Curse

swordfisher · Jan 06, 2007, 09:41 AM // 09:41

Target foe takes 10...82 damage, and all nearby creatures take 15...63 damage. This skill recharges instantly if it hits a Spirit.

All right, so this won't fix the problems this skill presents, but it makes the skill a lot riskier for the melee component of the spike and requires some additional consideration before using it. Domination skills generally punish a foe in some way- Spiritual Pain is so awesome (and effectively unconditional) it punishes YOU.
The serious downside would be running S-Pain in a build with your own spirits, and relying on them for the quick recharge. So be it.

LoyalSoldier · Jan 06, 2007, 09:43 AM // 09:43

Um correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't it have to hit an enemy spirit?

The main idea of the skill was to punish Rits for using spirits, but the problem was the damage was so good that in a cordinated spike it was so great.

Patrograd · Jan 06, 2007, 10:10 AM // 10:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoyalSoldier

Um correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't it have to hit an enemy spirit?

.

No, if it did it would be fine and would fit the domination line. Hitting a spirit gives you instant recharge, but you dont need to hit a spirit to get the damage, which is nuts imo

This is another one of those skills that should just die a nice quiet death somewhere and never raise its ugly head in competitive play again.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 06, 2007, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoyalSoldier

Um correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't it have to hit an enemy spirit?

The main idea of the skill was to punish Rits for using spirits, but the problem was the damage was so good that in a cordinated spike it was so great.

The problem is also that it's not even effective against spirits. 30-40 energy to kill one spirit? nothx.

dgb · Jan 06, 2007, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

The problem is also that it's not even effective against spirits. 30-40 energy to kill one spirit? nothx.

Add in a line, "if this skill damages a spirit, you gain 5 energy" to solve that.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 06, 2007, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

Add in a line, "if this skill damages a spirit, you gain 5 energy" to solve that.

25-35 energy to kill one spirit? nothx.
EDIT: misread what you said. Pretty good suggestion I think.

Franco Power · Jan 06, 2007, 01:42 PM // 13:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

Add in a line, "if this skill damages a spirit, you gain 5 energy" to solve that.

I dont think this skill needs to be buffed...

LoyalSoldier · Jan 06, 2007, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

No, if it did it would be fine and would fit the domination line. Hitting a spirit gives you instant recharge, but you dont need to hit a spirit to get the damage, which is nuts imo

This is another one of those skills that should just die a nice quiet death somewhere and never raise its ugly head in competitive play again.

I know that part. I was refering to the recharge on it. I was talking about the

Quote:

The serious downside would be running S-Pain in a build with your own spirits, and relying on them for the quick recharge. So be it.

part.

TheOneMephisto · Jan 06, 2007, 05:45 PM // 17:45

IMO, this skill just needs a general nerf. Take 10-20 damage off, and make it so that it doesn't do AoE unless there actually is a nearby spirit (I still wanna nuke stupid rits

). Actually, I wouldn't mind killing it that much, however, there are enough spirit/minion pressure teams around that I think it should still be around. It just needs to be toned down... a lot.

Along those same lines, wastrel's demise needs to be toned down a LOT. I mean, possibly 80 damage for a 5e 1/4 cast spell on an 8 sec recharge? What?

dgb · Jan 07, 2007, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Ultimatum

I dont think this skill needs to be buffed...

It currently is insanely good on the premise that it's a spirit killer. It needs to be nerfed to not be insanely good, my suggestion is to nerf it but add my line so it will still be a spirit sweeper.

LoyalSoldier · Jan 07, 2007, 03:02 AM // 03:02

You could always make it do double damage to spirits and lower the damage.

Patccmoi · Jan 07, 2007, 08:12 AM // 08:12

I agree with the fact that it punishes for using spirits, but it shouldn't:

1) Make spirits unusable. Doesn't atm, but some of the proposed buffs kinda do it.

2) Be an insanely good unconditional spike.

I'd like it to do something like 5..41..53 damage, +5..41..53 damage if you're in the area of a spirit and nearby damage. Basically, same as it is now, but ONLY if you're in the area of a spirit, and half damage otherwise. Make it 15s recharge, but kill the 'instant recharge' part.

It must punish spirit users since that's the point of the skill. Not punish people for existing.

Basically, i'd like the skill to be:

Spiritual Pain
10/1/15

Target foe takes 5..41..53 damage. If target foe is in the area of a spirit, he takes an extra 5..41..53 damage and all nearby foes take 15..63..79 damage

Note that you could use your own spirits to trigger the skill. Could give Draw Spirit some interest. But at least, it becomes more in line with the Domination attribute by posing a dilemma : do i stay in the area of my spirits (for Rts that's needed for a lot of things) and risk being nuked hard, or do i move out to avoid the nuke damage (but lose bonuses, etc.). There's a way in theory to AVOID the spike, which is how it is for every other domination skill. EBurn/ESurge can be evaded (to some extent) by hiding your energy or burning it away, Shatter Enchant by not using enchants, Backfire by not casting, Empathy by not hitting, etc.

As for Wastrel's Demise, I'd be happy to see it be a short version of Wastrel's Worry instead. Hex target for 1 second, if target isn't casting a spell when it ends target takes damage, and reduce recharge to 6s to compensate. At least it gives a chance to see it and start casting something at random to evade the damage (can always cancel it afterwards, but you lose energy) and it loses its ability to be used as afterspike (since being a hex 2-3 Mesmers throwing it wouldn't do anything except refresh the hex which you just want to end). Right now it's just another stupid direct nuke and Domination is good enough without having powerful, armor ignoring, unconditional direct nukes in there. Powerful and armor ignoring is fine, as long as there's some condition to meet.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 07, 2007, 10:06 AM // 10:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Ultimatum

I dont think this skill needs to be buffed...

Ofcourse the 'energy when it hits a spirit'-part would go alongside a nerf, so that it becomes less of a spike skill, and more of a anti-spirit skill.

Phades · Jan 07, 2007, 10:08 AM // 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Basically, i'd like the skill to be:

Spiritual Pain
10/1/15

Target foe takes 5..41..53 damage. If target foe is in the area of a spirit, he takes an extra 5..41..53 damage and all nearby foes take 15..63..79 damage

Seems a little silly to have it potentially do more damage to nearby foes than the target. Also, it can take 6+ casts to drop some spirits, since they do go upwards of level 11. Also, rits arent always stupid enough to stand next to their spirits and have all their spirits in the same aoe. Long story short, doing this could just easily shift mesmers back to the sig, which is free, and recharges 15s slower. Granted there is no aoe, but this kind of change kills the skill completely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

As for Wastrel's Demise, I'd be happy to see it be a short version of Wastrel's Worry instead. Hex target for 1 second, if target isn't casting a spell when it ends target takes damage, and reduce recharge to 6s to compensate.

Personally, i simply don't know why it wasnt a direct copy of wastrel's worry with different conditions. Then again, there is overload.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Powerful and armor ignoring is fine, as long as there's some condition to meet.

"Conditional damage" in the domination line only means, "cool i get to do something else while im nuking more than one person potentially". I dunno, i just think that the only reason why skills like wastrel's demise and spiritual pain exist as they are now, is a direct result of e-surge doing as much as it has over the past few years. Then you have the anti spell skills doing slightly more damage than e-surge, with the 5e stuff doing less.

Patrograd · Jan 07, 2007, 10:56 AM // 10:56

How about you make the skill something like

10e 1 c 10recharge

Target enemy summoned creature is destroyed and all foes in the area take 10...82 damage

Ensign · Jan 07, 2007, 11:11 AM // 11:11

It's not a 'spirit killer', it wrecks people who stand in spirit fields. Unnatural Signet is for blasting spirits.

I think there are two changes that the skill needs to have:

1) It must have a two second or longer casting time - a one second cast time is way too good for a skill that you want to use for compressed damage.

2) It cannot deal more damage than Energy Surge to the primary target. Surge is a gold-standard elite, and I'm really uncomfortable seeing a skill like Spiritual Pain outclass Surge in several areas.

...I think that those two are all that it really needs, but I don't think those two are particularly negotiable when it comes to balancing this skill.

Peace,
-CxE

Thomas.knbk · Jan 07, 2007, 01:43 PM // 13:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Unnatural Signet is for blasting spirits.

I agree with your entire post, but does anyone really use US for hunting spirits? at 16 dom it does 79 dmg, and at the more realistic attribute level of 14 that's 71. US has a 1sec cast time (not reduced by fast casting, it's a signet), and an aftercast of .75 seconds. That's a mere 45 DPS at 16 dom, and 40.5 (not sure on rounding) at 14.
Considering all spirits are lvl 11 or below and generally have very little armor, a warrior will always out-DPS a mesmer on spirits. In order for US to be a true spirit blaster, it needs quite a big buff. Buffing either the damage or the cast time would make it too much of a spike assist (like SP currently is) however.

Patccmoi · Jan 07, 2007, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

How about you make the skill something like

10e 1 c 10recharge

Target enemy summoned creature is destroyed and all foes in the area take 10...82 damage

That's what i call making spirits unusable. Most spirits take 5s to put down. Instantly destroying them on 10s recharge at range is just silly. And on top of that you make it the most powerful Area nuke in the game. There's already Gaze of Fury for instantly destroying spirits at range, but it's 10/2/30 and it doesn't blast everything around instantly. Not to say that it's in a line that is overall much weaker than Domination.

Spirits are already a pain to put up and as you said warriors can tear them appart in a few seconds. If they're to be a viable part of the game, you can't just make skills that destroy them so easily. It's like asking for Unnatural Signet to do 2 x damage to spirits. You'll have that hitting spirits for 160 so that most spirits die in 2 hits? That's again making spirits absolutely unusable.

Spirits already have a counter that every single team has : direct damage takes them down, and honestly pretty fast (for most spirits below level 10-11, non-armor ignoring damage is better than armor ignoring cause they don't even have 60 AL. An elementalist with something like Liquid Flame will blast a pack of offensive spirits MUCH harder than Spiritual Pain). Use a Ranger built for damage (those kinda stopped existing, but they're honestly not that bad at all) and with a Flatbow they can just destroy any spirit in LoS in a few seconds. It's not like skills are needed to instantly take down spirits, any team that takes a few seconds can take down any annoying spirit in range.

As Ensign said, Spiritual Pain should punish people standing near spirits, not make spirits nearly impossible to keep up.

And it's true that target damage shouldn't really outclass ESurge. Maybe they should just put same damage to target than to Nearby foes.

10/2/30 with 15..63..79 damage to target, with Nearby AOE and instant recharge only if target is Nearby a spirit could be a pretty good fix too. It would still be a quite decent direct damage skill (close to EBurn) but with punishment potential when people are near spirits.

As for US, it kills spirits in a way other things can't really by being a signet (very few things, at least in most metas, will hamper the use of signets), instantly recharges (no Diversion), and has non-LoS. Most non-LoS nukes will require many hits to kill spirits but won't instantly recharge and will take energy. Basically US allows you to only take time, absolutely nothing else, to take down a spirit. Warrior has to get in melee and can walk in Dust Trap or be blind another way, etc., rangers need LoS, Eles will usually need LoS cause few carry multiple non-LoS nukes that can actually kill spirits fast without recharging for a while. There is Channeling Rt that can take them down pretty fast usually since all their stuff is non-LoS, but they still gotta use energy for it. US basically doesn't use ANY of your ressources to take down spirits, except a little time. There is no energy used, no skill going on recharge, no LoS and you can do it from range. If it was any more efficient at it than it currently is, it's another skill that would make spirits unusable.

Ensign · Jan 07, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I agree with your entire post, but does anyone really use US for hunting spirits?

No, of course not, no one brings a skill that's only good for hunting spirits. It needs to be passable for hunting players as well, and Unnatural Signet, while passable in that regard, isn't exactly stellar and has a lot of stiff competition on a Dom bar. If you do happen to have it though it is pretty good at chopping down key spirits - it takes 3-4 shots to knock one down, and when compared with the time it'll take a Warrior to run there (not to mention the ever-present Dust Traps and the like) it's pretty effective. But it's a hard skill to justify bringing because, well, if they don't have any spirits it's pretty sad.

Peace,
-CxE

Patrograd · Jan 08, 2007, 10:26 AM // 10:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

That's what i call making spirits unusable. Most spirits take 5s to put down. Instantly destroying them on 10s recharge at range is just silly. And on top of that you make it the most powerful Area nuke in the game. .

Good point

So in that case, something like

10e 2c 10recharge

Target enemy summoned creature and all nearby foes take 10...62 damage

??