Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone! Hopefully everyone has been having fun playing around with scourge during the beta weekend. I had time to roam a bit and threw together a quick video to just show it in action. Gear is the same as what I run for reaper since beta weekend makes it harder to change gear.

Video

Build Scourge: Bot-Bot-Mid

My thoughts overall Scourge is extremely strong. With Duumfire pulsing on desert shroud and the F2 ability gaining path of corruption corrupt, you can create a lot of down cleave very quickly. The torch abilities seem to be well balanced and a reasonable option instead of dagger (I like it more than dagger tbh).

The lack of shroud for me personally didn’t change my playstyle a lot. My general policy is the best defense is counter-pressure and boy does scourge do this in bunches. Not only that, but you can put shades on downs and cleave them while you kite which is a huge benefit over reaper imo. The ability to use all the shade skills while stunned is very useful since you can create space via the fear or sustain through desert shroud barrier.

I could imagine duumfire getting a nerf prior to PoF release since the pulse per desert shroud pulse is a bit too strong. A single pulse at the beginning of each of the shade abilities is already very good for the trait. My sustain felt better than reaper for the build I use and I never felt in need of lifeforce in general which maybe isn’t a great thing since I haven’t practiced lf management with scourge yet.

The biggest counter to scourge is range of course, but if you play los well you should operate better than a reaper would in a similar situation.

The biggest things I would like to see fixed as the shade charge being consumed if you jump before placing the shade without placing the actual shade (clearly just a bug) and of course the portal being fixed.

Final Word: When PoF comes out I predict I will be switching to scourge for my build. Hopefully power reaper gets the deathly chill change to power damage and gets the speed of shadows old version put into the adept traits instead of the relentless pursuit.

I actually felt like a rat scurrying from one area to another in wvw just to avoid places I could easily get ranged from lol… I’m hoping that the portal, once it’s fixed, helps relieve some of that stress, but I did get kind of used to running a well there in place of it so we’ll see.

Brigg.3961:

I actually felt like a rat scurrying from one area to another in wvw just to avoid places I could easily get ranged from lol… I’m hoping that the portal, once it’s fixed, helps relieve some of that stress, but I did get kind of used to running a well there in place of it so we’ll see.

Yeah originally I planned on swapping out the punishment stunbreak for well in larger fights, but it’s nice to have even in the small fights so we’ll see. Hopefully the portal gets fixed so I can actually test it. This weekend it was so buggy I couldn’t even really know for certain if it makes a huge difference.

what are your thoughts on going the bigger shade instead of three smaller?

Tick.1605:

what are your thoughts on going the bigger shade instead of three smaller?

I think its not worth the tradeoff currently. You lose a pretty sizable amount of damage in order to have a bigger radius (albeit a sizable increase). It doesn’t increase the burst damage of shades nor really help you via additional barrier, currently you only get the stat boost of 3 shades. If anet changed it to actually have bigger impacts in some of the other skills I would considering taking it, but not currently.

I think in SPvP it might be better maybe just due to its synergy with point size, but I think in SPvP you would want to take the damage increase since people are less tankier (statwise) there and you can have the burning make an even bigger impact.

Helly.2597:

Tick.1605:

what are your thoughts on going the bigger shade instead of three smaller?

I think its not worth the tradeoff currently. You lose a pretty sizable amount of damage in order to have a bigger radius (albeit a sizable increase). It doesn’t increase the burst damage of shades nor really help you via additional barrier, currently you only get the stat boost of 3 shades. If anet changed it to actually have bigger impacts in some of the other skills I would considering taking it, but not currently.

I think in SPvP it might be better maybe just due to its synergy with point size, but I think in SPvP you would want to take the damage increase since people are less tankier (statwise) there and you can have the burning make an even bigger impact.

Yeah I agree, even though I use it. It feels like ‘training wheels’. You don’t need to manage as much, but the potential is much lower.

i been using it with my tanking scourge build myself. I found it helped being able to land your heals on your allies from afar. although i did not get heavy into the dps aspects of it XD

also subbed to you hope to see you this spvp season

and you think this dmg in wvw and pvp is right?

common the burning and torment trait and abilities need to be tune down

its not dhumm op rather the Demonic Lore its need 33% proc burning or cd of 5 sec.

I don’t know how carefully you curated the clips, but it seems to me that in all of them you were allowed to do exactly what is optimal: run into melee range, drop Sand Shades, and use Sand Shroud to rapidly spam out conditions. It seems nobody was using condition clearing or Resistance, and nobody tried to send your conditions back at you.

I mean, there is no way you should have been able to take on as many people as you did in that first clip. With such little access to Stability you should have been controlled to death, and quickly at that.

But there is a lot of Condi running around right now: Scourge, Mirage, Firebrand, Weaver, etc. I took a Knight-geared Power Reaper using minions with the Death Magic trait that has minions take your conditions from you and then apply it to what they attack, and let me tell you: that’s SUPER EFFECTIVE right now. I’ve killed SO MANY people with their own conditions.

Yeah, it’s a trollish build, but it works great in skirmishes, roaming, and 1v1s.

Still, if almost anyone runs right into a Scourge that’s standing near a Sand Shade and running Sand Shroud, they are going to melt. That seems just fine to me.

Tiresias.6473:

I don’t know how carefully you curated the clips, but it seems to me that in all of them you were allowed to do exactly what is optimal: run into melee range, drop Sand Shades, and use Sand Shroud to rapidly spam out conditions. It seems nobody was using condition clearing or Resistance, and nobody tried to send your conditions back at you.

I mean, there is no way you should have been able to take on as many people as you did in that first clip. With such little access to Stability you should have been controlled to death, and quickly at that.

But there is a lot of Condi running around right now: Scourge, Mirage, Firebrand, Weaver, etc. I took a Knight-geared Power Reaper using minions with the Death Magic trait that has minions take your conditions from you and then apply it to what they attack, and let me tell you: that’s SUPER EFFECTIVE right now. I’ve killed SO MANY people with their own conditions.

Yeah, it’s a trollish build, but it works great in skirmishes, roaming, and 1v1s.

Still, if almost anyone runs right into a Scourge that’s standing near a Sand Shade and running Sand Shroud, they are going to melt. That seems just fine to me.

He was able to do it because it’s WvW where at least 80% of players are about 1 step up from an NPC in terms of brain capacity.

Half the time you die roaming it’s because you were outnumbered not outskilled.

messiah.1908:

and you think this dmg in wvw and pvp is right?

common the burning and torment trait and abilities need to be tune down

its not dhumm op rather the Demonic Lore its need 33% proc burning or cd of 5 sec.

I agree it needs to be maybe tuned down abit but its a hard thing to tweak, cause to much and we are a crap Nec class again like 5y previous. the Scourge has no real Shroud, our new defence is our offence, take to much away from that and it crumbles. Also in the Vid I didnt see any range dps taking on the Scourge froma distance, that would have made a huge diffrence i can tell you.

Alot of the New Elites need balance tho, worst is Renegade imo so bad it may need a complete rework.

Honestly I try not to curate my clips too much, though clearly since I’m not showing any of the 1v1s I had in WvW I cut those out. The main goal was to show the strengths of the scourge and how it holds up while roaming in a glassy build and to do this is the limited time we had to play the spec.

To answer some of the comments more directly;

Honestly it doesn’t really matter if people try and use resistance against you, as can be seen by the mallyx rev in the video. He puts resistance on himself 5 times and each time it gets stripped almost instantly. Sending conditions back to the scourge is a decent strategy, but with 2 condi cleanse every 4s it better be a condi burst not just a few conditions.

Demonic Lore is already a 3s icd, I don’t think increasing the icd to 5s will really have a difference. Nerfing dhuumfire’s affect with desert shroud seems like a better option, since the condi burst that alone puts out is insane. I also doubt demonic lore will be nerfed since I suspect that anet wants the trait to be powerful in PvE for sustained damage.

Like I mentioned in the OP, range is clearly going to be your disadvantage like most (all?) necromancer builds. That being said, if you play it like you would a reaper vs ranger matchup and use your los well you have a good shot at winning. I don’t think I lost 1v1 against a ranger all weekend, sure they’re a pain when they are the +1 to the 1v2 already, but thats kinda just how it works.

Well, I know I’ve mentioned it already, but the only thing you need to do to kill a Scourge is wait for Sand Shroud to end and CC them. Bonus points if you can drag or knock them out of the Sand Shade they are standing near first.

They key is to not play their game. Don’t stand near Sand Shades and don’t get up close to them when Sand Shroud is active. Of course, a lot of players don’t understand what is going on at the moment. The Scourge’s effects are more subtle than Reaper and a lot of people don’t recognize them.

I don’t think that much needs to be changed with Scourge at the moment. Barriers need to last a little longer before they start to degen, and the degen itself needs to be slowed down a bit. Beyond that, the damage and utility of the Scourge is fine as a spec, though Necromancers as a class still need better access to Stability.

Helly.2597:

Demonic Lore is already a 3s icd, I don’t think increasing the icd to 5s will really have a difference. Nerfing dhuumfire’s affect with desert shroud seems like a better option, since the condi burst that alone puts out is insane.

If they do this, I sure hope they do this in a way that doesn’t affect PVE, because this could seriously gut our viability there.

Helly.2597:

The ability to use all the shade skills while stunned is very useful since you can create space via the fear or sustain through desert shroud barrier.

I immediately thought of this, but it’s not truly relevant: Ice Barrier vs Green Rogue

What I’m worried about is getting spiked too hard while in CC, because Barrier decays rather fast and generation can be limited as the fight goes on.

How would you compare traditional boon corruption to the boon rip + torment?

Ralkuth.1456:

I immediately thought of this, but it’s not truly relevant: Ice Barrier vs Green Rogue

What I’m worried about is getting spiked too hard while in CC, because Barrier decays rather fast and generation can be limited as the fight goes on.

How would you compare traditional boon corruption to the boon rip + torment?

CC is always gonna be a sticking point for necro it seems since we don’t have that much access to stab. Honestly though, granted people don’t know how to play against scourge yet, you gain some survivability just through constantly corrupting enemies around you since might and fury are such common boons and convert into weakness and blind. My solution to the CC problem was to run double stunbreaks and hope that was enough. Its not an easy thing to solve, so we’ll see how the playstyle evolves after PoF.

Eh I much prefer more traditional boon corrupt. While not every boon corrupt is awesome, might → weakness, fury → blink, stab → fear, quickness → slow are borderline fight changing in their effectiveness. I don’t take the punishment skills (except the elite) for their boon conversion potential really. Its a small bonus, but the damage increase isn’t that crazy. It just helps that the punishment skills have that added for when you need to corrupt/remove a lot of boons at once you have options. The other bonus that makes it a bit better is when you take the LF on boon corrupt trait each of the punishment skills help top off your lf bar which is huge for scourge.