Guild Wars 2

After 1 month as a berserk staff ele, and 2 months as a bunker
d/d ele, I gave scepter/dagger a try over the past two nights.

Near the end of last night, I switched back to d/d to end the night
since I was using the same gear and traits anyhow (bunker).

The s/d is definitely missing on something, but I cant pinpoint it.
The only real AOE is in fire, and everything except Fire Grab is
low damage. I was hoping to try it and discover something new,
but in every battle it seemed I was still resorting to the dagger offhand skills.

I havnt been able to find any s/d guides, but is it even viable? What am
I missing? This isnt a troll post, I honestly need other views on it, because
it seemed extremely lackluster compared to the last two builds Ive been
running.

For the record, the ONLY thing I was impressed with was Earth 3. Assuming
you dont throw the rocks, you get +250 toughness for 30 seconds, and when
thats up, the CD is ready so you can keep it on at all times.

There are 2 ways to play s/d:

1) Full zerker user with: 20/20/0/20/10 and divinity runes, join a zerg and watch the numbers go up and up, arc lightning alone can deal over 3k dmg on a heavy armour target, if you feel comfortable enough, as utilities I’d use arcane shield and mist form followed by arcane wave ( or signet of air if you like it)
- Use arc-lightning as a bait for the enemy to get close, at around 400 range use updraft followed by dragon’s tooth- ring of fire – phoenix in this order, by the time dragons’ tooth land , the ring of fire should be out already and phoenix will hit the target at the same time of dragon’s tooth
- Just for good measure, use fire grab( be ready to circle a little as to assure the hit) for a nifty 7k+ dmg
- Use burning precision trait which apply 2s burning on crit ( 30% chance) and use a fire sigil on the dagger OH for great aoe fire dmg every 5s ( 30% chance)
-The range of the minor trait lightning strike is the same as the skill one so use it accordingly, while the minor fire trait at 15 fire ( sunspot) is nearby range
- you’re extremely squishy so don’t play with this build unless you’ve got a ping below 30ms XD

2) s/d balanced : use a soldier amulet with arcane wave to reach 12+ stack of might in no time, of course use a battle sigil in main hand ( won’t trigger in off hand=bug)

You have given me another idea, and thats run in zerker over
my bunker build gear.

In my opinion, the hardest spec to stay alive in is berserker staff,
since it doesnt have Ride the Lightning to get away. Despite that,
I always did very well on map awareness and would only die 2-3
times in a night (I did learn to run allot though too!). That
experience can only help with s/d since I would have RtL now along
with the range.

In fact, running soldier armor with berserker accessories is what I will
try since s/d is a range and melee spec, so a mixture of defense and
offense may be a good thing. I cant imagine running into enemies
to get off something like Earth 4 without having some type of defense.

Ultimately what I have to get used to is the lack of options in attacking. With
staff, there were so many different “combos” to get off.

I run a full bunker S/D in WvW. It’s harder to use than D/D, lower damage and of course, higher skill ceiling (thus lower number of users). If played correctly, it is more powerful than D/D.

S/D has 2 blinds, burst heal and armour booster, as well as more dodges and more condition options.

I’m not really good at explaining how to play, so I’m just going to list my gear here, and what I do in WvW.

Full clerics armour with 2 water, monk and dwayna runes.
Full clerics trinkets with clerics jewels and P/V/T ascended backpack
Clerics Sceptre with Energy sigil
Clerics dagger with life sigil

0/0/10/30/30

or follow this link: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=Vk34;2B2VV0y4-N-Z0;9;69TT;42;042A46AUV;4nBYCqRnC3Nl

I can charge into 20+ man enemy zergs, do some epic stuff, and while they focus on me and other tanks in my guild, glass cannons take them out at the back. I usually come out full health.

Sceptre can be really fun and powerful if played correctly, and is employed by a lot of top tPvP teams. Hope you have fun with it ;]

I used to run s/d, still do sometimes, but I roam a lot and it lacks against thieves compared to d/d (and it seems like half the enemies are thieves these days).

Scepter has a couple really nice things going for it, pressure and burst. It is really best against single targets.

Earth #1 is good pressure, with 3 projectiles per attack, you can stack a good amount of bleeds with a decent bit of direct damage (watch out for projectile reflect skills!). Earth #2 and #3 can help protect you while you lay out that pressure damage, forcing heals and condition removals and setting up for your burst, if you can land Earth #3 anyway, it’s hard at max range since it’s reallllly slow moving.

Air 2&3 are both instacast. With 15+ points in air, you can strike a single target in melee range 3 times in about one second by swapping to air>rtl>air2 (with arcane utilities you can make that 5 hits, if you really want to build for burst), if they are out of melee range it will take slightly longer as rtl will have some travel time. Air #3 is so good, a low cooldown instant blind, sooo good.

Water attunement is a little lacking, although #2 is has a pretty fast cast for 5 stacks of vuln and hits pretty hard, so I’d usually throw that down hoping someone stands in the circle long enough…. If you have a crit/vigor build and omnomberry pie/ghost the #1 in water is pretty good for healing up and stacking vigor with 3 chances to crit per attack, works well with signet heal as well.

Fire is pretty much only good for phoenix, well aimed it can hit 3 times on one target in under 1 second (from 1st hit to 3rd, that is) and gives vigor! The #1 attack is terrible even compared to the water #1. Dragon’s tooth, well, we all know about that one, good damage IF it ever hits anything, immobilize or fire at immobilized targets or use to break siege weapons.

For elite skill I much prefer the greatsword to the elemental these days, unless I am soloing a supply camp or something where having a “tank” summon can help ease the pain. Greatsword mobility is epic, and the damage is pretty ok too. A quick #5>#3 combo on a siege weapon which is up against a wall or something can drop half or more of it’s hp and hurt anyone standing near pretty bad too. The #3 is an evade.

I used s/d as a primary weapon in BWE 2,but since they nerfed dt/pheonix combo (because it had too much burst lol while thieves do not) i have not picked up scepter again and probably wont until some things change *cough*shaterstone*cough*

Scepter is good for condition damage, I will give it that. Although dagger is no slouch either. I like to think of it like this.

Staff is clearly the group king, amazing support and damage to groups and area denial.

Dagger is awesome 1v1, hards hits and lots of mobility.

Scepter sits somewhere in between.

Any weapon can be made to work in any situation, but what they are good at is a different story. Scepter seems better at bursting thats for sure, but over time that damage will trail off a little compared to the other two which seem to be more stable.

Whenever I talk about “which weapon for ele” its not like other classes which have clear roles and goals. Ele doesnt really have a “best” option, nor a weak one. Its more flavor than anything. Its why I love the class, they bring everything to the table no matter which weapon set you role with.

Plus you can always carry all options, roam with one and swap to another if the situation demands it. Or you just want to muck about.

Yeah I would leave s/d for pvp. WvW is about staff ele and occasionally switching to a focus to seige denial/protection.

If you spec into Earth and go for condition damage/duration, then Earth #1 becomes really strong. Too bad Scepter condition builds are also extremely boring besides being good DPS since all you do is sit in Earth, autoattack and use crit signet for burn.

Scepter is IMO not a good WvW weapon, it’s more a sPvP weapon because of the limited aoe capabilities and the combo character (if you want to set up Dragon’s Tooth more often). I gave up on my “super” Dragon’s Tooth build in PvP, because there’s ALWAYS something going on that prevents the burst combo, and it’s not even really worth it because there are enough builds out there that burst for more than enough across numerous professions, and that’s certainly not what this game needs more of.

All good points, and personally my view of a caster is a staff wielder. What I
found to be an important point of using a staff is dont get caught in the open
with it. When your making your way over to the zerg, wear a OH dagger
for RtL in case trouble happens.

One thing I found last night about s/d is the blast finisher. Throw down
Ring of Fire, cast Phoenix and than quickly cast Earthquake. Both give
Might stacks for 30 seconds as a Blast finisher (6 stacks total). That is
helpful in group play.

What I will probably do is continue using a mixture of weapons depending on the
situation. A staff is best on keep defense/offense I have found out because
when used in open field zerg battles there is so much movement going on
that normally when you cast your AOE the enemy is already in another place.

Thunderbrew.7034:

A staff is best on keep defense/offense I have found out because
when used in open field zerg battles there is so much movement going on
that normally when you cast your AOE the enemy is already in another place.

Nah, you are just putting the AE on where your enemies are instead of where they will be when the damage lands.

S/D is harder to play but it does have some advantages over DD. Range is pretty good way of getting out of spike melee damage while still dealing out damage. It’s a tricky as most of the time SD still end up melee fighting but it’s nice to have a way to back up and still deal damage. Kind of like haveing pistol as off hand on a rogue. It’s also a lot easier to build up stacks of might as SD.
On the other hand not having shocking aura and perma swiftness makes me a sad panda at times.

What I personally feel like is missing in the S/D toolset:

- It lacks an aura. Perhaps change Rock Barrier so it counts as one
- Flamestrike’s (fire #1) direct damage component needs an increase or a shorter cast time. (minor)
- Dragon’s Tooth (fire #2) could land a little faster, or make it ground targeted. This would allow it to hit easier as you can place it in anticipation of where someone is going. Because people are almost always moving, this thing drops inherently behind your target. They could even make Phoenix (fire #3) track it’s target and effectively swap the ground targetting system with these 2 spells.
- Shatterstone (water #2) locks you out of casting for what feels like an eternity, if it were made a true instant cast, or get a small cast time/bar, it would make it more useful. (also minor)

I like playing it regardless, because it feels more technical, more elegant. It’s harder to make it work, but I get a bigger sense of accomplishment when I get the ball rolling as opposed to D/D. With these changes I wouldn’t miss D/D everytime I play it

My problem with scepter in my limited real experience is the burst component from fire is simply too difficult to land due to the slow travel/activation time for dragons tooth and phoenix. this means you can only ever use these spells in melee combat and even if you set up the attack with a knockdown, the activation time for these spells is so slow, that they’ll get up from the knockdown with just enough time to evade out of the attacks and take 0 damage.

The build also lacks a real snaring option. What I would give if frost aura and frozen burst switched position! Without a snare, it makes the burst damage that much more impossible to land on an active opponent.

Then worst of all is how dependent the build is on attunement swapping with so many poor auto-attack options.

I really do love the playstyle of scepter the most, but my only hope at pulling it off is with support in small groups. 1v1 I find it severely lacking because I can’t get the damage to actually hit.

I think scepter hasn’t been well-designed as a weapon at all. None of the skills really complement each other, and key damage skills like Dragon’s Tooth and Shatterstone have been left in a borderline unusable state.

In no other game can I think of skills that have been designed to miss or fail to apply their damage in most cases. At a bare minimum, these skills should be improved, eg: shatterstone could apply a 1s chill, or DT could drop twice as fast (and re-adjusting the damage as needed).

I realise Anet are trying hard to make skills require a degree of skill to get best results but all too often the result is creating a clunky, barely usable skill that just pisses everyone off.