Guild Wars 2

Sigmoid.7082:

I guess it depends on if ~8 seconds of dagger auto +Feast of Corruption/20 seconds will be enough to sustain life force in longer fights.

8s of dagger auto under full quickness is about 45~53% LF with Soul Reaping.
The build has 0 vit so will have 79.35% of 21012 as LF meaning 16673.

Considering that with alacrity:

• F2 is ~8.3% of your LF every 3s
• F3 is ~15% of your LF every 4.8s
• F4 is ~28% of your LF every 9s
  and more importantly
• F5 is ~22% of your LF every 12s

You should end up running out of LF fairly quickly. if you use your abilities too much. There is also less room for error if things move and you have wasted your shade placement/miss a shade skill.

Can’t see #4 being part of a DPS rotation.

My guess is F5 on CD and F2 in between.

Zenith.7301:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Zenith.7301:

There’s absolutely no reason to turn down any DPS spec in fractals outside imporper gearing/traits.

Let people play the game how they want. If they want to go crazy with speedclears because they find it fun, they can do what they want and make their guild how they want. If you want to yolo with anyone that has a pulse, go for it.

Where in my statement did I say people should be barred from doing what they want?

I just said they’re idiots. It dramatizes some classes as being “worthless” when in fact they’ll suffice just fine.

This is not yoloing. It’s not some joke comp or build with terrible cases of inefficiency.

It’s about as ridiculous as the qT guide showing condi reaper as 33-34k DPS and then somehow still not recommending them for most raid encounters.

And then sheeple take these silly recommendations out of context and believe you can’t do raids unless you have these overly restrictive class comps.

Should necro be addressed? Sure, so should mesmers, revenants, rangers, and most power specs that are not guardian or thief.

But let’s not pretend like the exclusion of many of these specs is completely thoughtless overreaction.

Something’s wrong in this game when a game like WoW mythic raids has more spec representation on harder content than the fluff raids in this game. It’s a community self-inflicted issue.

Yeah there is this weird disconnect in GW2.

GW2 is a casual game. Almost everything about it is casual.

Yet somehow raids are considered this elite area where only the very best, optimal setups can succeed.

WoW for all its faults actually has a casual raider community (and a serious one of course) where this elitist behaviour would be considered terrible.

Its like people can’t accept that GW2 PvE is easy.

leasm.1279:

Just played a little bit with Scourge, against golems, so I may still have a noob view of some mechanics and traits..

But when planning my traits, one question came to mind:
- Isn’t Demonic Lore too good to pass?

My initial goal was getting the greater shade to make shade management easier, but having so much potential for spreading AoE fire seems just too powerful. Has anyone else a better comparison of this trait against the other ones?

Its 2 × 3 sec burns on a 3 sec CD. So 2 perma burns, 4 with 100% duration (PvE only).

For a GM its not that amazing. Don’t get me wrong its nice but it does not look OP on the surface.

Ravezaar.4951:

Zefiris.8297:

Ravezaar.4951:

My only hope is they touch Dhuumfire and how it works on the F-Skills and NOT the actual F-Skills but nerfed or “altered” it will be.

So, you are hoping for dhuumfire to be completely useless for scourge?

You do realize that removing the dhuumfire functionality from F2-F5 means that we have a GRANDMASTER trait that gives 1 burn every 15 seconds, right?

That’s supremely bad.

Dhuumfire isn’t the problem, it’s one of the few things making us PVE viable.

Well I really dont think Dhuumfire is suppose to taick 7x on F5 , do u ?

We see what Anet does but I have a strong feeling that they will nerf Scourge condi output, and not the AoE cause they talked it up as having battlefield control.

And I really really hope they dont adjust the F-skills cd’s so then what is left ? either the Burns or Torment

How can you have battlefield control without some way to punish someone standing in the wrong place? Do you think a single 2 sec Torment will control anyone?

The Shades are limited in number, highly visible and immobile. Thats a lot of tradeoffs and I expect some serious power in return.

Just need to give a useful theme.

Keep the passive make the active 50% max LF restore (balance to taste).

All sorts of interesting uses then.

Another idea (stolen from Mesmer) could be refresh all Shroud skill CDs.

Dadnir.5038:

Maxzero.4032:

Which is why I think multi proc is good. It’s a mechanic that has reduced impact in PvP but a bigger one in PvE.

In fact, multi proc have the same impact in PvE and PvP and if anything, such a thing impact more PvP than PvE. That is because mobs usually have large health pool while player have health pools that are more balanced and where each hit count. I’m giving a simple exemple : Aegis. Aegis rarely appear on mobs but is something of importance to some player and multi hit impact those players a lot.

The whole reason why Anet has never buffed Necro in PvE is the old excuse that they were too tanky. Scourge is not tanky.

Well, I’ve seen some video featuring scourge that are way tankier than any necro/reapers are. This is a matter of build, not a matter of elite spec. If anything, scourge are compelled into taking more and more vitality to be able to use more often their “F” skills which mean that a scourge will more easily lean toward a vitality build even if he want to be a damage dealer. Just take a look at the video that zero solstice made to showcase it’s “support” build… That is tanky! Neither a reaper nor a necromancer would have survived where he survived.

No, anet don’t refrain from buffing the necromancer because he is tanky, anet refrain from doing so because they fear the potential that they see in the shroud and their narrow view of what a necromancer should be doing.

Fixing the fact that the necromancer is unwelcome in raids, is just a matter of slightly modifying a trait (rending shroud) so that it’s effect is not impeded by the natural vulnerability cap.

Fixing the low power dps of the necromancer is just a matter of introducing a +10% damage modifyer that affect all skills (except minions) and is not in competition with close to death.

I believe that condi dps don’t really need more “love” and that a PvE necromancer absolutely don’t need more skills that corrupt boons to be competitive. And what do the scourge propose? Boon corruption and conditions to apply. The conditions are certainly balanced in PvE to achieve a condi dps that is close to what a condi reaper do and if it need boons to corrupt to achieve such a feat, you can be sure that scourge is screwed. Multi it can’t change those facts.

Multi hit or not, it will be balanced around how it impact other professions in PvP not how it impact them in PvE. And as it stand multi hit is way more bothersome in PvP. All in all, for balance, it’s better for them to keep things simple and make it so that it only hit once.

Disagree with that.

It has more effect in PvE because its easier to get more hits in PvE. They are stationary Shades after all.

If you take away multi proc how do you change Shades in a way that would impact PvE but not PvP or vice versa?

I do agree that the Anet ‘vision’ of the Necromancer has been its biggest hurdle. Unfortunately Death Shroud has been at the heart of that stifling vision.

How can we know how it will be in PvE? Haven’t even had a chance to play. I remember pre BETA weekened this forum was full of hate of the Scourge and how it was a failure before it was even released.

Don’t put much stock in forum wisdom.

Dadnir.5038:

Maybe its both? They could well want multiproc because it would be much better in PvE (where Necro needs help) and weaker in PvP (where Necro needs less help). Players move out of Shades, NPCs don’t.

Let’s be honest, if multiproc was the solution for PvE, all powermancers would play minion and achieve the same level of damage than an elementalist. (which is not the case)

The problem of the necromancer in PvE is that it’s tools are designed to fonction in an optimal and balanced manner when you fight against player. The strenght of the scourge that allow him to be so effective in PvP and WvW is it’s novelty and it’s large amount of boon corruption.

In PvE, the mobs are not surprised by novelty and stick to their behavior whatever they have in front of them while Boon corruption can at best make them frown.

If anet wanted to make the necromancer competitive in PvE, they would have to do it through the core necromancer and that would be pretty simple to do. I don’t really understand why they refuse to make those change (well it’s not like they really communicate over profession balance) but the core necromancer and all e-spec actual and futur need them.

Which is why I think multi proc is good. It’s a mechanic that has reduced impact in PvP but a bigger one in PvE.

The whole reason why Anet has never buffed Necro in PvE is the old excuse that they were too tanky. Scourge is not tanky.

draxynnic.3719:

It still seems that it would be pretty easy to get at least two procs on a PvP target, especially in a point fight where leaving the point is often effectively losing . Therefore, the PvP balancing would be done on the assumption of getting two procs off, meaning that the procs would likely be roughly half the strength they would have without multiproccing.

(I say ‘roughly’ because ArenaNet might consider that getting two procs is still a little harder than getting one, or they might alternatively consider the possibility of getting more than two procs.)

They also said in GuildChat (not in the same words) that they’d had multiproccing, and they decided they didn’t like the gameplay that promoted. So the experiment has already been done.

Anet says a lot of things. They don’t follow through with a lot. As of right now all extra proccing is doing is giving an extra 2 sec Torment and 2 sec Cripple.

Do you think is what is giving Scourge it’s strength in PvP at the moment? What is creating the condi bombs is F5 proccing F1 per tick AND during the F5 the 1 Dhummfire proc limit per pulse is ignored.

Just keeping fixing the limit would take 7-21 stacks of Burning off the condi bomb.

Without the extra Burning this wouldn’t even be discussed it would just be considered a nice change.

draxynnic.3719:

Maxzero.4032:

Your whole reasoning is based upon your assumption that multi proccing is automatically OP and therefore must be nerfed.

Wrong.

My reasoning is based on the following assumptions:

Assumption 1: If the effect of each proc is the same, a scourge with multiproccing will be more powerful than one without. (I don’t think there’s any disputing this assumption.)
Assumption 2: ArenaNet is going to aim for the Scourge to be at the same power level overall regardless of whether they have multiproccing or not.
Conclusion: Allowing multiproccing will need to be paid for by the effect of each proc being lower once the balancing reaches the point where ArenaNet is happy with it.

In this line of reasoning, it does not matter if the Scourge is currently god-tier and in need of a nerf, trash-tier and in need of a buff, or anywhere in between. If you’d actually read my previous post, rather than just repeat essentially the same argument (that I can’t prove that it’s overpowered), you would note this:

I included a scenario where the Scourge is currently underpowered and in need of a buff.

In this scenario, in addition to any other changes they might make, they can either buff the base damage or allow multiproccing. If they really need to buff it a lot, they could theoretically do both. However, in the end, all else being equal, once the balancing has reached the point where ArenaNet is happy with it, a Scourge with multiproccing will have weaker individual procs than one without.

Because otherwise, a Scourge with multiprocs would clearly be stronger than one without.

As a balance consideration, therefore, multiprocs do not really matter. ArenaNet will balance the profession towards a point where they’re happy with it regardless of whether there are multiprocs or not. Instead, it’s a question of playstyle. Do they want to promote a playstyle which emphasises attempting to get multiprocs? Or do they want to emphasise a playstyle that emphasises battlefield control by spreading your shades out to influence multiple strategic points?

Based on the Guild Chat, ArenaNet has chosen the latter. Which means multiproccing won’t be a thing, but the individual procs will be tuned such that the full intended effect is achieved on one proc, not two or three or however many ArenaNet thinks are reasonable to assume the player will be able to trigger on a single target at once.

Maybe its both? They could well want multiproc because it would be much better in PvE (where Necro needs help) and weaker in PvP (where Necro needs less help). Players move out of Shades, NPCs don’t.

It’s a way they could balance PvP and PvE without having to split skills (something they are reluctant to do). Add to that keeping multi proccing gives them another lever to adjust balance that would affect PvP and PvE differently (something that is quite valuble)

This would make your second assumption false (they are balancing not just on purely numbers but on different situations and game modes as well). Your mistake is assuming that the numbers and mechanics have the same impact in different game modes.

This would make your conclusion invalid.

draxynnic.3719:

Dhuumfire does not stack from multiple Shades because multi proccing the Manifest Sand Shade attack (which also happens around each shade on pressing the other function skills). If you allowed multiproccing, Dhuumfire would multiproc unless they changed how Dhuumfire worked.

Lifeforce, in my experience with testing, didn’t seem a major hindrance. Different builds and circumstances might change that, of course.

At the bottom line, they will balance it. If multiproccing is possible, then it’s going to be balanced according to the assumption that your primary target is going to be being hit by at least two procs (one from a shade and one from the Scourge), which means the individual procs will be weaker.

So essentially it’s a question of whether you want the playstyle to be around setting up multiprocs, or one of spreading around your area of influence to cover as much as possible without worrying about getting multiprocs because they’re not a thing. Personally, I prefer the latter, and from what they said on GuildChat, that seems to be what ArenaNet think as well.

Regardless, I can guarantee this: If multiproccing is a thing, than the individual procs will be less powerful than if multiproccing is not a thing. It doesn’t matter if the present balance is OP, UP, or just right. If the present balance is OP or just right, then the possibility of multiproccing will naturally make it stronger, pushing it into OP territory, requiring reduction in power to balance it. If the present balance is UP, then allowing multiprocs will be at the cost of not simply making the individual procs stronger. There will be a balance between the strengths of the individual procs and the ability to multiproc. If you can multiproc, the individual procs will be weaker than if you can’t. There’s no free lunch here.

(I would note here, since you seem to be forgetting it, that each proc doesn’t just give Torment. It does a decent amount of direct damage as well for an attack with zero activation and a low recharge. Stacking just two would be like an Unholy Feast you can release with each press of a function key, in addition to the additional benefit of the function key itself, if you have the Unending Corruption trait.)

Your whole reasoning is based upon your assumption that multi proccing is automatically OP and therefore must be nerfed.

Considering we have spent a grand total of one weekend playing with the specialisations with zero PvE testing I think that is an extreme assumption to make.

When you combine that with the fact that Necro is one of the weakest classes DPS wise in PvE any assumptions of OPness with zero testing verges into the fanciful.

How can you ask to nerf something when you have no idea if its actually OP?

Until some actual PvE testing occurs I will make zero concessions as to what is balanced in PvE. Its quite possible that the class is very strong in PvP and weak in PvE.

draxynnic.3719:

It does flat damage too, Torment stacks intensity not duration, you also get stacking cripple, and that’s before you consider traits such as Dhuumfire and Unyielding Blast. From my experimentation on the weekend, the damage done with the non-stacking hits seemed to be pretty significant given that F2-F4 are instant activation skills with lowish cooldowns.

Not being able to stack hits means that they can balance the individual hits to be fairly strong. Personally, I prefer that to having to stack shades to be strong.

Dhuumfire does not stack from multiple Shades.
Vul is already at 25 in raids.
The limitation on F2-F5 isn’t CD but Lifeforce.

You have yet to provide any evidence that multi proccing F1 is OP. Its interaction with F5 may need work but multi proc F1 on its own seems fairly tame damage wise especially in PvE. An extra 2 second Torment isn’t what you would expect to be OP.

draxynnic.3719:

Maxzero.4032:

The thing is you can’t keep 3 Shades up perma. You blow your three Shades then you have nothing for 15 seconds. Its all burst and no sustain.

Zoltreez.6435:

so what ??? kill the necro then cap the kitten point….

The same, mutatis mutandis, could be said about dragonhunter trap stacks, and we saw how popular having that in a point cap game was…

Regarding PvE…

If we’re talking about a raid situation, it’s probably pretty much guaranteed that Alacrity is in the picture, so maintaining 2 shades should be fairly achievable, which means three strikes (including the scourge themselves) per activation, along with good party support. ArenaNet have shown themselves to be pretty sensitive regarding raid balance, so they’re probably not going to allow that without it having some ramifications on the numbers.

Why is assumed that being able proc F1 multiple times is automatically OP? In a PvE setting all it gives is an extra 2 sec Torment per Shade.

Whats the raid DPS of a Scourge with two Shades up? Does anyone know?

Imagine getting nerfed for PvE before you even play it.

Zefiris.8297:

Maxzero.4032:

I swear some players are so used to being kitten on that have come to accept it as normal and that they are noble martyrs for supporting the nerfs. If Scourge does get nerfed are they going to cheer?

You are projecting very hard. Most people do not have persecution complexes like this. They are just smarter than you.

See, let’s say you get your will, and we ship totally overpowered. People fear us! The forums get flooded with whines.

Arenanet will then have to nerf us to the ground. We’ll be OP for a week, and useless forevermore. Last five years should have tought you this outcome, it happened every time we had a few overpowered days.

A more intelligent approach is ensuring we’re great, not OP. That’s why I’m advocating to fixing solely the extremes (such as shades stacking when they shouldn’t, and perhaps removing a tick from our F5). At that point we’d still be awesome.

You can cry about “nerf herding”, but it’s simply the sensible solution.

You think Anet is going to approach this reasonably? A quick check of Necro’s history shows that heavy handed is the default response regardless of forum sentiment. Tell me what response did the well reasoned posts asking for buffs recieve?

It seems like we have more calls for nerfs from inside the class then externally. Probably why the class is in the state its in. You way does not work clearly. Time for something different. Why not have a look at the professions that are the perennial favourites? I notice Ele’s don’t seem to have the amount of self loathing that this forum has. When is the last time Ele’s called for self nerfs to appear ‘reasonable?’

You don’t negotiate with Anet. There is no give and take barginning. Were are going to have accept what Anet does whether we like it or not and we get no say.

I am not going to waste my time trying justify any possible future nerf. Anet doesn’t so why bother doing their job for then?

Basically leave balance to Anet. They don’t use the forums for balance feedback anyway. They have dev tools and server statistics for that.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Maxzero.4032:

Zero Solstice.9754:

EremiteAngel.9765:

Hope you don’t take offense Zero.

I just want to expand more that putting a cast time on the shade skills is going to kill the scourge unless we are given decent access to stability.
This is probably one of the worst things they can do to a scourge.
I can’t imagine life on a scourge with almost zero access to stability and having cast times on his shade skills. Imagine getting stun locked and being able to do nothing.

What I will suggest is to reduce the effects done by the sand shades. Maybe by half? So whatever the scourge does around him, the shades will be half as effective.
This opens up the possibility of buffing sand savant more too. Make the trait give the shade the full effects as opposed to half if untraited.

No offense whatsoever, I love a good discussion. Putting cast times on the Shade abilities isn’t something I would want either, but it’s worth noting it as a possible change that would be made to increase counterplay from others, or at least to reduce some of the complaints of “He spammed everything all at once and now I’m dead”. In my own personal spitballing with friends of ways to fix some of the cancer-bomb that can occur, I had thought of perhaps cutting the Torment application from 2 stacks down to 1 in PvP game modes, but I still think that the biggest offender to the Condi bomb is that Dhuumfire is legitimately overtuned in tandem with Scourge.

The problem with your Sand Savant concept is that it doesn’t actually fix the problem, since many people already take Sand Savant in condition builds just for the larger radius and easier shade management; It simply makes the trait mandatory for most people to get maximum functionality.

Dhuumfire is fine it only procs once per F2-4 skill regardless of how many Shades you have on the target. If you blow 2-4 you will generate a grand total of 3 Burning stacks due to Dhuumfire.

What stacks the uber conditions is F5 proccing F1 every tick. Is 7 burning stacks over 7 seconds a bomb? What may be happening is that the F5 proccing F1 is somehow messing with how F1 is proccing Dhummfire letting you get multiple Dhuumfire procs per tick of F5.

I think people are not used to watching out for burn stacks when fighting a Scourge.
Burn Guards and Burn Engis can instant down opponents with burn bursts too if the opponent isn’t wary and looking out for it.
It is a high damage condi that requires awareness and quick clearing.

Make sense.

Since people have trouble noticing our fluorescent yellow Shades (why else would they stand next to multiple overlapping ones?) noticing that they are on fire as well would be too much to ask.

Zero Solstice.9754:

EremiteAngel.9765:

Hope you don’t take offense Zero.

I just want to expand more that putting a cast time on the shade skills is going to kill the scourge unless we are given decent access to stability.
This is probably one of the worst things they can do to a scourge.
I can’t imagine life on a scourge with almost zero access to stability and having cast times on his shade skills. Imagine getting stun locked and being able to do nothing.

What I will suggest is to reduce the effects done by the sand shades. Maybe by half? So whatever the scourge does around him, the shades will be half as effective.
This opens up the possibility of buffing sand savant more too. Make the trait give the shade the full effects as opposed to half if untraited.

No offense whatsoever, I love a good discussion. Putting cast times on the Shade abilities isn’t something I would want either, but it’s worth noting it as a possible change that would be made to increase counterplay from others, or at least to reduce some of the complaints of “He spammed everything all at once and now I’m dead”. In my own personal spitballing with friends of ways to fix some of the cancer-bomb that can occur, I had thought of perhaps cutting the Torment application from 2 stacks down to 1 in PvP game modes, but I still think that the biggest offender to the Condi bomb is that Dhuumfire is legitimately overtuned in tandem with Scourge.

The problem with your Sand Savant concept is that it doesn’t actually fix the problem, since many people already take Sand Savant in condition builds just for the larger radius and easier shade management; It simply makes the trait mandatory for most people to get maximum functionality.

Dhuumfire is fine it only procs once per F2-4 skill regardless of how many Shades you have on the target. If you blow 2-4 you will generate a grand total of 3 Burning stacks due to Dhuumfire.

What stacks the uber conditions is F5 proccing F1 every tick. Is 7 burning stacks over 7 seconds a bomb? What may be happening is that the F5 proccing F1 is somehow messing with how F1 is proccing Dhummfire letting you get multiple Dhuumfire procs per tick of F5.

Zoltreez.6435:

draxynnic.3719:

Maxzero.4032:

draxynnic.3719:

If they allowed multiple shades to pulse on a single target, they’d have to balance on the assumption that people would be trying to stack the shades so as to get multiple triggers on their primary target, so they’d have to make the individual triggers sufficiently weak that getting three or four triggers on a single target on one skill use does not become OP.

Which would essentially make them so weak that you have to stack them to be worthwhile. They have to forbid it or it will become mandatory.

Not allowing shades to stack their effect on a single target means that they can make each strike powerful on its own, rather than balancing on the assumption that important targets will be being hit two, three, or even four times.

Isn’t it a test of skill to see if you can catch a target in multiple small AoEs? One Shade = decent, Triple Shade = dead. Poor positioning should be punished against a area control class.

Why would you need to nerf the procs at all? Does 100 blades need to be nerfed because you can get a full channel on some targets?

Why shouldn’t someone get blown up if the Scourge blows all their CDs and the target stands there and does nothing?

Add to that its a great way to balance PvE and PvP. Only NPCs and bad players get caught in multiple Shades.

Most capture points, Foefire middle excepted, are small enough that you could put down three shades that overlap the majority of the point while leaving very little of the point, if any at all, outside the area of effect of at least one, and don’t forget that the Scourge themselves count as a shade. If it was possible to hit a single target with multiple shades, then all the Scourge needs to do is be on the point themselves and anyone who contests the point will be being hit by at least two, and quite likely four, blasts.

At anything even close to the power of this weekend, that’s not ‘skill’. That’s ‘I own this point now, anyone who tries to say otherwise will die as I faceroll F2-F4’. It’d make the old turret engineers and full trap dragonhunters look like easily countered amateurs at point control.

And that’s just considering PvP, where your opponents can be reasonably expected to try to avoid being hit by multiple shades if they can reasonably avoid it. There are raid bosses that are stationary, or close to it…

Anyway, to go back to the original topic of the thread, the big shade trait is balanced according to how the shades actually behave, rather than how you’d like them to behave. If ArenaNet was to change them to be able to stack damage, they’d probably have to adjust how the big shade works to compensate. But I’d be willing to bet that if they made them stack damage, than the effect of each individual strike would be nerfed by at least 50%.

so what ??? kill the necro then cap the kitten point….
again people want necros to be useless and be facerollable….

I read a story on here or reddit on how players were hesistating when they saw a Scourge defending a point. People were actually afraid of Necromancers for once.

I mean what are some of the nerf herders hoping for? Do they think that if they act all meek that somehow Anet will take pity on Necro and be merciful? 5 years of GW2 tells me that ain’t going to happen.

I swear some players are so used to being kitten on that have come to accept it as normal and that they are noble martyrs for supporting the nerfs. If Scourge does get nerfed are they going to cheer?

I for one welcome the Scourge overlords. Time to put some real fear into GW2.

draxynnic.3719:

Maxzero.4032:

draxynnic.3719:

If they allowed multiple shades to pulse on a single target, they’d have to balance on the assumption that people would be trying to stack the shades so as to get multiple triggers on their primary target, so they’d have to make the individual triggers sufficiently weak that getting three or four triggers on a single target on one skill use does not become OP.

Which would essentially make them so weak that you have to stack them to be worthwhile. They have to forbid it or it will become mandatory.

Not allowing shades to stack their effect on a single target means that they can make each strike powerful on its own, rather than balancing on the assumption that important targets will be being hit two, three, or even four times.

Isn’t it a test of skill to see if you can catch a target in multiple small AoEs? One Shade = decent, Triple Shade = dead. Poor positioning should be punished against a area control class.

Why would you need to nerf the procs at all? Does 100 blades need to be nerfed because you can get a full channel on some targets?

Why shouldn’t someone get blown up if the Scourge blows all their CDs and the target stands there and does nothing?

Add to that its a great way to balance PvE and PvP. Only NPCs and bad players get caught in multiple Shades.

Most capture points, Foefire middle excepted, are small enough that you could put down three shades that overlap the majority of the point while leaving very little of the point, if any at all, outside the area of effect of at least one, and don’t forget that the Scourge themselves count as a shade. If it was possible to hit a single target with multiple shades, then all the Scourge needs to do is be on the point themselves and anyone who contests the point will be being hit by at least two, and quite likely four, blasts.

At anything even close to the power of this weekend, that’s not ‘skill’. That’s ‘I own this point now, anyone who tries to say otherwise will die as I faceroll F2-F4’. It’d make the old turret engineers and full trap dragonhunters look like easily countered amateurs at point control.

And that’s just considering PvP, where your opponents can be reasonably expected to try to avoid being hit by multiple shades if they can reasonably avoid it. There are raid bosses that are stationary, or close to it…

Anyway, to go back to the original topic of the thread, the big shade trait is balanced according to how the shades actually behave, rather than how you’d like them to behave. If ArenaNet was to change them to be able to stack damage, they’d probably have to adjust how the big shade works to compensate. But I’d be willing to bet that if they made them stack damage, than the effect of each individual strike would be nerfed by at least 50%.

The thing is you can’t keep 3 Shades up perma. You blow your three Shades then you have nothing for 15 seconds. Its all burst and no sustain.

In PvE you can’t even perma 2 Shades without Alacrity and well Necro has a long way to go before its OP for PvE. If any class deserves some time in the sun in PvE its Necro.

draxynnic.3719:

If they allowed multiple shades to pulse on a single target, they’d have to balance on the assumption that people would be trying to stack the shades so as to get multiple triggers on their primary target, so they’d have to make the individual triggers sufficiently weak that getting three or four triggers on a single target on one skill use does not become OP.

Which would essentially make them so weak that you have to stack them to be worthwhile. They have to forbid it or it will become mandatory.

Not allowing shades to stack their effect on a single target means that they can make each strike powerful on its own, rather than balancing on the assumption that important targets will be being hit two, three, or even four times.

Isn’t it a test of skill to see if you can catch a target in multiple small AoEs? One Shade = decent, Triple Shade = dead. Poor positioning should be punished against a area control class.

Why would you need to nerf the procs at all? Does 100 blades need to be nerfed because you can get a full channel on some targets?

Why shouldn’t someone get blown up if the Scourge blows all their CDs and the target stands there and does nothing?

Add to that its a great way to balance PvE and PvP. Only NPCs and bad players get caught in multiple Shades.

Aetatis.5418:

3 shades should not work on a single target (mentioned by devs). more than one target, far away from each other, changes everything tho.

And I disagree with that reasoning entirely. Wouldn’t it be better to have some situations where stacking them is good and some where you need the larger AoE?

Seems like another case of ‘the vision’ taking precedence over gameplay.

What I find strange is the call for nerfs from other Necros. After one Beta weekend no less.

Why so much self hate?

Anet will do as Anet does. Going by Necro’s track record if Anet does nerf Necro it will be heavy handed and cripple the class.

Show some spine for once.

I think Scourge is fine and won’t be calling for self nerfs.

Zefiris.8297:

Tiresias.6473:

Seriously, what’s even up with the nerf posts on every single board? We got to play the specs for ONE WEEKEND. Nobody has any idea what they are doing and no theorycraft or strategy has been developed around including the altered environment

The thing is, there are genuine “bugs” (assuming the dev commentary is accurate, which it should be) with the spec that should not work the way they do. These, in specific situations, do provide absolutely ridiculous damage.

This is what other classes see, since a good scourge player can just kill people faster than a thief when using these quirks, aka shade overlapping.

These should be fixed.

There should be a penalty for standing in multiple stationary shades. Just like there is if you face tank 100B or Maul.

If people can’t move out of multiple overlapping stationary flashing neon lights then I have no problem with them dying and doing so quickly.

Area denial without punishment is not any denial at all.

I thought to myself if I was going to get anymore entertainment out of $30 then I would get out of PoF.

Even if I hate it it would still take me several days to find out.

Eh its really only useful in PvE anyway. I mean if you wanted better DPS in high level content but without breaking PvP this would be the best way to do it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Maxzero.4032:

Said this in another thread but Shades now stack for F1 proccing. Yesterday targets were only hit by 1 Shade proc no matter how many Shades were around them.

This also applies the F5 proccing per tick and Dhuumfire.

If true, that really kills any attraction to Sand Savant in my opinion.

Sadly I would have to agree. Especially since the Sand Savant Shade does not count as three Sahdes for some traits (the on summon ones at Master level) pretty much kills it as a viable PvE DPS option.

Even though you can’t keep 3 Shades up perma with raid alacrity 2 is 100% doable (2.16 to be exact) and getting a 50% bigger benefit (2->3) out of the F1 proccing AND getting a few extra burns and extra Torment damage from GM trait is just way too much.

Which Shades skills to use are becoming more clear now. F5 on cooldown and then just spam F2 whenever its up but always keep enough LF to use F5 as soon as its up. F3 and F4 cost too much LF for what they give DPS wise.

It’s also possible that you may just camp Scepter/Torch and the only Shade skill you use is F5. Maybe F2 if you are going to max out LF. Maybe weapon swap to Dagger OH to send conditions over from BiP while Torch is on CD.

insaneseagull.7063:

Zefiris.8297:

insaneseagull.7063:

Yes,I know that. What I’m saying is that a burning proc on F5 is a BUG.

Sure, sure, the part on the tooltip explaining what F1 does is clearly a bug. Clearly, this functionality magically appeared out of thin air, and was not coded in to specifically work this way.

In reality, the sand shades not applying Dhuumfire on use of F5 is the default behavior on skill implementation. A designer had to go in there and specifically ensure that Dhuumfire works on all shroud skills.

Totally a bug, sure. Just like characters jumping when you hit the jump button is clearly a bug!

I thought the F5 pulse on the sand shades wouldn’t be affected by Dhuumfire. Technically,those pulses aren’t an “F1 ability”.

I would agree that you wouldn’t think each individual tick would count as a skill usage. Which makes it all the most curious that it does work that why at the moment.

While it may well be a bug it would be a very strange one. Effects with duration are not something new to GW2 so why does this F5 have such a strange interaction?

It’s very possible that it was coded this way specifically because it deviates in such a specific way.

Said this in another thread but Shades now stack for F1 proccing. Yesterday targets were only hit by 1 Shade proc no matter how many Shades were around them.

This also applies the F5 proccing per tick and Dhuumfire.

OMG!

Maybe Anet changed something but Shades stack for F1. It wasn’t like that yesterday.

If you want real crazyness the F5 proccing F1 is TRIPLED if you have three Shades on target as well. It also works for Dhuumfire.

If you are standing next to the target F5 procs you as well. So thats 6x Torment’s and 6x Cripple per tick. Oh and 4 Burns a tick.

For PvP I doubt this will have much effect but it’s a big deal for PvE.

Whats happening is that every tick of F5 is actually counting as a Shade skill use.

If I have a Shade on a target and use F5 each tick will proc the Shades. So if you have Dhummfire and say Unyeilding Blast you will proc Cripple, Torment, Burn and Vuln on each tick.

Sand Savant would be even better if it actually did count as 3 Shades for related traits. The Master minor trait counts as 3 (get 225 expertise) but the 2 Master trait’s (barrier or burn on summon) only counts as 1 Shade.

The F5 procing your Shades on every tick is pretty kitten good. You are basically getting 2 Vuln, 2 Torment, Cripple and Burning every tick for 7 ticks. On a 16 sec CD.

Sigmoid.7082:

Maxzero.4032:

Now the next big question is whether Sand Savant counts as 3 Shades for F1 purposes like it does for traits.

Probably not. It says “A greater shade counts as three shades for related traits.” which is very specific wording. Most likely meaning the two minors, desert empowerment, and unending corruption. Cant have it being the best trait for damage and support.

Interesting if it does though.

I wonder. I mean Dhuumfire is a trait. So it should count for 3 there right? Thats the main one.

All that leaves is the 2 second Torment per Shade on F1 use. Technically the whole Shade system is a trait.

You are giving up Demonic Lore, smaller area coverage and less flexibility with Shade Savant so there should be some upside.

Sigmoid.7082:

Decided to make a new post for this since Im half way through.
Chat links are on the wiki pages. Should be ok now.
Some interesting things.

Manifest Sand Shade works with all shroud 1 traits for when it does its strikes like we thought ( dhuumfire, reapers might, unyielding blast ) It doesn’t seem to be affected by VP for its count recharge though.

Nefarious Favour appear to work with path of corruption according to the tool-tip when traited. This one works with VP to have a 4s cooldown. Interesting thins is no-matter what my vitality the LF costs seems to be a fixed 1382.

Sand Cascade has a base of 2111 and a scaling of approx 0.76with a cost of 2478. Same as above I cant get the costs to change. VP works though.

Garish Pillar just works with VP. Fixed cost again of 4606. Nothing too special. Doesnt seemt o work with transfuse.

Desert Shroud works with on entering shroud traits as we thought. The chat link for this one for me with 0 HP has a base of 5016 and a scaling of ~0.63. Again Fixed costs of 3685. VP also works here.

Sand Flare has a base of 4208 and a scaling of ~1.51 for the barrier.

Sand Swell has a base of 1618 and a scaling of about 0.75

Serpent Siphon has been done in the op and it all checks out.

VP not affecting F1 hurts. Directly affects the uptime of Shades. Plus point for Shade Savant.

Now the next big question is whether Sand Savant counts as 3 Shades for F1 purposes like it does for traits.

Brujeria.7536:

Fully agree with Subli here. This build most likely will be meta, i strongly feel that the missing utillity skill will be the “dps” skill.

Necros should have LF gain on every AA.
Every one-handed weapon should have an additional skill that generates LF, with a increasing requirement like scepter 3.
Every offhand weapon should have a skill that generates LF.
Every two-handed weapon should have LF gain on AA and 2 weapon skills as well.
Restricting a classmechanic thats so crucial for the design further by limiting them to certain skill is a bad design. Picking utilities and traits to boost the natural class resource should be an option to make it better, not to make it work, regardless of build.

Imagine the outcry if a mesmer would not have clones or phantasm on his condi set. Or a thief would have only a quarter of initiative gain on his power sets.
Or a warrior getting half of the adrenaline on weapon X.

Why is it suddenly an issue now? Because Scourge uses a large amount of lifeforce?

We will see if you get your wish and camp Scepter/Torch.

Means you can’t camp Scepter/Torch.

The other set will prob be Dagger/Warhorn. Dagger MH for LF generation. Warhorn OH for the same reason.

Utilities I would pick would be CPC, BiP and Trail of Anguish for the extra Torment.

Sigmoid.7082:

Maxzero.4032:

snip

From the way its worded Sand Savant seems like it will only effect Sand Soul , Desert Empowerment , Unending Corruption and Blood as Sand

Thought I am interested in the wording “You affect more targets and influence a larger area with Shade skills.” since skills all read some iteration of “around you and your sand shades”

Normally summoning 3 shades and yourself should be able to hit 20 targets unless they impose a cap like they did on Coalescence of Ruin. Does this mean taking Sand Savant causes not only one great shade but also yourself to have the larger area of effect and increased target cap?

So many interactions to test and look forward to.

From some rough theorycraft going the 3 regular Shades plus Demonic Lore should be the same (if not slightly higher DPS). You have a few less Burns (due to not 100% 3 Shade uptime and less effective Sadistic Searing (the extra Burns from Lore don’t make up for it). The trade off being better Torment damage and slightly better Life force usage.

There is some potential there and the rotation shouldn’t be anything super tricky.

Looking forward to it.

Okay a bit of math and a lot of assumptions.

Note: This is a best case scenario.

Assumptions:

F1 Summon Shade procs Dhuumfire
The F1 effect around Necro also procs Dhuumfire
The Sand Savant super shade counts as 3 Shades for F1 purposes
100% Alacrity uptime
100% expertise
20% CD Vital persistance trait

Sadistic Searing procs 3 × 8s Burning on Shade summon. CD of Shade summon is 6 seconds (Sand Savant, Alacrity, Vital Persistance).

4 perma Burn stacks

F1 Summon Shade
4 × 6s Burns. CD on Summon Shade is 6 seconds

4 perma Burn stacks

F2 Neferious Favor
4 × 6s burn stacks. CD of Favor is 3 seconds.

8 perma Burn stacks

F3 Sand Cascade
4 × 6s Burn stacks. CD of Casade is 4.8 seconds

5 Burn stacks perma

21 perma Burn stacks.

I didn’t model F4 and F5 because I think Lifeforce will be

I suspect you will need Dagger MH as your other weapon for LF generation Scepter/Torch will not nearly be enough.

Sigmoid.7082:

Guys please watch this until 01:46:43

You will notice two things. When he summons a shade it has a small explosion effect around him and the shade. This means two things which make sense based on how
Manifest Sand Shade is worded and how the skill is classified.

It is a shade skill. This means every time you summon a shade you will proc the attack and do the damage and condis including from the shade you just summoned (easily seen in video ). Assuming they all strike and have no cap then the more you summon the more procs you get. e.g summon 1 shade you do 2 hits, summon a second shade you do 3 hits, summon the 3rd shade you do 4 hits. Then every time after you use a shade skill including summoning another shade they, and you, will all strike again.

If they proc dhuumfire then that is a lot of burning output. If they are classed as a shroud skill as well then VP and alacrity will reduce the count recharge to 9s amusing alacrity works on ammo skills.

Same goes for unyielding blast and reapers might possibly.

Sadistic Searing is also interesting for another 4 sec burn on summon.

A punishment heal, elite and Trail of Anguish ahould proc it often especially if you use the big Sand Savant Shade (3 x burns shorter CD).

A lot depends on how some of the abilities work together. I mean if you arw talking raids then perma alacrity is a big deal especially with recharge affecting charge timing.

I mean with Sand Savant, Alacrity and Vital Persistance should have a CD of around 6 seconds. With the master trait you are dropping 3x 4s (8s with expertise) burns. Does summoning another shade count as a shade skill use? Does the F1 effect around the Necro proc Dhummfire for a 4th burn?

That test weekend is going to be interesting.

Anchoku.8142:

“Torment: Base damage has been increased to match bleed’s base damage; movement damage has been reduced to compensate for this. This change only applies to PvE.”

This looks important for the Scourge. Dev’s at Arenanet seem to have figured out Necro struggles for fair dps with consumables nerfed while trying build for both bleed and torment duration.

Condi-Scourge will probably end up as sceptre AA punctuated by a couple of burns, a fear and lots of dubious cripple, no doubt there so we can kite trash mobs with sceptre and make better use of torment.

TBH, making Torment more like Bleed raises the question, “Why have Torment, then?”

Thoughts and comments?

Edit: Tooltips seem screwed up. Best guess is Tainted shackles went from 318 standing and 636 moving to 420 standing and 608 moving. Plaguelands actually says 105 standing and 47 moving.

Don’t know why they had to have that slight nerf to moving Torment damage. Its not like Necro, Mesmer and Rev were known PvE DPS monsters.

Would keeping the moving scaling to 100% instead of 84% really break the game?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Maxzero.4032:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I don’t think it opens up many new possibilities, really. Guaranteed full crit channel on Axe 2, I guess, which wouldn’t be bad burst.

For all of the other “in shroud” traits, though, this is a massive nerf. Plus, Vital Persistence is only a 15% reduction, so it’s a 17 second cooldown if it works that way.

Speed Shroud can also give you an extra 30% reduction fir 45% total or 11 sec CD.

Also heard about some of the minor traits. The adept minor is just access to Scourge. The grandmaster is 5% danage reduction per shade out. The major is still unknown.

Maybe. We don’t know exactly how Speed of Shadows and Vital Persistence will work with Shade skills.

While there will be changes I think, at least for these two traits, its fairly straight forward in this aspect.

My interest will be on two things:

Does Vital persistance affect LF costs for Scourge (since there is no LF decay).

Does Sand Savant Shade count as 3 Shades for F1 purposes like it does for trait purposes.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I don’t think it opens up many new possibilities, really. Guaranteed full crit channel on Axe 2, I guess, which wouldn’t be bad burst.

For all of the other “in shroud” traits, though, this is a massive nerf. Plus, Vital Persistence is only a 15% reduction, so it’s a 17 second cooldown if it works that way.

Speed Shroud can also give you an extra 30% reduction for 45% total or 11 sec CD.

Also heard about some of the minor traits. The adept minor is just access to Scourge. The grandmaster is 5% damage reduction per shade out. The major is still unknown.

felincyriac.5981:

new elite spec was described to be a condi based one as well as a support one, and given the latest nerfs to condi food viper stat is more important than ever,

Yep already seen Sigil of Malice spike.

Won’t be surprised to see Black Diamonds peak again.

felincyriac.5981:

Yannir.4132:

Patrick.2987:

So u need condi dmg, duration, vit and healingpower? i think that statcombo does not exist.

If you drop the duration, your answer is Shaman’s gear. Duration can be gained elsewhere like runes, sigils and food.

idk about that, food/utility that gave condi duration is about to get hammered to the ground…

Yep.

Viper City for all condi builds now.

The max condi duration seems to be about 94%:

Full Vipers
4 Nightmare/2 Trappers (runes not changing…for now)
Sigil of Malice

~6-7% duration Scourge Adept trait
6.66% duration from new food
~3% duration from new crystal

Basically food/crystal when from 30% duration to 10%.

Sigmoid.7082:

Maxzero.4032:

Professor Sprout.1560:

So a tanky necro with 25k hp will get a 20k health bar via Reaper + Soul Reaping, but only a 12.5k hp bar via Scourge? But Scourge can share that barrier health bar with your whole team? Interesting. As WP hinted at in passing on his video, that makes the combo of a front-rank vitality reaper and a back-rank healing power scourge pretty durable. Assuming of course that the Scourge’s barrier effects scale enough with healing power that you can actually maintain barrier levels close to the cap value. That might depend on whether there are runes/sigils/food out there that can spread additional barrier.

Keep in mind that the max at one time. You don’t have to use all your Barrier at once.

There is some really interesting combos. For example the grandmaster trait that lets you summon 1 Shade every 10 counts as 3 shades for trait purposes. So that major trait that gives 2000 Barrier when summoning a Shade will give you 6000 Barrier at base.

6000 Barrier every 10 seconds is pretty decent.

The heal is like 4.5k healing and 4k barrier on a 20 sec CD (can be traited to 16). Throw in F3 for about 2.6 Barrier on a 8 sec CD (Soul Reaping trait to 6.8) and F5 fkr 4.5k Barrier at 20 sec CD (traited to 17).

Sure it may not be as tanking as old Necro but I think it is better offensively.

Bare in mind every barrier number you have quoted is with a healing power of 1.2k. The numbers wont be anywhere near as high without healing power. For instance the heal skill sand flare has a base of about 2.7k with a scaling on healing power of 1.2. Shade 2 has a base of about 1700 with a scaling on 0.77 on healing power.

Can figure it out using This video from WP and This video from peachy and some maths

Still not too bad. Like I said it perhaps isn’t as tanky as old Necro but there has to be a trade off somewhere.

Professor Sprout.1560:

So a tanky necro with 25k hp will get a 20k health bar via Reaper + Soul Reaping, but only a 12.5k hp bar via Scourge? But Scourge can share that barrier health bar with your whole team? Interesting. As WP hinted at in passing on his video, that makes the combo of a front-rank vitality reaper and a back-rank healing power scourge pretty durable. Assuming of course that the Scourge’s barrier effects scale enough with healing power that you can actually maintain barrier levels close to the cap value. That might depend on whether there are runes/sigils/food out there that can spread additional barrier.

Keep in mind that the max at one time. You don’t have to use all your Barrier at once.

There is some really interesting combos. For example the grandmaster trait that lets you summon 1 Shade every 10 counts as 3 shades for trait purposes. So that major trait that gives 2000 Barrier when summoning a Shade will give you 6000 Barrier at base.

6000 Barrier every 10 seconds is pretty decent.

The heal is like 4.5k healing and 4k barrier on a 20 sec CD (can be traited to 16). Throw in F3 for about 2.5k Barrier on a 8 sec CD (Soul Reaping trait to 6.8) and F5 fkr 4.5k Barrier at 20 sec CD (traited to 17).

Sure it may not be as tanking as old Necro but I think it is better offensively.

Kam.4092:

Maxzero.4032:

Sigmoid.7082:

Ravezaar.4951:

Wasnt there a big barrier on our New heal skill aswell ? think I saw a 4k+ Heal and a 4k+ barrier

Yep it’s there.
4k on heal
2.6k on f2
4.5k on f5
2k on F1 of teaited when summoning.
Some more from one of the other utilities.

Only wondering if your super shade counts as 3 for summon traits so grants 3x the barrier.

Also if F1 has no target cap then you can do about 2.0 coeffa of damage every few seconds. Pretty strong damage. Grevious stats has power and conditions main and precision and ferocity secondary. Should be good for this stuff.

I would suspect the super counts as 3 shades for that trait. Since it specifies traits.

I can’t see how Viper isn’t BiS. Bleed, Poison, Torment and Burning. Condi duration is so critical for this build.

Due to the Adept Talent giving condi->expertise (which you will use cause Torch is awesome for condi) you will probably either switch a few pieces for Sinister or swapping Malice for Bursting. A quick play around with build editors seems to put the full Viper, Scourge expertise trait, food and crystal at 99-100% condi duration. So it seems you can replace Malice for Bursting no problem.

For those wondering Torch abilities (off aurorapeach video) is:

#4
Harrowing Wave
3 × 3 sec Burning
3 × 3 sec Torment
16 sec CD (12.8 traited)

#5
Oppressive Collapse
3 × 6 sec Torment
Knockdown
20 sec CD (16 sec traited)

It’s nice that Torch 5 has Knockdown for a Powerful Breakbar attack. I also like that both skills add Conditions, and the Cooldowns aren’t too bad either. Did you happen to see the Range on the Torch skills?

101.50 onwards after Feast of Corruption (why do people keep thinking this is a new weapon skill?)

I think she cast #5 first but its so fast I don’t know if its a PBAoE or target-able. #4 is a wave you send out.

Current knowledge for those curious:

https://i.redd.it/uwg4kdtj7cdz.jpg

WoodenPotatos also tweated that Barriers scale off healing power.

Sigmoid.7082:

Ravezaar.4951:

Wasnt there a big barrier on our New heal skill aswell ? think I saw a 4k+ Heal and a 4k+ barrier

Yep it’s there.
4k on heal
2.6k on f2
4.5k on f5
2k on F1 of teaited when summoning.
Some more from one of the other utilities.

Only wondering if your super shade counts as 3 for summon traits so grants 3x the barrier.

Also if F1 has no target cap then you can do about 2.0 coeffa of damage every few seconds. Pretty strong damage. Grevious stats has power and conditions main and precision and ferocity secondary. Should be good for this stuff.

I would suspect the super counts as 3 shades for that trait. Since it specifies traits.

I can’t see how Viper isn’t BiS. Bleed, Poison, Torment and Burning. Condi duration is so critical for this build.

Due to the Adept Talent giving condi->expertise (which you will use cause Torch is awesome for condi) you will probably either switch a few pieces for Sinister or swapping Malice for Bursting. A quick play around with build editors seems to put the full Viper, Scourge expertise trait, food and crystal at 99-100% condi duration. So it seems you can replace Malice for Bursting no problem.

For those wondering Torch abilities (off aurorapeach video) is:

#4
Harrowing Wave
3 × 3 sec Burning
3 × 3 sec Torment
16 sec CD (12.8 traited)

#5
Oppressive Collapse
3 × 6 sec Torment
Knockdown
20 sec CD (16 sec traited)

Lordrosicky.5813:

MethaneGas.8357:

Hello fellow Necros!

So…. today we have had a glimpse at Scourge. In short… it has no shroud, but it does have 5 F-skills, and the essential one if F1 which summons… ghosts called “shades” that combo off-of the other shroud skills. These skills are basically new shroud skills that you can use all the time by expending the life-force you generate.

I also love the dynamic Scourge adds to Necro – your shroud skills are affecting areas around you, but your shades as well… so essentially it makes Necros very versatile. You can kite your enemies and set up your shades in the enemy’s path, then use a shroud skill to affect the enemy without even having to face them… as they’re chasing. You can also target enemies which are in 900 range from you, and gives you realllyyy good area control because no one’s gonna wanna be around your shades. Barrier also seems like a very cool way to make up for lack of shroud, and also add a really nice and unique layer of support too. Anyway, I think this spec has a LOT of potential and #stoked

Personally though, I’m really interested in seeing how these traits below will work with the new shroud and how these synergies will play out. For example:

1) Transfusion – Shroud #4 heals allies around you. You don’t get heals because you’re in shroud… but… with sand shroud you’re always in normal form. So I’m guessing this skill will work off-of skill #5. Summon a field that lasts lasts 6s, pulses 7 times and does damage around you and shades (20 sec cooldown). I’m guessing this is where the healing will happen and you will be able to get these heals from transfusion. It pulses 7 times over 6 secs, so not a burst heal, but a nice heal nevertheless for you as a Necro :P …every 14 secs basically.. because it lasts 6 secs. Hopefully this will be the way it works.
2) Dhuumfire – shroud #1 burns enemies. So will this give your shades the ability to burn on their auto attacks? Or will this just cause AoE burns in the area where you summon shades? Either way, it’s an interesting combo for potential Burn Necro: torch and trait which burns targets that you apply torment to? Lots of burning
3) Path of Corruption. Sand shroud #2 converts 2 condi on allies to boons around you, and around your shades (same target cannot be affected twice by this). 5 ssec cooldown. Path of Corruption synergy with this could basically be a huggee. Your shades cover basically the whole battle and this could corrupt 2 boons in a very large area… every 5 secs O_O …. Yes please.
4) Vital Persistence – Maybe shroud skills cost less to cast? Reduced cooldown? Oh my… the synergy with the above traits.
5) Death’s Perception – do your shroud skills naturally have 50% crit chance, including your shades?

Honourable mentions: Weakening Shroud, Rending Shroud, Spiteful Spirit, Shrouded Removal, Beyond the Veil (protection when leaving shroud, minor trait in Death Magic), Unholy Sanctuary, Life From Death (heal allies and revive them a lil bit when exiting shroud), Unholy Martyr, Unyielding Blast, Foot in the Grave. And ofc there’s a few minors here and there…

All of the above traits have the potential to somehow interact with the new shroud. We will just have to wait and see how.

Last thing! I think I saw the Necro teleport in one of the videos… and this may be a Utility skill which we haven’t yet seen (hopefully). So Scourge will potentially have a teleport. Wurm, new teleport = nice mobility. Add in Spectral Walk and the jukes are real

More than likely they will nerf transfusion and the result will be it is kitten for all necro specs. In fact any of these traits that are too strong with scourge will just get the nerf bat without consideration for necro and repear. This is how anet does things. There is zero chance they were smart enough to design balanced concepts

The problem with Transfusion is that you have to take Blood Magic. Considering how well Soul Reaping syncs with Scourge there has to be something that can tempt you in Blood Magic.

Barucyl.5493:

Maxzero.4032:

Assuming it does you would drop 8 stacks of Torment (6 from super Shade and 2 from yourself) plus 3 stacks of Burning (from Dhumfire) AoE every 4.25 seconds (you are taking Soul Reaping right?). Same would apply to F2-5. Potentially spiking 32 stacks of Torment and 12 stacks of Burning. F5 would be another 14 stacks of Torment.

Slight correction here, all the shade skill can only affect target once per cast (or per second in F5 case), even if you overlap with your shade. So you won’t be able to get 8 stack of torment, just 6 stacks if GM trait really count super shade as 3 shade cast (I do hope so).

Good thing about super shade is that it has 10 target count, which makes it perfect in raid. It covers the whole team in one go, and makes stacking boons even faster.

Actually not all the shroud abilities have that non stacking disclaimer. Basically non stacking only seems to apply to hard CC (Fear) and Barrier (so F3, F4, F5). The Shades attacking shouldn’t have such a limit. Quad stacking 10k barriers or 4 second Fear would be kinda nuts. Stacking some extra Torments and Burning? I would say thats fine.

It’s almost like a Mesmer Shatter like mechanic. Expect your illusions don’t keep disappearing.

For me the big balance question is if the ‘super shade’ summoned by Sand Savant counts as three Shades for the purposes of F1 skills. It says it counts as 3 for related traits but I don’t know if that applies to other things.

The reason I ask this is because you can’t keep the 3 regular shades up perma. you can drop 3 at the start of a fight but you only get a charge back every 15 seconds and each shade lasts 25 seconds. So after the initial 3 you are down to 1.66 thereafter.

The Super Shade can be kept up perma (25 sec duration 10 sec charge CD). It would make sense to count as three in all situations because the single shade obviously can’t cover as many areas and is less flexible. Plus you give up the +33% Torment damage trait.

Assuming it does you would drop 8 stacks of Torment (6 from super Shade and 2 from yourself) plus 3 stacks of Burning (from Dhumfire) AoE every 4.25 seconds (you are taking Soul Reaping right?). Same would apply to F2-5. Potentially spiking 32 stacks of Torment and 12 stacks of Burning. F5 would be another 14 stacks of Torment.

Add to this the regular BiP and CPC usage plus weapon skills. Pretty solid.

The issue will be LF generation. It didn’t matter with Reaper since you only went Shroud when you were going to spin-to-win.

Its possible something like a Scepter/Torch and Dagger/Dagger setup might be best. You camp Scepter/Torch till your BiP and CPC CDs are up. You pop both of them, weapon swap to D/D, send your conditions over and spam AA to get your LF up (8% LF per chain, 2 sec per chain) and swap back when you can.
Another possibility is staff as the swap with traited Marks. You swap cast all 4 marks (12% LF gain and transfer conditions) then AA (4% per AA,1.3 sec per AA) then swap back when you can.
I prefer the staff because the AA generates uber LF if multiple targets are hit plus some of the marks have decent conditions.

Vayne.8563:

necromancin.2396:

Pino.5209:

http://oceanicgamer.com/2013/03/oceanic-players-lose-local-swtor-servers/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/warhammer-online-closing-63-servers

Last 2 games that i can remember that have local oceanic server.
24.6 millions population, a country associated with subpar broadband/internet and pathetic implementation of NBN.
Bottom line, not worth investing in. There aren’t many oceanic players around anymore these days to warrant a local dedicated server.
And any future mmorpg should not ever consider to open a dedicated server here too. It’s not worth while given the history and the size of the market.

Blizzard found it lucrative enough to set up servers in Sydney for WoW and Overwatch; I get 21ms from Brisbane. I agree our internet is extremely bad, even Mexico has better net than us.

If companies invested in setting up servers in Australia I believe they would see an influx of OCX/SEA coming to their games simply because the titles that were previously unplayable due to latency would be playable.

Blizzard set up servers like that when it had 12.4 million subscribers. This game never had more than 4 million players at one time and presumably it has a lot less than that now.

This game isn’t unplayable due to latency. Source: I’m playing the game since launch from Australia. Most days I’m down around 220ish ping now (it used to be worse).

Diablo too.

Not expecting it though. Can’t see it worthwhile for Areanet.