Revenant Spear Needs Fixing

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

5 minutes ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

I agree that scepter is bad in most cases and needs a full overhaul. As to spear being slow. One needs to consider the amount of aoe's it does is ridiculously awesome. Every skill but the auto attack will hit five targets and one of those aoe's can be cast three times with no real cooldown timer. That said energy is a limiting factor depending on your build.

Picture of new spear skills stats

Funny how other AoE centric skills in other toolkits are not even remotely as slow as the Revenants. Even the auto attack is painfully slow. And you are also forgetting the wind up time after the cast which every one of those AoE have making them even less useful.

[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]

3 minutes ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

It baffles me how people compare apples to oranges in some way of justification. One needs to understand not all classes play the same nor should they.

What are you going to do against mobile classes with such a long time and short range? The only skill I can think of that's long is the burning elem on stick skill 5, but it has 1200 range and a wide radius.

[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

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

The slow animation is honestly what baffles me the most. This is, and I don't use the word for emphasis, literally the slowest auto attack in the game by a huge margin. It's even slower than hammer used to be, which they just fixed on recent balance patches. 

I'll admit, I see the value of a slow attack. If the attack is slow on a heavy weapon like the hammer, it does make it feel impactful (assuming the damage is there). Spears are NOT a heavy looking weapon, in fact quite the opposite. They look nimble and versatile. Quickness should NEVER be considered baseline. All classes in the game now have a way to give themselves quickness, and even if you don't, you still can use quickness sigils if you need to.

How did that get past even to the beta is honestly shocking. 

Edited June 24 by Vennyhedgie.5369

[Vekaiel.8493]

30 minutes ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

I agree that scepter is bad in most cases and needs a full overhaul. As to spear being slow. One needs to consider the amount of aoe's it does is ridiculously awesome. Every skill but the auto attack will hit five targets and one of those aoe's can be cast three times with no real cooldown timer. That said energy is a limiting factor depending on your build. The only skill I see that might need a little speed adjustment would be the auto 1 skill. But let us be honest, no one should be using the auto 1 skill in the first place. You'll be do busy casting all the other skills and switching to another weapon.

Picture of new spear skills stats

If the range was 1200 maybe it could be useable. At 600, you going to die way before you can use half of your skills in pvp settings with all the burst and cc coming your way. The only way to kite/deter is on a 10 sec cooldown. By the time you can reach you maximum potential on the weapon you won't have any energy left assuming you will land all those hits which I assure you won't. 

If they are going to keep those cast times the attacks need to be either unblockables or #5 need an evade since most of your time will be spent using that skill. Also the fact you mostly do only 1 condition will be easy to cleanse. In the end you will be the equivalent of the guy getting shot at in the Cairo market scene in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark. (If it help you visualize, that guy is also in black)

[Shagie.7612]

lol even if they change the range to 900, it has LESS condi spread than shortbow, and can't replace shield/mace, how in the world are you going to actually damage anything as a condi rev with it when it already struggles with damage sticking even though shortbow has both bleed and torment (and minor burn but the vast majority of your damage is bleed/torment in pvp)?

unless they remove a ton of energy costs and drastically reduce cooldowns at the same time so you can spam stacks through cleanses, it isn't gonna work well as a condi weapon

with the dash being as short as it is and the mines having a 1s arm time, i wonder if a superspeeded enemy can get past em before they're armed

also 2.5s total delay before a 240 radius pull for a SINGLE CHILL STACK woooooo
peak comedy

Edited June 24 by Shagie.7612

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

49 minutes ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

I agree the range needs to change. But to your question. I sure won't be starting off with spear. I said this before, and I'll say it again. " a lot of people's examples on this thread make it sound like they never switch weapons"

No, a lot of people in this thread just point out how this weapon has no viable use in PvP or WvW, and how slow and clunky it is for PvE.

Quote

It baffles me how people compare apples to oranges in some way of justification. One needs to understand not all classes play the same nor should they play the same.

What baffles me is how everyone explains the weapon isn't going to do what you claim it will, and the reasons why it isn't that good of a weapon, and you clearly ignore those factors. What also baffles me is you think that comparing this to other like abilities is some how wrong in this scenario.

The weapon is too clunky, too slow, has egregious wind up on most of its attacks, and bafflingly long animation and cast times on top of the wind ups. So where is this going to be an awesome weapon. No a spear is not a slow weapon to use. Spears are a nimble and fast weapon so this idea it should be slow and clunky is just hilariously weird.

Edited June 24 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

[Angesombre.4630]

43 minutes ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

All I can say is, your loss and my gain. Just because you can't think of away it would be useful doesn't mean others can't. I for one don't have a collective mindset in trying to prove my points by stating "everyone" this and "everyone" that. The spear is awesome and I've explained why. It just needs a little range and maybe some cast time speed tweaks I've already explained.

Ok that's your opinion, you think it's great, so why did some very good players find it very disappointing and many people watching the stream found it very slow? Even I, who's far from being a good player, checked the stream because it seemed so slow to me after seeing all the other classes before, and even low in damage? So for the damage I'm waiting for the beta to check, because maybe the stats and the pieces of stuff weren't very clear (benefit of the doubt, but I shouldn't). 
And why only torment? Even the mesmer, which is in a state of confusion, was entitled to other alterations. Why didn't we have the right to daze, like other professions?
The bow has 900 CC range, several alterations and speed, so unless you nerf the bow (which is likely to happen) how is the spear better?

Edited June 24 by Angesombre.4630

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

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.

Double-tapping Glint's elite can also work in a lot of situations, if you're playing Herald. It is a valid point, though, that if you really want heavy CC, it's hard to beat staff. Mind you, on a condi build, both shortbow and axe bring some decent hard CCs, so staff is probably less important there. 

3 hours ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

It baffles me how people compare apples to oranges in some way of justification. One needs to understand not all classes play the same nor should they play the same.

Consider what that aphorism means. It refers to neither being inherently better because they have entirely different tastes and are used in different things. But if you're about to enter an apple crumble competition, apples are definitely better. If you have a specific criteria you're measuring against, you can absolutely establish which of two dissimilar things better fit your criteria.

We absolutely can compare one profession's weapons to another because at the bottom line, they're all looking to do the same things. While herald quickness is fairly low APM, revenant doesn't really have more access to quickness overall than any other profession, and quickness doesn't help when there's a lag between the skill being used and it actually going off. Revenant is also a profession that rewards rapid attacks although, to be fair, this is more of a factor with power builds. In a competitive environment in particular, those slow, heavily telegraphed attacks are likely to make them highly subject to being interrupted or evaded, so there'd need to be a lot of damage potential if you do manage to land them to compensate for that. In PvE... there isn't a lot of stretch in the benchmarks unless they make space by destroying the existing weapons.

[Yasai.3549]

7 hours ago, Lionwait.4815 said:

It baffles me how people compare apples to oranges in some way of justification. One needs to understand not all classes play the same nor should they play the same.

Straight up insinuating that Revenant Spear should suck versus other class Spears because it makes them different. This has got to be bait. 

[Malus.2184]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Double-tapping Glint's elite can also work in a lot of situations, if you're playing Herald. It is a valid point, though, that if you really want heavy CC, it's hard to beat staff. Mind you, on a condi build, both shortbow and axe bring some decent hard CCs, so staff is probably less important there. 

Again, hypothetically that's possible and practically if you're running Herald you're running Quickness and doing so can seriously hinder your Quickness uptime depending on timing, Quickness is such a large DPS boost that doingthat can be a serious hindrance, I just wish that ANet would remove the Forced Movement on Staff 5, I loathe Force Movement. I've stopped using Sword main-hand due to Sword 3.

[Uete.3805]

I think Spear needs to have its own niche and cover condis. One option would be to give confusion on top of torment. Or they could make the 5th skill giving more damaging boons the higher its stacks. Or give spear some boon removal. Anything the other weapons don't provide already.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Again, hypothetically that's possible and practically if you're running Herald you're running Quickness and doing so can seriously hinder your Quickness uptime depending on timing, Quickness is such a large DPS boost that doingthat can be a serious hindrance, I just wish that ANet would remove the Forced Movement on Staff 5, I loathe Force Movement. I've stopped using Sword main-hand due to Sword 3.

The idea that spear is being balanced around herald is just silly at this point. Again other professions can have a perma quick set up as well, and herald DPS is actually pretty middling especially in quick set up. Herald is third in line as far as the revenants DPS goes. It remains to be seen what will happen once the spear gives revenants a second condi weapon, but until the cast times and wind up periods are addressed, it's going to be a painful weapon to use that will throw off any sense of timing.

To be honest, and ironically, vindicator is going to probably suffer the most with this weapon since leaps are part of their damage combos. It potentially means that a lot of attacks from the spear get interrupted by just playing the class. It's really a shame and just, to be blunt, asinine design to hold back a weapons potential based on a what if scenario with one spec that is pretty much the back of the pack in the DPS food chain with revenants. So if this is why they decided to make it so slow, just another sign ANet really doesn't pay attention to this class much anymore.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

4 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Straight up insinuating that Revenant Spear should suck versus other class Spears because it makes them different. This has got to be bait. 

Yea, been getting that impression myself. It's just not possible for someone to to think easily avoidable puddles means this will be PvP viable.

[SWLDguitar.5746]

21 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Yea, been getting that impression myself. It's just not possible for someone to to think easily avoidable puddles means this will be PvP viable.

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!?!?!?!?

 

I know people want to praise the art team, but i just can't in this instance.  They took Loatheb's Yellow spores from Naxxramas (WoW) and turned them black and red.  

 

Honestly would be happier if the spear just generically poked enemies, at least then it would make sense.  Using the spear as a conduit to spawn NAVAL MINES is just weird. 

 

I have a feeling nothing is going to change on this weapon.  The history of ALL game developers dictates they know what's best, even when they are told they are wrong by hundreds/thousands/millions. 

[Vekaiel.8493]

2 hours ago, Uete.3805 said:

I think Spear needs to have its own niche and cover condis. One option would be to give confusion on top of torment. Or they could make the 5th skill giving more damaging boons the higher its stacks. Or give spear some boon removal. Anything the other weapons don't provide already.

In the same line of what you said.

At max stack the mines could corrupt boons, #2  transfer two conditions, #4 immobilize the pulsing part, #5 could heal 0.5% per enemy hit.

Something like that would allow some good combos and justify the long wind up time while giving the counterplay for the others to either keeping the revenant from reaching max stack with dodging #5 or interrupt it. You would not change casting time and range in that case. I would still add some cover conditions so torment does not get cleanse so easily and vulnerability to autoattack so power builds could have a little one more incentive to use a spear vs greatsword/swords.

Edited June 24 by Vekaiel.8493
rephrasing

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Just now, Vekaiel.8493 said:

or be even more creative.

At max stack the mines could corrupt boons, #2  transfer two conditions, #4 immobilize the pulsing part, #5 could heal 0.5% per enemy hit.

Something like that would allow some good combos and justify the long wind up time while giving the counterplay for the others to either keeping the revenant from reaching max stack with dodging #5 or interrupt it. You would not change casting time and range in that case. I would still add some cover conditions so torment does not get cleanse so easily and vulnerability to autoattack so power builds could have a little one more incentive to use a spear vs greatsword/swords.

Considering they've removed the ability to corrupt boons from others, I doubt they will give it to revenants, which they spend a lot of time taking from this class anyways.

Furthermore, leaving it conditional to boon strip based on if you have five stacks means this just won't happen in PvP, outside of maybe if you are in the zerg ball. And even then that's just a maybe since wading into a zerg ball is just death.

The slowness makes it painful for PvE too, since even the interrupt the spear has has a long wind up time before it takes effect. There just really is no excuse for the weapon being so slow in the end. It's the only one out of all the spear weapons which is so blatantly slow on cast and wind up time of attacks.

[Vekaiel.8493]

1 minute ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Considering they've removed the ability to corrupt boons from others, I doubt they will give it to revenants, which they spend a lot of time taking from this class anyways.

Furthermore, leaving it conditional to boon strip based on if you have five stacks means this just won't happen in PvP, outside of maybe if you are in the zerg ball. And even then that's just a maybe since wading into a zerg ball is just death.

The slowness makes it painful for PvE too, since even the interrupt the spear has has a long wind up time before it takes effect. There just really is no excuse for the weapon being so slow in the end. It's the only one out of all the spear weapons which is so blatantly slow on cast and wind up time of attacks.

Well it depend on how you see the weapon. If you want it to poke, yes I agree range is a massive problem. If you see it as a charge weapon when the zerg dive in it could have his uses. I was just trying to develop someone idea to give spear his own identity while giving it a clear weakness to counter.

I would rather they give more range, faster casting speed, some cover conditions, slight decrease in energy cost, immobilize/chill at the beginning of #4 and maybe #5 being unblockable at max stack.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Just now, Vekaiel.8493 said:

Well it depend on how you see the weapon. If you want it to poke, yes I agree range is a massive problem. If you see it as a charge weapon when the zerg dive in it could have his uses. I was just trying to develop someone idea to give spear his own identity while giving it a clear weakness to counter.

I would rather they give more range, faster casting speed, some cover conditions, slight decrease in energy cost, immobilize/chill at the beginning of #4 and maybe #5 being unblockable at max stack.

I want them to actually start respecting the lore they established for revenants personally, and stop trying to keep slamming their square pegs into the round hole and hope it magically works. They did this with the scepter (and still refuse to actually fix it and make it a good support weapon) and now they are doing it again with Revenant spear, and creating a hodge podge of abilities that leave a lot of us more baffled and bewildered on what they are thinking for theming let alone identity of the weapon.

[Vekaiel.8493]

20 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I want them to actually start respecting the lore they established for revenants personally, and stop trying to keep slamming their square pegs into the round hole and hope it magically works. They did this with the scepter (and still refuse to actually fix it and make it a good support weapon) and now they are doing it again with Revenant spear, and creating a hodge podge of abilities that leave a lot of us more baffled and bewildered on what they are thinking for theming let alone identity of the weapon.

Looking at the name of the skills it just scream to me the shadow army and Menzies lord of destruction and Balthazar half brother. We did not see yet what is going to happen in Janthir yet. We saw some titans so old prophecy enemies (I know they come from realm of torment but maybe we have to go in fissure of woe at some point). Revenant could have chanelled that style of battle from exposure to the fissure of woe in dragonfall. A bit like how we got to use Palawa Joko power for a moment while escaping prison and rescuing the spearmarshal.

Scepter was just weird, there is nothing Kryptis about it and a trash weapon in this state.

Edited June 24 by Vekaiel.8493
orthograph

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

18 minutes ago, Vekaiel.8493 said:

Looking at the name of the skills it just scream to me the shadow army and Menzies lord of destruction and Balthazar half brother. We did not see yet what is going to happen in Janthir yet. We saw some titans so old prophecy enemies (I know they come from realm of torment but maybe we have to go in fissure of woe at some point). Revenant could have chanelled that style of battle from exposure to the fissure of woe in dragonfall. A bit like how we got to use Palawa Joko power for a moment while escaping prison and rescuing the spearmarshal.

Scepter was just weird, there is nothing Kryptis about it and a trash weapon in this state.

Going by their track record, there will be little to tie the weapons effects to anything actually going on. And once again, Archemerous is right there. The spear should have been tied to him. Cantha being in the past is no excuse for this either. The spear should be causing bleeds, burning on top of the torment, and should have less inky black effects and more standard mist effects to.

Again, just them bashing a square peg into the round hole and thinking that will do, ignoring the lore of the class in general, and saying they are satisfied while the majority of the revenant player base is still disappointed in scepter. But given it took them 9 years to even think about reworking hammer, I guess we will have another 9 years before they look at scepter.

[Angesombre.4630]

Maybe GW3 will be out before then, and they could have put poison on the weapon too.

[SWLDguitar.5746]

1 minute ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

And once again, Archemerous is right there. 

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.