Anet, what is your actual intention with Manifest Sand Shade?

[Maunzi.3764]

> @kKagari.6804 said:

> > @Amenon.9126 said:

> > > @Maunzi.3764 said:

> > > The patch does not need to be reverted, but the class does need to be fixed.

> >

> >

> > The patch DOES need to be reverted. This was not a balance patch, you don't have one class doing 40k dps, the other one 29k and call it balanced. Until they have an actual balance patch, nothing needs to change. If the necromancer community sits idly, closes its eyes and swallows its tongue, this is what it deserves. Im sorry, most of you might see this as being an aggressive post, that's not the point.

> >

> > Yes, by all means, fix the class, but fix it WHEN YOU HAVE THE PATCH, not after months, not after you've (ANet) destroyed it and everyone that was playing it quit the game.

> >

> > Thats my 2 cents. If you, as a necro will just sit and take it, thats what we deserve, as a whole.

>

> If just using desert shroud can net you 14-28 strikes of damage, then no, the patch did the correct thing. It is about where Arenanet decides to take it from here now. Desert shroud prepatch easily landed 25k damage, whether it was power or condition, and no skill should do that.

 

If Desert Shroud prepatch somehow landed 25k damage by itself, then this means that all other skills combined were, in optimum circumstances, 13k dps.

 

This not only shows that you're making numbers up to suit your agenda (and it's a completely ridiculous claim that does not match reality), it also means that, were your claims true, all necro skills except Desert shroud need to be buffed by about 80%.

 

>Will people drop the 50k weaver crap? I honestly feel bad for elementalists that have one ridiculous rotation that can be executed on like 2 bosses in the entire game with perfect support as a justification that either eles need a nerf or everyone else needs a buff.

 

You're being extremely two-faced. You make the SAME CLAIM about pre-nerf Scourge. If pre-nerf scourge was out of control, then weaver is MUCH MORE OP. That damage was only ever doable on a tiny fraction of bosses.

[Maunzi.3764]

> @Selendile.9106 said:

> I think the problem arises when one considers taking the trait that allows you to summon 1 big shade that counts as 3, as said in the tooltip. How does MSS strikes stack then? Clearly you’d get 3 strikes from that giant shade, making that the clear choice for damage as you wouldn’t need to sandwich 3 shades to get the full benefit.

 

No, you only get 1 strike with that giant shade. It counts as one shade for all attacking purposes, and always did.

[Agrax.5670]

> @Maunzi.3764 said:

> > @Selendile.9106 said:

> > I think the problem arises when one considers taking the trait that allows you to summon 1 big shade that counts as 3, as said in the tooltip. How does MSS strikes stack then? Clearly you’d get 3 strikes from that giant shade, making that the clear choice for damage as you wouldn’t need to sandwich 3 shades to get the full benefit.

>

> No, you only get 1 strike with that giant shade. It counts as one shade for all attacking purposes, and always did.

 

It was a supportive version of GM trait. The dps one was sadistic searing iirc

[Ara.4569]

The whole "tiny shades vs Sand Savant" and minor traits depending on a master trait, is a mess right from start! Promising! Because they will unmistakably make it worse, starting now with a change to shades duration. That was fast. No cleaning of the initial mess = typical balance/design fail we're used to since alpha and the downstate that is now shroud.

 

Power Reaper, which was already in bad shape before Scourge exists, is now suffering even more with botched "Shroud" traits. Never ending cycle of bad decisions...

 

Necro traits are a fucking mess. They can't synergize well with any spec. If they can't standardize the different shrouds, then shroud traits should have different effects depending on the spec/shroud used.

 

Sorry for going off topic. I pushed to: what is your intention with necromancer ?

[Naughts Skyway.7413]

Hey Karl,

 

Really appreciate you taking the time to clarify how Desert Shroud is supposed to work. Please treat this post as feedback on the current design of the Scourge. I disagree with the perspective and I just really want to share what made Scourge fun the last few weeks for me.

 

I was one of the players who was entirely under the impression that the disabling of Sand Strike on DS was a bug. I have been a Necro player since the release of the game (however I do have to play Guardian in organized content out of necessity, as this class deals very high damage and brings much more tangible support) and I've always had a lot of fun with traits that affect shroud. As a mechanic, it was always a very responsive one and generally a whole lot of fun with all of its interactions.

 

Scourge had me so excited to be able to approach Necro in a new way. When we were first diving into Scourge on the beta, a lot of us were really apprehensive about how shroud traits would work with the new spec. With Necro/Reaper you always had control over when you wanted to use your Shroud 1 traits. But when Scourge ended up on live, the fact that Desert Shroud served as a short series of shroud auto attacks made perfect sense. IMO it was an even better take on controlling when your Shroud traits proc than Necro/Reaper.

 

Life Force was a huge pendulum. On ST fights, it was a real struggle to manage Life Force if you needed to use your F skills. On fights where life force was actually in excess (AoE fights) you could choose to use 2 through 4 for a little additional damage, but ultimately that mechanic didn't make sense and it felt like those skills should be saved for using the abilities as intended (for condi cleanse, cc, or barrier).

 

But coming to find out that they are intended to work only with F1-F5 activations makes the shroud traits seem really underwhelming and passive (this is what I'm most upset about, it's promoting wasteful play with F skills). Our life force is way too limited in single target situations to be able to get consistent value out of the shroud traits, and even in AoE situations I would still rather have those skills used for their intended purpose. When I do fractals with my group, I'm either completely starved on LF and can only bank enough for a DS and a mandatory condi cleanse, or I'm flooded with it in AoE situations and just wasting what should be utility skills on DPS (F2-F4).

 

Personally, I would rather see the traits work with F5 pulses and ONLY F5 pulses from a gameplay enjoyment perspective. F5 functioning as a series of Shroud auto attacks leaves you to actually use your F2 through F4 for meaningful utility instead of feeling like you need to waste that LF to get something out of the core class mechanic. It would also give you complete control over when you want your shroud traits to proc.

 

Hope you at least consider these thoughts. I thought you guys had something amazingly fun going on with pre bug fix Scourge's Desert Shroud, and I would love to see you shift trait triggers to Desert Shroud instead of F activations. This game is lacking in skills that feel meaningful to press and Desert Shroud was a great one.

[maxwelgm.4315]

Please Karl, you _know_ Necro doesn't have heavy support. Scourge doesn't have heavy _anything_ after this patch. For starters, the Soul Reaping line is now broken since Manifest won't even pop. And when you make a condi /support spec that is much better as a power build you know something is wrong. As it is right now, going Scourge is basically giving up on Life Force so that you can challenge yourself more (by being in a handicapped class).

 

Necromancer is the most egotistical class in the game, in that it doesn't provide kitten to anyone else in the party. Then you finally decide to release a support class and it _still_ remains the most egotistical class in the game, only you have now taken the damage source as well.

[Lystodyne.4719]

When I saw someone say Scourge has some heavy support.......I was checking the title or the page as I thought we are not in the same game......

[dceptaconroy.7928]

250 ectos says karls mates wont do jack, for any of our specs.

[Amenon.9126]

> @dceptaconroy.7928 said:

> 250 ectos says karls mates wont do jack, for any of our specs.

 

and 250 from me

 

https://qtfy.eu/guildwars/benchmarks-path-of-fire/ Also, this says enough. "We have removed Condi Scourge from the PoF benchmarks. Condi Scourge moved to retired builds. More to explain these actions soon."

[Ashamir.9574]

The sad thing is that I like necro. I started playing raids with a necro. Necro is fun – trying to get into a raid with a necro not so much.

 

If the balance team really wants Scourge to be a support spec, fine, make it competitive as a support. Decide on something. Either let us do good damage or let us do good support. Just pick something. I wanna be a useful in a raid.

[Swamurabi.7890]

How many of you expect the next scourge patch notes to be about tooltips?

[Lexan.5930]

Sure there's "heavy support" built into the core necro but its all selfish. 90% of our "support" comes in self support. Self heals, self armor, self life steal with minions. And even the other classes have more support, they just have offensive support.

 

We don't have offensive support and what we do doesnt impact others enough for them to want to take us.

 

Hell, if we have so much support then where is my "in-vulnerability" skill?

 

Wheres the thing that lets me take 0 damage or be stunned or be feared or be cc'ed at all for say 5 seconds? You know like warrior, guard, Elle, meaner, engi. All of which are in core specs.

 

Again why does the warrior get the majority of party buffing abilities (banners, empower allies, might gen, aoe fury, short CD cc)

Oh a HEAVEY armor class with THE HIGHEST HEALTH POOL and so much self boon buffing and tons of self healing.

 

[Deadvillager.1956]

Gotta love how the OP got official answers because of his proficient and careful wording and the rest of the 3 pages are mostly the exact reason why many devs probably dont bother any more :D

 

Sucks to be scourge right now though

[Lexan.5930]

> @"Karl McLain.5604" said:

> Manifest Sand Shade is not expected to activate on each pulse of Desert Shroud, but instead activate on each activation of a shade ability. The previous functionality, while strong, was unintentional. We'll be looking to add some power back into the kit in the next balance iteration (which was *not* today :P ), but needed to fix this bug as soon as possible. We'll also probably remove the 'spend some of your life force' from the description of MSS.

> Thanks for the well-worded question!

>

> -Karl

 

ok i get this, this makes sense. Every "activation" of a shade ability casts MSS, thank you for the clarification. I hope that you figure out the damage numbers so that we can get back into doing more damage overall with this large loss of burn to the spec.

[Odeezee.7362]

> @Deadvillager.1956 said:

> Gotta love how the OP got official answers because of his proficient and careful wording and the rest of the 3 pages are mostly the exact reason why many devs probably dont bother any more :D

>

> Sucks to be scourge right now though

 

no, stop that shit! ANet are disrespecting the time of the Necro players that patronize their games. **we have been waiting for 5 years**, 5 fucking years and still they never seem to get it right while there are other professions that are consistently meta regardless of content, hello Ele. there is **NOT ONE** dev that mains a Necro as well, so when they "balance/fix" Necro it **ALWAYS** leads to severe nerfs without **ANY** compensation for that particular build, instead they add like 5% damage to axe after nerfing condi, but leave Ele, Warrior, Druid, etc where they are at. ANet devs are adults and respect is not given it is earned and they have consistently failed Necro time and time again. idc if their egos are bruised when i cannot play my main in the content that i like due to not being able to find a group for hours or if i break down and ask guildmates, they would have to carry me as bringing me would be a liability. they devs don't have any dialogue with players, they just make changes, without any explanation and they do not take any feedback prior to or hell even after major changes, then they just let the nerfs stand for **MONTHS/YEARS** before even addressing them assuming they even get around to it. so no, they do not deserve cordial responses and questions from the community and if they had any backbone they would be responding to each and every comment and not just cherry-picking the ones that don't tell it to them like it is and stroke their ego or be cordial with people making decisions that have me wondering if i should have even bothered buying this expansion. i have only had it for 3 days (mainly because i was done with ANet and their bullshit "balancing" and i knew they would pull some shit like this on Necro), let's see if ANet will stand by their decision now, since the game is now different to what people were saying they were experiencing which made me buy the expansion, and give me a refund.

[DreamyLove.8947]

> @"Karl McLain.5604" said:

> Manifest Sand Shade is not expected to activate on each pulse of Desert Shroud, but instead activate on each activation of a shade ability. The previous functionality, while strong, was unintentional. We'll be looking to add some power back into the kit in the next balance iteration (which was *not* today :P ), but needed to fix this bug as soon as possible. We'll also probably remove the 'spend some of your life force' from the description of MSS.

> Thanks for the well-worded question!

>

> -Karl

 

so a team don't know how to make a fine balance , than they do a dead nerf???

 

---

 

and i also wanna knwo how is dev thinking about war

 

[Natural Healing] cond remove x 7??

[Winds of Disenchantment] interval 1/2s?? , number 10?

 

and reapplyable stab ???

[Deadvillager.1956]

> @Odeezee.7362 said:

> snip

 

oh boy here we go... was this "bug fix" necessary? I believe so. Was it timed well? Fuck no. Will scourges be able to join pugs until an upcoming balance patch buffs its damage? probably not. Does it bother me? Very much so. Does me ranting about it and insulting people that disagree with me help solve this situation?

 

I am just very amused how people from all around the forum are now trying to derail a very nice thread into a contest who can throw the most poop only because a developer typed necromancer and support too closely together.

 

 

[Lexan.5930]

> @Deadvillager.1956 said:

> > @Odeezee.7362 said:

> > snip

>

> oh boy here we go... was this "bug fix" necessary? I believe so. Was it timed well? kitten no. Will scourges be able to join pugs until an upcoming balance patch buffs its damage? probably not. Does it bother me? Very much so. Does me ranting about it and insulting people that disagree with me help solve this situation?

>

> I am just very amused how people from all around the forum are now trying to derail a very nice thread into a contest who can throw the most poop only because a developer typed necromancer and support too closely together.

>

>

 

I feel the same way, it was needed if the skill wasn't working the way they wanted but i wish they had done some padding for the damage first. Then again Karl did say that more changes are coming and they are actually looking at bringing the damage up from where it is so here's hoping we get more damage and maybe some more suppoprt abilities.

[Odeezee.7362]

> @Deadvillager.1956 said:

> > @Odeezee.7362 said:

> > snip

>

> oh boy here we go... was this "bug fix" necessary? I believe so. Was it timed well? kitten no. Will scourges be able to join pugs until an upcoming balance patch buffs its damage? probably not. Does it bother me? Very much so. Does me ranting about it and insulting people that disagree with me help solve this situation?

>

> I am just very amused how people from all around the forum are now trying to derail a very nice thread into a contest who can throw the most poop only because a developer typed necromancer and support too closely together.

>

>

 

dude, what don't you get? we have been nice - we still get nerfed. we have given them great feedback on how to fix the Necro and they took it and fucking gave it to another profession, see Rev. we have shown them countless videos, crunched the numbers, we have done all this for over 5 years **SINCE FUCKING BETA** and still no change. so what do you want us to do? keep being nice for the sake of it, yet the devs have been patently disrespectful to us over these 5 years and stringing us along? how is that respectful on ANet's part? do you even know how many times they have **BLATANTLY** lied to us about upcoming balance changes that would rectify their nerfs? see Dhummfire, see Lich, etc. enough is enough! this is their job, they should be able to defend their decisions, no one forced them to be on the balance team and i know many who wish some of them would get replaced because after 5 years, they still don't have a grasp of what it is they want Necro to be and then need to articulate it so people know if playing Necro, or even the game, is worth their time. stop worrying about the tone and pay attention to the tenor of what is being said which is more important. and what's important here is that they over-nerfed Necro without an adequate explanation or compensation and frankly i do not appreciate my time and money being taken for granted and disrespected. they are grown ass people they should be able to take criticism or their work and speak for themselves!

[Wintermute.5408]

Meanwhile, dev only shows up to say, "hey, fuck you necros, you won't get damage", and then disappear again. Stay classy, Anet...

[reikken.4961]

Shade skills are **super bursty**. They apply a million stacks of 2 seconds of torment. This makes it very strong against players and meh against monsters, for two reasons: players can cleanse conditions if they have time to do it, and players move more than mobs. So if you want to buff for pve without buffing for wvw/pvp, fewer stacks, longer duration.

 

> @Vrita.7846 said:

> I get that shade stacking was a big issue in PvP and WvW, but in PvE it makes perfect sense to do it. Currently there's 0 reason to have more than 1 shade out at any time, as the other 2 shades do literally nothing except look spooky.

 

Actually _none_ of them do anything except give you the expertise trait bonus. If you're already at max condition duration, having a shade out quite literally does nothing (except let you attack from range).

[Zefiris.8297]

> @Wintermute.5408 said:

> Meanwhile, dev only shows up to say, "hey, kitten you necros, you won't get damage", and then disappear again. Stay classy, Anet...

 

There's no point crucifying a dev, he's just bringing the news. Better being told that we aren't considered worthy of getting PVE relevant DPS than worry and never know the reason. It means we can make our feedback more specific. We now know that Scourge will never be a proper DPS class, which means that our angle can be the support not measuring up in PvE.

 

>Actually none of them do anything except give you the expertise trait bonus. If you're already at max condition duration, having a shade out quite literally does nothing (except let you attack from range).

 

Not quite true, a single shade is mandatory so your abilities hit your entire party. Since we're not supposed to be a DPS spec, we should at least try to ensure our skills help our party as much as we can.

[Kanto.1659]

> @Lily.1935 said:

> > @Axl.8924 said:

> > Personally i wonder if necro is going to be viable as a scourge support currently as is? one guy was talknig about how you could apply barrier and be a hp bar raiser to help healers.Is that actually enough to make necros desired for raids and fractals?

>

> Raids? Absolutely not. Fractals? Absolutely not. And the reason for my answer for Fractals is because barrier is impacted by agony at the same rate as healing. So, no and no.

 

That's right. I was doing fractals a few days in a row with a friend. She plays melee and is squishy getting downed in a regular basis. As we did them I thought _'Well, my barriers will be helping her stay alive'_ and then kept noticing how we'd end a fight and she'd have something like 20% and think _'...well, my barriers aren't really helping as much as I thought they would'_ and only later did it click in my head that our _heavy support_ is castrated in one game mode.

 

Well, I guess that if we do normal dungeons the barriers will help her.

[Kanto.1659]

> @Amenon.9126 said:

> Again, its the necromancer community's fault for this. If we were voicing our concerns higher and not just sit and swallow, the story would be different. Bring the pitchforks, demand for this to be a playable class, that we all paid for! And not next month, but today! We have every right to be as happy as every other class out there. Currently, every single class in the game has a viable spec for raiding. Every single one, apart from necromancer.

 

In what world do you live in that forum protests change anything? The devs bunker down, close all communication. The community rages, demands explanations, pitchforks are raised. A week later no changes, no communication. Two weeks later no changes, no communication. You can't keep a community in an uproar for ever. More importantly, it does nothing. Power Reaper, anyone? Taken to the back and given a shot to the head and then ignored? You think there were no protests? No uproar?

 

No, this is Spreadsheet City. I can picture the devs talking between themselves as they examine graph bars, _'Look guys. In this perfect scenario here the necro has full life force, they wait until the attack is about to land, and spam their barrier and thus will have soaked X thousands of damage! It's amazing, players are going to love it. This is some good heavy support here!'_

 

We leave Spreadsheet City and, well, I won't bother re-iterating what has been repeated ad nauseum about the *real* support barriers grant and which we are going to be balanced around.

 

[kKagari.6804]

edit: see below