Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Scourge Rune and Sigil Discussion (PvE)


Kam.4092

Recommended Posts

I'm going to use 2 Trapper Runes and 4 Nightmare Runes with Sigils of Earth and Sigils of Geomancy.

Wondering what others are going to be trying or using.

I chose my set up because it gets to 85% Condition Duration with Food and Utility, and 2 Sand Shades adds another 10%, then Might stacks, etc will cap Condition Duration.

I might change Sigils of Earth to Sigils of Torment though if it works better with Demonic Lore.

So what are others planning on using :D?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lily.1935 said:We'll see what the community eventually finds best. I'll try out quite a few different combinations, but I feel I might go with Renegade runes unless a new stat combination improves my crit chance beyond 35% while not sacrificing my condition damage.

Any reason you are looking for the extra crit chance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lahmia.2193 said:I forgot about the Might conversion from Fell Beacon. I'll probably use something similar but with Bursting/Torment sigils. Never been a fan of geomancy.

You forgot about it because most of those conversion traits don't calculate from Might or other non-gear buffs. Did anyone check during the preview weekends to see if Fell Beacon did for some reason?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:I forgot about the Might conversion from Fell Beacon. I'll probably use something similar but with Bursting/Torment sigils. Never been a fan of geomancy.

You forgot about it because most of those conversion traits don't calculate from Might or other non-gear buffs. Did anyone check during the preview weekends to see if Fell Beacon did for some reason?

I don't see how it wouldn't work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot seem to dislike Geomancy Sigils. They are great, and we'll do more DPS when in melee, because we strike along with our Sand Shades every time we use a Sand Shade ability. So we should always be in melee. We will be using Mainhand Dagger too, so I don't see us wanting to be Ranged, or we miss out on DPS. Geomancy will be amazing for us.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Manifest_Sand_Shade

Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand shades strike nearby foes.

With a Radius of 180, we will be right up with our Sand Shades. We miss out on doing Torment and Burning if we are not in melee range.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lily.1935 said:We'll see what the community eventually finds best. I'll try out quite a few different combinations, but I feel I might go with Renegade runes unless a new stat combination improves my crit chance beyond 35% while not sacrificing my condition damage.

I can imagine taking that on a full grievers setup. It just begs the question, what will be more useful: expertise or ferocity?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@akenoyuki.8210 said:2 Trapper - 4 Nightmare and Malice - BurstingI'm not in a good term with Sigil that have % chance (But maybe will change Bursting with Torment if it's worth it... we'll see)

Maybe Bursting would be better than Earth. The current build uses Bursting and Geomancy. I'll probably do Bursting and Geomancy now :x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kam.4092 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:I forgot about the Might conversion from Fell Beacon. I'll probably use something similar but with Bursting/Torment sigils. Never been a fan of geomancy.

You forgot about it because most of those conversion traits don't calculate from Might or other non-gear buffs. Did anyone check during the preview weekends to see if Fell Beacon did for some reason?

I don't see how it wouldn't work.Because most of the current conversion traits don't work like that. Neither Deadly Strength nor Tagret the Weak give us more stats from Strength in Numbers or Spotter. Great Fortitude doesn't give more Vitality as you gain Might.

I actually don't know of any conversion traits that do work like that.

@Kam.4092 said:A lot seem to dislike Geomancy Sigils. They are great, and we'll do more DPS when in melee, because we strike along with our Sand kitten every time we use a Sand Shade ability. So we should always be in melee. We will be using Mainhand Dagger too, so I don't see us wanting to be Ranged, or we miss out on DPS. Geomancy will be amazing for us.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Manifest_Sand_Shade

Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand kitten strike nearby foes.

With a Radius of 180, we will be right up with our Sand kitten. We miss out on doing Torment and Burning if we are not in melee range.

If you have a shade in melee, there's no (inherent) reason for the Necro to be there as well. Shade skills never work in overlap. Geomancy is a good reason to be in melee, of course, as is ease of buff sharing, but Shades are not one of them.

Also, mainhand dagger is a noticeable DPS loss over just camping Scepter, even with its lousy life force generation. A single Scepter auto chain deals a bit more damage than a Shade strike with Dhuumfire and Demonic Lore, and you can get more of the auto chain off in 10 seconds than you can get double-burn procs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kam.4092 said:I'm going to use 2 Trapper Runes and 4 Nightmare Runes with Sigils of Earth and Sigils of Geomancy.

Why not 4 Tormenting Runes with 2 trapper? With Sigil of Smoldering and full viper's you will have 100% Torment duration with 1 shade, and 100% duration on everything else with 2 shade.

With nightmare/trapper you end up needing to maintain 100% uptime on 3 shade in order to maintain 100% condition durations. Maintaining 3 shade isn't practical in a real situation because you get rekt by the charge cd.

This is what I'm thinking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kam.4092 said:A lot seem to dislike Geomancy Sigils. They are great, and we'll do more DPS when in melee, because we strike along with our Sand kitten every time we use a Sand Shade ability. So we should always be in melee. We will be using Mainhand Dagger too, so I don't see us wanting to be Ranged, or we miss out on DPS. Geomancy will be amazing for us.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Manifest_Sand_Shade

Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand kitten strike nearby foes.

With a Radius of 180, we will be right up with our Sand kitten. We miss out on doing Torment and Burning if we are not in melee range.

sand shade does the same skill when we use one on top of the sand shade doing it's attack, so actually the shade gives us the ability to do the damage where the shade is and not be required to be in melle. If we take an across the board condi dmg or coni durration sigil then it boosts out condi and the shades condi output at the same time. Bursting and malice are still my go to for pve.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Kam.4092 said:I'm going to use 2 Trapper Runes and 4 Nightmare Runes with Sigils of Earth and Sigils of Geomancy.

Why not 4 Tormenting Runes with 2 trapper? With Sigil of Smoldering and full viper's you will have 100% Torment duration with 1 shade, and 100% duration on everything else with 2 shade.

With nightmare/trapper you end up needing to maintain 100% uptime on 3 shade in order to maintain 100% condition durations. Maintaining 3 shade isn't practical in a real situation because you get rekt by the charge cd.

2 Trapper/4 Nightmare with a Sigil of Malice only needs food and 2 shade s to be 100% on everything. 4 Tormenting leaves Poison behind and overcaps on Torment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Kam.4092 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:I forgot about the Might conversion from Fell Beacon. I'll probably use something similar but with Bursting/Torment sigils. Never been a fan of geomancy.

You forgot about it because most of those conversion traits don't calculate from Might or other non-gear buffs. Did anyone check during the preview weekends to see if Fell Beacon did for some reason?

I don't see how it wouldn't work.Because most of the current conversion traits don't work like that. Neither Deadly Strength nor Tagret the Weak give us more stats from Strength in Numbers or Spotter. Great Fortitude doesn't give more Vitality as you gain Might.

I actually don't know of any conversion traits that
do
work like that.

@Kam.4092 said:A lot seem to dislike Geomancy Sigils. They are great, and we'll do more DPS when in melee, because we strike along with our Sand kitten every time we use a Sand Shade ability. So we should always be in melee. We will be using Mainhand Dagger too, so I don't see us wanting to be Ranged, or we miss out on DPS. Geomancy will be amazing for us.

Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand kitten strike nearby foes.

With a Radius of 180, we will be right up with our Sand kitten. We miss out on doing Torment and Burning if we are not in melee range.

If you have a shade in melee, there's no (inherent) reason for the Necro to be there as well. Shade skills never work in overlap. Geomancy is a good reason to be in melee, of course, as is ease of buff sharing, but kitten are not one of them.

Also, mainhand dagger is a noticeable DPS loss over just camping Scepter, even with its lousy life force generation. A single Scepter auto chain deals a bit more damage than a Shade strike with Dhuumfire and Demonic Lore, and you can get more of the auto chain off in 10 seconds than you can get double-burn procs.

Actually camping Scepter is a loss, but ok :x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kam.4092 said:

@Kam.4092 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:I forgot about the Might conversion from Fell Beacon. I'll probably use something similar but with Bursting/Torment sigils. Never been a fan of geomancy.

You forgot about it because most of those conversion traits don't calculate from Might or other non-gear buffs. Did anyone check during the preview weekends to see if Fell Beacon did for some reason?

I don't see how it wouldn't work.Because most of the current conversion traits don't work like that. Neither Deadly Strength nor Tagret the Weak give us more stats from Strength in Numbers or Spotter. Great Fortitude doesn't give more Vitality as you gain Might.

I actually don't know of any conversion traits that
do
work like that.

@Kam.4092 said:A lot seem to dislike Geomancy Sigils. They are great, and we'll do more DPS when in melee, because we strike along with our Sand kitten every time we use a Sand Shade ability. So we should always be in melee. We will be using Mainhand Dagger too, so I don't see us wanting to be Ranged, or we miss out on DPS. Geomancy will be amazing for us.

Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand kitten strike nearby foes.

With a Radius of 180, we will be right up with our Sand kitten. We miss out on doing Torment and Burning if we are not in melee range.

If you have a shade in melee, there's no (inherent) reason for the Necro to be there as well. Shade skills never work in overlap. Geomancy is a good reason to be in melee, of course, as is ease of buff sharing, but kitten are not one of them.

Also, mainhand dagger is a noticeable DPS loss over just camping Scepter, even with its lousy life force generation. A single Scepter auto chain deals a bit more damage than a Shade strike with Dhuumfire and Demonic Lore, and you can get more of the auto chain off in 10 seconds than you can get double-burn procs.

Actually camping Scepter is a loss, but ok :x

No, it really isn't. Swapping to dagger is showing to be a loss.

At most, you can get 3 double-burn Shade procs if Demonic Lore isn't on cooldown at the moment you swap to dagger (it should be, since you would have just used Feast of Corruption). This doesn't change at all with Alacrity or Quickness. It's a hard limit. Using shade abilities more frequently is possible, but inefficient overall.

You exceed all of that damage from Shade usage (assuming you swapped to dagger, if you're still on Scepter, you just match it) with just 3 auto cycles. You get 5 cycles off during 10 seconds without Quickness. Without Ferocity, the dagger auto for those 5 seconds only equates to the 2 remaining auto cycles.

With Quickness, it gets even worse. It now becomes 7.5 cycles per 10 seconds, with dagger mainhand falling further behind in damage. With Alacrity, now you're also losing out on Grasping Dead and Feast of Corruption usage during the 10 second minimum you are locked into dagger.

It's a negligible loss in solo settings, but if you're getting either Quickness or Alacrity (or both!) Scepter just pulls ahead by a very significant margin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Kam.4092 said:

@Kam.4092 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:I forgot about the Might conversion from Fell Beacon. I'll probably use something similar but with Bursting/Torment sigils. Never been a fan of geomancy.

You forgot about it because most of those conversion traits don't calculate from Might or other non-gear buffs. Did anyone check during the preview weekends to see if Fell Beacon did for some reason?

I don't see how it wouldn't work.Because most of the current conversion traits don't work like that. Neither Deadly Strength nor Tagret the Weak give us more stats from Strength in Numbers or Spotter. Great Fortitude doesn't give more Vitality as you gain Might.

I actually don't know of any conversion traits that
do
work like that.

@Kam.4092 said:A lot seem to dislike Geomancy Sigils. They are great, and we'll do more DPS when in melee, because we strike along with our Sand kitten every time we use a Sand Shade ability. So we should always be in melee. We will be using Mainhand Dagger too, so I don't see us wanting to be Ranged, or we miss out on DPS. Geomancy will be amazing for us.

Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Whenever you use a shade ability, you and your sand kitten strike nearby foes.

With a Radius of 180, we will be right up with our Sand kitten. We miss out on doing Torment and Burning if we are not in melee range.

If you have a shade in melee, there's no (inherent) reason for the Necro to be there as well. Shade skills never work in overlap. Geomancy is a good reason to be in melee, of course, as is ease of buff sharing, but kitten are not one of them.

Also, mainhand dagger is a noticeable DPS loss over just camping Scepter, even with its lousy life force generation. A single Scepter auto chain deals a bit more damage than a Shade strike with Dhuumfire and Demonic Lore, and you can get more of the auto chain off in 10 seconds than you can get double-burn procs.

Actually camping Scepter is a loss, but ok :x

No, it really isn't. Swapping to dagger is showing to be a loss.

At most, you can get 3 double-burn Shade procs
if
Demonic Lore isn't on cooldown at the moment you swap to dagger (it should be, since you would have just used Feast of Corruption). This doesn't change at all with Alacrity or Quickness. It's a hard limit. Using shade abilities more frequently is possible, but inefficient overall.

You exceed all of that damage from Shade usage (assuming you swapped to dagger, if you're still on Scepter, you just match it) with just 3 auto cycles. You get 5 cycles off during 10 seconds without Quickness. Without Ferocity, the dagger auto for those 5 seconds only equates to the 2 remaining auto cycles.

With Quickness, it gets even worse. It now becomes 7.5 cycles per 10 seconds, with dagger mainhand falling further behind in damage. With Alacrity, now you're also losing out on Grasping Dead and Feast of Corruption usage during the 10 second minimum you are locked into dagger.

It's a negligible loss in solo settings, but if you're getting either Quickness or Alacrity (or both!) Scepter just pulls ahead by a very significant margin.

And where did you test this mister?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's pretty easy to calculate with the build editor.

Scepter auto deals more damage than dagger auto in a condition build. Ergo, Quickness widens the gap even more (and has no effect on F skills).Alacrity won't be affecting Dagger auto, so Alacrity pushes Scepter further ahead (and has no effect on Demonic Lore).

Without Quickness or Alacrity, the damage output from dagger auto plus maximizing Demonic Lore only matches Scepter auto. Sure, you can make an argument for using another F skill or two during that time, but it's better to space those out to inflict Torment once every 3 seconds to maximize efficiency of the life force. Losing the 150 condition damage for not being on Scepter takes a bigger chunk out of those procs than I initially thought.

Finally, you have to remember that you will not be using Dagger auto the entire time. Each swap needs time to use the offhand skills and summon a new Shade. This is independent of if it's Dagger or Scepter in the mainhand, but Scepter will give higher damage here due to the +150 condition damage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:It's pretty easy to calculate with the build editor.

Scepter auto deals more damage than dagger auto in a condition build. Ergo, Quickness widens the gap even more (and has no effect on F skills).Alacrity won't be affecting Dagger auto, so Alacrity pushes Scepter further ahead (and has no effect on Demonic Lore).

Without Quickness or Alacrity, the damage output from dagger auto plus maximizing Demonic Lore only matches Scepter auto. Sure, you can make an argument for using another F skill or two during that time, but it's better to space those out to inflict Torment once every 3 seconds to maximize efficiency of the life force. Losing the 150 condition damage for not being on Scepter takes a bigger chunk out of those procs than I initially thought.

Finally, you have to remember that you will not be using Dagger auto the entire time. Each swap needs time to use the offhand skills and summon a new Shade. This is independent of if it's Dagger or Scepter in the mainhand, but Scepter will give higher damage here due to the +150 condition damage.

So you're basically saying you didn't test it, ok then. I'll wait until PoF launches, and benchmarks come out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's worth testing, but it's looking pretty clear that Going Scepter+Torch/Scepter+X is going to be the highest DPS. If you're on Dagger and not auto-attacking, you are 100% losing damage compared to Scepter. Because of how the cooldowns line up and required casts on each swap, there will definitely be time (at least 2 seconds worth with Quickness) that you aren't auto-attacking.

Honestly, unless we see some serious changes to Scourge from the demo weekends to launch, the only question I can see with weapon choices is if it's Dagger offhand or Focus. Scepter on both sets is looking to be a guarantee.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@Lily.1935 said:We'll see what the community eventually finds best. I'll try out quite a few different combinations, but I feel I might go with Renegade runes unless a new stat combination improves my crit chance beyond 35% while not sacrificing my condition damage.

Any reason you are looking for the extra crit chance?

To increase the chance of triggering sigils as well as barbed precision. Vipers doesn't have enough precision on its own and the necromancer is a fairly slow attacking profession, along with the high energy cost of of the shade skills might make it difficult to keep "On crit" sigils reliable, which is why I'm skeptical of their application. I could be wrong on that, I fully admit, but my instinct is to approach with caution.

A set up like Primary: Condition damage + Precision and Secondary: Expertise and power/healing power/vitality/concentration would work fairly well for this. Bringing your Crit chance without outside modifies above 50% is where I'd like to be in order to be consistent with the cool down of the trait and sigils. There is another benifit to this as well. Necromancer gains a passive from Target the weak which increases condition damage by 13% of your precision, which also feeds into fell beacon to further increase Expertise.

My position with necromancer is I want to abandon the hybrid build in favor of a pure Condi build. Something we've never been able to do in GW2. But its hard to say what stat combinations will be available to us once PoF comes out, so I'm sorta biding my time. If we don't get the dream set, I feel that passive increase in damage will be more effective than on crit sigils. Again I could be wrong about that, but we'll have someone crunch the numbers soon enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:It's worth testing, but it's looking pretty clear that Going Scepter+Torch/Scepter+X is going to be the highest DPS.

And what utility skills would you take?

Blood is Power is still one of our best utilities and is the one definite skill. No questions asked, this is on the bar.

Shadow Fiend looks like it will be a staple for Scourge, since it gives okay life force with no cast time.

Third skill will depend on encounter. Epidemic if there is frequently more than one target, naturally. Other options are Corrosive Poison Cloud, Sand Swell, and Dessicate, based on encounter specifics. For DPS specifically, the answer is CPC, as is any encounter where you want the projectile block. Sand Swell is for encounters with "safe zones" from big attacks, since you can evacuate the melee team at the last possible second and get that extra few seconds of damage. Dessicate is for encounters where the boss actually has boons and/or where you find you need the extra support from F2 and F3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...