New Thief Elite - The Specter

[Mik.3401]

I like the spec concept and I’m most excited for it out all specs released so far. 
 

I just hope this does not happen in PvP:

D/P Specter granting itself permanent stealth and bleeding opponents whilst maintaining full health due to perma barrier 😆

[Dadnir.5038]

14 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

I like the spec concept and I’m most excited for it out all specs released so far. 
 

I just hope this does not happen in PvP:

D/P Specter granting itself permanent stealth and bleeding opponents whilst maintaining full health due to perma barrier 😆

I wouldn't expect a traditional "shroud" if I were you, more likely it's a shroud similar to harbinger shroud with a different penalty.

Maybe the specter is revealed every seconds while in shroud. It would be an interesting  thematic "debuff" to manage especially if entering the shroud is only available while in stealth. You'd have to chose if you want to maximize your revealed uptime, seldom entering stealth and giving up on the stealth attack or if you want to retain the ability to stealth yourself as much as possible and continue to use stealth attack by flash-shrouding.

So chosing between a gameplay that potentially maximize the passive effects tied to revealed or the basic thief with an extra "stealth attack" at hand.

NB.: I'm assuming that revealed is stackable in duration here, thought. Could be fixed simply by being applied an increasingly longer revealed debuff

 

[Gomes.5643]

Well at least now the shadow arts from the old assassin are finally here. Currently the spec looks really blank buts that mostly because we dont know how it works.

 

Actually i liked the idea from woodenpotatoes video that the Spectre (I actually quite like the name .... even if it is not really part of canthan worldbuilding .....) maybe doing big things with stealth. Like for example removing their ability to go actually invisible but therefore going into this shadowform (why is it called shroud? Come on Anet thats a low hanging fruit.....) or at least charging the ressource for it ..... which then allows for powerful buffs and debuffs (which the original shadow arts were all about) when activated. So in short - the shadow form sounds promissing .... but it would be a waste ifits just like a normal schroud (meaning charge it with dmg done and it gives 5 random skills )...... so lets hope.....

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

9 hours ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

I'm assuming they're adjusting stealth for this spec...because I want to believe they're smart enough to realize stealth can and will cause problems otherwise

Stealth generally needs an a tweak but I don't think it's as bad as people make out.

Stealth in itself isn't a problem even if you could perma-stealth.

The main problem is that it breaks targeting so even if somebody only stealth for a second you have to mess about trying to target them again and when your in a team fight that gets even more annoying each time they do it. They should let you keep your target lock to avoid this.

The other issues is more the stealth-spike-stealth spammers and that just needs Revealed to last longer.  Revealed Training and Flickering Shadows traits would need to be balanced too but it would still make them more viable.

 

These days it seams it's more the Rangers who are annoying with stealth then anything anyway.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, BobbyT.7192 said:

Agree, theres nothing l've seen with the sceptre that that makes me think it had to be there. Your literally smacking mobs in the head with it in the trailer. Magic based axe or mace would make more sense hear. Sceptre is just lame.

I've been wondering about that myself. It's possible that there's ranged stuff that hasn't really appeared in the video, but if it is what it looks like, I do wonder if axe or mace could have done the job. Axe in particular could have made Astralaria available, for instance.

[Jumpel.3972]

10 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

f. It's possible that there's ranged stuff that hasn't really appeared in the video

We can see some purple orbe launch when the thief strike with the mace sceptre

[draxynnic.3719]

2 minutes ago, Jumpel.3972 said:

We can see some purple orbe launch when the thief strike with the mace sceptre

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Could just be a fancy effect of energy discharging through the target, but could be an indication that it's actually ranged. However, the video certainly does make it look like a melee weapon. We'll find out in a few days.

[BobbyT.7192]

23 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I've been wondering about that myself. It's possible that there's ranged stuff that hasn't really appeared in the video, but if it is what it looks like, I do wonder if axe or mace could have done the job. Axe in particular could have made Astralaria available, for instance.

I mean, they made a great sword fire a lazer beam. I'm sure an axe shooting shadow bolts is not a stretch.

Plus the sceptre from the trailer looks like a 4 sided axe anyways

Edited October 20, 2021 by BobbyT.7192

[draxynnic.3719]

Eh, if it actually does shoot shadow bolts than scepter is fully justified. From what we saw in the teaser, though, it could just be "magical energy dissipates on impact" rather than shadow bolts.

 

Again, we'll see in the GuildChat.

[TwiceDead.1963]

So now we're gonna have stealth, mobility AND party-utility?
I thought we were only allowed our stealth and mobility because we didn't have utility, damage and party-support. Or rather we were denied all those things because of the former.

Ah well, I'll embrace the garbagefest this is going to bring to various modes while it lasts before we get gobsmacked with the nerf-hammer. Stealth-support HO!

[Dadnir.5038]

2 minutes ago, TwiceDead.1963 said:

So now we're gonna have stealth, mobility AND party-utility?
I thought we were only allowed our stealth and mobility because we didn't have utility, damage and party-support. Or rather we were denied all those things because of the former.

Ah well, I'll embrace the garbagefest this is going to bring to various modes while it lasts before we get gobsmacked with the nerf-hammer. Stealth-support HO!

I don't know what game you play but the thief have already plenty enough party support. From boons (might, fury, swiftness...) to more exotic things like portal abilities, group stealth or reflect (without forgeting some healing on top of that).

Tools not being used competitively don't mean that a profession don't own them, it only mean that there is a factor that prevent you from being effective while using them.

So in short thief have never been denied party support, thief just don't have a build that's truly effective as a party support.

[TwiceDead.1963]

1 minute ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I don't know what game you play but the thief have already plenty enough party support. From boons (might, fury, swiftness...) to more exotic things like portal abilities, group stealth or reflect (without forgeting some healing on top of that).

Tools not being used competitively don't mean that a profession don't own them, it only mean that there is a factor that prevent you from being effective while using them.

So in short thief have never been denied party support, thief just don't have a build that's truly effective as a party support.

Let me rephrase to soothe your worried little mind: "Effective Party Support", then. Anybody with two eyes could see why this is a bad idea from a WvW/PvP perspective UNLESS, they remove stealth.

Edited October 20, 2021 by TwiceDead.1963

[Jumpel.3972]

16 minutes ago, TwiceDead.1963 said:

So now we're gonna have stealth, mobility AND party-utility?

Some of us belive the phrase "All thieves know the advantages of hiding in the shadows, but Specterd know how to wield them" in the trailer mean no acces to Stealth (or at least less acces)

[Mik.3401]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I wouldn't expect a traditional "shroud" if I were you, more likely it's a shroud similar to harbinger shroud with a different penalty.

Maybe the specter is revealed every seconds while in shroud. It would be an interesting  thematic "debuff" to manage especially if entering the shroud is only available while in stealth. You'd have to chose if you want to maximize your revealed uptime, seldom entering stealth and giving up on the stealth attack or if you want to retain the ability to stealth yourself as much as possible and continue to use stealth attack by flash-shrouding.

So chosing between a gameplay that potentially maximize the passive effects tied to revealed or the basic thief with an extra "stealth attack" at hand.

NB.: I'm assuming that revealed is stackable in duration here, thought. Could be fixed simply by being applied an increasingly longer revealed debuff

 

It is a nice vision you have , I just noted I hope the worst scenario does not happen. And if other broken builds happened then this might as well in worst case

[Androx.8572]

Deadeye for the win so far

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

23 hours ago, montecristo.1324 said:

 

"De specter"

here you go

Imagine if specter gets a reveal skill, they could call it specter detector

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, TwiceDead.1963 said:

Let me rephrase to soothe your worried little mind: "Effective Party Support", then. Anybody with two eyes could see why this is a bad idea from a WvW/PvP perspective UNLESS, they remove stealth.

For small scale, maybe. For large scale, adding barrier to the thief kit isn't enough to make it competitive (in case of the scourge, the barrier compliment a kit that's already efficient in ZvZ, for thief you'd need to have both more range aoe potential and boon hate potential, which is very unlikely).

[Spiral.3724]

I hope they don't call that skill Shadow Shroud -- shroud is for necros. Use a thesaurus, ANet!

[draxynnic.3719]

1 minute ago, Spiral.3724 said:

I hope they don't call that skill Shadow Shroud -- shroud is for necros. Use a thesaurus, ANet!

Technically speaking, assassins had it first.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

On 10/19/2021 at 2:31 PM, Jijimuge.4675 said:

This is the 3rd elite spec to seemingly reference Mass Effect - Reaper, Harbinger and now Specter 🙂

You can add Catalyst to that as well

[AikijinX.6258]

I’ve said this before in like a previous thread but I was hoping we’d have something along the lines of a shadow form stealth replacement. If they did get rid of stealth then the shadow form better be strong enough to compensate for the loss of a class identity. Because if it just gives us barrier and not like intermittent evasion frame, invuln frame or protection or something.. maybe even a new boon or skill entirely that’s integrated into the game then that’ll be kind of a weak trade off, (assuming we lose stealth access) which kind of sounds a bit more complicated to pull off than just that. Unless we are just perma revealed, which would pair well with deadly arts (revealed training +200 power)power trait and improvisation… or Shadow Arts Trait (flickering shadows where you take Reduced strike damage while revealed by 33%) I don’t know I’m just speaking into air right now, but I can’t wait to see the trade offs.. if any. 
 

im STILL also hoping for some type of faster initiative generation trait, skill, anything to help with Thief in general or make preparedness baseline.

[eduminator.7845]

Just one word:

DISAPPOINTING

[Geoff Fey.1035]

1 hour ago, eduminator.7845 said:

Just one word:

DISAPPOINTING

Almost all of the trailers have been disappointing as they tell  and show almost nothing whatsoever. The trailers from HoT I don't believe even had a voice-over and yet they showed more of the spec. Trailers from PoF were almost an entire class breakdown (in addition to having an ANet class breakdown follow-up trailer).

And yet the gameplay of each one...

• Building them like current specs: bad experience.
• Building them in alternate specs: good experience.

ANet mentioned they wanted to break the mould of GW2 (mostly Berserker or Viper for literally everything) and they're coming pretty close to that with these new specs. I've seen videos showing tanky builds for Willbender, Bladesworn, Catalyst, and Virtuoso and they look to play pretty dang well. It's possible we'll see a return to HoT difficulties--and we should!

[aymnad.9023]

I had no expectations for thief. As soon as I heard shroud and then tether / barrier I got really interested. It can be really interesting to play in PvP (and sounds a bit scary), maybe I will give it a try in PvE. Now I will be waiting for the thief part of the stream 🙂 

Edited October 20, 2021 by aymnad.9023

[RabbitUp.8294]

It seems that it will be a quickness sharing spec. On one hand, quickness and barrier would make it a very good support for raids and fractals, on the other hand, I hope there's something more interesting there, instead of shuffling the same 2-3 support related boons/buffs around.