The Mana World Forums

I've mentioned before that I think that each element (or attack spell for that matter) should come in a form that is unique to that spell. So this thread is to think of different forms attack spells can take, and to suggest elements to go with it.

Existing forms---
Ranged normal attack - flar, ingrav
melee attack - chiza, upmarmu
random carpet bombing - frillyar


Possible new forms---
---area effects--- (important for area with a lot of aggressive monsters)
surround damage
surround damage + push effect
damage in straight line (hitting all monsters in path)
random carpet bombing + explosions
Ranged normal attack + explosions
Random scatter shots
Random exploding scatter shots
Rapid burst shots
Rapid shots that lose power if you fire them too fast
Auto attacking (frillyar style) area effect that targets specified monster
Spawns objects (flames) that damage on contact
Creates a damage-over-time field (poison cloud)


--stat effects---(some redundancy)
+poison
+explosion (area damage around point of impact)
+aggro
+aggro towards targetted monster
+doom
+slow
+push
+flames (on the ground and damage on contact)


May add ideas later; remember the idea is that future spells should not take the same basic form as the existing spells, for the most part (although frillyar is somewhat interesting and unique).

EDIT:
I remembered that an alternative path that would probably be better than new attack spells; the essense of a mage should be that rather than straightforward tactics, mages should be a big bag of tricks that are mainly circumstantial. Ingrav should be the most straightforward attack mages have.
All the others should be things that are tricky and difficult to use, or require special circumstances and creativity to be effective.

On that topic, there should be a wildcard spell that does something completely random every time it's cast.