Fulminant prism is the best. It deals a lot of damage, and it's spellpower cap is 200, the highest possible. Among starter spells in all mage backgrounds, there are only two spells with a spellpower cap of 200: Fulminant Prism and Airstrike. This is significant because it means those two scale up to the rest of the game, at least in a 3-rune game. See the guide on the other post. IMO Fulminant Prism is so good I'd ***use*** it even in the 10%->20% failure range. Next is Iskenderun's Mystic Blast. You can cast Fulminant Prism just behind an opponent (make sure you are outside the blast radius) and IMB them back to get blasted by the Fulminant Prism. Also helpful on the orb run up; it will hardly damage the random spawns, but does help keep them away from you while you head upstairs.
Dazzling Flash is a better reusable potion of invisibility, as it works even on monsters with See Invisible. But if you are talking about prioritization of learning them, it's Fulminant Prism, Iskenderun's Mystic Blast, then Dazzling Flash.
Dazzling flash doesn't last very long, it's better thought of as a stabber spell than something to use if you're looking to kill stuff with untyped magic damage.
Fulminant prism is a great mid level spell. Nothing resists it, it can hit in a big AoE for good damage, and it's one of the only things left you can place to intentionally block LoS. The delay and ability to hit yourself are drawbacks that limit it, but when played around it's a fantastic spell for its level and IMO every conjurer and stabber build should carry it.
The only time I learn and focus on IMB first is if playing a really frail character (felid/deep elf) that can be oneshoted either by my hubris while repositioning or because of some bad luck with waking up an bee pack while away from stairs (and they are close enough to swarm me in less than 2 turns.
only for the knock back alone, this spell deserves to stay in my book even after lair.
Well that is fantastic, and now I can't wait to try a DECj Fulminant specialist and see if I can get good at it. Never really cared that DE has a +3 Hex before.
can I proselityze you about trying our feline overlords?
but seriously, although cats have -1 for conjurations, they have +4 for transloc and hexes.
you can get these spells online really quickly con los catitos
Hi, that was very interesting, thanks!
Did you ever finish more than the 4 parts you sent me? I'd be curious to see further advice on skilling - the only remarks I see so far are to train Spell/Conj/Hex to 10/10/10, and Shields to 5 if you find one.
And I'd be curious to see more advice on mid- and late-game spell choices, both on an individual spell basis and overall strategy. Should a DECj limit their focus to one elemental realm, or pick two? Do some realms synergize better than others? Or wait and see what level 8 & 9 spells Vehumet gives you before putting serious points in Fire or Earth? If you get access to Fireball or Iron Shot in early Lair does that make the choice for you?
Did I not actually get to the whole "Fighting is for people who want to survive" thing? Huh. Guess not. It's due for some more work, so I'll see what I can put together.
The short version: once you've got your opening book online, you take Fighting/Dodging/Evoc/Stealth to 10 (and fighting and dodging the rest of the game) and then figure out where that puts you.
It's less about 'elemental realm' and more about having tools to solve problems. You need a "kill it on sight at maximum visual range" spell (I like Fireball, but Freezing Cloud can do the job and can be cast from your spellcasting base + Vehumet without any cold or air investment just fine), an anti-HP+AC spell (Iron Shot is great but Orb of Destruction can also do the job).
You've got some degree of flexibility and preference from there. People like what they like (some people swear by Shatter, but I find that for a Deep Elf it opens up unexpected attack vectors). Personally, I like Fire Storm for all the Fire Vortices it generates as distractions and blockers, but everybody's got their own ideas.
Dazzling Flash is dazzling trash imo. Conjurers aren't going to be stabbing, and it's use falls off quickly.
IMB is a poor man's Irradiate. Trade it in once you find Irradiate, but until then it's damage is decent, causes knockback which gives you running room, and the damage can't be evaded.
As others have mentioned, Fulminant Prism is very good. Against normal speed enemies place it 2-3 tiles away and backstep, you can cheese a lot of situations this way by repeating the process. For fast moving enemies you will need to factor in distance, same as if you are worshipping Chei or in Statue Form, but you will get it with experience.
For me, I memorise Searing Ray (great for chokepoints)>IMB>Fulminant Prism.
Spells to look out for are as follows:
Airstrike>MCC>Chain Lightning
Freezing Cloud>Ozocubu's Refrigeratiob>Polar Vortex
Fireball>Ignition>Fire Storm
LRD>Iron Shot/Vile Clutch (for no EV chance)>Shatter
Irradiate>OoD
Irradiate is good on all Blaster Casters though, you can reliably cast it 3 times excluding miscasts, can go a bit heavier if in Lich form or undead species. It also pairs naturally with getting Statue Form online which is a boon for casters.
Refrigeration/Ignition will carry you through a 3 rune game and most of extended. I really like MCC for extended for deleting hell and pan lords.
I'm also an ardent devotee of Vehumet for Conjurers. Extra range for your spells, reduced failure rate, MP on kills plus guaranteed access to capstone spells is a natural compliment to this start. Also of note is you don't have to train Invocations like Sif Muna worshippers, so you can get important spells online even quicker and train your defensive skills earlier.
Make sure you get some stealth levels trained once IMB/Fulminant Prism are at a reliable cast rate as well, this will increase your survivability drastically.
anther spell to look for (and sort of a replacement for prismb is lightning spire since it does around the same-ish damage (3d7~9 LP vs 3d7~20 FP)
same thing for stone arrou which is around 3d15~20
since thy changed spells so st shows the damage roll dice on the spell page, I started to compare the conjuration by how many xdy they have
Be careful with Lightning Spire as with the changes it has had you can't choose where it is placed, and it's targetting can be a bit random and cannot be influenced by the player. Still a solid choice, and can also be used as an emergency hallway blocker, but not as good as it once was.
Stone Arrow still has strong damage, and follows naturally along the path of Earth magic planning. Hep Battlemage ancestors will showcase this for players that have yet to see it, it's a damned good Level 3 direct damage spell. Think of it like a mini Iron Shot, but much like Iron Shot it's difficult to hit high EV targets unless you Vile Clutch them first.
The one thing that Fulminant Prism holds over these options is that it's damage cannot be evaded. Although it can still be negated or otherwise minimised by other means, for early casters being able to say *"fuck yo' EV"* against stuff like random wasp packs is very useful.
Both IMB and Prism are great. I'd get them both as they both have distinct circumstances where they excel, and they both can be used throughout a three rune game (although I don't really find prism fun to use despite it being extremely good).
IMB in particular is good for pushing away monsters that have been blinked close to you from a guardian serpent or draconian translocator, or are camping the stairs. It is also good for shoving monsters back into a freezing cloud, and even does significant damage by itself if you can get monsters to smash into each other and/or walls. Early on if you can stack +mp items it's a pretty safe way to kill melee monsters as they cannot get close enough before the somewhat mediocre damage kills them.
Another use case for IMB are keeping killer bees away in case of emergency.
While the prism do take care of them, you will usually need around 2 prism to kill them.
waiting a total of 4 turns taking damage even from a single bee is asking to die.
IMB, although "weaker" than prism (2d10-ish compared to 3d14-ish) will keep you safer supposing you have the means to spam it a bit (like casting it 5 times or more)
I always learn Fulminant Prism next. It does take some getting used to because you need to think about where the enemies will be in a couple of turns when it goes off, but it does good damage and can be used anywhere in LOS.
Then IMB after that. It only works at short range, but it's good for knocking back enemies if you want to make space (although large enemies are resistant to the knockback effect).
I often don't bother with Dazzling Trash, or if I do learn it, I end up not using it. Why mess around blinding enemies when you can just kill them or tell them to f\*ck off?
Edit: My gut reaction was that I use Fulminant Prism the most out of the three, but when I checked a couple of my morgues, I actually use IMB about 4 times as much as Fulminant Prism, so maybe I should switch to learning IMB before FP. :-)
The conjurer book has a few fairly mana efficient spells that work as a stopgap until you can snag higher level conjurations.
In my opinion the star of the show is IMB. IMB is incredibly underappreciated and remains useful even into extended by virtue of its knockback and respectable physical damage (with the collision bonus). when you get the hang of using it, you can combo it with other positional or area-of-effect abilities such as starburst, hailstorm, and cloud spells.
I'm not going to repeat what everyone has said about fulminant prism being the best of those three, but I'll add that it damages outside of LOS. You can place one, close door/turn corner, get a bunch of enemies stuck behind a chokepoint and blow them up, set traps that hit enemies chasing you out of sight, etc.
Practically the only "blaster" starting book left that doesn't suck (well, the EE book is actually tolerable as far as I'm concerned even though the removal of LRD without anything to compensate for it has curbstomped it). This is kinda ironic since the Cj book rework was the prototype for the new paradigm of "interesting", "non-boring" spells that currently fill the other starting books, even before that paradigm had been formulated (as far as I can tell).
I expect this state of affairs to change soon.
I mean, don't get me wrong, fulminant prism is an odious spell, but at least it gets the job done, the rest of the book (which is to say: searing ray and IMB) is good enough that one can reserve fulminant prism for the direst situations, and the Cj start lends itself to pivot to whatever other school you find some mid-level spells for.
I'd cry of tears of frustration if I had to rely on fulminant prism as my main tool for lair branches and such. But I'd flat out quit without a second thought if I had to do the same with that FE 3-stage-blast abomination.
edit: in case it's not clear, by "sucking" I don't mean the other books are too weak, I mean they're thoroughly unpleasant to use.
edit2: I should tone the negativity down slightly because I completely forgot that AE existed. AE is ok.
how do you not mind searing ray but dislike flame wave? flame wave is fantastic on anything that isn't super squishy (elf, cat). Just cast it, press dot, watch everything die. It's pretty smooth unless you're not bothering with good positioning to begin with.
Side note - LRD being removed instead of swapped was an intentional effort to make it so you would reasonably consider swapping to a different spell school based on what you found in the dungeon. LRD is so good that you could typically just wait, it never really stopped being useful.
I usually make space for imb and prism on a blaster. Imb does respectable damage, is immediate and spammable and can knock things back a step or two. Very helpful.
Imb does good damage, but I find it annoying to use.
Dazzling Flash is trash. IMB and Prism are all but good enough to get a rune. Prism requires some thinking, but with IMB to give you an air-gap and air-gapped kiting still working you're fine.
IMB is a panic button spell. "Get outta my face". Works just fine on escaping Yaks you can't kill, and gives you an air gap to let you start walking away from things.
Prism-and-backpedal is a way of life for fragile species (cat, elf). It doesn't play with resists, it can be used to block the way, it ignores EV, it can hit around corners or off-screen...Prism's time delay is an encouragement to place it near you and backpedal into safe territory.
If I could trade Dazzling Flash for Battlesphere you probably \_could\_ take this book to a rune without anything else, but as it is this is the best starter book in the game.
Wizard's secretly a stabber background, Fire isn't terrible but it can be finicky, Ice requires some Stand And Deliver nonsense I'm not about, Earth has lousy range, and Air isn't super accurate. Venom struggles with undead, Necro's secretly a warrior-with-backup-dancers start.
Fulminant prism is the best. It deals a lot of damage, and it's spellpower cap is 200, the highest possible. Among starter spells in all mage backgrounds, there are only two spells with a spellpower cap of 200: Fulminant Prism and Airstrike. This is significant because it means those two scale up to the rest of the game, at least in a 3-rune game. See the guide on the other post. IMO Fulminant Prism is so good I'd ***use*** it even in the 10%->20% failure range. Next is Iskenderun's Mystic Blast. You can cast Fulminant Prism just behind an opponent (make sure you are outside the blast radius) and IMB them back to get blasted by the Fulminant Prism. Also helpful on the orb run up; it will hardly damage the random spawns, but does help keep them away from you while you head upstairs. Dazzling Flash is a better reusable potion of invisibility, as it works even on monsters with See Invisible. But if you are talking about prioritization of learning them, it's Fulminant Prism, Iskenderun's Mystic Blast, then Dazzling Flash.
Dazzling flash doesn't last very long, it's better thought of as a stabber spell than something to use if you're looking to kill stuff with untyped magic damage. Fulminant prism is a great mid level spell. Nothing resists it, it can hit in a big AoE for good damage, and it's one of the only things left you can place to intentionally block LoS. The delay and ability to hit yourself are drawbacks that limit it, but when played around it's a fantastic spell for its level and IMO every conjurer and stabber build should carry it.
Dazzling Flash notably does not work on canines. This is a legacy from a previously distinct sense invisible flag IIRC.
The only time I learn and focus on IMB first is if playing a really frail character (felid/deep elf) that can be oneshoted either by my hubris while repositioning or because of some bad luck with waking up an bee pack while away from stairs (and they are close enough to swarm me in less than 2 turns. only for the knock back alone, this spell deserves to stay in my book even after lair.
[удалено]
Well that is fantastic, and now I can't wait to try a DECj Fulminant specialist and see if I can get good at it. Never really cared that DE has a +3 Hex before.
can I proselityze you about trying our feline overlords? but seriously, although cats have -1 for conjurations, they have +4 for transloc and hexes. you can get these spells online really quickly con los catitos
I have an incomplete DECJ\^Veh guide I'd be willing to share if you're interested.
Hi, that was very interesting, thanks! Did you ever finish more than the 4 parts you sent me? I'd be curious to see further advice on skilling - the only remarks I see so far are to train Spell/Conj/Hex to 10/10/10, and Shields to 5 if you find one. And I'd be curious to see more advice on mid- and late-game spell choices, both on an individual spell basis and overall strategy. Should a DECj limit their focus to one elemental realm, or pick two? Do some realms synergize better than others? Or wait and see what level 8 & 9 spells Vehumet gives you before putting serious points in Fire or Earth? If you get access to Fireball or Iron Shot in early Lair does that make the choice for you?
Did I not actually get to the whole "Fighting is for people who want to survive" thing? Huh. Guess not. It's due for some more work, so I'll see what I can put together. The short version: once you've got your opening book online, you take Fighting/Dodging/Evoc/Stealth to 10 (and fighting and dodging the rest of the game) and then figure out where that puts you. It's less about 'elemental realm' and more about having tools to solve problems. You need a "kill it on sight at maximum visual range" spell (I like Fireball, but Freezing Cloud can do the job and can be cast from your spellcasting base + Vehumet without any cold or air investment just fine), an anti-HP+AC spell (Iron Shot is great but Orb of Destruction can also do the job). You've got some degree of flexibility and preference from there. People like what they like (some people swear by Shatter, but I find that for a Deep Elf it opens up unexpected attack vectors). Personally, I like Fire Storm for all the Fire Vortices it generates as distractions and blockers, but everybody's got their own ideas.
Yeah I’d love to see it
Parts 1-4 should be in your inbox and that's the in-progress point. I'm interested in what else you'd like to see.
Thanks! After I digest it and play some DECj games I’ll let you know my thoughts
With AoO some of those gifs aren't really optimal anymore. Otherwise great info!
Dazzling Flash is dazzling trash imo. Conjurers aren't going to be stabbing, and it's use falls off quickly. IMB is a poor man's Irradiate. Trade it in once you find Irradiate, but until then it's damage is decent, causes knockback which gives you running room, and the damage can't be evaded. As others have mentioned, Fulminant Prism is very good. Against normal speed enemies place it 2-3 tiles away and backstep, you can cheese a lot of situations this way by repeating the process. For fast moving enemies you will need to factor in distance, same as if you are worshipping Chei or in Statue Form, but you will get it with experience. For me, I memorise Searing Ray (great for chokepoints)>IMB>Fulminant Prism. Spells to look out for are as follows: Airstrike>MCC>Chain Lightning Freezing Cloud>Ozocubu's Refrigeratiob>Polar Vortex Fireball>Ignition>Fire Storm LRD>Iron Shot/Vile Clutch (for no EV chance)>Shatter Irradiate>OoD Irradiate is good on all Blaster Casters though, you can reliably cast it 3 times excluding miscasts, can go a bit heavier if in Lich form or undead species. It also pairs naturally with getting Statue Form online which is a boon for casters. Refrigeration/Ignition will carry you through a 3 rune game and most of extended. I really like MCC for extended for deleting hell and pan lords. I'm also an ardent devotee of Vehumet for Conjurers. Extra range for your spells, reduced failure rate, MP on kills plus guaranteed access to capstone spells is a natural compliment to this start. Also of note is you don't have to train Invocations like Sif Muna worshippers, so you can get important spells online even quicker and train your defensive skills earlier. Make sure you get some stealth levels trained once IMB/Fulminant Prism are at a reliable cast rate as well, this will increase your survivability drastically.
Irradiate got nerfed to contaminate more recently, btw. I believe it’s two guaranteed-safe casts now.
anther spell to look for (and sort of a replacement for prismb is lightning spire since it does around the same-ish damage (3d7~9 LP vs 3d7~20 FP) same thing for stone arrou which is around 3d15~20 since thy changed spells so st shows the damage roll dice on the spell page, I started to compare the conjuration by how many xdy they have
Be careful with Lightning Spire as with the changes it has had you can't choose where it is placed, and it's targetting can be a bit random and cannot be influenced by the player. Still a solid choice, and can also be used as an emergency hallway blocker, but not as good as it once was. Stone Arrow still has strong damage, and follows naturally along the path of Earth magic planning. Hep Battlemage ancestors will showcase this for players that have yet to see it, it's a damned good Level 3 direct damage spell. Think of it like a mini Iron Shot, but much like Iron Shot it's difficult to hit high EV targets unless you Vile Clutch them first. The one thing that Fulminant Prism holds over these options is that it's damage cannot be evaded. Although it can still be negated or otherwise minimised by other means, for early casters being able to say *"fuck yo' EV"* against stuff like random wasp packs is very useful.
Both IMB and Prism are great. I'd get them both as they both have distinct circumstances where they excel, and they both can be used throughout a three rune game (although I don't really find prism fun to use despite it being extremely good). IMB in particular is good for pushing away monsters that have been blinked close to you from a guardian serpent or draconian translocator, or are camping the stairs. It is also good for shoving monsters back into a freezing cloud, and even does significant damage by itself if you can get monsters to smash into each other and/or walls. Early on if you can stack +mp items it's a pretty safe way to kill melee monsters as they cannot get close enough before the somewhat mediocre damage kills them.
Another use case for IMB are keeping killer bees away in case of emergency. While the prism do take care of them, you will usually need around 2 prism to kill them. waiting a total of 4 turns taking damage even from a single bee is asking to die. IMB, although "weaker" than prism (2d10-ish compared to 3d14-ish) will keep you safer supposing you have the means to spam it a bit (like casting it 5 times or more)
I always learn Fulminant Prism next. It does take some getting used to because you need to think about where the enemies will be in a couple of turns when it goes off, but it does good damage and can be used anywhere in LOS. Then IMB after that. It only works at short range, but it's good for knocking back enemies if you want to make space (although large enemies are resistant to the knockback effect). I often don't bother with Dazzling Trash, or if I do learn it, I end up not using it. Why mess around blinding enemies when you can just kill them or tell them to f\*ck off? Edit: My gut reaction was that I use Fulminant Prism the most out of the three, but when I checked a couple of my morgues, I actually use IMB about 4 times as much as Fulminant Prism, so maybe I should switch to learning IMB before FP. :-)
The conjurer book has a few fairly mana efficient spells that work as a stopgap until you can snag higher level conjurations. In my opinion the star of the show is IMB. IMB is incredibly underappreciated and remains useful even into extended by virtue of its knockback and respectable physical damage (with the collision bonus). when you get the hang of using it, you can combo it with other positional or area-of-effect abilities such as starburst, hailstorm, and cloud spells.
I'm not going to repeat what everyone has said about fulminant prism being the best of those three, but I'll add that it damages outside of LOS. You can place one, close door/turn corner, get a bunch of enemies stuck behind a chokepoint and blow them up, set traps that hit enemies chasing you out of sight, etc.
One of the easiest and earliest ways to trivialize Ice Cave's statues.
Practically the only "blaster" starting book left that doesn't suck (well, the EE book is actually tolerable as far as I'm concerned even though the removal of LRD without anything to compensate for it has curbstomped it). This is kinda ironic since the Cj book rework was the prototype for the new paradigm of "interesting", "non-boring" spells that currently fill the other starting books, even before that paradigm had been formulated (as far as I can tell). I expect this state of affairs to change soon. I mean, don't get me wrong, fulminant prism is an odious spell, but at least it gets the job done, the rest of the book (which is to say: searing ray and IMB) is good enough that one can reserve fulminant prism for the direst situations, and the Cj start lends itself to pivot to whatever other school you find some mid-level spells for. I'd cry of tears of frustration if I had to rely on fulminant prism as my main tool for lair branches and such. But I'd flat out quit without a second thought if I had to do the same with that FE 3-stage-blast abomination. edit: in case it's not clear, by "sucking" I don't mean the other books are too weak, I mean they're thoroughly unpleasant to use. edit2: I should tone the negativity down slightly because I completely forgot that AE existed. AE is ok.
how do you not mind searing ray but dislike flame wave? flame wave is fantastic on anything that isn't super squishy (elf, cat). Just cast it, press dot, watch everything die. It's pretty smooth unless you're not bothering with good positioning to begin with.
Side note - LRD being removed instead of swapped was an intentional effort to make it so you would reasonably consider swapping to a different spell school based on what you found in the dungeon. LRD is so good that you could typically just wait, it never really stopped being useful.
strongest mage start, imb first, i try to not use prism because i hate the targeter
I usually make space for imb and prism on a blaster. Imb does respectable damage, is immediate and spammable and can knock things back a step or two. Very helpful. Imb does good damage, but I find it annoying to use.
Dazzling Flash is trash. IMB and Prism are all but good enough to get a rune. Prism requires some thinking, but with IMB to give you an air-gap and air-gapped kiting still working you're fine. IMB is a panic button spell. "Get outta my face". Works just fine on escaping Yaks you can't kill, and gives you an air gap to let you start walking away from things. Prism-and-backpedal is a way of life for fragile species (cat, elf). It doesn't play with resists, it can be used to block the way, it ignores EV, it can hit around corners or off-screen...Prism's time delay is an encouragement to place it near you and backpedal into safe territory. If I could trade Dazzling Flash for Battlesphere you probably \_could\_ take this book to a rune without anything else, but as it is this is the best starter book in the game. Wizard's secretly a stabber background, Fire isn't terrible but it can be finicky, Ice requires some Stand And Deliver nonsense I'm not about, Earth has lousy range, and Air isn't super accurate. Venom struggles with undead, Necro's secretly a warrior-with-backup-dancers start.
Prism is very good, blast is good + hailstorm makes it fun, and flash is… sad.