Guild Wars 2

Odaman.8359:

Okuza.5210:

Odaman.8359:

The main problem with scepter is sword works so much better if you’re willing to give up the range. Only confusion and clone death builds are really benefiting from it. The block is weak, the clone generation is slow, and the damage is sub par outside of confusion. You can use it and kill things, but that could be said for the crappy golem elite asuras have… it still doesn’t make it “fine”.

I don’t think they’re looking at scepter any more than the other weapons tbh.

The block is actually amazing if you time it right. If you don’t need a block, you can convert it to a blind, which is nearly as good. The scepter/1 dps varies inversely with range (at melee distance it’s similar to sword/1). And, it produces clones roughly 2-3x faster than sword.

The best part of scepter is that unlike sword, it’s working all the time. There’s no time lost for gap closing (sword/3 doesn’t work as a gap closer most of the time — ports you OOR to melee and is really slow). IMHO, unless you have a situation where you can keep your sword/1 auto hitting the target every second you have sword out, scepter is kicking your butt on DPS.

OTH, I do agree scepter is “low dps”. Same with sword, staff, and (now) GS. Post-nerf, Staff is now our top DPS weapon, which is rather sad. All the weapons needed to be buffed up to match old GS. The sad part is that even the devs are focused on the size of the hit delivered by the phantasms and not how long it takes to get that hit into play. Every fraction of a second that hit is delayed lowers DPS.

For sword peeps, that includes closing time & avoidance time. For ranged, that includes projectile time. For phantasms, it now includes an extra 05.s delay as well as any pre-damage animation time, such as pursuit, leaps, dashes, etc..

BTW, direct from the in-game tool-tip: “Ether clone. Clone. Shoot out a bolt of energy that confuses your target. Summon a clone that casts ether bolt.” From what I recall, it’s always stated it confuses on the 3rd hit, but has never done so in the released game.

The block is trash because of the delay between the block and the counter attack. Not only is a delay not necessary because you’re already losing dps during the channel, but it also opens it up to have the damage half interrupted. The blind is ok, but there should be damage associated with it tbh. The clone generation is trash except in the situation where you don’t mind taking a dps loss to throw out clone death conditions. If you’re spamming one just to generate clones, more power to you, but don’t come here and say it’s anywhere near optimal because it’s not.

Block delay between counter attack grants blurr for the duration

Scepter attack 1 chain attack 2 removed.

Scepter fixed

Jake Dressler.8204:

Aberrant.6749:

There are far stronger things you can do after getting a magic bullet to land other than just scepter 3. Try magic bullet-> lol moa and remove them from the fight for 10s+… or blurred frenzy + shatter for far more damage… I could go on and on…

In essence though… you’re saying that you need them to be stunned in order to get it off. This is in no way showing that it’s a good weapon vs getting something bad to work. I’m glad you didn’t disagree with #1 & 2 being horrid though.

Glad your reading comprehension skills are top notch… Please do tell what ranged attacks a mesmer has that beat scepter #3 in damage. Saying Moa has nothing to do with this argument, it is usable by everyone no matter what weapons you have out. Oh and no thanks, I will not use an ability as unbalanced and cheap as it.

Back to the point of your reading comprehension skills. I believe I stated that the #2 block I do use. At no point did I say it was horrid or even imply it for that matter. I have no problem with #1 either, I think the clone summoning bonus is more than enough. Last I checked there are plenty of weapons that needs a stun/root to actually make use of their main attacks. 100 blades comes to mind, Blurred Frenzy… pretty much any of them that root the caster.

In the end it is pointless to argue with you, because you want to pick and choose which part of my statements you reply to, instead of the statements as a whole. Did the part where I said I use sword/sword and scepter/pistol ever pop into your head at some point? If it did, did you not realize having sword/pistol and sword/sword would be utterly pointless? Or are you just implying that I must use GS or Staff? Please take your childish debate skills elsewhere, where they may actually make sense to someone.

Once it’s unbugged an izerker also does a good deal of damage and leaves them crippled + gives you a phantom.

Using a weapon with one skill that you don’t use at all also means that it needs a rework (as does gs’s mind stab… but that’s still more useful than the scepter block). The #1 attack is sub par as far as damage damage at non-point blank range (which is a bad mechanic for a ranged weapon) and does not create clones at much of a faster rate than other weapons to make up for that. It’s far better to just dodge to create clones that actually do something (such as rip boons, hit with conditions, hitting multiple times) when they attack.

The moa was just an example as to what other things you can do vs use the confuse ray. It doesn’t require a specific weapon, but that was part of the point. The scepter isn’t a weapon that’s needed or very useful in its current state.

As far as you not wanting to use moa… they nerfed moa by giving it the new #5 ability to allow them to run away very quickly. Most consider it pretty weak. Imo it still has its uses to remove a single person from the area for a while, but I agree that time warp is usually better for the haste + combo field.

In addition to that you might want to read this:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

It might change your view on how you play games by your own rules vs. how they are plaid at higher tiers.

No one is forcing you to use a GS or Staff… but that doesn’t mean that scepter is a good weapon choice. It’s also why so many want another 1h main hand weapon other than scepter (many have suggested adding in a main hand pistol).

SuperSpicyCurry.2415:

Okay to the people saying you’re having success with the scepter, great. That doesn’t make it a good weapon. MH sword>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>scepter, with sword you get mobility, power, and defensive abilities (blurred frenzy is waaaay better than scepter #2) Illusionary leap is great and the 1 skill is faster and stronger than scepter 1. The scepter is trying to be some kitten power+condition hybrid and it’s inneffective. The only advantage scepter has over mh sword is range and that hardly matters because it’s auto-attack is so slow. And if you’re saying that scepter is better for shatter builds then that’s just dumb, for illusionary persona with MR to be useful you need to be in melee range and scepeter is ranged. Illusionary counter has the same CD as leap and you have to be hit to generate the clone also you don’t get an immobilize with scepter. You may enjoy playing with trash but the rest of us don’t.

I’ve been out of town, at work, don’t have time to respond to everything at this moment. But I had to respond to this.

I now see your ignorance. you’re assuming I’m running illusionary persona, then berating me for using a ranged weapon for a melee ability.

What foolishness. I don’t know why you assumed I’m running IP, but I’m not. Not a melee build, at all.

I’ll reply to the rest of this and other posts later, but just had to answer that immediately.

At this point, I don’t think anyone’s going to be convinced. I’ve been doing great with scepter, yet somehow I’m still wrong. Guess I’m imagining all those hours of gameplay with it. Regardless, I’m not being convinced.

And the naysayers have clearly made up their minds too.

guess i’ll just agree to disagree. Arguing with people whose minds are made up, including my own, is not only a waste of time but also tends to start engendering personal attacks as well, and I’m not interested in participating in that.

I don’t think anyone can argue the 3 on scepter isn’t great. Some slight animation issues, but at least the core of the ability is effective in a confusion build. I guess my real issue is with the 2 because really none of the 1s are overly impressive (for mesmer), nor should they be. Taking the delay out of the 2 between the block and the attack portion would go a long way even if it sounds like a minor change, it makes it far more useful as an offensive ability. It needs the offense boost because honestly a single block is a mediocre defense option.

Morfedel.4165:

At this point, I don’t think anyone’s going to be convinced. I’ve been doing great with scepter, yet somehow I’m still wrong. Guess I’m imagining all those hours of gameplay with it. Regardless, I’m not being convinced.

And the naysayers have clearly made up their minds too.

guess i’ll just agree to disagree. Arguing with people whose minds are made up, including my own, is not only a waste of time but also tends to start engendering personal attacks as well, and I’m not interested in participating in that.

No, that’s not the point. Yes, I’ve said scepter CAN be put to good, even great use. But that’s not good enough. It had to be good for more than just a few types of builds to be good design. It’s one only four MH/2H weapons, so it needs to be good for more than just niche builds. The offhands should be used for that or we need another MH to cover general builds when we want to use a ranged weapon with our offhands.

Scepter/2 isn’t “trash”, but I would agree that the block has few applications; it’s a 1% situation. I use the blind all the time, though. It’s especially good versus mesmers. ^~

I’d like to throw my wholehearted support behind the idea of a 1-second blur on Illusionary Counter, because blocking one attack only to get splattered by the one behind it if you want to get the counter-attack damage is counter-intuitive.

I would also like to propose one very small change that I believe has been proposed before but would bear repeating: the Scepter’s projectile on the auto-attack should bounce to up to three targets, even if it requires a slight downtuning of the damage to a single target to balance the extra hits. Here’s why: as it stands, the reason why people like the Greatsword’s clones is they attack many times over, allowing them to stack up bleeds against their target when combined with Sharper Images. Giving the Scepter’s auto-attack the ability to bounce to three targets would give the Scepter’s clones the same attribute in the multiple-enemy axis.

If the Scepter bolts bounced to three targets and the Illusionary Counter blurred you during the counter-attack, I think the Scepter would be a worthy option. People will always grumble about it being a kitten-litter weapon for idiots only, but at that point it will be more about cultural inertia than anything.

They’ve said it’s one of the weapons that needed work done, and I’m hoping that just the speed of the ether bolt chain’s projectile wasn’t the last we’ll see of it. The biggest issue is how boring it is, but this is my opinion so don’t white knight me for having one. The clones are lackluster, and for ranged clones they spawn on top of the mob, while great for on death traits and considering they don’t do anything spectacular that can’t be done by other clones. iCounter and the blind, when utilized properly are strong, they’re nothing too impressive. Confusing Images is glorious, though I wish the wind up would be faster.

If I could make a suggestion, make the scepter clones have a small percentage of refreshing confusion, not adding any stacks, or give them some conditions to inflict. You summon a clone, each attack it’ll apply one type of condition and that clone will only apply that condition or something.

Might get some nasty feedback for this but the second ability could use an overhaul. Make it create a bubble on the caster and keep us stationary and plop down a glamour field around us, allies in the field benefit from protection and enemies from vulnerability. The enemy attacks the shield, if it doesn’t break it creates a clone, if it does, it shatters and creates a blast causing confusion and damage, giving aegis to allies and weakness to foes and creates a clone. The field remains on the ground for double the duration of the shield. Secondary activation ability is up to you all *blind on cancel bubble so that it doesn’t destroy the field etc).

Nuka Cola.8520:

This is how i think it should be. Autos apply bleeding (5sec) and third auto confusion for 3sec. The useless block should be reworked or completely removed for a nice aoe spell. Skill three could stay as is be maybe increase its casting time by 0.5sec

Why remove the block? One of our hardest-hitting attacks, plus you can line-blind with it.