Is it just me, or is the Guardian's Scepter the most underwhelming weapon in the game?

[Loopgru.1026]

My proposed solution is fairly simple: Slow down the attack rate, and instead of glowy projectile balls, a spirit weapon themed scepter appears at the target and swings. Zero change to damage output overall, but the flavor would make it something I'd actually use on purpose.

[whoknocks.4935]

The autoattack is the worse thing of scepter, 900 range but it's actually a melee range weapon. The auto attack can be avoided by simply strafing left and right.It should be same as the mesmer greatsword beam or something, and not the slow balls that the scepter is shooting now. Skill 2 is good and on low cd but can definitely see a buff too, skill 3 is a nice immobilize but on too low cd and does nothing much more, some damage and vulnerability if not wrong, but still not enough.

[Saiyan.1704]

cough mace cough

Scepter is at least used on core Guardian who prefer the range pressure... while mace is used on bunker'ish builds in WvW and PvP... by players who have no idea how to optimize their Guardian.

TL;DRMace is bad.

[whoknocks.4935]

@Saiyan.1704 said:cough mace cough

Scepter is at least used on core Guardian who prefer the range pressure... while mace is used on bunker'ish builds in WvW and PvP... by players who have no idea how to optimize their Guardian.

TL;DRMace is bad.

Range pressure with scepter is an utopia, good for the immobilized and symbol. But the autoattack is slow as well and only effective in melee range.

You can have better range pressure with longbow on dh, even if i know longbow is mainly used for the skill3 and combo with test of faith.

Mace is slow as hell but hace more uses than scepter in my opinion, heals on autoattack, symbol on 2 and a block plus boon on skill3 not only for yourself but teammates too. Sure mace could be enhanced too, but I would prioritize scepter if having to decide.

[Fye.7594]

Guardian Scepter aesthetics and animations may feel clunky, but the weapon itself isn't "underwhelming" in any way.

Those who are saying that "Mesmer Scepter is better" probably never played with a Mesmer consistently... Guardian Scepter is miles ahead. Until recently, Scepter/Torch was meta, and still remains decent today. Meanwhile, Mesmer Scepter is useless outside of open-world content.

I agree that several weapons on this game need a major rework, but Guardian Scepter isn't one of them.

[Arcaedus.7290]

@"Fye.7594" said:Guardian Scepter aesthetics and animations may feel clunky, but the weapon itself isn't "underwhelming" in any way.

Those who are saying that "Mesmer Scepter is better" probably never played with a Mesmer consistently... Guardian Scepter is miles ahead. Until recently, Scepter/Torch was meta, and still remains decent today. Meanwhile, Mesmer Scepter is useless outside of open-world content.

I agree that several weapons on this game need a major rework, but Guardian Scepter isn't one of them.

I agree with Fye, scepter is in a pretty good spot as far as mechanics and damage goes. However I will note that scepter 3 has too long of a cooldown. A single-target, short-duration immobilize with a 0.5s cast time should only be on about a 12-15s cooldown, not 20s.

[AEFA.9035]

@"Azione.5913" said:Having played DH for the last year I've gotten used to my beloved Longbow, but now that FB is a thing most of us Guardians are left with only one viable ranged option... being the Scepter.

I thought I had gotten rid of the darn thing for good with the release of the longbow, but now I feel like if I play FB I am forced to use a subpar ranged weapon in the Scepter.Guardians are supposed to be "Holy warriors" that fight with a mix of "magic" and "holy light" right? So then why does the Scepter feel like I'm throwing electric cotton balls at the enemy and the damage hits for about the same... ? Also the visuals just need a rework imo.... may instead of electric cotton balls our #1 attack could shoot beams of that "holy light" ;)

tldr; The Scepter seems to be in dire need of a rework since the release of FB. Also if not the Scepter, how can I effectively hit enemies at range (PvE boss for example) as a Firebrand?/rant over

Do you play pvp? This is guardians top tier weapon. LOL

[Dristig.9678]

Honestly if you just reworked the AA it'd become popular overnight because it has great numbers and good utility. Make it a continuous beam or something like arced lightning.

[Azoqu.8917]

I'm always baffled at talk about Scepter for Guardians. It is the best and worst weapon for Guardian at the same time. It's functional, hits hard, and is useful but at the same time it's non-functional and the #3 is lackluster. Being the only range weapon unless you go DH, it should be more consistent with projectile speed. The only problem, is any buff or change to the scepter can break it because it already is an over loaded weapon.

Scepter is love, Scepter is life.

[Azione.5913]

@Dristig.9678 said:Honestly if you just reworked the AA it'd become popular overnight because it has great numbers and good utility. Make it a continuous beam or something like arced lightning.

This. If they went the route of continuous beam like mesmer greatsword or at least increased the movement speed I think you would see a lot more happy guardians running scepter

[Aeolus.3615]

@Azione.5913 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:Honestly if you just reworked the AA it'd become popular overnight because it has great numbers and good utility. Make it a continuous beam or something like arced lightning.

This. If they went the route of continuous beam like mesmer greatsword or at least increased the movement speed I think you would see a lot more happy guardians running scepter

That also means it will not be abosrved nor reflected.

@Saiyan.1704 said:cough mace cough

Scepter is at least used on core Guardian who prefer the range pressure... while mace is used on bunker'ish builds in WvW and PvP... by players who have no idea how to optimize their Guardian.

TL;DRMace is bad.

Hey! i actually like mace, iknow it is awfullsy and easy to defeat mace shield guard easilly, still guardian dont have nothing else to feel like a cleric, at least we havea fake cleric, wich does not work atm just cause how overtweaked other specs are to cater the bad players, guard core with whatever m8 be one of the most balanced classes, wich is why Anet hates it :D., and when necros cry they have no mobility while guard mace shield has even less.....on a game of sprinters.Same goes to guardians who usues consecrations ..... that sacntuary with 1minute CD after being traited and only does a sh**** heal and absorv wich can be bypassed by unblockables and players with stability..... or that WoR, where theres only AOE on combat, WoR also dont reflect the damage but just a potion based on the guardian caster str stat, not actually based on the damag that hits WoR.

[Loopgru.1026]

I think we keep veering off the rails here.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Scepter is a bad weapon in terms of effectiveness. Missile speed issues notwithstanding, it does solid damage (especially for a ranged weapon!) and brings both a symbol (good) and an immob (albeit on a long CD).

The argument is simply that it feels bad to use. Here I am, giant Norn in plate taking mighty blasting leaps with an oversized hammer, leaping across the battlefield with a Greatsword, shouting to booster my allies andshooting glowy balls from a stick that move at about the speed of a well-smacked balloon.

[Lyros.4673]

Honestly, half the reason I don't use most weapons on other classes is because of the audio/visual components being terrible. The Mesmer scepter makes wood knocking noises for crying out loud. Charr Mesmer Greatsword Autoattacks involve you flinging your arm out over and over again in a highly dramatic fashion that looks completely ridiculous and practically speaking, extremely tiring. No matter how much you lift, you're not going to want to be doing that repeated motion again and again.

Likewise, Guardian Scepter has that ridiculous upper body swing like some weird television upperbody workout. It could be solved if all these "single attack" animations were just chained into combos like Necro Scepter. They could literally keep the damage and utility and attack times the same as the original Scepter AA, but just give it a rotating animation and the thing would be completely fine. But no, it's a repeatedly upper body swing that occurs so rapidly the weight of the animation and how it's distributed looks bad.

So yeah, I say that some weapons could use at least an audio touchup and an animation tweak. No gameplay differences, just at the bare minumum to make them appear less poor.

[Unknown.3976]

It certainly lacks the visual impact, but the most underwhelming animation has to go to the engie bomb kit, feels as if the engie is doing half-squats with weights.

[Arcaedus.7290]

Just had a neat idea regarding the scepter auto-attack. Most of the complaints surrounding scepter auto-attack are as follows:

1. The animation is very lack-luster. It's a slow moving shaky orb that doesn't look particularly powerful or thematic.
2. The sound effect is annoying. It's pretty loud too but honestly not the greatest effect out there.
3. Despite being 900-range, the orb itself has problems hitting a target at even 600 range due to how slow it is. This is a balance issue.

I suggest the following two changes:

• Change the attack functionality slightly. Upon waving your scepter, an orb will fly out, and hover in front of the guardian momentarily before zipping, in a straight line, quickly to the target.
• Change the sound effect to sound a bit more like Photon Blitz (Photon Forge skill #4 on Holosmith/Engineer).

Reasoning:

So changing the attack functionality would overall be a very good thing, balance-wise imo. It would help a guardian strike a target at 900 range more consistently, it would definitely feel a lot more like a bullet-hell -type attack and it would have plenty of counter-play (the hovering orb is a big cue to put up blocks/reflects/use mobility to escape). Obviously some numerical balancing would have to be done since this could be a buff in many areas.

Visually, I think this would be an improvement too. A straight-forward and quick-moving orb would seem a lot more guardian-like and seem more powerful.

I think the sound effect would be an improvement as well. The new effect would be more focused on the impact rather than on the act of simply flinging out an orb.

[Saiyan.1704]

My idea fix,

The initial velocity if the AA orbs should increase, then slow towards normal speeds based on the distance of the target.

Example:

• 900 range, velocity increases by 50% until the orb reaches 600 distance of target
• 600 range, orb velocity increases by 25% until orb reaches 300 range
• 300 range, orb travels normal velocity.

The biggest issue (maybe?) is if you're deliberately focusing a target across the map, trying to fire faster orbs on.. say, a downed target in front of you. Mechanics can be put in placed like, velocity does not increase if target is beyond 900 range.... regardless it wouldn't be a big deal because that target would be moving too.

Aesthetically, Scepter is considered a magic weapon so it should be fine.

[Arken.3725]

Just gonna leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5VrnYTCbzk&t=3s

[Arcaedus.7290]

@"Arken.3725" said:Just gonna leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5VrnYTCbzk&t=3s

You uploaded that before the mini-rework where they reduced after-cast and reduced range to 900 which made scepter 1 more consistently land.

Funny thing is, the mini-strafing technique still kinda works like what we see in this video... go figure.

That's part of the reason I suggested what I did on the previous page (Saiyan's suggestion is a good one too). An auto-attack orb that flies very quickly for a segment of time would largely negate that mini-strafing nonsense. Whatever the devs do, I think a rework of this sort should be implemented since a ranged weapon should not be avoidable by simple fidgeting in place.

[Loopgru.1026]

I'm curious why the suggestions here keep focusing on maintaining the existing wiffle ball mechanics & aesthetic (just variable-speed faster). It would be great to just tweak it to make it land more consistently, but for the purposes of this thread it still doesn't really address the core issue of it just being a fundamentally unsatisfying weapon to use. It seems to me that there's an opportunity for a much more interesting ranged weapon implementation in a professional that already has the thematic hooks of spirit weapons that would be far more interesting than the continued Angry Ping Pong model...

[Arken.3725]

@Loopgru.1026 said:I'm curious why the suggestions here keep focusing on maintaining the existing wiffle ball mechanics & aesthetic (just variable-speed faster). It would be great to just tweak it to make it land more consistently, but for the purposes of this thread it still doesn't really address the core issue of it just being a fundamentally unsatisfying weapon to use. It seems to me that there's an opportunity for a much more interesting ranged weapon implementation in a professional that already has the thematic hooks of spirit weapons that would be far more interesting than the continued Angry Ping Pong model...

It was a 30% buff. However, my point stands that 30% of terrible is still.....terrible.

[Arcaedus.7290]

@Loopgru.1026 said:I'm curious why the suggestions here keep focusing on maintaining the existing wiffle ball mechanics & aesthetic (just variable-speed faster). It would be great to just tweak it to make it land more consistently, but for the purposes of this thread it still doesn't really address the core issue of it just being a fundamentally unsatisfying weapon to use. It seems to me that there's an opportunity for a much more interesting ranged weapon implementation in a professional that already has the thematic hooks of spirit weapons that would be far more interesting than the continued Angry Ping Pong model...

It takes more resources and a considerable amount of time to carry out some major rework to the skill just because some people dislike the aesthetic. I'd like nothing more than for it to be changed to a beam (like downstate 1 skill or mesmer scepter 3) but it's just not going to happen. Better to work with what we have, make suggestions and explain why they should be carried out.

[Rhyse.8179]

It's unsatisfying because it's a zero-counterplay weapon. Autoattack. DPS circle. Root target in DPS circle if no defiance bar. That's it. No blocks, aegis, boons, boon strip, conditional skills, mobility, combos, no setup and payoff. It's fundamentally boring to use. The graphics don't help, they are boring as well.

That said, that's ok. Every class should have at least one low skill floor, brainless weapon. That's fine. So my preferred fix is to overhaul staff into a ranged support weapon (similar to trident). Don't need to change scepter if it's not the only choice anymore.

[Riba.3271]

Well PvE firebrand uses scepter but the actual dps rotation includes starting on axe, dropping symbol, swapping to scepter, using your symbol+both torch 4s and then enter f1 tome while during scepter and then when tome end, you drop 2 symbol, use Renewed focus, f1 again, drop scepter symbol and then swap to axe and autoattack on axe etc. And swap back to scepter when your f1 tome is ready again. Basically it doesnt include scepter autoattacks.

In WvW, you dont use scepter autoattacks either because they get reflected (theyre good against siege tho, epic) and you have tomes and other skills like triple mantra to spam.

The main reason to run scepter is because The symbol is on 6 second cooldown and it only takes 1/4 seconds to cast. It hits twice as many times as other symbols meaning double the f1 procs, even triple (5 symbol, 8 fists) against enemies with big hitbox The autoattack just shouldn't be used that much. But yeah, its pretty much only long range weapon there is for firebrand meaning you just have to be brave and go melee. Stack some protection with f3 tome and go there and punch that enemy in the face with the help of your heal mantra aegis.

This is how I do high level fractals with firebrand and basically everytime I am scepter autoattacking I just see my dps go down and I am like duh, I shouldnt do this. And no, it doesnt require you to have boonshare chrono or dudu to sustain you. Just today I did 3 dailies 96,98,99 within 25 minutes with 2 necros, warrior and renegade (random pugging, not premade) smashing the enemy in the face by prestacking protection and using other cool firebrand mechanics.

Also if its group of enemies, you just get your f1 tome refreshed everytime you kill something so ezpz life.

Gotta love a class that can actually go full dps and stand melee range

[Aeolus.3615]

@"Saiyan.1704" said:My idea fix,

The initial velocity if the AA orbs should increase, then slow towards normal speeds based on the distance of the target.

Example:

• 900 range, velocity increases by 50% until the orb reaches 600 distance of target
• 600 range, orb velocity increases by 25% until orb reaches 300 range
• 300 range, orb travels normal velocity.

The biggest issue (maybe?) is if you're deliberately focusing a target across the map, trying to fire faster orbs on.. say, a downed target in front of you. Mechanics can be put in placed like, velocity does not increase if target is beyond 900 range.... regardless it wouldn't be a big deal because that target would be moving too.

Aesthetically, Scepter is considered a magic weapon so it should be fine.

Well since it is a tab targeted skill, it would miss the downed guy in front of u and would go for the "selected" target direction.If a ranger or guardian specter is pew pew ing some guy at max range targets in the between are not damaged.

Still even if that is possible with some positioning malabarism... maybe force combat camera on every one is a good solution xD, so some weapons can be slight improved.At least on the combat camera mode, u will hit the target where the aim is over it's hitbox, even if aim not directly over toon the orb would target it if over the hitbox boundries.

[Dynnen.6405]

I don't understand why the guardian scepter 1 can't function like Necro scepter 1. Or get the same treatment that engineer rifle 1 got with the tracking it had with speed. It is really confusing how they improved scepter 2 without fixing scepter 1.