What would you change about Specter? (PvE)

[shib.1369]

Title.

My thoughts:
- Wells are ground targeted. After casting you'll have the *choice* to press the skill again and shadowstep to the location.
- All wells should have the same cast time. May sound silly but it feels really odd spamming 3 wells in a row for alacrity when one of them has an "off" cast time.

- Remove the forced backstep of Measured Shot. The skill Endless Night is actually pretty strong for AoE since it pierces (8 stacks of torment to all foes in line of fire), but the backstep makes it really annoying to setup.

- Make Shadow Shroud more impactful. 5-man might would be cool. Doesn't have to be 25 stacks but at least 10 or something, so Specter can compete with alac Renegade in the might department. Wouldn't mind it competing with Mechanist's 25 stacks though.. Also I believe the stability on Shroud 5 should be 5-man. The current low stability to you and your tethered target only is garbage. Right now Shadow Shroud feels pretty lame. 

- Give Shadow Shroud a 1 second cooldown upon activation to avoid instant removal of it. Super annoying right now.

- Give Elite well something more. Right now it's just an AoE pulsing pull. It's not bad for solo play. I in fact enjoy it a lot. But for group play it's just a much worse Basilisk Venom. Give it some AoE boons.

 

Love the specialization overall, but it's nonetheless got quite a few problems (imo).

[Tails.9372]

I wanted to like Specter but while I can see past most of its flaws I still ultimately play the builds I play for their gameplay and there are two issues in particular which make me not want to play this e-spec at all:

32 minutes ago, shib.1369 said:

Remove the forced backstep of Measured Shot.

This, it's really annoying. Just remove it and put the disengagement from the enemy targeting onto Bola Shot.

33 minutes ago, shib.1369 said:

Make Shadow Shroud more impactful.

Also that, but more importantly make its gameplay more engaging. During its showcase they said that SS is still supposed to retain that "fast and agressive playstyle thief is known for" and yet while the Harbinger Shroud absolutely delivers in that regard Shadow Shroud does not. It just feels sluggish and overall not fun to play with.

[shib.1369]

2 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Also that, but more importantly make its gameplay more engaging. During its showcase they said that SS is still supposed to retain that "fast and agressive playstyle thief is known for" and yet while the Harbinger Shroud absolutely delivers in that regard Shadow Shroud does not. It just feels sluggish and overall not fun to play with.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Entering Harbinger Shroud feels like an "OMFG"-moment, while entering SS feels like a "I guess I need to camp this while restoring initiative.."-moment. 

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

make boons we apply with weapon skills apply to 5 allies as well -_-

[kash.9213]

I agree Shroud 5 should cover 5 instead of just you and your tether.

I'd be fine if the Shadowstep on Measured Shot worked differently, but it's still nice having that be a Shadowstep. With Shadestep I can Siphon and Measured Shot to break my Barrier on people and spread Torment without having to use up a Well or Utility. 

Shroud has a Leap with fluid movement and two Blasts. The only reason to camp in it is if you're super finicky about your Consume Shadows dump, otherwise Shroud is awesome to go in and out of or for clutch plays and it provides options for your weapon kits, especially if they have fields. 
I feel like someone who's just camping in Shroud and not doing anything with it was someone who still expects Specter to be a static area heal fountain. 

[Infinity.2876]

I think all shroud skills need a bit more damage it has good cc and sustain but it cripples your  damage suverly although this isn't really bad its just annoying and number five needs to be a blast finisher so you can use it is smoke for stealth.

 

Elite needs at least 3 second stealth.

 

Scepter dagger dual wield is bad and needs to be ground target area of affect with poison and torment foes and grant might to allies the idea would be called twilight combo still but you fire a bolt at the ground and throw a dagger at it causing an explosion of shadow magic which harms foes and empowers allies the animation would be like shadow flare on deadeye with only one pulse minus the shadow step with a smaller radius.

 

I like specter a lot right now it's really fun so if these suggestions get taken seriously than please do not make it break the class and have it nerfed again.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[Vidit.7108]

I think based on what has happened since the first beta, they aren't interested in listening to player feedback about it much, especially if it's about changing something that they like. So I'm not really holding my breathe that any major changes will happen especially after it took community outrage to get changes to catalyst. 

But here are some ideas that would improve QoL for Specter
1. Halve well cast times.
Since they will probably never do that, instead make alacrity from Traversing Darkness 4 1/2 seconds so that someone who gears a heal build can maintain alacrity with two wells and bring a group cleanse or reflect with the extra utility slot.
2. Swap Panaku's Ambition with Traversing Darkness.
Amplified Siphoning is really drowned out by the other two traits. Traiting for well alacrity and healing isn't really useful on it's own without the right gear anyway. Though if they feel the base healing is too powerful they could always make the scaling better and drop the base heal number down. Support and Heal builds would have actual good trait competition if they didn't need Traversing Darkness for alacrity. 
3. Update the tooltips for traits
There is a lot of confusion about what works in shroud so make it clear if a trait doesn't work in shroud for whatever reason.
4. Scepter skills apply to 5 allies on ally target
Take away rot wallow venom if you have to I just want to be able to heal 5 people with my Scepter skills. I'll accept anything, remove quickness from Endless Night and give us back that 3 person barrier.

On the list of changes that will definitely never happen.
1. Give us Focus as a second weapon and split Endless Night from Measured Shot
It would be great to have a full set of weapon skills for supporting. Those two skills are not good together and they could make Endless Night a like focus 5 skill for 5 or 6 initiative. Measured Shot could be spammed for AOE healing on Scepter.
2. A trait to remove ally tethering in exchange for greater ally support.
A trait that maybe makes shroud ally target weaker but apply in an AOE this would let group stability be a thing and possibly make it worth it to stay in shroud longer as a heal or support build.
3. Give Well of Bounty fixed boons.
3 seconds of Stability (1 or 2 stacks), and 9 seconds of Protection & Resolution, and 4 seconds of Regeneration
4. Make it so that only one of the wells applies alacrity and it's full uptime.
This would probably require a lot of dps changes and nerfs to work out but that's the dream.

[Zacchary.6183]

The only things I think needs to happen to specter is

1. Slightly reduce the CDs and cast times on shroud skills. While they do plenty of damage, unless you're geared for it, Shroud is mostly there for Consume Shadows and single target support. Its pretty slow without alacrity and the amount of alacrity the wells apply requires at least some div stats for it to last long enough to see some use. Maybe that was the reason it was designed as such, but then its really better to have someone else be the alacbot at that point. You could put a reduced shroud skill CD effect on Amplified Siphoning trait to help it compete with Traversing Dusk outside condition builds.
2. Second Opinion does very little for specter builds because healing power scales poorly with the profession. Also Consume Shadows is much better for the purpose of healing and barrier than scepter. Instead of providing such a small amount of healing power, it could convert 10-20% of barrier you apply as healing on a 1s CD (so as not to create an infinite feedback loop with Sanctuary Runes) and give Consume Shadows some competition. Or something... boons on barrier?
3. Boost the damage to wells, spread out some of WoB's boons to the other wells and change "apply <effect> that they don't already have" mechanics to "increase the duration of <effects> currently on them". Right now, the only use wells have is alac and force generation with Traversing Dusk. If I am not using traversing dusk, the only wells I will use are Well of Bounty, Gloom and Shadowfall in descending order, . As for the weird mechanics of the wells, they are not very potent. The only reason to slot them, again, is for Traversing Dusk effects. It would be better if the effects they applied would instead increase the duration of effects already on the affected targets, and thus synergizing with groups, rather than do small applications of already spammable boons/conditions.
4. Enemy Measured Shot Shadowstep should be removed or also have a 300 maximum travel distance. This design choice might be geared for WvW or PvP, considering it works like p/d condi in a sense. But for content that has groups stack close, it is dangerous to have it port you out 900 units. Not really worth using over Sc/D's Twilight Combo.
5. Allied Endless Night Quickness duration is so miniscule it is pointless to have on there. Either change the boon, increase it to 1s or make it AoE centered around the ally target and maybe even yourself. I get that the initial 2s was probably OP with 100% quickness duration, pumping out a whopping 28s on a single person for 6 initiative. But 7s maximum is not worth even the 3 initiative it takes to use it on a condi support build. Scepter already puts out enough ally barrier and regen is weak for a HoT, so ally Endless Night is pretty useless. If the quickness duration was set to 1s, a maximum of 14s single target quickness at the cost of 6 ini is reasonable for support. The specter would have to bounce around to other allies to at least produce some coverage of the boon, but the amount of commitment required to achieve that would be balanced and fair imho.

Its w/e though.

[Depths.4051]

I would like more buffs offered by the spec to compete with other support specs. I feel like we do have some relevant buffs like alacrity. But it by far is not competitive as a heal/alac spec compared to a healbrand that has a huge amount of useful buffs that are used almost instantly and reliably.

I also would like to feel like we aren’t pigeon holed into using specifically ritualist gear. I like using minstrel with my support spec of spectre to combat the forced use of teleport with the wells. If we are being forced to teleport we need tankiness/evasion to be either included in the skills use or have it be a ranged ability.

I would like to eventually be welcomed into fractals with a full support spec of spectre. Right now I feel useful as a minstrel spectre, I can heal lots with pistol 3 skill, can revive at range, and have tons of CC with pistol 4 for breakbar. Pistol 3 is my bread and butter heal, because it counts as a shadow step. Every shadow step is an aoe heal when paired with shadow trait line.
It feels the like we have a lot of support options but it’s not really a viable replacement for something like a healbrand at this point in high level fractals.

I feel the biggest buff to a spectre support would be to at least let us distribute might to the party as opposed to one person. I like that we can have huge shields on one person, but might is crucial for party buffing and makes us not really viable as a replacement support. I talked to someone about doing t4 fractal support and they asked me what buffs I could provide. When I showed them my buffs they told me to just play dps and got on their healbrand. I don’t like that it’s not seen as a real support option. It feels like a dps with some support abilities. 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Depths.4051

[Jumpel.3972]

I would rework SA to add more support trait

[Curennos.9307]

Change other thief weapons to also be capable of targeting allies to some degree. This whole 'your elite spec is built around a single weapon and everything else stays the same' feels really crippling when trying to use anything other than scepter with specter. I want to be able to Choking Gas my allies to apply regen, cluster-bomb them for healing, and backstab a specific ally for healing.

Also, for scepter 2 an3 when paired w/pistol - it feels *horribly* awkward. Being able to tp in the direction of movement would be nice, or maybe split the two skills and replace the useless scepter 2 skill with the teleport. Not entirely sure how to fix it, it just feels super clunky to use. 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Curennos.9307

[Infinity.2876]

scepter dual target.

it would be a monster of code but it would make life a ton easier.

basically you can auto select an ally party/squad commader/guild priority at start of combat with the optional manual change and then select you enemy, normal enemy select rules are still applied.

this will allow for single target support(what I think was origanally intended for this elite spec) while still doing damage and not being a sitting duck.

also specter really needs an shadow shroud ambush I mean like come on.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

Honestly, the main thing I would love to see is just Siphoning any ally be able to trigger the boons from Thrill of the Crime and ideally Bountiful Theft too.
Even if they lowered the duration because of the the faster recharge of targeting an ally I would be fine with that.

[Curennos.9307]

3 hours ago, ShadowInTheVoid.9183 said:

Honestly, the main thing I would love to see is just Siphoning any ally be able to trigger the boons from Thrill of the Crime and ideally Bountiful Theft too.
Even if they lowered the duration because of the the faster recharge of targeting an ally I would be fine with that.

Idk why they didn't just make it the same cooldown, but work with all the traits anyway when targetting an ally (except converting negative effects into benefits, like weakness into more might, poison into regen, interrupt into stab, etc).

 

The problem I'm having with specter so far is that the skill I'm using has to be actually worth casting on an ally in a way that competes with just casting it on an enemy. For Siphon, I almost never cast it on an ally, unless I'm feeling particularly lazy, is the boons + other on steal traits that make it more useful at mitigating damage when cast on an enemy anyway, so I don't really care about the barrier it gives an ally. The interrupt alone would make Siphon 99% of the time more valuable to cast on an enemy

 

I run a support specter build - Shadow Arts, Trickery, Specter. You would think I'd benefit a lot moreOn an ally, I get....Around 4k barrier and that's it. On an enemy, I get:

- Boonrip

- Boons (Fury, Might, Swiftness, Vigor)

- Interrupt

- Stealth (very important, both for in-stealth benefits and for my stealth attack, which heals for 10-12k)

- I don't think casting on an ally gives initiative back either? Can't recall

 

It just isn't worth it.

 

 

[kash.9213]

40 minutes ago, Curennos.9307 said:

Idk why they didn't just make it the same cooldown, but work with all the traits anyway when targetting an ally (except converting negative effects into benefits, like weakness into more might, poison into regen, interrupt into stab, etc).

 

The problem I'm having with specter so far is that the skill I'm using has to be actually worth casting on an ally in a way that competes with just casting it on an enemy. For Siphon, I almost never cast it on an ally, unless I'm feeling particularly lazy, is the boons + other on steal traits that make it more useful at mitigating damage when cast on an enemy anyway, so I don't really care about the barrier it gives an ally. The interrupt alone would make Siphon 99% of the time more valuable to cast on an enemy

 

I run a support specter build - Shadow Arts, Trickery, Specter. You would think I'd benefit a lot moreOn an ally, I get....Around 4k barrier and that's it. On an enemy, I get:

- Boonrip

- Boons (Fury, Might, Swiftness, Vigor)

- Interrupt

- Stealth (very important, both for in-stealth benefits and for my stealth attack, which heals for 10-12k)

- I don't think casting on an ally gives initiative back either? Can't recall

 

It just isn't worth it.

 

 

Plus Siphon only grants you Barrier targeting an enemy. Using Shadestep, I only ever target an ally well before contact to prep them but after that I want to gain barrier to break on allies or I want the Force generation or Steal modifiers. 

[Roche.7491]

Add single target healing on top of barrier as barrier isn’t often used. This will make support spec specter popular.

[Depths.4051]

13 hours ago, Roche.7491 said:

Add single target healing on top of barrier as barrier isn’t often used. This will make support spec specter popular.

Just curious, but why is pistol 3 not a good enough heal, ontop of spamming 1 heal coming out of invis. If youre fully spec'd for healing, pistol 3 almost fully heals someone since it also counts as a shadow step.

[Roche.7491]

On 4/11/2022 at 4:18 PM, Depths.4051 said:

Just curious, but why is pistol 3 not a good enough heal, ontop of spamming 1 heal coming out of invis. If youre fully spec'd for healing, pistol 3 almost fully heals someone since it also counts as a shadow step.

Cannot spam 3. Only 1 but it has no heal.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Roche.7491

[Ashgar.3024]

Scepter 2 being worth pressing would be nice.

Awkward cast time on Well of Suffering removed.

Reduced CD on Shadowfall (at least in PvE). Atm its not really worth using over Basilisk Venom outside rare occasions like Harvest Temple.

Maybe increase the radius of the Alac pulses a bit farther than the wells? Bit annoying when teamates decide to spread around to lose a ton of Alac uptime, specially when Mecanist and Renegade can cover a whole boss arena for no real effort.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Caedmon.6798]

On 4/7/2022 at 11:16 AM, shib.1369 said:

Title.

My thoughts:
- Wells are ground targeted. After casting you'll have the *choice* to press the skill again and shadowstep to the location.
- All wells should have the same cast time. May sound silly but it feels really odd spamming 3 wells in a row for alacrity when one of them has an "off" cast time.

- Remove the forced backstep of Measured Shot. The skill Endless Night is actually pretty strong for AoE since it pierces (8 stacks of torment to all foes in line of fire), but the backstep makes it really annoying to setup.

- Make Shadow Shroud more impactful. 5-man might would be cool. Doesn't have to be 25 stacks but at least 10 or something, so Specter can compete with alac Renegade in the might department. Wouldn't mind it competing with Mechanist's 25 stacks though.. Also I believe the stability on Shroud 5 should be 5-man. The current low stability to you and your tethered target only is garbage. Right now Shadow Shroud feels pretty lame. 

- Give Shadow Shroud a 1 second cooldown upon activation to avoid instant removal of it. Super annoying right now.

- Give Elite well something more. Right now it's just an AoE pulsing pull. It's not bad for solo play. I in fact enjoy it a lot. But for group play it's just a much worse Basilisk Venom. Give it some AoE boons.

 

Love the specialization overall, but it's nonetheless got quite a few problems (imo).

I actually like the backstep of measured shot and use it in my advantage. What i dislike is the port towards allies where if youre not at approx max range you will port Way too close to the person youre targeting. And if that person is moving,which he probably is,the next skill Endless night will cancel itself out if the person moves to your back..So I stand still while casting it so the beam will still follow..But standing still is something i dont always want to be doing. The range towards an ally needs a fix imo,or make the beam from Endless night not being cancled out this easily,but rather follow the target regardless aka Flaming flurry from Berserk warri.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Caedmon.6798

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Boons from weapon skills apply to allues around your target

[Demented Lemur.7861]

Needs a Better AOE condi clear. Right now I think the only thing holding healer spectre back is this. Other healers can clear condis pretty easily but spectre doesn't have a lot of tools to do it

[HowlKamui.5120]

The only thing I want is for even just the ambush attacks of other weapons be able to target allies and do a supportive effect.

[Puck.3697]

Very little in all honesty. 

Spectre design wise has hit the nail on the head realistically. 

[ZDragon.3046]

I agree untie the forced shadow stepping form the wells its annoying to me at least i get some people might like it but it makes it annoying for me in raid content when i kept slightly moving while just trying to give alac. Its turned me off so much that i dont really want to continue trying to play it. Literally please make shadow stepping to a well optional or replace that mechanic with something else entirely 

 

Make the shroud skills feel more impactful the shroud feels less active than the weapon skills because its slow... a page taken from necromancer's book no doubt which is fine but specters shroud feels like necro shroud but without any traits backing it up to make it feel effective.  

 

The offensive wells are also a bit lackluster... make the elite well condi based too you may as well do that so we can at least run a full well set for alac builds otherwise its just better to take thieves guild or the venom... 

 

Conder undoing the single target tie and making it a 5 target tie even if you have to make the visual extremely minor to reduce bloat. in EoD you knocked most supports from 10 target down to 5 but specter mostly sits at 1 target its really not going to work out for the standard attempting to be set.