Anet, what is your actual intention with Manifest Sand Shade?

Path of Fire has been out nearly a month now, and still we are left to guess what the actual interactions between Manifest Sand Shade and Desert Shroud are. Between what seems to be a glitch that is completely stopping MSS from working today and the clunky wording, it'd be great to get an official answer on this.

As it stands currently:MSS: "Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand shades strike nearby foes."This tooltip is now completely incorrect. Sand Shades have no life force cost. The second part of the tooltip also indicates that the strikes can stack, since every other shade skill explicitly mentions when the effects won't stack, and that the strikes were working as intended. Which is what the patch today "fixed".

The next issue comes from the interaction between MSS and DS. Prior to the patch, when the strikes of MSS were still working, when using DS, the shades struck each time DS pulsed, as did you. Was this intended? The tooltip on MSS says "Whenever you use a shade ability", and with that wording, DS is just one ability, not seven.

So what is actually correct?

Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuMy firstborn will be named Karl.

Karl, your avatar being Smiter's Boon isn't lost on me. =)

@Etterwyn.5263 said:Karl, your avatar being Smiter's Boon isn't lost on me. =)

Nor me. I looked at it and went "wait...is that? can't be..." check GW1 wiki "Well, that doesn't bode well."

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:We'll be looking to add some power back into the kit in the next balance iteration (which was not today :P )-Karl

So when can we expect to be a working class, be it Core Necromancer, Power Reaper or Condi Scourge then?Because every "Fix" makes this class feel more incomplete and we don't really have any competitive builds to fall back on.

Getting sick of playing as c/PS Warrior dps wise, just without literally everything that makes c/PS Warrior viable (easy to apply big radius permanent group wide 25 might, unique class party buff and banners).And even if I wanted to play support, it's not like I could come anywhere close to a Druid or Tempest, let alone bring anything to the table that could replace a chrono.

Where exactly do you want Necros to stand if we can't have competitive DPS?Because we sure as hell don't have mobility, healing support, mechanical support, boon support or active/scale able defense.

I dont believe in false promises anymore, this is painfully an over-nerfed that Anet now is trying to tone down. Embarassing

@Karl McLain.5604 said:but needed to fix this bug as soon as possible.

Why? Scourge was strong but it's not required in any high level content . Meanwhile 6 slots filled with Chrono, PS Warrior and Druid are considered mandatory by most raid leaders. Even in training raids people generally wait till they have these classes so they have the best shot. So why did you desperately need to fix a profession that's not even required in raids? If this was a PVP fix it should have been split.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:Manifest Sand Shade is not expected to activate on each pulse of Desert Shroud, but instead activate on each activation of a shade ability. The previous functionality, while strong, was unintentional. We'll be looking to add some power back into the kit in the next balance iteration (which was not today :P ), but needed to fix this bug as soon as possible. We'll also probably remove the 'spend some of your life force' from the description of MSS.Thanks for the well-worded question!

-Karl

Having properly digested this, it does beg the question. If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed to what is intended; 1 strike from you and your shade when activating DS, why can't MSS stack?

Looking at this from a PvP perspective, it would be unlikely to catch someone within the AoE zone of 3 sand shades and the scourge (for a total of 4 strikes), shouldn't the scourge be rewarded if they can sandwich someone between a large shade and themselves? Two strikes is hardly overpowered, compared to the 14 strikes that we've had to deal with currently (when using DS).

Even in a PvE situation, after summoning 3 shades immaculately, you're still only stacking 4 strikes of damage, and that's if the target doesn't move at all. Its a heavy DPS loss to spend that time summoning shades and not attacking.

What I'm saying is:If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

What happened today was maybe not because of the ridiculous bug fix, I like to call it a nerf because regardless of what you call it, PVE Viper Scourge lost 8k DPS or something along these lines.

I don't care if we do 10k dmg as long as others do the same and necro is not left out of a raiding group, but when you hit necro with a 8k nerf and don't even touch elementalists that bust at 65k dps and sustain 45k dps you hopefully can understand why necros are pissed, and its been the same since for ever.I play necro 99% of the time since the very beginning and its very frustrating to see this, when the dev ruins your class time and time again after you have supported them with your hard earned money, at least do the same with others.

Another frustrating part is that many posts give good solutions to fix some of the necro problems but it seems that the devs will ignore feedback because it does not align with the design doc and instead of going about balance from a numbers point of view they go by changing the way the class works entirely. I don't think its healthy for the player base or for the game.

@Karl McLain.5604 I lost hope that necros will ever see justice but maybe, just maybe that day will come as you say it will.

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Are Anet SO understaffed that they can ONLY talk in ONE of NINE class forums?It's their job to develop the game, not talk on the forums. The fact that @Karl McLain.5604 even posted here is just plain nice of him.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

This is good news at least.. IN terms of DPS is going to increase ..prop in the range of 2-4k (imho).

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

Fair point. Thank you for the reply.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

Since you mentioned that the spec has a heavy support built in, are you guys looking into getting scourge to a place where is as desired in a raid as a Druid? Because maybe on paper the Scourge offers a lot of help to a raid but realistically no one cares of the support because its not that good compared with what others have to offer.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

What heavy support does Scourge bring that can't already be covered/done better by the current desired trinity in raids; Warrior/Druid/Chrono that everyone relies on?

At this point scourge is unplayable. There never was a support element that was of any use on scourge to begin with. Bug fix or not overall you killed the dps 25-30% without giving anything. If this is supposed to be a support build, then where is the support? Scourge does nothing at this point and support can be done better by any number of other classes.

What really bugs me though is that they put nerfs in above just fixing a bug. Yet they let spellbreakers run around unchanged. They are arguably more of a problem than Scourges.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

You guys may want to re-evaluate that "heavy support" part. Even if we assume that Scourge support is wanted somewhere, DPS builds completely abandon that support potential. We can't take support perks as there are clearly better DPS alternatives, we don't have stat budget to make barrier meaningful, we can't even spend life force most of the time on any support skills - it DS all day. Even Blood Magic used to be offlimits - and hopefuly, if you make up your mind about Dhuumfire, Soul Reaping will stay as DPS line.

You think Scourge is viable support - allright. But it doesn't overlap with Scourge damage build in the slightest. It only provides minor barrier with Sand Flare, and very occasional 2-conditions convert and even smaller barrier from shades.

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:If these interactions stack together, then we have to assume that the maximum damage potential is with three shades stacked on top of one-another. This is not the intent of the specialization, as the design is for it to 'play the field', where each shade delivers the maximum potential without needing to be stacked. Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go up from where it's currently at.

Well, right now Scourge is a clunkier, less fun, less thematic condi Reaper with even lower DPS, so it really can only go up from where it currently is.Then again, the balance team does like to surprise me when I make statements like that.

Also, if I understand you correctly, we now went from Necromancer/Reaper can't have competitive DPS because we have a bad defensive mechanic nobody but the devs value, to Scourge can't have competitive DPS because we have "heavy support" that nobody but the Devs highly value.Wonderful.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the on demand Condi cleanse and the tiny Barrier blips are nice and all, but unless Scourge (and Reaper) can compete for a DPS slot, we will see a no Necro policy pop up again.

On a side node, now that Scourge is over, what's the status on any actual Power Reaper Buffs (or condi Reaper, I'm not picky at this point)?

I guess I don't understand why PvE Scourge had to be gutted right now and we have to wait for balance changes later. Sure, make the duration changes to WvW if it's really that broken, but now you've basically left PvE Scourge in a bad spot for the next... how long do we have to wait for the next balance patch? My point is that you could've tabled this nerf to the next balance patch without screwing over anybody.

@Asum.4960 said:

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:If these interactions stack together, then we have to assume that the maximum damage potential is with three shades stacked on top of one-another. This is not the intent of the specialization, as the design is for it to 'play the field', where each shade delivers the maximum potential without needing to be stacked. Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

Its funny cause Condi Reaper could be fixed by simply giving us an option that we will always put priority on our own fields. You basically fix the spec without touching any skill.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

If I'm being honest, that's shallow design. You had something interesting before. Yes you could 'play the field', which is important especially in PvP and WvW, but you could also maximize your damage at the cost of 'playing the field' by stacking your shades instead of having area control (higher damage in a smaller area), giving players a choice and options (there is also a greater deal of counterplay, as enemies could easily avoid the higher damage in the concentrated area). Options are especially important because shade stacking made Scourge viable in raids, a game mode where you don't really need to 'play the field', giving Scourge players the ability to be viable in all game modes. Scourge won't be able to be viable in raids if you assume that the maximum damage potential is with one individual shade, or no shades. You had something good and interesting with the 'bug' there but now you're going backwards.

I mean this whole game is about choices, that's why it has so many gear options. It would be a good idea to embrace it. Heck, if reaper was supposed to be a power spec and that was the 'idea' of the class, why isn't that brought out more?

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

That is great news Karl.

With that said, is there any word on the Sand Savant targeting bug being fixed as a priority as well?https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/5808/sand-savant-ally-targeting-bug

The short version is: Sand Savant increases the targeting cap to 5 allies/enemies around the Scourge, and 5 allies/enemies around the Greater Sand Shade.

We know its intended functionality for multiple Shade effects to not hit the same foe or ally, as with the fix today they are not intended to "stack" their effects.

That said, the bug is if the Scourge and Greater Sand Shade are near each other, they will attempt to target the same 5 targets, even if more targets are present and within range. This causes a lot of the potential benefit of hitting multiple allies or foes to be wasted due to this odd behavior. For example:

If you take a squad of 10 players, seperate them physically into two groups of 5, with 5 around the Scourge and 5 around the Greater Sand Shade, all of them will receive Barrier from Sand Cascade F3. If you now clump them together in the same area, only the 5 players in the Scourge's Subsquad will receive the effect, losing over 50% of the "potential" barrier applied to the entire raid squad.

This is a gigantic barrier (sorry, bad pun) holding back Support Scourges playing as they were intended in raiding environments. If our damage options are rebalanced to lower levels relative to more "dps centric" elite specializations, then we absolutely need this bug addressed so support Scourges can actually have a legitimate place in more difficult raid content in which damage prevention and condi cleansing is useful. (e.g. Mathias and Sloth).

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:Manifest Sand Shade is not expected to activate on each pulse of Desert Shroud, but instead activate on each activation of a shade ability. The previous functionality, while strong, was unintentional. We'll be looking to add some power back into the kit in the next balance iteration (which was not today :P ), but needed to fix this bug as soon as possible. We'll also probably remove the 'spend some of your life force' from the description of MSS.Thanks for the well-worded question!

-Karl

never liked how you guys balance Necro, so i won't be holding my breath. if you guys cannot balance necro after 5 years just say so, i am tired of wasting time in a game playing the "wait and see game" with balance patches, hoping for some type of parity with other classes like Ele (it's not lost on me that there is not one single dev on the balance team that actually mains a necro, but w/e). i do not appreciate you guys wasting my time with expectations that you will never meet. if you can't balance the profession, just say so so i can move on to another game. let me re-iterate, it's been 5 fucking years of this shit for Necro yet Eles and all the other top dps professions skate by untouched.

@Karl McLain.5604 said:Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go up from where it's currently at.

No kind of support that's actually needed or wanted over existing support options like PS Warr, Chrono and Druid. Necro would have to have Alacrity, Banner buffs or Grace of the Land to ever be considered an alternative.