NEWS: GM Auchand announced significant updates to Meteor Swarm (spell 525) and Sandstorm (spell 914), which are now live on the TEST Server. You can provide him with feedback via Discord.
Text of Discord Post follows:
GM Auchand
[Official] Sandstorm (914) and Meteor Swarm (525) Updates
on 08 Nov 2026 at 10:50AM
from the Official GemStoneIV Discord
on #forums/mechanics channel
Meteor Swarm and Sandstorm have been updated to function more capably in GS’s fast-paced combat landscape.
Meteor Swarm: I really wanted to preserve the awe-inspiring power of Meteor Swarm while also speeding up its damage-dealing potential. Often times, it felt like casting 525 resulted in an empty room where damage cycles were wasted.
Meteor Swarm is now a short, heavy barrage with a 60-second cooldown. When cast, every creature in your room must succeed a general MDR test or become Panicked. Three seconds later, meteors begin to pummel the area in 2 to 5 damage cycles, one every 3 seconds. At base, cycles hit 1d3 creatures, plus an additional creature per MOC breakpoints at 10, 30, 60, 101, 150 and 181 ranks. Outdoors, each hit deals fire or impact damage. Indoors, every hit deals crush damage. Creatures in nearby rooms without other players can be hit for half damage as meteors wreck the surroundings.
Elemental Lore – Earth can add up to 5 additional cycles at breakpoints (20, 50, 90, 150, and 200 ranks) for a maximum of 10 cycles.
Elemental Lore – Fire gives a chance to set your room ablaze, burning and potentially immolating creatures, when the barrage ends: 20% at 30 ranks, 50% at 75 ranks, and 100% at 150 ranks.
With 50 ranks of Elemental Lore – Water, EVOKE can turn Meteor Swarm into a hail of ice meteors that land right away with no 3 second pause, dealing piercing damage and adding Minor Water’s Soaked status. (The evoked version does not set the room ablaze.)
Sandstorm: this spell was kind of cool in the sense that you could build it up over time, but realistically, nothing in GS, even bosses, lasts long enough for Sandstorm to be all that useful. This change turns Sandstorm into a strong SMR with additional crowd control utility.
Sandstorm has been changed from a slow single-target spell to a multi-target instant attack. It hits 1d3 creatures at base, plus an additional creature per MOC breakpoints at 10, 30, 60, 101, 150 and 181 ranks. Each target must make an SMR test or take impact or unbalance damage. There is also a 50% chance that the target will be Blinded. Weather and climate in rooms affect the SMR power of the spell.
Elemental Lore – Earth raises the chance to blind by up to 40% (+10% at 10 ranks, +20% at 45, +30% at 110, +40% at 200.)
Elemental Lore – Air adds a chance to knock targets down (10% at 20 ranks, 20% at 76 ranks, 30% at 156 ranks.) Flying creatures can be knocked down upon achieving 50 ranks of Air Lore.
These changes are currently on the Test server. We are open to your feedback!
Direct Discord Link (Right click, copy link, and paste into Discord App if you don’t want to use the Discord web interface.)
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