Specter Tether [F1] Remake Suggestion

[Cheeseman.1987]

Hi!

 

I can understand the thoughtprocess behind having a singletarget heal but it wont work in the current state with existing supports. Why pick a support that dont do good aoeheals or good aoecleanses?

 

My suggestion would be to make Tether target 5 people (the groupmembers mainly). It wont be overpowered but it would compete with other supports even if it doesnt got cleanses.

 

This change would make it viable (not the best) in all gamemodes and i would love to play something like that. If it is too broken then just tweak the numbers or if you are afraid of pvp imbalance dont target 5 people in that gamemode.

 

Best regards not a thiefmain

Edited October 23, 2021 by Cheeseman.1987

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

When the spec hasn't even been in a beta event and people are already suggesting reworks....

[Vidit.7108]

Maybe take a look at existing thief traits before suggesting a rework.

I agree a single target heal doesn't seem like a good fit for how the game works. That said they didn't completely prevent the Specter from aoe healing, they added roughly 6 lovely new shadow steps that thanks to a trait called Shadow Savior will all do some AOE healing. Will it be enough? I don't know.

As for your suggestion the whole conceit of the tether is that the single target healing and buffs will do insane numbers to make up for the selfishness, so it's not as easy as making it target 5 instead. Changes to that mean what was special about it goes away.

[Will.9785]

Tethering to a single target and having the beam give buffs to allies who stand in it is probably easier.  5 different beams going out is a lot of visual clutter.  But I agree, AOE support is the way to go.

[MatyrGustav.6210]

The healing potency is balanced to heal 1 Target. If anet implements that its tethered to 5 people, they will decrease the amount Healing for balancing purposes. 

 

I want anet to stick to their vision and make it work. Specter seems to have higher healing numbers but you just have to make it work by paying attention to who needs the big heals while everyone gets aoe small heals. 

 

its an interesting concept for gw2. i like it

[saerni.2584]

Please test things out and then give feedback and suggestions. 
 

If you still have issues after Tuesday then please suggest reworks. There will be several threads dedicated to just that.

[Overworld.9613]

On top of Shadow Savoir, Spector also has a AoE heal on shadowstep trait. 

2 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

Maybe take a look at existing thief traits before suggesting a rework.

I agree a single target heal doesn't seem like a good fit for how the game works. That said they didn't completely prevent the Specter from aoe healing, they added roughly 6 lovely new shadow steps that thanks to a trait called Shadow Savior will all do some AOE healing. Will it be enough? I don't know.

As for your suggestion the whole conceit of the tether is that the single target healing and buffs will do insane numbers to make up for the selfishness, so it's not as easy as making it target 5 instead. Changes to that mean what was special about it goes away.

People frame by framing the showcase found these details.

[Cheeseman.1987]

 The reasoning behind suggesting a rework before even trying it is because i know how the game works. It is a cool idea i cant deny that. Sadly it just wont work. The aoe heals present in the bottomline wont be enough even with the Shadow Arts trait. It wont be enough. I am 100% certain of that. For PvP? sure it will be enough.

 

The idea of healing around the tethered target was a good idea! 😄

 

If you design a class to be "support with a niche" you shouldnt feel forced to take the bottomline traits to even be somewhat viable. That is just not a fun concept. If the tether gets a rework you can take the other traits if you want to without feeling bad.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

6 minutes ago, Cheeseman.1987 said:

 The reasoning behind suggesting a rework before even trying it is because i know how the game works. It is a cool idea i cant deny that. Sadly it just wont work. The aoe heals present in the bottomline wont be enough even with the Shadow Arts trait. It wont be enough. I am 100% certain of that. For PvP? sure it will be enough.

 

The idea of healing around the tethered target was a good idea! 😄

 

If you design a class to be "support with a niche" you shouldnt feel forced to take the bottomline traits to even be somewhat viable. That is just not a fun concept. If the tether gets a rework you can take the other traits if you want to without feeling bad.

I think that's the whole point of the tradeoff though, you're not supposed to be able to get competitive support while taking DPS traits. Thief has a ton of DPS traits so if they didn't force us to choose the support traits in order to support, the whole thing would get silly very quickly. 

I hear what you're saying about it needing to be competitive, I agree with that. But I don't want it to be competitive support while also doing competitive damage, that's just asking for a nerf really. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[shrew.3059]

11 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

When the spec hasn't even been in a beta event and people are already suggesting reworks....

 

The one thing I’ve learned from GW2 Forums: everyone is a part-time game designer with extensive experience in balancing MMO classes.

[Cheeseman.1987]

3 minutes ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

I think that's the whole point of the tradeoff though, you're not supposed to be able to get competitive support while taking DPS traits. Thief has a ton of DPS traits so if they didn't force us to choose the support traits in order to support, the whole thing would get silly very quickly. 

I hear what you're saying about it needing to be competitive, I agree with that. But I don't want it to be competitive support while also doing competitive damage, that's just asking for a nerf really. 

Yeah of coarse. It shouldnt be huge damage with huge heals and the tradeoff needs to be there. At the moment though there is no trade off. With lets say full ministrel gear and monk runes you could do great single target healing and okay burst aoeheals. But what about when the burst is gone? All shadowsteps are on cooldown. You have no more shade energy and the party is dying.

 

At the moment i see all the red flags for "a cool idea that wont work in practice" 😞 

[Cheeseman.1987]

3 minutes ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

The one thing I’ve learned from GW2 Forums: everyone is a part-time game designer with extensive experience in balancing MMO classes.

Yes because alot of us actually play the game. ALOT. so we do understand what will be viable or not. Im not saying the spec is a bad idea. It is cool and i understand where they want it to shine. It will sadly not work. 😞 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

11 minutes ago, Cheeseman.1987 said:

Yeah of coarse. It shouldnt be huge damage with huge heals and the tradeoff needs to be there. At the moment though there is no trade off. With lets say full ministrel gear and monk runes you could do great single target healing and okay burst aoeheals. But what about when the burst is gone? All shadowsteps are on cooldown. You have no more shade energy and the party is dying.

 

At the moment i see all the red flags for "a cool idea that wont work in practice" 😞 

Bear in mind that when in shroud anyone standing in the tether will receive the same heals as the tethered target, and that there are shadowsteps on the scepter/pistol dual skill which would also trigger the healing and barrier on shadowstep traits in an AoE around the thief. There is also the question of whether rot wallow venom is affected by leeching venoms, if it is that's a lot of life steal on attack that the specter is giving the party. 

Yeah, it's not gonna be 100% the same, but it has a burst heal from traits, a silly number of small heals from shadowsteps, and also quite a bit of barrier application. Most of the time you only need one burst heal if the party isn't napping in red circles, and a guardian that used to run firebrand will still probably bring aegis, so the combination of things may still be enough to make it a viable alternative to FB/alacrev. And that's really all I want, a viable alternative that lets me play my main in PvE endgame content. 

Suffice to say I'm willing to wait and see. The spec is already looking a lot better than I feared it might, so I'm willing to try it first before picking it apart. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[shrew.3059]

18 minutes ago, Cheeseman.1987 said:

Yes because alot of us actually play the game. ALOT. so we do understand what will be viable or not. Im not saying the spec is a bad idea. It is cool and i understand where they want it to shine. It will sadly not work. 😞 

 

I think feedback and sharing experiences is important, so I don’t want to discourage that. I do think that, as a community, we need to have a lot more humility.

Playing a game a lot does not necessarily grant the skills and perspective required for game design. There is a reason game designers spend a lot of time sharing high level, theoretical insights on their craft at events such a GDC, rather than just playing more games. While playing and craft inform each other, there is a fundamental difference between them. Consider the relationship between eating and cooking; it is not the case that the people who eat the most are the best chefs, you need some additional thoughtfulness to turn that eating experience into cooking mastery.

Let’s at least wait to see how the profession plays before trying to “fix” it, and let’s have some humility in our approach: can you build a better bus just because you take one to and from work every day?

Note: there are some threads listing mechanics we should test during the beta and these are very helpful. Rather than jump to the modification phase, we should be gathering information to inform our suggestions. Being methodical and systematic will be far more helpful to the devs than trying to tell them you are better at their jobs than they are (even if that may be true).

Edited October 24, 2021 by shrew.3059

[Cheeseman.1987]

10 minutes ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

I think feedback and sharing experiences is important, so I don’t want to discourage that. I do think that, as a community, we need to have a lot more humility.

Playing a game a lot does not necessarily grant the skills and perspective required for game design. There is a reason game designers spend a lot of time sharing high level, theoretical insights on their craft at events such a GDC, rather than just playing more games. While playing and craft inform each other, there is a fundamental difference between them. Consider the relationship between eating and cooking; it is not the case that the people who eat the most are the best chefs, you need some additional thoughtfulness to turn that eating experience into cooking mastery.

Let’s at least wait to see how the profession plays before trying to “fix” it, and let’s have some humility in our approach: can you build a better bus just because you take one to and from work every day?

Note: there are some threads listing mechanics we should test during the beta and these are very helpful. Rather than jump to the modification phase, we should be gathering information to inform our suggestions. Being methodical and systematic will be far more helpful to the devs than trying to tell them you are better at their jobs than they are (even if that may be true).

I agree fully. The biggest point of this thread is to raise some eyebrows and make people aware of the potential problem. To make people really really try it out and post what they found out before the expansion arrives.

 

My biggest hope is that people come back after beta event and says "Dude! You were so out of the blue! The spec is fantastic and completely ready for launch!" That would be the dream. 

 

I am mainly in WvW and i want more classes to be viable in the meta. Not replace something but to be a viable option. 

[shrew.3059]

5 minutes ago, Cheeseman.1987 said:

I agree fully. The biggest point of this thread is to raise some eyebrows and make people aware of the potential problem. To make people really really try it out and post what they found out before the expansion arrives.

 

My biggest hope is that people come back after beta event and says "Dude! You were so out of the blue! The spec is fantastic and completely ready for launch!" That would be the dream. 

 

I am mainly in WvW and i want more classes to be viable in the meta. Not replace something but to be a viable option. 

 

Maybe my point is pedantic, and we’re both heading in the same direction, but I suppose my issue is that we stand a better chance of getting what we want if we’re systematic about it. Devs are building a complex system, and so if we’re going to help them, we need to first gather data about how our part of the system works before we start tinkering with the whole thing.

Hopefully your post encourages people to poke and prod the spec in ways that will contribute to making it better.

[Crab Fear.1624]

1 hour ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

The one thing I’ve learned from GW2 Forums: everyone is a part-time game designer with extensive experience in balancing MMO classes.

Or....or...people have played the game and are extremely familiar with class and mechanics and interaction. They choose to make educated guesses based on experience instead of assertions based on dreams.

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Cheeseman.1987 said:

Yes because alot of us actually play the game. ALOT. so we do understand what will be viable or not. Im not saying the spec is a bad idea. It is cool and i understand where they want it to shine. It will sadly not work. 😞 

You also use english language a lot and yet you don't seem to know "ALOT" is not an actual word. Just because you do something "A LOT", doesn't mean you have understanding of it, let alone are good at it.

Edited October 24, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Cheeseman.1987]

6 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You also use english language A LOT and yet you don't seem to know "ALOT" is not a word.

Yes and no one ever told me so how could i know? Googled it and it is often misspelled apparently. Well, now i know 😛 thank you.

[Greyforce.7956]

I would just hope for a trait that allowed us to switch tether from strong single target healing to weaker AoE healing in 240-300 range around the target.  The last seeming more in line with requirements for group play.

 

[Sobx.1758]

12 minutes ago, Cheeseman.1987 said:

Yes and no one ever told me so how could i know? Googled it and it is often misspelled apparently. Well, now i know 😛 thank you.

And that's the point. No problem 😉 

[Asum.4960]

A lot will depend on playtesting, but just from what we've seen so far, Specter does actually look like a competent DPS as well as Support without even considering the insane 150% HP Shroud with low drain and extra single target tether support mechanic. 

 

Those are extra on top of group Quickness, Alacrity, Heals, Barrier, ludicrous mobility, skipping potential and what looks like very promising DPS Traits and skills. 

 

Idk why people just look at the single target tether and call Specter trash based on that, when it looks strong even if it didn't have that mechanic at all.

Edited October 24, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Meridian.9103]

3 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Bear in mind that when in shroud anyone standing in the tether will receive the same heals as the tethered target,

Are you really sure that this is the case? Because that would be news to me. AFAIK only the scepter beam works this way.

[BobbyT.7192]

If the tether between you and your ally target could provide the same benefits to other allies in the Tether, then that would be alright. It would just require more positional insight from the thief, which is not a bad thing if the skill floor is raised a bit.

[Meridian.9103]

42 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You also use english language a lot and yet you don't seem to know "ALOT" is not an actual word. Just because you do something "A LOT", doesn't mean you have understanding of it, let alone are good at it.

But it also doesn't mean that everything he says or suggests is wrong, so... why not discuss the actuall matter instead discussing if someone may or may not be qualified to make a suggestion?