What was the point of the shade skills change?

As the title says, I am curious if someone from ArenaNet can give an answer regarding the imagined result of this change. This change being the 0.5 seconds delay on shade skills. Since the patch has come out 2 weeks ago I have played most parts of the game, with the exception of raiding and PvP, and I'm having a hard time grasping the idea behind this change.

Large scale WvWStarting with large scale WvW since I think the change was aimed at this game-mode. Any respectable blob / squad still runs a ton of Scourges and the change hasn't made it easier to dodge the shades, simply because there are so many. On top of that the new animation enemy circles now show cause a lot of lag and FPS issues.

Roaming / small scale WvWThe necromancer class (Scourge and Reaper) is already non-existent in this type of game-play because everyone can run away from us and we can run away from nobody, meaning there is a huge risk (you can never disengage from a fight) and very little reward (any fight you "win" ends with the enemy disengaging and running away or resetting). The big red circle on the ground was already a very clear indicator of what was about to happen, now it's virtually impossible to hit anything with your shade.

World PvE / FractalsSince nothing in PvE preemptively dodges the change does nothing here. Why was it even implemented? This happened in the same patch where a skill-split between WvW, PvE and PvP was implemented. It made a class that is already not in the meta (fractals) feel sluggish and awkward.

At the end of the day, what was the point? The change that made conditions do their damage over a longer period of time was good and ensured Scourges would not dictate large scale WvW on their own, why not continue with this line of thinking if the first change was not enough? Why did you introduce the ability to split skills and then not use that ability to make a no-brainer decision to at least leave the classes fluid game-play intact in PvE? If the problem is Scourges dumping all their shade skills within 1 millisecond, why not put a global cool down on shade skills of 1 or 2 seconds (this might also make the Scourge player think about what they want to use first, introducing GAMEPLAY)?

Excuse the ranty nature of my post, I'm just trying to understand the design decisions because from a game-play point of view they all seem to be backwards.

Because there was no counterplay to instant cast skills with no tells. And adding a .5 warmup was better than adding a cast time to shade skills.

@Lahmia.2193 said:Because there was no counterplay to instant cast skills with no tells. And adding a .5 warmup was better than adding a cast time to shade skills.

Which type of game mode are you talking about? In large scale WvW there still is no counter play simply because there are so many shades you're not going to dodge most of them. In small scale WvW there is a clear counter play: stay away from the Scourge and stay away from their shades.

If the only argument needed for a change of this magnitude is 'it's instant' then what about the countless damage combo's that other classes have, which often can be initiated from longer range or stealth? What is the counter play to instant skills that have not been changed to add a delay and a huge tell?

i think the same like OP.

the greatest issues with scourge were wvw zerg fights, where nothing changed. the great Problem now is, that the great red circles hide a lot of other animations that hurt hard too, so its harder to fight against many scourges.

while fighting one scourge (already easy before patch) is now easier than before.scourge still very strong in big fights but now way weaker in solo Scenarios.

so the patch didnt hit what it tried to hit. imo completely useless patch from useless Balance Team. while OP mesmer didnt get nerfed...

It was more for pvp than anything else

It was probably added because of spvp, where you fight over the control of circles, which can be almost completely covered by the shades.

First of all, when someone talk about counterplay, it's always related to figth against other player, so PvP/WvW.

The tells were needed for more than just the fact that it was instant cast with short cool down. The tells were needed because on top of that, each scourge skill packed a lot of power. The basis is that each shroud skill that you use will automatically trigger manifest sand shroud, which potentially trigger every single shroud skill #1 effects and on crit effects. Add to this the fact that it could hit up to 10 target and you have imbalanced skills against other players.

And the worst offender of all was the seemingly harmless Nefarious favor which would have been perfectly balanced if there were no procs on top of it. However, the procs potentially added to it: cripple, torment, bleed, burn, 2 boons corruption, some power damage and vulnerability. All of this instantly, without any tells or cast time on up to 10 targets and with a short cool down, in a game were condi cleanse usually only cleanse up to 2 conditions. That's why there was a need to introduce tells on scourge skills, because with a single button you and all your teammates were loaded with conditions and cover conditions in an instant.

Small-scale and sPvP where tells are important to survive. There were none, and that was an issue considering the act of engaging into melee was basically a death sentence as a consequence.

Anet don't have tech to split skills between PvP/PvE modes.

@"Lahmia.2193" said:Because there was no counterplay to instant cast skills with no tells. And adding a .5 warmup was better than adding a cast time to shade skills.

With that being said. You would need to do the same thing to every instant cast in the game.And there was a big red circle as a tell.

And tbh. Its now way easier to land a bomb as a scourge than before.

Before you pressed f1 and needed to wait, till the shade manifested.Then you could press f2-5.

Now you can press f1, immediatly press f2-5And everything will hit at the same time, when shade manifests.That beibg said: "but f1 has a prewarning as well"Yeah, but with skill retargeting, its pretty easy to hit with your shade.

So now its up to 2 corrupted boons, 6 stacks pain, 5 stacks burning, cripple and fear. INSTANT

And thats better than before? I dont think so.

Anet just messed it up. Made counterplay on scourge pretty bad (f2+f5 not being insta cleanse/barrier)And also deleting some of the support via nerfing f2 to only cleanse 1 condition.

Its meant to bo a condition based support spec, but what it really is: a whore that needs its drugs (support from other classes) to be able to do anything in pvp game modes

@Nimon.7840 said:

@"Lahmia.2193" said:Because there was no counterplay to instant cast skills with no tells. And adding a .5 warmup was better than adding a cast time to shade skills.

Just re-read Dadnir's response.