Wand removal nitpick

[Rast]

Please put frost back in, and remove flame instead, so we still have a cold-damage wand.

There are already more sources of evokable fire than cold:
- Lamp of fire makes fire
- Rod of ignition makes fire
- Rod of clouds can produce both damage types
- Rod of destruction can produce both damage types

[Sar]

I think phial damage interacts with rC in some way, but I could be wrong!

[neil]

Please put frost back in, and remove flame instead, so we still have a cold-damage wand.

There are already more sources of evokable fire than cold:
- Lamp of fire makes fire
- Rod of ignition makes fire
- Rod of clouds can produce both damage types
- Rod of destruction can produce both damage types

I too think there is too much fire and not enough cold for evokers (is there any reliable source of evocable cold damage?), and replacing frost with flame was my first suggestion. But it was pointed out that 1. that doesn't change much for later game, where frost and flame are both highly outclassed; and more importantly 2. that is more painful for players in the early game, where there is a lot more rC than rF.

My second suggestion, which I still stand by, was to turn wand of fireball into wand of coldball.

Edit: Longer-term, we should probably reduce the amount of overlap among rC, rP, and rN on monsters, particularly the common ones.

Edit 2: Phial uses the weird "res_water_drowning" resistance, which is influenced by nonbreathing, habitat, and being made of fire. And only has one level.

[Blink Frog]

My second suggestion, which I still stand by, was to turn wand of fireball into wand of coldball.

+1

I find Flame a bit more useful than Frost since I use those wands mostly in the early game and Ice Beasts are a greater threat than those red Imps.

A cold version of Fireball would counter the "too much fire" issue as well as create an unique attack.

[Rast]

in the early game, where there is a lot more rC than rF.

Yes, but the stuff you actually want to wand to death doesn't tend to have rC. Except Ice beasts. Forgot about those.

I think wand of frost (or whichever one gets kept) could stand to get a bump in power cap, so it stays relevant longer.

Wand of coldball has horrible flavor, IMO.

[dpeg]

My second suggestion, which I still stand by, was to turn wand of fireball into wand of coldball.

You clearly mean wand of snowball, don't you?

I agree with all the rest. Hopefully we can remove /disintegration while looking at wands.

[Rast]

Hopefully we can remove /disintegration while looking at wands.

Should be combined with digging, actually.

[dpeg]

Rast: I don't think there's a good reason to couble a dungeon with a damage effect.

[Sprucery]

Rast: I don't think there's a good reason to couble a dungeon with a damage effect.

I don't care about the damage but just make /digging targetable so that you can select how far you want to dig (and max range could depend on Evo skill).

[bcadren]

Disint is the only Damage that ONLY checks MR...which makes it somewhat unique. Perhaps remove the digging effect and move to a spell? (NOT that hexes necessarily need a buff; but it'd be an interesting/unique spot there; perhaps as a rare spell [like confusing touch only in one book]) Or maybe hex/conj - 4 or so? competing with airstrike in that it can't miss (MR check instead) but similar damage roll? not smited...idk I think the damage effect.

[Rast]

Rast: I don't think there's a good reason to couble a dungeon with a damage effect.

Stone of Earth.

A few other earth spells.

Certain wands/spells can be used both to damage monsters and to remove trees.

[Lasty]

I'm a big fan of the combine-disint-and-digging idea, and I've been pushing for it in ##crawl-dev. We've been talking about this whole topic a lot recently. I'm thinking that one way to resolve the overlapping damage types while getting cold back in is to make one of the wands an acid effect (bolt of acid or acidball) and make another a cold effect. That takes draining out of the mix, but draining is also pretty redundant w/ cold. Lightning is the one that we expect to keep because it actually behaves differently from other beams, making it more distinctive.

[dpeg]

Lasty: To me, these are the important points:

1. Keep digging on a wand.
2. Remove one wand type.

Whether the damage effect is kept or not is much lower priority for me. (And the name of the wand does not matter at all.)

[Jarlyk]

I would love to see a cold wand with dazzling-spray style targeting, without beam penetration. Sorta like a mini-Glaciate without the Frozen effect. This helps differentiate wands not only by damage type, but also by the area of effect, for when resistances aren't a consideration. It also slightly encourages positioning other than being lodged in a narrow corridor (the near-ideal positioning for most attacks, including melee, beams, clouds, etc.)

[Ceann]

Please put frost back in, and remove flame instead, so we still have a cold-damage wand.

There are already more sources of evokable fire than cold:
- Lamp of fire makes fire
- Rod of ignition makes fire
- Rod of clouds can produce both damage types
- Rod of destruction can produce both damage types

Could you just remove both make it a stone arrow wand? Or combine them them into a wand that casts a random low lvl Cj spell?
It would leave it unbiased and give a wand the capability of kill things immune to a specific element, which I am sure is the primary complaint.

[edgefigaro]

Other nitpick: Invis Wands and Rings were removed. Cloak of invis, you say, and thats fine. Felids get hit hard by this choice, as getting either a wand or a ring was a major boon that heavily flavors the run, and they don't have access to the invis cloak.

RIP invis wand and ring. I'll pour a 40 on the curb for you.

[Ceann]

Other nitpick: Invis Wands and Rings were removed. Cloak of invis, you say, and thats fine. Felids get hit hard by this choice, as getting either a wand or a ring was a major boon that heavily flavors the run, and they don't have access to the invis cloak.

RIP invis wand and ring. I'll pour a 40 on the curb for you.

So can Mu get invis now short of raising hexes?
Just let Mu drink potions already...

[WalkerBoh]

I have to say, I really like the ideas being offered in this thread. I'd throw my vote for the following:

- Remove wand of draining, replace with bolt of acid and/or cold wand
- Remove wand of flame
- Replace current wand of random effects with what Ceann suggested, random low-level Cj spell (flame, frost, stone arrow, sting, mdart, etc.)
- Remove wand of disint

With regards to dig/disint, now that you can't disint statues, I don't see any reason to have it in the game at all. It will be a little sad to not be able to splatter Sonja into 100 pieces all over the dungeon, but I think it's worth removing anyways.

[prozacelf]

I like the ideas for acid splash and/or freezing spray wands.
As far as the random wand goes, if it's still considered desirable for it to have effects that are detrimental to the player, it could do random low level Cj spells and other effects like swiftness or stoneskin or what have you that would be bad if a monster got them (I don't know which if any of these can actually be applied to monsters under the current system, although Fannar can use Ozo's Armour....)

Walker: OOD still exists for your baddie splattering needs!

[Rast]

I like wand of draining - combines damage and debuff.

It's also interesting in monster hands, and increases the value of player rN.

[o_O]

I like wand of draining - combines damage and debuff.

It's also interesting in monster hands, and increases the value of player rN.

I agree about draining, and I think the way it lowers target HD Allows good interaction with status effect wands and spells.

[TeshiAlair]

Random kvetch: drives me nuts that artificers start with a wand of flame and not frost just because Dithmenos exists.

[pubby]

https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=8228
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=8228
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=8228
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=8228
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=8228
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=8228

[savageorange]

Oops:


(note the flame next to the wand

via https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/ ... _iceblast/

[ontoclasm]

Oops:


(note the flame next to the wand

via https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/ ... _iceblast/

It took us one day!

[savageorange]

I'm not criticising. Just passing on a report on the principle it's better to tell you something you already know than to fail to tell you something that you don't know.

[sanka]

I always thought that the lack of a "fireball" like cold effect was one of the (few) distinguishing features of the fire element.

[ydeve]

Note that it's on a wand now, not a spell. I think it's good that evocables are moving towards unique effects.