Scourge - Condi Scourge

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

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on March 29, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condition Scourge is a slow and steady build that deals damage through Torment, Bleeding, and Burning.

Although it has low burst damage, condi scourge is a great build for open world due to its simplicity, tankiness, and amazing damage over time, making it great for solo or group play.

This build has access to barriers to absorb damage, passive defense from Blood as Sand, can remove boons from enemies with Devouring Darkness and Punishment skills such as Sand Flare, and can remove conditions from allies and itself with Nefarious Favor.

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Skill Bar

Scepter/Torch

Pistol/X

Utility

Weapon Variants

If you don't have access to Weaponmaster Training with Secrets of the Obscure, you will not be able to wield a pistol. Instead, use only scepter.

• Your choice of second offhand weapon doesn't matter much. You can use warhorn for extra CC, focus if you need extra boon removal, or only use torch for easier access to its good damage skills.

Skill Variants

Heal skill

Sand Flare provides a good mix of healing and barrier. You can consider other options:

• Well of Blood provides slightly higher raw healing.
• Consume Conditions is great vs. enemies that inflict conditions.

Utility Skills

Blood Is Power is taken for damage and boon generation and should never be replaced. Epidemic is amazing for AoE damage by spreading the conditions on your enemy to other nearby enemies, but useless in single target fights. Trail of Anguish is a good stunbreak and provides Stability. You can consider other alternatives:

• Corrosive Poison Cloud - destroys projectiles.
• Desiccate - boonstrip and damage.
• Plague Signet - amazing in fights with many conditions.
• Signet of Spite - single target damage.
• Signet of Undeath provides good life force generation in long fights and can be used to revive an ally
• Serpent Siphon - if you need Aegis to block a predictable but dangerous attack.
• Spectral Armor - can replace Trail of Anguish to give up the Stability for life force generation.
• Spectral Grasp - great CC or pull to cleave trash mobs.

Elite Skills

Plaguelands deals massive damage if you can keep the enemy inside for its duration.

• Summon Flesh Golem - tanky CC buddy.

Minions

Minions provide extra bodies for defense but will drastically lower DPS. Never use all minions, always keep Blood Is Power.

• Summon Blood Fiend
• Summon Shadow Fiend
• Summon Bone Minions
• Summon Flesh Golem

This still provides 3 minions, one of which has extremely high health and is good for CC.

Specializations

Variants

• Parasitic Contagion - trades damage for sustain, generally not needed.
• Abrasive Grit - when you need more condition cleanse.
• Don't use Desert Empowerment because it requires a lot of boon duration to be useful, which you do not have as a dps build.

Death Magic

Death Magic can be taken if using the minion variant to trade a large amount of damage for an increase to minion health and personal defense. Replaces Soul Reaping.

• If you ever need a lot of defense, use Death Magic with Putrid Defense + Dark Defiance + Corrupter's Fervor for permanent Protection and large increase to your toughness. This is normally not needed as scourge is already relatively tanky.

Blood Magic

Blood Magic can be used when playing in groups and doing very hard content. This massively lowers your damage, but makes you great at reviving downed players. Replaces Soul Reaping. Do not use this specialization when playing solo.

• When doing this, change your healing skill to Well of Blood.

Equipment

Ascended gear is not required. Infusions are not required. You can use Exotic gear with the same stats.
This set uses gear that is similar to Build:Scourge - Condi DPS, which makes it a great option for general PVE

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Scepter
Viper

Torch
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Pistol
Viper

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

• If you don't have access to Weaponmaster Training with Secrets of the Obscure, you will not be able to wield a pistol. Instead, use only scepter.
• Relic of Akeem provides good AoE damage and you can trigger it easily with Vile Blast, Garish Pillar, or Oppressive Collapse. Relic of the Fractal provides higher damage but it's single target.
  • If you don't have access to expansion relics, you will have to resort to much weaker options such as Relic of the Cavalier, Relic of the Afflicted, or Relic of the Sunless.

Gear variants

• Trailblazer can be used in open world to trade 10-15% DPS for a massive increase to health and defense. But this set is not useful for most content outisde of open world.
• Celestial provides lower damage than Viper's and Trailblazer's, less defense than Trailblazer's, but in exchange the healing power makes your barriers bigger. Generally not recommended as the points into ferocity are completely wasted, and the points into boon duration won't be doing much either since this build has very little access to boons, only a bit of fury and might. This set is also not useful for most content outside of open world.
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy + Sigil of Superior Sigil of Earth budget options while you work on acquiring the very expensive but very strong Superior Sigil of Torment and Superior Sigil of Bursting.

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize , but Ascended Flatbread food is also good for open world.
• /

Farming

• Prioritize Flatbread Ascended food.
• /
• (and variants)

Usage

Damage

This build is extremely easy to deal damage with. Simply follow this priority list.

1. Always have at least one Sand Shade manifested. This is extremely important because you gain concentration and expertise from Sand Sage and defense from Blood as Sand, and inflict damage from Manifest Sand Shade. Using any Shade skill causes existing Sand Shades and yourself to strike nearby enemies with Manifest Sand Shade for free. Manifest Sand Shade doesn't reset your auto attack chain.
2. Use Nefarious Favor which deals great damage thanks to Sadistic Searing.
3. Use Blood Is Power anytime you can transfer the self-inflicted conditions. The easiest way to do this is to cast Blood is Power and Desert Shroud at the same time to trigger Plague Sending, but any condi transfer will work.
4. Trigger Relic of Akeem (10 seconds internal cooldown).
5. Use Grasping Dead and Devouring Darkness off cooldown; try to use them together as they have the same cooldown. Interrupt your auto attack chain to cast them. The same applies to Weeping Shots and Vile Blast.
6. Cast Oppressive Collapse and Harrowing Wave any time they're off CD. Preferably, use Harrowing Wave when not at full life force for more value. If you're near your target, Oppressive Collapse will also give you Might.

• Cast Plaguelands off-cooldown. This is your highest damage skill, so position it carefully.
• Note that Devouring Darkness requires to enemy to aready be suffering from conditions to inflict Torment. If that is not the case, this skill does nothing and should be delayed.

Opener

1. Manifest Sand Shade
2. Plaguelands
3. Nefarious Favor
4. Blood Is Power + Desert Shroud
5. Vile Blast + Weeping Shots
6. weapon swap
7. Devouring Darkness + Grasping Dead
8. Harrowing Wave + Oppressive Collapse

• Nefarious Favor will cleanse the self-inflicted Poison of Plaguelands (comes from Master of Corruption), while the Bleeding remains and gets added to Blood Is Power. Then, Desert Shroud triggers Plague Sending to transfer the self-inflicted 3 Bleeding and the 2 Torment.
• In this opener, Vile Blast is the skill that activates Relic of Akeem.

Sustain and defense

• You're a fully ranged build, so always stay on the move while attacking. Run or dodge away from attacks.
• Nefarious Favor converts your conditions into boons, and Desert Shroud can be used to transfer them in emergencies.
• If you are downed, don't give up. Life Leech might keep you alive while your conditions finish the enemy. Fetid Ground is also quite strong.

Crowd Control

• Vile Blast - 1 second of stun.
• Garish Pillar - 1 second of fear
• Oppressive Collapse - 2 seconds of knockdown
• Charge (necromancer) - 1 second of knockdown, but hits multiple times against big enemies. (if using Summon Flesh Golem)