Tornado or Glaciate

[File200]

I'm currently playing a green draconian conjurer, and I have books containing both tornado and glaciate. I don't have ice resist from any source yet, but will probably find some. Which one should I go for? And what skills should I train?

Char dump:

  Code:

Voit the Conjurer (Green Draconian Conjurer)       Turns: 24036, Time: 01:27:24

HP 107/107       AC 14     Str 15      XL: 13   Next: 15%
MP  21/29        EV 18     Int 19      God: Sif Muna [******]
Gold 1065        SH  0     Dex 14      Spells:  7 memorised,  2 levels left

rFire  + . .     SeeInvis .     J - +8,+6 falchion of the Nine Ships {venom, rN+ MR++}
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     (armour unavailable)
rNeg   + . .     Conserve .     (no shield)
rPois  +         rCorr    .     m - +0 hat
rElec  .         rRot     .     H - +2 cloak
SustAb . .       Spirit   .     y - +1 pair of gloves {Dex+3}
rMut   .         Warding  .     B - +0 pair of boots
Saprov . . .     Stasis   .     A - amulet of faith
MR     ++...                    j - ring of wizardry
                                q - ring of protection from fire

@: very resistant to hostile enchantments, fairly stealthy
A: breathe noxious fumes, unfitting armour, poison resistance, strong 1, AC +8
a: Breathe Noxious Fumes, Channel Energy, Forget Spell, Renounce Religion


You are on level 12 of the Dungeon.
You worship Sif Muna.
Sif Muna is exalted by your worship.
You are hungry.

You have visited 4 branches of the dungeon, and seen 19 of its levels.

You have collected 1065 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 E - the +3,-1 quarterstaff "Cetti" {speed, Noisy +Fly}
   (You found it on level 5 of the Dungeon)   
   
   Attacks with this weapon are significantly faster.
   
   It lets you fly.
   It may make noises in combat.
 J - the +8,+6 falchion of the Nine Ships (weapon) {venom, rN+ MR++}
   (You found it on level 9 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It poisons the flesh of those it strikes.
   
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It affects your resistance to hostile enchantments.
 R - the +0,+0 great mace "Yvyrrebb" {holy, Int+1 Stlth-}
   (You found it on level 8 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It has been blessed by the Shining One to cause great damage to the undead
   and demons.
   
   It affects your intelligence (+1).
   It makes you much less stealthy.
Missiles
 L - 7 javelins (quivered)
Armour
 m - a +0 hat (worn)
 y - a +1 pair of gloves of dexterity (worn)
 B - a +0 pair of boots (worn)
 H - a +2 cloak (worn)
Magical devices
 r - a wand of disintegration
 M - a wand of confusion {zapped: 1}
Comestibles
 b - 10 bread rations
 G - a choko
 N - 2 sausages
 S - 11 grapes
 U - a slice of pizza
Scrolls
 a - 3 scrolls labeled UGUDIQ DIEZA LOG
 d - 2 scrolls labeled BITAZA SMEHIHI
 g - 6 scrolls of teleportation
 h - 2 scrolls labeled AQOMAN DOKEF
 k - 5 scrolls of remove curse
 l - 2 scrolls labeled LUADUL TOEMU
 n - a scroll labeled ROCLIRIOLE
 s - 2 scrolls labeled TURAULEYNTI
 t - 4 scrolls labeled THRUUH OLUBIG
 v - 4 scrolls of identify
 I - 8 scrolls labeled YROXKUB SMUG
 P - 2 scrolls labeled VEANWINYRI
Jewellery
 c - an uncursed ring of positive energy
 j - a ring of wizardry (right hand)
 o - an uncursed ring of sustain abilities
 q - a ring of protection from fire (left hand)
 w - a ring of ice
 x - an uncursed ring of fire
 A - an amulet of faith (around neck)
 K - a square crystal amulet
 Q - an uncursed ring of protection from magic
Potions
 e - 2 potions of might
 i - 6 potions of curing
 p - 3 potions of brilliance
 u - an inky potion
 D - a pink potion
 O - 2 potions of heal wounds
Books
 f - a book of the Sky   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Flight                             Charms/Air                   3
   Airstrike                          Air                          4
   Silence                            Hexes/Air                    5
   Deflect Missiles                   Charms/Air                   6
   Conjure Ball Lightning             Conjuration/Air              6
   Tornado                            Air                          9
 z - a book of Power   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Fulminant Prism                    Conjuration/Hexes            4
   *Iskenderun's Mystic Blast         Conjuration                  4
   Venom Bolt                         Conjuration/Poison           5
   Bolt of Magma                      Conjuration/Fire/Earth       5
   Iron Shot                          Conjuration/Earth            6
   *Orb of Destruction                Conjuration                  7
 C - a Young Poisoner's Handbook   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Sting                              Conjuration/Poison           1
   Cure Poison                        Poison                       2
   *Mephitic Cloud                    Conjuration/Poison/Air       3
   *Olgreb's Toxic Radiance           Poison                       4
   Venom Bolt                         Conjuration/Poison           5
 F - Sif Muna's Reference Book on Confrontation and Snow
   (Sif Muna gifted it to you on level 5 of the Lair of Beasts)   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Throw Frost                        Conjuration/Ice              2
   Sticky Flame                       Conjuration/Fire             4
   Venom Bolt                         Conjuration/Poison           5
   Glaciate                           Conjuration/Ice              9


   Skills:
 + Level 7.7 Fighting
 - Level 4.0 Long Blades
 - Level 5.2 Staves
 + Level 0.1 Throwing
 - Level 9.7 Dodging
 - Level 1.7 Stealth
 + Level 8.0 Spellcasting
 * Level 14.3 Conjurations
 + Level 3.6 Charms
 + Level 3.7 Poison Magic
 + Level 0.9 Invocations
 + Level 2.1 Evocations


You have 2 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Magic Dart            Conj           ####         1%          1    None
b - Searing Ray           Conj           ######       1%          2    None
c - Iskenderun's Mystic   Conj           ######..     1%          4    ###....
d - Mephitic Cloud        Conj/Pois/Air  ####....     1%          3    #......
e - Iskenderun's Battles  Conj/Chrm      #####...     4%          5    ####...
f - Olgreb's Toxic Radia  Pois           ###.....     9%          4    ###....
g - Orb of Destruction    Conj           ######....   10%         7    #######


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (12/15)            Temple (1/1) D:7             Orc (1/4) D:11
   Lair (5/8) D:9           Swamp (0/5) Lair:4        Snake (0/5) Lair:3

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Dithmenos
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
The Shining One

Annotations:
Lair:5 Harold


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You can breathe blasts of noxious fumes.
Your lurid green scales are hard (AC +8).
Your body does not fit into most forms of armour.
Your cold-blooded metabolism reacts poorly to cold.
Your system is resistant to poisons.
Your muscles are strong. (Str +2)

[tasonir]

Glaciate imho. More direct damage, tornado tends to take a while and is best used in combination with something else (although it does good damage itself, still). You can use a ring of ice to get rC+, of course you lose the rF+ then, though. Check any shields you find to look for a buckler/shield of resistance, if you're lucky.

[KoboldLord]

I would pick the skill that gives you things you want before you grind all the way up to ninth-level spells. By the time you can cast either Tornado or Glaciate, the majority of the game is already over. You still have to survive to that point. If you've got access to good air magic, do that. If you've got access to good ice magic, do that. If you don't have access to either, come up with a new plan based on things you actually do have.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

glaciate is deliberately designed to be worse than all other level 9 spells

also 3 of the level 9 spells cost HALF the xp glaciate costs

also tornado is op

but all of the above is irrelevant because in a 3-rune game level 9 spells don't matter and trying to get them will often do more harm than good

[Patashu]

glaciate is deliberately designed to be worse than all other level 9 spells

Can you clarify about 'deliberately'? Was ice magic underpowered compared to fire magic so they did it on purpose? Or by 'deliberately' you mean 'by design without knowing it, but if you make a GDD topic they'd be happy to buff it'?

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Can you clarify about 'deliberately'? Was ice magic underpowered compared to fire magic so they did it on purpose? Or by 'deliberately' you mean 'by design without knowing it, but if you make a GDD topic they'd be happy to buff it'?

During design and implementation Glaciate's damage output was intentionally balanced to be less than that of Ice Storm (which is extra weird because the tavern thread that originally proposed Glaciate literally opened with the sentence "Ice storm is the worst level 9 spell in the game."). Supposedly the reason was to differentiate it from other level 9 spells, but IMO "shittier" is not a good way to differentiate something, especially when that thing requires training TWO skills to ~25.

[Patashu]

Can you clarify about 'deliberately'? Was ice magic underpowered compared to fire magic so they did it on purpose? Or by 'deliberately' you mean 'by design without knowing it, but if you make a GDD topic they'd be happy to buff it'?

During design and implementation Glaciate's damage output was intentionally balanced to be less than that of Ice Storm (which is extra weird because the tavern thread that originally proposed Glaciate literally opened with the sentence "Ice storm is the worst level 9 spell in the game."). Supposedly the reason was to differentiate it from other level 9 spells, but IMO "shittier" is not a good way to differentiate something, especially when that thing requires training TWO skills to ~25.

Sounds like we should get it buffed then

[Hurkyl]

Can you clarify about 'deliberately'? Was ice magic underpowered compared to fire magic so they did it on purpose? Or by 'deliberately' you mean 'by design without knowing it, but if you make a GDD topic they'd be happy to buff it'?

During design and implementation Glaciate's damage output was intentionally balanced to be less than that of Ice Storm (which is extra weird because the tavern thread that originally proposed Glaciate literally opened with the sentence "Ice storm is the worst level 9 spell in the game."). Supposedly the reason was to differentiate it from other level 9 spells, but IMO "shittier" is not a good way to differentiate something, especially when that thing requires training TWO skills to ~25.

... which was literally followed by the sentences "Not because it's not powerful, it is, but rather because it's overshadowed by fire storm." and "The two spells are too similar, and since fire storm is more popular, I think it's best to remake the level 9 Ice/conjuration spell."

[sgrunt]

During design and implementation Glaciate's damage output was intentionally balanced to be less than that of Ice Storm

False.

[tasonir]

If you look up the thread, you should link it in your post, because some people will in fact go and check it out. I don't know if it was the same thread, but I seem to recall the patch that was submitted with it having comments from a dev about the damage is a bit low, you can go ahead and raise it. And I believe they did raise it pretty much right away.

I haven't personally cast glaciate, but I've been hit by it both from a player ghost and random pan lords. The player ghost killed my extremely strong character on Zot:5 with no need for help from other mobs, and the pan lord very nearly killed another character - I teleported away and eventually left that pan level without ever killing it. I am deathly afraid of enemy glaciate.

[Quazifuji]

I'll agree with the "don't pick between ice and air magic based solely on tornado or glaciate" camp. Both are good spells, both schools have other good spells, so look at the spells you have and consider which one you prefer.

also 3 of the level 9 spells cost HALF the xp glaciate costs

This depends on how much conjurations you were planning to train anyway. OP already has 14 conjurations skill, and is likely planning to train more. Glaciate costs twice as much XP to cast if from scratch, but you should never be trying to cast it from scratch. Depending on how much conjurations skill you want, in some cases it can cost less additional experience to get online than tornado would.

Can you clarify about 'deliberately'? Was ice magic underpowered compared to fire magic so they did it on purpose? Or by 'deliberately' you mean 'by design without knowing it, but if you make a GDD topic they'd be happy to buff it'?

During design and implementation Glaciate's damage output was intentionally balanced to be less than that of Ice Storm (which is extra weird because the tavern thread that originally proposed Glaciate literally opened with the sentence "Ice storm is the worst level 9 spell in the game."). Supposedly the reason was to differentiate it from other level 9 spells, but IMO "shittier" is not a good way to differentiate something, especially when that thing requires training TWO skills to ~25.

This would be a stronger argument if damage was the only trait glaciate had, but I remember the design goal being a spell that did less damage but had more utility. Glaciate does less damage than Fire Storm by design, but it slows enemies, sometimes blocks enemies, and a large portion of its damage is irresistible. This doesn't necessarily mean that Glaciate isn't underpowered, but saying it's underpowered by design solely because its base damage is lower is ignoring a key part of the initial concept.

[crate]

The problem with trading damage for utility is that it flat does not work on level 9 spells. The greatest utility on spells you use against monsters is killing those monsters (unless you want to do something like add Death Channel to a level 9 spell). Glaciate being worse at killing things because it also slows them is just flat bad design on a level 9 dual-school spell.

It would be fine at around level 5-6, since spells at those levels don't just obliterate everything in LOS before any of it can kill you.

[and into]

This depends on how much conjurations you were planning to train anyway. OP already has 14 conjurations skill, and is likely planning to train more. Glaciate costs twice as much XP to cast if from scratch, but you should never be trying to cast it from scratch. Depending on how much conjurations skill you want, in some cases it can cost less additional experience to get online than tornado would.

Not really. The only way you'll cast a dual school level nine spell primarily from conjurations with little investment in ice/fire is if you got crazy high intelligence (like greater than 50 at least) and stacked wizardry, both of which would, incidentally, also make a single school level nine spell even easier to cast, nevertheless. Three wizardry boosts (max you can stack) plus 72 intelligence (max amount), conjuration 27, spellcasting 20 lets you cast fire storm at 4% failure—that is without *any* fire training. The amount of experience it takes to go from 26 to 27 in conjurations, however, could easily put your air or earth skill into the deep teens, even if your aptitude is abysmally bad. (Cost of skill training rises exponentially, and gets really steep in the twenties.) And with max intelligence, stacked wizardry, and 20 spellcasting you only need *13* (!) skill in air to cast tornado at 4%.

So no, even in the most extreme possible example in favor of casting a dual school level 9 spell as cheaply as possible, glaciate/fire storm is going to be a great deal more expensive than tornado/shatter. What you describe works for lower level spells—high level spell casting and enough charms for haste often means you can pick up control teleport with minimal/zero investment in transloc. Sometimes really misguided people cast LCS through just conjurations—that's really dumb, but possible. However this is not possible with dual school level nine spells.

Also, realistically, the only reason you would ever train conjurations higher than 18 or 20 or so is for glaciate or fire storm, in the first place. (Or I guess if you are in extended and want to cast Orb of Destruction and the like in CPA for the hell of it.)

So taking all of that into account: A single school level nine spell is much, much cheaper in all scenarios, even unrealistic ones, even if your conjurations aptitude is good and your earth/air aptitude is bad.

(Hit thanks instead of quote.)

[archaeo]

The problem with trading damage for utility is that it flat does not work on level 9 spells. The greatest utility on spells you use against monsters is killing those monsters (unless you want to do something like add Death Channel to a level 9 spell). Glaciate being worse at killing things because it also slows them is just flat bad design on a level 9 dual-school spell.

It would be fine at around level 5-6, since spells at those levels don't just obliterate everything in LOS before any of it can kill you.

This seems like it would be more true if you had a choice of spells that would outright kill the things you want to kill ASAP in the part of the game where you're casting level 9 spells. Instead, glaciate turns dead popcorn into line-of-fire-blocking ice blocks, slows the popcorn that hasn't died to keep things blocked up, and does a fair amount of damage to boot. So in one turn, you're likely to be accomplishing several things at once, rather than just one thing, which seems pretty handy to me.

But I may be mistaken! How many extra turns does it take to kill something with glaciate versus your other options at that point in the game?

[Magipi]

During design and implementation Glaciate's damage output was intentionally balanced to be less than that of Ice Storm

False.

So what is the truth? You wanted it to be stronger than Ice storm, but somehow it ended up weaker?

[Siegurt]

Actually I originally wrote and submitted a version of the spell which was either weaker than ice storm with a larger area of effect or stronger than ice storm, but had a more limited area of effect. (It fired 3-6 fireball-sized explosions which could all stack on a single target if that was all that there was, or be spread out across multiple targets) It also turned killed monsters into ice statues

This was re-written by the devs before being added to have a cone effect, which retained the ice statue effect, and gained a slowing effect, but had simpler/easier targeting. It's damage is dependent on how close the critter is to you, things at the edge of it's range take less damage than stuff up close.

Note that as written, Glaciate does the same damage as ice storm at half or less of it's max range.

There was a period during testing where Glaciate was worse than it is in the .14 release, it was increased in effectiveness partway through (Although I'm still personally of the opinion that it should get it's max range earlier than it does, spellpower-wise)

[TheDefiniteArticle]

glaciate turns dead popcorn into line-of-fire-blocking ice blocks, slows the popcorn that hasn't died to keep things blocked up

in the lategame keeping things "blocked up" helps the monsters, not the player

keep in mind that you have invested 50-60 skill levels into an AOE attack, so it is mindbogglingly counterproductive for that attack to "block up" anything

the design goal being a spell that did less damage but had more utility.

Shatter kills everything in LOS, for HALF the experience. What utility can possibly be better than "kills everything in LOS and also I used the extra XP to learn the level 8 spell that makes me literally invulnerable"?

[archaeo]

in the lategame keeping things "blocked up" helps the monsters, not the player

keep in mind that you have invested 50-60 skill levels into an AOE attack, so it is mindbogglingly counterproductive for that attack to "block up" anything

Except in the case where you'd prefer not to be hit with beam-targetted hellfire or dispel undead? Or when you'd prefer to keep Cerebov/whoever out of melee range? Because even if you're casting shatter, you're not killing everything, all at once, in one cast; you're killing all the popcorn, and leaving behind all the dangerous bros, who might require a few more casts of shatter to really feel the effects with a clean line of fire at you? And it's not like glaciate is really doing so much less damage than shatter that it's taking dozens more turns to kill things?

Shatter kills everything in LOS, for HALF the experience. What utility can possibly be better than "kills everything in LOS and also I used the extra XP to learn the level 8 spell that makes me literally invulnerable"?

This is what I didn't get about and into's post, too. Yes, the total experience necessary for glaciate is twice that of shatter, assuming flat aptitudes. But making a choice on what to train based on that seems crazy. If I'm a IE, and I've trained up my skills to cast bolt of cold or one of the other level 6 spells I would naturally want, and I now have about 15 ice/conj, should I back off and train up earth to cast shatter?

I mean, even accepting the fact that level 9 spells are almost always a waste of time, a common refrain among goodplayers, I still tend to think that glaciate makes a fine amount of sense if a) you're already an ice-focused conjurer and b) you want to play with level 9 spells. It makes no sense to me to judge a high-level spell based on the XP cost from 0 skill, with the possible exception of necromutation, because god knows some huge majority of people casting it start the training process at like 0 tmut and 5 necro.

[and into]

This is what I didn't get about and into's post, too. Yes, the total experience necessary for glaciate is twice that of shatter, assuming flat aptitudes. But making a choice on what to train based on that seems crazy. If I'm a IE, and I've trained up my skills to cast bolt of cold or one of the other level 6 spells I would naturally want, and I now have about 15 ice/conj, should I back off and train up earth to cast shatter?

I mean, even accepting the fact that level 9 spells are almost always a waste of time, a common refrain among goodplayers, I still tend to think that glaciate makes a fine amount of sense if a) you're already an ice-focused conjurer and b) you want to play with level 9 spells. It makes no sense to me to judge a high-level spell based on the XP cost from 0 skill, with the possible exception of necromutation, because god knows some huge majority of people casting it start the training process at like 0 tmut and 5 necro.

Yes, looking back at my other post my point was somewhat garbled (had posted it right before going to bed and was tired/distracted), sorry if I wasn't as clear and concise as I should have been.

Because of how steep skill levels cost when you get high enough, and given the fact that there aren't level 8 conj/fire or conj/ice spells, and also given the fact that the amount of actual experience investment to go from casting level 8 to level 9 is still really big... All of that combines to mean that yes, even a dude with level 15 conj/ice who just wants to cast a level 9 spell, will almost certainly get a level 9 spell online much faster by just training air or earth. And since there aren't level 8 conj/ice spells, you aren't going to find yourself in many situations in which you have more than 15 or maybe 16 in conjurations or ice from casting other stuff (like freezing cloud or bolt of cold). So you really are looking at, "Okay, i can go from 15 to about 23 or 24 in conjurations *and* ice, or I can get air/earth up to 23 or 24." The latter will require less experience and happen faster even if your aptitudes are strongly skewed otherwise. Maybe some theoretical counterexample exists, but for the most part that's how it will play.

Now, if you want to cast glaciate specifically, or if that's all you've found, that's one thing (though tornado and shatter are more common). Or if the game had a level 10 conjurations spell (or glaciate/fire storm were dropped to level 8), assuming Crawl were designed around spells going up to level 10, or if there were a level 8 or 9 pure ice (or fire) spell, etc... That could change a lot of these considerations. But as it stands, this is the problem that glaciate and fire storm run into.

Now, how much of a *design* problem this is, depends. There's nothing necessarily wrong with some spells that aren't the soundest investment, or just aren't the most powerful for their tier, to exist. I haven't played around enough with glaciate to determine whether it is exorbitantly underpowered. I do think that a level 9 AoE blast spell (unlike tornado) that doesn't have excellent range/targeting seems kind of questionable though, and perhaps could use some more work. But that's just my instinct, obviously I'll reserve judgment until I've played around with it more, and have used it at least once in a non-wizmode setting.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

I still tend to think that glaciate makes a fine amount of sense if a) you're already an ice-focused conjurer and b) you want to play with level 9 spells

In that case, whoops you played the wrong character, should've focused on something other than Ice if you wanted top-end magic (see also Poison/Charms).

And it's not like glaciate is really doing so much less damage than shatter that it's taking dozens more turns to kill things?

Shatter is hitting every monster in all directions without regard to positioning. Glaciate is taking very often 10+ turns to solve a problem that Shatter solves in 2-4 turns. But even if Glaciate did exactly the same thing as Shatter AND slowed every enemy who survived, it would STILL be the weaker spell due to the astronomical amount of XP required to get it. As it stands now, Glaciate is running hard for Worst Crawl Spell, and it doesn't look like even Force Lance or Song of Slaying are as completely useless as it is.

[Sandman25]

I have just checked at http://ianberrigan.com/
Training a skill from 15 to 26 takes the same XP as training one from 0 to 23.1
Also going from 23 to 26 takes the same XP as going from 15 to 20.2

So yes, if you have Ice/Conj at 15 and Air at 0 you can have one of these:
1) Air at 26, Ice at 15, Conj at 20.2
2) Ice/Conj at 26, Air at 0

This is crazy by the way.

Edit. Also 0-15 is equal to 23-25.9, that explains everything: you get Air to 15 for minor cost and then you train just one skill.

Edit2. Song of Slaying is actually quite good in Zot vs draconians.

[archaeo]

Consider me thoroughly schooled on the really unintuitive vagaries of Crawl's skill system. I cheerfully concede the point.

If ice and conjurations make for such a poor combination, maybe rethinking the capstone spell is a good idea.

[nago]

Well ice and conjuration male a very good combination (and IE is considered a far stronger background than FE).
You simply stop to learn ice spell after lv6 ones.

[duvessa]

Well, all level 9 spells are bad, and training both ice and conjurations to 25 isn't particularly worse than training any other combination of two skills to 25. It's not really a problem specific to glaciate, it just happens to be significantly weaker than other level 9 spells on top of that.

[Tristian]

glaciate is deliberately designed to be worse than all other level 9 spells

Damn... now I gotta try Glaciate.... just cuz.