Crystal ball of Wucad Mu

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

A crystal staff overflowing with magical energies, which can be channeled by a skilled wielder to allow them to cast spells without exhausting any of their own magical energies — at the risk of damaging the user's mind.

For the old version of this item, see staff of Wucad Mu.

the crystal ball of Wucad Mu

Orb

Channel x2

Mechanics

An orb of energy with double the refund rate, but double the spell failure. When successfully casting a spell, you have a 40% chance to have your MP refunded. When you miscast a spell, you will always have MP refunded.

Increases your raw spell failure rate by +20%. For reference, the first level of wizardry reduces it by 25%. Raw spell failure is then modified by a stepdown, so the actual failure increase will often be less than 20%. For more details, see the Spell Success page.

Djinn do not use MP and do not benefit from this item.

Desirability

The crystal ball of Wucad Mu is useful for magical characters. It gives a significant amount of MP reduction, at the cost of negative wizardry. Since this orb refunds MP on cast, it's best thought as "making you waste a few turns here or there" rather than "making you fail more often".

However, it takes up the shield slot. It also does nothing to help those who've run out of MP entirely. Regardless, the ability to cast your most powerful spells even a few more times can and will make a difference between victory and running dry mid-fight. Overall, it is a powerful item balanced by its fair share of drawbacks.

History

• This item was introduced in 0.30, replacing the staff of Wucad Mu. Channeling mechanics were also changed in this version.