Prismatic Spray

[edward]

Prismatic Spray recently was changed to make it nowhere near as deadly as it was, thus making it a bit less fun to take.

In theory, Prismatic Spray was supposed to be a cone of damage sent out to affect multiple other players.  It'd do enough to shoo off those pesky folks following.

In practice, wizards would stun their target and unleash it head on.  These are 12 rays which were random prismatic_projectile - and the power was random between 2 and 50 per ray.  There was a slight chance that the ray would "split" as well.  Even if you roll reasonably on RNG you'd be in deep crit afterwards.

Compared to other spells (back of the napkin math based on code, could be misinterpreting..):

Prismatic spray has a cooldown of 25 seconds - damage is very high - somewhere between 300 and 400 on average & every type of damage

Fireball has a cooldown of 35 seconds - set burning status + a weak explosion (that'd also effect you, wouldn't it?)

Shocking Grasp has a cooldown of 45 seconds - ~75 burn damage + extreme close range - don't stand in water though..


Okay - so comparatively, Prismatic Spray - if you could get someone to stand still was the optimal pick.  Run in, magic missile, prismatic, dead.  Easy.

Now if you magic missile it's not really useful to prismatic spray.

My Suggestion:

Make Prismatic spray closer to Dungeons and Dragons prismatic spray.

Eight multicolored rays of light flash from your hand. Each ray is a different color and has a different power and Purpose. Each creature in a 60-foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw. For each target, roll a d8 to determine which color ray affects it.

Instant Casting Time

Hits everything in a cone direction of your choosing (let's not do dex saving throws...)

In an instant, each mob in that cone will be hit with a random ray:

* Red: The target is set on fire similar to a fireball but without an explosion + burn damage
* Orange: The target takes tox damage (not sure what would be a reasonable amount here)
* Yellow: The target is affected by something similar to an electric flash - burn damage + disorient
* Green: The target is given a nice dosage of rads
* Blue: The target is made cold enough to cause slowdown + burn damage
* Indigo: The target is stunned as if they were hit by a baton (petrify seems a bit heavy handed)
* Violet: The target is blinded temporarily + teleported to a nearby location
* Special: The target is struck by two rays. Two other random rays (except special)

[RGBDeadSilent]

Prismatic Spray recently was changed to make it nowhere near as deadly as it was, thus making it a bit less fun to take.

In theory, Prismatic Spray was supposed to be a cone of damage sent out to affect multiple other players.  It'd do enough to shoo off those pesky folks following.

In practice, wizards would stun their target and unleash it head on.  These are 12 rays which were random prismatic_projectile - and the power was random between 2 and 50 per ray.  There was a slight chance that the ray would "split" as well.  Even if you roll reasonably on RNG you'd be in deep crit afterwards.

Compared to other spells (back of the napkin math based on code, could be misinterpreting..):

Prismatic spray has a cooldown of 25 seconds - damage is very high - somewhere between 300 and 400 on average & every type of damage

Fireball has a cooldown of 35 seconds - set burning status + a weak explosion (that'd also effect you, wouldn't it?)

Shocking Grasp has a cooldown of 45 seconds - ~75 burn damage + extreme close range - don't stand in water though..


Okay - so comparatively, Prismatic Spray - if you could get someone to stand still was the optimal pick.  Run in, magic missile, prismatic, dead.  Easy.

Now if you magic missile it's not really useful to prismatic spray.

My Suggestion:

Make Prismatic spray closer to Dungeons and Dragons prismatic spray.

Eight multicolored rays of light flash from your hand. Each ray is a different color and has a different power and Purpose. Each creature in a 60-foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw. For each target, roll a d8 to determine which color ray affects it.

Instant Casting Time

Hits everything in a cone direction of your choosing (let's not do dex saving throws...)

Each mob in that cone will be hit with a random ray:

* Red: The target is set on fire similar to a fireball but without an explosion + burn damage
* Orange: The target takes tox damage (not sure what would be a reasonable amount here)
* Yellow: The target is affected by something similar to an electric flash - burn damage + disorient
* Green: The target is given a nice dosage of rads
* Blue: The target is made cold enough to cause slowdown + burn damage
* Indigo: The target is stunned as if they were hit by a baton (petrify seems a bit heavy handed)
* Violet: The target is blinded temporarily + teleported to a nearby location
* Special: The target is struck by two rays. Two other random rays (except special)

Had the same though, could just make the ray spray out as is, reduce the projectile speed, and only fire one of each type in a cone.

Would somewhat be a toss between Prismatic Spray and Prismatic Wall. You put up a passable barrier of magic, but walking into it could cause you to be hit by many projectiles overlapped on a tile if done right away. Would linger long enough to allow the wizard to run away.

Issues, Spray might originate on one tile, thus ass blasting whoever is on it or whoever is prone on it and stands up.

[Katzen]

Cast time is very awkward and not welcome. Standing still as a wizard is never great.
Range is abysmal. From 5 tiles your damage becomes very unreliable.

After testing it a lot in a corridor against 3 tdummies the damage output is highly unpredictable, from nothing at all (stamina only) to 100+ damage. I don't think it needs the cast time requirement any more and would benefit from a range boost. At the moment it is not worthy of being a two cost.

Remove the cast time and increase the range and then it might have a place as an unpredictable 2 cost that can potentially be better than a fireball or worse than a magic missile.

[Hauntmachine]

The spell itself feels incredibly weak right now, and not really worth the 2 spell cost. Its cast time makes it pretty useless in terms of fighting off crowds (which I think is the intended purpose of the spell), and obviously it is now worthless when it comes to hitting people who are stunned on the ground. By the sounds of it, even when you're actually able to hit people with the spell, the damage is very inconsistent. I can't see any reason to pick it over any other spell right now, as it is an active detriment to take due to its 2 spell cost for no reward.

[Katzen]

Well I think that's more the one target vs multiple targets thing. It's not good against one person unless you get lucky with the rolls but you get significantly more damage* out of hitting multiple people. However, that is hard to pull off due to the range and cast time.

*it often does stamina damage that tends to be much higher than normal damage (100+) but this may be of low/no value depending on how you are using the spell.

[edward]

Cast time is very awkward and not welcome. Standing still as a wizard is never great.

Agreed - glass cannons standing still hurts quite a bit.  Removing casting time & casting duration would be great here.

Remove the cast time and increase the range and then it might have a place as an unpredictable 2 cost that can potentially be better than a fireball or worse than a magic missile.

I think many places we try to err away from RNG as much as possible - and the current prismatic spray is RNG in SO many levels that it's wildly unpredictable.

Without stun the time it takes to complete the spell will still not feel great, either, I think?  Because the damage won't "stun" anyone, so you'll be blasting away at the HoS and they'll just stun you and beat you while you're using it.