saerni.2584

The only issue I've seen is Infiltrators Strike not triggering both Shadow Savior and Teaversing Darkness. Wells certainly do trigger all the heals. The no valid path issue is true for all teleports, this also limits the heals on stairs on walls in WvW.

Also use Quick Pockets. The extra Initiative from going into shroud or exiting shroud is invaluable. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pa0AsirlFwQYHMK2IO2WexLA-zRJYmKtMchkTI0VCEZBI8JAA-e

I would suspect you are losing about 10% damage from being in Exotics. Then, you are losing a lot from your choice of Runes and Sigils. You end up with only 60% torment duration so you are losing 40% of your potential torment damage that way. You are using the Rage sigil, which isn't much of a DPS add. The stacking sigil also wouldn't be recommended for a build because even if you can stack all that up you won't get any dps add from it unless you can swap off that weapon set and use 2 other sigil types. Specter uses "weapon swap" a lot. That's because the shroud counts as a weapon swap for sigils. So the Snowcrows build gets you to 100% poison and torment duration and then uses an on swap sigil (Doom) for more poison and the on crit torment sigil for the best possible condi application. I'd suggest focusing on something like Nightmare runes as an alternative (it won't be 100% torment duration but you will be better than 60%) and then swapping out sigils. Consider a mix where you drop the on crit torment sigil in the Snowcrows build for a torment duration sigil. That might be a better DPS add in a Nightmare based set up.

Generally you'd run some kind of Might generation DPS paired with other kinds of DPS and some kind of general boon generator. The heals are distributed in a five man group on a priority so it's pretty heavy but can spread out if the Heal Specter isn't in a group. To be honest it's a mix because some content might want a dedicated healer in a group and others would suffice with a general healer. I wouldn't take RfI on heal specter. You get enough from Quick Pockets and Siphon to rotate between shroud and weapon skills with utilities. RfI is redundant but could help you if you are struggling with the rotation. You mentioned group stealth but that would be more relevant in wvw. This is probably more relevant for PvE. In wvw it would be supplemental heals for a less organized group that isn't running a full composition (for example with Scrappers for Super Speed, Stealth, cleanse, and heal built into one easy to use package), or a Commander support with bonus distributed AoE heals in addition to a Scrapper for ensuring the Commander stays alive.

Consume Shadows (at max stacks) converts 50% of your remaining shadow force to healing. That healing is converted to barrier once the recipient is at 100% HP. So a person missing 5k health and receiving a 10k heal from Consume Shadows will be healed for 5k and get 5k barrier. As mentioned, Specter can heal AoE through Consume Shadows and Traversing Darkness. There are SA traits that also can help provide sustain and that synergize with Specter gaining Barrier on entering Stealth (for example if Siphon gives Barrier and also applies Stealth, the Specter gets a double dose of Barrier). So while the Stealth Attack on Scepter is a single target heal the bulk of the Specter's healing ability is actually in AoE form.

I've had limited chance to test for WvW. There are a number of different support Specters with related flavors, so I'm adjusting both my own gameplay and the builds as I go. Basically, there is a strong incentive to use Sc/P to stay on tag and apply heals there. There are other permutations involving Sword that have higher burst heal but may be a bit more clunky to use. Using SA and TD for teleport based heals is actually quite strong, you can easily put out AoE healing for a total of 10k (2k x5) healed per teleport. I have yet to test with an organized group but evidence from smaller scale seems promising in terms of keeping a group healthy and free to DPS. Rot Wallow is also a great mechanic for tagging enemies for bags. In this sense the specter is great in wvw because you can focus on support and not be disadvantaged in rewards as much as you might be.

Was it mostly due to Vindicator? There was a Monk rune build I fought during beta 2 that was unkillable 1v1. As in, it could be damaged. But its health regenerated super fast. I saw it go even 1v3 versus decent builds and it actually didn't die to that either. I need to bring Specter into WvW before I comment on that in detail. But that elite EoD spec may also prove...difficult to deal with in a similar fashion in XvX.

I checked the Path of Fire release notes and there wasn't anything about runes or sigils. But you are correct the new stat types were included this time around.

And to be clear it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't remember to update the legendary rune/sigil selection tables or put runes on a WvW vendor. So I'm still hoping there is something....

Yikes...well I have a few more hours before I can play. Was hoping to get some info on runes...not encouraging to hear there might not be any.

Getting reports that there are no new selections available on legendary runes or sigils. Was this a mistake and are there new runes/sigils available in the expansion or not?

Could you clarify what exactly you think should replace Hidden Thief or how you'd nerf it? I don't personally think thief stealth running without SR is a problem. RS is a great option for anti-boons. And CiS is solid for 1vX survival (similar to using blinds from Smoke Screen in a sense) while providing a nice life steal. But that said I'm curious what you think about Hidden Thief exactly needs to be changed/how you'd implement it.

No, and people need to understand. Thief stealth durations are *not* significantly/unfairly increased by being able to gain stealth on Steal/Swipe/Mark/Siphon. The reasons you don't have a cooldown on the trait is because the cooldowns on Steal vs Swipe vs Mark vs Siphon are all quite different (and then there are the cooldown reduction traits or utilities). Changing/nerfing this trait (1) won't significantly reduce the stealth durations (it's a 3 second stealth application) and (2) make using Steal to initiate a stealth attack—a core gameplay component of thief—unreliable on any build/elite specialization that can lower it's cooldown. I've tried to explain what underlies complaints about SA repeatedly—namely the long durations of stealth. Shadow's Rejuvenation passively gives a thief initiative while in stealth. This means that a thief running SR will regenerate a lot of the initiative used to gain or maintain stealth. Without it, long stealth durations matter much less because either the thief will have initiative but less utilities (using those to gain stealth) or they will have utilities but much less initiative to maintain any stealth duration of significance. Shadow's Rejuvenation, not Hidden Thief, is the trait that needs to be adjusted. The bulk of these proposed changes are nerfing core utilities (not SA like some people are claiming lol). The only SA nerf is a reduction in SR's *heal* which is not primarily why thieves take the trait. SR could literally not heal at all and it would be worth taking for the passive initiative regeneration in stealth. I just want to reiterate as well that nerfing Hide in Shadows, an important cleanse for thief, and forcing any thief who wants to take it into SA just to get a decent cooldown on a burst cleanse, is not well thought out. There are plenty of heals on a 15-20 second cooldown. HiS at 30 seconds gets to stealth/cleanse, so the effects are mitigated by the cooldown time. If the concern is the duration of stealth with Concealing Restoration then that trait should be looked at. It isn't hard to just target the source of the thing you are trying to fix. This is another example of nerfing core utilities to mitigate the actually problematic trait interaction.

True, but until we get to that point it's hard to get enough people making complaints to get noticed. For now all we can say is that several of the changes missed the mark and that much depends on whatever the full balance team considers important.

It's sPvP...so I expect a bunch of people will just ignore this since it's not exactly a game mode known for high population. But really this seems like a "do something" effort that is a poor substitute for an actual balance pass with the full balance team. Like, balancing SA isn't hard when the biggest outlier is the same grandmaster trait for the last 9 years.

Why touch SR's health regen and not the initiative gain? Even an increase from 1 per 3 seconds to 1 per 5 would significantly alter the ability for long term stealth durations. The people complaining about stealth are all complaining about duration. The number of times they cite various stealth granting abilities is simple because they don't understand how thief works and think nerfing the SA duration or bonus stealth durations will prevent long duration stealth builds. Initiative regeneration is the only thing that is making long duration stealth (and multiple initiative skills post long duration stealth) possible. I don't know why targeting the most useful cleanse heal on thief for a 40 second base cooldown makes any sense (are thieves healing too much condi?). I get the idea to nerf a combo blast like Blinding Powder to avoid some stealth duration...but again look at Shadow's Rejuvenation (I get you can't change design at the PvP balance level but this just seems like you're jumping ahead of what needs to happen, real holistic balance). I somewhat get the PvP specific reasons for duration nerf to Smoke Screen. It's a big field and in PvP the nodes are important and similarly sized. I still think people can play around it but I'll reserve judgment on this until I see the feedback on the actual gameplay.... Most of this is a miss for me to be honest. Really hope the main balance team is willing to make an effort here.

There are hackers...but most of the time they are either subtle (slight move speed increase) or incredibly blatant (teleporting rapidly across the map, flying, etc). However, most players don't understand other profession's mechanics, or lag legitimately causes someone to disappear and reappear (although within a normal travel distance over time) so people complain regardless of the truth. You always have to ask them "what are you seeing that makes you think I'm hacking?" Otherwise ignore them (assuming you aren't in fact hacking lol).

I should note I'm talking about a group composition with multiple Specters. Unless Anet adjusts Specter one person alone won't provide the full stat spread. I also don't know how well this could work in WvW, as I'm designing this around PvE at the moment.

Ah I was treating it more from a permanent boon composition for PvE content perspective. The idea I'm working on has 100% boon duration (or close enough) to accommodate a rotation that has nearly 100% stability uptime, 25 might, etc (permanent all boons). For solo PvE or WvW I would tend to agree that you don't get enough self boons to justify the extra boon duration. This is all assuming of course that Anet hasn't increased AoE support boons on Specter in response to feedback after needing Endless Night. But for now I'd say boon duration matters more for organized groups where boons are more prevalent and the Specter is providing some (but not the full range) of boons.

Care to elaborate? Ritualistic Specter is looking decent for boon/support with supplementary torment for the group. Are you thinking of another role for Specter or another stat choice?

You just need something like Viper stats, Nightmare Runes, and take the trait Potent Poison in Deadly Arts. Basically you get 100% condi duration and lots of condi damage. You get up to 1800 some damage per venom stack. You get 6 stacks in PvE and multiply that by 5 (total of 30 stacks). So while each stack isn't that much you have so many stacks it adds up fast. I think you may be able to push 60k total but you usually want more balance so you can max out bleed and torment for max damage. But any proper condi build can get close enough that only a very obsessed min/max attitude would demand more than 57k.

On a proper build full share Spider Venom is about 57k damage.

I think Ritualist will be a solid choice. I think the basics behind Specter will be large vitality and decent condi/boon durations. Ritualist basically does that. There might be room for something else but that's the core synergy I'd build for.

Quickness is really nice (and possible in group comps) for this. But I still think you'd get more out of a venom in a group with sharing.

I'd say this is an example of poor time zone distribution and inevitable inertia. I think in matchups like these players log on and see their side has nothing in EBG and...go play elsewhere (PvE or whatever). It's actually counter productive for Mag, or any other server, to full cap EBG and then spawn camp because it results in fewer really fights as all they can do is kill disorganized pugs at spawn. Now, I will say that I was able to break out of their spawn camp this week. There were a few covering the side exits but it mostly was workable. Once I got to the rest of the map it was dead. Even when I saw people they just ran past on their way back to the spawn camps. So I did the only logical thing. I kept SMC contested for over an hour (literally no one tried to stop me). Another person did the same for their keep. And, naturally, our team finally started to make progress on taking our side of the map again. If anything is "a problem" with EBG it is how SMC helps to promote spawn camping in certain niche situations. It's a smaller map and the extra waypoint really helps encourage that kind of behavior when a death isn't such a big deal for the spawn campers. It's easy to contest SMC but not when 90% of average players can't make it out of spawn.