Lets go all in on Scourge!

[Lily.1935]

In light of the current patch after playing with the shades for a while I have to say the changes are a bit too punishing for the scourge. The necromancer has always had trouble getting people off of them, even before scourge and now its next to impossible. Even in Open world PvE its a major issue. If the goal Arena net was going for was to reduce the reliance of Sand Savant and to increase the player's requirement to actively pay attention they have failed at both.

Let me Preface this with the fact that I'm a rather strange player when it comes to necromancer and GW2. I don't like using Sand Savant unless I'm running as a healer. Even in open world. I like using demonic lore since it requires that I pay more attention to where I place my scourge and it forces me to aim more instead of just drop and forget with Sand Savant. I need to think about it. This wasn't a problem for me since I always had the means to defend myself in Open world and other game modes if someone or something decided to get to close to me. I needed to be extremely conservative with my shade placement too because too many shades would seriously damage my ability to fight, but it wouldn't cripple it. Well, now I don't have this active defense around myself and the shades are expected to be used in the exact opposite way I've trained myself to use them, along with many other players. Now, I'm not one to say that a player shouldn't adapt to the changes, however what I am going to say is that the changes to the shades should reflect this change in play style. So with that let me put my argument forward.

Cool Down on Shades

With the shades and their placement being a nessecity to the gameplay of the scourge I'll make a suggestion to further incentive players to take the other two grandmasters over Sand Savant which at the moment is the absolute best trait you can take, its not even close. Reduce the recharge of the shade charges from 15 seconds down to 5 in PvE and possibly 10 in PvP and/or WvW when Sand Savant isn't taken. Lets make this clear, you want us to spam the shades, let us spam them hard. We need to re position them and we are currently punished really hard by such a long cool down without the active defense around us. With the cool down this low it changes the dynamic of scourge in PvE, WvW and PvP, which would be welcome as opposed to only seeing the massive shade.

Players will need to adapt to the changes you've made and they shouldn't be punished for the adaptation.

Pulse around the player

For the F2-5 skills the pulse around the player has been removed as long as the shade is active. This is a mistake and i'll explain exactly what I mean. And I'll explain where I can agree with it and where I don't.

• Where I Agree: I agree that the pulse of the damage from the F1 should remain located at the point of the summoned shade or around the player if they control no shades. I can agree with this, this is a decent change. I'm not opposed to this. This locks the crippling and torment as well as the synergy traits such as Unyielding blast and dhuumfire to their location and not the player. I even agree that the torment pulse from desert shroud being around the shades when they're summoned makes perfect sense. This is all things I agree with.
• Where I Disagree: The F2-4 skills do not deal damage themselves but the benefits they pulse are extremely important. The minor bit of barrier, condi cleans and fear are all active defensive tools the scourge absolutely needs. If Melee is going to get in close to them, they shouldn't fold in on themselves and just die. Having this minor defense should absolutely be resort. The fact that the crippling and torment are not tied to these skills means that these can't deal damage to the foe getting close which means no triggering damaging traits such as path of corruption for the foe in melee, but it would mean that the scourge could have their fear which is very easy to defend against by a melee player, especially a pursuit player. Its not leaving them so defenseless they can't respond but not giving them so much field control they just nuke the player trying to touch them. This in my opinion needs to occur.

This is just a simple post addressing the changes. I would like to play this spammy shade style Arena net wants us to play, but we need the tools to actually be worth while to actually do it. This is my feedback from these changes. I really want to run Demonic Lore or Feed from corruption in WvW over Sand Savant. But as the balance is no, there is absolutely no reason you should ever consider anything over Sand Savant.

As always, I'm open to critiques and discussion. Lets get a conversation going. I don't like the changes personally, but I can get behind them with the right bit of retooling. Any thoughts or concerns? let me know. And Devs.... Seriously think about it.

[Curennos.9307]

! I've been complaining to friends on Discord that anet basically added kneel to Scourge without any of the benefits. I'm okay with anet's efforts to try and add, well..drawbacks or opportunity cost to elite specs - but this is far, far from that. It's not an opportunity cost (such as giving up a core traitline), or even a drawback - it's outright making the scourge choose, in a lose-lose scenario, how it wants to utilize its espec's primary mechanic in the form of using it or NOT using it. Maybe this would be okay if every other spec in the game wasn't overtuned unto heck, but they're not. This is the sort of change I would expect - even WELCOME - if it came alongside equally sweeping changes to the other specs, but it didn't.!! Shade skills are a not insignificant source of damage output that has now been severely cut. Say they're fighting a ranged opponent - locking down the enemy into shade skills is a pretty obvious/well used combo, except now it means the scourge makes themselves totally vulnerable to melee attack...So if you're fighting a ranger and they pewpew, you try to fight at range - whoops, they've switched to GS and now you have to fenangle more shades. And if you want to kite, well....whoops, that's another shade gone that your opponent can essentially walk out of unless you're using sand savant.!! TLDR scourge, the most immobile spec that gave up a lot of the defenses of shroud, is forced to choose between clinging to its shades for dear life (and then dying anyway) or not using shades to more easily deal with melee and...dying anyway? Because why did anet decide it was a good it was a good idea to add drawbacks to using and/or not using a main spec mechanic. It'd be like DE getting punished for using mark, but using it locks out weapon swap. It boggles the mind.

Sorry, that got a bit ranty. You put it very well, OP - 'Players will need to adapt to the changes you've made and they shouldn't be punished for the adaptation.'

Something the devs need to have a solid answer is 'what is scourge supposed to do - and then how is it supposed to do it?'. Because currently scourge is supposed to do a lot of things, but has no tools to actually do so.

Also - design consistency. Anet appears to have forgotten that scourge has a bunch of traits that encourage (or near demand, due to how gimped you are without 'em) shade placement.Desert Empowerment - barrier on shade placementSadistic Searing - burn on shade placement (honorable mention - Abrasive Grit, which has synergy due to proccing off barrier application, and Nourishing Ashes due to proccing off burn).

And then we have BOTH the mini trait thingies, Blood As Sand and Sand Sage, giving conc/exp per shade placed and the other giving dmg reduction per shade placed.

It's completely contradictory.

[Lily.1935]

@Curennos.9307 said:

! I've been complaining to friends on Discord that anet basically added kneel to Scourge without any of the benefits. I'm okay with anet's efforts to try and add, well..drawbacks or opportunity cost to elite specs - but this is far, far from that. It's not an opportunity cost (such as giving up a core traitline), or even a drawback - it's outright making the scourge choose, in a lose-lose scenario, how it wants to utilize its espec's primary mechanic in the form of using it or NOT using it. Maybe this would be okay if every other spec in the game wasn't overtuned unto heck, but they're not. This is the sort of change I would expect - even WELCOME - if it came alongside equally sweeping changes to the other specs, but it didn't.!! Shade skills are a not insignificant source of damage output that has now been severely cut. Say they're fighting a ranged opponent - locking down the enemy into shade skills is a pretty obvious/well used combo, except now it means the scourge makes themselves totally vulnerable to melee attack...So if you're fighting a ranger and they pewpew, you try to fight at range - whoops, they've switched to GS and now you have to fenangle more shades. And if you want to kite, well....whoops, that's another shade gone that your opponent can essentially walk out of unless you're using sand savant.!! TLDR scourge, the most immobile spec that gave up a lot of the defenses of shroud, is forced to choose between clinging to its shades for dear life (and then dying anyway) or not using shades to more easily deal with melee and...dying anyway? Because why did anet decide it was a good it was a good idea to add drawbacks to using and/or not using a main spec mechanic. It'd be like DE getting punished for using mark, but using it locks out weapon swap. It boggles the mind.

Sorry, that got a bit ranty. You put it very well, OP - 'Players will need to adapt to the changes you've made and they shouldn't be punished for the adaptation.'

Something the devs need to have a solid answer is 'what is scourge supposed to do - and then how is it supposed to do it?'. Because currently scourge is supposed to do a lot of things, but has no tools to actually do so.

Also - design consistency. Anet appears to have forgotten that scourge has a bunch of traits that encourage (or near demand, due to how kitten you are without 'em) shade placement.Desert Empowerment - barrier on shade placementSadistic Searing - burn on shade placement (honorable mention - Abrasive Grit, which has synergy due to proccing off barrier application, and Nourishing Ashes due to proccing off burn).

And then we have BOTH the mini trait thingies, Blood As Sand and Sand Sage, giving conc/exp per shade placed and the other giving dmg reduction per shade placed.

It's completely contradictory.

I imagine Anet will tune the scourge up in the areas its suffering. But we'll have to wait and see. This is why I'm making my suggestion. If I didn't think they would tune it up in the next update or shortly after that I wouldn't bother.

[Curennos.9307]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Curennos.9307 said:

! I've been complaining to friends on Discord that anet basically added kneel to Scourge without any of the benefits. I'm okay with anet's efforts to try and add, well..drawbacks or opportunity cost to elite specs - but this is far, far from that. It's not an opportunity cost (such as giving up a core traitline), or even a drawback - it's outright making the scourge choose, in a lose-lose scenario, how it wants to utilize its espec's primary mechanic in the form of using it or NOT using it. Maybe this would be okay if every other spec in the game wasn't overtuned unto heck, but they're not. This is the sort of change I would expect - even WELCOME - if it came alongside equally sweeping changes to the other specs, but it didn't.!! Shade skills are a not insignificant source of damage output that has now been severely cut. Say they're fighting a ranged opponent - locking down the enemy into shade skills is a pretty obvious/well used combo, except now it means the scourge makes themselves totally vulnerable to melee attack...So if you're fighting a ranger and they pewpew, you try to fight at range - whoops, they've switched to GS and now you have to fenangle more shades. And if you want to kite, well....whoops, that's another shade gone that your opponent can essentially walk out of unless you're using sand savant.!! TLDR scourge, the most immobile spec that gave up a lot of the defenses of shroud, is forced to choose between clinging to its shades for dear life (and then dying anyway) or not using shades to more easily deal with melee and...dying anyway? Because why did anet decide it was a good it was a good idea to add drawbacks to using and/or not using a main spec mechanic. It'd be like DE getting punished for using mark, but using it locks out weapon swap. It boggles the mind.

Sorry, that got a bit ranty. You put it very well, OP - 'Players will need to adapt to the changes you've made and they shouldn't be punished for the adaptation.'

Something the devs need to have a solid answer is 'what is scourge supposed to do - and then how is it supposed to do it?'. Because currently scourge is supposed to do a lot of things, but has no tools to actually do so.

Also - design consistency. Anet appears to have forgotten that scourge has a bunch of traits that encourage (or near demand, due to how kitten you are without 'em) shade placement.Desert Empowerment - barrier on shade placementSadistic Searing - burn on shade placement (honorable mention - Abrasive Grit, which has synergy due to proccing off barrier application, and Nourishing Ashes due to proccing off burn).

And then we have BOTH the mini trait thingies, Blood As Sand and Sand Sage, giving conc/exp per shade placed and the other giving dmg reduction per shade placed.

It's completely contradictory.

I imagine Anet will tune the scourge up in the areas its suffering. But we'll have to wait and see. This is why I'm making my suggestion. If I didn't think they would tune it up in the next update or shortly after that I wouldn't bother.

I am doubtful. If they were, why make it suffer for a patch instead of just...waiting until they had the additional changes it needed? If they do make additional changes, it'll be because the playerbase called them on their shit.

Excellent OP though :) Hope that's the way it ends up going.

[XECOR.2814]

They are not going to change anything lol its a lie told to shut us up.

[XECOR.2814]

Just stop playing scg thats the best thing you can do. And if we are lucky they will get their stupid statistics and learn from there that they killed the class.

[Infusion.7149]

The problem with the shade change is you can't dismiss shades unlike minions.If the nerf to sand savant was done properly instead of making scourge even stronger in WvW at range, it would have been better.

It's still possible to run scourge in PvP but you have to be quite prudent about shades and basically camp out once they're up. Putting them on a capture point tends to be safer since using F2/F3/F4 on the point generally is better than placement off the point. The problem is ranged damage really hurts you once they are up (such as rifle holo, soulbeast, or dragonhunters).

Not quite sure on PvE, I run reaper there because outside of niche cases boon corruption is moot.

[Lily.1935]

@Infusion.7149 said:The problem with the shade change is you can't dismiss shades unlike minions.

How do you do this without it being extremely clunky? Also how do you do this without harming the internal synergy that is built into the class? We'd need to rework so much of scourge just so this change could function properly and we'd still need a charge cool down reduction. What? would we pick them up like turrets? I'd honestly rather not.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Lily.1935" said:This is just a simple post addressing the changes. I would like to play this spammy shade style Arena net wants us to play, but we need the tools to actually be worth while to actually do it. This is my feedback from these changes. I really want to run Demonic Lore or Feed from corruption in WvW over Sand Savant. But as the balance is no, there is absolutely no reason you should ever consider anything over Sand Savant.

The only reason one take sand savant over any other trait is that somehow it support area denial and "support" better than the other options. The scourge's dps role and corrupt role were just overtaken by it's area denial role due to poor choice of balance design.

To support a "spammy shade style", ANet would have to change demonic lore in such a way that it make F1 being able to summon shades at will but with a substancial LF cost and shades being further limited in time (3s duration).

To support the use of feed from corruption, in my opinion, you need to lose the base area denial attached to F2-5 and make this trait specifically add a corrupt boon effect to F2-5. (Which in short mean that you need to suppress sand savant area denial by removing the F1 proc on F2-5 and rework F5 into a more supportive skill by shaving the damage out of it)

This would have given us:

• Sand savant as a support tool that let you support on a large area.
• Demonic lore as a tool that let you focus on burst of manifest sand shade for either damage or burst of barrier.
• Feed from corruption that focus on area denial throught boon corruption via F2-5.

All in all, this would reduce the outgoing damage outside of demonic lore, make it so feed from corruption have a very similar amount of damage than it does currently and confine sand savant into a support role.

[ZDragon.3046]

Kinda wish sand shades had a bit of functional mix from the Thrall summon on blade and soul's warlock class.You could summon it and command it to move to your target or move back to you when you needed it.It could soak attacks for you and apply various minior cc effects and be sacrificed for a intense party wide buff.It even had a break stun that let you swap places with it if i recall. IT was just a good way to do an immobile pet that was some what similar to shades. Was it perfect no.... but are shades perfect... nope far from it. A mix of the two would be grand imo.

The shades just feel so lacking and with each "fix" or "balance" anet makes they become more and more bland. (at least for me)

I think scourge needs alot of help it might be time to even consider letting some of what we know currently go as in just scrap it for a new idea and mechanic. Because anet struggles to balance this one and they even have admitted it.

Unless they are finally willing to do skill splits between pve, pvp, and wvw where skills change in functionality they may never properly deal with scourge without ruining it in some game mode or another.Players would probably rather learn how to handle different skill functions in different game modes over having one game mode break the skills in the other two. Even more so when it works really well in that 1 game mode which will lead to it further being cut down at a later date.

[Lexan.5930]

I would love to have reduced recharge time on shades, f2 through f4 still procing on the necro with the origonal shade size fixed for those abilities (f2-f4 always happen at your location at the size of a small shade and only 5 or 3 targets)

I think there also needs to be a way to dismiss you shade or a faster cast time. 1/4 cast time would be so much better or even instant cast.

Instant cast or dismissable shade would be so much better. Then you could either place and bare people running to you or you could at least be able to cast on yourself and f2-f5 at your location while your being stun locked