Talk:Soul Reaping

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Contents 1 How does this work? 2 Retarded Nerf 3 Warrented 4 Soul Reaping rebalancing 5 Soul Reaping Nerf here to stay... 6 Now what? 7 Worthwhile investing more than ten points? 8 My Soul Reaping Suggestion

[edit] How does this work?

So how does this change work? Do you still receive the same amount of energy except its now dispersed only every 5 seconds instead of immediately? Or do you only receive energy when something dies on the 5th second? I'm a bit confused. Matthew 22:44, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

It isn't clear but I think that the first death in a 5 second period awards the energy, then for 5 seconds after that you do not gain energy if someone dies, then the cycle repeats. The way it sounds is if a spirit dies first, then a player immediately afterwards you will not get the higher soul reaping gain for the player death. It doesn't particularly sound like a particularly smart modification. There is a need to test the special cases however to see the actual behaviour. --Aspectacle 22:55, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Correct. SR triggers exactly once every 5 seconds regardless of how many creature dies. So if you managed to kill a mob within 5 seconds... too bad, you get one single SR trigger. Even worse if it was a spirit that died first. And I agree it's not a smart change. Without any corresponding changes to the energy costs of Curses and Blood, this change to SR effectively reduced the effectiveness of most non-MM builds. -- ab.er.rant 12:02, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I thought it was like this: You kill 1 monster which starts the 15 second timer, and then you kill two others during the same 15 second window and then you can't get any more until the 15 seconds is up. Isn't that how it works? Than 02:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Retarded Nerf

This doesn't solve the PvP problem of just running primary roles, such as a ritualist, or monk, but having the Necromancer as the primary profession. The Spirit Spamming/Soul Reaping retardation is just a little too abusive. They should just remove energy gain from minions and spirits, and that's all they need to do. The end.

Personally I'd just remove the energy gain from spirits as minion factory builds went out of style ages ago anyways, now that we have a hard-coded cap (and of course, only so many corpses to go around). This change punishes everyone who created a necromancer and uses it for something OTHER then Spirit Spamming in PvP. Did anyone even think about the horrendous impact this has for every single PvE necro build in existence?! We're now the red-headed stepchildren of the Guild Wars community. Thanks a lot ANet. -131.123.11.71 11:36, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

This renders my Lightbringer point farming in the Domain of Secrets almost impossible, oh joy. There aren't words to describe how horrible a nerf this is, I might never play my necro again! -131.123.11.70 11:40, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Are you trying to pretend that three ppl just ranted on this? -- ab.er.rant 12:02, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

More likely that's 2 people in a computer lab. Scenario: A build is outside of what the developers intended and being complained about. Solution: Break it and every other primary necromancer build every created. Congratulations! You've solved the Spirit Spamming problem, and since the necro primary is pretty much worthless, problems of this sort can't crop up anymore. A job well accomplished. [Heavy Sarcasm] This update makes me want to find everyone who ever played a spirit spamming necro and punch them in the face. Thanks to them my favorite character gets to fight Desert Storm with a revolutionary war era single shot musket. -76.211.28.214 12:29, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Great My favorite class rendered almost useless. Why? If I may ask? ShadowStep 13:58, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm really upset because Minion Masters are now rendered useless even with the updates to Animated minions and such. When there are vast amounts things dying, the first thing I would think of is spam my animate skills but I cant because of the new update on the Soul Reaping. Now that Soul Reaping is nerfed, it is near IMPOSSIBLE to do "Captured Son" because the only class that could get through it was the MM. Dirty Rob 19:15, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Agreed, it would probably take a full group of barrage rangers now for the quest. I believe the necro's special attribute had no reason to be nerfed in such a manner; All professions have their own special ability and it isn't right that the necroes have been dealt this blow. It's too much of a blow in my opinion. Toxic 23:57, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Next we should reduce divine favor bonus to only 1 health per 5 ranks in divine favor. Energy storage should only provide 1 extra energy point. Expertise only reduce costs by 1% for every rank... I'm really sick of them editing the crap out of everything for a few specific PvP builds. Matthew 02:44, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Hooray for A-Net screwing up horribly by rendering one of the 6 basic classes unusable! All the necros in this game are pissed, a lot of them rely on their energy gain from killing things. I might honestly never play my necro again. Sanarl 09:55, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

Good grief - I take a peek at a skill's talk page and find myself in GuildWarsGuru. Then again, if this was guru, this "thread" would have been locked ages ago. Stoppit! (please) --Snograt 08:15, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

This nerf is so bad that even my Hero MM (with computer like energy management )cannot maintain a full compliment of minion's. Knarfman 09:49, 8 April 2007 (PST)

I don't even PLAY as a necro, but i'm still complaining. Thanks to that, most misisons that were once easy, are now SUPER EVIL! For example, the missions Eternal Grove and Riasu Palace were super easy with a minion master necro, but now, are nigh imposible. I wanna know what their reasoning is for this nerf. --71.112.102.46 22:04, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

Maybe the fact that those missions were super easy with a MM is what was wrong with Soul Reaping? Those are supposed to be very difficult missions and as you just said, a MM simply mows through them. Doesn't that seem slightly overpowered to you? --Dirigible 23:18, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

well the complaining is about the serveraty of the nerf and probably the reasoning behind it. only thing I can think about is the N/Rt spirit spammers in pvp.Qouted from AOTT; " the Necromancer stops getting a benefit from their primary attribute several seconds. Which is completely unfair since every other class CONSTANTLY reaps the benefits of their primary attributes."ShadowStep 10:34, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

I guess that I agree and disagree with what has been said. I think this change to Soul Reaping makes all traditional PVE Necro builds unplayable. I don't play PVP, and never will, so I do not really care about the abuse or problems from PVP. I have seen some instances where abuse of spirit spamming were obvious, so I understand where Anet was coming from, but there would have been better ways to solve that problem. There have been several alternatives suggested that make sense (like SR not triggering when a spirit dies or a minion) that would not have destroyed the viability of PVE builds. I believe that Anet's focus on maintaining fairness in PVP has become such a focus that they do not care about PVE, or at least that is how PVE players feel. The constant stream of skill changes and ability changes make it difficult to learn to play the game. For new players, and I know many, changes like this frustrate them to the point of going out and buying another game, one with a monthly fee and just playing that. I firmly believe that the quality of update decisions from Anet has been declining for some time. It seems rare that "disputed" changes are based on PVE play which is the reason that many people play the game, myself included. I ask myself and friends often, if there are so many problems in PVP, why can't there be a greater separation between the two environments so that the problems and solutions from one (PVP) do not impact the other (PVE)? I think the answer, for me, is clear. If this continues to be an issue, and I am talking about the over-the-top changes to level the field for PVP, I will take my time and money to another game company. That means I will not play any current or future Anet products, I will not recommend their products to friends or customers, I will not sell their products in my store, and will not allow customers to play their products on the computers in my store. What Anet is failing to understand (or do not care about) is that the game needs to be fun, for everyone. If only PVP/PVE players or veteran/new players are the only ones who enjoy the game, they are going to continue to lose players, and erode the stability and sustainability of their no monthly fee business model. I am not going to sell or endorse a product that I continue to get complaints on, or that I think will not continue to provide enjoyment for customers. I actually joined the official wiki just to make this comment. deg0 10:21, 10 April 2007.

Most illogical error ever, Anet will never admit it... Sujoy 9:11, 11 April 2007.

[edit] Warrented

Seriously people, Soul Reaping is the most powerful primary ability in the game. Built-in, no thought required energy management, wee! Read Gaile News, the developers are looking at better ways to balance Soul Reaping. This is just a temporary measure. HeWhoIsPale 20:38, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Soul Reaping rebalancing

Since the developers are looking for a 'better way to accomplish the same energy-related "reality check"' I gave it some thought. Very tough problem. Most of my thinking is rather convoluted on the issue. But I do have one very simple suggestion that, on the face of it, looks pretty clean: a creature killed by the necromancer him/herself directly should soul reap completely without regard to the 5 second limitation (i.e. the necro themself directly taking action with a skill/attack/lifesteal that kills the creature). This means that the necromancer could, for example, reliably use (and build with) an expensive energy killing skill, like vampiric touch. Obviously it also rewards the necromancer for being on top of their game, watching vulturously for nearly dead enemies and polishing them off--this seems both thematically and pragmatically appropriate to me. My best guess is that you could also allow soul reaping sans 5sec cap whenever what just died had a necromancer class hex or enchantment active on them. (important to note that spirits can not be hexed or enchanted) Crystalion 23:09, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Although the comment was made about a year ago, but still just would like to note that necromancers are horrible at dealing damage and elementalist always kill targets first in pve before the necromancer spells/skill are even cast.William Wallace 05:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Soul Reaping Nerf here to stay...

I saw where you basically said that the Soul Reaping nerf was going to stay, and even though I'm not a person who plays a Necromancer very much, I do have several across my various accounts... even if they don't see much use these days, but I have to say, I think this is a really big mistake that ArenaNet is making, from a business stand point.

Basically because a bunch of whiney PvP players who are already jealous of the PvE content available in the game (but for some reason unable or unwilling to play and enjoy it) want to see PvE Necromancers completely reworked and severally limited to the point of no longer being any fun to play, ArenaNet is going to do it? Pathetic. Primary PvP players don't support the game, PvE players do... PvE players often have multiple accounts (I myself have more than a half dozen) and PvE players are the ones who primarily purchase extra Character Slots (have bought a lot of them myself) ...the majority of the primary PvP players don't even use all the character slots that are given to them, much less go out and keep purchasing more from the game to support and enjoy it.

It would take ArenaNet very little time to remove the energy gain from Spirits as far as Soul Reaping is concerned, but they'd rather spend even more time trying to rework the entire Necro skill line to compensate for crippling the Necromancers due to no core energy management skills, and nothing but high cost good skills. Removing the energy gain from spirits would solve the abuse problem in PvP and not harm PvE (since no one ever complained about it being abused in PvE and there were far less ways to farm with a Necro than any other class anyway) but because ArenaNet cares more about the little thirteen year old brats that make up the majority of PvP, despite them not being the ones who support the game and keep shelling out more and more money for it, they are going to work harder to push away their most prominent customers. Who the heck is in charge of their business practices there? Whoever it is obviously has no idea how to run a business or that keeping the majority of your paying customers happy is the way to insure that you keep making money for your company.

This is by far the dumbest move as far as keeping their customer base happy and insuring the future of their game, that I've seen ArenaNet make yet... and I've watched them make a lot of foolish moves that have pushed away a lot of paying customers in the 22+ months that I've been playing Guild Wars... actually, we all have. ~ J.Kougar

Quality lulz. A++++. Would point and laugh again Rho 14:10, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

I play a Necromancer regularly in PvE and I have to said, both as MM or Echo SS, I never have any problems with energy that I didn't already have. When I first heard about the change I thought it would be terrible, but after playing solidly, I have realised that the difference is minute. - BeX 15:39, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, if you ever get good with a Necromancer in PvE and play all the different attributes (since there is more to a necro than MM and SS) and are on a decent team you'll see that most mobs drop within a few seconds after all the skills are dropped on them, which leaves the Necromancers at less than half energy at the end of the battle and in need of more time to regenerate energy that most anyone else in the party, instead of being almost full at the end and often able to help others get their energy back faster. Since there are NO core energy management skills for Necromancers, it makes it even harder for the casual player. I suppose if you're still learning to play and are only managing to kill an enemy every five seconds then you might be okay, but once you get up the average level of play and start actually contributing to your party and helping to drop those mobs... you're more than screwed. ~ J.Kougar

I've been playing a necromancer for over a year now, so you can hardly say that I am learning to play or accuse me of being a bad player. I've played with many different builds since the update and the result is still the same - if all your enemies are dying at once, you're wasting any energy you gain above your maximum.

When the AoE change was introduced there was a similar uproar, but players learnt to deal with it, and in truth, there wasn't very much effect on gameplay except for solo farmers. I think any cries that the change in Soul Reaping is making you unable to play a Necromancer efficiently should be turned inwards - maybe you need to modify your build or play style, because in my experience and the experiences of my many GW playing friends and acquaintances, the change had very little effect at all. - BeX 00:17, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

I didn't say it couldn't be done, only that it was no longer enjoyable to do so, for most normal players and the majority of the casual or new players. I have a friend who has been playing over a year now, I've helped him as much as possible but the only character he's ever gotten through any campaigns was his Necro, and now that the nerf was made he has been having a lot more trouble with his character and for the first several days could not figure out what he was doing wrong because he hadn't heard about the nerf and was confused why his character and build was now so useless. I'm sure there are a lot more inexperienced players like him out there that didn't necessarily notice the nerf but only that suddenly things don't work like the once did and they don't enjoy playing anymore, which is very bad for business. Will he buy EotN now? Who knows, but I doubt it. I'm not a hard-core Necro player, I had a couple Necros (across as many accounts and slots as I have that still put them in the minority) and played them through each campaign a time or two, but deleted all but one of them after this nerf because they just weren't fun anymore. Imagine what it will be like for some new player to GW who is unlucky enough to start out playing a Necro and who doesn't understand why he is at such a disadvantage compared to all the other classes and ends up not playing or enjoying the game. You might not have noticed a change, but to anyone who actually spends the majority of their time in PvE and who has logged over four thousand hours in the last two years, it's noticeable... and there are a lot better classes to play for enjoyment now. ~ J.Kougar

It may not be enjoyable for you, but who is to say that is the case for "most normal players" or "the majority of casual or new players". When AoE flee was introduced hundreds of people swore red and said that they would not be buying Nightfall, but the game seems as popular as ever.

As for this statement: "You might not have noticed a change, but to anyone who actually spends the majority of their time in PvE and who has logged over four thousand hours in the last two years, it's noticeable... and there are a lot better classes to play for enjoyment now." I have played 3500 hours since October 2005, 300 of those hours on my main Necromancer, and I also have multiple accounts, the majority with all 3 campaigns, so you can hardly use those facts to give your claims more weight than mine.

Guild Wars is a game where changes are constantly made and players should have gotten used to the fact that they have to change and adapt with the game updates. Imagine if you tried to play with the same build you used when you first started playing. This update isn't the end of the world, nor is it as dramatic as you make it out to be. Learn, adapt, grow. Rising to these challenges is what makes Guild Wars so unique. - BeX 01:45, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes, but Guild wars is a game... it's played for fun. If they make enough changes to make something not fun anymore, then it's not worth playing. Heck, just in the last six months I've had far too many friends leave the game thanks to various changes... and it's only going to get worse. People are willing to adapt to a point, but once it goes from fun to work, they don't usually want to bother. ~ J.Kougar

This section is way off topic. JK, would you consider moving this entire section to either User talk:Gaile Gray or Talk:Soul Reaping? -PanSola 04:45, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Moved. --Lemming64 05:40, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, they fixed spirit spamming Necromancers once and for all, but they forgot to removal the energy gain interval they used as a stop-gap... --Glenforder 05:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Now what?

So they got rid of the energy gain from spirits... So why can't we get rid of the counter now? The only reason the counter was added was to stop spirit batteries. I honestly don't see any reason for it be have the limiter. Sure it can be "overpowered" at times, but now you actually have to kill something (or have a teammate die) for it to trigger (minions require a kill to be summoned). Add to that the change to pets that makes them no longer leave corpses, and there is absolutely no reason to keep the counter. --Curse You 06:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The counter is there to prevent Necromancer from gain benefit from wipes. They'll get more energy this way by killing enemies one by one. But fear not. Balacing is not over yet. Spirits may come back or the counter banish. MithranArkanere 15:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

So what if their team gets wiped? They're now on their own, and having full energy isn't going to help much against 8 enemies. In PvP, more enemies will only die one by one, and so the counter becomes pointless.

The fact is, the counter was only added in an attempt to stop players from using Soul Reaping for Spirit Spamming. Now that they get no energy from spirits, there is no longer a need for the counter. --Curse You 21:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Because unlimited energy is bad and Soul Reaping was overpowered and allowed skill-less people to run builds with unlimited energy. Stop argueing this damn point, it's moot. — Skadiddly[슴Mc슴]Diddles 21:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

13 Energy every 5 seconds works out to nearly 8 pips of extra Energy regeneration, and if your party's averaging more than 1 kill per 5 seconds, you shouldn't be complaining. No, removing the counter wouldn't really hurt game balance, but the cap, in its' current form, doesn't really hurt necromancers. -- Gordon Ecker 03:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually it does hurt if you're an MM running Bone Fiends, or a Necro doing some other stuff. But I don't think Anet cares. They're busy doing silly stuff like making necro spells 1 energy, and doing weird stuff to mesmers. Oh yeah and repeatedly nerfing paragons... all because of the 8 paragons PVP stuff, anyone with brains could have figured out what would happen given those sort of paragon skills. The Anet's standard "balancing method" appears to be mindlessly ruining a whole lot of skills first, waiting for complaints, then rolling a dice to see what they'll do next. As for PvP, I think Anet "rebalances" the skills more often than many people play the game. That's very _unprofessional_ and _stupid_. How many pro gamers are going to treat GW seriously? Imagine if rules were randomly changed every month in games like Counterstrike or Starcraft. Or say Lawn Tennis or other "real" competitive sports. GW skills and rules don't change more often than Calvinball, but seriously... Calvinball might be fun, but very few would take a Calvinball Championship seriously. Anet don't appear to have enough clue on what they are doing. The only way I'm going to end up playing GW2 is if someone bought it for me (like the way I got EotN :) ). 118.100.20.89 17:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

If Soul Reaping isn't enough, you can add Signet of Lost Souls. What exactly do you mean by "some other stuff"? -- Gordon Ecker 02:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Worthwhile investing more than ten points?

At least now soul reaping is acutaly worth while investing more than ten points into it since the Icy Veins nerf.William Wallace 05:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My Soul Reaping Suggestion

As of today, Necromancers are only able to get energy 3 times every 15 seconds, which means after you have received the energy bonus 3 times, you cannot obtain it anymore until how many ever seconds is left from the start of the first energy gain.

No one really likes this, because now we have no way to keep our energy up, I've heard some suggestions about just going E/N since we all know even Signet of Lost Souls won't get us enough energy.

My Soul Reaping is usually around 10 (9 Soul Reaping +1 Minor Soul Reaping Rune), unfortunately even with 10 Soul Reaping, as a Minion Master I'm pointless, a Ritualist Minion Master can do better (which is pretty sad considering we were the first "devoted" professions to Grenth in a way).

Now to the point, my recommendation. I say, we have that energy gain 5 times in a total of 20 seconds. This way we can still keep up our Minions, and not have to wait for our Minions to die for energy or for us to wait our energy up to 10-25 just to get another minion from a corpse that's been there for 10 minutes (exaggerated, as after less than 10 minutes the corpse is gone).

With this new Soul Reaping time, we will be able to keep up minions, and still be a very important asset in PvP and not just another support class. Anybody else with me? Than 01:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

No. I say remove it completely. There's no point in keeping this nerf.--ITAMAR 12:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)