Irradiate

[ajon]

Is this spell even useful? It looks to be kinda dangerous to use without little gain over other methods. Why contaminate myself heavily when I can position and use other conjurations? Is there any reason to use this?

[bel]

It does a fair amount of damage if you are surrounded, for example. Also ignores EV, not sure about AC, so good against spriggans.

[scorpionwarrior]

Irradiate does good damage and more importantly is guaranteed to hit. I had it on a HuFE before and it works very well with sticky flame, having 2 guaranteed "melee" hits does a lot to mitigate bad luck. I have no idea what the malmutate affect does on monsters, though.

[Curio]

Best for hybrids and durable casters. Personally, I'm loving it. Used it extensively on my GrEE.
Contamination kicks in to yellow after 3-4 casts and most things after 2 casts (with decent spellpower) are dead or heavily injured anyway.
Also, awesome animation in tiles!

[Lasty]

It also applies the malmutate debuff to the monsters it hits. I find it to be relatively useful, but I would not recommend casting it if you already have contam.

[Rast]

Can you spam more it under Jiyva?

[bcadren]

Can you spam more it under Jiyva?

Contam still has a chance to do direct damage and the glow effect kills your EV; but is using the 'remove bad mutation' with Irradiate a good combo to use irradiate more; sure.

[duvessa]

irradiate is probably good for ghoul of chei or something

i find the damage from one cast pretty bad (who gets tmut spellpower, honestly) and two casts is actually enough to mutate you, I don't think it's a very good spell

[bcadren]

(who gets tmut spellpower, honestly)

Earth Elementalists [Petrify, Stoneskin, Passwall] and Transmuters [Forms]...in extended I usually do on all non-good god or undead characters for Necromut (to survive Tomb, mostly); but I'm sure Irradiate is shit that late.

EDIT: Honestly it'd probably be the best on an EE; seems like it'd combo with Statue Form and Stoneskin well. It's also a SUPPORT spell; the Malmutate effect is just as much of, if not more of, a big deal as the damage. Melee character weakens everything in melee-ranges attack and defense.

[Sar]

Most Tms will put all stat increases in Dex, not Int, and have just enough Tmuts to cast their form of choice (which is probably Blade Hands, a level 5 spell) with reasonable fail chance, maybe with wizardry. Not much spellpower here.

And when I play EE I usually just get a little bit of Tmut for Stoneskin and don't learn Petrify at all (not because it's bad, I actually have no idea if it's bad or good). So my EE wouldn't even be able to cast Irradiate, let alone had good spellpower on it.

[bcadren]

Most Tms will put all stat increases in Dex, not Int, and have just enough Tmuts to cast their form of choice (which is probably Blade Hands, a level 5 spell) with reasonable fail chance, maybe with wizardry. Not much spellpower here.

And when I play EE I usually just get a little bit of Tmut for Stoneskin and don't learn Petrify at all (not because it's bad, I actually have no idea if it's bad or good). So my EE wouldn't even be able to cast Irradiate, let alone had good spellpower on it.

Petrify is really good; it's not quite as strong as it used to be, but it's good. [It used to one-hit kill flying creatures over lava or water by making them drown; not anymore.]

Combos well with Stealth EE's (Passwall, Short Blades, Stealth, Ashenzari) because of the paralyze stabs during.
Also combos well with loud EE play (creates a new LRD target; makes target take 4x Shatter damage).

I honestly couldn't imagine playing an EE WITHOUT using it; Petrify/LRD combo is a much better way of dealing with open areas than Stone Arrow.
[I generally skip Stone Arrow and don't train Conj on an EE until I find Iron Shot, Magma or Lehu's.]

It basically kills anything with low enough MR to hit with it AND you can either use it for a LRD target to hurt other things nearby or stab it to death. Also great escape spell. (Petrify front thing in a hallway; no enemy can walk through the petrified enemy; gives you a chance to run off).

I guess I'm weird with Transmuters; I've even done Tm^Sif before for miscast protection, guaranteed extra books for more support spells (Getting the IE start spells up in Form is common for me; as is Haste later.) So high Int on my Tm/Sk helps quite a bit.

I will admit Transmutations/Conjurations is a weird combo and most characters using it will probably be training one of the two skills for JUST that one spell; but you could say the same of P.Arrow and it's pretty popular.

[Sar]

Stone Arrow is amazing, better than Iron Shot (until you have good power on IS, I guess). And my solution to open levels is to keep closer to edges.

[rchandra]

And when I play EE I usually just get a little bit of Tmut for Stoneskin and don't learn Petrify at all (not because it's bad, I actually have no idea if it's bad or good). So my EE wouldn't even be able to cast Irradiate, let alone had good spellpower on it.

I feel like Petrify is a good spell - it does a lot of things - but if I need to use it a lot my character is probably bad. It's worth getting and playing with usually, unless you found more books to fill up your spell levels quickly. Once in a blue moon I could see using Irradiate on an EE since I might at least have 3-5 Tmut. Then if I like it I could get more!

[bcadren]

Stone Arrow is amazing, better than Iron Shot (until you have good power on IS, I guess). And my solution to open levels is to keep closer to edges.

Well, the general use case for Petrify is like; pack of Yaks approaching through open territory in the Lair. Petrify on the front yak; by the time it's petrified solid the other yaks will surround it. Use LRD on the petrified Yak and it cuts down the pack about about as effectively as Fireball (though it's also as Noisy as Fireball so, mixed blessing). I've used it to escape a lot; especially things like bees; petrify front creature in a hallway so they can't pass through. And for single target it's about as effective as a wand of paralyze; yes their AC is boosted; but with the Stab multiplier; who cares?

I like that there are a lot of interesting use cases and it combos well with both LRD and Shatter.

OH another combo I forgot about (though it's gone in Trunk, I think) Petrify + LRD + Ignite Poison. Blow up poisonous creature into chunks everywhere, turn all chunks into clouds of flame. Was fairly effective in the Swamp for generating lots of Fire and Steam.

[adozu]

does it still work with "inedible chunks"?

[Lasty]

Irradiate has pretty solid base damage and always hits, which makes it less spellpower-dependent than most conjurations. That said, it's not that good unless you find yourself often wanting to hit a bunch of surrounding monsters; wanting to walk away is also reasonable.

[Curio]

Got my Demonspawn Wanderer win just now (dump). Started with staves and some Transmutations. First book that i found had Irradiate in it. And since I just love this spell i memorized it immediately. It had 100% failure naturally and I set a goal to make melee-using character that can cast Irradiate reliably and extensively. Long story short, after i got it to around 10-14% I started using it and I must say:
1) Two casts put me in yellow contamination only twice. And I'm not really sure - maybe there were miscasts beforehand.
2) After 3 casts it's almost always a yellow Contam (never got to red though - was using cancellation). Yellow Contam has a chance to fade without mutation. On the scale of a whole play through I got mutated by this three times: -2 Dex, -2 Str, and heat resistance!
3) "Never miss" thing is vital against high-EV characters (those damn spriggans) and something that low on HP but still very dangerous. I had numerous instances when I leave around 25% of high-HD enemy's HP and start a streak of misses with my lajatang. Irradiate seals the deal in this cases.
4)It changed gameplay for my melee-character completely. Instead of tabbing everything in the corridors, it is very rewarding to position yourself properly "surrounded" and unleash all the hell! With due care I was able (without using any other melee or spell means other than Irradiate) to eradicate packs of yaks, vault guards, hell knights, deep trolls, slime creatures and other denizens in TWO casts. And that's on a hybrid character without full spellpower.

tl:dr Irradiate is a double edged sword, but if you are not afraid to wield it - it will grant you power to devastate your opponents with a blinding light of your entity!