Design goals for Shadow Shroud

[Iskarel.7240]

This is a hot button issue so I want to establish who I am.

I use the name Iskarel on Discord.
I'm a PvE Thief main who provides some of the benchmarks for Thief on the Snow Crows website. Nowadays I'm always reachable on the Snow Crows Help Desk discord. I'm an expert on Specter and Deadeye for instanced PvE—you can find my benchmarks here.

I form my opinions on PvE Thief from actual play and in-depth research, which I discuss with a lot of talented, passionate players.

 

tl;dr: Shadow Shroud's personal durability and group healing were deemed too potent, so what is Shadow Shroud supposed to do?

Whatever design goal has been set for Shadow Shroud, it suffers in actual play. Shadow Shroud gets worn down very quickly in scenarios where you benefit from durability and group healing!

Shadow Shroud is largely redundant with the rest of Thief's kit. It provides:

• Condition damage
• soft/hard Crowd Control effects
• modest amount of cleave

Shadow Shrouds unique provisions are:

1. Increased durability
2. group healing/barrier via Consume Shadows
3. single target healing

Based on the Oct 3 patch:

#1 was too powerful in PvP, and it was nerfed in every game mode.

#2 was too powerful in PvE, but it was not targeted with a direct nerf

 

Arena Net did not explicitly state #2, which is particularly vexing. I elaborate on this below.

 

(Speculation: It’s possible that ANet CAN’T split Shroud scaling across game modes at this time. If anyone knows a time when Death Shroud or Reaper Shroud had different scaling in each mode, please let me know.)

This leaves us with #3 which is apparently inoffensive to Specter's design goals.

 

I don't think I need to elaborate on why single-target support is generally pointless in endgame PvE, so if that stance is inoffensive, skip the spoiler.

Spoiler

Not every fight focuses all damage pressure completely on a single Tank, and if it does, only the most well-coordinated groups might use a Specter to support a "glass cannon" DPS tank rather than simply using a Healer as tank. Single-target support isn't relevant for most of the fractal/raid/strike playerbase.

Shadow Shroud prevents you from providing nearly any group support besides Consume Shadows!

• the heal from Traversing Dusk and Shadow Savior can't be triggered without access to a shadowstep
• you cannot provide Alacrity without access to your wells
• you cannot stealth your allies with Shadow Refuge or Blinding Powder (which have exceedingly long cooldowns in PvE!)
• you can place a Smoke field before entering shroud then blast it with Shroud 2, to provide Protection via Cover of Shadow, but why should thief have to jump through these hoops to provide a basic defensive boon provided by almost every other Healer build? Recognize that this trait provides only 2 seconds base duration of Protection!
• you cannot reactively projectile block with Seal Area/Smoke Screen

 

Generally, the only thing unique to your shroud which helps your allies is avoid taking damage while you wait for Consume Shadows...and this gameplay loop was just nerfed.

 

To the designers: What is shroud supposed to do?

Elaboration on PvE Consume Shadows
I think it's naive for any of us to say the Shadow Shroud nerf affecting PvE was only motivated by PvP. Consume Shadows on DPS Specter was unusually potent:

• it could provide substantial healing without investing into Healing Power*
• the trait was generally an inherent damage increase and did not compete with a offense-focused trait**
•  

*Specter is uniquely suited to exchange a modest amount of DPS for increased Vitality via Ritualist and Carrion gear.

Spoiler

If you're unfamiliar with this idea, I encourage you to visit the Snow Crows Condition Barrier Specter build which I curated with help from other experts on the Snow Crows Help Desk Discord.

**This is a complicated topic. An in-depth discussion is beyond the scope of this thread, but I want to outline my argument.

Spoiler

The damage output of your shroud has three components:

1. Valuable damage provided by Grasping Shadows (2), Eternal Night (4), and Mind Shock (5)
2. Using these skills only when waiting for some Initiative to regenerate
3. Applying Barrier to allies via Consume Shadows, so they will apply Rotwallow Venom (i.e. Torment) to the enemy.

Absorbing damage with Shroud negatively affects all three—you are unable to use your Shroud skills, you have to fall back on Scepter auto skills, and a weaker Consume Shadows heal may fail to apply barrier to injured allies (i.e. you'll only heal them). In some situations, it might actually be a DPS gain to run Second Opinion instead of Consume Shadows so you preserve your Shadow Force during the fight.

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by DarkstarChimaera.5120
Added speculation about splitting Shroud scaling in each game mode

[Noko Anon.9154]

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this topic, but this is what I've noticed on the outside-looking-in.

First, let's establish how we got to the present crisis. Elite specializations are, in theory, supposed to supplement something that is lacking in a class' kit. Thief has long been labeled the "selfish" profession without any means of providing legitimate group support, so the solution with specter was to make it very strong at providing support. When specter provided these tools to make it happen, there was criticism from those outside of the thief community for it. Specter had a meteoric rise in PvP (where thief is already loathed) because it functions as both a roamer and a support class in PvP, though it is noticeably absent in WvW groups, and as a roamer pales in comparison to even core thief in that environment.

It's very easy to immediately say the typical: "Anet doesn't care about / play thief," or "Thief is broken / busted," or any other statement we've heard the past decade already. The veracity of these statements don't matter. What does matter is that thief finally entered a position where it could start providing real support and no longer be the "selfish" class in PvP, and for whatever reason everyone else complained about it. If we can figure out what the problem is that made everyone so vocally against the elite, then we can move forward.

For others who don't play thief, was the durability too much in PvP? Was the barrier too much? If so, why? The other profession with Shroud, necromancer, had very tangible problems that the collective player base could point out as real issues. Death Shroud, the profession's unique mechanic has received two total nerfs to it since the game's inception, and only one of them PvP related: A 2% increase in life force lost per second in PvP (for a total of 5%). Yet, when core signet necromancer existed in competitive formats, Death Shroud wasn't nerfed. Why was Shadow Shroud, in this similar situation?

Perhaps an argument could be made that Scourge did, in fact, have its unique abilities nerfed heavily over the years considering how much barrier it was providing, to the point where now it's a joke of an elite spec in competitive formats. Of course, there is the tremendous exception of it existing in WvW blobs with its barriers and boonstrips, which Specter comparatively has yet to properly break in to. So, what we were looking at is an elite, in PvP, that is evidently too good competitively in small groups, acceptable when it's on its own, and not particularly helpful in large groups. Why is this?

Specter fit the original intentions of what elite specs are supposed to be. Specter, at least in PvP, which is what this balance patch was supposed to focus on, was only the meta in one aspect of the game, boasting a unique position to both roam (competing with willbenders, heralds, holosmiths, untamed, and soulbeasts, three of which have been consistently in high-level play since PoF) and support (competing with guardians and tempests, both of which, again, having been securely in their place since some part of PoF). The profession did nothing wrong except play well, and unlike other professions, was heavily penalized for it.

So, why? Do non-thieves want it to have less damage, and become something akin to druid? Do they want it to have less mobility? Fewer barriers and less healing? What is the competition looking to actually get rid of from specter? I ask these things, because I refuse to believe that a unique skill could possibly be so reviled when core necromancer, the inspiration for it, hasn't been seriously looked at for committing similar "crimes against the player base".

[Lucinellia.9247]

The comments on this so far have been excellent and I very much appreciated the detailed write-up. 

I've been talking about Specter since early beta - raising points with the myriad of issues that single target healing has in Guild Wars 2. We will soon be approaching a year since I made the post here and single target healing within PvE remains a miserable, and poorly implemented, experience. Although I was primarily a condi Deadeye player in PvE prior to EoD, I have almost entirely moved over to Alacrity Specter support. The initiative system has always struck me as being something that can allow for a semblance of the more involved healing styles within games such as FFXIV and WoW and, while DPS Alacrity Specter is arguably in an okay spot (sadly, outclassed by other choices though), the healing variant of Alacrity Specter is in a very poor state.

Much of this relates to Iskarel's initial question of "What is Shroud supposed to do?"

My feeling on this is that Shadow Shroud is the method by which Specter is given something to do while Initiative regenerates. Daredevil has rotational dodges, which introduces extra time into the rotation, to allow for initiative ticks. Deadeye has Maleficent Seven, which allows for a replenishment of Initiative by gaining Malice. Specter has Shadow Shroud to offer other abilities to be used while waiting for Initiative.

As I see it, Shadow Shroud therefore needs to perform some core functionality in PvE if it wishes to fulfill this purpose.

1. It needs to last long enough to allow Initiative to regenerate. 
2. It needs to supplement DPS while initiative is regenerating if playing DPS.
3. It should supplement boon support and healing support for support Specter as the Specter cannot access Wells during Shadow Shroud.

With the nerf to the scaling, Shadow Shroud is now very often not able to fulfill 1. A Viper Specter will be torn from Shadow Shroud regularly by splash damage and damage that is not avoidable within instanced PvE. The Carrion/Ritualist build fares somewhat better, but this comes at a DPS loss, and being removed early from Shadow Shroud is still very common.

Shadow Shroud fulfills 2, so long as condition 1 is met. There is clearly sufficient DPS by using some of the Shadow Shroud skills.

Shadow Shroud does not fulfill 3 in any meaningful manner in PvE. This, to me, is the most glaring issue. It was a problem prior to the October changes, and it is more pronounced now. As noted by Iskarel, Shadow Shroud does not allow for boon support. We are locked out of our Wells for the application of Alacrity, Stability and additional Might and our only boon access is via a cumbersome blast finisher that would involve switching to Pistol prior to entering Shroud so that Black Powder can provide a Smoke Field for the application of a small amount of Protection via Cover of Shadows in the Shadow Arts traitline. This is a lot of hoops to jump through for a paltry amount of Protection!

Healing from Shadow Shroud is very poor in PvE. There is so much potential here too, and it is wholly limited by only being able to tether to one ally. Grasping Shadows has real potential to be an inverted form of Druid's Seed of Life, by cleansing after a small delay if an enemy is struck. The same applies for Eternal Night being a darker mimic of Rejuvenating Tides - healing and applying Barrier to allies for enemies struck - and also Mind Shock as this applies CC after channeling, paralleling Natural Convergence. Dawn's Repose is also a thematic inversion of Lunar Impact (even the names play nicely together!) but needs the Specter to move to the location.

All of this is very, very cool! There is a beautiful parity here within the design space. It is just sadly useless within a PvE context as these abilities being restricted to the Specter and one other target is a major issue when you play in groups of 5 or 10. 

Shadow Shroud used to be able to fulfill 3, via Consume Shadows, but this has now been heavily nerfed and, alongside losing Regen and Protection from Well of Bounty, leaves heal Alacrity Specter in a very poor place. 3 is also challenging to fulfill for much the same reason as 2, given that 1 may not be met due to the vastly reduced Shadow Force as a result of health pool conversion.

So what can be done from a PvE perspective?

It is clear that Arenaet does not want Specter to be as bulky within PvP as prior to the October patch. Consume Shadows is also likely seen to be a problem via the healing that is possible from Alacrity DPS and Carrion/Ritualist DPS builds.

I'd suggest the following changes:

A. Consider Shadow Shroud giving an innate damage reduction in PvE only. This can be tuned without heavy nerfs to other aspects of the game if required. The purpose of this is solely to make receiving damage less punishing and allow for the fulfillment of Shroud stipulation 1, which then allows for meeting criteria 2 better.

B. Add useful group-wide boons to Shroud abilities. Healing Alacrity Specter lost access to Regen and Protection and adding these back to Shroud skills seems like a quick fix as this allows for both support variants of Specter to provide these. This partially fulfills stipulation 3.

C. Consider a trait rework to allow AoE tethering with subgroup preference. This can be PvE only if required. There is likely the design space in both Hungering Darkness and Shadestep, both of which are lackluster in PvE, to allow for AoE tethering. AoE tethering allows a PvE heal Specter to bypass single target healing, which as noted earlier is not an enjoyable playstyle in GW2, and also overcomes a number of weaknesses with the current healing variant of Specter by simply allowing the supportive aspects of Shadow Shroud skills to apply to more players. This helps fulfill stipulation 3 and has the added benefit of making Specter healing much more engaging, thoughtful and interactive.

Such design also has implications for the dominance of Consume Shadows within the Major Adept options. Change C, especially, means that with more healing options, Second Opinion could become a more attractive choice for healing Alacrity Specter.

In short:

Allow for a degree of damage reduction when within Shadow Shroud in PvE to allow for Shadow Force to be maintained sufficiently during Initiative regeneration. Add supplemental group-wide boons to Shroud abilities to compensate those lost from Well of Bounty, primarily Regen and Protection. Introduce a trait that allows for four targets to be tethered, enabling Shroud abilities to act as a mirror of Druid's Celestial Avatar skills.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Lucinellia.9247
Formatting

[Eleandra.4859]

First of all @DarkstarChimaera.5120: Thank you for all the work you and Snow Crows do!

 

I really love to see this discussion.

I believe the question what shadow shroud is meant to do is pretty clear. It is meant to produce a means to stay in the range of damage more consistently compared to the design of the base class and other thief elite specs. The fact that thief got a second health bar makes that obvious.

The fact that the heal scaling of this spec was not changed from other thief specs also implies that it was not meant as a traditional healer that invests into healing power but a kind of offensive healer that supports through damage (I personally believe that this was a concession to prominent thiefs stating that they do not want to have a support build for thief because, if they wanted to play support they would play support class but this is pure speculation).

 

The existence of rot wallow venom on barrier application supports my second point.

 

I believe that we do not have to ask "what is shroud meant to do?", so much is absolutely clear and I only repeat what DarkstarChimaera already stated:

Quote

1. Increased durability
2. group healing/barrier via Consume Shadows [E: also shroud 3 I believe]
3. single target healing         

 

I believe what we have to ask is: "Why was the nerf executed directly on the base identity of specter, affecting every part of the elite spec in every game mode negatively, instead of a targeted reduction of either damage outside of shroud, damage in shroud, healing, being able to do everything at the same time?" (eg, a localized redesign of specter traits).

 

Please also see my post (please also look at my other posts in that thread, the first post may seem emotional and a bit salty but I hope to clarify both my motivation and the wording in follow up posts after criticism from other posters):

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Eleandra.4859

[Lucinellia.9247]

24 minutes ago, Eleandra.4859 said:

The fact that the heal scaling of this spec was not changed from other thief specs also implies that it was not meant as a traditional healer that invests into healing power but a kind of offensive healer that supports through damage

 

The existence of rot wallow venom on barrier application supports my second point.

 

I believe that we do not have top ask "what is shroud meant to do?", so much is absolutely clear.

 

I think this is an interesting point to look at further, and it does relate to what the purpose of Shadow Shroud is, and should be.

Specter doesn't support through damage - we don't invest in damaging stats in order to support. Consume Shadows meant that we valued Vitality to support, the single target support within Shadow Shroud is not based on damage that we do, but targets we hit. 

The point with regards to Rot Wallow Venom is an interesting one. I personally would much prefer if this was more prominent for our support options but Leeching Venoms has a very strange interaction with Rot Wallow Venom. Which kind of exemplifies one of the biggest issues with Specter - the design is really unclear and a massive mishmash of different directions. My personal feeling is that a lot of this stems from the single target healing via both ally targeting and Shroud tethering. This feels very shoehorned into the design, UI, UX and encounters of Guild Wars 2 while the few things that do work somewhat on support Specter - barrier via Vitality from Consume Shadows, healing from Shadowsteps and Wells, boons from offensive Siphon - are those that avoid single target aspects and we are weaker as a result of that.

Other healers and supports tend to have weapon skills which can provide group-wide boons and healing but, due to the nonsensical profession identity of Thief as "single target" and the lumbering of Specter with allied targeting for awkward thematic reasons, we sorely lack this on our elite specialisation weapon and our major elite specialisation mechanic, Shadow Shroud. This means that when changes are made to one of the narrow aspects we rely on - Wells, Shadowsteps and Consume Shadows - they have an oversized impact. Specter is also very vulnerable to wide reaching nerfs due to how these are coupled.*

Our direct healing is contained within Wells and Shadowsteps, our burst healing and Barrier from Consume Shadows via Shadow Force via Shroud health pool so a change targeted at Shroud health pool can have very broad implications and this doesn't seem to have been considered thoroughly with the most recent changes. As noted in this Discussion, a change to Shroud health pool impacts our ability to DPS, our durability, the barrier we provide and our raw healing output, not just the durability which was the reason given for the nerf. It is a messy design where pulling the wrong balance lever can result in very large nerfs because we can't compensate as so much of Specter, including support elements of Shadow Shroud, are locked up in being limited to single targets or require ally targeting.

*I think it is also worth noting that for support Specter this also very much applies to changes to Well of Bounty as the alterations mean we have no access to permanent group-wide Regen and Protection now. It exemplifies that certain areas of Specter are being overstuffed in what they provide purely because of single ally targeting, which is a very poor mechanic in PvE, occupying far too much of the elite specialisation's design space.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Lucinellia.9247
Additional thoughts, formatting.

[Vismooth.4128]

Oh man, where to begin.
 To me, roughly speaking, Specter has been walking on a set of crutches to begin with. Though I really liked how its base design was executed, there is no denying that after a while the rougher parts of the spec crept up on me.
 The core issue that I see is shroud's relation to the initiative system. In its current implementation, shroud does not provide a way to use initiative and staying in that state for extended periods of time results in a dps loss. That, compounded with the gameplay style of consume shadows promotes the kind of experience inverse of what it was based on - necromancer, which usually has its bulk of burst dps in shroud. So, to sum up - staying longer in shadow shroud compounds loss of dps on two fronts - from it not providing enough and not making use of active initiative. The changes that were made before to increase Specter's ability to maintain better dps on its own (if I remember correctly, it was specifically on shroud AAs and scepter AAs) have completely missed their mark - as those tools are not relevant in specter's rotation.
 A few other things I'd like to note down while we're at it:
1. Allied targeting, as was stated so many times already, is clunky and with how often it gets in the way of you doing what you want to do makes the experience quite unfun.
2. Rot Wallow Venom. Though interesting, it probably shouldn't be a part of specter's core kit. This is because it only works in group scenarios. You could, theoretically, compound it with consume shadows as base part of that playstyle functionality to facilitate a supportive playstyle and give us something more selfish in return as a base mechanic.
3. Consume Shadows has too much impact on specter's playstyle. In addition, the other traits in the same line as consume shadows don't make as much of an impact on gameplay to even consider picking either of them instead of CS, there is simply no competition, no choice. And if we're to take an honest look at shadow shroud without CS, most of its already prominent issues become more exacerbated and apparent. There are two ways out of it (or one, if we're to combine the solutions) - either redesigning the other traits in the same line to provide similarly impactful gameplay alterations, or making CS part of the base kit, along with Dark Sentry and Panaku's Ambition, or compounding them all together and redesigning how core specter behaves in the first place. Which one of these would be more difficult - I do not know, as any of these solutions would require a rework.

I don't want to believe that all hope is lost. However, there have been so many threads out there providing extremely valuable feedback on Specter. And seeing how nothing has come of that yet really makes me not want to invest any more passion in this spec than I already have.

[Eleandra.4859]

1 hour ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

Specter doesn't support through damage - we don't invest in damaging stats in order to support. Consume Shadows meant that we valued Vitality to support, the single target support within Shadow Shroud is not based on damage that we do, but targets we hit. 

You are right, I did not think this through/did not chose the correct wording. Specter does not support through damage but it supports while damaging and damages while supporting, is that more on point?

 

Rot wallow venom enables to do damage while casting on allies. I assume this was to ensure that dps does not go down to 0 while targeting allies.

 

I like what you wrote: specter values vitality - vitality converts to shroud health, it converts to healing (via consume shadows). It converts to damage (via overhealing --> barrier application + rot wallow venom).

 

Just stubbornly trying to save a bit of face:

Spoiler

Side note: We DO heal through damage(ing abilities) to some extend: The single target heal + support of our shroud abilities towards the tethered ally. This however is most likely not relevant. To be honest, I only bring this up in an effort to not be proven completely wrong XD so please feel free to ignore this paragraph.

 

 

Going off topic a bit in reaction to the rest of your post: Already during beta I asked the elite spec design team in the appropriate feedback thread what their idea for the Specter's "flow" is. I was unable to really find an identity of either out of shroud and in shroud.

I proposed at that time to explicitly design each of the specter trait lines for

• healing/support.
• Damage (buffing condi and power, the distinction will come through stat set anyways)
• tanking

 

I believed that a similar design to Mercy from Overwatch (for healing) could be interesting where the grand master healing trait makes the 1-target-tether into a 5-target tether.

This could create a flow where non-shroud game play would focus on doing damage to enemies/mediocre 1-target heal and shroud game play would enable burst healing, buff support. Maximizing the shroud uptime would be the way to play a strong healer and supporting mechanisms could be introduced to enable not depleting shroud.

By putting dps potential in competing trait lines to healing or tanking traits over-performance could be easier managed by reducing base coefficients and buffing traits to compensate in one role if other roles were too strong in a certain aspect (e.g. nerfing damage for heal spec but giving it back via the trait for dps spec).

 

What I would also like to bring up: Single target healing pales in comparison to every other group heal Specter has at its disposal.

Looking at Sc/D or Sc/P 3, both are nearly meaningless compared to the non targeting healing capabilities (shadow step/consume shadows).

Could it be that single target heal was actually meant to be mainly a pvp mechanic? Designing the class such that they use shroud as

• single target heal for pvp where the damage is much lower compared to pve (therefore making the relatively anemic heals of the Scepter weapon set more meaningful)
• Consume shadows and wells to bring relevant support in group/strike oriented game play,
• sustain for single play?

Edited October 8, 2022 by Eleandra.4859

[Lucinellia.9247]

You are quite right @Eleandra.4859 - we do have some single target healing, which is given from DPS abilities on the basis of number of targets hit. I think this is very good thematically, is a nice part of the Specter identity and is also utterly bereft of purpose in instanced PvE because it only applies to ourselves and one ally!

I would very, very much like to see this apply to more allies, perhaps via a trait that allows for tethering to multiple allies. Our Major Grandmaster traits are ripe for this. Adding this in would give more purpose to Shadow Shroud for support Specters, and would help to answer the initial question post by @DarkstarChimaera.5120. I guess this is very much similar to your Mercy (from Overwatch, not of Deadeye fame) point, though I do not play Overwatch.

Shadow Shroud should be accessed when Initiative is low. For DPS, it should allow another means to DPS. For DPS Alacrity, it should allow for DPS and some boons. For healing Alacrity Specter, it should allow for healing and some boons. I would personally really like to see the efficacy of the healing from Shadow Shroud tethers remain activated on hitting enemies, but scale for both healing and Barrier with Healing Power. This would strengthen Plaugedoctor quite nicely as a legitimate stat option and could even allow for running Second Opinion over Consume Shadows.

Single target allied healing indeed pales massively, which narrows the design space two-fold. @DarkstarChimaera.5120 mentions some of this in the original post however, even if single target was massively buffed, it is still limited by the very nature of the game as I outlined many months ago here. It may well have a bit more of a use in PvP, it certain feels that way from the little that I have played it, but this is again a game mode that already has a spec devoted to it, via Deadeye, dictating the design of Thief's only group support option which is something that it sorely lacked prior to EoD. The amount of work needed to resolve the problems with single target healing and Specter is quite immense so I would implore Arenanet to consider devaluing this aspect of Specter considerably and investing more in enabling Shadow Shroud to be a strong, cohesive and engaging healing option for group content. Doing so would also limit the awkwardness of Specter relying firmly on Sword for healing too!

[Eleandra.4859]

4 hours ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I would very, very much like to see this apply to more allies, perhaps via a trait that allows for tethering to multiple allies. Our Major Grandmaster traits are ripe for this. Adding this in would give more purpose to Shadow Shroud for support Specters, and would help to answer the initial question post by @DarkstarChimaera.5120. I guess this is very much similar to your Mercy (from Overwatch, not of Deadeye fame) point, though I do not play Overwatch.

I should have perhaps elaborated on the Mercy reference, sorry:
 

Spoiler

In Overwatch mercy is a single target healer that can either buff one ally's damage or heal one ally through a tether she has to keep up by "attacking" that ally.

Every character in Overwatch has an ultimate ability, in Mercy's case, activating that ability lets her fly and her tether extend from the first target to other targets (either for healing or damage, that can be switched on the fly (pun not intended)) giving her the ability to, for a certain amount of time, heal/buff the whole group in a crunch situation.

 

That can be an extremely powerful and rewarding experience btw. if well executed.

 

I would not propose to stay too near to this implementation (especially the time limit, shutting a healer out of their primary means of healing is really bad design I believe (looking at you druid)).

 

Instead I would indeed create a grand master trait that I would call something like "five-tailed-fox" (I put too much thinking into this obviously) where your tether changes from a 1to1 to a 1to4, perhaps even 1to5 (including oneself into the healing).

This would mean a complete redesign of all traits obviously to not make this overpowered, but by separating the traits into lines similar to how it was done for some necromancer specs (see my post above), this could create a very diverse and rewarding (instead of punishing, as it stands now) game play.

 

Regarding the single target heal mechanics paling against group healing: I did not want to imply that buffing single target healing would change its value (I believe this is a qualitative problem, not a quantitative). I agree that the mechanism is meaningless in a game that 1. does not support it and 2. has been built on multiple other classes providing full group heal all the time.

 

I tried to bring my train of thought back to the original topic of the thread:

What is shroud designed to do? The idea was:

From here on speculation:

Spoiler

What, if it was designed to do different things in different game modes? This would be an extremely intricate design with complex dependencies to be managed by the design team. (see the other post)

For Example:

How do I prevent the players using the mechanics I designed as pve group mechanics in pvp?

 

In that regard the original design was actually not too inefficient (albeit creating a lot of unfun limitations that were seen as clunky):

• pvp builds used different traits from pve builds,
• dps builds used (to some extend) different traits than support builds.

 

It could be that the fact that pve dps builds used consume shadows triggered the nerf.

It did not make dps builds into heal builds but provided consistent, plan-able healing on top of high tier dps.

This could have prompted the balance team to extend the nerf to pve. I concede, however, that the scenario where shroud health cannot be split between pvp and pve is probably even more likely.

 

The problem is, that such a design is extremely hard to balance due to the inherent dependencies of the specter defining mechanics. Instead of having a quantitative problem: Tuning numbers for each game mode which can easily be separated from each other (as long as Anet is able to separate shroud scaling between pve and pvp), it would mean that the problem becomes qualitative: How do I make the Specter use this mechanic instead of the other one that should be only used in pve?

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Eleandra.4859

[nopoet.2960]

What a fun read!  The question that comes up for me after reading all of this is: Did Anet underestimate how much damage thieves were willing to give up for a proper support class?  If you get that answer wrong you end up with something that doesn't really satisfy most people.  Speaking for myself, I'd rather specter be full out support.  There are other options if I want to do damage.  I don't know what you guys think but I'd like to hear it.

[Eleandra.4859]

1 minute ago, nopoet.2960 said:

What a fun read!  The question that comes up for me after reading all of this is: Did Anet underestimate how much damage thieves were willing to give up for a proper support class?  If you get that answer wrong you end up with something that doesn't really satisfy most people.  Speaking for myself, I'd rather specter be full out support.  There are other options if I want to do damage.  I don't know what you guys think but I'd like to hear it.

I am not sure that this is a question that needs to be asked, not because it is not a valid question but because it is not valid in a game that lets specs like Support Guardian, some Necro Specs (>Scourge in particular) and Mechanist exist in game.

A pure support Specter would automatically be invalidated by their existence.

[Lucinellia.9247]

5 hours ago, nopoet.2960 said:

What a fun read!  The question that comes up for me after reading all of this is: Did Anet underestimate how much damage thieves were willing to give up for a proper support class?  If you get that answer wrong you end up with something that doesn't really satisfy most people.  Speaking for myself, I'd rather specter be full out support.  There are other options if I want to do damage.  I don't know what you guys think but I'd like to hear it.

I see absolutely no issue if Specter was designed as, or eventually became, a pure support profession. I'd ideally like to see Specter be able to do at least Alacrity DPS and heal Alacrity.

I do think Specter was used as an attempt to try and rectify the issues with DPSing on a Thief. It was clear from some of the patches in 2021, that options such as condition Deadeye were nerfed to try and make room for Specter. I think this was the wrong thing to do. Thief always had a space for a support role - we simply didn't have that in PvE outside of Detonate Plasma - but we have a plethora of DPS options. Even now, so long as you don't mind something that has been neglected, we have staff Daredevil, D/D condition Daredevil, Rifle Deadeye, two different variants of D/D Deadeye and condition Deadeye. 

For some odd reason, Specter was perhaps seen as something to fix the woes of DPS Thief, allow Thief to support and introduce an entirely untested gameplay style that the game UI and UX can't really support. Thief players would have had a more positive experience if Anet had limited this only to support.

We would have been perfectly fine only adding DPS Alacrity and healing Alacrity to that. There isn't anything wrong with elite specialisations focusing wholly on support, such as Druid, when Thief already has two that focus only on DPS.

And this again comes back to one of the major issues with Specter that this thread is about. Shadow Shroud needs to fulfill many purposes due to the range of builds that Specter has. It certainly didn't do very well at the boon support aspect but prior to this most recent patch it was pretty okay for something to do while waiting for initiative to Regenerate and could heal via Consume Shadows. The alternative DPS method is much more risky and the latter is now incredibly diminished. 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Lucinellia.9247

[Lucinellia.9247]

To add a point that was raised on the Snow Crows discord by Left, perhaps some of the problems facing the DPS Specter variant come from using Consume Shadows because it provides a degree of support, some additional DPS via Rot Wallow Venom but also results in losing Shadow Force.

While I think it would not be a sole fix for healing Specter, as a lot more work is needed with tethering and Shadow Shroud abilities, would the current issue with Shroud be resolved simply by the trait options for the Major Adept tear offering something more for DPS and being less focused on the single ally target fantasy?

[Vidit.7108]

First, I would like thank you @DarkstarChimaera.5120for taking the time to post here in the middle of nowhere. I've been lurking in the SC discord following the discussions there about Specter since the first beta. 

I don't disagree with anything that you said, it is pretty much the way I feel about the state of Specter. 

The short answer to your question, I believe, is that the developers designed Shroud and Specter to be a dps/healer in PvP.  That's it.

Longer answer: If you go back to the beta streams CMC talks about protecting the commander in WvW with Specter healing. They said in no uncertain terms support thief was the goal. But Shroud is to 1.  give thief a tanky playstyle, 2. heal the tethered ally. 3. do some damage, as according to them "losing" 3 initiative but you get "powerful" shroud skills as a trade off. In PvP this was it seems a big success, trade your damage in for strong ally healing on essentially dps stats. An important point to keep in mind is that they expect a lot of the strong ally healing, single target healing, to come out of shroud.

After the betas they saw it performed well at dps and dps alac in PvE, that it did not really overperform much in either, made a few numbers adjustments, and discarded all other feedback. When players didn't take to heal specter my gut feeling is that they went "oh well 2/3 isn't bad, we have bigger problems". They didn't actually expect players in PvE to single target heal very much, or even expect dps players to use consume shadows. To that point CMC on the beta 3 steam does say they don't really expect the single target healing to cut it in PvE, they expect things like, Consume Shadows, Traversing Dusk and Shadestep to handle most of the group healing needs in raids and fractals. If those are the "healing traits" then a DPS or DPS/Alac build isn't supposed to take them, including consume shadows. There is a lot of reasons why that doesn't reflect in-game reality or player preferences but if shroud is only to heal one ally on a dps build then it makes a tiny bit more sense. The intention it seems is that the shroud is not for group healing in PvE, except for when using a heal build.

There have been a lot of topics here getting into all the underwhelming elements and performance issues with every PvE Specter build, I'm not going to rehash them here, I just want to point out that in the last year a lot of the points you are making were in, or reflected in some way, here in the forum or in the Specter feedback thread already.

It's very hard to take them completely at their word since I have to admit it doesn't even make that much sense but that's what I believe they intended based on what was said.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Vidit.7108

[kash.9213]

I mostly play WvW but I ended up on what could be a basic pve build on my main template anyway. I mostly cover people and walk groups in and out of stuff at different scale. Even before the patch I thought about switching to Second Opinion to use Shroud more freely but I was getting just enough Barrier out there at the right time during a drive that Consume Shadows was still clutch. I could also walk people over most stuff even being a little or half under a full Shroud dump if the group Stealth hit alright, while still being able to brawl for a few seconds with Shroud skills then dumping out and Well stepping the group around. I don't even mind the single target focus most of the time since the group stuff mostly happens as consequence and weaponizing the right ally can flip a fight but I get that in general gameplay it can be problematic.

I can still pull of my sequence and respond to stuff, but I think it's getting a little hard to ask players to be even more guarded with another resource pool that gives access to fun combinations and animations while they're still being guarded with Initiative and time-staggering out mostly one skill more and more. If I were into Raids and stuff I'd feel the hit on this one. It feels like funneling people into less elastic sequences but thieves still aren't putting out a lot of other flak to catch all the incoming. 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by kash.9213

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/8/2022 at 3:18 PM, Noko Anon.9154 said:

I ask these things, because I refuse to believe that a unique skill could possibly be so reviled when core necromancer, the inspiration for it, hasn't been seriously looked at for committing similar "crimes against the player base".

This is something I think I can answer (without agreeing with how hard the nerf was, because I think there were other factors that weren't considered that counterbalance what I'm about to say at least somewhat):

Necromancer has generally had a, mostly deserved, reputation of shroud (or barrier in the case of scourge) basically being the only defence they have. It's a relatively low-mobility profession (except harbinger, but harbinger doesn't get extra health from shroud), has relatively few blocks and evades, and in short, generally attracts a target marker pretty early on because people know there's not a lot it can do to mitigate damage apart from hoping the shroud lasts long enough.

Thief, on the other hand, is adding shroud to a profession that already has a lot of survival tools. Evades, stealth, high mobility (spectre is a little less than other thief builds, but still pretty high in the field), blinds, and so on means that spectre shroud is being added onto what is already a pretty deep pool of Oops You Missed.

So it's viewed as being more of a problem on spectre because, for necromancer, shroud is their primary damage mitigation tool, while for thief it's just one more in a deep toolbox. So it's "problematic" if thief gets a shroud that's as good as necromancer's.

The problem is, of course, that necromancer also has ~8k more health than thief. Thief needs that deep toolbox because if it gets caught without it, it can usually be downed in seconds, while necromancer takes a bit of wearing down. It also means that 0.69 scaling that's "equivalent to necromancer" just isn't that equivalent, partially because necromancer's higher base health means that having the same scaling means that the necromancer's shroud health is naturally higher, and partially because core necromancer and reaper have significant damage reduction while in shroud, so their naturally higher shroud health lasts longer against power damage. 

On 10/9/2022 at 2:03 AM, nopoet.2960 said:

What a fun read!  The question that comes up for me after reading all of this is: Did Anet underestimate how much damage thieves were willing to give up for a proper support class?  If you get that answer wrong you end up with something that doesn't really satisfy most people.  Speaking for myself, I'd rather specter be full out support.  There are other options if I want to do damage.  I don't know what you guys think but I'd like to hear it.

Well, that's the thing. On a lot of other support specs, it's a matter of personal choice (or the needs of the group) how much DPS you give up for support. Generally speaking, supports are divided between heal supports and offensive supports. The latter provide the boons they're expected to provide, but not a lot of healing, instead providing DPS that is less than full DPS builds, but still notable. Alacspectre is... in this field, with a bit of added healing. Heal supports, by contrast, are usually in something like harrier or plaguedoctor stats, sacrificing a lot of DPS in exchange for healing. Unfortunately, this is something that spectre is bad at, according to all reports - the focus on single-target healing doesn't really work outside of small-scale PvP.

It's not really a matter of ArenaNet deciding how much damage a spec should give up in order to be a full support, since as long as they give the spec enough damage to be a decent offensive support (so... basically every support spec except druid), the decision of how much damage you give up in exchange for support is a matter of using more support-oriented gear and maybe trading out a few skills and traits. The problem is that spectre just isn't designed in a way that rewards this.  

[Gwynnion.7364]

1 hour ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

The worst part is, that's the flavor of the rogue archetype. Rogues are meant to be dislikable barring a few exceptions. They're immoral, deceptive, cheaters that like to exploit whatever they can with no qualms about how it impacts others as the scourges of civilization with some more chaotically inclined ones even reveling in ruining the experiences of others for their own pleasure. The class works as intended and attracts its intended audience.

Not to put too fine a point on it but it feels like your issue with thief is a personal one as opposed to some kind of balance issue.

Scourge, Firebrand, Scrapper, et al. are all very powerful specs with superior survivability and support capacity to Specter, especially in its current state.  Specter is or was a little better tuned to PVP small group encounters because of its design.  But if you think thief mechanics are inherently wrong and bad, well, okay, but it suggests to me you haven't played the profession to understand its weaknesses and the trade-offs involved.  And I think a lot of the animosity toward Specter and thief more generally is rooted in this gut-level dislike of playing against it in competitive modes.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Gwynnion.7364

[Dr Meta.3158]

2 minutes ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

Not to put too fine a point on it but it feels like your issue with thief is a personal one as opposed to some kind of balance issue.

Scourge, Firebrand, Scrapper, et al. are all very powerful specs with superior survivability and support capacity to Specter, especially in its current state.  Specter is or was a little better tuned to PVP small group encounters because of its design.  But if you think thief mechanics are inherently wrong and bad, well, okay, but it suggests to me you haven't played the profession to understand its weaknesses and the trade-offs involved.  And I think a lot of the animosity toward Specter and thief more generally is rooted in this gut-level dislike of playing against it in competitive modes.

Ad hominems aside, the point of (a) the game is fun. If a game mechanic ruins the fun of players regardless of its balance, it should be changed or removed. This is just a double whammy of being unfun and overpowered so it got nerfed. That will hurt the players that really like to play specter and I feel for them, especially the pve players, but it had to be done.

[Gwynnion.7364]

As I've said elsewhere, if Specter was overperforming in PVP then by all means, they should nerf it in PVP.  And only PVP.  The problem seems to be a certain part of the player base will see a thief spec overperforming or even just performing well in one mode and insist it should be destroyed in all modes to punish players of the class.  That's simply excessive, particularly as I think it's clear the devs intended Specter to be a powerhouse in PVP as its design doesn't lend itself well to anything else.  Hence the OP's question: what exactly is the goal here?

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 10/8/2022 at 1:18 AM, Noko Anon.9154 said:

So, why? Do non-thieves want it to have less damage, and become something akin to druid? Do they want it to have less mobility? Fewer barriers and less healing? What is the competition looking to actually get rid of from specter? I ask these things, because I refuse to believe that a unique skill could possibly be so reviled when core necromancer, the inspiration for it, hasn't been seriously looked at for committing similar "crimes against the player base".

I'm going to speak on behalf of someone who abandoned thief thousands of hours in for Reaper.

Because the reality is exactly what most of the PvP/WvW playerbase called out when the concept was announced:  Unlike Necromancer and other stat-based-defensive-heavy professions, the slippery nature of the thief when combined with a spec that provides support and maintains damage reduction while providing that support is more or less just something that is impossible to kill and makes it so that its own teammates are also harder to kill.  In good hands, which is the *expectation* for how thief is balanced in WvW/PvP and how high its skill ceiling is, its design is inherently problematic because you end up with an immensely self-sufficient support that literally does not need to build into very much sustain to keep itself and others alive.  Even when it isn't strong, the very concept is an absolute annoyance, and when it's strong, it crumples the integrity of the player-versus-player experience.  Granted, it's not the only spec doing this, but this kind of concept in any game is almost never fair and engaging for all parties.  I'm sure a significant amount of frustration was also based on frustrations based on pre-SA-changes as well, though even those are immensely challenging to keep up with depending on the build.

The lack of use of Specter in WvW and utter abuse in sPvP has less to do with Specter and all to do with how the modes are played, and is why virtually everyone who does play WvW+ immediately knew this was doomed to fail:

• Core thief, which is the foundation of Specter, just can't provide necessary AoE healing and stability and block/immunity uptime as what is downright required in larger-scale combat due to powercrept AoE damage relative to single-target damage, as well as powercrept CC abilities in terms of raw frequency and range post-core-game.  It will never be good here unless it's utterly game-breaking on such a level that no class has ever been - even moreso than Mechanist was in PvE.  Thief in an even remotely balanced place will never have a place here so long as boons and AoE CC are as busted as they are.  Period.
• Small-scale WvW borderline doesn't exist anymore because of expansion powercreep/warclaw/format neglect, and some other selfish builds are so wildly overpowered for the smallscale scene, it wouldn't honestly matter even if it was strong in that environment due to lack of players.
• Almost all of thief's valuable heavy-damage-investment options for PvP/WvW have been systematically removed, with a heavier emphasis on utility from its defensive lines as strictly a +1/decap bot.
• sPvP stats are inherently lower and thus TTK slower than WvW and PvE, so having better sustain as a flat package just makes a class better across the board, and roaming, supporting, and node holding are basically what wins the format, making it have the trifecta of strength to do well.
• Massive damage disparities between PvP/WvW and PvE on the whole - notably the infamous "February patch" caused kill speed in both formats to be so low that very few actual damage builds still viably exist, further over-valuing support wherein a node can be captured first and then just never decapped.
• PvE's compensation buffs for thief per the above have mostly been through numerical tweaks to base weapon skill damage or trait interactions with more condition stacks/frequency on glaringly-obvious trait line choices, meaning all elites are more or less just better-performing versions of core with no actual deep investment needed (the latter being true for all core specs though), so stuff like Specter can manage both improved durability and support while taking negligible losses to damage, since most of thief's actual selfish damage investment is extremely shallow and rather insignificant when compared to being capped on boons/effects.  This is exacerbated by boonballing and potent support wherein the thief's selfish sustain options from core are basically just wasted for PvE, because the class just doesn't need those game-bending abilities.
• Thief has low HP but higher armor than necro, which makes that 8k HP difference slightly less significant, and when paired with all its extra negation methods via dodge/stealth/blinds, in good hands, can negate WAY more damage when opting to dodge more key skills more frequently, something which necromancer increasingly struggles with as the elites progressively get more powercrept and cooldowns lowered across the game.
• Because of its previously-selfish nature in PvE as strictly a DPS class, all of its previous damage options had to be strong or the class had no purpose at all; conversely if the support isn't good enough to maintain high damage, too, specter remains redundant and unplayed, so to make it usable, it needs both, making it over-perform.

The TL;DR is that WvW/PvP and PvE fundamentally play differently and have downright conflicting priorities, especially on a class like this.  Thief, for the past decade, has been less-defined as a class but rather a mantra of actually playing the game a specific way in increasingly-disparate ways across the formats, as per how the designers have balanced and designed it to work.

As has been made evident by their lack of play-hours, and why the specter cannot exist without completely scrapping the entire class and restarting.  It's not as adaptable as the necromancer which has a more stable baseline to have branching options in how it plays based on how it uses its core resource of shroud, which can be tweaked with stats and numbers and traits which all revolve around it in some way.

Want to give thief a viable and consistent support identity?  The entire class and a good number of skills, traits, elite specs, and to some extent even role identity on other core professions need to be completely redone from scratch, and all the format-specific balancing also wiped clean with the intent to make all formats play similarly.

AKA:  It's just not going to happen.  At best, we end up with a spec here that's balanced in one, maybe two, formats.

Edited October 10, 2022 by DeceiverX.8361

[DeceiverX.8361]

Accidental double post.

Edited October 10, 2022 by DeceiverX.8361

[AikijinX.6258]

Imagine making a class such as a Thief, and not understanding or having any forethought into how high the skill ceiling ( is, was, and would be) for this kind of class arch-type.

Our greatest sin and detriment was that we were too good and had excelled with this class exponentially throughout the years, even with all the countless adaptations. We excelled with this class and played the class to its fullest capability and throughout 10 years were constantly penalized for it. 

I understand the inherent nature of the class and it’s issue’s and how it’s a balancing nightmare. But there was no forward thinking, projection, or future sight when making this class? 
 

Thank You OP for creating this in detail read-along; it was insightful and enjoyable, as well as deceiverX for your always insightful perspectives and opinions. 

[kash.9213]

There's some long posts here talking about the problem with Specter was thieves having endless teleports, evades, and whatever while Specter shadowsteps get you to a part of a fight, not out of it, and there's already reduced Initiative that Anet are only thinking about looking at. How many Specters are rolling around with Shortbow mobility or other mobility apart from Wells, unless they're on a personalized point running Specter? 

Maybe I suck on Specter but none of those WvW forum worthy soundbites about thieves having all that stuff at once sounds right talking about these recent balance decisions with Shroud, even trying to view it from Anets perspective. 

[Gwynnion.7364]

"This profession is utterly broken and there's nothing to do but scrap it and redo it from scratch" is not exactly a constructive mindset.  But it seems what so many non-thief players want from the profession and specializations like Specter is to never see them ever again, at least in competitive modes, or for them to be stripped of their defining ("annoying") abilities and features or otherwise turned into an easy kill. 

And I frankly don't understand it.  It's like saying the devs should remove all AoE abilities because being insta-killed by a zerg's billion red circles in WvW is so common and annoying.  I personally find being hounded by packs of Mechanists or condi bombed by Scourges or other specs just as frustrating as any thief I've encountered, the worst of which was a stealth spam Deadeye who kept running away.  Annoying?  Yes.  So?

One of my favorite dueling experiences was Specter vs. Mirage, just teleporting around trying to land hits on each other and seeing who would succumb to condi attrition first.  The Mirage sure had no trouble keeping up even with its one dodge.  Another spec would probably just burst both of us down from range.  Those little shadowsteps only go so far and do so much, and Shroud doesn't last long against most players.

Specter was designed to break thief out of its niche by providing support and healing options and a familiar survivability mechanic not reliant on stealth.  It's not even especially good at its job given the single target nature of its abilities.  Whether Shadow Shroud was too strong in a particular game mode like PVP is valid.  I'd even say it's fair.  The heavy-handedness of the nerf and being applied across all game modes begs the question, though, of what the devs want Specter to be.  And I'm afraid they're listening to the "delete the class" people more than those of us trying to provide reasonable feedback.

[DeceiverX.8361]

55 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

There's some long posts here talking about the problem with Specter was thieves having endless teleports, evades, and whatever while Specter shadowsteps get you to a part of a fight, not out of it, and there's already reduced Initiative that Anet are only thinking about looking at. How many Specters are rolling around with Shortbow mobility or other mobility apart from Wells, unless they're on a personalized point running Specter? 

Maybe I suck on Specter but none of those WvW forum worthy soundbites about thieves having all that stuff at once sounds right talking about these recent balance decisions with Shroud, even trying to view it from Anets perspective. 

In the context of WvW, the primary issue I touch above is that the actual state of WvW is not enabling small-scale play enough where it matters because no smallscale play actually occurs in the first place.  Smallscale today more or less exclusively consists of:

- 1v1:  There are better 1v1 builds on the thief because the support is redundant.  Though it was still a very strong duelist in good hands because it got a LOT of damage negation on its condition build with access to shroud + stealth+ Dire/TB defensive stats.
- Ganking:  You don't need support when you're already outnumbering people.

Since smallscale play is dead, its rhetorical strengths aren't realities not because of anything pertinent to the class, but just the nature of WvW today thanks to warclaw, mass quitting of players by the imbalance of smallscale combat post-expansions.

Which is why it was so strong in sPvP.  It's actually nutty in the slower format where small fights are constantly breaking out and where targets are focused making the solo-support very valuable when it's strong, because of its ability to support, deal decent damage, and have better escape contingencies than every other support build in the game, with decapping all wrapped in one nice package.

And why it's being relegated to bad-tier in PvE:  The support aspect isn't good enough to carry a group of 10 players (despite being excellent for 2-5) which are generally all taking significant damage simultaneously from boss attacks (which is more akin to blob play and how large groups of players get bombed all at once), and its low self-sustain/mitigation in the case of shroud negation just make it worse than other options at dealing damage or staying alive - to which the thief is always bad at self-sustain, anyways, so you might as well just pick a better boon-tank.

This is reflected back into the OP's question of, "What is this actually supposed to do?"  Because the way thief plays in the respective formats is completely and totally different thanks to its design and decade of skill splits/designing for unhealthy and abused mechanics that weren't nipped in the bud properly, like permanent stealth into burst combos or 100% agency over fight selection in the PvP modes which does not matter in PvE at all, or sustained DPS in PvE which does not matter in the PvP modes.

Edited October 10, 2022 by DeceiverX.8361