Guild Wars 2

This is my insight on why scepter dps just doesn’t work in pvp. Hopefully anet can get some valuable info on how to adjust.

To put it simply, the damage is too low the longer the fight runs on. Scepter has alot of trouble dealing damage consistently and will most often lose every fight where the other player has some form of sustain..

Honestly scepter works fine in pvp, except when facing guardians, druids and engis.

My advice to anet is to adjust scepter so it can dish out more consistent damage. Whether adding a trait that makes skills unblockable or increasing the dps of auto attack, please do something

Scepter will always be 11 bad skills and 1 phoenix. The only hope for ranged damage to ever be viable on ele is if Anet makes a power creep bloated abomination of an elite spec based on the concept.

There is a middle ground between: good burst with periods of light tickles between AND power-creeped monstrosity that kills everything.

1. Scepter has needed, and still needs better sustained damage. The burst is still pretty good, but isn’t enough to finish off anyone (and that is good), but unlike thief, rev, and warrior, scepter ele lacks skills that are meant to finish a low enemy. You are stuck hoping your air-swaps and air-2 get them before they get to recover. They could do this in one of three ways:

1a. Give scepter good auto-attacks so that times between bursts aren’t just light tickles. Especially if they made air-auto-attack stronger, then fresh-air would be desirable not just to get air-swap procs, but to get back to a good DPS auto. These skills also need to be sped up…a LOT (the pre-cast is FOREVER on these attacks other than water).

1b. Give dragon’s tooth and shatterstone the ability to hit anybody. Same for that stupid fire-field thing added to flame-strike. These are all only skills that work against stationary enemies (golems) but not anything with half a brain. If they are going to take forever to land, they should be instant cast so you can just fire it off and get some zoning.

1c. Give some kind of “executioner” type trait (that ele can take). As it is, Bolt to the Heart is not usable thanks to fresh air being required. Instead, a trait that tries to do something like panic strike (except not so brainless) would be great for helping eles maybe hit a dragon’s tooth after softening up enemies.

2. Scepter needs lower CD on its burst. As it is, phoenix has too long of a CD, even if you take the fire CD-reduction trait (and is the main impetus for taking that trait). A base CD of 15 would be more palatable. No other class is as-punished for missing its burst by having to wait forever, and all other classes have generally better base defense to survive between bursts. If you miss a phoenix, you are stuck doing…above-average damage compared to a bruiser while you are full-glass…just isn’t right.

I agree with all of blackbeards posts. Please read anet.

Better to give up on doing dmg as an ele unless your full tank / healing your not usable in any format other then wvw where you can do soso dmg as an staff ele. Scepter is a dead weapon and dagger out side of all in support is dead too.

Auto-attacks need to be improved, especially air and fire. Earth does its job as it being condi and water I don’t think is supposed to really do dmg so that is fine.

Reduce the time to when you cast dragons tooth to when it actually drops slightly. Reduce CD on Phoenix by 5 seconds. Increase chill duration on water #4 slightly. Have air #3 also apply weakness for 2-3 seconds. Or some type of weakness application somewhere built into scepter.

Slightly increase damage on air #2 and the air trait that causes a lightning bolt.

I think ice 1 and air 1 need a boost, at the moment they are a low damage filler with no benefit for being low damage, which is part of the problem – you cannot sustain damage as soon as you swap out of fire.

Air 3 and earth 3 are another total waste, you apply a single blindness and you pay with the loss of an entire spell cast, devs need to understand a bit more about opportunity cost there.

I use scepter/warhorn in pvp. I also run a condi build. Fire and earth for conditions and air for cc and water for heals. I might be people not expecting a condi ele or the level of competition I’m facing but I’ve had great success with it.

Very strange. I tired my S/F condi build with the lighning rod air varaint again last two days …
And it worked … I got only massacres yesterday.
Either i just got bad oponents or it works realy good …
The noticeable change i made was from soldier to surging rune and eather renewal for wash the pain to compensate condi cleanse loss. I could even fight necros much better ….
Teamsupport suffered but in solo Q if i weaken and propably stun seems better which is also teamsupport. The build can´t realy burst but they died annyway ….

Scepter mainhand doesn’t need more auto attack power. It’s the skills that suck. They either don’t have enough damage/healing for their cast time/CD or they are just designed badly. Skills also have pretty bad synergy between themselves too.
For example: Dust Devil looks good on paper but in reality, it just lacks some extra effects. I mean, a blind on a 15s CD that’s not even instant or reliable (Blinding flash works so good with fresh air because you are 80% of the time in air attunement and you can always cast it when it comes off CD). But a 15s CD unreliable blind just sucks. If it applied 4s of weakness on the other hand, it would be pretty kitten good.

This extends to many other skills, not just elementalist ones.

They need to remove the “auto attk” from scepter altogether and make it into a low cd burst move say 2-3 sec cd. Making the scepter a pure burst weapon with no dps (out side of burn and bleeds). So air 1 would be an aoe dmg that hits your target and all targets arone it over time but its a one cast not a full channal. Fire 1 would be a big fire burst that dose a few stack of aoe burning. Earth 1 would be a bleeding aoe burst. Water 1 would be an water burst that is aoe healing.

So scepter would be a full mages weapon where the weapon it self is not doing the attk but the caster is and are simply using the weapon to help them cast. So think of it like a faster staff weapon but lower ranges.

that would be an interesting flavor for ele ^^, agree with this.

Personally its my favorite Ele weapon in PvP. I have no issues with damage and i always swing teamfights in my favor.

I run tanky condi ele and camp in fire for all of my damage. Glyph of Elemental power every time i get ready to swap atunements so i still burn people outside of fire. 100% recommend the build.,

It is funny to just browse these forums after quite a long time of inactivity and see the same problems still persisting after all this time. There have been innumerous amounts of threads about every single possible aspect of ele regarding their kittene cast time, their kittene dps, their kitten kit overall and clunkiness of the class itself, yet there never seems to be any reaction from Anet, ever.

Zaviel.1245:

Personally its my favorite Ele weapon in PvP. I have no issues with damage and i always swing teamfights in my favor.

I run tanky condi ele and camp in fire for all of my damage. Glyph of Elemental power every time i get ready to swap atunements so i still burn people outside of fire. 100% recommend the build.,

When you play power scepter, damage is by far the main issue.

Well, scepter doesn’t even work in pve…