[PvE] Soulcleave's Summit was nerfed way too hard. Here's an idea on how to make it more justifiably usable again.

[Gambit.9501]

NOTE: Skip to the bottom of the post (last paragraph) for the actual suggestion.

As of May 11th, Soulcleave can only proc its lifesteal once per second now.  This change turned it from a skill that rewards shrewd use of your multi-hit skills, ...into what basically equates to being a boring damage aura.  And the worst part?  It's actively worse than Impossible Odds.  Let's compare the two:

Impossible Odds is a basic Utility skill which is Instant cast. It incurs 6 Upkeep, and costs 5 energy to activate.  It deals an extra hit of damage on a target that you hit, on a 1/4th (0.25) second interval.  The skill can effectively proc every quarter of a second, or up to 4 times per second.
 

Soulcleave's Summit is an Elite skill with a full 1 second cast time.  It incurs 8 Upkeep, and costs 10 energy to activate.  It creates a field that applies an effect to allies that causes your hits to deal lifesteal (with the healing portion being higher (in non-PvP)), and this lifesteal can only trigger up to once every whole second.  The damage portion of the Lifesteal is only a bit higher than the damage of Impossible Odds, by around ~50 points of damage on avg, give or take.

 

So, we have an Elite skill that is actively weaker than a Utility skill of the same type of usage category, with the only caveat being that you can apply its effect to your allies in a select area.  The problem isn't really the amount of lifesteal the skill deals: It's the lack of impact and lack of nuance it now has.  You are actively wasting your Energy when you pop this skill.  As a result, you are actively wasting a full second of inactivity when you try to cast it.  You're better off using your other skills or just swapping Legends instead.  I understand the need for the skill to have SOME sort of Interval.  But the current iteration of the skill is just pure energy-draining weaksauce.

Here's my idea on how to make this skill achieve a middle-ground between A) rewarding players for using their multi-hit skills, and B) keeping the skill from spiraling out of proportion and allowing your party to skip mechanics:

On each second, Soulcleave's Summit applies an effect with 3 Charges which causes your hits to consume 1 Charge of the effect to inflict Lifesteal.  The effect itself is no longer bound by a hard Interval listed on the skill; the amount of times you can lifesteal per second is now controlled by how many Charges of the effect you can consume, charges which reset each time the effect is re-applied to you (i.e they do not stack beyond 3, or whatever number you choose to go with).  This allows players with multi-hit skills to still take advantage of the lifesteal offered without making the skill too powerful.

Thoughts?

Edited May 27, 2021 by Gambit.9501

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

Couldn’t they just adjust the cool down to .25 for the lifesteal and if they still feel like it’s to powerful, adjust the numbers for the amount stolen (like they should have done in the first place since the espec is all about multi hits)

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

You want to share battle scars to players in short.

1 hour ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Couldn’t they just adjust the cool down to .25 for the lifesteal and if they still feel like it’s to powerful, adjust the numbers for the amount stolen (like they should have done in the first place since the espec is all about multi hits)

 

Yeah they could just adjust the skill.  👍

Shorter ICD would be perfect,

Otherwise they could decrease a bit energy cost, energy ukeep ... so actually renegade could play effectively while Soulcleave's summit is on until legend swap, and balance somewhat the dps loss.

[Janitsu.6284]

Just make the scalings bigger and the base values lower and remove ICD. Then you will have synergy with fast-hitting classes while not nerfing stuff like Heal Renegade into oblivion.

[hash.8462]

What about allowing outgoing healing to work with it?

[Virdo.1540]

On 5/28/2021 at 8:16 PM, hash.8462 said:

What about allowing outgoing healing to work with it?

It does. 

 

Edit: The 2 below are right. Revs outgoing multiplier-traits dont work. 

Havent cared much about renegade in the last years ^^

Edited May 29, 2021 by Virdo.1540

[hash.8462]

19 hours ago, Virdo.1540 said:

It does. 

Not according to the wiki:

"The healing done when allies attack scales with the renegade's healing power, but not with outgoing healing power."

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soulcleave's_Summit

 

So Salvation Traits, Runes, Sigils, Food and so on that rise your outgoing healing don't increase the healing of Soulcleave's Summit (but I have not tested it).

Edited May 29, 2021 by hash.8462

[Icetea.3204]

10 minutes ago, hash.8462 said:

Not according to the wiki:

"The healing done when allies attack scales with the renegade's healing power, but not with outgoing healing power."

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soulcleave's_Summit

 

So Salvation Traits, Runes, Sigils, Food and so on that rise your outgoing healing don't increase the healing of Soulcleave's Summit (but I have not tested it).

 

You are correct. Outgoing healing doesnt work with the healing from Soulcleave. The healing only get increased from incoming Healing, like FB Tome 2 Skill 5.

[Orion Templar.4589]

I've really been trying to give the change to SS the benefit of the doubt and have been thoroughly testing it in PvE under a range of circumstances. I've come to the same conclusion that has been stated above and in other threads that the change was not a good one, and the skill is simply too weak now considering its cost. Not only is it weak, but it just seems less fun to play/use right now (I know that's intangible, but it's my assessment.) Definitely something needs to be done with SS. Whether it's the idea above, reducing the energy cost, or making the ICD 1/4 second instead of 1 second. The skill is just not in a good place right now.

[Shao.7236]

Let's skip on complicated implementations and just give more per hit, something like 600 siphon/healing or so, that would end up being around the equivalent of 2 hits with the old version.

 

Remember Anet really dislikes implementing and sticks to numbers more.

[Infusion.7149]

Have people tested it since May 25 patch, with actual heal gear?

Someone put a note on the wiki saying the tooltip is wrong ("recent patch was x2.5 instead of the mentioned x1.5"), but I'm not so much of a masochist to run heal renegade in PVE.