Plaguedoctor

So, how you see this new combination of stats from Kourna for a support scourge in WvW?

Just looking at the stat spread alone I'm kind of left thinking it'd work alright as a pve support scourge -

1. Condi main helps with Epidemic, Blood is Power, transfers and corrupts.
2. Concentration secondary is still okay for might stacking, something scourge does very well.
3. Vit main gives larger LF pool.
4. Scourge can get +450 healing power from Last Rites alone if below 50% hp, so healing power secondary isn't too big an issue imo.

I don't think it's that useful. Scourges aren't really stacking that many boons to make concen that useful. The healing and vit is nice I guess? Though you'd get more from shamans.

In a group, Necro should receive plenty of boons.

I would be more interested in power, expertise, and ferocity.

This is actually the perfect stat combo for PvE Support scourge

For a healer to actually work in this meta, the most important thing you want is boon generation or might to be specific. That is why concentration is the most important stat on here.

Vitality allow you to spam shade skills and Healing Power should be rather obvious. Condi damage means you can actually use epi effectively since it scales off your condi damage and expertise does not affect it.

You can debate whether or not if it would be better for it be HP primary instead of Vitality; but this currently should be the best set for a support scourge in PvE.

Like said above, it's a good support scourge setup for pve and wvw.

condition damage -> damagevitality -> survivability and larger life force pool to spam more skillshealing power - > healing and barriersconcentration - > longer might duration, esp. from blood is power

havent been in the new place yet but this sounds perfect for bringing my pvp support scourge to pve&wvw

If only Feed from Corruption would also do something on allies.Then this could be nice in some kind of off-support build.

If all I want is might duration, runes do a better job. Plaguedoctor's seems better to me for other professions with more boon access who can use the vitality. I could be wrong and will probably try it sometime but the new attribute combination does not excite me too much... on Necro.

For a 4-stat combo, I would like power, ferocity, precision, and expertise.For a support spec 4-stat, condition damage, healing, expertise, and vitality.

@Anchoku.8142 said:If all I want is might duration, runes do a better job. Plaguedoctor's seems better to me for other professions with more boon access who can use the vitality. I could be wrong and will probably try it sometime but the new attribute combination does not excite me too much... on Necro.

For a 4-stat combo, I would like power, ferocity, precision, and expertise.For a support spec 4-stat, condition damage, healing, expertise, and vitality.

Might is the only boon a healer needs to provide because a chaos chrono provides literally every other boon. Hell you even provide some regen if you just roll around a bit. Aristocracy only gives 45% which really isn't enough to provide perma might uptime especially if there's a disconnect which happens a lot in group content. All the druids run harrier because of might stacking, the fury and regen are just nice bonuses. That's is why concentration is essential right now to any healer builds because you are expected to be the PS of the group.

I think they are useless.

Main vita is crap.What support scourge in pve needs is1.power for better dmg buff from vampiric presence

2. Healpower for barriers, heals and regeneration
3. Maybe a bit concentration fur higher regeneration uptime and better mightIf you wanna play with condis u will need
4. Condition dmg obviously
5. Expertise for condition duration

No need for vitality, even though it can come in handy.

Not to mention that scepter is a pretty bad source of lf generation if you wanna run a Condi support.So staff is left open, but that doesn't to that much condis.

I like this stat combo and will try it out when I try my hand at support scourge.

@"Nimon.7840" said:I think they are useless.

Main vita is crap.What support scourge in pve needs is1.power for better dmg buff from vampiric presence

2. Healpower for barriers, heals and regeneration
3. Maybe a bit concentration fur higher regeneration uptime and better mightIf you wanna play with condis u will need
4. Condition dmg obviously
5. Expertise for condition duration

No need for vitality, even though it can come in handy.

Not to mention that scepter is a pretty bad source of lf generation if you wanna run a Condi support.So staff is left open, but that doesn't to that much condis.

You want vitality because shade skills scales off your base shroud pool only while your life force gains scales off your total shroud. A larger vitality is essentially a larger "mana" pool.

For example if you have 100 base shroud and a scale cost 10% life force with 100 bonus shroud from vitality. The life force cost will always be 10, but your life force gain will be doubled. While it is debatable whether or not vitality should be the main stat, it is without discussion that it is very important for it to be one of the stats.

As for support scourge stat need, you are getting it backwards.

The most important role for a healer to do is actually not heal, but rather provide might for the group. That is why concentration is essential.

I already explained why vitality is important.

Healing power should be obvious.

Condi damage vs expertise has condi damage winning solely because your epidemic scales off condi damage but not your expertise. This means it works perfectly fine if you need it to burst down adds which should die in one epi anyway or to use it as the main epi spread for other people to bounce. I do not know the difference in damage between having pure condi damage and expertise but this alone makes condi damage the better stat in my eyes.

You run dagger in support scourge as it serves as the life force generator, having it allow you to spam F345. Yes I have no doubt that scepter will do more damage but your main role should be to provide support and damage secondary. Especially because you will not be able to run lingering curse as your setup should be Blood/SR/Scourge. This makes the difference much closer than you might think.

Focus so much on power just for vampiric presence to me is focusing too hard on support that you don't realize how bad the scaling is. The skill will provide roughly 200-250 dps for 5 people with power. That is around1k extra dps for the entire group under optimal situations. I do not profess to know exactly how much damage support scourge with just condi damage will do, but it's going to be more than that by a fair larger amount.

base lf doesn't really matter if you can't maintain it. Condi weapons available to necro won't be able to keep up with the spamming you'd need to ddo with f2 and 3 to maintain barriers and condi conversions for boons.Also, if might is really all you needed, then druids would be using str runes with a few pieces of harrier to get might duration to 100%, druids however provide other boons such as regen, vigor (dps increase for mirages via traits and more dodges, more dodges for condi thieves, and a dps increase for engi running excessive energy), fury, and sometimes protection if/when needed which is why they go for 100% boon duration. Max boon duration isn't needed on scourge since it can only give 1 boon reliably, just use aristocracy runes, and use some harrier to cover the rese.

@Sephylon.4938 said:base lf doesn't really matter if you can't maintain it. Condi weapons available to necro won't be able to keep up with the spamming you'd need to ddo with f2 and 3 to maintain barriers and condi conversions for boons.Also, if might is really all you needed, then druids would be using str runes with a few pieces of harrier to get might duration to 100%, druids however provide other boons such as regen, vigor (dps increase for mirages via traits and more dodges, more dodges for condi thieves, and a dps increase for engi running excessive energy), fury, and sometimes protection if/when needed which is why they go for 100% boon duration. Max boon duration isn't needed on scourge since it can only give 1 boon reliably, just use aristocracy runes, and use some harrier to cover the rese.

Right, I agree condi weapon is not enough to keep up with spamming which is why you run dagger. F2 really isn't used that often since 1 condi convert is nothing. You are better off spamming literally every other skill but F2 in most cases unless you have excess LF.

As for the boon discussion? Right, I agree. You should run aristocracy or whatever rune set and then enough concentration to cover just so you have enough boon duration to keep up perma might. In this case it would be plaguedoctor for all the reasons I stated above. Harrier would be suboptimal in this case as power is pointless. I have never in my post actively advised to run full plague doctor with max boon duration. I only stated why each stat on this gear is good on a support scourge because it has literally everything you need. To me, the ideal stat set for support scourge would be enough concentration so you can keep up might, enough vitality so you can spam your shade skills, enough healing power so your ally doesn't die and the rest can go in damage. This is what plague doctor offers. Mix and match as you want to achieve the best result but to dismiss this set of gear is folly.

My first thought was exactly that: "Oh, it's a great support scourge prefix!"Then after thinking a bit more about it it made less and less sense to use on Scourge Support.For PvE:

• The Vitality as a main stat is just plain bad. Necromancer by default has a large Health Pool. Especially if you are supporting you HAVE to be able to heal/avoid that damage you'd take to that pool. Anything over that is wasted as the only thing that would one-shot you with your basic Health amount is a failed mechanic (which shouldn't happen at all).
• Concentration is not really something that Scourge needs. The Boons Scourge can apply are not that numerous and converting in PvE isn't that frequent either to have too much value. Now, if they made Barrier be affected by Concentration, that would change a lot of things. If Scourge does something well, it's putting up Barriers.
• The Condition Damage and the Healing Power are nice in their respective places.

For WvW:

• Vitality is good, but not enough without any Toughness. If you don't reduce the big numbers then it doesn't matter if you have big health, because big-big=0. Additionally, it's a main stat here, but again, Necromancer already has a large Health Pool by default. Still, it is a good one.
• The Concentration can play more part here. I'm not and expert on the topic though, as I don't play WvW too often.
• Condition Damage and Healing Power are nice as is.

I think it can work in both cases, but not on it's own. PvE will need more Healing Power mixed in, while WvW needs more Toughness. Sadly though there are far better alternatives in other Professions for the role.

Barrier duration, I think, is not effected by concentration so that somewhat nerfs that stat's utility.Vitality increases the LF pool but LF generation skills generate by percentage of the total LF so higher vitality means faster LF generation. This is useful for shroud skills that consume fixed amounts of LF rather than percentages, like the shroud decay rate. Of course, there is also a cool-down for each shroud skill so at some point the extra LF can only be used for damage mitigation.

@Anchoku.8142 said:Barrier duration, I think, is not effected by concentration so that somewhat nerfs that stat's utility.Vitality increases the LF pool but LF generation skills generate by percentage of the total LF so higher vitality means faster LF generation. This is useful for shroud skills that consume fixed amounts of LF rather than percentages, like the shroud decay rate. Of course, there is also a cool-down for each shroud skill so at some point the extra LF can only be used for damage mitigation.

The concentration is for the Might that Scourge deals out and the regeneration on staff 2 which one ought to maintain as much as possible. A good support scourge can take the place of a second druid in some cases as it allows for damage mitigation, might generation (which means that the druid can take Lingering Light instead of Grace of the Land) and for quick recovery on downed allies in situations where druid cannot take Spirit of Nature. I know this is not a popular opinion but when I raided with a druid and a support scourge, the group seemed to have an easier time for it.

This new stat combo means that even though the scourge would be support, it will still deal good damage (for a support spec, dagger will need to be taken to keep up with the LF demands and this stat obviously has no power in it so most of the damage will come from Dhuumfire) and will still be able to use Epidemic to its full damage potential.

What i have experimented upon a support build is that i dont see dagger mandatory for life force generation. The unique skill you want to spam is Desert shroud and you want to use Sand cascade when you presume that your allies will take a hit.

I run dessicate too, which gives a nice portion of life force and generates might for you and your alliesthe unique issue that i have is that might duration is a little short, so i expect that if i use more concentration i will have a better uptime of might on me and my allies.

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@"Nimon.7840" said:I think they are useless.

Main vita is crap.What support scourge in pve needs is1.power for better dmg buff from vampiric presence

2. Healpower for barriers, heals and regeneration
3. Maybe a bit concentration fur higher regeneration uptime and better mightIf you wanna play with condis u will need
4. Condition dmg obviously
5. Expertise for condition duration

No need for vitality, even though it can come in handy.

Not to mention that scepter is a pretty bad source of lf generation if you wanna run a Condi support.So staff is left open, but that doesn't to that much condis.

Vitality isn't important. You have several good lf generators. Sure if you want to make support scourge a brain-dead espec that can spam f1-5 and not run out of lifeforce.... Take your vitality.

If you want a bit challenging and if you know necro good enough. Don't take vitality. Just a waste of stats.

Even if you run dagger. You want power. Or even if you want dagger, you still want condidmg. Because you are still playing with dhuumfire.And shades still do torment. And for condis to do dmg you will also need expertise.

And for concentration.And you are wrong. Necro would only be second healer in raids, because you can take druid that gives 25might. For 10 people. So why should i take concentration?Waste of stats again.Same goes for regeneration btw. It should come from the druid

So we still needPower for vampiric presence as it is 200-400 DPS increase per person (at 2,3kpower) which would be 1-2k DPS increase for the groupHealpower obviouslyCondidmg obviouslyAnd expertise for higher Condi ticks

So even full marshals is better than plaguedoctor

Support Scourge as an off healer would not be brought for personal dps whatsoever. It loses so much from trait selection in Curses/Scourge that even if you had the stats it would be garbage for personal dps and utterly pointless. You would be better off just traiting Blood Magic instead of Soul Reaper as a dps Necro and wearing the dps hit. You want a high condition damage stat to make Epidemic outs become potent not for your personal dps. Your biggest assets would be AoE Search and Rescue on super short cooldown, Epidemic out to melt adds but also slow enough to allow less than ideal bounce backs, and ability to barrier cheese big hits such as VG greens. Boon duration isn't necessary for those strengths but at the same time, Support Scourge isn't going to be brought to a top group. It lacks 10 man Spirits so it's never going to replace a Druid in single healer groups. Neither is any other healer. So that side of the discussion is moot.

It's a pug carry, safe off meta static build and in that environment, boon duration to provide Might, Fury and Regen (even stab with Trail of Anguish) is worthwhile. Same with Vitality. You aren't going to run Water Spirit in 2 healer groups so Regen is still needed. Chronos won't run Chaos everywhere, but Fury uptime with Altruism Runes to generate initial Fury is quite good. And the Might is very nice for top offs. Single healer groups where Druids stack might for 10 will often stack Weavers or Necros, enabling them to naturally overcap on Might and Fury for a similar effect.

If anything, Support Scourge's biggest weakness is the lack of on demand heals to compliment it's barrier spam. It needs more sources of targeted healing. Just one consistent source would be enough. I'd even settle for a trait to convert 50% of remaining barrier to heal once barrier expires.

Admittedly a full Plaguedoctor set leaves you with too much Vitality and not enough Healing Power, an ideal set would have been to trade the Healing Power with Vitality so that it's Healing Power and Condition Damage Major, Vitality and Concentration Minor. But I can definitely see a Plaguedoctor + Shaman/Magi set working. Concentration is not wasted assuming you actually build Support Scourge for what it's good for, and not an imagined speedrun meta to shoehorn it into.

@Nimon.7840 said:Vitality isn't important. You have several good lf generators. Sure if you want to make support scourge a brain-dead espec that can spam f1-5 and not run out of lifeforce.... Take your vitality.

If you want a bit challenging and if you know necro good enough. Don't take vitality. Just a waste of stats.

Even if you run dagger. You want power. Or even if you want dagger, you still want condidmg. Because you are still playing with dhuumfire.And shades still do torment. And for condis to do dmg you will also need expertise.

And for concentration.And you are wrong. Necro would only be second healer in raids, because you can take druid that gives 25might. For 10 people. So why should i take concentration?Waste of stats again.Same goes for regeneration btw. It should come from the druid

So we still needPower for vampiric presence as it is 200-400 DPS increase per person (at 2,3kpower) which would be 1-2k DPS increase for the groupHealpower obviouslyCondidmg obviouslyAnd expertise for higher Condi ticks

So even full marshals is better than plaguedoctor

Vitality is important. I don't know what else to tell you. You need roughly at least 300 vitality if not more to keep up your life force cost in actual raid situations with a dagger. The number varies of course but the need is there. I don't know if you ever tested in raids but what you imagined to be preventing damage with barrier is only part of the rotation.

You need to keep up F5 to do damage, F4 to heal because this is literally your only source of healing besides runes or sigils. Then keep up F3 and F1 to have a constant flux of barrier. There is literally no way you can prevent all sources of damage such as damage aura or potential mishaps. So you try to keep up when you can. The preventation comes in with your heal barrier. So is not really spam when it comes down to it, is just proper play.

As for concentration? Sure a druid is able to keep up 25 might for 10 people in theory. That however is not how it works in practice. Sometimes people run out of CA4, sometimes they are not grouped. Sometimes group need to split. Why do you think raid groups expect all healers to provide might and not just the druid? Because what is right in theory does not work in practice. I don't think I can state how important it is to upkeep 25 might compare to squeezing out a little bit of damage on your own. Now if there's some new meta with just 1 druid and the other healer with 0 might duration, let me know.

and yes I know marshall will do more damage and vamp presence will do better with more power. However I think at this point we need to examine what you are trying to do here. You want condi damage and expertise to do damage and power so the group does more damage. What exactly are you do you want to build? A healer? Or a dps that has support capabilities? I would not worry about minmax based on theoretical possibilities and think about realistic raid situations.