Condi scourge is dead in the water

Dhummfire nerf:5s ICD means it no longer fires on each shade skill, which for wvw means:OLD max, per minute: 5 f1, 7 f2, 7 f3, ~4 f4, 2 f5. at 1 3s burn per activation, 5 targets (10 targets if you were a fucking champ): 375(750)s of burning with no expertise.New max, per minute: 5s ICD, 5(10) targets= 180(360)s of burning w/o expertise.

Damage comparison, at 2k condi damage and 40% duration, max over 1m, 5 targets (10):OLD: 231,525 (463,050)NEW: 111,132 (222,264)

Mind you, this is if you were to work out your CDs so that you only fired a shade skill perfectly every 5s whereas before you could spam off CD and get the full effect. Since your f2-f5 skills are limited by your f1, the actual max damage is much lower unless you are within 360 range of the enemy zerg. Lets take a look at that!

NEW, real: 75 (150)s of burning per minute: 46, 305 (92,610)

So really, adding a 5s ICD to dhummfire reduces the burning output of condi scourge by ~75%. Take a look at the other scourge skills, they have 2s of torment and a low power coefficient. As burning made up a little over half of all damage on a scourge in wvw, Condi scourge is dead.

Power scourge is fine, if worse than reaper. support scourge was dead the day the changed sand savant. enjoy!

Sounds like a great change to me.

Condi scourge was pretty lackluster before already, it was out of widely-accepted meta for a few months already.

For power builds:As cele you can run death perception instead.I ran Spite + Blood magic power scourge since first month of expansion already.Some guild players run Spite + Curses.And ofc theres also heal necro that most likely ran the stunbreak trait

support scourge isn't viable, the only thing it brings over a power variant is okay healing and little barrier, but the healing power modifiers are so bad it's not worth losing all that damage. It was okay before the sand savant nerf because you could barrier 10 people 9 times a minute compared to the 5 times now.

no reason to run cele either anymore, it gets hurt by both the sand savant change and the dhummfire change. better off running full power instead, as it has all of the same benefits with significantly better damage.

dont worry, ele meta is there..

i dont know wtf they changed but banging out dmg like a truck on ele.if you ask me they did something wrong dmg seems to be way over the top for all classes wvw seems to be even faster nowadays :X

They nerfed lava font and elements of rage and raised meteor minimum damage, so what are you hitting hard on? sword?

So scourge finally dead?Back to rev's hammer meta again?

Meh to this meta.. meh to their balancing.. meh to this expansion.. meh.

@"XenesisII.1540" said:They nerfed lava font and elements of rage and raised meteor minimum damage, so what are you hitting hard on? sword?

So scourge finally dead?Back to rev's hammer meta again?

Meh to this meta.. meh to their balancing.. meh to this expansion.. meh.

I'm honestly perplexed as to what ANet thinks the meta is or should be. Or if they even have a clue about meta. Do they do ANY medium-large scale internal testing to try and get a feel for how the classes perform and interact? Do any of the developers or QA people spend meaningful time in competitive game modes? Or is "balance" in this game achieved by throwing red and green darts at a chart of skills to determine what gets nerfed and buffed?

I'm not really complaining about the scourge changes specifically. It's just the apparently (from a player's ground-level perspective) willy-nilly approach taken to balance in this game that gets to me. It feels almost accidental when sensible changes are made.

i can understand the changes to scourge for wvw, it was overpowering. you couldn't even get into a melee fight without losing a chunk of your team, which is why everyone pirate shipped.

but really, to buff mirage via invuln? it was already cancerous? lol

or adding more damage onto soulbeast, where you could pull off 50k+ crits and 12k AAs from 1200 range? why?

SCOURGE IS DEAD! LONG LIVE REAPER!