[vT] Hobo: Scourge WvW Roaming (Videos)

Well new spec new thread. So far scourge seems to follow my general predictions. Solid in 1v1s, outnumbered fights are more difficult than with reaper (at least with the gear setup I use), and the role that necro has in roaming fights didn't really change. Not gonna put up a separate build for scourge yet, mainly because I'm stubborn and have been using vipers still.

Scourge Vol 2

Vol 3 out.

Great video! I saw lots of positives through your plays.

• The use of portal: The portal can actually get up hills/slopes, similar to the trajectory of a thief shortbow 5. Great use of your portal to re-position and lessen the focus.
• The burning trail: Seems devastating as you move across and back enemy groups

Some questions though:

• Does your group still have a dedicated healer? Was the other Scourge in your team a barrier support player? When you were focused, I noticed you kited away from your group instead of towards them. Was it because your group lacks a dedicated healer now?
• Putting aside the weapon choices, do you think power stats scale well with the Scourge skills?
• Just based on the past couple of days, short but based on preliminary experience, would you consider Reaper or Scourge better able to fill the role in your roaming group?
• Also how useful was the Shade in terms of giving barrier to your allies? Was the un-traited radius too small? Was the combat moving around too fast to utilize it sufficiently?

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:Great video! I saw lots of positives through your plays.

• The use of portal: The portal can actually get up hills/slopes, similar to the trajectory of a thief shortbow 5. Great use of your portal to re-position and lessen the focus.
• The burning trail: Seems devastating as you move across and back enemy groups

Some questions though:

• Does your group still have a dedicated healer? Was the other Scourge in your team a barrier support player? When you were focused, I noticed you kited away from your group instead of towards them. Was it because your group lacks a dedicated healer now?
• Putting aside the weapon choices, do you think power stats scale well with the Scourge skills?
• Just based on the past couple of days, short but based on preliminary experience, would you consider Reaper or Scourge better able to fill the role in your roaming group?
• Also how useful was the Shade in terms of giving barrier to your allies? Was the un-traited radius too small? Was the combat moving around too fast to utilize it sufficiently?

Thanks! Yeah the portal is a godsend in the fights especially when you take parasitic contagion since every second you live you're healing up. Burning trail is nice, though I believe people only get the burning from it once when walking over it (unless they proc the GM trait for burning on torment).

Currently we aren't running a dedicated healer. This is less because we think they aren't optimal and more than once groups start running supports and fully comped up, you end up cementing the meta and killing off some of the roaming that can be had. I mainly kited away to give my group space to cleave out the downs we had, with a healer you can get away with kiting towards your group since you usually have the sustain advantage (depending on the situation).

Power stats scale worse for scourge than they do for hybrid reaper definitely. Your main sources of power damage are desert shroud and your elite, unlike reaper where DS 2,4,5 all scale well with power along with naturally the GS. Best stats for scourge are gonna be dire/trailblazer (I actually think condi duration doesn't matter quite as much for scourge) or shaman/rabid mix.

Scourge has a different power curve imo. It is weaker in fights while solo roaming, but offers more if played well in group fights since you have the condi cleanse, the portal, along with still great cleave. Reaper is still extremely strong and is at the moment a lot easier to play than scourge (though maybe that is just due to practice on it). If it's pugs, I'd rather have reapers. If its players I know who can position and handle scourge, I'd prefer scourge. For a comp you might go one reaper and one scourge, but a comp changes things a lot since any healing class will find it easier to heal scourge due to no DS messing up healing.

I'll be honest I don't believe it really made an impact using the barrier with my shades. However, it wasn't what I was focused on so maybe if you're more support orientated you can make it work. My gut thinks that you would need to take big shade and instead of really using the shades, you would use yourself to give out the barrier by sticking close to your allies.

Scourge vol 2 is out now.

Dead eyes damage is just over the top lol. My roaming mates got one shot a few times literally on around 2500 armor =\

Nice video though. Those outnumbered fights were sweet.

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:Dead eyes damage is just over the top lol. My roaming mates got one shot a few times literally on around 2500 armor =\

Nice video though. Those outnumbered fights were sweet.

Thanks!

Yeah I think the bigger issue that the stealth bug. That skill is supposed to reveal them so you can Dodge, but with the bug they are displayed at their old location first and then where they actually are so sometimes you never even see them.

By the way are you still using full Vipers?

Also want to add more thoughts on your outnumbered fights.I tried group roaming fights with my Scourge and it is a nightmare trying to survive when focused especially if outnumbered.Which makes your outnumbered fights all the more impressive.Noted that you opened many fights with Ghastly Breech very early and it seems to help you manage the opening engages better and discouraged enemies from piling on you right from the start. Will definitely try that more myself!

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:By the way are you still using full Vipers?

Also want to add more thoughts on your outnumbered fights.I tried group roaming fights with my Scourge and it is a nightmare trying to survive when focused especially if outnumbered.Which makes your outnumbered fights all the more impressive.Noted that you opened many fights with Ghastly Breech very early and it seems to help you manage the opening engages better and discouraged enemies from piling on you right from the start. Will definitely try that more myself!

I am not using full vipers anymore. While I learn/practice more of the scourge mechanics I've been using a dire/tb mix currently and this past video was probably 75% that and 25% vipers.

I think the biggest thing for outnumbered fights that I have had to keep in mind is that your sustain is tied to your damage output through parasitic contagion. So at the start of fights I usually try and drop some of my bigger abilities such as ghastly breech since it not only gives slow to people in it, but the damage output by it and desert shroud effectively gives you 10s where you are a monster to take down. So you're right where either it discourages enemies from piling onto you, or they do pile you and you gain a large amount of sustain because of this.

Vol 3 now out.

Ya I made new necromancer to test out scourge for first time tonight.

Dire, carrion, rabid mix cause I had the junk ascended trinkets for it and random stat selector rares and exotics.Curses, soul reaping, scourgeStaff, axe, torch

Became obvious pretty fast that it is near impossible to play it badly with a decent build and the ability to ground target effectively. Not saying bad on you, it's just that it's going to be more difficult to appreciate good Condi scourge play than it was good Condi reaper play.

@Justine.6351 said:

Became obvious pretty fast that it is near impossible to play it badly with a decent build and the ability to ground target effectively. Not saying bad on you, it's just that it's going to be more difficult to appreciate good Condi scourge play than it was good Condi reaper play.

Honestly I feel the opposite. Scourge gives a number of more options for making plays while fighting while reaper was extremely locked and followed a general rotation for damage and kiting much more. Scourge is probably more difficult to notice partially due to it being a new spec and the fact that the shade mechanic isn't centered around your player. So to notice small plays you have to account for a lot more than on reaper.

Not saying it's not a strong spec (clearly it is). And if nothing else we can notice all the dead scourges playing condi that get killed while outnumbering us.

Anyways Vol 4 is up since I got a good number of clips yesterday.