Guild Wars 2

I personally am a custom build, semi bunker DD ele and I’m tired of seeing 90% of other eles in pvp rolling the same exact bunker build. Sure it’s better than my build because for whatever reason it’s almost equal in damage (mine is better obviously) but twice as strong in survivability.

You might think “Well why don’t you just roll bunker then” because I don’t see the fun in copying the same build everyone else is using, I have used bunker in the past and I have to say in my opinion it is overpowered. And as of right now after the nerfs it is still above average.

As someone who only plays DD ele, I have no other 80s and I don’t find myself using scepter or staff very often. I have to say that the ele needs to be changed. When you see everyone running around with the same build you need to start rethinking this professions other weapons. Obviously staff will always be better for big group battles but what about scepter?

Personally in my opinion scepter isn’t bad but it isn’t great. It’s in a state of “meh maybe ill use that when i get bored of tanking and killing 3 people at once as bunker ele” which btw when i rolled bunker, I could do without falling below 20% hp the whole fight.

As for focus compared to dagger… the focus may as well not even exist in pvp, the only thing it’s good for is blocking siege projectiles, other than that it’s pretty useless.

I think scepter and focus should be shown some love. You don’t really see anyone using it, and the ones you do see using it get demoralized when a DD ele slams their faces into the ground with little effort. The scepter ele doesn’t have a great combo like DD ele’s -updraft-, followed by -burning speed-. You can try -updraft- followed by -dragons tooth- but the tooth is much easier to dodge.

This is what I think scepter needs to at least get closer to being on par with DD ele.

-Shatterstone damage buff (it deals to little damage for an ability that is very hard to hit someone with)
-phoenix i think this ability should cause burning and have a damage increase as again it is very hard to hit someone with, or at least make it travel faster, and upon comming back to the player instead of granting vigor, what if instead it triggers flame shield?
-Rock barrier should grant protection for the first 6 seconds of using it.

Focus abilities
-obsidian flesh needs to have cooldown reduced or its duration increased.
-Gale is a knockdown that doesn’t last long at all, i think it should be instant cast or at least reduced to 1/4 sec rather than 3/4 and a 50 second cooldown? Is that the longest cd on a weapon skill ingame for a 2 sec knockdown?!?!
-freezing gust should have its chill duration increased and also it’s damage increased.
-fire shields cooldown should be reduced to 25 seconds. (shocking aura stuns and has a cd of 25 seconds, fire shield causes 1 second of burning/1 stack of might and has a 40 second cooldown?)
-Flame wall, Should deal more damage to those who walk through it / get hit with it.

Any other ideas or suggestions to improve focus/scepter feel free to share.

i understand you, my other post is similar:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/tell-me-another-viable-build-ele/first#post1644985

seems an ele haven’t another VIABLE build except d/d 0/10/0/30/30

• Increase Dragon’s Tooth drop speed. It doesn’t even do that much damage, why does it have to be so slow that enemies can walk out of its radius? A one second activation time during which you can see the tooth forming above your head is MORE than enough warning for you to dodge it.

• Increase the projectile speed of Phoenix, and fix it so that it functions properly on targets at different elevations. Currently you can outrun Phoenix with swiftness, and it only travels diagonally, so it will often fail when cast in a vertical direction.

• A 2 second activation time for Shatterstone is absurd; I say reduce the activation time, reduce the time until it shatters or increase its AoE radius, and increase the damage.

• The scepter’s earth attunement suffers from a lack of offense; I’d suggest adding a new offensive skill in place of Dust Devil.

• The scepter’s fire and air attunement autoattacks are very poor, and its earth autoattack is pretty bad without condition damage, as well. Damage increases would be welcomed.

Chaosky.5276:

• A 2 second activation time for Shatterstone is absurd; I say reduce the activation time, reduce the time until it shatters or increase its AoE radius, and increase the damage.

If it were instant cast like the tooltip suggested, it’d actually be fine…but currently, that’s not the case.

• The scepter’s fire and air attunement autoattacks are very poor, and its earth autoattack is pretty bad without condition damage, as well. Damage increases would be welcomed.

The thing with scepter I think is that it more or less assumes that you use at least some condition damage. And that’s where it shines too. Skills like the fire and earth auto attacks benefit from both boosts of Might for example. I’ve tried scepter in a balanced build, and even without bleeding extensions it could deal more than 2000 damage per cast if I stacked 25 Might (easy to achieve on scepter). 2000+ damage on an auto attack, even if part of it is bleeding, is nothing to scoff at. Fire has the same thing, with an added bonus that it cannot be avoided.

S/D is very popular among tournament eles. It has a high skill cap, while D/D is more user friendly.

Dragon’s Tooth is very powerful in the conquest meta because it forces your opponent to leave a point, burn a dodge against a short cooldown attack or take the big hit (5k+) and burning damage.

Phoenix does more damage than fire grab, but is worthless beyond melee range. It needs to move a lot faster. Vigor is one of the best boons and getting it from phoenix lets you drop arcana VI.

Rock Barrier is 250 armor. It essentially turns an ele into a heavy armor class for 30 seconds. It’s a fantastic ability.

Shatter stone is pretty sad, but if you’re waiting on cooldowns why not throw it out there. You’re not going to kill them with water auto attack. Faster activation and more damage would be much welcomed.

The air and fire auto attacks are bad on scepter, and focus needs a major overhaul to be a competitive weapon choice.

The funny part is I’m against copying builds, so I studied all the weapon skills, utilities and trait lines. And came out with D/D – 0/10/0/30/30, the most overused build there is. I prefer it over the mainhand scepter because of the more regular healing and enough offensive to push yourself ahead in a 1 v 1. As far as the traits go, it’s just… The best really. 30 in arcana is almost mandatory, you’re running your ele at 50% without it. Water traits could be put elsewhere but the survivability you get from cantrips is too much to give up. I actually go 10 in earth for extra protection in PvP, but in WvW I need to maintain swiftness to run away from zergs, so 10 in air is a must or even the slowest warrior will catch me after I’ve blown RTL.

eheh we can choose between 0/10/0/30/30 or…..0/10/0/30/30 xD

My current build.

Scepter/Focus, balanced build with an eye toward burst damage on low hp and CC’d targets.

I switch weapons/utilities/traits as needed, but I find this build effective in many situations. I realize there are many “better” builds out there, but this is a playable one, that I currently enjoy, using the weapons “nobody” likes. I agree to some extent with the consensus that scepter and focus could use a bit of a buff, but they are hardly unusable.

I’ve been playing elementalist since day 1 of BWE1, have tried every build I could think of, as well as running the good ol’ bunker D/D 0-10-0-30-30 for quite a while.

If you’re feeling really saucy you can switch from 0/10/0/30/30 to 0/20/0/30/20.

Who said we don’t have variety!? =P

Our core is 0/10/0/15/10. The rest is personal preference. You don’t need 30 in water or Arcane. Since attunement dance is a popular play style, many builds have 30 arcane in it. I personally pick 30 in arcane because I like the Grandmaster traits. 30 in airs works. 10 in Fire or Earth works. Most people don’t go deep into Air, Fire or Earth probably because the Grandmaster traits in those lines are situational.

If they put Zephyr’s Boon into a Grandmaster trait, we will see a lot of 30 Air builds.

Vanillea.5764:

Our core is 0/10/0/15/10. The rest is personal preference. You don’t need 30 in water or Arcane. Since attunement dance is a popular play style, many builds have 30 arcane in it. I personally pick 30 in arcane because I like the Grandmaster traits. 30 in airs works. 10 in Fire or Earth works. Most people don’t go deep into Air, Fire or Earth probably because the Grandmaster traits in those lines are situational.

If they put Zephyr’s Boon into a Grandmaster trait, we will see a lot of 30 Air builds.

We’d probably just never see zephyr’s boon again :p
Unless it got a big buff going to grandmaster anyway.

I believe that the scepter auto attacks in fire and earth needs a redo, along with some alterations here and there. They take forever to channel and don’t even benefit from channeling traits like Obsidian and Zephyr’s Focus. The two of the auto attacks just gives the scepter an odd, unpleasant feel. Fire and earth being sluggish in general, air being quick, and water in the middle.

• Dragon’s Tooth: Should be a ground target skill like Phoenix.
• Phoenix: The projectile moves too slowly and could use a speed increase.
• Dust Devil: Just plain bad. Very low damage and causes blind, which we already have in air. Should be swapped for an entirely new skill, a damage oriented one. When you play S/F, there is basically only auto attack for you to use if you want to dish out damage (not counting Rock Barrier hurl). No need to say how weird that feels.

In my oppinion those things combined irks me greatly about the scepter. I play D/D, D/F and even staff, rather than the uneven and jarring playstyle of the scepter. What I mean is that it hasn’t got a good flow to it and many an odd skill that lacks punch.