Ensorcell

Ensorcell (735) is a spell that allows sorcerers to enhance the properties of weapons and armor, temporarily or permanently.

Official Description

(From GS4-COASE on 4/13/2013) 

Ensorcell allows sorcerers to enhance weapons, runestaves, shields, and armor by collecting and then infusing necrotic energy into them. Items may be either temporarily or permanently ensorcelled, with varying benefits depending on the nature of the item and the strength of the ensorcellment.

Temporary ensorcellment allows sorcerers (and sorcerers only) to gain temporary life channelling flares on their weapons and runestaves. Life channeling flares allow the beneficiary to absorb some built up necrotic energy and regain some of it as either health, mana, stamina, or spirit (depending on the nature of the attack and random chance). If the beneficiary of the flare is full on the resource that would otherwise be returned, they gain a temporary AS/CS bonus on their next attack. Non-sorcerers wielding temporarily ensorcelled gear may benefit while using it with certain maneuvers (see the related maneuver announcement for more details).

Permanent ensorcellment grants more widespread bonuses. There are 5 tiers of permanent ensorcellment. Shields and armor that are permanently ensorcelled provide the bearer with an +2 bonus to CvA. Weapons and runestaves that are permanently ensorcelled gain permanent life channelling flares (which, unlike the temporary flares, can also be used by non-sorcerers). The strength and frequency of the life channeling flares increase based on the tier of the ensorcellment (+5 AS or +3 CS per tier on the next attack within 30 seconds, with sorcerers gaining a free bonus tier). Training in Sorcerer Lore, Necromancy allows the sorcerer to retain this bonus for one extra attack at 90 ranks or two extra attacks at 180 ranks.

In order to permanently ensorcell an item, the sorcerer must first harvest enough necrotic energy to power the ensorcellment. This is done automatically via killing like-level creatures. A sorcerer can view their progress towards harvesting the amount needed to cast a permanent ensorcellment by casting 735 on themselves. This energy can be stored indefinitely, though there is both a weekly cap on the amount of necrotic energy that can be gained and an overall cap where no more can be stored. Training in Sorcerer Lore, Necromancy (Seed 1) allows for a greater amount of energy to be harvested per kill.

Once enough energy has been harvested, the sorcerer must past a skill check in order to successfully permanently ensorcell the item. If the check passes, the sorcerer transfers the requisite amount of necrotic energy into the item, which then gains an ensorcellment tier. If the check fails, the sorcerer loses 5% of the requisite amount of necrotic energy and may immediately try again, provided that they still possess enough harvested energy.

Primary factors involved in this check are level, Sorcerer Spell Ranks, Wisdom, and Intuition. Secondary factors are Elemental Mana Control Ranks, Spiritual Mana Control Ranks, Arcane Symbols Ranks, and Magic Item Use Ranks. There is a bonus to success if a permanent ensorcellment attempt is made in a magical workshop, and there are penalties for attempting permanent ensorcellment while wouded [sic].

Most weapons, runestaves, shields, and armor are able to accept an ensorcellment (provided they do not resist magic in general), though the difficulty of the skill check increases based on the item's exact properties. If the item is either an enhancive item or a holy item, it requires the use of a special tempering potion (which will become available via Alchemy in the near future) before any permanent ensorcellment may be attempted. All other items require no other components.

Life Channeling Flares

Runestaves flare about 15% of the time *when the caster is not already under an ensorcell acuity flare*, and only on a successful cast.  Despite the official documentation, there is no solid evidence (over several thousand trials) that flare frequency increases for higher ensorcell tiers.  Flares do not trigger on casts where the caster is benefiting from an acuity flare.

On ensorcelled runestaves, flares are predominantly health flares - they make up about 77.5% of all flares.  Mana flares come up about 17.5% of the time, and spirit flares trigger about 5% of the time.  

Health and mana flare amounts are tied to the ensorcell tier.  A T1 ensorcell (for a non-sorcerer) or temp ensorcell (for a sorcerer) gives 5 to 10 health or mana.  Each additional tier adds one point to the minimum amount and two points to the maximum amount (e.g., sorcerer with tier 4 ensorcell, 4 tiers above the bottom, gets back 9-18 health or mana).  Spirit flares are always for one spirit point.

Physical attacks flare about 25% of the time.  Physical life flares yield stamina instead of mana.

Flares only provide an acuity-like benefit if the caster is already maxed out on whatever resource it intended to give the caster.  Many pures expect to be at full health for most of their hunting, and thus should expect 85% of their flares to be acuity flares (90% of they always have full spirit, too).

A tier 5 ensorcell yields +15 CS or +25 AS on a flare (+18/+30 for a sorcerer).  Assuming a non-sorcerer, that average out to about +1.8 CS per successful cast, if they never get hurt.

A tier 5 ensorcell yields an average of 13.5 mana to a non-sorcerer (and 15 to a sorceer).  With that flare coming roughly once per 66 successful casts, that's somewhere between to 1x and 2x mana vial flares in total mana returned.

Flares do not occur on self-casts.

Getting more out of your life channeling flares

For physical attacks, swinger can consider the tainted bond combat maneuver, which gives one extra AS boost per acuity flare.

Ensorcell acuity flares are distinct from other flares in that they impact a future attack, rather than the current one. You can use that to your advantage if you are hunting with two or more spells of unequal power.  For instance, a sorcerer may be hunting with 702 and 717.  702 is cheap and does decent damage at medium endrolls.  717 is mana-intensive and generates an insta-kill on a roll of 175+.  The sorcerer hunting with both could use 702 until the acuity flare triggers, then switch to 717, thus employing the CS boost predictably where it is most needed.   In that way, you get more benefit from the flare than that approximately 1.9 CS average benefit that you would otherwise see.

90 ranks of necromancy gives sorcerers an extra acuity boost per acuity flare.  180 ranks provides another extra acuity boost.  It is a terrible idea to get 90 necromancy ranks just for the extra acuity flares - 1080 MTP for roughly 2 more CS (on an average cast with a tier 5 runestaff), compared to 128 MTP for 4 more sorcerer spells (and you won't even need that many if you're not 20+ ranks over your level in sorcerer spells).  However, it's a nice boost if you want to take advantage of the other aspects of necromancy as well (e.g. animate dead, pain infliction, faster necrojuice accrual).

Armor and Shield Ensorcellment

Armor and shield ensorcellement provides a 2 bonus to CvA (lower) per tier.  An ensorcelled shield opens up some maneuvers that are otherwise not available (spell cleave, spell thieve, spell parry).

Ensorcelling Difficulty

Most items can be permanently ensorcelled.  Anti-magic items (e.g. veil iron) are notable exceptions.  Holy items (sanctified, permablessed), enhancive items, and fusion items require pouring a special potion on the item before attempting the ensorcell.  The potion - an inky black potion - is only available via alchemy.  

Enhancive and holy items can be temporarily ensorcelled, but remember that this only benefits a sorcerer.

Casting in a workshop makes a significant difference - about 1.5 difficulty tiers (see below).  Private workshops are better than semi-private workshops (guild, house), which are better than public workshops.

Casting without full spirit brings a very large penalty.  Casting while encumbered or with minor injuries appears to bring no penalty.

Rough rule of thumb: enhancives providing +20 WIS or INT bonus bring down difficulty by about one tier.

Rough rule of thumb: if a sorcerer has the easiest difficulty messaging, that sorcerer will have at least a better than 50/50 chance at ensorcelling the next tier, and the following tier after that should not be out of the question.

For a concrete read on a particular item, a sorcerer may check ensorcelling difficulty by channeling 735 at the item once, and then just not channeling at it again within 30 seconds (so as not to make a permanent attempt).  This only works when the sorcerer actually has enough stored necrotic energy to do the permanent ensorcell.  Of course, it only says what the difficulty is for that sorcerer.

Difficulty levels

• Horribly unlucky
• Easy enough, barring bad luck
• Odds on your side
• More likely to succeed than not, but will need some luck
• Difficult, but possible
• Very difficult
• Nearly impossible
• Need a miracle
• Beyond your abilities

Some examples of what is practical to ensorcell (assuming a cast from a semi-private workshop, with a moderate amount of enhancives, and "reasonable" training and stats, except in the level 100 case):

Level 36 sorcerer

• 4x runestaff with acid flares - trivial at tier 1
• 4x wand-holding runestaff - difficult, but possible for tier 2
• 7x plain handwraps - odds are on your side

Level 61 sorcerer

• 7x otherwise plain items - trivial at tier 1.
• 6x items with a flare - trivial at tier 1.

• 10x perfect maul - very difficult at tier 1.

Level 100 sorcerer

• 10x HCP robes - trivial at tier 1.
• 8x VHCP brig - trivial at tier 1.
• 8x MCP leather - requires a miracle at tier 1.
• 10x perfect HCW - more likely to succeed than not at tier 2
• 10x perfect HCW lance - difficult but possible at tier 3

See http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?80647-I-checked-t1-ensorcell-difficulty-on-a-few-items/page16 for many more examples of ensorcell difficulty.  Note that these buckets represent multiple sorcerers with somewhat different training, so it's not fully consistent for purposes of comparison.

Ensorcell failures do no damage to the item or the sorcerer.  The failure drains the sorcerer of 5% of the necrotic energy that would have been drained on a successful ensorcell.

Gathering Necrotic Energy

With 0 ranks of necromancy, expect to kill about 850 like-leveled creatures to hit the weekly cap.

With 91 ranks of necromancy, expect to kill about 600 like-leveled creatures to hit the weekly cap.

Note that necrojuice bonus happens with tier 1 seed of necroranks, meaning it has diminishing returns.  28 ranks gives half of much of a collection bonus as 105 ranks.

The weekly cap of necrotic energy is good for one tier 1 ensorcell.  Add half a week for each tier past that (e.g. going from tier 3 to tier 4 takes 2.5 necroweeks worth of necrojuice).

There is an overall cap to the amount of energy you can store up.  It's something more than 3 weeks but less than 4 - probably right around 3.5.

What can/can't be ensorcelled

This section is incomplete.

Can

1. Weighted
2. Padded
3. Fusion (with potion)
4. Sancitified (with potion)
5. Flares
6. Perfect (does not seem to impact difficulty)
7. Ironwright flares (doesn't seem to impact difficulty)

Can't

1. Coraesine
2. Veil iron
3. Voln Armor
4. Zelnorn
5. Kroderine
6. Krodera

See Also

Krakiipedia Ensorcell (735)
Gemstone Sorcerer Spell List