Scourge - Blood Sage

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage, Support and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on September 11, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A hybrid PvP bunker Scourge build with a mix of condition pressure, barrier sharing and exceptional rez power via Blood Magic.

Skill Bar

Staff

Pistol/Torch

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

There are plenty of viable options for the remaining slot:

• Desiccate - lowest CD Punishment skill with boon corruption synergy, great at building Life Force even out of combat.

• Serpent Siphon - low CD barrier/boon application and damage.

• Sand Swell - vertical mobility, trait synergy.

• Spectral Walk - stun break, kiting potential, cleansing and LF generation.

• Summon Flesh Wurm - stun break and vertical mobility.

• Corrupt Boon - boon corruption/condi burst.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud - great option against projectile-heavy comps, and it's even good in melee because it shuts down Power-based specs with Weakness while doing respectable damage.

• Spectral Armor - protects against strike damage, breaks stun, helps with resource management.

Heal

• Well of Blood - this focuses on restoring health for you and your allies rather than mitigating damage, but giving up barrier synergy is going to cost you some condition cleansing and Vigor. Sometimes it's also harder to support allies with this because they might not stay in the ring for long.

Weapons

• Scepter over Pistol - Scepter remains a viable option especially for people who don't own the Secrets of the Obscure expansion. You lose a CC but gain a boon corrupt, however Scepter is a slower weapon and the damage requires some setup which makes it less ideal under pressure. Take offhand Dagger too if you don't have SotO.

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Equipment

Pistol

Torch

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

Lynx is taken for its passive mobility which should make it easier for you to rotate around the map, especially if you and your team don't have a high Swiftness uptime. It could also help you kite enemies a bit better. If you don't need the mobility then there are other runes with better stats:

• Rune of Dolyak - makes the build more tanky if you can afford to give up some passive mobility.

• Rune of Necromancer - a solid choice if you want to focus more on damage.

Relics

• Relic of Rivers - adds a significant amount of Alacrity to the build, allowing you to spam your support skills more often. You might want to pick up some extra Life Force building skills for utilities to keep up with the faster rate of LF spending due to Alacrity. Using Rune of Traveler over Lynx could be considered for slightly higher boon duration.

• Relic of the Demon Queen - improves the healing reduction effect of Poison you apply while adding more poison procs to the build.

• Relic of the Flock - another source of AoE barrier sharing, but doesn't have synergy with your Scourge traits.

• Relic of Antitoxin - boosts your condition removal.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Death Shroud is replaced by shade skills, but shroud related traits still work. Life force (LF) is no longer drained passively or upon taking damage, but instead serves as a resource used by F2-5 skills (F1, which places the shade, is free).

• Manifest Sand Shade adds a bit of range to the build and acts as a somewhat spammable source of barrier/cleansing/ Vigor that doesn't cost anything.

• F2-5 skills go off around both the caster and active shades.

General

• Playstyle: your role is to aid your team in larger fights by providing barrier, cleansing and boons to allies while keeping the enemy team pressured through condition damage, CC and boon corruption.

• Do not spam your staff marks on the ground while out of combat, as a single dodge can undo them all. Placing Mark of Blood on chokes to detect enemies crossing in stealth is fine however, as it's a rather short CD and weak one.

• Using Manifest Sand Shade near the start of every fight and aiming to maintain at least 1 active shade is highly recommended. Having an active shade gives you damage reduction and allows you to cover a larger area with your shade skills.

• Necromancer mobility is rather bad, so try to make use of the terrain with proper positioning. Make it hard for enemies to reach you especially ranged ones - pillars are your friend.

• The build only has 1 mass cleanse by default: Putrid Mark.

• Consider using Trail of Anguish before your heal for the Stability while under heavy pressure.

• Ghastly Breach is a rather powerful skill, but also easily avoidable. Don't just drop it randomly at the start of the fight, wait for the right moment - look for a situation where you can make your opponent overcommit. Place it on enemies trying to revive their downed teammate, or under yourself on low HP to scare them off.

• If taken Corrupt Boon is not only a great spike skill, but also a defensive one - thanks to the low cast time CB can be used to counterpressure targets. Someone's chasing you with Stability and Might stacks? Turn their boons against them, right into Fear and Weakness! It's also unblockable.

Support

• Blood Magic traits and Scourge mechanics make this build exceptionally good at reviving allies:
  • Garish Pillar triggers Transfusion, which restores both normal and downed health for all allies around you. This will also teleport downed people to you. Channeling isn't interrupted when you begin to rez manually (pressing F by default), nor when you go into downed state - which means you could even rez yourself a little to help allies get you back up.
  • Ritual of Life procs a Well that heals and revives.
  • Last Rites cancels the regular downstate HP degeneration.

• Applying a barrier cleanses conditions and grants Vigor.

• Manifest Sand Shade, Sand Cascade, Sandstorm Shroud and Sand Flare are your main sources of barrier sharing.

• Sandstorm Shroud pulses barrier and Protection to nearby allies for a couple of seconds, followed by a detonation that applies a larger amount of barrier while also corrupting boons on enemies. This skill only goes off around yourself and shades that were placed before the activation of this skill, so try to set up multiple shades in advance in order to cover a larger area. It's one of the strongest skills in the build both for defensive and offensive purposes so try to hit as many targets as possible, both friendly and hostile.
  • Try to share as many pulses with allies as possible, but enemies only really need to be in range of this skill for the final detonation.

• Nefarious Favor adds yet another group cleanse to the build.

Life Force management

• As your shade skills cost LF, being efficient at managing this resource will be crucial for both your damage and sustain. We're going to list all the sources and provide a few tips for getting the most out of them.

• All staff skills generate life force:
  • Necrotic Grasp is a rather weak skill and there's no way you'll be able to use it much under any pressure. It does however generate 4% LF per target hit, and you should use it for the occasional ranged poking. Alternatively, right after you won a fight (and no enemies are nearby who could rez their downed allies) you can use the downed bodies as batteries and just spam staff autos on them for a substantial amount of free Life Force while bleeding out the enemy.
  • Marks are unblockable and generate 3% LF each. Mark of Blood and Chilblains can be used freely for just pressure and LF building, while Putrid Mark and Reaper's Mark are more powerful and should be kept for the proper occasion (Putrid for mass cleansing and Reaper's for interrupting).

• On scepter/torch you have 2 such skills:
  • Feast of Corruption should be used with at least ~4 conditions on the target, both your burst damage and LF stacking benefits from the higher number of conditions on the target. Make sure that this skill lands by CCing the target with either Oppressive Collapse or Garish Pillar.
  • Harrowing Wave is rather straightforward, just try to hit as many targets as possible including Ranger pets and Mesmer illusions.

• Eternal Life passively stacks LF for you up to the 10% threshold except for when Sandstorm Shroud is active.

• If taken Desiccate should be used on CD even outside combat for free LF generation.

Related Builds

• Scourge - Blood Support