Scourge Specialization Updates for the Path of Fire Launch

Well, so much for Scourge being anything useful in raids.

Nevermind my question was answered. Thanks for the information!

@Arimas.3492 said:Will there be a post like this for all classes? Thanks for the information!

They're already all up.

I think the f3 sand shade skill needs a massive decrease in cost of life force I think the others are ok as is. Playing with anything other then dagger you won't generate enough life force to even use your skills

Life force costs for the Shade skills all were on the verge of being too high (and Garish Pillar was past that) for longer engagements outside of Power builds. Since Scourge is intended as a Condition/Support spec, this is counterintuitive.

It's so nice when irrelevant game modes like WvW where balance doesn't matter to begin with impacts actual game modes like PvP and Raids

Well I'm not surprised to see Scourge being nerfed cause of WvW, it was a issue there. Usually if you nerf something cause its broken in a certain area(WvW) you buff it in another area so it keeps its strength but is not overwhelming. If only Anet could understand balance is something they have to always work on, not mess with every 3-6 months.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

We expect this change will reward more skilled use of kitten while remaining effective area control in the vastness of Elona and beyond.

I have already mastered use of kitten thankyou

I would also like to criticize that the shade target cap changes weren't limited to PvP only. While these changes were necessary for both WvW and sPvP, having good 5-target cleave as baseline and being able to boost to 10 target cleave was not overpowered for open world PvE. I was really looking to being able ot tag lots of mobs with our abilities.

PLEASE REMEMBER AND MAKE USE OF THE FACT THAT SKILLS CAN BE DIFFERENT IN PVE AND PVP

If you're going to make this change, at least make it so that the profession mechanic abilities that emanate from your character inflict dhuumfire like the profession mechanic abilities that emanate from your sand shades do. Without this, the character-based emanations don't really count, they do far less damage.

@Zetsuei.8942 said:Well I'm not surprised to see Scourge being nerfed cause of WvW, it was a issue there. Usually if you nerf something cause its broken in a certain area(WvW) you buff it in another area so it keeps its strength but is not overwhelming. If only Anet could understand balance is something they have to always work on, not mess with every 3-6 months.

Would have made sense for them to nerf it in only WvW, since, you know, there's such a thing as skill splitting.

Change looks good, can't really complain much. Nerfs and buffs seems to be in the right place.

Yeah, this one is bad. More evidence of the need for a WvW-PvE split. Poor necro.

Well, here's hoping Scourge isn't Reaper 2.0

Wait is the LF cost still a value or a percentage? i.e. scales with higher vitality?

I like all of these changes. The ceiling power level was reduced without directly touching any actual damage the class is capable of. On top of that, they gave us some of the Stability we were asking for. I think this is a good step forward, and I'm looking forward to seeing more come out of it with the release.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Greetings Necromancers,

As the sands of the Crystal Desert beckon several things have changed since the previews of the Scourge elite specialization.

• Manifest Sand Shade: Reduced duration of shade from 25s to 20s. Reduced target cap from 5 to 3.
• Nefarious Favor: Increased cost from 15% to 21% base vitality in life force.
• Garish Pillar: Reduced cost from 50% to 40% of base vitality in life force.
• Desert Shroud: Increased cost from 40% to 50% of base vitality in life force.
• Harrowing Wave: Now grants 3% life force per enemy struck.
• Serpent Siphon: Poison from 1 stack for 3s to 2 stacks for 5s.
• Sand Swell: Increased duration of portal from 6 to 8 seconds. Increased number of allies that can use it from 10 to 20.
• Trail of Anguish: Now grants stability in addition to swiftness.
• Desert Empowerment: Reduced base barrier value and healing scaling granted from this trait by 27%.
• Sand Savant: Reduced the increased number of targets on Manifest Sand Shade from 5 to 2. (So it now increases it to 5)

The cost of some profession abilities has been changed to better pair with their level of impact and some of the punishment skills received minor buffs to their non-corruption abilities.

Of major note Manifest Sand Shade (F1 by default) has had its target cap reduced to 3 per shade and is increased by the trait Sand Savant to 5 while wielding a greater shade. There are several reasons for this change, including:

• Potential 20 target caps in WvW blew things out. Compare this to 5 target caps on the vast majority of abilities with the rare 10 cap abilities.

• Sand Savant smooths out multi-party teams and offers greater control with an effective 10 target cap (at you and your shade).• There is an effective 12 target cap if you and your three kitten are all active, but it is deliberately not sustainable so you can have a period of increased power at the cost of lessened effectiveness later on.

We expect this change will reward more skilled use of kitten while remaining effective area control in the vastness of Elona and beyond.

Hone your magics and command the sands!

Will we be getting base Necro changes too? Also have you all read the adding a Condition to Mainhand Dagger auto attack thread?

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:Wait is the LF cost still a value or a percentage? i.e. scales with higher vitality?

Thanks for the reply. I made a chart for this in another topic, which in looking to update now. But at zero vitality and without +life force pool, nefarious favour the old cost was roughly 11%. Any chance you can provide the cost on numbers instead while i have your attention? Pretty please! Two days is too much to wait!

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

We expect this change will reward more skilled use of kitten while remaining effective area control in the vastness of Elona and beyond.

Honing my inner kitten usage! Whatever that means!

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Of major note Manifest Sand Shade (F1 by default) has had its target cap reduced to 3 per shade and is increased by the trait Sand Savant to 5 while wielding a greater shade. There are several reasons for this change, including:

• Potential 20 target caps in WvW blew things out. Compare this to 5 target caps on the vast majority of abilities with the rare 10 cap abilities.

• Sand Savant smooths out multi-party teams and offers greater control with an effective 10 target cap (at you and your shade).• There is an effective 12 target cap if you and your three kitten are all active, but it is deliberately not sustainable so you can have a period of increased power at the cost of lessened effectiveness later on.

Well whatever happened to separating WvW from the rest of the game? Gotta nerf raid performance because that part of balancing is ignored. Thanks! Nerfing the other Sand Shroud skills makes me feel disgusted. Increasing the costs when scepter/torch doesn't have much Life Force generation and the best reliable generation is in Dagger is... poor.

I'm still not sure what the kitten's have to do with it but what ever ;DI admit that target cap was OP and so was Nefarious Favor. I'm very happy with the change to Harrowing Wave and Garish Pillar.However i'm skeptical towards the duration reduce on Sand Shades, the cost increase for Desert Shroud and the nerf to Desert Empowerment, the latter of which didn't even seem that great before. Also the buff to Serpent Siphon might not be quite enough while Trail of Anguish with stability might be a bit overtuned, depending on the values of course.

Was hyped, now I'm like ":/"

@Kam.4092 said:Was hyped, now I'm like ":/"

Yeah, now I'm like "well, I'll unlock it because I have nothing else to do with my hero points."

Guess Necro is supposed to be purely a WvW zerging profession.

I'm sad that the minors weren't looked into at all. I get that they're meant to emphasize the importance of maintaining several shades at once, but to have two minors all about that doesn't seem like it promotes healthy play styles.

To clarify, this means that in PvE bosses, if you want demonic lore for max damage, you will be trying to keep up two or three shades at once, despite the fact that only one of them will be doing anything. In PvP, this means that players will just tunnel into sand savant in order to easily maintain that juicy 45% damage reduction.

I'm sorry you guys got nerfed, this is why I decided to stay a Power Reaper since there's only one direction to go which is up.