Teeth

Fires a barrage of summoned barbed teeth.

Teeth is the Necromancer's level 1 bone spell (Poison and Bone tree, no prerequisite; it unlocks Corpse Explosion). Each cast fires a spread of magic-damage missiles toward the cursor: 2 teeth at level 1, one more a level, 21 at level 20 and never more than 24. Each tooth does the skill's magic damage, 2–4 at level 1 and 23–31 at level 20, and four other bone skills add +15% each per hard point. Mana starts at 3 and rises half a point a level.

The numbers

• Teeth is calc1 min(ln12, 24): Param1 2 plus Param2 1 a level, capped at 24 ("# of Missiles created"). The cap is reached at level 23, so +skills past that add damage, not teeth.
• Magic damage comes from the EMin/EMax columns and their five level brackets, and the table's EMin 4 and EMax 8 are shown at half because the skill's HitShift is 7 (damage is scaled by 2 to the HitShift over 256). In the tooltip's figures: the minimum rises +1 a level to level 8, +1 to 16, +1.5 to 22, +2 to 28 and +2.5 past that; the maximum +1 to 8, +1.5 to 16, +2 to 22, +2.5 to 28 and +3 past that. Level 20 is 23–31, level 30 is 43–56.
• Mana is 3 at level 1 and +0.5 a level (mana 6 and lvlmana 1 at manashift 7): 12.5 at level 20.

The damage, the count and the mana all read the full skill level, so +skills count. The synergy reads hard points only (see below).

How it works

Teeth is a cast missile skill: it has no attack-rating roll, each tooth hits what it touches, and the damage is magic, so it is reduced by the target's magic resistance and stopped by a magic immune (see Dealing Elemental Damage and Resistances and Immunities).

The Basin's rules for the barrage: the teeth fan out from the Necromancer, and the closer the cursor is to him the wider the spread, so a far cursor makes a tight volley and a near cursor a broad one. Each tooth is destroyed on impact, and the skill has a next-delay of 4 frames, which normally stops more than one tooth of a volley from hitting the same target: a single monster takes one tooth's damage per cast, and the extra teeth are for the monsters beside it.

The next-delay means a 21-tooth volley is not 21 × 31 damage to one monster. Against a single target Teeth does one tooth's damage, 23–31 at level 20 before synergies.

Synergies and +skills

Four skills feed Teeth, each at +15% magic damage per hard point (Param8 15, "Damage synergy"): Bone Wall, Bone Spear, Bone Prison and Bone Spirit. The column is EDmgSymPerCalc, which reads each skill's blvl, so +skills from items add nothing to the synergy; only placed points do. With 20 in all four the bonus is +1,200%. Teeth gives a synergy in return to Bone Spear and Bone Spirit. There is no mastery for magic damage; Magic Skill Damage from items is the only outside multiplier.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, tooth by tooth. The Basin's page records no other player-versus-player rule for this skill. See Player versus Player.

Build notes

• Level 20 fires 21 teeth of 23–31 for 12.5 mana; level 1 fires 2 of 2–4 for 3. The count is capped at 24, so from level 23 only the damage grows.
• A hard point in Bone Spear or Bone Spirit is worth +15% on every tooth and builds the skill you will cast later; a hard point in Teeth past its own level is worth about +2.5 damage a tooth and one more tooth.
• Because of the next-delay the skill pays for width, not depth: it is a pack opener, not a single-target spell.