Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, I want to talk about scepter. (and sorry for my english)
Why scepter is not that impressive? Honestly, mesmer is my favorite class, but I find some of mesmer’s weapon sets to be the most boring things in the whole game. Have you ever played Scepter/Torch? I call this weapon set “don’t touch me, I’m just an observer”. You can’t really contribute to a fight unless someone directly attacks you. You are like “hey, pls, I’m here, pls, hit me and eat my torment”. Weak auto-attack and even weaker Confusing Images are the only scepter skills that allow you to actively contribute to a fight. But their effects are very unimpressive.

• Let’s start with auto-attack. It’s bad, because it has: long casting time and low projectile velocity.
• Illusionary Counter – while 5 stacks of torment deal a lot of damage, the block itself is a very passive skill. You have to wait until someone attacks you to do something useful. Block skills are not always useless and “passive” – they are fun, when you need to actively protect yourself against attacks in between your offensive rotations, but they are not fun when there is nothing to do besides them.
• Confusing Images – long pre-cast animation, long casting time, weak effect. It takes one dodge from your target to almost completely nullify all the efforts that are needed to land this skill.

Scepter’s numbers can be buffed until they are beyond balanced, but the main thing won’t change – this weapon is very passive and awkward.

I propose a model of new skill set for this weapon, that in my opinion will greatly increase the experience of all condition mesmers.

1. AA chain.
1)Ether Bolt – projectile velocity is increased.
2)Ether Blast – projectile velocity is increased.
3)Ether Clone - removed from the chain.
Current auto-attack chain of scepter is quite unique. It uses warrior’s and guardian’s mace animation to generate projectiles. This pattern is exclusive to mesmers and after careful thought I’ve decided that I don’t want to change it. The only thing that bothered me was the speed of execution. That’s why I’ve decided to remove Ether Clone and leave this chain with only two components. Ether Bolt applies 2sec of Torment, while Blast applies 3sec. It is important to have both skills to prevent clones from overwhelming your target with long-lasting torment (clones would only cast Ether Bolt). Clone-generating ability now belongs to a third skill in scepter’s set. In my opinion, projectile speed should be increased slightly to make AA more satisfying.

2. Ethereal Burden (10sec CD) – Create a magical link between you and your target for 3 seconds. Link applies 5sec of Confusion to your target each second and If the link is allowed to expire, it immobilizes your target for 2sec.
->Sequence: Web of Disruption – Sever your link preemptively and daze(1sec) your target.
This is basically a variant of necromancer’s Tainted Shackles, adapted to mesmer’s kit and changed for single-target use. I imagine this skills like this: Mesmer waves his scepter and a link is created between mesmer and his foe, that can stretch up to 900 units (imagine purple single-targeted Tainted Shackles). This link exists for 3 seconds and each second 1 stack of confusion is placed on a foe. There could be three outcomes of this effect:

1. Link is allowed to expire (foe stays in range for 3 seconds) – target is immobilized for 2sec.
2. Link is broken (foe leaves the range of 900 units) – effect ends with no additional consequences for the target.
3. Mesmer uses sequence skill – Web of Disruption – link instantly ends with shatter-like effect and the target is dazed for 1 second (no immobilization or further confusion is applied).

This skill tags your foe and immobilizes it after 3 seconds. This immobilization can set a nice combinations for shatters or other powerful skills like Polymorph Moa and phantasm attacks. Moreover, It has a sequence skill that instantly dazes your target and can interrupt key-abilities by sacrificing immobilization. Synergy with Chaotic Interruption, Bountiful Interruption, Power Block and other traits.

3. Chaotic Leap (12sec CD) – Teleport (600 range) to your target and touch it with your malicious scepter, applying 3x Confusion (5sec). Leaves a clone that casts ether bolt at your initial position.
->Sequence: Chaotic Swap – Swap positions with your clone, applying 3x Torment (5sec) to all foes around (180).
MH Sword has a great skill – Illusionary Leap. During early stages of the game mesmers didn’t have Blurred Frenzy. Instead, they had a skill that I think was called simply – Leap. This skill caused mesmer to leap towards the target leaving a clone behind. Since then, MH Sword has been changed to include blurred frenzy and then Swap was added to Illusionary Leap. I want to resurrect the idea of Leap and twist it with scepter. Chaotic Leap is a less offensive version of iLeap with some condition damage on top. You teleport to your target, you strike it (like guard’s Flashing Blade) and when the enemy decides to strike back, you instantly swap with clone, applying torment – and torment makes chasing you painful.

So the basic combination of scepter will look like this:
Ethereal Burden->immobilize->Chaotic Leap->Swap->(shatter).
This clever combo can apply a lot of pressure to your enemy, and it’s a lot more fun than just to wait and try to catch someone’s attack.

So no more block? Bummer. We get another weapon in our kitten nal that thieves will be able to eat us alive with from stealth. Yay… GG. Might as well just take a GS.

I’m good with my more passive, defensive condi weapon.

Dondagora.9645:

I’m good with my more passive, defensive condi weapon.

Heh, and here I am using it in a full offensive glass build ;D

Thought about it today. I don’t see why there’s the obsession with changing scepter. You could take all the OP’s ideas and put them on a Mace. It’s an entirely new and different weapon loadout anyway.

Confusing Images’ long cast time can be a good thing. How about, when someone dodges, the confusing images follows them and lands a few hits after their dodge ends? It won’t be a big deal since most of the hits would be dodged. And the confusion they end up with would be minor, since only a few hits would land.

Illusions are a good idea. But we can make them better. How about, whenever clones are produced by a scepter, the Mesmer disappears and he/she appears again with a clone beside him/her. So it’d be more confusing. I think the block does that already.

I like Ross Biddle’s idea. ArenaNet could implement all of Mendax’s ideas on a mace or another weapon. But I think we do need a passive, defensive weapon like the scepter.

Mendax, your idea is good. You’d be able to keep the pressure by forcing them to consider running away. And you could teleport to them keeping up the pressure. The confusion can make them not attack you and torment would prevent them from running after you. This is excellent because in WvW, I think, you could be in the front lines, pushing opponents back.

I think this is how it could work. Ethereal Burden establishes a connection with your enemy. He or she runs; they fail to run; they’re immobilized. You close in the distance and you keep attacking. If they run far enough, they get away. But if you teleport, you could keep up the pressure. If you destroy the connection, they’re dazed. Torment could keep you safe and confusion may prevent them from attacking you while they’re in your range.

Here are my suggestions to make it a little better.

Ethereal burden’s connection could have shorter range than the teleport (600 and 900 units). This way, you’re chasing them away but if they get out of range, you could close in the distance. Breaking the connection could immobilize instead of daze because if they’re about to get away, you could sacrifice the connection to keep them in range. When they stay in range and the connection expires, they could be dazed for a long duration. This way, they could run around but not attack you. Finally, the auto attack chain should provide something at the end.

These ideas could be implemented on a different weapon, like the Mace, as Ross mentioned.

These are little things that could make things better. What are your thoughts?

I have to disagree with everything you want to change. AA is good enough and must be “weak” since it also works with clones and deals torment on hit. Block is a great skill to prevent nukes and counter REALLY hard. And last bot not least a channeled skill is superior against invis targets to show you where they are, aswell the effect is superior. No need for a change, scepter is godtier right now.

It’s too bad scepter is godtier right now.

There is no need to make changes to the scepter. But it is possible to apply these ideas to another weapon. It can be a valuable asset to a team in WvW.

I would like changes to torch honestly. This class is boring as crap!!!

Knighthonor.4061:

I would like changes to torch honestly. This class is boring as crap!!!

Mesmer boring? Are we playing the same class?

StickerHappy.8052:

Knighthonor.4061:

I would like changes to torch honestly. This class is boring as crap!!!

Mesmer boring? Are we playing the same class?

Well I am leveling this class now. It’s my last character till expansion before I have a 80 of each class.

Teach me how to make this fun to play. Because right now only offhand pistol has any nice attacks other than great sword which is two hander.

Knighthonor.4061:

StickerHappy.8052:

Knighthonor.4061:

I would like changes to torch honestly. This class is boring as crap!!!

Mesmer boring? Are we playing the same class?

Well I am leveling this class now. It’s my last character till expansion before I have a 80 of each class.

Teach me how to make this fun to play. Because right now only offhand pistol has any nice attacks other than great sword which is two hander.

Finish leveling up and it’ll become much more exciting. That or step into sPvP/tPvP. Leveling on mesmer is said to be notoriously boring/slow from what I hear (I wouldn’t know since it was my first 80)

I’m actually pretty happy with the Scepter now since Torment got added to the AA (and the clones), but I would still like it if the 3rd attack got sped up by 1/4 of a second.

Attack 3 plus torch phantasm adds 10(?) confusion, that hurts quite a bit on a opponent that isn’t careful. I’m actually using torch/scepter in an interrupt zerker build and those 10 stacks of confusion with the burning can really wreck some players even though I don’t have that much condition damage. The channeling attack hurts quite a lot too, I just wish it was a bit faster, they’ve nerfed confusion so much since launch I don’t think the slowness is justified.

Knighthonor.4061:

StickerHappy.8052:

Knighthonor.4061:

I would like changes to torch honestly. This class is boring as crap!!!

Mesmer boring? Are we playing the same class?

Well I am leveling this class now. It’s my last character till expansion before I have a 80 of each class.

Teach me how to make this fun to play. Because right now only offhand pistol has any nice attacks other than great sword which is two hander.

Get to 80, play interrupt or shatter, reconsider what you just wrote.

Mesmer is known for having a notoriously awful levelling experience – made even worse with the trait acquisition changes. I would hate to level one from scratch again outside of PvP and tomes of knowledge.

Scepter is pretty slow, sure. But its also fairly good as is. I’d personally like its torment to last a bit longer, but that’s just me. I don’t think 1 second more would break PvP. At least 1 second more in PvE. I’ve maxed my duration of torment and its up to a whopping 4 seconds! It would be nice to be able to sustain more stacks after increasing torment by 95% before cons.

I would like the auto attack bolt velocity increased, the delay on Ether Clone reduced and the Confusing images wind up time decreased (but still maintaining the channel duration).

Apart from that, I’m happy with how it is.

I use scepter when I need one-handed range weapon. Its quality and status as condition weapon are unrelevant. Main-hand sword is very bad in zerg vs zerg fights because it is melee and skill 2 freezes me.

I rather would like to learn to use the current scepter. Slowness just means we don’t have another pew pew scepter.

Knighthonor.4061:

Well I am leveling this class now. It’s my last character till expansion before I have a 80 of each class.

Teach me how to make this fun to play. Because right now only offhand pistol has any nice attacks other than great sword which is two hander.

Don’t worry, It’ll change. Mesmer is a pain in the kitten to level and gets strong at lv 80, cuz the mes depends on all the traits. It’s not the easiest class to play and you have to know what you do. But it’s rewarding.

I have this fantasy in which the scepter projectiles are changed to be identical in speed and animation to the branded human male barrage attack, whilst still applying torment in bursts, with the clone generation tacked onto it still, to make scepter the ‘go to’ weapon for clone generation.

Clone would simply perform only one shot of the barrage.

And get rid of the awkward overly long animation please. It’s horrendous looking, it’s clunky, it takes too long, just…get rid of it.

I would ask though to please keep the 3 chain auto.

I can’t be the only one who likes “playing badminton” with it (jump smash the ether clone).