Current state of fractal balance

[JSmooth.7654]

47 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Can Aegis ignore greens from vg effectivly? Or the aoe from gorse?

 

Aegis cannot ignore greens from VG. But, it CAN block the blues. Anyways...

If scourges were removed from the game, teams would still ignore the green circles. It is simpler for many teams to just heal through the damage. IMO, that's a problem with game's encounter mechanics.

Thankfully, it seems the ANET team wants to address this type of encounter design with the new EOD strikes https://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-is-betting-on-bite-sized-raid-encounters-with-end-of-dragons/

Regarding Gorse, the same issue applies. Teams straight up heal through the damage and cleanse the vuln stacks. Although your healers (Scourge or otherwise) would greatly appreciate if you would stop standing in bad...

 

If anything, the argument seems to be against the power of barrier. Funny enough, ANET agreed with you and nerfed dps Scourge barrier output back in August. Now Scourges have to make a choice for more dps or more barrier. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/99823-game-update-notes-august-17-2021/

 

[anbujackson.9564]

7 minutes ago, JSmooth.7654 said:

 

Aegis cannot ignore greens from VG. But, it CAN block the blues. Anyways...

If scourges were removed from the game, teams would still ignore the green circles. It is simpler for many teams to just heal through the damage. IMO, that's a problem with game's encounter mechanics.

Thankfully, it seems the ANET team wants to address this type of encounter design with the new EOD strikes https://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-is-betting-on-bite-sized-raid-encounters-with-end-of-dragons/

Regarding Gorse, the same issue applies. Teams straight up heal through the damage and cleanse the vuln stacks. Although your healers (Scourge or otherwise) would greatly appreciate if you would stop standing in bad...

 

If anything, the argument seems to be against the power of barrier. Funny enough, ANET agreed with you and nerfed dps Scourge barrier output back in August. Now Scourges have to make a choice for more dps or more barrier. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/99823-game-update-notes-august-17-2021/

 

Aegis blocks one blue, you are most likely not standing in just one but ok. Anyway

Anet nerfing the support while keeping the high dps is just the wrong way (while the nerf hit hard, it didnt change the actual problem). Whats the point of harbringer, the glasscannon, at the moment? And yes, barrier in general is very powerful if enemy attacks dont ignore it like mind crush or any other instant kill.

Also I specifically mentioned, like a few others here, firebrand and renegade for nerfs, too. If you nerf only one of those 3, the other 2 get even more popular. They all need to go down, not just scourge, not just firebrand, not just renegade.

[AlCapwnd.7834]

2 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Yet again another cfb (guardian) comparison. Great. So if everyones favorite cfb is nerfed you still keep scourge the way it is? Nerfing scourge always assumes that ANET is clever enough to nerf firebrand and renegade also. Im pretty sure that everyone here who wants nerfs want them for all three specs.

Ok so you want to play the ignore mechanics game also. 

Can Aegis ignore greens from vg effectivly? Or the aoe from gorse? Any kind of unavoidable damage like reds at cairn or whatever you want to name? How is that not ignoring mechanics? 

So out of genuine curiosity. What would you like to see? Im not being funny or anything. I honestly want your thoughts. For example. Should all classes do the same DPS or should all classes have access to CDPS and make them all hit  the same numbers? Does EPI need to be deleted from the game? 

[Bakeneko.5826]

2 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Anet nerfing the support while keeping the high dps is just the wrong way

Wait, but you said supporting while doing high dmg was problem.... So is it, or is it not a problem?

[Nephalem.8921]

On 1/19/2022 at 5:30 PM, AlCapwnd.7834 said:

Ive seen thief's out DPS scourges in T4 CMs.  But im not mad when they out DPS me in PVE content. Scourges shine in certain fights. But on 99 and 98 Fracs CFB crushes scourge. Certain raids require Power over condi and Reaper is no where near DH in PDPS. I was unaware that Scourges also had Aegis to tank mind crush or similar other one shot mechanics in raids. I will look into it. I must be overlooking a trait or something that allows scourges to avoid mechanics.

There is not a single boss that requires power. There is a sub 2h fullclear with 7 scourges so that comp is also very fast on top of being very safe. cDD outdamages cfb and scourge but the only utility it brings is basi venom.

[Bakeneko.5826]

7 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

There is not a single boss that requires power. There is a sub 2h fullclear with 7 scourges so that comp is also very fast on top of being very safe. cDD outdamages cfb and scourge but the only utility it brings is basi venom.

There is also Tracmania track with 10 seconds WR, doesnt mean everyone run it. I looked at speedrun.com for that run and looked at account names - it wasn't pug run. At begining of the raid, on Mela POV, it is stated that THEY ARE GOING FOR WR. Your whole argument that pugs can do that goes down in flames. And, btw, same comp run, by same squad is 2:03-ish hours, that means it is in no way consitant sub 2 hours. And full clear on non scourge heavy clear is 15 minutes longer.

[The Boz.2038]

A world record run is the result of weeks, if not *months* of running the same comp, same strat, testing and adapting before you do it.

 

[Nephalem.8921]

3 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

A world record run is the result of weeks, if not *months* of running the same comp, same strat, testing and adapting before you do it.

 

No its not. Its scourges. what exactly do you want to optimize in a scourge stack? "not consistent sub 2h". Normal static clear time is 3h. 2h is extremely fast and being able to do that with a stack of unkillable braindead garbage like scourge should not be possible. 

[The Boz.2038]

Okay.

Round up some scourges.

Let's beat the world record.

I'm game.

[JSmooth.7654]

13 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

There is not a single boss that requires power. There is a sub 2h fullclear with 7 scourges so that comp is also very fast on top of being very safe. cDD outdamages cfb and scourge but the only utility it brings is basi venom.

"There is not a single boss that requires power." - At first glance, this seems to be a bit of a strawman argument. Of course there aren't bosses that 'require' power. Power comps will perform better on some bosses. Condi comps will fare better on others. That's good design. KC for example, favors power classes as the constant phasing makes condition ramping difficult.

 

"There is a sub 2h fullclear with 7 scourges so that comp is also very fast on top of being very safe..." - This seems to be the crux of the argument. One of the reasons that the comp was fast was because it was a safer group. If you want to try hard, you can play 'better' classes and out-dps your teammates. The higher performing classes come at a cost, however; as they require more from the player. Case in point, when I raid on a Scourge, my dps will fall behind 'better' classes in single target boss fights. And, that's okay. They're playing with higher risk for higher reward.

Edited January 21, 2022 by JSmooth.7654

[AliamRationem.5172]

6 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

There is also Tracmania track with 10 seconds WR, doesnt mean everyone run it. I looked at speedrun.com for that run and looked at account names - it wasn't pug run. At begining of the raid, on Mela POV, it is stated that THEY ARE GOING FOR WR. Your whole argument that pugs can do that goes down in flames. And, btw, same comp run, by same squad is 2:03-ish hours, that means it is in no way consitant sub 2 hours. And full clear on non scourge heavy clear is 15 minutes longer.

If it's Teapot's scourge comp you can listen to him explain how the scourge comp is so much easier that even with skilled players behind the wheel, they saw significantly better times than they did with more standard comps that have higher potential damage output.  How do you think that plays out for less skilled players than the guys Teapot runs with?

[Bakeneko.5826]

2 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

No its not. Its scourges. what exactly do you want to optimize in a scourge stack? "not consistent sub 2h". Normal static clear time is 3h. 2h is extremely fast and being able to do that with a stack of unkillable braindead garbage like scourge should not be possible. 

Actually, it was. There are 2 runs submited to speedrun.com by same squad, same comp. more runs with failed times of WR on youtube.

 

28 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If it's Teapot's scourge comp you can listen to him explain how the scourge comp is so much easier that even with skilled players behind the wheel, they saw significantly better times than they did with more standard comps that have higher potential damage output.  How do you think that plays out for less skilled players than the guys Teapot runs with?

Not the point, it was worded, like anyone can do sub 2 hour run, when in fact it was organised group with actually good players in it. Teapot being only one I never heard before

[anbujackson.9564]

20 hours ago, AlCapwnd.7834 said:

So out of genuine curiosity. What would you like to see? Im not being funny or anything. I honestly want your thoughts. For example. Should all classes do the same DPS or should all classes have access to CDPS and make them all hit  the same numbers? Does EPI need to be deleted from the game? 

There should be a balance between what damage you can do while providing a lot of utility. You know just like banner bs is at 33k and not 38 (33 being still too much and Anet cant handle the right way to fix it). Revert the torment change and reduce the damage to the level of 32-33k. There you go. You know instead of randomly picking utilities and traits and most likely hurt core in the process.

 

19 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Wait, but you said supporting while doing high dmg was problem.... So is it, or is it not a problem?

Yes it is... I never said otherwise. My point was that Anet shouldnt have touched the support aspect of scourge in the first place, especially when it doesnt fix anything at all.  Instead they should just nerf the damage. Thats better than nuking the whole class design of scourge (which is awful to balance right from the start) by ripping everything off so you can justify the high damage. There is still harbringer coming around you know. A glasscannon which does less damage than a hybrid by design spec.

 

Guys please, stop the defending of this spec. Every famous player and streamer, who are pretty good at the game and spend most of their time in it, say that scourge, firebrand and renegade are overpowered. Its a common fact. What are you trying to defend here? 

Edited January 21, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Bakeneko.5826]

31 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Guys please, stop the defending of this spec. Every famous player and streamer, who are pretty good at the game and spend most of their time in it, say that scourge, firebrand and renegade are overpowered. Its a common fact. What are you trying to defend here? 

Having personal opinion would be a start

[anbujackson.9564]

3 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Having personal opinion would be a start

Fair enough.

But even with a different personal opinion you need to face reality at some point. 

[Bakeneko.5826]

13 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Fair enough.

But even with a different personal opinion you need to face reality at some point. 

Yes, and so far, with current meta, on the days  I don't have my static running fractals it doesn't feel like I want to reach out into the game and smack someone up their head out of sheer stupidity I see on screen, compared to times i ran ele. I can still outperform scourges on raids on most my played classes that arent event guardians or renegades and achieve better results. So yeah, I'd say we have pretty good PvE meta atm, where lemmings on my screen do no suicide off the closest cliff when there is AoE breeze. I'll defend this meta, however stupid it is, because it is better for my sanity (and I assume most speedruners, or at least for sure my guild) when I have to PUG fractals.

[JSmooth.7654]

1 hour ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Guys please, stop the defending of this spec. Every famous player and streamer, who are pretty good at the game and spend most of their time in it, say that scourge, firebrand and renegade are overpowered. Its a common fact. What are you trying to defend here? 

 

My personal reason? Because ANET has already nerfed the damage output AND the barrier output of DPS Scourge since the major Torment rework patch. But, those facts seems to be absent from many of the discussions debating if Scourge should be nerfed AGAIN.

 

I'm afraid that people watch old benchmark / YouTube videos and think that Scourge is in the same place as when the Torment patch dropped (which is not the case).

 

I'm afraid people confuse AoE (add) damage with single target (boss) damage. Also, that people want to change an entire spec based on 1 or 2 fractal CM fights...

 

When streamers say that Scourge is overpowered, they're also talking about heal Scourge and / or Plaguedoctor Scourge; which is different from saying that DPS Scourge is OP. I think that people hear "Scourge is OP" and lump the whole spec together. I'll totally agree that heal Scourge down-state manipulation is OP.

 

I'll also admit here and now that (as of the current patch) I bench 29k golem DPS on my full DPS Scourge. I do not have the damage infusions. But, I do the proper skill priority "rotation." I use food / utilities. I setup the golem and self buff (afaik) like I'm supposed to... When I watch other DPS Scourges in the game, they bench a similar DPS. I think that 29k is fair for what the full DPS spec can do.

Edited January 21, 2022 by JSmooth.7654

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, JSmooth.7654 said:

 

My personal reason? Because ANET has already nerfed the damage output AND the barrier output of DPS Scourge since the major Torment rework patch. But, those facts seems to be absent from many of the discussions debating if Scourge should be nerfed AGAIN.

 

I'm afraid that people watch old benchmark / YouTube videos and think that Scourge is in the same place as when the Torment patch dropped (which is not the case).

 

I'm afraid people confuse AoE (add) damage with single target (boss) damage. Also, that people want to change an entire spec based on 1 or 2 fractal CM fights...

 

When streamers say that Scourge is overpowered, they're also talking about heal Scourge and / or Plaguedoctor Scourge; which is different from saying that DPS Scourge is OP. I think that people hear "Scourge is OP" and lump the whole spec together. I'll totally agree that heal Scourge down-state manipulation is OP.

 

I'll also admit here and now that (as of the current patch) I bench 29k golem DPS on my full DPS Scourge. I do not have the damage infusions. But, I do the proper skill priority "rotation." I use food / utilities. I setup the golem and self buff (afaik) like I'm supposed to... When I watch other DPS Scourges in the game, they bench a similar DPS. I think that 29k is fair for what the full DPS spec can do.

"I can't reach benchmark" isn't a legitimate argument and 37K+ is the benchmark POST torment changes, not before. It also happens to be single target DPS without any cleave or external life force generation.

 

The only barrier nerf that has occurred in PvE is the heal from Sand Flare in August 2021 patch.

• Sand Cascade: Reduced base barrier from 2,428 to 1,859 in PvP only.
• Desert Shroud: Reduced base barrier from 5,016 to 4,013 in PvP only.
•  Desert Empowerment: Reduced base barrier from 966 to 773 in PvP only.

However, Firebrand is more of a priority for rebalancing.

----
Scourge was under the radar when it was 28K to be honest. 5+ scourges made Cold War farming effortless even with any form of Frigid Footfalls or special effects even before torment changes for example. 37K+ is just ludicrous.

4 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If it's Teapot's scourge comp you can listen to him explain how the scourge comp is so much easier that even with skilled players behind the wheel, they saw significantly better times than they did with more standard comps that have higher potential damage output.  How do you think that plays out for less skilled players than the guys Teapot runs with?

Edited January 21, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[JSmooth.7654]

18 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Scourge was under the radar when it was 28K to be honest. 5+ scourges made Cold War farming effortless even with any form of Frigid Footfalls or special effects even before torment changes for example. 37K+ is just ludicrous.

If you can hop on your Scourge, invite me to your group and show me 37k golem dps in the game today, I'll agree with you that DPS Scourge is OP.

 

Edit: I probably shouldn't have used myself as an example. My apologies. My argument is not that I can't hit 37k. It's that with the current patch you can't hit 37k on the golem without cheesing the numbers. Your guildies can't. You fractal group won't. Your raiding party won't. But if you can prove me wrong, I'll admit I was wrong.

Edited January 22, 2022 by JSmooth.7654
for clarity

[JSmooth.7654]

27 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The only barrier nerf that has occurred in PvE is the heal from Sand Flare in August 2021 patch.

• Sand Cascade: Reduced base barrier from 2,428 to 1,859 in PvP only.
• Desert Shroud: Reduced base barrier from 5,016 to 4,013 in PvP only.
•  Desert Empowerment: Reduced base barrier from 966 to 773 in PvP only.

 

You mention the Sand Flare nerf but don't actually list it? It was a significant hit to barrier output:

 

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f0/Sand_Flare.png/32px-Sand_Flare.png
   Sand Flare: Barrier granted by this skill now only affects the caster by default.

[Nephalem.8921]

16 hours ago, JSmooth.7654 said:

 

You mention the Sand Flare nerf but don't actually list it? It was a significant hit to barrier output:

 

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f0/Sand_Flare.png/32px-Sand_Flare.png
   Sand Flare: Barrier granted by this skill now only affects the caster by default.

It was very minor. Good scourges werent using it that much anyways since its your healingskill which does no dmg. trait and f3 spam barrier as part of the "rotation".

[Bakeneko.5826]

21 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Good scourges werent using it that much anyways since its your healingskill

Are you familiar with Sadistic Searing? You need Flare to proc it. F3 gives 2k barrier on meta built every 7 seconds and F1 provides 1.2k per shade barrier only if Desert Empowerment is traited. So either you take more dps for less barrier (4k every 25 seconds), or less dps  for more sustain, as you will be taking Signet for better sustan insted of Sand flare if you dont run Sadistic searing.

[Nephalem.8921]

3 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Are you familiar with Sadistic Searing? You need Flare to proc it. F3 gives 2k barrier on meta built every 7 seconds and F1 provides 1.2k per shade barrier only if Desert Empowerment is traited. So either you take more dps for less barrier (4k every 25 seconds), or less dps  for more sustain, as you will be taking Signet for better sustan insted of Sand flare if you dont run Sadistic searing.

Are you aware of sadistic searing being a dps loss over just not using healskill? Sure you do burning with sadistic searing but you would have done more damage just auto attacking instead of using your healskill. And thats even without using signet or minion for dps. All the nerf did was making vg cheese a little bit harder with just dps scourge for barrier. No other boss requires high on demand barrier to cheese a mechanic.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

I can't lift a toilet seat up without fear that sunqua peak will jump at me either as daily or recommended. Like seriously, too much of it in rotation!

[Bakeneko.5826]

5 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

I can't lift a toilet seat up without fear that sunqua peak will jump at me either as daily or recommended. Like seriously, too much of it in rotation!

It has lazy design, but it's not THAT bad