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Wild bolt is too powerful for being two pips

AuthorMessage
Astrologist
Aug 21, 2009
1205
I'm storm school, and even I strongly state that wild bolt is too powerful and needs to be adjusted to have its casting and damage be more in lign with other storm spells. Without trying to boost casting percent as a grand master storm I am able to successfully cast the 10% wild bolt card once in every three or four turns and without ever really seeing my pips go down while using it. Compare that 1000 base damage to the pip cost and damage of a 6 pip cost tritan card that does 800 or so base damage and depletes pips upon use and you can see just how out of line wild bolt truly is. Try to plus up wild bolt a bit and you get the card to cast at a 50% or there abouts chance rate, and again without any real observable pip cost.

Wild bolt should be no more than a 700 base damage cast at a 10% base cast rate, or 900 base damage at a 10% cast rate that costs 3 pips instead of two.

Please adjust or at least take into consideration the idea of adjusting wild bolt, as it really is very unbalanced in terms of its damage and cost to cast.

Astrologist
Aug 13, 2009
1087
Yeah, judging from the fact it is a magus/adept level spell.

Adherent
May 20, 2010
2902
Let's look at the statistics. These are not adjusted for power boosts, which would affect all spells equally:

Wild Bolt costs 2 pips, does 1,000 damage and hits 10% of the time. That's a weighted average of (1000 * .10) / 2 , or 50 damage per pip.

Triton costs 6 pips, does 835 damage, and hits 70% of the time. That's a weighted average of (835 * .7)/6, or about 97 damage per pip. (Note that Stormzilla is about the same).

So without any boosts, Wild Bolt is fairly useless.

Now let's modify it by adding accuracy boosts. Using Snowcrusher's Shroud (5%), Malistaire's Wrathful Wrap (7%), and Spiderkeepers Thundershoes (3%), we have a 15% boost to accuracy.

Now Wild Bolt will now 25% of the time. The new weighted average is (1000 * .25)/ 2, or 125 damage per pip.

Triton will now hit 90% of the time. The new weighted average is (835 * .9) / 6, or about 125 damage per pip.

Therefore, at its very best (unless there are more/better accuracy boosts than what I've listed), Wild Bolt does no more damage per pip than Triton.

Putting more accuracy boosts on Wild Bolt and Triton will favor Wild Bolt. 15% accuracy boost appears to be the breakeven point for raw damage. So if higher accuracy equipment boosts become available, Wild Bolt could be favored.

However, this doesn't take into account the fact that Wild Bolt can fizzle several times in a row, that the same turns taken repeatedly casting Wild Bolt over and over could be used to buff up another spell (i.e. Triton or Stormzilla), that Wild Bolt's accuracy could be improved by such as a Balance wizard's Precision in team play (and that doing so would cost that wizard a turn that could be used doing something else), etc.

Altogether, it looks to me like Wild Bolt is exactly what it was intended to be: a early-shot attempt to do quick-damage, or a last-ditch effort to finish an opponent.

Geographer
Feb 14, 2009
835
you know how hard it is to get it to work sometimes
10-base
15- cloths
so 25% now we add a accuracy enchantment
10- keeneye or 20-sniper
35-45%

Now for attack boosts

now we use the card we got from visiting all the teachers
45-55%
now we cant use any storm spells till we try to use bolt
now we have to have a theurgirst or balance to help us with the next part
55-85%
now if we use anything besides bolt it messes us up and we go back to 35-45%
and not many people actually take the time for accuracy boosts so it normally stays in the 35%-45% besides most people only use 2-3 blades/traps with bolt while triton uses more.
so A. Bolt has very bad accuracy
B. Bolt in the end wont hit as much as triton normally.
C. Stop complaining

Explorer
Jul 08, 2009
69
I guess they made it a low-pip spell to make up for the incredibely low accuracy.

Survivor
Apr 27, 2010
7
It only hit so much because it has such a low percent chance of working.

Survivor
Feb 01, 2009
2
wild bolt is not to powerful its power is high because storm is the toughest school

Survivor
Jun 28, 2009
35
colagada wrote:
Altogether, it looks to me like Wild Bolt is exactly what it was intended to be: [...] a last-ditch effort to finish an opponent.

Like when you're at Mooshu facing a boss that still has 800-ish life points and you only have three pips with 87 life points left. Been there, done that. Man what a rush!

Explorer
Dec 19, 2008
60
[Well, if you are from storm school, then you should be appreciating you get a spell that powerful instead of complaining. Though, I do think changing the spell to three pips will give non-storms a chance to shield. (unless you automatically get a power pip XP)

Wild Bolt does not need its damage to be adjusted! We're Storm, the strongest school. Who else can do a spell that does around 1,200 damage on your second turn? I think we were given our clothes to make up for our 30% blade. It's useful, to me, when I can cast Wild Bolt on my first turn and do somewhere around 1,450 damage.

Also, I want to add this, my life on this game depends on Wild Bolt sometimes. When I'm fighitng a boss and I only have 100 health left and one power pip, I can't heal, can I? So, I throw caution to the wind and cast a wild bolt. It works and then I'm saved. *cheer*

Wild Bolt is useful in more then one thing, y'know. Sort of like Balance and Judgment.

Rachel Rainhaven level 50
Jennifer AngleWeaver level 49

Explorer
Jul 17, 2009
75
Im a storm grand and ive seen the spell hundred off times in my deck the only problem: 10% chance of working mostling you have to wear something that will boost the accuracy to make it work by a lot now its powerful when it works but mine only works about once every day i was lucky when it worked three times

Explorer
Jul 17, 2009
75
AlecVolterra wrote:
you know how hard it is to get it to work sometimes
10-base
15- cloths
so 25% now we add a accuracy enchantment
10- keeneye or 20-sniper
35-45%

Now for attack boosts

now we use the card we got from visiting all the teachers
45-55%
now we cant use any storm spells till we try to use bolt
now we have to have a theurgirst or balance to help us with the next part
55-85%
now if we use anything besides bolt it messes us up and we go back to 35-45%
and not many people actually take the time for accuracy boosts so it normally stays in the 35%-45% besides most people only use 2-3 blades/traps with bolt while triton uses more.
so A. Bolt has very bad accuracy
B. Bolt in the end wont hit as much as triton normally.
C. Stop complaining
im storm and i barely understood anything SO CONFUSING

Mastermind
Jun 07, 2010
333
seasnake wrote:
I'm storm school, and even I strongly state that wild bolt is too powerful and needs to be adjusted to have its casting and damage be more in lign with other storm spells. Without trying to boost casting percent as a grand master storm I am able to successfully cast the 10% wild bolt card once in every three or four turns and without ever really seeing my pips go down while using it. Compare that 1000 base damage to the pip cost and damage of a 6 pip cost tritan card that does 800 or so base damage and depletes pips upon use and you can see just how out of line wild bolt truly is. Try to plus up wild bolt a bit and you get the card to cast at a 50% or there abouts chance rate, and again without any real observable pip cost.

Wild bolt should be no more than a 700 base damage cast at a 10% base cast rate, or 900 base damage at a 10% cast rate that costs 3 pips instead of two.

Please adjust or at least take into consideration the idea of adjusting wild bolt, as it really is very unbalanced in terms of its damage and cost to cast.


Doesn't matter how powerful it is, Unbalanced it is, Blah, blah mathmaticly. I have a Master Diviner. It's a useless card because it will Fizzle 99.9% of the time. The only time Wild Bolt MAY. just MAY work, which is still slim to none chance. Is if you have a weakness or two on you. or by some miracle having an accuracy buff up and you can actully get a cast off. But Storm Accuracy buffs are broke anyways.

Wild Bolt is just a joke, a pointless card. It will always be broke, Why do you think the Pip cost is so low? The game physics will not allow it to work properly. KI would have to fix all of W101 just to have Wild Bolt successfuly work the way it should.

If KI decides to fix the whole game they should add a counter School for Balance, Just saying.

Explorer
Mar 11, 2010
93
It would be too powerful if it actually worked.

When you consider the high fizzle rate and add lower health and defenses to it, it all evens out.
I see Wild Bolt as the 'last chance to save your bacon, cross your fingers and hope for the best' card.

I have a Master Storm wizard, and can say that I have died more times on her than the rest of my wizards.

Grandmaster Life, Grandmaster Balance
Master Storm and Master Ice

Explorer
May 23, 2009
78

no, because there is only a 10% chance it will work. I was thinking at first about your thing but then i thought about it i little bit more and came up with that conclusion



seasnake wrote:
I'm storm school, and even I strongly state that wild bolt is too powerful and needs to be adjusted to have its casting and damage be more in lign with other storm spells. Without trying to boost casting percent as a grand master storm I am able to successfully cast the 10% wild bolt card once in every three or four turns and without ever really seeing my pips go down while using it. Compare that 1000 base damage to the pip cost and damage of a 6 pip cost tritan card that does 800 or so base damage and depletes pips upon use and you can see just how out of line wild bolt truly is. Try to plus up wild bolt a bit and you get the card to cast at a 50% or there abouts chance rate, and again without any real observable pip cost.

Wild bolt should be no more than a 700 base damage cast at a 10% base cast rate, or 900 base damage at a 10% cast rate that costs 3 pips instead of two.

Please adjust or at least take into consideration the idea of adjusting wild bolt, as it really is very unbalanced in terms of its damage and cost to cast.

Astrologist
Aug 21, 2009
1205
If I thought that wild bolt in any way actually casted only 10% of the time that would be different. In the game when I see anyone try to use it, it normally always casts while my triton and tempest fizzle away. When I see storms casting wild bolt time and time again successfully and then look and see they have no targeting boosts to speak of, I start complaining about that 10% cause it seems more like 80% plus. I experimented a bit with it when my accuracy on it was only a 20 percent cast, and most of the time I could cast it successfully in the first two turns and normally always within the first three. That triton does less base damage leaves wild bolt ahead on the casting and damage game by quite a bit. I've talked to people who said their certain storm friends never seem to fail on it.

Mastermind
Jun 07, 2010
333
seasnake wrote:
If I thought that wild bolt in any way actually casted only 10% of the time that would be different. In the game when I see anyone try to use it, it normally always casts while my triton and tempest fizzle away. When I see storms casting wild bolt time and time again successfully and then look and see they have no targeting boosts to speak of, I start complaining about that 10% cause it seems more like 80% plus. I experimented a bit with it when my accuracy on it was only a 20 percent cast, and most of the time I could cast it successfully in the first two turns and normally always within the first three. That triton does less base damage leaves wild bolt ahead on the casting and damage game by quite a bit. I've talked to people who said their certain storm friends never seem to fail on it.


Then they are the lucky ones. I can count on one hand how many times I had a successful cast of Wild Bolt.(Which I try to use as much as possible) I have a grand master Diviner, and it will rarely ever get off. I tried just about every single trick I can think of to get this thing to work when I want it to. they all failed.

Accuracy potions from crown shop, Enhancing it with a Chant card, While I had a hanging accuracy buff going. Bump-kis still fizzled.

Ohh just thought of something while I was typing this. I never tried it dry-Meaning straight from the deck to the air with no traps, no blades, and no defence shields up. Just join a duel wait til I get two pips then cast it..Hmmm.