New Book of Conjurations

[galehar]

I find dazzling spray to be quite decent. Also, it has a really unique mechanism which makes it interesting. Opening up a fight against multiple opponents with it gives you the time to wear them down.

[sanka]

I have killed Crazy Yiuf with Force Lance without giving him a chance to hit back. I used a big pillar to regain mp.

If you can reliably push back a melee moster, and you have access to a pillar, Force Lance can give you an easy kill. This situations are not that important tough, since usualy you can escape easily, but it can give you some easy early xp before IMB.

[roctavian]

Dazzling Spray is really great in my experience so far -- especially for early monster bands. Blindness isn't quite as strong as I wish it was (dang Centaurs can hit me all day long while they're blind) but I think it's rather appropriate. If there's a chance I can hit at least two people with it, I'm probably casting it over the other spells in the starting book, unless I really need to IMB something down.

[siggboy]

It's really astonishing how differently I seem to be playing the Conjurer compared to most people here. Dazzling Spray, Force Lance, I don't even bother to learn these. Pillar dancing? Blinding monsters to wear them down? Why take the easy way while there's a hard one...

I'd rather be a wizard in almost any tight situation than a newCj.

Me too! In some situations you're dead without a Blink or an instant meat shield. Putting a reliable crowd control spell into the Cj book would be waaaay overpowered though (Dazzling Spray and Force Lance are not reliable at all).

[KoboldLord]

It's really astonishing how differently I seem to be playing the Conjurer compared to most people here. Dazzling Spray, Force Lance, I don't even bother to learn these. Pillar dancing? Blinding monsters to wear them down? Why take the easy way while there's a hard one...

Some of us seriously try to win every character we start, rather than throwing a whole squad to their deaths until one lucks out well enough to get to Mystic Blast and Battlesphere.

[byrel]

It's really astonishing how differently I seem to be playing the Conjurer compared to most people here. Dazzling Spray, Force Lance, I don't even bother to learn these. Pillar dancing? Blinding monsters to wear them down? Why take the easy way while there's a hard one...

Some of us seriously try to win every character we start, rather than throwing a whole squad to their deaths until one lucks out well enough to get to Mystic Blast and Battlesphere.

Erm. I've only played newCj. on a handful of fairly powerful races (Sp, Ds, DE); but I've only failed to get one to battlesphere in ~8 tries. Unless you're playing Mummy or Merfolk or something, it's rather reliable to get to D6-8 with just MD and pick ups. By then you can have Battlesphere barely castable. It might well be more reliable on weaker races to learn the intermediate ones, but it's still a long ways from "throwing a whole squad to their deaths until one lucks out well enough to get to Mystic Blast and Battlesphere." The early game is usually not THAT bad if you just play really careful; I mean, you can do that well most runs on Wanderers on most races.

[crate]

Magic dart is pretty bad. I mean sure you can get HuCj to lair reliably but it's a lot of work and not terribly fun for a while because your first ~5 xls are painful.

[siggboy]

It might well be more reliable on weaker races to learn the intermediate ones, but it's still a long ways from "throwing a whole squad to their deaths until one lucks out well enough to get to Mystic Blast and Battlesphere." The early game is usually not THAT bad if you just play really careful; I mean, you can do that well most runs on Wanderers on most races.

Thanks for your support. I concur. Even weaker races (Kobold?) don't need the intermediate spells, however. You basically need to survive D:1 through D:3 with Magic Dart and the weapons you find; then it rapidly gets easier because your nukes come online. That does not have a high fatality rate if you have the basics of the game down.

Some people should actually try the newCj instead of making wild assertions about survivability.

[siggboy]

Magic dart is pretty bad. I mean sure you can get HuCj to lair reliably but it's a lot of work and not terribly fun for a while because your first ~5 xls are painful.

That's just plain wrong.

I think we have to agree to disagree. You seem to be playing a different game.

[byrel]

It might well be more reliable on weaker races to learn the intermediate ones, but it's still a long ways from "throwing a whole squad to their deaths until one lucks out well enough to get to Mystic Blast and Battlesphere." The early game is usually not THAT bad if you just play really careful; I mean, you can do that well most runs on Wanderers on most races.

Thanks for your support. I concur. Even weaker races (Kobold?) don't need the intermediate spells, however. You basically need to survive D:1 through D:3 with Magic Dart and the weapons you find; then it rapidly gets easier because your nukes come online. That does not have a high fatality rate if you have the basics of the game down.

Some people should actually try the newCj instead of making wild assertions about survivability.

On a weaker race, I really doubt you'll have even IMB castable on D:3; maybe 25% for IMB, or 33ish for battlesphere, but nothing you want to be casting all the time. (Unless you LIKE dying from miscasts...

It's more like D:5-7 on something like a Ds. And I'm not disagreeing with crate here; MD is a very weak spell. It's just that good tactics can make up for a weak offense till you start running into lots of ranged (orc priests and centaurs) and armoured (orc warriors, beetles, etc.) threats. Then you have to get into this super cautious dance, avoiding the possibility of an orc priest coming into LOS from a bad angle etc if you want them ALL to make it to the nuke. I actually do enjoy that sort of high-intensity tactical challenge sometimes. But there's no denying it's stressful.

I think the difference might be what you mean by high fatality rate; while KoboldLord blatantly exaggerated the fatality rate, (a whole squad per character that makes it to D:6? you could do it weaponless 1:5-6 times!) it's true that not grabbing one of the middle ones will decrease the number that make it to the nukes. It's easy to construct early-game situations unrecoverable with only MD. Come around the corner on D:2 and find yourself face-to-face with Edmund? You won't scratch his armour with MD, but you might push him away or blind him with force lance/dazzling spray.

It's like one guy I heard recommending skipping training (and learning most of) all the Lvl 2 spells in the wizard book in favor of training pure Conj, so Mephitic cloud is castable ASAP. Sure, you'll get that spell faster that way, but less reliably. All problems you're likely to encounter on your way there by a much slower route can be handled much better with one or more utility spells under your belt. Now, if you have a poor Spc atitude, maybe only grab Force Lance or Dazzling spray, instead of both. But optimal play is to get at least one.

I've tried playing both ways a handful of times with SpCj, who have poor Cj aptitude (-2) but really do rock with any level 1 spell (sp=kite-o-matic). And SpCj can reliably get battlesphere without the middle spells; but it takes much more careful, painstaking play than with one or both.

Edit: Excluding Freeze; naturally, spriggans can't kite VERY well with freeze (though it can still be done better than other races)

[Galefury]

An upcoming fix to battlesphere, quoted from mantis (not in trunk yet):

-Battlesphere mistakenly was missing a fail_check() in its casting routine, so it was impossible to miscast it. This has been fixed.

This may explain why a lot of people don't seem to mind that Battlesphere is harder to cast than IMB...

[siggboy]

On a weaker race, I really doubt you'll have even IMB castable on D:3; maybe 25% for IMB, or 33ish for battlesphere, but nothing you want to be casting all the time. (Unless you LIKE dying from miscasts...

Just made a quick test with a human:

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.12-a0-2147-g3c97e80 (tiles) character file.

323 Sigla the Ruinous (level 5, -1/35 HPs)
             Began as a Human Conjurer on Feb 15, 2013.
             Slain by a gnoll
             ... wielding a +0,+0 flail
              (4 damage)
             ... while paralysed by Grinder
             ... on Level 4 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:19:15 (3216 turns).

Sigla the Ruinous (Human Conjurer)                  Turns: 3216, Time: 00:19:15

HP  -1/35        AC  9     Str  9      XL: 5   Next: 76%
MP   1/11        EV  2     Int 16      God:
Gold 157         SH  0     Dex 13      Spells:  3 memorised,  1 level left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .   a - +0,+1 whip (reach)
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : .   F - +2 leather armour
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .   (no shield)
Res.Poison: .       Res.Corr.  : .   g - +2 helmet
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : .   (no cloak)
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   z - +0 pair of elf gloves
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   (no boots)
Res.Rott. : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .   (no amulet)
Saprovore : . . .   Flight     : .   (no ring)
                                     (no ring)

@: paralysed, slightly resistant to hostile enchantments, fairly stealthy
A: no striking features
a: no special abilities


You were on level 4 of the Dungeon.
You were hungry.

You visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and saw 4 of its levels.

You collected 137 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 a - a +0,+1 whip of reaching (weapon)
 b - a +0,+0 sling
 f - a +0,+1 orcish club
 i - a +1,+0 elven dagger
 k - a +0,+0 club
 o - a +0,+0 club
 q - a +0,+2 mace
 w - a +0,+1 orcish dagger
Missiles
 e - 70 stones
 l - 14 darts (quivered)
 A - 14 poisoned needles
 G - 6 curare-tipped needles
Armour
 g - a +2 helmet (worn)
 t - a +0 robe
 z - a +0 pair of elven gloves (worn)
 F - a +2 leather armour (worn)
Comestibles
 p - 3 bread rations
 s - 2 pears
Scrolls
 d - a scroll of remove curse {unknown}
 n - a scroll of identify
 r - a scroll of blinking {unknown}
 v - 3 scrolls of fear {unknown}
 y - 2 scrolls of curse jewellery {unknown}
 C - a scroll of enchant weapon I {unknown}
 D - a scroll of recharging {unknown}
 E - a scroll of amnesia {unknown}
Potions
 h - a potion of agility {unknown}
 j - a potion of flight {unknown}
 m - 2 potions of curing
 u - a potion of cure mutation {unknown}
 x - a potion of heal wounds {unknown}
 B - a potion of paralysis {unknown}
 K - a potion of invisibility {unknown}
Books
 c - a book of Conjurations   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Magic Dart                        Conjuration                  1
   Force Lance                        Conjuration                  2
   Dazzling Spray                     Conjuration/Hexes            3
   *Iskenderun's Mystic Blast         Conjuration                  4
   *Iskenderun's Battlesphere         Conjuration/Charms           4
   Fulminant Prism                    Conjuration/Hexes            5


   Skills:
 - Level 2.0 Dodging
 - Level 2.0 Stealth
 - Level 3.2 Spellcasting
 - Level 4.0 Conjurations
 + Level 3.5 Charms


You had one spell level left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Magic Dart            Conj           ####.        6%          1    None
b - Iskenderun's Battles  Conj/Chrm      ###......    47%         4    ####...
c - Iskenderun's Mystic   Conj           ####.....    47%         4    ####...


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (4/27)           
Temple: D:4-7       

Altars:
Xom
the Shining One

Annotations
D:2 Sigmund
D:4 Grinder

Message History

A gnoll comes into view. It is wielding a spear.
Grinder gestures at you.
You resist. The gnoll hits you but does no damage.
You can move again.
There is a stone staircase leading up here.
Grinder gestures at you.
You suddenly lose the ability to move! The gnoll unwields an uncursed spear. The gnoll drops an uncursed spear. The gnoll picks up a flail. The gnoll wields a flail.
Grinder gestures.
Grinder blinks! The gnoll hits you with a flail. The gnoll picks up an uncursed spear.
The gnoll shouts!
Grinder hits you. You writhe in agony. The gnoll hits you with a flail! The gnoll throws an uncursed spear.
Helpless, you fail to dodge the uncursed spear.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Grinder gestures at you.
Pain shoots through your body!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The gnoll hits you but does no damage.
Grinder gestures at you.
You resist. The gnoll hits you with a flail.
You die...

 #####
.......#######
........)....#
#.#.#[....5..#
 ........g@..#
 ...#........#
 ....)g......#
  =.#%######.#
   ...      .#
    #.      .#
             #


You could see Grinder and 2 gnolls.

Vanquished Creatures
  An orc wizard (D:3)
  A worker ant (D:3)
  A gnoll (D:4)
  3 adders (D:3)
  A worm (D:3)
  A giant gecko (D:2)
  7 orcs
  A ball python (D:1)
  10 bats
  A giant cockroach (D:1)
  12 goblins
  6 hobgoblins
  5 giant newts
  11 kobolds
  2 quokkas (D:3)
  9 rats
72 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  A rat (D:2)
1 creature vanquished.

Grand Total: 73 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Sigla, the Human Conjurer, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 13/13 MP: 3/3
   161 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 8/19 MP: 0/4
  1117 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 24/24 MP: 6/6
  1226 | D:2      | Found a glowing golden altar of the Shining One.
  1825 | D:2      | Noticed Sigmund
  1943 | D:2      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 30/30 MP: 9/9
  1949 | D:2      | Learned a level 4 spell: Iskenderun's Battlesphere
  1954 | D:2      | Learned a level 4 spell: Iskenderun's Mystic Blast
  2169 | D:3      | Reached skill level 1 in Charms
  2463 | D:3      | Found a shimmering altar of Xom.
  2827 | D:3      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 35/35 MP: 3/11
  3204 | D:4      | Noticed Grinder
  3209 | D:4      | Paralysed by Grinder for 2 turns
  3212 | D:4      | Paralysed by Grinder for 5 turns
  3216 | D:4      | Slain by a gnoll

By that point, both IMB and IB were totally usable (NB I'm wearing leather, with a robe it would have been even easier to cast). For IB, 50% is OK at this point in the game. Not walking away from Grinder was stupid, but I could have even killed him if I had concentrated fire 100% on Grinder (I wasted 1 MD on that Gnoll, so I had to leave Grinder at about 15% HP; 1 additional MD would have killed him, as the Battlesphere was still alive).

Anyways, the above was a very average start, which I would consider typical for D:1-3. You can easily survive, barring very bad luck, with just Magic Dart and what you find lying around. The first time I cast IB was, IIRC, when I met a worker ant. I think it was on D:3.

MD is a very weak spell. It's just that good tactics can make up for a weak offense till you start running into lots of ranged (orc priests and centaurs) and armoured (orc warriors, beetles, etc.) threats.

I found MD to be sufficient for all of D:2 (except uniques), and most of D:3. The Cj get Conjuration 4.0, which makes the MD a lot stronger right off the bat compared to the Wz.
When the threats that you mention start to show up, you have to be able to cast IB by then, of course. Usually that should be at D:4 and D:5. If you look at the human above, I was just at that point when I entered D:4 (and wearing leather armor, instead of a robe; so there was room to improve the spell success rate in a pinch).

it's true that not grabbing one of the middle ones will decrease the number that make it to the nukes.

Yes, but by how much. On a human, you get to the IB by D:4 (end of D:3). You don't need Force Lance and Dazzling Spray until then. You really don't. Having those spells would have a very, very marginal effect on your survivability through D:4.

It's easy to construct early-game situations unrecoverable with only MD. Come around the corner on D:2 and find yourself face-to-face with Edmund? You won't scratch his armour with MD, but you might push him away or blind him with force lance/dazzling spray.

Yeah, of course it's always possible to imagine those situations, but let's be honest, how often do they actually happen. And, furthermore, you can construct these scenarios for almost any species/class combination in the game. An unlucky adder bite can kill any char without it being the player's fault.

An upcoming fix to battlesphere, quoted from mantis (not in trunk yet):

-Battlesphere mistakenly was missing a fail_check() in its casting routine, so it was impossible to miscast it. This has been fixed.

This may explain why a lot of people don't seem to mind that Battlesphere is harder to cast than IMB...

That's of course hilarious. I'll try the new version tonight, or when it's merged. It must be quite annoying that one apparently has to remember to call fail_check() in every single function that does implement a spell cast. That should be refactored.

That same patch also fixes this, which has been bugging me:

-Monster battlesphere targeting and behavior is improved. The current version is generally fairly broken, often fleeing for no obvious reason or refusing to fire when open paths exist. This should at least fix most of those cases

[BlackSheep]

[Yeah, of course it's always possible to imagine those situations, but let's be honest, how often do they actually happen. And, furthermore, you can construct these scenarios for almost any species/class combination in the game. An unlucky adder bite can kill any char without it being the player's fault.

They only have to happen once to kill you.

By that point, both IMB and IB were totally usable (NB I'm wearing leather, with a robe it would have been even easier to cast). For IB, 50% is OK at this point in the game. Not walking away from Grinder was stupid, but I could have even killed him if I had concentrated fire 100% on Grinder (I wasted 1 MD on that Gnoll, so I had to leave Grinder at about 15% HP; 1 additional MD would have killed him, as the Battlesphere was still alive).

Yeah, I think you've been led astray by that bug. 47% failure is really not usable. If IMB never failed, we'd be talking about how that trivializes the early game instead of battlesphere.

That's of course hilarious. I'll try the new version tonight, or when it's merged. It must be quite annoying that one apparently has to remember to call fail_check() in every single function that does implement a spell cast. That should be refactored.

There's consolidation among the zap spells and the bigger clouds, but the summons all seem to do their checks individually. Certain spells check conditions first before testing for spell failure (e.g. sticks to snakes makes sure you're wielding something wooden, brand spells make sure you're wielding a valid target, twisted resurrection looks for corpses in the vicinity). Targeted spells can be aborted, but need to start before checking for failure so that the targeting code knows what's going on. However, a lot of summons know they're going to fail as soon as the code is called, so maybe a generic summoning wrapper would be useful.

Edit: I just tried your HuCj experiment. Battlesphere does great damage to targets the way I'd expect a 4th level conjuration to do. When I tried switching over to IMB, I killed more things with miscast effects than I did with the spell. (Seriously, I got hit with a giant explosion that took off 31 HP and took out a nearby adder, goblin and quokka.) At such low power level, the battlesphere didn't last long enough to recharge the MP required to cast it. In actual practice, you need to find a target first, create a sphere, then take it down. If it fails the way it's supposed to, you'll find it takes a lot longer to bring online than level 5.

[crate]

Um, battlesphere at 50% fail is kind of bad, unless you like berserking or paralysing yourself....

anyway I got battlesphere at ~xl8 as a hucj and was just magic darting things until then, it's quite annoying, I much prefer spellbooks that have a level 2/3 spell that are good at the low power you'll have when you first learn them.

[siggboy]

Edit: I just tried your HuCj experiment. Battlesphere does great damage to targets the way I'd expect a 4th level conjuration to do. When I tried switching over to IMB, I killed more things with miscast effects than I did with the spell. (Seriously, I got hit with a giant explosion that took off 31 HP and took out a nearby adder, goblin and quokka.) At such low power level, the battlesphere didn't last long enough to recharge the MP required to cast it. In actual practice, you need to find a target first, create a sphere, then take it down. If it fails the way it's supposed to, you'll find it takes a lot longer to bring online than level 5.

Yeah I'm really eager to see how it plays with the fix applied. It's a bit unfortunate that it had that bug until now.

Let's assume we have to deal with it actually miscasting (as it's supposed to): what failure rate would be acceptable to not have horrible miscast effects in your experience? I don't often cast spells with a failure higher than maybe 20% or so, but so far I mostly only got slightly contaminated, very rarely anything worse happened. Also, the "dangerous to cast" warning (when memorizing) really only appears with very high failure rates close to 100%. It certainly did not appear when I learned IB at 80% failure.

[BlackSheep]

Check again. A HuCj memorizing battlesphere at level 5 with Spellcasting 4 and Conjurations 4 will have a failure rate of 75% and gets the message: This spell is very dangerous to cast!

[KoboldLord]

It's funny how people post dead characters as evidence that their strategy is totally awesome and a good idea.

By that point, both IMB and IB were totally usable (NB I'm wearing leather, with a robe it would have been even easier to cast). For IB, 50% is OK at this point in the game.

Sweet Cerebov, 50% failure means conjuration miscasts alone can deal up to 60hp damage to you. Leaving aside the bug, how can you write "50% is OK" without realizing something is horribly wrong with what you're saying?

[siggboy]

It's funny how people post dead characters as evidence that their strategy is totally awesome and a good idea.

I should not have posted the character because it was a given that somebody would use it as an excuse for trolling. Thanks for reaffirming my long-held beliefs about the Interwebs .

By that point, both IMB and IB were totally usable (NB I'm wearing leather, with a robe it would have been even easier to cast). For IB, 50% is OK at this point in the game.

Sweet Cerebov, 50% failure means conjuration miscasts alone can deal up to 60hp damage to you. Leaving aside the bug, how can you write "50% is OK" without realizing something is horribly wrong with what you're saying?

Maybe because I'm not a DCSS expert (unlike you, supposedly).

[njvack]

Well, to be fair, Battlesphere not miscasting meant 50% was in actual fact totally fine. Now the bug is fixed, and the 50% miscast rate will make the problems with that strategy obvious.

That said, KL and crate and BlackSheep's analyses are, I think, right. I seriously doubt they're trolling you

Roll another HuCj with trunk and see how it plays...

[BlackSheep]

I don't think the bug has been fixed yet. A patch has been posted, but I haven't seen a commit for it yet.

[byrel]

Indeed. I would consider casting Battlesphere at higher fail chances than IMB, as it's total damage output is higher (spread over several turns.) But minimum castable percentage is still going to be 20-25%, and I'll be wincing every time I try it . That's hilarious about battlesphere never failing... I should have been using it a lot more I guess.

I'll try a HuCj whenever it's commited, and see how it goes; I rarely play humans (tough AND boring?) so it'll give me an opportunity to gauge the race as well.

[byrel]

It's easy to construct early-game situations unrecoverable with only MD. Come around the corner on D:2 and find yourself face-to-face with Edmund? You won't scratch his armour with MD, but you might push him away or blind him with force lance/dazzling spray.

Yeah, of course it's always possible to imagine those situations, but let's be honest, how often do they actually happen. And, furthermore, you can construct these scenarios for almost any species/class combination in the game. An unlucky adder bite can kill any char without it being the player's fault.

Every game. No seriously; dangerous, unexpected situations occur every game, and not avoiding, preparing for and handling them properly is why I don't have a 90% ascension rate. Or even close to it. What I suggested wasn't "I spwn between two OOD ogres with no place to run"; it's something that actually happens reasonably often.

But, at it's heart, the key to getting better at crawl is worst-case scenario play. Improbably bad things happen every game. Suppose the chance of something I can't handle with just MD before D:5 (over four dungeon levels) is 5%. Then if I am willing to accept that risk as worth getting a better ability online sooner, I'm looking at around a 60% chance of dying on a 3-runer (This is always a trade-off you're making). What you're recommending is less-than-optimal play, because ti renders you incapable of handling some occaisional threats.

Note that I actually supported this style of play for a few games, till I realized the gap it left. I still might recommend if for a Tengu, who can get IB online really fast, but lacks awesome Spc aptitude. But definitely not for a spriggan or demonspawn.

[crate]

I rarely play humans (tough AND boring?) so it'll give me an opportunity to gauge the race as well.

I think you misspelled "easy" there.

[byrel]

I rarely play humans (tough AND boring?) so it'll give me an opportunity to gauge the race as well.

I think you misspelled "easy" there.

Really? I admit I was going by reputation on that one...

[njvack]

Well, relative to DE or HO or Sp or DD...

[Jeremiah]

Something I've just thought about regarding Fulminant Prism: will the prism still explode if it is out of the player's LOS when the timer runs down?

In normal use it probably won't occur because the range of the spell is short enough that you can't walk out of LOS of it before it blows, but I wonder if you could place the prism then move away using cblink or Passage of Golubria. It could make for a kind of pseudo Projected Noise if you cast the prism in a place you want to attract monsters to then move away quickly.

[galehar]

It could make for a kind of pseudo Projected Noise if you cast the prism in a place you want to attract monsters to then move away quickly.

You can do that with a fireball or any other noisy spell. I don't think the short delay is really relevant. The problem with projected noise was that you could lure monsters to the other side of the map. Luring monsters to you (or close to you) is fine.

[siggboy]

Just a quick note on Battlesphere and it's viability: I've applied DracoOmega's patchset a few days ago and made a few more Conjurers since then (with a Battlesphere fail_check and everything).

My verdict still stands: it's a great spell, and if you can make it through D:3 and D:4 without it, you're officially over the hump and will clear Lair unless you let your cat jump on the keyboard while standing next to a Hydra.

Even at 49% failure, the worst that can happen is it blowing up into your face for at most 25 HP and it happens rarely. I would only ever cast it in dire emergencies at that point, but you'll have it down to 30% in no time, and the game becomes a cakewalk from there on for the next few XLs. Even a Felid becomes playable.

(Felid of Ash, start as Conjurer, re-learn to Transmuter, something you always wanted to be, but never could.) (<- I hope you realize it's my personal perspective here, but really it's by far the easiest way to get a Felid Transmuter going.)

[KoboldLord]

Even at 49% failure, the worst that can happen is it blowing up into your face for at most 25 HP and it happens rarely. I would only ever cast it in dire emergencies at that point, but you'll have it down to 30% in no time, and the game becomes a cakewalk from there on for the next few XLs.

60 hit points. 25hp is a typical miscast, but it is entirely possible to suffer much worse. You've gotten lucky. You can also get the charms-school miscasts, which are horrible and definitely not the sorts of things you want to start a battle with.

A potion of brilliance at those failure rates will make it feasible enough for the duration of one major fight, particularly since you probably only have to cast it once or twice. However, if you're attempting coin flips like that on a regular basis without that sort of assistance, then the odds will catch up to you eventually.

[byrel]

I also ran a HuCj the other day. The reputation of Humans is fairly well deserved; they're at least as hard to start as DS. They're not mummies, but...

But I found that I got Battlesphere emergency-castable (30%) around D:5, and properly spammable early D:7, with a complete focus on Cj and Charms. IMB was properly spammable significantly sooner than Battlesphere; the single-schooledness of it is very noticible. And I definitely wouldn't want to try getting a HuCj to IB on Magic Dart alone; that becomes insanely painful before I'm willing to spam IB.

(Note that spammable here means simply no miscast effects...)

[siggboy]

if you're attempting coin flips like that on a regular basis without that sort of assistance, then the odds will catch up to you eventually.

(Emphasis mine)

My point is that you absolutely do not spam a lvl 4 conj/charms spell with a ~50% failure rate. This is really a very wonkish/academic discussion right now. Octopodes/Felids/Humans can have the fail rate down to 20% in D:5, which is completely fine for using the Battlesphere. You will then be able to quickly clear groups of difficult monsters (Gnolls and colored Orcs at this point, usually), which will in turn further drop the failure rate to "grey" (< 20%). Then it's just a "regular" spell with a slightly higher failure rate. In this case, in will be your go-to-spell for anything more difficult than Kobold/Goblin, and you will clear Lair.

[siggboy]

But I found that I got Battlesphere emergency-castable (30%) around D:5, and properly spammable early D:7, with a complete focus on Cj and Charms. IMB was properly spammable significantly sooner than Battlesphere; the single-schooledness of it is very noticible. And I definitely wouldn't want to try getting a HuCj to IB on Magic Dart alone; that becomes insanely painful before I'm willing to spam IB.

This very closely matches my own observations and experience. I haven't tried Humans a lot, though, but I've rolled a few Felids and Octopodes (those are species which are really difficult for me to get up and running with anything else than the new Cj book).
Magic Dart alone is not sufficient on D:3 and D:4. It's necessary to get creative. A few lucky item finds help tremendously. Luckily, most encounters at that level are very manageable with a branded dagger and 0.0 weapons skill.

The Felid is a good example how you can even make it on Magic Dart alone, if you can run away (0.8 speed).

[galehar]

Battlesphere is indeed a good spell. It's a new spell, so balance isn't final, it may be overpowered or not. But even if it is, I strongly doubt that it's optimal play to skip force lance and dazzling spray to learn it asap. Which is the point your trying to make I guess.
Maybe it's optimal for your playstyle, but I'm pretty sure better players learn and use force lance and dazzling spray, even if it delays access to battlesphere by a few dungeon levels.

[siggboy]

Battlesphere is indeed a good spell. It's a new spell, so balance isn't final, it may be overpowered or not. But even if it is, I strongly doubt that it's optimal play to skip force lance and dazzling spray to learn it asap. Which is the point your trying to make I guess.
Maybe it's optimal for your playstyle, but I'm pretty sure better players learn and use force lance and dazzling spray, even if it delays access to battlesphere by a few dungeon levels.

I've used Force Lance to good effect in the Lair. That was on a character where I found a Robe of the Archmagi before entering Lair
You can push back snakes and stuff with Force Lance on a high power level. It's useless against Elephants, Death Yaks and Dire Elephants, which are about the only mobs that you can't brute force with Battlesphere and Magic Dart. So I still think it's a very weak spell, and one of the first candidates to amnesia to make room for usefull stuff.

Dazzling Spray is very weak and it really needs a buff.

I hope that Battlesphere is not going to get nerfed. Please leave it as it is.

Oh, and yes, skipping FL and DS in favor of Battlesphere is exactly the point I'm trying to make

[crate]

I have yet to see a situation where I actually want to cast force lance honestly.

Dazzling spray is very good though. (edit since I know you're going to misinterpret this: force lance is good at high power, it's not very good until then though)

[graffen69]

I just love battlesphere (& Dazzling spray), cudos to dev´s. It opens up caster builds especially when casting spells that miss a lot, not to mention reducing the need of early summons.
So i started a DEWz going the conjuration/Fire route and at 5 piety i was offered Delayed fireball, a spell so rare (maybe just me?) i never had it on any toon – ever. Running from L8 to L2 stash to grab an amnesia scroll + learn fireball+DFB i encountered an 8 hedead Hydra on the way. Figuring this was easy exp, i killed it and surprise, surprise – DFB got wiped of the sheet and i was offered another spell instead. GAH!

Which makes me wonder - can the same spell be offered later again by Vehumet? Say i learn Firball now, is there any chance of getting DFB via Vehumet again?
I seem to miss out a lot of his spell-offers, anyone know a good way to make the Vehumet-spell-offerenings a bit more obvious (init file changes)?

[nicolae]

I have yet to see a situation where I actually want to cast force lance honestly.

What would it take to get you to use it?

[crate]

Force lance is just kind of bad as a low-level spell. Knockback is a really strong effect, so if it's a level 2 spell that has both knockback and damage then the damage has to be bad. But then the way that force lance works means that because the damage is bad the knockback on a lot of things isn't good either (since that depends on the damage). It's particularly bad at low spellpower, since not only does it do less damage-per-mp than magic dart when it hits (and magic dart already isn't the pinnacle of efficiency...) it also misses a lot and has awful range.

As a higher-level spell it could be much more useful since it wouldn't have to be so awful at low power, and the knockback would cost more MP....

[Psieye]

RE: Whether Battlesphere is OP or not

In its current form, I'd be happy to use the new Cj book even if it didn't have Battlesphere. Dazzling spray and Fulminant Prism (together with IMB) are plenty good enough for me. Battlesphere is good but not so amazing that it's worth rushing for it to the exclusion of everything else: I'm sure that's a viable way to play but it feels like a self-imposed challenge style, just like "start as a Cj and don't ever cast Battlesphere" is a challenge style - i.e. 'sub-optimal play for style points'.

If there was something to tweak in Battlesphere, it wouldn't be in its capacity for damage output. It could do with some noisiness when shooting and I'm a little dubious having it be Conj/Charms. Conj/Summ instead maybe? It's the old "Charms is so good already, not sure if we want another starting book to have an introductory spell into that school" thought.

I seem to miss out a lot of his spell-offers, anyone know a good way to make the Vehumet-spell-offerenings a bit more obvious (init file changes)?

A force_more message (yeah, init file) should be enough to get your attention.

As a higher-level spell it could be much more useful since it wouldn't have to be so awful at low power, and the knockback would cost more MP....

This matches my sentiments. I don't learn Force Lance until I'm casting Lv 5 spells as it's worthless at low power. I feel Force Lance should be a Lv 5 or 6 spell, with an increase in spell power cap and with the size factor tweaked so it's still not going to do much against big targets. Knockback deserves to be treated as a strong spell, not shoehorned into a Lv 2 spell.

[evktalo]

Force lance is just kind of bad as a low-level spell. Knockback is a really strong effect, so if it's a level 2 spell that has both knockback and damage then the damage has to be bad. But then the way that force lance works means that because the damage is bad the knockback on a lot of things isn't good either (since that depends on the damage). It's particularly bad at low spellpower, since not only does it do less damage-per-mp than magic dart when it hits (and magic dart already isn't the pinnacle of efficiency...) it also misses a lot and has awful range.

As a higher-level spell it could be much more useful since it wouldn't have to be so awful at low power, and the knockback would cost more MP....

Sounds like a tough space to design into, as a L2 spell. I wonder, if a hex would work there: the spell itself wouldn't deal damage, but if the hexed target took (enough) damage, the knockback would happen. It could be cumulative damage - if one magic dart didn't deal enough, two could. The hex could last long enough to make the casting cost worthwhile early on. Or perhaps the spell could be as is, but if the knockback didn't trigger, it could leave the target hexed so that when enough damage accumulated, it would trigger.

I've been enjoying a DSCj. I thought Force Lance was all right against specific encounters (adders, even ogres) early on, but then, I'm not that good a player (and the point about trying to win each game is a good one). Dazzling Spray seems pretty good yeah and lots of fun. I really enjoy Battlesphere and Fulminant Prism as well. I had an early ring of magical power though, so the character wasn't in such a tight budget at the start.

--Eino

[KoboldLord]

I've used Force Lance to good effect against well-armored opponents and melee threats that I encountered at close range. Either of these are likely to come up several times during the course of the early game before you get to the other spells in the book. It isn't entirely reliable, but if it was entirely reliable it would completely lock down any one melee threat, and that would be too much for a second-level spell.

[Jeremiah]

I've found Battlesphere to be powerful because of its MP efficiency when combined with something cheap like Magic Dart; I cant really say if it's overpowered as I don't have enough game design knowledge - but as a guess I'd put it at a similar level to Sticky Flame.

I've also used Force Lance and Dazzling Spray to good effect, though I'd agree that Force Lance is usually the first candidate for an amnesia scroll.

If anything, Fulminant Prism seems quite weak for a level 5 spell. Maybe that's because I'm not training hexes enough to get it to high power, or maybe it's just because it has to have weak damage for balance reasons because it's irresistible and affects a large area.

[roctavian]

Irresistable, affects a large area, and has smite targeting, which gives it an interesting utility few spells in the game have. I usually open up on Hexes by the time I memorize Dazzling Spray, and leave it on until I get Fulminant Prism at 1-2% (typically around early Lair depths or corresponding D). In my experience thus far, it gets respectable damage and I try to drop one on yak packs, swarms of bees, and orc packs then -- respectively it takes off more than half the health of the yaks, leaves few bee survivors, and annihilates any orcs I've caught in the blast.

It's also nice that you have to consider where you put it, what with the explosion fizzling if monsters hit the prism a bunch of times. I put it in side corridors or behind packs for full effectiveness. It also works great with Dazzling Spray -- whether you want to blind enemies to prevent them from hitting the prism, soften them up for the explosion, or hope for that small chance that a blinded enemy will wander back toward the prism.

Certainly it gets left behind after you pick up more reliable or potent AOEs, but I think it does exactly what it's intended to do.

[Psieye]

I'm surprised there isn't more widespread enthusiasm for Fulminant Prism, given how much I've gotten out of it. But then, this is with this guy who found the book of Debilitations (Fear! Inner Flame! Enslave!) and worships Kiku (readily available skeletons). It's rare for my prisms to get attacked (because monsters are looking at me, not the prism) and at Lair, most monsters can't actually kill the prism in time.

[Jeremiah]

Prism is certainly interesting - the smite targeting means you can put it behind groups of monsters that are surrounding you, and the large area means you can hit monsters round corners out of LOS (which means that in some cases you can kill ice statues without putting yourself in danger.)

I just don't find it very good against monsters you actually need to kill fast (which is often what you want the highest level spell in your starting book to do;) it will barely scratch death yaks or elephants, and against most uniques I would much rather have Fireball, LRD, Lighting Bolt or maybe even Venom Bolt now the damage has been buffed.

Also, if it is decided Battlesphere needs to be nerfed, how about making the damage of the battlesphere's shot capped by the damage or level of the spell that triggered it to shoot? I don't know if something like this is in place already, but it could make it a bit less efficient if you had to cast IMB to make the battlesphere do significant damage, rather than it amplifying Magic Dart into something that is actually good.

[Psieye]

Oh agreed, the Prism is not for killing Fat HP threats, unless you have a lot of running room, swiftness and a +MP ring (or some means of reloading MP later on). That is why you rely on your god to give you appropriate tools for dealing with them. Veh is the obvious choice, Kiku can do it too (hello hydra skeletons) and the "non-caster" gods have their ways too.

[siggboy]

I really like Fulminant Prism. Love the way the spell is placed (like a land mine), and the fact that it's not elemental damage. It's very useful to soften up groups which you can then clean up with Magic Darts and Battlesphere (and, of course, clearing Bee Hives and Orcish Mines).

[byrel]

I only used Prism on the first few runs, when I was trying out all the new spells. Don't get me wrong, I loved it! I just will usually have found (many) other mid-tier spells by the time IMB and IB are waning. And I'll make my future skill plan based on what I've found by then; it just doesn't usually involve tons of Hexes (usually I'm headed for an element), so I have no need to pick up Prism. Bolt of foo, freezing cloud, fireball, iron shot, poison cloud etc. fill roughly the same niche, and can be had (particularly if you're going Veh) well before IMB and IB run out.

So far as force lance goes, I usually haven't bothered memorizing Dazzling Spray thus far (again, excluding my first few runs) so I've relied on it significantly. (In retrospect it seems this was a bad call; apparently dazzling spray is better than I realized the first time through,) But early force lance is quite good on things I really don't want to touch me. Early water moccasins, ogres, Edmund, etc. It has a decent chance to knock them back some time in its three-square range. It is less mana-efficient than MD, but against a water moccasin that's probably not an issue.

I suspect most people would have used Dazzling Spray in that case, and perhaps it would work better. I'll have to try it one of these days.

[siggboy]

There's another consideration regarding the newCj, which I've now learned the hard way: if you mainly play against your own Ghosts (i.e. not online), then it's very dangerous to learn IB on D:4. It's not funny to meet a Cj ghost on D:4 who knows that spell. If you don't have the means to take out the B'sphere really quickly, chances are you're going to die, as it hits like a truck.

Edit: I should have taken my own advice. Let an Octopode die with the spell learned on D:4, only to meet him later as a Ghost. He did cast the sphere right away, so I ran. Somehow he got out of sight, so I started to whack the sphere with MD, mainly because I was curious how many it would take (answer: 3 in this case). Well, to no avail, because ghost right away conjures up another one and it whacks me for 28 (!) damage, which is obviously a 1-shot-kill on a DE on D:4.

Honestly, if you feel like a misanthropist today, just roll Cj on a 0.12 server and let them die as soon as you learn the spell. Chances are it will give a few people quite the grief (ghosts don't get rotated out until they've killed at least twice, right?).

Do ghosts have the same miscast rate as players? Do they suffer from miscast effects? There must be more experience out there with high level spells on lowbie ghosts, how does it work?

[rchandra]

Ghosts (and monsters) don't miscast spells. Ghosts won't cast a spell that the player had below 50% failure at time of death, I think. I think I had a Mara illusion cast a spell that I had at 56% failure, but he may have been casting swiftness instead of Haste.