Zodryn.4216

That's basically what they did to Consume Shadows making you stay in shroud. "Oh people don't want to stay in shroud because it's not good? Let's just force them to."

Sind ran a power Specter in the last beta and it was actually good. Even so I'm fine with only support and condi traits. Not everything needs both power and condi.

Siphon still doesn't do anything with steal traits when used on allies. Consume shadows draining all SF for small heals at 1, 2, and 3s feels as bad as I thought it would. Repeating my suggestion to make the SF drain proportional to heal rather than always 100%. Shadestep also has issues. I have no good way to generate significant barrier on myself, so how does breaking my barrier to share with allies help? Consume shadows was the only decent barrier gen on self, but besides being nerfed hard it also already gives allies barrier so sacrificing the one decent self barrier to give friends more is a bit silly. It should just grant barrier on shadowstep, not take mine to redistribute. Animations/cast delays: * Endless night wind up before the channel feels way too long, as does the first hit in the auto chain. Endless night also stops if anything breaks your line of sight. Most scepter animations are still spawning well above my head. * Shroud auto animation is incredibly lame. Dawn's repose feels much better than before but range feels too short especially being at 900 range constantly with measured shot. Shroud skills generally lack a feeling of impact. * Wells all having different cast times also feels weird.

Siphon still doesn't do anything with steal traits when used on allies. Consume shadows draining all SF for small heals at 1, 2, and 3s feels as bad as I thought it would. Repeating my suggestion to make the SF drain proportional to heal rather than always 100%. Shadestep also has issues. I have no good way to generate significant barrier on myself, so how does breaking my barrier to share with allies help? Consume shadows was the only decent barrier gen on self, but besides being nerfed hard it also already gives allies barrier so sacrificing the one decent self barrier to give friends more is a bit silly. It should just grant barrier on shadowstep, not take mine to redistribute. Amplified siphoning is extremely lacking. The 100% extra barrier effectiveness only applies on siphon (~2k for one target) and not on anything else you do that applies barrier. I think it needs to do something more interactive with siphon or give a smaller boost to all barrier gen as well. Animations/cast delays: * Endless night wind up before the channel feels way too long, as does the first hit in the auto chain. Endless night also stops if anything breaks your line of sight. Most scepter animations are still spawning well above my head. * Shroud auto animation is incredibly lame. Dawn's repose feels much better than before but range feels too short especially being at 900 range constantly with measured shot. Shroud skills generally lack a feeling of impact. * Wells all having different cast times also feels weird.

The biggest issue isn't the set up. The issue is the horrible trade off if you don't wait long enough. 100% SF for 10% back as healing is actively bad.

Even at max shroud (let's say 30k with cele gear) yes you will sometimes lose that whole shroud for a 3k heal. You get 10%-50% depending on how long you're in so your options are 3k, 6k, 9k, 12k, or 15k max. You get punished with a horrible trade of 30k shadow force for smaller heals if you leave early for any reason. Idk why I keep having to explain why this is bad. At 15k there's an interesting trade off because while it's a worse value selfishly (15k vs 30k) you give a big heal to your friends so it can be worth. But at the lower end it's just not worth it at all and that needs to change for the trait to be good. Example changes: it still does 10-50% heal and it costs 15-75% of you SF when you exit. So it's always a slight loss solo but a benefit if healing at least one person, still incentivises staying longer for bigger heals, and the trade off at 1s matches the trade off at 5s rather than being situational at 5s and garbage at 1s.

Sure there's other good things you can do with specter. That doesn't change that Consume Shadows is now a trait where having nothing is actually better in some circumstances since it punishes you with the possibility of very little return. If our entire shadow force is drained every time we leave it better give us something good in return every time we leave. A 3k heal is not good enough.

If they made it so it didn't fully deplete your shadow force it'd be much more reasonable. Even with that much HP you'll still have situations where you burn your whole shroud for a 3k heal. It seems like it'll be more of a pain than a benefit. In some cases no trait at all may be better. Leaving shroud and still having shadow force left to go back in would legit be better many times. Edit: also to be clear I mean "emergency heal" for others not yourself. For yourself you can soak in shroud. But if your friend is about to die you can't just sit in shroud for 5s to give him a good heal. Oh and to top it off you probably won't ever get that 50% heal at full shadow force since you'll be taking damage as you wait that 5s so it's even less healing.

Edit with my solution: make shadow force consumed proportional to healing rather than complete drain. That way it's not extremely punishing if you need to leave shroud early. Example - 1s = 10% heal for 15% SF, 2s = 20% heal for 30% SF etc. The ratio of SF to heal and how quickly it ramps can be tweaked if needed. If you need an emergency heal or need to exit shroud immediately for some reason, you will now be punished with a measly 10% shadow force heal in exchange for ALL of your shadow force. At best you get 50% if you stay for 5s which is half what it was. This change is complete garbage and will make using shroud a gigantic pain. Yes we needed more reason to use shroud, but they didn't make it better they just punish us for leaving shroud early. Edit: Also if we stay in shroud like they want you still have to wait a full 5s to get the full heal! When you need to heal someone else it often can't wait that long. And if you need to heal yourself you might as well just not because you'll get more value from soaking damage in shroud then losing it all for less health. I really don't understand how this is supposed to be used. It just seems like it's conflicting with the rest of the design on multiple levels.

For Specter I thought Dawn's Repose needed MORE range not less. Why only 450 range?? It already wasn't worth it as a dash compared to just running. Also Consume Shadows is not useable as an emergency heal anymore if you need to wait multiple seconds for it to be effective which is a giant nerf. It better be worth waiting 5s. I am extremely skeptical of this change. And is it intended that siphon on allies doesn't proc any steal traits? So many complained about it but there's no mention of a fix.

Quick problems/issues: * Zero combo finishers on any scepter skills. Not even a chance at projectile finisher. Seems like an oversight. * S/D 3 skill is extremely lacking. It does half as much healing as S/P 3 and can be intercepted by the wrong target making it an awful healing tool. I suggest that it travel through targets so it always hits the intended target, and perhaps grants some boon like S/P to those in between at least. * Siphon doesn't trigger steal traits (like stealth or boons) when targeting allies. Scepter 2 needs a separate animation from Scepter 1 initial hit. --- Thing I like: * Animations are gorgeous, especially the wells. Totally in love! * The boons and healing are fantastic, especially with S/P. S/D 3 needs work though as noted before. Overall I'm super excited and can't wait to play it officially!