Wand of mindburst

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

Type	Wand
Name	Wand of mindburst
Icon

A magical device which launches a psychic attack on a target creature. If it overcomes their willpower, it 'blows their mind' in a violently literal fashion, dealing damage that bypasses their armour entirely. It is useless against mindless creatures.

A wand of mindburst deals significant chunks of untyped damage to a single monster, assuming it isn't mindless. This effect must overcome the target's willpower, but it ignores AC and always hits. Mindburst is significantly harder to resist than other willpower-related wand effects, making it useful against a large variety of early- and mid-game opponents.

Useful Info

Players will deal 3d(8.75 + 3.5 * Evocations/4) damage with this wand.

Monsters will deal 1d(12 + (30 + HD)/4) damage with this wand.

Enchantment power

Players use mindburst with an "enchantment power" of 8.75 * Evocations, which is x2.5 higher than other wands (3.5 * Evocations). This does not mean that mindburst is x2.5 more likely to succeed, but it is a significant boost toward success rate.

The higher an enchantment power is compared to monster willpower, the more likely you are to beat willpower. For reference, if ench. power = willpower, you have a 50% to succeed. See the Willpower article for more details.

As an example: with Evocations 10, mindburst will have 87.5 ench. power, and a wand of paralysis will have 35 power. Against a hydra, with 80 willpower, you'll have a 65% chance to succeed with mindburst, and a 37% chance to succeed with a paralysis.

Strategy

• This wand can be particularly effective at taking out low-HD, high-threat monsters such as boggarts and Sonja.
• Mindburst is also effective at killing low-level players. If an early opponent happens to have one on hand, you'll likely want to escape immediately; multiple zaps of a wand of mindburst can very quickly become lethal.

Trivia

A monster killed in this manner will explode, spraying blood splatters around the area without leaving a corpse (dragons are immune to this effect, and may or may not leave a corpse as normal). Followers of Gozag Ym Sagoz will receive a spray of single gold coins on several nearby tiles instead of a shower of blood.

History

• In 0.29, monsters no longer deal 67% damage with this wand, but mindburst's damage formula (when used by monsters) was changed instead. Damage from the wand is slightly higher than in 0.28.
• In 0.28, monsters do 67% damage with this wand. It was supposed to work this way since 0.4, but was broken due to a bug.
• Prior to 0.27, this wand was called the wand of disintegration. Also, it could affect mindless creatures.
• Prior to 0.20, it could disintegrate rock walls and obstacles in the dungeon (doors, iron grates, trees, orcish idols, and most kinds of statues).
• Prior to 0.15, orange crystal statues and silver statues could be destroyed instantly through use of a wand of disintegration.
• Prior to 0.6, zapped creatures were simply reduced to nothingness.