Why do throw flame and throw frost exist?

[ydeve]

I don't get these spells. The extra range doesn't feel like it's worth the double mp cost. Would IE and FE backgrounds miss them if they were removed?

[ZipZipskins]

I don't get these spells. The extra range doesn't feel like it's worth the double mp cost. Would IE and FE backgrounds miss them if they were removed?

it is sometimes (frequently) and they also do more damage

throw flame is a long range orc eraser

[Sar]

The extra range doesn't feel like it's worth the double mp cost.

it often is imo. that is the point

[MainiacJoe]

Throw Flame and Throw Frost has identical statistics: damage 2d(4+P/10), averaging 5+P/10, range 7, accuracy 8+P/10, max power 50. Flame Tongue is 1d(8+P/4), averaging 4.5+P/8, range 2-5, accuracy 11+P/6, max power 40. Freeze is 1d(3+P/3), averaging 2+P/6, range 1, perfect accuracy and bypass AC.

The advantage to Throw Foo is its range. Flame Tongue does more average damage than Throw Flame at spellpowers greater than 20, and always has much better accuracy. Throw Foo always does more damage than Freeze at any spellpower, though freeze is a one-school spell.

[Sprucery]

The extra range doesn't feel like it's worth the double mp cost.

When you see the kobold with the disto dagger you really appreciate the better chance to kill it at range. Or that ogre with the GSC.

(The point is that there are many situations where you want to prevent the enemy from getting next to you.)

[Blade]

I honestly think the Fire Elementalist background would be better without throw flame. Throw frost is fine for IE, but I almost never memorize Throw Flame on my Fire Elementalists. If you need extra range, you stick a conjured flame between you and the distokobold/ogre/foo attacking you. Throw Flame is an incredibly boring spell for me because it's entirely unnecessary for the background, it duplicates the effect (but changes element) of a starting spell in another book, and it's lame.

The last reason is the most important for removal, clearly

[daggaz]

My only beef with FE or any other book start is why it should start with less INT than Wz. Because reasons?

[ydeve]

The extra range doesn't feel like it's worth the double mp cost.

When you see the kobold with the disto dagger you really appreciate the better chance to kill it at range. Or that ogre with the GSC.

(The point is that there are many situations where you want to prevent the enemy from getting next to you.)

The thing is that neither of these (on FE at least) needs the extra range of throw flame. I agree with Blade here. I've never wished that I had more range as a FE (and I play them quite a bit). If you need more distance you'll know you'll need more distance, and conjure flame will work just fine. And before you get to where monsters will walk though flame clouds you have sticky flame, as well as flame tongue getting its increased range.

[Turukano]

I agree with Blade and ydeve. There is flame tongue for the beginning and conjure / sticky / fireball afterwards. I think I used throw flame very rarely (if I used it at all).

Same with throw frost as freeze is really strong.

[Sprucery]

Good points about conjure flame creating the distance, but in the very early game, level 2 vs. 3 can make the difference...

Now that I think of it, symmetry is boring so Throw Flame could be removed or better yet, replaced with a new level 2 spell. How about Fire Brand :)

[nago]

Throw Foo always does more damage than Freeze at any spellpower, though freeze is a one-school spell.

Please note that freeze can't miss and ignores AC so it is often actually better than throw frost.

[Siegurt]

The advantage to Throw Foo is its range. Flame Tongue does more average damage than Throw Flame at spellpowers greater than 20, and always has much better accuracy. Throw Foo always does more damage than Freeze at any spellpower, though freeze is a one-school spell.

Flame tongue maxes out at 25 spellpower and throw flame maxes out at 50 spellpower.

The thing is that neither of these (on FE at least) needs the extra range of throw flame. I agree with Blade here. I've never wished that I had more range as a FE (and I play them quite a bit). If you need more distance you'll know you'll need more distance, and conjure flame will work just fine. And before you get to where monsters will walk though flame clouds you have sticky flame, as well as flame tongue getting its increased range.

I'd rather use throw flame at that point and kill the thing before I need to put a conjure flame in the way, or they get close enough that I could use sticky flame. Using throw flame to take out adders before they get close enough to bite me is definitely a good thing. Plus while I might know I need distance when I see an adder at LOS, I might not have the turns I need to set up a blockade or get to a corridor, throw flame just kills them.

It's not like throw flame is an awesome or the best spell in the game, but it definitely fills a role, and if it was missing FE would be worse.

[ydeve]

The max spellpower is irrelevant since you have much better damage spells by then.

None of the threats you've mentioned have caused problems for me, including adders. We're using flame tongue here after all, not magic dart. I've found that mp is too precious in the beginning to deplete my arsenal twice at fast just to hit something when it's a little farther away. If you don't squander it you're highly unlikely to die after D1. Untrained slings exist anyway. At least someone uses it I guess.

[crate]

Throw flame is very good. You don't use it at xl2, because it is less mp-efficient than flame tongue. However, it's not that long before the turn efficiency of flame tongue is too low to make it worthwhile and the extra mp efficiency is unimportant. Plus, it's the only not-loud long-ranged damage spell in the FE book. Very useful even in lair.

Throw frost is not very useful, because freeze is better than flame tongue and throw icicle makes throw frost useless later. It has a narrow window where you might use it on ogres or something as they approach, but really you should just not be fighting most of those enemies. (Note also that this very same argument applies to throw flame, since it outranges flame tongue, especially early on.)

The key difference is that FE does not have a throw icicle equivalent.

[dowan]

Throw flame is fantastic for killing orc wizards and priests at the edge of LOS. Throw frost is also good for the same reasons. Of course, if someone were to propose a more interesting spell that still filled the same niche, I wouldn't complain. They are very straightforward spells, and they're identical apart from element.

[ydeve]

Throw flame is fantastic for killing orc wizards and priests at the edge of LOS. Throw frost is also good for the same reasons. Of course, if someone were to propose a more interesting spell that still filled the same niche, I wouldn't complain. They are very straightforward spells, and they're identical apart from element.

The thing is you don't need to kill orc priests and wizards at range. You can just run away and lure them around a corner and take them out with flame tongue or sticky flame. There are no early D monsters that cannot be handled by FE starting book sans throw flame.

[TeshiAlair]

I'd love to have something like Spray of Frost with Dazzling Spray style conical range

[dowan]

Throw flame is fantastic for killing orc wizards and priests at the edge of LOS. Throw frost is also good for the same reasons. Of course, if someone were to propose a more interesting spell that still filled the same niche, I wouldn't complain. They are very straightforward spells, and they're identical apart from element.

The thing is you don't need to kill orc priests and wizards at range. You can just run away and lure them around a corner and take them out with flame tongue or sticky flame. There are no early D monsters that cannot be handled by FE starting book sans throw flame.

What's your point? A spell doesn't need to be absolutely necessary for survival to be useful, and a full LOS attack is a niche that's nice to have filled, especially when dealing with enemies with their own full LOS attacks. Also, when you have sticky flame castable orc wizards and priests generally aren't a big deal anymore.

Nevertheless, what would you propose replacing them with? As you pointed out, they may be the absolutely most straightforward damage spells in the game, so if you've got something more interesting in mind, I'm sure people would be receptive.

[crate]

Personally I think throw flame would be pretty hard to replace. You'd have to replace with a level 1 or level 2 spell, and level 2 is preferable (giving FE only one spell under level 3 is not really desirable). Also, fire pretty much only does damage, so it has to be a spell that does damage. If you remove throw flame, then it turns out the long-range not-loud damage niche is unfilled ... which is precisely what throw flame does. (You could change flame tongue to fill this instead and then come up with an entirely new level 2 spell, I guess, but I'm not sure that this is actually an improvement.)

With throw frost, since it fills exactly the same niche as throw icicle, you have a lot more leeway to change it to a different spell entirely, if you want to replace it.

[ydeve]

Throw flame is fantastic for killing orc wizards and priests at the edge of LOS. Throw frost is also good for the same reasons. Of course, if someone were to propose a more interesting spell that still filled the same niche, I wouldn't complain. They are very straightforward spells, and they're identical apart from element.

The thing is you don't need to kill orc priests and wizards at range. You can just run away and lure them around a corner and take them out with flame tongue or sticky flame. There are no early D monsters that cannot be handled by FE starting book sans throw flame.

What's your point? A spell doesn't need to be absolutely necessary for survival to be useful, and a full LOS attack is a niche that's nice to have filled, especially when dealing with enemies with their own full LOS attacks. Also, when you have sticky flame castable orc wizards and priests generally aren't a big deal anymore.

Nevertheless, what would you propose replacing them with? As you pointed out, they may be the absolutely most straightforward damage spells in the game, so if you've got something more interesting in mind, I'm sure people would be receptive.

I was hoping people would show me how it contributes to FE survival. A number of people have said it's nice to have a long ranged attack, but they have yet to provide an example of where flame tongue + positioning doesn't cut it.

Personally I'd prefer to just see if flat out removed with no other changes, since I don't find it useful at all and it's clear from this thread that it doesn't contribute much to survival assuming good positioning and use of other spells. But other people like it, I guess...

[crate]

Giving a conjurer-type background only one spell they can use before level 3 is bad for gameplay, especially for new players. Even necromancer has two spells under level 3, though they're both level 1. There's a good reason passwall was just lowered to level 2 even though its power level didn't really require that--stoneskin was removed, and that would've left EE in the same position of only having one spell under level 3.

Obviously there are no situations where "flame tongue + positioning doesn't cut it", but there are also no situations where "berserk + spear doesn't cut it". Yet no one is arguing for trident removal. There are absolutely situations where throw flame is an improvement.

[ydeve]

The example you gave about spear vs trident is why I think the spell isn't good for new players. In all practical cases, a vanilla trident is better than a vanilla spear. But that isn't true for throw flame/flame tongue. In the part of the game before you get conjure flame/sticky flame online, mp is very limited and mp-efficiency is more important for survival than damage per turn. But a new player is going to view throw flame as an upgrade to flame tongue and get into trouble more than if throw flame just didn't exist.

I don't understand this statement about having to have two <lvl3 spells. What is this "good reason" you're talking about?

[crate]

It's kind of lame to only be able to cast one spell even if you level up. There's a reason that skald got a level 1 spell when it got remade, and all book backgrounds have at least 2 spells under level 3.

It's true that at xl2 throw flame isn't particularly useful, but it's still okay. Throw frost is a much bigger offender (largely because freeze is so good). IMO throw flame also really does supplant flame tongue reasonably quickly, since it's always more turn-efficient than flame tongue and the better range and accuracy are good. Then again, perhaps other people just use conjure flame (I hate using conjure flame, especially early on, so I try pretty hard to avoid using it) so they don't care.

[ydeve]

(I hate using conjure flame, especially early on, so I try pretty hard to avoid using it) so they don't care.

So, you dislike one of the two core spells of the FE background. And you're trying to find ways to avoid using it. Of course you can't compensate without throw flame. But it's a lot less mana-efficient, which is what's going to kill you. Not turn-inefficiency. Pre-Lair D doesn't have anything you need to kill quickly (flame tongue works fine for adders), and in Lair you have conjure flame and sticky flame.

So the reason to have a level 2 spell is essentially flavor? We reject that argument for complaints that certain schools have lvl9 spells. Why should it work for lvl2 spells? And then (some) people complain that there are too many conjurations that are just carbon copies of each other.

[KoboldLord]

Throw Flame is actually quite good. There's a tiny part of its power curve where it's not as good as Flame Tongue, but it becomes better in dangerous fights as soon as you have a little extra mp so you can actually kill those dangerous things with it. 6mp is just really very bad to have as you entire mp pool, and that's around what you have when you get Throw Flame for the first time.

Flame Tongue gains some extra longevity because it has an extra span of the game where it is more mp-efficient for killing things that are not dangerous, but utility in non-dangerous fights is not really a good argument for Flame Tongue being the better spell.

[crate]

Level 2 spells are important because giving new players more spells to try out early on makes them have more fun before they die. Level 9 spells aren't important because they are never in your starting book. I'm talking about players who have never played a roguelike before and are picking up crawl; it would be nice to give them something else to use instead of just having a single spell. Also, level 9 spells are just one of many options available to you by the time you learn them; level 2 spells are literally one of two.

As for there being lots of similar conjurations, well, yes. It's like how there are a lot of similar weapons (i.e. sling vs bow or even trident vs spear); you can't really fix the problem without doing some giant overhaul of crawl's spells and book backgrounds. You can solve it pretty easily if you eliminate all five (VM is poison elementalist) elementalist backgrounds and then figure out what the right way to combine the five elemental skills and conjurations into fewer skills is. This is obviously unlikely to happen, since it is a lot of work and it's not even necessarily true that it would lead to improvement. You'll note that summoning doesn't have this problem, because there is no fire-summoner start to compete with the generic-summoner start (whereas there is a fire conjurer start that competes with the generic conjurer start).

Anyway if you think the real problem with throw flame is numbers (as this seems to be the actual argument) then it's pretty easy to just make it slightly stronger. I would not be against that change. The design of the spell is fine, since as I said it fills a niche that is otherwise unfilled in the FE book and is useful to have filled.

Throw frost is bad, because it overlaps entirely with throw icicle and you can't fix that problem by tweaking numbers. But I don't have a replacement in mind, so I would not argue in favor of removing it at this time.

[duvessa]

I would be against making throw flame stronger because it's already too strong if anything, but I have that complaint about low level conjurations in general (and yes, flame tongue too).

The spell is important to FE as-is. Removing throw flame wouldn't make FE bad or anything, it would still be stronger than most backgrounds since it is 1. in the rightmost column and 2. not VM, but it would significantly nerf their early game. As ridiculous as conjure flame is, FE literally cannot damage most early monsters with conjure flame (it's not like Wz where you have the meph into flame true combo), so your next-most-damaging damage spell is pretty important, and throw flame does more damage than flame tongue. Like geez why is this so hard for people to grasp, seriously. It. Does. More. Damage. That alone should make it obvious that casting throw flame is frequently better than casting flame tongue, even before considering range.

Throw frost does not have that claim; since it checks AC and misses, its damage has high variability compared to freeze and often ends up lower.
Yes, flame tongue is somewhat more accurate than throw flame, but if you run trials it will become pretty clear that it is nothing like the discrepancy between freeze/throw frost.

Flame Tongue does more average damage than Throw Flame at spellpowers greater than 20

Your own formulae contradict that. They're also wrong in the first place because they don't account for truncation. Max power flame tongue vs. max power throw flame is actually 1d14 vs. 2d9 damage. Test it in debug mode if you don't believe me. That's an average of 7.5 damage vs. 10 damage.

Crap power flame tongue does compare favourably to crap power throw flame as far as damage goes, but crap power flame tongue has range 2 or 3, whereas any power throw flame has range 7...

[HardboiledGargoyle]

If having a spell for each level is important, how about giving Inner Flame the Passwall treatment and making it level 2. After all, we do have level-2 hexes Slow and Ensorcelled Hibernation, and most Fire Elementalists do not want to branch out into hexes in the early game.

I don't think "quiet long-range attack spell" is a niche that needs to be filled. Unfilled niches allow backgrounds to be varied and interesting as you work around the shortcomings. Stone arrow is rather short-range. And isn't Throw Icicle the same range as max power Flame Tongue? Flame Tongue could just have a higher cap on range "to compensate" for a removal of Throw Flame. And you could remove Icicle from Frost, buff it, and replace Bolt of Cold with it, making Throw Frost more important, but that's just a wild idea.

[duvessa]

because what could you possibly use inner flame for at level 2

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Mice, bats, etc... what is the problem?

[crate]

The main problem is that inner flame at level 2 is going to just blow up the player, unless you are a spriggan or centaur. Flame tongue at xl2 has a range of like 3 spaces, so you must be very sure you can kill whatever you put inner flame on in 2 casts of flame tongue (or 1 cast for large enemies) ... which limits its use to pretty much nothing.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

a lot of stuff is likely to die in 2 casts of flame tongue, even if you are a purist and refuse to use other ranged options

playing a fast race, being hasted, fighting slow monsters like worms or slowing the monsters you fight: these give a speed difference that allows kiting

batty/confused/paralyzed/fleeing monsters, monsters across deep water, monsters crossing shallow water, monsters choosing to throw stones at you from a distance: these can be sweet opportunities to mess with inner flame if you can pull it off

and you can also just hope to kill the monster quickly, before the distance closes, and if you fail, pillar dance a bit until the status wears off. It's not like Inner Flame simultaneously casts swiftness on the target

there's also the trick of applying a damage-over-time status such as poison in addition to inner flame, and walking away, which exploits the fact that the damage is applied at the beginning of the monster's turn, i.e. after you take a step

if you actually had to be very sure you could kill the hexed monster before it reached you, lest a fireball blows in your face, inner flame would be worth much less than it is now, at any level.

a lot of players may put off learning inner flame if it's level 2, but many players skip throw flame and inner flame completely anyway.

[crate]

"Likely" isn't good enough when you kill yourself if it fails. We are talking about uses actually at exactly xl2. The entire point of having it be level 2 instead of level 3 is for new players to have something to play around with, and "blow yourself up" is quite frankly not a very good option for that.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

you're not gonna "kill yourself if it fails". It doesn't matter how new to the game you are: "don't kill inner-flamed monsters when they're right next to you" is damn easy to infer for yourself the instant you realize what the spell does, which probably happens before you're finished reading the spell's description, and definitely happens by the time you've killed an inner-flamed monster for the first time.

[duvessa]

the instant you realize what the spell does is also the instant you never cast or memorize it again because it's an awful spell
can FE have not-awful spells please, like throw flame?

[Hurricos]

Context of innerflame's utility for FE: Innerflame + Sticky Flame = walking bomb, and the tick that applies damage to the monster happens right after you move, so they're never next to you except for on the casting turn.

Very good for dealing with yak packs.

Innerflame's general utility is with ranged weapons, and it's REALLY good with ranged weapons ...

As for L2 spells for FE and IE ...

FE: Steam Burst (L2 Cj / Fire / Air) - creates a quickly-expanding blast of steam (like a plague shambler does miasma) from the point you target. Range 2.

IE: Frostwalk (L2 Ice / Charms) - Freezes the ground below you, allowing you to walk over water and decreasing your movedelay every turn you move in the same direction. Changing directions resets delay and has a one-time cost of 5 auts. (OR) Attackers near you that take cold damage will be flash frozen.

Yes, I'm aware they'e both OP for L2s.

[duvessa]

A thread about removing two spells, we're not even on the second page, and someone's already come in with "Hey, hey guys, let's ADD two new spells!"

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Well, hey, it's likelier to actually get done anyway

[adozu]

new lvl2 FE spell, fire/summoning: summon fiery butterflies, its like summon butterflies but then they are all inner-flamed

what could possibly go wrong?

[ydeve]

the instant you realize what the spell does is also the instant you never cast or memorize it again because it's an awful spell
can FE have not-awful spells please, like throw flame?

This is the other FE spell that I tend to not use. Actually, that I never use.

[dowan]

I've had some occasional success with inner flame on enemies stuck behind a conjured flame... but it's usually not worth the trouble. Plus, it doesn't actually help you kill the enemy you cast it on! If it was smite targeted it would have more utility for targeting a weak enemy near one you actually want to hurt, then kill it with a bolt or something, but of course, you also have to get past mr...

So while I don't think inner flame is totally useless.... it's pretty close.

[MainiacJoe]

Back to the OP, I've been playng Cj lately and IMB and Dazzling Spray have a similar dynamic. DS is less MP, less noise, is always multi-target, has a hex effect that HD-based no less, and is much more efficient in damage per spellpower (DS maxes at 50 but IMB doesn't catch up in sheer damage output until 80 or so). But IMB is range 7, and DS is range 5, and if I'm reading this thread right, that's enough.

[Siegurt]

Back to the OP, I've been playng Cj lately and IMB and Dazzling Spray have a similar dynamic. DS is less MP, less noise, is always multi-target, has a hex effect that HD-based no less, and is much more efficient in damage per spellpower (DS maxes at 50 but IMB doesn't catch up in sheer damage output until 80 or so). But IMB is range 7, and DS is range 5, and if I'm reading this thread right, that's enough.

Well, also Dazzling spray is two school vs only one for imb, so it takes more xp to get the same spell power (not twice as much, but more in any case)

I don't think the comparison is quite 1:1

[MainiacJoe]

Back to the OP, I've been playng Cj lately and IMB and Dazzling Spray have a similar dynamic. DS is less MP, less noise, is always multi-target, has a hex effect that HD-based no less, and is much more efficient in damage per spellpower (DS maxes at 50 but IMB doesn't catch up in sheer damage output until 80 or so). But IMB is range 7, and DS is range 5, and if I'm reading this thread right, that's enough.

Well, also Dazzling spray is two school vs only one for imb, so it takes more xp to get the same spell power (not twice as much, but more in any case)

I don't think the comparison is quite 1:1

That is true, yeah

[ydeve]

I agree that IMB is in a similar place though. You pointed out that DS competes with it for hitting multiple enemies. Battlesphere competes with it for high damage on a single enemy (once you get it), and at low levels Searing Ray competes for damage against a single enemy. SR is much more mp-efficient than IMB.

It looks like IMB's niche is before you get hexes for DS/FP when you need to nuke multiple enemies sitting right beside you and you can't reposition for SR. Not one of the most useful spells.

[crate]

IMB is for single enemies. Don't be fooled by the "explosion" that is worthless (actually worse than worthless since it makes it loud).

If dazzling spray does as much damage as IMB then that is a clear indication that spray does too much damage. Dazzling spray has several design problems imo but this is not the topic to talk about that so I'll just say that it really should deal a lot less damage than IMB and I assume this is the case.

Anyway assuming spray is not even more stupid than I think it is, then IMB deals the most damage (except maybe for prism, but I hope you will accept that prism works differently enough to be fine). It doesn't compete with battlesphere at all, since battlesphere works perfectly fine with IMB so you use IMB as the trigger for it when you want to deal the most damage. Dealing more damage is good.

[MainiacJoe]

DS's damage formula is 2d(8+P/4) max 50. IMB's is 2d(6+P/6) max 100. At SP 50: DS averages 21.5, IMB 15.33. IMB catches up at spellpower 87. But by the time I'm at spellpower 50, let alone 87, I already have other options. So for practical purposes, DS always does more damage to a single target than IMB at the same spellpower (which requires more skill points, though)

[CanOfWorms]

Note that your spellpower for Dazzling Spray will be lower if you haven't trained Hexes. In that case it would be around 25 spellpower compared to IMB's 50, so your expected damage is 14.

[crate]

ok so spray is just super OP.

seems that's the problem, not IMB being bad

[MainiacJoe]

Note that your spellpower for Dazzling Spray will be lower if you haven't trained Hexes. In that case it would be around 25 spellpower compared to IMB's 50, so your expected damage is 14.

This is why I said it takes more skill points to get the same spell power with DS. Doing a direct skill point to skill point comparison is tough because you have to take aptitudes into account. Te and DE will have vastly different skill points totals to reach identical spell powers with each spell. So I did a direct spell power to spell power comparison.