Ice or Fire for endgame

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

Assuming you have access to all spells, necromutation, and tornado, do you prefer ice or fire as a secondary damage dump for pan/extended game?

Basically I see it as a choice between smite targeting for firestorm, versus extra armor from Oz’s armor.

Yes, I know these are the choices that make the game interesting, but since I don’t know the extended (15 rune) endgame I’d rather not cripple my self accidently.

This is also talking for 0.8.

[XuaXua]

I woudln't be likely to train either one if I already had high Air or Earth, though (and wouldn't be inclined to train Air or Earth if I already had high Ice).

Fire with Earth gives you those piercing firebolts.

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

I woudln't be likely to train either one if I already had high Air or Earth, though (and wouldn't be inclined to train Air or Earth if I already had high Ice).

Fire with Earth gives you those piercing firebolts.

So does lightning bolt (and with relec you can have fun with bouncing games)

[XuaXua]

I woudln't be likely to train either one if I already had high Air or Earth, though (and wouldn't be inclined to train Air or Earth if I already had high Ice).

Fire with Earth gives you those piercing firebolts.

So does lightning bolt (and with relec you can have fun with bouncing games)

It's my understanding that LB has weaker damage, even with reflecting, and has a much louder noise component, drawing unwanted attention.

[KoboldLord]

Assuming you have access to all spells, necromutation, and tornado, do you prefer ice or fire as a secondary damage dump for pan/extended game?

Basically I see it as a choice between smite targeting for firestorm, versus extra armor from Oz’s armor.

Yes, I know these are the choices that make the game interesting, but since I don’t know the extended (15 rune) endgame I’d rather not cripple my self accidently.

This is also talking for 0.8.

Ice probably has the advantage. Ozocubu's Armor is basically an extra suit of fully enchanted dragon armor that you can wear on top of your lighter armor. Refrigeration wipes the board of all eyeball monsters, hellions, neqoxecs, and other fragile but dangerous nuisances with perfect accuracy. Ice Storm's drawback of requiring an open line of fire is perfectly complemented by Tornado's ability to slaughter everything that gets inside your death radius.

Fire has nothing to offer you except Bolt of Fire and Fire Storm. While good, you don't get as much advantage from Fire Storm's smite targeting if everything you might want to smite-target past is already inside your Tornado. You also wipe out your adorable little fire vortexes with every step you take, and direct damage to a single target is less than Ice Storm. Bolt of Fire trades utility against ice fiends for utility against regular fiends, and will usually not one-shot hellions.

So, yeah. Fire's not terrible, but in a perfect world where you have access to every spell and limitless xp with which to train them, it's probably never going to be your big choice.

[mumra]

With bouncing, Lightning Bolt does more damage than Lehudib's Crystal Spear. It was severely nerfed in 0.9 a little while ago, though: it is now impossible to hit the same target more than twice with a single bolt.

Yeah, that's kind of a shame; I loved the mini-game of setting up multizaps. They're certainly overpowered, but extremely situational. Might it not be better if additional zaps just had reduced damage? I guess there's also some consideration of spoileryness behind the decision.

[eharper256]

Fire has nothing to offer you except Bolt of Fire and Fire Storm.

Fireball, Evaporate, Sticky Flame, and Ignite Poison would like a word with you.

Admittedly, Fire has basically nothing on the utility side, but it has some versatile ways to deal with enemies.

[galehar]

Yeah, that's kind of a shame; I loved the mini-game of setting up multizaps. They're certainly overpowered, but extremely situational. Might it not be better if additional zaps just had reduced damage? I guess there's also some consideration of spoileryness behind the decision.

It was indeed a major factor of this decision. I also had a lot of fun setting up trizap and quadzap, but I agree with the decision. And there was also the factor of getting killed by monsters multi-zapping you for insane damage. How to set them up was not very intuitive, contrary to bizaps. The spells also got a 25% damage boost yesterday to compensate. And it will be easier to show the bounce in targeting mode.