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
Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on November 06, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 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.
- Weakness and Blind. - short CD instant condition application to either cover your damaging conditions or mitigate incoming damage through
Template Code
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Specializations
Equipment
Head
Celestial
Celestial
Shoulders
Celestial
Celestial
Chest
Celestial
Celestial
Hands
Celestial
Celestial
Legs
Celestial
Celestial
Feet
Celestial
Celestial
Backpiece
Celestial
Celestial
Accessory
Celestial
Celestial
Accessory
Celestial
Celestial
Amulet
Celestial
Celestial
Ring
Celestial
Celestial
Ring
Celestial
Celestial
Scepter
Celestial
Celestial
Pistol
Celestial
Celestial
Sigil
Sigil
Sword
Celestial
Celestial
Dagger
Celestial
Celestial
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
x6
Infusion
x18
x18
Rune
- - good stats and more health also means more Shadow Shroud.
- - very good defensive rune with extra boon duration.
- - 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.
- Dazes them right after, allowing it to interrupt targets even through Stability. removes boons when used on enemies and
- 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:
- Grasping Shadows
- 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.
+ .
- Quickness from which makes it much easier to land your Scepter #3 chain. and are great at procing
- 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 Immobilize. Sometimes all you'll be doing on this set is use these skills + the autoattack if you want to play defensively. from range to leave an escape route with . Teleporting in and out can help you avoid damage, cleanse conditions, and do a setup with
- On Celestial builds 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. + 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
- 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,
- The delay of Shroud skill 2 makes it ideal for comboing with skill 4, as you can make them hit at the same time.
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.
- Burst combo example:
- Grasping Shadows (Shroud 2)
- Eternal Night (Shroud 4)
- Dawn's Repose (Shroud 3)
- Drop out of Shroud, keep spamming your Scepter 3
Sustain
- The main sources of condition removal are , , and (Sword #2's chain skill).
- ⇒ (even without a target selected) could take care of your conditions without resorting to any CDs. is a huge boost to your condi cleansing in general. In terms of gameplay this is very important on Sword as simply spamming
- 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.
- 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. should more or less be used on CD for the
- The build has a passive life-saving proc: Stealth in Shroud and disengage safely. . 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
Ratings
It's a cele build. It does cele things. High uptime on important boons like Alacrity and even Quickness, great hybrid damage, capable in both ranged and melee. Extremely obnoxious especially with the mobility it has. Post Cele nerf edit: this build wasn't really affected, boons weren't all that important and most conditions had good base durations.
Strong but half the value is missing in WvW. In PvP this is great because of the support angle, being able to multitask not just kill. But if you're roaming solo the support element is gone and I think other thief builds do it better. In 1v1s it's still good but it's very predictable and slow. In a group this is a 5 tho.
Fantastic build, played it with Aristocracy runes for better Might uptime. Insane mobility, great hybrid pressure (right up there with Celestial Harbinger when played well), great boon uptime, high survivability (2 health bars & Cele stats), and little reliance on stealth. Spamming Scepter/Pistol 3 will make every projectile and melee oriented spec absolutely loathe you.
Comments
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