Why Soul reap change? ( noob inquiry )

Takonic

Takonic

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: May 2006

[TFA] The Forsaken Allegience

Mo/

ok, I dont PvP much but I noticed the last major change there was a soul reaping change...I Understand that it is a nerf, but why did it happen? was it really that abusive somewhere in the game that I did not see?

Kuldebar Valiturus

Kuldebar Valiturus

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2006

Garden City, Idaho

The Order of Relumination (TOoR)

R/

Apparently in PvP Spirit Spammers could keep a Necro at full mana indefinitely. However, as I play primarily PvP and usually have a high Soul Reaping level, I just thought it was the benefit of...well, having a high amount of points in Soul Reaping.

Either way, I haven't played my Necro too much since the skill change, but when I did I didn't really notice a negative change.

Utaku

Utaku

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2006

Paris, France

We eat pancakes [Yumy]

Me/

In full necro teams, a couple necros summoning spirits and/or raising minions were used as groupwise insane energy management through soul reaping.

Thomas.knbk

Thomas.knbk

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

It was overpowered in both PvE and PvP. It outclasses every other energy management option in the game to the point where people went primary necro and only used skills from their secondary fueled by their infinite energy.

Kuldebar Valiturus

Kuldebar Valiturus

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2006

Garden City, Idaho

The Order of Relumination (TOoR)

R/

Too bad all Primary Skills were not made as well as Soul Reaping used to be.

LightningHell

LightningHell

(????????????)???

Join Date: Aug 2005

Hong Kong

Guildless

Mo/

Quote:
Too bad all Primary Skills were not made as well as Soul Reaping used to be. I'd disagree. Pressing 123456 as quick as you can isn't fun. Godmode on both teams ain't fun either.

Kuldebar Valiturus

Kuldebar Valiturus

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2006

Garden City, Idaho

The Order of Relumination (TOoR)

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by LightningHell
I'd disagree. Pressing 123456 as quick as you can isn't fun. Godmode on both teams ain't fun either. Well, Soul Reaping is passive in nature and you still have to invest in it for a return.

I mean, if people are going to through around trash spirits or minions to fuel SR then they must not be dishing out a huge amount of damge on the enemy. People can't counter this? If a whole team is supporting the Necro or each other by "feeding" the Necro's mana intake, what the hell is the enemy team doing about it while it happens? Explain to me how this can be so unstoppable?

It's just strange that SR has been essentially unchanged until now, the last significant change was to the amount of mana spirit's gave upon expiring which was understandable after Factions was released.

ZenRgy

ZenRgy

Zookeeper

Join Date: Jul 2005

Australian Discussion Posse HQ - Glorious leader

҉ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟&#

N/E

8x Icy veins + 8x soul barbs OWNZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Avarre

Avarre

Bubblegum Patrol

Join Date: Dec 2005

Singapore Armed Forces

Soul Reaping let people who were bad at the game look good.

shanaya

shanaya

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2005

Scouts of Tyria

R/

Soul Reaping was an ill-conceived primary attribute anyway, but this change to it does not make it much better.

Why ill-conceived? The death of a creature supplies every necro in the area with one point of energy per rank in Soul Reaping. In an extreme case, one creature dying (lets say a warrior with 20 energy) could supply 16 energy to a team of 8 necros - thats 128 energy from one 20e warrior! And thats not even considering enemy necros, who also get the energy. It was a totally crazy concept for a primary attribute.

The recent change to make it that you only get the energy from deaths every 5 seconds was a very poor fix for the abuse of spirit spamming.

The ability of necros to suck energy from a death, in my opinion, should have been similar to their other abilities of exploiting corpses eg Soul Feast to take health, Animate various minions, create a Well, teleport to a corpse's location etc etc.

For energy it should have been: Signet of Soul Reaping, exploit nearest corpse to gain 0....12 energy. Attribute: Soul Reaping. A fast recharging signet.
This would mean that only one necro could benefit from the energy from a death.

Snype

Snype

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2006

.:Pro Guildhopper:.

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by shanaya
Soul Reaping was an ill-conceived primary attribute anyway, but this change to it does not make it much better.

Why ill-conceived? The death of a creature supplies every necro in the area with one point of energy per rank in Soul Reaping. In an extreme case, one creature dying (lets say a warrior with 20 energy) could supply 16 energy to a team of 8 necros - thats 128 energy from one 20e warrior! And thats not even considering enemy necros, who also get the energy. It was a totally crazy concept for a primary attribute.

The recent change to make it that you only get the energy from deaths every 5 seconds was a very poor fix for the abuse of spirit spamming.

The ability of necros to suck energy from a death, in my opinion, should have been similar to their other abilities of exploiting corpses eg Soul Feast to take health, Animate various minions, create a Well, teleport to a corpse's location etc etc.

For energy it should have been: Signet of Soul Reaping, exploit nearest corpse to gain 0....12 energy. Attribute: Soul Reaping. A fast recharging signet.
This would mean that only one necro could benefit from the energy from a death. So ruin soul reaping further by not making it an actually primary attribute (if it was, it wouldn't need a skill to be used). Sounds like a great idea!!!




WTS Sarcasm Detector 20k

LightningHell

LightningHell

(????????????)???

Join Date: Aug 2005

Hong Kong

Guildless

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuldebar Valiturus
Well, Soul Reaping is passive in nature and you still have to invest in it for a return.

I mean, if people are going to through around trash spirits or minions to fuel SR then they must not be dishing out a huge amount of damge on the enemy. People can't counter this? If a whole team is supporting the Necro or each other by "feeding" the Necro's mana intake, what the hell is the enemy team doing about it while it happens? Explain to me how this can be so unstoppable?

It's just strange that SR has been essentially unchanged until now, the last significant change was to the amount of mana spirit's gave upon expiring which was understandable after Factions was released. Remember Jagged Bones. Sometimes when Soul Reaping gets abused it's not Soul Reaping that gets changed.

Another point in your argument is that you say they're going to throw around trash spirits and minions. If they're throwing around such "trash", I'd doubt they'd invest in it enough. The infinite mana engine does not require your minion to be level 9 or above.

You say that the other team can stop it. This may be the case, or may not be the case. Even if the team is able to stop it, however, it's probably a lot harder than pressing 123456.

All of these are irrelevant, though. It still gives godmode, which isn't fun. "Passive", as you say godmode is just as worse, if not even worse.

Thom Bangalter

Thom Bangalter

Grindin'

Join Date: Dec 2005

MO

E/Mo

any passive abilities that are fundamentally better than active abilities (whether it's actively protting or healing teammates, or actively doing damage--In this case, active vs passive energy management) needs to be discouraged for a healthy and competitive game. there's no reason a passive primary attribute should be better than every other option for energy and not receive a nerf.

mortis corpus

mortis corpus

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Mar 2007

Private room in the Catacombs with Eve

Deaths Doormen (DOA)

N/E

if SR need to be "fixed" especially where as said in other threads PvP areas here is the question

how is it that placeing a timer on someones unique proffession the fix when that obviously didnt fix the issue (as i have seen watching PvP just in the last couple of days)

and also each profession as a unique attribute tied to that profession
how is it SR is the target where E/ boost energy W/ and there strength A/ and the critical strike i could go on but this has been argued to death

Vorianatriedes

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2007

Neo Trinity Fighters

N/R

Wow Arena Net have inspired me to stop using my necro and only concentrate on W/Mo. I wont bother considering concentrating on a Rt/ as Spawning is probably somehow over powered to.

Bargamer

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2006

Rt/N

SPAWNING?! Overpowered? Yeah, I'll sell you that Sarcasm Detector for 20K, cuz you obviously need it. Spawning Power is probably the most USELESS Primary attribute ever. The "flexibility" of a Rit not needing to use their Primary is just a pretty way of saying that people will be finding builds that don't use it because it sucks so much. Originally, it was only useful to Spirit Spammers, and it took hard-earned effort to spread the word about Minion Bombers, and get them accepted by the average group, mostly because of "LOL, SR wins more, go away." But no more.

With that said, it is the opposite of pre-nerf SR in that it's not the attribute's passive effect that you want, but the skills. Domain of Anguish laughs at the extra HP of my minions/spirits. Thus, most Rits use their other attributes, either Resto or some variant of Spirit Spam. Oh, and those Splinter-Barrage guys. I'm gonna try their build, it sounds like fun.

I haven't played my Necro since the Factions Preview Event, and I'm definitely not going to now. The Minion Cap was the kick in the face, the SR nerf slit your throat, and GWEN is going to exploit your collective corpses. Rits are the new Minion Masters, just accept it. Point of fact, I just bought The Nightbringer off a Necro for dirt cheap, last week.

Cathode_Reborn

Cathode_Reborn

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Sep 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bargamer
SPAWNING?! Overpowered? Yeah, I'll sell you that Sarcasm Detector for 20K, cuz you obviously need it. Spawning Power is probably the most USELESS Primary attribute ever.

With that said, it is the opposite of pre-nerf SR in that it's not the attribute's passive effect that you want, but the skills. Domain of Anguish laughs at the extra HP of my minions/spirits. Thus, most Rits use their other attributes, either Resto or some variant of Spirit Spam. Oh, and those Splinter-Barrage guys. I'm gonna try their build, it sounds like fun.

I haven't played my Necro since the Factions Preview Event, and I'm definitely not going to now. The Minion Cap was the kick in the face, the SR nerf slit your throat, and GWEN is going to exploit your collective corpses. Rits are the new Minion Masters, just accept it. Point of fact, I just bought The Nightbringer off a Necro for dirt cheap, last week.
First you say Spawning Power is one of the most useless attributes, then you say Rits are the new MM's? Wishful thinking.

A rit MM is equal to a Crit Barrager: just a weak replacement.....less effective than the real thing. The only reason they'd get accepted into a pve party is cause a primary nec/ranger wasn't around. It's a primary nec that will "steal" the duties of a rit. A nec using Restoration or Channeling skills to heal/buff the party is more reliable than a primary rit thanks to some awesome e-managment called soul reaping Besides that, who wants a spirit spammer in pve? The party isn't gonna wait ages for you to set 'em all before each fight.

If you're having problems maintaining your Nec's energy after that update, you probably just suck at playing a Necro.

Quote: Agreed. But it was poorly executed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avarre
Soul Reaping let people who were bad at the game look good.

catharsis

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Soul Reaping allowed me to maintain a minion capped army of 10 Bone Fiends at 25 energy a pop, summoning new ones whenever the hell I felt like it, without even so much as having to glance at my energy reserves.

SR = broken. No ifs, ands or buts.

psychodiarist

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Feb 2007

Party of Tokers [Toke]

R/E

Quote:
Originally Posted by catharsis
Soul Reaping allowed me to maintain a minion capped army of 10 Bone Fiends at 25 energy a pop, summoning new ones whenever the hell I felt like it, without even so much as having to glance at my energy reserves.

SR = broken. No ifs, ands or buts.
Yes INDEED. So useful for those spells requiring so much energy to cast, but the nerf was a pain in the ass at first when I was in PvE. However, call me a masochist, but the nerf was quite a welcoming challenge. My first char was a necro and as a noob Then, it was very rational and easy to rely on SR as a passing support. Throw in Vampiric Gaze and other simple self healing, and I even got thanks from monks who didn't have to concentrate on healing the constantly dying caster.

The abuse of SR is sly, and in PvP with a party of necros, EVIL. With the power comes fall, and I think the nerf was appropriate. Like I said before, a welcome challenge since I love playing necros and it made me rethink on how well I can actually play. With the five seconds, it just meant that I had to learn to move around more. I've never tried the invinci monks, and the great barrage/interrupt rangers, etc, but SR was an awesome thing to behold - especially when I first started playing Prophecies.

Dang. Now we gotta be creative and actually play the game without this godmode state. What a concept.

riposte

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by psychodiarist
The abuse of SR is sly, and in PvP with a party of necros, EVIL. With the power comes fall, and I think the nerf was appropriate.
Dang. Now we gotta be creative and actually play the game without this godmode state. What a concept. I wish that were so. But actually the 2 DOMINANT Nec builds, MM and SS, were buffed so they're back up again where they were before (SS is even better now with hard mode's IAS). Everything else just loses out. Ok, if you didn't bring sig of lost souls before (and own NF), you can bring it now and will be fine. But nerfing everything except the top-tier builds is not an encouragement to be creative.

Sadly, it's just another instance of a.net quickly appeasing the vocal noobs (can you say loot scaling?) instead of sticking with a design decision, waiting for the dust to settle and smart players to adjust, and THEN see what needs buffing again. And I had hoped they'd stay smarter than that.

Silly Warrior

Silly Warrior

Hold it!

Join Date: Jul 2006

In your local courthouse.

The Arctic Marauders [TAM] (elite PvE, PM)

Guys, there are over 5 threads on Guru about the soul reaping changes, including quotes from Gaile Grey.

If you want to talk about this issue, take it up in one of the many countless threads on this hot topic, please.

There are just so many of these, and I don't even try looking.


/closed.