Scourge - Blood Support

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

Focused on: Bunkering, Support and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Easy

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

Overview

A tanky PvP Scourge build made to support the team while keeping enemies pressured via constant CC and boon removal. Usually seen in comps along with another dedicated support. The combination of dagger and Overflowing Thirst grants this build nearly unlimited Life Force.

Skill Bar

Staff

Dagger/Focus

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot include:

• Well of Darkness - the pulsing Blind and Chill takes pressure off your team. Currently the most popular choice.

• Corrupt Boon - burst CD that works great against other bunker builds.

• Summon Flesh Wurm - mobility, escape tool, and minor source of Life Force gain.

• Trail of Anguish - one of the few sources of Stability Necromancers have access to, this is a strong stun breaker that could also help you get an important cast off right after.

Heal

• Sand Flare - both this and Well of Blood are strong contenders for the healing skill slot. Sand Flare has great trait synergy and the short cast time coupled with the fact that the barrier is applied all at once makes it easier to utilize in most cases, but Well of Blood's direct healing can actually restore health to allies which is something the build doesn't do all that well. It also heals you for a greater amount than Sand Flare would.

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Equipment

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

Currently we're recommending Traveler for 2 reasons: the passive mobility helps with rotating around the map while the small bit of extra boon duration gives us a little more Alacrity uptime from the relic. There are other viable options too, especialy when playing with a different relic:

• Rune of Water - higher healing and barrier scaling, retains the boon duration of Traveler but sacrifices mobility.

• Rune of Dolyak - maximum tankiness in case you're having trouble surviving.

Relic

• Relic of Antitoxin - better cleansing.

• Relic of Cerus - adds even more boon removal to the build.

• Relic of the Flock - extra healing/barrier sharing.

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 somewhat spammable source of damage especially with Sadistic Searing.

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

General

• Playstyle: your role is to aid your team in larger fights by constantly corrupting boons on enemies, sharing barrier with allies, and reviving the downed. Avoid 1v1s whenever possible.

• The build has a lot of barrier applications. Keep in mind that you can't have an active barrier higher than 50% of your maximum health, although reaching the cap should be more than rare.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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. For example place it on enemies trying to revive their downed teammate, or under yourself on low HP.

• Sigil of Intelligence adds a bit of burst damage to the build, it's best used with Spinal Shivers and the final strike of Sandstorm Shroud.

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

• If taken Corrosive Poison Cloud is excellent at shutting down both ranged and direct damage based specs in general, including elite skills such as Lich Form. Meanwhile the Poison helps at wearing out enemy bunkers and denying rez attempts by reducing healing received.

Support

• Rezing teammates: 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.

• Applying a barrier cleanses conditions and grants Vigor.

• Manifest Sand Shade, Sand Cascade and Sandstorm Shroud 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.

• Well of Blood is one of the few acual healing skills in the build that restore health instead of preventing damage like barrier does. Depending on the sitaution you could either use it for yourself or allies, but its personal healing is significantly stronger than its group healing.
  • You receive the initial self-heal even if you're not inside the well when it spawns, but just like your allies you need to be inside the well to receive the lesser healing pulses.

Life force management

• Always having enough LF is important both for support and personal survival. Luckily this is not much of a concern on this build thanks to a combination of Overflowing Thirst, Eternal Life and Soul Marks.

• Overflowing Thirst gives you LF whenever you deal damage with a dagger. Life Siphon is especially good for this, allowing you to build Life Force rapidly from a distance. Use Dark Pact beforehand to make sure that Life Siphon connects to the target.

• 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).

• Eternal Life helps with recovery after you hit rockbottom but ONLY when Sandstorm Shroud isn't active.