Scepter discussion

Scepter discussion

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Of all the weapons discussed in the forum, scepter is the least mentioned. I noticed this only yesterday so I went back to a scepter build and ran it a few hours.

Please take the time to add comments and debate the MH weapon.

My own comments are below.

Bleed caps in PvE really cripple it against bosses.

It has great range, of course, but used to stick to targets like glue even almost facing away. I miss that. Keeping bleed stacks up is most of its dps.

Bleed stack seems to top out about 9 w/o lingering curse on trash mobs but using any other skills would shorten the stack. I ran a fractal with the group, fortunately, set for more direct damage and there was plenty of room for bleeds. Scepter was good, then, but, if the group setup was different, it could have been useless. A finisher on it would be useful in group play.

Cripple and weakness are useful but poison is much less so outside of WvW and PvP.

The relatively low direct damage really limits it’s use in WvW and PvE. Perhaps strangely, I wondered if cleave would be good without “breaking” the weapon.

Anyway, comments and perspectives are welcome.

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Posted by: Poplolita.2638

Poplolita.2638

I’ll copy/past a discussion I had 2 months ago about scepter change that could improve it.

Necro is in a pretty bad place right now. It’s still competitive, even at high level, if the player is good enough, but there’s no real incentive for a team to bring one. The only thing they do well that’s important in the current metagame is boon stripping. But shatter mesmers do it almost as well, and they bring other kinds of utility for a team that necro doesn’t (mobility with Portal, burst damage, stomp prevention with Mass Invis, diversion stomping). It doesn’t matter if you can still win fights or output decent damage: if you don’t bring any unique tools that your team needs you fall out of the metagame, and necros have lost their niche.

I’d like to see a buff to the amount of debuffs, snares, and other disabling effects a necro can output. There’s so much burst damage flying around these days, and the only thing mitigating it is extremely bunkery builds that output lots of pbaoe healing. There’s not much in the way of “denial” strategies designed to nerf incoming damage rather than just force-heal through it. If necros got better weakness uptime, more blinds and chills, some sort of snare that can affect teleports/shadowsteps (which currently do not have their range decreased by snares like other gap closers do – this combined with the Initiative system makes Thieves practically immune to chill!), more frequent access to torment to provide deeper condi stacks and protect those bleeds from cleansing, and ideally even confusion (I know I’m not the only one who remembers Spiteful Spirit!).

Finally, a reworking of Death Shroud to turn it into a proper sustain mechanic. It’s currently a balancing nightmare: a necromancer is as vulnerable as a naked baby at the start of a match when he’s caught without life force, but a wall of HP if he has a full bar. And it makes necros extremely resilient 1v1, but barely helps at all in team fights! There’s got to be a better way to balance it!

I think the first step to achieve this is by making our debuff harder to remove. Wouldn’t making some skills work like impale be the answer? I gave an example with dark path.

@Bhawb,
1. What do you suggest instead attrition wise? I thought a better access to debuff such a chill may be the best thing to do.

2. I think AA is already strong as it is. Puting 1 stack of torment every 2 sec just by spamming AA will make it over the top imo. If I recall, arenaNet already removed 1 stack of bleed on #2, so why not add 1-2 stack(s) of torment in #3 scepter to balance it out? The 10 sec cooldown will balance it out, and avoid some spam. Make it require bleed and poison on the target in order to put torment (See fire grab with elementalist), thus people can predict #3, and cleanse/dodge before it lands in order to counter it.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Bleed caps in PvE really cripple it against bosses.

Bleed’s damage cripples all bleeding in PvE. Simply put with very very rare exceptions power builds will out DPS condi builds in any group content. Just look at how much damage 25 stacks of bleeds will do (even if you get 200 tick bleeds its 5k DPS which is pretty awful) compared to direct damage.

It has great range, of course, but used to stick to targets like glue even almost facing away. I miss that. Keeping bleed stacks up is most of its dps.

Not sure what you mean here.

Bleed stack seems to top out about 9 w/o lingering curse on trash mobs but using any other skills would shorten the stack. I ran a fractal with the group, fortunately, set for more direct damage and there was plenty of room for bleeds. Scepter was good, then, but, if the group setup was different, it could have been useless. A finisher on it would be useful in group play.

As above, condi < power in groups. There’s really nothing they can do to change that by changing scepter itself without basically turning it into a power weapon that also bleeds, which would suck. A finisher would actually be bigger to give us some PvP attrition with our fields.

Cripple and weakness are useful but poison is much less so outside of WvW and PvP.

While situational, 100% poison uptime simply by auto attacking is super good, it was really important for boom boom in boss blitz, and if the weapon wasn’t so bad in general in PvE it’d be good on things like HotW p1 final boss.

The relatively low direct damage really limits it’s use in WvW and PvE. Perhaps strangely, I wondered if cleave would be good without “breaking” the weapon.

Anyway, comments and perspectives are welcome.

Cleave wouldn’t help it any in PvE/WvW. Its not bad because it has low damage output, its bad because condi is.

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Scepter discussion

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Great comments, Poplolita and Bhawb. In fact, the old build I dusted off the other day relies on Rabid armor and trinkets with superior runes of Torment and a superior sigil of Torment on the scepter. If there was ever a weapon made for Necromancer to kite with, the scepter is it. Torment, I had hoped, would be most advantageous on it.

Scepter’s dps, though, even with high up-time torment, remains low. I understand that, for a longer range weapon, it should not have very great single target dps but it should have more potential as a multi-target weapon.

Feast of Corruption works on a single target, eating conditions for damage and life force. What do you think of making it an AoE centered on the target eating conditions from foes (with damage) or allies? Make it 5 targets max with priority on damage, perhaps. It could partially function similar to the old Putrid Mark except it would prioritize foes over allies, or it could just target the most conditions.

A cleave on X number of targets on the auto attack, or a combination of damage and conditions (splashed) might strengthen its total dps by spreading it across multiple targets without increasing the weapon’s single-target power.

(edited by Anchoku.8142)

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Posted by: NeXeD.3042

NeXeD.3042

It doesn’t eat them though does it? I thought it just did more damage and gave more lifeforce the more condis that are on the target

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

It doesn’t eat them though does it? I thought it just did more damage and gave more lifeforce the more condis that are on the target

Yes, on an enemy it does not remove the conditions. It would be nice to have it remove them on an ally from a group-support point of view. A cleave/condi-splash for more damage to multiple enemies is my preference over group condi-management.

Any ideas on how to tweak scepter so it is used a bit more often in end-game play?

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Yes. Make it a melee power weapon. Barring that it won’t be used.

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Posted by: wiredrawn.7298

wiredrawn.7298

Sceptor #1 – AA
Blood Curse – 10 stacks of bleed
Rending Curse – 10 stacks of torment
Putrid Curse – 10 stacks of weakness

Also acts as an interrupt, if you you interrupt the target they also receive a 4 second daze

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

I agree the constant poison and bleeds are strong against real players, especially in tPvP where the conditions leave an opponent vulnerable to an ally.

In PvE, though, the scepter does not do well because of the mobs’ mechanics so the question is what kind of changes might have minimal effect on PvP but offer more utility in PvE? An alternative would be to separate the weapon for the two game modes but that takes some of the fun out of this brainstorming session.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

I’m not sure how to make it more clear, you cannot make a condi weapon good for the current group PvE. You could literally have it stack 25 bleeds per AA, and have those bleeds deal 200 damage and not be removable by any other player, and it would still be an awful weapon for PvE.

The answer is nothing. You cannot make scepter a good PvE weapon for groups without making it a power weapon. It will always have garbage DPS compared to anything else, and there is no way a Necromancer will have enough utility to make up for the fact that you’re dealing 1/3rd the damage of even a power necro.

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Posted by: manveruppd.7601

manveruppd.7601

Regarding pve, I don’t see why they don’t simply raise the condition limits for bosses. Make it 30 for elites, scaling up to maybe 75 for massive world bosses. Or even have the limit scale for world bosses, since the encounter scales in difficulty with the number of players participating. I suspect power builds will still outdamage condi builds, but not as dramatically, and aoe conditions will clear adds way faster.

As for necro scepter specifically, I think it’s in a decent place right now. You can build up decent bleed stacks, keep 100% poison uptime, and the quick reapplication means you’ll quickly burn through your opponent’s cleanses. I’d prefer #2 (Grasping dead) to apply torment instead of bleeding, as more condis make it harder for enemies to completely nullify your damage (I’d even take a nerf to Grasping Dead’s overall damage if it came from torment rather than bleeding, as it’s more likely to stick), but even in its current form it’s ok.

The only skill I’d seriously redesign is #3 (unholy feast), as both its direct damage and its LF generation is really sub-par. IMHO the two functions are not reconsilable, and if you boost both the skill would become OP. You don’t want to allow someone with 0% life force to cast SoS on someone, then do 5k damage with a FoC and jump into DS to fear them. You’d basically be able to burst them down from full HP like that! :p What you want it to do is to do a nice bit of physical damage if your opponent has a lot of conditions, so as to act as a direct damage “finishing move” when they’re low, and to act as a defensive, LF-generating skill the rest of the time, so it actually has a place on your skillbar and you don’t ONLY use it when your opponent is at <10% HP. Don’t have it do both all the time.

Therefore, what I’d do is make both the life force and the extra damage conditional. Do extra damage if your target has more than X conditions on them, OR generate LF if the target has <X conditions on them. Alternatively, make the presence of a specific condition the trigger: poison would be a good one, as the presence of poison usually indicates you’ve been in a fight against a necro for awhile (whereas bleeds proc passively from critical hits, so you might have one on you even if you’ve only just engaged). I’d keep the base damage at around current levels, but I would make the bonus damage from condis be a flat amount, that can’t crit and won’t scale with power. At the moment, even with carrion gear, so you have a bit of power, FoC crits for around 1600 even if cast right after SoS – not great for a “finishing move”. So it could look like this:

Inflict {wpn*1*pow/arm} damage (same as current scaling), and gain 2% LF. For each condition on your target, inflict an additional {10+(levelx3)} damage. If your target has no conditions on them, generate an additional 10% life force.

The above version would generate 12% LF if the target has no conditions, and 2% life force with a bonus 250 damage (which cannot crit) per condition. So against someone with 6 condis on them,you’d do 1500 bonus damage, which cannot crit, plus the base damage of the skill (which tends to be around 300-700 depending on whether you’re hitting a clothie or a heavy and if you’re in rabid or carrion), so if you’ve just feared+SoSed someone you could expect just under 2k damage from it, but no bonus life force.

There’s other things you could do with it, of course. Maybe you could turn it into a mini-heal and have it steal X health for each condition on your target instead. Maybe you could moderately increase the LF generation (say 5% instead of 3%), but halve its recharge time if the target has<4 conditions on them (so you could generate a decent 5% LF every 5", except when you use it as a big damage finisher when you’ve overloaded the target with condis). This was just one idea, but the main point is the LF generation should be increased significantly and the bonus damage slightly, but not in a way that allows you to do both with 1 cast of the skill.

A bad necromancer always blames the corpse.

(edited by manveruppd.7601)

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

I’m not sure how to make it more clear, you cannot make a condi weapon good for the current group PvE. You could literally have it stack 25 bleeds per AA, and have those bleeds deal 200 damage and not be removable by any other player, and it would still be an awful weapon for PvE.

The answer is nothing. You cannot make scepter a good PvE weapon for groups without making it a power weapon. It will always have garbage DPS compared to anything else, and there is no way a Necromancer will have enough utility to make up for the fact that you’re dealing 1/3rd the damage of even a power necro.

Take a deep breath, relax, and think: How would you change scepter so that it is better in PvE with minimal effect on PvP?

Changing the bleed cap is one option but the entire game, and players’ gameplay, takes the 25 cap into consideration so any change to the cap would have far-reaching consequences.

Like dagger’s upcoming change, some form of multi-target or group support utility could be added to scepter. Perhaps Lingering Curse could add something like a cleave or condition splash onto nearby targets.

Scepter is not supposed to be a high dps weapon like dagger so do not expect it to even come close to its hitting power. Instead, ask yourself what does scepter need to better replicate some of staff’s utility? People run staff a lot. Any ideas on how to make the choice tighter between carrying staff or scepter as the ranged weapon knowing you will never get scepter to replace axe, much less dagger?

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Posted by: NeXeD.3042

NeXeD.3042

Yes oh yes give scepter auto attack cleave with lingering curses lol let’s make terror necros insane again!

I think you are a mainly pve player, that’s cool but you don’t seem to think about what would happen in pve if you made condis better in the ways you are thinking. Only way to improve condis in pve without ruining other game modes is changing the cap .

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Maybe there is no solution. The point of this thread is to suggest changes that are NOT insane.

I have never said a cleave or splash had to have 5 targets all receiving the same damage in a huge radius. I expected fewer than five, reduced damage and reduced conditions. Tell me what is reasonable or present another solution.

The point is to make scepter an alternative to staff when max range, fields, and dots are not necessary.

(edited by Anchoku.8142)

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

If scepter’s AA gave splash bleeds in a 180 radius, would that really break PvP? How about a splash cripple?

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Posted by: wiredrawn.7298

wiredrawn.7298

Sceptor #1 – AA
Blood Curse – 1 stack(s) of bleed
Rending Curse – 1 stack(s) of bleed
Putrid Curse – 1 stack(s) of weakness 2 1/4 sec that splashes 240 radius up to 3 targets

Also reduce the aftercast of grasping dead by 1/4 sec

With this amount of blood loss they should be weakened.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Take a deep breath, relax, and think: How would you change scepter so that it is better in PvE with minimal effect on PvP?

Changing the bleed cap is one option but the entire game, and players’ gameplay, takes the 25 cap into consideration so any change to the cap would have far-reaching consequences.

Like dagger’s upcoming change, some form of multi-target or group support utility could be added to scepter. Perhaps Lingering Curse could add something like a cleave or condition splash onto nearby targets.

Scepter is not supposed to be a high dps weapon like dagger so do not expect it to even come close to its hitting power. Instead, ask yourself what does scepter need to better replicate some of staff’s utility? People run staff a lot. Any ideas on how to make the choice tighter between carrying staff or scepter as the ranged weapon knowing you will never get scepter to replace axe, much less dagger?

Nothing. End of the story, no debate or cute changes, you cannot make it a good weapon for PvE while it uses conditions. That’s it. Nothing more to see here. Conditions are bad in group PvE, scepter uses conditions, scepter is bad in group PvE. A = B B = C A = C. Not sure what else I can put here to get it across, because there is nothing you can do.

Staff is garbage in PvE, so not sure why that’d be brought up.

You cannot add enough support to scepter to make it worthwhile. Elementalists can stack 21 stacks of might while dealing higher DPS than a dagger Necro. That is support + high DPS. Engineers can stack something like 16 vuln on their own while dealing higher damage than dagger Necro. Again, DPS + support. Warriors have banners. You need to deal DPS while bringing high support or you are worthless in PvE, so unless there is a change to scepter to make it stack 25 might and vuln at the same time with 100% uptime, there is absolutely no reason to bring someone whose damage is comparable to a ranger pet.

TL;DR Scepter is and always will be bad in group PvE as long as it is a condition weapon in a game mode where conditions are worthless.

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Bhawb, if you have an inside contact at Arenanet, perhaps you can discuss with them the fundamental problems Necromancer has with PvE. You obviously feel very strongly about it.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

That’s not a necromancer problem, that’s just conditions in PvE. I’m sure they are aware of the issue, but making condis viable in group PvE is a huge project. We aren’t alone in that, all condi weapons are bad in PvE.

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