ArenaNet launched a sizable update for Guild Wars 2. It contains heaps of balancing changes, with some focused on improving certain specializations, such as Deadeye and Specter.
Deadeye can steal skills from NPCs and enemy players with Deadeye's Mark. In this update, stolen skills now grant their beneficial effects in a radius around the caster. This means that Deadeye can now support allies with useful buffs. On top of that, the casting time for stolen skills has been reduced by around 25%!
The Specter also has a similar change. Now, ally-targeted scepter skills, such as Shadow Sap, Triple Threat, and Endless Night, grant a lesser effect to additional allies in a radius around the main target
Additionally, developers introduced a quickness build for Deadeye by changing how Fire for Effect works. Equipping this trait now guarantees that the stolen skill will be Steal Time regardless of the target's profession. The quickness buff by Steal Time now affects a small area as well. For those who don't know, quickness is a boon in Guild Wars 2 that increases attack and action speeds by a whopping 50%!
Here are the other changes for the Thief profession and its elite specializations:
Core
- Improvisation: This trait now reduces the cooldowns of all utility skills by a certain percentage when you steal, instead of recharging a random skill.
- Endless Stamina: This trait has been reworked and renamed Fluid Strikes. It now grants the thief a damage bonus for a period of time after using a movement skill or completing a shadowstep.
- Pain Response: This trait has been reworked. It now removes a damaging condition from the thief when completing a dodge roll.
- Guarded Initiation: This trait has been reworked. It now grants the thief resistance when using a movement skill, with a 5-second internal cooldown.
Daredevil
- Bandit's Defense: Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 16 seconds in PvE and from 30 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP and WvW.
- Fist Flurry: Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.
- Detonate Plasma: This skill now deals damage to nearby enemies and no longer grants quickness.
- Throw Cursed Artifact: Reduced power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.4. Reduced bleeding, torment, and confusion stacks from 5 to 3.
Deadeye
- Steal Time: Increased quickness duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
- Steal Resistance: Increased resistance duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
- Malicious Intent: Increased malice gain from 1 to 2 in PvE only.
- Shadow Swap: This skill now causes an additional strike to occur at your original location when used.
Specter
- Second Opinion: This trait now grants condition damage instead of healing power when equipped and while wielding a scepter.
- Shadestep: This trait has been reworked. It now spreads the beneficial effects of your shadow shroud skills to allies around your tethered target, and it additionally grants boons to yourself and those allies when you use a shadow shroud skill.
- All scepter projectiles have had their velocity increased by 66%. Ally-targeted skills will now affect a radius of 240 around their target; secondary targets receive reduced benefits. Updated ally-targeted skill facts to show their unblockable nature.
So, what can you say about the Deadeye and Specter buffs in the latest update for Guild Wars 2?
