Curse

Dante the Warlord · Nov 16, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

/signed /signed /signed

I love MMing and soul reaping is great. There have been so many nerfs to make mming less fun and effective, but it is still one of my favorite thing to do in GW.

Please let us have a little more fun ANET :-)

Ensign · Nov 16, 2007, 09:39 PM // 21:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

On the opposite, try to give Margrid splinter weapon+barrage and see how she casts splinter on all other party members but herself.

It really is amazing how much better than players heroes are with Splinter Weapon isn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I'll ask people to explain WHY they think it would break the MM build to remove SR from minions....maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like doing so would fix a lot of problems with very few drawbacks.

To clarify for everyone else - minion costs would necessarily be modified if Soul Reaping no longer triggered on minion deaths.

Carinae · Nov 16, 2007, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

To clarify for everyone else - minion costs would necessarily be modified if Soul Reaping no longer triggered on minion deaths.

Even if they don't change costs it would work, I think. It would just push the energy generation to the frontside, instead of allowing you to 'store' energy in minions via carefull usage of the timer.

For example:

You kill a mob of 10 monsters within 15 seconds. You get 3 SR hits plus another 3 hits when you raise the next 3 minions (assuming you are at the minion cap)

vs

Getting all 10 SR hits as the monsters die, and none thereafter.

The second example generates more energy and is more reliable. So, I'm not sure skill costs need to be adjusted, but maybe I've overlooked something.

blood4blood · Nov 16, 2007, 10:25 PM // 22:25

/signed

I've played necros since July '05, my very first character.

Saying SR has "always been broken" is just not true - it's a very good emgmt attribute, but that alone never got any necros groups in PvE or PvP back in the day. No one wanted N/E nukers because E/Me echo nukers were and are better at at it, and between ES and Inspiration, they had plenty of energy for double and triple echo'd meteor showers, exhaustion notwithstanding. No one wanted N/Mo healers because DF was and is a better primary for healers than SR. Warriors have always had adrenaline, better armor, and better melee skills, and Strength let them do lots more damage, so (sorry all you meleemancers) SR never really had any effect on a N/W's desirability as a tank or melee combative. As others have pointed out, Expertise is as good or better e-mgmt than SR anyway. Mesmers? Again, plenty of good e-mgmt and other useful skills (stances, anyone?) in Inspiration, and FC was generally better for an interrupter anyway (or a FC Me/Mo healer or rezmer, both popular at one time). This is not to say SR was ever bad - it was always good and a useful primary, as it should be. But no, SR was never a "broken" attribute until later on when Anet introduced skills and failed to account for their synergy with SR. If SR was truly overpowered as many claim, then why isn't everyone playing a N/x and using SR for e-mgmt?

That said, I think the nerf was silly and should be reversed because it was silly. Not because it's necessary - I do run out of energy a little more often when I'm being lazy about emgmt, but not to the point that it causes me problems. (Most PvE can be handled with longbow H/H C-spacebar anyway, regardless of what class one plays.) I just think Anet made a misguided move and should be willing to admit it & correct it.

Incidentally, if there's a class that's truly overpowered in the e-mgmt area right now, it's elementalist. Fire + ES plus a decent skill combo = constantly spamming spells as fast as they recycle, doing damage & self healing all at once, and never dropping below 40-50 energy.

Vinraith · Nov 16, 2007, 10:54 PM // 22:54

My main is a necro, so it pains me to say it, but I suspect that the "remove SR triggering from minions" angle is probably a good one. As mentioned, the cost of minions should be scaled back suitably, but the sheer abusability of SR is kind of crazy. Nothing makes that case better than Sab's 3 necro build (especially when I'm a fourth necro running a sympathetic build), which only gets even crazier when you have two humans (one of whom is playing a necro) bringing two copies of that build (for a 7 necro team).

Chthon · Nov 16, 2007, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

To clarify for everyone else - minion costs would necessarily be modified if Soul Reaping no longer triggered on minion deaths.

I'm not sure I believe that. I believe it would be necessary, oh yes. But I have a bad fear that's not what would happen. The poorly-thought-through, incomplete, and, frankly, half-assed skill price reductions we saw when the timer was implemented indicate, for me, that the devs are fatally lazy when it comes to offsetting the collateral damage from their nerfs. I fear we'd get the nerf -- no SR from minions -- without the offsetting buff -- seriously reduced minion prices. I also fear that the stupid timer would still be left in place.

I think, if the timer was totally removed, and if minion prices were reduced to 5's and 10's and maybe 15 for bone fiend (or maybe 10), then removing SR from minions altogether wouldn't be a bad thing. I just have zero confidence in the devs to actually do the buffs to offset the nerf. I strongly fear we'd end up with the worst of both worlds, so it's not a road I even want to start down.

I find the alternative of "minions trigger SR for their master ONLY" appealing as something that can't possibly be screwed up through dev laziness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

There is no reason N/Rts should remain - anything that is just as effective with Heroes as Humans goes against the point of player skill in a game.

With this, at least, I agree. I think trying to leave them "weakened, yet viable" was a huge mistake on the part of the devs, and I really resent how the rest of us necromancer players have had to pay the price for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

No human MM can compete with a hero, because there's no minion management interface for a human, whereas a hero is every time perfectly aware of the status of it's minion and can precisely target each of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Your concept of MMing is very skewed. I run rings around hero MMs, I know a few others here at Guru do the same. Hero MMs only excel at JB/DN, so don't run those on a human MM. Fiends+OoU is the money ticket.

I'm with Carinae here. The AI is only good at running minion bombers. (Which it does do better than any human.) It's skill usage is far too poor to run a real minion master build passably, much less well. I guarantee you that Carinae, among many others, really could run rings around anything you could get a hero to do using her(his?) OoU build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

At this point in your post, it's so blatantly clear that you don't actually understand the issue at hand that your argument loses all steam instantly to any seriously seasoned player.

I think I may be unwisely going against Ensign's advice here, but I'm going to respond to your post. First of all, thank you for the insult; I'll treasure it.

Quote:

Back in the day, literally over a year and a half ago, before many of you played (I would speculate), nearly every even slightly-above-average player was upset at how incredibly overpowered Soul Reaping was.

Really? Over a year and a half ago everyone thought that SR was overpowered? Can you give me a link to a single post complaining about it from back then? How about two? I went looking for them when people made this same claim back when the timer was introduced, and I could only find ONE post expressing that position. I really don't think you can support your claim here, and I challenge to to try.

Or, like Verek said,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Verek

If you are going to make a statement like the above please provide links or evidence rather than blowing hot air out of your arse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

There was a bug with Jagged Bones that made it so that you could cast it without a target and it would automatically cast Jagged Bones on the nearest minion,

Feature, not bug.

Quote:

It's really completely unnecessary to remove the Soul Reaping timer. Though I couldn't at this moment offer any suggestions for exploits, I can absolutely guarantee that if it were changed, the moment the restrictions on the attribute were lifted would see people searching very hard for a way to once again spawn infinite energy using this mechanic.

Bullshit. The reason you can't state an exploit removing the timer would make viable is because there isn't one. As I explained in the OP, and as Jayce more than patiently explained to you again, ALL of the mechanics that allow you to "manufacture" infinite deaths have been accounted for and nerfed. You can't get infinite energy through SR without infinite deaths, and this last update has removed the LAST way to manufacture infinite deaths.

As they say, you need to "put up or shut up." Post a specific infinite energy exploit that un-timered SR would enable, or quit insisting that one exists out there somewhere and we're all idiots for not seeing it. Or, again, as Verek puts it:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Verek

If you are going to make a statement like [that] please provide... evidence rather than blowing hot air out of your arse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

I would also just like to respond to your comments on e-management. As a Monk, I would think that you most certainly would know that there are more class specific e-management skills available to Necro than for Monk,

Ahem... There are 7 e-management skills for the necro -- 3 elites, 1 that requires a corpse, 1 that requires a half-dead foe, 1 that only works for life sacrifices, and 1 PvE-only skill. There are 12 e-management skills for the monk, including 5 elites and 1 PvE-only skill. How exactly is 7 "more" than 12?

Sha Noran · Nov 17, 2007, 12:03 AM // 00:03

I'm really not a fan of making those massive posts where you quote each comment directed at you individually and make your reply; they tend to be too long and egotistical. If I fail to respond to someone who was trying to converse with me, I apologize.

Firstly, there are a few things which some of you have tried to turn into an argument which are simply not debatable. If you would like to feel that I am wrong, it won't bother me, but please do not waste my time disagreeing with the following:

-You are supposed to use your secondary class for e-management, among countless other things.
-Necros have better e-management available in their primary than Monks.
-Soul Reaping has been an issue for a long, long time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

ah but the paradox is for SoLS to be truly effective you have to put quite a few points into SR.

I personally max it out so i get 10e...but then im also getting 15e(?) off every death...it becomes almost pointless.

This is not a paradox, this is bad attribute allocation. SoLS is an incredibly effective energy management tool, and it works well with the same investment in Soul Reaping as average (9 or greater).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Str0b0

Not every class has the huge energy cost associated with many necro spells. Saying "Watch your bar" or "Learn e-management" doesn't take into account that necros have no core e management skills and no pool buff like ele's do. Yeah with GoLE and e storage ele's can afford to cast multiple 15-25e spells at a time.

Your post just happened to specifically mention something that's been floating around in this thread that I can safely assert is false. As Necromancer's, many of you express jealousy of Energy Storage. I find this funny, because Soul Reaping is impossibly better than Energy Storage, which may actually be the worst Primary Attribute in the game. While most primaries either help you spend less energy over time (Expertise, Soul Reaping) or allow you to get more bang for your buck (Leadership, Divine Favor), Energy Storage just gives you a massive energy pool and doesn't directly help you with the large cost of the class' spells.

Also, on that note, almost every class has those huge, Timmy-esque spells/skills that cause energy problems for the user, so don't try to use that as a reason why Necros suddenly need infinite energy forever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Can you give me a link to a single post complaining about it from back then? How about two? I went looking for them when people made this same claim back when the timer was introduced, and I could only find ONE post expressing that position. I really don't think you can support your claim here, and I challenge to to try.

Oh yeah man, since the search on these forums is really reliable. I'm not going to cite sources for common knowledge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

There was a bug with Jagged Bones that made it so that you could cast it without a target and it would automatically cast Jagged Bones on the nearest minion,

Feature, not bug.

Lol, thanks Gaile. Actually, that was a bug that got fixed way, way after they had already taken a dump on Soul Reaping and had destroyed Jagged Bones as a viable skill.

Finally, those of you claiming that there is no possible Soul Reaping infinite energy exploit that could be used now that the spirit issue is fixed are clearly unaware of how the PvP Necro meta evolved to get to where it was. I would cite IWAY as a potential problem, but the game has evolved geometrically since that was standard, and with the recent player-pets-don't-give Soul Reaping, that just can't happen the same way again. Many of you have focused the discussion on minions, but frankly, that's not a problem either. With the sort of imba shit that they just allow to happen in PvE, I really don't think they care how much energy you're getting back in 15 seconds, and furthermore I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter.

That said, if you would like a mental picture of what might happen if Soul Reaping were let off it's chain once more, I invite you to take a trip down memory lane with me to just before Halls was changed (the first time, lulz) from 8v8 to 6v6. Just before the change, the one build that completely dominated everything in Halls to the point of q.q'ing and demanding some type of fix was BLOOD SPIKE. That's right, Blood Spike. Anyone else remember that or am I talking to myself?

Iirc, the build consisted of 7 Necros and 1 Ranger. Yes, the Ranger was an Oath Shot spirit guy, and yes he provided some bonus energy that was nice, but his primary job was defense; bringing a primary Ranger was the only way to ensure that Fertile and Symbiosis would remain up in holding situations.

The real core basis of the Blood Spike builds that really dominated everyone was the energy return on every kill. Shadow Strike-->Vamp Gaze became only ~7 total spent energy for a kill, allowing for an incredible amount of secondary healing support (most of the elites in this build were from the Necro's Monk secondary) and also permitting the caller to call a new spike every four seconds if desired. Toss in at least a Blood Ritual (but more likely a Blood Is Power, as no elites are required for this spike) and you can literally use skills forever and never run out of energy.

And that was just then, when the skill list was only one or two campaigns long. Now, I can easily fashion a very broken build relying heavily on Soul Reaping (with a BIP probably thrown in to make it completely impossible to lose) that has tremendous spike potential and a huge amount of secondary healing. Necro spike builds still have a great deal of power (ever heard of those Icy Veins+Augury of Death spikes?), and to release Soul Reaping to it's original form would give them back the infinite energy engine they need to be unstoppable.

Sleeper Service · Nov 17, 2007, 12:15 AM // 00:15

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_Lost_Souls

9 SR gets you 6e hardly enough to make a notable impact.

in fact anything below 8 is kinda weak. so thats a minimum of 11 SR.

if you are putting 11 points into an atrib and only have one skill kinda working THATS bad.

then again what would i know. only been playing necro 2 years.

Lord Sojar · Nov 17, 2007, 12:28 AM // 00:28

/signed.

SR timer should be removed, now that spiritway is completely and totally nuked (Thank you SOOO much Izz, best update EVER!

)

Sha Noran · Nov 17, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

then again what would i know. only been playing necro 2 years.

You would have 11 in Soul Reaping anyway; I would hope that since you've been playing Necro for 2 years, you would be good enough to know that 3-Att split Necros are horribly ineffective. Most good Necro builds focus around one Attribute besides Soul Reaping, and just split the points between the two (Curses/SR, Death/SR, Blood/SR). If anything you might split 4 points to Blood for the Blood Rit, but regardless, you aren't going to be spreading your points enough to hinder SoLS' effectiveness.

Ec]-[oMaN · Nov 17, 2007, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_Lost_Souls

9 SR gets you 6e hardly enough to make a notable impact.

in fact anything below 8 is kinda weak. so thats a minimum of 11 SR.

if you are putting 11 points into an atrib and only have one skill kinda working THATS bad.

then again what would i know. only been playing necro 2 years.

so @9 spec 39 energy every 16 seconds isn't good enough for you that is counting sig of souls and normal soul reaping bonuses...

Loviatar · Nov 17, 2007, 12:49 AM // 00:49

they will not remove it for the simplest reason of all.

they have had months to study it and the results.

they like the results and the spirit is a bit of tidying up and a possible small additional nerf as well.

given that there is no chance they will turn the energy spout back to where it was.

convince me they will change their minds after all this time showing that the VAST MAJORITY of necros are still playing and having fun and only a few complaints on the boards which are meaningless compared to the player base

they have the logs showing continuing necro play not a necro die off so they will not change to the bad old days

Bowstring Badass · Nov 17, 2007, 12:51 AM // 00:51

This thread = /fail like all the other 1s
/notsigned

Until you PvP necros can finally quit abusing energy not gonna happen. Oh booohoo you have to take out 1 skill for Signet of Lost Souls. Cry me a river.....

And if my Olias can manage his energy at 9 soul reaping with minions then pm me and tell me not to PuG with you....

Also why use spirit you can gain energy from minions still. So no need to remove the timer.

Sleeper Service · Nov 17, 2007, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

so @9 spec 39 energy every 16 seconds isn't good enough for you that is counting sig of souls and normal soul reaping bonuses...

but that exactly the issue =/

in pve:

If you have to use SOLS, its because you are out of energy.

If you are out of energy then its because nothing is dying.

If nothing is dying then...you dont get the SR energy gain.

i nearly NEVER have to use SR except in the last ditch situation when a particular enemy is half dead and my toon is out of energy...and if i can pull it off (ie: the target is half dead) then i am winning anyways.

when im using SOLS in the middle of a full on party vs mobs combat its mainly for the HP gain. Stuff HAS to be dying else its all gone wrong.

Chthon · Nov 17, 2007, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

Oh yeah man, since the search on these forums is really reliable. I'm not going to cite sources for common knowledge.

I'm not going to let you dodge the question that easily. The search feature has been fixed. Moreover, I'd consider posts from ANY forum that timestamps posts as evidence of your point. (GWonline's search function has always worked properly, btw.) I'd even consider your own posts from back then -- you should be able to find those, shouldn't you? Or even someone stepping forward now and saying that they made such a post back then -- that's something I can verify for myself using search by name. Which returns me to my call of BULLSHIT on your claim that "all good players always thought SR was overpowered all along." PROVE IT. Cite me complaints, or even just commentary, from back then wherein the poster says SR was overpowered.

You can't. Because they don't exist. Because your claim is just bogus. Virtually no one thought SR was overpowered until JB-way and [spirit spam and its descendants, including spiritway,] arrived on the scene. [That is, the pre-nerf discussion about SR was limited to gimmicks for manufacturing infinite deaths. The idea that SR is somehow inherently overpowered, even without such gimmicks, (and therefore needs a timer to reign it in) was almost entirely absent from the pre-nerf discussion. It was certainly not something that "nearly every even slightly-above-average player was upset at." (The conclusion I draw from the above is that infinite-death-manufacturing gimmicks (and their elimination) is a legitimate, long-standing basis balance changes, while the inherently-overpowered-even-without-such-gimmicks position is a post-hoc rationale spouted by fanboys in support of the unsupportable. Others may draw other conclusions.)]

[The section marked in []'s has been revised for clarity and diction. Thanks, Sab.]

Quote:

Lol, thanks Gaile. Actually, that was a bug that got fixed...

1. It was a feature, not a bug.
2. It's still a feature:

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiki

If no minion is targeted, spell will automatically be cast on the nearest allied minion. Thus it is worthwhile to keep casting Jagged Bones during a battle even if you cannot target a minion. (direct link)

For one of the self-declared "best players in the game," you're woefully ignorant of how commonly-used skills work. Get your facts straight.

Quote:

Finally, those of you claiming that there is no possible Soul Reaping infinite energy exploit that could be used now that the spirit issue is fixed are clearly unaware of how the PvP Necro meta evolved to get to where it was.

How the meta got to be the way it is is WHOLLY IRRELEVANT. Potential exploits depend solely upon what is possible to do with the game mechanics RIGHT NOW.

As several people have now tried to explain to you:

1. Infinite energy via SR requires infinite triggers.
2. Infinite triggers requires infinite deaths that your team can "manufacture" at will.
3. There is a VERY LIMITED number of ways to "manufacture" deaths, and ALL of them have been addressed at this point:
- Flesh Golem -- Recharge has always been too slow for worthwhile energy gain.
- Jagged Bones -- Nerfed so that recharge is too slow for worthwhile energy gain.
- Spirit Spamming -- Nerfed so that there is no energy gain.
- Life Sac + Rezmer -- Risk has always been far too great for the SR benefit alone.
  (Risk was arguably worth it when it also gave you 20+ minions to start the match with in addition to the SR benefits, but that's another issue -- and already dealt with through another nerf.)

That's it. There are NO OTHER WAYS to create infinite deaths at will. So there are no other ways to create an infinite energy exploit using SR. Period.

You disagree? Then cite a specific way one could get infinite energy using un-timered SR. Put up or shut up.

Quote:

I would cite IWAY as a potential problem

IWAY was all about a single overpowered warrior skill. The necros were secondary to the team and could have done their jobs nearly as well without any SR.
Moreover, as for a future exploit, only a team full of total idiots would look at your party full of necros and pets and be dumb enough to kill the pets over and over for you. And only a team full of total weaklings would fail to kill you during the skill blackout if they did kill your pets once. 12 energy for a 10 sec skill blackout is a pretty bad trade.

Quote:

and with the recent player-pets-don't-give Soul Reaping

Again, get your facts straight. Pets still give SR. They just don't leave exploitable corpses.

(Not that it's on topic, but that change is totally 100% daft, btw.)

Quote:

That said, if you would like a mental picture of what might happen if Soul Reaping were let off it's chain once more... BLOOD SPIKE

This is silly. Perhaps even sillier fearing unlimited SR if your team brings a lot of pets, and the opposing team is dumb enough to kill them over and over for you, and weak enough not to capitalize on your skill blackout.

Quote:

spirit guy

Yes, the spirit guy spamming spirits that no longer trigger SR at all. He'd be much more powerful if the timer was removed.

Quote:

The real core basis of the Blood Spike builds that really dominated everyone was the energy return on every kill... and also permitting the caller to call a new spike every four seconds if desired.

And how would removing the timer suddenly make this any more viable than it is right now? Instead of spiking once every 5 sec to stay within the timer, they could spike once every 4 sec? OMG IMBA!! IMBA!! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!

Sab · Nov 17, 2007, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I'm not going to let you dodge the question that easily. The search feature has been fixed. Moreover, I'd consider posts from ANY forum that timestamps posts as evidence of your point. (GWonline's search function has always worked properly, btw.) I'd even consider your own posts from back then -- you should be able to find those, shouldn't you? Or even someone stepping forward now and saying that they made such a post back then -- that's something I can verify for myself using search by name. Which returns me to my call of BULLSHIT on your claim that "all good players always thought SR was overpowered all along." PROVE IT. Cite me complaints, or even just commentary, from back then wherein the poster says SR was overpowered.

You can't. Because they don't exist. Because your claim is just bogus. Virtually no one thought SR was overpowered until JB-way and spiritway arrived on the scene.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...t=soul+reaping

Click. Read.

Sleeper Service · Nov 17, 2007, 01:55 AM // 01:55

all that thread does is confirm that:

1. it was a PVP issue.

2. A lot of people DID indeed state that the solution to pvp spirit spamming necros would be to remove energy gain from spirits.

3. That counters to that particular type of build were available but non exploited because "too hard".

*shrugs

Sleeper Service · Nov 17, 2007, 02:21 AM // 02:21

um fenix...jagged works without a target.
the skill description is borked.

"f no minion is targeted, spell will automatically be cast on the nearest allied minion. Thus it is worthwhile to keep casting Jagged Bones during a battle even if you cannot target a minion."

source:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Jagged_Bones

fenix · Nov 17, 2007, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

um fenix...jagged works without a target.
the skill description is borked.

"f no minion is targeted, spell will automatically be cast on the nearest allied minion. Thus it is worthwhile to keep casting Jagged Bones during a battle even if you cannot target a minion."

source:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Jagged_Bones

Which is clearly a bug, not a feature. The description says targeted, which is what it's meant to do, but it's bugged, and works wrong. Bug, not feature.

Sleeper Service · Nov 17, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41

well...actually there are shitload of skills that do not correctly follow their descriptions.

bug? feature? jagged has been modified several times by Anet now and they could have either corrected the description or the way the skill works by now.

They clearly know about the way jagged works because the last time they messed bout with it it was to reduce its overall power due to that...aspect.

bug, feature, semantics.