Balance with a Sledge Hammer

Aravind.9610 · October 20, 2017

@Mercurius.7314 said: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.

This is a sensible fix for scourge provided they remove dhuumfire triggers from manifest sand shade and put them solely on desert shroud

Kam.4092 · October 20, 2017

I just wish Barrier gave offensive buffs too like GotL. Call it Grace of the Dead, and it does the same thing.

In a game mode like Fractals for PvE, Scourge is still Powerful with Epidemic, and its powerful AoE abilities. It's just that it was way stronger before. I am happy they nerfed the requirement of Shade stacking for DPS though. I'd prefer Shades to be actual "support", and not an unfinished mechanic as it stands currently basically. Scourge needs balance centered around being raid optimal for once, same for other builds like Power Revenant, Deadeye, Power Reaper, etc.

Brining our DPS to around 32k, and allowing us to give offensive support, with Barrier decaying a bit slower would be really nice. I am happy a lot in this thread are actually making suggestions, and not raging.

When I think about Necro summoning spirits of the dead for Support, I think about empowering allies with damage buffs and defense. I just hope the balance patch takes from what we've suggested. I'm eager to see what they change about us, since they said they are reworking some things.

We'll just have to wait and see as usual. :D

Dadnir.5038 · October 20, 2017

@mygamingid.5816 said:
@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.

Man... everyone want to be a little worse than condi tempest who sit at 37k dps (on single target despit being a "support" traitline)... cPS invest heavily in support traits which is why it sit at 30k dps, a condi warrior which take the same traitline than cPS but dps traits instead do way more than 30k dps. A scourge that take only condi utility and condi trait deserve to do more dps than a cPS, not reach the same level. That's not power creep that's balance!

Caccis.9087 · October 20, 2017

@mygamingid.5816 said:
@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.

But you are still talking about PvE balance every day at forums even when you do not raid? You do care about it or you are a troll.

I enjoyed playing Scourge in raids, now i can barely out dps cPS with full damage traits, if anet wants Scourge to be heavy support they need more damage on baseline or unique buffs like +%dmg while barrier is up. Good thing i made equipment for my Revenant and they can excel at damage part. There are many support builds that my guild have tried but if your best options are way above rest, what is the point. Might stacking with deadeye, scourge and herald are possible but their effectiviness is just so much behind warrior who can bring banners and EA(also more dps). I would love not to ignore so many traits, gear ect. but if anet allows stuff like Chrono, Druid and cPS to exist while not offering really competive alternatives raiders do not have really other options. This does not have to mean nerf but bringing other characters able to do stuff they are doing.

Renegade healer can offer now fine alacrity, but it is a hell harder than Chrono alacrity and you have to just do heal+alacrity to even compete with alacrity provided with Chrono and you need Firebrand for quickness, who has nice quickness uptime but it is so freaking hard to play with clunky mantras. Or that Druid has so many unique buffs it is really hard to compete with, Auramancer may heal more but can't offer anything vs druid buffs. Anet had to hurry to fix dhuumfire but have not done anything to these questions for a long time, I can only hope they do in balance patch.

EVERYONE(i hope) knows that you do not need top dps classes to succeed at raids, but that does not mean one class should be subpar in everything it does. All classes should bring something new at group content(sorry vampiric aura is not that). There is a potential at Scourge healer if we can bring something to compete with druid, we could even stack might at same time. It is not just in there yet. Blood Magic has allready some cool effects with Scourge so that could be something to build with.

Aetatis.5418 · October 20, 2017

@mygamingid.5816 said:
@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.

thank you very much !!

exactly this !nothing else

i can understand why people feel the most dps available is required - because the faster the boss is down, the less mechanics everybody has to deal with.on the other hand - IF people play classes/traits/gear that allows you to do mistakes... anyway i am pretty alone with that kind of thinking.that is why i feel ... we need a solution from the devs (rather than the community), which is better balancing and some love for the necro (core? power? reaper? anyone?). necro being wanted in wvw and being one of the easiest class to play open world is just not enough. its a niche. the only niche - whereas every class got a build for almost every situation in the game.

sidenote: (okay thief has absolute no (ZERO) value in wvw zerg fights , so maybe have a look into that aswell - just to be fair... and tone down all the PoF stuff that only supports 2 to 3 classes in zergs, since they shine at everything and nothing can compete here. but thats wvw forums, isnt it?)

Wintermute.5408 · October 20, 2017