Noctosis.3786

I'm just a little concerned about the thought behind Sword Thief, specifically in PvE. PvP and WvW I can see it's roaming potential. But PvE I am unsure how it's holding up. AA for Sword is strong, and I can see the defensive application while Solo and that's perfectly fine by me. However, in group content, I can only think of two things for Sword that it brings that Dagger wont: slight healing, and boon strip after a long animation. The unfortunate thing here is that in Group Content, you either fall into Boons, Heal, or DPS, and Sword definitely falls into a weird spot for those. Provides a bit of Healing if Traited, but you would only really use that on Specter, which it doesn't heal as much and at least from what I can tell isn't enough in harder content to heal others reliably.(Someone prove me wrong on this as this was where I was wanting to land) Boon stripping I believe other classes have a much faster strip animation than thief, where thief has to dodge first and then strip. This also loses some dps due to the affects of it. Is Sword on Thief supposed to have an intended hole in PvE where group content you stow it away for dagger/staff/rifle/scepter?

Can confirm: Death Blossom doesn't whirl finish anymore. Tried with Skyscale Fire, Shadow Refuge, and many raid comps.

My issues with Specter may be just frustration based but I'm going to try to keep it tame on it: Under the effects of quickness, Eternal Night doesn't speed up. This ends up causing a strange feeling while in shroud where all skills are quick except this one move and feels like a punishment for using it under quickness. I understand Specter's usages of wells are Shadowstep first to the spot, then blast the area with magic. However the cast time and how the order of things goes(Shadow Step first, then drop bomb) ends up making them almost not usable inside of PvP without stealth(which may be intended). The issue I keep finding myself hitting in PvP is not only do I cast the well, I'll end up being downed in the process, but the Shadowstep occurs causing you to go to a diff location without the magic bomb occurring either. It feels somewhat unintended if you are downed before the shadowstep to be moved when you are still casting. Or maybe there is that split second that I seem to hit in PvP matches where I get downed without getting the well off. Shadow Shroud's Bar doesn't have any indicators on it...and I dont recall but I think Necro's does? There isn't really a way to gauge how much 'HP' one has left. Everything seems % based in tool tips as well, but it does act as a separate hp bar Rot Wallow Venom suffers from the Untamed's old situation. To explicitly use this on any weapon outside of Scepter, you MUST take Shadestep to be able to burst your barrier. There is some dynamics to this that leads to the Specter needing to have Barrier applied, to be able to apply barrier, and if the Specter is getting barrier from someone else, they are probably providing barrier to the party already. So for other weapons(Daggers, Pistols, Shortbow, Sword) it feels as though you will apply stealth to the team in mid-combat just to apply the Rot Venom. Only traits I can think of for this are Blinding Powder and Stealth Refuge, and if I recall the healing from Stealth refuge is pretty small. The only other way that seems more in line with Specter is to be forced into taking Shadestep, removing the ability to be a bruiser from the top trait, or to consume conditions for heals with the other trait. It feels like other weapons are punished for being played with Specter. In the Guild Wars 2 Partner Discord Community, I'm getting the feeling most users are unanimously saying Scepter is strictly the only weapon to use, which seems to be the untamed's old issue.

Maybe unrelated, but I realized with Specter that Sword on thief doesn't really have a place anymore. Daredevil w/Staff is the power build with AoE and evades for days. Deadeye is the single target DPS. And Specter has movement within wells and controls enemies through Slow and such. According to the wiki, Sword is to provide - Flanking sword attacks provide extra evasiveness and control enemy movement. Flanking is fine except there isn't an inherit bonus to flanking on it's own, and moving to a flanking position with other weapons provides the same benefit. evasiveness, considered making an attack miss through attacks, we have flanking strike which is a lower dps move, that then gets stuck to the dps portion after(which is catch up on damage) while not being able to evade again. Pistol whip is a root. Dagger has the same evasiveness with death blossom, Staff has blinds and rolling backwards, Rifle has shadowstepping backward, and scepter has pistol offhand that shadowsteps forward/backward. Control enemy movement falls into Specter territory now, with slows and such making Sword officially have no identify outside of one move. Infiltrator's strike, which cleanses 1 condition. I'm not sure what else the community can say about Sword that I might miss, but I do feel with Specter's control of enemies and shadowsteps on wells, Sword doesn't bring anything to the table for thief anymore that you couldn't get elsewhere