Cele scourge - good build for experienced endgame group?!

[Nimon.7840]

Hello there.

I wanna share with you my build of a cele scourge for endgame instanced content.

This build aims to be a solo heal for lower pressure fights and can compliment other healers if you don't want to run two full healers.

Do not consider this build as a solo heal if you are a new group. This is mainly designed for groups that already run only one healer on most boss fights.

The build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEs8NsMDGITipBL2J4XPA-zxIY1olvMyNF6oAE+gEE9WefaDA-e

There are several things to consider:

1. Do you need burst heal? If yes, definetly take well of blood and life from death.

2. Is it a fight in which people tend to go down? Take well of blood and ritual of life.

3. Is it a low pressure fight and you want to maximize dmg? Take blood bond and vampiric presence.

4.are there adds to provide you with life force and you need utility? Consider swapping out the signet for corrosive poison cloud (projectile block) trail of anguish (stability), spectral grasp (add pull/cc)

5. There are fights in which you might want a different utility skill. Consider taking sand flare as healing skill and swap out serpent siphon.

6. Use flesh golem for additional cc, Plaguelands for dps.

Pros of the build:

+ ~19k golem dps+

+ Permanent alacrity

+ Permanent regeneration

+ 25 might

+ High consistent healing/good barrier output

+ Downed pull and relatively fast rezz

+ Ranged downstate rezz from signet

+ Can generate quite a bit of overflow alacrity

+ Can bring lots of cc

Cons:

- only 70% protection uptime

- no big burst healing like for example revenant

- limited stability access

- basically no swiftness generation

- is pretty limited in utility skill choice

Bosses this works really well on as solo heal:

Gorseval, sabetha, mursaat overseer, samarog, Adina.

Bosses this build works really well on as a secondary healer:

Sloth, Matthias (needs swiftness from quickness provider), dhuum (same swiftness thematic), qadim 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Nimon.7840

[XECOR.2814]

I updated the build to add jade bot lvl10 which is necessary for scourge as it helps a ton with life force management.
Added plaguelands elite and empty blood magic traits.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFs81aYZGMQmETjRiF7U9rH-zxIY1onvMyNF6oCE+gEE7h3y73AQFA-e

Its important to note you dont usually want to swap off too much dps skills/traits such as plaguelands because you start loosing too much dps and then it defeats the purpose of build.
The build is heal-alac-dps and the player should prioritize their actions in the same order.

[xellink.7568]

Drop herald of sorrow and you lose protection. If there is a power quick herald or other protection providers, the sadistic searing trait is a good pick and can increase your dps by 3k. Swapping doesn't affect heal output. 

Serpent siphon can frequently miss targets.

Edited August 18, 2023 by xellink.7568

[Nimon.7840]

On 8/17/2023 at 11:06 PM, XECOR.2814 said:

I updated the build to add jade bot lvl10 which is necessary for scourge as it helps a ton with life force management.
Added plaguelands elite and empty blood magic traits.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFs81aYZGMQmETjRiF7U9rH-zxIY1onvMyNF6oCE+gEE7h3y73AQFA-e

Its important to note you dont usually want to swap off too much dps skills/traits such as plaguelands because you start loosing too much dps and then it defeats the purpose of build.
The build is heal-alac-dps and the player should prioritize their actions in the same order.

A yes I forgot to add the jade bot. I'm kinda assuming people who play endgame content have one by default.

On 8/18/2023 at 7:22 AM, xellink.7568 said:

Drop herald of sorrow and you lose protection. If there is a power quick herald or other protection providers, the sadistic searing trait is a good pick and can increase your dps by 3k. Swapping doesn't affect heal output. 

Serpent siphon can frequently miss targets.

Drop herald of sorrow and your alac uptime will be bad.

If I remember correctly you will need 80% or more boon duration to get 100% alac uptime.

I didn't test it with a Herold.

Yes Herold extends boons, 3 seconds on a 16 second cooldown. But I don't have the time to do the math rn.

That being said. This is mainly designed to be a healer, that deals damage - dropping herald of sorrow will reduce your "healing" output - barrier- by quite a big chunk.

I don't think you drop that in a solo heal situation. (Gorse, sabetha, mursaat work really well as solo heal). And that's what the build was mainly designed for - solo healing.

Cause this build works by preventing dmg on your subgroup with barrier and if your group is full life, your direct heals will overflow to the other subgroup (transfusion, wh5, well of blood).

Maybe dropping herald of sorrow would work, if there already is a full healer in the other subgroup and you have a herald in yours, but I think I'd then rather drop blood magic for soul reaping. And keep herald of sorrow. The barrier and regeneration should be enough to prevent most dmg on your subgroup, and the full healer shouldn't have problems to overheal the little DMG you do take.

[Dadnir.5038]

When people recommend all rounder gear (celestial stats) for instanced group content, you know that something is wrong with the game.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

37 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

When people recommend all rounder gear (celestial stats) for instanced group content, you know that something is wrong with the game.

i'm not sure what you mean by this, as it only works for a very few classes and builds. scourge and machinist's quasi-support builds just happen to be an exception due to their combination of damage, barriers, heals and boons, but many other all-rounder builds like celebrand have largely fallen out of favor in pve since they no longer produce enough damage or healing after the nerfs.

also, for supports, celestial is considered a more experienced set than something like minstrel's, as you need a higher skill level and a better build to keep your group alive with it while still dealing significantly more damage than harrier's (its not used for the survivability).

 

celestial is currently the only effective dps-healing set in the game, since zealot's and crusader's are so bad. even plaguedoctor's is kind of bad.

Edited August 22, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'm not sure what you mean by this,

I mean that if building as an all rounder in a team beat building as a specialist in a team then balance is poor.

And, in fact, it's one of the major issue of the various stat set that exist in the game. The different gear stat, in general, are poor design and the celestial set, in particular is a gamewide issue. If I had to show clearly the issue it would simply be sumed up like this:

• Raw amount of stat given by a celestial 2h weapon: 1069 (ascended)
• Raw amount of stat given by a 3 stat set 2h weapon: 609 (ascended)
• Raw amount of stat given by a 4 stat set 2h weapon: 666 (ascended)

No matter how one see it, celestial give way to much raw stat. To be fair, the amount should be cut by at least a third of what it currently give.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Dadnir.5038

[xellink.7568]

19 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I mean that if building as an all rounder in a team beat building as a specialist in a team then balance is poor.

And, in fact, it's one of the major issue of the various stat set that exist in the game. The different gear stat, in general, are poor design and the celestial set, in particular is a gamewide issue. If I had to show clearly the issue it would simply be sumed up like this:

• Raw amount of stat given by a celestial 2h weapon: 1069 (ascended)
• Raw amount of stat given by a 3 stat set 2h weapon: 609 (ascended)
• Raw amount of stat given by a 4 stat set 2h weapon: 666 (ascended)

No matter how one see it, celestial give way to much raw stat. To be fair, the amount should be cut by at least a third of what it currently give.

It has a poor marketshare in instanced content. This also means that majority of players disagree with you whether you are objectively right or wrong. However when used on a scourge it's value changes.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I haven't play my scourge since a moment nor did the math, but I'm a bit suspicious about the 100% alacrity without max BD gear and without Soul Reaping spec.

[xellink.7568]

On 8/25/2023 at 7:07 AM, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

I haven't play my scourge since a moment nor did the math, but I'm a bit suspicious about the 100% alacrity without max BD gear and without Soul Reaping spec.

It's one of the most op build in the game rn. You don't need max bd

[Chyro.1462]

On 8/25/2023 at 1:07 AM, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

I haven't play my scourge since a moment nor did the math, but I'm a bit suspicious about the 100% alacrity without max BD gear and without Soul Reaping spec.

It works quite well without super high boon duration. The alac per barrier looks very low at a glance, but you may be missing that Sandstorm Shroud (through Herald of Sorrow trait) pulses barrier multiple times whenever you cast it. This bolsters your uptime quite a bit. You also give barrier -> alac whenever you place a sand shroud (Abrasive Gift trait), the shroud skill that always gives barrier, and the utility skill Snake Siphon. The upkeep is rather spamy, but its quite doable even with a hybrid build that doesn't go full boon duration.

[Nephalem.8921]

On 8/25/2023 at 1:07 AM, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

I haven't play my scourge since a moment nor did the math, but I'm a bit suspicious about the 100% alacrity without max BD gear and without Soul Reaping spec.

The normal alac scourge has 13%  bd. Just dropping soul reaping wont require 100% suddenly.

Not a single boon support needs 100% bd for alac/quick. Healer usually just take it so they build a buffer which allows them to do mechanics. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Well that's okai, they buffed so much alacrity duration I didn't know about that; but guys what are you using as runes and relics ?

I think Runes of Tempest could be nice with a slight buff of everything and +25%CD
About the relic, there's a lot of possibilites; idk if monk is worth, but we also have Pity, Flock ... or Akeem with pistol. Edit Dwayna could be nice too, as it is amolst the best sustainable heal the build has.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Lorelei.3918]

On 8/22/2023 at 7:15 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

When people recommend all rounder gear (celestial stats) for instanced group content, you know that something is wrong with the game.

In WoW maybe, but one of the central pillars of GW2 design is "No RPG Holy Trinity!" .