1.9 and what it means for Sorcerers.

Or rather, what it means for sorcewrens.

1. A two-handed weapon combining system has been implemented.
This. Is. Sexy. I`m sad I opted for a betoni`s jewel instead of tome now. I just got my fenris`s tome a week or so ago. That`s okay though, I`ll work toward the lvl 30 pvp tome to combine it to my fenris now.
Points about the system:

• The main two-handed weapon’s item level must be higher than or equal to the secondary two-handed weapon’s item level. The two weapons must also be the same type.
• Basic stats: 20% of the secondary weapon’s basic attack power and 20% of its magic boosting power are added to the main weapon. However, stats that are lower on the secondary weapon are not changed.
• Option: The secondary weapon’s options are added to the main weapon. When both the main and the secondary weapons have attack speed, casting speed, and increasing options, only the higher value number will be applied.
• Manastone slots: The secondary weapon’s manastone slots are added to the main weapon. If a secondary two-handed weapon is combined while manastones are socketed in it, the manastones will be transferred to the main weapon along with the slots.

2. Strengthening armor with an enchantment stone results in an increase in physical defense in addition to HP and physical critical resistance rate bonuses.
A reason to ++ our cloth armor now. Woohoo? More money, oy.

3. Magical critical hit effects, which only applied during an ordinary magic attack, will now also apply to class skills. Items that already have a magic critical hit proc will now match the new magic critical hit standard.
So now magic crit isn`t broken in the game. This is interesting. I wonder if there will be manastones for it. In Lineage 2, the most sought after jewelries for nukers had magic crit on them. Will that be the case here? Most of the higher level jewelries do not have magic crit stats on them, but if they release a craft for jewelry that enhances magic crit I believe I would be hard pressed to trade out my lvl 50 AP jewelry for it. The stats would have to be significantly better to beat out the pvp bonuses.

Click to see the Beluslan Angry Face

4. Physical critical hit decreasing & defense / magic critical hit decreasing & defense stats have been added to decrease the rate of critical hit damage incurred during physical / magic attacks.
That`s a mouthful. Basically there are four more stats being added: Phys. crit rate down, phys. crit defense, mag. crit rate down, and mag. crit defense. Which will be more effective, crit rate down or crit defense? Over-enchanting your armor gives you physical crit resistance which I read as defense. Really interesting, but I can`t see myself stacking any of it. If it`s on some armor I have, great! If not, oh well. Phys. crit rate only really targets leather wearers and archers` traps; I myself would not specialize myself to be an anti-leatherer, that only includes two classes! The magic effects five of the eight classes though (SMs don`t have nukes, so unless DoTs crit and the crit carries over into DoTs…) so it may be more useful.

5. Item and manastone bonuses now also affect the stats of the character’s summoned spirits, traps, and energy.
Well clerics are already a pain in the butt to kill, and usually when I face them I end up curled in a ball on the ground beneath my wings. Summons are mostly melee yes but their skills are magic based, so their skills will hurt more. Luckily there`s an easy solution to pets who are on automatic control: run them out of range of the SM.

6. All stigma stones types can now be purchased from the Stigma Seller located in the large cities.
LOL. There`s no words for how awesome this little bit is. Wooooo.

7. The Sorcerer’s “Boon of Iron-Clad” skill has been restricted so that it now blocks a maximum of 5,000 damage.
This is an unnecessary nerf. 5,000 dmage can be quickly and easily dealt, and the skill didn`t even block magic attacks beforehand. Why nerf?

8. The Sorcerer’s “Boon of Peace” skill cooldown time has been reduced from five to two minutes. The enmity reduction has been slightly adjusted.
Well this is helpful for things like Anuhart, Lannok, Alukina, ect. I`d imagine the enmity adjustment is to make it so a little less enmity is erased.

9. Monsters affected by fear or sleep will no longer be as angered by a players healing or buffing their allies.
Crap. lol.

10. The new skills.
Lv40 stun break – removes all stun, knockback, knockdown, rotation, air shackle effects and boosts them by 1000 for 7 secs. stage 1 combo.
Target – self
cast time – instant
cooldown – 1 min
mp cost – 81
activation chance- 100%
Goodbye to constant stun-lock, yes? The best is yet to come…

Lv48 rift jump – teleports 30m forward. stage 2 combo.
stun break->rift jump
Target – selected
cast time – instant
cooldown – 1 min
mp cost – 83
This gives you a chance to get away from the target, say if you`re in mass or group pvp. I like to call Blind Leap my “Stop looking at me!” skill since it erases the enemy`s target. Hopefully this does as well.

Lv53 curse:dead tree – polymorphs target within 10m into an old tree for 20 secs. stage 2 combo.
stun break->curse:dead tree
Target – selected
cast time – instant
cooldown – 3 min
mp cost – 281
This one I see being better for one v one or small scale pvp. The instant cast time is delicious!

11. New stigmas. (This is 2.0 stuff, and I`m only showing flame spray tree)
Lv52 Thunderbolt – inflicts 1004 wind dmg + stun to target within 25m.
Target – selected
cast time – instant
cooldown – 2.5 min
mp cost – 405
prereq – ice sheet, zikel’s wisdom
Mmm! Another highish damage instant cast. And it stuns too! This is great imo, especially if you can time it to use after the enemy uses his Break Stun skill. Also hopefully it will help us against clerics. Good thing they are giving us 2 more quickbars!

Lv55 Frost strike – inflicts 4492 water dmg to target within 25m.
Target – selected
cast time – 4 sec
cooldown – 1 min
mp cost – 1194
prereq – flame spray, Frost strike
This would be the third installment in our big damage series, starting with Inferno, then Flame Spray, and now this. Frost Strike will have it`s advantages in being water damage, a one-minute cooldown, and the highest base damage of all three of our big booms.

12. More skills for 51+.
I don`t know if these are stigmas or skills, 1.9 or 2.0, but they`re out there.
Lv51 Boost magic crit resist – increases magic crit rate resistance.
Target – passive
Well this is good.

Lv51 Magic iceblade – inflicts 255 water dmg and absorbs 40% of dmg done into mp.
Target – selected
cast time – 1 sec
cooldown – 3 sec
Low base damage, fast cast time, fast recast time, and 40% of the dmg is turned into MP. Not counting the boost it will get from m.boost on mobs, it`ll give 102 MP. Good for spamming when you`re low on mana, note the no MP cost.

Lv54 Life trade- swaps hp and mp values.
Target – self
cast time – instant
cooldown – 10 min
Think of this as either an instant ~11k heal or an instant ~7k MP. I really like it`s prospects for being a pvp heal.

Lv55 Magic boost – reduces cast speed by 10%, +300 mb, +300 macc, +100 mcrit for 1 min.
Target – self
cast time – instant
cooldown – 5 min
mp cost – 749
LOL delicious. It`s a suitable reward for hitting 55, although I don`t really favor the five-minute reuse timer. It will probably be something I forget to use, just like Aether Hold and Supplication of Focus. I`m so bad at that ><