Circle of Buoyancy
Circle of Buoyancy is a spell that creates a sizeable, long lasting field of levitation magic, capable of making most creatures (and many objects) caught inside it float. The field moves slowly in the direction your wand is pointing, allowing you to control it (and any objects it has picked up). The speed of the field increases slightly as it gets further from you, decreasing control at range.
This projectile has Friendly Fire enabled, and can hurt you if damage is added to it via modifiers or perks.
Tips
- The levitation effect can be used to move almost any entity to some extent.
- Spells can be moved, which can be used to remove the cost of those found in a Holy Mountain (but not elsewhere). See Holy Mountain#Stealing spells from the shop for details.
- Wands can be moved, but only those that have been dropped - you can't use this to get wands for free.
- Hearts, Spell Refreshers, Treasure Chests, creatures, physics objects (rocks etc.) and many other things can all be moved.
Remote control
While Aiming Arc can also give you control over the direction a projectile is moving, Circle of Buoyancy is the only spell that lets you also control a projectile's speed. The direction the field moves in is determined by the direction your wand is pointing (relative to you, rather than the bubble, which makes groups of them much easier to control).
The speed at which it moves is controlled based on the distance from your wand to the location of the mouse pointer - but the field does get faster the further away from you it is, and you can lose them if they fly off-screen. If you are being affected by the levitation buff the control mechanic imposes a limit on how fast you can fly, which is based on the distance between you and the edge of the screen.
You can still teleport while affected by the buff, but you cannot accelerate to Fast Movement speeds until the effect wears off.
Travel & Utility
- The levitation effect can be used as a means to fly for arbitrary periods by using it to recharge your levitation bar.
- The field applies a hidden levitation buff to entities within range. This buff lasts for 600 frames (10 seconds) and is applied every frame.
- This means that even when modified with Nolla you will gain a full 10s of levitation effect.
- Used this way it makes a very useful addition to a teleport wand, letting you float between teleporting.
- While you can use the Boomerang modifier with this spell, the levitation field moves too slowly to be an effective form of flight for long distances.
- Spider enemies don't seem to like the effect - they flee from it. Since they can dig through anything you can use this to herd them - making tunnels.
- Matter Eater can be used to dig tunnels - although the lifetime of the field will be reduced.
Useful for digging tunnels with curves, this creates a White Hole that is affected by the levitation buff from Circle Of Buoyancy. The circle is removed with Nolla, and the use of Long Distance Cast keeps the lifetime increasing and decreasing modifiers separate (you could use any 'with trigger' spell instead). Alpha is used to copy the White Hole, for unlimited use.
Shuffle
Spells/Cast
Cast delay
Rechrg. Time
Mana max
Capacity
Speed
Defensive use
- Projectiles fired into (or out of) the field will be slowed and stopped. This can make for an effective shield, but also affects your own spells.
- Can be used to move troublesome enemies away from you - particularly effective when combined with a homing modifier.
- Some enemies are resistant to being moved (e.g. Mato)
Offensive use
- Beware - Circle of Buoyancy can be hazardous to use offensively due to it having friendly fire enabled.
- The perks Concentrated Spells, Boomerang Spells and Eat Your Vegetables all add damage to the field.
- Same goes for modifiers and other spells which add damage (e.g. Heavy Shot).
- Projectile damage from the field is only applied once (per Circle, per entity). This mitigates some of the risk to you (but also reduces the offensive potential of the spell).
- When cast with Nolla, Circle of Buoyancy still grants a levitation effect to your projectiles. This slows them, and allows you to control their movement (similar to Aiming Arc).
- Damage Field works well with Circle of Buoyancy's long lifetime and ground/entity penetration.
- Due to having zero frame delay before the friendly fire effect is enabled, this spell can be used with Nolla and still inflict debuffs like Personal Lightning Caster onto yourself/nearby enemies. This can be cast once to passively destroy nearby enemies as you fly around - even granting trick kills.
Gallery
