Guild Wars 2

So we know that devs are redesigning axe and scepter, but I’m kinda concerned that at some point they’ll release it without giving us a chance to actually playtest the changes. Given how great it has been to see how reaper feedback after beta weekends has been used, I can’t help but think that it’d be great if we had a chance to playtest scepter/axe rework before it went live. I know the chances of this are near zero, but since Anet doesn’t have any test servers it seems like the only way to give us a chance to check out what Rob has in mind for scepter/axe is in our last beta weekend.

While I’m (kinda) sure they’ll adjust skills after releasing the scepter/axe rework, it gets harder to do so after the new skills are ‘live’.

What do you guys think?

i wont get my hopes up so much. "redesign" and "rework" seems way too much work and rightly so. axe and scepter need buffs not reworks. they shouldnt completely change everything. i mean both weapons have 3 skills and also traits associated with them so they need to consider that too. maybe im just argueing about the definition of a rework but i think we shouldnt expect and wont get a complete rework.

I’m pretty sure they’re focusing on getting the elite specs done before HoT, so don’t expect anything else to get done right now. Robert Gee works on more than necro & mesmer classes so they’re in scramble mode with HoT launch 1 month away.

Axe → 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

Falcon.8713:

Axe -> 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

Yeah, let’s just ignore the fact that scepter 3 is complete kitten.

Falcon.8713:

Axe -> 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

That would be awful. The reaper will be DoA if that’s all that changes.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

they shouldnt completely change everything. i mean both weapons have 3 skills and also traits associated with them so they need to consider that too.

maybe im just argueing about the definition of a rework but i think we shouldnt expect and wont get a complete rework.

Axe is actually really fun to play. The play style is fun, but the weapon sucks.

Scepter just needs its condition damage back.

A lot of development time shouldn’t be put into this. The weapons are fine:

Axe just tweak the scaling numbers on all 3 axe skills and put a blast on unholy feast.

Scepter Baseline the duration increase from lingering curse, add an additional poison stack to #1+#2 & have the new trait put an interesting, but non damaging, condition on #3 like fear or slow

(Necromancers really should be masters of slow because Faintheartedness hexes were necromancer skills, but fear is interesting too because it gives curses users a choice between damaging fears or a relatively low cooldown fear).

Apparently on Friday there will be a skill balance preview at the end of a long day of other live stream stuff at twitchcon, so we’ll find out details then.

nearlight.3064:

Apparently on Friday there will be a skill balance preview at the end of a long day of other live stream stuff at twitchcon, so we’ll find out details then.

In b4 weapons are fixed but then….nerfs.

Supertramp.5430:

Falcon.8713:

Axe -> 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

Yeah, let’s just ignore the fact that scepter 3 is complete kitten.

Kitten ? Used to be useful LF gain on terrormancer

Falcon.8713:

Supertramp.5430:

Falcon.8713:

Axe -> 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

Yeah, let’s just ignore the fact that scepter 3 is complete kitten.

Kitten ? Used to be useful LF gain on terrormancer

If only we had vital persistence baseline or even no DS degen. Then it’d already be a very strong skill. >_<

TheLastNobody.8319:

Falcon.8713:

Supertramp.5430:

Falcon.8713:

Axe -> 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

Yeah, let’s just ignore the fact that scepter 3 is complete kitten.

Kitten ? Used to be useful LF gain on terrormancer

If only we had vital persistence baseline or even no DS degen. Then it’d already be a very strong skill. >_<

No, it would still be pretty bad for s/d weapon set. The LF gen is nice, but it’s a direct damage skill on a condition weapon. Really needs to apply a condition or provide some good utility (boons, healing, cc). Other than that, scepter needs access to torment, and s/d as a whole needs more LF generation. If scepter/dagger looked like this it would be great.

First, remove the Condi duration buff on the GM scepter trait, change it to something else. Then change the scepter skills to (same base damage):

Blood Curse: Apply 8 seconds of bleed
Rending Curse: Apply 7 seconds of torment
Putrid Curse: Apply 6 seconds of poison and gain 3% LF

Grasping Dead: 3 torment for 7 seconds, 7 seconds of cripple.

Feast of Corruption: Gain 3% LF per condition on the target, increase base damage by 2X, apply 3 seconds of bleeding per condition on the target.

Alternatively,
Feast of Corruption: Gain 3% LF per condition on the target, 8% damage per condition on the target, if the target has 3 or more conditions apply fear for 1 second.

Deathly swarm: Probably fine as is

Enfeebling blood: 3 bleed stacks for 10 seconds, same weakness, now also grants 3% LF per target hit. Maybe also reduce the cast time because you cast the 3/4 second animation then it takes another 3/4 seconds for the skill to hit.

The enfeebling blood change would be really nice assuming they make a lot of the LF generation and degen from soul reaping baseline (Maybe also nerf total LF amount to make up for it). Then we wouldn’t be forced into soul reaping as much.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i wont get my hopes up so much. “redesign” and “rework” seems way too much work and rightly so. axe and scepter need buffs not reworks. they shouldnt completely change everything.

Time for Necromancer rapid fire spam. It only makes sense that the playerbase would want this. They know nothing else by this point.

Falcon.8713:

Axe -> 900 range / Scepter : less casting time on all skills & it’s fine

THIS!

I plan on running my elite with axe/dagger and a GS …. which means my only ranged weapon is the axe. I would LOVE the full 1200 the staff gets but am willing to compromise since it is only 1-handed.

When possible, in any class, I prefer a ranged weapon and a melee weapon. My faves are GS/LB for my ranger and warrior. That way I get some attacks in while running up to the event/getting the lay of the land and change to the melee weapon if it is a feasible option when I get there.

I’m just going to go and say what everyone once knew and even now is completely obvious concerning the scepter.

The REAL problem is not any one condition weapon but that the condition damage system still needs some more revamps, and prior to the removal of condition limits, the scepter was a decent PvE condition weapon, so far as condition weapons went back then. The real problem is that burning is ridiculously overpowered and every other condition is incredibly weak. Even conditions with a secondary effect like poison, confusion, and torment are just pithy little additions to any build that you are barely concerned with maintaining compared to burning, but particularly bleeding, which is just burning at 1/3rd the efficacy with no additional effect differentiating it from burning.

I see two fixes for it:

• A – Just nerf and buff until its more even with how many of each stack are applied.
  • Nerf burning down to (0.13*CD) + (1.25*lvl) + 7.5
  • Buff bleeding up to (0.09*CD) + (1*lvl) + 2.5
  • Buff Amplified wrath up to 20% to compensate guardians (5% buff)

For those that don’t want to do the math, that’s about a 50% buff on bleeding and about a 20% nerf on burning. And on a per-stack basis burning will maintain about a 1/3rd damage advantage over bleeding as opposed to the current 2/3rds advantage. However with how bleeding is applied in more stacks than burning, they should be about equal with bleeding overtaking burning at maximum stacks. Confusion, torment, and poison also need slight buffs, particularly torment and poison, but I’m not doing the math for those.

• B – Add an effect to bleeding so that it has something over burning
  • Nerf burning down to (0.13*CD) + (1.25*lvl) + 7.5 (same as above)
  • Bleeding retains current scaling but gains one of two new skill effects, not sure which one players would like more.
    • Bleeding deals an additional (0.1*CD) damage per second for each 4500 health an opponent has (counts current health, so damage goes down over time)
    • Bleeding removes 15% of your maximum health (does not deal damage, only prevents healing and operates the same way as poison, one stack fills the effect)

The burning effect is the same, except with no direct buffs to bleeding. The effects are meant too turn bleeding in to the anti-bunkering condition, something PvP desperately needs and something which would be useful in WvW and PvE. Obviously the first rendition would be capped at a certain damage bonus against champions, bosses, and WvW Lords.

May I ask how do you know they’re getting a rework?

I think Scepter will get similar treatment as Warrior’s Sword did back in the day – #3 and 3-rd part of chain may switch places. Obviously balanced, but I expect something similar.
Scepter #2 is good already, just needs a little more condition damage.

SrebX.6498:

May I ask how do you know they’re getting a rework?

Robert Gee.9246:

Regarding general silence, it’s mostly due to how busy everything is at the moment, but also due to how a company as large as ArenaNet works. I’ll see if I can explain a few things to put the situation into context.

Right now I’m waiting to get feedback from the upcoming beta weekend on Chronomancer and Reaper, but I haven’t worked on either of them specifically for several weeks. Many of the changes you’ve seen from Gamescom were locked down weeks ago in order to assure the stability of the floor demo and the upcoming beta weekend. With a game as big as Guild Wars 2 it takes a long time (and a lot of QA effort) to make sure big events like Gamescom go smoothly. My work over the last few weeks hasn’t been for Necromancer or Mesmer and is actually been for the Warrior elite specialization (which I probably can’t say anything else about). I’m also fixing bugs on live for ALL professions this week and next which has kept me pretty busy.

Now this isn’t to say that I’m not paying attention to what’s being said or what’s been said in the past. I take notes on threads I think are relevant for when I have time to work on them. I have notes on things to improve with both axe and scepter as well as a note about skills that we could add projectile blocking to (incidentally RS 2 blocks projectiles because of a suggestion I read here). These are changes I’d like to get to and see happen, but right now iteration on Reaper and Chronomancer are probably going to take priority over that once the beta finishes.

I hope that clears up a few things. I’m not really as talkative as Roy or Karl, but I’ll see if I can show up now and then to answer the occasional polite question.

Now I think he might’ve said something else but that was the easiest o could find.