Thoughts and feedback for SCEPTER after last patch

[Yasai.3549]

I have so many issues with Scepter:

1. Why is the autochain so slow even with Quickness? If we still had "ramping via attacks" like before, it would make total sense to balance but that's gone now, so why is this still here?

2. Literally no benefit to cancelling Skill 3, why does it have a cancel button?

3. Skill 2 and Skill 3 have very long windups. Reusing animation from things like Forced Engagement for Skill 3 is bad enough, why keep the clunky tether travel animation too? 

4. OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED. Why does Skill 2 obstruct itself on every flipping thing? 

5. Ally targeting. Cos yea, torture Rev players more. 

Scepter is the new Herald Shield where it's gonna be used in niche situations but otherwise you're trolling if you ever want to use it as a main weapon. 

The whole weapon should have just been:

- 600 range wave auto which grants Barrier

- pulsing barrier and boons on self, stronger effect near the Revenant, weaker at the edges

- Ground targeted skill that knocks down.

Edited March 2 by Yasai.3549

[SidewayS.3789]

When I heard we will get Scepter, I thought this will be our counter part of SB (condi range weapon) and finally we got our Power range weapon (hammer doesn't count, aside of WvW, but even there it started to suck), then I have found out it will be a support weapon (I said, hm ok let's see how this will turn, because I am a fan of Qherald), well after the beta and now the release, I have SHOCKINGLY found out that, scepter sucks big time even at support with. 2 Skills with ally target (oh yeah, we love these, right guys?) and second an AA slow attack who... does...give might and a tiny barrier? That's it? After almost 1 year, this is the best we got? Yep, it seems so. When they nerfed a bit mace, I thought maybe scepter will be quite good at support, boy I was wrong. 

[Shagie.7612]

5 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

1. Why is the autochain so slow even with Quickness? If we still had "ramping via attacks" like before, it would make total sense to balance but that's gone now, so why is this still here?

Is it bugged and not working with quickness or with an awful aftercast or something? It's the same speed or faster than every auto but the mace chain.
I've paid little to no attention to things like that so far tbh, simply because the rest of the weapon is troublesome.

[Tobias.4975]

6 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I have so many issues with Scepter:

1. Why is the autochain so slow even with Quickness? If we still had "ramping via attacks" like before, it would make total sense to balance but that's gone now, so why is this still here?

2. Literally no benefit to cancelling Skill 3, why does it have a cancel button?

3. Skill 2 and Skill 3 have very long windups. Reusing animation from things like Forced Engagement for Skill 3 is bad enough, why keep the clunky tether travel animation too? 

4. OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED. Why does Skill 2 obstruct itself on every flipping thing? 

5. Ally targeting. Cos yea, torture Rev players more. 

Scepter is the new Herald Shield where it's gonna be used in niche situations but otherwise you're trolling if you ever want to use it as a main weapon. 

The whole weapon should have just been:

- 600 range wave auto which grants Barrier

- pulsing barrier and boons on self, stronger effect near the Revenant, weaker at the edges

- Ground targeted skill that knocks down.

Realy like the idea of the 600 range wave auto.👍

pulsing barrier + damage + (evtl. boons) on our self, sounds great and matches the name for skill 2 "Blossom Aura", too.

Skill 3 need to be aoe boons + damage around enemy target with 5 target cap.

[Yasai.3549]

3 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

Is it bugged and not working with quickness or with an awful aftercast or something? It's the same speed or faster than every auto but the mace chain.
I've paid little to no attention to things like that so far tbh, simply because the rest of the weapon is troublesome.

I thought so until I tried it myself in SFTA. No, it's just terrible with animation aftercast. 

Even if each attack comes out at 0.5s speed, the aftercast actually makes it more like 0.75s per chain step. If you notice for some weapons, they have a "backswing aftercast animation" where the weapon attempts to reset itself to the idle state so while Quickness does speed up the animation, its horrendous aftercast ruins it still. For Rev's Scepter, it's particularly horrendous, even more so than mace. Sword still remains the best and fastest.

[Kanok.3027]

Okay, I like some of the ideas in this thread to improve the scepter, but the one thing I want is...can we PLEASE turn down the visual effects on it? Like, WOW! It's so hard to see what something or someone is doing when they have Scepter 2 on them or the visual garbage of the auto attack. Plus, the huge tether. Please, please, PLEASE turn it down a tad!

[arazoth.7290]

32 minutes ago, Kanok.3027 said:

Okay, I like some of the ideas in this thread to improve the scepter, but the one thing I want is...can we PLEASE turn down the visual effects on it? Like, WOW! It's so hard to see what something or someone is doing when they have Scepter 2 on them or the visual garbage of the auto attack. Plus, the huge tether. Please, please, PLEASE turn it down a tad!

I would though that legendary weapons change the animations on the weapon. Because they got none, which was very disappointing since I wanted a scepter one because of that 😢

[Shagie.7612]

46 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I thought so until I tried it myself in SFTA. No, it's just terrible with animation aftercast. 

I just went and checked, and mind you this isn't suuuper scientific cause latency and all that jazz, just checking a quick recording frame by frame, but at least a hint towards the timing.
It looks like there's a small aftercast on chain 1 and a much larger one on chain 2 and 3. Like one full chain was closer to 2 seconds than 1.5, and then with the aftercast the full time to start the next chain was closer to 3 seconds.

The cast bars are all accurate but the animations don't match up. There's quite a few weapons like that where the tooltips aren't representative of the real speed of the weapon, but sheesh you'd have thought a new feature weapon would be.

e:
One thing I didn't check was if you can mash the button to skip that like you can for some weapons, I just let the auto cast roll.

Edited March 2 by Shagie.7612

[Player.2475]

I just realized that the Tether and Blossoming Aura skills need Line of Sight to even deal their effects/damage every time they pulse. What a joke.

[Aeolus.3615]

21 minutes ago, Player.2475 said:

I just realized that the Tether and Blossoming Aura skills need Line of Sight to even deal their effects/damage every time they pulse. What a joke.

That's what i was talking, if a enemy step into your 90º angle  the skill will fail and enter in CD same happens with your allies, and we need also to keep selecting players and enemies whom we want to select

It feels weapon is more clunkier than in beta :/

 

3 hours ago, Kanok.3027 said:

Okay, I like some of the ideas in this thread to improve the scepter, but the one thing I want is...can we PLEASE turn down the visual effects on it? Like, WOW! It's so hard to see what something or someone is doing when they have Scepter 2 on them or the visual garbage of the auto attack. Plus, the huge tether. Please, please, PLEASE turn it down a tad!

I still believe that the electro whirl from elementalist speter or dagger dont reccal wich one has that animation would be a puuurrrfect fit , make the auto look like a whip  rather a blob blade.

Edited March 2 by Aeolus.3615

[Player.2475]

2 minutes ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

That's what i was talking, if a enemy step into your 90º angle  the skill will fail and enter in CD same happens with your allies, and we need also to keep selecting players and enemies whom we want to select

It feels weapon is more clunkier than in beta 😕

Yes, that, but even if your weapon succeeds and someone steps behind an obstacle, all you will get is "Obstructed, Obstructed, Obstructed" and nothing will happen for the entire 7 second duration.

[Santo.2419]

37 minutes ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

That's what i was talking, if a enemy step into your 90º angle  the skill will fail and enter in CD same happens with your allies, and we need also to keep selecting players and enemies whom we want to select

Oh kitten, I didn't notice that, must have just assumed CD had happened. That is terrible, and should be fixed.

(from a roaming WvW perspective)

Gotta say, after some time playing with it...I am still looking at the skill bar wondering if 2 & 3 have been cast (mainly 2) and are pulsing, or if I have to re-apply. There is a tether, and I get that...but it can get hectic in pvp and especially when lots of peeps to see it. There def needs to be some changes to the icons to dif colors/mask to show is in pulse mode vs reset. The problem is...I hold off pressing them because I might be cancelling a skill that is active, so creates hesitation and a mess of any kind of rotation.

I'm also finding it near impossible to do the otherworldly attraction in combat (offensive on enemy). Sometimes I am mid cast of something, and I miss the chance because it goes so quick. Other times it feels like it does not even come up to use for some reason...maybe this is due to the skill going into cool down because they are not in front of me?

and other times...I think it is unable to be done because I am out of energy (Does the attraction pull actually cost energy?). If it does cost energy, I think that needs to be removed for that after effect. 

So, I was pretty positive on the scepter earlier. But this is starting to fade away with more and more encounters (WvW Roaming)...I'm getting mixed success and I think this is really coming down to when I play against a competent player, then I'm usually ****'d... but if they are average or below, then I may get it over on them. But I'm still soldiering on trying new strategies and builds!

I am kinda enjoying the novelty...like another person said... it may have niche play. But it's prob not going to take over other builds I already use which run circles around it with comparable tankiness and actually being able to kill people fast(er).

 

*Edit I never realised that 'kitten' was an auto censor correct... I thought it was just what peeps wrote themselves lmao

Edited March 2 by Santo.2419

[Tobias.4975]

52 minutes ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

That's what i was talking, if a enemy step into your 90º angle  the skill will fail and enter in CD same happens with your allies, and we need also to keep selecting players and enemies whom we want to select

It feels weapon is more clunkier than in beta 😕

 

I still believe that the electro whirl from elementalist speter or dagger dont reccal wich one has that animation would be a puuurrrfect fit , make the auto look like a whip  rather a blob blade.

the dagger auto from elementalist will work way better than this. The "onehanded great-lightsaber" starts getting annoying after a few minutes / moments.

Plus a whip is thematicaly one of the better options.

[Eddie.9143]

The tether should work like mage bane if they run out of it when it's ready to pull, tether should also persist through weapon swap because no one is staying close that long for that ramp time. Weapon has potential but for how unoriginal it is, it should have been dagger mainhand and offhand 

[Angesombre.4630]

I'm not a fan of the sceptre as it is. And really not enough damage. Not useful enough, boring to use. Because if it's just to spam 1, well there you go. When I see the more par of the other new weapons I'm disgusted with ours.

Edited March 3 by Angesombre.4630

[draxynnic.3719]

16 hours ago, Tobias.4975 said:

Realy like the idea of the 600 range wave auto.👍

pulsing barrier + damage + (evtl. boons) on our self, sounds great and matches the name for skill 2 "Blossom Aura", too.

Skill 3 need to be aoe boons + damage around enemy target with 5 target cap.

If you're thinking something like necro sword auto, perhaps. If you're thinking guardian lootstick... that was removed for a reason. Mind you, they've brought back some other things that were mostly removed for a reason, so it's not impossible, but I suspect that the issues they had with lootstick in WvW might have stuck harder than 'trying to get a moving projectile to detonate where you want it is terrible gameplay in a game like GW2' did.

Edited March 3 by draxynnic.3719

[wolfyrik.2017]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:00 AM, Jungario.6485 said:

I am not a fan of skill 1 being almost melee and looking like a sword... We have swords for rev and greatsword, why another "sword"? Also, I have some nice scepter skins I want to use, but they almost invisible with this laser-sword effect. Another thing is, I love idea of being dark mist-mage and casting spells with scepters, especially rev has only two ranged weapons... but that's not a case becouse scepter was made as a laser sword ;/ 

I honestly think it should have been a whip. Some of the issues with the beam would stick around (covering your legendary) but at least it would break up the visual monotony. The tether would make more sense as well, then.

[arazoth.7290]

34 minutes ago, wolfyrik.2017 said:

I honestly think it should have been a whip. Some of the issues with the beam would stick around (covering your legendary) but at least it would break up the visual monotony. The tether would make more sense as well, then.

Legendaries don't even change the animations little different on scepter... Which they should. 

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

I keep seeing Arazoth and his constant copy paste spam rework ideas in every post that even mentions scepter, so I felt inspired to try my hat at a rework as well. I was really unhappy with the beta version of the weapon and even more so for its release. It misses its mark as a support weapon so incredibly hard that its almost laughable. Luckily he charging mechanic was dropped, but we were left with weird delays in skill activations for underwhelming numbers. Which is weird because the nature of support requires an action to be accomplished in a timely manner or else you fail at supporting the target. Waiting 4s and a window between 5s and 7s is insane... That said I wanted to scrap most of the current design. I'm not under the impression that any of this will ever happen, but its fun to throw ideas out!

The new gimmick is a weapon that transforms between an aoe melee and ranged single target... we can keep the melee scepter (but tone down the length and obtrusiveness of the "blade") but we also gain a ranged auto. I'll go into more detail below, but the default stance of the weapon will be RANGED SINGLE TAREGT auto, RANGED SINGLE TARGET skill 2, MELEE AOE skill 3. When you use skill 3, the entire weapon changes to be: MELEE AOE auto, MELEE AOE skill 2, RANGE SINGLE TARGET skill 3. Whenever you use a skill with a 'melee' tag, it give you a buff to transform into the melee swap for X seconds (thinking 5s, but would need tuning). Gives you the capability to stay ranged, stay melee, or flip between the two. Ranged skills focus on heals and defensive boons/condis... melee focus on barrier and offensive boons/condis

As far as what the skills would look like, these are rough ideas:
RANGED SINGLE TARGET auto - 900u, attack your target, (preferably design a chain attack like thief scepter) applying heals to allies in a radius around it. 
RANGED SINGLE TARGET skill 2 - 900u, attack your target, after a 1s delay, they explode (or blossom) healing allies around the target and apply regen and clear a condi
MELEE AOE skill 3- 900u, Port into your target damaging applying vuln and slow to all enemies around them, 5 targets. Apply barrier to 5 allies.

MELEE AOE auto - 240u, attack all enemies applying vuln, 5 targets, apply barrier to 5 allies (keep the current animation chain, but spread barrier out at a 1:1:2 ratio on each attack)
MELEE AOE skill 2- 240u, Release a pulse from yourself after a 1s delay damaging 5 enemies and applying  barrier, might, and fury to 5 allies.
RANGED SINGLE TARGET skill 3 - 240u, Strike your target knocking them down and applying weakness. Heal 5 allies around the target and port yourself back 600u (could change the last part, the forced port out could be annoying, but I wanted something to mirror the port in and give the idea of 'this is now a ranged weapon again')

Thanks for making it to the end if you read it all. Like I said, I don't think anything like this will ever happen. But I think I'd be neat to see everyone's rework ideas and show our ideas for cool weapons since Anet was obviously struggling for ideas. 

[Santo.2419]

I may be the only one, but I like the animation of the particles and the length. But I have my leggy making cool swishing gfx on the inner part of the graphic which compliments it. 

*EDIT only thing for me is if it is creating some kind of delay on skills or something as i think some have mentioned. Then i'd rather it gone in that case, even if i do like the look.

Edited March 4 by Santo.2419

[arazoth.7290]

1 hour ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

I keep seeing Arazoth and his constant copy paste spam rework ideas in every post that even mentions scepter,  so I felt inspired to try my hat at a rework as well. I was really unhappy with the beta version of the weapon and even more so for its release.Thanks for making it to the end if you read it all. Like I said, I don't think anything like this will ever happen. But I think I'd be neat to see everyone's rework ideas and show our ideas for cool weapons since Anet was obviously struggling for ideas. 

😘 And you're welcome that I helped inspire someone else for ideas ^^. If you want something done, you got to let them know so they get aware of the issues. 

 

[arazoth.7290]

Just now, Santo.2419 said:

I may be the only one, but I like the animation of the particles and the length. But I have my leggy making cool swishing gfx on the inner part of the graphic which compliments it. 

There is an animation change by leggy weapon on scepter for revenant??? 

When I saw a friend do it compared to the normal one mine, I saw l difference and he neither 🫤. Or is it that minimal of an effect almost not noticeable? Because if that's case it still needs to be affected a lot more by leggy weapons too.

Since it's part of expansion, atleast for commercial wise it should be important for them too

[Santo.2419]

4 minutes ago, arazoth.7290 said:

There is an animation change by leggy weapon on scepter for revenant??? 

When I saw a friend do it compared to the normal one mine, I saw l difference and he neither 🫤. Or is it that minimal of an effect almost not noticeable? Because if that's case it still needs to be affected a lot more by leggy weapons too.

Since it's part of expansion, atleast for commercial wise it should be important for them too

Sorry to get you excited 😕  I just mean the normal trail effect when I swing my leggy with it. It fits nicely in the space before the normal effects of the long beam.

Edited March 4 by Santo.2419

[arazoth.7290]

Just now, Santo.2419 said:

Sorry to get you excited 😕  I just mean the normal trail effect when I swing my leggy with it.

ahhh yea oke, that is indeed.

But for that I use my branded weapon skin for similar effect 😅

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

I keep seeing Arazoth and his constant copy paste spam rework ideas in every post that even mentions scepter, so I felt inspired to try my hat at a rework as well. I was really unhappy with the beta version of the weapon and even more so for its release. It misses its mark as a support weapon so incredibly hard that its almost laughable. Luckily he charging mechanic was dropped, but we were left with weird delays in skill activations for underwhelming numbers. Which is weird because the nature of support requires an action to be accomplished in a timely manner or else you fail at supporting the target. Waiting 4s and a window between 5s and 7s is insane... That said I wanted to scrap most of the current design. I'm not under the impression that any of this will ever happen, but its fun to throw ideas out!

The new gimmick is a weapon that transforms between an aoe melee and ranged single target... we can keep the melee scepter (but tone down the length and obtrusiveness of the "blade") but we also gain a ranged auto. I'll go into more detail below, but the default stance of the weapon will be RANGED SINGLE TAREGT auto, RANGED SINGLE TARGET skill 2, MELEE AOE skill 3. When you use skill 3, the entire weapon changes to be: MELEE AOE auto, MELEE AOE skill 2, RANGE SINGLE TARGET skill 3. Whenever you use a skill with a 'melee' tag, it give you a buff to transform into the melee swap for X seconds (thinking 5s, but would need tuning). Gives you the capability to stay ranged, stay melee, or flip between the two. Ranged skills focus on heals and defensive boons/condis... melee focus on barrier and offensive boons/condis

As far as what the skills would look like, these are rough ideas:
RANGED SINGLE TARGET auto - 900u, attack your target, (preferably design a chain attack like thief scepter) applying heals to allies in a radius around it. 
RANGED SINGLE TARGET skill 2 - 900u, attack your target, after a 1s delay, they explode (or blossom) healing allies around the target and apply regen and clear a condi
MELEE AOE skill 3- 900u, Port into your target damaging applying vuln and slow to all enemies around them, 5 targets. Apply barrier to 5 allies.

MELEE AOE auto - 240u, attack all enemies applying vuln, 5 targets, apply barrier to 5 allies (keep the current animation chain, but spread barrier out at a 1:1:2 ratio on each attack)
MELEE AOE skill 2- 240u, Release a pulse from yourself after a 1s delay damaging 5 enemies and applying  barrier, might, and fury to 5 allies.
RANGED SINGLE TARGET skill 3 - 240u, Strike your target knocking them down and applying weakness. Heal 5 allies around the target and port yourself back 600u (could change the last part, the forced port out could be annoying, but I wanted something to mirror the port in and give the idea of 'this is now a ranged weapon again')

Thanks for making it to the end if you read it all. Like I said, I don't think anything like this will ever happen. But I think I'd be neat to see everyone's rework ideas and show our ideas for cool weapons since Anet was obviously struggling for ideas. 

Interesting idea, including having a gimmick which I'm sure will make the current design team happy. On the other hand, it's requiring extra skills, which probably wouldn't make them happy.