Lower the noise on Lightning Bolt

[Jeremiah]

If anything should get its noise reduced it's probably Glaciate; it's generally considered weaker than Fire Storm, so why not make it the low-noise high-level conjuration to buff it a bit?

[MrPlanck]

LB sucks, unless you want to pull. The damage aspect is unreliable and tedious. Poor accuracy means you typically burn mp killing what's on screen, and then you have to deal with all the adds or run away. Lots of running (part of the reason early air mages are nearly intolerable to play). I can't recall the last time I learned the spell.

[KoboldLord]

I haven't experienced any dissatisfaction with the damage output of Lightning Bolt. It's quite easy to set up multizaps in most terrain, and if I am building my air elementalist like the normal way I build the majority of my elementalists I'm feeding xp into defensive and melee skills anyway, so taking the occasional hit in exchange for double damage is really not so terrible. It has a bolt AoE with a much lower xp investment required than any other bolt except Venom Bolt, so that means I have even more xp to invest elsewhere.

One irritation I do have with it is the fact that I have to manually check targeting on all walls near my desired target in order to check whether there's a superior multizap option available. Even when I find one, it won't work again next turn if the monster moves and the game engine will move auto-targeting back to the monster either way. It's not a spell that I can mash the ` key with, which is unfortunate.

If anything should get its noise reduced it's probably Glaciate; it's generally considered weaker than Fire Storm, so why not make it the low-noise high-level conjuration to buff it a bit?

Glaciate is only the worst 9th-level damage spell in the abstract realm where 9th-level spells are a worthwhile investment at all. If you have already made the questionable decision to pick one up, it will do the job quite effectively.

[Berder]

Glaciate is actually really good... hits a larger area, hits adjacent enemies, and is less resistible than firestorm. More of the worst enemies are immune to fire than to cold (orbs of fire, hell sentinels). I'd even consider firestorm to be worse.