Guild Wars 2

Ok for this I will use the Druid for comparison a bit due to the whole barrier requires healing power thing.

The people working on Scourge sat down one day and said “you know that life force thing necromancers use? Why not give it more use than just for shroud?”.
So they wanted to make the new utility skills use life force too but instead decided to drop shroud and turn it into 5 additional skills, kinda like the engineers tool belt except the skills are always the same.

However as we all know shroud has many traits related to it and it’s skills so now they will work in odd ways. Now I know the whole “while shrouded, when entering/leaving shroud” will now be on F5 but I don’t see how this will be much use.
Desert Shroud only lasts 7 sec each time so the “while shrouded” traits lose a lot of their duration. Also Desert Shroud recharges 20s instead of 10 so the “enter/leave shroud” traits trigger less often.
And now we have traits that trigger when using Shroud skills 1,2,4. Now as I heard Dhuumfire is suppose to work well with the sand shades (or so they think). Now I’m not here to argue about that, but I know that for them to trigger you need to spam F1-F5 and those use up life force. So if you can’t keep restoring life force fast enough mid combat it’s not going to work so well in the end. And mostly from what I heard people say it will make an excellent condi build due to Dhuumfire spam, but it seems they are forgetting that the scepter is probably the worst weapon for life force management.
So unless there is a way to restore life force really fast regardless of weapon used spamming F1-F5 is not really an option for the most part.
However worst of all is Transfusion because Garish Pillar is not a skill that channels, but is instead instant effect. And Transfusion can be a life saver when needed, I often used it to pull downed party members out of AoE field. Now it probably still will be able to pull out but because the other 2 skills were channeled I had often time to get close enough if the downed player was too far away when I first activated it, with instant effect however I will just have to hope I am close enough.

Now let’s get to the Druid. It is pretty much what players were hoping Necromancers will be some day. (NO I DONT MEAN BECOME HEALERS) I am talking about their mechanics being similar to Necromancers i.e. Celestial Avatar is similar to Death Shroud.
However a Druid does have the ability to use utility skills when in Avatar form while Necromancers cant. Which was a request since forever, but never came to pass. (Maybe we should just request the developers working on Rangers and Necromancers to swap?)
Anyway if you think the barriers are any competition for the Druid think again.
The Druid as a whole is so self-synergetic that it’s simply impossible to compete with it.
It is in fact the ONLY Elite spec that uses it’s new weapon religiously so to speak. Why?
Well because they can trigger 2 of their trait’s just from spamming their AA. Solar Beam alone will trigger Live Vicariously which heals the Druid and Natural Mender which increases outgoing healing by up to 20% and since healing the Druids Pet works too it’s nigh impossible for it not to work. And then you have Grace of the Land which can increase other players damage by up to 10%. In fact the Druid does not really need the other 2 trait lines to work, Quick Draw is a good trait for them as entering Celestial Avatar counts as changing weapon which allows using Rejuvenating Tides twice in a row.
How can Scourge and their barriers compete with that? The barriers don’t last long and decay. If the decay added to the health bar then it would be worth investing in Healing Power. As it is it would be much better if it used Vitality as it would also increase the Life Force pool – remember the Druids self-synergy I mentioned? Yeah that would be kinda the same thing right?
As it is I only see it used as an extra form of protection in condi builds if they do work well. But hardly anyone is going to use Healing Power to buff it and it certainly is not going to be competition for a Druid.

What Necromancers need is to become more like the Druid when it comes to the mechanics. They also need the ability to use utility skills when shrouded only with some limitations.
The way I see it it could be done through use of related trait lines. Each skill type is related to a trait line as we all know. So for example if someone wants to use Spectral skills when shrouded they would need to use Soul Reaping as one of their 3 traits as it is the one related to Spectral skills, Corruptions would require use of Curses trait line and so on.
They could also gain additional or alternate affects when used while shrouded, however they would cost some amount of life force then.
This could be achieved through the directly related traits i.e. Spectral Mastery would be required for the additional/alternate effects when using Spectral skills.
In other words the original idea behind Scourge was much better.

Rikimaru.7890:

So they wanted to make the new utility skills use life force too but instead decided to drop shroud and turn it into 5 additional skills, kinda like the engineers tool belt except the skills are always the same.

More like mesmer’s shatters with sand illusions.
Before VP change I was almost certain it’ll be modified to also reduce our barrier’s degeneration to give us more value.

Of course I was wrong.

To address your life force concerns, I can see condi dps scourge using the staff with soul marks (we want dhumfire so why not?). The idea is that you use mark of blood and chilibans to get some life force, work your corruption magic, cast putrid mark, quickly swap to scepter and use feast of corruption. You should have enough life force at this point to do what you need to do, but if not, we have dessicate, which just says, “Have some life force and give your allies might.”

As for the in shroud traits, remember that a good necromancer never camped in shroud anyways. Yeah it’s now on a 20 second cooldown, but now it comes with a devastating pulsing attack that inflicts torment (burning).

Rikimaru.7890:

And now we have traits that trigger when using Shroud skills 1,2,4. Now as I heard Dhuumfire is suppose to work well with the sand shades (or so they think).

Math proves this beyond reasonable doubt. So no, it’s not that people “think” this, it’s simply that it is implemented this way, and is the only way for dhuumfire to work as it should.

Now I’m not here to argue about that, but I know that for them to trigger you need to spam F1-F5 and those use up life force. So if you can’t keep restoring life force fast enough mid combat it’s not going to work so well in the end. And mostly from what I heard people say it will make an excellent condi build due to Dhuumfire spam, but it seems they are forgetting that the scepter is probably the worst weapon for life force management.

You “heard people say”, scepter is “probably” bad. Your problem is that you have not actually tried the spec, and know little about it. Nor did you think your own argument through.

Yes, the scepter is bad for life force management. But nobody is forcing you to use scepter.

We already know spamming F1-F5 is an option, because we tried it. It works, and it works well. All you need to do is not spam scepter. It’s that easy.

However worst of all is Transfusion because Garish Pillar is not a skill that channels, but is instead instant effect. And Transfusion can be a life saver when needed, I often used it to pull downed party members out of AoE field. Now it probably still will be able to pull out but because the other 2 skills were channeled I had often time to get close enough if the downed player was too far away when I first activated it, with instant effect however I will just have to hope I am close enough.

Here you show your utter cluelessness about the spec, and your refusal to read a thing about it. What you describe is not how transfusion works as scourge. We know this, since we already tried it.

Transfusion still pulses, and is stronger on scourge than on any other necromancer spec right now. It even heals YOU, unlike shroud transfusion, which can’t.

This right here is the issue with your post: You have no clue what you are talking about, and thus your entire point is nonsense.

No wonder you’re similarly confused about the druid, or the role a scourge would have. Hint: Scourges aren’t meant to replace druids.

OP, scourge is design to be a beast in zergs in WvW, and he is.

He is bound to be less satisfying in other gamemode but at least he got a good start there. After PoF release, you’ll still be able to play core necromancer and reaper (if they do not wreck to much things for these 2).

A lot of us that rant on the forum are more frustrated than anything by the choice of developpement that anet choose for the necromancer. They push and push forever toward the same direction which always favor zerging in wvw but end up lacking in other gamemodes.

The necromancer and it’s specialization are designed to be balanced in optimal situation so it force the dev to balance thing over WvW where it’s toolkit is the most effective. Yes, it’s often difficult to generate life force in some gamemodes, but in WvW it’s easy to fill your LF bar in very few seconds. Yes you need boons to corrupt to really benefit from all our boon corrupting tools but in WvW these are not rare at all. Yes you aren’t threaten by condition in a lot of pve area but condition bombing was a thing in WvW and there seem to need some tools to mitigate them while the necromancer’s community were litterally bleeding there own throat for some support. Yes life siphon feel weak but, if you stack enough minions or hit the maximum foes with your wells, it eventually give you one hell of a sustain… etc.

I’ll precise zephiris’s hint : Druid deal with health, Scourge deal with conditions. Druid recover, Scourge protect. Druid buff, Scourge debuff.

Zefiris.8297:

Transfusion still pulses, and is stronger on scourge than on any other necromancer spec right now. It even heals YOU, unlike shroud transfusion, which can’t.

And because it proc from a istant cast it can’t be interrupted and let us free to perform other actions while healing/ressing!

This forum is full of fantastic ideas for making necro more competitive. Simple way to rework ? For me:

Axe ? mele weapon <3
Rending Claws ? 130 range, targets: 3
Ghastly Claws ? 300 range, targets: 5, combo: whirl
Unholy Feast ? Health Threshold: 50%

Silmariena.6205:

This forum is full of fantastic ideas for making necro more competitive. Simple way to rework ? For me:

Axe ? mele weapon <3
Rending Claws ? 130 range, targets: 3
Ghastly Claws ? 300 range, targets: 5, combo: whirl
Unholy Feast ? Health Threshold: 50%

We already have two melee weapons (dagger & greatsword), do we need more ? We are a scholar profession, after all. And axe is our ranged power weapon.
I’d personnaly make Unholy Feast a blast finisher, we lack those, I agree with you on raising the health treshold, not sure on the exact value.
A bit of cleave on Rending Claws could be good too.

Kaladel.1670:

Silmariena.6205:

This forum is full of fantastic ideas for making necro more competitive. Simple way to rework ? For me:

Axe ? mele weapon <3
Rending Claws ? 130 range, targets: 3
Ghastly Claws ? 300 range, targets: 5, combo: whirl
Unholy Feast ? Health Threshold: 50%

We already have two melee weapons (dagger & greatsword), do we need more ? We are a scholar profession, after all. And axe is our ranged power weapon.
I’d personnaly make Unholy Feast a blast finisher, we lack those, I agree with you on raising the health treshold, not sure on the exact value.
A bit of cleave on Rending Claws could be good too.

For me – yes we need mele weapon, the greatesword is slow and available only for specialization that is not a core weapon, dagger is a pure dps weapon with no chance to improve condi dmg. For range we have scepter and staff, axe have many options to boost necros dps especially in case of an condi dps. When we compare how the sister skills of the same weapons in other professions, you can see how much necro stands in the way.
I wrote it because I know that for another specialization we will be waiting a year and a quick rework weapon would introduce a lot of new capabilities.

Things that would help the necromancer :

General :
- Leaping in poison field grant poison aura. Poison aura : gain regeneration and poison foe when hit, ICD 1 second.
- Leaping in dark field grant aura of darkness. Aura of darkness : steal life when hit, ICD 1 second.
(I’m skipping all change that would be needed on mob AI)

Shroud mechanism :
- Reduce decay based on the concentration stat.

Barrier mechanism :
- Reduce decay delay based on the concentration stat.
- Cap max barrier sent on ally at the scourge max barrier cap if the ally health pool is higher.

Core necromancer :
- Change rending shroud so that it apply a toughness debuf instead of vuln stack.
- Apply unholy fervor damage boost to all skill instead of just axe skills.
- Put axe cool down reduction on Spiteful spirit
- Putrid defense additionnally grant you poison aura when hit under the treshold (50%, ICD 30 seconds)
- Soul comprehension : grant 1% life force on hit, ICD 3 seconds.
- Vampiric presence : When you and your allies hit a bleeding foe gain health. Heal for around 50 per hit.
- Quickening thirst : move faster while wielding a dagger and dagger cool down reduced (20%). When hiting a bleeding foe with a dagger, attack speed increase by 10%.
- Vampiric ritual : well recharge faster. Using a well grant you and your allies protection and aura of darkness.
- Reaper touch : no longer bounce, removed regen component. Now a 4 ammo skill, ICD between 2 charges 1/2 second, cast time 1/4 second.

extra :
- Summon flesh golem : now available underwater. (Yeah! I felt like I had to push for it a bit more)
- Lich form become lich aura. Lich aura : You and your allies do 10% more damage for 10 seconds. When under this effect and in shroud you gain 2% life force when hit, ICD 1 second and periodically have stability. CD 120 seconds. (Dream change)