Suggestion and Discussion on Support Scourge

Although support scourge can be quite effective at picking people up from death their build hasn't been all that impressive. Its always been lacking in many departments and I feel that there are some solutions that could be considered. With the recent change to support scourge Anet has made the build even weaker which has only hurt the support scourges viability to solve an issue that only showed up because of their short sighted approach to the rune and sigil balance changes. I've mentioned that I'm all for more involved Runes and sigils on builds, but I don't think a profession should be punished for such an early mistake. As such, I realize that Anet is unlikely to change the Abrasive Grit to its previous function, so I'll be looking at retooling all of the support traits to offer some better utility for the scourge and its allies.

Abrasive Grit: Grants allies Might on receiving barrier and when a shade ability is used, allies around you or your shades gain a bit of barrier. This change for me is to take away that condition removal option to be placed elsewhere, but I wanted it to have a bit more power behind it. With this all skills for the scourge could be offering barrier to allies if at a reduced rate from Desert Empowerment. Consequently, Desert Empowerment would lose the barrier on summoning. Hopefully I can make up for the change with my other suggestions.

Desert Empowerment: Manifest Sand Shade converts a condition on allies into barrier. Every 3 seconds an ally is effected by barrier you apply a condition on them is converted into a boon. Scourge really needs more boon support. And having some solid condition removal is required as well. So This suggestion would make the barrier on allies condition, but also offer something more to have better synergy with Abrasive grit and with Sand Savant which I'll get into shortly.

Sand Savant: The function of summoning a single greater shade will remain as its function, but its identity will change dramatically. The damage it applies would be reduced, torment and crippling has been removed and Desert Shroud is changed into a Desert vail.

• Desert vail: This shroud now pulses barrier to allies around you and your shades each second. To distinguish it in the animation department the sand looks like a plume of sand much like the enemies popping up out of the sand like the sand sharks. I've made this suggestion before. Sand Savant should be a support trait. And there is little reason for it not to be as such. This could allow for it to have some of the nerfs reversed in PvP and WvW to allow for party utility.

Blood as Sand: A simple change I'd like. Change its damage reduction across the board to 10% and make this damage reduction apply to allies either withing proximity to your shades or under the effect of barrier. This trait was always a bit too selfish for my taste. I'd prefer it to be supportive, but its the least important change requested of the bunch.

Serpent Siphon: Allies in 300 range gain a barrier and their next attack poisons and converts a boon into crippling and torment. This will probably be the most debated change I'm suggesting. But Serpent Siphon is the worst skill in the Scourge's kit, without a question. It needs something. This change gives it quite a bit more utility but I wouldn't mind something different. It just needs to be useful.

Ghastly Breach: Reduce its cool down to 60 seconds, make it ground targeted and give it an additional boon such as Fury or something similar it could provide allies. This skill will never win the DPS race against plaguelands. Which is fine, but its support should be improved. Although some other unique suggestions people could come up with could be fun. Maybe it could partially revive allies in it? I'm very open to suggestions.

And that's all I've got for the time being. I'm sorry I'm not posting as much lately, necro fam. Life has been really really rough lately. I don't know when it will normalize, but when it does I'll be sure to post more regularly. Any further suggestions? Changes? Disagreements? Let me know. And as always, keep it respectful.

although I like the Basic idea to Change the whole sandshade mechanic into an only support mechanic you suggest with sand savant.

the Problem i see is just, since for example the revive trait "ritual of life" got nerfed because anet Things it is to strong, and i already spotted People in pvp section that STILL want nerfs to necro revive capability (that means 100% probability for a nerf in the next 2 weeks) and the nerf to abrasive grit, and the nerf in the past to nefarious favor (cd increase + condi remove halfed) it seems anet dont want to have scourge in support area.

anet ALSO dont want scourge in condi dmg area since condi scourge is almost dead (dhuumfire nerf).

the only "viable builds" (from wvw perspective) are currently based on power and a lot of core necro skills (wells, staff, axe). anet introduced SCOURGE as condi+support class. atm its an power + boonhate class. remember when reaper was introduced as power melee, and everyone played condi for 2 years laugh. anet seems sometimes a bit helpless by handling necromancer.

and in the last month anet made clear that they balance classes in their "roles". so the first Question of me is: what is the necromancers role? because we dont get any changes that improve him outside of his intended role because of the massive Flames in Forum against necros all the time

if we know that we can discuss better About changes.

First 2 changes bring back the issue with the sanctuary runeset... It's obvious that ANet don't want to change the rune effect so the best we can aim for is that no more effect proc on gaining/giving barrier. If we want the same potential with better QoL, AG just need to be tied to F1 (like desert empowerment), tying it to shrd#1 (Like dhuumfire) would be even better but might lead to complains (not due to the trait being OP since it wouldn't be more powerfull than it used to be but due to the fact that the trait is at the center of an argument due sanctuary runeset and other professions might see such a "buff" as OP).

Blood as sand: I agree this would be a good support buff. Maybe tie the fact that it's shared to sand savant.

Serpent's siphon: The idea is good but that's a total rework of the skill and it stray from the idea of a "punishment" by becoming more of a "venom"

Ghastly breach: no opinion on this one.

Personnally I'd go for:

• AG tied to F1
• Blood as sand shared with other thanks to sand savant
• Nefarious favor brought back to converting 2 conditions into boon instead of only 1. (The current 1 is unjustified due to the cool down)
• And, maybe, reduce sand savant 's radius increased to 80 from 120 in sPvP (and maybe WvW) only.

I think that as long as people keep crying for nerfs to less than optimal classes, this game will always be very unbalanced and lopsided.

There are far too many kneejerk reactions to necromancer, and know you want rez gone? So tell me what role is necromancer to have?

I am kinda happy now that I don't play very often anymore.

we need regeneration on barrier and that allmay be instead of 3 might from Abrasive Grit make it 1 might and 1 regeneration

@DragonFury.6243 said:we need regeneration on barrier and that allmay be instead of 3 might from Abrasive Grit make it 1 might and 1 regeneration

Replacing might by regen wouldn't be a bad choice (thought it might go against the philosophy of an aggressor which is stamped onto the necromancer), however ANet would keep the ICD due to the cleanse/sanctuary synergy which is what hurt the necromancer's support. What AG need is to be reworked so that it proc on something else than barrier if we want a trait of some use for support.

I like the idea of returning Necro to a condi and boon control profession. Converting boons to condi and condi to boons can be a valuable niche and relieve group members of the burden of some of their own defensive traits.

Consider also adding a skill that converts control effects to stability on one of the Punishment utilities and Scourge should be desirable as a utility profession. Scourge is not a dps, heal, or boon support but condi-conversion, tele-res, and anti-CC would be more than enough for a utility slot in a raid. Blood Magic and barriers already make Necro good for bad PUGs.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:First 2 changes bring back the issue with the sanctuary runeset... It's obvious that ANet don't want to change the rune effect so the best we can aim for is that no more effect proc on gaining/giving barrier. If we want the same potential with better QoL, AG just need to be tied to F1 (like desert empowerment), tying it to shrd#1 (Like dhuumfire) would be even better but might lead to complains (not due to the trait being OP since it wouldn't be more powerfull than it used to be but due to the fact that the trait is at the center of an argument due sanctuary runeset and other professions might see such a "buff" as OP).

Blood as sand: I agree this would be a good support buff. Maybe tie the fact that it's shared to sand savant.

Serpent's siphon: The idea is good but that's a total rework of the skill and it stray from the idea of a "punishment" by becoming more of a "venom"

Ghastly breach: no opinion on this one.

Personnally I'd go for:

• AG tied to F1
• Blood as sand shared with other thanks to sand savant
• Nefarious favor brought back to converting 2 conditions into boon instead of only 1. (The current 1 is unjustified due to the cool down)
• And, maybe, reduce sand savant 's radius increased to 80 from 120 in sPvP (and maybe WvW) only.

One condition every 3 seconds is at a much much lower rate than the Salvation runes. This is more comparable to the Death magic trait, than its previous version. Before it would cleans each time new barrier was applied, this wouldn't. It would apply only while Barrier is active, not how much its being pumped out.

@Lily.1935 said:One condition every 3 seconds is at a much much lower rate than the Salvation runes. This is more comparable to the Death magic trait, than its previous version. Before it would cleans each time new barrier was applied, this wouldn't. It would apply only while Barrier is active, not how much its being pumped out.

What you suggest is a passive effect with little to no control over it just like this terrible ICD that plague the trait ATM. I prefer greatly having the possibility to burst cleanse when I need. We need to be more active to be recognized as anything else than a newbie profession and we can hardly be active if we depend on passive effect with ICD.

To improve necro support just make outgoing healing modifiers trigger on barrier.That would be a large improvement to barriers.

And yes that might get to much barrier.But then just make outgoing healing modifiers only 50% effective on barriers.So a Rune that would give 10% outgoing healing, would just trigger for 5% on barrier application.And give bloodmagic an outgoing healing buff.

This would maybe open up for more build diversity. Especially in wvw. Wvw right now is either full power, or hybrid scourge.And eitherSpite/cursesSpite/soulreapingCurses/soulreaping

Bloodmagic is just outright bad right now in wvw zergs and especially in guild groups.

@Nimon.7840 said:To improve necro support just make outgoing healing modifiers trigger on barrier.That would be a large improvement to barriers.

And yes that might get to much barrier.But then just make outgoing healing modifiers only 50% effective on barriers.So a Rune that would give 10% outgoing healing, would just trigger for 5% on barrier application.And give bloodmagic an outgoing healing buff.

This would maybe open up for more build diversity. Especially in wvw. Wvw right now is either full power, or hybrid scourge.And eitherSpite/cursesSpite/soulreapingCurses/soulreaping

Bloodmagic is just outright bad right now in wvw zergs and especially in guild groups.

I don't think that will work. Barriers are capped at 50% of receiver's max hp, and everyone outside of the tank is running glass making it very easy to reach cap without healing mods as is. As for wvw zergs, the number of scorges in a squad will determine if you can reach and keep to the cap