Guild Wars 2

In the next patch they’re reworking at least one trait in every trait line but will we ever see our Torch and Scepter changed?

Torch and Scepter are great weapons for counter imo. Especially Torch is obviously a pretty good weapon with stealth burning/blind.

Once the meta is more balanced they are most likely going to focus on the unpopular weapons which they should do for every single profession.

Ever? Yes.
Soon? No.

Scepter? Useless? Nah. Awkward, sure, but definitely not useless.

And the torch is only half useless.

Problem is.. Every other profession (some in far worse condition than us) could ask the same question. Maybe they’ll be a weapon update patch sometime this year too.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Scepter? Useless? Nah. Awkward, sure, but definitely not useless.

And the torch is only half useless.

Problem is.. Every other profession (some in far worse condition than us) could ask the same question. Maybe they’ll be a weapon update patch sometime this year too.

Scepter is only viable in PvP, since confusion is nearly useless in pve and scepter skills aren’t aoe, so it’s not very useful in WvW. But even in pvp sword is better than scepter. You need to stack a huge amount of condition damage to do confusion a good main way to deal damage, while with sword you have already a good dps even if you don’t upgrade your damage.

That is what makes the scepter such a broken weapon.

The problem of torch is it’s cd for what you give, even focus (a weapon with long cd) has lower cd than torch and provides you better skills: swiftness (1 of the 2 sources of swiftness for mesmer) plus an aoe cc, and a aoe phantasm with highest damage that also reflects projectiles.

i use scepter since i wanna use sword and pistol as offhand… block is good anyway

I feel scepter’s biggest issue is confusion. It’s an awkward condition that only worked well in pvp situations and niche pve ones. The recent nerf to confusion made it next to useless all-around. I can’t remember who stated it first but I agree that confusion should be changed to work like burning and poison. With a longer duration applications that applied static damage ticks from any attack made, it would be viable everywhere. Having runes and sigils to enhance it wouldn’t hurt either.

I agree with Archangel about the torch. If the cooldowns were lowered and confusion became a more viable condition, the torch would really shine.

once they fix the bouncing issue and finally nail the izerker bug down, they should up the damage of Mindstab and make it a blast finisher. I would be willing to forgive a lot of the crap they pulled with that change.

I don’t have exact numbers, so I could be wrong, but if I’m not mistaken the Scepter is comparable to MH Sword in terms of damage.

Sword’s auto attack doesn’t seem THAT far ahead of Scepter’s, and besides that the only other sword attack is Blurred Frenzy.

Between Scepter auto, Illusory Counter, and the surprisingly damaging Confusion beam(not including confusion), Scepter isn’t as blown away by Sword as everyone thinks.

As for Torch, it does quite a lot in one simple attack. Traited, The Prestige can

-Remove Conditions
-AoE Blind
-Nice AoE Burn
-Stealth ( Can be traited to grant defensive boons while stealthed, great for charging mantras, our quickest method of Stealth and most reliable besides Decoy)

Its just the Phantasm that needs fixing, and only barely. If it was 4x Confusion for 4 secs it’d be fine.

The biggest problems with scepter are the clunky auto attack and that people only think of it as a condition weapon. The former needs work and makes it subpar to MH sword (sword overall provides comparable, more reliable damage AND better defense/utility – hint: its the better utility that makes sword blow away scepter, not damage) and the latter is only a problem for build diversity.

Scepter #2 and #3 are actually pretty good in a power build. Not as good as sword, but if you really need to stay at range or want to go with 2 off hand options, its a decent pick. Yes, it needs a buff for condition builds, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that enemy scepter-sporting mesmer in wvw is a condi build or his block/CI can rip you apart.

Torch suffers from long CDs on one great skill and one kitten skill. The Prestige is so awesome in some builds, it can make the weapon worth it in some PVP builds despite the worthless phantasm. I’d like to see the CDs for both skills reduced and the phantasm needs a serious buff. The biggest problem here is that I cannot see anyway to make this weapon viable in PVE without a fairly big rework to the way the Mage works.

Yea the biggest problem with scepter is the auto-attack, and that’s a shame really, considering it’s not only 1/3 of the scepter, it’s the ability you are using the most. I could actually forgive the somewhat odd problems with Sceptre 3 (charge up animation, inflicts confusion and after the nerf, is even worse than it was before), if it weren’t for the fact that the scepter was so very restricted in the auto.
But the really odd thing is that except for sword and staff, ALL of the Mesmer weapons have some problem with them right now. Greatsword’s phantasm is wonky, Pistol has that weird thing where the trait doesn’t actually increase the range of the phantasm or something weird like that, torch has that weird phantasm that is slow and inflicts confusion (again it was already bad, but is now even worse).
I kinda feel like almost all of the Mesmer weapons need a rework.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I don’t have exact numbers, so I could be wrong, but if I’m not mistaken the Scepter is comparable to MH Sword in terms of damage.

Sword’s auto attack doesn’t seem THAT far ahead of Scepter’s, and besides that the only other sword attack is Blurred Frenzy.

Between Scepter auto, Illusory Counter, and the surprisingly damaging Confusion beam(not including confusion), Scepter isn’t as blown away by Sword as everyone thinks.

As for Torch, it does quite a lot in one simple attack. Traited, The Prestige can

-Remove Conditions
-AoE Blind
-Nice AoE Burn
-Stealth ( Can be traited to grant defensive boons while stealthed, great for charging mantras, our quickest method of Stealth and most reliable besides Decoy)

Its just the Phantasm that needs fixing, and only barely. If it was 4x Confusion for 4 secs it’d be fine.

Its not only damage you should be looking at but the utilities the weapon offers you.

I quite like scepter actually. It can be used as part of a confusion build if you want to go that way, but it works just fine for shatter builds because it produces so many clones.

Torch, besides looking great, is our only blast finisher and applies blinding and a cloak.

I guess it comes down to playstyle. You might not like those weapons, but I use them as my main set.

Torch… useless? What rubbish! It’s simply awesome in so many ways. I use it across the board. PvX power! Sword/Torch is my favorite setup and works wonders for my build.

Scepter on the other hand, it’s lacking something, that’s for sure. It doesn’t lend itself to the faster paced combat… just too slow.

Sorry, but even if scepter has ranged I prefer sword.

Blurred frenzy offers good (somewhat spammable) defense and damage all together. Sword auto attack (+clones) offer vulnerability and boon rips
Even how buggy it is, the 3rd skill allows a quick clone (depending on other factors, it can be quicker than scepter auto attack/block) and of successful, an imobilize

Nuka Cola.8520:

Its not only damage you should be looking at but the utilities the weapon offers you.

Oh I definitely agree, but I was responding directly to..

Ansau.7326:

Scepter is only viable in PvP, since confusion is nearly useless in pve and scepter skills aren’t aoe, so it’s not very useful in WvW. But even in pvp sword is better than scepter. You need to stack a huge amount of condition damage to do confusion a good main way to deal damage, while with sword you have already a good dps even if you don’t upgrade your damage.

That is what makes the scepter such a broken weapon.

In terms of damage, Scepter actually isn’t too bad, and certainly not useless. But it falls short compared to the rest of our weapons for the fact that it can only do damage and has practically no other utility, unlike the rest of our weapons, torch included.

I like the torch for pvp, the stealth. I still prefer my focus but sometimes im just in the mood for change.
I also use the torfh and staff when were waiting for something at a guild event.
Chaos storm → the prestige = fuschia bubbles everywhere!!

Yuchen.5980:

i use scepter since i wanna use sword and pistol as offhand… block is good anyway

You can use swords in both hands if you want…

Honestly torch is still one of my fav weapons… Prismatic understanding… We can proc aegis faster than guards…

Ramiah.5648:

Pistol has that weird thing where the trait doesn’t actually increase the range of the phantasm or something weird like that

Unless there is a recent new bug with Pistol, this was fixed quite a few patches ago.

Xavi.6591:

Ramiah.5648:

Pistol has that weird thing where the trait doesn’t actually increase the range of the phantasm or something weird like that

Unless there is a recent new bug with Pistol, this was fixed quite a few patches ago.

It increases the range, but your red bar range caller is still stuck at 900 range. A bug.

[quote=2167417;Crossplay.2067:
….once they fix the bouncing issue and finally nail the izerker bug down…..[/quote]

LOL. Thank you. I needed a laugh today.