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I have never taken a 6 week summer class before. I am a freshman planning to take Physics 14 and CS3. I can study full time, Physics 14 is on campus for 4 days a week with lab while CS is online with a flexible of schedule.
Studying for Physics and pre-calc for Fall will take up most of my time. I feel pressured to take CS3 because I have a long sequence for CS classes it seems like the easiest one to get out the way. I don't actually know anything about computers; but I do have some exposure to Python and C via online courses and tutorials, nothing that stuck bc I did not get to work on enough projects.
What is the syllabus like, and are you expected to write code?
I just searched googleplay and it loaded a few more seconds than usual then showed bing search??
I’m on my second class KBAI and it’s kicking my butt. Specifically, the mini projects. I’m afraid I’ll get a C or D in the course. I understand that if I fail to complete two courses with a B or better in my first 12 months, Ill get kicked out of the program but how does that work? Is that a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher? I do have an A in one course but if I got a D and two more Bs would I get kicked out? Or do I just need 2 AB’s and even if I fail the others, I’ll be ok?
What happened: returning from a XC yesterday to my new home airport, a lightly trafficked class C. Turned base behind another C172 from my flight school at the appropriate distance and normal speed on final. They land, and roll out, and just keep on rolling and rolling almost halfway down the 7000 ft runway. They're still on the runway when I cross the threshold, so I decide to go around.
I didn't know what was going on with the other plane, but I was taught not to land with another plane on the runway, and that going around is not a big deal. So it was a simple decision for me.
After telling tower I was on the go, the controller asked "say reason for go around" clearly annoyed. So I told him "airplane on the runway", and he shot back with "you guys can land on the same runway with 3 thousand foot separation". I didn't feel like having a discussion on frequency at that point, so I just left it at that. I'm not sure we even had 3k foot separation, but it's a moot point to me because it didn't feel safe.
Looking back, I can't help but think I didn't mess up here. I almost certainly could have landed just fine and exited the runway well before the guy ahead of me, but what if something went wrong? Why take the risk? If I ended up trading paint or worse with the other guy on the runway, 91.3 says it's my ass, not the controller's. I don't think there's an operational need for it either, because this is not a super busy airport (this ain't SFO).
I'm posting here to see what others think about the whole "you can land with another plane on the runway if you have enough room” thing. Have you heard of this at other airports?
Any CFIs out there comfortable with training students to make a judgment call like this on short final ("he's still on the runway but we can squeeze in behind him")?
Hello (: I'm a undergrad student majoring in molecular microbiology and immunology. My goal is to go to dental school but during my junior year I went through a break up that affected my grades and my mental health. I got an F in one class and ended up with 2 W's and a couple of C's. I went from a 3.8 GPA to a 3.58 gpa. My science GPA is about a 3.3. I don't see myself doing anything but becoming a dentist. Im thinking about applying to the health professions scholarship through the military. The recruiter told me that I have a good chance of getting the scholarship because my gpa is above a 3.2 all I need is a 20 on the dat. Some people have even told me that if I get the military scholarship and me being a refugee from Syria will help me stand out more and will make me a diverse applicant. But I know at the end of the day it comes down to GPA and DAT. Im not sure what to do I'm graduating this fall and in August I'm going to be 23 everyone has been encouraging and have given good advice. I need some tough love and good advice. Please share some of y'all's wisdom with me. Im thinking about applying next summer.
For context this goes over the time from being in school to after graduation. TW: sh
During school I got a good group of friends and we all kinda got close. Me and my friend Nico(not his real name) got really close and over the course of the year Me and my friend group made a discord server for the class. When the server was first made me, nico, and C(not his real name) texted alot amongst ourselves in the server. C liked to rizz nico alot and while that was happening we would be in Dms talking and nico would mention a lot how he was catching feelings for C. Over time it formed into a crush and I was Nico's wingman. I did a lot trying to get those two to date because I was really supportive of this. I even got them to get really close and almost start dating, but C mentioned how he didnt want a relationship because he was scared he was going to ruin it and I can tell he was really messed up from past relationships. Over time nico changed his mind because C was kinda avoiding asking him out even though it was evident he had feelings for nico. Nico wanted to be fwb with C, which was fine with the both of them and it worked out.
As time passes we all graduate. Me a C were talking between the time school ended and graduation. Soon after I graduated me and C hung out in person. We decided it would be fun to send a picture to our discord server showing how we actually met in person to hang out. We sent the picture of us holding slushies and soon after nico left the server and blocked both of us. I was very confused and C mentioned how he was supposed to hang out with nico but that wasn't possible since he wasn't allowed to go by his mom because nico lives in a different city than us , but we were close so we decided to hang out. We soon deleted the photo from the server and we were kinda stressed but eventually went on to enjoy our day. We ended up having intercourse that day. After that we got really close and started dating eventually. I didn't want to tell our mutual friends because they would tell nico and I felt like nico would be really upset since he was already mad at us hanging out. It had been a few weeks and I decided since we are still blocked there's no point in not telling our friends, so we told them we started dating.
At that point I felt dirty. Like I was doing something incredibly wrong. I was in Dms with my friends that knew about everything. She had told me how she lost a bit of respect for me, which made sense right but I was still a bit oblivious to the way I made my friend feel. I asked my friend that had an outside perspective tell me why I was still blocked and she said, "even before you started hanging out with C nico put a claim on him and like you knew this, you had someone else and then you turn around and start hanging out with C all benounced to nico. So then you keep hanging out with C to the point where C ends up ditching nico who is still into him and then get blocked and you wonder why because you just absolutely crushed him. And you announced it which is fine, ok, I don't care about that, but like the fact that this could hurt someone so much and your so oblivious is shocking. I dont want to be mean but this would abso6crush a person especially since the amount of trust you had in each other." After she told me I needed time to think and it made sense. I had no right to feel the way I did but I was crying, hyperventilating, and cutting myself. How could I make my friend feel that way. I felt terrible and like a bad friend but I also felt like I didn't deserve to feel like this because imagine how i made nico feel. so i confided in current boyfriend C who told me it's not my fault and that nico had many chances to ask him out and date him, but didn't take the chances. He said it's not my fault and that if it is someone's fault it should be his. And even though I was trying to refute this with how I stole him from my friend he said he wasn't an object, which is true and how he chose to be with me because he chose to be.
My friend told me how it was, which I appreciate but there were some things that I wanted to say about it but didn't. I didn't want it to seem like I won't take accountability because I'm more than willing, but for starters I didn't mean to make C start ignoring nico. Before graduation ended most of the time I spent with him was playing around like friends do and talking about getting him and nico together. She also mentioned how I had someone on the side and to be honest this part is my fault because I didn't tell her nor did I expect her to understand. My relationship was that I was in a qpr. I'm not going to explain that since Google is free but even then nothing I did seemed wrong because we were just friends. Even after my qpr ended. I treat all my friends the same way so it's not like I was acting weird to this one person because if I did it to one person I did it to everyone.
There are some people telling me it's not my fault because he misunderstood when we sent that picture in the server before we started dating, but now I'm dating his crush who i love, but all I want to do is have the chance to talk to nico again to make up. So am I the a-hole?
Sorry if this is hard to understand, I'm not good at writing.
I just finished my first year of university and I received three C’s out of all my classes.
In high school, I always had around a 3.7 gpa and only received maybe two Cs throughout my time there. Overtime, my academic performance became a major part of me as family members/friends would only really talk to me about how I was always near the top of my class. now when I say only, I mean only my academics, at family reunions nearly the first thing people ask me is “what’s your gpa.” Receiving so many compliments before made me happy and now, I’m just embarrassed as my gpa in college currently is a 3.1.
I’m trying to not let it weigh heavily on me, after all in my fall semester I got very ill. I have a weak immune system and got hit with pretty much everything going around. On top of that, I have anxiety and while I planned to get medication for it before college started to help me with the transition it got delayed. Getting panic attacks during lectures and exams put me at a slight disadvantage as well. Plus, I know I’m worth more than just my grades but it’s so hard whenever people ask me my gpa then see the look of disappointment on their faces.
I know a 3.1 isn’t the end of the world, but I intend on applying to vet school after undergrad since I’ve always wanted to become a vet. Without a high gpa, it may be even more difficult to get in than it already is. Plus, I know there’s more difficult courses down the road and I’m afraid it’s just gonna take me down more.
For this next year I plan on adjusting my study habits. Additionally I signed up for my university’s disability services so I get some accommodations for my anxiety. I may decide to retake a class in the future, but right now money is a bit tight. Idk, I’m worried and afraid. I just want people to be proud of me and I hate that my friends view me as the “dumb friend”
Are there any, and if so which schools, that look at experience more than gpa? I have a 3.8 overall gpa, and 3.6 science gpa, yet I have a C in two science classes. But, I have tons and tons of volunteer, shadowing, research etc hours. Just wondering which schools I should look into!
This is my first one. Playing through it feels so good- the game is just handing me so much. I’ve got portable refiner built into my suit, I’ve got upgrades out the butt and I’m getting 50k every time I scan something, I got a free A class sentinel starship that’s also been upgraded out the butt, my mining laser is upgraded a shit ton.
I just started playing a few weeks ago, and I’ve got a save that’s got almost 40 hours into it. In that save I’ve got multiple bases across multiple systems, I’ve got my free freighter (c class). I own one starship that’s a solar ship I traded my default in for (plus some, and it’s a c class). I have a few industrial farms but nothing crazy. I would hate to throw all that time away but-
My understanding is that after this expedition ends I’ll be given the option to convert it to a normal save. Am I going to keep everything I’ve gained through the expedition? If so, that feels kinda bad. I’m very much inclined to continue playing on the save that has all these upgrades and better ship (that I’ve grown quite attatched to), over my old save. Rebuilding with this new save will be a breeze since gaining money and resources is much faster with the upgrades- but it feels bad to abandon the 40 hours I’ve already put in, and those planets I’ve discovered and built homes on and such.
What gives what am I missing? Why wouldn’t any new player launch into this expedition, skip the lengthy tutorials and get a much better and more efficient start out of this?
Source I'm Iskarel. I maintain the PvE Thief builds and guides on
Snow Crows With a PvE perspective, I'm going to run through the changes, discuss their impact, and talk about current meta builds and how they're impacted.
Want the build-by-build cliff notes? Skip to the bottom, search for "tl;dr"
I know this is a lot. Think of it as a reference document.
A LOT has changed. The builds aren't unrecognizable but the texture has changed almost across the board.
Flanking is Dead (for most endgame bosse)
To make them more reliable in endgame PvE content, all effects that benefit when the player strikes from the flank or from behind now always apply their benefits when striking defiant foes.
Not all players know that "flanking" or "from behind or the sides" just means—don't be in front of the target.
Ever used a build with Thief runes? Just don't stand directly in front of the target.
What fewer players will know is that there's a small set of skills that actually need you to be ~180-degrees behind your target.
- Thief Backstab (deals double damage from behind)
- Thief Sword Stealth Attack (only dazes from behind)
- Ranger Greatsword Hilt (dazes from the front, stuns from behind. This basically doesn't matter in PvE)
- Mesmer Downstate phantasm (deals more damage if the phantasm hits from behind. Hey it's like a Thief!)
Which way does Keep Construct face when it descends back to the arena after the orb-rift-push phase?
Which way does Sabetha face during her Flame Wall?
I'm not going to answer these questions because the answers don't matter anymore! This skill expression is now gone.
Just backstab from any angle.
Ah but "defiant foes"? What
isn't included there?
Can you backstab Primordus in the Harvest Temple strike if your group stays on the left vs right side, when looking from the center towards the dragon?
You would have to be on the right side. The left is the dragon's face.
Which way does Conjured Amalgamate face?
When approaching CA's platform, it is facing to your right. This also applies to the hands. Stand on the left side of the platform, and "above" the hands (closer to the portal leading away from this encounter).
Which way do the hands on Adina face?
2 o'clock (north), 5 o'clock (northwest), 7 o'clock (south), 10 o'clock (southeast)
No, I don't know why.
Just use your rifle and pierce two hands with Spotter's Shot + Death's Judgment! That's better than remembering these facing positions.
These are non-defiant "prop" type enemies. Also included here is Drakkar, the Octovine, and Tequatl. IIRC.
BTW Drakkar is made up 17 prop pieces, and you can only cast Deadeye's Mark on one of them. Don't play Deadeye here, you're trolling yourself. :D
Acrobatics Mental Gymnastics
Yeah this ain't it, chief. This is still a defensive and mobility-oriented traitline.
The damage modifier in Endless Stamina can't compete with Deadly Arts or Critical Strikes, even when combined with the Power in Swinder's Equilibrium.
The other stuff is maybe interesting for solo open world champions but Shadow Arts is already quite capable at that, and Condition Thief has a lot more toys to work with when solo compared to Power.
It's something but this traitline still feels ironically directionless.
Improvisational Theater of War
Improvisation: This trait now reduces the cooldowns of all utility skills by a certain percentage when you steal, instead of recharging a random skill.
Previously: this trait would randomly reset one of your utility skills, with a cooldown on the effect. If it chose a skill already on cooldown, it would have no effect. It could not reset the cooldown of an un-triggered but prepared Preparation.
Interesting! We can now use this trait predictably, resetting the cooldown of all our utility skills. On the surface that's good because it means we'll always get value out of the reset...unless our skill uses are staggered. More on that later.
Mag Bomb Delenda Est.
Currently this skill's damage-per-cast-time is roughly double that of Daredevil Staff 2, Weakening Charge. Notably, the cast time is short because it pulses damage.
The coefficient we have on the wiki, drawn from the Game's API, is 4.10. ANet lists a 1.50 (per hit, so 4.50 total) nerfed to 0.70. So... Uh...
Let's say Throw Magnetic Bomb's damage is nerfed to 50% of its current damage. Or there about.
So next patch, one Throw Magnetic Bomb is close to the damage of one Staff 2, but the damage comes out over time (during our Assassin Signet burst) and the cast animation is faster than Staff 2.
But is it worth losing Executioner?
Probably not. Executioner is approximately 9.52% damage on a fight that spends 50% of its time above 50% target HP and 50% of time below (due to Ferocious Strikes).
That's a lot of damage to be made up by another use of a stolen skill!
Daredevil's Bound to be Good
Bound: Increased power coefficient from 1.75 to 3.5
This ratchets up the damage of our dodge so that it beats the damage-per-cast-time of Punishing Strikes (skill 1 part C) and Staff 5, while still losing to Staff Strike and Staff Bash (skill 1 parts A/B), Staff 2, and Fist Flurry/Palm Strike.
This damage increase is valuable because
- (A) it makes dodging better for damage, on top of the damage modifiers provided by Havoc Specialist and Bounding Dodger
- (B) if we get excess endurance from our helpful allies, burning it off to maintain our modifiers hurts our DPS less on the future patch.
Auto chain go brrrr
Staff Strike, Staff Bash: Increased power coefficient.
... Uh oh.
This increase the DPS of the first and second part of the chain well beyond the last hit.
The optimal DPS rotation now involves interrupting the chain after the 2nd hit.
That's not easy to do on most professions, which have a limited number of viable interrupts, but we're Thief, baby!
Staff Strike, Staff Bash, Weakening Charge. Repeat. Throw in a Fist Flurry. Save your Palm Strike. Yeah. This sort of thing.
Calculations done by REMagic42 (
training-accident-36 ) show the following
A not insignificant DPS increase provided by this (unintended?) balance predicament.
You could just not do this. That's up to you. The build is getting buffed by ~4,000 DPS next patch but it still has all the old problems. Don't know those?
Read here Let's Get Physical (Lights out, follow the noise)
Various Physical Skill cooldown reductions
These are neat and strictly a positive.
Left, a great player who provides benchmarks for Power and Condition Daredevil, already tested Condition Daredevil with cooldown-traited Impairing Daggers and found them simply worse in group content vs Devourer Venom. You can read more on his
benchmark.
So the Impairing Daggers cooldown reduction (CDR) doesn't matter to us.
A cooldown reduction for Channeled Vigor would've been cool!
This skill basically gives you a get-out-of-jail-free dodge if you're ever scared that burning all your dodges for Havoc Specialist will leave you vulnerable. You can get a dodge with Withdraw on a shorter cooldown but that travels backwards from your facing direction which can be scary.
This skill is also very useful for maintaining Lotus Training uptime when playing Condition Daredevil. If you can't keep hitting the boss with your auto-attack chain and F1 Steal, you will run out of endurance and lose your condition damage buff. Use Channeled Vigor to maintain buff uptime when you can't hit the boss. (This tip comes from Left!)
Impact Strike is still worse defiance-bar to cooldown ratio vs Basilisk Venom, but any improvement is nice. This skill is good when you can't guarantee all hits of Basilisk Venom will hit your target, or when you need to CC more frequently than Basilisk's cooldown allows.
Death-onate Plasma and "Boon Thief"
Farewell, Boon Thief. Without Quickness, we can no longer role-compress all those shiny boons in Plasma into a Quickness Build.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the damage of Detonate Plasma will not be worth its cast time purely from a DPS perspective, especially on a Condition Build, but you might still get some boon uptime from Daredevils on fights like Matthias and Twin Largos' Kenut.
You can now permanently sunset your Celestial/Ritualist gear for Boon Thief. Will you use it for Alacrity Specter later? I don't now, I don't know how much Alacrity is given by that trait. We'll talk more later. :)
Also Icebrood Saga exists
These really don't matter. Unstable Reagent is maybe a DPS increase, I don't have a log with it for cast time.
This is NOT Unstable Artifact BTW. That skill is still worth using for both Power and Condition DPS.
Cursed Artifact is like throw-Plaguelands, and an Ethereal field at that. It's free real estate on the Condition Build.
Time in a Bottle is squad-wide alacrity AND quickness. Take that, Chronomancer! It's only found in Cold War and randomly in EoD strikes. :)
Dumbed-down-eye
Deadeye Stolen Skill splash support
Stolen Skills now grant their beneficial effects around the caster.
These are mostly "splash" uptimes of boons, but you can also get superspeed and a modest heal. Neat! Deadeye providing a token amount of squad value beyond its DPS and CC output.
Deadeye Malicious Intent buff
Malicious Intent: Increased Malice gain from 1 to 2 in PvE only
This is actually big!
Firstly, this increases the damage dealt by the lower difficulty
Be Quick or Be Killed Dagger Deadeye rotation (if you've ever heard someone described Dagger Deadeye as 5111151115111, that's this).
1 more Malice pip after each Mark and Stealth attack boost the damage modifier of Malicious Backstab. I don't have a quick estimate for this increase yet.
Secondly, this is wonderful for the Dagger-Dagger Maleficent Seven rotation.
All Power Dagger skills (Heartseeker, Dancing Dagger, Cloak & Dagger) are single-damage packet skills (with the exception of Dancing Dagger when bounced from your main target, to another enemy, and back to your main target). This means they have only one chance to score a crit, and thus only one chance to earn 2 Malice instead of 1.
Power Thief derives 15% critical chance from Critical Strikes' Keen Observer trait, which demands the player stay above 75% HP. You won't have 100% uptime of this trait in many raid fights, especially if your healer is slacking. If the current Dagger Deadeye benchmark was performed at 75% player HP, without drastically altering gear to accommodate for the missing critical chance, the benchmark could lose up to 12,000 DPS!, dropping it nearly into support territory.
This Malicious Intent buff gives you a safety cushion for one of those Initiative skills to score a non-crit, making the rotation more robust in endgame encounters. It does NOT reduce the minimum number of Initiative skills needed to reach maximum Malice: that is still 3 with Malicious Intent and 4 without. It does reduce the maximum needed by 1 skill, which is also great!
Quickly Fire For Effect
This trait no longer requires a target to grant boons to allies.
Er, it doesn't require one right now. Specifically, if you Mark a target, you can use your F2 and gain boons even if your stolen skill is obstructed by terrain. If you have your enemy targeted while outside 1,500 range you will get an
out of range error that stops you from casting F2, but simply untargeting the enemy will let you use the skill to get boons. If you are obstructed or out of range, you don't hit the target.
I assume what this means is that if you do NOT have a marked target, you can cast a cantrip to get a new F2. That's cool and rather handy for the new Quickness build.
Shadow Flare isn't real, it can't hurt you
Shadow Flare: Reduced cooldown from 30 to 20 seconds. This skill only damages once instead of pulsing. Activate the flip-over Shadow Swap to trigger another damage instance from your original location.
Deadeye dumbed down. Navigating self-reveal with pulsing damage skills on DPS Deadeye has been a hallmark of modern builds for several years—Shadow Flare for Power, Thousand Needles for Condition.
That problem is now eliminated for Power. You don't need to know the timing, you don't need to know where to throw Shadow Flare. Just Do your backstab, cast Shadow Flare for one damage packet, cast it again, go for another Backstab. No fuss, no skill expression, no frustration, no learning curve.
I don't like this change, I understand why other people like this change. I think it's dumb to change this. If you don't like self-reveal, consider not playing the class that uses Stealth and Revealed for its DPS output.
Fun in the Chamber
One in the Chamber: This trait now also increase the damage of F2 Stolen Skills in addition to its previous effects
In case anyone is unfamiliar with Deadeye—it doesn't have access to any core Stolen Skills. No Mag Bombs here!
This is a nice perk. The important thing is that this trait gives us an extra F2 charge every time we use a Stolen Skill...That's for Quickness.
This trait is also valuable to Condition Deadeye builds (particularly since there's a 4/9 chance they get a stolen skill that applies damaging conditions!) and to Power Pistol-Pistol Deadeye. See more of that
here.
Binding Shadow, my beloved
Binding Shadow - Reduced cooldown from 30 to20 seconds in PvE.
Cool! I love—
This skill now immobilizes marked targets instead of knocking them down
Oh. Uhhh it already immobilized them. I assume it immobilizes them more? That sucks, this was an amazing breakbar skill, particular on Condition Deadeye where it applied several poison stacks (natively, and via Panic Strike with Immobilize) and gave an extra F2 charge from One in the Chamber.
It's lower cooldown on boonstrip which is neat? Matches No Pain No Gain time in Fractals, I suppose.
Just use a Power Mesmer, they passively breathe boonstrip.
Quickness Deadeye builds
Three options!
Oops! All cantrips This option will spam out cantrip like nobody's business to meet the voracious demand of Might uptime.
Fire For Effect grants 8 stacks of Might for 12 seconds. The with-Alacrity cooldown of Cantrips are: 16 (Binding Shadow, Shadow Flare), 20 seconds (Malicious Restoration heal), 25 seconds (Mercy, Shadow Gust). When using Mercy, the cooldown of F1 is effectively the cooldown of Mercy, plus minimally the cast time of the F2, plus the cast time of F1 again.
So some of our Might is locked behind 25+ seconds. Building for 100% Might Duration would be devastating for our DPS output. We could cover 100% Might uptime with a single trio of F2 casts anyway—Binding Shadow, Malicious Restoration, Shadow Flare—but that would not take tactical advantage of the natural Deadeye's Mark cooldown.
Instead, we'll cover Quickness with two sets of F2 casts, staggered across the duration of our Might stacks. Left has an old benchmark demonstrating this technique.
So that's our 24-might upkeep option. It's not pretty, and it's Cantrip spam. ANet said we wouldn't have this in the game anymore.
Well, what if we don't have to generate Might?
Then we have two options:
3 cantrips with no Improvisation This option will maintain a burst of 24 might as we apply quickness, or we can space out the stolen skills to maintain at least 8 stacks indefinitely. Sounds pretty good!
Improvisation We'll probably still be using Shadow Flare because it's just good damage, and Improvisation selects for builds that use active utility skills, not passive signets. We might even be able to use Malicious Intent instead of One in the Chamber for this build, earning us more damage on Malicious Backstab.
So we have options.
Quickness Deadeye weapon options (We don't have those! )
Maleficent Seven is the only equalizer at work that allows bad weapons to do somewhat okay, and without that, we're back to shopping with the to the usual harsh restriction of "the best single skill out of all these weapons crushes the validity of all other options".
Stealth attacks? Naw, just spam F2s without Malice.
"Filler" initiative skills used to build up to an Initiative reset at max Malice? Nope, don't care, whatever has the best initiative-to-damage ratio is what we're running.
Thief Dagger is about matched with Thief sword for auto attack damage but Dagger is home to the centralizing Cloak & Dagger → Backstab combo. This does huge damage from any direction—flanking is gone!
Sword, by contrast, suffers a DPS loss when using any dual wield skill, Headshot, or Black Powder. The only DPS gain skills are Cloak & Dagger (but the stealth attack for sword is BARELY worth using, you could actually just cast Cloak & Dagger twice in a row and do just as well), and Sword 2...without using the return-to shadowstep. Meaning Sword 2 has a 15-second cooldown. Just to do slightly more than the auto-attack.
Need CC? Pack an off-hand pistol and fill time with auto-attacks, they're very good.
What about Pistol?
It's just weaker.
Shortbow?
It sucks really bad against single targets.
Rifle? This is the sniper spec!
It sucks if you don't have Maleficent Seven for infinite Initiative and either stealth utility skills or Silent Scope to unlock Death's Judgment.
Specter, rant about single-target/ally-target support
Ally-targeted scepter skills now also grant a lesser effect to additional allies in a radius around the target.
I don't know why ANet is so obsessed with single target support for PvE Specter, but they'll learn its untenable eventually. They've been gradually walking back the single target focus ever since release, and we are now about 15 months past Specter's official release and coming up on 2 years since it's beta.
Ally-targeting is clunky.
Single-target support is nonviable. We have encounters that apply arena damage to all players, and each player in the squad can take damage from the same AoE and it's the healer's job to keep the whole team up.
A "lesser effect". Reduced duration? Great, what's the point of that? You might as well just make it all the reduced duration.
Does "splashed" Shadow Sap not even grant protection to the other allies? Great, we won't use it.
Hopefully this will just be something like reduced Barrier or Healing, and the Boons are intact, but it's already been confirmed by the new member of the design team, Trig, on a Twitch Stream (Mighty Teapot's?) that Endless Night will not give Quickness to "splashed" allies.
Maybe this skill shouldn't give quickness at all. Why is the design team not skill splitting? What are they afraid of?
The Dark Side of Scepter Splash
If you paid attention to Specter during its beta testing, you might be aware of a
very weird build that used Endless Night (Scepter Pistol dual wield beam skill that granted quickness and 7-packets of Barrier to 3 allies, if you could pierce through the allies).
This rotation was initially theorycrafted by Left when Specter was first showed off. I did some early proof-of-concept on the build, then Left took it over and improved it to around 51,000 DPS.
That's a lot of damage!
Watch that video briefly, and notice how I swap between the enemy and my allies, applying one skill to the target then the Endless Night beam to my allies.
When Specter applies barrier to an ally, they receive a stack of Rotwallow Venom, which applies a short-duration stack of torment to a single enemy just like normal venoms.
Each cast of Endless Night back then was 21 applications of Rotwallow Venom, with more Torment duration than we have now.
ANet killed that build back during beta by making the beam target a single enemy, nerfing the quickness application, nerfing Rotwallow Venom duration, nerfing Specter's Torment damage modifier, nerfing Consume Shadows to require charging up.... The list goes on.
Why do I bring this up?
Scepter Autos on Allies
Currently the scepter auto chain applies 54 seconds of Torment (in the form of multiple stacks). If the scepter auto chain can instead apply barrier to 3 allies, then this balloons to 72 seconds without Strength of Shadows, or 108 seconds with Strength of Shadows.
Yes.
The auto-attack chain will be twice as strong when targeting allies, vs targeting the enemy.
Endless Night is not worth using against an enemy target, but it might be worth using on allies. This rotation won't have room for auto attacks, so I'm not pinning any hopes to this.
No, the optimal damage rotation will probably be Twilight combo, Siphon, and Shroud skills on the enemy, then filling time with Scepter skills on allies. We will probably spend less time in Shroud because those autos are just so cracked...
Second Opinion, moving away from Consume Shadows
Ever since beta all forms of Specter have run Consume Shadows—Alacrity, DPS, Heal. This is because Consume Shadows can apply barrier to allies, giving them Rotwallow venom. The other adept traits are purely defensive, so they're not used by the DPS and Alacrity builds...and Consume Shadows is an extremely potent healing tool. So potent, it's been nerfed repeatedly!
Charged time reduced from instant to 4 seconds, maximum shroud cut by more than 50%, conversion ratio reduced from 100 to 50%
Second Opinion will grant bonus Condition Damage, more with a Scepter. This should be, at minimum, +80/+80, which will beat the ~800 DPS provided by perfect Rotwallow Venom application from Consume Shadows.
Perfect?
If your allies are too injured and Consume Shadows only heals them overflowing into Barrier, you won't give them Rotwallow.
Traversing Dusk no longer gives Alacrity
This is just a heal trait now. That's just what it does.
Shadestep is the new Alacrity trait
Oh. Uh. I'll keep it quick.
- This reduces our gameplay from 2 separate rotations with their own quirks and different Shroud lengths, to 1—the DPS rotation.
How do you give alacrity? Just go into shroud and push buttons.
How do you do DPS? Just go into shroud and push buttons.
Alacrity Specter's Well cooldowns were inaccessible inside Shadow Shroud because we inherited a shroud, not just a kit like Druid's Celestial Avatar or Holosmith's Photon Forge.
Druid Spirits off cooldown while in CA? Don't care, you can push em.
Specter wells off cooldown while in Shadow Shroud? You might be gaining DPS from shroud skills, or healing from Consume Shadows, but you're losing Alacrity uptime. Is that tradeoff worth it?
Doesn't matter anymore. Just do the benchmark DPS rotation.
You're too slow? Then your alacrity uptime will suffer. You need to be on pace with going in and out of shroud, just like the DPS rotation. Difference is, if you're bad at this, it's going to frustrate other people.
This is not the hardest rotation in game to optimize and you of course have the option to make it easier with Ritualist gear (which you should do anyway if you plan to still run Consume Shadows, will be a two-fold personal DPS loss).
\2. Ever been kicked out of Shroud by incoming damage in a raid/strike/open world meta? No more Alacrity uptime for you. Better refill your Shadow Force quickly—and Larcenous Torment generates Shadow Force FAR more slowly than Traversing Dusk
Fun fact: Traversing Dusk's 1% Shadow Force per ally in your shadowstep scales indefinitely, not just up to 5 players. That gives you colossal Shadow Force generation in crowded metas and even raids.
Want to use your Siphon on ally? No you don't, that's valuable Shadow Force generation you need to maintain tempo for Alacrity.
Again, you can wear Ritualist gear to soften this loss.
Want to have the utility of Well of Bounty? Well, previously that utility was tied to your Alacrity uptime, your DPS uptime (lingering outside shroud for Well of Bounty was a loss), and your healing output (Traversing Dusk, and maintaining tempo in/out of Shadow Shroud for Consume Shadows).
Now you can take Well of Bounty and have it on demand, at a DPS loss.
Previously you could have just take advantage of the long Stability duration to cast this well early, or delay it slightly to cover the mechanic.
How much DPS will ANet allow this build to have?
We don't know. And now it's DPS is very closely tied to the DPS build because they're doing nearly the exact same thing.
This has never happened to Firebrand, trust me.
tl;dr It's dangerous to read all that up there! Skip to here!
Condition Daredevil
Unchanged by Impairing Daggers cooldown reduction
Power Daredevil
Buffed to ~38.6 if you do the old rotation.
Buffed to 40.2 if you do the new degenerate 1a 1b 2 1a 1b 2 rotation that interrupts our auto chain.
Still screwed by all the usual stuff.
Mag Bomb damage normalized. Cool. Still amazing utility on that skill.
Boon Thief
Dead. Deadeye killed it.
Power Dagger Deadeye
Much easier to play. Splashes some cute boons onto its subgroup, at random. Have to see if Shadow Flare is still worth using. Hopefully, right?
Power Rifle Deadeye
Silent Scope uses Shadow Flare, I hope that's still worth using.
No need to flank with Premeditation Rifle is nice. Swapping Impact to an Accuracy sigil (or not doing that, and losing crit chance) was ~1,200 DPS loss, so that's avoided. I don't mind losing flanking here that much because Flanking wasn't make-or-break adrenaline pumping like dagger. It was just a boring loss.
Quickness Deadeye
I hope you like pushing 5 and 1 a whole lot because that's almost all this is. Also pushing cantrips for F2 charges to provide quickness.
It will play okay, but pretttttttttty similar to utility-spam builds that people hate, with the added bonus of casting TWO skills for every application of quickness.
You can tune this to your liking BUT
IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MANY WAYS THIS GAME'S ENEMIES CAN APPLY REVEALED TO YOU THEN YOU'RE IN FOR A TREAT WHEN YOU PICK UP QUICKNESS DEADEYE NEXT PATCH :D
It won't really prevent you from applying quickness but it will tank your DPS and fracture your soul.
One of us. One of us!
This is getting no changes, by the way. It'd be a huge amount of effort from the studio's programmers for one elite spec, for one profession, largely in one game mode (instanced PvE), with a small player base.
Probably just not happening. Not a question of "want to", it's a question of resource management AND doing this right.
Remember stealth-tanking Old Lion's Court? Because they didn't apply Revealed, then they only applied Revealed once and Deadeye just Shadow Melded out of it?
DPS Specter
Buffed by Second Opinion, dubiously buffed by targeting allies with the auto chain.
You can still run Consume Shadows for team healing/barrier.
Alacrity Specter
I don't know. Presumably the shroud skills will allow us to provide at least 50% uptime with a non-degenerate rotation (one that doesn't have us spending all our time in shroud). Said degenerate rotation is naturally policed by the fact our shroud absorbs incoming damage.
Will it run Consume Shadows? Not for optimal damage anymore.
Alac Share Specter
Just change your grandmaster from Strength of Shadows to Shadestep and do the normal rotation. Should do at least 50% uptime, unless Alac specter is just nonviable and can't maintain Alacrity.