Ahhh...that´s another side i didn´t even thought about. Thank you very much for this little brainstorming. I will have to talk to the GM about this.

... and suddenly taking it as a Mana spell starts to sound attractive ...

Unfortunately not, because it wouldn´t harm enemies behind me.

Maybe a sort of sustained Hostile Mana Aura spell? It radiates damaging mana from the center of the spell. LOS isn't such a problem for touch-centered spells.

LOS isn't a problem at all for this kind of spell. LOS is only required during casting and the caster only needs to see the target. The target of the [Element] Aura Spell is a person, so this is no problem.

Like I said, kill it with fire. Sticky, hot, chemical fire, with lots of smoke if possible. All kinds of shrapnell are also great, but lack the primal fear and area denial of incendiary weapons.

Mundane shrapnel is a pretty bad idea against any armored (be it regular or ItNW armor) target. A type restricted Indirect Combat Spell with the Metal effect should be a good choice, if you don't want to go the Slaughter/Mass Dormancy [Target Type] route. The DV is increased by two, but you don't have to worry about Regeneration or ItNW since it is magic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) You do have all the drawbacks of ICS though.

Logically I'd say that Metal created through the spell is metal and thus subject to ItNW but the rules say otherwise and Indirect Combat spells are nerfed enough.

This is a great idea. Even better than an elemental attack version. I will have to steal it for my character, sorry.^^

Any element created via magic is considered magical for the purposes of ItNW. Basically, did magic create the effect? If Yes, then ItNW does not apply.

I'd personally go for an AoE spell made to kill bug spirits. Barring that, I'd use Astral Perception and cast the spirit killing spell on the Astral thereby allowing the spell to automatically miss anyone on the Physical. Any friendly Materialized / Astral spirits would need to leave the area prior to casting though (should I not have a Bug Spirit killing spell). Likewise, any Inhabitation Spirits would need to scoot as well (Dual Natured).

Alternatively, make a Physical only spirit killing spell. That would ignore any teammates as well as any of your own friendly spirits on the Astral. Also takes advantage of the fact that Astral only entities cannot directly harm you on the Physical.

A fun Indirect Combat Spell for Bug Spirits would be one that created a Giant boot to smoosh the Bug...

Happy to help.. but be careful to make sure your friends aren't standing too close (or have enough counterspelling to protect them..)

Aehmmm...this wasn´t really the intention. This is more of a "self-defense" than helping my teammates. After the situation i mentioned, they ran away and left me back because i cannot run as fast as they can. ^^

Right, immunity....[long beep]

Did I mention one could also kill everything with fire?

Quite basic solution for everything, eh? Works since several thousand years....never change a running system.^^

All count as Insect Spirits. A simple anti-spirit spell would work against ALL of them. In 4th edition, being a Flesh Form or Hybrid does not provide any sort of special protection against anti-spirit measures other than concealment for Flesh Forms (they look human on the physical plane, but are still easy to sniff out as they are dual natured). Most mages in our SR groups run with at least a single target Spirit-killing spell, as a better alternative to banishment.

Still, as far as RP advice, if you had a bad run-in with insect spirits, wouldn't it make sense that your character would run around with an insecticide dose (spray, gas, etc.)? Most of my characters, after their very first run-in with insect spirits or with a Magic Theory skill of 3 or higher would run with an insecticide grenade for this very countermeasure, and in SR4, it's particularly deadly against insect spirits. Remember, Immunity to Normal Weapons does not apply against Severe Allergies, as stated in my previous post. Immunity to Normal Weapons doesn't work against contact toxins anyway (since it's effectively armor rating and not a chem seal). Then again, according to SR4 rules, Spirits don't have Immunity to Toxins of any kind. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Also, if you wanted to just play keep-away with any living target (including spirits), just use a Mana Barrier spell?

I don´t just want to keep them away, i want to kill them if they get to close. And before i spend 5 karma for a single-purpose-spirit-zapper-spell, i simply take the good ol´manabolt everybody has in his arsenal. So i was looking for something that doesn´t already exist to meet this requirements and which has as much versatility as possible. A spirit-zapper-barrier only zapps spirits, but what if i meet a couple of devil-rats, hellhounds etc? My motto is quite simple "be prepared".^^

if you're just looking to have a spell that you can nuke your own area with in case of emergency, you can technically make a spell called "Slaughter stuff that isn't me", though i personally would not give you the lower drain code for a restricted target unless you really restricted it further than that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) (for bonus marks, you *may* even be able to extend it to "slaughter stuff that doesn't have my signature" so that it wouldn't hit your spirits or anchoring foci etc... )

i would personally ad hoc an added point of drain instead of lowering the drain though; the spell is clearly *more* useful, not less, because of the restriction.

(if you want to get *really* ridiculous, iirc the detect spells list enemies as a possible choice to detect for, which technically means that magic *can* tell the difference between friends and enemies... that said, if i were your GM i'd strongly consider bad things™ happening to your character out of sheer spite if you tried to pull that... and if i were a player, i wouldn't suggest it because i wouldn't expect any GM to actually allow such a spell)

another possibility is to just split your dicepool a lot, have a high counterspelling pool, and trust in your reduced spellcasting dicepool to not overcome your counterspelling... works best with multiple overlapping manaballs/stunballs/etc

Take the Stunbolt/-ball instead. It kills or more accurately disrupts spirits just as well and causes less drain, all other living enemies will be knocked out but you can always cast it again, if you really want someone dead.

"Slaughter stuff that isn't me" sounds great and fits exactly to my character-concept. The only thing that is not really solved here, is the sustaining-part of the wished magic. Maybe if the spell would work as a repellant like skunk-spray, it could be enough to keep everybody away from me without causing too much trouble with my GM because i wanted a sustained Nuke-Spell that could kill my own party or the walls/floor/ceiling around me. I will have to check this.

Finally we get to the heart of it.
You can't expect to stand your ground in every situation.

Get some hover shoes or something. (Why don't they have a wearable version of Skimmer Disks anyway?)
Whatevs. Air Spirit - movement ability - bound.

Would have worked if i wouldn´t have been standing in the heart of a rating 2 BC with 6 boxes of physical, plus 4 boxes of mental damage. No time and resources to Conjure a spirit AND tell him in the next phase what he has to do. I had an level 3 "increased reflexes" spell on the sustaining focus which left me with just one phase. A "big emergency" spell would have been THE option in that case.^^

An area effect version of Slay Spirit isn't really that specialized. As a mage you'll be running into spirits all the time. But if you want something more general there's always Mana Static. Can be sustained, and once you reduce the spirit's force by three or four points and you'll be able to kill them with just about anything. And unlike an area effect fire aura you won't kill all your nearby teammates in the process.

mana static has been errated iirc... it no longer takes effect instantly, but requires time to fully take effect.

And in 4A it hits the caster to, you could probably customize the spell not to but...

it always hit the caster. unless you're talking about the german "aspected mana static", which i am strongly convinced a GM would have be insane to think was a reasonable spell to include.

i'm not particularly convinced you could avoid hitting the caster either... the target is the mana in the area, not the caster, so unlike, say, manaball (which hits living things within it's AOE) with mana static you are 'attacking' the mana in the area.

Right. I just rechecked the mentioned spells. Mana Static hinders the mage itself, mana barrier (also the offensive and spezialised versions) is not really "moveable" and indirect combatspells with the mage as center of effect are a really stupid idea while direct combatspells don´t affect anything behind the caster. So, and what now?^^