So I had some time to run in wvw already with my guild.
What I realized so far is that…. ‘support’ Scourge needs some changes….
As it stands it cannot be a viable “group support” class, as Anet wants.
Yes, it does decently good condi dmg, but there is no reason right now to run anything other than trailblazers even for “supporting”.
Now that we no longer have a shroud our surviveability is down to zero..
We now back to having no mobility (Sand Swell has too long a cast time, last for barely 5 seconds and is a rly rly awful ele blink basically…)
Barrier needs to be buffed. You grant WAYYYY to little of it even with healing power… and it barely scales with healing power in the first place…
Also the decay on barrier is ridiculous. Give us at least 3 seconds before it starts to decay and lower the decay rate. Aegis is 10x better than barrier right now, tbh.
SHADE SKILLS:
F1 and Base shade effects need slightly larger radius.. 180 is wvw is near impossible to utilize because everyone is always moving so quickly. That means you HAVE to have the big shade trait no matter what. Make it at least 240 for now and see how it goes.
Next, every F2-5 skill should grand some barrier.
F2 – should have 3sec cd at most, lower condi-to-boon to 1 and also maybe add one boon-to-condi on enemies, make it give like 1k barrier
F3 – should give like 3k barrier and have at most 5 sec cd.
F4 – I guess this one is just a fear so it doesnt have to have a barrier. Should prolly strip boons on foes tho.. Or have some other kind of offensive aspect to it. Because if the enemy has stability, you are literally just wasting 20% of your life force for nothing.
F5 – should grant like 3k barrier on cast, then another 1k every pulse.
TRAITS:
Nourishing Rot – 3sec ICD for 5% is a little high. At least make it 3sec ICD per particular target that you corrupt but lower the gain %. At the moment not worth using over the other traits.
Desert Empowerment – Making this grant barrier on ALL F1-5 skills. Also possible BUG: having Sand Savant trait doesnt increase the number of targets to whom you give barrier to 10.
Unending Corruption – Making this trait convert boons on all F1-5 skills. Right now there is 0 reason to use it. Also same BUG with Sand Savant, still 5 targets.
SKILLS:
Oppresive Collapes – Looks like a rly cool skill but why is it a single target ?
Dessicate – Worthless. Not sure why anyone would ever use it.
Sand Swell – A crappy, super delayed version of ele blink. Either make it faster/near instant to cast or make it work more like a mes port. Flesh Wurm is better than this skill lol.
Serpent Siphon – Maybe add more poison stacks to it so it actually does dmg but lower/remove barrier? Or keep the dmg but make the barrier on actually possible to get? One of the two needs to happen, right now it pretty useless as both dmg and barrier source.
Ghastly Breach – Make this ground targeted with 900 range. OR make it follow the position of my char.
This is all I got for now, Will put more hours into scourge as the weekend goes.
TL:DR:
Barrier is bad.
Surviving without shroud/mobility/decent defensive skills in zegs is crazy hard.
Needs to give more barrier to be a viable ‘support’ class in wvw.
Still decent condi dmg tho.
Look at how effective someone is in a full Dire set.
Nice balance.