Ways to compensate for the nerf to transfusion

[WipZedKay.5316]

I have to start by saying that I really like healscourge and that the removal of the pull from transfusion really does suck from a fun perspective. But having a healscourge also removes the punishment of playing poorly in every form of higher end content. From the more casual IBS5 to Cerus CM, it gave a lot of leeway to completing any given encounter and from a design perspective; I can see why they want to remove it.

No compensation in any way however really does sting, especially since what was removed was one of the more defining features of healscourge. It will still be playable but a lot of flavour was removed in favour of balance and design. But there are other areas where scourge is lacking in some more common elements shared among the healers and whatnot where something could be provided at least.

 

Scourge lacks reliable swiftness and stability

At the moment, scourge has by far the worst application of swiftness and stability. Warhorn 5 feels like it should give allies some swiftness but it doesn't and Trail of Anguish is really finicky to play around. Scourge also only provide 1 stability that requires you to walk all over your allies to ensure that it is even applied at all. I personally think giving warhorn 5 the ability to provide group swiftness would be a good start rather than relying on a relic to provide this very common boon to others.

If you want Trail of Anguish to be as janky as it is now, at least let us have some more stability with it! Many attacks in every area of the game have follow up CC effects after the initial one and giving it 3 or 5 stability instead of just 1 would at least make it feel more worthwhile especially when the base duration is just 6 seconds.

 

Alternative ways to give Transfusion flavour

You want the pull removed, fine. But it is necromancer we are talking about whose whole theme is bringing the dead back to life so making it the premier group reviver as a healer makes sense! You could buff the current ability of Well of Blood and Lesser Well of Blood to revive people faster, going from 2% to 3%. Whoever you are reviving are wherever they are and most likely in a damage field of some kind.

An alternative would be that the bodies are slowly puled towards you like you are reanimating the dead to walk once again. How I picture it would be that when you use shroud 4, you apply a buff to 5 (or maybe 3) downed allies that make them slowly walk towards you for a couple of seconds. The downed players would still be taking damage from whatever is on the path towards you but it would allow them to slowly and maybe get out of harms way to eventually revive them. Alternatively apply a effect similar to Illusion of Life would be fun but I also see how that would be very problematic, if not even more problematic than what we have right now.

Lastly for my own ideas is to make it buff Signet of Undeath. It used to be able to revive up to 3 people in an AoE when cast and I think that giving that ability back to Signet of Undeath if you have Transfusion makes flavourful sense. It does also have some noticeable drawbacks compared to the pull, such as:

• It takes a utility slot.
• Base cooldown is 75 seconds compared to Garish Pillar's 15 seconds.
• Only affects 3 people instead of 5.
• There is a cast time to using it compared to Transfusion's instant pull which means it cannot save people from damage that is too strong.
• It can be interrupted by the user or other players in competitive gamemodes.
• It cannot revive multiple people who are far away from each other.

It wouldn't be as ''free'' as Transfusion is since it wouldn't be a part of an ability every Scourge and necromancer for that matter has access to. It would require more skill to utilize properly and if you wanted to revert it back to the ability to revive 3 people, it wouldn't be as potent. If this would be the way to go, it might be fair to increase the cast time a little bit but not back the agonizing 3 seconds it used to be please! Alternatively make it reduce the cooldown or cast time of the signet to be much shorter, giving you the ability to revive one person more frequently at the cost of a utility slot.

 

These are just my own thoughts on how Anet could give healscourge something back after just removing a large part of its identity. There are other buffs or ideas for mechanics that could work too! The main point I'm trying to make is that healscourge is really lacking in some areas which could be buffed and there are other ways to keep the flavour of ''getting someone back from the dead'' as well. Would love to hear what others think of my ideas and what ideas you have that could bring some flavour!

[Gorhdarai.7016]

In my opinion they should leave Transfusion as it is. While it's strong for what it does it is also the most fun skill to use on heal scourge and without it pulling downed allies it won't feel fun.
I don't like how they're nerfing cool skills on necromancer. Epidemic was great before nerf and now it's a shadow of what it used to be.
Since this is preview we should give clear feedback that we're against these changes to Transfusion.

Edited September 14 by Gorhdarai.7016

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

I'm not sure you could balance this correctly because all the shroud skills across core and all the espec do different things for each of their 1-5 skills.... BUUUT I always thought it'd be cool to have a trait in blood magic that added an aoe "support" effect to each skill. Honestly It could replace transfusions slot. Its just an extremely rough idea (so poke holes in all its flaws cause it certainly has them) or feel free to build off of it. But something like...
Shroud one grants might to 5 allies.
Shroud two grants fury and a condi clear to 5 allies
Shroud three grants protection and swiftness to 5 allies
Shroud four grants vigor and transfusions healing effect to 5 allies (no porting downed bodies but return the old revive percentages to the skill)
Shroud five grants 3 stacks of stab and resistance to 5 allies

All place holder, but the idea is to have a blood magic GM trait that makes all the shroud skills lean into that support aspect more.

As for the port rez that transfusion lost, tie it into the rez signet. Make the health sacrifice worth it.

As an added bonus while I'm thinking about necro changes I'd like, add a new trait in either DM or Soul Reaping called 'Beckon the Soul'. This trait would change all fear effects into taunt. I think it'd be so cool to reaper 3 taunt enemies in and then start spinning. It would also make using transfusion on scourge less annoying when I want to heal. I can't tell you the number of times I've sent a nice pile of freshly pulled mobs running for their lives in all directions just because I tried to rez or heal someone.

[WipZedKay.5316]

25 minutes ago, Gorhdarai.7016 said:

In my opinion they should leave Transfusion as it is. While it's strong for what it does it is also the most fun skill to use on heal scourge and without it pulling downed allies it won't feel fun.
Since this is preview we should give clear feedback that we're against these changes to Transfusion.

I'm also against the change as it removes what made healscourge unique and it is a lot of fun to pull people out of harms way and into safety to revive them. But I also see how it is problematic to design the game around, hence my proposed ideas of buffing scourge in other ways to at least compensate for the removal of the pull.

[SomeKinda.3867]

Anet please don't remove this fun mechanic for the scourge. If you need to nerf it maybe reduce the number of downed that are teleported? It's a fun, unique mechanic that also fosters positive feelings among the playerbase (no one gets upset when a scourge helps them, and someone who wants to help others would be drawn to scourge). It helps people learn from their mistakes instead of just lying dead on the floor (or running back) watching others have fun. I don't understand the talk about "punishing" people with bad positioning. Your "punishment" is that you lost dps and had to get saved. Get back in there and try again.

I was finally working on trying to outfit a scourge as it was the first fun class besides Guardian I'd ever found, playing since beta. It was getting me back into old content trying to get the gear and practice the build. Hearing about this balance patch was a punch to the gut...

[Jobber.6348]

Crazy ideas:

Banshee's Wail

Wail of Doom becomes Call of the Dead

Call of the Dead:

Heals and Revives allies with each pulse. Downed allies are teleported toward you upon skill cast.

- Number of Targets: 5

- 600 range (cone)

- 2% revive per pulse, 5 pulses

- 30s CD

 

Transfusion

When you use Shroud skill 4, you sacrifice Life Force to resurrect downed allies. 

- 60s CD

- Spends 10% Lifeforce per ally revived, up to 50% for 5 allies.

 

 

 

[borisslav.9026]

Sounds like you plan to cut off my right foot and compensate me with a sock? No thanks.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Or Transfusion has never been a problem and it never really needs any changes. Why cope with a stupid decision when you can protest it? Show them that this is a stupid mistake they're attempting.

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

I mean I'd be lying if I said I cared at this point. I stopped playing healscourge when they nerfed transfusion the first time and made the sand shade duration basically unmanagable. 

[Zaraki.5784]

No compensations, they have to change their mind before patch release and keep transfusion as it is!

[ShatteredStars.6548]

6 hours ago, Gorhdarai.7016 said:

In my opinion they should leave Transfusion as it is. While it's strong for what it does it is also the most fun skill to use on heal scourge and without it pulling downed allies it won't feel fun.
I don't like how they're nerfing cool skills on necromancer. Epidemic was great before nerf and now it's a shadow of what it used to be.
Since this is preview we should give clear feedback that we're against these changes to Transfusion.

fun for the scourge but some players are laughing at you because they can now skip a mechanic in a raid or fight without learning a thing, because there big almighty scourge, can just save them.

[Hel Thanatos.2346]

15 minutes ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

fun for the scourge but some players are laughing at you because they can now skip a mechanic in a raid or fight without learning a thing, because there big almighty scourge, can just save them.

Old person being hurt, because 5 years ago had to suffer more when progressing through content because players have it easier nowadays, so built this bitter old feeling of hate towards anyone that can actually enjoy what we got today, but i get it that the change in transfusion will allow u to get more clients for you to sell raids more often, makes sense.

Edited September 14 by Hel Thanatos.2346