Guild Wars 2

What use does the scepter have? I mainly play pve it has shorter range than gs/staff and it attacks very slow I just can’t figure out a scenario wehre it would be useful

It’s a defensive weapon. Keep range, apply confusion and block. Then switch back to main weapon. Scepter has no use in pve.

I use Scepter/Pistol as my main weapon set in PvE. It’s fantastic for dealing with single foes (especially against Veterans or tough single foes like ettins), but it’s not the fastest killer and so can leave you overwhelmed if you get attacked by multiple foes. I carry a Staff as my second weapon set for that purpose; drop Chaos Storm at your feet, cast Mirror Images to gain 2 Clones, Phase Retreat to gain a third Clone, then Mind Wrack for a nice AoE spike while everybody’s still bleeding/poisoned/confused in my disco ball.

nerva.7940:

Scepter has no use in pve.

Except the fact that confusion is a hard hitting condition when stacked with a condition build. Honestly, the amount of people that doubt the power of confusion in this game…

Typhoon Blue.3698:

nerva.7940:

Scepter has no use in pve.

Except the fact that confusion is a hard hitting condition when stacked with a condition build. Honestly, the amount of people that doubt the power of confusion in this game…

>confusion
>pve

i shiggy diggy. mobs attack way too slow in pve for confusion to be useful.

Dancing Jesus.2873:

Typhoon Blue.3698:

nerva.7940:

Scepter has no use in pve.

Except the fact that confusion is a hard hitting condition when stacked with a condition build. Honestly, the amount of people that doubt the power of confusion in this game…

>confusion
>pve

i shiggy diggy. mobs attack way too slow in pve for confusion to be useful.

You can tell when a monster is going to attack and even if it doesn’t attack immediately, it lasts for a good 4-5 seconds. You pop it as a burst and then switch to your other weapon to deal your main damage. Don’t worry, anon! You’ll get there some day! Whoops. Wrong board.

It’s because they’ve never tried it. Confusion scales very well.

Mobs melt to direct damage too quickly. Stacking confusion on them is needless.

Scepter is awful. While it may be fun to see 2500+ pop up in purple occasionally, its novelty. Enemies in PvE won’t attack quick enough to get it to proc twice nine times out of ten, and any other weapon will net more damage because Scepter #1 is bad.

I used to use it in PvP or WvW, but I’m moving away from it. The occasional lulz is outweighed by the utility brought by every other weapon, and it relies on your opponents being idiots.

3 crits for over 1k per tick, #1 crits for over 1k per ball. #3 has a huge range. #2 can save u. So not just for confusion. But if ure preventing your opponent from attacking for even 3 seconds ure winning.

As I said, defensive weapon that’s useful at range.

Sceptre/sword is the most defensive weapon combination we have I think, however, success using it relies on your knowledge of how enemies attack and when they are likely to attack.

Except that Sword #2 is an infinitely better defensive tool than Scepter #2.

If you don’t like, or can’t figure out how to use a sceptre effectively, don’t use it.

If you’re amazing like me and can own your way through any obstacle, keep up the good work!

some say its great for condition builds, i say don’t waste your time on it. I ONLY use it when i need to run by mobs (with a focus) in dungeons… that’s how useful it is.

Well apart from alreay mentioned it could have some use for someone who wants to combine duelist with swordsman, since these two are really great. I tried it, but didn’t like the scepter itself. #1 also spawn clones which is not that good because they can replace a phantasm.
Probably it could be used for shatter build to spawn more clones? I’m not aware of this build except that it needs many clones to dps ;o

Scepter in PvE is used when you can’t melee with a mainhand sword and you want to use pistol or focus in an encounter.

That’s pretty much it.

It’s not optimal but it’s the only ranged mainhand Mesmer has. Your scepter #1 will override your phantasms so it’s best not to put it on auto-attack. The block/blind is nice and confusing images has nice DPS, but the long cast time on the auto-attack really hurts it.

I have a shatter spec and with the create clone on dodge trait, I never use my scepter for creating clones, it’s incredibly slow.

I’d tend to agree its main use is as to allow for offhand pistol/focus and stay ranged.

I hope they introduce more weapons down the road. I’d think every cloth class would love to have, say, a wand as a new primary ranged 1 hand weapon. Just something different so there’s more choices.

Anastasia has it. The real advantage is range. That can be a significant advantage. But in pve, I prefer other ranged options more often.

I imagine it has usefulness for an “on clone death”build, but I have not tried that. Between scepter 1 and deceptive evasion you can probably pump comes out really fast. But you can already do that with mirror blade, so no real advantage there.

Fingers crossed for mainhand pistol!

Anastasia.8697:

Fingers crossed for mainhand pistol!

Ha that would be awesome.

Or scepter auto attack (and clones) that cause confusion again . . .

I tend to prefer to operate at range, and as such I prefer the scepter. Also, I’m constantly shattering clones, so having more clones always coming up when my other skills are recharging is nice.

Besides, I really like using confusion as well, and the #2 block skill is a nice thing to have in emergencies.

Hm. I haven’t done any real pvp since beta, and I read somewhere that supposedly clone creation isnt breaking tracking… is that true? If it isn’t true, then spinning off several clones at once when your scepter makes a clone as well would be nice in adding to the, er, confusion on trying to relock on you…. I know, theorycraft since I haven’t been doing pvp, but just curious….

Scepter is great for clone stacking quickly for shatter builds. Other than that it’s pretty awful. You can stack confusion faster with other builds.