Bolts may now be CHANNELed. Doing so imposes a 3 second hard RoundTime in exchange for a higher chance of hitting a vital area and subjects the attack to less crit randomization. The RT imposed by CHANNELing cannot be mitigated by any haste effect.

GameMaster Estild

MICHN18

Do any other factors such as open hands impact the effectiveness of CHANNELed bolts?

No, the bonus for CHANNELing a bolt are pretty much all or nothing. Due to being an AS/DS resolution, it pretty much requires stance offensive anyway.

GameMaster Estild

OBSERVER

Could we please be given some hard info on the benefit of channeling bolts? Seeing the benefit in real numbers may help lessen the blow to some of the other changes being made. Any additional information would be appreciated.

When a bolt is CHANNELed, the chance to hit every location is the same at 7% and the crit randomization floor is decreased by 1-2 ranks (depending on the actual crit). For the sake of comparison, the previous chance to hit something like the eye was significantly lower than that.

GameMaster Estild

>When a bolt is CHANNELed, the chance to hit every location is the same at 7% and the crit randomization floor is decreased by 1-2 ranks (depending on the actual crit). For the sake of comparison, the previous chance to hit something like the eye was significantly lower than that.

While this is a nice thought, the fact is nothing ever dies with 1 bolt. So this does nothing to address the inherent issues of attrition-based bolting without rapid fire in high traffic, dangerous post-capped hunting grounds.

7.7%? evenly distributed among the 13 body parts?

So, a rank 8 Critical Fire attack would have resulted in death 53.85% now
Previously it would be 54.8%

The realm strength is with the crit randomization floor reduction... which I'll need to test more unless they give me more information.



~Whirlin

How does or can this work with minor steam? (evoked 903)

Does channeling work with 518?

KARDIOS

I can't get it to work with web bolt. I tried Incant Set, but when I incant, evoke or cast the spell, I do not get the hard RT, which I assume means it is a normal cast. Incant Set works fine with 705, which is the other spell I can cast either as either a bolt or a CS spell.

Can you post your INCANT SET output, then some logs of when you try INCANT 118 and INCANT 118 CHANNEL EVOKE?

GameMaster Estild

For purposes of comparison, below is a log with 705 channeled.

.5 siren
target siren
stance offensive
incant 705 evoke
You are now targeting a siren.
[Script]>You are now in an offensive stance.
[Script]>You trace an intricate sign that contorts in the air while forcefully invoking Disintegrate...
Your spell is ready.
You channel at a siren.
You direct a dull grey beam at a siren!
AS: +456 vs DS: +384 with AvD: +40 + d100 roll: +18 = +130
... and hit for 30 points of damage!
Strike bores into left arm, causing now-weakened bones to crack.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
Roundtime: 3 sec.
[Script]>stance def...wait 2 seconds.

I'm assuming the answer is no, but is there a way to channel bolts from wands? If not, can there be? Would be nice for the alchemy users.

> 2) Since I see Konacon in here, and I know INCANT SET is your baby, could you take a look at 504? It's not working right when set to OPEN, casting on the wizard instead of open casting at the room. It's doing the same thing if I just prep and cast. I don't think it's currently possible to cast this on more than one creature (a supposed benefit to air lore training).

I pushed out a fix to this earlier this morning... Do you still see it not working correctly? If so, post some logs for me if you have time and that should help track it down.

~ Konacon

Channel should definitely weight the bolts to hit the body/head/neck instead of hitting the limbs. While the percentages can be debated I think that is a reasonable risk/reward. Also, a small point but atleast for melee ambushing the success is not 95% all the time. There is the 5% fumble chance, then your stats and skills cap it at 95%. After that the body location/target size penalty is applied. Although we dont know the exact penalty, we do know that without the martial stance predator's eye hitting the head/neck/eyes is not the max of 95% accuracy. There is also the part where additional training/skills (CM,Ambush,predator's eye) are needed to increase the skill to that level.

Maybe the hands/limbs should be 5% each (total 30%) and everything else 10% (total 70%). You would have a 40% chance to hit the head/neck/eyes versus the 30-31% now plus do more damage on average.

Let me chime in to point out that the AIM verb already works for some spells, namely Limb Disruption.

I see really no reason that this cannot be extended to all bolt spells.

Well, since wizards are primarily the bolting profession, it should probably be a unique ability afforded to them only. I'm not sure it's right for the primarily warding professions.

>>I won't go into all the reasons why AIM'd bolts don't make sense from a rules perspective.

>>I will say, however, that the location determination of a hit needs to be different for bolt spells versus any other type of attack.

I feel like the best way to address "aiming" a bolt would be aim a flare of the matching element to the location specified with a chance to activate the flare based on 1.) lore ranks of the element being used along with spell aim ranks, 2.) the location set in AIM, and 3.) level of the creature compared to the character (i.e. similar to how aiming from the open works based on a combination of skills and character level vs creature level).

1. Set AIM to head.
2. Channel bolt at target.
3. Calculate chance of flare / roll dice / flare activates and hits the head.

This formula could work with all bolt types that can be channeled and Wizards could gain a bonus to the activation chance from 513 (due to lore improvements of the spell) making them the best at landing hits at a specific location.

903/1709 - water lore
904/510 - earth lore
906/1707 - fire lore
910 - air/water lore combined
505 - air lore
705 - demonology lore
306 - religion lore
1110 - transformation lore
118 - summoning lore

I think 518 would not be able to perform the flare because an "AoE Ambush" would be way too strong, but maybe the initial hit of a Ball spell could be eligible on the primary target.

This might be the most balanced method of approaching "aimed bolts". The problem is that aiming from the open would make bolting more reliable, but bolt crit factors and DFs are really high and the RT is only 3 seconds compared to attacking from the open with a large weapon. The DFs of 910 compared to say a Maul are significantly higher, so allowing the actual bolt to hit the aimed location could be stronger than ambushing with a maul from the open, for half the RT. Which is why I think it would need to be a flare that lands at the aimed location instead of the actual bolt. This would make bolting more reliable - but not make bolts excessively over-powered that they can 1-shot kill most targets with ease.

Keep in mind, Rogues (which a lot of people like to compare with) are ambushing, from hiding, with specific training paths to achieve that goal. Wizards would be bolting from the open, which is more comparable to say a Warrior ambushing from the open than a Rogue ambushing from hiding.

To provide some additional details to illustrate the strength of a channeled bolt:

When you CAST/EVOKE a bolt, it has a little over 16% chance to hit the eyes, head, or neck. A channeled bolt has over a 30% chance. Most of those locations will also result in a crit kill for ranks as low as 5 or 6. While it will take 7+ against the chest, abdomen, or back.

In addition, when you CAST/EVOKE a bolt, if it's determined to be a rank 9 critical wound, crit randomization can lower that all the way down to a rank 5. If you CHANNEL the same bolt (for the same rank 9 crit), crit randomization won't lower it less than a rank 7. The former is typically non-lethal against vital locations, while the latter is lethal.

GameMaster Estild

PC1234

How can you expect us to channel in offensive stance with a hard 3s RT and also claim that there's no concern for us because we're only in offensive stance for a few milliseconds?

Because the same argument applies to channeling warding spells. Both spell types only gain any real advantage from channeling by putting yourself at risk. I've tested channeling bolts in the Scatter, the most dangerous hunting ground in the game. Even outside of that and for 99% of the playerbase, for levels 1-100 and a good majority of the capped hunters that don't hunt in the Scatter, you can pretty easily channel and hunt with minimal risk.

GameMaster Estild

Hey Estild;

I'm going to update my damage spreadsheet to take into account channelled bolts, and be able to convey some more cast versus channeled examples quickly for you. (I'll send it to you too... I'm sure you've seen it)

But could you tell me what raw crit tier results in a floor increase by 1, and when it's a floor increase by 2?
And I'm assuming it's a more specific 7.8% per body part under effect of channel (100%/13 body parts)?

I could do some testing, but figured it would be easier to ask!

~Whirlin

Purely anecdotal evidence but my little mage has had a good time following up knock down effects (which usually put me in the 200+ warding margin range) with channeled bolts afterward. It works out rather well for the lower range.

Tal.

Thank you! Will have a new modeling spreadsheet available by end of day... I'll e-mail it to you as well.

~Whirlin

I've updated my damage spreadsheet that aggregates out all potential outcomes of AS/DS resolved attacks. You can run simulations for various scenarios.

Since I can't really attach stuff here, here's a link to the PC Thread:

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?98570-Whirlin-s-Damage-Crit-Comparing-Spreadsheet

~Whirlin