This little farm of mine

                So I bought the cheapo wooded cottage and turned the outside area of that house into a farm. Considering the level of my Balance character with gardening, I am currently limited to Dandelions, Tiger Lilly, Snap Dragons, Venus Fly Trap, Honey Sickle, and then the good snack producing plants of King Parsley, Bear Cactus, and Fickle Pickle.

                As you might guess from the name of some of these plants, yes, I am doing community farming. Here is my set up: I have a cluster of Honey Sickle, with a crafted Mooshu Weapon Rack sitting next to them (that is one of their likes); then next to them is a Venus Fly Trap and a Tropical Garden Gnome (that gives the Honey Sickle 4 things that they like); going a little bit over, I have a Snap Dragon, which the Fly Trap likes, and the Dandelions like – and the Snap Dragon likes the Dandelions; then I have Dandelions and Tiger Lilly grouped together with Tropical Garden Gnomes and a ball of Blue Yarn. That gives the Dandelions and Tiger Lilly 4 and 3 things to like, respectively, which caused them to attract a Pixie, which everyone likes.

                Have I noticed an increase in the quality or quantity of items harvested from any of the plants with all these ‘likes’?  No, not really. I have noticed that they do not get pests as frequently, but otherwise their needs, life span, time to harvests, etc., all remain the same.

                So, I am not sure what the ‘likes’ do for my plants. I do notice that if I put something they do not like, they die really fast L.

                So how does this relate to my P.I.P.? Well, I need to level up with gardening and crafting so that I can grow Evil Magma Peas = which drop mega snacks when they are harvested at Ancient level. And, Dandelions drop reagents for crafting that are much needed for creating high level pet snacks, like Rice Whispies, Honey Tombs, Ambros Cereal, and those other cereal snacks (pets LOVE those cereals).

                And finally, gardening is a good way to ensure a strong cash flow which is needed for buying snacks, and for hatching pets.

The sad story of Balance pets

                My brother never really cared for cross hatching pets nor for improving them; but, since I got started into trying to improve my Myth Sprite and my Inferno Cat, he too has gotten into this project. He started by crossing his Judgement pet with his Hydra. For a long time, he has been frustrated with never being able to get a good quality pet. And, his Judgement ended up manifesting very lousy talents. A long time ago, he trained up a first generation Balance dragon (pedigree 29), and got three non-selfish talents by level Ancient. It was a great dragon for his Balance sorcerer.

                Then he got a Hydra from the quest for Balance at level 48, and it manifested two selfish talents and one non-selfish talent by Ancient. He was upset with the pet which was a much higher pedigree. So, he let it run loose in his home and never used the pet again. Then he got the Judgement pet (pedigree 64) from a quest, and it manifested the exact same talents at the pedigree 29 Balance dragon – another major disappointment. Then, he got the Jade Oni pet (which is Balance) as a drop after weeks and weeks of farming the Jade Oni in Mooshu.

                If you guessed that the Jade Oni pet (pedigree 53, I think) started manifesting selfish talents, then you guessed right.  So, my poor brother had enough of trying to get a good balance pet and just ran around with this level 29 Balance dragon.

                Since I started my P.I.P., he decided to cross the Judgement with the Hydra. He got a Hydra with a level 62 pedigree, and almost all of its talent slots are Rare or better. If you look at the picture, you will see what the pet looks like before he started training. I will put up pictures as it progresses, but my brother is all out of high level balance snacks right now so will not be training it. He is going to do a few Mirror Lake runs for Pixie Sticks before he starts training.

The trouble with Tribbles is that they are a Balance pet.

My Inferno Cats...

Here is my bedroom in my Dragonspyre castle. All three cats pictured are Inferno Cats at Baby level. The only Ancient level Inferno Cat is called Whiskers, and is in the back pack.

Attempted hatching with Night Hawk pet

                My first hatching produced exactly the results that I had hoped for – and some unforeseen results. My brother received from the hatching a Myth Sprite at level 48 pedigree, with talent slots rated Epic, Rare, and Uncommon. He had a good number of mega snacks and did not mind training the Myth Sprite he got up to ancient; it manifested Cast Spritely, Health Gift and Mana Gift, exactly like his Night Hawk. I, however, received a level 37 Night Hawk with talent slots that were all Common and UnCommon. I did not even bother training the pet, as I knew those would be selfish talents à I sold the pet for 500 gold coin to Zeke in the Commons.

                I have had immense success with farming thanks to some great farming areas my brother knew about; he took me there, kept me alive, and together we did some damage. I was able to gain 100,000 gold coin within an hour of farming!

                So, I have the money to do hatchings, set up a large garden, and thanks to a generation of Pink Dandelions and Tiger Lillies with balls of blue yarn, I rocketed up to a 6^th level gardener; this allows me to grow the plants that drop mega snacks!

                The only bad news I have to report, is that my brother got the Myth Sprite I was hoping for, and I got a selfish Night Hawk. I still only have my level 31 Myth Sprite for trying again. But, I can’t try to cross the low level Myth Sprite with the higher one, because that would result if a Myth Sprite somewhere between the two with a mix of good talents and selfish talents  L.

                It is nice to know that my plan worked on the first try, just not good because my brother got the pet I was attempting to create.

                So, me and my brother shared notes and figured how a hatching with his pet Mustard Troll would turn out; we are thinking a low level Mustard Troll with selfish talents, and a higher level Myth Sprite with Bruno’s talents – He would get the Sprite, I would get the Troll.

                So here is what we are thinking: If we both had the same species of pet, one higher and the other lower, then I would get a higher of the same species. As it happens, I have a basic Inferno Cat (not trained), and my brother has an Inferno Cat that was crossed with a Sea Dragon. This means that we would both have an Inferno Cat, but with mine now being at a higher pedigree with much better talent slots.

                We figured we will give it a try after I train my cat to Adult level.

                OOPS! No, I have the Inferno Cat crossed with Sea Dragon on my Fire Character. I found him bouncing around on my bed in my Dragonspyre house. The basic Inferno Cat I mentioned is on my Balance character, which has been the one that I have been playing a lot lately. So, uh, there is not much need to do any hatching. I am instead going to train up that Inferno Cat, and see what he manifests.

This is my Balance character standing next to my Brother's friend, a Balance character in his Massive Castle. That is my Myth Sprite, his Night Hawk, soon to be cross hatched.

The biggest problem with my Balance character is that she is only level 23 at the time. This means that farming for gold takes forever considering that I only have access to areas up to Krokotopia. The very best drops are very rare, and sell for a max of a few hundred gold coins. In order to get the great drops and good gold amounts, it means farming in areas where my poor Balance sorcerer would be dead first round.

                So this means that I have to tag along with a much higher friend who can keep me alive, keep themselves alive, and kill all the bad guys in fights against much higher and more powerful minions and bosses. In order to make sure that I get some good drops, I have to participate – this runs the risk of my being attacked, so I have to make sure that I can defend and heal myself in case it gets too stressing on my friend. I know that my attacks on some bosses will be the equivalent of shooting a Nerf gun at them, but that is how we get the drops for farming.

This is Ginger, the Night Hawk I am thinking of crossing with my Myth Sprite. Cast Spritely, Health gift, and Mana gift are pretty good talents in my opinion -- I would be happy for my Myth Sprite to have those talents. I am concerned though that there are too many Uncommon talent slots with this pet. To improve my chances, I need a pet with more Epic, Rare and Ultra Rare talent slots.

Here is one of the two Bruno Mustard Trolls I am also considering. This is not the regular Mustard Troll found in Grizzleheim, but is a hybrid between a Utility Dragon and a regular Mustard Troll -- thus the higher pedigree and manifested talent of Cast Spritely that is not found on the original Mustard Troll (unless there was some update we are not aware of).

This is the Utility Dragon that my brother crossed with a regular Mustard Troll. It has somewhat better occurence of Epic talent slots and a higher pedigree. I think it is the highest my brother has aside from the Sea Dragon. He says that I am more likely to end up with a Utility Dragon rather than a higher Myth Sprite. It took him three tries before he got a higher level Mustard Troll. That's not good, because right now I only have enough gold for one attempt, then I will have to farm and farm and farm and farm forever to rebuild those gold supplies.

So for the first hatching, I am seriously thinking of crossing the Myth Sprite with my brother’s Mustard Troll. My brother reports that the troll provides two attack cards. The first come naturally with the pet and is active when the pet reaches Ancient level. The second was sort of random and manifested from an Epic level talent slot. Both have a great tendency of going critical (as do all small level spells).

                If the hatching gives me a Myth Sprite with an Epic talent slot, then it’s a good bet that slot will be the second attack card, and it’s just luck whether the training manifests that talent. However, the main talent that I am looking for is “Cast Spritely”. I think it would be cool to have a Sprite pet that casts the Sprite healing spell. As matter of fact, that is primarily the reason why I am improving a Sprite. However, the perfect pet would also have health and mana boost for my Balance character.

                But, my brother’s Mustard Troll has neither of those gifts. He does have a Storm Hawk that does have all three desired talents: Health boost, Mana boost, Cast Spritely. And, that hawk is a higher pedigree than the Mustard Troll. It is for this reason that the second choice for the hatching is that Storm Hawk. My brother does not have a Storm character, and the hawk is equipped with his Balance; he does not like using the pet because he wants a Balance pet with the Balance character, and he is frustrated that he cannot find a good Balance pet – his Judgement pet manifested the same talents as a 29 Pedigree First Generation dragon!

This snapshot shows my pet's talent spaces, experience bars, how far along she is to the next level. As you can see from the talent spaces, the common have no pips, and uncommon only have one pip. I anticipate that ALL of her talents will be selfish talents. So, I will not train above Adult (minimum level needed for hatching).

Starting the Pet Improvement Project (P.I.P.)

Pet Improvement Project (P.I.P.)

                I cannot take credit for this idea as others before me have had variations on a theme with projects to improve their pets in Wizard101.

                However, I loved the idea and decided to start my own project, for fun and maybe to help other players. So, I started a new character and decided that I would start with the first pet that I receive in the game and see how far I could improve that pet.

                The first pet I received, as a “drop” from a fight in Unicorn Way, was a Sprite. The pet is from the school of Myth, and has a pedigree number of 31. In other words, for those who are more familiar with what this means, it is a very basic pet that will never amount to much other than its aesthetic appeal. I can train it up to Teen, Adult, Ancient, and Epic and this pet will never manifest talents beyond what are called “selfish talents”. For those who don’t know, selfish talents just increase one of five categories of a pet’s fields of experience. I have seen on the wiki page for the Myth Sprite that there is the potential for this first generation pet to manifest the talents for adding focus of Myth attacks, adding damage for Myth attacks, and other talents that help your character in a fight, should your character be in the school of Myth.

                Let me back-track and explain some of this jargon for those who are just starting out with the online computer game of Wizard101. Ok, so you have chosen a wizard from one of the seven schools, you maybe have some clothing, and then maybe you have a pet. First, I recommend that you pay attention to the tutorial mission given to you at level 7, where the whole process of pet training, pets in general, racing your pets in the derby, pet snacks and pet hatching is explained. You probably will have the Piggle (a cute flying pig) that is automatically given in this quest.

                There are four mini-games where you can put your pet through some challenges. How well you perform determines how well your pet increases in experience at the end of the mini-game. At that point, you have the option to feed your pet a snack as a reward. If they like it, they gain additional experience, and even more if they love it. And, the snacks have rankings which help to determine how much base-line experience your pet receives from eating that snack.

                All pets have a number of talents. Those talents are manifested as your pet reaches certain milestones of experience called: Teen, Adult, Ancient, and Epic. These talents can be either selfish (they only increase the experience categories of the pet, but do nothing to help you) or they can be talents that help you when your wizard is in a fight.

                If you still don’t understand what I am talking about, I recommend signing up on the game and give it a go – learn by doing.

                Anyway, let’s begin my personal story with my Myth Sprite. By the time that I started training this pet, my character was around level 20 and about halfway through Krokotopia. It took me this long to get the gold necessary to buy some higher level pet snacks for Myth – I bought as many Delicious Cookies (a level 5 snack) as I could afford. I got 20 snacks. At this time, I was also starting out gardening so that I could get more gold to buy snacks, and work my way up to a high enough gardening level to start growing Evil Magma Peas.

                Here is my game plan for training my Myth Sprite:  First, I am going to buy a simple Wooded Cottage (a house for my character), and set up a very large garden. It will take lots of gold, time, and gardening before I get to the level necessary to have gardening spells that affect a large area. But, I plan to get there step by step.

                Ok, second, once I get high enough with gardening, I will grow lots and lots of Evil Magma Peas. These plants can give high level snacks, called mega-snacks, which make training pets go a lot faster. I know, it is really just a trade-off of time, one for the other. But these plants also drop gold and other goodies that will help my character in other ways – sooo, more beneficial for time spent.

                In the meantime, I am running my little Myth Sprite through the hedge maze and dance games in the Pet Pavilion. For me, these two games are the easiest where I am most certain that I will get a perfect score. My goal with this very first Myth Sprite is just to get her up to Adult level. At Adult, I am going to hatch this pet with one of my brother’s pets.

                My brother has three characters: Myth, Balance, and Death. I also have three: Fire, Ice, and Balance. All of my brother’s characters are Transcended (level 70). This was written right before the launch of Avalon! My Fire character is Transcended, my Ice is in the low 50s, and my balance is in the low 20s.

                My brother never embraced improving his pets, but rather just trained those pets that manifested the talents that he desired. He spent most of his pet training time advancing his pet Mustard Troll, called Bruno, which manifested some very helpful talents for his Myth character. However, at Epic, the troll did not manifest “Cast Spritely”; so, he hatched the troll with a Utility Dragon that did “Cast Spritely”, and then trained up Bruno 2 to Epic. This pet had all the desired traits he wanted including “Cast Spritely”. And that was largely the end of his desire for advancing his pets.

                My first thought was to cross the Myth Sprite with this Mustard Troll. They are both Myth pets, and Bruno 2 has some great talents and is a level 59 pedigree, and only has three talent slots that are labeled Un-common – the rest of his talent slots are Rare, Ultra-Rare, and Epic. So the odds are great that the result of hatching will be a pet with much higher pedigree, and with talent slots that are better than Common (with no pips next to the slot) and Un-Common (with one pip next to the slot).

                FYI, I have noticed that talent slots with very desirable skills that help your wizard are called Epic and have four little pips; Almost as good are Ultra-Rare with three pips, and then Rare with three or two pips. Anything lower than that and you run the risk of getting selfish skills that really do nothing, in my opinion.

                For instance, my brother has a Utility Dragon (Myth) that is only 58 pedigree, yet the dragon has four Epic talent slots, three Ultra-Rare, and four Rare talent slots. The dragon is a cross between a standard Utility Dragon and a Sea Dragon. I have not seen what talents it has manifested, but my brother commented that it is an incredible pet. He does not use it much because its talents are offensive, and he likes to use pets with strong defensive talents like his Mustard Troll Bruno 2.

                I do not want to do a hatch with that dragon because of the low pedigree number. My odds of improving the Myth Sprite are increased if I hatch it with a higher pedigree pet, like the Sea Dragon I just mentioned which has 72 pedigree. However, with that pet, I run the risk of getting a Sea Dragon and not a better Myth Sprite. Too many times my brother hatched with the Sea Dragon, and just got another Sea Dragon. He said it was rare to get a higher level pet of something else. My balance character who has the Myth Sprite that I intend to improve has very little gold, so I cannot afford failed hatches. But, I am thinking of doing this in the future when I have a larger garden and the gold coins are growing on trees.

 Here we go with a snapshot of my Balance character, standing with the well renowned Milo Barker, who helps you once on learning all about pets, then never really speaks to you again. Oh, and there is my Myth Sprite, just hit Teen -- we had cake to celebrate.