Curse

Chthon · Jul 10, 2008, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

If your argument that SR isn't overpowered because you took 2 e-management skills to make up for it then freaking L-O-L. There's a pretty big difference between having a 6 skill skill bar and an 8 skill skill bar with passive e-management that is very fire and forget. The N/Rt is far superior to the Rt/Me builds you posted, simply because it has more room for versatile utility.

You miss the point entirely. The point is not to show that Me/Rt is strictly better than N/Rt. (It's not.) The point is to show that they're both overpowered. X/Rt is overpowered even without SR. Therefore, resto is the root cause of N/Rt being overpowered, not SR.

This leads to the point that both Carinae and draxynnic make: N/Rt is overpowered, but not because of SR. So take N/Rt out of the equation. What's left? There are ZERO overpowered PvE builds because of SR. Zero. You disagree? OK, then please point to a specific overpowered build that relies on SR. Bet you can't. No matter how good SR looks on paper, it's not resulting in any actual overpowered builds appearing in-game. Thus, there's no empirical basis whatsoever for saying that SR needs a nerf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vazze

Exactly. There is no need to test this. You can easily calculate/estimate how much more energy the N/Rt has over the X/Rt and you have the answer: SR is a cheap (few attrib point) and powerful (passive) energy management: possibly 3-10 times stronger than any other elite e-management skill in the game.

You are confusing energy supply with overall build effectiveness. While energy supply looks like it should be a good indicator of overall build effectiveness, actually it's not. Energy is like money -- the more you have, the less valuable a little bit more is. (See Marginal Utility; Actually I find this link a bit more informative; Example for those too lazy to follow the links: Family income going from $20,000/yr to $40,000/yr means a very big change in one's quality of life; but going from $100,000/yr to $120,000/yr or even $200,000/yr does not result in nearly so big a change.) What Carinae's test shows for resto (and what I suspect is true for almost all worthwhile builds across the board) is that some modicum of e-management -- inspiration interrupts -- is enough to run the build, and the marginal utility of having more energy beyond that level -- Soul Reaping -- is very low. Simply put: If you have enough energy to do what you want to do, then having extra energy on top of that is pretty much worthless. And it turns out that, for resto healers (and I suspect most other worthwhile builds), "enough energy" is pretty easy to come by. That's why energy supply is actually not a good indicator of overall build effectiveness. It's also why SR fails to deliver in-game the overpoweredness it promises on paper.

Snow Bunny · Jul 10, 2008, 09:39 PM // 21:39

You can spam an entire bar of 10e skills on charge.

What's not ridiculous about that?

Jenn · Jul 10, 2008, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

*Maximum number of heroes allowed in party from one source increased to 7.

So you want to nerf group play and buff solo play?

Arkantos · Jul 10, 2008, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Quote:

The point is to show that they're both overpowered. X/Rt is overpowered even without SR. Therefore, resto is the root cause of N/Rt being overpowered, not SR.

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There are ZERO overpowered PvE builds because of SR.

What in Balthazar's name are you talking about?

The ONLY reason N/Rt and N/Mo's are excellent healers is because of soul reaping. Soul reaping, as long as your party doesn't suck and manages to kill things, equals major energy management. Why do you think people go necro to go pure healing/resto, and not monk or rit? Because monks and rits can't spam the skills like necros can. I mean really, if monks and rits had the amount of energy management as necros did, do you really think they wouldn't go monk or rit?

In fact, the main reason why necros are so good is because of soul reaping. They have the best energy management in the game, and can spam skills all they want because of it.

Chthon · Jul 10, 2008, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

What in Balthazar's name are you talking about?

The ONLY reason N/Rt and N/Mo's are excellent healers is because of soul reaping.

You seriously need to go back and read the last two pages. Go, read them. Don't skim, but actually read. Your questions will be answered and you will learn something.

Carinae · Jul 10, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

You can spam an entire bar of 10e skills on charge.

What's not ridiculous about that?

Because those skills are balanced by Anet on the idea of being spammed on recharge. I guarantee that they aren't balanced around the idea that you might or might not have the energy to cast them. They are balanced around the idea that you DO (and will always) have the energy.

That why SR doesn't break things. The skillset is balanced around the idea of energy always being available. It's necessarily balanced around the strongest case scenario.

The special ability of Necros is that they can push a build to its fullest potential. (Blue bar stays full)

The special ability of Warriors is that they are really hard to kill. (Red bar stays full)

The special ability of Monks is that they can outheal/mitigate damage from multiple (dedicated) damage-dealers simultaneously. You can't actually argue that character-for-character that a Monk is BALANCED. They aren't, obviously, in terms of their healing potential vs ANYONES damage-dealing potential. And yet the game doesn't collapse into a writhing mass of IMBA. Because it's not so simple as a direct comparison between healing and damage-dealing.

The same is true for SR. (If it was, the effects would be OBVIOUS in-game. EVERYONE would just run N/*)

Carinae · Jul 10, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Not to mention that many necromancers (Including Carinae) back in the day used necros to power N/E nukers. Carinae used one for SF farming if I recall.

Heh. The almighty Blood-nuker. I found a screenshot of that the other day. That was September '05. I imagine we all have screenshots taken when we first started, that we now look at and think WTF?!?! Talk about an embarrassing noobcakes build. (Savio will tell ya the screenshot was taken yesterday)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

The type of class that requires the most energy management traditionally, the healer, has been commonly supplanted by necromancers simply because of SR.

Admittedly there is a fundamental incompatability here. One is built around the idea of powering very expensive, low-to-moderate efficiency spells, the other is built around the idea of very cheap, hyper-efficient spells. Mixing the two breaks things.

That's why you provide a strong incentive to run spells on it's corresponding primary. Rits fails this test badly.

fenix · Jul 11, 2008, 04:06 AM // 04:06

You guys are pretty dumb if you think you can compare ACTIVE energy management skills to Soul Reaping.

draxynnic · Jul 11, 2008, 04:28 AM // 04:28

/me glances at location of previous poster, sighs, nods knowingly.

Vazze · Jul 11, 2008, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Introducing Carway: (Me/Rt healers)

Norgu:
[Weapon of Remedy][Vengeful Weapon][Mend Body and Soul][Spirit Light][Protective Was Kaolai][Power Drain][Leech Signet][Death Pact Signet]

Gwen:
[Weapon of Remedy][Vengeful Weapon][Mend Body and Soul][Spirit Light][Life][Power Drain][Leech Signet][Death Pact Signet]

Restoration: 12
Inspiration: 14
Fast Cast: 4

I then took these Me/Rt healers, went into Hard Mode and vanquished Pongmei Valley in 34 minutes with shitty henchmen...with NO deaths.

1 N/Mo > 2 Me/Rt

I run a half-build without a primary in a party of 7 with henchmen (so don't say that it was my build, or my heroes build). When minions/mob started to die Master's energy regeneration (due to SR=15) was equivalent to ~10-15pips so he was spamming 10-15 energy heals with ease. Master was N/Mo and not N/Rt (not the "godlike" Rt skills: monk heals without divine favor!).
As I said Pongmei is not a good place to test at all, but then again, no need to test anything: ~13pips of e-regen just when you need it.

fenix · Jul 11, 2008, 05:03 AM // 05:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by draxynnic

/me glances at location of previous poster, sighs, nods knowingly.

That's not the point here. I know what I'm talking about, I don't just say things for the sake of saying them. Energy management is something that I have used for a long time, specifically Leech Sig and Power Drain, because the interrupts + energy management allows the heroes to keep up with spamming spells. That is not the issue here. Soul Reaping is BETTER energy management, without having to bring a single skill. And if you bring Signet of Lost Souls, then it's even better.

To compare the two is a very poor example, because of COURSE energy management is going to be successful (if you're only just finding that out now, I feel bad for you), but Soul Reaping is PASSIVE energy management, not ACTIVE. Also, yeah, 8 skill on a bar is a lot different to 6.

RhanoctJocosa · Jul 11, 2008, 05:13 AM // 05:13

um fenix i think ur missing 1 important thing.. what if ur not a necro????????

fenix · Jul 11, 2008, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

um fenix i think ur missing 1 important thing.. what if ur not a necro????????

Bring energy management, or use/make a Necro. They're overpowered enough that it's silly NOT using them.

Sha Noran · Jul 11, 2008, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Therefore, resto is the root cause of N/Rt being overpowered, not SR.

You clearly are out of touch with how things actually work. If Restoration were made less playable, players would immediately change all of their N/Rt templates to N/Mo and never even miss a beat. People ran N/Mo's in HA effectively for a year+ before I started seeing N/Rt's being exploited, and the only reason these were used at the first was to abuse (drum roll please...) the Soul Reaping that N/Rt's could gain back from their own Rt spirits. In fact, those N/Mo's rely heavily on Soul Reaping also, with Necro power teams (hexes, spiking, etc.) often running at least one copy of Animate Bone Minions and usually also a R/x spirit spammer whose job was providing free energy to the rest of the team almost as much as it was to have the spirits up in the first place.

Now, it's the same story it was then, except in this chapter, we're in PvE, and we're running minions instead of spirits for SR fuel. This imbalance is going to continue to be exploited until it is adjusted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Because those skills are balanced by Anet on the idea of being spammed on recharge. I guarantee that they aren't balanced around the idea that you might or might not have the energy to cast them. They are balanced around the idea that you DO (and will always) have the energy.

I'm not sure you can say that... the entire energy mechanic wouldn't have even been included in the game if they assumed that you would always have it available. I would say just the opposite; many skills are balanced around the idea that you probably WON'T always have the energy to cast them. Exhaustion anyone?

Carinae · Jul 11, 2008, 08:00 AM // 08:00

The primary focus of the discussion is how to address Sabway, as it is listed in the OP as a problem build. It's considered a problem build due to it's extreme popularity and ease-of-use. We've ruled out the MM and SS as the problematic elements of Sabway, leaving us with the N/Rt as the cornerstone character.

There have been two schools of thought on ways to address the power of the N/Rt healer.

Address Soul Reaping. This seems to be the most popular suggestion, as it is known to be (and no one has argued otherwise) an extremely strong form of e-management. It is also passive, which is an additional advantage for two reasons: 1) SR doesn't take up a skill slot and 2) It has excellent synergy with heroes.

However, there is another school that does not believe that any changes to Soul Reaping will change the situation in any meaningful way. The situation, again, being the overuse of the N/Rt healer in Sabway. For the sake of the discussion, lets assume that Soul Reaping is entirely deleted from Guild Wars. Let us imagine what the consequences would be for Sabway.

Quite a few people have posted that it would solve the problem entirely. I disagree. Furthermore, I have actually demonstrated that the complete removal of Soul Reaping would actually do nothing. The proof of this is that the Me/Rt build I posted, doesn't have Soul Reaping (obviously) and yet is easily able to clear entire zones in the Realm of Torment on Hard Mode. The build walks through RoT with little-to-no-effort.

What this proves is that Ritualist-secondary builds using Restoration can be powered using e-management far inferior to Soul Reaping. Power Drain, Leech Signet, Blood Ritual, Ether Renewal were all tested and they all worked just fine, even in advanced zones on Hard Mode.

Has it dawned on people why I chose to use Me/Rt? Because it has (obviously) no Soul Reaping and it has no inherent benefit from it's primary attribute. Fast Casting brings nothing to the build. Basically I took the unarguably-worst PvE class and turned it into a replacement for the N/Rt in Sabway. Is it a direct replacement? No, but it's more than sufficient. Furthermore, the E/Rt Ether Renewal build is every bit as strong as the N/Rt build.

Several further comments stated that these e-management options took up two skill slots, potentially an elite slot. That is irrelevant. The Ritualist-secondary healing builds do not rely on the elite skill - Weapon of Remedy. Losing two slots, or even the elite slot does not affect the potency of the build in any meaningful way.

So, even if Soul Reaping is entirely deleted, we are still in the situation of people using X/Rt builds to walk through any zone in the game, even in Hard Mode. This is the situation we set out to resolve. Even deleting Soul Reaping changes nothing, we must keep looking for solutions.

This doesn't take changes to Soul Reaping off the table, that is a perfectly acceptable topic to discuss, but it does not resolve the potency of Ritualist-secondary builds.

Directly address the potency of Ritualist-secondary builds. Since I have demonstrated that Ritualist-secondary builds are more-or-less equally effective regardless of the primary on which they are equipped, we must address the following questions:
- Why can any caster primary run Ritualist-secondary spells so effectively?
- Why are Ritualist-primary builds not even equally effective, let alone superior, as is the case with every other profession.
- What changes can be made to reduce the effectiveness of Ritualist-secondary healing builds?
- What changes can be made to increase the effectiveness of Ritualist-primary healing builds?

These are the questions that need to be addressed if the conversation is to continue. Soul Reaping, is a valid, but totally separate discussion. I want to hear peoples thoughts on changes to Ritualists that can achieve the desired results.

DarkNecrid · Jul 11, 2008, 08:07 AM // 08:07

Quote:

You miss the point entirely. The point is not to show that Me/Rt is strictly better than N/Rt. (It's not.) The point is to show that they're both overpowered. X/Rt is overpowered even without SR. Therefore, resto is the root cause of N/Rt being overpowered, not SR.

This is bad logic.

Overpowered (Soul Reaping) + overpowered (Resto) = overpowered.
Overpowered (Resto) + active e-management = overpowered.

One of these two things is more overpowered because of something called SR. SR provides you with (in the case of the 2 builds posted) 2 extra slots of utility for free. SR out performs every e-management skill in the game with only 9 in it.

Quote:

OK, then please point to a specific overpowered build that relies on SR

N/Rt that has 8 slots of skills that rely on 0 active e-management, and ergo has an assload more utility and less blue bar pampering.

that was easy.

N/Rt is overpowered because of SR. Take 0 soul reaping, and take 0 e-management skills to keep your utility. oh look, you fail badly under pressure.

Resto is only barely imbalanced, and in general you can go N/Mo and do the same job nearly as well because of WoH. So it isn't the line.

EDIT:
also skills are not balanced around the idea of you being able to spam them forever and ever and ever.

This isn't Fury. There's an energy system for a reason.

Carinae · Jul 11, 2008, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

I'm not sure you can say that... the entire energy mechanic wouldn't have even been included in the game if they assumed that you would always have it available. I would say just the opposite; many skills are balanced around the idea that you probably WON'T always have the energy to cast them. Exhaustion anyone?

The effects of the skills are balanced around the idea of being activated on recharge. Whatever the skill does, it's recharge rate, and it's cast time ARE balanced on the assumption that they will be used as fast as possible.

The costs of the skills are balanced around trying to prevent that from happening to varying degrees. The more it costs, the harder they are trying to make it to be used-on-recharge, as well as reflecting an approximate value of the effects. Exhaustion is a good example of an additional penalty to repeatedly using a skill, eventually reaching a fixed limit.

Notice that they don't prevent it from being used again. That's built in to the recycle time. The effects though ARE balanced on the use-on-recharge model by necessity.

Sha Noran · Jul 11, 2008, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

The effects of the skills are balanced around the idea of being activated on recharge. Whatever the skill does, it's recharge rate, and it's cast time ARE balanced on the assumption that they will be used as fast as possible.

The costs of the skills are balanced around trying to prevent that from happening to varying degrees. The more it costs, the harder they are trying to make it to be used-on-recharge, as well as reflecting an approximate value of the effects. Exhaustion is a good example of an additional penalty to repeatedly using a skill, eventually reaching a fixed limit.

Notice that they don't prevent it from being used again. That's built in to the recycle time. The effects though ARE balanced on the use-on-recharge model by necessity.

Ahh, yes you could say that skills must be partially balanced based on the assumption that players will attempt to take advantage of the effect every time it is available. This is how skill's energy costs are determined... more powerful effects cost more specifically to prevent them from being used on recharge without additionally synergistic skills being added to the build.

upier · Jul 11, 2008, 09:55 AM // 09:55

Guys - since we are obviously INSANELY bored (evident from the fact that we are actually entertaining the idea that SR isn't godmode) - I have a challenge:
I dare you to create builds that necro can do.
Create a build that you CAN run on a necro - but CAN'T run on the primary class. This means 8 identical skills.
The worse the builds - the better!

Since we REALLY need to nerf stuff like Illusion in PvE - because when you run it on a necro and it works and then you run the same build on a mesmer - and it doesn't - it MUST be illusion that is overpowered!

(Ohh and please - no resto builds. We already KNOW resto is obscenely overpowered.)

around · Jul 11, 2008, 10:56 AM // 10:56

If restoration is overpowered why do people do N/Rt and not Rt/x?

Please answer me.