Now that Pistol exists, what's the point of Sceptre?

[Seventh Ranger.3968]

For pretty much all intents and purposes, pistol is just straight up better than sceptre in every way. The only reason sceptre used to see any use at all was because longbow was only available to dragonhunters. Now that both longbow and pistol are available on all elite specs, sceptre will pretty much never be used because of how weak and unreliable it is. It needs serious help and updates, to the point of a complete rework. The autos travel so slowly it can barely be considered a ranged weapon, and outside of a single long cooldown immobilize, there's currently nothing about sceptre that makes it better or even as good as any other ranged option. It needs its own identity in order to have a place in the game again.

[Kuya.6495]

To make annoying sounds 

[Arken.3725]

They both suck if you ask me. Spvp perspective of course. 

[Sovarica.4368]

Pistol was cool at first but the meta has shifted so much it has become a low tier weapon which is a shame since they obliterated the passive burning trait which has made the flavor of burning Guardian nearly extinct.

Scepter feels outdated the symbol is low damage and the immobilize fails so much especially against a thief. That sound Krossh, Krosshh, Krosssh sounds like nails on the chalkboard I would not make my worst enemy listen to this sound!

[Saiyan.1704]

Scepter was always meant to be a mid-range utility weapon, that turned melee oriented when you try to stack symbols in a quick fashion.

Sometimes I like to meme with Zeal/Radiance and go full symbolic damage. It's about 2.2k tick symbols in pvp, so with Scepter#2 and Sword#2's symbols stacking, it can dish out 4.4k damage per second...

...which isn't too bad if the players are Golems. Zeal traitline has a lot of issues and symbol damage only works against brainless players.

 

[Kuya.6495]

In all seriousness, I wish they changed the scepter auto into a channeled beam. If it tracks stealthed targets (if they stealth after the auto already started) it could be so useful for dealing with thieves in wvw/pvp. Bonus points if you make scepter 2 apply revealed.

 

As for making it useful in pve, I guess more support options to make it a midrange hybrid support weapon kind of like spear will be melee hybrid support/dps. I just don't know what to add to it or where.

Edited August 9 by Kuya.6495

[Saiyan.1704]

2 hours ago, Kuya.6495 said:

In all seriousness, I wish they changed the scepter auto into a channeled beam. If it tracks stealthed targets (if they stealth after the auto already started) it could be so useful for dealing with thieves in wvw/pvp. Bonus points if you make scepter 2 apply revealed.

 

As for making it useful in pve, I guess more support options to make it a midrange hybrid support weapon kind of like spear will be melee hybrid support/dps. I just don't know what to add to it or where.

I rather they just change traits in Zeal. Such as Zealous Scepter. Increase scepter might stacks to 3. Damage to Vulnerable foes increased to 10% on Symbolic Exposure... and I'm being moderate here. I feel like Zeal needs a lot more ooph.

The damage difference between Virtues and Zeal are darn near the same except Virtues gives cleanses and Stability. There's no reason to pick Zeal over Virtues in pvp.

[zeyeti.8347]

On 8/8/2024 at 7:03 PM, Kuya.6495 said:

To make annoying sounds 

saw that coming from a mile away 👌.

Would say make it a better power range option , we have pistol as condi , support can use mace or axe , and we go a two handed longbow for power as 1 weapon set 

But first step that i guess everyone will agree , change the sound of the AA chain.

[Ferus.3165]

On 8/9/2024 at 3:17 PM, Kuya.6495 said:

In all seriousness, I wish they changed the scepter auto into a channeled beam. If it tracks stealthed targets (if they stealth after the auto already started) it could be so useful for dealing with thieves in wvw/pvp. Bonus points if you make scepter 2 apply revealed.

off topic but i think focus 4 should apply revealed too. Would fit thematicly and give focus a little bit of much needed utility.

[daw.4923]

well its sadly just worse pistol, it has same (but worse) symbol for might, very nice immobilize and negative dmg.

if they wanna make it viable it would need to do something extremely well. (dmg/boons/cc) 

making it dmg weapon makes no sense since its literally just pistol with extra steps. ccs are kinda there,boons are kinda there.... it looks nice and i wasted 2k gold on nice leg scepter and now its useless. oh well.

complete-rework.exe

[Juniper.8197]

On 8/8/2024 at 12:08 PM, Sovarica.4368 said:

Pistol was cool at first but the meta has shifted so much it has become a low tier weapon which is a shame since they obliterated the passive burning trait which has made the flavor of burning Guardian nearly extinct.

Scepter feels outdated the symbol is low damage and the immobilize fails so much especially against a thief. That sound Krossh, Krosshh, Krosssh sounds like nails on the chalkboard I would not make my worst enemy listen to this sound!

What do you use for condi weapon then?

[Verungi.4396]

Quite a few tower/keep NPC guards cannot be hit by longbow AA (nor true shot AFAIK) because they're "obstructed", but scepter AA can hit those same guards from the same spot. (Is this the same with all races btw? I'm charr, obviously.) I'm too lazy to check it myself so: can pistol hit NPCs as well (or better than) scepter or do bullets get obstructed as easily as arrows?

Same applies to players on walls of course, but testing this is harder as I've found out an annoying feature in (most) enemy players: they move 😮

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, Verungi.4396 said:

Same applies to players on walls of course, but testing this is harder as I've found out an annoying feature in (most) enemy players: they move 😮

That's not a feature, it's a bug. Report it!

[quaniesan.8497]

they should change scepter to beam-based auto like  mesmer GS,  and symbol gives total of 3sec of alac or something so you dont have to be WB to be alac bot. 

[Toraseishin.1932]

I mostly like the way scepter functions (minus the auto attack sound effects, of course 😵). It at least FEELS good despite its flaws. Plus if auto became a channeled beam, I'd lose my pretty leggy projectiles =(
The channeled beam thing is kinda over done anyway. Thief scepter/pistol 3 has it, Guardian pistol 2 already has it, Mesmer scepter 3 has it, Mesmer greatsword auto has it, Ranger staff auto has it, and now Ele water spear 2 has it.

It would stand out more amongst scepters in general if the projectile exploded on impact (like Seeking Judgement), either doing flat AoE damage or applying some AoE burning to differentiate it from staff. Could also have it bounce between targets or between target and allies for some support (like Winds of Chaos)...maybe granting small amounts of barrier to allies it bounces off of instead of boons? That would be pretty unique for Guardian, I think.

Either way, it needs SOMETHING......just as long as that something starts with changing the auto sound effect to something less painful 😒

[alain.1659]

I actually like scepter 2 and 3, but aa is horrible amd the sound of it is a punishment to those who dare to play guardian. And quite bad compared to other scepters

[AzureTerra.1642]

Options, its core where as the pistol is buried deep in an expac

[Isopod.4156]

To make me sad because sceptors I love them but using them  on a couple classes like guardian or mesmer : (

[Gaiawolf.8261]

14 hours ago, Isopod.4156 said:

To make me sad because sceptors I love them but using them  on a couple classes like guardian or mesmer : (

Agreed. I love the concept and skin for my scepter, but I find less and less reasons to use it, because it feels so subpar to play. And to think it used to be a main weapon for me, on both guard and mes.   Scepter/shield is such a fun concept on guard, and scepter/torch was my roamer on mes back in the day. Good times...