Guild Wars 2

Is it ever going to get properly looked at? It doesn’t really seem like it holds a strong place in any game type. It’s my favourite weapon for roaming, and thematically the idea of scepter/dagger with Epidemic has been my favourite build through all iterations of GW2.

But it just seems weak. Neither bleeds nor poison really feel like they do enough damage, especially compared to burning. We’ve seen condi builds break through into the meta but they are mostly engis, guardians and occasionally rangers, all with burn stacks.

I really think necro scepter needs some proper attention and love. Again, in my opinion it’s one of the coolest weapon/class combos in the game, but it’s just not performing.

Any one else share this thought?

Necro has burning, and this thread probably wouldnt have happened if it isnt being treated like the only condition in the game.

If you are talking of stacking then sure other classes are better but condi necro will beat condi anything any day. If you are talking about PvE well they dont cleanse like players so you can maintain high stacks of various conditions

To answer your question, after the recent buff no i dont think scepter needs a buff. It will cause a lot of problems if it was very strong on its own.

Already had its rework around a week ago

Bacon.1835:

Already had its rework around a week ago

“it’s rework” gave us an extra bleed stack and some torment. not really good enough tbh?

Ragion.2831:

Necro has burning, and this thread probably wouldnt have happened if it isnt being treated like the only condition in the game.

If you are talking of stacking then sure other classes are better but condi necro will beat condi anything any day. If you are talking about PvE well they dont cleanse like players so you can maintain high stacks of various conditions

To answer your question, after the recent buff no i dont think scepter needs a buff. It will cause a lot of problems if it was very strong on its own.

burning deals higher damage per tick than any other damage based condi in the game, so…
nice try though i guess.

Scepter is fine as is. Look at this post

If you want to deal massive amount of damage NOW, go for Zerk.
Conditions are meant to deal damage over time. Get over it, stop focusing on Burning.

It need LF gain on its 2nd and 3rd attacks. Less then the dagger for sure(4%-5% per cycle would be enough), but that is the only thing that will make the weapon more usable in PvP.
More condition stacking wont hurt it, but its not a burst weapon. And the new torment stacking is amazing. But again, the lack of LF generation is such a big drawback…

Kulvar.1239:

Conditions are meant to deal damage over time.

There has never been a single point in all of GW2 where condition builds in PvP have ever been good because their conditions did strong over-time damage. Every single build that was ever strong was strong because of condi burst. This is because bleeds are cleansed all at once, if it takes you 10s to build up your full condition damage, they’ll be removed, and deal fractions of their damage, whereas a burst condition build’s conditions stack up so quickly and deal their damage quickly enough that only large removals can deal.

Burst is simply high damage in a low period of time. Conditions and power both have burst and over-time.

Also, Condi Necro has the worst offensive condition bursting of every profession with a condi build. Our max burst is ~15 bleeds, 10 torment, and some poison, whereas condi warrior can see similar bleed bursts with 1-2 skills. Burn builds can stack 20-25 burns, which deal 60-75 bleeding stacks worth of damage. Condi Necro can 1v1 other condition builds only because we abuse THEIR strong conditions. The fact is it isn’t the condi necros conditions that are winning the duel, a Signet Soldier Necro can do the exact same thing. Saying that we can 1v1 condition builds in a condition build isn’t a good point of balance, since nearly any Necro can abuse transfer mechanics.

It’s the OH weapons, Terror and Wetfire it is not scepter’s fault.

Scepter is really satisfying to use, and I think a lot better in PvP now without the GM post buff, which means you can take something like weakening shroud. I personally am not a big fan of staff and I think the scepter is a lot more reliable for condi pressure.

Bhawb.7408:

Kulvar.1239:

Conditions are meant to deal damage over time.

There has never been a single point in all of GW2 where condition builds in PvP have ever been good because their conditions did strong over-time damage. Every single build that was ever strong was strong because of condi burst. This is because bleeds are cleansed all at once, if it takes you 10s to build up your full condition damage, they’ll be removed, and deal fractions of their damage, whereas a burst condition build’s conditions stack up so quickly and deal their damage quickly enough that only large removals can deal.

Burst is simply high damage in a low period of time. Conditions and power both have burst and over-time.

Also, Condi Necro has the worst offensive condition bursting of every profession with a condi build. Our max burst is ~15 bleeds, 10 torment, and some poison, whereas condi warrior can see similar bleed bursts with 1-2 skills. Burn builds can stack 20-25 burns, which deal 60-75 bleeding stacks worth of damage. Condi Necro can 1v1 other condition builds only because we abuse THEIR strong conditions. The fact is it isn’t the condi necros conditions that are winning the duel, a Signet Soldier Necro can do the exact same thing. Saying that we can 1v1 condition builds in a condition build isn’t a good point of balance, since nearly any Necro can abuse transfer mechanics.

Agreed, and this is why I was so disappointed that they removed the whole concept of Hexes from GW1. Simplifying and merging hexes and conditions into one was a big mistake. Now instead of needing 2 separated cleansing types we have one universal that clear all. On top of that the stacking system cause the problem of removing every single one of the same type, not just the last applied.
Conditions shouldn’t be burst damage, they should be slower, trickier way to deal with the enemy.
There is no way to fix that concept without implementing very complex change, which ofc will be followed by complete rebalancing of the game. This will never happen.
I hope the devs will find of some clever way to make condis more viable option, not only for Necro. And just to say I really don’t mean the “Burning” way. I dislike the way they changed it.

Scepter could use more life force. A condition damage build only really has scepter to support it.

Greatsword can support condition damage with deathly chill but chill has nothing to do with bleeding or poison. Reaper and scepter do not have synergy.

Scepter works a little with corruption skills but not nearly as well as other professions and their condition damage builds having trait lines supporting weapons and utilities for a toward a common condition.

There are no off hand or alternative main hand weapons that bleed. Only staff and upgrades bleed so there is nothing to switch to.

The scepter changes were underwhelming because bleed and torment are underwhelming. As long as burn does 10x more damage then all the other conditions nothing will really change. bleed and torment need a 20% buff and burn needs a 20% nerf like they were originally supposed to be. Until the devs go back to their original plan everything that doesn’t burn is going to be underwhelming.

On top of that OH dagger needs LF gain, which is the main reason why scepter users feel the lack of LF.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. Life force is definately one of the biggest issues for scepter/dagger necros, as well as the low damage scaling of their primary conditions – bleed, torment and poison.

I think devs are a bit scared to give us easy access to burning, because of some secondary aspects.

e.g. innate tankiness which would be further enhanced by condition specs lesser requirement for stats (e.g. power needs precision and ferocity, there is just condition damage and condition duration, and the latter isn’t on armor)
Our condition transfers probably play into that as well. If you can cause a ton of burn stacks and are able to redirect even more condi damage, that’s a potentially scary combo.

Personally I find the scepter change to be a bit boring as well. I had hoped for more, but I’m also thinking they might want to see how reaper plays into things first before they buff stuff.

If anything though, what necromancers lack currently with conditions is mostly a lack of applying a lot of condi’s fast.
Nearly all condition specs, be it condi engis; elementalists; condi mesmers; condi rangers; they all share an advantage that necro’s dont have (besides burning) and that is that they can apply their conditions really fast. Their ramp up time is but a fraction of ours, and that hurts us more than most other things.

Anchoku.8142:

Scepter could use more life force. A condition damage build only really has scepter to support it.

Greatsword can support condition damage with deathly chill but chill has nothing to do with bleeding or poison. Reaper and scepter do not have synergy.

Scepter works a little with corruption skills but not nearly as well as other professions and their condition damage builds having trait lines supporting weapons and utilities for a toward a common condition.

There are no off hand or alternative main hand weapons that bleed. Only staff and upgrades bleed so there is nothing to switch to.

First of all. I see what you mean with reaper and scepter not sharing synergy; but I don’t think they have to. Reapershroud has some really good condition potential with the tons of poisons, good access to chill and dhuumfire.
The scepter plays into that well as a condition weapon. The scepter itself might still be weak, but you can weave the scepter #2 and #3 pretty well in between staff attacks and reapershroud abilities.
Dagger offhand causes bleeds and weakness from range. And the focus might have some potential with reapers reliance on chill, but that’s probably not going to work great due to Spinal Shiver’s long cast time

I could see a Curses/Soul Reaping/Reaper build with Scepter/x + Staff work very well though.

Nyth.3492:

I think devs are a bit scared to give us easy access to burning, because of some secondary aspects.

We don’t have access to burning (outside of Dumbfire) largely because of theme, same reason Guardians don’t apply tons of conditions.

The main problem with the scepter is that the trait sucks. Other than that they need to think about lowering the maximum duration potential on some of the skills and replace it with higher initial application. Also, not having another condition weapon probably makes pure condition builds difficult.

Bhawb.7408:

Nyth.3492:

I think devs are a bit scared to give us easy access to burning, because of some secondary aspects.

We don’t have access to burning (outside of Dumbfire) largely because of theme, same reason Guardians don’t apply tons of conditions.

Which is amusing because Guardians are the best overall Condi users in pvp right now because burning is overtuned.

Could you put a sigil of earth and a sigil of ice on a scepter and get the proc on both? Wouldn’t those both be affected by the trait in Curses that adds 50% duration to conditions from scepter?

Only conditions on the scepter skills themselves are increased, not any other condition.