Pathfinder, Chain Lightning vs Sirocco, Pros and Cons

[madtinker]

This is sort of an optimization question and sort of a philosophy question.

First: From an optimization standpoint, I realize blasting is underpowered.

I am playing a wizard and just hit level 12. Most of my spells are battlefield control, but I want to add blasting because it sounds fun.

Chain lightning (core rulebook) sounds like a great candidate. Its a reflex save for half damage, 1d6/caster level (12d6=42 average) electricity damage, arc to an additional caster level (12) creatures max. That's respectable damage, and would be fun to toss into a mass of bad guys.

Sirocco (advanced players guide) is sort of another blast spell. It has a 20 ft radius, 4d6+1/caster level fire damage (average 26 damage) per round. Fortitude save for half damage. Failing to save means getting knocked prone. Assuming creatures aren't stupid enough to remain in the area of effect, the damage isn't great compared to chain lightning, but of course if they stay there it adds up quickly. The kicker is, if they take damage at all they become fatigued or exhausted (if already fatigued). Fatigued gives a -2 to str and dex. Exhausted is even better, -6 to str and dex (stacks w/ fatigued?). Plus now there is an area that the bad guys won't want to enter, which gives a nice battlefield control benefit. If I can keep the bad guys in the area for more than 1 round, damage adds up and they are quickly exhausted, so pairing this with a wall spell would be brutal.

What am I missing in terms of pros and cons? After writing this out Sirocco is clearly a better battle-field control spell. Its even a better damage spell if I can contain the enemy. But the single-round damage is lower, and it deals fire damage instead of electricity. Other thoughts?

[Bucky]

Are you using the spell in combination with your other battlefield control, targeting creatures that are already locked down? Or are you reserving it for situations where "locked down" isn't good enough and you need your enemies at negative HP now?

[madtinker]

I am open to suggestions as to the best ways to use these. Obviously locking down first will make siroocco most effective, but I also want to let the other party members have their fun swinging sharp metal sticks, so if I lock things down too tightly they won't have anything to do.

[BlueWitch]

Sirroco is underrated. From my experience, it's great for Debuffing large groups of mooks. Especially when combined with Widen Spell.

But in terms of raw damage, Chain Lightning is better.

Also, mechanically speaking you have to remember the Saving Throws.
Sirroco is Fortitude, Chain Lightning is Reflex.

Sirroco is best for dealing with fodder.
Chain Lightning is better for more serious encounters. My best use was against a guy who summoned monsters.

[madtinker]

Which do you prefer to target; reflex or fortitude saves?

How often is it likely that fire resistance/immunity will prevent Sirocco from doing any damage?

[Miss Disaster]

Years ago, I witnessed one of the most amazing 1-2 Punches in the Pathfinder's entire spell combo game.

In the same round, my druid cast Tar Pool followed up by our group's wizard who cast Sirocco. It absolutely neutered a whole swath of a combined strong demon, draconic and aberration army even though many of the demons had good fire resistance vs. both spells. Brought tears to our eyes. :smallsmile:

Besides Tar Pool, Scirocco combos with a staggering array of other spells for a ton of battlefield control options. And at the worse, the fire damage is just a tiny bit of gravy on top ... at the best, you may end up scoring big if up against fire-vulnerable foes.

[Bucky]

What's the rest of your party doing?

Do you have a combat-maneuver specialist who could bull rush enemies back into the Sirocco, or grapple them and hold them inside? This sort of ready-made battlefield hazard isn't stealing the spotlight, it's making sure they have a chance to shine.

Does your party have enough of its own archery-power to duel with archery mooks that they simply can't close with for some reason? If not, Chain Lightning fills in a tactical hole.

Does the rest of the party have swarm countermeasures, or would they rely on your blasting to kill off a swarm?

[Kurald Galain]

First: From an optimization standpoint, I realize blasting is underpowered.
That's the 3.5 maxim. In Pathfinder this is not the case any more, assuming you have the right damage-boosting or effect-adding feats.

[madtinker]

The rest of the party is a fighter with a big metal stick, a summoner with an eidolon, and a sneaky-stabby frog. The druid dropped out and the archery ranger only shows up occasionally. Combat usually starts out with the frog sneaking up on the biggest enemy and murdering them (or nearly), then I try to funnel enemies between the fighter and the eidolon for a flanking party. It tends to work pretty well (our DM is not particularly vicious). One of the big draws of chain lightning is I can cast into the middle of melee without worrying about hurting my own team.

I am also taking Forceful Hand, and I have Hydraulic Torrent for Bull Rushing (which I also plan to pair with Acid Pit).

Can summoners learn Black Tentacles? That would pair nicely with Sirocco. Heck, even Grease could be entertaining, especially if I could get a rod of Quicken.

We haven't dealt with a lot of swarms, but I think most of them have been dealt with by my wand of Fireball.

We aren't the most efficient party, but we do have fun.

[Ramza00]

This is sort of an optimization question and sort of a philosophy question.

First: From an optimization standpoint, I realize blasting is underpowered.

I am playing a wizard and just hit level 12. Most of my spells are battlefield control, but I want to add blasting because it sounds fun.

Chain lightning (core rulebook) sounds like a great candidate. Its a reflex save for half damage, 1d6/caster level (12d6=42 average) electricity damage, arc to an additional caster level (12) creatures max. That's respectable damage, and would be fun to toss into a mass of bad guys.

Sirocco (advanced players guide) is sort of another blast spell. It has a 20 ft radius, 4d6+1/caster level fire damage (average 26 damage) per round. Fortitude save for half damage. Failing to save means getting knocked prone. Assuming creatures aren't stupid enough to remain in the area of effect, the damage isn't great compared to chain lightning, but of course if they stay there it adds up quickly. The kicker is, if they take damage at all they become fatigued or exhausted (if already fatigued). Fatigued gives a -2 to str and dex. Exhausted is even better, -6 to str and dex (stacks w/ fatigued?). Plus now there is an area that the bad guys won't want to enter, which gives a nice battlefield control benefit. If I can keep the bad guys in the area for more than 1 round, damage adds up and they are quickly exhausted, so pairing this with a wall spell would be brutal.

What am I missing in terms of pros and cons? After writing this out Sirocco is clearly a better battle-field control spell. Its even a better damage spell if I can contain the enemy. But the single-round damage is lower, and it deals fire damage instead of electricity. Other thoughts?

Think Sirocco as something similar to Acid Fog from Pathfinder or the similar spell from 3.5. It is battlefield control and damage.

Both Fog and Sirocco is medium range, and 20 ft radius wide circle. Fog and Sirocco have different heights while one is 20 ft high and the other is 60 ft high. Furthermore Fog is Conjuration and Sirocco is Evocation battlefield control (if you care about wizard specialization and you give up the other school / or get bonus spells in conjuration vs evocation.)

Sirocco is a bigger debuff with losing 1 round of movement due to the fort save, acid like solid fog does not have a save but the hindrance is less for the first round. Yadda, yadda, yadda, more differences that are minor to these two spells.


Years ago, I witnessed one of the most amazing 1-2 Punches in the Pathfinder's entire spell combo game.

In the same round, my druid cast Tar Pool followed up by our group's wizard who cast Sirocco. It absolutely neutered a whole swath of a combined strong demon, draconic and aberration army even though many of the demons had good fire resistance vs. both spells. Brought tears to our eyes. :smallsmile:

Besides Tar Pool, Scirocco combos with a staggering array of other spells for a ton of battlefield control options. And at the worse, the fire damage is just a tiny bit of gravy on top ... at the best, you may end up scoring big if up against fire-vulnerable foes.

*Nods* Sirocco combos well with many spells. Direct Damage like Chain Lightning is good but it does not combo as well.

[DeTess]

The rest of the party is a fighter with a big metal stick, a summoner with an eidolon, and a sneaky-stabby frog. The druid dropped out and the archery ranger only shows up occasionally. Combat usually starts out with the frog sneaking up on the biggest enemy and murdering them (or nearly), then I try to funnel enemies between the fighter and the eidolon for a flanking party. It tends to work pretty well (our DM is not particularly vicious). One of the big draws of chain lightning is I can cast into the middle of melee without worrying about hurting my own team.

It seems you have a bunch of party-members that specialize in melee to some degree, so the area-denial from sirocco might be a double-edged sword in that way. Because of that, I'd consider getting chain lightning instead. If you usually fight in areas where a casting of sirocco won't lock one of your allies out of doing what they like doing, then I think it's probably the better spell, especially if you're already focused on crowd control and therefore likely have some spells to combo with it.



We aren't the most efficient party, but we do have fun.
That sounds like a perfectly optimized party to me.

[Thunder999]

Sirocco is probably going to be more generally useful, while you can blast in pathfinder it generally needs a fair bit of build investment to get relevant damage, so that chain lightning will be pretty underwhelming.

[Maryring]

Since it sounds like you already have a lot of battlefield control, go with Chain Lightning. The larger radius for damage, much quicker damage growth, and better damage typing will serve you well. But most importantly, it has incredible range. With a range of 880, you can fry almost any army before they have a chance to get close enough to strike back. Also, resist energy provides 30 resistance at CL 11, so that spell alone makes Sirocco do nothing 84% of the time.

[Bucky]

I second the Chain Lightning recommendation, but for different reasons than DeTess.

Sirocco is good under the circumstances where your party's strategy is already good - when you can funnel enemies into a relatively small blender, or lock down one group while ganging up on another.

Chain Lighting is good under the circumstances where your party's strategy currently has trouble - when the enemies stay out of reach, or when they're flanking the party bruisers rather than the other way around, or when there are way too many of them to contain (which should only happen if they're individually several levels weaker than the party).