Wizards Unite is in many ways PokemonGO type 2. The same company (Niantic) created both and they both use many of the same mechanics. Players will notice quickly however that HPWU is significantly more in depth and has a lot more moving pieces. Here’s some tips on what it all means. This list is mainly for beginners in their first twenty hours or so of game-play. Stick with us and we’ll have you slinging sick spells in no time.
1. Collect Everything
Let’s start out simple. When you first enter HPWU you’ll notice a few of the features are gated. Of main importance is the “profession” feature which unlocks at level 6. Your first job should be leveling up ASAP. This means interacting with everything in the environment. You’re a noob and you need EXP points any way you can get them.
Later on, you’ll need to take a more focused approach to what you collect but at the beginning it’s all gravy, and you love gravy.
2. The Geo-Locations
Quick run-down on the NON-Battle locations. The small homes with different colored roofs are “inns” and they’re where you collect meals to gain spell energy. They refresh quickly and can be visited often. GREEN ROOFS represent “rural” inns and they give great rewards. PURPLE ROOFS are “city” inns. BLUE and BROWN ROOFS represent “mixed” areas that the game really doesn’t know how to categorize. PINK ROOFS are also “rural” and are known for giving the lowest rewards. The basic idea here is it doesn’t really matter. You’re a hangry wizard and you need all the spell energy you can get.
The glass domes are “greenhouses” where you can plant and grow ingredients you need. Important note here, once you plant some seeds (you’ll need water too) you only have 30 minutes to collect the yield once it grows. Be strategic because you’ll need to come back to that area. If you have a greenhouse near your work or home you have a massive wizard advantage and will be the envy of your wizard friends.
3. The A.B.B. Rule
“Always Be Brewing.” It’s not just a beer slogan for a hipster brewer embroidered on this custom apron it’s a rule of thumb you want to follow. You have a finite amount of ingredient space so you always want to be circulating ingredients into potions so you can collect more ingredients. You can expand your inventory by spending game currency but we recommend playing for as cheap as possible as long as possible. ABB baby.
4. How To Prepare for Fortresses
Fortresses are the largest geo-buildings in the game. Massive tall red-roofed structures. This is where your wizard will really get tested and have a chance for great rewards.
First – you need runes to trigger the challenges. Whichever rune you choose will be the field of study you’ll advance in. This lets you decide which track you want for each wizard challenge.
Go in with high spell energy, obviously. If you’re playing for a Fortress I would spend some time visiting inns first.
Take at least one health potion, and possibly a combat potion if available. ABB Baby.
Only do fortresses if you’ve got about 10-15 minutes of time.
5. Professions
At level 6 you can pick a profession that will open up a branching still-tree (AUROR, PROFESSOR, MAGIZOOLOGIST). You’ll also notice that in Fortress challenges you’ll have profession-specific spells to equip. Regardless of what profession you pick, here’s the skills we think you should focus on.
STAMINA = Health. More stamina means more life in your wizard battles.
PRECISION = this skill give you a higher chance to cast “critical spells” and double the damage you’re doing. “The Professor” is great at precision, but other professions can build it as well.
CRITICAL POWER = makes your critical hits do more damage, combined with precision it’s just, “muah.”
6. Turn Off AR
We know it’s cute. It’s just a fun thing to see the confoundables in the “real world” but AR is a game mechanic that gets in the way. Knock that out. Turning off AR makes the game run faster/smoother, helps with battery drain, and allows you to get more done in less time since loading screens are quicker. You can do this from the engaged camera in the upper corner of the screen. Also you won’t be stuck swinging your phone around and catching stares.
7. Highlighted Traces
As you navigate the world and collect confoundables you’ll notice some of the traces have a small beam of light coming up from them. This means that trace is something rare. It will be trickier to beat, and will appear less often. These are great things to look for.
8. Dark Detectors
If you’ve collected any of those eyeball looking things you have a Dark Detector. It’s basically the same as a PokemonGO lure. You can drop it at an inn and it will increase the drop rate of rare traces. If you’re ever able to park in one place for 30 min or so always use your Dark Detectors.
9. Fortresses with Friends
At about Chamber Three the fortresses get REAL. The combat is dicey and the enemies are not nicey. You can enter these challenges with friends. Here’s the best way to manage.
If you have 2 friends it’s great to have one of each Profession. It sounds like three Aurors would be great, but it’s better to have variety. Some of the professions can also heal allies.
Remember if the challenge has 10 enemies you can share the load. One person can defeat 5, another 3, and another 2 and you’ll win the challenge.
10. Changes Will be Often
If you were like us and SUPER DEEP into PokemonGo you’ll know that the current version of the game is wildly different from the launch. The same will be true for HPWU. Quality of life improvements
Nathan is the co-host of the Splash Damage Bros. Podcast and can be found @thenatejc and @splashdamagebro on twitter.
