Guild Wars 2

Shade 2, but you will also be using Shade 3 and 5 frequently, with Shade 5 being on-cooldown.

How do your numbers look now?

sephiroth.4217:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Seteruss.4058:

well….i dont know if i was burned for 42 seconds with all those cleanses that i have but i had clearly full hp and the one hit and downstate…anyway

You just showed us a screenshot of you taking 42 seconds worth of burning before dying.

42 hits, not seconds.

You can apply 10 “hits” with a small combo. let that burn for 4 seconds, and you have 40 hits of burn.

Also when playing with Plague Signet, if a guardian decides to drop his burst on your team, you’ll pull an easy 20+ stacks of burn (his burn and your burn you already have) that you can transfer and epidemic to the enemy team who will also most likely be dealing with 10 stacks of burn. So that’s an easy 30+ stacks of burn.

So, what you’re claiming then is that a single stack of burn was ticking for over 1.8k? That takes a condition damage stat of 10,890 to pull off (which is around 3-4 times the highest possible for a PC).

Death breakdown does not record separate stacks as different hits. It only records instances of damage, i.e. ticks, which occur 1/second in the case of burning.

He was burning for 42 seconds in the posted death breakdown.

It seems to be percentage on the decay.

Exedore.6320:

42 hits. Each stack is a hit, so it’s unlikely it’s 42 seconds.

I’ve had over 100k burn damage before.

No, that’s not stacks. If it were, you are saying a single burn stack ticked for over 1.8k.

That is seconds of burning, not individual stacks.

Seteruss.4058:

well….i dont know if i was burned for 42 seconds with all those cleanses that i have but i had clearly full hp and the one hit and downstate…anyway

You just showed us a screenshot of you taking 42 seconds worth of burning before dying.

You were burning for 42 seconds. I don’t think that was “just one hit and then a downstate.”

Nightfall only pulses once every 2 seconds. Entering the field alone won’t do it.

If the life force costs did scale based on your total life force pool, then Scourge would get literally 0 benefit from increasing said pool. It doesn’t matter if your pool is 60 or 60,000 if all expenditures are done via percentage (especially since all gain is also done via percentage.)

Flat costs need to stay.

Justine.6351:

mazut.4296:

Yes as somebody else pointed out, F-skills cost doesn’t scale with vitality, so more vitality is desirable option.

Life force has always functioned with %.

Shroud damage shielding scaled better with vita because of its inherent 50% damage reduction.

Barrier has no damage reduction and scales with healing power. This makes toughness more valid an option as you do not want to be a vita pillow that burns through barriers and carves through health pool that you can not replenish easily.

Yes, but life force costs are static. A larger pool from more Vitality means you can use the shade skills more per life force gain.

To the OP: I think Celestial is honestly a good base for your gear for supporting in WvW. I wouldn’t use full Celestial, but maybe just the armor, then using weapons and trinkets to customize.

KrHome.1920:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I was able to get 3 ports consistently. Granted, you do have to use the second port almost instantly to get that third.

Okay seems to work but sounds like it is not intended as otherwise it would not make sense that the portal is programmed to vanish when the scourge uses it twice.

I would not be surprised if ANet fixes this when people start to portalstomp with it.

It’s not a matter of the portal only being useable by the Necro once or twice, it’s a matter of the duration being incredibly short, only about 4 seconds.

That 20 second tooltip? Biggest lie of the previews.

KrHome.1920:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Portal lasts long enough for three total ports, including the one at cast.

I could not use it 3 times in the beta (tested it on friday). The portal vanished after the back-port.

I was able to get 3 ports consistently. Granted, you do have to use the second port almost instantly to get that third.

KrHome.1920:

Zero.3871:

maybe you can use sand swell for save stomp like a thief. activate the sand swell to an enemy, start stomp, port back while casting the stomp and port back shortly before the stomp is done.

Does not work. Portal works only twice. The first time on cast (has a cast time! so it can’t be used while stomping) and then one port back to the entrance. Afterwards it vanishes.

Portal lasts long enough for three total ports, including the one at cast.

Kam.4092:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Let’s be clear: when it can be done nothing in the entire game beats Epidemic bouncing. When it’s an option, you really should be doing it.

When it’s not an option, then you may discuss other utilities in that third slot.

Just curious, what utilities do you like? When using Condition Reaper you’d add another Minion, like Flesh Wurm, or “Suffer!”. With Scourge we don’t have Shouts, and minions don’t do Combo Finishers either since we don’t do Ice Field spams. I was thinking about Serpent Siphon, Plague Signet, Well of Corruption for Fractals with Boons, and Corrosive Poison Cloud. Utilities change per Fractal/Fight though. I mean maybe replacing Epidemic with a minion would still be good.

I just like hearing other people’s opinions.

Don’t forget that Fire Fields are incredibly common and are strong projectile finishers. Bone Fiend is a viable choice for utility slot in raids if you’re focusing on DPS. Sucks when you have lightning fields that it’s comboing with, but it’s not too shabby even on poison or dark fields. And let’s be honest: there will absolutely always be some sort of combo field up. This is even more certain than Alacrity.

Other than that, CPC and Blood is Power are certainly options. In condition-heavy fights, I actually think Scourge will be able to drop Plague Signet due to the power of F2. Still wouldn’t be a bad choice, though.

Realistically, the only punishments I can see being used in raids are the Elite, Trail of Anguish, and Sand Swell. Sand Swell, of course, being taken for its utility, not offensive prowess, and thus not suitable for every encounter.

Let’s be clear: when it can be done nothing in the entire game beats Epidemic bouncing. When it’s an option, you really should be doing it.

When it’s not an option, then you may discuss other utilities in that third slot.

Oh, Desiccate is downright awful, but it’s still better for DPS than Serpent Siphon is.

Doesn’t hold a candle to other skills that could take the slot, however.

Kam.4092:

Too many Punishments bring nothing but Boon corrupts. The only ones with Damage built into them are Trail of Anguish, and Serpent Siphon. The Elite doesn’t matter, because Plaguelands is just leagues better.

Damage? On Serpent Siphon?

That is a single stack of Poison for 2 seconds. Dessicate is vastly better than that from a damage perspective. More direct damage, more life force to fuel F skills (and thus Dhuumfire), and a shorter cooldown for proccing the burn on shade placement.

What were your traits/runes?

I will admit that my raiding experience is very minor, so for you veteran raiders, based on what we saw of the new Elite Specs last weekend, are there any you feel are serious contenders for raids?

I think warhorn will almost always be better than offhand dagger for Scourge. The increased life force gain is far more valuable.

Lahmia.2193:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Fox.3469:

Rangerdeity.5847:

Fox.3469:

It’s a pve raid trait imo, most skills will only affect your own subgroup in raids, with having shade skills affect 10 people, it effects the entire raid, making necro a super viable raid barrier support. Since whatever subgroup he is in he can barrier 10 people. With the shade skill and condi remove 10 people and heal 10 people with the blood sinergy.

total effected people is the same 5 for each regular shade plus 5 for you is 20 or 10 for mega shade 10 for you is 20 either way you can effect 20 players

You don’t understand how raid subgroups work. A skill affecting 5 people prioritizes the 5 people in your subgroup, it doesn’t matter if you have 2 shades out and are next to them yourself, if your subgroups are sorted so there are 5 people in your subgroup, wich is mostly the case in raids, the skills will not affect the other subgroup unless you target 10 players.

And you don’t understand how Shades work. If you have one regular shade out, all of your F skills are now hitting 10 targets.

But aren’t the only effects that can hit more than once per shade the ones that don’t affect allies (aka manifest sand shade effect)? So if you were all stacked up, having multiple shades wouldn’t make a difference but Sand Savant would?

No. F2-F5 will all only affect a target once per cast, no matter how many Shades cover that target.

Signet of the Locust sees a lot of use in PvE and actually isn’t bad in PvP. The heal it can provide is extremely strong.

Fox.3469:

Rangerdeity.5847:

Fox.3469:

It’s a pve raid trait imo, most skills will only affect your own subgroup in raids, with having shade skills affect 10 people, it effects the entire raid, making necro a super viable raid barrier support. Since whatever subgroup he is in he can barrier 10 people. With the shade skill and condi remove 10 people and heal 10 people with the blood sinergy.

total effected people is the same 5 for each regular shade plus 5 for you is 20 or 10 for mega shade 10 for you is 20 either way you can effect 20 players

You don’t understand how raid subgroups work. A skill affecting 5 people prioritizes the 5 people in your subgroup, it doesn’t matter if you have 2 shades out and are next to them yourself, if your subgroups are sorted so there are 5 people in your subgroup, wich is mostly the case in raids, the skills will not affect the other subgroup unless you target 10 players.

And you don’t understand how Shades work. If you have one regular shade out, all of your F skills are now hitting 10 targets.

So, I just had an idea for one of Scourge’s minor traits:

“Upon killing an enemy, instantly gain a charge of Sand Shade.”

Would be in addition to, not replacing. It wouldn’t do anything for drawn out battles with a single opponent (most PvP) but it would allow a Scourge to relocate more easily between fights in WvW and PvE.

I dunno. In WvW, it might be OP, but it would be helpful in PvE.

I’d be happier if Ghastly Breach just moved with the Scourge.

FYI, 2 Trapper, 4 Nightmare is 30% condition duration, not 25%.

Vipers Scourge can reach 100% condition duration on all conditions without consumables. Not permenantly unless you run Sand Savant, but you can do it.

Yeah, it’s the Fear. You get 9 pulses of just healing from that.
However, this only pulses from you, not your shades.

I’ve only ever seen another systems recharge consecutively. Corki, Teemo, and Rumble in League of Legends behave this way. Skills with charges in Diablo 3 work this way. I literally cannot think of a single example where charges are recovered simultaneously instead of sequentially.

TheDevilWithinU.7092:

Everything points to pirate ship.

Given the amount of projectile hate, I doubt it. I do think we will see people clumping up less, trying to draw fights into areas where they can abuse the chokepoints, though.

imidacloprid.2948:

I only played Scourge this weekend, but there were a few trait synergy issues that needed looking at. One was that Transfusion (from Blood Magic) didn’t seem to work at all when traited on a Scourge. I did love the synergy with throwing Shades up with Vampiric Presence. I didn’t understand if my sand portals disappearing were a feature or a bug, though. I would use them once twice and they’d disappear, even though they had a 20 second duration. The barrier mechanic feels ‘right’ based on the situations I encountered and am really happy with the measures you have taken to discourage stacking barriers.

Transfusion applies to Garish Pillar (the fear). It’s actually much stronger on Scourge than base Necro or Reaper.

From what I’ve seen, one of my initial beliefs about Scourge being good in zergs is panning out to be quite true.

It will be interesting to see the meta shift in response to the new elite specs. I think Firebrand, Scourge, and Spellbreaker will be the big ones for shaping the new strategies.

Zefiris.8297:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

But, you can add raid-wide barrier without the big shade. You only need 1 shade up to cover everyone, regular or greater.

Sand Cascade has a limit of five by default. The trait buffs this to ten.

I may be suffering from Alzheimer or something, but I definitely remember checking for that, and seeing a limit of five for the untraited one.

(It also boosts the range, which is also important for a progress group. Remember, base radius is only 180, the big shade boosts it to 300. A group that does not have a boss on farm is likely not as stacked as you’d want them to be, so the radius increase would also help a ton, because the very people that tend to be in places they shouldn’t be are the people needing barrier the most)

Yes, it’s a limit of 5 targets. For you and each shade. With just one shade, you can affect 10 total people. With three shades, you can affect 20 total targets.

Sand Savant changes it from 5+5+5+5 to 10+10.

But, you can add raid-wide barrier without the big shade. You only need 1 shade up to cover everyone, regular or greater.

There also needs to be a preview weekend of the Elite Specs in PvE. I’m fine with those being two separate weekends, but seeing how they each work in raids, for example, is really important.

Also, the actual comments for each individual specialization need to be taken from the individual class forums. One central thread to collect comments for 9 specializations is going to be a jumbled mess.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

That said, any Legendary Rings should have three infusion slots.

After you infuse and attune them, sure

Legendary Backpacks automatically have two infusion slots. Why should Legendary Rings require extra steps to reach their maximum?

Pretty sure Trail of Anguish already will only affect a target once per cast, even if they run right along the trail after you.

Serpent Siphon, I have to disagree with you on. It just doesn’t have a good use. Long range, but you have to run into melee to get the barrier? Without the barrier pickup, it’s downright awful, and even with, you’re likely to take as much damage running in to get the Barrier as the Barrier actually absorbs, so it’s a null action.

I feel like Sand Flare needs a higher base on the actual healing value, but otherwise, it is fantastic. The barrier it gives is absolutely no joke.

Desiccate absolutely needs to scale life force gain. It definitely needs major work to not punish the Scourge for even equipping it.

Really, all of the utility (not Healing) Punishment skills are aptly named: they punish the Scourge for taking them over better utilities. Sand Swell is the exception, but either needs a reduced cast time or a longer range to actually be great. Ghastly Breach I agree with you on, it needs to move with the Scourge.

That said, any Legendary Rings should have three infusion slots.

But why do that when you can use Path of Corruption for absurdly short cooldown boon corruption?

Maybe PvE, I guess.

I’m still not convinced it needs any nerfing. After all, after the first beta or two, people were screaming Reaper was way too strong as well. Turns out, once they figured out that “hovering Necro=dodge”, Reaper really wasn’t much to be worried about.

Once they figure out that “shade=don’t stand here,” they’ll reach the same conclusion.

Simple: I want the story (including Living World Season 4).

More Elite Specs are good, too, and mounts are surprisingly fun (assuming all are as well done as the Raptor)), but the story was really the big one for me.

FYI, Winds of Disenchantment also applies a debuff that instantly removes any new boons. Pulsing boons won’t help combat this.

Erzian.5218:

Scourge has much better ranged pressure than reaper. 4 of its class skills, which are major part of the damage, are instant and can be used while cc´d. The class is beyond broken right now.

If those 4 skills were ground targetted, I would agree with you. Instead, it’s a small matter to just not stand in the shades and you’re fine.

It really is that simple: stand in the shades and you die. Don’t stand in the shades and you have a shot at winning.

Anchoku.8142:

Gig Shade may be a raid trait

No chance of that. Demonic Lore is so much better in raid scenarios.

Scourge support is largely meaningless in raids, the only important bit being the F2. It’s unlikely people will be so spread out that you can’t cover everyone with yourself+1 shade.

Mikali.9651:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Mikali.9651:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zintrothen.1056:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Once people learn to not stand in the Sand Shades, I think you’ll find Scourge is really not very strong. Torch is fine, but the Punishment skills and survival tools are incredibly weak. Its only real defense is killing your opponent before they can kill you (which, admittedly, it’s very good at if they stand near a shade).

And then Scourges will adapt and place their shades to force you into a path you don’t want to go. And if you keep moving, good luck surviving intense torment stacks.

Considering the long charge recovery for shades and the tiny area they actually effect, they really can’t do much to “force you into a path you don’t want to go.” Sure, they can cut off going left, but you can go right just as easily. If you aren’t standing on the shades, you aren’t getting those “intense torment stacks” either.

and while you are doing that Scourge decaps and caps and prevents you from doing it. Good job walking around trying to survive!

Oh, so now the Scourge dropped all the shades on point? I thought they were using them to change your path? They don’t get to do both.

If they drop them all on point, cool. Just kill them at range and take the free point.

mmm yes, cuz every profession is range

Yeah. Every profession IS ranged. And melee. No profession in the game doesn’t have the ability to do both.

If you’re not taking any ranged weapons, you don’t get to complain about area denial, because you are doing nothing to counter it.

Mikali.9651:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zintrothen.1056:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Once people learn to not stand in the Sand Shades, I think you’ll find Scourge is really not very strong. Torch is fine, but the Punishment skills and survival tools are incredibly weak. Its only real defense is killing your opponent before they can kill you (which, admittedly, it’s very good at if they stand near a shade).

And then Scourges will adapt and place their shades to force you into a path you don’t want to go. And if you keep moving, good luck surviving intense torment stacks.

Considering the long charge recovery for shades and the tiny area they actually effect, they really can’t do much to “force you into a path you don’t want to go.” Sure, they can cut off going left, but you can go right just as easily. If you aren’t standing on the shades, you aren’t getting those “intense torment stacks” either.

and while you are doing that Scourge decaps and caps and prevents you from doing it. Good job walking around trying to survive!

Oh, so now the Scourge dropped all the shades on point? I thought they were using them to change your path? They don’t get to do both.

If they drop them all on point, cool. Just kill them at range and take the free point.

Zintrothen.1056:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Once people learn to not stand in the Sand Shades, I think you’ll find Scourge is really not very strong. Torch is fine, but the Punishment skills and survival tools are incredibly weak. Its only real defense is killing your opponent before they can kill you (which, admittedly, it’s very good at if they stand near a shade).

And then Scourges will adapt and place their shades to force you into a path you don’t want to go. And if you keep moving, good luck surviving intense torment stacks.

Considering the long charge recovery for shades and the tiny area they actually effect, they really can’t do much to “force you into a path you don’t want to go.” Sure, they can cut off going left, but you can go right just as easily. If you aren’t standing on the shades, you aren’t getting those “intense torment stacks” either.

Should probably mention those formulas in the OP.

Barrier and Shroud probably shouldn’t be calculated as though they were blocks/dodges/evades simply because they can only take so much damage whereas other active defenses can mitigate an infinite amount. If anything, they should be calculated as healing.

On Power, it’s high damage. On condition, it’s crap.

Low life force gain on condition weapons means you can EITHER A. have the shades actually do anything or B. be able to use the shades. You can’t do both right now. Net result is that you have 5 skills that effectively don’t do anything, because they either can’t be used or they only make up for what you’re trading off to use them in the first place.

If you swap to dagger, then you can use the shades, but at that point, all they’re doing is making up for the damage loss by swapping to dagger. You’re not getting anything out of them.

And yes, Reaper IS that much higher than core Necro. Deathly Chill puts out at least a third of Condi Reaper’s damage output, probably more.

Nobody is asking for Dagger to become a pure condi weapon, or even outpace Scepter in that regard. They’re just asking for a bit of damaging conditions on mainhand dagger to lessen the tradeoff and honestly buff an underpowered weapon.

Obtena.7952:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yes, mainhand dagger exists. And it deals no damage in condition builds.

Congrats on discovering the point of this thread.

Scourge isn’t limited to condition builds if you want to spam shades to get high damage. #choices The first thing I found playing shades … the spammable wells I always wanted for my daggers.

If you’re playing Power, then the shades aren’t doing much damage. You either get to use the F2-F5 a lot, or you actually get to have an impact when using them.

Doesn’t this seem problematic?

Abazigal.3679:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Once people learn to not stand in the Sand Shades, I think you’ll find Scourge is really not very strong. Torch is fine, but the Punishment skills and survival tools are incredibly weak. Its only real defense is killing your opponent before they can kill you (which, admittedly, it’s very good at if they stand near a shade).

But that’s quite a common issue with DH guards nowadays, and what we had with turret engi meta too, it’s easy to counter in theory, but in practic, many people do not know. From a team queue point of view, i would say it won’t be that annoying. From a solo queue point of view, some matchs will be total blow outs. I’m afraid setups of scourge + holosmith may literraly faceroll poor setups or average soloqueue joe going mid point over and over.

Shades behave differently than both turrets and traps, though. Unlike Traps, they’re visible. Unlike turrets, they have very short range. Unlike both traps and turrets, they require actual input from the Scourge to do anything.