Proposal: lv. 7 Pure Fire Spell, Iskenderun's Flamethrower

[pratamawirya]

Mechanic
Basically fire-elemental scattershot that doesn't check AC as much. Damage could be on par with bolt of fire or a little bit weaker.

Reason
Fire magic, the way I see it, should be the best elemental spell school when it comes to outright destroying enemies. This means that fire magic should give you the best ways to deal any kind of practical damage in any situations. But this characteristic isn't currently employed too well by the spell school. Between dealing decent damage with low to mid-ish spells (up to Bolt of Fire) and totally obliterating everything with Firestorm, there is no "if you have this, you can pretty much relax"-type one. Bolt of fire is good but doesn't cover much space, Ignition and ring of flames are expensive. Fire needs something that can wipe out a large number of enemy at once and make the caster feel safe, BUT also not too expensive. I mean, Ice magic has Freezing Clouds, air magic has CBL. (Earth doesn't seem to have any spell that fills that niche but it's ok.)

With the addition of this spell, the mid-to-endgame tactics of a fire mage would go like this:
- Enemies in a line or a bit far away? Bolt of fire!
- Enemies coming in from many directions? Flamethrower!
- Enemies everywhere? Ignition!

[ONIchinchin]

Fire magic, the way I see it, should be the best spell school when it comes to outright destroying enemies

Good thing it's already the best conjuration spellschool.

[Shard1697]

IMO a lot of that comes from conjure flame, which feels like a bit of a cheesy spell to use to its full potential. (Especially because of how enemy AI deals with deciding to walk into damage clouds.)

[pratamawirya]

IMO a lot of that comes from conjure flame, which feels like a bit of a cheesy spell to use to its full potential. (Especially because of how enemy AI deals with deciding to walk into damage clouds.)

Sorry, but what are you replying to? ONIchinchin's post?

[Shard1697]

Yeah, I think fire magic is pretty carried by that spell(in comparison to other elemental schools anyways).

[lethediver]

"Fire magic, the way I see it, should be the best spell school when it comes to outright destroying enemies."

What about conjurations? =/

This spell just doesn't jump out at me, sorry. So it shoots in all directions? If you're in a situation where everything is coming at you from different directions you are already playing wrong. Spells that require you to play wrong to use them (ring of flames is another example) are bad. QED

[pratamawirya]

What about conjurations? =/

I mean among elemental schools. Maybe I didn't word it properly.

This spell just doesn't jump out at me, sorry. So it shoots in all directions? If you're in a situation where everything is coming at you from different directions you are already playing wrong. Spells that require you to play wrong to use them (ring of flames is another example) are bad. QED

This works the way scattershot works. Now do you think scattershot (with regards to it's wide spread) is a badly-designed attack?

[duvessa]

FWIW ignition probably needs to be dropped to level 7 to be remotely worth memorizing/casting.

[Rast]

FWIW ignition firestorm probably needs to be dropped to level 7 to be remotely worth memorizing/casting.

(Am I doing it right?)

[pratamawirya]

FWIW ignition probably needs to be dropped to level 7 to be remotely worth memorizing/casting.

Yes, lol. Don't hold back. Fire magic needs a good and not too expensive tool to destroy everything on screen. I mean, that's why we pick fire magic at the first place: because we don't care about getting cheap armour, turning into a statue, etc, etc, and only about killing dudes.

[bel]

This works the way scattershot works. Now do you think scattershot (with regards to it's wide spread) is a badly-designed attack?

Scattershot works in many ways. One of the best ways is to use it against a hydra (or any monster with low AC) right next to you; it will shred the monster in one hit.

Coming back to the OP, I don't really see why Fire needs more offensive spells.

[pratamawirya]

Scattershot is flexible. It's like chain lightning, really; you can use it on multiple targets, or just on one to kill it immediately. I really think fire magic needs something really powerful like that. Right now our options are:
1. Bolt of fire (powerful but goes in a line only, and it's not so strong that it can OHKO a single nasty dude)
2. Ignition (too expensive, and doesn't have an OHKO potential either)
3. Firestorm (too damned expensive that we hardly ever need it in a 3-rune game)
4. RIng of flames (expensive and doesn't deal enough damage, and of course no OHKO-ing either)

[NhorianScum]

Inner flame/Cflame is almost strictly better in any situation I would want this.

The joke behind ignition is that more damage is the last thing fire needs as a spellschool.

[pratamawirya]

Inner flame/Cflame is almost strictly better in any situation I would want this.

The joke behind ignition is that more damage is the last thing fire needs as a spellschool.

If you actually read the thread properly, you'd know that it was basically about a fire-elemental scattershot, and scattershot is not just "more damage" (though, yeah, OHKO-ing a hydra or whatever with it feels good).

Now whether duplicating scattershot and making the duplicate fire-elemental and a level 7 fire spell is a good idea... is another question entirely.

Anyway, the motivation behind this proposal was to bridge the gap in fire magic between bolt of fire and the expensive bad boys (firestorm, etc). If duvessa's idea to lower Ignition to level 7 ever gets implemented, then I won't care that much about this proposal anymore, lol.

[NhorianScum]

Inner flame/Cflame is almost strictly better in any situation I would want this.

The joke behind ignition is that more damage is the last thing fire needs as a spellschool.

If you actually read the thread properly, you'd know that it was basically about a fire-elemental scattershot, and scattershot is not just "more damage" (though, yeah, OHKO-ing a hydra or whatever with it feels good).

Now whether duplicating scattershot and making the duplicate fire-elemental and a level 7 fire spell is a good idea... is another question entirely.

Anyway, the motivation behind this proposal was to bridge the gap in fire magic between bolt of fire and the expensive bad boys (firestorm, etc). If duvessa's idea to lower Ignition to level 7 ever gets implemented, then I won't care that much about this proposal anymore, lol.

I read the thread. The response was in context.

Ignition at level 7 would be efficient. I still hate it on every possible level.

[pratamawirya]

Ignition is kind of dumb (why doesn't the caster get hit by the explosion? I really dislike special cases like that) and not very flavorful, yes. I thought and still think that "flame thrower" is cooler, lol.

[NhorianScum]

Dfireball Self, Fireball Self also worked in this context. I'm sure someone will rag on this "suboptimal" play but it's FE, you're rocking RF++ minimum because you're playing FE.

Ice needs the midgame fluidity buff far more than fire ever will since optimal skilling involves capping ice invest at... #### freeze before glaciate.

Edit: By glaciate I mean firestorm.

[duvessa]

There are a lot of area spells that don't affect the caster. Ignite Poison, Olgreb's, Mass Confusion, Ring of Flames while active, Shatter, Tornado...

The explosions are shaped around the caster because otherwise it would be annoying to use, and I refuse to add spells that are annoying to use. Unspoiled players would also likely kill themselves by casting it while surrounded.
The explosions are shaped around allies (and the spell doesn't explode allies) to prevent possible abuses with summoning spells. You could prevent it from working on summons at all but that makes the spell even worse (it loses almost all of its utility in places like Tomb) and is, if anything, an uglier special case. There's also weird stuff that could happen with effects like death channel and infestation if shaping around allies is removed.

Imo the big design problem with ignition is that it sucks against single monsters, which in Crawl means that it sucks, period.

[NhorianScum]

Well, the rest of the school is based around frying off your own eyebrows and indiscriminately blowing up everything on screen flavor wise, and rewards you for doing so mechanically.

Ignition is almost almost as silly and redundant as adding a spell to fire that amounts to "so it's Iron shot/LRD, but does none of the things you learn Iron shot/LRD for".

It's hard to call keystrokes tedious when they result in fire. (Seriously has anyone actually complained about Dfireball, ever)

[duvessa]

"so it's Iron shot/LRD, but does none of the things you learn Iron shot/LRD for".

who leaked the force lance design documents

[Shard1697]

How is the rest of the school based around "frying off your own eyebrows and indiscriminately blowing up everything on screen"? I don't know about you but I don't ever normally hurt myself with my own fire magic spells(or usually affect that much of the screen), even fireball can be used safely with an enemy right next to you...

[pratamawirya]

I knew the motivation behind ignition's blasts not hurting the caster and their allies and I support it. Though, to players, it's still a potentially-confusing special case since the spell is obviously based on fireball, and fireball hurts you.

Regarding the "sucks against single monsters" bit... you're right. Fire is outclassed by air and earth in this context; they have chain lightning and lcs. A fire elementalist needs to branch out to use iood or something to OHKO a single nasty target. Considering that fire magic is the only elemental school focused on damage, I find that to be uncool. That's one part of why I proposed a fire-elemental scattershot.

[NhorianScum]

How is the rest of the school based around "frying off your own eyebrows and indiscriminately blowing up everything on screen"? I don't know about you but I don't ever normally hurt myself with my own fire magic spells(or usually affect that much of the screen), even fireball can be used safely with an enemy right next to you...

Playing optimaly generates a large number of player deaths via cntrlQ.

Fireball is loud.

You will likely reach a situation where blowing yourself up will deal less damage than not blowing yourself up quite often when playing suboptimaly in the sort of enemy dense area you encounter when Rf++ can be safely assumed.

@ OP. BoF and to a lesser extent fireball with enhancers are on par with Iron shot for single targets because fire realisticly stacks more enhancers than earth and int is limited in a 3 rune. Unless you're hitting 50 int on a game-to-game basis not only is there never a reason to branch out for single target damage on non-Rf+ targets there is no reason to ever learn LCS over Iron Shot. This is less optimal play (boring) and more optimal skilling. For similar reasons you never actually were encoraged to cast DFireball via wiz swapping long term (DFireball at 1% without wiz was a breakpoint for max spellpower at 3-4 enhancer spellpower which is highly relevant for anyone casting fireball).

[Jeremiah]

What about a version of Ignition, that instead of putting a fireball on every visible monster, creates a number of fireballs determined by spellpower then divides them between monsters in LOS?
So if there is only one monster on screen, all fireballs hit it, but if there are lots of monsters they get spread around.

[bel]

Sounds similar to conjure ball lightning, except with fire instead of lightning.

[Siegurt]

What about a version of Ignition, that instead of putting a fireball on every visible monster, creates a number of fireballs determined by spellpower then divides them between monsters in LOS?
So if there is only one monster on screen, all fireballs hit it, but if there are lots of monsters they get spread around.

That is exactly the original version i wrote for glaciate, the devs liked the name, but not the mechanic, so it was scrapped
Edit: well, actually, it was targeted like dazzling spray, so maybe that was the problem with it.

[Rast]

What about a version of Ignition, that instead of putting a fireball on every visible monster, creates a number of fireballs determined by spellpower then divides them between monsters in LOS?
So if there is only one monster on screen, all fireballs hit it, but if there are lots of monsters they get spread around.

Then it becomes ridiculous 1v1

[VeryAngryFelid]

Then it becomes ridiculous 1v1

Yes, we need quite the opposite spells, i.e. spells which encourage fighting big groups. For example, a spell which is single target but deals varied damage depending on number of hostile monsters in view: more monsters result in greater damage. But then it leads to luring

[prozacelf]

There are a lot of area spells that don't affect the caster. Ignite Poison, Olgreb's, Mass Confusion, Ring of Flames while active, Shatter, Tornado...

The explosions are shaped around the caster because otherwise it would be annoying to use, and I refuse to add spells that are annoying to use. Unspoiled players would also likely kill themselves by casting it while surrounded.
The explosions are shaped around allies (and the spell doesn't explode allies) to prevent possible abuses with summoning spells. You could prevent it from working on summons at all but that makes the spell even worse (it loses almost all of its utility in places like Tomb) and is, if anything, an uglier special case. There's also weird stuff that could happen with effects like death channel and infestation if shaping around allies is removed.

Imo the big design problem with ignition is that it sucks against single monsters, which in Crawl means that it sucks, period.

Damn straight. Conjure Ball LIghtning should be the only spell that you routinely kill yourself with while learning how to use it properly!

[Shard1697]

In my experience the way to use Conjure Ball Lightning properly is "don't memorize Conjure Ball Lightning"

[Siegurt]

In my experience the way to use Conjure Ball Lightning properly is "don't memorize Conjure Ball Lightning"

If you never memorize it, then how will you ever get the experience to use it properly?

[duvessa]

In my opinion, CBL is currently the game's best conjuration spell above level 4. Of course, that's because it's a summoning spell in disguise. You cast it and then you walk away and then the enemy dies.

[tasonir]

How about a somewhat more positioning dependant spell? Flame Circle - creates a circle of flames at range 3 from your position - these move with you, so if you step forward, they move forward (instantly) as well. Whether they fill the entire range 3 square around your character or only some of that square could depend on balance/spellpower, if they filled every square it might be too easy to kite backwards and keep monsters in the effect. Another 'fix' for that issue could be to only allow it to hit each monster once, in that version it'd be a "softening" spell before you finish them with other spells.

It's somewhat similar to ring of flames now, just by making it higher range it's usable before things are meleeing you, and also doesn't have as much of a "shield me from bolts of cold" sort of effect.

The other obvious design is a flame nova which hits in all directions, but similar to the scattershot idea, it is most useful when you've messed up and the optimal strategy would be to never use it. And depending on range - is it full LOS, only up to range 4 or 5, etc - you'd probably have to keep the damage pretty low otherwise it's going to be broken.

I think a flame circle that only hits each monster once could work. The flavor of only hitting once and then being immune to the flames is kind of weird, though.