Rewrite Phial of Floods description

[le_nerd]

Currently, the description of Phial of Floods is as follows:

An enchanted vessel brimming over with elemental water. Removing the stopper
unleashes a torrent of water from the phial and sets free the water spirits
that dwell within it.

Nothing in it hints at it doing ice damage, or being especially hurtful towards fiery monsters.

Yet when one targes a Phial against a Hellion or Pit Fiend, one gets the message "Foo is doused terribly"

I have no clue what ever that is supposed to mean; the flavor is there but its all terribly untidy. Is it a hardcoded list of these monsters? Is it all cold vulnerably monsters? Do they even get more damage, as other "terribly"- notes seem to imply? Whatever it is, it is currently terribly undocumented, and should be changed.

[neil]

They actually have water vulnerability, which is entirely separate from cold vulnerability. Besides the Phial, it also affects the Primal Wave spell of MfAq and wellsprings, and the drowning attacks of water elementals. I wrote a patch to list that in xv (as well as rSticky and rWind), but am not yet pushing it to trunk because there is some complication: not needing to breathe cancels out water vulnerability, so fire elementals and orbs of fire aren't actually water-vulnerable, despite having the water-vulnerable resistance flag (and therefore being listed as vulnerable with the patch).

Probably we should stop conflating "water vulnerable" and "susceptible to drowning".

[Sar]

not needing to breathe cancels out water vulnerability, so fire elementals and orbs of fire aren't actually water-vulnerable, despite having the water-vulnerable resistance flag

That's curious, considering I'd say the logic behind a fire elemental being vulnerable to water is "it's made of goddamn fire" and not "it can't breathe".

Then again, maybe it's actually made of napalm. Fr: sticky flame touch attack for fire elementals.

[duvessa]

Given that orbs of fire actually have cold resistance, water vulnerability seems like a pretty awful feature that shouldn't be a thing

[Rast]

Given that orbs of fire actually have cold resistance, water vulnerability seems like a pretty awful feature that shouldn't be a thing

Orbs of fire have immunity to just about everything except pointy metal sticks, so the cold resistance does mean they are relatively vulnerable to cold.

[bcadren]

Orbs of fire have immunity to just about everything except pointy metal sticks, so the cold resistance does mean they are relatively vulnerable to cold.

It's kind of weird that there isn't a physical resistance already. How interesting it'd be if ghosts were more resistant to physical hits (pointy sticks and iron shots) than elemental ones...hehehe

Don't tell me it's AC; since AC resists EVERYTHING...

also I think Orbs of Fire only have one rank of rC so Ozo's Fridge doesn't obliterate them too easily.

[duvessa]

If you're going to add a physical resistance you might as well remove physical damage, since not being resistible is the only reason for physical damage to exist.

[adozu]

why would cold and water resists need to be related at all?

just because cold attacks -sometimes- use water components does not make them similar, if anything throw icicle (which uses cold water) moves away from cold damage partially becoming unresistible.

steam damage is also a thing in crawl (just saying water isnt married to cold damage).

attacks that are "pure water" in the game first and foremost hurt because of the kinetic force of it.

[duvessa]

attacks that are "pure water" in the game first and foremost hurt because of the kinetic force of it.

Then there shouldn't be water resistance or vulnerability.

[jejorda2]

The vulnerability of a fire-natured creature to water is based on fire's need for air. So it isn't that different from drowning, and the breathing flag should cover it. Fire Elementals and Orbs of Fire should be tagged as breathing, and they should be vulnerable to drowning.

The vulnerability of an electricity based creature to water is based on shorting out the current. So that should probably be cited as a water vulnerability.

If there were salt golems or if mummies got waterlogged, a water vulnerability would make sense for them, too.