Summon Lightning Spire

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

Summon Lightning Spire
Level	4
School1	Air
School2	Summoning
Source(s)	Book of Iron Book of Storms
Casting noise	2
Spell noise	0
Power Cap	100

Constructs a lightning spire in a nearby location. It can fire bouncing bolts of electricity at the caster's foes, but is completely immobile. The strength of the spire depends on spell power.

Summon Lightning Spire is a level 4 Summoning/Air spell which summons a lightning spire. It can only maintain a single lightning spire at a time; casting the spell again will replace the old one.

Summoners begin with this spell in their libraries.

Useful Info

An immobile lightning spire that shoots bolts of electricity will be placed in a random location within two tiles of the caster. The location must be empty and not deep water or lava. There is a summon limit of 1; casting the spell again will cause the old summon to very quickly time out.

Electrical Bolts pierce through enemies and will bounce from most walls (potentially hitting targets twice). Unlike the similar Lightning Bolt spell, the lightning spire's bolts are quiet and reasonably accurate.

The lightning spire has <spell power> / 10 hit dice (minimum of 1). Higher spell power increases the spire's HP, accuracy, and damage.

The construct lasts for around 18 turns, regardless of spell power.

Strategy

Lightning spires offer a fair bit of damage for its MP cost, at least for the early game. Unlike other low-level summons, it can shoot from a distance. One use of the spire is with kiting: summon a spire, back away, and let the spire get free shots. It's good for the damage/MP alone. however.

Electric bolts can doublezap if they reflect off a wall. If the spire isn't placed in a way that allows that to happen and you have MP to spare, you can summon a new one to try to place it somewhere better.

Tips & Tricks

• Spires will avoid shooting its allies (including you) unless they are electricity resistant or invisible. So make sure to position yourself / allies in a way that allows the spire to remain effective.
• Spires cannot see invisible. If you're invisible, it will fire bolts right through you. Conversely, spires are useless against invisible enemies, unless there is a visible monster behind them.
• You can use a spire to block line of fire for hostile hexers or to seal off a corridor when you need to retreat.
  • However, the random placement might mean that the spire blocks off your retreat path. You can attack it with ctrl-direction or v to make it dissipate instantly.
• Spires are immune to electricity, poison, and negative energy, so you can safely use area-of-effect spells of those elements without harming one.

History

• Prior to 0.25, the spire was summoned to a targeted location, instead of randomly. Lightning Spire was often considered one of the best spells in the game before this change.
• This spell was added in 0.14.