A new, optimized official forum is being unleashed today, and with it this current forum is being archived and converted to Read-Only. See you guys on the other side!
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Played it in Beta weekend, been playing it here and there in the live game. It has legs and it’s a fun way to play the class still, it’s just less consistent than other options.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Power Scourge is sweet because of its ability to upkeep boons for free with Feed From Corruption and some Concentration. It also has some nice burst between Desert Shroud and Spiteful Spirit. It’s just another way to play the class, and I’m excited for the possibilities.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Sent out the first batch of invites, please accept them so I can ship more out. If you haven’t gotten an invite yet, either you are full on guilds or I haven’t gotten to you yet. If you are full on guilds, open up a slot and post here saying that you need a fresh invite so I don’t miss you.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
swap the concentration for vitality. You’ll want it for LF management. Besides what the heck do you want the concentration for?
Concentration is great for your Might stacking, the boons you get from F2, Regen you apply with Staff or Focus, any and all boons from Feed From Corruption, etc.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Alright, Necromancer Guild won by a pretty sizeable margin in this poll, but as one could have probably guessed it has already been taken as a guild name. Any quick ideas for shorthanded replacements would be appreciated.
At the moment I created “The Necromancer Guild” [DEAD], but if anyone has better ideas/objections let me know before it sets in, otherwise I’ll send out invites in the morning. Please be sure to have an open guild slot ready for me!
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
so as a necro who pretty much just came back, unlocked all the reaper skillpoints and whatnot.. dont have a ascendency armor set yet. What should I aim for if I wanna try out the scourge when it comes, viper?
And this is for general pvE with low fractals & dungs etc. no min-maxxing
Viper is good, as is Trailblazer, Apothecary/Shaman, Dire, and even Seraph. There may even be new stats coming out that work well.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Depends on content: If you’re doing just PvE then you should focus on the bleeds, but if you also WvW then I personally recommend Nightmare/Trapper because every condi matters.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Dodge True Shot and the Tether if you can for DH, dodge Rush, Bull’s Charge, and F1’s for Warriors. Corrupt the last pulse of Berserker Stance and Stability whenever possible, and corrupt the Shield of Courage Stability. If you’re playing Power Necro against Warrior in WvW you might as well just sit and die because they outsustain you easily if they aren’t stupid, same kinda goes for DH if they’re running Hunter’s Fortification and you’re Condi although this one is more doable.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Worst case scenario I’ll go ahead and throw “Necromancer Guild” together and we’ll move over, but I need to create a guild space for whichever one we choose to run with.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Blood magic is the last traitline to be selfish. Almost all of our party play is there (Transfusion, Vampiric Presence & Rituals, Unholy Martyr, Life from Death).
Putting shroud traits in one line only is extremely bad design. As to why, just look at warrior and his “Defense line or die in seconds” reality. Perfect way to make already boring class reach new levels of boredom and unflexibility.
Death magic having passive defenses is good. In shroud you can’t use active ones to help you. Passives or enjoy being cc ragdolled and getting condibombed with no way to retalliate. It’s the quality of these passives that needs work (reaper’s protection is indeed to easy to get around).
Blighter’s boon is op like it or not. If you go spite, that thing heals you in shroud better then whole blood magic line put together, especially when target drops below 50% hp. And that’s without having to rely on Healing Power investment.
Other big issue here is how good and sustainy reaper shroud is vs crappy Death Shroud. If core necro DS would get a proper rework to give him more unique sustain, then I wouldn’t have to ask for reaper trait nerfs and core traitline buffs to bring the two bit closer to eachother after pressing F1.
The difference is that Blighter’s Boon is entirely selfish, while the effects of Blood Magic benefit other players. And again, Blighter’s Boon does require an investment from the player like Blood Magic does, but instead of needing to devote stats to Healing Power, you need to devote Sigils, Runes, Utility choices, Trait choices, and even an entire Trait Line just to get your value out of Blighter’s Boon. It’s a different kind of investment, but it’s the same effect. Plus Blighter’s Boon requires certain in game checks to be met to become extra powerful, such as opponents being sub-50% or your target being Chilled, while Blood Magic is always consistent.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
You can Fear enemies through corrupting Stability, Spectral Wall, Death Shroud 3, Reaper Shroud 3, Reaper’s Mark, Reaper’s Protection, Lich 3, and Fear of Death’s downstate proc.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Do any of you guys go for spite line and use it to add turning boons into conditions?
I was messing around in WVW yesterday and i was thinking:Maybe i should betrading in for spite line for Fractals tier 2.
What do you guys think?
I almost explicitly take Spiteful Spirit when running Spite. That said, I wouldn’t take it in PvE because for mobs that matter, Close to Death is worth more. It’s easy enough to control boons in PvE with scepter autos, Focus offhand, Chill of Death, etc.
i suppose i could corrupt a few boons on a target at a time, but i was thinking of specifically:Cliffside tier 2 and 3 where boons are massive, and require more control when having multiple enemies.It can get pretty nuts.I’l have to test out close to death.
Thing is outside of bosses, which are one at a time and prime for scepter autos, trash mobs just die too fast for the boons to really matter.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Seraph, Shaman/Apothecary mix, Rabid/Dire/TB mix, Nomad, and any new stats would all be perfectly fine. Scourge is pretty ambiguous in its stat-desires, dependent on the build you’re going for.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Do any of you guys go for spite line and use it to add turning boons into conditions?
I was messing around in WVW yesterday and i was thinking:Maybe i should betrading in for spite line for Fractals tier 2.
What do you guys think?
I almost explicitly take Spiteful Spirit when running Spite. That said, I wouldn’t take it in PvE because for mobs that matter, Close to Death is worth more. It’s easy enough to control boons in PvE with scepter autos, Focus offhand, Chill of Death, etc.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
a-net is very reluctant to boost heals through shroud without nerfing something in return.
Blighter’s is not pure heal – it also generates life force. Sanctuary doesn’t.
Sanctuary requires actual healing power investment. Bligher’s? Spam more boons!
Nerf core trait for sake of one elite – all other elites and core builds suffer due to underpowered core spec!
Sure you want to have your cake and eat it – get better Unholy Sanctuary with no nerfs to bligher’s. But that’s not how it works – to make this omlet you need to break a few eggs!
And also core necro needs some more love – love that reaper’s should get less of, as they have their own reaper traitline already.
How is that not how that works? Let’s say you buff US without nerfing BB and someone decides to take both. If someone decides to spec hard into Power and Healing Power to maximize their damage through Spite and Blighter’s Boon and to get the most out of Unholy Sanctuary, that means all 3 traitlines are locked in. You have no extra damage or sustain from Soul Reaping, none of the boon control of Curses, and none of the other sustain from Blood Magic. Plus if you’re deep into Healing Power and Power, then you’re lacking in Toughness, Vitality, Precision, and Ferocity, which means your damage is less than a typical Marauder Reaper while your raw healing is good, but your actual durability is low. Basically you do less damage and get focused out faster, but your small scale sustain is higher. Sounds like healthy tradeoffs to me!
Also I fail to see your logic. For one you’re forgetting that US also has the low health passive protection functionality. Blighter’s Boon requires the investment of Sigils, utility choices, single traits, and even an entire traitline to abuse, while US only requires a stat input. You’re saying nerf a core trait, but I’m not saying we should nerf US, I’m saying we should buff it by giving it better scaling and identity, at which point “core necro needs some more love” is exactly what we’re trying to do.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
I disagree with Blighter’s Boon needing a nerf and its synergy with Spite being a problem. Reaper and Death Magic both scale in different ways, with one scaling well from Power and the other scaling from Toughness/Healing Power. The problem is that while Reaper with Blighter’s Boon scales well with Power, Unholy Sanctuary scales awfully with Healing Power, so while they both fill different roles, one is simply terrible while the other is quite good.
It’s like putting a professional athlete next to a skinny college nerd. You wouldn’t tell the athlete to get fatter, you would tell the nerd to bulk up some more. You shouldn’t nerf something that isn’t even too strong because the competition is too weak. This is literally what happened to a small degree with Vital Persistence a month ago, and people lost their minds until ANet did us a solid and gave us back some of what was lost.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
My problem with Death Magic is that most traits are either too situational or too weak, while the line is also 33% taken up by redundant traits like the entire minion line. If Flesh of the Master could be made baseline and Necromantic Corruption/Death Nova be combined at the GM level, then that would open up two full trait slots for more ambiguous items that could fill out other roles for tanking/variety. Outside of that, my only personal large complaint in the traitline is that Unholy Sanctuary’s Healing Power scaling is tragic. Currently it’s a 130 baseline heal per second with a scalar of 0.12. That means that if you’re a support build looking for additional personal sustain/tankiness and you’re all in on Healing Power, you’re still only regaining ~300 HP/s. This is less than a Warrior’s Healing Signet when they have zero Healing Power, and this is a Grandmaster Trait we’re talking about. I would like to see them drop the base heal to around 100, but increase the Healing Power coefficient to around 0.38, this way Unholy Sanctuary healing is roughly equivalent to personal Soothing Mists when you’re in Shroud with ~1400 Healing Power.
Outside of this, I only have smaller complaints about the line:
Putrid Defense is too low of a % when compared to Shrouded Removal and considering its variance in uptime/downtime.
Reaper’s Protection has a high cooldown for a Master level counter-CC trait that uses the worst hard CC in the game on a class with the worst ways of dealing with hard CC trains, but it has potentially very respectable synergies when combined with Fear of Death and Terror. I would like to see a 40ish second CD on this, even if it means a small reduction on the Fear duration, if not just completely flip-turning this trait into something that gives Stability or something else that’s infintely more effective than the Fear.
Soul Comprehension.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Not only have they said they would, and the beta has shown that they have, but they’ve even changed existing traits to force them to work with Scourge (i.e. Vital Persistence).
Oh ok thanks, I wanted to try it today but missed it because of time change :/
Don’t worry, only two weeks until actual release!
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Not only have they said they would, and the beta has shown that they have, but they’ve even changed existing traits to force them to work with Scourge (i.e. Vital Persistence).
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Any combination of Staff, Dagger main hand, and Axe main hand with Dagger offhand and Warhorn offhand. They’re all perfectly valid to pick from and give a reasonable variety of different effects.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Spite, Blood Magic, and Death Magic with Minions is an extremely simple way of leveling through the class. Minions practically never die in PvE, and they eat aggro for you while also healing you. It’s a relatively braindead way of doing it, but it works very well. It can be kinda fun to min-max your minion usage with things like detonating Bone Minions and breaking bars using Flesh Golem Charge and Bone Fiend’s Rigor Mortis.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
As mentioned above, the raw numbers on runes 1-5 and the explosion of abilities on rune 6 are far too much. Beyond that I think this isn’t the correct approach for these runes as there are already enough runesets that buff personal condition DPS – I’d rather see something that plays to the unique aspects of the scourge. Since I already have a good idea which runeset I’ll be using I’m probably not the best person to be making suggestions, but a variant on the Monk Runes might be interesting for a support build:
1 +25 healing power
2 +5% condition duration
3 +50 healing power
4 +10% condition duration, 25% chance when struck to grant barrier to nearby allies (cooldown 15 secs)
5 +100 healing power
6 +10% outgoing barrier*
*unless outgoing healing buffs already affect barrier (which they probably should), in which case this should be +15% or maybe +20%
EDIT to the OP I’d recommend checking out the guardian forum with reference to that theory of yours. Over there you’ll find a lot of complaints that the firebrand is underpowered, especially from a support perspective. And remember that these runes would be usable in PvE where there’s no spellbreaker to counter them.
% Outgoing Healing does not affect Barrier Application, unfortunately.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Like your other rune set idea, this is simply way too much stuff on a single rune set. The two-piece alone gives you 25 Condition Damage and 300 Expertise, which is double the Expertise it currently gives. Beyond that you want it to do everything it already does in only a 4-piece and then some. Think about the implications of this with Thief; they get access to even more permanent evasion and even greater condition access for free. Not only that, but why would you give someone evasion and stealth at the same time? This rune set just screams “I desperately want this to somehow work with Necromancer, even though it makes no sense and would be completely broken on other classes.”
I’m sorry man, but some people really just shouldn’t work/think in the side of game balance.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Simply changing the 6 piece bonus of the actual rune to something like “gain Barrier on Heal Skill use” would make it a pretty good rune. The only real issue with it is that a barrier when struck below 50% health really needs a shorter cooldown than 75 seconds.
Idk it seems resonable. Why play condi boonstrip scourge when you can play chill reaper. At least a rune set would lock you into a runeset without interfering with trait balance.
This is, objectively, completely broken as a concept. Just read what you’re asking your rune set to do; you want it to give 175 Condition Damage, 750 Expertise worth of Condition Duration, Deathly Chill but for Torment, and basically an inverse Blighter’s Boon that heals for almost 5 times the amount per boon. You’re asking for a single rune set to have the same power level as 4 pieces of gear and two Grandmaster traits. This is completely ridiculous.
As to answer your question of “Why play Scourge when you can play Chill Reaper?”: Because come Path of Fire release, Condition-based Chill Reaper won’t exist anymore.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
I dig this; Deathly Hallows [Nec]. Also I would probably be down to take an Officer or similar position in this if it actually gets off the ground. I’m always happy to answer questions, rate/create builds, and give advice to/have discussion with Necros of all levels.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Remember Anet wants necros to exist solely in WvW. In every other game mode we can kitten off. Oh hi scourge are you PvE viable? No not really? PvP viable? sorta kinda huh? Ok bro see you in WvW with the reapers and vanilla necros.
Hahahahahohohoho vanilla necros in WvW, lol… next you’re gonna tell me that power is still viable compared to a deathly chill reaper.
I roam, havoc, and zerg on a base power necro all the time. It is still quite viable, unless you run into a warrior. If you run into a warrior 1v1 you may as well /sit.
The build will consistently beat most other classes, with varying degrees of difficulty. For example, thief is all about timing and if you screw that up you’re done, power Druid can hold you out of range if you fight in an open area, but you’ll always beat revs and most guardians.
Demolisher’s stats from spvp available in wvw would be a nice feature to have.
I generally advise against causing your Vitality to change when you swap weapons, since it will directly alter the amount of Life Force you have while in combat. On top of that, reducing your Vitality in combat will cause you to lose a proportionate amount of Health that you won’t get back by swapping your weapons again, so you can literally kill yourself by weapon swapping at too low of a life total.
TL;DR Try to make your weapons all use the same stats.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Our healing is worse and our defensive capabilities are worse than almost every other class. This is the major reason we are worse at attrition than most other classes. Combine that with the fact that Reaper is easily beaten by individuals that kite out the Shroud due to general lack of mobility and it becomes an uphill battle for most matchups (worse for Power builds than Condi).
People complain about the current state of Reaper in WvW running Deathly Chill and Reaper runes because counterplay is low and burst is extremely high, without being a hard build at all to play. The problem is that if you don’t have large damage potential then what does the class actually do? It’s just a glorified boon removal bot. There needs to be a decent middle ground between sustain and damage potential. I agree Reaper Runes + Deathly Chill is cheese and Deathly Chill in WvW is overtuned at the moment, but we need to have the ability to punish people for making mistakes or being gassed on cooldowns since we lack the ability to sustain well.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
I have never, once, had an issue with staying in a party for PvE content due to my class choice. I regularly carry T4 fractals as a Necromancer when I have to do them with less skilled pugs (most likely failing at playing meta classes). If you know how to do your job and do it well, then most people don’t give a kitten. The only people who truly care about your class choice are either the people that make up 0.5% of the player base trying to perform the most rigorous, unnecessary tasks, or the individuals who get annoyed that despite your class choice, you actually just fail to perform the content in question.
As for this post, this is the definition of pulling something out of context. Stop falsifying your picture to try to strengthen a case for the class. It has issues, but this is not the way to try and fix them, especially considering all you’re doing is crying and pointing fingers at others rather than doing something actually constructive.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Really nice to hear about the punishments. I admit I forgot to test the snakes on the weekend, that skill may be a sleeper hit for the playstyle I am looking for.
The skill also makes a hilariously awesome hissing sound when it goes off as well.
Don’t tread on snek
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Magi weapons, Minstrel armor, Nomad Trinkets, Rune of Water because no better options came out of the box, same with Energy Leeching on both weapon sets.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Not my idea of Scourge, wich I think is more best defence is a good offence kinda style. Putting condi AoE pressure like no other, but still enjoyed the Vid and nice to see what u can do with support in case of pumping out barrier like that.
I feel you, I like the fact that it can go both ways with its scaling; either offense is weak but defense is strong, or defense is weak but offense is strong.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
Not every skill is created or balanced with every single game mode in mind. For that reason, Signet doesn’t have to be good in PvE because it’s actually pretty sweet in PvP game modes, although most people overlook it now with the Signets of Suffering change that came from last patch. I think the heal is in a fine spot right now, but I suppose you could look at making its base CD 30s.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
I’m actually very surprised at your utility choices. How did all the punishments do in your opinion? Most see them as fairly weak (and I admit, I am still uncertain on several of them), would you keep them as they are in the future, or do you think regular skills will turn out better.
Glad others see value in a somewhat supporty scourge, too. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one that does, at least in this forum >_>
I had a blast, and I already want the build back ;__;
I quite liked the punishments in total; at first I used them along with Feed From Corruption with Boon Duration on my gear for the total synergy, but even after I moved away from FfC into Sand Savant, I still find them to be better than some other choices. Spectral Armor instead of Trail of Anguish could be good, but at double the cooldown I’m not so sure the potential increase in Life Force generation is worth the downtime on a stun break. Dessicate is quite good at upkeeping Life Force if you literally just spam it off cooldown, but that’s somewhat lackluster in design and I hope they modify this ability a bit. Serpent Siphon is actually pretty sweet, since the barrier scales quite well, it hits up to 5 targets in a good radius, and it’s unblockable, but I mainly used it because Sand Swell got disabled for a good chunk of the weekend (Rest In Peace). Ghastly Breach because there’s literally no better choice.
I love playing support style builds, but being a Necro purist there was never a good space for that in this game for me. Scourge being focused on Support and Condi has me very excited, since Condi is my primary playstyle and Support is bae, and I’m stoked that the support element is as capable and entertaining as it is.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
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.
I feel the other 2 GM traits are still useful in their own area and we won’t always feel forced to take Sand Savant in its mode I suggested above.
If the player is mostly fighting on point, then perhaps Sand Savant is more desirable, giving full effects and larger radius.
If the player is not fighting on point, but against mobile opponents, then Demonic Lore might be better.
If the player is in an environment where boons are desirable, then feed from corruption is desirable.
I see all 3 GM traits still pick worthy and desirable in depending on the gamemodes and playstyles even if we halved the effects on untraited shades and give full effects to traited Sand Savant.
I would agree that Feed From Corruption can stand on its own due to its nature of feeding different archetypes of builds, but I don’t really feel the same for Sand Savant versus Demonic Lore. Why take Demonic Lore, which reads “Your Torment deals 33% more damage”, when you can take Sand Savant which reads “You apply double the Torment”, especially considering how it makes bombing multiple opponents easier and enemy kiting more difficult. You can make the argument that if you’re pretty heavily invested in Condition Duration then the additional Burning probably means Demonic Lore outdamages the straight Torment from Sand Savant, but even then you’re still probably talking about a sidegrade of Damage vs. Utility more than a defining playstyle upgrade. Support Builds already want Sand Savant as it is because it makes it way easier to manage being in AoE range of maximum teammates, so they wouldn’t bat an eye at Sand Savant also simply making their Shade abilities better.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
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.
This is reasonable, given that a very important variable in all of this discussion of power level is the “L2P” issue, although it is also important to take notice of potential of reapplication: In the case of Burn Guardian and Condi Engi, their major burst is on roughly a 16 and 12 second cooldown, respectively, with minimal pressure in between. Scourge is able to reapply using abilities that are on 4, 6.5, 12, and 16 second cooldowns, making uptime a larger issue for Scourge than it is for the other two. Combine that with the fact that our bomb also applies Torment and Cripple in large quantities, among other utilities and conditions, and the difference in Pressure vs. Downtime sways pretty heavily in our favor.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
I’m excited to see the development of the playstyle and I miss it already. As always feel free to discuss here or in the comments, I hope you enjoy, and have a wonderful day!
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
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.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
