Spell proposal: Blink Strike

[epsilon]

Level 3 spell, that moves caster on square right in front of targeted enemy, and lands a melee attack, that'll automatically hit without any bonuses to damage - similar to Portal Projectiles.
If used on adjacent enemy, moves caster to the opposite square for one he's standing on.
If needed square is occupied by something else - moves caster to randomly chosen empty square. If there is no empty squares - spell fizzles, so it can't be used on your current target when you fighting more than one enemy in a corridor.
Takes same time to cast as an melee attack.
Causes same magic contamination as Controlled Blink.
Optional: can be or can not be used without attack part on allies.

Warpers could have this spell in their starting book. That'll give them some buff, and make them more offensive.

P.S. Sorry, if this was suggested before.

[Azrael]

I like this quite a lot actually; it has a nice thematic flavor and adds new options to an otherwise weak class. Two things I'm worried about: 1) It has a lot of overlap with Controlled Blink, and could easily be used to escape monsters in a similar way; you should probably lower the range quite a bit and increase the spell level, and 2) No other spell takes the same time to cast as a melee attack. Might be a problem for devs.

[Amnesiac]

I just thought about this a few days ago. Guess where did this idea originate from? Diablo II:LoD - Assassin skills.

My thoughts are that it should be level 4 at least or even 5, because you could use it on popcorn monsters all the time just to escape.

[Kalma]

Takes away a lot of the challenge of tactical maneuvering when playing a melee character.

Serves same purpose as Chei's temporal distortion ability.

Too strong to be a low level spell and at high level controlled blink does the job.

[1010011010]

ridiculous stab potential.

edit: never mind

without any bonuses to damage

[epsilon]

I decided on 3rd level due to few reasons:
1) There is fairly easy ways for getting Controlled Blink effect without having actual spell, so I think it's hight level not so for actually allowing you to do fully controlled teleportation, but more for allowing you to do it right here, right now, without caring about your inventory, buffs or rings. And this spell will have a major drawback of blinking you to monsters only. It'll give you quite a lot of escape potential, but it'll never be as reliable as Controlled Blink.
2) I think about this spell as something, that'll give warpers some damage boost, that allows them surely, but costly land few hits while facing, for example, an early Ogre. That's the same reason, I said it should have same cast time as an attack. Well, this isn't a mandatory, but making it 4th or even 5th level will make it too much less useful.

And, well, there is a ton of spells, that serves same purposes as invocations.

As an option, this spell could actually be incontrollable by default. It'll make you attack random enemy if used without having teleport control, and will allow you to choose target if used with. It'll still be usable for damage and offense by crowd splitting.

[reaver]

This has indeed been suggested at least twice before. The major problem is that you can leave an imp or other popcorn enemy at the edge of your LOS so you can escape case of emergencies. There is a very similar idea known as "jump attack" that is currently being tested on CSZO (it's an evocation instead of a spell).

[nagdon]

What if it automatically targets the most powerful (power = hd or xp value) enemy (or one of the most powerful enemies) in view? This way it could be relatively low level and/or have powerful side effects, because it isn't too useful for escape.

Its primary uses could be reaching meele range of ranged attackers (centaurs, orc priests, yaktaurs, oklobs, electric eels, spellcasters etc.), moving to the other side of an enemy in a corridor and attacking high EV/low AC enemies. It could also be an interesting and dangerous way of stealing runes.

Blinking *behind* the enemy is an interesting effect, I think the spell should always move you there, not just when you are adjacent to the target. Note that if only the places in front of the enemy are free, the spell would still move you there.

The guaranteed hit/no extra damage effect handles stabbing abuses nicely.

I think this variant of the spell should not be penalized by contamination, to make it a viable strategy to repeatedly cast it to kill a high-EV opponent. I don't think that repeatedly blinking to the strongest visible enemy is overpowered. (I know that blinking to a selected enemy is abusable.)

For target calculation I suggest something like calculating (8 + distance from player)*(target experience value)*random(50,100) for each hostile monster in FOV and selecting the one which got the maximal value [summoned/other no reward monsters still use their XP values, but maybe their priority is reduced, no xp "monsters" like plants, IOODs, tentacle segments etc are not targettable even when there is nothing else in the FOV].

If the spell is too strong to be level 3, manipulate the casting time [attack delay, 10 aut, max(attack delay, 10 aut), attack delay+10 aut are all justifiable], if it is too weak, give it some additional effect like minor bonus damage or short-duration EV boost [equivalent to Phase Shift for 15-20 aut] or make the victim loose a few auts to turn around.

[and into]

What if it automatically targets the most powerful (power = hd or xp value) enemy (or one of the most powerful enemies) in view? This way it could be relatively low level and/or have powerful side effects, because it isn't too useful for escape.

I agree that the main problem with the spell is that if useful for escape it would be difficult to balance (and step on toes of semi-controlled and controlled blinks). Your suggestion might help address that, but the problem is that knowing HD values is a bit spoilerish. Those who memorize a bunch of numbers or do tedious things (like keep some of the values saved in a data sheet) would be able to use the spell to better effect, and Crawl tries to avoid that sort of thing when possible. If this spell is going to be differentiated (and also balanced) doing something like what you suggest, I think it just needs to be random which target it strikes, which seems like it would work pretty well flavor wise with the name "Blink Strike" or something along those lines, seeing as how blink is random too unless specified otherwise.

[Amnesiac]

Targeting monsters by power is too gimmicky

[nagdon]

I agree that HD based targetting is bad, there are too much low HD dangerous and high HD not dangerous enemies in the game (although there are lots of spells/effects directly depending on HD, like the enchantment gaining of Wyrmbane and the effectiveness of Mephitic Cloud).

Targetting based on the threat level of the enemy (trivial/easy/tough/nasty) could work, that is public information and is directly used by the Song of Slaying spell (and AFAIK it is not easy to manipulate). When there are lots of monsters of the same threat level in sight, the effect is reduced to random targetting (so you don't have to know whether it will blink to the orc high priest, sorcerer or knight), but when you are running from a hydra and five green rats come into view on the other side of the FOV, you won't blink to the rats with high chance. I support power based targetting because it disallows most escape usages and lets us create a spell with interesting attack applications.

Another idea is to let the spell focus on spellcasters ("This variant of the Blink spell was developed to help assassinating mages quickly: it uses the magical aura of a nearby spellcaster to achieve partial control. Its caster will appear directly behind a nearby spellcaster in a position allowing him to instantly hit the victim (note that this attack cannot be evaded). etc."). In this case it could give some kind of antimagic-like effect against the victim (short duration, probably just 1-2 turns).

[Azrael]

This may not be balanced, but I also think that every consecutive use of this spell should provide a temporary 2-4 boost in EV. I imagine it would be a little harder to target an enemy who is constantly teleporting behind you.

[Amnesiac]

How about at least give player Blink Close? It won't mess up things, just let the player close on some taurs in an unfortunate event of not having any covers close by? It would be a nice situational utility spell. It will blink you to your closest enemy and it will be quite random. The enemy could be chosen randomly, too. It also could be noiseless to help stabbers a bit, but not too much, there are more reliable ways, anyway, because you usually avoid having your target in LoS and there is passwall or controlled teleport(if it isn't nerfed already)

[Igxfl]

Blink Close would be extremely powerful as a player spell. I'd like to see it tried out though. "Greater Apportation"?

[epsilon]

I don't think there is a need for making this spell so complex. Just make it strike random target in LOS - this will make it escape potential close to zero while keeping it useful for taking down enemies one-on-one or for closing distance with this pesky yaktaur pack. Optionally, it could allow you to actually choose target, when you have Teleport Control (making TC more useful too).
And to be honest, I don't see such problem in some extra escape potential. Especially imperfect one. Especially for background, whose only strong side is escape potential.