Scourge is not fun.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Scourge is much like whole PoF for me - extremely practical and efficient...but the fun is not there.

The power of the spec is amazing, the cool things i can do also (portal, self condies being useful with F2, sick bursts), but i feel variety is not there.Both core and reaper feature a lot of hard, yet meaninful choices. Starting with how much love will your shrouded form get from traits vs baseform.Ways to build around that are numerous, and many very fun and unusual.

But with scourge it seems like everything is layed out for you - Curses, Soul Reaping + Scourge condi is the default "go to" build, no need to even check metabattle - the synergies and result are so obvious everyone who gave it a try gets it. There is no shroud, so no duality that struggles over which form will be your main one and which "is on it's own".

When i play scourge i feel that in terms of functionality (easy, low cd aoe condi conversion, proper aoe condi application, easy condi bombs, portal) this is what necro was lacking and should have. But in terms of fun i just wanna go HoT hop on my reaper or core necro and test numerous builds unlike the scourge where "numerous" is the last expression you'd think of when someone mentions it's builds.

[Justine.6351]

Lol ya,I started scourge, looked over trait and made one. Couple days later I checked metabattle. Same build with subtle trait changes.

[kKagari.6804]

You know, I was thinking the same thing. I am of the camp that scourges need a little toning down. Not in terms of the damage output, but the accessibility to the shade skills.

I don't agree with how we can currently blast our shade skills even while stunned, or that the effects are near instantaneous. Both of these attributes diminish the counterplay aspects of the game.

It is probably very difficult to balance some sort of animation time into the shade skills primarily because it would render the smaller shades useless. i.e. if MSS's damage component had a delay similar to torch5. Even so, putting the skills on CD while stunned should not be hard to do.

And yeah, I agree with OP's first statement whole heartedly. Maybe its because I've fought so many scourges in the past week, but it just feels like such a chore to play. I feel like some of the fun in playing other builds is making clutch escapes and surviving by a whisker of health, but the scourge doesn't have these escape mechanics to make it fun.

[logan.5846]

Diving into a pile of enemies and hacking them up with a giant scythe is way more satisfying than crapping out sand.

[ElderNewt.5840]

I find it more fun because you have a real threat of dying..where as Reaper was always like..oh shit..about to die..Shroud up.. win..

[Exqq.7451]

I love the spec and could not be happier. I feel like the people complaining about survival are just using Raid meta builds in open world. I have never felt threatened or converned and find the class extremely pleasing. For open world swich to dagger for LF gains and spam F3 for constant barriers. Swap to blood if you need for healing wells or healing on F4 with vamp spams. Class feels super faceroll to me. Love Scourge.

[Zoltar MacRoth.7146]

I almost exclusively open-world and I love scourge too. It's a fun variation on the profession and the sand shade skills (trying saying that three times fast) are interesting. It feels balanced in PvE, making me work with my weapons to get that LF so I can use the shades. If changes have to be made for pvp, I hope those changes can stay in pvp and split off from pve.

[Aplethoraof.2643]

Honestly, I feel the same about reaper (I go pretty much the same for reaper as you listed for scourge) and even core necro (core I [used to] go spite as well). The problem isn't exactly with scourge. . .the problem is that death magic and blood magic are both fairly worthless traitlines. Most of the time, unless you are looking to have some fun with a minion bomber build, its not even worth looking at. If DM and BM offered something nice as well, then we'd have more choices to make.

Been having a lot of fun with scourge, it feels close to ritualist imo. I really hated death shroud, the mechanic was probably my least favorite in the game. Which sucked, that is was on my favorite profession. I'm glad anet finally got the courage to echew it in favor of other mechanics and expand their horisons (as they did with everyone else!).

[Zenith.7301]

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:Scourge is much like whole PoF for me - extremely practical and efficient...but the fun is not there.

The power of the spec is amazing, the cool things i can do also (portal, self condies being useful with F2, sick bursts), but i feel variety is not there.Both core and reaper feature a lot of hard, yet meaninful choices. Starting with how much love will your shrouded form get from traits vs baseform.Ways to build around that are numerous, and many very fun and unusual.

But with scourge it seems like everything is layed out for you - Curses, Soul Reaping + Scourge condi is the default "go to" build, no need to even check metabattle - the synergies and result are so obvious everyone who gave it a try gets it. There is no shroud, so no duality that struggles over which form will be your main one and which "is on it's own".

When i play scourge i feel that in terms of functionality (easy, low cd aoe condi conversion, proper aoe condi application, easy condi bombs, portal) this is what necro was lacking and should have. But in terms of fun i just wanna go HoT hop on my reaper or core necro and test numerous builds unlike the scourge where "numerous" is the last expression you'd think of when someone mentions it's builds.

It's because the power is sunk entirely into the shades. Core necro is pathetically weak. Look at how much conditions you output on scepter, it's basically nothing. We have no 33% damage boost trait for bleeds for some weird reason, making our bleeds so weak. We have huge ramp up.

And then comes desert shroud. Literally most of our damage is sunk into desert shroud, which revolves the delay of summoning 2-3 shades before activating it. So all of the necromancer playstyle seems like a huge waiting game.

Scepter 2 and dagger 5 also have hideous delay, but this is a feature of most necro skills with hideously long cast times.

Scourge has synergy between shades and the scourge/soul reaping traitline, which is why it is strong right now.

I will say that your experience is not isolated. A common factor for all these PoF specs outside guardian is that the utility skills are total garbage in PvE.

As a scourge, when do you use your corruptions? Never. They made all these boon hate utility skills which have otherwise anemic effects outside the boon corruption itself, and then proceed to fill the PoF maps and content with virtually zero boon usage. Soulbeast stances, mirage deception skills, all worthless in PvE.

They design the vast majority of the PoF specs for PvP gimmicks that have little place in most of the game.

Which means your capacity for a complete change in playstyle is reduced because the utilities are out of the picture. So all core condi necro gained gameplay wise was laying a shade and pressing F5 periodically.

Which honestly is a lot better than what soulbeast got, which is just a dagger with somewhat better condi application, but garbage traits, utilities, and virtually no change from the core condi ranger setup.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

@Zenith - i absolutely agree about core necro dps output and scepter. Scepter has got ot be one of the most boring weapons in the game, and on core necro (that has no shades, greatsword or reaper shroud) it is pure masochism. I wish they gave it axe-level rework that makes it much more interesting weapon and synergizing more with traits.

The problem with scourge is that it kills build variety. Let's have a looksey here:

• 0 precision builds not viable. You don't have decimate defenses, deathly perception works off sand shroud...
• no tanky builds - barriers can't compare to shroud's damage soak
• useless "on shroud" traits - sand shroud can't be flashed, has high cost & cooldown and due to it's raw power is reserved for bombing an enemy not triggering shroud traits.
• very little utility choices.Necro portal, trail of anguish (stab + stunbreak). Scourge can't be too choosy in what he slots, he needs the mobility and survival due to his nature. As a result Scourge won't be using a ton of core necro utilities due to lack of space on his bar.

[Maunzi.3764]

@Justine.6351 said:Lol ya,I started scourge, looked over trait and made one. Couple days later I checked metabattle. Same build with subtle trait changes.

You just described every spec in the game. There are very few classes in the game where the best spec is not immediately obvious - Chrono is perhaps the only one with REAL choices.

Necromancer just has it worst, because we have the worst traitlines in the base class. The reason there is no choice is just because there's nothing there to choose. Death Magic and Spite are just bad.

The only PVE choice for Scourge is of course between Blood (healy, supporty) and DPS, and the difference between them isn't even that big. I'm actually using Blood in raids more often than Curses, and it helps (not the best groups, so it's good support with fine damage. Can help silly people at KC or Cairn quite nicely)

[Kam.4092]

I main Necro, and I really liked Scourge at first. Then I geared out my Firebrand, and it feels like a way better designed Elite.

Scourge has a huge problem that annoys me, and it's the core mechanic. It's the Shades. They annoy me, and I feel I waste them when a target moves. It's extremely rare for a boss/enemy to stay still to be able to get a full Desert Shroud off. It's infuriating when a huge amount of damage gets wasted on a fight. Take Mai Trin for example. The way she moves straight up makes Shades near useless at times. The only Points where I can reliably unload damage onto her is when her bar is broken. When the adds spawn, the Sniper stays still and Shades work well to burst and Epidemic Conditions, but the fight is irritating overall. My favorite thing about being Scourge on that fight is the very short CD on removing Conditions with F2.

The Underground Fractal is another example of Scourge's Shade issues. I honestly wish there was a Trait only in PvE that teleported your Shades to your target like the Revenant Ventari Tablet.

I used to dislike Condition Reaper, because it relied on being melee, and using GS skills, and the Shroud melee Combo fields. I didn't like it cause I've always liked Ranged DPS, and felt forced to melee as Condition Reaper. With Scourge I have to be melee near 100% now for Desert Shroud, etc. When trying to kite on Scourge in open world, etc it's also annoying. I literally feel like a one trick pony that just comes down to extreme condition burst on stationary targets.

When you take an Elite like Firebrand and play it, it's just a whole other world. The skills and Tomes play so well. It's like a nonstop motion of damage. The burst Burning is great too, and can be done on moving targets mostly besides Tome of Justice 4. It has more unique skills too. The Mantra system on Firebrand is way cooler than Punishments to me. The Punishment skills are mainly used for Sadistic Searing, outside of this, they are kind of meh. Guardian as a whole has a Meta Power and Condition DPS build, with heavy support builds for WvW and PvP. It's a best of both worlds Profession currently.

I still like Scourge, and will play it, but it's just annoying seeing the extreme flaws of it nonstop when playing, then you play another Profession, and it see how much better it plays.

The Barrier mechanic in PvE is so meh also.

I wanted Necro to really expand and be great with its new Elite, but it's just another build with flaws with bad design again. I'd rather have high DPS in all aspects of combat, not just doing max DPS on targets that never move.

This is my frustrated view of Scourge in PvE. :/

[Maunzi.3764]

With Scourge I have to be melee near 100% now for Desert Shroud, etc.

To be brutally honest: I think this is the most reapery aspect of scourge. In a way, scourge feels more like reaper should than reaper itself does. Get close to it and EAT PAIN. That's really what the reaper power fantasy was all about. This is what Greatsword should be like.

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

One of the changes I could see that will reduce the overall damage but not destroy Scourge is, like torch 5, have an aoe animation that has a slightly delayed visual tell its about to be activated. This will give people time to bail, but not too much time as to render it useless. Add that to the stacking fix and voila.

[Ghostt.1293]

@Kam.4092 said:I main Necro, and I really liked Scourge at first. Then I geared out my Firebrand, and it feels like a way better designed Elite.

Scourge has a huge problem that annoys me, and it's the core mechanic. It's the Shades. They annoy me, and I feel I waste them when a target moves. It's extremely rare for a boss/enemy to stay still to be able to get a full Desert Shroud off. It's infuriating when a huge amount of damage gets wasted on a fight. Take Mai Trin for example. The way she moves straight up makes Shades near useless at times. The only Points where I can reliably unload damage onto her is when her bar is broken. When the adds spawn, the Sniper stays still and Shades work well to burst and Epidemic Conditions, but the fight is irritating overall. My favorite thing about being Scourge on that fight is the very short CD on removing Conditions with F2.

The Underground Fractal is another example of Scourge's Shade issues. I honestly wish there was a Trait only in PvE that teleported your Shades to your target like the Revenant Ventari Tablet.

I used to dislike Condition Reaper, because it relied on being melee, and using GS skills, and the Shroud melee Combo fields. I didn't like it cause I've always liked Ranged DPS, and felt forced to melee as Condition Reaper. With Scourge I have to be melee near 100% now for Desert Shroud, etc. When trying to kite on Scourge in open world, etc it's also annoying. I literally feel like a one trick pony that just comes down to extreme condition burst on stationary targets.

When you take an Elite like Firebrand and play it, it's just a whole other world. The skills and Tomes play so well. It's like a nonstop motion of damage. The burst Burning is great too, and can be done on moving targets mostly besides Tome of Justice 4. It has more unique skills too. The Mantra system on Firebrand is way cooler than Punishments to me. The Punishment skills are mainly used for Sadistic Searing, outside of this, they are kind of meh. Guardian as a whole has a Meta Power and Condition DPS build, with heavy support builds for WvW and PvP. It's a best of both worlds Profession currently.

I still like Scourge, and will play it, but it's just annoying seeing the extreme flaws of it nonstop when playing, then you play another Profession, and it see how much better it plays.

The Barrier mechanic in PvE is so meh also.

I wanted Necro to really expand and be great with its new Elite, but it's just another build with flaws with bad design again. I'd rather have high DPS in all aspects of combat, not just doing max DPS on targets that never move.

This is my frustrated view of Scourge in PvE. :/

i made similar comment in this thread but i it got removed because it was derailing the topicso.... all what you said m8

[Vermillion.4061]

How I feel about Scourge at least in WvW from playing it for a couple days it's basically mindlessly mash all your buttons and you end up averaging 6-10k dps over a fight being top 3 dps.

Not fun at all. :/

[Lahmia.2193]

@Vermillion.4061 said:How I feel about Scourge at least in WvW from playing it for a couple days it's basically mindlessly mash all your buttons and you end up averaging 6-10k dps over a fight being top 3 dps.

Not fun at all. :/

It's Wellmancer 2.0.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

That's another thing - on core or reaper you can actually choose your focus - shroud vs unshrouded. You can be a shroud camper, go for 50/50 option, or be a shroud flasher with focus on staying in base form.

But on scourge it's always spam shades no matter where, who, what or why. I see no choice, no benefits of for example going shadeless build that does not spam shade skills whenever possible. While on core and reaper such a build does have a point - more control over your character (no transform) and frequent benefits from shroud flashing traits.

[Lahmia.2193]

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:That's another thing - on core or reaper you can actually choose your focus - shroud vs unshrouded. You can be a shroud camper, go for 50/50 option, or be a shroud flasher with focus on staying in base form.

But on scourge it's always spam shades no matter where, who, what or why. I see no choice, no benefits of for example going shadeless build that does not spam shade skills whenever possible. While on core and reaper such a build does have a point - more control over your character (no transform) and frequent benefits from shroud flashing traits.

I think that's kind of what anet were going for. Consider the fact that at one point in Reaper's life, it was a detriment to your dps to use shroud. And before that, the only real use for Death Shroud was to hop in and out to proc traits, whilst never actually bothering to use any of the skills. Very bad design when the whole class mechanic is a waste. They very much sought to fix this with Scourge. And, while it's definitely not going to happen, I hope they do something similar to core necro and Reaper - by removing the 2nd health bar, making life force an energy source and making it so f1 - 5 are now shroud skills then balance around that (giving us a few evades/blocks or invulns and the like).

[Crinn.7864]

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:That's another thing - on core or reaper you can actually choose your focus - shroud vs unshrouded. You can be a shroud camper, go for 50/50 option, or be a shroud flasher with focus on staying in base form.

But on scourge it's always spam shades no matter where, who, what or why. I see no choice, no benefits of for example going shadeless build that does not spam shade skills whenever possible. While on core and reaper such a build does have a point - more control over your character (no transform) and frequent benefits from shroud flashing traits.

I think that's kind of what anet were going for. Consider the fact that at one point in Reaper's life, it was a detriment to your dps to use shroud. And before that, the only real use for Death Shroud was to hop in and out to proc traits, whilst never actually bothering to use any of the skills. Very bad design when the whole class mechanic is a waste. They very much sought to fix this with Scourge.

Or they could actually make shroud skills worth using.

But no they won't because "second health bar"

[Lahmia.2193]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:That's another thing - on core or reaper you can actually choose your focus - shroud vs unshrouded. You can be a shroud camper, go for 50/50 option, or be a shroud flasher with focus on staying in base form.

But on scourge it's always spam shades no matter where, who, what or why. I see no choice, no benefits of for example going shadeless build that does not spam shade skills whenever possible. While on core and reaper such a build does have a point - more control over your character (no transform) and frequent benefits from shroud flashing traits.

I think that's kind of what anet were going for. Consider the fact that at one point in Reaper's life, it was a detriment to your dps to use shroud. And before that, the only real use for Death Shroud was to hop in and out to proc traits, whilst never actually bothering to use any of the skills. Very bad design when the whole class mechanic is a waste. They very much sought to fix this with Scourge.

Or they could actually make shroud skills worth using.

But no they won't because "second health bar"

Check my edit.

[Lily.1935]

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:Scourge is much like whole PoF for me - extremely practical and efficient...but the fun is not there.

The power of the spec is amazing, the cool things i can do also (portal, self condies being useful with F2, sick bursts), but i feel variety is not there.Both core and reaper feature a lot of hard, yet meaninful choices. Starting with how much love will your shrouded form get from traits vs baseform.Ways to build around that are numerous, and many very fun and unusual.

But with scourge it seems like everything is layed out for you - Curses, Soul Reaping + Scourge condi is the default "go to" build, no need to even check metabattle - the synergies and result are so obvious everyone who gave it a try gets it. There is no shroud, so no duality that struggles over which form will be your main one and which "is on it's own".

When i play scourge i feel that in terms of functionality (easy, low cd aoe condi conversion, proper aoe condi application, easy condi bombs, portal) this is what necro was lacking and should have. But in terms of fun i just wanna go HoT hop on my reaper or core necro and test numerous builds unlike the scourge where "numerous" is the last expression you'd think of when someone mentions it's builds.

I've already made multiple posts expressing your concerns. Both Scourge Analysis and Necromancer's Depth address these concerns. Even with the lack of diverse choices the in combat choices with condi is more meaningful than on reaper or core with similar builds. Although as I said in both of those the issue isn't the scourge but core necromancer. That has always been the issue and here that's no different.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:That's another thing - on core or reaper you can actually choose your focus - shroud vs unshrouded. You can be a shroud camper, go for 50/50 option, or be a shroud flasher with focus on staying in base form.

But on scourge it's always spam shades no matter where, who, what or why. I see no choice, no benefits of for example going shadeless build that does not spam shade skills whenever possible. While on core and reaper such a build does have a point - more control over your character (no transform) and frequent benefits from shroud flashing traits.

I think that's kind of what anet were going for. Consider the fact that at one point in Reaper's life, it was a detriment to your dps to use shroud. And before that, the only real use for Death Shroud was to hop in and out to proc traits, whilst never actually bothering to use any of the skills. Very bad design when the whole class mechanic is a waste. They very much sought to fix this with Scourge. And, while it's definitely not going to happen, I hope they do something similar to core necro and Reaper - by removing the 2nd health bar, making life force an energy source and making it so f1 - 5 are now shroud skills then balance around that (giving us a few evades/blocks or invulns and the like).

Shroud as in general concept is a very good idea. It serves at least 2 purposes - tanking (you base form doesn't have 50% damage & condi reduction, shroud does), and flashing for "on shroud traits'. In reaper's case it has one more purpose - being actually useful in combat. It has it's rough edges but in general it's a good idea with not perfect implementation.

Death Shroud as mentioned above is a archaic, botched implementation, that for some reason is still almost the same shit it was at launch. Let's not call car junk becuase of one flat tire..

That being said when compared to scourge, core and reaper have actual build choices where you gain something and lose something. Each take you make on building your necro has it's ins and outs.Scourge on the other hand has dropped down to warrior levels of boredom where it's basically "You play shades, and if bored there's this necro guy attached to them, that has a few skills of his own, but that's just a side-note"...

[Svarty.8019]

@Aplethoraof.2643 said:If DM and BM offered something nice as well, then we'd have more choices to make.

^^ This. But do you see Anet dedicating resources to balancing completely re-vamping two base class traitlines (on one of their least-favourite classes) at this stage?

Judging by my five years of experience, I certainly do not.

[Kam.4092]

@Svarty.8019 said:

@Aplethoraof.2643 said:If DM and BM offered something nice as well, then we'd have more choices to make.

^^ This. But do

you

see Anet dedicating resources to

balancing

completely re-vamping two base class traitlines (on one of their least-favourite classes) at this stage?

Judging by my five years of experience, I certainly do not.

They did so many great changes to core Guardian over the course of HoT. I wish they could do that to Necro :/