Another idea in how to balance scourge for wvw\pvp without destroying it in pve. (dps is fine imo)

I came to use use scourge in wvw as the druid\soulbeast are disowned from any squad. I have to admit scourge feels ez mode braindead edition compared to a soulbeast, but is not because the dps (corruption and condis) but because how the shade skills are casted.IMHO this changes could be applied to all gamemodes, no dps would be lost for scourges and it would give some counterplay and its as simple as this:

• Remove the PBAoe from the shade skills. This is the root of all unbalance with this class as it makes impossible to stay close or at range and mobile pulsing pbaoes should be forbidden i thin game.

As this change practically leaves the scourge defenless against melee classes (now has to cast the Sand shades in the ground instead just to hit the button) this hanges are needed to balance (directed the increase the burst dps)

• Sand swell increase range to 1200. If we remove the melee defence from the shades, scourge will need some extra mobility.
• Sand Savant does not limit the shades to 1 anymore. It keeps the increased radius and targets.
• Trait demonic lore: Decrease the ICD to 1 second.
• Skill Grastly Breach to block projectiles. Same as sand swell, now the scourge will need some extra defences.

This changes would make the scourge a bit harder to play with, it isnt just to spam buttons as you dont have the pbaoe anymore but the increased damage burst make out for it. Other players will have to learn to dodge the areas i guess.

Well what do you think? Could this be a sensible solution which would not destroy the actual scourge status or i'm bananas?

@anduriell.6280 said:I came to use use scourge in wvw as the druid\soulbeast are disowned from any squad. I have to admit scourge feels ez mode braindead edition compared to a soulbeast, but is not because the dps (corruption and condis) but because how the shade skills are casted.IMHO this changes could be applied to all gamemodes, no dps would be lost for scourges and it would give some counterplay and its as simple as this:

• Remove the PBAoe from the shade skills. This is the root of all unbalance with this class as it makes impossible to stay close or at range and mobile pulsing pbaoes should be forbidden i thin game.

As this change practically leaves the scourge defenless against melee classes (now has to cast the Sand shades in the ground instead just to hit the button) this hanges are needed to balance (directed the increase the burst dps)

• Sand swell increase range to 1200. If we remove the melee defence from the shades, scourge will need some extra mobility.
• Sand Savant does not limit the shades to 1 anymore. It keeps the increased radius and targets.
• Trait demonic lore: Decrease the ICD to 1 second.
• Skill Grastly Breach to block projectiles. Same as sand swell, now the scourge will need some extra defences.

This changes would make the scourge a bit harder to play with, it isnt just to spam buttons as you dont have the pbaoe anymore but the increased damage burst make out for it. Other players will have to learn to dodge the areas i guess.

Well what do you think? Could this be a sensible solution which would not destroy the actual scourge status or i'm bananas?

Giving the shade skills a cast time is the best way to nerf Scourge, as being able to use shade skills while CCed can be quite annoying. Your proposed changes sound interesting and it could improve the profession.

The thing I'd focus on improving the most, aside from the shade skills having a cast time is making Scourge a more supportive specialization that focuses on rallying allies rather than just being a brain dead easy to play specialization that kills foes with conditions.

True! Cast time on shades would have balanced the spec months ago without overnerfing it. Melee counterplay to scourge would be hard CC -> burst, which most melee classes can achieve in one or another way.

Scourge portal should have 1200 range ot get out of melee pressure or alternatively close the gap to a ranged class for one time and scourge should have easy access to perma swiftness. Projectile block is already available via poison cloud wich is even a condi skill (spec synergy!)

Balanced!

But it's ANet...

Will plop my suggestions here too.

Remove the 'attack' part of f2-f4 and give Scourges a new button that costs an appropriately small amount of LF and only makes the shades pulse their attack - maybe it has a smol cooldown that's < current CD on f2. If need be they can add a little GCD to the shade skills so they can't be dumped all at the same time and the scourge has to pick between a barrier, cleanse, or pulsing a strike. Adjust f2-f4 LF costs and effects (add increase the # of condis cleansed on f2 for example to compensate, idk) appropriately to compensate for the loss of each one making shades pulse their attack.

Rework Sand Savant to change the new skill Scourges get so that it pulses out some sort of support instead of damage - this would give Scourges one GM trait for offense, one for defense, and one for 'utility' (the 'gain boons you rip' trait, though imo that one is weak and could use a little love)Make f5 ramp up in damage instead of being constant throughout the duration so that opponents can gauge whether or not it's worthwhile to stay in melee range and hit on the scourge for the first 90% of it, and there's a final - strong - tick to the skill that can be dodged and is -worth- dodging (as opposed to a constant stream of dmg throughout).

Concerning the shade skills being castable during stun or adding a cast time: Currently, scourges don't have a lot of defense against rampant CC. Anet seems to want to stick to the 'big chunk of health that gets knocked around easily' design, which is why I cling to my support firebrand and furiously hump their leg for as long as possible. Even then, I tend to run three stunbreaks - Spectral Armor, Plague Signet, and Trail of Anguish. Making -all- of their shade skills have a cast time would probably be too much.

Oh, and get rid of having a truckload of skills convert into + cripple xD The cripple is everywhere. Too much cripple.

Concerning your suggestions.Sand Swell - I'd rather a decrease on the cast time - 1 sec is a loooong time when under pressure. Just personal pref though, extra range would also be nice. Some Dessicate and Serp Siphon could also use some love.Demonic Lore - I'd like to see this added to the list of stuff split btwn pve and pvp, but I don't think it's necessary in pvp and wouldn't really help any (assuming it's meant to accompany your first suggestion - because torment applies on shade skills, if you remove the shade attack from f2-5 then torment won't apply, thus burning won't apply)Savant - I am biased against this one and just don't like it xD I'd rather see it go. It causes more problems then it solves/creates interesting gameplay. I like that I can't just plop down a shade and suddenly have a massive amount of coverage.

Ghastly Breach - probably too much imo. There's already enough projectile hate in wvw, the skill already does a lot (might + corrupt + condi damage + power damage + slow)

@ KrHome. The 'counterplay' to pretty much everything is 'CC -> burst', and then repeat until they run out of stunbreaks/don't do so fast enough and you manage to get the kill.

Swiftness would be nice to have.www

Lastly, @OP - your first suggestion looks like it would maul Scourge DPS in pve, but I really hope Anet uses it and runs with it + adds another button. Scourge rotation in pve is utterly braindead anyway, another button to push would spice things up.

And just a side thought - what if you could either tap shade skills for an effect, or hold it down to channel? Would be interesting.

The only changes a scourge need is to revert some of the nerfs dealt to them, then add some sort of defense against ranged classes. As it stands now, those Druid's/Soulbeasts that are disowned from squads completely shred Scourges to pieces. It's the biggest imbalance in the game, and due to that alone Scourges need no rework.

The only rework needed is player's behavior because their unwillingness to jump on classes capable of dealing with scourges is a player problem, not a class problem.

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:The only changes a scourge need is to revert some of the nerfs dealt to them, then add some sort of defense against ranged classes. As it stands now, those Druid's/Soulbeasts that are disowned from squads completely shred Scourges to pieces. It's the biggest imbalance in the game, and due to that alone Scourges need no rework.

The only rework needed is player's behavior because their unwillingness to jump on classes capable of dealing with scourges is a player problem, not a class problem.

Lacking much defense against ranged is one of the few/only things keeping Scourge in check. If they were able to acquire defense against said ranged stuffs without giving up too much, then they'd be -horribly- imbalanced. I try not to speak in absolutes, but I'm 99% sure that Scourge is a massive amalgamation of design flaws that come together to make something that is godly in some areas, but has a crippling weakness or two (aka ranged) to 'make up for it'. It really feels like the game - sPvP/WvW wise at least - sorta revolves around Scourge's strengths and weakness(es) and how to most efficiently cover up those weaknesses...and every other class is used for the purpose of, to some extent, babysitting the necro.

I find that to be utterly horrid design. I think we can come up with ways to change scourge that still maintain the design GOALS (Whatever they may be, it looks like they wanted scourge to be support oriented but...who knows what happened O.o) while toning back a lot of the 'god against melee and able to make people either get off the point or die, absolute ass against range'.

Having strengths is all well and good. Having weaknesses is all well and good. Having both to the -extreme-, while it does work, doesn't seem too healthy for gameplay.

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:The only changes a scourge need is to revert some of the nerfs dealt to them, then add some sort of defense against ranged classes. As it stands now, those Druid's/Soulbeasts that are disowned from squads completely shred Scourges to pieces. It's the biggest imbalance in the game, and due to that alone Scourges need no rework.

The only rework needed is player's behavior because their unwillingness to jump on classes capable of dealing with scourges is a player problem, not a class problem.

"My class counters 7 of the 9 except for one build on one of those and gets countered by only one class so it needs buffs." Soulbeasts not being taken has nothing to do with the class being weak so much as the environment of ZvZ being unfavorable to the soulbeast because it only takes one smart player with good timing to pretty much wipe an entire zerg of soulbeasts and all its frontliners. Ranger as a whole is an amazing class and one of the best for skirmish play. It's terrible for large-scale combat, however.

As for the OP: Yeah, playing melee into a scourge is basically an automatic loss. And playing range on a mobile class into scourge is basically a free win. But this isn't really anything new to necro in general. Further, okay, the PbAOE is removed, but enabling Sand Savant to be spammed with the extended radius is basically just as much if not more area denial as right now. Ground-targeting abilities at one's feet instead of just casting them isn't exactly a big change in skill demand, either.

Scourge is braindead easy just because it pretty much innately hard-counters anything within its range by design based on the game-state of everything else. You can't avoid boons anymore and a lot of professions and builds are designed around them. In WvW it cannot be bursted because of Dire/TB/Apothecary stats and the 50% DR on shroud. You can't condi it down due to cleansing power and condi reflection on necro in general. Engage-only mobility doesn't matter or help because it just wins all melee trades. You can't out-sustain it because it delivers a lot of burst potential itself and a ton of innate sustain before even needing to heal. You can't bait its power like you can for core and reaper by baiting shroud. You can't even CC it when it tries to combo because it now has decent stab + stunbreak on a low cooldown. Even Sand Swell is on a low cooldown compared to a lot of older blinks and ports on other professions so a one-time reset won't work.

Scourge's problems are so multi-faceted that I don't think anything short of a total overhaul and rework is going to work. Even if you try and open up windows of opportunity for other professions to fight it, most of this would further weaken its ranged matchups or would just require immense powercreep to other professions or specific kits which ultimately makes the game worse for everyone and excludes more builds from viability (it's why we're in this mess now).

Scourge is just incompatible with the rest of necro and to be honest, incompatible with the rest of the game as it is right now. It'd have worked three or four years ago when boon spamming wasn't as big a problem and reflects were harder to come by, but these two things are so integrated into the game now that coming up with reasonable answers to please everyone is nigh impossible.

How to Balance Scourge in WvW.Remove the Big Shade.

Playing with the 3 small Shades in so annoying , i would switch classes just for that.

Im serious here.

Yeah remove necro shades. Then people would notice:Oh there is still red circles remaining.Then Remove necro staff from game

Oh there are still red circles remaining.

Let's go remove wells from necro from the game

Oh shut. Still red circles

Wait. We removed every age necro has....

Oh right freaking ele hitting with 10 per meteor is ok to be in the game

In order to fix the problem. Remove big shade and make small shades a little bit bigger and let them hit 5 people.Remove a little bit of LF generation from kills.

Make sand savant another trait that either:

1. Buffs Barrier a bit

Or

2. Gives shade abilities a special effect, while used above the of threshold.

That would make f abilities much more rewarding to save some of instead of brain-dead spamming them

For example:

F2 removes 2 one extra condition while activated above the of thresholdF3 additionally grants a random boonF4 also gives you +180 healpowerF5 also applies vulnerability

Then you will need to make the threshhold, so using f5 brings you below the threshhold.

I still say just get rid of the 1 skill summon sand shade its that one skill that lets them be a mid ranged and melee range dominator take out the ranged drops and you could effectively kite scourge even with a melee profession. Soft cc's would be more effective in hindering their ability to get to you to fire of their shade skills.

Change the big shade trait to something that improves barrier

Make shade effect radius around the caster big as a baseline thing.

Rework all the traits that proc (on summon sand shade) to be other more creative yet simple things that work.

This cuts down on the ranged spam of shand shades while opening up other grand master choices.