acid rain is a wierd underpowered spell

[loki116]

I know that the weakness of acid rain has been brought up before. Its a spell that is the same level as firewall, but has pathetic damage and duration. I thought I would start this thread on it however, because I just realized something about the spell that is very odd. It doesn't work like you think it would. Instead of applying an aoe damage tick every 2 seconds to anything within the rain cloud it seems to just inflict an acid dot on anything that passes through it. What that means is that something can go into the acid rain spell for 2 seconds, take damage, leave and continue taking damage for the duration of the spell.

This isn't acid arrow or burning blood, is this really how the spell is suppose to work? I can't imagine it is because the duration seems to be messed up too. Instead of making the storm last longer, which is what the tool tip seems to indicate it will do, the storm always seems to last a very short time and the spell just seems to add time to the acid dot. I don't think acid rain is suppose to be and aoe melf's acid arrow. It seems to me the spell should work more like acid fog, where enemies take damage as while they are in the area of effect. I may be wrong, and this dot mechanic could explain why acid rain doesn't have nearly the damage potential of wall of fire.

Many people have stated that casters need an acid or lightning alternative to wall of fire for those who take the lightning acid enhancements. It seems to me if you changed acid rain to function more intuitively like acid fog does, and added a +1 per level damage as well as lengthened the duration to +6 seconds per 3 levels instead of plus 2 you would have a very comparable spell to wall of fire. They're both level 4 spells, damage would be almost identical, 2d6+20 vs 3d4+20 and both would last about a min at max duration and extended. Acid rain would benefit from few mobs being resistant to acid damage, but wouldn't have wall of fire's bonus to undead. Overall it seems like a balanced solution. I just thought I would put this out here again, as I'm sure strengthening the acid line of spells is something brought up a lot, but most importantly could any devs confirm that an aoe dot is really how acid rain is suppose to work?

[Aesop]

too much in the Wall of Text


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[loki116]

better?

[AyumiAmakusa]

better?

Not quite.

[loki116]

Alright, I don't want to cut out anything so ill just put the short version here. Is acid rain suppose to work like acid arrow, where something enters the spell and had a dot applied to it, or like acid fog where enemies take damage while inside the cloud.

[AyumiAmakusa]

Alright, I don't want to cut out anything so ill just put the short version here. Is acid rain suppose to work like acid arrow, where something enters the spell and had a dot applied to it, or like acid fog where enemies take damage while inside the cloud.

That's better. But I still don't have the answer to that. Here's a free bump.

[AestorTheKnight]

I don't think acid rain is suppose to be and aoe melf's acid arrow.

That is exactly what it is basically, an AOE Melfs Acid Arow. However, the duration of the Acid Rain DOT is much much shorter than Melfs Acid Arrow, and this seriously decreases the DPS of this spell to make it basically useless unfortunatly.

I completely agree that Acid Rain needs an increase in power to make it comparable to Wall of Fire.

[Eladiun]

I completely agree that Acid Rain needs an increase in power to make it comparable to Wall of Fire.

Actually, that's an idea I could get behind.

[Schmoe]

Alright, I don't want to cut out anything so ill just put the short version here. Is acid rain suppose to work like acid arrow, where something enters the spell and had a dot applied to it, or like acid fog where enemies take damage while inside the cloud.

I agree that it's pretty worthless right now. My wizard is 9th level, fully acid/lightning specced with hardly any fire/ice enhancements, and acid rain is a waste of time. I'd rather cast Melf's, as it does more damage.

Frankly, there are a LOT of spells that could use rebalancing, but this is one of the worst.

[Marcus-Hawkeye]

Just out of curiousity, do acid DoTs stack? like if I used melfs and then acid rain... do they both do damage? or just the more powerful one?

[Razcar]

Frankly, there are a LOT of spells that could use rebalancing, but this is one of the worst.

Chocolate Rain is worse.

[TekkenDevil]

Elemental Magic as a whole is very very underdeveloped personally.

With my first Wizard, I wanted to be "the best elementalist evah", but it was simply impossible.

Scorching Ray, Frost Lance, Firewall and Cone of Cold were all that mattered, but sadly their Dark, Acid and Lightning type brothers were completely off the charts when compared to them, no matter what enchantments and feats I tried to buff them with. Not to mention all other Fire and Cold spells are pretty worthless.

In my opinion, all five elements should be close to equal.
Just like Scorching Ray and Frost Lance are quite similar in use and power, so should be Acid Arrow, Chain Missile and whatever the Lightning one is.

Buffed all up, Scorching Ray, Frost Lance, Firewall and Cone of Cold are still very very powerful at endgame.
I don't see why Acid Arrow, Acid Rain, Force/Chain Missile, and all the Lightning spells are so useless in comparison when buffed to the max.

Sad thing is, these equal level elements become available in different spell levels.
Frost Lance is overall more powerful than Scorching Ray. I can understand it becoming available later.
But Firewall laughs at Cone of Cold, yet CoC is a higher spell level and uses more SP. Why? Doesn't make sense!

And what about the Lightning spells? They are always the last elements to become available, and cost tons of SP, yet not a single one does better than Scorching Ray, a low level spell that takes less SP.

It simply makes zero sense.

[h4x0r1f1c]

too much in the Wall of Text


reconfigure and we can read it to comment

The first few lines said the spell was underpowered and something about being the same level as Wall of Fire, a known good spell.

I think Acid Rain should be renamed to Acid Drizzle or actually melt people on a failed Fortitude save.

[loki116]

actually the lightning lines aren't that underpowered, lightning ball is the same damage as cone of cold, and i believe the same level, chain lightning is the same damage as most high level spells, 20d6, and only falls short of polar ray, a level 8 spell because it has a reflex save. Acid on the other hand really is underpowered. There is nothing in the acid line worth casting. Some people do say melf's is worth carrying around for the total damage it can do, but it very slow acting. Acid fog, or Acid rain with a damage bump would be a perfect solution.

On a side not, force never has a save and is resisted by pretty much nothing in the game, so i understand why the damage is so much lower, but there needs to be a force spell above lvl 4. Mordenkainen's sword I believe does force damage and is level 7, might be an interesting addition.

[TekkenDevil]

20d6 is not a very huge amount, when compared to some fire and ice spells.
Scorching Ray and Frost Lance are easily my strongest spells, and I tried many other with many buffs.
Polar Ray, if I remember right, is barely on their damage level, and costs about 3 times as much SP.
Again, this makes no sense.

[samthedagger]

Acid rain needs a buff. I agree. But I disagree that acid/electricity should be comparable to fire/cold in damage. The fact is that there are lots of stuff resistant/immune to fire/cold and a lot less that is resistant/immune to acid/electricity. So acid/electricity, being more versatile, should deal marginally less damage. But a lot of the acid/electricity spells really need some more balancing.

[timewalker]

20d6 is not a very huge amount, when compared to some fire and ice spells.
Scorching Ray and Frost Lance are easily my strongest spells, and I tried many other with many buffs.
Polar Ray, if I remember right, is barely on their damage level, and costs about 3 times as much SP.
Again, this makes no sense.

that is probley because you do not have the gliciation set yet....then polar ray flys off the charts for damage

[vVAnjilaVv]

Get into Amarath and get one of each of the elemental belts....they add a very nice boost to all four elemental type spells as they are all Superior VIII items, and I believe those tier by spell level of the item now.

[Angelus_dead]

that is probley because you do not have the gliciation set yet....then polar ray flys off the charts for damage

No, it's the shavarath clicky belt that you want for Polar Ray. A glaciation set is hard to get, takes up a bunch of body slots, and gives less of a bonus.

[TekkenDevil]

that is probley because you do not have the gliciation set yet....then polar ray flys off the charts for damage

Well, probably so, but a level 9 superior glaciation is few and far between, and then Frost Lance is still cheaper on the SP.