Nightshade Drops, Kingsisle Free Games Rewards, Grandmaster Tower, and the Waterworks

I have been farming Lord Nightshade with a friend or two for crown items. If you have no idea what crown items are, they are the rare things that help greatly with health, defense, accuracy, power pip percentage, and damage. Lord Nightshade drops level five crown gear.
Lord Nightshade is probably one of the easier bosses in Wizard City to farm for crown gear. He doesn't have (too) much health, and he does level five spells. I've gotten quite a few crown items from him, as well as the two pets he drops.
What? You mean you haven't seen crown gear due to its rarity? Okay, I'll show you it.

 This was me waaaaay back when I was level twenty or so. My hat is the Midsummer's Cowl, my robe the Jacket of Withstanding, and the boots the Watchtower Boots. The Midsummer's Cowl gives a sprite card, the Jacket of Withstanding a tower shield card, and Watchtower Boots give a guiding light card. These level five items don't give damage, accuracy, power pip percentage, or healing boosts. They greatly help shielding and health, though.
Nightshade drops all three of these items. I have gotten all of them at one time or another. Often dropped items come in the most outlandish colors, such as lime green and fuchsia. (Yes, I visited the dye shop for THAT one.) Lord Nightshade also drops two pets: The Midnight Sprite and the Blue Banshee. Midnight Sprites give one dark sprite card at baby. Blue Banshees merely look cool.
I'll warn you now; these are not common drops. I haven't spent several hours fighting Nightshade to only end up with three crown items and five pets. That's total, over the three years I've done the game. It can be done though, so persevere!

One of Wizard 101's most helpful tools is Kingsisle Free Games. This is useful because you can get many nice items from it. You can earn gold, transformations, damage elixirs, blue raptors (a sword), and rare pets!! Remember the Beckett Magazine reward pet, the Fog Unicorn? That rare pet can be a reward! You also can get a Shardtail Dragon. This is such an easy way to get rare items. Did I mention the seven-day Starlight Pony mounts you can get?

I recently helped a friend do the Grandmaster Tower. Back before Celestia and Wintertusk, it was quite an accomplishment to finish this. That's because the bosses in there cheat. It's very difficult. The tower is about ten levels and not a walk in the park. There's only two bosses; Orick Grimcaster, the last one, is the hardest.  You can't trap him, and if you do, he'll pull out three minions to assist him. I asked Alyssa Moonheart, one of my legendary friends and a fellow beta tester, about the tower originally. She told me that you wanted four people to go in, and one of them usually was a Storm wizard to kill off monsters quickly. It went without saying that a second person needed to be Life, or else everyone would die. What an incredible amount of teamwork that would have required! In some ways, today's tower is almost easier. We get used to cheating bosses so the Grandmaster Tower is a blast. 

I also finally did the Waterworks, the level 60 version of the Grandmaster Tower. In with me went Alyssa Moonheart, and Destiny Ashdreamer. Both of them had done it before, so they told me what we needed to do. The hardest requirement to get to a boss was the room with the clams. In that room, you have to open all the blue-insided clams. You need to look inside them to see it; trust me, there is a way. You have to look at the mouth for the blue lips. Alyssa, Destiny, and I didn't get all of them open in time, so we got pulled in a fight. The worst boss to fight was Sylster Glowstorm. He has 24,990 health and cheats in a very unique way. Sylster puts up a special doom and gloom that will come back even if you put up an aura. Aside from warning you when you can do what, it also cuts healing in half as usual. When it is white, you can trap him. He needs to have a trap on him at this time.  You can only attack him if there is a trap on him. (Damage over times, or DOTs, aren't recommended.) All traps are removed when he switches it to black. When Sylster turns doom and gloom black, you must blade yourself before you attack. Again, all blades are removed at the end of the doom and gloom. The colors last four rounds at a time, except the first one.
This is what we used to figure out the dungeon: Guide to the Waterworks Instance
It's very accurate, and has great pictures.
Alyssa let me use her Waterworks pictures. Here you go; enjoy!

It's a sun spell being used outside of the deck!!!! This is the only place in the SPIRAL that you see it!!!!

 Luska Charmbeak sounded funny and looked pretty cool. I'm not sure about the gravy thing, though...

 We have a thing about going for massive damage, if last week's leviathan and this picture didn't clue you in.  Nice hit, Destiny! Go, Chewie! Ki ya phooey! (That's Destiny's battle cry.)

I found this to be the best picture to show the overall look of  the Waterworks. I spent lots of my time trying to catch Destiny's fierce hound, Holly, swimming; those pictures shall come later.

A few things to keep in mind with Grandmaster Tower and Waterworks:
People can't port in.
These are long, hard dungeons.
If your group is dying, don't request to be healed if the healer is almost dead. They need to heal themselves before they can heal you.
Have at least one potion bottle on hand, just in case you need it.
Don't go for green wisps!

Ok, I think that's it for today. Go forth and farm Nightshade, and play Kingsisle Free Games! (Waterworks and Grandmaster Tower are for hardy souls above level fifty.)