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Intentional Nerf to Scourge in PvP with upcoming Manifest Shade mechanic change?


OutOfOrder.3719

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How can ANET slip in this change in FINALiZED balance notes for shade mechanics for Scourge and hope that no one would notice?

Although I don’t think dps curse oriented builds won’t be effected that much, however, the blood support builds will be severely effected in PvP.

Now I can see the reason for reducing damage output when manifest shade is cast, but taking barrier away and not casting it on a Necro when outside of range of a shade when using F3 or F5 will nerf Scourge into oblivion.

We really need more details on whether these changes are only for WvW and involve only “Sand Savant”, or the change to the Shade Mechanic in Scourge is also for PvP and PvE.

And if dps is the problem, then the flat damage should be minimized from manifest shade.

But removing the barrier application from shades or only around the necro when no shade is up: is too harsh of a nerf that will remove the small amount of sustain that Necro needs to not die instantly in PvP.

Necro is already considered a free kill at platinium 1 or higher games when played without support. Now it will be even harder to play Scourge in solo que and Blood Scourge will probably be eliminated from the meta.

And the problem is that Scourge in WvW will still be a powerhouse, and still not be addressed. This was supposed to be improve WvW, not destory Scourge in PvP and nerfed in PvE. This just shows a lack of understanding from the balance team to acknowledge the real problem of Scourge in WvW, which is Sand Savant taking up half the screen !

And the balance team is even planning on increasing the amount of targets that Sand Savant hits from 5 to 10 ! Why ?

These changes were supposed to be WvW oriented balance issues and improve gameplay in WvW, not Nerf Scourge to meme status in PvP.

Just like a Chronomancer identity is sharing alacrity with their allies, and on themselves, Blood Scourge does the same thing in PvP giving barrier to allies and themselves.

If you take away the ease of sharing barrier with allies that is fine. However, reducing the barrier and sustain that a Scourge can cast on themselves is too harsh of a nerf and will make Scourges more of a free kill then they already are.

The changes to F3 and Sand Flare already favor players to take some healing power to have the same barrier output as before. Barrier reduction is now 30% of what it was, but the contribution of healing power was increased by 20%.

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Scourge is the number one target in PvP because it has no damage avoidance at all. Most important way to deal with that is kiting and positioning. Shade skills not working on the scourge anymore when shades are used will remove scourges from higher ranked PvP. Sad to see another balancing patch that does not address the most obvious PvP related issues but creates new ones. At least balancing is consistent. Overall it doesn't get better ...

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They should just start calling them imbalance patches. Creating more instability in game.

Anet - Hint. This is where you are supposed to as game developers EXPLAIN your reasoning. other than we want to nerf this, we want to buff this. EXPLAIN why. Is it because of future things that scourges will get? Is it because you don't want them part of the meta and don't want to have them a path for meta atm? Is it because people have too many scourges and you want to eliminate it from gameplay for a while? COMMUNICATE WITH US. Don't just do things out of random sake. This is why the player base has no faith in your game if you just make whacky changes without communication.

It's like that ex-boyfriend/girlfriend saying why they left you. And say "It's complicated. I don't want this relationship anymore" and you sit there confused af. It's better to know why so you can understand than just have your head blown off with no apparent reason.

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@"OutOfOrder.3719" said:How can ANET slip in this change in FINALiZED balance notes for shade mechanics for Scourge and hope that no one would notice?

Although I don’t think dps curse oriented builds won’t be effected that much, however, the blood support builds will be severely effected in PvP.

Now I can see the reason for reducing damage output when manifest shade is cast, but taking barrier away and not casting it on a Necro when outside of range of a shade when using F3 or F5 will nerf Scourge into oblivion.

We really need more details on whether these changes are only for WvW and involve only “Sand Savant”, or the change to the Shade Mechanic in Scourge is also for PvP and PvE.

And if dps is the problem, then the flat damage should be minimized from manifest shade.

But removing the barrier application from shades or only around the necro when no shade is up: is too harsh of a nerf that will remove the small amount of sustain that Necro needs to not die instantly in PvP.

Necro is already considered a free kill at platinium 1 or higher games when played without support. Now it will be even harder to play Scourge in solo que and Blood Scourge will probably be eliminated from the meta.

And the problem is that Scourge in WvW will still be a powerhouse, and still not be addressed. This was supposed to be improve WvW, not destory Scourge in PvP and nerfed in PvE. This just shows a lack of understanding from the balance team to acknowledge the real problem of Scourge in WvW, which is Sand Savant taking up half the screen !

And the balance team is even planning on increasing the amount of targets that Sand Savant hits from 5 to 10 ! Why ?

These changes were supposed to be WvW oriented balance issues and improve gameplay in WvW, not Nerf Scourge to meme status in PvP.

Just like a Chronomancer identity is sharing alacrity with their allies, and on themselves, Blood Scourge does the same thing in PvP giving barrier to allies and themselves.

If you take away the ease of sharing barrier with allies that is fine. However, reducing the barrier and sustain that a Scourge can cast on themselves is too harsh of a nerf and will make Scourges more of a free kill then they already are.

The changes to F3 and Sand Flare already favor players to take some healing power to have the same barrier output as before. Barrier reduction is now 30% of what it was, but the contribution of healing power was increased by 20%.

Unfortunately, the majority of the players said that the issue of sand savant was it's coverage while in reality the issue was that sand savant is to good at being an area denial tool. Sand savant being to good at being an area denial make it difficult for enemies players to develop their gameplay in the microcosm of WvW zerg and conquest PvP. ANet simply chose to answer the concern of those players, not the real issue.

ANet's aim is to:

  • effectively drive sand savant out of PvP, unless you are willing to forsake shades.
  • reduce the coverage of shade skills in WvW zergs, in order to open room for the opponents to develop their gameplay.

The fact that shades still remain incredly strong (and even stronger) area denial tools just show their unwillingness to admit that area denial is the issue (granted that they worked very hard since PoF launch to keep this area denial alive and kicking by only nerfing it indirectly) and their lack of foresight regarding how it will affect the scourge's survivability.

Truth be told, the whole DM magic "rework" show the exact same studborness at play. Players have been complaining for ages that DM is plagued by to many minion traits and that it make it lacking as a defensive traitline since minions are nothing but optional tools that need to be equiped as utility skills. If the necromancer had minions as main mechanism instead of shroud, the number of traits that involve minions wouldn't be an issue and would even be welcome. However, it's not the case, minions in the GW2 necromancer are just an awkward 3rd wheel at best. ANet try desperately to make them into defensive tools in a passive way making them even less appaeling in a game where active defense is king. Adding the Death carapace mechanism just mean that they ignore the issues to tweak what isn't an issue.

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I am guessing the balance changes to Scourge and DM were to address WvW. If PvP an PvE suffered, they would try to fix that later. This is white collar job security.

I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on Scourge and barriers despite the obvious nerfs being more severe to other game modes but, when I saw the Death Magic changes, I thought, 'If I approved the effort to focus on a profession's trait line rework based on customer complaints and the team delivered a change that only upset the customers further, I might look for a new team.' Of course, the leader could be the problem, too. If I told a team that I did not really care what they did as long as it can be called a rework and cost less than 200 hours of effort, I should not expect happy customers but that was never a criteria for success.

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Scourge has had the most nerfs and the most things taken away than any other spec in gw2 history.

Won't be much of effect to pve honestly. Just harder to keep up burn stacks when casting a shade.So harder to hit damage caps single target in PvE, making effective pve damage lower, buff target caps in wve being a huge wvw buff when its not needed and making a giant nerf to PvP.Its looking like blood death magic for blood sage or else you cant compete with all the burstGonna need to learn how to play reaper ><

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@OutOfOrder.3719 said:How can ANET slip in this change in FINALiZED balance notes for shade mechanics for Scourge and hope that no one would notice?

Although I don’t think dps curse oriented builds won’t be effected that much, however, the blood support builds will be severely effected in PvP.

Now I can see the reason for reducing damage output when manifest shade is cast, but taking barrier away and not casting it on a Necro when outside of range of a shade when using F3 or F5 will nerf Scourge into oblivion.

We really need more details on whether these changes are only for WvW and involve only “Sand Savant”, or the change to the Shade Mechanic in Scourge is also for PvP and PvE.

And if dps is the problem, then the flat damage should be minimized from manifest shade.

But removing the barrier application from shades or only around the necro when no shade is up: is too harsh of a nerf that will remove the small amount of sustain that Necro needs to not die instantly in PvP.

Necro is already considered a free kill at platinium 1 or higher games when played without support. Now it will be even harder to play Scourge in solo que and Blood Scourge will probably be eliminated from the meta.

And the problem is that Scourge in WvW will still be a powerhouse, and still not be addressed. This was supposed to be improve WvW, not destory Scourge in PvP and nerfed in PvE. This just shows a lack of understanding from the balance team to acknowledge the real problem of Scourge in WvW, which is Sand Savant taking up half the screen !

And the balance team is even planning on increasing the amount of targets that Sand Savant hits from 5 to 10 ! Why ?

These changes were supposed to be WvW oriented balance issues and improve gameplay in WvW, not Nerf Scourge to meme status in PvP.

Just like a Chronomancer identity is sharing alacrity with their allies, and on themselves, Blood Scourge does the same thing in PvP giving barrier to allies and themselves.

If you take away the ease of sharing barrier with allies that is fine. However, reducing the barrier and sustain that a Scourge can cast on themselves is too harsh of a nerf and will make Scourges more of a free kill then they already are.

The changes to F3 and Sand Flare already favor players to take some healing power to have the same barrier output as before. Barrier reduction is now 30% of what it was, but the contribution of healing power was increased by 20%.

Only the damage from f5 is moved. The barrier is always applied to the player.

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Well I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m pretty sure the barrier from f3 and f5 will not hit the Necro when outside of range of a Shade.

If I’m wrong, I will be pleasantly surprised. But it is my understanding that both the damage and barrier on shades will not trigger unless the enemy or the team is within range of the shades.

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@OutOfOrder.3719 said:Well I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m pretty sure the barrier from f3 and f5 will not hit the Necro when outside of range of a Shade.

If I’m wrong, I will be pleasantly surprised. But it is my understanding that both the damage and barrier on shades will not trigger unless the enemy or the team is within range of the shades.

F5 will because the skill only give barrier to the necromancer since PoF launch. Thought it would be funny to see unholy sanctuary proc and not save you if it wasn't the case.

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