The Scourge problem: a combination of several factors (PvE)

I can not play Scourge in its condition version, it is really overly complicated, more than anything else in the game for me.

There is a combination of factors that contribute to generate the problem, making Scourge condition extremely difficult to manage:

• short internal cooldowns on traits that offensively affect skills, and traits strong enough to make those skills stronger than the auto attack chain;
• short cooldowns (on skills) and several instant cast skills (powered by the traits I was referring to);
• strength of the Scepter auto attack chain focused on the third hit, making important to not interrupt it.

It is interesting to notice that I have this problem only with the condition version of Scourge. The main reason is that internal cooldowns of traits makes it overly complicated to play. It is interesting to notice that we have these internal cooldowns to not make these traits “too strong” in competitive game modes. I suggest to remove them, finding a different solution to not make the combination of skills and traits “overpowered”. I would really appreciate that.

Another thing I really dislike and contribute to generate “the problem” is that to play condition Scourge effectively in PvE, I have to constantly keep my eyes on the cooldowns on the skill bar (that is bad for the game: it makes too difficult to pay attention to all the other things we have to pay attention to while fighting, and it goes strongly against the idea of not having to “play the UI”), these cooldowns are also very short. Also, I have to constantly try to judge what skill I should use next.

Another thing that adds to the problem is that every skill is needed as offensive skill (cause some traits add powerful offensive effects to support skills). It would be helpful if some of the skills would be stronger as offensive skill and “other skills” (the support ones) weaker than the auto attack when combined with traits.

All this mess is made worse by the necessity to not interrupt the auto attack chain of the Scepter.

As I said this is simply impossibile for me (and probably most other people) that I’m even far above average for my commitment to improve my skills. It really totally ruin the fun for me.

I don’t doubt that most of the player base is not concerned at all by the problems I mentioned, but this is mostly because the vast majority of them just spam skills on cooldown and don’t care if they can not perform well (if they are aware at all of their performance, which is also unlikely in most cases).

I’m not against specs that require to think and are more complicated than others, but this is really too much (also too messy) and this is even on a profession that many people chose to play for its simplicity.

I hope ArenaNet will be able, in the future, to consider and prioritise solutions different from “adding short internal cooldowns on traits that affect skills” when designing or balancing traits/skills.

Thank you.

I'm not entirely sure what internal cooldowns you're referring to for Scourge.

There's exactly 2 that exist within Scourge:

• Demonic Lore which you don't play around because it's not worth delaying Torment application when you spam enough of it out to be able to proc the trait pretty much on CD anyway.
• Dhuumfire which has an ICD of 1 second which is easily played around by just not spamming F skills which you shouldn't be anyway since otherwise you'll run out of LF and not be able to use Shroud on cooldown.

I can agree that Condi Scourge can be clunky to play well, but in my experience most of that comes down to the mechanics of Sand Sage and Sadistic Searing. The former wanting you to always spam F1 on CD to get the Expertise (Since it's not so easy to get 100% condi uptime on Scourge due to utilizing 3 different conditions - Bleed, Torment and Burning so you don't get an easy 50% duration boost from runes like you do with Firebrand's just Burning or Revenant's mostly Torment and so can use Balthazar/Fire Legion/Baelfire or Torment runes respectievely)

While Sadistic Searing wants you to place down a Sand Shade after using a Punishment skill (Which mostly suck too... But that chunk of burning from the trait makes them worth using).

If Sand Sage wasn't tied to having 3 shades up and Sadistic Searing would also proc on the pulse damage from F1, then Condi Scourge would be a lot more fluid, allowing more freedom to use F1's to adjust to boss movement or just to proc things like Dhuumfire/Demonic Lore/Sadistic Searing without expending LF.

I hope you mean in PvE. Its alright in PvP, though outclassed by reaper and core, and its a potato in WvW.

@jpsssss.7530 said:I hope you mean in PvE. Its alright in PvP, though outclassed by reaper and core, and its a potato in WvW.

Yes, I was thinking about PvE. I have now added “PvE” to the title.

@Black Storm.6974 said:I can not play Scourge in its condition version, it is really overly complicated, more than anything else in the game for me.

There is a combination of factors that contribute to generate the problem, making Scourge condition extremely difficult to manage:

• short internal cooldowns on traits that offensively affect skills, and traits strong enough to make those skills stronger than the auto attack chain;
• short cooldowns (on skills) and several instant cast skills (powered by the traits I was referring to);
• strength of the Scepter auto attack chain focused on the third hit, making important to not interrupt it.

It is interesting to notice that I have this problem only with the condition version of Scourge. The main reason is that internal cooldowns of traits makes it overly complicated to play. It is interesting to notice that we have these internal cooldowns to not make these traits “too strong” in competitive game modes. I suggest to remove them, finding a different solution to not make the combination of skills and traits “overpowered”. I would really appreciate that.

Another thing I really dislike and contribute to generate “the problem” is that to play condition Scourge effectively in PvE, I have to constantly keep my eyes on the cooldowns on the skill bar (that is bad for the game: it makes too difficult to pay attention to all the other things we have to pay attention to while fighting, and it goes strongly against the idea of not having to “play the UI”), these cooldowns are also very short. Also, I have to constantly try to judge what skill I should use next.

Another thing that adds to the problem is that every skill is needed as offensive skill (cause some traits add powerful offensive effects to support skills). It would be helpful if some of the skills would be stronger as offensive skill and “other skills” (the support ones) weaker than the auto attack when combined with traits.

All this mess is made worse by the necessity to not interrupt the auto attack chain of the Scepter.

As I said this is simply impossibile for me (and probably most other people) that I’m even far above average for my commitment to improve my skills. It really totally ruin the fun for me.

I don’t doubt that most of the player base is not concerned at all by the problems I mentioned, but this is mostly because the vast majority of them just spam skills on cooldown and don’t care if they can not perform well (if they are aware at all of their performance, which is also unlikely in most cases).

I’m not against specs that require to think and are more complicated than others, but this is really too much (also too messy) and this is even on a profession that many people chose to play for its simplicity.

I hope ArenaNet will be able, in the future, to consider and prioritise solutions different from “adding short internal cooldowns on traits that affect skills” when designing or balancing traits/skills.

Thank you.

where base necro is meant to be a condi corrupt bot, reaper a power spec, then there is scourge, which is supposed to be support. the class that should be the KING/QUEEN of condition damage is not allowed to by Anet, they hate necro and dont want it to be damage viable, heck even support viable it is not as strong as other support roles and its damage is crap. in the end necro is just a boon corrupt bot, and scourge is meant to turn that into a little bit of support, not for making necro what it should be and that is the top damage for condition damage (or at least competitive for the top spot)

@Taril.8619 said:I'm not entirely sure what internal cooldowns you're referring to for Scourge.

There's exactly 2 that exist within Scourge:

• Demonic Lore which you don't play around because it's not worth delaying Torment application when you spam enough of it out to be able to proc the trait pretty much on CD anyway.
• Dhuumfire which has an ICD of 1 second which is easily played around by just not spamming F skills which you shouldn't be anyway since otherwise you'll run out of LF and not be able to use Shroud on cooldown.

I can agree that Condi Scourge can be clunky to play well, but in my experience most of that comes down to the mechanics of Sand Sage and Sadistic Searing. The former wanting you to always spam F1 on CD to get the Expertise (Since it's not so easy to get 100% condi uptime on Scourge due to utilizing 3 different conditions - Bleed, Torment and Burning so you don't get an easy 50% duration boost from runes like you do with Firebrand's just Burning or Revenant's mostly Torment and so can use Balthazar/Fire Legion/Baelfire or Torment runes respectievely)

While Sadistic Searing wants you to place down a Sand Shade after using a Punishment skill (Which mostly suck too... But that chunk of burning from the trait makes them worth using).

If Sand Sage wasn't tied to having 3 shades up and Sadistic Searing would also proc on the pulse damage from F1, then Condi Scourge would be a lot more fluid, allowing more freedom to use F1's to adjust to boss movement or just to proc things like Dhuumfire/Demonic Lore/Sadistic Searing without expending LF.

I agree about Sadistic Searing and Sand Sage. I should have mentioned them in my post.Was the pulse damage you was referring to the one from F5? (Hmm, or maybe you was referring to F2-3-4-5).

I think the changes you proposed (or something similar) would be important to solve the problem of Scourge being overly complicated to use effectively.

@"Xxnecroxx.4039" said:where base necro is meant to be a condi corrupt bot, reaper a power spec, then there is scourge, which is supposed to be support. the class that should be the KING/QUEEN of condition damage is not allowed to by Anet, they hate necro and dont want it to be damage viable, heck even support viable it is not as strong as other support roles and its damage is kitten. in the end necro is just a boon corrupt bot, and scourge is meant to turn that into a little bit of support, not for making necro what it should be and that is the top damage for condition damage (or at least competitive for the top spot)

I think ANet designed the necromancer to be the master of condition manipulation and debuffing, not the master of condition damage. The main issue is that condition manipulation isn't a thing in PvE while it can work pretty well in PvP/WvW due to the sheer amount of boon and conditions you encounter there.

Theoretically, if boss encounters had an environmental effect that inflict 10 seconds of bleed every 2 seconds to all players a necromancer with Unholy martyr and Plague sending would be able to tranfert 25 bleed stacks every 10 seconds while helping their allies with their bleed issue. It's stupid but it's probably what was envisioned as the role of the necromancer in a group in GW2. It's just that the encounters designs has never taken the step into this direction.

If bosses encounters were closer to players' in term of reliance on boons, dodge and healing (like it was the case in GW) and didn't instead have a design trivializing any heal they could get and a mechanism that emulate boons (defiance: effectively unlimited stability, vigor and resistance all in one) without being impacted by boons hate, then maybe the necromancer could capitalize on it's debuffing "role" through boon corruption and debilitating conditions. Let's just say, tomorow a boon corruption effect hitting a defiant foe without boon apply 2 bleed stacks for 8s (what would happen if it had converted vigor, except that it keep the vigor/stability/resistance effect), would anyone say that it's out of place, unfair? Again, It's stupid but it's probably what was envisioned as the role of the necromancer in a group in GW2.

Just designing boss encounters environmental effects right and a minor update to defiance would probably push condi necromancer (all specs and other professions relying on boon hate) in a better spot in PvE by effectively making use of it's tools and the purpose of it's design. Is it really to much to ask?

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Xxnecroxx.4039" said:where base necro is meant to be a condi corrupt bot, reaper a power spec, then there is scourge, which is supposed to be support. the class that should be the KING/QUEEN of condition damage is not allowed to by Anet, they hate necro and dont want it to be damage viable, heck even support viable it is not as strong as other support roles and its damage is kitten. in the end necro is just a boon corrupt bot, and scourge is meant to turn that into a little bit of support, not for making necro what it should be and that is the top damage for condition damage (or at least competitive for the top spot)

I agree.If PvE required condition clear in or flipping into boons, Necro would be more useful without competitive dps but all professions have condi mitigation now where that sort of thing was rarer in 2012-2013.

• Well of Power is never useful in PvE groups.
• Putrid Mark had its transfer of ally condi removed.
• Plague Signet always caused instant Necro-suicide before its transfer rate was nerfed to the ground. It was never good outside of PvP because there was no mechanic to store conditions. They all applied to the Necromancer as soon as they were pulled from allies.
• Nefarious Favor on Scourge flips conditions but is only available to Scourge and is weak in PvE with only 1 condi flipped on 3 targets although, with the Scourge being considered a shade one more, that should mean 6 targets. Still not a whole squad in PvE.

The tools to manage ally conditions are worse than in 2012. Meanwhile, there is Spellbreaker and many other modern options. Managing ally conditions is something Arenanet has actively moved Necromancer away from.

@"Xxnecroxx.4039" said:that would imply that Anet gives a kitten about necros when in fact they dont,

ANet do care about the necromancer. They've done a lot since launch to improve it's compatibility with the content (The necromancer was in a very sorry state when the game was launched, it's to the point that at some point in time the necromancer could only let himself be downed in PvP in order to achieve anything). What I imply is that they never acknowledged the true flaws of PvE due either to miscommunication with the playerbase or simply a lack of understanding. And without acknowledging these flaws they tried to buff the necromancer in the wrong direction, breaking things in sPvP/WvW.

one way for getting necro to a decent spot in PVE is to make PVE content CONSTANTLY get boons that get corrupted into damage conditions, but even then alot of classes have boon strip of some sort. so even that might not put necro in a better spot. the overall easiest way is to make the next elite spec remove necros boon corrupt and stuff but give it ALOT of condition damage which is what i am hoping for. but knowing Anet, they will just find another way to screw over necro again

No, you're mistaken, more boons on PvE mobs is not the solution. More boons would only lead to group taking more of the most effective boon ripper (mesmer).The boons that convert into damaging conditions are:

• Aegis converted into burn: An unrealistic boon to convert when you're fighting into a 10 man group against a single foe.
• Regeneration converted into poison: The boon itself is useless to a million health points AI just like poison have no heal to reduce anyway.
• Retaliation converted into confusion: A possibility but I'd rather have a mesmer that quickly get rid of it than a necromancer that have to react to the boon and then use a boon corrupting skill. To dangerous to rely on a necromancer for that for little to no benefit.
• Stability converted into fear: Defiance already do the job of stability, no use for this boon.
• Vigor converted into bleed: AI do not dodge nor do they have an endurance ressource, useless on them.

Like I said, the safest way to make boon corruption (and boon hate in general) a thing in PvE is to make it interact with defiance which already emulate stability and a bit of resistance. Boon conversion doesn't have to remove defiance, but simply "convert" it into 2 bleed (like if it had interacted with vigor) and maybe, add some breakbar damage when in breakbar mode.

As for condition manipulation, having the environment deal slow ramping condition should be a goal of the dev team. Afterall, they have a hard time doing it for players, they could at least set an example with PvE where they do have some control over what's done there.

An other issue you don't notice (Or I didn"t read it, sorry) : Auto-condition / transfer gimmick.

On golem; yes you can apply to yourself twice 220sec bleeding + 220sec torment and transfer them to the foe; and it's a very important part of the dps.But in situation : you have 10 light fields + random condi cleanse every second you don"t even finish to cast BiP you have already lost the auto-conditions ...Same for condi reaper, half the bleedings come from whirl combos in the ice field ...Benchmark is already not really high, but it's even worse with players arround.

@"Xxnecroxx.4039" said:where base necro is meant to be a condi corrupt bot, reaper a power spec, then there is scourge, which is supposed to be support. the class that should be the KING/QUEEN of condition damage is not allowed to by Anet, they hate necro and dont want it to be damage viable, heck even support viable it is not as strong as other support roles and its damage is kitten. in the end necro is just a boon corrupt bot, and scourge is meant to turn that into a little bit of support, not for making necro what it should be and that is the top damage for condition damage (or at least competitive for the top spot)

I dunno, call me crazy. But I feel in terms of condi-damage necromancer (or just scourge in this case), they should be top-tier in condi damage. And I know what most of you are thinking about, the good ol' trusty "Epidemic". It is definitely OP, even after the nerf. But Epidemic shouldn't be our main tool in terms of condi damage and killing off trash mobs. I'm speaking solely on single target encounters. The sheer fact that practically any other class (firebrand, weaver, renegade, etc) can out dps a scourge in condition damage on a single-target is a bit of a spit in the face for necros, I'm just sayin...

I agree with you though, maybe anet just hates us necromances too much /shurg.