Bladezephyr.5714

You know you don't need to keep the portal tomes in your inventory, right? You can keep them in the bank... Just go to the bank, take the tome out temporarily to use it, and put it back in the bank while the menu is still up. Then click on your destination map. No shared slot needed.

Yes, this!

Am I the only one annoyed by the asura gate changes? I can't seem to find anyone talking about this. What was the point of this? Every time I use a gate it's to go to a capital city or Lion's Arch, and now I have to click through to the next page to get to the destination I want to go to. I have teleporters for every single item on the first page other than the two LA destinations, but that was already on the first page in the old menu, and the Aerodome is a free WP away once you're there. Why would I ever NOT want to go to a capital city from an asura gate? That's annoying enough--admittedly it's a minor annoyance but it's still an annoyance, and one that I hit very frequently--but now when you get where you're going, you're nowhere near a gate. So if you screw up, which I do about 5% of the time--probably more now--you can't just jump back through the gate... you have to walk to it. Or maybe use a WP and walk from there. Whereas before, rather sensibly, you were standing in front of the gate at the other end. This change takes you someplace you weren't expecting based on past experience, makes no sense, breaks immersion and makes screwing up cost you significantly more time. This is a dumb change that should be reverted.

Unless you're talking about situational garbage like boon thief, it got one: specter. Its DPS spec is pretty far off the top even when you consider rottweiler venom (😂) and while it's nice to have a support option on thief finally, it gives less and trades off more than other specs. While ranged, it really requires being in melee to give support due to nearly all its support being provided by its short-radius wells, and has very little to mitigate the damage that subjects it to. Plus the wells are clunky and can often fail due to terrain... You could run it as a heal spec (and I sometimes do) but your team will usually prefer basically anything else. At least it's better than heal chrono (which isn't really a thing but it should be--it does kinda work, but that's another discussion). Power deadeye is near the top of the DPS chart, but it's clunky and annoying, and both weaver specs beat it, and also have more (i.e. some) AoE. 😆 Same with willbender, condi firebrand, scourge, and most of the other meta specs are only just behind, while offering much more utility. Pretty much same deal for condi daredevil. None of the thief specs are particularly resilient without trading substantial DPS for say celestial gear or invigorating precision or whatnot, at which point why not choose another DPS spec that's tougher? What you say is arguably technically true, but in practice it's not really that interesting. Its DPS specs should be say 5-10% higher than the next to justify all the tradeoffs, and/or give us a proper support spec. [Which they've said they plan to do... but we shall see if their planned changes pass muster--often enough they don't.] Don't get me wrong--I'm a thief main and love the class... I'm just tired of other classes being better at every single thing it does.

Anet, hi! Remember when the game launched? Thief was supposed to be the highest single-target damage in the game, and in recompense for that it had lower base HP and survivability, and virtually no (group) utility. Well, it is no longer the highest single-target DPS spec in the game, but it still has those other problems. Good spot? What are you talking about?!

It did depend on who you're with and how they play... I find pugs almost always have the offensive boons covered, since most players are playing selfish DPS specs in pugs, and more of those have might now--so I would provide the defensive boons, usually including up to stab. The placement isn't great but it was fairly long lasting so if it was going to be relevant at all, it was fine. When I play with my regulars it's either the same story, or we have all the boons covered so it did nothing useful anyway (aside from maintaining alac uptime). Depends on what people feel like playing. But there's almost always a firebrand covering stab, and it's just generally more available lately so it's not been a consideration. Playing solo, the might is fine but TBH I don't really notice it--the quickness and the survivability boons were much more impactful. If it takes me 8s instead of 9s to kill something it just doesn't matter. Having ~60% quickness uptime (with haste) made things a lot smoother.

But it objectively is not, for the reasons I already stated, and most importantly that the reliability of when it applies comes at the cost of (typically) 3 additional boons. It's a very poor trade given several other specs can apply stab way more easily and more frequently with way less tradeoff (any guardian, any mesmer, any revenant, etc.), and you most likely already have one of them in your group. Same deal for might... so many specs give might now you just don't need to. If you're in even a half-competent group you're probably already getting 25 stacks of might from somewhere without anyone giving up much to make it happen. Whereas regen, prot, and resolution are all a bit harder to come by, especially if you're taking the healer role. The nature of the skill means that sure, in some limited scenarios, it's possible to get more out of the new version; but in far more cases the old version provides much more value. Pack runes? You're sacrificing condi damage & duration, and vitality to feed your heal/barrier/survivability--everything the build is good at, for something it's not and is easily replaceable. And again the fury and swiftness are wasted because you're already providing them permanently. 10 stacks from stealing? Not sure how you're doing that... I can see getting 8 if you take Critical Strikes for Assassin's fury, but at the cost of either deadly arts for damage (typically), or shadow arts for healing/barrier. Again, giving up what you're good at for something you're not. With a normal build it's 5 stacks. I'd need to see the build, but this seems like a whole lot of bad trades. It's all moot though because as you say, with the shroud nerf there's no way the average player can make use of this as a heal spec, and exceptional players generally wouldn't try.

BTW it's a really small point, but the snowcrows build does actually indicate concentration food and utility buffs, bringing you to 57%. One reason why that's at least somewhat interesting is that enables you to substitute Well of Silence for Well of Bounty, which at this point probably gives you a lot more utility (CC and breakbar), and still maintain 100% uptime. It's a lot less comfortable of a buffer though (104% for WoS vs. 117% for WoB).

It's a fair point, but with the current set of boons WoB gives it doesn't really matter... none of them are worth sacrificing DPS for boon uptime anyway. FWIW I posted a build in a different thread that actually does exactly that--it's meant to be a full-on heal/boon support spec. In fact, here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaBBsitjlhyYZpsVWLeqWnxfA-zRRYjRPXAcQ+nSOChqVApLB6QE4xp5AfaAA-e AFAICT, pre-patch, the only real reason heal specter wasn't a thing is because it didn't give 25 stacks of might--the healing it provides is more than adequate. But with buffs to other classes, that's much less relevant. Of course with the latest changes, it's much worse, so...

Oh and yeah... I do play scourge, fairly often. I occasionally even play blood scourge, and that can be fun. But it's not a substitute for heal specter, which can give you as much if not more barrier and heal the sense out of you. Its rez ability isn't really that great--it's just a nice-to-have on top of all the rest.

I don't particularly care. It was serviceable, and fun. And AFAICT, the one and only reason it's never been considered good is because it doesn't provide 25 stacks of might. There are a bunch of builds that can do that now, you don't need your healer to do it. It still wasn't used though because it makes thinking about group comp harder. And of course, because now it genuinely is trash. I just gave you one: It's fun. Here's another: I already have a properly-geared specter. I don't have a mech or a druid, and in fact I don't play ranger or engie. Never liked them. I do have a level 80 engie but I don't want to play it even long enough to unlock mech. I never even managed to level a ranger--I have one that's level 20, deleted 3 other attempts to level one cuz I just don't like it. I do have a temptest, but basically same drill. And I don't have legendary armor, so even if I did want to, gearing a new spec for, say, fractals, is a pain in the kitten.

Well, again, it's basically garbage now due to the changes to WoB.

Yeah it is, but all boons from WoB are 240. It's pretty inconsistent across the skills & traits, TBH. CS is 600, which is quite good. TotC is 360, BT is 240, Shielding Restoration is 360, Shadow Savior is 360, Shadestep is 240... The overall effect is you want to be within 240 otherwise things will be missed. So it doesn't matter... effectively the range is 240.

The build that you were talking about, maybe. I actually mean heal specter... something like this (though there are a number of possible variations): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaBBsitjlhyYZpsVWLeqWnxfA-zRRYVRP7N4CJnQorEojKw3Z54PNA-e This takes all the wells for 5x1,826 group heals (more for yourself) per cooldown cycle, with well of gloom getting an additional 5 ticks at 1,442 for a total of 9,036 from that one skill alone, every 16s. Twilight combo heals its ally target for 880 a pop plus providing massive barrier application, and we haven't even considered Consume Shadows yet. Pre-nerf (on the 4th) you'd also get regen from WoB for another 239/s. This of course is heal-centric--if you want to maximize boon uptime from WoB etc., you'd probably want to swap to a mostly minstrel's with some diviner's pieces and runes of leadership. This is probably not a terrible trade since specter's heals scale very poorly with healing power. Regen from WoB became permanent at 234/s. [Note: I'm honestly not sure if these numbers take into account the 20% bonus from Dark Sentry.] That build would look something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaBBsitjlhyYZpsVWLeqWnxfA-zRRYjRPXAcQ+nSOChqVApLB6QE4xp5AfaAA-e Both of these builds are quite serviceable. Or, were... Under the current regime the minstrel's version is probably dead, because CS is unreliable, due to limited vitality. The first version might actually still work, though again its boon delivery is on the weak side. Clearly that's not what I'm talking about at all. I will admit that alac specter still does an OK job at filling this role, but it is much worse, with less and less reliable healing from CS, defensive boons from WoB completely gone, and the heal traits not really worth taking, under the circumstances. Even still, I find your argument regarding playing support disingenuous... alac specter is, and is intended to be, a hybrid spec, not a pure DPS spec, and it just so happens that you have to give up very little to get good DPS out of it, very much like a certain other hybrid (firebrand) that everyone loves to hate on. I frankly do consider that to be a design flaw, but that flaw in no measure takes away from the very obvious hybrid nature of the spec.

Well, one reason is because they're still quite hard / annoying to get, compared to others... Viper's also makes sense on a build that has great durability through mechanics like shroud, and defensive boons, like it had with WoB, until this patch. As for why scepter didn't get more power scaling... it really should. In fact this might be a good way to fix this problem--replace one of the other two adept traits with one that gives specter more power scaling. It's still a predominantly single-target DPS spec, so allowing it to bench at, say, 41-45K isn't horrible... I'd agree it shouldn't also have crazy healing at the same time, though. Says heal specter isn't a thing, then explains exactly why it was a thing... 😆 Seriously... Heal specter is (well, was) better than most people give it credit for... With consume shadows, traversing dusk, shadow savior, and permanent regen, group healing is not bad at all, and then add to that all the barrier application. Using twilight combo on allies provides additional barrier and healing to burst as needed. WoB typically would provide perma regen, some prot, resistance, resolution (and yes, quite frequently, stability) reducing damage even more. It's really not bad at all. I mean was... the WoB changes and the shroud changes definitely killed it. I have a separate thread on the WoB changes: