I generally start in water, then spam everything in fire, then combine Air Bubble and Lighting Cage to force a stun, then use the sink and blind in earth, and then repeat as cooldowns allow.
I use the scepter just because I can’t stand not having a ranged weapon, but it’s pretty lacking. For example:
- Dragon’s Tooth takes so long to land that enemies can simply walk out of its radius, and even a 2 second CC still gives an opponent enough time to get up and dodge it.
- Phoenix is nearly useless at range due to its slow travel time, and it won’t hit elevated targets because it flies upward diagonally and disappears into the platform it was supposed to rise above. (You CAN cast it on targets at lower elevations, but it won’t return to you.)
- Shatterstone is useless for anything other than stacking vulnerability because of its long activation time, and even then its AoE radius is so small that it’s quite difficult to hit targets with it.
- Dust Devil travels very slowly. Frankly, I’d much rather this be replaced with a more offensive ability, because the scepter’s earth attunement is quite lacking in that regard.
On a side note, I’d like to see a new ranged weapon. (Greatsword, anyone?)
(edited by Chaosky.5276)
The reason you don’t see impressive number is probably because S/F is not really meant for dmg. Scepter itself is a very defensive weapon. It has damage but not too impressive. Most of the S/D burst builds rely on Dagger offhand skill such as RoF, Fire grab, Earth Quake, Churning,…..and double Arcane skills to do the burst. DT + Phoenix is a wonderful combo itself and the only AoE dmg if you run S/F.
Focus is purely for control and defense. I think they way S/F plays is similar to Necro: to poke and win slowly through sustain dmg and controls.
Thing is, as far as bunkers go, d/d and s/d are better, so I’m just trying to find a use.
Not just air though; the other attunement skills benefit more off the air traits than their own for damage. For example, water skills will have the ability to deal vulnerability with crits (especially skill #1 which hits 3 times). As for survivability, use the arcane traits to get vigor on crits so u can pretty much spam dodge with evasive arcana. Use fire trait 10 to get that trait that gives u burn chance on crits.
I meant that the Air attunement skills are pretty much where most of my damage will come from due to the unreliable nature of the fire skills, and the fact that the only decent damage in the Earth attunement is condition damage.
S/F is only really useful as dps when specced in lightning. Try 10/30/0/0/30 and focus on crit burst damage.
Also simply put, u cannot mainly spec into water and earth and expect to do decent damage.
Edit: Also remove those 7-8 signets for some arcane skills or more cantrips.
I was afraid of that; speccing so that air will do decent damage will pretty much destroy what survivability I had, but I’ll give it a shot. Thanks for the input.
I really, truly did, but I just couldn’t get scepter/focus to work.
My damage took too long to set up, was easily negated via condition removal, I had laughably poor mobility, and my healing was terrible. Focusing on direct damage doesn’t seem like a great idea for s/f due to the lack of such skills that reliably connect and deal decent damage.
…Anyone got any ideas? I’ve gotta figure out SOME kind of ranged PvP build.
(edited by Chaosky.5276)
I second this sentiment.
The changes to the focus are nice, but not good enough.
The scepter is still terribly awkward due to its heavy reliance on direct damage AND condition damage, and its poorly designed skills such as Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix.
The staff still makes you a free kill if you aren’t built as a bunker.
So elementalists are still quite lacking in ranged PvP options.
:C
I liked my floating ball of plasma.
SBI here – it’s not like I prefer running around in a zerg in which my contributions are minimized, but smaller groups rarely form, and I’m a nobody, so people won’t listen to me.
Besides, Grundlebad (a commander) is awesome.
Is he from KT? They have a fairly good commander from my experience. Charr I think.
That’d be him.
SBI here – it’s not like I prefer running around in a zerg in which my contributions are minimized, but smaller groups rarely form, and I’m a nobody, so people won’t listen to me.
Besides, Grundlebad (a commander) is awesome.
I’m pretty sure this just means more players can attack an objective at once without alerting enemies… Howzat combat zerging? Perhaps because, due to the reduced window of time to react to a threat, defenders will want to be more spread-out so as to allow more time for reinforcements to arrive?
Also, in tier 6 with SBI, to have 25 players in one group is pretty much unheard-of, so orange swords will be as good as removed for us.
(edited by Chaosky.5276)
WTB Prototype Combat Golem
I don’t know if making it ground-targeted would help all that much – just look at Shatterstone.
Anything that works as a more single-target oriented long-range option for eles; maybe a greatsword, like mesmers.