Open Letter to ANet Regarding Latest Patch

[Sugar Min.5834]

Many professions got hit bad, very bad, by the July nerf patch, in particular, Mesmer, Engineer and Ranger. Despite many giving feedbacks, complaining that the nerfs were too high handled, we got a second nerf for engineer and even a third one for ranger.

You can write a full 10 page reasons and feedbacks on what should be done. NO ONE in ANet cares. Or perhaps those who do care, they can't do anything and those that can listen and change... They Don't Care. ANet team only response to calls for nerf. That's it.So be careful when you call for a nerf to other professions, the favours will be returned.

Do you think the change to -180 vitality in Scrapper is because they are finally listening to us? No. That lightened nerf is consolation for a even bigger nerf to antitoxin build in the next patch.

Like those not affected by the nerfs always say. " It's called balance and learn to adapt " blah, blah, blah...

Adaptation is always a punishment. We have all been punished many times before. Nothing new. ANet is not like before.

[Axl.8924]

They will listen if we hit them where it hurts the most:The wallet. If we stop purchasing new expansions and stuff and quit playing, im sure they will decide to go in emergency, but because we likely won't, then they will continue to work this way.

They are also at ends meet trying to make the whiners in WVW happy and necros happy.

[Saracen.2691]

@Axl.8924 said:They will listen if we hit them where it hurts the most:The wallet. If we stop purchasing new expansions and stuff and quit playing, im sure they will decide to go in emergency, but because we likely won't, then they will continue to work this way.

They are also at ends meet trying to make the whiners in WVW happy and necros happy.

That's never going to happen. People are too impulsive and forgiving. If they announced new elite specs tomorrow Necromancer would be good again for three or four days and then it'd be another 1-2 years of being made increasingly redundant before this point was reached again. The only way I can think of this mistake ever being addressed is refusing to allow it to fade from relevance, not letting any of the threads fall off Necromancer's main page until ANet works up the courtesy to recognise their flawed decision. If they lock the threads then it perfectly sets the tone for the kind of enthusiasm we should have for the indefinite future of how much the modern ANet really cares about interacting with its community.

[Agrippa.1693]

@"Mil.3562" said:Many professions got hit bad, very bad, by the July nerf patch, in particular, Mesmer, Engineer and Ranger. Despite many giving feedbacks, complaining that the nerfs were too high handled, we got a second nerf for engineer and even a third one for ranger.

You can write a full 10 page reasons and feedbacks on what should be done. NO ONE in ANet cares. Or perhaps those who do care, they can't do anything and those that can listen and change... They Don't Care. ANet team only response to calls for nerf. That's it.So be careful when you call for a nerf to other professions, the favours will be returned.

Do you think the change to -180 vitality in Scrapper is because they are finally listening to us? No. That lightened nerf is consolation for a even bigger nerf to antitoxin build in the next patch.

Like those not affected by the nerfs always say. " It's called balance and learn to adapt " blah, blah, blah...

Adaptation is always a punishment. We have all been punished many times before. Nothing new. ANet is not like before.

I'm actually one of those that find it even kind of fair that the Scourge got nerfed in PvP and was supposed to receive nerfs in WvW (although ANet failed again, by the looks of it). They have been a staple in those gamemodes for a long time now! I hope its place is going to be covered by new blood now, they deserve it!

I still have to come across the first Mesmer or Ranger main that wishes themselves completely out of the PvE endgame META which they've been dominating since HoT, so that it can be replaced by new blood, i.e. by Necro's??!!! they definitely deserve it!

[Dawdler.8521]

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:I'm actually one of those that find it even kind of fair that the Scourge got nerfed in PvP and was supposed to receive nerfs in WvW (although ANet failed again, by the looks of it).By what looks? I know what the numbers say but personally... I'm loving it so far. Zerging seem to be much less ground pressure and no longer pulsing AoE death trains just steaming forward while you cant touch them from any angle. Yeah bombs still hit hard of course. But still its much easier to zigzag into range and go deep without dying as soon as as you get within necro range.

Of course, I'm not playing a necro. But I dont exactly cry for the class that has singlehandedly set the pace of the meta for many, many years either. And I am not seeing a lack of necros either - they still seem to make up 50%+ of zergs and are pretty common to meet while roaming and smallscaling.

I know this is an utterly futile response on the necro forums, but hey I felt like it.

[Saracen.2691]

@Dawdler.8521 said:Of course, I'm not playing a necro. But I dont exactly cry for the class that has singlehandedly set the pace of the meta for many, many years either. And I am not seeing a lack of necros either - they still seem to make up 50%+ of zergs and are pretty common to meet while roaming and smallscaling.

I know this is an utterly futile response on the necro forums, but hey I felt like it.

The issue is Necromancer is increasingly worthless everywhere else. This patch hasn't made Necromancer worse in WvW, obviously the presence of them isn't going to dry up there. The point is that isn't an excuse for destroying the spec outside of WvW where it hasn't received the nerf at all ANet wanted. In PvE we had the illustrious position of being an unenviable alternative to better classes before this patch. Now we're just wastes of slots. Imagine if it was your favourite class that happened to. Would you be satisfied?

[DeceiverX.8361]

God forbid a class that is MASSIVELY over-performing and completely devoid of skill is nerfed.

They need to go further. Firebrand should be next in line to be dropped down a few pegs, followed by Holo, Soulbeast, and Scrapper, and Scourge still needs further risk and less presence in WvW.

Then if they remove mount bonus health and literally all of its damage in WvW there might actually be a game I'd play again.

[Sigmoid.7082]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:God forbid a class that is MASSIVELY over-performing and completely devoid of skill is nerfed.

They need to go further. Firebrand should be next in line to be dropped down a few pegs, followed by Holo, Soulbeast, and Scrapper, and Scourge still needs further risk and less presence in WvW.

Then if they remove mount bonus health and literally all of its damage in WvW there might actually be a game I'd play again.

The problem is they didnt nerf it in Wvw. If anything it's objectively stronger.

Their intention missed the mark and urged it where they were trying to nerf it and nerf if where they were trying to leave it be.

[Saracen.2691]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:God forbid a class that is MASSIVELY over-performing and completely devoid of skill is nerfed.

They need to go further. Firebrand should be next in line to be dropped down a few pegs, followed by Holo, Soulbeast, and Scrapper, and Scourge still needs further risk and less presence in WvW.

Then if they remove mount bonus health and literally all of its damage in WvW there might actually be a game I'd play again.

You're supporting an extremely short-sighted punishment for an entire class based on an issue in a single gamemode where this change isn't a nerf. With minor adjustment to playstyle it's a buff in WvW and from your previous post it's obvious you aren't looking for any kind of genuine balance or fairness. You'd be happy to let an entire class be butchered in significant chunks of the game where Necromancer is already the worst and cannot in any universe be described as 'overperforming' because of WvW where what you hate about Scourge has only gotten stronger.

[Electra.7530]

@"Cayenne.5341" said:couldn't agree more with the OP, well said. I do not think i will play my scourge again until this change is adjusted or reverted. Luckily I enjoy the guardian in pvp right now, otherwise I would take a longer break as well. I feel bad for scourges when fighting them.

Same here. I don't play it anymore after this rework. I"m sure that was the goal of Anet, to get us off the scourge.

We know how devastating scourges en masse are in zergs in WvW and there was no end to the complaints and crying and whining. The rework comes as no surprise to me. After months of crying and bitter tears and raging from players, Anet did this to us and don't care how we feel about it.

But on the other hand, I'm a condition/toughness build player. So I don't mind the death magic works. I depend on toughness. I don't much care for reaper trait line. It's a light armored class given a melee weapon. Seemed really counterintuitive to me. But, then wait until you encounter a really good reaper out there alone in WvW and it's kinda awesome! (I found that out the hard way more than once.) Well, it was awesome a year ago anyhow.

I'm going back to necromancer condi/toughness and trying to come up with a build that will work for me in pve. In WvW or PvP, I don't use necro, I'll go on firebrand or herald or even berzerker now.

[Nimon.7840]

Something that came to my mind.What if they didn't do the change they did, instead changed sand savant to the following:+2 targets, so shades now hit 5 (necro still counts as shade)But instead of doing dmg (tooltip dmg from f1), shades give barrier.

• f3 would need a barrier amount nerf then. And f5 would still do dmg.The only problem I see with this change would be too many Condi cleanses from abrasive grit. But that would be 19 cleanses per minute per target Max. In wvw (assuming you are using f1 on count recharge)And 30 cleanses per target per minute in pve (without alacrity)Assuming f3+the barrier from f1 trigger counts as one barrier application. Else you got 7 more in both gamemodes

[Dadnir.5038]

@Nimon.7840 said:Something that came to my mind.What if they didn't do the change they did, instead changed sand savant to the following:+2 targets, so shades now hit 5 (necro still counts as shade)But instead of doing dmg (tooltip dmg from f1), shades give barrier.f3 would need a barrier amount nerf then. And f5 would still do dmg.The only problem I see with this change would be too many Condi cleanses from abrasive grit. But that would be 19 cleanses per minute per target Max. In wvw (assuming you are using f1 on count recharge)And 30 cleanses per target per minute in pve (without alacrity)Assuming f3+the barrier from f1 trigger counts as one barrier application. Else you got 7 more in both gamemodes

From the look of it, they wouldn't do it. The thing is that ANet just seem deadset on having scourge being primarily an area denial specialization. With their change the solidify the notion that area denial is the primary way for scourge to defend himself and it's allies. The support? They don't mind nerfing it as long as the area denial stay.

[Dragoth.7153]

Necro class just came back to it's usual "joke tier".We have useless toughness mechanic not really utilized in PvE and actually being an unwanted toughness source in raids (if someone is mad enough to take Death Magic for either poison dmg or extra power). Death Magic became a WvW only traitline now.Scourge is another story. I just completely stopped using it in open world and switched back to reaper. GG.

[Ensign.2189]

@Saracen.2691 said:What was the only thing Scourge could do with a measure of superiority before the patch?

It was, by a wide margin, the easiest class to solo hard content on, for instance Arkk CM. Chrono had a higher peak potential, but soloing on a chrono required near-perfect play, while merely very good play would get the job done on a Scourge.

It had also been amongst the highest win rate specializations in sPvP for years and a backbone of the meta.

It is also a wildly popular general PvE character owing to its ease of play and high general power level without party support. Other characters can respec to gain the kinds of solo power the Scourge had, but Scourge got near full raid output alongside all the self tools. Raiding with a big stack of Scourges was similarly known to be faceroll easy.

But wait there's more...it was also, as you say, an oppressively powerful WvW zerg class.

In fact, the only weaknesses a Scourge had were:

1v1 PvP. While it is the most devastating spec available in a team fight, Scourge doesn't have the defensive tools to fight the strongest dueling specs on its own.

Raid speed runs. In the hands of an experienced player a Scourge's max DPS topped out about 15% behind the best options available.

Anyone bemoaning how weak the Scourge was before the nerf is feeding you wheelbarrows full of yak dung. It has been at the top of the pack across game modes for years, and settling into the middle of the pack after some of the rough edges are cleaned up is not a bad thing by any stretch.

[Axl.8924]

@Ensign.2189 said:

@Saracen.2691 said:What was the only thing Scourge could do with a measure of superiority before the patch?

It was, by a wide margin, the easiest class to solo hard content on, for instance Arkk CM. Chrono had a higher peak potential, but soloing on a chrono required near-perfect play, while merely very good play would get the job done on a Scourge.

It had also been amongst the highest win rate specializations in sPvP for years and a backbone of the meta.

It is also a wildly popular general PvE character owing to its ease of play and high general power level without party support. Other characters can respec to gain the kinds of solo power the Scourge had, but Scourge got near full raid output alongside all the self tools. Raiding with a big stack of Scourges was similarly known to be faceroll easy.

But wait there's more...it was also, as you say, an oppressively powerful WvW zerg class.

In fact, the only weaknesses a Scourge had were:

1v1 PvP. While it is the most devastating spec available in a team fight, Scourge doesn't have the defensive tools to fight the strongest dueling specs on its own.

Raid speed runs. In the hands of an experienced player a Scourge's max DPS topped out about 15% behind the best options available.

Anyone bemoaning how weak the Scourge was before the nerf is feeding you wheelbarrows full of yak dung. It has been at the top of the pack across game modes for years, and settling into the middle of the pack after some of the rough edges are cleaned up is not a bad thing by any stretch.

The problem as others said it only overperformed in WVW after all the other nerfs due to how oppressive it is, and now its even more oppressive while nerfing pve where it shouldn't.

The way you defend the nerfs makes me think you want scourge to be useless and unplayable.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Ensign.2189 said:

@"Saracen.2691" said:What was the only thing Scourge could do with a measure of superiority before the patch?

It was, by a wide margin, the easiest class to solo hard content on, for instance Arkk CM. Chrono had a higher peak potential, but soloing on a chrono required near-perfect play, while merely very good play would get the job done on a Scourge.It's funny because I have a complete different experience with Arkk CM. And most have, btw. You just give anecdotal proof here. And if you look at real statistics it's only one thing that really makes Arkk CM incredibly easy (and fast): DAMAGE, and a lot of it! You can skip a lot of mechanics that way. And you know which class is actually your worst pick in that matter .... indeed, the Necro (and all its specializations)!!!

EDIT: sorry, my bad, I see you were referring to solo-ing Arkk CM: well, it's been done better by other classes already (just do a search), but let's assume you're on the right track here, and Scourge would be the absolute record holder in this very niched self-constructed (read: player-constructed) challenge, it still says nothing about ... well anything really! I mean, I think thief holds the record of highest critter damage .... what should we do with this info??? Or the fastest solo for Lupicus that has been recorded is now set by a Firebrand ... again, what should we, or better yet: ANet, do with this info? But most important: these are all very anecdotal references of people that created their own challenges, which is mostly not even widely competed at as well. We're not talking about speed clearing raids here, which has pretty much fully supported competitions out there (btw: where Necro is generally again considered as your worst pick!)

It had also been amongst the highest win rate specializations in sPvP for years and a backbone of the meta.I agree, and that's the reason that they should get nerfs there! But please don't drag it along in PvE as well, where it's (by real numbers, not anecdotal stories) the WORST class you can pick!It is also a wildly popular general PvE character owing to its ease of play and high general power level without party support.Every other class has this as well, they're just not that widely known as the ones for Necro. Again, cause that's what the Necro only has! The Necro doesn't have ANY real META builds (save for their niche role in Soulless Horror), so they're only known for their open world builds, which happens also to be their viable endgame builds.If you really want to FACEROLL in open world PvE, I suggest you try Warrior: with the new tactics, you cannot die anymore, while as well being incredibly useful in map meta events to other people!Or choose pistol pistol unload Deadeye, your DPS is unmatched while having insane self heal because of: Invigorating precision: and best of it: it's ranged as well!Or if you want to solotank Champions/Bounties/etc. (really solo-ing it from begin to end!), try the new and improved Scrapper in full Marauder gear! DPS is actually better than you'd expect, and you simply cannot die.Or ... well, you probably get it: there's a lot of lesser known builds out there, which are generally as or even easier than the Necro builds! I suggest you look at this site for examples: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World or i.e. check Wooden Potatoes Youtube channel.Other characters can respec to gain the kinds of solo power the Scourge had, but Scourge got near full raid output alongside all the self tools. Raiding with a big stack of Scourges was similarly known to be faceroll easy.And again, where's the real numbers in this? or are you referring to the so called "bugs" (as ANet always puts it) the Scourge (or Necro in general) have endured through their life, only to be gutted most of the time several weeks later! But really, in general: can you give me statistical proof (benchmark numbers, raidar statistics, etc.)?I read it as well in this community: "from hearsay, I hear the Necro (Scourge) is very viable" .... But everyone always forgets that every other class is as well, just quite a bit more viable, even optimal!!!But wait there's more...it was also, as you say, an oppressively powerful WvW zerg class.Read my PvP comment above: I agree, they need nerfs there! just not in PvE, they ONLY need buffs thereIn fact, the only weaknesses a Scourge had were:

1v1 PvP. While it is the most devastating spec available in a team fight, Scourge doesn't have the defensive tools to fight the strongest dueling specs on its own.

Raid speed runs. In the hands of an experienced player a Scourge's max DPS topped out about 15% behind the best options available.Finally: numbers! Too bad they're incorrect, it's more or less 30% difference, or even worse. And that's when you go full viper Scourge here! No-one takes full viper Scourges in their raids, cause ALL other classes have better condi options available: as I said, up to 30% better, even! Which is ridiculously high!Anyone bemoaning how weak the Scourge was before the nerf is feeding you wheelbarrows full of yak dung. It has been at the top of the pack across game modes for years, and settling into the middle of the pack after some of the rough edges are cleaned up is not a bad thing by any stretch.Well, clearly you only heard this from hearsay cause real numbers show something completely different: Necro's are absolutely on the bottom shelf in the PvE endgame, and they just don't deserve to be there anymore, definitely since they're probably going to get out of META on the other gamemodes as well now! There's just no excuse for it anymore!

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Axl.8924" said:The problem as others said it only overperformed in WVW after all the other nerfs due to how oppressive it is, and now its even more oppressive while nerfing pve where it shouldn't.

The way you defend the nerfs makes me think you want scourge to be useless and unplayable.

I'm not even sure it overperform in WvW, barrier and area denial (in general) overperform in WvW. Scourge is a great source of both but I doubt it is or it was to the point of saying that the specialization overperform.

In my opinion barrier need a rework. It's poor in small scale fights but it got to much potential when you start to be able to stack it on large scale fights. That said, it's important to understand that it's a barrier issue, not a scourge issue, scourge isn't the only one that use barrier and meddling with scourge's barrier output just uselessly delay a true fix to the issue.

As for area denial, it's simple, the more aoe in an area the deadliest the area. The "pirateship meta" isn't something that came with HoT and scourge, it is there since ANet modified the way stability work. Objectively there is no solution to this issue, except moving the damage from the shades skills to the scourge utilities in order to tune down the area denial powercreep that was given to the necromancer along with the scourge's specialization. Even then, it's important to be aware that the "pirateship meta" will still stay strong whether players like it or not. Never forget that what created this "playstyle" in WvW is the stability change, not the scourge, nor the revenant nor any new e-spec that will come in the futur.

The ensign guy just spit it's necromancer hate because it got prejudices against the necromancer. This guy probably came to the game after HoT and never saw how pitiable the necromancer used to be in the vanilla game. I mean, if he was an early player he wouldn't even think of the necromancer as a good solo profession for end game dungeon/fractal when in the vanilla game the title was basically shared by the elementalist and the thief with warrior trying it's best to contend with them. With HoT and PoF, the necromancer sure gained a bit of abilities stuffed into him but, that laughable from the point of view of someone that solo'd PvE in the vanilla game. The necromancer is still far away from being a solo "king". As for PvP, we all know that the reason the necromancer have a good score in this gamemode is due to it's boon corruption niche which is the only reliable counter to the boon flood that this game became along the years. WvW? The necromancer's role in WvW never changed since the vanilla game, they just put some barrier nowaday when they didn't before.

[Axl.8924]

Personally Dadnir i don't think it overperforms in spvp either, its WVW where its strong in blobs.

Small scale is something you spoke of and a lot of small scale events happen in spvp whereas in WVW its pretty large scale.

I started during the hot era myself in 2017 and actually got the rewrad for 2 years playing the game on my necro and ele.

The way i see it is that you would see the same kind of attitude in people who played wow they will spew their ignorance about a class.

I may have my bias but at least i try to be reasonable. I played ele and defended it i played thief and defended it from nerfs for stealth as some want to kill stealth completely which i think is completely unreasonable.

[Ensign.2189]

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:EDIT: sorry, my bad, I see you were referring to solo-ing Arkk CM: well, it's been done better by other classes already (just do a search), but let's assume you're on the right track here, and Scourge would be the absolute record holder in this very niched self-constructed (read: player-constructed) challenge, it still says nothing about ... well anything really!

Cool, now apply that same standard to how fast you can kill a golem!

Finally: numbers! Too bad they're incorrect, it's more or less 30% difference, or even worse.

15% was generous.

Scourge overperforms vis-a-vis other condi classes in actual raid fights, despite much lower golem benchmarks. It turns out that an easy to play and durable character with a lot of incidental power makes a big difference in uncontrolled environments. Outside the silliness of the Largos Twins, 15% is about right for the gap between a condi Scourge and a Mirage or Firebrand. That puts it on par with condi soulbeast and condi berserker - builds that I suspect you would also consider unplayable trash?

Well, clearly you only heard this from hearsay cause real numbers show something completely different: Necro's are absolutely on the bottom shelf in the PvE endgame

You mean raid speed clears.

You don't mean fractals obviously. No one is going to be surprised to hear that condi specs are not particularly good against Arkk, but that's not a reason to say that Mirage is trash. That would also be conveniently overlooking how strong power Reaper is against Arkk.

No, you mean raid speed clears.

...and you're right! Necromancers are not a top tier class for speed clearing raids!

Now explain to the audience why speed clearing raids is the thing to judge balance by in this game, and not just another very niche self-constructed challenge that says nothing about...well, anything actually!

[Agrippa.1693]

@Ensign.2189 said:

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:EDIT: sorry, my bad, I see you were referring to

solo

-ing Arkk CM: well, it's been done better by other classes already (just do a search), but let's assume you're on the right track here, and Scourge

would

be the absolute record holder in this very niched self-constructed (read: player-constructed) challenge, it still says

nothing

about ... well anything really!

Cool, now apply that same standard to how fast you can kill a golem!Sure, no problem there, I'm not talking about Golem here anyway: btw, Firebrand, Weaver, Ren would be doing more than 30% than the condi Scourge on a Golem, but hey, like you said, Golem should imo never be a standard to balance to!

Finally: numbers! Too bad they're incorrect, it's more or less 30% difference, or even worse.

15% was generous.

Scourge overperforms vis-a-vis other condi classes in actual raid fights, despite much lower golem benchmarks. It turns out that an easy to play and durable character with a lot of incidental power makes a big difference in uncontrolled environments. Outside the silliness of the Largos Twins, 15% is about right for the gap between a condi Scourge and a Mirage or Firebrand. That puts it on par with condi soulbeast and condi berserker - builds that I suspect you would also consider unplayable trash?Please stop it! You're really fueling people with wrong information: let's take a look at Cairn with REAL statistics this time:

https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-17194

As you can see the best Scourges (99th percentile) do about 24K dps there, whereas the best Weavers and Mirages do about 32K, that's about 33% more dps than the Scourge puts out. I hear you thinking, but those are the best of the best, speedclearers, etc. Ok, let's compare the 50th percentiles then: the more mediocre raiders! It's even worse there: Weavers and Mirages do about 45% more DPS there! So your whole "easy to play and durable character" theory is a bit opposite in this case, don't you think?But why stop at looking at Cairn: let's take Dhuum, our ultimate PvE endgame content:

https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-19450

Here in the 50th Percentile, the cRenegade (11.7K) does exactly 30% more DPS than the cScourge (9K)VG:

https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-15438

Scourge (9K); Weaver (14K) = 55%Gorseval:

https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-15429

Scourge (11K); Weaver (16.8) = 52% (fun sidefact, on this Powerboss, Reaper is doing 11.7K whereas Weaver, DH and Daredevil are all doing 14K+ .... still 20% more as the BEST DPS build the Necro has to offer!!!)Sabetha ... well, you get the jist! there's litterally not one boss, where Scourge is in the top regions or very close to it, not even where they're META: Soulles Horror, where they're about 32% behind!

Well, clearly you only heard this from hearsay cause real numbers show something completely different: Necro's are absolutely on the bottom shelf in the PvE endgame

You mean raid speed clears.

You don't mean fractals obviously. No one is going to be surprised to hear that condi specs are not particularly good against Arkk, but that's not a reason to say that Mirage is trash. That would also be conveniently overlooking how strong power Reaper is against Arkk.

No, you mean raid speed clears.See above: all my examples are 50th percentile: so, casual to veteran raiders, NOT the pro's

...and you're right! Necromancers are not a top tier class for speed clearing raids!

Now explain to the audience why speed clearing raids is

the

thing to judge balance by in this game, and not just another very niche self-constructed challenge that says nothing about...well, anything actually!Well, for instance, speedclearing raids is something that's done on a weekly basis by FAR more guilds, statics, etc. compared to solo-ing Arkk CM! I mean, that might be 20 to 30 people IN TOTAL. And like I said, there are several classes that has already broken the Scourges record, so even in that very niche challenge, the Scourge is not THAT great!

Lastly, I'm not even talking about speedclearing. Look above: I'm talking about raiding in general! As statistics clearly shows: the supposed to be condi king in this game is nothing more than a lackey hardly good enough for polishing shoes for the real kings: mirages/weavers/renegades/firebrands/etc.

[Ensign.2189]

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Please stop it! You're really fueling people with wrong information: let's take a look at Cairn with REAL statistics this time: https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-17194

It's really interesting how you can look at the top line numbers there and conclude that Scourge is trash DPS.

Before you dig in you want to try and understand the effect of selection. Players are not randomly assigned characters to play, they choose their own builds, and stronger players will gravitate towards stronger classes. There's always an effect here that exacerbates differences, but you mostly want to check for the extreme cases where a class is only being played by a subset of specialists. The extreme case here is the condi Weaver. If you look at the leaderboards, on the fights where condition damage is preferable there are usually big stacks of Firebrands and Mirages, and occasionally a Weaver. That confirms that Weaver is not a widely played character that generally good players are swapping to, but the province of specialists. If a character is only played by specialists you of course expect it to perform better in the aggregate stats.

So the comparison you have to make it so the Firebrand and the Mirage. Those are the gold standard for condi DPS in the current meta.

What do you see there? You see that Mirage is fight dependent, but in a typical use case Firebrand and Mirage are near the top with Renegade, Scourge, Berserker, and Soulbeast in some order about 15% behind the leaders. That doesn't scream trash tier to me. Trash tier would be the poor condi Engineers and Daredevils that don't even show up on the charts. It pops up more when its particular tools (namely ranged AoE) are more relevant, but otherwise it's merely a generic, viable but unremarkable condition damage that is a bit behind the capabilities of the specialists.

What's wrong with that? Does everything need to be a one dimensional DPS like Mirage and Firebrand or it's trash?

[Thornwolf.9721]

I feel for you, I really do. All of you as I am a revenant main and I know how it hurts to be complained about Despite the fact that only ONE facet of your class really shines and its only when it has the optimal set-up. People don't look at the spec itself, and A-net doesn't look to see what functions and what doesn't and over time my class as well has been hit pretty hard. Herald is really the only thing in any competitive sense that functions, you can run core "If you're good" and it works for the most part but honestly you have to work so much harder than anyone else. Condi still doesn't do enough while yes you can murder people depending on your set-up, its more about outlasting them. You can't just go for the throat unless your power and even then our damage has been dwindled away as has our sustain and our defensive's, We are a shell of our former selves and now you too get to sit on this bench... and Im sorry for that.

For a long time I had hoped that the QQing would stop and I imagine it won't stop until the class is dead, same as mine and same as any other class preforming well. Herald "Had" good burst but now hammer not only had a flat damage nerf, it also misses ALL THE TIME now and hardly ever hits anything. We have no ranged condi option outside of Renegade which sucks and while we can finally preform really well in raids at this point who cares? So alacrigade and heal-revenant can work whoopie but you had to gut the whole class OF ALL ITS NUANCE to make that happen? Great. Now you're doing the same thing to necromancer who FINALLY had its chance to shine, and be good and not sit on the side-lines and be bad-mouthed. The nature of the beast... but at least we all can say we are not alone?

[Axl.8924]

@Ensign.2189 said:

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Please stop it! You're really fueling people with wrong information: let's take a look at Cairn with REAL statistics this time:

https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-17194

It's really interesting how you can look at the top line numbers there and conclude that Scourge is trash DPS.

Before you dig in you want to try and understand the effect of selection. Players are not randomly assigned characters to play, they choose their own builds, and stronger players will gravitate towards stronger classes. There's always an effect here that exacerbates differences, but you mostly want to check for the extreme cases where a class is only being played by a subset of specialists. The extreme case here is the condi Weaver. If you look at the leaderboards, on the fights where condition damage is preferable there are usually big stacks of Firebrands and Mirages, and occasionally a Weaver. That confirms that Weaver is

not

a widely played character that generally good players are swapping to, but the province of specialists. If a character is only played by specialists you of course expect it to perform better in the aggregate stats.

So the comparison you have to make it so the Firebrand and the Mirage. Those are the gold standard for condi DPS in the current meta.

What do you see there? You see that Mirage is fight dependent, but in a typical use case Firebrand and Mirage are near the top with Renegade, Scourge, Berserker, and Soulbeast in some order about 15% behind the leaders. That doesn't scream trash tier to me. Trash tier would be the poor condi Engineers and Daredevils that don't even show up on the charts. It pops up more when its particular tools (namely ranged AoE) are more relevant, but otherwise it's merely a generic, viable but unremarkable condition damage that is a bit behind the capabilities of the specialists.

What's wrong with that? Does everything need to be a one dimensional DPS like Mirage and Firebrand or it's trash?

We are talking about having viability in multiple facets and being able to do multiple roles like other classes, we aren't asking to be better than others but at least be as good.

Once again what you say persists to WVW not spvp and pve for scourges(yes reaper is viable for pve and pvp)

The outrage is because they buffed scourge for WVW where it is known for overperforming and nerfing them hard in pve where they already struggled.

I imagine if tempest instead of being improved in dps was nerfed hard and pidgeonholed into support, wouldn't you be mad? i would.

People like options and what's worse, is that scourge wasn't improved really in support as far as i am aware, and actually nerfed them so now they are even more sub par.

Last thing we need is more excuses for people to say no for group and raid to a necromancer and on top get badmouthed for being a necromancer. You wouldn't understand because you play ele/revenant/ranger/Mesmer/warrior whatever. Classes have all always taken some hits, some worse than others, but no other class has been at the bottom as long in every role except necromancer. Necromancers want to be known as skillfull players who have active defenses but ANET in their wisdom refuses to nerf the radius and instead did this weird thing with scourge for i don't know why.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Ensign.2189 said:

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Please stop it! You're really fueling people with wrong information: let's take a look at Cairn with REAL statistics this time:

https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-17194

It's really interesting how you can look at the top line numbers there and conclude that Scourge is trash DPS.Who says that I'm concluding that, where do I

exactly

say that? I never said that they're trash. I think I actually literally said that they're viable, just the bottom of the barrel! A lackey of the real Condi Kings! And that they are!

Though I do know something that you were exactly saying, though! Let me quote it for you:

@Ensign.2189 said:Raid speed runs. In the hands of an experienced player a Scourge's max DPS topped out about 15% behind the best options available.And I showed you with real statistics that that's wrong! It's far more than 15% between the best options available (like you put it) and the Scourge!!!It takes a strong person to admit you're wrong! You should try it once.

Before you dig in you want to try and understand the effect of selection. Players are not randomly assigned characters to play, they choose their own builds, and stronger players will gravitate towards stronger classes. There's always an effect here that exacerbates differences, but you mostly want to check for the extreme cases where a class is only being played by a subset of specialists. The extreme case here is the condi Weaver. If you look at the leaderboards, on the fights where condition damage is preferable there are usually big stacks of Firebrands and Mirages, and occasionally a Weaver. That confirms that Weaver is not a widely played character that generally good players are swapping to, but the province of specialists. If a character is only played by specialists you of course expect it to perform better in the aggregate stats.

So the comparison you have to make it so the Firebrand and the Mirage. Those are the gold standard for condi DPS in the current meta.So I took Cairn as an example, cause it's a Condi boss, it's 'moving' all the time (for some kind of reason, don't ask me why), so torment works really well on it (should favor the Scourge) and it's an exceptional easy boss, so you can easily divide the pugs from the pro's by just looking at 50th percentile numbers here. And because you say we shouldn't look at Weavers: although the condi Weaver is not that difficult to play, and difficulty is always a subjective thing, and really hard to measure. But look at my last post, you can at least try with statistics: the bigger the differences between the 99th percentile (the best players out there) and the 50th (mediocre players), the more difficult a class would be, right? Which strangely enough, makes the Scourge one of the most difficult classes around, with a lot of discrepancy between the best players and the casual mediocre players.

But hey let's just do what you ask:

• We're going to have a look at the Mirage here then: which is dealing 21.1K dps here, whereas the Scourge is only doing 14.6K. That's a difference of 6.5K dps. So the Mirage is doing 44.5% more DPS than a Scourge here! But the Mirage is quite fight dependant, as you said,
• So Firebrand then: 17.6K dps: which is 20,5% better than the Scourge! Still not 15% right? Or are there excuses for that one as well?
• Renegade then? 35,6% better.
• Condi Holo (I wouldn't draw too much conclusions from it, though, cause the 'n' is quite small but still:), 39% better! Etc.

Really ... just admit that your math (15% ... which imo is STILL quite a lot, but ok, as you can see, it's not even that) is faulty. And if, even after you've seen the real numbers, keep on spreading false information like that, you're blatantly spreading lies (on purpose)! And I really wonder why you do that? Do you have a grudge against Necro's?

What do you see there? You see that Mirage is fight dependent, but in a typical use case Firebrand and Mirage are near the top with Renegade, Scourge, Berserker, and Soulbeast in some order about 15% behind the leaders. That doesn't scream trash tier to me. Trash tier would be the poor condi Engineers and Daredevils that don't even show up on the charts.And again: have a look: the Daredevil does pop up on the chart: doing more DPS than the Scourge. OK, condi engi doesnt, but that's because the condi Holo is a better option! That's the same as saying that the Condi Reaper (or core Necro) is not on the chart either! ...

[InsaneQR.7412]

It would atleast make sense if you hit less target per shade out instead of nothing as soon as 1 is out. So like with all 3 out you are bare naked and don't affect anything. With one out you lose 2 targets, with 2 out you lose another 2 and with the third you lose the last 2 (yes I calculate with 6 targets). And with the big shade you lose all at once.This would also give sand savant its tradeoff by only be able to affect 1 area.

Another idea could be that desertshroud does not require life-force but needs to have it below a threshold and sacrifices all shades to trigger the shroud and generate life-force instead.

Just something different than this mess.