How bad is it?

[Asum.4960]

@Lily.1935 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:Yea, it wouldn't take much to make Scourge more viable.

As I recently proposed in another Thread, I think I good route to go down would be to change

Insidious Disruption

to 2-3 Stacks of Torment from 1 (PvE only), and to make it also trigger on Corrupt usage (if boons are actually corrupted or not) in addition to triggering on CC.

That way Scourges would use

Garish Pillar

on CD to trigger the Trait for increased DPS, drastically reducing their available LF, replacing

Nefarious Favor

and

Sand Cascade

in usage, therefor lowering a DPS Scourge's support capabilities, essentially nullifying the condi cleanses and allied Barriers it applies (outside of the Heal skill), as tradeoff for the increased damage.

At the same time it would bring another weapon, Off Hand Dagger into viability to replace the condi Transfer lost with

Plague Sending

which is needed for

Blood is Power

, as well as give Corrupts at least some value in general PvE by providing extra damage, even against boonless foes which are the vast majority.

Some other similar minor changes could be increasing

Dhuumfire's

Burn from 1 to 2 stacks of Burning (possibly PvE only, although in conjunction with Scourge this Trait has already been utterly killed in competitive modes anyway), and possibly also doubling the burning on Sadistic Searing to two Stacks, considering it's a fairly slow and clunky interaction with having to use a specific Utility and then place a Shade to get value, one little burn always felt slightly underwhelming as pay off.

Now I doubt at this point Scourge could compete with the likes of condi Renegade and such still, but it would have to be tested.At least it would be closer.

Idk why Anet takes months to years (if at all) to even just play around with some Traits like this in minor ways, just adding a bit here and there to underperforming things until they are pushed into an acceptable range.

They are either doing nothing at all, or go for some "major" rework like Death Magic or Blood Bank which generally completely misses the mark as just yet another obscure and niche/unused thing which doesn't fix any of the issues of the profession anywhere.It's a mystery.

I'm not on board with Insidious Disruption being bumped to 3 stacks, that's too much for a minor. That puts it well above Terror, which it already is stronger than terror, which should tell you something about terror... 2 I feel would be fine, maybe, but its not going to change much as you're sacrificing a lot to take it with a dagger. you slow your rotation way way down by doing that without much payoff for doing it. So its not a change I'd make.

It's not a minor, it's a major Adept Trait. If that's what you meant, I partially agree, but also the Adept < Master < Grandmaster balance is completely out of whack anyway at this point, with many Adepts outshining plenty Grandmasters, which imo is a whole other issue and leads to a whole different discussion about the flawed Trait system and what needs to be reworked there to make it consist of more meaningful choices in which all Grandmaster's actually feel grand.

But since in this iteration of the Trait system Adept, Master and Grandmaster barely matter currently, I don't think the position of Insidious Disruption should hold it back from being made useful. Currently is just a bad choice across all gamemodes which can't compete with Plague Sending both in Utility and Damage, and it needs something extra.

As for the rotation, I imagine it would mostly be as currently with camping Scepter/Torch, except for occasionally swapping to Dagger OH to Transfer a double BiP.If that's still too weak to take due to slowing down the rotation, then no harm done in buffing it anyway.Do keep in mind though that Dagger OH also has a Corrupt in Enfeebling Blood, which also would trigger the proposed reworked Insidious Disruption for the Torment proc, further aiding in making it a much more worthwhile swap rather than just Scepter/Torch camping.

As for Dhuumfire change, the only change I'd make is to remove the 1 second internal cooldown. Its needless complication to the rotation and punishes the player way too much for such a small burst of damage. If I changed Dhuumfire at all it would be to Add some burn duration on top of its ability as well. So like a 20% burn duration plus the Burn on shroud skill 1. Necromancer doesn't have a tone of sources of burning outside of scourge so it would just be nice to have. But not at all necessary imo.

While I'm not a fan of ICD's being used this way generally, I almost kind of like that one can't just roll one's face over the Fx skills to trigger 4 Burns, and that there is some skill and knowledge to it, but yea, it is kind of needlessly complicated. Wouldn't mind it either way.The 20% Burn Duration increase for Dhuumfire would definitely be a welcome addition and make sense.

Some changes I'm more looking at for Scourge specific would be to Change Manifest Sand Shade's Torment duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. This might not seem like much but it changes it from being a maxed at 4 seconds to 6 seconds. That's a good start.

I personally really want to abstain from putting power increases/fixes into the Shroud/Profession mechanic.Necromancer desperately needs some attention at the core level, and while it's easy to look at the obvious mechanics that drive Necro (Shroud), I do think the core weapons and Traits need the attention and additions way more.That said, for PvE that is certainly something that could be considered.

Another thing I'd change is Harrowing Wave which I'd probably add an extra burn stack to it so its 2 for 8 seconds instead of 1 for 8 seconds. Maybe 2 for 6 seconds, but I'm not sure.

Again I think Torch already is a (and probably the only) decent Off hand for Necromancer, locked to Scourge on top of that. It's already Meta and camped 100% of the time in PvE, and I'd personally rather look at core weaponry (Scepter, Dagger OH), Utilities and core Traits.

As for Other changes, I'd remove Herald of Sorrow and replace it with something else. And I'd Change Sand Savant to convert manifest sand shade to be 100% supportive.

Completely agree on Herald of Sorrow, imo another failed/misguided rework in effect there. It's extra Barrier application conflicts with Desert Empowerment, competing for the same slot which I always thought a very strange choice.

Similar thoughts on Sand Savant. I always thought it could be a good idea to make the Trait completely remove the Torment and Damage application of Manifest Sand Shade and replace it with Healing and Might, allowing Support Scourge to somewhat compete with Druid in a 10 man Might and Heal capacity as Solo/Main healer.

The last change is Blood as Sand. I'd remove this entirely and replace it with some form of damage boost for allies that received barrier from you for their next attack or something.

Not too keen on the next attack part, especially as part of a primarily condi Specialisation and I'm not sure if I like Group support being baked in as Minor Trait, leading to excuses why the pure DPS Scourge can't have damage.Something else that could work well for it though is making it something akin to Renegades Kalla's Favour, giving you a temporary slight condition damage and damage reduction buff upon summoning Shades.

[Fueki.4753]

@Asum.4960 said:It's not a minor, it's a major Adept Trait. If that's what you meant, I partially agree, but also the Adept < Master < Grandmaster balance is completely out of whack anyway at this point, with many Adepts outshining plenty Grandmasters, which imo is a whole other issue and leads to a whole different discussion about the flawed Trait system and what needs to be reworked there to make it consist of more meaningful choices in which all Grandmaster's actually feel grand.

I don't think the idea that Grandmasters have to be stronger than Adept traits, or even the names themselves, fit the modern trait system anymore.

Back in the days, when you actually had to put points in the individual trait lines, it made sense for Grandmaster to be more rewarding.After all, you were investing heavily into that one trait line, rather than spreading your points across all of them.

But these days, you just choose three trait lines without investing anything into them (except for hero points, which only matter during the short leveling period).At 80, there isn't any difference left between Adept traits and Grandmaster traits anymore, other than leftmost column and rightmost column.

[Asum.4960]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Asum.4960 said:It's not a minor, it's a major Adept Trait. If that's what you meant, I partially agree, but also the Adept < Master < Grandmaster balance is completely out of whack anyway at this point, with many Adepts outshining plenty Grandmasters, which imo is a whole other issue and leads to a whole different discussion about the flawed Trait system and what needs to be reworked there to make it consist of more meaningful choices in which all Grandmaster's actually feel grand.

I don't think the idea that Grandmasters have to be stronger than Adept traits, or even the names themselves, fit the modern trait system anymore.

Back in the days, when you actually had to put points in the individual trait lines, it made sense for Grandmaster to be more rewarding.After all, you were investing heavily into that one trait line, rather than spreading your points across all of them.

But these days, you just choose three trait lines without investing anything into them (except for hero points, which only matter during the short leveling period).At 80, there isn't any difference left between Adept traits and Grandmaster traits anymore, other than

leftmost column

and

rightmost column.

Exactly. Although I do wish they would do a second rework of the system in which Grandmaster's really matter as line capstones, of which each has some fundamental effect on some profession mechanic.

Ideally imo they should just remove Minor Traits (which are generally really uninteresting baseline copout features anyway) and make each Trait line consist of two to three more minor enhancement slots in which one Trait each can be slotted (out of a pool of 6-9 options), and then one big Capstone slot for a significant mechanically altering effect (out of a pool of 3 line defining options).

I always thought Grandmaster's should be something along the lines of Writ of Persistence, the Daredevil Dodges or the new Invoke Torment choices in the Revenant Corruption line, really noticeably changing up an aspect of the profession, rather than some bland damage buff like Symbolic Avenger or Close to Death etc.

But that's just some pipedream ofc. As it is, the position in a Trait line doesn't reflect on it's powerlevel anymore, nor does it need to.It's just all over the place with 3 choices and 3 static benefits per line.

[Josiah.2967]

@Methuselah.4376 said:

@jpsssss.7530 said:If you want to do raids, you may be sad because some groups insta-kick necros from what i've been seeing on the forum. This could be wrong but i dont raid...

This is a myth. I have both raided as a Reaper and raided with Reapers, and no one has bat an eye in the past year.

I ran into this situation last week on my Mesmer. I got mad when I saw it, and also left the group. So much for the casual group my friend had me join... My friend ended up creating his own group, and we invited the Reaper he knew back. It was the right thing to do.

I am a strong believer the mind set is justifiable for speed clears and first kills. Reapers are sub-par for raids. They do not bring anything good to the rest of the party to counter their lack of DPS. Reaper does less DPS than a banner slave without providing the buffs. Give shroud and additional party buff, and maybe that could do something... Something unique like life steal? I do not feel that this mindset is justifiable for a casual group; however, it happens.

If you want to be great at everything. You play Guardian.

[LucianDK.8615]

i hope that necromancers gets a proper dps espec in End of Dragons. The Scourge failed because it could do both dps and support at the same time, and now its nerfed into oblivion.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Necro is fairly good, but not OP anywhere outside of scourges in zergs. A good reaper will carry a bad group, regardless of content. In the competitive scene they fared better than most classes due to Shroud damage reduction not being reduced relative to the g;lobal power reductions. The only two changes Necro needs to be in proper balance, not including some weapon reworks mind you which still need to happen, is for Lich AA to be reduced by 33% and for Shoud's damage reduction to be reduced from 50% to 33%. Bear in mind that I also play a reaper and I am suggesting such changes.

[Kolsyrad.2807]

I dunno what people will think about this, but I'd just like to see a passive or a new ability that consumed the life force to give a big damage buff to help Necro become more competitive in PvE.Not another shround skill but some kind of a flat damage buff that lasts x amount of seconds for every life force consumed or something.It's just really annoying how poor the damage of Necro is in PvE because of the PvP balance.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Kolsyrad.2807" said:I dunno what people will think about this, but I'd just like to see a passive or a new ability that consumed the life force to give a big damage buff to help Necro become more competitive in PvE.Not another shround skill but some kind of a flat damage buff that lasts x amount of seconds for every life force consumed or something.It's just really annoying how poor the damage of Necro is in PvE because of the PvP balance.

The thing is that the "damages" are no longer poor and it's a misconception to think the damages are low due to PvP balance.

In term of damage the necromancer is in a good place in PvE now, the issue that prevent him from being "meta" is that it's tools hold no value in the game mode due to how mobs, defiance and encounters are designed. Make boon hate proc a reaction on defiance (leading to boon corruption proc'ing a bleed stack and the scourge utilities proc'ing their torment/cripple) and you already fix half of the issue in PvE. Replace the arena power damage by a 10s bleed applied every 2 seconds and the necromancer potential break the game with condition damage all while becoming "useful" for it's team (and such a combination mean that it's a garantied meta spot).

Just these 2 little fix on the PvE design so that the necromancer's niches can be expressed would be enough to make necro meta (and probably kick the guardian out because we can't let them reduce the dps with their bothersome light fields they can't help but fart everywhere).

[Aplethoraof.2643]

It isn't bad at all.

I mean necromancer, always have. And despite the attitude on the necromancer (and all the other) profession forums of "my class is under-powered, X class is OP" - necromancer is highly capable.

I tend to run condi DPS builds, so I can't exactly speak to power or support. But I've run scourge (which I main), reaper, and core builds in sPvP (I don't WvWvW too much, but I mostly run scourge and roam with my friends when I do - I've had bad experience with herd leaders), Open PvE, Fracs, and Dungeons.

I've never run into a situation where it is outside of my means to thrive and/or contribute to my team. For sPvP I generally relegate myself to buff-stripping (insanely useful and something that only necromancer can really do well) with a side of condi DPS. For other game-modes, I go full condi DPS. I've been lead to believe power is decent as well now-a-days though, so if burst damage is more your cup to tea then you can do well with that as well.

Play what you want to play. Don't chase the flavour of the month, you'll be constantly swapping and you'll never end up having the best time. Take the time to learn a class that you enjoy thematically and you'll do just fine.

It isn't without its hitches. I'm much happier now that the necromancer triggers their sand shade abilities than before (I think that the delay on sand shade abilities is enough of a draw-back, and it isn't even that big of one. I've played games with delayed burst abilities before, it isn't hard to adapt to GW2 having a few). But no class is without its hitches. And I'd say necromancer's changes have been very easy to adapt to.

[Agrippa.1693]

@"Phraq.5802" said:So I recently came back, I love playing the Necro type classes but being someone who also enjoys getting into raiding in MMO's how bad is it to main a Necro? Almost everything I read online is doom and gloom hoping to find a bright spot lol

OP put it very simple: he/she is interested in raiding. In that matter, my factual answer is simple as well: The Necro is still your worst pick compared to all other classes when it comes to raiding. That said, it's been better than ever before (except for those very short times where the Necro was so called: "bugged"). So, that means it received some good buffs in PvE lately. Does this mean, Necro will at some stage leave that dreadful last place where it's pretty much been since raids launched. Well, I sincerely hope so, but if ANet's history teaches u one thing: I'm afraid that's not gonna happen. We can dream though :)

So, in that (and only in that) regard I can only advice you to choose a different profession when it comes to raiding. Any other profession for that matter, there are easier, more useful and proven better options out there!

It has been written above as well: "we as a community love to give you answers on questions you've never asked for" :D If you look beyond raiding, Necro is not half that bad. It's great in PvP, OK in WvW, great in Open World (but every class is :)), actually good in Fractals now (especially low tier pugging) and not bad in Strike Missions (although also bottom of the barrel)

[Anchoku.8142]

Necro and its elite specializations, particularly Scourge, were nerfed too much and too strangely in PvE before the split in game modes but Arenanet has not gotten around to rebalancing PvE, yet. They have focused on PvP and WvW, which are getting more sorted out.

Here are a few things that come to mind.

• Off-hand weapon nerfs
• Bizarre introduction of Carapace
• Torturing and mangling Scourge skills and traits
• Buffing Death Shroud instead of main hand core weapons for core Necro without fixing anything and creating more of a PvP imbalance

[Kolsyrad.2807]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Kolsyrad.2807" said:I dunno what people will think about this, but I'd just like to see a passive or a new ability that consumed the life force to give a big damage buff to help Necro become more competitive in PvE.Not another shround skill but some kind of a flat damage buff that lasts x amount of seconds for every life force consumed or something.It's just really annoying how poor the damage of Necro is in PvE because of the PvP balance.

The thing is that the "damages" are no longer poor and it's a misconception to think the damages are low due to PvP balance.

In term of damage the necromancer is in a good place in PvE now, the issue that prevent him from being "meta" is that it's tools hold no value in the game mode due to how mobs,

defiance

and encounters are designed. Make boon hate proc a reaction on

defiance

(leading to boon corruption proc'ing a bleed stack and the scourge utilities proc'ing their torment/cripple) and you already fix half of the issue in PvE. Replace the arena power damage by a 10s bleed applied every 2 seconds and the necromancer potential break the game with condition damage all while becoming "useful" for it's team (and such a combination mean that it's a garantied meta spot).

Just these 2 little fix on the PvE design so that the necromancer's niches can be expressed would be enough to make necro meta (and probably kick the guardian out because we can't let them reduce the dps with their bothersome light fields they can't help but fart everywhere).

Whether it's poor or not I think depends on your pov.What I mean is more that the damage is noticably lower to a point where a lot of people just won't take Necros.

My main issue personally is that I find Reaper to be boring to play, I'd like to see Scepter become better.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Kolsyrad.2807 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Kolsyrad.2807 said:I dunno what people will think about this, but I'd just like to see a passive or a new ability that consumed the life force to give a big damage buff to help Necro become more competitive in PvE.Not another shround skill but some kind of a flat damage buff that lasts x amount of seconds for every life force consumed or something.It's just really annoying how poor the damage of Necro is in PvE because of the PvP balance.

The thing is that the "damages" are no longer poor and it's a misconception to think the damages are low due to PvP balance.

In term of damage the necromancer is in a good place in PvE now, the issue that prevent him from being "meta" is that it's tools hold no value in the game mode due to how mobs,

defiance

and encounters are designed. Make boon hate proc a reaction on

defiance

(leading to boon corruption proc'ing a bleed stack and the scourge utilities proc'ing their torment/cripple) and you already fix half of the issue in PvE. Replace the arena power damage by a 10s bleed applied every 2 seconds and the necromancer potential break the game with condition damage all while becoming "useful" for it's team (and such a combination mean that it's a garantied meta spot).

Just these 2 little fix on the PvE design so that the necromancer's niches can be expressed would be enough to make necro meta (and probably kick the guardian out because we can't let them reduce the dps with their bothersome light fields they can't help but fart everywhere).

Whether it's poor or not I think depends on your pov.What I mean is more that the damage is noticably lower to a point where a lot of people just won't take Necros.

My main issue personally is that I find Reaper to be boring to play, I'd like to see Scepter become better.

And like I said, you just need to fix the necromancer's tools compatibility with PvE to have scepter (for example) in a good place. It's the difference between puting bandaid fix to hide the issue by inflating outgoing damage and simply fixing what's wrong and having the damage and usefullness of the profession increase naturally.

Fixing the defiance relationship with boon hate open up tons of possibilities for every specialization relying on boon hate.

Having the environment threatening your raid with slow ramping condition allow the conditions cleansing and manipulation role to express themself. How good do you think it would be to have a minionmancer take advantage of necromantic corruption in an arena that apply 10 second of bleed every other seconds to all your allies? each minion would send back their own condition and take your conditions out of you. If you happen to go the support path, you'd take on the condition of your allies on top of that. You can have 6+ minions at any moment sending back their bleed stacks every other seconds, any bleed stack that appear on you disappear as soon as it's applied and every 10 seconds you draw the bleed stack that have been accumulated on up to 5 of your teammates. It mean that just relying on your role as a support, each minion maintain around 4 stacks (we are already at 24 bleed stacks), they add 5 stacks taken from you and every 10 second there is a burst of around 20 bleed stacks on top of that. So around 30 bleed stacks maintained going up to 50 every 10 seconds and it's not even taking into account the basic dps you do on your own.

This is how OP the necromancer's designed niche is supposed to be (which is probably also why ANet is so shy when it come to actually make it work).