[Dev Update] Soul Reaping and Mesmer Issues

Thanks for posting!

How can mesmers be made better in PvE without making them incredibly overpowered in PvP? I almost always play as an Elementalist, and currently when I see a mesmer on the opposing team, I know it is going to be a rough battle.

By the addition of the much waited upon PvE only skills.

Necros: Ive said a lot already. But people never listen to me so...whatever.

Mesmers: Anet. Put a reason to need mesmers. -.- Mesmers are the anti-class. Theres no reason for them in PvE since brute force can kill most mobs. MS can cause KD and damage, who needs a mes.

You dont see mobs stacking 3-4 enchantments or having "shut him down or we all die".

By the addition of the much waited upon PvE only skills.

Of course, this will have the side effect of resulting in only one or two builds of mesmer being accepted in PuGs, thus greatly reducing the incredible variety the class offers.

Am I the only person here who ever has energy issues on a necro???? >_> Usually in pvp when I play curses, but it happens... often... enough

<_<

((btw this wasn't meant as a OMG NOT ANOTHER NERF post, I've learned that crying over spilled milk just means that it will go bad before you get a chance to lap it up))

I'm thinking I must be playing my necro the wrong way.
Before the change to SR I always felt like I was cheating when I used him in PvE.
After the change to SR I still feel like it's cheating to use him and have barely noticed a change to my energy recovery.

Please tell me how to play so that I can chew up all of my energy and never get it back so I can complain with everyone else.

I look forward to the Mesmer buff.

As for Soul Reaping, I really don't understand how this is such a difficult issue for ANet.
There really aren't that many possibilities here in terms a happy medium between what we had before and what we have now, so why not just list all those possibilities pick the one you like best (after testing, of course).
I'll even make the list for them:
1. Make Soul Reaping function like it did before, but reduce the amount of energy gained per level of Soul Reaping (such as 1 energy per 2 levels of Soul Reaping).
2. Make Soul Reaping Function like it does now, but reduce the amount of time between triggers (such as once every 3 seconds).
3. Make Soul Reaping Function like it did before before, but spirits no longer trigger it.
4. Make Soul Reaping Function like it did before before, but spirits and minions no longer trigger it.
5. Make Soul Reaping Function like it did before before, but spirits and minions summoned by teammates no longer trigger it, only spirits and minions summoned by YOU.
6. Make Soul Reaping Function like it did before before, but spirits and minions summoned by teammates no longer trigger it, only minions (but not spirits) summoned by YOU.
7. A combination of #1 and #3, 4, 5, or 6 (pick one to combine with #1).

Those are your 7 options. All you need to do is pick one.
Personally, I'm not a fan of option #2 (still inelegant) or #7 (too nerfed), so that leaves #1 (reduce energy gained per level of Soul Reaping), or #3-#6 (changing how minions and spirits work with Soul Reaping).

If you don't want to mess around with how minions and spirits work, then the easiest solution is clearly #1. Just make Soul Reaping give you 1 energy per 2 ranks of Soul Reaping.
The energy gained will probably be pretty darn close to what you get now with the retooled once-per-5-second rule, but you do away with the inelegance and clunkiness that you have now and make it natural again like it was before.
Instead of adding clunky rules, just change how it scales.

Let's bear in mind a couple of facts when considering the Soul Reaping nerf: Necromancers have always had Soul Reaping (for the two years since Prophecies came out) and Soul Reaping is no more effective in PvE now than it was in April 2005.

That sort of puts the 'we think it is overpowered in PvE too' argument out to pasture. Either Anet are monumentally ignorant (having failed to notice what Soul Reaping does for two years) or the statement is simply inaccurate. I fail to see how something which has not changed can suddenly need a nerf after two years, and PvE Soul Reaping hadn't changed.

Necros were too easy before, and they were a dime a dozen. Now it's time for necros to really shine. I don't think of this as a set back, just a new challenge. and hopefully we (necros) will show what we can do, without the unlimited energy. And all those crap necros will quickly leave the proff, and go and try something else.

Gaile,

Would it help if mesmers sent in their favorite all mesmer skill PvE builds also? It may give the devs an idea of what's in use atm and their effects on mobs.

If so, how do we go about such things?

I think my biggest beef with current SR is that getting energy every 5 seconds is a bit sporadic and feels very unnatural. It's sorta like running with duct tape on your favorite pair of sunglasses. It works just fine and holds them together, but there's a much better and smoother way to fix the problem I believe.

As for the mesmer changes, I admit I am intrigued. I love the mesmer class, but hate the fact that most enemies in PvE fall before the effectiveness of many mesmer builds/skills can be truly seen. I do hope that A-net can find a good balance to this class for PvE while maintaining the mesmer style that they have.

p.s. @Gaile: I thought the way you worded your section on mesmers was quite clever.

Thanks for Update! Good to see that Anet cares about it's people

Mesmer are a great class already... am curious about how they gonna improve them or make them better in PvE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

oh....and lets not forget:

AOE Nerf
Absorption Nerf
Knights Global Nerf

Just because its in the game for a long time, doesn't mean it will not change.
Just because its in the game for a long time, doesn't leave it outside of ammending.

Any good necromancer knows how powerful SR was. Whats arguable is wether it should have been changed.

Gaile Gray:

The developers have said and can be quoted saying that Soul Reaping has less skills bound to it than any attribute BECAUSE it is so powerful. Answer this: For a person without signet of lost souls, what would be better- points in soul reaping or in inspiration magic? Soul Reaping will give you a POTENTIAL energy boost, likely at a time when you do not need it. Inspiration can give you countless skills for managing your energy on demand. People say "Soul Reaping" gives unlimited energy... well, I'd much rather put a couple skills on my bar to get energy *on demand* then I would dump a bunch of points into an attribute that only provides a POSSIBILITY of energy gain every 5 seconds, very possibly at times you do not need it (maybe a minion master will enjoy the energy, but a hexer would probably want more energy *while* killing the enemy, not after the enemy is dead!)

Signet of Lost Souls does help, but if you insist on making Soul Reaping limited, I must propose that GW:EN will have a significant amount of Soul Reaping skills (not to mention Dervish, Paragon, Ritualist, and Assassin skills, as they have less than the main professions). That way, if Necromancers are reliant on skills for energy management, they will have different options that they can use instead of being forced to either take signet of lost souls or pour the would-be soul reaping points into a secondary energy management skill.

The simple fact that the "holy trinity" of Guild Wars is Warrior, Monk, and Elementalist clearly shows that Necromancers were not as overpowered as they were hyped to be. Minion masters, yes. Minion masters were and are overpowered, but other types of Necromancers are much less useful than the "holy trinity", except of course maybe Spiteful Spirit or Blood is Power necromancers. It is a great shame that unless the Necromancer is an MM or one of perhaps 3 cookie cutter builds, the Necromancer is pretty underpowered compared to the holy trinity- of course, perhaps I shouldn't be complaining, as Mesmers have it worse (personally, I find Mesmers to be a great help, but the average "omg u dont do damage" mentality of most PuGers keeps them out of groups- and of course, at least Necromancers have a few builds groups want!).

Would one be able to make an argument that damage prevention is an important aspect of Guild Wars? Yes, of course, just like Energy Management, after all, what is the use of energy when you are dead? Well, Warriors have superior damage prevention than any other class because of the insanely high armor level and shield. Why should they take half physical damage than a caster would while casters would need skills to prevent such damage?

One could argue that recovering life, too, is an important aspect. So why do Monks get free heals whenever they use a spell on an ally? Orison of Healing, for example, heals for a max of 73 health. Divine Favor can heal for +51 health whenever a skill is used.

51/73=.7
.7*5=3.5

You could look at it saying every time a monk uses a spell, that monk gains 3.5 energy as that is how much energy would have been spent in an orison of healing on the target. What if the monk casts a bunch of cheap spells? That could lead to massive energy savings! Every 5 spells, over 16 energy would be saved. That would mean that, unless there are so many deaths that a monk can not cast 5 or more spells in between deaths, the monk is getting better passive energy from the primary attribute than a necromancer.

Also, why should monks get free heals? If my Necromancer goes /Monk, I would actually need to equip skills to heal my teammates. However, a Monk gets passive healing. But isn't heal management a part of the game? Why should they get free heals but I must actively put skills on my bar? Perhaps for the same reason Necromancers can manage energy without putting skills on the bar!

One could argue day and night over what gives professions a better advantage over one another. However, I rarely if ever in PvE would ever see a Necro/Ele spamming fire spells because of this alleged "infinite energy" thing. Perhaps you are greatly overestimating the power of soul reaping? An Ele can put a ton of points in either soul reaping or energy storage. Why do they always pick the energy storage? Perhaps because Soul Reaping suits Necromancer skills good while Energy Storage suits Elementalist skills good. If Soul Reaping was such an overpowered energy management, then surely all the elementalists would want a piece of the action! After all, why would they care about dealing maybe 10 less damage when they have infinite energy to spam anything they want whenever they want? I'd certainly sacrifice a little damage for "infinite" energy as claimed, and any thinking Elementalist would do so as well. Perhaps this is indicative that Soul Reaping, while obviously needing a nerf because of the overpowered PvP exploit, is not quite as overpowered as people are hyping it up to be.

If the other thread is still accepting builds, I will gladly post some of mine later. Peace.

@ above posts,
(@17) SR was a passive energy engine because things die all the time, especially in PvE. Your argument is quite weak. All the builds you listed require skill slots (including an elite slot, and even set secondaries!!!) and in some cases require investment in two attribute lines just for these skills. If you want me to show you some math, I will be glad to.

The reason there are chapters that have better skills than others is because Anet is trying to maximize profits by giving you the illusion that your character will never reach full potential unless you buy the remaining chapters. Tough shit.

(to rest) Also, "Inelegant" doesn't mean broken, it just means that it isn't perfect and doesn't feel as natural, which they are working on.

The communities ideas are mostly shite, with some good ones (like ensign's fixes) burried in piles of poorly thought out suggestions that do nothing to game balance and only promote imbalance and overpowered zerg mindless skills (*remembers pre-nerf SP and all the crap suggestions that came once it was made less insane*).

As repeated countless times- nerfing for the sole purpose of PvE is never desirable by the PvE community. They NEVER want a PvE nerf. NEVER. EVER. FOREVER, NEVER. EVER.They want buffs!

As long as the PvErs are happy, ANet will not change the 'balance' (for a lack of a better word) of PvE.

For example, 55 monks by all definition is unbalance and broken. Will ANet 'fix' it? No. Because the vast majority of PvErs want to have their 55 monks. In PvP, 55 monks are absolutely useless and does not matter. So it stays. If the 55 monk ever affects PvP mechanics then ANet might nerf something about it.

Got it?

@Series

You know why Eles want ES vs SR? It is called skills.
And if I was a PvE ele - if the ES skills are available in SR - I would definetly pick SR over ES for passive energy management.

ES IS A HORRIBLE energy management. It is the skills in that attribute line that makes it worth it. But definitely not the passive bonuse of +3e per point.

This is utterly disappointing. Anet has lost control over it's creation and isn't capable to design a viable solution.

For crying out loud. Do we need yet another thread turned into an SR complaint thread?

Couldn't agree more.

What I don't like is that they keep neutering my MMs and claiming it was a PvE rebalance. Exactly a year ago, with the introduction of Factions, that they gave us the Minion Cap and claimed it wasn't due to PvP or AB concerns but purely for PvE reasons. Did Shiro or Mungri Magicbox complain?

Now they go after SR and again claim it was not to counter PvP Spirit-Spam (which the entire PvP community is complaining about) but instead is due equally to Hard Mode concerns. I.just.don't.buy.it.

MM's must be a huge design mistake, because Anet re-designs them with nearly every major content addition. Aren't the maps supposed to be built around the characters, not the other way around? In the case of MMs, we get readjusted whenever a new map or dungeon comes out to keep us 'in check'.

How the classes attack (and why mesmers are the least appreciated...):

Warriors: Through brute force and strength of muscle you are beaten into a pulp.
Elementalists: The very forces of nature are brought down upon you.
Rangers: Rain death from afar.
Necromancers: Tap the dark forces and eat you from within.
Monks: Summon the power of the gods to smite you down.
Assassins: As fast as they arrive, they are gone. So are you.
Dervishes: Whirling scythes and arcane might quickly dispatch foe upon foe.
Ritualists: Summon the powers of the other side to do their bidding.
Paragons: Spears at range tear you apart.
Mesmers: Sip their latte while you kill yourself for them.