Desert Empowerment

Manifest Sand Shade grants a barrier to allies near it. When you apply barrier, grant boons to the affected target. This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits. — In-game description

Desert Empowerment

Specialization

Scourge (trait list)

Tier

Grandmaster

Type

Major

Training cost

10 Hero points

Game link

API

API

“

Desert Empowerment

Manifest Sand Shade grants a barrier to allies near it. When you apply barrier, grant boons to the affected target.
This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits.

 Barrier: 572 (1.0)^?

 Barrier: 385 (0.65)^?

 Barrier: 385 (0.8)^?

 Alacrity (10.5½s): +25% Skill Recharge Rate

 Vigor (1s): +50% Endurance Regeneration

 Number of Allied Targets: 5

 Radius: 300

— In-game description

Related skills

Healing skills that are improved by this trait

•   Sand Flare — Punishment

Utility skills that are improved by this trait

•   Sand Swell — Punishment
•   Serpent Siphon — Punishment

Profession mechanic skills that are improved by this trait

•   Manifest Sand Shade — Shade
•   Sand Cascade — Shade
•   Desert Shroud — Shroud, Shade

Trait skills that are improved by this trait

•   Sandstorm Shroud — Herald of Sorrow

Related traits

Traits that improve this trait

Scourge

• Abrasive Grit — Granting an ally a barrier removes conditions afflicting them and grants might. This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits.
• Desert Empowerment — Manifest Sand Shade grants a barrier to allies near it. When you apply barrier, grant boons to the affected target. This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits.

Traits that are improved by this trait

Blood Magic

• Blood Bank — Gaining health grants a proportionate amount of barrier. Conversion amount increases while at full health.

Scourge

• Feed from Corruption — When you remove or corrupt a boon from an enemy, gain barrier.
• Desert Empowerment — Manifest Sand Shade grants a barrier to allies near it. When you apply barrier, grant boons to the affected target. This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits.

Notes

• This benefit is not applied to the barrier granted by Relic of the Flock and Blood Bank as these are not part of the Scourge's skills or traits.

Version history

For a detailed trait history, see here.

Patch	Changes
September 09, 2025	Reduced the healing power coefficient from 1.3 to 0.8 and the vigor duration from 2 seconds to 1 second in PvP only.
March 19, 2024	This trait now grants vigor instead of alacrity in PvP and WvW.
November 28, 2023	Reduced the healing power coefficient from 1.2 to 0.65 in WvW only.
July 19, 2023	Fixed an issue that caused this trait to grant more barrier than intended in PvP and WvW.
July 18, 2023	Increased alacrity duration from 1 second to 1.5 seconds in PvE only. Increased base barrier from 385 to 572 in PvE only. Increased barrier attribute scaling from 0.75 to 1.0 in PvE only.
June 27, 2023	This trait has been moved to the grandmaster tier, replacing Feed from Corruption. The barrier from this trait will now only apply around the shade and will affect 5 targets. This trait now also grants alacrity to allies when you grant them barrier.
February 28, 2022	End of Dragons release: The base barrier granted by the skills Sand Cascade, Sand Flare, Desert Empowerment, Desert Shroud, and Sandstorm Shroud has been reduced. The contribution of healing power on these skills has been increased.
August 17, 2021	Reduced base barrier from 966 to 773 in PvP only.
April 06, 2021	Reduced barrier attribute scaling from 0.77 to 0.62 in PvP only.
July 28, 2020	Reduced base barrier from 1,207 to 966 in PvP only.
December 12, 2017	All skills that grant barrier now give 15% more barrier.
September 22, 2017	Path of Fire release: Desert Empowerment has been added to the game.