Shadow Arts and Spectre: A Support Thief's Struggle

[RhoTamohbien.9427]

 Shadow Arts, the supposed support line for Thief, heavily relies on invisibility for its utility. This creates a problem for Spectre, the specialization designed for support, because its main weapon, scepter, lacks a way to enter invisibility.

Here's the breakdown:

• Damage Dealers (Daredevil & Deadeye): They can easily use weapon skills (pistol 5, dagger 5 combined with dagger 2 or dagger/dagger 3) to trigger combo fields and then vanish for ambush attacks.
• Spectre: Stuck without a weapon skill for invisibility, forcing them to use a utility slot for blinding powder, which also disrupts allies' auto-attacks. This is a clear disadvantage compared to damage specs who get invisibility simply through their weapon skills.

It seems counterintuitive for the support spec to struggle with the very line meant to enhance its role.

Fixing the Issue:

Here's your suggestion, and it's a good one:

• Grant Scepter 2 a whirl combo: This would allow Spectre to utilize ambush skills effectively while using their primary weapon. It would add more dynamism to their gameplay instead of the current repetitive scepter/dagger 3 spam.

Additional Ideas:

• Trait adjustments: Maybe traits in Shadow Arts could offer alternative ways to trigger invisibility for Spectre, like granting it on shroud activation or using specific utility skills.
• New Utility Skills: Introduce utility skills specifically designed for Spectre that grant invisibility and support effects.

Hopefully, ArenaNet will consider improvements for Spectre's synergy with Shadow Arts.

 

[Parasite.5389]

2 hours ago, RhoTamohbien.9427 said:

Spectre: Stuck without a weapon skill for invisibility, forcing them to use a utility slot for blinding powder, which also disrupts allies' auto-attacks. This is a clear disadvantage compared to damage specs who get invisibility simply through their weapon skills.

Dagger 5

[Szatko.8132]

Honestly I think they should change how invisibility works, so it doesn't disrupt auto-attacks, as well as move away from ally-target specific abilities. People don't want to play healing Specter or Revenant, because everyone hates swapping between enemy and ally targets. One of the major traits that support Specter always wants to take could be changed to also allow scepter to provide its ally-target specific effects in a 360 around the enemy target or something like that.  

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

8 hours ago, RhoTamohbien.9427 said:

Additional Ideas:

• Trait adjustments: Maybe traits in Shadow Arts could offer alternative ways to trigger invisibility for Spectre, like granting it on shroud activation or using specific utility skills.

They had this on specter release, with stealth on heal and stealth on steal. I still don't know why they removed these traits while saying that they want to make specter more supportive, when the main build that this change hurt was specter lol. 

[Vidit.7108]

You could just take dagger if you wanted to stealth with a weapon but the initiative cost versus support granted is never going to be great on a weapon skill so long as the devs don't want thief to spam stealth easily. I don't think you will ever see the ini cost of stealthing going down from where  it is. Further, even if you had more stealth the benefits in shadow arts are all very lacking overall and the way the current PvE build goes you're not really using stealth that much. Having the option to play heal specter in that way would be nice but I don't think it's an inherent solution to a lot of the issues the build has. Stealth isn't in a support vacuum it has big benefits to other thief builds if you have easier or more ways of stealthing. That was the basis for removing the stealth trait for heal skills in the first place.

I don't see why a whirl finisher with a field would be useful to your stealth attack, it would be good for it's own sake if paired with a light or water field but I don't see a low cost ini skill getting one of them. There is already a lot of scepter 2 spam for protection upkeep so making the skill stronger at support is going to make weapon skill stealthing far less appealing not more. It wouldn't be a bad thing at all to have from the Specter's prospective anyway and it would at least be a small improvement and give a better support field for blast finishers.

[Lightsbane.9012]

the grandmaster traits offer nothing to support specter as well.  Since it's next to impossible to get into stealth using scepter/pistol (specter's support kit) and wells (a must if you're going support), the grand master traits of shadow arts offer nothing.  I literally picked one at random.  maybe make the wells grant stealth?  they're on high enough of a cooldown where i don't think it'd be over powered.  it might also give thief a spot in the meta in WvW.  look at me wanting things.