The burning on your F-skills has an internal cooldown of 1 second! So don't push all of the buttons 'at the same time'... space them a little out to get all the stacks! 🙃
Do note that dhuumfire optimization is less important than using the skills efficiently. So don't delay sand cascade or shroud, but do delay Nefarious Favor and Garish pilar if you're using them for damage (since they won't do damage otherwise).
I am loving this series and the healer one that preceded it. I am a recent returner and used one of the 80 boosters I had hanging around from before to boost a necro and just finished the Scourge tree. Your insights are going to be helpful. I saw you have started a DPS series too...really looking forward.
Great Video of Alac DPS Scourge, a few tips from someone who has mained Scourge for a long time: First you don't have to get a full set of Ritualist Armor if you don't want to, in the end it is the most efficient way to play it. But you can also use Full Vipers like on Regular DPS Scourge, Toxic Maintence Oil and a few trinkets to boost yourself to 15-20% BD. Much Easier to set up and you basiclly have 4 Builds ready to go as well(The only thing you need to change if your playing Condi Harbringer or Quick Harbinger is weapons) Second while on the Topic of Boon Duration, on Fights like Sabir in W7 and Matthias W2 where there's lots of movement you might wanna go slighly above 20% BD since your Alac Uptime might suffer if you don't give barrier 24/7. Third i like to start my rotation with F1 for a shade F5/Sandstorm Shroud+Blood is Power and Plaguelands afterwards, i know the benchmark video uses Plaguelands before but what happends more often than not when i'v tried this in practice is that it ends up sending the Condis from Plaguelands to the target leaving you with a few stacks of Blood or Torment on yourself which does more damage. Fouth, be careful with your Shade Skill 4(the one that Fears), iv tried using it for more dps but in the end i always run out of Life Force, better to save it if you acually need the Fear for something(Looking at you Tormented Dead in W5)
but you still need to switch out the runes when going from adps scourge to like qdps Harb, right? I've been trying to find a way to cheat and double dip both builds but I only have leggy trinkets
@@justinwong628 If you wanna reach the benchmark i would assume yes, you do have to swap runes. But iv been using Runes of the Trapper on Condi Alac Scourge, Pure Condi Scourge, Condi Quick Harbringer and Pure Condi Harbringer, it works fine. You will need an offhand Dagger for Harbringer but thats the only thing you need to change.
the only thing I am not a fan as a scourge main is how often you have to summon the shade since its rework. man, I miss when shades last 20 second or however long it was ;(
Yeah, they can literally just revert the duration change in PvE and nothing will be lost. Heal Alac Scourge will be able to pump out more consistent barrier but it's not like they ever need that anyway.
Only recently came back to game and even more recently started scourge. That would be amazing. Scourge is fun to play and yet really annoying with how many buttons you have to hit at the same time. To a degree I feel like I'm doing more on scourge then when I play ele though else rotation matters way more to be fair.
Protip: Press F5, THEN Blood is Power. This will transfer conditions the MOMENT you get some, this makes it easier to transfer them since it gives no time for the healer to cleanse them. Obviously you need to make sure you do not have a condition before, or it will transfer that condition, wasting your Blood is Power condtions.
@@corvus4489 Sure, but it only saves tiny fractions of a second. Unless you're trying to squeeze out every single digit of damage I wouldn't worry about it that much.
Flesh golem works similarily to rev staff 5, it does multiple hits during the charge, so it does more cc the bigger the hitbox is. It struggles a bit on the cc add in Mai Trin, but works really well for example in samarog. Also it is quite slow to cast, so on things like boneskinner and Q1 you should cast it about 0.5s before the breakbar appears
I would like to prevent that - pressure caster is the kind of playstyle i like :) EDIT: except F1 - feel free to make them pumping up the shade duration again
As far as I'm aware, Dhuumfire has always inflicted burning when you use a scourge shroud skill. Or more accurately, whenever you hit with a shroud skill. So the normal F5 procs Dhuumfire multiple times.
"Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Using a shade ability strikes enemies near you and your shades." Skill F1 is your shade and but also lists your shades "attack" skill. Whenever you use a F1-F5 skill your shades will also trigger their "attack" skill which counts as F1 (aka shroud skill 1) since it's listed on the F1 skill and will therefor apply burning (second sentence of the actual skill description) from Dhuumfire. Technically F1 only summons a shade without dealing damage as its active component. The damage, conditions and everything that isn't purely summoning the shade is part of the second part of the skill which I would treat as a sort of "passive-active component" that triggers whenever a F1-F5 skill is casted.
Dhuumfire and Scourge is not a bug. Reaper's Might (in Spite) and Unyielding Blast (in Soul Reaping) also function that way. What is poorly explained by the tooltips is that F1 has two components: placing the shade and a damage+ condition pulse. That pulse is triggered every time you use any shade skills, even if you don't have a shade out. This is necessary for how Sadistic Searing works as otherwise it wouldn't hit enemies at all. Also, I love CPC. With Alarcity, it's 50% uptime of no projectiles.
Manifest Sandshade mentions in its description, "Using a shade ability strikes enemies near you and your shades", and the strike comes from the shade itself, thus it does Dhuumfire burning.
Hahah, beat me to it. To go into a little more detail: Manifest Sand Shade comes with an attack that strikes enemies within the shade's area (up to the target limit). This attack is treated as Shroud skill 1 for the purpose of traits. However, this skill also repeats, both at each shade and at the scourge (note, though, that any given target can only be struck once per activation, even if it's within overlapping areas, but overlapping areas can help you hit more targets), on using any of F2-F5. So the other shroud skills for Scourge all effectively have a shroud skill 1 built in. The balance reason for this is pretty simple when you think about it: these traits are balanced on the basis that you're applying them to an autoattack. Manifest Sand Shades is not an autoattack, however. Allowing those traits to trigger on any of the F1-F5 skills, though, gives these traits the opportunity to trigger roughly as often as they would for a reaper, harbinger, or core necro.
From what I understand of Scourge (I don't play scourge much), the strike damage you do is anemic, even if you were to run straight power; so you might as well just run full ritualist if you're not trying to minmax. You can run dessicate for the extra life force while being more aggressive and giving out more might. I feel like running staff with this build isn't a terrible idea, though you'll have to trade off either sceptre or pistol. Also, I'd personally run dagger as well so that when torch is on cooldown I have more options, and another way to transfer blood is power's self-bleed stacks. Or warhorn if CC is a big deal.
You'd lose somewhere around 10-15% of your damage going full Ritualist (doing a very rough estimation, might be slightly more or less). What you may have missed is the lost precision which matters a lot for the "Curses" traitline: "Barbed Preicision" (first passive in Curses) procs bleed on crit and "Target the Weak" (third passive in Curses) gives you Condi damage for a percentage of your precision A little bit of that lost Condi damage from "Target the Weak" then also bleeds over (get it?) into "Fell Beacon" (Scourge Adept trait) and loses a bit of Expertise as well.
Plaguelands is so evil.. I love it. back in GW1 I mained mesmer but I always *HEAVILY* leaned toward necromancer... in GW2 for a decade I mained thief and recently switched to mesmer but for years I've been thinking "just go necro.. you love necro, quite fighting it*
alac scourge has been my first boon dps that i ever played and i still love it. i have been playing it for ages and i wanna give my two cents to this amazing video. - alac scourge is currently being overlooked, simply because boon chrono and (especially) herald exist. this has made alac healers waaaaay more prevalent in the game and thus alac dps have gone missing slightly. now with heal chrono coming back, you will get to see alac scourge a lot more again (which i love). - what i am surprised is, that you have had trouble keeping alac up without full viper. i havent seen the stream, but to be on the comfortable side you have to involve either serpent siphon or the heal skill into your rotation. then you can go for viper gear + trapper runes and still be capped out with alac. important is just to properly place your shades, else you wont be able to provide barrier (and thus alac). - another cool thing is the gear. once you are more comfortable with the class and you have a full viper stats + trapper runes + proper sigils, you can use the same equipment for dps scourge, dps condi harbinger and quick dps condi harbinger. so you have basically 4 builds into one equipment set, 2 of which are either alac or quickness. only chronomancer can compare to that, by swapping a single trait. - for mechanics a couple of notices. if you are struggling with lifeforce, then you can temporarily only use f1, f3 and f5 and forget the other 2. yes they give a decent chunk of additional dps, but if you are in need of certain utility skills to carry your team, then better lower your dps output and make sure every mechanic gets covered. in the video muk showed that he prioritized scepter 3 over scepter 2 (which is very good), but careful there, it is very easily animation cancelled and thus goes on a long cd. however when muk was on pistol, he used pistol 3 > pistol 2. in that case he was wrong, as pistol 2 deals not only a boatload of dmg, but is also your main lifesource generation outside the res-signet. another great thing is, that you can use f2-f5 while using your weapon/utility skills AT THE SAME TIME! only your f1 has an actual animation. so if youre knocked down or cc`d otherwise, you can still apply barrier, cleanse conditions, fear enemy or apply protection. so a simple priority list would be: plaguelands (ultimate) blood is power + f5 f3 pistol 2>3, scepter 3>2 torch 5>4 (reason for this is, torch 5 gives good amount of might and breakbar and tons of aoe dps) anything else, but make sure you always have a single shade up
I love Scourge so so much, even if shades feel a lil clunky at times, even though it _feels_ less impactful by way of lower dps (the usual metric everyone looks at), but looking at the overall success ratio of the groups when im on Scourge, vs when im on any other boondps or boonheal class, and you can see how much leeway it provides groups to make mistakes but still complete content successfully
nice guide :) just wanna add that the spell grabbing the adds might be the highest resource generator (from the utility spells) if used correctly . and dunfire got a 1 sec cd (sadly) - delay F keys if you can (but consider dumping resource before capping > proc dunfire)
Scourge is just fantastic. The heal, boon dps, and straight dps builds are all strong. Not the highest damage, but it feels great having the extra utility and range.
Yeah that skill never leaves my bar on alacdps scourge. It also does a boon rip and provides aegis. Also the heal skill gives a bit of barrier for one more alac source.
I did not know that not having an offhand weapon in your second slot keeps the offhand from the first! That'll make some of these builds so much easier!
alac scg is really a cool and strong alac build that's very underrated. i do enjoy playing it occasionally on condi fights. you can play this build with full viper gear if your group stacks well (but you have to use your heal off cd for that). when i play alac scg i tend to use serpent siphon to buffer alac, just so that i can play with full dps gear. just like on dps scg, you want to space out your f-skills by at least 1s and not spam them right after each other to proc dhuumfire. especially on alac scg, your f2 does not inflict burning, so it's far less worth pressing that button than on dps. you barely ever have the time and life force to use f4 for burning. also just like on dps scg i would first swap out the signet of spite for utility, then the signet of undead. even for cc, i would in most cases not take golem, but just spectral grasp. you have torch 5, pistol 3 and fear on f4 still for cc. and if i need more cc, i usually take a warhorn on one weapon set to complement the torch cc.
Great timing with this video. Finally feel i have down power reaper and want to try and branch out more. Shockingly few to no videos on acl scourge dps thats updated especially with the break downs you have. Showing rotation is great but it helps to know why you press buttons. Especially since so far my limited experience with this class is other then pairing a few skills the rotation is whats needed and noy so much do this or you suck. 😅
I want to love Scourge but I hate the spamming of shades, I don't understand why they made the duration so short, spamming is not fun. If they reworked shades it would be one of my favorites.
The way the dhuumfire works with the scourge is that the scourge itself is a shade. So the game is coded to manifest a shade on the character so that you can then cast f2-f5. So that initial cast of manifest sand shade thats coded into the system is proccing the dhuumfire around you. Youll notice your shade at distance doesnt do burning on f3 and f4. There was a balance patch that meant that the character was not a shade and you only cast the f2-f5 from your shades. This ruined scourge and got insta patched within 1 balance pass. Also dropped dps by almost 8-9k.
Full vipers can be done, but its just barely enough if youre well focused and not wasting life force, will require using your heal skill outside of fractals (especially when boon overload is on) I usually use one or 2 pieces of ritualists except in certain fights where you have to split up frequently, then i might throw on full armor as rits or some accessories. Quick harb is the better boondps for sure. However ive also played condi alac heal scourge using mostly cele, viper weapons and a vipers ring and accessory. But this is only okay with groups who are good at not failing mechanics.
i do full vipers armor/weapons and plaguedoctor trinkets. been leading strikes, IBS5 and daily EOD/SotO pugs. Blood is power and Desiccate always, swap between serpent siphon/stability. every time i say im alac heal and do 20k dps, while maintaining 25 might on team and 8-11k barrier bursts. you get more boon duration so dont need barrier heal and can go well of blood/relic of the flock. def the most fun ive had in a while. Was annoyed bc i watch snow crows full raid clears and was thinking why they so often have 1 healer and a scourge in the other sub group doing 20k dps pulsing huge barriers, but i think i cracked their secret 🤐
If you want a challenge, try "alac quickness s/s scourge" to really give people a show. It wasn't well built at all but a full celestial alac self quick sword sword scourge is really fun For normal open world anyway who knows maybe even non t4 fractals. Tons of cc through fear spam, range, sustain, group alac/condition cleanse It's far from great but it's great for whoever playing it and the dps isn't bad
Try celestial hybrid dps\healer, it is same but also heals. Still barriers, condi cleanses, boonstrips, still transfusion with 2\3 of healing of heal scourge but with 2\3 of alac scrouge dps. Also i think that dessicate and shadow fiend is more comfy way to generate lifeforce than signet.
One thing I always struggle with when playing aDPS or DPS Scourge is life force management. I always find myself lacking energy at one point (on the golem particularly), thus slowing down my rotation and having to press my F skills seconds after they go off-cooldown. I always play at least with Signet of Undeath, and even tried the builds with dagger mainhand to try to keep up (and my dps went wayyyy down don't do that). Am I just mashing too fast and need to be more precautious, or is there a trick that I missed ?
A few tips for Life Force: Never EVER use Shade Skill 4(the fear one) unless you need the Fear itself, iv tried using it myself for extra DPS and i don't find it to be worth it unless your doing it once in the beginning of our rotation or something. If your weapon Swap is off Cooldown use it, your pistol generates a nice ammount of Life Force. (Not sure i would recommend Dagger on your offhand btw, the Torch is simply to good) Also i personally love to run with Signet of Undeath, Bloodispower and Shadow Fiend, Loads of Lifeforce to use. If you need to swap something out for Utlity(Corrosive Poison Cloud etc) try to always have ether Signet of Undeath or Shadow Fiend on since they help with life force a lot.
You can try running with the grabbing spell. if you use it while inside an enemy you can get rediculous amounts of life force - the bigger the enemy more easier it is. e.g. meta boss in amnytas almost restores the full bar :) EDIT: And everyone will love you because you grab enemies together here and then :) just a great spell in general
first my english is bad but im gonna try my best with my question. anybody able to keep the uptime for more than 10 seconds? i mean i am able to keep the alac up but 10s maximum and i have to mash all those keys to keep it up i even put some extra ritualist in there and my boon is sit at 20% not including trait if i screw one i screw my uptime and my entire career as scourge oh and some extra question i dont have soto any suggestion for replacement of pistol?
techniclly yes, but you dont need that much boon duration on Condi Quick Harbringer. You can use Full vipers for Pure CDPS Scourge, Pure CDPS Harb, Alac Scourge and Condi quick Harbringer. Just change weapons for harbringer and use Toxic Oil and some ritualist Trinkets for 15-20% boon duration on boonsupports and your good to go unless its a fight where theres a lot of movement.
The burning on your F-skills has an internal cooldown of 1 second! So don't push all of the buttons 'at the same time'... space them a little out to get all the stacks! 🙃
Do note that dhuumfire optimization is less important than using the skills efficiently. So don't delay sand cascade or shroud, but do delay Nefarious Favor and Garish pilar if you're using them for damage (since they won't do damage otherwise).
Noxxi Filename: MY SAND DOES SOME DAMAGE AND IS ALSO VERY SOOTHING AND COOLING
Harbinger
At least it isn't coarse and rough and irritating - But still it gets everywhere
I am loving this series and the healer one that preceded it. I am a recent returner and used one of the 80 boosters I had hanging around from before to boost a necro and just finished the Scourge tree. Your insights are going to be helpful. I saw you have started a DPS series too...really looking forward.
Great Video of Alac DPS Scourge, a few tips from someone who has mained Scourge for a long time:
First you don't have to get a full set of Ritualist Armor if you don't want to, in the end it is the most efficient way to play it.
But you can also use Full Vipers like on Regular DPS Scourge, Toxic Maintence Oil and a few trinkets to boost yourself to 15-20% BD.
Much Easier to set up and you basiclly have 4 Builds ready to go as well(The only thing you need to change if your playing Condi Harbringer or Quick Harbinger is weapons)
Second while on the Topic of Boon Duration, on Fights like Sabir in W7 and Matthias W2 where there's lots of movement you might wanna go slighly above 20% BD since your Alac Uptime might suffer if you don't give barrier 24/7.
Third i like to start my rotation with F1 for a shade F5/Sandstorm Shroud+Blood is Power and Plaguelands afterwards, i know the benchmark video uses Plaguelands before but what happends more often than not when i'v tried this in practice is that it ends up sending the Condis from Plaguelands to the target leaving you with a few stacks of Blood or Torment on yourself which does more damage.
Fouth, be careful with your Shade Skill 4(the one that Fears), iv tried using it for more dps but in the end i always run out of Life Force, better to save it if you acually need the Fear for something(Looking at you Tormented Dead in W5)
but you still need to switch out the runes when going from adps scourge to like qdps Harb, right? I've been trying to find a way to cheat and double dip both builds but I only have leggy trinkets
@@justinwong628
If you wanna reach the benchmark i would assume yes, you do have to swap runes.
But iv been using Runes of the Trapper on Condi Alac Scourge, Pure Condi Scourge, Condi Quick Harbringer and Pure Condi Harbringer, it works fine.
You will need an offhand Dagger for Harbringer but thats the only thing you need to change.
the only thing I am not a fan as a scourge main is how often you have to summon the shade since its rework. man, I miss when shades last 20 second or however long it was ;(
Yeah, they can literally just revert the duration change in PvE and nothing will be lost. Heal Alac Scourge will be able to pump out more consistent barrier but it's not like they ever need that anyway.
Same, I want to like it so badly but the spamming is obnoxious.
Only recently came back to game and even more recently started scourge. That would be amazing. Scourge is fun to play and yet really annoying with how many buttons you have to hit at the same time. To a degree I feel like I'm doing more on scourge then when I play ele though else rotation matters way more to be fair.
A very easy spec became merely easy :(((
Protip: Press F5, THEN Blood is Power. This will transfer conditions the MOMENT you get some, this makes it easier to transfer them since it gives no time for the healer to cleanse them. Obviously you need to make sure you do not have a condition before, or it will transfer that condition, wasting your Blood is Power condtions.
Entering shroud is an instant cast, you can use sandstorm shroud while casting BiP for the same, if not better, results.
@@corvus4489 Sure, but it only saves tiny fractions of a second. Unless you're trying to squeeze out every single digit of damage I wouldn't worry about it that much.
Flesh golem works similarily to rev staff 5, it does multiple hits during the charge, so it does more cc the bigger the hitbox is. It struggles a bit on the cc add in Mai Trin, but works really well for example in samarog. Also it is quite slow to cast, so on things like boneskinner and Q1 you should cast it about 0.5s before the breakbar appears
I just wish they would rework shades, spamming them so much all the time is just not fun.
Exactly. I made one Scourge, thinking it would be my main, but the shade system is just too irritating.
I would like to prevent that - pressure caster is the kind of playstyle i like :)
EDIT: except F1 - feel free to make them pumping up the shade duration again
Get rid of the 8 second shades Anet…. At least make them 12 seconds
Down for all the necro builds! ❤️ thanks again for the info! ^__^
As far as I'm aware, Dhuumfire has always inflicted burning when you use a scourge shroud skill.
Or more accurately, whenever you hit with a shroud skill.
So the normal F5 procs Dhuumfire multiple times.
"Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force. Using a shade ability strikes enemies near you and your shades."
Skill F1 is your shade and but also lists your shades "attack" skill. Whenever you use a F1-F5 skill your shades will also trigger their "attack" skill which counts as F1 (aka shroud skill 1) since it's listed on the F1 skill and will therefor apply burning (second sentence of the actual skill description) from Dhuumfire.
Technically F1 only summons a shade without dealing damage as its active component. The damage, conditions and everything that isn't purely summoning the shade is part of the second part of the skill which I would treat as a sort of "passive-active component" that triggers whenever a F1-F5 skill is casted.
Dhuumfire no longer has ICD? Or am I thinking of one of the other traits?
@@Haydatsanime It has while you are on scourge
Nice tooltip then.. rofl
Dhuumfire and Scourge is not a bug. Reaper's Might (in Spite) and Unyielding Blast (in Soul Reaping) also function that way. What is poorly explained by the tooltips is that F1 has two components: placing the shade and a damage+ condition pulse. That pulse is triggered every time you use any shade skills, even if you don't have a shade out. This is necessary for how Sadistic Searing works as otherwise it wouldn't hit enemies at all.
Also, I love CPC. With Alarcity, it's 50% uptime of no projectiles.
I wished summoning Shades wasnt so spammy. Gets really tiring
agreed
Shouldn't it be like the tablet on the herald. Something you cast once and then move if needed?
Manifest Sandshade mentions in its description, "Using a shade ability strikes enemies near you and your shades", and the strike comes from the shade itself, thus it does Dhuumfire burning.
Hahah, beat me to it.
To go into a little more detail: Manifest Sand Shade comes with an attack that strikes enemies within the shade's area (up to the target limit). This attack is treated as Shroud skill 1 for the purpose of traits. However, this skill also repeats, both at each shade and at the scourge (note, though, that any given target can only be struck once per activation, even if it's within overlapping areas, but overlapping areas can help you hit more targets), on using any of F2-F5. So the other shroud skills for Scourge all effectively have a shroud skill 1 built in.
The balance reason for this is pretty simple when you think about it: these traits are balanced on the basis that you're applying them to an autoattack. Manifest Sand Shades is not an autoattack, however. Allowing those traits to trigger on any of the F1-F5 skills, though, gives these traits the opportunity to trigger roughly as often as they would for a reaper, harbinger, or core necro.
From what I understand of Scourge (I don't play scourge much), the strike damage you do is anemic, even if you were to run straight power; so you might as well just run full ritualist if you're not trying to minmax.
You can run dessicate for the extra life force while being more aggressive and giving out more might.
I feel like running staff with this build isn't a terrible idea, though you'll have to trade off either sceptre or pistol. Also, I'd personally run dagger as well so that when torch is on cooldown I have more options, and another way to transfer blood is power's self-bleed stacks. Or warhorn if CC is a big deal.
You'd lose somewhere around 10-15% of your damage going full Ritualist (doing a very rough estimation, might be slightly more or less). What you may have missed is the lost precision which matters a lot for the "Curses" traitline:
"Barbed Preicision" (first passive in Curses) procs bleed on crit and
"Target the Weak" (third passive in Curses) gives you Condi damage for a percentage of your precision
A little bit of that lost Condi damage from "Target the Weak" then also bleeds over (get it?) into "Fell Beacon" (Scourge Adept trait) and loses a bit of Expertise as well.
@@student76543 A fair point. It might be good to keep what precision you can, then. Possibly Seraph gear, if you really need more precision, maybe.
Plaguelands is so evil.. I love it.
back in GW1 I mained mesmer but I always *HEAVILY* leaned toward necromancer... in GW2 for a decade I mained thief and recently switched to mesmer but for years I've been thinking "just go necro.. you love necro, quite fighting it*
alac scourge has been my first boon dps that i ever played and i still love it. i have been playing it for ages and i wanna give my two cents to this amazing video.
- alac scourge is currently being overlooked, simply because boon chrono and (especially) herald exist. this has made alac healers waaaaay more prevalent in the game and thus alac dps have gone missing slightly. now with heal chrono coming back, you will get to see alac scourge a lot more again (which i love).
- what i am surprised is, that you have had trouble keeping alac up without full viper. i havent seen the stream, but to be on the comfortable side you have to involve either serpent siphon or the heal skill into your rotation. then you can go for viper gear + trapper runes and still be capped out with alac. important is just to properly place your shades, else you wont be able to provide barrier (and thus alac).
- another cool thing is the gear. once you are more comfortable with the class and you have a full viper stats + trapper runes + proper sigils, you can use the same equipment for dps scourge, dps condi harbinger and quick dps condi harbinger. so you have basically 4 builds into one equipment set, 2 of which are either alac or quickness. only chronomancer can compare to that, by swapping a single trait.
- for mechanics a couple of notices. if you are struggling with lifeforce, then you can temporarily only use f1, f3 and f5 and forget the other 2. yes they give a decent chunk of additional dps, but if you are in need of certain utility skills to carry your team, then better lower your dps output and make sure every mechanic gets covered.
in the video muk showed that he prioritized scepter 3 over scepter 2 (which is very good), but careful there, it is very easily animation cancelled and thus goes on a long cd. however when muk was on pistol, he used pistol 3 > pistol 2. in that case he was wrong, as pistol 2 deals not only a boatload of dmg, but is also your main lifesource generation outside the res-signet.
another great thing is, that you can use f2-f5 while using your weapon/utility skills AT THE SAME TIME! only your f1 has an actual animation. so if youre knocked down or cc`d otherwise, you can still apply barrier, cleanse conditions, fear enemy or apply protection.
so a simple priority list would be:
plaguelands (ultimate)
blood is power + f5
f3
pistol 2>3, scepter 3>2
torch 5>4 (reason for this is, torch 5 gives good amount of might and breakbar and tons of aoe dps)
anything else, but make sure you always have a single shade up
I just spent a bunch of hard-earned gold to get full viper stats on my build just to find out I should have chosen Ritualist instead 🤔
I love Scourge so so much, even if shades feel a lil clunky at times, even though it _feels_ less impactful by way of lower dps (the usual metric everyone looks at), but looking at the overall success ratio of the groups when im on Scourge, vs when im on any other boondps or boonheal class, and you can see how much leeway it provides groups to make mistakes but still complete content successfully
nice guide :)
just wanna add that the spell grabbing the adds might be the highest resource generator (from the utility spells) if used correctly .
and dunfire got a 1 sec cd (sadly) - delay F keys if you can (but consider dumping resource before capping > proc dunfire)
Scourge is just fantastic. The heal, boon dps, and straight dps builds are all strong. Not the highest damage, but it feels great having the extra utility and range.
running it with serpent siphon feels great, extra heal and barrier and much more chill alac uptime, not that big of a dps loss
Yeah that skill never leaves my bar on alacdps scourge. It also does a boon rip and provides aegis. Also the heal skill gives a bit of barrier for one more alac source.
I did not know that not having an offhand weapon in your second slot keeps the offhand from the first! That'll make some of these builds so much easier!
alac scg is really a cool and strong alac build that's very underrated. i do enjoy playing it occasionally on condi fights.
you can play this build with full viper gear if your group stacks well (but you have to use your heal off cd for that). when i play alac scg i tend to use serpent siphon to buffer alac, just so that i can play with full dps gear.
just like on dps scg, you want to space out your f-skills by at least 1s and not spam them right after each other to proc dhuumfire. especially on alac scg, your f2 does not inflict burning, so it's far less worth pressing that button than on dps. you barely ever have the time and life force to use f4 for burning.
also just like on dps scg i would first swap out the signet of spite for utility, then the signet of undead. even for cc, i would in most cases not take golem, but just spectral grasp. you have torch 5, pistol 3 and fear on f4 still for cc. and if i need more cc, i usually take a warhorn on one weapon set to complement the torch cc.
Great timing with this video. Finally feel i have down power reaper and want to try and branch out more. Shockingly few to no videos on acl scourge dps thats updated especially with the break downs you have.
Showing rotation is great but it helps to know why you press buttons. Especially since so far my limited experience with this class is other then pairing a few skills the rotation is whats needed and noy so much do this or you suck. 😅
I think it's finally time for you to try the finger-breaking Quick DPS Firebrand
I want to love Scourge but I hate the spamming of shades, I don't understand why they made the duration so short, spamming is not fun. If they reworked shades it would be one of my favorites.
The way the dhuumfire works with the scourge is that the scourge itself is a shade. So the game is coded to manifest a shade on the character so that you can then cast f2-f5. So that initial cast of manifest sand shade thats coded into the system is proccing the dhuumfire around you. Youll notice your shade at distance doesnt do burning on f3 and f4.
There was a balance patch that meant that the character was not a shade and you only cast the f2-f5 from your shades. This ruined scourge and got insta patched within 1 balance pass. Also dropped dps by almost 8-9k.
imo they should change the aoe color in f5 from yellow to green or blue or something
Full vipers can be done, but its just barely enough if youre well focused and not wasting life force, will require using your heal skill outside of fractals (especially when boon overload is on)
I usually use one or 2 pieces of ritualists except in certain fights where you have to split up frequently, then i might throw on full armor as rits or some accessories.
Quick harb is the better boondps for sure.
However ive also played condi alac heal scourge using mostly cele, viper weapons and a vipers ring and accessory. But this is only okay with groups who are good at not failing mechanics.
I have an AlacDPS Scourge named Garra Shukaku (Gaara taken obviously) I have transmog'd but I havent fully geared up yet so this will be nice.
Thank you so much for this video
i do full vipers armor/weapons and plaguedoctor trinkets. been leading strikes, IBS5 and daily EOD/SotO pugs. Blood is power and Desiccate always, swap between serpent siphon/stability. every time i say im alac heal and do 20k dps, while maintaining 25 might on team and 8-11k barrier bursts. you get more boon duration so dont need barrier heal and can go well of blood/relic of the flock. def the most fun ive had in a while. Was annoyed bc i watch snow crows full raid clears and was thinking why they so often have 1 healer and a scourge in the other sub group doing 20k dps pulsing huge barriers, but i think i cracked their secret 🤐
If you want a challenge, try "alac quickness s/s scourge" to really give people a show.
It wasn't well built at all but a full celestial alac self quick sword sword scourge is really fun
For normal open world anyway who knows maybe even non t4 fractals. Tons of cc through fear spam, range, sustain, group alac/condition cleanse
It's far from great but it's great for whoever playing it and the dps isn't bad
This is the first time I noticed shades are a freaky face and not a nondescript sand-colored pillar
@MuklukUA-cam would this build still work with seraph instead of ritualists?
What rune would you use if you can't get the rune of the Trapper? If you don't mind me asking?
Hey Muk quick question. Is reseting opening strike strike ranger a thing?
Try celestial hybrid dps\healer, it is same but also heals. Still barriers, condi cleanses, boonstrips, still transfusion with 2\3 of healing of heal scourge but with 2\3 of alac scrouge dps.
Also i think that dessicate and shadow fiend is more comfy way to generate lifeforce than signet.
What Relic would you go with this build?
relic of fractal?
akeem
Fractal is the best, Akeem Second Best, and Nightmare if you can't get ether of the other two.
Krait not Nightmare btw, mixed them up xD
The dhuumfire is because your f2-f5 goes through your f1.
One thing I always struggle with when playing aDPS or DPS Scourge is life force management. I always find myself lacking energy at one point (on the golem particularly), thus slowing down my rotation and having to press my F skills seconds after they go off-cooldown. I always play at least with Signet of Undeath, and even tried the builds with dagger mainhand to try to keep up (and my dps went wayyyy down don't do that). Am I just mashing too fast and need to be more precautious, or is there a trick that I missed ?
A few tips for Life Force:
Never EVER use Shade Skill 4(the fear one) unless you need the Fear itself, iv tried using it myself for extra DPS and i don't find it to be worth it unless your doing it once in the beginning of our rotation or something.
If your weapon Swap is off Cooldown use it, your pistol generates a nice ammount of Life Force.
(Not sure i would recommend Dagger on your offhand btw, the Torch is simply to good)
Also i personally love to run with Signet of Undeath, Bloodispower and Shadow Fiend, Loads of Lifeforce to use.
If you need to swap something out for Utlity(Corrosive Poison Cloud etc) try to always have ether Signet of Undeath or Shadow Fiend on since they help with life force a lot.
You can try running with the grabbing spell. if you use it while inside an enemy you can get rediculous amounts of life force - the bigger the enemy more easier it is. e.g. meta boss in amnytas almost restores the full bar :)
EDIT: And everyone will love you because you grab enemies together here and then :) just a great spell in general
first my english is bad but im gonna try my best with my question.
anybody able to keep the uptime for more than 10 seconds?
i mean i am able to keep the alac up but 10s maximum and i have to mash all those keys to keep it up
i even put some extra ritualist in there and my boon is sit at 20% not including trait
if i screw one i screw my uptime and my entire career as scourge
oh and some extra question
i dont have soto any suggestion for replacement of pistol?
If I dont see Dale say "Pocket Sand" I am going to be dissapointed
hi dps algorithm
I can use the same gear for QDPS harbringer?
techniclly yes, but you dont need that much boon duration on Condi Quick Harbringer.
You can use Full vipers for Pure CDPS Scourge, Pure CDPS Harb, Alac Scourge and Condi quick Harbringer.
Just change weapons for harbringer and use Toxic Oil and some ritualist Trinkets for 15-20% boon duration on boonsupports and your good to go unless its a fight where theres a lot of movement.
Lol “after a few second I got it up and it never fell off” hehehehe
Can you audit your mic setup and recording software? Your sibilance is prominent and it’s daggers in my ears
First is the worst!