S/F pve advice?
The problem with the scepter is its sustained damage. It’s awful, and most importantly outside Dragon Tooth/Phoenix all your damage is single target.
They need to fix the #1 skills for the scepter, and by fix I mean straight out buff their damage (the fire skill needs a good direct damage portion; the rest need their numbers tweaked up and Shatterstone/DT with halved delay before detonation and for Shatterstone to do more damage, while earth and air #3 skills should cleave/aoe).
If the scepter is to stay mostly a single target weapon, then its damage needs to reflect that investment and be higher than weapons with plenty of aoe capacity.
so, first time posting here, and i browsed other sites for good builds for PvE, as the title says, and about 95% of the threads/sites say D/D for auromancer is hands down the best support and build for the ele right now, or even S/D…i saw a few staff builds out there also
not that i hate supporting cause i did a lot of it in previous games i played, but are we really pigoened holed into this atm?
am i playing a outdated(or crappy spec)?
currently im trying to go with a crit build with…
25 into air
20 into water
25 into arcane…but this will soon change into 20 since the 25 passive trait isnt so hoti feel like i do decent dmg, i keep up a lot of stacks of vulnerability for the party and i can heal and remove cond. with attuning to water and have vigor up 100% time to my arcane trait, so if played properly i can dodge a lot
the focus skills are pretty decent, between knocking down projectiles , removing my own cond. and kiting with water skills are just a taste
so any pointers out there for it? should i just i hope on the wagon and go D/D? i really dont want to be like everyone else and i feel like if played properly i can do well in these dungeons
I’ve got mixed feelings about Focus, fire is the only element I don’t really like and water focus could see some buffs ( dmg buff or secondary effects).
I’d suggest to use signet of air with a focus and maybe take written in stones trait, in this way you won’t lack mobility when using a focus
My scepter/focus build I go with uses 20 in earth, 20 in water, and 30 in arcane. Your choices can vary, but for my trait skills I use
elemental shielding/geomancer’s alacrity for earth
Cleansing wave/Cantrip mastery in water
elemental attunement/Vigourous scepter/Evasive Arcana for arcane.
I’ve found the key to running with a good scepter/focus build is staying tanky, while trying to keep up might stacks. It’s pretty simple to get 25 stacks of might up, in two full attunement rotations. throw down fire 4, blast finisher with 2 and 3. Switch to earth and dodge roll into the fire field. Use 4, switch to water and throw down 5.
The reason I use a scepter focus build is because of its great survivability. Each attunement has multiple damage delay spells. Earth gets extra toughness, an aoe blind to delay damage, a reflective shield that cures condition, and a 5 second invulnerability. Air has a protective bubble that blocks projectiles, an instant blind, and a great knockdown. Water has its trident heal, chill, and the daze. Fire has the least survivability, but with the elemental shielding it makes the aura give protection. I’ve found that in addition to using cantrips (armor of earth, mist form, lightning flash) it is a pretty good bunker build.
This is all my personal opinion, but I think the only way Scepter/Focus works out is a survivability defensive build. building crit doesn’t benefit your autoattacks very well. Fire auto is used for its condition burning and has awful direct damage, water is low dps, and air is really bad at putting out damage, unless combined with its 2 skill, but even then two skills make up for one autoattack. Earth has the same problem with Fire, it’s used for condition damage. You will mainly use crit for your Fire 2/3 which are both easily dodgeable. for PvE it’s fine because mobs don’t dodge or move, but its harder to hit somebody unless you lead with the knockdown in air. I find crit to be wasted in a scepter/focus build.
Again this is all my opinion, because if you want that sort of thing go for a DD build. Scepter/Focus got me solo through Orr, and for PvE I think it’s amazing because you can easily set up 25 stacks of might, and mobs can’t dodge fire 2/3 and both skills deal good damage. the invulnerable is perfect for any channel skillpoints, and combined with mist form guarantees a safe channel time. Also you deal decent aoe damage with Evasive Arcana, and Fire 2/3. However, I wouldn’t use it outside of PvE, too much, there are better options.