Scourge Specialization Updates for the Path of Fire Launch

[Traveller.7496]

Good job killing the hype on Scourge a day before expansion release. I guess it's business as usual for necro players.

[SunTzu.4513]

 

> > @Hana.8143 said:

> > Come on guys, Scourge is definitly a strong class, they didn't kill it, they nerfed it so it's not killing Wvw, you're still a big mass of barrier kitten, everyone will wish to have scourge in their group. It's still doing a great job in applying lots of conditions/ cleansing conditions / applying barrier. In raid, you'll still be needed.

>

> You have absolutely no clue, do you? No one wants, no, no one NEEDS barriers in raids because there is enough healing. No one wants, or needs, might because Warriors easily provide that, while laso having good dps. Scourge DPS from what I've seen cannot hold a candle to eg. Firebrand dps, or Staff Ele, or what have you. There is absolutely no reason anyone would want a scourge except maybe for those 2 condition heavy raids, but even Scourge's usefullness there has been nerfed since one Scourge cannot provide for the whole raid anymore. At least not without kneecapping the damage output. So... no. The change is horrible, and should be WvW only and functioning like it did before in PvP (where it doesn't matter) and PvE (where it really, really helps in raids). A

 

Thanks for your explaining in this posting. Was reading the whole thread but didn't get the real problem within these changes bring to the espec. If i get it rigth now scourge is in no competetive state for pve endgame in terms of T4 fractals and raids compared to other classes?

[Nyel.1843]

> @Shiki.7148 said:

> You have absolutely no clue, do you? No one wants, no, no one NEEDS barriers in raids because there is enough healing.

Pretty sure this is right for actual content but not for content that's to come.

[Shiki.7148]

> @SunTzu.4513 said:

>

> > > @Hana.8143 said:

> > > Come on guys, Scourge is definitly a strong class, they didn't kill it, they nerfed it so it's not killing Wvw, you're still a big mass of barrier kitten, everyone will wish to have scourge in their group. It's still doing a great job in applying lots of conditions/ cleansing conditions / applying barrier. In raid, you'll still be needed.

> >

> > You have absolutely no clue, do you? No one wants, no, no one NEEDS barriers in raids because there is enough healing. No one wants, or needs, might because Warriors easily provide that, while laso having good dps. Scourge DPS from what I've seen cannot hold a candle to eg. Firebrand dps, or Staff Ele, or what have you. There is absolutely no reason anyone would want a scourge except maybe for those 2 condition heavy raids, but even Scourge's usefullness there has been nerfed since one Scourge cannot provide for the whole raid anymore. At least not without kneecapping the damage output. So... no. The change is horrible, and should be WvW only and functioning like it did before in PvP (where it doesn't matter) and PvE (where it really, really helps in raids). A

>

> Thanks for your explaining in this posting. Was reading the whole thread but didn't get the real problem within these changes bring to the espec. If i get it rigth now scourge is in no competetive state for pve endgame in terms of T4 fractals and raids compared to other classes?

 

Compared to the old set-ups, and some of the new specs, yes. Warriors pump out more than enough might, so scourge will not be needed for that. Barriers decay rapidly, were even nerfed in their potency now, and are easily replaced with the healing already used in raids. There are 2 raids with condi spam, so the "convert condi to boon" ability of the Scourge is good there, but with this change you have to take the bigger shade grandmaster, which means you lose burning on applying torment, and a good chunk of dps. So, again, people would rather run with something different. As for playing full dps with the benefit of having some support... I really do not think Scourge has enough DPS to pull it off, especially without providing a unique damage increasing buff. Hell, DEADEYE, a sniper which is supposed to be selfish as all hell, has better boon output that Scourge. While also having way more dps. And as for boon corruption...just not enough boons on the raidbosses, aswell as punishment utility skills not having any base condition application makes them undesirable to take in the first place. So... I really do not know why anyone would take scourge now. Before, one could've argued that, due to the Scourge being able to provide the whole raid with cleanses and barriers, aswell as putting out better damage than a full heal Rev or something, would'Ve been enough to at least get rid of the "no necro/no reaper" stuff in raid pugs but like this.... No. I just see no way.

 

Not to mention that the increase of LF cost, the reduction of the shade uptime and so on take another bite out of the already just barely competitive dps, and make the LF economy worse than it already was.

[Lahmia.2193]

5 to 3 targets was inevitable. At this point though, condi (bleed) on mh dagger is a must.

[Brujeria.7536]

> @Nyel.1843 said:

> > @Shiki.7148 said:

> > You have absolutely no clue, do you? No one wants, no, no one NEEDS barriers in raids because there is enough healing.

> Pretty sure this is right for actual content but not for content that's to come.

 

Yeah but actual content is still all the content we got. Even if they bring 1 or 2 bosses where barrier is mandatory that still means scourge is useless in the 90% of encounters where barrier is not neccessary.

 

Barrier is actually just a weaker heal mechanic and scourge brings nothing meaningful beside that. No group damage buffs. No group barrier. No stat buffs. Nothing of all the really important things. All we get is a (now nerfed) barrier on reduced target cap.

 

If scourge should be raid viable it means it should be as supportive as a druid can be, with the SAME amount of damage buffs and tools as a base ranger offers on top (if you spec for it of course) OR it needs to give equal might application and uptime as a warrior, alongside that immensly high dps and also 3 sources of unique dps buffs for 10 people. But hey, warrior stuff can effect 10 people baseline. Our mechanic effects 3 now, we need a grandmaster to affect 5.

[Vitali.5039]

> * Sand Savant: Reduced the increased number of targets on Manifest Sand Shade from 5 to 2. (So it now increases it to 5)

 

>> @https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scourge 's Trivia

>>Scourge was created to give necromancers more support to their allies. Scourges trade off their personal defenses for group support to avoid power creep.

>>Typically Necromancers have been individuals that move around and deal significant amount of condition. Scourge allow necromancers to become **battlefield commanders to control different areas of the battlefield and not just near where they are but also at places where they put up Sand Sh4des.**

>>Scourge utility skills used to be sacrifice skills that consumed life force but the developers felt it wasn't cohesive thematically since life force was typically consumed mostly by shroud skills. They were replaced by punishment skills that corrupt enemy boons into specific conditions (Torment and Cripple).

 

So much field control..

[Maunzi.3764]

> @Nyel.1843 said:

> > @Shiki.7148 said:

> > You have absolutely no clue, do you? No one wants, no, no one NEEDS barriers in raids because there is enough healing.

> Pretty sure this is right for actual content but not for content that's to come.

 

Arenanet will not design content that absolutely requires one specific class. So barrier won't ever be required.

 

All other support scourge brings is already outclasses by existing specs, especially CPS warrior and druid, both of which boost the damage of the entire subgroup. Scourge has no such buff.

[MashMash.1645]

> @Nyel.1843 said:

> > @Shiki.7148 said:

> > You have absolutely no clue, do you? No one wants, no, no one NEEDS barriers in raids because there is enough healing.

> Pretty sure this is right for actual content but not for content that's to come.

 

I've seen this idea floating around - that they will make content that plays into these new specs. Some sort of content that makes them, well, mandatory is not the right word, but clearly better than other choices. Because based on current content, yeah, this is bad news.

[Nyel.1843]

Not really talking about Barrier being mandatory but making a fight easier and therefore making it a desired mechanic.

[Ghostt.1293]

lol 5 year streak of screwing over farewell my Dark lord but im going thief from here on....

[tazzannl.5016]

Meh, i'm ok with the nurf's so far...they were over powered in the beta tests, they seem to be balanced quite well now, i would have like to raid with my necro once more but....i can deal with that, i have alt Professions so :) all we can do is hope things get so what better for this profession.

[Nijjion.2069]

Barrier decay needs to happen at least 5 seconds (even make it independent of each barrier skill like Might).... 2 seconds makes it useless. If they increase the decay it would make Barrier viable as support.... currently I see it not being viable at all.

 

Though I guess time will tell, however I'm looking for my new main after 5 years of being necro. Looking at Engie but they are a bit shafted at times as well.

 

Edit - closing thoughts maybe the 5-3 targets was inevitable for balance wise. How long the kittens last and the cost of F skills wasn't justified imo.

[Dadnir.5038]

I think at this point there are a few misunderstanding running around...

 

With greater shade, you'll still provide support to a whole raid (in PvE): 5 character taken care by you and 5 by your shade.

Nobody say that the change aren't a good move for WvW. Those change mainly hurt PvE.

Scourge benefit from tools that are usefull in WvW/PvP (boon corruption and condition cleanse) but are not really usefull in most of the PvE content.

The barrier mechanism never had the potential to replace a healer.

The offensive means of the scourge are very effective against player because their survivability and offense rely heavily on boons. In PvE content mobs do not rely on boons, they rely on their base stat and base health, that why scourge was already at a disadvantage in this gamemode.

 

These change will probably make the scourge an healthier specialization in both PvP and WvW. These changes will barely affect the PvE support, however they will hit hard the PvE DPS because, while before these change were annouced, no vitality gear were still a decent option to chose, now it will be almost mandatory to thread this road. In a way, it make _vital persistence_ even more needed than it was before.

[Kanto.1659]

> @Umbramare.9156 said:

> > @Kanto.1659 said:

>

> > Same here. Again. Why were the skills not split for WvW and PvE?

>

> Because the average WvW player will cry and cry and cry and cry until they get their nerfs. (see Hana.8143 thinking necro getting butchered is fine or remember epi)

>

> While the average necro will shrug it off with "not that bad", "i will just make my own group with 5 necros" and keeps playing.

>

> I mean, it's quite obvious what anet will do, right? If one cries and the other shrugs it off, why would you bother with splitting it?

>

 

I'm reminded baaaaaaack then, I'm not sure if it was Cataclysm or what, but before WoW implemented the PvP templates splitting a class between PvE and PvP. We'd -froth- at the mouth for getting nerfs in PvE due to PvP. Raiders were whaaaaaat theeeeeeee kitteeeeeeeeeeeeeen! But what do? PvP needed a tweak and there was no split. A skill that does 50k once in one minute is negligable in PvE but completely OP in PvP.

 

Fortunately they changed to PvP templates and regularly do minor tweaks THAT DO NOT IMPACT THE OTHER SIDE! A 5% in PvE does -not- give a 5% in PvP! And vice versa! PvE balance has no bearing with PvP balance!

[Shiki.7148]

> @Dadnir.5038 said:

> I think at this point there are a few misunderstanding running around...

>

> With greater shade, you'll still provide support to a whole raid (in PvE): 5 character taken care by you and 5 by your shade.

> Nobody say that the change aren't a good move for WvW. Those change mainly hurt PvE.

> Scourge benefit from tools that are usefull in WvW/PvP (boon corruption and condition cleanse) but are not really usefull in most of the PvE content.

> The barrier mechanism never had the potential to replace a healer.

> The offensive means of the scourge are very effective against player because their survivability and offense rely heavily on boons. In PvE content mobs do not rely on boons, they rely on their base stat and base health, that why scourge was already at a disadvantage in this gamemode.

>

> These change will probably make the scourge an healthier specialization in both PvP and WvW. These changes will barely affect the PvE support, however they will hit hard the PvE DPS because, while before these change were annouced, no vitality gear were still a decent option to chose, now it will be almost mandatory to thread this road. In a way, it make _vital persistence_ even more needed than it was before.

 

Never said you could not support the whole raid with Savant. But you need to use Savant, which is an effing Grandmaster trait, and makes our dps plummet due to losing demonic lore. At which point we lose the only advantage we might have had over other "pure support" specs, dealing more damage.

 

> @Lahmia.2193 said:

> 5 to 3 targets was inevitable. At this point though, condi (bleed) on mh dagger is a must.

 

Inevitable in WvW? Sure. Inevitably screwing over PvE? No, not really, as they could've easily split the skill, like they did for PvP with Deathly Chill and Chilling Nova. And due to the build template mod, I know it is possible for them to easily detect if the player is in WvW or not.

 

And , let's say, if they just did not have the time to implement that, getting a statement "We did not have the time to programm a split between WvW and PvE before launch, so we bandaided it and will fix this at a later time" or something similar would be appreciated. Or actually reading the feedback in a feedback thread, andreplying. Hell, there are people that would play moderators for specific forums FOR FREE and do stuff like read through these threads and compile a list of the feedback given, so the ones responsible for Necro wouldn't have to comb through each thread.

 

However, making an OFFICIAL thread about changes/nerfs, and then not reading the feedback anyways... Hell, I have never seen worse (or rather, more selective) forum mods/support than here.

[Lily.1935]

Barrier had an argument for it if you could apply it to 10 party members. I'll be doing some testing to see if that's still possible. I want to see if Sand Savant will check 5 different targets around me if the first five are already being given barrier. If they both check the same 5 targets than, No. In practice Scourge will not be able to hit 10 people. But I'm going to do that test and get back to everyone. I'm also going to check to see if the 5 target will check on attack too. So stay tuned.

[Maunzi.3764]

You should be able to hit 10 with sand savant, this functionality shouldn't change.

 

The problem is only that this cuts the DPS hard. :(

[Nyel.1843]

> @Nijjion.2069 said:

> Barrier decay needs to happen at least 5 seconds (even make it independent of each barrier skill like Might).... 2 seconds makes it useless. If they increase the decay it would make Barrier viable as support.... currently I see it not being viable at all.

 

I'm 100% sure that this is going to happen within 4 weeks of PoF on live servers.

[Brujeria.7536]

> @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

> Greetings Necromancers,

>

 

> * Manifest Sand Shade: Reduced duration of shade from 25s to 20s. Reduced target cap from 5 to 3.

 

The duration nerf of this is what really makes no sense. The nerf is aimed at WvW, i get that. But for WvW it doenst matter if a shade sits there 20 seconds or 30 seconds, people wont be in a spot for that long anyway. All this does is reducing the potency of the minor traits across all game modes, which is especially crucial for PvE for the condi duration uptime [lack of damage], and for PvP its the reduced damage [sitting duck, easy to burst]. Now if you must nerf the duration, please also reduce the cooldown. The target cap, i get the nerf but it adds a lot of RNG to the skill. If im in a group and i want to protect them from burst or clean conditions from a specific target in front i cant reliably do that, 3 out of 5 targets is always random, both for damage, fear, and barrier. Base shades make no sense in most cases if i have to stand on top of it, or to stack 2 of them to affect an entire group. Thats also against your intention to spread them out more to cover more ground. If you must do this, please only do this for the offensive parts.

 

> * Nefarious Favor: Increased cost from 15% to 21% base vitality in life force.

> * Garish Pillar: Reduced cost from 50% to 40% of base vitality in life force.

> * Desert Shroud: Increased cost from 40% to 50% of base vitality in life force.

 

I don't know why you switch Garish Pillar and Desert Shroud around. Desert shroud is for personal defense and damage, none of this really affects WvW zerging that much as it does for PvP (defense) and PvE (Damage). Nefarious Favor was the only really spamable skill to get the effects of dhuumfire and the default shade attack, by increasing this cost you not only nerf it in WvW, but in PvE as well. Skill splitting here would only affect the %numbers, no mechanical changes, nothing people need to overly keep in mind

 

> * Harrowing Wave: Now grants 3% life force per enemy struck.

this was much asked for but kinda looses any benefit in terms of the above nerf.

 

> * Serpent Siphon: Poison from 1 stack for 3s to 2 stacks for 5s.

 

good for hybrid skills, but still too weak for condi builds. For the support side this skill is contraproductive, most of the time there is one target (in raids, fractals, sometimes pvp) so there is just barrier for one person at most and a mediocre poison. Neither Condi, nor support will want to pick this as its unpredictable.

 

> * Sand Swell: Increased duration of portal from 6 to 8 seconds. Increased number of allies that can use it from 10 to 20.

 

Solid Buff.

 

> * Trail of Anguish: Now grants stability in addition to swiftness.

 

Okay.

 

> * Desert Empowerment: Reduced base barrier value and healing scaling granted from this trait by 27%.

 

Why? I'm okay with reducing the base value of its too potent, but the scaling as well? This trait is very crucial to any kind of support build. By nerfing it, alongside the above target cap changes you make this shield much more unpredictable and weaker. This is a dedicated support trait as well, here is the place to add a increase damage buff to allies on applying barrier.

 

> * Sand Savant: Reduced the increased number of targets on Manifest Sand Shade from 5 to 2. (So it now increases it to 5)

 

If you must keep the base target cap of 3 people this feels very underwhelming. This is the intended "support" trait i suppose, please let the shades share the minor traits with allies if it is picked. So we can buff them with the full uptime.

 

So please, in order to make necro viable in raids, buff these support traits. Let these Sand Savant share this damage reduction, condi duration and boon duration with allies. It wont affect WvW much as people wont stay much in one place. It would help PvE a lot and PvP a lot. Also please consider adding a damage buff to allies affected by your barriers, as mentioned above. Both of these traits would force to decide: more personal dps trough the middle line traits, or more group support trough the top line traits.

 

 

[Sublimatio.6981]

I never wanted barrier. Why would you add barrier in a game where you can share distortion and then give it to the weakest class? One without any active damage mitigation except facetanking?

 

Barrier by its very nature is inferior to other mitigations and the protective potential of it has the same issue as shroud (gets weaker with more foes/hits) and another point is that a single aegis can save you from 1shot attack while barrier wont. Yet we sacrifice entire shroud for this terrible mechanic and thats why I believe the scourge elite specialisation is straight up nerf to the core class.

[Ok I Did It.2854]

Im sure all the necro haters will be loving this topic, we got nerfed the day before launch that's just so dam poor its not even funny, its to the point where they should just delete the necro completely and tell us to move on, this continuous nerfs to this class are crazy, we get it Anet you don't play Necro, you don't know what to do with it, but seriously have we not been kicked enough?

 

Meanwhile over on the perma stealth class, lets give them more damage because they didn't have enough before.

[Evil.1580]

I am sorry you got nerfed guys

[Umbramare.9156]

> @Hana.8143 said:

> Come on guys, Scourge is definitly a strong class, they didn't kill it, they nerfed it so it's not killing Wvw, you're still a big mass of barrier kitten, everyone will wish to have scourge in their group. It's still doing a great job in applying lots of conditions/ cleansing conditions / applying barrier. In raid, you'll still be needed.

 

Haha did you even ever raid?

[Ara.4569]

Barrier fits necro like a glove: the weakest form of support for the weakest profession.

I also like the risk/reward of barrier: wrong timing and those 2k barrier for 40% LF are lost. <3

I also commend your courage to nerf something weak. It takes balls.

 

Overall, Scourge increases the skill ceiling, and that's always good.

Looking forward to go from abysmally awful to terribly bad after lots of training and dedication!

Let's beat Yun with Dan to put your opponent to shame!