Removal of Tranfusion's pulling component is a HUGE mistake.

[Sorasnobody.9350]

I know I'm joining in with many others posting this, but I do hope this paints a picture of just how much of a mistake it is that you're planning on removing a component that quite frankly gives Heal Alacrity Scourge 1/2 of its identity as a healer - and more so, 1/2 of why you would take this healer over against any other healer in the game (imo).

 

To me (and I feel a lot of others), Heal Alacrity Scourge has two identities in the end-game PvE meta as a healer, it outputs an extreme amount of barrier, that cannot be competed with by any other healer and it has the ability to pull downstates in a pinch, again something that no other healer can compete with comfortably. Heal Alacrity Scourge is renown for this ability to pull downstates to the group and I would say it is a huge part of its identity. It also works really well thematically - which some people may not care about, but it further makes the healer feel unique as you're quite literally pulling almost dead people to you, to reanimate them, very necro-esque.

 

Heal Alacrity Scourge, without the ability to pull downstates, to me, will lose a massive chunk of why people play it and I'm pretty certain its play rate will plummet quite severely. This is the core play style of this healer I feel; you apply high amounts of barrier to compensate for your lower than average healing out put (when compared to other healers), top people up with regeneration and Transfusion healing and then if they go down, pull them all together and get them back up while continuing to spew out barrier to mitigate pressure. A large chunk of the gameplay loop will be removed by the removal of Transfusion I feel.

 

After playing Heal Alacrity Scourge quite regularly for around 4 months after the alacrity addition, it struggles with boon output and furthermore, it doesn't have a load of healing sources (two - it has two) - which is even further impacted by the fact you use one of your strongest healing skills (1/2 sources), off cooldown to sustain regeneration and swiftness (which you have to dedicate your relic to by the way - I'm not considering Trail of Anguish's swiftness as using your one source of janky stability for swiftness is counter-productive) meaning you have even less healing sources. Your other healing source is transfusion (2/2), the skill you usually want to save to revive allies. The point I am trying to make is that Scourge lacks in overall boon output (both core boons such as swiftness/regeneration (without needing to always bring staff for the latter and/or using your aegis button off cooldown) and premium boons such as aegis/stability (Trail of Anguish is abysmal in its stability application), its healing sources are low, it has no dedicated healing weapon, but in some ways this could be overlooked, as it had un-parallel reviving and barrier potential.

 

In my personal opinion, removal of Transfusion's pulling mechanic in PvE is a massive mistake. I don't play WvW/PvP, but I do understand how the transfusion pulling is quite a sore point in those game modes, but I don't see why it needs to be altered in the PvE landscape.

 

To remain fair in feedback on this though, if you do look to go ahead with removing Transfusion's pulling aspect, I really think you need to give Necromancer heal some quality of life changes, not just remove its identity and then leave it at that. It has no dedicated healing weapon (when Locust Swarm could be turned easily into an AoE heal over time and AoE swiftness, instead of only self-swiftness and janky "only-heal-if-this-hits-something" healing over time - and dagger is sitting right there to become a main-hand support weapon imo, by making dagger 2 share 50% of its healing value to allies, or maybe 33%), it would need better stability access (Well of Power could become AoE stab - longer lasting too) and to make its current source of stability easier to apply. Easier regeneration would be pretty mandatory as well so that you are able to use Well of Blood for healing and not for regeneration, and Serpent Siphon for on-demand aegis, and not for regeneration. Having to dodge roll to activate a mark (that sometimes does not activate) to sustain regeneration without the two aforementioned skills really isn't fun, especially when you're tanking and moving the boss all over the place. To clarify though, this "to remain fair" feedback isn't my preferred stance on the matter; I would much prefer transfusion to just not be adjusted in any way and further quality-of-life to be added to Heal Alacrity Scourge. 

Thank you for reading! ☺️

[Taygus.4571]

Just want to add in, that over FB, or chrono. the 2 meta healers in pve, Scourge was only really used as the second healer, for its rez pull.. without it, people will just gravitate to other healers.  Even if they improve all the other aspexts..the damage will be done.

 

I also don't agree that its currently too strong in pvp.. except maybe in push mode. Im conquest, its not often used these days. Wvw is the only place where it feels OP..and thia could be mitigated by limiting it to 1 person rather than essentially deleting..what makes scourge unique and fun.

[Lahmia.2193]

tl;dr because it carried teams way too easily, and trivialised too many fight mechanics.

Do I agree that Heal Scourge should have better access to healing and boon application? Yes.

Was Transfusion broken and in need of nerfing? Also yes.

The trick they missed was not updating one of our outdated weapons to become a new support weapon (staff or dagger + warhorn being my favourite picks), in the same patch. 

[Sorasnobody.9350]

28 minutes ago, Lahmia.2193 said:

tl;dr because it carried teams way too easily, and trivialised too many fight mechanics.

Do I agree that Heal Scourge should have better access to healing and boon application? Yes.

Was Transfusion broken and in need of nerfing? Also yes.

The trick they missed was not updating one of our outdated weapons to become a new support weapon (staff or dagger + warhorn being my favourite picks), in the same patch. 

Yeah, I have been absorbing it more so throughout the day, and I'm teetering more towards an "either or" scenario where, either they keep Transfusion as is, or they really need to double down on adjusting it, but also add a lot of quality of life in the same patch as you said. If that isn't viable right now because of resource constraints, that's fine, just keep transfusion as is, and look at making the adjustments on a bigger balance patch. 

 

What I'd give for them to rework staff into a support weapon, or tweak dagger/warhorn into a solid support weapon set 😭 feels like since sword came out, main-hand dagger has become somewhat more redundant on dps so shifting it into a full support weapon would be a solid change in my opinion and tinker with warhorn to make it give aoe healing/swiftness (therefore freeing up the relic slot)

[borisslav.9026]

4 hours ago, Lahmia.2193 said:

tl;dr because it carried teams way too easily, and trivialised too many fight mechanics.

Do I agree that Heal Scourge should have better access to healing and boon application? Yes.

Was Transfusion broken and in need of nerfing? Also yes.

The trick they missed was not updating one of our outdated weapons to become a new support weapon (staff or dagger + warhorn being my favourite picks), in the same patch. 

Have you played scourge in the past two years? Transfusion was already nerfed a number of times. In fact, it's been updated five times since 2022, each of them with a nerf. Literally, the only way to nerf it more than it already was was to delete it from the game. It hasn't been able to carry teams in the broken way you seem to think it has since about the time scourge got alacrity. If it did, it would have been used way more than chronos, heralds and other better healers. It isn't. You do know there's more endgame than Boneskinner, right? 

Transfusion needed absolutely no nerf, it wasn't broken and it wasn't trivialising encounters any more than any other healer does. In fact, it was barely enough to make scourge a viable healer for so many encounters that scourge desperately needed a support weapon, a buff to its boon access and an improvement to its raw healing. Until it got that it would remain merely the spec that helped less experienced groups get through content and get a chance to learn it, which was its only edge over other healers.

Toxic veterans ran no heal scourges in their groups because that wasn't proper min-maxing and I'm really starting to get sick of the same toxic veterans now telling me how this nerf is a good thing. 

Edited September 14 by borisslav.9026

[borisslav.9026]

3 hours ago, Sorasnobody.9350 said:

healing/swiftness (therefore freeing up the relic slot)

You mean the relic slot that's already occupied by Mercy because that's the only way Transfusion actually does something? 😶

[Dreamonology.8362]

They want everyone to just play Guardian and delete every other class in the game. You can now be a litty Firebrand support that does 29392393 the healing of support scourge ever did. Only perk of scourge support was the transfusion teleport and boon rip.

Edited September 15 by Dreamonology.8362

[Jobber.6348]

Just gonna say if they want to remove the power of downed ally pull for res then proper compensations are needed for Scourge to help people not be downed in the first place or revert previous nerfs.

Signet of Undeath needs to be back to 3 allies. 

Maybe rework Soul Marks to also trigger on allies and then baseline buff Marks to be similar to Mark of Blood and grant Boons to allies. 

Mark of Blood already grants Regen so there is a template there for Staff to become supportive.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

4 hours ago, borisslav.9026 said:

You mean the relic slot that's already occupied by Mercy because that's the only way Transfusion actually does something? 😶

Troll Relic, Flock is better at PREVENTING downs in the first place for Core.
And then with SotO, Midnight King/Febe for Fury/Swift.
Mind you, Fury is usually a non-issue with so many dps/qdps in the game farting out Fury, like Mesmers and Heralds.

Edited September 15 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974

[EDOTDOT.9265]

I have to give a +1 to being against this change because all it's doing is removing fun from the game.  The people saying "git gud?"  Well, I'm assuming that you already have your guild(s) and friends of choice so you literally don't have to pull if you don't want/need to.  Meanwhile, others clearly want/need to do so and if that adds to their enjoyment, then I would say let them have it.

 

If I had to go a little further in my own assessment, then I would definitely be wondering if "balancing" is a task that should be given to other associates because this trend of adding and removing things tells me that these ideas are never fully thought out.  They added Concentration and Expertise to Celestial and now they're removing them.  They added Extirpation and now they're removing it.  They added Transfusion with its pull ability and now they're removing it.  Do better, devs.

[Shade.8037]

3 minutes ago, EDOTDOT.9265 said:

I have to give a +1 to being against this change because all it's doing is removing fun from the game.  The people saying "git gud?"  Well, I'm assuming that you already have your guild(s) and friends of choice so you literally don't have to pull if you don't want/need to.  Meanwhile, others clearly want/need to do so and if that adds to their enjoyment, then I would say let them have it.

 

If I had to go a little further in my own assessment, then I would definitely be wondering if "balancing" is a task that should be given to other associates because this trend of adding and removing things tells me that these ideas are never fully thought out.  They added Concentration and Expertise to Celestial and now they're removing them.  They added Extirpation and now they're removing it.  They added Transfusion with its pull ability and now they're removing it.  Do better, devs.

This is what i do not understand. Why is it on A net to destroy the identity of a heal class, just because some people think it makes some fights too easy?  Make your own group, don't bring scourge, done. Many groups don't even want scourges already, if they bother you...DO THAT.

This whole thing (PvE wise atleast) Feels like gatekeeping. Every argument against the fact that this is going to screw over newer/lower skilled/ genuinely disabled players is the whole. "Good, they don't deserve the kill till they git gud, if they don't then they should go play candy crush." sort of attitude and frankly i have no patience for that.