Not understanding Wild Surges

K

Khurse

Well-known member
Hi all
Ok, so have a toon I'm running an Eladrin Chaosmancer life on.

I put zero points into the Wild mage tree.
I have the 3 luck bonuses to "good" surge chance in the Eladrin tree, as well as Chaos Control 2. (Bad surges shift to neutral)

First off, most of my WM surges are red (negative) is this how it's supposed to be or am I just ridiculously unlucky?
It seemed like the negative surges far outnumbered the good ones, but was hard to tell while adventuring so I went to Searing heights and counted out 100 surges. 15 blue, 17 yellow, 68 red.
Did another hundred and had 13 blue, 13 yellow ,74 red. (I know this isn't nearly enough for an actual "test" but this was already pretty boring)

Is this inline with what other people are getting?

Also I had "bad" surges. A considerable number of them, shouldn't Chaos control 2 have shifted these to neutral?
 
Terranigma

Terranigma

Well-known member
In regards to the frequency of surge types (bad, neutral, good), when I was playing a Wild Mage that was NOT a Chaosmancer I got a spread that looked to be roughly like so:
  • 8% Very Good Surge
  • 25% Good Surge
  • 34% Neutral Surge
  • 25% Bad Surge
  • 8% Very Bad Surge
I generally had a 1/3 chance of getting a good surge, a neutral surge, or a bad surge. I had about a 1/3 chance of the good or bad surges to be very good or very bad. I have to wonder if there is something bizarre about Chaosmancer or with the Good Luck Bonus being problematic and bugged. I don't have access to Chaosmancer, so I can't test that aspect.

As far as having Bad Wild Surges, by any chance do you have Wild Mage Tier 3 "Power In Chaos" active? That overrides and reinstates Bad Wild Surges.
 
K

Khurse

Well-known member
Terranigma said:
In regards to the frequency of surge types (bad, neutral, good), when I was playing a Wild Mage that was NOT a Chaosmancer I got a spread that looked to be roughly like so:
  • 8% Very Good Surge
  • 25% Good Surge
  • 34% Neutral Surge
  • 25% Bad Surge
  • 8% Very Bad Surge
I generally had a 1/3 chance of getting a good surge, a neutral surge, or a bad surge. I had about a 1/3 chance of the good or bad surges to be very good or very bad. I have to wonder if there is something bizarre about Chaosmancer or with the Good Luck Bonus being problematic and bugged. I don't have access to Chaosmancer, so I can't test that aspect.

As far as having Bad Wild Surges, by any chance do you have Wild Mage Tier 3 "Power In Chaos" active? That overrides and reinstates Bad Wild Surges.
Click to expand...
No, I didn't take any WIld mage enhancements.

Went back and took CC1 at 20, and I think my spread is more like yours now, but I'm still getting bad/very bad surges.

Again no points spent in Wild Mage (Air 41, 30 something in FI)

Going to try a Fire Cleric life (with immunity stripping) so I'll see how that goes, was just curious. But if those were your resulst just looks like I'm having some really poor luck.
Thanks!
 
rabidfox

rabidfox

The People's Champion
Khurse said:
Went back and took CC1 at 20, and I think my spread is more like yours now, but I'm still getting bad/very bad surges.
Click to expand...
There's a bug with mix/matching CC1/CC2 if you mix the racial and class tree versions with taking one from each. If you've got both CC1/CC2 from the same tree, you might try resetting the tree and retaking them (I've run a few chaosmancer lives and had zero issues as long as both are from the same tree, so a tree reset might help or at least couldn't hurt). And that's assuming you don't have Power In Chaos toggle active; as that'll cause bad/very bad surges when toggled on regardless of taking CC1/CC2.
 
rabidfox

rabidfox

The People's Champion
mikarddo said:
What happens if you mix? They just dont wotk at all?
Click to expand...
I don't know 100% how all it plays out (I didn't mix myself), but just know from various people on the community discord (and in my guild) that they were still get very bad effects like the PAX/etc. when they took 1 from each tree (not certain which trees they took CC1 vs CC2 from, just that they took them separately). And once they reset their trees and took both from the same tree that they stopped getting negative effects.
 
M

mikarddo

Well-known member
I dont understand the Wind Surges either but in a different way.

I didnt play for long before I turned off bad and very bad surges as thosr were simply too annoying. That much I did understand.

Now, with all cores in CM and many points in WM for more and better surges I simply dont get it.

I see butterflies, fireworks and pumpkin heads or I get really large or great at swimming. Those are the effects I notice but they arel effects that do nothing for my sorc and while fun the first hour have already worn out.

I assume I also get some of the benefitial effects but without a much more clear cue and/or longer duration I have no idea what or when and thus no appreciation.

The cm/wm combo still offers other interesting effects that I do appreciate but unless much clearer cues are added I believe the entire Wild Surge system will be lost on me.

I note that swimming has a rather clear textual cue when it happens. Do other effects too? If they do I have missed it sofar.

I want to like this but reading the wiki most of the effects either seem so small or the duration so short fot something that often happens when it is irrelevant. When you add not noticing which effect surged... well...
 
M

mikarddo

Well-known member
Actually, reading the wiki I recall at some point noticing a hammer above my head. I see on the wiki that this adds a chancd to knock down mobs which is nice. But with a 6s duration only.

So maybe there are cues I just need to learn. With a 6s duration I dont see how I would play differently even if I do notice though making it hard to bother.
 
V

voenixa121

Well-known member
There are very obvious good effects. Never had that angel choir sing with the big explosion? The unicorn healing you? Regeneration getting cast on you? Red chaos explosions coming from your character? Unbreakable invisibility? Shields on the whole party? All of these are super big and obvious and happen all the time for me.
And the bad ones aren't all that bad either. Small gets you dodge, being a mouse gives you tons of dodge, dance makes enemies dance as well, out of phase makes you almost invincible. Everything else can be dispelled or cured. I have a stack of cure disease potions, curse removal potions and the break enchantment spell on a good hotkey and wild surges are really good for me. I don't see more negative than positive either, but I am not playing a Chaosmancer iconic. Maybe something is bugged with their luck bonus?
 
M

mikarddo

Well-known member
voenixa121 said:
There are very obvious good effects. Never had that angel choir sing with the big explosion? The unicorn healing you? Regeneration getting cast on you? Red chaos explosions coming from your character? Unbreakable invisibility? Shields on the whole party? All of these are super big and obvious and happen all the time for me.
And the bad ones aren't all that bad either. Small gets you dodge, being a mouse gives you tons of dodge, dance makes enemies dance as well, out of phase makes you almost invincible. Everything else can be dispelled or cured. I have a stack of cure disease potions, curse removal potions and the break enchantment spell on a good hotkey and wild surges are really good for me. I don't see more negative than positive either, but I am not playing a Chaosmancer iconic. Maybe something is bugged with their luck bonus?
Click to expand...

Good input thanks. Maybe I just need to pay more attention. My wife did mention something about... dang, I forgot what it was.
Is it obvious when you get the very short term buffs too? Are you able to leaverage those in any way?
 
BravelyPurged

BravelyPurged

Not well-known member
> Never had that angel choir sing with the big explosion?
That is the mass raise (or is it resurrection?) surge. I haven't seen it raise anyone yet. Was in a raid recently where it went off but the dead players were of course on timer, and also 1 time when the dead were on long reaper times sin a quest. Would be interested to hear of any stories where this raised people. Eventually it will. It is a cool animation and a nice idea and fun. thank you have a nice day.
 
V

voenixa121

Well-known member
mikarddo said:
Good input thanks. Maybe I just need to pay more attention. My wife did mention something about... dang, I forgot what it was.
Is it obvious when you get the very short term buffs too? Are you able to leaverage those in any way?
Click to expand...
Some of the buffs are not obvious unfortunately. Like I don't see when I get cheaper spells or a luck bonus because that's really just a new buff icon on the top of the screen. They are useful though, especially if you use the action boost or the rapid surge boost, preferably both at once for extra luck. Surges happen when casting spells, so they are often triggering in the middle of combat.
And if I get a red light above my head outside of combat I just use a cheap SLA to get it out of the way.
 
M

mikarddo

Well-known member
BravelyPurged said:
> Never had that angel choir sing with the big explosion?
That is the mass raise (or is it resurrection?) surge. I haven't seen it raise anyone yet. Was in a raid recently where it went off but the dead players were of course on timer, and also 1 time when the dead were on long reaper times sin a quest. Would be interested to hear of any stories where this raised people. Eventually it will. It is a cool animation and a nice idea and fun. thank you have a nice day.
Click to expand...

Aye, it is very rare for anyone to be dead and not on timer - most often people are raised pretty much right after the timer runs out. So the odds of that surge doing anything are pretty slim.

I havent seen the effect go off myself though, nor have I see the unicorn. I may have gotten the mass regen but I havent noticed, nor do I seem to notice getting +stats though I often notice getting +swim.
 
M

mikarddo

Well-known member
voenixa121 said:
And if I get a red light above my head outside of combat I just use a cheap SLA to get it out of the way.
Click to expand...

Thats the thing though. If I have time to cast a cheap sla during combat - the combat is already very easy so the surges wont matter. The real combat is when I _have_ to cast my A-game or something goes wrong. So, if surges are manageable when it does not matter - but less so when it matters...
 
V

voenixa121

Well-known member
mikarddo said:
Thats the thing though. If I have time to cast a cheap sla during combat - the combat is already very easy so the surges wont matter. The real combat is when I _have_ to cast my A-game or something goes wrong. So, if surges are manageable when it does not matter - but less so when it matters...
Click to expand...
Well, I am never playing solo so that changes things a lot I think. I can't say how much it really hinders you when alone. Also the effects are random. That just means it's uncontrollable. I had unicorns and shields appear at the start of quests when buffing up and I turned into a mouse in a difficult fight. That's just the nature of this thing. You can use the luck abilities to improve the odds, but in the end it's just random and very hard to min-max.
 
Haphazard

Haphazard

Sock Puppet
It's easy to miss surges, especially in combat (unless they're the very bad ones that cc you). Before a surge happens there's a flash of red/greeny yellow a few seconds before the icon appears over your head. If you cast as the main icon is forming it triggers the surge and the icon disappears which means often you don't notice.

I am convinced I'm getting more bad than good surges but it's difficult to tell for sure and obviously there will be variation across different instances. I have tested a few times by just standing in a wilderness area.

Only doing 20 at a time as it's a little tedious but so far have found;
9,6,5 (Neutral, V/Bad, V/Good)
6,8,6
8,7,5
5,11,4 (55% bad!)

Whilst statistically they are small sample sizes with lots of room for error there wasn't one test where I got more good than bad surges.
 
K

Khurse

Well-known member
Bit of a follow up.

Started a new life as a Chaosmancer Cleric (LR'd the Wild mage level out).
Made sure to take both Eladrin Chaos Control I and II this time, and I have not had a single bad/very bad surge. Everything has been neutral or good.

I suspect (knowing nothing about how this works) based on my previous experience that it's a bit broken, and if you don't have Eladrin Chaos Control I, then Chaos Control II simply doesn't work.
 
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