Shade Stacking

I've been thinking that most of the problems with Scourge wouldn't be problems at all if shade stacking was still a thing...

Damage concentrated in one area with shade stacking, and less power to individual shades would've balanced the classed, and it felt better too, but they removed that. They should've played into that more rather than getting rid of it because now it's way worse and feels so clunky to play.That's mainly from a PvE perspective but it also could've fixed the wvw and pvp problems if they also decreased the shade aoe a bit (at least in pvp). So rather than bursting someone with condis via just one shade, to get the max damage they'd need to put 3 shades on someone (which wouldn't happen unless they were afk) and greater shade could be reworked or work differently somehow.That way you'd actively have to make a choice: Either do more damage in a concentrated area, or do less damage but cover a wider area with shades spread out. That's good design.

None of the clunky laggy delay stuff, that's lazy design and feels gross to play too.

Or reduce the range of manifest sand shade from 900 to like 600 or 300 or even just a melee trap-esque activation where it just spawns at your location (which would make your positioning very important), even THAT would've been more fun than that horrible, horrible delay.

PvE scourges are usually melee anyway, and it'd be a nerf in wvw and pvp because the range gives them a lot of strength, and enemies could counter you by kiting you.That way you can give scourge back the things people liked about it, like the smooth non-delay, and removing 2 conditions instead of 1 on nefarious favour.

i disagreeit's all or nothing with condi in pvp, they cleanse and it's over, so your cooldowns are wastedif it had any less condi applications, it'd be bad, because you wouldn't even have to cleanse, eat the little damage and it does nothingthat's why burst condi is where most condi builds shine, attrition doesn't mean much when the enemy has faster cleanses than you do of application skillsyou'd typically bait cleanses and then burst

however, i do agree with the laggy delay on skills being absolute garbagethat was a VERY lazy approach to "balancing" this and it hurt scourge all around, those of us who used Power Scourge now suffer from less burst and even more telegraphed damage on an already lacking build, and not to mention scourge entirely feels broken with the delayed actions, ESPECIALLY when you see yourself with Fear/Taunt/Immobilize and you're like "lolcleanse" but the game is all "lolnotanymore" and you get one bleed over it because of the huge delay or the Fear/Taunt/Immobilize already ran its full course and you're screwed because of the duration that already fulfilled its role of locking you

cleanses need to be reactionary for the simple fact that this game has so many easily accessed and such hard CC in the form of conditionsit's pathetic they thought this change was a good ideaespecially on the class that's easiest to lock down?

it's horrifyingly bad and i have no idea how their balance team AND the internal testing team can't understand this, they really do nothing but "test" on target golems in spvp lobby or something, this is a sad, sick joke at this point

also, no to the range decrease, just, noit needs Well range, they're perfectly fine being extra Well spells, area denial and choking out an area so people need to move, those need distance, and 1,200 is too much for their potential, 900 is fine

So what would your solution be? Since anet seems deadset on nerfing scourge at least somehow (and they won't skill split). My solutions were at least fair in sacrificing some of the hidden power we had while keeping everything that made scourge fun and useful, while also potentially being able to add even more power to it.

The delay only seems bad because you're already used to it being instant. If there were a delay from the beginning, no one would have a problem with it. Almost every skill in the game---and even on the defensive side, with barrier etc, almost every heal in the game---has a cast time. ie a delay between pressing the button and getting the effect. The only thing that's always been instant, entering shroud, is still instant.

Those are cast delays and skill animations, they aren't effect delays. The shade skills are able to be pressed instantly, but the skill effect is delayed which feels very clunky, not just because we're not used to it. It's like instantly pressing your dodge key, expecting to dodge because you're reacting to something, but only actually dodging 0.5 seconds later + whatever ping you have.

Also I'm almost 100% positive there was some undocumented change because I've been doing daily fractals with necro for like 2 years, and with scourge since release, and my damage has consistently been significantly worse than pre-patch. I don't know if that's just somehow a compounded effect from the condi burst change + the delay change or some hidden nerf.

all i know is, my "solution" wouldn't be to ruin other builds at the same time by trying to tone back a meta build

i don't use condi scourge, i usually don't have an issue with them so i felt they were in an okay spot, they were just good at what they did, oh no, necro might be useful, like???probably could have used less condi applicationsand i don't know much about pve to really get a grasp on what would work there

mostly everyone's complaint was that condi scourge was too easy to use for its payoff, so fix that somewhere else, lower the burst, do what i said "didn't" work, and make it more attrition based for the scourge, but put more effort around the entire necro class itself to actually put them themselves in a good spot where condi scourge isn't way too meta to not pick compared to the alternatives, then work around making the scourge work with that in the first place

for specifics in terms of just the condi scourge epidemic?i'd probably have just started with less condi application somewhere, or pump it into more of the same condi rather than a variety, so you can actually cleanse it, instead of having a cleanse be wasted because there's still everything else on youthen see where that lands, and go from there

@"Alpha.1308" said:all i know is, my "solution" wouldn't be to ruin other builds at the same time by trying to tone back a meta buildi'd probably have just started with less condi application somewhere, or pump it into more of the same condi rather than a variety, so you can actually cleanse it, instead of having a cleanse be wasted because there's still everything else on you

A range nerf on f1 wouldn't ruin other builds.

I think changing the condi output so they're more of the same type would be a good idea, but it was only really burning + torment in the first place anyway.

@reikken.4961 said:The delay only seems bad because you're already used to it being instant. If there were a delay from the beginning, no one would have a problem with it. Almost every skill in the game---and even on the defensive side, with barrier etc, almost every heal in the game---has a cast time. ie a delay between pressing the button and getting the effect. The only thing that's always been instant, entering shroud, is still instant.

this isn't a very good argument when you factor in the shades themselves have to be placedthey did have a cast timeit was called sand shadeif you were close to the scourge, that was your own fault for letting them get so close, and in that case, that should have been their benefit, to get off an instant, just like any other instant cast skill, you knew letting a scourge get near you meant instant cast, so it's on you to dodge or keep them away

healing skills are a different story, those are healing skills, a category of their own

cleanses, on the other hand, are typically instant across the board, or traitedthe problem with the delay is that they hit all the skills, not just the damage part of themit feels bad to have them like this because they're a necro's replacement for shroud, on an already slow, telegraphed class

now not only do we not have our instant cleanse, but we don't have our instant barrier (which cleansed when traited), or our instant fear, which is also something you use in reaction to something

they make you feel like you're lagging, not even that they have a cast time, and they're on crucial utility abilities, not just a faceroll for every condi in the game or a burst of power damage

not even melee attacks are instant, so that argument doesn't really work

@Pingu.8431 said:

@"Alpha.1308" said:all i know is, my "solution" wouldn't be to ruin other builds at the same time by trying to tone back a meta buildi'd probably have just started with less condi application somewhere, or pump it into more of the same condi rather than a variety, so you can actually cleanse it, instead of having a cleanse be wasted because there's still everything else on you

i haven't even touched the game in a while, doesn't a condi scourge pressing F2-5 apply like multiple stacks of very many different types of conditions?i could be wrong, and i do apologize, it's just what i remembered/seeing on the forums every so often reading occasionally

a nerf range on F1 would be a nerf to other builds, not everyone is running a tanky condi build, if you glass up and you're in melee range, you're in troubleif i'm in a pvp map and i want to bomb a point while my friend is tanking it, i don't want to be on that point where the damage is, i want to be rotating around the damagenecro already lacks ranged options, staff isn't reliable outside of marks, and axe is single target, if i want to push someone off a point, i want to aoe there so we can cap it or kill them, and axe outside of 2 isn't going to kill anyonewhich is also why i said, base necro should be fixed elsewhere, then scourge worked on top of it, that's why i was skeptical to even mention my own personal suggestion, because a lot has to go in to make other things work, it can't just be "this trait is now different" end of story sort of thing

@reikken.4961 said:not even melee attacks are instant, so that argument doesn't really work

i lol'dyou can't compare weapon skills to utility skillsshouts are also instant, maybe those should have a cast time, amirite, you need to say the line, after allthings are balanced differently, and very many games have instant casts, including this game....i'm not saying their current effects are perfect for having instant cast times, but it sounds like you're suggesting nothing should be instant, and it just doesn't work when plenty of other things are already instant, the mechanic already exists in the game

@Alpha.1308 said:

@Pingu.8431 said:

@Alpha.1308 said:all i know is, my "solution" wouldn't be to ruin other builds at the same time by trying to tone back a meta buildi'd probably have just started with less condi application somewhere, or pump it into more of the same condi rather than a variety, so you can actually cleanse it, instead of having a cleanse be wasted because there's still everything else on you

Isn't that the whole reason why people hated vsing necros in pvp/wvw? Because of the ranged condibomb? If they want to be glass and condi bomb for max damage, they could still do that but it'd be less frustrating to vs because you'd be able to counter them and kill them. A range nerf would give risk + reward.

@reikken.4961 said:not even melee attacks are instant, so that argument doesn't really work

The mechanic shades are based off of, shatters, are completely instant.

i thought it was the condi bomb period because of the cooldown for how much it appliesdidn't assume the range really was the problemi don't fully disagree telegraphing Sand Shade itself, like the initial cast, showing where it'll be, that seems like itself will alleviate the range instant bomb problembut, again, not entirely sure, because they just tossed it onto everything immediately

@Alpha.1308 said:i thought it was the condi bomb period because of the cooldown for how much it appliesdidn't assume the range really was the problemi don't fully disagree telegraphing Sand Shade itself, like the initial cast, showing where it'll be, that seems like itself will alleviate the range instant bomb problembut, again, not entirely sure, because they just tossed it onto everything immediately

No it was because you could f1 from like 900 range onto someone and then f5-f2-f3-f4 someone almost instantly for lots of torment + burning + a fear, but reducing that range so you'd have to go close to them would solve that problem, because then they'd know that to successfully counter you, they just have to keep their range (like reapers). And that way, basically nothing would change for PvE, but currently scourge feels absolutely horrible in PvE.

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@reikken.4961 said:not even melee attacks are instant, so that argument doesn't really work

fair point

@Pingu.8431 said:almost instantly for lots of torment + burning + a fear

so......... like what i suggested by putting the shade itself on a telegraph so it wasn't as instant and had more of a way to be countered/seen before it immediately happened?

(like reapers).

e-specs were supposed to add something a core class lacked, and the other e-specs didn't possessreapers being melee, means scourge should be their access to rangeespecially where scourge loses their shroud, and necro already lacks defense and ranged options outside of Life Blast being a piercing projectile, it very clearly added their much needed range potential for AoE, non-projectile Life Force spendingWells are very powerful zoning tools, well, the only two good ones are, at least, Suffering and Corruptionbut that's why the Shades were also super goodthey were additional Wells, something to be used at range for more zoning and aoe damagezoning tools are to keep people awaythat's why they're used at range

and if you had no damage at range, but still push people away from you.......what are you doing, exactly, at that point?you're just being ranged down with nothing to doespecially on a low mobility class

it's just not implemented correctly, clearly, due to all the issues right now, especially after this update just making it more of a mess

And that way, basically nothing would change for PvE, but currently scourge feels absolutely horrible in PvE.

again, i don't know enough therei always just assumed you rammed everything into a corner and cleaved, which scourge seems like it'd do well, i think it just lacks numbers? i'm not sure