How to balance Scourge

The primary aim of these changes is to:

• Tone down Scourge's raw power level in PvP and WvW
• Increase parity between Sand Savant and Scourge's other two grandmaster traits in WvW and sPvP.
• Improve Support options for Scourge
• Reduce the superfluous amount of boonrip on Scourge.
• Increase scourge's disengage and escape options.
• Do all of the above without needing skill splitting and without negatively affecting Scourge's PvE DPS potential.
• Still leave scourge as a competitive option in PvP and WvW.

Now that I have laid out my goals for these changes, here are the proposed changes themselves:

1. Sand Savant only increases the size of shades, Sand Savant will no longer increase the size of effects spawned at the scourge.
2. Shade auto attacks are only casted by shades and not at the scourge's position.
3. The healing power contribution to the Barriers applied by Sand Cascade, Sand Flare, and Desert Empowerment is significantly increased.
4. Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple.
5. Punishment skills now only convert boons into torment, instead of torment + cripple.
6. Demonic Lore now applies Cripple in addition to it's previous effects.
7. The Shade recharge reduction component of Sand Savant has been moved to Feed from Corruption.
8. Ghastly Breach's cooldown has been increased to 120 seconds.
9. Trail of Anguish now applies 3 stacks of Stability. (up from 1) Trail of Anguish no longer converts boons.
10. Sand Swell cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds. (down from 1 second) Sand Swell no longer converts boons.
11. Abrasive Gift now converts 1 condition into a boon instead of cleansing.

The purpose of changes #1 and #2 are to make it so that Scourges now need to utilitize their shades for offense, instead of simply having 300 radius killzone perpetually centered on the scourge's position. This should make scourge less of shutout hard counter to melee classes, while still leaving Shades as a effective area denial tool.The purpose of changes #3 and #11 is to make more support focused scourge better to open up a new role for scourge.The purpose of changes #4 and #5 is because having every torment applying skill natively come with it's own cover condi is excessive, and the lack of a rate limit on how fast cripple can be applied results in current gen Scourge being able to apply so much cripple as to be able to maintain 100% uptime even against builds that are running enormous amounts of -cripple duration and impairment removing skills.The purpose of #6 is to offset the removal of cripple from all other skills by allowing scourge to trait back into cripple access, but since Demonic Lore has a ICD, the cripple access from this trait will not be as overpowering as current gen Scourge's is. This change also makes Demonic Lore more desirable in PvP.The purpose of change #7 is to cut down on the dominance of Sand Savant as a trait, moreover the recharge reduction makes much more sense on 3-shade scourge than it does on Savant Scourge given that 3-shade scourge needs that recharge reduction much more.The purpose of #8 is to bring Ghastly Breach inline with Plaguelands. (Currently Ghastly Breach is just a significantly better version of Plaguelands as far as PvP is concerned)The purpose of #9 and #10 is to give scourge a little better escape capabilities, while cutting down on the superfluous amounts of boonrip available to scourge.

I kinda like these.

I'd honestly be OK with a DPS drop on Scourge if A.) Reapers got a DPS buff (which they need anyways), and B.) Scourge got better support capabilities. I may be in the minority, but I'd be fine with Scourge being a support class (just so long as it's actually useful / necessary, and not shelved because druids do it better).

The killzone around the scourge is a major problem for sure and in my opinion is the perfect example of the powercreep that PoF has brought to the game. Does anyone remember the tempest mechanic? Overloads. They are basically an AoE that you do around you and they do have quite a few similarities with how the shade effects work. To be fair 1 shade effect isn't as powerful as an overload, but you can stack them to make them just as strong. The difference is that you also get to apply the effects around the shade instead of only around you, while also being unable to be interrupted, all while you can also use your weapon skills because the shade effect is not a cast. I get that you sacrifice your death shroud "health" for this but at least you get something out of barriers so it's not a full sacrifice, especially since barrier has the benefit that allies can heal you through it.

To be frank, I think that the way scourge is designed is quite ridiculous and I have no idea how Anet thought that this would be a support spec. It's always conditions and corruptions for necro no matter what the spec is meant to accomplish, and reaper was a great example of this until the revamp. Where is the healing? Where are the boons except for might? Where is a decent unique buff or something? I thought these scourges where supposed to reject Joko, not embrace his ways. Seriously, what's going on here?

The suggestions here seem solid, but Anet balances at a glacial pace. Even if they decide to change scourge to having healthier gameplay and more support options today, it will take them a couple of years before they accomplish it.

this changes are not good in my opinion.

Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple

scourge is by far slowliest class in the game. and you want delete cripple from scourge? the only way to catch enemies. how you want beat a ranger if you cannot slow him? he will use superspeed invis and leaps to kite you and bomb you on 1500 range and you will never land a hit.

Ghastly Breach's cooldown has been increased to 120 seconds.

ghastly breach recharge on 120 sec? a very immobile skill that hit an enemie max 1 time before he dodged out of the aoe.look to mirage elite (cumulated 1350 range port+3condi remove+9 confu), or warrior elite (200 boonstrip), or the holosmith prime light beam (massive dmg+1200 range +launch), there are many strong elites next to ghastly breach

Reduce the superfluous amount of boonrip on Scourge

its just the counter to the superfluous amount of boons all classes cast in the game have.boonshare meta in hot was retarded, so its good that scourge AND WARRIOR counter it.how you want stop an enemy with perma stabi, perma resistance, perma protection without boonstrip???

finally necro is

-> last place in mobility rank-> last place in casting boons (also stability)-> last place in casting heal-> last place in sustain (no blocks, no invuls, no invis)-> not only 1 good weapon on necromancers in comparison to all other classes

thiefs -> massive numbers of dodges, ports, invis, also a block WHILE massive dmg (can one-shoot people)mesmers -> massive invuls, invis, stunbreaks, ports, blocks/evades WHILE massive dmg in condi AND power (can one shot people)warriors -> massive invuls, blocks, leaps while massive dmg (massive dmg hits on on axe and GS)holosmith -> every 2 sec 600 range leap in photon forge, 900 range leaps on rocket boots bring him very high mobility, massive dmg on photon skills and elite (1200 range + knockback + 60 sec cd - less than ghastly breach)i could continue with it for ranger (massive sustain and range and mobility), firebrand (endless support, burndmg), ele (a lot more dmg than scourge in every scenario, while have more support in heal AND booncast).

only rev ist weak class atm.

the only reason people cry because of scourge is, that people want back skilless boonshare yolopush meta which is countered by warri and scourge. i can only say l2p. who just push into enemies and spamming 1 have no right to win any fight. thats skilless and deserved to get punished.

I don't play scourge in pvp so I can't really comment too much about that aspect. However speaking from a PvE perspective, the second change would absolutely neuter scourge dps.

2. Shade auto attacks are only casted by shades and not at the scourge's position.

This essentially means that any movement will destroy scourge dps. It used to be fine before the change where shade pulses burning but since burning damage was so high, even if boss is moving the damage remains to be the respectable. After the nerf and change to increased torment on desert shroud, it means that you have very low dps down time as scourge in pve because you can just literally run at boss at melee range if they are moving. So without having it pulse from yourself, it would be a very very bad change without some sort of serious compensation for it.

Scourge is a dead class in wvw. Long live Backline Revenant.

@Zero.3871 said:this changes are not good in my opinion.

Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple

Ghastly Breach's cooldown has been increased to 120 seconds.

Oh and lets not forget that Ghastly Breach makes Plaguelands completely redundant, since Ghastly Breach applies almost as much raw damage, but Breach is frontloaded, larger radius, with shorter cast time, and shorter cooldown. I mean shoot Ghastly Breach has a shorter base cooldown than Chilled to the Bone does and CttB isn't even a DPS skill.

Reduce the superfluous amount of boonrip on Scourge

We have more than enough boonhate on the base necro, there is no call for Scourge's insane AoE ripping power. Also no class has perma resistance, and no class has perma stability. Tempest is the only class with perma protection.

There is a reason Scourge has a 100% pick rate in Tournaments.

Right now the barrier is just plain useless in my opinion.I think the barriers should turn into health after the 2 second phase instead of just disappearing (or at least half of it). Maybe even lower the amount of barrier that can be applied but enemies still has the chance to dps down it and necros now got a better support utility/self survivability.

AOE attacks should be extremely powerful against a group but also deal less damage to each target than a single target attack. This means you should only want to use an AOE attack against a group instead of a single target skill. The problem with scourge is the AOE attacks deal just as much damage if not more than any single target attacks that scourge has to offer. Most attack skills are also just that, AOE. My personal opinion in balancing scourge for PvP and WvW is not just looking at the class itself but revamping how AOE is done in the game across all classes and abilities.

@Zero.3871 said:this changes are not good in my opinion.

Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple

Ghastly Breach's cooldown has been increased to 120 seconds.

Reduce the superfluous amount of boonrip on Scourge

How is boonshare mindless when you actually have to push more than one button to actually keep those boons outs?

Are you sure you even PvP son?I don't think you doIf you so, that mindset is pretty damn warped.Having two of the same class, AND same spec (from a PVP perspective) is not healthy for gameplay.Having one class suffocates a point for, at least, ten to fifteen seconds is not healthy.Though, I will agree if these changes are mostly for WvW/PvP then I say they are good.

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Zero.3871 said:this changes are not good in my opinion.

Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple

Ghastly Breach's cooldown has been increased to 120 seconds.

Reduce the superfluous amount of boonrip on Scourge

Edit: Wait, I know you haven't PVP'd recently, because you said Ele has more damage than a scourge and trying to paint them as the meta spec right now. Lmao, yea no.

Tempest doesn't have 'lots of damage'Weaver doesnt have 'lots of damage' with support either.

Both have fairly low damage.And if you are playing core fresh air, you are glass my friend.If you are trying to make justification against boons, at least have a sliver of information that is not biased trash.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Zero.3871 said:this changes are not good in my opinion.

Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple

Ghastly Breach's cooldown has been increased to 120 seconds.

Reduce the superfluous amount of boonrip on Scourge

-> Ghastly breach

in PvE, i think we dont need tlk about lack of dmg in pve from necro -> so this skill dont need a nerf therein wvw, is much space to evade. so this skill tick max 1 time on an enemy before he left the aoe (1 stack burning, 2 stack torment is far away from one shot) -> no nerf neededin pvp its maybe very strong because of small capture points, but nerf cd to 120 sec (+60% cd) is completely disproportional. spellbreaker elite removes 8 times more boons than necro elite and have 90 sec cd...

and everything makes all other necro elites redundant because necro elites are trash. lich is trash after it get changed. plague is trash after it get changed, minion was ever trash. and your argument: "one elite is trash and no one want use it, so trash all other elites too, to bring it back to game" this is not really an argument.

-> cripple1.)removals:daredevil-> unhindered combatant, perma remove of crippleall thieves have access to "dont stop" (in Acrobatik) -> 80% duration decrease to crippleengis -> mecha leggs (in inventions): -33% crippledruid-> natural stride: 33% reduce on cripplesoulbeast-> dolyak stance (direct remove)chrono-> time marches on: 25%reduce to cripplewarrior-> dogged march: duration decreased by 33%guard and ele have in general massive condiremoverev-> riposting shadows direct removaland more2.) leaps,teleportsevery leap or teleport ignores cripple.

warriors, thieves, mesmers, holosmiths, eles, revs, rangers, guards have enough of those skills to move very fast WHILE they are crippled. and WHILE crippleduration ends.

there are MANY counters to cripple, also the possibility to use bufffood, -20% condi duration.

=> so no reason to nerf

-> boonhate on core necrowhat have booncorrupt on core nec to do with scourge?

Traitlines:all scourges have to play the same 3 traitlines:-course-> just f2 booncorrupt can be skilled (8 sec cd on f2)-soul reaping (no booncorrupt here)-scourge (just booncorrupt on unending corruption-> 1 corrupt 10 sec cd on f1 with sand savant, thats not really much)

skills:you can choose scourge skills OR core necro skills, but not all together.e.g.you can use "corrupt boon" and well of corruption from core nec.or you can choose "trail of anguish and dessicate from scourge. but why scourge is overpowered because he have all of this skillls? he just can choose 2 of them. third utility skill is usually spectral armor or something like that.

so if you would delete booncorrupt from punishment skills, what would change? the amount of booncorrupt would finally bee the same because scourge would change to core nec skills...

you should see, booncorrupt is speciality of necromancer, so its legit than necro has access to it. also boo ncorrupt itself dont kill people.-X stacks might changed to weakness-fury changed to blindness-protection to 1 stack vulnerability

does weakness,blindness and 1 stack vulnerability kill you? no...

other classes can easy kill you if you get corrupted because of OP dmg from SB,Mirages,Thiefes, holosmiths..... but than you should nerf their dmg and not necro...

-> necro has 100% pick rate in tournements

there are a lot of other classes, have 100% pick rate in tournements too. also no argument...

Scourge is epic weak it need to be buffed, just go for classical boon corruption/conversion for each shade pulse on each shade skill and whenever you corrupt a boon you also apply burning and transfer a condition on each foe you hit, please add some more mobility too and breakstuns and some pulsing stability. Ty.

oh, and since we are here i would also kindly ask to nerf the Reaper a bit more it is still decent in open world pve would be nice if you finish off whatever is left of it.

@Zero.3871 said:-> crippleengis -> mecha leggs (in inventions): -33% cripplewarrior-> dogged march: duration decreased by 33%druid-> natural stride: 33% reduce on cripplechrono-> time marches on: 25%reduce to cripple

First off traits that reduce the duration of cripple don't mean anything to Scourge because Scourge's cripple application is that high. Scourge can easily maintain 100% cripple uptime even on builds that have all of these: Relentless Pursuit, Hoalbrak Runes, and Speed of Shadows

Clearing Scourge's cripple isn't even that useful because it's immediately reapplied due to the fact that all F skills apply cripple baseline, and all punishment skills apply cripple baseline, in addition to Scepter 2's cripple, and of course swiftness corruption.

@Zero.3871 said:-> cripple1.)removals:daredevil-> unhindered combatant, perma remove of crippleall thieves have access to "dont stop" (in Acrobatik) -> 80% duration decrease to cripplesoulbeast-> dolyak stance (direct remove)chrono-> time marches on: 25%reduce to crippleguard and ele have in general massive condiremoverev-> riposting shadows direct removaland moreFirst off Scourge flat out hardcounter's ele, because elementalist do not have any form of burst condi remove, and even under my changes Scourge would still win against elementalist. Moreover base guard and DH also lack the necessary cleansing to survive a scourge. Firebrand despite having more condi clear than any other class in the entire history of the game can only survive a scourge for limited periods of time before having to disengage.

2.) leaps,teleportsevery leap or teleport ignores cripple.Which would mean my changes to Scourge's cripple access would not effect scourge against leap/teleports.

there are MANY counters to cripple, also the possibility to use bufffood, -20% condi duration.I'm still trying to find that food slot on my sPvP build panel.

=> so no reason to nerfWith my changes scourge will still win every single matchup it currently wins. The difference is that with my changes Scourge will not be mandatory pick for all pvp formats.

-> boonhate on core necrowhat have booncorrupt on core nec to do with scourge?Because Scourge has access to everything that core necro does? Necromancer already has more than enough corrupts on the base class to be competitive. Loading a entire elite spec with boonrip is superfluous.

Traitlines:all scourges have to play the same 3 traitlines:-course-> just f2 booncorrupt can be skilled (8 sec cd on f2)-soul reaping (no booncorrupt here)-scourge (just booncorrupt on unending corruption-> 1 corrupt 10 sec cd on f1 with sand savant, thats not really much)Path of Corruption is 2 boons every 6 seconds because you forgot about Vital Persistence.

Also what you aren't accounting is the area covered by Shade Corrupts. A Savant Scourge hitting F2 with his shade will be applying Path of Corruption to a 282,743 * 2 = 565,486 unit^2 area of the field.

skills:you can choose scourge skills OR core necro skills, but not all together.e.g.you can use "corrupt boon" and well of corruption from core nec.or you can choose "trail of anguish and dessicate from scourge. but why scourge is overpowered because he have all of this skillls? he just can choose 2 of them. third utility skill is usually spectral armor or something like that.

so if you would delete booncorrupt from punishment skills, what would change? the amount of booncorrupt would finally bee the same because scourge would change to core nec skills...

Here is what Meta Scourge has:

• Unending Corruption (1 corrupt, 300 radius on shade drop, AoE, 3 charges @ 10.05 second charge cooldown)
• Path of Corruption ( 2 corrupt, 300 radius on shade and Scourge, AoE, 6 second cooldown)
• Trail of Anguish (1 boon rip per strike, AoE, 25 second cooldown)
• Scepter auto chain (1 corrupt per chain, single target)
• Sand Swell (1 boon rip, AoE, 35 second cooldown)
  • Ghastly Breach (1 boon rip per pulse, 5 total pulses, AoE, 75 second cooldown)

Note: WvW Scourge runs more rips than the above list.

Compared to Reaper (which would be meta if it wasn't completely usurped by Scourge) Scourge is just a massive amount of totally uncalled for power creep. There is no need for having every single punishment skill to rip boons, there is no need for Ghastly Breach to have a shorter cooldown than CttB. There is no need for literally everything Scourge does to be done in massive 300 radius AoEs.

there are a lot of other classes, have 100% pick rate in tournements too. also no argument.

Class representation in the last mouthly tournament:Elementalist: 1Engineer: 7Guardain: 21Mesmer: 12Necro: 21Ranger: 11Revenant: 0Thief: 11Warrior: 11

All of those necros where Scourges. The only class with equivalent representation is Firebrand, all other classes have half or less of Scourge's representation. The reason Firebrand has equivalent pick rate to Scourge is because Firebrand is the only support class that can function in a teamfight against a Scourge.

@Zero.3871 said:the only reason people cry because of scourge is, that people want back skilless boonshare yolopush meta which is countered by warri and scourge. i can only say l2p. who just push into enemies and spamming 1 have no right to win any fight. thats skilless and deserved to get punished.

Scourge has plenty ways to corrupt boon. The OP is talking about superfluous boonstrips which are unintentional or accidental boon strips. The only punishment skill that a scourge uses to actively convert boon is Ghastly breach. Everything else is a defensive utility and used as such. The boon strip is a side effect - a collateral damage. It is not an active play and it piles on even more into the Scourge's button spamming, lack of active play style. And talking about skill less boonshare yolo push meta - it has just been replaced by a skill less button mashing boonstrip meta.

Watch a Scourge+FB go against another Scourge+FB on a node and see how the fight goes. It all comes down who can press buttons more and out-corrupt the other party. Mind you, not out skill, but out corrupt and out spam.

@Crinn.7864 said:

1. Sand Savant only increases the size of shades, Sand Savant will no longer increase the size of effects spawned at the scourge.
2. Shade auto attacks are only casted by shades and not at the scourge's position.
3. Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple.

I think point 1 will be sufficient. Keeping the radius around the scourge unchanged from Sand Savant would instantly change the Scourge MO of a 300 radius kill zone that happily rushes onto a node forcing people off it to a strategic gameplay where you need to choose where you want to go and where you want to place your shade.

9. Trail of Anguish now applies 3 stacks of Stability. (up from 1) Trail of Anguish no longer converts boons.

Trail of Anguish needs to punish people for stepping into it in some form. I suggest that it should apply torment and cripple if people step on it and remove the boon conversion from it. It is a telegraphed path that should be avoidable. Additionally, I would suggest that Trail of Anguish now pulses swiftness on the user for the duration of the skill effect as it does for other people running on the trail. It should still give only 1 stack of stability to other people who step on it, so that stability stacks are not blown out of proportions with increase in the number of scourges.

However, the rest of the punishment skills other than Ghastly breach should not be doing accidental boon conversion.

@Animi.4617 said:I think the barriers should turn into health after the 2 second phase instead of just disappearing (or at least half of it).

It could be one of the most broken mechanic then.

It is simple to nerf Scourge in PvP, reduce damage of burnign by 50% and make all conditions (including nerfed burning) deal their damage over 100% more duration. No longer will they suddenly get 50% health back because of a burning/torment tick and Parasitic Contagion. No more of the condition spikes. All conditions are now balanced and so is Scourge.

@Crinn.7864 said:

Class representation in the last mouthly tournament:Elementalist: 1Engineer: 7Guardain: 21Mesmer: 12Necro: 21Ranger: 11Revenant: 0Thief: 11Warrior: 11

All of those necros where Scourges. The only class with equivalent representation is Firebrand, all other classes have half or less of Scourge's representation. The reason Firebrand has equivalent pick rate to Scourge is because Firebrand is the only support class that can function in a teamfight against a Scourge.

No, i just see that scourge is the only effective way to counter all the boons, thats the reason people take it so often. if there were other classes with that possibility, no one would play scourge...and at its current state, its very easy to stun and bomb scourges (you need skilled teamplay for that but it seems most people are overstrained with playing with skill). his f-skillcast is very limited to its lifeforce. in pvp scourge start with 0 lf, activating ALL f skills cost 66% or something like that of whole lf. so you cannot brainless spam it.

shades can get blocked, or use invul (like mirage).

in wvw scourges lack of mobility has way higher impact than in pvp. decreasing castime on sand swell would change nothing.in wvw i see deadeyes, weavers, mesmers one shot people with 20-30k dmgs, where is this power creep? damn 30k...on mirage and deadeye while that you have tonns of invis or invuls to stay alive after your hit.

@Rudra.6932 said:

@Zero.3871 said:@Crinn.7864 said:

1. Sand Savant only increases the size of shades, Sand Savant will no longer increase the size of effects spawned at the scourge.
2. Shade auto attacks are only casted by shades and not at the scourge's position.
3. Shade auto attacks no longer apply cripple.

The shade auto could probably be left at the Scourge, particularly given that as another poster pointed out, the on-scourge auto is necessary in PvE. I still insist on the cripple removals however, not because scourge shouldn't have cripple, but because the current rate of application is overbearing to the extreme.

9. Trail of Anguish now applies 3 stacks of Stability. (up from 1) Trail of Anguish no longer converts boons.

Trail of Anguish already does strike damage + 4 sec burning to enemies that step in it (in addition to it's other effects) I intended to simply removing the boon conversion and leave the burning application. 4 seconds of burning per strike is enough I think, given everything else the skill does even without the boonrip.

@Zero.3871 said:activating ALL f skills cost 66% or something like that of whole lf. so you cannot brainless spam it.

Spam skills is always bad but the major culprit of Scourge's spamming is Nefarious Favor, wich turn condition into boons and (if traited) corrupt boons and increase life force for every boon corrupted. And spamming Fx skills isn't required to be successful.

@Zero.3871 said:in wvw i see deadeyes, weavers, mesmers one shot people with 20-30k dmgsAnd about the damage of Mesmers and Thieves..

skills should follow the law of "biggest tell = biggest burst/effect" and class the one of "high survivability = low damage/mobility" but this seems true only for certain professions.

Dont think recommended changes from previous posts are good. That would make a roaming scourge even worse

@Zero.3871 said:

daredevil-> unhindered combatant, perma remove of cripple

Perma.Somebody kill that guy.

@Shirlias.8104 said:

@Zero.3871 said:

daredevil-> unhindered combatant, perma remove of cripple

Unhindered combatant used to give pretty much immunity to movement impairing conditions. It was half the reason it changed.

Still a strong trait for that purpose just not completely overbearing as it was before.

So, changes 1 and 2 would hurt pve with change one basically removing scourge support which is what anet seems to want scourges role to be. The changes you propose are far too harsh for pvp as well, when range already counters scourges too well in my opinion, which is the tradeoff of scourges countering heavy boon classes and all melee classes.

Those changes are just a giant nerf. I wouldn't call them balance at all. If you want to beat a scourge range them or avoid the initial condi bomb. :)