POLL: OP spells?

[Sandman25]

Inspired by some hot discussion in GDD.

[le_nerd]

I thought the solution to haste was to remove it except from sticks/liquids?

[Sandman25]

I thought the solution to haste was to remove it except from sticks/liquids?

I don't know. I think it would not be OP as level 9 spell, for example (I am not suggesting it, just explaining that removal is not necessary).

[mps]

I haven't heard talk of removing haste for a few months, but yeah, supposedly that's a thought being taken seriously. Might as well remerge hexes and charms into enchantments at that point, imo.

re: the poll, I don't think any of those spells are problematic from a spell level perspective. After more careful consideration, the only spells I have much of an opinion on are necromutation and statue form, both of which I think could stand to be one level lower. I think conjuration-ish spells are often set at too high a level, but I don't really care.

[ZipZipskins]

haven't they been removing haste for like 3 years

[Sandman25]

mps,

Please vote, it will be easier to take your opinion into account then.
I voted yes for all 5 spells.

[Magipi]

In general, I don't like the constant tinkering with Crawl. So I would probably vote No to all, for that reason.

Some details, however:
Haste in amazing.
Animate skeleton is amazing in former versions, more mediocre in trunk.
Apportation is a situational spell that has almost no use in a normal (non-extended game). It's very good in extended though.
Blade hands is good, but it is more the case that the rivals (dragon form and statue form) are bad. I would argue to strengthen those.
Spectral weapon? Is that really seen as an OP spell?

[ZipZipskins]

In general, I don't like the constant tinkering with Crawl.

Why not?

Apportation is a situational spell that has almost no use in a normal (non-extended game). It's very good in extended though.

I disagree. Apportation is great for yoinking things that you don't want to walk over and grab, which happens a lot. There are plenty of vaults and branch ends even in three-rune games that aren't worth clearing for many characters but have good loot or runes. I think this would be true even if the spell weren't essentially free, which it is now.

Blade hands is good, but it is more the case that the rivals (dragon form and statue form) are bad. I would argue to strengthen those.

Are they bad though?

[Sandman25]

Spectral weapon? Is that really seen as an OP spell?

Can be +100% damage. Much better than Haste for damage IMHO and it stacks with Haste. Extremely OP for level 3, especially with polearm in corridor vs monsters without AoE attacks.

[dynast]

Haste spell is just as hard to find as a wand of hasting, you cant plan a game around getting that spell unless you worship sif. For me thats enough to not consider the spell OP in any way.

[Sandman25]

Haste spell is just as hard to find as a wand of hasting, you cant plan a game around getting that spell unless you worship sif. For me thats enough to not consider the spell OP in any way.

I think rarity of a spell does not justify it being lower level than needed for balance reasons.

[mps]

Spectral weapon is the best spell in crawl. In terms of return on investment, nothing beats it. In terms of the power of the effect, few spells compare.

That doesn't mean it's OP, it just means most spells are junk.

[duvessa]

Spectral weapon, animate skeleton, and apportation shouldn't be increased in level. They should be removed instead. They are terrible design.

[Magipi]

Spectral weapon, animate skeleton, and apportation shouldn't be increased in level. They should be removed instead. They are terrible design.

What's wrong with apportation?

[radinms]

My op spell is... obviously statue form!

[Berder]

Yes, let's continue in the grand quest to ruin magic once and for all and make the dungeon safe for berserkers again.

I for one will sleep a lot easier when I can be sure there isn't some freak out there casting Apportation at innocent marauders like myself, or Trog forbid, my family. My younger daughter - she - she hasn't even killed her first orc yet! *sobs*

Did - did you know they can fight with more than one weapon at a time? I can't even count that high!

[Sandman25]

Yes, let's continue in the grand quest to ruin magic once and for all and make the dungeon safe for berserkers again.

Aren't you annoyed with animating every skeleton, apporting every item and casting Spectral Weapon before every fight? Removing the spells might make playing as caster more enjoyable.
Also Spectral Weapon is not what most casters use, it's a spell I love the most with characters in heavy armour, it's a melee nerf, we should be happy

[Siegurt]

Aren't you annoyed with animating every skeleton, apporting every item and casting Spectral Weapon before every fight?

No. (And how is casting spec weapon before every fight more annoying than using a hex, or conjuration? )

[Sandman25]

No. (And how is casting spec weapon before every fight more annoying than using a hex, or conjuration? )

Hex has a chance to be resisted, conjuration can miss and deals random damage, you risk to be out of MP.
Spectral Weapon works always, it is similar to old RMsl and you don't care about MP with typical Spectral Weapon character.

[Dharmy]

What if the Haste spell was changed to Haste Other and the only ways to haste yourself were the wand and potion?

[tasonir]

I could see haste moved to level 7, but the rest I think are probably fine. To be fair I haven't used spectral weapon terribly much, I never wanted to link my health to something else with poor defenses. I admit that's probably an overreaction, as it doesn't seem to be killing much of anyone.

[Sandman25]

You get 50% damage when Spectral Weapon is damaged. I am not saying I intentionally tried to position my weapon as meat shield (except vs banishers/paralyzers/mutators) but it can be beneficial to characters with low defenses.

[Wahaha]

Spectral weapon is OP for a lvl 3 spell. Make it higher level, increase the defenses and hp of the weapon, make it drain player mp a little on hit.

[Sandman25]

Spectral weapon is OP for a lvl 3 spell. Make it higher level, increase the defenses and hp of the weapon, make it drain player mp a little on hit.

Why drain MP? To make it less useful for hybrids?

[Wahaha]

To attach an extended cost to an extended effect. If there is no extended cost then we get typical charm problems like old repel missiles (the current rmsl is also bad). If more spells that last more than 1 turn had extended costs, it would be very easy to balance them (see mp drain thread). Probably won't happen but if I'm going to suggest a change to a buff spell might as well suggest all of the changes that I would do. The mp drain on hit for spectral weapon does not matter at all if it's the only spell with extended mp cost, but if more spells had mp drain, it would matter.
An alternative to extended cost is to make a buff last a very short amount of time but that doesn't work for many buffs including spectral weapon.

[Sandman25]

Without redesign it would lead to more rest between battles and undesirability to cast spells while Spectral Weapon is active. "Single spell character", quite unusual.

[Wahaha]

I don't imagine it draining as much mp as you think. It's not supposed to make a character use only one spell. It's supposed to be like "3 spectral weapon hits = 1 bolt of fire mp cost" or something along those lines. The cost is small if the player uses only spectral weapon and nothing else. If the player casts other spells and in particular has other buffs active, then it starts to matter and makes buff spells an actual decision instead of a free cast before the start of a fight.
Edit: anyway I made my argument in the mp drain thread and it wasn't very well liked, it would be pointless to repeat it. I don't want to discuss this here because it's offtopic and I like this thread's topic.

[Berder]

Favors "actual decisions" -> wants to weaken magic, pushing every character into boring melee, eliminating decisions.

The fact is, the more magical a character is, the more meaningful decisions are involved in playing that character. Magical characters make tricky decisions about spell levels, MP efficiency, adequate damage types, which buffs to use, and which spells to train for.

Melee tabbers make very few decisions by comparison. Basically they just need a decent armor and a decent weapon, both of which are plentiful in the dungeon, and aside from that it's mindless tabbing the whole game through. They can just leave the same skills on all game, only changing it up a little when their weapon hits mindelay. Anything that reduces the effectiveness of magic and pushes players to avoid it, is going to reduce the meaningful decisions they make in a typical game.

[Sandman25]

Yes, this is why Apportation and Animate Skeleton should not be level 1. Do you remember last time when you didn't learn the spells after finding them? There are no decisions here indeed.

[Berder]

Animate Skeleton is just terrible right now. Bump it up to level 2 and you'll see it go from "terrible" to "downright useless."

Using animate skeleton does actually involve more decisions than not using it. You have to manage ally positioning. That requires more decisions than plain melee. Additionally, animate skeleton does not play well with ranged combat, so on any character with a ranged attack (aside from bolt of draining) I would not get it.

Apportation is really a silly level 1 spell used for grabbing the abyssal rune. Your hypothetical use case of apporting everything in sight is pointless in most cases, since it costs mp and provides extremely small tangible benefit. In most cases you want to kill everything on the level, and then you can pick up the items at your leisure. Apportation does cost a spell level, and IIRC there was once or twice where I did not memorize it or amnesia'd it for that reason. I've also seen characters in CPA or GDA who don't get Apportation because they can't cast it.

Anyway, I've said before that if there were a level 5 spell "mass apportation" then I'd be happy replacing Apportation with that. But just to increase the spell level of Apportation without any compensation? No. That would be harming magic.


Then of course there's Trog. Every spell has the tradeoff that you aren't worshiping Trog.


Often times I find myself in a crisis with a magic oriented character of "where to go from here." I need to decide on new spell schools and a new direction for the character because what's served me so far won't be sufficient for the rest of the game. For example, it often happens midway through lair or after the end of orc. That happens far less frequently with melee oriented characters. Their biggest decision is finding a good weapon, and if they are using 2h weapons that's not a problem at all.

[tabstorm]

None of these spells are overpowered except spectral weapon and it might be too high leveled at L4, 2 school for many characters. I don't understand how apportation can be overpowered. Animate skeleton is good but I imagine it times out kind of quickly now. Blade hands at L6 would require removing it from the starter Tm book due to recent design rules which would be a shit show. Haste is literally the most overrated spell in this game.

[Sandman25]

I don't understand how apportation can be overpowered.

Weird to read it from a speedrunner Don't you see how a level 1 spell makes it trivial to get runes without killing monsters? Level 1 spell + some stealth makes extended a joke for some combos.

[tabstorm]

I don't do stealth speedruns ever, it's unbearable without starting invisibility and I don't want to scum for it because I don't like stabbers much. Besides, "usefulness on a speedrun" is largely divorced from "usefulness to hypothetical optimal players" and the game is designed with the latter in mind.

[Sar]

Animate Skeleton is just terrible right now.

I disagree, I think it's very strong still.

[Sandman25]

I mean it is so easy to get a rune with apportation that devs even added a pursuit by hell/pan lords to nerf it.

[tabstorm]

I don't think that was the reason it was added. Grunt probably just thought it would be cool and added it, just because. Hell lords don't pursue you. The main difference between the two branches was that you could simply cTele to the rune in Pan, something no longer possible in 0.17. Of course, now a lot of floors are much easier since cblink is now allowed on them.

[MrPlanck]

Animate Skeleton is just terrible right now.

I disagree, I think it's very strong still.

Agree. Still quite strong and a no-brainer to memorize. Lvl 3? Sometimes.

[Sar]

Ehhh, it does somewhat lose its endgame appeal since you can't snowball tons of skellies anymore. I think it's okay for a level 1 spell now.

[Sandman25]

Ehhh, it does somewhat lose its endgame appeal since you can't snowball tons of skellies anymore. I think it's okay for a level 1 spell now.

Snowball effect is still easy to create. My last character killed an Elephant by summoned hydra, animated its corpse, they killed another Elephant, I animated its corpse too and now I don't need the hydra.

[Sar]

Well yeah, but if you took damage or need to regen HP, or simply explore too much, one of those elephants might fall apart, maybe two.

[Aean]

My deciding factor is basically "Is this a must-have spell?" Or rather, one that becomes a no-brainer for just about any character that finds it?

Spectral Weapon? Well, yes and no. Useful for all character types (damage, distraction), available at low cost...but has its drawbacks. Namely that damage is shared with the owner.

Animate Skeleton? Nah, not since the changes. It can give you a big skeleton army in the early game, but skeletons don't last long anymore, and they never lasted long against decently powerful enemies anyway. Any character might pick it up, but unless they find it fairly early on it won't do much for them.

Apportation? This...is an oddity. It's not widely useful, but any character would probably pick it up. It can be a big help, and at effectively no cost. Honestly, I'd say it's fine where it is...but it should be impossible to apport runes or the Orb.

Haste? This is probably one of the biggest no-brainer spells out there. It's worth it for any character, and most of the late-game characters I see, especially those in zigs, use it pretty much constantly. At a minimum I'd say the spell level should go up, but it should probably be entirely removed as a castable spell. There are already enough sources of it, and it provides a massive benefit to any character at a relatively small cost.

Blade Hands? I'd say definitely bump up the spell level. It's better than Troll claws, which makes it a relatively low-level spell that trumps three levels of a mutation. And for anyone going UC, it's a top-tier spell at a low level.

I'd also add Necromutation. I can't remember the last time I saw a caster in the endgame, or a zig who didn't treat it as an always-on spell. At least as much of one as Deflect Missiles or Haste. I'd bump it up to level 9, and probably halve the duration as well to make it less of a "No, DUH" spell option. No torment, mutation, rot, sickness, draining, poison, hunger...plus gives you MR, rC+, and AC. Only real drawbacks are dispel undead (which few enemies have), Holy Wrath (which almost no enemies have, especially in the endgame), and no potions. But no potions means little for a character who can simulate (or remove the need for) just about any potion with spells. Maybe slightly less efficiently, but still.

[Sar]

I can't remember the last time I saw a caster in the endgame, or a zig who didn't treat it as an always-on spell

Most of my "casters" who make it to the endgame don't bother using it, and a couple of the ones who did paid for that with their lives! It is useful in mummy Zigs though.

[onget]

Because in the early game do nothing, all of the spell list of non-Animate Skeleton is very weak. Animate Skeleton also is a powerful spell in the mid/late game rather than the early game

[Sar]

I knew the contents of onget's post before even entering the thread. Except for the second part, because I don't understand it!

[Aean]

I can't remember the last time I saw a caster in the endgame, or a zig who didn't treat it as an always-on spell

Most of my "casters" who make it to the endgame don't bother using it, and a couple of the ones who did paid for that with their lives! It is useful in mummy Zigs though.

Huh. Clearly I just haven't watched enough of your games

But point taken. Just going off what I've seen. Along the same lines, I've seen (and used) a rare few characters who never had Haste, but seems like everyone who goes for 15 runes goes for Haste, because it's just too useful to pass up.

[mps]

lol @ "bump necromutation up to level 9"

These threads really bring 'em out of the woodwork.

[Sar]

fucking idiots amirite

when will they learn???

[ZipZipskins]

lol changing necromut to level 9 would change nothing about how it's used. the only effect halving the duration would have is forcing players who use it to cast it twice as often.

I always think it's funny when people base game balance ideas on ziggurats too.

[Sandman25]

I knew the contents of onget's post before even entering the thread. Except for the second part, because I don't understand it!

I think he means that early skeletons like goblins are not as useful as late skeletons like titans.

[Sar]

But titans are meaningless and hobgoblins are more dangerous anyway?