Has anyone found a use for this spell? It seems to be a low-damage (similar to flame arrow or colour spray), pure damage spell.
However, unlike those two spells it has a two round lag.
With a relatively high mana cost for a non-mage (35), and due to alternative skills, this spell is almost completely useless.
Is there any time you ever cast this spell instead of throwing (more damage, no mana cost, poison, and the same lag) or pushing (same damage and less lag)?
Therefore, I would like to suggest changing this to a one round lag spell and either:
- Change the damtype from SPIRITS to HOLY (giving some, albeit weak and easy to negate, way to fight the ninja banes)
and/or
- Let the spell inflict some kind of special effect (paralyze/curse/plague--something like that)
As a side a note, the word "ikuzachi" is not a word in Japanese. I guess it is a typo for: "ikazuchi" (a kind of thunder)
That is why I proposed the paralyze effect. Something like "seishinken" would be a much better fit for the current spell (spirit fist).
As it stands now, ikuzachi is a typo AND worthless to the ninja arsenal.
I agree 100%. I don't even practice it on my ninjas, for the exact reasons Celerity mentioned. There are more profitable ways of dealing damage.
Also agreed. Always practiced it on my ninja thinking "I want it there just incase I ever need to use it" but for straight damage, push is much more preferable, and throw lets you hit vulns and poison.
Dey
I think it is fine as is, but the ninja path that utilizes it SHOULD get a boost.
uhh.. every ninja path has that spell... its stock and not a selectable skill.
Yes.
Yes, sir. I like it.
The thing with a lot of the problems in this game is that they are outdated or useless (as the case with this spell). Fixing them would help the game a lot.
We can say Know Alignment or Detect Evil/Good are "To help newbies." But... we have the Consider skill that does that as well. And who really practices those spells? How about replacing them with something a little more helpful, or at least somethign to propel the story of Aabahran and not Rom2.4b6?
This, Celerity's idea, is a great idea.
a-g
One day, I will learn to proof read.
Detect Evil/Good and Consider both require you to be in the same room. Know Align can be done from halfway across Aabahran.
I've used it on those pesky humans!
We can say Know Alignment or Detect Evil/Good are "To help newbies." But... we have the Consider skill that does that as well. And who really practices those spells? How about replacing them with something a little more helpful, or at least somethign to propel the story of Aabahran and not Rom2.4b6?
I always practice Detect Evil/Good. It is a great spell that really adds to the Roleplaying of the game. If something should be improved about it, should be to allow to notice a Red/Golden aura on room, from hiden/camo people.
Know alignment (religion) is a even more useful spell. It will allow you to know the religion of Clerics, and dully prepare for it. And in some cases, know if is xyz character is good, evil or neutral.
Knowing someones religion is also a useful tool in RolePlaying.
Now Cure light and Cure serious, i do not practice on my commoners.
They cost 10, 15 mana and give no additional benefit over using Cure Critical.
Now if their mana cost was reduced you would see more people using them to conserve mana.
I normaly base my cure critical math on 20 mana = 50 Hp's. If cure light (for classes with Cure serious+Critical) did 5 mana = 20 HP's then i would use it to cure outside of Combat and during ranking. No aid for DK's/Ninjas.
While we're at it...let's make isolate for clerics more useful!
Isolate is great.
It's a mental/charm spell that if not saved eliminates one of the Pet.
-Random Pet, if cast on Owner.
-Specific pet, if cast on Pet.
-No pet eliminated, if the pet is immune to Charm. 
A necromancer that ignores mental saves will find him sudently alone when faced with a Cleric.
If your Cleric can take the Pain. You can force (spam) cast it throw saves with {Flee;isolate Necro} and weaken his army. This normally goes wrong... 
Summon Zombie, followed by a Isolate works well. Better if you can turn undead the Zombie into a No Summon room.
The fact that you must not be engaged to cast makes it quite balanced.
I think it should have a chance to isolate ALL or ANY NUMBER of random pets.
Different thread please...this one is about ikuzachi!
When I had my Syndi half-elf ninja in 2.0, I made it a priority to master this spell and use it on ogres.
How did it work?
Magic shurikens always worked just as well against Ogres for me as Ikuzachi did, and all of my ninjas have been primarily melee based, so I've used them a lot. Magical shurikens also let you try to inflict poison.
Dey
hitting a vuln on shurikens will yield more damage than hitting a vuln with ikuzachi...plus poison and no mana drain, as Deykari said
Even against ogres, it leaves only rangers (others will be lagging you)....and a 650 hp ninja sitting there trying to out-damage a 1300 hp ogre ranger with heavy lag damage spells...this is not an effective strategy...
Even shurikens are risky in that situation unless they are doublesheathed (no lag)
There is never a time you would want to use this spell, either in ranking or in pk...
She's got a point. Why is it the ninjas have more lag than other casting classes on an offensive spell that is basically garbage? Give it an element (I disagree with holy...Why would ninjas get a way to strike hard at one of their banes when thieves can't?), drop it to 1 round of lag and it might one day grow up to be useful. I would honestly rather trip and pray that the ogre bashing me all to hell isn't flying and that I can magically outmelee him than use ikuzachi. That or another path...some kind of ninja spiritualist that let them cast ikuzachi with elements. My mind is racing right now...liquid cocaine is a hell of a drink.
(I disagree with holy...Why would ninjas get a way to strike hard at one of their banes when thieves can't?)
Holy shurikens/daggers would both be more useful than a holy ikuzachi (so both ninja/thieves can already strike their banes). The ikuzachi would only be useful to an unprepared (holy shurikenless) rogue, which is probably toast anyways.
casting this spell is like giving a warrior a free bash on you, if they timed their bashes around it, you'd never be able to move.
Hm, I agree insofar as ikuzachi has always been a bit of a useless spell...if you have time to ikuzachi, you have time to do something else.