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Serpent Siphon - OK Hear Me Out...


kroof.5468

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I've had a pain point with Serpent Siphon for some time (well, ever since it came out). It is the one ability on Scourge with a pickup mechanic, that has no other interactions, and is really fiddly. So, I wanted to have some fun and create a little rework to hopefully spark discussion, and a dialogue of some Necro abilities - be it scourge or others.Firstly, I noticed that Reaper does have a minion skill "Rise!" while the Scourge has no abilities that influence or create minions (One may argue Barrier, but Barrier affects everything and is applicable across multiple classes). Thus, I wanted to create a temporary minion to keep it separate from the classic Minion Utility skills.Secondly, Punishment skills are very aggressive and I wanted one skill to be more directly related to support - while having a flip-over skill to allow for a subtle damage affect.

New Temporary Minion:pD66bD2.pngCommand Skill:DhyetJD.png

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While I commend you for putting in the effort to develop this idea, there is an inherent issue to consider.

Barrier is only useful when applied right before a character takes damage. The lack of control over which and when an ally receives a barrier adds too much randomness so the snake minion would have to spam the skill for it to contribute in a meaningful way.

Letting an AI and timer spam barriers would quickly wreck balance in competitive modes of the game; especially when Scourge's stack in a zerg.

The best way to contain barrier within skillful play restrictions and, therefore, allow it to remain a potent buff, is to restrict its availability via short duration, a cool down, and significant LF cost. This is why barrier is what it is, today.

Aside from that, keeping damage and sustain both on a utility also stretches balance limits Arenanet is mindful of.

In short, skills with dual offense/defense use, skills using an AI for a lower skill-cap, and skills that are highly stackable set off warning flags.

p.s.Rise supports only the Necro with a buff while the minions are attacking so it does not stack in a crowd of Necromancers in WvW. The shambling minions attack only one target at a time and can be kited leading to no benefit for the Necro. Taking minion traits means taking Death Magic for a dps nerf. Rise carefully avoids balance issues even though it provides a buff and damage. Its design is restrictive that way. Please also note Rise is not available to core shroud users.

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@"Anchoku.8142" said:While I commend you for putting in the effort to develop this idea, there is an inherent issue to consider.

Barrier is only useful when applied right before a character takes damage. The lack of control over which and when an ally receives a barrier adds too much randomness so the snake minion would have to spam the skill for it to contribute in a meaningful way.

Letting an AI and timer spam barriers would quickly wreck balance in competitive modes of the game; especially when Scourge's stack in a zerg.

The best way to contain barrier within skillful play restrictions and, therefore, allow it to remain a potent buff, is to restrict its availability via short duration, a cool down, and significant LF cost. This is why barrier is what it is, today.

Aside from that, keeping damage and sustain both on a utility also stretches balance limits Arenanet is mindful of.

In short, skills with dual offense/defense use, skills using an AI for a lower skill-cap, and skills that are highly stackable set off warning flags.

p.s.Rise supports only the Necro with a buff while the minions are attacking so it does not stack in a crowd of Necromancers in WvW. The shambling minions attack only one target at a time and can be kited leading to no benefit for the Necro. Taking minion traits means taking Death Magic for a dps nerf. Rise carefully avoids balance issues even though it provides a buff and damage. Its design is restrictive that way. Please also note Rise is not available to core shroud users.

This aspect of randomness is noted, but there is the active skill - which would allow for more of an active and thought out playstyle. So, perhaps the skill would work better if the minion only existed for about 3 seconds as it travels in a direction granting barrier and dealing slight damage.The point about damage and sustain being an issue is very much sound, and I agree it should be carefully balanced - but the damage itself doesn't seem to be all that devastating as it was only on the command portion of this skill.Finally, your point about "Rise!" is very much separate from the post, and doesn't hold up with the topic at hand. This Skill is not necessarily meant to be offensive in the first place. If you are focused on restrictions, then the interval of applying barrier could be a restriction in and of itself as it is passive, and does not necessarily allow the Scourge to apply it before hand... it would act as more cover barrier at a modest interval. This active, once again, is not focused to be damage oriented but I did feel it needed something to keep it in line with existing punishment skills.[Also, this might have been nice to put - this is centered around PVE and general Open World. Number can of course change, I'm more so interested in the function of the skill.]

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@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:Serpent Siphon may see use if, instead of creating pickups, the serpents just returned to the Scourge and gave barrier to the Scoruge themselves.

Scourge, themselves, already have hella barrier application. I've always found this skill to be more centered around less self-sustain and more sustain of allies.

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What if we reworked your minion?

How about:

Sand Serpent: cast time 1/2 sec cd 30 secSummon a sand serpent which follows your character.AoE Pulsing damage reduction: 5% Only affects player characters. Radius 180. Does not stack. Duration: 15sec.Command: The serpent explodes poisoning foes and granting a barrier to allies. Poison: 2 stacks for 5 seconds no. of targets: 5 Barrier: 500 no. of targets: 5.

Maybe change the barrier or poison to 2 stacks of blind for 5 secs?

Just some ideas whilst the server is down :)

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@Funky.4861 said:What if we reworked your minion?

How about:

Sand Serpent: cast time 1/2 sec cd 30 secSummon a sand serpent which follows your character.AoE Pulsing damage reduction: 5% Only affects player characters. Radius 180. Does not stack. Duration: 15sec.Command: The serpent explodes poisoning foes and granting a barrier to allies. Poison: 2 stacks for 5 seconds no. of targets: 5 Barrier: 500 no. of targets: 5.

Maybe change the barrier or poison to 2 stacks of blind for 5 secs?

Just some ideas whilst the server is down :)

This may also work! I originally just thought of making this skill a line-telegraph skill which apply barriers and converts boons like other Punishments. However, this may work as well. The barrier may need to be a bit stronger.

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@kroof.5468 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:Serpent Siphon may see use if, instead of creating pickups, the serpents just returned to the Scourge and gave barrier to the Scoruge themselves.

Scourge, themselves, already have hella barrier application. I've always found this skill to be more centered around less self-sustain and more sustain of allies.

The issue is that, as designed, the best-case and only useful scenario is a couple allies surrounded by 5 enemies and not locked down. This literally never happens in PvP or WvW, and in PvE, the skill is too low impact to justify a slot on your skill bar. Something substantial needs to happen to make it useful...ever. I think we can all agree the pickup mechanic on it needs to be scrapped, but how do things progress from there?

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The skill would be better if it just did what it does but instead of orbs it just straight up gave barrier to allies and did not depend on enemy getting hit to give barrier. The boon corrupt will obviously still happen on hit. They can remove the poison from the skill for all i care.

Then it would have much more flexibility to be able to use as a support skill whenever needed to give barrier and offensive skill as 1 aoe boon corrupt. The orb mechanic does not fit with scg and should be removed.

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@XECOR.2814 said:The skill would be better if it just did what it does but instead of orbs it just straight up gave barrier to allies and did not depend on enemy getting hit to give barrier. The boon corrupt will obviously still happen on hit. They can remove the poison from the skill for all i care.

Then it would have much more flexibility to be able to use as a support skill whenever needed to give barrier and offensive skill as 1 aoe boon corrupt. The orb mechanic does not fit with scg and should be removed.

Totally Agree with this - just send out a big squiggly sand snakey to bolster allies @>@

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Well the skill is excessively circumvolunted for unattractive effects so I understand why one would want to see some changes in it.

As for the OP suggestion, it's just to similar to a regular minion. It doesn't give the feel of being a "punishment". On top of that it unfortunately keep on with the unattractiveness of the effects.

Why not give up this barrier folly and make it pretty close to "rise!".

Serpent siphon: deal low damage and corrupt boon in the targeted area into torment and cripple. Summon a serpent plus additionnal serpent for each foe struck. Serpents poison (1-2 second) on hit.Damage: 53Boon converted: 1Number of target: 5Duration: 25 seconds.Radius: 360Range: 900Unblockable.

This wouldn't change things much except that there would be no barrier and true minions critters compatible with the "Oh so numerous" minions traits of the core necromancer.

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It would be nice if Serpent Siphon became a more reliable source of group barrier as it seems to me that the barrier is its intended niche. The biggest problem I have is the pickup mechanic. I would be happy with anything that granted a better source of AoE barrier to supplement the rest of the kit and to make it a solid choice for support Scourges, whether that be through an idea like yours or simply to make it apply AoE barrier. Perhaps up the base barrier by 1k or so, keep the scaling as is, and have the serpents travel back and apply it to 5 allies in a 360 radius PBAoE. I greatly dislike any sort of pickup mechanic as they are unreliable for most situations in the primary game mode I play: WvW.

With all this said, I am not a Necro main like most here. Just my passing thoughts.

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Well I think that serpent siphon either needs a heavy buff, or some serious rework.And outside of some. Very rare roaming situations, this skill is completely useless in any gamemode.

Same goes for desiccate. Only used on some support scourge builds mainly for building up lifeforce.

And well of darkness.

And... oh there's so many necro skills that have only very niche uses and that's not a great design if you ask me.

Other professions have those skills as well. But I think they don't have as many as necro does.

And I have to agree with some people here. Pls. No more minions for necro. The ai of those things has a lower iq than a cracker (the cracker would at least stay by your side and not attack randoms things at will, that are thousands of meters away).And I think as well, that they will never ever give minions a more power than they have right now, which makes them useless in pvp modes as well as engame pve (yes I know that minions are used in pve engame builds, but just because there's no better dps option, which is an huge indicator how bad other utility skills of the necro are [dps wise])

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@Nimon.7840 said:Well I think that serpent siphon either needs a heavy buff, or some serious rework.And outside of some. Very rare roaming situations, this skill is completely useless in any gamemode.

Same goes for desiccate. Only used on some support scourge builds mainly for building up lifeforce.

And well of darkness.

And... oh there's so many necro skills that have only very niche uses and that's not a great design if you ask me.

Other professions have those skills as well. But I think they don't have as many as necro does.

And I have to agree with some people here. Pls. No more minions for necro. The ai of those things has a lower iq than a cracker (the cracker would at least stay by your side and not attack randoms things at will, that are thousands of meters away).And I think as well, that they will never ever give minions a more power than they have right now, which makes them useless in pvp modes as well as engame pve (yes I know that minions are used in pve engame builds, but just because there's no better dps option, which is an huge indicator how bad other utility skills of the necro are [dps wise])

I do think that niche skills have their place as long as the time to use them pops up frequently in game mode. I immediately think of Contemplation of Purity on Guard as in PvE you would never want to use this skill - but in PvP/WvW it sees so much more use. Just add more condi applying skills in PvE and then maybe this would be useful.As for the minions, I would LOVE for them to add more - but just get more imaginative with their function. They all damage and nothing else - which is fine since they are AI and the damage should be lower-ish. So, personally I would love a minion that gives barrier to allies and doesn't just auto damage. I'm not sure why people are so mad at the AI... well maybe if they improved their active skills to give them more power and a better flow, but AI will always be in AI. They are always iffy in any MMO, but once again if the commands were better then maybe they would feel better.

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Btw i was trying heal scg in wvw on minstrel and cleric, the barrier output is pretty good. Usually support do 3 job at once for ex: fb-boon+stab+heal, tempest-aura+big heal+cleanse etcSo scg is quite different from other support as this is the first time you can have corrupts+barrier+port downed bodies.

It is very good in what it does but the other support specs are so op that they still give more value. If serpent siphon can give like 5-6k barrier similar to your heal skill to allies then i think we will see support scg will be viable in wvw too. It just needs 1 more reliable source of barrier to give to allies.

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@"XECOR.2814" said:Btw i was trying heal scg in wvw on minstrel and cleric, the barrier output is pretty good. Usually support do 3 job at once for ex: fb-boon+stab+heal, tempest-aura+big heal+cleanse etcSo scg is quite different from other support as this is the first time you can have corrupts+barrier+port downed bodies.

It is very good in what it does but the other support specs are so op that they still give more value. If serpent siphon can give like 5-6k barrier similar to your heal skill to allies then i think we will see support scg will be viable in wvw too. It just needs 1 more reliable source of barrier to give to allies.

I don't think it'll see play then. Cause other support classes still outshine scourge heavily.Also using transfusion isn't good in wvw. As revive pulses got heavily tuned down, you are slow at rezzing people even with double blood well.And pulling downed Allies that are spread around you towards you, makes it much easier for the enemies to kill those downs.

Sorry but this will stay a useless meme build for wvw, unless they heavily rework big shade (make it so shades loose all offensive power but gain some supportive power in form of boons for example) and even then, playing transfusion would be "int"Meaning intentionally doing something bad for your group - which isn't nice.Unless the barriers get so op, that you'd see a lot of support scourges Poppin up, making whole zergs unkillable, which would lead to nerfs

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@Nimon.7840 said:

@"XECOR.2814" said:Btw i was trying heal scg in wvw on minstrel and cleric, the barrier output is pretty good. Usually support do 3 job at once for ex: fb-boon+stab+heal, tempest-aura+big heal+cleanse etcSo scg is quite different from other support as this is the first time you can have corrupts+barrier+port downed bodies.

It is very good in what it does but the other support specs are so op that they still give more value. If serpent siphon can give like 5-6k barrier similar to your heal skill to allies then i think we will see support scg will be viable in wvw too. It just needs 1 more reliable source of barrier to give to allies.

I don't think it'll see play then. Cause other support classes still outshine scourge heavily.Also using transfusion isn't good in wvw. As revive pulses got heavily tuned down, you are slow at rezzing people even with double blood well.And pulling downed Allies that are spread around you towards you, makes it much easier for the enemies to kill those downs.

Sorry but this will stay a useless meme build for wvw, unless they heavily rework big shade (make it so shades loose all offensive power but gain some supportive power in form of boons for example) and even then, playing transfusion would be "int"Meaning intentionally doing something bad for your group - which isn't nice.Unless the barriers get so op, that you'd see a lot of support scourges Poppin up, making whole zergs unkillable, which would lead to nerfs

Nah, it will still be good in gvg's and small scale/zerging. The revive pulses dont matter, the port is the main thing. Yes it wont be useful in blobs as rezzing is not good there anyway.

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