Curse

jayce · Jun 23, 2009, 07:24 AM // 07:24

mentioned somewhere in one of my posts long ago:

Life Stealing Mechanic - You Steal health if you or your target is below 50% health, otherwise you deal Shadow Damage.

Jayce Of Underworld

Jeydra · Jun 24, 2009, 04:07 AM // 04:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by House Silvermoon

what many say about bspike makes sense. but it's kinda silly to have to work so hard to beat a build, and making a small mistake usually causes you to lose the match.

Come to think of it I think so too, and the only real problem I have with bloodspike is that they can bodyblock your res shrine if you wipe once to ensure that you will keep wiping. For that I'd say make it so that you can run out of the res shrine from any direction, instead of just through the front.

Moderator's Edit: Removed reference to deleted content.

kedde · Jun 24, 2009, 12:12 PM // 12:12

Nerfing bspike is good because its both boring and skillless.
Buildvariety shouldn't automatically trumph everything because it gets stale otherwise, playing against bspike is stale.
You do mariokart against a team with permanent 33% IMS and one team suicides on the other, all depending on some rather random percentages.

Nadia Roark · Jun 26, 2009, 09:00 PM // 21:00

+1.

Regardless of how strong it is or isn't, I always thought it was a little absurd that it's the only mechanic in the game that has just one counter (spot heals)*. So basically, if you can disable or overpower the healer, your spike will work pretty much every time assuming you don't have vent lag or something else interfering. Every kind of elemental damage can be countered by any one of many skills/insignias; Holy and Shadow damage ignore armor but they're still damage; they can still be protted.

Life stealing is another one of a growing list of examples of the fact that ArenaNet has an immense, undying hardon for the necromancer class. Christ knows they nerfed Sandstorm fast enough when people started running 6+ eles in HA, but 6 necros with life stealing is somehow different and totally acceptable. They let necros backline better than monks for over a year before finally removing SR from spirits, which they should have done when Factions was released; at one point they could be used to fulfill pretty much any role in the game except for melee: they could backline, utility, hex spam, and deal "damage," in a sense.

Stop humping Necros already ANet!

* well, okay two counters; you can interrupt the cast I guess, but that's just an inherent risk to casting spells in the first place. What I mean when I say that "spot heals are the only counter" is that life stealing puts these spells in a class all of their own because once cast, they can only be dealt with one way.

Wish Swiftdeath · Jun 26, 2009, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Yep it's lame as hell, against VISA I think there was a paragon running round blacking me out and managed to arcane larceny my patient spirit.......

If that doesn't happen bspike's pretty easy to beat, as long as the paragon gets shut down im going to miss the free fame :P.

Sandros · Jun 27, 2009, 05:58 PM // 17:58

The problem is if you suck at the game, you are rank 2500 in GvG and you cant win HA, but if you play bloodspike, you can climb to rank 400 in GvG and farm HA even if you suck. This shouldnt be allowed, of couse top players can beat it because they got half a brain, but scrubs shouldnt be able to dominte the other 90% scrubs with a bspam build.

Still Number One · Jun 28, 2009, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Sandros, the worst part is the fact that they actually do believe they are good and deserve a spot in top guilds when their blood spike guild falls apart.

Revelations · Jun 28, 2009, 12:40 PM // 12:40

This I find funny and sad all at the same time. However, it's a problem that usually sorts itself out, as most decent guilds will boot or bench them as soon as they see how bad these players are.

Jeydra · Jun 28, 2009, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandros

The problem is if you suck at the game, you are rank 2500 in GvG and you cant win HA, but if you play bloodspike, you can climb to rank 400 in GvG and farm HA even if you suck.

Yes. And so what?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Regardless of how strong it is or isn't, I always thought it was a little absurd that it's the only mechanic in the game that has just one counter (spot heals)*. So basically, if you can disable or overpower the healer, your spike will work pretty much every time assuming you don't have vent lag or something else interfering. Every kind of elemental damage can be countered by any one of many skills/insignias; Holy and Shadow damage ignore armor but they're still damage; they can still be protted.

Who cares. Blood Magic does not deal high DPS, it is quite energy intensive, and it has precious little in the line aside from the life stealing. You can easily see that for yourself. If a guild tries to 8v8 bloodspike the bloodspike guild dies quickly. Of course the other team dies just as quickly, but that's simply a trait of the unprottable life stealing. Blood Magic on its own is weak enough to be laughable. Outside of bloodspike, what other Blood Magic builds are there that are actually viable? Recently saw SuX play a Life Transfer Necro while running hexes on Weeping Stone, but that's it. So much for the only mechanic in the game with only one counter.

Nadia Roark · Jun 28, 2009, 05:12 PM // 17:12

"Who cares?" Anyone with any interest in game balance.

Blood magic "Energy Intensive" lol.. Soul Reaping, anyone? The fact that Blood Magic sucks is not a reason to maintain a broken game dynamic. There are other less-than-useful attribute lines out there (Air Magic, Beast Mastery, Divine Favor) but they don't have the luxury of having tremendous unprottable spike capability hidden away within them. Sure, a Bspike nerf might cause the Blood Magic line to fall into disuse, but hey--at least it'll have company. I won't lose any sleep over it.

There's no guarantee that any attribute line is going to be as good or better than everything else. Necromancy has more than enough toys without Blood Spike.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. It's looking almost like you're trying to continue your defense of BSpike on the grounds that the rest of the Blood Magic line isn't that great, but again, I think you're forgetting about the other useless or semi-useless attribute lines in the game.

I think my favorite, though, is your last sentence, since you hilariously fail to explain what other counters there are for life stealing. Lets hear em!

Jeydra · Jun 30, 2009, 07:20 AM // 07:20

Soul Reaping is only going to be a factor if people die, which people normally don't do. Count yourself. Watch the past mAT and count how many people die. StP plays Cry for 28 minutes and how many deaths were there? How much energy gain do you get from Soul Reaping in that case? Can you really imagine a midliner in a non-Bloodspike teambuild spamming Vampiric Gaze as a damage tool like Immolate? He'll be out of energy in an instant.

Soul Reaping matters in bloodspike because you expect people to die. It's a glass cannon build. If the other team doesn't die, your own team dies. Outside of bloodspike and other glass cannon builds counting on Soul Reaping triggering for energy is naive. If a Necro specs a lot into Soul Reaping outside of bloodspike it's usually for Foul Feast, which is a lot more reliable a method of getting energy.

You may be happy that there're so many attribute lines that are relatively useless, but I would rather them all see play. Blood, Illusion, Earth, Air, Beast Mastery, everything.

On my last sentence, you completely failed to understand what I meant. Tell me this then, because it's essentially what I said. If the so-called superoverpowered more broken than I Broken I mechanic with only one counter is really so strong, why is it that nobody used it this mAT?

Catchphrase · Jun 30, 2009, 01:33 PM // 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Blood Magic on its own is weak enough to be laughable. Outside of bloodspike, what other Blood Magic builds are there that are actually viable? Recently saw SuX play a Life Transfer Necro while running hexes on Weeping Stone, but that's it. So much for the only mechanic in the game with only one counter.

Oh my you have no idea how powerful it is on any PvP formats which involves NPCs. Have you seen how fast the turtle and its cronies drop dead with Life Transfer + Defile Flesh + some life stealing spells in FA? I know some of you will say FA is nothing but I always think the 'lowest' form of PvP is a good indicator of the basic fundamental flaws. Just like how necs are powerful enough to spam skills with the pre-nerf Soul Reaping in FA.

Revelations · Jun 30, 2009, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Tell me this then, because it's essentially what I said. If the so-called superoverpowered more broken than I Broken I mechanic with only one counter is really so strong, why is it that nobody used it this mAT?

Because burning wasn't in the rotation.

Moderator's Edit: removed reference to deleted material.

Nadia Roark · Jun 30, 2009, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Way to miss the forest for the trees. You've treated my last post as if the first sentence were all I wrote, when the 'meat and potatoes' of my post were the facts that:

--Blood Magic's relative crappiness outside of Bspike is not a valid argument for Bspike's continued existence. ANet has, over the years, passed down many (sometimes heavy-handed) nerfs that caused an entire skill set to fall into disuse. Dual Smite, anyone?

--There's no guarantee that any one attribute line is going to be as good or better than any other attribute line.

--Necromancy is plenty powerful without BSpike.

--Every other form of 'damage' (I use the term loosely here, since we all know BSpike doesn't deal damage--which is exactly the problem) can be protted and also has things like armor insignias or shield inscriptions to mitigate the damage.

So let's see here... we have fire, earth, air, cold, shadow, holy, slashing, blunt, piercing and untyped damage. (I'm counting Chaos as untyped since nothing checks for it) These damage types--except for Shadow and Holy since they ignore armor anyway--have insignias/inscriptions to counter them, and if they don't (Dark/Holy/Shadow) they can still be protted and on top of that, they have no spike capability. You tell me why Bspike deserves to be in a class all its own; without resorting to the cheesy "it adds variety to the game."

Pay attention and please try to not put words in my mouth; I'm not "glad" that there are useless attribute lines. I used them as an example to prove one of my central theses, which I'll repeat again: There's no guarantee that any one attribute line is going to be as good or better than any other attribute line.

For reference, what you said was "So much for the only mechanic in the game with only one counter. " which, if you look closely, appears to challenge my assertion that BSpike only has one hard counter as such. I couldn't care less what people run in mAT; BSpike is bullshit whether it's in meta or not and I've held to this opinion for four years now. Sometimes people use it, and sometimes they don't. Like I said in my very first post; it's not about how powerful the build is or isn't; it's about how 'damage' is countered in this game.

Jeydra · Jun 30, 2009, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revelations

Because burning wasn't in the rotation.

I knew someone would say this. Are you predicting that if Burning is in the rotation, we will see bloodspike in the mAT? I dare you to stick your head out and say "yes".

Blood Magic does very little "damage". Vampiric Gaze @ 16 Blood Magic steals 63 life, or deals 63 damage. Does that look like a lot of damage to you for the energy invested? Immolate @ 14 Fire does more damage than Vampiric Gaze, and adds burning to boot. Blood Magic is a totally inefficient way of dealing damage.

Don't tell me too that it is "in a class all its own" makes it undesirable. Lightning damage provides armor penetration and no other type of damage has it (or so I see off the top of my head anyway). It's "in a class all its own". Fire damage - and RoJ - inflicts burning, and no other type of damage has it. It's also "in a class all its own". Yet neither of these damage types are undesirable, are they? Life Stealing has no counters other than pure healing and interrupts, yes. But that's no proof that it is overpowered or fundamentally imbalanced anymore than Lightning damage being the only damage type with armor penetration makes it overpowered or fundamentally imbalanced.

I'll add this before you misunderstand. Blood magic does more than deal unprottable damage, and Lightning damage does more than deal armor penetration. That's not the point though. The point is that just because something is "in a class all its own" does not necessarily mean that something is overpowered.

You're not happy to see all the useless attribute lines, but you don't mind if Blood Magic gets nerfed and joins all the other useless attribute lines.

There is no reason why any one attribute line should not be as good as any other attribute line, just like there is no guarantee that any one attribute line is going to be as good or better than any other attribute line.

You misunderstand. "So much for the only mechanic in the game with only one counter" means, implicitly, that even though that mechanic has only one counter, it isn't seeing play, which makes it not overpowered. Similar phrase in different setting: you've got the fastest car in the world, but on your way to work one day you run into a traffic jam. You can say, then, "so much for having the fastest car in the world" - you're still going to be late to work.

You can claim BSpike bullshit and hold that opinion for four years, but there's no reason why I should follow what you think.

Nadia Roark · Jun 30, 2009, 05:15 PM // 17:15

You're making the mistake of looking at blood magic skills on their own, rather than how they're actually used in the game. No one uses Vamp Gaze by itself--for exactly the reasons mentioned above. I never said "Vamp Gaze" is broken, I said BSpike is, because when you have 6+ people using it, it's a very efficient way of dealing 'damage,' since it also happens to heal the user, creating an effect similar to spiking the target(s) and casting Heal Party at the same time.

Lightning damage can still be protted, and since all Holy and Shadow damage outright ignore armor, I'd put Air armor penetration in the same class. Swing and a miss.

Again, you're making useless distinctions about damage types. The "class" I'm speaking of (which I thought was obvious by the context) was that BSpike is not prottable. Sure, different spells/skills have different effects. Many inflict conditions as well as damage. Differentiating between the conditions/damage is a meaningless distinction in the context of this discussion.

Air, Shadow and Holy damage would only be broken if they couldn't be protted, which is exactly why BSpike is. The effects of armor penetration are easily countered by prots in most situations; BSpike, on the other hand, has only the one way around it. You can't bring a shield for added BSpike protection (like you can for, say, Air).

You're reading too heavily into the "class all its own" statement. I'm not saying that unique spells/skills/whatever are inherently IMBA, I'm saying that unprottable life stealing is.

I'm sorry, but Necromancers are already one of if not the best classes in the game. If they have to "suffer" by having one useless attribute line while nearly every other class already does, then so be it. So no, I guess wouldn't mind.

No matter how you try to balance out all the lines, some will always have more currency than others. I wouldn't mind seeing a buff to some of the aforementioned useless attribute lines; or even (gasp!) Blood Magic. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that Blood Magic sucking is an illegitimate argument to preserve blood spike as such.

Okay, I'll admit I haven't been in HA for a couple weeks, but when I was, I played b-spike at least 30% of the time (on 1v1 maps at least; since it doesn't tend to fare very well in the later rotation). I realize we're not talking purely about HA Bspike, but the principle remains. Why is 6 eles spamming Sandstorm nerfed within days, but 6 Necros using an unprottable spike with no armor/insignia counters is okay?

To drive the point home (if you're only going to take one thing away from this post, please let it be this): Regardless of whether it is used extensively or not, in one arena or another, there should not be a build anywhere that takes an enemy player completely out of the game simply by running it. The prot monk might as well /dance during matches against BSpike, and that is why BSpike is bad for the game.

If you take the prot out of the game by a certain combination of skills/tactics/whatever, that's fine; but eliminating him from the competition entirely simply because you're running a certain build is just bad. As a prot, when my team goes up against BSpike, I might as well go make a sandwich or catch up on some reading. You shouldn't be afforded the luxury of basically playing 7v8 simply because you choose to run a certain build. It should be the devs' job to prevent this kind of thing, but they either don't seem to mind, or this principle simply hasn't occurred to them yet.

Jeydra · Jun 30, 2009, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Your ONLY argument for nerfing Bloodspike is that it is the only mechanic in the game with unprottable damage ... and if we allow that then we can also say it's fair to nerf Air Magic because it is the only mechanic in the game with armor penetration. Second statement is ridiculous, and by similiarity with the first I claim the first is ridiculous as well.

PS: You can bring a shield actually ... +30 health (and switch out the +5 / +7 vs. Elemental spear too for +30).

Bloodspike certainly didn't show up in the mAT (at least not the matches that are on obs). I have no idea about HA - I don't do the format - but last I heard all sorts of weird builds show up in HA. Still I have no experience with it so if you're going to claim that Bloodspike should be nerfed because it is too effective in HA, I'd accept that if I saw it more when I obs HA.

Sandstorm nerf was, what, many years ago? I wasn't into serious PvP back then, so can't comment about it.

On b-spike removing the prot from the game -- there are currently lots of builds that take an enemy player out of the game - or almost completely anyway (after all, bloodspike doesn't take prot out of the game; RoF triggers on Dark Pact). Some examples:

Someone is running Migraine + 5 interrupts + camping one target -> any kind of caster is seriously incapacitated.
Someone is running Diversion + Power Block + camping one target -> any kind of caster is seriously incapacitated.
Someone is running Reckless Haste + Price of Failure + camping one target -> any kind of physical is seriously incapacitated.
Someone is running Airspike -> BSurge is largely useless.
Someone is running a split build -> Paragons are seriously weaker.

What's your point?

Nadia Roark · Jun 30, 2009, 11:11 PM // 23:11

I'm sorry, but that's just absurd. This is a textbook non sequitur. It does not logically follow from BSpike being clearly nerfworthy (by being unprottable) that armor penetration (which is prottable) also deserves a nerf.

Furthermore, Air magic is not the only mechanic in the game with armor penetration, since (as I've already pointed out a couple of times) Shadow and Holy damage ignore armor entirely, which is an order of magnitude more damaging than 20% armor penetration. Also, some warrior skills offer armor pen IIRC. All can still be countered with prots. BSpike cannot. See the difference?

Anyone who isn't a complete moron will have a +30 HP handle on each shield anyway; my point is that there isn't a +armor inscription for life stealing, but that's ancillary to my main point anyway.

This isn't about the build being "overpowered," this is about a build being able to take an enemy player out of the game entirely simply by running it (more on this later, since you obviously didn't understand this very important point). I've said repeatedly that it doesn't matter to me who runs it where (be it mAT, HA, wherever) as much as the principle of the thing. BSpike's only hard counter is spot healing, and that's a fact. No other method of making red bars go down enjoys this advantage.

What's so hard to understand about that?

The sandstorm nerf was three years, maybe? I can't remember exactly when it happened, but it happened the day after I held HoH with some friends for like 2 hours with 6 SS eles, an archer hench, and a monk. I'm not saying it didn't deserve the nerf, but at least it could be countered with prots/insignias/inscriptions/tactics that bspike is invulnerable to.

You clearly didn't understand the last paragraph of my last post, which reads:

"If you take the prot out of the game by a certain combination of skills/tactics/whatever, that's fine; but eliminating him from the competition entirely simply because you're running a certain build is just bad. As a prot, when my team goes up against BSpike, I might as well go make a sandwich or catch up on some reading. You shouldn't be afforded the luxury of basically playing 7v8 simply because you choose to run a certain build. It should be the devs' job to prevent this kind of thing, but they either don't seem to mind, or this principle simply hasn't occurred to them yet."

[emphasis added]

Everything you have listed above is the result of skills and/or tactics. Taking the Prot out of the game by running BSpike is inherent to running the build to begin with. See the difference?

Robster Lobster · Jun 30, 2009, 11:27 PM // 23:27

I dunno if anyone mentioned this in the previous walls of text, but I think that one of the main reasons bloodspike wasn't run this last mAT was because it doesn't have such a certain win against AoE Hexes or builds with multiple fire eles, both of which were fairly common.

Nadia Roark · Jun 30, 2009, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Robster, I haven't seen any of the mATs for this or any other season; my arguments against BSpike are immaterial to their use or disuse in mAT (or, really, any other format). Its the principle and use of the skills that grate on me so horribly, coupled with the fact that ANet has had a love affair with the Necromancer class since release.