Scourge Strike is bugged. Fix this for S8

In the recent past, it has been hard to post in DK threads without a bunch of players jumping into the discussion for tangential discussions. I apologize in advance if that happens here. But we will make sure resilience, Outbreak and Rage of Rivendare are affecting Scourge Strike correctly.

To be clear, while Scourge Strike should not have the physical and Shadow portions both hit by resilience, they should not independently be buffed by +damage effects either. The Shadow damage should in most cases just be a function of the physical damage done. Exceptions are things like Ebon Plague that specifically boost magic damage and don't buff physical damage. Ebon Plague should buff the Shadow damage portion of Scourge Strike. So it's possible the resilience is bugged (in which case it's about to get worse with the resilience change), but at first glance we think Outbreak and the tier 10 bonus are working correctly.

This ability has gone through numerous iterations in an attempt to get it both balanced and fun, so some confusion about how it is supposed to work is certainly understandable.

Again I will add that while you are free to bring up whatever DK issues you'd like (in the sense that we aren't going to delete them) I am only going to respond to topics of Scourge Strike potentially being bugged in this thread. I'm not trying to sound draconian, but this thread will quickly get too long to be useful if it becomes the all things DK thread, or even the all things DK PvP thread. :(

I'm not sure where the interpretation came from that we're going to nerf Scourge Strike for PvE. All I was trying to say was that the current 3.3 version of Scourge Strike seems to be working correctly for PvE but might be penalized too much by resilience in PvP. If that turns out to be the case, then you would see your Scourge Strike damage go up in PvP (assuming the target has some kind of resilience) and stay the same in PvE.

I know we have changed this talent a lot, and I do apologize for any confusion. If you recall, not long ago Scourge Strike could crit independently. When we changed that, we removed some of its ability to double dip. A +damage ability should already affect the physical portion of the strike, so indirectly affects the Shadow portion of the strike. Abilities, most saliently Ebon Plague, that do not affect the physical damage can still boost Scourge Strike through the Shadow portion. Resilience, on the other hand, already reduces the physical damage done so indirectly affects the Shadow portion done. It should not further reduce the Shadow portion separately. We took steps to make sure that wasn't happening, so it it is indeed happening, something broke along the way. My apologies if that is the case.

After further testing, it does appear that resilience additionally lowers the Shadow damage done by Scourge Strike. It was definitely working at one time, so something broke along the way. We apologize for the bug and will be hotfixing it.

All of the other modifiers to Scourge Strike that we tested appear to be working as intended. The net result should be no change to PvE damage and a buff to PvP damage (against targets with resilience).

Again, we know it's a confusing ability and perhaps confusing enough for us to eventually change. Again.

This thread has shifted from discussing the bug to general SS and DK issues (and a wee bit of ranting). As such, we don't think players looking for information on the bug will be able to find it here.