[Dev Update] Soul Reaping and Mesmer Issues

Well, it's at least nice to see that they are aware that their current Soul Reaping system is crap, and that it doesn't work for Necros in PvE... and that they are still going to keep trying to come up with something better. Here's to hoping that they do.

I am just curious, is there some kind of posthypnotic suggestion in the population at large that requires a mention of....ah heck whatever. Just rest assured there explodey, that you are in a very large crowd of internet posters who always say the same thing(s) in that exact sequence. Maybe there is a cut and paste website somewhere that the lot of you go to.

I believe that the part you are not mentioning because it hurts your case is the opposite, namely Appeal to Novelty, where new = better. I think anyone here can make the case of you having a logical fallacy that is just as valid as your assertions about others, so I'd be hesitant to start in.

New is not always better.

What ever you may believe or feel, the iconic thread on SR changes is up to 1620+ posts? That is a lot of interest and activity. So regardless of the usual tiring "Take it! Dont be a Pansy! You were overpowered before! Noob! Adapt like the rest of us!" posts, there seems to be quite a bit of discontent about this particular topic.

You have every right to post your feelings on this matter. You do not have any right to try and stifle the postings of others.

If he is unhappy with the SR nerf, then where better to post his opinion than this very forum, which is about GW, and this very thread, which has SR in the title?

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

PS - I am not happy with the SR change either, and refer you to Lyra_song for possible remedies that would suit me, as she has not been given credit in other forums. (and has said so)

Yes good post keithark. Obviously people have strong opinions on this matter (the SR matter mostly) and I am in the pool of those who didn't see a problem before and now there IS a problem. A very big one. I admit I'm 95% PVE as PVP bores me and there are too many people with the "I'm leet...OMG you're a n00b" if you don't run a certain build attitude. In any case - I'm glad Anet is looking at it again and searching for other viable options to "fix" this now broken attribute (hell broken class for that matter).

What other PRIMARY attributes on classes have been majorly nerfed? This change affected the entire backbone of the necro. Not just a skill - but the entire Necro as we know it. I play my necro a good deal and have for the past 2 years - I actually have 2 necros right now (along with at least one of each of all the other classes as a primary) and I have to say they're over-nerfed right now to the point that they're not really that much fun to play.

Well I could say more but I'll keep it at that. I know there'll be more "flaming" and people calling each other n00bs and patting themselves on the back for being so smart and leet and all. Have fun with it!

Isn't that one of the big problems with mesmers for PvE even if the skills are there? Fast Casting generally just isn't as useful for PvE as it is for PvP, compared with some other primary attributes.

Instead of just making mesmers more attractive for mesmer secondaries, primary mesmers for PvE seem to need either buffs for the Fast Casting attribute that make it more worthwhile for PvE and/or really good skills for PvE tied to the Fast Casting attribute.

Soul Reaping has been broken since this game first cameout. I will readily admit this. It hasn't been touched for so long because only resently has it had such a tremendous affect upon PvE.

I first found out that spirits trigger soul reaping by watching [EaSy] run a holding build in halls. My guild and I threw together some copies of this to get some kicks in before Anet realized this gross oversite, this was prior to Factions being released. The first hit to soul reaping came after the FoC spike fiasco in the finals on the Imperial isle. No one really spoke up much about this as it had almost no affect upon pve and everyone in pvp more or less acknowledged that energy gain as somewhat exploitive; actually many were surprised that Anet continued to allow spirits any energy to necros.

Soul Reaping was still overpowered and it has just taken time before Anet has done anything with it. This time it affects PvE so there is a lot more people complaining. However, the only pve necro build I see this really affecting is minion masters. Just as soul reaping was overpowered as an energy engine, the 'animate' line of spells are too costly (Anet has already took some steps towards this). Twenty-five energy for a bone fiend is overpriced. With the old soul reaping (most always run at 12+1) the MM will get 13 for the mob killed then 13 when the fiend dies so it ends up being 1 corpse = 1 fiend, but with this new system install the necro is not guaranteed either. It is an odd situation where wiping a group in a few seconds yields one soul reaping bonus, but prolonging the same fight with the same mobs yields more.

Yes SR has always been overpowered, but the 'animate' line has always been too costly.

The easiest 'fix' to soul reaping (at least as far as PvP, but that is what GW is balanced and adjusted around) is to stop having spirits yield SR bonuses; most every pvp player has expected this to come around for quite some time now. This was the primary, and only adjusted, part of the first SR adjustment and this is the primary reason for this SR adjustment.

There will be no shelving, lol. I even finally went ahead and bought my lil necro FoW armor and started playing her more again. I tend to like to run 'higher' Soul reaping anyways, and have been somewhat bemused. By this I mean to not just imply but overtly state that many people are completely overreacting to this change in SR functionality.
Mesmers: I've been thinking about this same issue for a long time and haven't been able to come up with much. My best ideas (and still not exactly original/perfect) were: summon spells (illusion, summon phantom warrior 15, 3, 15; summon phantom warrior to battle your foes...), some sort of aoe backfire and/or empathy (elite? pve only?) and things like that. I've never really seen ANYTHING exactly suble about shatter enchant or hex personally, and backfire is just brutal. However this gets back to the primary attribute issue in my opinion. FC is just not as attractive to folks as >100 energy or +energy on death... especially since there are about 1 useful skills in the line, heck even SR has usefull skills (hurray SR ).
Gaile: Thanks a ton for letting us know the Dev team is still looking at this, the description of 'inelegant' is perfect and would love to see something more streamlined.

I'm not "failing" to mention anything. What you suggest is both irrelevant to what I was responding to and incorrect anyway as "new = better" is not how I even feel.

I like how Arena net is going to review the mesmer. But im going to bring up a major issue that i wish to speak about before any changes happen.

1) Do Not Do an NGE with the Mesmer. Gaile mentioned difficulty but if the class is too oversimplified then that is just a fail in my books. The class should indeed be looked over (Mind locks affecting areas of the radar, Mass Spreadings of illusions, etc for the Aoe people) but the basics of the class must remain the same and if the profession is oversimplified then the basics of mesmers will die.

So yeah... Just dont oversimplify the class and dont do anything on the lines of an NGE. please stay true to the mesmer while you are changing it.

Yay! Mesmers will finally be accepted in groups for PVE!

The problem is, how will they do that. I agree that fast casting isn't exactly that useful in pve a lot of the time (well, not as useful as other special attributes that is), but how would ArenaNet fix that? Then again, hard mode is coming soon, which might make certain not very useful things more useful (hopefully fast casting is one of them). That still won't really affect the pve we currently have though, and I doubt that the explorable areas in GW:EN will somehow make it more useful to have fast casting in our current explorable areas... At least heros and henchies aren't picky about who is in their group!

And I still don't get why people say that soul reaping was really "nerfed". Before the "nerf", all of my Necro builds seemed to have infinite energy, no matter what (I mean, sure, I sometimes went down to 0 energy on my necro, but it hardly ever happened). After the "nerf", I see absolutely no change at all. Actually, I didn't even know soul reaping was changed untill a few days after the "nerf", and the only reason I realized it changed was because I saw people commenting on how it changed (PS I did play on my necro between when soul reaping was "nerfed" and when I found out that it was "nerfed"). After I found it it was "nerfed" I decided to use all of my necro builds, and I still didn't notice an ingame difference.

If anything, maybe Soul Reaping should be nerfed again, but this time to make more of a difference.

I don't know if this has any effect on my Soul Reaping giving near infinite energy, but I mostly play PVE, and I don't think I've ever played as a necro in PVP.

Is it weird that Anet "nerfed" SR and I haven't noticed any freaking difference? And yes I do play necros a fair amount of time.

I think SR should not be triggered by Spirits and Minions, after all, that seems to be where the problem lies.

Gaile, the word from the devs on Mesmers is very welcome indeed! Thanks very much.

About the change in necromancer soul reaping, what bothers me and many others is that it took nearly two years to decide that Soul Reaping was overpowered. I must say that this sounds to me like argument after the fact to justify a change made that was made in haste to cure a specific problem without sufficient consideration for its overall impact on the game.

The upshot of the Soul Reaping change for me has been that I have managed to retool my hero necros to compensate, but I have scrapped plans to roll a necromancer primary.

Bottom line of what this dev update said - if your problem is that Necros no longer have a near unlimited supply of energy - too bad. If that means you are going to quit, I suggest you do so immediately as it is *not* going to be "fixed". From now on out you *will* have to use some form of energy management other than soul reaping. It doesn't matter if this is fair or not, it is now the way things are going to work.

If, however, your issue is with the implementation then give constructive suggestions (and obviously repeating "no energy from spirits" doesn't help, I'm sure they have read that several thousand times by now and for whatever reasons have decided that isn't what they want) and wait and see. Though, if you are in this class you are probably not one of the ones screaming about it, have added an energy management skill or two, and gone to pacing high energy spells like you do on every other class in the game.

Feel free to rage I guess, but your just waisting bandwidth and time you could be spending on a game you actually like.

Nerfing SR is fine, even for PvE (because more challenge does make games more fun... just look at how much the Hard Mode update is being anticipated), but I don't think the 5 second hack (and even the dev's call it that... a hack is by definition an inelegant solution to a problem) is the right solution.

A good solution has the following attributes:

1. Puts an upper limit, or at least greatly diminishes returns after an upper limit, on the amount of energy gainable in a high death spam situation like spirit spamming or MMing. This is the primary goal of the hack, and it works for this purpose and this purpose alone.
2. Is not affected by relatively random effects like timing of mob deaths.
3. Is certainly not adversely affected by planned multiple mob deaths in a short timespan. This is one of the defining characteristics of a well organized PvE team, and is where the current hack fails most completely. In places like DoA, you want everything to die as close to the same time as possible, and this hack heavily penalizes the necro for that.

So, here is my proposed solution:

Create an enchantment (preferably an invisible one that doesn't show up on the effects monitor) that looks like this:

You gain SR/3 energy and 1 pip of energy regen for SR*2 seconds.

You are enchanted with this every time a mob dies, and it stacks with itself. This means:

At 15 Soul Reaping:
You gain 5 energy + 1 pip for 30 seconds (10 energy from regen) for 15 total
If one mob dies every 5 seconds, you remain at max regen
Anything faster, and you go over the regen cap, but still get some energy from the initial burst

At 9 Soul Reaping:
You gain 3 energy + 1 pip for 18 seconds (6 energy from regen) for 9 total
If one mob dies every 3 seconds, you remain at max regen

So you can see that if a mob dies every 5 seconds or more, it's just like both of the old systems, except for most of your energy comes in the form of regen instead of bursts.

At 12 Soul Reaping (most Necros run 11-13 SR, so 12 was chosen):
You gain 4 energy, + 1 pip for 24 seconds

A mob dies every 5 seconds: (old SR - 3.73 eps)
You average 8.8 pips regen (9 for 4 seconds, 1 for 1 second)
4 energy per 5 seconds, + 2.93 eps from regen (8.8/3) = 3.73 eps

every 4 seconds: (old SR - 4.33 eps)
You average 10 pips regen
4 energy per 4 seconds, + 3.33 eps from regen = 4.33 eps

every 3 seconds: (old SR - 5.33 eps)
You are capped at 10 pips regen
4 energy per 3 seconds, + 3.33 eps from regen = 4.66 eps

every 2 seconds: (old SR - 7.33 eps)
You are capped at 10 pips regen
4 energy per 2 seconds, + 3.33 eps from regen = 5.33 eps

every 1 second: (old SR - 13.33 eps)
You are capped at 10 pips regen
4 energy per 1 second, + 3.33 eps from regen = 7.33 eps

From this you can see that as stuff dies faster, the energy gained over time (eps) scales much slower than the old way, making this adjustment satisfy the needs of the nerf bat. On the other hand, up to 6 mobs can die at once, and the Necro will still gain the full benefit of their soul reaping attribute.

Finally, while most classes start out strong at the beginning of a battle and trail off towards the end, the necro starts a battle weak and doesn't start gaining power until stuff starts dying. The first part of the battle is the most difficult, so the Necro's biggest role in current parties is to be a very powerful mop. This is most apparent in PUGs with MMs: the necro is left behind summoning his last minion or two while the party runs off to the next battle, then the MM comes in blazing to quickly dispatch the weakened foes. With this adjustment, an MM would be more apt to carry some offensive skills to help with the difficult first stages of battle, since he'll still be riding the high from the last battle.

SR and energy gain, Idea:
adjacent death: full gain
nearby death: 75% gain
earshot: 50% gain
radar: 25%: gain
spirits: any range 50% of what 'live' death would give.
minimum 1 gained (if at least 1 point in SR)
no time limits.

More 'Elegant'?

Dun't think that this is a viable suggestion. It does not really solve the problem where it matters most i.e PvP.

What if SR changed so that it stole health when a skill was played instead of gaining energy when something dies. That way a necro wouldn't have to stack skills to be effective.(Playing Live Siphon, Feintheartednes, and Insidious Parasite, on one enemy can get costly)
As for making minions, sense half the time they are made between mobs, the necro only gains energy when it's own undead servants die. And that energy can be half the number of points(rounded down) in Soul Reaping.

We have had several new, brilliant ideas since the update, none of which have been acknowledged by anyone in charge.

Anyway, isn't an update thread generally supposed to be about an update? All we seem to get here is that "maybe we'll do something later... not that we know which... unless we can get away with forgetting it".

Great point!
From reading so many bitching and moaning threads from so many people on these forums I get the impression that they
A- Hate Anet
B- Hate Guild Wars
C- Hate Anet and Guild Wars

why spend time and effort on something you hate so badly?

I'm sure someone will say they bitch because they care so much but
If I cared so much about my girlfriend that I had to bitch as much as some of you do I'd replace her with one I didn't care for so much.

Did you stop reading after my first sentence? You should probably take my paragraph in its entirety. Several ideas have been proposed, some very good, some decent, some very bad. They were all already suggested awhile ago. I said I had not seen any new viable ideas, and if anybody had more, feel free to share.

Nobody has presented any new ideas (at least not viable) for several days and they're all in the other thread anyway. Gaile had previously acknowledged that the thread was being read, which obviously means the suggestions were read. To be honest, there were lots of ideas presented and I suspect anybody in charge hardly has the time to personaly respond to every single one of them. The fact that this thread was even created is acknowledgement.

Heh, I understand what you are saying and just want to throw this in there just for semantic clarification. In this case 'pvp' really is limited to HA wouldn't you aggree?

But I digress, I agree that this doesn't adress that single problem so... no energy from other than your own summoned creatures(ie only if you summoned, not a teammates). My argument for this last is that since you've summoned (or in the case of duelling verata fighters - whoever owns it when it dies) the critter, you are the only one with a *link* to it's essence. Regardless, I believe the ranged effect without a manufactured time limit on gain is far more elegant, but as I'm not a game programmer (I just play one on TV) I really don't know how much work this would be to implement.

edit: your 'matters most in pvp' is clearly your own viewpoint and Anet and made a point of saying that they feel its more a global problem but hey, it's yer world ;P

Yes. The unwashed masses are so ignorant to just how useful a Mesmer can be in place of another Elementalist, Monk or Warrior. We need the almighty and godlike Mesmer Community to show us the path to enlightenment.

I'd say PvP= GvG and HA more precisely.

Actually, that option seems pretty good, IMO. But that's Anet's call whether to take that option or not :/


By "matters most", I mean for the game :/
If you read the SR nerf post, you will see that I am in fact against the 5 sec timer.
So, your accusation is a real blow to me T_T

There was one idea presented that was voted favorable by over half the people in the other thread. It has been met with dead silence despite the fact that it would effectively murder the builds which the nerf was originally created to remove.

There have been other ideas posted regarding pip-regen, stacking or non-stacking, fading, non-fading, up to today.

Now we have five skills, none of which in the main campaign, three of which elite, neither of which extremely useful for any normal player.

Yes. YES! Finally someone gets it!

It's funny... but if you took any of those classes (ele, monk, war) and told them to build to fight a mesmer, and the mesmer knew who he was giong up against, I'd have to put my money on the mesmer every time in a fight to the death (not a stalemate, monks... ).

Ok, fine gvg but to a WAY lesser degree, even to the point of not really being a problem due to more mobility, interrupts. Despite your opinion that only pvp matters, Anet (thankfully) realizes there is more than just pvp to GW. SR has been needing a nerf for awhile now, and while their latest update is a step in the right direction, it needs some fine tuning.

THAT sir, is one of the biggest ifs in the world. Not to mention the point that GW is not now nor will it ever be a 1vs 1 game.

It's not an "if" in PVE considering that you always know beforehand what monsters and what skills they'll be using in any given mission/instance.

And yes, it will never be a 1v1 game but the point still stands that a mesmer can be specifically built to counter and destroy anything.

Necros: you are just too damned efficient! Something must be done, lets break out the nerf-bat.

Mesmers: we are finally going to implement the strip club in Lion's Arch you have all been waiting eagerly for.

I guess that about sums it up.

thanks for the update atleast im hoping that it all comes out for the best for everyone

thanks for the update atleast im hoping that it all comes out for the best for everyone

I must say the posts on Guru are somewhat lacking these days. When I see page after page of nothing but posts which are quoting other posts, then its pretty obvious they are nothing but argument threads.
There is an old saying:"If your not part of the solution, then your part of the problem." I think people should start taking note of this.

Please, please, please don't add any more direct damage skills to mesmers just to make them more attractive to PvErs - unless these are PvE only skills. We really don't want a repeat of spiritual pain spike.

The mesmer's focus isn't damage and since damage (plus healing) gets you through 100% of PvE most groups would rather take an extra damage dealer to get the job done quicker than a mesmer.

It's not difficult to see why memsers aren't that desirable for PvE when the majority of the enemies in PvE don't really do anything that you can't heal or damage through (i.e. no need for any kind of shutdownl). You really don't need a mesmer when enemy monks just maintain holy wrath and use orison to heal themselves, or just carry judge's insight, shielding hands and divine intervention.

Adding more direct damage skills and shifting the mesmer's focus slightly may indeed make them more useful for PvE but it will have a more dramatic effect on how they are balanced in PvP.

heh, this is true...
but in pve 1 vs 1, a ranger doesn't even really need much special designing...
nor a warrior... or an ele....
and yes mesmer has always done well at 1 vs 1, so its not really the point. Mesmers are lacking a role in the masses ;P... I think personally while a mesmer would be awesome against many of the casters in DOA for example, a nuker is awesome against ALL opponents in DOA. That's the problem in a nutshell.

I'm just quoting you with another 'line'
If your not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitant.
your post is a prime example of your post, and if there is anything worse than a wasted post, its a hypocritical wasted post.

Sorry, but dun't put words into my mouth. I never said "only pvp matters". I said "where it matters most i.e PvP", which is correct. PvP needs balance more than PvE, and this is a fact. Tournament is made around PvP and real cash are awarded. It would be really stupid for Anet to award cash to a team which uses an overpowered gimmick build.

And, yes, I know that there is more than PvP to GW, since I , myself, play both PvE and PvP. And, I also know that the majority of the players prefer playing PvE.

But, however, that does not changes the fact that balance in PvP is essential for GW. What was wrong with your 1st suggestion was that it was only considering the PvE side of the equation. That is why I told you that it was not viable. I did not mean any offense there. Just stating the truth. On the other hand, the 2nd suggestion was much better since it also addressed the problem in PvP and the PvE side.

Peace.

Say there's a broken skill out there that nobody has noticed yet, for the purposes of my argument. Suppose it's been broken for like, months, and nobody has noticed. When it becomes popular and is nerfed, would the argument, "BUT IT WAS THAT WAY LIEK FOREVER" have any validity whatsoever? No. The end.

It's patronizing statements like this that start flame wars. Do you really want to do that?

Saying the necro class was completely destroyed is hyperbole. So is saying that previously necros had "unlimited energy." If you come across stuborn monks or nasty mesmers, necros did indeed run out of energy. When fighting a boss that just refuses to die, you run out of energy. It has already been made clear that there are no core e-management skills in the necro profession, and A-Net has made it abundantly clear that they dislike using second professions to manage energy (nerf to Mantra of recall, nerf of GoLE, etc). If you have something useful to say, try not to be insulting while you say it.

But when it is nerfed, the nerf should fix the broken aspect, which this nerf did not do at all.

Love for the Mesmers! I like it. Any party leader who doesn't accept a Mes into the group purely because "it's a mesmer" is a moron. Degen and interupts are some of the most devestating skills there are.

Looking forward to this update, my Necro will live on. Sheesh, whiners! Where's that "learn to adapt" spirit most of you throw at everyone else who gets a nerf?

KANE

Whenever someone says mesmers suck or some variant on that statement, it makes me wonder if they've ever tried to run a domination or interrupt build on a hero. Granted there are probably few players who can match the timing the AI throws off...but those hero mesmers are devastating...as a necro I fear them more than any other single class out there the next being elementalists.

the root problem is that the game is being designed for pvp play and yet there is this large pve world wherein the necro and mezzy classes don't fit in very well anymore.

since i play pve, gw is not the right game for me.