Shocking sphere
e shocking sphere 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 10 |
| Attacks | |
| Base level | 6 |
| Base experience | 91 |
| Speed | 13 |
| Base AC | 4 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 10 |
| Nutritional value | 10 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | shock resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | shock resistance |
|
A shocking sphere:
| |
| Reference | NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 358 |
A shocking sphere, e, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The shocking sphere is a sphere monster that has an affinity to electricity, and emits light in a 1-square radius around itself.
A shocking sphere has a shocking explosion attack that causes them to self-destruct and cover a 3x3 square radius centered on their position, which deals 4-24 base damage to a hero or any other monsters caught in the explosion:[1] this has a chance of destroying rings and wands in the inventory of anyone caught in the blast, with the amount of items affected being equal to 1⁄5 of the shock damage that was dealt—rings that are chargeable have a 2⁄3 chance of being charged rather than destroyed.[2] A hero or monster with a source of extrinsic shock resistance has a 99⁄100 chance per item of preventing their rings and wands from being destroyed.[3] Shocking spheres possess shock resistance.
Killing a shocking sphere with a digestion attack can grant shock resistance to the digesting hero or monster.
Contents
Generation
Randomly generated shocking spheres are always created hostile.
A shocking sphere does not leave a corpse upon death.
Strategy
Shocking spheres are the most annoying of the elemental spheres to deal with, with the destruction of rings and wands making them priority targets for disposal. They also have the same movement speed of 13 that makes them faster than an unhasted hero, and pets that attack shocking spheres will likely trigger the explosion themselves and catch you or other pets and monsters in the crossfire. While invisibility and displacement can fool a shocking sphere into exploding prematurely, there is a chance the hero may still be caught in the explosion.
Dropping and/or stashing rings and wands may not be as ideal for preparing to handle approaching shocking spheres, compared to doing so with vulnerable items for their other elemental counterparts. Sources of extrinsic shock resistance are also somewhat rarer compared to fire resistance and cold resistance: the ring of shock resistance and particularly blue dragon scale mail are the best items for mitigating the shocking sphere's destructive abilities, with the ring itself being immune to shock damage, and worn gloves that are not metallic (i.e. any gloves other than gauntlets of power) will protect the rings worn underneath them.[3][4]
As with other spheres, shocking spheres have MR score and are vulnerable to both poisoned weapon damage as well as most forms of magic, such as a zapped wand of sleep to immobilize them. Cancellation that hits through their mediocre 4 AC will reliably disable their explosive abilities and render them harmless, and it may well be worth spending a genocide on them as a preventative measure or if all else fails. Similarly, try to keep shocking spheres away from leprechaun halls, treasure zoos and similar rooms of monsters that you do not want awakened, and if a zoo contains a shocking sphere, try to save it for last if possible—stealth can be a useful aid for both purposes, though it will not always prevent sleeping monsters from awakening.
History
The shocking sphere first appears in SLASH 6, and makes its vanilla NetHack debut in NetHack 3.3.0. From these versions to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, the difficulty of the shocking sphere is 8: its explosion attack targets a single square, has a dexterity-based chance of dealing reduced damage, does not destroy rings and wands, and is completely blocked by shock resistance.[5][6]
The shocking sphere's current behavior is introduced in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit 6b60618e and commit eb22a810, with the explosion behavior adapted from xNetHack, while its monster difficulty rating is increased to 9—NetHack 5.0.0 fixes discrepancies related to the difficulty ratings for spheres via commit c3802343.
Shocking spheres are also the subject of other software bug fixes and adjustments over several versions:
- In versions up to NetHack 3.4.3, flaming spheres and shocking spheres are capable of picking up items where a freezing sphere cannot, though due to their weight they will only attempt to pick up very light ones (such as singular gold pieces) and will usually only do so while tame. This is fixed in NetHack 3.6.0 via commit cbab68a4 so that all three spheres will properly avoid picking up items.
- In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, shocking spheres grant shock resistance only while eaten, which does not account for any form of digestion attack. This is fixed in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit 0eadf8df, commit b25961fb and commit c78e7af0.
Variants
NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may or may not retain the shoocking sphere's behavior from previous versions.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, shocking spheres behave mostly as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, shocking spheres have an on-death explosion similar to gas spores, covering a 3x3 area centered on it that can destroy rings and sap wand charges from the open inventories of anyone caught in the blast—shock resistance blocks HP damage from the explosion, and extrinsic shock resistance also prevents item damage.
Shocking spheres can be warded by the Elder Elemental Eye at any level of reinforcement.
Shocking spheres may be generated in the Lawful Quest, where they will appear on the Paths of Law and within the Arcadian Tower if Oona's elemental affinity is lightning. The summon sphere monster spell can summon shocking spheres, and will always do so when cast by a vegepygmy shaman.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, reading a scroll of elementalism while confused has a 1⁄4 chance of summoning flaming sphere, which are tame if the scroll was blessed and read by a hero and will otherwise be hostile. This also applies to Hack'EM.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, shocking spheres use explosion attacks and on-death explosions that cover a 3x3 radius centered on its square, zapping monsters and destroying wands and rings.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, eight shocking spheres are generated on the goal level of the Acid Mage quest, where they are placed adjacent to the Lightningrod during level creation.
Encyclopedia entry
- See the encyclopedia entry for sphere.
References
- ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1618-L1622
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5868-L5871: rings charging from shock damage
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5685-L5689: protection via extrinsic resistances
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5863-L5867: ring protection from shock damage
- ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2068-L2071
- ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2080-L2089
