Guild Wars 2

Overall, the weapon called scepter is the most worthless weapon for all professions that can equip it. Looks like the creator(s) did not put much thought into it.
Elementalist: Every attunement
-Fire
1: why is it this way?
2: dragon tooth’s got good dmg, but every moving target is able walk away from it because of its slowness.
3: good but slow
-Water
1: why?
2: why?
-Air
1: dmg from stage 1&2 are too low
2&3 are basically same skills: one with dmg only, and one with blind only. Such a waste.
-Earth
1: Acceptable condition dmg, but I just hate its slowness.
3: Centaurs have a much better version of this, and its awesome.

Mesmer:
1: Too slow
3: Too slow

Necromancer:
3: Dmg too low

Guardian:
1: I know we need this 1200 range weapon, but its dmg is kinda low.
2: Same as skill 1
3: 900 range? No dmg?

Tken.1986:

Necromancer:
3: Dmg too low

Condition damage. Specced right, the Scepter is a devastating weapon for Necromancers… as long as they aren’t hitting Structures or things otherwise immune to Conditions.

Yeah, so far scepter is the one GOOD weapon for necro (imo, I like doing condition damage than pure power)
But I agree, scepter and focus to me are less loved than other weapons

Not a single one of my toons uses a scepter. The only exception is my guardian when I have to go into my inventory and switch a weapon for the scepter because range is required. Other than that, I never use the scepter

I always use my scepter in dungeons, it’s very useful and has given me great results.

With just a bit of condition damage and a superior sigil of corruption it puts out great DPS with the earth auto.

Dragon’s tooth is great damage with a relatively low cast/channel time and a low cooldown, you just need to learn to use it properly.

Phoenix is amazing. Does good aoe damage, cures conditions, and gives you vigor.

Shatterstone does decent aoe damage, and applies vulnerability. And it’s cooldown is only 2 seconds.

Water Trident heals you and does damage, great ability.

Air does decent dps and it’s cool when it bugs out and you just run around with your arm extending constantly shooting out lightning.

Rock barrier gives you 250 toughness (which is around 10% damage reduction) and can be used offensively for damage and as a projectile finisher.

Dust devil is an AOE blind that deals damage. Nuff said. And comparing it to an NPC ability is just moronic. That’s like saying every ability in the game sucks because it’s not as good as Giganticus Lupicus’ giant AOE in phase 2

Personally I love the scepter on my mid-level (45 as of last night) mesmer in general open world play.

I have specced with crippling dissipation (cripples nearby enemies when clones are killed) and debilitating dissipation (clones apply random condition to nearby enemies when killed). The scepter 1 (I set it to auto-attack) creates a new clone every 3rd attack at the foe’s position, when three clones are up every new clone makes another one dissipate, activating both traits

So anytime the enemies kill a clone, or every 3 attacks if they ignore them, they get crippled, letting me easily kite melee enemies, plus get conditions applied to them (Weakness, 3x Bleed or 3x Vulnerability at random), usually combined with pistol offhand for phantasmal duelist (phantasm that shoots with dual pistols) for extra damage.

In my guardian scepter is usually just relegated to fighting dragons since it’s their only real ranged weapon (staff is more for support and its ranged attack is weak and shorter range).

If it is worthless people won’t use it. But people do use it. I use it on my guardian and necromancer. And I actually I see it on other guardian and necromancer quite often.

Almost all conditiomancer use sceptor. And I say a good portion of guardian use sceptor, it is either sceptor or staff as a secondary for pve guardian.

necro: one of the best weapons 5/5 (good main weapon)

guardian: good kitting & AoE but of course you aren’t supposed to spam #1 if you can do something other instead (like weapon switch). 4/5 (good as a second weapon)

mesmer: works only in certains settings. Deceptive evasion makes it useless. Confusion is hard to play. The blocking mechanism isn’t satisfactory (too short in PVE, fails to protect you in PVP) 2/5 (need a buff plz)

ele: eh … it’s fine for people who like playing ranged alone? can’t tell must level-up my ele first ^^

necro: one of the best weapons 5/5 (good main weapon)

guardian: good kitting & AoE but of course you aren’t supposed to spam #1 if you can do something other instead (like weapon switch). 4/5 (good as a second weapon)

mesmer: works only in certains settings. Deceptive evasion makes it useless. Confusion is hard to play. The blocking mechanism isn’t satisfactory (too short in PVE, fails to protect you in PVP) 2/5 (need a buff plz)

ele: eh … it’s fine for people who like playing ranged alone? can’t tell must level-up my ele first ^^

I use it as my secondary weapon on my guardian (usually only in dungeons). My build has high crit chance as well as traits that give might to my party and vigor to me on crit. So, when I can’t be close to the boss for whatever reason, I can still keep the crits going while I’m far away. This way I’m still rolling out the might for the higher dps long ranged characters, keep doing some damage myself, more dodge roll heal, and also more dodge rolling to get out of the effects. Also, the 3rd skill on scepter applies vulnerability and crowd control, which I don’t think can be dismissed easily. Lastly, I’m especially good at taking out things like burning oil in the ascalon fractal with the 2 skill. It might not be the most powerful weapon a guardian has, but my goal is to stay melee most of the time anyway and use the scepter as a filler.

as people have said, scepter is the only real viable main hand weapon for condition based necromancers.

for mesmer, its pretty good to get clones out quickly and stack confusion.

hated it on elementalist. actually, i disliked that class in general so…

dont know about the other classes that can use them.

I use sceptre/shield for my guardian in WvW and some fractals. The root then aoe skill is timeless in WvW.

for my necromancer I use
1. Staff for condition damage and for targets I don’t want to get close to
2. Scepter main hand, dagger off hand for condition damage
Like you can guess I’m specked for conditions. And I like it. So there’s your answer

I’ve heard it’s good for mesmers too.

Really every single weapon in the game meant for a class is of some use to people with a particular build. This game is all about finding your right build and liked weapon. Scepter might not be for you, but I find it useful.

for my necromancer I use
1. Staff for condition damage and for targets I don’t want to get close to
2. Scepter main hand, dagger off hand for condition damage
Like you can guess I’m specked for conditions. And I like it. So there’s your answer

I’ve heard it’s good for mesmers too.

Really every single weapon in the game meant for a class is of some use to people with a particular build. This game is all about finding your right build and liked weapon. Scepter might not be for you, but I find it useful.

^yeah, scepter/dagger seems like a good combo for necro. My friend suggested focus, but it feels different, they both are condition weapons though

(I only have a level 80 Guardian that uses a scepter, so basing it off that) Personally, I find specter is pos weapon for Guardian. It has it’s usefulness, such as drawing aggro but the positives end there. When playing my Guardian, if I want to go range for any reason I’ll just swap to a Staff. A Staff does more damage anyway. It also makes me cringe whenever I see a Guardian use a Specter and Shield opposed using a Sword and Shield. Especially in dungeons it makes me want to rage at the person and tell them they are an idiot for using that weapon and adding no value whatsoever to the group. My two cents.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

^yeah, scepter/dagger seems like a good combo for necro. My friend suggested focus, but it feels different, they both are condition weapons though

Imo dagger OH for solo and focus for group.

dagger 4 provides bouncing blind and condition transfer from you to mob . dagger 5 provides extra bleed and weakness(!).

focus 4 on the other hand is vulnerability and regeneration. Focus 5 is chill and boon removal.

All in all i am of two minds about the while chill thing. Sure, comboed with cripple it provides a massive movement reduction. But the skill cooldown is hard to judge as we do not know what skills the mobs use and their cooldowns (in GW1 they used the same skills as the toons).

I have an 80 guardian, 80 necro and 80 memser.

I find scepter useful on all of them actually. By far my favorite weapon both necro and guardian. It’s ok on mesmer if you combine the skills right. iDuelist+scepter#2 is a nice combo with alot of damage. However I have ditched both scepter and pistol and gone for a staff+GS weapon setup. I far prefer the staff to any other weapon currently, since it has a nice clone spawning pace along with one of the most hard hitting phantasms in the arsenal. Plus it brings nice combo fields for my iZerker. And since my spec is balance between phantasms and shatters it works really well, my phantasms deal great damage and I can pop full shatters when I want to.

For guardian its one of my favorite weapons. It brings nice damage, dont let the pop-up numbers from Sc#2 fool you, it hits for as much as any other (x times) ability, it just doesnt look like it since it doesnt calculate total damage, so the numbers look small. I combine my scepter with a torch, it makes quite a beefy ranged build and up close its terrifying. Teleport to your enemy, Sc#3, #2 and Torch#5, can pop torch#4 before the jump for a big initial hit.

For necro scepter is just the weapon to go for in a coni build, along with a dagger in offhand and a staff in second setup.

@Digiowl: Focus isnt really worth it, the vulnerability stack is low and most likely another class will build it up on its own. The chill from the focus is also not worth it, because you already have 2 chills in your weapon setup. Dagger 4 and 5 are just much more useful. 4 blinds and removes 1 condi per enemy hit (up to 3), 5 inflicts bleeding and weakness, its just a very lovely debuff.

The setup with scepter+dagger/staff gives you 2 chills, alot of bleeding options, 2 condi removals (1 for your group), regeneration that can be up 100% of the time, 1 weakness, 1 fear, 1 blind. Add utilities on that and you can get another bleed which you can double stack with dagger/staff#4, another weakness aswell as a condition spreader.

I love my Scepter/Dagger Ele, but I don’t think I’d use him in PvP though, but I don’t PvP anyways. But in dungeons, at least at level 80, I can get 4500 on a Dragon’s Tooth, 7K on Fire Grab, and 5-7K on Churning Earth.

They definitley could increase the speed of some skills, and maybe change Earth 3 to an Aura or something else

When I run solo ele I only use scepter dagger (yes I know the gods say dagger dagger). I find it really fun to play, have done so since lvl 1 and have been 80 for a couple of months now.

My two cents as a guardian:
I’ve actually built my traits around using scepter and torch and I can deal quite a lot of damage with burning by using my Virtue combined with burning spirit weapons while I stay giving support on the background. My secondary weapon at the moment is the hammer so I can also jump into the battle whenever I see an opening. However, I would like to see either a buff in projectile speed or range for the scepter. It’s very slow, and very short ranged. I know a ranger is supposed to be able to use a longbow to shoot from a range of 1200, but scepter really has a very short range and I’d like to be a little more useful at longer distances.

As a Necro, I used Scepter/Dagger the entire time I leveled. I use dual daggers if I’m clearing lower areas since it attacks faster, I move quicker, and I can take care of destructible objects easier as well, but in end game areas, a scepter keeps me alive better than anything else. (I use cond damage as a general, mostly Carrion equips.)