Remove Poison Magic School and Venom Mage

[VeryAngryFelid]

So heavy reliance on ability to run away is not a weak point of VM according to you?

[ZipZipskins]

It seems that you're awfully fond of putting words in my mouth

[severen]

Maybe they could change it to a corrosion or blight class instead of poison. Debuff and damage at the same time instead of becoming dogshit useless and a waste of skill points at nearly the moment you enter the entrance to the dungeon. Call it a "corrupter" or something like in Tales of Maj'Eyal.

I had this thought too a week or so ago, it seems to me that the only real way to get poison magic to scale up past level 6 is to have later stuff do corrosion things. Take monster corrosion bolt and put it into player spells as poison magic. Make an Acid Storm spell at level 9.

There are two problems with this. It would probably be too good damage wise due to resistances and might have to lag slightly behind in raw damage (not sure on this). And corrosion itself as a status effect is probably way too awesome defensively with its slaying penalties so that would need to be tweaked, either removed or capped.

Overall, IMO, if poison magic transistioned into acid damage stuff around level 5 spells it would be fine. VM would still be an inferior start to IE/Cj if the book was the same, but its an OK start if you can get acid bolt later on. I actually like that poison has some key weaknesses in the early game as long as there are ways to compensate. With the addition of later acid spells the current poison magic set would actually be interesting with the two poison clouds + ignite poison and an alternate acid branch for single target you get some interesting choices.

[VeryAngryFelid]

It seems that you're awfully fond of putting words in my mouth

You started it first with your "I just think you choose a really poor example to support your point".
I really didn't have any points, I just provided an example of hard VM which I played. Is it that hard to understand?

[VeryAngryFelid]

edit: well except ice beasts and sticky flame, maybe I need to reassess here lol, VM really definitely does suck

Right. And the last background which I mentioned and you didn't was Cj who has Fulm. Prism which is tricky for Naga too

[ZipZipskins]

It seems that you're awfully fond of putting words in my mouth

You started it first with your "I just think you choose a really poor example to support your point".
I really didn't have any points, I just provided an example of hard VM which I played. Is it that hard to understand?

I apparently failed to keep track of who actually posted what. My bad.

[xXxMemekMaestro69xXx]

it seems to me that the only real way to get poison magic to scale up past level 6 is to have later stuff do corrosion things

Not really. There are a lot of possible spells for poison magic and even a level 9 spell that can compete with the current four level 9 AOE burst spells without resorting to acid while maintaining its DOT trait. If Tornado is DOT done right then Poison magic can do that too.

No one is actively suggesting anything since the devs seem very enthusiastic to remove Poison Magic but can't do it for the silly reason of being very awkward since poison is a main feature of this game that even someone dying to a D2 adder would feel. Since they don't like it, they neither would improve it no matter how many ideas they see nor remove it no matter how many rant threads pop up since it'll be very awkward. The best response you'd get from the devs are probably "use weapons lol" and other simply ebin meme posts.

[severen]

it seems to me that the only real way to get poison magic to scale up past level 6 is to have later stuff do corrosion things

Not really. There are a lot of possible spells for poison magic and even a level 9 spell that can compete with the current four level 9 AOE burst spells without resorting to acid while maintaining its DOT trait. If Tornado is DOT done right then Poison magic can do that too.

No one is actively suggesting anything since the devs seem very enthusiastic to remove Poison Magic but can't do it for the silly reason of being very awkward since poison is a main feature of this game that even someone dying to a D2 adder would feel. Since they don't like it, they neither would improve it no matter how many ideas they see nor remove it no matter how many rant threads pop up since it'll be very awkward. The best response you'd get from the devs are probably "use weapons lol" and other simply ebin meme posts.

I think you are over emphasizing the DOT features. Venom bolt does significant up front damage and just happens to poison as well. The main reason to switch over to acid is resistances/immunities. This is born out by poison arrow which explicitly has a portion of it being unresistable.

To make poison viable its either needs massive damage penetration or a different resistance to go against. Also Tornado doesn't do Lightning damage unlike all the other Air spells except airstrike. So, just like Air, Poison needs an alternate damage type.

The main problem in general is resistances. rElec is a binary proposition so Air needs an alternate type. Poison is not only binary but a large number of things are completely immune. Similarly undead resist cold so Throw Icicle has a significant amount of unresistable damage as does Glaciate.

It is actually quite common to do this. Poison already has DOT effects for things that are affected by poison. There is no reason EVERYTHING needs to be a DOT effect in this school. Air Magic isn't known for its DOT effects yet Tornado has a multi-turn wind up.

Seriously why not just follow an already in place pattern in the various schools and use an already existing monster spell? I mean its an elegant solution and combining acid and poison is actually a pretty common theme in a number of games. Seems like an easy win. Obviously you can make poison do whatever the heck you want but this simple and straightforward idea is the most practical approach, and giving poison more piercing etc must have had various problems for the devs or they would have done it.

Lastly we have no player acid effects except the wand of acid which is new(ish), not counting Fedhas oklob plants. This is probably because of the old corrosion mechanics that permanently fucked equipment. Since that is gone; giving players more acid, since all the mechanics already exist (damage type, resistance etc), is not nearly as problematic. Note: giving players acid as in LSD might be problematic.

[KoboldLord]

I think you are over emphasizing the DOT features. Venom bolt does significant up front damage and just happens to poison as well. The main reason to switch over to acid is resistances/immunities. This is born out by poison arrow which explicitly has a portion of it being unresistable.

There is no reason to have a poison school unless it's going to poison things. Poison magic has two problems. The first is that it has a hard time following the mechanical theme it is supposed to be following, because that theme is not robust enough to hang a skill on. The second is that the theme in question is a bad one that is bad for gameplay if you actually try to use it.

Venom bolt and poison arrow are indeed good and strong spells, but they have a near-complete overlap in effect with far too many other conjurations spells. Remove the DoT emphasis from poison magic, and the remaining spells don't consist of enough spells to make up a school.

The DoT emphasis is consistent with poison's effect as a status effect, but DoT emphasis is bad for gameplay because it encourages the player to abuse a powerful but tedious mechanic for a very significant portion of gameplay. If a DoT effect is to remain in the game, it should not be sequestered in the DoT Ghetto where it will force a player who wants to use it to use it almost exclusively, but it should be distributed in a way that means it is only occasionally the best way to solve problems. A consumable item would be about right, and the FE sticky flame is right about borderline because it has some serious drawbacks and competes with some other strong spells.

Gutting poison magic and merging what little remains into hexes is possibly worth trying, but it is not feasible to fix poison magic gameplay as it currently exists because the DoT mechanic itself is generally going to be a bad one.

[severen]

I think you are over emphasizing the DOT features. Venom bolt does significant up front damage and just happens to poison as well. The main reason to switch over to acid is resistances/immunities. This is born out by poison arrow which explicitly has a portion of it being unresistable.

There is no reason to have a poison school unless it's going to poison things. Poison magic has two problems. The first is that it has a hard time following the mechanical theme it is supposed to be following, because that theme is not robust enough to hang a skill on. The second is that the theme in question is a bad one that is bad for gameplay if you actually try to use it.

Venom bolt and poison arrow are indeed good and strong spells, but they have a near-complete overlap in effect with far too many other conjurations spells. Remove the DoT emphasis from poison magic, and the remaining spells don't consist of enough spells to make up a school.

The DoT emphasis is consistent with poison's effect as a status effect, but DoT emphasis is bad for gameplay because it encourages the player to abuse a powerful but tedious mechanic for a very significant portion of gameplay. If a DoT effect is to remain in the game, it should not be sequestered in the DoT Ghetto where it will force a player who wants to use it to use it almost exclusively, but it should be distributed in a way that means it is only occasionally the best way to solve problems. A consumable item would be about right, and the FE sticky flame is right about borderline because it has some serious drawbacks and competes with some other strong spells.

Gutting poison magic and merging what little remains into hexes is possibly worth trying, but it is not feasible to fix poison magic gameplay as it currently exists because the DoT mechanic itself is generally going to be a bad one.

So if we rename it to "Chemistry Magic" we can just have poison and acid in there since it would fit the theme fine? I think people are just getting horribly hung up on the word "poison" toward no good purpose.

I agree about your broader point about DoT meachnics issues in general, but if you had the current poison set of spells and then added level 5-9 as acid (assuming acid was useful) then you would actualy basically wind up with the same effect as other schools. In the beginning the Poison Magic spells are pretty effective, for the most part. But later on Venom bolt will suck and Sting will be useless (well Sting sucks now). But this is true of Ice Magic too. Freeze is mostly useless later on and Throw Icicle should pretty much always get replaced by Iron Shot. Most of the spells before Fireball in Fire magic are generally forgotten.

The only spells that are levels 1-3 I can think of that people continue to use are mostly buffs/utilities.

If people wanted to rework the poison status I am fine with that. As it stands poison magic is only half of a school, you could easily make it "chemistry magic" and fill in the other half with other mechanics using other aspects of chemistry. One of the big problems with Poison magic is its entirely painted into a corner. So step out of the corner and make an actual room. The other schools have other things like armor buffs, or movement speed buffs, or a special type of DoT or repel missiles or petrification. As long as the entire point of this school is solely about a DoT status that sucks then its gonna suck.

How about this? "Chemistry magic" gets a new buff called "Crack Cocaine" since haste was taken out of charms, it gives you haste and temporary 30% fraility mutation and unavoidably poisons you red (you can't use it if you are immune to poison/have no blood). As a side effect you will whore yourself on the street to get more. Obviously I am not being entirely serious but the point is that by broadening the theme such a small amount you can just turn it into a real school that works like the other schools.

The current Poison Magic is fairly usable, it turns to crap at roughly the same time (give or take) your first half of a school spell start getting replaced anyway. FE is a notable exception in that Fireball is useful much longer than most starting spell books spell. But easily an EE is going to be looking for a Stone arrow Replacement by the time Poison Magic starts showing its age. So just broaden the schools theme and add a few easy nukes and a couple interesting utility/buffs.

Back in the day the non damage stuff Poison Magic could do was Cure Poison exactly because the theme is too narrow. You can come up with a number of more interesting effects that are entirely justified by blood/chemical/doping etc effects.

Tangentially this might be an interesting contrast to the advantages non-living things have and the "Necromutation solves all my problems" issue. If the choice is between being a badass lich or a doped up adrenaline fueled fiend this might be more interesting than; well I hate food and torment so let's go lich. Perhaps just like there is a necromancy school there should be a "living" school that deals in blood/poison/chemicals etc. ? And one of the aspects of that is that Undead and statueform/gargoyles would be unaffected by large portions of it. Put some very interesting buffs into that school and you get a better dichotomy.

[KoboldLord]

First off, you might not be aware that your Acid Magic idea is already on the Won't Do list. This is because it has already been suggested umpteen times, and the game does not actually need yet another flavor of generic elemental blasts that deal direct damage and are reduced by some resistance. It actually doesn't need all the flavors of elemental blasts that already exist, and they continue to persist mostly through inertia because even though having player backgrounds that revolve around all three of fire, cold, and electricity is completely uninteresting it would be more work to remove them than to leave them. Adding acid magic would involve some level of developer work and would contribute absolutely nothing to the game except an additional palette swap for conjurations builds.

Necromutation is a bad spell, by the way. You should basically never invest in the ridiculously large amount of xp required to make it usable outside of degenerate gameplay situations such as ziggurats.

[Croases]

This will be a tad off-topic, but frankly Necromutation isn't that bad a spell and I don't know why there's a longstanding tavern meme about its supposed awfulness.

Sure, you have more immediate needs than grabbing it, but the game gives you so much experience that it isn't really a big loss to drop 15 or so levels into Transmutations for convenient on-demand torment immunity (I'm not mentioning experience sunk into Necromancy because Necromancy is arguably the best school in the game). You even get your experience investment refunded because if you have Necromutation then you very probably also have a high-power Dispel Undead, and these two means you can stomp all over Tomb.

If Crawl experience was reduced massively then sure, you wouldn't have room for it, but having more leeway for bad play around torment-capable enemies is a decent alternative to the slightly more HP/AC/EV you'd get from dumping extra experience on defenses. At the very least taking it doesn't make you the second coming of Hitler like half of this forum would have you believe.

[ZipZipskins]

A dismissal of a point using the phrase "tavern meme" and a throwaway Hitler hyperbole in one post, all wrapped up in a back and forth about necromutation

probably time to update tavern bingo

[VeryAngryFelid]

I am surprised we cannot call tavern meme tavern meme
Necromutation is optimal for some characters, similar to axes, hexes, UC and whatever.

[papilio]

I've won NaVM w/ 15 runes, but I can definitely say that NaVM sucks as f**k.

Yes, Meph Cloud and Toxic Radiance is awesome, for only nonimmune monsters.
To win, you must build melee or other destructive magic skills from the very first part of the game.

[Croases]

How did I "dismiss" the point of Necromutation being bad?

I think I clearly explained why I don't think it is.

[ZipZipskins]

I am surprised we cannot call tavern meme tavern meme

I never said you can't

How did I "dismiss" the point of Necromutation being bad?

I think I clearly explained why I don't think it is.

It's entirely likely you did, but a quick skim of your post indicated that your rhetoric turned me off completely to your content.

[Croases]

So wait, you're saying that you casually dismissed my point so that you could chastise me for casually dismissing somebody else's point?

[Shtopit]

So wait, you're saying that you casually dismissed my point so that you could chastise me for casually dismissing somebody else's point?

Dis-ception.

[ZipZipskins]

I was criticising your rhetoric, not your content

I don't care enough about necromutation to have a stake on either side of it

My word choice of "dismissal" in my first response was, I suppose, poor

What bothered me, primarily, was you engaging in a discussion about this and implying that the case against necromutation was a simple "tavern meme", when in reality it has had a lot of well-tread and cogent arguments supporting it, and the fact that you implied that anyone in this thread or really anywhere felt like players who used necromutation were bad people (or to use your actual words, "the second coming of Hitler")

That's some pretty divisive and negative stuff and maybe this post is what I should have made in the first place, but I was exhausted

tl;dr: w/e I guess

[VeryAngryFelid]

Saying that Necromutation is bad is like saying Fire Storm or Silence is bad. Sure, there are some characters for whom this is true but there are some characters where it is optimal to go for those spells. Almost (?) nobody is crying about Fire Storm or Silence being a trap while we do have a tavern meme about lichform.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

IMHO, Necromutation being just bad is a tavern meme, because it gets repeated quite often without further explanation. There's no doubt that immunity to torrent and mutations in extended is superb. But like many things in Crawl, it's situational.

Lichform reasons:

• You are playing a "hybrid", my definition: lots of spells, decent Int, not so heavy armour that it prohibits spellcasting.
• You have already heavily invested in Necromancy.
• You have a particulary good set of mutations, like robust and co, that you'd rather keep.
• You have a great non-holy weapon, like a lajatang of speed.

Lichform unreasons:

• You already have torment resistance, like Kiku or Statue Form.
• You have the best-in-class holy or antimagic weapon.
• rN+++, no good mutations to protect.
• You're wearing CPA/GDA.
• You're not casting spells at all, or have lousy Int.

[CanOfWorms]

Lichform unreasons:

• You already have torment resistance, like Kiku or Statue Form.
• You have the best-in-class holy or antimagic weapon.
• rN+++, no good mutations to protect.
• You're wearing CPA/GDA.
• You're not casting spells at all, or have lousy Int.

you want to drink potions or use death's door/borg's

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Lichform unreasons:

• You already have torment resistance, like Kiku or Statue Form.
• You have the best-in-class holy or antimagic weapon.
• rN+++, no good mutations to protect.
• You're wearing CPA/GDA.
• You're not casting spells at all, or have lousy Int.

you want to drink potions or use death's door/borg's

DDoor will kill you with a hell effect, that's a bad spell if there was one. If you get Necromutation, Borg is already there. Why not both?

[CanOfWorms]

you do realize you can't use borg's while in lich form right

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

you do realize you can't use borg's while in lich form right

Yes. And I also realize it's the best panic button spell in the game, and worth picking up by itself, done that, although I've never used it. Does it make lichform bad and useless? I don't think it does.

[Croases]

So you can use them, but it takes two turns, which is important in some situations but not in many others.

That said, Necromutation could definitely stand to lose these limitations.

[KoboldLord]

Saying that Necromutation is bad is like saying Fire Storm or Silence is bad. Sure, there are some characters for whom this is true but there are some characters where it is optimal to go for those spells. Almost (?) nobody is crying about Fire Storm or Silence being a trap while we do have a tavern meme about lichform.

Fire Storm *is* bad. It's too expensive to ever be worth it in a normal game. If you get it because it's cool to blow things up and the post-endgame is easy enough that it doesn't matter very much, that's fine and I've done that too, but it is never the best choice of xp investment until xp is completely post-scarcity.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Fire Storm *is* bad. It's too expensive to ever be worth it in a normal game. If you get it because it's cool to blow things up and the post-endgame is easy enough that it doesn't matter very much, that's fine and I've done that too, but it is never the best choice of xp investment until xp is completely post-scarcity.

Could you please show how you see optimal skill training for TeFE of Vehumet in 3 rune game?

Edit. Though there is no need to. Current world record belongs to DE with Fire Storm.

[duvessa]

Necromutation is bad, Fire Storm is bad and Silence is bad

[Shtopit]

Silence is bad

Not really, it's the most useful spell a melee character can learn after depths.

[tabstorm]

Saying that Necromutation is bad is like saying Fire Storm or Silence is bad. Sure, there are some characters for whom this is true but there are some characters where it is optimal to go for those spells. Almost (?) nobody is crying about Fire Storm or Silence being a trap while we do have a tavern meme about lichform.

Fire Storm *is* bad. It's too expensive to ever be worth it in a normal game. If you get it because it's cool to blow things up and the post-endgame is easy enough that it doesn't matter very much, that's fine and I've done that too, but it is never the best choice of xp investment until xp is completely post-scarcity.

Post-scarcity is like XL 12 man

[edgefigaro]

As long as we are talking about necromutation and high level poison spells, I feel compelled to link to my old plant boss form idea that never went anywhere.

[Utis]

I can't help but notice that the memes in tavern are inconsistent. "VM are bad and should be removed" clashes with "Speed 10 monsters without ranged attack don't exist". If you take the latter meme serious, then the only dangerous monster (not counting ood) before Lair are killer bees. VM have very good tools against killer bees. Ergo, VM is the best background. q. e. d.

So, in a meme fight arena, which meme would win?

[Sar]

Adders are speed 12 and jackals are speed... Well, I have no idea but they're fast and travel in packs.

[Utis]

Heh! I was prepared to answer any mention of orc wizards, priests and centaurs with "these are not dangerous". (I'm trying to be memetic here.) But you're right, the first adder on D2 and the first jackals on D1 are actually dangerous.

[sanka]

I have never heard anybody saying that orc wizards and centaurs are not dangerous...

I always thought that orc wizards are amongst the most dangerous monsters in crawl (if not the most dangerous).

[VeryAngryFelid]

Heh! I was prepared to answer any mention of orc wizards, priests and centaurs with "these are not dangerous". (I'm trying to be memetic here.)

They do have a ranged attack so they are not subject to "Speed 10 monsters without ranged attack don't exist".
Everybody who shares the meme is a genius player who has never died to a pack of gnolls because has a secret silver bullet for them.

[Utis]

Heh! I was prepared to answer any mention of orc wizards, priests and centaurs with "these are not dangerous". (I'm trying to be memetic here.)

They do have a ranged attack so they are not subject to "Speed 10 monsters without ranged attack don't exist".

They do exist, but they're not dangerous.

@Sanka: I'm at best only half serious here. They're dangerous in the sense that you have to divert your attention back to the game for a couple of seconds in order to deal with them and you shouldn't make a mistake while doing so. They're not dangerous in the sense that you can deal with them very reliably. And I'm not even thinking of MephCloud when I'm writing this.

[VeryAngryFelid]

How do you reliably deal with Orc Wizards? In my experience it's a gamble as the monster can have Confuse, Invisibility and a couple of ranged attacks in the same spell set.

[Utis]

How do you reliably deal with Orc Wizards? In my experience it's a gamble as the monster can have Confuse, Invisibility and a couple of ranged attacks in the same spell set.

*Shrug* Same as with everything: Duck behind a corner when they spot you (and never be anywhere where you can't get to a corner in time), get them one-on-one, kill them. If your best damage dealing is at melee range, avoid giving them LoF (vanilla orcs are useful there). If you had been careless while or before you engaged them, use a consumable. I'm pretty sure you know all that.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I see, it means avoiding autoexplore. Not my cup of tea.

[severen]

Silence is bad

Not really, it's the most useful spell a melee character can learn after depths.

Alot of dangerous casters are immune to silence (Demons, OOFs, etc) silence has it uses but its not the most useful spell for a melee char. I would argue spectral weapon alone is more broadly useful. Sure silence is great on liches or nice on Elf3 but its narrow enough that its solved for when you would really need it by a scroll.

[stickyfingers]

The problem with silence is that for several turns in the end it only affects you.

[sanka]

@Sanka: I'm at best only half serious here. They're dangerous in the sense that you have to divert your attention back to the game for a couple of seconds in order to deal with them and you shouldn't make a mistake while doing so. They're not dangerous in the sense that you can deal with them very reliably. And I'm not even thinking of MephCloud when I'm writing this.

What I do not understand is that if orc wizards are not considered dangerous, than what is? I know that crawl is not hard but these words like "dangerous" usually have some relative meaning, I mean "dangerous compared to other monsters".

[Sprucery]

*Shrug* Same as with everything: Duck behind a corner when they spot you (and never be anywhere where you can't get to a corner in time), get them one-on-one, kill them. If your best damage dealing is at melee range, avoid giving them LoF (vanilla orcs are useful there). If you had been careless while or before you engaged them, use a consumable. I'm pretty sure you know all that.

Orc wizards are dangerous because they can confuse you the turn you spot them. If you don't have a potion of curing available, this can mean certain death. And even if you have a potion, they can confuse you again the next turn. They can appear so early that you don't necessarily have curing pots.

This happened recently to my TeTm on D:3.

[stickyfingers]

But then, they would actually have to kill you in these 8 or so turns, which isn't too likely without more confusion, invisibility, more non-plain orcs, branded weapon, fire vulnerability or particularly weak char. Yeah, there's quite a lot of options to die.

[Sar]

Ice Beasts actually help with the whole "slow movement" thing a lot.

[Utis]

What I do not understand is that if orc wizards are not considered dangerous, than what is? I know that crawl is not hard but these words like "dangerous" usually have some relative meaning, I mean "dangerous compared to other monsters".

Man! (Or: Woman! Idk) You're ruining my one attempt at being memetic here with your being reasonable!

(You're right, of course. I just figured it's like how "You can avoid any normal speed monster without a ranged attack at you choice. And you should avoid some" becomes "Normal speed monsters without a ranged attack don't exist". I was just trying to fit in.)

[Sphara]

Orc wizards do kill lotsa early characters but isn't Venom Mage one of the backgrounds that have pretty good tools dealing with them?

This, if the real topic is still under discussion. I dislike VM start purely because of the low damage and unreliable poisoning of early Sting spell.