Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Warrior [Merged]

[Laughingman.9537]

Just a visual complain that goes to all classes, but the initial position characters are holding the spear just looks wrong.

They should be holding it in front of the character with both hands if they use it in melee or with one hand over the shoulder if ranged. 

The way they hold it now it's kind of like a martial arts staff stance.

[Screamlight.8374]

Warrior Spear Feedback
Philosophy of Use: As a warrior the spear should be used as both a ranged and a melee weapon so it should be able to dictate range and gap close as needed. Rather than just be a two handed weapon it should be a single handed weapon used in conjunction with a shield (the movie 300 comes to mind here with the spartans). Buffs available to the warrior should include might, swiftness, stability and quickness. Conditions should include bleed, burn, cripple, daze, torment and vulnerability. The burst skills should prioritize boon rip as well as burn or torment stacks depending on whether spellbreaker or berserker is chosen.

1. Spear Ability - Mighty Throw  New name - Chains
    Ranged or melee auto attack chains
    a. First attack applies cripple
    b. Second attack applies bleed
    c. Third attack applies Chains - Inflicts damage on target and binds 2 other targets within a specified range together linking damage and conditions to all three for a specified length of time. If the targets leave the range length of the chains they are dazed.
For all three of these abilities damage, range, condition damage and duration as well as cool downs need to be determined for balance.
2. Spear Ability - Maiming Spear New name - Shattering Spear
    Ranged or melee attack depending on range
    Spear shatter on hit - blind and daze on target
    Damage -     Range -1200     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
3. Spear Ability - Spear Swipe New name - Bash and Sweep
    Charge forward and bash with shield for an interrupt and daze on target. Second press of ability sweeps with spear for knockdown on target. Third part of chain could be a target  deselection and leap away or leap to target if it did not hit on the first two     parts of the attack chain.
    Damage -     Range -600     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
4. Spear Ability - Disrupting Throw New name - Block and Pin
    Block attacks with shield for specified duration. If successful a counterattack becomes available for a ranged throw interrupt or a melee shield bash interrupt depending on the range. The ranged counterattack could apply cripple and torment. The melee counterattack could apply cripple and daze.
    Damage -     Range -900     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
5. Spear Ability - Spear Marshal's Support New name - Butcher's Pole
    If ranged throw spear with vertical drop on target as it does now. The spear embeds  in ground and chains to target similar guardian spear of virtue. If in melee range the warrior slams spear into ground chaining to current target. The chains transmits burning or torment to target for a specified duration along a fixed chain radius. If the target exceeds the length of radius on the chain the target is knocked down and the chain breaks. The warrior has stability and swiftness while the target is bound and in the chains radius.
    Damage -     Range -1200     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
F1 Burst ability - Harrier's Toss New name - Charge and Flay
    Spear is charged with adrenaline bar and can now be thrown or thrust for stacks of burning or torment and rips three boons from target. Knock down on hit.
    Damage -     Range -1200     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -

 

[Aalter.2950]

I really like this weapon and think it will be very powerful for PvP. Well done guys 🙂

[Dresde.4170]

Boring wearpon that has no soul or purpose.

Ranged DPS? the rifle outperforms it.

Very bad adrenaline generation.

Hability 5 should be ground targeted.

And so on,..............

 

We clearly wanted a ranged paragon themed wearpon; and that's not it.

What I wanted was a ranged "staff"; ranged buffs and support.

For dps I have the silly combo of rifle+berserk stance. For condi I have bow.  What we didn't had (and probably never will) is ranged support.     

 

 

 

[Dirame.8521]

9 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Now I REALLY wanna know the spb synergy you found. 

After activating 5 and skilfully, you can land 4, u get a longer duration immob because of "No Escape" without using throw bolas. Or you can do it the other way round and activate 4 then 5. But I have found that activating 5 then 3 then 4 is best for completely landing all the britney spears.

Also getting in close with Bulls charge or stomp and then hitting the Burst will mean they are tethered and makes for a nice boomerang when you use 3 to move them back whilst moving you back only for them to come straight back to you.

That said! I have actually found Spear to be more 1v1 capable when using Bladesworn.

THE BUILD: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKgAc6lNAGKOSPZvdA-DaIPjGVA9KBk5hBAA

Same set-up for Bladesworn.

Edited Saturday at 06:02 PM by Dirame.8521

[Verdict is Vengence.6912]

I think the lack of synergy between the spear skills, traits, and utilities really hinder this weapon. The weapon lends itself to my playstyle because I use glass meme builds, but the weapon could really use some more - not just tweaks - but significant changes to line it up with either the warrior class itself or turn it into a full dps weapon, where its damage makes it so that it doesn't matter if it doesn't sync well with everything else warrior has.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 6/28/2024 at 2:32 PM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

The core design is alright. I suppose.   Listen to the people who are upset at the anim locks and tracking.

Please don't internalize "clunky, easily missable attacks and rooting" as warriors core design aspects. Nobody likes it.

I am updating this opinion to "Warrior Spear is fine and usable in competitive."

If you want make spear 4 hitbox  SLIGHTLY larger, add a -little bit- to the animations, and put a couple of boons on it, great. Otherwise, I am satisfied with it.

 

Edited Saturday at 07:00 PM by Azure The Heartless.3261

[TPenny.5071]

 

After reading feedback on warrior spear, giving it a extensive try myself and booting up u/that_shaman's tooltip builder. I wanted to make something that would bring the warrior spear standard up to that of the other spears during the beta. Anet wanted shattering spears, I just turned it up a notch.

[oscuro.9720]

@Cal Cohen.2358 Fairly important point that may be a bug, may be a feature, I’m not sure. After testing on the golems in armistice I have realized that the spear shards on the auto attack hit harder than the initial auto attack itself. 
 

at 2.4k power, the auto attack was hitting 580-620 without a crit and the spear shards were hitting 920-1010 without a crit.

Just my thoughts but I would imagine it would make more sense for these values to either be reversed or to both adopt the higher damage value. I am admittedly biased as a warrior main though.

Other functional points I would suggest;

Maiming spear and disrupting throw both need faster casts to be able to usefully combo and more reliably land.

Edited Saturday at 08:17 PM by oscuro.9720

[Gehenna.3625]

Looks pretty solid to me. Well done... though I'm not sure Anet will go for it. 

[Zera.9435]

SKILL 1: Projectile velocity feels about right, animation looks good, damage could be a little higher, but its aoe dependence on distance is garbage. Set the skill to hit up to 3 enemies by default instead. Why the hell would you guys make an explicit range weapon that is only optimal at melee range? Oh, right, because our 'dynamic gameplay' revolves around everyone stacking together on the boss at melee range by design (more on that later). 

Overall, 6/10. Get rid of range dependence and it can go up to 8/10 easy. Add a short player buff or vulnerability on enemy and you have10/10.

SKILL 2: I have my ground targeting set to instant (I'm usually pretty good at keeping track of my mouse pointer). It is VERY weird when I mouse over my target, press 2, move my mouse away for whatever reason, and the spear falls where my mouse moved to rather than where it was when I activated the skill. As it currently is,  it behaves as if I have my ground targeting set to 'fast with range indicator', except I don't see the range indicator because I have it set to instant. Sure, maybe some can see it as a way of allowing the player to adjust where the skill will hit in that last split second, but that's why we 'aim where they are going'. That's what we call skill with ground targeting.

The damage is a little low, but again that dependence on range is garbage. Set the aftershock radius to 300 by default with no dependence on player range. It should also have an additional effect on top if the target is already crippled (like say a 1/2 second immobilize or something, vulnerability, or anything really). 

Overall 6/10. Remove the range dependence to get it to 8/10. Do something a little different if enemy is already crippled and you have 9/10. Shorten the cast time to 1/2 second from 3/4 (so that it functions more like a projectile in terms of timing between cast and hit) and you have 10/10.

SKILL 3:  If the point is to play at range (not melee), then this skill needs to do a little better at making sure they player can stay at range. The dash backwards with the evade for the player is fine as it is. It can help with survivability for sure. Great job there. Range is fine at 450 since a player should only expect to use this to keep their distance from an enemy. Animation looks good and the damage is good enough for what it is (it's not meant to be an offensive skill). The knockback, however, needs to be a little bit further. A knockback of 100 is too low. At least make it match the hammer 4 knockback of 180. You can reduce the amount the player moves back a little if you want since it does an evasive action, but we need to be able to push back further not just for survivability but also for utility (like south group in Auric Basin meta to push bombs).

Overall 8.5/10. Increase pushback to at least 180 like hammer and you got 9/10. Make it so it functions a little more like point blank shot (Ranger longbow) so that the total distance between the player and the target once all animations are done is closer to 600 and you have 9.5/10. Make it so that the knock back is caused by a spear being  thrown rather than a blast of air and you have 10/10. I need my "Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy" fix when I throw a spear and knock a motherkittener off their horse. I'd post a video clip from the movie but it's a little bloody and I don't want this post removed. You can look it up yourself on the tube.

SKILL 4: With skill three being basically a melee-ranged CC, this weapon needs to have a viable hard CC from range. The daze is great, but having a dependence sucks. I say have it do a short knockdown if the target is not using a skill, but keep the daze instead if they are. That way it's a CC no matter what. You can reduce the targets to 3 instead of 5 if you feel it's too much. Damage is okay I guess, but more is always better.

Overall 8/10. Make it a hard CC no matter what and you have 10/10.

SKILL 5: Again with the range dependence favoring melee. Stop it. Keep the delay consistent at 1/2 second regardless of range. Animation looks good, but the limited impact range makes it so people can just avoid it all together by simply walking. If you're going to have it track targets then have it track targets as it falls to ensure that it hits. Either that or increase the damage radius of the impacts so that even with swiftness it still hits. Enemies can dodge if they want. Overall 6/10. Increase impact radius (or making falling spears actually track) for consistent hits and you have 9/10. Remove the range dependence and you have 10/10.

BURST:  STOP ROOTING ME. No, seriously, enough with the rooting already. Skills that root you have no place in this game (that goes for ranger's barrage and ele's meteor shower too but that's for another discussion). We have interrupts for a reason. Yeah I know this skill has an evade (which is great, please keep it), but there should be mobility. Yeah I know ele is squishy and NEEDS mobility on top of the evade, but seriously rooting is bad. If you want to get rid of the evade in favor of mobility then fine, just stop rooting us in place. Damage is a little low for a burst, especially considering how slow the spear is at building adrenaline. If you're going to effectively give the skill a 20-second cooldown due to the fact that it's so slow at building adrenaline without utility skills, then increase the damage. Burst skills need to be satisfying, and this one is not.

Overall 5/10 since it is ground targeted and requires more skill to actually get it to hit. Switch it to enemy targeted and you have 6/10.  Increase the damage to compensate for the LONG charge time and you have 7/10.  Double the adrenaline build up from the auto attack (takes 8 hits for 1 chunk to fill currently) and you have 8/10. Remove the rooting and you have 9/10. Shorten the cast time to 1/2 second and you have 10/10.

PRIMAL BURST: Thank you for NOT rooting me. Animation looks great. Damage feels okay I guess. It's nice that it adds vulnerability. Long cooldown is a problem since it is possible to play in such a way that adrenaline gets filled well before it's ready again while using utility skills (more on that below).

Overall 8/10. Reduce the cooldown to 3 seconds and you got 9/10. Reduce the cooldown to 2 seconds (because burst skills should only be dependent on adrenaline, not time) and you got 10/10.

GENERAL THOUGHTS (goes a little beyond warrior):

I worry that spear will just end up in the same place as rifle: non-viable ranged option. I want to like spear, but the damage is too low to justify revolving a build around it. I was playing it in PvE on berserker. Aside from axe, primal burst skills all have way too long of a cooldown, and spear is no exception. The weapon is very bad at generating adrenaline on it's own. The adrenaline gain is a little less bad while in berserk mode because you only need to fill one chunk instead of 3. So I went and opened with headbutt/outrage to see just how well spear is at maintaining berserk mode.  I managed to maintain it for a couple of minutes, but only because I spammed headbutt, outrage, blood reckoning, and shattering blow off cooldown on a golem that doesn't move or fight back (and I had all the buffs on permanently, which will NEVER happen in actual gameplay). When I play on axe I include signet of fury into my rotation to get another decapitate into the mix, but that does not work with ANY other weapon because of the longer cooldowns. Let me put it another way: I was able to keep Berserk mode up the ENTIRE TIME I fought  against Eparch in the final map meta while simply camping dual axes because Berserk mode was made for axes (and because I managed to avoid getting downed). No other weapon would be able to do that as efficiently due to the long cooldowns on bursts.

The semi-recent changes to berserker made it easier to maintain the berserk mode, which was absolutely needed, but what good is it to be able to quickly fill up your adrenaline if you still have to wait several seconds before you can use your burst again?  The whole point of a berserker is to be able to rage out and be an onslaught, not hit once really hard and then wait several seconds before doing it again for no reason other than a cooldown. All those burst skills should be quite spammable (and adjust their damage coefficients if necessary). Overall primal burst skills need a shorter cooldown across the board to bring them in line with axe. 5 second cooldowns kill any viability. When you fix that, spear might be more viable. As I stated earlier, primal burst skills should really only be dependent on adrenaline, not time.

I know this is meant to be specifically feedback for warrior spear, but the problem here isn't just with the weapon. It is primarily an issue with the class (and overall gameplay mechanics for the game as a whole). Warrior traits are just not conducive to a ranged play style. All we have is crack shot, which adds one tiny effect to the auto attacks on rifle, longbow, and speargun. That's it. I mean you have to spec into forceful greatsword to get ANY benefit to spears, and it's only for underwater (it provides no benefit to spears on land). This is further exacerbated by the fact that, by design, we're all meant to be stacked up on the boss doing melee damage because otherwise you get no boons or healing. Yes, you're using a ranged weapon, but are forced into melee range if doing group content.

In regards to traits (for all classes), any traits that buff specific weapon types should be changed to either all their 2-handed, 1-handed, off-hand, or ranged (as appropriate). Right hand strength on guardian, for example, should apply to ALL their 1-handed weapons. Traits that increase condition damage while wielding a specific weapon should affect ALL of that profession's condition weapons, and so on.This sort of change would definitely help overall with spear for warrior (and all other weapons for all other classes as  well).

For the expected dynamic combat of this game, having skills root you in place is just asinine. I strongly advise that ALL skills that root a player in place be changed so that they don't root at all. Even channeled skills like Barrage or Meteor Shower should be mobile, especially since meteor shower is so weak. If you want inspiration for how dynamic combat should play such that you have self sustain (both in terms of healing, damage mitigation, and coming back from the downed state), party-wide buffs, non-rooting, and not forcing the entire group to attack from melee range, then look no further than your cousin Blade and Soul. That game uses the action camera system by default, but you can make it work with this game's default active targeting system. If that is beyond the scope of this game's engine then woe is us, I guess.

Sorry I know I went a little beyond the scope of this thread, but it needed to be said. The issues with warrior spear are tied to underlying issues in the warrior itself AND in the game as a whole. It is my sincere hope that I was able to articulate the issues well enough that you guys are able to do something about it. Please make it so group content does NOT depend on everyone stacking on the boss because boons. If you are in the group, you get the boons. Period. Otherwise, there is still NO POINT IN PLAYING RANGED.

Edited Saturday at 09:52 PM by Zera.9435

[Zekent.3652]

Core spear F1 feels goofy, maybe it should be a non aimed skill and also allowing you to move while casting it, warrior DOESN'T needs more self-roots.

Edited Saturday at 09:47 PM by Zekent.3652

[philvaneyck.1932]

PvP wise I liked the warrior the most, its really fun. 

PvE I didnt test

[Zekent.3652]

>Auto name: "Mighty throw"

>*Look inside*

>No might

[DarkLancer.1902]

I was not expecting much from this, but I have been pleasantly surprised. It's rifle 2.0, only better. Some of the animations are a bit slow, but not so slow that it breaks the kit. The gimmick on the auto-attack is a bit odd, but I can see why it was done; it saved my life more than once. All in all, well done.

[Zirou.8624]

3 minutes ago, DarkLancer.1902 said:

I was not expecting much from this, but I have been pleasantly surprised. It's rifle 2.0, only better. Some of the animations are a bit slow, but not so slow that it breaks the kit. The gimmick on the auto-attack is a bit odd, but I can see why it was done; it saved my life more than once. All in all, well done.

After messing with the spear, I just would like the chain skills at melee, give us the thief/rev/ranger treatment, but mainly for thematic purposes 

[Quench.7091]

A 1200 range on a weapon should mean 1200 range damage, just like how melee attacks get increased damage. Spears might get a 3/4 second cooldown like warrior rifles if they go beyond 900 range.

[Jzaku.9765]

Warrior Spear desperately needs a sub-theme to keep it interesting. I would suggest actually putting effort into Paragon's support aspects instead of just paying the barest lip-service to it. 

This weapon also needs more Adrenaline. You had the exact same feedback with Staff - please stop playtesting with dev-mode. Power Berserker has only had Axe as a viable main weapon with everything else reduced to a swap-as-soon-as-possible-back-to-axe because it's the only weapon that can feed itself adrenaline long-term.

• [Maiming Spear] (Spear 2) IMO this skill is a large contributing factor towards how boring Warrior Spear feels. I think it would feel a lot more fun to use if the Warrior fired 3 spears into the air instead striking in the same pattern every time like Guardian Spear 4 without the crazy lightshow.
• ^ This can even be the ammo skill on Spear with the same mechanic as [Dragon's Roar] (Warrior pistol 5) to support Bladesworn on top of being another multi hit skill for Adrenaline purposes.
   
• [Spear Swipe] (Spear 3) moves you back a short distance then only has 450 range on it's Knockback. The overwhelming number of times you will get OUT OF RANGE using this skill while using Spear as the midrange weapon it's intended (????) to be feels awful.
  Rifle 4, while being one of the worst coded skills in the game, at least has the courtesy of having the follow up attack the same range as the weapon itself.
   
• [Disrupting Throw] (Spear 4) is intended to be an interrupt, but it's a skillshot with an extremely narrow hitbox that takes 3/4s to cast. I'm playing on 300 ping from SEA, the only time I'm interrupting anything on this is by sheer accident.
  It also only Dazes when you DO interrupt something, breaking synergy with several traits (notably on Spb) when you fail to interrupt Raid/Strike bosses, with their completely random cast times that don't line up with their animations. You made [Oaken Cudgel] on Ranger a 2.5s STUN, let this thing do a 1s Daze if you fail to interrupt and a 2.5s STUN when you do. 
   
• [Spearmarshal's Support] (Spear 5) Please add a Spear toss & strike when first casting this skill (like Spear 2) so it doesn't feel like the Warrior just waves his hands and waits for 1.5s before anything happens. 
  Also, not that it hasn't been said enough, but this thing literally misses PVE mobs. Whoever designed this skill, please ask Trig his opinion on making Ranger Longbow's [Rapid Fire] always miss a moving target unless you use [Point Blank Shot] first. 

Edited Monday at 03:09 AM by Jzaku.9765

[Skink.2189]

So, I want to start off with the fact that I did actually enjoy the spear as a whole. I just found it lacking it certain areas. 

The first primary complaint is the tracking for spear 5, it feels somewhat insulting that the entire ability can be dodged by someone simply walking in a line, especially when you have rangers warhorn 5 exists.

My only other real gripes are that spear 4 truly doesn't seem worth casting in many instances. The long cast time on a narrow skill shot should have a larger reward for landing than it's current iteration. And adrenaline generation needs a slight tweak because it is lacking in open world.

Lastly, why are we locked in place for spear burst? Is it really too powerful to give warrior a slight bit of mobility instead of locking us down with a little bunny hop to immediately be blown up upon landing?

[krypton.6152]

Can we maybe get a trait, that makes land spear hits awarding double the amount of adrenaline? That would help to make spear more enjoyable on spellbreaker.

I second everyone who already said:

• the dps needs a buff,
• a ranged weapon that gets better close up is not really fun
  • if there is a skill, that makes jump away from the target it is even more questionable
• skill 5 hits the void if the enemy moves
• f1 could be something more fun and really needs some cc for spellbreaker

If this is not what you want - make spear a melee condi weapon and start over.

[Captain Crapface.7528]

I know it's kind off unproffesionall to post your own videos, but I think it's better to post the video than to shoehorn six pages of text into one post.

Henceforth my feedback:

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, Captain Crapface.7528 said:

I know it's kind off unproffesionall to post your own videos, but I think it's better to post the video than to shoehorn six pages of text into one post.

Henceforth my feedback:

 

It's a good synopsis, but they aren't going to create a whole new mechanic at this point. Best you can hope for is a conditional recharge of Spear 5.

[Captain Crapface.7528]

8 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

It's a good synopsis, but they aren't going to create a whole new mechanic at this point. Best you can hope for is a conditional recharge of Spear 5.

I wouldn't call copying code from sword 4 "a whole new mechanic" but i understand where you're coming from.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

9 minutes ago, Captain Crapface.7528 said:

I wouldn't call copying code from sword 4 "a whole new mechanic" but i understand where you're coming from.

I agree wholeheartedly but what people need to realize is that we are not going to see a massive rework to spear prior to release. Removing things like the mixed melee BS can happen, shortening cast times and CDs can happen. To a lesser extent, adding boons, conditions, and/or a rudimentary mechanic might happen. Personally I think adding in a conditional recharge of Spear 5 would be the fastest approach, and would help it's PvE damage and adrenaline gain issues at the same time.

[Hydruka.5716]

I'm going to keep it simple, and just based on the 'feel' of the weapon.
In comparison to other professions, the warrior feels the least flashy, which I can get behind, but it does seem to lack any sense of flair. Perhaps this is in part due to the nature of the warrior being the weaponmaster, and therefor not linked to "flashy stuff". While it's perfectly reasonable to assume the warrior to handle the spear in this way in-universe, it feels rather dull from a player perspective, coming fresh off the staff addition, which had some nice body animations at least. This is not only due to its visual language, however.

I can feel the "no boons?"-meme (reference to "no b*tches?") approaching as I type this, but in a similar vein, the Spearrior seems to mainly focus on knockdowns and pure strength as its 'gimmick'. I'm sure the spear would be more fun to play if it didn't just rely on sheer (will)power and slight defiance bar breakage. Perhaps Might and/or Fury generation could be appropriate additions to it's boonpool? Some other boons that could be thematically satisfying are resistance/resolution, vigor and quickness, of which I'm sure anyone would attest to it being welcome in the spear's added effects.
Paragon-style sharing of buffs, perhaps some synergy with shouts or banners could be helpful, maybe even ammunition in the 4 or 5 skill.*

Finally, and I think most warrior players would agree, that what the thief has going on with it's spear 1 skill, having it's animations change from a ranged projectile to a cleaving weapon, would be welcome here as well. This idea would be playing into the weaponmaster idea well.

*Berserker seems the most fun to play as it's burst skill feels the most satisfying in comparison to spellbreaker, but the bladesworn doesn't seem to fit the idea whatsoever. Playing into the ammunition traits this way from this elite spec may give it some much-needed synergy. Right now the bladesworn doesn't seem so sworn to blades 😅