YellowFlash.3914

Unfortunately, I think anet is dead set on keeping the single target allied support aspect, which doesn't make sense at all, cause the game doesn't favour that gameplay pattern. Every good support class in the game does their thing using AoEs, so from the start specter is already crippled. So my ultimate suggestion would be a full rework on the specter gameplay pattern, so that single target ally support becomes secondary, in favour of traditional AoE support. Considering that a rework is probably not realistic, I think that just doing a few less complicated changes like: - removing 50% effectiveness, it's unnecessary when you have other support that click one button to supply vast amounts of boons/barrier. Why do we have to sweat to supply boons ourselves? - reducing the range of the tether so that it breaks and recasts on someone closer a lot faster; or making it so your shroud abilities work around yourself instead of your tethered ally. I prefer this 2nd option tbf, cause it makes the gameplay more predictable. - add regen to the auto attack chain, or change measured shot/endless night so that the skil becomes only endless night, and provides both the healing and boons during the beam. This is me aiming at more regen access without having to use shadowsqual (I don't like relying on stealth cause it can grief your dps monkey's rotation too easily, and the shadow step on measured shot makes me depressed on certain fights) - change well of bounty so that it gives all the boons in each pulse, instead of a single boon per pulse, and also just give it the same amount of stab that it has in wvw - make wells actual instant shadowsteps, the cast times are silly (I know it would be strong in pvp/wvw, but split balance exists soooo) I think these changes would be far easier to implement, and ultimately would benefit support specter a lot, and potentially stop ppl from bullying you when you join groups as heal specter.

Huge pace

You should 100% reconsider this change. Either keeping the dmg reduction, or increasing shadow force generation overall, or increasing the dmg reduction while in shroud. Specter is already super squishy while in shroud, this will just nuke it even more.

Why nerf Strength of shadows and larcenous torment? There's no reason for that, those traits are fine as is. The only thing that MAYBE (and that's maybe) makes sense is the alacrity base duration reduction on shadestep. You mention: but those two trait change, will negatively affect the damage builds. Comon, condi specter wasn't even that insane before the patch. Also, why can't we let deadeye quickness build be a very glass canon type of build? Making both these builds really nice, just to instantly hammer them down, quite disappointing.

Big problem with the changes to how specter applies alacrity: you will not be able to do it out of combat (ooc), since there's no way to get shadow force while ooc. This is concerning especially in fractals, where pre stacking boons before bosses is a key part of the gameplay loop. One of two things (or maybe both tbf) should be done in order to not "kill" specter in fractals: Give shadow shroud the same treatment that celestial avatar (on ranger) got a while ago, which is whenever you gg ou enter an instance, you get full celestial avatar ; Allow shadow force to be generated while ooc by syphoning and hitting initiative abilities onto allies. This issue also extends to the upcoming quickness deadeye build. While you don't need a target to use stolen skils anymore, you still need to be in combat in order to get the chance to use those stolen skills. Again, pre stacking ooc won't be possible. What you can possibly do here is allow one in the chamber to work ooc, which means you can get stolen skills by using cantrips while ooc. If these issues aren't dealt with, were are going to have the same problem willbender has with providing alacrity. Also, I know you really want to push specter to be a single target support elite spec, but let's face it, this gameplay style is not viable in gw2, it just isn't. Unless the game drastically shifts to encounters dealing more focused damage to certain players at certain times, single target support will always be inferior to normal means of support. It really just makes specter a weird profession to play, especially when everything else can do what specter does, but for multiple players at the same time.

The quickness application of Deadeye does not sound good at all tbf. Reminds me of alac on willbender: can be done, but it's not a good idea. Seems like a hack-job for the most part, something like "let's give deadeye quickness application, but let's not mess about too much". I think the process should be reworked.

Hello gamers! I was thinking about what changes could potentially make deadeye a bit better to play in instanced content (raids, strikes, fractals, etc.). You know how it goes, you get stealth or revealed at the wrong time, or when you can't really flank or backstab properly, and boom there goes the flow of your rotation and your big dmg timing. So what I was thinking is something like this: - Keep the malice generation the same it is now: so you get malice when you hit or crit with initiative attacks - Remove the malicious stealth attacks, these will not be the big dmg opportunity abilities anymore. - Instead these malicious stealth attacks would be called just malicious attacks or something like that. And in order to access these special attacks, instead of using stealth, we would use the stolen skill slot. The stolen skill slot would no longer work like a stolen skill that you get when you mark a target. - To use the stollen skill slot, you would need to have at least one stack of malice, and the way it would interact with the malicious attacks would be: whenever you have 1 or more stacks of malice the stollen skill slot would become available to use (similar to what happens with entering shroud on specter, if you have enough shadow force the skill is enabled, otherwise you cannot use it), and when you use it, it would give you a temporary "buff" that would flip your auto attack skill to the correspondent malicious attack skill. So it would be Death's Judgment on riffle, Malicious Backstab on dagger, etc. etc... - Using the malicious attack would basically do the same that the malicious stealth attacks do now: it consumes all malice stacks and give bonus effects for each stack consumed (and would also remove that temporary "buff") - The traditional thief stealth attacks would still exist, and you could use them regardless. But if you use the new "stollen skill" functionality while in stealth, it would overwrite the stealth attack with the malicious attack. Also if you happen to get stealth in the meantime between activating the "stollen skill" and using the malicious attack, it would ignore the traditional stealth attack. In short, the malicious attack would always be prioritized. The biggest pain point, at least for me, about DE is the fact that you rely on stealth application to be successful in your dmg output. So my whole point about potential changes would be to effectively remove stealth from the equation. That temporary "buff" I mentioned would effectively be a substitute to stealth, but with the added benefit that it doesn't behave the same way stealth does. You wouldn't have to worry about loosing it by being revealed at the wrong time. This "buff" could last 5 seconds or something like that. And during those few seconds your auto attack would remain flipped to the malicious attack until you actually use it. This could also maybe allow for DE to get quickness application. For example, whenever you activate your stolen skill slot, you give quickness to the party, or maybe when you consume your malice stacks you give quickness based on how many stacks you consumed. So that's that, some ideas I had to make deadeye fun to play. Let me know what you think!

I assume the specter shroud scaling reduction will also be in pve, which is just very much sad. What makes specter goood in pve is not the large amount of shroud health pool, so there's really no reason for it to apply in pve as well.

While this new system sounds interesting for people that are currently working on their first set or their third set, it completely invalidates all the work and time for people that have done more than 3 legendary armour sets. If you really plan on going forward with this system, please take in consideration all the players that have invested so much in the game, regardless of how small that number of players may be.