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.
- Since Infestation is defined with an action that creates 6 projectiles, but a related projectile base consisting of 10, used with Add Trigger, Infestation will produce 10 projectiles instead of 6.
- 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.
Speed & Damage
The Projectile damage dealt by Infestation depends on its speed. Specifically, base damage is multiplied by the ratio of its current and starting speeds, i.e.:
This effect will tend to reduce damage over the lifetime of the projectile as it slows down after being fired. Since this effect works both ways it can also be used to increase damage - by reducing the initial speed, increasing the final speed, or ideally both.
- Accelerating Shot is ideal for this since it both reduces the initial speed, increases speed over the projectile's lifetime, and prevents it from slowing down.
- 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.
Multiple Projectiles
Some spells, including Infestation, produce several projectiles per cast. This property produces some useful effects and synergies.
- 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.
Gallery
History
- Apr 8 2024: Changed the spawn probability on tier 4 from 0.3 to 0.4.
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