SCOURGE (broken) vs SPELLBREAKER (L2Play)

[Apolo.5942]

Both are arguably strong builds. How ever there is a very key difference, one is broken and the other is not.

Scourge is broken as fuck, half its skills are unblockable and have no damage mitigation. What once was supposed to be damage over time is now days comparable to the very best power spiker out there. Couple that with a 30k+ HP pool, and spammable heals and bullshit aoe skills and you get an over the top class as 55%+ of the voting player base has stated.

Spell Breaker on the other hand is just as kiteable as the regular warrior is (which nobody complains about), and has 1 block every 8 seconds, its a build that discourages alpha strikers and encourages a more tactical and conservative play. The question then would be, does 1 block or 1 aegis every 8 seconds make that much of a difference?. The answer is NO, the problem is that people are used to running glass cannon builds which true, do get owned by the class. GW2 NEEDS MORE OF THIS, NOT LESS.

The difference? SB can be counter played, it discourages the blow up alpha strike meta that has plagued this game since HoT. Scourge on the other hand is more of the same cancer.

[Razor.6392]

One of those can 1v2 / 1v3 for a long time, the other one cannot.

But yes, SB is super mega hyper balanced. One block that grants prot, resistance, copies condis, nukes for 6k if not dodged, coupled with perma immunity to condis, blocks upon blocks, autostab.

It's fine right? we can keep kiting the SB and eventually kill him 1v1 after at least 40 seconds while he sits on point.

This isn't an open map, guy. Props to you if you can kite a SB as long as you need to inside a small circle, all while you struggle to do damage and your useless teammate procs every single FC.

Your time will come, warrior boy.

[Apolo.5942]

@Razor.6392 said:It's fine right? we can keep kiting the SB and eventually kill him 1v1 after at least 40 seconds while he sits on point.

You just described every mmo bunker/mid range build ever. You can eventually kite him to death 1v1 or you can 2v1 him down just as easy as any other class. This is a learn to play issue, not a power level issue.

And again, this is something that slows the game down and discourages glass builds. Both things GW2 desperately needs.

[Burnfall.9573]

"L2PLAY""Both are arguably strong builds. How ever there is a very key difference, one is broken and the other is not""Scourge is broken as kitten, half its skills are unblockable and have no damage mitigation""The difference? SB can be counter played, it discourages the blow up alpha strike meta that has plagued this game since HoT. Scourge on the other hand is more of the same ____"

Guild Wars 2 - Spellbreaker PvP Met by Happy No

[Apolo.5942]

He is running berserker amulet, that build is as soft as a wet napkin.

Again, kite, dont build glass cannon and learn to play.

[KrHome.1920]

You sound pretty biased. A Warrior player?

If you don't run a glass canon the warrior will simply outheal your damage while his defenses are up or he is kiting you using GS (right, not you kite the warrior on demand, he kites you!).

Side Note: I kill Spellbreakers and Scourges even in WvW, but the tools I need to do so are totally over the top and a waste of ressources in matchups against all other classes. E.g.: To defeat a Zerker or Marauder Spellbreaker I need more corrupts on top of my bursts than to defeat a Bunker Firebrand or Bunker Ele. Ridiculous.

[Apolo.5942]

@KrHome.1920 said:If you don't run a glass canon the warrior will simply outheal your damage while his defenses are up or he is kiting you using GS (right, not you kite the warrior on demand, he kites you!).

Not with that build he wont. With today damage, having no damage reduction 800hps might as well not be there if you are kiting and damaging him.Him kiting you to heal is just not realistic.

[ZhouX.8742]

@Apolo.5942 said:Both are arguably strong builds. How ever there is a very key difference, one is broken and the other is not.

Scourge is broken as kitten, half its skills are unblockable and have no damage mitigation. What once was supposed to be damage over time is now days comparable to the very best power spiker out there. Couple that with a 30k+ HP pool, and spammable heals and kitten aoe skills and you get an over the top class as 55%+ of the voting player base has stated.

Spell Breaker on the other hand is just as kiteable as the regular warrior is (which nobody complains about), and has 1 block every 8 seconds. The question then would be, does 1 block or 1 aegis every 8 seconds make that much of a difference?. The answer is NO, the problem is that people are used to running glass cannon builds which true, do get owned by the class.

The difference? SB can be counter played, it discourages the blow up alpha strike meta that has plagued this game since HoT. Scourge on the other hand is more of the same cancer.

Somebody mains warrior

Let's break this down but before that:

Really, spellbreaker is broken in it's current state , you can't defend it honestly.

In WvW the argument of kiting would appear feasible, and I would agree with you - but this is conquest , and point fights occur. You can't just kite warriors across half the map and around structures to avoid them as a melee variant, you have to engage , engaging a spellbreaker on point is literally the same as engaging a scourge on point.

This is why druid can fight both, and yes, if you kite around the point and eventually neutralize the point in a 1v1 that will take you more than 1-3 minutes with a good spellbreaker, you will eventually win , but by that time you are 1upped by a thief or another enemy teammate so let's hope you have good teammates winning those other point fights.

How is that healthy for the game? Explain this to me please. Keep in mind also spellbreaker is even better in large fights, excels in 1on1 , excels in point assault and defense , and the only true way to kill him is by literally kiting the shit out of him - which would make you neutralize and/or lose the point, but also take so much time you'll just get 1upped eventually anyway.

The fact that the only viable builds you have against a spellbreaker would be a:

1. sage condi mirage (broken build)
2. acro s/d thief (even then you make a mistake you're dead)
3. druid (let's face it druid with gazelle was getting easy kills against everything before the nerf today , druid will be much harder but still viable).

The only true applicable 1v1s you'll see from the list are druid , a point bunker and condi mirage , condi aids sage bunker variant. Acro s/d would never want to fight a spellbreaker on point.

2 of those are absolutely broken in conquest in druid and condi mirage , loaded with evades, heals, invis and defensive passives and mirage being condi as a troll sage build virtually close to unstoppable in any 1on1 scenario are needed to attempt a fight vs spellbreaker on a point.

So essentially what you're actually trying to tell us is: Glass builds take no skill , demolisher amulet makes you have skill , and bunker builds are what should be played in order to face tank Full counter and live long enough for a 1up to come help take down Spellbreaker as the most feasible option, or just kite the whole game.

Gotcha

[Unholy Pillager.3791]

@Apolo.5942 said:He is running berserker amulet, that build is as soft as a wet napkin.

Again, kite, dont build glass cannon and learn to play.

Spellbreaker in marauder or demolisher is tougher than scrapper in mender or paladin. No build is soft with blocking, daze, protection, slow, stability and resistance on a 6.5 second cooldown plus all of the warrior's other good defensive skills, which were already strong for a high-health profession (balanced only by the fact that warrior high-damage skills tend to have obvious animations and be slow to perform, which dagger skills aren't). There is also the fact that it's too strong against mesmers, rangers and necromancers, since their reliance on AI and/or pulsing AoEs make it impossible for them to avoid triggering full counter, since even if you stop attacking, your clones and phantasms do not, your AoEs stay on the ground, and your pet takes half a second or so to respond, any of which will allow the warrior to get a full counter off for free. This isn't even getting into the fact that the animation for full counter doesn't show before the skill itself starts, which means that if you're in the middle of an attack when the warrior hits it, you can't counterplay by not attacking (and even dodging is iffy; not only are you blowing 50 endurance on a 6.5 s cooldown skill, which is already a loss, you likely won't even get the chance to do that if your ping isn't amazing). This isn't even touching on the animation bug. What, exactly, am I supposed to do when the full counter animation is always on because of a bug? Just never attack the warrior? On the other hand, longbow ranger and rifle deadeye can just knock the scourge down from 1500 range (not saying the scourge is balanced, because it isn't). Saying that the spellbreaker has counterplay (unless 'roll a scourge or holosmith or else give up trying to contest that point' is what you consider counterplay) is a lie, and saying that the scourge doesn't is also a lie. Both are overpowered, especially in point control scenarios, and need to be tweaked. The spellbreaker definitely needs some defensive nerfs; no marauder/demolisher spec should be that tough to kill while contesting a point.

Dishonest defense of an imbalanced elite specialization. I can almost understand, since warriors have been hit or miss in PvP and you want something reliable there, but it doesn't excuse the dishonesty.

[Unholy Pillager.3791]

@Apolo.5942 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:If you don't run a glass canon the warrior will simply outheal your damage while his defenses are up or he is kiting you using GS (right, not you kite the warrior on demand, he kites you!).

Not with that build he wont. With today damage, having no damage reduction 800hps might as well not be there if you are kiting and damaging him.Him kiting you to heal is just not realistic.

Blocking on 6.5 s cooldown, near-permanent resistance, an invulnerability, and constant protection is not 'no damage reduction'.

[Hana.8143]

@Apolo.5942 said:

@Razor.6392 said:It's fine right? we can keep kiting the SB and eventually kill him 1v1 after at least 40 seconds while he sits on point.

You just described every mmo bunker/mid range build ever.

Except SB isn't a tank and can do lots of damage on FC (I take 5k to 6k on FC everytime)When you look at the sustain AND at the damage it does. It's too much.

When I look at FC

• does lot of damage
• cc
• 0 damage from the next incoming skill
• throw back conditions
• resistance
• protection
• slow / cripple
• stab
• unblockable
• triggered by unblockable skills
• 5 targets
• 300 range
• can be triggered by aoe (which can't be removed)
• 6sec cd
• gives you the opportunity to recover hp with your signet and adrenal health if the opponent decide to not trigger it (with the little CD, it becomes quite huge in term of sustain.)

I just want those warriors out there to stop being blinded and actually acknowlegde that this skill is broken.Never seen a ventari rev killing me, or a good old tanky guard. But they sustain as much as a SB does in 2v1. Something is definitly wrong. Oh yeah, it's called, the damage.

Like scourges will have to choose between power and sustain in a future patch, as said on reddit by devs, I hope spellbreakers will have to choose too. It's little risk, high rewards. But people enjoy a broken game with allmighty classes. That's why all the good players are leaving, and the cheesiest one are still there.

[Khaliel.3918]

anet please don't nerf spellbreaker, i love it, i'm very good yes trust me, i like playing spellbreaker. please nerf scourge instead, anet. scourge bad. yes.

HAhahahaha. Spellbreaker is very broken too, dude. Nuking people for 5k and reflecting condis to everyone around you and granting so many boons EVERY SIX SECONDS is not okay. Making overpowered stuff to counter other overpowered stuff is a very stupid way to balance the game.

Anet needs to nerf both of them. We don't need more power creep.

[Arcaedus.7290]

Translation for the original post:

"Hurrr durrrrr, Full Counter is fine, just don't auto attack, you're a l2p crybaby, it has a super obvious animation, this skill is good for pvp, punishes aoe spam noobs."

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

...Scourge only uses unblockable marks and sometimes Corrupt Boon. Everything else is blockable.

[shippage.1983]

Scourge is complete trash now, it got gunned down in the streets like it deserved.

Spellbreaker is still completely busted, but I predict a bigger balance patch incoming.

[Mayama.1854]

Spellbreaker stuff shouldnt proc on pets.

[ButterPeanut.9746]

Welp FC got nerfed in patch last night. Apparently the 20% modifier from revenge counter was activating twice so that's been fixed and the base damage was nerfed by 12.5%. I definitely noticed it was between 2-3k lower on all crits so definitely significant.

[ZhouX.8742]

@ButterPeanut.9746 said:Welp FC got nerfed in patch last night. Apparently the 20% modifier from revenge counter was activating twice so that's been fixed and the base damage was nerfed by 12.5%. I definitely noticed it was between 2-3k lower on all crits so definitely significant.

Wasn't a balance patch though, if you think a 12.5% dmg decrease is the only thing happening to Spellbreaker you are out of your mind.

This patch literally should have been called "Damage Control" .. They knew they fucked up releasing these specializations in their state mid-season but are struggling to get a full patch out so they released a few "bug fixes" and a few nerfs to attempt to keep the people happy because they know it's a shit storm right now.

[troops.8276]

"Damage control""too little, too late""Closing the gate once the horse has bolted"

they're all good mate

[Axl.8924]

Congratz enjoy another season of kiting necros down and necros being free kills again.Glad i didn't buy pof.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Apolo.5942 said:Scourge is broken as kitten, half its skills are unblockable and have no damage mitigation. What once was supposed to be damage over time is now days comparable to the very best power spiker out there. Couple that with a 30k+ HP pool, and spammable heals and kitten aoe skills and you get an over the top class as 55%+ of the voting player base has stated.

Most of these are true, but broken? Not even close. The loss of Death Shroud made the Necro's survivability cut in half. Think about the Reaper who has 30k HP + Reaper Shroud and compare that to Scourge -- not even close to being broken. The sad part is even the Core Necro can counter Spellbreaker, thus the problem is not that Scourge is broken, rather Spellbreaker is a one trick pony -- easily countered.

[Unholy Pillager.3791]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Apolo.5942 said:Scourge is broken as kitten, half its skills are unblockable and have no damage mitigation. What once was supposed to be damage over time is now days comparable to the very best power spiker out there. Couple that with a 30k+ HP pool, and spammable heals and kitten aoe skills and you get an over the top class as 55%+ of the voting player base has stated.

Most of these are true, but broken? Not even close. The loss of Death Shroud made the Necro's survivability cut in half. Think about the Reaper who has 30k HP + Reaper Shroud and compare that to Scourge -- not even close to being broken. The sad part is even the Core Necro can counter Spellbreaker, thus the problem is not that Scourge is broken, rather Spellbreaker is a one trick pony -- easily countered.

Being forced to play one specific build of one specific profession in order to counter someone is not 'easily countered'.

[Negativity.5801]

Spellbreaker is a very balanced build that is alot of fun to play and play against.

It's very engaging and tactical to play against a build where I don't need to worry about using my cc's since it has passive stability procs, I don't need to worry about doing any physical damage since it has 2 physical invulnerabilities, a block, and plenty of dodges since those endure pain stances which also gives me vigor because I deserve it. Condis? Resistance takes care of that. Oh, and let's not forget full counter on an 7s cd that only takes 1 bar (which also gives stability, resistance, and protection and completely blocks an attack. lol git gud noobs)

You need to be very good at this game and have a lot of knowledge of mechanics to play this build well.

Really gets my noggin joggin

[Novuake.2691]

@Apolo.5942 said:the problem is that people are used to running glass cannon builds

Are you playing the same game I am?

[PowerBottom.5796]

I think the dmg-nerf (and bugfix) to full counter was pretty substantial, still, "revenge counter" is too strong (resistance, 20% more dmg and 5 conditions copied).

Scourge is still heavily OP. The main reason is IMHO Nefarious Favour with Path of Corruption. But Scourge could be a very cool and hard to play build, if you'd really have to use your boonstrip in a smart way (right target, right timing), other than simply spamming it. It could be something more similar to enchantment removal in GW1: Key builds like Nec and Mesmer had 1-2 Enchantment removals (enchantment equals boons) and it was crucial to strip off the right boons on the target that was being spiked/pressured. So you actually had to wait until protective Spirit or other important enchantments where used and then immediately strip it off.

Some ways to make the boon-strip (Nefarious Favour with Path of Corruption) less "spammy" (not all would be easy to implement):

• Make it boon-strip, not boon-conversion. It could be buffed a little then with 1 more boon removed maybe.
• Single target, not AoE (not easy to implement unfortunately)
• Switch F2 with F3, so Nefarious Favour isn't completely OP with Path of corruption and Sand Cascade is actually better than pure garbage.
• Grant the effect only on shades, not on yourself as well
• OR grant the boon-conversion only around yourself, not your shades, which requires good positioning

I was always very intrigued with boon-removal of the nec, since it was such a hard to master skill in GW1 and I think in GW2, they did it best with corrupt boon: You have to sacrifice a slot for it, but it's powerful. It has an adequate CD and is single target and because of that, you really want to search out for targets with for example stability, which makes the skill much more powerful. Also, you need to use it on targets that are actually being focused, because you can't just spam it around.