Lucinellia.9247

Ahh, I see! What would make sense would be having an "emergency" Shadestep share around the Specter of, say, 240 to 360 radius and then also the share around the tether target of 360 to 480 radius. Maximum number of targets should remain 5 between those two sources with sub group priority. That's been something that has been consistently suggested and provided as feedback, but whether or not this much needed QoL change ever sees the light of day is another matter entirely!

Closer to almost a year and a half, and that still necessitates using Blinding Powder with Panaku's Ambition or running Relic of the Zephyrite and pre-planning elite skills. Which is a pretty tall ask when considered against Protection access on other healers. To then add the ally targeting and low boon radius stipulations is quite mean. Throwing in reduced Protection output on non-targeted allies is just unhinged. I think you are quite correct though that the encounter design team is off doing its own thing. The situation with healers and boon support is generally pretty okay in the majority of instanced PvE content (Heal Specter design stupidity not being considered) but the encounter design team then makes that balance look terrible and the release cadence and quantity further worsens the situation. I really hope that Anet doesn't trying and Frankestein Heal Deadeye into being a thing... I don't think they've got Specter sufficiently sorted!

Specter already has this advantage with the tether and it is one of the reasons that it is so strong on fights like Dhuum (if kite g2) and HT CM as a healer. We can be performing the mechanics while giving Alacrity to the group. Add in mobility and low damage output (Dhuum) and high Protection uptime from Quickness DPS (meta HT CM composition) and heal Specter drops from being something horribly challenging to a nice fun little jaunt in terms of difficulty on these specific fights. I am not convinced it is a good idea to lengthen this further with the idea of giving an individual continued support while they are away from the group. This leaves 3/5ths of the party not receiving Shadestep boons and a reduced boon application on non-selected allies is one of the major gripes in PvE for ally targeted Shadowsquall, Endless Night and especially Shadow Sap. From a PvE perspective, I think this might have been desired at one point and I personally think it is a good design for Thief given the dynamic adjustment to spending Initiative that comes from support and the necessity for a fast-paced rotation. But, after needing to switch to Heal Chrono for my ToF CM progression (a fight that is just so miserable I am barely logging into Guild Wars 2 outside of scheduled statics now) the availability of healing and boons and utility on options like Scourge, Chronomancer and Druid convinces me that Arenanet either won't extend the philosophy that they tried to implement with heal Specter or simply don't care and are expecting people to have "PvE classes" for doing challenging content. And if the idea is that I'll just happily hop off my main of more than 10,000 hours then I may as well happily hop off to a game that has a better UI, more PvE content and a sensible system for healing. Yes! This is a basic MMO requirement for the style of healing that Arenanet wishes to implement with ally targeting. I still think that ally targeting is a mistake, but this UI element being entirely missing (or a focus target like in FFXIV also being absent) does show how badly things have been stapled onto the game without a care for usability. I think this is really key to things. I don't think Arenanet tests encounters or balance sufficiently to be aware of the impacts it will have on profession viability and how enjoyable something is to play. And, if they are going for the idea of there being PvE classes, or even the expectation that people should have a stable of different characters, there isn't much need to worry about this. That is how they want the game to be and it is their game to make that decision with. There is no way that ToF LCM / Embodiment of Sin was cleared by Arenanet without some beautiful little god mode commands which means they can't see how their design forces players towards certain types of DPS (condition Virtuoso) and why some utility becomes seen as essential for improving kill rates on the fight (two way portals - where have we seen that before in difficult endgame PvE?). Similarly, I find it really hard to believe that someone could design beta EoD heal Specter, playtest it to a reasonable degree, and then decide it was ready and fine for release. Even the current state of the build isn't that ready for release in my opinion!

I feel that design and balance are quite closely intertwined and it often seems that with many of the encounters we are getting, there should have been closer collaboration between these teams. Take Silent Surf CM as a good example of how there are difficulties with maintaining boons faced by some specs and not others. That wouldn't be a problem with balance that allowed for more lenient boon radius. The same goes for HT CM and ToF CM. Mechanics that are best dealt with (and where best is considerably beyond other options) by very specific utility only present on a few options should be getting a sideeye unless there are plans to make that utility much more widespread. Alternatively, the fight shouldn't be designed to emphasise this limited utility. Separately, I'm still quite stunned that Anet have the fight distribution they do in SotO. We've had two normals and a CM that are redundantly easy and then effectively three different challenges (CM, LCM, Embodiment of Sin) that are incredibly demanding. It's not good for keeping players invested.

Oh, yes, there will definitely be differences in performance. I'm not arguing against that, and in other MMOs that's nullified to a degree by having both more encounters (where differences can shine through) in a content release and gear progression. Clearly GW2 doesn't have either. However having a "you must be this height utility rich to ride" barrier results in exclusion even before other factors come into play and that's pretty infuriating unless you are happy alt hopping (or main Revenant).

I don't want easier endgame content*, but I'm also quite far past being happy with gradual power creep and balance decisions maybe making something more viable (or neutering it entirely as an option). Which is why I'm making peace with the time I've spent in Guild Wars 2 and looking elsewhere. That's fine, it's natural. I don't think it is good for the game or sustainable but that's what Anet wants. I do disagree vehemently with the notion that making more professions able to compete within the design space of challenging fights wouldn't make much of a difference. We'd see more options for the Quickness slot if other Quickness options had stronger boon spread and radius, we'd see more options for the heal alacrity slot if down state control, Sand Swell-like utility, and Portal was available on more professions. DPS is definitely trickier though, which is why Virtuoso is such an elephant in the room. Ironically, we've been here before with balance back when Quickness and Alacrity were sparse and GotL and Banners forced compositions. Opening these up (or removing them) was good for composition flexibility. The same with Stability - KO CM used to be entirely off limits for a number of healers but the addition of Stability more broadly really helped with that. Following both HT CM and ToF CM it's clear that we're seeing something similar with portal and movement abilities. Anet could choose to open these options up, should they wish to not design fights that require them. I don't think they will personally because those utilities require much more than just slapping an extra boon on a skill. *Don't want easier endgame content in the sense of not having something like LCM. I do want easier endgame content in the sense of an expansion not just having trivially easy or brutally hard content and nothing between.

Arenanet seem to be quite clear that if you want to be doing absolute endgame PvE, then you shouldn't hold out any hope of doing this on a main character and should have "meta" alts -cVirt (portal, DPS uptime, utility), qHerald (boon radius), heal Druid (specific utility), heal Scourge (downstate control, utility) and heal Chrono (portal, utility) in the case of ToF CM - if you want to be doing content that isn't trivial like CO CM. I've personally been holding out hope that Arenanet would start designing challenging fights that didn't become about switching to certain professions, but this has been necessitated for years now and eventually you've just got to accept that what you might want as a player isn't compatible with what the developers want.

Meanwhile, Embodiment of Sin doesn't have any clear as far as I know. HT CM was being cleared with the title originally associated with the fight, this isn't. Whether or not that is considered healthy for the game is a matter up for debate, but I'm going to hazard that it isn't. SotO instanced PvE content has been terrible for the "midcore" and the base version of ToF CM should be adjusted for that.

Yes, I think we may very well have to wait for a new weapon for sufficient improvements but, honestly, I am trying out other games currently and enjoying FFXIV where it seems like healers are planned rather than stapled together from mush. But speaking of that mush, we do have really pretty good mush. Certainly more than Druid does in terms of traits from other trait lines. Trickery is excellent for some core boon coverage. Shadow Arts could be good, but Anet really need to make Stealth applied to allies not be so punishing on DPS rotations so Specter likely needs a way to not apply Revealed (or to have their Stealth function differently via Panaku's Ambition). These issues have long been noted, but Arenanet don't want to listen. In six months it will have been three years since I made my beta feedback post highlighting how bad ally targeting is. In that time, we've seen some improvements but for as long as Arenanet want to keep us hindered by ally targeting that should be the most we have to worry about. We shouldn't be further punished by having reduced boon and barrier efficacy on Scepter skills beyond the targeted ally. We shouldn't be dealing with 240 / 360 boon radius while we depend on ally-centred boons (please don't look at the Herald over there vibing with 600 radius or that Scourge doing sufficient core boons with four skills). Ally Shadowsquall and ally Shadow Sap still shouldn't miss and become ineffective by travelling through too many friendly targets. The healing and sustain in Shadow Shroud still shouldn't be so pitiful. We shouldn't need to run Blinding Powder or Relic of the Zephyrite to sufficiently cover Protection. The best performing healers do not have these stipulations but also have a wealth of utility and down state control we can't compete with. It is a miserable place to be in. I try to be positive, but I am burnt out from the content with SotO and the uncaring approach to PvE balance. I think Arenanet really struggle with listening to the community and also other people working on the game too. I would love to know what sort of corporate culture leads to a situation where you've got Scourge, Chronomancer and Druid absolutely stuffed with utility and Specter limping along while being needlessly penalised for having a worse targeting system. It would be so interesting to see what sort of office culture leads to a fight like ToF CM releasing as it is without someone going "hey, wait, do you think that these mechanics might really favour X, Y and Z? Are you sure we want this for 50% of our challenging content this expac?". Or, maybe it is intentional. Maybe the idea is to get us switching to other characters so we buy slots and bags and templates. Who knows. Either way, the messaging from Arenanet recently in terms of the PvE content they are putting out and their lacklustre balance of heal Specter after two and a half years means I am not particularly enamoured with spending another 12,000 hours in the game hoping that this time, maybe this time they've finally sussed things out. PS no you can't have my gold.

The cVirt and general imbalance issues are getting really quite severe and they become even more apparent on fights like this. In Strikes, Virtuoso is now seeing more play than all combined Elementalist, Thief and Warrior specs and that isn't really healthy unless it is Anet's intent for people not to main things and instead treat the game a bit more like a MOBA.

Removing the 50% effectiveness penalty on non-targeted allies that receive Scepter skills effects is really low hanging fruit but would do an awful lot to help us out, both in terms of maintaining Protection uptime but also having slightly more sustain too. As we've seen with Temple of Febe CM (which I feel is overtuned given Embodiment of Sin and LCM*), Specter can't compete at all with Druid or Scourge. This isn't just because of sustain output - we do this pretty well - but also in ease of execution and utility that these professions have access to. Scourge has Sand Swell and also amazing downstate control while doing boons incredibly easily. Druid has damage reduction with Frost Aura, lots of relevant utility in the form of immobilisation but also Guard, Search and Rescue and downstate control with Glyph of Stars. While it wouldn't solve all of our woes, and Thief PvE utility really needs reconsidered, removing the effectiveness penalty on Scepter skills would be fantastic. *"Fun" fact - with the introduction of ToF CM, which yet again heavily favours Virtuoso, in Strikes Virtuoso sees more play than the total of all Elementalist, Thief and Warrior roles! That's Arenanet balance! 😄

Current title is pretty much unobtainable anyway so Original Sin will likely be based on the rebalanced version, leaving the mega hard difficulty title for that.

What's even better is that this isn't the "true" CM. There is still defeating the encounter with all empowerment buffs for the title, much like Gazed into the Void on Xunlai Jade Junkyard.

/dev_console @target_kill

It is also a fight that, due to movement and adds and the lethality of mechanics, condition Virtuoso has the most complete toolset. It is so similar to KO CM how ranged cleave with a personal safety net just makes condi Virtuoso the go to choice. The community wouldn't be playing condition Virtuoso to the extent that it is without it offering a plethora of advantages.