origin.1496

Because spear *is* inferior to pistol. Unlike spear, pistol melts it's intended target behind a complicated rotation. From an endgame POV every other profession can achieve a similar or higher benchmark with minimal effort and have way more utility in their kit. This is applied to most ele elite specs and weapons. You miss one button press and it becomes incredibly hard to get back in sync with a rotation. Ele has to jump through hoops to achieve that benchmark, and often times when we do, we get nerfed. We don't need ANOTHER piano play-style to achieve a fraction of what other classes can do for numbers and with a lack of real group utility. Open world? Spear rocks. End game content? Spear is a massive rotating wheel that deals the same damage as a cVirt auto attacking. So no, we do not need nor want another complicated weapon.

Echoing this statement, you definitely feel like glass, but the cannon is not there to compensate. That being said, the general consensus on the forums indicates that most professions and their spears are weak. Perhaps this was intentional instead of being over-tuned? If this was the case, I could understand that. Some other thoughts: 1. Can the Etch circle be an enchantment of sorts and just follow you, and not be a huge blinding mechanic blocker? Let it look like and function similarly to Herald's utility and facet VFX under them. Shrink the etch to this size to still appreciate the work put into it and let it follow us? 2. Mentioned every other post and following up on my above comment, etch is way too short and the cooldowns are too long. 1 CC and you're out. Making it more of a personal buff and enchantment that follows you would make the playstyle feel so fluid. 3. I want to praise ANet on being accurate to what the final etch skills do in nature. You can tell the team put in some thought in the weapon's concept. Etch in earth, air and water are straight-lined storms or events for the most part. Coming from a natural POV, air, water and earth etch skills make sense, but the Derecho and Haboob are both missing the secondary effects these storms leave behind. For example, Derecho is a massive straight-lined lingering wind storm, and not some one-and-done event. A Derecho, like a Haboob, both leave behind long-lived storms in addition to it's initial impact. Maybe Derecho and Haboob should also leave behind a pulsing lightning and dust storm aoe, respectively. Jökulhlaup makes sense, but the width is tiny. Easy to strafe away from it. And finally a volcanic eruption should be exactly that- an eruption. Maybe add an initial explosion when it goes off? 4. The spear is FUN.

Hi. Encountered a few exploits in WvW that require ANet's immediate attention. Reports have also been submitted. Water spear 3- Ripple- can both wall hop towers/keeps, and break out of boss arenas to kill from under the map. Air spear 2- Fulgor- deals more damage to walls/doors than seige weapons do.

Persisting Flames is triggered by Volcano. It gives you the buff, but Volcano doesn't mention being a fire field. Not sure if Volcano is supposed to be a fire field and skill doesn't mention it on the tooltip, but I don't think it's supposed to be a fire field because it doesn't seem to provide combo finishers and it doesn't seem to extend the Volcano duration. How long is Volcano supposed to last anyway?

Additionally, the same issue we ran into ele pistol continues to live on here- Can the spear 3 unique buff NOT be consumed by the spear auto attack?

This. Can we not have meteor shower 2.0?

Catalyst's Elemental Celerity resets the etch, but if you happen to cast the final tier of the etch, use Elemental Celerity before the final tier's animation finishes, and immediately cast the same etch again you CANNOT get to the final tier again. Reaching the final tier of etching requires the animation to finish before it can be reached again (i.e- Volcano cannot reach the final tier again until the physical volcano on the ground ends).

Probably an L take from me, but my immediate thought when I saw the demo was Ripple's dash would push us outside of our etch, which it does. You have to stand at the edge of the circle and evade back into it, which barely puts you back at the edge of the other side of the circle. To me that kind of negates the entire purpose of what you're supposed to do within the etch itself. It makes reaching the final tier incredibly difficult. The large distance covered by it and the speed of it is absolutely amazing, but perhaps instead of a straight line dash with a leap finisher, it could be a ground-targeted leap finisher that the player has more control over? My initial thought on this skill after playing with it. It has a powerful unique buff with 33% reduced cool-down on your next spear skill, but the forced movement takes away from it.

Agreed with the delayed trigger. I did find that chain reactions automatically trigger on arrows you shoot if you have one of the fields already detonated. I did like that, if it's intentional. It also goes off of the initial field too. The raw numbers for support are there, but the cooldowns, lack of survivability and group support boons will kill this. Tried this in a WvW zerg and the amount of barrier this can pump out in one burst is disgustingly high, but relies on way too many variables and is so hard to get that down with the small radius and cooldowns chocking it up. It needs a LOT of work. And the fun factor is just non-existent Group support boons are needed (Stab, Resistance, Prot) Radius increase Playstyle completely reworked. This isn't fun

Do you want to exclusively shoot circles with incredibly small aoes at the floor without the ability to weapon swap? Go for it! To each their own. Set up that chain reaction only for someone to side step minimally and miss the burst of support. What's worse is this has zero utility in....anything. Unless of course your post was a /s.

As far as presentation goes, the engineer's shortbow is up there as a top contender for "worst weapon in the game". Watching the live stream you could even tell the devs felt uncomfortable showing off the weapon. Where is the fun in shooting circles at the floor especially when you CAN'T WEAPON SWAP?? This weapon had long cool-downs and tiny aoes where every part of the game has players constantly moving around (even in open world). MAYBE this would work if engi had a weapon swap mechanic. Perhaps that class mechanic should be revisited at this stage in the game because this weapon just didn't impress anyone and literally no one would take this in any mode. But the biggest concern to me is "where is the fun" in this weapon? As far as mechanics and play style goes, it needs a rework, and perhaps a dual functionality like condi + support. Or at least let it give useful boons. No prot. No vigor. No stability, No resistance.

Still more effort than F2 + the 7 key. Standing there providing more quickness isn't what anything should be.

That requires putting in effort for blast finishers and leap finishers, right? Herald feels semi-locked into the old routine of auto attack and maintain upkeep skills only rotation. It's a very passive and honestly unfun playstyle for what it can provide.

With today's patch, why is Herald able to provide up to 29s of quickness to themselves and others with no concentration, no added boon duration and full zerker gear with no effort, while every other spec requires some sort of rotation or synergy with their skills and mechanics to acquire even a fraction of this? It feels like when revenant was first released and you auto attacked with upkeep skills, and nothing else. Except this feels even more unhealthy to the class and the game than before.

Give us an elite spec that allows us 2 different weapon types please with the ability to weapon swap. As much as I want 1 weapon, whether it be MH, OH or 2H, engineers are already short on core weapons as it is.Give us a MH condi weapon to go with the pistol OH and a ranged 2 handed weapon. Give us staff as a throwing javelin with napalm that explodes for aoe. Idk, idc lol.