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Cori Blue on Jun 13, 2020 wrote:

Hello. I've come to the forums today to introduce a game concept that I think would not only be a player-base favorite and want, but also a feasible beginning-game update that will cause older players to return to the game.

Something that has existed in the game for quite some time now is the trinity of the Astral Schools, Sun, Moon, and Star. Introduced with the Celestia update and developed on through Polaris with an update to the Arcanum introducing Qyburn Stellargaze, the Astral magics have had their respective uses (albeit, less-so for Moon...) since their debut, and are a fan-favorite set of schools.

Monsters throughout the Spiral dawn Sun, Moon, and Star as their primary forms of magic, using the core schools within the astral schools to deal damage (Sun using Fire, Life, and Myth/Storm, Moon using Ice, Death, and Myth/Storm, and Star using Fire, Storm, and Balance).

However, student Wizards have never been able to use Sun, Moon, or Star as their primary form of magic. In this post, I hope to shed some light on a possibility that has yet to be explored. First, I would like to mention the game, World of Warcraft, and a mechanic in the game called the Allied Races. These are races that you can unlock after gaining a certain badge/prestige with a given faction. Upon unlocking the badge/prestige with the given faction, sdyou are able to create a brand new character beginning at level 20, with an altered introductory questline, before moving on to a more general questline.

I believe that if KI and the Wizard101 team were to follow in the steps of Blizzard's WoW, the Astral schools could be incorporated to the game as primary schools for players who have achieved level 110+ and met with Qyburn Stellargaze. From here, Qyburn could give a new side quest that allows you to meet who could be potential trainers for the new-and-improved Astral Schools, and once the quest is completed, you unlock the ability to create a Sun, Moon, or Star Wizard who begins their journey at level 20.

To fit these characters into the current storyline in Wizard101, I've developed my own idea of how they would appear in the game.

Upon completion of Qyburn's quest, an astral portal appears in Ravenwood, beside the Fire School (on the opposite side of Bernie.) This astral portal is available for all Wizards who have completed Qyburn's quest, and all newly-created Astral students. Going into this portal transitions you to an area called Astrology Avenue, a new street in Wizard City. Upon stepping out of the portal, there will be 3 school buildings and their towers, with their own teachers inside, one for each of the Astral schools, and a street where monsters at the same difficulty as Marleybone wander. These monsters are used in a short questline within Astrology Avenue, available only to Astral Students. The questline would consist of 2 bosses, as well as 2 side-quest lines that also contain a boss each. Completing all quests in the area would get a new, level 20 Astral student to level 23, solely on quest experience alone. Astrology Avenue's enemies are all Sun, Moon, Star, and Balance, to showcase the type advantages that come from these revamped schools,and the questline would be story-based to serve the student and simply teach them about the Astral schools (to be talked about below.) Upon completion of Astrology Avenue, Ambrose will let the student know that the rogue professor Malistaire has stolen an artifact and taken it to Marleybone, and he is sending the student to deal with the issue, effectively getting the student on the main storyline, starting in Marleybone.

Now, how would these schools work? There would need to be revamps and the development of 3 entirely new schools, something that's never been done in Wizard101. This is something I believe Wizard101 would need to put the work in on, but would yield amazing results in terms of older players returning to the game. For now, I will present my ideas for a few spells and general "niche" abilities of the schools, as well as where the schools would be stat-wise in relation to existing schools. (Like how Fire specializes in DoT, or Myth specializes in minions.)

Sun Wizards, or Solarmancers

Sun is typically seen as the strongest of the 3 astral schools, so Sun students' stats would be somewhere between that of Storm and Myth students. They would start with 840 base health at level 20, between Fire and Myth, and grows at a slightly higher rate than Fire students, yet a lower rate than Myth students.

Damage spells would be similar, with their rank 1 spell dealing 85 - 115 damage, 5 more minimum damage and 5 less maximum damage than Firecat, and following a similar pattern on other, higher-ranked spells.

The niche of Sun magic is to be used to enchant your spells. So I propose that wizards that specialize in Sun magic would be able to enchant others with their spells. Sun students would get access to special Charms that, when used on friend (or foe), trigger like accuracy charms (before the casting animation begins,) and adds a special enchantment to the spell.

Their primary spells (spells that deal damage) would be animals that are alchemically and legendarily related to the Sun (such as the Eagle, Lion, Bear, etc.), as well as generally astrological spells. They would gain access to Sunblade (+35% damage), Suntrap (+25% damage), and a secret trainer somewhere in the spiral would unlock access to Solar Blade and Solar Trap (variants of elemental/spirit blade that give , , and buffs.) Some spells in the Solar tree will operate like Elemental/Spirit blast, Nested Fury, Chimera, or Hyrdra, drawing damage from Fire, Storm, and Life.

Sun Monsters created from here-on out would generally take bonus damage from Moon magic.

Moon Wizards, or Polyturges

Moon magic is kind of all over the place, for its' niche is the use of Polymorph spells to alter the caster's appearance and magic usage. Because I want this school to be more fleshed out, I've only included one (technically two) polymorph spell to talk about. All other spells Moon students learn (until Celestia) would be general damage/utility spells.

The 2 polymorph spells I've decided to give ideas for are both used for utility, obviously, and allow Moon to keep its' niche, even in lower levels.

Unstable Polymorph, available at level 28, would transform the student into a random Elemental of a random school, giving them access to blades, traps, prisms, and various attacks of that school, up to rank 5 spells of each school.

The other Polymorph is a unique polymorph, much like Baba Yaga's late cheat. This spell, Retrograde, would be No PVP, and would turn the targeted enemy into a Wooden Golem . The only spell they would have access to is a 0-pip 100 damage natural attack, and a 3 pip Reversal spell that would end the polymorph early. The health of the Golem is 80% that of the creature's natural health, and its' power pip chance is -20% of the creature's natural power pip chance.

In terms of primary Moon spells, Wizards would gain access to a mixture of spells that summon creatures to deal damage, and shift spells. Summoning spells would deal Moon damage, while shift spells would deal damage of opposing schools. I thought, maybe 3 shift spells are available to the wizard before reaching Khrysalis, and each of these spells deals either/or damage with opposite schools ( or , or , or ). Creatures summoned by moon spells would be creatures alchemically and legendarily related to the Moon, such as hawks, ravens, wolves, etc.

Moon Wizards would gain the spell Moonblade (+35% damage) and Moontrap (+25% damage), as well as a secret trainer somewhere in the spiral that gives Lunar Blade and Trap (Elemental/Spirit blade/trap variants that give bonus to , , and ) Their health would generally lie between Death and Myth, and their damage would reliably be between Death and Myth as well.

Moon Monsters created from here-on out would generally take bonus damage from Star magic.

Star Wizards, or Astromancers

Finally, Star Wizards. Star is a useful school used to create personal auras, or bubble spells, that work like Global spells, only for one player.

The niche of Star is the personal auras it can create, and I've prepared some spells that could be useful at lower levels, yet don't overshadow the star spells available in Celestia and Azteca.

First, Mimic. An aura casted on the caster that causes all negative charms and wards to be reflected onto the caster. Another, Deface, is an aura casted on a target enemy that works as a reversed Amplify, lowering damage by -15%.

Again, Star spells that deal damage would be animals that are alchemically and legendarily linked to stars. Star would be the weakest of the Astral schools, with health lying between Balance and Life, and damage between Death and Balance. Starblade would be +40% damage and Startrap would be +30% damage. A secret trainer somewhere in the spiral has the spell Stellar Dance, which gives +20% blade and -50% shield for 1 pip.

Conclusion

This is something that I've wanted to see happen since Celestia came out, and even though I doubt it will (considering the amount of work needed to go into it,) I can't help but hope to one day create my own Astral wizard.