Could this be changed to make it, you know.... useful? Currently it's a joke, being a combination of the worst parts of Lesser Missile Storm and Firebrand. 1d6 electrical per level, reflex for half, split between all the foes in an area? For a L5 spell?
I've a few thoughts. Either:
-Double the damage per ball, which puts its base damage better than Lesser Missile Storm but with insulation and evasion able to block it.
-Make it work how it's supposed to and hit one target with 1d6/level.
-Make it work just like Firebrand but with electrical damage.
Since it -can- hit a single target doubling the damage would make this really overpowered. It does the proper amount of damage as it is it's just that they are in numerous small bursts. This makes a small amount of electrical resistance nullify this spell.
I would suggest adding a stun effect to the spell. 1d4 rounds +1 / 5 caster levels. This could be a fortitude save to resist the 'bombardment' effect of the electrical bursts or something.
That's a great idea. Like Electric Loop. It'd be a more decent area control spell like Fear or Confusion then as well as being able to throw all 9 stun saves onto one target, hoping it fails one. Currently though, it is a L5 spell that the 5/- helmet you can get on Trogs or a couple of bits of loot off Corals makes you >80% immune to.
This spell is pretty awful yes. Stun might be cool.
After standing in the open for five minutes while the wizards of Coral spammed these spells on me, without taking any damage, I'm sort of inclined to agree with Caddies and the OP here.
Yeah, this spell really is pretty crappy, especially given the other level 5 alternatives.
I nominate my stun option, giving each ball a chance to stun them with a fortitude save with a 1d4 round duration. Perhaps 1d4 +1 / 5 levels.
If we're changing electrical spells then it would be nice for:
1.) Lightning bolt to not need a target
2.) Gedlee's Electric Loop to be given a decent range
3.) Scintillating Sphere to have range from 30 to 40, which is the same range as fireball.
Adding stun would be good.
Going to resurrect this thread for obvious reasons. Any plans to fix Ball Lightning to have some sort of useful effect? :) Even with the perk it's not doing anything good (and also only counts each target once rather than triggering with each ball launched)
Edit - I like the firebrand suggestion myself but I think anything would be nice!
This spell got fixed with the perk, TBH. Potential for damage is decent.
It only works on each target once. If there are two targets the spell will hit one four times, one five times, and send off the perk effect from each of targets once. That means that on a single target this spell is doing the same damage as scint sphere, on two targets it's doing half of scint sphere + ~3 damage to each target. It's still completely useless and almost fully negated by many very common items with 5/- resist.
Lolmagics is right.
However, remember the chicken casts it.
One more bump for this I suppose. The Perk has done very little to 'fix' this spell, please try it out if you're uncertain of that fact.