spiritual pain--eventually a nerf?

spiritual pain is one of my favorite mesemer skills, used along with energy surge and energy burn. this skill DESTROYS rit lords and their spirits. anyway, ive notice recently alot of people saying how good and powerful this skill is. with the build i use i can spike a target down to 1/4 or less health easy. to me, its overpowered and it seems like the kind of skill that might get a nerf....all im saying is, if youre not going to nerf searing flames, please dont nerf this

If they do end up lowering the damage output of this skill, they should also lower the energy cost and keep the conditional recharge.
As I see it now this skill is intended as a deterrent to ritualists staying close to a spirit. Mesmers do not have many deterrent spells geared towards the rit class and I'm hoping that this spell regardless of how it's changed will continue to fall into that intended role.

This skill is fine as it is, A Rit Lord should be trained enough not to stand in a spirit (and not to cast spirits in one place) while being bombarded by this spell. It has the same effect as a Firestorm but with greater damage.

I would advise someone not to spam this skill, you'll kill your energy in a heartbeat. They have the skill at 10 energy for a reason you know.

There's nothing wrong with searing flames, it does nothing against the effectiveness of a Rit's spirits since they're immune to conditions, and if you're immune to conditions, then SF will never trigger against them.

Just keep in mind that a high cost yet spammable skill is both a good and bad thing. It comes with a sneaky downtime if you spam it at will - remove those enchantments and you've basically cut down the effectiveness of SF by alot.

OMFG!! Mesmer is dying!!! Just look at how little people visit this place >.<

All this talk of big damage has me itching to get through Factions and obtain this skill in Nightfall.

Yes, I'm playing through Factions. Shoot me.

This is sadly a very sure PVP only skill.

Spirits are used so rarely in PVE that using this skill as you would Energy Surge just doesnt happen.

It depends on your build arcanis.
In PVE I really only use Arcane Echo+Spiritual Pain+Assassin's Promise+Web of Distruption+Shatter Delusions.
It's very good against PVE areas with tons of mobs.

I use it in PvE, as most mobs in endgame areas all stand together. Spirits or not (demons do use qz), 100~ damage to a large group is worth the slot.

As far as PvP is concerned, it's less a spirit hunter (how often do you even see Rits anymore?) but a powerful spiking skill.

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I think it's fine. Maybe nerf the AoE dmg a little since it's ridiculous at VoD.

A nerf? I hope not.

I am a mesmer myself, and I know people will hate me, but I believe its damage should be lowered some points, because of the spike potential. I understand the energy cost and recharge times are good, but doing dmg alone seems not to fit the mesmer class, direct area dmg, there is energy surge and it has a elite spot. Ok, if it hits a spirit it will recharge, but that is too conditional. Since I mentioned elites, I really do not think it should be turned into an elite, just because it would never be used then.

I retract my previous statement.

I was in Mineral Springs trying to farm an IDS for my warrior and used Surge and Spiritual Pain together. It was actually quite easy, especially with the MindClouder's recharge time boost. And if I did Pain, Surge then Burn, by the time Pain had recharged, usually the other two had aswell.

^ I think that is the first time on gwguru I have seen someone admit they were incorrect. kudos to arcanis.

I use spiritual pain a lot in pve with GoR, recharge times aren't as critical. Its great.