Seraph's Support Scourge.

So, I've been testing this build with some old apothecary gear I had lying around and it's pretty fun. So I got to thinking... What would be the best way to run it...

I came to the conclusion that seraph's is the thing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7dnk0Ad3gV9CW3As9iFjBbqHk0eBR/sAwBQftGXvrA-jxxGQBpU53JV/RN7PUS9D46kAoSlgA4JAEA4A49u39uH8+7v/+7vX3f/93f/93f/93LFQg7sA-e

Suggestions?

Keep in mind that full seraphs has pretty low healing power compared to a lot of other healing sets. I am guessing you are trying to do the most dps possible while still healing some. The boon duration would only be important if this is for fractals. In raids you should not need the duration at all. You are also cutting out a lot of your possible healing by not using soul reaping... but again, it depends on what your goal is.

As for your elite skill, go plaguelands or pet. The scourge elite sadly won't do as much damage as plaguelands and you shouldn't need it for might, especially if you have all that concentration. Personally when healing, if you know cc is needed, pet is the best choice.

I use shaman gear for my heal set... vitality, healing, condition damage.

So I have shaman's as of last night... I can spike 25 stacks of might.... But not maintain it. That's why I was thinking seraph's.

Why don't you need duration for raids?

I figured if I can heal, and put up 25 might that's a pretty solid role to fill, no?

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:So I have shaman's as of last night... I can spike 25 stacks of might.... But not maintain it. That's why I was thinking seraph's.

Why don't you need duration for raids?

I figured if I can heal, and put up 25 might that's a pretty solid role to fill, no?

The issue is not that it's not solid as a role, the issue is that you compete in this role against a spec that add knock back, 5% more damage, a few burn stacks, a few extra boons and 180 extra precision. Few group are ready to part with the good ol'druid.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:So I have shaman's as of last night... I can spike 25 stacks of might.... But not maintain it. That's why I was thinking seraph's.

Why don't you need duration for raids?

I figured if I can heal, and put up 25 might that's a pretty solid role to fill, no?

So, for raid, mostly one Druid, your cohealer most likely, will be providing enough might for the whole team.

I, too, run Shaman's, often with Viper's weapons and trinkets. I can swap armor for full Viper's and Blood Magic for Soul Reaping. I can also go full Shaman's, if needed. Dps varies wildly, though.

I'm just not happy with the answers that simply compare scourge with druid and jedi hand wave it away. "this is not the build they're looking for".

Let's just assume that:A. It's a main healer build, and while it's capable of support healing, it's intended as a main in healer.B. The dps checks in raids simply aren't so tough that loosing frost spirit and 180 precision are such a huge loss that it will matter.C. I assume that there will still be a druid somewhere in raid, because there always is... So the above "losses" are drastically mitigated.

After further testing, this worked beautifully for VG. And, if I played it more often, would even allow for no greens runs. As barrier is now the only option for those mechanics that are unblockable and used to be handled by mesmer.

The healing is amazing.

The ability to revive multiple people at once makes for some seriously righteous clutch save moments.

The barrier is FAR, FAR better after the recent changes to it.

My current version of the build takes 'sadistic searing' to get cooldown reduction on punishment skills... Also the scourge heal is amazing for a big spike of barrier.

Running shaman's armor.Runes of the aristocracy.

Bringer's weapons.Seraph's jewelry.

Sigil of water on scepter.Sigil of renewal on focus.Sigil of concentration on torch.

Support Scourge, could be very good but there are still some issues that prevent it from becoming "meta" in it's current form, the biggest one being that it just has to give up to much personal DPS to provide sufficed group support. Most of this comes down to the available stat combinations. If we had a Gear set that is like Trailblazer's but with healing power instead of toughness, it might become a valid choice as a secondary healer for raids especially because it doesn't have to worry about over healing but there are also a lot of problems within it's traits, for example:

1. The DPS increase that "Demonic Lore" provides makes "Sand Savant" a tough pick. This could be alleviated by nerfing the damage increase from 33% to around 20-25% while buffing torment applying skills across the board to compensate. Furthermore buffing "Sand Soul" from 75 expertise and concentration to around 100 would increase the synergy with "Sand Savant" and reduce the need for condition duration gear/runes, by allowing for 100% up time on its T3 bonus without alacrity, over 98% up time on T2 with 100% alacrity.
2. "Desert Empowerment" can't hit 10 people because "Manifest Sand Shade", unlike all other "shade" skills, only applies around the shade, not also around its caster. This could be fixed by a, long overdue, spiting of "Manifest Sand Shade" and the Sand Shades "Auto-Attack", then assigning deferent target caps to the two skills. 5 (base) 10( Sand Savant) for "Manifest Sand Shade", which just summons the shade, 3 (base) 5( Sand Savant) for the shades "pulse" and basically everything else. "Unending Corruption" will most likely require a nerf/rework afterword but the trait is quite boring anyway.
3. "Punishment" skills, especially "Dessicate" and "Sand Swell" feel to sluggish and often interrupt rotations. Simply fixed by reducing there casting time to 1/2 - 3/4 sec. also, removing the "root" from Sand Swell (if technically possible) would make the skill feel a lot more fluid and increase the utility side of scourge support.

so much for "Scourge", the rest of the problems lays with core necro, the "Blood Magic" trait line in particular. The biggest offenders are:

1. "Life from Death" which should activate on entering Shroud, rather exiting, to give Scourges more control over the heal.2."Vampiric Presence" which is simply to weak and needs better scaling.

If all, or just some, of that gets implemented Support Scourge might become A- or even S-Tier for raid groups but until then i'm afraid it's just like (Power) Reaper, another spec that missed the mark it aimed for. Sadly :(

I believe you are mistaken.

My current build, which is mostly exotic, and a few pieces wrong stat.... Does 6,500 dps unbuffed on golem. In full raid buffs, with max pulsing arena damage its 11,000 dps.

That's MUCH more than any other healer except for Zelot druid. (which it is basically even with)

When properly statted and set up, it will do much more.

Seraph's armor, runes of water, and seraph's trinkets.Bringer's weapons, water/agony sigils. Scepter focus/torch.Healing power infusions.Curses 2,1,3Blood 1,1,3Scourge 1,2,1Sand flare, signet of undeath, desiccate, blood is power, ghastly breach.

I keep up 25 might 80% of the time, in full seraph's this will be trivial.

Well you missed something. Modt groups run a full harrier druid. So the might of the scourge isnt needed and you should better play full dps.

Unless the healing capability of scourge wont change, there wont be a change in meta

It's even worse than that; harrier druids bring 100% uptime of 25 stacks of might, fury, swiftness, regen, spotter as well as good uptime of frost, sun and Glyph of Empowerment which altogether provides significantly more dps to the group to make up for their lack of personal dps. A good druid will also throw enough healing around that they won't have deal with "clutch plays" and everyone can instead do even more dps by not being downed. Support Scourge is at best a novelty for WvW where pulling bodies and spamming epidemic/boon corruption is at least useful.

Scourge seems close to earning a raid spot. Adding some sharable modifiers to core Necro would certainly be enough.

Scourge is not a main healer or a top dps but has some unique skills that would be gratefully accepted if it had a bit more group utility.

Port-res'ing is great but not exactly used a lot in successful runs. All of the BM traits are gimmicks for use when the raid is troubled. Great, what does Necro bring to raids that run well?

The dev's should give core Necro some tiny group support traits that are up most of the time in battles that are going well; just enough to push Scourge, Reaper, and Necromancer over the wall of not bringing enough.