Efficient Spell Casting

[snow]

Lately I've been messing with demigod wizards.

At about level 17 or so I found Norris and I just... couldn't beat him. I spammed him with a few spells, ran out of MP, and had to retreat. I tried like 4 times before I had to go to my stash, grab a few wands, and kill him that way. This had me wondering 2 things:

1. Do higher level or lower level spells do more damage per MP? I couldn't find spell damage for most spells in the wiki.
2. If I drain an enemy do they stay drained indefinitely? I used wands of draining on Norris in hopes of being able to hit him better.

[Katak]

Level 4-6 spells seem to be the best cost per MP in the mid-game. Norris is one of the tougher uniques though, so you're expected to empty your pool on him and/or buff up for some melee.

You can very easily benefit from chain-casting 2 MP spells on common monsters though. Tougher uniques tend to have more resistances though, so you need to use the more powerful spells.

[galehar]

2. If I drain an enemy do they stay drained indefinitely?

Yes.

[galehar]

Also, for future reference, if a unique is not a threat to you and yet you can't kill them easily (which is what this sounds like), expending permanent resources to kill them is a bad idea, since you're just wasting stuff for no reason.

I'd say it depends which resources. If you're wasting !HW sure, it is a bad idea. However, wands are plentiful and are less and less useful as you go deeper. Thus, if you empty a couple of wands on a unique, I'd say you've put them to good use.

[Tiber]

How does the power rating work anyway? Take stone arrow and iron shot. Iron shot is really nothing more than stone arrow with higher damage. Assuming stone arrow is not at its damage cap, would they do similar damage considering they have the same number of #'s?

[galehar]

How does the power rating work anyway? Take stone arrow and iron shot. Iron shot is really nothing more than stone arrow with higher damage. Assuming stone arrow is not at its damage cap, would they do similar damage considering they have the same number of #'s?

No. The power bar tells you how much each spell can still gain if you keep training the skills. They tell you nothing about relative damages of differents spells. You can't use them to compare spells.

[Tiber]

I thought not, but then what is the difference between a spell that goes to ##### and one that goes to #########? How is the number of pips the spell goes up to determined?

[galehar]

I thought not, but then what is the difference between a spell that goes to ##### and one that goes to #########? How is the number of pips the spell goes up to determined?

The latter has a higher power cap, meaning it'll be worth it to train your skills higher, raise your int and use enhancers. It won't have any effect on the former once it has reached its power cap.

[Tiber]

I get that, but what I mean is, stone arrow at max power does 3d11. Iron shot does 9d18. That's 3-33 compared to 9-162, or about 3 to 5 times as powerful, yet there aren't even double the pips. I'm sort of asking what the relationship is between the number of pips a spell can have and its power, not what having more pips does.

[Ann Hal]

Two points:

1. I use this spreadsheet to get a sense of how much damage a spell is likely to do. http://www.mediafire.com/?0ymz1ajyjjz It is for an older version of Crawl but it seems to be right. If any dev knows otherwise, I would appreciate knowing.

2. Norris (in fact, most humanoid uniques) are vulnerable to Poison Cloud. Esp if you have a way to improve your movement speed. Lure them to a narrow corridor and drop a cloud on them. It will expand to fill up several hexes. They have two bad choices at this point: stay and get poisoned, or move and get poisoned. Run away and watch them wither. If necessary, repeat this attack in another narrow corridor. Good xp return for the mp investment.

[galehar]

I get that, but what I mean is, stone arrow at max power does 3d11. Iron shot does 9d18. That's 3-33 compared to 9-162, or about 3 to 5 times as powerful, yet there aren't even double the pips. I'm sort of asking what the relationship is between the number of pips a spell can have and its power, not what having more pips does.

Stone arrow power cap is 50. Iron shot is 200. The power bar is logarithmic.