I was excited for scepter as it wasn't a two handed weapon again, and not what everyone expected. I also love the color scheme as I've been running a purple Asuran Thief for so long, I now I have a weapon and shroud to match.
I primarily play in action cam so it was a little disappointing with the bugged attacks although I found mashing 3 with scepter/pistol would actually get the beam off despite saying I had no target.
My few critiques:
I like the wells and the shadowstep with it, even if it occasionally put me in a terrible position (my fault) however, the range is shorter than the most other wells (Necro and Chrono); I think with the scepters range of 900 and the majority of the other wells are 900 (Scrapper wells are an exception), if I'm standing within my range I could still be over 600 away from teammates and unable to rescue with the heal.
I also felt the cast times seemed to be slow, maybe at most 1/4sec too slow at most, while the elite skill felt fine.
Like other people mentioned a low damage-only well feels out of place and wish it had something more added to it; I wouldn't be against one that blocked projectiles or had blindness.
I loved the healing well move, and was disappointed the animation wasn't used on some of the others, while the three utility wells used the same less cooler animation.
I like having a shroud but it felt slow and ineffective. I feel like this would have been a great time to give thieves the Unrelenting Assault animation as I think when Rev first came out a lot of thieves were a bit jelly of the move; when I pictured a shadow magic shrouds skillset I thought of that and not slow hits with less character in its moves --using the scepter is flashy and going into shroud should feel flashy and 'scarier'. I also would like some more damage plz.
I also wish I didn't feel pigeon-holed into running Trickery and Deadly Arts to make the most of the initiative addition and condition boosts, or at least swap Leeching Venoms from Shadow Arts with Even the Odd from Deadly Arts, that way if I go all in on conditions and not stealth I can still offer more support to my teammates (and healing for me). --Although I admit I rarely use Shadow Arts and didn't find much to sway me into running it for Specter except for Shadow Savior or Leeching Venoms.