Guild Wars 2

Now before anyone reads further, this is not dps math.
I couldn’t care less what the scourge’s dps is in testing since things are highly subject to change still.

What I am currently looking at is boons, might application, potential off healing, barriers to cover spike damage (tankbusters?), and other defensive support that could trivialize a few fights to the point of it becoming a meme.

Let’s assume for a split second 100% boon duration and all “realistic” conditions on a foe (perma imobi, taunt, slow, and fear are impossible or at the very least wildly impractical in any scenario that isn’t being zerged by 50+ players)
With alacrity, Oppressive collapse has a 16.5 second cooldown and the might it applies lasts for 16 seconds. 10 conditions that are realistically found in any raid encounter would mean that you gain 20 might off of one skill with a .5 second window of downtime.
Use of dessicate immediately after would bring you up to 25 might. Dessicate has a 13.2 second cooldown with alacrity. So already, assuming 100% boon duration, you can upkeep 25 might on 5 people with arguably less effort than CPS.

But that’s not all that is offered, barrier values with even base healing power can cap out 10k hp classes with a single skill. non 10k hp classes will be likely fine when hit by spike damage due to the nature of them having high hp anyhow. (A reaper nailed by spike from greens in vg still has roughly 4k hp for example. adding barrier just makes it even safer for them.)

And the fact that this huge soaking mechanic can be applied to the entire raid by either using sand savant or simply having people stack in multiple shades (each can hit 5 players) means that only a single scourge is needed.

Moving back to might stacking, I have slopped together a theorybuild rather lazily.It’s worth noting that you gain 15% boon and condition duration from sand soul for simply having shades out, so you need nearly no boon duration from armors. You also gain 7% expertise from condition damage. (so roughly 180) which gives you a heft amount of free duration. Sigil of concentration is likely insanely unnecessary, but I’ll leave it in for a reason I’ll explain later.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRQQJAroCV3A/NMEGqYAkAPAtKyieF-TxRhABAs/Qf6B6U5nTPAgZVCO5JAoR1fIEwi1A-e

With this build you have 65(+33%) might duration and 76.17333.. condition duration. 20% more bleed duration brings you to 96% bleed, and 76% everything else.

Frankly, if I weren’t so lazy I’d theorycraft a rotation to stack might.
BiP is used in literally every condition rotation I’ve ever seen for necromancer due to its high damage, the might it adds would only make mightstack scourge even easier.
Dessicate would likely also take a utility slot for the lifeforce gain alone, helping you to boost dps from dumbfire procs.

Now… there is no question of “will scourge be able to perform as a ps” but rather “how well does it perform other tasks” … and that will remain to be seen until we witness how valuable 5k barriers on 10 people is in the new raids.. and of course the dps since that’s all half of you care about.

Moving on to other utilities scourge brings. Condition to boon conversion on a 4 second cooldown.
What does this mean? This means matthias will be giving everyone aegis,regen, and resistance instead of burning, poison, and chill. This will likely trivialize the fight.
Abusing sigil of concentration before using your conversion means that the boons you gain will last even longer.

So. In summary, you lose (theoretically) minimal damage in order to apply 25 might trivially, have access to single skills that can cap out most classes’ barrier limit, and you convert conditions into boons on a 4 second cooldown (not counting alacrity)

Any questions?

Oh, and because I had forgotten for a moment. You can swap soul reaping for blood magic and viper’s to seraphs for a more fun “I’m a healer too, mom” build with ridiculous boon duration for conversions. Likely not raid “optimal”, but likely insanely fun in pug dungeons or fractals with most assuredly more damage than the average zealot revenant or whatever.

Nothing under Tyria sky is easier then playing warrior and stacking might with it. I know because Im lazy and found out how good warrior is being semi afk

mazut.4296:

Nothing under Tyria sky is easier then playing warrior and stacking might with it. I know because Im lazy and found out how good warrior is being semi afk

You completely ignored every other point I made.
Also, this might not fully replace warrior, I realize now I failed to mention this.

In fights where heavy cc from wildblow or headbutt are needed, or where you simply do not need the defensive utilities a scourge brings, it’s highly probable that a double CPS comp will still exist.
And it’s also very worth mentioning that scourge may only need to replace ONE warrior to give the entire group it’s absurd benefits (condition conversion and barrier) as they can apply these things to 10-15 people quite easily.

It’s also possible that with a scourge negating spike damage every now and then, only a single healer may be needed.
After all, it is quite possible (albeit difficult) to upkeep grace on 10 people.

One thing you’re missing regarding Phalanx Strength compared to a Scourge’s might sharing: Range.

Oppressive Collapse has a tiny radius of 240. That means your allies have to all be in the area of a staff mark to get the benefit. Many bosses have hitboxes this size, so good luck! Blood is Power has the same radius, although that’s not centered on the massive boss.

Dessicate does a little better at 300 radius, but Phalanx Strength is double that!

I can’t believed I overlooked something like this.

Okay, b-but it’s not all terrible right?
Just gotta stack I guess? Not run in circles like a bunch of imbeciles?
Oh god who am I kidding? People in the average group are akin to headless chickens.
Even in experienced groups, there’s a lot of “unscripted movement” that makes this build harder to play than it should be.

… on the bright side this thread is giving me plenty of chances to use some of my reaction folder.

Hmm, I should make a reaction folder…

But while I do appreciate what you’re looking at here, the highly restrictive radius on most group Might skills just means they really can’t compete. It will be fine in dungeons where Stack&smack is how you do everything, but raids are significantly more punishing if you stand in a single spot as a group.

Tbh, it’d likely be fine on any boss where you can be immobile for small periods of time, or that require you to be packed in anyhow.
So like certain VG runs and MO.

Murdock.6547:

mazut.4296:

Nothing under Tyria sky is easier then playing warrior and stacking might with it. I know because Im lazy and found out how good warrior is being semi afk

You completely ignored every other point I made.
Also, this might not fully replace warrior, I realize now I failed to mention this.

In fights where heavy cc from wildblow or headbutt are needed, or where you simply do not need the defensive utilities a scourge brings, it’s highly probable that a double CPS comp will still exist.
And it’s also very worth mentioning that scourge may only need to replace ONE warrior to give the entire group it’s absurd benefits (condition conversion and barrier) as they can apply these things to 10-15 people quite easily.

It’s also possible that with a scourge negating spike damage every now and then, only a single healer may be needed.
After all, it is quite possible (albeit difficult) to upkeep grace on 10 people.

To be fair, the Fear from Shroud and Opressive Collapse’s knockdown are good at eating Breakbars too. Or, depending on whether or not your raid members force you to play max damage (who am I kidding, they will) you could also add Flesh Golem (yeah I know it is suboptimal, that CC tho). If you run staff, you have another Fear on your #5, a kittenton of abilities can cripple if the boss applies boons to itself… So Scourge has pretty decent CC himself.

Depending on how the shield works in raid situations, Scourge could be REALLY good at things like VG. If the 80% health damage for a missed green does not count the shield, then you can cover that hit. Green group doesnt necessarily need a healer, you can shield the hit. You mentioned the CC that a CPS warrior gives. Have you not seen that straight condi warrior damage is insane now without PS? let them keep their CC task, but have them damage too. What other support can grant might? I admit, scourge is gonna be good mostly at shielding burst damage rather than healing, so a healer is still required as well, but scourge could shield the retal on gorse, the greens on VG, the ‘oh, kitten’ moments, the condi conversion on matthias, shielding players that get caught out by mechanics.

Also, the 10 man might with the sand savant trait combined with the shielding on manifest AND the sand cascade abilities, WITHOUT alacrity gives up to perma 45 might to group if they stay close (such as when stacking on gorse, less on sabetha due to the kiter and cannon runners), but you get the idea.

I am excited for the scourge, but have a feeling it still may not quite cut the criteria for being ‘meta-changing’, and besides…as soon as necros become a part of the meta, they get nerfed.

Steelpusher.1684:

Depending on how the shield works in raid situations, Scourge could be REALLY good at things like VG. If the 80% health damage for a missed green does not count the shield, then you can cover that hit. Green group doesnt necessarily need a healer, you can shield the hit. You mentioned the CC that a CPS warrior gives. Have you not seen that straight condi warrior damage is insane now without PS? let them keep their CC task, but have them damage too. What other support can grant might? I admit, scourge is gonna be good mostly at shielding burst damage rather than healing, so a healer is still required as well, but scourge could shield the retal on gorse, the greens on VG, the ‘oh, kitten’ moments, the condi conversion on matthias, shielding players that get caught out by mechanics.

Also, the 10 man might with the sand savant trait combined with the shielding on manifest AND the sand cascade abilities, WITHOUT alacrity gives up to perma 45 might to group if they stay close (such as when stacking on gorse, less on sabetha due to the kiter and cannon runners), but you get the idea.

I am excited for the scourge, but have a feeling it still may not quite cut the criteria for being ‘meta-changing’, and besides…as soon as necros become a part of the meta, they get nerfed.

Distortion is already used for this and its better, you avoid all damage, not just part of it. However barrier will be good when moving around at VG, in last phase.

Why would base health factor into the barrier cap when it scales off vitality, not base health?

Ghotistyx.6942:

Why would base health factor into the barrier cap when it scales off vitality, not base health?

Because max barrier is 50% of your maximum hp. Max barrier on a no vit ele is like 5k while it’s nearer 10k on a necro due to base health.

Well then, that’s not really scaling by vit is it. I think it would be better if it did, unless they’ve planned around some behind the curtain situations.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Well then, that’s not really scaling by vit is it. I think it would be better if it did, unless they’ve planned around some behind the curtain situations.

Its strength scales from healing power. It’s maximum value scales from health. Since health scales from vit max barrier scales from vit as well.

mazut.4296:

istortion is already used for this and its better, you avoid all damage, not just part of it. However barrier will be good when moving around at VG, in last phase.

chrono also has abysmal dps. it could be replaced by a guardian for quickness and a ventari healer for alacrity.+
Some sloppy math I did tells me that high alacrity uptime can be done on ventari renegade.
give it zealots, and now your elite on renegade stance has both reasonable dps increase and solid healing. You get so much free ferocity too, that your power dps will still likely heavily outdo a chronomancer.

I was able to upkeep perma quickness on a little group of people on guardian in the beta with only 2 abilities and no alacrity. (granted this was with 100% boon duration)

+edit: I did the actual math and it looks like there will be gaps in alacrity. orders from above is pretty weak rn, with a 20 second cooldown and only applying 6 seconds of alacrity when traited, you will likely run into alacrity problems.
Still, you may run into these problems anyhow on a chrono who is inexperienced and shatters willy-nilly, or someone who has to distort e v e r y mechanic because their teammates are chimps. TBH, either the trait needs to be buffed, the cooldown reduced, or the alacrity be moved to 2 seconds a pulse because right now this skill is incredibly inefficient for it’s energy cost and cooldown.

Why would you replace 1 profession that does abysmal dps by 2 professions with 1 of those profession that does abysmal dps? Why would that even be better?

In your setup, the chrono would be replaced by 1 renegade kalla/ventari that would actually need to be on ventari and do close to no damage to keep alacrity and 1 firebrand that would need to be the tank of the group and provide alacrity since he got a minor that can easily be an issue for aggro management if he is not the tank.

That said, the chrono could have provided this little extra that is distorsion and help skipping bothersome mechanism.

Honestly, I think the renegade will be better at providing extra damage for the team and not concern himself with alacrity than reaching chrono dps level by trying to maintain alacrity (and heal allies?). Will group give up a Druid that grant extra damage for an healing renegade? I doubt it.

Honestly, this is pretty ridiculous how much focus over “healing” there is at this point while druid the current raid “healer” is more here to provide it’s damage bonus than it’s heals. And here we got players fantasizing over having scourge/firebrand/renegade replacing chrono and druid I assume.

Why bother with scourge and firebrand? Just use renegade as extra damage with chrono and druid. Keep the current system and add free extra support/damage from renegade on an easy rotation. Never try something complicated, always take the easy path, it’s better.

Tbh, renegade can heal satisfactorily with full berserkers.
I just wanted an excuse to use zealots. But it’s kind of funny that Rev in full zerks heals more powerfully than druid in zealots. While ofc providing more damage.

And what’s truly ridiculous is the obsession over dps rather than mechanics. Though I suppose it’s to be expected when so many are able to be skipped by distortion.
But that’s another rant for another day.

Scourge in a “worst case scenario” will likely be assured a slot anywhere that epidemic was needed/desired. So roughly the same place reaper is in right now. Not the worst place. Better than power rev/reaper imo.
You could be right and revenant could be a better dps/dps booster than healer (especially if orders from above stays so awful). But this thread is just to explore possibilities since dps numbers are likely to change before release. (and haven’t even been reliably testable yet)

But you are absurd in thinking that these two classes, even if one is in zealots, will each deal less damage than a chronomancer and a dedicated druid. Even with the alacrity downtime, I would wager it would still be a net dps increase to the group.

Also, most main tanks these days take 1400-1500 toughness to avoid warriors pulling when reviving. +250 off of 1k is not enough to pull. The guardian would have to stand in cleave range to apply his quickness, sure, but so far cleaves in this game have been a joke.

The point was more that you need the druid for it’s extra damage buff that’s something that won’t change and since to grant these extra damage. Chrono won’t be replaced by 2 profession, there is not 11 spot in a raid. The revenant is bound to spam natural harmony and take salvation as a traitline which sink it’s dps to oblivion.

I know that it’s not “fun” to see that everything revolve around damage in GW2 PvE, but that’s how the encounters are designed. To avoid troublesome mechanisms, players have been pursuing offense instead of defense since release.

In raids there is nothing to protect, everyone’s effort are turned toward burning the bosses life as fast as possible in order to skip any troublesome mechanisms. The necromancer and the scourge could be fish in water if there were mechanisms that punish to much dps or simply if encounters were designed toward survivability instead of pure strength. However that’s not the case.

So : since you need Druid for it’s damage boost, you don’t need a heal. Since you don’t need a heal, you don’t want a ventari renegade. Since you don’t want a ventari renegade you need a chrono. Since you need a chrono you don’t really have a use for a firebrand specialized in quickness.

In the end, druid and chrono stand tall, renegade enter the fray thanks to the extra damage he provide and firebrand is doomed to compete for a dps spot. The only real “winner” in raids is renegade that gain a spot thanks to mechanisms that don’t work well in PvP environment and solo PvE.

You only need one druid to upkeep grace.
Sun spirit is a dps increase of around 300 maybe 400 per person, assuming everyone is running full condi with 100% burn duration.
Frost spirit is a harder dps increase to calculate out considering our condi heavy meta and how different condi builds deal different amounts of physical damage. The lack of ICD on it makes it a little better, but it’s still quite low in terms of dps increasing.

However, neither of these will make up for your own garbage personal dps as a druid in healing gear. And will most assuredly fall behind the personal dps of a ventari revenant in berserkers or even zealots. Even the loss of spotter on an entire subgroup could be negligible since crits are not always important on condi builds.

I think that honestly, if you won’t even consider the possibility of at least a single druid losing its spot in raid then you are being simply short sighted. Or perhaps complacent.

If you think I am wrong about any of this, I challenge you to do the hard math and show it to me. Prove me wrong and I will graciously step aside and stop with all of this ventari revenant savior nonsense and necromancer being allowed a slot in raids as more than an epi-bot. Otherwise just shut your ears and ignore this thread since you’ve neither contributed anything of value, nor given worthwhile retorts.

Apologies.