Scourge - Blood Support

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

Focused on: BunkeringSupport and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on September 08, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A tanky PvP Scourge build made to support the team while keeping enemies pressured via constant boon removal. Usually seen in comps along with another dedicated support.


Skill Bar

Scourge-skillbar-bg.png
Staff
Dagger/Focus
Utility


Slot Changes

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot include:

  • - the pulsing Blind Blind and Chill Chill takes pressure off your team. Currently the most popular choice.
  • - burst CD that works great against other bunker builds.
  • - mobility, escape tool, and minor source of Life Force gain.
  • - one of the few sources of Stability Stability Necromancers have access to, this is a strong stun breaker that could also help you get an important cast off right after.


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • is also a viable option, one that improves your personal barrier/cleansing/alacrity access in exchange for less group support/boon corruption.


Equipment

Staff
Sigil
Sigil
Dagger
Focus
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic


Equipment Variants

Runes

  • - better mobility.


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 somewhat spammable source of damage especially with .
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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. Fir example place it on enemies trying to revive their downed teammate, or under yourself on low HP.
  • adds a bit of burst damage to the build, it's best used with .
  • If taken Consider using before your heal for the Stability Stability while under heavy pressure.
  • If taken is excellent at shutting down both ranged and direct damage based specs in general, including elite skills such as . Meanwhile the Poison Poison helps at wearing out enemy bunkers and denying rez attempts by reducing healing received.


Support

  • Rezing teammates: 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.
  • Applying a barrier cleanses conditions and grants Alacrity Alacrity.
  • , and are your main sources of barrier sharing.
  • pulses barrier and Protection 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.
  • makes your condition cleanses stronger but has a 5s CD.
  • 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 , and .
  • gives you LF whenever you deal damage with a dagger. is especially good for this, allowing you to build Life Force rapidly from a distance. Use beforehand to make sure that Life Siphon connects to the target.
  • 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).
  • helps with recovery after you hit rockbottom but ONLY when isn't active.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 6 votes.
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5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • September 2023
Scourge is once again viable after the reworks. The build brings a ton of barrier sharing, condition cleansing and AoE Alacrity to the team. Fairly easy and forgiving build to play but also very immobile and can be destroyed quickly if multiple power roamer specs gang up on it, so despite all the barrier there are scenarios where it can be vulnerable. Positioning remains important. Some people prefer this to the condi version especially for tournament play while I'm seeing a lot more condi Scourges in ranked. Both are good.
4 stars
Arthelad gave this build 4 stars • January 2022
Very good support, very low dps
4 stars
Asdfghjklq gave this build 4 stars • August 2021
Seems like people don't know how to give build ratings without being extremists. Unless they completely gut necros, all current builds will be viable. Barrier nerfs didn't hit nearly hard enough, and only after it gets the firebrand treatment will this build ever be 1 star. It has enough utility to mitigate bursts through blinds and weakness. Only downside will be ranged burst
5 stars
Maldy gave this build 5 stars • August 2021
Haters gonna hate but patches like these are never gonna kill scourge. Some barrier nerf is n o t h i n g. Enjoy scourge games until EoD.
5 stars
Wannabe gave this build 5 stars • April 2021
tried - and worked very well. A powerful pressuremaker - great to give high support by drownig the rest;
5 stars
Baescons gave this build 5 stars • March 2021
Been playing this for necro. While all necro builds are basically good this one doesnt depend on annoying mobility skills and lich memes and has an insanely high power level still. Can tank alot of damage and pull out very nice pressure- great build overall.

Comments

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