Curse

Kaida the Heartless · Jan 22, 2007, 07:28 AM // 07:28

The only problem with that being that a PvE MM is going to have a much harder maintaining. They already got hit with the 10 minion cap, so gaining +X energy every time you cast over the 10 minion cap is a nice little addition. Do-able? Sure. Totally. But I think MM's have already gotten shafted once, they are best left alone for the time being.

Perhaps, like the Pet Death Penalty, only apply the cut in soul reaping to PvP play.

Riotgear · Jan 22, 2007, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Jagged Bones is really a PvP elite if there ever was one. I doubt any changes to it would affect PvE where you're better off just running Icy Veins or even Noob Golem. Not that I have much sympathy anyway: Minion masters have always been setting the difficulty slider of PvE to "easy."

As I said in some other threads on the matter, I think ultimately the best solution is to just make minions give NO energy return, and drop all of the minion animation skill costs to compensate.

twicky_kid · Jan 22, 2007, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

As I said in some other threads on the matter, I think ultimately the best solution is to just make minions give NO energy return, and drop all of the minion animation skill costs to compensate.

Doing that would destroy MMs in every format of the game. I wouldn't agree with that. Even though you drop the energy cost of the minion skills that is not the only skills MMs use. They need vast amounts of energy to maintain their army.

We want to contain an overpowered skill like this not destroy half an attribute line and a solid build type for necros.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 22, 2007, 09:22 PM // 21:22

On another forum (team-iq) I read the following:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitsu Bishi

An idea somebody on a German forum had - make all Necros share the energy coming out of one 'death'. If there's a single necro, he'll get his full soul reaping out of it. If there are two (doesn't matter on which side they are), they each get half of their soul reaping attribute. If there are three, each one gets only a third out of his attribute etc.

This would destroy the synergy from going all out with Necs, yet keep the thing viable for a smaller number of them.

A few issues ofcourse are:
-Your energy management getting fu'ed up by the opposing team.
-Soul reaping would either be really strong or really weak depending on the metagame (though never as strong as it is now)

While we're rebalancing primary attributes anyway, I think Strength and Pwning Power could use a rebalance as well.

Isis_In_De_Nile · Jan 22, 2007, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Just increase the casting time to two seconds. -Maybe- increase the recharge. That's it. If people are smart enough to bring an interruption or diversion (etc) on the team of any substance, they won't be much of an issue.

Sinful Doom · Jan 23, 2007, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isis_In_De_Nile

If people are smart enough to bring an interruption or diversion (etc) on the team of any substance, they won't be much of an issue.

That would be a great idea, oh wait they also hex spam and spirit spam in these builds. Solution then would be to take 3 ranger's and 3 mesmer's interupt everything and have the battle last 36 hours.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 23, 2007, 04:45 PM // 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

That would be a great idea, oh wait they also hex spam and spirit spam in these builds. Solution then would be to take 3 ranger's and 3 mesmer's interupt everything and have the battle last 36 hours.

If it's that simple, what's everyone whining about?

twicky_kid · Jan 23, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isis_In_De_Nile

Just increase the casting time to two seconds. -Maybe- increase the recharge. That's it. If people are smart enough to bring an interruption or diversion (etc) on the team of any substance, they won't be much of an issue.

At a 1 second cast that tactic is already viable. Why doesn't it work?

Price of failure, spirit shackles, SV, and wait out the diversion.

Most of the time you keep holy veil onthe JB necro. 5 second cast diversion sucks. Since diversion last 6 seconds and JB has a 5 recharge it really doesn't do much to just wait it out. You would of been waiting on JB anyways. The only time Diversion is going to work is if you chain it or catch them casting.

Chain is just about impossible with veil.

Clamatius · Jan 23, 2007, 08:16 PM // 20:16

I think that the core problem is Soul Reaping rather than Jagged Bones in particular - the JB build is a symptom rather than the disease. SR as a mechanic varies between fairly weak and totally broken with not a whole lot in the middle. Hacking JB to fix the issue is a short-term approach and SR will inevitably break the game again later on.

Evilsod · Jan 23, 2007, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Jagged Bones is really a PvP elite if there ever was one. I doubt any changes to it would affect PvE where you're better off just running Icy Veins or even Noob Golem. Not that I have much sympathy anyway: Minion masters have always been setting the difficulty slider of PvE to "easy."

Are you serious? Crippling Shot is a PvP elite. Jagged Bones is a good all round skill. Minion bombing works a charm in PvE if you give it a Necro hero. Hell it even works on a Ritualist hero with Explosive Growth.

I've not done much PvP since Jagged Bones was around. But how hard can it be to just tear through very low level minions before a necro can recast Jagged Bones on the new copy? If they have 8 of them and you can kill 3 of them in quick succession... they can't recast Jagged on all of them before you kill the new copies.

FoxBat · Jan 23, 2007, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Doing that would destroy MMs in every format of the game. I wouldn't agree with that. Even though you drop the energy cost of the minion skills that is not the only skills MMs use. They need vast amounts of energy to maintain their army.

They will just have slightly less sturdy armies which aren't constantly heal area'd, and they'd still kick ass even then. Rit minion bombers do well enough without constant healing on their minions, and boon of creation doesn't give nearly the energy returns of soul reaping even if it didn't count minion deaths. MMs are about as obscene as SF eles in PvE in their own way. Can you even remember the last time you met a curses necro in PvE when you weren't fighting shiro?

Coloneh · Jan 23, 2007, 08:51 PM // 20:51

changing jagged bones like this would break it. the entire point of the skill is to be able to have an entire 10 minion army with only 5 bodies. it really isnt that bad, 1 banishing strike can take out all of the jaggeds at once, and that recharges in (i think) 6 seconds, much faster than the mm can cast jagged on all the remaining ones.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 23, 2007, 09:35 PM // 21:35

http://www.team-iq.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=1994
Another idea: make soul reaping give energy regeneration instead of energy. (read the thread, and the last few pages in particular for an elaboration)

Carinae · Jan 23, 2007, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

They will just have slightly less sturdy armies which aren't constantly heal area'd, and they'd still kick ass even then. Rit minion bombers do well enough without constant healing on their minions, and boon of creation doesn't give nearly the energy returns of soul reaping even if it didn't count minion deaths. MMs are about as obscene as SF eles in PvE in their own way. Can you even remember the last time you met a curses necro in PvE when you weren't fighting shiro?

Wow, there are some really far out and poorly thought out ideas here in this thread.

First off, PvE MMs rely heavily on using the minion cap to harvest energy off SR. That's the MAIN energy engine for PvE MMs, and often there is NO OTHER e-management at all on their skill bars. So just be aware of the magnitude of the change you are proposing: minions and spirits not triggering SR.

Fiends = 25e
Horrors = 15e
Shambling = 15e
Minions = 15e
Golem = 15e

BotM = 5e + sac
Heal Area = 10e

DN = 5e
JB = 5e <--------- Balance here, don't balance everything around here.
Barbs =10e
MoPain = 10e

Even if you reduce the minion cost, you'll run out of energy trying to heal them, or sac to death, or you'll consume your army. Realistically, if you can't heal them they'll die from damage and decay in a heartbeat. Even if you can somehow support minions, you won't be able to run anything else...curses, interrupts, etc.

Are you going to reduce the costs of the entire Death line as well? What about all the other skill lines?

Keep your remedies focused please. Talk about overkill.

nephilim · Jan 24, 2007, 06:01 PM // 18:01

the gvg/ha jagged bones engine is a huge headache because it is really broken - as someone pointed out, it's an infinite source of energy once it has started.

judging from what everyone is saying, making Jagged Horrors specifically give 0 energy on death would be the ideal fix at this point - i never saw a problem with SR before and i wouldn't see one now if not for JB/QZ infinite energy.

an earlier post complained about infinite Jagged Horrors (and not because of the energy engine):
you're looking at a level 12-18 minion (highly doubt it will be past 14 though...) that does say ~20 dmg + bleeding per hit every 3 seconds. In all seriousness it only takes a single war to beat the crap out of a level 14 minion as the take enhanced damage from a level 20. A continuous Jagged army is indeed annoying but it's not all that hard to crush, and if they didn't give endless energy to fuel it, the MM would eventually dry out spamming his JB/DN/ToD.

again, to state the obvious: There's nothing wrong with Jagged Bones, but there's something really wrong with its interaction with Soul Reaping. An otherwise perfectly fine skill is ruined by a broken game mechanic.

qwe4rty · Jan 24, 2007, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

MMs in pvp really don't work. With or without JB a MM doesn't work.

It work in AB only because there is plenty of corpses and people auto res.

In GvG and HA by the time you even get 2-3 up they die instantly or the battle is over. JB wouldn't be used at all in pvp if you couldn't abuse it for SR.

At least my suggestion doesn't destroy it for PvE.

Personally, I think the whole energy related issue should be looked at, not what it enchants.

Minions have some inherent weaknesses that make them hard to use in PvP. Namely, the maintenance of them as they degen themselves to death. AI (similar to the pet problem). Death of a Necro results in rogue minions that have no allegiance to either team.

JB is a pretty ingenious elite that essentially allows you to bypass healing the minions in favor of just creating a new one when it dies. However, the problem with it is the energy issue. Not the number of minions you control (remember how MMs got nerfed awhile ago with Factions and they were limited by their death magic attribute to how many they can control at once).

JB is already pretty intensive on the micro management akin to an RTS game at times. There is no pretty interface to make enchanting minions easier.

THE PROBLEM with it is the Energy Issue and Energy becoming an infinite resource rather than a Finite resource. Several things can be done to change this, or a combination of them:
-increase the upfront energy cost by increasing the energy cost of JB
-decrease the end gain by touching Soul Reaping.
-rework the mechanics by which Necromancers who don't own the minion get energy

Both the first 2 would work, but you don't want to make the upfront cost too steep to make JB too hard to apply, but you also don't want the end gain to be too low to not even warrant Soul Reaping if you're not a minion master.

I like the suggestion that someone else posted about non-master Necromancer's getting a very small return rather than the normal return and a small combination of one of the first 2.

bungusmaximus · Jan 25, 2007, 02:09 PM // 14:09

I like Twicky's solution, I see no reason in destroying the PVE mm as well because so many people use them. Whats a faction mission without a mm? argh it would suck to see them nerfed while there is a perfect solution available that keeps both the PvP and PvE crowd happy.

RotteN · Jan 25, 2007, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion

Just a note: If JB is any kind of problem, you're in HA. Spirits are constantly used in HA, so banishing strike is more than worth the slot in this case.

wrong, it's used in GvG aswell, and there, bringing specific counters is simply not worth it.

remove soul reaping gain from jagged horrors would imo be the best solution. That way people in pve can still keep up a small jagged army for quite a long time, but it won't fuel a whole hexteam into spamming high cost hexes at will.

Patrick Smit · Jan 25, 2007, 02:58 PM // 14:58

From the term soul reaping one could redefine what should give energy or what not, it implies it should have a soul, (animated) undead for sure have no soul, what about other undeads, like liches (which are not in the game?) or spirits. are these soul containing creatures? If not, Maybe Consume Soul should be then changed in such a way that minions can also be targetted?

One thing which annoys me as well is the quite large range of damaging/interupting/disenchanting spirits. They seem to have less trouble with obstacles as well.

FoxBat · Jan 25, 2007, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Wow, there are some really far out and poorly thought out ideas here in this thread.

First off, PvE MMs rely heavily on using the minion cap to harvest energy off SR.

They were *more powerful* when there was no minion cap to pull this trick with. Maybe you weren't playing back then, or else your memory is short. In most PvE mobs die so fast that you hardly need the minion energy for anything but the expensive fiends. Alot of MMs waste time on keeping their minions alive longer when enemies die so fast you can throw on a death nova for extra damage and just raise a replacement. Yes, lower the minion costs a notch each if you must, with or without it you will be fine. MMs "rely" on overpowered soulreaping to power their overpowered minion machine. No reasonable nerf could possibly bring them close to underpowered, just as the SF change does next to nothing to PvE eles. PvP Nercos have gotten along just fine without this kind of junk, and no we don't need to adjust the cost of the rest of the necro skills, PvE already has the enormous energy advantage of frequent mob deaths.

Raising JB's cost isn't going to do anything. The bigger danger with this skill isn't the infinite death novas and bleeding spam the death necro can do, it's the infinite energy the other necros on the team get to spam conjure nightmare, lingering curse, and other rediculously expensive things endlessly.

Nerfing JB will fix the problem for now, but SR abuse has continually cropped up in PvP since the very first spirit spam crud in the early days of what was then called Tombs. A better long-term solution is to kill the problem at it's source. Ensign's is elegant in making soul reaping a moderately useful skill in PvP as opposed to nearly worthless in spirit/minionless environments and totally overpowered with as well as in all PvE.