Shock serpent

Useful Info

Shock serpents are snakes which can release a powerful electric discharge when hit, striking the attacker. They are also able to shoot highly accurate electrical bolts. They can be found in the Snake Pit.

When hit by an attack that dealt more than 4 damage, and if the attacker is within range 3, it retaliates for 3d(4 + pow*3/2) electric damage, where pow = damage_taken / 12, randomly rounded.<ref>Template:Source ref</ref><ref>Template:Source ref</ref> This activates for all attacks, melee or not. It even works if the shock serpent is disabled (paralysed, petrified, etc.) or can't see you. As BEAM_ELEC damage, it ignores 1/2 AC.

Tips & Tricks

• Without rElec, shock serpents can deal lots of damage. Electrical Bolt's 3d13 might not seem like a lot, but serpents are fast (they can fire twice/player turn), and in the correct position, each bolt can doublezap (hitting you twice). In addition, electric damage ignores 1/2 of your AC, and Electrical Bolt is noticeably more accurate than Lightning Bolt. And since they're fast, it's hard to escape from one.
  • Try to avoid doublezaps whenever possible - see the doublezap article for more details.
• Even if you have rElec, attacking them (at close range) will inflict significant damage over time. Attack from a distance if you can.
• Shock serpents don't have great willpower. A wand of polymorph will often change them into something more manageable.

History

• In 0.30, shock serpent retaliation damage was reduced by 25%.
• Prior to 0.22, shock serpent retaliation didn't check rElec properly.
• Prior to 0.18, when they took more than 4 points of damage, they lost all the accumulated charge dealing some minor damage to any creature near them.
• Shock serpents were added in 0.14.

References

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