Malign Gateway/Other Seemingly Underpowered Spells

[sir_laser]

So, as a lvl. 7 spell, Malign Gateway seems 1)Very Underused by players (haven't yet read one morgue file that contained this spell) and 2)Not particularly useful (can't use it to block off corridors/tentacle takes a while to actually appear) when compared to other summoning spells.
Other spells that fall under the two above categories may include Bolt of Magma (requires 3 schools), Cigotuvi's Degeneration (although this one may be sort of a joke spell and not actually meant to be very useful), Death Channel (haven't yet read one morgue file that contained this spell), and Venom Bolt (as a lvl. 5 spell, lvl. 6 Poison Arrow outclasses it by orders of magnitude IMO).
Can someone be so kind as to justify why these spells exist in the current iteration of DCSS? Thank you.

[Jeremiah]

Another one that possibly falls into the same category is Condensation Shield. It is higher level than Ozocubu's Armour, uses a less useful school (everyone will be training charms for Haste,) and most of the time has a less useful effect.

[Galefury]

Malign Gateway exists for being super cool and awesome, and using it at least once for just that reason is very much worth it. It's also extremely useful in certain situations, but sadly the space requirement, delay and not being able to spam it mean other high level summons (Haunt comes to mind) will usually serve you better. It's pretty good against single enemies, and against groups of enemies in corridors (while you are in a room, so you can actually use the spell). Notably it is immune to everything that can be resisted (this means you can freely cast piercing conjurations through it), and hits extremely hard. Its not a bad spell (it even is a really great support spell!), the problem is that there simply are better ones, and the high level and school combination makes it hard to pick up along the way to something else.

Condensation Shield was buffed a lot and its power is fine IMO. Its biggest problem is that it requires shield skill, but you cant use it while wearing a shield. Just having fixed SH value depending on spellpower would be much better. People who want to use shields can just equip a buckler and forget CS, and people who want to use a 2h weapon don't want to train shields skill. The overlap with Ozo's is no problem, after all they stack and more defense is always good.

Death Channel is probably pretty good now, being a level 7 spell (down from level 9 IIRC!!!). But I have never used it. Probably Haunt is better anyway. One supposedly decent use for Death Channel is combining it with Shatter, to which ghosts are immune.

No opinion on the rest, I don't think I have ever used them.

[Kate]

Malign Gateway is probably one of the few summoning spells that's actually good as-is. Everything else will be hit hard by the summon cap whenever that's implemented.

[absolutego]

it's adequate in terms of a summon cap because it already has one. on the other hand, it favors getting out of LOS like no other summoning spell (unless it's changed, i haven't used it in a while).

bolt of magma does irresistible damage (and is penetrating). it's rarely used because it not in a starting book anymore. actually, is it in any fixed book?
i've used venom bolt in just about every one of my VMs. i use it to kill stuff. it does a little bit of irresistible damage, too, so you can use it to soften up/kill stuff like ice beasts.
cigotuvi's is a joke, but it could still be useful to deal with bees or similar low-MR threats if you found it early, in the vein of petrification.

[Wark]

bolt of magma does irresistible damage (and is penetrating). it's rarely used because it not in a starting book anymore. actually, is it in any fixed book?

Yes, it is now in book of Power. I think it is actually quite nice, especially if you worship Veh due to range boost. Also, it allows you to save spell slots, working somewhat like IMB and a weaker Bolt of Fire combined together

[Kate]

Venom Bolt doesn't actually do any irresistible damage (rPois+++ monsters take no damage from it), but yeah, it's certainly very useful on VM. Fairly efficient for poisoning a bunch of susceptible stuff, even once you have Poison Arrow. Bolt of Magma is in the (common) book of Power and is often worth having on FE or EE. Also, both of these are particularly nice with Vehumet's boosts, to turn them into 4MP bolts with good range. Edit: Wark beat me to it.

And you're right, Malign Gateway should go neutral/hostile faster if you leave LOS, forgot about that bit.

Cigotuvi's Degeneration I'd definitely agree is pretty sad though, even if it does have some uses in theory. It has a good name, though!

[galehar]

Condensation Shield was buffed a lot and its power is fine IMO. Its biggest problem is that it requires shield skill, but you cant use it while wearing a shield.

Correction, it benefits from having shields skill, but it doesn't require any. My current XL14 MfIE is getting 14 SH out of it without any investment in shields (I haven't found any yet). I think it's pretty good.

[absolutego]

you mean you can't train shields with the spell memorized? if so, you probably should.

Yes, it is now in book of Power.

well, i was about to suggest that. i don't recall it being there last time i checked, but maybe i overlooked it.

Venom Bolt doesn't actually do any irresistible damage (rPois+++ monsters take no damage from it)

yup, what i meant was that you can damage rp+ monsters, as per the example, but i phrased that poorly (as i always do).

And you're right, Malign Gateway should go neutral/hostile faster if you leave LOS, forgot about that bit.

i'd rather have it time out faster. i'm not a fan of this for other summons, but it makes sense in this case.

[Galefury]

You can train shields with CS memorized.

[absolutego]

well, i misread galehar's post then.
i'll stop spamming this thread now.

[mumra]

The nice thing about Death Channel is that it "stacks" with certain other necromantic summony spells. By this I mean that the monster still leaves a corpse. So you can still make abominations, or raise a skeleton [i]and then[i/] use the chunks for Simulacra / channelling. I imagine it can also be good with blood gods because you still have a corpse to sacrifice?

Personally I've never got Malign castable outside of wizmode, even though a few times I've found it in a book and started working towards it. But it's always looked pretty awesome to me.

[Jeremiah]

I think the problem with Bolt of Magma is that if you're using earth magic you have other ways of doing irresistible damage, if you're using fire magic you have other ways of doing penetrating damage, and if you're using conjurations you probably have other ways of doing both (some of which are in the same book.)

What I did find surprising was in the latest round of nerfs, the amount of irresistible damage was reduced. Unlike Throw Icicle and Fire/Ice Storm which probably deserved it, it seemed odd to nerf a spell that was already underused and seemingly underpowered

[Kate]

Magma's base damage was increased when irresistible damage was reduced for BEAM_ICE and BEAM_LAVA.

[mageykun]

If you're a FE with magma bolt, it's not the penetrating that really matters. You have lots of option for crowd control. It does however have a few things going for it.

It's irresistible. Magma bolt is the spell you can use to pound everything rF or with massive defenses in the mid to late-ish game. It's a better option than Isky's, since all your fire skill and any fire boosters (rings, staff) apply to it. It does comparable damage to fireball, but is much quieter, often making it the safer option for picking off things as you navigate a dangerous level. Plus, unlike bolt of fire, it's guaranteed. All in all, I found it to be a decent mid-level workhorse.

...that's pre-trunk experience speaking though. Nut sure how irresistiblity down, base damage up affects things.

It's not really very useful for an EE in my opinion though. You can go strait from stone arrow to LRD to iron shot and never miss it.

[sanka]

If we are speaking of rarely used spells, has anybody ever used Dispersal? Also, I do not really understand the new mechanic of Passage of Golubria.

They may be useful tough, it's maybe only that other translocation spells are so much more useful that one very rarely spend slots for them.

[BlackSheep]

I've got Passage of Golubria on my list of things to test out one of these days. It sounds like you could do some neat tricks with it, but I've never cast it and don't fully understand the mechanics just from the description.

[mumra]

If we are speaking of rarely used spells, has anybody ever used Dispersal? Also, I do not really understand the new mechanic of Passage of Golubria.

They may be useful tough, it's maybe only that other translocation spells are so much more useful that one very rarely spend slots for them.

Passage of Golubria is basically a much more interesting form of controlled teleportation but unfortunately much harder to use. I tried it recently and used it on the Lernean Hydra swamp end, it worked very well but the setup is really tricky.

To make it easier to use I would suggest:
- Spawn the portals near the player and do away with targetting
- Maybe take a leaf out of Portal's book and use some kind of visual clue to show which portals link to which. Setup is tricky enough; not really knowing whether you're going to come out of the portal quite near you or the one you set up farther away just adds to the confusion
- Make portals persist longer

And to make it more popular, I'd get rid of Controlled Blink, along with making Golubria a more suitable replacement ...

[BlackSheep]

- Spawn the portals near the player and do away with targetting
- Maybe take a leaf out of Portal's book and use some kind of visual clue to show which portals link to which. Setup is tricky enough; not really knowing whether you're going to come out of the portal quite near you or the one you set up farther away just adds to the confusion

What would the first point accomplish? You'd wind up with two portals very close together.

As for the second, currently you randomly 'port to one of the other portals. There are no connections now, and I think adding that would be less-than-trivial.

Based on the last few minutes of hacking around, the spell requires a bit more control to be useful. Giving precise control over the placement of both portals would be way too strong. Maybe allowing the player to pinpoint the "close" portal before generating the far one would be fairer?

[sir_laser]

Wow, didn't expect so many replies so quickly, thank you all very much. My intention for the thread is to discuss spells that seem overshadowed by better options/changed to be more useful to players. Malign Gateway was simply the first spell that came to mind.

- against groups of enemies in corridors (while you are in a room, so you can actually use the spell). Notably it is immune to everything that can be resisted (this means you can freely cast piercing conjurations through it), and hits extremely hard.

Malign Gateway has a spacing requirement (can't be cast in corridors/rooms that are too small), so I don't see it blocking off enemies in corridors (can the player even manipulate where the portal appears?). Didn't know about the resistances though; seems slightly less useless now.

Everything else will be hit hard by the summon cap whenever that's implemented.

What is this summon cap that you speak of?

If we are speaking of rarely used spells, has anybody ever used Dispersal?

I actually have Dispersal right now on a High Elf Hunter (what's the abbreviation for this specie/background combo?). It's quite useful in Pan when you're swarmed w/ demons or if you want to get that Executioner somewhere else.

[galehar]

Everything else will be hit hard by the summon cap whenever that's implemented.

What is this summon cap that you speak of?

We plan to nerf all summoning spells for 0.11 by somehow capping the number of summons you can have at the same time. The wiki section hasn't been written by a dev, so the specifics of the change will probably be quite different.

[Rapigel]

My necros use Cigotuvi's Degeneration to trivialise draconians in Zot

[sir_laser]

The verdict on these spells seem to agree that they're all very, very situational but useful in their own way. Even Cigotuvi's Degeneration.

[Stormfox]

Cigotuvi could prove useful for Chei worshipers. Pulsating lumps aren't going to circle-strafe you to death.

I remember a YAVP from way back (0.4 or so) from someone doing a pure Necro build: no attack spells outside of the books of Necromancy/Unlife/Death/Necronomicon, so no pure conjurations or elemental conjurations. He used Cigotuvi against anything he didn't want to melee and then either just left the lumps behind or used them as Vampiric Draining fuel. (Mostly hydrae.)

[zrn]

Animate skeleton sees a lot of use as a corpse grinder, and I think that could be expanded. What if animate skeleton always cut corpses into chunks, regardless of whether or not the corpse has a skeleton? It would allow wielders of cursed/vampiric/distortion blunt weapons to eat more corpses, and also remove the annoyance of having to animate the skeleton filled corpses on a pile and chop up the rest when using sublimation and simulacrum.

This would mostly be a buff to kiku worshippers, allowing them to harvest more chunks in less turns, but mostly it's just for convenience rather than power.

[Galefury]

WTF?

I will elaborate a little: animate skeleton turns the meat into chunks by forcibly moving the skeleton out of the body, ripping it to pieces. This will not work on corpses that don't have a skeleton. Also, the behavior you describe (stacking corpses that have a skeleton, to do what exactly?) sounds incredibly silly.

[BlackSheep]

Speaking of which, is there a reason certain monster species leave skeletons even though they can't be raised via necromancy?

[zrn]

WTF?

I will elaborate a little: animate skeleton turns the meat into chunks by forcibly moving the skeleton out of the body, ripping it to pieces. This will not work on corpses that don't have a skeleton. Also, the behavior you describe (stacking corpses that have a skeleton, to do what exactly?) sounds incredibly silly.

I know, the spell creates the chunks because the skeleton bursts forth from the corpse which is pretty awesome flavour-wise. But really, it's just a flavour issue. You can always have a special message for certain situations. And I didn't mean taking corpses, stacking them up on a single tile, and then casting animate skeleton, a la old twisted res behavior. I was talking about already having multiple corpses on a tile, such as from fighting in a corridor or from kiku's corpse delivery. Animate skeleton always turning corpses to chunks regardless of being bone filled wouldn't do anything special, just allow you to spam the spell until all corpses were gone, taking out the tedium of using the spell on some corpses, butchering the others. I apologize if I wasn't clear. It was just an idea for the sake of convenience, nothing more.

[mageykun]

Speaking of which, is there a reason certain monster species leave skeletons even though they can't be raised via necromancy?

They use different metrics, I think.

Things that leave skeletons do so because it makes sense that they're material vertebrates.

Things that can't be raised as undead are either already undead (ghouls, necrophages, etc) or are twisted / unnatural in some way (ugly things, shapeshifters, that one type of slime that leaves a corpse, eyes, etc). Basically, anything already touched by necromancy or chaos is beyond your ability to further pervert.

But yeah, there's no real game play use for un-animate-able skeletons though, unless you're using bone shards (which was removed anyways. And useless). I suppose you can offer them to Nemelex. And they grow mushrooms. Necro proof meat can still be distilled, eaten, sublimated, or [s]simulacrum-ed[/s] though.

edit: if they're necro proof, you can't make simulacrums of them, dummy. Bad self, you got over excited in verb-ing words.

Also, forgot to mention holies. Pretty sure those are shielded from necro effects as well. Though, you know, for the opposite reason.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

...there's no real game play use for un-animate-able skeletons though...

What if such remains of a monster turn into a cloud of tiny bone shards that follow (trail) you for a short duration?

[schmoe]

I may not have the game experience of some of the other posters here, but I'll chime in to say that Death Channel is an amazingly powerful spell any time you face groups of enemies (like in branch endings, especially). The power of your spectral army grows geometrically, allowing you to quickly trivialize even a large horde of difficult monsters, and you can then use the corpses afterward to replenish your army of abominations. As long as the summon cap doesn't nerf the spell, I'd say it's fine as it is.

[sir_laser]

I may not have the game experience of some of the other posters here, but I'll chime in to say that Death Channel is an amazingly powerful spell any time you face groups of enemies (like in branch endings, especially). The power of your spectral army grows geometrically, allowing you to quickly trivialize even a large horde of difficult monsters, and you can then use the corpses afterward to replenish your army of abominations. As long as the summon cap doesn't nerf the spell, I'd say it's fine as it is.

The thing is that there may be better choices at that point (Haunt is what first comes to mind). So if some spells have better substitutions, to the point where they're not used at all maybe we should think about removing/changing them.

[Eji1700]

The verdict on these spells seem to agree that they're all very, very situational but useful in their own way. Even Cigotuvi's Degeneration.

I think this is mostly true, and great when you want to do something flavorful(the aforementioned pure necro build), but I do think one of crawls weaker points is that there's still a LOT of just generally good spells, which are only limited by how lucky you are with your books(unless of course you go sif). So long as there's better general spells you're likely only going to wind up with things like degeneration because of flavor reasons or pretty heavy bad luck.

[njvack]

I do think one of crawls weaker points is that there's still a LOT of just generally good spells, which are only limited by how lucky you are with your books(unless of course you go sif). So long as there's better general spells you're likely only going to wind up with things like degeneration because of flavor reasons or pretty heavy bad luck.

Another way to address this would be to make the generally good spells rarer, so that you're likely to need to "make do" with less optimal spells. That said, my only allrune game never yielded a copy of cblink, so this already happens to a decent degree.

[Eji1700]

I do think one of crawls weaker points is that there's still a LOT of just generally good spells, which are only limited by how lucky you are with your books(unless of course you go sif). So long as there's better general spells you're likely only going to wind up with things like degeneration because of flavor reasons or pretty heavy bad luck.

Another way to address this would be to make the generally good spells rarer, so that you're likely to need to "make do" with less optimal spells. That said, my only allrune game never yielded a copy of cblink, so this already happens to a decent degree.

I've actually always wondered if maybe a tweak to the spellbook system should occur. Perhaps a temple like structure in the game with a few semi set spellbooks from several schools. Have the weaker more flavorful spells in those books(you can only pick one per place or something) and then make random books a little more rare.