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Detonate spell change

AuthorMessage
Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
This is going to be at least 2 posts, so please wait for the second one before replying, ok? Thanks :)

I was thinking the Detonate Spell should change to the Sun School and should be a PRE-cast effect spell.

Why:
1) It's not a normal blade/trap spell
2) It would be a useful spell for ALL wizards
3) It would also help to give those people who feel they have no strong single attack spells exactly that.
4) As it stands, it's a fairly useless spell. I understand what it does and how it works, but the problem is, it really doesn't DO anything for you. It will only wind up combining 2 rounds of damage on YOUR spells, and 3 ONLY IF somebody with you goes first, casts a DoT spell AND you have the spell in your hands. That's a HUGE if for a card like this. Also, keep in mind, since it's 4 pips, you could easily cast another spell in its place and actually do more damage.

Let's examine the fire school in full to see the real effect of the spell change:
Fire Elf: 260 (practically useless after Krokopatra or Marleybone)
Link: 180 DMG + 120 HP (practically useless after Krokopatra or Marleybone)
Heck Hound: 1,820 - most useful boost (would become the strongest spell in the game provided you have patience)
Scald: 495 - slight benefit (would rival Meteor Strike, but almost useless)
Fire Dragon: 791 - quite useful boost
Power Link: 400 DMG + 280 HP - slight benefit (would rival sprite, but pip-wise, sprite would still be a more useful healing spell)
Rain of Fire: 1,100 - most useful boost (would become a devastating Attack All)

As you can see, all but 3 spells are virtually useless at the level you'd be getting the spell. Now let's see the other school specific spells and boosts:

New Single Hit Damage:
1,820 Heck Hound (fire)
1,350 Spinysaur (life)
1,100 Rain of Fire (fire)
1,050 Basilisk (myth)
1,010 Skeletal Dragon (death)
791 Fire Dragon (fire)
760 Snow Angel (ice)
570 Deer Knight (death)
550 Frostbite (ice)
495 Scald (fire)
475 Poison (death)
400 Power Link (fire)
260 Fire Elf (fire)
180 Link (fire)

New Single Hit Healing:
1,153 Regenerate (life)
850 Availing Hands (balance)
540 Helping Hands (balance)
300 Sprite (life)
280 Power Link (fire)
120 Link (fire)

So let's analyze this data some more for school specific spells:
1) Life (1), Death (1), Myth (1) and Fire (2) would get spells over 1,000 damage
2) ALL wizards would benefit from Sprite (would be 75% the strength of Pixie at 50% cost)
3) Life would get the huge damage spell they've been asking for as well as have the best healing single shot spell in the game
4) Fire would only get 3 spells that would have a usable boost at higher levels (RoF, HH and FD)
5) Storm would see no benefit YET.

(I'll finish the rest once this gets posted)

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
Now, if this change were to happen, Fire would need a new spell to replace it and I think Firezilla would be the perfect replacement. It's already a one hit spell so wouldn't take advantage of the change, costs the same as Detonate does now (4 pips), and has a good amount of damage. I know people will think that Fire would become too over powered, but let's think about this logically. In order for Heck Hound to really do a massive amount of damage to make the spell "over powered", you need to wait a MINIMUM of 7 rounds per spell if you have a high Power Pip rating. Who has time to wait MULTIPLE times for the spell to power up? Damage per pip is:

1 pip - 130
2 pips - 260
3 pips - 390
4 pips - 520
5 pips - 650
6 pips - 780
7 pips - 910
8 pips - 1,040
9 pips - 1,170
10 pips - 1,300
11 pips - 1,430
12 pips - 1,560
13 pips - 1,690
14 pips - 1,820

So it would only really start becoming a powerhouse at 7 rounds or more (making it better than Efreet). In a battle, unless you have help, that's a LOT of rounds of not doing ANY attacking or healing. It's just impractical to wait for 7 rounds (minimum) to cast a single spell, and 14 if you tack it onto Backdraft. Yes, I know you could boost it with varying traps/blades, but you would NOT be able to stack collossal onto it since you only get ONE Sun spell boost per card. The BIGGEST benefit, really, would be for getting the One-in-a-million Badge. Fire could do it on its own, with just school cards (learned and treasure) and people might feel slighted because it was much harder for them, but you would have to have a lot of patience to wait the minimum 14 rounds to do the Backdraft/Heck Hound combination.

(end of post, comment at will)

Survivor
Jun 22, 2009
31
Detonate doesn't have any value for fire at 4 pips. Let's look at some examples:

(EXAMPLE 1) Lets say, you cast a full PIP heck hound. The Heck hound does it's first of three rounds of damage [1/3]. You gain a power pip. (remember you need 4 pips to use detonate) Heck hound then does it's second of three rounds [2/3], and you only have one more round left. You get another power pip to total 4 power pips, and now ready to use detonate. BUT,heck hound is on it's last round. There is now no value to use detonte. CONCLUSION: Detonate is valueless for Heck Hound.

(EXAMPLE 2) Let's assume you have enough pips to cast Dragon and then detonate. You cast dragon & it does the initial damage. Your opponent chooses their spell. The first of 3 rounds go, your opponent casts their spell, then you cast detonate. YOU ONLY DETONATE 2 rounds for 4 pips. What value is that? For 4 pips, you can cast a colossal power link & get health back, or meteor & get an instant hit with more damage. CONCLUSION, detonate doesn't offer value for dragon. For every over time spell, you only detonate 2 ROUNDS, except for Heck Hound, you only detonate 1 ROUND.

EXAMPLE 3 Detonate with link, fire elf, scald or powerlink. The pip cost is way too expensive for the return. There is no value to use 4 pips on fire elf, link, powerlink.

So, here are my solutions:
(SUGGESTION 1) Make Detonate a ZERO PIP SPELL. This will activate at least 2 rounds of every overtime spell, including heckhound and scald.

(SUGGESTION 2) Make detonate zero pip cost, AND allow detonate to be cast before the over time, like a trap. Picture this. You cast detonate, then the next round, you cast Rain of Fire. Once the over time starts, all of the damage happends at one. This is what fire need to overcome Ice resist, and everyone eles's resist.

In conculsion, detonate has no value for fire at by costing 4 pips. Make detonate a ZERO PIP spell, and allow it to be cast before the overtime spell.
Thank you for reading.

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
heelyman - yes, ultimately I would LOVE to see Detonate become a Sun school spell and be allowed to PRE-cast attach it (like other astral spells). It IS quite useless as it stands now, but has the potential to be an AWESOME spell! I say they relocate Detonate to Sun school, make it a precast, and give Fire the Firezilla spell :) Would make me quite happy