Favorite Bolt spell?

[Midn8]

I was wondering what people's favorite bolt spells were and why! So far we have:

Bolt of FIre/Cold
Bolt of Draining
Bolt of Venom
Bolt of Magma
Lightning Bolt
And the removed Bolt of inaccuracy

Feel free to bring up damage, ease of castability on your normal characters (bolt of fire if you normally play FE, etc), range, and other effects of the bolts.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Fire is a clear winner for me, it is not resisted as much as venom, draining or cold, is dual school unlike magma and is not suicidal to cast unlike lightning.
Also it is top tier spell in 3 rune game without Vehumet, after getting bolt of fire to 1% you can stop training fire forever.

[Sprucery]

Draining because I probably have animate skeleton as well and firing through undead allies is so much fun.

[dracos369]

Draining, cause I like to debuff things and deal damage to them at the same time. Those status effect icons look pretty!

[Midn8]

I like magma best because of it's unresisted damage and the fact that I primarily play Fire/Earth elementalists that branch into the other school. Draining is second for me, because of the debilitating effect and solid damage + shooting through summons/undead allies. Fire/Cold are 3/4 due to solid damage output.

[RBrandon]

Draining because 1) It's quiet! and 2) it is from the best magic school in the game

[MainiacJoe]

I voted for Lightning Bolt because of the verb, "like". I enjoy the mental puzzle of setting up bi-zaps, and I also appreciate that it doesn't diminish in range as it penetrates targets. I readily admit that its noise and poor accuracy make it an objectively poorer spell than the other options.

[duvessa]

I voted for lightning bolt and remove frogs, assuming that "favorite" means "best". Bolt bouncing is a bad mechanic but it does make lightning bolt the strongest bolt, even with the noise. I guess you could argue that bolt of cold or draining is better because they belong to better secondary schools.

[Midn8]

Favorite means one you like the most. If you like using the "best" spells, then you voted correctly.

[duvessa]

Ok, then I changed it to bolt of fire since that one has the best range out of the bolts that don't have bolt bouncing, which makes it the least annoying to use.

[Cheibrodos]

Draining because I'm training necromancy anyway

[kuniqs]

Ray of Enfeeblement, because nostalgia.

[dracos369]

I love it how no-one voted for venom bolt yet xD. Like, inaccuracy has more votes, and it's not even in the game!

[Midn8]

I guess bolt of venom is one of the worst bolt spells. It doesn't really do anything special.

[VeryAngryFelid]

When nobody thinks a spell is not the best, it does not prove anything. It still can be above average.

[Midn8]

But if it was good, people would probably like it and vote for it. I didn't limit the number of votes each person gets.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I didn't limit the number of votes each person gets.

I hadn't noticed it, I expected a single vote for "favorite bolt spell".

Edit. I voted for Venom Bolt also, it's the best spell in Spider Nest.

[papilio]

Lightning Bolt is the worst (or one of the worsts, at least worse than average). Its terrible accuracy and noise make it unreliable.

Bolt of Draining/Fire is the best, but I prefer BoF because it's more convenient and have less immune monsters.

[Sar]

High-power lightning bolt feels pretty damn accurate to me.

[papilio]

To-Hit value at spellpower 50:
BoF/BoC : 12
VB/BoD : 10.5
BoM : 10
LB : 8.25

sp 100:
BoF/BoC : 14
VB/BoD : 13
BoM : 12
LB : 9.5


If bi-zapped LB's likelihood to hit monsters is better than those of BoF/BoC but that's not always the case
and it sucks in other situations.

[Sar]

I don't know what these numbers mean. It feels accurate enough when there's a lot of hashes, and it's only level 5 so it's not too hard to get a lot of those. But I only really used it on stuff like TeAE, where you have a really good aptitude and can just get lots of Int and zap everything to death.

[tasonir]

I realize it's not a bolt spell but I'd still say that iron shot should have been included on the list, as it's pretty comparable. It used to be called bolt of iron/iron bolt long ago, right? I think it got renamed since it doesn't penetrate. I use iron shot sometimes but not terribly often; for this poll I just went with "I don't use bolts". While I'm sure I have a few characters who have, it's pretty rare.

[lethediver]

I have fond memories of bolt of magma on a DeFE demolishing lines of pretty much any monsters.

[Jeremiah]

Crossbow bolt is the best.

[stoneychips]

I guess bolt of venom is one of the worst bolt spells. It doesn't really do anything special.

Depends what and where (if not how?) you're playing. Sometimes "decent in this school" is better than awesome in one you can't hope to cast reliably anytime soon.

Venom Bolt can be decent in Lair and generally can help with hard but poison susceptible targets (boulder beetles, wolf spiders, maybe even average-vulnerability orc warriors etc.). I prefer Poison Arrow for quick kills, but that's not a penetrating bolt and it's higher level to memorize.