Specter - Alacrity Support Healer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

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This build was last updated on October 26, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A boon support healer build for Specter. Provides permanent Alacrity, Fury, 25 Might, Protection (mostly), Regeneration, Swiftness and Vigor. Also provides high uptimes of Resistance and Stability.

Specter can provide a very wide range of boons and an excellent mixture of direct healing and Barrier. Further, its tether mechanic allows it to provide Alacrity at 1200 range, making it excellent at handling mechanics.

Unfortunately, unlocking this build's maximum potential involves using ally-targeted weapon skills. Very few builds use this mechanic, so this can feel quite unnatural and will likely involve setting new keybinds.

This build has a lot of overlap with the healing variant of the Condi Boon Support, so you can mix and match options between these to suit your group.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Pistol

Sword/Pistol

Utility

Weapon Variants

Offhand Dagger can be used in the Scepter set for the hybrid damage build.

Skill Variants

Well of Bounty is necessary as your primary source of Regeneration, but the other two skills can be swapped out:

Blinding Powder is a potent way to provide Protection and healing, but using it stealths allies. This will mess with deadeyes in your group and so should be avoided if they are present.
Well of Silence heals thanks to its shadowstep, offers CC and is a rare source of condi cleanse.

Other alternatives include:

Shadow Refuge - The most potent utility skill for healing. Comes with the same caveats as Blinding Powder, and offers worse Protection uptime, but could replace Well of Silence on encounters without condi cleanse.
Signet of Agility for more condi cleanse.
Smoke Screen or Prepare Seal Area for projectile defence.
Prepare Shadow Portal - Portals are very potent, though it is only one-way.
Prepare Pitfall or Scorpion Wire for CC.
For more frequent breakbars, you may find Basilisk Venom valuable.

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Specializations

Quick Pockets is a good option for more initiative.
Second Opinion on encounters where high incoming damage makes Shadow Force harder to maintain, so Consume Shadows will be much weaker. In such cases, you should also use the Plaguedoctor stats variant.

Equipment

Harrier stats gear is used for maximum healing power and boon duration. On encounters with high incoming damage, then you may require the extra Shadow Force that comes from higher vitality, making the Plaguedoctor stats variant below stronger.

Head
Harrier

Shoulders
Harrier

Chest
Harrier

Hands
Harrier

Legs
Harrier

Feet
Harrier

Backpiece
Harrier

Accessory
Harrier

Amulet
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Scepter
Harrier

Pistol
Harrier

Sigil

Sword
Harrier

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

The Sigil of Superior Sigil of Transference can be replaced with a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Paralyzation if you want to provide more CC.
If tanking, swap in as many Giver stats or Minstrel stats pieces as necessary.

Condi Variant

You can swap in Plaguedoctor stats for a massive damage boost and almost no loss of healing, but the boon duration is significantly lower - you want to make sure it's at least 60% or you might as well be running the healing variant of the DPS alacrity build.

Head
Plaguedoctor

Shoulders
Plaguedoctor

Chest
Plaguedoctor

Hands
Plaguedoctor

Legs
Plaguedoctor

Feet
Plaguedoctor

Backpiece
Plaguedoctor

Accessory
Plaguedoctor

Amulet
Plaguedoctor

Ring
Plaguedoctor

Scepter
Plaguedoctor

Dagger
Plaguedoctor

Sigil

Pistol
Plaguedoctor

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

The Sigil of Superior Sigil of Transference on Pistol can be replaced with a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Paralyzation if you want to provide more CC.
If tanking, swap in as many Giver stats or Minstrel stats pieces as necessary.

Consumables

Food

or ascended versions

Utility

Usage

Players wishing for more information can find an exceedingly detailed guide here. Note that there are some small differences in build recommendations.

Alacrity

Thanks to the Shadestep trait, every shroud skill you use provides AoE Alacrity around your tethered target. This means that Specter is capable of providing Alacrity at 1200 range, making it very effective at handling mechanics. The tether is randomly applied to an ally within range whenever you Enter Shadow Shroud, and will remain on that ally until you are 1200 units away from each other. A new target for the tether can be manually selected by targeting an ally and using Siphon on them. This is very useful to do before the fight starts, as you ideally want to use Siphon on enemies for the Shadow Force generation during combat.

Other Boons

Fury, Might and Vigor

100% uptime of these boons are provided by Well of Bounty and Siphon (with the Thrill of the Crime and Bountiful Theft traits).

Protection

Protection is easily maintained by spamming Shadow Sap on the group. Additional uptime is provided by the combination of Blinding Powder and Cover of Shadow.

Regeneration

Your main source of Regeneration is Well of Bounty, and topped up with ally-targeted Endless Night or Shadowsquall.

Stability

Well of Bounty and Mind Shock (with Shadestep) provide AoE Stability. These are both used in your normal rotation, so encounter knowledge is key for ensuring you can provide it when needed.

Healing

Practically everything you do provides some measure of Barrier or healing:

Shadow Savior and Traversing Dusk heal on every shadowstep, which applies to all your wells, Measured Shot (Sceptre/Pistol) and Infiltrator's Strike ⇒ Infiltrator's Return (Sword).
Merciful Ambush and Panaku's Ambition heals and provides Barrier to allies that you Stealth.
Thanks to Shadestep, all your Shadow Shroud skills heal allies near your tethered target.
If using Consume Shadows, your remaining Shadow Force is converted into healing (and overhealing into Barrier) when you Exit Shadow Shroud.
Well of Gloom has inherent healing, plus the shadowstep healing, plus some Barrier for good measure via Shielding Restoration.
Measured Shot and Endless Night (Scepter/Pistol) provide healing and barrier, respectively, to allies they target. Shadow Sap (Sceptre) provides AoE Barrier without the need for allied targetting, which makes it much more convenient than other Scepter skills, albeit it is less efficient than Measured Shot ⇒ Endless Night. Twilight Combo (Sceptre/Dagger) provides a small amount of barrier and healing, but is less efficient than Shadow Sap. Your Sceptre autoattack also provide a small amount of Barrier when targetting allies.

Weapons

The two weapons have different playstyles:

Scepter

Via its allied-targeted abilities, Scepter fills in the gaps in uptime of your key boons, namely Protection with Shadow Sap and Regeneration with Measured Shot ⇒ Endless Night. During downtime you can also autoattack an ally to provide AoE Barrier.

If using scepter, it is strongly recommended to have some method for quickly targetting allies: Set/Take Personal Target, Nearest/Next/Previous Ally, or Ally Targeting Mode in the options will all allow this. Go for whichever you find most convenient.

Sword

Sword can be swapped too as needed for burst healing. On this set you provide heals by spamming Infiltrator's Strike and Infiltrator's Return to repeatedly trigger Shadow Savior and Traversing Dusk.

Scepter/Pistol

Before the encounter starts, it can be very helpful to select and ally and Siphon them. This will mark them as the target of your tether and all the boons provided by Shadestep will pulse around that player as long as they remain within range (or until you target another player manually with Siphon). Ideally this will be a player that can be relied upon to be on the stack. If you do not target a specific player, a random one will be picked when you Enter Shadow Shroud.

Opener

This opener is just one possibility. Alacrity can usually be delayed at the start of an encounter, allowing you to spend initiative to provide other boons first.

Well of Bounty - Opens with a burst of boons, and drops a combo field for triggering Relic of Karakosa
Blinding Powder
Enter Shadow Shroud
Mind Shock - Cast first so that the blast hits within the duration of the combo field. This step can be skipped or moved if the CC or Stability will be needed shortly, and it won't be off cooldown every loop.
Grasping Shadows
Eternal Night
Dawn's Repose
Haunt Shot until Grasping Shadows is off cooldown
Grasping Shadows
Exit Shadow Shroud - we stay in shroud just long enough to gain five stacks of Consume Shadows
Target an ally
Measured Shot ⇒ Endless Night
Spam all your remaining initiative on Shadow Sap

Use Well of Bounty off cooldown (you can delay slightly if needed for Stability).
Other wells can be used situationally, but it is handy to use one just before entering shroud.
Use Blinding Powder off cooldown. Outside of the opener, follow it up with an ally-targeted Shadowsquall to maintain Regeneration.
Use Siphon off cooldown to provide AoE boons and maintain Shadow Force. If necessary, use the ally-targeted version to change your tether target.
Make sure to use at least five skills (including autoattacks) each time you enter shroud. There's no set rotation, but ideally you should exit before your initiative fills up.
Spend all your initative on scepter skills when outside of shroud. In general, this will be on Shadow Sap as you'll need to use to maintain Protection. Measured Shot ⇒ Endless Night can be used to provide direct healing to allies that need it.
You have CC all over the place, but you can save some if there is an upcoming defiance bar you wish to delete.

Sword/Pistol

Sword/Pistol doesn't have a fixed rotation. As you don't need to be concerned with Barrier management, you can just use Siphon, wells, and Enter Shadow Shroud as they come off cooldown while spending your initative on spamming and Infiltrator's Strike and Infiltrator's Return.

CC

The majority of your CC is from Daze and Stun, making a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Paralyzation especially effective (it affects daze as well).

Siphon is a 1s Daze when targeting enemies.
Well of Silence is a 2s Daze.
Shadowfall pulls three times, for a total of 450 Defiance Break (contrary to the tooltip).
Basilisk Venom can provide 150 Defiance Break per target you hit, for a maximum potential of 750 on a shorter cooldown, though the CC can be wasted by allies hitting the wrong target.
Dawn's Repose inflicts 1s of Fear.
Mind Shock is a 1.5s Stun.
Head Shot is a 2s Daze, and can be spammed as long as you have initiative.

Specter - Alacrity Support Healer

Contents

Overview