Necro land spear wishes for janthir wilds

[Nimon.7840]

For everyone living under a stone: Yesterday was the expansion drop.

And the speculations that spears will be available on land got confirmed to be true.

I think we didn't see any necro skills in the trailer. Since there's 3 Charakters performing spear skills.

One has a very guard like blue animation. The other one is very likely to be elemental ist, throwing it's exploding fire spear. And the last one with a little bit of a weird lynx jump animation is pretty likely to be ranger.

Even though the green colour looked a little bit more necro like, since it was on the darker green side, instead of light green, which ranger normally has. Well then there's untamed with pretty dark green/muddy green colours.

But what are your wishes for necro land spear?

I personally think, that we either need a long range dps or a dedicated support weapon on necro.

With Soto we got swords, which filled two niches: sustain/mobility for pvp. Power dps offhand for pve.

Spear could definitely be a boon support, maybe even healing support weapon, to maybe make harbinger a healer. But I also think, that a support/healing weapon could cause some problems since scourge exists. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get another healing build option for necro. A lot of classes already have viable or semi viable alac and quickness heal builds:

- firebrand/ willbender

- untamed/ druid

- berserker/ blades worn

- scrapper/ mech

- Chrono/ Chrono / mirage

- herald/ renegade

The only three classes that are extremely lacking or just non existent are:

- healquickness deadeye 

- healquickness catalyst 

- healquickness harbinger

Right now, scourge is kinda lacking in the boon department, or boons being tied to utility skills. Better sources for stability, swiftness and fury would be very much appreciated.

While harbinger straight up needs skills to heal with, and maybe some stability/aegis outside of the big cool down elite. And even then I don't know if it would be good, since there aren't any methods you could heal allies, while in harbinger shroud, apart from regeneration and transfusion.

The other thing necro is missing in my opinion is a long range dps weapon. Maybe something that can compete with greatsword in the power department. Cause since HoT necro is basically stuck on gs for power builds.

Or even a long range condi weapon "like mesmer's dagger".

Guess we will soon find out and I kinda hope, that there will be a weapon beta before the expansion.

 

Edited June 5 by Nimon.7840

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Side note, Mesmer Dagger is a power weapon (no conditions at all on its skills besides Mirage ambush). It's a trait that makes it good in condi virtuoso.

[Nimon.7840]

2 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Side note, Mesmer Dagger is a power weapon (no conditions at all on its skills besides Mirage ambush). It's a trait that makes it good in condi virtuoso.

I know. That's why I put it in quotation marks 

[DeanBB.4268]

I'd say they already have the skills figured out, since they are ready to start revealing them. So this is likely wasted effort.

[StraightPath.3972]

Sorry but I'm gonna be that guy and make a wish that will make you suffer...
I want spear to be melee condi weapon. With a proper kit for handling being up close and personal.

So where's the suffering part you ask?
The ramifications of such weapon existing.

Right now imho both scourges and harbs get too much of a pass with their meta levels of dps,
while beaing fully (scourge) or nearly fully (harb) ranged.
That is in no small part due to there not being any melee condi option that would warrant top dps,
but at a cost of greater personal risk - kinda like most of the profession roster.

Alternatively I would like them to be a minion weapon.
I'd like my minion builds to feel awesome without having to go Lich or being a reaper.

[frazazel.7501]

Why not both?

Harb has got a bunch of its utility skills locked down to provide elixir blight, so we only have 1-2 slots for minions. Could be really neat if spear skills summoned its own minions that could get blown up with the Death Nova trait?

Honestly, I recently started playing condi Harbinger, and I'm a little bit sad about having ranged weapons with a melee shroud and elixirs. A melee condi weapon would feel great. It doesn't even need to be huge dps, so long as it cleaves well.

[borisslav.9026]

Someone was talking about order necromancers and connected it to the mention of 'reimagining of a mechanic seen in the original Guild Wars' that was mentioned in the last blog post. So... a proper support weapon, maybe with some ally healing baked into it? We're lacking a proper support weapon and I'd really like to see heal harbingers being a thing so I can live out my alchemist fantasy. 

[Purple Effects.2503]

23 minutes ago, borisslav.9026 said:

Someone was talking about order necromancers and connected it to the mention of 'reimagining of a mechanic seen in the original Guild Wars' that was mentioned in the last blog post. So... a proper support weapon, maybe with some ally healing baked into it? We're lacking a proper support weapon and I'd really like to see heal harbingers being a thing so I can live out my alchemist fantasy. 

They could just give us the Spectre weapon Treatment, they managed to make that both a DPS and Healing option.

my Question would be how much would our kit get nerfed to Trade this off, currently our Weapons arent Anything focused, you'll find alot of Utility / CC in our kits, this is because we are kinda Balanced on the concept our weapons dont fill a Actual Role.. may turn out ALOT Worse long term if it was added

but you never know. 

Edited June 5 by Magmi.6723

[Purple Effects.2503]

3 hours ago, frazazel.7501 said:

Harb has got a bunch of its utility skills locked down to provide elixir blight, so we only have 1-2 slots for minions. Could be really neat if spear skills summoned its own minions that could get blown up with the Death Nova trait?

Because everything Relating to Pets, is Doomed to getting absolutely screeched over until Nerfed into Oblivion, When it comes to Pets, it rarely remains Decent long term because Anet will give into a Majoritys Irritation by it, Players take it Super personally if they're out DPS'd by AI and Eventually they'll always win In records to how vocal they are concerning it. I've come to the conclusion that its a Really wasted demand due to that.

Given the fact the Swords we barely use I'd really like it if we got a New weapon that may prove to be alittle more impactful in terms of changing builds. 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

2 hours ago, borisslav.9026 said:

Someone was talking about order necromancers and connected it to the mention of 'reimagining of a mechanic seen in the original Guild Wars' that was mentioned in the last blog post. So... a proper support weapon, maybe with some ally healing baked into it? We're lacking a proper support weapon and I'd really like to see heal harbingers being a thing so I can live out my alchemist fantasy. 

Orders making a return has been requested fairly consistently over the game's history, and they would make a great fit for a support skillset thematically.  The main issue with them is that the ones from GW1 really do work better as utility skills because you want them in different situations.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Some kind of ranged support weapon is my hope at this point, it'd open up other healer options than just scourge but they'd have to make sure it doesn't make scourge too much more potent I guess.

[Dadnir.5038]

Spear on necromancer... Honestly, I would have been happy with the underwater skills adapted on land. In fact I would have been happy if it was the case for all professions as underwater spears usually have decent skillsets. So I'm already disappointed.

If I were allowed to dream big, I'd wish for a dark themed spear that have skills that interact with necromancer's minions. Something like:

• AA: Any melee attack or ranged attack.
• Skill#2: Order of darkness: Strike foes around you dealing damage and inflicting vulnerability on each foe struck. If you have minions, their next few strikes will also apply vulnerability.
• Skill#3: Depravation: Curse your targeted foe, applying poison and slowing it for a few seconds. If you have minions, their next few strikes will also apply poison.
• Skill#4-1: Dark aura: Envelop yourself in darkness that torment foes that strike you and reduce incoming condition damage.
  • Skill#4-2: Dark fury: Detonate your dark aura, tormenting foes and granting fury to up to 5 allies within the area. Also grant might and fury to all your minions.
• Skill#5: Dark bond: Summon a Shambling horror and gain protection and resolution. For 5s, incoming control effects are transfered to the nearest minion. Whenever a control effect is transfered to a minion, this minion explode applying confusion to foes within the area of effect.

That said, as a Diablo II nostalgic, I wouldn't be adverse to a Bone theme spear:

• AA: Throw bone spear (900 range)
• Skill#2-1: Bone armor (Think something similar to elementalist's earth scepter skill#2-1)
  • Skill#2-2: Teeth (Think something similar to elementalist's earth scepter skill#2-2 with the bone armored shattered as the source of the skill)
• Skill#3-1: Bone totem: Raise a bone totem that pulse some debilitating conditions
  • Skill#3-2: Teeth (Think something similar to elementalist's earth scepter skill#2-2 but with the totem shattered as the source of the skill)
• SKill#4-1: Bone spirit: Summon a bone Spirit for 10s to fight foes alongside you.
  • Skill#4-2: Teeth (Think something similar to elementalist's earth scepter skill#2-2 but with the bone spirit sacrified as the source of the skill)
• Skill#5-1: Bone wall: Create a bone wall preventing foes from crossing it.
  • Skill#5-2: Teeth (Think something similar to elementalist's earth scepter skill#2-2 but with the bone wall as the source of the skill)

We could also imagine some developpement in the "animal plague" thematic. We got the locusts and the snakes somehow but we could get more. Let's go for staff 2.0...

• AA: Slug shot: throw a slug that explode on impact at your target, dealing splash damage and poisoning foes.
• Skill#2: Expanding frog: Summon a frog at the targeted area that quickly inflate until it explode, dealing damage and leaving behind a potent poison field inflicting poison and weakness.
• Skill#3: Thirsty gnats: Summon a cloud of gnats at the targeted area that siphon life and poison foes affected.
• Skill#4: Angry horseflies: Something similar to Dagger#4 Deathly swarm but that apply poison and weakness instead of blind.
• Skill#5: Relentless snakes: Summon snakes at the targeted area to bite at your foes' anckle, immobilizing and poisoning them over time. (effect similar to ranger's entangle, it just apply poison instead of bleed)

Necromancer being well known for it's poor endurance generation we could even expand on this thematic with a spear skillset that would put the necromancer into a state of exhaustion under specific conditions and at the same time give him things like endurance on hit when in a state of exhaustion.

• AA: Skill chain. First skill stab once, 2nd skill stab twice. 3rd skill stab 3 time but is only available while under the effect of exhaustion. All skill grant endurance on hit when in a state of exhaustion.
• Skill#2-1: Stab your spear at the floor binding up to 5 foe to the spear with barbed chains for 5 seconds. Binded foes take damage and are crippled periodically. If you are in a state of exhaustion gain life force each time this skill deal damage.
  • Skill#2-2: Break the chains to instantly gain life force. Gain exhaustion for each chain broken.
• Skill#3-1: Impale the foe in front of you leaving it with a wound that apply torment on her every second. If you suffer from exhaustion, you relish in the suffering of your foe and gain health at the same time torment is applied on the foe by the skill.
  • Skill#3-2: Rip your spear out of the wound removing boons in the process. Gain exhaustion for each boon riped.
• Skill#4-1: Brandish your spear above your head, letting it shine a dark light upon foes within it's area of effect. Affected foes are weakened, slowed and tormented every seconds they spend in the area of effect. If you are in a state of exhaustion your conditions are cleansed on each pulse.
  • Skill#4-2: Slash down your spear at your targeted foe, dealing damage and transfering your conditions. Gain exhaustion for each condition transfered.
• Skill#5: Throw your spear and shadowstep to the first target you hit delivering a rending strike around you. Gain exhaustion for every 300 range. If you were already suffering from exhaustion, gain endurance as well.

Edited June 6 by Dadnir.5038

[Glott.7239]

I think spear on Necro might end up being a support weapon. While there are some pretty effective support builds for Necro, non of the weapons really facilitate the playstyle.

The trailer didn't show anything from Necro but we got some extra info with yesterdays block post including a screenshot with a Character using its spears to cast something with green and black partical effects. You might say that could be ranger as there is also a fernhound visible behind this character but the character in question appears to be wearing light armor while the one in the forgrund chugging a spear looks much more like wearing a medium armor so I believe that one might be ranger.

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/dd870SpearPrimerBlog3-768x432.jpg

We can also see that our supposed Necro aswell as the clearly heavy armored character next to him both have the resistance boon indicated by the 3 connected teal orbs. They are both standing in some kind office AOE field this could very well be a guardian symbol casted by the heavy character since it also seems to be a light field but guard symbols usually have a way less elaborate design than we see here. Also so far they are all blue while the one in the picture is much closer to a "scourge yellow".

The last piece of info is the Dev teaser at the end telling us about: "A set of spear skills featuring a new spin on an existing skill type." Now this is a pretty big clue since "skill types" are not that common for weapon skills, they are more of a utility thing, and if they do exist its usually 1 per weapon not multiples on the same one with one notable exception. Necro Staff Marks. Which would also fit with the AOE on the ground for the Screenshot. So i think Necro Spear will be using Marks with the "new spin" being that they trigger on allies rather than enemys and are persistent on the ground for some time after that. The resistance boon is pretty thematic for Necro and in a way a Spear is just a Staff with extra steps anyway.

[Purple Effects.2503]

4 minutes ago, Glott.7239 said:

 

I think spear on Necro might end up being a support weapon. While there are some pretty effective support builds for Necro, non of the weapons really facilitate the playstyle.

 

Anet already stated this was intentional by design, it’s possible Anet have changed their mind, however. The original decision was simply it shouldn’t happen.

our shrouds are balanced to be our primary function in regards to direct application. You will see our DPs weapons aren’t rly fully DPs orintated either they carry utility / CC.

while possible to happen, this would depend on their philosophy for the class to change, and in that case I’d embrace for strong nerfs to a lot of necros kit if weapons are to be aligned with roles. 

of course that doesn’t mean it won’t have something support orintated on it, just a a support focused weapon would be a large change in what Anet have followed thus far 

Edited June 6 by Magmi.6723

[Purple Effects.2503]

Well tbh by previews it looks like all 3 shown so far are DPS centered weapons 

[Dadnir.5038]

33 minutes ago, Magmi.6723 said:

Well tbh by previews it looks like all 3 shown so far are DPS centered weapons 

And strike damage... I think the worst is that they are repeating mistakes of the past. Stealth on ranger, increased efficiency when at low health for necromancer, elementalist's pistol skill design on guardian and obivously flashy animations for everyone to let players burn their CPU in large scale fights.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

And strike damage... I think the worst is that they are repeating mistakes of the past. Stealth on ranger, increased efficiency when at low health for necromancer, elementalist's pistol skill design on guardian and obivously flashy animations for everyone to let players burn their CPU in large scale fights.

Yeah, they do seem to be forgetting the lessons of the past. We can go back and look at guardian pistol bringing back moving projectiles that you press a button to detonate as well - a mechanic that was systematically removed because it sucked, especially if you had basically any significant latency whatsoever.

I am cautiously optimistic that guardian spear might not be as bad as elementalist pistol because you have one mechanic across four skills rather than four sub-mechanics that each interact with two skills, but it is concerning with just how bad elepistol feels. At least the increased efficiency at low health for necro seems to be increased healing efficiency, so it's more of a means to help get back up quickly rather than wanting you to be at low health in order to do damage.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

8 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Yeah, they do seem to be forgetting the lessons of the past. We can go back and look at guardian pistol bringing back moving projectiles that you press a button to detonate as well - a mechanic that was systematically removed because it sucked, especially if you had basically any significant latency whatsoever.

I am cautiously optimistic that guardian spear might not be as bad as elementalist pistol because you have one mechanic across four skills rather than four sub-mechanics that each interact with two skills, but it is concerning with just how bad elepistol feels. At least the increased efficiency at low health for necro seems to be increased healing efficiency, so it's more of a means to help get back up quickly rather than wanting you to be at low health in order to do damage.

Spear's "low health efficiency" is two parts: increased damage on low-health targets and increased healing when you're low-health

[Nimon.7840]

I'm kinda torn after that preview.

And I want to wait making judgements until we know all skills and till I have played necro spear.

But muly first thoughts:

It's great that we finally seem to get another power weapon. 

Should it have been a melee weapon? I'm not a fan of it (yet), because there's already greatsword. And to an extend dagger.

Pve:

But I won't complain about that if the spear is a weapon, that can finally compete with gs in pve. Imagine playing mainly spear above 50% enemy health and switching to gravedigger spam below. That would make power necro feel refreshing imo.

Pvp/wvw:

I'm mainly talking from a wvw roaming perspective here, so keep that in mind for the following.

For pvp purposes it's great that we get another mobility skill. But it is a skill that requires you to hit the initial spear throw. Which is already a problem. I don't know if the animation of the throw (travel time) got slowed down but is a lot faster in reality, but it seemed to be a rather slow projectile. The problem of slow projectiles: you can often outrun them (with superspeed, blinks,...) so they don't hit you. You can block them via blocks/projectile blocks/ reflects and dodge them.

The second point for doubt if this is a good weapon is, that melee gameplay isn't really supported for necro. What do I mean by that? If you go melee you have to be able to mitigate incoming dmg by any sort of mechanic, and necro doesn't really have that mechanic. Sure we got some protection from spectral armor, the elixir trait in harbinger and to some extend the death magic trait line, though death magic requires you get those carapace stacks up first, so it's not as reliable. The there's two other mechanics on necro that let you mitigate dmg: shroud, but then you can't use the spear at the same time as you are in shroud, and life steal, which requires you to be able to hit the enemy.

And finally the third point of doubt: power necro builds have build issues. What do I mean by that you might ask again.

1. In wvw celestial builds are dominating right now. So you will always need good ways to cleanse conditions. There's several ways to cleanse conditions on necro, but many of them don't remove a bunch of conditions at once. Which is a big issue, if you the rng isn't in your favour and doesn't cleanse the immobilize or the 10 stacks of burning, that get covered by 1 stack of poison or vulnerability.

2. Trait line choices - dmg/boons/condition cleanse and sustain.

As a power build you want your key skills to crit. and deal the most possible dmg. There's the intelligence sigil which guarantees you critical hits after weapon swaps and the other way to guarantee the crits would be crit capping, which is kinda hard to do on necro. You can't reach 100% crit from gear alone, so you need to reach 80% and somehow get fury. And both of these things are hard to do. Go full marauder, use soulreaping and you will get to 80% but you already loose quite some ferocity from full marauder. And then there's the problem of fury. In wvw there's realistically only two sources of fury: the dread trait in spite, and the furious demise trait in curses. And both have problems of their own, and both trait lines don't really provide any good means of sustain.

You could also go another route: playing a more sustain focused build using death magic/ blood magic + x to slowly whittle down the enemy, which can work against other power builds, but you won't really be killing the good celestial builds with that either.

As you can see. I see a lot of problems but I do see a chance for necro as well. We don't know what the other two skills of spear do yet. We only saw an great looking animation, with the symbol on the ground an the spear swirling, and we saw barrier on the necro, which could be caused by other skills/ traits. But there a chance, that for example one of those spear skills has a passive that gives you a small amount of barrier permanent, or also long as that skill isn't on cool down.

[XECOR.2814]

9 minutes ago, Nimon.7840 said:

I'm kinda torn after that preview.

And I want to wait making judgements until we know all skills and till I have played necro spear.

But muly first thoughts:

It's great that we finally seem to get another power weapon. 

Should it have been a melee weapon? I'm not a fan of it (yet), because there's already greatsword. And to an extend dagger.

Pve:

But I won't complain about that if the spear is a weapon, that can finally compete with gs in pve. Imagine playing mainly spear above 50% enemy health and switching to gravedigger spam below. That would make power necro feel refreshing imo.

Pvp/wvw:

I'm mainly talking from a wvw roaming perspective here, so keep that in mind for the following.

For pvp purposes it's great that we get another mobility skill. But it is a skill that requires you to hit the initial spear throw. Which is already a problem. I don't know if the animation of the throw (travel time) got slowed down but is a lot faster in reality, but it seemed to be a rather slow projectile. The problem of slow projectiles: you can often outrun them (with superspeed, blinks,...) so they don't hit you. You can block them via blocks/projectile blocks/ reflects and dodge them.

The second point for doubt if this is a good weapon is, that melee gameplay isn't really supported for necro. What do I mean by that? If you go melee you have to be able to mitigate incoming dmg by any sort of mechanic, and necro doesn't really have that mechanic. Sure we got some protection from spectral armor, the elixir trait in harbinger and to some extend the death magic trait line, though death magic requires you get those carapace stacks up first, so it's not as reliable. The there's two other mechanics on necro that let you mitigate dmg: shroud, but then you can't use the spear at the same time as you are in shroud, and life steal, which requires you to be able to hit the enemy.

And finally the third point of doubt: power necro builds have build issues. What do I mean by that you might ask again.

1. In wvw celestial builds are dominating right now. So you will always need good ways to cleanse conditions. There's several ways to cleanse conditions on necro, but many of them don't remove a bunch of conditions at once. Which is a big issue, if you the rng isn't in your favour and doesn't cleanse the immobilize or the 10 stacks of burning, that get covered by 1 stack of poison or vulnerability.

2. Trait line choices - dmg/boons/condition cleanse and sustain.

As a power build you want your key skills to crit. and deal the most possible dmg. There's the intelligence sigil which guarantees you critical hits after weapon swaps and the other way to guarantee the crits would be crit capping, which is kinda hard to do on necro. You can't reach 100% crit from gear alone, so you need to reach 80% and somehow get fury. And both of these things are hard to do. Go full marauder, use soulreaping and you will get to 80% but you already loose quite some ferocity from full marauder. And then there's the problem of fury. In wvw there's realistically only two sources of fury: the dread trait in spite, and the furious demise trait in curses. And both have problems of their own, and both trait lines don't really provide any good means of sustain.

You could also go another route: playing a more sustain focused build using death magic/ blood magic + x to slowly whittle down the enemy, which can work against other power builds, but you won't really be killing the good celestial builds with that either.

As you can see. I see a lot of problems but I do see a chance for necro as well. We don't know what the other two skills of spear do yet. We only saw an great looking animation, with the symbol on the ground an the spear swirling, and we saw barrier on the necro, which could be caused by other skills/ traits. But there a chance, that for example one of those spear skills has a passive that gives you a small amount of barrier permanent, or also long as that skill isn't on cool down.

all speculation about its balance and usability etc is worthless right now since its all in the air and we dont know anything.
Dont waste your time and brain power.

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Spear's "low health efficiency" is two parts: increased damage on low-health targets and increased healing when you're low-health

One thing never change thought, the ceiling is always the highest tolerated by the playerbase and the devs no matter how many price there is to pay to reach this ceiling. Thus, you can be sure of one thing, the highest efficiency will be at the level of the average necromancer's weapon while the lowest will be below average.

Spear, as it's describe, will thus be used to close the gap then be dismissed for any other weapon with average performance on a dps rotation. Finally it might end up being used in the rotation when in the critical zone of your foes' health pool (I mean, Spear will simply be an alternative to spamming gravedigger. I don't find that especially thrilling). On a sustain rotation (yes nobody care about such rotation) it will likely perform below Sword/Sword level even in optimal conditions.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

I think it's a good prediction that Greatsword will still be the best Power weapon for sustained damage, but spear might see some use in burst or replacing dagger/sword weapon sets for PvE.

In PvP, I think Spear will probably have a better showing than Greatsword.  Every time you leave Shroud, you can always go 4-4-2 for a gapclose and burst, and it looks to overall be a faster weapon than Greatsword.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Spear's "low health efficiency" is two parts: increased damage on low-health targets and increased healing when you're low-health

Increased damage to low-health targets is hardly a failed mechanic that was removed from the game and then revived, though. Between traits and skills, there are plenty of examples currently in the game.

[felincyriac.5981]

1 hour ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

I think it's a good prediction that Greatsword will still be the best Power weapon for sustained damage, but spear might see some use in burst or replacing dagger/sword weapon sets for PvE.

In PvP, I think Spear will probably have a better showing than Greatsword.  Every time you leave Shroud, you can always go 4-4-2 for a gapclose and burst, and it looks to overall be a faster weapon than Greatsword.

spear will need good melee presence to be useful in pvp, so far the main damage seems to be a melee channelled ability, which is good vs a dps golem, not so great vs players...

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Increased damage to low-health targets is hardly a failed mechanic that was removed from the game and then revived, though. Between traits and skills, there are plenty of examples currently in the game.

Indeed, It's a failed mechanic that have lingered in the game since it's inception. It's the unpopular kind of trait/effect that one usually take as a filler.

In fact... after reading again the spear's description, spear seem to be GS 2.0... The failed design of the necromancer's greatsword where everything revolve around gravedigger is clearly forced again on the spear. The skill#2 is improved against low heath foes. There is many way to reset skill#2 CD. Your other skills build "soul shards" that can only be consumed by the skill#2. The skill#2 is a melee skill... In HoT, there was even the trait Soul eater that was dedicated to make the player use GS skill#2 gravedigger!

On the soul shard topic, they are described as "venom" with a damaging and an healing component, so it's not that difficult to deduce that the thing won't deal critical damage. For all intent an purpose they will be vampiric mark stacks that you can only trigger with spear skill#2. I'm even expecting underwhelming numbers like all siphon effects.

I mean, there is nothing really new for the necromancer in this spear, it's just a design that I already wanted gone from the game in 2015 except that it force the player to dedicate himself to an even more rigid rotation and there are lot of eye catching visual effects.

Edited June 7 by Dadnir.5038