Welcome to the Wizard101 Message Boards


Player Guide
Fansites
News
Game Updates
Help

Follow important game updates on Twitter @Wizard101 and @KI_Alerts, and Facebook!

For all account questions and concerns, contact Customer Support.

By posting on the Wizard101 Message Boards you agree to the Code of Conduct.

Lightning and Fire Wizard Issue

AuthorMessage
Survivor
May 18, 2009
7
Is it just me or does it seem like Lightning and Fire wizards don't do nearly enough damage to justify the severe fizzle rate, reduced hitpoints and defenses, compared to other classes?

I have a Balance and Life wizard. They can outdamage the Lightning wizard just because they can cast 2 or 3 more attack spells for every one of the Lightning wizard's thanks to the fizzle rate. On top of that, they always end the battle with more hitpoints remaining and far less healing during combat.

What is the justification for this? What's the benefit of having higher damage spells if you end up doing less damage than others because of fizzles?

This includes using the all but worthless 10% accuracy buff before each attack.

Defender
Mar 01, 2009
145
i know what you mean i am fire and we dont have a plus 10% accuracy thing like storm does so many of my good and bad attacks fizzle i also do storm and i noticed that the accuracy for good spells is low :(

i think that you are right about the fact that if we dont have good accuracy whats the point in having attacks that do lots of damge but fizzle a lot

Survivor
May 11, 2009
1
LetterBee wrote:
i know what you mean i am fire and we dont have a plus 10% accuracy thing like storm does so many of my good and bad attacks fizzle i also do storm and i noticed that the accuracy for good spells is low :(

i think that you are right about the fact that if we dont have good accuracy whats the point in having attacks that do lots of damge but fizzle a lot
yes you are right the fizzle rate is actually terrible. i've noticed lately that the fizzle rate is alot higher and my larger fire spells really don't pull a punch like the others. fire attacks are pulling less of an impact and fizzle way too much.

Hero
May 19, 2009
791
true, fizzling is very unjust for storm wizards, there have been many times where i have been killed by a boss due to me fizzling.

i think kings isle should increase accuracy by at least 5 or 10% in PvE incounters but leave it the same in PvP

Survivor
Mar 28, 2009
36
I know exactly what you mean because i am a fire storm wizard, *sigh*. Balance has the killer spell judgement, the infamous one hit wonder in pvp. The card has a better accuracy than the most powerful fire and storm cards. Its a horrible thing. Why choose one of the two most powerful schools if you can be outdone by a balance wizard or any other. We fizzle a lot, we have low health what is the point? we have no power if we cant live long enough to use it. Its unfair. Ok so they have power, how about we give them a high fizzle rate and the potential to be one hitted by a less powerful school? where is the truly invincible school? I love my wizard, but i try not too sacrifice life for power. Luckily i got my best gear in DS but still fall on the 2500 mark. wow. All the power in the world and no potential to live long enough to use it. i'm a grandmaster pyromancer, storm second. I just went for power. I truly feel sorry for all you storm wizards. TOO ALL wizard 101 players, DONT choose fire or storm if you want a powerful school. Its not worth it, dieing so much. Choose a school that was given everything like myth or balance death etc. In truth, fire and storm have no power. sorry but that is how it is.

Defender
May 15, 2009
193
Vrazule wrote:

What is the justification for this? What's the benefit of having higher damage spells if you end up doing less damage than others because of fizzles?

You don't do less damage than others.

Fire may eek out a little more damage if you hit multiple targets with Meteor, but you will take more turns to do it due to DoT spells.
I must emphasise the issue of timing here; Storm is good for one-shot drops and dealing with problem foes quickly, eliminating them one-by-one and mitigating damage to the group rather than working on all foes concurrently with DoTs and AoEs.

Typically, Storm will do more than twice the damage Life does, but that is because Life also heals significantly.

Balance generally deals 20% less damage than Storm, but it has added utility which can increase the entire groups damage output.

Ice's output is pretty healthy; I thought it would be lower. I think I'll like that class.

You can try to paste this into Excel:

Accuracy Blade Trap 1-Pip Base 1-Pip 2-Pip Base 2-Pip 3-Pip Base 3-Pip 4-Pip Base 4-Pip 5-Pip Base 5-Pip 6-Pip Base 6-Pip 7-Pip Base 7-Pip Total
Storm 70% 30% 25% 125 142 265 301 405 461 550 626 690 785 835 950 1380 1570 4835
Fire 75% 35% 25% 100 127 260 329 325 411 650 823 555 702 665 842 1582 2002 5236
Ice 80% 40% 30% 85 124 175 255 270 393 365 531 540 786 500 728 950 1383 4200
Death 85% 40% 30% 85 131 160 248 275 425 350 541 470 727 500 774 800 1238 4084
Life 90% 40% 25% 85 134 175 276 270 425 365 575 0 0 555 874 0 0 2284
Balance 85% 25% 30% 85 117 180 249 275 380 440 608 452 624 570 787 940 1298 4063

A simplified cross-section comparison of damage output of each casting cost spell with its school's blade/trap. AoE spell values are for two targets and the average value was used for spells with ranges. The last number in each row is the total of all spells of that school.


Armiger
Feb 25, 2009
2425
Good Question KI staff. What is up with the fizzle rate? I am a Grand Master Pyromancer with Storm as secondary. Since the recent changes in the game, I have had more and more spells FIZZLE. Even healing spells fizz.
How can we save a team mate when this happens? I have had so many spells in my primary fizz that it is getting frustrating. I have had as many as 4 in a row of my best spells fizzle. Sometimes every other spell will fizzle and I know it is not due to pip count because I have enough or more than needed for the spell being cast. Even power pips have become very erratic. So What Is The Deal? Even what few buffs we have are weaker than that of the foe. All schools should have elemetal and spirit group shields in their spell decks to help balance some of this problem.

Survivor
May 10, 2009
24
I'm having a similar experience to most in here. I play a fire grandmaster most the time and He has about 12% accuracy so why is it I see myself fizzle 2-3 rounds in a row pretty regularly. I have even filled Satyrs and the like in this mix.. so what is the point of collecting gear to boost my accuracy when it has no impact on my fizzle rate?

I mean lets look at this.

Fire base accuracy 75% + 12% accuracy = 87% accuracy. I should be fizzling 3+ rounds expecailly as often as it happens now.

Satyr base accuracy 90% = 12% accuracy = 102%. I should NEVER fizzle this spell, but I do and I do quiet often it seems. So either the way + accuracy is working on gear is broke or it's not working at all.

This needs to be looked into.

Defender
Mar 01, 2009
145
i am a grandmaster pyromncer storm being my second and many of my good attacks fire dragon being one helephant another fizzle a lot now and many times i could have killed the monsters with them but it doesnt work so i lose more health or die :(
i think its unfair cause ice have good accuracy and also very good blades and traps while we have horrible accuracy and somewhat lower blades and traps
i probably dies many times cause of my attacks fizzling cause i dont have much health bout 2189 health
i also dont like that ice people have ice armor and tower shield but all fire has is the glacical shield that -70% ice and storm attacks


scarlet redthorn lvl 50 fire/storm

Survivor
Mar 28, 2009
36
You all want the truly powerful school? Its very well balanced and its name is ICE. Amazing health and good power. I dont care what people say about its attack power. Helephant does 620- 6something and colossus does 600- 6something (cant remember right now)Whats wrong with that? Sure its not as strong as helephant but its accuracy makes up for that. Also ice wizards are tanks. Unless you got tons of buffs, ice wizards are hard to one hit, unlike us poor storm fire wizards. Remember all players, fire and storm were'nt intended to be main schools. I'm sure anyone would fare better with fire or storm as a second. Its quite a shocker form KI honestly. If you diagree with me, play as a fire or storm wizard. You'll feel godlike for a time then you get used to almost dieing, fizzling with the same spell continuously in one battle and being one-hit in pvp. yay. I would really like to hear from one of the teachers about this. As too why we cant live too use our spells or why we have low life. Sacrifice power for life maybe? is that what was done to fire and storm? why wasnt it done to ice?

Survivor
Mar 28, 2009
36
LetterBee wrote:
i am a grandmaster pyromncer storm being my second and many of my good attacks fire dragon being one helephant another fizzle a lot now and many times i could have killed the monsters with them but it doesnt work so i lose more health or die :(
i think its unfair cause ice have good accuracy and also very good blades and traps while we have horrible accuracy and somewhat lower blades and traps
i probably dies many times cause of my attacks fizzling cause i dont have much health bout 2189 health
i also dont like that ice people have ice armor and tower shield but all fire has is the glacical shield that -70% ice and storm attacks


scarlet redthorn lvl 50 fire/storm
i agree completely. why does a school with the most life need so many defenses?

Survivor
Jun 29, 2009
35
RoloX2 wrote:
You can try to paste this into Excel:

Accuracy Blade Trap 1-Pip Base 1-Pip 2-Pip Base 2-Pip 3-Pip Base 3-Pip 4-Pip Base 4-Pip 5-Pip Base 5-Pip 6-Pip Base 6-Pip 7-Pip Base 7-Pip Total
Storm 70% 30% 25% 125 142 265 301 405 461 550 626 690 785 835 950 1380 1570 4835
Fire 75% 35% 25% 100 127 260 329 325 411 650 823 555 702 665 842 1582 2002 5236
Ice 80% 40% 30% 85 124 175 255 270 393 365 531 540 786 500 728 950 1383 4200
Death 85% 40% 30% 85 131 160 248 275 425 350 541 470 727 500 774 800 1238 4084
Life 90% 40% 25% 85 134 175 276 270 425 365 575 0 0 555 874 0 0 2284
Balance 85% 25% 30% 85 117 180 249 275 380 440 608 452 624 570 787 940 1298 4063

A simplified cross-section comparison of damage output of each casting cost spell with its school's blade/trap. AoE spell values are for two targets and the average value was used for spells with ranges. The last number in each row is the total of all spells of that school.

The thing is, you're not really taking accuracy into account. Yes, Storm and Fire put out more raw damage, but they also fail to land at all considerably more often. Thus, Life actually rivals fire for average damage for 1, 3, and 6 pip spells.

That said, Storm and Fire are still the winners for damage-dealing, even after considering the poor success rates, with Storm generally being higher.
Ice sacrifices damage in favor of higher base hp.
Death is slightly better than Ice at dealing damage, and also has hp stealing attacks.
Life is powerful, but apparently lacks an ultimate (7 pip) attack spell. This is compensated by having healing abilities.
Balance appears overall generally the weakest offensive school, but I believe it has more access to defensive abilities.


For people complaining about the perceived fizzle rate, consider: do you take notice when the rate is higher than it should be? Perception is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to people and probability.

Also, there is no such thing as the law of averages. The chance to fizzle two Storm spells in a row is 9%. The chance to fail three in a row is a minuscule 2.7%. That's about once every 120 spells. That doesn't mean that if you fizzle two Storm spells in a row, you're chance to fizzle the third is 2.7%, it is still a 30% chance to fail. It is always the same chance.

Or, to put it in a different perspective, the chance to succesfully cast 2 consecutive Storm spells is 49%. So next time you do so, think to yourself, "I beat the odds!"

NB: When I talk about consecutive casting, I am, of course, excluding 100% accuracy spells.

Defender
Apr 25, 2009
104
I don't know what the deal is with people hating on fire. Storm I understand, but fire has 75-80% accuracy. It's really not that bad at all. Fire still ends up doing more damage than life or balance.

Storm is dangerous because although overall they may do less damage, if they get on a roll they can dish out a huge amount of damage in a short time. Tempest is a devastating spell in PvP, and I haven't seen it fizzle all that often.

My fizzle rates with my pyromancer seem normal. Although a few times I've fizzled with a fire spell twice in a row since the last patch, and I was under the impression that was extremely rare.

Mastermind
Jun 23, 2009
319
i agree, im a fire student and have storm as my secondary, and the fizzling rate is OUTRAGEOUS. i fizzled 3 times in a row when i "attempted" to summon my kraken. They need to bosst the accuracy. Im ok with 70% as long as they make it so its not 50% which seems more likely looking at the fizzle accuracy of fire and storm

Defender
Aug 01, 2008
100
I've always treated fizzles as part of the game. Storm gets more. So Storm needs to find ways to compensate, like not letting my life get too low and using my minion to take damage and focus away from me.

Explorer
Apr 22, 2009
54
I'm gonna have to disagree with ya'll. I have a Storm Grand and although she fiz's sometimes, for me its not that bad at all. You have to take into account that, yes, Storm fiz's rate is high, but we can deal MAJOR damage. I have done over 10,000 damage with ONE hit on another Storm Enemy before.

Yeah the fiz rate stinks, but get a good partner to play with that can help you out if you need it. My partner was death and I was death as second, so think about the damage that you can do with that. Almost everytime I hit something with the right setup, I would kill them. Not to mention the fact that Tempest is one of my FAVORITE spells, especially for soloing. I mean, if you set it up right, you can knock them all out at once! :)

My two cents. I love my Storm wiz.

Defender
Mar 01, 2009
145
seekanddestroy wrote:
You all want the truly powerful school? Its very well balanced and its name is ICE. Amazing health and good power. I dont care what people say about its attack power. Helephant does 620- 6something and colossus does 600- 6something (cant remember right now)Whats wrong with that? Sure its not as strong as helephant but its accuracy makes up for that. Also ice wizards are tanks. Unless you got tons of buffs, ice wizards are hard to one hit, unlike us poor storm fire wizards. Remember all players, fire and storm were'nt intended to be main schools. I'm sure anyone would fare better with fire or storm as a second. Its quite a shocker form KI honestly. If you diagree with me, play as a fire or storm wizard. You'll feel godlike for a time then you get used to almost dieing, fizzling with the same spell continuously in one battle and being one-hit in pvp. yay. I would really like to hear from one of the teachers about this. As too why we cant live too use our spells or why we have low life. Sacrifice power for life maybe? is that what was done to fire and storm? why wasnt it done to ice?
actually helephant does 620 to 700+ damage but i am not sure bout colossus and they are very good questions and should be answered by at least one of the teachers

Survivor
May 10, 2009
24
PeteWhite wrote:
I've always treated fizzles as part of the game. Storm gets more. So Storm needs to find ways to compensate, like not letting my life get too low and using my minion to take damage and focus away from me.


I personally feel storm and fire are being over penalized. I know each school should have a weakness and a strong point.

The strong point for fire and storm is its higher damage attacks.

The weak point for fire and storm should be its health.

More damage less survivabilty.

So why then are they being punished twice? Why should these schools get a HP penalty and a Accuracy penalty? I can see the 5% accuracy diffrent between storm and fire, because storm and fire are high damage schools while storm is still a little higher damage than fire..

That being said.

Fire should be at around 80-85% accuracy base

Storm should be at 75-80% base going off the fire figures.


They are both penalized with the lowest hp of any school. THATS THE DOWNSIDE TO THEM. Their is no need to make them 15-20% lower accuracy as well. Their defense is suppose to be a higher offense, but when you have a high fizzle rate you aren't getting that higher offense, because you can't effectivly apply those damage spells to your target with any consistancy.

I think KI needs to do the following.

They need to dig out their school concept design and do this.

Make a 1-10 rating system and give each school a rating

Survivability = Health,healing,ability to migitate damage.

Damage= Ability to deal damage probably best to calculate base buffs the school gets and then calculate their max damage.

Fizzle rate- this is farely easy as you just rate from 1-10 based on how they fizzle.

Now you have a 1-30 chance on points. Add up the tree area's and see where schools average. I think you will find storm and fire are being over penalised for the ability to have higher top end damage cards.

Defender
Mar 09, 2009
123
I've noticed with 4 different school wizards of all levels, from grandmaster down to level 23, all of them fizzle more when NOT going solo.

Fire - Grandmaster
Balance - Level 47
Death - Level 49
Life - Level 23

I prefer to use my fire wizard over any of the other wizards.

Defender
May 15, 2009
193
DarthNexus wrote:
true, fizzling is very unjust for storm wizards, there have been many times where i have been killed by a boss due to me fizzling.

You weren't killed by a boss due to your fizzling; you were killed because you gambled.

You should always ask, "What if this spell doesn't cast?" and if the answer is, "I would be defeated.", then you have no business casting that spell. (Unless you absolutely had no alternative, in which then the question of deck design comes into play.)

Defender
May 15, 2009
193
DorcasAurelia wrote:
RoloX2 wrote:
You can try to paste this into Excel:

Accuracy Blade Trap 1-Pip Base 1-Pip 2-Pip Base 2-Pip 3-Pip Base 3-Pip 4-Pip Base 4-Pip 5-Pip Base 5-Pip 6-Pip Base 6-Pip 7-Pip Base 7-Pip Total
Storm 70% 30% 25% 125 142 265 301 405 461 550 626 690 785 835 950 1380 1570 4835
Fire 75% 35% 25% 100 127 260 329 325 411 650 823 555 702 665 842 1582 2002 5236
Ice 80% 40% 30% 85 124 175 255 270 393 365 531 540 786 500 728 950 1383 4200
Death 85% 40% 30% 85 131 160 248 275 425 350 541 470 727 500 774 800 1238 4084
Life 90% 40% 25% 85 134 175 276 270 425 365 575 0 0 555 874 0 0 2284
Balance 85% 25% 30% 85 117 180 249 275 380 440 608 452 624 570 787 940 1298 4063

A simplified cross-section comparison of damage output of each casting cost spell with its school's blade/trap. AoE spell values are for two targets and the average value was used for spells with ranges. The last number in each row is the total of all spells of that school.

The thing is, you're not really taking accuracy into account.

Umm....see the first data column that says "Accuracy" and has all the schools' accuracy listed? Those values are multiplied with all damage values. i.e. If a Storm spell does 100 dmg, the calculated value is 70 dmg.

DorcasAurelia wrote:

but they also fail to land at all considerably more often.

Life is 15% more accurate than fire, 20% more than Storm. Given that, we can say, due to fizzles, Storm does 20% less damage compared to Life's 90% accuracy. However, you aren't taking damage values into consideration: Storm's 1-pip spell does 47% more damage than Life's and subtracting the 20% accuracy penalty, Storm still does 18% more damage.

DorcasAurelia wrote:

Balance appears overall generally the weakest offensive school, but I believe it has more access to defensive abilities.

Balance has the same offensive output as Death, which is almost double that of Life's, so I don't know how it 'appears' to be the weakest.

DorcasAurelia wrote:

Also, there is no such thing as the law of averages.

Yes there is; it is called the Law of Large Numbers, which means Storm's success rate isn't 70% (its accuracy is), but rather your successful spells cast will converge to 70%. The longer to play W101, your fizzle rate will converge to one minus your character's accuracy.

DorcasAurelia wrote:

Also, there is no such thing as the law of averages. The chance to fizzle two Storm spells in a row is 9%. The chance to fail three in a row is a minuscule 2.7%. That's about once every 120 spells. That doesn't mean that if you fizzle two Storm spells in a row, you're chance to fizzle the third is 2.7%, it is still a 30% chance to fail. It is always the same chance.

Precisely, but that is not what the angry mob thinks. They think that if you fizzle twice, the third spell's accuracy isn't 70% (for it should almost never fizzle a third time!), and therefore effectively near 100% and not fizzle.


Out of the dozen fizzle threads I've seen, nobody has produced consistent measured occurrences, only "it appears" and "it seems" or "it feels"...no actual data to indicate a trend. Storm's success probability is 70%; if you can't prove otherwise, youse gots nuttin', Mac. :?

If you don't have evidence to show a problem, you are just whining. Nobody has identified an error for KI to fix but "demand" KI "justify" ... what? ... your biased, distorted perceptions?

Defender
May 15, 2009
193
LetterBee wrote:
i am a grandmaster pyromncer storm being my second
...
i also dont like that ice people have ice armor and tower shield but all fire has is the glacical shield that -70% ice and storm attacks

Then why did you pick Storm spells rather than Ice/Tower Shield? You chose all the highest offensive skills and therefore lack defense...the, "Kill them before they kill me" strategy.

seekanddestroy wrote:
i agree completely. why does a school with the most life need so many defenses?

Because it is a Tank; it is defensive in its posture.

What I don't understand is why so many people pick a school and then complain about it and laud other schools?

If you want robust defenses, pick Ice! If you don't want to be squishy, don't pick Storm or Fire! If you hate volatility, don't pick Storm!
Don't look at one thing (damage values) and pick your school on it, ignoring everything else; don't blame KI for your myopia.

Survivor
May 31, 2009
7
The other unjust thing is the fact that stormblade is 30% while other schools have higher bonuses. The less damage your school does in an attack, the better your stormblade bonus, which cancels out the extra damage storm does to supposedly compensate for the high fizzle rate. So storm is left with 30% fizzle and 30% stormblade.

Defender
Mar 01, 2009
145
though you are right bout fizzling being part of the game i have been fizzling more then ever before now plus why is our accuracy low when our health is low. does it really matter that our attacks are supposed to take more if we cant even cast one? fire and storm should at least have an armor thing like absorb or ice shield cause of our low health
and blazian i am not hating fire. fire rules. and though it supposedly has 75%-80% accuracy my attacks (mainly what would be the final blow) fizzle even though i dont have smoke screen or black mantle on me
yea storm people could do what you said petewhite or go find someone who can give them accuracy blades or hope that their attacks dont fizzle or simply give up cause their attacks fizzle too much

Survivor
Jun 20, 2009
12
I'm a pyromancer, and you are exactly right. I lose ALOT of boss battles all because of fizzles, and I ALWAYS need my friend there with me on those boss battles. They really should make more sensible accuracy rate, or atleast be able to train your accuracy.