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Changes to Wild Bolt Spell - a Civilized Chat

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Jun 05, 2009
31
We all HAVE tried the new bolt on the test and found it completly worthless.
How many need to say it?What surprises me is that KI believes this is a reasonable change.As a subscriber with 3 accounts in my family(tatal of 11
grandmasters)I can tell you we are very unhappy with this change.Over 60%
of the community hates this according to the poll,yet KI STILL put in the live
game.WHY? If you were actully listening to your subscibers you would not
have made this blunder.Do we need to cancel our subscritions to get your
attention?As a player that has all grandmasters in all the schools I'm speaking from expierience when i say bolt as it is now is useless.Please listen
THIS time to what we are telling you.Did anyone on the staff try this?I
cant imagine they did or THEY would have told you it wasting pips to caste
this spell.

Explorer
Jul 15, 2009
70
OK I don't like the NEW wild bolt at all. It's weak and worthless now. A wand attack can be more powerful, and most of all the bigger percentage is the low attack. Are you sure you listened to the community? I really hope you change this. I have a storm wizard that loves bolt and now i will have to take it out of my deck and replace it with stormzilla. It would REALLY be nice if we could have bolt back to 1000, and thats it. Pleas KI, for a game this awesome that I especially love, this is one of the most dissapointing, disasterous decisions that you have made so far.

Survivor
Apr 28, 2009
2
I agree with everyone else who hates the new changes to wild bolt. You have taken away the storm school's best quality in my opinion. Having a storm grandmaster I along with all the others who hate it are very angry. As for the complainers who got it changed you really did it this time and you have no idea how many people you have upset. The vote said about twice as many people hated the new changes to bolt so why put it in the real realm. If more people like the old version you should'nt have changed it at all.

Geographer
Feb 14, 2009
835
With a 30% accuracy increase to the spell, the MAX % someone can get on the 1000 hit is about 33%, this is a major improvement. For now with all the accuracy boosts, the old bolt could have 80%, this is WORSE then judgement, earthquake, chain stunning, tower shields, constant healing, etc. anything you can think of ALL COMBINED. This would RUIN pvp if it stayed the same. You need to think about other schools, not just storm.

Survivor
Sep 26, 2009
4
i sort of like the new wild bolt exept that 2/3 it will have a very bad move. why dont they just make it 100% accuracy and 500 1000 20,000 but just give it to me

Survivor
May 14, 2009
5
arollison wrote:
I think the change is adequate and fair, and I will tell you why. There is no other school that has the opportunity to do 1000+ damage with 2 pips. I am a balance gm and I have to wait 5 rounds (if I get power pips each round) to hit judgment at 1000, not including gear, pet and boosts.

If you were to change wild bolt back to its original state, I would not be upset, however, I believe requiring more pips would even things out. Perhaps since all the storms are complaining (even though they have lord and triton), KI will change the bolt back to its original state. If they do, I hope they will require more pips. It takes the other schools building up pips to do any damage too.


You do realize storm IS the most powerful school. Being able to hit 1000+ damage with 2 pips is our advantage. Just like every school has their own. We do not have hardly any hp at all and we fizzle by far the most.

Defender
Feb 09, 2009
121
wild bolt is wrong now, i wasted two pips for a 10 damage hit? if i used the sword i would have hit for a larger damage and it not cost me two pips. you need to change it to 250, 500 or 1000 or change the hit, if it hits at 10 or 100 then no pips are used. OR change the spell to 50% accuracy with a 750 hit damage, 70% accuracy with 500, 750 or 1000 hit damage.
OR make it a repeating spell at 90% accuracy 300 first hit 350 second round and 350 the last round, that way the opponents can shield the rest of the damage.


Explorer
Apr 29, 2010
60
Wild Bolt isn't worth skilling now. It was a perfectly balanced spell until Celestia brought new ways to boost accuracy. All that was required was a cap on accuracy to stop players bolting their way through Celestia.

Squire
Apr 11, 2010
575
If there is one positive thing that can be said about this new change, it would probably be that Wild bolts 1000 points of damage is now fixed at 33% given it is divided among 10, 100 and 1000. This could be a solution to the accuracy boosts that have been plaguing players.

But having the card unaffected by enchantments and such, or capping it's percent increase at 20 or 25% and leaving it at 1000 could have been an equally good option.

Survivor
Sep 18, 2009
1
WOW i cant believe you guys actually listened to all the whiners about wild bolt! Why did you have to handicap the lowest health school in all of ravenwood? Look at all the posts about balance whats the difference?Had so many gripe about Judgement but what did you guys do? Nothing! But complain about Bolt and vwalla Major changes :( Some asked for balance dispell did we get one NO we asked for a shield, again did we get one NO.
Some say a tower and weakness will deflect the hit.Well guess what they are wrong.I have a grand life and i have casted tower and absorb at the same time but a full pip dbl blade hex and feint+ monsterous tc added he died in pvp with 3500+ hit so you cant tell me a tower helps trust me i know first hand. If you are going to do this to bolt then why not allow TC trading the way it was.Besides wildbolt was the whole reason for the TC trading thing to stop with so many low lvls using it. Guys love the game but feel you are backing up by doing this. Bolt needs to be the way it was and let bygons be bygons.

Survivor
Mar 24, 2009
5
really?

how about this.
anyone who HATES the new bolt quote this and KI can count up the people.

let me start the list with a huge
I

Survivor
May 10, 2009
6
I am really upset about the changes to wildbolt, I really think it was fine just the way it was!

The fact that it takes two pips for damage that is less than a wand or as good as a wand most times is aggravating, especially in a world that so far is very difficult! Its symbol, the lightning strike, was good for a spell that usually won't hit but when it does it is powerful. It further has severely weakened a school that had many weaknesses to begin with. Storm punch is its greatest asset for friends and for quests. They already suffer from low health, low accuracy, and the lack of any spells that do damage over time. Most storm people know bolt was unlikely to work, and used accordingly. Weakening the bolt is not the solution!

Further, all I hear of those who liked the changes thus far were people who complained about it's use in pvp. Sounds like the grandmaster stun thing all over again. I don't think any cried when a bolt helped them kill a monster, nor when lord/frost giant stunned or killed minions in pve.

As for pvp, all I can say is that's what 0 pip shields are for (or a stun shield for the stunners). I've pvped with a storm and with a few other schools (all warlords or commanders), and for me storm can be nowhere near as tricky to beat as fire, myth, ice, life, and especially balance-who can kill you even with a tower shield in one hit. However, they all can be beat. All it takes is strategy, deck building skills, luck, understanding your opponents abilities, and being smart with your schools strengths and weaknesses. It is ridiculous to keep changing the spells because so many get all hurt that they lose in pvp. Just sayin

Armiger
May 10, 2010
2080
OK, since you stated, that we should try it, and see that we will like it, I did try it. I used my GrandMaster Storm, Steven StormSlinger, and took my second account life, now level 40, through Mooshu. Now, I dont use Bolt all the time, but I like to give it a shot against the minions on a Boss. Takes it from 2 v 2, to 2 v 1. So anyways, Out of 21 Bolt Attempts, 18 hit for 19 damage, that is 18 out of 21 for 10. 3 hit for a little more than a hundred. And out of 21 Attempts, 0 hit for 1000. Yeah, call it extremely bad luck, call it what you want, but the fact is, even hitting for a little more than 100, all I did with this spell, was WASTE PIPS! I honestly cant see how the developers and administration cant see how this is not fair, or accurate, or making things even. The only way, I can think to make this fair, is to either make WildBolt for 0 pip cost, so it wont matter what you hit for. Or, change the damage from 100, 500, 1000. That way, you have a chance for low, moderate, to high damage. That would make it fair, wild, and justified.

So, please listen to your players, who are giving you advice on how to get out of this huge dilemna you are putting us all in, cause otherwise, WILD Bolt, is just a WILD Waste of Space.


Explorer
Aug 21, 2010
79
Ok don't get me wrong here...

I am fully aware that KI had to do something about wild bolt after this new update, because of the massive percentage boost that items, inchantments and auras where giving.

I am a grandmaster storm and i must say I am positively disapointed! Not with KI changing the spell, but with what they have changed it to, i was shocked and horrified when i realised that KI had gone through with the change. If they can't change it... REPLACE IT!! A healing spell? a damage over time spell? Or what about a shield removing spell? :D

But I don't think that KI are in any way biased against storm (after all the game's creater played as a storm wizard in that PvP duel) so why have they made - which almost everyone agrees on - a HUGE mistake?

I think it all comes down to time, the whole update looked rushed and "sloppy" wizards were prevented from logging on, there were countless glitches and bugs. I think KI should just have taken another week and sorted out this mess. They were in a rush to get the update out, and the spell hasn't had a lot of thought gone into it, (that is compared to everything else).

Why KI pushed through with the update? I dont know but i have an idea, I think it is tied in with removing the Selena Gomez from the spiral, which they only had licence for a set time. (or something along these lines)

And a last note, in the update notes they 'say' that the change to the wild bolt spell isn't permanent, but looking through the rest of the previous notes KI have always said that, but it turns out it is permanent, after a while the resistance dies down, and people acept the change. And wild bolt will drop out of all wizards decks.

Oh and off topic - thanks KI for changing Water Elemental!!!

Mitchell DragonHeart
Level 51
Grandmaster Diviner

Mastermind
Sep 11, 2010
369
I don't have a storm wizard - haven't planned on getting one, either (unless we get to have 7 wizards per account). But this is... not a good change.

Wild Bolt was Wild in that it required a ton of luck to actually hit stuff - but if it managed to hit, then it did a huge amount of damage. The utterly absurd fizzle chance was a perfect balance against the potentially destructive power.

But this...? I don't like this change. It ruins strategy and planning, as a person may manage to hit something with Wild Bolt now, but also waste 3 blades and 7 traps on a spell that hits for 10 damage, and make it impossible for another storm spell to use those traps. Before, the Wild Bolt would fizzle instead and leave it open for another storm spell to hit the target.

This spell makes it a direct gamble. I would much, much rather see a function implemented where Wild Bolt would not be affected by +accuracy gear or spells. Or even have its accuracy lowered even more! Everything but adding this outright lottery of luck as to what damage you can do.

Defender
Feb 09, 2009
121
PVP SHOULD HAVE THEIR OWN SPELLS
if all the contoversy is over pvp, remove school spells from pvp and implement pvp only spells. then everyone in pvp can play fair and the rest of us that do not pvp can have our spells back. when i or my girlfriend use a stun it puts up four stuns, result of pvp squabbling.
give pvp their own spells and give me back my wild bolt, i worked hard on that to get it to hit. we used it last night in the third halloween tower, we had our 50 celestia gear on trying the critical attack. we had critical attacks on wild bolt, wasted 2 pips for an attack of 28. my girl had a critical attack on her sword attack that was 200 plus cost her zero pips.
there is no spell in the spiral that hits for 10 point damage or that takes 2 pips to hit for 100 points damage.
again, give pvp their own spells so the rest of us do not have to hear their griping and whining and having our good spells trashed.
thank you,

Noah Shadow
Grandmaster Storm

Defender
Feb 23, 2010
163
The changes you made to Wild Bolt have quite simply made it waste of deck space. Forget the pip cost or the accuracy issues. The real issue is attack boosts. If you're in a big fight, you need to boost your attacks for maximum effect. That's how the game is set up. So, I'm not bothered that hitting for 10 damage is a waste of two pips (or one power pip). I'm bothered by the fact that if I try using this in a boss battle and I hit for anything less than the 1000 damage, I'm now at square one in the battle. The only difference is that I've now taken damage, and the boss has had a chance to build up it's pips, shield itself, and boost it's attacks. I, however, now have to use more blades and traps (assuming I can get the cards to come up again when I need them). While I'm doing so, I'm taking more hits, and the boss has more chances to shield himself and/or cast weakness on me. This change was a mistake. Either change it back (with the possible exception of maxing out accuracy to 25% regardless of boosts) or replace it with another spell (preferably a damage over time spell) please. The only people I see that approve of the change are non-storm wizards who were simply jealous of the damage Wild Bolt can do, and ignored the limitations that the spell already had. The only reason for non-storm wizards to complain that makes sense is PVP. So, if this is just a PVP issue, the solution is simple: reverse the changes to Wild Bolt and make Wild Bolt unusable in PVP battles. As things stand, I've pulled every single wild bolt card out of my deck, and there they will remain until and unless things change. If you choose to leave Wild Bolt like it is, then I have some suggestions on how you can modify spells from other schools. For heckhound, make it a one in three chance that the spell does damage each of the three rounds. For tower shield, instead of making it protect you against all schools, make it protect you only from one random school. I wonder how wizards from those schools would feel about such changes to their spells?

Defender
Feb 23, 2010
163
AlecVolterra wrote:
With a 30% accuracy increase to the spell, the MAX % someone can get on the 1000 hit is about 33%, this is a major improvement. For now with all the accuracy boosts, the old bolt could have 80%, this is WORSE then judgement, earthquake, chain stunning, tower shields, constant healing, etc. anything you can think of ALL COMBINED. This would RUIN pvp if it stayed the same. You need to think about other schools, not just storm.


Personally, I don't care about PVP, but I understand that there are others that do. So, if Wild Bolt is such a huge issue in PVP, simply make it so you can't use that spell in PVP. End of story. There's no need to make the spell worthless for the entire game. Would other wizards like it if tower shield could only protect against one random school instead of all schools? Please KI, not everything should be based on PVP. I'm guessing that the really hardcore PVPers make up a minority of the players. Don't mess things up for those of us who don't care about PVP simply because players from other schools that do complain about how the spell impacts PVP. I've heard the same argument used to say that Judgement's damage should be cut in half. I wouldn't agree with that either. If you want to alter PVP, then alter PVP, but leave the rest of us alone to play the actual game please.

Explorer
Aug 21, 2010
79
Ok so what we all want to know is, is it really 33% chance of each hit?
Some think that KI are being honest others don't, so the question is what are the results? Being scientific I recorded 30 hits of wild bolt against lost souls and these are my results.

I was wearing no boosts and these were plain wild bolts.
So out of 30 it fizzled 9 times - that is 30% (totally correct)
And out of the 21 times it hit
1000 - 6 times (28.5%) lower
100 - 5 times (23.8%) lower
10 -10 times (47.7%) much higher

Showing that according to my short test that wild bolt isn't faithful to the card but hits lower more often!
On a possitive note - wild bolt now has a 19% chance of hitting 1000 as opposed to the previous 10%! But it is pretty much locked because you can't effect the chances of hitting between 10, 100 or 1000

But... as I realised, hitting 10 (especially for storm) is totally unrealistic, so a great alternative would be to set wild bolt so that if it hits 10 or 100 it doesn't use blades, traps or any other boosts - that would be great!

Please realise these are totally accurate results, i have in no way changed or misrepresented what i recorded, however only 30 tests isn't very many and one might easily obtain very different results if they tried it themselves, in fact i encourage everyone to do this test and to post their results here! The more you do the more accurate the statistics will be!

Geographer
Dec 14, 2009
916
To humor the developers on this issue,I tried the "new" wild bolt several times,and came to the conclusion that my original synopsis on this change was indeed correct; the spell is simply useless now. It has no strategic value at all. It would be foolish to even include it in your deck,if you plan on using blades and traps. This modification represents the best of intentions,gone bad. Change probably was needed with the additional accuracy boots included with Celestia,but the one you have implemented has destroyed the spell. I have seen many good suggestions as how to improve it,and yet those suggestions were ignored in favor of this? It baffles me how the geniuses behind great games such as this,can come to such poor decisions,that adversely affects many of their player base. And yet you are not alone in the realm of bad decisions........There have been several internet giant games who fell prey to this same plague,and have paid the price for it: Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Vanguard were once great games with lots of promise,and yet they became victims of their own internal mismanagement;the same path I see Wizards starting down. Never lose sight that there will always be complaints,but you have to sort the complaints based on intelligence. Someone who is whining is different than someone who posts a legitimate complaint. The three aforementioned games,placated the whiners,and lost their subscribers in the process. The true irony of it,was that the people who complained with no merit behind it,were the first ones who jumped ship. So be more mindful of your decisions, and the merit of the complaints behind it. When you do implement change,make sure that intelligence is the main factor in it. Never be ashamed to admit that you made a mistake,like the one you are making now.

Survivor
Jun 28, 2009
35
To put it succinctly; the joy has been robed. Please restore this incantation to the pre-modification form.

Survivor
Feb 16, 2010
2
Bookshelvings wrote:
I don't have a storm wizard - haven't planned on getting one, either (unless we get to have 7 wizards per account). But this is... not a good change.

Wild Bolt was Wild in that it required a ton of luck to actually hit stuff - but if it managed to hit, then it did a huge amount of damage. The utterly absurd fizzle chance was a perfect balance against the potentially destructive power.

But this...? I don't like this change. It ruins strategy and planning, as a person may manage to hit something with Wild Bolt now, but also waste 3 blades and 7 traps on a spell that hits for 10 damage, and make it impossible for another storm spell to use those traps. Before, the Wild Bolt would fizzle instead and leave it open for another storm spell to hit the target.

This spell makes it a direct gamble. I would much, much rather see a function implemented where Wild Bolt would not be affected by +accuracy gear or spells. Or even have its accuracy lowered even more! Everything but adding this outright lottery of luck as to what damage you can do.


I have to say I am beyond disappointed with this. I have grand wizards from every school except myth. Each school has it's strengths and weaknesses. If all the people complaining had a storm wizard they would be just as upset. Storms health is WAY to low to try and shield and blade in pvp with any kind of hope of winning. So, in all fairness to storm, KI should mess up all the other schools advantage too? Right?

Lets nurf beguile they turn you against your teammates.
Let's nurf immolate it does 600 damage for 4 pips and it's 75% accuracy. Not only that it can remove any feints or other traps you mayb have that would work against you.
Let's nurf earthquake it takes away all the shields and blades you took so much time to put up.
Let's nurf rebirth it heals everyone!
Let's nurf steal ward, you aren't supposed to steal things from other people and hey ice stole my shields now what will I do?
Let's nurf judgement you can barely shield against it and it does a heck of a lot of damage when bladed and trapped then bolt. Given balances high health they are able to trap and shield themselves to get a high enough hit.

Just wondering how other schools would feel if KI changed their strongest spell like this too? Balance? How would you feel if KI made Judgement 95% but made it hit 1 or 10 or 100 per pip? Would YOU like that? So, you blade, you trap and expect 100 points damage per pip and instead, you break all your traps and blades and do 5 points of damage per pip? I know my balance wizard wouldn't.

At this point in the game if it is not changed back or the others schools spells aren't changed I will not renew my subscription. I have bought crown s on top of my subscription quite a few times and really I'm so annoyed with this that even with Celestia finally coming out and my pet that I was able to mix to get his talents exactly where I wanted I am so disgusted and disappointed that I can't even bring myself to log back in. Guess it is back to that other game that I left to Wizard 101 to begin with...


Defender
Aug 11, 2009
172
Lesson to be learned: Adapt to the situation and show that Storm is still a very strong school.

One spell does not make or break the character of a Storm Wizard. In showing that we are strong and victorious, those who blasted us about Wild Bolt and now lose to us will no longer have the right to whine about how unfair it is.

We are poor in health and mana compared to the other schools, so let’s beat and defeat them again and again, to show them that we will not be beaten by one change.

I have used the new version of Wild Bolt with great success. I did laugh at the low hits that happened and since it fizzles less often, I have adjusted the strategies that I use and have adapted to the change.

Have fun!!! :) :) :)

Dakota Storm – Storm Grandmaster – and proud of it

Explorer
Dec 10, 2009
50
i posted a new topic last evening when i got the game loaded and saw the 'changes; to bolt' but fir some reason it is not here

i posted that bolt is removed from my active cards because my wand - hoarder curently- gets 100+ and my 2 pip bats cane get up yo 285+, so why waste 2 pips and die; later i will get a 120+ staff (I say + because we all get more than base rate since at this point we have added power from equipment and/or pets)
NO 2 pip spell deserves 10 or 100, NONE

As several have noted, before you went live 2/3 , some 68 %? have voted they hated the first change, i never saw a vote for this change - cause there never was one; i never saw a majority of people pushing for 10 or 100 points either

how about instead of bolt , give us a heal card, or a multi round card like elf is

Explorer
Aug 21, 2010
79
Having thought long and hard about this 'wild' issue i have come to a decision.
I will sit back and wait for the creaters of this brilliant game to come up with something that will surprise and delight us all :D

I have total faith that they won't fail us, and look forward to the change to the wild bolt spell - to be honest i didn't use wild bolt very much, but i was kinda hoping to pwn at PvP with the new boosts :)