The Contradictory Existence of the Abyssal Maul (and the larger corrupted stamina issue)

Never forget what they took from us

Man, sorcery really was cool back in Age of Sorcery. You farm a bunch of sacrifices, study the rituals and work your way through the tome to unlock great new abilities.

You unlock some cool new armor, and a cool new set of weapons. It’s a cool gimmick, you can summon this demonic gear in a pinch and it’s pretty good but locks your corruption in. This is corrupted equipment, for a corrupted build.

Not to worry, you have some cool corrupted perks in strength to make the most of it. Half stamina is rough, but you can still get in a good few swings.

Then Age of War happened

Stamina nerfs all around, everything costs more to swing. Everyone shifts over to dumping into grit, wearing stamina boosting armor, and using lighter weapons all while being more sparing with their attacks.

So what happened to the corrupted build? Let’s look at some numbers:

  • Total Stamina at 0 Grit: 50 corrupted
  • Total Stamina at 20 Grit: 90 corrupted
  • Total Stamina at 20 Grit, with Abyssal Armor: 97

And the warhammer attack cost?

45 Heavy, 33 Light

Now I’m no mathmetician, but assuming we want to avoid going into negative stamina and have a bit left over to dodge for the inevitable hit coming at us right after, that means at at 0 grit you can attack once. 20 grit, one third of your total amount of attribute points, you can attack two times. And the bonus 7 stamina on your armor? Keep the change, loser. That’s your dodge fund for when you blow the rest of your stamina on two whole heavy swings.

So I raise the question, why does this weapon still exist?

It does less damage than Hanuman’s Gada, which has the penalty of incredible weight, but you can swing it twice as much in a clean build. Likewise, very closely behind the Abyssal maul is the new Misplaced Guardian’s Will Breaker, which also is usable in a clean build. Pretty much, any worthwhile warhammer is usable clean. Except the Abyssal Maul. This thing is made for a corrupted build, it immediately corrupts you on being equipped, that’s how you’re supposed to use it. You’re supposed to only be able to hit 1-2 times with it. It’s like a pre-rework Sword of Crom, except worse in every way.

There’s some pretty stinky legendaries in the game, but the crime most of them commit is being pretty mediocre for what they are. The sin of this ungodly abomination is that it actively punishes you for using it. There’s also Destroyer, and the Blackheart weapons that also have this same problem.

I just can’t understand why. Why would you create a weapon, intentionally, make it part of the core sorcery progression, make it clearly meant to be used by sorcerers, only for it to be the literal worst weapon a corrupted build could use?

I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but this abomination, this affront to humanity, is an insult to corrupted builds. It’s unusable in it’s current state. The very existence of this weapon is a paradox, it’s a weapon made by sorcerer for sorcerers, and yet punishes you for being a sorcerer while trying to use it. This is no glass cannon type scenario, this is no one-hit design, this is just straight up unforgivable trash.

And it’s part of the larger problem; corrupted stamina.
Many weapon types suffer from the new costs, warhammers being the most extreme example but not the only one. Pretty much any 2-handed weapon is completely worthless in a corrupted build now. The cost to use is through the roof, and the benefit you get from corruption doesn’t make up for it. At max corrupted strength, that’s a bonus 20% damage… at the cost of halving your potential attacks. A total lack of corrupted agility makes it a joke to even consider unless you’re doing it solely for the cheap-cost attack weapons like daggers or shortswords, which Den unfairly favors as his favorite child weapon type.

Potential Solutions:

  • Finish the job. Add corrupted grit, with either some kind of leech effect to steal stamina from your opponent or a scaling reduction on attack cost.
  • Reduce stamina cost on cursed weapons. If you’re channeling demonic forces to swing this near-weightless thing around already and it’s eaten half your max HP, at least let me swing it more than two times.
  • Separate corruption from health and stamina. Stamina changes already are painfully greedy and most of the bonuses are an insulting amount. +20 health per point in vit, but +3 stamina per point in grit, are you kidding me? That’s +1.5 for a corrupted build, that’s just an insulting joke when you’re charging 45 stamina for an attack.
  • Revert the change entirely. Honestly, I’m not on board with this but a lot of people are. Clean builds get to swing more frequently, corrupted builds can actually finish a combo again, everyone wins. Lore-accurate barbarians don’t need to take a lunch break mid-battle because they got a little too tuckered out fighting.

Frequently Argued Points:

  • “Just don’t use a corrupted build” - brilliant, why not just remove it from the game then? It used to be an alternate playstyle that was fairly beneficial with proportionate penalty, now it’s not.
  • “Use X armor instead for even more stamina” - I could, sure, but that just forces you to cling to a meta just to try to get a crumb more worth out of your suffering. And besides, the bonus stamina given by armor is halved when fully corrupted. Even good ol’ leggings of Kurak only give you a third of an extra attack, that’s a pitiful amount, and you’d be subbing out the bonus damage and HP from the abyssal for that. I’d rather 10% more damage from the hit that hits instead of a third of a hit I can’t afford to hit.
  • “Just don’t use the weapon if you hate it” - See point 1, just remove it if the solution to it sucking is to just not use it.
  • “Corrupted builds are too strong” - +20% bonus damage for -50% attacks? Those totals ain’t adding up. That’s still a net DPS loss.
  • “You’re not meant to be doing full combos all the time” ok but when there’s a perk for combo finishers in the clean strength perks and they get extra advantages like knocking down enemies, how is it fair that we are just hard locked out of using them?
  • “Just use a thrall/zombies” NO. If I can solo anything and everything in this game on a clean build, why the hell can I not do that when corrupted? Corrupted builds should be an alternative playstyle to a clean build, not an even more handicapped babysitter crutch while your three zomberserkers do everything for you. Do you need them to feed and dress you too?
  • “Sorcerers in the lore are weak” yes, yes they are. Conan regularly cuts them up in a fight. That’s why I have half health. Do I also need that half stamina to be utterly consumed the second I swing my 0.1lb stick in the air? I’d also like to point out that in Age of Conan, Dark Templars aren’t enfeebled worthless sacks of corrupted potatoes relying on their babysitter crutches.
  • (This one’s for Arcanist) “Just play with reduced stamina cost or disable stamina” That’s not a solution, that’s a bandaid. Balance should be based on the base settings of the game, not how it is on easy mode. If you play on easy of course the game is gonna be easy. But if it sucks on normal, that needs to be addressed.
10 Likes

I agree with all of this. The whole philosophy of the attribute rework in the first place was so people could play how they want. The stamina rebalancing threw that out the window for sorcerer builds.

If you don’t want your sorcerers to be casting “fireball” you need to make combat make sense for them.

This is a good example of how absolutely toxic these devs are when it comes to updates. They downgrade and make stealth modifications that ruin the experience of what was good before. The dye system, bearer hp, weapon balances involving black ice and obsidian, the combat camera, nerfing pets just a few of the most dysfunctional and unnecessary changes to the entire game.

Its as if they are deliberately trolling older players who had experienced conan exiles when it was great a few years ago, when the mounts can actually attack. Now they took away the ability of mounts to attack by default, instead they just run away, not mentioning, that Khari weapons used to have stat bonuses and exclusive weapon whirlwind animation sets for Legendary axes in siptah and the Scythe of Thag, which was nerfed completely to just become boring generic axes with the new combat system. Why keep breaking things that were already great? it seems to be a recurring theme

1 Like

I agree with your assessments on all of these arguments, none of them explains away or justifies the way corrupted builds have been so sorely treated.

I am one of them. I think this change to stamina was pointless and poorly executed (Balanced Weapon Fitting and Oil of Balance still haven’t been updated to make sense with the new stamina costs).

However, perhaps unlike many of the people who might want it reverted because it broke their playstyle, that is not the case for me. I main Whirlwind Blades, and it is generally a waste of time to combo past the first and second attack. I attack twice, then disengage to reset the combo. The change to stamina did virtually nothing to change my style, in fact, recovering stamina faster was actually a benefit to it.

So what is my objection? It made stamina irrelevant outside of attacking. You can sprint almost nonstop now, only needing to slow for a second every once in a while to almost instantly gain your stamina back. So why even bother having sprinting even cost stamina at that point? Even with the delay to stamina recovery they added in, jumping and dodging also regenerate so fast, the stamina cost is completely meaningless outside the context of a fight.

I want stamina to be more important. Stamina should be one of the aspects of survival, which is what this game was originally about. I would like to see harvesting cost stamina so you can’t just swing a pick around for eternity without needing to take an occasional break to rest.

Stamina in 7 Days to Die is much better. Everything you do requires stamina. It doesn’t go down super fast and also doesn’t recover super fast. Managing your stamina reserves and being aware how much you’ll need for a sudden fight actually plays a role in your survival and is not just a combat gimmick.

Fighting may be the primary gameplay focus of this game, but the stamina changes elevate it to the only relevant situation while tossing survival to the wayside.

3 Likes

I was actually considering putting this in my frequently argued points. The problem is this playstyle is a way to play, but it should not be the way to play. You should be allowed to stand your ground and dish out damage uninterrupted, the consequence is recieving more damage as well. Not everyone should be forced to subscribe to the roll and poke combat strategy. It’s one method of combat that’s being imposed on everyone. Heavy armored warriors are encouraged to dance around and trade individual jabs with an opponent, instead of standing firm and swinging wildly until one of them is dead. This method is a mockery of the barbarian archetype and an insult to anyone who prefers a tanky playstyle. That entire method of play was gutted in favor of Den’s rogue fantasy.

Corrupted builds saw a very heavy nerf coming from Age of Sorcery to Age of War. There was no need for it to be nerfed. And it wasn’t even nerfed on purpose. The stamina changes were meant to change how combat worked, but not to regulate some builds into obscurity. How stamina is used in Corrupted builds needs a heavy look.

One of the biggest issues with using Grit and Stamina armors is that their effects are all halved when using one. Even the Abyssal Armor which gives +15 Stamina only grants 7 Stamina total. Going 20 Grit only adds 30 Stamina, not 60. The maximum amount of Stamina you can gain from items and stats is 90. Thats full Grit, full Agility, and +10 to stamina in each piece of armor.

This is the only way to be able to attack with weapons such as the Blackheart or Abyssal Maul. However your damage bonuses from corrupted strength and such does not make this a viable option.

I want to talk about this specifically.

Not everyone in the books who dabbled in sorcery and supernatural elements were weakling wizards in robes. Some were competent fighters, and like Jimbo said, Dark Templars are not only capable fighters, but one of the three main tank classes. And this is all reflected in the Corrupted Strength attribute.

Just like Agility and Accuracy before it aren’t meant to be just noob trap attributes to be ignored, so shouldn’t corrupted attributes.

There was no justification for corrupted builds to be weakened between Age of Sorcery and now. They weren’t overpowered, they weren’t a majority build, they weren’t widely used. Even in Age of Sorcery they needed a bit of attention but they were at least still fun to use. Now they’re not.

I don’t personally blame the new stamina system and I don’t believe we’re going to go back to how things were, but I do believe how it works in regards to corruption should and very likely will see another look.

1 Like

This feels especially tasty.
Doing something with the corrupting (to the user) weapons so they are better (read: usable) in the hands of those with corrupted stats would be a very nice touch.

2 Likes

I think this can be easily managed with stamina costs are determined by the weight of the weapon and not directly because of the type. Sure type plays into the weight but the weight should be the direct cause of how much stamina you use/swing. Not only does this solve the sorcery items but adds value to ghast weapons and special considerations like graceful night and glimmermoon (I really hate that name…my friend nailed it; sounds like a my little pony character).

It also helps balance out one handed weapons vs 2 handed ones in terms of trading damage with speed or #hits.

I like this idea, but it would create new problems. Namely, massively heavy weapons like Hanuman’s Gada would become utterly unusable, and weightless weapons like Baal-pteor’s would become very useful. Weights would have to be revisited at the same time to implement this

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.