Necromancy and the June 27 Balance Patch

[Shaogin.2679]

On 6/29/2023 at 9:34 AM, Funky.4861 said:

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.

Trust me and give it an actual try. It is more of a support now than just a rez bot, and it is honestly so much better because it is not such a niche pick now. I expect Scourge in general to be even better with the 18 July patch. 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

I'll be running healalac scourge in my raid static tonight.  Will let you know how it goes.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

Necro got hit pretty kitten hard in PvP as a whole, but scourge low key feels good. 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

9 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

I'll be running healalac scourge in my raid static tonight.  Will let you know how it goes.

To follow up on this, I did Alacheal Scourge on all of Wing 7 and Wing 6 before Twin Largos.  There were no complaints about alac uptime, but I need to review the logs to be sure (EDIT: looks like I averaged somewhere between 70 and 75% alac uptime, which isn't awful for a first time support player).  The tendency for the Transfusion pull to just not happen because there are players missing 1 hp did come up multiple times, and that really should be addressed if we only get the one pull (I would prefer a reversion).  I was often questioning if I was getting any bonus revival from Ritual of Life or Transfusion because reviving was so much slower.

Health was easy enough to keep up on folks, although it was slower to restore than more traditional healers in the role due to Scourge's lack of a single massive heal to others and instead limited to sub-1k pulses.  The downs we had were exclusively off the stack.

Shade uptime was something I had to continually fight, and more than once I use Sand cascade or Sandstorm Shroud only for the shade to time out before it hits.  This last part is partially a skill issue, but having another couple of seconds would make it much more accessible.

On QTP, I frequently needed to throw a Well of Blood or Serpent Siphon on pylon kiters, but there was a factor of having someone new on the role and dropped orbs (I'm usually a pylon kite for the static).  Would have preferred to send a lesser cooldown heal their way, but Mark of Blood can't trigger there. Still, the ability to throw some occasional additional barrier in far spots seems to have come in handy.

 

I decided not to run it on Twin largos due to the constant motion in that fight.  Did not run it on Qadim 1 either due to being lamp.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[candytripn.7253]

4 hours ago, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

Necro got hit pretty kitten hard in PvP as a whole, but scourge low key feels good. 

was feeling the same. from a new player standpoint I feel stronger and am able to play more aggressively even bursting people down where before I felt like I had to play dot and run before. I don't know anything about high end stuff like raids and dungeons and WvW seems like it's just race to the objective with an occasional "who's mass of aoe spam is bigger" (not in a guild so likely that) but my random low level unrated spvp feels much better. I'm actually loving running with barrier spam auto cleans and the play style is a bit frantic but does feel like it flows well at times.

 

[Shaogin.2679]

Yeah, I saw the new patch notes and it looks like we're going to be able to give protection now as well, and a barrier neef will be reverted. They are also changing the traits that were based on the number of shade you had out to instead grant the full bonus so long as you have a shade up at all. This will give us some extra free concentration and which will be good for people trying to make a condi alac build work.

The biggest issue though is that you still have to spam you sand shade off cooldown to keep it up, which just feels bad. It makes no sense to even have the option to place three sand shades now when there will no longer be a buff for it and it will not be sustainable. If this is the route they want to go, I really wish they would make Sand Savant the default shade, increase the duration, and replace the Sand Savant trait entirely. 

[AlchemistRai.7596]

2 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

To follow up on this, I did Alacheal Scourge on all of Wing 7 and Wing 6 before Twin Largos.  There were no complaints about alac uptime, but I need to review the logs to be sure (EDIT: looks like I averaged somewhere between 70 and 75% alac uptime, which isn't awful for a first time support player).  The tendency for the Transfusion pull to just not happen because there are players missing 1 hp did come up multiple times, and that really should be addressed if we only get the one pull (I would prefer a reversion).  I was often questioning if I was getting any bonus revival from Ritual of Life or Transfusion because reviving was so much slower.

Health was easy enough to keep up on folks, although it was slower to restore than more traditional healers in the role due to Scourge's lack of a single massive heal to others and instead limited to sub-1k pulses.  The downs we had were exclusively off the stack.

Shade uptime was something I had to continually fight, and more than once I use Sand cascade or Sandstorm Shroud only for the shade to time out before it hits.  This last part is partially a skill issue, but having another couple of seconds would make it much more accessible.

On QTP, I frequently needed to throw a Well of Blood or Serpent Siphon on pylon kiters, but there was a factor of having someone new on the role and dropped orbs (I'm usually a pylon kite for the static).  Would have preferred to send a lesser cooldown heal their way, but Mark of Blood can't trigger there. Still, the ability to throw some occasional additional barrier in far spots seems to have come in handy.

 

I decided not to run it on Twin largos due to the constant motion in that fight.  Did not run it on Qadim 1 either due to being lamp.

i've been doing alot of strike scourge trials and have found alot of similar things to you, The removal of the grace period on the f4 pull is awful and for the life of me i don't know why scourge gets a nerfed version of the f4 pull

I think if they moved the barrier and alac to sand savant, let shades last longer, and gave back some of the revive power, then the proposed fixes would work fine

[Exyle.2157]

Well... I'm a main Reaper and sometimes switch to Scourge when in combat with a group, just to switch to a more support role for fun in events such as Tequatl, bounties on PoF maps, etc. I'm a 6mo-old player. I play 1-3h/day and I am no expert at all in optimizing to the fullest everything I do (though I picked some Metabattle and Hardstuck builds).

Reaper still feels good and I'm enjoying it.

Tbh I don't feel like Scourge is nice to play anymore. Before the patch, IMO having Sand Shades that lasted 20sec was already a bit annoying bc at times I wanted to put all 3 back up and I had that cool-down preventing me at times but that's probably myself not doing it correctly. And then using other skills, linked to the shades or not, when they were up, until they vanished and back to the beginning: putting them all back up again. I'd already have preferred to have long-lasting shades than 20sec. So like 30-60s, and then move them when needed.

But now, it just feels like I need to spam all the time this F1 key and it's really annoying. To me, it's taken away all the fun of playing this elite profession. I used to be able to decide what I wanted to do between each Sand Shades phases: shade skills (F keys), weapon skills, self heal, elite skills (bleeding, etc.) and kinda manage and do what I wanted. But now, it's more like having to look at the skill bar all the time rather than actually watching the battle, be on the lookout for the boss' big skills/moves and have the time to actually be conscient of the skills I want to use in battle. Now it's more like spamming that Sand Shades key all the time and throw in quickly another skill, before I have to put a shade up again because it's disappeared already.
It's very annoying and no fun at all for me to play anymore.
Also, I was happy to have a mix of a condi and support class. And now it feels like I'm supposed to put alacrity up and I was not in need of that. It like suddenly forcing a warrior class to switch from DPS to Healing. Nobody is asking that. Why forcing such a change and to make a elite profession worse than before ?

I'm just wondering if that trait allowing to replace all 3 shades by 1 big one wouldn't be easier to manage, but I'm no expert to estimate if that'd be a win and if the impact wouldn't be to bad at another level on other stuff I'm doing.

Anyway, those are my 2 cents as a rather "casual" player and quite recent, without going into too much details when I play and the goal is to have fun. I have fun when playing Reaper but I lost interest and fun in Scourge. Doesn't sound "fun" to me having to spam the same key all the time (F1) and barely be able to use 1-2 other skills before spamming again F1 key. It feels like I'm always in a rush, trying to squeeze other skills without even having time to really think about it (which when why), watching my skills bar rather than the game itself and that's no fun.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Exyle.2157

[Pooh.6897]

I'd like to talk about a different topic. This patch they've changed a lot of weapon-buffing traits to now flat out give these buffs to the weapons baseline and design the trait itself around a more independent idea/personality. I think this change is good. However there are three traits specifically that I'd like to talk about. these traits are

• Spiteful Talisman
• Lingering Curse
• Quickening Thirst

First and foremost about Quickening Thirst. When they changed it to the new trait, they didn't give dagger the cooldown reduction that the trait previously offered. I'd like to know why. To me, this seems like inconsistent behaviour. I don't know why they have so much problems with buffing dagger in general, but it's becoming clear to me now that Anet must have some sort of problem with dagger that it's not open about.

Secondly I'd like to know why the weapon-specific parts of Spiteful Talisman and Lingering Curse survived. For Spiteful Talisman, giving a small buff to axe and focus actually seems more than necessary. I really don't understand why they haven't changed this trait. For Lingering Curse, with the incoming changes to elite weapons, I'd like to see this trait changed to offer something more in general. Buff the baseline damage of scepter and replace scepter 3 permanently, and rework Lingering Curse into something that's useful for all condi-weapons, not just scepter. 

On a bit of an unrelated note, I'd also like to see changes to Terror for PvE. Alternatively they could mega-buff Insidious disruption and move that to the master-tier, that could work as well. Then rework Terror into something else. I don't think Terror can justify its existence as a master-level trait. Especially for PvE it's just too weak for that.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Darth Pooh.5638

[Funky.4861]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 Thanks for doing this. You have proved to me that i probably can't run scourge in my own static, and this is down to not consistently having a full squad. When you're at 8 or 7, you really need reliability from supports (especially if the deeps are running scholar runes) and i just don't think i can juggle all of that as well as running off to do mechanics etc. When you are down to 8 or 7, role compression is a big deal and scourge just can't compete with alac heal tempest, hfb or HAM.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

4 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 Thanks for doing this. You have proved to me that i probably can't run scourge in my own static, and this is down to not consistently having a full squad. When you're at 8 or 7, you really need reliability from supports (especially if the deeps are running scholar runes) and i just don't think i can juggle all of that as well as running off to do mechanics etc. When you are down to 8 or 7, role compression is a big deal and scourge just can't compete with alac heal tempest, hfb or HAM.

Honestly, my testing gave me the result I expected.  You can run healalc scourge and it will do the job, but it is a lot more effort for ultimately less benefit than other HA builds.  It will be better after the 18th when the rotation gets reduced down to "drop a shade and hit F5 when F5 cooldown is up" for maintaining alacrity and protection.  Ideally, you keep one shade active all the time, but bare minimum, you can provide some might and perma alac and protection with that, making it much easier to pull off.  Still need a tight stack.

[Methuselah.4376]

10 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Honestly, my testing gave me the result I expected.  You can run healalc scourge and it will do the job, but it is a lot more effort for ultimately less benefit than other HA builds.  It will be better after the 18th when the rotation gets reduced down to "drop a shade and hit F5 when F5 cooldown is up" for maintaining alacrity and protection.  Ideally, you keep one shade active all the time, but bare minimum, you can provide some might and perma alac and protection with that, making it much easier to pull off.  Still need a tight stack.

It's more than some might, you can upkeep alac, regeneration, fury and 25 might in current patch.  I notice a lot of healscourges seem to forget about Ghastly Breach; this + Dessicate + Blood is Power + Abrasive Grit will easily keep up 25 stacks of might. You can even manage more or less without Blood is Power if you need the slot, though in my (albeit limited) testing I had the stacks drop down to 24/23 for a second or two before I was able to bring it up to 25.

Personally I am looking forward to playing Heal Alac Scourge after the 18th. Let's hope it feels better. But ye one thing they definitely need to do is increase the shade size. 

[Gaeb.2837]

2 hours ago, Methuselah.4376 said:

 I notice a lot of healscourges seem to forget about Ghastly Breach

Personally I am looking forward to playing Heal Alac Scourge after the 18th. Let's hope it feels better. But ye one thing they definitely need to do is increase the shade size. 

Re: Ghastly Breach: My brain went there too after kitting out a new tab with Harrier gear... and then the 60s cd hit me in the face harrrrd. Flesh golem is a great skill and all but I really wish on Reaper and support Scourge I had a reason to run their elites in PVE.

Re: Shades: Yeah, there are two key issues if we're relying on Shade as part of our alac uptime: 

1. Tends to be cast on target which will be out of range to buff some/all of the group. You can manually aim it (settings change) but that takes valuable time/focus away, which compounds the other major issue with shade ...
2. 8s duration is too short - hitting that button without fail every 8s isnt realistic given mechanics, movement, etc, and as soon as your shade drops, so does 15% concentration & expertise. Needs to be 12s.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Gaeb.2837

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

4 hours ago, Methuselah.4376 said:

It's more than some might, you can upkeep alac, regeneration, fury and 25 might in current patch.  I notice a lot of healscourges seem to forget about Ghastly Breach; this + Dessicate + Blood is Power + Abrasive Grit will easily keep up 25 stacks of might. You can even manage more or less without Blood is Power if you need the slot, though in my (albeit limited) testing I had the stacks drop down to 24/23 for a second or two before I was able to bring it up to 25.

Personally I am looking forward to playing Heal Alac Scourge after the 18th. Let's hope it feels better. But ye one thing they definitely need to do is increase the shade size. 

Oh, I was talking only about "place shade, use Sandstorm Shroud" there.  You absolutely can do much more when factoring in other skills.

[Methuselah.4376]

16 hours ago, Gaeb.2837 said:

I really wish on Reaper and support Scourge I had a reason to run their elites in PVE.

You don't run Chilled to the Bone in open world? I even run it in most fractals. Sure long term dps is much worse than golem, but it brings so many goodies, and in open world CTTB + YAAW clears most mobs instantly. 

 

13 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Oh, I was talking only about "place shade, use Sandstorm Shroud" there.  You absolutely can do much more when factoring in other skills.

Ah fair.