Revenant Spear Needs Fixing

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

1 minute ago, SWLDguitar.5746 said:

NAHHHHHHHHHHH lets have the spear poop out MINES!

 

Whoever worked on the Ele spear needs to be brought on board.  They could make 4 different elements make sense.  The revdevs couldn't grasp the mists for 2 weapons now.  This is the equivalent of Yoda saying the force comes from the Matrix - it goes against everything established and showing signs of Disney tampering. 

Honestly, a lot of the changes to revenants since the end of EoD have felt like they got beat by revs in PvP so it was time to nerf them, not for any real reason, but because they got beat in PvP.

QDPS Herald was actually decent and matching other A/QDPS builds, nah can't have that, nerf greatsword and pretend to give a slight buff to vindicator trait line so it looks like it wasn't really a nerf.

Vindicator is decent support in PvP/WvW? Nerf their grandmaster line then and remove their ability to give endurance to others but don't compensate the line and give it full support power, just leave it a half-assed broken mess that brings no utility now.

Renegade healing support sucks for Alac? Doesn't matter, change it all now and make it impossible for them to be decent heal support.

That's all it feels like now.

[astralrisotto.3206]

On 6/22/2024 at 7:19 AM, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

Considering it only has one damaging condi, honestly, might as well just remove the torment and make it a pure power weapon.

HOWEVER. My actual biggest concern with this weapon (other than numbers cause those can be adjusted and tuned):

The bread-and-butter skill being on skill 5 AND ground targetted will also make this incredibly unergonomic to use. Assuming the default controls, which a lot of people use, you most likely have to let go of the D key to reach over to 5, which heavily impairs your movement. Now, normally this isn't much of an issue on other weapons / classes since a quick dip is usually not an issue, but considering the mechanics of this skill, it means your finger is gonna be on that key a lot, severely limiting your ability to strafe correctly. One of the reasons most spammable skills are usually on the 2 and 3 keys is that they're easier to reach with the same finger you use for forward movement, which can be covered by either autorunning or holding both mouse buttons.

I feel like the order of skills should be changed, similar to how Guardian's Greatsword was shuffled very early on in the game:

Skill 2 should be Abyssal Raze. Full stop. If this is our bread-and-butter and we're gonna be recharging it constantly it should be front and center. I know revenant skills are ordered by Cooldown / Energy cost, but that just goes into how much energy this skill is costing already (10 energy is insane for a spammable skill).

Skills 3 / 4 Should be Abyssal Force and Abyssal Blitz, can go in either position depending on the flow of the kit.

Skill 5 should be Abyssal Blot. If you're sticking with Torment, this skill should apply Inmobilize in some way.

We need to provide more vision on this. It's a UX error that can be easily rectified before going live. I'm confident they will refine animations, numbers, and so on, but having the highest impact ability with a tend to press it more than once in the last slot (#5) seems odd. You're absolutely right about placing it in #2. I'd like to provide proper feedback once the beta starts, but having the pulling ability in #5 seems okay-ish.

[Vekaiel.8493]

25 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Honestly, a lot of the changes to revenants since the end of EoD have felt like they got beat by revs in PvP so it was time to nerf them, not for any real reason, but because they got beat in PvP.

QDPS Herald was actually decent and matching other A/QDPS builds, nah can't have that, nerf greatsword and pretend to give a slight buff to vindicator trait line so it looks like it wasn't really a nerf.

Vindicator is decent support in PvP/WvW? Nerf their grandmaster line then and remove their ability to give endurance to others but don't compensate the line and give it full support power, just leave it a half-assed broken mess that brings no utility now.

Renegade healing support sucks for Alac? Doesn't matter, change it all now and make it impossible for them to be decent heal support.

That's all it feels like now.

I completly agree with that, that is why I left SPvP a long time ago and now WvW. It seems like they always buff or give more to the professions they play and nerfing the competition. Prioritizing one style of gameplay over others. Like I said, I have no faith in the balance team. I am sure they don't even look at some parts of the forum because it is not on their priority list.

Then on PvE side, last expansion story was so mediocre it feels like they don't even put an effort into it. It has been on a decline for a while. There is few good parts but they could do so much more.

[arazoth.7290]

Rev spear has too long cast times on skill 1,2,4,5,  these need each 0,5 sec cast time. Since spear abilties will be used little more then other weapons skills, it has to be smooth fast enough and not slow.

Because of this the spear skills need lower energy cost.

 

Some larger radius on all abilties, should atleast be 240 and not 180.

600 range still looks too short if even these below get put in, so 900 range atleast.

• Auto attack: It could use more conditions like vulnerability on autos together with the torments each auto. For more condi hybrid weapon cover.

•Skill 2: Some weakness conditions on skill 2 added for more condi cover and defense.

 

•Skill 3: Longer/further evade on skill 3 with few more orbs.

Add even a 2nd ability that allows you to place the orbs at a different location which also triggers it because you moved them 

•Skill 4: Let it pulse chill conditions and not only in the end. 

If cast times are made faster, the end pulse pull will be more reliable too.

•Skill 5: Torment, poison and vulnerability conditions on skill 5. If 3 stacks max are reached, they gett applied like 3 torment, 3 poison and 3 vulnerability.

You gain stacks of abyss if a target is struck, max 1 stack and it stacks up to 3 max.

[Malus.2184]

4 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

The idea that spear is being balanced around herald is just silly at this point.

The part you quote from me explicitly states that THEN you're playing Herald. It does touch another pet peeve of mine though and that is that the game would be a whole lot better if  Quickness and Alacrity were removed, would make balancing a lot easier for once.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

4 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

The part you quote from me explicitly states that THEN you're playing Herald. It does touch another pet peeve of mine though and that is that the game would be a whole lot better if  Quickness and Alacrity were removed, would make balancing a lot easier for once.

Which still wouldn't make sense since every other class has a quickness build and a perma quickness build at that. So why aren't their spears just as slow? I mean hell, not to be pendantic about it since Engineer is one of my main three I play, but that use to be the quickness spec for the longest time and going to be blunt, Engineer spear seems to be the winner this time around.

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

3 hours ago, astralrisotto.3206 said:

We need to provide more vision on this. It's a UX error that can be easily rectified before going live. I'm confident they will refine animations, numbers, and so on, but having the highest impact ability with a tend to press it more than once in the last slot (#5) seems odd. You're absolutely right about placing it in #2. I'd like to provide proper feedback once the beta starts, but having the pulling ability in #5 seems okay-ish.

Thanks for this! I actually work on game design myself so I probably care about this kind of stuff more so than other players. Talking about numbers feels kinda moot cause those are easy to tweak, and very rarely are they relevant until we get our hands on it. I think talking about how it's gonna feel to play is more important.

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Which still wouldn't make sense since every other class has a quickness build and a perma quickness build at that. So why aren't their spears just as slow? I mean hell, not to be pendantic about it since Engineer is one of my main three I play, but that use to be the quickness spec for the longest time and going to be blunt, Engineer spear seems to be the winner this time around.

Thief spear stole the show for me. It's 100% a PvE weapon because I don't think you're gonna be hitting many combos considering they reset if you miss one of the skills, but I will commend them for making a weapon interesting to use in PvE on thief.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

6 hours ago, SWLDguitar.5746 said:

I'm still stuck on the mines.  They are NAVAL MINES, too, which belong in water.  What do MINES have to do with Revenants?  What do MINES have to do with the Mists? What do MINES have to do with a Spear?  Are the MINES going to do siege damage? - If not why are they MINES!?!?!?!?

My favorite thing about that skill is that the tool tip comes with an Explosion tag. Meaning the skill is an Explosion category and hooks in to all the traits that alter Explosions…. Aka not a single kittening trait on rev…. This is literally the first category tag we get, and it’s 1000% useless and just for flavor.
 

The only reason I could see for this inclusion past pure flavor is that there will be a relic that triggers off explosions. But if that’s the case they need to go add category tags too all our utilities at the very least. Looking at you Kalla “wells” that aren’t wells.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

13 minutes ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Looking at you Kalla “wells” that aren’t wells.

Yea imagine my shock when I tried a relic that said it works with wells only to discover Kalla didn't count as wells. They really do not like Revs lately, I swear.

[vrauns.3215]

On 6/21/2024 at 4:49 PM, SWLDguitar.5746 said:

I think the thing that hurts Spear the most is Skill 5 being ground targeted.  This weapon will cause carpal tunnel with the skill constantly being refreshed.  Pretty much ruins Spear for WvW/sPvP, since it's already hard enough to hit your big damage with evades, blinds and blocks/aegis, now you need to contend with leaps, blinks, shadowsteps and your own ability to place the skill properly.  ALSO condi cleanse. 

 

Highly disappointed.  3 weapons now that need help (Hammer, Scepter and now Spear). Lets GO Anet, clean this _ _ _ _ up!

Ele already causes carpel tunnel.

[vrauns.3215]

Everyone can voice their opinion after seeing the video, but try it out in a few days and give feedback, it's a beta, things can change.

Edited Monday at 11:13 PM by vrauns.3215

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

8 minutes ago, vrauns.3215 said:

Everyone can voice their opinion after seeing the video, but try it out in a few days and give feedback, it's a beta, things can change.

Unfortunately, we also have eyeballs and were watching what they demonstrated. There will definitely be outcries.

[Yasai.3549]

Even if the animations are fixed, the darn thing deals only Torment, unless their vision for balancing Revenant's Condi side has always been to be a mixture of heavy direct damage with ramping Condi on the side, which will mainly be Torment.

If that's the case, okay... but this means to keep in line with that vision, we need Bolstering Anguish back in Corruption or straight up Strike Damage increase for inflicting a damaging Condition, or else Revenant does not win anything having a Condi weapon that doesn't have more than just Torment since Shortbow exists and inflicts 3 damaging Condis, 2 more than new spear.

Edited Monday at 11:35 PM by Yasai.3549

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

26 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Even if the animations are fixed, the darn thing deals only Torment, unless their vision for balancing Revenant's Condi side has always been to be a mixture of heavy direct damage with ramping Condi on the side, which will mainly be Torment.

If that's the case, okay... but this means to keep in line with that vision, we need Bolstering Anguish back in Corruption or straight up Strike Damage increase for inflicting a damaging Condition, or else Revenant does not win anything having a Condi weapon that doesn't have more than just Torment since Shortbow exists and inflicts 3 damaging Condis, 2 more than new spear.

Realistically, there is no reason to use the spear over the shortbow that I can see. Even if the spear was given 900 range, it's just competing with the shortbow now which is just better in every way, including having a CC that takes effect as soon as it lands, and faster attacks in general.

[arazoth.7290]

56 minutes ago, vrauns.3215 said:

Everyone can voice their opinion after seeing the video, but try it out in a few days and give feedback, it's a beta, things can change.

I beta tested it in my head multipble times, rev spear underperformed

[SWLDguitar.5746]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Unfortunately, we also have eyeballs and were watching what they demonstrated. There will definitely be outcries.

We also have experience.  Look at Scepter.  

Historically speaking, devs will read this thread, make every ability mines, double the cast speeds, all ability will root you in place, and the buff will stack to 10 but impossible to achieve because 5 skill will cost 40 energy. 

[Shagie.7612]

41 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Even if the spear was given 900 range, it's just competing with the shortbow now which is just better in every way, including having a CC that takes effect as soon as it lands, and faster attacks in general.

I don't think that's very likely to stay that way given the powercreep of the good SotO weapons. It's very likely that spear gets enough mechanical changes that make it superior (or shortbow gets nerfs like mace did lol). A bunch of non-projectile attacks, and a dash/evade are pretty great. Doing something with the CC which seems likely given it's a 1s cast with 1.5s of pulses currently would easily help push it past shortbow.

That said, they're gonna end up filling the same niche and aspect of buildcraft, which is a complete waste of a new weapon, especially for a class that got one of the most poorly received ones out of the previous set, and doubly so for one that already has significant problems with condi builds.

This was their chance to create a weapon that actually shores up some of the weaknesses condi builds currently have, and instead it's a weird weapon that's gonna struggle to hurt players. Slow ramp up, massive energy demands, one singular damaging condition and relatively poor non-damaging condition coverage, 600 range losing you the trade before you even land a single skill, and no blocks/blinds/cleanses? Oof.

I know a lot of classes currently see their spear kit as underwhelming but Rev's definitely seems the most problematic and just bumping up its numbers can only mask that problem so much.

e: I think it's gonna be hilarious if it ends up being played on pure power builds in the same way shortbow was/has been for most of its life in competitive modes.

Edited Tuesday at 12:44 AM by Shagie.7612

[Angesombre.4630]

In fact, even when used on the herald with quickness, it won't be useful, given the fact that he keeps quickness to try and improve it just a little, and the skill to try and increase damage with the spear become completely useless. Impossible to do both, and in the best-case scenario, even if it worked on herald, renegat will be useless and vindicator the same.

Edited Tuesday at 02:08 AM by Angesombre.4630

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

8 minutes ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

In fact, even when used on the herald with quickness, it won't be useful, given the fact that he keeps quickness to try and improve it just a little, and the skill to try and increase damage with the spear become completely useless. Impossible to do both, and in the best-case scenario, even if it worked on herald, renegat will be useless and vindicator the same.

Yep the thing I am seeing because of the slow attack and activation animations if the vindicator actually tried to play properly, the interupts would just cancel a lot of attacks killing any DPS the vindicator could put out.

[Batalix.2873]

For the record:

I LIKE slow. I LIKE short-range. I LIKE magic tank.

I agree that only having torment is going to present a problem for condi builds, but I'm also tired of tacking on arbitrary damaging conditions just to meet some sort of cleanse quota. The game needs a few more types of condition damage to make these newer jobs/weapons feel fresher.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Random bit that doesn't even rank in the many reasons this spear looks horrendous, but why does the 3 skill create different amounts of mines?  Watching the stream and some casts made 3, others made 4.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

1 hour ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Random bit that doesn't even rank in the many reasons this spear looks horrendous, but why does the 3 skill create different amounts of mines?  Watching the stream and some casts made 3, others made 4.

I noticed that too. Was weird. But I assume it was tied to distance travelled... Idk if he was out of combat for one and in combat for the other. Or maybe he had swiftness for one. Whatever it was I assume the distance travelled in the 1/2s evade duration will determine how many mines are made. So if you use it with superspeed you go further in the same amount of time allowing room for more mines... weird way to code it but there are a few other skills that work that way.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

40 minutes ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

I noticed that too. Was weird. But I assume it was tied to distance travelled... Idk if he was out of combat for one and in combat for the other. Or maybe he had swiftness for one. Whatever it was I assume the distance travelled in the 1/2s evade duration will determine how many mines are made. So if you use it with superspeed you go further in the same amount of time allowing room for more mines... weird way to code it but there are a few other skills that work that way.

Didn't they make it so speed modifiers didn't apply during movement skills, like, 8 years ago?

[Catchyfx.5768]

Well till I went thru this topic, I was thinking this weapon should be condi hybrid(rangewise), how it was described in the original post.

In that case it is very bad. However if it is really power/condi celestial boomstick, in that case it could work. I don't mind slowness or range, changing those is ez.

Keep range,  make them quicker or vise versa. Some cover condies would be nice, just watch other spears or weapons in general.

What I really lacked is some utility. It only does dmg, we have evade, thats great. Converting condies on boons if mines are triggered would be awesome in competetive modes.

For #4 skill pull on skillcast then chill then some dmg. And now it is atractive.

And being afraid of energy consumption, even now it is sometimes gamble.

On the other Hand, it is sampler in design, could be balancable And escape the best or dont pick treatment. We will see

Animations are fire

And yes, thief And ele won this round.

Edited Tuesday at 09:32 AM by Catchyfx.5768