Please drop the idea that Specter doesn't have AoE healing. It does.

[Sons.5493]

This thing is an absolute monster at AoE healing in PvE

Consume Shadows is absolute bonkers, and so is Shadestep.

 

Every stealth attack + shadowstep = 4k aoe heal

Everytime you stealth allies which u can very easily do with Mind Shock and black powder = aoe barrier 

Everytime you leave shroud = Omega barrier that u can share for double the value of it with shadestep.

 

There's a million ways Specter can AoE heal and it is really good at it. 

 

There are many things that could be better about the spec but AoE healing (in pve) is not one of them. Please drop the "specter is only single target healing and it doesnt work in this game". It is absolutely not true.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Sons.5493

[Infusion.7149]

It's way too early to call it strong or not but I'm guessing the build you're proposing is
Shadow Arts 3-2-2
Trickery 3-1-2
Specter 3-3-3

If it doesn't put out 5 person boons and heal at the same time then it isn't going to be a favored pick unless you can pull 20K+ DPS (see inspiration chrono or seraph firebrand vs cele tempest). For this reason I've been focusing on condition damage firstly and healing second; without a payoff on crits plaguedoctor is suitable as a stat choice over seraph.

Running Consume Shadows (the end shroud heal trait) comes at a steep stat-cost (on a full condi build ~200ish heal power). It could be worth it if you're focusing on heal support first such that your stat spread doesn't benefit Second Opinion.

I think that Larcenous Torment is necessary for any cDPS build on seraph/plaguedoctor, it probably won't be strong in competitive modes because torment is weaker there but also base torment duration is dropped in competitive modes. Even for a support build your shadow force generation suffers without it unless you only focus on supporting people and never target enemies.

I don't foresee dropping Strength of Shadows for Shadestep because you lose all the expertise you gain from the trait on any hybrid builds as well as 50% rot wallow venom duration. If you run tormenting runes it's 50% torment duration and that would still not make up the rot wallow venom duration loss.

So far I have been playing specter with scepter+pistol in PVE (Plaguedoctor+tormenting rune there) but I think in WVW at least Scepter+dagger does more barrier , pistol offhand doesn't have a way to stealth without a blast/leap, the pistol dual doesn't provide nearly as much quickness in WVW, and is more useful because the power damage is higher and swiftness is always good from Twilight Combo.

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Sons.5493]

9 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It's way too early to call it strong or not but I'm guessing the build you're proposing is
Shadow Arts 3-2-2
Trickery 3-1-2
Specter 3-3-3

If it doesn't put out 5 person boons and heal at the same time then it isn't going to be a favored pick unless you can pull 20K+ DPS (see inspiration chrono or seraph firebrand vs cele tempest). For this reason I've been focusing on condition damage firstly and healing second; without a payoff on crits plaguedoctor is suitable as a stat choice over seraph.

Running Consume Shadows (the end shroud heal trait) comes at a steep stat-cost (on a full condi build ~200ish heal power). It could be worth it if you're focusing on heal support first such that your stat spread doesn't benefit Second Opinion.

I think that Larcenous Torment is necessary for any cDPS build on seraph/plaguedoctor, it probably won't be strong in competitive modes because torment is weaker there but also base torment duration is dropped in competitive modes. Even for a support build your shadow force generation suffers without it unless you only focus on supporting people and never target enemies.

I don't foresee dropping Strength of Shadows for Shadestep because you lose all the expertise you gain from the trait on any hybrid builds as well as 50% rot wallow venom duration. If you run tormenting runes it's 50% torment duration and that would still not make up the rot wallow venom duration loss.

 

200 healing power doesnt even come close to Consume Shadoes. Consume shadow is absolutely insane, as it stands now besides using mind shock theres no reason to stay in shroud. Consuming a full shroud is easily a 25k heal that also stacks barrier if it overheals that can then be blasted for double the value.

 

Also the expertise trait is good and I can see it being used if there's an alac condi build that doesn't put as much value in the heals.

 

Also plaguedoctor is a bit of a trap  because yeah it gives a lot of condi damage and vit that u can then change to expertise but it gives no expertise by itself which devalues it if you are going for a condi focused build with a side of boon support. I think Celestial will have more value for a boon heal 3/3/3 but we will see i guess.

[Vidit.7108]

So it seems like so far there are a lot of nuances to Specter's healing. (maybe good for a merged topic on it idk)  I spent some time trying to look it over, and I think people are overlooking how to maximize healing because they're too obsessed with trying to get good dps out of it. 

First, most healers in this game have healing that says "This skill does X amount of healing", what Specter has instead is combos and chains into different amounts of AOE healing that aren't super obvious or easy to keep track of.

So for example as the OP pointed out you have blast finishers in shroud. Mind Shock is great with a smoke field same with Grasping shadows. However Black Powder lasts 4 seconds so you have time exiting and entering shroud to use the skills and have them go off while the field is still up. The temptation for DPS is to want to stay in shroud to do more damage and tether healing, but actually you don't want to stay in shroud because you want to use the wells as close to off cooldown as you can. Cycling out of shroud then becomes more intuitive than it looks because there are multiple support oriented reasons to not be in shroud. 

What I'm also finding that complicates this picture is that you can use shadow refuge to hit stealth and grant barrier (As well as extra healing) but it's duration is similar to black powder (4 seconds). But if you take smoke screen the duration is 7 seconds which might be enough to cycle in a short bow swap to blast (along with the two shroud blasts) and save 3 initiative over using black powder at all. You need three wells (I think) to upkeep alac 100% of the time so the choice of reflects and smoke or heals and smoke might a hard one. 

Smoke Screen has a much much shorter duration which might make it better than shadow refuge for healing.

This is all a little complicated because it relies on more than one skill to be able to do what most other healers do with one skill. You also need someone else in the party to give quickness because if you screw this up or slow down the window to get off major heals can shrink. Poor stability options put a lot of pressure on the healer to get heals out fast in a rough situation. Getting knocked back can really easily get the party killed with Specter.

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

So it seems like so far there are a lot of nuances to Specter's healing. (maybe good for a merged topic on it idk)  I spent some time trying to look it over, and I think people are overlooking how to maximize healing because they're too obsessed with trying to get good dps out of it. 

First, most healers in this game have healing that says "This skill does X amount of healing", what Specter has instead is combos and chains into different amounts of AOE healing that aren't super obvious or easy to keep track of.

So for example as the OP pointed out you have blast finishers in shroud. Mind Shock is great with a smoke field same with Grasping shadows. However Black Powder lasts 4 seconds so you have time exiting and entering shroud to use the skills and have them go off while the field is still up. The temptation for DPS is to want to stay in shroud to do more damage and tether healing, but actually you don't want to stay in shroud because you want to use the wells as close to off cooldown as you can. Cycling out of shroud then becomes more intuitive than it looks because there are multiple support oriented reasons to not be in shroud. 

What I'm also finding that complicates this picture is that you can use shadow refuge to hit stealth and grant barrier (As well as extra healing) but it's duration is similar to black powder (4 seconds). But if you take smoke screen the duration is 7 seconds which might be enough to cycle in a short bow swap to blast (along with the two shroud blasts) and save 3 initiative over using black powder at all. You need three wells (I think) to upkeep alac 100% of the time so the choice of reflects and smoke or heals and smoke might a hard one. 

Smoke Screen has a much much shorter duration which might make it better than shadow refuge for healing.

This is all a little complicated because it relies on more than one skill to be able to do what most other healers do with one skill. You also need someone else in the party to give quickness because if you screw this up or slow down the window to get off major heals can shrink. Poor stability options put a lot of pressure on the healer to get heals out fast in a rough situation. Getting knocked back can really easily get the party killed with Specter.

So what I'm hearing here is pair with a quickbrand, and make sure the QB knows to drop stability when the party really needs the healing.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

9 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

So what I'm hearing here is pair with a quickbrand, and make sure the QB knows to drop stability when the party really needs the healing.

I'm not sure about this, a QFB might be too much, since with full Boon Duration a Spectre can already maintain Quickness on a significant portion of the party, and usually players can fill in the gaps with personal skills.

 

All Spectre really needs in groups is Stability and some help with cleanses. I'm thinking the best option is a quasi-QFB with no Boon Duration, who is focused entirely into DPS gear.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[draxynnic.3719]

2 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I'm not sure about this, a QFB might be too much, since with full Boon Duration a Spectre can already maintain Quickness on a significant portion of the party, and usually players can fill in the gaps with personal skills.

 

All Spectre really needs in groups is Stability and some help with cleanses.

Vidit specified the need for someone else to give quickness so the spectre can cycle through skills quickly. I was also looking for a build that could provide quickness and stability (with minor modifications) without competing with the spectre for heals and alacrity generation. Quickbrand also has the benefit of being a condition build, so if you're going up against a boss that rewards bringing condi, a quickbrand-healspectre combo should work well there. 

[Vidit.7108]

@draxynnic.3719 Yes, a quickness scrapper might also work but i'm not sure what their stability options look like. I haven't gotten to try every fractal yet to see if this is really as doable as it sounds. Some fractals have a lot of knockbacks.

@Hannelore.8153I've tried to get quickness out to people on my own in t3 and t4, it's very hard and extremely unreliable. At this point I wouldn't pug with a group where the Specter is trying to do both quick and alac. Not every class has their own source of quickness and they're probably not going to want to bring them. It's also hard to do damage or other things while making sure people have quickness.

[Trianox.3486]

Agree, and I'm wondering for different combinations with Revenant, Druid, QB, but also Ele, Tempest, Scrapper for cleansing and stability, or actually any other profession decent at outputting cleanses and stability on demand. 

I can totally see a squishy support tethered to the Specter.

 

On the practical side of Vidit's answers, I think this is where Rot Wallow Venom comes into play for leveraging damages. 

 

Another point is counter intuitively Chronomancer: with both providing quickness and alacrity, both can reduce their boon support duration and instead invest into DPS for Chrono, and Healing for Specter. Yet, stability would be a struggle. 😕

 

Could Well of Tears allow to bring in stability? It's a pretty pointless well at the moment.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

@draxynnic.3719 Yes, a quickness scrapper might also work but i'm not sure what their stability options look like. I haven't gotten to try every fractal yet to see if this is really as doable as it sounds. Some fractals have a lot of knockbacks.

@Hannelore.8153I've tried to get quickness out to people on my own in t3 and t4, it's very hard and extremely unreliable. At this point I wouldn't pug with a group where the Specter is trying to do both quick and alac. Not every class has their own source of quickness and they're probably not going to want to bring them. It's also hard to do damage or other things while making sure people have quickness.

Quickness scrapper certainly can bring stability, but I think they need to sacrifice more to do so. Haven't run the numbers or tested it in practice, though. 

 

And yeah, that was my impression regarding quickness spectre as well. It's theoretically possible, to be sure, but in practice I think it'd be complex enough and easily enough disrupted that you wouldn't want to rely on it. Sc/P 3 also doesn't quickness the user from what I've seen, so you'd be relying on the boon well to quickness yourself.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

8 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

So it seems like so far there are a lot of nuances to Specter's healing. (maybe good for a merged topic on it idk)  I spent some time trying to look it over, and I think people are overlooking how to maximize healing because they're too obsessed with trying to get good dps out of it. 

I think you are making a strawman out of the concerns. It's less of the damage, and more of what does it have to offer that would make it stand out among the AOE heavy support specs.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Overall I'd say that so far even though Spectre can output a ton of AoE healing now, especially with Sword/Dagger, its their single-target healing that truly shines. After playing it for several days in WvW I've found that when another support is tethered to the Spectre, both become almost impossible to deal with.

 

Spectre+Auramancer Tempest seems especially potent, since the reflects remove one of Spectre's greatest weaknesses which is their ability to get sniped down from range.

 

Another thing I noticed alot is it makes PvE damage builds playable in competitive. Players in groups with me were switching to their builds normally used in Fractals, etc. simply because they could. The AoE healing classes are strong but because the healing is distributed allies can still be spiked down; that doesn't happen with Spectre.

 

Spectre's single-target support makes other DPS, tanks and healers all more viable. It feels like something that was needed from the beginning but was just never implemented.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Lucinellia.9247]

The AoE healing in PvE is great, but groups do not work with something that only brings raw healing, or is limited to alacrity for 5 people.

I feel the healing combos being discussed are somewhat overkill. Simply changing Endless Night targets, using Wells and then dropping out of Shroud is more than enough healing for all of the instanced PvE encounters I've tried.

Due to this, it is pretty important that Endless Night is made more workable. It is certainly okay on a number of encounters - I maintained 60 to 80% quickness on others on Boneskinner as the soul source of Quickness - but heavy stacking, a very spread out group and additional NPCs really hinder Endless Night due to the proximity based prioritisation. Endless Night really needs to prioritise players, and not NPCs like clones and Spirits. This is the exact same issue that Fire for Effect Deadeye had for years so it is a little worrying to see it be so prominent with Specter.

If Endless Night prioritisation is fixed, Specter will be in very good place but I don't think it will see much play. The UI is beyond awful for single target focused healing so all but the most dedicated players won't bother with Specter.

If Arenanet really wish to continue with the single target healing niche, they need to allow the raid frames to be moved and fix the target next ally keybinds to cycle over players.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Lucinellia.9247

[Trianox.3486]

7 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

Overall I'd say that so far even though Spectre can output a ton of AoE healing now, especially with Sword/Dagger, its their single-target healing that truly shines. After playing it for several days in WvW I've found that when another support is tethered to the Spectre, both become almost impossible to deal with.

 

Spectre+Auramancer Tempest seems especially potent, since the reflects remove one of Spectre's greatest weaknesses which is their ability to get sniped down from range.

 

Another thing I noticed alot is it makes PvE damage builds playable in competitive. Players in groups with me were switching to their builds normally used in Fractals, etc. simply because they could. The AoE healing classes are strong but because the healing is distributed allies can still be spiked down; that doesn't happen with Spectre.

 

Spectre's single-target support makes other DPS, tanks and healers all more viable. It feels like something that was needed from the beginning but was just never implemented.

Yes yes! Exactly what I mentioned in another thread. I totally agree with you. 

Paired and tethered to another support it works really well whether you go in shroud or not.

 

And same for PvP, I strongly believe, from what I could experiment, that it opens up or shake the meta by enabling other classes much more diverse builds to be chosen! 

Both those heavy DPS builds, and also some of the weirder off-meta or open world builds doing funky things but that are usually too squishy or too one-sided.

Had a lot of fun with a partner air overloading Tempest, who would support with reflect when needed, as well as with staff daredevil, core ele, power scourge, axe-axe warrior with offensive only traits/utilities aside from a single stunbreak, core ranger, and yep a few factal-looking builds. 

 

I paired with a condi Druid and that was a bit obnoxious tho, but weird, at the same time in terms of rotation, given we could hold point endlessly, we were not "that dangerous, unless someone or another pair really tried to stick in and forget about rotating. 

 

I tested both weaving in and out of shroud for bust heal, as well as for condi transfer and cleanses. The second option worked reaaaally well in duo. Loved it.

 

I think it does shake the meta without invalidating previously sound options, so it just widens it.

[Wintermute.5408]

It could be an alac healer i guess, like HFB is a quickness one? However, revenant is strictly better at alac, and there are superior dedicated heals anyway.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

It could be an alac healer i guess, like HFB is a quickness one? However, revenant is strictly better at alac, and there are superior dedicated heals anyway.

I'm not sure about this, even if Revenent doesn't have to sacrifice utilities for Alac, they can't control their utilities to begin with, and they have to sacrifice a grandmaster trait for it, rather than just a master trait.

 

Wells are also really good for what they do (except the basic damage well).

Edited October 28, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Vidit.7108]

17 hours ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

I think you are making a strawman out of the concerns. It's less of the damage, and more of what does it have to offer that would make it stand out among the AOE heavy support specs.

Most of the other Specters I've encountered in fractals are taking viper and more interested in it's damage application with support more secondary. A lot of specters taking alacrity wells and leaving it there. That might change once more builds come into existence. 

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Vidit.7108

[Tails.9372]

The healing is decent, but only because nothing of value is lost by constantly blowing up Shadow Shroud for it.

[Vidit.7108]

I've now tried out a couple of different methods of group healing in T4 fractals.
Blasting: really hard but some of the best barrier the build can provide. I used Smoke Screen and short bow 2 really effectively at the start of the encounter to give my self time to build up shroud. It's probably a great opener for any build just have to remember to wait a second for the icd. I think you can get Rot Wallow out 3 times to the entire party this way. Less thought has to go into aiming it than Endless Night, but I'd only do it at the mistlock and use endless night the rest of the time for barrier/Rot Wallow. 

Shadowstepping: Bulk of the easy healing is here on the wells and Measured Shot. If you're full support I think you probably still will rely on it.

Wallow + Leeching: Very underrated right now, Using Endless Night to grant barrier and activate Dark sentry creates a strange healer-barrier-quickness-unique condi buffer. If you don't focus on trying to give the party quickness and just focus on getting as much Rot Wallow Venom out as possible you'll see some insane stacks of torment go out. I'm not clear on whose damage that is but traiting venom leeching uses your healing power and counts as you healing.

If you blast barrier you can switch targets in shroud to group heal that way but switching shroud targets quickly is a real skill at this point. There are a couple of things that seem to break tether, like bundles and transformations. Occasionally if someone is tethered it's possible for them to blow through your shroud heals, I think it's an instability damage thing.

Social Awkwardness really screws your ability to grant alacrity and well heal almost completely. 

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

On 10/28/2021 at 4:58 PM, Vidit.7108 said:

Most of the other Specters I've encountered in fractals are taking viper and more interested in it's damage application with support more secondary. A lot of specters taking alacrity wells and leaving it there. That might change once more builds come into existence. 

 

Their first mistake was trying to theory craft in fractals, a game mode that most people I encounter - me included, couldn't give a skritts behind about meta. In T4, only a scant few seem to make it an issue.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[frareanselm.1925]

Cannot compete with tempest or druid in terms of raid healing. And a shortbow healer druid does more dps...

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

Cannot compete with tempest or druid in terms of raid healing. And a shortbow healer druid does more dps...

Neither gives alacrity. Heal tempest is known for awesome healing, but is rarely taken because a lot of groups don't think they need that much healing and heal tempest doesn't bring much else. Even druid is usually taken as much for DPS boosts such as spirits as for its heal output.

 

Spectre heal/barrier doesn't need to compete with tempest and druid. It just needs to be good enough while providing a desired buff. It's alacrigade, alacmirage, and alachanist that it'll really be competing with.

[Malkarne.8167]

On 11/1/2021 at 5:12 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Spectre heal/barrier doesn't need to compete with tempest and druid. It just needs to be good enough while providing a desired buff. It's alacrigade, alacmirage, and alachanist that it'll really be competing with.

This was exactly my take on what role a Specter will take, albeit I was looking more from the viewpoint of PUG fractals. I don't see  people wanting it over a HB in the standard comp (1xHB, 1xAlac, 3xDPS), but I do think Specter will be able to fill the alac role nicely. It will have some nice advantages, namely being able to drop a ton of AoE healing and barrier on top of alac. Well of Bounty will also help top off any other boons that may end up falling off, it's a great complimentary skill to a HB/QB. I was able to get DPS comparable to my alacrigade BUT it was through conditions. So with alacrigade you'd get more burst damage  and stability options, but Specter would give you more healing, barrier, and condi damage. The breakbar capability is pretty crazy on Specter too, might even be better than alacrigade.

 

Note I tested this solo without taking Rot Wallow venom into account for damage. If that turns out super strong on live Specter may give alacrigade a run for its money as the preferred alac battery. But honestly I think either one will be great and I'd take whichever happened to fill the alac slot first.