Combat spells can assume many forms. You don’t need to shoot lightning bolts through your eyes!
Listen, I don’t even particularly like sorcery on Conan, @CodeMage . Transportory stones and illusion are my prized features. I could do perfectly without the rest. But, since they added it, they could very well create a balanced playstyle out of it. More, I think they are trying to do exactly that.
Ok for the record, I want a lot more options that that they have as far as spells go be cause I agree, it’s lackluster… especially when we got the word that spells were 'larger ’ content reserved for age introduction vs chapter introduction (so all of those sorcery pages I accumulated are worthless because spells won’t be introduced till next age…which seriously does anyone believe that more sorcery content will be added when the age of animals or age of artifacts or etc etc etc gets introduced? I don’t. We have the age of sorcery to get sorcery content and it I hold the dev stream to their speal and assume the next age focus will change to that specifically, these are the spells and that’s it)
Anyways I do want more functionality and more bite to the spells. Doesn’t need a direct combat advantage…but maybe a spell that last for 30 minutes that adds corruption to your attacks but also removes you own corruption (replacing your corruption with their vitality) and after the time is up your corruption returns.
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I have been running various corrupted builds in PVP since 3.0 trying to push against the standard 20 STR, 20 AGI, 20 VIT builds and see if there is anything to be found therein. I suppose I can add my datapoint to the discussion.
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Corrupted STR (t4) can work IF it procs. I think it works best on weapons with range and strong counter poke like a 1h sword or daggers(meaning dodge roll into attack). Since it is RNG based you are on a timer against a standard build, an aggressive opponent can punish your lack of stamina. Doesn’t work well with teammates (knocks them up/down too).
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Corrupted AUT is ok on a mounted archer build. A pair of frenzied sabor cats are mean (soon to be nerfed). Once it becomes a ground fight the lack of stamina is pretty debilitating. You can spawn demons with arrows and they don’t gum up that playstyle as much as the do melee, but they do block shots. Doesn’t work well with teammates (demons will attack them if hit).
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Corrupted VIT is meh. T3 perk let’s you stand on palisades, so it’s good for bat raiding bases of players who think palisades protect them from that. T4 perk damages teammates that aren’t corrupted.
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Sorcery shines in offline raiding and scouting. Bat, ice bridge and invisibility make most bases trivial.
My general takeaway has been that sorcery is selfish, at a significant disadvantage in an even fight, but useful in none combat endeavors. To the OP’s points about the armor/weapons, I would agree that they don’t compensate for the disadvantages a sorcerer has.
HOWEVER I think potions are the key to making sorcery more combat viable. Those things FC gives in the battle pass and sometimes for free on the bazaar. Being able to pop things like invisibility or darkness relatively quickly in a fight can be a game changer. I haven’t been able to test this enough, bc all I have are the ones given to me and the ones I’ve looted - but if you are looking for a compromise this is where I’d start.
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Yep…I always look at what it’s replacing as far as if corrupting is efficient. I’m having a hard time thinking the level 20 corrupted perk is remotely better than the level 20 natural perks in any of the 3.
I will say that I love corrupted vit 15. I kept thinking that lichdom isn’t worth the 100 hp boost of natural 15…but then remembered with max corruption it’s only 50 hp and it’s totally worth 50 hp to be immune to poison bleed and sunder. The worst thing is that I am still muscle memory trained to dodge the demon bat sunder screams. I haven’t fully embraced being undead.
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This right here in my mind shows a complete train of thought that i doubt will get what im trying to say.
Lore wise great but lore wise theres a reason those sorcerer’s were feared in the works that we dont have here.
This is a game not a book, i dont remember a book where avatars walked the lands every other day flattening cities, but there might be one i guess.
In a game where most of pvp is centered around beating each other with weapons, i cant see why people are having such a hard time seeing why there might be some need to balance it a bit in direct combat.
I believe there was some writing where a heart was pulled directly out of someones chest, im not asking for that clearly, but i do believe alternative perks could even it out, a different way of playing rather than roll and poke.
Maybe some leach effect on stamina, health maybe orbs that can be made to insta cast invis or darkness, other ways than direct blast damage.
Something that makes the 50% corrupted viable.
Unless you saying thoth amon could have been killed by one of his guards at any moment, and if so why were they following him in the 1st place?
Oh how about a scout spell that detected building pieces THROUGH terrain. That would horrify me.
How about this…level 20 corrupted vitality perk. Resurrection. You respawn with all of your gear. has a 60 minute cooldown.
Does it help with combat? NOPE Is it the most OP thing you ever heard of, yep.
Edit: Doesn’t have to be just Vitality. It could easily fit into Grit if grit gets a corrupted tree…just saying.
Not sure if thats meant for me implying im asking for game breaking stuff, if so im not.
Just to clarify
Devs will come up with something, sooner or later. It’s not that hard and we’re not that far. At least we can hope.
No I actually think it’s a legit level 20 corrupted perk that needs to be in the game. It doesn’t create a balance issue in combat, it just removes the perks of winning said combat unless you can find them again within an hour. I believe this is a perfect example of providing the value folks are wanting for the 50% corruption but keeping in the sorcerer as something that isn’t a huge fighter type.
It definitely has a frustrating element in it, because you won’t loot the body, but in terms of combat, you die anyway, @erjoh. Your base goes next, in many cases. I would prefer a combat balance that would involve skill. Sorcerors would have to be a notch above fighters to survive. But they would stand a chance unless they met their match, warrior version. Let me give you an example from first person shooters. You always have a noob tube, a gun with great accuracy, little recoil BUT lower damage. And you always have an outstanding gun that does significantly more damage but needs much more skill to control.
Good players can use the second. Average and bellow average are better served with a more predictable gun, easier to control. Skill is rewarded.
Somehow, sorcerors could have something similar. A weapon that did greater damage, but involved very good timing/positioning.
If you want to take skill out of the equation, then tweaking perks might not be a bad idea. All they need to do is testing. Once they get 60% of victories for the warrior in melee combat and 40% for the sorceror, I’d say we’re good.
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Yes. I presume this is going to be a special sword that is somehow better than whatever it is that you can bring with you, otherwise what’s the point in having that spell at all? So yeah, I think that having a special OP sword you can pull out of your, uh, thin air is something that doesn’t belong in this setting.
And yet you didn’t answer my question. Will you go toe-to-toe against a warrior, in melee combat, thinking that you can win?
Sounds good in theory, but I don’t see anyone proposing anything concrete. It’s all hand-wavy requests to have something better and evasive claims about how it “doesn’t have to be” pew-pew magic.
FWIW, my favorites are illusion, Mass Cull spell, the ability to summon my corpse, and the ability to get an expendable demonic mount so I don’t have to risk my horse in certain situations. The rest is… meh. Even transportory stones.
I tried the corrupted stats and perks, and they didn’t make me go “oh, wow, this is really awesome”, but I also didn’t play with them a lot.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t disagree with you guys when you say that sorcery isn’t really very compelling and that it could stand to be better. I’m disagreeing with this request to turn it into a “I can duke it out with a warrior” build. 
Oh, and no offense, but you really didn’t need to spam me with 4 different messages 
I’m pretty sure I get what you’re trying to say, I just disagree with some of the stuff I’ve seen in this thread so far.
Because the “need” comes from the assumption that these feature must be competitive in direct combat, that they can’t be a niche thing.
But even if we accept that assumption, that still doesn’t mean that you should be expected to duke it out in a melee fight with a warrior.
I don’t mind ideas that would allow a sorcerer to better evade damage, or impede the enemies so that the sorcerer’s followers can deal with them, or deal sustained damage over time, to give you some examples. But anything that smells like pew-pew magic, or “form blazing sword!” spells for that matter, is not something I agree with.
Yeah, that’s the trouble with the difference between games and literature. In literature, a sorcerer can dominate someone’s mind, break their will, make them hallucinate, corrupt them, and all sorts of stuff that you just can’t do to other players in a game.
That’s why some magic systems are much easier to implement in games than others, and much more satisfying to play.
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of course…and? Death is only the beginning. You are still thinking in terms of a warrior and death vs life. win vs loss at the hands of your enemies. That isn’t thinking like a sorcerer. Death is just a transition that can be…altered with the right level of planning and negotiation.
Yep…again…and? Sorcery has provided various opportunities to make your base just as annoyingly immortal as your are…from summoning corpse to transportation stones, you have the ability to bug out with a great chunk of your base. Heck you can even design a base that is completely removed from where you enter and just shut down the stone when they raid the entrance point.
that is a warrior mentality. A magic user isn’t about skill as much as intellect. You don’t win by skill or strength as a sorcerer but by cerebral might. The sorcerer should have more options than the warrior to navigate and interact in the world but it should come with a glaring issue and that is the 50% corruption. I agree with needing more beef to the sorcerer build but it has to be on the sorcery terms and not the combat terms.
Oh you mean like a katana, right? Yeah I would much rather prefer the balance to give me more options to out-think the opponent than something that, in the years of precedent to back this up, will likely being removed to put the entire path of sorcerer in sync with LS.
I’m starting to understand why it took so long for sorcery to come on board…there is this idea that we need to have balance in a combative way and that’s just not how sorcery should work and maintain what the intent was. It just turns into another meta PVP combat option. Sorcery is supposed to be much more than that. A new way of actually viewing the entire game. I’m opposed to moving it to just another combat method to exploit in standard ways.
With a dagger build that happens to suit archery? Anytime.
You pull a bridge out of thin air, for heaven’s sake. Evoke demons out of thin air. Create zombies, teleport. But a sword can’t be. Lord, have mercy… 
But indulging you, what if you could enchant a weapon? Would that fly for you?
OH! Now that is something I can sink my teeth into. A spell that randomizes appearance and aggro and suddenly everyone can’t figure out who’s who (make everyone a standard appearance naked guy with white hair of the Amazing Spider Guild) and all the thralls are just attacking the closest players or each other…that fits perfectly with lore and intent. Make it so please.
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Evoking a sword or a weapon wasn’t specific enough for you? It’s not pew pew. Like, at all. It’s just a sword with a funny draw animation.
That’s because you’re obssessing about pew pew magic and see it where there’s none. Balance means you can actually win a fight while being a sorceror. Right now, you can’t.
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Because a spell that would turn the enemy thrall against him wouldn’t be OP as F…
Are you guys on something?
We’re trying to achieve balance here, not breaking the game.
We already have the wraith sword, the abyssal gear, etc. It’s not a great strech of imagination to think a sorceror could conjure a temporary sword after his health fell bellow 15% or something. A really big, OP sword that might allow him to survive and win a fight he will SURELY lose otherwise. Add a little time to cast the spell, and we might be on to something.
But this is just an idea. The fact remains that sorcery is unbalanced as it stands. It’s a playstyle that only suits RP. It falls short of what it can be and of what I believe Funcom wants it to be.