Player Spell - Blinkbolt

[Aethrus]

The addition of Spark Wasps that use blinkbolt to close in on players got me wondering, how interesting would it be if player characters had access to a spell like this?

What I was thinking was something like this --

Blinkbolt
Level 4 Translocations / Air Magic

Blink to a random space adjacent to a targeted non-adjacent enemy within up to 6 spaces. Uses smite targeting. Deals significant electric damage to target enemy, and moderate electric damage to all enemies in path or adjacent to player after blinking.

It's a rough idea, but I think it could be a very interesting spell that some characters would like to add,and adds a bit more variety to its respective spell schools without breaking their themes. Level four seemed appropriate for a dual school spell when comparing it to Passage of Golubria, a spell that similarly allows for semi controlled blinking (albeit with more control and less quickly) and comparing it to Static Discharge for an electric attacking spell.

A spell that allows you to quickly close the distance to enemies like Centaurs and Orc Priests could be very useful in the early game, as well as the ability to maneuver around groups of enemies and deal damage in the mid-game onward. That the spell cannot be used to easily retreat makes it more tactically interesting and makes it less abusable.

Other considerations I had was giving it range proportional to spellpower, perhaps starting at a range of only 3 or 4 at low spellpower, or dealing more damage the further the targeted enemy is from the player.

[tv1990]

i think it's tooo powerful it need a drawback, either contamination or exhaustion would make this spell less spammy and less powerful

[bcadren]

Yes. Let's make something almost as useful as the level 8 Controlled Blink spell a level 4.

Sarcasm aside; as cool as this would be it's probably too powerful for a player spell. I mean it is limited compared to cBlink (less likely to be able to be used for escape if it MUST target an enemy); but blinking directly into melee range with a ranged enemy or summoner is REALLY powerful without the damage.

[daggaz]

You called it blinkbolt, but made it smite targetting? For starters, make it an actual bolt so you need clear LoS for it to work. Cause electrical damage to anything adjacent to your path and even more damage to whatever is adjacent to your ending square. Do not require a specific target, you can fire a bolt towards an empty square.

[1010011010]

Blinkbolt sounds like a level 5 tloc/conj spell that has a chance of blinking opponents

[Aethrus]

You called it blinkbolt, but made it smite targetting? For starters, make it an actual bolt so you need clear LoS for it to work. Cause electrical damage to anything adjacent to your path and even more damage to whatever is adjacent to your ending square. Do not require a specific target, you can fire a bolt towards an empty square.

It's called blinkbolt based on the raiju / spark wasp spell. I made it smite targeted to hit enemies behind other monsters, though I suppose beam targeting works as well, and simplifies damaging enemies in the path of the attack.

Targeting an empty square would be incredibly strong, on par with cblink.

Yes. Let's make something almost as useful as the level 8 Controlled Blink spell a level 4.

Sarcasm aside; as cool as this would be it's probably too powerful for a player spell. I mean it is limited compared to cBlink (less likely to be able to be used for escape if it MUST target an enemy); but blinking directly into melee range with a ranged enemy or summoner is REALLY powerful without the damage.

It's definitely strong, but there are several reasons I think something like this is within reason for a player spell (though we can't say for sure without testing).

1) you don't get to pick the specific tile you land on, a la shadow step, and the range is limited compared to blink / cblink / even PoG. I do like the ideas of its range scaling with spellpower, as well as dealing more damage the further the target.

2) Passage of Golubria is the same spell level, is a single school spell, is about as accurate a 'blink' as this would be, and though it takes longer it can actually be used for retreat.

3) control of Line of Sight, other movement spells like Blink / Passage and such give players other ways to mitigate ranged threats. This isn't a new tool in their arsenal, and has a unique risk / reward attribute especially if you're closing in on say, an orc priest in a group of orcs or some centaurs if you may not yet know the extent of the pack.

I wouldn't be adverse to it being higher level, but it seemed like a fair level to start from to me, and I also particularly like the idea of a spell like this being added into the Book of Air. Blinkbolt -> Static Discharge would be an incredibly fun combo, and Swiftness would be useful if things got too hot.

[WingedEspeon]

Actual bolt spells have effectively smite targeting anyway. This spell abviously shouldnot be able to target en empty square, it isn.t c-blink. I don't think this is anywhere near c-blink power in repositioning. C-blink is powerful because it lets you reliably disengage form a fight, it lets you kite with ease, and it lets you ninja runes. this spell can't do any of those things. By the time you are casting level 4 spells orc priests are not very threatening anyway, and yakture paks lose a lot of their damage with repell missiles and lose almost all of their damage with deflect missiles anyway. a spell that gets you into melee range is a lot more risky way of dealing with these enemies because you are potentially putting a lot more monsters in your line of sight.

I would kind of like to see this as a level 5 spell with range=los and lightning bolt level damage to all targets.

[Dharmy]

We don't have spells with a minimum range. It would be interesting if you had to travel full-LOS distance, reduced by 1 for each enemy you have to blink through.

[Aethrus]

We don't have spells with a minimum range. It would be interesting if you had to travel full-LOS distance, reduced by 1 for each enemy you have to blink through.

Not being able to target adjacent enemies gives it a minimum range of sorts. A minimum range like you're saying sounds interesting on paper, but that kind of range restriction would be logistical nightmare for a player, since you'd have to target and corral enemies on the edge of your sight lines in order to be able to use it.

[Moose]

Doesn't Ru have an ability like this?

[Aethrus]

Doesn't Ru have an ability like this?

Ru's power leap is literally a controlled blink that has an AoE attack if there's anyone around. Which there may not be!

[Jalalaer]

How about:
You blink several times randomly in los, each dealing electric damage on the path.
Blinking times and damage depends on spellpower.
Translocation/Air, level 4? 5?
I think this will be a real fun spell to use.

To make it less spammy, exh after every cast?

[Velikolepni]

Yes. Let's make something almost as useful as the level 8 Controlled Blink spell a level 4.

Sarcasm aside; as cool as this would be it's probably too powerful for a player spell. I mean it is limited compared to cBlink (less likely to be able to be used for escape if it MUST target an enemy); but blinking directly into melee range with a ranged enemy or summoner is REALLY powerful without the damage.

To prevent an overlap with controlled blink, one could simply make it act as a bolt spell that chooses a random valid enemy on the screen. That way, it can still be used offensively (for example when exploring and stumbling upon a pack of centaurs), but it can't really be used to escape.

[Jalalaer]

Yes. Let's make something almost as useful as the level 8 Controlled Blink spell a level 4.

Sarcasm aside; as cool as this would be it's probably too powerful for a player spell. I mean it is limited compared to cBlink (less likely to be able to be used for escape if it MUST target an enemy); but blinking directly into melee range with a ranged enemy or summoner is REALLY powerful without the damage.

To prevent an overlap with controlled blink, one could simply make it act as a bolt spell that chooses a random valid enemy on the screen. That way, it can still be used offensively (for example when exploring and stumbling upon a pack of centaurs), but it can't really be used to escape.

It still would be powerful, the ability to get aside sth in one turn. Especially for Chei-ers(I never forget when i died because i moved two times by LAG). Cheiers also have str&int to cast it in early game.

[kroki]

It still would be powerful, the ability to get aside sth in one turn. Especially for Chei-ers(I never forget when i died because i moved two times by LAG). Cheiers also have str&int to cast it in early game.

yeah god forbid chei worshippers have something going for them

[duvessa]

This spell is proposed pretty often, and I have a simple concern about it: in Crawl, you almost never want to approach monsters. If you are hoping to hit something with melee, or a short-ranged spell, then if at all possible you make it move toward you instead of moving toward it. Moving toward monsters is something you do when you have no other choice, or when the monster is asleep and you want to try to get a greedy stab.
As a result, the spell is likely more useful for escaping than it is for using offensively, which is counter to the intended purpose. You can make it more difficult to use defensively by adding conditions like random targeting, short range, etc., but these also cripple the offensive use just as much, so you're not solving the problem. It's hard for me to think of situations where I'd want to use this spell offensively after the early game.
As a level 2 spell that targets a random monster in LOS, it would probably be fine. It'll stop being useful at all by the time you enter lair, like level 2 spells really should.