Ele spear Livestream

[Exzen.2976]

9 hours ago, Tempest.8479 said:

Either that, or add a 600 radius PBAoE damage component to all of them that does like 5 damage, just so Weavers can trigger the trait.

I'd looooove this! Imagine the attunement weaving shenanigans if you traited for fresh air! I expect they won't for that reason.

[ippy.9048]

I understand that after being continually let down by the developers, it's hard to simply rejoice. After all, it's been 10 years. But, I feel like we could all be a bit happier together. The more everyone loves Ele, the more negative they seem to become.

[CETheLucid.3964]

14 hours ago, ippy.9048 said:

I think it's understandable that the staff has been relatively weakened.

From a commercial perspective, it seems like the right choice to give new power to the profession with the new expansion.

Besides, the staff has better defensive capabilities (haha).

Staff has been weakened for many years now. The support/condi buff it got earlier last year was life from death but otherwise it's remained relatively untouched in nearly a decade, save to nerf Meteor Shower and to incorporate things like Blasting Staff as baseline.

With spear coming up, I'd only ask for Meteor Shower to be unchained, to be a powerful AoE on an otherwise ranged support/condi weapon to spears power focus. One of those flavor things. The rest of the staff kit is pretty good in that regard (ranged support/condi) and I'd like to see them solidify that otherwise.

37 minutes ago, ippy.9048 said:

I understand that after being continually let down by the developers, it's hard to simply rejoice. After all, it's been 10 years. But, I feel like we could all be a bit happier together. The more everyone loves Ele, the more negative they seem to become.

Who's "they"? I have criticisms but I haven't been let down by the devs all that much. I'm pleased with spear. You just seem overly sensitive to feedback.

[Markus.6415]

2 hours ago, Sarm.5923 said:

I know I'm reading a bit more into your post than what's there, but if spear as a ranged weapon doesn't synergize with the elite specs, won't that make it a dead weapon right out of the gate? Core ele isn't a viable build for anything, is it?

"I don't think it's necessary to create synergy with all elite specs" is probably how you should read the sentence. Synergy with some elite specs, but not all.

[Jski.6180]

4 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

i think it counts as a fire field and #2 is a blast. ele weapon fire fields dont usually give might in the first place so at the very least its an improvement from that

they used funny stats in the preview and had no traits equipped (their arcane blast only had 870 tooltip damage with 12 stacks of might). its too early to say where the damage will land but i do agree the etching doesnt last for very long. they should at least let the ele hold onto flipover skill, even if its stuck in the lesser version, and swapping attunements can remove it if the ele doesnt want to cast it

That one of the weaker blast combo effect in the game sadly. It just seems compired to the other fields 1 stack of might is nothing compared to getting fury or stab or even an heal. It should at least be 3 stacks (though ele already giving it self a lot of might as is.)

My other question is why is it only 5 sec that crazy shot for an big effect of an field to out put 3 skills (even the 1 skill buff on an 5 sec duration seems a bit short its just one skill why would it need to also be on such an short duration.) Mind you if you get +2 sec from the GM fire trite it will be 7 sec for just the fire one also you will have to get ppl to stand in it to trigger its +1% effect could be an issues for weaver and core ele.

There are just small things it looks good over all and i am sure they will buff it and fix as needed. I am looking forwarded to testing it out next week.

I also hope they carry over these ideal to the other weapons for ele. Making earth effects dark fields is fine and would do A LOT for the other weapons. As well as buffing field effect when you use skill in them and  having strong zone and weak zones for aoe effects.

Even the new ele condi type of hits a person with lighting would be amasing to see on GM trite like lighting rod winch is lettorly in the name of what the effect is going to do lol.

Edited June 22 by Jski.6180

[Gorani.7205]

A very quick look at skill details ( I won't bother with fractions of seconds and will note damage with 1 representing 1k damage); Range is 1200 unless written otherwise; Number # of targets

Fire #1 - 0.9 damage; #1
Fire #2 - 1.6 damage; #5; CD 6sec; Burning 5sec (/0.65); blast; radius 180
Fire #3 - 0 damage; CD 15sec; 5x Might 10sec + Fury 4sec -> next spear skill +20% damage (in a 5 sec window)
Fire #4 - 1.75 damage; #5; 20sec; +25% damage (meaning 2.2 damage)
Fire #5 - Etching Fire field; CD 25 sec; 1x Might 8sec =>duration 5 sec ==> T3 Volcano 12x 10.5 damage;  #3; Minimum damage 0.04 ;damage reduction subsequent hits 10%; (I am not sure how often it can hit a single target, I think I never counted more than 4 hits on a single golem)

#1 + #2 are projectiles (and they show no 1200 range hurls, perhaps 600 range) and the rest is ground targeted.
Desirable Combos should be #3 + #4 and #5  => #1 + #1 + #3 to charge #5 to T3
This means that each attunement will have two powerful combos, but then you kind of have to switch out for 10-15 sec to another attunement or be stuck with #1 + #2.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1 hour ago, ippy.9048 said:

I understand that after being continually let down by the developers, it's hard to simply rejoice. After all, it's been 10 years. But, I feel like we could all be a bit happier together. The more everyone loves Ele, the more negative they seem to become.

It's a bit the same issue as Warrior with all its weapons.
As  each of our weapons are supposed to do a bit of everything, because of elements and how they designed them and traitlanes (the famous "but yu have 20 skills") what new can you bring ? That will not supplant an other weapon ? Because sadly it will; seduce players, sell next x-pck etc.
 

I don't really fear that. If it's a better staff than staff, or sword than sword ... okai let's go. It's cool. I will enjoy landspear.
At least for few months. I just hope they will actually rework weapons like they do for pistol, perhaps scepter the june 25, or may be traitlanes, to give more identity to each weapons : focus on support/healing (staff?), focus on range dps, brawler melee, duelist melee ...

Edited June 22 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Spear looks slow af, the durations of effects are far too short, damage is too low for it being classified as a glass, will require piano for full effects. If they want this weapon to be so slow, it needs higher duration of effects or higher damage. You know, cost of opportunity?
Animations look nice and that's about it from preview.
Another gimmick weapon, but not as condensed as pistol...

[RazieL.5684]

20 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Spear looks slow af, the durations of effects are far too short, damage is too low for it being classified as a glass, will require piano for full effects. If they want this weapon to be so slow, it needs higher duration of effects or higher damage. You know, cost of opportunity?
Animations look nice and that's about it from preview.
Another gimmick weapon, but not as condensed as pistol...

i just saw the stream (only ele part) keep in mind he had literally no equipped traits and idk what kind of gear he had for 18k hp probably not marauder so we have no idea how much the abilities scale so don't be too quick to judge on that...

all in all i got pissed at the beginning when he said "i know it's not longbow but i hope this can replace it" so they absolutely KNOW what we WANT but we got the kittening kitten pistol anyway... idk how much more of a kick in the balls they can do... other than repeating 1200 range every other sentence as if it's some huge outlier like some other classes i can think of... and as if we don't already have a similar weapon with somewhat similar range that i can think of...

and these etchings? i wonder who stepped in the black on deimos... red circles? eles get downed in wvw again i wonder why they just didn't step out of the red... oh wait... they HAVE to make the etchings disappear instantly on casting the flipped 5 skill and not sit the full duration unless you don't cast the flipped skill at all...

let me guess the rotation will be something of the sort of fire 5->3->4->2->5 water 5->3->4->2->5 air 5->3->4->2->5 earth 5->3->4->2->5 repeat...

the weaver 3 skills are dead skills... just there to fix the issue with weaver by introducing the fresh air trait to all elements...

end result - 4/10... not great not terrible, probably as you said another gimmick weapon...

[Tempest.8479]

I think complaints about low damage are overblown until we get to test things in-game. I don't know what stats they were running on stream, but there was next to no actual crit chance (and likely ferocity) or there were some developer shenanigans going on. At one point they cast Fulgor on 5 targets, which hit 80 times in total (16×5), and not one of them was a crit. There were no traits equipped as well, so damage numbers shown on-stream shouldn't be regarded as a reliable showcase of power until we can test it for ourselves.

The duration on the etchings seems fine to me, as 5 seconds is more than enough time to fire off skills 2-4 without issue. Even accounting for aftercasts, no set of skills 2-4 should take more than 2.5-3 seconds to cast consecutively. At one point the elementalist was shown on stream to be able to trigger the full etching with only fire autoattacks. Combine that with a utility skill like Arcane Blast and there really shouldn't be a problem with reliably using the etchings at full power.

6 hours ago, RazieL.5684 said:

let me guess the rotation will be something of the sort of fire 5->3->4->2->5 water 5->3->4->2->5 air 5->3->4->2->5 earth 5->3->4->2->5 repeat...

I think the baseline rotation would likely leave the 3 skill to be cast right before re-casting skill 5, but yeah this isn't that far off from how I'd imagine things playing out on non-Weaver builds. I don't think there's anything wrong with a relatively predictable rotation if the skills are fun to use, though. There's also enough cc to go around on the full skill set that you could mix things up to keep enemies away, focus breakbars, pin down specific targets, etc. The healing and re-sustain in water also seems like a great addition without losing much damage, so swapping into water when low could also mix up a rotation.

That's not accounting for Weaver, which looks to offer an unprecedented level of flexibility with its rotation because of the new mechanics on its dual skills.

7 hours ago, Markus.6415 said:

"I don't think it's necessary to create synergy with all elite specs" is probably how you should read the sentence. Synergy with some elite specs, but not all.

I agree that not every weapon needs to create synergy with all elite specs, but spear could run into problems where it won't synergize well with any of them at the moment. I've already brought up my concerns on its ability to trigger Superior Elements on Weaver, and its been discussed how Tempest's overloads and Catalyst spheres might incentivize melee/mid range too much for them to really work well with spear as well. It's also been pointed out on this thread that the lack of damage on fire fields could also render Persisting Flames effectively useless. This could leave spear in an awkward spot with current elite specs and even core trait lines unless these concerns have been addressed.  

8 hours ago, ippy.9048 said:

I understand that after being continually let down by the developers, it's hard to simply rejoice. After all, it's been 10 years. But, I feel like we could all be a bit happier together. The more everyone loves Ele, the more negative they seem to become.

I think it's perfectly fair to find joy in a new weapon that looks like it might provide a really fun, dynamic, visually appealing playstyle to ele. I share in a lot of those feelings. That being said, I do think it's important to not let those feelings prevent us from taking a more critical look at the weapon now and through the beta in order to find all the kinks that can be ironed out in order to make it even better before these issues become more cemented after launch. Granted, these problems might not really be as bad once we try it out, but it's important to identify potential weaknesses now and during the beta so we can provide feedback that could help ensure that spear aligns with its stated design vision.

Edited June 23 by Tempest.8479

[Noodle Ant.1605]

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

My other question is why is it only 5 sec that crazy shot for an big effect of an field to out put 3 skills (even the 1 skill buff on an 5 sec duration seems a bit short its just one skill why would it need to also be on such an short duration.) Mind you if you get +2 sec from the GM fire trite it will be 7 sec for just the fire one also you will have to get ppl to stand in it to trigger its +1% effect could be an issues for weaver and core ele.

if its anything like hammer or pistol, its probably designed to push inexperienced eles towards a specific playstyle. theres really no reason why it couldnt just automatically charge, particularly if you have #1 on auto, and yes the fact that you need to use the flipover in the short window of time afterwards (or else it gets wasted) bothers me

weaver does seem as though it wont synergize as well with the weapon. on the other hand, i wouldnt think theyd be terribly concerned about core and as a core ele enthusiast, it doesnt particularly bother me either. maybe its time to change pyromancers pussiance to not eat eles might stacks, then setups that dont use much fire fields might have something else to play with

6 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

Fire #5 - Etching Fire field; CD 25 sec; 1x Might 8sec =>duration 5 sec ==> T3 Volcano 12x 10.5 damage;  #3; Minimum damage 0.04 ;damage reduction subsequent hits 10%; (I am not sure how often it can hit a single target, I think I never counted more than 4 hits on a single golem)

i know that these arent meant resemble proper coefficients, but id like to point out that its possible the fire #5 tooltip might be misleading and is actually 10.5 / 12 = 0.875 as the initial hit, which has damage reduction on the 11 subsequent hits

3 hours ago, Tempest.8479 said:

At one point they cast Fulgor on 5 targets, which hit 80 times in total (16×5), and not one of them was a crit.

they did use a funny setup during the stream, but fulgor is designed to work like the DoT on guardians binding blade (but it stack for very long durations). i dont think it crits

[Tempest.8479]

52 minutes ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

they did use a funny setup during the stream, but fulgor is designed to work like the DoT on guardians binding blade (but it stack for very long durations). i dont think it crits

Ah ok then that's my bad for not realizing that. I wonder how good the power scaling is. I think if it's good pressure, then it would be interesting to see a lesser version of the effect, or other similar effects, sprinkled across other skills, weapons, and even traits.

In any case, it was still apparent that the build was weird and clearly had little precision or ferocity. They cast the final form of Volcano on 5 targets at one point and only got 2 crits on a skill that hits 12 times, they got almost no crits on any other etching, almost nothing on any of the dual radius skills even when targeting multiple enemies, etc.

[Twilightmage.8309]

Looks cool, wish the air etching was a giant lighting blast, but thats an aesthetics thing for me because lightning is the coolest element, and it and the earth one really look the same. Both are wind based which just seems silly.

Weaver does seem like it got shafted tho dual skills feel so much better when they are powerful attacks and traits seem to be balanced on that with them too.

Edited June 23 by Twilightmage.8309

[Gorani.7205]

3 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

i know that these arent meant resemble proper coefficients, but id like to point out that its possible the fire #5 tooltip might be misleading and is actually 10.5 / 12 = 0.875 as the initial hit, which has damage reduction on the 11 subsequent hits

I know, you are probably right, as I have not seen the numbers on the golems being at10k, but rather at 1k (or lower, which could mean that the 10.5 I listed are the max damage being possible and that one gets distributed over time and enemies). With no CC skill at all on Fire and the damage pulsing, I wonder if you can dodge/run out of the effect and suffer a max of 3 pulses. This would result in something like 4k on a 25CD with a maxed out T3 charge up. That case would be pretty horrible.

[ippy.9048]

The feel of things like critical hits will become clear in the beta version. Indeed, it might be important to flood the developers with feedback before everything gets finalized by critical feedback.

However, there are parts that are difficult to change through feedback. Those are the basic animations and the "range."

I have high expectations for the spear, anyway.

[draxynnic.3719]

21 hours ago, ippy.9048 said:

But honestly, I don't think it's necessary to create synergy with all elite specs, and rather, it's okay not to. As you know, the disappointment of playing a Catalyst without a hammer is already well known.

As a couple of people have said - it doesn't have to synergise with them all, but it does have to synergise with one. And since it's being presented as a full range glass weapon... it kinda has to be Weaver, at least in PvE, since both Tempest and Catalyst incentivise you to get close. But if the dual skills can't trigger Superior Elements due to not actually striking the enemy... it can't be Weaver. Leaving it synergising with nothing.

This is more of a problem with ArenaNet insisting on making every elementalist elite specialisation melee-oriented (including Weaver, it's just that Weaver can be built full range while the others can't) then really being a problem with spear per se - but since this is the situation elementalist is in, spear really needs to synergise well with weaver. And there is a valid concern that it won't.

16 hours ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

Very concerned about duration on etchings, which are supposed to be the signature skill, since even with cooldown turned off and spamming insta-casts, it was a struggle to get them to the maximized version before the circle disappeared,

Yeah, now you mention it, that was something I was noticing myself. They probably were being a bit slower with their skill activations to show them off, though - we'll need to see how it works ingame to see just how awkward (or otherwise) it really is. That said, if push comes to shove you CAN fire off the lesser version.

[Bunny.9834]

On 6/21/2024 at 6:33 PM, CETheLucid.3964 said:

Throw Meteor Shower a bone and make it a devastating attack again! A lot of the staff kit should be looked at honestly since things like the Meteor Shower nerf are ancient balance decisions for a weird (fun) interaction with Tornado.

From then till now we've had two elite specs and a new weapon. It's just not the threat it was. Or rather in the age of skill splits, Meteor Shower deserves to be strong in PvE at least.
 

They need to make Staff a range condition weapon. 

4/5 PvE Fire Staff skills already applies burning.  They need to add a good amount of burning on Meteor Shower. 

Air Staff 2 and 5 needs help too in PvE. After seeing Air Spear 2 and 4, I wish those were in the air staff kit. 

 

[zeyeti.8347]

Thx to anet i will go to sleep less stupid now 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haboob

I am the only one who absolutely love air spear 2 clouds above targets striking storm ? that design is gorgeous !

 

Edited June 23 by zeyeti.8347

[Markus.6415]

9 hours ago, Tempest.8479 said:

I agree that not every weapon needs to create synergy with all elite specs, but spear could run into problems where it won't synergize well with any of them at the moment. I've already brought up my concerns on its ability to trigger Superior Elements on Weaver, and its been discussed how Tempest's overloads and Catalyst spheres might incentivize melee/mid range too much for them to really work well with spear as well. It's also been pointed out on this thread that the lack of damage on fire fields could also render Persisting Flames effectively useless. This could leave spear in an awkward spot with current elite specs and even core trait lines unless these concerns have been addressed.

An easy solution would be that the next spear skill after the double attunement inflicts the weakness, similar to the normal 3 skills granting a bonus to the next spear skill. The part about incentivizing melee/mid range and not working well with spear then seems to come out of a PvP/WvW perspective? I gotta admit i'm a PvE player, so melee range is the prefered position anyways, but if I can use the biggest chunk of my dps skills at range -> that's a win.

Persisting flames on the other hand is a valid concern in my opinion too, since the other 2 grandmaster traits are practically useless in PvE. Pyromancers Puissance could get interesting if the might stacks consume gets removed. Can't think of any other grandmaster traits that have a clear downside right now.

[Markus.6415]

14 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Thx to anet i will go to sleep less stupid now 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haboob

I am the only one who absolutely love air spear 2 clouds above targets striking storm ? that design is gorgeous !

 

Let's hope those visuals stay and not get removed like the Air overload cloud back in the day.

[zeyeti.8347]

5 minutes ago, Markus.6415 said:

Let's hope those visuals stay and not get removed like the Air overload cloud back in the day.

why should they remove it ? it doesn't overload your screen with too many effects ... make me laugh when they remove such gorgeous animation who doesn't trouble anybody , but they keep untamed being a walking smoke bomb for your teammates...

[draxynnic.3719]

13 minutes ago, Markus.6415 said:

The part about incentivizing melee/mid range and not working well with spear then seems to come out of a PvP/WvW perspective? I gotta admit i'm a PvE player, so melee range is the prefered position anyways, but if I can use the biggest chunk of my dps skills at range -> that's a win.

It's actually more of a PvE problem. Catalyst works as a ranged spec in competitive modes because they removed virtually all of the damage from the spheres, so you don't feel bad about planting them at your feet just for the buffs. 

I know that group content is often melee meta, but if you're intending on spending most or all of your time in melee, you should probably be wanting to use sword, dagger or hammer anyway - spear should be for those situations where, for whatever reason, you do want to be at range more than not. And that means it should work with an elite specialisation that doesn't have a significant amount of its power budget relying on being close to the enemy.

[ippy.9048]

I understand that the current elite specs are melee-focused, and that there is a lack of synergy, as well as some traits not fitting perfectly.

BUT, If we keep saying such things, I worry about what kind of things would actually satisfy us and the culture of this Elementalist thread.

It feels similar to a culture of dismissing things we don't like as trash.

By trying to fit everything, won't we end up narrowing it down more and more? I really feel Anet's enthusiasm to make the Elementalist a great class this time.

[Markus.6415]

51 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

why should they remove it ? it doesn't overload your screen with too many effects ... make me laugh when they remove such gorgeous animation who doesn't trouble anybody , but they keep untamed being a walking smoke bomb for your teammates...

We haven't seen how it will look in strikes/raids and so on when those clouds are all over the enemies, there might be enough people complaining about it, like theres enough complaining about the spellcircles already.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, ippy.9048 said:

I understand that the current elite specs are melee-focused, and that there is a lack of synergy, as well as some traits not fitting perfectly.

BUT, If we keep saying such things, I worry about what kind of things would actually satisfy us and the culture of this Elementalist thread.

It feels similar to a culture of dismissing things we don't like as trash.

By trying to fit everything, won't we end up narrowing it down more and more? I really feel Anet's enthusiasm to make the Elementalist a great class this time.

It's not that we're asking for perfection, but it is a hole that ArenaNet dug themselves into when they made a third melee-oriented elite specialisation out of three when everyone was saying elementalist was due for a more ranged-oriented elite spec. Most of the ele subforum collectively groaned when the catalyst reveal described it as "a steady presence in melee combat..."

When there's only one elite specialisation that works well with a ranged build, then there is a certain requirement that if you're going to make a big deal about a weapon be 1200 range that you make the weapon work well with that elite specialisation. Now, it's a power weapon, so I guess running Elemental Pursuit and Swift Revenge could be on the table, but if that's the intention they might need to bump the numbers up a little to reflect that you can't get that 15% critical damage. That, and/or give the weapon enough weakness application that you can benefit from Superior Elements even though the trait never triggers weakness.