How to balance scourge ?

Hello,

I create this poll after reading some ideas on how to nerf/balance scourge. I think the nerf hammer will come soon, and I hope this poll will be a way for Anet to have a clear view on how balance should be made from player point of view.

The questions is : What kind of nerf could make scourge balanced ?

completly rework the concept or delete the elite spec?

After last patch, Scourges burst has been nerfed considerably. With all honestly, dealing with Scourge is a L2P issue. For those complaining: have you ever created a scourge yourselves? Read their skills and look for ways to counter them? If not, thats a good place to start.

I’m not a scourge main myself, but that’s my personal opinion...

@Toron.4856 said:completly rework the concept or delete the elite spec?

Ooo, Quaggan agrees with this wise post.

any of the proposed "nerfs" would in effect kill the class they need to rework scourage skills from spam small cost skills to big reward large cost skills much easier to balance that type of skill with cool downs or changing cost.... small effect but low cost spam builds are just a mad dash of who can click the skill the fastest (exaggerating)

Gw2 pvp can be compared to overwatch a lot. Scourge is like Zarya and her ult. Except for Zarya has long cooldown on her ult. Her ult itself doesnt deal damage. What I am implying? Give ability that can push whole team out of point for little to no effort long ass cooldown.

My thoughts on each point.1- I feel there are elements of scourge that are over tuned in spvp, and potentially wvw. It is important to note the gamemode as it affects balance separately. In conquest where holding small nodes is critical, saying just range or pew pew is not a good balance choice for conquest, especially when looking at team comps as a whole, and the amount of projectile hate in the meta. Mostly I will talk toward PvP.

2- I feel boon corrupt is integral on scourge due to the fact that it is a result of all the boons present with power creep, while I dislike how strong this makes scourge its also keeping other classes in line(except for rev its just kittened, though that is an issue slightly larger than scourge).

3-4 To adding cast times, Necro/reaper/scourge has always been countered heavily by CC and each has a way to try to cope, core can use range to avoid some melee cc, reaper got slightly more access to stability, and scourge just got more instant casts, take away the instant casts and they could easily go from op, to hard countered by every class with stuns/cc.

5- The amount of conditions they apply is an area where I would not mind nerfs. Many skills not only corrupt boons but convert single boons into multiple conditions, this means 1 boon can sometimes equal 3 conditions if hit by skills like ghastly breach, plus the 2 conditions ghastly breach applies regardless of boons. This means if you had stability for example(and just stability) 1 pulse of that elite can put fear, torment, slow, cripple, and burn, that is 1 pulse of 1 skill, which is in my opinion over-tuned.(https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ghastly_Breach)

6- Stacks of conditions are already not so insane that I feel this is a huge issue, I would rather see the amount of different conditions nerfed before this. My main complaint is the amount of various conditions scourge applies in the time frame it applies them.

7 (5+6)- Doing both at once may be a tad much, the only condition scourge applies in bulk is torment, and burning(depending on traits) if going to do both slightly reducing torment application may be fine, though I feel the cover conditions, and just sheer volume of different conditions is the biggest concern.

8- Make shades grow up is an interesting idea, but will require a lot of work on anets part, and i feel would be harder to balance in that the speed at which the shades grow will have a big role on balance and will make traits affecting entering shroud useless, as when "entering shroud" the shades radius would be very very small if not 0.

9- Making shades killable may also make another renegade/turret engi issue(post nerf) may sound good now, but again would require more balance/work on anets part, that may make shades next to useless.

10- Some other ideas, keep the instant casts on f2-5 but add a strike delay, like how one wolf pack works, so while the skill keeps its instant cast there is a delay from when it is cast to when it goes off, then add a wind up animation so it can be dodged, also cool downs and internal cool downs could be used to help balance, passive traits like corrupt on f1(https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Corruption) could have an internal cool down, could also increase the cool downs of the shade abilities slightly as well.

I think simply removing crippling condition would be a big start to fix scourge. At least, you will be able to run away and handle a bit better conditions, while not destroying scourge at all.

Nerfing boon corruption is a must. I agree with other posters, scourge does need rework.

Necro lacks support builds, and a support build around barrier and probably some offensive buffs will be a pretty good idea.

Make shade effects only occur around shades instead of both the shades and the necro. Makes shade management significantly more important as if they get caught outside of their shades they won't have their instant aoe nukes available wherever they go.

@ArthurDent.9538 said:Make shade effects only occur around shades instead of both the shades and the necro. Makes shade management significantly more important as if they get caught outside of their shades they won't have their instant aoe nukes available wherever they go.

This notion is against the intended design of scourge and there is a reason mesmers had illusionary persona made baseline.

Unless it gets cast times and animations to the heavy hitters it will continue to be busted either way.

Instacasts carry with them the problem that you can only dodge/block them if you predict them. And the problem with predictive gameplay is it only works if the player is being predictable ( bad ). In other words, beating a scourge while you are playing a melee class currently has more to do with whether or not the scourge makes a mistake than you playing well.

Since the damage is guaranteed if you don't make any mistakes, that damage is either strong enough to wipe someone or it isn't. This is a major design flaw that means scourge will always be either underpowered or overpowered since the nanosecond it becomes viable, it becomes OP due to it being a sure win if played correctly.

Reduce Sand Savant radius-increase to 60 (240 after the fact) and make it so that shade skills don't also radiate off of the Scourge himself/herself.

I think game is broken and "balancing" scourge or any other class is waste of time and effort.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/24763/sand-savant#latest

your talking about scourgeits actualy ok compared to deadeye, which has like 4 stealth + black power combo stealth. which is ok since thiefs main defense is stealth, but combining it with deadeye damage which can kill most classes with max 3 shots.

I know that a lot of people hate Scourge, hate the idea of Scourge, and hate how Scourge has impacted PvP. I get a lot of that because it has been out of control and has completely reshaped the PvP metagame, but I actually have always liked Scourge from a game play and design perspective. In PvP and PvE, scourge really makes you feel like some wicked cultist, corrupting large swaths of land and everything in it. And I really like that game play style and feeling. I feel like just conceptually, Necromancers should be choosing between feeling and playing like that, or like minion masters summing hordes of undead minions, or like a classic death knight, which Reaper does to mixed effectiveness.

Scourges should be bringing in tons of condition damage and boon corruption when played correctly. I feel like we should all agree on that. On a philosophical design perspective, that's one of the things I feel should define necromancers in all games. But the issue now is that the skill floor to playing effectively is too low. A scourge with a good bit of life force can drop a shade on a group, and instantly F2, F3, F4 and F5 to corrupt everyone's boons instantly. The shade abilities all have animations but the effects are instant cast. I think we would be in a better place if the Sand Shade Abilities both had an shared global cooldown of one second and if they all applied their effects that the end of their cast time. If a Scourge drops his Shade and uses Garish Pillar, you see the skeleton but you've already been feared. It would be much better if the animation played, and after a specific amount of time the fear is applied like with their other fear abilities like Death Shroud's Doom, Reaper Shroud's Terrify, and Downstate's Fear.

Compare the shade abilities with their torch abilities. Oppressive collapse is a pretty strong skill. It has a knock down and it applies a good bit of torment, can be traited to apply burning. But there is a clear wind up when it is cast on you that gives you the opportunity to evade it. If you could see the sand shade ability wind up, giving players a reasonable opportunity to evade the ability and the boon corruption, I think scourge would be in a much better place and draw less ire from the community while still letting scourge have a place in the game and the capability to be effective when played correctly. I would rather see more nuanced changes like that at first rather than the community's kneejerk desire to obliterate their condition damage and boon corruption entirely.

To beat the scourge you need CC and the ability to sustain long enough to deplete their life force.

The problem with Scourge is the number of conditions they apply.... full Curses scourge with unyielding blast its like 6 conditions constantly applied. Condi clear on players is only designed to handle about 2 ...

From the variety of responses in this thread, I'm seeing a lack or concensus on what to nerf on scourge. Maybe the elite spec doesn't need a nerf but a nerf to bunker fb or a buff to classes that can kill a scourge or a bunker fb (ie: make them more than just one trick ponies by buffing other aspects.)

@"Kuya.6495" said:From the variety of responses in this thread, I'm seeing a lack or concensus on what to nerf on scourge. Maybe the elite spec doesn't need a nerf but a nerf to bunker fb or a buff to classes that can kill a scourge or a bunker fb (ie: make them more than just one trick ponies by buffing other aspects.)

If theres something we don't need in the game is more powercreep. Nerfing Scourge, firebrand, mirage, etc and making them feel more balanced > Buffing "it's counters".

@Alehin.3746 said:

@"Kuya.6495" said:From the variety of responses in this thread, I'm seeing a lack or concensus on what to nerf on scourge. Maybe the elite spec doesn't need a nerf but a nerf to bunker fb or a buff to classes that can kill a scourge or a bunker fb (ie: make them more than just one trick ponies by buffing other aspects.)

You forgot Holosmith.

@Velimere.7685 said:

@Alehin.3746 said:

@"Kuya.6495" said:From the variety of responses in this thread, I'm seeing a lack or concensus on what to nerf on scourge. Maybe the elite spec doesn't need a nerf but a nerf to bunker fb or a buff to classes that can kill a scourge or a bunker fb (ie: make them more than just one trick ponies by buffing other aspects.)

Nah dude, the engi mains said holosmith is fine.

It needs a mix of reducing the duration of certain corrupts, adding cast times to certain F skills, reducing the radius of other skills and lastly removing cover condies such as cripple.

No change needed. Players inability to jump on a specific class or 2 to easily deal with the scourge is the players own fault, not Anet's to fix. There will be no nerf's or balancing. The only thing they could do is further reduce the damage while increasing tick duration which will have the same effect as the previous "balance". It will cause more damage due to how torment works. You don't want torment ticking on you for any length of time. So players need to think very carefully before asking for any type of nerf.

Due to how conditions work clear across the board, any type of reduction in duration will in turn increase the damage each condition does to equal that of physical damage. This cannot change, not without revamping conditions completely which is not going to happen in a 5yr game.

• They already need the obstructed message removed (even though it was somewhat intended, just not intended the way it exists now)
• They need some sort of mobility or at bare minimum some sort of defense to ranged classes

Asking for further nerfs or "balancing" to the scourge is like saying "guardian needs hp pool reduced, healing abilities halved, wall of reflection ability removed, and no more invulnerability or blocks. You also have to keep in mind, conditions are still easily negated an entire fight due to organized groups and resistance. Still to this day, the majority of fights encountered renders conditions useless. If anything changes immediately, resistance needs to be drastically toned down or removed.