Yeah, I did change my number, because on reflection, it was still too low. This is effectively our block and even with heavy Healing Power investment, we will still see it vanish in one or two hits all the time and not even block it all!.
Honestly, if the rest of the spec actually pumped out serious damage, I’d be less concerned, but even discounting Deathly Chill, I think Reaper is still going to end up dishing out more condition damage than Scourge in realistic scenarios for PvE and will hold much more survivability than Scourge in PvP.
Scourge with current values is going to fail as a support spec because Barrier just isn’t strong enough and it will fail as a condi spec because it is far too reliant on boon corruption to do damage.
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.
Context, my friend. I also said what I consider the baseline acceptable scaling is.
I’ve noticed a hell of a lot less regular gear dropping on the demo. The Unidentified Gear almost certainly replaces normal loot drops. It is NOT “in addition to.”
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.
If it procs Spiteful Spirit and Weakening Shroud on top of its base functionality it is an incredible strong skill for a Power-Scourge in any PvP environment.
Does it proc the traits at the players or the sand shade location? Or even at both?
Hard to tell since those two skills dont add to the tooltips but since the boons from entering shroud work we can tell its coded as a shroud enter so it may proc weapons swaps and these two traits.
Im more interested in manifest sand shade. It in itself is a shade skill and as per another post i made the other day after watching WPs video more closely. Everytime you summon a shade, including the first summon, or use a shade skill it, and you, will attack. As long as these overlap you will end up putting out a ton of burning with Dhuumfire., gaining a ton of might with reapers might or putting out a bunch of vuln with unyielding blast.
Also some of the barrier skills have pretty high base numbers and with some HP they become pretty good.
Given the temporary nature of Barrier, anything less than 80% Healing Power scaling I will personally consider terrible.
I mean, that’s literally the lowest scaling we have on any skill Necros have (Your Soul is Mine) that’s not per-hit (Signet of the Locust is only .6/hit, for example). Even on traits, we only have one that’s lower (Spiteful Renewal). And these all give actual health!
Barrier, since it decays so rapidly, needs to scale much better than this. So far, I’m seeing a ton of disappointment from Scourge. It might be decent in WvW zerging, but that’s it. It will need massive buffs and functionality changes to work anywhere else.
You can actually change this just like buying multiples of any item from a vendor.
The system as-is is horrible for all of the other reasons you mentioned, though.
Wait, are Raptors dyeable? :O I’ll permafrost mine then!
Yup! On the dye panel, there should be a button next to your helmet slot that will let you swap to mounts. Raptors only have one dye channel, but it can certainly look good!
So while the devs work on this (cause I know they will – they have nothing better to do) can anyone explain where your fingers go if you don’t click? How do I not be a clicker?
WASD and top row number keys are basically where your fingers should be while you’re in combat. Keep one hand on your mouse for rotating camera and targeting abilities.
I suggest using the options setting where ground-target skills fire on release of the skill key. This way, you can still properly aim those skills, but your mouse never has to move away from the action.
I love the raptor, but there are a couple of spots in the playable area where they just get hung up on nothing at all. This is universally on stairs in my experience, and players can traverse that space without jumping just fine. Raptors, though, have to jump.
If they fix these couple of spots and those like them that we can’t reach, I’d say mounts are as close to flawless as is practical.
Also the tooltip is wrong. The puslsing damaging roar deals 35 to 40 % at least less damage all the time whether the damage is increased / buffed or not. With 15 stacks of mights (warhorn + WaO), for exemple, you can’t expect more than 3 × 1450 whereas the tooltip says 3 × 2472 etc. So it can’t do critical hits for sure.
When a tooltip says 3x 2472, that’s three strikes totaling 2472, not three strikes of 2472.
1v20? What did you do, dive right into the bulk of the army?
I might be willing to do that with Risen, but Forged are new enemy types. ANY new enemies should be approached with caution to learn their capabilities. They’re still trash mobs, so taking on 3 shouldn’t be a problem and it’s not like they’re all grouped up in one mob.
In my experience, when you fire that first Life Blast, they switch to just staying in melee range and smacking you. Usually with hard CC since you can’t do anything about it.
I got this on my third try, but my main complaint about this minigame is that literally ANYTHING blocks the throw. Even the 1 foot high counters block the throw.
Adjusting the throw arcs a little bit would fix this problem.
May require the one Punishment that generates life force. The trait for them will probably be meta anyway.
I can actually see CPC being swapped for Signet of Undeath as a possibility, since each life force expenditure pulses an attack and don’t mess with combo fields like CPC does. Not sold on that, though.
I don’t think sand shades will ‘stack’. If you have 3 sand shades in the same area and fire off Garish Pillar it won’t hit them 3 times with the fear and it won’t hit them 3 times with the torment/cripple.
The Fear definitely won’t stack, but the Torment+Cripple+damage might.
Scourge I can see some use for, as they can keep up 100% general condition duration on top of having instant cast squadwide 2 condition cleanse on a 5 second (4 traited) cool down. Surely this would be helpful in Slothosaur and other condition encounters, since this doesn’t cut their damage to supply (and is actually a source for some).
Doubling the base values of vampiric presence would help a lot, especially for scourge.
If they would just give the curses line an AOE 150 expertise buff like other classes have it would help a huge amount, and even that alone makes condi necro a reasonable choice in every aspect of PVE.
It wouldn’t help at all. Almost everyone configures their character to have 99-100% duration.
That’s a lot harder to do with the nerf to Pizza and Toxic crystals. Most classes can get 100% with a single condition, but I think Scourge will be one of the very few who can hit it with all of them.
Just crunched the numbers and with Vital Persistence traited, Scourges should be able to hit 100% general Condition Duration in raids. This is without Alacrity, so don’t assume that Soul Reaping will be absolutely necessary.
Full Vipers gear alone is +42.2%
2 Trapper, 4 Nightmare adds +30% (total 72.2%)
Sigil of Malice is +10% (total 82.2%, 100% on Bleeds)
Having 2 Shades up is +10% (total 92.2%, 100% on bleeds) (with Vital Persistence reducing recharge by 20%, 2 shades always up should be simple)
With Torch Trait, another 109 Expertise for +7.266% (total: +99.466%
And with Food, obviously hitting the full 100% with ease.
Well I’ll definitely take a look at it during the weekend. Right now I have a super fun Bleeding build that I don’t know if I want to give that up for Torment if its not substantial. Especially if the burning dmg is minimal. I guess I should have expected that with the Guardian elite spec coming out though.
Recent patch made torment aswell as confusion have the same base dmg as bleed now. Idk if that makes you feel different about it.
My concern with Scourge (at least on the condition damage front) is that the new skills all seem extremely reliant on boon corruption to deal damage. No boons, no real damage.
We do need the timed lifespan on Jagged Horrors to be removed. Having them degenerate health is fine. Alternatively, just put a (lower) hard cap and let them last indefinitely.
Why wouldn’t the Scourge still be the #1 focus? It’s even easier to kill than Core Necro. If you can easily turn a fight from a 5v5 into a 5v4, you do it.
Yeh without vital persistence any power spec based around deathshroud is dead. You basically cannot spec for sustain now I would imagine. You could try going signets with undeath to give you death shroud regen but this wont work as you wont have any condi clear.
Vital persistence deletion basically makes about a dozen other necro traits unplayable such as unholy santuary and unholy martyr. Their only semi-usefullness existed from sitting in death shroud for longer. In addition, the new signet trait is way worse due to the deletion of vital persistence.
Anet didnt mean to nerf about 10 necros traits in a single pass but they did it nonetheless.
you only forgot the small detail that signets does not work on shroud >.< but basically they killed core necro and reaper from pvp
Signets do work in Shroud if you take Signets of Suffering now. No Might or boon corruption, though.
Hm. I feel like I already know the answer but, what happens if you cast it point blank on something? They won’t all hit the same target, will they?
Depends on where other potential targets are. Other than your target, it grabs the four closest things within a 1200 radius of you. Direction is irrelevant.
I run 2 Trapper, 4 Nightmare and get 79% general condition duration before consumables. Sure, capping everything doesn’t happen anymore, but you still get pretty close (and there with Bleeding).
Spiteful Renewal is a nice change. Adding a bit of condi cleanse and additional healing is nice.
The really nice part about it is that it removes the drawback from Consume Conditions and turns it into extra healing. Spiteful Renewal is on about a 1/2 second delay after the Heal skill. If you have corruptions traited, Spiteful Renewal removes the Blind.
: The sad thing was i almost believed WP and his theory that power Necro’s may actually get some positive changes, man was he off the mark!
I remember WP interviewing game devs and asking them if older elite specs would be made obsolete because PoF would power creep the new elite specs. The answer, obviously, was a resounding “no” from everybody asked.
I feel like an idiot for believing them
Well, in the case of Scourge and Reaper, it’s probably quite true.
Now, Scourge or Reaper compared to any other profession? Yeah.
- Envoy of Sustenance: This trait no longer grants boon duration. It now grants up to 240 Concentration at level 80.
A nerf in all non-80 areas, but a small buff at level 80. 240 Concentration gives 16% Boon Duration, so slightly better than the 15% the trait gave before.
This is a trait that needed to be baselined, not removed.
Okay, bringing the Cooldown reduction up to 20%? That’s good. Adding Vitality? Completely ignorable. Removing the decay reduction entirely from the game? I guess they don’t want Necros to be able to survive anything.
The issue with Vital Persistence wasn’t that it was “too good compared to the other options,” it was that it was too necessary to even consider the other options.
And Fear of Death is still godawful trash, so that didn’t change.
Lolno, its a cute anti bunker thats only good in birst. It’ll be about as scary as current power shiro; not scary at all. I mean war with infinite resistance isn’t scary at all, just walk away from them. I can imagine this war getting deleted by any condi build in the games second rotation.
in terms of upcoming CANCER levels…
guard > mesmer > engineer > necro > ranger > ele > thief > war
Rev is a question mark for now, but I have zero concern about war. I don’t know if they can even fully boonstrip rev + ele/druid.
Given their Elite will strip 20 boons per target?
and reaper converts 9000+ boons to condition? you dont say?
What I stated was reality, not hyperbole. Spellbreaker’s Elite skill removes a boon every half second for 10 seconds. That is 20 boons removed per target.
Now, this can’t actually strip 20 boons from a target because there are only 11 boons in the game and this same skill also prevents new boons from being applied, but it does have the potential.
Fun fact: at level 80 Exotic gear, Necros are already at that golden ratio I mentioned earlier (1 armor/10 health). This would normally mean that improving Toughness or Vitality would have the same effect on your effective HP.
I still say that if you have to be a bit unbalanced, that Vitality is the way to lean towards, since Life Force scales directly with it and is always gained as a percentage of max. Plus, it’s easier to get other sources of physical damage reduction from sources other than Toughness than to gain more health/life force.
