Summon Lightning Spire

Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

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.

Summoners begin with this spell in their libraries.

Useful Info

An immobile lightning spire that shoots bolts of electricity will be summoned in a random location within two tiles of the caster. The location must be empty and not deep water or lava.

Spires' Electrical Bolts can 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.

Higher spell power increases the spire's hit dice, which increases its HP, accuracy, and damage. Lightning spire HD equals <spell power> / 10 (minimum of 1)..

The construct lasts for around 18 turns; it does not depend on spell power.

There is a summon limit of 1; casting the spell again will cause the old summon to very quickly time out.

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. Even if you can't kite, it's good for the damage/MP alone.

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 allies, including you, unless they are resistant or invisible. Make sure to position yourself and your allies in a way that allows the spire to fire.
• 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.
• Like other summons, spires can be used to block line of fire, 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 use spells of those elements without harming the spire.

History

• Prior to around 0.29, allies weren't smart enough to stop their attacks before they'd hit you. So in this kind of position:

.....
.@y8.
.....

The spire would not shoot, because it would hit you.

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