> @"God.2708" said:
> > @"Helicity.3416" said:
> > > @"Infusion.7149" said:
> > > Firebrand , tempest, or scrapper (if you don't care as much about loot bags and your commander doesn't give scout tag)
> > >
> > > Chrono / spellbreaker are both more for boon rip not really for heal output or "keeping people alive".
> > > Your other options are dismal: druid, any thief, support scourge (people usually run hybrid) , herald (clunky tablet).
> >
> > Tempest is dead.
> > It was already easily outperformed by scrapper, and then they nerfed shout targets to make sure Ele can't do anything the best.
> >
> > Thanks anet!
>
> Tempest cleanses more than scrapper does, assuming you are running the right build. It also offers a glyph rez. It's much stronger than scrapper at the small scale because of that. The shout nerf (which was known as going to happen for almost a year) did nothing really to affect tempests place in zergs, it was and is still about the superspeed, stealth, and condi conversion.
1) Tempest doesn't cleanse more than scrapper, as other people have already explained above.
2) I can't believe how no one in this discussion has yet mentioned how scrapper CONVERTS conditions into boons rather than just cleansing them. That is a big part of what makes scrapper the superior secondary support class.
The same thing applies to boon strips (since I still see people arguing about spellbreaker/chronomancer vs scourge for strips): corruption from scourge is far superior to just stripping boons. Chronomancer is more of a utility bot that can also strip a lot and spellbreaker is good because the bubble is a form of area denial and because it cancels boon application leaving the affected players very vulnerable.
And finally, as a reply to the original post: firebrand provides crucial boons and also helps with healing and cleansing, and scrapper provides big healing and lots of condi conversion (also usually referred to as 'cleansing') and access to group stealth. Usually you want to have both a firebrand a scrapper in each party, so you can pick either one. For a newer WvW player, scrapper may be the better option because it's easier to play and arguably less essential to keeping the party alive than firebrand (in other words: if you die as firebrand, your party is screwed. If you die as scrapper, the party can be fine without you).