if Anet is nerfing scourge, what about this?

[anduriell.6280]

I don’t know if this would be a good idea but I thought in WvW and PvP if scourge if nerfed at some point it would be enough to 
 

* Shades can not inflict critical hits.

 

Thats all.

Nerfing corrupts potential by nerfing shades output even more would harm more the build variety than do actual good. Reducing the potential strike damage should reduce the pressure shades may have on the battlefield becoming more like the corruption(condition)/barrier source. It would reduce marginally some condi output from critical hits in form of traits or sigils too while still keeping the weapons and skills useful.

 

What do you think?

[Telgum.6071]

(PvP) I think condi scourge isn't even close to support scourge. That thing is unkillable unless everyone focus it, makes impossible to fight inside the caps (areas, wells, breaches, wtf), not to mention gigantic barrier and the synergy of pulling downed allies + healing them extremely fast (while also tanking damage, since the barrier don't interrupt the res...).

For me condi scourge is disgusting but that's it. There are tons of disgusting matchups out there. When talking about fixes or nerfs, IMO core Necro (wvw/pvp) and support scourge (pvp) are top priority.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

What do you think?

I think you hurt just as much build diversity with your suggestion than by nerfing corrupt potential.

The damage potential of the shade is already pretty low in competitive outside of the F5, shaving even more damage out of it have a high probability to not have the impact expected.

If your issue is damage pressure, you could as well target the elephant in the middle of the room that F5, desert shroud/sandstorm shroud, is. Make it give 30% strike and/or condition reduction to allies within the shade area instead of the strike damage and the Scourge "damage pressure" just vanish in all gamemodes.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

OR

Put cast times on F2-F4. I'll let F5 pass since it's the 'shroud.'

[Infusion.7149]

Your suggestion is near meaningless because the bulk of condition output is coming not from crits but from skills. If strike damage meant anything people would not be able to run trailblazer on scourge at all. Torment changes result in far lower threat than before for condition variants in competitive modes as well.

Scourge in WVW is exclusively run as power unless you are roaming (which means core condi is stronger and so is reaper if you have swiftness/superspeed from other people). Therefore the added benefit to scourge over core necro is minimized: your large power skills are wells and axe skills. It isn't as much a threat in WVW as before because of how prevalent scrappers are after 2019 gyro rework. My squad fought a guild group last night running minion reaper with spectral grasp on some of them as a strategy because they try to cap out target limit to minimize incoming damage while using scrappers and spellbreakers to rip more boons.

What Telgum wrote is spot on. Support scourge is a stronger archetype than condi scourge. This is true even in PvE now that plaguedoctor scourge does ~27K DPS which is close to what a full condi scourge did before torment changes.

If you want to nerf it in PVE (to reasonable amounts like 33K on par with condi soulbeast camping shortbow as opposed to 37K) that's really easy:

• Demonic lore torment bonus should be cut since it already gives added value via burning, the fastest condition damage possible. ~40% of damage is coming from torment. A reduction of demonic lore from 25% to 10% would be a start.
• Desert empowerment / sand cascade should have lower base barrier and more scaling.
   

[Zalavaaris.5329]

On 10/26/2021 at 11:34 AM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

OR

Put cast times on F2-F4. I'll let F5 pass since it's the 'shroud.'

Absolutely 100% no to this idea.... a shared 1 second GCD I can get behind though. 

[Obtena.7952]

... or we don't need to invent ways for Anet to change a class that they will change how they want anyways. 

[Mell.4873]

On 10/27/2021 at 5:35 AM, Infusion.7149 said:

Your suggestion is near meaningless because the bulk of condition output is coming not from crits but from skills. If strike damage meant anything people would not be able to run trailblazer on scourge at all. Torment changes result in far lower threat than before for condition variants in competitive modes as well.

Scourge in WVW is exclusively run as power unless you are roaming (which means core condi is stronger and so is reaper if you have swiftness/superspeed from other people). Therefore the added benefit to scourge over core necro is minimized: your large power skills are wells and axe skills. It isn't as much a threat in WVW as before because of how prevalent scrappers are after 2019 gyro rework. My squad fought a guild group last night running minion reaper with spectral grasp on some of them as a strategy because they try to cap out target limit to minimize incoming damage while using scrappers and spellbreakers to rip more boons.

What Telgum wrote is spot on. Support scourge is a stronger archetype than condi scourge. This is true even in PvE now that plaguedoctor scourge does ~27K DPS which is close to what a full condi scourge did before torment changes.

If you want to nerf it in PVE (to reasonable amounts like 33K on par with condi soulbeast camping shortbow as opposed to 37K) that's really easy:

• Demonic lore torment bonus should be cut since it already gives added value via burning, the fastest condition damage possible. ~40% of damage is coming from torment. A reduction of demonic lore from 25% to 10% would be a start.
• Desert empowerment / sand cascade should have lower base barrier and more scaling.
   

I will defer to you for WvW since i simply don't know but in pve it is different story. 

They deal way to much dps, they can outcompete a full shatter torment mirage which has a much harder rotation and is squashier. That and firebrand are a bit to strong, high dps should require a much harder rotation and lots of support boons. 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Mell.4873

[Infusion.7149]

5 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I will defer to you for WvW since u simply don't know but in pve it is different story. 

They deal way to much dps, they can outcompete a full shatter torment mirage which has a much harder rotation and is squashier. That and firebrand are a bit to strong, high dps should require a much harder rotations and lots of support boons. 

37K is a pretty average cDPS benchmark. Don't confuse DPS uptime with DPS.

I'm not opposed to scourge being reduced in torment damage modifier, reread my post...

[Mell.4873]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

37K is a pretty average cDPS benchmark. Don't confuse DPS uptime with DPS.

I'm not opposed to scourge being reduced in torment damage modifier, reread my post...

Its more from experience and not golem numbers. In most fractals with my mirage I pull about 80% 90% of scourge dps, we have the exact same gear too. 

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Its more from experience and not golem numbers. In most fractals with my mirage I pull about 80% 90% of scourge dps, we have the exact same gear too. 

Firebrand does more damage than scourge and ramps faster.
Renegade does more damage than scourge as well.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Mell.4873]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

Firebrand does more damage than scourge and ramps faster.

Yeah that's why I suggest both need a nerf in terms of condition damage.

[Infusion.7149]

6 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Yeah that's why I suggest both need a nerf in terms of condition damage.

Mirage does more in Twin Largos and SH  ; even on Matthias and the "DPS golem" MO.
https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/matt
https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/mo

DPS isn't the main problem here, free sustain for no investment from Desert Empowerment / Sand Cascade is a larger problem I think. If you made the scourge have 32-33K DPS people would still run them since it has high DPS uptime and free barriers (which are stronger in fractals due to agony and where there is poison application). That's not even counting tormenting runes.

For CFB the average performance is skewed due to most people running them for quickness (which is less DPS than 8 page CFB).

Edited October 31, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Mirage does more in Twin Largos and SH  ; even on Matthias and the "DPS golem" MO.
https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/matt
https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/mo

DPS isn't the main problem here, free sustain for no investment from Desert Empowerment / Sand Cascade is a larger problem I think. If you made the scourge have 32-33K DPS people would still run them since it has high DPS uptime and free barriers (which are stronger in fractals due to agony and where there is poison application). That's not even counting tormenting runes.

For CFB the average performance is skewed due to most people running them for quickness (which is less DPS than 8 page CFB).

I think that is enemy size? I don't know I don't do raids, only fractals. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 hours ago, Zalavaaris.5329 said:

Absolutely 100% no to this idea.... a shared 1 second GCD I can get behind though. 

Agree to disagree.

[Infusion.7149]

4 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I think that is enemy size? I don't know I don't do raids, only fractals. 

No it's due to attack rate mirages outperform in SH/TL (think about confusion).

In fractals confusion doesn't proc active damage in exposed window which makes it far weaker.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

They deal way to much dps, they can outcompete a full shatter torment mirage which has a much harder rotation and is squashier. That and firebrand are a bit to strong, high dps should require a much harder rotation and lots of support boons. 

I love the "my personal inability to outdps them with my 'very hard' rotation is why they are OP" argument, It's very refreshing.

I mean, if you do 80% of the Scourge's dps that must mean you play the condi alacrity build which provide perma alacrity and 25 might stacks for 10 players, something that have been seen as infinitely more important than a bit of sustain support for 90% of the game's lifetime (afterall, a consequent part of the Scourge's dps is "borrowed" dps, dependant on alacrity and quickness that he need other professions to give him. And if alacrity and quickness do have a quantifiable impact on the dps of a character, barrier don't as a player having perfect mastery of an encounter don't need barrier to reach it's optimal output).

[Mell.4873]

2 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I love the "my personal inability to outdps them with my 'very hard' rotation is why they are OP" argument, It's very refreshing.

I mean, if you do 80% of the Scourge's dps that must mean you play the condi alacrity build which provide perma alacrity and 25 might stacks for 10 players, something that have been seen as infinitely more important than a bit of sustain support for 90% of the game's lifetime (afterall, a consequent part of the Scourge's dps is "borrowed" dps, dependant on alacrity and quickness that he need other professions to give him. And if alacrity and quickness do have a quantifiable impact on the dps of a character, barrier don't as a player having perfect mastery of an encounter don't need barrier to reach it's optimal output).

No I ment normal mirage, I'm sure anet have the numbers on this for fractals so they probably will lower the damage like most classes who once preformed to well in fractals, Mirage being one of them with mirage imaginary axes. 

[Dadnir.5038]

1 minute ago, Mell.4873 said:

No I ment normal mirage, I'm sure anet have the numbers on this for fractals so they probably will lower the damage like most classes who once preformed to well in fractals, Mirage being one of them with mirage imaginary axes. 

Unfortunately "mirage with imaginary axe" like ou say have a higher dps potential than scourge for a rotation which isn't harder so the issue come from the player and should not be adressed by the balance team. And no, there is no difficulty in using your skills on CD and dodging as often as possible (if you do it smartly you even have more survivability than a scourge).

[Mell.4873]

12 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Unfortunately "mirage with imaginary axe" like ou say have a higher dps potential than scourge for a rotation which isn't harder so the issue come from the player and should not be adressed by the balance team. And no, there is no difficulty in using your skills on CD and dodging as often as possible (if you do it smartly you even have more survivability than a scourge).

You point out exactly why scourge and mirage when played right can be the last one surviving in a fight.

They both have similar play styles in the fact that you anticipate damage, mirage with its f4 and scourge with its barriers on f3 and f5 (trait). 

I think the main problem I have with scourge is demonic lore and lingering curse, they both are huge damage buffs without any added skill needed. 

Mirage has a trait that applies torment on shatters so you have to get your clone game down to be able to benifit from it. 

[Anchoku.8142]

All they have to do is scale down shades. That is, make shades effects scale more strongly based on statistics or whatever; for example, "We felt that Scourge's shades in WvW were over-tuned so shades in WvW are reduced to a 120 diameter and scaling factors are adjusted lower by 30%. Run, you tiny sand castles, run! Also, your cast times are all increased by 1 second!... For every skill!"

Will they do something this extreme? No, but this is how easy it is to nerf using scaling without changing how a skill is executed.

[Zenith.7301]

Mirage should do considerably more damage than scourge. How is this even a debate?

 

DPS axe Mirage offers ZERO utility. It has abysmal CC since the signets and distortion gut your damage output by being huge opportunity costs, whereas Scourge CC is free, can be flexed to multiple places (hello 100 CM wipe-causing mechanic which they can trivially shut down).

 

Scourge does not lose DPS effectiveness at any range, mirage is stuck in melee, so any mechanics that force a spread screw over mirage if your teammates refuse to cede the melee spot (which firebrands won't, I routinely have to kill my DPS blowing distortion to survive 100 CM's aoe circles because the firebrands won't move off the boss).

 

Scourge gets free built in rotational boon strip. It grants allies a 2-3k barrier frequently. It can resurrect allies from a distance instantly with signet.

 

Scourge can cleave damage and easily swap targets with little ramp up because the damage profile of desert shroud applies burning damage.

 

Mirage is heavily dependent on clone ramp up, has horrendous target switch despite axe 3, and imaginary axes don't cleave, which means effective DPS on priority targets goes down when a fight has multiple mobs.

 

Mirage is effectively a condi version of rifle deadeye. It's a pure single target DPS spec, except it has condi ramp up and no burst whatsoever.

 

If any class should have the highest sustained DPS in the game, it should be condi mirage, followed by sword weaver and deadeye. Thief is not even justified because they turned their raid steal buffs into such overpowered buttons to begin with while other classes have languished.

[SeTect.5918]

I think its the thing that its fractals. 

Classes with high burst damage like firebrand Generally are better in fractals. 

Its not because the dmg is so op. Its bc firebrand has an immense output of burning and burning is the condi with the best burst. This fits perfectly to fractals because nearly all bosses there are phase bosses with short lasting phases. 

While firebrand does most burning dmg ingame, scourge, weaver/tempest, Holosmith and berserker are dealing decent burn dmg. 

However i am playing condi holo and i also got outdamaged by 2k dps in for example thaumanova reactor by scourge (i dealt 33k and scourge 35k). And Holo deals more burning than scourge. But the reason why i dealt less damage had multiple reasons:

1. Thaumanova reactor boss is no phase boss, so i didnt get the advantage of burning dmg.

2. The General benchmark for scourge is higher, so if we both played at max level with max boons, i couldnt reach him. 

3. The scourge had "fractal god" which is a 7% dmg increase. I had 0% dmg increase. 

4. I didnt play the perfect condi holo build because i dont like to be forced to Overheat.

5. Scourge has more sustain so my dodge uptime was higher.

So basically i couldve reached him/her already if i just would have fractal god like s/he had.

Other reasons why scourge could deal more damage (which was not the case in my example) could be these:

1. The scourge had food/options and you not.

2. There were ads around the boss which makes aoe classes better there. (Like me 1 year ago dealing 75k dps in Sirens reef with quickness firebrand, which will never be there on Single target if the fight takes long)

3. It was a phase boss where scourge gets an advantage out of burning damage. 

 

However there are various reasons in fractals. And yes the sustain of scourge is a bit too much for the damage it deals imo but Generally scourge damage is not op. 

 

Edit: 

One reason still got in my mind:

Scourge can kill boons and turn them into conditions. Fractal bosses are often loaded with boons so alacs often get asked to take boonstrip. However if scourge can turn boons in condis its a dmg increase to them. 

Also fractals are loaded with conditions which makes scourges condi transfers better.

2-3 month ago i played condi herald sometimes in fractals. There is something..... an instability that gives u 4 burn stacks. They hold for Like 15 sec i think. However my herald had "facet of nature - demon" which tranfers condis from allies to u and then to ur enemy. Imagine 4 burn stacks on every teammate and then u have 20 on u and then u transfer them to the enemy. Ez 10k dps increase for 15 sec. U just have to be faster than ur hfb so he doesn't cleanses them away. Especially in volcanic with lots of burning, condi Herald performs very good. However u have to be fast for it because if u have 20 burn stacks on u, u r dying...fast.

However this wall Text for saying that also boons on enemies and condis on u can positively affect scourges damage.

So there are various reasons as above mentioned.

Edited November 7, 2021 by SeTect.5918
Spelling

[Anchoku.8142]

On 11/6/2021 at 3:32 AM, Zenith.7301 said:

Mirage should do considerably more damage than scourge. How is this even a debate?

 

DPS axe Mirage offers ZERO utility. It has abysmal CC since the signets and distortion gut your damage output by being huge opportunity costs, whereas Scourge CC is free, can be flexed to multiple places (hello 100 CM wipe-causing mechanic which they can trivially shut down).

 

Scourge does not lose DPS effectiveness at any range, mirage is stuck in melee, so any mechanics that force a spread screw over mirage if your teammates refuse to cede the melee spot (which firebrands won't, I routinely have to kill my DPS blowing distortion to survive 100 CM's aoe circles because the firebrands won't move off the boss).

 

Scourge gets free built in rotational boon strip. It grants allies a 2-3k barrier frequently. It can resurrect allies from a distance instantly with signet.

 

Scourge can cleave damage and easily swap targets with little ramp up because the damage profile of desert shroud applies burning damage.

 

Mirage is heavily dependent on clone ramp up, has horrendous target switch despite axe 3, and imaginary axes don't cleave, which means effective DPS on priority targets goes down when a fight has multiple mobs.

 

Mirage is effectively a condi version of rifle deadeye. It's a pure single target DPS spec, except it has condi ramp up and no burst whatsoever.

 

If any class should have the highest sustained DPS in the game, it should be condi mirage, followed by sword weaver and deadeye. Thief is not even justified because they turned their raid steal buffs into such overpowered buttons to begin with while other classes have languished.

The best way to request a Mesmer buff is to not play it and explain why. This is a suggestion from a 2012 player when Necro players admired Mesmer for having at least one use. Post a request for a buff in the Mesmer profession channel.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Anchoku.8142 said:

The best way to request a Mesmer buff is to not play it and explain why. This is a suggestion from a 2012 player when Necro players admired Mesmer for having at least one use. Post a request for a buff in the Mesmer profession channel.

Not playing mesmer won't work as the %age of players visiting the forum is infinitesimal. As for requesting buff or nerf in any profession subforum, it doesn't have much probability to even be looked at by a developper or someone that can make it happen.

As for Zenith, he/she is using very biased arguments based on very specific builds, which doesn't make the argumentation very convincing. Generalising the mirage as a "melee single target condi dps spec" that only use axe is his/her main mistake. He/she even fail to see that there is no weaponset without some kind of "free CC skill" available on the mesmer.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Dadnir.5038