Scourge Specialization Updates for the Path of Fire Launch

[Lexan.5930]

> @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

> Greetings Necromancers,

>

> As the sands of the Crystal Desert beckon several things have changed since the previews of the Scourge elite specialization.

>

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

> * 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

>

> The cost of some profession abilities has been changed to better pair with their level of impact and some of the punishment skills received minor buffs to their non-corruption abilities.

>

> Of major note Manifest Sand Shade (F1 by default) has had its target cap reduced to 3 per shade and is increased by the trait Sand Savant to 5 while wielding a greater shade. There are several reasons for this change, including:

>

> • Potential 20 target caps in WvW blew things out. Compare this to 5 target caps on the vast majority of abilities with the rare 10 cap abilities.

> • Sand Savant smooths out multi-party teams and offers greater control with an effective 10 target cap (at you and your shade).

> • There is an effective 12 target cap if you and your three kitten are all active, but it is deliberately not sustainable so you can have a period of increased power at the cost of lessened effectiveness later on.

>

> We expect this change will reward more skilled use of kitten while remaining effective area control in the vastness of Elona and beyond.

>

> Hone your magics and command the sands!

 

first of all, thank you for putting shroud gain on torch and for adjusting the numbers on pushisments, they feel like better skills now all around. While i understand the nerf to greater shade for wvw, it hampers out ability as a support role as many other classes (warrior specificly) get a passive 10 targets to banners. If our main gola is support for scourge, especially in raids, then the target nerf hurts us a lot.

 

The best way for the greater sand shade target cap nerf to work is that if we take greater sand shade then we NEED!!!! our shroud skills to also match the radius of the greater shade. Otherwise yes we have a "possible" 10 target cap but with people moving around so much in fights, it will probably be 7 or 8 targets hit.

 

please please please also put shroud skill radius increase in the grandmaster or make the skill have a larger radius passive, like you did with marks so long ago.

[Lexan.5930]

> @Exedore.6320 said:

> Was [Demonic Lore](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Demonic_Lore) fixed? During demo, if an ability applied multiple torment stacks at once, this trait would apply multiple burning stacks. Scepter #3 would destroy things.

 

yea this should be a thing, if you put 7 stacks on with scepter 3, there should be 7 stacks of burning.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Shroud Skill radius is already in the Shade Savant grandmaster.

[Wintermute.5408]

> @Shiki.7148 said:

> > @Wintermute.5408 said:

> > Why are PVE necros complaining?

> >

> > Nobody would give a kitten for the Scourge "support" in PVE, so that nerf doesn't concern us. If you want to torture yourself, grab big shade and easily cover 10 people. Done.

> > And we got a buff to LF generation. Everything counts.

> >

> > Now, if core changes just happen to be some extra LF for scepter, it all would be extra sweet there.

>

> Because Scourge MIGHT have had a space for pug raids if we could take demonic lore and still cover the raid, because then we might have been the one "full support" that actually did good damage. I have absolutely no problem with Scourge not being taken for ultraspeed clears. I have a problem with any form of Necromancer spec being immediatly excluded from PUG RAIDS. "No Necromancer/Reaper" , "Meta only" etc. all that bull. As long as those go, or Scourge is "meta enough", that would be perfectly fine for me. But where before the chance was already slim, now it looks to be another 2+ years of never finding a single raid group.

 

Scourge could have only been succesful as DPS spec. If it's good at that remains to be seen, that's not the point. Point is, Scourge was not viable for PVE support since the announcement day, and it was frankly stupid to expect anything else.

 

Do notice a trend in support roles in raids. Chrono provides quickness and alacrity to the entire group, increasing damage. Druid provides spotter buff and frost spirit to the entire group, increasing damage. Healing is NOT the reason Druid is meta - otherwise there would have been rev and ele healing roles, which is not the case. Both builds deal absolute ass for personal damage, mind you. Finally, there's PS warrior, which is there to generate might and chew bubblegum. This one has good DPS despite group-wide buffing, hence its "meta" status.

 

So, as you can see, raiding support is not about healing. It's about group-wide damage buffs first and foremost. Which core necro has exactly 0, and so does Scourge. Might gen spot is already taken by much better build. GG no re.

[Shadowresli.3782]

> @Zefiris.8297 said:

> > @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > with people you know it won't matter that much, and it can be done and if you're after records, speedclearing and stuff it won't change much, necro wasn't part of it until now anyways.

>

> Thanks for admitting the problem everyone else is complaining about. You may be happy with not being part of something, but the rest of us don't have to be.

 

the problem seems to be, that every necro player has no guild or friends that let him play what he likes. or are all wanabe elitists

[Shiki.7148]

> @Wintermute.5408 said:

> > @Shiki.7148 said:

> > > @Wintermute.5408 said:

> > > Why are PVE necros complaining?

> > >

> > > Nobody would give a kitten for the Scourge "support" in PVE, so that nerf doesn't concern us. If you want to torture yourself, grab big shade and easily cover 10 people. Done.

> > > And we got a buff to LF generation. Everything counts.

> > >

> > > Now, if core changes just happen to be some extra LF for scepter, it all would be extra sweet there.

> >

> > Because Scourge MIGHT have had a space for pug raids if we could take demonic lore and still cover the raid, because then we might have been the one "full support" that actually did good damage. I have absolutely no problem with Scourge not being taken for ultraspeed clears. I have a problem with any form of Necromancer spec being immediatly excluded from PUG RAIDS. "No Necromancer/Reaper" , "Meta only" etc. all that bull. As long as those go, or Scourge is "meta enough", that would be perfectly fine for me. But where before the chance was already slim, now it looks to be another 2+ years of never finding a single raid group.

>

> Scourge could have only been succesful as DPS spec. If it's good at that remains to be seen, that's not the point. Point is, Scourge was not viable for PVE support since the announcement day, and it was frankly stupid to expect anything else.

>

> Do notice a trend in support roles in raids. Chrono provides quickness and alacrity to the entire group, increasing damage. Druid provides spotter buff and frost spirit to the entire group, increasing damage. Healing is NOT the reason Druid is meta - otherwise there would have been rev and ele healing roles, which is not the case. Both builds deal absolute kitten for personal damage, mind you. Finally, there's PS warrior, which is there to generate might and chew bubblegum. This one has good DPS despite group-wide buffing, hence its "meta" status.

>

> So, as you can see, raiding support is not about healing. It's about group-wide damage buffs first and foremost. Which core necro has exactly 0, and so does Scourge. Might gen spot is already taken by much better build. GG no re.

 

You missed my point. Scourge had incredibly good raidwide utility while not compromising the damage build at all except for maybe one or two armor pieces with healing power. Theoretically, you could've dropped one more support, especially cleansespam revenant, and gotten another dps that while doing the normal DPS rotation, still cleanses and corrupted and shielded. But that is dead now. And the dps was nerfed by these new changes aswell, so dps falls flat on it's ass aswell. Not that there was a high chance of it being a metaworthy dps anyway, what with fire brand stacking fucking 50 stacks of burn. Which wasn't touched at all.

 

Look at this, this is bull shit:

 

 

And from where I stand, it sure looks like this was completely ignored because "oh, just impacts PvE, lul", because it wouldn't work too well in PvP/WvW. It is still complete BS, though.

[Naughts Skyway.7413]

My post really has nothing to do with the recent nerfs, but more just expressing confusion with the stubbornness of Necromancer design as a whole over the past 5 years. It's just as much a problem with the community as it is with the development team, but the community is just responding to what the devs are doing in the end. I really hope that Anet will consider opening up about why the devs continue to push the Necromancer class away from what they ask for. Like, I get it--you have a decision philosophy for the Necromancer. That works once, maybe twice, but 3 iterations in? Core Necro had no real niche in PVE, but its survivability worked in PVP and so did its utility. No one was very happy about this, but its just how things were. PVE really wasn't cutting edge or anything at this point anyway. Necro was a PVP profession.

 

Reaper comes around, and one of its perks (survivability) is still relevant in open world content, low difficulty PVE, and PVP, but completely irrelevant in high end content (raids/fractals--no vigor or invulns, case in point as to why its not considered to be a good tank in any relevant content) and it still doesn't bring damage, still doesn't have any unique utility that makes people desire having one in their PVE teams. We know that Necro does 'enough' damage to complete a raid/fractal, but it has no purpose other than average damage output, and that's not going to fix its reputation. Again, no one is happy about the Necro still having its same relative desirability as it did in core GW2, but that's just how things are.

 

So here we have the Scourge, where the devs decide to pull away from their supposed reason for always claiming that the Necromancer had to be weak in PVE. So, great, we don't have shroud. The excuse was gone. I was personally thrilled about the prospect. I was willing to eat up whatever Anet had in mind that would be worth giving up Death Shroud. It was the perfect opportunity for them to do something that the Necro couldn't already do -- it already had strong PVP and WvW specs, so it was time for it to have a cutting edge PVE spec.

 

And it was given... Barrier. A buff without clear purpose that other classes will also have access to.

 

I am trying to like the idea of it, but this was the perfect opportunity to give Necros a strong, unique reason to have a raid spot. Not a niche defensive buff that is incredibly punishing as far as timing and positioning goes. The problem with that is it's not clear when this sort of support would be needed. It's kind of irrelevant if new content is designed with barrier in mind, because what about the past 5 years worth of content that will go unchanged? And what about the focus on boon strip--a mechanic that is largely unpredictable and unreliable in PVE? Mesmer and Chrono passively strip boons, making it hard to use these utilities even when boons exist. Why is this another PVP focused specialization where we have to try to find a purpose for it in the main game?

 

At what point is enough finally enough? Necromancers have PVP specs. They have WvW specs. Necromancer needed a spec that had clear use for PVE to fix its standing in the community. You don't have to argue the benefits of bringing any other profession to a raid. Others don't have to feel like they have something to prove every time they join a group just because of their class. I was just reading a thread today that argued SCAR lane is slow because it usually has more Necromancers than other professions. (which is ridiculous, but that's what we're dealing with) Top end PVE guilds don't recruit Necromancers, because they know players who care about doing the best they can in any situation wouldn't play one. This is a major problem and I feel like Necromancer dev time should have been keenly focused on carving out a niche in PVE.

[Zefiris.8297]

> @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > @Zefiris.8297 said:

> > > @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > > with people you know it won't matter that much, and it can be done and if you're after records, speedclearing and stuff it won't change much, necro wasn't part of it until now anyways.

> >

> > Thanks for admitting the problem everyone else is complaining about. You may be happy with not being part of something, but the rest of us don't have to be.

>

> the problem seems to be, that every necro player has no guild or friends that let him play what he likes. or are all wanabe elitists

 

No, the problem is that friends like being useful to their friends, instead of mooching of them.

Are you the kind of person that lets their friend pay for every cinema visit and every drink? Don't be that friend.

[Lexan.5930]

> @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > @Zefiris.8297 said:

> > > @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > > with people you know it won't matter that much, and it can be done and if you're after records, speedclearing and stuff it won't change much, necro wasn't part of it until now anyways.

> >

> > Thanks for admitting the problem everyone else is complaining about. You may be happy with not being part of something, but the rest of us don't have to be.

>

> the problem seems to be, that every necro player has no guild or friends that let him play what he likes. or are all wanabe elitists

 

the problem is that the majority on the PuG community wants "meta" based on thearetical never actually acheived values based on unrealistic situations rather that a class that is competent but does slightly less numbers.

 

seriously if your nor a warrior, elle, mesmer, or ranger you dont get into many pug groups. Rather than looking for a type of damage, either power or condi, people look for builds, even if that person can;t run it that well, or i running greens, most pugs dont care cuz your running the right build and thats it. Time to get some rabid gear on my cps so i can at least raid when my guild isn't doing it's weekly raid ><

[Zefiris.8297]

> @Lexan.5930 said:

> > @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > > @Zefiris.8297 said:

> > > > @Shadowresli.3782 said:

> > > > with people you know it won't matter that much, and it can be done and if you're after records, speedclearing and stuff it won't change much, necro wasn't part of it until now anyways.

> > >

> > > Thanks for admitting the problem everyone else is complaining about. You may be happy with not being part of something, but the rest of us don't have to be.

> >

> > the problem seems to be, that every necro player has no guild or friends that let him play what he likes. or are all wanabe elitists

>

> the problem is that the majority on the PuG community wants "meta" based on thearetical never actually acheived values based on unrealistic situations rather that a class that is competent but does slightly less numbers.

>

> seriously if your nor a warrior, elle, mesmer, or ranger you dont get into many pug groups. Rather than looking for a type of damage, either power or condi, people look for builds, even if that person can;t run it that well, or i running greens, most pugs dont care cuz your running the right build and thats it. Time to get some rabid gear on my cps so i can at least raid when my guild isn't doing it's weekly raid ><

 

I have been in a pug group that kicked dragonhunters. "Need Eles".

Yeah. It's sad. I left it then and there.

[Vorgryn.9145]

The worst part is how little communication there is about the reasoning behind the changes. If you're going to drop a major nerf like this two days before launch, you better be in this thread defending your decisions in front of the community, otherwise it's a big morale/hype crash when you want your players to be excited. I know the devs say they "read the forum but don't have time to respond" but when they do swing in to respond, like Gee did earlier, he refused to elaborate or defend the nerfs. If you don't have time to justify your balancing decisions now, then balance later when you can actually stand up and defend the ideas in front of the community!

 

This is the reason why most games have test servers, to test the actual proposal of course, but to also show the community the impact of the changes before it goes live and see how things play out .

[Ghostt.1293]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/317/how-to-give-good-feedback#latest

[Atticus.7194]

> @Ghostt.1293 said:

> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/317/how-to-give-good-feedback#latest

 

Not trying to be a jerk here but... if ArenaNet knew how to respond to ANY feedback at all it might incentivize players to offer good feedback. Instead all feedback good or bad is ignored because they are so SOOO bad at communicating any sort of reasoning or explanation for the seemingly inexplicable changes they sometimes push out. I mean after the last beta weekend there were whole beautifully constructed breakdowns on how to adjust reaper so it would remain viable in all modes without breaking it and instead we got... a crude heavy handed slad down that feels like it's all but knocked the class out.

 

It just doesn't feel worth it anymore sadly.

[Vorgryn.9145]

> @Atticus.7194 said:

> > @Ghostt.1293 said:

> > https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/317/how-to-give-good-feedback#latest

>

> Not trying to be a jerk here but... if ArenaNet knew how to respond to ANY feedback at all it might incentivize players to offer good feedback. Instead all feedback good or bad is ignored because they are so SOOO bad at communicating any sort of reasoning or explanation for the seemingly inexplicable changes they sometimes push out. I mean after the last beta weekend there were whole beautifully constructed breakdowns on how to adjust reaper so it would remain viable in all modes without breaking it and instead we got... a crude heavy handed slad down that feels like it's all but knocked the class out.

>

> It just doesn't feel worth it anymore sadly.

 

I actually used to lurk the old forums quite a bit, even attempting a couple times to write constructive suggestions, but the silence from devs got so frustrating that the entire forum felt like a meaningless echo chamber. I eventually decided to completely step away because of how pointless it all seemed, I only started lurking again because of the ramp-up to the new xpack, but it looks like while the forums got a nice face lift nothing else is going to change until the devs actually decide to do something different in how they interact with us.

[Karode.9206]

This killed a lot of my hype for Scourge, but here's to hoping I'm over reacting

[Svarty.8019]

Some good changes for WvW. I'm happy to see some of the changes but I'm sure there are more than a few small teams who are upset about the loss of the prospect of zergbusting.

[Yuyuske.7182]

I kind of suspect that a lot of necromancer "balance" is based around extremely casual, open-world PvE. Necromancer is a very friendly class for new players; the mechanics are straightforward, it can take a decent amount of punishment, and it can kill ordinary enemies rather quickly. Compare that to "squishier" classes like Elementalist, Mesmer, or Thief, and casual, inexperienced players can get the impression that Necromancer is a very powerful class compared to most other classes...and **that's** the perception that Anet bases its class balance off of.

 

So when a Scourge pops some Sand Shades and burns down a whole bunch of open-world trash mobs in seconds, then gets all their life force back from those deaths and does it again, they think, "Holy shit, this class is **really powerful!** We need to nerf that!" Never mind that it's trash mobs, and for actual challenging content where people care about balance and abilities - y'know, where it **actually matters** - they've been crippled.

[cerulean moth.2743]

These changes are a huge disappointment from a PvE perspective. @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" - Please see if there's anything you can do to revert some of these changes for PvE only. Especially the nerf to shade duration and target caps for PvE.

[Sublimatio.6981]

> @Yuyuske.7182 said:

> Compare that to "squishier" classes like Elementalist, Mesmer, or Thief

 

just because you can facetank a little longer on necro doesnt mean ele thief or mes are more squishy, since these classes have access to numerous active defense and necro doesnt.

[Yuyuske.7182]

> @Sublimatio.6981 said:

> > @Yuyuske.7182 said:

> > Compare that to "squishier" classes like Elementalist, Mesmer, or Thief

>

> just because you can facetank a little longer on necro doesnt mean ele thief or mes are more squishy, since these classes have access to numerous active defense and necro doesnt.

 

That's kinda my point.

 

I'm talking about very new, very casual players, many of whom are coming from other MMOs where they use the "stand in one spot and kick each other in the balls until one of you falls down" method of fighting. They see one class that has to use active abilities to survive and another that just soaks up hits without having to do much of anything, and they're gonna think the second one is more powerful.

 

It isn't - if anything, it's worse, because those active abilities are gonna allow you to survive much better in PvP when you're getting focused, or against really powerful enemies who can one-shot or two-shot you if you can't evade or better mitigate that damage.

 

But it's that **perception** - that _very casual_ , _new player perception_ - that Anet is balancing around. And it's killing us.

[Lumin Arius.6952]

I'll see what this looks like on launch, but chances are I'm sticking with my Reaper. It's a shame too, the concept of Scourge started to grow on me. I'll just have to look forward to the content at least.

[Kam.4092]

> @"cerulean moth.2743" said:

> These changes are a huge disappointment from a PvE perspective. @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" - Please see if there's anything you can do to revert some of these changes for PvE only. Especially the nerf to shade duration and target caps for PvE.

 

This

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

"> @Yuyuske.7182 said:

> I'm trying to remain positive. I'll probably try to find ways to make Scourge work. I know the forums of every MMO are perpetual cesspits of negativity. But this **really** hurts.

>

> Seriously, Anet devs, did the goth kids beat you all up for your lunch money when you were in school and you're bitter about it? Is there an Anet class design policy that says "Anything necromancers can do, other classes **must** be able to do better?"

>

> Oh, and if you were hoping that Nourishing Rot would keep us going? Well, better hope we don't have any Spellbreakers on our team nearby! "

 

Frankly I have no further desire to try and find a work around balance that is designed for PvP when all i have ever really enjoyed is PvE. My plan is to continue to play my main and not waste the lands in this beautiful expansion trying to chase the hope that Necro will ever be properly balanced. I simply hope that someone at Anet truly puts an effort into fixing a class that has legitimately struggled in PvE for 5 years. Sure there have been highlights along the way but they have been so short lived due to PvP it's painfully pathetic to think of them.

Tomorrow i log into a new world of wonders and with that i leave behind any real hope my power reaper or any Necro build will ever gain any respectable dps or purpose beyond the one of my own making. When the wonders of this new world are fully explored and enjoyed, i will contemplate my future within the game, after all how long can anyone suffer mediocrity and still manage to smile and voluntarily pay money to enjoy that privilege.

 

[MethaneGas.8357]

Did anyone notice... there was no change... in.... Dhuumfire? >: )

Who knows, maybe they stealth nerfed it... but if Dhuumfire stays the same as how it was in beta, I think Scourge will still be badass in sPvP.

 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

> @MethaneGas.8357 said:

> Did anyone notice... there was no change... in.... Dhuumfire? >: )

> Who knows, maybe they stealth nerfed it... but if Dhuumfire stays the same as how it was in beta, I think Scourge will still be kitten in sPvP.

>

 

They only listed Scourge-specific changes. Anything relating to Reaper or core traitlines/skills (including Dhuumfire) we don't learn about until tomorrow.