Open Letter to ANet Regarding Latest Patch

[VDAC.2137]

Sad. Scourge was a spec I was enjoying after Druid was destroyed. :'(

[Dadnir.5038]

@"InsaneQR.7412" said:It would atleast make sense if you hit less target per shade out instead of nothing as soon as 1 is out. So like with all 3 out you are bare naked and don't affect anything. With one out you lose 2 targets, with 2 out you lose another 2 and with the third you lose the last 2 (yes I calculate with 6 targets). And with the big shade you lose all at once.This would also give sand savant its tradeoff by only be able to affect 1 area.

Another idea could be that desertshroud does not require life-force but needs to have it below a threshold and sacrifices all shades to trigger the shroud and generate life-force instead.

Just something different than this mess.

You know that the issue of the scourge is it's area denial, what you suggest change nothing to the issue, except the number of foes hit.

The reason behind the shades affecting 10 targets is mainly to make it a PvE raid support tool (which is ridiculous since ANet is keener on nerfing the support of the shades than it's area denial, area denial which is not needed in PvE since mobs don't care anyway). Anyway, the shades skills in themselve (apart from desert shroud) would have worked perfectly (and be perfectly balanced) with the previous way shades worked if it wasn't for the F1 proc.

This mess only exist because, somehow, ANet devs lost themselve and made "area denial" the purpose of the shades. And then, for the sake of purity of purpose they cling to it desperatly. Players complains about shades because it's the infamous "red area of death", nothing more, nothing else. Anet just like to ignore that. As for the barrier issue, it come from the barrier mechanism itself not the shades, nerfing numbers there lead nowhere.

[killfil.3472]

Cant help but also think that having a transform as an elite despite our main proffession mechanic already being a transform-ish is redundant + considering its clunkyness and the fact that it has a skill bound to it (grim specter) that would make a great elite on its own + the fact it has a great minion related skill that could absolutly replace Bone minions and that confuses me cause you'd think the elite minion would be the only minion-summoning elite..?Rambles ramble me I am rambles.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Axl.8924 said:The problem as others said it only overperformed in WVW after all the other nerfs due to how oppressive it is, and now its even more oppressive while nerfing pve where it shouldn't.

The way you defend the nerfs makes me think you want scourge to be useless and unplayable.

I'm not even sure it overperform in WvW, barrier and area denial (in general) overperform in WvW. Scourge is a great source of both but I doubt it is or it was to the point of saying that the specialization overperform.

Scourge and Firebrand were the back bone of WvW ever since they dropped in POF. The reasoning is pretty simple..... groups of scourges can convert boons at a rates 30 times per second or higher. More then enough to tear off any Stability an enemy group has, unless they can generate enough cover boons. Which is where Firebrand comes in. Their main strength is the ability to convert conditions back into boons, and apply new stability if it gets torn off in the fight. With Stability nullified, Hard CCs are more likley to land, and the resulting stun locks make for easy kills. Scourge Condi damage was just icing on that cake. Same with Winds of Disenchantment..... its biggest source of threat is blocking stability. Which is why its uptime was the target of all those nerfs, rather then the effect itself. The Devs WANT it to work this way.... but they continually underestimate the ramifications of messing with stability.

Despite the fact that Spell Breaker also had a loot of boon stripping, the fact that a nearly EVERY attack a scourge does converts boons, and how all those attacks are AOE, what makes them so OP is the number of targets they can corrupt on a continuous basis. When FB cleanse and healing got nerfed, Engineer was pulled out of retirement because it could do a similar job without the downtime risks. But Firebrands are still in the meta, because they are the primary source of Stability...

So yeah... the way Scourge threatens stability is what causes them over perform on a conceptual level. Scourge damage had been nerfed several times, but they still remained because of the boon corrupts. And this last change to Shade doesn't change what they do... they simply cover less area then previously.

[Nimon.7840]

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Axl.8924 said:The problem as others said it only overperformed in WVW after all the other nerfs due to how oppressive it is, and now its even more oppressive while nerfing pve where it shouldn't.

The way you defend the nerfs makes me think you want scourge to be useless and unplayable.

I'm not even sure it overperform in WvW, barrier and area denial (in general) overperform in WvW. Scourge is a great source of both but I doubt it is or it was to the point of saying that the specialization overperform.

Scourge and Firebrand were the back bone of WvW ever since they dropped in POF. The reasoning is pretty simple..... groups of scourges can convert boons at a rates 30 times per second or higher. More then enough to tear off any Stability an enemy group has, unless they can generate enough cover boons. Which is where Firebrand comes in. Their main strength is the ability to convert conditions back into boons, and apply new stability if it gets torn off in the fight. With Stability nullified, Hard CCs are more likley to land, and the resulting stun locks make for easy kills. Scourge Condi damage was just icing on that cake. Same with Winds of Disenchantment..... its biggest source of threat is blocking stability. Which is why its uptime was the target of all those nerfs, rather then the effect itself. The Devs WANT it to work this way.... but they continually underestimate the ramifications of messing with stability.

Despite the fact that Spell Breaker also had a loot of boon stripping, the fact that a nearly EVERY attack a scourge does converts boons, and how all those attacks are AOE, what makes them so OP is the number of targets they can corrupt on a continuous basis. When FB cleanse and healing got nerfed, Engineer was pulled out of retirement because it could do a similar job without the downtime risks. But Firebrands are still in the meta, because they are the primary source of Stability...

Yeah I guess 3 or 4 ranged corrupts is almost every skill of scourge.Don't get me wrong, I don't like the all scourge meta as well. It makes necro look really bad. Especially because necro is said to be a noob class. I really wonder about that. There's so many bad scourges out there.

And if there were zero boons, I think scourge would still be played, but other classes would be a lot better.The problem isn't really the corrupts in my opinion. But the insane amount of boonspam is.If there wasn't that much boonspam, you wouldn't need that many corrupts.Have you ever tried to fight a group of enemies. Without your group having any kind of boon remove or corrupt?You're gonna loose just by how strong some boons like stability, or protection are

So yeah... the way Scourge threatens stability is what causes them over perform on a conceptual level. Scourge damage had been nerfed several times, but they still remained because of the boon corrupts. And this last change to Shade doesn't change what they do... they simply cover less area then previously.

[XECOR.2814]

@Ensign.2189 said:

@Saracen.2691 said:What was the only thing Scourge could do with a measure of superiority before the patch?

It was, by a wide margin, the easiest class to solo hard content on, for instance Arkk CM. Chrono had a higher peak potential, but soloing on a chrono required near-perfect play, while merely very good play would get the job done on a Scourge.

It had also been amongst the highest win rate specializations in sPvP for years and a backbone of the meta.

It is also a wildly popular general PvE character owing to its ease of play and high general power level without party support. Other characters can respec to gain the kinds of solo power the Scourge had, but Scourge got near full raid output alongside all the self tools. Raiding with a big stack of Scourges was similarly known to be faceroll easy.

But wait there's more...it was also, as you say, an oppressively powerful WvW zerg class.

In fact, the only weaknesses a Scourge had were:

1v1 PvP. While it is the most devastating spec available in a team fight, Scourge doesn't have the defensive tools to fight the strongest dueling specs on its own.

Raid speed runs. In the hands of an experienced player a Scourge's max DPS topped out about 15% behind the best options available.

Anyone bemoaning how weak the Scourge was before the nerf is feeding you wheelbarrows full of yak dung. It has been at the top of the pack across game modes for years, and settling into the middle of the pack after some of the rough edges are cleaned up is not a bad thing by any stretch.

Top pick for casuals lol. Never king of anything. Still got nerfed. And there are thngs that are king of everything pve.

[Marxx.5021]

I think the real problem is that game designers that were part of the old balancing team have left Anet. The guys who are now in the systems team are not able to do proper class balancing for 3 game modes.