Fire Storm

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Fire Storm
Level	9
School1	Conjuration
School2	Fire
Source(s)	Book of Annihilations
Casting noise	9
Spell noise	25
Power Cap	200
Range	5
Flags	Area, Needs tracer, Target

Calls forth a mighty storm of roaring flame directly onto the target, dealing damage in a large area and leaving behind short-lived fire vortices. A portion of its damage bypasses fire resistance. “Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They're dead.” -Jaya Ballard, task mage (Magic: the Gathering).

Spell Details
Damage Formula	8d(0.625+Power/8)
Max Damage	8d26
Max Power	200
Range	6
Targeting	Smite
To-hit
Special	50% resistible clouds of fire, fire vortices

Fire Storm is a level 9 Fire Magic/Conjurations spell that deals 50% resistible fire damage centered on a visible, open square (occupied or not) in a 6-square range. It creates a fiery conflagration of random size (3-4 tiles in radius including the center tile) and fills it with clouds of fire, similar to those created by Conjure Flame, and summons a handful of fire vortices.

The vortices Fire Storm creates are weak and confused friendly monsters that wander around, meleeing enemies for a bit of additional damage. They have low HP and die after scoring a single hit, but can serve as a distraction and even get in the way of projectiles or spells. They will be hostile if you worship Okawaru or have Sacrificed Love.

Strategy

Fire Storm's damage potential is one of the highest in the game, 8d((5+Spell power)/8), 208 damage at max power, and only 55% resistible. You can blast all kinds of fire-resistant monsters with it (even the dreaded orb of fire!) and they'll still take damage, albeit less. Since it uses smite-targeting, you can use it to kill monsters that are invisible, around corners, or outside your line of sight.

On the flip side, Fire Storm is a level 9 dual school spell, and thus incredibly difficult to learn. Both Ashenzari and Vehumet can expedite the process, though. Also, casting Fire Storm causes a real ruckus, akin to shouting; you may get swarmed when you really don't want to.

Fire Storm's random radius makes it difficult to target monsters that are close to you without hitting yourself in the process -- a bad idea, given that even with rF+++, you'll still be taking around 8d8 damage, before power boosts. Blink complements Fire Storm nicely. Keep some single-target damage spells in your repertoire for monsters that don't deserve 9 MP worth of fiery death.

Image

Casting Fire Storm. Notice the friendly fire vortices.

History

• Prior to 0.30, Fire Storm was 55% resistible.
• Prior to 0.17, Fire Storm's blast was circular rather than square. The chance for a radius-4 blast was slightly lower as a result, and not possible if power was less than 76.