Guild Wars 2

Hello all, I know this is an often brought up post, but I wanted to give my 2 cents on the matter. Just realize if any scepter changes are made, it will probably be long after heart of thorns comes out.

A number of issues come into mind with scepter gameplay. Some issues are the usefulness of a scepter ele as opposed to a mesmer or thief. Another issue is the overall impact of the skills and how they reward skillful play. Hopefully my post will address some of those problems.

Risk Vs Reward

Scepter elementalist is actually not all that weak. S/d actually had some good play before the ranger buffs. The main reason they aren’t seen in this meta game is too much counter play (argueably getting shut out because of other zerker classes). Focus was used to help against the weakness to ranged options in the game, but it ultimately fell out due to mesmer and thief crushing their usefulness and 1-shotting them overall.

The recent changes to the traits made the burst of elementalists weaker too since bolt to the heart was moved to grandmaster and air training doesn’t give a flat increase in damage.

If anets goal was to get rid of the insta-gib playstyle they failed because mesmer essentially does what pre-patch scepter eles could do. I can understand the changes they implemented, increasing blind and kite options to improve survivability, however I don’t believe they took into account the changes to the meta and how it would affect people who use scepter.

I also believe the best way to improve scepter is to improve their overall damage capability and how impactful their skills are. Many will argue that the auto attacks are too weak, which is true at least for water attunement, but I think the core of the issue is the usefulness of the 2-3 skills from certain attunements.

Changes to Skills

Dragons Tooth- I know people are unhappy with this skill, but I want to only decrease its animation by a second. It is very good for forcing dodge rolls, however, most people can simply walk out of its range before it goes off.

Water Auto-attack- Weakest auto attack. Give it a 20% damage increase.

Shatterstone- a 2 second skill but hardly ever used. Again, the issue is the animation time making it an unreliable source of damage. It also gives a random 4 stacks of vulnerability for some unknown reason. Solution is to make it work more like Mind stab, increase the vulnerability to 10 stacks and give it a 10-20% damage increase. Increase its cooldown to 6 seconds to compensate.

Water Trident- This should be a damage option and a healing option. Make it function more like phoenix and damage/heal people it passes through and exploding at the target for damage and a flat heal. Increase its potential damage by 100%. Right now it is used solely on oneself, for a small heal, making the fact that it is ground targetable obsolete.

Rock Barrior/Hurl- A good skill that adds defence, however most people will use it for the extra toughness and not the extra damage. Decrease the amount of rocks it hurls to 3, but keep the damage the same.

Dust Devil- I never saw it as useful due to how unreliable the hit was. Make it aoe ground targetable like water trident and blind targets it hits in that area.

Conclusion

The best counter to damage is damage. Scepter needs more of it to fight vs other zerker classes. It isn’t actually all that strong vs any class or build currently and could stand for more reliable damage sources other than fresh air procs and phoenix.

Thank you for those of you who read through my thoughts. Feel free to bash me and tell me im wrong. Those of you who didn’t read my post, why are you even commenting?

I nearly only play scepter + Focus. (and somtimes a bit staff).
What i would find good is not pure burst.
Fire:
Dragon tooth: I have no problem if its slow. What i don´t like is that i must cast it 1s and then it usually never hits a moving player. But when i can instant cast it, then its just a try that forces to be on guard but doesnt keep me in fire to long.
The other option would be ground target. But then its more for backline support.
Currently i use it 99% against static targets against PvE mobs or WvW guards. The exeption if i knock down a target and swaping to fire.
Autoattack: Decrese casting time to 3/4 and direct damage 30%. This will push it more to a condi weapon.

Earth:
Longer bleed duration on auto attack.
Rock barrier: I hurle it. Its great at offense and defence and 5 projectiles is very good when you trigger 5 procs on crits + fire in a field. The castin is a bit a pain but its fair for what it can do.
Dust devil: Yes this misses. But in general its good. Would like it insant not 1/4 to fire while doing other things. More would be to much.

Air: Autoatck feels weak but air is not desigend to stay in long. Rest is good.

Water: I use it for healing a friend in a fight. Fast trough it firing chill and trident. I am one of the rare eles not traited water i only get regen from the swap throug arcane. Staying in water brings nothing for me.
So shatterstone also beint instant cast woul please me. Rarely hiting but it doesn´t cost me time.

The Scepter sucks because its autoattacks suck — all of them. Yes, Dragon’s Tooth is way too slow, Shatterstone is pointless, and Dust Devil misses too often, but that would all be fine (mostly fine — Shatterstone is really a waste of a skill) if the Scepter weren’t so unbelievably reliant on landing its skills to do anything at all.

It isn’t just that they don’t deal enough damage (though they indeed don’t deal enough damage). A big part of the problem is also that they’re duplicative: Fire and Earth and functionally the same, both applying conditions slowly, while Water and Air are also functionally the same, both applying damage ticks slowly. They all need to be impactful and they each need a different identity. Sitting and autoattacking obviously shouldn’t give anywhere near the burst of landing a rotation, but as it stands you’re pretty much always making the wrong choice if you choose to autoattack.

Here’s what I’d like to see: let’s formalize the Fire/Earth and Water/Air relationship and give the autoattacks some specific synergies. Give them each a specific identity but keep the Scepter’s skill requirements.

Fire 1: Casting time drops to 1 or 3/4 seconds. No other changes.

Water 1: Each particle also applies a stack of Frost. At 9 stacks, Frost converts into a Chill.

Water 2: Drop the cast time to 1/4 and the delay to 1.5.

Air 1: Add an extra damage proc at the end of a complete channel in a small AoE around the target.

Earth 1: Now applies stacks of Shrapnel per hit. Removed if the target receives condition removal even if they don’t actually have any conditions removed (5 stacks per removal). Stacks of Shrapnel convert directly into Bleed stacks when struck by either other Earth or Fire abilities (5 stacks per hit for both).

I realize that’s all unreasonably complicated and will never happen, but I can dream.