2k barrier on sand shroud and other survivabilty fun

[Wintermute.5408]

Is this some kind of joke? Because it's not april yet.

TLDR: embrace the downstate meta boys, as true masters of death.

Edits1:

2188 barrier on shroud. Sand cascade is 2420 barrier on it. That's 5650 combined with "heal". Naked Consume conditions is 5240 raw healing.

Edits 2:

Scourge has no survivability anymore, tormenting runes are dead (good riddance tbh), PARASITIC CONTAGION of all things is nerfed by half.

Reaper shroud damage absorb is nerfed for some godforsaken reason. Soul eater healing is nerfed by 1%. Let that sink in for a moment. Why...

Then garbinger is back at losing half of his HP in blight, while still gaining 12.5% damage increase from it. Autoregen is back though.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Wintermute.5408

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Is it seriously *that* low with 0 healing power?

[Wintermute.5408]

12 minutes ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Is it seriously *that* low with 0 healing power?

2188

 

Sand cascade also takes the crown of worst healing skill of the class, with 2420 barrier on it. That's 5650 combined with "heal". Naked Consume conditions is 5240 raw healing.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Wintermute.5408

[Zenith.7301]

lol, they can't be bothered with not making Harbinger any less garbage than power reaper in PvE, which is already a meme pathetic spec in PvE.

 

So they made sure these specs become a total joke so it looks like Harbinger is remotely attractive.

 

I can understand the epidemic change, but the durability nerfs to a profession with no viable access to vigors, stability, blocks, regen, or protection and unable to receive healing in shroud is such abject proof of the total ineptitude of their class balance team.

[Wintermute.5408]

6 minutes ago, Zenith.7301 said:

I can understand the epidemic change, but the durability nerfs to a profession with no viable access to vigors, stability, blocks, regen, or protection and unable to receive healing in shroud is such abject proof of the total ineptitude of their class balance team.

Let's be honest, that's what we get for maining necros. It's amazing Scourge was allowed to be viable for as long as it did.

[Shroud.2307]

3 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

2188

 

Sand cascade also takes the crown of worst healing skill of the class, with 2420 barrier on it. That's 5650 combined with "heal". Naked Consume conditions is 5240 raw healing.

Something that has always bothered me, that I've said many times in the past when talking about Scourge, is how Necro isn't allowed to be mobile or to have certain defenses due to having a "second HP bar". 

Then, when PoF rolled around, they converted Shroud to Barrier, while also giving Barrier access to other specs, which is effectively giving other things their own Shroud. And over time, those other things started to get better access to Barrier than Scourge. Scourge is only unique in that it can share it with others.

So now you have Scourge that's limited in what it can have defensively thanks to Shroud, that has very weak access to Shroud, while other things not limited by their access to it also get to enjoy better defenses and stronger Barriers.

???
Why??? I don't understand it. And I don't even like Scourge. It just seems really unfair how they've gone about nerfing Shroud access over time.

[Wintermute.5408]

Scourge has no survivability anymore, tormenting runes are dead (good riddance tbh), PARASITIC CONTAGION of all things is nerfed by half.

Reaper shroud damage absorb is nerfed for some godforsaken reason. Soul eater healing is nerfed by 1%. Let that thought sink in for a moment. Why...

Then garbinger is back at losing half of his HB in blight, while still gaining 12.5% damage increase from it.

I think I'm off to play Warframe till the next balance pass...

Edited February 28, 2022 by Wintermute.5408

[MLinni.6109]

Yeah,  I just tried with max healing power to be obtainable in game. I was shocked. I certainly hope it is a bug. It's not like everyone takes heal scourges everywhere in the game btw. Plaguedoctor is about ruined.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Hey, the shroud damage reduction didn't change in competitive so not a total loss?

[jpsssss.7530]

So wait anet just gutted all of the sustain options for harbinger. DOA boys. DOA.

[Wintermute.5408]

2 hours ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

So wait anet just gutted all of the sustain options for harbinger. DOA boys. DOA.

Harbinger has his autoregen back, and it's pretty strong at max blight. So it's actually more survivable than scourge now.

[XECOR.2814]

its not the same auto regen. dont comment if you dont know people. ty

[Wintermute.5408]

8 minutes ago, XECOR.2814 said:

its not the same auto regen. dont comment if you dont know people. ty

It's not the same, no. It works off blight stacks now, and doesn't consume lifeforce. But it's there, while on second beta it wasn't. And it's pretty formiddable.  Especially when compared to 2k kittening barriers worth of "survivability".

[XECOR.2814]

just play what they want u to and you will have a happier time.

[Jijimuge.4675]

Some good folk have updated the wiki with the new values for the Scourge barrier sources mentioned in Anet's update post.  To try to add some data to this conversation, I'm listing them below in the format "Base (Healing Power coefficient)" and comparing them to the same values pre-patch

PvE

Sand Cascade - from 2428(1.0488) to 1188 (2.0)
Sand Flare - from 4839 (1.5125) to 2420 (2.0)
Desert Empowerment - from 1207 (0.77) to 572 (1.0)
Desert Shroud - from 5016 (0.625) to 2188 (1.25)
Sandstorm Shroud (Initial) - from 5016 (0.625) to 2188 (1.25)
Sandstorm Shroud (Detonation) - from 1684 (2.0) to 842 (2.5)

WvW

Sand Cascade - from 2428(1.0488) to 1188 (2.0) (same as PvE)
Sand Flare - from 4839 (0.75) to 2420 (1.5)
Desert Empowerment - from 1207 (0.77) to 572 (1.0) (same as PvE)
Desert Shroud - from 5016 (0.625) to 2188 (1.25) (same as PvE)
Sandstorm Shroud (Initial) - from 5016 (0.625) to 2188 (1.25) (same as PvE)
Sandstorm Shroud (Detonation) - from 1684 (2.0) to 842 (2.5) (same as PvE)

PvP

Sand Cascade from 1859 (0.77) to 932 (1.5)
Sand Flare - from 4839 (0.45) to 2420 (0.9)
Desert Empowerment - from 773 (0.62) to 385(1.2)
Desert Shroud - from 4013(0.625) to 2028 (1.25)
Sandstorm Shroud (Initial) - from 4013(0.625) to 2028(1.25)
Sandstorm Shroud (Detonation) - from 1327 (1.65) to 650 (2.0)

 

Hope this is of some use

[maxwelgm.4315]

What Anet has done (and is somewhat clear from the helpful post above) is to force tradeoffs in between pursuing dps and support/survivability. A healscourge build is now stronger (but target capped 😕 ) because if you want barriers, you want to invest into the stat that gives it. It's a bummer to lose the OP immortal build, but I was able to reach maximum barrier on a full Viper scourge before which is not healthy at all.

 

They did not do this only to Scourge which is what I think makes the change OK in the end. If they gutted this or that profession it would have been weird, but they actually introduced trade-offs all across the board. We might (strong might, because most people will keep trying the speedrun strats anyway) start seeing more acceptance of celestial, ritualist and even marauder-type builds that bring a more diverse kit than straightforward dps now. Of course it will also depend on boss mechanics, but so far in my static it looks like it'll be much easier to have bulkier builds on Sloth than to try covering with full zerker+scholar drones the fact that we no longer have Epi/high sustain without investing into sustain stats. This is a git gud scenario even though I am bummed myself of losing the previous meta. We had more than a year of absolute bonkers high squad DPS with no tradeoffs whatsoever and that's precisely the reason the EoD specs looked "meh" - not because they were bad but because we now know Anet already crafted them with a downgrade in mind for the entirety of the rest of the specs - a much needed if painful transition if we want them to develop actually engaging content that can't be easily cheesed with FB+Ren+Scg.

[TheDarkness.6947]

I understand what they’re trying to do here, and conceptually, I’m on board.  My main issue is that it feels a bit like a punch in the wallet.  Some of us are a bit more casual and don’t have a full set of legendary gear to react easily to these kinds of changes.  I spent a pretty good amount of time/gold gearing up a viper scourge with torment runes.  Now it feels glassier than I like to play it.

 

So those investments now feels like a waste, and I’ll have to spend more time/gold reworking the gear set to something that plays more like I like it.  Bottom line:  if these traits, skills, and runes needed such heavy nerfs, they shouldn’t have passed the first sniff test.

Edited March 1, 2022 by TheDarkness.6947
Grammar

[Dopamine.6324]

scoorge is ded, but still everyone plays it cuz its just so bad kek
even if you take away all barrier, ppl still would play it. cuz its that good lmao

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is Healscourge the only 10 target support spec left?

[Aeolus.3615]

5 minutes ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is Healscourge the only 10 target support spec left?

Druid was left at 10 targets as well

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Just now, Aeolus.3615 said:

Druid was left at 10 targets as well

Ah.  Only Grace of the Land got dropped to 5.  Got it.

[Wintermute.5408]

4 hours ago, Dopamine.6324 said:

scoorge is ded, but still everyone plays it cuz its just so bad kek
even if you take away all barrier, ppl still would play it. cuz its that good lmao

I play it because I know how, and have gear. While harb I don't know yet, and didn't get the gear set up for it. Once I do, HB will be strictly superior to scourge for condi. With better survivability to boot (don't quote me on that, still don't know how frailty affects it).

Edited March 2, 2022 by Wintermute.5408

[Wintermute.5408]

On 3/1/2022 at 4:19 PM, maxwelgm.4315 said:

What Anet has done (and is somewhat clear from the helpful post above) is to force tradeoffs in between pursuing dps and support/survivability. A healscourge build is now stronger (but target capped 😕 ) because if you want barriers, you want to invest into the stat that gives it. It's a bummer to lose the OP immortal build, but I was able to reach maximum barrier on a full Viper scourge before which is not healthy at all.

The healscourge isn't stronger. It capped barriers extremely easy before, it will still do so now. There's no "buffing" there.

What they did was gut scourge survivability. To a ridicolous level. I don't need healing gear to benefit from death shroud. Or evades on daredavil. I do for scourge, because 2k barriers is not "better than nothing". It's literally nothing. Sand flare is absolute waste of a slot now, because other punishments weren't garbage enough. And if anet thinks there are some "tradeoffs" for PVE survivability in this game, they are badly out of touch.

[Dopamine.6324]

1 hour ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

I play it because I know how, and have gear. While harb I don't know yet, and didn't get the gear set up for it. Once I do, HB will be strictly superior to scourge for condi. With better survivability to boot (don't quote me on that, still don't know how frailty affects it).

by looking numbers
scourge 19,2k hp+barriers self/party = 37,4k dps
vs
habanerobinger 14,2k hp = 36,4k dps (elixirs to buff party? lose more dps)
yup yup, still would pick scooorge even if it didnt have any barrier on skills

Edited March 2, 2022 by Dopamine.6324

[XerckXiest.7241]

i am playing ls3 and i am getting my kitten handed over.... i play with a mix of viper and sinister. sandstorm shroud was my corner stone of my build in pve solo. i would save my kitten with the barrier when low on health, but now i am just getting reck. i dont feel like trying a new build... too much time... if they would have made 3/5 of what it was b4 it would have been balanced... yeah b4 5k was a lot and i would become a tank... but rn 2000 for 2.0 its not a buffer to save my kitten and give myself time to cast something else to defend myself .... 

or just make it a threshold that if your life is under like 30 % you get the full 5k barrier. 
scourge are a light class  they are smooshy... but they where made to behave like a medium class. to even heavy... now idk nor do i care to find out i dont feel like playing... i just dont feel like making a new class and sinking time into it just to outfit it.  

dont get it wrong it is still very playable .... its just not enjoyable. specialy if you play OW solo on a map with low population that doesn't give a kitten about the meta you want to do..... 

Edited March 2, 2022 by XerckXiest.7241
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