Damage from AOE mage spells

[Raajaton]

Where can I look to see how much damage some of the AoE mage like explosion, meteor strike, etc do? The description in the spellbook only tells me the size of the radius and basic information about the spell.

[Derakon]

Huh? I could swear that the spell description would say something like "dam 400, radius 3" or the like. Maybe you need to select the spell when browsing the spellbook? If you're asking about how much damage targets not in the center take, damage gets reduced by 50% for each step away from the center.

But the short version is that your bread-and-butter attack spells are Rift, Meteor Storm, and (later) Manastorm. All of these are unresistable and they have the best damage-to-mana ratios available (though for Meteor Storm that's only once it reaches...3 shots/cast? I think that's the cap). The other high-level attack spells are mostly novelties; if you want more firepower, find some good wands (Dragon's Flame, Dragon's Frost, and Annihilation are all good), since your magic device skill gives you a damage multiplier on them.

[Mondkalb]

You have to cast it at least once successfully to get the damage description.

[Oramin]

Remember to be careful casting around items - things can get destroyed by your spells. That's one of the reasons I occasionally use Cloudkill since Poison doesn't destroy things.

Derakon was kind enough to mention in another thread that Manastorm destroys all types of items (except artifacts). IIRC, Meteor Storm (you get 4 balls at L40 instead of 3), destroys potions, scrolls, wands, and staves (basically, if it shatters or burns). I don't think Rift destroys anything but it has the interesting side effect of possibly relocating the monsters you're shooting at - including closer to you.

Staves of Power and Holiness can get into the 200/charge range at L50 with your Mage's bonus and they don't trash any items; but they're likely to explode when you recharge. Best bet if you have a stack seems to be to drop each one and recharge the ones with no charges individually.

[Timo Pietilä]

IIRC, Meteor Storm (you get 4 balls at L40 instead of 3), destroys potions, scrolls, wands, and staves (basically, if it shatters or burns).

Meteor storm is actually multiple separate bolts that explode on contact, so if monster dies before last one is on target you might hit something on background (OTOH, you can also kill multiple targets with single casting). Looks like it says that in spell description too.

[Raajaton]

Ahh sorry, that was it. I hadn't cast the spells yet, was just browsing the book after I picked it up. Silly question.

[Oramin]

Almost forgot, Ice Storm has a chance to stun and is a radius 3 ball compared to most radius 2 spells. Give it a go, you'll probably like it.

[Raajaton]

When it comes to uniques, do I still want to spam acid bolt if they don't resist acid? It's cheap on mana, and the damage output if they're not resisting seems to hold up fairly well compared to the spells in raal's. I'm still only getting 3 meteors from meteor swarm, so perhaps that performs better once I get it to 4. It does nice damage atm, but I go OOM pretty quickly if I'm spamming it.

[Derakon]

As I said, you should seriously consider carrying around attack wands to supplement your damage capabilities. Yes, you can certainly still use Acid Bolt, but you'd probably get better DPS out of even just a Drain Life wand. Assuming of course that your target is alive.

[Raajaton]

For sure - I make use of any decent ones while I have them. I was getting a lot of use out of my cold balls and fire balls wands, until they got destroyed. 1 by a failed recharge attempt, and another from a monster. I've been hoping to find a drain life wand, or some sort of dragons breath, but so far nothing. RNG hasn't been particularly kind to me with the things I really want this particular game.

[Timo Pietilä]

Almost forgot, Ice Storm has a chance to stun and is a radius 3 ball compared to most radius 2 spells. Give it a go, you'll probably like it.

That's my favorite. Even uniques can be stunned, and stunned monster can't do anything.

[PowerWyrm]

But most of the uniques resist cold...

[Timo Pietilä]

But most of the uniques resist cold...

IIRC it doesn't matter. Ice is a bit like meteor swarm in that, it does stun even cold-resistant monster. Or not, need to check (it has been a while since I played mage or ranger).

[Quendus]

I tend to prefer Shockwave for that purpose. A few versions ago I used it to kill most of the deep uniques (not Morgoth, he recovered too fast) relatively trivially. Monster stunning got nerfed after I told takkaria about it.