Sand Shades

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

I think sand shades being cast both at the target marker and at the caster's feet breaks one of the fundamental principles of good PvP game balance: choice. Anet will never be able to properly balance out scourge as long as the mechanics remain as they are.

[dank.3680]

Just now, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I think sand shades being cast both at the target marker and at the caster's feet breaks one of the fundamental principles of good PvP game balance: choice. Anet will never be able to properly balance out scourge as long as the mechanics remain as they are.

 

Hmm, does Mesmer shatter also break "fundamental principles of good PvP game balance:choice"?

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

1 minute ago, dank.3680 said:

 

Hmm, does Mesmer shatter also break "fundamental principles of good PvP game balance:choice"?

Necro sub-forum, scourge-specific thread. Take your whataboutism elsewhere.

[dank.3680]

Well you are talking about 'fundamental principles of good pvp game balance' seems to me a statement like that is very broad and encompasses more then just a single class. 

 

Now maybe you want to explain how it removes choice and/or how it breaks game balance. Because you actually haven't made any sort of point in this topic. 

[Teratus.2859]

9 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Necro sub-forum, scourge-specific thread. Take your whataboutism elsewhere.

It was a fair question, Mesmer does the same thing in it's own unique way.. and Mesmer been around a lot longer than scourge.

You are not criticising shade's specifically.
By your own wording you are criticising the very concept of a mechanic affecting a targeted location and the players location at the same time.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I think sand shades being cast both at the target marker and at the caster's feet breaks one of the fundamental principles of good PvP game balance: choice. Anet will never be able to properly balance out scourge as long as the mechanics remain as they are.

ANet already tried what you suggest and the result is that the scourge isn't solid enough to be able to afford such design. Imo, it's one of the few changes in the game that ANet ended up being forced to revert.

[LucianDK.8615]

Sand shades is -NOT- cast the feet of the caster. Its rather that the caster counts as one.     It was horrid when they removed it, feels much better to play scourge with it back.

[Anchoku.8142]

3 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I think sand shades being cast both at the target marker and at the caster's feet breaks one of the fundamental principles of good PvP game balance: choice. Anet will never be able to properly balance out scourge as long as the mechanics remain as they are.

I forgot; was counting the Scourge as a shade introduced at PoF release or some time during the long list of buff-nerfs?

[Aktium.9506]

3 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I think sand shades being cast both at the target marker and at the caster's feet breaks one of the fundamental principles of good PvP game balance: choice. Anet will never be able to properly balance out scourge as long as the mechanics remain as they are.

Scourge would need some serious firepower added to it if you remove the defensive aspect of yourself counting as a Shade again.

 

Sounds good on paper maybe, but essentially you'd just be creating a condi version of Sic 'Em Soulbeast. Except people would complain more because it's condi.

[Obtena.7952]

I don't get how this breaks game design because of 'choice' ... if the choice wasn't intended in the first place. 

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Anchoku.8142 said:

I forgot; was counting the Scourge as a shade introduced at PoF release or some time during the long list of buff-nerfs?

Scourge counted as a shade at PoF release. At some point, ANet tried to do what the OP suggest and scourge disappeared from all gamemodes until they reverted the change. (They gave back the "self-shade" in July 2020)

[LucianDK.8615]

The same thing happened to mesmers, with themselves counting as shatterable. And likewise proved to be a bad idea.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

17 hours ago, dank.3680 said:

Well you are talking about 'fundamental principles of good pvp game balance' seems to me a statement like that is very broad and encompasses more then just a single class. 

 

Now maybe you want to explain how it removes choice and/or how it breaks game balance. Because you actually haven't made any sort of point in this topic. 

Mesmers are not an avid comparison. There is a choice to be made, there. 

[KrHome.1920]

ANet tried them all:

1. Release: every shade and scourge triggered a separate manifest sand shade hit. We had 40k DPS on power scourge for one week. Unfortunately this was not long enough to make it into WvW. It would have been hilarious. Stack 3 shades into a blob and then nuke.

2. The first nerf: scourge and shades can't overlap anymore. Big DPS nerf for PvE. Less troll potential in WvW and PvP.

3. The next nerf: what the OP suggested: clunky and unviable... as if scourge wasn't already the most clunky spec.

4. The revert of Nr. 3. And here we are now.

 

Quote

Anet will never be able to properly balance out scourge as long as the mechanics remain as they are.

 

Well I stated that in 2017 already. You are a bit late. But unlike you I say that whether the scourge counts as a shade or not makes no difference. The problems are burried in other scourge mechanics.

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

ANet tried them all:

The only thing they have yet to try is to give a cast time to the shades skills (they choose to put a delay and a glowing orange visual pollution instead).

 

Ah! they also stick to the manifest sand shades proc on shade skill use like flies on a rotten piece of meat.

[wolfsblut.9435]

Not long ago they remove the "double cast"....and broke the elite completely.
 

[Wuffy.9732]

On 7/11/2021 at 2:24 PM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Necro sub-forum, scourge-specific thread. Take your whataboutism elsewhere.

you already ruined your own thread with your condescending rhetoric. A healthy debate can oblige a comparison between classes. If you're gonna shut out opinions, then there's nothing to discuss.

 

/endthread

[Anchoku.8142]

Barrier had 1 sec duration at PoF release, iirc, so WvW probably did not appreciate that short buff it had not seen before. I do remember exploring PvE in an OP condi Scourge build using Terror and Dhuumfire.

[Sigmoid.7082]

52 minutes ago, Anchoku.8142 said:

Barrier had 1 sec duration at PoF release

At release barrier stated to decay after 2s and was gone after 3 more, so would last 5s in total. The issue with it was that any source of barrier would refresh that timer. You could walk around with a permanent max barrier before they made some changes and then to what it is now where each packet last 5s before falling off.

[Anchoku.8142]

28 minutes ago, Sigmoid.7082 said:

At release barrier stated to decay after 2s and was gone after 3 more, so would last 5s in total. The issue with it was that any source of barrier would refresh that timer. You could walk around with a permanent max barrier before they made some changes and then to what it is now where each packet last 5s before falling off.

Was there a beta weekend before PoF release? I remember giving feedback barrier was too short so people with lag or not enough familiarity with PvE boss proc's would have a harder time. Two sec barrier was longer than original.

[Uvirith.9573]

Sand Savant : In addition to current effects
- increase barrier rating when a shade is active 
- offensive effects are only applied arround the shade when it's active
- defensive effects are only applied arround the caster when a shade is active

[anduriell.6280]

16 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

ANet tried them all:

1. Release: every shade and scourge triggered a separate manifest sand shade hit. We had 40k DPS on power scourge for one week. Unfortunately this was not long enough to make it into WvW. It would have been hilarious. Stack 3 shades into a blob and then nuke.

2. The first nerf: scourge and shades can't overlap anymore. Big DPS nerf for PvE. Less troll potential in WvW and PvP.

3. The next nerf: what the OP suggested: clunky and unviable... as if scourge wasn't already the most clunky spec.

4. The revert of Nr. 3. And here we are now.

 

Well I stated that in 2017 already. You are a bit late. But unlike you I say that whether the scourge counts as a shade or not makes no difference. The problems are burried in other scourge mechanics.

You are forgetting in their usual style Anet nerfed Shades without undoing first the nerf to Sand Savant CD. Also Anet half cooked the shades when thay did that: Shades support effects should also have applied to the necromancer otherwise the spec would need a full rework. 

 

So from my experience this would have been a good approach: 

• Shades do only apply negative effects (damage, conditions, corruptions) on F1 locations and not around the necro. 
• Shades addtionaly apply the positive effects (barrier, cleanses,boons, Abrasive Grit, etc...)  on the scourge and not around it.
• Sand Savant is returned to 2018-06-05 prenerf in pvp and wvw. Shades already have an increased base CD in PVP game modes. 

 

So offensive presure is reduced without making the sourge so vulnerable as not having access to the deffensive effects from the shades. Scourge is not supposed to be a dps profession. 

Edited July 13, 2021 by anduriell.6280
removed blank lines

[Nimon.7840]

On 7/11/2021 at 8:24 PM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Necro sub-forum, scourge-specific thread. Take your whataboutism elsewhere.

 

This isn't whataboutism. It's asking to treat similar mechanics in a similar way.

 

While I agree that scourge is still pretty strong- I don't know about spvp, as I don't play that Gamemode - in my opinion it's the Gamemode itself that has several issues/flaws. And some of them benefit some classes more than others.

 

For example:

Only available Gamemode being king of the hill:

- most of the cap points are pretty small which benefits ae spam/denial

If there was a capture the flag Gamemode, noone would play necro, because its mobility is basically nonexistent, or has extremely high cooldowns.

 

Scourge not counting as shade was already tried. And at that time I played a bit of spvp - scourge was so bad, that having a scourge in your team basically meant having to play 4v5

 

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

So offensive presure is reduced without making the sourge so vulnerable as not having access to the deffensive effects from the shades. Scourge is not supposed to be a dps profession.

 

Scourge is exactly what ANet designed it to be: a living area denial.

The issue isn't it's dps, nor is it it's sustain or support, it isn't even it's coverage, the issue is that everything is baked at once into an area denial designed main mechanism.

 

The smart way to balance it would be:

Nerfs:

- F2, F3, F4 no longer proc manifest sand shade

- Sand cascade: reduce base barrier value by 50%.

- Desert shroud/harbinger shroud: reduce base barrier value by 50%.

- Desert empowerment: reduce base barrier value by 50%.

- Sand flare/Sand swell/Serpent siphon: reduce base barrier value by 50%.

 

Buffs:

- Sand savant: now also increase outgoing barrier by 100%

- Demonic Lore: now also allow F2, F3 and F4 to proc manifest sand shades.

- Feed from corruption: Now additionally increase base barrier that your scourge skills and traits grant to you by 100%. (same restrictions than Abrasive grit and only on self to avoid unwanted interaction with BB or runeset granting barrier)

 

There, you got a trait for a squishy support, a trait for a squishy DPS and a trait for a bunker that got it's support and dps lowered.

[Anchoku.8142]

Scourge is not just area denial, it is also area support with barrier. Scourge does both remarkably consistently. After a long history of stacking core Necromancers in WvW, Arenanet decided to see how far stacking the same profession in a blob could be pushed and Scourge was the result.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Anchoku.8142
Punctuation