Will you be making a Specter when EoD Launches?

[DeceiverX.8361]

To be honest it just doesn't really look that fun.  It's D/P gameplay but tankier with some support.  Not really breaking new ground.

Most of the "fun" people were having was its res and boon potential when it was busted, moreso because it was a silly-stupid novelty than actually engaging.  ANet's trying to put old-school trinity combat healer that navigates through UI menus moreso than what thief was really sold as in the first place.  I don't really have any interest in this spec, and there's honestly nothing about it that really seems new and exciting for someone who played thief for a squishy, fast-paced melee damage dealer.  It opens up nothing new from old weapons and traits, and generally looks like a rushed, self-contained concept with little regard to the rest of the class, a story as old as time.

I'm still pretty firmly going to defend my OG Deadeye proposal as a more nuanced and interesting healer and support than this.

 

[InsaneQR.7412]

Honestly i would have liked it to have a more AoE oriented tanky bruiser build for spectre.

I really like the utilities, i am not a fan of scepter. A whip like melee weapon would have been more my jam tbh. The class mechanic is ok but nothing to much to write home about. I do not like the traits though. One line is support, one line is also support but different and the last line is support but with condis.

I would have liked it if it would have been one line support, one line groups condi DPS and one line selfish buffing and bunkering.

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by InsaneQR.7412

[Ukon Cairns.9160]

ive already refashioned and am trying to catch up on story with my deadeye because specter might just make me a thief main now. as a (potentially former) necro main, specter might be the best necro elite spec so far. (unless they can pull another 180 on harbinger) 

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

9 hours ago, deadteds.2659 said:

ive already refashioned and am trying to catch up on story with my deadeye because specter might just make me a thief main now. as a (potentially former) necro main, specter might be the best necro elite spec so far. (unless they can pull another 180 on harbinger) 

Specter is thief elite bruh...

[Zacchary.6183]

8 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

Specter is thief elite bruh...

sssshhhh you want it to get nerfed heavily again?

[MrForz.1953]

Eh, Thief is probably the only other class I invested in beyond the Engineer, if Mechanist bores me too much I might give the Specter an extensive whirl, for science.

Edited December 23, 2021 by MrForz.1953

[Hybrid Theory.7361]

Nah another useless thief spec, 3rd dps spec wouldn’t been more useful than this crap 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

I have a thief, but no specter for me YET. While I think it is a great idea and support/some mitigation is precisely what thief needed, I don't feel like it's entirely a fit for the glassy builds I tend to enjoy playing.

I support it, but probably won't be playing it. It was a good execution but not my flavor.  If it turns out I can run something glass on it though...  I will reconsider. 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[kash.9213]

18 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I have a thief, but no specter for me YET. While I think it is a great idea and support/some mitigation is precisely what thief needed, I don't feel like it's entirely a fit for the glassy builds I tend to enjoy playing.

I support it, but probably won't be playing it. It was a good execution but not my flavor.  If it turns out I can run something glass on it though...  I will reconsider. 

I played it with my usual power gear and it still felt appropriate, in WvW at least. I have another set for it that I'll have a template for but most of the time I'll be attacking anyway to build Force fast. I'm never full glass but I still moved and played mostly how I normally do, except I went in and out of Shroud a lot. 

AikijinX.6258 posted a power build and some videos not long ago, maybe not as glass as you're thinking but that's probably doable also if you can manage Shroud and really know what your traits are doing for you. If you're already glass you probably have curser targeting down already. 

[Stx.4857]

I have no interest in playing as a shadow mage.  I will probably unlock it because why not, and so far it looks like it has super survivability for soloing bounties etc.

[Xanhawk.3806]

I had a lot of fun with it during the Betas.  Almost have enough Hero Points to unlock it as soon as EoD and I plan on taking it through EoD story with a friend.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

The answer is yes. I plan on taking or trying specter in all game modes depending on what is needed. I consider myself a thief main, but can play other classes. I'll put my legendary armor and accesories into use.

I currently feel annoyed with action cam.  I only really use it in PvP or WvW right now. I disable it for other classes in PvE and in raids for all classes because it's buggy in its current state. For instance skill 2 on staff will phase through some raid bosses with action cam. Also for CMs like Cairn action cam makes it much harder than it needs to be. Specter introduces a bunch more issues with it too 🤦‍♂️. Overall I would like action cam to get fixed...

Edited January 18, 2022 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Esorono.1039]

On 1/18/2022 at 8:48 AM, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

The answer is yes. I plan on taking or trying specter in all game modes depending on what is needed. I consider myself a thief main, but can play other classes. I'll put my legendary armor and accesories into use.

I currently feel annoyed with action cam.  I only really use it in PvP or WvW right now. I disable it for other classes in PvE and in raids for all classes because it's buggy in its current state. For instance skill 2 on staff will phase through some raid bosses with action cam. Also for CMs like Cairn action cam makes it much harder than it needs to be. Specter introduces a bunch more issues with it too 🤦‍♂️. Overall I would like action cam to get fixed...

I don't believe the staff 2 is an action camera problem, but how staff 2 functions as a whole. It phases through enemies that are not targeted, but stops at a targeted enemies' hitbox. AC does not always give you the target when you attack something while using it, so you would have to manually target it using right click. This is most common with adds for example, where you might have some random mob targeted so when you go for the staff 2 on the boss you phase through it instead.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

Yeah, will be unlocking Specter. Bought some Superior Runes of Tormenting specifically for it.

Kind of curious how they'll tweak things. From what I understand, in Beta3 and even Beta4 the Shadow Shroud really didn't do a heck of a lot (in Beta3 it was basically go-in-go-out) and you got a lot more mileage out of just using Scepter/X. Here's hoping they load a bit more oomph to the Shroud so it's not one of those mechanics you don't really touch.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

15 hours ago, Esorono.1039 said:

I don't believe the staff 2 is an action camera problem, but how staff 2 functions as a whole. It phases through enemies that are not targeted, but stops at a targeted enemies' hitbox. AC does not always give you the target when you attack something while using it, so you would have to manually target it using right click. This is most common with adds for example, where you might have some random mob targeted so when you go for the staff 2 on the boss you phase through it instead.

This only happens when action cam is enabled. It never happens when action cam is turned off for me. Maybe you have a setting missing?

[Taellan.3654]

Thief main, but I'm a more casual player, pve only.  I've been wanting support thief for years, so I'm excited for this new spec.  

 

 

Not sure about the single target heal, though.   I guess we'll see.

[Vidit.7108]

Still reading the replies to this topic and checking out the poll results once a week. I will be making a follow up poll when EoD launches. There has been some interesting changes from when the poll went live to now as people have had time to look at what's been offered and make a decision.

Obviously the votes came in the fastest closer to when Beta 4 was fresh in people's minds but quite a few votes have come in post-Christmas. I'm grateful both to people who voted and especially people who keep coming here to put down what they think.

[oOAvengerOo.6714]

I will definitely play Specter when EoD release.

 

Even if I agree it took a big nerf with the changes since first beta and single target heal seems a big constraint for endgame group content such as raid, I will still play with Specter because the gameplay is refreshing compare to what we have on Thief currently. But I guess it's mainly because I play only Thief and in a very casual gameplay like open world content and casual WvW.

About the clunkiness of the gameplay some people are worried about, if I remember correctly deadeye was (and still is for some people) very clunky at PoF release.

[Scolix.4879]

No spectre to me was just not interesting at all and i hated the gameplay when i tried it.

[HotHit.6783]

Hi hi! I didn't exactly make a thief for End of Dragons, but I've been prepping her for play on-launch since Spectre was revealed. Still, a neglected alt I made for box-ticking is practically a new character when I've mostly played Ranger and Engineer this whole time. Others might not love it, but I've played Druid for years and nothing has frustrated me more over this time than people on low health running away from me like my rejuvenating tides are some kind of buzz saw. Which is to say, I'm most excited by the ability target the fools who most need my help.

My biggest concern with Spectre is the scaling and the barrier/healing ratio. 2000 healing power will more than double your numbers on Druid, but with Spectre some skills struggle to get a 20% increase. So... There's no reason not to build for damage and it can be a bit awkward to try and spot heal.

Edited February 7, 2022 by HotHit.6783

[Vidit.7108]

@HotHit.6783 Yeah I get exactly what you mean lol. Some players would rather die (and they will) than be in range.

I spent a lot of time in fractals testing out different builds of heal Specter and unless they boost what it gets from healing power it's just not happening. And the single target heals weren't really anything special either.
 

[Knoxxius.1524]

Specter feels like a kick to the balls as a thief. It's such a jarring design for a class that obviously doesn't attract support players.

[Zacchary.6183]

2 hours ago, HotHit.6783 said:

Hi hi! I didn't exactly make a thief for End of Dragons, but I've been prepping her for play on-launch since Spectre was revealed. Still, a neglected alt I made for box-ticking is practically a new character when I've mostly played Ranger and Engineer this whole time. Others might not love it, but I've played Druid for years and nothing has frustrated me more over this time than people on low health running away from me like my rejuvenating tides are some kind of buzz saw. Which is to say, I'm most excited by the ability target the fools who most need my help.

My biggest concern with Spectre is the scaling and the barrier/healing ratio. 2000 healing power will more than double your numbers on Druid, but with Spectre some skills struggle to get a 20% increase. So... There's no reason not to build for damage and it can be a bit awkward to try and spot heal.

Exactly. Thief universally has trash heal scaling. But specter at least has some high base healing and a baseline 20% outgoing healing. This build is something I'm still working on for more dedicated healing, but its outgoing heals are pretty good imho. With Shadow Savior and Traversing Dusk combined, each shadow step will aoe heal 1,727 HP. This includes shadow returns. So combined with wells and sword 2, you'll easily be able to rapidly heal up your squad if need be. You'll also be rapidly building up shadow force as you heal and then use it for your shroud for Consume Shadows.

Consume Shadows is weird for a heal because it is based off of your remaining shadow force rather than healing power, and your shadow force tops out at 150% of your max HP. The way it is now, to get the best heal out of it, you'll need to stay in shroud for 4 seconds to get all 5 stacks, and even then you'll only heal for about half of your remaining force. Good news is you can still use siphon in shroud to gain more force and calculating the best heal is pretty easy (75% of your max HP). With my build, the best Consume Shadows could do is aoe heal 18,753. And all this healing would be fast paced. It is pretty crazy.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Zacchary.6183