Some Scourge Suggestions to improve build diversity

[Lily.1935]

Scourge is my favorite elite spec currently in GW2. I think its design and play style is just excellent. Full of flavor and clearly the devs put a lot of work into it before release. That isn't to say its perfect, because it isn't. Currently in PvE for example it has one viable build it can use and some niche builds which seldom see use. With this post I'm going to attempt to suggest some changes to scourge to help open up its design to new builds for support and clean up its DPS build a bit more.

Punishment Skill Changes
To start us off I'll be tweaking a few of the punishment skills to help them become real options for both DPS and Support. Giving them a little more utility as well. Not all Punishment skills will be changed so I'll only be listing the ones changed.

• Sand Flare: Added, Grants Barrier to up to 4 other allies. Around 500 without investment into healing power. This might seem like an odd change considering the ability to grant barrier on this skill was removed, however this was a change I personally never cared for. Reducing the overall barrier given to allies would have been better so putting this around 500 seems appropriate. This does mean that abrasive grit wont be giving sand flare the ability to grant barrier.
• Desiccate: Added, 5 seconds of one stack of burning for 5 seconds to each foe struck and grants allies 5 seconds of fury. I thought about giving this 2 stacks of burning but the math puts it at a bit too high combine with Sadistic searing so I thought it would be best to avoid giving it too much considering that trait's changes later in the post.
• Serpent Siphon: Changed to an AoE which pulses for 3 seconds inflicting poison for 3 seconds each pulse and around 250 barrier each pulse. 240 Radius. This skill doesn't do much as it is now so I'm lowering the overall barrier it gives and increasing the poison damage overall since its now easier to benefit from.
• Sand Swell: Give it a short evade when casting along with making it so you don't need line of sight to teleport like a normal shadow step. Mostly a utility change for this. Some defensive since getting knocked out of an animation can be an issue. This would allow for a bit more use as an escape for Scourge which would be nice considering how slow they tend to be.
• Ghastly Breach: Reduce cooldown in PvE from 75 to 40 and have it pulse stability in addition to might. The first very extreme changes in this post. This puts this firmly as a premium choice for PvE support and a good option for DPS.

Shade skill changes
Two changes I'll be suggesting here and these will come back so don't worry about it too much. These changes are just something I'm putting down to help differentiate support and DPS. Although they can still mix that is part of my goal.

• Nefarious Favor: Converts a condition into a boon on yourself. Dropping the up to 3 allies on this so this can be a part of a trait rather than baseline.
• Sand Cascade: Grants barrier to yourself. Dropping the up to 3 allies on this so it can be part of a trait rather than baseline.

Trait Changes
Now I'm going to get into the meat of this post. The traits. This is a tough one because what I'm trying to accomplish with these changes it to create 3 unique builds. Hybrid Healer Condi DPS, Healer Alacrity and Condi DPS. To achieve this I need to make some weird choices. But before that One thing I'm going to change is the cooldown reduction traits will be rolled into baseline.

• Abrasive Grit: Nefarious Favor now converts a condition into a boon on up to 4 other allies and Sand Cascade grants barrier to 4 other allies. Here is where I give their AoE use back. Now you have to make a choice. Lose out on fell beacon and DPS for this or be more selfish.
• Fell Beacon: Condition damage converted to expertise 7%. Gain 2% additional life force when using a torch skill. A little bit of a bonus. I didn't want to give it more damage because I feel sadistic searing is already going to be giving enough damage so some lifeforce would be nice.
• Sadistic Searing: Punishment skills cause your next cast of manifest sand shade to cause burning for 4 seconds and each active shade grants 40 condition damage. This is probably the hardest part to balance. Originally I wanted it to be 60 condition damage but that would put scourge's DPS a bit too high so 40 I think is the right number. With the other buffs to Punishment skills I can see scourge using desiccate as their preferred choice along side Blood is power and Signet of Undeath.
• Herald of Sorrow: When you corrupt a boon, corrupt it into crippling and burning instead. Make this more in line with the boon corruption side of this second so its a choice to take. Now your corruption is always damaging but you have less cover conditions with it. A trade off which might be worth it or might not.
• Desert Empowerment: Manifest Sand Shade(or Manifest Sand Spirit) grants up to 5 allies barrier. Outgoing barrier is improved 100%. This might be a bit strong, so 100% might need to be lowered, but this should be okay considering most the outgoing barrier I've introduced is fairly low on its own. For WvW and PvP this probably would need to be 50%.
• Sand Savant: Manifest Sand Shade becomes Manifest Sand Spirit which you can only summon one at a time, Desert shroud becomes Sandstorm shroud. I'll go into detail about what this means in a moment. But two skills being changed means what they do changes.

Sand Savant Skills
These skills don't pulse damage. They are strictly for support. So by taking sand savant you are seriously hurting your damage output. But you gain something in return. Access to some quality boons like Alacrity, Regen and Protection.

• Manifest Sand Spirit: Summon a Single larger shade which counts as 3 Radius increase from Sand Shade by 120. When you activate a shade ability grant up to 5 allies around you or your shade 2 seconds of Regeneration and 1.5 seconds of Alacrity. 10 second cooldown. Do note that all shade skills will trigger this. The duration looks low but it shouldn't be too hard to get 100% up time of alacrity with boon gear.
• Sandstorm Shroud: Enter a shroud which Pulses out barrier and protection to up to 5 allies within its radius for 7 seconds. Barrier is around 200 per pulse and 1 second of protection. Low overall barrier but I want you to take Desert empowerment with this to really push out a lot more support for allies.

Something to note is that with the Sand Savant changes I'm suggesting I'm trying to suggest that the number of allies which it hits are capped at 5 to follow Arena net's rule on supportive buffs. If it doesn't read that way, I apologize, but that is what I"m trying to suggest.

In the post I suggested I wanted to create 3 builds and it might not be so obvious at first glance how that's possible with these suggestions. First what we see is that you could completely ignore Sand Savant and take the other 2 traits in that line and use demonic lore for a DPS healer. Granted it doesn't currently have the right armor to work, but you'd get a good amount of support but not a great amount of Boons. While going full in the top traits you'd get access to some nice defensive boons. Overall we have about a high DPS scourge, a Lower DPS Healer scourge and a Heal alacrity scourge with this set up. There are other changes I'd like to see with core necromancer like with blood and death which I feel could diversify the scourge even more but this is about it what I'd like to see for them.

Let me know what y'all think. Too much, too little? What else would you change, would you perhaps go a different direction?

Edited April 26, 2023 by Lily.1935

[Zex Anthon.8673]

Scourge needs its barrier back. They nerfed it because it was providing too much support for free. But when they fixed that problem they never readjusted for self barrier.

Currently on dps stats if you use all your barrier skills you get a maximum of 5000 barrier on a 20+s cooldown...

 Desert shroud alone only provides 2000 barrier and it costs 5000 life force, is primarily a dps skill, and has a long cd

How the kitten is scourge meant to play competitively if it has zero defense and no sustain like harbinger?

[Lily.1935]

5 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

Scourge needs its barrier back. They nerfed it because it was providing too much support for free. But when they fixed that problem they never readjusted for self barrier.

Currently on dps stats if you use all your barrier skills you get a maximum of 5000 barrier on a 20+s cooldown...

 Desert shroud alone only provides 2000 barrier and it costs 5000 life force, is primarily a dps skill, and has a long cd

How the kitten is scourge meant to play competitively if it has zero defense and no sustain like harbinger?

Although it wasn't the focus I did address some of that. Desert empowerment and Sand Swell both offer more defense. 50% increase barrier in PvP along with Sand Swell being an evade and shadow step would help with that at least somewhat.

[Nimon.7840]

If you put a shade down and press F2 or F3 that wouldn't have any effect other than the shade strike. Seems a bit weird and weak.

 

But I definetly agree that scourge needs some kind of rework(s).

To make it less op in niche situations (rezz capabilities) and give it a more broader usage while also differentiating more between a dps and a support build.

 

[Lily.1935]

6 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

If you put a shade down and press F2 or F3 that wouldn't have any effect other than the shade strike. Seems a bit weird and weak.

 

But I definetly agree that scourge needs some kind of rework(s).

To make it less op in niche situations (rezz capabilities) and give it a more broader usage while also differentiating more between a dps and a support build.

 

Still removes a condition from yourself or grant yourself barrier. So it still has an effect.

I think the core of the scourge is solid. But yeah, that's what the post is about.

[anbujackson.9564]

Well now that every spec deals 40k+ dps, it probably wouldnt even matter if scourge got both more dps and more barrier back via balance changes.

Quite frankly, only one of the two and some additional changes to traits (looking at you master tier) and utilities (especially that worthless heal skill, kitten..) would be enough. 

Who bothers to cheese content with scourges anymore if every class and spec is powercrept anyway?

[Nimon.7840]

I really don't get it.

Why people still can't figure out, that scourge even with "only" 35k dps is in a very good spot?

Yes you won't see it being played by Speedrun groups, that are looking to beat records for single bosses, but it's very good anywhere else.

- fully ranged -> high dps uptime

- very free in utility choices, and has natural utility from f2 and rezz signet

- can bring a lot of cc

- can even bring blood magic for bigger dps loss

 

It's enough for a profession to have one big power dps and one big condi dps, multiple aren't needed.

 

 

[Lily.1935]

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

I really don't get it.

Why people still can't figure out, that scourge even with "only" 35k dps is in a very good spot?

Yes you won't see it being played by Speedrun groups, that are looking to beat records for single bosses, but it's very good anywhere else.

- fully ranged -> high dps uptime

- very free in utility choices, and has natural utility from f2 and rezz signet

- can bring a lot of cc

- can even bring blood magic for bigger dps loss

 

It's enough for a profession to have one big power dps and one big condi dps, multiple aren't needed.

 

 

Good spot is subjective. As far as its damage goes it could be higher and be fine. Right now its competing with quickness builds. It has advantages in range, but because its so life force starved it does create disadvantages in certain fights which makes it difficult to maintain. Its Good if you know how to work with its disadvantages. However, in my experience very few people can work around those disadvantages. With that why not take something that's easier to use that does similar or better DPS?

Yes, Full ranged is nice. Its utility slot choice isn't free. Its got good utility choice this is true, but its not free. Certain fights you can't just bring certain utility and expect it to go well because of those fights that are lifefroce starved. It does have a lot of CC for sure, that's true. And your last point on blood magic the DPS loss of blood magic is massive with little benefit. You want to increase your life force issues exponentially? Take blood magic. You'll not only be lowering your life force pool but also all of your cooldowns will be longer which translates to worse timing on skills and much worse life force generation.

Scourge needs a support build. Which it doesn't have. Many of the scourge utility skills need a lot of help. Scourge was designed originally to be a heavy support spec and it was for a while when Barrier was so much more fun and interesting to use. But after they buffed it its been a race to the bottom for their application of barrier. We've lost most of our barrier with no compensation.

The only thing that could kinda be a niche is the fact that Scourge can give barrier and convert a condition on 12 targets. There is still a lot of dead design on scourge and the fact that its master damage trait is equal to the damage output of the support trait is pretty awful.

Moreover, we have 3 traits which aren't good in PvE. I didn't suggest changing those because they have a place in PvP but it does hinder the space Scourge can fill.

[Sansania.8569]

I'd absolutely love it if they brought back support scourge in WvW, Between the barrier nerf and transfusion nerf, its more of a gimmick I do when clouding around smc to tranfuse allies thru walls/down ramps and using the rez signet trait to rez allies every 45 seconds...