Idea for WvW Scourge Fix / Sand Savant Rework

I understand that at this moment even with all the nerfs people still see and experience Scourge as an AoE power house.

Random thought but from what I see Sand Savant is the main issue here. It doesnt just make your Shade bigger (180 to 300) But it also increases the radius around your Scourge when you cast your Shroud abilities. So what if instead of a 1 shade 5 target it gets reworked to still be a 3 target 3 shade 180 radius. But when you select this trait your Shades will now Echo your Shroud only trait abilities such as Spiteful Spirit in the Spite traitline. Or Weakening Shroud in Curses line. So when you cast Spiteful Spirit(F5 with the trait selected) each shroud will also send out a blast doing the damage corrupting 2-4 boons depending on their health ect ect. Players can only be affected by 1 shroud echo ability so players cant get nuked with 3-4 Spiteful Spirit hits at a time. But this way it would allow Necros to stay at their range instead of those abilities being restricted to Melee range only.This would also make the other 2 Grandmaster traits competitive so we dont feel forced into Sand Savant due to its AoE radius + hit count drastically increased.

Give me your thoughts and ideas! :)

PERSONALLY:Manifest Sand Shade: Does nothing by default, just places down the shade (no torment, cripple, nor damage).

GRANDMASTER:Sand Savant: Radius increased to 360, target cap increased to 10, cooldown reduced by 33%, melee pulse removed. All shade skills cripple and do bonus power damage, F4 and F5 grant barrier to allies per target struck.What you take for area control and support. Hold enemies still with cripples, while granting barrier to allies. Pretend to be an ele.

Demonic Lore:All shade skills cause torment, burning enemies take more torment damage (+50%). Allies you grant barrier to inflict burning on their next attack (works like quickfire/venoms).This is your heavy dps grandmaster, causing huge amounts of torment and burning (barrier your minions when solo for more burning). Works solo, but works better with your friends (scourge as an alternate offensive support). Pretend to be a guard.

Feed from Corruption:Whenever you remove or corrupt a boon, gain a copy of that boon. Applying barrier to allies lets them corrupt 1 boon on their next attack (like quickfire/venoms), but the corruption source is you so you gain the boons.This is your corruption route. Your shades are small and only affect 3 targets but you can control boons better than everyone. You have to be careful with placement of shades since you can easily run out of them.

@Demon Puppet.6873 said:I understand that at this moment even with all the nerfs people still see and experience Scourge as an AoE power house.

Random thought but from what I see Sand Savant is the main issue here. It doesnt just make your Shade bigger (180 to 300) But it also increases the radius around your Scourge when you cast your Shroud abilities. So what if instead of a 1 shade 5 target it gets reworked to still be a 3 target 3 shade 180 radius. But when you select this trait your Shades will now Echo your Shroud only trait abilities such as Spiteful Spirit in the Spite traitline. Or Weakening Shroud in Curses line. So when you cast Spiteful Spirit(F5 with the trait selected) each shroud will also send out a blast doing the damage corrupting 2-4 boons depending on their health ect ect. Players can only be affected by 1 shroud echo ability so players cant get nuked with 3-4 Spiteful Spirit hits at a time. But this way it would allow Necros to stay at their range instead of those abilities being restricted to Melee range only.This would also make the other 2 Grandmaster traits competitive so we dont feel forced into Sand Savant due to its AoE radius + hit count drastically increased.

Give me your thoughts and ideas! :)

It will still be the mandatory to take then.

U know why path of corruption got nerfed? Because it was way too strong on scourge.With your suggestion, this would be even more boon corrupt.

Id like to make another suggestion:Remove the radius increase from sand savant.

Target cap with 5 is fine. Additionally make it like:If barrier doesnt get removed heal the target for 33% of the barrier amount.So you could give a 3k barrier. Enemies hit your allies, but they still have 1k barrier left when it expires. So they get a heal for 333.

Well that might be too op as well.So maybe just add a random boon?

So it does the target increase and whenever you apply barrier to someone also give him a random defensive boon (protection,aegis,retaliation, regeneration, resistance or vigor)?

Tbh. The melee pulse isnt even that strong. Especially in wvw, where scourge is the main dd class, removing de pulses on necro itself wouldnt change anything, because its pirate ship meta ;)

i am thinking about the scourge drama way too much.and picking up OPs line of "sand savant seems to be the main issue"i dont like the increased target cap (10+ if shade and personal circle do not intersect) and the area denial spam and i am also no fan of the pulse around shades AND the necro. (which was their design philosophy according to the introduction. being melee and ranged at the same time)additionally any change should be as close to the original design as possible. right?

• from a wvw perspective, a big shade with a set cooldown and no charges would already change a lot.there is this range option, you really have to place it good to do some dmg and then go melee until the next shade (10sec) is up.the taret cap is 5.however, thats completely reaper and core theme already - placing wells, use shroud 2 to get close, do the rest of the shroud skills.and it would leave scourges even more vulnerable (higher cooldowns, even less mobility, no shroud etc.).then there is the question about pve (because arenanet will never do a complete change to only one of the gamemodes). can it be done that way? moving targets are already a pain for scourges, that change would destroy them further (if that is a thing).

• removing the pulsing around the necro would leave them completely vulnerable to melee, because you can't place shades as fast as an e.g. daredevil jumps around you - and you dont have a shroud to go into and do some melee pressure/tanking.

• shades acting like a revenant tablet could be an alternative to the pulsing around the necro and maintaining the design philosophy (some adjustments to effects and traits on placing a shade would need an icd then).then again, a "roaming" profession is faster and more unpredictable than any shade movement could be... even if you would be able to move shades while you are disabled. not sure how bad this change would be in pvp then. but at first it sounds a lot better to me, than the current shades.pve again: i dont see issues with a tablet-like shade with icd's on existing effects (barrier on placing a shade, booncorrupt etc.) in pve.actually one issue: finding a rotation with as close to 100% uptime of the internal cooldowns as possible.non damaging effects could stay the way they are, around the shade and around the necro itself.arenanet has done some effect splitting (allies/enemies affected... self/pet) on other professions already. so why not.

Ideally if dont want people to dislike it in wvw get rid of the shade placement entirely increase the base radius of the f2-f5 around the necro to the bigger range by defaultThe only way people will ever find that they are happy with how scourge works is if you completely get rid of the f1 because its the most annoying thing that people dislike about it in wvw.

Necros can just dump out shades all over without putting themselves in any real risk unlike with the other two specs.

So by doing this you do 2 things. You make it so that the necro has to walk into melee range to actually fire off its shade skills.2 you increase the potency of all the shade skills (f2 through f5) to compensate for allowing a necro to get close and bomb you with them.

• Remove the delay from the defesive skills such as barrier application and fear
• Increase potency of conditions and barrier on the shade skills your skills now always hit at least 5 targets + your self
• Undo the nerf to Path of Corruption as it will now require you to take more risk to land that with scourge

Nefarious Favor : Becomes shroud skill 3Conditions to boons converted from 1 to 2Life force cost goes from 1,935 to roughly 1,200Sand Cascade : Becomes shroud skill 4 works with getting poeple up form downed if you are a blood scourge with transfusionBarrier from 2,428 to roughly 5,000Garish Pillar : Becomes shroud skill 2 works with path of corruptionFear from 1 second to 2.5 secondsApplies crippleGain a small barrier for each foe hit Barrier gain roughly 500Desert Shroud: Becomes shroud skill 1 (pulses burning on every pulse if you have dhumm fire equiped)Torment stacks go from 1 to 2 for 5 seconds per pulseBarrier gained 5,016 to roughly 8,000

• Blood as sand becomes a base 5% damage reduction at any time but a 15% damage reduction while under barrier
• Sand Sage attribute bonus becomes a base 75+ but a 150+ bonus while under barrier.
• Sand Savant becomes something new dealing with barrierReduced recharge on skills that now grant barrier by 10% (regardless of their type Stacks with other cd reduction traits).Barrier you grant is reduced by 20%Barrier you apply now last 100% longer (it now takes 10 seconds to fall off), additionally when you (the necromancer only) apply barrier to yourself on top of an old barrier will the decay timer on the old barrier amount will reset. (In combat only)

This opens up the option to actually take the other grand master traits without locking you into sand savantGives you a bigger base shade around youTakes away your power to drop shades at rangedImproved barrier thats unique and can be helpful to all allies making scourge even more relevant

Ideally until they do away with the summon sand shade no one will ever see scourge as balanced in WvW it will always be the most used and most hated profession of WvW.In addition the grand masters will always be screwed so long as Sand Savant increases shade skill area size.

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Demon Puppet.6873 said:I understand that at this moment even with all the nerfs people still see and experience Scourge as an AoE power house.

Random thought but from what I see Sand Savant is the main issue here. It doesnt just make your Shade bigger (180 to 300) But it also increases the radius around your Scourge when you cast your Shroud abilities. So what if instead of a 1 shade 5 target it gets reworked to still be a 3 target 3 shade 180 radius. But when you select this trait your Shades will now Echo your Shroud only trait abilities such as Spiteful Spirit in the Spite traitline. Or Weakening Shroud in Curses line. So when you cast Spiteful Spirit(F5 with the trait selected) each shroud will also send out a blast doing the damage corrupting 2-4 boons depending on their health ect ect. Players can only be affected by 1 shroud echo ability so players cant get nuked with 3-4 Spiteful Spirit hits at a time. But this way it would allow Necros to stay at their range instead of those abilities being restricted to Melee range only.This would also make the other 2 Grandmaster traits competitive so we dont feel forced into Sand Savant due to its AoE radius + hit count drastically increased.

Give me your thoughts and ideas! :)

I could agree with this change its simple and reasonably obtainable. But I would disagree that pirate ship is the meta. The skilled groups that always win are the ones who know how to push in with a well placed bubble to deter movement and get a crap load of Axe #3 / Spiteful Spirits off.But the change you suggested could possibly be a solution to the mandatory of Sand Savant.