Jarni.7402

Have you actually ever really played scourge? If you play it right, it should be top strips in basically every fight. Most of those strips are even corrupts, like I said, not just strips. You seem to think scourge relies heavily on well of corruption, but as a main scourge I can guarantee you that that is not the case. I can play without well of corruption and still be in the top x strips (depending on who else is in the squad). There are plenty of other ways to reliably get a bunch of strips/corrupts: Trail of Anguish (don't underestimate that as a corruption skill), F2, F4 with Sigil of Absorption, F5 with the Spiteful Spirit trait, axe 3, focus 5, scepter 3 with the Lingering Curse trait, dagger 5 and Ghastly Breach. Secondly, scrapper is indeed extremely good as a secondary support and optimal to have one in each party like I said in my previous post. I don't see in what way you were trying to 'debunk' that, if at all.

Tempest is dead.It was already easily outperformed by scrapper, and then they nerfed shout targets to make sure Ele can't do anything the best. Thanks anet! Tempest cleanses more than scrapper does, assuming you are running the right build. It also offers a glyph rez. It's much stronger than scrapper at the small scale because of that. The shout nerf (which was known as going to happen for almost a year) did nothing really to affect tempests place in zergs, it was and is still about the superspeed, stealth, and condi conversion.1) Tempest doesn't cleanse more than scrapper, as other people have already explained above.2) I can't believe how no one in this discussion has yet mentioned how scrapper CONVERTS conditions into boons rather than just cleansing them. That is a big part of what makes scrapper the superior secondary support class. The same thing applies to boon strips (since I still see people arguing about spellbreaker/chronomancer vs scourge for strips): corruption from scourge is far superior to just stripping boons. Chronomancer is more of a utility bot that can also strip a lot and spellbreaker is good because the bubble is a form of area denial and because it cancels boon application leaving the affected players very vulnerable. And finally, as a reply to the original post: firebrand provides crucial boons and also helps with healing and cleansing, and scrapper provides big healing and lots of condi conversion (also usually referred to as 'cleansing') and access to group stealth. Usually you want to have both a firebrand a scrapper in each party, so you can pick either one. For a newer WvW player, scrapper may be the better option because it's easier to play and arguably less essential to keeping the party alive than firebrand (in other words: if you die as firebrand, your party is screwed. If you die as scrapper, the party can be fine without you).

Probably given the recent nerfs to support tempest, I'd say it's optimal to have a support firebrand (mostly for boons but also for healing and cleanses) and a support scrapper (for big healing, lots of condi conversion and access to stealth) in each party. Then fill up the rest of the squad with heralds, scourges, spellbreakers, chronomancers and possibly other classes depending. Spellbreaker is arguably still best with a support build in public squads because powerbreaker usually has a pretty hard time doing its job when fighting bigger zergs. However, the actual support it provides is pretty meaningsless compared to what scrapper and firebrand do for their parties. The class is pretty much there for some CC and boonstrip with the addition of some support abilities. That being said, I find it a bit strange how they nerf the weaker one of the two secondary support classes while not touching the already stronger one. It's almost as if they are actively trying to minimise the class variety in WvW.