~ The Shadow Compendium ~

Why exactly are Myth wizards called conjurers? Well, the answer is simple; the main focus of the school is to create. According to the Wizard101 website, "The Myth School will train its student wizards to summon minions." Our ability to "conjure" minions is supposedly what sets us apart from the other schools, we don't get massive damage, resist, or critical, we don't get heals, or drains, we get the ability to turn our hard earned pips into a useless pest for you to kill in one turn. Undoubtedly the least popular school in the second arc, Myth has steadily lost the throne it held in the Malistaire saga with each new world release. How is it possible that a school who used to dominate PvP, with its signature spell "Medusa," could become as helpless as they are today in 40 short levels? Kindly click "read on" to join the discussion.

Now before I start ranting, lets give KingsIsle a HUGE round of applause for the shadow enhanced spells they implemented in the four dungeons expansion! Yes, the storm version is highly overpowered, and the animation for the death spell takes 10 years to finish, but with this release Myth got something we've desperately needed since Celestia.... AN ATTACK ALL SPELL THAT DOES MORE THAN 300 DAMAGE! If you play myth, then you know the questing struggle. We don't get enough critical and both of our previous "attack all" spells did roughly 600 base damage when enchanted. This required us to try and put every single blade we had on, and hope it was enough to kill whatever mobs we were facing. The process was lengthy and simply put, wasn't fun. With this gem future content will be less painful and I cannot wait to implement it in every day questing. We can officially cross an item off our Myth school checklist! 

Reasonable Attack All Spell

A Healing Spell

Minions That Don't Die In 1 Turn

If you played back in the olden days, when the rank 8 spells were the strongest in the game, you would remember that Myth was feared. With Medusa we ruled the arena, and no other school could touch the disciples of the great Cyrus Drake. A two round stun allowed us implement the vicious chain stun, keeping our opponents disabled for up to four whole rounds. With our minions by our side, and our more than satisfactory damage, we tore up any wizard who stood before us. We will refer to this era in Myth history as, the golden age. 

Unfortunately all good things must end

It began in Celestia; more and more bosses are... stun immune (*shivers*) by Zafaria, every boss in the game was. What does this mean? In questing, Medusa does nothing more than a mediocre chunk of damage. But we still ruled the pvp arena right? wrong. With the implementation and growing popularity of stun blocks and conviction, players learned how to render our supreme stunning abilities inert. This left us one advantage; minions. Unfortunately for Myth, critical and damage enchants gave the schools the ability to turn a rank 1 or 2 spell, into a one shot k/o for any minion we can summon. Myth has nothing. Personally, I think KingsIsle knows that our minions are outdated, and that's why they haven't given us anymore. We can't even use our Zafaria minion in PvP. We are a school that is dedicated to summoning minions, and the strongest one we can bring into the arena has 1000 health and seems to cast hex every turn. This brings me to the third item on the Myth checklist. Minions that don't die in one turn, minions that have a little critical block and resist. (No it doesn't have to be much, just enough to allow them to survive a rank 2 attack cast the round after they were summoned) Minions are almost useless in the arena, and that needs to be fixed.

Every. Single. School. But. Ice. And. Myth. Has. A. Spell. That. Heals. Them. In. Some. Way...

Ice has a spell that steals a heal over time, Ice has seemingly infinite health, Ice has limitless resist, Myth does not. Ice does not need a heal. You cannot even argue that it does. If you are an ice that cannot kill a boss, or a mob, or even a player, before it/they kill you, you are not playing ice correctly. Myth has the second lowest base health in the game. Myth DOES need a heal. If storm gets a heal, every school (but Ice #you're overpowered) deserves a heal. "But Sam, whats the big deal? Why cant you just use a life mastery?" That's the problem! Myth wizards are forced to choose to either use a life mastery, or to not heal. Whats the big deal? Ever since the release of Tartarus, amulets that provide actual stat benefits have been surfacing in the game. If a Myth wizard has to use a life mastery, they cannot use one of these glorious stat amulets. That places us at a disadvantage! 30 extra block can make a match, 3 extra resist can make a match, 2 extra pierce, 200 more health, IT CAN MAKE OR BREAK A MATCH. But at the same time, not being able to heal can ruin a match very quickly. Every school needs a way to survive, end of story, and for those of us who don't get 6000+ health and tons of resist, healing spells are required. 

Health... this brings me to another point. We are led to believe that the schools that do more damage get less health. Fire does more damage than Myth, (by a lot) but Myth and Fire have practically the same health. (Myth actually has LESS) Why? because Myth gets minions! It makes sense doesn't it? We can summon minions to help us so we should have less health. Its fair! Except Myth doesn't get minions anymore, and the ones we have, don't help us. Fire gets better stats and more health than us even though we haven't had a usable minion in 3 worlds? yes. If Kingsisle isn't going to be giving us useful minions anymore, our health, and our gear should be addressed. We are treated as a spam school, yet we are given little critical and mediocre damage boost on our gear. We either need more health, or we need better stats. I do applaud the four dungeons expansion however, it is a step in the right direction. The myth gear is much more balanced and actually holds up in comparison to the other school sets. Its not perfect but its good. If KingsIsle continues to give us gear of this quality in future content, this problem will easily be addressed. 

It seems like KingsIsle tried to turn Myth into a stun school during the Avalon era, but then changed their mind by the end of Azteca. Medusa is a great spell, and it makes sense that it also stuns (for obvious reasons) but why did they even bother to give us Basilisk? If I'm ever given the chance to stun my opponent, Medusa is the way to go, I mean it stuns for twice as long! Stun wise, Medusa is obviously the better spell... So Basilisk is better for dealing damage then right? Not anymore. King Artorius does more damage over time than Basilisk does, AND it costs one less pip. Sure Basilisk does a little more damage total, but only because it has a larger initial hit. Why do we use damage over time spells? To get around shields... so that initial hit isn't what matters, its the damage per round that follows which actually counts. This is why King Artorius is the better spell. So what does this mean? It means that

when it comes down to it, Basilisk has become an outdated and useless spell. Medusa is better at stunning, and King Artorius is a better spell for dealing damage. Instead of Myth wizards having a useless spell in their spell-book why don't we just replace it? Van Der Borst (Pictured Left) is a genius idea implemented into the game when the Spiral Cup Gauntlet was released, appearing as an item card on the "Rude Goblin" pet. The idea of a spell doing damage and summoning a minion simultaneously is revolutionary, and it is the kind of thing that could put Myth back at an equal level with the other schools in the game. Why not replace Basilisk with a similar spell? It would solve many problems all at once! An outdated spell would be replaced and Myth would have some new minions to use! At the very least I hope Myth gets spells like this in future content releases. It would be a shame if such a good idea wasn't taken advantage of!

So that concludes todays rant on the Myth school. There is so much more I want to say, but I've tried to limit myself to "the big things" that I see need to be changed. Despite all its flaws the school of Myth is still my favorite and as long as you know how to play it you can still do well, but it is a much greater challenge to master than the other schools due to all of the disadvantages we are faced with. If you honestly believe that there is nothing wrong with the school of myth, please; go to your character selection and make one. Train him/her up and I guarantee you will notice all of the problems we face at high level. Try to play without a life mastery in the second arc and see how long you can survive alone. Try to use your minions and see how much help they actually are. Most people who disagree haven't tried to play the school, others have only ever played Myth and don't even know how easy it can be to play a different type of wizard. Go and see for yourself and THEN try to tell me I'm wrong. 

Thanks to everyone for reading my first post of the new year! Until next time...