Guild Wars 2

As we all know scepter is an abandoned child that is ignored even by anet devs. It has undoubtedly worst auto-attacks, needlessly long animation, and lackluster damage. However it is also a really unique weapon that no other class has access to, and imo defines what an ele is. With tempest as warhorn revealed, more and more balance issue will arise, and currently we are in danger of being pushed out in pvp forever due to whiny children.

Right now in pvp D/D ele is cause of all hatred because of foundation of elementalist. Elementalists have the lowest healthpool and toughness of 8 classes, and we are forced into water and arcane in pvp and wvw to rely on our boon duration. In fact due to our class mechanics, we are the best class to utilize celestial amulets and be jack of all trades since we have various access to condition damage to physical damage. However this also means that we only have two reliable build, celestial d/d and celestial staff.

When burning gets nerfed across everyone, so will eles. However knowing how anet messes with Mesmers and Necromancers, we are soon to be doomed since anet will undoublty not only nerf burning, but probably lots of thing that should not be nerfed, forcing elementalists out of meta. I’m not saying that celestial d/d is completely balanced, but if our most competitive build is going to get nerfed, we might as well as ask for much needed buffs.

Scepter has always been one useless weapon that has infinite potential but ruined by developers. And since all pvpers and wvw roamers hate d/d ele with passion, we have to prepare for a new build. And currently Elementalists have very limited choice to be effective. But since our low health pool and armor forces us to trait into water and arcane, our only option is to ask for buffs in our main hand weapon, the scepter.

Scepter has a lot to offer at the moment. 2 blast finishers in fire that do massive amount of damage that requires set ups, telegraphed attacks that are fair, and great synergy when used with focus and off hand dagger. We should ask for complete reword on some of the scepter skills so that we can take roles of marauder and compete with mesmer/thief in pvp and wvw roaming.

We all agree that scepter auto attacks for elementalists in water, earth, and fire needs a huge change. Let us start with asking for revamp of auto attacks. Let us remind anet that if they are going to nerf the one spec that made us competitive at high level play of GW2 combat, then they will have to give us something in return. You might think forums aren’t a good way to communicate with anet, but my thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Hero-Points-old-characters-breach-of-trust/first
undoubtedly played an important role for anet to let us unlock all of the traits using hero points at level 80 instead of forcing all of our alts into mindless grind. We should keep petitioning for rework on scepter in trade off for nerfing our d/d. They will undoubtedly nerf our sustain, then we should get more damage via scepter.

I think the upcoming beta test will be an opportunity to tell them what needs fixing. If Scepter/Warhorn doesn’t work you can be sure many elementalists will be asking for improvements.

This subject has been on the front page for the last couple of years I think, every time under a different name. I’ll just copy what i said in a different thread, and what most people agree on:

Same list as always:
-Buff all scepter auto-attacks, they are pretty much all horrible (Ice Shards is the least horrible)
- Make Dragon’s Tooth ground-targeted or decrease the casting time and/or the time it takes to drop.
-Make Shatterstone a useful skill. Add something like a chill, pulsing damage before detonation, an ice field, or simply more damage and/or vuln stacks.

The auto-attacks are the most important IMO. Scepter eles do close to nothing when their cooldowns have been used, and that needs to change. Sure, a burst weapon should not have insane sustained DPS, but right now it is just far too low.

Bean Muncher.5197:

This subject has been on the front page for the last couple of years I think, every time under a different name. I’ll just copy what i said in a different thread, and what most people agree on:

Same list as always:
-Buff all scepter auto-attacks, they are pretty much all horrible (Ice Shards is the least horrible)
- Make Dragon’s Tooth ground-targeted or decrease the casting time and/or the time it takes to drop.
-Make Shatterstone a useful skill. Add something like a chill, pulsing damage before detonation, an ice field, or simply more damage and/or vuln stacks.

The auto-attacks are the most important IMO. Scepter eles do close to nothing when their cooldowns have been used, and that needs to change. Sure, a burst weapon should not have insane sustained DPS, but right now it is just far too low.

Yeah but this time elementalist community should band together and make formal request. Like literally filling the whole elementalist sub forum with scepter related posts to show that elementalists really want the scepter rework. As far as I know there weren’t any collective movements that really made anet think about elementalist scepter. We see from extra character slot debacle that anet only responds to well organized petition/riot, but we don’t have to resort to Riot. D/D ele will get nerfed soon, then we should really be getting the buffs we deserve. And we aren’t even asking for the whole trait rework like mesmers.

I’ll do my part

I would make sceper auto attacks condition based. This will maybe close the gap of a good condi build and also help the celestial setup. Burst + condi will be unique.

So fire auto: make it 1s cast and reduce direct damage 33%. This will improve burn stacking.
Air auto: Add confusion.
Eart: make it fly and hit faster.
Water: Add vulnerability.

And of course make dragon tooth ground target.

Petitions are against forum rules, and they usually end up with the threads being locked. So feel free to try I guess.

Another intrestin idea would be to swap auras from other weapons so scepter is the aura tool. This would synergize with tempest aura fokus.

Swap focus fire aura with dragon tooth.
Swap dager offhand frost aura with shatterstone.

Woot. Scepter comes back and synergises with tempest warhorn support even more.
also focus and offhand dager would be slighly nerfed and this in addition to burn turned down would help bringign d/d back to normal.

I personaly would also like to have swaped scepter air blind with dager air shock aura and scepter earth rock barier with staff earth magnetic aura to fully dedicate scepter. But this could be to much mass aura power.

I main S/D, so I support this petition.

The Scepter’s 2 and 3 skills are all really good (except Water 2; that skill is useless), but dem autos, man. Dem autos. Here’s my wishlist for the Scepter autors:

Fire 1: Decrease the casting time to 3/4

Water 1: Every 9th projectile that hits a target causes them to pulse some minor healing to any of your allies near them. Alternately, every 9th projectile that hits causes 1 second of Chill.

Air 1: Increase damage by, say, 15% (dunno the exact number but it needs to go up). I’d actually be ok with just increasing the Stage 3 damage by a significant amount, so that it feels really rewarding to get the full channel off. Or maybe just add an extra damage proc that strikes instantly at the end of the channel, something to make switching to another attunement at the end of a channel feels more optimal.

Earth 1: Increase the Bleed duration to 9 seconds.

“Do not post petitions, “I demand an answer” threads, conspiracy threads, or comments about circumventing the rules.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/rules

I don’t think you should.

scepter is fine!

u dont sit on d/x autos either.

i wont support any petition thats based on the need to rely on autos. outside of autos – as said – scepter is fine.

if u want to rely on autos pls reroll!

shinta.8906:

scepter is fine!

u dont sit on d/x autos either.

i wont support any petition thats based on the need to rely on autos. outside of autos – as said – scepter is fine.

if u want to rely on autos pls reroll!

A weapon that only work with a specific set of trait is not fine. We need scepter to work without fresh air, the auto attacks need fix/range increases, Dragon tooth needs to be ground target-able or way faster.

scepter works with & without freshair. scepter works as condi weapon aswell (far to good tbh). scepter also works as hybrid.

if u want to have high range auto dmg reroll ranger or go staff.

shinta.8906:

scepter works with & without freshair. scepter works as condi weapon aswell (far to good tbh). scepter also works as hybrid.

Can’t be taken seriously anymore ….

Only water 1 and 2 really need the buff i guess you could make an argument for air 1 to make it tick a bit faster. Over all scepter is a good pure dmg wepon with low utility.

shinta.8906:

scepter is fine!

u dont sit on d/x autos either.

i wont support any petition thats based on the need to rely on autos. outside of autos – as said – scepter is fine.

if u want to rely on autos pls reroll!

No one’s saying they want to rely on autos. However, it would be nice if we had the option to autoattack a little bit every so often without basically wasting our time.

Right now, the only way to play an Elementalist well is to constantly switch attunements and empty cooldowns, pretty much regardless of situation. There’s some clutch stuff you can do to interrupt enemies or burst heal, but generally you just stick to your standard rotations and fire them on cooldown. This requires a lot of API, muscle memory, and twitch reflexes, but has relatively little dynamism to it once you get the basics down.

If autoattacking were slightly less terrible, it would give the Ele playstyle more depth, more flexibility. Now rather than constantly hurtling forward, we could make decisions about tempo and cadence in battle, holding back for a few more moments if the situation warrants it. It would require us to read the fight at every moment and change how we approach it rather than simply see a dramatic fall-off in effectiveness if we have to stop our rotation for whatever reason. If the best decision is, always the same, then there’s not really any decision to be made at all.

good point. but i see it more an issue of our utility options as it is for most weapon sets the same. even a better elite could do wonders (looking at mortar kit for exampel or chronomancer).. allthough we can feel like very very small chronomancers too soon.

/edit:
freshair trait is the exact reason why air scepter auto (safe range) shouldnt be high.

instead of the new elite (one skill) we should have get an elite that gives u the same oportunities that freshair gives u as a trait for eatch atunment instead of making it for one skill partywide.
u could ve loged the atunment u want to recharge before eatch fight giving the circumstances u will face. that would have let u chose a role before eatch fight. earth being more tanky with earth line trait. soothing mist gm could have had more sense if u could recharge water etc.. things could have been more interesting as they r now.. even tempest overcharge making it a function of glyphs could have been thought of to take into ur palette instead of one of the usual cantrips..

freshair is appealing for some cause of a more lose and situational rotation. every atunement should have to have that chance. it would have been en par with chronomancer.

an overall new concept utilitywise is missing and not some + on an auto dmg..

shinta.8906:

/edit:
freshair trait is the exact reason why air scepter auto (safe range) shouldnt be high.

On the contrary: the Fresh Air trait is exactly why the Scepter auto should reward you even more for fully completing the channel. It’s so bad that you’re best of switching into Air, dropping 2 and 3, then switching into literally anything else and then back out again. There’s no incentive to stay in Air for a millisecond more than you have to. Fresh Air should be about more than just cheesing Electric Discharge.

shinta.8906:

an overall new concept utilitywise is missing and not some + on an auto dmg..

This issues are not mutually exclusive. They actually have nothing to do with each other in the slightest. I’m confused why you think they do.

If .., it would give the Ele playstyle more depth, more flexibility

i agree to ur wish of that part. from what i understood u think an harder hitting easy accessible aa would make that come true.

as dx auto hits harder u have to give dx set that that it is melee range. therefore the access to hard fast dmg is countered by the fact that in terms of doing so u can get easily hitted back.

in terms of balancing im plane not a fan of hard range attacks without a drawback.

This issues are not mutually exclusive.

exactly. being caught up in rotations is also a problem of dx.
therefore to add a more flexibile depth to eleplaystyle i think utilities should give us the chance to do so. the missing variety in rotations is just not a problem of some auto attacks. ofc u would give variation to it if u could camp for example air auto and look at ppl trying to escape like under ranger lb auto. i plane dont think this would add a skillfull variation to our gaming and would be neither balance.

shinta.8906:

in terms of balancing im plane not a fan of hard range attacks without a drawback.

The drawback is that you’re throwing autoattacks instead of skills with cooldowns. I’m not saying that the Scepter’s autoattacks should hit as hard as Lightning Whip or Flame Grab or anything, but they should hit hard enough so that you might seriously think about using them occasionally. As it stands, the Scepter’s autoattacks are pretty much just a noob trap, and noob traps are bad. They are the worst possible case of bad game design.

shinta.8906:

exactly. being caught up in rotations is also a problem of dx.
therefore to add a more flexibile depth to eleplaystyle i think utilities should give us the chance to do so. the missing variety in rotations is just not a problem of some auto attacks. ofc u would give variation to it if u could camp for example air auto and look at ppl trying to escape like under ranger lb auto. i plane dont think this would add a skillfull variation to our gaming and would be neither balance.

It would take skill to decide whether to keep swapping around and throwing skills or whether you’d be better off stepping on your opponent’s neck and choking them with a sustained barrage of autoattacks. Misjudge in either direction and your opponent may survive.

Which isn’t to say our Utility skills don’t also need a makeover, because they totally do, in the context of a larger rework. We’re far too dependent on Cantrips and the Water/Arcane trait lines. But that’s a separate issue entirely. Fix that and you’ll still have to confront the fact that the Scepter’s autoattacks are unusually terrible, not only compared to other Ele weapons but also compared to all the other professions’ weapons as well.

Ele scepter is god mode compared to necro axe

Azure.8670:

Ele scepter is god mode compared to necro axe

Oh come on… As a necro u can be usefull even without using the second main hand. And btw, axe for the necro is a better choice in wvw insted dagger. Scepter ele isnt viable in any modality.

just a question, everyone in this thread stated that d/d ele are getting nerf but i have yet to read any news regarding that, so i can only assume that the nerf you guys are mentioning is the nerf to burning?

Burning is expected and anet already said it is to strong. It is not shure if another nerf to eles will follow but it might happen because manny are seeing eles OP in PvP.
I pesonaly would have no problem if soothing disruption is nerfed to break the OP cantrip/water synergy because this is also hindering build diversity by just being the best utility option giving great sustain.
What i and many eles fear is that anet overshots again with a nerf that hits many builds that did not deserve a nerf hard and reduced build diversity even more.

how can eles be OP when all it takes is 1 rotation from BURNdian and mesmer to bring us down, and i mean literally 1 rotation, instant drop.

Azure.8670:

Ele scepter is god mode compared to necro axe

Having no main-hand weapon equipped /at all/ is god mode compared to the Necro axe.

I kid. But only kinda.

lucadiro.4519:

Azure.8670:

Ele scepter is god mode compared to necro axe

Oh come on… As a necro u can be usefull even without using the second main hand. And btw, axe for the necro is a better choice in wvw insted dagger. Scepter ele isnt viable in any modality.

This is the most false post of all time

I would rework shatterstone into on target use 2.5s channeling that dmg that target and apply voulnerability per thick. Voulnerability apply would be up to 5foes in 360range. Dmg per thick only on targeted enemy.

About Dragon’s Tooth ground targeted: make it via trait. Cuz in way that it is now it has its own way that is work in many situations so I would be rather against if we will lose some options. I would see trait like: divide dmg/effect radious and blast radious in aoe skills in scepter and focus like: dragon tooth, coment, magnetic wave, water trident. 100 more for blast radious and dmg radious remain as it is. (in case of water trident it is about heal radious bigger than dmg radious). Second effect in that trait would be that change to dragon tooth be ground targeted.

EvilHero.1248:

how can eles be OP when all it takes is 1 rotation from BURNdian and mesmer to bring us down, and i mean literally 1 rotation, instant drop.

I think some people are frustrated if they get killed by the squishiest class (even if they can run berserker and we cant) so they come here to troll us by asking for more ele nerf.

the problem with ele is also the skill level. Eles are designed to need more skill. If that is rewarded trouble arises, because ele will then win at high tier play. If its not rewarding eles will complain and even loose more by making mistakes which is normal.
So anet will always be a bit in trouble if classes require diffrent skill levels.
And burn stacking is to much in some places and ele dagger is one

Scepter really needs some improvement

I am signing in

In my opinion Shatterstone should have its cd increased to 8s, but reflect 5 projectiles and can be shattered to explode the Shatterstone into bleeding ice debris. It would solve the condition problem with Scepter. Edit: it wouldn’t reflect projectiles but block 4 projectiles or attacks. When broken it would explode int bleeding debris, but it could also be destroyed manually after a 1s delay. The pillar would also be impassable which would give it value in WvW or PvP. Why projectile destroy, when its already on focus you ask? Well scepter has 0 mobility and without a dagger offhand its basically a sitting duck even with all focus survivability. Might stacking celestial d/d ele can survive and sustain strong projectiles since going full glass is not needed with sustained damage from dagger main hand, but scepter has very low sustained dps and going full glass is the only way to get your damage out with burst (other than conditions ofc).
Fire AA should have its cast time reduced to 1s or 3/4s since burning is getting nerfed anyway.
Air AA should have same damage but lower cast time or more damage but same cast time. It would also give Scepter eles some way of sustained dmg, but toned to go along with its burst.
I agree on Dragons Tooth being aoe, but only through traits (maybe add the aoe effect to the conjurer trait since noone every really runs it).
I doubt Anet will listen tho since they already probably have a vision of their game and they never steered away from it in my experience.

Tomiyou.3790:

In my opinion Shatterstone should have its cd increased to 8s, but reflect 5 projectiles and can be shattered to explode the Shatterstone into bleeding ice debris. It would solve the condition problem with

I would see it also like reflecting pillar kind of.

Idea of limited projectile to absorb/reflect and after fulfill that limit something happens is good too.