Santa baby, slip a Pyrokinesis or 10 into my Abilities, please! I promise to be VERY naughty! Sorry, had to.

Pyrokinesis is a very good ability, very much sought after and can be somewhat of a pain to get your hands on. Why? because Pyros are 55A/15D. That's a darn good Attack Ability to have! In fact, for Attack, they can possibly trump even Rare and Elder Abilities, though the Defense is not so great. They are not available from Missions or the Elders. You can occasionally "find" one in combat.

There are 2 ways to get Pyros - either trading for another Ability (usually something good like Iron Skins, Vamp Lords, Winged Guards, etc.) or more commonly through gifting.

I call the gifting process Santa Pong. Why? because you're basically playing ping pong with a not great, easily obtainable, cheap ability with another Clan member in hopes that Santa will visit you and gift you with a Pyro. Please note you can receive 10 Pyros per 24 hour period. There is a "countdown" on the Clan Page letting you know how many you've received and how many more you can receive.

It can take awhile to get him to visit and occasionally you won't get the above image letting you know you've received any Pyros, so check your Abilities list to see how many you have.

You should have a minimum of 501 Pyros by Level 70 - even if for some reason you don't yet have 501 Clan (which you'd better be working on for Level 125). The more Pyros the better because you can gift your extras to other Clan or use them for trading. The best time to start Santa Pong is when you have a smaller Clan. Why? Becaue it will be easier to keep track of who sent what and how many and because you are more than likely still a lower level (and so is your Pong partner), so you have more time to Pong.

The basics are: Buy a ton of Fangs (unimproved so no Upkeep) and have a stash of Command Rat Swarms on hand - those are cheap, basically useless Abilities and they're near the top of the Abilities list, makes life easier! Find someone in your Clan who is online. Contact them either via Clan Comments, their VW Wall or FB message and ask if they would like to Santa Pong (or gift for Santa - not everyone uses or knows what I'm talking about when I say Santa Pong - yet).

Be considerate and WAIT for an answer, please. Don't just send stuff and assume the other person is: a) online; b) not busy (like in Combat!); c) that you don't have a huge Clan yet. Things can sticky, particularly with points b and c. You might also make arrangements to Santa Pong "spam" while a Clan member is offline - but ask them first, just in case.

Point b - especially if they're near or have reached Level 70 and beyond and they're in Combat? You are going to do nothing but totally annoy the person by distracting and expecting them to stop Combat to return your Command Rat Swarm. There is no way they should be expected to stop while they still have health to return your Fangs - in the meantime they'll have their head handed to them how many times.

Point c - having a large Clan. Logging in and finding that 5 or 6 people have sent things for Santa and some have sent multiple things (and things near the bottom of the Abilities list) is a time-consuming "job". Have to sit, write down names, ID# (put your cursor over the Vamp name and their ID# will show up at the bottom of the window), what they sent and then one by one go through and try to get everything sent back. Again, especially once someone's hit Level 70. They've got, if they're lucky, maybe 2 minutes before they start getting attacked big time. They do NOT have time to sit and play Santa Pong with you and it's nothing personal. No one wants to keep anyone else's Fangs, Animalistic Frenzy or Command Rat Swarm, honest. Well maybe if they're compulsive collectors ;) If and when they can and do have time, they will probably post on Clan Comments, so check there regularly (good to do just in general).

Please don't send a good or Upkeep Ability for Santa Pong - like don't send HT, Flight, Intimidations or Move Silentlies for that. If you're sending something like that as a gift, let the Clan member know. Otherwise you can send them into a frenzy to make sure they get it returned to you and/or mess up their hourly income. Which will not endear you to them.

It normally takes "ponging" 5 to 10 Abilities back and forth before you get a visit from Santa. Sometimes it can be less, sometimes more if he's being stingy.

There are people who believe if they send like 50 or more of something they'll get their 10 Pyros faster. And they may. But unless you've cleared it with the recipient, think for a minute about the person who now has to send all those back to you. And unless you're in a smaller clan, lower level and have the time to kill while waiting for your Energy and Health to refill, it's annoying and frustrating. I've wanted to de-clan a few people for sending me like 100 Fangs just so I can kick their butt in Combat, then invite them back in and start returning their Fangs.

One last thing ... when you send Fangs or whatever for Santa Pong, you will get a pop-up window that looks like the image below. Please click SKIP, do NOT publish when you're sending things for Santa Pong. Every time you publish something it goes on EVERYONE'S page - not just your VW Friends. And really, who cares that you sent Fangs to someone else. So let's try to not clog/spam up our own and our friends' pages. They will appreciate it.