer of enjoyment to be had through that. In Wizard101 I have to take drawn out turns to do combat, where in traditional MMOs you have a chance at getting a bit of a rush from the more involved, faster paced button spams. Now, from here, you can bring up the fact that card games have been around for ages and have been able to avoid gameplay loop issues like this for a good chunk of that time, and I will meet you with a

????? Card games have had balancing issues for ages and many people struggle to get into and stay in the hobby, they've got their own thing going on

But yes, I will agree that despite having their own problems, card games can generally avoid the issue of gameplay loop growing too large through being PVP. That's right, all of you Wizard101 PVP mains out there, congratulations, you've managed to avoid this problem! I'm sure Wizard101 PVP has its own problems though. Regardless, let's get into what PVP brings to the gameplay loop table. As opposed to PVE where you face a semi-predictable AI, in PVP you will be put against another real person, formulating new strategies, using a deck you might not know about, and using spells in a more random/unpredictable pattern. PVP has the benefit of novelty, forcing you to strategize differently across your battles, and to think hard about your opponent's next move every time.

I'm not claiming PVE doesn't have anything like this! Just that in the core gameplay of an MMO, which typically consists of a lot of general mob battles, this battle novelty typically isn't all too present.

2b:

We're missing out on a lot of cool spells! Animations, art, sound design, game design, etc, all of that work poured into these spells and we're just tossing them on the ground like that scene from Toy Story! This sentiment was lost in reblogs as I put it in the tags of the tempest post, but I LOVE storm! The ocean themes, general water themes, and of course actual storm themes hit their mark incredibly well for me! And I feel the same about every other school, as well! Tempest was merely an easy vessel for this message, as it's the most stereotypically spammed aoe. As I said before though, when all you're using is the same spell, a certain excitement surrounding the game leaves. I feel we have gone from seeing new spells and going "That's so cool, I can't wait to use it!" to seeing them and going "That's so cool, I wish I had a chance to use it!".

Part 3 - Why is this a problem? (E.g. why not just use whatever spell you want?)

You, balance wizard reading this: when's the last time you've heard something to the tune of "just blade me"? How did that make you feel? Did that extend to other parts of your gameplay? To expand on this, anyone who isn't fire or storm, has Wolf Stormblade ever told you that you can't hit? That you deal no damage? Told to just support or pass? Even fire wizards are sometimes subject to this!

The chances are, a lot of people don't realize how much of an effect the community has on their gameplay. I've even encountered this as early as Unicorn Way, but people care about the meta. You're going to play with people, and a lot of this playerbase can tend to treat their own word as law, and so you will have the meta drilled into you. Hell, sometimes their "meta" is less efficient or just straight up worse than your plan. Putting that aside though, opinions turn into "facts", they then circulate, and then you have been pressured to play a specific way. Before I continue, I'd like us to remind ourselves that this is NOT League of Legends, and that at its core this is an all-ages game in a humorous fantasy setting, and that some of us might be taking PVE gameplay a little too seriously. That being said, I get it though! Circling back to an earlier point, this gameplay loop can be absolutely numbing! Of course after 80 battles against Malistaire just trying to get that one drop you want everyone around you to play with maximum efficiency! It's impossible to always keep in mind that some people might be trying to experience these parts of the game you might have already experienced as much as you can! And in a way, it makes sense, why would we roughly double our already extended battle times through not playing aoe? Metas get popular because they work. They work extremely well. Under Wizard101's current combat system, which is a large part of why I love Wizard101, single target spells are rarely a better option, and instead cost me multiple more minutes in my day.

The next suggestion would usually be to solo, however:

A: Not all content can be soloed, you WILL have to encounter another player at some point, and it will usually be in a setting where these types of players congregate most.

B: Even if more challenging content CAN be soloed, you have to play extremely to the meta, defeating the point of soloing here.

C: This is an MMO. A core part of it is inherently community and other players. Why am I only allowed to have fun while lonely?

Unless you come upon a rare chance and find the perfect group of people, you can't consistently play Wizard101 the way you want. And the problem is much larger than the aoe spells.

So, we have acknowledged we all understand the problem and have feelings one way or another about it. We have described why nothing has been done about it, and what the problem really is. We've gone into the community pressures, incentive to self, and damage to gameplay options regarding aoe and a greater meta. I've also done my best to show that this problem runs deeper and is harder to avoid than you may think. So, what's my big suggested change for Wizard101 and KI to fix this problem?

Nothing. That's right, all this for me to suggest nothing. Unless a lot of random reworks somehow magically make things better, this isn't changing. I don't even necessarily want the reworks, either. This problem is just here. I guess the only actually meaningful call to action would be please, regardless of whether it's Wizard101, some other game, or even just life in general, be mindful of the experiences of others. You may be beating that boss for the 80th time today, but this might be a teammate's first encounter with it. You may be jaded and want to do things as fast as possible, but try your best to remind yourself not to take the sparkle out of the eyes of someone enjoying themselves. Remember- you always matter, and whether or not that's going to be positive or negative is in your hands.

Maybe our game gets better, maybe we get better, or maybe some secret third option happens. It doesn't even matter too much to me, despite this lengthy post. I just wanted to get my thoughts on this issue out there.

[scaredofheroin]

Malistaire and the Young Wizard

Some time ago, I tossed around ideas for how I’d write Arc 1 of Wizard101 as a more traditional miniseries, and one of my biggest priorities was making Malistaire more sympathetic. It always seemed weird to me that Malistaire said he’d rule the spiral with Sylvia after he revived the Dragon Titan; I felt it would have been much more appropriate if he was so blinded by love and ambition he would completely disregard any possible risks of what he’s doing, or be absolutely convinced that he and Sylvia could survive the Dragon Titan’s wrath and live in a little house. It wouldn’t matter if the Spiral was destroyed, all he needed was her.

I also wanted to put more into the relationship between the young wizard and Malistaire. Upon first arriving to Ravenwood and seeing each other for the first time in Golem Tower, the young wizard would see Malistaire as just a mustache twirling evil wizard, and Malistaire would see them as a petulant child that’s in over their head. But as their adventure goes on and they learn more about each other, the black and white view of their dynamic becomes a little more gray. Perhaps the young wizard could understand Malistaire’s feelings of loss and loneliness after being whisked away from their home and family to a faraway world with magic and danger around every corner, and Malistaire’s desire to have that back. Malistaire could solemnly remark that the young wizard would have been one of Sylvia’s favorite students, acknowledging how they’ve grown as a wizard.

This all culminates in the Crown of Fire. The young wizard confronts Malistaire, but this time it’s different. The young wizard sees Malistaire as sad and frail, blinded by his love to see the consequences of bringing back the Dragon Titan. Malistaire now sees the young wizard as a bold, powerful young adult who’s far more than just a Ravenwood student. They’ve come to know each other, and neither want to kill each other, but know the only way this can end is if one of them dies. And instead of the grand speech between Cyrus and Malistaire, the fight is only prefaced with the young wizard asking “…You ready?”, where Malistaire would respond “…Yes.”