A Fair Way to Balance Scourge

[Soilder.3607]

Hi all, I decided to learn scourge within the last month after being wrecked by it repeatedly. I present the following post as an unbiased source to balance scourge. I think that, for the moment, scourge over performs offensively, while the initial goal of the spec, as set by A-net, as being supportive in nature is overshadowed by this success. All the changes that I suggest have the goal of reducing the offensive capability of scourge, while increasing its' supportive capability, all without affecting core necro or reaper.

Let's start with some basics:

Dhuumfire - This trait causes burning whenever a necro uses his F1 skill. At the moment, it causes burning on every F1-5 skill used by the scourge. I don't know if this is intended or a bug, but it should be reduced to only cause burning when Manifest Sand Shade is used.

Abrasive Grit - Increase the condition removal to 2 conditions per barrier, and increase the might to 3 stacks. Simple enough, and makes Sand Flare decent condi removal for self and allies.

Sand Cascade - Double the healing power scaling of the barrier effect from this skill. As an example of why I suggest this change, changing from the Deadshot Amulet to the Magi's Amulet in PvP grants me 1200 healing power over the former, yet the barrier granted from this skill only goes from 2k to 3k. I am not advocating for one to use the Magi's amulet as a scourge, but simply showcasing the lacking effect that healing power has on barriers. By doubling the healing power scaling, this skill should in effect go from granting a 2k barrier to a 4k barrier at 1200 healing power, making it more effective for support at all levels of healing power.

Dessicate - Reduce the cast time to 1/2 second, increase the base duration of the might to 10 seconds, and also grant an extra stack of might for each target struck, potentially granting 10 stacks total.

Serpent Siphon - Increase the travel speed of the serpents by 100%, and increase the base barrier granted from 1.2k to 2.5k.

Now for something heavier.

Manifest Sand Shade, Unending Corruption, Sand Savant, and Path of Corruption - The following skill and three associated traits are usually always taken together in the current meta scourge build. The only time when these three are not together is when a scourge is running support scourge, otherwise known as Blood Sage. Now, only when these four are used in conjunction do they present a problem. Every 6 and 1/2 seconds, the scourge can corrupt three boons on five targets by using F1 and F2. Here is a small example GIF of the play in action.

https://i.imgur.com/ITBpeoj.gifv

This by itself isn't a huge condition bomb, but compounded with all the other skills and traits the scourge has access to, it becomes problematic. Now, how can we go about adjusting this without affect either core necro or reaper? I think the answer lies in Manifest Sand Shade. I propose the following. Leave Manifest Sand Shade as it is when it is not traited with Sand Savant. However, when Sand Savant is taken, remove the count system from Manifest Sand Shade, making it so you can only summon one greater shade, and then reduce this greater shades cooldown further to 8 seconds while increasing it's duration to 15 seconds. The scourge himself can still use his F1-5 shade skills around himself as leisurely as he cares to, but he cannot place his greater shade as freely as he used to be, reducing its' spammability. This change leaves the traits outside of the scourge line untouched and centers the nerf on just the scourge. And still, atleast every 8 seconds, the scourge can place his shade and corrupt three boons on potentially five targets, and he still has access to his shade skills to use around himself.

And that's it. I think these changes alone would still leave condi scourge it's place in the meta, while also bringing support scourge up to par in terms of barriers, condition removal, and might gain. Thanks for reading.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Unending Corruption only removes one boon with Sand Savant.

Dhuumfire is intended to proc on the pulse part of Sand Shade that triggers every time any Shade skill is used. It giving one stack of burning on every F skill use is completely intended. Bugs were fixed that were making this proc both more often (at launch it procced on every tick of Desert Shroud) and less often (if you used F skills in rapid succession, Dhuumfire only triggered once) than it was supposed to. Now the trait is behaving correctly.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

The only thing scourge really needs is the one nerf they will never get because it would make PvE-only players cry a river.And that's cast times + animation tells.

Scourge is effectively the current FOOS strategy. An ezmode aoe spammer build designed deliberately in such a way that anyone can play it well regardless of skill level. Basically the same thing DH trapper was. Video related:

But anet screwed up. FOOS strategies are supposed to eventually fall off, like DH did when it was meta. DH wasn't nearly as good in higher skill levels because it had obvious animations. Once you learned the tells, fighting DHs became a lot easier. The result is DH fell off at Gold II or so. But scourge doesn't have this problem. Everything it does is mostly instant cast, no animation, no room for serious counterplay. This makes it a FOOS strategy that never falls off at higher skill levels, and is just in general frustrating to play against / unsatisfying to play as.

If scourge had actual tells like DH trapper did/(technically still does for the few that play the nerfed version) it would not be a problem. But we all know the PvE farmers would toss themselves on the ground kicking and screaming throwing a toddler-esque temper tantrum if cast times were added so unfortunately it's a proper nerf that will never be.

,

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

The problem with cast times to F2-F5 is that 3 of those skills (Sand Cascade, Garish Pillar, and Desert Shroud) are primarily defensive abilities and as such need to remain instant-cast. No other defensive skill in the game (except, somewhat ironically, for Sand Flare) has a wind up before it starts protecting, so it makes no sense for these to do so either.

Now, I can certainly get behind Desert Shroud delaying its damage ticks by 1 second. Entire duration goes from 6->7 seconds, Barrier right up front, damage+ conditions start pulsing at the 1 second mark. Same exact damage and defense as now, but you have some warning before it starts doing anything directly to you.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

The cast times / animations don't need to all be on the scourge itself, but the shades.For instance, instead of the shades instastriking which they do now, imagine if they grew bigger and glowed red for a second beforehand.

Also...

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:No other defensive skill in the game (except, somewhat ironically, for Sand Flare) has a wind up before it starts protecting, so it makes no sense for these to do so either.

Ever played Revenant?

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:The cast times / animations don't need to all be on the scourge itself, but the shades.For instance, instead of the shades instastriking which they do now, imagine if they grew bigger and glowed red for a second beforehand.

Also...

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:No other defensive skill in the game (except, somewhat ironically, for Sand Flare) has a wind up before it starts protecting, so it makes no sense for these to do so either.

Ever played Revenant?

I guess I did forget about Unrelenting Assault. Kind of a hybrid style skill, though, since it's also an anti-kite and might-stacking skill.

[Razor.6392]

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:The only thing scourge really needs is the one nerf they will never get because it would make PvE-only players cry a river.And that's cast times + animation tells.

Scourge is effectively the current FOOS strategy. An ezmode aoe spammer build designed deliberately in such a way that anyone can play it well regardless of skill level. Basically the same thing DH trapper was. Video related:

But anet screwed up. FOOS strategies are supposed to eventually fall off, like DH did when it was meta. DH wasn't nearly as good in higher skill levels because it had obvious animations. Once you learned the tells, fighting DHs became a lot easier. The result is DH fell off at Gold II or so. But scourge doesn't have this problem. Everything it does is mostly instant cast, no animation, no room for serious counterplay. This makes it a FOOS strategy that never falls off at higher skill levels, and is just in general frustrating to play against / unsatisfying to play as.

If scourge had actual tells like DH trapper did/(technically still does for the few that play the nerfed version) it would not be a problem. But we all know the PvE farmers would toss themselves on the ground kicking and screaming throwing a toddler-esque temper tantrum if cast times were added so unfortunately it's a proper nerf that will never be.

I watched the video... I'm not sure ANet ever had anything resembling "skill progression" in their mind when they designed the new elite specs. It's clear their target is the lowest common denominator, and how to get a totally clueless player to win regardless of skill.

[Emberheart.8426]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:The problem with cast times to F2-F5 is that 3 of those skills (Sand Cascade, Garish Pillar, and Desert Shroud) are primarily defensive abilities and as such need to remain instant-cast. No other defensive skill in the game (except, somewhat ironically, for Sand Flare) has a wind up before it starts protecting, so it makes no sense for these to do so either.

Now, I can certainly get behind Desert Shroud delaying its damage ticks by 1 second. Entire duration goes from 6->7 seconds, Barrier right up front, damage+ conditions start pulsing at the 1 second mark. Same exact damage and defense as now, but you have some warning before it starts doing anything directly to you.

They could always make the defensive effects apply as soon as the cast begins, with all the offensive effects applying once the cast is over. The tech already exists for this. Tempest overloads have effects that happen during the cast and an additional effects after the cast.

[Saiyan.1704]

It's only natural that players are QQing by the condi's. It's also the reason why Firebrand has so many cleanses on them.... to attempt to counter Scourges and keep the team up but there's not a firebrand on each soloQ team.

If you nerf 1 then you have to nerf the other, but then we'll enter another Power Meta.... Engi + Mesmer + Thief would dominate even more... I say just buff Ele and Revs to change up the meta. Heck, maybe we'll replace one of the 2man Necro teams with an Ele or Rev for once.

[Flauvious.6195]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:The problem with cast times to F2-F5 is that 3 of those skills (Sand Cascade, Garish Pillar, and Desert Shroud) are primarily defensive abilities and as such need to remain instant-cast. No other defensive skill in the game (except, somewhat ironically, for Sand Flare) has a wind up before it starts protecting, so it makes no sense for these to do so either.

Now, I can certainly get behind Desert Shroud delaying its damage ticks by 1 second. Entire duration goes from 6->7 seconds, Barrier right up front, damage+ conditions start pulsing at the 1 second mark. Same exact damage and defense as now, but you have some warning before it starts doing anything directly to you.

Meanwhile rev cries in corner with dwarf elite that takes a full second to cast just to reduce damage taken by 50% while other classes have 0 cast time invulnerability..

[Darknicrofia.2604]

Scourge was designed as a "support" class.

No support class is suppose to have access to SO MUCH corruption aids.

Imagine if every Firebrand Tome 1 skill corrupted boons.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@"Darknicrofia.2604" said:Scourge was designed as a "support" class.

No support class is suppose to have access to SO MUCH corruption aids.

Imagine if every Firebrand Tome 1 skill corrupted boons.

Other support classes fart out boons and remove conditions. Scourge does the opposite instead, making the enemy weaker instead of their allies stronger.

[Darknicrofia.2604]

No one is gonna bother speccing into "support" when the core mechanic of the class is to fart out conditions via corruption, that would literally be ignoring a superior mechanic to gimp yourself.

[Saiyan.1704]

@"Darknicrofia.2604" said:Scourge was designed as a "support" class.

No support class is suppose to have access to SO MUCH corruption aids.

Imagine if every Firebrand Tome 1 skill corrupted boons.

Fun fact, we were "the Condi Necros"at PoF launch before they nerfed our F1 Tomb four times.... Now we became the support class... when the Devs could have saved that support role for a future specialization. Would have been nice to have Horn off-hand fill that support role instead of FIREbrand.

[Vag.5682]

I tell you what the fix is , stop run mindless gazillion buffs builds. Scourges were created because of that , to counter those gazillion boon builds. You can't have your cake and eat it you know but is typical of most players.

Tbh I haven't seen high rank players complain about scourges anymore theres also this class called firebrand that heavy counter scourges. just fyi I haven't seen 2 necro team in competitive pvp a while now mainly because there can be easy countered once players found out.

Scourges are the only class that keeps high rank pvp from not be 4 mesmers - thieves 1 firebrand teams. The only counter argument is that they should buff ele and revenant so they are a valid alternative for scourge

[Vag.5682]

https://youtu.be/qor0VMpB0zA?t=122

I just saw it your definition of op is necro and firebrand die in 2 seconds vs a Mesmer. Necro was the 1 in the world at one time , so um yea pretty op

[Khaliel.3918]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:The only thing scourge really needs is the one nerf they will never get because it would make PvE-only players cry a river.Oh really, what is it?And that's cast times + animation tells.kek

[Delweyn.1309]

@"Vag.5682" said:https://youtu.be/qor0VMpB0zA?t=122

I just saw it your definition of op is necro and firebrand die in 2 seconds vs a Mesmer. Necro was the 1 in the world at one time , so um yea pretty op

Necro dying spamming skill and dying with 15 stacks of confusions. It's what it should be. Nothing wrong here.

[Vag.5682]

15 stack of confusion in half a sec is fine right ? get the $out here thread's a joke

[Squall Link.5412]

I know how to balance scourge : delete necro.

[ArthurDent.9538]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:The cast times / animations don't need to all be on the scourge itself, but the shades.For instance, instead of the shades instastriking which they do now, imagine if they grew bigger and glowed red for a second beforehand.

Also...

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:No other defensive skill in the game (except, somewhat ironically, for Sand Flare) has a wind up before it starts protecting, so it makes no sense for these to do so either.

Ever played Revenant?

I guess I did forget about Unrelenting Assault. Kind of a hybrid style skill, though, since it's also an anti-kite and might-stacking skill.

There are actually a decent number of evade skills with interruptable pre casts such as burning speed, pistol whip, hornet's sting, and unrelenting assault. Maybe more but I can't remember. Also I know warrior whirlwind and ele fiery whirl occasionally get interrupted but the windows to interrupt those are tiny compared to the aforementioned skills.

[Velimere.7685]

@Squall Link.5412 said:I know how to balance scourge : delete necro.

I don't think ArenaNet would actually do that, though.