Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of good suggestions in here, I agree e.g. with that Demonic Lore ICD should be removed.
Another thing I think should happen is to remove the cast time on the teleport, it’s way too long to be useful.

Zephar.4519:

You need to give us a hell of a LOT more reason to give up 50% crit (Vuln = 2% crit) and Chill = Bleed with no ICD on Reaper.

PS. I had a lot more fun and got a lot more excited playing Weaver. But I don’t want to play Weaver.

oh there will be a valid reason, anet will just rework chill=bleed. Also yes weaver is quite fun, glad I don’t main necro anymore.

Do you guys not take dhuumfire? That trait proc on shade hit, desert shroud 5 actually proc 7 times if you use it.

If demonic lore has 0 ICD then it will be insanely overpowered.

Overall I am fairly pleased, I managed to maintain 25 might stack pretty easily in PvP and 0 Alacrity so you can be a might bot if you want. DPS is most definitely better than reaper just because you don’t have to deal with ice fields anymore.

Support scourge waits to be seen, transfusion is definitely much better than I thought though because it tick 9 times with a 12 second cd. That’s pretty kitten good, in addition to barrier I am curious to see if you can solo heal and squeeze in another dps for raids.

Just tried scourge a bit… Skills look beautiful on screen..
AOE seems nice…
Dhuumfire works very well..

But:
- barrier decay will be a problem, it’s useless with how fast it degenerates.. Went up to over 5k barrier and that was gone in about 2 seconds or so
- traits which trigger on enter/exit shroud work when entering Desert Shroud but that’s a addiditonal 6 seconds cooldown vs reaper shroud, so if you were to take Speed of Shadows you can only clear immob every 16sec vs now every 10sec.. Same for the swiftness boon.. Another 6sec wait.. Stupid, just stupid
- Sand swell: looks nice, can only be used once, range too short to be viable
- range of the shades is not enough, can be easily avoided
- Foot in the Grave: now also only works every 16sec in stead of every 10secs
==> Soul Reaper traitline is garbage for Scourge except for Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire
- Spellbreaker removes boons before I even have a chance to act due to the positioning I need for my shades

Class feels “meh” at best

Did some testing against the lord+soldiers+caster group in the Heart of the Mists. The lack of any stability or stunbreaks, coupled with the long cast time on Sand Swell means that, as many predicted, it’s very hard for a scourge to survive against foes that can chain CC attacks together.

We could really do with a stunbreak and/or some stability on our shade skills.

Sand Swell: The skill description says duration = 20s but the portal disappears after ~5-6s. Path uses stay for 20s as intended.

Underwater:
At the moment it is not possible to use any of the Scourge skills underwater. Even the life force skills are not usable. Instead you can activate the standard death shroud. I don’t know if this is intended but the life force doesn’t degenerate while the Scourge is in the death shroud. You can even leave the water and have still the death shroud + F2, F3, F4 and F5.
Without damage you can stay forever in death shroud.

Professor Sprout.1560:

Did some testing against the lord+soldiers+caster group in the Heart of the Mists. The lack of any stability or stunbreaks, coupled with the long cast time on Sand Swell means that, as many predicted, it’s very hard for a scourge to survive against foes that can chain CC attacks together.

We could really do with a stunbreak and/or some stability on our shade skills.

This is pretty much how I felt when I tested the class and unless something drastically changes there is no chance of me ever playing Scourge.

Overall I am disappointed with alot of the new elite specializations across the board. Mesmer is about the only one that caught my eye, everything else looks like they tried to over complicate things with zero consideration taken into the cohesion of new elite spec with the base professions traits and abilities.

Doni.3402:

Underwater:
At the moment it is not possible to use any of the Scourge skills underwater.

Good thing we’re going to a desert : D

I liked Torch but this garbage is overall a downgrade to even core necro. no mobility, no survive-ability, no stability, skills are too slow(as if the other skills werent to compensate), barrier decays too fast to even be useful and the amount is so low, cant even scare people away from my personal space in melee. what was the point of taking shroud away? uh none. I cant get enough lifeforce to fuel those useless skills that consume too much lifeforce for their usefulness. ofc every necro spec has to be handicapped in some regard. it is how it has always been with these developers.

Next step they will nerf reaper so that I would be tempted to use the current garbage that is scourge.

Condition Scourge is the epitome of squishy. Does decent damage, though nothing astounding, but my god does it melt to a stiff breeze.

Power Scourge with some investment in Healing Power actually seems halfway decent. With Mender’s amulet, you can actually get usable-size barriers. and, with just a bit of Stability from allies, actually does pretty well.

The punishments are all on the weak side. Sand Flare needs its actual Healing boosted. Trail of Anguish is probably fine in effect, but has a cooldown of about 5 seconds too long. Sand Swell needs the cast time reduced, probably to 1/4 second. Dessicate needs a larger radius and/or a shorter cooldown. Serpent Siphon needs buffs on bascially everything but the barrier scaling to be even worth considering taking. It’s just too awkward to use. Ghastly Breach really needs to follow the Necro or be ground targeted.

Fix Weakining Shroud with Scourge

The overall theme they want to achieve is good that feel of a kinda battlefield controller does work out. The effects are also really nice.

However the spec doenst quite cut it for me. The shade skills are really weak, and rather useless without healing power. And by that i mean heavy healing power investment. Where a druid for example can go full condi, or full power and still get a benefit from his celestial avatar the scourge shade skills seem heavily limited. In detail:

Shade:

• Shade skills cost a hefty amount of lifeforce. Lifeforce is hard to build with this spec.
• Shade skills effects are very weak. They can hit up tp 20 targets, yeah, but the individual effect are weak.
• Shade skills are way too shoehorned into one direction. The damage is low, you cant “spam” the skills for the damaging effect because of the absurd lifeforce cost. You get almost no “survivability” without healing power. No active defense like blinds, protection, stability or weakness.
• The overall “exchange” for loosing deathshroud feels awfull in PvP and PvE. You dont get personal survivability in a clutch and you don’t get dps, even if you fully spec for any of these aspects.

Torch

• Barely any snyergy with the rest of the kit. Low damage.
• Skill 5 is bugged, it doenst grant might at all most of the times,.
• Skill 4 would be great with a sequence skill, where you call the flamewall back to cause the conditions again, including yourself. That way you get some nice synergy with either a condi transfer for more damage, or the shade skill 2 for some on demand aegis trough the burning.

• Traits

• Dhuumfire interacts weirdly. It does NOT proc with each shade. It does proc with each shade summon ONCE. It works when using f2-f5. However, it seems to have a hidden cooldown. If you spam all the shade skills you dont get instant 4 stacks of burn (despite that this costs you almost all lifeforce)

• We have no synergy with the blind traits, and the chill traits from blind

• Foot in the Grave, Speed of Shadows, etc. are all too weak and wont really help you much because of the increased cooldown.

Shade Traits:

• The first line feels good and like a perfect fit for the support theme.
• The second line is okay. “Sadistic Searing” doenst work well. This line is basicly the heavy condi line. If you wanna do condition damage, you wont pick the new utilities because they suck in terms of condi damage. So the synergy with summoning a shade is useless. The ICD on Demonic Lore kills the trait for pure PvE scenarios.

• The third line has a synergy, but the cooldown on Nourishing Rot is way too high given how incredibly hard it is to gain and manage lifeforce.

• The Punishment Skillset:

Is bad. The heal is okayish, nothing special. The “Snakes” are very weak. Even with healing power the barrier is incredibly low for its cooldown. The poison and condi component of it is a joke. 2 seconds of poison? Like, really??? Trail of Anguish is boring as well.. Its just swiftness and an unstackable burn.. What is this for? Swiftness is nothing in times of 20 gapclosers, superspeed and similar effects. The portal is kinda cool. It feels sluggish and shouldnt have a cast time. The duration should be like 2 seconds longer, to get a better opportunity for plays. Dissicate is also outright bad.. i mean its good as it can generate a lot of lifeforce – but this should be somewhat deeper included into the kit. I mean without at least 2 heavy lifeforce generating utilities or traitlines you feel so incredible crippled.. The Elite is also meh.. it does a little bit of everything. It doenst deal much damage. It wont save you in a pinch.. Overall there is no theme in these skills, the only thing that connects them is the boon corrupt. And that is a lot of wasted potential.

Combining Scourge with the Base necro:

It doenst work well. Unlike Guardian, or Ranger or even revenant the base necro does not have the tools for a valuable condi spec in terms of damage. Its damage is too low, its condition application is bad, it doenst have a second weaponset for condi to supplement that playstyle. The core necros survivability in group scenarios was bad to begin with. The scourge does make this way worse. You can survive for a decently long time under “soft focus” and do you job well, but as soon as you get focused youre dead.

Overall what is missing is: Reliable mobility. A working condi build in terms of damage. Unique support, you have no unique offensive buffs at all. Might is overused and doenst bring much to the table. Interesting mechanics and combinations for the utility skills. Additional, usefull, skill effects, blind, protection, weakness, stability somewhere baseline for the f2-f5 skills.

Some suggestions for the Punishment skills:

• Sand Flare : Ground targeted, 900 range. If you cast this on a shade you teleport to that shade, or switch positions with it. If you have not targeted a shade it behaves like it does now.

• Snakes: Upon impact they immobilize and weaken foes. They then create an AOE field and leash to the target hit, causing each second for 10 seconds. The poison ticks each second increase in duration, 3 sec , 4 sec, etc. Each 3rd tick the healing sands spawn per enemy still in the leash. The effect ends for each foe if they move out of the AOE, the leash will not be reapplied to any foe after it expires.

• Portal: Should be instant cast.

• Trail of Anguish: Now drops a beacon upon activating and gains a flip over skill. If you use the flip over skill you drop another beacon, if these overlap you create a massive torment rift. Dealing huge burn and torment damage, as well as giving a barrier to allies. You basicly set the size of the AOE yourself by drawing a path, if the enemy manages to cleverly root /cc / disable or displace you they can prevent all of this.

• Dissicate: Should actually dissicate. Debuffs enemies with something like: Incoming conditions are increased by 20% duration, or burning and torment on the foe is 33% more effective for 5 seconds or so.

• Sand Savant should share the minor traits with allies, providing 15% increased condition duration for your team, this costs you the personal dps increase with “demonic lore”

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sand Swell needs the cast time reduced, probably to 1/4 second.

The funny thing about Sand Swell is that your allies can use it before you can

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Condition Scourge is the epitome of squishy. Does decent damage, though nothing astounding, but my god does it melt to a stiff breeze.

Not in WvW!

In Dire/TB it’s even more cancer than Reaper.

Harrowing Wave Ok ability, nothing amazing but not bad

Oppressive Collapse The might is buggy but once thats fixed we should be ok. If the ability was a little wider that would be great for PvP but thats not necessary.

Sand Flare Decent enough but the initial Heal needs to be higher. This is less than all our other heal abilities. If barrier lasts a little longer before falling off It wont need the heal boost.

Trail of Anguish Its nice that it is a Stun Break and Swiftness for group but being only able to hurt the enemy once is kind of lame. It should continuously damage if they stand on it, that way it can be used as both a offensive and defensive ability.

Dessicate Wish Might was 10s instead of 8s. I do love how it is a Life Force generator tho.

Sand Swell Idk why this has a damage component, very rarely does this get used offensively but instead of strategically go out then back in for a situation. If the barrier was a little higher that would be great. It should also have either a lower cast time or none.

Ghastly Breach The only change I really want is for this to be an Aura around us instead of a zone drop. How is this any different than Plaguelands (other than might generation)

Serpent Siphon I really dont have much to say about this one. Its an ok ability that gives a small barrier. Kinda anti climactic

TRAITS
MINOR Overall all the minors are good for different builds, Top being the support, middle being DPS, and bottom being a combination of the 2 but focusing on personal support.

MAJOR Yet again top is supporting with more barriers, middle is damage, and bottom is more boon corruption. Only issue here is the middle trait Sadistic Searing which I think once you cast a punishment skill should give you that buff till you cast a shroud, not 10s.

GRANDMASTER
Sand Savant I honestly havent found the best use for this, personally its nicer to be able to throw down multiple shades in different areas for PvE and PvP.
Demonic Lore great trait but I wonder of dropping the 3s ICD would be smart. We already have Dhummfire.
Feed from Corruption I can see the use from this but not knowing what the enemy will have could be a pain. Also you along with other people that can get rid of buffs could be a pain.

Now this is my own personal opinion from the last 6ish hours so far. I personally love what they are doing with this class and will enjoy the hell out of it when it comes even if they dont do any changes at all. (Minus Sand Swell cause thats just broken)

FYI Dessicate ONLY GIVES 10% LIFE FORCE NO MATTER HOW MANY TARGETS YOU HIT

What the current scourge need:

traits:

-The sand shade need a default radius of minimum of 240 (180 is too small to hit fast moving enemies).

-The grandmastery “sand savant” can only be a joke, GRANDMASTERY that weakend the own skill (because less targets insted of using all 3 little shades). what a trash… you should create a grandmastery that bring stability to scourge.because its a grandmastery, so it should have a greater impact.

-demonic lore with igc, ooookay, but reduce it to 1 sec or something like that…
many of the new classes get heavy condi dmg reducing skills. so 1 stack burning every 3 seconds for a grandmastery? again to less impact for such an important trait.

-feed from corruption is great how it is.

-torch is good, but the 5th skill seems to be a little bit buggy because break the skill if enemy is out of range. usually it should be casted with max range in the direction of enemy.
and plz increase the radius of the skill because its too easy to leave the erea of effect before the stun in coming…

abilities:

-sand swell is really useless, because while you cast the skill you nearly can walk the distance you port than. it just need tooo long to cast for this short range port.

-serpent siphon: i dont understand this skill, because its impact is 0. it makes nothing to enemy and nearly nothing to yourself. long range skill that only bring barrier to you on short range??

-trail of anguish: nice skill, but just 6 seconds swiftness are to less. at the moment it grants 12 sec, but i think its just a bug. perfectly would be 15 sec, than you can use maybe higher boonduration (33% would be enough) to get perma swiftness with this skill. other classes already have good ways for perma speed, but necro only have trash skills like spectral walk to get this, and loose to much dmg output because of using 2 or 3 different skills to get perma swiftness while other classes just need one.

-dessicate is like serpent siphon simply tooo weeak to have good impact to the fight.
for using skills f4 and f5 you loose 8 k of your lifeforce so you need strong lifeforce generating skills like spectral armor. every skill under 50 % LF gen. is uselss. 5 mightstack from this skills isn’t enough to have a reason to use it, and boon corrupt on it is also weak.

general barrier:
-warrior or thiefes can hit you with 10k+ dmg on many skills. mesmer can shatter you with 20k dmg (if you have 3k+ armor) . barriers under 5k are useless.

-decay of barrier should firstly start after 5 sec after the LAST barrier get casted. than you can handle the strong decay…

general scourge:
- scourge will never get a block or invul. but blinds were often very useful in the past, so i hope scourge get more blinds to use it as defensive mechanic
-scourge possibilities to use combofields and finisher are really weak. plz bring us some whirl finishers, that worked good in the past on nec.

and finally i am still hoping for a simple stability skill on core necro. for example on spectral armor. stunbreaker+ stability+protection is a skill that necromancers in general need.

Brujeri, hit almost everything on the head for me, some primaries;
- Lifeforce is hard to build with this spec
-The damage is low, you cant “spam” the skills for the damaging effect because of the absurd lifeforce cost takes us back to VP nerf.
- In PvE you don’t get personal survive ability in a clutch and you don’t get dps, even if you fully spec for any of these aspects.
- Skill 5 is bugged, it doenst grant might at all most of the times, only had it grant might one of 4
- Speed of Shadows, etc. are all too weak and wont really help you much because of the increased cooldown, speed of shadows is now a hindrance to all 3 builds.

If i had to point out the obvious, it would be this; the Scourge is obviously meant to be a support character. It certainly cannot sustain damage for PvP, nor does it have the mobility and would have minimal use in WvW (maybe sitting atop a wall casting except the range sucks).

Anyway let’s just be honest for a moment, after watching the Elite Twitch stream and listening to how the Necro’s are “Selfish” characters and seeing that the Soul Reaping trait line was almost a must (yes i did play it), there is only one conclusion that can be drawn. Either the development team ran out of time and feared that if they had not nerfed VP and SS the scourge would be OP, or this was an attempt to dedicate that trait line to the Scourge….beyond the obvious Scourge trait line.
I can say outright that the right thing to do is to add back the VP taken from the other 2 specs and put SS back into Reaper to resolve the potential for Scourge being just too powerful not that i can ever see it in any game play today.

While I’m here let me just say the fact that a developer used the word “Selfish Class” while describing a build that was solely under their control and which has been petitioned against for so long by the community to allow it to be of value was bloody disappointing to say the least. We need this team do what’s right, fix VP and SS and if it means you need to add it directly to reaper trait line then do it. Reaper’s shouldn’t suffer because time was short , no other options were visible and certainly not because this interfered with the new shiny Scourge toy!

Now back to what the Scourge needs to survive normal PvE, is something beyond boon strip to feed it. Maybe the new zones have enough to sustain the scourge but i guarantee it won’t work in the majority of Tyria. Perhaps this wasn’t the concern at the time and the bulk of development was for PvP, WvW and the new zone but that is a seriously shortsighted view.

Please take the feedback for what it truly is, all of us hoping that the new Elites work in all areas of GW2, so much lore would be wasted if it needed to be conformed to a portion of play time.

Loving the class, been playing Condi in spvp and enemies are melting. most of the utilities seem a bit useless, I don’t think any of them are any good. The elite is great, and the heal is ok.

Torch 5 is a fun skill, easy to land, and 4 is a nice burst of damage afterwards.

the shade skills are AWESOME. id take it over shrouds any day.

best design is definitely the traits, most of them have excellent synergy, particularly between the adept and master traits. I feel sand savant is much better than the other two grandmasters at the moment.

After playing through all of the new elites today, I think that the Scourge is in the best spot design wise of them all. It is definitely a condi-focused class. Running scepter/torch + staff with the lifeforce regeneration traits, dhuumfire and a few corruption skills thrown in, it really felt strong without feeling overpowered. I see it particularly useful against large semi-stationary targets in PVE. Add in the barrier mechanic and it is pretty tanky as well.

As far as lifeforce being hard to generate, once I adapted to the new method of play, I found it wasn’t that hard, especially if you use the trait where you spawn one stronger shade rather than three. It is overspamming shades that runs lifeforce out prematurely, imo. A little resource management and it becomes a non issue.

Considering summoning Shades takes no life force, I have no idea why you think “overspamming” runs you out faster. Sand Savant doesn’t affect it either.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Considering summoning Shades takes no life force, I have no idea why you think “overspamming” runs you out faster. Sand Savant doesn’t affect it either.

You are correct. My bad.

Still think that as people become more practiced with resource management (the abilities, not the actual summons), they will find the Scourge to be in a pretty good spot.

Dead.5829:

Doni.3402:

Underwater:
At the moment it is not possible to use any of the Scourge skills underwater.

Good thing we’re going to a desert : D

the game doesn’t consist only of desert, there are underwater dungeon paths, fractal, open world regions. it’s scandal things like these are left out. level of unprofessionalism, far too much

Ok I Did It.2854:

So far from playing the Scourge, I have no desire to change from Reaper, I was hoping that we’d finally get a place in the game, but alas we seem to be left a drift for along time to come,

Some other classes got a massive boost with their new elites, but we will be left behind again sadly, there are key things we have been asking for, for years on the necro and we still don’t have them.

It looks like im going to be forced to play another class, just so I can get into higher end PvE content, to sad Anet to sad.

You complain alot but you didn’t give any example of this so-called “other better e-spec”, as well as why you dislike Scourage. You talk alot but express zero information.

It becomes a pure whine post instead of anything productive or worth debating.

The synergy of this espac is very solid. Lots of condition, good utility skills, good traits with lots of synergy with all the previous lines, massive aoe condition, etc.

It’s also an extremely good anti-boon class, and unlike spellbreaker, it actually has very high dps.

Aomine.5012:

Ok I Did It.2854:

So far from playing the Scourge, I have no desire to change from Reaper, I was hoping that we’d finally get a place in the game, but alas we seem to be left a drift for along time to come,

Some other classes got a massive boost with their new elites, but we will be left behind again sadly, there are key things we have been asking for, for years on the necro and we still don’t have them.

It looks like im going to be forced to play another class, just so I can get into higher end PvE content, to sad Anet to sad.

You complain alot but you didn’t give any example of this so-called “other better e-spec”, as well as why you dislike Scourage. You talk alot but express zero information.

It becomes a pure whine post instead of anything productive or worth debating.

The synergy of this espac is very solid. Lots of condition, good utility skills, good traits with lots of synergy with all the previous lines, massive aoe condition, etc.

It’s also an extremely good anti-boon class, and unlike spellbreaker, it actually has very high dps.

When are people going to get it through their skulls.

Self utility doesn’t get you into PvE groups. This is is the same kitten necro has had for FIVE YEARS. Self utlity, boon corrupt, mediocre dps, with minimal group support. You think scourge is worth bringing to a raid with barrier alone? That’s delusional. Also, it’s not up to people in this thread to give devs, who have had FIVE YEARS to figure out where this profession can go to synergize better with other professions. That hasn’t happened and currently it not going to happen this expansion.

what were you expecting, people started saying necro will never be good even when game was 2 years old and we were right all along. even our new elite spec is a nerf

People sure are mad in here :V

I actually had a blast using Scepter/Dagger and Dagger/Torch in a PvE build, and Scepter/Torch Dagger/Warhorn in a PvP build.

I maintained around an even 5-6k for Torment, Bleeding, and Burning each. In the PvE build. In the PvP build it was just blowing everything up, and I was getting max damage and healing with my build, with 20+ kills. I underestimated Barrier in PvP with the Sage Amulet.

AoE wise Scourge caps at 20, and is ridiculous. Literally can Condition explode everywhere in Fractals and WvW.

I messed around with a build that could give around 70% max Barrier uptime. It was with the Sage Amulet. If Scourge does see Support play in Raids, if we get gear like Condition Damage/Healing main, and Expertise/Vitality. Then using just Dagger/Warhorn to spam Shade skills would do around 12-16k DPS, and be max Barrier extremely often with Might stacking.

All DPS will be higher in a month when we test in the Raid training place. I don’t understand how multiple classes are raging, but it’s whatever to me. I love Scourge. ;D

I just wish the Dagger Auto Attack did Torment :/

The sand shades should have default sand savant size.

The radius of them is so ridiculously small, they’ll never work in pvp since they’ll be the new version of staff ele lava font.

Zenith.7301:

The sand shades should have default sand savant size.

The radius of them is so ridiculously small, they’ll never work in pvp since they’ll be the new version of staff ele lava font.

I had a blast harassing people on points, and used the portal to teleport to people, use Trail of Anguish to cripple them, then drop the Shades since they were slowed, and it made them stay in the Shade’s radius longer. If you put them in a triangle over a point, it can hit everything, and the sides.

Fearing someone, then placing a Shade on top of them is fun too. I wasn’t perfect with placing them, but got them to hit people usually. They are great for LoS trapping.

I had a lot of fun in PvP.

spec for the larger sand shade if the small ones are an issue then

I genuinely do not understand half this feedback.

- The damage we get is huge. It isn’t bad at ALL, it’s easily superior to reaper. Once we can test PvE, I am actually wondering if Dagger/Dagger will turn out to be the mainstay weapon we are in at least half the time, because the amount of conditions you can apply with its life force generation is sickening.
- Unlike reaper and necro, we finally have group utility, and what group utility it is! Not only can we keep up 25 might with ONE SKILL (if we have alacrity) or several skills (if we don’t), we also provide other utility, in form of a big health buffer that we can activate just before big damage comes in.
- We still keep the things that make necro useful right now (Utility that is often not appreciated much, such as Epidemic or boon hate), we do not lose it

“even our new elite spec is a nerf”

How is a straight up buff across the board a nerf? Like the only thing scourge loses is stability, and that’s mostly for PvP.

For WvW: The F1 skill, Manfest Sand Shade either needs to have the range increased to 1200, the cast time removed, or the radius increased.

Often when playing in wvw and attacking another group, the enemy would simply out run the placement of the Sand Shade, making them rather useless in an engagement. Chasing people down trying to connect a hit with the profession mechanic and watching them just step out of the circle is frustrating.

Using the larger single shade was slightly better, but still missed a lot because it could be so easily avoided, by simply stepping out while it was casted at short range.

It did work well in chokes or fights in and area, but while moving, this was frustrating to watch.

Everything else about the Elite Spec was pretty good.

My only negative feedback is this:

-Sand Savant feels absolutely mandatory for PvE, not just for what it does (3 shade uptime for 15% damage reduction/boon duration/expertise/Always a shade up for condi spam), but also for what it avoids, namely clunkiness. A 15 second cooldown for the shades is just too long, especially because the ammo mechanic means that only one charge recharges at a time.

Cutting the recharge down with Sand Savant makes it feel pleasant to play.

I feel Sand Savant should be baseline, with a major trait allowing you to split it into three.

I like Scourge alot: Condi Repaer has its dmg but Scourge is an AoE Beast when it comes to dmg, a beast…

Trail of Anguish is brilliant, SB on 20s cd(with trait ofc) that converts and burns have nothing bad to say about this skill. Sand Swell (Portal) just gives us so much more in an area we always bin lacking, saved me several times yesterday and also helped me kill several times .

Torch: didnt think I like it but traited right I the torment and burns u put out is great, skill#5 needs some tweaking tho.

Gnasty Breach is a better Plaguelands imho specially when u get the cd down to 60s

Scourge is not a support tho, its a Condi AoE Beast.

It’s a support once you keep might up for your party.
WHILE being a Condi AOE beast <3

Zefiris.8297:

It’s a support once you keep might up for your party.
WHILE being a Condi AOE beast <3

fair enough, was mainly response regarding the Barrier mechanic

Haha. Yeah, true enough. Barrier is a bonus, definitely not the main course. Being that AOE beast is.

I mean, I want to play a scourge in a supportive way, and every build I am tinkering with still keeps the AoE condition beast aspect. Would be silly not to.

Scourge does not feel like a necro anymore, and it plays out pretty boring tbh. Sourge has really nothing that makes it fun to play for me. Dmg looked kinda OK but defense, idk if we are able to survive in pvp (barriers are a joke btw.) . Anyway logged out, deleted necro, made holosmith and had an awesome time.

I have a feeling sand shades are going to be the new Dragonhunter traps. They’ll get spammed on control points and people will whine about them until they’re nerfed into the ground.

i fear the same, scourge is great in its current state, but whining may get us nerfed hard =/

Some of you are drawing conclusions based on the damage output, which is really high right now for scourge. That’s fine, but the thing to look out for in beta is which profession got better survivability tools. Also, a lot of that damage is coming from just one or two traits.

Damage will get normalized across various builds and professions. However, survivability tools usually don’t…at least not for a good time period.

A couple months from now, I guarantee the issues in PvP will be more evident and revolve around three main problems….

1. No stability
2. No gap closer
3. Barrier < Traditional Shroud
4. Portal cast time

Enjoy the damage now while it lasts. Maybe the other builds/professions will get damage buffs and this game will become more like a FPS.

SPESHAL.9106:

1. No stability

You can trait for it in Soul Reaping = use F5 to “Enter shroud”.

2. No gap closer

Portal is a shadowstep. It’s the best movement ability in the game bar none. Scourges can’t complain about this now.

3. Barrier < Traditional Shroud

Barrier varies depending on Healing Power, so I guess it’s supposed to be weak on DPS builds.

Svarty.8019:

SPESHAL.9106:

1. No stability

You can trait for it in Soul Reaping = use F5 to “Enter shroud”.

2. No gap closer

Portal is a shadowstep. It’s the best movement ability in the game bar none. Scourges can’t complain about this now.

3. Barrier < Traditional Shroud

Barrier varies depending on Healing Power, so I guess it’s supposed to be weak on DPS builds.

One stab every 20 – 14 seconds is nothing and wont help in any x VS x scenario.

Portal is the only shadowstep in the game with a cast time. You can cross 75% of its potential range while simply moving, instead of casting, leaving you with a net gain of like 200 range.

Barrier is the exchange for our deathshroud, and is useless without any heavy investment in healing power.

We lose so much, for nothing valuable in exchange

Brujeria.7536:

Portal is the only shadowstep in the game with a cast time. You can cross 75% of its potential range while simply moving, instead of casting, leaving you with a net gain of like 200 range.

Exactly, one dodge roll and you’re there. Doesn’t anyone wonder why it’s not the same distance as a mesmer portal, clearly there are chosen favorites couldn’t be more obvious. As for PvE, there aren’t creatures that supply enough boons to keep the Scourge going in most PvE, please be realistic in your expectations of how well this will work, nobody has had the opportunity to test it there.