Specter Feedback Thread

[Curennos.9307]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:11 AM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

improvisation was already suggested by myself and many others since we dont have stolen skills we have access to while using specter

I'd rather improv do something else. Shadow Arts is turning out to be the more support-y traitline - I'd rather it go there. Something could be tacked on to Cover of Shadow, maybe.

 

 

Anyway, here's my specter feedback after a few months of EoD.

 

Specter Shroud

Honestly I really do not like it. It feels really bad and does not feel like it fits with the spec. It's also a pretty blatant rip-off of necromancer, and while borrowing some things from other classes/specs is fine, particularly as EoD e-specs this round feel like they were intended to be more hybrids between classes, outright copy-pasting a mechanic feels...lackluster. I enjoy specter overall and it's my favorite thief spec, but I think this was the least interesting way to make specter more tanky and add some support. 

 

- Feels like too much of a copy paste from necro. Inspiration is fine, but this exact copy paste just doesn't work. Specter doesn't have the supporting class design elements for it

- Doesn't play into thief's class's fantasy or class-fantasy-creating mechanics. That is, initiative, stealth, ambush attacks, slipperiness. Shroud is burly, slow, immobile, and inflexible. 

- Doing it this way has forced on thief other necromancer issues, such as taking damage reduces support capability (reapers taking damage reduces DPS, which feels really bad) and damage. It also forces the spec into using LF as a resource for everything, including HP, resulting in vitality scaling things such as COnsume Shadows - which, let's be honest, is ridiculously overpowered since it fits into a DPS rotation and scales off vitality. Of course, it's also in the first tier of traits, which is bonkers. This lets the thief spew out barrrier skin to a heal scourge but with none of the healing power investment. Just look at the other healing power trait in the first trait tier - it gives...What, 120-ish healing power and change depending on stats? It just feels really bad in comparison.

 

 

How to fix this? Well, there are a bunch of ways to do it. The least effort version would be, in my opinion, just remove shroud as a second health bar and shift the skills into f2, 3, 4, 5, since we're missing out on stolen skills. Tweak the skills for different purposes and make them cost life force. If we're going to copy necromancer, might as well be scourge, but with a thief spin - skills can cost ini, LF, or both, or more of one than the other, or have different options (costs 500 LF and 5 ini, or 1000 LF and 0 ini if you're out of ini). There could be interactions with thief skills (using f2 allows your next weapon skill to cost no ini and is usable on an ally, for example). Or, more interplay with leech mechanics would be cool - for example, shadow arts adding leech to venoms, which lets you heal allies with venom utilities, but could also be extended to Rot Wallow Venom (and tweaked to not be OP). Then some vampiric aura or pulsing barrier (for multiple RWV applications on allies) in the f-skills.

 

This also brings me to my next bit of feedback:

 

Specter weapon - Scepter

I love it, lol. It feels great and the hybrid skill with different off weapons feel suitably distinct from each other. Scepter/pistol 3 should definitely have the slow removed for pvp reasons and the cast time sped up some, but overall it's nice. Don't get me wrong there ARE issues, but I really enjoy the core design and functionality. 

- Scepter 2: It's just bad. I never use this. I don't know anyone who uses this. Heck, I don't know any scenario, even a niche scenario, where this is used. I may be mising something but it seems like this should be a top priority for anet to fix this dead skill. It doesn't even have a niche like headshot on dagger pistol, it's just..inferior in all aspects. 

- The stealth skill. It's very slow. The damage is lackluster but the heal is excellent, albeit single target. There's some debate that could be had over it but that's someone else's problem - I like it in pvp cause healing an ally for healing-skill numbers is great. Could use a bit more range or something, I guess, and be a bit faster, but eh. Make the damage better. This ties into my next complaint...Which is more thief oriented in general.

 

It's unclear how much we should be using stealth skills

Some builds have a ton of stealth access and routine use of stealth skills. Other builds, no matter how hard you try, require a ridiculous amount of investment to start getting use out of stealth skills, or the methods to do so feel oddly clunky. As a specter, using scepter, I rarely use my stealth attack - and if I do, it feels bad to use because it's just not very good, it's slow, etc. 

 

My request here would be for anet to examine thief as a whole and re-examine the place of stealth attacks in the thief kit - how often should builds be using them? How much effort should it take to fit that average number of stealth attacks into a build? How much should it take if a thief wants to pull off more stealth attacks? Because currently there's a wide disparity in usage - sometimes the stealth attack is extremely relevant, sometimes not at all, and it varies wildly with stealth access (or lack thereof). It's also 99% of the time never used in pve, insofar as I know, except that...one raid build - dagger - dagger / that spams d/d5 and then backstab and that's its entire rotation. 

 

Other weapons

For deadeye, the main 'deadeye mechanic' was Malice, which works with any weapon. For Daredevil, it's the bonuses granted by dodges. For specter...It's partially shroud which you have with any weapon, but a big chunk of it is scepter, which can target allies.

 

No other weapon can target allies. This feels severely limiting. I don't mind a spec's weapon being more suited to use with that spec - that isn't the issue. It's that all the other thief weapons are a little left in the dust for one of specter's spec-defining mechanics - being able to target allies and support them with skills that would otherwise just do damage to enemies.

 

I can understand why this isn't done, to some extent, as adding a whole bunch of new effects to every single thief weapon would be overkill, particularly on launch where Anet is getting the most value from testing. However, as EoD is months behind us now, I hope that other weapons can start getting support options to more fully flesh out specter's capability

 

 

In summary:

- Shroud as a mechanic and its current implementation feels very out of place on thief. Consume shadows is also ridiculously overpowered in its current state, or at least where it currently is in the trait tiers.

- Scepter 2 needs to have a defined purpose so it actually sees use, a few scepter skills need tweaking. I would also like to see ally support options not be exclusive to the scepter weapon.

- Stealth accessibility and subsequent ability of a certain build to benefit from stealth attacks feels very feast or famine.

 

Honorable mentions

I've seen some mention of well skills and the teleport feeling clunky. This is especially painful on pvp maps such as Djinn's Domination, where it's a toss up if the teleport actually works. The skills in general are just...They're weak - they feel bad without the trait that makes them give alacrity, and utility skills should be able to stand alone without being enhanced by a middle tier trait. Some cleanse would be nice on the heal skill, damage bumps on the damage wells would be excellent, etc.

 

The death-negation trait in the first tier is still, iirc, 300 seconds in pvp. Why?

 

Longbow feels absolutely atrocious to use in PvP and, now that every class's EoD spec has more mobility than previous, the cost should be brought back down.

 

Shadow Arts being more of a support is working out fine so far - some issues, of course, but I like where it's going. 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Curennos.9307

[Valisha.8650]

The shroud nerf idea is beyond stupid, please, let's not go down that route.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

i agree, for pvp i see the shroud change being understandable, for wvw however the whole "goal" of sticking to the commander is a bit of a requirement to be able to soak up some damage, with the reduction to the health of shroud scaling its gonna be bad. PvP/PvE wouldnt be so bad but leave wvw alone with that!

we want more group support other than wells and dropping shroud to heal! give us Piercing back with Endless Night for 3 allies...or at LEAST give us ability to pierce with the BULLET shot if taking the piercing trait for more burst heals! it already doenst work as it should compared to Shadow Shot and that piercing trait! both use pistol but only d/p vs SC/P will pierce with the trait first shot of #3!

[kidbuu.4071]

Healing

Single target boon generation and healing are not useful in the current meta, especially in the amounts generated by Specter. The two support options on Specter that players actually build around are Consume Shadows and Traversing Dusk, both of which affect five players. 

 

Ally-targeted Siphon does not trigger steal traits—specifically Thrill of the Crime, and Bountiful Theft—so Specters must choose between granting barrier to a target or granting boons to their group. This mutual exclusivity between support options is not desirable.

 

Heal Specter remains unviable due to the lack of meaningful boons and utility when compared to other healing options in the game. Other meta healers in the game provide some combination of:

• Healing and/or Barrier

• Revival

• Condition cleansing

• Might

• Quickness or Alacrity

• Aegis

• Stability

• Protection and/or Resolution

• Area pulls for grouping non-boss targets

• Knockbacks and/or immobilize for dealing with specific encounter mechanics

 

Heal Specter has reliable access to healing, barrier, revival, alacrity, and can easily slot in immobilize. 

 

Specter’s revival option, Shadestep, is considerably limited by the need to select the player via the UI prior to casting Siphon. This is cumbersome and does not work well within the design of Guild Wars 2. Other professions are able to ground-target their revival abilities.
 

Thief has limited access to group condition cleansing, and most of those cleanses require significant build investment. Specter’s traited condition cleansing option Hungering Darkness is mutually exclusive with its revival option Shadestep. Hungering Darkness and Shadow Shroud’s Grasping Darkness only apply their condition cleanses to tethered targets, not to the full group. Shadow’s Embrace in the Shadow Arts traitline requires access to Shortbow and Off-hand Pistol, and/or the utilities Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder; this conflicts with Alacrity generating builds which require at least two of the three utility slots to be wells. Signet of Agility is the only small investment five target condition cleanse that Thief has access to.

Specter does not currently bring enough Might to work well in the majority of group compositions. Thrill of the Crime is able to maintain around five stacks of Might as long as the Specter never uses the ally targeted version of Siphon. To maintain the remaining twenty stacks of might, a Specter would have to spend sixty initiative every twenty seconds on the skill Shadow Sap. Beyond the impossible amount of Initiative required, Shadow Sap also requires the Specter to select each ally individually via the UI, something that is cumbersome with Guild Wars 2’s combat design.

 

The area pull that Specter has access to is Shadowfall; it has a very long cooldown, small radius, and its pull is incremental; making it significantly weaker than pulls that other professions have access to.

 

However, this emphasizes that the elite specialization weapon—scepter—lacks the tools necessary for a support build.

Full paragraph on scepter not being good? 

Or combined with s/p comments on healing weapon sets as a whole

Comments on single target nature being bad

Comments comparing measured shot to infiltrator’s strike (spammable)

 

Sword/Pistol can be used with heal Specter as Sword has access to Infiltrator's Strike—a spammable shadowstep that can take advantage of the Traversing Dusk and/or Shadow Savior traits—as well as the strong utility provided by off-hand Pistol.

[kidbuu.4071]

Heal Specter- 

 

Consume shadows was very good once you got the timing sorted for each encounter. You basically played it pretty much the same as other specter variants but Sw 2 was your ini dump and then you'd enter Shroud while waiting for Ini to regen. Changed to blasting pistol 5 with Shroud 2 after the Shadow Arts changes.

 

But with regen gone too with the Well of Bounty change and Protection uptime being worse, there isn't really a spot for heal Specter anywhere now imo even if we get a decent amount of Might. It is already a pain to play and super cumbersome so why bother when there is Druid, Tempest or Mech.

 

Main issues with heal Specter are:

 

its only reliable Regen is a long-cast single target skill and thus hard to upkeep on an entire subgroup (and impossible on self)

 

Shadow Arts' "whenever you stealth an ally" effects break their flow of combat on occasion and stealth being virtually useless in group PvE itself

 

The healing power scaling is so low that it's barely worth investing in

 

(And I'd love a trait that makes the shroud's ally heals AoE around your tethered friend)

 

I think there's room for "negotiation" on the 1.5 → 0.69 scaling particularly since that 0.69 is carbon-copied from necromancer  

ignoring the fact necro has a much larger health pool and Soul Battery to increase the conversion to 0.89

 

viper HP: 14,615

viper shroud old: 21,923

viper shroud new: 10,084

 

ritualist-carrion HP: 24,525

shroud old: 36,788

shroud new: 16,922.25

math by Iskarel as well as the graph

 

With that said the major concern is that by making these changes we lose a lot of significant benefits playing a support role. Some of the changes are beneficial like the additional stability. We lose out on the regeneration and subsequently we have now lost a significant portion of our Heal potential oops this trajectory will make it challenging to see, he'll specter in the end game content. My thought is this if it's the decision and idea of the company to make this specialization support rule or even healing support role.  Let it be known that if the company has a different thought when it comes to this specific class and this specialization then let that be presented to the larger community so that we can adjust accordingly if this specialization was never meant to be a heall role for PVP/WVW or PVE let it be known, if it was then let's make decisions that presented it  that way. It's been said several times since the expansion that the company is looking at that diversify roles it was even expressed in a live stream to bring more options to the table.

Edited September 17, 2022 by kidbuu.4071

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

8 hours ago, kidbuu.4071 said:

Heal Specter- 

 

Consume shadows was very good once you got the timing sorted for each encounter. You basically played it pretty much the same as other specter variants but Sw 2 was your ini dump and then you'd enter Shroud while waiting for Ini to regen. Changed to blasting pistol 5 with Shroud 2 after the Shadow Arts changes.

 

But with regen gone too with the Well of Bounty change and Protection uptime being worse, there isn't really a spot for heal Specter anywhere now imo even if we get a decent amount of Might. It is already a pain to play and super cumbersome so why bother when there is Druid, Tempest or Mech.

 

Main issues with heal Specter are:

 

its only reliable Regen is a long-cast single target skill and thus hard to upkeep on an entire subgroup (and impossible on self)

 

Shadow Arts' "whenever you stealth an ally" effects break their flow of combat on occasion and stealth being virtually useless in group PvE itself

 

The healing power scaling is so low that it's barely worth investing in

 

(And I'd love a trait that makes the shroud's ally heals AoE around your tethered friend)

 

I think there's room for "negotiation" on the 1.5 → 0.69 scaling particularly since that 0.69 is carbon-copied from necromancer  

ignoring the fact necro has a much larger health pool and Soul Battery to increase the conversion to 0.89

 

viper HP: 14,615

viper shroud old: 21,923

viper shroud new: 10,084

 

ritualist-carrion HP: 24,525

shroud old: 36,788

shroud new: 16,922.25

math by Iskarel as well as the graph

 

With that said the major concern is that by making these changes we lose a lot of significant benefits playing a support role. Some of the changes are beneficial like the additional stability. We lose out on the regeneration and subsequently we have now lost a significant portion of our Heal potential oops this trajectory will make it challenging to see, he'll specter in the end game content. My thought is this if it's the decision and idea of the company to make this specialization support rule or even healing support role.  Let it be known that if the company has a different thought when it comes to this specific class and this specialization then let that be presented to the larger community so that we can adjust accordingly if this specialization was never meant to be a heall role for PVP/WVW or PVE let it be known, if it was then let's make decisions that presented it  that way. It's been said several times since the expansion that the company is looking at that diversify roles it was even expressed in a live stream to bring more options to the table.

the original release of specter with Endless night being able to pierce only 3 allies was good, it was chunky, but we were told it was too powerful...yet here we are with not enough.
id like to see the pierce back, the ability for Deadly Aim trait (pistol attacks pierce) to allow the initial shot BEFORE endless night pierce allies AND enemies and proc the heal on each as well as something new. after so many barriers given to an ally the ally's shadow would grow overtime to start sharing the barrier we attack the ally with with a smaller coefficient...like Gjallerhorn from Destiny, 1 missle clusters into many that seek targets.

Dagger/pistol Shadowshot pierces enemies...and procs Deadly Aim... so it uses the pistol shot first....yet Endless night with Scepter/pistol ALSO shoots a pistol first then switches over to a beam from the scepter...yet does not pierce...WHY!?!! WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!>!>!?!

Edited September 18, 2022 by Lithril Ashwalker.6230

[Vidit.7108]

It's been unpinned. 

I mean it was unpinned a long time ago in the minds of the devs I guess, but still hurts ya know? Joking aside, I sincerely hope that the new way of gathering thief feedback you've settled on actually leads to gameplay improvements for Specter and Thief.

When I look back at what was changed after the first beta nearly a year ago, it feels like this topic was kind of a waste. In Pve: We got Siphon while in Shroud, which was really good and probably the best change since. There was the shroud 3 skill rework, which okay i guess, can't say you didn't listen there. Everything else has been numbers changes, mostly nerfs, and tinkering with the auto attack that while barely noticeable does I guess work better than it did at launch. It's harder to accidently double tap shroud, which is mostly good given the Consume Shadows 5 second change.

A year later we're getting a change to well of bounty that frankly makes the extremely rare job of healing as a Specter in PvE harder. Good luck trying to blast finish the group for protection upkeep i guess, a totally normal and intuitive thing other classes do. One stack of stability (at least) is good, great even, but none of the other issues with heal and condi-alac Specter's boon viability is really addressed. It's progress that the issue with it's inconsistency was recognized, finally.

Almost 30 pages later people still take issue with Measured Shot/Endless Night, I've seen some of the new feedback you're getting and it basically doesn't say anything new about it that people didn't say here after the very first beta. No Path To Target. Shroud reset to 0. Those are front facing problems people notice when they first start to play Specter. We've not really heard all that much from the devs about what they think needs to be improved about how Specter plays or what changes are in the works. Giving Specter it's 3 intuitive back is low hanging fruit that doesn't matter that much either way, but that's all we got so far. 

I guess the PvE thief crowd just isn't loud enough to have it's problems prioritized. I suppose it is fortunate that with so few changes there are no changes to Specter gameplay have made it substantively worse to play. Fine, but it's hard to have a crowd when there is nothing to talk about.
 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Vidit.7108

[Vismooth.4128]

With a nerf looming over the horizon, thought I'd go ahead and voice a few of my personal grievances, in case anyone a floor above might be listening. This is coming from someone with experience in mostly low level pve, being open world and strikes, so keep that in mind.

It has been a good while since I'd made the post here, but you still cannot properly finish the specter collection if you had fully explored Seitung Province without first unlocking the specialization.

Scepter 2 is still completely worthless.

Outside of pistol dual skill, dagger 4 and shroud skills, Specter still has very little convenient cleave. Shroud skills are nice in that regard I guess, but you don't really sit around in your shroud pressing buttons for a while. Besides that we're still way too dependent on having allies to deal more damage. It'd be nice if we had more temporary or even persistent minions to use venoms and rwv with, at least in the open world while solo. Or I don't know, maybe something else entirely.

Speaking of, Twilight Combo still breaks half the time if the target you're using it on is moving a certain way, or even if you as a player are. Why is it even conceived as a two-part ability? Why didn't you make it a single projectile that comes out at the end of the animation? It's one of the main dps tools of the spec and having it break so often is seriously troubling.

Measured Shot + Endless Night is still impossibly clunky to use. The former makes it feel like you're rubber banding on 400 ping, the latter fails to build up Lead Attacks stacks before they start falling off. Also either get rid of the shadowstep part of measured shot or let us deliberately choose where to teleport to, so we could at least have the option of staying in the stack and not have to run around back and forth.

All 3 first tier traits are still healing-related.

There is still a discrepancy between the wells' casting times. I understand the healing skill being a little bit longer, but why are they still so wildly different between one other? In addition, Shadowfall doesn't do NEARLY enough to justify being 75 seconds in cooldown.

The other thing with the wells is that they're simply not competitive enough with the other options for damage and/or healing. The way I can see to at least mitigate it a bit is to give each well a single (or multiple, depending on the well) pulse of barrier on cast, giving us another way to generate rot wallow venom stacks without having to sacrifice dps (just change panaku's ambition trait to do what it does with wells and/or shadowsteps, there is very little interaction with stealth to justify this as a core trait). Also make rwv work on the caster, thx :).

We still have relatively pathetic strike damage across our weapon skills and spec utilities. Seriously, why does well of tears even exist at this point? Just to reminding us of its infinite worthlessness?

Ally targeting is still a thing. I don't even know if it's used in any other case in this game. It only gets in the way. It is the reason you can't use action cam or autotargeting in serious scenarios or instanced encounters. With it the game chooses for you what you didn't want to do. Get rid of it and instead, make the abilities proc the beneficial effects around the target you're attacking.

Having played Harbinger for a little while, I'm not finding many reasons to continue playing Specter, other than familiarity, sunk cost and just generally liking the spec. 
 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Vismooth.4128

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

Specter needs cleave dmg. This single dmg is underwhelming.

 

I want to try a suggestion:

1. Scepter skills "explode" when hitting, granting effects to a maximum of 3 targets. 

1.1 If an enemy is targeted, up to 2 additional targets are hit within a radius of 120. Other enemys are priorizised. When no other enemy but allies are in range, up to 2 allies recieve the support portion of the used skill, but only with 50% effectiveness. 

1.2. If an alle is targeted, it's the same as above, allies sre prioizised with 50% effectiveness, if no other allies are around, enemys are getting hit. 

2. Sc/P hits up to 5 allies/enemys within the beam of the switch skill.

3. Shroud 1 also effects up to 3 targets.