I was super sad to see this spell skipped during the spell review. This spell has such great potential, but it seems to be incredibly under-developed and weak for the investment cost to make the spell "usable".

Here's a list of flaws this spell demonstrates:

1. Incredibly dangerous to use due to all the potential lash-back. Why would I hunt with a warding spell that has a significant chance to kill me without a massive lore investment?

2. Takes way too long to see results. Once again, only extreme lore investments make this spell's killing power any better, and does nothing to improve the speed of the damage cycles.

3. Passive damage cycles that are out of the caster's control. You can risk filling in the time with additional spells, but the goal of using an 18 mana spell should be to inflict major damage / debilitation on a target. 718 has strong crit potential, but that comes in super slow and boring cycles that seem to be almost randomly timed with no control of when the next cycle begins. On targets that cannot be crit killed, or targets which cannot be stunned, this spell is incredibly arduous to use especially with...

4. Requiring a pure to use a higher stance to mitigate the chance of being obliterated by their own spell! Forcing a caster to stand around in a higher stance as a pure to mitigate the risk of being warded adds just as much risk being killed by the critter you're hunting or something wandering in. The whole stancing menchanic seems to break the concept of being a pure caster. Not to mention, you have no control over when the next attack is happening, so you can't effectively "stance dance".


I could list a few more issues related to this spell. Like how the demonology ranks don't improve the crit thresholds, or how it doesn't work any better against heavily armored targets when we already have a spell that kills pures and semis reliably (719). Or how status dependent the spell tends to be when there are so many critters in the game that can't be influenced by those status.

I would like to see 718 turned into something that the caster has more control over. Direct the malice of a demonic force onto a target, have multiple damage cycles that can be randomized based on your demonic lore training, and this spell comes with a significant benefit to fighting heavily armored targets. Basically, a spell that bypasses armor, has very high crit potential, but can also be infused with additional damage cycles.

In fact, I would love it to work this way:

> prep 718
> cast target

0 ranks of Demon Lore

You connect with the demonic valence and draw power forth!
You unleash a demonic force upon the target:
CS vs TD check + roll
Target is damaged
Critical damage occurs
Target is stunned
3s Casting RT.

10 seconds later if the target is still alive:
Your connection with the demonic valence is renewed!
> incant 718 (0 mana deducted)

You unleash a demonic force upon the target:
CS vs TD check + roll
Target is damaged
Critical damage occurs
Target is stunned
3s Casting RT.

For every 20 ranks in Demonic Lore you reduce the time it takes to renew the connection by 1 second. Having a demon present during the use if 718 would also reduce the renewal time by an additional 2 seconds. So at 100 ranks of Demon Lore, you could re-cast 718 every 3 seconds with a demon present. At 140 ranks, you could re-cast 718 every 1 second with a demon present.

Remove the lash-back from the spell, but make it so you have to cast it after the connection is re-established so you can't just sit there like a dummy and watch it perform damage cycles. Give control to the caster. Remove the randomness...