Specter Survivability

[Vulture.9351]

I keep hearing people say Specter has good survivability but looking through the talents I don't get why. I mean you don't heal yourself, is it the "barrier when you Siphon" talent?

[Carnifex.3275]

18 minutes ago, Vulture.9351 said:

I keep hearing people say Specter has good survivability but looking through the talents I don't get why. I mean you don't heal yourself, is it the "barrier when you Siphon" talent?

Well you go into the shroud so that's already great. Secondly you come out of shroud and heal/barrier yourself and others if you're using Consume Shadows trait (depending how much shroud energy u have left before leaving shroud). Thirdly.. for some bosses it's very good to be able to go ranged. I main guardian now and play willbender. It's 100% melee. And against let's say Deimos it's very hard to be melee. And specter is totally different, you can keep doin your thing while ranged. Same goes with kaineng strike, i always do it on specter rather than willbender. 

Edited May 27, 2022 by Dave.6819

[kash.9213]

Most of the basic builds you'll see posted are passible, even the pve builds as a starting point.

I don't have the natural talent a lot of players have who know every in and out of every class and I don't get a lot of time to grind that out, so I kind of play thorns by leeching or siphoning from Interrupts and other secondary mods coming off of other Control like Immobilize or whatever. Then I treat everyone like a boss who can one shot me with a break bar and Control them until they kill themselves on something or I can dip, with opportunistic bursts or pressure when I'm feeling it. 

Get a good keybind layout and just have fun playing thief like a piano or like an old arcade fighter like mortal combat or streetfighter even combining skill, jump, and dodge animations and camera angles into something new with a hybrid function, GW2 thief mechanics are actually really good for that.

You could just uninstall I guess though.

Edited May 27, 2022 by kash.9213

[Vulture.9351]

Can't add quotes to edits, well that's dumb.

2 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

Get a good keybind layout and just have fun playing thief like a piano or like an old arcade fighter like mortal combat or streetfighter even combining skill, jump, and dodge animations and camera angles into something new with a hybrid function, GW2 thief mechanics are actually really good for that.

My issue with HoT isn't a thief thing. It's just horrible. Break bars, verticality, BS cc, increased aggro range, thick mob placement, pocket raptors, having to solo group content because it's old now, teleporting/invisible/both enemies, huge hits, etc. They took Straits of Devastation, switched zombies for plants, and turned it into an expansion.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Vulture.9351

[kash.9213]

13 minutes ago, Vulture.9351 said:

Can't add quotes to edits, well that's dumb.

My issue with HoT isn't a thief thing. It's just horrible. Break bars, verticality, BS cc, increased aggro range, thick mob placement, pocket raptors, having to solo group content because it's old now, teleporting/invisible/both enemies, huge hits, etc. They took Straits of Devastation, switched zombies for plants, and turned it into an expansion.

Aggro range is frustrating and I think mobs shouldn't respawn until you're clear of a certain radius of their spawn point.

Specter should do great on HoT maps though if you have a system of building Shadow Force in short oder.

[Vulture.9351]

Still haven't had Specter's survivability, outside of a group, explained to me. I mean you don't link to yourself, and all the healy traits are core thief powers.

[ens.9854]

u have 2nd healthbar to use between heals

/thread

 

btw shroud 3 and 4 soak a lot in pve and any thief with offhand dagger can stall infinite waiting for cooldowns (siphon, heal, smoke screen) by timing it to hit when stealth wears off

[Vulture.9351]

2nd healthbar? Does Shadow Shroud give you another healthbar like Death Shroud? 🤔

[kash.9213]

Outside of a group I'm going to target the most dense Health bar (probably in WvW also) so I can Steal a few times for all the modifiers from that and use them as an anchor while I herd and funnel everything else into a cone for stuff like Endless Night. Or, if I need to drop the Daze Well or Elite, both of which can area Interrupt, topping off my Health with Draining Sigil. That's along with any Regen I get but most of my mitigation comes from paced and accurate dodges, blinds, positioning and orientation etc. A lot of stuff thrown at your feet you can shake off, so get a feel for when you can just sit on those dodges and stagger out the rest of the mitigation. That goes for WvW also.

You can decide if you want to cycle through Consume Shadow dumps or if you want to go in and out of Shroud a lot instead with other traits and maybe take Lacenous Torment to build Force faster if you're alone, even though Traversing Dusk is kind of nice whenever.

Remember Shroud has a Leap and two Blasts, with a Fear on the end of the Leap and a nice ranged ground target attack (Grasping Shadows can even be launched behind you while running forward if you can work your camera).

You haven't even pulled our your secondary Weapon switch yet. I like Sword/Dagger usually but HoT maps might need Shortbow for Choking Gas Daze and the port. Also, look up some builds here and elsewhere and maybe some videos from people who know more about thief. A baseline build is where you need to start and you can evolve from there.

Edited May 27, 2022 by kash.9213

[Vulture.9351]

9 hours ago, ens.9854 said:

u have 2nd healthbar to use between heals

/thread

 

btw shroud 3 and 4 soak a lot in pve and any thief with offhand dagger can stall infinite waiting for cooldowns (siphon, heal, smoke screen) by timing it to hit when stealth wears off

2nd healthbar? Does Shadow Shroud give you another healthbar like Death Shroud? 🤔

[ASP.8093]

9 hours ago, Vulture.9351 said:

2nd healthbar? Does Shadow Shroud give you another healthbar like Death Shroud? 🤔

Literally yes.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Without knowing a lot, spectre does seem to have a build that has very good personal sustain, at least in WvW.   

Fought one the other day for 5 min or so at a camp on my druid; ended up losing due to attrition but it was surprising to me. how durable the spectre was.  

[Malthurius.6870]

On 5/27/2022 at 1:32 AM, Vulture.9351 said:

Meant survivability outside of a group.

Doesn't matter anyway, I just uninstalled again. Every time GW2 comes out with a new expansion I buy it and come back because I forgot Heart of Thorns exists *shudder*

 

Did you know that you don't have to play HoT? You can just skip it and go directly to PoF or EoD if you want. Also, been going through HoT again myself after returning for EoD. The maps are still popular enough that you can easily get people to help with hero challenges if you ask, and frequently people just come by and help if you start one. Also, hero challenge trains are still a thing too.

Hot tip for being a thief vs break bars, keep an off-hand pistol handy. You can easily solo a lot of champions with breakbars by auto-attacking and dumping initiative into headshots to break the bar in 3-4 shots.

[Puck.3697]

Being fully ranged, double health bars, self barrier ability 

Yeah spectre has good sustain for thief, thief has always been a pretty kitten low sustain proffession so it's a major boost for them.

 

[Puck.3697]

On 5/27/2022 at 7:40 PM, Vulture.9351 said:

Can't add quotes to edits, well that's dumb.

My issue with HoT isn't a thief thing. It's just horrible. Break bars, verticality, BS cc, increased aggro range, thick mob placement, pocket raptors, having to solo group content because it's old now, teleporting/invisible/both enemies, huge hits, etc. They took Straits of Devastation, switched zombies for plants, and turned it into an expansion.

I'm very alien to this concept. 

Thief can pretty easily solo alot of the HPs in HoT, pre and post EoD. 

Ontop of that they're quite literally the most played maps in the game lol. 

Skip HoT and go to PoF living world season 4, unlock flying. It will remove the problems of verticality entirely. 

And yeah mounts pretty much fix all the other issues your having. 

Yoy don't have to do the game chronologically. You can just skip HoT and jump to getting the tools that make the content easier. 

[Infinity.2876]

I don't have problems with sustain on specter

I play full condi(link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAsqlFwEZssQGJO2OrxKA-e)

And I can face tank prototype xj 1's big blast attack that you normally have to hide behind the junk pile for as long as I enter full shroud at the right time.

[Parasite.5389]

On 5/27/2022 at 5:39 AM, Vulture.9351 said:

I keep hearing people say Specter has good survivability but looking through the talents I don't get why. I mean you don't heal yourself, is it the "barrier when you Siphon" talent?

Consume Shadows is basically a second heal skill, you build up shadowforce from spending Init, and if your health gets too low, pop into Shroud, wait for 5 stacks and exit, you'll usually be healed to full with extra barrier.

[Cyi.7814]

21 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

Consume Shadows is basically a second heal skill, you build up shadowforce from spending Init, and if your health gets too low, pop into Shroud, wait for 5 stacks and exit, you'll usually be healed to full with extra barrier.

 yup this is what i run instead of the extra healpower on scepter tho ima scrub celestial spec so yea GO AHEAD YELL AT ME lol but yea consume shadows is soooooo good like way too good heres my build 😄 http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAsiVlhySZssNWLeWXnxeA-zxIY1oj/QiQKUhIoDFginlJVjA-e

[Sarge shot Grif.6450]

I never go down while playing my specter, full viper and offensive traits with basically nothing put into survival skills or traits. Extra health bar for shroud, the potential for a LOT of healing when you cleave a bunch of stuff with shroud 4, barrier on stealth and stealth attacks.