Scourge Condition Build Discussion (PvE)

VodCom.6924 · September 12, 2017

@Kam.4092 said:A ton of our DPS is from Sand Shade skills, this is horrible advice. We will need to be casting them to maintain support and DPS. Since we will be spamming Sand Shade skill, then Main Hand Dagger will be best for Life Force.

What shade skills contribute to your dps ? Just your F1 (that does not consume life force), your F5 (a very nice DPS increase costing 3.6K LF on a 20sec CD) and your F4 (with terrifying descent, costing 4.6k LF on 15sec CD). The contribution of your F4 is miserable and you should delay it to CC an enemy instead. This leaves us with the F5 that is sustainable if you can generate 3.6k LF every 20sec.

With the current condi reaper metabuild you sit at around 16.6k LF. I expect the same number for a condi scourge. Scepter gives you 13% of your total lifeforce pool every 10sec, that's 2.1k LF every 10sec meaning around 4.2k by the time your desert shroud is recharged. More than enough to sustain it.

I don't see why you want to use a dagger in your main hand at any point while playing the condi scourge. It is unneeded. You could swap out a util (the poison cloud for example) to get more LF and have more leeway with the F4 and F3 but I don't see any use in dagger.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180 · September 12, 2017

@VodCom.6924 said:
@Kam.4092 said:A ton of our DPS is from Sand Shade skills, this is horrible advice. We will need to be casting them to maintain support and DPS. Since we will be spamming Sand Shade skill, then Main Hand Dagger will be best for Life Force.

What shade skills contribute to your dps ? Just your F1 (that does not consume life force), your F5 (a very nice DPS increase costing 3.6K LF on a 20sec CD) and your F4 (with terrifying descent, costing 4.6k LF on 15sec CD). The contribution of your F4 is miserable and you should delay it to CC an enemy instead. This leaves us with the F5 that is sustainable if you can generate 3.6k LF every 20sec.

With the current condi reaper metabuild you sit at around 16.6k LF. I expect the same number for a condi scourge. Scepter gives you 13% of your total lifeforce pool every 10sec, that's 2.1k LF every 10sec meaning around 4.2k by the time your desert shroud is recharged. More than enough to sustain it.

I don't see why you want to use a dagger in your main hand at any point while playing the condi scourge. It is unneeded. You could swap out a util (the poison cloud for example) to get more LF and have more leeway with the F4 and F3 but I don't see any use in dagger.

...Did you even play Scourge? They ALL contribute to DPS because each time you use any of them, each placed shade pulses an attack. That attack triggers Dhuumfire, btw, so it's a very significant portion of our DPS.

Sigmoid.7082 · September 12, 2017

@VodCom.6924 said:With the current condi reaper metabuild you sit at around 16.6k LF. I expect the same number for a condi scourge. Scepter gives you 13% of your total lifeforce pool every 10sec, that's 2.1k LF every 10sec meaning around 4.2k by the time your desert shroud is recharged. More than enough to sustain it.

Just want to point out that if you take soul reaping, which of course you will for Dhuumfire, you will end up picking up VP for the extra HP and cooldown. This puts DS at a 16s cooldown. You would need to scepter #3 twice to get enough LF to cast it. This effectively puts its cooldown back at a pre VP state unless you use other modifiers.

Also it completely locks you out of using any of the other shade skills else you will no have enough LF for it. Considering again that they will all proc dhuumfire you would be at a loss of roughly 1.0~2.0 coefficients of power damage, 1 stack of torment, and 1 stack of burning ( 2 if demonic lore is off cooldown since using shade skills constantly means you will always proc is on its cooldown. ) You would lose this realistically every 4 and 6.4s.

VodCom.6924 · September 12, 2017

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:
@VodCom.6924 said:
@Kam.4092 said:A ton of our DPS is from Sand Shade skills, this is horrible advice. We will need to be casting them to maintain support and DPS. Since we will be spamming Sand Shade skill, then Main Hand Dagger will be best for Life Force.

What shade skills contribute to your dps ? Just your F1 (that does not consume life force), your F5 (a very nice DPS increase costing 3.6K LF on a 20sec CD) and your F4 (with terrifying descent, costing 4.6k LF on 15sec CD). The contribution of your F4 is miserable and you should delay it to CC an enemy instead. This leaves us with the F5 that is sustainable if you can generate 3.6k LF every 20sec.

With the current condi reaper metabuild you sit at around 16.6k LF. I expect the same number for a condi scourge. Scepter gives you 13% of your total lifeforce pool every 10sec, that's 2.1k LF every 10sec meaning around 4.2k by the time your desert shroud is recharged. More than enough to sustain it.

I don't see why you want to use a dagger in your main hand at any point while playing the condi scourge. It is unneeded. You could swap out a util (the poison cloud for example) to get more LF and have more leeway with the F4 and F3 but I don't see any use in dagger.

...Did you even play Scourge? They

ALL

contribute to DPS because each time you use any of them, each placed shade pulses an attack. That attack triggers Dhuumfire, btw, so it's a very significant portion of our DPS.

Yep. And I also did some math. And math says you can't sustain mindless spam of shade skills You don't need to be a genius to understand that being able to spam barrier, cleanse, fear and damage all at once on a vast area is beyond broken. Any build that focuses on condition damage will have to rely on the F1 and F5 alone. Again, don't blame me just blame the math.

tboneking.2531 · September 12, 2017

So I think a helpful approach for theory-crafting the scourge is if we recognize that playing condi Scourge is a balancing act between two truths:

Using your Scourge skills will always be a DPS increase due to the fact that F2-F5 procs your F1 to pulse.
Sources of LF generation are often DPS losses. Therefore our job is to...Find an amount of life force generation that supports our use of Scourge skills. This amount will vary based on how many of the Scourge skills you use off CD. I personally will be using Scepter 3, Dessicate, and Staff + Soul Marks. My hypothesis is that as long as while I am on staff, as long as I avoid using the auto attack, this will not be a significant DPS loss due to the marks all causing conditions (even skill 4 will when you transfer the self inflicted condis from corruption skills to your enemy). This should allow for more Scourge skill uptime than relegating myself to only F1 and F5 while still applying conditions.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180 · September 12, 2017

@tboneking.2531 said:So I think a helpful approach for theory-crafting the scourge is if we recognize that playing condi Scourge is a balancing act between two truths:
Using your Scourge skills will always be a DPS increase due to the fact that F2-F5 procs your F1 to pulse.
Sources of LF generation are often DPS losses. Therefore our job is to...Find an amount of life force generation that supports our use of Scourge skills. This amount will vary based on how many of the Scourge skills you use off CD. I personally will be using Scepter 3, Dessicate, and Staff + Soul Marks. My hypothesis is that as long as while I am on staff, as long as I avoid using the auto attack, this will not be a significant DPS loss due to the marks all causing conditions (even skill 4 will when you transfer the self inflicted condis from corruption skills to your enemy). This should allow for more Scourge skill uptime than relegating myself to only F1 and F5 while still applying conditions.

You want to use Shadow Fiend instead of Dessicate. Same life force gain, but better DPS and you don't take time off from your rotation to get the life force.

Drawing Guy.3701 · September 13, 2017

As others have mentioned, scepter faces the issue of having poor LF gain, and their is a line where the gain of Shade DPS due to more LF gain is greater than the loss of Scepter DPS. Dagger passes that line, Staff unquestionable passes that line in multiple target situations, and it would take some number crunching to see if Axe passes that line.

Soul Reaping will essentially be a core line for most Scourge builds for Dhuumfire and VP cooldowns, so let's due some basic pre-live vacuum math! Note that this does not take into account after cast delays, whether casting skills during Desert Shroud even works, or other minor factors. This is simply early theory crafting to establish scope. I round down in all cases, so weapons like Axe or Warhorn show lower than what they really are over time.

How much Life Force would a Scourge spend spamming Shade skills over a minute?

Nefarious Favor - 4s CD traited - 1382 LF cost :: can cast ~15 times in 1 minSand Cascade - 6.4s CD traited - 2487 LF cost :: can cast ~9 times in 1 minGarish Pillar - 12s CD traited - 4606 LF cost :: can cast ~5 times in 1 minDesert Shroud - 16s CD traited - 3685 LF cost :: can cast 3-4 times in 1 min

(1382 15) + (2487 9) + (4606 5) + (3685 3) = 77,198

Your Life Force pool is affected by Vitality, so these numbers will also be affected by this, but to keep math simple and closer to a glass cannon build of 16,674

Over a 1 minute, the following weapons can gain:Dagger: 2.04s for attack cycle, 8% LF gain over attack cycle + .8% from Gluttony. 8.8% 16,674 = 1467 LF 29 attack cycles per min = 42,543 LF per min

Staff: 1.32s for attack cycle, 4% LF per attack + .4% from Gluttony. 4.4% 16,674 = 733 LF 45 attacks per min = 32,985 LF per min. This can be increased greatly by multiple targets.** Soul Marks is a LF gain on single targets, but loss as soon as you can hit 2+ targets with auto as you can't proc Mark LF more than once. Though using staff, you'll likely want this ability to keep LF up while using other skills. Too lazy to actually calculate this.

Axe: Gluttony gives 12% LF on an 8s CD. This can be traited to 6.4s, but Spite is in competition with Curses. 12% + 1.2% from Gluttony. 13.2% * 16,674 = 2,200.

Traited: 2,200 * 9 casts per min = 19,800 LF per min
Untraited: 2,200 * 7 casts per min = 15,400 LF per min

Scepter: 8% base + 1% per condi (5 cap) on 10s CD. 8.8 - 14.3% with Gluttony. 8.8% 16,674 = 1467. 14.3% 16,674 = 2,384. 6 casts per min give a range of 8,802 - 14,304 per min.

Offhand options:Focus: 3% number of targets hit (up to 5, and as it can self-bounce, is effective even on single target unless too far away) on a 15s CD. Can be traited to 12s with Spite, making it a good combo if building for Axe. 3.3 16,674 = 550 * 5 bounces = 2,750 LF.

Traited: 2,750 * 5 casts per min = 13,750 per min
Untraited: 2,750 * 4 casts per min = 11,000 per min

Warhorn: 1.5% number of targets hit 10 procs untrated and 15 traited on a 30s CD untraited or 24s CD Traited. This gives quite the range of potential on this skill. 1.6% * 16,674 = 266 LF per tick.

Traited: 266 15 ticks = 3,990 2 casts per min = 7,980 LF per min (multiplied by however many targets in melee range)
Untraited: 266 10 ticks = 2,660 2 casts per min = 5,320 LF per min (multiplied by however many targets in melee range)

This means the optimal LF gain on a single target is Dagger + Focus with Dagger + Warhorn swap. Though offhand gains would need to be calculated against offhand DPS options like Dagger and Torch as well.

Traited, Axe + Focus is stronger single target ranged LF gain than Staff, while Staff wins if Axe and Focus are not traited. Staff is best LF gain overall if you can hit multiple targets with auto often enough.

The only situation where Scepter can compete in the LF gain field is when used in swap-heavy rotations on targets with 5+ conditions as the 10s weapon swap CD would negate the Axe CD advantages. However losing Dagger auto is a huge LF loss even with the burst LF that Axe or Scepter can get, so as long as the Shade DPS loss would outweigh any DPS gain of Scepter, it becomes more of a question of how often can you not be in Melee range.

I'm definitely curious to see how Axe and its better Shade DPS would compete against Scepter for mid-range fights. Spite vs Curses would also likely play a large factor in this.

Lily.1935 · September 13, 2017

my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e

Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand Shades will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.

I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.

Kam.4092 · September 13, 2017

@Lily.1935 said:my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e
Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.
I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.

Good points. The Fell Beacon Trait does change things a lot when gearing. It actually creates more min maxing in a Raid environment.

I mainly do Fractals and Open World stuff, so having 100% Duration for me outside of group settings is something I'd want.

Also when it comes to Smoldering Sigils, I think it's arguably more DPS to just use Trapper/Nightmare Runes to be able run Geomancy Sigils. Having Geomancy on swap is 3 Bleeding stacks.

Kam.4092 · September 13, 2017

@Lily.1935 said:my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e
Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.
I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.

I replaced the Malice Sigils with Earth Sigils in my first build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArY4fnE9CN9iV3Ae3A83gFhBjaKkF6V6119agNKAkAeAA-jBSFQBjUJY/U/BAPBAls8w12BohK/an+hEcSACAkAsL1l6SdJY8EPxT8EPxjrT8EPxTX2ldZXGPxT8IFwi6tA-e

It would be around 85% Condition Duration, but you'd hit 100% with Sand Shades and buffs.

Having this setup would do more DPS than yours. I forgot about how Fell Beacon scaled off of total Condition

AngelicLoki.1625 · September 13, 2017

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:
@tboneking.2531 said:So I think a helpful approach for theory-crafting the scourge is if we recognize that playing condi Scourge is a balancing act between two truths:
Using your Scourge skills will always be a DPS increase due to the fact that F2-F5 procs your F1 to pulse.
Sources of LF generation are often DPS losses. Therefore our job is to...Find an amount of life force generation that supports our use of Scourge skills. This amount will vary based on how many of the Scourge skills you use off CD. I personally will be using Scepter 3, Dessicate, and Staff + Soul Marks. My hypothesis is that as long as while I am on staff, as long as I avoid using the auto attack, this will not be a significant DPS loss due to the marks all causing conditions (even skill 4 will when you transfer the self inflicted condis from corruption skills to your enemy). This should allow for more Scourge skill uptime than relegating myself to only F1 and F5 while still applying conditions.

You want to use Shadow Fiend instead of Dessicate. Same life force gain, but better DPS and you don't take time off from your rotation to get the life force.

Though remember Dessicate procs sadistic searing trait. That's such a "meh" trait though that one of the other two is probably better for DPS even.

Lily.1935 · September 13, 2017

@Kam.4092 said:
@Lily.1935 said:my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e
Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.
I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.

I replaced the Malice Sigils with Earth Sigils in my first build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArY4fnE9CN9iV3Ae3A83gFhBjaKkF6V6119agNKAkAeAA-jBSFQBjUJY/U/BAPBAls8w12BohK/an+hEcSACAkAsL1l6SdJY8EPxT8EPxjrT8EPxTX2ldZXGPxT8IFwi6tA-e

It would be around 85% Condition Duration, but you'd hit 100% with Sand kitten and buffs.

Having this setup would do more DPS than yours. I forgot about how Fell Beacon scaled off of total Condition

The issue I'm seeing with earth is the trigger chance. You'll be at about 50% chance if you have allies bringing fury to share in A good situation and closer to 30% most the time. Not only that the scourge is a mid to backline fighter which leaves me feeling g that geomancy won't have the same impact as it would on condo reaper.

My choice in staff is that although dagger does have higher life force gain against single targets, staff easily out paces it in group right situations such as fractals, dungeons and open world. As I've said though. Staff isn't worth it for raids since you won't often be in those situations.

kKagari.6804 · September 13, 2017

What the heck is being censored after saying sand? sand shade? sand sage?

Kam.4092 · September 13, 2017

@Lily.1935 said:
@Kam.4092 said:
@Lily.1935 said:my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e
Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.
I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.

I replaced the Malice Sigils with Earth Sigils in my first build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArY4fnE9CN9iV3Ae3A83gFhBjaKkF6V6119agNKAkAeAA-jBSFQBjUJY/U/BAPBAls8w12BohK/an+hEcSACAkAsL1l6SdJY8EPxT8EPxjrT8EPxTX2ldZXGPxT8IFwi6tA-e

It would be around 85% Condition Duration, but you'd hit 100% with Sand kitten and buffs.

Having this setup would do more DPS than yours. I forgot about how Fell Beacon scaled off of total Condition

The issue I'm seeing with earth is the trigger chance. You'll be at about 50% chance if you have allies bringing fury to share in A good situation and closer to 30% most the time. Not only that the scourge is a mid to backline fighter which leaves me feeling g that geomancy won't have the same impact as it would on condo reaper.

My choice in staff is that although dagger does have higher life force gain against single targets, staff easily out paces it in group right situations such as fractals, dungeons and open world. As I've said though. Staff isn't worth it for raids since you won't often be in those situations.

I don't get what you mean by mid backline fighter. In Raids you'll be stacked for buffs, so Geomancy will be used every swap. Earth is a widely used Sigil in many Condition builds. Sand Shade skills also trigger off of your character. So when you stand on something it does damage with the Shade. This also works without a Shade. You can cast the abilities, and your character will do an animation around itself doing damage and conditions. Being melee will be important.

I don't know if people tested it, but I did. You can cast Sand Shade skills without having any summoned, and still do damage. The Sand Shade combined with our characters do double attacks. That's why we will need to be in melee anyway for max DPS.

Also most builds have things you can change. Like you could switch Earth out, and add Bursting for what I linked, or do whatever.

Zefiris.8297 · September 13, 2017

@VodCom.6924 said:
@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:
@VodCom.6924 said:
@Kam.4092 said:A ton of our DPS is from Sand Shade skills, this is horrible advice. We will need to be casting them to maintain support and DPS. Since we will be spamming Sand Shade skill, then Main Hand Dagger will be best for Life Force.

What shade skills contribute to your dps ? Just your F1 (that does not consume life force), your F5 (a very nice DPS increase costing 3.6K LF on a 20sec CD) and your F4 (with terrifying descent, costing 4.6k LF on 15sec CD). The contribution of your F4 is miserable and you should delay it to CC an enemy instead. This leaves us with the F5 that is sustainable if you can generate 3.6k LF every 20sec.

With the current condi reaper metabuild you sit at around 16.6k LF. I expect the same number for a condi scourge. Scepter gives you 13% of your total lifeforce pool every 10sec, that's 2.1k LF every 10sec meaning around 4.2k by the time your desert shroud is recharged. More than enough to sustain it.

I don't see why you want to use a dagger in your main hand at any point while playing the condi scourge. It is unneeded. You could swap out a util (the poison cloud for example) to get more LF and have more leeway with the F4 and F3 but I don't see any use in dagger.

...Did you even play Scourge? They

ALL

contribute to DPS because each time you use any of them, each placed shade pulses an attack. That attack triggers Dhuumfire, btw, so it's a very significant portion of our DPS.

Yep. And I also did some math. And math says you can't sustain mindless spam of shade skills You don't need to be a genius to understand that being able to spam barrier, cleanse, fear and damage all at once on a vast area is beyond broken. Any build that focuses on condition damage will have to rely on the F1 and F5 alone. Again, don't blame me just blame the math.

Instead of math in a vacuum you should have actually tested scourge. If you had, you'd have realized that using dagger/X and scepter/X allows you to use F5 on cooldown, as well as frequent F2 and even F3 usage. This is not mindless spam, and works. Relying on F1 and F5 only is a bad, bad, terrible idea that ultimately lowers your DPS significantly below what using dagger/x and F2/F3 alongside F1/F5 does. It is also a much more skillful playstyle to be able to use timed F2/F3s alongside your other arsenal...

...while just using F1 and F5 on cooldown seems boring. Boring and ineffective.

Lily.1935 · September 13, 2017

@Kam.4092 said:
@Lily.1935 said:
@Kam.4092 said:
@Lily.1935 said:my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e
Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.
I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.

I replaced the Malice Sigils with Earth Sigils in my first build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArY4fnE9CN9iV3Ae3A83gFhBjaKkF6V6119agNKAkAeAA-jBSFQBjUJY/U/BAPBAls8w12BohK/an+hEcSACAkAsL1l6SdJY8EPxT8EPxjrT8EPxTX2ldZXGPxT8IFwi6tA-e

It would be around 85% Condition Duration, but you'd hit 100% with Sand kitten and buffs.

Having this setup would do more DPS than yours. I forgot about how Fell Beacon scaled off of total Condition

The issue I'm seeing with earth is the trigger chance. You'll be at about 50% chance if you have allies bringing fury to share in A good situation and closer to 30% most the time. Not only that the scourge is a mid to backline fighter which leaves me feeling g that geomancy won't have the same impact as it would on condo reaper.

My choice in staff is that although dagger does have higher life force gain against single targets, staff easily out paces it in group right situations such as fractals, dungeons and open world. As I've said though. Staff isn't worth it for raids since you won't often be in those situations.

I don't get what you mean by mid backline fighter. In Raids you'll be stacked for buffs, so Geomancy will be used every swap. Earth is a widely used Sigil in many Condition builds. Sand Shade skills also trigger off of your character. So when you stand on something it does damage with the Shade. This also works without a Shade. You can cast the abilities, and your character will do an animation around itself doing damage and conditions. Being melee will be important.

I don't know if people tested it, but I did. You can cast Sand Shade skills without having any summoned, and still do damage. The Sand Shade combined with our characters do double attacks. That's why we will need to be in melee anyway for max DPS.

Also most builds have things you can change. Like you could switch Earth out, and add Bursting for what I linked, or do whatever.

In some fights you can do that, but not all. The scourge doesn't have the same kind of defenses as the reaper does, their barrier, although similar, doesn't have damage reduction to my knowledge. 2K barrier might only be worth 1K life force. Something you'll have to keep in mind.

Zefiris.8297 · September 13, 2017

@Lily.1935 said:Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that.

It's 15 Expertise for 1% condi duration, meaning one shade is 5% condi duration. The problem is that we cannot keep up three shades. It's simply not possible to do, due to the ammo recharge mechanic.

Realistically, you can keep up 1-2 shades, so 5-10% duration from em. This means it is indeed possible to cap all condis with food and viper gear.

Vitali.5039 · September 13, 2017

Shroud VS KittenFight!https://imgur.com/a/ftsbu

Kam.4092 · September 13, 2017

@Vitali.5039 said:Shroud VS KittenFight!https://imgur.com/a/ftsbu

Yeah, there must be a forum bug >_>

kKagari.6804 · September 13, 2017

shades <- testing censor. Ok, apparently the plural of shade is censored. SMH.

wait what? now its not censored.

shades. Oh wait, it censors after I refresh the page, but uncensors when i edit. lol

Kam.4092 · September 13, 2017

@Lily.1935 said:
@Kam.4092 said:
@Lily.1935 said:
@Kam.4092 said:
@Lily.1935 said:my build has some similarities but I think you are underestimating something that you're not accounting for. And that's the addition of other professions as well as Might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnE9CV3gN3AO9Cs9iFhBLKAkAeA6119aglqKkF6VA-jBjAQBR7JBEw9H4wBEAg6LApyvBcACAwJAwmKB3jGEQcAEgo6Pd4QAEAIBY8IeEPxDxT8EPxzusL7yusL7SXn4Jein4Jein4Jein4RKAI2bB-e
Here's my build. Now let me express something to you. The Sand kitten will be giving you 75 expertise each for a total of 225. That's quite a bit, about 10% I believe? correct me if I'm wrong it could be higher than that. But also you have to note that the trait Fell Beacon combos with your Condition damage. So Might actually increases your condition duration by about 4%. Now lets add in other professions. Engineer gives a Passive 150 condition damage and warrior's Banner of Strength also grants a 170 condition damage. Think about that, you Shouldn't need those Runes to hit the cap. You can use berserker runes and still hit 100%. The reason I didn't take sigil of earth in favor of Smoldering is because I don't plan and weapon swapping all that much and I don't get the "On entering shroud bonus." I'd normally get. But to add to that, getting that bleeding and burning to 100% is extremely important.
I will admit I can see the argument for torment's duration. But I think more testing will need to be done on that. We'll see. And as for the staff? Oh, that can be replaced with warhorn for raids. I personally prefer staff in Open world, Dungeons and fractals on a necromancer. Especially considering how life force starved the scourge will be and how well it handles large mobs.