Specter Feedback Thread

[nopoet.2960]

Very late, kind of random thought:  What if we had Marks instead of wells?  Shadowstep, leave a mark.  It would function the same if we use them in traffic but it would give us the option to plan ahead if the situation calls for it.  Gloom and bounty would have to trigger on allies but you wouldn't have to change much more.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

6 hours ago, nopoet.2960 said:

Very late, kind of random thought:  What if we had Marks instead of wells?  Shadowstep, leave a mark.  It would function the same if we use them in traffic but it would give us the option to plan ahead if the situation calls for it.  Gloom and bounty would have to trigger on allies but you wouldn't have to change much more.

sorta how the mirage leaves those diamond "thingies?" i like it... what would the mark do?

[Curennos.9307]

Still feeling really bad for necromancers who basically had their class defining mechanic stolen. If I could easily fix/design out an alternative I'd probably have a different job than the one I do now, but I hope anet changes it to be more in-line with thief's theme. Feels like they could've added some interaction between the specter version of steal and how the skills function (hitting an enemy with it makes the f-skills more offensive, hitting and ally increases support), add the skills to f2-f5, adjust the numbers for more personal defense, evades, barrier, an evade or something, then change the resource generation to be...idk, doing some thief-y action generates a 'charge' that can be spent on only one skill. Who knows.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Curennos.9307

[Dagger.2035]

I just wish the scepter had an AOE like guardian or necro.  The single target projectile attacks are very disappointing for WvW.  The wells are interesting but won’t be worth using in zergs without a ranged AOE.  It’s too bad this spec can’t be used with staff since that weapon is useful in groups.

 

It’s just disappointing because I would expect a support spec to have lower damage AOEs so it is better for group fights.

[Asur.9178]

Beta 4 feedback:

Been quite busy; so, I haven’t really gotten the chance to get this posted until now, MUCH later than I was hoping for, but let’s get started! I’d be very surprised to see any of the below mentioned things addressed/altered, considering how late this is…but, I can hope.

After Beta 3, I posted my feedback here, detailing some of the areas of improvement and things I felt should be addressed in order for the spec to truly shine. However, most of it seems to have fallen in deaf ears or been implemented and adjusted to an unsatisfactory level.

Also, after the changes to the spec for Beta 4 was announced, I voiced my opinion here …and frankly, after thoroughly testing the spec in Beta 4, I will stand by my comments I made there.

Having said that, in this feedback, post Beta 4, I am going to go through the entire spec as a whole and also repeat some of the things I’ve already discussed previously that I still feel needs to be addressed. I will try avoid extremely balance specific number tweaks for the most part as those are just numbers and can be adjusted for balance purposes. I’m sure it will mostly fall on deaf ears at this point based on what I’ve seen in Beta 4, but I will do my part so it doesn’t sit poorly with my conscience.

To preface it all, I want to be very clear with the following: Spectre, as has been presented in Beta 3 and Beta 4 is OVERLY altruistic, which contributes heavily in making it bad as a pure support and VERY hard to justify taking it over other (more beneficial and powerful) supports currently available in the game. Some of the adjustments I will be proposing takes this major issue into account and attempts to address it. My main focus with the feedback is to try see some (all) the changes in order for the spec to truly feel unique and offer a fresh face to thief (which it needs badly after over 9 years) – balance issues can be addressed with mere number tweaks, but the feel is what matters the most.

Profession mechanic:

• Siphon: Split the barrier effect and tether swap effect into 2 separate skills. Meaning, keep Siphon as F1 and add a new skill as F3, which will only be used for swapping the tether target (with maybe 1s cd). This would allow Siphon to keep the same cd for both enemy and ally usage (18s). However, that would also mean the following adjustments need to be made in order to justify the change: either double the barrier provided by Siphon or (ideally) make it so Siphon not only provides the ally barrier (using current values), but the thief itself as well.

When Siphon is used on allies, Siphon should trigger ALL steal specific traits, along with a tweaked benefit from traits that would normally negatively impact enemies. For example, Serpent’s Touch would apply regeneration on the ally while it normally poisons the enemy; Mug would heal the ally while it normally damages enemy; Even the Odds would apply protection while it normally applies vulnerability on the enemy; etc.

• Shadow Shroud: It’s actually baffling to me that the devs correctly identified the players’ disinterest in utilizing Shadow Shroud skills by sitting in Shroud, yet failed to grasp why that is, instead of simply blindly putting the entire blame on Consume Shadows…which is just so wrong.

Consume Shadows is not the reason why players are actually disinterested in sitting in Shadow Shroud. It’s the fact that Shroud skills are not interesting/strong enough and simply does not benefit a group (sitting in Shroud only benefits the tethered ally…and minimally so), while Consume Shadows benefits a whole group, including the thief – as it turns out, being OVERLY altruistic is NOT FUN NOR EFFECTIVE for a support – a dead support is a nonfactor support.

Furthermore, the reason Shadow Shroud is so much less interesting and intriguing to play with (compared to other transforms like Photon Forge, Necro Shrouds, Celestial Avatar, and even Gunsaber) is because none of the traits has any kind of interesting interaction with it at all, at any level, except Hungering Darkness.

Shadow Shroud:

• Haunt Shot: From a balance perspective, it does pathetic amounts of power damage in PvP. 😒

Also, I personally believe that to make shroud a bit more interesting by itself, and considering it is a thief at core, Shroud 1 (Haunt Shot) should have a stealth alternate skill. The skill could be something as simple as stealing boons from the enemy and applying it to the tethered ally and yourself.

• Grasping Shadows: No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• Dawn's Repose: Okay, I want to start of by saying: thank you for at least looking into adjusting the skill’s function to make it more user friendly.

However, while the skill’s function was adjusted, it was also HEAVILY nerfed…WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID?! The skill was nerfed at 2 levels (one can argue 3 levels): the range and the radius were both heavily nerf.

What it needed was more control...that's it. It does 0 damage in PvP anyway because it's considered a cc skill. The worst part about it? The animation has an aftercast of ~1.5s…which feels atrocious (3 tiered nerf). Fix the range/radius nerfs and the aftercast.

• Eternal Night:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• Mind Shock: The skill should heal you in addition to your tethered ally. Also, the cost vs payoff is not balanced. Consider adding something like: a stunbreak or 1 stack of stability on initial cast. Alternatively, reduce the charge-up time significantly.

Sceptre skills:

• Auto chain:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• Shadowsquall: WEAK! PATHETIC! WASTE OF SKILL! Seriously, I expected better from ANet’s creativity. This skill is a waste of space. I am genuinely disappointed. 😑
• Shadow Sap: The skill should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally. There's no reality where I would ever consider buffing someone else over damaging the enemy with this skill as it currently stands - this applies to Endless Night and Twilight Combo as well.
• Measured Shot:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• Endless Night: As with Shadow Sap, the skill should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally. Also, its benefits (as was presented in Beta 4) cannot be justified by its cost in PvP – VERY poorly balanced. 😑
• Twilight Combo: BUGS GALORE! FIX THEM! As with Shadow Sap and Endless Night, the skill should apply the boons being applied to allies on yourself as well, as long as you apply them to an ally. Also, in addition to its current effects, it should apply a short duration resistance as well when used on an ally. It’s extremely hard to justify using this skill on an ally compared to an enemy as is currently implemented.

Skills:

Wells as a skill type is fine. However, most of the wells have inherent issues like animations being too awkward or having severe cast/aftercast issues and the fact that some wells literally punish you for meeting all the requirements, instead of rewarding you (more on this to follow).

• Well of Gloom:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• Well of Tears: WEAK! PATHETIC! DOESN’T BELONG IN SPECTRE’S KIT! Let’s use a simple comparison…even for power purposes. Let’s compare this skill to Sword of Justice (SoJ) for example. Not only does SoJ utilize charges with the same base cooldown, but it also casts faster, does significantly more damage, and applies cripple and vulnerability as well. This utility is a joke and a WASTE OF SKILL SLOT – the only purpose it will fulfill is being a well shadowstep just for the sake of having one in shorter cooldown.

Stop adding obviously bad and dead on arrival skills to the game please – the game has been out for over 9 years now (for example, when was the last time you saw someone using Distracting Daggers?)

• Well of Bounty: If the ally has all the boons, then each trigger should add 1.5s duration to each boon.
• Well of Sorrow: If the enemy has all the conditions, then each trigger should add 1 stack of each condition (Poison, Bleeding, Torment) with half the duration.
• Well of Silence: If the enemy has all the conditions, then each trigger while the enemy is activating a skill should fear them for 1s.
• Shadowfall:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍

Traits:

Revisiting what I mentioned earlier in the post, the reason Shadow Shroud is so much less interesting and intriguing to play with (compared to other transforms like Photon Forge, Necro Shrouds, Celestial Avatar, and even Gunsaber) is because none of the traits has any kind of interesting interaction with it at all, at any level, except Hungering Darkness.

Furthermore, traits like Improvisation are significantly less impactful of a choice when it comes to Siphon. I highly believe ANet should adjust Siphon to be something like what I discussed above, especially if they want to make Spectre primarily be this “single target support spec” that they keep talking about.

Having said that, I would like to see the Specter trait lines be more focused on a theme. For example, the TOP (🔺) line can be condition focused, MID (🔴) line can be shroud augmentation, and BOT (🔻) line can be support.

• Improvisation: This trait 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 siphon.
• 🔺TOP: Second Opinion: It is just plain bad and in no situation is it actually worth taking, unless you’re simply wanting to avoid the other 2 in the adept tier due to negative returns – this is not how a trait should be designed.

A better option would be to swap Healing Power bonus with Condition Damage bonus, and swap the stat conversation as well. This would allow the top line to remain condition focused.

• 🔴MID: Shallow Grave: REMOVE THIS TRAIT! REMOVE IT! GET RID OF IT! THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER NONSENSE TRAIT! WE DON’T NEED THIS IN GW2! SELECT THE CODE REFERRING TO THIS TRAIT AND HIT THE DELETE BUTTON! It’s baffling that ANet hates really strong passives (understandable) and sticks on 5 minute cooldowns to skills in order to disincentivize players from using them (understandable), yet added Shallow Grave. What a ridiculous idea; 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.

• 🔻BOT: Consume Shadows: Don’t touch it anymore. You already did enough. This trait is not what’s holding back people from wanting to utilize shadow shroud for longer periods of time.
• Dark Sentry: The Rot Wallow Venom 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.
• 🔺TOP: Larcenous Torment:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• 🔴MID: Amplified Siphoning: It’s too unintuitive and uninteresting to ever be competing with the rest of the Master traits.

Keeping in theme with the middle line augmenting shroud, I would recommend this trait be replaced by something more interesting. For example, maybe a trait that breaks stun when entering shroud and gains 15 Shadow Force upon entering Shadow Shroud.

• 🔻BOT: Traversing Dusk:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• Panaku's Ambition:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• 🔺TOP: Strength of Shadows:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• 🔴MID: Hungering Darkness:  No proposed change/adjustment. 👍
• 🔻BOT: Shadestep: Revert the change in regards to how the barrier share works. Minimal barrier split across multiple people is basically negligible amount of barrier - the trait is a joke. Also, consider adjusting the trait to allow Siphon to apply Revealed on enemy targets as well.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Asur.9178

[Chrysaliss.8720]

Honestly at this point I feel like Specter needs to go back to the drawing board. The current concept needs to be thrown in the bin and just start all over again.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Chrysaliss.8720

[Za Shaloc.3908]

If there were 2 things about Specter that I could change, it would be:

 

- Incentivize using Siphon ally as a support skill (currently is suffers from being weak due to such few trait interactions).

- Polish the tether ally mechanic and how one supports allies in shroud. If I had it my way, I would give shroud the allied targeting option like scepter has: if targeting an ally, the skills gain a supportive functionality. Additionally, if targeting the tethered ally, the skills gain AoE/additional effects around the tethered ally.

 

[Zacchary.6183]

On 1/6/2022 at 1:43 AM, Asur.9178 said:

Furthermore, traits like Improvisation are significantly less impactful of a choice when it comes to Siphon.

While the rest of your writeup is well done and sound, I have to point out that if you use Improv with trickery/Sleight of Hand, the CD of steal drops to 12s (9.5s with alacrity). So you'll be proccing improv that often, making high CD utilities more accessible. Used this combo to great effect and managed to put down two Shadow Refuges back to back for some aoe healing during one of the betas.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Zacchary.6183

[Asur.9178]

21 hours ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

While the rest of your writeup is well done and sound, I have to point out that if you use Improv with trickery/Sleight of Hand, the CD of steal drops to 12s (9.5s with alacrity). So you'll be proccing improv that often, making high CD utilities more accessible. Used this combo to great effect and managed to put down two Shadow Refuges back to back for some aoe healing during one of the betas.

Improvisation has its own cd; stealing/swiping/marking/siphoning earlier than it is available does not recharge anything. You can run Swindler's Equilibrium to test this yourself.

What you're talking about is already doable and been doable for years, except at a more beneficial level because of double stolen skills on all the previous especs and core thief. RNG reset is also still RNG reset.

[Zacchary.6183]

1 minute ago, Asur.9178 said:

Improvisation has its own cd; stealing/swiping/marking/siphoning earlier than it is available does not recharge anything. You can run Swindler's Equilibrium to test this yourself.

What you're talking about is already doable and been doable for years, except at a more beneficial level because of double stolen skills on all the previous especs and core thief. RNG reset is also still RNG reset.

I know. I was just using Shadow Refuge as an example. You can get lucky and have it affect the same skill multiple times. My point is, though, that you can use it more* often with siphon's low CD. That's the tradeoff, at least in Improv's case. While you are missing out on stolen skills, you don't need Deadly Arts and Trickery to use it's recharge every 20s and can in fact keep it on CD with just alacrity. That's fair imho, since Improv's the only steal trait that has been hit hard by Specter. The other steal traits get to see twice the use, possibly becoming a little broken with swindler's.

[NIHILUS.4168]

Id like to see following shadow shroud rework:

1. Make auto attack 3 part chain whit first attack tormenting second part torment + poison and third torment + poison and bleed whit each attack adding one additional hit and auto attack should be a whip hitting up to 5 targets in a cone. 300-450 range

2. Shroud 2 teleport to area and pull enemis in area around you there, flip over skill to return to starting position and pull affected enemis whit you.

3. Shroud 3 life drain target and heal self.

4. Shroud 4 should give stealth and give acess to shroud stealth attack.

5. Should be a channel that summons unstable shadows that run at enemies explode and leave condi clouds.

6. Shroud stealth attack should be 600 range six to eight hit attack channeled over 2 sec adding damaging conditions and if enemy has all apply random damange condi and get 2 stacks of might.

7. All skills would still heal and grant barrier, but dont personally care about support aspect so leave that out.

[AikijinX.6258]

On 1/10/2022 at 6:42 PM, NIHILUS.4168 said:

Id like to see following shadow shroud rework:

1. Make auto attack 3 part chain whit first attack tormenting second part torment + poison and third torment + poison and bleed whit each attack adding one additional hit and auto attack should be a whip hitting up to 5 targets in a cone. 300-450 range

2. Shroud 2 teleport to area and pull enemis in area around you there, flip over skill to return to starting position and pull affected enemis whit you.

3. Shroud 3 life drain target and heal self.

4. Shroud 4 should give stealth and give acess to shroud stealth attack.

5. Should be a channel that summons unstable shadows that run at enemies explode and leave condi clouds.

6. Shroud stealth attack should be 600 range six to eight hit attack channeled over 2 sec adding damaging conditions and if enemy has all apply random damange condi and get 2 stacks of might.

7. All skills would still heal and grant barrier, but dont personally care about support aspect so leave that out.

So you want a Super Shroud that can do everything for pretty minimal cost?

Edited January 19, 2022 by AikijinX.6258

[NIHILUS.4168]

5 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

So you want a Super Shroud then that can do everything for pretty minimal cost?

Well since new elite specs are going to be op for couple of months, why not, still gonna be nerfed to oblivion after. Tho i suppose insteed of the ally thread mechanic each skill could be ally or enemy targeted doing either aoe heal or aoe condi and 3 could be a timed explosive inflicting burining on blowsion to further push it into that dual role, but current itiration of shroud is just plain boring.

also cool if each enemy skill would summon diferent shadow weapon to do their trick 1 main hand dagger that has whip extending from it 2 main hand sword for 1st second hand dagger for flip 3 rifle to shoot the explosive attachment 4 scepter to grant stealth 5 staff for suicide shadow summon and for stealth attack dual pistols.

Edited January 11, 2022 by NIHILUS.4168
Articulations an ongoin process.

[Asur.9178]

On 1/9/2022 at 8:08 PM, Zacchary.6183 said:

I know. I was just using Shadow Refuge as an example. You can get lucky and have it affect the same skill multiple times. My point is, though, that you can use it more* often with siphon's low CD. That's the tradeoff, at least in Improv's case. While you are missing out on stolen skills, you don't need Deadly Arts and Trickery to use it's recharge every 20s and can in fact keep it on CD with just alacrity. That's fair imho, since Improv's the only steal trait that has been hit hard by Specter. The other steal traits get to see twice the use, possibly becoming a little broken with swindler's.

The point is that you can already do this, and to a much more beneficial level than you seem to think. People don't generally take Improvisation for the RNG reset (that's the cherry on the top). People take it for the double steal, which is the key point for the trait...even in PvE. Losing that makes Improvisation significantly worse.

A trait becoming nearly a nonfactor because of a spec change is not how things should be. In fact, ANet has shown us through their own actions that they like to rework traits that are impacted by new espec mechanics time and time again (including with EoD especs)...this is no different.

Nobody in their right mind would consider playing specter without Trickery, unless they want to self-troll themselves. The spec is literally designed to shoehorn you into that traitline...IN CASE you didn't already felt shoehorned into it for over 9 years. Acrobatics is a dead traitline. Nobody in their right mind would play with that traitline for just 1 trait, unless the traitline sees significant changes, because the other traitlines are just much more beneficial and interesting. What you're talking about is paper theory...reality is quite different.

The tradeoff for specter is the loss of initiative, stolen skills, and instant steal ports...which is actually quite massive. There doesn't need to be 100 different "tradeoffs"...unless you want the spec to FEEL bad while playing it.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Asur.9178

[Zacchary.6183]

2 hours ago, Asur.9178 said:

The point is that you can already do this, and to a much more beneficial level than you seem to think. People don't generally take Improvisation for the RNG reset (that's the cherry on the top). People take it for the double steal, which is the key point for the trait...even in PvE. Losing that makes Improvisation significantly worse.

A trait becoming nearly a nonfactor because of a spec change is not how things should be. In fact, ANet has shown us through their own actions that they like to rework traits that are impacted by new espec mechanics time and time again (including with EoD especs)...this is no different.

Nobody in their right mind would consider playing specter without Trickery, unless they want to self-troll themselves. The spec is literally designed to shoehorn you into that traitline...IN CASE you didn't already felt shoehorned into it for over 9 years. Acrobatics is a dead traitline. Nobody in their right mind would play with that traitline for just 1 trait, unless the traitline sees significant changes, because the other traitlines are just much more beneficial and interesting. What you're talking about is paper theory...reality is quite different.

The tradeoff for specter is the loss of initiative, stolen skills, and instant steal ports...which is actually quite massive. There doesn't need to be 100 different "tradeoffs"...unless you want the spec to FEEL bad while playing it.

Adapting to new things never feels good. If you're planning on playing specter in purely thief fashion, yes you're getting screwed. That's because specter is a thief/necro hybrid with two completely different playstyles in one. As such, it should be played more like a thief/necro by utilizing shroud as much as regular weapon skills rather than relying completely on core mechanics. Your shroud doesn't use up initiative nor halts its regen, so you can use it to take a break from your weaponset and get back initiative naturally. As for Improv itself, stolen skills exist for utility and extra damage. With thief's overall survivability given a large passive boost from shroud and traits, active defense and utility from weapon and stolen skills doesn't matter as much. Not saying your concern isn't valid, but you are well compensated with other things. 

[Asur.9178]

1 hour ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

Adapting to new things never feels good. If you're planning on playing specter in purely thief fashion, yes you're getting screwed. That's because specter is a thief/necro hybrid with two completely different playstyles in one. As such, it should be played more like a thief/necro by utilizing shroud as much as regular weapon skills rather than relying completely on core mechanics. Your shroud doesn't use up initiative nor halts its regen, so you can use it to take a break from your weaponset and get back initiative naturally. As for Improv itself, stolen skills exist for utility and extra damage. With thief's overall survivability given a large passive boost from shroud and traits, active defense and utility from weapon and stolen skills doesn't matter as much. Not saying your concern isn't valid, but you are well compensated with other things. 

This isn't a matter of adaption. In fact, I don't even know what you're trying to accomplish with this conversation.

What you're arguing is basically leaving an oversight as an oversight and trying to justify it by calling it a "tradeoff" - that's not what it is, and it's silly to try justify it as such. It's like saying Decoy and Mirror Images should have been left as they were because "tradeoff"...in fact, in the case of those 2 traits, it would have made more sense to leave them as they were because now they are blatant power creeped traits, unlike in the case of Improvisation, where a part of the trait DOESN'T EVEN WORK.

You talk about not "relying completely on core mechanics", yet fail to recall that the core mechanics were hard nerfed (initiative), removed (stolen skills), and altered (steal)...meaning you can't do what you claim anyway, even if you wanted. Trying to dismiss others and their argument(s) by claiming/insinuating they do not know how to play something, without knowing anything about them is just silly as well - especially in this particular case when it has nothing to do with a broken (quite literally) trait.

If you like dead traits, then more power to you...you can continue enjoying a dead trait post launch, while telling yourself it's fine. Would explain why you use Acrobatics as an argument in the first place tbh. However, we clearly fundamentally disagree on this topic about Improvisation, which I don't see changing. So, I'll leave it at that since I don't think any class/spec should have a dead trait...not just thief, but clearly we disagree.

N.B. Thief will never play like necro. You (or someone else) can want that all you want, but that will never happen.

If things continue as they have been with no logical changes and more nerfs on the horizon, then I'll see you in a few months as you enjoy your decap bot in sPvP and your DE 2.0 in PvE...and yes, it's DE 2.0 in PvE as of Beta 4. It's bad as a support and it's decent (at best) as a dps, because in an actual encounter, cDD outperforms it with less effort, while brining more (see Improvisation).

[Zacchary.6183]

10 minutes ago, Asur.9178 said:

This isn't a matter of adaption. In fact, I don't even know what you're trying to accomplish with this conversation.

What you're arguing is basically leaving an oversight as an oversight and trying to justify it by calling it a "tradeoff" - that's not what it is, and it's silly to try justify it as such. It's like saying Decoy and Mirror Images should have been left as they were because "tradeoff"...in fact, in the case of those 2 traits, it would have made more sense to leave them as they were because now they are blatant power creeped traits, unlike in the case of Improvisation, where a part of the trait DOESN'T EVEN WORK.

You talk about not "relying completely on core mechanics", yet fail to recall that the core mechanics were hard nerfed (initiative), removed (stolen skills), and altered (steal)...meaning you can't do what you claim anyway, even if you wanted. Trying to dismiss others and their argument(s) by claiming/insinuating they do not know how to play something, without knowing anything about them is just silly as well - especially in this particular case when it has nothing to do with a broken (quite literally) trait.

If you like dead traits, then more power to you...you can continue enjoying a dead trait post launch, while telling yourself it's fine. Would explain why you use Acrobatics as an argument in the first place tbh. However, we clearly fundamentally disagree on this topic about Improvisation, which I don't see changing. So, I'll leave it at that since I don't think any class/spec should have a dead trait...not just thief, but clearly we disagree.

N.B. Thief will never play like necro. You (or someone else) can want that all you want, but that will never happen.

If things continue as they have been with no logical changes and more nerfs on the horizon, then I'll see you in a few months as you enjoy your decap bot in sPvP and your DE 2.0 in PvE...and yes, it's DE 2.0 in PvE as of Beta 4. It's bad as a support and it's decent (at best) as a dps, because in an actual encounter, cDD outperforms it with less effort, while brining more (see Improvisation).

It IS a matter of adaptation. Do you honestly think you'll never use shroud when playing specter? Do you honestly think Anet did not weigh and balance the changes against all of the steal traits when they made Siphon in the first place? Improv, in spite of it's nerf, got compensated with more use. Its good for specters running wells because in order to keep alacrity up you're going to be spamming wells anyway. The reduced CD of Siphon, and the fact it is going to be your main source of shadow force anyway, will help you put down as many wells as possible. Sure, it could be done before but you needed two traitlines to use it as much as possible. Siphon is base 18s without anything else. Call it a dead trait all you want, but it isn't dead not by a long shot.

As for Acro: Siphon is 12s with trick and Sleight of Hand, down to 9.6s with alacrity, and then 4.8s with Swindler's proc. Steal on a potential 5s cd from 30s is broken when you consider any of the other steal traits. Even with the trait's 10s CD you should still be able to use Siphon often enough that it won't matter. ~2k heal? 3 ini? Stealth? Poison/Bleeding/Weakness? Daze? Every 5-10s? Yes, please.

And, yes, there is a l2p issue here. AikijinX, who initially grated against the spec, posted numerous videos showing its staying power on the thief forums and it performed far better overall than DrD ever could. He used shroud offensively and defensively, he baited his enemies into more telegraphed attacks of shroud, he took on a variety of players with some designed for dueling, sometimes not even needing stealth. After the betas we talked a bit about builds possibilities on discord and he seemed enthusiastic. There is a MightyTeapot video showing a five round pvp tourney of only EoD specs and the specter was in fights far more than they were decapping. In fact, that team ended up easily winning four out of five because the specter stuck with the vind a majority of the time and wrecked face. Azza probably only ever went down a total of ~3 times (it was rare, barely paid attention) and he was using marauder. There is me who, in spite of all the complaints about specter's support capability on the forums, was still able to consistently pump out 5-digit healing bursts and barrier gen without really building for it. Something that would be great for Raids. The spec never had a problem with damage or support, just the players.

[kash.9213]

18 hours ago, Asur.9178 said:

This isn't a matter of adaption. In fact, I don't even know what you're trying to accomplish with this conversation.

What you're arguing is basically leaving an oversight as an oversight and trying to justify it by calling it a "tradeoff" - that's not what it is, and it's silly to try justify it as such. It's like saying Decoy and Mirror Images should have been left as they were because "tradeoff"...in fact, in the case of those 2 traits, it would have made more sense to leave them as they were because now they are blatant power creeped traits, unlike in the case of Improvisation, where a part of the trait DOESN'T EVEN WORK.

You talk about not "relying completely on core mechanics", yet fail to recall that the core mechanics were hard nerfed (initiative), removed (stolen skills), and altered (steal)...meaning you can't do what you claim anyway, even if you wanted. Trying to dismiss others and their argument(s) by claiming/insinuating they do not know how to play something, without knowing anything about them is just silly as well - especially in this particular case when it has nothing to do with a broken (quite literally) trait.

If you like dead traits, then more power to you...you can continue enjoying a dead trait post launch, while telling yourself it's fine. Would explain why you use Acrobatics as an argument in the first place tbh. However, we clearly fundamentally disagree on this topic about Improvisation, which I don't see changing. So, I'll leave it at that since I don't think any class/spec should have a dead trait...not just thief, but clearly we disagree.

N.B. Thief will never play like necro. You (or someone else) can want that all you want, but that will never happen.

If things continue as they have been with no logical changes and more nerfs on the horizon, then I'll see you in a few months as you enjoy your decap bot in sPvP and your DE 2.0 in PvE...and yes, it's DE 2.0 in PvE as of Beta 4. It's bad as a support and it's decent (at best) as a dps, because in an actual encounter, cDD outperforms it with less effort, while brining more (see Improvisation).

What do you mean by "play like necro". .

-Leave Siphon alone. You're trying to convolute it to cater to one playstyle, which happens to be your own. It works fine expect there needs to be Mouse Rollover highlight through crowds.

-Keep your teammates topped off but "play like a thief" to build Force with Siphon and attacks. 

-Don't count out going in and out of Shroud often. And don't speak for all players, your take was wrong on that.

-You don't just "sit in Shadow Shroud". It's good utility and works a space really well.

-Leaving Siphon with full core Steal modifiers would turn it into a howitzer.

-If you're not using Shroud, of course Initiative will be an issue for you. Having full core Initiative on top of Shroud would be brutal, and that's not considering yet any slotted modifiers for things like Weapon Swap.

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by kash.9213

[Zacchary.6183]

5 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

What do you mean by "play like necro". .

That was in response to me calling specter a thief/necro hybrid. You pop in and out of shroud while building up shadow force.

[Carnifex.3275]

I just really wish they would rework healing. Single target healing is not the way to go if we ever wanna see thief useful in endgame PvE. I was hoping ill come back to my main class when EoD launches. Now i think it'll still be collecting dust and i'll keep playing guardian. Anet just really hates thief judging how they treated it for the last few years.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Dave.6819

[Zacchary.6183]

Drop icd of Dark Sentry to .25 seconds or up the torment duration. Its useless, even though its a minor trait.

[Ivaldi.5076]

They really do.  I hope this abomination doesn't launch as is, I've never been so disappointed with a spec in any game I have played.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

While im here, i just hope the new st at types are gonna be beneficial to specter in someway. Id also like to point out that id love to see more availability to give AND benrfit MORE from Dark Aura since already mess around with Torment.

[Doggie.3184]

I still want to know why Thief is the only Scepter user that doesn't get a 5 target AoE on it's #2 weaponskill. Probably what urks me the most above everything.

[Asur.9178]

How VERY disappointing. All those feedbacks and basically nothing was addressed and changed.

Why even start a feedback thread and pretend to read and consider any feedback, when they don't care about thief and people's feedback, and ONLY ever consider those feedbacks given in private discord.

This thread has been nothing but a show.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Asur.9178