Superior Runes of Sanctuary & Abrasive Grit [merged]

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Hitman.5829 said:

@Conqueror.3682 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:That trait was too OP to start with.It removes conditions, it grants might, and it does all that to allies as well.

It was never OP because we dont had that frecuency to get barriers, what are you talking about?

The solution was to nerf the rune, no the trait. They buffed the might for compensation, but the condition removal stays the same.

So, remove a condition every 5 seconds, what a dumb solution...

Have you counted the number of necros in WvW?Multiply each by 5 and you get the number of allies affected by this trait.The trait was OP and it needed nerfing.

Im surprise it took anet this long to nerf this trait.

I'm surprised you dont know that the majority of skills a Scourge uses only grants barrier to 3 targets. Very OP in a 50 person squad, amirite?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Cascadehttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desert_Shroudhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Flarehttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent_Siphon (most META builds don't run this utility)

Well, to be fair, I was surprised too, as I thought they all hit at least 5 targets. But at least I took 5 mins to look up the abilities on the Wiki before commenting.

[ZDragon.3046]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

@Aslakh.3072 said:@ZDragon.3046 You do realise i was common for people to place a shade, use sand cascade and use sand shroud within 3 seconds to barrier themselves and clear conditions after taking damage and conditions. This isn't niche, people did run sand cascade before now and it is a significant nerf to its condition clearing capabilities which to many was the main draw of the trait.

Agreed. Previously we had the flexibility to manage our barriers according to the number of condis that needed clearing. We could choose to clear one or multiple in a couple of seconds. Now we can only clear one or two every 5 seconds.

Once again if you hinge all your self condi clearing on what should be a supportive trait more for your allies on necro of all professions then thats a build problem personally in my perspective. I simply cant feel sorry for the idea that "I cant use it selfishly as often anymore." It was never meant to be your main personal condi cleanser to start with.I already said 5 seconds might be a bit much but to be fair keep in mind a few things

This is an adept traitThis trait is meant for supporting allies and based on its text it shouldn't work on you at all to start with (but the game allows things like this across all professions )You have other condition management options on necormancer all over the place.This trait was hurt the mostly for its supportive capabilities (and thats what pains me a bit more) I dont feel bad that you cant spam it on yourself as often when it was never meant to be a self sustaining trait to start with.

Maybe. But necro doesn't have many barrier applications.Most of the times its exactly 2.And also putting an icd on the trait that makes barriers good is pretty bad.In PvP you will almost always use f1+3 together to block big boss hits. -> nerfedIn pvps you used them to try cleanse damaging conditions for you and your allies. In wvw its not even mostly taken because it cleanses, but because you can have barrier when engaging while also giving your group might. -> nerfed

To have those 2 skills back up infight, then the Condi clear was a nice addition, if you got bombed, you could use f3 + healskill, to provide party support, both together. Now that's not worth anymore

For along time ive not been as scourge fan (not because its annoying to fight) but because its too different from what drew me to necro in the first place, and i could always see that it required far more work for far too little reward from my personal perspective (after the ez bugs got worked out).When we were told that power was being removed from scourge because it was suppose to be a support spec i wanted to give anet a chance. Then support got hit because balance in wvw or something like that. We still saw no support power return. It's been months now with no signs of a rework to make it more support-ish as they said it would be. This rune change only triggered people to use a support trait selfishly. I do hope that scourge can be a good support spec one day but even before this abrasive hot fix it still was pretty poor and subpar outside of anything thats not WvW. They are a nice to have in PvE but people wont beg for them to be around.

Maybe this is just a hot fix to hold over till the balance patch where a more proper fix for the trait can be worked in and at that time maybe its supportive power will be restored.

I still think scourge overall is in need of a total rework because its been flawed from the start, clunky from the start, a problem for most of the player base from the start, and disliked buy a massive portion of the player base from the start. Many people who love scourge are hurt over this but just as many people who are hurt by how frustrating scourge is or "was" under unintended mechanics for the period of time they have to deal with it. What kills me the most is the fact that this is not the 1st but the 2nd or 3rd time now that scourge gets something crazy by mistake which leads to yet another several steps down. Each time this happens it a strike of hate on the elite in general because its not fun to deal with or manage even more so when the wvw and pvp areas of the game get flooded with them.

Most of scourges cuts has been purely from WvW and PvP which leads me to think that the problem is not with the balance team its with the basic design of scourge to start with. Its simply not currently designed in a way where it will ever be player vs player friendly and be wanted in pve at the same time. I have to say im a bit numb to the things that go down these days but i knew this would be the option anet would take in this case. Its not that I hate scourge players or fans but it was clear to see this coming and simply hoping for anything else was being a bit blind to the overall whole situation of scourge in general. I look at the past and make a judgement call whoa is me for being correct.

[That Guy.5704]

The interaction was obviously overlooked in any balance or Q/A pass that may or may not have been done.If you want to talk about things that are actually broken (in game inconsistency, discrepancy or functional issue) lets talk about that.Sanctuary runes state they work on ANY healing, but they dont work on regen for instance already and, in my testing (though I may be wrong) they dont work on parasitic contagion. So, that is by definition either broken, or bad tooltipping. BUT, since its already not programmed to work on "any" healing as stated, why not make it also not work on lifesteal. 20% of a lifesteal granted as Barrier isnt much, though, sure it can add up, but that would have been a real fix to an overpowered unforeseen interaction. But, no, a trait that has been fine for 15 months sees an unforseen interaction in a not fully tested upgrade overhaul and what must be the issue? the scourge trait, obviously.

[Pifil.5193]

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Copperheart.9517 said:Yeah. That’s actually pretty stupid. The problem was the rune. But you know NERF NECRO is like very other patch. So not all that surprised.

Sorta seems logical on my end...Either remove the rune so 26/27 classes miss out because of the one spec or just put an ICD on that 1 spec so all 27 specs can use it without breaking the game.

We can get emotional over it sure, but it won't do much. From a logical stand point, yes you would normally go to a source of the problem but in this case it just happened to be 1/27 specs was breaking the game, logical choice in this situation is to change that outlier rather than scrap the whole project and start again.

There are far more options than nerfing the trait or removing the rune. They could have put an ICD on the rune, for example. That would prevent other similarly broken interactions from cropping up.

[Sephylon.4938]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:

@Conqueror.3682 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:That trait was too OP to start with.It removes conditions, it grants might, and it does all that to allies as well.

It was never OP because we dont had that frecuency to get barriers, what are you talking about?

The solution was to nerf the rune, no the trait. They buffed the might for compensation, but the condition removal stays the same.

So, remove a condition every 5 seconds, what a dumb solution...

Have you counted the number of necros in WvW?Multiply each by 5 and you get the number of allies affected by this trait.The trait was OP and it needed nerfing.

Im surprise it took anet this long to nerf this trait.

I'm surprised you dont know that the majority of skills a Scourge uses only grants barrier to 3 targets. Very OP in a 50 person squad, amirite?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Cascade

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desert_Shroud

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Flare

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent_Siphon

(most META builds don't run this utility)

Well, to be fair, I was surprised too, as I thought they all hit at least 5 targets. But at least I took 5 mins to look up the abilities on the Wiki before commenting.

sand cascade hits 5 around you and around the shade (max 10) when traited with sand savant, and desert shroud doesn't give barrier to allies. You also forgot desert empowerment which hits 5 when sand savant is taken.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"ZDragon.3046" said:When we were told that power was being removed from scourge because it was suppose to be a support spec i wanted to give anet a chance. Then support got hit because balance in wvw or something like that. We still saw no support power return. It's been months now with no signs of a rework to make it more support-ish as they said it would be. This rune change only triggered people to use a support trait selfishly. I do hope that scourge can be a good support spec one day but even before this abrasive hot fix it still was pretty poor and subpar outside of anything thats not WvW. They are a nice to have in PvE but people wont beg for them to be around.

Maybe this is just a hot fix to hold over till the balance patch where a more proper fix for the trait can be worked in and at that time maybe its supportive power will be restored.

I still think scourge overall is in need of a total rework because its been flawed from the start, clunky from the start, a problem for most of the player base from the start, and disliked buy a massive portion of the player base from the start. Many people who love scourge are hurt over this but just as many people who are hurt by how frustrating scourge is or "was" under unintended mechanics for the period of time they have to deal with it. What kills me the most is the fact that this is not the 1st but the 2nd or 3rd time now that scourge gets something crazy by mistake which leads to yet another several steps down. Each time this happens it a strike of hate on the elite in general because its not fun to deal with or manage even more so when the wvw and pvp areas of the game get flooded with them.

Most of scourges cuts has been purely from WvW and PvP which leads me to think that the problem is not with the balance team its with the basic design of scourge to start with. Its simply not currently designed in a way where it will ever be player vs player friendly and be wanted in pve at the same time. I have to say im a bit numb to the things that go down these days but i knew this would be the option anet would take in this case. Its not that I hate scourge players or fans but it was clear to see this coming and simply hoping for anything else was being a bit blind to the overall whole situation of scourge in general. I look at the past and make a judgement call whoa is me for being correct.

True. Scourge's design is a b*tch and how ANet try to balance things around hurt more the necromancer as a whole than anything. Which lead us to always wonder why there is no PTS out there that might prevent design errors that hit the necromancer (and other professions) patch after patch.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Sephylon.4938 said:

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:

@Conqueror.3682 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:That trait was too OP to start with.It removes conditions, it grants might, and it does all that to allies as well.

It was never OP because we dont had that frecuency to get barriers, what are you talking about?

The solution was to nerf the rune, no the trait. They buffed the might for compensation, but the condition removal stays the same.

So, remove a condition every 5 seconds, what a dumb solution...

Have you counted the number of necros in WvW?Multiply each by 5 and you get the number of allies affected by this trait.The trait was OP and it needed nerfing.

Im surprise it took anet this long to nerf this trait.

I'm surprised you dont know that the majority of skills a Scourge uses only grants barrier to 3 targets. Very OP in a 50 person squad, amirite?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Cascade

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desert_Shroud

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Flare

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent_Siphon

(most META builds don't run this utility)

Well, to be fair, I was surprised too, as I thought they all hit at least 5 targets. But at least I took 5 mins to look up the abilities on the Wiki before commenting.

sand cascade hits 5 around you and around the shade (max 10) when traited with sand savant, and desert shroud doesn't give barrier to allies. You also forgot desert empowerment which hits 5 when sand savant is taken.

Well I stand corrected - thank you for the info! Like I said, I was surprised when I read the wiki as I thought it would have been more, but I have like 5 hours played as Scourge.

[Lexan.5930]

super nerf, you can now maintain a maximum of 9 stacks of might on a party using barrier with boon durration close to 100%. 9 stacks maximum. Druid specificly can spam might on a party of 10 like its no tomorrow.

The problem with the interaction was never abrasive grit, it was vampiric minor trait in blood.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiric

This trait makes every hit steal life for the necro onlyany hit of vampiric counts as a heal even if you already have maximum health (code issues)other healing scources wont heal you if your at full health so transfution on a full health necro does not proc the traitabrasive grit was fine, it did not need to be touchedvampiric MINOR trait in blood magic needed a 1 second ICD and a 100% buff to it's 20 life steal damage

[Sephylon.4938]

@"Lexan.5930" said:super nerf, you can now maintain a maximum of 9 stacks of might on a party using barrier with boon durration close to 100%. 9 stacks maximum. Druid specificly can spam might on a party of 10 like its no tomorrow.

The problem with the interaction was never abrasive grit, it was vampiric minor trait in blood.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiric

This trait makes every hit steal life for the necro onlyany hit of vampiric counts as a heal even if you already have maximum health (code issues)other healing scources wont heal you if your at full health so transfution on a full health necro does not proc the traitabrasive grit was fine, it did not need to be touchedvampiric MINOR trait in blood magic needed a 1 second ICD and a 100% buff to it's 20 life steal damage

Or make the rune not count life steal as healing instead of nerf buffing necros a different way

[Lexan.5930]

@Sephylon.4938 said:

@"Lexan.5930" said:super nerf, you can now maintain a maximum of 9 stacks of might on a party using barrier with boon durration close to 100%. 9 stacks maximum. Druid specificly can spam might on a party of 10 like its no tomorrow.

The problem with the interaction was never abrasive grit, it was vampiric minor trait in blood.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiric

This trait makes every hit steal life for the necro onlyany hit of vampiric counts as a heal even if you already have maximum health (code issues)other healing scources wont heal you if your at full health so transfution on a full health necro does not proc the traitabrasive grit was fine, it did not need to be touchedvampiric MINOR trait in blood magic needed a 1 second ICD and a 100% buff to it's 20 life steal damage

Or make the rune not count life steal as healing instead or nerf buffing necros a different way

I wish they wouldnt nerf boon necro because we already have such limited amount of boons to put out. We can only put out a little might and regen. We have to trait for lots of might and protection. Now all we can do it a little bit of might and regen. Protection requires a grandmaster trait and wells equipped which interferes with out might gen utilities.

[Lexan.5930]

lets try and come up with some alternatives to the abrasive grit change

I think that the MINOR trait in blood magic vampirichttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiricshould have a 1 second ICD and the healing received/ damage done by the necro and minions be increased by 100%

as it stand the healing you get is small but any hit counts as a heal even if you have full health and this is the interaction that is the problem with abrasive grit. specifically when the necro was alone and hitting many targets with multiple hits

the rune of sanctuary problem wasn't procing off regen and in pvp and wvw most people aren't getting more than 1 or 2 direct heals per secondALSO if you are at full health and receive a heal your health does not go up thus you are not "healed" thus you dont get barrier or thus might and condi clear.

The main rune or sanctuary problem comes with the interaction of vampiric making every hit the necro does grant a heal (even if it was over healing) thus granting barrier thus granting might and condi cleanse.

EDIT: can we please have 2 condi conversion back on nefarious Favor.Or have abrasive grit give barrier AND nefarious favor another condi conversion

[Hesacon.8735]

@HardRider.2980 said:

@Eramonster.2718 said:By design, the rune can be applied to all classes. But its op only when it interacts with abrasive grit. When one of the two needed a tweak...

Imo if players want to continue on this, first the players need a reason why they should tweak a functioning rune for all classes, over a specific trait; of a specific class, to win this one.

As far as I could see the biggest issue with it was how it interacted with lifesteal.We know they can adjust things to ignore things like Regen and Lifesteal.It's giving out two confusing things - is LIFESTEAL an actual HEAL or not. Because if it is.. There are many other traits, runes etc that would work with Lifesteal.

But the biggest issue now is that 5 ICD is a too bigger nerf. 3 seconds would of been the ideal number to go by really (imho)

I'm holding out hope that this is a hot fix and when they can make life steal not qualify as healing, they'll revert the nerf.

[Sephylon.4938]

We could just move the 5 sec icd on it to the rune, or as I said before, make life steal not proc it. Necro shouldn't have been touched for the sake of their mistake on that rune.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Copperheart.9517 said:Yeah. That’s actually pretty stupid. The problem was the rune. But you know NERF NECRO is like very other patch. So not all that surprised.

What rune?

[Lexan.5930]

@Sephylon.4938 said:We could just move the 5 sec icd on it to the rune, or as I said before, make life steal not proc it. Necro shouldn't have been touched for the sake of their mistake on that rune.

I dont mind the rune. I like the idea of being able to get some free barrier for healing.Plus weaver, scrapper and holosmith get barrier from traits and skills so them benefiting from more is fine.

the problem is that they changed the wrong trait (stopgap fix instead of changing the root cause)

the 5 second ICd to abrasive grit is too heavy handed. A 3 second ICD with 2 stacks for might for 8 seconds would have been much better if they really want to change a major trait instead of fixing a minor trait.

[Sephylon.4938]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@"Copperheart.9517" said:Yeah. That’s actually pretty stupid. The problem was the rune. But you know NERF NECRO is like very other patch. So not all that surprised.

What rune?

this one:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Sanctuaryspecifically:(6): Gain a barrier with health equal to 20% of any heals you receiveand its interaction with abrasive grit's Granting an ally a barrier removes conditions affecting them and grants might.

[messiah.1908]

i think anet didnt want it to work on regen cause it would have been broken. they just missed scourge trait and fixed it too.

[Flumek.9043]

@"messiah.1908" said:i think anet didnt want it to work on regen cause it would have been broken. they just missed scourge trait and fixed it too.

"fixed" as in kept the stupid rune, which just had fresh overhaul, so just removing it wouldnt be big deal.. but they destroyed the a support trait and made necro again a dps bot.

[Vagrant.7206]

@"Farkon.2170" said:Since the rune wasn't fixed, can't wait until another class figures out how to abuse it. Who knows, maybe it will have a weird reaction to necros in shroud.

No other class does lifesteal quite as frequently, nor has a trait that procs like that on barrier. The closest you get is proccing adaptive armor on scrapper, which would be minimal benefit at best. Abrasive grit is the only trait that grants a straight buff from barrier.

[Swamurabi.7890]

I predict a fix to the rune sometime in the future but the trait that was hot nerfed will not be reverted, essentially being another nerf to Necro. History repeats.

[rev in love.8439]

I would not like that they do nerf to the rune, it would really make it not work in other professions that can use it without being op but efficiently.Having cd of 5 sec is not exaggerated, 1 condition clean extra and 3 of power is not wrong and will continue to be used.Do you intend to run the rune so that only the scourage will benefit? NO thank you, the rune is not op.

[DragonFury.6243]

nice to known necro worth a little less than one rune in Anet eyes

[Astralporing.1957]

@rev in love.8439 said:NO thank you, the rune is not op.Neither was Abrasive Grit.

[Aye.8392]

The nerf should have absolutely been to the rune and not to the trait. This is not a good fix.

[Shagaliscious.6281]

Just another classic ANET response. "Hey guys, we just introduced a rune that is crazy OP, but found that a scourge trait that NO ONE has complained about since POF release is now OP due to the rune WE JUST INTRODUCED, so we decided to nerf scourge."