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Saracen.2691

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  1. You're supporting an extremely short-sighted punishment for an entire class based on an issue in a single gamemode where this change isn't a nerf. With minor adjustment to playstyle it's a buff in WvW and from your previous post it's obvious you aren't looking for any kind of genuine balance or fairness. You'd be happy to let an entire class be butchered in significant chunks of the game where Necromancer is already the worst and cannot in any universe be described as 'overperforming' because of WvW where what you hate about Scourge has only gotten stronger.
  2. The issue is Necromancer is increasingly worthless everywhere else. This patch hasn't made Necromancer worse in WvW, obviously the presence of them isn't going to dry up there. The point is that isn't an excuse for destroying the spec outside of WvW where it hasn't received the nerf at all ANet wanted. In PvE we had the illustrious position of being an unenviable alternative to better classes before this patch. Now we're just wastes of slots. Imagine if it was your favourite class that happened to. Would you be satisfied?
  3. That's never going to happen. People are too impulsive and forgiving. If they announced new elite specs tomorrow Necromancer would be good again for three or four days and then it'd be another 1-2 years of being made increasingly redundant before this point was reached again. The only way I can think of this mistake ever being addressed is refusing to allow it to fade from relevance, not letting any of the threads fall off Necromancer's main page until ANet works up the courtesy to recognise their flawed decision. If they lock the threads then it perfectly sets the tone for the kind of enthusiasm we should have for the indefinite future of how much the modern ANet really cares about interacting with its community.
  4. Not more so than other classes on the average. Being good in an arbitrary category where the concept of viability doesn't enter the equation isn't an argument for anything, you could extrapolate absolutely everything in the game is fantastic if you have such a low qualifier for value. What was the only thing Scourge could do with a measure of superiority before the patch? Piling on AoE damage in WvW zergs so much so it's the driving factor of why anyone thinks Necromancer is a strong class. All this patch accomplished is making that use case stronger and Scourge incomprehensibly bad in every other regard. I think any Scourge player who wasn't dedicated purely to WvW would much, much prefer the lower DPS we already cope with if we got to keep what should be a bare minimum quality of life standard that lets us exist as something more substantial than the player equivalent of an Engineer's rocket turret. It's not just 'a lot weaker' though. It's downright punishing to use and discordant with both Scourge's best traits, one of which you have zero choice in taking, and synergies with core specialisations that kept Scourge barely afloat. We don't need big changes like this unless the intent is to make it clear people should stop playing Scourge completely outside of a gamemode that every non-Scourge hates us for and single-handedly garners a reputation of needing nerfs direly despite how painfully untrue that is in gigantic chunks of the game. Do you think that makes anyone happy and should be considered healthy balancing? I don't, and I am in full confidence that no number tweaking with this mistake will ever allow Scourge to recover from this - that isn't even taking into consideration your optimism that ANet will make good on their supposed interest in caring about Necromancer whatsoever. At this point, believing they will is frankly naive.
  5. The issue with your arbitrary categorisation is there are raw values you can use to contrast classes. In a PvE DPS role everything dedicated to DPS outclasses Necro and especially now Scourge in comparisons using optimal statlines and identical quality gear. Your example of three healers and raids makes little sense. Necromancer is meta for only a single raid boss and in the vast majority it's suboptimal. Obviously in a party of three healers Necromancer is going to appear to be overperforming in a DPS role, after all with three babysitters allowing you to keep chipping away indefinitely it would be hard for anything to not find success. The reality is a player would be better off learning any other class over Necromancer where their usefulness is on par and not capped because of fundamental issues irrelevant to personal execution. Maybe I'm just mental but I wouldn't describe aspiring towards getting close to average DPS for a dedicated DPS role using one of the best DPS builds available to your class in the most significant part of the entire game as a 'corner case.' Worst part is - I'm not even arguing for that, though it seems to be the impression you have. I just want Scourge's mechanic to not be completely invalid and more of an encumbrance than anything else. I could tolerate lower DPS - and I did - if we at least still had that. Instead, we're now trailing in every aspect with nothing redeeming in sight.
  6. Shades are Scourge-specific. The present issue is the Shade mechanic and Shade trait interactions. Why Scourge then is the focus should be perfectly clear, I would hope. So by all logic you should be completely against this mechanic change too. You're saying boon corruption and area control are too good in WvW and PvP (which are the only things Necromancer can do at all anymore) so what did this patch do? It certainly didn't make boon corruption worse. It made area control in the context of WvW as strong as on launch with how many targets Shades can affect now. So all the problems you have with the class are emphasised with this change, and everyone who wants a bare minimum of viability in PvE doesn't get what they want either. I have a suspicion a large number of people would disagree with this, all evidence I've observed certainly lends to that presumption, but I again don't interact enough with the PvP elements of the game to say more than this: Then make changes there. The solution was never in any case doing what they did to Shades with this patch. Again, Shades contribute next to nothing to either of these two things you've highlighted. Because this isn't strictly a matter of success rate. It concerns two other key factors; viability when contrasted to playing anything else and class efficiency. Yeah, you can do anything with just about anything providing everyone is good enough, but is it reasonable to expend disproportionate amounts of time and effort at the expense of everyone else you're forcing yourself upon? Should you selfishly take up a slot someone more useful could fill? Is it decent to make everyone else suffer unnecessarily because you made the terrible mistake of enjoying playing a certain class? Necromancer has nothing in PvE anymore. Even Chrono can boonstrip while providing unreservedly better boon support. Every other class can output better DPS, every other class with support-aimed utilities can perform that role better. PvE is where the vast majority of their development goes, to pretend like it's incomprehensible why there is a concern for PvE balance is preposterous no matter how dedicated to PvP and WvW you are.
  7. Precisely what I did. This thread is primarily in relation to the Scourge change, ergo I am going to address everything through a Scourge lens foremost as the subject matter intends. Even so, I then continued immediately afterwards towards Necromancer as a whole specifically to satisfy your points. Don't pretend like I ignored the meat of your post because I didn't summarily engage it within the first sentence. Necromancer's might stacking is hardly leaps and bounds better than the capabilities of any other class. The fundamental problem with your point is these stat bonuses might look impressive on paper but practicality tears them apart. What use is turning Necromancer into a tank when your mobility is the worst in the game and your baseline damage is so bad you require inflated stat boosts to have your damage even register on a consequential scale? So you can die the same death more slowly? Death Perception, by the way, isn't strictly a raw increase. It only functions when in Shroud which if we keep on topic with Scourge means you're never going to take it over Dhuumfire, or rather you can't because it's outright worse than Dhuumfire. That's not true, though. Everything Necromancer should be able to do is useful in, say, Fractals, which in my opinion is what should define PvE balance. Boon corruption has a use there, condition cleansing/management has a massive and only increasingly gigantic use with Fractal reworks, DPS is useful in every gamemode and even the Barrier mechanic pre-patch could mitigate some worst case scenarios that can crush you and then your entire party otherwise. It's ridiculous to suggest balancing for one gamemode should have free rein to destroy a class or even just a singular spec in another. Then the 'balance' change is utterly indefensible. Scourge's greatest impact is in WvW. This mechanic change just worsened Scourge's WvW problem and did nothing to fix the actual issues people complained about. Anything Necromancer can theoretically do in PvP is a waste of time, another class and spec will always do it better by one means or another.
  8. Scourge generates might mostly from Oppressive Collapse, an easily evaded ability with a long cooldown. Siphoned Power is a minor contribution. How does Scourge generate quickness outside of boon cleansing? That's hardly 'self-sufficient.' Scourge doesn't benefit from Reaper's traits and the issue of this thread is how heavily Scourge has suffered from a change made without any consideration for its consequences, not something Reaper can do that can be done better anyway by other classes. You mention it later but yes, most every other class can self-generate might now so your point is somewhat moot. A 'huge gain of raw stats' by what metric? Extra expertise when using a torch? Any other stat increase from the Scourge trait line relies on having shades out which you are now punished for attempting to upkeep. Spite grants additional condition damage when using a Sceptre, still not enough to put it on par with anything else. Death Magic's changes are the opposite of active defence. Soul Reaping gives some vitality. Meanwhile, let's compare that to a class you don't have to look far to see: Warrior. Forceful Greatsword, Great Fortitude, Pinnacle of Strength all give easy stat bonuses. Berserker's Power does too with a requirement you'd be fulfilling anyway. Wounding Precision, Deep Strikes and Blademaster all give stat bonuses. Thick Skin, Armoured Attack and Rousing Resilience give stat bonuses. Roaring Reveille, Empowered, Empower Allies and Vigorous Shouts increase stats. Axe Mastery is a stat boost. Blood Reaction and Heat The Soul are stat bonuses. For Guardian, Zealous Blade, Kindled Zeal, Right-Hand Strength, Stalwart Defender, Honourable Staff, Force of Will and Power of the Virtuous will give you additional stats. Ranger gets Farsighted, Spotter, Taste for Danger, Ambidexterity, Instinctive Reaction, Lingering Magic, Pack Alpha and Honed Axes. Most of these also have a swath of benefits easily triggered by what you'd be doing anyway and it just goes on and on for every class. So, really, Necromancer doesn't actually have a huge gain of raw stats from a few traits - if anything, it has less than average when compared to other classes. I cannot understand why problems in PvP, which Scourge definitely isn't contributing to anymore, should dictate the balance in PvE so heavily as to make the class useless. Same goes for WvW. The only problem with Necromancer in PvE is it's gutted and useless. How can the answer ever be, then, more nerfs because of issues in a different game mode when ANet has demonstrated they are capable of splitting changes?
  9. The more I play with this change the more it makes my blood boil. A massive amount of our damage was in torment. What does torment incentivise? Movement for the extra damage. What does this change smash you over the head with? Mobility destroys you. Scourge isn't allowed to have it, you're meant to be useless hiding in your Shade where you contribute nothing. Scourge has no use anymore. A berserker is more valuable than any Scourge, they can provide better support with banners, more single target DPS, more AoE DPS and they aren't crippled the moment anything does something as basic as walking. Nothing about this change makes sense, all it serves to demonstrate is it was implemented with an abject disregard of care or practical thought. The change is at odds with the very fabric of what Scourge is supposed to do by its most intrinsic condition. Why was this ever even considered for implementation? And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that Scourge still has bugs which have been in the game since PoF launch, like Oppressive Collapse not always granting you might if you dodge, or Sadistic Searing procs getting stolen by Shades which didn't actually deploy and outright Shade charges getting eaten because of bugged interactions again with dodging. The core principles of Scourge can be crushed any time but fixing legitimate bugs is just too much, apparently.
  10. But no necro will ever acknowledge that I guess. Do you think butchering a specialisation in 2/3 gamemodes for balancing issues in one is fair revenge for the consequences of a different spec entirely? If so, every class in the game should be brought down to Scourge's level because of dominating various metas for [x] amount of time [y] number of years ago. If you ask me, enthusiasm for retaliatory balancing is a recipe for what you enjoy getting destroyed too. Walk a mile in our shoes before you celebrate the death of a class - again.
  11. There's a lot I could say in response to this. None of it is kind. I'll leave it at this: The topic's subject is Scourge. Core Necro and a build with no relevance to any consequential aspect of the game irregardless of your personal experience has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
  12. There is no new meta for Necromancer. The meta has only deepened its accents; Necromancer belongs on the bottom of the pile and you should play anything else. A week or month of 'testing' is only going to reveal how unable Necromancer is to keep up with any other class and Scourge any other spec.
  13. Totally disagree. This change is more impactful than two years of number changes could ever be. How good your numbers are doesn't much matter when you can't reliably apply them to anything. I would say play Scourge for a week of Fractal dailies but at this point it's more suffering than I'd want to wish on my worst enemy. ANet's attitude towards Necromancer has been passive disregard for years - this time it's a lot closer to conscious spite. It's engineering failure, the only fix this has is a revert.
  14. Siren's Reef, Molten Furnace and Deepstone exceeded my worst expectations. I am dead weight. I'm worthlessly and selfishly taking up a slot, forced to rely entirely on teammates. Nothing stays in your Shades. GW2's design revolves around mobility and Scourge has had it all plus adaptability taken away, you can't do anything about the massive duration chills and slows applied to you in Siren's Reef without taking even more conditions and straight up damage in the process, or getting blown off the deck of the ship or knocked back or CC'd into the dirt. You can't do anything to keep the dozens of mobs the game throws your way off yourself or your allies and contribute meaningfully to boss DPS at all. With the new emphasis on using minions with Necromancer too there are even more things mobs will chase after out of your shades without using them yourself at all, and that's if you're lucky and an ally doesn't just knock mobs out anyway. I got to enjoy watching the Minotaur in Deepstone jump back and forth between another Necromancer's bone fiend hiding in the corner and the centre of the room as imps crowded and there's nothing I can do about it except refuse to use my shades at all and take such a significant hit to DPS my performance is irredeemable when contrasted to the absolute minimum reasonable expectation for T4s. The Broodmothers move relentlessly and the Brood Queen has a dash built into her attacks. You can't do anything to hold the dredge suits in Molten Furnace in place unless they're aggro'd on you, which is 1/5, outside of relying on the goodwill of an ally. None of the instabilities were bad today and the writing is already painfully clear on the wall. What's the point in bothering to engage with anything in this game as a Scourge when so much of it has just been ripped out from under us? Doesn't matter. WvW problems should have WvW solutions. Nerf Sand Savant into the ground in WvW if it truly is necessary but these sweeping changes are irredeemably ill-conceived. This isn't at all how Scourge should have ever worked unless the intention was to make Scourge an unbearable handicap to yourself and to everyone around you. It's absolutely untenable and miserable to experience. Giving shade abilities built-in delay was bad enough. This? Vindictive insanity.
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