That’s junk though especially if armor can absorb it and so that 512 looks more like 150 on thralls that are 3k in HP and healing with a thrall pot. 6k building damage?.. with 70K ceiling tiles? Yea come on…that’s not supplementing anything and more of a distraction than anything else. LS went from superb to a footnote…about as useful as detect corruption.
The numbers you quoted were how LS worked before the update as far back as even before 3.0 came out (in Beta). They haven’t changed.
I suppose a better question i can ask is, can we have clarrification if funcom intended this to be a viable alternative raid mechanic.(from funcom)
If not then i’ll just stop and let it be a nice looking atmospheric.
If they did then it needs buffing.
Can any pvper who has used it in its current state honestly say they will bother using it atm?
If the cost to cast needs increasing fine, if the cost includes 16 corrupted attributes rather than 40% temp corruption to make it a choice fine.
There are things that can be changed to make it harder to mass cast but still viable.
Im not saying one needs the blow a base up clearly that shouldnt happen, but for damage distribution and the time it takes to run it needs to be on par with bombs.
For a top teir spell that take time to obtain, cast and has a cost both in corruption builds and farming atm i can cast 5 on a sandstone building and not break a ceiling tile, also taking considerable time.
The same for call the dead. Currently doesnt really have a use other than to announce the fact your there in a wide area.
I get why people dont like it, you spent time building a bomb proof base. God proof, anti climb etc but pvp needs a shake up badly it doesnt have to take over, the old raid mechanics still work and should be just as viable, but new game play should also be viable.
If you have a sorcerer in your raid group, then why wouldn’t they use it? Its essentially free damage for them. I get it, for a uncorrupted non-sorcerous character there is little draw to go full into researching your sorcerous powers for that single spell. But when you go that far into sorcery, you have much more available than Lightning Storm you can use. In addition there is other T3 spells available as well which aren’t nearly as useful in a raid as LS or some T2 abilities.
Not everything is going to be useful for everyone. Lightning Storm for someone who isn’t normally 40% corrupted is about as useful as a shield is for a Two-Handed Sword user or Spear user. But for a dedicated sorcerer its free damage they can deal in an area.
For non-sorcerers, they can use their trebs, their bombs, and their arrows. The sorcerers can fly over, get in a decent spot, and drop their own ordinance including a Lightning Storm which can cause damage in various areas. Anyone with a repair hammer inside is going to have a difficult time trying to figure out where they need to focus their efforts. Was that a treb strike, or a lightning strike? Will they focus on areas being hit by lightning?
If you are asking if Funcom made lightning storm with the intent of a sorcerer to cast it, and sit back and wait for holes to open up in the base for them. Then no, I can say without a reasonable doubt that they did NOT intend for that to be the usage of this spell.
Was it made to supplement other raiding methods? Yes. It was. And that is what it does.
I have to disagree with you, atm it supplements nothing as i see it.
But i respect your opinions.
And it does not appear to me to be doing the damage figures you are quoting
I also think that as it stands the spell is useless. Too low damage coupled with the randomness of the hits. Useless spell doesnt complement anything.
I will be saving my sacrificial bloods for something actually useful.
What’s a good technique to use for maximum damage With LS? Does where the target dot is pointing when cast make a difference? Have a base I need to lay the smack down on for some down and dirty shit they pulled. Thanks.
This is what is meant by ballanced gameplay. Similarly viable, yet different strategies and builds.
Sorcery is underwhelming, combat wise. It’s a great addition to the game, but doesn’t make the cut for viable combat builds. Not yet, at least. If combat was meant to be viable for sorcerors, that hasn’t been achieved. Basically, the sorceror is the “transportory stones and transmog equipment technician”. The guy. That’s how many people are using sorcery. 
They use it to build their travel network and fashion preferences and then put it aside.
You can’t think of a sorceror only as a support character as a lot, and when I say a lot I mean thousands, of players are solo players.
Right now, a sorceror doesn’t stand a chance against a warrior. If they want to make sorcery viable, offensive spells need to be added. I was originally against the idea, but the problem with the glass canon concept, as it was implemented, is that the canon is firing blanks, so to speak. But it remains glassy. The sorceror lacks offensive capabilities while suffering heavy penalties defensively. The only reason one would play as a sorceror, at this moment, is role playing. That’s it.
Use bombs im afraid LS is not viable for attackining bases at all atm.
You would struggle with a t1 base ,t3 forget it
Rooftop palisades…
Has anyone tried LS as a defensive technique? As a raid is happening at your base, you cast it to kill the raiders and early detonation of explosives?
Worth a shot maybe when the cast time is reduced next patch, bit long atm.
Casting requires you to be outside of the base usually in range of the attackers
The damage on players is quite low still, but might give some kind of time sink if its setting bombs off early
If you concealed your corruption doesn’t this spell make you corruption visible again?
Conceal is a toggle, cast once to hide cast again to reveal you own.
Reveal corruption doesnt appear to do anything atm i could be wrong tho.
Its an artefact from beta. It used to show you locations to learn new spells and where enemy sorcerers and sources of corruption were. They changed how you learned spells which deprecated the spell.
It may have a function to help you do the headhunting stuff in Chapter 2. But I haven’t tried it on testlive yet.
LOL Your ignorance is showing.
Lighting maybe weak, but face the fact, it is a free unpunished ability. It takes nothing to cast, anywhere, and does damage for a good amount of time, unless you cast the most annoying skill in the game, darkness.
Honestly Lightning is good right now. if you go to war, you cast it, and it strikes your enemies and not you during fights. you know how powerful that is? when someone youre fighting gets stunned and hit for 100-200damage? That is insane.
I dunno, but zombies are pretty fracking strong. Unfortunately I dont think you need to corrupt your stats to have them. I feel that certain things that sorcery can do should ONLY be possible with corrupted stats, that would make all-in sorcerers useful to have around instead of people just dipping into corruption to do something and then removing corruption.
I feel that one should INVEST into corruption to do the iconic sorcerer stuff.
No, the spell literally does NOTHING. It has no effect in the game apart from funny visuals.
Im waiting on them to fix it, and just checked these forums today to see if anything has happend on that front.
ps. Actually I went to a corrupt cave, killd the mobs and used the spell, and while I didnt get any new visual effects, it did sound like there was a new sound effect while I was in the corrupt cave. Perhaps there is something? I went to the skeleton cave with the boss next to Deathwhisper ruins. (I5?)
Exactly. You don’t need a sorcerer build.