state of scepters

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raxleberne wrote:

last time I checked doryanis catalyst wasnt a rare scepter

You should note that the catalyst is level 75. Not every build starts at level 90. If we were talking exclusively about top end late game scepters i wouldnt have mentioned those skills.

one more thought into this:

the problem described here is only a symptom of a greater issue: D3'ification of itemization.

rare items had a place in 1.0 or 1.3 but with each added unique area where rare items make sense is shrinking. bow builds are already pre-made: Rats nest, facebreakers/maligaro, RotC, Drillneck, Atziri's Step, Kintsugi + rares for resist/HP. This is the best way to gear up a ranger with a limited budget and it takes MONSTER rare items to beat that.


power creep made the 'adequate' unique end-game weapons into 'perfectly-fine' endgame weapons.

previously 1h build with 300pdps weapon (RT) was 'just starting' - currently im doing endgame with 260pdps Breath of the Council and doing perfectly fine. i see some maces with higher pdps on poe.trade, i can afford these but.. why? i would much rather improved my boots for more MS or my ring with more INT so i can drop a passive.

there are so many 1h and 2h unique caster options that gearing a character starts with browsing a wiki' list of uniques to see if there is a unique that fits like a glove. and ends there because most often than not - there is.

to roll a rare one has to have extreme luck and/or deep pockets. pre-rolled uniques remove the hassle, give predictability. without uniques starting a builds relying on 'good caster sceptre' is pointless - these are THE WORST items to roll and even the mediocre ones drop like once a week.

on top of that - Whirling Blades. this skill simply tells people - play daggers. play daggers because they are crit and crit is the way this game is envisioned to be played, isnt it?

Crit needs investment. Investment that could go into defence. There is some balance, not sure if it should be disturbed more. Ascendancy already made it so that everything is viable.

Scepters already got an implicit buff. Maybe you didn't see them being used because of the previous mindset but that might change in the future.

bumping this hot topic to show of my best sceptre found since start of prophecy

please, manage your expectations:


this is the best sceptre (and ive ID pretty much every single one ive dropped) ive found. and it is a baby-Catalyst without crit.


is the only reason to EVER use rare sceptre is 'i cannot afford Catalyst yet but i like to leap slam about'?

there are some rare instances, mostly with high damage effectiveness spells, where a rare sceptre can be better than a doriyani's. that would require some serious t1 rolls though, specifically the added flat damage one.

for high flat damage we have this:


it ofc has only some caster rolls but the Hinder more than makes for that with its defensive quality

in THEORY sceptres have their place. in practice there are probably less than 10 total that beat Catalyst - and these a) most probably collect dust anyway (whirling blades fiasco) b) cost mountains of cash to get

but this is not a 'Catalyst is a BiS caster sceptre' problem. it is more of a 'sceptres in general make little sense compared to whirling meta' + for what little they offer they are incredibly hard to roll

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sidtherat wrote:

for high flat damage we have this:

it ofc has only some caster rolls but the Hinder more than makes for that with its defensive quality

in THEORY sceptres have their place. in practice there are probably less than 10 total that beat Catalyst - and these a) most probably collect dust anyway (whirling blades fiasco) b) cost mountains of cash to get

but this is not a 'Catalyst is a BiS caster sceptre' problem. it is more of a 'sceptres in general make little sense compared to whirling meta' + for what little they offer they are incredibly hard to roll

eh thats a very specific flat damage and while total damage roll can potentially double dip, you can get spell damage + hybrid rolls for 70% spell damage just off one t1 prefix and a cata mod.

and DoTs like vortex or RF won't scale off conditional damage.

I used this way back for chaos magma orb (so implicit is old- now can get 40%), and this is cata-modded (and you can get quite juicy spell damage mods much higher than cata's). this was indeed slightly better than a non-perfect doriyani's, especially with chaos conversion



I do agree with you in general tho, I think main cause of sceptres being inferior is WB being too good.

Pretty dumpster but i used it for a long time in talisman since i really liked leap slamming into mobs, letting high lvl cwdt molten shell life leech keep my ass healthy as i get super onslaught-ignited (mokous) for fast flameblast

Aside from the slightly faster atk speed and the fact that i'm both poor and a cheapskate, it has few benefits over doryanis... but I think flat damage craft has lots of flexibility for elemental equilibrium. One of my other characters it was one way to enable physical spell such as blade vortex to ele eq.

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sidtherat wrote:

since 'caster mods are more likely to roll along other caster rolls' update ive been checking on how market and builds have reacted to this - sounding nicely - news.

it seems - nothing changed

the SIGNIFICANT buffs to Sambar sceptres (+ele penetration) and to sceptres in general resulted in noone noticing.

False. I noticed it clearly, and use sceptre for my BV build:

Elemental penetrration sceptres are a bit weak, though, agreed.

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sidtherat wrote:

i see two reasons:

1)
i pick up most rares (not only good bases - but pretty much all rares if im looking for a particular item) and my experience is that this 'caster mods go with caster mods' effect is VERY minor. if i pick up a 6 property items it is as it has always been - mixed roll of thrash.

there being a pre-rolled Catalyst does not help. rare sceptre has to be pretty nuts to outperform Catalyst with its cast speed, crit and bonkers ele damage

Agreed, Catalyst is too good, and caster mods are mixed with melee mods too often. Same could be said for daggers as well, BTW.
But daggers cant roll cast speed (except if crafted with Essence), while sceptres can. It's a significant advantage.

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sidtherat wrote:

2)
whirling blades. this skill alone makes sceptres less than desirable and makes loot filter makers (that have too big of an influence on playerbase btw) simply remove these.

top roll sceptre will be outperformed in real life clear speed by a mediocre dagger. just because of WB. not gutting it to the ground was a mistake.

False. If you use shield, you can use Shield Charge, which is very close to WB. You can also use Leap Slam and move through obstacles. I dont see how LEap Slam with 1.5 APS sceptre is worse that WB with 1.5 APS dagger...

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sidtherat wrote:

so - are there any builds/tricks/rolls i do not know about that make sceptres a viable (As in - making sense to use) choice? anyone made a build that works (or works better) because of using a sceptre instead of working 'despite' using a sceptre?

Sceptres are completely viable. IDK why most players are so obsessed with daggers...