Guild Wars 2

Just the title asks, what’s people thoughts thus far with the new elite and raid viability? Sadly it looks like Spellbreaker is going to be a strong pvp build so I am looking at what other classes might be of value to raids/pve.
Yea, its really too soon to tell but speculating is always fun and fills the gap til we know. Just curious as to what you think.

Hope they remove icd on torment > burn trait. At least for pve.

I doubt that scourge have what’s needed to replace a druid or a PS warrior.

Scourge is mainly cut for condi removal and boon removal which is not what make mobs shine otherwise the necromancer would already be a top contender in raids.

As for the amount of damage that this elite spec will deal, I expect that it will be a “balanced” amount (which mean that there won’t be any great improvement in the necromancer’s damage output)

This e-spec will undeniably shine in WvW. As for PvP and PvE, there is high probability that it will struggle. In PvP it will be due to a lack of survivability and in PvE to a lack of offensive support.

As for a profession that might be of value for raids/pve, I think that the one with the greatest potential is the ranger. Soulbeast probably won’t make a huge difference for power build but I believe that it will strengthen even further the ability of this profession to dish out a lot of condition damage. Most of all, the stowed pet will bring a lot more flexibility to the ranger with an access to a great variety of skills that will benefit the ranger.

We will need to see how all the shroud traits are changed to work with scourge first. Also, if they will release skill splits. Until then, there is too little to go on.

I will defer on predictions. The lower the dps for Necromancer, the more unique and powerful the group support needs to be.

Transfusion is good as a group heal in a pinch but not great, not often needed, and Blood Magic builds have poor dps. Even a potentially awesome support trait can be a failure when it has to compete with the best of other professions.

Maybe in some odd cases. If they nerf PS anytime soon, we could maybe replace the offhealer. I don’t see enough damage for a DPS spot, the base durations, condi applications and the eoffensive support are all way too weak.

I still hope this spec (or core necro) gains a 10 people +150 expertise buff of some sorts.

Here the problem I see with all this discussion…….. how much of it is only considering the mechanics of existing raids? Why has so many ruled out the fact that new raid wings will very likely be designed around the new Especs, in order to take advantage of gameplay mechanics?

Why are we so sure the Druid is irreplaceable when it only does 1-2 thing? And is only relevant because the Raids are specifically designed around them being there.

starlinvf.1358:

Here the problem I see with all this discussion…….. how much of it is only considering the mechanics of existing raids? Why has so many ruled out the fact that new raid wings will very likely be designed around the new Especs, in order to take advantage of gameplay mechanics?

Why are we so sure the Druid is irreplaceable when it only does 1-2 thing? And is only relevant because the Raids are specifically designed around them being there.

Well because druid does it the best, while still providing offensive support. The same for Condi PS Berserker, might is important. Warrior does keep it up easily, while still providing unique offensive support with banners and traits, while still dealing good dps. Same for Mesmer, Alacrity and Quickness are key for dps.

Raids will always be based around killing things, and for killing things the fastest way these classes are pretty much core, for every raid an boss. Of course they can add a very boon heavy or condi heavy encounter where scourge will shine, but this is just a niche role on a specific encounter. The bread and butter for raids are pretty much carved in stone.

You can tackle raids differently, of course, you can clear raids without a mesmer or a ps, etc. But it’s the most simple way of achieving your goal.

That being sayed, we might be able to replace a second druid, if we bring more dps than the offhealer and more utility, same for PS, we can replace one, IF we can keep up the mightstacks and do at least the same dps.

We’ll have to see what happens when they destroy the condi food in a few days. If they remove condition duration from food and then just leave necro like it is now then it might just be time to uninstall again because sure as hell ain’t going to be getting any legendary insights for the foreseeable future.

starlinvf.1358:

Here the problem I see with all this discussion…….. how much of it is only considering the mechanics of existing raids? Why has so many ruled out the fact that new raid wings will very likely be designed around the new Especs, in order to take advantage of gameplay mechanics?

Why are we so sure the Druid is irreplaceable when it only does 1-2 thing? And is only relevant because the Raids are specifically designed around them being there.

You make the common mistake that druid’s worth in raids come from there ability to heal. It’s not, if it was the case elementalists or revenants would easily replace them. Like brujeria point just above is right, the worth of the druid come from it’s offensive support. This profession grant uniques buff that the scourge can’t even begin to rival with.

With druid over there to heal with some unique support, there is no room for a wanabe healer that focus on preventing allies from taking damage (not to mention that an aegis or a party blurr are better than all barrier possible in PvE).

I can see Scourge being desirable in encounters like Slothosaur and Matthias due to strong, teamwide condition removal (Scourge plus 1 basic sand shade will cover entire party) and barrier to remove a bit more pressure. Will have to see how their DPS goes, though.

it’s meh in support, offensive utility and damage, so unlikely it’ll become meta. Maybe in some niche encounters.

IF scourge:

1. has strong condi dps (30k+)
2. does work with shroud traits (transfusion, heal on shroud enter/leave)
3. doesn’t have huge life force burn issues

Then he can replace the druid. Druid buffs replaced with high personal damage. Not a bad trade off given druid himself has abysmal damage, so if ppl around him do die, the dps plummets. While scourge can keep the ball rolling, being one of main dps sources himself.

If above is not the case, he better have something kitten alluring and unique for his group.

Considering Druid increases party Power DPS by about 17%, they have no chance of losing their Raid spots. Scourge’s DPS would have to be truly insane to compete with that.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

IF scourge:

1. has strong condi dps (30k+)
2. does work with shroud traits (transfusion, heal on shroud enter/leave)
3. doesn’t have huge life force burn issues

Then he can replace the druid. Druid buffs replaced with high personal damage. Not a bad trade off given druid himself has abysmal damage, so if ppl around him do die, the dps plummets. While scourge can keep the ball rolling, being one of main dps sources himself.

If above is not the case, he better have something kitten alluring and unique for his group.

not even close mate, druid damage bonus is too good, anet prob expects scourge to be played as a supp who deals decent damage, I see some new stats that complement this. However like I said unless they nerf druid, scourge has no chance.

Your might generation will be enough to fill your party with 25 might 100% uptime and to send some might cross-party through multi-target Shade Savant.

Barriers are an insanely strong mechanic and Scourges will have the best access to Barriers.

I don’t think Scourge will be amazing in raids, I know they will.

Has nobody actually looked at the scourge wiki that’s been released? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scourge
Almost every skill grants might stacks to self and allies as well as defends them, whilst also having a well that grants it to allies for elite skill. I think it would make it completely viable in raids as a support, as long as dps can be still be raised high enough still.
Also what’s pretty sweet is the new potential portal like mesmers have, not for raids, but just doing events like daily jumping puzzles where people just wait for the mesmers portal to get up quick.

Oh, quite closer then you think. I did my math back in the day. You may think “hurr durr, druid buffs OP” but you forgot one critical issue – these buffs are only as strong as those receving them.

And outta 5 man group with our druid in it, two have abysmal damage – druid himself and chronobunker. Chrono dishes out …well around 10k dps is already overstatement but let’s make it 10. Magi druid probs even lower then that, but again i’ll be generous – 10k for him too.

then we have PS warr who should deal around 28k and two dpsers, let’s give them 35k on average (ele will do more vs huge targets, but less vs small, other guys hover around that mark).

So we have 10k(chrono) + 10k(druid) + 28k (PS warr) + 35k (1st dps) + 35k (2nd dps).
Total 118k dps.

With his buffs giving party +20% damage (and that’s a generous, over the top assumption there) it goes up to 141.6k dps for his group.

Now let’s remove druid and add scourge.
No % bonus damage for party, but druid’s 10k gets replaced with scourge’s 30k condi.
138k dps.

Quite close IF scourge meets the 30k mark. And again we’re talking very generous buff assumptions for druid, since frost spirit should not affect condies, and GotL isn’t that easy to maintain all the time, all 5 stacks.

It’s far more phychological matter (I do more damage!) then real value (total party dps) that pushes druid to the fore.
But if it’s psychology we’re moving to, i wonder how many druids will still be willing to raid, given soul beast is coming and maybe they’ll finally want to move outta healer slot and be the hero themselves instead of playing the woman…erm i mean support.

Look again on the uptimes for Might. You’re not going to keep 25 Might on allies for long.

We also don’t know how the portal works, but it’s probably not going to be useful for jumping puzzles, since we do know it’s ground targeted.

Tobias.8632:

We’ll have to see what happens when they destroy the condi food in a few days. If they remove condition duration from food and then just leave necro like it is now then it might just be time to uninstall again because sure as hell ain’t going to be getting any legendary insights for the foreseeable future.

What do you mean? The prosession that will probably be hit the hardest from this nerf will be our sworn rival, the rangers! (been kittening me off ever since they’ve made habit of knocking foes out of my wells!)

Unlike them, we have other means of extending our condi duration, and the scourge is giving us more options!

Scourge and raids…any thoughts/hopes?

no

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Look again on the uptimes for Might. You’re not going to keep 25 Might on allies for long.

Completely ungeared, you will send quite a few stacks of might without effort.

Torch with solo conditions sends 18(bleed,poison,cripple,torment,burning,fear,weakness,fear(garish pillar is instant),vuln(assuming unyielding blast will trigger from shade AA with garish pillar)) stacks of might every 20 seconds for 8 seconds.
BiP sends 10m for 10s on 20s.

Solo, as a DPS build, with absolutely no investment other than skills you were already using and the only assumption being Unyielding Blast functionality which isn’t even necessary, you’re at 40% uptime. This is before Concentration, before Aristocracy runes, before Alacrity.

Aristocracy runes are a 45% uptime increase. 58% uptime.
Alacrity is a 50% uptime increase. 87% uptime.
15% boon duration should carry you across the finish line.

You can maintain 100% 25-might uptime for your party with 225 Concentration, Aristocracy runes and 100% alacrity uptime.

Not gonna try to work out how easy it’ll be for you to hit 100% uptime as a curses/blood/scourge heal/barrier build.

So, by dumpstering your DPS, you can almost get there Yes, almost, because you can’t get to 25 stacks by staggering the skills as you describe.

If you invest that much into Boon Duration, you don’t have the condition duration or condition damage to be competitive.

Meanwhile, a Warrior just has to do his DPS rotations and supplies the full party without anything more than Strength runes. Even blasting ele fire fields works out better.

I expect Scourge will end up replacing Revenant in the Raid meta.

Aktium.9506:

I expect Scourge will end up replacing Revenant in the Raid meta.

Nah man, Scourge replaces heal druid and Revenant replaces alacrity chrono

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So, by dumpstering your DPS, you can almost get there Yes, almost, because you can’t get to 25 stacks by staggering the skills as you describe.

If you invest that much into Boon Duration, you don’t have the condition duration or condition damage to be competitive.

I think you might actually be able to do it with Sigil of Concentration and Runes of Aristocracy. That gets you to 178% Might duration after the swap; 14.24s duration on a13.3s CD with a 3/4 cast time on Oppressive Collapse, and BiP has better duration so it’s ezpz. That should get you to 100% uptime of 25 Might with 100% Alacrity. This is the same investment as condi PS (runes and sigil) and almost the same as power PS (runes), with the caveat of not taking a tree that’s dreadful for personal DPS.

Ventari’s Herald needs drastically less Alacrity if they maintain Facet of Nature.

I dunno I guess we’ll see. The might is doable and I don’t think you’ll lose that much overall damage over a damage-focused Scourge. If Scourge DPS sucks, scourge DPS sucks, but at least you are sending Barriers frequently.

Also sharpening stone nerfs in the pipeline for Tuesday. Idk how much they impact them. Looks like power PS loses a chunk of power. Condi PS loses a chunk of condi duration but that’s true of all condi classes.

I’m not going to read through everyone’s response. So if I’m repeating anything I’m sorry.

The core changes to the necromancer will either make or break the scourge. And currently I only see two possibilities. The first one is more likely and the one I fear will happen because if it does most traits are just going to be dead on the scourge. The first option is just shift over their function to desert shroud. This would be awful as desert shroud has a 6 second duration with a 20 second recharge which would make them marginally useful but ultimately not worth the utility most times. The second option is far more interesting and provides fantastic utility while being functionally the same for core and reaper. And that is having these traits trigger on spending life force to become an aura so to speak. So for example death perception would grand a reaper or core necro 50% bonus critical chance while their life force is degrading. While on scourge they would get sporadic bonus that might last 3 seconds allowing for more interesting active play while keeping the reaper mostly the same. On other parts of it this, what about traits that trigger on entering and leaving shroud? These could function almost the same way as the spending life force traits only thing them an internal cool down. This actually would buff core and reaper a little bit as something like spiteful spirit could have it’s trigger go off in shroud every 5 seconds. This would incentivize shroud play more for core and reaper while giving scourge a means of using them to their own great effect. Weakening shroud would be used to great effect on them while spiteful spirit would be great for reaper. Now this doesn’t solve everything. Unholy sanctuary and transfusion aren’t fixed with this but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a solution. For unholy sanctuary rather than force the player into shroud and disrupting the flow of combat or the player accidentally dropping themselves out of shroud the new barrier mechanic could be applied to help balance out this trait. While I feel making transfusion trigger on channel skills could be an option for that which would make it useful in conjunction with dagger as well as shroud skill 4.

I still think many traits need a bit more work but the life force spending idea would be preferable to the other option.

Well, from the look of it sarrs, it will be excruatingly difficult to apply barriers every 2 seconds on scourge (which lead to a constant decay of the “healing” component of the spec). Yes don’t forget that there are cool down on skills.

As for might duration, again, the scourge will be good at bursting might stack but not at maintaining them. If you invest to maintain them, you will lose tremendous dps.

Let’s be honest, 2-3 scourges won’t replace the druid/PS/chrono trinity and it’s highly unlikely that the scourge will even be able to replace one of those 3. To make the barrier valuable, anet will at least need to make it so that there is no decay while in combat. As for the might stacks, it will require a lot of effort to maintain them (it’s obvious) while maintaining them is easy as breathing for PS warriors. Finally, chrono is to usefull in many way for him to lose it’s place.

I want to add something, In gw1 I used to play monk protect. My job was to make sure that the tank survive long enough for the healing monk to have the time to heal him. I was looked at as some kind of filth in my party, yet when I wasn’t there it was a lot harder for the party to get through the content. I could also tank bosses all day by myself but they didn’t entrust this kind of task to me. I know how much one can be discriminated due to it’s profession and build.

In the current state of things, the scourge won’t be able to tank nor will he be asked to. Preventing damage will be possible but will also be extremly limited and most players will want the comfort of something more… “reactive” (because they are used to it via Druid). This leave only one possibility for the scourge which is to be a DPS that bring some might (not as a primary provider) and some barriers (not as a primary healer). So let’s hope that the spec will at least bring competitive dps in raids (ironically that’s the same hope that we had for reaper thought we expected him to be competitive in power).

Dadnir.5038:

Well, from the look of it sarrs, it will be excruatingly difficult to apply barriers every 2 seconds on scourge (which lead to a constant decay of the “healing” component of the spec). Yes don’t forget that there are cool down on skills.

Barriers don’t need to be permanent to be good. You just need to be able to squeeze out out a bunch of Barrier when a damage spike is about to happen- which you can.

What are your thoughts on PvP?

My imagination sees no strong reason to dedicate a slot for Scourge in raids but PvP may have more of a shake up.

At least there are no ice fields to nerf group dps. Then, again, are there any fields or finishers in Scourge?

Regarding corruption builds, it is good to see a trait to aid LF generation but I am interested in how core traits interact, too. How will FitG work? Soul Reaping may be very important for sustain.

The elite is a dark field. Saw nothing else so far.
Also, I don’t think we can say much in regards to how everything will look as we are getting a fairly big balance patch in less than 48h from the looks of it.

I dont play Raids but as WP said if Anet starts implementing mechanics around Barrier then it can have it place cause looking at all the Elite Spez Scourge is the only one with Barrier for allies, also he has the most potential Barrier output.

The Condition dps output of the Scourge is potentially even higher then Reaper specially with the incomming nerf to"Deadly Chill". Alot of ppl consider it to be an support spec, I however see it as the future Condi Elite for Necromancer even with some old Terrormancer in it & I believe it has borderline OP Condi dps output.

as regard to FitG I almost certain it will proc on Maniffest Sand Shade, and I think it will be 3x 3sec Stability for when u place the Shades or 1x of 9sec Stability if you use the GM-Trait that grants you one big Sand Shade. Ofc this is speculation but this is what I think.

99% sure Foot in the Grave procs on Desert Shroud (F5) since we know Furious Demise does.

Ravezaar.4951:

I dont play Raids but as WP said if Anet starts implementing mechanics around Barrier then it can have it place cause looking at all the Elite Spez Scourge is the only one with Barrier for allies, also he has the most potential Barrier output…

And no doubt they will.

Ravezaar.4951:

I dont play Raids but as WP said if Anet starts implementing mechanics around Barrier then it can have it place cause looking at all the Elite Spez Scourge is the only one with Barrier for allies, also he has the most potential Barrier output.

I’d say that WP overrate barrier based on non decayng barriers on mobs.

The Condition dps output of the Scourge is potentially even higher then Reaper specially with the incomming nerf to"Deadly Chill". Alot of ppl consider it to be an support spec, I however see it as the future Condi Elite for Necromancer even with some old Terrormancer in it & I believe it has borderline OP Condi dps output.

Terrormancer… Nope! Simply put Guarish Pillar can only affect a target once per cast. The skill will only proc 1 second of terror on any given foe. As for torment… well… we are looking at a condition that last 2 seconds which is terribly not impressive. But yeah I think correctly geared and with a real focus on one’s rotation, the scourge will be able to rival the reaper with it’s 3 bleeds on chill.

as regard to FitG I almost certain it will proc on Maniffest Sand Shade, and I think it will be 3x 3sec Stability for when u place the Shades or 1x of 9sec Stability if you use the GM-Trait that grants you one big Sand Shade. Ofc this is speculation but this is what I think.

Traits that proc on entering shroud will proc when you use desert shroud.
FiTG, Spiteful spirit, Furious demise, Weakening shroud

Traits that proc on skill 1 use will most likely proc on shroud skills use which will make those traits pretty underwhelming.
Unyelding blast, _reaper’s might, dhummfire

Traits that proc on skill 2 will proc on nefarious favor (I Guess that is at least a good news)
Path of corruption

Traits that proc on skill 4 can only be given to desert shroud.
transfusion

Traits that proc on leaving shroud at the end of desert shroud (I guess desert shroud is the skill)
life from death, beyond the veil

Other traits that give you a benefit when you are in shroud are the only one that aren’t obvious and for which we will have to wait and see.
Armored shroud, shrouded removal, deadly strenght, unholy sanctuary, unholy martyr, speed of shadow, vital persistence, death perception

Those last traits could make or break the scourge dependent on whether their effect will still be tied on whether or not we are in shroud (which mean the desert shroud skill) or if they tie it differently (when next to a shade, for a short while after using a F skill… etc.).

NB.: Oh! Unholy sanctuary seem to be a good candidate to give us some barrier instead of health.

Tnx for the clarification on Shroud prcos on Desert Shroud, sadly havent seen that info anywhere but I take your word for it, on the other things we have to disagree for now and see when we can test it out I guess.

Dadnir.5038:

Traits that proc on skill 1 use will most likely proc on shroud skills use which will make those traits pretty underwhelming.
Unyelding blast, _reaper’s might, dhummfire

The tool tip on the wiki states that activating a shade skill will proc an extra aoe attack. I think a better theory is that these traits will proc on this extra attack.

Yeah, the way it seems to work is you place down your sand turrets and then you have to use skills f2 f3 and f4 to make them actually do something

Yea except some traits, the first adept trait for ex. applies Barrier on placed Snd Shade