How to Heal Specter (in Harvest Temple CM)

[@MinasGW2]

UPDATE 18th July Patch: Scepter 2 proximity prioritisation has been fixed!!! It correctly prioritises your subgroup now. Also Protection on Scepter 2 has been buffed. These changes make Specter a lot better and now it can reliably give 100% Protection, while still having spare Initiative so spend for Healing/Barrier/CC!

[@ReapeX]

Thanks for the guide, I stopped working on building my heal specter last year. Will rebuild it now :D

[@MinasGW2]

It's definitely better to play than last year, have fun! :)

[@deleteduser432]

Thank you for sharing!

[@MinasGW2]

My pleasure!

[@tehasian4039]

giga hyped

[@zerinkfer]

I'm always afraid to learn how to play a healer because even if I get the gear, the build, and rotation down, I'm afraid that my performance won't hold up so I never take it anywhere lol. I'll have to try this out at some point, but I doubt I'll even bring it outside of the golem room :(

[@MinasGW2]

Well if you never try, you will never know ;) But for real: I think Specter is decent to start learning, since a lot of heals/barrier are tied to your abilities that use anyways for boons. So even if you only focus on the boons at first, you should be able to outheal most of the content in the game already.

[@misdina56]

I full undestand you theres so many Eletist in this game and they demand so many different things of you when you join a grp. And always blaim the healer 🤦‍♀️

[@andrewmarceau422]

I am a clicker- and not overly good at anything besides Solo open world. Always playing the easier classes (reaper, virtuoso, rifle mech). Created a HB Firebrand for fractals since I knew I would need a lot of gold/mats/etc and clear T4s with ease. Honestly- being healer was so much easier for me than DPS, as I didnt worry too much at all about how I performed. Either Im good enough that we dont wipe- or not. Most times I've had issues are when people are trying to face tank mechanics or staying away from boss/group so healing becomes difficult. I almost guarantee if you set up your proff and just understand the basics of what are your most powerful heal/blocks, you'll learn the rest quickly enough. Strikes are the easiest place to learn- IBS easy 3 got me feeling comfortable and learning what other abilities I have outside of straight heals.

[@themooniscoming]

​​@@misdina56just create your own group

[@ChubbyChonker]

​@@misdina56"bring hfb for fracs cm or you're trolling"

[@tiagocoelho9848]

Honestly, I am baffled at that bladesworn's constant massive dps. I've always wanted to try healer spectre, guess this is the perfect excuse!

[@MinasGW2]

Bladesworn is overall arguably the best DPS to play. It's fantastic. Definitely, even more so with the changes on the 18th! (Here's hoping Scepter skill priorisation will also be fixed 🤞)

[@momentum9319]

hm with those herald runes your would tank in toughness based tanking fights - right?

[@MinasGW2]

If no one got higher toughness yeah. However, Herald runes put you to 1175 and if you got a catalyst in your squad, you would want to have your tank above 1200 anyways. I've not tried it yet, but also most of the fights should be tankable as specter anyways.

[@momentum9319]

how do you determin alac uptime? so in other words when do you go into shroud and when do you leave shroud?

[@MinasGW2]

It's more or less just looping through initiative and shroud. you can almost go into shroud off cd and just adapt based on mechanics. But the basic loop is just cycling through shroud > initiative > repeat

[@jamersonxdailies]

Oh so does the might on haunt shot spread to allies thanks to the new Shadestep?

[@MinasGW2]

Yep it does and it scales with targets hit, so if you hit multiple targets, you apply multiple Might stacks.

[@jamersonxdailies]

@@MinasGW2 oh that is insane! I never knew that. Didn't expect it as a change for shadestep either. Thank you so much!

[@HeyHyena]

This is how I am playing Heal Specter in regular pug groups at the moment. 1a. Spend all initiative on shadow sap *ally* pre fight. 2. Siphon enemy 3. Well of Bounty 4. Blinding powder 5. Shroud 2, 4, 5, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2 exit 6. All Wells After each rotation swap between ally to enemy 1b. Spend all initiative on shadow sap *enemy* 2. Same 3. Same 4. Same 5. Same 6. Same I use "Next enemy" and "Next Ally" keybinds, because I find it easier to switch between during a fight.

[@HeyHyena]

I still use Monk runes because shadow sap and blinding powder generate the protection. Staying in Shroud long enough to max stack Alacrity

[@MinasGW2]

Blinding Power is a valid option to supply more Prot, however, it is only 4 seconds with 100% boon duration on a ~33second cooldown. For Shadow Sap, one thing to note is that currently it works sadly based on proximity from your tethered ally. This can make it such that you give the Prot and Barrier from it to other people not in your sub, if they stand close enough to your tethered ally. That is for example one of the reasons why I think Herald runes are also particularly strong for Specter, since the Heal well is subgroup-based and it is also on a fairly low cooldown: 4 seconds of Protection with a 16second cooldown (with alac).

[@HeyHyena]

​@@MinasGW2From what I have seen, the blinding powder interaction with Cover of Shadows means you get the 4 seconds when you enter and 4 seconds when it ends for 8 seconds total on 100% bd. Still a long cooldown. I did not know shadow sap worked that way, quite scuffed. The herald rune option does fix the protection issue but at the cost of having to use Well of Gloom of cooldown which is a shame. It would be great if Anet put the protection on say Thrill of the Crime and called it a day xD Hopefully, with the introduction of relics, we may have some better options. Also, looking at the tooltip of Shadow Sap, I just realised it says decreased effectiveness to nearby allies. So the allies that im not targeting are only getting 50% of the duration... oh god. For now, you are right that Herald Runes are the best option. Do you know if Shadestep (Alac trait) works the same way causing players in the same sub to lose out on alacrity? Also, do you know if Endless Night suffers from this problem as well?

[@MinasGW2]

@@HeyHyena Ah true, I forgot Blinding Powder works both ways when writing the reply. Good catch! then it's roughly equal to Herald runes in terms of Protection uptime. One downside though: if you play with Deadeyes, they are constantly going into stealth and getting revealed during their rotation. For them, Blinding Powder will not work, since they will be immune from your Stealth while they are revealed. Regarding the decreased effectiveness, as far as I am aware it is only for the Scepter skills, where it's denoted in the description: Barrier from Scepter 1, Prot uptime and barrier from Scepter 2 and Barrier, Regen, Vigor from Scepter 3. On the bright side, Prot is at least getting buffed on July 18th. I hope they also fix the proximity-based priority with this patch 🤞 Another more conventient Prot source from a trait would be pretty nice yeah.

[@HeyHyena]

@@MinasGW2 Not too many players using deadeye at the moment so moving them to the other sub should not be too much of an issue. It is mildly amusing that they would be the only player not getting protection though xD The decreased effectiveness on Scepter 2's protection uptime is the issue. At 4 seconds of protection on target is plenty to cap but the others will only receive 2 seconds per attack (4x attacks before initiative runs out) gives them only 8 seconds which is not enough. Thankfully, the July patch will increase it and should hopefully be enough for the players receiving the 50%. I still find it very strange that the decreased effectiveness is even there to begin with. I am currently playing around with the build and found a comfy rotation that does not use ally targeting to work with high/ almost cap protection uptime. It revolves around stealthing the sub often, which on a golem is fine but in an encounter I'm not sure that's going to work. Especially because the stealthing comes from blasting smoke fields. Overlapping fields could be a huge issue. Running sword/ sword for burst healing, Herald Runes, well of gloom, well of bounty, blinding powder, smoke screen, shadowfall, 96.66% bd. cheap food/utility When I get a chance, I'll try running it in some pug groups and see if its good or if I'm griefing :D

[@aidanfenton4377]

How are you keeping perma prot up? I almost never saw you casting scepter#2 on allies

[@MinasGW2]

In HT CM I didn't, because it's not necessary for the most part. Most of the Prot came from our quick catalyst

[@relzyn5545]

For groups with qheralds, heralds can do about 80% uptime on prot

[@Vondarkstar]

Seems like there are no ranged caster builds for end game because the game would be too ez..😢

[@MinasGW2]

As long as there are boons limited to a relatively small range, you would need to stay stacked anyways. There are technically a few compositions you could do to be fully ranged, but that's not really an advantage, since you would be very limited in what specs you can use.

[@mateusznawrot8941]

Would you say Plaguedoctor or Harrier is better?

[@MinasGW2]

Probably Plaguedoctor for the most part, as long as you have enough Concentration. Because the healing potential is very strong with any of those affixes.

[@brodybowls]

what prefix are you using for HT? Plaguedoc?

[@MinasGW2]

Givers/Minstrel usually since the most important thing is to survive the kiting mechanics and these affixes give you more leeway. You could run plaguedoc/ritualist as well, but that would be a more advanced option and not recommended for progress, or pugging.

[@Kaktyc8]

Can we use same build for Tanking in Raids? Or Tanking as Specter is a big no-no? sorry for the stupid question. I'm interested in Heal Specter but don't really understand how it work.

[@MinasGW2]

For the most part it should be working without a problem. Most of the time you won't need Shortbow though, so you can use a Sword for additional Shadowsteps (= Heals) on Sword 2.

[@mateusznawrot8941]

So as long as you're in 1200range of your tethered ally you will provide boons to him and people around? Do you have to manually tether to your ally or will it happen on its own when going into shroud?

[@MinasGW2]

Pretty much. If you move further away, then the next time you go into shroud a random target in your sub will be picked for the tether. Generally you don't have to worry about the tether too much. But you can always manually target an ally with Siphon (F1) and then the next time you go into shroud, the Siphoned ally will be the tether (as long as they are in range).

[@MarLoovP]

I see Raven UwU I'ma Fangirl!!

[@wiccanring777]

Minstrels with monk runes. Grieving...pffeh

[@MinasGW2]

Are you looking at the wrong build? Most pieces are givers to max bd and herald runes to supply prot

[@wiccanring777]

@MinasGW2 I'm just saying I've had more use out of full minstrel with monk runes as heal alacrity. Hell we even had me tanking in raids with it lol. We took s/x for cc and port spam heals. Honestly though, with the relic system coming, can you think of a rune set that would heavily benefit alacrity, and healer through vitality and or healing power but use the would-be relic for sanctuary rune sixth slot? Would be nuts

[@MinasGW2]

​@@wiccanring777 Ahh, ok now I understand :) Yeah the build here is primarily for HT CM, outside of it there is little need for the additional bd from Givers and Minstrel will be better for more survivability if tanking. Similar for s/x, in HT CM the additional heal is just not needed, but sb can be nice for movement. In Raids or other Strike CMs I'd probably also go full minstrels and use s/x in one weapon set 👍 I haven't though about the relics too much tbh. Maybe there will also be some new ones that are really good. Remains to be seen.

[@wiccanring777]

@MinasGW2 well I DO run the largest thief exclusive community ^_^ EcK. Would love to have u on board, no invite needed just discord for thief only raid and strike runs.

[@MinasGW2]

@@wiccanring777 I'd be very curious and delighted! Sounds fun :) We are at the moment also doing a thief-only HT CM. Progression is slow due to holidays and stuff, but it's fun!