The Tavern

So Im asking a lot of questions these days.

My usual plan with a caster is to go with ice spells to get ice storm. I like that it does more irresistable damage. I have been trying to venture out into different spell schools and happened upon a book with access to fireball, shatter, and tornado on my current DeWz.

So the question is for a caster build worshipping Sif Muna, which is generally better? I could see going earch for the AC boosting spells or Air for the other charms it boosts.

Or my third option is to use fireball and wait for a fire storm which will be a little more familiar feeling?

I usually go Vehumet so my main plan is to just blast away and since Im going Sif and will have better access to buff spells, its just new territory.

Slightly off topic, but relevant I guess. How useful are hexes to dip into? Is it an all or nothing school? Are things too resistant at high levels to make it even useful?

If you go hexes, you need to really invest into it if you want to use them on anything but popcorn. They're all about spellpower, and they either work of they don't-- all or nothing, as you put it. (Note that some uniques, like Sonja, actually have practically no MR and are therefore an excellent target for hexes)

As for your first post, it depends on what you're going for. I usually prefer Ice for it's greater utility and defenses (Freezing Cloud makes the midgame a joke) but Fire Storm is definitely better than Ice Storm. Having cast both Shatter and Tornado, I prefer Tornado late game, because Shatter does minimal damage to flying creatures, and most things in extended fly.

So the question is for a caster build worshipping Sif Muna, which is generally better?

Have a look at the top scores if you like.

The top five scores are either Su or Wz/Ne branching into summonings. That's because summoning was heavily overpowered until 0.11.

If you look at the following scores, many of them are FE. In fact DEFE, should you survive the early dungeon, is a strategically easy combo. Once you got fire storm castable, you should be able to win the game with 15 runes.

Shatter and tornado are strong but not as easy as storms:

Shatter will do little damage vs specific foes
Tornado takes some time to start

Concerning ice storm:

My usual plan with a caster is to go with ice spells to get ice storm. I like that it does more irresistable damage.

Nevertheless fire storm is considered to be better because it's smite targeting, if you run a DEFE you'll see it's more easy than a DEIE.

I don't know all the Hexes off the top of my head, but at the very least Leda's Liquefaction and Invisibility are both very good and do not rely heavily on spellpower.

Shatter may do 1/3 damage to flying targets. But one third of "a ****ing lot" is still plenty given that you're hitting everything in line of sight and killing most of that stuff and doing it all in a single turn (as opposed to Tornado, which kills things gradually). And also you have Iron Shot/LCS for the big boss dudes (or you can use Shatter to open the vault and sneak past the big boss dude). Just use whatever level 9 spell you want to try out, they're all awesome.

Turukano wrote:
So the question is for a caster build worshipping Sif Muna, which is generally better?

Have a look at the top scores if you like.

The top five scores are either Su or Wz/Ne branching into summonings. That's because summoning was heavily overpowered until 0.11.

If you look at the followings scores, many of them are FE. In fact DEFE, should you survive the early dungeon, is a strategically easy combo. Once you got fire storm castable, you should be able to win the game with 15 runes.

Shatter and tornado are strong but not as easy as storms:

Shatter will do little damage vs specific foes
Tornado takes some time to start
Concerning ice storm:

My usual plan with a caster is to go with ice spells to get ice storm. I like that it does more irresistable damage.

Nevertheless fire storm is considered to be better because it's smite targeting, if you run a DEFE you'll see it's more easy than a DEIE.

Firestorm is the superior spell, however Ice magic is probably the superior Magic School, which makes going for ice storm more efficient in the long run.

Allow me to take a moment to compare the 2 magic schools and explain to you what makes Ice magic so good:

Although fire magic has the leg up in early game with sticky flame and fireball(Bolt of fire is also technically easier to find) a lot of those spells become not nearly as useful versus a lot of enemies by mid-late game since fire resistance becomes more common. Here is a list of powerful offensive spells for fire magic that you would usually see yourself using by late-mid game:

>Fire Storm(duh)
>Fire ball(for the occasional evasive enemy)
>Bolt of Fire

And here is a list of powerful offensive spells for ice magic:

>Ice Storm
>Freezing Cloud
>Bolt of Cold
>Ozokubus refridgeration
>Simulacrum(becomes pretty useless in ext-end-game unless you follow Kiku)

Freezing cloud also trains up air magic, which is one of the magic schools for deflect missile(another very useful spell) and poison cloud, and Simulacrum uses necromancy, which is used in BR, Dispel undead, Necromutation, Haunt, and deaths door(this one might be a little trickier, though). Also, most characters able to cast ice storm are able to cast Fire ball at high power as well, but most characters who are able to cast Fire storm are NOT able to cast any of those spells Efficiently(except maybe Simulacrum).

Fire magic makes the world go BOOM, but ice magic is better for making a well rounded and efficient character. However, despite all of this, fire storm still IS the superior spell because it can be used as a defensive spell(vortexes block enemy fire), and fire magic is still more effective against zombies and skeletons(whom are extremely common late game). Be careful not to give people the wrong idea, nothing you said was incorrect, just not entirely clear.

They are both good, but I personally prefer ice magic because of its flexibility and laughably easy mid-game.

the smite targeting on firestorm makes it much more flexible than the Ice equivalent. I always liked shatter simply because casting it twice in a row does much more than tornado does, it also doesn't depend on surroundings too much and the earth magic school comes with iron shot. Tornado is nice, but doesn't work quick enough for me.

Tiktacy wrote:>Fire Storm(duh)
>Fire ball(for the occasional evasive enemy)
>Bolt of Fire

And here is a list of powerful offensive spells for ice magic:

>Ice Storm
>Freezing Cloud
>Bolt of Cold
>Ozokubus refridgeration
>Simulacrum(becomes pretty useless in ext-end-game unless you follow Kiku)

While it might not alter your point at all, you did skip bolt of magma and ignite poison.

I hear if you get 27 Earth and 27 Air and memorize both Shatter and Tornado, you get access to Shatnernado, which summons a giant commanding wind beast with something on its wing.

XuaXua wrote:I hear if you get 27 Earth and 27 Air and memorize both Shatter and Tornado, you get access to Shatnernado, which summons a giant commanding wind beast with something on its wing.

Is this anything like Beastly Appendage at 27 TMut where you transform into Rob Lowe?

Siegurt wrote:
Tiktacy wrote:>Fire Storm(duh)
>Fire ball(for the occasional evasive enemy)
>Bolt of Fire

And here is a list of powerful offensive spells for ice magic:

>Ice Storm
>Freezing Cloud
>Bolt of Cold
>Ozokubus refridgeration
>Simulacrum(becomes pretty useless in ext-end-game unless you follow Kiku)

While it might not alter your point at all, you did skip bolt of magma and ignite poison.

I skipped metabolic Englaciation as well, mostly because those are both very situational spells. =/

I will say: by the time sticky flame has worn out its welcome, you're out of the part of the game where you're really likely to die. But as you mention, Ice has not only a bunch of nice offensive spells (Throw Icicle is a great low-level conj) but some pretty excellent utility spells (ozo's armour, woo).

If you haven't learned Tornado or Shatter on a character, those are both lots of fun; definitely go Air or Earth instead of a familiar element because doing something new is a thing. Shatter kills stuff *now*, Tornado lets you do things while you kill stuff (and it kills more stuff). Tornado is probably actually the best spell in the game for killing all the dudes. I think Shatter is more entertaining because I like ruining the dungeon. Both Air and Earth have pretty excellent non-Storm spells, too -- Chain Lightning and LCS both own.

Air's early-mid game is probably more annoying than Earth's, unless you like the lightning bouncing minigame. Lightning is also real loud.

On a semi-related note... Which of the L9 nukes is best for Zigs? I've only tried Fire Storm and always end up running out of mana way before the bad guys all die

I haven't done a Zig myself -- but I've heard that Tornado is the most MP-efficient killer out there -- and there's certainly plenty of open space for it to work there. Some form of MP recovery (CBoE, Wucad Mu, Sublimation) is also a really really good idea, I believe.

Experty-experts?

Shatter is much better for stealthy characters like SpEn of Ash. Getting pan rune without seeing panlord is fun.

Sandman25 wrote:Shatter is much better for stealthy characters like SpEn of Ash. Getting pan rune without seeing panlord is fun.

This reminds me of something KoboldLord once said...

XuaXua wrote:I hear if you get 27 Earth and 27 Air and memorize both Shatter and Tornado, you get access to Shatnernado, which summons a giant commanding wind beast with something on its wing.

Shatnernado is for amateurs. Try this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2724064/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

bobross419 wrote:
Sandman25 wrote:Shatter is much better for stealthy characters like SpEn of Ash. Getting pan rune without seeing panlord is fun.

This reminds me of something KoboldLord once said...

Shatter loudness is not a problem unless you use Shatter to explore territory

You use Scry and high Stealth to find the rune, then you cast Phased Shift, Haste and use Shatter once or twice to break the wall, then you apport the rune and either teleport or just run to the stairs.

Sandman25 wrote:
bobross419 wrote:
Sandman25 wrote:Shatter is much better for stealthy characters like SpEn of Ash. Getting pan rune without seeing panlord is fun.

This reminds me of something KoboldLord once said...

Shatter loudness is not a problem unless you use Shatter to explore territory
You use Scry and high Stealth to find the rune, then you cast Phased Shift, Haste and use Shatter once or twice to break the wall, then you apport the rune and either teleport or just run to the stairs.

Not saying it can't be done... I just lol every time I picture that kool-aid man busting through the wall... Pissed my wife off because she was just about to fall asleep.

bobross419 wrote:Not saying it can't be done... I just lol every time I picture that kool-aid man busting through the wall... Pissed my wife off because she was just about to fall asleep.

I laughed too when I used the described Shatter trick for the first time

Another my character didn't have Shatter so it had to use LRD about 20 times to break a stone wall. It wasn't so funny but it worked great too because the layout was very good and no monster could see me despite the noise.

You should always use Shatter to break down Tomb, dive to Tomb 3, and use Shatter several times right there.

Also make sure you're playing in Wizmode with torment turned off.

XuaXua wrote:You should always use Shatter to break down Tomb, dive to Tomb 3, and use Shatter several times right there.

Also make sure you're playing in Wizmode with torment turned off.

Shatter is very dangerous even in Tomb 1. I was unpleasantly surprised how many Greater Mummies get out of corridors.

That's because that corridor is full of greater mummies.

So you're telling me that a lot of greater mummies come out of the corridors because... the corridors are full of greater mummies?

Im not sure I'm buying it.

You don't have to believe me, you can check it out yourself!

If you can cast Shatter, you can cast statue form, and that will help some with torment. Spamming Shatter in Tomb 3 still hurts pretty bad though.

If you're going to do shattering in Tomb, save it for Tomb:2. It is a bad move on 1 or 3 most of the time. (One of my earlier splats involved Tomb:3 shatter, and Tomb:1 is massively harder when the greater mummies from the rim wander out and start joining the party in a much less controlled environment.)

I've only used Shatter in Tomb once. After clearing the initial part of Tomb:1 I shattered one of the hallway corners closest to the upstairs. It still didn't feel as easy as doing the normal hallway clear, but at least it skipped Tomb:2 welcome party.

Siegurt wrote:
Tiktacy wrote:>Fire Storm(duh)
>Fire ball(for the occasional evasive enemy)
>Bolt of Fire

And here is a list of powerful offensive spells for ice magic:

>Ice Storm
>Freezing Cloud
>Bolt of Cold
>Ozokubus refridgeration
>Simulacrum(becomes pretty useless in ext-end-game unless you follow Kiku)

While it might not alter your point at all, you did skip bolt of magma and ignite poison.

He also skipped all the spells in the starting book for IE, which are totally BOSS compared to all other starting books.

It is weird to see a necrod thread where something you said a year and a half ago was quoted.

It took me a good thirty seconds to realize what was going on, which is odd, because I kept trying to figure out why people kept mentioning ice storm instead of glaciate. You'd think that would have been a big enough clue.

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