Specter - Celestial Scepter Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Hybrid damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on November 21, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Celestial Scepter Specter build for WvW roaming, offering a strong mix of defense and offense. Plenty of condition pressure, boon spam, and even some burst damage.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Pistol

Sword/Dagger

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Well of Bounty - the Stability and Resistance you get when you cast this skill could allow you to go toe-to-toe with enemies better without any hinderance. It's also a great escape tool, as it can put some distance between you and enemies while letting you ignore CC and conditions such as Chill or Immobilize. Alternatively you can use the teleport to get into melee range for various sigil procs and such.

• Well of Silence - AoE CC and extra condition cleansing.

• Roll for Initiative - stun break + evade frame and extra initiative. Also cleanses movement-impairing conditions.

• Prepare Thousand Needles - strong condition burst and moderate CC, but it can be hard to utilize in open fields especially against ranged enemies. Consider equipping this skill when taking supply camps, especially if you can ball up the NPCs so they all get hit.

Heal

• Well of Gloom - not quite as good under pressure as Withdraw and it's strictly worse against conditions, but has better mobility on top of Well synergy from traits and some AoE healing in case you're roaming in a group.

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Specializations

Variants

• Shallow Grave is also a viable option if you need more cleansing.

• Larcenous Torment increases your damage while still providing health regen in combat via the life steal, but it's harder to get healing value out of this trait when you're really pressured and have to focus on survival instead of applying conditions.

Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Scepter
Celestial

Pistol
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Celestial

Dagger
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of the Blightbringer - this can frequently add a bunch of cover conditions all at once, making it harder for enemies to cleanse your more important conditions. Even offers decent damage from the Poison, although in most fights Demon Queen probably translates into more damage.

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Orr - bit more defensive condition rune that could help against other condition builds.

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Necromancer - it's like Trapper but with more HP instead of condition duration.

Infusions

• Vital WvW infusions are good too if you're looking for a defensive option. On this build they grant extra value because vitality also scales up your shroud health pool.

Sigils

Sword/Dagger

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy - if you can afford to give up some sustain then this is a decent offensive proc, both in terms of damage and expanding your condi variety.

Consumables

Food

• - good stats and passive damage mitigation.

• - mainly a budget defensive food that provides more frequent access to dodging.

Utility

• Optimal:

• Budget: either from Canned Food Crates found in WvW s or purchased from the Permanent Portable Provisioner.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Specters gain access to their own version of Death Shroud called Enter Shadow Shroud. Mechanically they are the same, replacing your skill bar while active. Damage taken while in Shroud drains Shadow Force instead of HP.

• Using Siphon (Specter's version of Steal) and spending Initiative builds Shadow Force.

General

• Most of your Specters skills double as support skills. While your role is to kill targets, a good Specter also keeps an eye on allies and helps them in critical moments by granting them Barrier.

• Because of Shroud you can be a bit more reckless with spending Initiative as Shroud skills are free and by the time you've rotated through Shroud skill your Initiative should be back to full.

• Siphon removes boons when used on enemies and Dazes them right after, allowing it to interrupt targets even through Stability.

• Offhand pistol's main purpose is to combo stealth with Black Powder and to provide a quick interrupt via Head Shot.

• Stealth stacking rotation:

1. Black Powder
2. Enter Shadow Shroud
3. Grasping Shadows
4. Dawn's Repose

Damage

• Most of the weapon damage comes from spamming skill #3 on Scepter: Measured Shot + Endless Night.
  • Scepter is the main weapon set of the build, the other one fills more of a utility/situational purpose. Sword/Dagger has good defensive skills, chase potential and damage.

• Siphon and Head Shot are great at procing Quickness from Sigil of Superior Sigil of Celerity which makes it much easier to land your Scepter #3 chain.

• If you're about to weapon swap from S/D consider using the Infiltrator's Strike ⇒ Measured Shot chain to stack Immobilize and proc Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy in melee.

• On S/D you'll open with Infiltrator's Strike from range to leave an escape route with Infiltrator's Return. Teleporting in and out can help you avoid damage, cleanse conditions, and do a setup with Immobilize. Sometimes all you'll be doing on this set is use these skills + the autoattack if you want to play defensively.

• On Celestial builds the Flanking Strike (thief dual) + Larcenous Strike chain is more about softening up targets by stealing their boons boons with unblockable attacks (and evading incoming attacks in the process), but this chain is quite costly and very telegraphed and thus easy to avoid. Try baiting some dodges first, or use it when the enemy's blocking/channeling a skill. The Immobilize from Infiltrator's Strike could help with landing these skills too, even when used in the middle of it: port in, hit them with Flanking Strike, port out, and then back in for a Larcenous Strike.

• Skills 4-5 on S/D are rarely used, although Dancing Dagger is good for some ranged poking or killing Mesmer clones with the bounces.

• As for Shroud, skills 2 and 4 is where the damage comes from. The second skill is a ground targeted AoE which goes off after a short delay, Infiltrator's Strike or a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy proc might make it easier to land this right after entering Shroud. Skill 4 is a channeled point-blank AoE which is much easier to land. Shadowfall is great at setting up these slow Shroud skills too.
  • The delay of Shroud skill 2 makes it ideal for comboing with skill 4, as you can make them hit at the same time.

• Burst combo example:

1. Shadowfall
2. Grasping Shadows (Shroud 2)
3. Eternal Night (Shroud 4)
4. Dawn's Repose (Shroud 3)
5. Drop out of Shroud, keep spamming your Scepter 3

Sustain

• The main sources of condition removal are Shadowstep, Hungering Darkness, Withdraw and Infiltrator's Return (Sword #2's chain skill).

• Shadowstep is the only stun break in the build but it's a double stun break with condi cleansing on top. Try to use other methods for cleansing first in order to preserve this for handling incoming CC.

• Well of Bounty should more or less be used on CD for the boons, but you could hold on to it a bit longer if you feel like you'll need the Stability soon. Try to stay inside this well because each second you're getting a new boon.

Related Builds

• Specter - Condition Scepter - Conquest PvP version of the build.