Why Scourge will always be broken.

[Meteor.3720]

Any Spec which actively encourages spamming skills and which is a semi-effective method of gameplay will always be broken.

There are no CD/ dmg output changes which can change the basic broken mechanics of Scourge.

 

A massive part of core necro/ reaper counterplay was waiting till they left shroud and then spiking them when they are defenceless. With Scourge having permanent access to shroud skills and being able to use them in combination with other skills, whilst CC'ed, whilst ressing etc just makes them simply broken. This is aside from a "support spec" having top dps in pvp.

 

The changes would have to be so fundamental to scourge that we can safely assume they will never be changed. People need to stop hoping this class will be fixed to bring back skillful play.

 

Spam is meta.

I can't wait to see what the next expansion brings to make playstyle even more brainless/ op than scourge. Bring on the powercreep.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Agreed.

 

The foundation on this class is so heavily skewed against most melee classes that there's no way to actually fix it that would allow Scourge to remain relevant.

It seems to have been done intentionally so Necros have -SOME- use in PVP. Having one broken spec and two underwhelming/unviable specs apparently balances out.

 

That being said, at least they cannot deal with range pressure. Here's to shaping the meta to counter scourges and then having people complain about ranged spamfests.

[Meteor.3720]

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> Agreed.

>

> The foundation on this class is so heavily skewed against most melee classes that there's no way to actually fix it that would allow Scourge to remain relevant.

> It seems to have been done intentionally so Necros have -SOME- use in PVP. Having one broken spec and two underwhelming/unviable specs apparently balances out.

>

> That being said, at least they cannot deal with range pressure. Here's to shaping the meta to counter scourges and then having people complain about ranged spamfests.

 

I'm happy you agree, but reaper is still viable and scourges can deal with range pressure as long as they're not braindead. In a point based game mode scourges will always be strong too even if they for some reason forget how to LOS/ place shades on ranged foes.

[Aktium.9506]

Well, most of the problems with Scourge in PvP are tied to Sand Savant.

 

You could revert every single Scourge nerf and if you were to just remove Sand Savant instead it would still feel less oppressive than it does right now.

 

[Devilman.1532]

This elite should have never made it out of testing. The concepts are fundamentally flawed and are tremendously poor for the game. This needed to go back to drawing board and be redesigned. Alas for bad decisions and roads not taken tho...

[omgdracula.6345]

Shades need both a cast time as well as a health bar. Right now there is really 0 counterplay to them.

[Imperadordf.2687]

I just want Sand Savant to be removed, then it's ok.

[apharma.3741]

Are small shade builds a problem?

 

If not then the problem is probably sand savant. It would be nice if that trait was redesigned and no longer gave larger shades.

[mortrialus.3062]

I honestly don't think Scourge is that big of an outlier over every other meta build aside from it's extremely low skill floor.

 

Transfusion and Well of Blood should be looked at. Corrupting might (which almost every build gets almost by accident) into something as devastating as Weakness should also get changed. Other than that I'm fine with them.

 

I wish eles were a high powered crit damage version of a scourge, just on a conceptual level.

[CloudyDonut.7468]

Sand Savant is the main issue with the spec. It not only makes the damage circle larger for the shade but for the player as necro as well. So even if you get out of the way of the shade a giant circle of death will chase you down. This makes most measures of counterplay null. It needs some kind of drawback, perhaps by removing the damaging circle from around the necro itself.

[Thiago.5946]

ok

i dont know nothing about scourges skills , all of i know is how to try fight vs a scourge ,

many times i saw melee classes running desperately to kill a scourge and pff all die 3 , 4 players.

as scraper i have condi conversion in boons have some extra heals and some pulse condi clear and i know all this cant save me if i step in all field skills and got target by a scourge ,spaming condi enoght to no have space in my monitor .

so, in a 1vs1 fight i learn how to deal with scourges wining some fights.

first thing fighting vs a scourge is the field skills this crap pulse, bright and daze my eyes like a extra condi ,much probably he will spam this first and will runing in ur direction with a big one pulsing around and is sure u got cripled or chiled , and he came like a locomotive in ur direction couse u cant fight vs a locomotive , at this time u block ,evade and reflect (god save reflect ) use ur mobility skills and criple the monster far from u , keep alive to when their cooldown phase start (if this exist) now is counter atk start with a cc i use stun or knock down , now is my vw beatle figthing vs a stuned locomotive , a smart guy no hit at barrier ( whos is genius to give barrier to this monster ?) with much luck i got 50% of their life and is moa time (god save moa) and if fail moa use rampage or tornado to cc and finish with a beauty gyro .

 

 

 

my class have good condi clean(all reverts in boons) i got less condi dmg when got barrier , i got 33% less condi duration ,i got 3 heals

i dunno about another classes couse i play scraper and a condi reaper minion dominatrix ( each hit a minion receive is a less hit u not receive '' god save minions'')

 

so, i believe a strong class like scourge need any weaknes vs a melee player who no got a decent clean or depends of resistence (easily corrupted)to play vs condi

with my experience i saw scourges a bit weakness vs disable skills so i sugest to increase this weakness, u guys talk about '' sand savant '' trait is too op if something is so op is fair got any weakness too ,and aplly a punishment like a ''instabilty'' ( control effects apply to u have 33% more time)

 

 

sorry for the bad english

 

from a silver player

 

 

 

 

 

[Turgut.4397]

there is no counter play vs scourges unless you mob a point with a healer

 

as a thief main i just avoid points with necros, can't even poke without getting hit with 6 condis in a split second lol, even condi reaper had far more counterplay

[OriOri.8724]

> @"Devilman.1532" said:

> This elite should have never made it out of testing. The concepts are fundamentally flawed and are tremendously poor for the game. This needed to go back to drawing board and be redesigned. Alas for bad decisions and roads not taken tho...

 

Not just scourge, but several of the PoF elite specs are in this situation. I LOVE the concept behind all of them, but the execution was seriously flawed

[otto.5684]

> @"Devilman.1532" said:

> This elite should have never made it out of testing. The concepts are fundamentally flawed and are tremendously poor for the game. This needed to go back to drawing board and be redesigned. Alas for bad decisions and roads not taken tho...

 

I double on that. While I think conceptionaly having barriers and shades was an inserting design. Whoever decided to add boon corruption in the mix should not be involved in class design and/or class balance ever again.

[Exciton.8942]

They could rework Sand Savant into something completely different, changing all F skills to be heavy support.

[DragonFury.6243]

> I can't wait to see what the next expansion brings to make playstyle even more brainless/ op than scourge. Bring on the powercreep.

 

Well i did call it .

Necromancer that split your soul from your body and you have to collect LF for him in order for you to go back to your body .

cant wait for the next expansion T_T

[Catchyfx.5768]

 

>

> I double on that. While I think conceptionaly having barriers and shades was an inserting design. Whoever decided to add boon corruption in the mix should not be involved in class design and/or class balance ever again.

 

Necro Is about booncorrupt

[Virelion.4128]

> @"Meteor.3720" said:

> Any Spec which actively encourages spamming skills and which is a semi-effective method of gameplay will always be broken.

> [...]

> Spam is meta.

Most of the spec in pvp right now can be called spammy spec:

- warrior (lets have one skill on 8 sec cd which is giving me all sustain in the world)

- mesmer (spam every phantasm you have)

- thief 3 3 3 3 3 3 ...

even sw/d ele can feel spammy.

This is how the gameplay is, it is not 1.5 global cd crap every other WoW clone is giving. The spam is real because you can use 2 or more skills at once and it will not be changed. This is how game is designed and every class has a set of resources to worry about which is preventing spam to some extend.

 

> @"Meteor.3720" said:

> There are no CD/ dmg output changes which can change the basic broken mechanics of Scourge.

There were already several nerfs to scourge already which affected scourge performance by a large margin. Corruption nerf, sand skills cd nerfs which made scourge much more managable. I don't think why are you thinking that further nerfs would not help.

 

> @"Meteor.3720" said:

> A massive part of core necro/ reaper counterplay was waiting till they left shroud and then spiking them when they are defenceless. With Scourge having permanent access to shroud skills and being able to use them in combination with other skills, whilst CC'ed, whilst ressing etc just makes them simply broken. This is aside from a "support spec" having top dps in pvp.

This permament access is limited by your lf gain and cd. You can still spike when sand shroud is down just dont thing every red circle is shrouding necro. This tactic didnt change at all. You spike scourge -> he pops up SS -> you kite -> you spike again. The only difference is that scourge can actualy range pressure you which was not possible as core/reaper.

 

> @"Meteor.3720" said:

> The changes would have to be so fundamental to scourge that we can safely assume they will never be changed. People need to stop hoping this class will be fixed to bring back skillful play.

Every balance patch had nerfs for scourge so far. There is no evidence to support your claim

 

> @"Meteor.3720" said:

> I can't wait to see what the next expansion brings to make playstyle even more brainless/ op than scourge. Bring on the powercreep.

They will probably nerf every PoF spec to the ground before new expansion release, so powercreep will not be as prominent, but I am sure people will find another spec to cry about

 

Focus necro meta is alive as always, the only difference is you actualy need to get out of scourge way when he pops SS not dps him brainlessly which was a thing in vanila/HOT

[JTGuevara.9018]

Agreed.

 

The design of the Scourge needs to be OVERHAULED. There's no way that spamming instant AoEs is going to be even remotely fair. I endorse the other opinions here. Scourge is fundamentally flawed and will be forever broken because of its shade mechanics. It is a freakin brainless spec.

 

Now, people have also said that Spellbreaker is broken. No it's not. _Full Counter_ is broken. As a warrior main, I just get into the team-fight or zerg and pop it. It will always hit. It's warriors' get-out-of-jail free card. I agree Spellbreaker needs a shave, but fundamentally it's a sound spec.

 

 

[Sigmoid.7082]

> @"JTGuevara.9018" said:

> Agreed.

>

> The design of the Scourge needs to be OVERHAULED. There's no way that spamming instant AoEs is going to be even remotely fair. I endorse the other opinions here. Scourge is fundamentally flawed and will be forever broken because of its shade mechanics. It is a freakin brainless spec.

>

> Now, people have also said that Spellbreaker is broken. No it's not. _Full Counter_ is broken. As a warrior main, I just get into the team-fight or zerg and pop it. It will always hit. It's warriors' get-out-of-jail free card. I agree Spellbreaker needs a shave, but fundamentally it's a sound spec.

>

>

 

Its not really the shade abilities.Its strange that you will attribute just the ability full counter as the defining element of spell breaker being broken but don't the same for sand savant.

 

If every scourge player didn't take sand savant you would see so many less complaints since 99% of then refer to this trait not the class itself. Especially after all the other nerfs.

 

[bravan.3876]

> @"Turgut.4397" said:

> there is no counter play vs scourges unless you mob a point with a healer

 

I will not defend the simplicity of playing scourge, but 0 counterplay is wrong. We have weaknesses, we have bad mobility and need a fb to babysit us, range pressure and teamfocus are counters. Fast rotations counters fb/scourge. What should get addressed first is the insane res potential from a Bloodnecro and other classes. Nearly instant res during cleave by one single player should not be possible. Same as that ranger pets just instant restart the res after you interrupt them is silly.

 

 

[BMW.2951]

Scourge is the reason PvP is dying. People reroll to Scourge and play PvP because they know they will do good with it. It's poor design to have a ton of condition AOES as big as the conquest circle. They just sit around and camp points with their garbage waiting for people to get that crap on them. Like what was ANET thinking? How is that fair? In a lot of games I play with a total of 4 Sourges in one match and that is 40% of the players. It's just sad and poor balance. I haven't touched WvW since 2012-2013 but I have read that Sourges are the reason WvW isn't fun. It's Sourges and Firebrand support classes in zergs. Sounds like a blast.....

 

I say remove the class altogether. I have no idea how they can balance a condition spammy AOE cheese build.

[Meteor.3720]

I had a match with 2 scourge on 1 team, 1 scourge on the other. Plus a chrono on each team.

No one could see anything.

That was fun for everyone.

[Alek Seven.2374]

Shades skill that can be used without any active shade, does it count ?

[Dralor.3701]

Removing sand savant won’t fix the problem. You still have a super spammy spec that is now just more miserable to use.

 

Not that there aren’t benefits to the trait but as someone who uses it, I feel like it’s more a quality of life thing (and I’m probably lazy).