The Tavern

I'm not sure that playstyle questions are always considered good conversational fodder, mostly because they're kind of broad; so i tried to be a bit more specific with this. Given that some of them countertrain with others, i'm guessing that not many people train more than two of the elemental magic schools in any given game - and, even despite the fact that crawl forces people to vary their playstyle between games, i bet that certain people who play casters prefer certain elemental schools to others.

If nothing else, this is just a way to get a friendly discussion prompted on a friday afternoon. hopefully, there's not much wrong with that.

So what's everyone's favorite Elemental Caster school? I've always been partial to Air Elementalists - i've been told they're tricky to play (and i guess i don't get terribly far with them), but they seem like they've got some of the more interesting and varied spells in their school. They've got the requisite conjurations, sure, but then they've got stuff like repel missiles, swiftness, flight, insulation...interesting stuff that can really save your bacon ever now and again.

What about you guys?

I enjoy Air the most, but I'm more successful with Fire.

Nothing brings me greater joy than seeing that Tornado toss around a bunch of dragons and giants, sending them to their doom.

I like Earth because Iron Shot is so damn reliable and Shatter-ninjaing is way too much fun.

If Poison counts I pick Poison because it has a bolt spell in the starting book (sorry, I know everyone hates Venom Bolt!) and Poisonous Cloud with rPois is another of the few conjurations I really like. Cure Poison is a good spell too because it means pressing 5 less and also lets you save some potions. Poison Arrow is the best single-target conjuration in the game.
There are terrible spells too, like Olgreb's Toxic Radiance or Mephitic Cloud, the former from a "power" and the latter from a "fun" perspective, but overall I have the most fun with this school.
Fire would be my second pick because Sticky Flame, Fireball and Delayed Fireball are some of the most fun spells in the game. Plus, Fire Storm doesn't suffer from the annoying target issues that Ice Storm has, Ignite Poison is a great spell in certain branches, etc.

I haven't delved enough into Ice Magic to know if I like it, but I know in Air vs Earth I prefer Earth Magic. I like the nice mix of utility that Earth offers and how it synergizes with my usually playstyle, and Stoneskin is probably my favorite buff in game.

I think my breakdown would moreso be like:

Fire - Attack Spell, Attack Spell, Attack Spell, Attack Spell
Air - Extremely Powerful Attacks with Buff Spells
Earth - Awesome 1 on 1 Attacks with Alteration Spells
Ice - A Varied Mix of Spells of All Sorts

Heart.

Probably ice - I think that I've had most success with that.
Once you've got Freezing Cloud online, most of the game is easy, at least until the point where you can replace it with Ice Storm.
I also tend to find that ice is more powerful than fire for the post-game, probably because it appears that fewer tricky things resist it than fire.

I've not had much luck with earth early, but LRD will totally change the way that your squishy mages think about skeletal warriors or bone dragons; picking up shatter later is quite fun for resistant foes and just busting through walls.

The thing I like most of all is that all of the elemental schools have different feels to them.

All the air magic buffs except dMsl are buffs you'll easily get on charms alone. That said, I generally prefer air magic to earth anyway because tornado is, for me, a lot stronger than anything in earth magic. Though I can see how earth magic might be better for its terrain altering capabilities.

Fire vs ice is pretty much just a question of whether your character stands to gain from ozo's or not.

Spellcasting

Fire! Conjure flame is a really fun tactical spell for hybrids.

Earth is the chioce of mine.
Nice spells for mobility and protection, and brutal damage spells.

Iron.

Fire for the massive DMG in early game, the only drawback are early crimson imps.
Ice takes second place for being nice starting school for hybrids (Ozocubu's Armour + Condensation Shield combo allows to go close and personal even with no armor).

I frikkin hate Earth thou. I'm have no idea how to survive early game with this thing.

The first earth spell, sandblast, gets a major power boost if you Ctrl Click on some stones to equip them. This is the first main tactic to survive against tough creatures like ogres for an early Earth Mage.

Yeah I know that. It's still not enough to survive early game for me when everything with bigger HD than bat is considered serious threat . I often run out stones on D1 and then get killed by kobold's farts or something. I realize Earth has some pretty awesome later spells, but EE is just not my cup of tea.

If I start as an elementalist, I love all three of fire, ice, and earth. I never got the hang of air elementalists, but hopefully I will someday when I'm in the mood to stick with them long enough to figure them out. If I start as a wizard, air is great and synergizes with charms and ice for a fantastic spell set. But if I start as a wizard, I'll usually go for whichever school gives me a mid level attack spell first, whether or not it's my favorite.

Fire: for a book with all attack spells, it feels very varied and a ton of fun. Conjure flame is a blast against brainless things, sticky flame is a blast against everything, playing a hybrid that will melee something while it stands on a conjured flame is a blast, fire is just plain fun.

Ice: very powerful, and a great mix of spells, with damage, AC booster, and a fantastic summons.

Earth: I find earth a little trickier, but still very fun. Lee's rapid deconstruction just never gets old. With earth, it seems like it's important early on to pump earth much more than conjurations, to get good power for early sandblast, and later on for LRD. Stone arrow gets pretty good with moderate levels of conjurations.

Air: shock is fun, but I never really got the hang of static discharge. Because of that, I have a hard time toughing it out until lightning bolt gets good, since lightning bolt is fifth level and takes a while to grow into.

I've only ever won with an ice elementalist, but I'm playing a lot of sludge elf earth elementalists right now. I had one very frustrating near miss with a demonspawn necromancer who ended up making earth the dominant school, but poor play at the end game got me killed (after picking up the Orb of Zot ).

Earth.

Stoneskin is stupid good, LRD is great to break into vaults among other things. Petrify lets you run away easier as apparently does Leda's Liquifaction which I have never even used but would definitely learn on my next char. And petrify + LRD is also a fun little toy, as is animate skeleton + LRD.

Plus if you die, your ghost will do amazing damage with stone arrow, so you're get some gkills .

Fire Elementalist is the best.
IE becomes a hybrid, AE becomes kiting ranger, EE becomes... My best EE hasn't reached Temple so EE becomes ghost.

About schools themselves.
Air is most useful (RMsl/DMsl/Freezing Cloud/Tornado,Air Elemental from Summon Elemental), Fire is next (Fire Storm, Fireball, Bolt of Fire, Conjure Flame, Sticky Flame), Ice(Freezing Cloud, Ice Storm, Bolt of Cold) and finally Earth (Passwall, LRD).

Air. It's got some nice low level spells, and the best 9th level spell.

Hea-



*shakes fist*

Since i mostly play hybrids these days (well, tabbers who dabble in magic), air elementalist is a common start for me because swiftness is an incredible game changer and is reliable during d1 and then almost always on from d3+. It's really unfair if i go ranged combat but thats pretty boring after a few times, but with polearms or axes its really fun and quite safe. I'd say that air start is more fun than wizard start for a hybrid even if wizard is safer.

cmon man you're a bot, how do you even fuck up making a link

Air. Lightning Bolt is insanely powerful the minute you get two enhancers for it (and 7# power for max range). Very few things resist it too, which I like.

i guess we're just starting up this thread again?

earth because i hate resists

Sure, but it takes typically quite a while before you get there... and arranging double zaps is boring and LB is loud. I'm with duvessa here.

I hoped two years was enough to master a spell in a starting book

Guess magic is harder than I thought

it's actually easy, little known fact: if you greatrole or greatrace something you get its powers irl

nobody knows what happens if you greatrace human, these who did remain silent and among others the very idea is spoken in hushed tones

"Strange and repulsive" is not really what I'd call a power...

for more than a year i've been using my demigod powers to slowly make anime real

also there are like 50 cursed jehovah's witnesses running around now

Could a full god quickly make anime real?