Wail bugged?

[Inouk]

Wail is THE core spell for pale masters. It's been broken for like a month, and not only do we not have a fix, or a date for a fix, we don't have 2 words about it. Please devs, show us some love here.

[Daemoneyes]

Wail is THE core spell for pale masters. It's been broken for like a month, and not only do we not have a fix, or a date for a fix, we don't have 2 words about it. Please devs, show us some love here.

And it wont get fixed with 17.1

[Inouk]

Heh, maybe it's now WAI. Or maybe a stealth nerf is planned, like when Coke became New Coke and then "reverted" to Coke Classic (not the same as Coca-Cola), which was an obvious effort to hide the fact that they changed the formula (Coca-Cola was made with sugar, Coke Classic made with corn syrup). But they figured since they removed the original for a few months nobody would notice the difference when they "went back".

[DynaTheCat]

They, the shadowy balance dev(s), secretly gutted necromany insta-kill spells.... and when confronted with the evidence; It all becomes a conspiracy of silence.

If you don't talk about it or list it in the dev notes, it didn't happen!!!!!

[LordMond63]

I've had much the same problem(s) as others here, chief among them casting the spell in a group of mobs only to see a significant portion of them suffer no effect at all (interestingly, a Sorc friend of mine is having the same issue with his DI Energy Burst- mobs aren't saving and taking half damage, they're not taking any damage at all, and that with no "Evade" message above their heads).

I think that most Pale Masters came to accept, albeit reluctantly, that Wail with the short timer it once had was overpowered, so we accepted, again reluctantly, the timer being lengthened. But now to have mobs being randomly able to just totally ignore what is, as has been pointed out, our bread-and-butter spell isn't acceptable.

[Azarddoze]

I've had much the same problem(s) as others here, chief among them casting the spell in a group of mobs only to see a significant portion of them suffer no effect at all (interestingly, a Sorc friend of mine is having the same issue with his DI Energy Burst- mobs aren't saving and taking half damage, they're not taking any damage at all, and that with no "Evade" message above their heads).

I think that most Pale Masters came to accept, albeit reluctantly, that Wail with the short timer it once had was overpowered, so we accepted, again reluctantly, the timer being lengthened. But now to have mobs being randomly able to just totally ignore what is, as has been pointed out, our bread-and-butter spell isn't acceptable.

When it comes to energy burst, it is not the same bug. Or not even a bug.

The problem with energy burst is that the effect take place from the place you started casting it. So using it while moving isn't the best idea until you really "learn" how it works. Tell your friend to play with it a little.

[EllisDee37]

When it comes to energy burst, it is not the same bug. Or not even a bug.

The problem with energy burst is that the effect take place from the place you started casting it. So using it while moving isn't the best idea until you really "learn" how it works. Tell your friend to play with it a little.

Ah, nice, I'd been noticing that "bug" long before the wail nerf. Good tip, I'll keep an eye out for this.

[mrtweakin]

Just chiming in to say I hit 17 on a wizard life and sure enough- wail is very broken. 17-20 is going to be quite a bit rougher this wizard life.

[Hirosue]

Implosion appears to be bugged also or maybe its been nerfed too.

[oweieie]

When it comes to energy burst, it is not the same bug. Or not even a bug.

The problem with energy burst is that the effect take place from the place you started casting it. So using it while moving isn't the best idea until you really "learn" how it works. Tell your friend to play with it a little.

You might be thinking of negative energy burst, which has lots of problems including starting the timer but not going off if you hit it just as the timer is up, and just simply not going off because of quicken.

For draconic energy burst I've had lots of problems when I tried electric with it not hitting things, but cold seems solid.

[Inouk]

You might be thinking of negative energy burst, which has lots of problems including starting the timer but not going off if you hit it just as the timer is up, and just simply not going off because of quicken.

For draconic energy burst I've had lots of problems when I tried electric with it not hitting things, but cold seems solid.

As far as I know all spells and clickies suffer from this (not casting but starting the cool down if you click it too fast when it comes off timer). In fact, same bug occurs if you swap an item and then click it too fast for clicky effect.

Interesting that elec has problems but others don't...

[Ellihor]

Fix it! For pale masters it is like if some bug cause barbs to not 70% of theyr attacks.

[Inouk]

Fix it! For pale masters it is like if some bug cause barbs to not 70% of theyr attacks.

Or probably more like if all cleave attacks randomly didn't target mobs 3/4 of the time. Or all mass heal spells randomly didn't proc on party members in the area 3/4 of the time. Or if many shot provided D6-2 arrows per shot.

[Eladrin]

I've been looking into the Wail issue, and it appears to be functioning in my local (U18) build - I took a sorcerer out into Sane Asylum, Epic Gianthold, and into the Underdark, and was still triggering instant death on failed saves and negative levels on successful saves - unless I failed Spell Resistance checks. If I did, then there was no effect, as expected.

Can anyone list (with absolute certainty) any monsters that you've seen Wail Fail against? I can retest using those.

I think it may be the normal spell resistance failure that we're seeing, rather than a bug, but I want more data to confirm it. In the meantime, I'll double check in the live mirror branch.

Thanks.

[Inouk]

I've been looking into the Wail issue, and it appears to be functioning in my local (U18) build - I took a sorcerer out into Sane Asylum, Epic Gianthold, and into the Underdark, and was still triggering instant death on failed saves and negative levels on successful saves - unless I failed Spell Resistance checks. If I did, then there was no effect, as expected.

Can anyone list (with absolute certainty) any monsters that you've seen Wail Fail against? I can retest using those.

I think it may be the normal spell resistance failure that we're seeing, rather than a bug, but I want more data to confirm it. In the meantime, I'll double check in the live mirror branch.

Thanks.

Nice to know it's being looked at, thanks Eladrin!

All of the giants in Tor for a start, which to my knowledge don't have SR (Finger and Circle work just fine on them when they fail saves). It would probably be best to test on a pale master too. It's possible the issue has to do with undead form, which I know can interfere with other things (spell absorption, bard songs, etc). I'll do some testing tonight when I get home, but I could swear it's all mobs and content I've run (MotU, eGH, DA, Shroud, etc).

[HungarianRhapsody]

I've been looking into the Wail issue, and it appears to be functioning in my local (U18) build - I took a sorcerer out into Sane Asylum, Epic Gianthold, and into the Underdark, and was still triggering instant death on failed saves and negative levels on successful saves - unless I failed Spell Resistance checks. If I did, then there was no effect, as expected.

Can anyone list (with absolute certainty) any monsters that you've seen Wail Fail against? I can retest using those.

I think it may be the normal spell resistance failure that we're seeing, rather than a bug, but I want more data to confirm it. In the meantime, I'll double check in the live mirror branch.

Thanks.

Eladrin, could you please test this on the live, production server by using a character on one of the real servers? The fact that it's not happening on your development box that doesn't have the same environment doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Wail fails to hit two enemies per tick on all three ticks of the spell *most of the time* for me. If I am surrounded by enemies with no SR in an Epic Normal quest, I expect to see an effect on two enemies per tick and that just doesn't happen. Sometimes I see two enemies hit. Sometimes I see one enemy hit. Sometimes no enemies at all are hit.

Some examples:
trolls in Trial by Fire
wolves in A Small Problem
gnolls/scorpions/drow scorpions/trogs/etc. in ADQ1

It's possible that the problem has already been fixed for U18 if that's what you have on your box, but if you're still investigating it, then trying it out on the production servers should show you what's happening pretty quickly since the Wail bug happens quite often.

[Inouk]

Eladrin, could you please test this on the live, production server by using a character on one of the real servers? The fact that it's not happening on your development box that doesn't have the same environment doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Wail fails to hit two enemies per tick on all three ticks of the spell *most of the time* for me. If I am surrounded by enemies with no SR in an Epic Normal quest, I expect to see an effect on two enemies per tick and that just doesn't happen. Sometimes I see two enemies hit. Sometimes I see one enemy hit. Sometimes no enemies at all are hit.

Some examples:
trolls in Trial by Fire
wolves in A Small Problem
gnolls/scorpions/drow scorpions/trogs/etc. in ADQ1

It's possible that the problem has already been fixed for U18 if that's what you have on your box, but if you're still investigating it, then trying it out on the production servers should show you what's happening pretty quickly since the Wail bug happens quite often.

And this, exactly, is what all of us are experiencing.

[fco-karatekid]

Eladrin, could you please test this on the live, production server by using a character on one of the real servers? The fact that it's not happening on your development box that doesn't have the same environment doesn't mean it isn't happening...

Good thought - I would have assumed he was testing on the real production servers since it was reported on live.

If that's NOT the case, now we know the reason for historical disconnect between devs and players.

[hit_fido]

I think it may be the normal spell resistance failure that we're seeing, rather than a bug, but I want more data to confirm it. In the meantime, I'll double check in the live mirror branch.

When wail is failing in the manner players have complained about, there are no spell penetration failure "blue shield" pops nor are there any save check "blue hexagon" pops followed by level drains. That isn't to say you wont ever see that, but it seems to me the expected behavior is this:

1) Wail
2) tick 1: two mobs targeted, and either spell penetration fails (see the blue shield), saves (see the blue hexagon + level drain) or see the mob die.
3) tick 2: two mobs targeted, and either spell penetration fails (see the blue shield), saves (see the blue hexagon + level drain) or see the mob die.
4) tick 3: two mobs targeted, and either spell penetration fails (see the blue shield), saves (see the blue hexagon + level drain) or see the mob die.

The symptom is that we do not see evidence on every tick that two mobs are being targeted - sometimes after a wail, even when surrounded by plenty of potential targets, we aren't seeing ANY blue shields, hexagons, level drains, or deaths. Often we might see one or two deaths but only one or two shield, hexagon, or drain, leading again to the speculation that it's not targeting all the mobs that it should be. As wail worked before, as long as there are at least two mobs in range each tick, we would see six actual indications of wail targeting over the duration of the spell.

Comparison with prior performance on the same character before and after U17 also leads us to believe that the issue is NOT spell penetration failure or saves, because the effectiveness of wail as measured by mobs killed is way down, in the same quests, with the same character.

As suggested, please try on live - it's a pretty obvious issue there and you would very likely see right away for yourself what is being described.

[Eladrin]

Good thought - I would have assumed he was testing on the real production servers since it was reported on live.

If that's NOT the case, now we know the reason for historical disconnect between devs and players.

Testing it directly on the live servers would be an absolute last resort, if I can find a way to reproduce it on local builds. On internal servers I have access to significantly more diagnostic tools and other resources, some of which would affect everyone else that's on it (and thus, wouldn't be able to be used on live servers).