Comprehensive Flare Rate List

[time4fun]

So there are tons of flare types in GS, and they don't all have the same fire rate. Most of them seem to fall into one of two buckets for base rate: 15% or 25%. But I figured we could all put our heads together and just have a comprehensive list. I've got some of the data, but I am nowhere near having it all. If you've got some of the info and can confirm or deny anything you see here, leave a comment. And if I've forgotten a flare type, let me know!

If you do research: Please post your results from at least 100 swings/casts to confirm your rate.

Standard Flare Rate: 15% unless otherwise noted
Standard Flare List:
Fire
Ice
Vacuum
Lightning
Acid
Vibration
Acuity (needs confirmation)
Mana
Ensorcel- Physical Weapon

Uncommon Flare Rate: 15% unless otherwise noted
Uncommon Flare List:

Disintegration (needs confirmation)
Disruption (Non-Black Ora) (needs confirmation)
Plasma
Steam (needs confirmation)
Holy Water (needs confirmation)
Unbalance Flares
Ensorcel- Runestaves: 20%

Rare Flare Rate: Variable. Anything without a number next to it needs confirmation/testing
Rare Flare List:

Web
Airbolt:
Bubble
Disruption (Black Ora): 25%
Mechanical
Knockout
Mana Vial
Rotating Snake
Shadowdeath: Variable (needs testing)
Polearm
Rotflares: 25% base
Blink: (needs further testing for base rate and impact of spell ranks)
Coraesine Doublestrike/Air (Oldstyle): 25%
Coraesine Doublestrike/Air (Newstyle)
Briar:
Greater Elemental Flares:
NerveStaff (Defensive): T1: 20% T2: 25% T3: 30% T4: 35%
NerveStaff (Offensive):

[Shaps]

Bubble flares seem like a 15% flare rate. Just antecdotal though.

[time4fun]

Bubble flares seem like a 15% flare rate. Just antecdotal though.

You up for doing some research?

[Shaps]

You up for doing some research?

I am, but I do use a lance and it doesn't proc off of kill shots. So it's very hard to get a feel for it. But it procs for a minute.. I get 12 hits per minute (not counting MOC) at 5 second swings. And it will come up within 5-10 seconds after dropping so a swing or two. That's counting a lot of kill shots in there also.

[time4fun]

I am, but I do use a lance and it doesn't proc off of kill shots. So it's very hard to get a feel for it. But it procs for a minute.. I get 12 hits per minute (not counting MOC) at 5 second swings. And it will come up within 5-10 seconds after dropping so a swing or two. That's counting a lot of kill shots in there also.

You'll have to go do a manual calculation with logs. Do Bubble Flares proc while a bubble is active? Or will it only proc when you don't have a current bubble?

If the latter, it's going to take quite a few hunts to count, but it'd be greatly appreciated. If it's the former, you can just count the number of non-fatal swings and the number of flares.

[Winter]

Exactly 15% is what I got for mana flares when I tested a few months ago on a runestave with +1 flares that was off the shelf.





edit- Ok just rapid fired 100 casts of 401 and got 16 flares.

edit edit- I'll post some results later with a lightning flaring off the shelf runestave and a 411 runestave.


Edit3
Off the shelf lightning runestaff 100 casts/12 flares. 100 swings/23 flares

Runestaff with 411 cast on it 100 casts/11 flares. 100 swings/12 flares

[time4fun]

Winter, thank you for testing that.

The lightning swings... Was that a weapon? Can you retest as it seems like an outlier?

[Riltus]

Flares with ebladed weapons and runestaves activate at fixed intervals. For weapons there is a flare associated with every fifth (20%) attack and every eighth CAST or ATTACK (12.5%) with runestaves. It should be noted that these flares are consumed whether activated or not. For example, if the attack damage from the fifth weapon strike is sufficient to kill the target the flare messaging is suppressed but the flare doesn't carry over to the next attack.

Weapons blessed with holy water flares have a lower rate than ebladed elemental flares and also occur randomly. The reason for the lower rate is that holy water flares, on average, result in more damage (higher crit ranks) than the elemental flares.

Mark

[Malisai]

Nervestaffs are 5% per level. T3 is 30%.

[caelric]

Not sure exactly what rate blink weapons flare at, but it is a flat rate. Used to be at a rate of 1/(spell level), but they were changed to a straight flat rate.

[time4fun]

They're not a straight flat rate. There's probably a base rate, but it's been confirmed that the difference between the spell level and the number of spell ranks you have in that circle is a major factor. I'm doing some research now, but it's tricky/

[gilchristr]

How did you arrive at 15% being the standard flare rate?

[Gnomad]

I have disintegrate and steam weapons laying around; I'll test them out eventually.

And then go back to the eternal decision: my steam-flaring quarter staff. Is it a weapon so supremely terrible to rate a space in my locker?

[Goat]

I saw ~14.5% ensorcell flares on runestaves and 25% on weapons. Several thousand casts/swings, back when it came out.

Edit: My impression was that most runestaff flares were 15% (or 14.28% - 1 in 7) and most weapon flares were 25% (in in 4). This makes a certain degree of sense. 7 runestaff casts (usually) require 21 seconds, whereas 4 swings (usually) require 20. Not exactly the same, and there's haste and all that, but I can see how they would have reasoned their way into higher flare rates on weapons.

Edit again - From my original Ensorcell guide at http://gsguide.wikia.com/wiki/Ensorcell:
On ensorcelled runestaves, flares are predominantly health flares - they make up about 77.5% of all flares. Mana flares come up about 17.5% of the time, and spirit flares trigger about 5% of the time.

Health and mana flare amounts are tied to the ensorcell tier. A T1 ensorcell (for a non-sorcerer) or temp ensorcell (for a sorcerer) gives 5 to 10 health or mana. Each additional tier adds one point to the minimum amount and two points to the maximum amount (e.g., sorcerer with tier 4 ensorcell, 4 tiers above the bottom, gets back 9-18 health or mana). Spirit flares are always for one spirit point.

[Goat]

As for rotflares, from http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?97542-Rotflares-by-the-numbers:
================
Flare rate
Wyrom told me that the flare rate increases at 36, 136, and 171 necro ranks.

Ranks | Flares | Hits | Percent
0 | 15 | 53 | 28%
90* | 13 | 39 | 33%
136 | 42 | 100 | 42%
171** | 15 | 15 | 100%

*Going by Wyrom's word, this would be the same at 36 ranks.
*100% flares with a runestaff at 180 ranks - haven't tested thoroughly with any less.

I tested on polar bears and mammoths only, with a lance. I didn't count hits that both killed the target AND did not cause a flare, since damage flares can't happen then.
================

And later on down in that thread:
================
It could be that the actual flare table is 1 in 4, then 1 in 3, then 1 in 2, then 1 in 1. The largest error would be 8% on the 50% case. With 100 trials, that has a stddev of 5, which would yield an error of 8 flares about 5% of the time. Maybe not super-likely, but there's a pleasing aesthetic to it, so I wouldn't be surprised if he designed it that way. On next fixskill, I may do some more trials at the 136 level.
================

[gilchristr]

.."most weapon flares were 25% (in in 4)"

Yea, I read a post from Mark that said elbade flares for weapons were every 5th swing, and I also read a post where someone tested grapple flares and ensorcell for 100 swings of UAC, and it had a 20% flare rate on the grapple and 25% on the ensorcell.

[Aluvius]

I did some testing with my blink weapon last year and just never got around to posting it, I'll likely do some more again. I'm not really sure how complex the formula really is, but from my testing it seemed like a possible fit would be:

base 15% flare rate + .2% per spell ranks known over the infused spell



I based this on two sets of test data. I didn't count death hits with no flare.

1) Level 38 empath, spell imbedded 111, spell ranks known in minor spirit was 20

458 hits, 78 flares = 17.03056% flare rate


2) Level 39 empath, spell imbedded 1101, spell ranks known in empath was 39

513 hits, 120 flares = 23.39181% flare rate


Of course this was just me going back looking through logs after hunts, I didn't make a script or anything so its possible some counts are off but I tried to get fairly large sample sizes in order to smooth it out.

Its always possible the formula more complex with a sliding base for different infused spell ranks or perhaps different bases for different spell lists. Vishra and I talked a bit when I was doing this and I think she might have got different results, which made me wonder about different spell lists and/or classes skewing the results.

I dunno. The simplest answer is most likely though. That's why I thought there's probably a base rate plus an increase based on spell ranks known since that sorta fit with the vague info from the officials when the blink flares were changed. It would help normalize the flare rates for low rank spells vs high rank spells while still penalizing the high rank (and more powerful) spells the most.

Oh and its truly random, I've had back to back flares and I've gone 24 hits without a flare heh.

[Riltus]

.."most weapon flares were 25% (in in 4)"

Yea, I read a post from Mark that said elbade flares for weapons were every 5th swing, and I also read a post where someone tested grapple flares and ensorcell for 100 swings of UAC, and it had a 20% flare rate on the grapple and 25% on the ensorcell.


Standard (normal) flare rates

Weapons: 20% (1 flare per 5 attacks)
Runestaves: 12.5% (1 flare per 8 casts/attacks)

Rates that deviate from these are non-standard. This can be easily tested. Weapons with standard, fixed-rate interval flares, will flare on the 5th, 10th, 15th...100th attack if the creature survives the melee attack. For runestaves the flare will activate on the 8th, 16th, 24th...96th cast. There is no flare carryover if the creature is killed before the flare activation.


Mark

[venkman]

Going to bump this to get a final conclusion.

Is the following correct?

Standard basic permanent flares , 15% random.

Ebladed weapon flares , 20% non random always in the 5th swing

Ebladed Runestaves ,15% non random

Rotflares , 15% random base can increase to 100%

Blinkflares 15% base random +.2% per spell circle

Rare flares that occupy the flare slot , 20% random ???

[Ardenwulf]

I believe Wyrom said the flare rate on ethereal armor is 15-20%, if you want to add that to the list.

[venkman]

They should just come out and give us these flare rates as they do on every other aspect of this particular mechanic. It's difficult to gauge an exact % at least for the randoms.