Corruption of Spirit

[sffp]

So I finally have a kobold nec at a high enough speed/stealth/con combo that it may be a viable contender when I came upon The Corruption of Spirit book in the Black Market (150,000 smackers). That would have about bankrupted me but I hadn't seen it before so I started looking at the spells - and they all suck?

50 HP - 50 SP swap - I admit that sometimes I need extra damage to send larger HP foes when I'm low on mana, but 50 SP doesn't seem near enough for 50HP. It will cost me an action, and only let me throw 4-5 more disenchant or 2-3 more annihilate. resorting to <shudder> archer or wands feels like a better deal

Crush- feels like a flea killer and isn't really needed - usually low HP creatures aren't the problem

Vampire form - Another shapeshift where I won't be able to cast? I like to warg, but I take too much damage not to change back often

The other two I couldn't learn yet, but Curse costs 100HP and might be useful against big hitters but maybe not - seems risky to cast

Same with command - how does that actually work

I left the book in the store and bought a strength potion instead...

[Selkie]

I recently reviewed every necromancer spell book, needless to say Corruption of the Spirit didn't get a glowing review.

Corruption of the Spirit
3/10

Power Sacrifice - I used this spell a lot in combination with vampire strike. So you gain mana, you lose HP. But then you regain HP by sucking some blood. They work well together but if it's not possible then chugging a few CCW will do the trick. It's less of a faff than draining wands for a mage (which also stuns for a turn or two) so I'll probably give it 1-0 to the necro in this regard.

Crush - I just didn't understand this spell at all. It costs more than annihilate (30 compared to 20 SP) so what's the idea? It does the same damage. Utterly pointless if you ask me and a waste of a valuable page in the final dungeon spell book. I suppose the only benefit is it kills golems, undead, nonliving monsters which annihilate can't.

Vampire Form - again another pointless spell. Vampire strike is more predictable. You lose HP when you transform and you can't case other spells or chug potions. You get a few extra buffs (like hold life) but they're so minor it's not worth the effort.

Curse - I started using this a bit more towards the end. Its a bit unpredictable because it does more damage to more injured monsters but can put out around 5 d150 to very poorly monsters. I think this might be one of the most damaging spells in the game. Of course, the downside is it costs you 100HP which is around 1/8th of your total health towards end game. It's a heavy price to pay... maybe too heavy. But in those moments when you're like: "Why won't you just die?" then this spell serves a purpose.

Command - junk junk junk. Sounds fun. Is less fun than you'd expect. Very unpredictable too. For example, if you are experimenting with a summoner and you use their magic then you can summon a swarm of hostile monsters who aren't joining in the fight on your side, instead they make a beeline for @ who is stood in a dumb stupor and very exposed and susceptible. I'm sure there are some clever tricks with Command that I've not been smart enough to figure out, but so far it's a dud for me. I suppose there's a small novelty value in taking control of a powerful wyrm, but that's all it is - a novelty.

[sffp]

OTH
Deadly Powers is the bomb

Banish Spirits (teleport away all non-animals in line of sight)
Annihilate (164 damage against the living)
Fume of Mordor... (map out, darken level and detect all objects)

all awesome

Unleash Chaos and Grond's Blow aren't bad, but I like to keep everything asleep for as long as possible

Storm of Darkness looks like it's going to be useful as well, but I haven't gotten there yet.

[Selkie]

Yeah Deadly Powers is very good. Fume of Mordor is one of my all time favourite spells.

I can compare necromancer to Paladin and there are so many junk spells with necros. On the other hand a Paladin carries three books and every one of them is great, packed with spells you'll use throughout the game.

I think Corruption of the Spirit needs a bit of tweaking. A lot of the ideas are good but in real world game play they just don't quite cut the mustard. Control for example sounds very cool, but compare it with single combat and there's only one winner.

Vampire form, as you identified, doesn't work. You might as well just vampire strike.

Power sacrifice should be 100SP for 50hp, IMO.

Crush is junk.

[sffp]

I'm also finding now that I'm deeper, I don't need "Into the Shadows"

Rods of Detection, See invis and higher damage spells take the place of those early spells

[Selkie]

Originally Posted by sffp

I'm also finding now that I'm deeper, I don't need "Into the Shadows"

Rods of Detection, See invis and higher damage spells take the place of those early spells

Haha, I only used to carry it because if I didn't then I'd always end Casting the wrong spells by accident.

Edit: thinking about it, the spellbook casting letters should remain the same even if you're not carrying all the books. So it's always e for Corruption of the Spirit, for example.

[Werbaer]

Originally Posted by Selkie

Haha, I only used to carry it because if I didn't then I'd always end Casting the wrong spells by accident.

Edit: thinking about it, the spellbook casting letters should remain the same even if you're not carrying all the books. So it's always e for Corruption of the Spirit, for example.

So if you carry 2 books and 3 potions, 'pray e' should use a different item slot as 'drop e'? Not a good idea IMO.

Use inscriptions. Inscribe you Corruption book with '@m5@p5@P5@G5', and train yourself to use the number instead of the letter to cast spells (or browse or learn). Especially important if you use macros to cast specific spells.
(note: command letters may depend on keyset)

You can automate the inscriptions by putting them in class specific files.
Example for file "mage.prf":
inscribe:magic book:[First Spells]:@m1@P1@G1!k
inscribe:magic book:[Attacks and Knowledge]:@m2@P2@G2!k

[sffp]

Originally Posted by Werbaer

So if you carry 2 books and 3 potions, 'pray e' should use a different item slot as 'drop e'? Not a good idea IMO.

No the spell books should be slotted.
If you're a nec/bg Into the shadows ALWAYS slots into slot A if you've got it
Similarly, Dark Rituals should ALWAYS slot into slot B regardless of whether I've got Into the shadows.

I understand there are ways of using inscriptions (I dabble), but reprogramming my fingers to use p3b instead of pcb after 30 years of orb of draining being pcb is hard - besides, I've always used my left hand for spells and my right hand for movement on my keyboard. The numbers are too high up on the keyboard.

[Werbaer]

Originally Posted by sffp

No the spell books should be slotted.
If you're a nec/bg Into the shadows ALWAYS slots into slot A if you've got it
Similarly, Dark Rituals should ALWAYS slot into slot B regardless of whether I've got Into the shadows.

So when my "Intro" book gets burned, my Mushrooms of Vigor should move to slot "a"?

Originally Posted by sffp

I understand there are ways of using inscriptions (I dabble), but reprogramming my fingers to use p3b instead of pcb after 30 years of orb of draining being pcb is hard

Is it easiert to reprogramm your fingers to "pbb" now that the Orb got moved to the second book?
Did you not stop to carry the first priest book once you found some dungeon books?
My default attack is on the "F5" key. The Orb for priests, Magic missiles for mages, standard ammo (f0) for everybody else, all set up by .prf files. "#" is default attack to nearest target.
For priests, "F5" was mapped to "p3b". Always works, no matter which books get burned. And if the Orb is now in the second book, i only need to change the keymap to "p2a", and not retrain my fingers.

[sffp]

Originally Posted by Werbaer

So when my "Intro" book gets burned, my Mushrooms of Vigor should move to slot "a"?


Is it easiert to reprogramm your fingers to "pbb" now that the Orb got moved to the second book?

It really was difficult to make that switch.

Originally Posted by Werbaer

Did you not to stop to carry the first priest book once you found some dungeon books?

I never have. Honestly I've always carried all my spellbooks (except in inventory crushes when I would drop book a and immediately recall and rebuy the books when the inventory was resolved.

I finally did this with this kobold nec when I found Corruption of Spirit to be useless and I never used the book a spells once my intel/level was high enough to zero% to the higher level attack spells

Originally Posted by Werbaer

My default attack is on the "F5" key. The Orb for priests, Magic missiles for mages, standard ammo (f0) for everybody else, all set up by .prf files. "#" is default attack to nearest target.
For priests, "F5" was mapped to "p3b". Always works, no matter which books get burned. And if the Orb is now in the second book, i only need to change the keymap to "p2a", and not retrain my fingers.

One - there's work involved in getting to know how to program the macros
Two - there's work involved in setting them up the macros
Three - F5 is _way_ up there on my keyboard.


I don't play the game to work. I appreciate all the work other people have put into the game - but to me it's not supposed to be work