How's scourge compared to Reaper for open world?

Hey there guys! I've been playing Reaper for a while, and I just love the survivability it has. I play minionless atm and have had no problem soloing pretty much everything I've encountered. I wanted to know how good Scourge is compared to it, cause the play style seems really cool but I'm not sure how it survives by itself. Btw, I use Marauder armor with vampirism runes and I use Blood/Reaper/Reaping, so I don't care about dropping damage to survive longer.

It's good. It's ability to cleave trash is as great as Reaper's with the added bonus it can do so at range. You will need to get used to the barrier system as a survival tool rather than a full shroud but once you master that it should not be a problem.

Scourge functions quite differently from the reaper in terms of gameplay. It's much better at range and offers a lot of field control and coverage. Where it shines is more difficult maps where power isn't going to cleave enemies down nearly as quickly. Against small groups of trash the scourge loses power over time since life force from death isn't as common it can lose steam. But in those situations you shouldn't have a problem dispatching foes with little effort.

As they compare, scourge power builds don't have the same punch as Reaper does. Although their life force management tends to be more reliable than both reaper and condi scourge it is a trade off. I personally would say power scourge just isn't worth it out in the open world. You're sacrificing too much compared to the benefits you get from reaper.

Condi scourge shines much better though. You can flood foes with conditions rather well, and you still have barrier to buffer a lot of incoming damage. It is much stronger in group events because of its ability to stack conditions quickly as well as spread them. With foes that self apply barrier as well the conditions are welcome since they burn through it more effectively than reaper is able to and at a much longer distance. The big advantage over reaper is its consistency. You wont be lacking in damage as long as your built right. Set backs like foes moving away from you or being immune to control are less a problem since their game plan is at range.

Playing scourge has does give you the ability to always have access to your utility which is a massive weakness of the reaper and core. This let's all options be open to you at all times and I can't stress just how valuable this is. Scourge isn't a face roll elite spec and requires a lot from its user. It will be difficult to get used to but if you can work through the complexity it is far better in more difficult maps such as tangled depths or Dragon's fall. At least in my opinion.

I'd also suggest moving away from blood for reaper open world. You don't need it. Reaper is tanky enough and with the new soul eater trait you should be self healing extremely quickly.

If you do Scourge, get a condi set of armor. I'd suggest vipers but Carrion, Rabid or Rampagers should be fine. You'll have to supplement that with runes of the krait or something similar without vipers but in open would it shouldn't matter.

I didn’t like Scourge nearly as much as reaper at first but it’s definitely grown on me! :) I first geared marshal/shaman for a fun support build but when doing open world I swap in several viper pieces for better damage and still have amazing survivability!

Not a fan of scourge. Too many buttons to worry about, and you constantly have to recast the shades. Reaper plays so much easier.

Thanks for the replies! I was talking to a guildie and I am currently crafting the gear for it. I want to move to Scourge precisely because Reaper feels a little dull sometimes. As for moving away from Blood, I play with high ping (200+), so I can't always dodge everything. Sometimes I switch to Spite to play around tough. And thanks for the gearing advice! I was actually thinking of Trailblazer armor and Viper on the rest (trinkets will take a while. Will go with core/PoF condi options for now).

Both are very good, but only Reaper is smack your face into the keyboard and win good.

lately I've been using my Fractal/Raid Mercy Scourge in the open world and have been having a blast. By yourself you are no world beater meaning your not killing things ultra fast but you never really come close to getting killed either. On a side note its been handy to bring it along to the DragonFall meta champ train. People there throw caution to the wind and just run all suicidal like and die repeatedly. The mercy scourge thrive in group resurrections and you can bring them up very quickly haha!

I believe you will be better served by Reaper in both the single hard mob and the trash clearing situation for OW. There are just way too many options to mix and match traits for everything between full on DPS and massive tanking capability. Scourge has more versatility but you will struggle more to get extreme DPS or better tanking from it than reaper; Scourge gives you more support options which can be nice, but aren't as widely applicable for OW content.

Hey you can't lose trying it out. I gave it a shot ... I felt like i ran out of gas with it faster than Reaper.

I've come to despise the scourge. First, because all of the skills are spammed when off cooldown, this class requires me to float my hands. It's quite painful to play. Second, it is high maintenance. A lot of your damage comes from having 3 shades up. Third, the ramp up is terrible. All of the conditions take awhile to tick away, and because of this it is a lot harder to survive in. Fourth, the scourge has very little healing, so it is easy to be whittled away.

Overall, the scourge is higher maintenance, lower damaging, slower, and more frail than the Reaper. The only advantage that scourge gets is Epidemic, which is only good in very select scenarios. Overall I've found it to be quite terrible in the overworld, as well as fractals.

Personally don't care for Scourge at all.

Giving up the Necromancers Shroud is far to big a tradeoff for my liking.Im sure Scourge has it's merits like all Elite Specs do but I will always choose my Necromancers essentially berserk mode secondary life bar over anything the Scourge can provide, even on my condition Necros i'd rather run Reaper.

I haven't spent much time on Reaper, as I'm not a fan of Hulk Mode build (also why I haven't spent any time on Holosmith). My Scourge was geared for WvW, so Marauder Gear with 2 Soldier's trinkets, running Smite + Soul Reaping, but as it turns out, I prefer other builds for WvW.

So I started taking her into open world (Core) for key farming and such. At least in the early stages, your shades will be evaporating everything in sight. If the heart you need to complete can be done by killing, my scourge gets it done in seconds provided there is mob density.

Abrasive Grit + Desert Empowerment give built in might stacking + condi cleanse, while Blood is Sand gives you a 15% DR (I run Sand Savant so it's pretty much always up)Spite trait line increases might stackingSoul Reaping for vuln, damage boost and crit/ferocity

Tons of barrier for you and your friends (which is good if you participate in metas).

But it is a power build, so its DPS is all burst and a condi build would have far greater sustained DPS - but that would only matter vs veteran/champion mobs, as everything else in OW dies so quickly.

I don't think it's an optimal build or anything, and as I've said, I don't do Reaper so it would be difficult to compare, but I've had zero problems in Core / expansion maps, have soloed a few champions, and have seen it perform well in all the HoT metas. And I find it's a lot of fun.

So, I've been playing with the scourge for a while now. I'm using Trailblazer armor (cost me a ton to make :C) and viper on everything else. Still gotta swtich one accessory to viper, but other than that...I've used it in raids, T4 fractals, and OW content so far (mostly Dragonfall and bounty farming). I don't pvp outside the daily achievements. And I've been having waaay more fun with it than Reaper. Don't get me wrong, reaper is awesome, but it's pretty simplistic in design. With Scourge, I feel like I have to pay attention to a bunch of different things and that's fun for me. In OW, I've had no problem soloing everything I've found so far, from champions to those nasty double pack of Veteran shadows in Dragonfall (something my reaper particularly struggled with since they heal and barrier and so my shroud would be down before i finished them). In OW, I've only had a single death, when a chopper fell on my head :(

And on raids and fractals, I generally manage to do well on bosses. Trash depends a lot from the amount of elites in it, since power builds burst them down rq. So yeah, very satisfied with my change :D

BTW, does anyone know how viable Harbinger Shroud is for dps? I tested it against Sadistic Searing and the DPS difference was almost negligible. Thanks!

Well, Scourge is disgusting in open world (one man meta event) and it might get nerfed soon due to Lord Hizen

^^ Just be aware that while there are few classes of builds that can do that kind of thing ... they SUCK in OW because they are slow. A build that solos Legendary Bounties is not going to be efficient killing trash, Vets, doing hearts or even participating in group events. They are built to solo the hardest content. They are exceptional doing it ... but it's the only thing they are really good for.

Admittedly, when Anet puts in build templates, it will change the way the game is played and I look forward to it.

@"mizaru.1385" said:Well, Scourge is disgusting in open world (one man meta event) and it might get nerfed soon due to Lord Hizen

.. RIP Parasitic Contagion

Reaper is better in open world. Scourge is one of the slowest condi classes (too long for damage to ramp up), while reaper is one of the brustiest power builds. Scourge is ranged. That is really the only advantage here.

I tested lord hizen's scourge build, it's very strong but i'm still preferring to power because managing life force, where to place my shades, i've had so much troubles with constantly moving chanps and tho it can get the job done but the epic combat flow with scepter is what killed the hype in me.

@Obtena.7952 said:^^ Just be aware that while there are few classes of builds that can do that kind of thing ... they SUCK in OW because they are slow. A build that solos Legendary Bounties is not going to be efficient killing trash, Vets, doing hearts or even participating in group events. They are built to solo the hardest content. They are exceptional doing it ... but it's the only thing they are really good for.

Admittedly, when Anet puts in build templates, it will change the way the game is played and I look forward to it.That's it. Trailblazer (the build in the video) on any spec in open world is like watching the grass grow. You fall asleep quite fast.

It's an overpowered stat combo if you want to outsustain stuff like PvE champs or WvW encounters but not nessessarily effective at killing in an acceptable amount of time.

@Obtena.7952 said:^^ Just be aware that while there are few classes of builds that can do that kind of thing ... they SUCK in OW because they are slow. A build that solos Legendary Bounties is not going to be efficient killing trash, Vets, doing hearts or even participating in group events. They are built to solo the hardest content. They are exceptional doing it ... but it's the only thing they are really good for.

Admittedly, when Anet puts in build templates, it will change the way the game is played and I look forward to it.

That depends entirely on the build itself.There are ways to trade off some tankyness for significant gains in damage to avoid hitting like a wet noodle.

For example my Minion Master running solder stats can also manage to get enough Crit chance through Sigil and traits that when that Crit chance is converted to an equal level of precision it effectively counts as having 4 high stat investments rather than just 3, I did the math on another thread.It's still hurt by low ferocity but I can trait 300 in with shroud and use food to diminish that at least a little giving my shroud a sort of zerk mode feel.

It's by no means going to rival any DPS Necro builds but considering the severe level of tankyness it possesses it can still do a significant amount of damage compared to the level of tankyness more DPS focuses Necros have.A fair tradeoff imo.

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:^^ Just be aware that while there are few classes of builds that can do that kind of thing ... they SUCK in OW because they are slow. A build that solos Legendary Bounties is not going to be efficient killing trash, Vets, doing hearts or even participating in group events. They are built to solo the hardest content. They are exceptional doing it ... but it's the only thing they are really good for.

Admittedly, when Anet puts in build templates, it will change the way the game is played and I look forward to it.

I think you misunderstand ... for the builds I'm talking about, it doesn't. There isn't anything you can trade off on those builds to take them from Legendary Bounty killer to effective trash killer ... unless you consider trading your WHOLE build for another new one. They are specific and specialized and are garbage for anything BUT the soloing the legendary/hard single target content.

Templates, oh please, when do you come?

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:^^ Just be aware that while there are few classes of builds that can do that kind of thing ... they SUCK in OW because they are slow. A build that solos Legendary Bounties is not going to be efficient killing trash, Vets, doing hearts or even participating in group events. They are built to solo the hardest content. They are exceptional doing it ... but it's the only thing they are really good for.

Admittedly, when Anet puts in build templates, it will change the way the game is played and I look forward to it.

I cant wait for templates either ^^

I can't speak for the builds you're talking about but i've soloed legendary bounties with my MM build as well as many other group event bosses, champ bandits + executioner and Group HP challenges etc.Comparing the damage of crit Gravedigger on my MM build to it on my DPS Necro with around the same 12 stacks of Vun (Awakened soldiers were used on both)MM Gravedigger crits for around 5,300 damage with 0 ferocity where as my DPS necro crits for 14,500 ish with 1,066 ferocity.Clearly DPS Necro does more than double the damage but it is not even remotely capable of tanking anywhere near the kind of damage the MM can.

DPS Necro has high damage but low defense and no sustain.Tanky MM has average damage but exceptionally high sustain and defense.. which makes it more useful in most scenarios imo.

Should also point out that there are a lot of additional damage sources than contribute as well, each minion add's its own small pocket of damage + lifesteal which adds up when there's over 10 of them.There are a lot of poison fields too when minions die.

I found it's way faster against the giants in Elona, as they have lots of health and high armor, and a ton of annoying CC.

They are also excellent minionmancers. I can't count how many bendints and bandit executioners I've soloed so far. That's to the barrier keeping alive the minions, I've soloed everything except several pof bounties, since some of the infused abilities can make them annoyingly resilient or self-heal too much.

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:^^ Just be aware that while there are few classes of builds that can do that kind of thing ... they SUCK in OW because they are slow. A build that solos Legendary Bounties is not going to be efficient killing trash, Vets, doing hearts or even participating in group events. They are built to solo the hardest content. They are exceptional doing it ... but it's the only thing they are really good for.

Admittedly, when Anet puts in build templates, it will change the way the game is played and I look forward to it.That's it. Trailblazer (the build in the video) on any spec in open world is like watching the grass grow. You fall asleep quite fast.

I'm running Trailblazer on the armor and Viper on everything else. I haven't soloed legendaries but barring champion bounties, haven't had an issue. And haven't really had an issue with dispatching regular foes either. Drop shade, +first and third shade skills and every single regular mob is dead. I just keep walking to the next target. It pays off when I run OW group content and see people dropping around me like flies while I stay alive and doing damage. Dead dps = 0 dps

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:I've come to despise the scourge. First, because all of the skills are spammed when off cooldown, this class requires me to float my hands. It's quite painful to play. Second, it is high maintenance. A lot of your damage comes from having 3 shades up. Third, the ramp up is terrible. All of the conditions take awhile to tick away, and because of this it is a lot harder to survive in. Fourth, the scourge has very little healing, so it is easy to be whittled away.

Overall, the scourge is higher maintenance, lower damaging, slower, and more frail than the Reaper. The only advantage that scourge gets is Epidemic, which is only good in very select scenarios. Overall I've found it to be quite terrible in the overworld, as well as fractals.

I am with you on that. Scourge requires constant attention. It seems best for group support and AoE condi pressure but it has its annoyances, too. Perhaps that means it is balanced.