Possible solution to scourge

What if shade skills had a 0.25s cast time? That would prevent the scourge from casting them while been CC. Creates more room to counter play with CC chaining and dodging.

Can necros use shades while stun? If so, this BUG needs a fix ASAP, only stunbreak skills are usable while stun.The cast time of 0.25 seconds is too small, a cast time of 0.5 seconds or 0.75 seconds is more reasonable so that macro users cannot abuse instant cast skills.For example:

• If you set cast time to be 0.25 seconds, then the necro can make a macro that can spam f1,f2,f3,f4,f5 in 1.5 seconds
• If you set cast time to be 0.50 seconds, then the necro can make a macro that can spam f1,f2,f3,f4,f5 in 2.5 seconds
• If you set cast time to be 0.75 seconds, then the necro can make a macro that can spam f1,f2,f3,f4,f5 in 3.5 seconds

values between 0.5 sec and 0.75 sec are reasonable and needed to stop the macro cheaters.

How about just delete the scourge from ranged?

Can necros use shades while stun? If so, this BUG needs a fix ASAP, only stunbreak skills are usable while stun.

Do you live under a rock or are you just ignorant about how instant skills have worked since the dawn of this game?

@xDudisx.5914 said:What if shade skills had a 0.25s cast time? That would prevent the scourge from casting them while been CC. Creates more room to counter play with CC chaining and dodging.

What about redesigning Sand Shades into something more defensive (?), like:

Sand Shade doesn't apply Torment and Cripple, Sand Shade applies Weakness (1 second) to foes and Regeneration (minor effect, good scalling with healing power coefficient) to allies.Desert Shroud doesn't apply Torment anymore, but every pulse applies Blind to enemies and gives Stability to allies. Cooldown increased from 20s to 45s.

Abrasive Grit - Now granting Barrier to an ally consumes up two conditions on that ally, healing him for each consumed condition (minor healing effect, but with good healing power coefficient). It doesn't apply Might to allies anymore.Desert Empowerment - Now has higher healing power coefficient and now granting Barrier to an ally, grant him also Protection (5s).

As necro main this should happen:-Sand Savant only increases the radius of the Shade itself, not the radius of the scourge's effects.-Punishment skills should only convert boons into torment instead of cripple + torment-F2 through F4 should have a 0.5 second arming time between the skill being activated and the effect being applied. (the skills should remain instant)

@Morwath.9817 said:

@xDudisx.5914 said:What if shade skills had a 0.25s cast time? That would prevent the scourge from casting them while been CC. Creates more room to counter play with CC chaining and dodging.

I really like the idea of more protective shade skills. Maybe the boon corruption could be turned into boon steal baseline.

I agree .. All skills without activation time should not be allowed to be cast while stunned/CC. :)

You can have any algorithm, of the pool of players is too small the matches creates will be imbalanced. The solution is more about increasing the player base size than anything else.

Sand savant can also be cast over, and over (while only getting 1 sand savant each time)Without a life force cost.

But I still say mirage is the problem.

@Reaper Alim.4176 said:How about just delete the scourge from ranged?

so lets see... there is terrain (obstructed), there are 2 health bars (blow cooldons), there is a healing skill, and btw they have ranged abilities too, in the mean time 2 ppl are stuck en a 2vnecro for 5 min wile your team is outnumbered in the rest of the map.

yep sounds like a solid strategy, lets just range it from off point!...do you even queue?

@Volrath.1473 said:

@"Reaper Alim.4176" said:How about just delete the scourge from ranged?

What's a queue xD

@Reaper Alim.4176 said:How about just delete the scourge from ranged?

I mean they already deleted Revenant from ranked (assuming that's what you meant).

I think that shades should be blind-able. I am not 100% sure but I think that they still work even if necro is blinded. This is the only counter I have for them in melee range and I check if they have blinds on them while I do the thing. Pretty much all the time, despite the blind, I get condi bombed. It works only to condis and skills coming out of the scourge itself thats for sure, but shades? I don't think so.If they cannot be blinded then it would be quite a good addition and not a nerf, to allow blind condition that touches the scourge to track to its shades so that they will also miss the burst.

EDIT:As for the cast time, that would be a reasonable addition as well. There is no need to nerf the damage and application, this is what it has to do so I guess that's alright. More indication to upcoming shade abilities, the risk that it can be interrupted. That would put scourges in a spot of thinking more instead of simply dropping a shade(s) on point, pressing all skills on demand and calling it a day.Just to make sure, I don't have such hard issues with them, they are quite annoying as they are so a trim here and there could be useful. If devs don't nerf stuff to the ground, at least don't power creep it even further.

If anything i could suggest it must be an improve Animation tell, a lot of nobody like me rely heavily on simplicity mode that can on and off inside option menu and it can possibly open up some source of income thru gemstore if you ask me.

@Chapell.1346 said:If anything i could suggest it must be an improve Animation tell, a lot of nobody like me rely heavily on simplicity mode that can on and off inside option menu and it can possibly open up some source of income thru gemstore if you ask me.

I can never tell what shade skill is being cast based on current visuals.

@Volrath.1473 said:

@"Reaper Alim.4176" said:How about just delete the scourge from ranged?

2 health bars...on Scourge? What? Scourge doesn't have Shroud. That's what got traded in the Elite Spec. They're a lower-armor Warrior with only two dodges, less mobility and hard CC, and no blocks or invulnerabilities on the durability front.

A Power Soulbeast can delete a Scourge in about 10 seconds, 20 if the Scourge has a Support Firebrand helping him. "Range it off point" is a perfectly good answer, since you do that and now you have a free cap, probably netting you the point sooner than trying to melee and either dying or dancing around the point for a minute and a half.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Volrath.1473 said:

@"Reaper Alim.4176" said:How about just delete the scourge from ranged?

A single spec shouldn't invalidate all of melee.

Just remove Torment and Cripple from all Shade abilities... except for the Desert Shroud.

Like I agree Scourge shouldn't be putting out 6 conditions for every F1-F5 ability. The condi dmg isn't even all that much of a problem, except no one can clear it, besides Firebrand. Scourge makes almost all Mele classes not viable other than Firebrand and Warrior.

I main scourge and I really hate the condi spam. I play support scourge in WvW and the balance changes you suggest here would shift WvW meta away from support.

First off, they HAVE to fix abrasive grit asap. No balance can be had if the group condi clear from scourge doesn't work. Next they should more focus scourge to be Supportive.

In the past a single build was able to invalidate all X playstyle. Eles was able to totally invalidate any kind of condition build in this game. Engis was able to make useless every direct damage build, expecially with low stability (in the past I seen engis survive to 3-4 power builds while holding the point all the time for more than 5 minutes and no one told a word about that). hammer/mace warrior was able to CC enemies for days while providing support and capping for ages.

Every ranged build can kill a scourge, while the scourge is strong against the majority of the melee builds (use a warrior and burst that scourge down, if you really want to play melee).if a class can do great things but is heavly countered by different builds it's not a huge problem.

In the past only necros was able to kill eles and necros was heavly countered by tons of builds. Maybe now the necro is lesser countered than before but if a simple power ranger or power mesmer can totally remove the "scourge problem" from the match, that make the scourge strong but not OP.Every class able to burst from range is able to kill a scourge without too much problems. Ranger, Mesmer, Revenant, Thief, they're the best classes to burst a scourge, removing it from the game.If you have one of that classes and you see in the enemy team a scourge, just ask to him to kill the scourge every time he come in the fight and you'll play 80% of time in 5vs4 because the necro will be in respown all the time. Expecially if the necro is focused and can't obtain enough LF to be dangerous.

If you seriously hate a class/build and think that it's OP, find it's nemesi and kill it every time you see his face.

Put a Target on the necro, spam some ranged power skills and you'll make him unable to play.

The problem is that scourge is only average in PVE dps so anything that makes that worse will result huge player outcry from well beyond the 10 ppl who play spvp.

@Jacobin.8509 said:The problem is that scourge is only average in PVE dps so anything that makes that worse will result huge player outcry from well beyond the 10 ppl who play spvp.

Reducing the maximum possible radius from 300 to 240 and making it so that the shade skills don't radiate off of the Scourge and only from the sand shade wouldn't be a major loss in PvE DPS. It would make the F1 cooldown actually mean something other than just poking at ranged targets.