I am specialized in evocation and got SCM3 lately and I fizzle a lot MORE than I used to. Anyone else noticed it?

SCM really shouldn't affect fizzle rate on most spells because you should be at the "floor" fizzle rate already. There are some broken spells, however, with higher than normal fizzle rates.

I'm at 11 fizzles today on hand of ro, moonfire or summer's flame. Before SCM3 I used to fizzle maybe once a day.

Random number generator hard at work. You have a bad day every now and then, your luck catches up to you. I had root resisted 6 times in a row a few days ago. If it continues for more than a week at a time then I would probably be worried.

On my druid Ensnare, Camo (all versions), and just about all other spells are fizzling more than often. Started last patch.

On my cleric same thing.

Low level spells, High level spells, It dont matter. More are fizzling more often. Other in our guild have noticed the same thing. I am reminded of last time they broke SCM and all fizzle rates were up dramatically.

Hmm a few of us have noticed the ensnare issue but wrote it off to RNG

Been noticing a lot of double fizzles in the last week or two which used to be pretty rare.

ooooh! I've noticed more fizzles since last patch too. But, attributed it to random generator, coincidence or just after patch perception. Didn't think to mention it, except if others are noticing it, even this far after that patch, then, perhaps, something is broken, or has been changed. So, adding my 2 cents.

Just got scm3 yesterday, parsed my casts, BS! There is no 30% reduction of fizzles. It is indeed broken. (Working as intended)

I've not only got about 800% more fizzles, I've had several in-a-row unstable gates. I think before last patch I saw that happen TWICE since I got gate. Now its like every 4th or 5th cast, many times two or three in a row.

I am the biggest proponent of laughing at people that think patches increased fizzle rates...or the like.

However, just fyi, I personally HAVE had a ton of double fizzles lately.

I'm not saying that means anything.... But just thought I'd add my info.

I have not had a noticeable increase in fizzles.

I have had the gate thing happen to me like a poster mentioned before (sorry forgot you name). The only other truly odd thing I have noticed here lately is fizzling on casting ensnare a lot like every other cast, but again just thought it was me being paranoid. Kind of shrugged off a few unusual fizzle spells on heals as RNG but now I have to wonder on that with the other stuff. I have SCM2 now.

Raey

Frankly I have noticed more fizzles since PoP period

<strong>There is no 30% reduction of fizzles.</strong>


Where did people get the idea that SCM 3 gave a 30% reduction in the fizzle rate??

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Where did people get the idea that SCM 3 gave a 30% reduction in the fizzle rate?? [/quote]

They're deducing that since "<a href="http://eq.crgaming.com/misc/pages/special.asp" target="top">specialization</a>" was always defined as a chance to reduce mana cost <em>AND</em> a reduction in fizzles, SCM would also improve both aspects.

I think it was shown here a while back that SCM was a static reduction in mana cost as opposed to a random chance of making specialization checks, but I don't believe anything had ever been confirmed as to the benefit SCM lends to fizzle rates.

~Firemynd

Name: Spell Casting Mastery
Level Requirement: 55
Ability Type: Passive
ax Training: 3 Levels
Point Cost: Level 1: 2 points
Level 2: 4 points
Level 3: 6 points
Description: This ability increases the chance that a player will successfully get a specialization roll.
For a full explanation on specialization read our editorial here.

The first point increases the chance of specialization by 5%, the second raises the chance to 15% and the third to 30%.


How does it work?

When a spell is cast a roll is thrown to see if it receives the specialisation bonus. The higher your specialisation skill the more likely it is the roll will succeed, and the greater the benefit of the roll. A successful roll will do two things:

It will reduce the mana used on the spell.
It will reduce the chance of fizzling.




This is where I got that idea as well as the description under the actual tab in game.

I don't think I've read this wrong.

The description is not accurate. Tests at Graffes have shown that it gives a set mana cost reduction each spell cast and not a chace of "specilization going off." As far as fizzle that is much tougher to test. However, I have 3 Tunare's Renewal fizzle in a row last night and about freaked out.

I have a group that I play with on weekends, frequently our cleric is gone and I get to do the healing. Since the last patch I have noticed that I fizzle alot in healing, and in BoT that just is not funny.

Other spells fizz too, but I am most concerned with the healing spells, they are what keep me viable in PoP.

/quote

Frankly I have noticed more fizzles since PoP period

/end quote


me too. seems way more fizzle since PoP. is amazing the amounts of double fizz, my spell hot-keys with cast in them twice not working like they used to, now i am standing there waiting for heal to land, come to find out it never cast, scroll up, fizz fizz, akkkkk!! i swear this used to be soooo rare, now almost everynight at least once, not to mention the increased single fizes.


~Keyera
60 cleric

<strong>I don't think I've read this wrong.</strong>

Pyne, you didn't read it wrong. The text description IS wrong.

There may have been a spec check early on when spec was added, but it hasn't worked that way for years. The SEQ folks tested the mana cost of spells, and found that the mana cost for spec was reduced by a constant amount. SCM increases this constant amount by another constant amount. Thus, there is no "specialization check" to be made. Why do people still persist in believing this after all this time?

As for fizzling, I haven't seen any testing re SCM directly, but except for the broken spells, anyone at 65 should be at the irreducible base failure rate for most spells. Spec and SCM are irrelevant as far as fizzle rate reduction goes for these spells.

For the broken spells with abnormally high fizzle rates, testing done showed that SPEC was signficant in reducing the number of fizzles. For example, as a 200 Evoc spec, my fizzle rate with Breath of Ro was about 10%. The fizzle rate for those with 200 Alt spec was 2x-3x higher (although some of that turned out to be due to wisdom differences).

SCM may help reduce the fizzle rate of these broken spells. But it still is worth getting for the guaranteed mana savings alone.

spell fizzle definately up a bit recently on all spells but its across the board not just druids...

btw, I STRONGLY believe that the random number generator changes so that you get waves of fails.

I ALWAYS seem to get fizzles in groups. VERY often. Nothing for a few days, then I will fizzle 3 times in a row.

almost like

5% ... then if you fizzle
25% .... then if you fizzle again
50% .... then if you fizzle again
25%... Then if you fizzle again
5%...

why? I always seem to fizzle 3 or 4 times... but not to often again. And this can be with ensnare... not just high level spells.

I have noticed a large increase in fizzles every since I gave up on my warror and rolled a druid.

On a serious note. I have always fizzled and will always continue to fizzle. I personally don't think anything has changed on fizzle rates at all.

I just think that right after a patch, folks are always looking to blame somthing on Sony cause they always screw at least one thing up.

Sil

I was posting this related to SCM3 because the problem appeared when I got it one week ago :(

It's too bad their logging function sucks so bad it bangs my hardrive every second even if nothing is being written, even with cacheing *boggle*, or I'd leave it on and could see this sorta thing much more easily. Maybe thats why logging is so hosed...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why do people still persist in believing this after all this time?[/quote]

1. Most players don't read message boards or other information - they take what is in the game at face value.
2. It's easier for many people to trust in-game information than "testing" or "parsing" (really alien concepts to some people).

Back when we wanted to prove that stats did every little, people believed the "official world" and the (egad) Prima strategy guide over volumes of test data that people of all classes put together. I STILL run into people who think that dexterity makes you more likely to hit and that agility makes you run faster.

Hell, I was one of the people who figured out that hybrids had a casting penalty beyond getting spells later - I graphed out predicted vs. actual mana costs of spells and all it took was Abashi saying "it's not true" for most people to disbelieve the data.

Anyway, just posting that I sympathize with your frustration. ;)

I'm 57 now, specced in Alt. My spec and Alt are both maxed out. I fizzled 2 times in a row on SOW last night. Not SoE mind you SOW. I cannot go one set of casting without fizzling on at least one of my spells no matter what level the spell is and all of my skills are maxed.

It is so simple to test this if you think fizzle rates are broken. Remember, you need to eliminate as many variables as possible, so test each spell separately.

Just cast the spell and duck to interrupt it (since the fizzle check is made at the start, you don't have to waste any mana actually casting the spell). Repeat with each spell 100 times for starters (more if you have the patience for it). Report the results here, along with your level, wisdom, and spec (all of which affect fizzle rates).

For unbroken spells, you should find a base fizzle rate of around 3% to 5%.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I just think that right after a patch, folks are always looking to blame somthing on Sony cause they always screw at least one thing up.[/quote]

For once I'm gonna go with the negative. I'm alt spec/scm3 and in the last 2 weeks I've seen more fizzles on heals than I have in the last 6 months. Bad luck? Maybe, but I'd like it looked at as many others here and in-game are saying the same.

Didn't PoP introduce an AA that completely eliminates fizzles for spells below a certain level? Could be they increased the base fizzle rate to make these AAs more appealing.

Tat

(Note: like Spell Casting Subtlety, priests do not get these AA)

<span style="text-decoration:underline">Archetype</span>

Name: Spell Casting Expertise
Level Requirement: 55
Ability Type: Passive
ax Training: 3 Levels
Point Cost: Level 1: 2 points
Level 2: 4 points
Level 3: 6 points
Description: This ability removes the chance that a player will fizzle when casting a spell.
The first point will remove all chance of fizzling for Level 20 spells and lower.

The second point will remove all chance of fizzling for Level 35 spells and lower.

The third point will remove all chance of fizzling for Level 52 spells and lower.

<span style="text-decoration:underline">Caster Planar Ability </span>

Name: Mastery of the Past
Level Requirement: 62
Ability Type: Passive
ax Training: 3 Levels
Description: This ability makes it impossible to fizzle spells.
At Rank 1 it prevents spells below Level 54 from fizzling. At Rank it prevents spells below Level 56 from fizzling. At Rank 3 it prevents spells below Level 58 from fizzling.

The cost is as follows:

Rank 1 (Level 62) - 2 Points
Rank 2 (Level 63) - 4 Points
Rank 3 (Level 64) - 6 Points

I think SOE didn't want heal spells to be affected by these abilities. Consider that CH could be made unfizzleable by the 3rd level of expertise.

They now have so very many things specifically flagged to not affect CH/ICH. It would be so much better, if it is really their concern, to just flag these things to not affect certain types of spells.

Perhaps the idea is that dress wearers, with lower hp and ac, needed the help to avoid agro. Yes, shaman can survive agro pretty well..as can clerics...but truthfully leather weraing druids don't tend to be that high above the silk wearing classes in these abilities.

On the agro front, does it really make sense that a chanter slow can cause less agro than a shaman one does? There are certainly a lot of debuffs the dresses do...and a lot of heavy nuking too.

The one that bugs me though is that a wizard can in effect have all their evacs unfizzleable while a druids evacs can. I am sure it is an unintended side effect, but it just makes no sense...either both can be fizzled, or neither can.

One of those annoying inconsistencies that I think would be so easy to work around. It may be the abilities have been altered some since I last looked at them, but I have made myself stop looking because it was making me a little crazy.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I ALWAYS seem to get fizzles in groups. VERY often. Nothing for a few days, then I will fizzle 3 times in a row.[/quote]This isn't the sign of a broken or "bad" random number generator. Truly random events show a tendancy to cluster, especially when we are aware of the chance and we start to look for them.

Look at it this way. If the chance for a random event is 3% (you fizzle 3% of the time), then suppose these events were evenly spaced out such that you had 32 successes in a row, 1 failure, followed by another set of 32 successes in a row, and then another failure. Now, that wouldn't be a 3% random event. It wouldn't even be random. What happens is that you'll likely see an individual failure, and then a while later, maybe another. But at some time you see back to back failures, or failures separated by only one or two successes. That's what clusters look like.

This is why we see back to back fizzles, when the rate may be only a couple of percent. It's the same reason, a tailor with high skill will sometimes get back to back failures on trivial items. Or that a low skill smith, will have several skill ups in a row making an item 30 or 40 skill levels above his ability. And then he might have 20 combines without a skill increase. They are seeing the clustering effect of a random event.

-------For unbroken spells, you should find a base fizzle rate of around 3% to 5%.


I have to disagree. A few agree here that it seems to be broken with SCM3. I fizzled once out of 100 casts, but before I got SCM3 I used to fizzle maybe once out of 500 casts or more. 3% fizzle rate is a lot and is far from being the norm.

You're imagining things. Before SCM 3, I did detailed testing, and the fizzle rate for my lowest rate spells was pretty much right around 3%. Human perception does funny things, and you cannot tell me that you can remember how many times you fizzled casting spell X 100 times or 500 times over a period of time when you were casting other spells.

Tudamorf had a good example of several strings of random numbers that demonstrated that human beings seek out patterns and the unusual in such things, and that we suck at "estimating" statistical analyses.

Well my SOE fizzled on me like 12 times in a row when I tried it for the firtst time after last patch. Something <strong>was</strong> changed :(

Let's not confuse cause and effect. A number seem to agree (based on perceptions) that the fizzle rate is broken somehow. However, the cause of that is not necessarily SCM, but rather some *fix* made to something else behind the EQ scenes.

I keep meaning to take the time to test fizzle by doing a couple 100 spell casts as suggested, but keep getting caught up doing other stuff when I log on. :p

I do agree tho that we need to test this scientifically as perceptions are good to alert us to a potential problem, but we still need to confirm with testing that it really is a problem.

While it's great if we can figure out the cause, I think it's more SoE's problem to figure out the cause. It's ours to present a clear and convincing case to them that there is a problem.

People have had this argument for years. I parsed all my logs for three years and pretty much the fizzle rates haven't changed by more than 1%. I posted it a while back, but you can probably find it if it hasn't fallen off the end of the posts. I seriously doubt it's more than the random number generator.

How long ago did you guys who think I am imagining things get SCM3? Just curious. I just got it and I can say I can see the difference. Yes I used to fizzle, but once or twice during a night, not 10. Looks like the random generator makes me fizzle much more now, isn't it weird.

BTW, I fizzled about 7 times in 2 hours of raiding tonight again (on evocation spells only, not even counting the rest lol). I used to fizzle once or twice in 2 hours.

Show me some real numbers, not your memory of how many fizzles you noticed over the course of a couple of hours casting many different types of spells. There are so many variables in what you describe (e.g., number of spells cast, types of spells cast, your wisdom, your level, your spec, etc.).....

Yesterday I logged in for a record six hours -- it's a record because I haven't logged in for that long in so many months. One fizzle on a nuke in six hours of casting direct-damage spells 90% of the time on a raid, and yes, my druid is Evocation-specialized and has had SCM3 for a while. I cast POTG maybe once; heal spells a few times because there were actually two clerics in my group so I didn't bother to heal; Seasons around seven times; and all the rest was nukes.

Just got 7 fizzles in 5 minutes on summer flame and hand of ro. About 10 more in the raid before that. And I got SCM3 two weeks ago, so I can say that I DO see the difference as I didn't have it before. Nothing more to say I guess, I'll just bugreport it until it's fixed :p

Since the patch where AEs started hitting through walls, I've managed to fizzle an entire bar of mana(100%) casting shield of the magi three times. I average one fizzle normally, and I never got more than three in a row before the patch. I think some spells are just screwed up, because nothing else has given me trouble.

<strong>Just got 7 fizzles in 5 minutes on summer flame and hand of ro. About 10 more in the raid before that. And I got SCM3 two weeks ago, so I can say that I DO see the difference as I didn't have it before. Nothing more to say I guess, I'll just bugreport it until it's fixed</strong>


Nothing to fix. I just did some testing of those spells in PoS (only 100 casts of each, but should be enough to show something if SCM 3 has broken anything) and got the following fizzle rates:

Summer's Flame: 1/100 (1%)
Ensnare: 0/100 (0%)
Hand of Ro: 1/100 (1%)

Evoc. 200, Wis 355, SCM 3, Level 65. SCM 3 is not a problem.

To diagnose your problem, we need hard numbers. Do 100 casts of Summer's Flame and Hand of Ro, and give us your stats as above.

Some spells are broken. We've proven that before. But it doesn't appear as if any of the above 3 are broken.

It might be pointless, though, as there's a patch which will lead to a new wave of "I'm fizzling more" posts....:/

100 casts isn't hard data, it's even far from it because of, doh, the random generator. Would need 1000 casts prolly to have valid data.

In any case, when I see how people, especially Sirocco, seem to like turning down people, I think I know why people left to EQdruids and I think I'm going to follow their examples.

My data is a lot "harder" than yours. If your premise is correct that SCM 3 has broken the fizzle rate of spells so that you noticed a lot of fizzles in just 5 or 10 minutes, then 100 casts for three different spells (300 casts total) would have turned up more than 2 fizzles.

Don't tell me to do 1000 casts when you haven't even done your first 100 as part of a structured test. I took you seriously enough to do a spot check on my earlier testing, and I'm not going to waste any more of my time on a baseless claim.

ok, hold on a sec.

you said "I fizzle alot on these spells"

Scirocco goes and does a test of 100 casts of each spell

then you say "you need 1000 casts, but i still believe that my feeling is right"

so... go do a thousand casts... it doesn't take that long. All he is asking for are some numbers not "OMG I FIZZLE ALL THE TIME NOW" which is all people have been saying. yeah, the other day i noticed that i fizzle 3 times in a row on a nuke... big deal, i don't remember the couple of hundreds that i cast before that without fizzle.

saying that i feel i fizzle more, and then saying that someone that did a small test just likes putting people down is really a rather lame arguement.

DS

I'm an evocation druid with 295 wisdom (if that even matters) and SCM3. Rather than stand there doing 100 casts in a row, however, I parsed my last 100 "in-the-field" casts of Ensnare (alteration), Hand of Ro (evocation), and Winged Death (conjuration).

spell - fizzles/casts
Ensnare... 5/100
HoR........ 2/100
WD......... 1/100

I was actually surprised that I fizzled more on a 29th level spell, which in 'logical' terms would be very trivial to me at this stage of my casting career. If I was to hazard any guesses, one possibility might be that evocation specialists are being more heavily penalized when using alteration spells; but that's just looking at my own little data sample. I'm definitely going to put Tanglewood to use more often whenever its 4-second cast time is practical; ya can't fizzle on a right-click.

~Firemynd

<blockquote style="padding-left:0.5em; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; border-left:solid 2">In any case, when I see how people, especially Sirocco, seem to like turning down people, I think I know why people left to EQdruids and I think I'm going to follow their examples.</blockquote>

OK hold on a minute. You asked the entire community if SCM3 was broken. Some of us posted our experiences with it. It doesn't seem broken, and you didn't like the answer, so you're going to leave in a huff and a puff.

Does that sound reasonable or logical to you?

Scirocco wasn't turning down anyone, nor was any poster in this thread. We stated what our experiences were.

I stated what I observed over six hours. I had one fizzle on casting Moonfire. On another day I might have fizzled more. But SCM3 does not seem broken.