Guild Wars 2

A little comparison of power with the well balanced dagger main hand:
Disclaimer: Some numbers may be representative or/and approximations

Fire

DF1: 126 Damage x 3 in 1 seg —-- TD in 2 secs: 756 (damage cant be dispelled)
SF1: 100 + burning 2seg —-- TD in 2 secs: 700 (burning can be cleansed but you have 900 range)

Even

DF2: 4 × 672 + burning 3 seg (4 stacks, 1 per tick i think) —-- TD: 3672
SF2: 756 + burning 3 seg —-- TD: 1740 (the 900 range doesnt matter when the skill to land needs cc to work + with the new changes the CF works only if the enemy is near you: in your ring of fire so even for that its lame)

Dagger wins

DF3: 34 damage + 672 blast + 1 seg burning —-- TD: 1034 (+ CField and it can be used to escape or close distance to your enemy in a close combat weapon)
SF3: 252 × 2 +512 —-- TD: 1016 (CFB, removes conditions and gives vigor)

Even

Water

DW1: 2 × 111 —-- TD: +/- 250 (cause of the nice 2 stacks 6sec of vulnerability), can hit more than 1 enemy and its faster
SW1: 3 × 60 —-- TD: 180 (larger range, only 1 enemy)

Dagger doublekill

DW2: 168 × 4 —-- TD: 670 damage + almost 740 of area healing
SW2: TD: LAME 252 , 4 stacks of vulnerability is nice but the delay AND casting time (2seg) makes almost impossible to hit and it has 2 secs of CD! DW1 will give min 6 stacks of vulnerability and far more damage in the same time.

Dagger triplekill

DW3: 140 damage + 3 secs chilled
SW3: 168 + 1400 healing

Almost even, i prefer the chilled cause it has more synergy with d/d.

Air

DA1: 235×2 in 1.15 sec —-- TD: 1410 in 4 secs , its a point blank skill and it can hit 3 enemys at the same time
SA1: TD: 634 in 4 secs, if u use less than 4 secs the damage is severely reduced

Dagger ultrakill

DA2: 202 damage, can hit 3 people, weakness 5 seg , 10 secs CD
SA2: 403 damage instant can hit only 1 , 5 sec CD

Pretty even

DA3: 5 sec of stun to every melee attack u feel + of the best auras in the game – 25cd
SA3: 6 secs blind -10 cd

Unstoppable! For me it has no comparison, u can protect yourself vs 2 attacks in 25seg with blind vs unlimited hits with the aura if you time the skill right

Earth

DE1: 180 + 1 bleeding 8seg —- TD: 520 with 1 hit
SE1: 3 × 150 + 6seg bleeding 3 and CF —-- TD: 1200 in 6seg with o 1 hit

Scepter WINS finally!!!

DE2: 417 damage + 12 seg bleeding (510 damage) + 3 seg crippled
SE2: kittenage, only reason to cast it is for the armor

Dagger wins SO hard again that its not fun

DE3: 140 damage, 2 secs immobilize and a close gap move which is a leap finisher
SE3: 134 damage, blind

Dagger wins again, not by so much but cause the skill benefits the close encounters that dagger needs.

Other things to have in mind:

- 2 auras instead of 1
- better mobility (burning speed & magnetic grasp)
- leap finisher (cant be obtained via utility except for conjures)
- 8 area attacks vs 5 from scepter
- more and better conditions (scepter has 3: burnig, blind and vulnerability, dagger has 8!!!: burning, vulnerability, chill, weakness, stun, bleed, immobilize and cripple)
- 2 combo fields fire instead of 1 (so your team can compensate your “lack” of blast finishers)

and vs staff:

Finishers aren’t rare or what a support character does: a support brings combo fields to the combat so all the team can use them to their advantage. S/D has 1 fire field (and its the dagger part), Staff is a beast at fields: 2 fire fields, 1 ice field, 2 water fields and the super rare electric field. The area damage is also Staffs strong point: only E1 is not an area atack/effect, so you have 19!! area attacks/effects. Even D/D has less. Zoning? Scepter can zone with the puny W2, nice but slow E5, F4 and F2 (being far generous as you CANT select the place where it will fall) Staff has: F2, F4, F5, W2, W4, A5, E2 and E4. Debuffing via conditions? Well scepters 3 are again nothing. Staff has 9: burning, vulnerable, chill, area blind, stun, weakness, cripple, bleed and immobilize.

The only real weakness is that staffs lack of strength in 1vs1 /2vs2 and maybe 3vs3 situations. (the casting times and almost no burst damage). But if you want burst, why don’t pick d/d?

I respect that you took the time to do a detailed comparison like this, however I rock S/D in tPvP and love it way more than D/D.

Naurgalen.2374:

Water

DW1: 2 × 111 —-- TD: +/- 350 (cause of the nice 2 stacks 6sec of vulnerability), can hit more than 1 enemy and its faster
SW1: 3 × 180 —-- TD: 540 (larger range, only 1 enemy)

Mostly even, i prefer dagger.

2 things
one: lol at preferring 2×111 to 3×180. You can’t justify that no matter what
but much more importantly, it isn’t 3×180. It’s just 180. The 180 is split up into 3 hits. It sucks hard.

reikken.4961:

Naurgalen.2374:

Water

DW1: 2 × 111 —-- TD: +/- 350 (cause of the nice 2 stacks 6sec of vulnerability), can hit more than 1 enemy and its faster
SW1: 3 × 180 —-- TD: 540 (larger range, only 1 enemy)

Mostly even, i prefer dagger.

2 things
one: lol at preferring 2×111 to 3×180. You can’t justify that no matter what
but much more importantly, it isn’t 3×180. It’s just 180. The 180 is split up into 3 hits. It sucks hard.

2 reasons:
1) Being objective single target (will allways do 540) vs multiple target (if you hit 3 people +/- 350 scales to 1050 of damage + the vulnerability in all of them) is something to consider
2) I remembered the skill doing FAR less damage than 540, and your correction has explained me why haha. Thnx, ill edit it!

Good on you for doing the math but you can’t conclude that “scepter is not competitive” based on this.

Regizer.1763:

Good on you for doing the math but you can’t conclude that “scepter is not competitive” based on this.

OFC there are other factors to consider, like what a team needs and for what. + every player is a world and many surely must kick kitten far better with scepter than dagger.

But I prefer the less probabilistic and subjective math to balance for the majority and not a few ones. So l see: better range and ""might stacking"" (Read how they destroyed DT on long range situations) vs:

- 2 auras instead of 1
- better mobility (burning speed & magnetic grasp)
- leap finisher (cant be obtained via utility except for conjures)
- 8 area attacks vs 5 from scepter
- more and better conditions (scepter has 3: burnig, blind and vulnerability, dagger has 8!!!: burning, vulnerability, chill, weakness, stun, bleed, immobilize and cripple)
- all what I said before

and I understand fairly easy why most elementalist are playing d/d which is TOTALLY FINE vs s/d.

There is nothing wrong with that you wrote but unless you can produce same results in a non controlled scenario then it’s all just a theory.

Seems a bit subjective to me, tbh.

MindlessRuff.1948:

I respect that you took the time to do a detailed comparison like this, however I rock S/D in tPvP and love it way more than D/D.

me too, but srsly, how many skills on Scepter are almost useless? it really needs some changes… at least water 1 and 2, earth 2 and 3, maybe air 1 and fire 1 and just a little bit reduced delay on Dragons Tooth would be nice, its enough we would need 1 control to hit it, but now? we need to use 2 controls and its still not guaranteed hit… :/ or make it ground targeted like Phoenix, not enemy targeted

Scepter does okay in team fights. It has 2 blast finishers, one doubling as condition removal and 2 blinds. DT and Phoenix are only difficult to hit whilst roaming, but for bunkering and team fights they function great for stacking might and zoning.

Dagger has better close range AoEs and a very good aura, making it ideal for roaming and close range support.

I prefer dagger since it’s often more useful, but scepter does okay. It’s certainly not so far behind as to not be competitive.

TwoBit.5903:

Scepter does okay in team fights. It has 2 blast finishers, one doubling as condition removal and 2 blinds. DT and Phoenix are only difficult to hit whilst roaming, but for bunkering and team fights they function great for stacking might and zoning.

Dagger has better close range AoEs and a very good aura, making it ideal for roaming and close range support.

I prefer dagger since it’s often more useful, but scepter does okay. It’s certainly not so far behind as to not be competitive.

The problem is that staff fare much better in team fight while d/d shine as our 1vs1 set, so people are left with a rather redudant weapon set, the scepter simply lack any prominent features compared to d/d and staff.

The scepter/focus set falls behind on everything from steady dmg to mobility, outside the situational use of projectile defenses, a bunker s/f is still below a bunker staff or d/d, while the burst option is quite unreliable and far too predictable for the enemy compared to d/d where you can hit from every corner.

The main reason why people opt for d/d in 80% of cases is because of the lack of huge delay skills as in scepter case, the delay on scepter is so great that any range advantage you may initially have can easily be reverted to disavantage.

If I want range I use staff because I have got the tools to maintain the range and without using any utility, insteas with scepter you see that many people literally go in mele range to hit reliably with phoenix and use very long CD skills to land any heavy hit skill present.

Just look at Dmh, staff and trident, they got dmg “equally” distributed among all attunements, still water doens’t lose in healing potential and air/earht still offer great CC skills, but in the scepter case we see that the dmg is concentrated mostly in fire, if only Anet would buff shatterstone and add swiftness to swirling wind, I’d pick scepter/focus

Matter of preferrence, as both offer different types of support. S/D has a total of 4 blast finisher as opposed to the staff’s 1 finisher. It also puts out okay constant dps pressure with lightning skills, and has generally better damage than a staff. The range disadvantage shouldn’t be much of a factor since you need to stay close to your teammates to support them anyway. Staff has Healing Rain but I honesty prefer the burst heals available from S/D and phoenix can do a decent job at cleansing. I also prefer the dagger offhand due to earthquake and updraft, both of which can be used to interrupt more efficiently than static ring,.

this topic is about scepter, half of what you say is about dagger offhand… we already know dagger offhand is much better then focus, but once again, this topic is about scepter…

DF1: 126 Damage x 3 in 1/2 seg —— TD in 2 secs: 756 (damage cant be dispelled)

It doesn’t even hit every 1/2 s, more like every 1s.

Arheundel has nailed the point: I don’t think Scepter vs Staff is debatable for large and even medium battles. Finishers aren’t rare or what a support character does: a support brings combo fields to the combat so all the team can use them to their advantage. S/D has 1 fire field (and its the dagger part), Staff is a beast at fields: 2 fire fields, 1 ice field, 2 water fields and the super rare electric field. The area damage is also Staffs strong point: only E1 is not an area atack/effect, so you have 19!! area attacks/effects. Even D/D has less. Zoning? Scepter can zone with the puny W2, nice but slow E5, F4 and F2 (being far generous as you CANT select the place where it will fall) Staff has: F2, F4, F5, W2, W4, A5, E2 and E4. Debuffing via conditions? Well scepters 3 are again nothing. Staff has 9: burning, vulnerable, chill, area blind, stun, weakness, cripple, bleed and immobilize.

The only real weakness is that staffs lack of strength in 1vs1 /2vs2 and maybe 3vs3 situations. (the casting times and almost no burst damage). But if you want burst, why don’t pick d/d?

Aesa.4819:

DF1: 126 Damage x 3 in 1/2 seg —— TD in 2 secs: 756 (damage cant be dispelled)

It doesn’t even hit every 1/2 s, more like every 1s.

Fixed the time, I don’t know why i put 1/2 sec cause the TD in 2 secs was correct.

Sceptre suffers from being the middle child, too close to get the really good aoes, too far to get the really big damage. I played Scepter for quite a while and finally switched back to d/d, far more dps.

Although if you play to scepters strengths (fire/earth) its quite good, I just find if I’m up close I can do more with d/d and if I’m far away I can do more with staff so…

I feel that it’s kinda situational. Scepter brings 2 additional blas finishers which result in 6 additional stacks of AoE might and overall higher dmg of all your skills and your party. 2 syncronized S/D Eles stacking up might on the whole party its incredible. With the recent change to DT it’s even easier. The CD on DT is also kinda low which means you can sustain those might stacks to some extend. Scepter also brings a ST blind that does not interrupt stomp casts as well as an AoE blind. This comparison is mostly done on the basis of theoretical dmg output. Utility is neglected for the most part as well as synergies or the fact that scepter has higher range which might make a difference in certain situations – hence my very first statement – it is situational. Scepter or dagger (pick whatever you want) could just be the way better weapon just because your enemy runs a specific build. Against a thief with Caltrops Shock Aura is absolutely OP because it basically means 5s perma stun for the thief. Against rangers I personally think that Scepter is the better weapon.

scepter is far from uncompetitive, a lot of top paid tpvp eles run s/d. the blinds are powerful, with single target dps in air and some aoe in fire. water is a good healing attunement in this setup, and poppin into earth for some toughness or a blind aint bad

Malicious.6742:

This comparison is mostly done on the basis of theoretical dmg output. Utility is neglected for the most part as well as synergies or the fact that scepter has higher range which might make a difference in certain situations – hence my very first statement – it is situational.

Utility is not neglected at all but was posted below:
- 2 auras instead of 1 means better group utility for auramancers
- better mobility (burning speed & magnetic grasp) means mostly no range problems
- leap finisher (cant be obtained via utility except for conjures) means more utility
- 8 area attacks vs 5 from scepter means more damage :P
- Scepter has 3 conditions (burnig, blind and vulnerability) dagger has 8!! (burning, vulnerability, chill, weakness, stun, bleed, immobilize and cripple) – more easy to adapt different situations and help your team
- 2 combo fields fire instead of 1 can mean the same or more might stacking as scepter if your team uses them

OFC, there are some situations where the range or might stacking alone is far better. But I’m trying to be broad as I can on situations as one should do when balancing something. I became to think that scepter just cant be only the middle ground between Staff and Dagger, he must shine on its own. Staff has AREA and FIELDS written in stone, dagger has DAMAGE and MOBILITY. Scepter has only MIGHT STACKING? cmon! they can do better!

typingofthedead.5614:

scepter is far from uncompetitive, a lot of top paid tpvp eles run s/d. the blinds are powerful, with single target dps in air and some aoe in fire. water is a good healing attunement in this setup, and poppin into earth for some toughness or a blind aint bad

I don’t think this game has enough time online to be real competitive (like starcraft), people (even top players) are still learning and changing his ways of play. So i prefer to stick to numbers. + there is something I already said: maybe you can own 1vs50 with scepter and suck 20 v 3 with dagger, ability, fitting into the right team composition etc… are many of the factors that can be included. But that doesn’t mean the weapon is still balanced. xD (in fact, i think focus is far worse)

I think it all comes down to how you prefer to play, if you want to be in someones face then go daggers, if you want to nuke people from a distance go with scepter or staff. In the end all weapon sets have their strenghts and weaknesses.

Regizer.1763:

I think it all comes down to how you prefer to play, if you want to be in someones face then go daggers, if you want to nuke people from a distance go with scepter or staff. In the end all weapon sets have their strenghts and weaknesses.

Given the overall weakness of ranged compared to mele and the multiple ways meles professions got to close gap, it’s no wonder people go for d/d

Arheundel.6451:

Regizer.1763:

I think it all comes down to how you prefer to play, if you want to be in someones face then go daggers, if you want to nuke people from a distance go with scepter or staff. In the end all weapon sets have their strenghts and weaknesses.

Given the overall weakness of ranged compared to mele and the multiple ways meles professions got to close gap, it’s no wonder people go for d/d

I think it’s more of it’s easier to play d/d so more people go that route. I personally much rather face a melee character than a ranged one while I’m using staff. I mean if you read the forums you will notice how eles praise d/d as it has some amazing synergy or some kitten like that while everyone else say that d/d eles need a small nerf.

I probably didn’t make my point clear enough. I read your post and ofc I’ve read your remarks concerning utilities and kitten but you’re basically just counting.
When counting conditions for example you treat every condition equally completely neglecting its effect on your gameplay, the amount of stacks and duration. You simply don’t take into account how you can actually benefit from those.
Scepter blind is an extremely valuable tool to secure stomps. Line AoE blind is extremely powerfull in terms of damage mitigation and can be combined with dagger earth#5. Those 2 blinds offer way more utility than weakness, kittenty bleeds (which scepter also has btw) and cripple which doesn’t seem to stack with chill anyway.

Stun is very powerfull as I stated already. Yet again Shock Aura applies stun passively on hit. If the enemy is smart enough you can’t use it for offensive purposes with some exceptions such as Caltrops triggering the stun. But yea for defense it is indeed a very powerfull tool.

Regarding fire combo fields Ring of Fire’s CD is way shorter than regular blast finisher CDs which means that from your side as an ele there arn’t more might stacks to expect. Regarding the skill sequence you’d probably raise the fire field uptime from 40% to 50% at max if at all which equals 1.5s. It’s not like this is a major benefit.

Since you pointed out the leap finisher, what benefit would you get from that? Fire Aura maybe or retaliation or area weakness might be likely. Not really game breaking. Leap finishers are the worst in the game imo.

At the end both S/D and D/D are pretty close regarding strength. It pretty much comes down to the actual situation. Potentially I personally think S/D is the more versatile set because it synergizes way better with other players.

Malicious.6742:

Scepter blind is an extremely valuable tool to secure stomps. Line AoE blind is extremely powerfull in terms of damage mitigation and can be combined with dagger earth#5. Those 2 blinds offer way more utility than weakness, kittenty bleeds (which scepter also has btw) and cripple which doesn’t seem to stack with chill anyway

Securing a stomp with blind works in 1vs1 situations, for group battles you need stability or the more common mist form. Were blind shines (op, nerf it! -jk arenanet!-) is saving yourself (or a friend) from a heavy burst attack. And that’s why the AOE blind is not that powerful as one would think: it prevents some nice damage but its almost impossible that you blind all of your enemy’s best attacks in one aoe blind. In fact, as a piercing attack it can miss sometimes only cause the enemy moved. Then u dismiss cripples and chills for the class that needs to outrun his opponent so you don’t die (and more to that for d/d), area weakness (50% damage for 3 enemy’s for 5 secs, thats something right there) a decent “area” autoatack with vulnerability and 2 secs of immobilize (that can be used to many many things). Even having 2 bleed instead of 1 its nice: What about the elementalists that want to do condition damage?

Malicious.6742:

Regarding fire combo fields Ring of Fire’s CD is way shorter than regular blast finisher CDs which means that from your side as an ele there arn’t more might stacks to expect. Regarding the skill sequence you’d probably raise the fire field uptime from 40% to 50% at max if at all which equals 1.5s. It’s not like this is a major benefit.

Thats why i say: with the help of a team its almost the same. On 1vs1 situations the second field on d/d means nothing vs the more blast finishers from s/d.

Malicious.6742:

Since you pointed out the leap finisher, what benefit would you get from that? Fire Aura maybe or retaliation or area weakness might be likely. Not really game breaking. Leap finishers are the worst in the game imo.

Mostly it will give you fire armor or frost armor, both -if it werent bugged- are really nice things for auramancers. But stealth in smoke, healing in water or retilation in light are nice 2.

Malicious.6742:

At the end both S/D and D/D are pretty close regarding strength. It pretty much comes down to the actual situation. Potentially I personally think S/D is the more versatile set because it synergizes way better with other players.

The thing is damage wise, they aren’t. Look at the math, dagger doubles and almost triples the damage. Maybe i should look at staff so we can have a better understanding?

To be honest, I don’t see the point in comparing skills to similar skills in the same slot. There will always be skills that are better or worse individually. What matters is: how well does the whole set of skills compare to the whole other set of skills.

That’s in fact the way Anet intends to balance stuff, judging by the fact that they group skills per weapon instead of letting us pick per slot.

Scepter loses all its power because of those delayed skills. Dragon tooth, Phoenix, Shatterstone, Watertrident, Dust Devil. All those have high chance to miss without any root/slow.

Also all delayed skill is really poor in responsiveness. Especially Shatterstone and DT…

Naurgalen.2374:

typingofthedead.5614:

scepter is far from uncompetitive, a lot of top paid tpvp eles run s/d. the blinds are powerful, with single target dps in air and some aoe in fire. water is a good healing attunement in this setup, and poppin into earth for some toughness or a blind aint bad

I don’t think this game has enough time online to be real competitive (like starcraft), people (even top players) are still learning and changing his ways of play. So i prefer to stick to numbers. + there is something I already said: maybe you can own 1vs50 with scepter and suck 20 v 3 with dagger, ability, fitting into the right team composition etc… are many of the factors that can be included. But that doesn’t mean the weapon is still balanced. xD (in fact, i think focus is far worse)

i can not argue that i prefer main hand dagger to sceptre, but just saying it is competitive. it just has more defense than main hand dagger, and it has burst, but its a bit harder to land. the thing is, it’s all at range. so of course your numbers will be less cause u can do them from farther away

that said, i cant dissagree more about the focus as well. one of my favorite setups that ive made a few builds around is d/f. the focus is a defense and control weapon.

which leads me to the main problem i have with your argument. you’re comparing apples to oranges with your math. you’re comparting a close range aoe burst weapon to a mid/long range offensive/defensive hybrid weapon. and then u go on to bash focus which is a control/defensive weapon. they all do different things at different ranges.

i will agree that the daggers offer a nice set of skills, and is probably the easiest to pickup, but they are all close range damage spells (with 1 mobility and 1 heal/cleanse). both scepter and focus perform just fine and at range if you’re running a build/setup that makes good use of the skills. it seems like you want all of our weapons to be purely damage and have more or less equal skills

I find it interesting that all discussions of Scepter vs. Dagger Main Hand assume Dagger Off Hand as a given. I agree that Scepter could use some love, but Focus seems to be the real weak link in the Elementalist arsenal right now… if I had to rank combos based on observed popularity, it would go:

D/D
Staff
S/D
S/F

I have never seen anyone playing D/F, aside from the times I’ve tried it and confirmed for myself that it’s not a very elegant combo.

Melchior.2135:

I find it interesting that all discussions of Scepter vs. Dagger Main Hand assume Dagger Off Hand as a given. I agree that Scepter could use some love, but Focus seems to be the real weak link in the Elementalist arsenal right now… if I had to rank combos based on observed popularity, it would go:

D/D
Staff
S/D
S/F

I have never seen anyone playing D/F, aside from the times I’ve tried it and confirmed for myself that it’s not a very elegant combo.

i run d/f a lot. i love the ranged control, anti ranged, and extra way to tank/stomp with the earth invuln. that said, it seems to work best in either a glass cannon setup where u get good aoe sustain from the dagger and the focus to keep them off of u / CCed, or with a condition/survive setup focussing on burns

typingofthedead.5614:

which leads me to the main problem i have with your argument. you’re comparing apples to oranges with your math. you’re comparting a close range aoe burst weapon to a mid/long range offensive/defensive hybrid weapon. and then u go on to bash focus which is a control/defensive weapon. they all do different things at different ranges.

i will agree that the daggers offer a nice set of skills, and is probably the easiest to pickup, but they are all close range damage spells (with 1 mobility and 1 heal/cleanse). both scepter and focus perform just fine and at range if you’re running a build/setup that makes good use of the skills. it seems like you want all of our weapons to be purely damage and have more or less equal skills

That because you see scepter as " mid/long range offensive/defensive hybrid weapon" which is not.
First: All Scepter skills are mid range (900) so no long range there.
Second: for the defensive part, not really:
1) you have 5 “defensive” (they can be used in defense) skills : phoenix, water trident, blinding flash, rock barrier and dust devil. Dagger, the aggressive weapon has one more in fact: burning speed, cone of cold (it heals u 2), frozen burst, lightning touch(weakness in area), shocking aura and ring of earth (cripple 3 seg). // staff has 10, but that cover 2 weapons so i don’t think is fair to compare) //
2) Scepter is known and good for his burst or might stacking combos. Not epic heals (even while having a better heal than dagger main) or defensive skills. Both quality’s are offensive.

I wont argue about the focus part: like I said i THINK its worse, but i didn’t play with it enough or did some comparison at all nor this thread is about that. And if this thread exists its just for the contrary you belive, like I said: “Staff has AREA and FIELDS written in stone, dagger has DAMAGE and MOBILITY. Scepter has only MIGHT STACKING? cmon! they can do better!” (Making scepter having more than 1 burst so it becomes THE bursty weapon, making it THE condition based weapon, or even giving like you want -and I think it was anet first design- real hybrid and balanced offense / defense skills (*)… all can work )

(*) rock barrier / hurl is a perfect example of well designed skill in offense / defense balance that only has number problems on it: its defense part is far better than the damage, so there is no real decision to throw them ever

I found all weapons to be weak and lackluster compared to all classes (bar maybe Ranger and Necro)…

Hmm, both dagger and scepter on main hand have one aura.

Also, it’s hard to compare ranged attacks to melee or semi melee attacks. Also, if you’ve played DD ele for long enough you’ll realize how the Number 1 attacks for everything except earth miss in a lot of situations unless point blank (also water no1 needs a big enough flat area to hit twice).

Than that, your comparison is quiet reasonable. I sort of disagree on Air No2 being better for dagger than scepter. Sure weakness is nice…but 2 times the damage for half the cooldown (meaning 4x DPS) with longer range makes up for both the debuff and the fact the dagger one hits 3 targets as the total potential damage is still lower…and that is assuming you hit 3 targets which is not the easiest thing to do with that spell in PvP. Though the biggest thing with Scepter Air number 2 is the instant cast…any ability being an instant cast has a huge advantage considering you can be spending the time doing additional damage with another ability. So Dagger Air number 2 loses big time to Scepter.

Other than that, I do agree scepter needs a little buff.

Unless they have changed something in the last patch that i didn’t know scepter main hand has no auras. :/

Agreed with the point blank about most 1st skills, but most of them have some kind of area and d/d is for close encounters so with the high mobility we have its not really a big problem (unless you want to hit more than 1 enemy, that is more tricky) -speaking of pvp , pve is piece of cake-

For the Air2 thing, I ranked them “even” mostly cause weaken 2 people (in normal pvp 3 would be very strange) is pretty nice. But it can be debated. I feel both skills are nice and balanced. Maybe like you said Scepter air 2 IS better vs Dagger air 2 but not in the same way as other comparisons where 1 skills works and the other is just poor.

And yeah, its not that Scepter is broken, it only needs some minor fixes and/or buffs.

Naurgalen.2374:

A little comparison of power with the well balanced dagger main hand:
Disclaimer: Some numbers may be representative or/and approximations

Fire

DF1: 126 Damage x 3 in 1 seg —-- TD in 2 secs: 756 (damage cant be dispelled)
SF1: 100 + burning 2seg —-- TD in 2 secs: 700 (burning can be cleansed but you have 900 range)

Even

Absolutely not. The attack speed of SF1 is very slow compared to DF1, at least they should make SF1 “strike” when your character raises his hand, not a split second later.
Dagger wins.

Air

DA1: 235×2 in 1.15 sec —-- TD: 1410 in 4 secs , its a point blank skill and it can hit 3 enemys at the same time
SA1: TD: 634 in 4 secs, if u use less than 4 secs the damage is severely reduced

Dagger ultrakill

Only problem I have with Lightning Whip is that it misses way too often (bug) and it is near useless when attacking stationary objects due to this.
Arc Lightning isn’t a bad skill for two main reasons: first, it can strike multiple times making “on-crit” sigils/traits work almost on every usage and second, Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash can be used while channeling without interrupting the channeling. In a sense those 3 skills work together as one big skill (cds are so low you can spam this easily) and there is no reason not to use all 3 together.
For the above reasons I’d say Dagger Air and Scepter Air are more even than people think (except for Shocking Aura which works perfectly in an Aura build)

Earth

DE3: 140 damage, 2 secs immobilize and a close gap move which is a leap finisher
SE3: 134 damage, blind

Dagger wins again, not by so much but cause the skill benefits the close encounters that dagger needs.

Important: Dust Devil can miss because it is a projectile (and a VERY SLOW projectile) it puzzles me why an instant cast skill (Blinding Flash) has a lower cooldown than a useless slow projectile skill (Dust Devil).

They should probably buff Scepter a bit
I’d reccomend Earth 3 projectile speed buff or a cast time buff

I’d still love if they made dragon tooth on ground target but i’ve accepted a.net is never going to do that for some reason. I’ll take a faster cast time fire 1 or longer duration as well as a faster phoenix.

Water 1 or 2 or both needs a buff.

Ziddy.2583:

They should probably buff Scepter a bit
I’d reccomend Earth 3 projectile speed buff or a cast time buff

I’d still love if they made dragon tooth on ground target but i’ve accepted a.net is never going to do that for some reason. I’ll take a faster cast time fire 1 or longer duration as well as a faster phoenix.

Water 1 or 2 or both needs a buff.

Changes that I want to the scepter:
Flamestrike: apply burning/do damage at hand raise instantly not delay, it messes up dodging, then it should be fine.
Dragon’s Tooth as ground targeting aoe has been suggested since the BWEs but for some odd reason they never changed it. I hope they will someday…
Phoenix is nice as it is, maybe up the speed by 20%

Ice Shards: Increase damage, this skill deals very low damage as it is and doesn’t offer any conditions or anything. Maybe make each attack deal 180 damage? Also adding a 20% Projectile Finisher because it is a projectile just like Stone Shards (which btw deals more damage, fires faster and applies bleeding as well)?

Shatterstone: I remember GW1 had an Elite skill with the same name, not it is another weak skill. I mean 2seconds cooldown and 2seconds activation? Increase the cooldown to 4-5s and reduce the activation time to 1.2s for it to make some sense, also up the damage because it is just too low.

Water Trident: Only useful for the healing aspect (which isn’t great but it’s not bad either) as the damage is super low, also slow attack speed AND a projectile. This skill should’ve been skill1 in Water (with reduced Healing because it would be spammable)

Scepter Air: Up the damage a tiny bit. I’ve explained on my previews post why Scepter Air isn’t bad (as lots of people make it out to be) because you can use all 3 skills in quick succession without breaking the channeling of Arc Lightning.

Stone Shards: No change needed

Rock Barrier: No change needed → Hurl: according to the description, Rock Barrier creates 5 stones and then you use “Hurl” to throw them, but Hurl deals damage only once, which is also very very low making the skill worthless – who would break his Rock Barrier for so low damage? Why not make Hurl deal damage 5 times instead as the description suggest? 101 × 5 = 505 damage by 5 rather fast moving projectiles

Dust Devil: Make it as fast as Hurl please, as it is now it’s impossible to hit a moving target.

Scepter Trait: replace Vigorous Scepter, since Renewing Stamina is far more useful anyway, <something> Scepter → increase Range of Scepter attacks by 33% (making it a 1200 range weapon)

I believe that up to this point we should be able to outline the required profile for each weapon set, its purpose and usability.

For instance we all agree on the fact that d/d is our close distance PBAoE, it’s favoured by many especially because of the lack of delay on the dmg skills and the possibility to maintain pressure on all elements and this perfectly reflect the design of the ele.

Now in order to outline correct suggestions to improve staff/scepter, I believe it’s necessary to first define the role that a scepter or staff user can cover; personally I come to the conclusion that a scepter user should be our single target specialist/burster while a staff user should be the heavy artillery guy, in the past I read suggestions about giving more single target skills to staff and more aoe to scepter, that would be a mistake because they would lose identity, in light of these factors here below are my ideas for each set ( including focus)

SCEPTER:

-Fire
1) Flamestrike = no change
2) Dragon’s tooth= decrease delay by half, it can at least force people to dodge
3) Phoenix= increase speed by 20%

-Water
1) Ice shards= apply vulnerability
2) Shatterstone= same dmg as dragon’s tooth, 6s CD, apply 2s cripple
3) Water trident = no change

-Air
1) Arc lightning = no change
2) Lightning strike= no change
3) Blinding flash = no change

-Earth
1) Stone shards= no change
2) Rock barrier = *Hurl should deal like 200 dmg with each shard
3) Dust Devil= apply 8s bleeding

STAFF

-Fire
1) Fireball= no change
2) Lava font= increase radious to 240
3) Flameburst = no change
4) Burning Retreat = no change
5) Meteor Storm = more precision with meteor rocks

-Water
1)Water Blast = no change
2) Ice spike= no change
3) Geyser =no change
4) Frozen ground= reduce CD to 30s , we need more CC to keep enemies away
5) Healing Rain= Reduce CD to 40

-Air
1) Chain Lightning = no change
2) Lightning surge = no change
3) Gust = increase knockback to 450, remove projectile status, add “push nearby foes”
4) Windborne speed = no change
5) Static Field = reduce CD to 35s

-Earth
1) Stoning = no change
2) Eruption= reduce casting time to 1s and activation time to 2s
3) Magnetic Aura = no change
4) Unsteady ground = apply 4s cripple , increase dmg by 20%
5) Shockwave = change to ground target, immediate activation, 1s casting animation, 3s immobilize

Finally the FOCUS

-Fire
4) Flamewall = increase duration to 10s
5) Fire shield = increase duration to 5s

-Water
4) Freezing Gust = no change
5) Comet = no change

-Air
4) Swirling winds = apply 10s swiftness
5) Gale = reduce CD to 40s

-Earth
4) Shockwave = no change
5) Obsidian Flesh = no change

These are the changes I’d like to see, in my opinion long CD and long activation times are the main reason behind the fall of staff and scepter.

Because of huge activation delay and long CD by using a [b]staff[b] you rely too much on your team to stay alive because you lack effective ways to keep the enemy away and therefore you become an easy target in sPvP and somewhat more resilient( better team support) in tPvP but still far too dependant on your team to stay alive, after all we’re unable to switch sets therefore we must have the means to protect ourself if no ally can help you right away.

The Scepter should be our main burst weapon sey for single targets only, by using Dragon’s tooth and phoenix, if we could have the changes I’ve proposed, a scepter user would finally be able to maintaint the same level of pressure on a single target from middle range as a dagger/dagger user can on multiple targets but at close range

The Focus is clearly a defensive weapon but compared to the other weapon, it lacks a movement buff skill, and given the nature of the game, a way to move quickly is somehow a necessity, a modest buff to swirling wind ( apply 10s swiftness) would go a long way in improving our quality of life because once again we cannot change weapon set while in combat, finally the changes to fire would increase even more the defensive capabilities of a focus user, especially fire shield which would become a serious threat to the enemies

-NOTE- Daggers and Trident are excellent in the sense that all attunements allows to maintain pressure on the enemy without huge delays and ridiculously long CD, I only wish for this design to be extended to our other weapon sets

Arheundel.6451:

…while a staff user should be the heavy artillery guy...

You do realize that Anet thinks they’re more suited as party support, right?

All Scepter needs really is maybe a slight damage boost and it needs it’s skills to hit faster. Now while on the subject of Scepters, anyone else wanna see Elementalist dual wield Scepters?

Skills could be something like:

Fire 4: Lava Arrows, fire a volley of 5 lava arrows at target that cause 1 second of burning each and the 5th arrow explodes.

Fire 5: Incendiary Bonds, bond the target foe and immobilize them for 2 seconds. When the immobilize a fiery explosion occurs and nearby foes take damage

Water 4: Ice Spear, fire a Spear of Ice at target foe. Pierces foes

Water 5: Maelstrom, you place an AoE on target area that lasts 5 seconds causing 2 vulnerability every second and healing allies every second

Air 4: Lightning Orb, launch an Orb of Lightning that causes 5 vulnerability to the target and does alot of damage

Air 5: Enervating Charge: Electricute your foe with an Envervating Charge that causes weakness

Earth 4: Sliver Armor, an Aura that does 75% damage back to foe from their next attack. Lasts 3 seconds

Earth 5: Crystal Wave, place a pulsing wave of crystals on target location that does damage, cripples, and bleeds

These could probably be tweaked. Original Guild Wars players will recognize these skill names