First things first, I love that they found a way to give us some team oriented utility.
Deathshroud, our egoistic survavibility was always a problem to give us more utility.
I firmly believe – as a necro main – that the shroud mechanic is a great concept, but terrible executed. With Scourge we can just keep shroud the way it is and no rework is required. Just a rebasing of stats. Scourge is an excellent solution to a problem that otherwise would have needed an entire rework of the shroud in order to give us some team oriented kit.
However, design wise, I really hate that we get to summon “sand shards” and our life force will be pouring into sand.
Just because the expansion theme revolves around dust and sand I feel like we were stolen of our own theme: The theme of the necromancer.
Sand shards? I mean Scourge has some really nice traits and all, but I definetly hate summoning kittening sand shards as a magician that has devoted his life to the darker kind of magics.
I am certain that I am not the only one that feels like the sand shards were not what we were expecting when we had choosen to create and play necromancers.
I am personally fine with it. I have encountered many games (especially dnd) that associate undead with dark areas as well as barren areas like a desert since they are almost devoid of life.
The desolation is full of sulfur and that is really devoid of life. Only demons and Junundus could pass it. And did they made Scourge use sulfur? Nah, they better use their life force to awaken god kitten sand. Sand are basically rocks. So last to do that was, wait.. elementalist? I am really not fine with this design choice.
Personally i’m okay with the dust/sand feeling of the class. Like Famine said deserts are pretty devoid of life so i dont think its that strange. ( i like that they try stuff that isnt your very stereotypical idea of a necro).
What i dont like is the sand shard summoning mechanic. I always hated the tablet spec on the revenant for the same reason. It’s going to feel so clunky and slow. Every fight again droping them down, over and over again.
Its the same as the shaman in the old WoW days with the totems. And the ritualist in GW1 with the spirits.
It gets annoying real fast in PvE.
EDIT: You’re not actually summoning the sand itself. Your using spirits in a dust/sandy apparition. Because you learn the skills in Elona which has a thing for deserts/sand. (Anakin skywalker not invited to the party).
A shade is a class of ghost anyway, still falls sortof under necromancy I guess. I mean we can already summon a normal shade, this 1 is just made of sand.
They actually look very very necromancerish. Some tormented faces getting constantly swallowed from the sand like an eternal struggle for staying out of the grasp of Palawa Joko. I think the design is really nice, its kinda grim, not dark grim, but sand grim.
I’m very pessimistic about this change, not going to hide it. For the Necro there’s a lot of issues with HoT and the failure of the Reaper to bring power to the class. Now it looks like they’ve just said who cares condi overload. I’m not disappointed I deleted my Berserker Necro and the news of nerfs coming to Reapers to make way for the new elite is very troubling. It’s still my best class to play, but the power creep of expansions is testing my patience when NPC’s are rarely nerfed or balanced with profession changes. I’d like to finish up getting the masteries from HoT but at this point it doesn’t look to be happening any time soon.
Also there is news that condi is going to take a huge hit in the damage output department. Q3 balance post pretty much sums up the headaches moving forward to expansion release.
I’m very pessimistic about this change, not going to hide it. For the Necro there’s a lot of issues with HoT and the failure of the Reaper to bring power to the class. Now it looks like they’ve just said who cares condi overload. I’m not disappointed I deleted my Berserker Necro and the news of nerfs coming to Reapers to make way for the new elite is very troubling. It’s still my best class to play, but the power creep of expansions is testing my patience when NPC’s are rarely nerfed or balanced with profession changes. I’d like to finish up getting the masteries from HoT but at this point it doesn’t look to be happening any time soon.
Also there is news that condi is going to take a huge hit in the damage output department. Q3 balance post pretty much sums up the headaches moving forward to expansion release.
Reaper condi is going to be removed and power on reaper and other lines are going to be equally buffed to compensate. Scourge will be taking on pure condition as well as support but little to do with power.
The desolation is full of sulfur and that is really devoid of life. Only demons and Junundus could pass it. And did they made Scourge use sulfur? Nah, they better use their life force to awaken god kitten sand. Sand are basically rocks. So last to do that was, wait.. elementalist? I am really not fine with this design choice.
I’m not sure but instead of “sand”, shards look more like totems filled with corrupted energy. The effect does not look like sand so it’s ok right?
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
