Guild Wars 2

Something i’ve wondered for some time but not really understood.

If you look at some of the metabuilds ,
For example : a reaper build recommends First set : scepter / dagger
second set Scepter (again ) , with warhorn.

the thing i wonder, let’s just say you use scepter skills, then switch set, you will still have scepter skills on cd, ofc and can use warhorn skills, but then why pick scepter in second set ?

Why not pick another for second set , as then when you use scepter skills and switch , you will have the extra abillities to use aswell. it just seems to limit things to me , and i don’t get it.

If anyone can please explain this to me and why it is like this, it would be greatly appreciated. i hope i explained this good enough. thanks

I honestly don’t know. It is a little weird.

Obviously some of the classes have either 1) limited mainhand wep sets or 2) some mainhand skills are much more useful than others as well as having low cd’s or somesuch.

So lets take a look at mesmer, not even the elite spec but years ago I remember their pve meta had wep sets like s/s and s/f (shared mainhand sword for both sets). The reasoning being, mes has only 2 mainhand weps to choose from. Scepter is ranged and has meh skills, while sword is melee and has much more useful skills for survivability (long evade/blur skill with low cd). Mes also has lot more useful offhand sets depending on a situation, hence need for 1h wep sets instead of 2h ones which are mostly for camping ranged and do meh damage with a unique skillset only really useful for kiting. So I guess thats the reason why they have it like that, I can’t speak abt necros cos I never bothered with one.

It triggers on-swap traits and sigils. For example ranger axe/torch + axe/torch max DPS can only be triggered via the trait quick draw. Without the “weapon swap” your damage plummets through the floor.

Edit for clarity: There are other reasons for some builds, I was just listing one.

Sometimes a mainhand is so good (low cooldowns and high effectiveness) or fits a build so much better than the other options that you want to keep it despite not getting renewed cooldowns.

In your specific example, Necromancer’s other 2 mainhand weapons are both power based, not condition based. So for a condition-based build, you keep Scepter on at all times because its the only condition-based mainhand you have access to and swapping it out would end up making your condition output drop off significantly. Not to mention the fact that Scepter’s AA is the main source of its power (#2 is OK and #3 is basically just useful for a bit of life force) so it doesn’t really suffer from needing to be swapped out of to renew cooldowns. But you still swap between Dagger (for even more conditions) and Warhorn (for interrupts and life force building).

Electro.4173:

Not to mention the fact that Scepter’s AA is the main source of its power (#2 is OK and #3 is basically just useful for a bit of life force) so it doesn’t really suffer from needing to be swapped out of to renew cooldowns. But you still swap between Dagger (for even more conditions) and Warhorn (for interrupts and life force building).

a condi necro in pve should almost always have full or nearly full life force. you really don’t want to be using it all that often, only every time 5 is off cd (and the thing to do then is 5 4 3 exit). scepter 3 is convenient for maintaining full life force, but it’s primary function is that it gives a 7 stack of torment to anything with 5+ condis. a 7 stack of torment is strong enough that you should always be using 3 on cd every time you can. when you do, you shouldn’t have to worry about life force generation.