Some buffs I want to see which will make me okay with Transfusion nerf

[Jobber.6348]

1. Make Blood Bank affect allies

If we can't revive people good anymore and we lack several good boons with a crap GM trait that now isn't even powerful enough to be a GM trait, at least make Blood Bank affect allies so Scourge can do what they were originally the best at doing: increasing the health of your sub group artificially via Barrier spam and uptime. This would be amazing for enabling squishier builds like Thief and Elementalist which still struggle from time to time on Power builds due to the fragility of their health bar.

This is the only reasonable compensation you can give Scourge to grant them a new identity as the healer than can pump out so much Barrier that it basically boosts allies' health total as long as you're around. 

2. Baseline buff to Staff Marks to apply boons

Scourge lacks certain boons on demand like stability and even Swiftness uptime is a challenge for them. Protection also comes only from one source from Scourge, which makes them one of the worst healers for giving out life-saving boons which was previously a good drawback because they can instead res people well. With that gone, we need a way for Scourge to dish out boons. Mark of Blood already gives out Regen so I'm proposing the other 3 staff marks also grant boons, being Swiftness, Resistance and Stability.

It would honestly please me more if Staff was reworked so that Mark of Blood becomes your 1 skill and we get a new mark that can inflict Torment and Slow while granting Resolution but that deserves its own topic.

3. Signet of Undeath needs to revive more players again

Was previously nerfed to now revive 1 player. Make it revive 3 again or heck, make it revive 5 since it's the only ranged revive that costs a huge chunk of health from the healer, something that's risky to do in a pinch. It has a health cost, a large cooldown, just make it good please. 

[Szatko.8132]

Scourge already has access to enormous amounts of barrier that go beyond the barrier cap in most PvE situations. There's absolutely no need for more.

If gw2 developers will ever want to rework one of the necro's weapons into a support weapon, that would certainly be a dagger, since that's what healing scourge builds use already. Also, why would you need resolution on a build with so much free condi cleanse? xd

[Brujeria.7536]

Leave staff alone- Thats the only 1200 range weapon. We need a power or condition option for 1200 range first.

[Jobber.6348]

2 hours ago, Brujeria.7536 said:

Leave staff alone- Thats the only 1200 range weapon. We need a power or condition option for 1200 range first.

I'd rather convince Anet to buff Axe range to 1200. MH Axe has a history of being the big suck and that's because for a ranged weapon, it makes no sense to itself and how it wants to be used.

Initially was 600 range, was the ultimate suck.

Buffed to 900, still the suck and that godawful auto is still godawful, not to mention Axe 3 just doesn't feel good to use because it's still 600 range!

Buff that thing to 1200 range, improve the auto attack, and then make Axe 3 the old Reaper's Touch where it launches a flying scythe that bounces between enemies. It was on Focus 4 and was the good stuff. 

[VirtuesOfSin.1305]

I'm in the Bargain stage of Grief right now (just spent hours grinding out the last bit needed for my Legendary Light Armor just before leaning this monstrous gutting to Transfusion), and I have a few things that I would like to see to make it feel slightly better.

The first being a slight change the Staff Trait from "Unblockable Marks" to "Marks now apply Boons to nearby allies when triggered" like the above suggestion, like they were leaching the vitality of their enemies. It would make sense for Chillblains to give Swiftness, Putrid Mark Resistence/Resolution and Reapers Mark for Stability. On top of this, I believe their should be a Trait that gives Boons to a Scourges allies when he activates his F2-F5 skills.

Also, revisiting OPs first statement, one of the reasons Transfusion is picked over the other two is... quiet literally the other two are kind of garbage considered their Grandmaster Traits. Blood Bank should affect allies, not just the Necromancer. Unholy Marter is just weird too.

100% Agree that Signet should be changed back - even if it's PVE Only. 

Also, for Scourge QoL, could he alter Trail of Anguish to affect a small AoE around themselves instead of only providing its buff on the trail created? I know it seems minor, but having to run over people to give them Boons feels so tedious.

On that note, can we also look into Wells? Specifically Well of Power? I only just learned it doesn't AoE stunbreak and doesn't give Stab unless their is already a condition to cleans. Can we change it AoE Stunbreak like Guardian's Stand Your Ground, and to pulse Stab on its first pulse only?

 

[Lahmia.2193]

6 hours ago, Jobber.6348 said:

Buff that thing to 1200 range, improve the auto attack, and then make Axe 3 the old Reaper's Touch where it launches a flying scythe that bounces between enemies. It was on Focus 4 and was the good stuff. 

Make it accurate this time though.

[Jobber.6348]

12 hours ago, VirtuesOfSin.1305 said:

Also, for Scourge QoL, could he alter Trail of Anguish to affect a small AoE around themselves instead of only providing its buff on the trail created? I know it seems minor, but having to run over people to give them Boons feels so tedious.

Make Trail of Anguish spread out infront of you like Revenant's dwarf road and I'll be so down with that. 

I'll be almost okay with Transfusion nerf if they let Scourges roll out a carpet which pulses Stab and Swift. 

[maxwelgm.4315]

On 9/15/2024 at 2:58 AM, Jobber.6348 said:

1. Make Blood Bank affect allies

If we can't revive people good anymore and we lack several good boons with a crap GM trait that now isn't even powerful enough to be a GM trait, at least make Blood Bank affect allies so Scourge can do what they were originally the best at doing: increasing the health of your sub group artificially via Barrier spam and uptime. This would be amazing for enabling squishier builds like Thief and Elementalist which still struggle from time to time on Power builds due to the fragility of their health bar.

This is the only reasonable compensation you can give Scourge to grant them a new identity as the healer than can pump out so much Barrier that it basically boosts allies' health total as long as you're around. 

2. Baseline buff to Staff Marks to apply boons

Scourge lacks certain boons on demand like stability and even Swiftness uptime is a challenge for them. Protection also comes only from one source from Scourge, which makes them one of the worst healers for giving out life-saving boons which was previously a good drawback because they can instead res people well. With that gone, we need a way for Scourge to dish out boons. Mark of Blood already gives out Regen so I'm proposing the other 3 staff marks also grant boons, being Swiftness, Resistance and Stability.

It would honestly please me more if Staff was reworked so that Mark of Blood becomes your 1 skill and we get a new mark that can inflict Torment and Slow while granting Resolution but that deserves its own topic.

3. Signet of Undeath needs to revive more players again

Was previously nerfed to now revive 1 player. Make it revive 3 again or heck, make it revive 5 since it's the only ranged revive that costs a huge chunk of health from the healer, something that's risky to do in a pinch. It has a health cost, a large cooldown, just make it good please. 

The buff I want to see which will make the transfusion nerf ok is not having the transfusion removal.

Blood bank affecting allies would perhaps be even more broken than transfusion unfortunately, unless they absolutely gutted the numbers. Scourge barrier application is already so good that the devs are afraid of giving it an actual support weapon. It could maybe be completely reworked though as right now it's a PvP only trait or if you want to facetank AoE in open world.

[Dadnir.5038]

If something need a buff, it's the minions' active skills.

• You want more boons on core necromancer tools? Put them on minions' active skills!
• You want more healing/barrier output? Make minions' active skill that destroy your minions heal/barrier allies in the area.
• You want more rallying? Make minions' active skill that destroy your minions heal down allies in the area.

Blood bank is already close to be gamebreaking in some area of the competitives modes. Staff have more than enough use and SoS don't need to outdo every single other revive skill of the game.

On another hand, half of the minions' active skills are situational, only used because there no better option to them in the necromancer's tool kit, and the other half is plain useless. This is where the necromancer need buffs. Minions' nature as "summon" make them non competitive in most of the PvE end game, making them provide some support to allies would enable them to find a place where they can be useful.

[Jobber.6348]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

If something need a buff, it's the minions' active skills.

• You want more boons on core necromancer tools? Put them on minions' active skills!
• You want more healing/barrier output? Make minions' active skill that destroy your minions heal/barrier allies in the area.
• You want more rallying? Make minions' active skill that destroy your minions heal down allies in the area.

 

Reminds me of Turret Support Engi but Turret Support Engi isn't popular and is support by other factors that only Engi has access to including Mechanist being straight up godly. It's an interesting prospect but would the player then be forced to bring Death Magic instead of Soul Reaping?

Hmm I don't know, may need a full run through of Minions again. I do like the idea of making Minions more useful though I'd like some sort of refresh and rework on Minions in general eventually.

 

 

Edited September 16 by Jobber.6348

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Jobber.6348 said:

It's an interesting prospect but would the player then be forced to bring Death Magic instead of Soul Reaping?

Forced to take DM over SR? No, I don't think so. DM encourage a very passive use of minions and a boon sharing gameplay via the minions' active skills would go against this flow. If we assume that the 2nd traitline is BM and the third is an e-spec, SR would probably be more useful for the sake of support.

[Jobber.6348]

14 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Forced to take DM over SR? No, I don't think so. DM encourage a very passive use of minions and a boon sharing gameplay via the minions' active skills would go against this flow. If we assume that the 2nd traitline is BM and the third is an e-spec, SR would probably be more useful for the sake of support.

To be fair, ONLY REASON Scourge runs Soul Reaping is the absolute need of LF Battery and generation to fuel their F1-5. 

If Minions can elevate the need to spam, letting Heal Scourge be more tactical with their F1-5, I think there's space to rework Minion traits in DM to make it Support oriented. Because there's already an extremely strong interaction with Scourge taking in Conditions via Unholy Martyr/Plague Signet and using DM traits to cleanse off the Conditions or pass them off to Minions. Rather cute interaction if you think about it. 

Edited September 17 by Jobber.6348