Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling
Level	8
School1	Air
Source(s)	Maxwell's Memoranda Book of Spectacle
Casting noise	7
Spell noise	25
Power Cap	200
Range	LOS
Flags	No ghost

Gradually builds up electric charge in the caster, so long as they maintain focus (by waiting in place and not taking any other actions). When a threshold is reached, the charge couples with the nearest foe, vaporising them instantly. Higher spell power will allow the caster to accumulate charge more rapidly.

Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling is a Level 8 Air Magic spell that always kills the closest enemy, regardless of its current health, resistances, or defenses, after a few turns.

It takes 30 + (1d(200 - spellpower) - 1) / 50 aut for the spell to complete, or 3-7 normal speed turns. The spell will be interrupted if you do any action other than waiting, or if you become silenced. If two or more creatures are equally close, the target is chosen at random.

While charging, the status light Charge- cycles counterclockwise. However, the cycle starts and ends at random positions, meaning you can't tell when the spell will activate.

Strategy

• Autofight will automatically wait for you, assuming you are charging this spell.
• Summoning monsters are the bane of this spell, able to surround you with misleading targets. Fight important summoners in corridors or kill holes in order to reduce the amount of targets the spell may hit.
  • On the other hand, this spell goes straight through your own allies, allowing you to hide behind them while you charge up your attack against whatever is slicing through them.

History

Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling was added in 0.27, replacing Absolute Zero.