I am writing this post to complain about insane bolt. There is no counter to it at lower levels. A storm with half-decent damage, even without critical, can generally two hit kill a magus warlord with insane bolts. I do not believe that this, as there is no way to counter someone who can deal 9/10 of your health every round is fair. Sure, the storms will get unlucky maybe 1/5 times, but as one of the authors on Duelist101 proved, it is possible to continuously rank up using at least one insane bolt per match. This spell shows no grasp of strategy, only luck. Sure, it's fine at higher levels, where it is possible to survive a few insane bolt hits, but at lower levels, insane bolt, unless it hits the user (About a 1/5 chance, so not very often), is near impossible to counter. Aspects of the game that are impossible, or near impossible, to counter, are overpowered, and therefore should be fixed.
It's not a very good way to rank up. I tried the same test as the one you mentioned on Duelist101, it's pretty much a wash. Over time you end up with slightly more than 50% win ratio. At that rate it would take forever to rank up continuously like you claim from just spamming bolts.
I personally think that Insane Bolt should be non-enchantable, just like how you can't damage enchant Mana Burn or armor pierce enchant Supernova. And to add to that, I think that any spell that has its treasure card version banned in PvP shouldn't be allowed to be used in the Arena, because obviously the treasure card is overpowered then, and that means the spell is too.
Tower shield first round against storms, which you should probably be doing? Volcanic shield, which you should have trained by now? A TC volcanic shield will reduce a hit that would kill you to a hit that does around 1/4 to 1/2 of your health. This will make them have to bolt again, and possibly kill themselves.
There is a counter use tower shield and make sure you have decent amount of resist... my storm is level 78 and i use insane bolt when i almost die just incase i have a chance to win lol or something :PP
Tower shield first round against storms, which you should probably be doing? Volcanic shield, which you should have trained by now? A TC volcanic shield will reduce a hit that would kill you to a hit that does around 1/4 to 1/2 of your health. This will make them have to bolt again, and possibly kill themselves.
Well, in the match that I got rather angry about, I used weakness the first round (30%), as tower did not show up. I have 3 volcanic shields in, but none showed up. Second round, as the storm did not remove the weakness, I used my cyclops minion. The storm used an insane bolt with infallible up, doing around 950 damage out of my 1,100 or so health through the weakness and 55% resist. The third round, since I wasn't going to be able to heal enough to stop the insane bolts, I used tower shield and hoped to survive. I don't remember exactly how much that insane bolt did, but I think that it was over 400. PvP King, I agree with that logic on insane bolt, but with, for instance, talos, that spell would really only be overpowered at lower levels, as low level players would have difficulty doing the 1,000 damage needed to kill it. Insane bolt, on the other hand, can sometimes one hit kill or nearly one hit kill an opponent, which, for two pips, makes it quite overpowered. Seethe, the duelist101 article was not about spamming insane bolt, it was more about using at least one per match and seeing if it was possible to rank up. If I remember correctly, the duelist101 author made it to around knight, proving that the possible damage to self with insane bolt is not a huge deterrent on using it fairly often.
Well, in the match that I got rather angry about, I used weakness the first round (30%), as tower did not show up. I have 3 volcanic shields in, but none showed up. Second round, as the storm did not remove the weakness, I used my cyclops minion. The storm used an insane bolt with infallible up, doing around 950 damage out of my 1,100 or so health through the weakness and 55% resist. The third round, since I wasn't going to be able to heal enough to stop the insane bolts, I used tower shield and hoped to survive. I don't remember exactly how much that insane bolt did, but I think that it was over 400. PvP King, I agree with that logic on insane bolt, but with, for instance, talos, that spell would really only be overpowered at lower levels, as low level players would have difficulty doing the 1,000 damage needed to kill it. Insane bolt, on the other hand, can sometimes one hit kill or nearly one hit kill an opponent, which, for two pips, makes it quite overpowered. Seethe, the duelist101 article was not about spamming insane bolt, it was more about using at least one per match and seeing if it was possible to rank up. If I remember correctly, the duelist101 author made it to around knight, proving that the possible damage to self with insane bolt is not a huge deterrent on using it fairly often.
Aaron SpellThief Logic: My deck failed me one match, therefore Insane Bolt is OP! Had you been lucky with your deck and gotten a bunch of Storm shields, you would probably be able to shield long enough for the storm to blow himself up. Or he could have blown himself up the very first time he used it. Bottom line, he was lucky, you weren't. Perhaps we should remove luck from PvP instead?
Well, in the match that I got rather angry about, I used weakness the first round (30%), as tower did not show up. I have 3 volcanic shields in, but none showed up. Second round, as the storm did not remove the weakness, I used my cyclops minion. The storm used an insane bolt with infallible up, doing around 950 damage out of my 1,100 or so health through the weakness and 55% resist. The third round, since I wasn't going to be able to heal enough to stop the insane bolts, I used tower shield and hoped to survive. I don't remember exactly how much that insane bolt did, but I think that it was over 400. PvP King, I agree with that logic on insane bolt, but with, for instance, talos, that spell would really only be overpowered at lower levels, as low level players would have difficulty doing the 1,000 damage needed to kill it. Insane bolt, on the other hand, can sometimes one hit kill or nearly one hit kill an opponent, which, for two pips, makes it quite overpowered. Seethe, the duelist101 article was not about spamming insane bolt, it was more about using at least one per match and seeing if it was possible to rank up. If I remember correctly, the duelist101 author made it to around knight, proving that the possible damage to self with insane bolt is not a huge deterrent on using it fairly often.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Talos. I still think that spell should be allowed in PvP, and not to sound like a complete PvP starter or anything, but I think Insane Bolt should be changed. You don't see many Storm wizards spamming Insane Bolt in PvE so this shouldn't affect the PvE world at all, but I think it should do a lot weaker than 1000 damage. Storm already has Wild Bolt, massive damage boosts, and another very powerful attacks. The thing in common between those is that they're storm damaging spells, however Insane Bolt is not. So, in my personal opinion, KI should change Insane Bolt to a higher pip cost or reduce the damage from both sides of the spell.
Aaron SpellThief Logic: My deck failed me one match, therefore Insane Bolt is OP! Had you been lucky with your deck and gotten a bunch of Storm shields, you would probably be able to shield long enough for the storm to blow himself up. Or he could have blown himself up the very first time he used it. Bottom line, he was lucky, you weren't. Perhaps we should remove luck from PvP instead?
Aaron SpellThief logic: Storm shields don't work on insane bolt...it's moon damage. The storm would have probably three-hit killed me if I had tower shielded every round, and if I had stopped tower shielding to heal, she would have killed me even more quickly. With three insane bolts, if the rate of hitting yourself with insane bolt is 20%, her chances of hitting herself would still have been under 50%. The thing about insane bolt spamming is that, with low levels, unless the opponent hits him/herself, luck does not matter (Since hitting yourself with insane bolt is a fairly low chance, I'm just going to leave it out in this thought). No matter how many times I shield, the storm can still hit massive amounts of damage, because the only shield that can shield insane bolt is tower shield. No mattter how many times I heal, the storm can still outdamage my heals. Since I would have to be wasting pips on heals, constantly shielding/healing, and storms generally have around twice my health, I'm not going to have a chance to attack/attack powerfully, which generally does not turn out very well. I believe that a match should always, if you play your cards correctly and have at least decent luck, have a chance of being won. With insane bolt sometimes killing the first round and sometimes being spammed in order to easily bring a low level opponent to his/her knees, it is an extremely low chance to win. I have some of the best gear available at magus (Except for the duelist athame, I have the heartsteel); a pet with spell-proof, spell-defying, may cast dragonblade, incredibly infallible, and pain-giver; and a strategy that has allowed me to get to around 1600 rank (So I should hope I at least know what I'm doing well enough to beat the majority of players). Please tell: If I lost with that gear and an at least decent deck and strategy, what else could I have done? I can only shield and heal so many times before I get a huge pip disadvantage and die. I cannot win without attacking, but attacking leaves me open to being attacked unless I save up enough pips for medusa/basilisk. I believe that a two pip spell, when it can two hit kill any player without blades or a bubble with debuffs, is overpowered. You many not share my opinion, but if you don't, please tell me how I am supposed to kill someone with twice my health when they can kill me through debuffs and do massive amounts of damage for tiny amounts of pips every turn.
Aaron SpellThief Logic: My deck failed me one match, therefore Insane Bolt is OP! Had you been lucky with your deck and gotten a bunch of Storm shields, you would probably be able to shield long enough for the storm to blow himself up. Or he could have blown himself up the very first time he used it. Bottom line, he was lucky, you weren't. Perhaps we should remove luck from PvP instead?
Let's get into PvP logic right now: 1) A lower level wizard would have a much smaller deck than a higher level wizard, therefore needing to use more space for Reshuffles. That being said, they have less sideboard space and still need to worry about fighting somebody their own level all at once. You can't just simply remove every other shield you have to add Storm Shields just to hope you fight a Storm wizard. 2) Insane Bolt is 2 pips, and with Storm getting a much higher power pip chance rating and Insane Bolt having 100% accuracy, it will be cast every turn until one side loses. However, the Storm wizard has an 80% chance of winning as most of the time only 2 hits are needed (assuming that most Storms have near 100% damage boost and over 400 critical rating, making the spell do 4x more damage than in already does, usually knocking out a low level in one hit). 3) Storm wizards generally have massive armor pierce, a simple Tower Shield wouldn't do anything. Bottom line, the spell is overpowered and shouldn't be so easily spammable.
I agree with this to an extent. Maybe they could put a card restriction on Insane (and Wild for that matter) bolt like they did with Reshuffle but for the bolts say that it can't be used until maybe 5 or so rounds have passed. I've been the victim of several Pure chance bolt matches and it certainly does not feel good to be on the receiving end.
Tower shield first round against storms, which you should probably be doing? Volcanic shield, which you should have trained by now? A TC volcanic shield will reduce a hit that would kill you to a hit that does around 1/4 to 1/2 of your health. This will make them have to bolt again, and possibly kill themselves.
