Balance with a Sledge Hammer

[Wintermute.5408]

@Lexan.5930 said:I wonder why with necro balance our numbers get such huge swings by only changing small interactions. Sure dhuumfire not on all 7 hits of DS hurts but it's a small change that brings it in line with the other shroud sbilities. You dont get dhuumfire through all of reaper spin.

But you can hit with RS1 until you passively run out of lifeforce. On Scourge you can land 3 shades, go through skills and, well, dry out completely. That's what, 7 unsustainable burns? Less actually, because F4-5 will eat almost all LF on their own. "Oh, but RS has cooldown!" So do all of those skills.

[kKagari.6804]

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@"Vlad Morbius.1759" said:

On that topic and based off this quote "•Bug or Feature - Some bugs become can become features, others don't. The Desert Shroud repeatedly proccing Dhuumfire wasn't something we felt should be kept. If Scourge needed to rely on buggy behavior to be competitive then we need to fix the bug before we figure out what needs to be improved to make it competitive. If the bug is causing blowouts in other areas of the game then we need to fix it even sooner." how is it even possible for a build to go for a year or longer with a bug that clearly represented the bulk of the damage? How was this not picked up on sooner can we have get a clear explanation on how this happens through what must of been many different iterations of the spec that it could not have been uncovered prior to launch, it counted for the bulk of damage output for heaven's sake!

Dhuumfire has been mediocre ever since it was changed to function with shroud. It was powerful back in the day when Conditions didn't stack like they do now and triggered on critical, but that was a time no one ran condi removal, or at least not a lot of it. As it was before scourge it was taken on condi specs not because it was an amazing trait but because it was the only option. It was taken on power reaper because it was the only option. The trait was never impressive and now its not impressive.

This is the reason I don't agree with Robert in on this because Dhuumfire has a history of being sub par and under preforming but being taken anyway because it was the best sub par option among sub par options. Scourge made Dhuumfire great. It was amazing because it felt like this was the intention for the trait because its use was very narrowly focused for the Condition build but it was good. Without the stacking mechanic though, Dhuumfire would be good but it couldn't be the bulk of our DPS like it was before. And the reason is because of even without the stacking mechanic a pure DPS scourge spec's DPS is middling(at best) even when Dhuumfire is taken into consideration. Especially when we consider the other two professions that can stack a very diverse amount of conditions seem to be able to stack burning at a comparable rate with Dhuumfire on scourge.

I actually don't agree. Dhuumfire made the scourge stupidly reliant on desert shroud. I'd rather take this nerf and have more buff opportunities to round out the other shade skills. Casting barrier is great and all, but we are in an era where skills are getting stacked to the brim with effects, just applying a barrier for a good chunk of life force isn't going to cut it.

The reason I don't like scourge is that every button just feels like a panic button, theres almost never a bad time to use any of the shade skills. Especially after you trick them out with path of corruption, dhuumfire, etc. The whole class just feels so brainless to play. Nerf the dhuumfire, I don't care. If they see this class as support, give us more support. Add protection into the mix, the traits as they are now are so simplistic and boring.

I think to say that the Profession shouldn't use its mechanic as a primary means of its strategy is not the direction we should go in nor is it a direction I want to go in. Death shroud, Reaper's shroud, and the shades should be in integral part of our rotation and not just for damage reduction. Look at Berserker warrior or Soulbeast ranger or Revenant or elementalist. Each of them dive extremely deep into their mechanic in order to maximize their effectiveness and Necromancer should be no different. You should be expected to use Desert shroud to max your DPS potential on scourge. You should be using Sand Cascade to support your allies. You Should be placing the shades and work the field. You should be jumping into reaper's shroud to peek your physical damage. You Should be using death shroud to control the field. Shroud and Shades should rightfully be a good percentage of our support, defenses and DPS. This is why I've been such an advocate for Utility in shroud for such a long time. This is why I've pushed for traits that function on spending life force for a long time. You should be expected to use these mechanics because this is the reason you play the class, this is the reason you play the elite specialization. If its not important to our method of engagement than there is no point to using it. You might as well go with something else.

How did it feel brainless? Because the Raiding team put Scourge as one of the more difficult builds to use and I've been saying scourge is fairly difficult to use but rewarding. Because getting used to it wasn't something I could do as soon as I looked at it, I had to practice with it, much like I have to practice with Mirage because it isn't intuitive. It feels great to me, once I did start to get the hang of it, but I wouldn't ever call that brainless. Death perception core necromancer, now that.. THAT was a brainless build. Go in shroud, auto attack until below 50%, drop out.... That is literally all you had to do for that build. The Condi DPS build for Scourge is more akin to the difficulty of Condi kits engineer. Which I've played all of these builds.

But people do use Reapers Shroud as part of their rotation when reapers were still viable in raids. It wasn't the complete part of their rotation, but it was used none the less. And from the 9 classes not every class's class mechanic is specifically DPS oriented either. Steal is just great utility, toolbelt is a mixed bag, and guardian is a bit of everything. Personally I don't mind if shrouds are defensively oriented, but the issue is that they aren't good at that too. We should've been the one class that exploded with stuff like retaliation, as it thematically works for us, yet over 5 years we've had our 3 sources of retaliation lowered to 1, and the last source of it, I'm not even sure if it is a bug or not.

PvP:And at the very least, with core and reaper you had somewhat of a tricky resource and time resource situation to manage. Scourge has managed to dumb that down even further. Everything about it panders to ease of play. Large AoEs, instantaneous cast times, ability to DPS while stunned. And I'm not saying that the core and reaper builds are that much harder. Look at the way the striking from MSS works now, its a mechanic that guarantees the scourge to do damage, even if they are using a completely wrong skill for it, like F3. And the fact they remove the stacking component, it doesn't even reward you for risky positioning. Scourge is essentially just left with an auxiliary weapon that does large AoE effects. There's not much to it.

And look at how pidgeonholed our builds are now. SR is a mainstay and you really pick between blood or curses. The patch essentially rules out power damage now, and death magic has always sucked. Firebrand on the other hand, is so excellently designed it works with both power, condition, and healing, and best of all, all traits are viable.

[TheLastNobody.8319]

@Lexan.5930 said:I wonder why with necro balance our numbers get such huge swings by only changing small interactions. Sure dhuumfire not on all 7 hits of DS hurts but it's a small change that brings it in line with the other shroud sbilities. You dont get dhuumfire through all of reaper spin.

The flaw in this argument lies in the fact that while in RS, your health won’t be damaged. While with scourge you have no shroud, or much stability at all, and our barriers are minuscule at best for group support.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

If Condition Scourge had better life force regeneration, you might see Soul Reaping become less critical to the spec. Gluttony, Vital Persistence, and Strength of Undeath are the traits that are required right now just to use the profession mechanic with any sort of frequency. If you could afford to use the F skills each, say, on double cooldown (so in PvP, F2& F3 every 16 seconds, F4 every 30 seconds and F5 every 40 seconds) simultaneously, then Soul Reaping may not be an auto-lock.

Of course, without Soul Reaping, you struggle to use even two of them on double-cooldown right now.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

My moment of weakness has passed, I'm staying Reaper, besides I can only afford to buy the Mount Skins this week as opposed to the gems needed to convert to gold to level another crafting profession to make ascended armor for a different class/armor weight.

[Lily.1935]

@kKagari.6804 said:

But people do use Reapers Shroud as part of their rotation when reapers were still viable in raids. It wasn't the complete part of their rotation, but it was used none the less. And from the 9 classes not every class's class mechanic is specifically DPS oriented either. Steal is just great utility, toolbelt is a mixed bag, and guardian is a bit of everything. Personally I don't mind if shrouds are defensively oriented, but the issue is that they aren't good at that too. We should've been the one class that exploded with stuff like retaliation, as it thematically works for us, yet over 5 years we've had our 3 sources of retaliation lowered to 1, and the last source of it, I'm not even sure if it is a bug or not.

PvP:And at the very least, with core and reaper you had somewhat of a tricky resource and time resource situation to manage. Scourge has managed to kitten that down even further. Everything about it panders to ease of play. Large AoEs, instantaneous cast times, ability to DPS while stunned. And I'm not saying that the core and reaper builds are that much harder. Look at the way the striking from MSS works now, its a mechanic that guarantees the scourge to do damage, even if they are using a completely wrong skill for it, like F3. And the fact they remove the stacking component, it doesn't even reward you for risky positioning. Scourge is essentially just left with an auxiliary weapon that does large AoE effects. There's not much to it.

And look at how pidgeonholed our builds are now. SR is a mainstay and you really pick between blood or curses. The patch essentially rules out power damage now, and death magic has always sucked. Firebrand on the other hand, is so excellently designed it works with both power, condition, and healing, and best of all, all traits are viable.

Resource management was just linked to how much damage you took while in shroud and time spend in shroud. To manage that wasn't more difficult than Scourge which could burn through your resources in a 10th of the time you'd normally burn through shroud. Shroud also has damage reduction tacked on top of it. SO you get the bonus "health" along with damage reduction. And Shroud itself doesn't have an activation time either. When you panic you hit one button and shroud is extremely forgiving when you panic. If You activate your shade skills at the wrong time, it'll cause you problems later in the fight because life force build up can be difficult. Now that's true for both, however this is an issue that is more impactful for both for PvP than PvE. PvE, the impact of entering shroud at the wrong time is virtually 0 while triggering desert shroud on scourge at the wrong moment can strip you of valuable defense and DPS. So, no. I can't agree with that.

However, this conversation is something I wanted to come back to because I really do want to discuss the shroud and shades mechanic. In my opinion, I feel that shroud and shades should be integral to the necromancer's play style. That they should majorly impact our support and/or damage. It should be just as important for us to use shroud as it is for Elementalist to swap attunements. So if 30% of our DPS comes from Shades or from shroud I don't see this as an Issue. Which is why I'm of the opinion that Dhuumfire should impact each pulse of desert shroud. Or they should have DPS comparable on the shades regardless.

[Dadnir.5038]

@mygamingid.5816 said:

@"Vlad Morbius.1759" said:Wait, what 38k spec are you referring to? Also let me just say I'm not just talking about raids I'm talking about the PvE game in general where sure I can survive longer but it takes a bloody eternity to kill anything and move on to the next thing in game. I'm not saying we want the best of both worlds, certainly I don't, but there is no valid reason Necromancer is bottom in DPS regardless of the build and I'm specifically targeting Power builds.

Somebody has to be the bottom spec. If I have to choose such a class, I’d look to professions with power damage, who offer support, and who have max health. The two prime candidates there are Power PS Warrior and Power Necro. I’d probably pick PS Warrior for bottom spec, but Necro shouldn’t be far from it. The problem is that power Necro should be ahead, even if nominally, and it’s far behind. I agree Power Necro needs a buff, but I’m looking at 27k-28k with full raid meta support, not the ridiculous asks we see from the Necro community. FWIW, you seem to be asking for reasonable performance, but haven’t thrown out any numbers.

Back to the topic at hand I do not understand how a bug made it through a years worth of testing when it represents the bulk of the damage done by that elite, so yes this was clearly a case of Scourge being OP in PvP so screw PvE let's kill it for now and fix it later.

It was broken everywhere, not just PvP and WvW, but the AI won’t complain when something is broken. Players will.

I really really really wonder what max health should have anything to do with dps... Max health is a way to balance survivability not damage. Usually professions that have low health have high sustain, damage reduction uptime and damage prevention tools to compensate. There is no "high risk" in playing a low health profession, these professions simply do not mitigate damage via their health pools but via other tools. I see that it's harder to understand that defense is balanced taking the base health point into account but in no way should this impact the effectivness of a spec.

Support. There are a lot of type of support and the necromancer sadly excel at supports that are effective in PvP environment but are totally useless in PvE. There is no deny that the necromancer have support tools but so have other professions. However, while some support tools are effective across all gamemode, necromancer's struggle to do so. Is this right to ask for more dps due to that? No. Is this right to ask for a kind of inate support that is effective in PvE, without breaking the balance of the profession? Yes.

Power damage. Here we go. You say that you agree that power necromancer is weak. That's quite nice of you. You also say that power necromancer should reach 27-28k, which would be quite good. However when you see some professions dishing out plenty of support, having a high suvivability despite a low health pool and dishing out more than 32k power dps there is no problem? This is clearly what you should call "imbalance". It should bug you more than a large health pool, poor support profession barely reaching 30k dps in it's best days.

Condi damage. Here anet Fcked up. They didn't want powercreep and just did that. There is few profession that didn't see it's overall damage shot throught the roof with PoF. Scourge was was totally out of control. Yes, I do agree with you that 38k was way to much dps. However, there is a limit to nerfs. Reducing this dps to an average amount of dps (33k) for a profession that bring nothing on the table for PvE would have been way wiser.

On topic of PvP/WvW. The fix did barely anything for that. Yes, I say it, It didn't really fixed the crux of the issue. The issue was that players didn't have anyway to see what was going on with the shades and they still don't have any clue of what happen. It wasn't a matter of dps, it was a matter of "tells". There will still be tons of players complaining about scourge in WvW and PvP. They sure now hit like a wet noddle but, they still have their anti player tools with no tells and that a sufficient enough reason to complaint.

Now, what will happen. They killed it, yet complaints will still fill the pvp and wvw board about how op it is, how hard they hit. Anet will thoroughly look at those complaints and deduce that the dps is in the proper range and more could become dangerous, so, they might shyly add an extra torment stack to shut down PvE complaints and add tells to shades for PvP/WvW. Obviously, these tells will come with some kind of drawbacks like cast time that will hurt even more PvE dps. But, keep cool, adding more dps to scourge is far too dangerous.

Will they touch to core? Maybe, but that will have to wait, scourge is more important to balance. Will they touch to reaper? Nope, it work as intended. In the meantime, the necromancer stay in this down state in PvE where they still don't give anything to the party and still don't have competitive dps. Time will pass and balance patch will be scarse. Each of the balance patch will be centered on scourge with some time a few meaningless look at core traits with interactions with scourge. There will be core trait nerfs that will seriously harm core necromancer and reaper for the sake of "balancing" scourge (yes, path of corruption) with nothing in return. There might be some fancy change that will look like buff but won't have any power behind (You've seen cold shoulder change, right?).

The necromancer community is realist. There is literally no hope in sight for the necromancer to be welcome in high end PvE with it's current tool kit. We know that the "balance" of the scourge is doomed to be a very long journey that will weaken even more the barely standing core necromancer. And yet, when the scourge will be deemed balanced by the PvP/WvW community, it will be dead weight in PvE but impossible to buff because it would stir the PvP crew. We've already have our share with reaper and we know how it work. We don't need necro hater to come on the necromancer's subforum to say to us: "you deserve it, you were meta everywhere! There is a need for a bottom tier profession and necromancer is the best candidate for that because of it's health pool". Do you even fathom how silly this "you have high health pool, you deserve bottom tier" argument is? There is a need for a bit of fairness and your arguments are anything but fair.

[kKagari.6804]

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

But people do use Reapers Shroud as part of their rotation when reapers were still viable in raids. It wasn't the complete part of their rotation, but it was used none the less. And from the 9 classes not every class's class mechanic is specifically DPS oriented either. Steal is just great utility, toolbelt is a mixed bag, and guardian is a bit of everything. Personally I don't mind if shrouds are defensively oriented, but the issue is that they aren't good at that too. We should've been the one class that exploded with stuff like retaliation, as it thematically works for us, yet over 5 years we've had our 3 sources of retaliation lowered to 1, and the last source of it, I'm not even sure if it is a bug or not.

PvP:And at the very least, with core and reaper you had somewhat of a tricky resource and time resource situation to manage. Scourge has managed to kitten that down even further. Everything about it panders to ease of play. Large AoEs, instantaneous cast times, ability to DPS while stunned. And I'm not saying that the core and reaper builds are that much harder. Look at the way the striking from MSS works now, its a mechanic that guarantees the scourge to do damage, even if they are using a completely wrong skill for it, like F3. And the fact they remove the stacking component, it doesn't even reward you for risky positioning. Scourge is essentially just left with an auxiliary weapon that does large AoE effects. There's not much to it.

And look at how pidgeonholed our builds are now. SR is a mainstay and you really pick between blood or curses. The patch essentially rules out power damage now, and death magic has always sucked. Firebrand on the other hand, is so excellently designed it works with both power, condition, and healing, and best of all, all traits are viable.

Resource management was just linked to how much damage you took while in shroud and time spend in shroud. To manage that wasn't more difficult than Scourge which could burn through your resources in a 10th of the time you'd normally burn through shroud. Shroud also has damage reduction tacked on top of it. SO you get the bonus "health" along with damage reduction. And Shroud itself doesn't have an activation time either. When you panic you hit one button and shroud is extremely forgiving when you panic. If You activate your shade skills at the wrong time, it'll cause you problems later in the fight because life force build up can be difficult. Now that's true for both, however this is an issue that is more impactful for both for PvP than PvE. PvE, the impact of entering shroud at the wrong time is virtually 0 while triggering desert shroud on scourge at the wrong moment can strip you of valuable defense and DPS. So, no. I can't agree with that.

However, this conversation is something I wanted to come back to because I really do want to discuss the shroud and shades mechanic. In my opinion, I feel that shroud and shades should be integral to the necromancer's play style. That they should majorly impact our support and/or damage. It should be just as important for us to use shroud as it is for Elementalist to swap attunements. So if 30% of our DPS comes from Shades or from shroud I don't see this as an Issue. Which is why I'm of the opinion that Dhuumfire should impact each pulse of desert shroud. Or they should have DPS comparable on the shades regardless.

Entering shroud didn't destroy your assailant when you panicked, whereas prepatch scourge did. It was less of a panic button and more of an assured mutual destruction. There's no way that could be advocated as balanced play.

To be honest, in this meta shroud should just not have a cooldown. Put the cool down on the entry traits instead. It would immediately make necromancers more flexible and it can only benefit players who manage their resources well

[Ara.4569]

Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

[Wintermute.5408]

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

You clearly have never been playing before raids were implemented. Otherwise you wouldn't be talking such kitten.

Or you mean to tell me that Ice Bow meta was allright, and people were not toxic at all? Yeah...

[TheLastNobody.8319]

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

Oh buddy it was never innocent, the same thing that’s happening now has been happening since I started playing 4 years ago. Before raids it was dungeons, then fractals, and so on. It’s honestly even a little better now since support options have opened up where as before it was just mainly about DPS DPS DPS!

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@TheLastNobody.8319 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

Oh buddy it was never innocent, the same thing that’s happening now has been happening since I started playing 4 years ago. Before raids it was dungeons, then fractals, and so on. It’s honestly even a little better now since support options have opened up where as before it was just mainly about DPS DPS DPS!

Perhaps it just seems worse now, it didn't seem as angry back then.

[TheLastNobody.8319]

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@TheLastNobody.8319 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

Oh buddy it was never innocent, the same thing that’s happening now has been happening since I started playing 4 years ago. Before raids it was dungeons, then fractals, and so on. It’s honestly even a little better now since support options have opened up where as before it was just mainly about DPS DPS DPS!

Perhaps it just seems worse now, it didn't seem as angry back then.

Right now it’s pretty bad BECAUSE more options and play styles have opened up, making support and condi more valuable (Oi condi cap, dark days, darker nights). Reason people are so hung up on Scourge DPS right now is because well....we got nothing else. We’re advertised as a support spec but our support isn’t needed or wanted in PvE for the most part.

[Lily.1935]

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@TheLastNobody.8319 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

Oh buddy it was never innocent, the same thing that’s happening now has been happening since I started playing 4 years ago. Before raids it was dungeons, then fractals, and so on. It’s honestly even a little better now since support options have opened up where as before it was just mainly about DPS DPS DPS!

Perhaps it just seems worse now, it didn't seem as angry back then.

The power meta was the most toxic the game has ever been. Warrior was the PvE meta and everything else that couldn't abuse bad AI would be kicked from all content on the spot. Necromancers and rangers had it worse. Necromancer because its DPS and aoe damage was trash and Ranger because they only brought longbow and brown bear. But Ranger DPS and support was actually extremely good at the time but no one noticed because of a set bias. However, the necromancer has always been in a really bad position for PvE and continues to be that way. They get small windows of light only to have it snatched away before anyone can really get used to it.

People say that the condi meta is toxic? The power meta almost killed Guild wars 2. And I'm not being hyperbolic about that either.

[mygamingid.5816]

@Wintermute.5408 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:

@Vlad Morbius.1759 said:

@Junkpile.7439 said:I just don't understand why can't you just play class that makes lot's of DPS if being top in DPS means you so much?

Because that isn't the issue, I don't think anyone who posts here regularly is asking to be the new meta all they want is to play the class they enjoy and have it function well enough in high end content to have a role.

A lot of players in this thread and the others like it absolutely believe that they need to equal or exceed large-hitbox golem Staff Weaver DPS to be considered competitive. Some may accept a meager 38k, but they’ll have to hold their noses to do it. They wholly ignore the extra survivability, boon-to-condi, condi-to-boon, vulnerability, group healing, area blind, condi absorb/transfer, and other things that Necro can do. Why? Because raids don’t value it, it shouldn’t be perceived as having any value.

This tiny slice of the game, played by so few, continues to dominate the discussion. Terrible design allows players to ignore everything except DPS. Those giant, immobile, unthinking, mechanically-neutered bosses are the worst mistake made by ArenaNet.

I know right! Those stupid raids, game became so much worse with them! Because when fractals and dungeons were supreme, nobody cared about DPS, and necros were welcome everywhere for all their survivability and self-reliance! People were kicking eles left and right to take necros into dungeon runs, right? Right, guys? Guys?

Mockery aside, let's go through that nсie list of yours:Extra survivability - Scourge has none.Boon to condi - garbageCondi to boon - even more garbageVulnerability - yeah, right with all the other classesGroup healing - lolwut? Transfusion? AHAHAHAHA.Area blind - lolwut?Condi absorb - where?Condi transfer - I guess broken clock is right twice per day...Other things - what other things?

Point made. You have completely devalued what Necro can offer everywhere in favor of what Necro can offer raids. You don't even know what the profession has available, let alone how it can be effective, because you’re too locked onto those Golem numbers. Raid design and boonbots are at fault for allowing the DPS focus, so much more could’ve been done with the game mode.

I’d expect any Condi Scourge DPS build to hit somewhere in the 29k-31k range, a little better than Condi PS Warrior, a little worse than Condi Tempest. If you want to demand power creep with the expansion, I could maybe see 33k.

I love running with my Condi Necro, it feels like easy mode compared to my Ele, particularly when soloing (all but Mordremoth in HoT, everything so far in PoF). Sustain is worlds better and damage is just a hair behind. Granted, I’m playing complete game modes where you can’t avoid all damage by moving into or out of a colored shape, so things other than DPS matter.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

So, Mygamingid clearly doesn't raid.

The thing is, every bit of support Necro/Scourge does offer is already covered by meta support specs, which also offer superior damage and/or support. In PvE, there just aren't enough boons on enemies for Chronomancer to not do it accidentally. There aren't enough conditions in most fights (two raid encounters where this is different) for Druid to not cleanse them all as a side effect of their normal rotation.

Then you have Slothasaur and Matthias, where there are changes that get made to the typical skill bar/rotation. However, it's not enough of a change required to consider swapping a class out. Heck, Firebrand handles it pretty well now while also providing more Quickness to the group.

So, when the support a Scourge has to offer is already being covered as a side effect of builds that also are providing other valuable functions, what reason is there to bring a Scourge? Especially when it's bringing low DPS as well?

[Walhalla.5473]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@TheLastNobody.8319 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Ara.4569 said:Robert, Karl, Irenio: you're good when it comes to concepts and specs design (creative, artistic mind), have some hit and miss when it comes to implementation (it starts to get technical) but I'm sure you can improve in that area, and are absolutely horrendous at balance (logical, analytical, scientific mind). You're not cut out for it: it requires opposite mindset and skills. That's why in most games it's handled by different people. 2 teams working together without infringing on the other's territory unless it's deemed necessary and agreed upon. I hope I don't sound patronizing, it's not my intent.

So, let other people take care of balance, communicate what you envision specs to be to co-workers and players, work more on implementations, make those cool concepts live and kicking.

There's a lot of passionate people here, who are willing to crowdfund a serious balance team. Please, make it possible. Contribute to save this game, and Power Reaper. Thanks.

To be fair perhaps we just need a better community of players, ones that have no access to DPS Meters, one where Raids were never made and instead we were given more World Bosses like Tequatl, and Vine Wraith. It's Raids and the WoW element that have brought us here, I yearn for the more innocent times.

Oh buddy it was never innocent, the same thing that’s happening now has been happening since I started playing 4 years ago. Before raids it was dungeons, then fractals, and so on. It’s honestly even a little better now since support options have opened up where as before it was just mainly about DPS DPS DPS!

Perhaps it just seems worse now, it didn't seem as angry back then.

The power meta was the most toxic the game has ever been. Warrior was the PvE meta and everything else that couldn't abuse bad AI would be kicked from all content on the spot. Necromancers and rangers had it worse. Necromancer because its DPS and aoe damage was trash and Ranger because they only brought longbow and brown bear. But Ranger DPS and support was actually extremely good at the time but no one noticed because of a set bias. However, the necromancer has always been in a really bad position for PvE and continues to be that way. They get small windows of light only to have it snatched away before anyone can really get used to it.

People say that the condi meta is toxic? The power meta almost killed Guild wars 2. And I'm not being hyperbolic about that either.

" Need 4 Warrior and 1 Mesmer" " No Necro and Ranger or kick"

Yeah I remember those times. It was really toxic back then and pugs expect you to abuse poor AI to make sure some mechanics wouldn't even activate, which I would see as borderline-exploitation. It wasn't a fun time, and you saw nearly every day a new thread about berserker gear, where a lot of people were calling bersi an exploit. The way balance worked back then was one of the reasons why the one guy telling " PVE Content that isn't terrible" into the face of Anet in the HoT announcement could do that with a big part of the community standing behind him.

Right now we need to see that Anet cares about balance. And Anet should hire a team completely for the purpose of balancing the classes in PvE and bringing out balance patches for PvE much faster than we see now. I mean, if a balance patch is screwing up a whole class, the people playing this class have to wait at least 3 whole months for something to change, and the patch then might not even touch the class in a meaningful way. Anet can also do nerfs and buffs much more nuanced, going with small number changes. Right now a change has to be significant otherwise waiting several months feels like waiting for nothing.

[maxwelgm.4315]

@mygamingid.5816 said:

@Vlad Morbius.1759 said:Wait, what 38k spec are you referring to? Also let me just say I'm not just talking about raids I'm talking about the PvE game in general where sure I can survive longer but it takes a bloody eternity to kill anything and move on to the next thing in game. I'm not saying we want the best of both worlds, certainly I don't, but there is no valid reason Necromancer is bottom in DPS regardless of the build and I'm specifically targeting Power builds.

Somebody has to be the bottom spec. If I have to choose such a class, I’d look to professions with power damage, who offer support, and who have max health. The two prime candidates there are Power PS Warrior and Power Necro. I’d probably pick PS Warrior for bottom spec, but Necro shouldn’t be far from it. The problem is that power Necro should be ahead, even if nominally, and it’s far behind. I agree Power Necro needs a buff, but I’m looking at 27k-28k with full raid meta support, not the ridiculous asks we see from the Necro community. FWIW, you seem to be asking for reasonable performance, but haven’t thrown out any numbers.

Back to the topic at hand I do not understand how a bug made it through a years worth of testing when it represents the bulk of the damage done by that elite, so yes this was clearly a case of Scourge being OP in PvP so screw PvE let's kill it for now and fix it later.

It was broken everywhere, not just PvP and WvW, but the AI won’t complain when something is broken. Players will.

And they did complain. During profession test weekend we all kept asking if it was intended or not that dhuumfire would trigger on Desert Shroud. The answer was an absolute silence. What is the open beta for then?

[Esprit Dumort.3109]

@Player.9621 said:mountains out of molehillsit was broken and op, now its notpretty sure reaper still kicks kitten

Necro has no builds on QT anymore because of this "fix". It has no competitive DPS and the support aspect is laughable at best. This is definitely a mountain.

[mygamingid.5816]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:So, Mygamingid clearly doesn't raid.

The thing is, every bit of support Necro/Scourge does offer is already covered by meta support specs, which also offer superior damage and/or support. In PvE, there just aren't enough boons on enemies for Chronomancer to not do it accidentally. There aren't enough conditions in most fights (two raid encounters where this is different) for Druid to not cleanse them all as a side effect of their normal rotation.

I don’t raid, because the content is boring, the community is toxic, and the DPS-or-GTFO mechanics ignore 80%+ of the game’s traits, skills, and gear. I fully understand that the raid meta exists, what it looks like, and why. I also know that qT repeatedly says that it isn’t even remotely necessary for raid success and that teams shouldn’t require a non-meta comp. Strange how people worship the Golem DPS charts, but can’t ever remember that bit of advice from the people making them.

[FaboBabo.3581]

@Wintermute.5408 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:

@Vlad Morbius.1759 said:

@Junkpile.7439 said:I just don't understand why can't you just play class that makes lot's of DPS if being top in DPS means you so much?

Because that isn't the issue, I don't think anyone who posts here regularly is asking to be the new meta all they want is to play the class they enjoy and have it function well enough in high end content to have a role.

A lot of players in this thread and the others like it absolutely believe that they need to equal or exceed large-hitbox golem Staff Weaver DPS to be considered competitive. Some may accept a meager 38k, but they’ll have to hold their noses to do it. They wholly ignore the extra survivability, boon-to-condi, condi-to-boon, vulnerability, group healing, area blind, condi absorb/transfer, and other things that Necro can do. Why? Because raids don’t value it, it shouldn’t be perceived as having any value.

This tiny slice of the game, played by so few, continues to dominate the discussion. Terrible design allows players to ignore everything except DPS. Those giant, immobile, unthinking, mechanically-neutered bosses are the worst mistake made by ArenaNet.

I know right! Those stupid raids, game became so much worse with them! Because when fractals and dungeons were supreme, nobody cared about DPS, and necros were welcome everywhere for all their survivability and self-reliance! People were kicking eles left and right to take necros into dungeon runs, right? Right, guys? Guys?

Mockery aside, let's go through that nсie list of yours:Extra survivability - Scourge has none.Boon to condi - garbageCondi to boon - even more garbageVulnerability - yeah, right with all the other classesGroup healing - lolwut? Transfusion? AHAHAHAHA.Area blind - lolwut?Condi absorb - where?Condi transfer - I guess broken clock is right twice per day...Other things - what other things?

1. Group barrier - stackable, great counter to condi in wvw and pvp
2. boon to condi - insane for pvp and wvw
3. condi to boon - insane for pvp and wvw
4. vulnerability - insane for pvp and wvw
5. group healing - insane for pvp and wvw
6. area blind - insane for pvp and wvw

guess we need wvw/pvp - pve split balance... how surprising.

[uller.6528]

I agree with Op and seeing these changes makes me just sit and say well its Dear Devil thief and Rev, Loved how Scourge played 8/2017 -10/2017 You rocked.

[Subli.8217]

@"Esprit Dumort.3109" said:

Necro has no builds on QT anymore because of this "fix". It has no competitive DPS and the support aspect is laughable at best. This is definitely a mountain.

while i agree necro is trash i'd like to point out it doesn't mean anything if something isn't up on a private guild's website. what you wrote is a sheep mentality. for example, condi reaper deals about 34k dps and a non-sheep person would know that or search the web before saying anything

[Mercurius.7314]

I posted this elsewhere but I’m honestly wondering if the best way to get all of the behaviours of the Shroud skills to be consistent/balanced is to just make Desert Shroud F1 and swap the Manifest skill to F5 instead given that Desert Shroud already functions somewhat like normal Shroud. It would help to preserve the feel of Necro having its main Shroud on F1 while being fairly consistent with other new specs such as Soulbeast as the ‘pet’ skills would be on F2-F4 and the major elite spec mechanic (Manifest Sand Shade in this case) is on F5.

Swapping Shroud and Shades around would allow you to have all of the ‘in Shroud’ or ‘on Shroud skill 1’ traits activate each tick for the duration of Desert Shroud (like Dhuumfire was doing on skill 5 before they fixed it) which turns Desert Shroud into a quasi-burst or survival cooldown very similar to how Shroud was used by base Necro and Reaper previously.

You’d probably need to have the effects centred on the Necro rather than the Shades (with the barrier/torment pulses still coming from the Shades) which would mean you’d need to be close to melee for maximum effectiveness (which you generally are in PvE for boon sharing anyway) and would help to keep a lid on the ‘Scourge just dropped 3 shades and melted half a zerg of people’ scenario which people were concerned about. I believe the Desert Shroud effect that comes from the Necro already follows them while moving like Tempest’s Fire overload so that’ll also help to get around the ‘boss moved out of your shades so you’ve entirely tanked your DPS’ thing so you could focus on placing the shades for barrier/CC.

In terms of damage, I don’t really think 6 seconds out of every 20 (admittedly you’d have more effective uptime with Alacrity) of stacking AoE burning/might/vulnerability on targets around the caster would be unreasonable given that I can do that on my Revenant by just channeling the Mallyx elite and using Mace skills 2/3.