Guild Wars 2

With the 50% less damage from confusion in WvW the scepter is useless now, since it’s main use is to spam confusion on someone. Besides the scepter the only main hand weapon we have is the sword, which is a melee weapon. Is there any chance we will get a buff on the scepter?

What I thought of was the following:

- (Skill 2) Block all attacks within 2 seconds instead of blocking 1 attack within 2 seconds, just like shelter from the guardian.

This way the scepter doesn’t do any more damage but it gives the mesmer a bit more tankiness.

Nah, just weapon deletion.

I still think since our Greatsword is a magical ranged weapon (instead of physical melee) our scepter (or staff) should be a physical melee (instead of the normal magical ranged) weapon. Would increase our weirdness factor.

Please note physical or magical has nothing to do with condition, just the look of the attacks.

Scepter is usless as a ranged weapon because when you spec condition you dont spec power so the number 1 skill is pityful damage.

Changing number 2 skill is pointless as you still may aswell carry the sword for blurred frenzy.

IMO only way to buff scepter is add condition to the 1 skill since only conditon builds would choose to carry a scepter.

BossFi.6917:

Scepter is usless as a ranged weapon because when you spec condition you dont spec power so the number 1 skill is pityful damage.

Changing number 2 skill is pointless as you still may aswell carry the sword for blurred frenzy.

IMO only way to buff scepter is add condition to the 1 skill since only conditon builds would choose to carry a scepter.

this… Add burning/poison/bleeding hell even confusion to make the scepter more tempting… 2 stacks on the last chain would be nice.

I needs a buff… or a large overhaul… or a funeral… just depends on which words you want to use. But it’s certainly not a good… or even average weapon as it currently is.

The biggest issue is how horribly slow the #1 attack chain is in both animation, firing delay (at which point during the animation the projectile leaves) and projectile airspeed.

If that were faster, I doubt we’d have many issues with it. It’s a very good power-based weapon, plus it has nice support conditions even after the Confusion-nerf.

we need a main hand pistol since anet have RUINED sceptor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSJ0pqRwjuU

Henrik.7560:

we need a main hand pistol since anet have RUINED sceptor.

Because fixing the sceptre would be a far too simple solution? Can’t have that?

1. Up the speed of #1 attack another 10-15%. (Or return the clone to cast confusion like in beta)
2. Have Illusionary Counter (block) generate 2 clones.
3. Speed up the “windup” of the Confusing Images.

If anything get 1&2 done and we can talk again after.

Before the patch, Scepter was already in a pretty underpowered state. After the patch that underpowered state got hit with a 50% reduction to Confusion damage, making it even more underpowered to the point of being pretty much useless.

So at present time the Scepter is only usable if you have the Wintersday Princess Wand skin and want to play a fairy princess.

ya I would like to see some changes to make this usefull.

with the nerf of confusion change its condition to flame/poison.. w/e something useful

maybe a clone on crit ability on all abilitys so it can really pump them out. mostly for the condition on clone death ability)

the original intent with the weapon seems to be condition +clone production. so revisit that idea.

I’d speed up the character animation by ~20% for #1 and #3, and the projectile by ~50% for #1.

Further, I’d rethink Clones as a whole in regards to secondary effects, but that’s a separate post in Suggestions I suppose.

SlimChance.6593:

1. Up the speed of #1 attack another 10-15%. (Or return the clone to cast confusion like in beta)
2. Have Illusionary Counter (block) generate 2 clones.
3. Speed up the “windup” of the Confusing Images.

If anything get 1&2 done and we can talk again after.

These are great suggestions. It’s funny how scepter ended up being in the “clone factory” niche when scepter 1 is the slowest and least reliable ways to generate clones. The cycle for scepter 1 imo should be 1.5 seconds, not 2. I would also like the first two attacks put 1 stack of 2s confusion on your target to become the proper confusion weapon like it should’ve been. I really don’t think this is asking too much considering how weak confusion is in PvP/WvW now.

I like your#2, but I think it might be too powerful because the block already does very respectable damage. I’d like to have it as it’s own trait, though, or more preferably merged with retaliatory shield.

Kill the scepter, and give me a main hand pistol. The scepter has an identity crisis. It doesn’t know if it’s for conditions, shattering, or direct damage. Give it a clear direction or give us a new viable option for a ranged one-handed weapon. I love the sword for main-hand, but sometimes I want to be a coward and go full ranged. The scepter is the only one-handed ranged weapon we have for our main-hand. I want something to go with my focus off-hand that offers me ranged capability.

It would be enough if the scepter attacks just did what the tooltip says – cause confusion on third attack in the chain. This has been bugged since beta.

greyblue.4962:

It would be enough if the scepter attacks just did what the tooltip says – cause confusion on third attack in the chain. This has been bugged since beta.

Not bugged nerfed, back when confusion hit EXTREMELY hard, but now that its been nerfed to the ground Scepter should get its confusion back.

Couldn’t we just get rid of the “Spam Clones Weapon” thing and turn it in a fully condition dmg weapon, like every class have? And don’t say “There’s the Staff” because it’s so bad at putting up dots that it’s ridicuolous.

Give us a dot/condition weaponset like every class have, S/S War, P/P Engi, P/D Thieves, S/D Necros and whatnot. We’re on the bottom of the dotter tiers, with Guards maybe.

Make Scepter and Torch fill that hole in our weaponry, change up staff to accomodate this and get rid of the useless “Clones spammer weapon” please.

/imo.

At least give us 1200 range like Guardians scepter AA

I’d love to see scepter lose the clone regeneration and get some condition love. Hell some direct damage stability with a faster animation/flight time. Here’s to wishful thinking.

Henrik.7560:

we need a main hand pistol since anet have RUINED sceptor.

Yes. This. A new MH weapon.

Another reason I never used Scepter was because of the auto-generated clones on #1 messing up my phantasms.

So if anything, the first thing I’d love to see is Ether Clone being removed and replaced by something like Ether Bomb (Confusion 5s 120 radius AoE).

This would make Scepter the Confusion stacking ranged condition weapon.

(And then give us a MH Pistol as well)

Skill 1: A bouncing attack power based weapon and give it 1200 range. Improve speed and DMG a little.
Skill 2: Straight up reflect all projectiles for 3sec. Stun nearby foes for 1sec on activation.
Skill 3: probably just leave as is since it skales well with power.

Aveneo.2068:

Before the patch, Scepter was already in a pretty underpowered state. After the patch that underpowered state got hit with a 50% reduction to Confusion damage, making it even more underpowered to the point of being pretty much useless.

So at present time the Scepter is only usable if you have the Wintersday Princess Wand skin and want to play a fairy princess.

I have a princess want of corruption on my mesmer… and often go around corrupting princesses

skill # 1 clone on every attack. (i dont think it is op since your shatters are on cooldown anyway. if you could shatter clones as fast as you could make them it would be op. but ya cant.

skill# 3 … random condition beam? that starts shooting alot faster and has shorter cooldown.

2 seems fine or ok atlesat. not as broken as the rest.

If scepter #1 would create no clone on the 3rd attack (and maybe do something else instead) or would not have the clone override exsiting phantasms, I would start using it all day long.

The reason for choosing a scepter (atleast for me) would be having range, as well as a way to get offhand weapons at the same time.
The problem is, that the only scenario in which this would come in hand would be a Phantasm focused build, which would require you to have good positioning.
Now the problem with phantasm builds is that you can’t have stuff that kills your phantasms once you reached your “goal”, getting out 3 phantasms on one target.
Now some smartass might say: “You can stop the attack chain and wait for it to reset or use another skill”. Sure, I can also cut off my arm or stab out one of my eyes. Each of these things would be highly unpleasant and would only make playing the mesmer even more “complicated” than it already is (#100bandevisceratespam).

Mesmer needs some love after the spirit crushing nerf on the 30th. Fixing scepter would be the way to do it. Especially if it employed non-confusion condition dam. Give us more burning!

My ideas for Scepter:

#1:
Ether Bolt – no change
Ether Blast – applies 3s of bleed
Ethereal Winds – bounces once to closest friend or foe, giving 3s retaliation or 2s confusion

#2:
Clone spawns on button press, instead of on block. Clone still casts Ether Bolt.

#3:
Reduce the activation animation slightly.

I’m open to the last attack in the chain causing a second of burn instead of confusion.

Delete Sceptre (you made it useless anyway) and replace it with a…pistol!!! Mesmer’s need duel pistol’s do it now!!

Loco.4561:

Delete Sceptre (you made it useless anyway) and replace it with a…pistol!!! Mesmer’s need duel pistol’s do it now!!

Don’t delete scepter, just make it into total clone generator and make pistol a confusion weapon, problem solved! And then I can start working for Quip!

1 first hit. 1 clone. second 2 clones. third 3

+ condition/cripple on clone death = good condtion application imo.

2 go stealth leave a clone in your place that blocks for 3s and functions as it does now. so its a stealth/stun breaker + its current function

3 same damage … replace confusion with ( on hit remove boon from target and transfer condtion)… maybe something like .. if there is no boon or condtion do 2x damage on the base damage.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Fix-most-broken-autoattack-in-game/first#post1947626
So guardians get it fixed? We should cry more, maybe they’ll fix it for us too.

Iruwen.3164:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Fix-most-broken-autoattack-in-game/first#post1947626
So guardians get it fixed? We should cry more, maybe they’ll fix it for us too.

yeah they need to realize that the 50 percent less confusion hurt our scepter really badly.

Iruwen.3164:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Fix-most-broken-autoattack-in-game/first#post1947626
So guardians get it fixed? We should cry more, maybe they’ll fix it for us too.

Woah woah there… guard scepter auto attack is the worst auto attack in the game. You’ll nearly hit yourself with the orbs if you’re running in the same direction with swiftness. It needs a fix and has needed one badly for a very long time.

That’s not to say there aren’t other weapons that need love too.

I 100% agree that scepter needs a large rework.

Don’t get upset that they are fixing problems for any class. Eventually they’ll get around to mesmer’s issues.

Sorry, that wasn’t meant to sound upset since I’m not. I’m actually happy with any rectified fixes, no matter what class, since I may be playing that class myself one day.
"We should cry more" actually meant that, not that guardians cry more than others

At least Ether Bolt is homing. But yeah, its DPS is too low (and it would be very nice if it dealt some condition damage) and Ether Clone having double the cast time really breaks the flow of the autoattack.

If you ask me they need to split things up.

Make Scepter the MH condition weapon and add Pistol as the MH power weapon. Give Pistol the excellent clone generation so it works well with Shatter builds and make Scepter have one reliable condition and one ‘random’ one and I’ll be happy.

Fuschia.6573:

If you ask me they need to split things up.

Make Scepter the MH condition weapon and add Pistol as the MH power weapon. Give Pistol the excellent clone generation so it works well with Shatter builds and make Scepter have one reliable condition and one ‘random’ one and I’ll be happy.

No randoms. Make AA stack 3 stacks for 5 seconds in the second chain. (confusion). Then fix the torch trait to remove more conditions

jportell.2197:

Fuschia.6573:

If you ask me they need to split things up.

Make Scepter the MH condition weapon and add Pistol as the MH power weapon. Give Pistol the excellent clone generation so it works well with Shatter builds and make Scepter have one reliable condition and one ‘random’ one and I’ll be happy.

No randoms. Make AA stack 3 stacks for 5 seconds in the second chain. (confusion). Then fix the torch trait to remove more conditions

Be very nice if Cleansing Conflagration removed like 3 conditions, yeah. 3 stacks of 5s Confusion every what, 4 seconds is too much.

Embolism.8106:

jportell.2197:

Fuschia.6573:

If you ask me they need to split things up.

Make Scepter the MH condition weapon and add Pistol as the MH power weapon. Give Pistol the excellent clone generation so it works well with Shatter builds and make Scepter have one reliable condition and one ‘random’ one and I’ll be happy.

No randoms. Make AA stack 3 stacks for 5 seconds in the second chain. (confusion). Then fix the torch trait to remove more conditions

Be very nice if Cleansing Conflagration removed like 3 conditions, yeah. 3 stacks of 5s Confusion every what, 4 seconds is too much.

Considering confusions current state… Is it really? Look at other scepter attacks ele earth guarantees bleeding repeatedly. Necro guarantees bleeding and poison both with shorter cast times guard gaurantees burning (every 5th) but their cast time is super short.. Our scepter gaurantees what? One clone and a bad tooltip? Plus we have the longest cast times for any of the scepter classes (except maybe ele fire). We should get a better rreward than one clone that we can get from other weapons faster

3 stacks of Confusion is what, 500+ damage per skill use? And you can maintain it forever by just spamming your autoattack? Far too much.

Besides, Anet wants Confusion to be a burst condition rather than a maintain condition, so they will never readd it to the Sceptre.

Embolism.8106:

3 stacks of Confusion is what, 500+ damage per skill use? And you can maintain it forever by just spamming your autoattack? Far too much.

Besides, Anet wants Confusion to be a burst condition rather than a maintain condition, so they will never readd it to the Sceptre.

Well then they need to at least re add one stack to it… Because right now I rarely use the AA on scepter I use every other skill in the setup but the AA I don’t really touch because it doesn’t fit into a condition spec really…. Only helps if you need to pump out clones.

jportell.2197:

No randoms.

Random conditions are a mainstay of Mesmer design, and are actually very powerful when mixed with condition duration – one skill can stack several different conditions, each of which needs to be cleansed separately.

So, yeah, I’m in favor of more random conditions, as they are both fitting and, in some ways, more powerful.

Fuschia.6573:

jportell.2197:

No randoms.

Random conditions are a mainstay of Mesmer design, and are actually very powerful when mixed with condition duration – one skill can stack several different conditions, each of which needs to be cleansed separately.

So, yeah, I’m in favor of more random conditions, as they are both fitting and, in some ways, more powerful.

This is why everyone says the staff AA is so great? The problem with randoms is usually RNG is not in our favor (staff stacking nothing but vulnerability when you want fire/bleeds.) Which brings me to the point of staff already pumps out random conditions… Give the scepter confusion somewhere in its AA…. Why? Because now when specced right all skills in scepter torch cause or have the potential to cause confusion… This would solidify its role.

The last thing mesmers need is even MORE RNG in their skills.
EDIT: random conditions aren’t a mainstay of Mesmer design… They are a mainstay of the staff on the Mesmer. Every other weapon we have does only specific conditions…

jportell.2197:

Fuschia.6573:

jportell.2197:

No randoms.

Random conditions are a mainstay of Mesmer design, and are actually very powerful when mixed with condition duration – one skill can stack several different conditions, each of which needs to be cleansed separately.

So, yeah, I’m in favor of more random conditions, as they are both fitting and, in some ways, more powerful.

This is why everyone says the staff AA is so great? The problem with randoms is usually RNG is not in our favor (staff stacking nothing but vulnerability when you want fire/bleeds.) Which brings me to the point of staff already pumps out random conditions… Give the scepter confusion somewhere in its AA…. Why? Because now when specced right all skills in scepter torch cause or have the potential to cause confusion… This would solidify its role.

The last thing mesmers need is even MORE RNG in their skills.
EDIT: random conditions aren’t a mainstay of Mesmer design… They are a mainstay of the staff on the Mesmer. Every other weapon we have does only specific conditions…

A handful of things you have wrong…

1) I never stated Scepter shouldn’t get a consistent condition. One is good, and confusion is the proper one since it fits well with Mesmer class design.

2) I never said Staff AA was great, I said that condition duration with a skill that can quickly stack multiple conditions can be excellent because of the difficulty of cleansing each condition in turn.

Is Staff AA great with condition duration? Yes, it is. Does this necessarily mean Staff AA is great? No, no it does not.

I, personally, love Staff AA now that condition duration works with illusions, but we’ll have to see whether or not the numbers work out well or not before I can comment on how strong it is.

3) RNG is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at critical hits – they’re RNG and are incorporated into every class. RNG is a bad thing when there is too much of it, and a limitation to 2-4 conditions/boon when gaining a ‘random’ condition/boon is not at that point.

I would agree with you, however, if ‘random’ really meant ‘random’ and chose from all boons/conditions, as this gives you no reliable effect.

4) Random conditions and boons are a mainstay of Mesmer design. Staff auto-attack, Chaos Storm, Chaos Armor, Signet of Inspiration, Bountiful Interruption, Debilitating Dissipation, Chaotic Interruption…

Random conditions and boons are part of the chaos aspect of the Mesmer, represented by the Staff and the Chaos trait line. It is not the core of Mesmer design.

BossFi.6917:

Scepter is usless as a ranged weapon because when you spec condition you dont spec power so the number 1 skill is pityful damage.

Changing number 2 skill is pointless as you still may aswell carry the sword for blurred frenzy.

IMO only way to buff scepter is add condition to the 1 skill since only conditon builds would choose to carry a scepter.

The last in the scepter auto chain is supposed to apply Confusion, for some reason this has either never been implemented or never been fixed by the devs. Take a look at the in-game tooltip for Ether Clone.

Embolism.8106:

Random conditions and boons are part of the chaos aspect of the Mesmer, represented by the Staff and the Chaos trait line. It is not the core of Mesmer design.

Since there was ever a point where I said random boons/conditions was the core of Mesmer design, as opposed to simply a large portion of it, hence the word ‘mainstay’…?

Regardless. This isn’t an argument, you won’t win it any harder by misrepresenting what I am saying, and it’s not even particularly on topic.

More on topic, I think we can all agree that Scepter needs to get reworked so it has more focus, most likely on being a ranged one-handed weapon focused on condition damage. I’d ideally also like to see a ranged one-handed power weapon introduced as well to help fill a gap, but Scepter should definitely be reworked first.

Fuschia.6573:

Embolism.8106:

Random conditions and boons are part of the chaos aspect of the Mesmer, represented by the Staff and the Chaos trait line. It is not the core of Mesmer design.

Since there was ever a point where I said random boons/conditions was the core of Mesmer design, as opposed to simply a large portion of it, hence the word ‘mainstay’…?

Regardless. This isn’t an argument, you won’t win it any harder by misrepresenting what I am saying, and it’s not even particularly on topic.

More on topic, I think we can all agree that Scepter needs to get reworked so it has more focus, most likely on being a ranged one-handed weapon focused on condition damage. I’d ideally also like to see a ranged one-handed power weapon introduced as well to help fill a gap, but Scepter should definitely be reworked first.

all they would really need to do is switch up where the trait for the scepter is (vitality/healing trait tree wut?) and just re add the confusion somewhere in the auto attack.