Corrupted builds need some love. Devs, please read!

Hello!

Welcome to my special article about the current state of corruption system, its flaws and how it can and should be improved. In a distant past I’ve made a couple of suggestions on this forum which after almost a year actually ended up as part of the new reworked attribute system. This fact fills me with hope that, if someone from the dev team happens to read this, some of my suggestions could be considered as a subject for implementation too. Objectively speaking, they would benefit the game greatly. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

This is going to be a long one. Strap in.

Introduction to the subject

Since the early launch of the game and till patch 3.0 corruption was a purely negative thing. Foul mood and body affliction contracted from visiting dark, disturbing corners of Acheronian structures and from contacting with cursed objects. Corruption served as nothing but a penalty so it made sense both lore wise and game-play wise to cleanse it at any opportunity.

However, after 3.0, while retaining its lore explanation, corruption gained a new meaning. For those who possess knowledge of sorcery corruption became power. Unfortunately, however… in-game this concept didn’t see the necessary change. I am here to offer solution on how to fix that.

The reason for this thread

A little about myself. I have 5k hours in Conan exiles, spent mostly on various official PvP servers. At this point you could call me a walking CE wiki. Almost every question asked in global by both new and vet players – I know the answer to it. Despite my in-depth knowledge of the game, I need to be honest. I love PvP and I can’t imagine playing this game without it, but I’m not very good at it. Not too bad either.

Since the release of 3.0 I’ve spent several playthroughts using fully corrupted builds, meaning 50/50 HP/Stamina cut at all time, without the ability to cure it.

A fully corrupted build has its benefits:

  • Interesting and powerful corrupted perks.

  • Excellent out of combat regeneration.

  • Stress-free spell casting. You can’t get corrupted any further.

  • The darkest corners of Exiled lands feel like home. Huge boost to immersion for a dark-themed character.

  • Immunity to bleed, poison, gas, sunder (Petrified perk) relieves you from the headache of hoarding and carrying around gas masks and antidote potions.

  • Ability to use cursed weapons such as Destroyer, Carnage, Voidforged sword etc.

Unfortunately, despite its many benefits, fully corrupted build is extremely weak in PvP. Disgustingly weak. If before 3.0 I had my fare share of losses and victories, during these last few months I lose pretty much every fight (Taking into account only somewhat even matches. Max lvl and adequate gear of both opponents).

Existence of corrupted perks and spells that require you to be corrupted proves that the concept of running around fully corrupted is no longer a penalty but just one of the many ways to legitimately play the game. And while in PvE fully corrupted build works just fine… let’s be honest, in this game anything works in PvE, in PvP it desperately needs changes and buffs.

So allow me to introduce to you some of my solutions, which will not make fully corrupted builds OP, but will make them a decent option.

Just one little nuance before we continue. I’ll not touch the ‘Authority’ line at all. I don’t rely on thralls, I don’t like them and I never put any points into that attribute line. I don’t have any personal experience with neither corrupted nor uncorrupted Authority perks, so I don’t feel that I have any…… authority…. to speak about this matter.

My solutions

1. Stamina should not be affected by corruption anymore.
In every single fight I lost after 3.0 low stamina pool was the main reason. Yes, the length of stamina pool doesn’t affect dodge rolls, as they’re percentage based, but every other action Is affected by it. In PvP managing stamina is one of the most crucial skills, and when your opponent has a clear advantage over you every single time – it just doesn’t feel fair.

For a corrupted build the limit to healthbar is not the issue at all. it can be mitigated by the powerful Petrified and Steel thewed perks. But for stamina there are simply no options to improve it.

When you run a corrupted build you are forced to put 20 points into Grit just to have 90 stamina as Str build or 100 as Agi build. 100 stamina is how you start your character in the desert. You dash forward and run out of it in a few second, feeling horribly weak and miserable. That… is how playing fully corrupted build feels at all times.

The necessity to go full grit limits variety of builds you can use with full corruption.

2. Itemization
One thing that could somewhat negate the loss of health and stamina from corruption is gear. Of all armor bonuses which are applied correctly (str/agi weapon damage, concussion/follower bonus damage) extra health and extra stamina are affected by the corruption tax and provide inferior bonuses.

This shouldn’t happen. Make it so that corruption only cuts the base health and allow health bonus from gear to be a viable option to negate that loss. Or, if you want to keep stamina getting cut by corruption, make sure that stamina bonuses from gear are also uncut. All gear bonuses should be equally effective, not the way it is now.

3. Regeneration rework

Before 3.0 and for any uncorrupted build, regeneration is nothing but a convenience. it slowly recovers small portions of hp lost from minor injuries, ridding you of need to waste food after falling from a slightly above-average elevation or getting bitten by a weak but rabid hyena.

Grotesque Excrescence, on the other hand, especially with deep corruption of vitality line, provides such outstanding regeneration that it stops simply being a convenience, and asks to be a combat advantage. So… why isn’t it?

The way regeneration works, both corrupted and not, is that after you get hit, or under specific harmful conditions such as Extreme cold/heat, Heatstroke, Frostbite, sandstorm, gas poisoning etc, regeneration stops and reactivates after whooping 10 seconds of not taking damage. 10 seconds of not getting hit in combat is way, way too long. To put it simply, you don’t have any regeneration within a regular fight. To even have a chance to utilize the amazing regeneration, you have to kite your opponent and not get hit for more than 10 seconds.

Needless to say, this kind of gameplay is frustrating for both you and the opponent. Trust me, I tried it. It’s also very hard to pull off with the inferior stamina bar.

That’s why I suggest to change the way regeneration works. Leave the uncorrupted regeneration unchanged, let it be what is supposed to be – an out of combat convenience. In fact, I’d buff it a little and make it regain faster, but keep it working only out of combat and harmful effects. Same as it does now.

As for Grotesque Excrescence, why not allow it to run at all times? It can’t outheal Frostbite and Heatstroke, so those effects are still going to be a menace. If the powerful regeneration would be allowed to run during combat, it would act as solid compensation for the limited HP bar, and would encourage the player to keep fighting more aggressively. With full stamina bar a fully corrupted person could finally put up a good fight against a meta pvper.

To balance this out, fully corrupted regeneration (fully corrupted vitality line) should be nerfed a little, as its current regenerative power is a bit extreme.

4. The ability to skip corruption of perks.
When you corrupt an attribute line, all perks on the way are automatically changed to corrupted ones. I think, for the sake of extra freedom and build creativity, corruption of perks should be optional.

One of the most obvious examples in favor of this is the Mule kick perk. There are many weapons that have their own unique special moves and don’t allow the use of the kick. So having this perk for a fan of greatsword or any agility weapon is simply a waste.

There is only one exception that comes to mind. Nobody would prefer Fierce vitality to Grotesque Excrescence, as it’s a direct upgrade. Everything else, even the 5-point perks, should be fair game.

4a (questionable/optional) Corrupted perks do not replace the uncorrupted ones but act as extra effects.

Now… yes, this could be a bit too strong. But as an option, if no other changes are considered, this could give corrupted builds some very needed edge. However, in case any of the above solutions are implemented, this optional one should be skipped.

5. Lower the weight of pouches.
Sorcery is very demanding on it’s own. Casting is very slow. Every spell corrupts you. Some spells can’t even be used unless you’re already corrupted to a certain degree. So why for the love of Zath, the pouches are so bloody heavy?! Especially the Cloth and leather ones?

In conclusion

If you disagree with my conclusion that fully corrupted builds are way too weak and you are a PvP player yourself, please pay attention and tell me if you ever see anyone who takes PvP even remotely seriously run fully corrupted builds. That’s right, nobody does. And there is a reason for that.

Corruption builds are way too weak and desperately need a buff. Just one of my presented solutions would greatly improve the situation. But of all the options I urge Funcom to consider the first one the most. Stamina is the greatest issue here and it doesn’t have to be.

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OK. Nice lay out and I understand where you are coming from.

Here are a few things of mine.

This isn’t a little nuance this is huge as the idea of the corrupted sorcerer type through this game and foundation lore is that you have minions that do the heavy lifting (IE actual combat) for you and you are in the background using your mind as the weapon against those that stand against you. Corrupted builds without authority are glass cannon builds that are just proned to die and hopefully get a few high powered hits in there before you die (IE suicide mission types)

Don’t forget equipment. There are armors that help bring your stamina up. For instance, I was doing corrupted builds and was looking at 70-80 with grit @15 if memory serves right because I had selected the right armors to negate this weakness.
Also select your weapons appropriately. Go for those weapons that only take 3 stamina/attack. Also balanced weapon fitting is definitely something to look into since it reduces the stamina cost by 30%.

I actually believe this was the intent of it.

110% agree with this. The amounts from gear should not be lessened due to your body’s corruption. It just doesn’t make sense and should be corrected (assuming it can since the original effect was a % of the total health and stamina so we maybe stuck with this until they parse it out into body vs gear)

Agree with this as well. While this may look like huge amounts of unbalanced BS, keep in mind we are talking about 250-300 HP. It would be hugely unbalanced if you had all your stamina though.

Nope…overreaching. Stop being greedy. You are basically wanting to pick and choose and that is just too powerful for these perks

COULD?!

Ummmmm…OK and if I told you I ran a corrupted build for literally months on an official PVP server?..the point here is that corrupted builds are not for folks that actually get into the thick of combat. They are support roles that either designed to damage and die or lay back spell chuck and/or send their minions out to attack.

What you are asking for would make corrupted builds Meta because you are wanting a significant boost to the character because you can’t go toe2toe with combat machines…well no, you can’t. That’s like me saying it’s not fair that my harvesting build can’t take on the S20A20V20 builds and we should give stronger combat bonuses to harvesters. The corrupted perks give an advantage but you should still be at a negative and that negative should be severe because the perks are also severe and only limited in the amount of corruption you want to take on (and yes once you get 20 points of corrupted attributes, you don’t get penalized any more and can take on all others without any further detriment)

I hope they come out with the corruption perks for the other attributes (like a grit aura that literally steals stamina from other players/NPC’s or an agility one where you exude a time warp bubble around yourself (~10 foundations) which slows others down.) so that you can get more tricks up your sleeve so it’s not so overwhelmingly against you and you can escape easier but going equal on combat builds? Yeah no IMHO that cheapens the whole corrupted idea to just another thing that is exploited in a minmax build.

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I agree but on other hand they can’t even balance non corrupted so chances are low that anything happens in near future.
It would be really cool if corrupted builds were ‘viable’ even in pvp but not sure how it would be balanced around having also kit of spells - that would make semi must to have corrupted build like now it is to have agility 3rd perk.

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I fundamentally disagree with your perception of what the corrupted build is supposed to be from the design point of view. This is not a moba or RTS, this is full loot survival game (I need to remind that I only talk from a perspective of a person playing on official PvP servers, all other baby modes don’t concern me, they’re fine as they are). Survival is the main objective no matter what build you’re using. Yes, you’re right that you are not as powerful in encumberment spec as someone in combat-focused one. But you’re not helpless either? You still can have same amount of stamina as your opponent and you can defeat them by landing more hits while better avoiding theirs and also you can escape safely. That’s the kind of luxury a corrupted build can’t afford at all because of low stamina pool.

Absolutely not. Using full corrupted strength build you get about 30% extra damage. Using agility with other lines corrupted you get… zero extra damage. I’m sorry but neither sound like a glass cannon material to me.
Corruption builds as glass cannons are not the intended design. It’s simply an unfinished, underdeveloped design based on outdated system of corruption being nothing but a penalty. After 3.0 it is no longer the case, so they should be made viable. And yes, they should be able to stand against the top uncorrupted pvp specs. Just in a different way.
The penalty to health is fine, it makes you squishier and easier to kill fast. As compensation for that you have tools to either mitigate damage and harmful effect, which in our case is only represented by Petrified and Steel thewed perks (later one isn’t even corrupted) and by increased regeneration from corrupted vitality… which doesn’t even work in combat. The so called advantages in their current form are not powerful enough to compensate for the loss of stamina.

It is the basic video game design. If player 1 dies faster than the player 2 due to build difference or choice of a character, player 1 should have tool to avoid damage better than the other. In case of Conan exiles the only way to avoid damage better is to move during combat and avoid taking hits. But again, unfortunately, stamina is the deciding factor here. No matter how good your footwork is as corrupted build, you can’t outmaneuver an uncorrupted build simply because they have from 40 to 80% more stamina than you by diffault. That gap needs to be removed.

Nope, it doesn’t work like that. Just yesterday I tested it and put it into Daggers of the grey ones, which take 12 stamina with the first light attack. After putting the kit in it changes to… 11. That’s not 30% at all.

Unless I see confirmation from devs’ I’ll never believe this. This is, once again, unfinished design to me.
And if by some chance it is the design… well, it’s a bad one and it must be changed. Don’t you agree?

No, it would make it balanced and more viable against uncorrupted builds. The huge health cut is still there and will make sure that you’ll never be as healthy and able to stand as much damage quickly as them. Stamina must be unleashed.

What’s so powerful in choosing one perk over another on the same line? Also isn’t that the whole point of making a build for your character? To pick and choose what fits you better?
Why do I need Pack mule perk when all I use is a greatsword?
Do keep in mind that corrupted perk are supposed to be better than the basic ones. So what’s so unbalanced in me picking an ‘inferior’ uncorrupted perk in a corrupted attribute line?

Without any changes to the current state - it probably would still not be enough.

Please explain to me how this so called support role is expressed in-game, in action. If I’m running an Agi corrupted build (20 agi 20 grin 20 vit /15vit 5expertise) what exactly am I supporting anyone with?
Same for corrupted str build, same as above but with 20 str instead of agi. What this so called supporting role be like? What am I doing different than uncorrupted character but with all of my stats shrinked?

Pay attention at how I phrased the paragraph - anyone who takes PvP even remotely seriously. I did meet corrupted players too, but every single one of them drops after 3-4 hits, including myself. I run corrupted build because I like it, but you know what? I’m kinda of tired of losing every fight. So what should I do? Abandon the playstyle I like and go full meta and thus losing motivation to even log into the game? Or perhaps do something here on the forum and try to give corrupted builds some balance they deserve? I choose option 2. Not because I want it for myself, but because that’s how game balance should work.

They’d not become meta, trust me. The huge health cut will still be the deciding factor. Immunity to dots is great and and all but dots are not as strong as direct damage. Higher health pool without immunity to dots is still stronger than small hp pool with immunity.
These changes, at least the stamina one, would simply give us more chance to survive and maybe even occasionally to win a fight.
Making more options how people build their character is NOT making a new meta. It’s called balance.

Fully agree, corrupted perks in yet uncorruptable attribute lines could be the other way to solve the problem. Something in the grit tree to help better manage stamina is the first thing that comes to mind. We’ll wait and see how they’ll handle it. But something tells me that we’ll have to wait excruciatingly long amount of time. And I want to play now. Unleashing stamina now would solve the problem until another solution is found, and when it comes they can always cut it off again.

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Ideally for true balance, a fully corrupted build should kill a non-corrupted build as fast as a non-corrupted build can kill a fully corrupted one. But I’m pretty darn certain people would cry foul if this happened.

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Theres some good points here that i agree and disagree with, some of which were covered by @erjoh so i wont rehash that.

Im hesitant to criticize the whole system until I see what corrupted AGI and GRT look like.

I wholeheartedly agree that pouch weight needs to be cut, but to me this all speaks of a general overhaul needed to the sorcery system altogether.

I treat the new system as grossly underdeveloped and untested. Similar to how horses were first release, I don’t expect Funcom to get an entire new system right straight from the start. Our voices led to horses getting necessary amount of nerfs, making them take rightful place as a valuable gameplay tool while also not being OP.
Corrupted gameplay starts from the opposite side, it’s way too weak and needs buffs. Let’s make it happen

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And you people wonder why the rest of the community doesn’t take your feedback seriously

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It was refreshing to read a detailed, thoughtful proposal, instead of someone just screaming for a random nerf, so thank you for that.

I don’t play on PVP servers, so I’m not going to offer much of an opinion on that aspect, but I am interested – maybe even invested – in keeping this game true to the lore.

As such, I would most strongly agree with the following:

That said, this is your biggest problem when it comes to sorcery:

Like @erjoh pointed out, it’s not “little nuance”, it’s a really important factor in their game design decisions. Lore-wise, sorcery isn’t for direct combat, it’s for manipulating and dominating others. In the Sorcery Deep Dive videos, the devs are pretty clear about that. As such, the authority attribute is extremely important aspect of sorcery.

Playing as a sorcerer who runs into fights with weapons a-swinging is not something I expect to see in Conan Exiles. In fact, I hope it doesn’t happen. I bought Conan Exiles because it’s set in Hyborian Age and it stays amazingly true to how Howard described that setting.

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This isn’t entirely true. The damage output with a fully corrupted build and abysmal armor is no where near what it was in beta. Like I said before, if it was like that in live… we’d be having another discussion entirely about corrupted stats, and likely back in the first 2 days of 3.0.

I wonder, are you the community leader who determines if feedback is relevant. You definitely didn’t speak for me or is the rest of the community an elitist circle that determines what is important.
Anyway, I found the feedback interesting and good, but I’m not part of the rest of the community and I can live with that very well :slightly_smiling_face:.

Are you?

And who asked?

It doesn’t really matter what the ‘sorcerer’ gameplay is expected to be if the game itself doesn’t support non-traditional combat gameplay. After the chain of nerfs thralls suffered they are no longer a deciding factor in pvp. Any somewhat decent player will fight you while kiting your thrall and not letting it land a single hit. And if they do land, it’s like being hit with wet tissue. (I don’t event want to start on how buggy thralls are and how much they like to get stuck in the ground and do nothing while you fight)
Let’s also not forget that in one of the latest dev streams they claimed that the nerfs were specifically aimed at giving power back to the player, so that the player is the hero of the story, not a sidekick of their thralls.

I don’t see any issue why a ‘sorcerer’ shouldn’t be able to charge into battle with a blade, considering that we can’t be actual sorcerers in this game. We don’t have any in-combat offensive spells. Every single existing spell is for utility, and the only one that can be somewhat considered battle spell, Lighting storm, is nothing but area control in its current form.

Also what about corrupted Strength perks? They’re screaming ‘death knight’ fantasy to me - the corrupted warrior who demolishes everything and everyone in their path with cursed might.

As for the ‘little nuance’ - it refers strictly to my own, personal perspective on the Authority tree. I don’t dismiss it as a legit and strong tool that other players can use. I don’t use it, so I don’t have a right to ask for any changes within it. I’m a solo player to the core, I want to be able to stand on my own, without other players or thralls. And guess what - I could do that before 3.0, i can do that after 3.0 while not corrupted… and so far I can’t do that well while corrupted. Me and other solo-minded people like me deserve a working corrupted build without reliance of thralls.

Maybe it would help others if we stop seeing the corrupted tree as sorcerors only option if the lore doesnt allow.

Maybe see it as including those that have there bodies twisted over time by exposure.

There are plenty of corrupted beasts out there and enemies that are far scarier than there normal counterparts.

Maybe it can represent the loss of being you original character and the body being taken over by forces, such as the undead.

I dont know if this is better for the lore but is a different stance than corrupted tree means conbat magic and dominating others.

Maybe in the solo non thrall build your the minion?

You could even link spellcasting to the authority tree linking corrupted authority to which level of spell you have access too meaning sorcerors casting spells are weak in other areas and representing authority over otherworldy forces.

Just throwing ideas out.

Pain.

You do know this game is based on an existing universe in books, right? You do know what a book is?

None of what you said is correct, in the scope of the lore. Corrupted builds could be improved, but not in this way. This goes directly against canon

Jimbo seeing are you the font of lore, maybe we can ask if in the cannon there are creatures that may have once been human but have long lost this that fit this style if play.

Forget corrupted = sorceror for a moment

But wouldn’t that revert the player character to an npc monster?..aka kinscourge? What you are talking about is a full on embrace of the dark energies and hence removal of the humanity within. I would highly discourage this as player characters. Nothing good comes from allowing players to act out demonic impulses…it truly messes with people as some folks are darker than others and their pov as a truly evil creature could send the entire game into a tizzy.

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Yes, but not often and there’s specific cases of it.

Most commonly, you’d have to be a descendant of an elder god carrying some of their blood. Wendigos from Ithaqua, Deep Ones from Cthulhu, whatever the Whateley brothers were from Yog-Sothoth, etc.

There is one case outside of that which I can think of, Akivasha; a stygian vampire. It’s not described how exactly they came to be, and we know nothing of her combat prowess, save for her ability to seduce and trick men.

I guess you could also count the Silent Legion, which were cursed with deathlessness, and eventually rotted into madness.

So to see any of that implemented into the game, you’d likely have to either have some backstory of parentage, become a literal vampire, or go full rot and be driven mad

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Well maybe that i direction we can explore maybe not allowing spell casting but still utilizing the corrupted trees?

I mean human sacrifice is pretty dark already, and thats encouraged.

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