[Dracain]

Simple question really.  Should a combat mage get powerbolt+ball if they have stunbolt+ball.  Same question for more generalized mages. 

[UmaroVI]

The reason to get powerbolt/ball is mainly if you are concerned about being able to fight things that don't take Stun - mostly drones and vehicles, occasionally someone with Pain Editor.

I think it's generally worth having at least one attack that works on drones unless you are really hard-up for spells or points, and especially you should if you claim to be a combat mage - if you can't hurt a drone at all, that's not good.

Whether you want Powerbolt/ball or an Elemental spell depends on how many dice you have. Drones are OR 5, so you need at least 15 dice to affect them on average, and closer to 20 to be able to work reliably. If you have a heavy enough combat focus then Powerbolt/ball are good, because against high body/armor vehicles, they're way better than elemental spells if they work at all. If not, use elemental spells instead.

[Dracain]

The character rolls 20 dice to spellcasting and has an elemental single and AOE.  Should I bother with powerbolt+ball?

[UmaroVI]

Probably not; it's generally better to diversify, rather than have a ton of spells that do the same thing but are slightly better under different circumstances. Powerbolt/ball will be better against vehicles that have high body/armor/ranged defense, and worse against less well-defended vehicles.

If the character is already in play, I would probably not pick up powerbolt/ball and would instead focus on being better at magic in general. If you regularly find yourself needing to blow up things like tanks, Ares Citymasters, armored helicopters, etc then I would think about Powerbolt. Otherwise, I would prioritize other things (initiating, binding foci [Centering focus in particular is good for a combat mage], more Magic) first.

[All4BigGuns]

For the mage I'm playing in a PbP I took Lightning Bolt for vehicles, but I'm starting to think maybe Powerbolt might have been better...not sure though.

[UmaroVI]

If you mean Frostmane, I'm counting 15 dice on Combat spells for that character. That's about a 40% chance for Powerbolt to fail to get OR 5. I'd rather have the more reliable lightning bolt; 40% failure is just too unreliable, IMO.

[All4BigGuns]

If you mean Frostmane, I'm counting 15 dice on Combat spells for that character. That's about a 40% chance for Powerbolt to fail to get OR 5. I'd rather have the more reliable lightning bolt; 40% failure is just too unreliable, IMO.

Yeah, she's the one, and you are counting correctly on her spellcasting dice pool. Question is, wouldn't any vehicle shrug off the piddly damage of Lightning Bolt with ease?

[Crash_00]

Generally you want to go with powerbolt or some other elemental spell for vehicles (acid maybe?). Lightning Bolt doesn't actually damage vehicles (it deals stun damage, and vehicles don't take stun damage), it can just temporarily short them out. They still get a test against shorting out though and it's unlikely to happen on larger vehicles barring extreme luck.

At fifteen dice, you'll get about five hits average. Meaning odds are in your favor for vehicles or drones with a Body+Armor less than fifteen.

[All4BigGuns]

Stun damage? What? Lightning Bolt does Physical.

Lightning Bolt (Indirect, Elemental)
Type: P • Range: LOS • Damage: P • Duration: I • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 3
Ball Lightning (Indirect, Elemental, Area)
Type: P • Range: LOS (A) • Damage: P • Duration: I • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 5
These spells create and direct vicious strikes of electricity that cause
Electricity damage (p. 163). Lightning Bolt is a single target spell. Ball
Lightning is an area spell.

Emphasis mine.

[UmaroVI]

Depends - they get only half armor against it. Keep in mind that "vehicle" is pretty broad. Drones in particular are plenty dangerous, but are still OR 5; you're almost always better off with Lightning Bolt against them (if you want to get mathematical, Lightning Bolt is better when (Armor + 2xBody - 2xResponse*< 30); so for example a Body 4, Armor 12, Response 4 drone is much more likely to go down to a lightning bolt than to a Powerbolt. A body 20, armor 20, Response 4 APC probably can just laugh off your lightning bolt.

*or Command if it's being remote controlled.

Crash: all other sources of electrical damage do Stun. Lightning Bolt and Lightning Ball explicitly do not. SR4A 205. For my money I prefer Frost/Blizzard for vehicle zapping because it forces Crash tests.

[Dracain]

I am making a character now (400BP), so should I grab powerbolt+ball or should I just stick to the elemental (I wanna keep it for a secondary effect and the out of LOS AOE, otherwise I would replace elemental with power).  So if chargen should I keep powerbolt+ball or drop it and maybe pick it up later if I need it?

[Crash_00]

Straight from Electricity Damage that Lightning Bolt/Ball references.

Electrical damage is treated as Stun damage and resisted with half Impact armor (rounded up)—metallic armor, however, offers no protection. The nonconductive armor upgrade (p. 327) adds its full rating to the armor value.
-SNIP-
Electronic equipment, vehicles, and drones can also be affected by Electricity damage. They never suffer Stun damage, but they do roll Body + Armor (drones and vehicles) or Armor x 2 (other objects) to resist secondary effects.

Electrical damage is always treated as stun damage. A spell can either do physical damage or it can do electrical damage, but it can't do both. Doing electrical damage automatically changes it to being treated as stun damage. So the chain of events goes to spell starts physical, triggers electrical element, and immediately gets converted to stun.

Most likely an oversight on the dev who wrote it's part, but the bolded part specifically states Electrical Damage is treated as stun. It doesn't say all electrical damage but that caused by Lighting Bolt/Ball, and Lighting Bolt/Ball specifically state they deal Electricity Damage and reference the section my quote is taken from. You can claim that the Electricity Damage segment is wrong, but honestly which is more likely, the electricity segment being wrong (and impacting all current electrical sources to physical) or a single letter in the spell description.

If the vehicles armor is completely metallic, then it's going to be rolling considerable fewer dice to resist against the lightning bolt which is a point in it's favor (most vehicles should have some shielding to electrical attacks in 2072, but I'd probably throw in an extra 25% reduction). Lots of military/law enforcement drones should have non-conductive as a special armor mod. Especially anything that flies (as common as stick and shock is, it would be a hazard not to). Yes, most drones are going to get toasted by it, but decent sized vehicles probably won't.

It really just comes down to play style and preference. If you run into lots of vehicles, take an elemental spell like Frost or Acid. If you don't run into them often, power bolt is nice and you always have edge for when you absolutely must one shot that damn drone/chopper. Or at least, hopefully you have edge. I highly recommend edge, it's a runners best friend.

[All4BigGuns]

I am making a character now (400BP), so should I grab powerbolt+ball or should I just stick to the elemental (I wanna keep it for a secondary effect and the out of LOS AOE, otherwise I would replace elemental with power).  So if chargen should I keep powerbolt+ball or drop it and maybe pick it up later if I need it?

While my mage only has the two combat spells, I can't imagine that only one more would hurt too badly to have. I wouldn't suggest Ball Lightning (the area version of Lightning Bolt) though half Force plus five does seem like ridiculous drain to me.

[Dracain]

That's the thing though, I have stunbolt+ball, an elemental single+AOE, and some other spells.  Now should I get Powerbolt+ball or something else useful, like heal, or levitate?

[Henzington]

heal is always useful but remember you can use first aid then heal but no the other way around.