How do Thief players feel about Measured Shot?

[Doggie.3184]

This skill is basically a ranged "Shadow Strike" in how it functions; which is a weaponskill many already disliked and avoided due to it knocking you backwards out of boon range, into AoEs, into things that mess with camera, etc. However it became a gimmicky meta when people found a way to animation cancle the shadowstep. This clearly means not having the shadowstep on your primary damage skill is far more enjoyable I assume. With people playing that way I was very surprised/disappointed in them repeating this mechanic with Scepter/Pistol's "Measured Shot" which, to me, ruins a potentially very fun weaponskill.

I've tried it a lot in all content~ Spvp, WvW, Fractals, EoD/HoM Strikes~ (not raid because not accessable/empty) and I just don't enjoy it in any.

For PvP: It 'sounds' like it'd be useful because you'd keep distance from the enemy but that becomes pretty pointless/lackluster because you're disabling them with it anyways with immobalize+slow~ it doesnt really replace just... moving away manually if you want to very well. I'd find a small Swiftness or Superspeed proc 1000x more useful if anything but if I had a choice I'd remove it with no compensation if that was what it took to get rid of it. It just ends up preventing me from chasing and tosses me places I'd rather not be majority of the time. As for the opposite; when I'm trying to use it for support there are many occasions where I can't because it'd toss me too close into the thousands of AoEs on the ground or into whatever else is murdering them in the first place to make them need healing.

In PvE: I'm tossed out of ally boon range when I use it, I'm thrown from my own wells, I constantly have to worry about what AoE I'd fly into if I used it. Targeting allies who need a fast heal when they're at low HP through the Party UI is a gamble because they may of ran off to the side somewhere away from the party and I might go in a direction that would kill me- something I had to worry about a lot in the Kaineng Strike mission. It's just an overall nuisance to deal with along-side all the boss chaos.

It makes me wonder if the shadowstep mechanic is actually supposed to be a bad thing on purpose~ an 'anti-spam' system to prevent us from using it most of the time? But we're designed to dump our initiative on either damage or utility (if we're in trouble) and this is a merger of both and forces us to use utility we don't need to deal damage/support. If the shadowstep was trashed some might miss the healing traits working for it but I mean.. that can be applied in a new way if it really matters. So I'd personally love the skill a lot if the shadowstep didn't exist. If anything it'd make more sense to me to rework "Shadow Sap" into the utility skill or improve "Black Powder's" utility instead since it lacks use with Scepter. Let Scepter 3 just focus on AoE damage and conditions.

With Sc/P 3 being the only weaponskill AoE we get, it causes it to annoy me even more than it would otherwise. In fact we're the only class and scepter user that doesn't really get to AoE with our new weapon and this is happening after we already had a single target weapon previously. And our big AoE weapon; Shortbow, doesn't apply Torment which is the heavy focus of this spec. (there's no Torment on water weapons either^^; )

So what needs done with this weaponskill?

[Zacchary.6183]

The only issue I have with it is the enemy-targeted shadowstep. It seems like a p/d clone in that regard but it really shouldn't since the utility of each weaponset differ.

[Zeru.1265]

I see the ability as a worse sc/d 3 at this moment. I think it would be cool if you could switch the ability with using scepter 2 or 3, giving a bit more freedom and allowing a choice between aoe healing or single target for a healer build that doesn't really work that well at the moment. Having said that in its current form I don't think sc/p has a niche that sc/d doesn't do better.

[Stx.4857]

I like it as it is. Because unlike shadows trike I don't need to be in melee to cast the ability. And if it teleports me away from my target thats better for me because condi spectre is a ranged build and usually I am wanting to be kiting.

 

I don't raid though.  So I can see how it might be annoying if all you want to do is be stationary in melee range.  But thats not what the skill is designed for...

[Vidit.7108]

I don't think the skill's actual effect is what I don't like about it.

 I think that when they set out to make Specter, they wanted a support build but came up with a neat necromancer dual class idea. For some reason they didn't want to give us two weapons or another two-handed weapon. So what we're stuck with is one weapon trying to do two things, deal damage and heal. 

On top of that they've always had difficulty balancing thief initiative costs. Because the whole of core thief needs to be a certain way to keep the rest of the class in balance, they couldn't make the existing utility skills anymore useful than they already are. Or at least going through old utility skills to make it more support friendly would have been more work. So the weapon skill and the new utilities had to really carry the healer role entirely, because they had this cool necro idea they didn't want to make Scepter into druid staff and so we got ally targeting.

So what we have with Measured Shot is a skill that you want to spam to be able to heal, but can't. Crammed onto it is a damaging evade skill they don't want spammed either. Then there is the Endless Night issue, they wanted that skill to have a high initiative cost so Measured Shot can't really be used on it's own like short bow 3 or Staff 3. So what Scepter and especially Measure Shot feel like to me is this weird traffic jam of different skill uses that don't really have much of a purpose. Like why would I even heal with this when I could do basically the same thing with sword 2? Switching between ally and enemy target in high intensity PvE content doesn't work super well, and I don't find the rewards for doing it to be worth it. There is also many better damage skills to compare it to that are really similar across thief, I might be alone in thinking this but the Shadow Strike + Repeater Combo feels better to me. I think this is also why Scepter/Specter builds have gravitated toward dagger instead of pistol, Twilight Combo is just much better. Measured Shot doesn't really get to have it's own identity because of said traffic jam.
 
I think PvP might be the only game mode overall where it seems like they had Scepter skills all thought out there pretty well. I guess I'm happy for them but I'm in the "delete the skill and make something else" camp.

[SoftPup.3048]

I don't like how in certain places I can end up shadowstepping places I don't expect and get "lost" for a moment. Also in PvE I really just want the flip skill and having to cast this and fix my positioning every time I try to use it feels awful and fiddly.

[nopoet.2960]

I was confused by measured shot at first but if you are actively using wells then it makes sense.  Wells take you close to the action (to close) and measured shot moves you away.  You heal going in and out and do you don't have to use a dodge to get out of trouble.  If you are ally targeting the shadow step trigger a heal which is nice. 

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

On 3/18/2022 at 11:25 PM, Zacchary.6183 said:

The only issue I have with it is the enemy-targeted shadowstep. It seems like a p/d clone in that regard but it really shouldn't since the utility of each weaponset differ.

The pistol shot portion if measured shot doesnt even pierce when it should when taking Deadly Aim. Should also pierce allies

[Caedmon.6798]

The backstep is fine when targeting enemies. But the port towards allies can cancle Endless night out pretty easily. The port usually ports me almost inside my allie ( It's way too upclose ), and if he moves a step backwards it will cancel out Endless night. I think Endless night could be given the same treatment as Flaming Flurry on Berserk warri ( Sword F1 ).  The volleys follow target in every direction,in your back,to the sides without having to face your enemy and it will never cancel itself out.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Caedmon.6798

[Doggie.3184]

Well so far it looks like people don't like it as it is. But still need moar votes.

[Roche.7491]

On 4/1/2022 at 5:03 AM, Doggie.3184 said:

Well so far it looks like people don't like it as it is. But still need moar votes.

I like pistol scepter set.
 

I think it’s actually played as a support rather than a damager. 
 

The skill 3 shadowstep you straight to your in danger ally with a high amount of heal.

“Shadowstep toward your target and launch a healing shot.

Healing: 2,151“

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Measured_Shot

Edited April 2, 2022 by Roche.7491

[Jumpel.3972]

I like the set too.  Having a a backward or forward shadowstep depending on your target is interesting.

I would see the shadowstep up to 450  and somehow make you can't shadowstep forward to close to your ally or make Endless Night able to cast behind the thief (so even if you are too close, the cast won't break)

+ change the Regen on Endless Night into Resistance so your ally can go even more crazy with the Quickness

Edited April 1, 2022 by Jumpel.3972

[Doggie.3184]

So do people still wanna change it? Specter design was pretty much ignored in patch. 

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

They just need to make the shadowstep as always forward and make Endless Night an AoE burst (instead of chanelling) where the effects affects the appropriate targets (ex. enemies take dmg and debuffs; allies are buffed and healed).

Edited June 30, 2022 by Sir Vincent III.1286

[Vidit.7108]

It's still bad, yes. I don't ever use pistol with Specter.