Battlesphere is overpowered

[Scrotar]

I like the new conjurer spells, but after playing with them, it became evident that battlesphere is rather overpowered and I once I get that spell online the normally meat grinder mid level becomes a joke.

I chuckled a little when I killed the first Orc Warrior I saw with 2 magic darts with sphere up. Likewise, as soon as the spell is castable I am very confident bumrushing on most red monsters (giants, killer bees, uniques) when they would otherwise require careful planning. In fact, once it's consistently castable I don't feel the need to increase it's damage at all with spell skill training until much, much later.

I'll be honest I kinda want to kid myself and say I'm just super skilled... But no, no... Battlesphere is OP and I must stand up for game balance.

Suggestion for fix: Make it start out with high damage and get progressively lower or low damage and get progressively higher, along with tweaking the numbers to force tactical decision of early vs late targets. OR: Make it copy the spells you cast exactly.

[Scrotar]

As I said, it was the first Orc Warrior I saw. The spell was still in the yellow. That would very rarely if ever happen upon just learning IMB. That kind of damage is fairly common with the 'sphere, and with no significant drawbacks relative to IMB, or most other spells for that matter.

Regardless, I hope you are not defending a pet spell because it seems like you just zoned in on attacking my assertion that Battlesphere is OP. Oh, I just looked at your username, yeah... I'll just leave it at that .

Actually, looking back, it may have been one shot, but yeah, the spell is really too good.

[nordetsa]

What do you mean by 'careful planning?' Conjurers are supposed to blast enemies because they don't have spells like blink, conjure flame, or mephitic cloud. Battlesphere requires two spell school to cast it effectively, instead of one as in case of IMB.

And battlesphere does have a drawback, in that it requires a path to fire and can get destroyed.

[Scrotar]

What do you mean by 'careful planning?' Conjurers are supposed to blast enemies because they don't have spells like blink, conjure flame, or mephitic cloud. Battlesphere requires two spell school to cast it effectively, instead of one as in case of IMB.

And battlesphere does have a drawback, in that it requires a path to fire and can get destroyed.

I meant careful planning. If you don't plan in iffy fights, you're doing it wrong. Moving on.

The goal being a dead enemy, conjies do it way better with battlesphere than their cohorts do, and without significant balancing drawbacks. As I said in the OP, once I get it castable I can forget about it for a long time. Train charms to 5 or 6 you is done.

Path to fire: the only time this is a real drawback is in a tight corridor in certain situations, which are quite rare particulalry since they can be avoided knowing this drawback. Also, the sphere can in similar situations be used to stop pursuers.

Can be destroyed: In theory, yes, but in practice not really. I rarely had that problem unless it was easily avoidable. For a few reasons. Again, can avoid those situations. Can recast. What hits it, doesn't hit you. It's actually pretty hardy too. The combination of the above factors and the somewhat weak enemy AI in targeting it leads to it's vulnerability to being negated by destruction to be negligible.

[Scrotar]

No, I think battlesphere is a dumb spell. I just don't really think it's overpowered. It's a noticeable damage boost but it's not that much compared to the amount of damage conjurations do in the first place, unless you are using magic dart all game because you think it's cool to kill orc warriors by "just" casting magic dart. The original design for the spell actually was to copy spells cast by the player, but it would have resulted in a low-level spell that got more powerful the further in the game you are, which would have been really bad. It also would have been overpowered for players smart enough to cast poison arrow instead of magic dart.

Also I thought your username was some sort of play on the word "scrotum"? Is this incorrect?

Most of your response to my OP is plain and simple wrong. I would further respond to you, but... I'm just gonna leave it at that .

[Wahaha]

1. Cast battlesphere, a 4 mp spell.
2. Now every time you cast magic dart or IMB, you automatically cast an extra IMB that doesn't miscast or miss.

Battlesphere is extremely reliable because it doesn't miscast or miss. It does huge damage for free. It does huge damage for 4 mp and 1 turn spent. Its killing efficiency is much higher than a level 4 spell like throw icicle, because again, it doesn't miss or miscast, and again, it only costs 1 turn and 4 mp as opposed to 4 mp every cast. I think that a comparison with sticky flame is appropriate with the difference being that sticky flame requires you to be in melee range to cast while battlesphere has 7 or 8 range.

The argument that you could just cast IMB is wrong because you CAN cast IMB after you cast battlesphere (which is a vastly better spell to cast at the beginning of a fight).

The damage should be lower or it should miss.

[Siegurt]

It's damage is lower than IMB. Battlsphere's damage is 2d(5+(casting power/11)) Max power is 100 so max damage is 2d14
IMB does 2 to (12+power/3) max power 100, which is 2d22 max damage

Edit: For comparison, Throw icicle does 3-(10+power/2) max power 100, which is 3d20 max damage

[Siegurt]

Also note that it only fires if the spell you cast to trigger it hits (So in essence it's using the to hit roll of whatever attack spell you've used to cause it to fire)

But real quick let's compare throw icicle, to battlesphere+IMB:

Let's say you have 20 int and 10 trained in both skills relevant (ice&conjuration or conjuration&charms) that gives you a spell power of 50.

With 20 Mana (Assuming a mid-level spellcaster) You can cast each batch of spells 5 times, that is, 5 throw icicles, or 1 battlesphere and 4 IMBs

at 50 spell power, TI does 3 to 35 damage, average of 19, 5x19 = 95 damage.

at 50 spell power, IMB does 2 to 19.6 damage average of 10.9x4 = 43.2,
Each battlesphere hit does 2 to 18 points, average of 10.0x4 = 40
40+43.2 = 83.2 less than 5 throw icicles.


Now you will hit more with IMB+battlesphere, but AC is applied to each the IMB itself as well as the battlesphere attack, I'm not convinced that battlesphere is all that overly powerful.

[Wahaha]

Also note that it only fires if the spell you cast to trigger it hits (So in essence it's using the to hit roll of whatever attack spell you've used to cause it to fire)

No it doesn't.

Math and theorycrafting

Alright how about this?
1. You use battlesphere, triggering it with magic dart and IMB in a real game
2. You use throw icicle in a real game
3. You realize that battlesphere is better

[XuaXua]

Make battlesphere cast what you cast.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Make battlesphere cast what you cast.

The original design for the spell actually was to copy spells cast by the player, but it would have resulted in a low-level spell that got more powerful the further in the game you are, which would have been really bad. It also would have been overpowered for players smart enough to cast poison arrow instead of magic dart.

[Siegurt]

Also note that it only fires if the spell you cast to trigger it hits (So in essence it's using the to hit roll of whatever attack spell you've used to cause it to fire)

No it doesn't.

You are correct, I just double checked and I misread one of the comments in the code without looking, it does fire even if you miss. (My perception from playing may be from when it didn't fire because it couldn't get LOS on the critter)

Math and theorycrafting

Alright how about this?
1. You use battlesphere, triggering it with magic dart and IMB in a real game
2. You use throw icicle in a real game
3. You realize that battlesphere is better

I just checked my morgue, and I've played 14 characters with battlesphere and 11 with throw icicle since .12 was made "stable", I didn't particularly find the battlesphere characters any easier to play than the throw icicle ones.

Since the *math* isn't wrong, if my statement is incorrect (About battlesphere not seeming overpowered) then it's because I'm starting with an incorrect premise or am using incorrect information to derive the math. Which is eminently possible, I'm human and make mistakes, particularly when I'm quickly scanning large batches of code for somewhat obscure information. (For instance the whole to hit thing))

What I can tell you *is* correct is the damage formulas, if something else about my premise doesn't track, how about you talk about what it is instead of dismissing all opposing points of view out of hand as coming from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.

If your argument is "Battlesphere does too much damage for an automatic-hitting attack" that's a reasonable argument, it's not nearly as much damage in one hit as other level 4 spells, but spread out the way it is, it's usually more in total (In my example above 1 level 4 spell does 4x9 damage or 36 which is more than 1 hit from a throw icicle)

It does have some limitations which prevent it from being run-away above and beyond any other level 4 spell, notably that *speed* of damage done is valuable (in the "I'd like to kill that range 1 ogre before he squashes my fragile little spellcaster in one hit" kind of way) *and* the fact that AC applies to each portion of the damage done (Which makes it much less effective against high-AC creatures, if even 5 damage is subtracted from each hit throw icicle comes out ahead in the damage-per-cast contest, definitely a later game limitation though) and of course the fact that you can only have one at a time. I agree that the tactical considerations (don't fight in corridors) and possibility of it being destroyed are not really limitations in a typical game.

Having it duplicate the spells you cast would obviously make it much weaker at the low end, but so much more potent at the high end as to be over the top insane.
Having it lower it's damage per attack would have the same overall effect as lowering the base damage done against one target, although it would bring a little interesting tactical consideration for target selection in a target rich environment.
Having it potentially miss would help make it weaker (Although this is really just an alternate way of lowering it's average damage, I think it makes some degree of thematic sense)
Having it do what I thought it did (And only fire if you hit something) would be similar to having it miss with it's own roll, although it would let lower level conjurers use Magic Dart to drive it miss-less-ly which might be a good or potentially bad thing. Generally though once your spellpower is high enough you hit with pretty much all your spells.
If it moved at normal speed, the tactical considerations would be a larger limitation, since you'd constantly be finagling your position so your battlesphere could get LOS rather than having to move, I'm not sure if that would be tedious or interesting.
Another possibility would be that the more it's fired the larger chance of it simply malfunctioning and refusing to fire, this would make the limitation scale with spellpower (Since higher-powered spheres last longer, they'd be more unreliable as they got more use)

[Galefury]

It felt very efficient to me when I used it. I could probably kill one orc warrior with IMB, but I can kill two with Battlesphere + magic dart. Of course fighting groups of enemies is to be avoided, but sometimes I cant do that, or get lazy.

[Mankeli]

I've found that magic dart + battlesphere is really great for taking down especially those less-threatening monsters in the early mid-mid game (which are btw the great majority) in an mp-efficient way and I use it all the time on my conjurers. Does that make it overpowered? I'm not entirely convinced but the magic dart + battlesphere combination is certainly very strong in terms of "bang for a buck".

However, these comments made me laugh:

Path to fire: the only time this is a real drawback is in a tight corridor in certain situations, which are quite rare

Corridors rare in crawl?

Can be destroyed: In theory, yes, but in practice not really.

Eventhough you apparently use the spell heavily, you never had the sphere destroyded by monsters? Seems like you are better a player than all others combined.

[Scrotar]

Siegurt, I appreciate the thoughtful and candid response, but in practice (even in practical testing), IMB seems 2-3 times as efficient as any other direct damage spell and for whatever reason seems to be doing *more* damage per cast consistently. Or maybe it's just being able to cast 4 spells for the price of one. Maybe something in the math is off.

[galehar]

I think battlesphere + magic dart is very MP efficient but has a lower damage / turn compared to other L4 conjuration spells. It makes it useful and powerful early on, but not so good against dangerous monsters you want dead quickly. Seems balanced and differentiated to me.

[Siegurt]

Siegurt, I appreciate the thoughtful and candid response, but in practice (even in practical testing), IMB seems 2-3 times as efficient as any other direct damage spell and for whatever reason seems to be doing *more* damage per cast consistently. Or maybe it's just being able to cast 4 spells for the price of one. Maybe something in the math is off.

Did you mean battlesphere instead of IMB?

[Scrotar]

Here are the reasons battlesphere is overpowered, Galehar.

Can't miss.
Can't fail.
Won't go hungry mid battle just trigger casting it.
Don't need to train it beyond castable to be very effective throughout a large chunk of the game, particularly as trigger spell moves from magic dart to something like blast.
Does damage in similar order of magnitude as it's peers but is roughly 3 times more efficient, particularly if you count the trigger spell and the ability to rest off the mana from casting it.
Even if it does slightly less damage in comparison to similar bolt/blast spells (which, in my experience is doubtful) 3 vs 4 tiles away to kill is questionable enough that the appropriate caster will avoid that situation anyway. That is, the majority of the time slightly higher or even moderately higher burst damage would make little difference but the triple efficiency always will make a large difference.
AC (not convinced it even checks AC) is generally not a significant factor in damage beyond a certain point, i.e. 30-3 vs 40-3 vs 7-3.
Higher granularity. Means I can finish off a monster with 1 mana instead of overkill 4 or just shoot popcorn efficiently. Even more efficiency beyond raw mana cost.
Sphere is nice enough to help you if you cast it in a corridor, as it will displace the monster behind you when you move towards the sphere, allowing you a tile of leeway.
Sphere is also pretty hardy even if the dumb monsters do manage to attack it, and what attacks it, doesn't attack you. But honestly they never attack it unless by accident or in their face in a corridor.
Did I mention it's efficient as hell? Efficiency matters a lot given the unpredictable nature of crawl.
Has unlimited range (trigger cast with dart).
Comes online pretty fast as a primary damage dealer (level 4). Charms is also a great collateral school to train.
Hmmm what more... Well I could probably think of more to extract from my holistic recollection of it, but yeah this spell needs some tweakin'.

[crate]

i think it's overpowered and boring but i don't particularly care

[pickled_heretic]

'Math shmath' is about right. Battlesphere feels really powerful, and I try to get it for any character that uses conjurations. The amount of damage you get for one cast seems comparable to sticky flames but it is much safer to use and extra damage flows to additional targets.

[Volteccer_Jack]

'Math shmath' is about right. Battlesphere feels really powerful, and I try to get it for any character that uses conjurations.

The same can be said of any well-designed spell, and it doesn't indicate anything about the actual power of Battlesphere.

[pickled_heretic]

There is no calculus involved whether other spells should take those slots. If battlesphere Is in game and I use conjurations, I memorize it. That is an example of bad spell design.

[XuaXua]

Make battlesphere cast what you cast.

The original design for the spell actually was to copy spells cast by the player, but it would have resulted in a low-level spell that got more powerful the further in the game you are, which would have been really bad. It also would have been overpowered for players smart enough to cast poison arrow instead of magic dart.

Make Battlesphere cast what you cast, but limit the power of the Battlesphere attack to the lower of either the spell power or the Battlesphere power.

[pratamawirya]

If battlesphere Is in game and I use conjurations, I memorize it. That is an example of bad spell design.

No, that is instead an example of a spell being very appealing to SOME players. (I like it, but I don't really find it THAT awesome to the point I would use it all the time.)

[DracheReborn]

There is no calculus involved whether other spells should take those slots. If battlesphere Is in game and I use conjurations, I memorize it. That is an example of bad spell design.

Same could said of Haste right? And a bunch of other Charm spells.

Odd, on the last Conjurer I played, I barely used Battlesphere, but that's possibly because I picked up Stone Arrow early. I will have to try it again to see what the fuss is about.

[XuaXua]

Rather than waste 3MP per orc with Stone Arrow, you'll actually hold onto Magic Dart with Battlesphere to use MP efficiently.

[sanka]

Or even better kill the orcs with a dagger of venom even more mp efficiently, and kill any serious threat with stone arrows.

[whale]

I must confess, I too thought that the spell is a bit overpowered, but now that Siegurt showed some calculations I'm beginning to wonder if the spell just feels more powerful when it really isn't (perhaps due to shooting two times per turn and doing decent damage for 1MP).

In any case, I often use the sphere as a meat-shield when running along a corridor from a scary ranged dude or a pack. The sphere usually takes a couple shots to take down and melee dudes get tangled with it which gives me a handful of free turns to get away. I'm pretty sure this isn't the intended behavior, so I'm proposing to nerf sphere's hp to 1 and strip it of any defenses excluding perhaps some EV. Fragility seems a reasonable price for outsourcing your firepower.

Also the sphere should probably miss using same accuracy as the trigger spell, but with a separate to hit roll. I can't really see the reason why it doesn't miss in the first place and if it misses every time the trigger spell misses this will create damage output spikes, which we have enough already with the randomized damage.

[TeshiAlair]

I think battlesphere is quite nice against one strong enemy, but against packs it becomes a lot weaker due to getting smacked around. IMO the main problem with it is that while thematically cool, it is boring as hell, which is why I never use it.

[pickled_heretic]

Stone arrow and battlesphere are not an either or consideration. You can memorize and even use them both at the same time for MASSIVE DAMAGE. But in general, you can do more damage and save mana by simply using dart and battlesphere at max range.

And yes, haste is a pretty badly designed spell. That has no bearing on this conversation.

[Volteccer_Jack]

efficient

It's not the usual word people use, but The Great and Powerful Henzell has already spoken on this very subject:

  Code:

[13:34] <VolteccerJack> ??optimal
[13:34] <Henzell> optimal[1/2]: what do you even mean, turn optimal? time optimal? resource optimal? safety optimal? opportunity costs easily make this term mean nothing.

Damage-per-MP is only one of many things to consider. And whether or not Battlesphere is even MP-efficient is being over-simplified. Battlesphere+Dart against a single orc is a ridiculous waste of MP. Against a random group of enemies, who's to say Battlesphere+6 Darts is more MP efficient than using Static Discharge three times or Lightning Bolt twice? If an enemy has, say, 4 HP left, firing at it is a complete waste of your Battlesphere's shot for that turn.

shoot popcorn efficiently

The whole point of popcorn is that there is a lot of it. You want to maximize your targets-per-spell, which means things like Dazzling Spray, Fireball, Freezing Cloud, or Bolt spells. Battlesphere can only increase the damage to a single target you're already damaging anyway, which is practically the opposite of ideal for dealing with multiple weak enemies.

you can do more damage and save mana by simply using dart

Stone Arrow does more damage than Magic Dart, bro.

the normally meat grinder mid level becomes a joke

Sticky Flame, Throw Icicle, Lightning Bolt, Enslavement, Spider Form, Mephitic Cloud. It's the same for every class that starts with a book. The early game consists of racing to get your next spell online before the next 'tier' of monsters show up. A Transmuter needs to get Sticks to Snakes/Spider Form online ASAP, because that makes survival much, much easier, and then later on, the same happens with Ice Form/Blade Hands. Earth Elementalists race to Stone Arrow, and then later race to LRD. And if you think Battlesphere is the only such spell new Conjurers have, then you are undervaluing probably every other spell in the book.

PS--Battlesphere actually is overpowered, but it's nothing as simple as "IMB sucks in comparison".

[rchandra]

People who find battlesphere boring: is it for any reason other than being strong?

I find battlesphere pretty interesting since it sometimes gives me decisions/trouble related to its location and firing path. almost every other conjuration just does damage, so I'm not sure why battlesphere is boring and they aren't. If you think all conjurations are boring, well, I don't think we're on the same page at all.

I don't consider battlesphere a must-learn conjuration if I don't start as Cj, my normal element spells should be mostly fine and then eventually I'll want a spell of another element, or IMB/IOOD. depending on my original element I guess battlesphere (with or without dart) could find a use but it doesn't seem necessary.

[crate]

spray and prism are dramatically more fun than battlesphere!

single-target conjurations are kind of boring, yes, but multi-target ones are more interesting positionally than battlesphere is

[rchandra]

yes prism is the most fun conjuration :)
edit: unless it's IOOD.

[pickled_heretic]

And exactly how much damage does stone arrow do at Max vision range? Next time, quote the whole thing instread of quoting out of context and being obviously intellectually dishonest.

[mikee]

People who find battlesphere boring: is it for any reason other than being strong?

I tried to use battlesphere on at least a few different characters to see how it was. It seems strong enough, if it fits a playstyle you like or something. Personally, though, on any character I very rarely find myself casting multiple conjurations in a single fight. Perhaps I am the most efficient of all? =P There are just so many ways to deal damage, so many ways to play - battlesphere does not fit any of mine and I do not have interest in using it.

[Scrotar]

The consensus seems to be that the spell is undesirable in it's current form, whether for being overpowered (yes) or just boring. I personally don't find it boring, but since most others seem to, I would suppot it being significantly changed.

For those like Mr. Ploog et al, I would encourage you to make a character with the sole intent of maximizing battlesphere. You will likely see what we mean. That is how I discovered that it is overpowered. I was YASD'ing a lot of conjurers when I said hmmm, what if I just go full throttle for battlesphere and then launch off that. Well it worked, and a little too well, when I started becoming bored with how easy it made things.

[Utis]

I don't get it. It's strong yes. But strong is not the same as overpowered, unless one is using hyperbole by habit. Alright, Cj is a strong background; does that mean it would, by an insurmountable margin, be your first choice, if you want to maximize your chance of getting to Lair? And why is it supposed to be particularly boring? Because it's hitting with a single-target, decent-to-good damage ranged attack? Battlesphere requires marginally more positional thought than Poison Arrow or a Longbow. Is it more boring than these?

[Jeremiah]

Don't know about power level or boring, but I've always thought it's a bit odd that it can work as a meatshield, thus making it in some ways more like a summon than a conjuration.

What if it no longer worked as a meatshield - monsters could fire ranged attacks through it and push it aside if they walked towards you? Alternatively, any monster hitting it could instantly destroy it.