The issue with support specter and new SA

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

In theory, support specter with the new shadow arts line would be good with the protection, healing, cleanse etc from SA traits all being applied to allies. The line was clearly reworked with this in mind as an end goal. The problem is that now there is no stealth from traits, you are pretty much forced to take blinding powder and shadow refuge to apply that support to your party. Support specter is expected to provide alacrity, it does that through wells, and taking enough wells to provide sufficient alacrity uptime means you have no room on the bar for stealth utilities. Sure, you can blast stealth using shroud skills which is great while solo/duo roaming but put that in a team fight situation where your smoke field is going to be overwritten by water/light./fire fields and it's often not good enough. 

Support specter will basically never be a thing unless this issue is fixed because most other alacrity supports in the game can provide alacrity alongside heals and other important boons (think mechanist, renegade), and a heal/stealth oriented specter (ie, one who takes SA over deadly arts and doesn't bring alacrity) simply doesn't provide enough heals or DPS to be viable on it's own (especially after the shroud nerf). In order to fix this either alacrity needs to be decoupled from wells so you can take stealth utilities or group stealth needs to be accessible without utilities. It's probably healthier for the game for stealth to be linked to skills and utilities only, so that leaves decoupling alacrity from wells. 

Anyone see another way for specter to work with the new shadow arts? Or is someone making use of it now in a way I haven't thought of? 

[kash.9213]

I still create Stealth on my own Field in large fights. I think yours takes priority now. That utility choice is real though and I can only really stealth my people in that one way with Shroud. I can't stack stealth for them because I need the Wells so it's really just for a quick RWV burst in between a lot of other actions. I don't even give my group Super Speed to keep up with me.

I'm not sure the Shadowstep healing is a good enough supplement between Stealth bursts either. I'm living on the edge in zergs most of the time, it take a lot of steps and actions to do a thing, which is fine, but I'd at least like to use my builds signature features more often. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by kash.9213

[Vidit.7108]

Your smoke field takes priority when you blast (if it is still up). There are a couple problems with trying to blast a smoke field though. 
1. You need to burn 6 initiative for it, because as you said wells have utility slot priority for alacrity upkeep. When you run a healing build, because of the well situation in PvE healing comes more from Sword 2 on demand (5 ini total). Your reliable group healing is tied to your initiative. If you only have enough boon duration for the exact amount of time (with alacrity) that shroud is on cooldown then you don't regenerate initiative anymore, you have to consume all that you generate for one boon and some barrier every 6 seconds.
2. To provide just protection (and admittedly a good amount of barrier) you need to cycle through Black powder-> Shroud-> Blast finisher -> Exit Shroud every 6-8 seconds. If for some reason at the end of 6-8 seconds a player has not exited revealed they won't get protection or barrier.  Because of shroud cooldown you can't provide less than 6 seconds and no more than 8 seconds if you are max boon duration. It is also possible to misposition your blast finisher and hit the dark field left by one of your wells. 
3. While high boon duration gives you more time to fit things in between well castings, the bad heal scaling on shadow steps and everything else means that it's better for your group that you run something with around ~60% boon duration and the most healing you can get on the rest of your gear. probably like 50-50 harrier/magi or full minstrel. So the window for providing protection with a blast finisher is smaller or larger depending on gear, high boon duration would make easier to do. While not mandatory to have Scepter equipped, if you wanted that bonus to healing power you need to switch off sword before blast finishing.
4. While you could provide all the healing and boons a group needs, in theory you essential now are operating a highly specific rotation to do it. You operate in very narrow ranges of time where you can do whatever you want or whatever you need. Anyone who has been a pug healing can tell you that you don't decided when players take damage. The out going barrier trying to do this is good but without any passive healing in the build any damage players take in those 2-5 seconds where they don't have barrier is costly. Trying to line up a boss fight so that you can heal the party when damage goes off and then provide boons with the rest of the time before the next damage is difficult. The timing is also difficult because of the delay on the blast finisher and the timeout on shroud, if you make a mistake trying to blast finish then there won't be any protection for at least 5 seconds. The only other healer I can think of that has this problem is Quick/Alac Heal Chronomancer, and there is a reason no one is running it.
5. Trying to make this all come together is extremely unintuitive and weird. Low pressure fights with mechanics causing most of the damage are places where it can work, but the less experienced you or your group are the worse the returns are on support Specter. You won't really be able to give the party protection while mobile for example, unless you waste a shadow refuge or blinding powder to do it.

As a side note I think that Firebrand and Herald might be the only quickness supports capable of helping provide protection if the alac healer can't. Just another way in which you pair very poorly with other supports.