Why is Specter being put in a box and stripped of Autonomy?

[AikijinX.6258]

I would just like to add my 2 cents and say that I don’t like how Thieves are being shoe horned into playing and only being viable for 2 v 2 scenarios or +1’ing someone in open world content
 

WHY ON EARTH do YOU get to decide what OUR Specter is going to and SUPPOSED to excel and shine in? Why are you limiting our ability to succeed and compete in other avenues of the game?

Wasn’t the trade off or the reason for a skill or trait being SUPER POWERFUL because it was single target? Now we get punished because it’s too powerful? Look I understand it’s a beta, yes, and things change. But handing out these HEAVY nerfs on questionable skills, even before the actual release doesn’t make me feel good for the future of Specter and it’s Balance.

Consume Shadows (admittedly I didn’t use over Shallow Grave, because I didn’t like the losing all my shadow force/sustain thing although I know it was super strong, personally it just wasn’t for me.) It was super strong and deservingly needed a little tweak. But that’s just it. Just a LITTLE tweak, nothing so heavy. 
 

Do you truly believe that in a 2 v 2 tournament, people wouldn’t just focus bomb the Specter immediately since he’s apparently soo amazing in this situation and where he SUPPOSED to excel, do NOT force me into a box. Gw2 survived this long and competed against many other MMO’s that aren’t doing as well anymore because this game isn’t as 1 dimensional and limiting as other MMO’s are. There was freedom and choice to be had with build crafting and such. I implore you Anet to increase target support capability to 10 or ATLEAST 5 and if not, then our 1 target skills are supposed to be STUPID STRONG since it would be limited to 1 ally target. 

Last comment: You didn’t want us to be able to perma Quickness/Alacrity support. Then why give this to us in the first place? You want us to be Alacrity slaves (kinda weird since it does nothing to our initiative and only benefits shroud, utility and Siphon. In Guild wars 1 wasnt the Assassin (our classes cousin) able to kill with quickness and efficiency? Why do we have such little access to quickness as a whole, as a class? Thieves in general are supposed to execute with quickness and efficiency, where did something go wrong? If our job is intended for us to be the alacrithief then why not dedicate a minor trait for something along the lines of AoE alacrity every few seconds?

Last Last comment: I mainly WvW at the moment Roaming, dueling and small ops is what I mainly do, so the changes don’t effect me too much since I play kind of selfishly. I definitely don’t take consume shadows because it’s just not my playstyle. Sc/D power is what I will main while playing Specter and it’s really strong currently. The purpose of the thread was to have my voice be heard along with speaking FOR and WITH the many out spoken voices out there frustrated with these heavy nerfs to Sc/P and trait reworks (NERFS).

EDIT: I also wanted to just comment for Beta 3 OVERALL, I enjoyed Specter and thought it was great to play. All it needed was a couple QoL changes on some skills and traits and it would’ve been good. But the hard-cap nerfs are very overwhelming. This is still beta, so things are subject to change and even change and go as far as an entire rework just like they did Deadeye back then. I am still optimistic that Anet will get things right in the end. Since the initial beta 3 Specter felt GREAT.

/Rantover

Edited November 26, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Zacchary.6183]

4 minutes ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

kinda weird since it does nothing to our initiative and only shroud skills.

It works on siphon and utilities. There is more to the profession than weaponskills.

[AikijinX.6258]

1 minute ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

It works on siphon and utilities. There is more to the profession than weaponskills.

Yes that’s absolutely true. I had forgotten to include utilities and siphon in that above comment. 

[Infusion.7149]

Eh, do you own the company? How is it your specter?

In all seriousness, players are allowed to provide feedback and the devs are free to adjust as they see fit. Even CMC said you can be disappointed with the decisions even after feedback is taken in because it might not be the type of feedback you personally offered (especially when there is disagreement in the playerbase).

I believe alacrity was chosen as the target AoE boon since thief weapon skills don't have cooldowns so having AoE alacrity benefits them personally less. Since quickness is single target and there is no cooldown on weaponskills in theory if you have boon duration you can still shore up any boon downtimes ; if you have a player off the group to do a mechanic or one that has been boon ripped (i.e. on Twin Largos) it would still be relevant.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[SaferMurderweapon.7143]

Welcome to the club and why I quit this game years ago

 

RIP Chrono

Edited November 26, 2021 by Vincenzo.3145

[Vidit.7108]

8 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Since quickness is single target and there is no cooldown on weaponskills in theory if you have boon duration you can still shore up any boon downtimes

You're forgetting two important things, first that Endless night needs you to cast measured shot first (which is a 1/2 second activation time), and the duration of the quickness was reduced to 1.5 seconds(7x). With 2 & 1/2 second cast time for endless night that's a 3 second skill duration between when one ends and another begins.

Even assuming that you switch targets and have full boon duration during endless night you're providing 10 seconds of quickness to two people with 6 initiative. Given how bad ally targeting is it's kind of an edge case where you would make up the lost quickness of another provider. You still have to notice someone is missing quickness and you reliably only give one ally 21 seconds of quickness. Both the Firebrand and Scrapper will likely have reapplied quickness before you can cast endless night a second time, if you even want to given how much initiative you have to blow on it.
 
They also didn't mention fixing the measured shot bug so good luck with that.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

12 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

WHY ON EARTH do YOU get to decide what OUR Specter is going to and SUPPOSED to excel and shine in? Why are you limiting our ability to succeed and compete in other avenues of the game?

Um... because they're the ones making it?

 

[Kodama.6453]

13 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

WHY ON EARTH do YOU get to decide what OUR Specter is going to and SUPPOSED to excel and shine in?

What kind of question is this, lmao. They are the devs, they are designing this game, of course they are the ones deciding where scepter is supposed to be good.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Burial.1958]

20 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

What kind of question is this, lmao. They are the devs, they are designing this game, of course they are the ones deciding where scepter is supposed to be good.

 At the end it is the player who plays the game. And it seems that not 1 of the devs really play the thief class as a main. There are other classes which dominates the Meta since RLS without any down sides. For me specter has now no real place. Every other Class doing it better and that really sucks. 9 years no place in Zerg and now we are getting a "support" but is is again some half arsed gimmicky thing. Why? Also in Roaming there are more and more other classes which fill it. Thief falls back more and more and sits on a bunch of complete bad weapon sets no one uses and garbage traitlines. 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Grebcol.5984

[Graeaw.6329]

2 minutes ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

 At the end it is the player who plays the game. And it seems that not 1 of the devs really play the thief class as a main. There are other classes which dominates the Meta since RLS without any down sides. For me specter has now no real place. Every other Class doing it better and that really sucks. 9 years no place in Zerg and now we are getting a "support" but is is again some half arsed gimmicky thing. Why?

 

Well, yes, but now you can heal the WvW commander, who probably are full tank/heal with monk runes anyway, and you can use all these totally interesting and overpowered wells on your teammates (and shadowstep into the enemy cleave in the process).

 

Why do we even care when we can just switch mains to Guardians, since they can cower literally every boon in the game with the recent changes.

[Kodama.6453]

24 minutes ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

 At the end it is the player who plays the game. And it seems that not 1 of the devs really play the thief class as a main. There are other classes which dominates the Meta since RLS without any down sides. For me specter has now no real place. Every other Class doing it better and that really sucks. 9 years no place in Zerg and now we are getting a "support" but is is again some half arsed gimmicky thing. Why? Also in Roaming there are more and more other classes which fill it. Thief falls back more and more and sits on a bunch of complete bad weapon sets no one uses and garbage traitlines. 

They literally nerfed specter because it was outperforming every other support spec by providing quickness, alacrity, healing and damage all in one class.

[RyuDragnier.9476]

37 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

They literally nerfed specter because it was outperforming every other support spec by providing quickness, alacrity, healing and damage all in one class.

You do know other specs have had access to all of this for years, right?

Edited November 26, 2021 by RyuDragnier.9476

[Graeaw.6329]

40 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

They literally nerfed specter because it was outperforming every other support spec by providing quickness, alacrity, healing and damage all in one class.

So now specter does:

- Alacrity (if traited) for 5 targets by sacrificing 3-4 Utility skills

- Healing, but no emergency/burst healing

 

We lost any meaningful amount of Quickness and Damage with the target nerfs.

Also, Specter can't benefit from their own weapon skill's Quickness

The way I see it, Specter is a weaker version of what Revenant does with easier management and more utility

[Kodama.6453]

34 minutes ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

You do know other specs have had access to all of this for years, right?

Which other specs, please, tell me?

• firebrand has damage, quickness and healing, but no access to alacrity at all
• scrapper has healing and quickness, but no alacrity and deals no damage
• tempest has healing and damage, but neither quickness nor alacrity
• druid has healing and damage, but no quickness or alacrity
• warrior specs LUL
• scourge has healing and damage, no quickness or alacrity

There is just 1 spec which can potentially have all this: chronomancer. But it isn't remotely on the same power level as specter has been. So I ask again: which specs specifically do you mean which could do all this stuff at once?

[AikijinX.6258]

4 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Um... because they're the ones making it?

 

 

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

What kind of question is this, lmao. They are the devs, they are designing this game, of course they are the ones deciding where scepter is supposed to be good.

Yes. Thank you 2 for explaining something that wasn’t clear to me. It totally wasn’t a rhetorical and obvious surface level question that anyone could have answered right off the bat.
 

Look the question was more deep rooted than that, and Like I said in the post if you cared to read further, that this doesn’t effect me personally, I’m just speaking for and with those who disagreed with this change because you know, having a voice is kinda important. But I guess you 2 are okay with being shoehorned into +1’ing someone else in open world content or being the “optimal” choice in a 2 v 2 tournament which is apparently where they want us to excel in and no other aspect of this game.

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Kodama.6453]

21 minutes ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

 

Yes. Thank you 2 for explaining something that wasn’t clear to me. It totally wasn’t a rhetorical and obvious surface level question that anyone could have answered. 
 

Look The question was more deep rooted than that, and Like I said in the post if you cared to read further, that this doesn’t effect me personally, I’m just speaking for and with those who disagreed with this change because you know, having a voice is kinda important. But I guess you 2 are okay with being shoehorned into +1’ing someone else in open world content or being the “optimal” choice in a 2 v 2 tournament which is apparently where they want us to excel in and no other aspect of this game.

Sure, specter seems very capable in small groups (or simply duos) because of the tether mechanic.

But let's not act like specter doesn't have any AoE support qualities to also function in other situations. It has alot of AoE barrier, boons and heals to work perfectly fine. The changes they have shown to us don't change this, even if the AoE boon support got nerfed simply because specter was actually too potent at it.

[AikijinX.6258]

15 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Sure, specter seems very capable in small groups (or simply duos) because of the tether mechanic.

But let's not act like specter doesn't have any AoE support qualities to also function in other situations. It has alot of AoE barrier, boons and heals to work perfectly fine. The changes they have shown to us don't change this, even if the AoE boon support got nerfed simply because specter was actually too potent at it.

I’m very interested in how fast these new stacks of consume shadows is going to be. And whether or not we have to stay for 5 seconds or 5 consecutive attacks to gain the 5 stacks and then do the aoe support barrier heal. Because as others have said before and on other threads too. Consume shadows will not function in the immediate circumstances where you need to do that split second clutch save on your ally from being downed and killed. And god forbid your shroud itself gets attacked while in it. The shroud itself is very easy to burst down and then is rendered useless to support anyone. 

I also don’t like the function where you quick tap on like say 1 or 2 stacks and it exhausts your complete shroud. (This is what I am assuming since the change hasn’t been tested yet). So that negates like 80-90% of the effective 50% barrier we get.
 

And I will say that using consume shadows should be directly after (exhausting your other options like Shadestep, that instantly revives when siphoning a downed ally goes on Steal CD)

[Kodama.6453]

41 minutes ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

I’m very interested in how fast these new stacks of consume shadows is going to be. And whether or not we have to stay for 5 seconds or 5 consecutive attacks to gain the 5 stacks and then do the aoe support barrier heal. Because as others have said before and on other threads too. Consume shadows will not function in the immediate circumstances where you need to do that split second clutch save on your ally from being downed and killed. And god forbid your shroud itself gets attacked while in it. The shroud itself is very easy to burst down and then is rendered useless to support anyone. 

I also don’t like the function where you quick tap on like say 1 or 2 stacks and it exhausts your complete shroud. (This is what I am assuming since the change hasn’t been tested yet). So that negates like 80-90% of the effective 50% barrier we get.
 

And I will say that using consume shadows should be directly after (exhausting your other options like Shadestep, that instantly revives when siphoning a downed ally goes on Steal CD)

The notes actually answer how the new consume shadows works.

You get 1 stack of consume shadows when you enter shroud and 1 additional stack for every second you spend in it, up to a max of 5. So you will achieve the maximum count of stacks after 4 seconds (first stack you get immediately by entering, 4 others are granted each after 1 second spent in shroud).

And honestly, I don't get why people expected this trait to keep functioning like it did. This is potentially the biggest AoE healing for a group in a single blast and it not only heals allies, but also converts every healing that overcaps into a barrier. This is extremely potent, it definitely warrants having a big build up like they are doing now with building up stacks for 4 seconds in shroud.

You also don't have to rely on it for burst healing. You have traits which heal on shadow step, for example. Spam quick shadow steps and you got your burst healing to save an ally.

[AikijinX.6258]

4 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

The notes actually answer how the new consume shadows works.

You get 1 stack of consume shadows when you enter shroud and 1 additional stack for every second you spend in it, up to a max of 5. So you will achieve the maximum count of stacks after 4 seconds (first stack you get immediately by entering, 4 others are granted each after 1 second spent in shroud).

And honestly, I don't get why people expected this trait to keep functioning like it did. This is potentially the biggest AoE healing for a group in a single blast and it not only heals allies, but also converts every healing that overcaps into a barrier. This is extremely potent, it definitely warrants having a big build up like they are doing now with building up stacks for 4 seconds in shroud.

You also don't have to rely on it for burst healing. You have traits which heal on shadow step, for example. Spam quick shadow steps and you got your burst healing to save an ally.

I don’t personally use the trait. So it’s not really a factor for me. Although it was very potent I am not understanding the problem this poses for PvE. Maybe that’s because I am not a PvE player and my scope of seeing issues PvE wise is limited but I can’t see a problem with this potent burst barrier/heal in PvE. 
 

We’ll just have to see how this plays out in battle on Tuesday. I think possibly 3s would be ok, if they still want to continue with this acquiring stacks design.

And TD trait is something I will play around with extensively Tuesday. 

[Kodama.6453]

9 minutes ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

I don’t personally use the trait. So it’s not really a factor for me. Although it was very potent I am not understanding the problem this poses for PvE. Maybe that’s because I am not a PvE player and my scope of seeing issues PvE wise is limited but I can’t see a problem with this potent burst barrier/heal in PvE. 
 

We’ll just have to see how this plays out in battle on Tuesday. I think possibly 3s would be ok, if they still want to continue with this acquiring stacks design.

And TD trait is something I will play around with extensively Tuesday. 

The problem with such designs, even in PvE, is that it pushes every other class out as a desired healing spec.

Think about it. You are going to do hard PvE content like raids. You have to take some healers into your group to keep the team alive and provide buffs and boons.

Specter was the ultimate support for all intents. It got AoE barrier, AoE healing, could provide a subsquad with quickness and alacrity (which are the most potent boons in the game) on it's own, while still dishing out great damage for a support build.

And then there was this massive heal on top which required the specter just to double tap a button... really, what incentive do you have to take any other class as a support in your team if such an abomination exists?

People always claim stuff like "why does it matter that it's op, it's just PvE anyway". But context matters, if you let something exist that is so massively ahead of everything else competing for the same role, then all the other classes are pushed out and everyone will just search for one class as their support.

Specter needed to get adjusted to give other supports a chance to compete.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

5s will work, but it will be less easy to work with because it will require more knowledge of game mechanics. Don't think of it as an emergency heal, instead you'll want to use the trait to pre-emptively barrier your group ready for an incoming burst in much the same way the guardian will apply aegis.

So imagine there's a big hit coming from your raid/fractal boss that's gonna chunk the group for 90% of it's health, and your guardian is a bit lax on the aegis application. You enter shroud and attack while tethering your squishy DPS ally to make sure he's doing okay. When you get to 5s in shroud or just before the boss attacks, use your channelled blast then leave shroud for the barrier for said squishy then immediately place a smoke field. You've now guaranteed that your squishy will live and set up a stealth to sneak attack heal anyone who needs it. This scenario would be better if the wind up time was 3s and you gained 20% of your shroud as healing per second, or if you kept the 5s timer and made it 15% of your shroud per second, but it's still useable. 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[Zacchary.6183]

On 11/26/2021 at 10:06 AM, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

instead you'll want to use the trait to pre-emptively barrier your group ready for an incoming burst in much the same way the guardian will apply aegis.

If you can build up force quickly enough, you can almost spam it and keep everyone alive. Even in PvP, if you stick to your team mates when you pop it, they will not drop.

[AikijinX.6258]

I still don’t believe it’s right to shoehorn an entire elite spec into 1 or 2 avenues of the game. (2v2s and +1’ing content)

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 12/3/2021 at 10:01 AM, AikijinX.6258 said:

I still don’t believe it’s right to shoehorn an entire elite spec into 1 or 2 avenues of the game. (2v2s and +1’ing content)

Has to as long as the interactions on D/P and SA exist the way they do.

[AikijinX.6258]

22 minutes ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Has to as long as the interactions on D/P and SA exist the way they do.

Explain brotha 😊