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So... Insane Bolt.

AuthorMessage
Delver
Mar 09, 2018
260
For those unaware, Insane Bolt is a Storm spell that they get at level 55 after completing their second Grizzleheim spell quest. It can do either 1000 damage to the target or 10,000 damage to the caster. It also costs two pips to use. In PvP, the chances of it hitting your opponent are something like 80% [and if a dev wants to correct me if the value is different, go right ahead, it's still above 50 and you know it].

Now, understandably, this is one of the most broken spells in the entire game right now. 500 damage per pip. I could suck it up and deal with that since Storm is the highest damaging school. I really could. But there are a couple reasons why I can't, and I'll list them here:

1. Its pip cost is a very low value of two. A 500 dpp spell should cost 10 pips and a shad and meet a double damage criteria mechanic and be able to be effectively shielded against. For 2 pips, after all your stat multipliers you can put 3k damage on your opponent at legendary and 4-5k damage at exalted-max without losing any momentum.

2. You can get this as early as level 55, which puts this monster of a 500 dpp spell in the playing field at legendary. Half the people I queue on my 900 rank legend death are storms, and a lot of those storms like to try to bolt first round. The fact that you might not even get a turn if you end up queuing a storm at legendary on some classes makes this such a bad thing for the meta.

3. It's moon damage that it deals, not storm damage, so the only way you can shield against it is with a tower shield which is obviously less than a storm set shield. Keep in mind that it's 500 damage per pip and only 2 pips to use, so even if you do tower a crit insane is still doing 1.5-2k damage through your tower.

4. It can one-shot kill the caster, which is unhealthy for the game, but point 5 covers this better

5. Even though there is a risk to using it [immediate death], the risk is far too low. The bolt lands on the opponent far, far more than it lands on the caster, and like I said before, that's 1k base MOON damage for just 2 pips.

6. The accuracy on it is 100% base, meaning any kind of mantle is most likely not going to work.

I have some solutions for all of these that I think could make the threat of an insane bolt at any time a lot lower, even though I think the game would just be better off without this card in it.

Solution to 1: If you're adamant on keeping the 500 damage per pip value, bump up the pip cost to at least 5 and leave the same land/backfire rates. That would at least mean a Storm would have to use pips on it.

Solution to 2: The best way to take this out of the Legendary playing field is simply to raise what level you need to be to have it. A spell like Healing Current would help players a lot more during the level 55-75 range, so moving the level requirement for HC back to 55 and putting IB on 75 is the better option.

Solution to 3: Making it deal 1k Storm damage when it lands and keeping the moon damage on a backfire would at least fix things up a tiny bit. You could at the very least use a ward pet and a set shield to reduce the damage on this monster, which is a huge step up from what it currently is.

Solution to 4: This really just falls in line with heavily nerfing the DPP. If it did maybe either 400 moon damage to the target or something like 1000 moon damage to the caster, that would not only balance it really well, but would keep the spell viable for use as kind of an alternative to lightning bats.

Solution to 5: So let's say the dev team doesn't want to nerf the damage for some reason. The best they can do is make it a 50/50 chance just like it is in PvE. It could go lower like 40/60 or something and we'd all be fine with it, but what it's at right now is what's plaguing the arena.

Solution to 6: Hypothetically, if after reading my entire post and all 5 solutions above, let's say they don't want to do anything to the damage, damage type, or land rate. In my honest opinion, a healthy accuracy value for the current Insane Bolt is 10%. Your average max storm accuracy build would bump this up to around 50%, 55% while under galvanic and 65% while under a pet-cast infal. The really sweaty storms would unfortunately still have this beat and Extraordinary enchant their bolts, but at the very least they would lose out on some base damage in favor of the accuracy and they'd have to use a tc that's not sold by any vendors.

Some arguments I think will be used against me here:

"But there's a risk to using it! You could immediately die if you use it!"

There's a risk, but like I said in point 5 it's too low. Increase the risk and you're onto something.

"Storm is one of the worst schools at max!"

Have you seen Scion? Insane is probably not the biggest problem at max right now when it comes to storm. It's a copout card that does way too much damage for its pip cost, but Storm can finish most schools in 2-3 hits with only 1-2 buffs. The nerfs I propose would help balance legendary PvP a lot more than max, which has a reputation for being just a little more balanced than max - this would just even things out.

"Just tower shield 4head?"

I said earlier in point 3 that even if you tower, pierce is high enough at all levels to the point where the most damage it'll take off at max is probably 1k. That's still good, but if it was doing 4.4k open it's just doing 3.4k now, and you've lost a turn using that tower shield. At legendary pierce is not as prevalent, but the issue still exists where a tower shield doesn't quite negate it as much as it needs to. An open insane that would normally do 2.9 will do about 1.7-1.8 with a tower shield up.

My own preferred solution that isn't just taking it out of the game is making it cost 5 pips, become accessible at level 75 in Avalon, make it do 1k storm damage instead of moon, leave the current land/backfire rates, and have the accuracy go down to Storm's normal 70%.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the replies.

Mastermind
Mar 19, 2011
344
JewelKI on Sep 14, 2020 wrote:
For those unaware, Insane Bolt is a Storm spell that they get at level 55 after completing their second Grizzleheim spell quest. It can do either 1000 damage to the target or 10,000 damage to the caster. It also costs two pips to use. In PvP, the chances of it hitting your opponent are something like 80% [and if a dev wants to correct me if the value is different, go right ahead, it's still above 50 and you know it].

Now, understandably, this is one of the most broken spells in the entire game right now. 500 damage per pip. I could suck it up and deal with that since Storm is the highest damaging school. I really could. But there are a couple reasons why I can't, and I'll list them here:

1. Its pip cost is a very low value of two. A 500 dpp spell should cost 10 pips and a shad and meet a double damage criteria mechanic and be able to be effectively shielded against. For 2 pips, after all your stat multipliers you can put 3k damage on your opponent at legendary and 4-5k damage at exalted-max without losing any momentum.

2. You can get this as early as level 55, which puts this monster of a 500 dpp spell in the playing field at legendary. Half the people I queue on my 900 rank legend death are storms, and a lot of those storms like to try to bolt first round. The fact that you might not even get a turn if you end up queuing a storm at legendary on some classes makes this such a bad thing for the meta.

3. It's moon damage that it deals, not storm damage, so the only way you can shield against it is with a tower shield which is obviously less than a storm set shield. Keep in mind that it's 500 damage per pip and only 2 pips to use, so even if you do tower a crit insane is still doing 1.5-2k damage through your tower.

4. It can one-shot kill the caster, which is unhealthy for the game, but point 5 covers this better

5. Even though there is a risk to using it [immediate death], the risk is far too low. The bolt lands on the opponent far, far more than it lands on the caster, and like I said before, that's 1k base MOON damage for just 2 pips.

6. The accuracy on it is 100% base, meaning any kind of mantle is most likely not going to work.

I have some solutions for all of these that I think could make the threat of an insane bolt at any time a lot lower, even though I think the game would just be better off without this card in it.

Solution to 1: If you're adamant on keeping the 500 damage per pip value, bump up the pip cost to at least 5 and leave the same land/backfire rates. That would at least mean a Storm would have to use pips on it.

Solution to 2: The best way to take this out of the Legendary playing field is simply to raise what level you need to be to have it. A spell like Healing Current would help players a lot more during the level 55-75 range, so moving the level requirement for HC back to 55 and putting IB on 75 is the better option.

Solution to 3: Making it deal 1k Storm damage when it lands and keeping the moon damage on a backfire would at least fix things up a tiny bit. You could at the very least use a ward pet and a set shield to reduce the damage on this monster, which is a huge step up from what it currently is.

Solution to 4: This really just falls in line with heavily nerfing the DPP. If it did maybe either 400 moon damage to the target or something like 1000 moon damage to the caster, that would not only balance it really well, but would keep the spell viable for use as kind of an alternative to lightning bats.

Solution to 5: So let's say the dev team doesn't want to nerf the damage for some reason. The best they can do is make it a 50/50 chance just like it is in PvE. It could go lower like 40/60 or something and we'd all be fine with it, but what it's at right now is what's plaguing the arena.

Solution to 6: Hypothetically, if after reading my entire post and all 5 solutions above, let's say they don't want to do anything to the damage, damage type, or land rate. In my honest opinion, a healthy accuracy value for the current Insane Bolt is 10%. Your average max storm accuracy build would bump this up to around 50%, 55% while under galvanic and 65% while under a pet-cast infal. The really sweaty storms would unfortunately still have this beat and Extraordinary enchant their bolts, but at the very least they would lose out on some base damage in favor of the accuracy and they'd have to use a tc that's not sold by any vendors.

Some arguments I think will be used against me here:

"But there's a risk to using it! You could immediately die if you use it!"

There's a risk, but like I said in point 5 it's too low. Increase the risk and you're onto something.

"Storm is one of the worst schools at max!"

Have you seen Scion? Insane is probably not the biggest problem at max right now when it comes to storm. It's a copout card that does way too much damage for its pip cost, but Storm can finish most schools in 2-3 hits with only 1-2 buffs. The nerfs I propose would help balance legendary PvP a lot more than max, which has a reputation for being just a little more balanced than max - this would just even things out.

"Just tower shield 4head?"

I said earlier in point 3 that even if you tower, pierce is high enough at all levels to the point where the most damage it'll take off at max is probably 1k. That's still good, but if it was doing 4.4k open it's just doing 3.4k now, and you've lost a turn using that tower shield. At legendary pierce is not as prevalent, but the issue still exists where a tower shield doesn't quite negate it as much as it needs to. An open insane that would normally do 2.9 will do about 1.7-1.8 with a tower shield up.

My own preferred solution that isn't just taking it out of the game is making it cost 5 pips, become accessible at level 75 in Avalon, make it do 1k storm damage instead of moon, leave the current land/backfire rates, and have the accuracy go down to Storm's normal 70%.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the replies.
I wanted to check of often Insane Bolt hit the caster, so I put my Storm and Balance Wizard into the practice arena at my house and had Storm cast nothing but insane Bolt, while my Balance wizard just passed.

I cast 150 insane bolts. 49 of them hit and killed the caster, or 32.7% of the time and hit their target 67.3% of the time.

I never PvP on any wizard except my Balance.

If a Storm wizard wants to take a one in three chance of dying in order to deal 1000-1300 damage on me, I say let them.

Delver
Jun 10, 2012
236
Hi i thinks thats cause more trouble on middle range lvl pvp

Geographer
Sep 30, 2018
837
JewelKI on Sep 14, 2020 wrote:
For those unaware, Insane Bolt is a Storm spell that they get at level 55 after completing their second Grizzleheim spell quest. It can do either 1000 damage to the target or 10,000 damage to the caster. It also costs two pips to use. In PvP, the chances of it hitting your opponent are something like 80% [and if a dev wants to correct me if the value is different, go right ahead, it's still above 50 and you know it].

Now, understandably, this is one of the most broken spells in the entire game right now. 500 damage per pip. I could suck it up and deal with that since Storm is the highest damaging school. I really could. But there are a couple reasons why I can't, and I'll list them here:

1. Its pip cost is a very low value of two. A 500 dpp spell should cost 10 pips and a shad and meet a double damage criteria mechanic and be able to be effectively shielded against. For 2 pips, after all your stat multipliers you can put 3k damage on your opponent at legendary and 4-5k damage at exalted-max without losing any momentum.

2. You can get this as early as level 55, which puts this monster of a 500 dpp spell in the playing field at legendary. Half the people I queue on my 900 rank legend death are storms, and a lot of those storms like to try to bolt first round. The fact that you might not even get a turn if you end up queuing a storm at legendary on some classes makes this such a bad thing for the meta.

3. It's moon damage that it deals, not storm damage, so the only way you can shield against it is with a tower shield which is obviously less than a storm set shield. Keep in mind that it's 500 damage per pip and only 2 pips to use, so even if you do tower a crit insane is still doing 1.5-2k damage through your tower.

4. It can one-shot kill the caster, which is unhealthy for the game, but point 5 covers this better

5. Even though there is a risk to using it [immediate death], the risk is far too low. The bolt lands on the opponent far, far more than it lands on the caster, and like I said before, that's 1k base MOON damage for just 2 pips.

6. The accuracy on it is 100% base, meaning any kind of mantle is most likely not going to work.

I have some solutions for all of these that I think could make the threat of an insane bolt at any time a lot lower, even though I think the game would just be better off without this card in it.

Solution to 1: If you're adamant on keeping the 500 damage per pip value, bump up the pip cost to at least 5 and leave the same land/backfire rates. That would at least mean a Storm would have to use pips on it.

Solution to 2: The best way to take this out of the Legendary playing field is simply to raise what level you need to be to have it. A spell like Healing Current would help players a lot more during the level 55-75 range, so moving the level requirement for HC back to 55 and putting IB on 75 is the better option.

Solution to 3: Making it deal 1k Storm damage when it lands and keeping the moon damage on a backfire would at least fix things up a tiny bit. You could at the very least use a ward pet and a set shield to reduce the damage on this monster, which is a huge step up from what it currently is.

Solution to 4: This really just falls in line with heavily nerfing the DPP. If it did maybe either 400 moon damage to the target or something like 1000 moon damage to the caster, that would not only balance it really well, but would keep the spell viable for use as kind of an alternative to lightning bats.

Solution to 5: So let's say the dev team doesn't want to nerf the damage for some reason. The best they can do is make it a 50/50 chance just like it is in PvE. It could go lower like 40/60 or something and we'd all be fine with it, but what it's at right now is what's plaguing the arena.

Solution to 6: Hypothetically, if after reading my entire post and all 5 solutions above, let's say they don't want to do anything to the damage, damage type, or land rate. In my honest opinion, a healthy accuracy value for the current Insane Bolt is 10%. Your average max storm accuracy build would bump this up to around 50%, 55% while under galvanic and 65% while under a pet-cast infal. The really sweaty storms would unfortunately still have this beat and Extraordinary enchant their bolts, but at the very least they would lose out on some base damage in favor of the accuracy and they'd have to use a tc that's not sold by any vendors.

Some arguments I think will be used against me here:

"But there's a risk to using it! You could immediately die if you use it!"

There's a risk, but like I said in point 5 it's too low. Increase the risk and you're onto something.

"Storm is one of the worst schools at max!"

Have you seen Scion? Insane is probably not the biggest problem at max right now when it comes to storm. It's a copout card that does way too much damage for its pip cost, but Storm can finish most schools in 2-3 hits with only 1-2 buffs. The nerfs I propose would help balance legendary PvP a lot more than max, which has a reputation for being just a little more balanced than max - this would just even things out.

"Just tower shield 4head?"

I said earlier in point 3 that even if you tower, pierce is high enough at all levels to the point where the most damage it'll take off at max is probably 1k. That's still good, but if it was doing 4.4k open it's just doing 3.4k now, and you've lost a turn using that tower shield. At legendary pierce is not as prevalent, but the issue still exists where a tower shield doesn't quite negate it as much as it needs to. An open insane that would normally do 2.9 will do about 1.7-1.8 with a tower shield up.

My own preferred solution that isn't just taking it out of the game is making it cost 5 pips, become accessible at level 75 in Avalon, make it do 1k storm damage instead of moon, leave the current land/backfire rates, and have the accuracy go down to Storm's normal 70%.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the replies.
Insane is balance as it is. There are just some spells we are gonna have to just deal with, despite having some form of better usefulness than others. Insane cannot be storm damage because it will render storms less effective vs storm set shields and ward pets. If storm has to be the quickest high damage dealers than fires and fire are getting away with high damage spells then i can't see why storm shouldn't have a spell that does significant damage at an early stage (if) it hits.

So although you have some few points, i agree with mechanically, the only change id propose for insane bolt is to make it do 1000 (storm) damage in dot for 3 pips. Until storm can be approach differently they dont deserve any more nerfs. Storms are in a great spot right now due to now being able to have high health and fair amount of resist. Scion of storm is also balance as it is for doing high damage.

The best advice i can give vs storm is to use aegis triple blades into set shields. Force them to use shrike and work your way around dispels and other essentials. Dont nerf a school who has been struggling in the past, and just because players found a way to make it good doesn't mean it deserves nerf.

Delver
Mar 09, 2018
260
Liam Swiftwalker on Sep 15, 2020 wrote:
I wanted to check of often Insane Bolt hit the caster, so I put my Storm and Balance Wizard into the practice arena at my house and had Storm cast nothing but insane Bolt, while my Balance wizard just passed.

I cast 150 insane bolts. 49 of them hit and killed the caster, or 32.7% of the time and hit their target 67.3% of the time.

I never PvP on any wizard except my Balance.

If a Storm wizard wants to take a one in three chance of dying in order to deal 1000-1300 damage on me, I say let them.
Even if your testing values were set in stone as the chances of an insane landing or backfiring, that is still a 67.3% chance to land on the opponent and do mass damage for 2 pips.

"If a Storm wizard wants to take a one in three chance of dying in order to deal 1000-1300 damage on me, I say let them."

Except that's just the base damage. After accounting for multipliers on normal PvP builds, at max an open crit insane does about 4k damage and at legendary it's about 3k damage. This spell is unhealthy for the playing field. It's more of a problem at legendary, but you can't ignore the fact that an open 2-pip hit can do 4000 damage even at higher levels.

Delver
Mar 09, 2018
260
Stormwind 8108 on Sep 15, 2020 wrote:
Hi i thinks thats cause more trouble on middle range lvl pvp
It is definitely at its worst at level 60, you're right. Point 2 would solve this issue for mid range PvP.

Delver
Mar 09, 2018
260
angellifeheart on Sep 15, 2020 wrote:
Insane is balance as it is. There are just some spells we are gonna have to just deal with, despite having some form of better usefulness than others. Insane cannot be storm damage because it will render storms less effective vs storm set shields and ward pets. If storm has to be the quickest high damage dealers than fires and fire are getting away with high damage spells then i can't see why storm shouldn't have a spell that does significant damage at an early stage (if) it hits.

So although you have some few points, i agree with mechanically, the only change id propose for insane bolt is to make it do 1000 (storm) damage in dot for 3 pips. Until storm can be approach differently they dont deserve any more nerfs. Storms are in a great spot right now due to now being able to have high health and fair amount of resist. Scion of storm is also balance as it is for doing high damage.

The best advice i can give vs storm is to use aegis triple blades into set shields. Force them to use shrike and work your way around dispels and other essentials. Dont nerf a school who has been struggling in the past, and just because players found a way to make it good doesn't mean it deserves nerf.
The thing about Insane is that it does too much damage for too little pips. At max Storm has the necessary spells to win games, yet they will still turn to Insane for cheap damage and minimal pip loss.

A 3-pip overtime that does 1000 damage, storm or moon, would actually make the problem worse. It would then become a shieldbreaker that still costs next to no pips. The last thing we need is for Storm to be unstoppable, and if your idea has no way of backfiring, then Storm would indeed be unstoppable regardless of their low health.

I do use aegis triblades to keep Scion out of the match. I don't want to nerf Storm either, in fact if my second idea was the only thing that they actually did I'd be satisfied. Legendary is where the problem is at its worst which was really the motivator for me to make this post.

Geographer
Sep 30, 2018
837
JewelKI on Sep 17, 2020 wrote:
The thing about Insane is that it does too much damage for too little pips. At max Storm has the necessary spells to win games, yet they will still turn to Insane for cheap damage and minimal pip loss.

A 3-pip overtime that does 1000 damage, storm or moon, would actually make the problem worse. It would then become a shieldbreaker that still costs next to no pips. The last thing we need is for Storm to be unstoppable, and if your idea has no way of backfiring, then Storm would indeed be unstoppable regardless of their low health.

I do use aegis triblades to keep Scion out of the match. I don't want to nerf Storm either, in fact if my second idea was the only thing that they actually did I'd be satisfied. Legendary is where the problem is at its worst which was really the motivator for me to make this post.
I understand your point. I just want to clarify atm that storm is the worst tier at max level pvp according to the 1v1 ranked games percentage released by the devs. If that doesn't explain anything, storms needs to be changed entirely to fit the discrepancy of being the fast damage dealing school in the game. I cannot fathom the idea of how schools like myth or fire burst out of no where in terms of effectiveness simply because of the spells they have, but like i said i understand where your coming from and am only voicing my own opinions.