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Corruption in Conan Exiles is never fun to deal with. When you first see that purple mist and see your health dropping, its easy for panic to set in. Today I’m going to be teaching you what corruption is, where it comes from, and most importantly how to remove it! Grab your journal and your sword Exile, for difficult times are ahead.
What is Corruption?
Conan Exiles Corruption is a status effect you’ll most often encounter around Obelisks, or in areas full of valuable treasures, interesting lore and often terribly strong enemies. Even worse, corruption can be inflicted by enemy attacks too, meaning that getting caught in certain enemy packs can stack quite a lot of corruption on you fairly quickly.
The most common source of corruption you’ll encounter is from corrupted areas, such as the aforementioned obelisks that allow you to fast travel around The Exiled Lands. In these areas, you’ll notice a purple frame around your screen and a debuff notice below your health stating that you’re “gaining corruption”.
Whilst this debuff is active, you’ll gain corruption at the rate of 1 point per 5 seconds. Not too bad if you just happen to run past, but if you’re there for any extended period of time, things can get troublesome quickly.
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What exactly does corruption do though? Well, corruption will reduce your health and stamina, slowly replacing the respective red and yellow bars with a new purple bar that will cap your health and stamina. This effect continues to grow throughout your exposure to the corruption until it maxes out at 50% of your health & stamina.
That’s right, two of your most important resources will be cut in half. If you’re a tank build with tonnes of health and stamina, this debuff will make you far less flexible and less able to play your role, but if you’re playing a glass cannon with low health, you’re very much in the danger zone, especially if you’re fighting bosses which could easily one shot you from half health.
You can see these indicators in the image below, and also the max cap, where the debuff icon & purple frame is now gone to indicate you are no longer receiving more corruption.
Obviously, the consequences of this can be disastrous, and staying on top of your corruption is incredibly important. The debuff you gain from having any significant amount of corruption can cripple your ability to play efficiently regardless of what you’re doing.
Having such a heavy cap on two of your most valuable resources will make any form of challenging combat even more difficult. Whilst fighting Shalebacks, Hyenas or Crocodiles, you’ll likely not even notice that your health or stamina has been cut in half, especially if you’re already a high levelled character.
However if you find yourself fighting tough enemies, world bosses or even dungeon bosses such as The Witch Queen or The King Beneath, you’ll find yourself severely handicapped. Not only will you be at a much higher risk of dying due to having your health cut in half, but you’ll find there is far less leeway should you over-commit to an attack.
Whereas before you might have been able to swing three attacks and roll out of the next multi-hit combo, the severe reduction in stamina might leave you exhausted, unable to dodge the incoming flurry of hacks and slashes.
Corruption builds slowly, but the threat it presents should not be underestimated at all, especially in the more difficult fights that present themselves towards the end game.
See also: Conan Exiles Alchemical Base Guide
How Do I Deal with Corruption?
Fortunately, there are a few different ways you can deal with Conan Exiles corruption. The most common solution you’ll see, and a must-have feature in your base, is an Entertainer Thrall. These thralls can be found in NPC camps all across the Exiled Lands and The Isle of Siptah, and quite simply, they’ll dance for you.
Whilst watching them, you’ll find that your corruption will slowly drain, allowing you to slowly get rid of the corruption that has been plaguing you. This effect will be shown on your Buff Bar as “Entertained” and “Losing Corruption”, at which point you’ll be able to see your corruption bars dropping on your HUD.
Thralls at Tier 2 and above also grant a health regeneration effect to fill the health you’ve lost from corruption. These effects vary in strength depending on the tier of entertainer thrall you have. Whilst taking in the beautiful splendour of the interpretive (and often somewhat bizarre) dance of your thralls, you’ll see your corruption drain like so:
- Tier 1 Thrall: – No health regen, 5 Corruption Removal per second
- Tier 2 Thrall: – Average Health Regen, 7.5 Corruption Removal per second
- Tier 3 Thrall: – Better Health Regen, 10 Corruption Removal per second
- Tier 4 (Named) Thrall: – Best Health Regen, 12 Corruption Removal per second
Dancers are definitely the best low-intensity way of clearing your corruption debuff. Tier 3 and Tier 4 Named Thralls can be hard to knock out & break in the early game, but they’re worth the investment. Currently there are two named Entertainer Thralls in the game, named Barnes of Asura and Lianeele.
Barnes is a Zamorian Entertainer that can rarely be found in Sinner’s Refuge, a sizeable cave in the southern desert, he has roughly a 12% chance to spawn, and also has a chance to drop pieces of the Asura armour set.
Lianeele is a Cimmerian Entertainer that can be found very rarely at Stargazer’s Crest (North of Map Square C11, 1% chance), in the Mounds of the Dead (Map Square A11, 3% chance), or in a Cimmerian Berserker Purge (North-west quarter of the map, 8.1% spawn chance per wave).
Finding either named thrall relies on a good bit of luck, so don’t be afraid to settle for a Tier 3 thrall, the difference in health regen and corruption removal would only result in a small amount of time saved.
Don’t have the time or resources to find and break an Entertainer Thrall? No problem, head over to The City of Sepermeru on the west side of the map and find Conan in the tavern, where you’ll also find three conveniently placed Dancers, ready to remove your corruption and regenerate your health.
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Entertainer Thralls are all fine and good, but what about when you’re out and about, trawling through the dungeons, only to realize your corruption has skyrocketed? Well fortunately there are some portable solutions for dealing with this hefty debuff. The first and cheapest method is by drinking a Cleansing Brew.
This fancy little beverage can be crafted at a stove as long as you have Specialist Cooking III unlocked from reading a book found in the Mounds of the Dead. The drink requires one Yellow Lotus Blossom, and one Herbal Tea (1 Purified Water, 1 Aloe Leaves, 5 Plant Fiber). This method will reduce your corruption by 5% of your max HP before corruption.
See also: Conan Exiles Aloe Guide
Lets say you have 700 health and you drink one of these brews, you’ll find it will remove 35 points of Corruption, 7 seconds worth of time stood in a corrupted area. This isn’t a massive amount, but it can be used to stave off small amounts of corruption and stop a small annoyance becoming a bigger issue further down the line.
Another option, more powerful but somewhat harder to attain, is by consuming the Heart of a Hero. Yes, you have to eat a heart. These are wild times we’re living in. The Heart of a Hero is acquired by killing mini-bosses in The Unnamed City.
These fights aren’t too hard if you’re decent at combat, but if you’re still struggling to fight off other mini bosses and strong NPC’s, you may find this method isn’t easy to sustain. Fortunately, if you’re comfortable, there are plenty of mini-bosses in The Unnamed City just waiting to be slaughtered.
There is a total of 8 human mini-bosses that will drop the heart, each of which has 1120 health, not too much if you already have some decent armour and weapons. The mini-bosses also have a chance to drop Legendary Weapon or Armour repair kits, which you’ll find extremely useful in the end game.
The other downside is that the Heart of a Hero can be sacrificed at Hanuman’s Grotto to receive either Hanuman’s Gift, a potion that grants random status effects, or the Boon of the Silverback, a gorilla pet that some players may want to attain beforehand.
Fortunately, the chance to get the pet is reasonable at 20%, so if you already have it, you can chow down on that heart to remove all of your corruption. Tasty.
The final way to clear your corruption is by wearing Champion’s Leggings, a piece of legendary armour that can be crafted after attaining the feat by interacting with a tablet in a hallway near the Arena Champion boss in the Warmaker’s Sanctuary dungeon.
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The difficult part is that Warmaker’s Sanctuary is probably one of the hardest dungeons in the game, and the Arena Champion is particularly difficult to fight. The leggings require 20 Armor Scraps to craft, which can only drop from The Arena Champion or Champion of the Warmaker, both of which are very strong bosses within the dungeon.
The Champion’s Set is a pretty good suit of heavy armour with decent stat bonuses with 40 heat & cold resist, +3 Grit and+2 Strength, and also some additional passive effects on most of the pieces. However, the Champion’s Leggings will only remove one point of Corruption every 30 seconds.
Its fine for removing small bits of corruption, but if you find yourself heavily corrupted, you’re gonna have to do a lot of standing around and waiting, making these leggings not a great choice.
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FAQs – Conan Exiles Corruption
Question: I Can’t Find Any Entertainer Thralls, What Should I Do?
Answer: We’ve all been there, searching for a specific thrall that just refuses to show up. Unfortunately its just bad luck, as it just happens that the thrall you’re looking for hasn’t spawned, has been killed by wildlife, or has been captured by someone else.
If you’re in desperate need to clean your corruption, make your way to Sepermeru to clear it. Keep trying though, you’ll find yourself an Entertainer thrall soon!
Question: I’m Fairly New to the Game, How Do I Know Where I’ll Get Corruption?
Answer: There are numerous ways to gain corruption in Conan, even certain enemies and bosses will cause corruption if they hit you with an attack. However, the most obvious way to spot a corrupted area is by the purple mist that covers the area.
It’s instantly recognizable and will let you know that the area covered by the mist will give you corruption.
Question: What’s the Most Efficient Way to Clear Corruption?
Answer: In my opinion, and it seems to be the general consensus, the best thing to do is invest in finding a decent Entertainer thrall, Tier 2 or above. If you want to be really efficient, put your entertainer near your chests!
Most of the times you enter your base you’ll be heading over to the chests to put items in storage, so you’ll be cleaning any corruption and regenerating health whilst you put your loot away!
In Conclusion
Corruption can be a crippling debuff that can turn what should be an easy dungeon run into a nightmare of death and despair. There are multiple ways to deal with a build up of corruption, both on the go and back at home.
My personal recommendation is to invest some time and gruel into breaking some decent entertainer thralls so you can clear your corruption when you get home.
Plan your dungeon runs ahead of time, if you know you’re likely to pick up a decent bit of corruption then take a Heart of a Hero with you. Generally speaking though, a good entertainer thrall in your base will provide all the corruption-cleaning services you could ever need.
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