Specter - Alacrity Support Condi DPS

Food

• 芦笋肉串

Utility

• 大师调谐水晶 or alternatives

Weapon Variants

• You can bring a Spear or 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 超级厄运法印.
• Spear is the highest theoretical damage, but is melee-focussed, more complicated, and lacks the supportive aspects. It does have the most spammable CC skill though, which can make it good in the second weapon set.
• Dagger/Dagger could be used, but it has forced movement and is melee-focussed rather than the fully ranged playstyle that Scepter allows. It additionally removes the option to use Scepter skills for their supportive effects during downtime/emergencies.
• This build prioritises 流血 over 折磨, so it is better to run a 超级痛苦法印 instead of a 超级恶魔法印, 盘装泡菜煎饼 instead of 芦笋肉串, and you should replace 鳞爪毒液 with one of the other skill options below.

Skill Variants

鳞爪毒液 deals the least damage of the default utility skills, and has slightly less potential than 准备千针万箭. The boonstrip present at the start of many encounters removes venom stacks, but they can be precast during split phases as long as your allies don't waste them attacking an invulnerable boss. The instant cast time of 鳞爪毒液 and fact that it has the same cooldown as 蜘蛛毒液 makes it much less disruptive to your rotation than other options. This is especially valuable for a boon build that relies on regularly entering Shadow Shroud.

Ultimately it comes down to personal preference and could be replaced with:

• 准备千针万箭 - The cooldown starts as soon as the trap is placed, allowing it to be precast before the fight or new phase, though the arming time makes it vulnerable to your target moving away from it.
• 噬蝎毒液 - on very mobile bosses, the 折磨 from 鳞爪毒液 will be less effective, and 准备千针万箭 will be unreliable, making this the best option.
• 恩惠法池 should always be considered as an alternative to provide extra 威能 or 稳固.
• 撒播蒺藜 (Dagger build only) - Has high theoretical DPS, but requires the target to remain inside the AoE for 10 seconds, and ramps slowly. It also becomes less efficient in phased encounters, unlike some other options.

• 超荷打击 is a little more DPS in cases where boonrip or 活力 aren't useful.
• For a ~4% DPS loss, you can take 吞噬暗影 to offer some extra healing/barrier to your subgroup.
• 薄暮穿越 or 虹吸增强 provide additional support for a minor DPS loss, particularly on weapons other than Scepter/Dagger build where 折磨 is less prevalent. 薄暮穿越 synergises particularly well with Scepter/Pistol thanks to .

• This setup provides ~34% boon duration.
  • You can theoretically run without any boon duration, though it's recommended to bring at least 8%. Above 30% is convenient as Ritualist stats gear is only a minor DPS loss compared to Viper stats, and it allows the boons applied when you 虹吸 to have permanent uptime.
• For maximum DPS, you can run two sets of the same weapon, with 超级大地法印 on one set, and 超级折磨法印 on the other (separating the existing sigils). Weapon swapping immediately after exiting Shadow Shroud will allow you to benefit from both on-swap sigils fully, as well as the on-crit sigils.
• As the build already provides some inherent healing, you can bring Celestial stats or Plaguedoctor stats to perform a hybrid heal role.
  • Celestial stats offer more DPS and healing power, but if the extra toughness could interfere with tanking, swap in Plaguedoctor stats instead. Full Plaguedoctor stats gear is a ~12% DPS loss compared to Celestial stats.
  • It is strongly recommended to use the mint versions of ascended food for the +10% healing modifier as it will affect the healing from 吞噬暗影.
• You could push for more damage by bringing a second offhand dagger with a 超级地能法印. If you weapon swap after each Shroud section, you can double-dip on the on-swap sigils.

Boon Duration

Due to the flexibility of Shadow Shroud, you can run a wide range of boon duration. Ritualist stats gear is a small DPS loss compared to Viper stats, minimising the downsides of bringing extra boon duration. You can maintain permanent alacrity without compromising DPS with as little as 6% boon duration, but it is strongly recommended to bring more.

It is quite nice to bring enough boon duration to allow your to provide permanent , and as the latter two are not the most common boons but are very nice to have. The minimum required boon duration for this is ~27%, and ~34% makes this pretty reliable.

Non-SotO Relics

In general is the best relic for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure, and can even be better than on encounters that allow you maintain high stacks. Unfortunately, it does require regularly taking damage from the boss (ticking aura hits count) and this is not guaranteed in all cases.

As an alternative, will work everywhere, but you'll need to vary the timing of in order to maintain the effect.

Your boon provision is slightly unconventional as those that come from 暗影脚步 target yourself, the three closest players to you (prioritising subgroup), and your tethered target. This means that you can provide boons to one player at long range, but if they are not in your subgroup then your group's boons will suffer as a result. If you wish to utilise this behaviour, it is best for the ranged player to be in the same subgroup as you.

Before the fight starts, you can select an allied player and 虹吸 them to create the tether. If you don't do this, it will randomly select a player when you use 虹吸.

As long as you don't siphon another player, this will remain your target throughout the fight. You may also lose target if the ally moves too far away (or dies).

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

1. If possible, precast 准备千针万箭 (if using) such that you can immediately trigger it and place it a second time.
2. 悲伤法池
3. 暮光连技
4. 蜘蛛毒液, 鳞爪毒液 and 千针万箭. 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!
5. 准备千针万箭 if it's available.
6. 进入暗影帷幕 to start applying 敏捷 nice and early

Normal Shroud Loop

Most of the time when you enter shroud, you want to do the following loop:

1. 暗影抓攫
2. 永恒夜幕
3. 鬼影射击 until 暗影抓攫 is off cooldown
4. 暗影抓攫
5. 离开暗影帷幕

Use 虹吸 if it comes off cooldown between steps 1 and 4.

If you want to pad your 敏捷 uptime, you can stay in to get an extra 暗影抓攫. Ideally you don't do this if it would delay your damage cooldowns outside of shroud though.

Rest of the Rotation

The rest of the rotation has no strict skill order:

• You should as soon as it becomes available, and use the shroud loop.
• Use , , , and off cooldown.
  • Triggering (if using) can be delayed if necessary, as the cooldown is only gated by preparing it.
  • As lasts for 24 seconds, it may be worth saving until the next phase of a boss if the current phase is about to end.
• Spam 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.
• Weapon Swap, and will all trigger (and optionally . These have a 9-second internal cooldown, so you can squeeze extra damage out of the rotation by Weapon Swapping immediately after you .

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:

• Make sure you have enough before exiting - maintaining boons is more important than your damage.

Scepter/Pistol Rotation

Scepter/Pistol follows the same logic as the Scepter/Dagger rotation above, but you replace with ⇒ . The chain has a much longer cast time than so you will only be able to use it once or twice between each Shroud section.

This build is a relatively minor DPS loss, and allows you access to as well as the more supportive dual skills, making it ideal as a hybrid DPS-healer. is particularly recommended in this case.

Dagger/Dagger Rotation

Utility

CC

• can provide more reliable CC on encounters with extra targets (equivalent to 3 basilisk venom hits), or you want to pull targets together
• , if bringing offhand pistol

Support

All your Scepter skills and can be used with an allied target to provide them barrier and . This is a DPS loss, but can be used to save people if a healer isn't going to (particularly helpful on the tank).

All of your Shadow Shroud skills have supportive effects too, which are added to with :

• provides a heal and , with adding an additional heal
• cleanses conditions, with providing
• applies AoE barrier, with providing
• also heals, with enhancing the heal further
• provides , with adding

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.
• 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 .
• If there is nothing to attack, you can target allies with Scepter skills to buff them with barrier, and apply stacks of venom via just before a new phase starts.
• You can mitigate certain mechanics through the from or .
• If using :
  • If you have more than 2 stacks of 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.