Guild Wars 2

The devs said we’d get some scepter buffs and then we got… buffs to scepter water #2. What about all the bad autoattacks? Especially the lightning one.

Hey…you just stop yer whining! Just accept that 1 extra stack of vuln on a skill that has an unreasonable cast time and never ever hits and you like it!! Scepter is totally a great weapon b/c of all the mad vuln-stacking with water 2! I literally OWN in pvp by showing up to a teamfight and dropping shatterstones like it is MY JOB!!!

Why would ever need good auto-attacks when you can spam slow skills that never hit?!?

I mean, scepter has SO MUCH burst! A full-zerk ele can hit for like 1/2 as hard as a dragon-hunter or mesmer! That seems pretty balanced considering all the blocks and stealth you don’t have to go along with those long CDs!

I have no faith in their ability to develop for eles. Tempest is garbage aside from a few decent effects (added healing/cleanse from auras, air-overload spam with fresh air in pve), warhorn is the worst excuse for a weapon I have witnessed in-game, scepter has just been left in the dust by power-creep, most traitlines have multiple good options at each level, and most utilities have never been viable.

But hey, you can always just play cele water/arcana/X ele (honestly, the fresh air cele support build has so many weaknesses and isn’t very good). Such diversity!!

I just don’t understand how Scepter has been so kittenty for so long. I really makes me question their ability to balance anything.

The biggest failing GW2 has is that they have no champion that fulfills the “mage-nuker” archtype. I guess an Ele Staff in PVE, but how is PVE about balance? Staff is only viable in PvP as a support/bunker weapon.

In my opinion, we can just forget about scepter, it’s likely Anet won’t give a kitten about old specializations and weapons, since HoT has been released.

Scepter is garbage if you are not using fresh air. You shout and show everyone what and where you are casting. Easy to dodge or block for many classes. It is a cool weapon in theory but not the strongest in practical pvp. I use it in every match and have few complaints (rather needs for improvements).

When designing the Tempest, they either forgot the Sceptre existed, or they originally planned for a mainhand sword. Either way, Sceptre was left behind.

Collin did say in an interview, that balance changes are coming, but I’m 100% that they won’t change scepter. They had a chance last time with balancing, but they increased power damage on Shatterstone (kitten?? that skill does NO dmg, because it doesn’t land) and Flamestrike, which is a condi autoattack…. Even WoodenPotatoes said they were pathetic, so yeah, everyone knows the scepter is garbage. But hey, at least warhorn is good…. oh wait…. That being said, Collin said the balance is coming for PvP, which likey includes Tempest too, but if it goes anything like scepter “buffs” went, well, then warhorn can be removed from game.

Scepter is TOO STRONK. Oh Wait….

Buff Tornado
Buff Scepter
Buff glyphs (underused ones)
Buff Warhorn

Non of this would hurt the games health and would only benefit players.

How about Staff buff? With the power creap on every other class how come our staff skills are still soooooo slow. Would it really be that much to ask for lava font to tick as soon as you put them down? or for earth walls to go down instantly when cast? To have 25% faster ice spike?

Gosh I hope so. Every autoattack needs a significant buff.

Xillllix.3485:

How about Staff buff? With the power creap on every other class how come our staff skills are still soooooo slow. Would it really be that much to ask for lava font to tick as soon as you put them down? or for earth walls to go down instantly when cast? To have 25% faster ice spike?

Our Staff is one of the strongest weapons in the game, if not the strongest, particularly against large numbers of foes or against single opponents with large hitboxes. Nothing about it needs to be buffed (except maaaaybe the cast time on Air 2).

Yes Staff is very strong, if you can make a solid argument for which ability needs a buff, I’d like to hear it though.

For now, I think my short list covers what needs improvements. However, this thread is about scepter, so I’ll make a short list of buffs for scepter (my suggestions):
1) Improve the damage of air auto by 20%
2) Improve damage of air 2 by 30%
3) Reduce the charge time for shatterstone by 30%
4) Increase the damage for water 3 by 20%

With just these changes, I think scepter could be as good as our other weapons. The main weakness of scepter is that it has low auto-attack damage and long cooldowns on its fire skills, which means to maximize damage you have to cycle attunements, but other attunements do not provide much damage. Giving air some more damage, and keeping fire as your burst cycle would help so much. Allowing players to land shatterstones and keep some damage going in water would be great, as water is often used to proc fresh air (the only scepter damage build), so keeping some damage up during those 1-2 seconds of water would help a lot. I think the envisioned cycle would be, open in air, with skill 2, switch to fire for a dragons tooth and pheonix, swap back to air, then into water, then air, then back to fire, then air, then earth, then air, then water, then air, then fire, etc. This rotation should produce the most damage based on the design, but you really don’t deal any damage outside fire and a little in air.

Bunch of skills on the staff need improvements:
Gust and Magnetic Wave are unreliable, there is unjustified delays between the skill cast and the damage on skills like lava font.
Eruption is too slow as the only blast it should animate 50% faster.
Ice spike should be a little faster too.
Condi damage is lacking, it needs better burning on fire 3 and 4.
Since the meteor aoe circle makes it super easy for people to jump out and line casting was nerfed meteors should fall faster.
Auto attacks need a buffed to their speed/effectiveness

Xillllix.3485:

Bunch of skills on the staff need improvements

None of those improvements are needed. Is the Staff a perfect weapon? No, of course not. But every weapon in the game has issues, little changes that could be made to improve it. The Staff is still on the extreme high end of power in spite of its own issues. As such, it absolutely should not be buffed in any meaningful way unless a lot of other weapons get buffed first, and even then it probably should stay where it is just to avoid power creep.

Those changes you mentioned might be acceptable, but we’d have to pay for them with nerfs elsewhere. What would you be ok with nerfing?

Staff is only at the ‘extreme high end’ of power in pve because mobs are programmed to lose. Against players you do bunker level damage even when full glass because they can just walk out of all your attacks.

Scepter doesnt exist

I would
focus – fire 5 reduce cd to 30sec(idk if is considered an aura but that seems a must), water 4 effects 5 people(5 does so 4 should too), rework earth 4 to be an aura with a 30sec cd
scepter – rework the horrid cast time (and animation omg) of fire 1 to 1/2 sec (so in reality its 3/4sec) and reduce the fire duration by a sec, water 3 removes 3 condis, earth 2 is instant and a blast finisher
alternative to fire 1 its now an aoe 5 target attack, would still reduce cast time though (would be cool if earth 1 was aoe too but might be too op for both). if they were both aoe then condi ele might see some more light in some parts of the game.

boom done

Scepter buffs:

Fire:
Increase burn duration by 1s
Half casting time for dragon tooth.

Air:
Increase auto attacks damage.

Earth:
Increase earth auto flight speed 20%. Give poison on the last shard not bleed.
Decrease rock barriers CT to 1/2
Make dust devil instant cast.

Water:
Increase shatterstone radius to 300.
Remove a condition with trident instead of regeneration and buff healing 50%.

Focus changes i would like:
Reduce fire shields CD to 20s
Reduce Gale CD to 40s
Make freezing gust instant.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Nuking-from-range-scepter/first#post5721493

What do you think of these points?

Coldtart.4785:

Staff is only at the ‘extreme high end’ of power in pve because mobs are programmed to lose. Against players you do bunker level damage even when full glass because they can just walk out of all your attacks.

This is so true. People on this forum are always going off about how great staff is, but in reality is pretty terrible as a DPS weapon in PvP. Its only good against things that are completely stationary.

Coldtart.4785:

Staff is only at the ‘extreme high end’ of power in pve because mobs are programmed to lose. Against players you do bunker level damage even when full glass because they can just walk out of all your attacks.

Perhaps — and that’s perfectly fine. There’s no reason to assume that every weapon should be equally useful in all situations. Part of the fun of any good RPG is figuring out how to react differently to different content. The staff tends to lag against small numbers of smaller targets, and that’s just its weakness. Without a radical split between its PvE and sPvP skills (by which I mean, completely different skills), I don’t see how any parity is possible, even if we posit that such parity would even be desirable.

The Scepter’s autoattacks are just terrible in every game mode, though. I enjoy using the weapon because I like the dynamism it provides, but its autoattacks really need some serious improvement. This is an entirely different issue from the Staff being stronger in PvE and WvW than in sPvP.

Wolfric.9380:

Scepter buffs:

Fire:
Increase burn duration by 1s
Half casting time for dragon tooth.

Air:
Increase auto attacks damage.

Earth:
Increase earth auto flight speed 20%. Give poison on the last shard not bleed.
Decrease rock barriers CT to 1/2
Make dust devil instant cast.

Water:
Increase shatterstone radius to 300.
Remove a condition with trident instead of regeneration and buff healing 50%.

Focus changes i would like:
Reduce fire shields CD to 20s
Reduce Gale CD to 40s
Make freezing gust instant.

I agree with all these changes, though I think you’ve gone too far with Trident, as it would then basically be a ranged Cleansing Wave. I’d also like to see the Water auto get something. My preference would be a 1-or 2-second Chill after hitting a target with 9 projectiles.

Would be nice if they changed the way the auto attacks functioned so it could be viable vs stealth targets. Main reason I don’t use it in pvp.

Doggie.3184:

Would be nice if they changed the way the auto attacks functioned so it could be viable vs stealth targets. Main reason I don’t use it in pvp.

Actually air auto track stealthed enemy and with fire sigil you can know exactly where the enemy is.
But if you mean cleave the air hoping to hit something, well with auto you cant

I think a good way to give Scepter a worthwile auto-attack (at least for PvE) is to make it so the Air AA’s lightning beam could jump from target to target. Kinda like a chain lighting. It could be up to 2 other targets where all 3 targets take equal damage or up to 5 targets where each subsequent target takes less damage. Along with maybe doubling or trippling the damage output when hitting the first target and/or maybe give the skill much better damage coeffcients.