Serious bug with Flame Burst

• Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-10-30 21:04
  Flame Burst - Mabinogi World Wiki
  
  

  Using Flame Burst on enemies frozen with Ice Spear will cause a bug. The monster will remain frozen but the one that casted Ice Spear will be attacked by it. This bug is known as "astal body bug" in many other foreign servers.

  
  
  It's only today that I fully understand what this really meant. However, this description is quite flawed and doesn't explain the full story.
  
  Flame burst alters the nature of Ice Spear. Ice spear normally freezes monsters such that they cannot move. The trouble with using flame burst is that it will cause monsters within a certain range (estimated to be the same range of effect as magical music) that has been frozen by ice spear to have the no-movement effect nullified. Therefore, you will see the monster being frozen, but in actual fact the monster is moving and then the person casting Ice Spear will get attacked by it. This is what the part "The monster will remain frozen but the one that casted Ice Spear will be attacked by it." and "astal body" really means.
  
  The thing about the wiki description being wrong is this part: "Using Flame Burst on enemies frozen with Ice Spear will cause a bug." This is incorrect. It should be "Using flame burst on enemies within a certain range on any enemy (especially monsters not attacked by Ice Spear) will cause a bug on monsters attacked by Ice Spear." Thing is, if you use Flame burst on an enemy that is frozen with Ice Spear, it will still be "knocked back" by flame burst effect even though the no-movement by Ice Spear effect is nullified, so nobody will get attacked by it.
  
  To give an illustration of this, we used two bears for testing, and I will call them Bear A and Bear B. My friend used icebolt at Bear A, and then froze it with Ice Spear. At the same time, I use flame burst on Bear B. This (flame burst) causes the no-movement effect of Ice Spear to be nullified and therefore my friend gets attacked by a ghost of Bear A even though it appears to be frozen.
  
  We took another bear, Bear C, where she ice-speared it first and then I flame burst it. We received no signs of attacks from the bear.
  
  The effect of this bug means that Ice Spear and Flame Burst in party situation is a very big no, especially if you are not going to flame burst the monsters that are ice-speared, and that's quite a serious bug since common sense tells you it should not be this way. Why would you get attacked by a ghost of a bear when the bear is supposed to be frozen?
  
  I really hope they do fix it but I do wonder if there is enough awareness of this bug to begin with since I have heard hardly anything about this.
• KEL331 wrote on 2010-10-30 21:10
  Yeah, I know this bug
  This is the main reason why Flame Burst Alchemists do not party with Ice Spear magicians.
  It has been there ever since alchemy came out and it doesn't look like Devcat is gonna fix it. :T_T:
• Lan wrote on 2010-10-30 21:11
  That sounds...strange.
• Phanterz wrote on 2010-10-30 21:24
  Exploit of the bug?
  I'm not sure if it's exactly the same glitch:
  [video=youtube;K1JYUqMkmxU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1JYUqMkmxU[/video]
• Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-10-30 21:28

  Quote from KEL331;199002:

  Yeah, I know this bug
  This is the main reason why Flame Burst Alchemists do not party with Ice Spear magicians.
  It has been there ever since alchemy came out and it doesn't look like Devcat is gonna fix it. :T_T:

  
  That's pretty sad.
  
  Also, my friend was telling me how she dislikes Alchemists and Alchemy skill branch as a whole. Main reason being that alchemy is not very party-friendly, except for a few select skills (barrier spikes and frozen blast, but they are not idiot-proof in design either, especially when frozen blast still allows monsters to be displaced after someone uses a skill like smash). I have to agree with her on that even though I like alchemy a fair bit (though I feel she's leaning too much towards magic when using Fireball to compare with Alchemy).
  
  Also, the more I use it, the more I find that flame burst is just not party-friendly in general. It's incompatible with smash and magnum shot, which are opening attacks for most dungeons. It is compatible with windmill and blaze, but they too bring problems of their own - upsetting party play dynamics due to the way monsters aggro other players after one player uses windmill (making elf archers especially vulnerable to multi-aggro). It seems the only places flame burst is truly useful is in Peaca and Sulphur Spider.
  
  
  

  Quote from Phanterz;199009:

  Exploit of the bug?
  I'm not sure if it's exactly the same glitch

  
  The same as what I said of Bear C in the example.
  
  This is different because they attack together. The astal body problem only happens when both players are attacking different monsters.
• Karmel wrote on 2010-10-31 00:01
  Lol when ever i do this i keeps the mob frozen and allows others to hit it, caster never got attacked., but in all reality theres no need for flame burst and ice spear at the same time.
• Hiccup wrote on 2010-10-31 00:01
  Who uses flame burst anyway?
• Username wrote on 2010-10-31 00:37
  I think Flame Burst is only good if you have R1+mastery of Chain Cylinder.
• Zid wrote on 2010-10-31 04:17
  I guess that explains why I saw that one Ice Spear user get knocked back out of nowhere after a Flame Burst went off.
  
  I'll have to disagree with your friend on the limitations of Alchemy on party play. Also, party play have to work in both ways instead of one way like most people expect it to be.
• Ignorant wrote on 2010-10-31 13:56

  Quote from Yogurticecream;198993:

  I really hope they do fix it but I do wonder if there is enough awareness of this bug to begin with since I have heard hardly anything about this.

  
  
  If some foreign severs still have this bug then I doubt they're going to fix it any time soon OTL
• Shanghai wrote on 2010-11-01 00:36
  Flame Burst is very useful in parties as it provides a 5 second hitstun, which can be useful for saving others and letting people ready their Smashes to bring on the pain when Flame Burst ends. It usually OHKOs most monsters in that 5 second time, and if not, it still does good damage enough for a Smash to kill it. We're talking about 5 charge Flame Bursts though. Sometimes it's inconvient in certain SMs and such, but if people know how to work in conjunction with it(Like Smashing after the 4th or 5th hit, or you using Flame Burst on enemies that are aggroing the WMer) it's good in party play. As for damage, enchants boost it's damage by a lot, but it's near useless at just 1 charge. It's semi-good for soloing, but sometimes Smash and WM are better if you need to dispatch something quickly to avoid multi-aggro.
  
  When monsters get frozen, I usually just keep charging to deal more damage if the Ice Spear doesn't kill them by then, or focus on other monsters. Never saw this glitch happen to me before though. :what:
• Taliya wrote on 2010-11-02 06:40
  I actually made a video about this several months back. I found it very fun to use in parties since the mob became immobilized and could still be attacked.
  
  [video=youtube;PTBSohZZDz8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTBSohZZDz8[/video]
  
  I never experienced the ghosting though. :x
• Alice wrote on 2010-11-02 08:01
  Nice video demonstration, I can really see that astral body glitch at 15 seconds through the video.
  
  That elf guard appeared to have been attacked by the still frozen lancer.
• Fracture wrote on 2010-11-02 12:33

  Quote from Yogurticecream;199012:

  That's pretty sad.
  
  Also, my friend was telling me how she dislikes Alchemists and Alchemy skill branch as a whole. Main reason being that alchemy is not very party-friendly, except for a few select skills (barrier spikes and frozen blast, but they are not idiot-proof in design either, especially when frozen blast still allows monsters to be displaced after someone uses a skill like smash). I have to agree with her on that even though I like alchemy a fair bit (though I feel she's leaning too much towards magic when using Fireball to compare with Alchemy).
  
  Also, the more I use it, the more I find that flame burst is just not party-friendly in general. It's incompatible with smash and magnum shot, which are opening attacks for most dungeons. It is compatible with windmill and blaze, but they too bring problems of their own - upsetting party play dynamics due to the way monsters aggro other players after one player uses windmill (making elf archers especially vulnerable to multi-aggro). It seems the only places flame burst is truly useful is in Peaca and Sulphur Spider.
  
  
  
  The same as what I said of Bear C in the example.
  
  This is different because they attack together. The astal body problem only happens when both players are attacking different monsters.

  
  
  The only time I've had any indication of any feelings toward my party play when using Alchemy is occasionally being told to sit out a room so my party can get some kills.
• Deitylight wrote on 2010-11-02 13:27

  Quote from Fracture;201204:

  The only time I've had any indication of any feelings toward my party play when using Alchemy is occasionally being told to sit out a room so my party can get some kills.

  
  
  Sounds like they either do terrible damage or your alchemy is overkill.