I fully enjoyed seeing the releases and know you're never going to please everyone, including me, in every change that happens.

Issues and ideas, some are repost:
*Open cast 703 cannot be used with 1720. Please please please fix this.
*Demonology: I was hoping that more spells would work like balefire with special benefits for having a demon present. Maybe flares or faster cycles could be added for torment. Maybe a demon could do something for a maelstrom or dark catalyst. Maybe a special curse could only be cast with a demon present. Maybe the minor demons themselves could be tweaked for better mana and silver capacities.
*Going through the process of making crimson salt crystals should be worth more than the added 16 minutes. I'd rather have a longer initial duration than any explosion ability.
*https://gswiki.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Necromantic_regeneration_potion These recipes are useless now, can they be given new effects?
*I love the Pestilence messaging and backlash ability.
*I love Grasp of the Grave.

Tal.

Estild, do the voids have to keep their current intent of opening into nothingness with an elemental lore tie in? Could they sometimes be rifts to say... a plane of extreme heat/cold/force which would turn the target into a charred/frozen/badly mangled corpse instead of vaporizing it, allowing a searchable body based on some seed of lore chance?

It's possible, but would someone train lores for that?

GameMaster Estild

I would be interested in an 720 that had the possibility of extra flare damage in addition to the initial strike. Even more so if you could tack on a chance to draw an inhabitant of that plane out to lash at a target or two before being pulled back in (based on demon lore). Sure would be nice to have a way to show off our demon skills in combat like those fancy necromancers and their animated arms.


You gesture at an orc warlord.
A void rips open in the area, directly above an orc warlord!
Vitreous fluid boils in a warlord's eyes, causing them to burst!
+83 Hits.

Everything in the room seemed to stay in place for an instant and then a shifting being of nothingness bursts onto the scene.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

A shifting being of nothingness reaches out for an orc warlord.
Blood begins to gush from a warlord's nose and ears!
+20 Hits.
A shifting being of nothingness reaches out for an orc mage.
Shock wave of air slams an orc mage into the ground
+10 hits

The shifting being of nothingness is pulled back into the void. The void disappears without further incident.

(all takes place in like 1 second). Change the crit types and descriptions for a non-air attuned sorc.

AIM: GS4Menos

>Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
>Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Or maybe cast void, infuse void and and elemental flare is released from the sorcerer striking a target or targets in the void before being sucked into the void.

It would be neat to have it so certain demons might effect the strength of the elemental magic too. Just to give the demonologist some love too.

The changes you've made to sorcerer spells have been fantastic overall. Giving Mana Disruption that extra spell suppression is great for group hunting and makes an already efficient spell even better. Open-cast 703 is also fabulous. Love Grasp of the Dead to pieces, especially as we can now STOP the spell so we don't inadvertently shake hands with passers-by. Pestilence is outstanding visually and mechanically. The changes to Animate Dead are great overall too. I really like how the changes support different play-styles; some people will find a beefy animate and keep it around for some time, while others will grab what's available and blow them up. Both make sense, and that's wonderful.

Of course, if I were just composing paeans of praise, that would be boring! I did find one thing lacking in the overhaul: Demonologists didn't get the oomph I was hoping they would with this review. My character's got necromancy lore and is sitting pretty regardless, but demonology's so integral to sorcery that it seems it should confer some bigger mechanical benefits too.

Not everything has to be perfectly balanced, but if we're moving in the direction of giving people more flexibility with their lores and builds, making demonology a more attractive option would help. Right now, there just aren't anywhere near as many reasons to choose demonology aside from RP. Roleplaying is important, and people who prioritize it by investing in demonology when that makes sense for their characters should be supported in that choice with something more than utilitarian benefits like those to Phase and Cloak of Shadows. Right now, the scales are very much tilted in favor of necromancers.

Given that the whole profession just got wonderful new toys, I'm not sure if any further adjustments to the review are in the works. If they are, and you're looking to create more diversity in play-styles and builds with lore, please put another coat of polish on demonology. There's not a lot of parity as things stand.

I feel like an ingrate even talking about this. I don't want to be one of those bratty kids who gets a double handful of candy at Halloween and still whines for the remaining fun-size Snickers bar she sees in the candy bowl. This has been a phenomenal event -- so nice it's made other players joke about "Hot Sorcerer Nights" -- and we all got a huge upgrade in utility, power, and style. Thank you so much for all the work you've done. I feel like a whole new sorceress. :)

--- Lauren, Lylia's player

I'd love to see a breakdown of people's lore choices now and what they'll be in a few months after the FIXSKILL opportunity we'll be getting (and incidentally, YAY for that too!).

I argued that the balance was far in the favor of necromancy lore before it was added to: rot flares, three SACRIFICE abilities, and three or four spells. The necromancy benefits to Pain (711), Ensorcell (735), and Ensorcell flares are some of the best we have, in my opinion.

Whirlin backs this point of view up in his pre-HSN guide focused on a purely mechanical approach to sorcerer training where he recommends training Demonology to 52 and "the rest of forever in necromancy" because "After 52 ranks of Demonology, the benefits just aren't substantial."

If anything, I therefore suspect the HSN updates will tilt the balance further in the direction of necromancy or cement the status quo. My own character prioritizes demonology for RP reasons and pays what ESTILD called "a huge opportunity cost" the farther I push him in that direction. I've questioned this decision but that's more of a RP discussion and not necessarily pertinent to this topic and this post.

Overall: I really like several of the new abilities, I am glad you don't need necromancy lore to take advantage of several of them, and it was exciting to see sorcerers get so much thoughtful development in such a short span.

Silvean's Player

Overall, I agree with Silvean and Lylia that the case for necromancy was already stronger before these releases, which is fine for my sorcerer but ultimately demonology should get some boosting down the road. These improvements are a mixture of awesomeness and incredibleness thrown into a pit of win. It will very much change how often I use a lot of these spells. I would still like it if necromancy lore unlocked the ability to over-ride the immunities of the undead to our spells (like some of the Voln symbols.) The highest lore requirement would presumably be for unlocking Evil Eye.

I do not have much to say about tweaks to the potency of the spells at this time. The grapple damages on 709 do seem pretty weak.

So, the list...


Sacrifice

I was not using Sacrifice at all, and now I am using it every hunt. This was a really good update, especially since my sorcerer has no society. Sacrifice Infest is something I will not have to worry about for a while, but I now expect to make use of Sacrifice Channel with the 730 changes. Something I would like to see, since Sacrifice is essentially the same thing as the Absolution Pure concept, would be some form of sacrifice that actually destroys the soul of the target.


Spell 702: Mana Disrupt

I love the concept of disrupting the aura of the targets causing temporary dispels. It shifts the significance to the word "mana" as being what is disrupted, and really tangibly helps make warding easier at lower levels. This is the one I have been getting the most practical use out of so far. I will be curious to see how useful it is with more dangerous creatures. I did not realize it does so much damage.


Spell 703: Corrupt Essence

This would have been really, really nice when I had my sorcerer in hooded figures. I'm sure I will use it a lot at higher levels. I will never Forget, but...


Spell 705: Disintegrate

It is hard to say without going back and doing it, but I might have used this at lower levels. Disintegrate is something I have never used much because 702 is cheaper and only risks 2 mana per cast. I had temporarily dropped 2x Spell Aim for more CS/spells, this is definitely incentive for bringing it back soon. 713 is out of the question at lower levels. One minor tweak I would make is taking out the "dull grey beam" from the CS version, and leaving it with the spell aimed AS version. I think the CS version should more resemble what the Phoenix does from X-Men 3 like Virilneus said.


Spell 706: Mind Jolt

Ironically, I find this new premise to be more "mentalist" than the old explanation, though I feel the mind falls under our "destruction of animate matter" clause anyway. I enjoy the idea of witnessing existences that overwhelm the mind with horror. I'm not sure how often I will end up using it. One thing I would add to this spell is that when the player character is under its effect, we should get an illustration of the horror when typing LOOK instead of the ordinary room description (or at least some % of the time, so the target is not totally blinded.) That could even be turned into a custom nightmare kind of thing. Since the mind is being opened up to some hellish demonic plane, maybe demonology lore would increase the chances for an oculoth-like demonic possession.


Spell 707: Eye Spy

This removed the annoying features of the spell, so I expect I will end up using it a lot more. But if it were able to roam around looking for targets...


Spell 709: Grasp

I will miss Quake for nostalgia reasons, though I was not using it much. The visual on this is really cool, though I'm not sure where the arms are coming from, since they can't actually be in the ground. I would just tweak the wording so that we see the torsos/bodies on the initial lunge, at least, and when they sink back down into the ground all you see is the arms.


Spell 710: Energy Maelstrom

Inserting the other elements and allowing us to bias the storm has definitely helped me kill cold monsters with the spell. Though I would like it if we could amplify the open cast based on mana control, with the more exotic "mana storm" effects so this spell is more closely tied to its root concept. One of those effects would be minor quakes, so that would take the sting out of 709.


Spell 711: Pain

Seeing the damage saves the work of trying to figure out how much health these things have for the cost. If there were some way to do Mass Pain with corresponding mana cost, and maybe some messaging during their RT showing how bad it hurts, that would be pretty much the best thing since curried ogre brains.


Spell 714: Scroll Infusion

Nice. I'm not really using the spell much yet, but I will be glad to get some experience out of it.


Spell 716: Pestilence

Amazing. Disease was something I almost never used because it was way too slow, and now I am using it every hunt. It infects things disease would not have infected, and the explanation for why it works on the undead I think can be used for some of our other spells. It kind of implied that ability to sway over the undead was inherent to sorcery's hybrid nature.


Spell 720: Implosion

Again. If we wish to have elemental lores play into implosion, we can do it by having the effect inverted depending on where the unstable portal connects (i.e. our end of it becomes a "white hole" instead of a "black hole".) The "implosion" is happening on another plane of existence in that case, one of the Confluence planes for elemental lore (or Balefire and demonology), and what is being sucked out is streaming into our world. Instead of our atmosphere rushing into a vacuum of interplanar void, our plane is the vacuum compared to the elemental planes for those kinds of energies.

In theory the sorcerers would eventually suffocate the whole planet if they keep using these void implosions. But it would be nice to cause permanent harm to the world in other ways, allowing exotic energies from these hostile planes to pollute and corrupt our own reality. Focused implosion in the inverted case would hit with an intense elemental/balefire blast.

More or less the same thing that happens here, except with more violent imagery: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0APF3SO9tqE)

>prep 416

You gesture and invoke the powers of the elements for the Piercing Gaze spell...

Your spell is ready.

>cast dome

You gesture at a large crystal dome.

The surface of the crystal dome shimmers in your vision, its reflective planes become insubstantial, and you can now see inside. Peering closer you see flashes of swirling elemental energy. Surely this dome must hold an immense amount of mana.

>prep 704

You begin drawing a faint, twisting symbol while softly intoning the words for Phase...

Your spell is ready.

>cast dome

You gesture at a large crystal dome.

Suddenly you notice the crystal dome's form dim slightly as it becomes insubstantial.

The interior of the dome begins to flash and spark as whatever was contained inside now has an easier way out. As you begin to pass into the dome, a wave of pure energy gushes forth, burning you with its intense heat!

... 55 points of damage!

Left arm incinerated. Unfortunate.

You are stunned for 10 rounds!

The surface of the dome returns to normal as if nothing happened.

Spell 725: Minor Summoning

I'm glad that these components are optional. I prefer the idea of a reckless sorcerer being able to "just do it" because "to hell with it." I would like it if demonology lore would unlock the ability to summon some of the nastier demons that are already coded. It would still be kind of limited since we do not have that many demons. I was playing back when we were promised that 725 would never be a sorcerer's familiar spell, so it has always kind of bothered me we cannot summon combat demons with it when 750 does not exist. Maybe even some way of taking control of a wild demon.


Spell 730: Animate Dead

I was not using this spell at all before, but will probably use it every hunt once I get used to it. I imagine I will also be using it for dead adventurer rescues. I still wish we had a way to make actual, Voln-hates-you undead instead of flesh puppets. Maybe 750 can become a Soulcraft spell where you mutilate essence/spirits into demonic and undead entities depending on your demonology and necromancy lore (again, like that dome in the Broken Lands. Or the theory lore for the verlok demons.) The corpse explosion is interesting. It reminds me of the hazards of making lightning spiders...

I've mentioned this before, but I think stuffing a cursed soul into a corpse with a soulstone (sacrifice channel?) instead of a gem would make a poor man's "undead animate" and not de novo undead, and the mechanical difference might just be duration but with the thing trying to break free of your control. You let it run free into the countryside at the end instead of dropping like a meat sack.


Spell 740: Planar Shift

Neat. I'm not sure about making that risk happen with 725 (safety was its propaganda value) unless maybe you're using it in a reckless way, but I do think 720 could stand to have the monster-from-outer-space risk as well. The more powerful the tear, the more powerful the thing that can come out, whether demon or elemental or whatever else. Also 710, if we could amplify it, as I suggested earlier.


- Xorus' player

>So if we ever get a spell 750. It MUST be useful for both demonologists and necromancers. It should not favor one or the other (even though the rest of our circle heavily favors necro lore). (KOOLED)

Earlier in the week a few people told me they were beginning to think a demon-focused 750 was coming, perhaps Major Summoning, because the other updates were so necromancy focused. It would balance out the profession and provide a tough choice if 750 favored demonology. As things stand right now, I believe 750 should be useful for both demonologists and necromancers while favoring demon lore. It doesn't seem like anything is on the radar though.

Perhaps I should push the issue back a little farther and ask: In Gemstone design overall, is it desirable to provide tough choices and create differentiated training paths in individual professions? Are there professions where this is currently the case? It seems to be true of wizards from what I know but I only really pay attention to sorcerers.

I'm very impressed with this set of releases. There are now more choices to be made in training that differentiate one sorcerer from another. It was good to increase power in ways other than simply upping damage output. I really welcome the sacrifice/730 changes in particular, and 710 was a welcome surprise for my elemental lore training. Thank you to everyone involved.

===Curse of the Star===
I personally would've traded it all to have curse of the star apply to physical AS in some way. I know swinging pures aren't really a focus, but all other pures all have persistent physical AS boosters. If there are issues balancing it, maybe make it short-lived with lore-based duration, or a 0 default boost that only scales up with lores. It could be:

* Included in Curse of the Star
* Curse of the Moon. Uses religion lore - Arkati are associated with moons, right?
* Curse of the Flame. Uses fire lore.
* Cursed Fortune. Uses blessing lore.

===Teamwork?===
The way I read The Undead War lore, it supports the idea of sorcerers pooling their powers into one huge effect, like an implosion to suck up an entire fortress or summoing lesser demons. I'd enjoy it if, e.g., one sorcerer creates an open void and other sorcerers cast 720 at it to strengthen it. Even if it weren't very practical in day-to-day hunting, it could be fun for roleplay, desperate situations, etc.

Last night I got some black ora stuck on my hand, and I thought how it is a little odd that the cursing profession cannot handle unholy things, other than what we curse ourselves. It would make sense for the spell to do things specific to the undead as well as open the Graveyard gate. It seems like getting hit with a cursed weapon (or staff) should also somehow be worse than being hit with an ordinary weapon. Especially since it interferes with other item enhancing spells that are useful.

Say it defaults to a poison that makes the blood or other body aspects corrosive, but it can flare some nasty effects instead (using the curse caster's CS for connecting) varying with other spells from the 700 list that we tie to the curse. Others take the same risk of being hit by it when initially handling the weapon.

Curse has always felt like something with a lot of depth potential that is not being fully realized as a Level 15 spell. In principle a whole curse spell list could exist without being repetitive. I'm never using its old cantrips, and if anything, a direct cast should do something much nastier. Maybe curse power could unlock immunity to the hand stuck effect? The ability to absorb the curse into yourself, so you do not need outside help to uncurse things? Perhaps it could make the undead attack each other.

- Xorus' player

---

>A monastic lich points a skeletal finger at you and exclaims, "Your soul is forfeit!"

Had a dream last night that Kaldonis summoned a lithe black abyran'ra in the streets of Illistim (don't know what my character was doing there...I think my sub-conscious just wants to summon demons in the Elven Nations) from a failed Planar Shift. Obviously my character was dead, and the being was tromping around town causing general mayhem. A pair of characters came to get me, and I asked to be drug outside town for the raise. Tended me up, but the resurrection failed very badly; my brain decided that because the cleric forgot to Well-of-Life first, then the cleric should die in a backlash, but I suppose you can infer the point. No one else would rescue my character since by this time it was known to be my fault. To pass the remaining time I just watched my deathbot scroll from the demon's rampage (which the game feed would oridinarily be fine for, but mine has a very small area, and I didn't tweak it to automatically handle all the new messages).

After decaying, I had to use my FWI transporter as fast as possible to avoid arrest (and my usual difficulty getting my cloak out of the jailbox). Then I did a cross-realm shift from FWI to somewhere like River's Rest and let someone else clean up the mess.

PS: Is there any reason that failing a Planar Shift should have to happen before the cast and not after? Like, why can't a savage demon pop out at the other end along with us? Granted, I'd probably be the one cursing the feature the most since it means there's a risk not only shifting out of town (which I already avoid) but also into town. It could be an entirely separate failure (demon just pops out, but sorcerer is not harmed).

---

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>Daid: Pretty sure you have a whole big bucket as your penny jar. You never have only two cents. :p

>>PS: Is there any reason that failing a Planar Shift should have to happen before the cast and not after? Like, why can't a savage demon pop out at the other end along with us? Granted, I'd probably be the one cursing the feature the most since it means there's a risk not only shifting out of town (which I already avoid) but also into town. It could be an entirely separate failure (demon just pops out, but sorcerer is not harmed). - Daid

>Dude. The failure should totally prevent the sorcerer from traveling, but still pop out a demon on the other end of the rift. So you'd be standing unharmed in Icemule saying, "Aww, that was disappointing..." while a massive slavering monster eats all the startled inhabitants of Ta'Vaalor before they can even say "Where did that come fr--AAAAAAAHHHH!!" - Dave

Well, I was more envisioning a different failure. As long as the update to 740 was just making it more dangerous for our lolz. But yeah, I'm fine with the failure where the demon pops out at the other side without you. It should be a more minor failure; after all, why should I care if someone else is getting munched on by a lesser demon. How can the target town even charge me for demonic summoning unless the abyran'ra is carrying a rusty doorknob with my name on it?

---

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>Daid: Pretty sure you have a whole big bucket as your penny jar. You never have only two cents. :p

We've been looking at this all wrong guys. Why would we want to control the demonic anyway?

All we have to do is bring them here! They already KNOW what needs to be done...

---

>Professor Frink: "You’ve got to listen to me! Elementary Chaos Theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok, in an orgy of blood and kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving."
>Lab Technician: "How much time do we have, professor?"
>Professor Frink: "Well, according to my calculations, the robots won’t go berserk for at least twenty-four hours..."
*whirl choke gurgle*
>Professor Frink: "... oh, I forgot to, uh, carry the one."

KOOLED:

Spell 725: Minor Summoning

The changes are amazing. Could you look into making allowing/disallowing following into town, town specific? In icemule demons are fine, but I still have to allow demons to let them in. The issue is that if I go to the landing, ohh I have the follow into town set, and I get fined.

I have already been working on some changes to address this problem. I am changing the logic such that demons will only stop if the town does NOT allow demons or if you do NOT have the correct permit to bring your demon into town. You will still have to toggle the TOWN setting on/off in these situations. However, if the town allows demons or if you have the right permits, your demon will follow along without any trouble. The same logic will apply to any demon action that may cause it to enter a town, for example RETURN, DELIVER and FOLLOW. The code change is currently in QC and should be ready for release soon. I greatly appreciate your patience, please hang in there a few more days. My apologies for the fines that you have already incurred. Please let me know if you have any other concerns.

-GameMaster Cyraex

>Today was the last release we had scheduled for the Sorcerer Spell Circle Review. We feel these updates bring a lot of their spells up to standards and promotes additional training in their lores. I would be interested in hearing any post release reviews and any other ideas you may have.

The AD changes are not good, as I laid out elsewhere. Necromancy lore is too unimportant. Rather than encourage training in necromancy, the changes has discouraged it, at least where 730 is concerned, that isn't good.

1. I am dismayed by the lack of damage modifiers being added for regular 702/705. Though the things both spells got are nice.
2. I am dismayed by the lack of a change to DC (ahem, chain reaction DC, or something). The lore implementation it has is pretty poor all told.

>Or fine, offer up our 50th level spell slot to be used unnecessarily....(ASPEN)

My point in the post you cite is that I believe the sorcerer circle review should have included more balance between demonology and necromancy lore benefits. The changes were so necromancy focused that several people said to me that they were convinced a "demon-focused 750 was coming, perhaps Major Summoning." Again, I am saying that people other than myself reasonably believed a major demonology benefit was in the works because the rest of the circle review was so heavily slanted toward necro. I thought one was likely myself but not necessarily Major Summoning (750). In the end, there was no major demonology benefit.

Two sentences later in the same post I write, "As things stand right now, I believe 750 should be useful for both demonologists and necromancers while favoring demon lore. It doesn't seem like anything is on the radar though."

In this thread, I talk a little more about 750:

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Sorcerers/Developer%27s%20Corner%20-%20Sorcerers/thread/1724860?get_newest=true

I suggest at one point that 750 could be a major summoning that draws out both demons and spirits depending on lore training. Like 325, this could be a spell with a range of effects beyond producing a combat pet. Farther down in that same thread I offer a suggestion where 750 will allow sorcerers to trespass into other valences with various potential effects.

I honestly don't think we'll see 750 anytime soon if ever. I would also wager that an eventual 750 will have nothing to do with any of my suggestions.

GS4-CYRAEX:

I have already been working on some changes to address this problem. I am changing the logic such that demons will only stop if the town does NOT allow demons or if you do NOT have the correct permit to bring your demon into town. You will still have to toggle the TOWN setting on/off in these situations. However, if the town allows demons or if you have the right permits, your demon will follow along without any trouble. The same logic will apply to any demon action that may cause it to enter a town, for example RETURN, DELIVER and FOLLOW. The code change is currently in QC and should be ready for release soon. I greatly appreciate your patience, please hang in there a few more days. My apologies for the fines that you have already incurred. Please let me know if you have any other concerns.

These updates to 725 - Minor Summoning just went live a few minutes ago. I hope these changes help alleviate some of the concerns that were expressed in this thread.

-GameMaster Cyraex

Did the bug with gems not working get fixed?

Thanks Estild. I think Kaldonis in Plat has one of those rattles ferreted away (oops, did I just say that out loud?), and I'm sure others will appreciate these changes, too.

>Not yet. But just as a note, gems do work. It just doesn't happen to update the AS calculation under some scenarios.

Right, it works...just not all the time.

---

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>Daid: Pretty sure you have a whole big bucket as your penny jar. You never have only two cents. :p