Guild Wars 2

Hello all.
Some time ago I created a necro elite specialisation known as The Envoy, that focused on boons and spirits. After seeing all this talk about a possibly leaked spec known as Scourge, I could not help but try to think of a version myself.

Necromancer specialisaton: Scourge

After Palawa Joko mercilessly conquered Vabbi and most of Elona, the resistance against the undead ruler quickly faded away. It was in this time of need, that the scourges were born.
A scourge attacks from beneath the cloak of the desert sands, utilities powerful burns from the desert sun, blinds its foes with whirling sand…and disappears like he was never there in the first place.

Philosophy:

This is an elite spec that focusses on blinding, burn, and giving necro some active defense as well.

New Mechanic: Sand Shroud

New Weapon, Mainhand Torch:

Utility skills: Survival

Traits:

Is this balanced?
Probably not.
If anything I would mostly try to aim this at PvE.
Considering the nerfs for rev and nec in the last patch I no longer believe in a single balance for all 3 gamemodes.

Also sorry for the triple post, the forum did not like me trying to dump all of this into a single post, or even two.

I would hate it if they were to release something like this…

Sand shroud is reaper shroud 2.0 with an auto attack with effect that won’t happen. almost same AA, same skill #2, #3 and #4, only skill 5 is a bit original

Main hand torch… I know a lot of player want a torch in main hand but this is extremly unlikely. Beside, it feel out of place to wield a torch in the desert.

Semi invuln on survival skill… Not gonna happen… Traits are OP.

Also, there is to much “palawa joko” in this. As far as we know, this guy rule Elona right now, our tyria have minor contact with these land and it would be a waste to fight him while we don’t have access to elona. (map out of tyria are unlikely to be released until a looooooong time)

If anything I would mostly try to aim this at PvE.

Excuse me but there would be very limited use for this in PvE. This could only shine in PvP.

Considering the nerfs for rev and nec in the last patch I no longer believe in a single balance for all 3 gamemodes.

Balance aim at making all profession equal to each other. In the dev view the necromancer have it’s place in all gamemode and fair pretty well. The only thing that bother them is that the necromancer just can’t make it on power build so they try to balance this aspect little by little. The fact that they removed a mechanism exploit just mean that this use of the lich form was not intended.

There is far more possibilities than copy past shrouds as new mechanisms for the necromancer, it would be sad if the devs just gave us a new shroud, weapon and utility with each new E-spec. First it would not fit their statement to “think outside the box” and also, it would be pretty boring. There is a need for some skills of the shroud to behave in a certain way which affect skill#2 and Skill#4 but nothing restrain other skill and most of all, nothing restrain the dev to add different mechanism that make use of the life force or modify the way the shroud work.

Dadnir:

I am sorry you seem to hate my initial ideas.
However, I feel like you are mostly sounding very angry, and your post is not very constructive.
I respectfully disagree that Sand shroud is the same as reaper’s shroud.
What they both have in common with the normal shroud is that they are all shrouds.
The shroud skills that Arenanet has made so far have a certain pattern to them.
1: auto attack chain.
2. some form of movement.
3. will have a form of cc, mostly fear.
4. is a channel of some sorts.
5.basically a freebie, but it does have cc in there, either with immobilize ( normal shroud) or stun+chill ( reaper ).

I’d say I have stuck to Anet’s pattern, but have tried to add some flavour alongside of it.

Mainhand Torch..
This mostly feels like a matter of taste to me, and it is hard to argue when the argument is mostly based on feelings.
However, when looking from a thematic perspective, dark/hellish flames could fit a necromancer, and so could a torch. While naturally any weapon can be thematically modified to fit the necromancer theme if done properly, I’d say torch is the closest to the necromancer in its unmodified state.

About the survival skills: I do not see why semi invulnerabilities in the form of melee blocks couldn’t happen. Necromancer is currently lacking active defenses, and the skill can still be countered by simply swapping to a ranged weapon. If elite specialisations are about adding new flavours to a class, I do not see why active defense would not be a possibility.

About the traits..Ofcourse they are OP in their current state. That is why this is a first draft. I rather start with a lot of OP stuff that can be toned down until it is considered good but not OP. However, you only say that it is OP, and give no suggestions about what could be done to tone it down in a way that it could still see play. As I said before, you sound very angry, but not constructive.

the Palawa Joko connection is once again, a matter of taste and feelings, thus hard to debate. You either like it, or you don’t. But considering Joko rules Elona and most of the Crystal Desert+Desolation at this point, it would not be strange to assume there is a possibility that we might encounter him or his influence if the next expansion decides to bring us to the Crystal Desert.

As for saying this would be limited in PvE, once again you say something, but offer me no examples or suggestions for improvement. Personally, I feel the burns and blinds give new toys to condition necro, while sand shards and some other traits help power.
What this spec does not do is give real support or hand out boons, but there should be another spec aimed at that. Let’s cement the DPS roles first before venturing into unknown terrain where necro would have to compete with support roles like chrono.

Balancing is about making professions viable, not equal. Last patch they took away the minions. However, the damage the necromancer got out of that only put it on par with other condi dps classes. the real problem, the interaction of necro’s, conditions and epidemic, remained untouched. Meanwhile power is still a joke when compared to the power builds on other classes. You would be better off not blindly believing Arenanets words when it comes to balancing.

You claim specs should think out of the box, yet you hate it when I try to do so.
While it is fine to disagree, you provide no feedback, no pointers and no advice.
It is okay to dislike what I made, but please be constructive so I can make this idea better, thank you.

I am sorry you seem to hate my initial ideas

What I hate is the lack of originality, this is reaper 2.0 with a focus on burn instead of chill. And sadly the burn would be obviously reduced to nothingness in less than a month after release of such a spec (For the same reason they changed deathly chill on reaper.)

The necromancer mechanic have a lot more potential than just a boring shroud focused on damage or used to absorbed damage and we already got ranged and melee cover with the 2 shrouds we already have. So as I say, your shroud give us absolutely nothing new on the table.

The #1 skill need to be an auto attack, well yeah that obvious, as an auto attack. The #2 skill however only need to move something (It doesn’t have to be your body). The #3 skill appear to be a CC (and you copy past the stability of reaper’s) but no trait keep this skill as it is. The #4 skill should need to be a channeled skill but underwater shroud is already an example that Anet is not fixed in this design. The #5 skill like you said is a freeby.

Now what can they do other than a boring new shroud?

- Add other skills that use life force. That gotta be the easiest thing they could introduce on the necromancer and there are ton of variant. From the upkeep that feed on life force to the “burst” skill that discharge a chunk of life force at once… There is endless possibilities.

- Separate the necromancer from it’s shroud or modify the shroud into an external shroud instead of a self shroud allowing you to control your external shroud through shroud skills. Probably not so difficult to create and giving a perfect excuse to grant to the necromancer some utilities that should help him to survive. (Yeah as long as we got the “selfshroud” it will be unlikely that we will ever see some block or damage absorbing abilities on the necromancer)

- Most recently I comment on the idea of a “lich E-spec”, easily coming up with a pretty simple mechanism that automatically create a minion each time you gain a certain amount of life force. The minions doesn’t need to be strong or whatever, their use come from the traits that exploit the fact that you got some under your control to strengthen you.

There is certainly plenty other possibilities that could cut us out of the boring shroud spec. The reason why I hate your spec is that you add nothing on the table with it. This is just another spec that feature a shroud that behave 80% like the reaper shroud.

Personally, I feel the burns and blinds give new toys to condition necro, while sand shards and some other traits help power.

In PvE blind is almost useless. There is no use to this condition on bosses and most of the time it have barely any use against other mobs. This is a condition that shine in PvP not in PvE.

Burn is certainly the strongest damaging condition in the game, but it’s also the condition with which the necromancer have the worst experience with. In any way this is not a condition that will be easily introduced in such a massive way on the necromancer. The issue lie in the fact that the core necromancer already have strong condi sustain and the “burst” due to fear. If they add easy access to the extremely potent burn, the condi damage have the potential to easily go over the top and the PvP community is always eager to cry about the cancermancer.

Sand shard :

Foes that target you in melee create whirling sand shards around them, damaging nearby foes ( scaling with power, 150-1150. A shard can hit up to 3 foes, has 130 range and disappears after triggering. Each foe can only spawn 1 sand shard every second.)

So… we got the almost useless retaliation in game and you come up with sandshard that help one to send the crappy boon to the trashbox… I think you understand that this kind of trait is highly unlikely to ever appear on the game? It’s not that it doesn’t feel attractive but ther is simply no counter play to such a trait. More so, the foe doesn’t need to hit you, only target you… In PvE (group content) there is no reason for a foe to target you unless you are a dedicated tank (which also mean that there is no reason to grant you a dps increase as a dedicated tank…). This trait have it’s usefullness in PvP not PvE.

Balancing is about making professions viable, not equal.

No! Balancing is all about bringing profession on an equal standing. Viability is a concept that is in the mind of the player and highly depend of metagame. And the metagame is mainly decided by the leading player gameplay taste and ability to exploit every single hole on each profession. Epidemic in itself work as intended and have no room for real exploit while being able to keep the minion undefinitely wasn’t intended. Power is a mainly a joke because the necromancer is lacking reactivity/explosivity and the issue is that it’s part of the RP design of the profession.

I hope this was enough to enlighten you about why I dislike your idea. Again, I expect the devs to come up with E-specs that really bring something else on the table. I expect E-Specs that allow new gameplays, originality.

Applied like this it would be ridiculously OP. Some issues could be corrected with relatively long ICD’s/CD’s but some are blatantly OP.

My biggest issue is the utilities:
Virulent Soil needs to be tuned down. Start with 1 condi at the base with less condis at the top, only 3 levels, reduce cd to 30s and remove the blind reliance. Also it doesn’t even sound like a survival skill.
Shifting Sands actually sounds good and true but the numbers need tweaking. Reduce evade-frame to 1s, increase cd to 25s and LF generation should only be 5-10%.
Dust Cloak looks good at 1st glance but I actually think the effects should be each others opposites. Block for 2s and upon blocking blind foes around you. And make the casting time 1/4 s. What’s the point of a block if it can be interrupted?

And remove that Blast Finisher from the shroud. It sounds silly. It might as well be a leap. Putrid Ground trait also needs toning down. You could make it only apply to fear. Sand Shards also needs to be thought out more. It either needs a substantial icd (+20s) or the max dmg needs to be a lot smaller(maybe around 300ish).

Also, please rethink the cones you got going in some places. They usually don’t work too well, so an area effect would be preferred.

PS. If you edit the original posts, don’t remove any text. Just write/edit your changes below the original idea in cursive or in bold. Those later entries can be then edited to your hearts desire.

I like some of the ideas you’re going for, though I agree that some of the abilities and traits could/should be toned down a little.

Main-hand torch would be interesting, though I worry that the ability to keep a dagger in your off-hand while using the torch would lead to many necros keeping the current meta condi build (where utilities are concerned) due to easy access to condi transfer while also benefiting from easy access to burn via torch. I’m still open to the idea of using torches as a main weapon, but it’s still something to consider when designing utilities.

I like the idea of a more mobile specialization (which you seem to play around with a little bit). Maybe you could try going at it from that angle? It also seems pretty condition-heavy/condition-focused, which is fine, but maybe give power necros some love with the utilities/traits? Reaper added 4 utilities, so adding a fourth, more power-oriented utility wouldn’t be out of line.

Putrid ground is silly and I think you should figure something else out for that trait slot. However, this can be seen as an opportunity to address something that was missing from the trait line that each of the other lines has: a trait to enhance/reduce the cooldowns of a weapon—in this case, the torch.

I disagree with Dadnir about shroud and design patterns. Granted, you could play with the pattern and mix it up a little bit, but for the most part, you’re ideas are fine, thematically, if not in terms of power-level. The one exception being Granite Blood, which I think you could probably do something more interesting with.

I agree with Yannir that cones are probably not the way to go for most things (maybe one could be okay).

Fear the Sandman seems like a missed opportunity to inflict fear on a blind, although I think I prefer your decision to inflict burning on a successful blind. That isn’t to say you definitely couldn’t technically do both, but for balance purposes you probably shouldn’t. On that note: the stealth-related traits seem like kind of an afterthought compared to the others. None of the utilities give stealth at base and the only way you can give yourself stealth seems to be Dust Phantom, which, owing to the strength of the other 2 traits it is competing with, would probably almost never be chosen on most builds. This isn’t inherently bad, but I do think that it might be stretching the scope of the class a bit too thin. I think that you should either commit to stealth a bit more in other areas of the design or eschew stealth in favor of something else that fits the theme of the scourge a little better mechanically.

Virulent Soil – In PvE, the base effect is pretty reasonable, given what it’s competing with, but the CD should be longer. It seems like it might be powerful in conjunction with epidemic, though probably not much more so than Signet of Spite. It’s really only a problem in PvP, where it becomes unreasonably strong. The key problems are that it scales too well and too quickly.

Also, is the line that says it has no effect if the target isn’t blind intentional? Because I’m not sure that makes much sense in terms of the flavor of what the skill seems to do (as I understand it).

Regardless, I’d suggest changing it to something like:

No boons: blindness (3s) (2) bleeding (3s) (2) poison (3s)
1+ boon: add (2) torment (3s)
4+ boons: add (2) burning (3s)

Overall, your ideas could use some polishing, but aside from that, I think you have a decent foundation to build upon

All I want with a Torch is a fire field that burns the enemy.