Difference between revisions of "Scourge - Blood Sage"
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There are plenty of viable options for the remaining slot: | There are plenty of viable options for the remaining slot: | ||
| − | * {{Skill|Desiccate}} - lowest CD Punishment skill with boon corruption synergy, great at building Life Force even out of combat | + | * {{Skill|Desiccate}} - lowest CD Punishment skill with boon corruption synergy, great at building Life Force even out of combat. |
* {{Skill|Serpent Siphon}} - low CD barrier/boon application and damage. | * {{Skill|Serpent Siphon}} - low CD barrier/boon application and damage. | ||
| Line 42: | Line 42: | ||
* {{Skill|Summon Flesh Wurm}} - stun break and vertical mobility. | * {{Skill|Summon Flesh Wurm}} - stun break and vertical mobility. | ||
| − | * {{Skill|Corrupt Boon}} - boon corruption/burst | + | * {{Skill|Corrupt Boon}} - boon corruption/condi burst. |
* {{Skill|Corrosive Poison Cloud}} - great option against projectile-heavy comps, and it's even good in melee because it shuts down Power-based specs with {{Tooltip|Weakness}} while doing respectable damage. | * {{Skill|Corrosive Poison Cloud}} - great option against projectile-heavy comps, and it's even good in melee because it shuts down Power-based specs with {{Tooltip|Weakness}} while doing respectable damage. | ||
| Line 95: | Line 95: | ||
'''Relics''' | '''Relics''' | ||
| + | * {{Relic|Relic of Rivers}} - adds a significant amount of {{Tooltip|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. | ||
| + | |||
* {{Relic|Relic of the Demon Queen}} - improves the healing reduction effect of {{Tooltip|Poison}} you apply while adding more poison procs to the build. | * {{Relic|Relic of the Demon Queen}} - improves the healing reduction effect of {{Tooltip|Poison}} you apply while adding more poison procs to the build. | ||
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* {{Relic|Relic of Antitoxin}} - boosts your condition removal. | * {{Relic|Relic of Antitoxin}} - boosts your condition removal. | ||
| − | |||
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Revision as of 08:19, 4 September 2024
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 04, 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:
- - lowest CD Punishment skill with boon corruption synergy, great at building Life Force even out of combat.
- - low CD barrier/boon application and damage.
- - vertical mobility, trait synergy.
- - stun break, kiting potential, cleansing and LF generation.
- - stun break and vertical mobility.
- - boon corruption/condi burst.
- - 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.
- - protects against strike damage, breaks stun, helps with resource management.
Heal
- - 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.
Template Code
[&DQgTPTIaPD1+FgAAchYAAHMBAAAhFwAAYBcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADVgBnAFkAAA==]
Specializations
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:
- - makes the build more tanky if you can afford to give up some passive mobility.
- - a solid choice if you want to focus more on damage.
Relics
- - 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.
- - improves the healing reduction effect of
Poison you apply while adding more poison procs to the build.
- - another source of AoE barrier sharing, but doesn't have synergy with your Scourge traits.
- - boosts your condition removal.
Usage
Elite specialization basics
- 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).
- 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 on chokes to detect enemies crossing in stealth is fine however, as it's a rather short CD and weak one.
- 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: .
- Consider using before your heal for the
Stability while under heavy pressure.
- 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 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:
- triggers , 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.
- procs a Well that heals and revives.
- cancels the regular downstate HP degeneration.
- Applying a barrier cleanses conditions and grants Vigor.
- , , and are your main sources of barrier sharing.
- 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.
- 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:
- 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 5% 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 at them for a substantial amount of free life force.
- Marks are unblockable and generate 3% LF each. and can be used freely for just pressure and LF building, while and 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:
- 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 or .
- is rather straightforward, just try to hit as many targets as possible including Ranger pets and Mesmer illusions.
- passively stacks LF for you up to the 10% threshold except for when is active.
- If taken should be used on CD even outside combat for free LF generation.
Related Builds
Ratings
It still works, transfusion nerfs definitely decreased it's strength though. If you really want to play scourge, this is the way to do it. Tanky as hell and respectable damage and boon corrupts. It works best in comps that have dedicated supports as it functions like a secondary support, kinda like condi tempest. Fun, but I think it's better to keep this in the back pocket for 3v3 seasons
Very easy to play and can be highly effective, especially during 2v2 and 3v3 seasons but of course it's fine in Conquest too. Nearly permanent alacrity uptime, lots of barrier sharing which also makes it nearly immune to conditions via trait synergy, decent pressure - but it can quickly go down if it's focused by high damage specs if there's no other support on the team. Not perfect but still quite strong.
This build is pure tilt with huge barrier and AoE condi. Amazing AoE boon rip with Ghastly Breach and strong condi pressure. For utilities I've settled on Desiccate, Serpent Siphon and Trail of Anguish. The advantage these skills have is that they have both offense and defense application, which is a theme that characterizes this build. It can be a bit of a bunker in 1v1s, support when necessary, extremely strong AoE condi removal (any barrier application), and always medium-strong condi pressure, which makes it among the most flexible and fun in the game. The one tip I'd recommend is to bind Profession Skill 1 (Manifest Sand Shade) to your mouse side button if you have it, and set ground targeting to instant cast. Personally I find staff rather weak and I hate getting trapped in it for 10 seconds, especially on the second rotation when the cooldowns are so long. Pistol/Torch main and Scepter/Torch secondary is stronger in my opinion, staying mostly in pistol. It is a really really strong build this way in gold-tier pvp, it rarely gets any top marks but the pure mix of support and condi damage is a major tilt in any fight. Not sure how well this would work in tourneys against high level players where necros run into a wall of CC, mobility and mitigation problems.
Idk if I'm not getting it but this build feels quite mediocre. You're sustain is dependent upon how bad your enemy is. If they suck and stand in your strips and corrupt fields youre unkillable but if they don't then youre just playing a necro build with bad damage, no mobility and no sustain. I'm still giving it 4 stars because it can be very tanky if played right but seems to be a FOTM build that is very overrated.
This build is still very strong in the current season. Just make sure to stick with your firebrand.
I highly recommend using well of corruption in the final empty utility slot because on many maps it covers the whole point and allows both you and your firebrand to bunker a point super effectively against an enemy scourge / firebrand.
I often cover downed players with ghastly breach to punish any sort of res attempts, bonus if it also is on the point.
Torment destroy people who are not watching their stacks. Torch 4 and 5 go a long way to stacking it high and torch 4 alone puts out serious numbers in a 3v3 fight on the point if you hit everyone.
Use the long range of staff to start harassing enemy players on their way into points and through chokes. The best map for this is probably skyhammer because of the middle point's elevation and the choke points into mid.
Swapping to staff, staff skill 5, and going for a rez has about 90% success rate if you dont waste time.
Remember to utilize staff 4 against the enemy firebrand / scourge combo to throw those conditions back at them.
Spam shades because they are overpowered, if you arent willing to learn the class, just piano the keys with 3 shades up on a point and blow everything up.
Still just plain better for many situations in ranked and can function in ats as well
Pretty much everything Xavoran already said before. I am loving the extras the Blood Line brings to the battlefield.
I can definitely recommend this build. It's great for playing solo ranked, lots of support, ability to solo some classes. Only thing the build really lacks is mobility (take Sand Swell if this is a big problem for you).
I know it's mentioned as a viable alternative in the post, but since the build is already very support-heavy, I really recommend going Desert Empowerment instead of Sadistic Searing in the Scourge trait tree. It's just an incredible extra amount of sustain and condition removal since you already run Abrasive Grit. If not running it all the time, at least consider swapping it in when against condition-heavy comps, it's really worth it!
Agreed with other commenters who find this build strong in the current metagame.
In some matches I even run desert empowerment alongside abrasive grit, which allows one move (the sand shade) to provide barrier, cleanse, and might to teammates (not to mention a token amount of burning for enemies). The constant sustain provided to self/allies, a similarly constant stream of condition pressure, superior boon corruption, and just not dying as easily as your opponents hoped make this a great build for scaring boon-heavy bruisers off point.
Excellent as a node holder and team support, just have to be careful to survive/negate some of the big bursts that come your way at the beginning of fights.
Agreed. Tested and confirmed. Lot more sustain and overall performance is better, as anet probably has planned to scourge.
With the recent nerfs to corruption from curses I'd argue that this should be the current meta build now. The increased utility is just more worth it.
I agree with what Baescons said, this build right here is the support oriented role that Arena-net wanted for scourge, but actually ended up displacing with the superior firepower of condi scourge.
Regardless, this build is quite potent, offering a respectable mix of condition damage, barriers for teammates, and substantial rez capability, as well as much higher personal sustain than shadefire.
I think in the January balance patch this build will be buffed somewhat, and the shadefire variant will be nerfed to, hopefully, bring the two builds closer to equality.
Comments
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