Can someone explain Conjure Flame?

[Piroco]

Conjure Flame continously pops up in the forums as one of the best Fire/Conjurations spells, particularily in early game. However, I've still to make sense on how to use it.

I do know it's very effective for escaping intelligent enemy mobs in hallways, and mindless monster can be effectively killed with some pillars, but I've yet to see how it's considered so good. Most likely I'm missing the strategy of it's use, or simply don't understand the spell. So, can anyone explain how to use it?

[bel]

Sounds like you are using it just fine. A cloud will either keep the monster away from you; or if the monster steps into the cloud, it will take massive damage over time. What's not to like?

One another important point is that non-mindless monsters may also step into a cloud, depending on chance. So, if you create three clouds in a line between you and a black mamba in a hallway, the mamba may (and likely will) walk into the clouds eventually.

[stoneychips]

Being a one-square spell, it's beautiful for blocking (or at least interdicting) narrow corridors or other bottleneck spots where mobs try to get at you through a single hole in walls. If you're far enough ahead and have the MP, you can also set up a line of a few of them one after another.

Basically, tougher monsters generally have a higher chance of walking into it; I think all the early undead go right in (not as sure about vampires and some other brighter ones). So yaks (very very often), the aforesaid black mamba, hydrae (always? although it does also hurt them a fair bit if they catch enough of it), more or less occasionally some others that are just "mean enough" will try to walk into them. Sometimes, though I think less often, a monster can also look at it for a couple turns and then decide wtf and go in.

If you can afford to stand and fight with whatever's coming a bit, then you can hold your ground (or get some summons to do this) right beside the fire and the mob keeps trying to get you, so it effectively stays trapped in the flames.

If you also have the Inner Flame spell going, then when mobs pause and wait for Conjured Flames to dissipate in a gaggle, you can cast Inner Flame on one of them and kill that one. Thus creating a fireball over the group of adjacent monsters, hopefully before they all get moving forward.

You can also keep casting more Conjure Flame on a spot where you've already dropped one, to refresh the fire before it burns out.

[Shtopit]

You can also use it to close down tiles near you and fight your enemies one by one. You probably can also try using it to herd monsters into a line while kiting them before you shoot bolts at them, although I haven't tried it yet.

It can also work as a shield against ranged cold spells, which will dissipate the cloud, but will not hit you. Summons are better, though.

The fire cloud can create scalding vapor clouds, which aren't that special, and also show silhouettes of invisible monsters.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

When enemies don't step into the clouds you can often just stand on the other side and kill them with a polearm or throwing stones. It's often quite safe.

Against enemies that do step into clouds readily, you can create lines of 3 or more clouds, and they will happily step from one into the next, taking lots of damage along the way.

Enemies don't seem to care about the type of cloud, so they will happily step from a poison/mephitic cloud into fire, even though the fire does way more damage.

[nublet]

A couple more points:
-In conjunction with Mephitic cloud (Wz book) you can get even some of the more sensible monsters to walk into it, by firing it beyond the flame cloud and confusing them.
-By using a polearm or ranged weapon (e.g. sling), you can attack the melee enemies stuck on the other side in complete impunity and at the cost of only 3 MP. If the cloud starts to run out, you can always run or recast it one tile back. (Ninja'd)

[Majang]

If you happen to have cloud-immunity, or just fire-cloud immunity, then you can use it to shake pursuing monsters who are right at your heals. Cast it in a corridor on the free spot next to you, walk through, and shout "naa naa di goo goo" at the guy you leave behind.

[Siegurt]

As the plethora of the replies seem to indicate the reason its so favored is that its a very flexible spell, there are a lot of different situatios in which you can use it for different purposes.

Those can mostly be categorized as "control how mosters move" and "do really good damage per mp spent"

Learning how and when to apply them, and how it can be used to control which creature move in what ways and what things can be combined with it to use it for damage is complicated, you have to understand monster movement pretty well to get the most out of it.

Starting with mindless critters (zombies et al) since those are the simplest: they move in a direct line for you regardless of any fire clouds as a result, they are very easy to do lots of damage to with fcloud, but you can't change their movement at all, you will also want to understand the difference between your path to a critter and a critters path to you, which isn't reciprocal if the path isn't orthogonal.

Secondly there is "normal" intelligent monsters. They mostly have two choices, move towards you, or take another action (shoot, cast a spell, etc). If they want to move, they will find the shortest unobstructed path to you, if there are multiple paths of equal length, they will always move around "hostile" clouds (and treat harmless clouds as empty space) it is important that they may or may not move if it puts them in a hostile cloud, but they will never move away from you on purpose (see making way below for exceptions) it is therefore sometimes important not just where, but when you place your clouds, and you can use your own position to control how monsters path to you. Intelligent monsters that are already *in* a hostile cloud will path through subsequent clouds like empty space, you can therefore use a short lived cloud like poisonous vapours to drive a critter into a flame cloud.

The third thing you need to consider is when creatures "make way" for another, again intelligent monsters will avoid hostile clouds unless they are standing in one, but they also may move away from you (possibly giving them an equal shortest path around your cloud), or even swap places with the creature they are making way for.

There is a lot more detail that i don't feel like getting into now, but that is an overview at least.

[watertreatmentRL]

Monsters often walk into the cloud, even if they're not mindless or whatever. They make a roll for each cloud that obstructs a "shortest path" and if they pass it, they'll walk right in. Then you can block them there and they take a lot of damage or you can make them walk through several of them in a row once they're in a cloud. Some people make it sound like there's a lot to this spell, but there really isn't.

[Majang]

...and it does not make you invincible. I was killed by a hydra the other day, which I made walk through two flame clouds, and roast in the second for two turns. At the end of the second turn, I was quite dead, starting from max HP with a gargoyle with 15+ AC. So, use it with care!

[stoneychips]

...and it does not make you invincible. I was killed by a hydra the other day, which I made walk through two flame clouds, and roast in the second for two turns. At the end of the second turn, I was quite dead, starting from max HP with a gargoyle with 15+ AC. So, use it with care!

Indeed, these clouds are good for low level, but they are not Fire Storm.

The problem with hydrae -- besides that their heads regenerate to many weapons -- is they can launch lots of attacks in a very short time. If you have very strong armor (or even tree form from Potion of LIgnification is a good start), then it often isn't such a big deal to stave them off for a couple turns... But if you have low HP or low physical armor, then regard the fire as a nice way to finish a weakened one at best.

Still, standing in fire for long periods hurts hydrae pretty reliably. The bigger ones don't die immediately, but it does make a dent.

Since hydrae love to chase the shortest path straight at you, you can also just lie down a whole row of flames for them to walk through on the way, and keep fleeing or shooting while they do -- IF you're far enough ahead.

[Utis]

FWIW, I'm having great fun with Conjure Flame and Lesser Beckoning right now. (Part of my ongoing experimentation with low level spells in heavy armour.) Normally, I'm skeptical about "spell combos", but this one comes with extra positioning options in less than perfect terrain, so maybe it's more than just fun.

[Splatt]

not mentioned yet, but CF is great in the shoals on characters with MR+++ or lower. the cloud has smite targeting and you can cast it on water between yourself and a siren to generate steam clouds and break LoS, which cancels the *mesmerized* effect. it's one of those T3 spells which you get on every character than can cast it, along with Spectral Weapon, Regeneration, Ozo's Armour, Meph Cloud, and Lesser Beckoning.

[shmup]

shout "naa naa di goo goo" at the guy you leave behind