Specter - Alacrity Support Healer

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

Focused on: Healing and Support

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on October 26, 2024 and is up to date for the February 11, 2025 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

Accessory
Harrier

Amulet
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Scepter
Harrier

Pistol
Harrier

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Harrier

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

• The
  can be replaced with a
  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

Accessory
Plaguedoctor

Amulet
Plaguedoctor

Ring
Plaguedoctor

Ring
Plaguedoctor

Scepter
Plaguedoctor

Dagger
Plaguedoctor

Sigil

Sigil

Pistol
Plaguedoctor

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

• The
  on Pistol can be replaced with a
  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).
• Shielding Restoration
  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.

1. Well of Bounty
   - Opens with a burst of boons, and drops a combo field for triggering
2. Blinding Powder
3. Enter Shadow Shroud
4. 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.
5. Grasping Shadows
6. Eternal Night
7. Dawn's Repose
8. Haunt Shot
   until Grasping Shadows is off cooldown
9. Grasping Shadows
10. Exit Shadow Shroud
    - we stay in shroud just long enough to gain five stacks of
    Consume Shadows
11. Target an ally
12. Measured Shot
    ⇒
    Endless Night
13. 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

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.