Holy Infusions

[pav]

So I just found Holy Infusions on the floor of a mildly interesting looking level at 2550 ft. I'm a priest.

What's the deal with Holy Infusions? None of the spells in it look terribly useful to me, and this is the #2 best book in the game?

[awldune]

Kind of equivalent to Tenser's for mages.

[the Invisible Stalker]

It is kind of a disappointment after books 5-7. Some of the spells are useful, however. Elemental Brand is obviously useful, but is level 45. Recharging is useful once you have things that are worth 20 mana to recharge. For example, I have a rod of restoration which recharges very slowly. If it's not recharged then I can cast Restoration or Remembrance, for 70 mana each, or 20 to recharge the rod. Also, the best staves seem to come with very few charges.

[pav]

How reliable is that Recharging spell? I tried it once so far - on a wand of dragon's breath, and it promptly blowed it up. I've been very conservative with my stack of Speed staves, and if the recharge spell will blow them up often, I'm gonna keep tight about them...

[PowerDiver]

How reliable is that Recharging spell? I tried it once so far - on a wand of dragon's breath, and it promptly blowed it up. I've been very conservative with my stack of Speed staves, and if the recharge spell will blow them up often, I'm gonna keep tight about them...

The scrolls are a lot more reliable unless you have the mage's greater recharge spell. Use scrolls or greater recharge if you care about losing the item.

If I read Hugo's spoilers correctly, 1/4 to destroy with priest spell and 1/7 with the scroll. It gets much worse if the item being recharged is not empty. In a stack, #charges < #items counts as an empty item to recharge.

[pav]

Is that 1/4 factor flat over object level? I mean, intuitively I would expect deeper staves to be harder to recharge than the shallower ones. Is this not the case?

[awldune]

Best case, recharging destroys the staff/wand about 1/8 of the time if I am interpreting the code in spells2.c correctly.

Fail rate goes up when the device's native depth goes up, and when the device has more charges.

Looks like staff of Speed will be destroyed about 1/5 of the time with 0 charges, 1/4 of the time with 1 charge, 1/3 of the time with 2 charges.

About 1/4 for *Destruction* and 1/3 for Healing.

[PowerDiver]

Is that 1/4 factor flat over object level? I mean, intuitively I would expect deeper staves to be harder to recharge than the shallower ones. Is this not the case?

I was assuming a level 50 item. Anything deeper than 50 used to count as 50 in most places, though perhaps that changed or I am confused. I made a mistake in that staff of speed is a level 40 item, not 50 as I presumed. Awldune is presumably right about the speed recharge I'm not sure he is right about the deeper staves, but I may be confusing activation with recharge and/or past vs present in regards to a level 50 cutoff.

[Marble Dice]

Elemental Brand is obviously useful

Do not confuse the Priest spell with the spell from Tenser's: the divine variety simply converts a wielded non-ego melee weapon into "of Flame" or "of Frost." The magic spell is the only one that gives you branded ammo.

[the Invisible Stalker]

It is kind of a disappointment after books 5-7. Some of the spells are useful, however. Elemental Brand is obviously useful, but is level 45. Recharging is useful once you have things that are worth 20 mana to recharge. For example, I have a rod of restoration which recharges very slowly. If it's not recharged then I can cast Restoration or Remembrance, for 70 mana each, or 20 to recharge the rod. Also, the best staves seem to come with very few charges.

Recharging rods seems not to work. I thought it used to, or am I confusing V and O again?

[the Invisible Stalker]

Do not confuse the Priest spell with the spell from Tenser's: the divine variety simply converts a wielded non-ego melee weapon into "of Flame" or "of Frost." The magic spell is the only one that gives you branded ammo.

Okay, then it's totally useless by the time you get it. I'm not L45 yet, so I didn't know. Thanks for saving me from a big disappointment.

[awldune]

Here is the recharge code:

	/* Extract the object "level" */
	lev = k_info[o_ptr->k_idx].level;

	/* Recharge power */
	i = (num + 100 - lev - (10 * (o_ptr->pval / o_ptr->number))) / 15;

	/* Back-fire */
	if ((i <= 1) || one_in_(i))

num above is hard coded at 15 for the priest spell, but is a higher value for recharge scroll and a plevel-dependent value for mage spell.

lev above is the object depth.

So basically this boils down to:

(115 - depth - 10*charges) / 15

Your fail rate is 1 divided by the result of the above equation.

_Healing is depth 70, so assuming 0 charges your fail is 1/(45/15) or 1/3.

_Speed is depth 40, so 0 charges your fail is 1/(75/15) or 1/5.

[o-o]

I keep a copy on hand in order to destroy traps. I use it on chests and trap doors, because Paladins seem to be expert at falling through to the next level just after producing huge piles of loot.

Recharge is a real boon. I don't want to carry too many staves, because they are heavy. Using up and recharging Staves of Perception until they explode is a more efficient use of mana than using Perception itself, and recharging staves of Speed and Teleport makes all the difference after having charges drained by liches.

Also, when you have Holy Infusions you have endless (+9, +9) ammo. You can push it higher, but this is convenient.

Purifications and Healing is the least useful book in the end; Mushrooms of Restoring seem relatively easy to get hold of, and the spell is difficult to cast when your wisdom has been reduced. The healing spells there are weak compared to "Heal," and that is all you get out of it as a Paladin.

[fyonn]

Do not confuse the Priest spell with the spell from Tenser's: the divine variety simply converts a wielded non-ego melee weapon into "of Flame" or "of Frost." The magic spell is the only one that gives you branded ammo.

sorry to resurrect an old thread, but at the level Holy Infusions shows up, isn't "elemental brand" absolutely useless? you'll be using a artifact weapon or at least a high ego, and you'll have more money than sense by then too. so why is it even there?

now if it branded ammo like the mage's spell then it would have serious value.

is it worth a look at the various spells at some point to determine whether they are still worth it? I know there's been some work to remove overpowering spells (and I still miss GoI), but what about other spells? much like the work on the artifact list, perhaps there could be some work to relook at the spells list too?

dave

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Yes, IMO Elemental Brand is completely useless. If it was SL 25 (and could be found around DL 25)...its only value would be in taking magical weapons and making them fire/frost weapons, to get some more cash out of them. That's about it. Because by even 25th level, you're VERY likely to have a splendid or artifact weapon that beats just getting fire or frost damage. MAYBE, occasionally, if you found a lucky BoC that was also +10,+10, it might be worth using for a short while, but by DL 30 you're usually getting into much better-quality weapons.

I do use the spell to pop traps, because my dwarf priest isn't very good at that. I use Enchant Weapon a bit too, for arrows, but it's fairly limited. Remember: you don't usually find the book until around DL 60, IIRC; you're looking for +10,+14, branded, seeker or mithril arrows either at that point, or not terribly far into the future. I did use Enchant Armor on some boots of speed [+4] (+9)...but that was, again, rather unusual, and I could've improved them just as easily on my returns to town, via the shop. What else do I have to spend money on at that point?