Spawning Power + Other primaries Discussion

There are a couple things that make certain professions worth playing. The armor rating, energy regeneration, Primary attribute skills/function. Let's look at some for a second. Keep in mind this in from the Point of view of an average player, not a super balancer.

*As a note. I do not consider the use of Runes to be a deciding factor outside of farming, since the meta in both pve and pvp revolves around minor runes, and +1+1 or +1 doesn't make THAT much a difference IMO.

Warrior's. Massive Armor is always a plus. While they lack energy, most of their skills rely on adrenaline. While they are usually single target killers, they have some of the (if not the most) DPS in the game. Especially in PvP. Their primary adds armor penetration, and while not an EXTREMLY large amount, they have many useful skills IN the strength category to make them perfect.

My evaluation, Great class.

Rangers. Great elemental armor and good armor for a ranged class. Balanced in this aspect. Great energy management with good skills under their primary, balanced imo. Great DpS but better condition spreading. They can hit multiple targets in PvE, Daze an end boss, spread poison in PvP, Distract. Pretty much an all around good class. Solid

Great class

Mesmers Currently my Primary, used to be looked down upon in PvE but have always been perfect in PvP. Spell casters with low armor is to be expected of course. Basic spell caster energy. Primary is usefull in PvP more then PvE due to getting out spells before the opponent. I use it in PvE to be able to cast spells before my friends or h/h can kill the opponent though lol. While not as many of their primary skills are used, in most builds, their primaries effect makes up for it.

Great class, hard to balance though when needed.

Monks The life line of most parties. Basic Spellcaster armor and energy is to be expected. While their primary does not provide energy management, it DOES provide a healing boost to all of their monk spells. Also there are useful skills in their Primary. Able to use protection prayers and still have some heal is great. They can even split and be hybrid, smites that protect, prots that can heal, many opportunities. PvP though they are pretty much restricted to heal/prot, which is ok. Balanced at the moment.

Needed class, hard to balance when needed.

Elementalists Again, basic spell caster stats are to be expected. Their Primary is sometimes a necessity. While Energy pool size does not mean you have great energy management, Ele spells have a hefty cost and exhaustion which energy storage helps counteract. Energy storage also allows for Eles for some different builds. Not much to say here for me really.

Good class.

Necromancers Energy armor blah blah basic. Of course. Their Primary however is one of the most useful in the game. Insane energy management without skills in PvE, ok energy management in PvP. Due to this they are allowed to take on more secondary skills that need high energy, such as restoration spells. Couple good skills in their primary as well such as signet of lost souls.

Extremly good class.

Now We get into the campaign specific classes, so this will be a bit harder to talk about.

Assassins. I can't really talk about balance for these guys tbh. While the 70 armor is a set back, and critical strikes opens up lots of opportunities, I can't say I have seen them in most gvg's, and in PvE they are almost always some kind of SF. Someone else will have to cover this for me. They introduced a concept which I think Anet didn't really want, was instant kills, and shadow stepping to a foe which makes them harder to balance.

Can't personally discuss, but extremly hard to balance.

Ritualists Now this is where I grumble grumble and is one of the main points of my topic even though i haven't gotten to the other classes yet. Spellcaster armor/energy makes them nothing special of course. Weapon spells, item spells, and spirits make them usefull in ways, however most necro's can run most rit builds better then the rits due to soul reaping. Spawning power IN MY OPINION provides nothing special to the table. Little energy management is ok since monks have the same. But it doesn't provide extra healing either, or more damage. It increases spirits health, which most rits runs 1 -2 spirits and can still be taken out fast. Also increases weapon spell duration, however most weapon spells have low durations to begin with making the gain very little. Spawning Skills also leave something to be desired, most are only used in specific builds such as spirits strength, and minion bombers, and again, leave more to be desired.

In my opinion, Spawning or its skills needs a total re haul Or spawning needs some other effect. This class needs some attention, since they have the best looking armor in the game

Paragons Not many used in PvP anymore due to nerfs, but Extremly powerful in PvE. Imbagon isn't the only good build. Great armor (still 20 vs physical less then warrior but great nonetheless) wields a shield with its weapon, low energy but like warriors, use adrenaline skills, and decent dps. The only thing that bugs me about Paragons is their Primary is almost required for the MAJORITY of their builds, but the same goes for monks and a couple other classes. Usually restricting you to Leadership, spear master, command OR Motivation. I have seen Paragons ditch spear master all together for mot/com/and leadership, although I can't justify loosing a weapon for a class like this.

Overpowered in PvE, underpowered in PvP due to nerfs. Needs some attention.....and less midrift and less skirts >> Still a good class though

Dervish Assassin armor, but with a bit more health, and more survivability due to its skill selection. Its Primary also helps power its health/energy and can even be used for other things, such as buffing melee classes with the orders build. Bit more flexible then other classes, and introduced the most powerful (But huuuge damage range unless a crit sin) weapon in the game.

Good class, multiple uses, a bit hard to balance due to scythe imo.

As you can see, from my point of view, Core classes are usually the easiest to balance, mostly because the original game was built around these, and introduction to new types of skills increases difficulty to Balance. I am NOT suggestion remove the classes all together, since 1 that would never happen and 2 a good amount of players would stop playing. But I AM suggesting to Anet a couple things

1)Spawning power needs a good long look at. Although they are used as flag runners in GvG and this probably prevents Anet from changing Spawning power, I think they are loosing out on their primary while other classes still thrive from their own.
2)Paragons as a whole needs to be looked at from a PvP point of view, maybe take a look at the whole imbagon thing too, but I never really see many "LF imbagons" so I would be fine with them leaving it alone.
3)Assassins. I can't suggest anything for this class. But I hope Anet will learn from the past and try not to make a class that wasn't supposed to exist in GW2, instakill or 1-2-3-4-5-6 class.

Usually I don't care one way or another if things are debuffed in PvE, due to it being hard to balance seeing as how humans think, monsters don't, but I hope some of these things are looked at before Anet totally ditches GW1.

Discuss please. Is spawning power fine? Are Paragons fine? And give any insight to Assassins please. Also tell me if I missed anything on other professions. Also provide any suggestions to spawning power if you feel the same way.

Also If i counter an arguement, please know I am not trying to yell or be mean or rude or anything, I am just saying my view and am not very tactical at talking on forums most of the time >_>

I would like to see some improvements made in the attribute lines for Tactics, Spawning, Fast Cast, and Water. That being said I don't expect to see them any time soon (or later).

I Personally think Water and FC are good as is. Although I am starting to agree with tactics. It is rarely used anymore. I miss the old Watch yourself personally.

My GW tier list for pve , didn't count in farming:
God tier: warrior, paragon, necro
Good tier: monk, assassin, elementalist
decent tier: ranger, dervish, mesmer
Spawning Power tier: ritualist

Fast casting suks. It is only needed because mesmer skills take too long to cast. Mesmer is not balanced at all. it is only a decent class due to player skill. Proof positive, how many pugs would take a mesmer (except for VS farm). The same thing being said about Spawning power has been said about Fast casting from the beginning. Both need an overhaul along with tactics, but that won't happen.

I partly Agree with the Fast casting part. While it is needed for many mesmer skills, many mesmers use fast casting to give an edge in certain builds, such as fast casting water, fast casting lingering curse. I think the ability to go into these builds makes Fast casting good enough for now.

We are talking about PvE.

In PvE, fast casting sucks. 2-3 seconds make little difference if mob is going to die anyway.

I like to think being able to get my long cast time spells out before my smiteway heros kill everything instead of wanding everything is making me more effective as a whole.

But in the overall visual, I guess you are both right, and Fast casting needs something else in PvE. Any Ideas?

That is a great example of the problem I have with water. I am not complaining about the lack of damage, elementalist have fire for damage, but the snare hexes on water just take to long to caste in PvE. I don't mind AoE hexes taking a long time, they should but hexes that have a single target should go slightly faster but not fast enough that they can't be interrupted.

If you don't mind, what skills are you specifically talking about?

i think mesmers are poor in pve for a few main reasons
1) things die quickly, negating alot of mesmer skills to the dustbin
2) energy management for the most part sucks, apart from a couple of skills, maybe
3) necro's do similer things, but better/easier, same goes for ranger interuption...

for rit's i dunno, channeling often feels like air magic, but pants
spirit spamming in pve got heavly nurfed when they put a limit of 1 type of spirit in the area
when i play em i always get the feeling of not being upto par with other classes, maybe its just me :\

I like mind freeze - 8 second recharge is a little more then I like but doable.

Frozen Burst I consider a last ditch effort. To little to late if you, I want something that slows down a charging warrior before he gets to close.

Winter's Embrace, again casters using a touch spell makes no sense to me. Good for secondary with some profession that has the armor and HP.

Ice Spear I would like see drop all damage and convert to a hex with 66% reduction in movement and 33% increase in casting time. Combine with some other spells and it is a spammable slow down.

Mind Freeze is great against PvE warrior where an Elementalist will have more energy but against any Elementalist boss it is useless.

Just my opinion and like all this subjective.

my idea on balancing primary attribute for assassin is make the critical rate from primary attribute stay the same when fighting high level mob, because when you fight mobs which have higher level your critical will be reduce by half which reduce the efficiency on assassin, plus if it balance this way the pvper wouldn't mind.
and the other class that need a bit of attention is dervish, sure the energy gain from mystic is great but it doesn't have any immediate effect like other class primary attribute, my idea is that add the effect of disenchant the previous (same) enchantment when you have successfully cast it, this way the dervish will gain the full benefit of his primary attribute
and lastly the spawing power, my though is that add the effect of while holding an item for every 5 attribute point you gain 1 energy when you use a skill. this way ritualist might become more useful, this might seem a bit overpower for ritualist but think about it, most people that going to play restore rit chose N/Rt or E/Rt because of better energy management/more energy

I like the above idea for spawning power, it would work well. For mesmers, I would add for every 1 attribute point in fast casting, all enchantments last 1.5% longer when cast. Not overpowered and certainly a mesmerising enhancement. Or you could tie recharge times to fast casting and such. In either case the fix lies along the mesmer's character concept. Additional energy management would be a bad idea for mesmers.

I like the mesmer a lot, and I don't entirely hate the primary. But compare a mesmer's interrupts to a ranger's: in energy cost (if the ranger's at 10 or 13 expertise), an interrupt like D-shot costs 3 energy and recharges in 5 seconds, while disabling a skill. A memser interrupt costs 10 or 15 energy, and takes 20 seconds to recharge.
Interrupt with damage? Savage shot does +damage, costs 5-7 energy with expertise, and recharges in 10.
I'd like to see something in FC, other than an elite slot, help with recharge time...get those 20s into the 15-17 range.

I think the problem with spawning power is partly in the way we see it...or rather, don't see it.

You don't see the health of your spirits, and don't always notice the longer weapon spells you've cast. But another couple seconds of regen, or armor, or interrupts, or blindness, can make quite a bit of difference in a sticky situation. Spawning power's curse is that it doesn't make pretty numbers, in ANY color (yellow, blue, etc...) go up across the screen--so we perceive it as failed.

Faster recharge.

^you have it flipped. d-shot recharge in 10, savage recharge in 5. A 5s recharging d-shot would be borderline godlike.

I think the mesmers' long recharge might be to compensate for the easier interruption due to it's "instant", where as for d-shot/s-shot you need to take arrow flight time into consideration, although I do agree that FC should do something about recharge, you have to take into consideration about the other classes' spells, unless you make the recharge reduction mesmer skills only.

Mesmers interrupts are instant upon cast and always work unless target has one of the few skills that counter them. Ranger interrupts are cheap but have an arrow flight time (which granted is still small) and can be blocked. I think thats what the difference is for.

Agreed. Non-interrupt spells typically take 2 seconds or more, making fast casting only really useful for when you're emulating another class. They should make it so it's 150-200% more effective with mesmer spells and signets. Really, should the class be punished because other primaries like to use their stuff?

You didn't give enough credit to the Elementalist class imo, but nvm that, the real issue is Spawning Power. Who gives a crap if your weapon spell will stay on for 1 to 2 more seconds? Maybe make it give them energy back each time they use a spell, compared to the original cost so they won't "break" anything :P Like a caster Ranger. Something like "You gain 1 Energy plus 1...16% of the Energy cost for each rank of Spawning Power whenever you use a spell" or "For each rank of Spawning Power, the Energy cost of all of your spells are decreased by 2%(PvP)/4%(PvE).". What do you say, Is it sounds overpowered, underpowered or balanced? Or maybe simply crap?