Guild Wars 2

To me it seems like all the staves I find are more powerful than scepters. As soon as I get a scepter with more power than a staff, I get a staff with more power than that scepter. However, I like the scepter skills more than the staff, they are just more fun and effective to me. So should I go with a staff, or a scepter? And if I use a scepter, should I go with a dagger or focus? I normally play PvE.

Use what is more fun. The weapons uses fall into different situations btw, so if you do PvE mostly, you should carry around all the weapons.

Dagger for the most part, focus is very situational.

Use want you want to use:
Staff can feel quite slow/clunky at times…
but Scepter feels quite weak to me

so I use D/D

Yes Mango nvm ppl talking about D/D or S/D they are fun weapons but really have not much of a purpose in pve, when traited correctly your staff can annihilate crowds of 5+ mobs, try achieving that with a scepter or a dagger and u end up dead in 5 seconds.

Ive tested them extensively and my conclusion is simple especially for high level content:
both d/d and s/d are weaker when it comes to AOE dps and maintaining that aoe, both are weaker when it comes to healing aswell.
You will just need alot of practice and understanding the mob scripting behavior to know where to cast it and when.
Remember you are playing an elementalist not a thief.

MangoMan.3218:

To me it seems like all the staves I find are more powerful than scepters. As soon as I get a scepter with more power than a staff, I get a staff with more power than that scepter. However, I like the scepter skills more than the staff, they are just more fun and effective to me. So should I go with a staff, or a scepter? And if I use a scepter, should I go with a dagger or focus? I normally play PvE.

Staff is a 2h weapon. 2h weapons innately have more power. Just go with what works for you.

Dont forget you’ll need to combine the stats from your scepter with your off hand to get a good comparison.

That being said, I prefer staff for the number of combo fields it offers. I switch between staff and D/D typically.

As with everything Elementalist, it’s all situational.

• For soloing I like Staff for combos and range.
• For DEs and groups though it kinda depends on whether there’s waves of large groups of mobs or few Veterans or a Champ.

I fight up to 5 mobs all the time with s/d. It’s not hard at all.

I really like Scepter/Dagger. I have alot of AoE damage and alot of defense.

On a side note, am I the only one who thinks we should be able to dual-wield scepters?

Like another poster said, Scepter has less damage because it’s a 1H weapon and Staff is 2h. Mix it with your offhand and they will be comparable to Staff. Solo I think Scepter/Dagger is a good DPS combo. I used that a lot while leveling although at this point I use Staff exclusively. So both work, just use whichever you like the style/feel of best.

Thank you all for your input. So far it seems like this is what people like (in this order):
1. Staff
2. S/D
3. D/D
4. S/F
And nobody ever talks about D/F (that’s a possible combo, right?). Me being an amateur game developer, I like to get into the heads of the people who make the games I play, and it seems there must be some kind of hidden strategy to using scepters, daggers and focuses, since most people seem to like staves (I’m basing this observation not only on this thread but others). So what is this strategy, if it even exists? I’m just wondering why ANet put these weapons other than staves in the game if staves just end up on top? One simple answer might be, “because it offers variety.” That’s a good point, but I still think variety should come with balance.

MangoMan.3218:

Thank you all for your input. So far it seems like this is what people like (in this order):
1. Staff
2. S/D
3. D/D
4. S/F
And nobody ever talks about D/F (that’s a possible combo, right?). Me being an amateur game developer, I like to get into the heads of the people who make the games I play, and it seems there must be some kind of hidden strategy to using scepters, daggers and focuses, since most people seem to like staves (I’m basing this observation not only on this thread but others). So what is this strategy, if it even exists? I’m just wondering why ANet put these weapons other than staves in the game if staves just end up on top? One simple answer might be, “because it offers variety.” That’s a good point, but I still think variety should come with balance.

Staffs are nice for the range and they offer a lot of defensive possibilities and decent damage (probably why a lot of people use them, plus they give that traditional mage feel) but they’re better for support and AoE than soloing. Scepter/Dagger offers more damage than Staff does, and better single target damage so it’s good for leveling and is easier to play with than Dagger MH (and has longer range as well). Dagger OH I think is used more than Focus OH because like others said, Focus is really only useful in certain circumstances and if you’re looking for defense there are other ways to get it so Focus in general isn’t used much. D/F is rarer I think because Dagger is more of an in your face dps weapon so Focus doesn’t fit into that style really.

S/D is okay until you realize you have to do an exacting protracted ritual of skill order and stance dancing just to get 12 stacks of might on yourself or you realize it has terrible AOE compared to the others (i.e. bad for tagging) or both. With a 20/10/0/10/30 build you can get 15 stacks of AOE might with little effort and without having to leave fire.

IMO:

Staff arcane/fire with glyphs (20/10/0/10/30) = dungeons

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/73550-dungeon-support-staff-build-01003030/#entry2053795

D/D waterangs, aura sharing or condition removal w/ signets (20/10/0/30/10) = everything else. If you need condition removal you can either swap powerful auras for it or swap 20% CD or 20% damage on invuln to V and cure a condition for you and allies on water attunement. If you want to be a condition removal machine then swap aura sharing with condition removal on regen and 20% CD/Damage for conditional removal on water attunement and soothing disruption (your cantrips will also remove conditions, pretty much making Mist Form uber compared to Cleansing Fire/Flame since it will remove a condition, grant vigor and regen and still make you invulnerable for three seconds).

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.1.0.13.0.0.0.0.0.3.15.9.21.24.0.0.0.5.9.0.16.0.0.0.0.0.49.46.57.65.0.0.20.10.0.30.10

with ~400 healing and 20% CD on water spells your waterangs will do a good job keeping you healed up so you don’t have to pop your heal signet (although you can if you take the fire shield trait and need to escape with swiftness from Zephyr’s Boon or you’re totally safe and want a few seconds of fury).

D/D is more independent, few fields (fire 4), good self healing. Can support the group by removing conditions or aura sharing, which makes D/D even better because you’ll be closer the melee when sharing instead of standing at max range with a staff. D/D is also the only weapon combo with two auras, air 3 (MH) and water 4 (OH), making it ideal for aura sharing, especially lightning aura. So good.

Staff is better for support due to the large number of fields and aoe effects and imo better for condition damage but imo conditions on ele are boring and kind of fail (I’ve got a full carrion set and didn’t think it was all that fun), plus 30 earth for Written in Stone seems more like a trap for nubs with 20 points in fire than anything worth spending 30 points on.

Nonlinear, thank you so much for that detailed explanation. I shall reference it in the future.

I PvP a lot and everyone seems to use D/D (if you see an Ele at all). I love Staff though. Imo, elementalists are wizards, and real wizards use staves.

Staff is best for situations with multiple targets or if you need to stay ranged and scepter focus is best for single boss fights IMO. You can hit 5 In air with scepter focus and then hit 1 to fry their face and then switch to fire drop dragons tooth and wall of fire and Phoenix.

I use them all dependant on what type of mood I am in. Or If I am in a group, what the class set-up is and what everyone is bringing to combo with. They are all effective in thier own right when played how they are meant to be played.

I used D/F as my solo Orr build, with an ice focus. It’s what finally allowed me to turn the corner and start getting equipped.

In WvW, I use S/D in the field and switch to staff at the usual times. I use this in orr now that I’m better equipped.

I’ve tested tons of builds, Staff is just too slow for me, but i like to be away from my enemies, so i use scepter. The Air skills are really fast and do damage (it’s great to finalize downed invaders). The Fire ones have really slow animations and u can’t use it against somebody with a brain. If i have enough healing power i can self heal just with water skills with scepter and dagger dagger while running away, with staff u have to target an area.