Could we get some... more practical magic soon?

[Occult Fuzzball]

Look. I'm not well-versed in Conan lore, as to excuse my lack of real knowledge about the world. Please, ffs, don't treat me like ♥♥♥♥ for talking about this.
But uh..

Well I was excited about Age of Sorcery. Still liking it right now, tbh. But I'm also finding myself sorely disappointed by the availability of the spells at the moment. Like... most of this stuff just does not seem practical. Like at all. Feather fall? Nah, no need. Just latch onto the wall as you're falling and you're good to go! Ice bridge is... uhh.. I've not seen any situations where it's useful.
Detect Corruption? Hurray! A PVP-intentioned spell that's...... useless.... in a co-op game.
The Imbue Soul things? Useful in a pinch but otherwise.. ehh.. A lot of these spells so far (I've fully completed the spellbook thing yet) just.... when would I even bother using them?

Look. I'm not asking for constant 24/7 explosions or anything, or fiery beams of absolute destruction, but... good grief. It'd be nice to be able to use my staff more than what feels like once in a blue moon or even find some encouragement to use it.
I'm impressed with the visuals and even adore them, but so far, underwhelmed somewhat with sorcery in terms of mechanical use.

I mean, come on. Doesn't exactly feel good to pay a material cost /and permanently chop off health and stamina/ just to cast... a mage-light that doesn't even last 5 minutes.

Anyone else having the same experience or thoughts about the sorcery update? I'm hoping it gets better, at least.

I was told on Reddit that Conan's universe is low magic.
Then I do some googling and some lore says mages/wizards/sorcerers are made out to be //immensely common throughout the empires, even all the way to Khitan//. Then I also stare at the Conan Unchained MMO which- well, has /plenty/ of magic- although that may also have been 'MMO-ified' to create the mage-archetype, so there's some reasonable doubt there.

[BigBombz]

Yea, I can see most spells being not so useful in PVE, but for PVP spells are useful albeit way too powerful and too cheap to cast.

[BigBombz]

I'm sure they will add more spells in later updates, but do not expect any fireballs, those are not canon in the Conan universe.

[V.V.]

I wouldn't count on more spells. The fact that sorcery even made it in the game is a miracle by itself. But with Dune being in active development, the main teams are gonna be focused on that, I don't think they will waste as much resources on a game that's pretty much at the end of it's life cycle now, except for hotfixes/patches when needed. Oh and of course, just adding in MTX and BP items for their new 'Ages'.

That's really all I see happening for CE now. Just a cash shop used to fund their future projects.

[Ellorien]

I built the bench and both satanic altars but I treat them as decoration.

The spells are useless outside PvP, and I could not care less about magic and sorcery anyway. So, pure decor for me.

[Zalzany]

To be fair you say you familiar, but this is literally all the Sorcerers do in Conan, they do nothing, and send others out, then sacrafice people and summon demons. People going "I want lighting bolts and like um sheilds of protection!"

Its like uh we got magma wall. You can summon your corpst to the circle for when you die in a bad spot or just don't want to go back for it. You can summon zombies, demons, cast a lighting storm spell, and make teleporters. Oh use a bat to carry you around fast. People "uh so no lighting bolt spam spell?"

Yet again most powerful sorcerer in entire Conan universe tried to shoot him with a bow, and missed. Reminding us they suck at combat. I mean best armor is the cultist for them its follower damage, and agilty damage increase lol. And said over and over they don't want to create a ranged damage class with sorcery. Every thinks it was gonna be lighting bolt spam like old ass clich with guy chucking tennis balls shouting it in some kind LARP lol

Its like not really. I like the summon demons and stuff with authority build and buffs you can take a demon and my thrall out and its just extra dps till I don't kill enough, and it turns on me. Or I leave it at base and it goes away. And not only that everything when new is geared towards pvp lol.

PVE is there in this game but people already freaking out about people using lighting storm, zombie surge spell, the magic clone and the darkness spells to mess with them. I just don't get while people thought you would be doing magic missle static attacks with your staff, its like no you gonna be weak and use a bow, and you can use the darkness spell in PVE on mobs in dungeons. And people thought it would be the new meta for everything, like thralls would be obeselet with zombies, and bows would be worthless compared to magic missile attacks lol.

Its like what no it would be you doing support spells, summing demons who are temp, and require you kill to keep them with you. All this sounds exactly like conan universe, but people are like "I know conana, but I want World of Warcraft warlock spells instead."

[Occult Fuzzball]

Originally posted by Zalzany:

Dude, I literally never said I was familiar with it. I never claimed to know it either. I literally explicitly said I'm NOT familiar with it.

And dear lord, what is it with merely asking for a combat applicable spell or two, and suddenly 'EwWw it"lL beCoMe WoW'? Did you even read any of the post? I literally said I'm not asking for absolute destructions or fiery beams or ♥♥♥♥.

While simultaneously, I never heard or read any posts from the Funcom team about how they were gonna not make it a 'combat class'. Literally never saw even mention of it. All I heard was 'Sorcery is coming' and that was it.

[Warriorsage]

Right there with the OP, and a lot of others.

Don't get me wrong, I like the franchise, but what a lot of 40 and over Cimmerian weebs who have longswords they bought that one time at the Asian gift store are missing is that adding questionable utility spells that sometimes bug out AND are gated is bad game design, whether it's "inline with the lore" or not. Imagine trying to integrate campy 1980's action movie standards as lore, LOL.

Personally, I gave up on it and went back to exploring the game as a Nordheimer barbarian because there's still a lot of stuff I haven't seen yet. The sorcery needed to bake some more, timers are usually a telltale sign of such things. Either that or Funcom only ever gave a ♥♥♥♥ about PVP from the beginning, and they've even managed to piss those people off, lol. Fingers crossed that modders will save us. Again.

[steventirey]

There could be some more options even without adding something totally new. Add the stuff the Witch Doctor feat used to do (which has now been removed) to the Shallow Grave. Make the sorcery staff a more viable weapon in its own right. You can stab with it, but it won't even kill a bunny. The epic version of the one sold in the Bazaar does a whole 15 damage. Your basic stone sword does 13.

Then there is room for added stuff. More "sorcery" in the form of alchemical items. Many of the sorcerers in the Conan world are more charlatan than sorcerer. Their fireballs or other effects are things like demon-fire orbs or flashpowder. Transformation is a thing as well - turning into a snake or man-ape. (Transformation could work similar to avatars, since that is a way to already control something that isn't your normal character.)

[Captain Worthy]

Yes, they MMO-fied the sorcery a fair bit for Age of Conan as it is an MMO with a combat system based on rapid repetition. CE is of a different genre and allows for a more lore accurate depiction of sorcery.

The spell system has more uses in PvP, but it is definitely not useless for PvE either. Just the portals alone enable great ease of transportation around the world map between multiple bases, without having to build them close to the obelisks like with the older, clunkier map-room system.

The bat demon spell gives great mobility and combining that with the resource harvesting spell, it becomes the best way to gain Star-metal and other similarly hard to get resources.

[uebie420]

I forgot where I seen it but they said this is the first age of something update and it's only the first part of the age of sorcery update there is supposed to be 3 more updates under the age of sorcery, so maybe that will add more magic with the rest of the age of sorcery updates if there are more coming

[m142]

Originally posted by uebie420:

I forgot where I seen it but they said this is the first age of something update and it's only the first part of the age of sorcery update there is supposed to be 3 more updates under the age of sorcery, so maybe that will add more magic with the rest of the age of sorcery updates if there are more coming

they never said it isn't cosmetic only actualization , and even if they'll add more spells like toxic fogg with atack even sorcerer(revamp of gass arrows) or some sumoning of weaker trall for example big red demonic imp with 100hp and 20 dmg ....
just don't expect much

[The Big Brzezinski]

You have to strike a balance. I took eight corrupted points in authority to maintain 20% corruption. This is enough to cast second tier spells, but not so much that I can't fight. The corrupted perk gives my follower a damage buff instead of a taunt.

[Hefutoxin]

Originally posted by Occult Fuzzball:

And dear lord, what is it with merely asking for a combat applicable spell or two, and suddenly 'EwWw it"lL beCoMe WoW'? Did you even read any of the post? I literally said I'm not asking for absolute destructions or fiery beams or ♥♥♥♥.

While simultaneously, I never heard or read any posts from the Funcom team about how they were gonna not make it a 'combat class'. Literally never saw even mention of it. All I heard was 'Sorcery is coming' and that was it.

June 21st Age of Sorcery announcement:
"Keep in mind that this is a dark, creeping kind of magic, requiring both preparation and a pinch of madness. You will not be slinging fireballs or magic missiles."

Sorcery is extremely potent for what it is.

Resurrecting a corpse isn't going to compete with a fully geared and leveled Thrall. However, replacing a zombie is as easy as knocking out and dragging a human NPC to the Shallow Grave. Their power lies in the fact that they are expendable and easily replaced.

Most of the spells are like that. They aren't designed to replace aspects of the game, just a different way of doing things.

[dnelson135]

In solo PVE, other than some really questionable utility that is not warranted with the need of corruption to even use it, I don't see how sorcery is useful or beneficial at all. Gathering resources is about it. The summon undead spell just makes it foggy. The lightning just randomly zaps stuff but certainly not the boss you are fighting. Hopefully someone makes a mod that removes this expansion.

[EvilVictor]

Slow fall is handy in PvE because falling slowly is not the same as grabbing on to something so you don't splat as you can cover a lot of horizontal distance and then grab something if you want to stop.

Lightning storm is pretty effective in solo PvE in the events where you have multiple targets running around. It can work in boss fights, but it's not steady damage even though it will take a good chunk out of their HP when it hits them and it will hit them especially when you consider how long solo boss fights can last. This doesn't mean you can cast it and sit back while it kills everything though.

Overall, however, the entire sorcery system is very much a gimmick. It's there, it's kind fun to mess with at least once but it's far less practical than your melee builds. It is way more fun in Co-op than it is solo but I can't speak for PvP as I stopped doing that in games a long time ago. For solo players the corruption penalties are crippling, but then you always have admin mode and mods available.

Originally posted by Ellorien:

I built the bench and both satanic altars but I treat them as decoration.

That's my favorite use for sorcery too, nothing like a few occupied altars to spice up the place. Well, a bunch of zombies standing around can be kind of cool too if that's your thing, they look amusing in praying/laying/drunk/angry emotes around other decor.