Scourge might be a bit too strong (49k dps)

[Tiviana.2650]

7 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

The fact that they chose to nerf Scepter and Dhuumfire as part of this is absolutely hilarious to me.

 

Literally the previous patch:

Only one of those got targeted for nerfs, Sadistic Searing, which while weak now remains annoying to play with since it involves spamming a 3 second Cooldown Ability off Cooldown, while instead a Core Weapon and a Core Trait, both of which are barely holding on to relevance, are cut into. 

Imagine getting paid for clowning around randomly shuffling things back and forth like this.

Literally clown squad

[Tren.5120]

7 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

It's just a strange way of going about it. Frankly, even before this nerf I started skipping on Scepter almost completely and started to just camp Pistol unless bored since I noticed it benching barely lower while providing much more ease of play. So nerfing Scepter is just weird with all these nerf targets from just the last Patch (and Soto additions/changes) around. 

I actually did the same thing for the exact same reasons.

[Greencat.6405]

Dps meters kill all mmos you're supposed to kill bosses not to trash other players classes

[Greencat.6405]

Thats why you saw a increase of RPGs in latest years

[Dadnir.5038]

11 hours ago, Greencat.6405 said:

Dps meters kill all mmos you're supposed to kill bosses not to trash other players classes

I'd like to agree with you but unfortunately Players don't need DPS meter to flock to the highest dps professions and trash other players classes. All they need is a few hours in game to get a proper feel of what's strong and what's weak (Obviously, if they have a bunch of people that test things for them and release the result of their tests on public forum they can even skip the test process).

What kill MMOs is the mindset of the modern players. Most players are no longer there to have fun but to get results.

[Asum.4960]

21 hours ago, Greencat.6405 said:

Dps meters kill all mmos you're supposed to kill bosses not to trash other players classes

I don't know what inspired your comment, but those things are always worse without DPS-Meters. GW2 way back when Dungeons were still the endgame, years before Arc and co., was 5 Warrior meta, then later Elementalist was pretty much the only accepted DPS. People used to get kicked from groups based on Achivement Points (yes, really), because there was no way to measure performance. And Necromancer especially was pretty much auto-kick from any organized group content for about 5-6 whopping years of the games lifetime, until DPS-Meters got more and more popular and people actually noticed specs like Scourge pulling decent numbers in real encounters due to their great DPS-Uptime, despite poor Golem/on paper performance. 

You are blaming a not only innocent but also extremely helpful self improvement tool for poor game balance and human behavior - which does not only exist regardless, but usually worse in the absence of objective facts. 

If you happen to play with goal oriented players, DPS-Meters allow you to play well on off-meta builds/professions. If things go wrong, everybody can see you are contributing, and actual causes for failure can be identified and addressed. 

Without DPS-Meters everybody who plays off-meta in a case of failure gets blamed and kicked for assumed poor performance, and everybody has a bad time. The kicked players that actually did well, as well as the rest of the squad which will keep failing and eventually disbanding because they didn't have the tools to identify and fix the problem. Nobody wins.

I don't see how no DPS-Meter is desirable on any level for anyone, with just one exception -  players who are actively leeching to the detriment of everybody else they are playing with. 

Those are literally the only players who don't benefit from DPS-Meters being a thing. 

9 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

What kill MMOs is the mindset of the modern players. Most players are no longer there to have fun but to get results.

 I agree with your post, except that I wouldn't entirely or even mostly blame players for that mentality shift. 

Live Service games, including MMO's, are increasingly being designed around Player retention rather than Player fun. Therefor, players naturally shifted in their behavior to more and more optimise their journey through the ever increasing grinds and "retention hurdles" - because they aren't fun to begin with. 

If you put a just simply fun quest into a game for players to genuinely just enjoy which leaves them feeling genuinely rewarded or like they achieved something in the process or through overcoming it, players tend to actually do just that. If you put 10,  especially copy paste low effort, quests into a game which a players have to complete 10 times each in a repetitive grind to get some Achievement or reward, players at large will shift into a entirely result oriented approach instead trying to just get through it. 

Players didn't really change all that much, games (largely to cater to an increased focus on and change of monetization) did though. 

There are ofc inherently different players on a micro level too, but large scale player behavior is far more closely tied to game design than most seem to think. The same player will likely play a designed for retention live service game very differently than a designed for fun single player experience for example. 

You get the player behavior you design for. And lazy, retention focused design breeds meta gaming and player optimization. 

[Terian.8359]

40k now - great 20% nerf...

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

3 hours ago, Terian.8359 said:

40k now - great 20% nerf...

And?  Everyone is capping out 40-42kdps now.  The majority of the game still wasn't designed for this level of dps, but it's not as broken now.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Misha.7302]

7 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

And?  Everyone is capping out 40-42kdps now.  The majority of the game still wasn't designed for this level of dps, but it's not as broken now.

Yah, nothing, just worst DPS(average) according to snowcrow 😄 Also with self-conditions masochism that can kill you or damage loss in some circumstances.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

21 minutes ago, Misha.7302 said:

Yah, nothing, just worst DPS(average) according to snowcrow 😄 Also with self-conditions masochism that can kill you or damage loss in some circumstances.

On the golem, sure.  But Scourge is still at the top for reliability of said DPS in actual combat.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Misha.7302]

14 minutes ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

On the golem, sure.  But Scourge is still at the top for reliability of said DPS in actual combat.

49k was on golem too 😄

And... What PVE activity do you mean when say it's SO GREAT('read': nerf is ok, it's not a problem) atm? I don't see scourges in Fractals, with small exception (99-100CM) sometimes. Top dps in raids accupied by Wars/Engis/Rangers mostly. I don't see them in top DPS list in Open World Bosses.

Share your exp. pls

Edited October 4, 2023 by Misha.7302

[Passerbye.6291]

Imagine getting nerfed by about 18% and still dealing 40k damage on an almost entirely ranged class with very high dps uptime in actual content and still complaining. Idk what game you guys are playing, but it sure seems different than the one I'm playing.

Also, "I need to inflict myself with conditions which can kill me" is not a good argument when the class you are playing is supplied with on demand barrier/condi cleanse as well as the highest base HP in the game. You can lose some damage if they get cleansed, but if that is happening frequently, you are just not coupling blood is power properly with your F5, if you time F5 well, you reduce the chances of a cleanse happening by a lot.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Passerbye.6291

[Obtena.7952]

Complaining Scourge is only 40K DPS is some of the most ignorant commentary I've seen on these forums in a LONG time. Easily top 3. 

HOT TAKE:  I don't think Anet are done with Scourge nerfs either. Think really hard to why that might be. 

 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Axl.8924]

Personally scourge should be dealing 34-35k DPS not 40k DPS.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

20 hours ago, Misha.7302 said:

49k was on golem too 😄

Yes, and that was a major problem.  When the most reliable DPS was also the highest, there's no reason to run anything else as it's higher risk for lesser reward.

I still see Scourges in every area of endgame play.  Not 90% of the time (ignoring myself) like it was pre-nerf, but about even with other professions.

[Asum.4960]

On 10/5/2023 at 4:20 PM, Axl.8924 said:

Personally scourge should be dealing 34-35k DPS not 40k DPS.

Maybe a while ago, but now those are Boon Support DPS numbers. Within the context of the current benches, Scourge seems fine where it's at now. Keep in mind it's still the slowest ramping meta build in the game, by a mile - the build takes ~15 seconds just to reach 30k DPS, and about 1 minute 20 seconds to actually reach that 40k. 

Yes, it's DPS-uptime is amazing, and it can really shine in bad/low DPS groups where phases are long and it get's time to ramp - but especially in good groups and even more so on quickly/frequently phasing fights, even a perfectly played Scourge will never reach that bench for many encounters. 

Get out of PuGs and join some really good Power DPS players as Scourge for a run and see how you feel about the Spec's performance then.

And as long as comparable uptime specs like cVirtuoso are at >41k (with a ~10 second ramp to get there), and Power Specs with zero ramp or rather even higher bursts are at ~43k at their lowest point - 35k would leave Scourge way overshadowed again and unable to even remotely catch up, despite it's dps-uptime. I get it's a popular Spec to hate on, but let's not get carried away with the hate train.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Asum.4960

[Kozumi.5816]

On 8/27/2023 at 5:32 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

I disagree with the statement that scourge should not have a viable pure dps option. All other "healer" specs have now pure dps build options that are close if not already viable, there is no reason for scourge to not have this option as well. (the scourge's utility isn't any more obscene than it's competitors' unsung utility)

The main issue currently is mostly the effect of the synergy between harbinger's pistol and demonic lore. Scourge's dps wasn't really outstanding before they got access to the weapon.

My personal opinion is that harbinger's tools (both shroud and pistol skills) should have been focused on poison instead of torment which would have saved us from this ordeal and would help balance and differentiate harbinger's identity as well.

Other healers lose all their utility as a pure DPS. Scourge does not.

[Asum.4960]

14 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Other healers lose all their utility as a pure DPS. Scourge does not.

I'd love for you to breakdown all that utility of the full DPS/Benchmark setup, and your thought process/points of comparison of how you think no other DPS can compete with that.

[Mewone.3247]

Is there a point of playing condi dps if your rampup time is slow and your final number after 2mins on golem is still lower than power? Most boss encounters have phases and sometimes phases are very short 30-60sec, which really makes condi rampup an issue compared to bursty power classes that deal 50k in the first 30sec. The better your group the worse condi dps gets because with good groups comes good raid dps and shorter phases.

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, Mewone.3247 said:

Is there a point of playing condi dps if your rampup time is slow and your final number after 2mins on golem is still lower than power? Most boss encounters have phases and sometimes phases are very short 30-60sec, which really makes condi rampup an issue compared to bursty power classes that deal 50k in the first 30sec. The better your group the worse condi dps gets because with good groups comes good raid dps and shorter phases.

Necro, particularly Scourge, is the only cDPS that I'm aware of that ramps that slowly. Harb "just" needs about 20 seconds to get going, but even that is already double the time of for example cVirt, cWB, cSB and most other cDPS's, which currently reach ~40k in ~10 seconds. 

Specter is the only other cDPS I recall being fairly slow to ramp - although nowhere near Scourge's level. 

So it's not so much a cDPS issue, as it is specifically a Necromancer/Scourge issue - something people tend to often gloss over. On the other hand, other people often disregard the value of DPS-Uptime, but both lead to somewhat equally skewed perceptions of balance.

This ~10 second ramp up time of most cDPS's is actually the reason most cDPS usually (need to) have better DPS-Uptime than most Power Specs, specifically to be able to catch up to their burst. 

Likewise Condi usually needs to bench somewhat higher than Power in order to be balanced, since sites like SC don't list average DPS as Benchmark number, but rather just the final tick - which also skews things further, since Power bursts and then ramps down, while Condi starts slow and then ramps up - so the last tick isn't representative of their average DPS, especially in encounters with frequent phasing where, as you noted, Condi suffers dramatically (and increasingly so the slower it's ramp ofc).

For example using current SC Benches:

Condi Scourge is listed as 40.060 DPS, but 37681+37675+38491+40099+40060/5 = 38801 average DPS, if the Boss never phases.

Power Bladesworn is listed at a very similar 40.361 DPS, but 57411+45152+42699+41036+40361/5 = 45332 average DPS, which doesn't get further reduced by bosses phasing, as Strike damage is applied instantly. 

So while these two DPS's look extremely close in output from their listed Benchmarks with just a 300 DPS difference, Power Bladesworn is actually 6500 average DPS ahead of cScourge, much more so on frequently phasing bosses.

 Meaning, Scourge needs that far, far better DPS uptime and other value adds, such as more baked in support (most of which has been removed though), in order to be competitive. 

 

TL;DR:

Game balance is a complex amalgamation of DPS, DPS-Uptime, Burst/Ramp windows and Utility value adds, but people like to jump on hype and hate trains and blindly follow trends/influencer narratives, leading to a very limited understanding of the game and all it's moving parts. 

And to answer your question, cDPS can be worthwhile over Strike Damage, even with slightly lower Benches, but only if they have a drastic advantage in terms of DPS-Uptime and Utility. The slower their ramp (which mainly really is just cScourge as the massive outlier), the bigger that advantage in turn needs to be. 

[Mewone.3247]

2 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

And to answer your question, cDPS can be worthwhile over Strike Damage, even with slightly lower Benches, but only if they have a drastic advantage in terms of DPS-Uptime and Utility

Condi is always worse than power damage because burst damage or direct damage has no drawbacks. The moment both damage types bench for the same number, you have the same boss damage for long phases and much worse for short phases where 50k burst > 30k rampup.

DPS Uptime has nothing to do with condi or power damage, but with range and how skills work. Its true Scourge has mostly ranged skills and a ranged AA so the uptime is above average for the average gw2 andy (minus something like plaguelands that needs a boss to not move for 10secs) compared to something like condi Holo, where you have to place bombs that explode with a delay in melee range and similar skills. Utility has never been part of any balancing from what I can see, same with range vs. melee dps, so lets not bring it into discussion when it will never happen anyways. So how can cDPS be worthwhile over pDPS? The moment you have a team with good raid damage and capable players, you have a good damage uptime on pretty much any boss with any build and phases become exceedingly short. This is where cDPS falls significantly behind because it already benches less than pDPS for no reason. There are pDPS builds with ranged options so even if you have one of the few bosses that punish melee builds (that are usually pDPS) you can still at least be on par with cDPS if the build benches a few thousand dps less. The moment your cDPS build isn't fully ranged, because cDPS unequal ranged dps, you lose the last straw against pDPS.

It also doesnt help there are already encounter that heavily favor pDPS due to low toughness (VG,HT) or true burst phases (CA,KC etc.).

Edited October 6, 2023 by Mewone.3247

[Asum.4960]

6 hours ago, Mewone.3247 said:

Condi is always worse than power damage because burst damage or direct damage has no drawbacks. The moment both damage types bench for the same number, you have the same boss damage for long phases and much worse for short phases where 50k burst > 30k rampup.

DPS Uptime has nothing to do with condi or power damage, but with range and how skills work. Its true Scourge has mostly ranged skills and a ranged AA so the uptime is above average for the average gw2 andy (minus something like plaguelands that needs a boss to not move for 10secs) compared to something like condi Holo, where you have to place bombs that explode with a delay in melee range and similar skills. Utility has never been part of any balancing from what I can see, same with range vs. melee dps, so lets not bring it into discussion when it will never happen anyways. So how can cDPS be worthwhile over pDPS? The moment you have a team with good raid damage and capable players, you have a good damage uptime on pretty much any boss with any build and phases become exceedingly short. This is where cDPS falls significantly behind because it already benches less than pDPS for no reason. There are pDPS builds with ranged options so even if you have one of the few bosses that punish melee builds (that are usually pDPS) you can still at least be on par with cDPS if the build benches a few thousand dps less. The moment your cDPS build isn't fully ranged, because cDPS unequal ranged dps, you lose the last straw against pDPS.

It also doesnt help there are already encounter that heavily favor pDPS due to low toughness (VG,HT) or true burst phases (CA,KC etc.).

Yes, Strike damage is just flat out inherently mechanically superior, and Condition Damage has no inherent uptime or utility advantage - these compensating balancing factors have to actively be designed into Condi Specs, as well as into the encounters, to make them competitive. 

Not all specs and encounters do this well, but it definitely has been part of the design and balancing in the past - see pMech repeated nerfs, which broke all design conventions with all of some of the highest DPS, the highest DPS-Uptime, while being Strike damage, with good cleave, and having good utility and extremely high ease of play. cScourge on the other hand has seen repeated Utility nerfs and removals, as well as worsening of it's playability/easy of play, along it's DPS buffs. 

Encounter wise, while Raids are in a somewhat weird spot of having been mechanically largely trivialized due to powercreep, and a large majority of Fractals always having favoured Strike Damage due to quick phasings (and much of the same powercreep issues), Strikes do imo still somewhat stand out as the most up to date content where at least some mechanics still matter - and every second of melee denial is a near 100% Damage loss for most of the best performing Power Builds, which not by accident happen to be largely melee, which is where Condi builds, which largely are more ranged, can catch up. 

This is an aspect of how Powercreep is damaging the game many don't consider though. As player DPS ever increases, boss phases get ever shorter, and mechanics (which could have punished most Strike Damage builds, while being exploited by most Condition Damage builds to catch up) are increasingly skipped - Condition Damage is loosing relevancy, unless, as we've also seen over the years, they get more and more Strike Damage like with <10 seconds ramp up times, as well as up to the recent balance shakeups, overall higher Benchmark DPS. 

Like much of the game, the design is there in large parts, it's just increasingly made irrelevant by drastically overperforming player tools through years of powercreep (along a healthy dose of incompetent balancing). 

 

[anbujackson.9564]

On 10/4/2023 at 11:58 PM, Misha.7302 said:

49k was on golem too 😄

And... What PVE activity do you mean when say it's SO GREAT('read': nerf is ok, it's not a problem) atm? I don't see scourges in Fractals, with small exception (99-100CM) sometimes. Top dps in raids accupied by Wars/Engis/Rangers mostly. I don't see them in top DPS list in Open World Bosses.

Share your exp. pls

Scourge stacking broke records on bosses. Thats fine right. Did you check the video where they phased dhuum before the 1st soulsplit? Balanced.

Also in what universe did you see warriors in raids? Almost no one played that and they still dont. And sure as hell not as top dps when you had soulbeasts, virtuosos, weavers/catalysts and scourges running around. Berserker is a golem spec.

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by anbujackson.9564

[Passerbye.6291]

On 10/6/2023 at 11:17 PM, Asum.4960 said:

For example using current SC Benches:

Condi Scourge is listed as 40.060 DPS, but 37681+37675+38491+40099+40060/5 = 38801 average DPS, if the Boss never phases.

That's not how it works, afaik, the number you see is your current active dps, it also factors in your burst, that's why your numbers change gradually, as in, the last number you see on a bench is your average dps across the entire fight, not 20 to 0%, this can be easily tested by looking at the time to kill on bosses.
Going by your example, if the average damage on scourge was to be 38.8k, the golem, which has 4m hp, would be expected to go down in longer than 100 seconds, slightly over 103 seconds to be more precise. Whereas in reality, this is the duration of the bench: Duration: 01m 39s 239ms. Copied straight from the log.

On 10/6/2023 at 11:17 PM, Asum.4960 said:

Power Bladesworn is listed at a very similar 40.361 DPS, but 57411+45152+42699+41036+40361/5 = 45332 average DPS, which doesn't get further reduced by bosses phasing, as Strike damage is applied instantly. 

So while these two DPS's look extremely close in output from their listed Benchmarks with just a 300 DPS difference, Power Bladesworn is actually 6500 average DPS ahead of cScourge, much more so on frequently phasing bosses.

While your point about phasing bosses is perfectly valid, this isn't something people weren't aware of. Similar to how certain bosses have a lower amount of armor than the default 2597, making them more susceptible to power damage even without factoring in phases, or things like slothosaur's break bar phase, which clears conditions, but then allows you to stack more conditions, while power continues to do 0 damage until the bar is broken, making the discrepancy in phases less relevant than it would have been otherwise. But yeah, the more a fight gets interrupted, the better it tends to be for power; however, your math here is wrong due to the reasons I previously stated.
Going by your own example of there being a discrepancy of 6.5k average dps between bladesworn and condi scourge, one would expect bladesworn bench to last significantly shorter than the 1 minute 39 seconds of necromancer, and yet this is the exact duration from the log: Duration: 01m 40s 205ms.
So, if the numbers you see were to be only the final tick, or 20-0%, then where did that 6.5k average dps discrepancy go? why did the golem not die much faster in the case of the bladesworn?

By the way, if you are going to compare dps numbers separately for each 20% of the boss' HP, you hit 100% - 80%, 80% - 60%, 60 - 40%, 40% - 20%, 20% - 0% respectively on the log, if you check the first, second, third, fourth and final numbers, you'll get the average dps at the moments the boss reaches hp thresholds of 80, 60, 40, 20% and finally death with 0%.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Passerbye.6291
Mentioned some bosses had higher armor, it is the other way around, corrected before anyone caught up. Shh, don't tell anyone ^^

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

That's not how it works, afaik, the number you see is your current active dps, it also factors in your burst, that's why your numbers change gradually, as in, the last number you see on a bench is your average dps across the entire fight, not 20 to 0%, this can be easily tested by looking at the time to kill on bosses.
Going by your example, if the average damage on scourge was to be 38.8k, the golem, which has 4m hp, would be expected to go down in longer than 100 seconds, slightly over 103 seconds to be more precise. Whereas in reality, this is the duration of the bench: Duration: 01m 39s 239ms. Copied straight from the log.

While your point about phasing bosses is perfectly valid, this isn't something people weren't aware of. Similar to how certain bosses have a lower amount of armor than the default 2597, making them more susceptible to power damage even without factoring in phases, or things like slothosaur's break bar phase, which clears conditions, but then allows you to stack more conditions, while power continues to do 0 damage until the bar is broken, making the discrepancy in phases less relevant than it would have been otherwise. But yeah, the more a fight gets interrupted, the better it tends to be for power; however, your math here is wrong due to the reasons I previously stated.
Going by your own example of there being a discrepancy of 6.5k average dps between bladesworn and condi scourge, one would expect bladesworn bench to last significantly below the 1 minute 39 seconds of necromancer, and yet this is the exact duration from the log: Duration: 01m 40s 205ms.
So, if the numbers you see were to be only the final tick, or 20-0%, then where did that 6.5k average dps discrepancy go? why did the golem not die much faster in the case of the bladesworn?

By the way, if you are going to compare dps numbers separately for each 20% of the boss' HP, you hit 100% - 80%, 80% - 60%, 60 - 40%, 40% - 20%, 20% - 0% respectively on the log, if you check the first, second, third, fourth and final numbers, you'll get the average dps at the moments the boss reaches hp thresholds of 80, 60, 40, 20% and finally death with 0%.

Actually you are right, that's my bad. I'm very glad you pointed that out actually, it's nice to learn something new and I don't think I'd ever have looked that closely at those numbers otherwise. I was aware it wasn't raw second by second data, as that would be impossible to follow, but I actually didn't realise it was getting averaged out completely before display either, rather than being an aggregate of the last few seconds or something. 

Thanks for clearing up the misconception on my part!