[Dev Update] Soul Reaping and Mesmer Issues

My take on the situation:

Soul Reaping: It was WAY too powerful and the 5 second rule is too harsh at certain points. Maybe the "recharge" time can be set back to 4 seconds? Or maybe we can keep the old rule of it constantly on and diminish the range with each kill? Or keep it constantly on and have its effectiveness drop with each time it activates. Per haps if we had more lore on how a Necromancer actually USES Soul Reaping we can work something out.

Mesmer:Fast Casting... its wonderful in PvP but why would anyone NEED this in PvE? Not to mention that the mesmer skill list is not only enigmatic in its use but restricting as well to its flexibility towards various builds. Jumping the dmg isn't going to do much other than make them even more potent in PvP. Even if you made Fast Casting faster it will only truly favor PvP.

I play a Mesmer. they are my favorite class. I find that no matter what I use a mesmer isnt able to take on more than 2 enemies at once. I realize thats really all you encounter in PvE (if your skills bar woks that way) but in comparison to th Necromancer or Elementalist or even various Warrior builds the Mesmer is still outclassed in PvE usefulness to the point where I only see them in secondary classes merely for support or that extra edge.

We'll agree to disagree then; fair enough? I'm of the opinion that nothing's been done, else Gaile would have spoken of what has been done. You're of the opinion that they're deep into the testing phase.

Time will tell, eh? And I do hope you're right and I'm wrong...

-Sol

I don't know if this has been suggested, but what if Soul Reaping is reverted back to what it was, and you get energy back when something dies, but they have to be within shouting and/or chant distance.

Great work on the mesmers btw. Finally a little attention towards them in PVE.

I do hope im right too LOL.

Anet has shown that theyeve tested major changes a few months before showing it to the public: things like storage increase, the party system (which fails), pet controls, SR nerf.

Now Anet cannot test public RECEPTION, or reaction...

So anyone who states that they aren't content with the state of things is a whiner? Does that mean that the founders of the United States of America were a bunch of whiners? The people have a right to express displeasure to theiir government, and customers have a right to express displeasure to a service provider. If discontent is not expressed, positive change cannot take place.

If you've worked in customer service you would know that for every one person who voices a complaint, many more are feeling the same way. And though they don't say it, they too will avoid the company in the future.

I find Ineptitude mesmers quite useful in PvE. Their value lies in the fact that ALL casters in PvE will wand you, making them prime targets for ineptitude. Unlike backfire, Inpetitude + Clumsiness allows you to do a lot of damage to both Melee and Caster classes, so you've always got something to mess with. Combined with Conjure + IoR/Pantom Pain they make short work of just about everything. Their problem lies in energy management, particularly with the nerfs to Spirit of Failure and Drain Enchantment etc. IMO your best bet for energy management is Inspired + Revealed if you know there are gonna be a lotta hexes, or Power Drain + leech sig/Drain Enchant if you like to interrupt.

I've just finished reading through the whole thread, lol, and its a very interesting one,

My main character is a mesmer, and i have ended up because of the problem faced by them not getting into pugs easily of completing all three chapters mostly alone, I love the class and have found it works well only in a good team though, whereas other professions do seem to bea ble to handle bad teams more readily. No matter how good i am at mesmer i cant save the team if they suck. I think it does need some major changes, to be able to play effectively in pugs. Just because i can easily run through the chapters with heroes and henchies doesnt mean to me the class has no problems.

I find the main problem is that being specific makes it less desirable, most of my builds for it though centre around being able to affect all classes to some extent, this though weakens it somewhat, I would like to see and increase to skills that interupt all skills. I think that the idea of illussion should be more fully realised, It would be nice to create some, like phantom warriors etc, or maybe domination skills that turn an enemy into a friend.


With regards to the SR nerf I have noticed on my necro heroes a serious decrease in abilities, though this does not affect it so much as to make playing with them impossible it is noticable, in that my mm hero often runs out of energy all together. playing necro myself i have not noticed this though, but this is using a curses build, with signet of lost souls, which keeps my energy up. I think the idea for a solution i most like is the one in which the soul reaping ability is reverted back to its previous state but at a lesser gain, as in 1 energy for every 2 ranks or even every 3.

I wait with anticipation, and will cope with what is thrown at us, hopefully it pleases most.

It was a terrible nerf, and I'm glad they are going to rework it

Salaufyn, I took Gaile's statements about mesmers to mainly read, "We know mesmers aren't getting into groups, for reasons x, y, and z, and we're pretty sure that if we give them some better damage options and more non-single target shutdown stuff, they'll be better in PvE."
So...nothing definite, but I would imagine they wouldn't give any exact information if they're still not sure exactly how to go about improving those two things.

high end casters will kill you with their spells before inept will trigger. (note interrupting with an inept build is not efficient)

yes, Ineptitude is good in pve however only in the low end pve areas... illusion (ineptitude / conjure phantasm) for low end pve and domination (echo / backfire / empathy) for high end pve. When the monsters get big - inept is only going take out one monster until blind ends. The damage is not enough to kill lvl 28 monsters.

note: vow of silence makes an inept mesmer cry.

so yea there are a few builds out there that can work for specific things but how many good builds are there? verse the number of different builds for other classes?

it seems the best use of a mesmer is as a secondary class.

Actually, with half a dozen other skills availiable, an Illusion mesmer does indeed do quite well in the high end areas as well. My second PvE mesmer went through all of Nightfall as an Illusionist with Ineptitude as the elite for the great majority of it.

I will admit I went domination for Abaddon and made him eat chaos storms until he cried however. Ineptitude doesn't work on something that doesn't attack at all.

Skyy: My main issue is with the heavy use of of terms like "wants to" (like in the quote you gave) "perhaps" and "maybe," right after looking at their action plan for the Necromancer, in which actual work is obviously being done.

If ANet were putting much actual effort into it, like they apparently are with the Necromancer, then Gaile would have talked about it, like she did with the Necromancer, correct?

But she didn't. That doesn't sound promising at all.

-Sol

lmmfao @ getting mesmers into TEAM play...

doind this will be like putting a whoopie cushion on an electric chair.

I feel that you(a-net) will intro new skills that will later be nerfed, that is about the extent of it. no more, no less..

sure for a set time they will be great fun (they already are) and because of overpowered skills that you willingly intro, people will be interested for a bit, then good builds will be made available to the public --- Bye-bye fun factor, hello farming. then the nerf-bat will come out. all will feel the sting. (Deja Vu?)

Mesmer in Game: one can sneak around a bit, but must hide behind ANY other character. sure you can hold out for a bit, but the energy just isn't there. so you must pick one major target and go to work, then sit the rest of the battle out while energy is regained. (even with e-management skills)

I look at mesmers as sprinters, not long distance runners. Most people who play them, play them well. they know to watch energy. they know to kite/run..they know where to be and what to target. being a SUCESSFUL mesmer really does take SKILL.

This is where we come to a deadhead. Skill Vs. Mobs

--as was stated by other thinkers of the board, until the devs learn that going up against a mob of 8-12, lv20+ monsters with an overlapping patrol of the same amount just waiting to be accidentally aggroed, a mesmer is pretty much just dead before even joining a team.

unless they get some sort of amazing, overpowered, cheap AoE damage, they just have no use towards the Dev's idea of gameplay. (which i've come to think of as just "cram as many monsters in an area vs. 8-12 man teams and they will be happy"



I'm waiting to log on and go into an explorable to find it has just turned into One. BIG. Red. Dot. Hacking thru an area with such a high level mob populace isn't even fun anymore, it's a pain in the ass.

umm....hey Gaile...Given the high energy cost of maintaning minions...nerfing Soul Reaping would in all honesty....probaby be the end of the Minion Master. If you want to do an adjustment...dont allow spirits to trigger any Soul Reaping benifits. That would be a more reasonable adjustment. Every class pretty much has the ability to create massive energy pools and it is not fair to the Necros to feel the brunt of the nerf bat on something that IS part of their makeup. If you are so worried bout Soul Reaping being over powered...how bout reducing some of the energy costs of minons so there is less depenancy on Soul Reaping.

As for mesmers..I admit i quit playing my mesmer way back in the jungles cause it was impossible to get groups. If you wanna add some AoE for mesmers..here are a few suggestions off the top of my head:

*Increase the damage Chaos Storm causes and reduce the recharge time.
*Make Imagine Burden an AoE so that it affects all within a certain range.
*Allow Conjure Nightmare to affect 1-3 targets depending on attribute level.
*Change Signet of Clumsiness into a stance cancellign signet..as it is right now its almost a copy of the Clumsiness skill
*Allow Web of Distruption to act like a web and affect up to 5 targets (somehting like a mesmer's barrage)

I havent read all the replies about this change yet so I dont know if anyone has posted this specific idea yet, but wouldnt it be a very good balance change to not receive any energy from spirits (which dont die anyway cause they are already dead ) and only half energy from minions? That way players would need to spend like 12-15 points in soul reaping to have anywhere close to their near limitless energy, which would put their other skills at a big disadvantage because they used up so many points in Soul Reaping. Sure they could use like 3 superior runes to make up for a lot of points, but that would put their health at a serious disadvantage, and with them so much easier to kill, they become a lot more volatile to have in a team because you have a high chance of rampaging minions then.

I don't have a problem with letting necros have near limitless energy, that is one of the beauties of the class, but I think it was much too powerful before because you only had to put like 8-10 points into Reaping, which doesn't cost the player much. I think with the changes I suggested, that the balance would be pretty well preserved.

Charles Ensign already addressed the soul reaping issue many months before this shoddy fix was implemented.

He argued that instead of the lump energy gain that soul reaping traditionally has, it should be returned via energy regen pips.

The benefits are three-fold:
A) Lump gain often causes deaths to be wasted in the case of a necro with full energy.
B) Already present game mechanics allow for a cap that is already fixed across all classes i.e. 10 pips of energy regen.
C) Old teams powered by deaths would still have to wait for the energy regen to catch up to their requirements instead of it being readily available all at once.

In order to flesh out his theory, let us make a sample model of a new system of soul reaping and do some math with it.

Under my proposal for a revised system, allow soul reaping to give 1 pip of energy regen per every death. This pip of regen will last for X seconds where X is the necromancers soul reaping attribute. Keep the mechanic where spirits count as a half benefit.

Single death circumstance (assuming 10 soul reaping attribute):
Old System: 10 energy
Current System: 10 energy
Revised System: (1 pip / 3 seconds) * 10 = 3.33 energy

So far we aren't looking too favorably at this revised model under base cases, let us revise it again.

We all know very well that ANet is a fan of diminishing returns, so let us say that the base death from soul reaping gives +3 pips instead of +1, and every death afterwards counts as a +1 pip.

Single death circumstance (assuming 10 soul reaping attribute):
Old System: 10 energy
Current System: 10 energy
Revised System: (3 pip / 3 seconds) * 10 = 10 energy

Ah, our base cases now line up.

Now to move on to a more average example:
Single death circumstance (assuming 10 soul reaping attribute and within a 1 second span):
Old System: 20 energy
Current System: 10 energy
Revised System: ((3 first death + 1 consecutive death = 4 pip) / 3 seconds) * 10 = 13 energy

As we can see, the death is not completely wasted, but it isn't nearly as broken as the old system. Additionally, the necromancer would have to wait a full 10 seconds to see all of that energy gain. This delay beautifully offsets the spammability of spells.

Most extreme example:
EoE death circumstance (assuming 10 soul reaping attribute, within a 1/4 second span, 15 enemies die):
Old System: 150 energy
Current System: 10 energy
Revised System ((3 first death + 1 per consecutive death = +6 pip [cap]) / 3 seconds) * 10 = 20 energy

Again, looking much better than the current system, and much more reasonable than the old system. But something doesn't sit right, with that many deaths, why would a necro get less than half their energy back?

If the first death counts as a +3 regen, and the second death counts as a +1 regen, 3rd = +1 and so on... A maximum of four deaths is all this system can account for.

Solution? Queue up deaths after the cap has been reached. If a necromancer hits their +10 regen cap under this system, make the duration of that effect last 1 additional second per extra death. Again, this is a clearly diminishing return.

1 pip for 10 seconds = 3.33 energy
1 second extra of +6 regen = 2 energy
Clearly, the overall net gain is lower, but the deaths don't go to waste.

Let us take another look at the EoE example under this second revision:
Old System: 150 energy
Current System: 10 energy
Revised System ((3 first death + 1 per consecutive death = +6 pip [cap]) / 3 seconds) * (10 seconds + (9 additional deaths)) = 38 energy

This is looking exceptionally nice right now. We get credit for all deaths on the battlefield, but not nearly as much as the old system.

This would be complex and sheer fun to code, I know completely that ANet has the power to do it. The system accounts for flaws in the previous two implementations.

Give it a stack to follow:
1st Death = +3 pips of energy regeneration
2nd Death = +1 pip of energy regeneration
3rd Death = +1 pip of energy regeneration
4th Death = +1 pip of energy regeneration
5th Death = +1 second duration of the +10 regeneration (only when the necro is capped at +10 regeneration)

So if something dies, the necro gets +3, something else dies 4 seconds later, they will enjoy a few seconds of +4 until the first death's timer has worn off upon which time, it will return to a +3 regen.
If lots of things die, the first timer and second timer, etc will get extended by additional deaths to account for any deaths beyond the first four.

Look familiar? It doesn't appear to me to be any different than a stack where pointer control is based on timers. Any death is +1 to the stack, a timer wearing off is a -1 to the stack. Depending on where on the stack you are, cascade the benefits down the chain.

Very little difference between this and hex/condition/enchantment stacking on a player. What's not to love?

Any ANet employees who come across this, please give it serious consideration, just because I'm a single poster in the din of a forum doesn't mean I can't be right.

Thanks for playing "People with no idea what they're talking about!"

Mesmers have some of the best energy management in the game. I'm afraid that you're credibility is now shot.

Gaile, and the Dev team:

I disagree in principle with both points in this update.

1) With regards to Soul Reaping, it was working fine in PvE and PvP for nearly 2 years. To say it was over-powered all along but we players missed it is a fallacy. Because you know that if it was overpowered then everyone and their pet Asura would have been playing only necro.

Soul Reaping off a kill is a VERY legitimate reward. I think it made sense and it rewarded the party for scoring a hit at the enemy. Soul Reaping off a minion was debatable, Soul Reaping off of spirits was the mistake, because it allowed the party to MANUFACTURE energy. That is the real problem. There should never have been Soul Reaping off of spirits, at least not allied spirits. Cutting it in half was a very childish solution.

To change the ENTIRE dynamic of Soul Reaping and necromancer energy management to fix the over gain from spirit Soul Reaping (which is the bottom line, no matter how many times the devs deny it) is an extremely poor design decision. It looks bad any way you cut it:

a) So, for 2 years you left necromancer energy management broken, and decided to fix it now?
b) It's like Fixing a bug that made 20% Half-casting Time mods trigger three times as fast with Fast Casting by nerfing Fast Casting instead of fixing HCT mods. PvE was fine, all other Necro builds in PvP were fine, only spirit spamming and, at times, Barrage-Pet Minion Mastery were the issue. I think the "fair" solution would have been to remove Soul Reaping benefits from allies, be they party members, pets, minions or spirits. If you kill 3 guys in 1 second and get 39 energy for it, fair and square, you earned it.

So, in conclusion to this point, I urge to undo this illogical fix which undoes how necromancers have been played for the last TWO years and rethink your approach, You want to prevent someone from manufacturing energy, not rewrite the class.

2) With regards to Mesmer, the class is extremely powerful. I used to believe that hocus pocus about mesmers in PvE until I made a mesmer in PvE myself and got her Legendary Survivor. The points that Phinney mentions are identical to points I mentioned earlier in responses here on Guru. The class is simply a different focus than Eles and necros. Most people expect Mesmers to do what eles and necros do, and that's retarded, because then they might as well name them eles or necros. It does not seem fair, to me, nor interesting, to enable all classes to do what all the other classes do. If Mesmers can do AoE damage or spike straightforward like Necros can, then what's the point?

Please leave the mesmer class alone. Everyone would love to have their mesmers nuke like Eles and heal like monks as well as do supports like mesmers, that doesn't make it right. Mesmers have some extremely powerful and fun builds to play. One of the most colorful classes to play, don't force the player base into one build by making it the only "natural" thing to play, like Searing Flames for Fire eles.

lmmfao...thanks for replying with the "i'm a leet mez/player" post..

if they have the best e-management, why are there so few mezes as primaries?
what, do you run all sig builds? so what you're gonna tell me next is....I HAVE TO USE A MANTRA BUILD???? just...wow

as far a cred on the "net" lol, I don't have to prove anything, do I?

Ohh, and for the record, when your fast casting interrupts, get interrupted, lol, energy gets burned...when you take on more than one monster at a time(spreading degen), energy gets burned. when you use skills...energy gets burned..

Epidemic, in addition to its pitiful range also causes an Aoe scatter on aataxes. Using it on Aataxes is a good way to get a balanced group wiped.

Actually, there are so many mez secondaries because of the mesmer energy management skills available. Now, before you continue to look silly, please refer yourself to the Inspiration line of skills for an idea of how mesmers manage energy.

Mantra of Recall? Never touch it. Waste of an elite, imo.

Let me help you out real quick... there are over 20 skills that give the mesmer energy in Inspiration.

How strange... I've never had that happen.

EXACTLY...which is why mez as a primary is...LoL...which is why I printed the farce to begin with...

now tell me which of those 20 skills you use as a primary mez. since it's all about e-mamgement Vs. skill Vs. Mobs. Also, how many of them do you place on a bar-set at one given time?

Sky, you seem to think mesmers should not be buffed... but your conclusionary comments on my post and the one above do not help that point of view.

Lets compare energy management to that of a mesmer...
Mesmer - inspiration - line of skills that take up skill slots with an average of +5 conditional energy and 30 sec of recharge time (also note not all of them help with energy management.)

Ranger - each skill costs 66% less energy with expertise
Necro - Soul Reaping - under going changes... but there is still no need to take up any skill slots.
Warrior - adrenalin
Monk - about even with mesmer --note: a bonder's e-management is nuts
Ele - energy pool is big enough for most mobs in pve and glyphs help alot

----
inept is an ok build for a mesmer. -- is it better than a SF ele? or an SS necro? for PvE the answer is clearly no.

Sky, i want a reason to have a primary mesmer. Right now us people that play primary mesmers like a good challenge... Yea they can be good - but in pve they have no roll thats better than the other classes.

Three or so... in FoW... with Inspired hex and Power drain being a couple staples. Usually Guilt (domination line) as well.

Energy is practically never an issue.

Because mesmers can do things no other classes can. I, for one, enjoy those little moments in the FoW when I deliver over 1200 - 1400 armor ignoring damage in about a second and a half to the mob the tank has aggroed. Give me that little warm and fuzzy feeling.

I'm not saying mesmers don't need a "buff"... I just hope it doesn't violate what it means to be a mesmer and turn them into ele-light.

This is factually incorrect.

Soul Reaping has been a demonstrable problem since roughly six months after the initial launch of Guild Wars. That was roughly when the initial versions of Soul Reaping powered Blood Spike started to become prominent in Tombs. That build consisted of a bunch of Necromancer/Monk blood spikers, powered by an Oath Shot spirit spammer. That build, along with iWay (which, incidentally, took advantage of insane Soul Reaping engines as well) thoroughly dominated Tombs up until the release of Factions. Versions also made a nuisence of themselves in GvG...Bloodspike on fire was an early version of 'dumb 8v8 build on Jade' that did reasonably well, but not well enough to upset the highest levels of GvG play - hence, it was spared any nerfs.

As of Factions Soul Reaping went absolutely insane, with the introduction of asymmetrical spirits. This peaked with FoC spike in the middle of the GWFC qualifier season, EW winning the second tournament on the back of that archtype. That led to Soul Reaping from spirits being halved, as well as a bunch of peripheral nerfs, that didn't really solve the problem with the archtype - but it did push it out of the top rungs of competitive play once again.

Nightfall comes, we get even more skills, and go through even more iterations of Soul Reaping powered, hyper defensive spike builds. First we get the Jagged Bones / Spirit hex pressure build, which lasted until the JB nerf - after that, SB/RI hexes/spike, powered on a spirit field. Both were dangerous builds for high level tournament play. Even after nerfs, you still see the same sorts of Soul Reaping archtypes - mostly, Icy Veins spikes these days.

The statement that Soul Reaping has not been a problem for nearly two years is flat out wrong. It has been a problem for at least 3/4 of that time, to varying extents, with only kludgy, symptomatic treatments to address those problems used each time. Plenty of people knew about it, played with it and against it for well over a year.


This is 100% correct.

The problems with Soul Reaping began when it was no longer limited by scoring kills or taking deaths, and started to become a controllable engine.


Welcome to the business world. Anything that can be overlooked, will be as long as there are other, more pressing concerns. Having to rush additional chapters out the door to fulfill contractual obligations counts.


In PvP, certainly. In PvE however I could not disagree with you more. The strengths of the Mesmer are all precision tools. These are not relevant in general PvE combat against trash mobs, where nothing is important enough to warrant precision tools...and against boss fights, Mesmers have been specifically neutered by special abilities that make mes effects much less effective. Similarly, the pace of PvE works against the Mesmer. The class' best abilities are mostly invested and take time to really show their effects, ala edenial and degen. When battles don't last long, the Mesmer is significantly less effective.

Anyone who says that the Mesmer is an objectively strong profession in PvE is simply wrong. I have played with some very strong players on Mesmer, and I can say with confidence that those players would have been much more effective on a different profession, with stronger PvE tools available to them.

Peace,
-CxE

So what does it say about the necromancer skillset that pre-nerf soul reaping was not a concern for most of the history of guild wars in high level pvp, was never a concern outside of spirit manufacturing builds (or jagged bones), and that the concern could be abated by minor skill tweaks?

We seem to be agreeing on the root causes. I think ANet should have nerfed the ability to manufacture energy through Soul Reaping by killing your own stuff. Therein lay the issue.

From a programmer point of view, the issue of whether getting 13 energy back for killing an enemy monk (i.e. Blood Spike) is a RADICALLY different issue than getting 13 (or 6) energy back from tons of pets/minions/spirits that my own team keeps spewing out there.

To use your own analogy, the solution was a business world solution, i.e. so the bottom line is that all these people keep finding ways to exploit the energy gain off allied creatures... Fine: We'll just cap it for them! So there!

It's not thought out, and it penalized the original definition of soul reaping. i.e. if I kill three monsters at the same time with my brilliant SS placement, I'll get penalized for it, cause I'll only get back 13 energy, instead of 39. This is unfair especially that necromancers have very little in the way of energy management otherwise.

I know that this is now metigated by Signet of Lost Souls... Still, a perfectly placed Echo SS/RH combo costs around 50 energy would be nice to get a kick back of 30-40 energy as the energy management for it. The question of whether 30-40 as kick back is too much is NOT answered by paying back a fixed 10-13 energy even if you spent 60 energy taking out 4-5 monsters.

This is mostly personal perception in my view. I played my Mesmer through all 3 campaigns and she is now quite easily my second favorite character after my ele. The ease by witch she slice through mobs is amazing (with hero support, no doubt - Olias as MM and 2 SF eles alleviate damage concerns), compared to even my warrior or my ranger (whom I admittedly play very little) or even my necro.

What she offers to me is a way to damage and disrupt the enemy. This becomes irrelevant in places like Kryta and Kourna and most of Kaineng City... However, once the stakes get higher, she outshines most of my other chars, even my ele. This, I admit, is also personal perspective.

To me, the characters I love the most in PvE are the ones who can administer the most control on the battle field. PvE is not about creatively carrying out that Discord build that can do damage somewhat close to SS, it's about taking out foes as efficiently as possible and with as much control as possible over the events as they unfold. An effective PvE build can't be one where there's a chance the whole thing can unravel if foes act in a certain way.

As such, my favorite characters are my ele (as Air), my Mesmer (Domination/Insp) and my Ritualist (Rit Lord) because they can effectively control an enemy mob (not just one guy) with their tools. I know not everyone plays the game like I do nor enjoys the same things I enjoy in the game... But if you're faced with a group of tough potatoes (RoT Demons in the Domain of Fear), there is no class that will give "control" over them (all of them, not one foe) than Mesmer even now, in it's PvE-powerless state. Do you agree?

hmmmmmmm

so, lets start by me saying that i have no problem with anet or gaile grey, however.

Mesmers are a gvg class. When you say mesmers work in pvp you mean that mesmers work in gvg. because they sure as hell dont work in ha.

Mesmers used to be one of the most popular and versatile classes in HA, however now they are next to useless. Mesmers are designed for mid to long term battle in which they can efficiently apply pressure to the opposing team. However thanks to kill count maps being introduced to ha, any pressure builds or character builds based off pressure are significantly nerfed. If you walk into any particular Obs mode match i would be willing to bet that in most cases at least 2 of the builds are gimmick fotm builds.

The closest thing people get to pressure now adays is R/W thumpway. SF is overpowered. Paraspike still pwns lots. And only the very best balances stand a chance against the fotm spike builds.

So basically, dont bother buffing mesmers, because all your doing is pissing off another round of HA'ers and provoking people to start a new fotm mesmer spike build. To think anet learned its lesson when spiritual pain spike was around....

ok i have had some time to hash-out Soul Reaping in its current state. as a long time veteran of the necromancer, i do not like SR in this form. its not nearly as effective as it once was. this 5 second timer just won't do, especially since my only energy mangament skills are all conditional. before anyone suggest other types of skills from secondary professions, i am necromancer and only a necromancer. i do not need secondary skills and i do not want them hindering my primary skills. i have played this way since GW went live and im not changing now. but instead, im having to carry 2, sometimes, 3 energy management skills just to cover the costs of my most deadliest builds.

i understand that SR is in need of a change. and gstricto's proposal, whose post happened to beat me to the punch, is quite similar to my own. i have never been a fan of any type of energy regeneration as opposed to spike increase of the SR effect. it makes about as much sense as top 20 GvG monks runing Healing Breeze over Infuse Health. but since most are in agreement that SR is just a tad bit too rewarding, i decided to cave in and go with the breeze, but making it appear spike-like with the effect.

Soul Reaping
For each point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1...4..6 Energy Regeneration for 2 seconds whenever a creature near you dies. You gain half that amount and duration for Spirits.

please note that i do not care if the effect is stackable or not. but if it is not stackble, then as soon as the duration is over and something else dies, then i had better be counting regeneration pips again.

with any change in SR i also believe that, at the very least, Signet of Lost Souls should be into a Core Skill. i believe that all necromancers (including Factions) should have an option of their own when it comes to an energy managment skill.

thats about as far as im willing to go with SR. i expect something in return if asked to give a little more.



Jayce Of Underworld

------------------------------------------------

Animate Soul Lich
Energy: 25
Cast: 3
Recharge: 0

Elite Skill. Animate a level 1...14 Soul Lich
at your location and you lose all energy. You
suffer -1 energy regeneration for each Soul Lich
you control. Whenever a Soul Lich you control
deals damage, you gain 2 energy.(Soul Reaping)

Actually, if you're going for condition spread, using Blinding Surge lets you maintain better coverage, and adds the option to throw Enervating Charge into the mix. Of course, the Mesmer probably has more support skills than the air elementalist and Ineptitude certainly does more damage to high-armour foes than BS, but still...

The problem with using Epidemic-based builds as a basis for using Mesmer primaries is that Epidemic generally works much better as a secondary profession skill - Mesmers don't have much in the way of skills that inflict conditions (only Ineptitude and Phantom Pain come to mind), and with Epidemic being unlinked it's so easy to put it on a class that does have more conditions to offer (a Ranger with BHA and Apply Poison, for instance, can cover a group with Daze and Poison with one arrow and a casting of Epidemic when it hits).

Now, if Mesmers could have some way of inflicting Daze...

The problem of SR in PvP is an hardcase.

They could have solved it long ago by not allowing energy to be gained from spirits and allied creatures/minions.

Incidently, that would also have killed the use of SR in PvP.

Thats why they tried this solution.

And theres no point saying it was because PvE imbalance only, although it existed, cause noone believes it.

This upsets PvE for different reasons.

1st is the fact people dislike changes, and changes to their favourite classes, specially when they make them weaker wont get any cheering.

2nd, the change causes randomness. I choose when to use a Gole, a E-drain, OoB, etc. I dont know when SR will trigger. A fraction of a second can be the difference from a +13 or +7 or +0. Thats annoying to an extreme.

PPl can say use e-mag. I already incorporate SoLS, sometimes Gole, OoB or some inspired hex.

But still the purpose of being a necro is to use SR as e-mag. A.net knows it, I know it, you know it. Thats why SR didnt have linked skills.

As for those MM that have problems (other than stupid timing causing SR activation being wasted), I recomend dropping their heal areas and any clone of it. You dont need it. And if you dont need to bring rebirth or other hard rez, drop monk completly.

MM can use only BotM to heal their minions, and use one or more of the following:blood renewal, SoLS, vampiric minions, taste of pain, eat a minion with taste of death, run lich aura as the elite, ask the monk to throw at you a orison or a rof, or if they dont want to waste energy a sig of devotion or rejuvenation; as self healings.

Edit: And how could i forget feast of the Dead, used on Golem or in Shambling horror for a heal with no sacrifice. TT

ANet, please consider this.

Early testing suggests that Mesmer and Necromancer are in sorry shape for hard mode.

Shame on anet for releasing hard mode with two classes that are broken!

As for the poster who said that epidemic doesnt cause AoE scatter... it does. It falls into the same category of skills like fireball and flame burst meaning that intermittent uses of epidemic will not scatter, but multiple uses will cause scatter. Also, epidemic used on a team that is also using skills like fireball and flame burst will cause scatter.

Bottom line: epidemic has no purpose on a balanced team and will cause aataxes to scatter unless the rest of the team is inefficient, entirely consisting of single target spikers. It falls under the same one-use aoe rules that many other skills do.

fixed your post

Two? I think you forgot Paragons.

Because being a jerk is a great way to prove your point.

Yup. Scoring kills and taking deaths isn't a problem, but when you can easily manufacture things to kill (spirits) and use them for your energy, things start to go bad. Hopefully Anet comes up with something that actually fixes this.

assumptions is the mother of all @#$% ups. are you a @#$% up? you know nothing about me to justify correcting my post.

your time would have been better spent if you responded to my suggested fix of SR rather than my opinion about the SR nerf, which i find funny that you even believe that its somehow balanced now. but hey, thats your opinion, and your welcome to it.

perhaps if you spent as much time as i have as a necromancer, then you could understand what i posted. i never mentioned that i don't use energy management skills. in fact, i said that i sometimes use up to 3 energy management skills (all of which are necro) just to use certain builds in this so-called balanced game mechanic form of SR.

now you can find me in fort aspenwood, kurzick side, where as a casual gamer, i have acquried almost my last 500k experience points without turning in a drop of factions. and if you are lucky, i might actually take some time out of runing amber to show you first hand some of my self-glimped skill bar.



Jayce Of Underworld

------------------------------------------------

Animate Soul Lich
Energy: 25
Cast: 3
Recharge: 0

Elite Skill. Animate a level 1...14 Soul Lich
at your location and you lose all energy. You
suffer -1 energy regeneration for each Soul Lich
you control. Whenever a Soul Lich you control
deals damage, you gain 2 energy.(Soul Reaping)

You must be absolutely crazy. I finished Vanquisher for Old Ascalon with Olias and Norgu in an hour with 0 deaths, it was an absolute breeze.

Just because you can't figure out how to make them work doesn't mean they're broken.

All I'm going to say about the Soul Reaping problem is that I hope the solution isn't to try to distract us from the problem with something new and shinny in hopes we forget about the problem.

Yes, I'm a tab not happy.

You said yourself that you are choosing not to use any secondary skills. There are multiple such skills that would absolutely complement a necro bar. By choosing not to take advantage of those skills, you are truly gimping your bar. That's not an assumption -- it's a fact based on the very words in your post.

I actually don't believe SR is balanced. In fact, I think it needs to be changed so that it doesn't trigger at all from the death of spirits (and perhaps even minions). By releasing a spirit-generating class in Factions without thinking things through, ANet created a PvP balance problem that has been exploited in multiple gimmick builds (as Ensign has already pointed out). This fix feels more like a clunky stopgap than a good fix, but it's better than how it was when necros had absolutely no concern about energy in many situations. That type of broken mechanic creates a lazy class of players and renders PvP far less enjoyable. Those who choose not to adapt to the changes are only hurting themselves and those who group with them.

Thanks for the invite to Ft. Aspenwood. I know that's serious business, but PvE Luxon/Kurzick faction means nothing to me.