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

This build was last updated on March 02, 2023 and is up to date for the May 02, 2023 game patch.

Overview

A hybrid 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

• - more Well synergy, mobility and AoE damage.

• - short CD instant condition application to either cover your damaging conditions or mitigate incoming damage through Weakness and Blind.

Heal

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

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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

Rune

• - good stats and more health also means more Shadow Shroud.

• - very good defensive rune with extra boon duration.

• - high damage option, consider weaving in a before bursts to get the most out of this rune.

• - budget option with okay stats and a passive movement speed boost.

Sigils

Sword/Dagger

• - consider replacing one of the S/D sigils with this if you're having trouble against condition specs (or you're not taking Antitoxin runes).

Infusions

• Vital WvW Infusions scale up not only your HP but also the Shadow Shroud bar. If you don't need the sustain or don't want to invest into these somewhat niche infusions, Malign or Mighty infusions also work just fine.

Consumables

Food

• - good stats and passive damage mitigation.

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

Utility

• or or .

Usage

Elite specialization basics

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

• Using (Specter's version of ) 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.

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

• Every Well skills grants Alacrity. Wells are also great mobility tools both in and out of combat, and simply using them to get around the map faster has the added benefit of speeding up your skill recharge from the Alacrity.

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

• Stealth stacking rotation:

3. Grasping Shadows
4. Dawn's Repose

Damage

• Most of the weapon damage comes from spamming skill #3 on Scepter: + .
  • 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.

• and are great at procing Quickness from which makes it much easier to land your Scepter #3 chain.

• If you're about to weapon swap from S/D consider using the ⇒ chain to stack Immobilize and proc in melee.

• On S/D you'll open with from range to leave an escape route with . 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 + 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 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 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, or a 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. 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:

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 , , and (Sword #2's chain skill).

• is a huge boost to your condi cleansing in general. In terms of gameplay this is very important on Sword as simply spamming ⇒ (even without a target selected) could take care of your conditions without resorting to any CDs.

• 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.

• should more or less be used on CD for the Alacrity and the boons, but you could hold onto 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.

• The build has a passive life-saving proc: . If you have enough Shadow Force you'll enter Shadow Shroud instead of dying after taking lethal damage. You could plan ahead with this and drop a before the proc, allowing you to stack Stealth in Shroud and disengage safely.