The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Conditiondamage
Designed for: Raids and Fractals
Expansions required:
Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on October 12, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.
Contents
Overview
A condition DPS build for Specter. Gaining a defensive shroud similar to Necromancer as well as a powerful ranged weapon in Scepter, Specter can feel much safer to play than other Thief specialisations. It deals great damage, which can be enhanced even further if it is able to pre-cast its venoms (particularly relevant in fractals). At the same time, it provides some incidental group boons whenever it Siphons and it always has access to powerful single-target barrier, enabling it to act as a support in emergencies.
As a torment-focused class, it prefers stationary targets, but the simple rotation and ability to deal almost all its damage from range means that it is able to maintain damage very easily even on mobile encounters.
As a Thief, it has excellent out-of-combat utility for speeding up fractals and raids.
Skill Bar
Scepter/Dagger
Utility
Weapon Variants
You can bring an offhand Pistol in addition to the dagger to have more CC available on swap. As entering and exiting Shadow Shroud counts as a weapon swap, you will still gain the benefits of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Doom and
Quick Pockets.
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Specializations
- If
Bountiful Theft will be of no benefit, you can take
Pressure Striking for a little bit more damage.
- For a ~4% DPS loss, you can take
Consume Shadows to offer some extra healing/barrier to your subgroup.
Equipment
Head
Viper
Shoulders
Viper
Chest
Viper
Hands
Viper
Legs
Viper
Feet
Viper
Backpiece
Viper
Accessory
Viper
Accessory
Viper
Amulet
Viper
Ring
Viper
Ring
Viper
Scepter
Viper
Sigil
Dagger
Viper
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic
Relic of the Fractal should be higher single-target damage, but you will have to hit
Thousand Needles off cooldown, as it is your only source of
Bleeding.
- Alternatively, you could take
Deadly Ambush.
- Alternatively, you could take
Non-SotO Gear
Relic of the Aristocracy is the best relic for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure, which necessitates switching some gear to
Sinister stats:
Head
Viper
Shoulders
Sinister
Chest
Viper
Hands
Viper
Legs
Viper
Feet
Viper
Backpiece
Viper
Accessory
Sinister
Accessory
Sinister
Amulet
Viper
Ring
Viper
Ring
Viper
Scepter
Viper
Sigil
Dagger
Viper
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic
Consumables
Food
Utility
- or similar for a cheaper alternative, it should also be stronger if using
Usage
Rotation
If you're using a pistol offhand, ignore any weapon swaps below. It is also optimal to skip the Post-Shroud section in this case.
Opener
- If possible, precast
Prepare Thousand Needles such that you can immediately trigger it and place it a second time.
Twilight Combo
Spider Venom,
Skale Venom and
Thousand Needles. These are all instant cast, so can be used during the cast time of step 2. Make sure you're within range of allies for the venoms!
Prepare Thousand Needles if it's available.
Siphon
Twilight Combo x2
Weapon Swap
Twilight Combo
Enter Shadow Shroud
Opening Shroud Loop
The first two uses of Shadow Shroud are slightly longer than during the rest of your rotation. This makes cooldowns line up better, as well as optimising Sigil of Superior Sigil of Doom triggers.
Grasping Shadows
Mind Shock (if using
Relic of Akeem)
Eternal Night
Haunt Shot until
Grasping Shadows is off cooldown
Grasping Shadows
Haunt Shot until
Grasping Shadows is off cooldown
Grasping Shadows
Exit Shadow Shroud
Post-Shroud
Twilight Combo x3
Weapon Swap
Twilight Combo
Siphon
Twilight Combo
Shadow Bolt →
Double Bolt →
Triple Bolt - if you're fast, then you have time to fit
Shadow Bolt between steps 1 and 2, and complete the chain here.
- repeat Opening Shroud Loop
Rest of the Rotation
The rest of the rotation has no strict skill order:
- You should enter Shadow Shroud as soon as it becomes available, and use one of the shroud loops below.
- If using
Relic of Akeem, use
Mind Shock off cooldown while in Shadow Shroud.
- Use
Siphon,
Spider Venom,
Skale Venom,
Prepare Thousand Needles and
Thieves Guild off cooldown.
- Triggering
Thousand Needles can be delayed if necessary, as the cooldown is only gated by preparing it.
- As
Thieves Guild lasts for 24 seconds, it may be worth saving until the next phase of a boss if the current phase is about to end.
- Triggering
- Spam
Twilight Combo to use up all your initiative.
- Try to finish autoattack chains if possible. Unusually, you have a lot of grace time between the chain skills to use other skills without cancelling the chain.
- If you have no other skills to cast, you can use
Hide in Shadows to gain access to
Shadowsquall. The cast time is very long though, so be sure you won't have to delay other skills in order to finish it.
Weapon Swap,
Enter Shadow Shroud and
Exit Shadow Shroud will all trigger
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Doom and
Quick Pockets. These have a 9- and an 8-second internal cooldown respectively, so if you are able to track these cooldowns you can squeeze extra damage out of the rotation.
- Otherwise just
Weapon Swap off cooldown and hope for the best, being sure that you have less than 9 initiative to prevent wasting the effect of
Quick Pockets in case it triggers.
- Otherwise just
Normal Shroud Loop
Most of the time when you enter shroud, you want to do the following loop:
Grasping Shadows
Eternal Night
Haunt Shot until
Grasping Shadows is off cooldown
Grasping Shadows
Exit Shadow Shroud
Use Siphon if it comes off cooldown between steps 1 and 4.
Short Shroud Loop
Sometimes you will end up going into shroud just before your utility skills come off cooldown. In this case, do a much shorter loop:
Grasping Shadows
Eternal Night
Exit Shadow Shroud
Video example (with fractal relic)
Utility
CC
Basilisk Venom
Shadowfall can provide more reliable CC on encounters with extra targets (equivalent to 3 basilisk venom hits), or you want to pull targets together
Mind Shock
Headshot, if bringing offhand pistol
Support
All your Scepter skills and Siphon can be used with an allied target to provide them barrier and
Dark Sentry. This is a DPS loss, but can be used to save people if a healer isn't going to (particularly helpful on the tank).
General Tips
- Almost all your damage can be done at range, but
Eternal Night and
Mind Shock are both melee range. If you are not in range to use them, either delay or skip them during the shroud loop.
- While in Shadow Shroud, incoming damage is absorbed by your Shadow Force rather than your health. If you believe an incoming attack will kick you out before finishing the full Shroud loop, it may be worth doing a shorter one instead.
- If you have more than 2 stacks of
Consume Shadows when you exit, the group healing you provide will exceed the personal damage mitigation you would have had. You're helping!
- Alternatively, if there are no allies within range, you can use Shadow Shroud defensively to absorb incoming damage, as you lose your Shadow Force on Shroud exit regardless.
- If you have more than 2 stacks of
- Avoid staying for too long in Shadow Shroud as the DPS from
Haunt Shot is worse than that of Scepter, and you need to spend initiative to maintain stacks of
Lead Attacks.
- If there is nothing to attack, you can target allies with Scepter skills to buff them with barrier, and apply stacks of venom via
Dark Sentry just before a new phase starts.