Making Scourge Heavy Support in PVE

First things first: This is not about PvP. The changes for PvP are fine, and I don't mind us being drastically weaker there.

This topic is entirely about PVE. Karl confirmed here that we will NOT be getting competitive DPS, because we are heavy support.

Here is the problem: This is only accurate in PVP. In PVE, our support is poor, and usable only for terrible groups.This topic is about constructive suggestions for the next balance patch to ensure that we remain "Heavy Support" in PVE as well, so it is justified that we lack the DPS other professions can bring to the table. It is apparently design intent that Scourge cannot do as much DPS, so this is the avenue we have left.

Scourge vs cPS, Druid and ChronoIn PvE, any "Heavy Support" spec needs to be able to contribute as much as either a Chrono, a Druid, or a cPS Warrior. This is why almost every serious group throughout PVE uses this group composition - it is by far the strongest comp available in nearly every PvE situation. High-CM fractals, raids, you name it. There is no content in the game that isn't made easier with this group.

SCOURGE VS cPSScourge: Can generate 25 might, in a small radius (<300). Can cleanse conditions, boons, can heal apply barrier if giving up all DPS.cPS: Empower Allies, Banner, 25 might in a huge radius, 30k+ benchmark DPS

This is an almost comically unfair comparison. Warrior has several team buffs, and warrior might generation is much less finnicky than Scourge: Not only is the radius much larger (allowing the team to be spread more), there's also less of a problem with the need to be turned towards the target. The only way Scourge offers additional utility (barrier, blood revive) is by giving up the DPS. Scourge is a huge group DPS loss if replacing a cPS. A group needs to be REALLY struggling with constant wipes and downed people for this to be worth it.

SCOURGE VS DRUIDScourge: Can generate 25 might, in a small radius (<300). Can cleanse conditions, boons, can heal apply barrier if giving up all DPS.Druid: Spirit of the Sun, Spirit of Frost, Spotter, Grace of the Land, massive healing, cleansing conditions

This is another unfair comparison. 25might is not relevant, because the group will already have a cPS warrior. The condi cleanse is slightly in the scourge's favor, but the healing is SO much stronger on the druid. The druid cannot provide barrier against spikes, but instead adds a HUGE dps buff (~7% from GOTL, both spirits, AND spotter)If a Scourge replaces both the druid AND the warrior, you have healing and might, but lose so much DPS that it's like running with one person less. Awesome!

SCOURGE VS CHRONOScourge: Can generate 25 might, in a small radius (<300). Can cleanse conditions, boons, can heal apply barrier if giving up all DPS.Chrono: Alacrity, Quickness, Blur, Reflectss

Alacrity and quicktime are too important to replace by themselves, because they allow both protective and offensive skills to be used much more often. And even barrier compares very poorly. Much like blur, barrier needs to be timed, but blur prevents damage outright, negating the attack utterly. If Scourge had Alacrity instead of might generation, we might be able to replace the off-chrono still, but without, nope.

Why do I keep pointing out the huge DPS loss for bringing a Scourge`Why is DPS so important? Am I a speedrunner? NO.But offense is the best defense. If you can take keep construct to the next phase with only one set of orb pushing, you have a much higher chance of success. The longer a fight takes, the more mechanics allow a chance to fail. A scourge may be able to prevent a wipe by reviving people, but so can a warrior with a well-placed banner. At the same time, warrior, druid and chrono prevent wipes by ensuring the fight does not keep dragging on. The sooner a boss dies, the less the party is at risk.

With this being established, Scourge needs something to help us in PVE, to attain the "Heavy Support" we are supposed to have. This something needs to be PVE exclusive, to not risk balancing in PVP. I propose the following:

1. Barrier gets an increased duration if you attribute for it. Concentration would be a good fit, as would vitality
2. New Trait: Barriers apply a damage buff while they last to anyone they are applied to [PVE Only]
3. New Trait in a core necro line: Skills with boon corruption do not corrupt boons any longer. Instead, they apply a [take X% more damage] debuff for 10 seconds. [THIS WOULD BE A CORE NECRO BUFF]

OR

4. Add a Boon Conversion -> Alacrity for group swap trait. A group can then replace the off chrono (the most difficult to find character usually) with a Scourge, as long as a Firebrand provides the quickness. [THIS WOULD BE A CORE NECRO BUFF]

Suggestion 1 and 2 allow a Scourge to strongly spec support, increase the viability of their support, and BUFF their allies while doing so (which, as Druid or Warrior show, is incredibly important). The flavor is different from the way a druid does so, but the concept is the same. 3, meanwhile, allows both scourge and core necro to benefit from boon corrupting skills in PVE. This would be a buff for all necros, giving all of them additional utility that they give up boon corruption for.

Suggestion 4 helps Firebrand utility at the same time, and gives another use for boon conversion in PVE as well.

Just my thoughts. I feel we really need this HEAVY SUPPORT Karl mentioned - and we need it in PVE, not just PVP.

If a scourge replaces both a Druid and a Warrior you ARE playing with one less person lol.

Scourge really does have a lot of support and there are a few things that I feel like you're either intentionally glossing over or missing.

Barrier isn't "healing". It's a bubble that prevents you from taking damage allowing a person to heal. In my mind, a Scourge's access to barriers compliments any healing abilities extremely well because it makes group wide healing EASIER. Raising the effective HP on everybody is a big deal. If you think of Barrier as heals you're looking at it in too simple of a light imho.

The gameplay of Barriers reminds me a little of Prot Monks in GW1 and how they complimented Healy Monks. It's not exactly the same, by any means, but the basic idea is similar.

I disagree about losing all our damage in order to be supportive.

For starters, how does giving somebody a barrier, while simultaneously giving them might and removing conditions, count as not contributing damage. Heck, with one click of simply placing my Manifest Shade (something I would do ANYWAYS), I can grant somebody a barrier, remove a condition, grant 2 stacks of might, do damage, and apply burning, cripple, & torment. It's LITERALLY the definition of doing damage while giving support.

tl;dr Scourge isn't lacking support. It's not about replacing any one spec, but about how does a Scourge compliment other professions and coming up with a group comp that works well together. Personally, I love having a scourge with any regen heavy comp.

Interesting.

So do you guys think then that a support scourge necro is viable as a support raid team? what about for high level fractals?

Get DPS up to 33k and reduce barrier max to 25% HP but no longer degrade and I'll be happy. Then for training groups or when you want some wiggle room you choose to lose SOME dps by bringing a Scourge but provide the team with a huge bump in sustain.

If a scourge replaces both a Druid and a Warrior you ARE playing with one less person lol.

I meant one on top of that one, silly. Not sure you understand the amount of DPS warrior and druid add.

For starters, how does giving somebody a barrier, while simultaneously giving them might and removing conditions, count as not contributing damage.

Because you aren't. You are not giving them might, because a cPS warrior is already doing so, and doing so better than you. You're also not removing conditions unless you're in one of three fights, because the fights don't have enough conditions that get applied, and those that do get applied are already being removed by classes that do so at less opportunity cost.

All these abilities have limits: Only 25 might can be applied, every other might is wasted. Every condition can only be cleared once. This means that, since these are already being handled just fine, these are not in fact advantages of the scourge

tl;dr Scourge isn't lacking support. It's not about replacing any one spec

You are utterly clueless. It IS about replacing a spec, because groups have a limited size. You cannot bring six people to a fractal, and you cannot bring 11 people to a raid.

IF you replace one of the DPS roles with a scourge, you gain nothing: Might is covered, condi cleanse is covered, and chrono has abilities that do what barrier does, just better. This means the only possible place for a scourge is as a replacement for either druid, cPS, or Chrono.

And as I've demonstrated, it fails at replacing all of them. it's a worse choice.

You are of course fine to do a raid group with four bear bows, a scourge, a power reaper, and four celestial revenants. And while you're still trying to get past the first phase of VG, other groups are already done with wing 2 and moving to wing 3.

Hell, give us a trait that makes it whenever we apply barrier, we apply protection.

A trait that turns barrier into a delayed heal (when barrier starts to degen, people are healed based on the degenerated amount).

A trait that makes it so the longer you stand in a shade, you gain a stacking buff of increased damage or reduced damage taken.

Make our increased expertise and concentration apply to others who are affected by our barriers or/and stand in our shades.

I’m just spit balling really but hey, better than nothing.

Make our increased expertise and concentration apply to others who are affected by our barriers or/and stand in our shades.

The problem with this is that the classes that care are usually capped, meaning that it'd not do as much :( Otherwise it'd be a great idea to give the shades some proper support for PVE.

Remember about a year or so ago when nobody ever cleared any raids because the highest dps in the meta was ~30k and people routinely used 23k dps builds? Good thing we were all saved by power creep. Top dps or trash! No necros or revs! Condi or gtfo! Support your local Ele! (Seriously, he can’t do anything for himself. He needs a lot of support.)

Wait, people still cleared raids then? All of them? Without any issues? Huh... that’s, umm... inconvenient.

@mygamingid.5816 said:Remember about a year or so ago when nobody ever cleared any raids because the highest dps in the meta was ~30k and people routinely used 23k dps builds? Good thing we were all saved by power creep. Top dps or trash! No necros or revs! Condi or gtfo! Support your local Ele! (Seriously, he can’t do anything for himself. He needs a lot of support.)

Wait, people still cleared raids then? All of them? Without any issues? Huh... that’s, umm... inconvenient.

So what you are saying is that while everyone got a huge boost, its ok for necro to pull the same numbers as 2 years ago. AMIRITE?

@mygamingid.5816 said:Remember about a year or so ago when nobody ever cleared any raids because the highest dps in the meta was ~30k and people routinely used 23k dps builds? Good thing we were all saved by power creep. Top dps or trash! No necros or revs! Condi or gtfo! Support your local Ele! (Seriously, he can’t do anything for himself. He needs a lot of support.)

Wait, people still cleared raids then? All of them? Without any issues? Huh... that’s, umm... inconvenient.

A long time ago, people could only walk from Arizona to Brazil.Eventually, they had horses, and were much faster.Then, ships became available.Nowadays, we even have cars and planes.

People like mygamingid.5816 are, of course, perfectly happy to take an airplane themselves. But god forbid others would like to take a ride on an airplane, or even use a car. How horrible! How terrible! People other than mygamingid.5816, mygamingid.5816 shrieks, those people should walk! Only mygamingid.5816 is special enough to be allowed to use a car, much less an airplane!

Honnestly, Scourge is already an "heavy support spec", the only issue is that it's support is not needed in PvE.

It's not the scourge that need tweeks it's the core necromancer which have been the unwanted child in PvE for 5 years already. I don't know how many time it's been said but there is a very easy way to fix that and that's to slightly change rending shroud (even if it's a PvE only change).

Rending shroud: Hitting a foe with a shroud skill apply a toughness debuff (-180) on this foe for 10 seconds.

See? Core necro become welcome, Reaper become welcome and scourge is also even more welcome. Nobody will care about the super extra support you grant, you just have an unique debuff that make all your teammates have a warm and welcoming smile on their face. They won't even bother if you do 15k dps or 40k dps, the simple fact that you're here is a good thing.

Even better, you don't need more than 1 necromancer which favour profession diversity in your raid.

PvP impact? 0, no, none. WvW impact? Nothing, niet, nada.

Anet could have made things smooth when they decided to "seriously" look at the spite traitline but, hey, that was so much more fun to change the signet trait so that it favour passive gameplay instead of active gameplay.

@Amenon.9126 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:Remember about a year or so ago when nobody ever cleared any raids because the highest dps in the meta was ~30k and people routinely used 23k dps builds? Good thing we were all saved by power creep. Top dps or trash! No necros or revs! Condi or gtfo! Support your local Ele! (Seriously, he can’t do anything for himself. He needs a lot of support.)

Wait, people still cleared raids then? All of them? Without any issues? Huh... that’s, umm... inconvenient.

Nah, what I’m saying is that the golem dps chart doesn’t and shouldn’t matter for balance and that it shouldn’t matter for dps-based comp decisions. Raiders need to stop being elitist kittens and just play the game. If 23k can do it - and easily - then you can suck it up and play with a profession that doesn’t top the charts.

Necro needs buffed. I agree, power particularly. What it doesn’t need is theoretical large-hitbox Staff Weaver DPS (significantly lower in practice and laughably lower against small hitbox) because Necros of all types offer a lot more than Staff Weaver. Whether those things are useful under the current raid meta is moot. They exist and are part of the Necro profession and shouldn’t be ignored when discussing balance. Golem dps charts ignore everything except theoretical dps under conditions even more restricted than the dps-focused raid mode. Those charts should be wholly ignored in balance passes because of the limited scope.

If I had to choose a single game mode to balance from, it’d be WvW. Gameplay is active and all aspects of builds are important and you can see a range of performance for comps running from solo to massive zergs. Start tweaking PvE to more closely resemble that dynamic and you get a much more complete experience.

Aww I really miss my protect GW1 monk :(. I was over the moon when I saw the Scourge idea... But After playing with him it is.... Caca ?

In my opinon I don't think so the class has a problem is the whole game design and philosophy behind.

The original idea (very bad idea) GW2= full dps clases (PVE) = piňata bosses = avoid red areas. After that they saw a lot of people like play with another roles and the idea of all dps avoid red area was and is a caos then, they have tried to add a very soft healers and tanks in PVE.

A now the problem is there is the option to be tank or healer in PVE but the game has been not designed for that. Also with this soft trinity you cannot really shine in one role.

And it is my sad opinion.

If you want to play as support Healer or tank in PVE go to play World of Warcraft or sit down in your chair and wait for gw3 and maybe it will be more similar than GW1 that this DPS Wars.

Gw2 has a good potential bad a very bad caos development. Also the Devs don't help.. With no really feedback or take any consideration about their community. ArenaNet used to be cool before 2013

@TheLastNobody.8319 said:Hell, give us a trait that makes it whenever we apply barrier, we apply protection.

A trait that turns barrier into a delayed heal (when barrier starts to degen, people are healed based on the degenerated amount).

A trait that makes it so the longer you stand in a shade, you gain a stacking buff of increased damage or reduced damage taken.

Make our increased expertise and concentration apply to others who are affected by our barriers or/and stand in our shades.

I’m just spit balling really but hey, better than nothing.

made a post all about the protection.

Would love a trait that makes it so that 5% of the barrier you put out becomes healing when it comes off

1st off, we need to make the Grace of the Land buff a generic one applied by the trait. Then we can give this buff to other classes, such as Scourge.

My tweaks would be as follows:

Introduce a Barrier Grandmaster, (move the corrupt boon steal to the corrupt life force trait), it would be something like:"Barriers you apply pulse Grace of the Land, 1 stack per second."

To fit this new grandmaster, combine Feed from Corruption (boon steal on corrupt) with Nourishing Rot (life force on corrupt).

Then change Abrasive Grit to "Grant barrier whenever you remove or convert a condition from allies or yourself."

Also, as a slight change to Blood Magic, alter Unholy Sanctuary to this:"Transfer conditions from allies to yourself when you enter shroud and every couple of seconds (2) while in shroud. Anytime you remove or convert conditions on allies, gain life force. (1%)"

Reasoning: Scourge needs options outside of Curses/Soul Reaping. Some combos with these changes could involve Plague Signet to automatically grant barrier to allies (double if traited), and then barrier yourself when you send them to an opponent (since it removes them from you). Well of Power becomes more useful, as it can become a pulsing barrier field if enemies are applying conditions while you or allies stand in it. For Death Magic, Necromantic Corruption can grant you a barrier whenever it removes a condition on you and puts it on a minion, and then the minion gains a barrier whenever it removes it from itself and puts it on an opponent. Shrouded Removal can be a pulsing barrier boost for yourself when you active Desert Shroud.

And that's just a few interesting things we can do with these kinds of trait changes.

I really like the breakdown between Scourge and other classes.

To be entirely honest I don't think the issue is the Scourge (though the clunky mightgranting between Torch 5 and BiP is an issue). I think it hurts much more that the Warrior support package does so much, and the Druid package is great as well.

EA+Banners? Nobody can compete with that. 320 Power for the party that can't be given in any other way.Spotters+GotL? Same deal.

How are Scourge or any other healer or any other mightstacker supposed to compete? Actually useful classbuffs & proven effectiveness v Vampiric Aura and unproven effectiveness?

I think Scourge needs a trait that causes Allies in the radius of Manifest Sand Shade to inflict Torment on their next attack.

Increase healing power coefficient on barrier and increase barrier decay time, increase might given on barrier. Lets go full support, its an easy fix.

@Maunzi.3764 said:You are utterly clueless. It IS about replacing a spec, because groups have a limited size. You cannot bring six people to a fractal, and you cannot bring 11 people to a raid.

IF you replace one of the DPS roles with a scourge, you gain nothing: Might is covered, condi cleanse is covered, and chrono has abilities that do what barrier does, just better. This means the only possible place for a scourge is as a replacement for either druid, cPS, or Chrono.

And as I've demonstrated, it fails at replacing all of them. it's a worse choice.

You are of course fine to do a raid group with four bear bows, a scourge, a power reaper, and four celestial revenants. And while you're still trying to get past the first phase of VG, other groups are already done with wing 2 and moving to wing 3.

Just gonna throw this qT boss kill out there. They seem to have managed to use 1 chrono, 1 Soulbeast, and 3 scourges to cover a subsquad with sufficient might and healing. You should probably explain to them that such a comp cannot work. They clearly didn't get the memo.

That video was published on Oct 16, the day before the bug fixes. Scourges were stacking more than the intended amounts of conditions at that point.

If u really want to make scourge support, barrier decay rate should be inversely proportional to boon duration.How can barriers be useful when they decay after 1 second when aegis that you typically get from gaurdians last for 5s or more without having any boon duration?Doesn't make sense does it anet?

Anet, if u dont want your developers spending alot of time playing the actual game, then get respected players from the community for the different areas of the game to give u feedback. Atm the decisions made by the balancing team has been pretty farcical.

@Sephylon.4938 said:That video was published on Oct 16, the day before the bug fixes. Scourges were stacking more than the intended amounts of conditions at that point.

Which would absolutely reduce the DAMAGE that they do, but shouldn't impact the ability to stack might or heal, which is what this thread was ostensibly about.

But those might stacks came with competitive damage. We lost the competitive damage with the bug fix. Also, outside of transfusion, or taking well of blood, scourges can't really heal allies. There's also using staff 2 for regen, but then you'd really be cutting in to your personal dps and competing with druids and chronos for that. And the less said about healing power scaling on barriers the better.

If you think damage is low, make a thread about low DPS, or better yet, post in one of the 20 other threads about low DPS. Don't just straw man "not enough support" to be useful in a raid as a proxy for poor damage.

The spec clearly has a lot of baked in support. Things like "oh, I have a scourge helping with might, I can run zerker runes instead of aristocracy runes" or "I would normally use a magi druid on matthias, but since I have a scourge here, I should be safe using condi druid" are almost certainly going to happen because the support is there.

The few times I've been in a group with a "full heal" necro, they have mitigated with barrier far more than the magi druid has healed. (Comparing absorbed damage to damage taken via logs).

With all due respect to Karl, he can go an fuck himself with that statement about "heavy support". He is incompetent. There's no reason to make requests based on his incompetence.

Because we won't get a shit anyway. Might as well waste time asking for something useful.