2010 Sorcerer Review
I’ve done this before, this is updated. If a GM did decide to ever work on our profession. This is a cheat sheet for getting them started. I would say most of the items on here have broad agreement among sorcerer players, some are just my ideas though.
701 Blood Burst
NO Change
702 Mana Disruption
It needs to be brought into the fold in regards to GS4 design principles. IE - damage modified by lore. Or, in this case, mana controls. Look to spells like 302 for an example. It doesn’t need to be huge, just a moderate increase in damage for added mana control training.
703 Corrupt Essence
We got the losing end of the stick when Forget was taken from us to be for vaporware Savants and we were given this instead. Forget prevented the prepping of spells, and made you forget any one currently prepped. Corrupt Essence merely prevents the casting. So if you prep a spell, the second it drops you can cast it. Whereas with forget, you needed to wait for it to drop to prep. As such, Forget actually had a functional effectiveness time of 15 seconds + critter prep RT. Corrupt Essence is just 15 seconds. We got a downgrade, and it was not intended. Just make the duration 30 seconds (or 25) to make up for it. Also… FIX THE ITHZIR MENTAL RESISTANCES TO OUR NON MENTAL SORCERER SPELLS. I am utterly tired of being penalized for casting mental spells when we are not mental. This has been happening for years, we’ve been posting about it for years, and all that happens is buck passing. “Talk to the creature person, talk to the otf person, talk to the sorcerer person, talk to the creature person, round and round”
Someone, please, fix, it. 703, 706, 717, 713.
704 Phase
We were told 7 years ago that phase, when self cast, would provide us with manuever defense akin to 911, 313, or 1109. It does not. We are the only pure without a manuever benefit as such.
Also, someone had the idea of 704 preventing rapid decaying critters from decaying so fast, seems like a good idea to me.
705 Disintegrate
It also needs lore modifiers, it currently has none. Either do mana controls or necromancy.
Also, make it a dual cast spell like Web, with a bolt version.
See here for more: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/disintegrate-improvements/
706 Mind Jolt
No change, other than, fix the ithzir. It isn’t mental.
707 Eye Spy
No change, or possibly move to 713.
708 Limb Disruption
Extra damage/limbs removed on high end rolls. More information: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/03/a-bloody-troll-torso-rolls-down/
709 Quake
No change
710 Energy Maelstrom
1. Change the messaging. The spell needs a messaging update probably more than any other spell in game. It has messaging that makes it look elemental, but it isn’t. It needs better messaging.
2. A lore or mana control tie in would be welcome.
3. Let us SHIFT, more info: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/03/maelstrom/
711 Pain
The one sorcerer attack spell that is built right in regard to lore standards. No change needed.
712 Cloak of Shadows
A sentient cloak should flare on more things than armor flares because it knows and thinks and armor does not. Make sure it is flaring on everything it is supposed to. Otherwise, no change, except maybe an AS buff. Read more: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/712-improvements/
713
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Make Nightmare a Curse. Then free up this slot of a new AS based attack spell, or move Eye Spy here, and make 707 the new AS based attack spell. It depends how powerful the spell is. I vote for this slot personally. Read more: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/713-or-716-major-disruption-or-essence-ball/
714 Scroll Infusiong
1. Allow more control over unlocking. Allow us to tap the runestone to select the spell slot we wish to unlock, like how my book works.
2. Change dikar’fyn to do any spell up to level 50. No fresh above level 20 scrolls exist outside of the arcane circle, so let us use the rune on them.
3. Lots of good auction item ideas with this spell. x per day runestones (not a pouch that makes them, but like a quiss’fyn with 5 uses a day). Or magical fountain pens with infinity ink. Those are all other posts though.
715 Curse
Hold onto your butts!
1. Make it verb based (curse seer itchy)
2. Make Nightmare & Disease curses
3. Add Curse buffs (when self cast a positive effect is done upon the caster)
http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/03/curse-improvements-disease/
http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/curse-buffs/
http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2009/10/16/updated-curse-proposal/
716 Disease
Make Disease a Curse. Then free up this slot for a new attack spell. Read more: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/713-or-716-major-disruption-or-essence-ball/
Or, possibly, if we get Harbinger for 735 we won’t need another CS spell, so, a utility spell of some sort. Something to do with runestaffs maybe (something where we make something would be nice), or maybe even a buff of some sort. We have very little utility & buffs in our circle.
717 Evil Eye
No changes, except, I think it should get a TD pushdown back. Honestly. It is a 17 mana spell, that at most stuns unless you’re severly underhunting. It deserves a pushdown, or a reevaluation of thresholds.
718 Torment
No changes, maybe do some more with demonology, make sure it uses the disruption crit table instead of unbalance (unless you have already done that, honestly, I don’t use torment much).
719 Dark Catalyst
1. Allow us to pick damage types: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/dark-catalyst-improvements/
2. Better idea: Chain Reaction. Dark Catalyst is basically already a reaction of magic, why not let that reaction spread to other targets? http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2009/07/20/chain-reaction-dc/
So sexy…. So very very sexy…
720 Implosion
1. Add disarming ability: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2008/12/07/720-update/
2. Make flying creatures more susceptible. They’re flying, they are relying on air pressure to stay flying. A sudden drop in air pressure should mess them up. Instead we have stupid things like griffin immunity to open implosion. It makes absolutely no sense for a griffin to be able to outfly a vacuum. It would be like a fish winning a race on a dry creekbed. How are they swimming? There is no water.
725 Demon Summoning
Lets not do a GS3 thing and have two spells for one thing. We don’t need minor summoning and major summoning, we need summoning.
1. Cut all lore thresholds in half. Seriously. Sorcerers have ridiculously high training costs, it is mathematically proven. We spend 0/20 for lore to affect all 3 of our circles. A wizard spends 0/6. Our lore training costs are literally 300% higher than other professions. Read more here: http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2009/05/14/sorcerer-training-costs/
If you do not want to adjust costs, you can adjust requirements. So, cut all lore thresholds in half for demon summoning.
2. Change the uncommon rune system. Allow any sorcerer to summon any demon by name, or try. Have runestones merely give bonuses to success. So, with enough demon lore, you can summon demon X, but if you have a demon X runestone, you need 20 less lore ranks.
3. Add a new demon attribute for all demons called TEACH, or LORE. Whatever. The idea is, if you have a demon summoned, it helps you with other demon tasks, thus giving you an effective lore benefit. Some demons can be better teachers than other. This is one reason why I did not say to cut demon lore requirements for phase, or cloak of shadows, only 725. The idea being a sorcerer will have an easier time with lore with those spells (again, to make up for our costs) by summoning a demon first.
4. Allow the teach ability to extend to other sorcerers in your group…. if possible allow this form of enhancing to break the current +50 skill enhancive limit because….
5. Add new major demons with new awesome abilities to the demon system.
6. You can put these demons at really high lore requirements. What about a demon that requires 300 or 400 lore to summon? Impossible you say? See #4 and #5.
So, to summon such a demon, you’d need a group of sorcerers working together. Using the enhancive system as such allows you to create the need for a ritual and teamwork without actually having to code such a requirement. Just do it with lore thresholds.
Someone with 100 lore ranks might be able to summon a weak major demon (still better than any current demon). Someone with 200 a middling one. But to get the highest guys you’d need groups working together.
You could do some ridiculous banaltra demon at 1000 lore requiring a group to get together, summon minor demons to teach, then use that knowledge to summon major demons that are even better teachers, then finally summon the ridiculous banaltra demon, who could crap out high level enchant potions or something.
Teamwork, ritual, complexity, all without needing another spellslot, hooray.
I suggest having contests to design the major demons and a few good brain storming sessions to think of abilities.
730 Animate Dead
1. Fix Bugs
2. More control: tell animate attack
3. Allow us to reanimate previously animated critters or players (essentially a refresh, at the cost of another crystal and another gem)
4. Cut lore requirements (because again, of our training cost requirement)
5. A better healing ability
6. Self animation
Read more:
http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2009/05/05/animate-dead-alchemy-fixin-whats-broken/
http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/03/animate-dead-improvements/
http://www.virilneus.com/blog/2007/12/08/lich-form/
735 Harbinger
Basically, this allows us to cast any other spell as a mass spell. Think rangers, think bards. This is our mass CS spell.
Basically you would
prep 735 for 719
cast
prep 735 for 705
cast
prep 735 for 711
cast
Costs can be worked out in commitee.
740 Planar Shift
I personally think we should be able to teleport into almost any restricted area in the game using high quality chalk. Broken lands, the rift, darkstone. It makes sense from an IC perspective. High quality chalk should have no barriers. But this isn’t a huge deal.
750 Deadpool
Read my post from a couple days ago, or go here: