Contagion - When do you use it?

[STROBE]

Seems like a nifty spell from the descriptions, and I've experimented with it, but I have not discovered a use for it. When do you use Contagion, and why?

[binnsr]

Can't say that I've ever used it .. I just use maximized/Empowered poison .. that seems to get the job done most times - I've hit things for 27 points of con damage in one shot before

[MrCow]

When do you use Contagion, and why?

Uses for Contagion:

Blinding Sickness - Its often better than the blindness spell because it packs STR damage with it and nearly everything in the game that can be hit with blindness can be hit with blinding sickness.

Mental Stat exploitation - Did you know most animals have 2 INT, rust monsters have 2 INT, intelligent scorpions have 3 INT, and the new Crimson Foot spiders have 1 INT? Mindfire is a potent disease against such critters.

Shakes - Many caster types lack DEX (I'm looking at you Fiend-Blood Troglodyte Theurge and Gold Concord Cleric). A cast or two of this will likely make them helpless and therefore unable to cast spells at all. This is one of the more neglected spells but people forget that DEX is universally the lowest physical stat in the game, not to mention this can be the most damaging disease of them all (1d8).

Cast-and-forget monsters - If you partake in stealth then you will be pleased to know you can cast all contagion spells with no risk of aggro, period. There may be cases where you want to kill something, but don't wish to stick around (archers on a ledge above, for example). Cast a Slimy Doom and by the time you get to the monster if may have died from the disease.

Monsters with SR - Contagion has no SR check! Its a personal favorite of mine to use this on a cleric, cast it on a couple of outsiders or something, blind them, and just sneak by in extremely clanky armor with no worries. Lets not forget that a Blinding Sickness on a devil won't need and SR check and it will slow the devil down, causing it to teleport less frequently.

[MrWizard]

Uses for Contagion:

Blinding Sickness - Its often better than the blindness spell because it packs STR damage with it and nearly everything in the game that can be hit with blindness can be hit with blinding sickness.

Mental Stat exploitation - Did you know most animals have 2 INT, rust monsters have 2 INT, intelligent scorpions have 3 INT, and the new Crimson Foot spiders have 1 INT? Mindfire is a potent disease against such critters.

Shakes - Many caster types lack DEX (I'm looking at you Fiend-Blood Troglodyte Theurge and Gold Concord Cleric). A cast or two of this will likely make them helpless and therefore unable to cast spells at all. This is one of the more neglected spells but people forget that DEX is universally the lowest physical stat in the game, not to mention this can be the most damaging disease of them all (1d8).

Cast-and-forget monsters - If you partake in stealth then you will be pleased to know you can cast all contagion spells with no risk of aggro, period. There may be cases where you want to kill something, but don't wish to stick around (archers on a ledge above, for example). Cast a Slimy Doom and by the time you get to the monster if may have died from the disease.

Monsters with SR - Contagion has no SR check! Its a personal favorite of mine to use this on a cleric, cast it on a couple of outsiders or something, blind them, and just sneak by in extremely clanky armor with no worries. Lets not forget that a Blinding Sickness on a devil won't need and SR check and it will slow the devil down, causing it to teleport less frequently.

I recently bought about 40 scrolls and hotbarred the different spells. Contagion works great and i believe requires two saves. The scrolls were obviously low level casting, but they landed on everything and actually worked at times.
But this is one of those many spells that don't 'show' visually any effects and one can never be sure if they are actually working, party will never know, and then the thing dies from something eventually.

Most will never use it at all based on the non verifiable visual or obvious effect not showing up. Believe this works very well though if used in party play to take out mobs, especially when lowbieing.

[Ghoste]

Maximize and empower both work with contagion, and since there are two different ones that do con damage you can stack the two versions together. The fact that it also bypasses spell resistance gives it some handy uses...

[MrCow]

Contagion works great and i believe requires two saves.

Contagion actually has many saves, anywhere from 2 saves to infinite saves. Its a bit confusing, but below is the Contagion logic:

• Cast Contagion spell.
• If monster is not immune to spell, inflict it with the contagion you chose with a counter of two checks. Otherwise, show immunity and end.
• Roll fortitude save. If the monster saves then remove a counter from the contagion (lower by 1). If the monster fails a save, do the diseases effect (blindness, DEX damage, INT damage, etc). Also, on a failed save, reset the contagion counter back to two checks.
• If the contagion has a counter of 0 (aka, 2 saves in a row) then remove the contagion effect the monster was inflicted with and end.
• If a contagion is in effect still and 1 minute elapsed go to the step to role a fortitude save.

Landing the spell on a critter has no save. Making the spell do the intended effect, however, is where a save is done. If the critter makes two saves in a row then it is healthy and free from that contagion. Otherwise, it will slowly succumb over and over to the contagion.

But this is one of those many spells that don't 'show' visually any effects and one can never be sure if they are actually working

There is both a visual and audio effect for contagion. Lets use an example to show the visual effect:



Can you tell which kobold is disease? Its the one on the right that appears darker. Also, if your graphics are high enough you will notice little pestilence flies around the critter (but my picture shows my low graphics settings with a lack of flies ).

Every time a critter rolls a save you will also either get the blue hexagon save or a noise much like taking poison CON damage.

[Angelus_dead]

Contagion actually has many saves, anywhere from 2 saves to infinite saves. Its a bit confusing, but below is the Contagion logic:

Note that in module 6, Mummy Rot was changed from a Fortitude save to no save. At that time, I checked to see if Contagion had the same thing done to it... no luck though.

There is both a visual and audio effect for contagion. Lets use an example to show the visual effect:

And a text-log effect, I thought.

BTW, I haven't had a need for Contagion ever since the gnoll archers in Zawabi's Revenge were given red-named disease immunity. Although you can use it in other situations where a caster would like to incap a monster without killing it (like VON6)... but Flesh to Stone almost always works better and faster.

Contagion is better in some theoretic situations where you really want a monster to be harmless forever, because although he'll eventually roll a 20 and break out of Stone, he'll never recover from 0 dex on his own.

[MrCow]

And a text-log effect, I thought.

Yeah, it has combat text to show how much stat damage they take. Not everyone has the combat log up, but everyone has to have a visual (or they are doing really well under the effects of blindness).

Note that in module 6, Mummy Rot was changed from a Fortitude save to no save.

It was? I wouldn't know about that as I'm neither capable of getting the rot (Warforged only) or producing the rot. I can assure you that Contagion has saves though. I have used it a fair amount to gather some INT and WIS scores of critters in the Vale.

Although you can use it in other situations where a caster would like to incap a monster without killing it (like VON6)... but Flesh to Stone almost always works better and faster.

Clerics don't get flesh to stone (or very many long term incapacitation spells). Contagion can be fairly instrumental if you want to safely and easily make it through a quest with an Ingenious Cunning Bonus.

[JaeBeam]

Tested this last night, and its not working as described above?

combat log = combat tab on the chat window? If it does, I didn't get any numbers on the screen regarding stat damage.

Here is what I did; went into the cultist shrine planning on cripling all the prophets and getting the gem. I dumped an entire bar of mana into the first prophet, using empowered dex based contagion, waited around a few minutes while he wailed on me, but he was never incapped. The description, when I examined the bugger, said he was sick. He was also much darker than the other kobolds.

So I recall out, and swapped in "blindness", and finished the quest by blinding all the prophets. That worked failry well. They would eventually find me, but if I ran them around a few boxes, I'd lose them for a while. The prophet with contagion followed me the entire way. He was one sick, blind puppy.

I did this on "solo", at level 5, with one recall. got 700exp.

[samho]

Just finish a West Threnal solo, on my latest level 8 cleric -- he's casting oriented and have Strength 20 after bull's strength.

It's a pretty funny experience on running it using Contagion -- I simply blind almost every flesh render I can find via Blinding Sickness:

Poor Zelnath

Since it will not generate hate (unless you been spot with enemy) and bypass the SR, make it a pretty tool to place it on flesh render or such, Blind also make them move slower, hit less and OFTEN not face the target (means more miss), make fighting 3 renders in a row was not even a real threat. ( And I did try melee single flesh render without blindness and it did result more than 3 Cure Serious Wound)

[Beherit_Baphomar]

I use it against my brother and guildies in PvP.

Thats about it.

Kinda like my crippling scimmie of slowburst...

Just downright fun!

[Volpe]

I have used contagion since it came out if for nothing else than the blinding sickness, I used it out in the giant hold area on stuff all the time. Would use it on the clerics that are along the path to POP.

[Ringos]

Blinding Sickness. It works nice on those R, Ra,...those tiger dudes in the Vale.