Specter Feedback Thread

[KinkyPotato.4219]

Agree with a lot of people's voiced concerns about the weight and impact of Shadow Shroud. If it is truly being forced and advertised as a single target support, then the Tether mechanic of Shadow Shroud should have a significantly lower cooldown while in Shadow Shroud. That way, we can actively support whoever we choose since our tradeoff already is not being an AoE support while in Shadow Shroud. We shouldn't also be hampered by a ~7 second on Steal to swap our tether target. It feels disjointed and incoherent, especially given that Steal traits already do not interact with Ally Siphoning. Additionally, I'd like to see more interactions with allies when we Siphon on them. Having our ally steal be yet another barrier when our entire specialization and weapon focuses on barriers is a let down. Can we add something like this?

Siphon - Ally target: Grant your target barrier and a boon based on the target's shadow . If you are in shroud, additionally transfer your tether to the target and reduce the cooldown of Siphon to 1 second.

Guardian ally target: Grant aegis (3s) to your target.

Revenant ally target: Grant resistance (2s)  to your target.

Warrior ally target: Grant 3 might (5s) to your target.

Engineer ally target: Grant protection (2s) to your target.

Ranger ally target: Grant regeneration (3s) to your target.

Thief ally target: Grant swiftness (3s) to your target.

Elementalist ally target: Grant vigor (3s) to your target.

Mesmer ally target: Grant quickness (2s) to your target.

Necromancer ally target: Grant fury (5s) to your target.

Amplified Siphoning: Gain increased shadow force when hitting a foe with siphon. Grant increased barrier when targeting an ally and boons granted now apply in a radius around you.

Radius: 360

Number of Targets: 5

This would not only make Siphon more thematically interesting (ie, reverse deadeye steal), Amplified Siphoning would also now present an interesting choice for Support Specters that can either choose to grant alacrity and heal more with shadowsteps OR to grant additional AoE boons based on party composition. 

Edited November 4, 2021 by KinkyPotato.4219

[TwiceDead.1963]

3 hours ago, KinkyPotato.4219 said:

Agree with a lot of people's voiced concerns about the weight and impact of Shadow Shroud. If it is truly being forced and advertised as a single target support, then the Tether mechanic of Shadow Shroud should have a significantly lower cooldown while in Shadow Shroud. That way, we can actively support whoever we choose since our tradeoff already is not being an AoE support while in Shadow Shroud. We shouldn't also be hampered by a ~7 second on Steal to swap our tether target. It feels disjointed and incoherent, especially given that Steal traits already do not interact with Ally Siphoning. Additionally, I'd like to see more interactions with allies when we Siphon on them. Having our ally steal be yet another barrier when our entire specialization and weapon focuses on barriers is a let down. Can we add something like this?

Siphon - Ally target: Grant your target barrier and an additional boon based on the target's shadow . If you are in shroud, transfer your tether to the target and reduce the cooldown of Siphon to 1 second.

Guardian ally target: Grant aegis (3s) to your target.

Revenant ally target: Grant resistance (2s)  to your target.

Warrior ally target: Grant 2 might (4s) to your target.

Engineer ally target: Grant protection (2s) to your target.

Ranger ally target: Grant regeneration (3s) to your target.

Thief ally target: Grant swiftness (3s) to your target.

Elemantalist ally target: Grant vigor (3s) to your target.

Mesmer ally target: Grant quickness (2s) to your target.

Necromancer: Grant fury (4s) to your target.

Amplified Siphoning: Gain increased shadow force when hitting a foe with siphon. Grant increased barrier when targeting an ally and boons granted now apply in a radius around you.

Radius: 360

Number of Targets: 5

This would not only make Siphon more thematically interesting (ie, reverse deadeye steal), Amplified Siphoning would also now present an interesting choice for Support Specters that can either choose to grant alacrity and heal more with shadowsteps OR to grant additional AoE boons based on party composition. 

While interesting I don't think it's a good idea to differentiate the boons given. Having your support potential be dependent on what classes are present isn't great. If put in a scenario where the Specter has the choice between tethering to a Ranger or anything else, then literally anything else will be preferable.

This is probably going to happen once people figure out the meta for what class makes the most of reduced cooldowns regardless, but I wouldn't give them anymore reasons to single classes out.

Thief already has to deal with the class-specific mechanics on steal where some ridiculously strong (Ecto) and others are trash, I just don't want more of that.

Edited November 4, 2021 by TwiceDead.1963

[Asur.9178]

The following text/post was moved here by a mod. The information presented in it is already split into both the bug and feedback threads.

 

So, having finished the beta for Specter last week, there’s quite a few issues with the elite spec that was identified, which should be addressed before release.

The focus of this post is not going to be specifically balance related (like dps numbers for example), but rather improving the feel of the class and addressing some serious bugs. Balance issues (ie: numbers) can always be tweaked…the core gameplay and feel of the elite spec is far more important to address than numbers.

Let’s get started.

 

Bugged Skills:

• One of the most obvious bugs pretty much everyone should have noticed is with Triple Bolt. The skill triggers twice if used without a significant delay.
• Skill retargeting is a core part of GW2 and is utilized heavily in all endgame content, in particular in competitive modes and regarding any channeled skills. Currently, the option under settings (labeled Allow Skill Retargeting) is supposed to work for enemies only. However, even that does not work properly in the case of Specter’s sceptre channeled skills.
  • For example, Unload is a channeled skills which can utilize this feature. Comparatively, Endless Night does not allow skill retargeting. You can see the targeting change and the character’s model shift, but the skill does not retarget.
  • Furthermore, this skill retargeting mechanic is a much bigger issue for Specter because it’s the only spec in the game that utilizes skills on allies as well.
• The skill Twilight Combo has numerous issues with how it currently functions; all of which can severely impact gameplay and effectiveness of the class. Having said that, some interactions are interesting and can prove to be useful in certain situations.
  • If the skill is used at max range or closer to it, the second projectile will not increase the speed of the first projectile.
  • If you jump during the first half of the skill, the second projectile will not trigger. However, if you jump after the first half of the skill, the skill will trigger properly.
  • If you stow cancel the skill after the first half, you can get multiple projectiles to hit the target properly – the effect is similar to jump casting the skill during the first half. However, if you trigger a full cast of the skill at any point in time before the impact of any of the previous ones, the skill will completely negate the effects/damage from the previous projectiles which has not connected yet by treating it as they were never casted (the same happens if jump casted similarly). This happens regardless of the alignment of projectiles casted. Ie: You can stow cancel first 2, change your position completely before doing a full cast and it will still negate the first 2 casts and their effects – meaning, you only do damage for the full casted one (you can see it on the combat log).
  • If you happen to be moving (strafing) while casting the skill, the second projectile will not enhance the first projectile and trigger completely separately. Just to clarify, this does NOT do extra damage and in fact makes it extremely easy to avoid the main source of the damage (the first projectile).
• The skill Measured Shot shoots the caster way past the ally chosen if they are close enough as it utilizes an actual projectile for the Shadowstep portion, defeating the intended purpose of the skill and often resulting in a very awkward and out of position situation. Unfortunately, I do not have a clip of this, but it is effortlessly reproduceable.

 

Bugged Traits:

The Acrobatics traitline has been considered a completely useless traitline by hardcore players for nearly 2 years now (and by some even longer); so, having bugged traits that don’t even function as they should makes the traitline even more of a joke. With the release of EoD, hopefully we will see some serious changes to this traitline – for the time being, hopefully the following issues are addressed.

• The trait Assassin's Reward is one of the most inaccurate and buggiest trait on thief, and been that way for years (it does not heal for as much as it claims – base heal is supposed to be 102/initiative). Furthermore, Specter makes this situation even worse. The trait does not work for any of the Specter sceptre skills – NONE OF THEM!
  • In addition to the trait not healing for as much as it claims, the list of following skills DO NOT heal anywhere close to what they should in sPvP competitive modes: Unload, Shadow Shot, Death Blossom, Pistol Whip, Larcenous Strike, and Repeater.
• The trait Swindler's Equilibrium does not reduces the recharge of Siphon.

 

Proposals for changes:

Skills:

For the most part, the skills are good as they are, but some I’d like to see some changes (beyond the bugged ones).

• Dawn's Repose is an extremely frustrating skill to use due to the complete lack of control. My proposal here would be to change the way the skill’s movement functions to make it similar to Ancestral Grace.
• Mind Shock should heal you in addition to your tethered ally.
• The skills Shadow Sap and Endless Night should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally.

Traits:

• The trait Improvisation loses half it’s value because there are no more stolen skills. The trait should be updated to include a different effect for Siphon. Such as, for example, corrupt 1 boon on your foes when you successfully hit them with Siphon.
• Dark Sentry trait’s effect should apply to yourself as well, not just allies. Making this trait restricted to allies only means it’s completely useless and a dead trait when there are no allies in the vicinity, or you’re playing by yourself, or are not utilizing scepter skills on allies, or making a build specifically for supporting.

In terms of selectable traits for Specter, the only 2 traits that should be addressed (imho) are in the Adept tier.

• Second Opinion as is currently, is just plain bad and in no situation is it actually worth taking unless you’re simply wanting to avoid the current other 2 in the adept tier. As a damage mitigating/healer support build, Consume Shadows is simply a better pick. A simple tweak of the stat provided here from Healing Power to Concentration would give it a more uniqueness and a purpose to be picked.
• It’s baffling that the balance team hates really strong passives (understandable) and sticks on 300 second cooldowns to skills in order to discourage players from using them (understandable), yet added Shallow Grave to the Specter. Please…REMOVE THIS TRAIT – GW2 does NOT need another Unholy Sanctuary. My proposal here is to simply remove this trait and replace it with something that allows players to augment their shroud since shroud is such a core part of the spec. For example, maybe a trait that gives you 25% movement speed, which is doubled (50%) while in shroud.

 

Anyways, that's my thoughts and my feedback. Few bug fixes and some skills/traits tweaks should make the spec be a lot more enjoyable. Should anyone at ANet require a HD version of the clips showing the bugs and issues, I have them available at my disposal.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Asur.9178

[yoni.7015]

There is an official Specter feedback thread in the thief  sub forum. 

[KinkyPotato.4219]

8 hours ago, TwiceDead.1963 said:

While interesting I don't think it's a good idea to differentiate the boons given. Having your support potential be dependent on what classes are present isn't great. If put in a scenario where the Specter has the choice between tethering to a Ranger or anything else, then literally anything else will be preferable.

This is probably going to happen once people figure out the meta for what class makes the most of reduced cooldowns regardless, but I wouldn't give them anymore reasons to single classes out.

Thief already has to deal with the class-specific mechanics on steal where some ridiculously strong (Ecto) and others are trash, I just don't want more of that.

What's wrong with tethering to a ranger to grant him and (potentially) others regen? If you have higher healing power, I don't see why this would be an issue.

What do you mean by which class makes the most of reduced cooldowns? Tethering to allies doesn't reduce cooldowns, the only thing I suggested was making the Steal mechanic more interesting by setting its cooldown to 1 when used in Shadow Shroud. That way, you could really drive home the idea of a strong single target support with flexible tether swapping, Taking Amplified Siphoning would allow you to grant AoE boon support that is still aligned to the Specter's single target focus (ie, every second you could tether to a different ally to grant different boons based on what you have in your party).

The difference between the current stolen skills and the Specter ones I proposed is that none of their functionalities are normalized (Consume ecto being the strongest currently as it grants you all boons). With this however, they're all normalized in that you're only receiving 1 class-specific boon with the potential to mix in more if you take Amplified Siphoning. I don't see how there is the potential for singling out classes as every boon has its uses.

Edited November 4, 2021 by KinkyPotato.4219

[Asur.9178]

Proposals for changes:

Skills:

For the most part, the skills are good as they are, but some I’d like to see some changes (beyond the bugged ones).

• Dawn's Repose is an extremely frustrating skill to use due to the complete lack of control. My proposal here would be to change the way the skill’s movement functions to make it similar to Ancestral Grace.
• Mind Shock should heal you in addition to your tethered ally.
• The skills Shadow Sap and Endless Night should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally.

Traits:

• The trait Improvisation loses half it’s value because there are no more stolen skills. The trait should be updated to include a different effect for Siphon. Such as, for example, corrupt 1 boon on your foes when you successfully hit them with Siphon.
• Dark Sentry trait’s effect should apply to yourself as well, not just allies. Making this trait restricted to allies only means it’s completely useless and a dead trait when there are no allies in the vicinity, or you’re playing by yourself, or you're not utilizing scepter skills on allies, or you're not making a build specifically for supporting.

In terms of selectable traits for Specter, the only 2 traits that should be addressed (imho) are in the Adept tier.

• Second Opinion as is currently, is just plain bad and in no situation is it actually worth taking unless you’re simply wanting to avoid the current other 2 in the adept tier. As a damage mitigating/healer support build, Consume Shadows is simply a better pick. A simple tweak of the stat provided here from Healing Power to Concentration would give it a more uniqueness and a purpose to be picked.
• It’s baffling that the balance team hates really strong passives (understandable) and sticks on 300 second cooldowns to skills in order to discourage players from using them (understandable), yet added Shallow Grave to the Specter. Please…REMOVE THIS TRAIT – GW2 does NOT need another Unholy Sanctuary. My proposal here is to simply remove this trait and replace it with something that allows players to augment their shroud since shroud is such a core part of the spec. For example, maybe a trait that gives you 25% movement speed, which is doubled (50%) while in shroud.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Asur.9178

[KinkyPotato.4219]

20 hours ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I didn't see a lot of people providing PvE specific support Specter feedback so I took a Celestial / Leadership / Concentration Sigil build to fractals with my casual static. The aim of these runs was to have the Specter provide alacrity, quickness, healing and barrier as well as other boons such as Fury and Vigor while one of our Firebrands covered stability and our Renegade covered Might. If you wish to see these runs, or nosy at logs, you can check out some videos here, here and here. There are further videos on the linked YouTube channel.  We did a full clear of CMs with Specter support. The group is relatively experienced with 3 fractal goddesses and members with 10k to 30k+ UFE.

 

There are a number of things that need to be looked into if support Specter is to be played at all in high end instanced PvE.

 

1. Guild Wars 2 is not designed for single target healing

This is one of the most glaring issues with playing PvE Specter support. Thief specs normally have a high degree of hindrance that is, arguably, not well justified given what they bring to groups. This has spanned everything from forced movement (condi Deadeye, condi Daredevil), restricted movement (rifle Deadeye) through to lacking crowd control and having single target DPS that is not competitive with other professions that can cleave (condi Deadeye, rifle Deadeye).

 

This example of thief being  limited for reasons that are not clear, or based wholly on a thematic objective, is very prominent with PvE Specter support and the push for allied targeting healing. Most glaringly, it results in a cumbersome and awkward playstyle, as much of the time is spent fighting the UI. There will need to be a high degree of iteration and improvement of the Guild Wars 2 UI if Specter remains single target in its support. There was a degree of this during the beta, where the "Target Next Ally" keybind was improved from previously only focusing NPCs to now including NPCs and players. This keybind needs to be further improved to target only players and also ignore players that are fully dead. This would remain cumbersome, but could allow for quick targeting with appropriate keybinds and good player awareness.

Additionally, raid frames should be allowed to be customised and, particularly, moved closer to the player character model to reduce mouse movement. It would be good if these could allow tracking of select boons, perhaps via corner indicators like with the WoW addons Grid and Vuhdo.

 

Furthermore, the allied targeting reduces the amount of information available to the Specter. For example, while targeting an ally for Measured Shot and Endless Night, it is not possible to see if an enemy has a break bar. This is a hindrance that will only impact Specter healers and support and will need to be resolved if single target healing is taken further as it feels like a limitation that has not been considered as it is not an issue for any other healer or support option.

2. Allied Endless Night needs to have player prioritisation

This is the main ability that support Specters will need to single target allies for and is one of the most crucial abilities to be fixed if support Specter is to see a degree of usage in instanced PvE because it allows for sharing of quickness. Endless Night currently suffers from the issue that made Fire for Effect in Deadeye useless in PvE for just over four years(!) before it was finally fixed. Endless Night is based on proximity prioritisation, which results in quickness, barrier, Rot Wallow Venom and regeneration being dumped onto targets where it is not useful such as minions, spirits and clones. Allied Endless Night should instead prioritise players. Quickness is essential for the support Specter, as it will not see prominent use unless it is possible to provide alacrity and quickness for 5 players. This is because existing alacrity sources are applied to 10 players (Renegade and Mirage) and therefore it is more beneficial to take one of these options if something is being brought solely for alacrity. 

3. Allied Endless Night requires a high degree of repositioning

This results in a strange gameplay style where the Specter is constantly moving around the group. There will be times where this is not possible, and therefore Endless Night being a wider beam would be useful, unless it is reworked to avoid single target healing.

 

4. Allied Siphon is not useful

Allied Siphon does not gain benefits from Thrill of the Crime. At the minimum, Thrill of the Crime should work with allied Siphon, ideally Bountiful Theft should also share vigor. Allied Siphon not sharing these boons leads to a cumbersome playstyle where a support Specter not only needs to change ally targets, but needs to target the enemy in order to apply enemy-targeted Siphon before retargeting an ally. This is an awkward gameplay loop and makes the single target healing aspects even more unwieldy. This should be iterated upon, ideally by improving Allied Siphon, if single target healing is pursued further. Allied Siphon gaining these effects could be worked into Shadestep as both Shadestep, which felt lacking as a PvE support trait.

5. Well of Tears is quite useless

Well of Tears is a power DPS ability which is present on a condition damage or healing / support spec. It does not serve any useful purpose and should probably be reconsidered and reworked. Specter does not offer a high degree of condition cleanse, needing to rely wholly on Signet of Agility. A straightforward solution would be to make Well of Tears a well focused on support by removing conditions, or converting conditions to boons.

6. There is no incentive to stay in Shadow Shroud

Remaining in Shadow Shroud has no advantages for the PvE Support Specter. Instead, it only serves a purpose to quickly regenerate initiative via Quick Pockets before it is left for a large degree of burst healing via Consume Shadows. Shadow Shroud should be made more appealing for support, for example by including five-ally boon share. An obvious target for this would be to change the Grandmaster trait Hungering Darkness to allow tethering to four nearby allies at random when Shroud is accessed. With this, Mind Shock would be useful as it would apply stability to five allies (including self). Similarly, Grasping Shadows would give a useful option for healing and condition removal.

 

7. Lack of self-quickness is frustrating

Endless Night should probably also apply quickness to the Specter. Having quickness only occasionally is relatively cumbersome for being aware of the speed of the Measured Shot / Endless Night loop.

 

8. Shadow Sap is pointless

There are no good reasons to use allied Shadow Sap. A way to improve this would be to improve the amount of Might granted (perhaps up to 8), and allow it to splash to multiple allies near to the targeted ally. This would mean that Shadow Sap and Measured Shot / Endless Night could be switched between to upkeep either Might or Quickness, giving a choice of what initiative is spent on, instead of Endless Night being the only reasonable choice for initiative when supporting.

9. Tethering to a target is not impactful due to the design of the GW2 PvE content.

Tethering lacks impact because Guild Wars 2, and the PvE encounters, have never been designed around single target healing.

 

No existing PvE content in GW2 has required a high degree of single target healing that could not have been brought by the existing AoE healers, otherwise it would not have been completed! The idea of tethering and babysitting an ally, such as a tank, does not have an established place in GW2, unlike WoW or FFXIV, and therefore the usefulness of Specter for PvE groups will be judged on the ability of the Specter to AoE heal and provide AoE boons, particularly quickness and alacrity. Thankfully, Specter has good AoE healing currently (and needs improvements in the area of boons), but this minimises the impactfulness of tethering. Please do not take this as an indication that tethering should be made more impactful in PvE - quite the opposite. I do not feel it is a good mechanic for Specter PvE healing. I am sure it has a place in sPvP, but PvE support Specter needs to remain such that tethering can be broadly ignored if it remains single ally focused.

 

Tethering could be more impactful without adding further unwieldiness, if it was possible to tether multiple allies, perhaps via a Grandmaster trait (Hungering Darkness may be a good choice here, it has no use in instanced PvE). Even if this was limited to being in Shroud and applied randomly, that could then be paired with more boon share and condition removal in Shroud in order to encourage Support Specters to use Shroud beyond Quick Pockets and Consume Shadows.
 

In general, I feel that Specter most pressingly needs better targeting and a fix to Endless Night. These two alone will make Support Specter playable, but incredibly cumbersome. Single target healing needs rethought, or the UI massively improved, if it is to be made as fluid to play as any other profession in Guild Wars 2.

Awkward bugs:

Many sources of Specter healing, such as Consume Shadows and Measured Shot, apply healing to a downed target, which does not seem intended. 

Measured Shot can send the Specter to the moon, if it is used just outside of an ally's hitbox. This does not seem intended.

General tuning:
 

If the prioritisation is not fixed on allied Endless Night, it needs to give even more quickness! Please don't actually do this, please instead improve the prioritisation of allied Endless Night on allies.

Healing feels slightly too high currently.

 

Barrier feels slightly too high currently.

 

These should probably be reduced a little.

Support Specter could be a lot of fun, but the single target aspects, limitations with boon sharing, the  clunkiness of the GW2 UI and prioritisation issues with allied Endless Night severely limit it currently.

This is a perfect list of feedback and honestly mimics everything I was going to include in a post. 

[AikijinX.6258]

Can we just talk about how Well of Tears and Second opinion and a couple other Specter skill/trait names speak for themselves? (Well of Tears) is a Power Well on a support/heal spec that does negligible damage. Quite tearful indeed. And the major adept trait (Second Opinion) trait definitely does  need a “second opinion” if they think this trait is anywhere near ready, useful, complete or competent enough to stand on its own against the other traits, especially the one that you literally don’t need to spec into any heal power to use because of barrier. (That being said. Don’t nerf the trait, buff everything else up..) oh.. but do nerf the 300s CD on that life alert trait.

Edited November 4, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

the major adept trait (Second Opinion) trait definitely does  need a “second opinion” if they think this trait is anyway or anywhere near useful or complete

Definitely but they should also keep it in line with the more selfish theme of the upper row. If Second Opinion would give Incoming Heal Effectiveness and apply the support effects of ally targeting to the player when targeting an enemy while wielding a scepter then it would actually be a good alternative to Consume Shadows without one trait overshadowing the other.

[gyurivaze.9527]

-Awsome!

-its inspire to try raid ,strike missions or fractals

-scepter auto attack sound is wierd/loud 
-next ally should be only players (no pets)
-i can target miniatures  (shoud not)
-shadow form 3 hard to use
-trait 2/2 lackcluster (shipon not realy woth on ally)

-wells shadowstep range a bit small / cool balance with different cast time  (just a tiny bit but feels so bad)

Good job :D keep it up.

[AikijinX.6258]

3 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Definitely but they should also keep it in line with the more selfish theme of the upper row. If Second Opinion would give Incoming Heal Effectiveness and apply the support effects of ally targeting to the player when targeting an enemy while wielding a scepter then it would actually be a good alternative to Consume Shadows without one trait overshadowing the other.

Yes I agree. That would make the trait at least be able to compete. I edited my above comment too. What do you think of the (buff up) instead of (nerf down) philosophy 

 

[AikijinX.6258]

Shroud 3 needs an evade frame or invuln frame or something. I said it once before  and I’ll say it again.

[Klypto.1703]

Hey at least they let us find out that this expansion wasn't worth paying for before it gets released.  They haven't shown me a single elite spec that is worth buying and the theme of Cantha I don't really see it anywhere in these elite specs other than a guardian getting an offhand sword and a mesmer a dagger but beyond that its horrible.

[Jumpel.3972]

8 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

Shroud 3 needs an evade frame or invuln frame or something. I said it once before  and I’ll say it again.

I would rather like a clean impairing movement condi

[AikijinX.6258]

3 hours ago, Jumpel.3972 said:

I would rather like a clean impairing movement condi

I would rather not have my dash interrupted by everything in the world. Either 1s initial stability on the initial activation or an evasion frame. But yes fixing the skill in general in terms of cleanness of its functionality I agree. 

[Tails.9372]

On 11/4/2021 at 11:40 PM, AikijinX.6258 said:

What do you think of the (buff up) instead of (nerf down) philosophy 

This should (for situations like with Consume Shadows) always be the standard approach as it ultimately gives your build choices (vs. taking other traits) and gameplay choices (saving Shadow Force for it vs. using Shadow Force for Shadow Shroud) more impact if your choice feels strong but you also know that you're missing out on other good stuff for it which is something you don't get if they would nerf things down to be as unimpactful as Second Opinion currently is.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Tails.9372

[Curennos.9307]

I was actually very surprised that there was not a single trait that gave tethered allies some sort of unique strike damage buff. It would be an easy way to make tethering a single ally more useful in group PvE content. Fix the UI/allied targeting issues, and add a 5% (or 10? Don't want to break anything but 5% might feel to unimpactful) strike damage increase to your tethered target.

[Zenith.7301]

Can someone explain to me why the scepter sounds more like a pistol than an actual ghostly/spiritual/whoosh energy sound?

[nopoet.2960]

Random thought on the scepter. 

 

The auto attack does this single, double triple bolt thing.  What if the first two auto attacks produced an extra bolt.  One would shoot an the other would be 'stored' by floating around your head.  By the time you get to the third auto attack you would only need to shoot one bolt and the 'stored' floating bolts would be sent too.  Why?  I just kind of hate the current animation.  Also if you stopped the auto attack early the bolts could randomly target an ally to heal.

 

 

[Kyban.4031]

Single target support doesn’t make sense for GW2.  It’s a party based game and should link the whole party with tether and scepter beam.  It should also provide a reasonable amount of actual healing.

 

The scepter beam is clunky to get right with the oddly functioning blink before it and hard to land on all targets unless they are tightly balled.  Particularly when you will want to target the farthest but blink to them beforehand.

 

Well of Tears and Well of Sorrow casts feel slow.

 

Steal traits do nothing for allied targets.  There is a lack of support traits in other trait lines that makes the elite spec feel isolated in options.  

 

A support bonus while revealed might be appropriate.

[zetherin.8372]

I haven't read through to see if anyone else suggested this but I had an idea pop about how to make this spec feel better with the action camera.  I think as of yet, this spec by far will have the worst synergy with the camera because of how the new ally targeting works.  But, I think that's only because of the way that action camera currently handles targeting.

 

Current State

Action camera will target enemies over allies.  If there is a hostile and a friendly character close together, e.g. melee fighting, then action camera will automatically prefer the hostile character over friendly when you place your reticle over that general location.  Even if the reticle is strictly over the friendly.  In my experience, it takes several right clicks and re-targets to get the ally selected.

 

Proposal

Add a toggle in the targeting block of controls to swap the preference of action camera from hostile to friendly and vice versa.

It would be exceptionally helpful to be able to press a button and start focusing on allies over enemies without having to either pop out of action camera and click on them directly or re-target and re-target and re-target until it blesses us with a green target instead of a red one.  Being able to bind this to a key and hot-swap targeting on demand would significantly improve QoL for action camera specters.

 

Without an option such as this or alternative method of targeting allies over enemies when the need arises, I fear that I will have to relearn how to play this game without action camera for this and only this spec.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

while i agree that action cam needs to be fixed for specter, its not really meant to play effectively or on a serious level as when it was first released as a feature it was stated so. i dont think its that big of a deal to worry about fixing action camera problems given there are more important things regarding the elite specs and their problems

[LucianDK.8615]

Does Specter have any at all solo potential or are you better off with DD?

[Tails.9372]

34 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Does Specter have any at all solo potential or are you better off with DD?

It's passable but you're better off with DD, issue is that specter has pretty much no noteworthy re-sustain (or "evade spam" for that matter) other than Consume Shadows and your main sources of barrier don't apply to yourself. You're mostly single target so add spam can be an issue and your self boon application is extremely lackluster (taking Larcenous Torment means no Alacrity and Quickness is only something you can give in decent quantities to others but not take for yourself).

Edited November 11, 2021 by Tails.9372

[kash.9213]

2 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

while i agree that action cam needs to be fixed for specter, its not really meant to play effectively or on a serious level as when it was first released as a feature it was stated so. i dont think its that big of a deal to worry about fixing action camera problems given there are more important things regarding the elite specs and their problems

I notice an enemy favor in targeting with action cam but I got used to feeling that out. There are some issues with action cam that need to be sorted out though aside from just specter functionality. Pathing is hit or miss unless at a perfect angled view which can effect some skills from you to the target along with pathing skills. You can chose not to use it, but toggling between default and action camera for better control of direction and orientation while remaining targeted is the only way my DE can effectively survive a lot of situations in WvW and other modes, especially when being focused. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by kash.9213