From stealth folder...
>OK, HOW DOES CL WORK, PLS EXPLAIN FIFTEEN MORE TIMES, THX!
>Ruffles

It's a TM spell, and also an area affect spell. Depending on the amount of mana put into the spell you will get a certain number of bolts. The more mana, the more bolts.

Currently, the cap is 22 bolts. I believe the mana cap is around 75 from my informal tests using cambrinth. This takes alot of PM.

With 450 PM you can get about 42 mana.
With around 600 PM you can get 53 mana.
With 675 PM you can get about 60 mana.

These bolts are each like individual TM spells. They strike random targets in the room. Targets include all players and creatures in the room except the caster and those protected by an etheral shield that has been discharged.

CL currently contains a bug. More accurately the bug is in the multi-shot spell code. This bug is that when casting a 30 mana spell, each multi shot is like a 30 mana shot. Casting at 50 mana, each multi shot would be like a 50 mana shot. If you apply this to a max cast, for 75 mana you would get 22 75 mana bolts, obviously a bug. This will be fixed shortly. It is interesting to note that the new multi shot coding bases multi shot strength on the tier of the spell. Thus, after the changes multi-shots from CL will not be as strong as they currently are, but should be more powerful than multi shots from a spell like Fire Shard.

It does not rely heavily on stats like contested spells do because, as mentioned above, it is a pure TM spell not a contested spell.

It's a tier 5 spell.

It is shield blockable (and obviously evadable).

It can be cast in-doors.

Interestingly...Aether Cloak, Seal of Delfection, Shear, and Etheral Shield all help against it, but Soldier's Prayer does not. This seems odd.

Ruffles, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Although I'm sure you've heard it explained before, I'll bet this isn't the 15th time yet, and you still learned something new.

Tessaa

>Ooo ooo that was interesting. Can you explain it again? ::duck::

I forgot two things...

1)Weather doesn't affect it.

2)Camb and harnessed mana doesn't help overcome MR of targets. Thus, a 22 prep and 18 harness mana will be less effective than a 40 prep cast...by a nice amount too.

Tessaa

>so explain to me how you reasoned your theory.

Because that's what GMs said during the WM meeting.

Guild meeting log is post #7799 in General Discussions of WM folder.
_________________

During the "announcements" portion of the meeting...

>Valdrik says, "Say you prep the frost scythe spell at 20 mana."
>Valdrik says, "Cast it."
>Valdrik says, "You get 1 20 mana frost scythe."
>Valdrik says, "Now let's say you cast a 25 or 30 mana fire shard."
>Valdrik says, "However much it takes you to get the multishots."
>Valdrik says, "You're essentially getting roughly 2-3 or however many shards at 25-30 mana."
>Valdrik says, "Okay."

And then later on in response to Meanne's question..

>Valdrik says, "If you're getting multishots at 10 mana..."
>Valdrik says, "Then you've got however many shots, each at 10 mana."
>Chakram says, "If you're getting multi-shots at 10 mana, you're not just getting 10 mana's worth, you're getting 20 or 30's worth."

And then later in response to Kalyra's question...

>Talian says, "This was kind of my brain child, so toss the tomatoes at me rather than them."
>Talian says, "Using Chain lightning as an example."
>Kalyra says, "have no tomatos"
>Valdrik says, "It's a tweak that needed to be done."
>Talian says, "Lets say 22 bolts."
>Talian says, "At full mana"
>Talian says, "you're getting the exp and damage of a relative non multi spell 22 times"
>Talian says, "Ie if that wasn't multi, but had all the other exact same damage stats"
>Talian says, "It would take you a lot MORE mana to equal it"

One more interesting tidbit...
>Talian says, "Now, its not being split directly"
>Talian says, "Ie, 4 shards won't be 4 25% power"
>Talian says, "We did put some concessations in for war mages."
>Talian says, "you guys are, and will be the offensive magical power houses"
>Kalyra asks, "then what's the point of being a master of TM?"
>Talian asks, "What I just said?"
>Talian asks, "Extra concessions?"
>Valdrik says, "For those of you wondering, Talian is one of my co-partners on the Magic Team, and one of the GMs who likes to help out with development :)."
>Talian says, "Your multi shot spells will be better than other multi shot spells."

That last tidbit Talian explained more fully in a later post on the WM boards. I went through and got these quatations for you, you can get that post yourself.

Tessaa

How exactly does the targeting on CL work? Can you target it? Do you NEED to target it (as in, must you cast it at something, or can you just do a generic cast)? Is only the first bolt affected by the targeting?

All of this could have an effect on it's relative power vs LB.

---

- Smeg

Smegul says, "Heh."

>How exactly does the targeting on CL work? Can you target it? Do you NEED to target it (as in, must you cast it at something, or can you just do a generic cast)? Is only the first bolt affected by the targeting?

CL can't be targetted. It must be generic cast.

>Nobody said CL is just multi LB.. at least, I've never seen anyone say it. There's no reason to assume these spells have the exact same damage capability (at least in my mind). CL could have considerably weaker bolts, thereby requiring more mana for the same damage capability per bolt.

CL is a TM spell.

LB is part SvA part TM.

I don't mean that if you put 75 mana into CL and get 22 bolts then you get 22, 75 mana LBs. They're definetly completely different. However, you get the equivalent of like 22, 75 mana CL bolts...which maybe are like a tier 5 TM spell if it was snap cast (not targetted, cause CL is not targetted)?

Fire Shard is a first tier TM spell. Fist of Stone is a first tier TM spell also. Let's assume they behave identicly except for the multi shot thing. I think the way it is currently setup, casting at 30 mana and getting 3 fire shards is like casting three 30 mana fist of stones at the target. What it "should" be like is casting at 30 mana gives you say three 15-20 mana first of stones. Not 10 mana each (Total_Mana/ Total_Shards, or 30/3) because that would be too weak, because each muli-shot has to overcome MR, armor, etc.

Who knows? Maybe I'm completely wrong. More than possible.

Tessaa

A couple points to ponder on the comparison, as well.

1) 22 mana is well above the minimum for LB, so it will almost certainly overcome MR for something you are hunting at or near level.

2) 22 mana is the minimum for CL, so it will be more subject to the effects of MR, which is probably why the three bolts got the message "The worst of the bolt misses" as MR caused the targeting matrix to not form properly.

3) It sounded like the new/fixed multi-shot code will leave the first shot at full power, with the additional shots being weaker. It sounded to me, though, that the effective mana in the additional shots will only be used for damage potential, with the mana vs MR equation being based, for all shots, off of the actual mana used to prep the spell. At least, that's my hope.

~Kyn (Kynevon)

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You casted the spell twice, once it was one bolt that killed the westie in one shot. The second time it was three bolts and did not kill. This leads one to believe that the one bolt was more powerful. I believe this is why you voiced the question, which is understandable.


no i casted LB the first time and then CL at teh same mana if you would have read my post.

>no i casted LB the first time and then CL at teh same mana if you would have read my post.

I did read your post. Sorry for the mistake.

Yeah, don't compare LB and CL, completely different stuff there. Compare a CL bolt with an untargetted TM cast.

Tessaa

>I agree completely with the first sentence. As for the second sentence...LB is not a TM spell, so comparing their power per bolt could be akward and difficult as other differences are going to complicate the comparison.

Eh maybe, maybe not...

TM spells have their damaged scaled in order to make targeting do something. As such, the power of a TM spell is roughly 1/3 to 1/2 (in my experience) if it's untargeted. LB, since it can't be targeted, doesn't have to scale damage back if you don't target it. If each bolt from CL is treated as untargeted.. it is extremely hard to compare the damages because CL will not be turning out as much damage as it COULD, while LB is not scaled back because it never is. Maybe you meant that maybe you didn't, just wanted to clear it up some..

About how I came up with 1/3 to 1/2..

I fully target Harm Evil against Adan'f (called shot at the chest), I will always kill it in one shot. If not, it usually takes 2-3 snap casts. Not a wonderful way to do it, but roughly accurate. Fully targeting could be pushing me over the damage cap, there's no way to tell this for sure...

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- Smeg

Smegul says, "Heh."

>I wonder if you went to goblins (or um, ghouls for you cleric types) and cast a fully targetted TM spell compared to a snap cast TM spell if the damage would be off by a factor of 2 or 3?

I'd hit the damage cap either way. Same thing that would happen if Forgenash went into goblins and tried a snap vs full aim shot.

>Keep in mind that accuracy is affected by targetting too. Perhaps instead of saying that snap casting scales down damage it would be better to say that snap casting scales down TM skill.

I suppose this would be one (perhaps better) way to look at it. Either way has the same reusults I would say however. If damage scales linearly with TM skill, using 1/2 to 1/3 of your TM skill would be the same as saying it has 1/2 to 1/3 the damage potential.

---

- Smeg

Smegul says, "Heh."

>Chain lightning bolts are definitely not the equivalent of an untargeted cast of a targeted spell. They are better than that.

A 22 mana fully targeted Aether Lance:
You gesture at a bristle-backed peccary.
A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at a bristle-backed peccary!
The majority of its chest disappears as the lance pierces its body in a spray of blood and bone and gore. Fragments of reddish-white bone pierce its skin, and one of its organs flops uselessly outside of its body.
A bristle-backed peccary flops in a porky heap, squealing one last time before passing into oblivion.
[dead pecc]

A 22 mana snap cast Aether Lance:
You gesture at a bristle-backed peccary.
A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at a bristle-backed peccary!
The aether lance scrapes along its chest, its point forcing the skin to curl back from the wound.
>l pec
You see a bristle-backed peccary.
The bristle-backed peccary has minor swelling and bruising in the chest area compounded by cuts and bruises about the chest area.

A 25 mana CL (each bolt should be like 25 mana cast):
You gesture.
A lurid green bolt of lightning strikes a bristle-backed peccary! The worst of the bolt misses, but tendrils of lightning lash out in passing to scorch its chest.

A lurid green bolt of lightning strikes a bristle-backed peccary! The worst of the bolt misses, but tendrils of lightning lash out in passing to scorch its neck.

A lurid green bolt of lightning strikes a bristle-backed peccary! The worst of the bolt misses, but tendrils of lightning lash out in passing to scorch its right leg.

A lurid green bolt of lightning strikes a bristle-backed peccary! A bristle-backed peccary flinches as the bolt grazes its back and scorches the skin.
The bristle-backed peccary is barely stunned!

Roundtime: 1 second.

l pec
You see a bristle-backed peccary.
The bristle-backed peccary has faint scuffing to the neck, faint scuffing to the right leg, minor swelling and bruising in the chest area, severely swollen and bruised back, complete paralysis of the entire body.
The bristle-backed peccary is bleeding with discoloration in the back.
___________________________

Seems alot closer to snap cast to me.

Min prep on CL is 22, cast at 25 just to get it over min a little.

Maybe the reason it seems more powerful is because CL is tier 5 and all of our other TM spells are tier 1 or 2 (exception: Fire Rain)?

Tessaa

I know from experience that CL is more accurate than a snapped targeted spell. No one can hit me with a snapped targeted spell. Yet chain lightning hits me quite easily.