Scourge: Three Fixes for a Roughly Shaved Specialization

[FalsePromises.6398]

Before I begin, if you don't like reading, _**there's a tl;dr at the bottom**_, and if you read that and disagree with one, please read its rationale.

# Three Fixes for a Roughly Shaved Specialization

I’m a bit of a scourge fan, love playing it in PvE (open world and raids/strikes), and have been trying to make it work in PvP, the main place where scourge seems for the most part inadequate (and also is the gamemode I find to be the best judgement of a specialization's independent, holistic capability), for quite some time now. Scourge took many hits since its release, what with the loss of point blank shade effects, dhuumfire restraints, transfusion shaving, barrier nerfing, torment dispersions, and more. When the February 25th balance patch dropped though, I must say I was one of the first to jump back on scourge and give it a shot, seeing as some barrier values weren’t proportionally scaled and nefarious favor saw a QoL buff (which was actually mathematically a nerf anyway) and have been working away at scourge's viability ever since. I’ve come across a handful of scourge builds since, but few have widely applicable results. I’ve seen six different scourge styles floating around in my time doing so, and found one simply inefficient in the long term (minionmancer), another two rather weak given the input skill required (pure condi and pure power), another gimmick that died out once 3v3 ended (barrier healer), and I’ve personally made two that I find excel or hold their own in a legitimate way (a tanky wellomancer and a hybrid boonstripper). However, **across all builds I played I found three consistent mechanical shortcomings**, either **results of nerfs from before the competitive split which, _due to PvP being tied to WvW, crippled the class in PvP where it intended to put proper restraint on the class in WvW_, or one change on February 25 that made one traitline nearly useless to scourge**.

## 1. Reduce Desert/Harbinger shroud from 30 second cooldown in PvP to 20 second cooldown (PvE value).

**PvP scourge uses its shroud differently from WvW, where its nerf** (increasing desert shroud cooldown to 30 seconds) **was necessary to reduce the frequency of their bursts** and pulsing damage. **In PvP, shroud on necromancer is their mainstay defense, which leaves scourge rather stunted in this respect** as their shroud goes from instantly replacing all their health with a second lifebar with innate damage reduction to instead granting a five thousand health barrier with (currently) **three times the cooldown of the normal shroud** (30 seconds) and **can’t be activated without a hefty chunk of life force available**. This shroud is one of the **scourge’s most important defensive and offensive skills for PvP seeing the sheer number of potent and rather vital traited effects** tied to shroud entry, exit, and duration, on top of the strong barrier independent of healing power. **Allowing the cooldown to be reduced to 20 seconds in PvP would allow scourge to provide better pressure** (seeing as shroud is just about the only shade skill that can do north of maybe fully traited 1600 damage or 600 damage if we exclude terror) and have a little **more reliable baseline sustain** independent of healing power, seeing as almost all of their barrier needs healing power to be useful (which although is a welcome change of playstyle to necromancer, is also considerable towards damage). The most important part of reducing the cooldown of this skill, however, is **allowing better access to their strongest reactive barrier to allow the scourge to better react to frequent high pressure assaults like other necromancers can**.

## 2. Increase the radius of shades by 60 across the board, both savant and classic, to counterbalance the loss of point blank AoE and grant stronger area coverage.

This one's bound to be met with the most opposition, but also is one of the most important changes needed, so hear me out on this. **Losing the point blank shade effects when a shade is planted greatly reduced not just the area coverage but also the sheer versatility of the shades**. Now, scourges in PvP for the most part make do without casting shades most of the time because they can’t afford to give up mobile shade effects, and **the shades that exist aren't truly large enough or refreshable enough to grant any more than spotty coverage**, given a necromancer needs to be constantly moving and can’t sit on three small shades or one medium sized shade. Furthermore, placing three classic shades cannot cover even a normal sized capture point in PvP, and sand savant remains unable to cover the larger capture points, and **this necessitates scourges to not cast shades for area denial purposes because they’re insufficient and often completely avoidable if casted and no longer mobile**. In PvE, a necromancer doesn't need to be constantly moving, but even then **the classic shades are very small and unreliable to grant personal defenses and cover enemy formations at the same time**, only successful in covering ground against enemies that refuse to move predictably (or don't at all) OR covering ally ground to provide support. PvE scourges using sand savant very much know they can't do both, but even then **the sand savant shade remains rather small if it's designed to cover one side of a battlefield better than three more versatile shades**.

 

**Increasing the classic shades from 180 to 240 and the savant from 300 to 360 would fix these issues**, making classic shades suddenly just as potent as staff marks in terms of area coverage, and making the sand savant shade as large as renegade spirits (which are situationally more potent anyway), both seeming to be **fitting returns for giving up their shroud**. PvE scourges would be able to **rely better on their placed shades for covering ground for defensive effects and area denial**, and PvP scourges would **sufficiently cover ground and not remain crippled by their loss of positional coverage**. The biggest counter arguments against buffing shades usually revolve around their damage compared to area coverage, which doesn't hold up given their changes and how shades have panned out over time. The only legitimate issues this change might create is either WvW concerns (which are well thought but also not as bad as one may think, seeing as the target caps won’t change if this should happen) or the comparison of sand savant to classic shades, no longer being of equal area coverage (based on circular area calculations, there is a notable increase in classic over savant where they would previously be near equal). To this I say sand savant could provide something additional, perhaps akin to stronger shade effects, seeing as the scourge can no longer maintain 100% long term shade uptime taking that trait (16 second cooldown on a 15 second lifetime savant shade). As such, I find such change sensible seeing as (should the change occur) lower area coverage, cleave power, and versatility should grant better focused effects (which don’t have to happen in WvW given the split balance, eh?). Back to the main issue though, scourges need larger shade effects to properly reap the results of their shade skills both offensively and defensively.

## 3. Dhuumfire needs adjustment of its nerfed effects when taking the scourge specialization in PvP.

Ever since the patch on February 25th, dhuumfire has been abhorrently weak on scourge: a quick recap on its history shows its change from 3s burning per shade attack with no internal cooldown (aka ICD) (which was awful and deserved the nerf), to a 3s internal cooldown in competitive modes, to **being shaved by 66% duration burning down to one second duration and having the internal cooldown increased to 5 seconds on February 25th, despite no other necromancer specialization seeing similar changes to the trait**. That's comparable to, say, looking at death perception and removing the ferocity bonus and reducing the critical chance bonus to 10% when taking the reaper specialization. **Dhuumfire either needs its internal cooldown removed and the 1 second burning kept, or needs the 3 second burning returned and either the internal cooldown returned to 3 seconds or kept at 5 seconds to be safe**. BOTH other specializations can output far more burning from the trait, both in single target and multi target cumulative terms as of right now. **I personally support returning its old form, 3 second burning per 3 seconds internal cooldown**, because it allows the trait to function like a condition should: a reactable duration that gives time for cleansing, instead of a spammable second-long condition that basically becomes bonus instant damage like power, just scaling from a different stat.

## TL:DR

**Return scourge’s desert/harbinger shroud cooldown back to 20 seconds in PvP, increase all shade (classic and savant) radius by 60, and buff scourge's dhuumfire variant in PvP to either return to an older state of the original burning duration with less (than the current five second) ICD or lose the ICD with its new one second burning duration**. _If you’re only reading this and any of these seem like a slap in the face, please read their rationales above before making judgements._

 

Knowing the state of Arenanet's laid back balance team position to manage the icebrood saga and an imminent expansion, I tried to simplify the changes needed for rounding scourge to concepts that wouldn't necessitate full on reworks and likely wouldn't affect the status quo in an adverse way. These three problems are probably the most important ones to be addressed when looking at scourge, largely PvP oriented where they remain barely substantial and certainly not optimal, but also pertain relevance to PvE to improve the utility of shades. I don’t want to water this down with a myriad of other tiny detail issues, so I’ll leave it there and implore you all to share your thoughts on it and expand if you wish to.

 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

I think you're mistaken somewhere. Most of these nerfs were done with sPvP in mind, not WvW. If anything I'm pretty sure that most other professions think that the scourge still have to much coverage and pressure on it's shades in sPvP. Realistically, bringing those things up would only result in a backlash in the sPvP subforum.

[FalsePromises.6398]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> I think you're mistaken somewhere. Most of these nerfs were done with sPvP in mind, not WvW. If anything I'm pretty sure that most other professions think that the scourge still have to much coverage and pressure on it's shades in sPvP. Realistically, bringing those things up would only result in a backlash in the sPvP subforum.

 

I appreciate your input, but I also respectfully disagree.

 

I know the point blank area removal was a WvW related issue: people in WvW were getting angry at scourges being untethered by shade placements and being able to cast freely with no drawbacks, and also essentially being walking natural disasters. There was no rational reason related to PvP to do that, especially and specifically without redress: scourges needed the mobile shade effects to maintain pressure against mobile targets. If there really was that big of an issue, they HORRIBLY overdid the nerfing on it, turning a highly debateably little too strong spec into nothing in one nerf alone. If shades aren't buffed for greater radius, scourge will forever remain incapable of proper area coverage in PvP unless they just up and revert the PBAoE rework that took away their ability to use shades for covering ground and their personal shade radius for defense, support, and chase.

 

The most important detail to consider in that respect is that shade skills nowadays cannot do high damage like they used to. When I tested on carrion amulet with as much stacked condition damage as possible, there was no way I was getting a dhuumfire, demonic lore traited shade pulse over 700 damage maximum (excluding terror), being a little generous on that number. The torment hits about 100 or so damage, burning ticks 400, can bump that burning up to 600 damage by stacking up on burning duration bonuses (smoldering sigil, balthazar rune) at the expense of some of the damage and durations of other conditions. Consider that alongside nefarious favor rework, aka the shade skill you used to be able to cast freely because it was so low cooldown, being given a bonus 140% cooldown? You're no longer using shade skills buckwild for offensive power like the scourge of the old days used to, and even if dhuumfire gets reverted it, I think it was already in a state that was legitimate: 3 second burning over 3 second ICD was perfectly rational, and nerfing that further was unfair when the other necromancer specializations retained the full 3 second burning on their far more rapid attacks.

 

Scourge's dhuumfire across five players (like a PvP match) from one shade pulse amounts to 5 applications of one second burning every 5 seconds, cumulative average 1 burning tick's damage per second. Reaper given free reign autoattack against ONE target can maintain six stacks of burning. That's not accounting cleave at all. Accounting cleave, it's 22 cumulative maintained stacks of burning (accounting 3 targets on the first two strikes of auto chain and 5 on the third). MAINTAINED stacks. Not burst. If we account for maximum target limit on scourge's dhuumfire procs which isn't possible in PvP anyway, we see 10 stacks of burning every 5 seconds bursted 1 second across ten targets, averaging to 2 stacks maintained against them all, assuming the scourge magically times all of their shade procs to make no downtime in their dhuumfire casting. Classic shades go up to 3 averaged stacks maintained, spread 1 stack for 1 second across 15 targets. if this was upgraded to merely return the 3 second duration, that goes up to 9 cumulative stacks maintained on classic and 6 cumulative average maintained on savant, return the ICD and it goes up to 15 and 10 cumulative stacks respectively, still assuming impossible amounts of targets being hit for PvP, and a strict limit at one stack maintained indefinitely in a perfect situation on one player. Do you get what I'm going at here?

 

Dhuumfire isn't something to worry about: it's extremely limited and I don't even think a scourge could get that perfect 100% uptime of 3 second burning reapplied every 3 seconds by casting another shade skill magically at the perfect frame (nor would or should they, if they know how important saving shade abilities for defensive purposes are). Nerfing dhuumfire on scourge was a kick in the ribs to offensive scourge styles and was unnecessary, especially considered in retrospect to the other specs capabilities with the trait. Dhuumfire was perfectly fine at 3 second burn per 3 seconds before scourge got hit with that PBAoE nerf that deleted them from PvP. When we look at the final idea, the shroud cooldown, that was nerfed way back in early 2018, March 27th to be exact. I think it's fair to say the meta's shifted enough not just between then and February 25th, but also accounting February 25th, to at the very least give that idea a look over.

 

When I find myself playing scourge on my builds, largely on my hybrid damage oriented build which I've been playing the most as of late, I find myself constantly pressed on the cooldown of that skill in all aspects. Maybe I'm dated, but I still try to play scourge like a necromancer from before February 25th: namely corrupt heavy and pressuring on the damage. I use harbinger shroud and spite/curses shroud entry traits for heavy corruption as well as a discount on the life force cost on the skill, but in using shroud like this I've come to the realization that shroud cooldown is one of the most integral parts of a non-bunker scourge's kit: my BM/DM wellomancer doesn't use shroud a lot because I use desert empowerment instead and the desert shroud is barely worth the life force for the barrier or the damage when it doesn't even deal as much base power damage as well of corruption.

 

Offensive scourges don't excel because shroud is such a long cooldown skill, and their normal shade attacks (as proven before) can't deal the damage that makes up for not having shroud like the shroud itself can. Bunker scourges made it for that little while probably because they weren't pressed to pressure enemies with the shroud, they merely stayed alive. When I'm playing to press an enemy, I find myself needing my shroud to cripple them (because they removed all the cripple from shade skills and warhorn offhand, something else to note when talking about scourge nowadays), to reverse pressure them, to corrupt and punish heavy booners, and more. Sometimes I find myself at odds against targets I SHOULD be beating or rather should be losing to me because they eat all my hits, yet I remain restrained by this constant dependency on shroud and its long cooldown reducing the frequency of my offense and allowing them undeserved reprieve they wouldn't have against other classes that have fully rounded offensive power, if that makes sense.

 

Sorry if this is wordy, but my goal is to get my point across as clear as possible. I feel like these are important and necessary changes, not based on a whim or random thought, but by continuous testing from my own time.

[Dadnir.5038]

As wordy as you can be it doesn't change the fact that what you propose is exactly the thing that led to so many nerfs again and again. The crusade against the scourge's shades' pressure and coverage led him to it's current state, bringing back pressure and coverage isn't going to end well.

 

To "fix" the scourge, ANet would have to reconcile the scourge's design with the core design in a balanced way. Simply put, the scourge is designed as a "walking plague" relying heavily on "out-of-shroud" skills while the core necromancer rely heavily on it's shroud stance and have a more limited access to AoE. You are right when you say that the scourge need to have more access to it's shroud, however, desert shroud is to strong of an area denial to be readily available. You are also right when you complain about dhummfire ICD but, the fact that the shade skills are all instant and proc _manifest sand shade_ already give to much condi damage pressure potential.

 

I just want you to know that your complaints are justified, however the change you propose are not proper.

 

Objectively, the scourge is in a dead end partly caused by it's design and partly caused by the core necromancer's developpement focus over the years. You just can't fix that with a few number tweaks, you'd need ANet to put more investment in the necromancer's balance than they ever did.

[FalsePromises.6398]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> As wordy as you can be it doesn't change the fact that what you propose is exactly the thing that led to so many nerfs again and again. The crusade against the scourge's shades' pressure and coverage led him to it's current state, bringing back pressure and coverage isn't going to end well.

>

> To "fix" the scourge, ANet would have to reconcile the scourge's design with the core design in a balanced way. Simply put, the scourge is designed as a "walking plague" relying heavily on "out-of-shroud" skills while the core necromancer rely heavily on it's shroud stance and have a more limited access to AoE. You are right when you say that the scourge need to have more access to it's shroud, however, desert shroud is to strong of an area denial to be readily available. You are also right when you complain about dhummfire ICD but, the fact that the shade skills are all instant and proc _manifest sand shade_ already give to much condi damage pressure potential.

>

> I just want you to know that your complaints are justified, however the change you propose are not proper.

>

> Objectively, the scourge is in a dead end partly caused by it's design and partly caused by the core necromancer's developpement focus over the years. You just can't fix that with a few number tweaks, you'd need ANet to put more investment in the necromancer's balance than they ever did.

 

That's a respectable take on it. I've always known, and won't hesitate from saying it again, that scourge was designed from the start to be broken beyond belief and get nerfed into oblivion by its innate qualities (which leaves me bitter because some specializations were created similarly but haven't gotten their due). Niche support abilities, spare might, extra corrupts, focused on two of the most oppressive conditions in the game (burn/torment), and specialized all around lingering area denial. I completely agree with you when you say that the spec needs an overhaul, my goal is largely just to propose some changes that wouldn't need an overhaul, seeing as ArenaNet mentioned they were trying to sit back on PvP balance for the time being after the huge rework and few following adjustments to focus on other content. I personally think with the damage rollbacks, the area denial wouldn't be as problematic damage-wise, but that's simply me. If you feel these changes would simply reopen old wounds, I'll accept your judgement on it, but I also am eager to hear what others think of it.

[KrHome.1920]

The shades should not cover a whole capture point. Not a single skill in the game should.

 

The inherent design fail of scourge is that it can not be balanced to fit smallscale and large scale fights with its shade mechanic. It was obvious to everyone except ANet right from the PoF beta and the ridiculous amount of splittings scourge has seen in the different game modes since its release just show that trying to balance this spec is an impossible task.

 

A rework should have happened right in 2017. All the effort ANet has put into trying to balance scourge would have been better invested in a rework right from the start.

[LucianDK.8615]

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> The shades should not cover a whole capture point. Not a single skill in the game should.

>

> The inherent design fail of scourge is that it can not be balanced to fit smallscale and large scale fights with its shade mechanic. It was obvious to everyone except ANet right from the PoF beta and the ridiculous amount of splittings scourge has seen in the different game modes since its release just show that trying to balance this spec is an impossible task.

>

> A rework should have happened right in 2017. All the effort ANet has put into trying to balance scourge would have been better invested in a rework right from the start.

 

The better solution would be giving them the renegade treatment. Make the shades killable. Now there you have counterplay.

[Xervite.5493]

> @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > @"KrHome.1920" said:

> > The shades should not cover a whole capture point. Not a single skill in the game should.

> >

> > The inherent design fail of scourge is that it can not be balanced to fit smallscale and large scale fights with its shade mechanic. It was obvious to everyone except ANet right from the PoF beta and the ridiculous amount of splittings scourge has seen in the different game modes since its release just show that trying to balance this spec is an impossible task.

> >

> > A rework should have happened right in 2017. All the effort ANet has put into trying to balance scourge would have been better invested in a rework right from the start.

>

> The better solution would be giving them the renegade treatment. Make the shades killable. Now there you have counterplay.

 

Unlike renegade summons shades skills dont pulse effects, they only do something when you press something. And not to mention renegade summons can be traited for both offence and defence (Offence is built in) but shades have separated traits for both the playstyles and ofc the area shades cover does not compare to renegade so yeah too many factors to count in.