Guild Wars 2

Is running with s/d even viable?

S/D is excellent. I liked running a 30/0/0/20/20 build for just using S/D. Or you could use S/D with the Lightning Hammer build 20/25/0/25/0 and stack alot of Might with Fire 2>4>3>earth>4>(2 if you’re fast enough for some defense)>5>Lightning Hammer/switch to Water>smash face

S/D is probably best utilized lately with a fresh air build like:
0/30/0/10/30 or 0/30/0/30/10 so you can get those lightning strikes off quickly on attunement swap. With the arcana build especially you can attunement dance easily and provide excellent PvE dps. The added range is good too for additional safety – you should be able to tie down champs solo with dodges and cc while slowly dpsing them down.

A 30/0/0/30/10 signet build with persisting flames/auras is pretty fun for dungeons too. I used to run this before switching to fresh air. Oddly enough though I just yesterday hung up the scepter for D/D in PvE, WvW and tPvP – just wanted something different.

It’s certainly “viable”, but a Clerics Shout Warrior is also “viable” in dungeons, but it’s not very good. I assume you’re asking if S/D is good in dungeons and fractals.

My personal opinion is that it’s best used as a Might stacking set, and then using Conjure Lightning Hammer to do DPS. Scepter actually has very good burst DPS, but the sad truth is thakittens sustained DPS is on the low side. This is due to its nature – its high burst makes it theoretically potent in PvP formats, so the autoattacks had to be nerfed to oblivion.

You can certainly attempt to run S/D in full Berserker gear with a good DPS setup that has 30 in Fire for the Fury stacking, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. But if you want something that’s really good, you should add Lightning Hammer to it. Scepter on its own just doesn’t have very good sustained damage at all, which is highly important in most dungeon content.