If you're dead set on reintroducing the shade mechanic the way it use to be

[RisenHowl.2419]

At the very least, remove the damage from the player based shade. Leave the other effects (f2, f3, and f4), that way people can have their on demand cleanse/barrier/fear. But get rid of the player based f5 damage, that effect should only occur at placed shade locations. Same for the damage from manifest sand shade.

 

With player based shades you can't push into a stack of 20 scourges, so it forces the large scale meta towards a pirate ship. 2 years of pirate shipping is why this game mode has dwindled in population. Removing that mechanic has been the healthiest change WvW has seen since path of fire dropped.

 

Some numbers: right now manifest sand shade hits for ~1k and it triggers on each of f2, f3, and f4. f5 deals 2k per pulse and pulses 7 times. Lets look at just the initial damage first: 1k x3 + 2k= 5k on the initial hit. Lets go with 5 targets each, half of the potential damage which anyone should be able to do after spending a couple hours playing scourge. With 20 scourges, that's 500k on impact with small damage packets that reduce the effectiveness of aegis.

 

If you were to push into that group of scourges, that number doubles to 1m. 500k against anyone in melee range, 500k against anyone in the back/midline. This is followed by 6 pulses of f5, for an additional 200k damage every second at each location (red carpet of death). The tighter your group stacks, the more effective this is. With player based shades, this is why you can't melee any large groups until you've wiped out most of their scourges.

 

Pirate ship meta has 1.5-2 scourges per party, so a full squad should actually have 30 on the low end.

[DemonSeed.3528]

I think if they are dead set on reintroducing something they've removed, maybe they should start doing it with stuff they've removed on other classes too, because if they can allow it for this, then surely they can flip back and undo it all. Maybe they should undo tradeoffs too. And that big ole' balance reset patch. Oh my.

[RisenHowl.2419]

> @"DemonSeed.3528" said:

> I think if they are dead set on reintroducing something they've removed, maybe they should start doing it with stuff they've removed on other classes too, because if they can allow it for this, then surely they can flip back and undo it all. Maybe they should undo tradeoffs too. And that big ole' balance reset patch. Oh my.

 

That would solve the lag problem for sure

[DemonSeed.3528]

Hehe, it's not like they can add more lag to the current lag situation lol. I am a little iffy on their decision with undoing the shade changes, but only mostly because they take too long on addressing issues when they become one. I guess we gotta see how it pans out.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

As I've said on multiple threads, the shade revert should absolutely happen, as it unfairly hamstrung Scourges in PvE (maybe PvP as well?) to solve an issue isolated within WvW. But that doesn't mean we should go right back to November 2019. @"RisenHowl.2419" 's idea makes perfect sense to me. I myself suggested they play with the co-efficients so that the damage surrounding the player is dramatically lower than their shade; not sure if they have the coding to separate that, but if they could remove the damage completely as Risen suggests, I think that's fine too, but only so long as it doesn't bleed into the other game modes.

 

Stats can be separate between modes (damage, cooldown, duration, etc) while mechanics cannot, which is why the change they made back in December was a terrible idea as it hurt Scourges outside of WvW, and while in WvW they did remove the whole "run at you to DPS" garbage, it didn't reduce Scourge population in zergs one bit, nor their prominence in the game mode for that role.

 

Good that they decided to scrap it - now think up a new fix.

[Acyk.9671]

> @"RisenHowl.2419" said:

> At the very least, remove the damage from the player based shade. Leave the other effects (f2, f3, and f4), that way people can have their on demand cleanse/barrier/fear. But get rid of the player based f5 damage, that effect should only occur at placed shade locations. Same for the damage from manifest sand shade.

>

> With player based shades you can't push into a stack of 20 scourges, so it forces the large scale meta towards a pirate ship. 2 years of pirate shipping is why this game mode has dwindled in population. Removing that mechanic has been the healthiest change WvW has seen since path of fire dropped.

>

> Some numbers: right now manifest sand shade hits for ~1k and it triggers on each of f2, f3, and f4. f5 deals 2k per pulse and pulses 7 times. Lets look at just the initial damage first: 1k x3 + 2k= 5k on the initial hit. Lets go with 5 targets each, half of the potential damage which anyone should be able to do after spending a couple hours playing scourge. With 20 scourges, that's 500k on impact with small damage packets that reduce the effectiveness of aegis.

>

> If you were to push into that group of scourges, that number doubles to 1m. 500k against anyone in melee range, 500k against anyone in the back/midline. This is followed by 6 pulses of f5, for an additional 200k damage every second. The tighter your group stacks, the more effective this is. With player based shades, this is why you can't melee any large groups until you've wiped out most of their scourges.

>

> Pirate ship meta has 1.5-2 scourges per party, so a full squad should actually have 30 on the low end.

 

Why add another layer of complexity when you could just fix this by balancing already existing skills and traits?

- Reduce ferocity on Death Perception from 300 to 150 as it was 2 years ago. It was a mistake to increase burst damage to 20% on shroud as it allows scourge/reaper to melt people in both competitive game modes.

- Desert shroud's power coeff should be sightly reduced to push toward a more hybrid gameplay

- Manifest sand shade should be 240 radius at all time imo regardless of grand master traits.

- Rework Sand savant to improve support but not radius nor target cap. Or make it that increasing target cap affects 5 allies but still 3 enemies. There are numerous ways to improve this trait without making it a pain in the ass for melee gameplay...

[RisenHowl.2419]

> @"Acyk.9671" said:

> > @"RisenHowl.2419" said:

> > At the very least, remove the damage from the player based shade. Leave the other effects (f2, f3, and f4), that way people can have their on demand cleanse/barrier/fear. But get rid of the player based f5 damage, that effect should only occur at placed shade locations. Same for the damage from manifest sand shade.

> >

> > With player based shades you can't push into a stack of 20 scourges, so it forces the large scale meta towards a pirate ship. 2 years of pirate shipping is why this game mode has dwindled in population. Removing that mechanic has been the healthiest change WvW has seen since path of fire dropped.

> >

> > Some numbers: right now manifest sand shade hits for ~1k and it triggers on each of f2, f3, and f4. f5 deals 2k per pulse and pulses 7 times. Lets look at just the initial damage first: 1k x3 + 2k= 5k on the initial hit. Lets go with 5 targets each, half of the potential damage which anyone should be able to do after spending a couple hours playing scourge. With 20 scourges, that's 500k on impact with small damage packets that reduce the effectiveness of aegis.

> >

> > If you were to push into that group of scourges, that number doubles to 1m. 500k against anyone in melee range, 500k against anyone in the back/midline. This is followed by 6 pulses of f5, for an additional 200k damage every second. The tighter your group stacks, the more effective this is. With player based shades, this is why you can't melee any large groups until you've wiped out most of their scourges.

> >

> > Pirate ship meta has 1.5-2 scourges per party, so a full squad should actually have 30 on the low end.

>

> Why add another layer of complexity when you could just fix this by balancing already existing skills and traits?

> - Reduce ferocity on Death Perception from 300 to 150 as it was 2 years ago. It was a mistake to increase burst damage to 20% on shroud as it allows scourge/reaper to melt people in both competitive game modes.

> - Desert shroud's power coeff should be sightly reduced to push toward a more hybrid gameplay

> - Manifest sand shade should be 240 radius at all time imo regardless of grand master traits.

> - Rework Sand savant to improve support but not radius nor target cap. Or make it that increasing target cap affects 5 allies but still 3 enemies. There are numerous ways to improve this trait without making it a pain in the kitten for melee gameplay...

 

The issue isn't the modifiers available, it's the mechanic itself. Because large groups stack the mechanic completely invalidates melee classes as an option, which reduces build diversity and forces a pirate ship meta. Dropping power damage by 20% wouldn't change anything.

[XenesisII.1540]

Remove minis from wvw in compensation for this change!

[Linnar.6032]

In what world does manifest sand shade hit for 1k on average with its 0.1 power coefficient lmao

[Thornwolf.9721]

> @"DemonSeed.3528" said:

> I think if they are dead set on reintroducing something they've removed, maybe they should start doing it with stuff they've removed on other classes too, because if they can allow it for this, then surely they can flip back and undo it all. Maybe they should undo tradeoffs too. And that big ole' balance reset patch. Oh my.

 

I agree, revert shiro to HoT launch as well as most of revenant back to how it was intended to function and rework Renegade to be more in line with that. Give me back all the cool stuff you've pulled off and OH give warrior back the stuff you've taken that made them "op" as well EVERY OTHER CLASS. I don't think its fair that Scourges get this bs while all the other cool stuff from other classes remain abandoned.

 

If you bring rev back to where Roy intended it with the fixes that have been made Im sure the class would be WAAAAY more fun to play.