Feathers.6342

I played a lot of specter compared to how much I tested the other specs. I only really play thief in this game and that's because I like the damage output and mobility and the particle effects and whatnot aren't too over the top and the animations are typically quite easy to read and feel responsive. I have played every class in the game to varying degrees and at least tried every spec, and so far I haven't found much reason to move away from thief, aside from sorta enjoying berserker and mirage, which I have one of but don't play nearly as much. I was disappointed that the weapon we were getting is scepter at first, just 'cause I don't think they're that interesting, and a little more disappointed when I heard it was going to be a support spec. But I figured thieves did a fair bit of damage anyways and the single-target heals were way more interesting to me than how we've had healing and support in the past. So I managed to talk myself into being pretty excited to try it on the beta! And I really did try to like it, but at current it's not really for me and I'll probably play as a bladesworn my first time through EoD. The issues, in my opinion, first arose for me when it turns out that in this beta that 3rd skills don't work in action camera. Which sucks, since I love action camera and use it almost all of the time. But this is a bug, so I can forgive it. Secondly, the way that target selecting and switching works in game now just presents me with too many new keybinds to try to figure out to make selecting a specific target in a chaotic fight feel anything but frustrating. I'm sure I could get used to that in time or get better at picking out targets with my mouse, but it breaks the flow of the combat for me and is a bit of a turn-off. Next, it just doesn't do any damage, like, really at all, and I'm not even sure if the healing is good enough to actually be used anywhere in the game. I don't get the impression I'll be able to even finish the EoD story as a solo player or playing with my boyfriend as a specter, it just feels too weak and I was unable to find a good build that felt it put out at least a decent amount of damage for casual PvE. The wells are pretty cool, but I think the well of Sorrow is pretty undertuned. I think it could be a really genuinely awesome ability if it were a little stronger. I also think the class needs to lean a little more into putting out bleed, poison and/or more torment. Thief has a lot of bleed and poison application in its other trait lines but they don't feel like they pay off much when you're using specter. The amount of torment the class can currently put out feels a little lackluster, too, and it relies on a target remaining still. This could work out quite fun in team plays, using Devourer Venom to immobilise targets and put out a bunch of damage, but the amount of torment you can put out feels just too low for this to be satisfying. I tried out going for more of a hybrid healing and damage spec among the times I tried using full viper's and full minstrel's, and the healing feels pretty good when you have another person to play with, but the low damage is only far more noticeable and the healing isn't that much better. Finding a middle ground in the spec is hard and the damage end didn't lead to much damage for me. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I'm usually fairly keen on buildcraft and I was pretty stumped about this sorta thing the entire time I was experimenting. The healing well feels really powerful, but well balanced. between builds I tried the only thing that had a logical curve of effectiveness was this well - on a pure condi build it felt strong enough to keep me alive and give out some little boosts to teammates, and on a support build it often felt like the most impactful tool I had. Oh and the elite skill's effect is really pretty bad. The way it heavily warps everything is cool the first time I guess but if you stand in it it distorts your whole screen and trying to convince people to stand in a bunch of wells that makes it hard to see is impossible. I THINK that's all I really have to say about it. Overall I think there's something with a lot of potential here. I often really don't play support specs but if I can put out some decent damage on my own and support a friend then I'll consider this spec a success. I'm interested to see how ironing out the bugs and tweaking the balance will have it turn out in the end 😄 TL;DR: Specter is pretty cool even though I don't like support specs generally. With some rebalancing to make it more viable for a solo player, or a player playing with a small group in PvE and some animation changes it could be pretty great!

Overall disappointed in all specs except scourge, firebrand and weaver...and firebrand is just heavily overtuned for a supposed support spec. The others feel undertuned. Deadeye and spellbreaker feel like PvP and WvW specs, which has upset a lot of people in my guilds because they know they can't play with their shiny new weapons in end game content and be viable...plus poor Engineers, Anet - they've now been playing the same broken class for 5 years, Holosmith NEEDS a buff above all the other specs. The maps are really awesome and fun to explore, the lack of so many waypoints makes mounts actually immensely useful - but mounts are so fun anyways I don't think I'll touch waypoints ever again! That being said, their masteries are all copy/pastes of one another, meaning they don't feel like I am ever making progress or achieving anything when I unlock them. My only incentive there is to watch my mastery number go up so I can keep up with my friends. The expansion could have benefit from including one larger scale meta than the ones we got, which, at current, most players don't even know they exist. Bounties are the only replayable content I can think of, and I'm not wont to repeat them over and over for the comparatively poor reward they give. For a "full content" expansion, I feel like I have exhausted the meaningful content in less than a week. You can't expect me to be happy doing collections for skins I don't want. If I had to rate Path of Fire; 6/10.