Guild Wars 2

Glad. It doesn’t overlap with the stability and dash that Reaper gives and makes going Reaper a viable choice depending on your preferred game mode assuming they balance the power aspect of reaper to compete against the condi aspect of scourge.

The portal though…

It has Portal and 6s Swiftness on nr#7 so Id say it has more Mobility then before, the lack of Stability is a concern tho. Also we get basicly cripple on all skills and Slow on Elite add the Swiftness to that and Mobility is even greater.

The portal also grants barrier from what I understand. Portal flesh worm would be interesting moving about for jukes.

The mobility issue has always been an issue of the lack of instant movement toward a chosen area. Swiftness could already be caped from deathly swarm and Spectral walk.

In short, the new swiftness add nothing new and the portal thing only add group utility to an effect that is already existent on spectral walk. There will be no noticeable change regarding the necromancer’s movement ablity in this spec.

As for stability, I think one of the gm trait of the scourge seem really promising giving us the boons that we remove or corrupt. But yeah this spec is still weak toward hard crowd control skills.

Well I guess we see exactly waht we can come up with for Builds aso on the 18th, I dont think Scourge is a bad Elite tho, also intresting to seeing the changes to Reaper,Spite aso that WP mentioned

They said in the trailer that its a support focused spec ? Shouln’t that be called something like “twinkle tickler” or something like that ? Scourge implies disease, ripping off somones flesh from their bone with sand, draining their life, menacing stuff, not “support”.

And no stab will make it useless in WVW, maybe if they work Foot in the grave somehow into it ?

Dadnir.5038:

The mobility issue has always been an issue of the lack of instant movement toward a chosen area. Swiftness could already be caped from deathly swarm and Spectral walk.

In short, the new swiftness add nothing new and the portal thing only add group utility to an effect that is already existent on spectral walk. There will be no noticeable change regarding the necromancer’s movement ablity in this spec.

As for stability, I think one of the gm trait of the scourge seem really promising giving us the boons that we remove or corrupt. But yeah this spec is still weak toward hard crowd control skills.

This nails it really. Even the portal looks like it has a cast time and is not instant.

I just worry about PvP since spectral armor is prob not going to work like it does now against focus fire with barriers on skills that have CDs. Our defensive barrier has a 8 Sec CD for a measly 2.5k Hp buff that seems to degenerate rapidly on its own over time.

How will we survive focus fire?

While true that a few other skills gives barrier too when used, are we really going to spam all our barrier skills from the start when we get focused? Doesn’t sound very skilful to me. 3 of the possible 5 barrier skills have cast times too which would make activating tough especially without stab.

Will we be forced to slot all defensive utilities just to survive without a sizeable shroud armor to tap on?

Just some concerns for PvP. All moot though until we get to try it. Remains to be seen if the barrier concept works against focus fire.

Tongku.5326:

They said in the trailer that its a support focused spec ? Shouln’t that be called something like “twinkle tickler” or something like that ? Scourge implies disease, ripping off somones flesh from their bone with sand, draining their life, menacing stuff, not “support”.

And no stab will make it useless in WVW, maybe if they work Foot in the grave somehow into it ?

I thought it would be a fantastic elite spec for WvW zerg fights actually.

Reaper currently fills the role of a Front/Mid-line bruiser that sticks to the commander and provides the beef to push up against enemy zergs.

The Scourge would function more like a Back/Mid-line Condi Support class that can use the Shades to provide buff for teammates while dishing out substantial condi damage too and soft CC in the form of cripple / boon corruption.

The AOE nature of the shade skills are fantastic for crowd control.

The lack of stability and mobility is not as critical in WvW zerg fights because if you use the Scourge as a Back/Mid-liner, it would be more about positioning.

I currently use core Necro full zerk well-bomber for zerg fights in WvW as I felt it was more the back/mid-line damage dealer that I preferred over the brusier style shout Reaper.

I’m totally excited about having the Scourge providing a condi/support alternative to a pure zerk core Necro as a back/mid-liner in WvW.

How does the portal for scourge work? Any info on it?

Watch this from the official GW guys at after 22 seconds or this at 01:01:29 .It looks like this ability will teleport you to the target location dealing damage and corrupting a boon into torment and cripple. Allies passing through the tunnel will be granted barrier. This ability has a 35(28)s cooldown. Portal lasts 20s. Range seems small though and the portal seems to vanish if you move too far away.

No stability, no shroud meatshield, skills with casting, barriers with low hp and casting, only a single portal to move that seems to teleport TO the target and Not away from it, no block/inv/evade at all…
I don’t see how that elite can be good sPvP, it’s so easy to kill that right now I can say that any barely decent player will kill every single Scourge easy and fast if nothing change.
I hope to be wrong, but that elite lose ALL the Reaper defensive skills, the Shroud meatshield and don’t grant any new way to defend yourself. Not even the portal seems to work to defend yourself but only to catch the enemy as a gap closer.

Barriers can grant you up to 12k hp, but you have to Cast them and they degenerate or disappear in few seconds, making you totally unable to protect yourself from any kind of assoult (expecially from anyone that use CC skills). Basicly, you do Better with the current death or Reaper shrouds than with that new Barrier machanic…
That’s really Sad because that specializzation focus is on Support and not damage, making you inflict lesser damage and dying quickly.
We’re already the easiest and faster class to kill of this game, how can we play with a specializzation that make us even more killable?

About the swiftness, we already have the warhorn if we want swiftness and that buff never make our emeies unable to kill us because all the other classes have insanely stronger movement skills than us. Any mesmer, guardian, warrior, ranger…basicly everyone… can catch us really easy with teleport, leap and immobilize skills, that’s the reason for the necro is so easy to kill in sPvP: if you see one and you’re a decent player there’s not a single way a necromancer will flee from you (may be with the wurm but you can kill it easy and fast before start the fight).

The same I can say about the Cripple. We actually play with tons of Chill to keep our enemy near us to hit him with the GS or slow him to be able to flee… That strategy ever worked? NO, it don’t!
Every single class can catch and kill us easy because teleports and leaps aren’t affected by movement imparring skills (unless immobilize).

I really like that new Elite Specializzation, i like the theme, the skills, the graphic effects and the torch, but i don’t see a future for it in sPvP and as a sPvP player I’m really really sad.

I wanted to give up deathshroud so I could have things that I don’t normally get. They completely missed the mark here. We got more boon corruption, torment/bleed. Barrier is different but easily ineffective and it just increases health, currently health is eaten so fast in things like WvW this is not a viable format.

Other classes give out swiftness like candy this wont even compare.

only a single portal to move that seems to teleport TO the target and Not away from it

Its a ground targeted skill. You can move in any direction you like including the z-axis. Sure it may have a small range but it lasts 20s and grants barrier every time someone uses it.

I wont call scourge crap yet but barriers does worry me. The only thing barriers does is increase effective hp, a thing we already had before as shroud works the same way but now we can share it to allies(and from the looks of it having less for ourselves). For years we have already proven that this type of defence is not that great.

The problem is that its efficiency is highly dependent on the current balance. Unless they balance barrier-numbers with increased/decreased overall damage(something they haven’t done with shroud) It can swing from being too good to too weak a lot. Overall damage was increased with HoT but shroud stayed the same and made us weaker. This is why effective hp is bad compared to blocks/invulns as they stop incoming dmg. It will also have the problem of having to be balanced so it’s not too strong vs 1 target and not too weak against multiple targets. It’s the same problem we’ve had with shroud since the start.

Sure it might be nice for other classes with real defences to get some extra barriers on top but it does look like we are stuck with the same problems as before. If we don’t get stab/mobility/blocks etc. it does seems like we are getting worse.

Silv.9207:

No stability, no shroud meatshield, skills with casting, barriers with low hp and casting, only a single portal to move that seems to teleport TO the target and Not away from it, no block/inv/evade at all…
I don’t see how that elite can be good sPvP, it’s so easy to kill that right now I can say that any barely decent player will kill every single Scourge easy and fast if nothing change.
I hope to be wrong, but that elite lose ALL the Reaper defensive skills, the Shroud meatshield and don’t grant any new way to defend yourself. Not even the portal seems to work to defend yourself but only to catch the enemy as a gap closer.

Barriers can grant you up to 12k hp, but you have to Cast them and they degenerate or disappear in few seconds, making you totally unable to protect yourself from any kind of assoult (expecially from anyone that use CC skills). Basicly, you do Better with the current death or Reaper shrouds than with that new Barrier machanic…
That’s really Sad because that specializzation focus is on Support and not damage, making you inflict lesser damage and dying quickly.
We’re already the easiest and faster class to kill of this game, how can we play with a specializzation that make us even more killable?

About the swiftness, we already have the warhorn if we want swiftness and that buff never make our emeies unable to kill us because all the other classes have insanely stronger movement skills than us. Any mesmer, guardian, warrior, ranger…basicly everyone… can catch us really easy with teleport, leap and immobilize skills, that’s the reason for the necro is so easy to kill in sPvP: if you see one and you’re a decent player there’s not a single way a necromancer will flee from you (may be with the wurm but you can kill it easy and fast before start the fight).

The same I can say about the Cripple. We actually play with tons of Chill to keep our enemy near us to hit him with the GS or slow him to be able to flee… That strategy ever worked? NO, it don’t!
Every single class can catch and kill us easy because teleports and leaps aren’t affected by movement imparring skills (unless immobilize).

I really like that new Elite Specializzation, i like the theme, the skills, the graphic effects and the torch, but i don’t see a future for it in sPvP and as a sPvP player I’m really really sad.

Well the class seems to focus on removing enemy boons, removing conditions, granting yourself and allies boons and barries and doing condi damage. With the amount of condi cleanse it has… anyone will be very hard pressed to do any meaningful damage without using a power build. Without boons or vuln even power builds will have greatly reduced damage and barriers while a little weak can be cast fairly frequently to mitigate a lot of that and using something like parasitic contagion from curses you can heal a significant amount of damage back while barriers prevent and mitigate further damage.

As for mobility that’s pretty much par for the course for necros… nothing new here but the scourge functions better with it thanks to copious amounts of torment and cripple making it not only a pain in the ass to chase one around but drastically increasing the amount of damage they take.

No stability is really the only big issue I see, technically you could just take it from enemies but that’s not entirely reliable. If “sand shroud” works with foot in the grave we might be able to get by. It also depends on exactly how long it takes for barriers to fade if they can protect you through long CC chains it might be ok as well.

‘more battlefield control and movement options that necromancer didn’t have before’. I’m sorry AN I’m just not seeing it. Swiftness is underwhelming and really nothing new, the lack of stability hurts, and who knows how useful the portal ability will even be. I want Scourge to work but can see it being very weak to focused fire.

(@ 1:58)

Yeah I just don’t see Scourge working well in sPvP. They will still have the usual issues of lacking scaling defenses and mobility. Now the mobility will be slightly better with the new port, but the Scourge is losing the shroud health and having to rely on small, short-lived barriers.

It’s looking like the Scourge will be easier to focus down than Necro and Reaper. If Scourge has higher condi damage than Necro and provides decent support, then I’m sure it will be useful in PvE and WvW, but this just doesn’t seem like an elite spec that will do well in sPvP.

they were supposed to take away shroud and give us the meaningful defense like blocks, evades, invulns yet they gave us something we already had in abundance – boon corrupts. come on.. why would i want to play this spec? taking away my greatsword doesnt help either.

The 20 Sec portal might help keep us alive though against focus fire.
Precast it in a safe spot, portal forward towards the fight then use it to disengage when focused. Gives us like 20 sec of survival. No stab is going to hurt bad though if the enemy pull or push u off the portal and stun locks u

We might be able to be more reliant on our friends for mobility; stuff like the holosmith’s jump pad can help with our Swiftness shortcomings.

IRT Stability, Foot in the Grave might be crazy with Scourge.

Necromancer still got damage shields. Wonder if they will make them scale with healing power or something.

Looks like surge will depend on absorbing boons. And is getting access to a 3rd shadow step for the necromancer.

If we really get an desired amulet like condition dmg, healing power, vitality and expertise i can see it work in pvp to be honest. Probably bloodmagic, soulreaping and scourge might be an interesting combo especially when things like transfusion heal urself on a 17 sec cd. So it will give some support, flat dmg reduction of 15% via minor trait and a lot of torment with some burning will do the job anyway. So if you don t need the passive plague signet it can be a really good spec.

Don’t forget that the sand shroud skills have an insultingly small 180 radius. In wvw or spvp your team has to be right on top of you to get cleanses and barriers.

Edit: also torch looks like trash, off hand dagger will still be my go-to.

WvW, you tend to have choke points anyway, so it’s not as bad as you’d think. Still should have larger radii, though.

If we really get an desired amulet like condition dmg, healing power, vitality and expertise i can see it work in pvp to be honest

I’m pretty sure this stat set used to exist and have been removed. Thought it still exist in PvE, named “shaman”.

Dadnir.5038:

If we really get an desired amulet like condition dmg, healing power, vitality and expertise i can see it work in pvp to be honest

I’m pretty sure this stat set used to exist and have been removed. Thought it still exist in PvE, named “shaman”.

I’m sure there was but it had toughness instead of but or both and because they had a sweep and removed pretty much everything with toughness and healing power, rip clerics, it got..got..

I used it on settlers with reaper back in the days and it was awesome so with vit as minor stat it would be great along with expertise.

Sigmoid.7082:

Dadnir.5038:

If we really get an desired amulet like condition dmg, healing power, vitality and expertise i can see it work in pvp to be honest

I’m pretty sure this stat set used to exist and have been removed. Thought it still exist in PvE, named “shaman”.

I’m sure there was but it had toughness instead of but or both and because they had a sweep and removed pretty much everything with toughness and healing power, rip clerics, it got..got..

Toughness has to be the settler’s one.

zedapoc.1493:

Don’t forget that the sand shroud skills have an insultingly small 180 radius. In wvw or spvp your team has to be right on top of you to get cleanses and barriers.

Edit: also torch looks like trash, off hand dagger will still be my go-to.

I agree, the radius should be 240, The Grand master trait seems to do exactly that, turning the 3 small into 1 big 300 radius shade. But unless it triple its effectiveness its actually worst…
I disagree with torch, It looks strong for condi builds. You still can have dagger as 2nd off hand

i think greatest problem is, that most conditions will cast with boon corrupt to enemy. if enemies dont have boons. scourge make no dmg. you will have no stability or blocks,too. you have less blinds than on reaper. sooooo what the hell should protect you as scourge?

the barrier, that have much higher degeneration than old shroud?enemies can easy wait while invis until your barrier is gone. you simply get perma stunned and die without any chance to fight…

new scourge is what every non-necro wished. a baggy to go, like core nec was all the years since release of gw2.

if they nerf reaper, and i see that coming because to “push” scourge, necro will be out of the game…again….

Scourge problems:
- no stability
-no defensive skills (unless a portal that we still have to see)
-no Combo Finisher (we lose the Leap and the Whirl from the Reaper to obtain nothing)
-no Stun (we lose the RS5 and the Elite of the reaper, then we have only the warhorn as a Cc different then Fear or Immobilize)
-no movement skills? (we lose the leap but obtain the Portal. To see it’s range, casting time and more in a real fight)
-worst Lf generation (compared to the Reaper the Scourge lose a lot of LF generation, also becoming chained to boon corruption)
-Worst meatshield defence (barriers are only another version of the Old meatshield strategy, nothing more. But you can’t use your full LF to survive, the barriers last for a fixed duration and have decacy, you can’t use the Spectral Armor/Walk trick or the unholy marthyr to generate LF while in shroud and you also lose the 50% direct damage reduction that you have while in Shroud)
-Highly chained to corrupt Boons to his Defensive and Offensive strategy, that will not work against a class that use few boons ro don’t use any (and there’s a large amount of builds that don’t rely on boons anymore, expecially because of necromancer corruption ability). Basicly, if the enemy don’t have boons you do Nothing.
-Chained to the area, can’t play freely moving all around because need to stay near his Shades to obtain a good effect, more or less as the old Turret engi, only a little mobile. That is seriously a Big problem for a class without any kind of defensive skill unless Spectral armor and a Portal (that also strip him away from his controlled area…)
-Mechanic damage output chained to Static Shades (that may grant a lot of damage in a static fight like a PvE boss but a really low damage in a common PvP fight. But for shure will be good in WvW zergs as a long range build using Shades and Punishment while in shorter range)
-weaker mechanic offensive “combo” than the Reaper (in sPvP with the RS4+RS5 and Deathly Chill a reaper can spam up to 25k of damage over 9 seconds, while in PvE and WvW the damage can grow up to 65k over 9 seconds. The Scourge inflict lesser than 19k of damage on a Moving target with Powered Torment and few Burn over 7 seconds -from the end of the execution-, using all his Fx skills -starting with all the 3 Shades- and using ALL the Fx skills, then also losing your defences to inflict damage.
-Weak Support, easy to ignore (expecially if compared to other classes and to what the necro was able to do also before, the Scourge don’t grant anything better than another class can do. No better might stack, no better condi clean, no AoE CC. the only thing that grant is a Barrier with a decacy that in PvP or sPvP will be totally Ignored because will stop maybe a single hit and not even it’s total damage if is a strong one)

That’s all the things i think about the possible problems of the Scourge, expecially if compared to the Reaper.

The Scourge is good, will grant more tactic and are control effects, a Little support and a good condition damage. But I dont’ think that the damage output will be so strong to justify a similar lack of any kind of barely decent defensive skill and the support granted is low and will be just ignored in a lot of situations.
that Elite (as it is now) will not grant us any new Role, any spot in raids, any victory in sPvP, any strong damage…
I can’t belive that ANet proposed us that elite…

On the paper there’s so much problems and lacks on this elite that there will be for shure problems while in play.

Maybe it will reveal to be strong and with few fixes the support and the damage will grow stronger and everyone will want a Scourge in team for support and/or damage. But if I look at it for how is right now… I will never want a similar class in my team.

Its an elite spce, its different, it cant have all tools under its belt… You still can use Reaper. But yeah lack of stability/cc defense will make it or break it… will see

there is alot of ppl talking about what we loose compared to what we have but I still want to see that 4th and last utility Skill that no streamer managed to capture. Not saying it will give all we hoped for but can atleast be something viable

Silv.9207:

Scourge problems:
- no stability
-no defensive skills (unless a portal that we still have to see)
-no Combo Finisher (we lose the Leap and the Whirl from the Reaper to obtain nothing)
-no Stun (we lose the RS5 and the Elite of the reaper, then we have only the warhorn as a Cc different then Fear or Immobilize)
-no movement skills? (we lose the leap but obtain the Portal. To see it’s range, casting time and more in a real fight)
-worst Lf generation (compared to the Reaper the Scourge lose a lot of LF generation, also becoming chained to boon corruption)
-Worst meatshield defence (barriers are only another version of the Old meatshield strategy, nothing more. But you can’t use your full LF to survive, the barriers last for a fixed duration and have decacy, you can’t use the Spectral Armor/Walk trick or the unholy marthyr to generate LF while in shroud and you also lose the 50% direct damage reduction that you have while in Shroud)
-Highly chained to corrupt Boons to his Defensive and Offensive strategy, that will not work against a class that use few boons ro don’t use any (and there’s a large amount of builds that don’t rely on boons anymore, expecially because of necromancer corruption ability). Basicly, if the enemy don’t have boons you do Nothing.
-Chained to the area, can’t play freely moving all around because need to stay near his Shades to obtain a good effect, more or less as the old Turret engi, only a little mobile. That is seriously a Big problem for a class without any kind of defensive skill unless Spectral armor and a Portal (that also strip him away from his controlled area…)
-Mechanic damage output chained to Static Shades (that may grant a lot of damage in a static fight like a PvE boss but a really low damage in a common PvP fight. But for shure will be good in WvW zergs as a long range build using Shades and Punishment while in shorter range)
-weaker mechanic offensive “combo” than the Reaper (in sPvP with the RS4+RS5 and Deathly Chill a reaper can spam up to 25k of damage over 9 seconds, while in PvE and WvW the damage can grow up to 65k over 9 seconds. The Scourge inflict lesser than 19k of damage on a Moving target with Powered Torment and few Burn over 7 seconds -from the end of the execution-, using all his Fx skills -starting with all the 3 Shades- and using ALL the Fx skills, then also losing your defences to inflict damage.
-Weak Support, easy to ignore (expecially if compared to other classes and to what the necro was able to do also before, the Scourge don’t grant anything better than another class can do. No better might stack, no better condi clean, no AoE CC. the only thing that grant is a Barrier with a decacy that in PvP or sPvP will be totally Ignored because will stop maybe a single hit and not even it’s total damage if is a strong one)

That’s all the things i think about the possible problems of the Scourge, expecially if compared to the Reaper.

The Scourge is good, will grant more tactic and are control effects, a Little support and a good condition damage. But I dont’ think that the damage output will be so strong to justify a similar lack of any kind of barely decent defensive skill and the support granted is low and will be just ignored in a lot of situations.
that Elite (as it is now) will not grant us any new Role, any spot in raids, any victory in sPvP, any strong damage…
I can’t belive that ANet proposed us that elite…

On the paper there’s so much problems and lacks on this elite that there will be for shure problems while in play.

Maybe it will reveal to be strong and with few fixes the support and the damage will grow stronger and everyone will want a Scourge in team for support and/or damage. But if I look at it for how is right now… I will never want a similar class in my team.

The key is that it is still just a meat shield. For both pvp and pve where power creep is a thing it means that this meat shield because worse and worse relative to evasion.

Example:
- Lets say after this expansion a thief can do 30k dps in 10 seconds and previously they could do 28k dps in 10 seconds. That just makes the meat shield defense way worse, whereas an evade gets better because an evade will avoid more damage than before.

Sarrs.4831:

We might be able to be more reliant on our friends for mobility; stuff like the holosmith’s jump pad can help with our Swiftness shortcomings.

IRT Stability, Foot in the Grave might be crazy with Scourge.

But we don’t even need swiftness. You can already get permanent swiftness just by slapping on centaur runes.

However permanent swiftness while exciting for our rotation speed, isn’t all that meaningful in combat.

-Mechanic damage output chained to Static Shades (that may grant a lot of damage in a static fight like a PvE boss but a really low damage in a common PvP fight. But for shure will be good in WvW zergs as a long range build using Shades and Punishment while in shorter range)

What you say about PvE would be true if the shade were constantly pulsing their damage and condition. That is not the case. In PvE the shades will have minimal impact in how much damage is done especially on static fights. On the other hand the on demand torment pulse linked to the shades could make the shades a pretty bothersome area denial tool in PvP, That is if the scourge had proper defensive mechanisms.

Silv.9207:

Scourge problems:
- no stability

It doesn’t have any on demand but via traits it still has some.
Also in WvW unless Feed from Corruption is nerfed you will have boons, inlcuding stab, for days.

-no defensive skills (unless a portal that we still have to see)

This depends on what you class as defensive.

-no Stun (we lose the RS5 and the Elite of the reaper, then we have only the warhorn as a Cc different then Fear or Immobilize)

Oppresive Collapse .

-no movement skills? (we lose the leap but obtain the Portal. To see it’s range, casting time and more in a real fight)

You cant leap but you should be able to z-axis since its a ground targeted shadow step which at times is far more useful. Also super useful due to some trait synergy with Abrasive Gift . Considering it lasts 20s and we dont know how many charges it has or its range ti could turn out to be insane.

-worst Lf generation (compared to the Reaper the Scourge lose a lot of LF generation, also becoming chained to boon corruption)

Scourge arguably doesn’t need as much LF as a reaper since its not using it as temp health.

-Chained to the area, can’t play freely moving all around because need to stay near his Shades to obtain a good effect, more or less as the old Turret engi, only a little mobile. That is seriously a Big problem for a class without any kind of defensive skill unless Spectral armor and a Portal (that also strip him away from his controlled area…)

-Mechanic damage output chained to Static Shades (that may grant a lot of damage in a static fight like a PvE boss but a really low damage in a common PvP fight. But for shure will be good in WvW zergs as a long range build using Shades and Punishment while in shorter range)

Shades only really extend your area of effect. Since allies/enemies can only be effected once per ability/pulse and the shades skills all read “you and your sand shades” bar the first one. They do provide huge area denial/control though. Between you and the 3 of them you cover an area roughly the size of meteor shower.

-weaker mechanic offensive “combo” than the Reaper (in sPvP with the RS4+RS5 and Deathly Chill a reaper can spam up to 25k of damage over 9 seconds, while in PvE and WvW the damage can grow up to 65k over 9 seconds. The Scourge inflict lesser than 19k of damage on a Moving target with Powered Torment and few Burn over 7 seconds

Would love to see the math you used to get this one.

It has proberly bin mentioned but I see alot of concerns and negativity about Scourge so just gonna say it: If ppl say we loose out on the Stability we got on Reaper those ppl need to sit down and REALLY read the tooltips on “Feed from Corruption” cause most classes except ours have Stability and a fair amount of it, and Scourge has more Boonstrip/Convert then Iv seen anywhere else.

The duration on the Boons the Scourge gets from this GM is no laughing matter either, and notice the 2 Stacks of Stab for 6sec when u remove or corrupt that from an Enemy.

This GM is really really strong specially when u see what Scourge can do.

The lack of Finishers and Fields in the Scourge is my biggest concern atm.

Ravezaar.4951:

The lack of Finishers and Fields in the Scourge is my biggest concern atm.

lol I’d sum this by saying that Anet is still thorought at not giving the necromancer what the player base asked for years

“-weaker mechanic offensive “combo” than the Reaper (in sPvP with the RS4+RS5 and Deathly Chill a reaper can spam up to 25k of damage over 9 seconds, while in PvE and WvW the damage can grow up to 65k over 9 seconds. The Scourge inflict lesser than 19k of damage on a Moving target with Powered Torment and few Burn over 7 seconds

Would love to see the math you used to get this one."

Just logged in, put on the best condi build, looked to the skills and combos and did math thinking to how much Torment/Burn the class can spam using his Fx skills (unless F1 but thinking that he start with 3 shades). I didn’t added Dhuumfire but there’s a chance that any Fx can active the Shades, granting it’s effect and inflicting 1 Burn for every skill activation (don’t know if when they hit with the F5 effect they inflict another burn), but anyway thinking that they inflict 1 burn still if all the 3 hits (or that trait will be seriously OP in the hands of a scourge, granting him too much damage).

About defensive skills i mean skills that stop the enemy to kill you: Block, Invulnerability (even only against Direct damage or resistance), Evade, Stealth (you still feel AoE but in 90% of situationa stealthed class can flee and evade a lot of hits), even Mobility skills that Can’t be Negated.
We have only SA that grant Protection, SW that make us run and turn back to our enemy to get killed at demand, Spectral Walk can be ignored with Stability or Resistance, the Worm can be killed and half of the time there’s objects between you and it and you’re not teleported on the right place. Also, compared to the Reaper, you lose the Rise!, that adsorb a lot of damage and is good to fight different classes (like revenant for the sword skill or guardians to active traps).

For stability we can use Foot in the Grave and nothing more.
feed from Corruption is seriously insane as a trait and in WvW will grant us great things, but in sPvP will grant us poor effects, expecially while fighting in 1v1. A skilled player will never active Stability fighting a necromancer because will only grant him a Fear, then there’s not a real way to obtain it from a decent player, also classes like thief, ranger, mesmer and guardian don’t use Stability (maybe the guardian with his passive trait) and if can obtain it they will not active it anyway. Better 1 secon of Fear than a breakstun that grant to the enemy another Fear.

Maybe I am a lot too much pessimist, but thinking to a sPvP enviroment that elite really lack of what can make it useful. Not becuase can’t do a great role but because the role will Not Change at all from the one we actually have, the strategy si the Same since Years: Corrupt Boons and Die (maybe Powered but still the same and will still make us killed, as always) and there’s not a single way that elite can survive better than even the Core class to a Focus.
And I can tell you that we will ge focused even harder because the scourge will be able to corrupt more, obtain more Spam of Powered Torment and obtain tons of Boons, but at the same time will be Easier than Ever to get killed.
The Portal will be good but there will be for shure a ICD for the Barrier and more likely you will not be able to obtain another Barrier from it after the first one (or that will be too much for a 20 sec skill).

I really want to see the last Utility skill that we don’t know and then Try that elite specializzation to see how it will work in a real fight.

In WvW that elite will be really good, but I’m more interested in sPvP and in that area that elite will probably be “meh”, if not trash.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Tongku.5326:

They said in the trailer that its a support focused spec ? Shouln’t that be called something like “twinkle tickler” or something like that ? Scourge implies disease, ripping off somones flesh from their bone with sand, draining their life, menacing stuff, not “support”.

And no stab will make it useless in WVW, maybe if they work Foot in the grave somehow into it ?

I thought it would be a fantastic elite spec for WvW zerg fights actually.

Reaper currently fills the role of a Front/Mid-line bruiser that sticks to the commander and provides the beef to push up against enemy zergs.

The Scourge would function more like a Back/Mid-line Condi Support class that can use the Shades to provide buff for teammates while dishing out substantial condi damage too and soft CC in the form of cripple / boon corruption.

The AOE nature of the shade skills are fantastic for crowd control.

The lack of stability and mobility is not as critical in WvW zerg fights because if you use the Scourge as a Back/Mid-liner, it would be more about positioning.

I currently use core Necro full zerk well-bomber for zerg fights in WvW as I felt it was more the back/mid-line damage dealer that I preferred over the brusier style shout Reaper.

I’m totally excited about having the Scourge providing a condi/support alternative to a pure zerk core Necro as a back/mid-liner in WvW.

That only works in pure pugs up to a semi-organized mid skilled pugs. When you get to organized and more serious stuff there is no such thing as frontline / midline / backline anymore and hasn’t been for about 2 years now. Its about as outdated as water fields for heals, which are still used as main group sustain in pugs, but not above. Thus anything based upon those concepts is null and void and the stab is critical.

Unless this spec can replace ventari revs or replace druids or something like that I don’t see it being a good part of an organized group, your main role as a reaper / necro regardless of your build is to deliver DPS, not be a healer. In order to become the healer, your abilities (spec, gear, general build) need to surpass the current healing builds.

I would like to know what happens if someone picks Soul Reaping with Foot in the Grave + Scourge traitlines for their build. Does Soul Reaping just largely not do anything ? Or is it getting updates to encompass Scourge ?

I can kinda see the lifeforce traits being effective, but what about the ones that are currently shroud specific ?

Just a heads up if you watch this video my WP about barrier if you slow the video down and watch carefully you can see that sand swell has 900 range and is a ground targeted

Ahh, I tried to catch the range skill fact with pausing, but I couldn’t read it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ahh, I tried to catch the range skill fact with pausing, but I couldn’t read it.

got to slow it down to 0.25 speed but it is 900 range. Its been updated on the wiki as well.

I’ve seen a lot of this complaining about scourges having no stability, but every boon we corrupt can become ours, and since everyone else bleeds stability…

britishguy.1928:

I’ve seen a lot of this complaining about scourges having no stability, but every boon we corrupt can become ours, and since everyone else bleeds stability…

In WvW, that can be really good.
In sPvP you will obtain it only during a team fight because in a 1v1/2v2 the enemy will Never grant you a such great boon. No one eill grant you a free fear and stability.

That will make the necro feared and hated more than now and every focus will be more hard than ever. Alse because we will be more killable than ever.

But yes, in WvW that trait is marvelous.

War new meta looks to be d/s and Hamer with no stability we will just get farmed. New necromancer looks nice but it will all come down to how good our Tele stuns brakes and portal play out as well as how supportive the bunkers will be with us as a combo otherwise necromancer will be in the worst place its ever been in pvp