Curse

sindex · Apr 05, 2007, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

SF, along with GG, got nerfed the last skill balance. Theres really no way to nerf it without killing it now.

Well I knew about Glowing Gaze but I forgot if they did touch Searing Flames. Forgive me I am kind of biased when it comes to fire Ele’s, there just way too common. That and the Ruby Djiin I some times envy.

Kuja · Apr 05, 2007, 05:16 AM // 05:16

YOU FORGOT TO BUFF THE ENTIRE INSPIRATION LINE!

*kamekazi*

chichory · Apr 05, 2007, 05:25 AM // 05:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by J.Kougar

So because PvE is harder and puts you up against monsters with superior skills, it's okay for PvP to dictate when a skill is nerfed and made next to useless in PvE where it's needed more? Sorry, your logic and your statement don't see to make any sense.

No that was not it at all. I am saying there is nothing in PvE which can control balance as the entire environment is not created for you and the AI to be equal. In PvP however you generally have all the same options available and skills are compared against each other and the imbalanced ones really show. This is what i personally would like to have the skills balanced around.

xshadowwolfx · Apr 05, 2007, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by cellardweller

Fine for a pvp context, but there are no player deaths in pve.

There are just shit loads of mob deaths.

jayce · Apr 05, 2007, 05:31 AM // 05:31

on paper, im not a fan of this soul reaping change. ever since factions was released, necros have been getting the short end of the stick. i can think of no other profession who has had their primary attribute nerfed not once, but twice alone with a nerf to even a second attribute. 3 nerfs to attributes, 2 of which were nerfs to the primary attribute. can anyone tell me if any of the other core professions have received a nerf to any of their attributes before?

im not a mm, but i know how that game very well i might add. i think its insulting for arenanet to buff only minion skills to compensate for the nerf to soul reaping. i can assure you that i spend just as much, if not more, energy on spaming my skill set as a mm would, and all of my spells cost at least 10 energy. i depend on the target dying to replenish my energy right then, not 5 seconds later. if arenanet take a look at some of the other high cost necro skills to buff then i might not care as much. waiting to test it first.

Jayce Of Underworld

------------------------------------------------

Animate Soul Lich
Energy: 25
Cast: 3
Recharge: 0

Elite Skill. Animate a level 1...14 Soul Lich
at your location and you lose all energy. You
suffer -1 energy regeneration for each Soul Lich
you control. Whenever a Soul Lich you control
deals damage, you gain 2 energy.(Soul Reaping)

ZenRgy · Apr 05, 2007, 05:38 AM // 05:38

To all you QQ'ing MM PvE'ers, don't you think if you are able to spam 25e and 15e skills on recharge with no hurt to energy that things might be a little imba?

I doubt this will hurt MMs a whole lot, you're just being melodramatic, in my opinion soul reapings needs to get nerfed more.

Almighty Zi · Apr 05, 2007, 05:50 AM // 05:50

I'm guessing that my post will get buried under a huge pile of crap about which is more important to game balance (PvE or PvP), so I'll keep it short.

Here's what I think of the changes; they don't address the real issues. For instance, look at the reasoning behind the change to diversion's recharge - it is because of how powerful it is when used in conjunction with Mantra of Recovery. MoR used to be 10 energy and have a slight downtime (even with serious investment into fast casting) and I really don't think that many folk complained about it being weak. Then it was changed to 5 energy, has less downtime now at lower fast casting investment and now certain skills used in conjunction with it are now considered a little too powerful. In my opinion, MoR wasn't a weak elite before and really didn't need buffing (although welcomed). If the buff brought about any imbalance then it should be MoR that is changed - not the skills that it enjoys synery with.

Another issue for me is how skills are becoming narrower in usage. Look at the changes to Spirit of Failure. It was a fairly narrow skill before and only used competitively in certain builds. Now with the changes, it can really ONLY be used in specific builds.

Apart from that it seems like the guys have tried to fix some of the most important issues like Glyph of Lesser Energy, Recall and Soul Reaping so this is nice to see. However, did anyone look at the Nightfall memser elites at all? Most are absolute trash (Visions of Regret, Enchanter's Conundrum, Air of Disechantment, Tease) and haven't been used in any kind of competitive GvG since NF came out.

jayce · Apr 05, 2007, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenRgy

To all you QQ'ing MM PvE'ers, don't you think if you are able to spam 25e and 15e skills on recharge with no hurt to energy that things might be a little imba?

I doubt this will hurt MMs a whole lot, you're just being melodramatic, in my opinion soul reapings needs to get nerfed more.

please do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the only one that knows how to play GW, no matter how obvious you try to make your statement out to be.

Jayce Of Underworld

------------------------------------------------

Animate Soul Lich
Energy: 25
Cast: 3
Recharge: 0

Elite Skill. Animate a level 1...14 Soul Lich
at your location and you lose all energy. You
suffer -1 energy regeneration for each Soul Lich
you control. Whenever a Soul Lich you control
deals damage, you gain 2 energy.(Soul Reaping)

Zolderick · Apr 05, 2007, 06:08 AM // 06:08

I just can't believe they did that to Necromancer's Soul Reaping.... Necro was my first character and I loved the fact that they feast off death etc. But this change just seems so mechanical....every 5sec....Necro batteries aren't going to be as efficient anymore neither are mm's.

Kool Pajamas · Apr 05, 2007, 06:08 AM // 06:08

If all the pve'ers left you wouldnt notice at all because 99.9% only play with heroes and henchies anyway.....

And back on topic I'd rather see Soul reaping just not count spirit deaths at all. I mean...spirits are dead already so how do we get energy from them dieing? O_o

I'll wait on my full judgement until the new soul reaping is explained a bit better and i get to test it out.

Ss Executioner · Apr 05, 2007, 06:14 AM // 06:14

I'm pretty sure this has been stated before... but -

The soul reaping nerf is not enough - cry all you want PvErs, but it is imbalanced, being able to permenantly spam 25 - 15 energy spells the second they recharge without ever having to stop - you don't see a problem with this?

Also -

Mending Touch needs to be worked on as it is completely OP'd in a split situation. My proposed change -

Mending Touch - Spell. Touched ally loses 1....2 Conditions and is healed for ** Health for each condition removed this way.

At about say 7-8 in protection prayers, it becomes 2 conditions. What this does is this allows this skill to still be really good - but not overpowered.

-Sam

countesscorpula · Apr 05, 2007, 06:27 AM // 06:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

[INDENT] Spirits still provide half Energy, and with Soul Reaping's Energy gain limited, a player death will now provide more net Energy,

Either I'm misreading this or others are. As I read it, this says nothing about the amount of energy gained from player death increasing above what it was before. Rather, it points out that the benefit of a player death is far superior to a spirit death. So if you bring spirits, and get energy from them, you'll only be getting half the energy that you could have received if you didn't bring spirits and killed palyers instead.

Spirit dies then player dies in same 5 sec span = SR bonus/2
only player dies = Full SR bonus

Therefore don't bring spirits to fuel SR.

So instead of simply removing the overpowered boost that spirits provided to SR, the developers engineered a "fix" that would discourage any team build that employs both spirits (from rits or rangers) and necros relying on SR for energy management.

Want to starve a necro from achieving maximum energy gain, start bringing and sacking your own spirits. The team that was hoping to get Full SR benefits from player deaths or minion turn-over will have that e-source managed elsewhere in a way they weren't expecting, and find unfavorable.

Mr.Pickle · Apr 05, 2007, 06:32 AM // 06:32

i knew Soul Reaping was going to get hit sooner or later.

maybe they'll change favor system for UW/FoW nxt and even make mesmers a viable option in PvE

prism2525 · Apr 05, 2007, 06:34 AM // 06:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by cellardweller

Fine for a pvp context, but there are no player deaths in pve.

What I meant is that SR would still work for "real" deaths. i.e. not summoned creatures or minions. Monsters in PvE are still alive (at first).

Mesmerman · Apr 05, 2007, 06:36 AM // 06:36

Ok, let's take a look-see...

# Recall: changed functionality to "While you maintain Recall, nothing happens. When Recall ends, you Shadow Step to the ally you targeted when you activated this skill."
~Agreed, this is better.

# Avatar of Balthazar: increased duration to 10..90.
# Avatar of Dwayna: increased duration to 10..75.
# Avatar of Grenth: increased duration to 10..45.
# Avatar of Lyssa: increased duration to 10..90.
~Good. Needed to be done.

# Glyph of Lesser Energy: now reduces the cost of your next 2 spells by 10..18 Energy, based on the Energy Storage attribute.
~I'd be biased if I said that this wasn't an issue. This balance is probably for the best, despite my frustration with it.

# Convert Hexes: decreased casting time to 1 second.
~Making this skill feel slightly less clunky is welcome.

# Animate Vampiric Horror: decreased Energy cost to 15.
~A step in the right direction towards making MMs a little more diversified. Being the primary minion of Orders MM builds, this change will prove useful.

# Zealous Benediction: decreased Energy gained to 7.
~Unnecessary. The ZB build is NOT that good, at least not because of ZB alone.

# "Shields Up!": decreased duration to 5..11 seconds, and reduced armor bonus to +24.
~Ok Anet, now you're just being rude.

# "The Diversion/Mantra of Recovery combination was proving to be slightly overpowered"
~My ass.

And here's where it really goes downhill...
# Soul Reaping: now only provides Energy at a maximum rate of once every 5 seconds.
~Ok, WTF? Thanks assholes. Thanks for blowing a hole in the one thing that really made necromancers useful and great. You already decreased spirit energy gain to decrease over-use in pvp, and as of now Necromancers really don't see enough pvp play. Really though, that's not even the big issue. The big issue is that you've (once again) put your foot straight up pve-gamers' assholes, and botched what was a great thing in pve and turned it into a pile of ass and s***. Of course saying anything to you goes unheeded, I know. It took 2 damn years and 3 campaigns to f***ing EXPAND THE STORAGE SPACE. I'll probably NEVER see the ability to change my username again. And I just have to sit back and take it in the teeth. Thanks for turning the necromancer into a mesmer, you pukes.

It wouldn't even seem like that big of a deal, but there will be a lot of things necros just will not be able to do with this nerf. It's only a step in the wrong direction, and it's not the only step. My prediction for the next big update:
# Soul Reaping will not activate unless your energy is above 90%.

(EDIT: Oh wait... never mind. Beta access to Lord Of The Rings Online came in the same magazine as the Guild Wars 2 info... how convenient. PCgamer once again saving me from the bullsh**!!

)

NeHoMaR · Apr 05, 2007, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkumaZ

...If you've played PvP, you'd KNOW that Soul Reaping was broken as hell.

Not really, the problem is there are too many spirits now; Ritualist was the one that broke balance; You can have 8 spirits in your skill bar and be really useful for your party; not the case with 8 ranger spirits in one person, also ranger spirits last a lot longer time alive.

Abyss1 · Apr 05, 2007, 07:08 AM // 07:08

ok so kinda worried about the Soul Reaping Nerf....

Sure it might had to change but in any PvE sense it now means killing a mob of 10to30 enemies(like in DoA) only gives you 3 energy back ...(or what ever the return is on SR). MM's shouldn't have a real worry with the right setup recharge of minions compared to regen of energy still work fine.

But the one thing that could keep a BiP going in high cast areas is now no longer.....so a second BR/BiP in the group to offset ?!

Ensign · Apr 05, 2007, 07:24 AM // 07:24

The Recall buff doesn't make any sense. The Deny Hexes buff is awesome. The Crippling Slash buff might be too awesome.

Like the Soul Reaping change, even if the numbers aren't quite right it's a mechanical change that will fix Soul Reaping.

Pretty conservative this time around but not much to argue with. Good job.

Peace,
-CxE

Iolo Fletcher · Apr 05, 2007, 07:30 AM // 07:30

I don't know, this strikes me as pretty extreme... beyond what I would even concider a nerf. Soul reaping is a primary attribute not a skill. I don't play a necro.. but my wife has for as long as GW has been around. Necro is her identity or main character in the game. Right now she's sick about this.

Many of the Necro skills are 15 energy to cast.. to offset the cost of expensive spells eles have energy storage, rangers have expertise... necros were supposed to have soul reaping.. it's not going to be near enough to offset the casting cost.. not only in my untrained oppinion but my wife's trained 2000 hour plus hard won knowledge of the profession.

Why not find a different way to accomplish "balance" (which I think is a myth anyway)? If there is a problem with too many manufactured deaths in Pvp limit or negate soul reaping from spirits or minions ...but a heavy handed cut to soul reaping doesn't seem right.

Back to the drawing board Anet.

Div · Apr 05, 2007, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Overall, I really liked the changes. One thing that I noticed was that the lesser used avatars got a huge buff, which is great help for melee characters. Similarly, warrior attacks like crippling slash and barbarous slice got nice buffs. Hexes overall seem to be slightly weaker, and healing is slightly weaker (due to GoLE nerf). The ZB nerf isn't that needed, as it was fading out of the big GvG and HA picture anyways due to LoD being a much more popular choice.