Curse

Symbol · Jan 29, 2007, 10:29 PM // 22:29

The biggest problem wtih blood is overcosted spells IMO.

Patccmoi · Jan 29, 2007, 10:33 PM // 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Ensign -- would there be any potential for abuse if each death simply got tacked onto the end such that even if two opponents died at the same time you'd get 20-24 seconds of energy regeneration? I mean, the necromancer would still not be able to exceed 7 (or 8 at very high soul reaping) pips of regen, but there would be no waste.

Personally i think it'd just be more problematic to put in for not much point. Nothing else in the game works like that afaik (where reapplying an effect adds to the time instead of just keeping the longer duration). I don't think it's something you can seriously abuse, but it kinda gives too much potential at some points too. For example, you have a team wipe on the other team about 30s before they respawn. Then you're gonna attack them in their base and for still 50s you have the necro at 7 pips of regen no matter what? Or, say at VoD, you cata NPCs... well you have the Necro at 7-8 pips of regen for the rest of the game unless he's killed cause he has a good 100 seconds of buffer (that would gain an extra 10s every time something dies, which happens often enough usually at VoD!).

I could see some people making Necro builds taking advantage of this for VoD build actually. For example, use N/Mo and put Heal Other on him. Use it only marginally during the game, but if you reach VoD he has 7-8 pips of regen to throw it around that won't end. I dunno, might not be a good example, but i think it could pose problems and mostly i don't see why this would be necessary. Another that comes to mind is Jagged Necro with Spirits behind. Even if you managed to kill or shutdown the Jagged Necro + spirit spammer, the Necros could have 2 min of 'stored' Soul Reaping going. Ofc you could put a cap, etc... but again i just don't see the point. It'd be fine just working for 10s. It's already a damn good passive energy buff that takes no skill slot.

And i didn't quote that to answer for Ensign ofc... just my view on the matter =p

Ensign · Jan 30, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

Plus if A-Net decides to rework soul reaping then a serious of other primary attributes should receive similar treatment. Strength seriously does nothing.

I'm ok with primary attributes that don't do anything. Doing nothing doesn't lead to overpowered or broken templates, and you can and will spend your attribute points elsewhere (as many Necromancers have become accustomed to doing).

Soul Reaping needs a tweak not because it's bad, but because it's exploitable and doing bad things to the game. Sure there are other flawed primary attributes (Strength and Spawning Power are terrible), but none that are serious balance problems in the game as it currently stands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

Reworking soul reaping needs testing and more than just basic conjecture in the forums.

Of course. But it's a steady progression:

* Identify a problem or set of problems
* Analyze those problems
* Identify the root cause of the problems
* Propose changes to address the causes of the problems
* Implement those changes and test them to see if they do, in fact, address the problem
* Test potential changes for peripheral impact, make sure they don't cause bigger problems
* Tweak changes and finalize their implementation

As someone without permissions to modify the code base, I can only address the first four of those steps. But I will, as well as conjecture about the possible consequences of those changes, because without that sort of groundwork changes never even get tested.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

Any solution should keep PvE MM's viable because they are such a loved class by PvEers.

People seriously underestimate the sheer magnitude of nerfs that PvE MM's would have to suffer before they'd stop being viable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

The solution is clear. Soul reaping should work just as it is, but when your energy is full for every point of energy you should have gained you take 10 damage! Maybe 100 damage would work better.

That's another way of addressing Soul Reaping. I kind of like it, though it does make Soul Reaping a liability in some cases - though that might be preferable to the problems posed by other solutions. At least it's in flavor for the profession.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

I was stating that ruin half of what i play the game for and the game is not worth playing to me.

You have a very narrow view of fun and scope of what you play the game for if Soul Reaping going bonkers on multiple quick deaths is neccessary to your enjoyment of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

everything breaks down to,Cost, efficency, and return.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

Yes soul reaping is now previlent on all necros to acheive a decent SolS.
Its part of the game now so get used to it.

...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

Blood is not crap if so then why is spoil victor aligned with it and one of the top skills on the table of contraversy.

Why is Spoil Victor in Blood? The designers decided to put it there.

If you want to argue that one skill makes a line good, go right ahead, and I'll concede the point on the grounds of inconsistent bases. However, I will then argue that Soul Reaping does not need to have any passive effect at all to be a good attribute, because it contains not only one, but two good skills - Signet of Lost Souls and Reaper's Mark.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

This proposed change will not buff the necro as you suggest but we will see.

I have explained why I consider it to be an overall buff to the profession, with the notable exception of the interaction with minions. Please explain why you disagree with that analysis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

if he can interrupt 1/4 sec casts. (no more will be said on this issue)

There are a bunch of ways to take that question.

Given enough time, anyone can interrupt a 1/4 (or even 1/8th) cast with an interrupt of any speed - just keep firing blindly until you get lucky with a hit. If you play RA enough with a Monk, you'll be familiar with random retard Rangers spamming Punishing / Distracting / Savage on you, and eventually they do get lucky and Distract your RoF. Does that mean anything about player skill or timing? No, not really.

On a competitive level, you'll see a lot more predictive interrupting. This is really just a refinement of spamming interrupts, you look at the game's situation, understand what your opponent wants to do reasonably well, and from that you can make a better guess about when he's going to cast, and toss interrupts in that tighter window. If your opponent is spamming a skill on recharge, like Blinding Surge or Freezing Gust, you can anticipate the next cast from his timing. If they're casting spells back to back, you know when the next spell is going to be cast from when the previous one finishes. When someone is knocked down, they will very often cast as soon as they get up. You can time interrupts based on these behavior patterns to land when you want them to, and you can make some very high percentage interrupts because of it. The best Rangers are familiar with these techniques, and at the highest level people stop making the best, in favor of making good plays that their opponents can't predict easily.

I.E., the 'best' play against a Ranger in the old Ele runner days, was to cast Blinding Flash on the Ranger as soon as they were in range to do so. However Rangers know this, and could time Distracting Shot to hit a Blinding Flash cast at that range with consistency. It was competely predictable. So instead of making that optimal play, the right play with Blinding Flash is to hold it, and keep running towards your opponent, until they either fire off their interrupt and miss, or commit to a different skill. At the peak of season two, I was casting Blinding Flash in response to them starting their Crippling Shot, or a missed Distracting Shot.

As far as purely reflex interrupts go, I can hit a 1s cast pretty consistently if I'm looking for it, and can hit a 3/4 interrupt with good ping and luck. Without looking for the interrupt, I don't even bother trying for 1s casts, I'm not fast enough - but there are some people who are. I don't think anyone hits a 3/4 cast in passing. It's impossible to reactively interrupt a 1/4s cast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

It would also 'nerf' normal deaths within 10/12 seconds of each other, but a situation where two players die within 12 seconds that are not wipes are rare enough to pay that price in my opinion.

To follow this up, in situations where energy is 'wasted' due to a quick succession of deaths under the new mechanics, you were also much more likely to be wasting energy due to the energy cap under the current model. The two are not equivilent, but they do correlate strongly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

also no one person is greater then any other. to think so show not only self insecurity issues it also is a sign of mental illness.

Objectively, in a vacuum, it is absolutely true that no person is greater than another. The concept of 'better' is logically meaningless. This is obvious - such a distinction is a value judgement, and value judgements are by neccessity subjective.

Correspondingly: once one has a set of subjective criteria, with which individuals intersect, it is *neccessary* that one person be greater than another. This is true for even the most basic of preferences, such as 'I want to be alive'.

I submit that a person's values, and how they respond to situations in light of those values, is what makes them human. Consequentially, while value judgements are objective non-sequitur, I submit that a theoretical person who does not make any value judgements is irrevocably insane and non-functional.

Conclusion: the quoted selection is nonsense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Ensign -- would there be any potential for abuse if each death simply got tacked onto the end such that even if two opponents died at the same time you'd get 20-24 seconds of energy regeneration?

Is there more potential for abuse? Certainly, as long strings of death could build up an energy regeneration buff that would truly never end. Would that be problematic? I don't know. It is hard to imagine an infrastructure that would really abuse that mechanic (by causing a bunch of deaths very quickly early on, and riding that energy regeneration for several minutes), that wouldn't be continually re-triggering Soul Reaping anyway. It's not like a team that powered Soul Reaping off of spirits or minions is going to stop making spirits or minions after a time simply because of the large Soul Reaping buffer. As far at normal, sustained gameplay would go, there functiaonally would not be much of a difference.

However, I think there would be a very large difference in the durability of those energy engines, and that durability is what would make tacking on each death undesirable. What I mean by that, is that the way you break a Soul Reaping team is to disrupt their engine - kill the Quickening Zephyr, break the Jagged Bones chain, and their influx of mana stops. You can then break their team in that window of time before they get their energy engine back up. If the Soul Reaping bonus kept adding on, however, that window wouldn't exist - their energy engine would be sufficiently time averaged that you could not take their energy offline to create a window of weakness.

I think that vulnerability is an important weakness of Soul Reaping builds, and I would be very wary of taking away those windows. Energy engines need an 'off' switch, and they need to work on a short, not long, term. Hence, until I saw evidence that it couldn't be abused, I would be opposed to such a mechanic.

Peace,
-CxE

twicky_kid · Jan 30, 2007, 03:56 AM // 03:56

Ensign I like the imagination of your suggested change but I cannot agree with it.

You will kill JB with this change but you are going to make Necro spike near unstoppable.

Blood spike with +7 regen for 10 seconds every time I kill. That is too much. You are talking about 30+ energy over 10 seconds while blood spike can kill within that 10 second window and keep the regen going for the duration of the battle.

Yes, you nerf JB abuse but you buff necro spikes to impossible to match energy lvls.

Either make the minions give no SR or you cannot enchant a bone horror. I like the cannot enchant idea because it keeps the energy aspect from the SR without it being abused.

Remember we are using our elite for JB. Without SR it would be impossible to use as an elite that is the only reason I would not support the no SR from jagged horror.

I don't think changing a primary attribute to fix 1 skill is a good idea. Spirits cannot give enough energy to abuse with SR so I think it is very balanced outside of JB.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 30, 2007, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Blood spike with +7 regen for 10 seconds every time I kill. That is too much. You are talking about 30+ energy over 10 seconds while blood spike can kill within that 10 second window and keep the regen going for the duration of the battle.

Bloodspike currently brings minions and/or spirits that trigger Soul Reaping between kills, so 30 energy over 10 seconds is probably less than they are getting now.

I guess you could argue that they won't have to bring all the minion/spirit crap and will have more skillslots, but bloodspike is so weak anyway that it really doesn't matter.

Saider maul · Jan 30, 2007, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Given enough time, anyone can interrupt a 1/4 (or even 1/8th) cast with an interrupt of any speed - just keep firing blindly until you get lucky with a hit. If you play RA enough with a Monk, you'll be familiar with random retard Rangers spamming Punishing / Distracting / Savage on you, and eventually they do get lucky and Distract your RoF. Does that mean anything about player skill or timing? No, not really.

On a competitive level, you'll see a lot more predictive interrupting. This is really just a refinement of spamming interrupts, you look at the game's situation, understand what your opponent wants to do reasonably well, and from that you can make a better guess about when he's going to cast, and toss interrupts in that tighter window. If your opponent is spamming a skill on recharge, like Blinding Surge or Freezing Gust, you can anticipate the next cast from his timing. If they're casting spells back to back, you know when the next spell is going to be cast from when the previous one finishes. When someone is knocked down, they will very often cast as soon as they get up. You can time interrupts based on these behavior patterns to land when you want them to, and you can make some very high percentage interrupts because of it. The best Rangers are familiar with these techniques, and at the highest level people stop making the best, in favor of making good plays that their opponents can't predict easily.

I.E., the 'best' play against a Ranger in the old Ele runner days, was to cast Blinding Flash on the Ranger as soon as they were in range to do so. However Rangers know this, and could time Distracting Shot to hit a Blinding Flash cast at that range with consistency. It was competely predictable. So instead of making that optimal play, the right play with Blinding Flash is to hold it, and keep running towards your opponent, until they either fire off their interrupt and miss, or commit to a different skill. At the peak of season two, I was casting Blinding Flash in response to them starting their Crippling Shot, or a missed Distracting Shot.

As far as purely reflex interrupts go, I can hit a 1s cast pretty consistently if I'm looking for it, and can hit a 3/4 interrupt with good ping and luck. Without looking for the interrupt, I don't even bother trying for 1s casts, I'm not fast enough - but there are some people who are. I don't think anyone hits a 3/4 cast in passing. It's impossible to reactively interrupt a 1/4s cast.

-CxE

I am glad to see your opinion on this. First let me apoligize for having this remark brought up in an unrelated thread. This derived from a conversation on a spoil victor thread over the suggested 2 second cast time to balance the skill. I stated that 1/4second casts can be interupted at fairly high percentage purposly thru, as you stated pattern watching, Thus an increase to cast time was not the answer but a problem due to the previlance of fast cast exploitation of many builds. ( I.E. ME/E fastcast ele )

I did not state i can do this but i also know a few people who strictly play ranger who can and that in higher lvl PvP it is fairly regular.

So again sorry this was brought up in this thread but it goes to show exactly how low people will go to discredit you or take attention away from the validity of the point. This tactic is also Very similar to methods used During Political campaignes.

( Nothing more will be said on this )

Ensign · Jan 30, 2007, 04:35 AM // 04:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Blood spike with +7 regen for 10 seconds every time I kill. That is too much. You are talking about 30+ energy over 10 seconds while blood spike can kill within that 10 second window and keep the regen going for the duration of the battle.

?

+3 (+4?) regen is only 10 (13) energy over 10 seconds. It's exactly the same amount of energy that you get out of Soul Reaping *now*. How does this make Blood Spike ridiculous exactly?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

This derived from a conversation on a spoil victor thread over the suggested 2 second cast time to balance the skill. I stated that 1/4second casts can be interupted at fairly high percentage purposly thru, as you stated pattern watching, Thus an increase to cast time was not the answer but a problem due to the previlance of fast cast exploitation of many builds. ( I.E. ME/E fastcast ele )

No, that's simply wrong. A 2s cast time on Spoil Victor would be a pretty substantial nerf. As I said, 2s cast times are easily interruptable, 1s cast times you have to be camping to hit. Meaning to hit a 1s cast time you need to be devoting yourself to hitting that interrupt, which really isn't very good for hitting a fairly spammable offensive skill. You'll interrupt some small percentage of them but that's it. It's more significant on defensive tools, where the interrupt can send them scrambling. A 2s cast is going to be shut down much, much more thoroughly, if your opponent so desires.

Quarter second casts are never high percentage interrupts. They become higher percentage in a very narrow set of circumstances (after a knockdown) but that's really it, you can't get a high percentage interrupt on a 3/4 second cast at will let alone a 1/4 second cast.

2 second cast times are a whole lot worse than 1 second cast times, don't ever think otherwise. Fast Casting can't even really deal with the difference - you can't reduce something that's easily interruptable to something that's annoying to interrupt, and things that you have to focus on to interrupt (1s) tend to remain interruptable, without very high FC specs.

Peace,
-CxE

Saider maul · Jan 30, 2007, 05:13 AM // 05:13

please just answer these three questions so this may be dropped by thomas sense it has already invaded this thread and your answer was a little unclear.
A simple yes and no answer is all i would like. TY.

1: Do you beleive a 1/4-1/2 second cast time spell or skill can be interupted while camping and pattern watching With some form of regularity given the circumstances you would attempt the interupt under?

2: Are you saying Spoil Victor requires a 2 second cast time?

3: Do you feel 1 second cast times can be interupted while bouncing between 2-3 targets.

Please keep in mind that things like adrenaline spikes, assassin chains also fall into the catagory of interupting even though its not particularly practiced

Again sorry this was brought up in this thread it is highly out of place.
I personally felt SV would best rest at a 10/1/12 20second Duration + I would like to see the dmg type converted to cold dmg to allow a form of defense against its strength.
The point was that a 1 second cast time is fine on SV and that its duration is broken.
Even after the test weekend 20second duration was still a touch to much thus the proposal to change dmg type to allow a form of mitigation beyond hex removal.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 30, 2007, 06:46 AM // 06:46

You forget to mention that I said interruptability is not the only benefit of a low cast time, and a high cast time does more than making sure the spell can be interrupted fairly easily. But people can read the Spoil Victor thread if they still want to read that.
Back to JB

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

You will kill JB with this change but you are going to make Necro spike near unstoppable.

Blood spike with +7 regen for 10 seconds every time I kill. That is too much. You are talking about 30+ energy over 10 seconds while blood spike can kill within that 10 second window and keep the regen going for the duration of the battle.

The +7 is only 3 pips higher from what they would normally have, or 10 energy. I can't see how that's buffing Bloodspike through the roof to be honest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

I don't think changing a primary attribute to fix 1 skill is a good idea. Spirits cannot give enough energy to abuse with SR so I think it is very balanced outside of JB.

Like I said, mechanics of the form 'gain X energy for every Y' are always waiting to be abused by someone making a build around them. Energy regeneration would keep JB playable if you want to. Maybe not in PvP, because in PvP the only reason it sees play is an infinite energy engine, but that engine is not what it should be and is not good for the game. Energy Regeneration is way less abusable because the effects don't stack. And stacking effects are the problem in this situation.

Saider maul · Jan 30, 2007, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Yes lets get back to JB. Ensign respond only if you wish to sense thomas wishes it dropped as well.
Again sorry for it making its way in here was not my actions.

I like that your trying to give the necro something back and i actually spent quite alot of time talking this over with guildies. No doubt that a hex, blood or support necro assisted with a JB minion factory is a broken energy engine.
I wont argue that. and i see the math but even at that your limiting the necro a bit to much. The average blood, SS, SV,Support runs between 9-10 soulreaping at which point your talking 3 pip for 10 sec. that is 15e thats if the benefit of a single death goes its full extent before applying another.
If another is applied early you lose the full benefit of the first.

lets look at a sample...

3pip yeilds 15e over the course of 10 sec. if a person dies every 6 seconds the regen yeilded 7.5e before it was reset. at that rate 3pip is 1.5e per sec but when ended early each one ended around 6sec of its duration only yeilds 1.25e per sec. so at current 10 soul reaping in a 12 sec interval you currently gain 20e but under your suggestion you only gain 15 and this is not with the asistance of a MM,.. it is natural death.

Without some form of a physical energy gain you lose 4 seconds or 3e per renewal of death.

After thinking about it thru the night if it were to change what would you think of making soulreaping as such:

When a creature dies you gain 1e (@1-4) , 2e (@ 5-9) , 3e (@10-15)energy and 1pip (@1-4) , 2pip (@5-9) , 3pip (@ 9-15) , 4pip (@16) regen for 10 seconds. Soulreaping from minion death would only go to the master.
This would prevent other necros from being powered and not overly break a MM. yeilding the same as soul reaping now and not be exploitable by death spamming. nore would a necro acheive a steady full energy bar.

remember Math is although scientific fact is theoredical when implimented practically. I say this because not all circumstances work out as mathmatics predicts. If this were the care then engineers would never have issues with asbuilds, chemists would not have to change batch formulations due to Lot inconsistancy, There is always a variable that theoredic math can not predict. Thus is why i broke it down and allowed for a 10% marjine in soul reaping given by the added 1-3 energy gain. 10% is actually rather weak considering any piece of high efficency machinary will have a 10% error rate with 5-7% alotted to downtime.

If it is the abuse of soul reaping that is the issue then if they make a change the benefit needs to be the same or dam close to it. atm your regen proposal CAN be self defeating on its full benefit. Why break the machine when its the operator doing the harm.

After all we are talking mechanics here.

Ensign · Jan 30, 2007, 09:01 AM // 09:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

1: Do you beleive a 1/4-1/2 second cast time spell or skill can be interupted while camping and pattern watching With some form of regularity given the circumstances you would attempt the interupt under?

No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

2: Are you saying Spoil Victor requires a 2 second cast time?

No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

3: Do you feel 1 second cast times can be interupted while bouncing between 2-3 targets.

No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

The point was that a 1 second cast time is fine on SV and that its duration is broken.

I would tend to agree with this.

Peace,
-CxE

Corinthian · Jan 30, 2007, 09:05 AM // 09:05

There's nothing wrong with JB.

Saider maul · Jan 30, 2007, 09:13 AM // 09:13

ty for your input.

Divineshadows · Jan 30, 2007, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

3pip yeilds 15e over the course of 10 sec.

I am pretty certain that 3pip over 10 sec yields 10 energy and not 15, unless they changed this fundamental game mechanic at some point in time. Casters with 4pips naturally regen 80 energy in a minute AFAIK. A constant seven pips (if you are getting Ensign's new soul reaping model to trigger all the time -- i.e. jagged bones) is 140 energy regened in a minute.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 30, 2007, 04:24 PM // 16:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

3pip yeilds 15e over the course of 10 sec.

One pip is equivalent to one energy every 3 seconds. So, three pips are equivalent to 3 energy every 3 seconds or one energy per second.
That means 3 pips yields 10e over the course of 10 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

if a person dies every 6 seconds the regen yeilded 7.5e before it was reset. at that rate 3pip is 1.5e per sec but when ended early each one ended around 6sec of its duration only yeilds 1.25e per sec. so at current 10 soul reaping in a 12 sec interval you currently gain 20e but under your suggestion you only gain 15 and this is not with the asistance of a MM,.. it is natural death.

Besides the fact that a pip is one energy every three seconds which kind of overwrites all the math done here, in what (PvP) situation do people constantly die within 6 seconds of each other? I'm sure they do in AB, but in serious PvP?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

When a creature dies you gain 1e (@1-4) , 2e (@ 5-9) , 3e (@10-15)energy and 1pip (@1-4) , 2pip (@5-9) , 3pip (@ 9-15) , 4pip (@16) regen for 10 seconds. Soulreaping from minion death would only go to the master.
This would prevent other necros from being powered and not overly break a MM. yeilding the same as soul reaping now and not be exploitable by death spamming. nore would a necro acheive a steady full energy bar..

This would nerf the abuse through minions, but why make a combination of pips and direct energy gain if you can do it with pips alone? I still don't see what's wrong with the pips system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

The point was that a 1 second cast time is fine on SV and that its duration is broken.

Just so you know, I agree with this too. My point was that there are more things to consider than interruptability when you determine the cast time of a skill. Anyone can interrupt a cast time of 2 seconds, but still Meteor Shower on a 2 second cast would be imbalanced.
As a matter of fact, that story applies to Jaggedway as well. The game is about three recources being energy, health and time. There are others but these three are by far the most important ones.
The effectiveness in which you can turn one recource into another largely determines if a skill is overpowered or not. (turning time/energy into health can mean both damage to the other team or healing for your team).
Energy can be turned into health through healing skills or damaging skills. Time can be turned into health through signets (which is why signets tend to have a relatively long cast time: they don't require the energy recource so for the sake of balance they require an extra amount of the other recource), health can be turned into energy through things like BiP and OoB, and lastly, energy can also be turned into time: Quickening Zephyr (or Holy Haste, or Glyph of Essence, or Mantra of Recovery). Quickening Zephyr makes sure you have about twice as much time (a little less due to cast times taking time as well).
As you can see, energy can be converted into both time and health. Infinite energy therefore means more or less infinite health, and a lot of time. You can't have infinite time, because there are only a few skills that turn energy into time and you can't stack them all.

Infinite energy + infinite health + twice as much time = imbalanced. That is why I think Soul Reaping needs a nerf.

In conclusion I'd like to say:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corinthian

There's nothing wrong with JB.

Yes there is. If you think so at least tell us why.

Saider maul · Jan 30, 2007, 06:51 PM // 18:51

again the time frame is just hypothedical.

I say add the physical gain of 1-3e per death only to counter what is not returned from the full duration of the energy regeneration as it will be quite common that your regen will not last its full duration and the 10 second timer will be reset. This way the regen never goes beyond 10 and you receive a physical yeild of 1-3e upon each activation of soulreaping. this way a necro's energy will never cap the bar and be wasted.

This is stronger then your suggestions, weaker then current mechanics, and will not be exploitable.

Thats if it were to change and i hope it does not.

Your talking about time,health and energy.... basically optimizing the process of the mechanic of your bar and its intergration with the game.

I understand Process optimization perfectly. Thats What i do for a living.

Patccmoi · Jan 30, 2007, 07:01 PM // 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

currect me if i am wrong but its .5e per sec/per pip right?

.33E/s/pip. You stand corrected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

I say add the physical gain of 1-3e per death only to counter what is not returned from the full duration of the energy regeneration as it will be quite common that your regen will not last its full duration and the 10 second timer will be reset. This way the regen never goes beyond 10 and you receive a physical yeild of 1-3e upon each activation of soulreaping.

Quite common in AB and PvE, rare in any competitive PvP. People don't die within 10s of each other often at all. And if it does, honestly SR is already strong enough. A PASSIVE +3E regen not using a skill slot is huge. Seriously huge.

Razz L Dazzle · Jan 30, 2007, 07:10 PM // 19:10

@ Ensign

I agree with most of your ideas in theory. And the plan the fix soul reaping would naturally follow that progression for it to work effectively. Most my posts regarding Soul reaping and Jaged bones hinge on it coming in a 'timely fashion.'

The proposed change will take time and with all that A-net is planning, new game, skill balances on Monday, remake of HA, and automated tournaments; i don't foresee a new version of soul reaping getting tested and worked out any time soon. (I do know A-net has many people working on different aspects but that's still a lot changes forthcoming).

Most of my proposed changes were in hopes of changing Jaged bones and soul reaping by Monday's deadline not sometime in the future where i may decide tha the metagame is too broken for me to invest significant time each night. I'd like to see serious GvG play with 'good balance' and tournaments soon. There's been way to many fun season and this current season is quite pointless so far.

An overhaul to soul reaping is needed more than, Strength for instance, but i doubt it will come soon and if it is proposed this weekend and finalized monday i'd be disappointed, personally.

-Razz

Saider maul · Jan 30, 2007, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Quite common in AB and PvE, rare in any competitive PvP. People don't die within 10s of each other often at all. And if it does, honestly SR is already strong enough. A PASSIVE +3E regen not using a skill slot is huge. Seriously huge.

Prior to jagged bones we receive 10e per death and noone has claimed that soulreaping was was broken until a skill was produced to exploit it.

I still feel soulreaping is not the culprite I see jagged bones as the culprite and I agree that minion death should be adjusted to only benefit the master. aside from that IMO soulreaping is just fine. Anet just needs to do better research and skill design before implimenting it into play.

I am actually surprise they dont have enough creative thought to see alot of the build possibilities that we the players derive to exploit abilities and/or the environment.

You would think they would have a R&D team or at least an honest staff of creative beta testers like any good/professional corperation has. I say this strictly on the basis of the countless exploits i have seen slip thru the cracks with each campaign.

Patccmoi · Jan 30, 2007, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

Prior to jagged bones we receive 10e per death and noone has claimed that soulreaping was was broken until a skill was produced to exploit it.

No, ofc (if you exclude FoC spike, Blood spike... those were exploiting spirits, and they nerfed it to some extent). The main reason why people don't claim it's overpowered if you don't exploit it, which i agree it isn't, is that there ISN'T more than 1 death every 10s happening, in fact it's far less than that in general in PvP, which means that SR over the fight will only give you random buff of energy that you might or might not need at that given time so you can't rely on it at all. In PvE in fact Soul Reaping is pretty broken because stuff dies repeatedly, but who cares, PvE people only complain when their good stuff is nerfed, not when they have an easy way. When they have an easy way (*cough* MMs *cough*), it's a clever build, not an exploit or something broken. Because mobs can't complain and post on forums.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

I still feel soulreaping is not the culprite I see jagged bones as the culprite and I agree that minion death should be adjusted to only benefit the master. aside from that IMO soulreaping is just fine. Anet just needs to do better research and skill design before implimenting it into play.

Yes, in this case you can say Jagged Bones is the culprit. Before, it was spirits. What will it be next time? How many skills do they have to nerf, make useless or don't implement because of a potential abuse? What will be the next way people find to abuse SR? SR is designed the same way Energizing Finale was design : if X happens, you gain Y energy. Well if X can be controlled in any way, you can always potentially multiply Y to a ridiculous amount. This is what happened with Jagged. This is what can potentially happen with any skill implemented in the future. You can be sure that if they would want to include a spammable spirit to help Rts for example, it would see play as a form of SR abuse. And instead of always building/testing things to prevent abuse of SR, it seems much more intelligent to design SR in a way that isn't abusable. Otherwise you're always patching but never really fixing the problem and there will ALWAYS be a risk of potential SR abuse with new skills added.