High Seism

High Seism is a holy based skill available in Dragon's Dogma.

Description[]

"An advanced form of Seism that causes even more eruptions of stone, stunning and damaging foes over a wide area."

An advanced version of Seism.

In Dark Arisen, it becomes Grand Seism with a suitable Sorcerer's Band equipped.

Usage, tactics and damage[]

Spell	Cast time	Stamina	Pillars
Seism	11s	750	4
High Seism	+6s	950	8
Grand Seism	+4s	1200	12

After incantation the spell damages in a broad field in front of the Arisen through stone pillars summoned out of the ground.

Whilst incanting the direction of the spell can be changed [Right stick]
Once Seism is charged and High Seism is being cast the caster may move slowly

In general everything within the caster's field of view will be have a chance to be hit, up to around 7m out, as well as slightly behind. However casting from behind walls, pillars, and rocky slopes prevents the pillars from damaging, even if they appear to have directly hit.

Damage[]

Seism erratic hit — Erratic hit from a falling giant rock

There are three aspects to the damage from this spell

Firstly all in a broad area are damaged by a pure magick spell.
Secondly a number of pillars are summoned out of the ground, striking any above with powerful holy magick and high knockdown.
Thirdly there is a chance that large boulders created from the summoned pillars may strike foes on landing for substantial damage. (these do physical damage)

The two core stages of the spell lacks a physical component and the power scales strongly with the caster's total magick. The pillars have very high core power.

Pillar positions[]

Seismf — Circles show areas in front of Arisen [bottom center] where eruption can happen. More saturated areas mean more hits during given spell (The center dot is the first pillar)

Unlike Bolide the pillars do not automatically target foes within range of the caster, but rather erupt in a predefined pattern with some randomness.

Every pillar except first and eighth erupts within a circle-like offset of around ~3.4m.
The pillar patterns for the second and third tiers form an irregular pentagon around the first central spire.
The first pillar defines the epicenter of the spell - this is normally 3-4m ahead of the caster, but can move closer if their is a solid wall or obstacle right in front of the caster.
There's no visual indication of the epicenter, or of where subsequent pillars will be.

Notes[]

These spells work with group spellcasting.
Once incanted and released these spell's must be held for ~7 seconds before the caster is able to move freely.
Ineffective against magick resistant foes like Golems.
Similar in appearance to the Mystic Knight spell Stone Forest, though the Seism spells are holy, whilst Stone Forest and related spells are fire based, and Seism is much slower to cast.
A Shattered Earth Tome, and occasionally a Wroth Mask, can be used by any vocation to cast Grand Seism nearly instantly. However, unlike the Archistaff version, the damage is not dependent on the caster's magick; it also lacks a physical component.

Enemy use[]

Salomet can cast Seism like spells, whilst High Seism is cast by Daimon and Corrupted Pawns.

Trivia[]

Originally, during development, Seism was the only Sorcerer spell with a physical component, and then only the erratic boulders. When fighting Golem this caused players to spam the spell in the hope a boulder hit. As a result, the director, Hideaki Itsuno, decided to add a physical component to Bolide spells as well.^[1]