Guild Wars 2

In this thread we’re going to discuss the possibility’s to make scepter more viable, but most of all to balance the weapon.

So everyone knows the scepter of mesmer. It has some ups and downs. With this I mean that the auto attack has nothing to do with the weapon or mesmer at all, the block can turn games but is also sometimes very unreliable whereas the active effect of the block is very weak and the channeling skill is scaling too well with power, while the casting time is pretty long.

1.0 Auto attack
1.1 Ether Bolt
1.2 Ether Clone
1.3 Ether Blast
2.0 Scepter #2
2.1 Illusionary Counter
2.2 Counterspell
3.0 Scepter #3
3.1 Confusing Images

1.0 Auto attack
As everyone knows, this is a waste of time to use. As it is now, it deals no conditions while it is on a condition weapon, but then again it also deals no great spike damage. What’s pretty odd with all 3 chain attacks, are the scaling and the base damage of it. For comparison I use scepter #1 of necromancer.
Necromancer: 118 (0.350)- 118 (0.350) – 168 (0.500)
Mesmer: 168 (0.500) – 168 (0.500) – 252 (0.750)
As you can see, the auto attack without scaling is already 1.42 times stronger than that of necromancer. Add scaling to this and you come down to around 1.6 times stronger. That’s quite a lot for a condition weapon to do plain damage! My suggestion to this would be to lower both scaling and base damage to what necromancer #1 scepter has.

Another note about this skill; the velocity of the projectile is really slow. This could definitely get a buff. I’d suggest buffing it by 25% would make it just prefect.

So now we have a skill that is actually good at nothing, we can start buffing it!
1.1 Ether Bolt
First attack in the chain, this skill can’t be too strong. I’d suggest to let this skill apply 1 second of cripple. Why? Because condition mesmers have a really hard time keeping enemies with them, while for example condition necro can just spam chill and immobilizes to keep them close. I wouldn’t increase the duration too much, because then you would get perma cripple and I don’t think that will come out great to the community.
To sum up:
Shoot a bolt of energy at your target which applies cripple.
Damage: 118 (0.350)
Range: 900
Cripple: 1s

1.2 Ether Clone
This is the 3rd attack in the chain, please be aware of this. I’ll discuss this first because I want #2 and #3 in the chain switched due it’s name of Ether blast and my idea on his rework.
Also, I would change this skill name to ‘’Ether Pain’’ to match it’s effect:
Since confusion got nerfed pretty hard and more and more professions got access to it, I feel mesmer is a lackluster on this point now. What was supposed to be a ‘’mesmer condition’’ has become more like an add to the mesmer. This is mostly my reason to make this skill apply 4 seconds of confusion. With 100% condition duration you would be able to keep 4 confusion stacks constantly when spamming your auto attack. Seems pretty fair to me? This could be lowered to 3 seconds if it will come out too strong.
To sum up:
Shoot a second bolt of energy at your target which applies confusion.
Damage: 118 (0.350)?
Range: 900
Confusion: 4 s

1.3 Ether Blast
As mentioned before, this was the #2 in the chain, but will now be the end of the chain.
To match it’s name, most of you might expect that I would put a blast finisher on it. But no, I actually don’t want that. Why? Because it’s a ’’projectile’’. Projectiles are usually unreliable and don’t match the use of it as blast finisher.
What I, however, do want for this skill is the following:

Shoot a third bolt of energy at your target and applies a random condition to enemies around it.

Damage: 168 (0.500) (3rd attack in chain, so yes the damage is correct)
Range: 900
Radius: 240
Chill: 1.5 s
Weakness: 2 s
Torment: 2 s

At first I had the idea of applying chill only, but this would come out really op as you could do perma chill that way. Adding a chance to apply chill would take away that part of being it used too many times. The only thing I do dislike about it is the ’’random’’ proceed what also is going on with chaos storm, chaos armor and #1 staff, but since all 3 are sure worth applying I don’t see much of a problem here.

This is still Blackdevil, aka Doiid typing the post
2.0 Scepter #2
This is a very powerful skill, but there’s 1 problem with it: The only way it’s being used (and really only) is due the block. The active effect is far from usefull or even close to what the block does. This has to change.

2.1 Illusionary Counter
The block of 2 seconds could allow you to either get no damage for 2 seconds or block your incomming attack and apply 5 stacks of torment. The problem I have with this skill is that landing it is pretty unreliable. It can be blinded, evaded, blocked, immuned or even interrupted. At the moment the casting time of this skill is 0.36 seconds. I suggest lowering this to 0.25 seconds to make it easier to land it. To tone it down a little bit I thought of making it apply 4 stacks instead of 5 stacks. At the moment 5 stacks is super strong and sometimes too strong. These changes will make the skill much more reliable to hit.

2.2 Counterspell
I’ve also discussed this a bit in a previous post but as it is part of the scepter I’d like to bring it up here too: This is probably one of the worst designed skills in game, without anyone knowing about it. Just a list to sum up what’s not correct about it:
1. The traveling speed of the projectile.
2. The effect of the projectile.
3. The way it pierces through enemies.
4. The radius of the piercing projectile.
Video of counterspell moving through targets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VilCKPJPTco

As someone earlier said in the other post ‘’why buff the block, its already strong enough?’‘. No, please read this thread. I’m not buffing the block or skill any form. This skill is at the moment only used as block. The active effect is never used. This rate of 99.99-0.01 has to change to at least 75-25. People need to be aware that they can either use the block as damage skill but could also use the active effect in certain situations.

At the moment you sacrifice a block and 5 stacks of torment for a really easy to dodge blindness. But hang on, isn’t block and blindness doing almost the same? Preventing the enemy of hitting you? This is also a problem. They just compete with eachother at the moment.

This is why certain changes have to be made:
Shoot out a bolt that Chills foes in a line.
Chill: 2 s
Damage: 34 (0.100)?
Range: 900
( Increased velocity equal to Counter Blade)
( Increased radius on projectile equal to Counter Blade)
( 5 targets)
Or:
Shoot out a bolt which explodes on hitting a target, applying Chill on your selected target and surrounding enemies.
Chill: 2 s
Damage: 34 (0.100)?
Range: 900
Radius: 360
( Increased velocity equal to Counter Blade)
( 5 Targets)
Or:
Shoot out a ray that chills foes.
Chill: 2 s
Damage: 34 (0.100)?
Range: 1200
( The same as #1 greatword, it will always hit your target + 2 more targets on pathing.)

As you can see I’m a huge fan of chill, but I truely think chill is also needed to make this skill compete with the current block. If it would come out too strong then either the cooldown could be increased by 2 seconds or the duration of the chill could be lowered by 0.5 seconds.

3.0 Scepter #3
This skill is a very old school skill. Long casting time, does both burst and condition damage, isn’t doing surprising effects. Pretty straight forward.

3.1 Confusing Images
Channel a beam of energy that damages and confuses your foe.

Damage (5x): 840 (2.500)?
Confusion: 5 s (650 damage on skill use)
Range: 900
Casting time: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 12 seconds

As it is now, the casting time of the skill is pretty long and I could see some improvements in there, but what is most of all really, really wierd is the scaling of the damage. 2.5! You thought blurred frenzy scaled good? Well guess again, blurred frenzy scales worse than this skill. This skill applies conditions, is on a weapon that is currently in a state of being ’’the’’ condition weapon for mesmer, and yet has one of the best scaling skills with power on the class. My rework to this would be something like this:

Channel a beam of energy that damages and confuses your foe.

Damage (5x): 840 (1.0)?
Confusion: 5 s (650 damage on skill use)
Range: 900
Casting time: 2.5 seconds
Cooldown: 12 Seconds.

Lowering both cooldown and casting time should make up for the damage loss on the power part and make mesmer a bit stronger on the confusion part again in game.

Discuss!

And another one!

Honestly, if they fix the third part of the chain so it’s not so sluggish, I’ll consider scepter as fixed as it’s gonna get.

Tbh I don’t want scepter to be a condi weapon only. The reason that its numbers are so high in both is because Anet wanted it to be a clone making weapon primarily, and since both condi and power specs can benefit from that that’s why the weapon scales the way it does. All I really want to see happen is the 3rd auto chain be a bit faster, and Counter Spell be less of a useless move. Anything else is too much to me.

I get that mostly condition specs use this weapon, but the only reason more power specs don’t is because of how slow the damage is from it, not because it does poor damage. I want this to remain a hybrid weapon, but I just want it to be a better one.

It’s very, very obvious that the main problem with the Scepter is that its autoattack is far too sluggish for the damage it deals. Necro’s scepter completes its chain about 25% faster with each attack dealing significantly more total damage. I don’t know have any clue why they seem so reluctant to buff it. I know they want to avoid autoattack spamming, but that’s not a good justification for leaving an autoattack in a cripplingly bad state.

It’s also a problem on a few other sets like the Thief/Engi Pistol and Ele Staff.

As an aside, Scepter is a ‘versatile’ clone weapon, not a condition weapon. The autoattack is fine as full direct damage. It actually needs to be stronger than it is, not weaker. Necro auto deals way more damage with conditions and also completes faster.

Didn’t we have this thread a million times before?

I remember some time ago there was a major thread where everyone pitched in ideas.

You know what became of it? Or all threads that pitch in ideas? They died without even one reply. Not even a “We’re aware!”.

Now I personally love some of your ideas but honestly, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. They barely fixed some bugs now that were from beta. And they blatantly lied to us about fixing Illusionary Elasticity.

Pretty cool ideas here.
Here’s my 2cents
I once used sigil of rage on scepter as a bandaid solution to its slowness issue. This makes me think, how about giving us access to quickness in the form of buffing malicious sorcery trait in inspiration. Something like remove the cooldown reduction since scepter skills already on fairly short CDs, then replace with scepter skills have 15% chance to grant u 2s quickness on hit, 10s icd. Keep the +300 condi dmg boost ofc.
How about that?

Ramiel.4931:

Didn’t we have this thread a million times before?

I remember some time ago there was a major thread where everyone pitched in ideas.

You know what became of it? Or all threads that pitch in ideas? They died without even one reply. Not even a “We’re aware!”.

Now I personally love some of your ideas but honestly, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. They barely fixed some bugs now that were from beta. And they blatantly lied to us about fixing Illusionary Elasticity.

Actually they did say they were aware that something was off, though they hilariously couldn’t seem to pinpoint what even though it’s completely obvious (autoattack far, far too slow for its damage), and then did absolutely nothing for 8 months.

Raunchy.6891:

Tbh I don’t want scepter to be a condi weapon only. The reason that its numbers are so high in both is because Anet wanted it to be a clone making weapon primarily, and since both condi and power specs can benefit from that that’s why the weapon scales the way it does. All I really want to see happen is the 3rd auto chain be a bit faster, and Counter Spell be less of a useless move. Anything else is too much to me.

I get that mostly condition specs use this weapon, but the only reason more power specs don’t is because of how slow the damage is from it, not because it does poor damage. I want this to remain a hybrid weapon, but I just want it to be a better one.

I fail to understand your argument…
Why would it be a ‘’clone generation’’ weapon if:
1. The last skill of scepter chain is easy to dodge and often fails to hit.
2. The weapon only has 2 ways of spawning clones which are on either a skill much higher cd than phase retreat and 2nd is on an auto attack that does no conditions, is 1 clone every 2 seconds max and deals 30% less damage than sword does?

Also another thing, if arenanet didn’t want scepter as condition weapon primarily, then why did they take away the part where scepter block did a decent amount of spike damage and replaced it with conditions?

People who are not aware of the discussion back in December might want to have a look at this tread. It is quite long but might be useful for this specific discussion. I especially want to point at this post:

JonPeters.5630:

I think the mesmer discussion has been pretty positive overall and productive but I wanted to bring up some points that I am seeing and some new ones as well.

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

And this:

JonPeters.5630:

I think we have a pretty good understanding of the mesmer scepter auto attack problem. I would really like to design a chain of auto attacks here that end with something good, and then allow the clones generated from scepter to also do that thing. That being said, we are trying to avoid just condition spam overload with that weapon because that would be greatly compounded by clones spamming as well.

While this point of view might have changed the past months it still is the most recent inside we have about what ANet wants the Scepter to be like. Ideas aiming at this concept might be more promising than others.

I already suggested turning the Scepter into a more supportive weapon by adding healing capabilities in the past. This could be done by either modifying the AA or Malicious Sorcery.

New AA

• 1.1 Ether Bolt. Now pierces and causes small area effect on final impact.
• 1.2 Ether Blast. Now pierces and causes small area effect on final impact.
• 1.3 Ether Heal. Now pierces and causes small area effect on final impact. Heals allies.
• [Edit] The orbs now have a fixed cast time and travel faster.

The third hit would heal when passing through allies and also in the area of the final impact. Scepter clones could inherit this ability. While the Scepter would lose its unique capability of constantly creating Clones this might eventually not be such a big loss if ANet succeeds in disabling on-death effects when manually replacing Clones.

Merciful Sorcery (instead of Malicious Sorcery)

• Decrease cooldowns by 20%
• Destroying or shattering Illusions now heals nearby allies when whielding a Scepter

Mesmers gain another way to heal allies outside of Restorative Mantras. It also fits the purpose of defending your allies. Restorative Shatters could be replaced by a different trait.

An idea another player made which I really enjoyed was to change a Scepter skill to actually block attacks for nearby allies (e.g. Guardian Mace) and then apply conditions to the attackers. While the initial suggestion was for Sc#3 I think it perfectly fits Sc#2.

Illusionary Counter

• Shield yourself and nearby allies with a shield
• Apply Torment to nearby foes if an ally is hit by an attack (point blank area effect)
• Blind nearby foes if no ally is hit
• Create a Clone when the skill ends

This change improves the defender capabilities when using a Scepter. While the Torment won’t any longer affect ranged targets it will be a lot more potent in close combat. The secondary attack no longer exists and is replaced by the default effect if no ally is hit.

BlackDevil.9268:

Raunchy.6891:

Tbh I don’t want scepter to be a condi weapon only. The reason that its numbers are so high in both is because Anet wanted it to be a clone making weapon primarily, and since both condi and power specs can benefit from that that’s why the weapon scales the way it does. All I really want to see happen is the 3rd auto chain be a bit faster, and Counter Spell be less of a useless move. Anything else is too much to me.

I get that mostly condition specs use this weapon, but the only reason more power specs don’t is because of how slow the damage is from it, not because it does poor damage. I want this to remain a hybrid weapon, but I just want it to be a better one.

I fail to understand your argument…
Why would it be a ‘’clone generation’’ weapon if:
1. The last skill of scepter chain is easy to dodge and often fails to hit.
2. The weapon only has 2 ways of spawning clones which are on either a skill much higher cd than phase retreat and 2nd is on an auto attack that does no conditions, is 1 clone every 2 seconds max and deals 30% less damage than sword does?

Also another thing, if arenanet didn’t want scepter as condition weapon primarily, then why did they take away the part where scepter block did a decent amount of spike damage and replaced it with conditions?

The auto attack being easy to dodge doesn’t change its original purpose. It’s meant for clone generation, and as such it has the highest clone generation then that of any of our weapons. Plus if someone is actually going to waste endurance to dodge ether blast then I would call that a win.

Also 2 ways of spawning a clone is more than any of our other MH weapon options, and comparing anything to MH sword is going to be less dps so I don’t see the point in even going down that road.

I don’t particularly know why the scepter riposte was changed. It could have been that they wanted us to have access to torment, but didn’t have another way to do it without completely changing how another weapon skill works, who knows. Can you tell me though why the aa and #3 scale so well with power though?

Well that person should already call it a win the moment you start spamming #1 scepter…
GS has higher dps than sword, why not go down that road?
I can tell you: at start of the game they thought of what you said, which could actually be true. There’s 1 problem though: We’re 2 years in game now since these skills were made and both the meta and even the weapon itself changed a lot. #3 scepter became piercing and #2 it’s blocking effect got changed. At this moment you can better ask the question: Why do they still scale so good with power? It makes no sense. There’s no way scepter is gonna be better than any weapon for power builds in the meta. Sure it can be good, but better than sword? or GS? Nah that wont happen.

Problem with mesmer is lately that our meta doesn’t get changed but we still get buffed at non-meta gameplay. You can almost put that next to useless for people like me who are always chasing the meta to have optimised gameplay. I can imagine it’s fun for people who like some variety in their gamestyle, but the moment you start to like the ’’optimalization’’ of builds and gears you will get annoyed how arenanet is handling mesmer at the moment.

I hope it doesn’t get declared to be a condi-only weapon. With some might stacking, it is a really nice power weapon and the only one-hand, mainhand that works from range.

And since it’s the weapon that new mesmers start with, I don’t think you want it to be condi-only. Condi’s are a tough concept for some new players.

BlackDevil.9268:

Well that person should already call it a win the moment you start spamming #1 scepter…
GS has higher dps than sword, why not go down that road?
I can tell you: at start of the game they thought of what you said, which could actually be true. There’s 1 problem though: We’re 2 years in game now since these skills were made and both the meta and even the weapon itself changed a lot. #3 scepter became piercing and #2 it’s blocking effect got changed. At this moment you can better ask the question: Why do they still scale so good with power? It makes no sense. There’s no way scepter is gonna be better than any weapon for power builds in the meta. Sure it can be good, but better than sword? or GS? Nah that wont happen.

Problem with mesmer is lately that our meta doesn’t get changed but we still get buffed at non-meta gameplay. You can almost put that next to useless for people like me who are always chasing the meta to have optimised gameplay. I can imagine it’s fun for people who like some variety in their gamestyle, but the moment you start to like the ’’optimalization’’ of builds and gears you will get annoyed how arenanet is handling mesmer at the moment.

There’s no such thing as a universally optimal weapon. Optimal to who? In what situation? Is dagger mainhand more optimal than sword on a Thief? What if he’s traited fully into Acro? How about shortbow?

All of our weapons right now have their strengths and their weaknesses. Greatsword falls off against sticky melee foes (which is why it’s commonly paired with staff at the moment). There are many uses for the scepter where one would often prefer it over alternatives. It just takes an open mind and experience to see what it brings to the table.

That said I am always willing to entertain new changes, so long as it isn’t turned into a rote condition-spamming weapon. Torment was an interesting idea, but if they absolutely must change the scepter I would rather see something truly disorienting. Perhaps the clone on the third auto could cast a small blind on summon, or you could reposition laterally (or swap with an existing illusion), or gain a second-long stealth (given that the full chain is two seconds long).

As an aside the scepter has always been a natural hybrid and I would be very disappointed if it lost this quality (it lends itself very well to shatter, which has also always been a quasi-hybrid due to full Illusions).

A somewhat unimaginative albeit natural change to the scepter would be to just add the confusion stack that Ether Clone for a long time laid claim to. But otherwise the weapon’s power scaling is perfect.

Erm that’s a really bad comparison. Sword and dagger are both power weapons, while scepter at the moment is somehwat hybrid, but has a higher dps on conditions and sword is a pure power weapon. You could better compare Axe and Scepter of necromancer as also scepter has a burst skill that scales decent with power. Funny thing is, scepter is never used as power weapon? Why? Because dagger and axe both outshine scepter by far. Same goes for sword and scepter. Sure you can use your scepter in a power build, but will it outshine sword or greatsword? No.
Optimal to who? Everyone who runs power builds.
In what situation? Every situation besides players who use 0 condition removal but also aren’t mobile and don’t have a high enough burst to go through your squishyness and 1 block. Sword/ Greatsword > scepter in any besides that situation. Sword offers a much better synergy with phantasm than scepter due it’s immobilize and it allows you to pull off your burst combo’s more frequently. Scepter offers nothing more than a greatsword or sword can do besides having that torment block, which will deal pretty poor damage and is still easy to evade.

If they would make this weapon stronger for power builds then they clearly don’t have any idea what to do with the weapon. ‘’Oh scepter seems bit weak on conditions, let’s add conditions and remove the power part’’, ‘’ oh scepter now lacks on power, let’s justa dd power to it!‘’
A mainhand weapon that allows both conditions and power to scale well. I don’t really think those things are in game yet and I’m sure there’s enough reason why. I think that’s the point where anet doesnt give much about #1 auto attack. If they would buff that it would come out really op. That would mean:
- A good #1
- Best and on lowest cooldown torment applier
- A channeling skill on a fairly low cooldown that applies 5 stacks of confusion and also deals 1.5k per hit raw damage.

Scepter is already used quite a lot, especially in condition builds. You will need to nerf something to rebalance the weapon to make it more viable than only #2 and/or #3.

BlackDevil.9268:

You could better compare Axe and Scepter of necromancer as also scepter has a burst skill that scales decent with power. Funny thing is, scepter is never used as power weapon? Why? Because dagger and axe both outshine scepter by far.

Wait, necros use axe on power builds?

On purpose?

Idk, I don’t play necro? But even if they don’t, it still outshines scepter in a power build.

BlackDevil.9268:

Sure you can use your scepter in a power build, but will it outshine sword or greatsword? No.
Optimal to who? Everyone who runs power builds.
In what situation? Every situation besides players who use 0 condition removal but also aren’t mobile and don’t have a high enough burst to go through your squishyness and 1 block. Sword/ Greatsword > scepter in any besides that situation. Sword offers a much better synergy with phantasm than scepter due it’s immobilize and it allows you to pull off your burst combo’s more frequently. Scepter offers nothing more than a greatsword or sword can do besides having that torment block, which will deal pretty poor damage and is still easy to evade.

This is all completely your opinion, though. It lacks any context. When I say there’s no “optimal power weapon”, it’s because your goal and what you’re trying to achieve and the situations you expect to find yourself in will determine your weapon choice effectiveness, it doesn’t by any means just come down to which primary stat you’re playing.

Scepter is appealing if you would like two offhands without forgoing ranged pressure, and its skills favor close-quarters to midrange (where GS excels at far). #2 is useful for countering key burst skills, and as it doesn’t root it can be used while moving. (The block itself is immediate and can also be cancel-cast for this purpose if the full effect is unlikely to land). The clone can then be used for different shatters to ward off or counter-burst melee opponents. It is possible to achieve similar ends with greatsword, but it’s less reliable.

BlackDevil.9268:

If they would make this weapon stronger for power builds then they clearly don’t have any idea what to do with the weapon. ‘’Oh scepter seems bit weak on conditions, let’s add conditions and remove the power part’’, ‘’ oh scepter now lacks on power, let’s justa dd power to it!‘’
A mainhand weapon that allows both conditions and power to scale well. I don’t really think those things are in game yet and I’m sure there’s enough reason why. I think that’s the point where anet doesnt give much about #1 auto attack. If they would buff that it would come out really op. That would mean:
- A good #1
- Best and on lowest cooldown torment applier
- A channeling skill on a fairly low cooldown that applies 5 stacks of confusion and also deals 1.5k per hit raw damage.

Scepter is already used quite a lot, especially in condition builds. You will need to nerf something to rebalance the weapon to make it more viable than only #2 and/or #3.

Well, I’m not making the case that scepter needs reworking into some kind of pure condition weapon, because I don’t think it does. Were it to happen the game would lose out considerably in the process.

I have no issue with any update to the auto because the other two skills (bar the gamey condition-scaling on torment) offer dozens of counters already. Scepter #2 can be blocked, evaded or dodged, #3 can be interrupted, LoSed, etc.

I’ll throw this in here – one thing I’d add to the scepter AA is 1200 range, like Guardian’s scepter AA. Small change, but any buff would be good.

What the… opinion? How clear does it have to be for you that sword and greatsword both outshine scepter in a power build no matter how you use it? Sword has higher dps offers better survivability and makes it possible to create many combo’s a scepter can’t do due it’s immobilize and the leaps.
Greatsword has a much higher dps, has might stacking, vurnability to apply and it’s range is much bigger than scepter.
And still you say it’s ‘’my opinion’’ that they both outshine scepter? Tell me 1 combo that scepter allows us to do with another weapon and I might consider. Too bad scepter has no combo finishers, leaps or any skill that works together with another thing.
A 5k channeling skill that requires 3 seconds of your time which is by far one of the easiest to dodge skills, can be evaded by los and range and is easier to interrupt than meteor shower is not gonna compete with the things you can do with sword and greatsword. Neither is a block that applies 250-500 damage per sec that can be cleansed or an auto attack that deals 75% of the damage of sword and has a much slower attack speed.

You even say it yourself:
‘’the other two skills (bar the gamey condition-scaling on torment) offer dozens of counters already. Scepter #2 can be blocked, evaded or dodged, #3 can be interrupted, LoSed, etc.’’
How does this make the weapon any better than you describe it to be? I can reposte what the problems are of these skills and which improvements they could get, but you would just disagree, yet you say yourself they are bad designed, yet you don’t come up with possibility’s yourself.

But please tell me, in which situation does scepter get better than sword or GS in a power build? Cause I’m really curious at the moment which ’’situations’’ you’re talking about atm.

No, I never said they were badly designed. You’re putting words in my mouth. I said they can be countered, which is (generally speaking) a good thing. How do you counter sword #2? Displacement, blocks, invulns, cancel-casts. Does that make sword #2 a skill with problems? No, it just means now you have players using different skills to try and counteract one another.

Scepter doesn’t compete with sword for the most part, it competes with both our 2hrs. With scepter you have a weapon that scales well at all distances, provides versatile protection (due to its clone generation) and an extra offhand for more flexibility. Say you were coming up with a sidepoints Mesmer? Scepter would be a strong candidate because it’s very much single-target, strikes a balance between offense and defense, gets you mileage from phant fury and you can take weapon stealth for the disengage without losing damage pressure.

This is going to be a never ending discussion as we both don’t agree with eachother on our view of the weapon. I’d say we just close this discussion in case it get’s too personal.

And yes, I’m sorry for puting words in your mouth. That was no good decission.
Though what you explained there were mostly off-hand specifications. Sword also allows you to have those, but as you were talking about 2h weapons, for the most part so do they. Since you would already have 1 off hand with sword, as those aparently don’t compete eventhough they’re the only mainhand weapons, you would be bound to 1 offhand to create that extra flexibility. You would have to get some wierd power build to make both weapons viable.
For the biggest part of this game, especially on pvp part, you will need at least 1 2h weapon. That is staff for spvp to teleport on things and move quickly around the map and either staff or greatsword in WvW because of the range or to escape from people. So yeah… in some way sword and scepter do compete with eachother on a lot types of the game, whereas sword will most likely come out as king of power builds.

Anyway you may respond still to this, I will at least end the discussion on my part with this.

Perhaps I came across as combative, which wasn’t my intention. I likewise apologise. I think if your aim is to rework a mainhand weapon, it’s worth having a serious, in-depth dialogue like this. But I will understand if you do elect to finish here.

I really should clarify that I have no problem at all with changing or revamping the scepter in certain ways, so long as it’s done gradually and cleverly. I actually liked the idea of chill instead of blind on the active #2 cast. That, to me, would be a good development and it’d reward skillful or risky play. It’s a +1, and I think most would be hard-pressed to disagree.

What I fear is that players looking for a “pure” condition weapon (of which there are surprisingly very few in the game) will kill the scepter’s hybrid nature and turn it into something much less interesting as a result. Things like displacements and certain effects (like an active chill on a block skill) are great ideas because they’re spec-ambiguous and reward weapon mastery over which amulet you have on. Things like a simple condition nuke or a pressuring condition autoattack do not.

To expand on something I just mentioned above, I must point out that many weapons have strong power scaling (Necromancer scepter, Thief and Engineer pistol). The reasons they are perceived as “pure” condition sets has far more to do with different game aspects and the way each weapon works respectively. (In the Engineer’s case it is also in large part because you only have two choices for slotted weapons anyway). I have always seen the scepter as somewhat analogous to power pistol Thief. When you see it that way, you understand why it’s different to greatsword in the same way that pistol is different to a shortbow.

But the fact that our scepter differs in that it doesn’t reward overuse of the #1 skill is a very positive element. In that sense, giving another effect to the third (or maybe the second) skill in the chain would still give opponents some quarter. But a copy-paste job of the Necromancer scepter chain wholesale is something I really don’t want to see.

I’m not convinced these are the right changes.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I’m not convinced these are the right changes.

Ok.