Iron Shot vs LCS

[Aethrus]

Iron Shot is a level 6 spell with a range of 4, while LCS is a slightly stronger level 8 spell with a range of 3. If you were to fire both spells at a normal speed enemy approaching the player, using Iron Shot would use the same amount of MP as LCS would until the enemy was adjacent, but deal much more damage than LCS, and it has the added value of dealing damage at a longer range.

When Crawl used CircleLOS, Iron Shot had a range of 5 files and LCS had a range of 4 tiles, assuming there were no diagonals. With the shift to SquareLOS making maximum player line of sight range slightly smaller, from 8 to 7. Iron Shot changed to a range of 4 and LCS a range of 3. The resulting modifications had more impact with the relative balance of these two spells... casters using LCS no longer might see an opppnent on a diagonal, kite them to a horizontal or vertical angle and then be able to fire off shots rapidly. A good change overall, but leaving this spell fairly vestigial, I feel, now that it no longer has even half the range of your line of sight.

It seems to me that LCS is simply inferior to the lower level and far more accessible spell Iron Shot in the majority of circumstances. Iron Shot alone can do what LCS can do just as well as the higher level spell normally, and using them both together seems like a fairly significant waste of spell levels.

LCS is slightly more accurate as well, but I just find it difficult to justify using the spell even on characters using heavy focus on conjurations and earth magic to begin with when it offers such little marginal additional utility. 4 Iron Shots is just as much MP cost, more range, and more damage than 3 Crystal Spears.

I'm not confident enough in my understanding of the mechanics involved to recommend any specific changes that might be made, but I feel like this spell is straight inferior to its lower level counterpart, and that doesn't seem like intended design.

[crate]

LCS is better because it does more damage per turn, and this is very important. If you can cast LCS you should basically never be using Iron Shot instead.

You might be able to argue that it's not enough better (i.e. it's not worth the investment to get to the point where you can cast LCS, even though LCS is the more powerful spell).

[Hurkyl]

Iron Shot is a level 6 spell with a range of 4, while LCS is a slightly stronger level 8 spell with a range of 3. If you were to fire both spells at a normal speed enemy approaching the player, using Iron Shot would use the same amount of MP as LCS would until the enemy was adjacent, but deal much more damage than LCS, and it has the added value of dealing damage at a longer range.

Can you post the numbers that led to that conclusion? My recollection of my studies are that LCS and IS have essentially the same MP efficiency, rather than IS being much better. And even that analysis was biased to in IS's favor, as it ignored the fact the IS damage is spread out across more shots (and thus the enemy gets to apply their AC more times) and accuracy (I think LCS is more accurate?).

(also, not all enemies start at range 4 or more)
(also, if something needs to die rapidly, you could cast IS at range 4 then LCS afterwards)

[Dreemurr]

It really depends what you're trying to do. Iron Shot is great for popping less-worthy enemies but for something that is really lethal and deserves the extra mp I'd much rather use OoD anyway since it doesnt get evaded. You wouldn't go after cerebov with iron shot but why would you LCS a neqoxec?

[crate]

LCS and iron shot are basically the same mp efficiency on average (assuming they both hit) against 0 ac enemies, as far as I know (I'm too lazy to source dive right now, but learndb numbers agree with this). LCS will be slightly more efficient in practice, since enemies have >0 ac and LCS has higher accuracy.

[Aethrus]

You might be able to argue that it's not enough better (i.e. it's not worth the investment to get to the point where you can cast LCS, even though LCS is the more powerful spell).

This is the crux of my argument basically. If I have both LCS and Iron Shot, then ideally for maximum damage output I would be using Iron Shot at range 4 and then LCS for range 3 and below.

If I have just Iron Shot, I use Iron Shot at range 4 and below. If I have just LCS, I use it at range 3 and below. If I can have only one of them, Iron Shot is the more useful option in my mind, because I have that extra range to shoot at someone further away. So, if choosing between the two, Iron Shot seems the better choice, because most of the time the extra range will let me start dealing damage sooner than I would with LCS to begin with. Certainly not all the time, but enough of the time at least to be worth it.

So if I do have Iron Shot, and I am considering also getting LCS, all I'm looking at changing realistically is making my range 3 and below attacks a little more MP intensive, and deal a little more damage with a little more accuracy. That doesn't seem worth 8 spell slots.

[Wahaha]

Does LCS "seem" not worth it or have you actually tried using it and were disappointed? When I can learn LCS I always learn it, and use both IS and LCS. Like crate said, doing more damage per turn, with better accuracy, and less AC dmg reduction is good.

If LCS is in danger of being eclipsed by another spell, it is not by iron shot but by orb of destruction. (yes I'm aware of the drawbacks of OOD thanks) They are both spells that do a huge amount of physical damage but OOD is easier to learn and rarely misses when used from range.

[Aethrus]

Does LCS "seem" not worth it or have you actually tried using it and were disappointed? When I can learn LCS I always learn it, and use both IS and LCS. Like crate said, doing more damage per turn, with better accuracy, and less AC dmg reduction is good.

If LCS is in danger of being eclipsed by another spell, it is not by iron shot but by orb of destruction. (yes I'm aware of the drawbacks of OOD thanks) They are both spells that do a huge amount of physical damage but OOD is easier to learn and rarely misses when used from range.

I've used it before with both spells and felt like it didn't offer much additional utility, and characters who've been able to learn both since then, I've generally leaned towards grabbing Irom Shot and then spending spell levels and training in other fields rather than LCS.

See this character for reference. Even in extended I used Iron Shot far, far more often than LCS... Over 1300 times in XL24-27 as opposed to 250 for LCS. Granted, I cast Iron Shot much more than Shatter during that period as well, but Shatter did a very different job than Iron Shot.

[crate]

fwiw I would rather adjust iron shot than LCS if you think one needs an adjustment

I don't have a strong argument for this at the moment nor do I feel like constructing one

(Orb of destruction actually overlaps more with iron shot than with LCS, since it is pretty much the same amount of xp as iron shot.)

[Aethrus]

fwiw I would rather adjust iron shot than LCS if you think one needs an adjustment

I don't have a strong argument for this at the moment nor do I feel like constructing one

(Orb of destruction actually overlaps more with iron shot than with LCS, since it is pretty much the same amount of xp as iron shot.)

I never actually said one needed an adjustment or the other. LCS just seemed less useful overall to me despite being higher level, and I was curious if that feeling was shared, or what the design intention was here. More just asking the question.

[Siegurt]

If anything I would give them slightly different utility, like give LCS a peircing (bolt) effect (up to it's range of 3) which would serve to differentiate it from IS and OOD

[duvessa]

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/1a90af9aba18

[Siegurt]

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/1a90af9aba18

Shows you how often I train that much earth magic (hint: almost never, it's been at least that long since I used LCS

[Sar]

It wasn't merged, not in actual Crawl.

[yesno]

if LCS is better, given the assumption that you can cast it, i think the thing is that iron shot is "good enough". a character who can cast iron shot at good spell power can already kill stuff that needs to die fast enough, and probably has more immediate XP priorities than casting a more damaging single target conj spell.

[Quazifuji]

I don't have a strong argument for this at the moment nor do I feel like constructing one

I would say LCS' role is arguably more iconic and unique than Iron Shot. LCS is the highest-level and highest-damage single-target spell in the game. Iron Shot is one of many level 5-7 spells that fires a damaging projectile in a line. Sure, it's got a role as earth's equivalent to the "bolt" spells of other schools, and it's distinguished from them by being single-target but unresistable (and from OOD by being faster and more reliable), but overall I'd say LCS' role as the only level 8 single-target damage spell is is more unique than Iron Shot's as a level 6 projectile spell that's got a slightly different targeting system from the other level 6 projectile spells.

I guess the argument in favor of Iron Shot would be if someone considered it desirable for conjurations-focused casters to have access to an unresistable projectile spell that's effective in late game, and felt that LCS was too high level and OOD's mechanics were too weird to serve that purpose. I find that argument less compelling, personally.

Really, one could argue that in general it would be nice to distinguish the level 5-7 line damage conjurations more. Although the biggest offenders there would be bolt of cold an fire, which are basically identical besides damage type. Iron Shot, Bolt of Draining, and Lightning Bolt at least each have some other notable feature (single-target, silent and draining, and noise and bouncing, respectively). But maybe that's a topic for a different thread.

[Hurkyl]

LCS is just a lvl 8 spell that fires in a line. :p

Iron Shot is distinguished from the other spells in its vicinity by the fact it does more damage by a fair amount. (with the drawback of shorter range and being single target)

(well, Poison Arrow does do more against unresisting targets)

[Sar]

I'm pretty sure ood does more, especially if you consider the average damage and the fact it ignores EV.

[crate]

Bolt of fire/cold actually do pretty much exactly the same damage as iron shot.

edit: ok to clarify, iron shot does deal very slightly more damage at most spellpower levels, but it is a pretty small difference, especially at realistic numbers (difference of ~5 maxdam at 100 spellpower). 200 spellpower is generally not realistic. (Bolt of fire/cold has slightly more accuracy until ~110 spellpower also.)

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=p ... m+0+to+200
blue is iron shot, magenta is bolt of fire/cold, brown is LCS; y-axis is maxdam, x-axis is spellpower

[Xion350]

When I was using my Earth Elementalist I actaully eventually had both learned. I could occasionally see the need to have one more tile of range, or to have more power. Though it became moot when I could just shatter everything. I never could decide between the two.

[Hurkyl]

Looking at max damage skews things against spells that roll more dice. To get average damage of an XdY, you want to look at half of the sum of minimum and maximum damage. IIRC, this remains true for fractional Y as crawl interprets such.

At 100 power, that's 49.5 versus 45.3. Iron shot averages over 9% more damage (before AC) per hit. (the difference is much greater, of course, against an enemy with elemental resistance)

[crate]

Yes, I was too lazy to do that.

I personally would not say that 9% is a huge difference in this case, and regardless iron shot is still a lot less damage than poison arrow (poison arrow is pretty much LCS damage against non-poison-resistant targets), and I think it's also less than double-bounced lightning bolt or orb of destruction, but I can't check that because lightning bolt requires a lot of assumptions and I have no idea where orb of destruction damage is calculated.

Iron shot very much does not seem to do "more damage by a fair amount" than other comparable spells, to me. The only real distinguishing feature is that it isn't elemental ... but orb of destruction isn't either.

[njvack]

orb of destruction isn't either.

Am I the only one who finds OOD's targeting drawbacks pretty substantial? Maybe I've been using it wrong (seriously, maybe there are good ways around this?), but the whole "likes to hit corridor walls" thing seems to balance the "can't be evaded" thing for me.

[WingedEspeon]

FR: increase LCS range by 1 tile. It is a level 8 spell so it should outshine a level 6 spell that does the same thing, not make the caster debate weather then even want to upgrade after having already trained the skill required to do so.

[yesno]

Bolt of fire/cold actually do pretty much exactly the same damage as iron shot.

edit: ok to clarify, iron shot does deal very slightly more damage at most spellpower levels, but it is a pretty small difference, especially at realistic numbers (difference of ~5 maxdam at 100 spellpower). 200 spellpower is generally not realistic. (Bolt of fire/cold has slightly more accuracy until ~110 spellpower also.)

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=p ... m+0+to+200
blue is iron shot, magenta is bolt of fire/cold, brown is LCS; y-axis is maxdam, x-axis is spellpower

resistances are important though. on my last EE game, iron shot was critical for killing orbs of fire, which i could not have done with bolt of fire/cold. however that character had earth staff and robe of archmagi... maybe without both enhancers it would have been less practical and i would have been better off training for LCS, or orb of destruction, rather than getting other stuff like haste, invis, and very high stealth skill. i'm not sure what the numerical spellpower was... i had '########..' for spell power.

[Quazifuji]

orb of destruction isn't either.

Am I the only one who finds OOD's targeting drawbacks pretty substantial? Maybe I've been using it wrong (seriously, maybe there are good ways around this?), but the whole "likes to hit corridor walls" thing seems to balance the "can't be evaded" thing for me.

Nope. I find it to be a very significant drawback. In some types of terrain I find OOD misses considerably more than Iron Shot, and there's the concern of crashing two into each other if you want to spam it.

[crate]

I've not said that iron shot is bad. I've said that it doesn't have the defining feature of "doing more damage than comparable spells", because that is poison arrow.

[TeshiAlair]

Why not have iron shot act sort of like the rod of iron? Not a direct copycat, but have damage scaling inversely with distance, and maybe a knockback at melee range?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

then there's no spell like iron shot, besides LCS and stone arrow.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

FR: increase LCS range by 1 tile. It is a level 8 spell so it should outshine a level 6 spell that does the same thing, not make the caster debate weather then even want to upgrade after having already trained the skill required to do so.

the main problem I see with that is symmetry with respect to the monster spell. The best thing about monster LCS is that it is short-range and that is something you can control to an extent, e.g. keeping at least 3 spaces between yourself and annihilators.

Though to be honest, distances of 3/4 (LCS) and 4/5 (iron shot) are probably the most liable to blur in your eyes and be a pain to keep track of, especially if you're keeping track of both LCS and iron shot distances, assuming you're not a Nightstalker demonspawn. Ranges of 1-3 and 5-7 are easy since that's up to only 2 tiles away from the player or the edge of LOS.

Maybe LCS range should be decreased to 2, and the damage increased or spell level decreased. Then it will be like an actual spear, i.e. reaching weapon, that you poke out of nowhere, or get poked by!

[yesno]

I've not said that iron shot is bad. I've said that it doesn't have the defining feature of "doing more damage than comparable spells", because that is poison arrow.

but there is a LOT of stuff that you want to kill quickly that is resistant to poison...

[Jeremiah]

My 2 cents:

Make LCS smite targeted (flavoured as sending a stalagmite-type spear up from the floor rather than shooting from the caster to the enemy.)
edit: still with the same chance to miss.
Maybe also make it pure earth rather than conjurations/earth.

[Quazifuji]

then there's no spell like iron shot, besides LCS and stone arrow.

And besides bolt of fire, bolt of cold, bolt of magma, poison arrow, and Orb of Destruction.

Unless by "spell like iron shot" you specifically mean "single target unresistable Earth/Conjurations projectile between level 4 and 7 with damage that is constant with respect to distance." In that case there is no spell like Iron Shot besides Iron Shot. But why does a spell like that need to exist when there are already so many similar spells?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I specifically meant "purely physical single-target projectile spell that can miss" and listed all the exceptions that I know of. But I agree that the 3 spells may not all be necessary.

new LCS idea: it is melee-range, but can never miss.

[prozacelf]

orb of destruction isn't either.

Am I the only one who finds OOD's targeting drawbacks pretty substantial? Maybe I've been using it wrong (seriously, maybe there are good ways around this?), but the whole "likes to hit corridor walls" thing seems to balance the "can't be evaded" thing for me.

Nope. I find it to be a very significant drawback. In some types of terrain I find OOD misses considerably more than Iron Shot, and there's the concern of crashing two into each other if you want to spam it.

Oddly enough though, the wide open nature of the Zot:5 lungs makes OOD the perfect spell to hammer oofs as soon as they enter los.

[svendre]

I specifically meant "purely physical single-target projectile spell that can miss" and listed all the exceptions that I know of. But I agree that the 3 spells may not all be necessary.

new LCS idea: it is melee-range, but can never miss.

I like that idea. It's fitting with the idea that it's a "spear" as well. So it would be something like the super sand blast.

[Sar]

Spears in Crawl aren't melee-range...

[svendre]

Spears in Crawl aren't melee-range...

Okay, range of 2 then

Allow it to go around a monster to hit something behind it, just like a spear. That would make it totally unique from Iron Shot and have a new tactical value becoming of a level 8 spell. If that seems like too much combined with never missing, then perhaps leave the accuracy alone. If it seems like a nerf or not enough, then leave it to range 3 but still keeping the "spearing" ability. Malmutate bastards, yeah I'm looking at you!

[duvessa]

Allow it to go around a monster to hit something behind it, just like a spear.

i dont think you quite understand how a spear works

[svendre]

Allow it to go around a monster to hit something behind it, just like a spear.

i dont think you quite understand how a spear works

Like a spear works, in crawl... that you can hit targets further away from you which could have direct LOS blocked. I'm aware that polearms can fail based upon criteria when evoked such as if the blocking creature is hostile or friendly, etc. I'm not claiming to recall all the exact details on evoking polearms but I know the jist at least. Anyways, I meant "like" a spear, I don't think it has to be exact. It's not as if I was suggesting that fighting skill be a factor in determining the spell's accuracy among other things. There is some similarity in that the spell's name is a crystal spear, and spears are evoked to hit things at range, sometimes with other things in-between. I don't think it should have any failure rate as a pole arm evocation does.