Guild Wars 2

For 50 levels I’ve been using my staff or dagger dagger, as well as in spvp. I then tried scepter and a focus (and with dagger combinations), but I’m finding it hard to see it work. It hasn’t got the damage and mobility as dagger or staff, so where do you use it and how?
Thanks.

The focus is in all regards an defensive weapon and is very situational. I would probably never go for a S/F combination in PvE myself but it has alot of interesting potential in PvP gameplay.

If you wish to use scepter for PvE gameplay i would strongly recommend the S/D setup which brings alot of offensive skills to the table while still allowing you to stay away from enemies if needed. I have used S/D ever since lvl 5 and do not see me changing that until lvl 80, its a very effective setup with lots of damage potential thanks to the might stacking allowed by ring of fire and the many finishers avalible (dragon tooth, phoenix, earthquake, churning earth). It also brings many fast self heals to the table through water attunement and defensive/control skills such as frost aura, updraft, blinding flash, dust devil, rock barrier and earthquake. Overall its not much to complain about and the potential is there to make it out of most fights alive if played correctly.

But do note that this is for normal PvE gameplay and not for dungeons, myself i havent ran any dungeons on my elementalist yet but judging from what i know the staff seems to be a prefered weapon for the ability to always stay at range.

I was thinking the same, though I think it’d be great in dungeons and point defender builds, though the one thing I don’t like about it is that it doesn’t have a secondary heal and there is no water field, although it does make for great vigor/endurance builds.

I run DaggerFocus with Ether Renewal and 3 Cantrips (Armor of Earth instead of Cleansing Fire) in all modes of play and find that the Focus acts to complement your mainhand weapon skills rather than present you with new attacking options as you find with an offhand dagger.

For general PvE, the damage from a mainhand weapon is enough to get the job done.

For the rest of the game, the strength of the Focus lies in its ability to give you more ways to reliably res and stomp people or just keep you alive. Earth 5 is absolutely amazing here, however Earth 4 and Air 4 work quite well, especially against classes with stomp interrupts that count as a ranged attack.

Keep in mind that you can switch attunements to activate the two Earth skills whilst channelling and chain mist form / armor of earth straight after if needed. If you take Ether Renewal as your healing skill, by the time Earth 5 ends, Ether Renewal will have removed all conditions and healed you a fair deal.

The big problem with taking offhand Focus over Dagger is that you lose a lot of mobility, Lightning Flash and the Swiftness on Aura trait are ideal for closing or making gaps. Water 4 and Air 5 on the Focus are amazing; both of these instantly hit at a good range with strong CC effects. If the target then turns around to fight, a lucky Comet will give you a slight advantage.

Other than that, there’s not much else to say. Most of the work will be coming from your mainhand weapon (more so than usual) so pick your best one and have at it.

I have used scepter focus for a few levels and i like it. being defensive means i can do higher level combat. not that in itself is better but the fights are also much more interesting. they say higher level content gives a higher magic find… I get a lot of items too high level for me but they sell ok.

focus for me in dungeons is a life saver both for myself and others. emergency res. knockdown. the anti range attack stuff can prevent some of those yanks that boss mobs do if they are projectiles. least it seems to work.

although its taken quite a few tries to start to get a feel for how i like to use it i can finish in the top half of the 8 man spvp pretty regularly. but im only rank 10.

in a group i try to combo off my fire wall and get about 10 stacks of might built up for everyone. I use this in pvp at well. I use it a lot. everytime i stop i rebuff that combo. at one point we were getting 20 stacks of might. having a ranger in the group is good too. lay down fire in the water field and stack up regen and might.

The ele is hard to play. its squishy. if i go up against anything that hits hard im going to feel it. the invulnerability in the earth focus is so powerful that i have trouble not using it because when i feel like i might get squishy I’m suddenly not.

I stack this up with mist form sometimes to hold out a little longer.
pop the earth invulnerability so i can stand safely cast tornado or fiery great sword. that sword is awesome.

In regular pve though… it does not matter. unless i go into dungeons or try to hit content about 5 levels higher than me.

Except for perhaps dungeons (idk I’m not there yet), S/F in PvE is pretty useless, at least in the lower levels.
Staff or daggers are a far better choice as they allow you to rake in multiple foes and kill them off quickly,
netting you more exp. and more items.

However, PvP is a different story. The Focus’s defensive skills saves the Ele’s squishy kitten
provided you spec at least somewhat into water and earth.
(when I first started I picked S/F because I thought it was cool and then specced a glass cannon build….oops)
The skills are also very vigor/endurance friendly,
especially if you spec 30 into Arcana, giving you multiple vigor and dodge traits. Water and Earth grant
you better defensive stats and traits, and as stated earlier, spec 10 into Air and grab Zephyr’s Boon.
While a D/D build would get more mileage out of it, you still have the very so useful fire shield
that will benefit from it. I really wouldn’t spec that much into fire, if even at all. (although I am
experimenting with lava tomb to reasonable success. It brings our downed state from completely useless
to almost completely useless)

I am a level 58 Ele and I have done the vast majority of my leveling with the scepter and focus. I had done the scepter dagger combo and found myself simply wanting more survivability. Scepter focus has increased my survivability significantly. It does, however, have a lot to do with your preferred style of play and practice. I don’t recommend it in dungeons, as I have found you want to capitalize on dos and so might want to go s/d or staff. For PvP, I have limited experience but so far the scepter seems inadequate due to casting time and positional aspects of spells like fire wall.