Guild Wars 2

I’m still leveling up my Elementalist so I may be wrong, but I’m under the impression that all scepter autoattacks are pretty bad power-wise, except maybe water.

I mean, what if I want to use fire as my primary power damage dealing attunement? As soon as I cast Dragon’s Tooth, Ring of Fire, Phoenix and Fire Grab I’m stuck with Flame Strike which is pretty bad from a power damage point of view, so it’s not really an advantage to invest in Ember’s Might since I’d be switching to something else.

Arc Lightning seems equally bad, I’ve seen Skales regenerating more health than I could take away with this attack. Fortunately, Lightning strike makes up for it since you can cast it during the channel of the autoattack.

Ice Shards seems the only autoattack to actually deal some damage.

Am I missing something?

Yes you are missing something.
The scepter/dagger combo is quite powerful with some condition damage gear.
My leveling build is s/d with water,air,fire,earth signets and FG.
An example PvE encounter without preparation would go something like this:
Open with DT
Ring of fire,
Switch to earth
Auto attack as long as the fire field is up,
Earth 2, for the extra armor and a later dps burst
Auto attack till burning is about to expire.
Pop fire signet to maintain burning.
Use earth three and air signet for blinds to reduce damage
Rinse repeat.

My build is fire, earth, arcane.

Scepter autoattacks across all professions, along with Pistol and Longbow, are weaker than they should be because they have a slow rate of fire for their damage specs.

Ele scepter autoattacks are very weak (unless you’re spamming Stone Shards with a condition build), and should pretty much never be used with the sole intent of dealing damage unless you’re locked out of every other damage skill.

Pyrite.9641:

Yes you are missing something.
The scepter/dagger combo is quite powerful with some condition damage gear.
My leveling build is s/d with water,air,fire,earth signets and FG.
An example PvE encounter without preparation would go something like this:
Open with DT
Ring of fire,
Switch to earth
Auto attack as long as the fire field is up,
Earth 2, for the extra armor and a later dps burst
Auto attack till burning is about to expire.
Pop fire signet to maintain burning.
Use earth three and air signet for blinds to reduce damage
Rinse repeat.

My build is fire, earth, arcane.

Got it, elementalist’s scepter is a condition weapon much like necromancer’s scepter. That being said, I’m amazed about the might stacking of S/D and the sheer damage of Phoenix and Dragon’s Tooth so I was hoping for it to be a weapon effective in both power and conditions.

Thanks to the fact that burning requires little investment into condition damage to hurt a lot, I was thinking about going for a “Jack of all Trades” kind of build since this weapon set has almost everything: conditions (burning and bleeding), damage mitigation (blinds, control, protection, extra armor) and heals. I have every class but Mesmer min/maxed so I was hoping to be able to build something different, even if not powerful as other specs. Would S/D be an effective choice for a build like that, designed to do a little of everything albeit with less kick?

This is the build I was thinking to get once I reach 80: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQJArYhImkbxR4gjFAEFm4SowBjCdIKURRxM6A-jACBoeBEbEhoGgEJhJfFRjtqpIasqaER1qkYA-e

Of course it won’t be as powerful as more specialized builds but as I already said, I don’t have any interest in another min/max build. As long as I can pve and dungeon with it I’m happy!

scepter is ele’s best burst weapon.

dat fresh air

air auto attack does passable damage if it channels the whole time, and will continue to channel when you switch attunements until you use another skill.

Berengar.6951:

scepter is ele’s best burst weapon.

dat fresh air

air auto attack does passable damage if it channels the whole time, and will continue to channel when you switch attunements until you use another skill.

Yup. Scepter is the burst wep. Basically you want to set up combos for maximized burst and when your leveling to 80 always go zerkers power based gear since power scales rediculously. Don’t bother with gearing for condi damage/ toughness / healing power builds etc till 80. Also just my 2 cents but the dagger offhand is horrid outside of lvling (and even during). Focus will be much more useful whether your in dungeons or if you decide to wvw or pvp.
Idk how many trait points you have yet but I highly suggest running a fresh air type build with 30 in air and then placing some in arcana and wherever else. Personally the fire line is trash but if you like it, by all means I’m not stopping you.

Well Lucky, you’ve discovered the downside of Scepter Ele’s. Once you’ve used your burst you can be left dancing around until your cooldowns refresh. Don’t get me wrong, there are multiple damaging burst combos you can (and should!) use for different situations, but the Scepter seems particularly dependent upon those combos.

The Fresh Air builds are pretty awesome with Scepter (that 15 point minor trait in Air provides great synergy) but they work even better with a mainhand Dagger. This is because mainhand Dagger’s Air auto-attack hits harder than any other Ele auto-attack and it cleaves (can hit multiple targets).

Try playing around with all of the Ele’s weapons to find the sets that work best for different situations. I personally prefer Staff (for sheer versatility!) for most content but I will switch up when needed. Daggers are great for increasing your in-combat mobility/sustained damage, while nothing provides more defensive tools for an Ele than a Focus, and Scepter is great at burst damage.

Especially while learning all of the skills you have at your disposal, I’d recommend going 30 points into the Arcana line for the faster attunement swaps. Once you really know the weapon skills and their interactions you will become less reliant upon the Arcana line (though it is a very fun, fast-paced playstyle).

Hope that helps!

Thanks everyone for helping me having a better understanding of scepter. I think having condition based autos won’t turn out bad: since I’m aiming at a hybrid build, I’ll deal power damage with the burst then resort to conditions like burning until my burst is back online.

About dagger offhand I feel is much better than focus since it has a wider flame field, fire grab that deals tons of damage, a heal+remove conditions and ride the lightning. Focus looks better for kiting though. I think I’ll try both once I reach 80.

Da Beetus.1275:

The Fresh Air builds are pretty awesome with Scepter (that 15 point minor trait in Air provides great synergy) but they work even better with a mainhand Dagger. This is because mainhand Dagger’s Air auto-attack hits harder than any other Ele auto-attack and it cleaves (can hit multiple targets).

Why are you sitting in air auto attacking using a fresh air build? Kinda defeats the purpose.

How does a Fresh Air build work? Do you simply swap to air on CD for the bonus lightening strike and then back to another attunemen?

Pretty much, and on scepter the #2 lightning strike has the same cooldown as fresh air (5 seconds)

Seras.5702:

How does a Fresh Air build work? Do you simply swap to air on CD for the bonus lightening strike and then back to another attunemen?

That, and you tap 2 along with the attunement for lightning strike off scepter.

Attunements of course give you other options such as rock barrier or a quick heal, fire combo etc.

Whole idea was quick attunement access, why they chose air and not some other is beyond me, perhaps the 15 air spike.

Pyrite.9641:

Yes you are missing something.
The scepter/dagger combo is quite powerful with some condition damage gear.
My leveling build is s/d with water,air,fire,earth signets and FG.
An example PvE encounter without preparation would go something like this:
Open with DT
Ring of fire,
Switch to earth
Auto attack as long as the fire field is up,
Earth 2, for the extra armor and a later dps burst
Auto attack till burning is about to expire.
Pop fire signet to maintain burning.
Use earth three and air signet for blinds to reduce damage
Rinse repeat.

My build is fire, earth, arcane.

I’m sorry, but this is very bad advice. The scaling on bleeds and burning is pretty bad, and the signets are all awful. That rotation doesn’t include might stacking from Dagger Earth 4 and 5 or Arcane Wave. And even once you add all that you would still do more damage by just building power. Sure, in open world PvE you can do pretty much anything and still kill mobs, but this is a pretty inefficient way to do it. Condition Ele just isn’t a thing.

No you’re basically right. Scepter’s autoattacks are terrible. It’s meant to be used either as an extreme Bunker weapon (using it to kite around an enemy at mid-range) or as a Burst weapon (using Fresh Air and Arcane Utilities to burst something down fast). Its autoattacks are made completely terrible to balance out the utility of the “2” and “3” skills.

I would not suggest leveling with Scepter. Pretty sure even Staff has better sustained damage. And of course, I’d honestly suggest Daggers because Melee Cleave is the easiest way to play PvE.

SaintSnow.6593:

Berengar.6951:

Also just my 2 cents but the dagger offhand is horrid outside of lvling (and even during).

Running focus severely limits how much might you can stack … and if you’re running 30 in fire for dungeons, how much fury you’re giving the whole group as well. Focus has its place, but imo dagger is a better all-arounder for offhand.

I’d also suggest leveling as D/D. Not only is it effective, it’s also very dynamic and engaging.

Arc Lightning is very weak, though it is good for proccing stuff.
Stone Shards is very powerful for killing veterans, etc, if you go a condition build. But the lack of easy fire access kills it.
Flamestrike is just weird and weak.
Ice Shards do less damage than they seem, but are great for tagging things and using on vulnerable targets if you have the trait.

Again thanks everybody for sharing your elementalist knowledge.

Right now my concern shifted from “what will I do once I reach 80” to “how the hell do I reach 80”. S/D seems a very weak set for leveling, sure I can blast trash mobs with fire and earth might stacking combo, but as soon as I meet a veteran I’m in trouble, I usually resort to water and earth to kite and heal. I still find S/D air useless, damage is too low to be useful: keep in mind I’m used to main thief so I find air pretty weak for dealing single target damage compared to backstabs.

I’m thinking about switching to D/D right now, at least for leveling.

Berengar.6951:

Da Beetus.1275:

The Fresh Air builds are pretty awesome with Scepter (that 15 point minor trait in Air provides great synergy) but they work even better with a mainhand Dagger. This is because mainhand Dagger’s Air auto-attack hits harder than any other Ele auto-attack and it cleaves (can hit multiple targets).

Why are you sitting in air auto attacking using a fresh air build? Kinda defeats the purpose.

You’re not sitting in Air. You are however switching back to Air every 5 seconds.

Here’s what Zelyhn has to say about Fresh Air (this is mainly talking about D/F but the point is still relevant):

Zelyhn.8069:

…
The answer is fresh air .
This trait allows us to spend most of our time in the air attunement and to swap out to other attunements on demand. Basically, without this trait you would have to spend 16 seconds waiting for air to be off cooldown after swapping to earth to cleanse you conditions with magnetic wave for example. This would result in a big drop in your damage, because our strongest attack without cooldown is in the air attunement (lightning whip). People are often tempted to invest heavily in arcana in order to solve this problem. The issue is that arcana gives you only boon duration while air gives you precision and critical damage. If you can achieve 19 stacks of might on average then the 30% boon duration from arcana will raise it to 25, this is a boost of about 200 power. For the same amount of points air gives you 300 precision and 30 critical damage which are worth much more. In addition, the master and grand-master minor traits of the arcana trait line are very weak in comparison to that of the air trait line. The 30 points in air are well invested.

Having such an easy access to the air attunement is beneficial not only for its optimal auto-attack, but also to maximize the advantages provided by attunement specific damage boosts (air training). For example you can start a drake’s breath and swap to air as soon as you start casting in order for your spell to benefit from air bonuses.

This synergy is also increased by procs on attunement swaps. When you swap to air you will deal additional single-target damage due to electric discharge . Furthermore, you can take 5 points in arcana in order to achieve arcane fury on attunement swap. Fresh air has a cooldown of 5 seconds, so you will do 2 attunement swaps in 5 seconds, so you will generate more than 4 seconds of fury every 5 seconds for yourself. This is very strong.
…

Zelyhn is very knowledgeable. Check out this post for more info:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Zelyhn-s-Advanced-PvE-D-F-Direct-Damage/first

I’m still having a hard time understanding Fresh Air’s use. The trait auto-recharges air attunement on crit, but you’re saying that air auto is the best attack. So if I’m in air attunement attacking, and I crit to reset recharge….I’m confused. You’re resetting the recharge of an attunement you’re already in. Is it so that you can swap to earth for a Magnetic Leap or water for heal/cleanse and then right back? Is that the purpose?

Seras.5702:

I’m still having a hard time understanding Fresh Air’s use. The trait auto-recharges air attunement on crit, but you’re saying that air auto is the best attack. So if I’m in air attunement attacking, and I crit to reset recharge….I’m confused. You’re resetting the recharge of an attunement you’re already in. Is it so that you can swap to earth for a Magnetic Leap or water for heal/cleanse and then right back? Is that the purpose?

That is exactly the purpose of Fresh Air. The point is that you will reset Air’s recharge with the first or second attack after switching away from Air. If you sit in Air for at least 5 seconds before swapping to a different Attunment then you can be fairly certain that you will always be able to pop right back over to Air and continue applying sustained damage (not to mention proc the 15 point Air minor lightning strike every 5-ish seconds).

With enough Power, Precision, and Crit Damage, Air attunement becomes your best sustained damage Attunement. This mean that you can switch only when you really need other effects (like Water for healing/cleanse/chill or Earth for protection/bleeds/cripple or Fire for burst damage/burn).

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up for me Da Beetus.

I started an Ele because I wanted another dynamic profession. The Fresh Air build seems like the most straight forward and least dynamic of the Ele builds. Sit in air, autoattack, swap attunement for utility, swap back, continue to aa. New Ele friendly.

Use the scepter/dagger might rotation, switch to lightning hammer and start smacking. Let your party know that any fire fields will be blasted automatically by the third swing on the hammer.

It’s actually quite a lot of damage, and a whole lot of fun. And if you get bored > Fiery Great Sword!

Lucky Shot.7650:

Again thanks everybody for sharing your elementalist knowledge.

Right now my concern shifted from “what will I do once I reach 80” to “how the hell do I reach 80”. S/D seems a very weak set for leveling, sure I can blast trash mobs with fire and earth might stacking combo, but as soon as I meet a veteran I’m in trouble, I usually resort to water and earth to kite and heal. I still find S/D air useless, damage is too low to be useful: keep in mind I’m used to main thief so I find air pretty weak for dealing single target damage compared to backstabs.

I’m thinking about switching to D/D right now, at least for leveling.

S/D is fine for clearing trash mobs … against a Veteran, you use Fire #2, Fire #4 and Fire #3, in that order, while running circles so the Veteran stays in the AoE of Dragon’s Tooth. If you have trouble surviving, Earth #2 adds Toughness while Water #4 gives -10% damage as well as chill. Water #3 and Water #5 can both heal you too. If you have Elemental Attunement (an Arcana trait for 10 points) or Healing Ripple + Cleansing Wave (Water trait for 15 points) you have emergency defensive skills that you can hit while stunned.

And yes the Sceptre autoattacks are generally weak. The Fire auto is especially disappointing, which is terrible because the big damage skills are also in Fire. I’d suggest traiting the -20% Fire recharge because of this. Also it’s my experience that going the full 30 points into Fire for Persisting Flames is better than going for Fresh Air – you can’t rotate attunements that fast or as often, but your Fire skills do more damage, you have more time to blast the Fire fields, you get auto-fury, and you can switch to Staff easily.

It’s my opinion that S/D is the best general weapon set for Elementalists, followed closely by Staff. Dagger mainhand has good autoattacks but otherwise weak skills; most of the Focus skills are pretty weak too. One more thing to note, you do have several Conjures that you can use to patch up S/D’s weak autoattacks as well – blow all your long-CD skills, spawn Lightning Hammer, and bash.

Berengar.6951:

scepter is ele’s best burst weapon.

dat fresh air

air auto attack does passable damage if it channels the whole time, and will continue to channel when you switch attunements until you use another skill.

Ya the Air auto is great for fresh air builds as its behaviour gives that utility you need to secure a crit and have Fresh Air ready.

Channel Air 1, swap attunements while it’s channelling and gain fury on that attunement swap. The attack hits multiple times and should ensure a crit most of the time if Fresh air is off CD.

Another useful utility is how it synergizes well with the 100% endurance regen when channelling trait.

Don’t go condition on scepter, fire condition + some bleeding on earth, hum? Such a waste.

You can actually burst with scepter but you need to get I believe lvl80 first to actually start thinking to what to do with it. It’s a complex class and traits as waepon used will change totally the way you can approach the fights. I’m using S/D as the scepter itself gives a great amount of damage in fresh air. What I would recommend to have at least is :

lvl30 in Air : Swiftness and fury on aura, endurance on channeling, recharge air attunement on crits
lvl20 fire : burn on crit, DC reduction on spells fire

You can actually use the following basic combo without having to get in range, preferably to use as a finisher :

AIR : 2,1,3,5
SWAP
FIRE : 2,5,3

→This makes tons of damages.

SWAP

Air and chain swap elements until fire is back. I mean : Start channeling 1 then change attunement so that the channeling will crit on other attunement than air to switch back on it and get the lightening bolt proc.

Jeydra.4386:

Also it’s my experience that going the full 30 points into Fire for Persisting Flames is better than going for Fresh Air – you can’t rotate attunements that fast or as often, but your Fire skills do more damage, you have more time to blast the Fire fields, you get auto-fury, and you can switch to Staff easily.

I’m not sure if I’m misreading you above or if you don’t understand how fresh air works. Fresh air lets you keep swapping into air because it resets the recharge, so yes, you can attunement swap that often. It’s also not JUST the damage from your attacks you have to factor in either — it’s the free Lightning Strike cast from the 15-point minor trait that you get every time you hop back, which really adds up.

I’d also disagree that dagger mainhand skills are weak. In fact, speaking of fresh air, your dagger air autoattack hits hardest of any weapon (though scepter is also a good choice because air 2 on it has such a small recharge, coupled with the channeled autoattack that lets you attunement swap during it).

Anyways, all that said, I do love running Persisting Flames and S/D for dungeons so I’m not saying that build is bad at all. I’m just not really sure it shines solo. I ran around in that and my zerker gear for lols in PvE the other day and most stuff doesn’t even live through one might/fury stacking rotation, but unexpected adds were a real problem. D/D was still a faceroll, and I don’t have to worry about mobs wandering out of my hard hitters.

You’re misreading me. I meant going for Persisting Flames means you can’t rotate attunements as fast. Electric Discharge is great but it doesn’t do a lot of damage. Note that landing a Dragon’s Tooth does more damage than Electric Discharge + Lightning Strike combined, and when traiting Persisting Flames you can go for the -20% Fire cooldown trait, which also makes Dragon’s Tooth cool down faster than Lightning Strike.

I find the Dagger mainhand skills aside from the autoattacks pretty bad. Fresh Air with mainhand Dagger is good for keeping Lightning Whip available I guess, but then if you’re going to rely on autoattacks you might as well go Staff, when Fireball + Lava Font does more damage.

And I dunno but I land Dragon’s Tooth more often than not by kiting around where it will land … it’s when the mob is aggro’ed onto a different target who’s moving a lot (i.e. it’s not my Earth Elemental, who’s a great tank really) that I can miss.

Jeydra.4386:

You’re misreading me. I meant going for Persisting Flames means you can’t rotate attunements as fast.

D’oh, OK. My bad then.

As for preferring S/D to D/D … it probably is simply be a playstyle preference thing. (And honestly I usually D/D without Fresh Air. In fact I can’t remember the last time I used it.)

I’m more of a D/D player myself but I do agree S/D can really put out some good burst damage with combo’s. the biggest turn off I have with scepter is its water skills.

As Jeydra & lunyboy recommended, I’ve been rocking S/D, blowing my air & fire cooldowns and stacking might and then conjuring a lightening hammer to blow everything away.

In dungeons though, I feel very squishy. I’ve been taking LH, Arcane Shield, and Cleansing Fire. I feel I need the extra condition cleansing in addition to water5 and I can’t rely on fire3 because I use it to stack might early on. I’m only lvl 36 but I’m traited 5 into water for regen, 10 into air for glyph CD reduction (heal), and 10 into arcane for attunement swap buff…suggestions?

Well you’re only level 36, so I’d say just keep levelling up and eventually you’ll be able to trait Healing Ripple + Cleansing Wave, which should take care of the condition cleansing part.

Also it’s my opinion that with S/D the best heal to use is Signet of Restoration. If you’re having trouble staying at melee range also, then switch to ranged damage.

Will SoR proc for each LH attack chain? With lower CD trait, I find healing glyph to be pretty awesome: low cooldown and buff on heal. I can’t see SoR keeping me topped off. I get focused and it’s not nearly as effective an emergency heal.

SoR works with instant skills, which is the charm of it. For example, switching to air and using 1-2-3 will make it trigger 3 times.

It won’t be a good emergency heal, but fortunately for us elementalists, we have the water attunement, don’t we? Switching to water and using frost aura, water trident and cleansing wave will trigger SoR three times while activating two healing skills. Assuming you have 15 points in water, and that’s three heals. You can get about ~5.5k healing from that sequence along, which is what, the same amount as you would usually get from using an healing skill? And then just get back to other attunements and strike as fast as possible, for even more SoR triggers.

And it procs for each LH attack, yes. Because LH builds are more optimal with 10 points in water traits and while staying in water, you’ll get a passive regen healing from the 5-points trait, plus SoR, plus whichever regeneration an ally might apply to you, which adds some nice amount of healing over-time.

For the people having trouble landing Dragon’s Tooth remember you always have useful skills like Updraft and Earthquake to set them up before you light them up. Honestly in spvp Updraft>Dragons Tooth > Phoenix is Lethal

What’s the best way to target Phoenix? I set the center of the green circle behind the target but still keeping the target in the circle. Ideally this will let the shot go thru the target, explode on him, and then return thru him. Yes?

CountzuCrytus.7256:

For the people having trouble landing Dragon’s Tooth remember you always have useful skills like Updraft and Earthquake to set them up before you light them up. Honestly in spvp Updraft>Dragons Tooth > Phoenix is Lethal

Updraft/Earthquake/Gale do not disable a target long enough for Dragon’s Tooth to hit, as an opponent can still roll away.

Chaosky.5276:

CountzuCrytus.7256:

For the people having trouble landing Dragon’s Tooth remember you always have useful skills like Updraft and Earthquake to set them up before you light them up. Honestly in spvp Updraft>Dragons Tooth > Phoenix is Lethal

Updraft/Earthquake/Gale do not disable a target long enough for Dragon’s Tooth to hit, as an opponent can still roll away.

This is true, but it does long enough to make a difference. Most of the time when DT hits its a fraction of a sec after they get up. If the person is paying attention or is expecting it they can get up and roll away but its a lot easier to hit them this way ( especially if they are ranged because they wont be trying to roll out of the way most of the time ).

CountzuCrytus.7256:

Chaosky.5276:

CountzuCrytus.7256:

For the people having trouble landing Dragon’s Tooth remember you always have useful skills like Updraft and Earthquake to set them up before you light them up. Honestly in spvp Updraft>Dragons Tooth > Phoenix is Lethal

Updraft/Earthquake/Gale do not disable a target long enough for Dragon’s Tooth to hit, as an opponent can still roll away.

This is true, but it does long enough to make a difference. Most of the time when DT hits its a fraction of a sec after they get up. If the person is paying attention or is expecting it they can get up and roll away but its a lot easier to hit them this way ( especially if they are ranged because they wont be trying to roll out of the way most of the time ).

I’m not sure how they could not be expecting it … it’s massive and it hovers for a long time. I’m glad it’s been working for you but it’s never been that easy for me.

Melancholia.8123:

Pyrite.9641:

Yes you are missing something.
The scepter/dagger combo is quite powerful with some condition damage gear.
My leveling build is s/d with water,air,fire,earth signets and FG.
An example PvE encounter without preparation would go something like this:
Open with DT
Ring of fire,
Switch to earth
Auto attack as long as the fire field is up,
Earth 2, for the extra armor and a later dps burst
Auto attack till burning is about to expire.
Pop fire signet to maintain burning.
Use earth three and air signet for blinds to reduce damage
Rinse repeat.

My build is fire, earth, arcane.

Condition Ele just isn’t a thing.

No, no, no, no. Condition scepter ele just isn’t a thing. Mainhand dagger condition ele IS a thing. and a great one at that. try it out.