Is support scourge worth it?

I got bored with reaper again, yet don't like condi scourge anymore, nor do I see any point in having one. So, to try something different - how is support scourge? I aim at higher tier fractals, with maybe occasional raid here and there. Mostly fractals.

Any build advice will also be appreciated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf4fnE9CV3gV9C+0As9iFjBTftGXvrT9gYwLI6nFAOAA-jVxNxAJVCCY/Bi6HMq+DSlfAA-w

There's my attempt as a healing/might generator/condi hybrid scourge.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW4fnE9CV9it1Au2As3gluBTvnOUTqUfgRwha6BMACAA-j1RXQBeU3wduIAi6JAkQlfOUJIA2fAkq/QKgvGZB-w

What I was considering. I used something similar in Samarog which proved to be quite effective. Lots of breakbar punishment and easy life force generation. There are still a tone of issues with support scourge though, and although this worked, there are more effective options.

You don't need to go full plaguedoctors if you take concentration sigils. My build is very similar and swaps some of the gear out for spearmarshals for a better personal dps output, you can swap all the armour as well as 3 trinkets and still reach 100% boon duration in fractals with the mobility potion, and 92% in raids (as you're probably running with a druid as the other healer this is less of an issue).

I have been running raids and CM's on this build and it is very effective at keeping a run going when bad stuff happens. I'd definitely consider it preferable to a 2nd druid, mostly off the well of blood res and the downed pull from transfusion.

No it isn't. It can carry noobs, but anywhere else it's almost useless

Do not listen to anyone that says its trash. Go find teapots video on the support scourge. The benefit of a support scourge is dmg mitigation from barrier spam, insane condi cleanse, passive healing, and absolute broken revive power. If someone goes down in aoe and you cannot pick them up you can pull them to you. Fractals i wouldnt rly use it but raids you can but i would rec going with people you know. For openworld content omg does it carry people

@Bound.8239 said:Do not listen to anyone that says its trash. Go find teapots video on the support scourge. The benefit of a support scourge is dmg mitigation from barrier spam, insane condi cleanse, passive healing, and absolute broken revive power. If someone goes down in aoe and you cannot pick them up you can pull them to you. Fractals i wouldnt rly use it but raids you can but i would rec going with people you know. For openworld content omg does it carry people

Dude. You are also ignorant.

1. Dmg mitigation via barrier, yeah. But you can't have 100% barrier uptime, and you can't always know when teammates will make a mistake.

2. Aegis as dmg mitigation works way better, because it completely blocks the dmg

3. You have to use f4, which is a fear. In raid boss fights where on some encounters you need the enemies pulled and cleaved fast, that's horrible as you fear them away.

4. What teapot didn't say is, that it's only really good in not so good raid groups. In good raid groups, people will almost never go down, and then you loose the thing necro is best at: rezzing

5. It's very hard for scourge to heal allies back up if they dropped low. Best would be allies going down so you can rezz them with 80%, but that's still dmg loss. Also even if transfusion ticks with 1,2k it will still take a long time to get allies healed back up, if you hey took a let's say 5k hit that you couldn't see coming.Healers like rev, ele or druid can get them back to full much faster.Also on guard,rev and ele you can achieve very high passive healing numbers as well. You don't even need to use a skill for that, that fears adds away

Who the kitten needs to carry open world? Open world content is so damn easy and if you are dead, just use one of the countless waypoints

It's very good. You will love it. Its 100% worth your investment in gear :)Just be prepared for some some hate from narrow minded people, but thats part of the deal :D

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Bound.8239 said:Do not listen to anyone that says its trash. Go find teapots video on the support scourge. The benefit of a support scourge is dmg mitigation from barrier spam, insane condi cleanse, passive healing, and absolute broken revive power. If someone goes down in aoe and you cannot pick them up you can pull them to you. Fractals i wouldnt rly use it but raids you can but i would rec going with people you know. For openworld content omg does it carry people

Wow ... that's a heavy handed way to push meta. GG.

He's right you know and just because you think OW is trash play doesn't mean the build doesn't have value to people. There is a game outside of raids and thankfully, Anet knows it.

@mazut.4296 said:It's very good. You will love it. Its 100% worth your investment in gear :)Just be prepared for some some hate from narrow minded people, but thats part of the deal :D

Yea it really looks pretty overwhelming. I wanted to gear full Viper scourge but this looks like so much more fun.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Bound.8239 said:Do not listen to anyone that says its trash. Go find teapots video on the support scourge. The benefit of a support scourge is dmg mitigation from barrier spam, insane condi cleanse, passive healing, and absolute broken revive power. If someone goes down in aoe and you cannot pick them up you can pull them to you. Fractals i wouldnt rly use it but raids you can but i would rec going with people you know. For openworld content omg does it carry people

I'm not against it. I like playing it.

ButIt's not optimal. There's other classes that can carry way easier.Like firebrand. It has insane heals, aegis and can provide quickness. The only thing necro can do is rezz and give barrier from time to time

That might be true, but no one asked or said it was optimal, so why so aggressive? In fact, you said it was a useless build that only works at carrying noobs. Sounds like you really like playing it. :expressionless:

If it wasn't for all the gear swapping (it's annoying), I enjoy the build myself and I don't find it useless and I don't feel it's relevant to compare myself playing this build to other classes and not feel it's not fun or helpful because of it. Why do you? Maybe you just don't get it; not everyone cares about optimal, especially in a game where it's not necessary.

@Obtena.7952 said:That might be true, but no one asked or said it was optimal, so why so aggressive? In fact, you said it was a useless build that only works at carrying noobs. Sounds like you really like playing it. :expressionless:

If it wasn't for all the gear swapping (it's annoying), I enjoy the build myself and I don't find it useless and I don't feel it's relevant to compare myself playing this build to other classes and not feel it's not fun or helpful because of it. Why do you? Maybe you just don't get it; not everyone cares about optimal, especially in a game where it's not necessary.

That's why I pointed out weaknesses of the build.So everyone has to decide for themselves

But

This build only gets good, and can prevent dmg, if the player behind the build is really good, else it's just a rezz-bot, that doesn't bring anything else to the group.

So now. Even though I play with newbies from time to time, I enjoy the game way more when playing with equally experienced or equally good players.

And exactly there the build falls off. To pick up newbies from mechanics they didn't know is great.

But there's also three player types:

1. Let the newbie get the dmg, and rezz them (only works if they aren't going down constantly), which often leads to a wipe
2. Carry the newbie by playing firebrand and tell them, where they would have died, if you didn't give them aegis. And it might end up in success
3. Players that yell at you that you did something wrong, but don't tell you what and just kick you.

So. I'm more the second type. I was a newbie three years ago as well, and I learned a lot from playing necro, how the game works (I know by far not everything of the game), if you just facetank everything, that doesn't work out, even though necro has one of the highest hp-pool in-game.

I just made a list of weaknesses, because everyone that tells you, that necro is good healer, never speaks about the drawbacks.Just watch teapots video. He only points out strengths but no weaknesses.

Let me give an example: sabethaYour chrono pulls adds towards your group, so dds can kill them, you fear them away, and the reward is, that they kick one teammate into the flamewall because they didn't get killed.Same btw for the flamewall. You use f4 someone just went down, and you are running from the flamewall, but you pull him in the way of the flamewall and might kill him

Next up sloth: chrono pulls slubs into your group, you fear them away because you need to get transfusion up. Reward: slubs heavily pressuring you and making the fight much harder.

I think scourge might not be worth for pve personally.If you can heal do better dps and support on otehr class, why bother?

@Axl.8924 said:I think scourge might not be worth for pve personally.If you can heal do better dps and support on otehr class, why bother?

Because people like the classes they play? Perhaps your question is rhetorical, but there is a section of the playerbase that choose class because of the theme; probably way more than you think.

The bottomline is that there isn't anything bad about playing a support Scourge, though it does have limited use in OW to groups that need carrying.

Im clearing raid and t4 fracts for about 2 months now...its super fun :)

This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

@"trixantea.1230" said:This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

And he doesn't say anything about weaknesses, which makes it a very bad video/guide.If you don't know the weaknesses, you cannot play the build properly.

And it's teapot. He already admitted that the build is good to carry pugs, but that good groups won't ever use the build.

@"trixantea.1230" said:This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

As much as I respect Teapot, his group composed of experienced raiders who are familiar with raid and can clear all wings on 10 necro/scourge before the epi nerf...though admittedly it might be easier to run support scourge over druid for Desmina, who has too much condi pressure for pug druid to handle.

Interesting trivia, runes of mercy spike by 300% following this video, from 5 silver to whooping 15 silver.

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

What's this?! A player with a following, using that power to make a profit?! Well I never.

I'm not a necro player and I'm really not much of a PvE player, but I love running my scourge if I'm doing bounties. Very niche content that has no relevance to endgame, I know, but with the frequency people go down, Transfusion is life-changing. There are some legendary bounties that put out some big damage and I'll literally br spending 80+% of my time rezzing people. It's honestly so fun sucking up bodies.

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

Haha its pretty inconsequential trivia but funny nonetheless.

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

It reminds me of that time a known leaker made a reddit dump including information on new condi foods that included Sawgill Mushrooms. Needless to say, they must have made a fair amount off their hoarded mushrooms.

@"Nimon.7840" said:The only thing necro can do is rezz and give barrier from time to time

Not really though. I'm not saying it's Meta or the best support ever, but you are giving the build much less credit than it deserves.

The thing a lot of people don't seem to understand is how healing (and overhealing) works in GW2, and how a player at 99% HP has the same priority to be healed by a big heal of lets say the Druid, than another player at 30% HP, as far as I understand it.

Transfusion and Barrier, which is not from time to time, but almost permanently up unless there is incredible pressure on the party, which makes barrier even more valuable, makes sure everybody who doesn't make a massive mistake is at 100% HP at all times, causing the heals of the first healer, usually a Druid, to go where they are most needed.

Even with nobody going down the entire fight, Healing Scourge is superior to a second Druid IF your group runs two healers.If something goes wrong though, there is nothing else in the game that can recover the group better than a Support Scourge.

Since most groups aren't playing on the level of Snow Crows, despite what they might think, Support Scourge is very much worth having in a lot of cases.It's painful to see some groups running the "optimal" setup only to wipe for 30 minutes on something like KC, Sloth or what have you, when they could just take a Support Scourge and make it almost impossible to wipe and have a smooth, much faster run instead.

That combined with the greatly increased Scholar uptime due to barriers, as well as other health based damage increases via Traits, and the massive spammable Condi removal Scourge provides, the only thing that keeps Support Scourge from being an uncontested meta pick is the lack of a strong group wide damage buff.

As only healer it suffers from lack of spike heals and 10 man heals and boons and I wouldn't recommend it, I give you that.It's still very much so possible, and even much safer, to clear 5 man endgame content such as CM's with only a support Scourge, although it's obviously slightly slower than taking a Druid, or especially no healer at all.

If they slightly increased the base Might duration on Abrasive Grit (and in general on things like Dessicate), added a Trait for a ~10% damage modifier to allies affected by your barriers or standing in your Shade (maybe reworking Sand Savant to do this while reducing Shade Skill damage with the Trait, making it a proper support Trait), while adding some group wide Fury to Scourge, it could easily compete with Druid for the Meta Spot, making it about Utility like Entangle, projectile defense, condi cleanse, barrier, boon rip and recovery potential to decide on a fight by fight basis.

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:This guy made a guide for heal scourge claiming that it is the most op support spec in the game:

What does the experienced raiding group matter when he purposefully didn't play with them to show off the build? It's good in pugs, you don't need to be a god at necro to make good use of it. Great way to miss his entire point lmao