Can Necro finally get a (real) support spec?

[Dr Meta.3158]

18 minutes ago, Radina.6057 said:

 

Watching someone picking noobs up non stop for hours and having viewers talk about how horrible they are and how useful the streamer is for being a pickup bot must be so fun. Having the gal to call that build top and people believing their Idol is the most fun thing about it.

 

But lets get back to topic, right?

Scourge as an Alacrity source would be questionable at best. All you have is one Stability source which you have to spread by walking through people. Scourge does not have Aeigs, no group stun breaks, and wonky healing. Scourge also doesnt have something handy like "Rebound!".

Sucking up corpses and reviving them sounds and looks fun, but in the end you could have played anything that just did not let that happen in the first place.

Well yes, if you have a class that can make even the worst of players succeed in difficult content... that is incredibly overpowered. I'm not quite certain how there is confusion on that. The playstyle may be unappealing but personal tastes has no factor on performance. 

[Radina.6057]

1 hour ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I'm not quite certain how there is confusion on that.

I already mentioned the "confusion".

Any healer will do the job better than Scourge. Aegis, tools like Rebound, or Revive Spirit, actual heal, or simply more barrier. 

 

The only thing Tempest, Mech, FB, and the other good support/heal specs are lacking is the "haha they so bad. I have to play scourge to carry." content.

Scourge heal is, in the best case, a meme. In the worst case, you just troll the group.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Radina.6057

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Well yes, if you have a class that can make even the worst of players succeed in difficult content... that is incredibly overpowered. I'm not quite certain how there is confusion on that. The playstyle may be unappealing but personal tastes has no factor on performance. 

Spoken truly and ... 

17 minutes ago, Radina.6057 said:

I already mentioned the "confusion".

Any healer will do the job better than Scourge. Aegis, tools like Rebound, or Revive Spirit, actual heal, or simply more barrier. 

 

The only thing Tempest, Mech, FB, and the other good support/heal specs are lacking is the "haha they so bad. I have to play scourge to carry." content.

Scourge heal is, in the best case, a meme. In the worst case, you just troll the group.

... truly spoken like someone who wants to dismiss approaches to playing the game that don't conform to how they think it should be. 

Label Scourge however you like but ... it's a meaningful way to play for lots of people, even if it doesn't mean anything to you. Remain confused if you like, but that's the reality of the game and attempts to  degrade it doesn't change it's value as a support spec. 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

I already mentioned the "confusion".

Any healer will do the job better than Scourge. Aegis, tools like Rebound, or Revive Spirit, actual heal, or simply more barrier. 

 

The only thing Tempest, Mech, FB, and the other good support/heal specs are lacking is the "haha they so bad. I have to play scourge to carry." content.

Scourge heal is, in the best case, a meme. In the worst case, you just troll the group.

Ah, yes, more barrier. And what is one of the other things scourge is really known for?

 

I'd acknowledge that if you have a good group that knows the encounter back to front and makes no errors, a healscourge or even bloodscourge is often superfluous. If that's not the case, however, scourge is far more reliable. Aegis and Rebound require anticipating the big attack, and a player who is saved by one of those effect might still be vulnerable to pressure (and aegis in particular is vulnerable to being wasted if a small hit lands before the big hit). Nature's Renewal is good, but has a 40s cooldown, the spirit itself has a 120s cooldown, and I don't think it pulls so it's hard to use to save someone who goes down in bad. Garish Pillar with Transfusion has a 15s recharge (shorter with Soul Reaping) and can pull allies out of bad.

 

It's a crutch, to be sure... but the purpose is to help teams get through content and give them a chance to learn it until they're good enough to no longer need it. And it's very good at that. There will just be a point at which you'll progress past it as an organised group. If you're pugging, though, it's probably good to have in your back pocket in case the group proves less skilled than you hoped.

[Radina.6057]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Ah, yes, more barrier. And what is one of the other things scourge is really known for?

Not Barrier. Ever since that last nerf, forever ago, even with full Plaguedoc you don't build as much Barrier as before the nerf with no heal power at all. 

Go check how long and much you can stack Barrier with Scourge and how long it takes to get there. To have your team at a decent enough Barrier at the right time to do its job you need to have a tightly stacked team and an on-point F5. Herald of Sorrow takes some seconds to trigger after all.

 

Mech is the Barrier class for a long time now.

 

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It's a crutch, to be sure...

Any other healer will not only help "crutch" better than a rez bot, but also help the inexperienced team with the extra buffs they provide. Since we apparently talk about noob parties, they will need those.

 

There is no reason to ever pick heal Scourge right now, unless you wanna make a show out of it.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Radina.6057

[soul.9651]

U do realise, the moment scourge gets alac anet will have to hard nerf scourge dps yet again so it would be at alac mech levels (which is if its alac dps its 26k and if its a healer the dps shouldnt exist at all)? Else its just a yet again new balancing nightmare if anet decided to do this and extra work for them just because 2 people on forums wants this 

Edited February 20, 2023 by soul.9651

[Yasai.3549]

1 hour ago, soul.9651 said:

nightmare if anet decided to do this and extra work for them just because 2 people on forums wants this 

It's not an unpopular desire for Scourge to provide Alac or for Necro in general to be able to AlacDPS. The pushback is because Scourge already has a niche build for support, which is Heal Scourge with immense Barrier application. If Scourge did become Alac capable, people wouldn't even be running AlacDPS Scourge, they would be running HealScourge because the Barrier + Transfusion revive on a double Well of Blood build is so much utility based superiority it would push out other Alachealers entirely. Not to mention a HealScourge is also capable of doing decent damage with Plague Doctors. 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Uete.3805]

As most people on the thread have pointed out, givig Alac to Scourge is bound to be problematic, either because it's gonna be broken as kitten or because it'll mean a complete rework and rebalance of the spec.

With the recent announcement of mini-expansions and the future of further e-specs in the air, AlacScourge could end up happening... and that's pretty sad. Hopefully by the time the first new mini-expac comes around we'll have a better understanding of what type of new combat features we may expect for the future (hopefully including an alacheal necro spec that's not scourge).

Personally, I think there should be a place in GW2's structured PVE team comps for specs that do heal-dps hybrid roles (Scourge or Vindicator come to mind), but that's possibly a different topic for a different day. I think we'll eventually see a Necro focused on Alac and healing, even if it comes years down the line (with a cool aesthetic and theme to boot!).

[Nimon.7840]

Wait.

Scourge:

Heal scourge is extremely strong. And teapot puts it in its own tier, because he does those tier lists with pugging in mind.

 

Problem:

Heal scourge is extremely overpowered if it's played in groups that never played PvE endgame before.

But it's not good in experienced groups.

It invalidates almost every mechanic while not providing any meaningful boons.

 

In my opinion, heal scourge shouldn't exist in its current form.

Why would people dare to learn mechanics, if there's always a heal scourge instant-rezzing them?

That's not a good concept imo.

 

On the topic of harbinger:

It's currently maybe the worst quickness support to pick, since it only gives Perma quickness and fury, while not having 

A) a lot more dps than the other quickness supports (let's be real, boon support deal way to much damage nowadays)

B) doesn't bring any utility.

 

There's absolutely no reason to play qharb right now.

The group is better off with literally any other quickness support.

Some examples:

Firebrand: offers some protection as well as very good stability and aegis

Herald: has boon extension, Perma protection, fury, quickness, Regeneration, can bring very good stability, has some Superspeed.

Scrapper: brings almost permanent Superspeed, possible to bring invisibility, Funktion gyro for rezzes

 

There's just nothing that harbinger does better than any other quickness provider. And on top of all that, harbingers boon radius is pretty small.

 

At this  point I feel like anet has to put a lot of work into both specs 

 

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

Not Barrier. Ever since that last nerf, forever ago, even with full Plaguedoc you don't build as much Barrier as before the nerf with no heal power at all. 

Go check how long and much you can stack Barrier with Scourge and how long it takes to get there. To have your team at a decent enough Barrier at the right time to do its job you need to have a tightly stacked team and an on-point F5. Herald of Sorrow takes some seconds to trigger after all.

 

Mech is the Barrier class for a long time now.

Doesn't need to be the best to be extra that you wouldn't have otherwise. If you've got the awareness of the encounter mechanics to use aegis and rebound perfectly, you've got the awareness to use scourge barrier effectively. And if anything goes wrong, you can pull and revive on a short cooldown.

7 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

 

Any other healer will not only help "crutch" better than a rez bot, but also help the inexperienced team with the extra buffs they provide. Since we apparently talk about noob parties, they will need those.

 

There is no reason to ever pick heal Scourge right now, unless you wanna make a show out of it.

So how are you going to heal through the player who has to run into bad to drop poison in Sloth and doesn't quite make it back? Are you going to save the player who gets the special action in Matthias and then gets hadoukened right away using Aegis? Are you going to Rebound every time pugskinner summons fingers just in case a player is a little slow to dodge, knowing that it may only buy them a couple more ticks anyway? And that's just off the top of my head.

15s recharge, pull them out of bad and res them. Outside of encounters where the main threat really is a hard DPS check, it's about as noobproof as it gets. 

There are so many encounters which have bad zones where boons, heals, barriers, and other buffs might only buy them another second or two at most, and if they go down in that bad, nothing short of a quick res or a body pull can possibly help them. Scourge provides that on tap. Providing barrier (and let's not forget, scourge is one of the few builds that can still provide support to ten players) and a bit of healing is icing on the cake.

Obviously, not every group is going to want them. But if a group finds themselves failing and the reason isn't that they're falling short of a DPS check, there's a good chance that tossing in a healscourge or bloodscourge will increase the chance they'll get through.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

I feel that if Necro were to ever get a support spec, either the elite specialization would have to be obscenely overloaded in its traits and skills or it would just be another dud like support Harbinger.

 

Alternatively, ANet could address core support options.  For example, they have outright stated they want Warhorn to be a support weapon, but the only support it gives is minor healing on a long cooldown for a weapon skill. Perhaps they should alter it so that it gives the Locust Swarm buff to allies in range (make this ~600 range?) as well, letting it compound in group settings.  It's low-impact enough right now that I don't forsee this being a problem.

 

Blood Magic could also use some attention.  Master tier in particular is rough, as the outgoing healing modifier is in direct competition with the arguably best outgoing healing we have (Transfusion is better on Scourge and Harbinger).  Vampiric Aura could use a buff in numbers while Life From Death and Banshee's Wail could probably use reworks.  Adept tier is all right as you have a mix of selfish (Quickening Thirst), offensive support (Blood Bond) and hard support (Ritual of Life)  Redesigning Master and even Grandmaster tier to follow this paradigm could be helpful.

[RisenHowl.2419]

Fix transfusion on harbinger, right now it only works ~1\4 of the time. 

[captrowdy.9561]

Scourge is a support spec

[Krexen.9057]

On 2/2/2023 at 10:14 PM, TheJmandude.1548 said:

Don't say Scourge because we all know heal Scourge is a meme.

It’s a meme? I’ve been having fun with it. 😕

 

On 2/3/2023 at 12:05 PM, TheJmandude.1548 said:

Well if you ever manage to get into a raid as a support necro without getting laughed at and insta kicked I'd love to see it.

Well crap. What a better healer?

 

I use my druid in world versus world.

I have my tempest set up as a support healer.

I have my scourge set up as a ‘healbot’ (metabattle).

I have a celestial healbrand.

 

I like healing, but if my specs aren’t good enough to raid with then… what is a good healer spec?

Edited March 15, 2023 by Krexen.9057
Auto-correct is broken

[Dadnir.5038]

15 minutes ago, Krexen.9057 said:

It’s a meme? I’ve been having fun with it. 😕

 

Well crap. What a better healer?

 

I use my druid in world versus world.

I have my tempest set up as a support healer.

I have my scourge set up as a ‘healbot’ (metabattle).

I have a celestial healbrand.

 

I like healing, but if my specs aren’t good enough to raid with then… what is a good healer spec?

I don't know if it's the case here but keep in mind that some player think WvW when they say "raid" and in WvW Support Scourge have been nerfed to oblivion.

Also Scourge isn't good at healing, it is good at shielding it's allies behind barrier. Let's keep in mind that barrier aren't affected by healing modifiers.

On 2/20/2023 at 1:17 PM, Nimon.7840 said:

Heal scourge is extremely strong. And teapot puts it in its own tier, because he does those tier lists with pugging in mind.

I think EoD release nerfs, a year ago already, kicked the Scourge out of this "tier". What made Scourge good was the high base barrier and a strong Epidemic. Nowadays, Epidemic has become anemic and Scourge's barriers need quite a bit of healing power to really matter.

I'm not saying that Scourge is no longer a good option but it's far from earning a tier of his own nowadays.

[Krexen.9057]

11 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Also Scourge isn't good at healing, it is good at shielding it's allies behind barrier.

Yeah, that's true. F3 spam shows me numbers, I know its barrier, but I think its heals for whatever reason.

[draxynnic.3719]

There are times when the difference is academic, or where a well-timed barrier is actually better than a heal. It's worth keeping in mind that even the most unga bunga DPS build is going to have some self-healing in their build, so ultimately the purpose of a pure support is to keep the ratio of incoming damage to damage mitigation at a sustainable level and to protect against damage spikes. Any barrier that is consumed instead of timing out is health that doesn't need to be healed up afterwards.

[Zex Anthon.8673]

Necro weapons are pretty terrible for a support role. Warhorn, and dagger need to be reworked to provide more group healing not contingent on enemies nearby.

Something like:

-Dagger 2 is no longer targeted. Heals up to 5 allies nearby and steals health from up to 5 targets for the necro.

- Warhorn 5 is a directional ground target (similar to lich 3) that applies locusts swarms to targets in its path. Healing allies and damaging enemies every tick they are affected.

Then blood magic needs a rework. Something like:

- Transfusion no longer pulses revival on downed allies. Stealing health heals nearby allies.

- Vampiric presence no longer provides lifestealing aura. Shroud skill 5 now steals health from tethered(core)/on hit(reaper)/nearby(scourge)/floating(harbinger)

- Vampiric adopts the life stealing coefficients from VP. Only applying to necro and minions.

The goal is to push life stealing away from being a passive buff to being more active requiring timing and well telegraphed abilities. This way it can provide meaningful healing without feeling "cheap".

[Burnfall.9573]

Necromancer Profession is a Condition Role Profession not a support role Profession. Therefore, the answer is No!

Leave Support Roles To Guardian Profession, Revenant Profession and Engineer Profession

That's it!

 

side note; 

What is wrong with some of the Necromancer Profession Community, wanting to lose their identity?

 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

QuickHeal Harbinger is a thing and does work, but it suffers from the same issue as QuickHeal Scrapper Vs AlacHeal Machinist, in that the loss of barrier means healing is far less effective overall.

 

Scourge needs a source of Alacrity on Sand Savant and a few more ally boons (mainly Fury and Protection), added to the staff and a few of the Scourge punishment skills. After that it would be a very strong support and would directly compete with Firebrand and Machinist due to its revival capability.

 

They also need a real portal skill, the 900 range is a joke.

Edited March 29, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Nimon.7840]

On 3/29/2023 at 3:50 PM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

QuickHeal Harbinger is a thing and does work, but it suffers from the same issue as QuickHeal Scrapper Vs AlacHeal Machinist, in that the loss of barrier means healing is far less effective overall.

 

Scourge needs a source of Alacrity on Sand Savant and a few more ally boons (mainly Fury and Protection), added to the staff and a few of the Scourge punishment skills. After that it would be a very strong support and would directly compete with Firebrand and Machinist due to its revival capability.

 

They also need a real portal skill, the 900 range is a joke.

Oof, quickheal harbinger isn't a thing, and also doesn't really work well.

1. It doesn't bring proper boons (protection, stability, aegis)

2. Doesn't have good healing tools

3. Doesn't bring great utility

4. Has bad boon and healing radius

It's possibly one of the worst healing builds to play, and in my opinion griefing your teammates.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Nimon.7840

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/29/2023 at 11:42 PM, Burnfall.9573 said:

Necromancer Profession is a Condition Role Profession not a support role Profession. Therefore, the answer is No!

Leave Support Roles To Guardian Profession, Revenant Profession and Engineer Profession

That's it!

 

ArenaNet's philosophy is that builds have roles, not professions. Bring the player, not the profession, and all that. It hasn't been fully realised, but each set of elite specialisations brings it a little bit closer.

And it's a good philosophy: if brought to completion, it means that someone who mains a single profession can still have the opportunity to fulfil any role in the group, rather than being relegated to fighting for the DPS slots. 

[Dadnir.5038]

On 3/29/2023 at 3:42 PM, Burnfall.9573 said:

Necromancer Profession is a Condition Role Profession not a support role Profession. Therefore, the answer is No!

Leave Support Roles To Guardian Profession, Revenant Profession and Engineer Profession

That's it!

side note; 

What is wrong with some of the Necromancer Profession Community, wanting to lose their identity?

The concept of support in GW2 is pretty wide, there is:

• Healing
• Barrier
• Boons
• Port
• Projectile destruction/reflection
• Auras
• "Soft" conditions
• Cleansing/transfering conditions
• Boon corruption
• Combo fields
• Conjured weapons
• Break stun
• ... etc.

In short it's all about the concept of sharing a mechanic in order to give an advantage to your allies/group/raid.

I don't think that within the concept of the GW2 necromancer there is no room for "support" or that it should be left to specific professions.

As a matter of fact:

• The necromancer is supposed to master "life force" so I do expect him to be good at taking care of the life force of it's allies (healing)
• The necromancer theme hold the fantasy of the fabled minion master and as such I do expect him to be good at leading and supporting large amount of manpower to do it's bidding.
• The necromancer theme is obvioulsy about condition manipulation which is why we do have boon corruption, condition drawing/sending, condition cleansing... etc.
• The necromancer thematic let him lean toward dark field but also light field and Ice field. That said if we do associate death to "hell" a fire field wouldn't be unlikely. Water can also be death through drowning. Aether could worm it's way through the thematic as well via the concept of "ghost/specter". Smoke wouldn't be to farfetched either.
• Would it be much of a stretch to conjure undeads meant to be wielded as weapon? Or provide bone weapons to your allies? I don't think it would be outside of the necromancer's thematic/identity. Conjure bone staff (spine), bone dart (finger bones), bone hammer (femur), bone axes (shoulder bones)... etc.
• The necromancer's thematic also hold the fantasy of a dark mage making sacrifices for the sake of "power". It is a thematic that's already expressed in some way but could be expanded on. I mean, the necromancer already shoulder some burdening conditions in order to both support allies and fight it's foes, he can also use his minions as sacrifice to some effects that could be expanded to support allies as well.
• ... etc.

It's a matter of how the various facet of the necromancer's thematic are used to fullfil the role of support more than a lack of proper identity.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

3 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

Oof, quickheal harbinger isn't a thing, and also doesn't really work well.

1. It doesn't bring proper boons (protection, stability, aegis)

2. Doesn't have good healing tools

3. Doesn't bring great utility

4. Has bad boon and healing radius

It's possibly one of the worst healing builds to play, and in my opinion griefing your teammates.

1. Those tools are largely exclusive to Firebrand anyway. Machinist, Chrono and Tempest all have limited uptime on them and Aegis isn't widely accessible at all (Mesmer can spam it, but its partially RNG).

2. It has the same healing tools as HealScourge, who only adds some barrier on top of it. It also has the same amount of revival utility, and experienced groups don't take much damage anyway (which is why Celebrand is played).

3. It brings massive CC, wide area pull, good cleanse, boonstrip and projectile hate. I'm not sure what utility is missing here?

4. The healing radius are 240, 360, and 600 units, often higher than other classes.

 

I can understand where you're coming from, but I've played this build in Fractal CMs and its about on part with HealScourge because even though you lose barrier, you bring permanent Fury and Quickness (Scourge only has Might) and better CC since its hard CC and not a softer CC like Fear, which is important in many encounters.

 

Its also very similar to QuickHeal Scrapper in healing output; the biggest difference being that Scrapper can gain some access to Protection boon with the shield, but has a harder time upkeeping DPS boons, and its revival utility is significantly worse if someone does go down.

There is no support build that "griefs" allies, if players do worse with any amount of healing that's an L2P issue on their part, and Quickness alone always makes up for the loss of a DPS slot with some leftover.

Edited March 31, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[stormemperor.3745]

it supports itself, albeit barely