Spawning Power + Other primaries Discussion

There are a couple things that make certain professions worth playing. The armor rating, energy regeneration, Primary attribute skills/function. Let's look at some for a second. Keep in mind this in from the Point of view of an average player, not a super balancer.

*As a note. I do not consider the use of Runes to be a deciding factor outside of farming, since the meta in both pve and pvp revolves around minor runes, and +1+1 or +1 doesn't make THAT much a difference IMO.

Warrior's. Massive Armor is always a plus. While they lack energy, most of their skills rely on adrenaline. While they are usually single target killers, they have some of the (if not the most) DPS in the game. Especially in PvP. Their primary adds armor penetration, and while not an EXTREMLY large amount, they have many useful skills IN the strength category to make them perfect.

My evaluation, Great class.

Rangers. Great elemental armor and good armor for a ranged class. Balanced in this aspect. Great energy management with good skills under their primary, balanced imo. Great DpS but better condition spreading. They can hit multiple targets in PvE, Daze an end boss, spread poison in PvP, Distract. Pretty much an all around good class. Solid

Great class

Mesmers Currently my Primary, used to be looked down upon in PvE but have always been perfect in PvP. Spell casters with low armor is to be expected of course. Basic spell caster energy. Primary is usefull in PvP more then PvE due to getting out spells before the opponent. I use it in PvE to be able to cast spells before my friends or h/h can kill the opponent though lol. While not as many of their primary skills are used, in most builds, their primaries effect makes up for it.

Great class, hard to balance though when needed.

Monks The life line of most parties. Basic Spellcaster armor and energy is to be expected. While their primary does not provide energy management, it DOES provide a healing boost to all of their monk spells. Also there are useful skills in their Primary. Able to use protection prayers and still have some heal is great. They can even split and be hybrid, smites that protect, prots that can heal, many opportunities. PvP though they are pretty much restricted to heal/prot, which is ok. Balanced at the moment.

Needed class, hard to balance when needed.

Elementalists Again, basic spell caster stats are to be expected. Their Primary is sometimes a necessity. While Energy pool size does not mean you have great energy management, Ele spells have a hefty cost and exhaustion which energy storage helps counteract. Energy storage also allows for Eles for some different builds. Not much to say here for me really.

Good class.

Necromancers Energy armor blah blah basic. Of course. Their Primary however is one of the most useful in the game. Insane energy management without skills in PvE, ok energy management in PvP. Due to this they are allowed to take on more secondary skills that need high energy, such as restoration spells. Couple good skills in their primary as well such as signet of lost souls.

Extremly good class.

Now We get into the campaign specific classes, so this will be a bit harder to talk about.

Assassins. I can't really talk about balance for these guys tbh. While the 70 armor is a set back, and critical strikes opens up lots of opportunities, I can't say I have seen them in most gvg's, and in PvE they are almost always some kind of SF. Someone else will have to cover this for me. They introduced a concept which I think Anet didn't really want, was instant kills, and shadow stepping to a foe which makes them harder to balance.

Can't personally discuss, but extremly hard to balance.

Ritualists Now this is where I grumble grumble and is one of the main points of my topic even though i haven't gotten to the other classes yet. Spellcaster armor/energy makes them nothing special of course. Weapon spells, item spells, and spirits make them usefull in ways, however most necro's can run most rit builds better then the rits due to soul reaping. Spawning power IN MY OPINION provides nothing special to the table. Little energy management is ok since monks have the same. But it doesn't provide extra healing either, or more damage. It increases spirits health, which most rits runs 1 -2 spirits and can still be taken out fast. Also increases weapon spell duration, however most weapon spells have low durations to begin with making the gain very little. Spawning Skills also leave something to be desired, most are only used in specific builds such as spirits strength, and minion bombers, and again, leave more to be desired.

In my opinion, Spawning or its skills needs a total re haul Or spawning needs some other effect. This class needs some attention, since they have the best looking armor in the game

Paragons Not many used in PvP anymore due to nerfs, but Extremly powerful in PvE. Imbagon isn't the only good build. Great armor (still 20 vs physical less then warrior but great nonetheless) wields a shield with its weapon, low energy but like warriors, use adrenaline skills, and decent dps. The only thing that bugs me about Paragons is their Primary is almost required for the MAJORITY of their builds, but the same goes for monks and a couple other classes. Usually restricting you to Leadership, spear master, command OR Motivation. I have seen Paragons ditch spear master all together for mot/com/and leadership, although I can't justify loosing a weapon for a class like this.

Overpowered in PvE, underpowered in PvP due to nerfs. Needs some attention.....and less midrift and less skirts >> Still a good class though

Dervish Assassin armor, but with a bit more health, and more survivability due to its skill selection. Its Primary also helps power its health/energy and can even be used for other things, such as buffing melee classes with the orders build. Bit more flexible then other classes, and introduced the most powerful (But huuuge damage range unless a crit sin) weapon in the game.

Good class, multiple uses, a bit hard to balance due to scythe imo.

As you can see, from my point of view, Core classes are usually the easiest to balance, mostly because the original game was built around these, and introduction to new types of skills increases difficulty to Balance. I am NOT suggestion remove the classes all together, since 1 that would never happen and 2 a good amount of players would stop playing. But I AM suggesting to Anet a couple things

1)Spawning power needs a good long look at. Although they are used as flag runners in GvG and this probably prevents Anet from changing Spawning power, I think they are loosing out on their primary while other classes still thrive from their own.
2)Paragons as a whole needs to be looked at from a PvP point of view, maybe take a look at the whole imbagon thing too, but I never really see many "LF imbagons" so I would be fine with them leaving it alone.
3)Assassins. I can't suggest anything for this class. But I hope Anet will learn from the past and try not to make a class that wasn't supposed to exist in GW2, instakill or 1-2-3-4-5-6 class.

Usually I don't care one way or another if things are debuffed in PvE, due to it being hard to balance seeing as how humans think, monsters don't, but I hope some of these things are looked at before Anet totally ditches GW1.

Discuss please. Is spawning power fine? Are Paragons fine? And give any insight to Assassins please. Also tell me if I missed anything on other professions. Also provide any suggestions to spawning power if you feel the same way.

Also If i counter an arguement, please know I am not trying to yell or be mean or rude or anything, I am just saying my view and am not very tactical at talking on forums most of the time >_>

I would like to see some improvements made in the attribute lines for Tactics, Spawning, Fast Cast, and Water. That being said I don't expect to see them any time soon (or later).

I Personally think Water and FC are good as is. Although I am starting to agree with tactics. It is rarely used anymore. I miss the old Watch yourself personally.

My GW tier list for pve , didn't count in farming:
God tier: warrior, paragon, necro
Good tier: monk, assassin, elementalist
decent tier: ranger, dervish, mesmer
Spawning Power tier: ritualist

Fast casting suks. It is only needed because mesmer skills take too long to cast. Mesmer is not balanced at all. it is only a decent class due to player skill. Proof positive, how many pugs would take a mesmer (except for VS farm). The same thing being said about Spawning power has been said about Fast casting from the beginning. Both need an overhaul along with tactics, but that won't happen.

I partly Agree with the Fast casting part. While it is needed for many mesmer skills, many mesmers use fast casting to give an edge in certain builds, such as fast casting water, fast casting lingering curse. I think the ability to go into these builds makes Fast casting good enough for now.

We are talking about PvE.

In PvE, fast casting sucks. 2-3 seconds make little difference if mob is going to die anyway.

I like to think being able to get my long cast time spells out before my smiteway heros kill everything instead of wanding everything is making me more effective as a whole.

But in the overall visual, I guess you are both right, and Fast casting needs something else in PvE. Any Ideas?

That is a great example of the problem I have with water. I am not complaining about the lack of damage, elementalist have fire for damage, but the snare hexes on water just take to long to caste in PvE. I don't mind AoE hexes taking a long time, they should but hexes that have a single target should go slightly faster but not fast enough that they can't be interrupted.

If you don't mind, what skills are you specifically talking about?

i think mesmers are poor in pve for a few main reasons
1) things die quickly, negating alot of mesmer skills to the dustbin
2) energy management for the most part sucks, apart from a couple of skills, maybe
3) necro's do similer things, but better/easier, same goes for ranger interuption...

for rit's i dunno, channeling often feels like air magic, but pants
spirit spamming in pve got heavly nurfed when they put a limit of 1 type of spirit in the area
when i play em i always get the feeling of not being upto par with other classes, maybe its just me :\

I like mind freeze - 8 second recharge is a little more then I like but doable.

Frozen Burst I consider a last ditch effort. To little to late if you, I want something that slows down a charging warrior before he gets to close.

Winter's Embrace, again casters using a touch spell makes no sense to me. Good for secondary with some profession that has the armor and HP.

Ice Spear I would like see drop all damage and convert to a hex with 66% reduction in movement and 33% increase in casting time. Combine with some other spells and it is a spammable slow down.

Mind Freeze is great against PvE warrior where an Elementalist will have more energy but against any Elementalist boss it is useless.

Just my opinion and like all this subjective.

my idea on balancing primary attribute for assassin is make the critical rate from primary attribute stay the same when fighting high level mob, because when you fight mobs which have higher level your critical will be reduce by half which reduce the efficiency on assassin, plus if it balance this way the pvper wouldn't mind.
and the other class that need a bit of attention is dervish, sure the energy gain from mystic is great but it doesn't have any immediate effect like other class primary attribute, my idea is that add the effect of disenchant the previous (same) enchantment when you have successfully cast it, this way the dervish will gain the full benefit of his primary attribute
and lastly the spawing power, my though is that add the effect of while holding an item for every 5 attribute point you gain 1 energy when you use a skill. this way ritualist might become more useful, this might seem a bit overpower for ritualist but think about it, most people that going to play restore rit chose N/Rt or E/Rt because of better energy management/more energy

I like the above idea for spawning power, it would work well. For mesmers, I would add for every 1 attribute point in fast casting, all enchantments last 1.5% longer when cast. Not overpowered and certainly a mesmerising enhancement. Or you could tie recharge times to fast casting and such. In either case the fix lies along the mesmer's character concept. Additional energy management would be a bad idea for mesmers.

I like the mesmer a lot, and I don't entirely hate the primary. But compare a mesmer's interrupts to a ranger's: in energy cost (if the ranger's at 10 or 13 expertise), an interrupt like D-shot costs 3 energy and recharges in 5 seconds, while disabling a skill. A memser interrupt costs 10 or 15 energy, and takes 20 seconds to recharge.
Interrupt with damage? Savage shot does +damage, costs 5-7 energy with expertise, and recharges in 10.
I'd like to see something in FC, other than an elite slot, help with recharge time...get those 20s into the 15-17 range.

I think the problem with spawning power is partly in the way we see it...or rather, don't see it.

You don't see the health of your spirits, and don't always notice the longer weapon spells you've cast. But another couple seconds of regen, or armor, or interrupts, or blindness, can make quite a bit of difference in a sticky situation. Spawning power's curse is that it doesn't make pretty numbers, in ANY color (yellow, blue, etc...) go up across the screen--so we perceive it as failed.

Faster recharge.

^you have it flipped. d-shot recharge in 10, savage recharge in 5. A 5s recharging d-shot would be borderline godlike.

I think the mesmers' long recharge might be to compensate for the easier interruption due to it's "instant", where as for d-shot/s-shot you need to take arrow flight time into consideration, although I do agree that FC should do something about recharge, you have to take into consideration about the other classes' spells, unless you make the recharge reduction mesmer skills only.

Mesmers interrupts are instant upon cast and always work unless target has one of the few skills that counter them. Ranger interrupts are cheap but have an arrow flight time (which granted is still small) and can be blocked. I think thats what the difference is for.

Agreed. Non-interrupt spells typically take 2 seconds or more, making fast casting only really useful for when you're emulating another class. They should make it so it's 150-200% more effective with mesmer spells and signets. Really, should the class be punished because other primaries like to use their stuff?

You didn't give enough credit to the Elementalist class imo, but nvm that, the real issue is Spawning Power. Who gives a crap if your weapon spell will stay on for 1 to 2 more seconds? Maybe make it give them energy back each time they use a spell, compared to the original cost so they won't "break" anything :P Like a caster Ranger. Something like "You gain 1 Energy plus 1...16% of the Energy cost for each rank of Spawning Power whenever you use a spell" or "For each rank of Spawning Power, the Energy cost of all of your spells are decreased by 2%(PvP)/4%(PvE).". What do you say, Is it sounds overpowered, underpowered or balanced? Or maybe simply crap?

Your right. I didn't give enough credit to Elementalist. Feel free to put your own input on it! Understanding other classes more is the foundation of editing every other class.

I would like an energy thing like that for ritualists, however I think it should work on ritualists spells only, and maybe rit spirits. The same with some of the fast casting suggestions, is make it effect Mesmer Skills (or spells and signet, or just spells) only but keep the casting speed for every spell/signet.

I have also heard suggestions to critical strikes dealing with monsters levels. I think this is a fantastic idea personally since you were right, it wouldn't affect PvP. Maybe it could be like If critical strikes is greater then 8, then for level acts like it's 20.

yeah making fast casting work more on mesmer skills would be good, and mesmer interupts are more costly, alot only interupt spells and have long recharge, also i tend tobe worse at interupting with my mesmer than with my rangers, by alot... dunno why :/

missing with a ranger interupt isnt a big deal, but with mesmer it is pretty painful normaly (recharge/energy), and ranger interupts will interupt something, even if its only a wanding xD

Welcome to the elementalist club.

The Rit club wishes to form an alliance.

As I said in the other spawning power thread, I think Spawning power should allow:

Increase in the # of weapon spells allowed per target. For example, 7 spawning power allows you 2 weapon spells on target while 13 allows you 3 wep spells.

Energy gain whenever an item spell within earshot is created/dropped. Kinda like the soul reaping of the necro except the energy comes from people creating/dropping. It would be balanced in the sense that any rit within earshot of the item spell gains x energy depending on their spawning power lvl. They can maybe apply this to spirits too.

Besides changing spawning to make it more useful, they should also bring back the old Ritual Lord build into pve.

I mean heck, if a guy in a skirt can add 100 AL with a ton of other defenses to their party just by shouting, why can't a rit toss around a few spirits to do do essentially the same thing for their party?

Actually, since spirits are killable and take alot more time to create, Rits should be able to do something more/better than the average skirt-wearing man.

Well, at least elementalists get a ton of energy to play with in return, as well as some of the best energy management skills in the game. We'll join the club when monk builds bend over and rape elementalist e-management like they have the inspiration line.

I have to agree spawning power is trash at best. I mostly flag run for gvg and when I have to run 3 attribute spread builds I don't even take spawning power into consideration at all just put my junk points in it. I mean yeah that extra second of warding is good it isn't going to make or break your build.

Lets me put it this way.
No heal or protection and sometimes smite monks isn't going to invest some points into divine favor.
No necro is going to enter a battle with junk points in soul reaping.
Rit's are the only class that there primary barely if ever get used skill wise and even more rarely do they run more then 6 points into it. There needs to be a total revamp of this primary attribute.

On a second note the tactic lines needs a good looking at. What once used to be a underused attribute is a never used one. I used to always go into pve with watch yourself on my bar now why bother I can buff everyones armor by 100 now.

Take note that every class added besides the core class have primary's that are built in e-management..., besides rits.

I would suggest that spawning is a form of indirect e management similar to divine favour. If your weapon spell/spirit lasts longer, then you need to cast less often. Albeit a very passive, very crappy method to manage your energy, I think that is the intention. Rits did get the short end of the stick for their primary compared to... well, everyone.

Ok so to recap there are two attributes everyone seems to be agreeing on.

Revamp Spawning power
Look into Tactics

Tactics will be hard to buff for a couple reasons. One is that monks usually go /W in some pvp's and bring a crapload of stances. While I am ok with how it is atm, I don't want to make them anymore powerful. Two, it is supposed to be a defensive tool, however when anyone wants to tank, which is rarely, stregth has defy pain with makes tactics basically useless.

For spawning power I think it needs a total rehaul.

Perhaps have it affect energy cost of spells while under a weapon spell, item spell, or near a spirit like expertise but with one more condition "since healers with energy management are dangerous" And then change skills like Attuned was songkai and energetic was lee sa to maybe a party energy gain?

Attuned was songkai
While holding these ashes your spawning power attribute is increased by X,,,X When dropped allies in the area gain 0...3...5 energy. Fails if spawning power <6

Energetic
While holding these ashes, spells cast 50% faster. When dropped party members gain 0...3...4 energy.

These could go along with some of the suggestions where if you drop an item spell you gain energy, or it could go with another thing.

Spells such as doom and boon of creation are probably still ok to keep the way they are.

Spirits strength.

For one think, this spell doesnt use anything about spirits at all...And making a rit go into melee range is screaming IW mesmer all over.

It could be an ally buff
"If target ally is within a spirits range, target ally moves and attacks 33% faster. X...X seconds"

Didnt put in numbers since I have no idea about what energy cost, recharge time, effect length is appropriate, but thats just a couple ideas.

I think we need a closer look at Warriors.

Strength is a great attribute as far as the skill in that line but the actual bonus is worthless. The armor penatration is far to small to really make any difference.

Something a bit more vissable would work much better. Here is just an example;

For every 3 points in strength you deal +1 damage with attack skills.


As for Tactics. I think that in order to make this a usefull attribute we need to do something radical. Make Tactics a second-primary attribute for warriors. This means that tactics would no longer be usable by other classes. This would also allow another buff to make warriors choose to use Tactics.

For every 3 points in Tactics damage you recieve is reduced by 1.

Both Strength and Tactics need to be warrior only attributes in order for them to be properly balanced.

id rather not lose spirits strength as it is

tatics has basicaly fallen out of favour, its mostly full of dodge stances few run anymore, and watch yourself is overshadowed by save yourselfs/paragons.

pve skills have cut into attribute lines and skills that where secondary, a dervish pretty much must carry the kurz/luxon skill, and if avataring the sunspear one... bye bye conviction and earth magic

I don't think you got the idea...
ES essentially has the same problem as FC. It only works to offset already horrible energy costs of elementalist spells. And no, ES is hardly an energy management. Attunement is.
That is all of course on top of terrible cast and recharge time on all but few selected ele spells.

That in my opinion wouldn't make a difference. People who wanted damage decreasing that much will still bring Defy pain, giving them more damage from your suggested strength with + health + armor + damage reduction Plus 1 damage reduction for putting tactics at 3 with left overs. While their armor penetration is low, they are still tops in Damage per second (needs extra skills in HM to make is so but in pvp and nm pve they are tops in dps) with their low armor penetration.

Because Strength has so many useful skills to the warrior profession, it is a staple, and the low armor penetration never hurt it either. I think Strength is fine.

Tactics is hard to buff since its loads of stances and little attack skills.

You forget that [Defy Pain] is an elite skill and using it greatly decreases your dps. Not to mention that once both Tactics and Strength are warrior only attributes a better balancing of skills in both of those lines could be done.

My Primary is a Rit, and there really is no reason for me to play him over a N/Rt other then I'm a one character guy, and I have so many titles on him. Yes I do feel Spawning power is gimped...big time. However I disagree with some of the energy proposals, only because Rits have the best energy management skills in the game imo. Offering of Spirt....Lee Sa...Songai. I never run out of energy as it is. I would rather it have some alternative effect maybe bump the current percentages way up...like 25-50% more health per point (spirits), the same with weapon spells....maybe remove the (after 3-4 attacks) and have it totally dependent on spawning power. As it is...spirits die quick anyway. Little to no armor...it doesnt matter they get destroyed pretty quickly. Maybe add a dps % to spirts, % chance to evade attacks, % to attack faster...anything. I just dont feel as if Energy is something this class needs. As it stands now its just left over points dumped in unless you are running a spirit strength build.

The problem with tactics (and stanses in particular) is not that it is powerful or weak, but that it is too penalizing for warrior, making it pretty much NOT a warrior attribute.
Look at the ranger stances. You get blocking AND extra random buff. Tactics? You get blocking + cute lil penalty that applies to nobody but warrior. Cool huh?

This is not fixable by just adjusting some numbers. Tactics skills need a major rework, which I seriously doubt will ever happen.

dont the ranger stances have a long recharge time compaired to length of useage?

[Natural Stride] is the ultimate for rangers. I would even suggest it is better for ranger secondary professions over war stances.