Infestation
Infestation is a projectile spell that shoots six small, low-damage, chaotically bouncing projectiles. These may seem safe at first, but will become capable of harming you two seconds after firing. The projectiles live for up to ten seconds and deal damage both through direct contact and indirectly via a very short range area effect.
Due to the number of projectiles infestation fires it can do exceptional amounts of damage over a large area, and works very well with damage increasing modifiers since their effect applies to all the individual projectiles. It is wise to use remote casting methods like trigger spells, or to leave the immediate area quickly after casting it, to avoid the friendly fire effect.
Tips
- This spell works exceptionally well with Bubbly Bounce, although this only increases the friendly-fire risk.
- The large number of particles works well with modifiers like Fire Arc, however it's advised to use such combo with Trigger or Timer, and ideally with Fire Immunity.
- The Electric Arc modifier works a little too well. It is recommended to have both Explosion Immunity and Electricity Immunity before test firing.
- The direct contact damage is dealt every 20 frames. The area damage every frame.
- Due to the amount and chaotic nature of the projectiles, any Thrower-type spells can easily clear out entire screens of enemies, so long as you have the proper immunities.
- Stacking multiple Reduce Spread modifiers can be used to aim the particles in your facing direction, greatly reducing the risk of hitting yourself, and making it's use as a multi-projectile spell a lot better. 3 stacks prevents firing behind you, 5 stacks makes an aimable spread of about 45 degrees, 7 stacks turns it into a concentrated beam.
Speed & Damage
The Projectile damage dealt by some spells, including Infestation, depends on the speed of their projectile. Specifically, base damage is multiplied by the ratio of its Final Speed and Initial Speed, i.e.:
Since all the projectiles that have this effect naturally slow down over their lifetime, the damage they cause reduces over time. If you modify them such that they speed up instead then damage increases - the effect works both ways. You can increase the ratio, and thus bonus, by reducing the initial speed, increasing the final speed, or ideally both.
- Accelerating Shot is ideal for this since it reduces the initial speed, increases speed over the projectile's lifetime, and prevents it from losing speed from moving through the air.
- This modifier provides no acceleration in the first frame of the projectile's life, and so alone it can't save projectiles that spawn with too little initial speed.
- For Bouncing Burst, up to three copies can be used without additional acceleration 650px/s initial speed ×
0.32 × 0.32 × 0.32 = 21px/s, which is above the limit of 5px/s - For Energy Sphere, up to two copies can be used without additional acceleration 400px/s initial speed × 0.32 × 0.32 = 41px/s, which is above the limit of 20px/s
- Heavy Shot also reduces initial speed while providing a hefty damage boost (which is multiplied by the speed damage).
- Rotate Towards Foes is also ideal since it does not change the projectile's speed, only the direction it is moving in.
All the projectiles with this effect also have a minimum velocity below which they die. If you reduce their starting speed too much they may not spawn at all, or only when you point your wand downwards. Gravity or Anti-Gravity are easy fixes for this, providing enough acceleration to avoid early projectile death. The check for low velocity, and the recording of the projectile's Starting Speed, both happen at the end of the first frame of its life, meaning the die on low velocity speed is the lower bound for the bonus. The upper bound is the projectile's Terminal Velocity, which for all those with this effect is 1000px/s.
Since this damage is calculated as a bonus on impact it cannot be absorbed by Spells to Power. You can do it the other way around though, use Spells to Power to add damage from other projectiles to one with speed scaling - the damage absorbed by Spells to Power will be multiplied by the speed bonus at impact.
Multiple Projectiles
Some spells, including Infestation, produce several projectiles per cast. This property produces useful effects and synergies, and has some caveats to be aware of when used with other spells.
- Modifiers that add damage will apply to all of the individual projectiles, multiplying their value.
- The Arc modifier spells, particularly Electric Arc, work well since they are more effective when many projectiles are cast together.
- Pattern angles set by Formation multicast and other spells can apply to each projectile individually.
- Add Trigger will attempt to add a trigger to each individual projectile, using a separate payload for each one.
- Some spells produce a different number of projectiles when combined with Add Trigger.
Some spells define a sequence of "related" projectiles that don't match the sequence of projectiles added when normally casting the spell, meaning that they can have different behavior with Add Trigger and Plicate series of spells. They may produce different kind(s) of projectile(s) and/or a different number of projectiles. The "related" projectiles will be used:
- when Add Trigger/etc. targets this spell and the payload search succeeds
- when Plicates target this spell, if this spell is of type Projectile or Static Projectile and there is enough mana
If the original spell is also drawn and cast (which is very often the case with Plicates), then both "related" and "normal" projectile sequences may appear in the result.
- Infestation has 10 of the same projectile as its related projectiles, while when normally cast, it produces only 6 of this projectile.
Gallery
History
- Apr 8 2024: Changed the spawn probability on tier 4 from 0.3 to 0.4.
