What is the point of Lightning Strike?

So I'd like to experiment with scepter a bit but there is that one skill that I absolutely hate using, because I feel its only purpose is to be spammed (as opposed to reacting to a situation). So what's the point of it from a PvE point of view? It doesn't even interrupt your current cast so there's not even a notion of timing it right... Couldn't this damage simply be integrated to the auto attack? Is there a practical reason to why this burst is a separate ability?

Have you seen any videos of fresh air builds from the ye olde days? The point was to quickly swap into and out of air to make use of lightning strike's short cd to add to the build's frequent bursts of damage to wear down a single target. There aren't any secrets to this skill; it's just a single target ability meant to be used frequently, but carefully, to quickly hit your target when it's vulnerable.

It used to crit and provide way more damage. And for awhile it didn't require a target and crazy range. POF made everyone an ele but with more damage or condi, sustain and more hp. Pre HOT and POF an ele can play a 6 in most parts but now everyone can out boon, heal support and ele. Ele is just run the mill no damage outside pve. It's only alive since when this game first came out 65% of all players main ele and have a few secondary eg guard, nero, war, ranger. Ele was fun back in 2012 it can hit hard in zergs or can semi roam but shine more in 2013. It was versatile pre condi cancer meta and everyone has prot, regen, resistance to all condi and might like a boss. When mesmers and thieves required some skill to play back in 2012 and 2013 wvw.

@Arkaile.5604 said:Have you seen any videos of fresh air builds from the ye olde days? The point was to quickly swap into and out of air to make use of lightning strike's short cd to add to the build's frequent bursts of damage to wear down a single target. There aren't any secrets to this skill; it's just a single target ability meant to be used frequently, but carefully, to quickly hit your target when it's vulnerable.

But even then, wouldn't it still be better to simply have more damage on the AA? I don't like abilities that only offer good things with no drawback whatsoever, because then you have to focus on spamming it off cooldown and that isn't fun. That drawback can be a long cooldown, or a cast time... But I can't find anything with that one. It's a shame because I'd like to try scepter and that alone bugs me out enough not to do it...

@ROMANG.1903 As hilarious as it would be to see sith lord eles just roasting people with scepter's force lightning (exaggerating here for fun), it would not help the build much and, personally, I wouldn't find it interesting to have to channel a long ability like that. However, that's a different matter entirely.

A drawback doesn't need to be something as plain and obvious as a long cd or cast time. Either of those would be abysmal changes to a build which is already trash tier due to other classes and their builds getting power creeped so much. It would make what was originally a build which made use of quick attunement swapping into something that had to stall in air for a moment to get its relatively weak spikes off or wait longer in between those spikes.

The drawback of Lightning Strike is that it isn't strong enough to melt people on its own, and so the ele needs to manage its attunements and various other cooldowns as well as take the Fresh Air trait to make full use of the skill. It's strengths are its low cd, lack of cast time or animation, and precision - all of which become even more pronounced when an ele builds to actually make use Lightning Strike. Can it be tedious? Of course, but that just means the build/play style isn't suited for all players, which is something that's true for all builds and play styles regardless of which game you look at.

yes scepter sucks. yes anet knows. no they haven't done anything about it for years.

generally speaking, all weapon's second skill is supposed to be a low CD damage based skill, whose main reason to exist is to give the player something to do other than auto attacking (as skills 3 to 5 are usually designed to be situational, and as such not meant to be spammed).

For all other weapons, this means weaving skill 2 into the auto attack chain. Except that air sceptre has no attack chain on 1, just a sort of continuous lightning attack. So it makes sense to have the second skill simply be instant so it doesn't interrupts the long channel?

At least that's how the sceptre design makes sense to me.

Lightning strike is one of the most important skills in fresh air pvp/wvw builds. The point is it adds to burst damage combos, its not really meant to be used with just auto attacks while sitting in air.

@Bort.8647 said:Lightning strike is one of the most important skills in fresh air pvp/wvw builds. The point is it adds to burst damage combos, its not really meant to be used with just auto attacks while sitting in air.

What this fella says...Most likely is pointless for PvE but for using it as a burst in PvP and WvW its rather important..EG: Switch to Air for traited lightning strike, use lightning strike and hope sigil of air procs too, switch out to fire and reswitch back into air to repeat combo.