Every few years I'm reminded I used to play a sorcerer. As a matter of fact I used to love sorcerers. I don't anymore for a myriad of reasons but sometimes I feel the need to pop in here and post the list of things it would take for me to potentially love sorcerers again. As a note to my prior fellow sorcerers, I've found giving up the sorcerer profession has made me a less angry player in general. Just in case any of you want to get off your blood pressure medications.

Spell Circle Review:

702 Mana Disruption - Lore increase from demon lore similar to the religion lore benefit to 302

705 Disintegrate - Increase the power of the base spell to make it roughly equivalent to boneshatter. Necromancy lore for instant total disintegration chance that leaves behind loot.

710 Energy Maelstrom - Allow it to follow a target like sandstorm. Potential lore tie in to prevent movement so creatures don't flee.

716 Disease - Instant damage with disease effects following. This should be one of our staple high level spells. Demonology lore impacts the initial attack and necromancy for secondary effects. Similar to wither with an initial burst and secondary rounds.

725 Minor Summoning - Base spell should be successfully castable with 0 lore to get any old random demon. Demons should, by default, not follow you into justice areas without an illusion on unless you force it. High lore thresholds should allow for "lesser summoning" of a demon with some attack capabilities.

730 Animate Dead:

Animate Dead is a spell with amazing potential and god awful execution. I honestly only consider the spell functionally worthwhile if you have one of the auction quality soulstone wands. The lore requirements are out of whack. Time investment to gather components is not justified by the spell duration. Quite bluntly I consider this one of the most poorly designed spells in the game at this time.

First and foremost the lore requirements need to be adjusted to be in line with other spells. I cannot think of any high level, non-sorcerer spell that is completely useless without lore. The base spell should be useable with 0 lore on a creature up to the sorcerers level say minus 5. From there lore should be used to add capabilities to the spell. This could mean limiting uses per day based off lore thresholds or limiting what commands we can give our animates based off lore thresholds. As an example we could say base a sorcerer can animate once a day and an additional time for every 10 necromancy lore ranks and at 100 ranks the per day limit is removed entirely. Alternately a sorcerer with 0 lore would have an animate that essentially followed them around and attacked whatever they were attacking but nothing else, while various lore rank thresholds granted various commands. Either method gives ALL sorcerers a working 30th rank spell with a reasonable lore incentive package.

Next we have components, the bane of the sorcerer. I'm going to start off with the off the wall suggestion that animating crystals be available either at the alchemist or sorcerer guild shop. These base crystals would provide the sorcerer the sorcerer the ability to animate a creature their level -5 as discussed above at whatever cost is deemed reasonable. From there we can go into making our own crystals as we do now and those crystals could provide a functional bonus to the MAL. I'd also like to see "soul gems" sold by the alchemist or guild shop which could take the place of a gem for animating at a marginal cost and then the ability to use your own gem with it's value adding to duration. Thus a sorcerer who just wants to animate something their level -5 for 10 minutes +4 sec per necromancy rank goes to the alchemist and buys some crystals and a soul gem then goes out and uses the spell. Someone who wants to animate their level +10 uses some crystals made with the best quality ingrediants by a sorcerer with 200 ranks of necromancy lore and since they paid that guy a small fortune they're going to use a black diamond they had a bard sing up as their soul gem to increase the duration.

Finally I like the alchemy tie-in with healing the animate and would like to see more. Perhaps the ability to create a receptacle to hold your favorite animate. Wave it at the animate at the end of a hunt and it sucks them into a pocket space/void you've created. Feed components into the receptacle to add duration. Then you've always got your favorite animate on hand as long as you don't let the spell expire. Just a fun feature I'd like to see added. Perhaps requiring a necromancy lore threshold to use and something similar for demons kinda like familiar talismans.


740 Planar Shift - I have nothing meaningful to add to this conversation. As a plat player with permanent portals I see no value in this spell what-so-ever. The same realm teleportation feature seems in line with similar spells with a slight addition of cost due to the convenience of picking any room you want. The cross realm feature seemed reasonable prior to the premium portal changes but I have no skin in that game.


735 and 750 - Obviously these need to be filled. I am still in favor of 735 Ensorcel (TD to armor and shields, perhaps acuity adding to staves) or a the game's most devastating CS based mass attack spell. For 750 major summoning is a pipe dream and should really be incorporated into minor summoning as detailed above.

I've always been partial to the Incarnation type spell for 750 used in the same way as the other 50th rank spells currently in game. At base, with 0 lore, the spell would provide either a massive short term boost once a day to AS, CS, DS, TD for say 10 minutes plus a uses per day based off training or a moderate short term bonus to AS, CS with a mid range cooldown. Necromany lore thresholds would add undead characteristics to your form (sheer fear, non corp, bonuses to necromany spells, etc) and demonology lore would add demonic characteristics. Just spit balling here.


TLDR:

Going through all this I see that there are basically two key areas that need work to make sorcerers great. Our attack spells need to be reviewed to put us in line with other casters. Then our high level spells need to be reviewed to be in line with other casters. On the low end we aren't using lore at all and on the high end we're making it a requirement instead of a bonus. Components were beta tested on sorcerers, turns out they suck and no one elses uses them to the extent that we do and they need to be toned down. Beyond that I just think the elemental lore review needs to happen and if it's half as good as the spirit lore review we'd be golden.

Keith/Brinret/Shiun

ATTENTION: Monks were only designed to reach level 39. Please check into the nearest Inn and choose the retire option immediately before you break the game completely!

Maelstrom will follow and dissipate on the next damage cycle if you aren't there. Sandstorm will follow and continue to do damage.

Keith/Brinret/Shiun

ATTENTION: Monks were only designed to reach level 39. Please check into the nearest Inn and choose the retire option immediately before you break the game completely!

that's why you use 706 or 708 with 710

>Granted it's four levels higher as a spell, but I'm not sure that the difference in levels justifies this?

4 levels is a pretty good justification for a spell to have more capability.

I hunted with 706/710 almost exclusively at that level in spectral monks. I used 80 mana rods with either spell to help. There was usually more than one in a room so I was rarely waiting for just one to die. I didn't have a problem getting fried or getting bounties done.