Guild Wars 2

I really, truly did, but I just couldn’t get scepter/focus to work.

Build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcsMM9Mz0oaLbMoaLboG0xG0MsVRbcV8khf7khg7070z7khf707kIV7kIQ70m7owZ8ofZ

My damage took too long to set up, was easily negated via condition removal, I had laughably poor mobility, and my healing was terrible. Focusing on direct damage doesn’t seem like a great idea for s/f due to the lack of such skills that reliably connect and deal decent damage.

…Anyone got any ideas? I’ve gotta figure out SOME kind of ranged PvP build.

S/F is only really useful as dps when specced in lightning. Try 10/30/0/0/30 and focus on crit burst damage.

Also simply put, u cannot mainly spec into water and earth and expect to do decent damage.

Edit: Also remove those 7-8 signets for some arcane skills or more cantrips.

International.7980:

S/F is only really useful as dps when specced in lightning. Try 10/30/0/0/30 and focus on crit burst damage.

Also simply put, u cannot mainly spec into water and earth and expect to do decent damage.

Edit: Also remove those 7-8 signets for some arcane skills or more cantrips.

I was afraid of that; speccing so that air will do decent damage will pretty much destroy what survivability I had, but I’ll give it a shot. Thanks for the input.

Not just air though; the other attunement skills benefit more off the air traits than their own for damage. For example, water skills will have the ability to deal vulnerability with crits (especially skill #1 which hits 3 times). As for survivability, use the arcane traits to get vigor on crits so u can pretty much spam dodge with evasive arcana. Use fire trait 10 to get that trait that gives u burn chance on crits.

International.7980:

Not just air though; the other attunement skills benefit more off the air traits than their own for damage. For example, water skills will have the ability to deal vulnerability with crits (especially skill #1 which hits 3 times). As for survivability, use the arcane traits to get vigor on crits so u can pretty much spam dodge with evasive arcana. Use fire trait 10 to get that trait that gives u burn chance on crits.

I meant that the Air attunement skills are pretty much where most of my damage will come from due to the unreliable nature of the fire skills, and the fact that the only decent damage in the Earth attunement is condition damage.

The reason you don’t see impressive number is probably because S/F is not really meant for dmg. Scepter itself is a very defensive weapon. It has damage but not too impressive. Most of the S/D burst builds rely on Dagger offhand skill such as RoF, Fire grab, Earth Quake, Churning,…..and double Arcane skills to do the burst. DT + Phoenix is a wonderful combo itself and the only AoE dmg if you run S/F.

Focus is purely for control and defense. I think they way S/F plays is similar to Necro: to poke and win slowly through sustain dmg and controls.

Vanillea.5764:

The reason you don’t see impressive number is probably because S/F is not really meant for dmg. Scepter itself is a very defensive weapon. It has damage but not too impressive. Most of the S/D burst builds rely on Dagger offhand skill such as RoF, Fire grab, Earth Quake, Churning,…..and double Arcane skills to do the burst. DT + Phoenix is a wonderful combo itself and the only AoE dmg if you run S/F.

Focus is purely for control and defense. I think they way S/F plays is similar to Necro: to poke and win slowly through sustain dmg and controls.

Thing is, as far as bunkers go, d/d and s/d are better, so I’m just trying to find a use.

I also tried scepter/focus initially, but quickly realized the scepter works better with dagger offhand. The skills just fit very well for Fire and Earth, and to a lesser extent for water and air (imo).
I will later try a dagger/focus combination, but I’m happy with S/D for now.

copy-paste: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJArYhMmObvR3wjDAkCmEeQADJMeECIkA;TQAA1GFcYYCB

focus is a defensive weapon… but we already have plenty of defensive utilities (some that are really good…)… and a shortage of offensive utilities (that are in general not much effective)… this make the focus redundant with our utilities…

scepter soffer form a damage partition that u will not see in other weapon set… fire dmg comes half from condition (fire 1 and half the dmg from fire 2 are burning) and half form direct dmg (half of fire 2 and fire 3)… earth come almost from condition (actually only earth 1 is a dmg skill and is a condition spamming skill… while 2 and 3 are defensive skill that deal almost no dmg)… air totally from direct dmg… so if u spec for condition u will only have 1/4 of the total offensive skill avaible working well (fire 1, earth 1 and a decent dmg from fire 2 burning even if the upfront dmg will stay on the moderate/low side…)… and the same if u spec for direct damage (fire 3, air 1,2,3 and a decent dmg from fire 2 while the condition part will stay on the low side…)… water obviousl… deal almost no dmg no matter how u spec it -_-’ (water 2 being a dps loss no metter what u do… water 3 being a dmg and heal that does none of the 2 in a decent way…)