Blink

Version 0.16: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Blink
Level	2
School1	Translocation
Source(s)	Book of Minor Magic Book of Spatial Translocations
Casting noise	2 (at the destination)
Spell noise	0

This spell randomly translocates the caster a short distance.

Blink is a level 2 Translocations spell which warps you to a randomly selected nearby open tile. This tile must meet the following restrictions:

• The tile may not contain deep water or lava (traps, excluded tiles, and harmful clouds are all legal, however)
• The tile must be within your line of sight
• The tile cannot be behind a translucent wall
• The tile will normally be 3-6 tiles away, but if there are no legal options in that range, it will be 1-2 tiles away (which usually means adjacent to you)

Blink is one of the easiest-to-acquire escape spells in the game. The more powerful Controlled Blink spell lets you select the exact tile you blink to. The scroll of blinking has a similar effect.

Exceptions

• Prevent Teleport Items: Some equipment will actively stop you from blinking or teleporting, such as an amulet of stasis or artefacts with the -TELE property.
• Constriction: If you are being constricted by a monster, blinking may fail; you immediately make two escape attempts, and will blink so long as at least one of them succeeds.
• The following blink types will always be random: Lugonu's Bend Space ability, a level 0 Warp card, blinks while confused, blinks induced by miscast or distortion effects, and a draconian shifter's Blink Other spell.
• Randarts that confer Blink as an ability cost 1 MP and 50 food to use, and require 9 Evocations skill to use reliably. The ability is otherwise identical to the spell.

Tips & Tricks

• A lifesaver particularly in the earlier game, get this spell or an item with it if at all possible. Since it randomly teleports you somewhere within your field of vision, the trick is to minimize the number of squares you can see where you don't want to end up.
• It also pays to remember that although a blink won't drop you in lava or deep water, it can and will drop you into a cloud, so take care when blinking around miasma, flame, or any other cloud you really don't want to land in.

Monster Version

Many monsters can cast the spell Blink, and their version can pass through translucent walls. There is no equivalent of Controlled Blink for monsters: player ghosts who had it in life will have Blink instead. However, some monsters are capable of casting the following Blink variations:

• Blink Close: Blinks the caster to a space closer to your character than the caster's starting location.
• Blink Away: Blinks the caster to a space farther away from your character than the caster's starting location.
• Blink Range: Blinks the caster to a space as far away as possible while still remaining within range for their ranged attacks.
• Blink Allies Encircling - Blinks nearby allies (excluding the caster) around the player, surrounding them.
• Blink Allies Away - Blinks nearby allies farther away from the player while maintaining their ability to use ranged attacks.

Some monsters, most notably phantoms and blink frogs, have a chance to blink when they hit you. Most such monsters have the spell as well, meaning they tend to blink around rather a lot.

History

Prior to 0.17, the cTele status would turn an uncontrolled blink into a semi-controlled blink.

Prior to 0.15, blinking in the Abyss would sometimes fail.

Prior to 0.8, a random blink would never place you within a dangerous cloud. This allowed you to steer uncontrolled blinks by casting cloud-producing spells in areas you don't want to go first.