[Dev Update] Skill Balances for Early April

People really need to get this through their heads. All necros are NOT MMs.
Some of us like to go away from the traditional usage of a class.

Yes, i'm ranting. Last night when i was arguing that the SR nerf is going the wrong way i got called a PvE scrub one time too often. From now on i have very little respect to people, who need to have Death Penalty removed from their precious HoH to be able to play.

I like my Rit, but Spawning is too closely designed to work for Spirit communing (and minions). Channeling (before Bloodsong was moved) and Restoration have gotten the short end of the stick. Rits deserve a better primary attribute (or make ele glyphs work on Binding Rituals)

Eles used to be prime Heal Party spammers. The best pressure Mesmers i've seen in Pvp were Ele/Me from a Korean guild (most likely WarMachine). They are the original endess energy class until Ether Prodigy got hit very hard.
Expertise has seen brighter days during the Toucher & Thumpers days, but still both primaries are pretty powerful and don't have a condition like needing something to die to have an effect.

Casting spells fast is nice, waiting the other 45seconds of a minute for the skills to reload is boring. I miss the time, when Inspiration spells actually delivered energy. Except Leech Signet most skills of that line received triple nerfs. Add a SR-like effect when casting for each reloading skill would actually result into faster gameplay!


1. lvl24-28 mobs don't die that fast
2. that's what the change was for (though if there is mass death of players either your or the enemies group has other problems than the necro's energy pool)
3. SR works, but it's like running around with your shoe laces tied together. MMs are the least affected.

The use of MMs in the final PvE missions and "elite" areas is limited.

The amount of professions and skills has brought a complexity to PvP that can never be balanced. That's why i am preaching to change the whole PvP game mechanic to Sealed Deck for serious play (HA / GvG).

lol Eles ES IS powerful. I run a GoR nuker with a few other high energy cost spells with only ONE attunement. By the time im done with 1 gropu I still have 90% of my energy. If youre running low on energy on an ele you need to learn to play them better.

That would RULE! Sealed Deck is ftw!

Obviously your idea of high energy cost differs from mine. That or you have no idea how to nuke. If an ele with only 1 Attunement for e-management and Glyph of Renewal has 90% energy left after the fight then either you cast once every 15 seconds or should stop making up bullshit.

Awww, the poor necro can't arcane echo high e-cost skills anymore. If thats the best thing you can come up with to counter the SR nerf then you should stop playing necro and get a clue what energy management on a char without an overpowered primary attribute.

Soul reaping is nerfed a bit too much. I think it's a good step to the right way, but maybe lower the max energy gain from certain levels. Spirits have like lvl 8-10 so you gain a max of 16 energy from a lvl 20-up and only 8 energy max from lvl 8 and with the spirits energy half you gain only 4, same with minions but only gain 75% from the max energy, so you gain something like there lvl 15 and you gain 12 energy max but 75% of it you gain max 9, maybe even lower it to 50%, those unended energy builds would be nerfed to and it would not hurt too much in PvE.

LOL. if you honestly think thats its hard to cast all your spells as an ele without dual attune and not have alot of energy left over then YOURE the one that cant nuke not me.
Necros attribute is MEANT for energy management and its not over powered. Like MANY people have pointed out necros dont have the best E-Management skills for themselves. The nerf that was done was a bit much. Like Ive said in other posts the solution to this is not to put a time constraint on SR but to not allow energy from spirits since this is how it is being abused in PvP. And This wasnt my only counter this was ONE example so before you go posting telling people they shouldnt play a class maybe you should read the full post and actually understand its meaning. Or if you cant understand cause your like 5 or something ask.

first of sorry for the spelling :P

second, hard to catch? on a 1/4 cast and 8 second rechard, the only time that would b hard is if u faced leave 0's. please.

soul reapping isnt dead its fixed, yes not in the way i wanted but its fixed as so its not abused in PVP/PVE, no constant energy for BH necros and no constant energy for necros from MM's in PVE. why should one class always stay on more energy than a warrior using just adren skills. it needed that nerf big time and it got it. about a new build, u thats a lie about no SR attrabutes, u need it u honistly do. MM's still work but u msut watch ur energy. same with most builds. but u coudl think up more with the lieks of reapers mark and sig of lost souls thats waht about 18 energy for 10 energy not bad.

and ur monk post u can not look after a full team of 8 + 2 allies all by ur self with no energy maintainment. unless in ur team u have all X/P for buffs. u need maintenment, even the best monsk will tell u this. and expesahly with healing, i could see it with protection, but lets not open up the Healing vs prot battle now. i run a monk, i know im not the best but im surely not the worst. i run on a basic 36 energy and yes i to run into prioblems. i get flamed for not healing, but u dont need to heal when the ele has only lost 10hp do u?. tho most of the time i an have 15+ energy ther er tiems when i have to switch up to help me but i would run into bigger problems if i didn't bring GoLE. U jsut cant run a monk with energy maintenment. and all this talk about no deaths is trash, of couse ppl die, ive had bad bays and i bet u have to, we all have had bad pugs and no monk is uber where he can run around healing with out energy problems. sorry enougth about monks

yes they all do but none so much as the necro, no one gaisn 16 energy whe ever some one died did they dervs gain 1-3 energy for soem moves and stuff, ( not to sure on there aintainment) Paragons have now been nerfed to death almost but there energy maintainment was nice, but didnt give as much back as necros did, eles they had big storage, but there maintainment was a pain they had attuments but u could still run out easly and the other one's r elites with can ruin some builds. most caused exaustion or hurt them after use. rangers ahve a nice maintainment but they still run low, cos most of there skill scan cost 15-25 energy and when 30 is ur base thats a bummer.



its actual arcaine echo is 15 but there u go :P

u dont need to echo SS, it was an added bonus used because of SR, sou can change that to GoLE meanign its,

5 for GoLE
5 for SS
5 for RH

thats 15 done, then SS will re charge and a second can b reaplyed so uve lsot 30 energy rather than ur 60, see it saves u up, Echo is nice but not needed as its not as if SS has a cool down time of 30 secs or something silly is it?


Preach dude preach or what ever the other guy said :P. i so agree with u here, u dont need Echo no more take goLE for the woay, ur see more N/E now but less necros using Firestorm and flare :P

Right... because obviously using Meteor Shower (twice?) and a Rodgorts Invocation, then maybe Fireball or Liquid Flame... nuke? Yes. High energy? Yes. Leaves you with 90%? Not a chance in hell. Without other e-management i think you still the 1 who has no idea how to nuke if your using Glyph of Renewal. Come back when your using Glyph of Energy if you think you'll remain at 90%.

Whats your point? It is an energy management attribute. And like all energy management you can't spam spells faster than you can gain it back. Try playing a boon prot and see how far spamming RoF gets you, no doubt you'll be back here whining that Mantra of Recall/Energy Drain are too weak for you to spam constantly. SR has been brought slightly closer to the level of a balanced energy management. As other people have said... nerfing SR so that it didn't gain anything at all from spirits *would* completely destroy it in PvP. From your past posts i'd say your closer to 5 than i am.

The SR nerf has gimped the PvE curse necro. Echo and SS aside GoLE and SoLS don't even begin to approach the problem. In order to be effective and support the party properly you must be able to hit at least 80% of the mob with your chosen hexes. Considering that on average you're looking at 10-15 energy for the good hexes and in the later areas of the game you have mob sizes of 7-10 you begin to see the problem. Three spells at a reduced cost and a conditional, piddly 8 energy gain from SoLS is a drop in the bucket. What this boils down to is that necros are being penalized for making their parties effective. I'm sorry I thought necro's were support casters. Silly me. Had I known that I was not supposed to enable my party to take out mobs quickly and efficiently I would have been playing soo much differently. If my hexes enable my party to take out 4 enemies in five seconds, that is 4 enemies die within five seconds of one another, at a cost to me of between 40 and 60 energy then why should I not gain my 40 to 60 energy back? Considering I don't have the ability to buff my max energy like eles do that 40-60 energy hurts. Arena Net screwed the pooch on this one. They went heavy handed when a lighter touch should have been used , anyone who says otherwise is either playing fan boy or being a troll plain and simple.

Right, nice blanket statement. I have no problems playing any Necro bars now, as opposed to then.

Spend less time complaining and more time studying the game to see that there are ways to manage your energy, explained over and over.

Or just quit. I won't miss any of you.

QFMFT!

Preach on good sir, preach on!

again LOL I use MS twice with GoR. We'll just agree youre not to bright and end this argument. I know how to nuke without using all my energy. For example In FoW with 3 eles Im the ONLY one not calling out low energy cause I dont have it. Not because im not nuking its because I KNOW how to nuke properly.



Whats your point? It is an energy management attribute. And like all energy management you can't spam spells faster than you can gain it back. Try playing a boon prot and see how far spamming RoF gets you, no doubt you'll be back here whining that Mantra of Recall/Energy Drain are too weak for you to spam constantly. SR has been brought slightly closer to the level of a balanced energy management. As other people have said... nerfing SR so that it didn't gain anything at all from spirits *would* completely destroy it in PvP. From your past posts i'd say your closer to 5 than i am.[/QUOTE]

You obviouly dont pvp much do you? Spirits is how SR is being abused. This nerf was from PvP complainers and they complain that necros have too much energy in PvP. How do you think they get this?? SPIRITS you know Spiritway. So correcting this will solve it. And for the record im 28 and married tyvm. Now again Ill say we'll just agree that youre not to bright and be done with this.

Ok so this is what now, 5th paragon nerf in a row?

You could have easily made any of these affect only non-spirit allies like some of the echoes do(Finale of Restoration). By changing it to party members instead, now all of these shouts bring 1 or 2 (max 4) energy in alliance battles. Why did you break it for AB and PvE, when teh spirit issue could be resolved by changing it from allies to non-spirit allies?

The special hint that you have no idea what the hell you are doing is this:
You claim the changes were because of spirits.
Wow didn't know spirits used adrenaline. Better change "Fall Back!" to party only as well, with that 33% speed boost spirits move way too fast.

About SR: One death every 10 sec at 12 SR still doubles your energy gain, and is thus about as effective as Expertise, 1 death every 5 sec still makes it the best energy engine.

it was not only in PVP that necros SR was being abused. have u not seen the MM's, they had a constant 30+ energy, if u didnt then u dont know how to MM. they also provided that other necro in ur team the aditional energy making it as bad as spirt abuse. so learn to live with it, cos it got nerfed for both plays and wont b swaped back.

so true

My primary character is a necro -the most played time, the first to reach the endgame areas in all three campaigns, the one with the most skills unlocked, the most xp, etc.

What possible reason would I have to say "This change isn't really so bad" when - if I am simply lying to appease Anet - it would only harm my character? I want to understand my motivation here, because what you're suggesting doesn't make sense.

Is it not possible to address your disagreements without referring to those with whom you disagree as "fanboys" or "trolls?" Surely, if soul reaping is in such a terrible state right now, you could easily demonstrate that without resorting to insults.

Shouts/Chants working on NPCs is (was) an issue in PvP...

Thank god the game isn't balanced around AB.....

Since when has legitimate complaining been 'being a cry baby'.

Necros are just expressing their feelings at an unfair nerf to their primary attribute (that as has been stated is 23 months old and has only had an issue with the current pvp builds).

If you're looking for cry babies why not call out the origianal pvpers that went whining to anet about necros in the first place and got this nerf for us...

Ahhh different story huh?

it seems that both sides have legitimate reasons to complain and calling them 'cry babies' is just inflammatory and uneccessary.

separate pvp and pve skills and the problem vanishes...

or is that too easy.

Why on earth would you not Echo SS? Get the max dmg going on all foes by echoing it. GoLe only reduces cost not kills them faster

Actually it IS PvP that brought on the nerf to SR. And wtf do people keep bringing up MMS? NOt all necros are MMs.

Thank You.
this nerf WAS brought on by PvPers whining that necro was over powered by SR. If this is the case then why wasnt every Halls winner an all necro team?
Obviously some groups were able to beat them.


While it would be nice for this. It isnt the right solution. Because the Issue lies in HA more than anything so to keep all of PvP nerfed wouldnt really be the best either. The solution is simple as ive said before. Just dont allow Energy gain from spirits at all. And maybe half from minions would work too.

It really makes me laugh at the draconian nerf that Anerf (anet) have given the necromancer.

All because some spoiled whinning PvP players who think they are God's gift to GW and love to insult and humiliate those who do not belong to their clique have gone crying to Anerf.

"Boo-hoo SR is too powerfull Boo-hoo I am getting pawned Boo-hoo Boo-hoo"

Of course these asskissers get heard and Anerf simply comply with these wishes without looking at the consequences and implications for the rest of us who in their eyes are just another whining lot when we ask for storage etc etc.

This last nerf and yes its a nerf not a balance is the one that takes the cookie.

ORBITUARY

Here lies the remains of the Profession of The Necromancer.

Was truimphant and effective when things died in its proximity.

Now destroyed by its creator Dr Frankenanet.

RIP

If the ubber 1337 pvp freaks (to those who fit'eth the hat wear it) have been so concerned about it why, using their far superior brain power which they claim to have over us PvE players, have they not come out with a counter to this and decided to rant and rave to anerf.

Does this mean they are like us pvr players, OMG, dont let anerf know about this. you guys are going to fall from grace.

why ppl keep bring up MM's is because they also brought about the nerf to SR, it was not jsut Spirts. they nerfed spirts but then necros brough minions to keep energy. and in PVE the minion master always had high energy, so did other necros, this imo is overpowerment, if it wants the monk would b able to cast 10 -15 energy spesl over and over again and still b on 40 energy


because now u cant echo it ur goign to have to learn to manage ur energy. and 9 out of 10 times the group would scatter makeing it usless. and with a 10 secon recharge u can apply it again but just not as fast

Yes the mm like it used to be had a good energy maintenance but keeping your minions alive and spamming new ones in big battles requires allot of energy to. And when battling, most times the mobs die at the same time or close to eachother, this means that ur using ur your energy in peak times like at the time you need new minions (at the end of the battle since 85% of the mobs die at the same duo 2 AoE dmg) and from that point you will only get energy from dying minions And btw the max amount of minions you are able to have is 10 (nerved that 2, was unlimited). So what do you want do with your remaining energy... spam monk skills? Like that would be useful.

This is just another sign that anet doesn’t have a clue how to balance all this. They just keep nerving until everyone is upset and quit this game. If they think this is the option, nerving nerving nerving nerving then im really disappointed in Anet. I think its just a lack of insight and just the easy option.
They better realize what they are doing and if they continue like this i think allot of players will quit.
If i compare GW now with how it used to be i feel there are more negative things taking place then good things.

Maybe some words from Anet? I found the arguments they gave us for there 1337 balance (nerv shower) far from convincing.

If NPCs were the issue, why was Anthem of Fury changed but Anthem of Envy wasn't? What are you gonna do with Anthem of Fury that affects allies? Those 2 knights in gvg gonna spam too much sever artery? It is absurd.

I never said game should be balanced around AB, but what I hate is changes that break a skill in other modes than gvg when a different change would suffice that didn't break the skill in other modes.

Again Ill say this. Most groups dont have 2 necros in PvE. Alot of people these days go with heroes/Hench with only 1 necro. Seeing as how Hench/Heroes are better then most pugs anyways.(This forum here proving this.) So what if 1 Necro has energy. WE are the ones that provide energy management for others. Every SS(if they play it right) has BR for the other casters. So we have SR for us.



The foes dont run away till below 50% and at that time all but 3 would run so its no where near useless. Take out the 3 then another 3 would come.
People think that 55/SS in UW was nerfed when truly it wasnt. If you know what your doing.

But I for one and done arguing because people just dont seem to get it. Ill just sum it up here.

1. ALL necros are NOT MMs so stop saying MMs are too over powered.
2. The abuse IS from PvP so just stop allowing energy gain from Spirits problem solved.
3. Dont call the PvE players whiners for being upset about SR nerf. Its the Pvpers that are the whiners because they couldnt beat the necro teams.(There are alot of people that can so if youre not good enough dont whine about it.)

you're comparing classes in completely the wrong way. yes, necromancers had a lot of energy gain from soul reaping. But almost all of their more useful spells cost 15-25 energy per cast.I know because one of my favorite characters is an MM, and the minion spells that are considered CHEAP cost 15 energy heh... plus keeping the minions alive can also get expensive
Whereas monks, while they don't get any passive energy gain, have a ton of 5 energy spells that are very powerful. I know because one of my other favorite characters is my healer, who uses all 5 energy spells (except for rebirth) and can keep a group alive through a big battle in, say, FoW, and still have 35+ energy at the end.

So many whiners. The "nerf" isn't even 1/100 as bad as you guys make it sound to be. You guys make it sound like the necro class is now unplayable, which is completely absurd. It doesn't take much brain power to comprehend that anything that gives you infinite energy with no skill slots required is not balanced and that is true for both pve and pvp. Its not like PvE is hard or anything ... even FoW is a joke.

So many poeple here are like kids crying because they broke/lost their favorite toy. I mean c'mon ... its not even that big of a deal.

Hhmmm, MM's, trappers, beastmasters, air Eles and Dervs got a real treat on this update, while domming mesmers sort of got nerfed. Wars got a pretty suitable trade-off.

Hopefully the ill-thought-out change to Soul Reaping will be removed as quickly as possible - it certainly makes playing a useful Minion Master pretty hard unless there's someone spamming BiP or BR in the party. Why pick on a PvE character for such a nerf...?

I've not tried a mesmer in PvE since the change, but the use of the weasel word "change" instead of "increase" or "decrease" leads me to expect trouble!

Of course, if Anet keep the nerfing of Soul Reaping, then maybe the benefit of Expertise for rangers will soon only be allowed for one skill per 10 seconds, say... and the same for the Divine Favour boost to monkish healing skills? Oops, I shouldn't give them ideas...

When playing a MM in PvE I normally carried Animate Shambling Horror and Animate Bone Fiend. I would normally have to wait for the skill recharge on Shambling Horrors or energy recharge on Fiends to raise one. Now I have to wait for energy recharge on both but it runs slow enough that I wind up using BoTM in there as well which slows down minion building as well. Experimented with bringing Animate Bone Horror as well -- helps but . . .

Running as an Echoed Spiteful Spirit build is now difficult. Awaken the Blood, Arcane Echo, and Spiteful Spirit pretty much wipe my energy (as before) but now when something dies, I still have to wait for recharge for any other primary spells (Insidious Parasite, etc). My secondary spells such as Parasitic Bond only draw away from the energy needed for my damage dealing.

Does this make the necro class unplayable? No, it does not. It does however make them less effective, limits the build options, and will make them even less attractive to play. Expertise on my Ranger is now a far better energy management tool than Soul Reaping is on my Necro.

The best fix I can see (in my opinion) is to remove the Soul Reaping benefit for spirits, either give only 50% Soul Reaping for minions or remove that completely as well, but continue to give full SR benefit for other deaths. Don't penalize the necro because the party kills things too quickly.

Elsalamandra.

Please don't talk as if you know anything about HA.

Spiritway gave complete retards a lot of power. It made it possible for horrible people to beat good people.

And this game is called Guild Wars.

Not Build Wars.

Problem is that Spiteful Spirit as a spell and minions in general are so much more powerful than anything else in the necro range of skills that there is little point in playing anything else...for one because you cannot hope to do as well as those 2 builds and 2ndly because other players shun you for not using the 2 prevalent builds.

Nerfing SR does not do anything about that. And what it was supposed to do isn't really working if I must believe from the PvP side that the N/Rt spirit spammer still works in PvP.

When A.Net adds skills to the skill pool, new imbalances arise. And if these imbalances are balanced, new imbalances STILL arise. Too bad, after the previous problems (Rit spike etc) were solved, necros and soul reaping gained playtime and power. As usual, they're used in not your usual EvIL balanced template (or variation) thus people labeled them gimmick/overpowered which warrant for a "fix" coz people think that this game should not be Build Wars (LOL Should be Wars : Balanced Build Only). They "fix" the skills based on THE benchmark, the 8vs8 GvG , a controlled environment where no level 34 monsters, global environment effect or spectral agony from the floating mursaats exist, and THE Balanced Build (yea the stereotype), the build that will assure you praises if you excelled in running it. The only way to justify the changes to other modes is to find something that doesn't feel fair, like finishing an 8 or 12 man mission with 3-4 people using the class (LOL) or wondering why necros gain unlimited amount of energy from death after 23 months since release(LOL) or necros in AB is overpowered because there are 12 enemys and n npcs thus they have the potential to gain 12+n X soulreaping energy (LOL).

Yea.

Wow. Just... wow.

Are any of you whiners even PLAYING with the changes? Cause I have, and don't see a real impact in PvE, or even PvP (where people don't die frequently enough for the 5 second wait to be an issue).

I mean seriously, I've tried out my Blood, Curses, and Death builds since the change. They still keep chugging right along. No issues. I play both PvE and PvP, and I still don't see any real difference in my energy gain. I'm just not wasting as much now. Before I got it faster than I could use it. My Elementalist has an average pool of 85, GoLE, and he still has more energy issues than my Necromancer.

The vibe I'm getting here (apologies to [VIBE]) is that a whole bunch of PvE kids are now upset that they can't just solo areas with their Necro. Boo hoo. It's a multiplayer game for a reason. Work with other people, they will still be happy to have you. I bet most of these whiners were the same people telling the Eles to go cry in the corner when the AoE nerf happened. Well, it did, and Eles are still here. So will be Necros.

Really, the only people that got a legit reason to cry are Mesmer players, cause their class gets hit EVERY FRIKKIN UPDATE because of every other class in the game abusing their energy management.

Good post.
"I outfitted my character with the exact build and it doesn't work anymore, I'm bewildered"

I can see your point and yes the eles are still here and there AoE are still out there kicking tail dont be mistaken that its just PvE kids that cant solo anymore that is calling for the out cry
and from what i have read this all came around that the necro especially in PvP is overwhelming cause of ulimited energy due to spirits and minons
whats next nerf the monks devine favor cause they can fully heal faster then some can kill?

finaly soem one else seeing sence QFT


what do u mean DF, is nice but imo no where near a nerf, what so an extra 45hp heal for free, thats liek half of my spells heal for. this came about because it was being abused and well it got fixed not becuase Anet h8 necros witch a lot of u seem to think

I have tried and the only way to play my builds are to change them. You must understand that my skill bar has 8 skills and they all have a reason for being there in my builds. Now I need to do different things and add new skills. Can it be done? Yes. Does it play the same? No. Do I like the new style? No.

Do I solo farm? No...I think it's a rip and I don't do it. Someone showed me the trapper build for UW, I saw that it worked and never used it since.

I don't like it anymore so I try to make that clear. If Anet doesn't care about me that's fine...I'll know by next week and then I'll see if I'll be playing GW or not. Right now I don't enjoy it anymore for all reasons mentioned in this and other threads. But GW will go on I'm sure, just not so sure if I'll be there because the balancing is just getting a bit much overall. I really don't want to see what skills get nerfed again every few weeks to see if I can still play my preferred builds or have to adjust myself to same greater good (PvP) that I have nothing to do with...that takes the fun out of PvE for me.

In fact I have stopped playing today and will await the end of the week and see what Anet will do...very few people will give a damn if I leave GW but that's fair enough isn;t it?

I have played with the changes alot. And there IS a huge difference. As far as PvP(HA anyways) no people dont die that often to notice, the spirits do. Which is where the problem is. However in places like AB and Aspenwood you really notice the hit cause theres people dying all over the place and fast.

As far as whiners go the only whiners are the PvPers that werent good enough to beat a spiritway group. "Oh there too powerful nerf SR." That makes me laugh. If youre not good enough to beat them then get better dont whine about it. The rest of us are just posting our opinions on SR not whining.

So people really need to stop calling others whiners for not liking the SR nerf. Like I said we are just expressing our opinions the only whiners were the HAers that couldnt hack it. The energy gain was part of the fun or playing a necro. No the necro is not unplayable but its not as enjoyable.

And before someone goes and says I dont know anything about PvP Ill stop you right there. I am a PvE AND a PvPer. However MY teams could beat a spiritway team so it didnt bother us.