Curse

freaky naughty · Apr 16, 2008, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Is the OP joking? Soul Reaping is the best e-management we've had since like....ever

FlamingMetroid · Apr 16, 2008, 10:12 PM // 22:12

@ OP: yes, and mesmers are overpowered in PvE
/sarcasm

Calista Blackblood · Apr 16, 2008, 11:28 PM // 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Furthermore, sharing SR hits off other people's minions, is not ONLY broken, it's an exploit.

how can it be an exploit when its prefectly allowed?with your line of thinking every account containing a necro character should be banned like the 117

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I'm arguing for a change that fixes BOTH mechanics AND reduces SR energy returns by 50% AND permanently closes the door to PvP exploitation, and somehow that's bad?

your arguing for changes that you want,none that particularly express the views of every active or the majority of player/s with a necro

i want my energy everytime something dies (no timer)

i want less energy and cheaper skills (reduce animate bone fiend?)

soul reaping gains for any necro in the party is an exploit.an "exploit" (that has been coded into the game and perfectly allowed) that should be gotten rid of

basically you want anet to nerf sabway for you and keep necros somewhat unviable in pvp

Carinae · Apr 17, 2008, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calista BlackBlood

how can it be an exploit when its prefectly allowed?

By that line of reasoning, every exploit in the game is OK. The game allows it, so it's OK....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calista BlackBlood

with your line of thinking every account containing a necro character should be banned like the 117

I think it's obvious why this is not true. Soul reaping is passive, if you're a necro and there is another MM nearby you can't help but receive the energy. That's a straw man argument.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calista BlackBlood

your arguing for changes that you want,none that particularly express the views of every active or the majority of player/s with a necro

I'm arguing for changes that improve the game. I think it goes without saying that virtually all necros that play MM would rather NOT have the timer. I'm also aware that the reason SR was given the timer had NOTHING to do with PvE, and had everything to do with PvP, specifically Spirit Spam and Jagged Bones+Taste of Death abuse....on an entire team of necros.

All PvP players (and eventually Anet) were fed up with the continuous string of SR exploits, one after another, so they added a hard cap, to definatively place a maximum on the rate at which energy could be generated. Because that's what PvP is all about. It was the safest way to prevent it from happening again rather than always fixing the newest exploit. What I'm arguing is that there is another way to do the same thing, that is also rock-solid and unexploitable. And this method has less impact on MMs...which matters because THAT'S WHAT SOUL REAPING WAS MADE TO DO.

It certainly wasn't nerfed because of PvE. MM's are the ones that generated the most output from SR, and they are the one build that needs that much energy. The objective for MMs was to spend the energy before it overflowed. NO ONE was complaining about N/Rt healers and N/E nukers in PvE.

I'm not arguing that MMs aren't viable, but they definately run into a wall at even moderate kill rates. I don't think that is intended, since every other build/class doesn't experience this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calista BlackBlood

basically you want anet to nerf sabway for you and keep necros somewhat unviable in pvp

I'm not particularly against Sabway, however, it is yet another example of an instawin build that probably DOES need to be nerfed, along with UB, because it doesn't promote good gameplay. Any time there is a dominant "play this and win build" it needs to be examined for nerfage, universally. If Sabway needs to take a hit to restore corpse-exploitation synergy, so be it.

I have never heard any high-end PvP player promote using this SR mechanic with a full team of necros, or even view it in a positive light. It's arguable if it is an 'exploit' or not, but at best, it's a gimmick, and is viewed as such in high-end PvP. Passively generating raw energy for other players is NOT a good mechanic, in either part of the game.

Calista Blackblood · Apr 17, 2008, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

By that line of reasoning, every exploit in the game is OK. The game allows it, so it's OK....

gaining energy from someone elses minions is not an exploit,its been like that since gw was released.it stands out like a red house in a terrace of white ones so it hardly slipped the net un-noticed for 3 years. and really how could it with the amount of attention anet have paid on necros and soul reaping over that time

Quote:

I think it's obvious why this is not true. Soul reaping is passive, if you're a necro and there is another MM nearby you can't help but receive the energy. That's a straw man argument.

so its a passive exploit? one which we've all abused on a daily basis.if its such a serious exploit that it needs fixing why shouldnt anet ban us all

Quote:

And this method has less impact on MMs...which matters because THAT'S WHAT SOUL REAPING WAS MADE TO DO.

current animation skills arent particularly bad for energy costing except for ABF,mms are still viable i agree with you there.they just arent as overpowering as before(forcing better minion healing/counter regen),most builds these days rely more on keeping minions alive for as close to their 3 mins(and longer) as possible (max degen kicks in after 3 mins) rather than recycling

probably worse than most suggestions,but if anet can code loot scaling/assignment,would be be so hard to code the assignment of energy post death and somehow assign that in whatever percentage compared to your rank in soul reaping or something.rather than x amount of necros getting xx energy each,x necros getting x% of foes x average sr rank

im tired and cba doing maths :P

Cyb3r · Apr 17, 2008, 03:17 AM // 03:17

so calista you want another thing that ends up being broken from the beginning like Lootscaling/loot allocation? (i've seen alot of gold things go to the same person over and over again cause of the server having a lil hiccup or whatever)

Yes SR is overpowered in PVE but carinae dragonblood made up some vial points, points that describe the minion master in an Rpg, besides to be honest necro's don't end up in high end pvp, just like mesmers don't belong too much in pve (and i play a mesmer myself in pve before you start about it)

And to fix both the mesmer and the necro to be viable in both forms of the game (pve/pvp) a heck of alot will have to change and to be honest i'll rather wait for GW2 and see if it's fixed in there than wait on anet to change it for GW1

Fishmonger · Apr 17, 2008, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Screw up SR and MM's will become the new Spirit Spammers...pretty much useless. SR is AMAZING. You want to see an underpowered primary? go check out Spawning Power (WHY do you think there are so many N/Rt healers instead of plain RT??!!?)

The Meth · Apr 17, 2008, 04:09 AM // 04:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishmonger

WHY do you think there are so many N/Rt healers instead of plain RT??!!?

Because 99% of the guild wars population has no idea how to efficiently manage energy by using casts efficiently and would rather spam a weaker spell all day long and just stare at red bars?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Even Meth agrees with me on this, and that should tell you something.

Great to know I have your support here... lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Somehow, not one, but TWO broken mechanics within SR doesn't constitute broken?

MM's stall out at even moderate kill rates because the stupid timer uttery breaks corpse-exploitation synergy. That's a fact. Everyone knows it.
Furthermore, sharing SR hits off other people's minions, is not ONLY broken, it's an exploit.

I'm arguing for a change that fixes BOTH mechanics AND reduces SR energy returns by 50% AND permanently closes the door to PvP exploitation, and somehow that's bad?

How about this I thought up just a while ago?

Soul Reaping: Whenever a nearby creature has less then 50% health, you gain 1 energy regeneration for every 4 points in soul reaping for the next 5 seconds. (Dead creatures will count, summoned/animated creatures will not, the energy regen will not stack)

What this will do in PvE: Most necros will have +3 regen in PvE most of the time during battle, as the <50% health clause includes dead enemies. Some of the more expensive pve skills will need to be lowered in cost a bit (read: Bone Fiends). Other skills will still be usable, but no more ultra-spamminess generated just because there are minions on your team.

What this will do in PvP: In PvP, nothing stays at <50% health for long. It either dies or is healed back up. This will mean the necro will get multiple, smaller energy boosts on the order of 5 energy each during a battle. Again, no ability to fuel infinite energy chains, but it will give small boosts during the battle.

Exact numbers on the implementation are of course up for debate, but I believe the mechanic would be very workable.

upier · Apr 17, 2008, 06:42 AM // 06:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSephir

Underpowered? Nigga, please! Change "under" to "over" and you may be onto something there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freaky naughty

Is the OP joking? Soul Reaping is the best e-management we've had since like....ever

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlamingMetroid

@ OP: yes, and mesmers are overpowered in PvE
/sarcasm

You guys did actually take the time to read the thread, didn't you?
No, wait - I can already see you didn't ...

Bront · Apr 17, 2008, 06:51 AM // 06:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calista BlackBlood

it CANNOT be broken in any way when necromancers are the sole class within the game that receive ANY benefit from a dying foe in terms of direct energy gain without use of skills.

You shoot yourself in the foot right here.

Being the only ones who do it and balanced are two different things.

The simple fact of PvE has become this. If your Primary attribute doesn't help you specificly when casting, then N/ builds are as good if not better. Think fast casting is a joke? N/ME interuptor FTW! Why not an N/E with Fire attunement, Mind blast, Rodgorts invocation, and a high energy set? How about that N/MO Smiter build? Let alone anything N/Rt that doesn't involve much with spirits!

Heck, why limit it to casters? If you can deal without the armor, a high energy N/W might be a fun diversion.

N/ builds are potentialy superior to other casters in PvE in many aspects. Having advantages is good, and makes for fun builds and diversity. Being outright superior? That's tragic.

Targuil · Apr 17, 2008, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bront

You shoot yourself in the foot right here.

Being the only ones who do it and balanced are two different things.

The simple fact of PvE has become this. If your Primary attribute doesn't help you specificly when casting, then N/ builds are as good if not better. Think fast casting is a joke? N/ME interuptor FTW! Why not an N/E with Fire attunement, Mind blast, Rodgorts invocation, and a high energy set? How about that N/MO Smiter build? Let alone anything N/Rt that doesn't involve much with spirits!

Heck, why limit it to casters? If you can deal without the armor, a high energy N/W might be a fun diversion.

N/ builds are potentialy superior to other casters in PvE in many aspects. Having advantages is good, and makes for fun builds and diversity. Being outright superior? That's tragic.

Mind Blast ele has superior energy management even without necro primary. Thing is that necro heros are just overpowered because they can spam hell out of anything while gaining that energy back in no time.

Made In Ascalon · Apr 17, 2008, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishmonger

Screw up SR and MM's will become the new Spirit Spammers...pretty much useless. SR is AMAZING. You want to see an underpowered primary? go check out Spawning Power (WHY do you think there are so many N/Rt healers instead of plain RT??!!?)

Before the added the increased length to weapon spells, your argument was right. It's not anymore, spawning power is a more worthwhile investment for it. People run N/Rt because SR is godly in pve compared to everything other than ursanway and save yourself spam.

Bront · Apr 17, 2008, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Targuil

Mind Blast ele has superior energy management even without necro primary. Thing is that necro heros are just overpowered because they can spam hell out of anything while gaining that energy back in no time.

Exactly. Now Immagine them as N/E ...

yeah, probably no real difference, but it gives you some extra play room. Probably means you could drop Fire Attunement for something else.

Carinae · Apr 17, 2008, 07:22 AM // 07:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calista BlackBlood

most builds these days rely more on keeping minions alive for as close to their 3 mins(and longer) as possible (max degen kicks in after 3 mins) rather than recycling

This is true actually. We agree on something! But it needs to go back to recycling based. The reason is for this is Hard Mode. Minions go down pretty easy in HM, even if you're using BotM on-recharge. This causes SR to fire off it's 3 hits when there are no corpses available, and overflow virtually all of the energy. Then when the monsters do go down, you DON'T get the hits, but you get corpses. Broken!

Removing the timer resolves this, as you still get your hits when the corpses appear, which is what the whole build is about. It also restores some capacity to generate new minions mid-battle, which can be the difference between a wipe and a win. Pre-timer, I've had quite a few battles come down to the fact that I was just barely able to hold the army together and turn the tide. I was the last one standing, on both sides. The timer screws your ability to do this.

Finally, BOTH Shambling Horrors and Jagged Bones do BAD THINGS™ to your SR returns, at random times, because of the timer. Both skills are very useful in Hard Mode because they help keep an army up, however, they AREN'T useful when they waste your SR hits along the way. This effect isn't built into the skill cost, and can't really be adjusted for.

The timer produces an unintended effect of randomizing your SR returns. You can't plan for them, you can't do anything. At unexpected times, you run dry. Broken!

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

Soul Reaping: Whenever a nearby creature has less then 50% health, you gain 1 energy regeneration for every 4 points in soul reaping for the next 5 seconds. (Dead creatures will count, summoned/animated creatures will not, the energy regen will not stack)

This idea was batted around right before the timer was implemented. A lot of PvPers liked this idea. The problem with it is this: +3 regen is 1e/sec.

Even if you lower Bone Fiends all the way to 10e (which is a BIG 'if') it still takes 10sec to generate enough energy for a single Fiend. For.A.Single.Fiend.

If you go to the extreme limit and add +6 regen, it still takes 5sec per Fiend. BotM is using your initial +4 regen by itself. So while it provides barely enough energy to function, it leaves no room for anything else....Self-Heals/OoU/Other Stuff. And that 'Other Stuff' is key.

We don't want energy to be THAT tight, and we can't add more than +6 regen. It also slows the build down on the field, and it's already a slow plodding build.

Stormlord Alex · Apr 17, 2008, 10:15 AM // 10:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bront

Exactly. Now Immagine them as N/E ...

yeah, probably no real difference, but it gives you some extra play room. Probably means you could drop Fire Attunement for something else.

No. E/X Mind Blasters are always superior - better at speccing off-attributes and using different secondaries to power stuff out with Mind Blast; something that a necro mindblaster can't do.

Now stop being silly.

the forests wisper · Apr 17, 2008, 10:30 AM // 10:30

SR was overpowerd before all the nerfs, but no i think its pretty much balanced (lol i said balanced about GW) now.

the 3 times thing stops the crazy amount of energy flooding in and if ppl really need energy that bad after that they need to seriously get some more killing power

The Meth · Apr 17, 2008, 12:12 PM // 12:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

This idea was batted around right before the timer was implemented. A lot of PvPers liked this idea. The problem with it is this: +3 regen is 1e/sec.

Even if you lower Bone Fiends all the way to 10e (which is a BIG 'if') it still takes 10sec to generate enough energy for a single Fiend. For.A.Single.Fiend.

If you go to the extreme limit and add +6 regen, it still takes 5sec per Fiend. BotM is using your initial +4 regen by itself. So while it provides barely enough energy to function, it leaves no room for anything else....Self-Heals/OoU/Other Stuff. And that 'Other Stuff' is key.

We don't want energy to be THAT tight, and we can't add more than +6 regen. It also slows the build down on the field, and it's already a slow plodding build.

If you read further, for PvE I said bone fiends would need to be reduced in energy (15 energy would be a good number). I think it should be made much harder to make a full army of 10 bone fiends. I would rather turn bone fiends from the best minion in the game that everyone uses into the best minion in the game that requires you to manage your energy very well to use. The other minions I believe will be fairly balanced at that energy gain rate.

I don't think its unreasonable to prevent necromancers from spamming their minion skills every single time a corpse drops. If they want to do that, they might need to (shudder), go /E and take glyph of lesser energy like every other caster has been doing for a year. Making necros actually think about managing their energy? What a crazy idea, I know. Even if you had a necro without anything but SoLS, you could probably maintain at least 6-8 minions, and that is quite powerful enough in PvE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormlord Alex

No. E/X Mind Blasters are always superior - better at speccing off-attributes and using different secondaries to power stuff out with Mind Blast; something that a necro mindblaster can't do.
Now stop being silly.

Interestingly enough, I messed around with an n/e searing flames hero a while ago. Where heroes screw up and can bottom out in energy with ele primary SF or Mind Blast, the necro can spam to its heart's content just like anything else. I have a friend who swears by the same N/E nukers. Of course, this only applies to heroes who are too stupid to be able to use such things like off attributes in the first place.

BlackSephir · Apr 17, 2008, 12:40 PM // 12:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

You guys did actually take the time to read the thread, didn't you?
No, wait - I can already see you didn't ...

I did. But it's worthless IMO to explain. If you play GW and read what SR does, then you'd know how good it is. If you do not, then everyone's just waisting their time explaining the obvious.

System_Crush · Apr 17, 2008, 04:43 PM // 16:43

No that is what was in the OP, reading the tread you will notice we have moved to talking about the balance of soul reaping.

In PvE I agree it is godlike, in PvP the new more useful skills in it offer something but still not enough to make me spec in it.

And Catherine has a point, even though she's exaggerating/sarcastic.

I think that if your soul reaping returns more energy than your bar can hold, the execess is saved up to gain additional trigger in the 15 seconds that you gained enough excess soul reaping energy to afford a soul reaping return(a death still has to occur within those 15 seconds for that to be useful)

So:
If you are at full energy deaths of foes do not expend your soul reaping triggers.
If you have, say, 10 soul reaping and are 5 energy below max; 5 excess energy is saved.
You then use [[Discord] again killing another foe dies so you get another 10 energy of which 5 is saved.
You then have 10 excess energy, earning you 1 additional trigger of soul reaping in the remainder of the 15 seconds.
You have 2 triggers of soul reaping left and about 8 seconds to use them, good luck

.

It would not be unbalanced as it doesn't improve soul reaping's energy return it just offers it at a different time.
And how overpowered could extra energy management be, if it required you to have almost full energy?

upier · Apr 17, 2008, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSephir

I did. But it's worthless IMO to explain. If you play GW and read what SR does, then you'd know how good it is. If you do not, then everyone's just waisting their time explaining the obvious.

In which case you'd have to know that the point of this thread wasn't even about SR.
It's simply about having X (to lazy to check how many exactly!) different posters AND NOT having X posts saying that SR is BEYOND overpowered and it needs a serious nerf.
It's about overpowered concepts being "fine" in PvE.