I dont get it..everyone says condi scourge is imortal in PvE.

[Zahim.9036]

Lets start with that I'm 40+, bad with combos/rotations what not and I havent played GW2 in 8-9 years. But with lack of anything else to play I wanted to give GW2 a go again.

I am more of a solo player, enjoy the story missions, achievements, unlocking the map etc etc. So I wanted to try something considered easy. I used the boost I got with buying the expansions getting a revenant to 80 and finishing the PoF questline as a renegade. But all the switching and keeping track of energy and things like that was kind of difficult for me. Then I read that scourge was the supposed king of solo PvE and easy to play which sounded great.

 

So I started with a minion necro which was super easy. Not good dps but never really worried about dying and very few buttons to press. So after I finally unlocked scourge and bought a full set of exotic viper gear + sigils (strength/torment for weapons, tormenting on armor), I was considering getting trailblazer or celestial but people seemed to be on the opinion that was overkill since condi scourge is pretty much immortal as it is.

 

But I dont just get it..where is all the self healing/sustain suppossed to come from?  Sure I press F1 and get a small shield (around 1K), or I press F5 and get a larger shield (around 5K) . Healing wise I get like 170hp now and then from tormenting..and that seems to be it. I feel like I have less survivability compared to my renegade. I am doing the guide at https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scourge_-_Condi_Scourge and these are my stats:

https://i.imgur.com/RAf8Cb2.png

 

I feel like I need to mash a lot of buttons and keep track of a lot of things (CD's, Shades, trying to place my AoE's) while I need to be very careful at the same time. If I try a bounty monster (which I was hoping to be able to solo) I die in like 10 seconds.

 

What am I doing wrong? Shouldnt I have more self healing from somewhere? Or should I just accept that I am trash at this game if I cant even play what is suppossed to be the best solo class without dying and go play something else?

 

[The Boz.2038]

Parasitic Contagion is *huge* healing, and runes of torment are a fair bump, too. Your barriers on F1, F3 and F5, as well as the heal, are fairly thick, too. Do not replace the runes with Lich, it is a downgrade. The F1, 3 and 5 are in your normal rotation, so you're going to be mitigating pretty much every hit you take with at least some barrier.

You still need to dodge from time to time, and much of your DPS is dependant on you being in near-melee range. 

Pack Epidemic when there's multiple enemies. Never replace the signet and the Blood is Power from your build. BiP is supposed to only be used in combination with your F5, to transfer over the extra conditions, too. Note that the F5 has no cast time; it can be used in the middle of casting BiP, so that when BiP lands, it triggers the tranfer of the conditions it gives you. 

You don't need to keep track of cooldowns in your head: they're all there for you on your bar, and weapon swapping or going into different modes is not required for this build.

[Zahim.9036]

Oh I will try Parasitic Contagion. I do have the runes of torment. To get the barrier I need to stand inside the area of the shades or will I get it anyway? I know that I will get it anyway for F5 at least.

 

Appreciate the advice on BiP+F5, didnt know that it didnt have casttime. Will try swapping for Parasitic Contagion and see how it goes.

[The Boz.2038]

For the F1, you need to be in the AoE. F3 and 5 give it regardless; you count as a zeroth shade for your F2-4 skill triggers, and F5 specifically affects you.
There's a rhythm to it. Timing your Fs is fairly important. Space them out by, say, 2 seconds, but try to keep to the 2 seconds. And definitely space out your F1s, so that you don't lay down 3 back-to-back, then find yourself with just one for 20 seconds later. Doing so will regularly inflict a fair amount of burn through Dhuumfire (F2-4 trigger F1's "strike", which procs Dhuumfire). Using your F2-5 spends life force, so use your scepter 3 and torch 4 to generate some more. Outside of those two, the signet will trickle some life force to you constantly, too. Also, yes, F1 is the only F skill with a cast time; the rest are instant, and can be used while doing something else.

[draxynnic.3719]

As an observation, renegade is also known for having a lot of self-sustain in solo PvE, so going from having a bit of experience with that to a build you're less experienced with could also lead to a bit of a dip in performance, since you're probably looking at builds that are close enough that familiarity with what you're doing can make up the difference.

[LucianDK.8615]

Also, not to forget equipment. A full set of Trailblazer items for solo, adds immense survival power. Add on tormenting runes and it gets even better.

[The Boz.2038]

I wish people would stop recommending Trailblazer for PvE. It's... not good, and will nurture bad habits of facetanking and noninteraction. There's one build in the game where it shines: the Weaver. On a Necro? Surviability overkill that sacrifices a hefty amount of damage.

[Bakeneko.5826]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I wish people would stop recommending Trailblazer for PvE. It's... not good, and will nurture bad habits of facetanking and noninteraction. There's one build in the game where it shines: the Weaver. On a Necro? Surviability overkill that sacrifices a hefty amount of damage.

It is very good for open world farming. It's bad for endgame PvE, but so is Contagion and torment runes, but yet you are suggesting it

[The Boz.2038]

Contagion is a trait, you can opt out of it and into the Good Endgame DPS pick. 
Whoever told you torment runes were bad on scourge was trolling you. They are a ~3% DPS loss compared to the literal best-in-slot alternative, at most.

[LucianDK.8615]

6 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

It is very good for open world farming. It's bad for endgame PvE, but so is Contagion and torment runes, but yet you are suggesting it

 

Trailblazer excells at soloing no contest, you do not need bleeding edge dps there.

 

I always switch to viper in a group, where survability is far less of an issue.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

I want you (Zahim.9036) to answer one simple question if you're stilll not satisfied.

Do you want balls to the wall immortality, or to play a scourge? If first, I can help.

[Otto.6495]

On 2/11/2022 at 3:14 AM, The Boz.2038 said:

I wish people would stop recommending Trailblazer for PvE. It's... not good, and will nurture bad habits of facetanking and noninteraction. There's one build in the game where it shines: the Weaver. On a Necro? Surviability overkill that sacrifices a hefty amount of damage.

I totally understand this sentiment, and you're not wrong in general, but it's kinda the wrong advice in this particular case, for the person asking. He's specifically describing his situation and his limitations. He's not likely to strive to be an end game raider who will annoy you with his bad habits, he'll probably just play the game modes that he enjoys, most likely solo PVE roaming type stuff. And for that, it's totally fine if he leans on trailblazers for simplicity and comfort, and in his situation he's unlikely to even notice much of the DPS loss from going trailblazers instead of vipers.

 

One thing I will say to the OP, while some of the popular condi scourge builds can be pretty dang easy and have very high self-sustain and durability, it is not a 1 or 2 button build with passive durability. You have to play pretty actively and use all your buttons, but the reason why many people call it so easy is that you can pretty much mash the buttons in any order, and have it work out pretty well. Obviously when you are playing optimally, you're using the abilities in an intentional order and at intentional times, and that does make a difference. But just mashing buttons in any order can get you further than that would get you on most other classes/specs.

[taara.3217]

On 2/10/2022 at 7:06 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

As an observation, renegade is also known for having a lot of self-sustain in solo PvE

But I think Ren is more player`s skill-dependent spec than Scourge and from context of TS question seems it can be issue.

[Nephalem.8921]

On 2/11/2022 at 10:14 AM, The Boz.2038 said:

I wish people would stop recommending Trailblazer for PvE. It's... not good, and will nurture bad habits of facetanking and noninteraction. There's one build in the game where it shines: the Weaver. On a Necro? Surviability overkill that sacrifices a hefty amount of damage.

It costs like 6% dps max. its incredible op on condi builds.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Nephalem.8921

[Sifu.9745]

With Trailblazer or Celestial gear you loose around 10% up to 15% dmg, but you get minimum 60% surivability in return. Of course you would take Trailbalzer or Celestial, who cares about 10% dmg loss. Especially condi Scourge is the last profession who needs power stats. You absolutely don't need crit, power and ferocity at all, if Scepter is your main hand weapon.

Condi Scourge with defensive stats is probably the third most powerful solo pve profession. The first is condi Staff Mesmer (Mirage), second would be condi Renegade and the third is condi Scourge.

If you really want an easy time with rotations, not bad dmg and crazy survivability just pick up condi (full Celestial or Trailblazer)Staff Mesmer (Mirage) or condi Reengade and you would be able to solo everything with not much effort. Scourge still requieres some more "presence".

Edited February 16, 2022 by Sifu.9745

[Methuselah.4376]

With full Trailblazer's, Tormenting Runes, raid skill setup and rotation, PC instead of LC, I am really unkillable in general PvE. Of course I switch to Viper's and LC for end game content, but the OP is not asking for that. I did Arah a few weeks ago and had around 10-15 Elite Spiders on me and not only did I survive but managed to kill them all. The trick is to keep pumping out conditions and spreading them as much as you can (hence Epidemic is a great asset there) with barriers helping ensure you have that bit of extra safety net. 

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/13/2022 at 9:42 PM, taara.3217 said:

But I think Ren is more player`s skill-dependent spec than Scourge and from context of TS question seems it can be issue.

A little, but the point I was making is that they're close enough that going from some experience with tormenting condi rev to no experience with scourge might well feel like a drop in survivability in the short term, even if the player in question hadn't fully mastered the revenant mechanics.

[Puck.3697]

Trailblazer would be getting to the absolute peak of survivability. However in most cases it's not worth the trade off as it's abit overkill in defense. 

Vipers + torment runes + contagion + barrier trait will keep you up through mostly everything. 

Pretty much use barriers as much as humanly possible, use sceptre torch don't worry about weapon swap.

If your still struggling, get trailblazer, it's a DPS loss you will likely lose some but thankfully necro has high solo DPS so it won't be that bad. 

Trailblazer will cut 15% of Ur DPS but a 60% increase to your survivability effectively heightening both your HP and toughness. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[LucianDK.8615]

Trailblazer is for soloing. -15% dps is meaningless in solo.

[Puck.3697]

https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/necromancer/condition-scourge-r56/

Rune of torment gives you healing per torment application ( it's quite a expensive rune though ) 

If your still struggling swap your gear to trailblazers for added survivability. 

Rotation - sceptar + torch just press 1 to 5 in this order. Spam F1 F2 and F3 as oftenly as possible. And move out of red circles. 

Make sure to use F2 when using blood pact or plaguelands so u transfer the condis to the enemy or you will eat your own health. 

I found it extremely easy in vipers, but as a new player it's likely gonna be harder. When we say immortal we mean in a experienced players hand so it's gonna take abit of practice. 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[pcgamefreak.5208]

I dont get it..everyone says condi scourge is imortal in PvE.

That's because players lie a lot about GW2 as a game.  There's nothing imortal about the Scourge class...in fact, the closest you'll come to that is building a healing scourge with the blood spec (blood bank), along with parasitic congnition.  That will only help you survive better in PvE, there is no build for WvW other than Zerg support.  I would NOT recommend roaming with a Scourge in WvW unless you have some cheats up your sleeve.  Players will use abilities as an excuse to hide their cheating but it's evident.  For example....  A ranger can cast stealth from different sources; stealth shot, trap-set stealth and Avatar form/exit stealth.  The thing is, this stealth is only 3 seconds and does have a cool-down between each skill use.  So when you see a Stealth-Trapper-Ranger in WvW going invisible at will and remaining hidden for almost 10 seconds, appear and attack for 4 seconds and stealth again for another 10 seconds and repeat, all while teleporting to different spots after showing themselves again.....  It is completely obvious you have a cheater because they're going WAAAAAYYYY outside of what their abilities should be.  The worst part about it is the fact these players somehow assume you're going to NOT know their cheating, as if you never played their class/meta build before.  "Geezus kryst."

Just the other day I seen a Mesmer vanishing like a thief....forget clones, this Mesmer was part thief, period!  Speaking of clones, you can tell when the generated clones are a hack/bots.  If you play Mesmer in PvE as a non cheater, pay attention to how you Clones act....  Now, in WvW, a cheater can not only spawn 15 clones instantly, but the Clones act more like another player; their movement and actions are so enhanced, you'll never find the real player.  I've seen Mesmer cheaters even make their clones turn into a Tornado and circle around them really fast, killing anybody the step within.

That's a HUGE part of why WvW is not really fun like it could have been.  You have poor class balance, bad concepts but the cheaters have totally sunk that ship.  I honestly feel some of them have never even tried to play WvW without cheating.

Because of this, it's hard to say how far off the "Devs" are with class balance because when I get a 1 on 1 encounter against a non cheater, the fights are fairly even but I come out on top because I know my main class well (being playing it mostly since I started GW2).  Numerous times I've had to good fight 1 on 1 and noticed things weren't too far off as far as class balance but yeah, Necro is the weakest class right now when comparing to other classes.

When facing a cheater, you don't get a chance to observe the class matchup because the cheater is not playing normally.  For example, I had an "Ele" cheater go into this statue of liberty pose and constantly cast this ENORMOUS AOE ability (most likely several abilities as one), which kept me constantly "CC'ed" and dealing damage at the same time. The AOE was too big to get out of and when I say too big, you could have put at least 3 50 man Zergs in this one AOE area!

You can't find out about how balanced classes are when you encounter a cheater like that and sadly, they're are A LOT of cheaters in WvW.  Just the other day, I was hitting this Ranger with siege who was inside SMC on the outer while while I was bombing him from the inner wall. This ranger did not move from the spot.  Every hit I gave him, took away over half his health, so two hits and he's dead, right?  NOPE!  This ranger was casting full heals everytime he got hit with siege, which explains why he was acting brave enough to wonder into SMC alone against a truck load of enemies.

Yeah, the cheaters are the most brave players in WvW, who don't care about running right into the middle of a Zerg because they know that can't be killed anyway and it's these players who will appear out of nowhere and attack you while roaming in WvW most of the time.  You'll be dealing damage to these players with a power meta build, but they won't take a scratch, all while cutting through you as if you have zero toughness.

It's funny how these cheaters want to talk about skill....  For starters, it doesn't take skill to get an ascension or "legie" set of gear and prepare it for a Meta.  It doesn't take skills to understand what your traits are going to give you, based on what you're trying to be, Meta build wise.  It doesn't take skill to click actions at the right time.  If that was the case, then why are so many hacking/cheating?

Guildwars to is NOT a skill based mmorpg!  I've played a 100 percent manual skill based mmorpg, that did not even have stats on gear and click based cool-down actions and that's a different ball game from what you get in GW2 or World of Warcraft type mmorpgs.

The only real play skills I see in WvW is the ability to cheat and with that being the bottomline, I would say about 90 percent of the players in WvW are the Best players ever!

 

"typos" suck,

Peace

 

 

 

 

[Lily.1935]

Scourge can be a finicky elite spec to play. It has some quarks to it which can prevent its shades from casting and using certain setting can easy this a bit. If you don't have a gaming mouse it can also influence how you play it since if you're using default set up you'll be struggling with using skills on the move which can be vital to survival. Scourge requires a bit more area awareness to really get the most out of it which is extremely easy to do for some people, and hard to do for others.

I've played with a lot of people over the years with many of them saying scourge is the easiest thing they've ever played in GW2. I've also played with a lot of people who say its impossible for them to play it in anything. And it really depends on how you process information and how your game is set up. For me, a repeating pattern is like child's play to me. So as long as I know a rotation for a build I can execute it near perfectly or perfectly. So I had a much easier time learning something like Condi Kits holosmith back in the day which was considered one of the hardest builds at the time and it recently got revived. But that was easier for me to understand than Scourge. But I found scourge more fun because things I'm good at I find boring, ironically. Scourge requires me to think on the fly a bit more which forces me to adjust to the situation more. Rotations have some of that, but for me, its just finding a reenter point if the rotation is broken and then its just repeating the pattern.

Different brains will view these things differently and find some things easier or harder. I'm neurodivergent so that might be why its different for me.

If you're struggling with scourge, it might be that the concepts don't quite line up with how you conceptualize information and it might not be the right build for you. You want something easier with a soft rotation? Reaper can both be extremely tanky and give you a lot to work with. You don't have to keep track of shades and you can reduce the need for keeping track of more skills by running a signet valkyrie build. Although I wouldn't say the berserker build is much harder to run because it isn't. You don't even need to swap off greatsword if you don't want to. And the Valkyrie build can camp in reaper's shroud for an extremely long time.

If you're heart is set on running scourge though, like mine was, There are some things you can do to help. First adjust your key bindings so that your shade 1 skill is easy to cast. If you don't want to have to manually place shades you can have it set to auto cast at the feet of your target. Perhaps you're strange like I am and like Action camera. This will allow you to cast the shades at the crosshair which I find extremely helpful. Play around with the settings and see what's comfortable for you.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Not immortal, but you should die of boredom before your character.

[The Boz.2038]

A full-glass viper-nightmare scourge in PvE is the most immortal spec of all other endgame-ready DPS specs. The only other ones to come close are Mechanist and maybe Firebrand.

[The Boz.2038]

nm, I just read the rest of that post
Lol.
Say no to drugs, kids!