[Suggestion] Add Lance for mounted combat only as a Mastery Track

A quick search of the forums shows that a lot of us have wanted to see spears/lances as land weapons, and some of us have even discussed having those weapons somehow incorporated into mounted combat. Some of the coolest concept art have both land spears and mounted spear warriors, and every time I see them I get a pang of longing.

However, I only see spears and lances making sense for just a few classes in terms of ground combat. As such, I'd much prefer that all classes get access to lances as part of your mount toolkit.

I'd like to see a Lance mastery track added to PoF one day, and upgrading it would add a total of 2-4 new mounted combat abilities, which could be a mix of weapon abilities or utilities. I would hope doing this would be easier than having to design the weapon individually (and an associated traitline) for each class. The lance wouldn't be an upgradable weapon that you equip from the hero panel; instead, it would be like gliders - you either have them or you don't, but once you have them, you can reskin them via the Hero Panel. So yeah, some built-in gem store potential there.

I'm sure this approach would bring a whole host of challenges of its own. The first thing I can think of is whether or not there will be a stow option for this mounted weapon, or if it's always going to be out if you've unlocked the mastery. Also, I'm not sure Anet ever wanted us to have true mounted combat, in the sense of being able to fight at respectable strength for long stretches without being dismounted. There might also be wide range of difficult art decisions, in terms of how the lance moves will be animated on each mount (since the visual dimensions of each mount are different). All that being said, I think it would be awesome if this could happen.

Any thoughts?

Not in open world, but a new pvp format, Mounted jousting for raptors 1v1. Aerial Dog fights for gliders and griffons 5v5. Where some of the ideas floating around.

No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

The Devs clarified in a video at Mount (PoF) release that mounted combat would not be an option. Thus, I don't think lances will be available, for that purpose, anyway.

Good luck.

Mounted combat doesn't seem interesting to me. When I'm on a mount, I don't normally want to fight. I'm trying to get around without fighting.

@Blude.6812 said:No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

Been away from the game/forums for a bit, but why so mad bro? Just do a search (now that the search tool actually works). A lot of threads/posts talking about land spears. Comes up a good amount.

Thank you, Inculp - I almost never watch streams or other video content from the devs, so I didn't know what that was out there.

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@Blude.6812 said:No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

Comes up a lot yes! But there are 'many' that disagree with your request Why can't you just say 'I' want this instead of hiding behind unsubstantiated hyperbole.

Well what is "many" to you? And who's hiding? It's pretty obvious that I want it, and aside from the intro I never reference outside agreement ever again. Don't project your verbal insecurities onto me.

@Blude.6812 said:No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

If you read the forums/reddit regularly at all, you'd see that there's actually a quite large demand for land spears/lances.

These suggestions come up very often in elite specialization idea threads, and pretty much in every 'new weapon type plz' thread that pops up at least once a month.

So I'd say that judging by the forum/reddit userbase land spears/lances are the most requested new weapon type along with greataxes. Of course this doesn't mirror the entire GW2 playerbase, since only a fraction of them post here or read the forums, but 'a lot of us' isn't entirely misleading in this case.

I have no personal opinion on the matter; I don't care for new weapon types but I wouldn't mind either. Just defending the OP.

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@Blude.6812 said:No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

For completely different reasons than you make seem.

People want additional weapon options and are asking if underwater weapons could be made land usable. Seldom does this have anything to do with mounted combat.

@Hevoskuuri.3891 said:

@Blude.6812 said:No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

i'm fairly certain he talking about mounted combat, not land spears

The new shatterer has a cool mounted griffin spear attack. I'd like to see more of that with the action button on raptors as well

We need raptor jousting as a minigame

@"Cyninja.2954" said:

For completely different reasons than you make seem.

People want additional weapon options and are asking if underwater weapons could be made land usable. Seldom does this have anything to do with mounted combat.

Nah, you just didn't read my initial post properly. I literally said "a lot of us have wanted to see spears/lances as land weapons, and some of us have even discussed having those weapons somehow incorporated into mounted combat." So "a lot of us" applies to exactly the thing you are talking about - spears as land weapons. I never insinuated that the same mass of people wanted mounted spear combat - I specifically downgrade to "some of us" when talking about mounted combat. I know reading comprehension has taken a hit these days, but this is just sad.

I was sure I read at least one other post somewhere about land spears being attached to mounted combat, but since I can't find the thread I'll have to admit I have no basis for saying that "some of us" have talked about mounted spear combat.

@Klipso.8653 said:We need raptor jousting as a minigame

Sold! I'd like to see that too.

I could see lances as a new "engage" option, trade AoE for more single target damage when using a dismount attack.

@Edelweiss.4261 said:Mounted combat doesn't seem interesting to me. When I'm on a mount, I don't normally want to fight. I'm trying to get around without fighting.

This. Also, MMOs with mounted combat have horrible clipping issues... Like my character's arms clipping though the mount's brain during fights, lol. No thanks.

The problem with any sort of mount combat (besides the engage skill, which is a one-off) is if it's weaker than your normal combat skills, why bother using it, if it's stronger, why bother using normal combat skills (and ANet would never trivialize normal combat)?

If it's a special game mode just for that, sure, let's do it. New daily activities for example? Or instanced adventures like they have in HoT.

@Blude.6812 said:No thanks, and just how many is 'a lot of us' ? It is just your spin on promoting you own personal agenda with 0 (zero) facts

You aren't being constructive with your criticism.You are being negative for no reason.

Would just like to see land spears and great axes.The mounted combat sounds nice, but not likely to see Anet do this full on. I'd probably expect to see it on a story or two, like how they make you do additional actions during some of the newer episode fights.

It could also be encounter-specific event-phase specific actions to add flavour to metas and bosses. Of cos, open-world function(limited) would be great

For eg, mounted-harpoons could fire harpoons to apply dragging-cc. This is a variation of the hydra-leashing in crys oasis. Harpoon fire could be LoS, targeted like Oakheart essence. Cc effect would be tied to distance moved (after tethering), and movement speed. Possible functions include skimmers trying to drag an adversary to within range of ground cannons, griffins dragging a dragon to within range of ground, bunnies causing launch effect on ground boss.

Mounted Spears, imbued with essence of Aurene, to have extended reach (ie a lance), with damage being tied to movement speed. Most optimised with griffon power dive (launch from airship) or speeded beetle (for specific encounters, asura engineers will lay out asura tech race treks to help skillful beetlers reach full acceleration), med scale with bunny cannonballspike from a higher altitude, lower scale with raptor/jackal and skimmer. Damage for raptor spear would be at the moment of fastest horizontal speed. Bonus scale-piercing using our Aurene-blessed dragon lances. Could make for a really majestic scene I think, with a team of diving griffons on a dragon

Mounted tridents might be a bit boring, perhaps just long range magical support on an animal that can carry heavier cannon (I dun really care about this one)

The bloodstone blasting gliding skills could also be made use of in certain encounters, on airborne enemies, such a wasted mechanic

P. S. Only tried the new shatterer once as a ground troop, heard that there's some Griffin special there, haven't had the chance to try

P. P. S like lances, you aren't supposed to crash ur Mount into the target. If u smash into a dragon at high speed, u die.

@JDub.1530 said:The problem with any sort of mount combat (besides the engage skill, which is a one-off) is if it's weaker than your normal combat skills, why bother using it, if it's stronger, why bother using normal combat skills (and ANet would never trivialize normal combat)?

If it's a special game mode just for that, sure, let's do it. New daily activities for example? Or instanced adventures like they have in HoT.

Mounts have health. When reduced to zero, the player is knocked on their ar... prone. So, while a mounted attack might be more powerful, they're likely to receive attacks - either from ranged, aoe or a dodge + attack, with the mounted player quickly finding themselves dismounted, on the floor, vulnerable.

Can be tweaked by having increased damage received and/or applying one or more conditions (vulnerability/cripple etc) when dismounted while using said lance.

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:The Devs clarified in a video at Mount (PoF) release that mounted combat would not be an option. Thus, I don't think lances will be available, for that purpose, anyway.

Good luck.

I think its ah..interesting that despite a developer from anet literally saying "No this wont be happening." which is something anet doesnt do often is just being ignored. Meanwhile most of us who want land spears are wanting the use of spears like the Paragon from GW1 :/