Thank you so much for the guide! I've been playing power thief for a long time (both core and daredevil), but always struggled with condi. This was a great insight into how condi specter works and was very easy to follow!
Excellent guide! I've been playing the Specter class mostly in PVE and have been really having fun with it in EOD maps like Dragon's End. The wells are a bit wonky when you're in a fast-paced situation like say moving around Boneskinner in the Strike to try and stack wells on top of one another onto the group of stacked players! Also hitting F2 twice happens every now and then and it'll confuse me because I'm thinking "WHERE'S THE BARRIER?!" (Heal-Alac build). Definitely will give the condi build in this a try, I was using a hybrid DPS support build (condi + alac) for open world PVE content and your explanation on this build looks to be a lot of fun! I too have been using staff Ele/Tempest (weirdly, I love Dagger/Dagger Ele for Tempest, playstyle is super fun!) since the changes and its been really good! Didn't know it was used in raids too but I can understand why, it has utility for the squad. I'm still wishing Meteor Strike carried the big "oomph" feeling it had in Guild Wars 1 where it felt more powerful. Wish it got some kind of rework on the visual and audio level but that's wishful thinking! It should have at least a 1 second hard CC (Stun or something) per meteor strike to make up for the long cast time and give it a bit of spice because its always been one of those high risk-high reward skills. Or final meteor is a giant ball of doom that leaves behind a huge lava pool for enemies to gain a nice tan in. Just something, please, Anet!
one thing I've noticed about the auto attack chain, and i don't know if this is something they've changed in a balance patch or something, but interrupting the AA doesn't actually reset it to the first one, it just continues the chain from where you left off.
Hey, Thank you for commenting! Next in line is the Druid. These videos are taking time to produce. Sorry for the delays! After the druid I will make a poll on which class to do next.
This is a very good guide. Thank you. Just a note about bountiful theft. Sometimes in fractals you are the only one that can boonrip. It is not ideal because it messes your ration up to steal around boonrip sometimes it is the only option. On another note just to make sure I understand this correctly the venoms do not stack between players, so if two specters are in the same subgroup they can delete each others dps if they apply venom at the same time? Something else that might be worth mentioning on bosses with phases where you cannot attack due to invuln or movement I usually attack an ally in that time to stack rotwollow venom.
Hello! About your question with the venoms: if 2 thieves apply venom to the same subgroup/party they do not delete each other's venom. Whoever first applies the venoms, only that counts. The second person to apply venoms will waste their venoms. This especially becomes a problem in fractals. Because in fractals your burst/high dps comes from pre-casting the venoms. (You use your venoms and use thieves guild-> take the singularity -> your cooldowns reset -> right after venoms are gone, use venoms again to keep high dps and use ulti again). If you have 2 condi thieves. You can't do that. Because one won't be able to precast. As a result, one will be doing 40k-50k and the other 20k. During raids and in different subgroups, it is highly tolerable There is no precast, and if people stack well you only lose 1-2 people to give venom to.(Tank, hand kiter, mushroom person etc.)
@@ghostapi874 Okay I had a hard time understanding what you were asking but I got it now. The thing about 100CM is that players get ripped both from auras and boons as you said. BUT! the trick is: you still precast because your thieves guild doesn't get ripped. So you precast your venoms on your thieves guild. So yes both auras and boons get stripped on those occasions but they get ripped only from players. Another more advanced tip: you cast your thieves guild-> put immobilizing venom, and 2 other venoms on the thieves guild-> change your utility back to trap -> take the singularity-> Now your thieves have 3 different venoms on them. and you have your trap and thieves guild back(you can change to basilisk too). You will get ripped, but your thieves will not.
Some timestamps in the description yo separate the video out into chapters would have helped so much, I just wanted to know the logic behind a condi thief build when so few of it's attacks do conditions
I detailed them instead of short headliners. Here are the timestamps! In short, the biggest DPS comes from: ->their venom(they share venoms with 4 other people and other people's venom damage counts as your dps on the dps-meter), ->trap is a big dps if you land it well ->auto attack(condi stacking) ->this class doesn't do flat condition damage, the more initiative you spend the more damage you do(shroud form is a filler until you get your initiative back) Timestamps: 00:00 How to start the endgame video series 00:33 What the video includes 00:47 My Build 01:00 What is initiative? 02:29 How does initiative work for specter thief? 03:07 Weapon skills and their place in the rotation 04:07 Explaining Shroud form and why specter thief is a good endgame content spec 06:17 Shroud form rotations. Short and Long rotations and when to use which 07:15 Shroud form problem, no cd to go out! 07:45 Siphon-Steal connection 08:09 Utility skills, venoms and how they work 09:55 Venom example on a raid scenario 10:01 Utility skill, trap 10:12 Basilisk vs Thieves guild 10:38 Importance of using basilisk at the right moment 11:10 How to CC, Pistol 11:46 Build Flexibility 12:00 What other utility skill you can get instead of Trap 12:23 Trait options: Bountiful Theft vs Pressure strike 13:01 Trait options: Quick Pockets vs Sleight of Hand
anyone knows how viable it is for first time condi player after years of power slb? i love the idea of rotation but the overcaping of initative looks worrying :D
Hello! There will be a big balance patch coming at 29th this month. In short, I will be making a druid guide and a video explaining changes to this class after the patch. In detail: Actually anet was planning to have the last balance patch about a month ago but as you may know the balance team leader changed so plans for this year's patch dates also changed. I was initially planning to have a druid guide after the last patch and then make a short video explaining the changes happened in all 3 classes I have guides for. But since patch dates are changed I had to wait too. Actually the team leader before this one had only 2-3 patches panned and this new one wanted another extra patch so address some wvw issues. But with that wvw patch there was also permanent changes to pve. The real changes are never certain and clear enough to make video for before the patch comes. A video I will make on the matter can be completely useless after the patch. So I am utmost confused and decided to wait for the patch. Delaying any build videos I planned on making. 🥲 So yeah. Soon I hope!
How much of a dps loss is it to run a pistol? Heard people saying that I should never take one and use the weapon swap in my Rotation for more scepter/dagger 3 uses.
The dps loss really depends on how you let it effect your rotation. I think it is around 1k but 1k is a lot less dps loss than loosing a player on samarog/mathias due to not enough cc. With basi venom and pistol you can litterally hard carry cc on almost anyfight and since most players do not bother to cc it is very high value. Another point is you can mitigate the dps loss by a lot by using your rotation so that you can go into shroud immediately after using pistol and then when you exit shroud you can weapon swap back to dagger
1- Your utility skills are locked in your shroud form so you could not use them even if you wanted to 😅 2- Weapon swap is only for when you need CC because you have pistol as your secondary weapon
@@teocong7504 Welcome to Gw2! Please ask anything I would be glad to answer! What you just said about weapon swap is correct because form changes counts as a weapon swap in Guild Wars 2. By form I mean any kind of shape or dimention changes classes go through which causes them to have a new set of skills on their skill bar. For example Scourge Necromancer has Shroud Form, Specter Thief has Shroud Form, Druid has Astral form etc. All these forms will trigger things that is related to weapon swap. For example there are cases you need to keep your CC or boss fails. If you switch to astral form at that moment with druid (druids use astral form to burst heal and cleanse conditions) , there is a trait that triggers daze(a strong cc) when weapon swap happens. Going in and out of Astral form counts as a weapon swap so it will trigger daze. And you will CC without even wanting to. Form changes are kind of like this. Hopefully this will help :) Was this what you were trying to understand? Did I get it right?
@@GilGaladGaming Yup!! Very detailed explanation 😁. Can I also ask, how do I get viper’s accessories? I read on discord that it can’t be bought using Frac’s currency?
@@teocong7504 That confused me for a second because there are 2 types of accessories you can buy with fractal currency. There are the ones with stats you can not change. Those do not have viper stats. And there are "mist trinkets" you can buy with fractal currency. Mist trinkets allow you to choose any stats. Link: wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_trinkets As an example you can see the ring from here, stats it allows you to choose are listed below and it includes viper: wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_Band_(Infused) I would highly suggest going for the mist trinkets because you can not wear the same accessory or ring twice. So you usually get a different item with the same stats for your two ring slots and 2 accessory slots. But mist trinkets allow you to wear the same thing twice. You can also get these mist trinkets with other currencies such as PvP currency etc. Also, you can reset a mist trinket's stat and use it for your other characters or builds. Other than mist trinkets I made a quick research and apparently easiest way to get viper stats is to farm living season 3 maps: Ring 1: Bitter Frost Ring 2: Draconis Mons Accessory 1: Bitter Frost Accessory 2: Ember Bay
You explained this spec to me like im some sort of braindead, I LOVE IT, ITS JUST WHAT I NEEDED!
I chuckled!
Thank you so much for the guide! I've been playing power thief for a long time (both core and daredevil), but always struggled with condi. This was a great insight into how condi specter works and was very easy to follow!
Made my day! Glad it helped
Excellent guide! I've been playing the Specter class mostly in PVE and have been really having fun with it in EOD maps like Dragon's End. The wells are a bit wonky when you're in a fast-paced situation like say moving around Boneskinner in the Strike to try and stack wells on top of one another onto the group of stacked players!
Also hitting F2 twice happens every now and then and it'll confuse me because I'm thinking "WHERE'S THE BARRIER?!" (Heal-Alac build).
Definitely will give the condi build in this a try, I was using a hybrid DPS support build (condi + alac) for open world PVE content and your explanation on this build looks to be a lot of fun!
I too have been using staff Ele/Tempest (weirdly, I love Dagger/Dagger Ele for Tempest, playstyle is super fun!) since the changes and its been really good! Didn't know it was used in raids too but I can understand why, it has utility for the squad. I'm still wishing Meteor Strike carried the big "oomph" feeling it had in Guild Wars 1 where it felt more powerful. Wish it got some kind of rework on the visual and audio level but that's wishful thinking!
It should have at least a 1 second hard CC (Stun or something) per meteor strike to make up for the long cast time and give it a bit of spice because its always been one of those high risk-high reward skills. Or final meteor is a giant ball of doom that leaves behind a huge lava pool for enemies to gain a nice tan in. Just something, please, Anet!
Thank you very much for this guide! You made the mechanics easy to understand. Well done.
Glad it helped!
one thing I've noticed about the auto attack chain, and i don't know if this is something they've changed in a balance patch or something, but interrupting the AA doesn't actually reset it to the first one, it just continues the chain from where you left off.
Great guide Miss! I hope u can do for power and condi daredevil too, or even other classes. Amazing content
Hey, Thank you for commenting!
Next in line is the Druid. These videos are taking time to produce. Sorry for the delays! After the druid I will make a poll on which class to do next.
This is a very good guide. Thank you.
Just a note about bountiful theft. Sometimes in fractals you are the only one that can boonrip. It is not ideal because it messes your ration up to steal around boonrip sometimes it is the only option.
On another note just to make sure I understand this correctly the venoms do not stack between players, so if two specters are in the same subgroup they can delete each others dps if they apply venom at the same time?
Something else that might be worth mentioning on bosses with phases where you cannot attack due to invuln or movement I usually attack an ally in that time to stack rotwollow venom.
Hello! About your question with the venoms: if 2 thieves apply venom to the same subgroup/party
they do not delete each other's venom. Whoever first applies the venoms, only that counts. The second person to apply venoms will waste their venoms.
This especially becomes a problem in fractals. Because in fractals your burst/high dps comes from pre-casting the venoms. (You use your venoms and use thieves guild-> take the singularity -> your cooldowns reset -> right after venoms are gone, use venoms again to keep high dps and use ulti again). If you have 2 condi thieves. You can't do that. Because one won't be able to precast. As a result, one will be doing 40k-50k and the other 20k.
During raids and in different subgroups, it is highly tolerable There is no precast, and if people stack well you only lose 1-2 people to give venom to.(Tank, hand kiter, mushroom person etc.)
@@GilGaladGaming thank you I understand.
I assume the venoms get ripped on 100cm?
@@ghostapi874 Sorry, what do you mean by venoms getting ripped?
@@GilGaladGaming I mean you cant prestack the venoms on 100cm due to the boonrip before the fight.
@@ghostapi874 Okay I had a hard time understanding what you were asking but I got it now. The thing about 100CM is that players get ripped both from auras and boons as you said. BUT! the trick is: you still precast because your thieves guild doesn't get ripped. So you precast your venoms on your thieves guild. So yes both auras and boons get stripped on those occasions but they get ripped only from players.
Another more advanced tip: you cast your thieves guild-> put immobilizing venom, and 2 other venoms on the thieves guild-> change your utility back to trap -> take the singularity-> Now your thieves have 3 different venoms on them. and you have your trap and thieves guild back(you can change to basilisk too). You will get ripped, but your thieves will not.
Some timestamps in the description yo separate the video out into chapters would have helped so much, I just wanted to know the logic behind a condi thief build when so few of it's attacks do conditions
I detailed them instead of short headliners. Here are the timestamps!
In short, the biggest DPS comes from:
->their venom(they share venoms with 4 other people and other people's venom damage counts as your dps on the dps-meter),
->trap is a big dps if you land it well
->auto attack(condi stacking)
->this class doesn't do flat condition damage, the more initiative you spend the more damage you do(shroud form is a filler until you get your initiative back)
Timestamps:
00:00 How to start the endgame video series
00:33 What the video includes
00:47 My Build
01:00 What is initiative?
02:29 How does initiative work for specter thief?
03:07 Weapon skills and their place in the rotation
04:07 Explaining Shroud form and why specter thief is a good endgame content spec
06:17 Shroud form rotations. Short and Long rotations and when to use which
07:15 Shroud form problem, no cd to go out!
07:45 Siphon-Steal connection
08:09 Utility skills, venoms and how they work
09:55 Venom example on a raid scenario
10:01 Utility skill, trap
10:12 Basilisk vs Thieves guild
10:38 Importance of using basilisk at the right moment
11:10 How to CC, Pistol
11:46 Build Flexibility
12:00 What other utility skill you can get instead of Trap
12:23 Trait options: Bountiful Theft vs Pressure strike
13:01 Trait options: Quick Pockets vs Sleight of Hand
anyone knows how viable it is for first time condi player after years of power slb? i love the idea of rotation but the overcaping of initative looks worrying :D
Thanks you for the info! Quick question… Are there any changes need since the nerf?
Hello! There will be a big balance patch coming at 29th this month. In short, I will be making a druid guide and a video explaining changes to this class after the patch.
In detail: Actually anet was planning to have the last balance patch about a month ago but as you may know the balance team leader changed so plans for this year's patch dates also changed. I was initially planning to have a druid guide after the last patch and then make a short video explaining the changes happened in all 3 classes I have guides for. But since patch dates are changed I had to wait too. Actually the team leader before this one had only 2-3 patches panned and this new one wanted another extra patch so address some wvw issues. But with that wvw patch there was also permanent changes to pve. The real changes are never certain and clear enough to make video for before the patch comes. A video I will make on the matter can be completely useless after the patch. So I am utmost confused and decided to wait for the patch. Delaying any build videos I planned on making. 🥲 So yeah. Soon I hope!
@@GilGaladGaming Thanks for the speedy reply and I look forward to seeing your work after the balancing!
How much of a dps loss is it to run a pistol? Heard people saying that I should never take one and use the weapon swap in my Rotation for more scepter/dagger 3 uses.
The dps loss really depends on how you let it effect your rotation. I think it is around 1k but 1k is a lot less dps loss than loosing a player on samarog/mathias due to not enough cc.
With basi venom and pistol you can litterally hard carry cc on almost anyfight and since most players do not bother to cc it is very high value.
Another point is you can mitigate the dps loss by a lot by using your rotation so that you can go into shroud immediately after using pistol and then when you exit shroud you can weapon swap back to dagger
Hello! I have some questions. Do I use my utility skills when I’m only in shroud? And when do I weapon swap
1- Your utility skills are locked in your shroud form so you could not use them even if you wanted to 😅
2- Weapon swap is only for when you need CC because you have pistol as your secondary weapon
Oh haha dint know about it, sorry new player here 😅. I saw on other guides when changing to shroud it triggers weapon swap rune effect?
@@teocong7504 Welcome to Gw2! Please ask anything I would be glad to answer!
What you just said about weapon swap is correct because form changes counts as a weapon swap in Guild Wars 2. By form I mean any kind of shape or dimention changes classes go through which causes them to have a new set of skills on their skill bar. For example Scourge Necromancer has Shroud Form, Specter Thief has Shroud Form, Druid has Astral form etc. All these forms will trigger things that is related to weapon swap.
For example there are cases you need to keep your CC or boss fails. If you switch to astral form at that moment with druid (druids use astral form to burst heal and cleanse conditions) , there is a trait that triggers daze(a strong cc) when weapon swap happens. Going in and out of Astral form counts as a weapon swap so it will trigger daze. And you will CC without even wanting to. Form changes are kind of like this. Hopefully this will help :) Was this what you were trying to understand? Did I get it right?
@@GilGaladGaming Yup!! Very detailed explanation 😁. Can I also ask, how do I get viper’s accessories? I read on discord that it can’t be bought using Frac’s currency?
@@teocong7504 That confused me for a second because there are 2 types of accessories you can buy with fractal currency. There are the ones with stats you can not change. Those do not have viper stats. And there are "mist trinkets" you can buy with fractal currency. Mist trinkets allow you to choose any stats.
Link: wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_trinkets
As an example you can see the ring from here, stats it allows you to choose are listed below and it includes viper: wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_Band_(Infused)
I would highly suggest going for the mist trinkets because you can not wear the same accessory or ring twice. So you usually get a different item with the same stats for your two ring slots and 2 accessory slots. But mist trinkets allow you to wear the same thing twice. You can also get these mist trinkets with other currencies such as PvP currency etc. Also, you can reset a mist trinket's stat and use it for your other characters or builds.
Other than mist trinkets I made a quick research and apparently easiest way to get viper stats is to farm living season 3 maps:
Ring 1: Bitter Frost
Ring 2: Draconis Mons
Accessory 1: Bitter Frost
Accessory 2: Ember Bay