What Sources of Healing does Necromancer Even Have? (Specifically Scourge)

[AlphaWolvesGamer.5790]

Title says it all, what sources of healing does the Necromancer even have access to that makes Anet think giving them a bunch of +10% Outgoing Healing will solve all of their issues? I understand that they're afraid of Heal Scourge being "Too Much" if they did what they already do and given Alacrity, but I feel like the changes go far too far beyond what is reasonable. I understand that Reviving 70% was pretty insane with one trait was insane, gimping it down to 20% feels overkill! (That's a 350% nerf btw). I'll give them Transfusion needed to be fixed with one pull instead of two pulls, and reviving 1% instead of 2% on scourge, but can we at least meet in the middle ground and get 40% Revival with 2 wells of blood cooldowns? 

That brings me to the title of the topic, what healing does scourge even half outside of revival? They have regeneration from Well and Staff, syphon from Warhorn and Traits, and F4 from Scourge shroud but... is that really enough to compete with H.A.M. or AlacEle Healer? Not to mention Boneskinner will have even less people willing to do it for their Daily Strikes now.

I'm just saying, feels like overkill and you are throwing the necro baby out with the bathwater on this one. 

[Dadnir.5038]

43 minutes ago, AlphaWolvesGamer.5790 said:

is that really enough to compete with H.A.M. or AlacEle Healer?

It depend on what your definition of "enough" is. For some parties it should be more than enough and for other it might not be enough.

You're focusing on the very minor 10% outgoing healing increase of life from death which don't have much impact on scourge while the true value of the patch is that the scourge itself will be now allowed to share: fury, might, alacrity, regeneration and aegis. That's basically 3 more boons than it can right now all while keeping a fluid gameplay. (And this is without even taking into account cleanse and boon hate)

Keep in mind that being able to provide an aegis every 20-16s reduce a lot the need for healing output.

[Parpage.9867]

14 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You're focusing on the very minor 10% outgoing healing increase of life from death which don't have much impact on scourge while the true value of the patch is that the scourge itself will be now allowed to share: fury, might, alacrity, regeneration and aegis. That's basically 3 more boons than it can right now all while keeping a fluid gameplay. (And this is without even taking into account cleanse and boon hate)

Keep in mind that being able to provide an aegis every 20-16s reduce a lot the need for healing output.

Wow! We're just a worse HAM, how exciting! They murdered scourge for this half baked excuse of an alac provider, it's just very disappointing tbh

[Dadnir.5038]

43 minutes ago, Parpage.9867 said:

Wow! We're just a worse HAM, how exciting! They murdered scourge for this half baked excuse of an alac provider, it's just very disappointing tbh

They brought what a lot of the players on this subforum wanted (Players with which I was disagreeing). I'm not the one you need to vent your disappointment on, I merely highlight that not all is doom and gloom. For example, Serpent siphon is going to rise in every gamemodes.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Outgoing Healing modifiers are totally useless as you already have so few sources of healing + it doesn't affect barriers nor rez.
Barriers that need high healing power all the same because base number nerfed in the past. 

So already on stat sets, runes and sigil, you lose.   It's pointless.

[XECOR.2814]

ALAC HEAL THAT DOESN'T HEAL OMEGALUL
ALAC DPS THAT CAN'T DPS OMEGALUL
-10 TRAIT EFFECTS OMEGALUL
1000HP BARRIER "HEALING" OMEGALUL
NO CORRUPT, WALKING PUNCHBAG OMEGALUL

[Crey.5263]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

They brought what a lot of the players on this subforum wanted (Players with which I was disagreeing). I'm not the one you need to vent your disappointment on, I merely highlight that not all is doom and gloom. For example, Serpent siphon is going to rise in every gamemodes.

I think the players wanted to have access to alacrity on top of the current abilities to make it VIABLE which is a far cry from making it competitive... They could have achieved this by just adding alacrity on Shade summon to Sand Savant without making a single other change.  No organized end game content team is going to allow this version of the HealScourge to join because now it can't even effectively keep the party up.

[Dadnir.5038]

48 minutes ago, Crey.5263 said:

No organized end game content team is going to allow this version of the HealScourge to join because now it can't even effectively keep the party up.

That is what you think. Truth is that healscourge only lost a bit of rallying power and damage output in exchange for a bit more barrier output and strategic boons.

Group that needed a nanny to pick them up the ground often will certainly lose interest in scourge but it doesn't mean that "organized end game content teams" won't (after all, with such a name, players from those team must be good enough at the game to only realy need the boon, not the heal).

Objectively, after the patch the healing output will be high enough (around 1500 hp/s in harrier) while the boons will be attractive in boss encounters (Might, fury, regen, alacrity and aegis). At this level, the only thing that would make it lose out against a druid would be a lower breakbar potential (raid/strike), but, on another hand, Scourge got a higher boon hate potential (fractal). Even, if at release of the patch the "numbers" aren't there yet, futur patchs can still beef those numbers up anyway.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

2 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That is what you think. Truth is that healscourge only lost a bit of rallying power and damage output in exchange for a bit more barrier output and strategic boons.

Group that needed a nanny to pick them up the ground often will certainly lose interest in scourge but it doesn't mean that "organized end game content teams" won't (after all, with such a name, players from those team must be good enough at the game to only realy need the boon, not the heal).

Objectively, after the patch the healing output will be high enough (around 1500 hp/s in harrier) while the boons will be attractive in boss encounters (Might, fury, regen, alacrity and aegis). At this level, the only thing that would make it lose out against a druid would be a lower breakbar potential (raid/strike), but, on another hand, Scourge got a higher boon hate potential (fractal). Even, if at release of the patch the "numbers" aren't there yet, futur patchs can still beef those numbers up anyway.

Don't forget, they're nerfing Sand Cascade's base and healing power values.

[Parpage.9867]

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

They brought what a lot of the players on this subforum wanted (Players with which I was disagreeing). I'm not the one you need to vent your disappointment on, I merely highlight that not all is doom and gloom. For example, Serpent siphon is going to rise in every gamemodes.

Lmao who's venting on you? I'm just sharing my opinion and i just said it's disappointing. Their tought process is weird they decided that "we fear that the alac will be too much, so instead of nerfing the alac output we will just gut the dps" like ????
Also while i agree with you that some people asked for alacrity on scourge, i'm pretty sure they didn't mean to just murder the dps variant to compensate for it, surely there are many ways to adress the issue

[MarkMiniMong.5314]

People wanted alac necro but as a new spec/traitline/weapon/utility/whatever not by deleting everything scourge already had. This change is simply bad. Instead of just putting alac on Sand Savant they decided to butcher the default shades, what's the point of even having 3 of them anymore if you can only maintain one. Not to mention all the other changes. The only advantage scourge wound potentially have over other supports is the pull which is getting nerfed. Even if they kept the old pull it would still only be relevant in bad groups. If people aren't dying or failing mechanics then scourge brings nothing, it's just a worse mechanist.

Edited June 10, 2023 by MarkMiniMong.5314

[XECOR.2814]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That is what you think. Truth is that healscourge only lost a bit of rallying power and damage output in exchange for a bit more barrier output and strategic boons.

Group that needed a nanny to pick them up the ground often will certainly lose interest in scourge but it doesn't mean that "organized end game content teams" won't (after all, with such a name, players from those team must be good enough at the game to only realy need the boon, not the heal).

Objectively, after the patch the healing output will be high enough (around 1500 hp/s in harrier) while the boons will be attractive in boss encounters (Might, fury, regen, alacrity and aegis). At this level, the only thing that would make it lose out against a druid would be a lower breakbar potential (raid/strike), but, on another hand, Scourge got a higher boon hate potential (fractal). Even, if at release of the patch the "numbers" aren't there yet, futur patchs can still beef those numbers up anyway.

brother. you assessments are so wrong that you need to log out of forums and log into the game and play for 10days nonstop and re-evaluate your knowledge about the game and the state of things, why things become strong and how much numbers is required for things to be considered good. Just saying.

[kingnelu.1642]

rip scourge

if you want scourge to be resurrected then it's time to quit the game till it's fixed

money talks

 

[Obtena.7952]

4 hours ago, Crey.5263 said:

I think the players wanted to have access to alacrity on top of the current abilities to make it VIABLE which is a far cry from making it competitive... They could have achieved this by just adding alacrity on Shade summon to Sand Savant without making a single other change.  No organized end game content team is going to allow this version of the HealScourge to join because now it can't even effectively keep the party up.

Actually, it could be argued the high end performers may value the higher effecting HP that results from barriers than actual healing itself. We shall see what the numbers are like when it makes it in the game but Scourge may still fill a desirable slot, though I am also doubtful. 

3 hours ago, Parpage.9867 said:

Their tought process is weird they decided that "we fear that the alac will be too much, so instead of nerfing the alac output we will just gut the dps" like ????

Except it's not weird because there was lots of warning from people like myself this would be exactly what happens. There are people around here that understand Anet's design philosophy. The only weird thing is when those people were dismissed for their foresight because some wishful people believed there was no way Anet would do such a thing. 

The tragedy here to me is that Scourge lost a number of things that made a unique playstyle so it could fit in with Anet's vision of endgame content roles ... and the worst part is that there is a real possibility that for the teams that want optimal play, they will still refuse it. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Crey.5263]

I think people can understand Anet's design philosophy. There are really only two boons that the meta calls for (the rest either don't have enough of an impact to matter or they are generated so well passively by every player's dps build that you don't even have to try to generate them).  It is nice if the support can bring aegis or stab, but really they're there to provide one of the two.

 If Anet doesn't plan to introduce any new elite specs, then each core profession will have 1 spec that can do nothing but damage, one spec that can provide quick support, and one spec that can provide alac support (mesmer is the one exception because both quick and alac exist in chrono...but chrono's healing and damage is so weak that it is still not viable for challenging content).  Harbinger is really good at quickness, and Reaper doesn't feel like a good spot for alac, so Scourge which use to be the profession's only support option absolutely makes sense.  I think the problem is they have absolutely overcompensated by nerfing the healing potential of base necro.

So what if base necro had powerful rezing capabilities? As a different poster pointed out, this is only effective if the party is going down.  Which means you either have inexperienced players or the healing on this support class isn't powerful enough to prevent people from being downed by unavoidable damage.  I'd estimate that it's not going to be metawarping if you let people choose to bring a class that doesn't heal as well but still has something valuable in a niche sort of way to make up for it and is able to provide the required boon meta to be in a support role.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1 hour ago, Crey.5263 said:

I think people can understand Anet's design philosophy. There are really only two boons that the meta calls for (the rest either don't have enough of an impact to matter or they are generated so well passively by every player's dps build that you don't even have to try to generate them).  It is nice if the support can bring aegis or stab, but really they're there to provide one of the two.

 If Anet doesn't plan to introduce any new elite specs, then each core profession will have 1 spec that can do nothing but damage, one spec that can provide quick support, and one spec that can provide alac support (mesmer is the one exception because both quick and alac exist in chrono...but chrono's healing and damage is so weak that it is still not viable for challenging content).  Harbinger is really good at quickness, and Reaper doesn't feel like a good spot for alac, so Scourge which use to be the profession's only support option absolutely makes sense.  I think the problem is they have absolutely overcompensated by nerfing the healing potential of base necro.

So what if base necro had powerful rezing capabilities? As a different poster pointed out, this is only effective if the party is going down.  Which means you either have inexperienced players or the healing on this support class isn't powerful enough to prevent people from being downed by unavoidable damage.  I'd estimate that it's not going to be metawarping if you let people choose to bring a class that doesn't heal as well but still has something valuable in a niche sort of way to make up for it and is able to provide the required boon meta to be in a support role.

 

But even the powerful rezing capabilities will get gutted.
Lower % + transfusion will only teleport players at first pulse; which means if you're out of range, or if you use too early, it won't work at all (just 1% revival per pulse and heals).
It'll make a huge difference; and you will quickly become disillusioned. What would be the result in the hands of an "inexperienced player" with an inexperienced group of players running around like chickens ?


Same for barriers or the 10 players sand shade : they reduced sources, lowered base barrier and increase HP coefficient, but at the end you need full HP gear to barely earn the same level as before; and next patch you'll still have low barriers and you won't affect 10 allies anymore (or you won't grant alacrity). HP that is almost useless outside barriers, as healing capabilities are low too.
Edit * forget to say you'll have to chose between Well-of-blood and Sand-Flare with "lower barrier to allies(??)"... Not that simple.

The niche tend to be anecdotal. It won't just be "worse" than before "but you earn alacrity", there will be unfunctionnals assets.

For the aegis, I worry a lot. If there is a cast-time / delay for the serpent to grant aegis ... it'd be useless.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Endaris.1452]

In my opinion the issue with the viability of heal alac scourge is not that blood magic is getting nerfed or that scourge barrier skills change, it's that none of the other necromancer traitlines is useful for a support. Soul Reaping is the closest but what are you going to need even more life force for when on a healing build you can run dagger?

Imo the entire issue here is that anet is trying to push a role onto scourge that it cannot perform due to the limitations of its core class. If there was an extra useful traitline, what they gave to scourge would be enough to make it viable but there isn't, so...

[Radina.6057]

It all depends on how Serpant Siphon, aka the Aegis skill, performs, how much boon duration we need, and the reduces shade life is gonna play out.

I did not see anything that would allow you to place three shades at one time when they just cut a shades life from 20 to 8 seconds. If there is nothing that does, the condi dps alac Scourge route will get denied, since the already lackluster Scrouge damage wont magically get better from picking alac instead of Demonic Lore, nor will it take a bump if we lose Expertise/Concentration for every moment we don't have three shades alive on the field.

A Scourge alac condi dps with a decent bench, and a usable 20s aegis/stabi would be great. Gonna be interesting if we get either of both, since the patchnotes could get interpreted both ways.

I don't see how a heal scourge would work in any way atm. There is nothing in the notes about extra base barrier, or a better modifier for barrier. So all we would have is a kitten healer with a weird downstate pull mechanic that doesnt help you pick people up anymore with a pinch of alac on top. Gonna see how that is supposed to work out and not be straight worse than the god Druid is about to be.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Radina.6057

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

15 minutes ago, Radina.6057 said:

I don't see how a heal scourge would work in any way atm. There is nothing in the notes about extra base barrier, or a better modifier for barrier. So all we would have is a kitten healer with a weird downstate pull mechanic that doesnt help you pick people up anymore with a pinch of alac on top. Gonna see how that is supposed to work out and not be straight worse than the god Druid is about to be.

Oh, it gets better!  One of the changes that didn't make it to the list on the forums is that they're nerfing both the base value and the scaling of Sand Cascade (F3)

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

13 hours ago, AlphaWolvesGamer.5790 said:

Title says it all, what sources of healing does the Necromancer even have access to that makes Anet think giving them a bunch of +10% Outgoing Healing will solve all of their issues? I understand that they're afraid of Heal Scourge being "Too Much" if they did what they already do and given Alacrity, but I feel like the changes go far too far beyond what is reasonable. I understand that Reviving 70% was pretty insane with one trait was insane, gimping it down to 20% feels overkill! (That's a 350% nerf btw). I'll give them Transfusion needed to be fixed with one pull instead of two pulls, and reviving 1% instead of 2% on scourge, but can we at least meet in the middle ground and get 40% Revival with 2 wells of blood cooldowns? 

That brings me to the title of the topic, what healing does scourge even half outside of revival? They have regeneration from Well and Staff, syphon from Warhorn and Traits, and F4 from Scourge shroud but... is that really enough to compete with H.A.M. or AlacEle Healer? Not to mention Boneskinner will have even less people willing to do it for their Daily Strikes now.

I'm just saying, feels like overkill and you are throwing the necro baby out with the bathwater on this one. 

in the current implementation of healscourge, outgoing healing is quite effective as even though their healing sources are only regeneration, well of blood, life from death ,transfusion and sigil of water, those five sources of healing are more than enough to keep allies up because of the barrier generation.

 

its very strange this patch, reducing the barriers so severely as if the healing is going to compensate. they really needed to add some consistent healing to staff or something.

Edited June 10, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Vidit.7108]

16 hours ago, AlphaWolvesGamer.5790 said:

is that really enough to compete with H.A.M. or AlacEle Healer? 

Short answer is No.

Longer answer: As someone who enjoys playing healers in PvE, the raw healing Scourge has is kind flimsy and there aren't a lot of ways to improve it. Firebrand doesn't really have the best healing in the game either(though i would say that gap has been closing) it follows a similar idea to Scourge with aegis making up for it a little bit. For Scourge, It is possible to put out so much barrier the raw healing never comes into play. Where Scourge and Firebrand differ though is that Firebrand can lower it's utility to the group and even drop some of it's boons (specifically fury/stability) to heal more. Some encounters it's good to do that and HAM can do something similar to get a little more healing. But well, a common thing i've seen with heal scourges in parties and squads is if they slip up in providing barrier and the party takes damage, the barrier comes up and the HP restores at a snails pace. In squads where I was the other healer i've often covered for the heal scourge when their barrier goes out too late, this can also happen to HAMs but they bounce back from it faster than HS. I would say in an experienced group or with a HS with a lot of encounter knowledge it can be a non-issue most of the time. But I think that a new alac HS will be punished a lot more for mistakes than a new HAM or druid. Heal alac is so competitive right now that it's going to struggle to break through I think, it's also just going to be hard to trust them in PUGs. Probably too hard.

[Crey.5263]

On 6/10/2023 at 4:45 PM, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

 

But even the powerful rezing capabilities will get gutted.
Lower % + transfusion will only teleport players at first pulse; which means if you're out of range, or if you use too early, it won't work at all (just 1% revival per pulse and heals).
It'll make a huge difference; and you will quickly become disillusioned. What would be the result in the hands of an "inexperienced player" with an inexperienced group of players running around like chickens ?


Same for barriers or the 10 players sand shade : they reduced sources, lowered base barrier and increase HP coefficient, but at the end you need full HP gear to barely earn the same level as before; and next patch you'll still have low barriers and you won't affect 10 allies anymore (or you won't grant alacrity). HP that is almost useless outside barriers, as healing capabilities are low too.
Edit * forget to say you'll have to chose between Well-of-blood and Sand-Flare with "lower barrier to allies(??)"... Not that simple.

The niche tend to be anecdotal. It won't just be "worse" than before "but you earn alacrity", there will be unfunctionnals assets.

For the aegis, I worry a lot. If there is a cast-time / delay for the serpent to grant aegis ... it'd be useless.

Right my point was that they shouldn't gut the rez capabilities because that is the area that Scourge shines in. 

It used to also have barrier as a unique are that it shined, then Mech started to provide barrier passively with no effort just using their auto attack on mace or the mech's automatic pulse.

The powerful resurrecting skills is still something that scourge can do well that will let them carve out their place on a team.

[Crey.5263]

On 6/10/2023 at 5:09 PM, Endaris.1452 said:

In my opinion the issue with the viability of heal alac scourge is not that blood magic is getting nerfed or that scourge barrier skills change, it's that none of the other necromancer traitlines is useful for a support. Soul Reaping is the closest but what are you going to need even more life force for when on a healing build you can run dagger?

Imo the entire issue here is that anet is trying to push a role onto scourge that it cannot perform due to the limitations of its core class. If there was an extra useful traitline, what they gave to scourge would be enough to make it viable but there isn't, so...

I sometimes like to bring death magic because one of it's grandmasters can keep 100% uptime on protection on the team and between that and barrier you can usually serve the roll of a protection support.

But generally, Soul Reaping does better because it helps with management of life force and reduces the cds of the shroud skills.

I think scourge isn't homogenous with all of the other supports and that's what people are upset over.  I think it's ok that Scourge can't do all the same things as other supports because it does what it does very well.

[Crey.5263]

20 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

Short answer is No.

Longer answer: As someone who enjoys playing healers in PvE, the raw healing Scourge has is kind flimsy and there aren't a lot of ways to improve it. Firebrand doesn't really have the best healing in the game either(though i would say that gap has been closing) it follows a similar idea to Scourge with aegis making up for it a little bit. For Scourge, It is possible to put out so much barrier the raw healing never comes into play. Where Scourge and Firebrand differ though is that Firebrand can lower it's utility to the group and even drop some of it's boons (specifically fury/stability) to heal more. Some encounters it's good to do that and HAM can do something similar to get a little more healing. But well, a common thing i've seen with heal scourges in parties and squads is if they slip up in providing barrier and the party takes damage, the barrier comes up and the HP restores at a snails pace. In squads where I was the other healer i've often covered for the heal scourge when their barrier goes out too late, this can also happen to HAMs but they bounce back from it faster than HS. I would say in an experienced group or with a HS with a lot of encounter knowledge it can be a non-issue most of the time. But I think that a new alac HS will be punished a lot more for mistakes than a new HAM or druid. Heal alac is so competitive right now that it's going to struggle to break through I think, it's also just going to be hard to trust them in PUGs. Probably too hard.

Agreed. The direct healing isn't anything to write home about.

• Warhorn gives area heal per strike on locust swarm.
• Vampiric Aura trait can allow party members to heal on hit every .5s
• Mark of Blood can apply regeneration (Staff 2 or Dodge Roll)
• Transfusion is probably the most powerful heal
• Well of blood + Minor Well of Blood when someone goes down is how it can "burst heal" in an aoe.

On my MH dagger I bring sigil of water and will sometimes use sigil of renewal on the OH for some area heal.

You're really preventing damage with barrier while you slowly restore.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 6/11/2023 at 4:54 PM, Crey.5263 said:

Agreed. The direct healing isn't anything to write home about.

• Warhorn gives area heal per strike on locust swarm.
• Vampiric Aura trait can allow party members to heal on hit every .5s
• Mark of Blood can apply regeneration (Staff 2 or Dodge Roll)
• Transfusion is probably the most powerful heal
• Well of blood + Minor Well of Blood when someone goes down is how it can "burst heal" in an aoe.

On my MH dagger I bring sigil of water and will sometimes use sigil of renewal on the OH for some area heal.

You're really preventing damage with barrier while you slowly restore.

i think one source of direct healing they could add is to make the blood magic grandmaster trait blood bank affect allies, giving an alternative to reviving builds that can do pure healing instead. every time an ally gains barrier they would also gain a proportional amount of healing (the opposite of the necromancer).

 

this keeps heavily with the theme of the scourge, and would allow them to un-nerf transfusion since it wouldn't be taken on healing builds anymore, only for hard carries.

Edited June 12, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134