Revenant Spear Needs Fixing

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

This is something that's been bouncing around in the back of my mind as well. Rev's theme has been about taking inspiration and power from legends in the Mists, but the last couple have kind of felt a bit like they're just generic darkness stuff. Sceptre was supposedly inspired by the Kryptis, but I don't recall Eparch pulling out a red shadowsaber, and what we know of Febe sounds like he wouldn't bother. Spear is a massive missed opportunity for Archemorus, but instead it's just turned into generic shadowstuff - maybe it'll turn out to be copying something in the expansion, but I have a sneaky suspicion it won't.

The tragic thing is that there's the opportunity to fill in gaps that exist in revenant's theme. Spear could have been Archemorus' weapon. We could have had a MH weapon, possibly a melee-ish support-oriented weapon like sceptre turned out to be, that represents Glint, so you can actually go full Glint rather than mixing in a bit of Mallyx or Shiro (although, to be fair, mace's fire field does give it a decent 'empowered by the dragon' feel). It probably is too late to change anything substantial about spear now, but I am worried that revenant's weapons post-SotO are squandering the profession's identity.

There's been a lot of missed opportunities going forward with Revenant. The class has been getting hit with the red headed step child more and more each expansion. Hell the fact that Viktor zu Heltzer said nothing to me at all during the Delve arc of EoD baffled me when we were specifically finding out about House zu Heltzer stuff.

The Kryptis identity of the scepter is just no. There's nothing Kryptis about it and the thing is hardly usable in its current state. You can't effectively use it as a support weapon because of the constant need to take focus away from a target to maximize it, and it's pitiful as a DPS weapon. I certainly don't find "beeg lazor" all that cool and honestly looks stupidly goofy. The fact this should have been a ranged weapon just adds insult to injury that with the spear now it feels like the devs just did this because they think it will make people happy after the massive disappointment that was the scepter that they are avoiding doing anything with because they know it's broken at this point and don't want to fix it.

Now we are just getting round two on this. And once again, mechanically speaking, revenants are getting bent over. The weapon is agonizingly slow (and for how slow it swings looks like it hits like a wet noodle on top of it), most of the moves are generic, and of course for a condi weapon doesn't really do much outside of torment. The only saving grace is it has a pull on it that we've desperately needed on Revenants for ages, that is cheap to cast (on the tooltip it looks like 12 energy), but even that has a wind up period of a second or two before it takes effect making it completely pointless in most active scenarios (never mind the area of effect being quite small comparatively).

And the entire point of Archemerous being the legend we look to and he is always shown to use a spear. I love Vindicator because of Archemerous and St. Viktor zu Heltzer. Their banter is a joy to listen to. Archemerous is infectious personality in combat to hear when you use his moves or you use Spear of Archemerous and he just says out "It's my turn!" There's no ands ifs or buts about it and I am just not happy with this.

So what I would change, well one speed it up. Two give other conditions, a bleed or poison on top of the torment. Make the animations much faster. Get rid of that constant wrist pain inducing buff mechanic and make it core somewhere you know like vindicator because the SPEAR GUY is in that spec? If you are desperately wanting to give it range then by all means but change the graphics to match Archemerous and use him as the inspiration then and have us throw the spear through the void at the very least and have better void effects like the Short Bow has.

 

THE REVENANT IS NOT A DEATH KNIGHT SO STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE FROM WARCRAFT!

Edited June 23 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Oh better idea if we are going to be using a buff mechanic how about spreading it out in all the moves and not one singular move. My goal should not be dancing on the 5 key over and over and over again.

[Angesombre.4630]

2 hours ago, hoofnoodle.3698 said:

Personally not a fan of the mines, the ground targets, the speed, cost, and lack of condis. If it's going to have a power focus, so be it, but I don't see how this would be viable at all in pvp or even pve.

The thing about landmines is that they're extremely conspicuous, so they're easy to avoid. So yes, I'm also a bit skeptical about mines.

[SWLDguitar.5746]

21 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

There's been a lot of missed opportunities going forward with Revenant. The class has been getting hit with the red headed step child more and more each expansion. Hell the fact that Viktor zu Heltzer said nothing to me at all during the Delve arc of EoD baffled me when we were specifically finding out about House zu Heltzer stuff.

The Kryptis identity of the scepter is just no. There's nothing Kryptis about it and the thing is hardly usable in its current state. You can't effectively use it as a support weapon because of the constant need to take focus away from a target to maximize it, and it's pitiful as a DPS weapon. I certainly don't find "beeg lazor" all that cool and honestly looks stupidly goofy. The fact this should have been a ranged weapon just adds insult to injury that with the spear now it feels like the devs just did this because they think it will make people happy after the massive disappointment that was the scepter that they are avoiding doing anything with because they know it's broken at this point and don't want to fix it.

Now we are just getting round two on this. And once again, mechanically speaking, revenants are getting bent over. The weapon is agonizingly slow (and for how slow it swings looks like it hits like a wet noodle on top of it), most of the moves are generic, and of course for a condi weapon doesn't really do much outside of torment. The only saving grace is it has a pull on it that we've desperately needed on Revenants for ages, that is cheap to cast (on the tooltip it looks like 12 energy), but even that has a wind up period of a second or two before it takes effect making it completely pointless in most active scenarios (never mind the area of effect being quite small comparatively).

And the entire point of Archemerous being the legend we look to and he is always shown to use a spear. I love Vindicator because of Archemerous and St. Viktor zu Heltzer. Their banter is a joy to listen to. Archemerous is infectious personality in combat to hear when you use his moves or you use Spear of Archemerous and he just says out "It's my turn!" There's no ands ifs or buts about it and I am just not happy with this.

So what I would change, well one speed it up. Two give other conditions, a bleed or poison on top of the torment. Make the animations much faster. Get rid of that constant wrist pain inducing buff mechanic and make it core somewhere you know like vindicator because the SPEAR GUY is in that spec? If you are desperately wanting to give it range then by all means but change the graphics to match Archemerous and use him as the inspiration then and have us throw the spear through the void at the very least and have better void effects like the Short Bow has.

 

THE REVENANT IS NOT A DEATH KNIGHT SO STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE FROM WARCRAFT!

Everything you have typed in this entire thread has been right.

I'm so disappointed with the devs.  Am i going to do need to RETIRE my main of almost 9 YEARS!? -- Simply because of the fact it can't compete against other professions new abilities anymore.  The ideology of the profession changing into this DEATH KNIGHT / DARK KNIGHT and we didn't sign up for that.

My first post here, i cited that Skill 5 is a terrible design.  Still stand by it, it needs to be scrapped almost completely the more i think about how a buff that stacks to 5, is so COUNTER to how a revenant plays. On top of that, thinking about your posts with Archemerous is SO VALID - how are the devs BLIND to it?  I can only understand it as, "that was Cantha, we're going to the Isles of Janthir" which honestly... who gives af?

Having said that, what is GOOD about spear? 

The pull ability, that's it.  However, the skill should be reversed.  It should PULL enemies in first, and the damage should happen at the end.  Every game mode needs CC to happen at the correct time, not at a delayed time.  Trying to cc a Break Bar 3 seconds after it occurs is pretty much useless.  Trying to Pull enemies off a wall in WvW, WILL NOT HAPPEN WITH A DELAY.  Overall though, it's still not good since it's a basically a weaker Gravity Well with a new graphic. 

They really need to take the spear back to the drawing board and put some actual thought into it.  What they designed doesn't belong in this game's universe, it's something out of WoW or FFxiv. They could have done something useful, like the Archemerous route, a well route, a 2h condi melee weapon, a condi based "staff-like" weapon.  Nothing here even meshes.  MINES?  Really? are we engineers?  What do MINES have to do with ANYTHING rev related? What do they have to do with a SPEAR? - Nothing!  It's like they put ALL of their ideas on a wheel, spun it 4 times and that's what they gave the weapon.  

 

Honest question, that i'm sure Anet wants to know... is ANYONE excited/happy about this design?

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

20 minutes ago, SWLDguitar.5746 said:

The pull ability, that's it.  However, the skill should be reversed.  It should PULL enemies in first, and the damage should happen at the end.  Every game mode needs CC to happen at the correct time, not at a delayed time.  Trying to cc a Break Bar 3 seconds after it occurs is pretty much useless.  Trying to Pull enemies off a wall in WvW, WILL NOT HAPPEN WITH A DELAY.  Overall though, it's still not good since it's a basically a weaker Gravity Well with a new graphic. 

You realize you're comparing Gravity Well, an Elite-Spec Elite Skill, to a weapon skill with like a 15 sec CD? If anything this should be compared to the focus pull on mesmer, which also has a slight delay.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

6 minutes ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

You realize you're comparing Gravity Well, an Elite-Spec Elite Skill, to a weapon skill with like a 15 sec CD? If anything this should be compared to the focus pull on mesmer, which also has a slight delay.

You realize that most area of effect pulls also have a mechanic that typically doesn't let targets easily step out of them either, or they have a secondary component that lets you trigger the pull whenever you want if you like as well. You're trying to do this apples to apples thing but there's no real comparison. Most pulls if they have a wind up affect an area to pull to you, and if they are targeted generally don't have a long cast bar and take effect as soon as they hit the ground, or if they have a wind up component usually have a secondary effect that prevents targets from just noping away from it.

Edited June 23 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[vilesoldier.9826]

I'm curious about how the damage increase per stack is going to feel like, and even more curious about this "auto-cast at max stacks" on weapon swap mechanic.

Can't really say the same about the rest of the kit, even as a condi rev enjoyer.

Edited June 23 by vilesoldier.9826

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Just now, vilesoldier.9826 said:

I'm curious about how the damage increase per stack is going to feel like, and even more curious about this "auto-cast" on weapon swap mechanic.

Can't really say the same about the rest of the kit.

You will just be hitting 5 constantly. From what they showed the buff stacks to 10, and currently it gives 2 stacks max if it hits an enemy (and not per enemy) and they were talking about reducing it to 1 stack. So Not only is this weapon painfully slow it's going to have a painfully slow wind up period to maximize it on top of it. And again the damage looks pitifully weak for how slow it is, so this is going to be another weapon that gets chucked into the bin if they don't change it in any meaningful way (and not just make the range 900 but actually meaningful way) before the expansion.

Have to be real, this showcase really tanked my desire to get the expansion now.

[vilesoldier.9826]

18 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

You will just be hitting 5 constantly. From what they showed the buff stacks to 10, and currently it gives 2 stacks max if it hits an enemy (and not per enemy) and they were talking about reducing it to 1 stack. So Not only is this weapon painfully slow it's going to have a painfully slow wind up period to maximize it on top of it. And again the damage looks pitifully weak for how slow it is, so this is going to be another weapon that gets chucked into the bin if they don't change it in any meaningful way (and not just make the range 900 but actually meaningful way) before the expansion.

Have to be real, this showcase really tanked my desire to get the expansion now.

 

It's actually 5 stacks at max, giving up to 100% bonus dmg. But yeah at 2 stacks max per Raze, that's pressing it (AND hitting it) at least 3 times to get max benefit, after which you can get 2 quick maxed out Razes: one from pressing again, another if you swap weapons.

The windup is one thing (big but can definitely be fixed) but I'm going to reserve full judgement until I play the beta. Currently though I'm not seeing amazing combo potential with Mallyx or condi weapons

 

Edited June 23 by vilesoldier.9826

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

And the entire point of Archemerous being the legend we look to and he is always shown to use a spear. I love Vindicator because of Archemerous and St. Viktor zu Heltzer. Their banter is a joy to listen to. Archemerous is infectious personality in combat to hear when you use his moves or you use Spear of Archemerous and he just says out "It's my turn!" There's no ands ifs or buts about it and I am just not happy with this.

So what I would change, well one speed it up. Two give other conditions, a bleed or poison on top of the torment. Make the animations much faster. Get rid of that constant wrist pain inducing buff mechanic and make it core somewhere you know like vindicator because the SPEAR GUY is in that spec? If you are desperately wanting to give it range then by all means but change the graphics to match Archemerous and use him as the inspiration then and have us throw the spear through the void at the very least and have better void effects like the Short Bow has.

Yeah, that whole 'spam 5 and spam other skills to spam 5 more' thing is not exactly making me excited to play it.

While I doubt they'd rebuild the weapon from scratch, I do wonder if they could do a lot by reskinning the artwork. Play with the 'Archemorus is a W/E' theme that crops up in his legend skills. Skill 5 could be based on the explosion that happens when you drop the Spear of Archemorus in GW1. Instead of shadowy mines, have a series of balls of rock-coated magma that float up into the air and explode for burning and bleeding. Replace a lot of that darkness with fire. Have bleeding and burning in the mix rather than just torment.

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

THE REVENANT IS NOT A DEATH KNIGHT SO STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE FROM WARCRAFT!

This. Thiiiiiiiis.

For all it was presented as a 'darker' profession initially, legend development has stopped with only 2/7 legends being 'evil', and the dark demonic theme really only works with Mallyx... and even then, pools of inky shadow aren't exactly what I associate with Abaddon's style of demons even with the whole 'nightfall' theme. If you DO want to turn it into a death knight, stop taking half measures and release a new legend. In the meantime, it would be nice to see more weapons that fit with the legends we already have rather than clashing with them.

[Vekaiel.8493]

They release new ranger pets every expansion, it would be nice if we get new legends from time to time, does not have to be tied to a trait line or elite spec. We don't even have access to racial skills.

[Buran.3796]

  I want to thank CmC for making easy to me to not purchase the JW expansion. Thanx for saving me money, buddy, your kindly work warms my heart!

[Angesombre.4630]

3 hours ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

You realize you're comparing Gravity Well, an Elite-Spec Elite Skill, to a weapon skill with like a 15 sec CD? If anything this should be compared to the focus pull on mesmer, which also has a slight delay.

Create a powerful well that warps space in an area, knocking down, floating, and pulling foes caught in its event horizon. When it expires, foes still inside the well take heavy damage. (CD 60s)

There are 3 effects in addition to the damage

[Malus.2184]

The problem with any weapon that Rev has is that ideally they have to be able to function on their own without swapping since Revs lack a reliable Defiance break and thus have to Staff for Staff 5.

In PvE You can theoretically use two weapons and swap and if the encounter in question has a Defiance bar that it's important to break you effectively only have one weapon due to the whole energy economy. The closest Rev has to reliable CC is Forced Engagement, which is over time since all the others cost a lot of energy. Renegade can get away with having a real weapon swap if they run Kala.

That means that the spear for Rev should never be another ranged condi weapon. Rev already has one of those. It should be a pure melee condi weapon with a different toolkit than mace/axe since that would be a real departure in playstyle.

I think the devs are thinking about what something will hypothetically be rather than what it'll effectively be. While the former is nice it has to be tempered with the latter else the finished product will be extremely unsatisfying and effectively useless.

Edited June 23 by Malus.2184

[Angesombre.4630]

The problem I have with the slowness of the spear is also that it's as if they were telling us that with herald you can have quickness, so it's as if the spear was just meant to be played with. So mistake on their part or not, revenant spear was the only one with a slow complement.

Edited June 23 by Angesombre.4630

[Lionwait.4815]

Sorry guys. You all were right. I have no defense to say about this spear.

Edited Friday at 12:06 PM by Lionwait.4815

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

6 minutes ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

My first post on this thread I agreed with a lot of what people are saying to a degree. More range and maybe less energy costs on abyssal raze and it would be nice if they swap skills 4 and 5 on the weapon skill bar because most people aren't used to hitting skill 5 over and over on any class out there today. BUT I don't agree with people harping on the mines or the aoe skills. Truth be told I love just about everything on this spear. Because I come from a WvW perspective. To me the hardest thing to be viable in WvW is a zerg vs zerg battles. Because ALL aoe's suck on revenets. Take the renegade utility skills for an example. Most of them are condi or cc attacks and you have to stand 600 range close to an enemy zerg which in itself is suicide and in the chance, you do get off the aoe's they just get cleared in less than a second. At least with this spear it is hybrid damage not just condi damage. That means it would work with more builds other than using the renegade build for zerging. And it can be easily pared up with hammer or short bow. My biggest gripe is the range. As for the casting speed of the weapon. There is something called quickness. I know with my herald build I can have 100% upkeep quickness in PvE. As for WvW you got sigils that give quickness but, as to PvP it might need some tweeking to the cast speeds. I suggest toning it down on the slow cast speed complaints. I mean the complaints could be reasonable if the skills made you stationary when casting but that isn't the case. And a lot of people's examples on this thread make it sound like they never switch weapons. Yes, part of the spear mechanics on stacking abyssal raze make you think you have to stay in spear but that isn't the case. 

The tooltip makes it clear that swapping weapons will Unleash the abyssal raze so it doesn't sound like the stacks will stay if you swap weapons.

Secondly, good luck using this in PvP or WvW the slow animations are easily telegraphed making the points of these easy to avoid, which means the 5 key becomes once again hard to land. Also swapping the 4 and 5 is not the problem. It's the constant dancing and reliance on one button for the entire weapon to be effective. This will have very little PvP and minorly any WvW value especially since landing 5 will be extremely difficult with the current cast speed of the weapon.

Edited June 23 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Lionwait.4815]

Sorry guys. You all were right. I have no defense to say about this spear.

Edited Friday at 12:06 PM by Lionwait.4815

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

1 minute ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

I'll say it again. "The spear mechanics on stacking abyssal raze make you think you have to stay in spear but that isn't the case". This has nothing to do with keeping abyssal raze stacks. I am just pointing out that it is insignificant in most cases in WvW to focus on maxing out abyssal raze stacks. In other words, just because there is a mechanic doesn't mean you have to use it.

100% boost with 5 stacks is hardly insignificant. You also seem to be ignoring what everyone, PvE and PvP alike, have said about how slow the weapon is.

[Lionwait.4815]

Sorry guys. You all were right. I have no defense to say about this spear.

Edited Friday at 12:06 PM by Lionwait.4815

[Vekaiel.8493]

2 hours ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

I never said the mechanic is insignificant. I said, "that it is insignificant in most cases in WvW to focus on". As to PvE I said, "my herald build can have 100% upkeep quickness in PvE". In short quickness comes easy in PvE. As to PvP I did say "PvP it might need some tweaking to the cast speeds". 

 

Are you even reading what I said or are you just in complaining mode? Because everything you said I said is taken out of context.

Well explain why all the other professions spear casting speed feels normal.

We are getting flawed weapons 2 expansions in a row and this is ok? Look at scepter, it was already bad at first and they nerfed it even more. The art/animation team does a really good job but I have no faith on the performance of the balance team for revenant. The gameplay does not feels enjoyable/impactful (from what I have seen in the demonstration) and the numbers don't look that good either.

[Angesombre.4630]

I believe that on the skill 5 buff there is a duration, it doesn't go up to lvl 5 and stays there permanently afterwards it can go down.

Edited June 24 by Angesombre.4630

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

4 minutes ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

I believe that on the skill 5 buff there is a duration, it doesn't go up to lvl 5 and stays there permanently afterwards it can go down.

I believe the buff said it had an 8s duration (don't have the video in front of me) and doesn't refresh. If I saw correctly the 5 action has 3 charges on it, so you will basically be keeping 5 on CD just to make the most of this buff. The 5 costs 10 energy to so that's means 30 energy min (if they keep the 2 stacks on enemy hit per use) to maximize the spear, which also has a 1.5 second cast time to if I recall correctly.

[Lionwait.4815]

Sorry guys. You all were right. I have no defense to say about this spear.

Edited Friday at 12:06 PM by Lionwait.4815

[Angesombre.4630]

11 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I believe the buff said it had an 8s duration (don't have the video in front of me) and doesn't refresh. If I saw correctly the 5 action has 3 charges on it, so you will basically be keeping 5 on CD just to make the most of this buff. The 5 costs 10 energy to so that's means 30 energy min (if they keep the 2 stacks on enemy hit per use) to maximize the spear, which also has a 1.5 second cast time to if I recall correctly.

The skill has 1 1/4s from what I've seen, but I think it could be funny if you're playing against a thief or a willbender. The devs in the stream say it's great and for 1vs1 it gives less energy but against a golem or afk player you won't hit anyone with this thing. I wanted to see the ranger's longbow skill 5, there's 2s+ but it starts hitting from the start and has a range of 1500 with a much larger radius.