Specter Feedback Thread

[Scorcher.6428]

 

Strengths and positives of Specter
-RWV is a really cool unique damage buff that allows the class to output damage whist doing thier supporting.
-Really neat synergy with the Shadow Arts trait line. Like shadow step heals, stealth to grant barrier.
-Nice synergy with trickery! As Specter doesn't have much bleed in their kit, the GM trait is freed out of the bleed dmg increase trait and you have more choices.
-Siphon is really cool with the ally target
-Access to wells. Good utility, alac boon support and trait synergy with all the shadow steps
-Traits are spread quite nicely across all 3 lines. Allowing quite a lot of flexibility in the build. 
-All sceptre skills are really solid, cool animation too
-Ally targeting is unique and has potential.

 

1. Utility skills

Well of bounty:
Outside group content setting this skill is far too weak. It only grants one single new (not random, there is a set order of application) boon per pulse it wouldn't be very useful in a setting where you and your ally need to move around like PvP and open world.
Potential solutions
-rework and split the well into 2 separate utility skills. 1 for offensive and defensive boons that either grant all or multiple boons
-Must allow multiple boons per pulse

 

Well or Tears (the "power well")
This needs to go. Specter is condi/support focussed and has no need for a utility which does nothing more than some power damage. The base damage is abysmal and scales horribly making it feel like nothing more than a throw away skill to grant alacrity.
Potential fixes
-increase the base damage.
-remove it and replace with something more fitting to the class

 

Well of Silence and Shadow Fall
These 2 skills on their own are solid. The issue with them is they are almost the same skill, both providing a large amount of CC, one mostly soft CC and the other strong CC.
Them being quite similar makes WoS feel like another alac filler well.

2. Ally Targeting and Endless Night
Whilst new mechanics are exciting, as many have been saying- there needs to be a better support system for allied targeting. If Specter is a spec that focusses on this, they NEED a solid ally target system. In the Teapot and CMC stream there was mention that this will be looked at. Honestly, that should be vital info ANET lets the community know.

Another point CMC noted was that they don't want Specter to be strong in quickness and alacrity giving and that they decided it to be alac not quick. 
This is perfectly valid and understandable! 
He also said the switching between party members to apply high quickness uptime to was not the intention.
However, I find it highly questionable that they would put quickness on a skill that is designed to be spammed (which has always been thief gameplay in PvE content and is what we like about thief) and then go on to say "we don't want them to give strong party quickness". I don't think a good solution would be to full on remove it. 

It would make far more sense to place it on one of the shroud skills with a cooldown so Specter still has some capability to give quickness

The decision to reduce the number of targets you can apply from 3 to 1 only exacerbates the problem of ally target switching for high quickness uptime. According to Left, it would still be possible to grant 5 man 100% quickness in this current state.

 

Lastly I want to talk about shroud which has some of the most glaring problems.

3. Shroud
In it's current state it is poorly designed. It is very anti synergy with thief's initiative system as you do not want to be in shroud for long to continue using initiative asap. It's vital that shroud has a strong identity that integrates with Specter if the class is to do well and feel good to play across all game modes.

As of now, you don't want to stay in shroud because you no longer will apply RWV. There is no big damage skill you'll want to use that gives an advantage over normal sceptre skills nor does it grant much boon support that you don't otherwise provide with normal sceptre skills. Spamming the shroud AA and using skill 2 off CD until sufficient initiative is restored is a bit dull for a unique class mechanic. Making it more dynamic to fit the boon/heal support + damage hybrid thief identity would be a 
lot more positive for Specter.

The huge heal from Consume Shadows trait is really cool, nerf understandable/reasonable, but the changes did nothing to make shroud have any strong identity/use outside of that heal.
The reason partly being because shroud skills are underwhelming or situational especially compared to skills outside of shroud. And the solution is not to make sceptre skills worse, that would be really sad for the class.

 

An issue I have in proposing changes is I have no idea what the devs even intended by giving thief shroud. I can only guess as it seems to lack identity.
One guess is that shroud is where Specter gets to do both the ally support and their own direct damage at the same time. If so, there might need to be more a mirror between non shroud skills and shroud skills. Where you can apply roughly the same boons, but with cooldown, and maybe shroud skills allow some bonus boons?
Another thought is that shroud is thief's "defence mode" as their shadow step heals are weaker on themselves and don't have much self barrier application/self defence outside of traits.
The shroud 3 granting self barrier seems a bit redundant? I could be wrong though. It might be good to have a small shadow step in shroud to utilise the Shadestep trait butI wouldn't say that is too important.

 

Outside of the intent of shroud, the improvements I would suggest anyways are as follows.
Add 5 man alac to one of the shroud skills with a CD to allow more diversity in utility and even trait choice
choice. What prompted this idea was CMC saying 'we want them to be strong in giving alac'. If the wells + Traversing Dusk are the only way AND it's only 5 man (when 10 
man alac exists) just because 100% uptime can be achieved, it isn't necessarily "strong". Allowing Specter to grant some alac outside of wells and the trait would really strengthen the class and the shroud mechanic.

 

Add more boon support in general by taking the quickness away from endless night and adding it to one of the shroud skills. Could even have it apply regen too 
just like the current EN skill. Like I said before, having quickness on a initiative spam skill is not good if the vision was for Specter to only be strong in alacrity.

 

Moving the quickness application to a shroud skill on a CD would be much healthier than removing it all together. That way they could increase the target number back to 3 
or even 5 if the numbers aren't too high and this would make Specter feel good to play as a heal/boon support across ALL game modes.

 

4. Additional

 

One last thing I want to add; the very first trait Siphon says "gain shadow force when spending initiative". This is only partially correct as it only counts on enemy units not allied. I understand if you're not meant to build up shadow force too fast with simply ally targeting in combat, if that is the intent. Although it would be nice outside of combat to be able to use initiative on allies to build up SF, as currently that isn't possible.

 

[pitchBLACK.5479]

So before I jump into my thoughts and feedback with the class, I want to point out that I’m by no means a hardcore Raider/PvPer/WvWer, etc. I’ve played through from the start of GW1 and GW2 and enjoy playing all the different kinds of content at a more casual pace. Therefore numbers, min/maxing, having alacrity here, or might there isn’t my angle. My feedback is from the perspective of: “Is this class fun to play”, so if things feel off, or janky, or not right with the class playstyle or targeted thematic’s, that’s where I like to place opinions.

 

From the previous beta, I don’t feel like a lot has changed outside a few bug fixes and minor changes (understandable given the time frame), so my feedback below is more or less like a broken record/the same as before. Which is this:

·       Well of Tears - it does basically no damage, yet from what I can tell it's a pure damage skill outside of traits giving it alacrity? The only tears here are mine when using it and having it do basically nothing.

·       Scepter skill 1 and 2 feel basically the same. 2 is just a bigger bolt than 1 with weakness instead of torment

·       Scepter skill 3 feels very lack lustre on Scepter/Dagger

·       Shroud skill 1 feels too slow and un-impactful

·       Shroud skill 2 (Grasping Shadows) feels weak. this could have a bigger explosion effect and an instant cast to keep with the fluidity of Thief. The sound effect needs more impact I feel, maybe use a similar one to shroud 3’s payoff?

·       Shroud skill 4 is ok, it’s a bit weak (should have more punch like revenant’s glint swipe/burst of strength, which it seems to basically be a replica of)

·       Siphon feels very lacklustre and seems to be the only real good way of getting shroud back? spending initiative gives very little shroud. Siphon seems bugged while under water?

·       Underwater versions of shroud skills seem buggy? Skill 1 has an odd cast animation and is even slow than the land version?

Suggestions:

·       Change Siphon to allow for tethering with 3-5 allies, or 3-5 enemies. If tethered to allies, it gives boons, barrier and healing depending on skill use. If tethered to enemies, give them conditions, or take tick damage, depending on skills used. Have the tether be time based and slowly generate shroud while tethered (up the cooldown here).

o   Have it be an ammo skill, so you need to designate 3-5 targets as you go. With it only lasting X amount of time.

o   Other Steal/Siphon traits could still work here, just add their boons, conditions to the tethered targets (maybe at a reduced amount if it’s a strong boon/condition)

·       Update shroud skills to be Ally/Enemy based like scepter. Skill 1 could work like scepter 1, skill 2 could heal/boon allies, and damage/condition enemies in its effect area, 3 could do something similar to 2 with the leap to the target/ally, 4 and 5 not to sure, could not use that mechanic, or have aoe style effects

·       I think scepter skills need an update to be more unique between 1 and 2 (perhaps an AOE on scepter 2?). 3 needs to be stronger on Scepter/Dagger, or changed up in some way.

Not sure how much of the above will be taken into consideration, but hopefully some! As I think this elite could very well be one of the best elites thus far! Base potential is there, just needs some work! Keep up the great work ANET!

[Stompy.1387]

Copy pasting some feedback I wrote up elsewhere so formatting will be scuffed. I'm Left, that PvE thief guy, so my feedback is from the perspective of a dungeon/raid tryhard.

 

====================================================================================================================

Round 2 of feedback. As always my essays get pretty long, so if you can't be bothered just read the ***SPECTER BUILDS/BALANCE*** section near the bottom. Made another bug list pastebin for convenience; a lot of the ones I listed out last time were fixed which was nice to see!

<https://pastebin.com/pqHuaEVx>

=

**SIPHON/SHROUD**

*Siphon*: The skill has an increased priority, similar to heal/interrupt skills. This is in direct contrast with things like Deadeye's Mark, and it just leads to lots of accidental skill cancels on a very short cooldown skill.

*Enter Shroud*: The changes to shroud made in this beta did a lot to help, between the cooldown increase and relative strength increase due to the nerf to Endless Night. Shroud 3 is a LOT smoother to use now. Shroud 5 feels a bit difficult to use for me, since the very long cast time coupled with the very short duration on the Stability requires you to know rather precisely and far into the future when the enemy CC is going to happen, unless you are able to cleave several targets with it.

That being said, once again, I cannot stress this enough: the single target supportive functions of Shroud skills are going to be completely ignored in any form in instanced PvE. Unless the single target effect is just absurdly overtuned (we'll get to Endless Night soon), groups are just going to forget it exists entirely. I strongly recommend that the tethered ally becomes a conduit of sorts for the supportive effects, granting at least some benefit to the allies around it. If PvP is a concern here, a split between 5 allied targets in PvE and 1 allied target in PvP would be reasonable here.

As two final minor things, being completely unable to generate any Shadow Force while out of combat is a bit inconvenient. Being able to get at least some slowly over time would be nice, like how Necro can kill minions or Druid can heal spirits, but getting a free fill up on GG'ing / mistlocks / SFTA SAK would honestly be just as helpful. Lastly, it'd be nice to be able to see an exact number of how much Shadow Force you have remaining, like how Necro can see their Life Force value.

=

**WEAPON SKILLS**

*Auto attack chain*: My thoughts from before remain the same; the allied autos indirectly dealing more damage than the enemy version is counterintuitive and removes any active thought on who you should target. Furthermore, the auto chain is oddly weighted, and encourages you to interrupt it as much as you can. Backweighting the chain to heavily encourage completing it causes the chain to feel like a proper skill of its own, smoothing out the rotation.

*Shadow Sap*: No changes here from the last beta, and the skill remains as absolutely useless in PvE. I cannot stress this enough; single target boons, unless they are absurdly overtuned, will always be ignored in all forms of instanced PvE content. Given the fact that this skill draws from the same initiative pool as all other thief weapon skills, I'd go as far as to say that Shadow Sap is the weakest weapon skill in the entire game. Math to help visualize that and suggested changes later on.

*Twilight Combo*: This time around, I played around with the skill more, and it feels like it's at an appropriate power level to me. The enemy version at least. The allied version suffers from the same issue as all the other scepter skills; single target boons will just be ignored in instanced PvE.  Aside from that, there's just a minor usability issue stemming from the fact that the skill is actually two separate skills. This results in being unable to queue a follow up skill until the second skill starts, which is difficult due to the very short cast time.

=

*Measured Shot/Endless Night*: And here we are, the example of how overtuned a single target effect needs to be to make you want to spam it on to your entire group. Despite the total Quickness output being 1/4th of what it previously was, a dedicated heal Specter is still comfortably able to maintain 100% quickness uptime on 5 other players (4 subgroup members + someone in the other sub, possibly the other specter). This takes the cursed gameplay flow of manually clicking and rotating through allies to an entirely new level; you now have to make sure you click each one in order, and maintain that order for the rest of the fight. It's not an exaggeration to say that during my live raid testing, I spent just as much time using my mouse to click on allies in the squad UI as I did using my mouse to control my camera.

=

**TRAIT SELECTIONS**

*Adept Traits*: Consume Shadows nerf was justified, but it's still the obvious choice over the other traits for every build. On the DPS side, it's the only trait in the line that grants any sort of DPS increase thanks to Dark Sentry. On the support side, since the supportive aspects of Shroud skills are all single target (and therefore extremely low value), the downside of this trait consuming all of your Shadow Force is a non issue. My recommendation is to shift some of the offensive power of this kit into one of the other traits in this line, in order to prevent the DPS build from having too much built in group sustain, like what we've seen on Scourge in the past.

*Master Traits*: Nothing changed here, so my thoughts remain the same from the previous beta. Larcenous Torment perfectly complements DPS builds, while Traversing Dusk is insanely valuable for support builds, perhaps to the point of being too strong. Amplified Siphoning is very weak, since yet again, single target allied effects in PvE are just low value,  and the Shadow Force gain is weak compared to the other two traits in the line.

*Grandmaster Traits*: Nothing changed here, so my thoughts remain the same from the previous beta. Hungering Darkness remains as the clearly weak pick due to conditions not being very prevalent in PvE.

=

**HEAL/UTILITY/ELITE SKILLS**

Nothing changed here. Overall, well skills are generally weaker than other thief utility options, unless traited with Traversing Dusk which turns them into solid support skills. Well of Tears in particular feels out of place as a purely power damage utility in a spec that has zero power traits. As aside, for some reason Well skills do not allow for queueing other skills during the cast, which is not how other Shadowstep skills in the game perform, such as thief Shortbow 5 or thief Sword 2. Allowing for skill queueing would make spamming wells for alacrity feel a lot less "clunky."

=

**SPECTER BUILDS/BALANCE**

So, as already mentioned in the patch notes, Specter doing quickness/alacrity in addition to the healing it provides probably isn't healthy for the game. Removing quickness from Endless Night seems to be the obvious solution, however, I think in the general the community would rather have more quickness builds in the game rather than less, seeing as how quickness roles generally fill up last in groups.

***Recommendation***: Make Alacrity and Quickness mutually exclusive. Several skill and trait changes are in order to do this in a way that makes sense with balancing the multiple possible Specter builds. 

In order to do this, Quickness would be removed from Endless Night and replaced with another defensive boon, such as Protection or Resolution, which is more fitting with the theme of that skill. In order to prevent the cursed gameplay of manually targeting each ally to maintain the boons on the group, the skill should grant the boons to 5 targets in a radius surrounding the selected ally. Obviously, the boons would need to have greatly reduced duration to make maintaining them only reasonable on a full support build. The barrier would remain as single target, in order to prevent Dark Sentry from scaling out of hand, and to maintain the theme of strong single target support with enough party support to remain as a relevant spec in group PvE.

=

The next step would be to remove the alacrity aspect of Traversing Dusk and make wells give Alacrity baseline. While this change may seem like a rather large buff to the spec, stop and consider how it would affect each build. Heal Specter is going to want to take Traversing Dusk regardless, because the healing on shadowsteps is a core part of the builds non barrier healing output. Condi DPS specter is still not really going to want to take any wells, since they offer much lower damage than other thief utilities and stopping to cast something like heal well would result in a considerable DPS loss. The winner here would be condi Alac specter, as it would now be able to take Larcenous Torment for a bit of a DPS gain. Condi Alac specter definitely needs the help when compared to other Alac sources, such as Staff Mirage or cele Renegade. As of right now, properly benching condi alac specter is rather difficult due to how the golem area works, but I can estimate it to bench at roughly 24-25k, which is considerably lower than the alternatives.

=

The final step of this process would be to restore access to Quickness while keeping it mutually exclusive with Alacrity. My idea here was to add functionality to Amplified Siphoning, so that it changes the baseline Alacrity on wells into Quickness. Quickness is a considerably stronger boon than Alacrity, and the placement here is very intentional because of that. If a heal Specter wanted to provide Quickness instead of Alacrity, it would have to forgo taking Traversing Dusk, which is a notable healing loss. Similarly, if a condi alac Specter wanted to become a condi quick Specter, it would take a DPS hit by losing Larcenous Torment. In the end, I think that while these changes are rather generous, the quickness build would still be weaker than alternatives like Firebrand. Proper balance in relation to other specs would have to come after allowing the spec to exist.

=

***Recommendation***: Allow heal Specter to maintain Might on a subgroup by buffing Shadow Sap to 7 Might for 10 seconds, for 5 players around the allied target. Barrier remains as single target, maintaining the theme of stronger single target support and preventing Dark Sentry from scaling out of hand. If a 600% buff to the Might output seems extreme, consider the fact that the current version of the skill would require spending 75 initiative every 20 seconds with 100% BD to maintain might on a subgroup. The current version of the skill is just that absurdly weak.

Most healers in this game are able to maintain 25 Might on either a subgroup or a squad. For those that do not, they would need to be paired with an offensive Might stacker, of which very few exist in the game. Since heal Specter will no longer be able to maintain both Quickness and Alacrity, it makes sense for heal quick Specter to also be able to maintain Might like a Heal Firebrand can, or heal alac Specter to maintain Might like a staff Mirage can, with a trade of DPS for healing.

Remember that Shadow Sap draws from the same initiative pool as the rest of the weapon skills, so only heal Specter will be able to truly benefit from this. condi Alac Specter currently needs about 50% boon duration to maintain alacrity, so the might would only last for about 15 seconds. 3 Shadow Saps plus Thrill of the Crime reaches 24 Might at the cost of 9 initiative. Spending over half your base initiative regen on Shadow Saps isn't really reasonable if you're trying to do DPS as well.

================================================================================================================

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

16 minutes ago, Stompy.1387 said:

Copy pasting some feedback I wrote up elsewhere so formatting will be scuffed. I'm Left, that PvE thief guy, so my feedback is from the perspective of a dungeon/raid tryhard.

 

====================================================================================================================

Round 2 of feedback. As always my essays get pretty long, so if you can't be bothered just read the ***SPECTER BUILDS/BALANCE*** section near the bottom. Made another bug list pastebin for convenience; a lot of the ones I listed out last time were fixed which was nice to see!

<https://pastebin.com/pqHuaEVx>

=

**SIPHON/SHROUD**

*Siphon*: The skill has an increased priority, similar to heal/interrupt skills. This is in direct contrast with things like Deadeye's Mark, and it just leads to lots of accidental skill cancels on a very short cooldown skill.

*Enter Shroud*: The changes to shroud made in this beta did a lot to help, between the cooldown increase and relative strength increase due to the nerf to Endless Night. Shroud 3 is a LOT smoother to use now. Shroud 5 feels a bit difficult to use for me, since the very long cast time coupled with the very short duration on the Stability requires you to know rather precisely and far into the future when the enemy CC is going to happen, unless you are able to cleave several targets with it.

That being said, once again, I cannot stress this enough: the single target supportive functions of Shroud skills are going to be completely ignored in any form in instanced PvE. Unless the single target effect is just absurdly overtuned (we'll get to Endless Night soon), groups are just going to forget it exists entirely. I strongly recommend that the tethered ally becomes a conduit of sorts for the supportive effects, granting at least some benefit to the allies around it. If PvP is a concern here, a split between 5 allied targets in PvE and 1 allied target in PvP would be reasonable here.

As two final minor things, being completely unable to generate any Shadow Force while out of combat is a bit inconvenient. Being able to get at least some slowly over time would be nice, like how Necro can kill minions or Druid can heal spirits, but getting a free fill up on GG'ing / mistlocks / SFTA SAK would honestly be just as helpful. Lastly, it'd be nice to be able to see an exact number of how much Shadow Force you have remaining, like how Necro can see their Life Force value.

=

**WEAPON SKILLS**

*Auto attack chain*: My thoughts from before remain the same; the allied autos indirectly dealing more damage than the enemy version is counterintuitive and removes any active thought on who you should target. Furthermore, the auto chain is oddly weighted, and encourages you to interrupt it as much as you can. Backweighting the chain to heavily encourage completing it causes the chain to feel like a proper skill of its own, smoothing out the rotation.

*Shadow Sap*: No changes here from the last beta, and the skill remains as absolutely useless in PvE. I cannot stress this enough; single target boons, unless they are absurdly overtuned, will always be ignored in all forms of instanced PvE content. Given the fact that this skill draws from the same initiative pool as all other thief weapon skills, I'd go as far as to say that Shadow Sap is the weakest weapon skill in the entire game. Math to help visualize that and suggested changes later on.

*Twilight Combo*: This time around, I played around with the skill more, and it feels like it's at an appropriate power level to me. The enemy version at least. The allied version suffers from the same issue as all the other scepter skills; single target boons will just be ignored in instanced PvE.  Aside from that, there's just a minor usability issue stemming from the fact that the skill is actually two separate skills. This results in being unable to queue a follow up skill until the second skill starts, which is difficult due to the very short cast time.

=

*Measured Shot/Endless Night*: And here we are, the example of how overtuned a single target effect needs to be to make you want to spam it on to your entire group. Despite the total Quickness output being 1/4th of what it previously was, a dedicated heal Specter is still comfortably able to maintain 100% quickness uptime on 5 other players (4 subgroup members + someone in the other sub, possibly the other specter). This takes the cursed gameplay flow of manually clicking and rotating through allies to an entirely new level; you now have to make sure you click each one in order, and maintain that order for the rest of the fight. It's not an exaggeration to say that during my live raid testing, I spent just as much time using my mouse to click on allies in the squad UI as I did using my mouse to control my camera.

=

**TRAIT SELECTIONS**

*Adept Traits*: Consume Shadows nerf was justified, but it's still the obvious choice over the other traits for every build. On the DPS side, it's the only trait in the line that grants any sort of DPS increase thanks to Dark Sentry. On the support side, since the supportive aspects of Shroud skills are all single target (and therefore extremely low value), the downside of this trait consuming all of your Shadow Force is a non issue. My recommendation is to shift some of the offensive power of this kit into one of the other traits in this line, in order to prevent the DPS build from having too much built in group sustain, like what we've seen on Scourge in the past.

*Master Traits*: Nothing changed here, so my thoughts remain the same from the previous beta. Larcenous Torment perfectly complements DPS builds, while Traversing Dusk is insanely valuable for support builds, perhaps to the point of being too strong. Amplified Siphoning is very weak, since yet again, single target allied effects in PvE are just low value,  and the Shadow Force gain is weak compared to the other two traits in the line.

*Grandmaster Traits*: Nothing changed here, so my thoughts remain the same from the previous beta. Hungering Darkness remains as the clearly weak pick due to conditions not being very prevalent in PvE.

=

**HEAL/UTILITY/ELITE SKILLS**

Nothing changed here. Overall, well skills are generally weaker than other thief utility options, unless traited with Traversing Dusk which turns them into solid support skills. Well of Tears in particular feels out of place as a purely power damage utility in a spec that has zero power traits. As aside, for some reason Well skills do not allow for queueing other skills during the cast, which is not how other Shadowstep skills in the game perform, such as thief Shortbow 5 or thief Sword 2. Allowing for skill queueing would make spamming wells for alacrity feel a lot less "clunky."

=

**SPECTER BUILDS/BALANCE**

So, as already mentioned in the patch notes, Specter doing quickness/alacrity in addition to the healing it provides probably isn't healthy for the game. Removing quickness from Endless Night seems to be the obvious solution, however, I think in the general the community would rather have more quickness builds in the game rather than less, seeing as how quickness roles generally fill up last in groups.

***Recommendation***: Make Alacrity and Quickness mutually exclusive. Several skill and trait changes are in order to do this in a way that makes sense with balancing the multiple possible Specter builds. 

In order to do this, Quickness would be removed from Endless Night and replaced with another defensive boon, such as Protection or Resolution, which is more fitting with the theme of that skill. In order to prevent the cursed gameplay of manually targeting each ally to maintain the boons on the group, the skill should grant the boons to 5 targets in a radius surrounding the selected ally. Obviously, the boons would need to have greatly reduced duration to make maintaining them only reasonable on a full support build. The barrier would remain as single target, in order to prevent Dark Sentry from scaling out of hand, and to maintain the theme of strong single target support with enough party support to remain as a relevant spec in group PvE.

=

The next step would be to remove the alacrity aspect of Traversing Dusk and make wells give Alacrity baseline. While this change may seem like a rather large buff to the spec, stop and consider how it would affect each build. Heal Specter is going to want to take Traversing Dusk regardless, because the healing on shadowsteps is a core part of the builds non barrier healing output. Condi DPS specter is still not really going to want to take any wells, since they offer much lower damage than other thief utilities and stopping to cast something like heal well would result in a considerable DPS loss. The winner here would be condi Alac specter, as it would now be able to take Larcenous Torment for a bit of a DPS gain. Condi Alac specter definitely needs the help when compared to other Alac sources, such as Staff Mirage or cele Renegade. As of right now, properly benching condi alac specter is rather difficult due to how the golem area works, but I can estimate it to bench at roughly 24-25k, which is considerably lower than the alternatives.

=

The final step of this process would be to restore access to Quickness while keeping it mutually exclusive with Alacrity. My idea here was to add functionality to Amplified Siphoning, so that it changes the baseline Alacrity on wells into Quickness. Quickness is a considerably stronger boon than Alacrity, and the placement here is very intentional because of that. If a heal Specter wanted to provide Quickness instead of Alacrity, it would have to forgo taking Traversing Dusk, which is a notable healing loss. Similarly, if a condi alac Specter wanted to become a condi quick Specter, it would take a DPS hit by losing Larcenous Torment. In the end, I think that while these changes are rather generous, the quickness build would still be weaker than alternatives like Firebrand. Proper balance in relation to other specs would have to come after allowing the spec to exist.

=

***Recommendation***: Allow heal Specter to maintain Might on a subgroup by buffing Shadow Sap to 7 Might for 10 seconds, for 5 players around the allied target. Barrier remains as single target, maintaining the theme of stronger single target support and preventing Dark Sentry from scaling out of hand. If a 600% buff to the Might output seems extreme, consider the fact that the current version of the skill would require spending 75 initiative every 20 seconds with 100% BD to maintain might on a subgroup. The current version of the skill is just that absurdly weak.

Most healers in this game are able to maintain 25 Might on either a subgroup or a squad. For those that do not, they would need to be paired with an offensive Might stacker, of which very few exist in the game. Since heal Specter will no longer be able to maintain both Quickness and Alacrity, it makes sense for heal quick Specter to also be able to maintain Might like a Heal Firebrand can, or heal alac Specter to maintain Might like a staff Mirage can, with a trade of DPS for healing.

Remember that Shadow Sap draws from the same initiative pool as the rest of the weapon skills, so only heal Specter will be able to truly benefit from this. condi Alac Specter currently needs about 50% boon duration to maintain alacrity, so the might would only last for about 15 seconds. 3 Shadow Saps plus Thrill of the Crime reaches 24 Might at the cost of 9 initiative. Spending over half your base initiative regen on Shadow Saps isn't really reasonable if you're trying to do DPS as well.

================================================================================================================

big KITTEN wall you have here but id like to add some condi cleanse for siphon with initiative gain when used on an ally and 1 condi removal on yourself

[Zero.6725]

Specter feels underwhelming in its current iteration. The Endless Night nerf destroyed the most interesting synergy with Rot Wallow Venom as well as any little position play the class had. Wells have no impact and are only used as Alacrity sources. It is no fun to spam all your utility skills to get this boon. Shroud does not feel rewarding and the only skills that see regular usage are Grasping Shadows and Eternal Night. I do not know whether the scepter is too strong or shroud itself is too weak. Targeting allies still feels bad, especially in WvW.

 

Here are some ideas to improve the spec:

1. Make Rot Wallow Venom stack on Specter whenever healing an ally in shroud (max. 15-25 Stacks for 10 seconds – torment from your own RWV stacks can only be used on enemies when not in shroud). This change could turn every current weapon as well as the wells into an interesting condition DPS choice with some cleave damage.
2. Remove Alacrity from wells and turn it into a baseline pulsing effect during shroud (like Harbinger) – only the thief and the tethered ally are affected. This would be another reason to stay in shroud. You could increase the CD of shroud skills accordingly.
3. Give shroud skills some minor boons on successful hits that get shared with your tethered target (Haunt Shot → 1 stack of Might for 10 seconds, Grasping Shadows → Regeneration for 4 seconds, Dawn’s Repose → Resolution or Resistance for 3 seconds, Eternal Night → Protection for 3 seconds).
4. Increase the power damage on Grasping Shadows and Eternal Night slightly. This change allows viable power builds.
5. Remove the CD reduction of Siphon on allies. This change would allow interaction with Thrill of Crime and Bountiful Theft (Specter could steal two conditions and turn them into boons.) on Specter without it being too strong.
6. Remove Measured Shot. Forced movement to the vicinity of your pressured allies is bad, especially for a squishy class.
7. Shadow Sap is a waste of Initiative and has no rewarding interaction with RWV. Turn it into a Shadowstep to a ground-targeted destination (like 300 distance).
8. Change Endless Night so that Specter gets the Quickness and not the ally. Quickness supports both healing and DPS options.
9. Increase CD on all wells and buff them accordingly, e.g. revive 5% per pulse or barrier or plain (condition) damage buffs.
10. Remove Shallow Grave. Neither you nor your tethered ally should need it anyway.
11. Nerf the overall healing potential of Consume Shadows, but turn it into an instant cast healing skill again at the cost of a fixed (percentage) amount of your overall Shadow Shroud health. At the moment you want to avoid damage thus combat if you want to use this trait.
12. Merge Traversing Darkness and Shadestep, but remove the revival effects of Siphon and Shadestep.
13. Make a new trait, that allows Specter to tether itself to four allies, if the thief has no siphoned ally. Boons generated during shroud get shared with the allies. Nerf the overall Barrier and Healing if this trait is equipped (either minus fixed amount of healing power or minus percentage of outgoing healing). Healing and barrier to tethered allies is reduced to one-fourth each.

 

Some of these changes can turn Specter into a more aggressive and engaging spec, that fits the thief theme. Heal through relentless attacks on your enemy. Do fast-paced attacks on your ally for support and healing.

[CrazyM.1852]

My opinion is probably not going to matter, but its worth a shot.

The new elite spec is fun, but when playing thief I always liked power more than condition damage. The traits for the Specter are mostly support and condition damage. I would like for one trait line to be condition and one support as it is not, but pls give one trait line to power damage (as i see at the moment with the Mechanist, which can select power, condition or support), and for minor trait to give torment, it has no synergy with power damage. I would like to have something like Chronomancers have that gives them movement speed, or Heralds have that increases max hp (witch is useful for every build, regardless if it is power, condition or support).

[Eleandra.4859]

Apart from my feedback from beta 3 which I believe stays relevant I have the following proposal I already posted a few days ago in the other feedback thread (Other Spectre feedback thread):

- Make Sc/P 3 hit 5 targets and let it grant Alacrity instead of Quickness
- Make x wells grant y sec of quickness

--> This change makes Spectre a good source of group alac and an optional source of quickness (can easily be balanced by changing the number of wells that grant quickness and amount of quickness per well).
It also reverts the (in my opinion bad) design to force support Spectre into speccing heavily into wells for alacrity and instead opens up build diversity without jeopardizing Spectre's main buff.

Generally speaking I feel that Specrte can be good but is not in most scenarios at the moment. Apart from being good or being bad it is simply not fun atm for me.

Boring + frustrating solo play
Super boring shroud
Scepter not interacting with the available offhand weapons

Edited December 6, 2021 by Eleandra.4859

[BlackSheep.2195]

I tried all the build variations and making the Specter only a condition-based profession is a waste. I would like to see power supporters, hybrid supporters, and condition supporters.

Steal mechanic:

• I like how this Siphon works, but I think it also could receive the Major Grandmaster Improvisation trait benefit. My suggestion is to create two new F skills, F2 to apply siphoned shadows on allies, giving them a barrier or dealing damage (condition + power) on enemies generating shadow force capable of being affected by improvisation. 
• The F3 skill would be merely to change the tethered targets to heal those who need more help, and finally, the shadow shroud skill on F4.

Shadow Shroud:

• I feel that the problem here is more visually. I have difficulty discerning what's happening while executing shroud skills, mainly on the Haunt shot projectiles and Eternal night visual effect. 
•  Mind Shock: That's the only thing I would like to see a change. It would be more useful if given the stability instantly after casting this skill. Specter would get great stomp skill and prevent being interrupted while reviving someone.

Scepter:

• Please, make the auto-attack chain, shadow sap, triple threat, and twilight combo piece the enemies and allies.

Scepter/ Pistol:

• Measured shot/Endless night, my biggest complaint. The measured shot is annoying at forcing Specter to move back or forward from the target's directions when we only want to stay in the same place to keep distance or don't be pushed back while pursuing a running foe.

Suggestion:

• Specters are focused on wells, shadow stepping, and positioning. I'd like to see something like a supportive "Shadow Portal" with 900 of range distance, allowing Specter teleporting to the selected area granting allies fight engage or disengage through using the portal. Stay over the portal opening gives allies boons/heal of the Measured shot" and "Endless Night," while enemies who touch the portal get immobilized and take power damage and conditions. The portal is closed if Specter teleports or does not use the portal after some seconds.

Wells: 

• The Wells Shadowsteps should have the same attack range as the scepter skills range because it will always be the distance we need to walk to engage in combat. When I Shadowstep only 600, I feel how if I teleported to a very near place, plus, it annoys when I am using other wells in the same place, and the movement is clunky.
• I read an interesting suggestion here, make wells teleports optional after casting. We should choose to be teleported or stay in the same place to support the others for distance.
• We seriously need a mass Breakstun well with mass stability. It will make it viable using full well build.
• Well of bounty: What about two boons per pulse? I don't feel it is good enough.
• Well of tears and Well of sorrows: What about merging both? Having two damaging wells is unnecessary. Buff Well of Sorrows power damage as the well of tear (that's where you can create new Breakstun stability well).

Traits: 

• Minor adept Specter trait ruins every build craft that doesn't use the trickery trait line. Please, give us a Breakstun here and revert initiative nerf.
• Make Larcenous Torment increase scepter and melee weapons damage(condition and power) in 20% too.

Additional thoughts:

• I'm not sure, but I think the thief is the only profession that doesn't have their weapons affected by alacrity. What about making alacrity generate initiative faster?
• We need a menu option to let people's health bar always be visible, helping us support those out of the party/squad.

Melee weapons:

• Dagger/dagger is the only thief's condition melee weapon. We need an update on this weapon to be more viable using condition specter. 
• The Backstab and double strike should apply Condition poison damage because thieves also use venomous weapons. It would help those who aren't using full power or hybrid builds.
• It would be nice too if Heartseeker has a bleed condition damage if enemies already are bleeding, with that same mechanics of above 50% health, below 50% health, and below 25% health. 

New mechanic proposal:

• Imagine if Specters could imbue shadows on their melee weapons and generate passive and small range shadow blasts giving barrier with 6 seconds intervals affecting five people favoring group stacking? When I swap to the melee weapons, I lose my support potential.

[AikijinX.6258]

1 hour ago, BlackSheep.2195 said:

Well of tears and Well of sorrows: What about merging both? Having two damaging wells is unnecessary. Buff Well of Sorrows power damage as the well of tear (that's where you can create new Breakstun stability well).

I like this idea. Merging both of them together which leaves room for a breakstun Well. This can definitely be doable and it would make sense, along with the flip autonomy based Well system, where you can choose whether to teleport or not upon dropping a Well. 

 

1 hour ago, BlackSheep.2195 said:

Please, make the auto-attack chain, shadow sap, triple threat, and twilight combo piece the enemies and allies.

What I thought you were going to say was make the Autoattack incorporate Shadowsap benefits into the mix, so on auto attack we always get like 4 stacks of might (10s). Because as it is right now, Shadowsap is pretty much another auto attack, but empowered. Our regular autoattack is the condition based a.a giving torment, whereas Shadowsap is the boon based a.a variant giving might. Sort of like a (plus/minus) type of thing. So merging Shadowsap into the auto attack chain would make sense and would give use to shadow sap, and open up the ability to create a leap finisher or just something else entirely which is more impactful as a #2 Skill.

But I agree with you, all 3 of those should have piercing properties. But if not, thematically the one that truly makes sense to have it piercing or atleast a Cone aoe should be twilight combo, with its arcing sliced projectiles.

Edited December 6, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

52 minutes ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

I like this idea. Merging both of them together which leaves room for a breakstun Well. This can definitely be doable and it would make sense, along with the flip autonomy based Well system, where you can choose whether to teleport or not upon dropping a Well. 

 

What I thought you were going to say was make the Autoattack incorporate Shadowsap benefits into the mix, so on auto attack we always get like 4 stacks of might (10s). Because as it is right now, Shadowsap is pretty much another auto attack, but empowered. Our regular autoattack is the condition based a.a giving torment, whereas Shadowsap is the boon based a.a variant giving might. Sort of like a (plus/minus) type of thing. So merging Shadowsap into the auto attack chain would make sense and would give use to shadow sap, and open up the ability to create a leap finisher or just something else entirely which is more impactful as a #2 Skill.

But I agree with you, all 3 of those should have piercing properties.

id rather have a flip to teleport BACK to the cast location for the wells skills like shadow return is and infiltrators strike on sword. not an option to teleport to if we want, this way we can have more flexibility on the fly

[AikijinX.6258]

25 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

id rather have a flip to teleport BACK to the cast location for the wells skills like shadow return is and infiltrators strike on sword. not an option to teleport to if we want, this way we can have more flexibility on the fly

We don’t need 4 more Shadowstep abilities and infiltrator strike abilities. We just need control over when we want to shadowstep. We don’t need a return on Wells. I just hope they Merge Well of Sorrow and Tears into one Well and add a stun break Well.

[Eleandra.4859]

For me Specter feels like I am fighting against the class mechanics all the time:

When I heal others I do not generate Shroud.

When I target the enemy I do not heal my friends.

When I am in Shroud I do not have access to Alacrity (e.g. wells).

 

Perhaps I am too simple but I would love to have a clearer flow of the class that feels empowering instead of negative.

Also I would really like it if the different rows in the elite spec would enable different play styles.

One grand master trait could change tether to target multiple friends and healing all tethered.

One grand master trait could tether the enemy for solo play.

A third grand master trait could automatically switch tethers to the friend with the lowest health.

 

Instead of negative reinforcement (You do not like to stay in shroud, then ANet will make you stay in shroud, if you want or not) it would be great to make the player want to stay in shroud.

[LucianDK.8615]

Question: So far what is the verdict on armor stats to use?  For group content and soloing.

Also, is Specters always locked to use scepter as mainhand?

Edited December 7, 2021 by LucianDK.8615

[Zacchary.6183]

2 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Question: So far what is the verdict on armor stats to use?  For group content and soloing.

Also, is Specters always locked to use scepter as mainhand?

I would say vitality and concentration simply because specter's healing power scaling is as bad as the rest of the profession's kit. Vitality because it affects shroud HP and Consume Shadows.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Zacchary.6183

[AikijinX.6258]

7 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

I would say vitality and concentration simply because specter's healing power scaling is as bad as the rest of the profession's kit. Vitality because it affects shroud HP and Consume Shadows.

My ideal stat (For me) would be Vitality main stat, Precision Minor, Power Minor (Old PvP Barbarian Amulet Stat) but this would be ideal (for me) and how I would play Spectre roaming WvW. There’s not many vitality main stat armor and weapon stats anymore.

[Fizz.9384]

Posting some of my thoughts from testing Specter during both betas it was available. There are a lot of things that could use tweaking, but below are just some of the things that stood out most to me.

 

Scepter Skills

1. Endless Night (scepter/pistol 3): Anet said providing both alacrity and quickness was too powerful. They also felt changing targets while casting Endless Night to give quickness to more people was not fun. Ironically, they have amplified this problem by forcing specters to cycle ally targets even more rapidly to grant quickness to a group since it only has one target now instead of three. If Anet doesn’t want players to have to cycle targets to apply quickness, then they can increase the targets to 4 or 5 and maybe reduce the boon duration slightly actually not at all since it was reduced already. If they don’t want Specter to be able to provide both alac and quickness, I think it makes more sense to have alac and quickness granted by separate traits on the same tier level so you have to choose one or the other. You could rework Traversing Dusk so it replaces quickness on sc/p 3 with alacrity. If the weapon skill is good enough at providing group alac or quickness, I wouldn't even mind taking taking alac off wells. That could improve build diversity since Specters won’t be forced to take wells for 3 or 4 of their slot skills in order to provide alac. Taking almost all wells on my skill bar feels restricting.
2. Shadow Sap (scepter 2): This doesn’t feel impactful. There is never a moment when I would prefer to use initiative on this over scepter/pistol 3 or scepter/dagger 3. Topping off might for one player isn’t enough. Maybe changing this to a five target AoE (either AoE from your target or a ground targeted skill) so that it damages or CCs multiple mobs or grants might, barrier, and/or some other boon to multiple allies could make it worth using in some situations.
3. Shadowsquall (scepter 1 stealth attack): This also doesn’t feel impactful enough given specter’s reduced access to stealth compared to other Thief elite specs. I was expecting a more rapid firing attack like pistol/pistol 3 or pistol 1 stealth attack, but the attacks are slow and the damage is low. There is never a time I would want to go into stealth to use this attack, and given how limited stealth access is on specter, Shadowsquall should be much more impactful to reflect how rarely you will be able to use it. Daredevils and Deadeyes can use pistol 5 smoke field into dagger 2 leap finisher to gain easy stealth. Specter can do this as well, but the initiative cost is prohibitive with their reduced initiative pool. Deadeye also has kneeling rifle 4 smoke field into dagger 2 leap finisher, a trait for stealth on dodge roll, the F2 stolen skills, and the Shadow Meld elite for tons of stealth access. Meanwhile, Specter will likely take Well of Gloom over Hide in Shadows, and other stealth utilities like Blinding Powder would likely be replaced by wells and venoms. The only consistent access to stealth will be Hidden Thief from the Shadow Arts trait line, which provides stealth on siphon, but taking that trait line will be a dps loss anyway. So again, my point is that given how limited stealth access is for Specter, the scepter 1 stealth attack should be powerful enough to compensate for how rarely you will be able to use it.

Traits

1. Consume Shadows: I agree that Consume Shadows was probably too powerful for how easy it was to access (just press F2 twice for instant massive group healing, barrier, and rot wallow venom). But I think they went a bit heavy on the nerf. I was expecting a reduction in the heal/barrier amount.
2. Traversing Dusk: See above for Endless Night, but being forced to fill 3-4 of your slot skills with wells in order to provide alac for your group doesn’t feel great.

Shadow Shroud skills: Based on the change to Consume Shadows to increase the healing and barrier potential for every second spent in shroud up to five seconds (along with a 50% overall reduction), the idea is to spend more time in Shroud. I think this can be ok, but the way I see it, the problem here wasn’t entirely that Consume Shadows was too strong, but also that the shroud skills are lacking. They don’t feel impactful. There is nothing there that feels strong like Reaper shroud 4 for example. Even trying to use Mind Shock (shroud 5) for stability or the CC stun is super clunky because of the long channel. And while in shroud you are limited to only supporting your tethered ally. Maybe a trait that modifies shroud so your healing, cleanses, and stability applies to allies in a radius instead of just one tethered ally would improve shroud and allow for more varied gameplay. Maybe you’ll opt for a stronger, single target tether when doing a raid that requires a tank (or hand kite for Deimos), and maybe you’ll go for AoE support for fractals. The shroud tether mechanic is way too narrow in scope. If Anet wants us to make more use of Shadow Shroud, they should give us options to open it up to more variety in gameplay including group support instead of just supporting a single tethered ally in open world and 2v2. (I feel Specter is pretty easy to focus down in PvP situations since they don't seem to have much in the way of self-defense.)

 

Wells: Overall I’m concerned that the intense coloring of the wells will make it difficult to see other fields and AoE attacks. I think the color should be made more transparent so it’s easier to see what else shows up on the ground. Well of Tears is a power damage well that feels very weak in a spec that largely specializes in condi damage. I never wanted to use it. I imagine some people will make power builds work on Specter, but even then, this well could probably use a boost (or a rework entirely).

Edited December 7, 2021 by Fizz.9384

[Kodama.6453]

Delete

Edited December 7, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[LucianDK.8615]

11 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

My ideal stat (For me) would be Vitality main stat, Precision Minor, Power Minor (Old PvP Barbarian Amulet Stat) but this would be ideal (for me) and how I would play Spectre roaming WvW. There’s not many vitality main stat armor and weapon stats anymore.

 

But what about a PvE Specter? What stats would they use? I am thinking both solo and in group

[AikijinX.6258]

19 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

 

But what about a PvE Specter? What stats would they use? I am thinking both solo and in group

I was just talking about (my ideal stat), but in general for Spectre PvE and WvW/PvP. A good set would be Healing Power Main, Condition Damage Main, Vitality Minor, Precision Minor.

EDIT: Avatar , Wizard and Swashbuckler Stats would have been good choices too.

Edited December 7, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Jumpel.3972]

Anet state with the nerf of Sc/P #3 Endless night that they want Specter to be really single target. But the single target support is actually not enough vs 5-10 target support.

 

For me, they should go crazy on single target boon (more might + fury on Sc/X #2, regen on #1, superspeed/condi clean on Sc/D #3) but keep it short like quickness on Sc/P #3 to force the support on only one target at a time

[Raythar.8092]

I enjoyed Specter a great deal during the beta, and am glad Thief is finally getting the ability to support other people. Here are my thoughts on what needs improving or fixing.

I spent the last two days writing and re-writing my thoughts on Specter, but it always kept getting just a little too long-winded, so I've tried to condense it down as much as I could. Hopefully this isn't too late of me posting this and the devs will still have a chance to look at it.

Please keep in mind I am coming at this from an endgame PvE perspective, so Raids/Strikes, Fractals, and open world meta events.

Scepter

Overall a very solid weapon. Only a few minor issues

• The skill artwork for scepter being drastically different from dagger and pistol is a bit jarring.
• Stealth attack damage is kind of low.
• Auto attack chain feels a bit bland, both animation wise and the fact that every attack does the same thing, just more hits.
• Endless Night should have the 3 target cap restored, but have the quickness only apply to the primary target if you want avoid having permanent quickness and alacrity on one character.

Wells

Wells feel like a great choice for Specter, and provide that nice bit of extra AoE support that Specter as a single target support is lacking.

• Being forced to shadowstep when you cast a well can be troublesome sometimes. Many people have suggested making wells a flipover skill, with the first part casting the well and the second shadowstepping you.
• It would be nice if one of the wells was a stunbreak.
• Specter as whole needs more group condition cleanse, it would be nice to see one of the wells provide some condition cleanse.
• Well of Tears feels like nothing but filler and is very underpowered. Please either rework it completely or add another effect(s) to it to it to give it something else to make it more useful.
• Well of Bounty is cool in concept but also feels kind of pointless. Unless you are in a very highly coordinated group the boon filler effect ends up feeling like you get random boons, despite its design making you feel like you have a lot of control. If you do decide to keep it mechanically the same then please consider rearranging the boon order and taking some of them out, as the order right now is pretty terrible.

 

Shadow Shroud

Shadow Shroud, in its current state, is almost completely useless. There is no reason to use it outside of a situation where it's Specter +1 other person. The damage is low, the half the skills feel clunky and unrewarding, and it is the worst possible support option for any group larger than 2 people.

•  It is impossible to play support to a group of 5 people while in shroud due to the cooldown on tether swapping, and how clunky it is to change tethered allies. To break it down as to why:
  • Siphon has a cast time, which means you can't switch targets on a dime like you can with scepter skills.
  • Siphon has a 7-9 second cooldown, meaning you cannot switch tether targets for 7-9 seconds. There is no content in Guild Wars 2 where focusing support on one person for 7-9 seconds at a time is even remotely useful outside of 2v2 PvP.
  •  It's almost impossible to tell who you have tethered when you enter Shroud in the heat of battle sometimes, especially if you are using the Shadestep trait and using it as people go downstate.
  • Switching support targets requires you to: go from targeting a foe to targeting an ally, sometimes that you can't see due to effect clutter or the sheer number of targets on screen, cast siphon which has a cast time, then change targets back to whatever enemy you were targeting, again sometimes in a sea of effects and other targets, something the tab targeting system in Guild Wars 2 has trouble with even if the enemy is standing right in front of you.
• There is no way to generate Shadow Force outside of combat. Even if this is intended it should be changed, since druid gets full astral energy at the start of each fight, and necromancer can gain Life force in various other ways.
• Siphon does not generate Shadow Force when used on an ally. Though this is probably intentional it hurts playing support, since it means if you need the Shadow Force you have to use it on an enemy to get Shadow Force and put it on a longer cooldown.
• Siphon does not provide any trait effects, such as Thrill of the Crime, when targeting allies. Even if this is intended there needs to be some sort of compensation since Siphon goes on cooldown.
• Mind Shock should either provide some other boon instead of stability, or provide stability at the start of the cast, otherwise it feels too clunky as a stability source.
• Every skill in Shroud goes on cooldown, which means that unlike scepter where I can just spam it on different people, or wells which provide an AoE effect, even if switching tether targets was instantaneous you would only be able to provide the utility of each effect on one target at a time, relative to each skills cooldown. For example, with Mind shock I can provide 3 stacks of stability to one person every 16 seconds, or 11 if I have alacrity. Specter might as well not even give out stability with how ridiculously little that is.

If you're wondering why so so many people in beta 3 just double tapping Shadow Shroud for Consume Shadows effect, all of this is a major reason. While the heal effect of Consume Shadows was overpowered, it was mainly because there just was no other use for Shadow Shroud because of how awful it was. The nerf to how much Consume Shadows, from 32k to 16k was justified. the 5 second timer before you get the full effect needs to be removed, as the loss of all Shadow Force should be enough of an offset if Shadow Shroud is good enough.

Some suggestions to fix Shadow Shroud as follows. Not all of these are meant to be used together and they should be taken as individual suggestions.

• Place a marker on your tether target that only you can see, either on the UI or above their their character in game, or even both.
• Have Shadow Shroud skills target allies similar to Scepter skills. This would fix a lot of target switching issues.
• Have an F3 skill added that is solely used to change tether targets. This should have 0 cast time and next to no cooldown, if not 0 cooldown.
• Allow tether targets to be "tab targeted" without changing what you are currently targeting. This would likely go in conjunction with the F3 skill that you simply press it while targeting an enemy and it would go off the "target next ally" targeting system to choose who it targets. This would require there to be 0 cooldown on this skill.
• Consider making the cooldown on Shadow Shroud skills either nonexistent, or very low and have them consume Shadow Force to compensate.
• Make some or all Shadow Shroud skills provide an AoE support effect on the Specter and/or on the tethered ally.

 

Traits

The traits are a bit of a mixed bag on Specter. Some of them are cool and probably don't need any fine tuning, some just need a complete rework because they don't compete with other in slot traits.

• Second Opinion doesn't do a good job of competing with Consume Shadows and Shallow Grave in the Major Adept Trait slot.
• Consume Shadows is almost mandatory due to how necessary having at least 1 emergency AoE heal in Guild Wars 2, and how little Specter has in the way of AoE heals and support. I would recommend looking at giving Specter a few more AoE heals and different option for a panic button AoE heal that might not be as powerful as this. In addition the change to make add the 5 stacks of consume shadows so people stay in shroud is unnecessary. The loss of all Shadow Force should be more than enough of a counterbalance if Shadow Shroud itself is balanced properly, which should make people think twice about just double tapping Shadow Shroud. This trait also feels a little powerful to be in the Major Adept Trait line.
• The alacrity given by Traversing Dusk should be enough to where you only need to use 2 wells for 100% alacrity uptime. This may already be the case, but during the beta I was unable to do so in full harrier +  monk runes and needed 3 wells. This meant I either had to take wells in all 3 utility slots, or use Well of Gloom, my heal skill, off cooldown, which made self survival very difficult, and build variety hard to introduce.

 

General Issues

Specter is great at healing allies, but doesn't seem to have much in the way of self healing. I often found myself dying despite having an easy time keeping the rest of my party alive. Maybe consider making some skills that heal allies also heal the specter?

• As stated earlier Specter needs more condition cleanse options. Right now it has 2-3 very slow ways to condition cleanse and it doesn't really feel like enough as a support/healer.
• Specter does not have a lot of options when it comes to taking core thief skills and triats that also provide group support. It might be time to go back and rework a few of these so Specter has more options instead of just "wells, CC, and more wells" if it wants to bring support.
• This is a larger issue with stealth more than Specter, but it's very easy to gain stealth and then lose it instantly because one of your scepter projectiles that you cast BEFORE using your stealth skill makes contact the moment after you gain stealth.
• I feel like Specter should be able to provide more group utility (such as firebrand providing easy stability and aegis, and scrapper providing protection and superspeed). The healing is great, but it doesn't feel like it offers much else besides that and alacrity.
• As much as this may go against the design philosophy of Specter, it needs more AoE support options. That shouldn't stop it from focusing on single target support and healing, but Guild Wars 2 as a game is designed around everyone in the group taking damage. It's too stressful to constantly be playing whack-a-mole with everyone's health and constantly switching targets, and sometimes it's just impossible to keep everyone alive without some AoE healing.
• The UI and targeting system need some heavy reworking for single target support to be viable. You've probably already heard this a million times but it bears repeating with how important it is. Please also don't forget about Action Camera Mode. If you Action Camera Mode gets left behind a lot of people are going to give up on Specter completely which isn't healthy for the game in terms of variety.
• The loss of max initiative is kind of a rough blow. I understand it's supposed to be counterbalanced by the addition of Shadow Shroud, but it makes taking the Trickery trait line feel almost mandatory. I think a cool solution would be to add a "bonus initiative" mechanic, where you gain bonus initiative past the maximum initiative threshold while you are in Shadow Shroud and your initiative is full. Once this initiative is consumed it would not regenerate normally.

Overall Specter is really solid. It has some minor issues, and a major issue in Shadow Shroud, but overall feels very solid and very fun to play. I look forward to finally getting my hands on it for good once End of Dragon launches.

 

[Zacchary.6183]

5 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

 

But what about a PvE Specter? What stats would they use? I am thinking both solo and in group

I use s/d marauder/diviner with vamp runes and it was still good in beta 4 no matter which game mode I was in so long as I stayed near allies. Vit and runes for HP for consume shadows and diviner trinkets with Sigil of Concentration got me enough boon duration that I could keep alacrity up without going full wells. I used Blinding Powder in the extra slot for a stun break and to grant AoE barrier with Panaku's Ambition.

[Rin.1046]

23 hours ago, Raythar.8092 said:

...Please also don't forget about Action Camera Mode....

 

 

Just to update about this part, after they fixed the ally targeting bug I had no issues using dual skills and siphon while in action cam mode. Don't know if anyone else found this, but it seemed to be fixed for me.

 

Great post btw, agree with pretty much all of it.

[Bunny.9834]

Fix shadow shroud. It's still very clunky. 

[Dorian.8542]

i have mained theif since launch and adding good sustain to the class by making a viable condi damage spec fixes one of the issues i have had with the class as a whole, but there is still a very glaring issue i experienced. complete lack of weapon based AOE damage. if i were to make a solid adjustment to the scepter moveset i would modify skill 2 to give it an AOE torment application similar to revenant axe 5 or mace 3. inclusion of AOE damage potential is an inherant part of sustain as it allows us to handle more than one enemy at a time, which is almost perpetually what we face outside of core maps. specter has the opportunity to be the fix that this class desperately needs.