Necromancy and the June 27 Balance Patch

[Bookah pls.9352]

I'm honestly pretty worried that they are gonna just scrap the sand shade nerf for non alac based scourge and then call it a day keeping every other change.

Mid tier traits were always pretty garbo for dps anyway but neither the new apparent replacement for desert empowerment where you gain some barrier if you strip a boon or sadistic searing which has always been terrible and only change is pvp and wvw related (both worthless) are decent options, the new barrier one will probably be the go to still purely because sadistic searing does next to nothing and you don't want sandstorm shroud.

I'd honestly have preferred feed from corruption to remain and be the mid tier choice even for pve. Its current version is no where near as problematic as they make it out to be in wvw, especially when they have this fetish for everyone having all the boons anyway and heavily nerfing strips and corrupts. In pve it won't exactly be a big boost either since yet again everyone has every boon, the only benefits would be sometimes snagging a stab from some mobs, otherwise its benefits would be near zero. 

I'd obviously rather have a proper dps choice but the options available are not dps options and even if they u turned and kept ffc it still wouldn't be a dps trait for anything outside of solo play and maybe the odd stab blocking a cc. Like to exaggerate just how pointless the mid tier is for scourge now, you could literally replace the new one with a trait that increased sand shades duration back to 20 seconds and nothing would be lost except for dropping small amounts of barrier on allies for dps scourge.  (yes they obviously wouldn't do that though because of alac, it's just to point out how pointless the mid tier is).

Edited June 18, 2023 by Bookah pls.9352

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

On 6/13/2023 at 5:01 PM, Garrick.3150 said:

The main problem with boon corruption is specifically how might is corrupted into fear.

Might doesn't corrupt into Fear. Stability corrupts into fear.

Perhaps that is what you meant to say, and that what you wrote was just a typo.

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

I just find it really typical that they didn't even address the Sand Savant trait. I mean it is a horrible grandmaster trait. Nothing surprises me anymore with balance now though. They could have scourges throw siege out instead of shades and I wouldn't even blink because it has gotten to that sort of nonsensical approach.

[Rubyeke.3045]

I've been playing casually since beta and Scourge is really the only spec that I've felt at home in. It wasn't top level meta in anything (besides maybe zerg wvw which I don't really play) but I genuinely enjoyed playing it. There are other classes that I half way understand but I don't enjoy playing. Guess that means I'm going to have to take a break from the game. Disappointed is an understatement, spending a lot of time, money, and energy into a class for them to try to scrap the whole thing and force it into a role it clearly wasn't meant for, with shifts around a broken boons structure. True this game doesn't have as much as a 'holy trinity' but it's getting to be 'boons or bust' so it may as well be. Not every class should be able to fill every role and that is okay. That is healthy.

[Maultrace.5761]

So uh... now that "corruption" is no longer necro's "fantasy", can we also get rid of self-condi as well? I feel it's a pretty fair trade... no?

[Horus.9685]

On 6/22/2023 at 5:58 PM, Maultrace.5761 said:

So uh... now that "corruption" is no longer necro's "fantasy", can we also get rid of self-condi as well? I feel it's a pretty fair trade... no?

That would be a decent Nerv in pve tho. 

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

On 6/17/2023 at 1:17 PM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

They did not touch reaper. That is the best part.

They may not have touched reaper proper, but as with several other changes in the past year or so the hits to core necro reverberate to reaper as well. In this case the signet change that will no longer allow signets to impact shroud. That means that shroud will take a hit in power if you use the signet of spite, and you will stay in shroud a shorter duration than if you had been using signet of undeath to generate life-force to stay in shroud longer. Signet of vampirism will no longer heal you passively while you are hitting multiple opponents in shroud, etc. 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

2 hours ago, Moira Shalaar.5620 said:

They may not have touched reaper proper, but as with several other changes in the past year or so the hits to core necro reverberate to reaper as well. In this case the signet change that will no longer allow signets to impact shroud. That means that shroud will take a hit in power if you use the signet of spite, and you will stay in shroud a shorter duration than if you had been using signet of undeath to generate life-force to stay in shroud longer. Signet of vampirism will no longer heal you passively while you are hitting multiple opponents in shroud, etc. 

Sorry I do not use that bad reaper build that is promoted on this forum. Signet of spite was outclassed by YAAW last update. Signet of suffering was never buffed enough to compete with awaken the pain, so it was dead on launch.  Using signet of undeath to stay in shroud for a long time is bad because of you tend to lose soul barbs.

If anything, the signet of suffering change is a buff because it removed the noob trap that is currently infesting this forum. This is a reason this "build" does not exist on any curated build site.

[MJxD.4251]

On 6/15/2023 at 11:34 PM, DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:

if they want to change the zerg meta in wvw the boon corruption changes are necessary.

thats fine if they want to balance WvW but why affect the whole game then? why PVE? whats the point of having separate skills for WvW if they just slap it into the whole game? makes no sense at all.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Oh nice.  They took our feedback on Scourge and decided to nerf it further.  Sand Cascade now provides even less barrier and has lower scaling than it did in the preview stream.  Also nerfed Signet of the Locust in competitive.

 

Everything else is exactly as previewed.

[Vee.6052]

It's amazing how many members of the community voiced their concerns and dislike of this phenomenally bad idea and Anet ignored it anyway. It's left a sour taste in my mouth. Nobody wanted this. I loved my heal scourge the way it was and now they've all but mangled it. I don't even want to touch Scourge after this.

[loregnum.3619]

22 minutes ago, Vee.6052 said:

It's amazing how many members of the community voiced their concerns and dislike of this phenomenally bad idea and Anet ignored it anyway. It's left a sour taste in my mouth. Nobody wanted this. I loved my heal scourge the way it was and now they've all but mangled it. I don't even want to touch Scourge after this.

It's not really amazing since this is how most companies are these days. Companies are so full of hubris and ego that they simply don't care what their customers may think or want. Example? Look at Bud Light. Cratering sales for 2+ months, massive negative feedback and how did they answer that? By recently coming out with an ad that mocks their customers by implying they are bumbling idiots and digging a deeper hole because of it. This is what happens when people making decisions are full of hubris and can't ever grasp they screwed up and think everyone else is wrong to disagree with them. 

The best thing players can do who are upset is quit playing or at the very least, don't buy gems. I really like GW2 but I pretty much quit playing outside of some Dragon Bash the first 2 weeks after the patch preview since I knew nothing was going to change from it and that they were screwing up my two favourite specs/builds that I play. 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

All of these nerfs for a 1 second base duration Alacrity on barrier application.  Holy kitten they just gutted it for no reason.  With 100% boon duration, you can just barely keep it up by using every barrier source on cooldown.

[Vee.6052]

2 hours ago, loregnum.3619 said:

It's not really amazing since this is how most companies are these days. Companies are so full of hubris and ego that they simply don't care what their customers may think or want. Example? Look at Bud Light. Cratering sales for 2+ months, massive negative feedback and how did they answer that? By recently coming out with an ad that mocks their customers by implying they are bumbling idiots and digging a deeper hole because of it. This is what happens when people making decisions are full of hubris and can't ever grasp they screwed up and think everyone else is wrong to disagree with them. 

The best thing players can do who are upset is quit playing or at the very least, don't buy gems. I really like GW2 but I pretty much quit playing outside of some Dragon Bash the first 2 weeks after the patch preview since I knew nothing was going to change from it and that they were screwing up my two favourite specs/builds that I play. 

are you making a dig at bud light supporting the LGBT movement because if so...l o l. i have nothing to say to you dude and i have zero interest in continuing a discussion with you.

[Shaogin.2679]

22 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

All of these nerfs for a 1 second base duration Alacrity on barrier application.  Holy kitten they just gutted it for no reason.  With 100% boon duration, you can just barely keep it up by using every barrier source on cooldown.

With 94% boon duration, I can maintain alacrity with nothing but Manifest Sand Shade, Sand Cascade, and Sandstorm Shroud. To clarify on that a bit, that is me casting the F1, F3, and F5 off cooldown. I can maintain with just F1 and F5, but just barely. Adding in the F3 skill gives me enough alacrity uptime so that delays in my skill activation does not cause alacrity to fall off. 

So, I really do not know where this claim of yours is coming from, but it is completely false. I would also like to point out that along with that alacrity, I can also maintain 25 stacks of might and permanent fury and regeneration. Since utility skills are not needed to maintain alacrity, this means I can also choose to bring things such as aegis, stability, aoe stun break, short-range portal, projectile defense, crowd control, or boon removal.

[Funky.4861]

@Shaogin.2679 How are you maintaining your life-force? With everything you say you do, how is your dps? If you have to run away due to a mechanic in raids/strikes, how does that affect your life-force/alac uptime? The fact that you have to spam skills for alac uptime is counter to what anet said they wanted: NOT having to spam skills for quickness/alac uptime. This is in line with the changes to boon application on herald and druid, putting them in very awkward positions should the squad need anything other than boons. Need a big heal? Tough, i just blew celestial avatar giving you alac. Need a projectile block or hard cc? You're SoL, 'cos i used my energy to give you quickness.

[Lexan.5930]

thechnically there is still boon removal for necro, it just lost the condi application bonus for removing. it makes the skills sort of useable by power necro but it doesn't add anything for the removal. there's no extra boon removed for each skill that lost boon conversion, and the only spec that gained a bonus from the boon rip change would be scourge with they gte the boons they rip off, but thats super niche

[Shaogin.2679]

3 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

@Shaogin.2679 How are you maintaining your life-force? With everything you say you do, how is your dps? If you have to run away due to a mechanic in raids/strikes, how does that affect your life-force/alac uptime? The fact that you have to spam skills for alac uptime is counter to what anet said they wanted: NOT having to spam skills for quickness/alac uptime. This is in line with the changes to boon application on herald and druid, putting them in very awkward positions should the squad need anything other than boons. Need a big heal? Tough, i just blew celestial avatar giving you alac. Need a projectile block or hard cc? You're SoL, 'cos i used my energy to give you quickness.

I use Dagger/Warhorn. It is a Heal Alac build, not DPS Alac. I do about 6-7k dps on it currently. I have Staff for ranged life force. So long as the group stays together, alac uptime is fine. Alac will not fall off as soon someone steps out of your range. As for the spammy nature of it, yeah, it doesn't make sense since they said they were trying to avoid that. But Scourge does not have it as bad as other support classes when it comes to the spammy nature, because all of their utility skills are free to use as they please. 

[CptnChumps.1932]

23 minutes ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

I use Dagger/Warhorn. It is a Heal Alac build, not DPS Alac. I do about 6-7k dps on it currently. I have Staff for ranged life force. So long as the group stays together, alac uptime is fine. Alac will not fall off as soon someone steps out of your range. As for the spammy nature of it, yeah, it doesn't make sense since they said they were trying to avoid that. But Scourge does not have it as bad as other support classes when it comes to the spammy nature, because all of their utility skills are free to use as they please. 

I've also had a pretty good time with full harrier's providing alac, regen, fury and low prot uptime. Since we can't really keep all 3 shades up at the same time I've been using just 1 or 2 for barrier/alac generation and saving the rest for rezzing when needed. I feel like they might be wanting to move shades to a more utility option but I'm just speculating after playing it for a while.

[Powerfat.7294]

5 hours ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

"So long as the group stays together"

Having to run small shade on heal scourge is such a colossal nerf. It is honestly not worth taking the alac trait. Just run double offensive boon support in your sub. Fitting a heal scourge in a comp is so easy right now with how strong and how many offensive boon supports there are. The argument that it is hard to fit a heal scourge in a comp is such a massive lie.

[XECOR.2814]

8 hours ago, Powerfat.7294 said:

Having to run small shade on heal scourge is such a colossal nerf. It is honestly not worth taking the alac trait. Just run double offensive boon support in your sub. Fitting a heal scourge in a comp is so easy right now with how strong and how many offensive boon supports there are. The argument that it is hard to fit a heal scourge in a comp is such a massive lie.

the appeal to have to fit heal scg in party was because it was op, why would people have to create space for it isnt op anymore.
Doesn't matter if it is easier to fit in because the appeal is gone with the nerfs.

[Nogothanc.5014]

I dont like the changes to scourge at all.  Well to show that to Arenanet I stop playing scourge. When they do their class stat research I hope they will see a big drop of scourges that are not played as often as before and maybe they revisit the changes..

[mandala.8507]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:12 AM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

I think it more that bud light went against their customers base is the point.  Honestly the false linkage of lgbt rights as human rights is a very liberal western idea. Rural conservatives do not hold that view, as do many other nations across the globe. Even anet does not hold that belief ultimately when it come down to making money, the Chinese version of gw2 has kass and jory relationship completely censored.  Ultimately any corporation acting like they are taking moral stand is probably bs, it ultimately was a marketing decision, which bud light lost big time on that gamble, like me losing 1500 gold trying to get the dragon jadebot skin.

LGBT rights are human rights, though? We are humans and deserve to be treated as such, no? Is this not something you agree with? 

On 6/23/2023 at 6:40 PM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Sorry I do not use that bad reaper build that is promoted on this forum. Signet of spite was outclassed by YAAW last update. Signet of suffering was never buffed enough to compete with awaken the pain, so it was dead on launch.  Using signet of undeath to stay in shroud for a long time is bad because of you tend to lose soul barbs.

If anything, the signet of suffering change is a buff because it removed the noob trap that is currently infesting this forum. This is a reason this "build" does not exist on any curated build site.

Also, the signet build was fine, but it's gone now for literally no reason. So that 5 people can boonstrip in WvW or whatever. It just wasn't a thoughtful or valuable change.

Like, half this patch was them just "rearranging the furniture" so that they could say they did something for this update, I feel. And then putting alac on Scourge and making it borderline unplayably bad because they heard a few streamers who hadn't gotten past the idea phase of workshopping their suggestions recommend that Scourge should get alacrity.

[Funky.4861]

18 hours ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

I use Dagger/Warhorn. It is a Heal Alac build, not DPS Alac. I do about 6-7k dps on it currently. I have Staff for ranged life force. So long as the group stays together, alac uptime is fine. Alac will not fall off as soon someone steps out of your range. As for the spammy nature of it, yeah, it doesn't make sense since they said they were trying to avoid that. But Scourge does not have it as bad as other support classes when it comes to the spammy nature, because all of their utility skills are free to use as they please. 

That's what i thought; axe and sceptre don't have as much lf gain so you're forced into main-hand dagger. I really didn't use hscg outside of pillar for qadim #2 and boneskinner. I used to use it on dhuum (golem kiter) for the sweet boon conversion and res-pull  but i swapped to tempest so i could actually heal and we just powered through the boons. This is due to it's lower healing ability compared to druid and tempest, combined with the lack of buffs converging to make it a sub-optimal choice in virtually every encounter. If it's just a reskinned alac tempest i could try to persuade my static to try it, but with the reduced barrier, adhd shade spam and lack of actual healing i think it's doa.

[Vee.6052]

On 6/28/2023 at 7:12 AM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

I think it more that bud light went against their customers base is the point.  Honestly the false linkage of lgbt rights as human rights is a very liberal western idea. Rural conservatives do not hold that view, as do many other nations across the globe. Even anet does not hold that belief ultimately when it come down to making money, the Chinese version of gw2 has kass and jory relationship completely censored.  Ultimately any corporation acting like they are taking moral stand is probably bs, it ultimately was a marketing decision, which bud light lost big time on that gamble, like me losing 1500 gold trying to get the dragon jadebot skin.

"the false linkage of LGBT rights as human rights" yeahhh I stopped reading right there. my rights ARE human rights and they're not just a western concept. goodbye.