Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Revenant

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

The beta event for spears has begun and is open to all players with an account in good standing! The event runs from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time and we'd love to hear your feedback. Let us know what you think of the new weapon for revenants in this thread!

[GonzoNeo.4965]

My first feedback is make the revenant spear faster. The cast time are too high, the weapon feel so slow , is like playing Hammer again. It make charges the  abyss stacks so slow and  boring. Against single enemies the 5 cast time is 1 second and you need 5 uses to charge  at max stack. The max duration of abyss stack is 8 second.  So you at least take 5 second to charge because you need to use the skill 5 times at least, and the sill 2 to reduce it the CD it have 1 second cast time as well. 

At least in PVE skill 3 and 4 are for CC, so your damage rotation is basically autoattack, 2 and 5. Spam 5 if your energy allow it and use 2 to reduce CC and try charge the stacks as soon as possible, but with the enormous cast times, only 8 second of abbyss duration, the whole rotation is more like a chore where your unique objective is try mantain the buff and you dont have energy or time to do any other thing.

Additionally i dont understand the target to make it a hybrid condition weapon. We have already 2 condition weapon, one of them a range 2 handed weapon ( shortbow ). Power based would be so much better, we only have hammer as range power weapon and is not a dps weapon but a CC utility one in PVE at least.

At least is what it feels to me.

Edited Thursday at 05:39 PM by GonzoNeo.4965

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Already my first statement is who is this for and what does it fill?

Weapons too slow and makes response feel miserable. Playing on vindicator the spear does not work well with the spec at all. The 3 charge makes no sense at all and is actually counter intuitive for the design of the weapon and how revenant plays. This feels like something I would be using on my mesmer, not on my revenant. Spears are not slow weapons so this wielding it like I was trying to swing around a concrete stop sign is ridiculous. The damage doesn't even match the slowness either. Add onto this the auto attack stops attacking at times indiscriminately.

Graphical feedback is poor, and makes no sense for revenant. Why are we using these death knight inspired effects and not mist effects? Archemerous is a spear user so use him as inspiration and mist effects.

A condition weapon that only inflicts one condition makes it pretty much useless in most PvP scenarios and underperforming for PvE.

The weapon being reliant on one button throughout its effects is a terrible design. Everything else feeding into making sure we use that button more often is even worse. The buff should be something that happens as we use the spear not because we hit the 5 key like an addled up bird bobble. If nothing else this should be tied to a spec, like vindicator since Archemerous is the spear guy.

The design team needs to put someone that actually cares about revenants on there instead of people just doing it because they have to. The dev team has been taking away from revenants since the end of EoD at this point and this is yet another weapon that feels like it was designed with little actual thought in the mechanics beyond they thought it was cool.

Even if you brought this up to 900 range this weapon is still inferior to the shortbow, and would just be competing on the same level as the shortbow.

Edited Thursday at 06:01 PM by Ravenwulfe.5360

[DarkLancer.1902]

I'm in agreement here. The spear is POWERFUL, but very slow. everything feels like moving through molasses, and cold molasses at that. It does kill stuff effectively, but feels slow.

Edited Thursday at 05:09 PM by DarkLancer.1902

[Kheron.9062]

I just want to echo what many have said already. The spear is too slow. Every single skill is just too slow.

Additionally, Abyssal Raze is meant to be spammed but a bit spendy. Even running Vindicator with the trait to make F2 restore energy, spear is too spendy. It also takes too long to ramp up vs a single target.

Also, a source of might (or fury to proc might stacks via trait) would be greatly appreciated, at least for solo/open world perspective. I like to do stuff like solo dungeons, fractals, just random champions I find. It's fun. But stacking might more easily would help.

I have seen others discuss needing more cover condis. I am mostly a power player, but I just wanted to highlight what other longtime rev players have stated, like Spudzie (over 1k hours) and Hizen. In addition to better cover condi dmg spread for the condi enjoyers, maybe swapping the auto's torment for a short duration chill + vuln so that condi can still trait to chill > torment and power can vuln > battle scars via trait. Spear really gives "Kournan Oppression" vibes and I feel like making the chill even more constant + apply vuln on top of the cripple + slow + other chill sources in the rest of the kit would make rev spear hit that vibe.

Spear also needs to be more than 600 range, I feel. It's so close to melee it hardly matters, you'll be swarmed by enemies in pve or pvp regardless.

I really hope Spudzie, Hizen, and everyone else giving the same handful of points are taken seriously. I myself have 3.4k hours in Rev. It is my favorite profession, by far. Land Spear is super cool, and would be a blast to use, but it *does* need some adjustments.

[arazoth.7290]

I will say it again for spear ======>

 

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

Because of this the spear skills need lower energy cost.

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

[arazoth.7290]

About the animation effects, others probably will disagree because they want it more rev themed. But I actually like them a lot 😅.

I rather have them put all effort for this weapon to function really well, strong on mechanical side and numbers. I think most would be more happy if it functions well then animations.

But for feature rev weapons, stay more ln the fantasy of mist animations.

[Malus.2184]

So, I spent some time testing the Rev spear and after less than an hour I had to call it quits. This is the worst-designed weapon I've ever seen. It's cumbersome to use, unfocused and lacks several of the abilities which make other weapons a vastly superior choice.

Spear 1, Abyssal Strike: Whether you're in melee or ranged it's just the same skill repeated over and over again with different animations. The Ranger spear has a different ability for range and a complete AA chain. This is subpar when directly compared to another weapon.

 Spear 2, Abyssal Force: 1-second cast and then a slow travel to the target. 600 range and it STILL takes about ½ a second for it to make impact. Being in the face of your target still has the hit happen sometime after the cast.

Spear 3,. Abyssal Blitz: The only ability with a ½-second cast. This means you can reliably get it off. It's directionally targeted and summons three mines on the line when cast. Any target has to walk into the mines as even on a large hitbox you're unlikely to get more than one off even if you stand at optimal range. Using it as a dash to get away from your target TURNS YOU AROUND so you have to turn around again to continue attacking, meaning that when used like that the AA will only start AFTER you orientiate yourself towards the target.

Spear 4, Abyssal Blot: The pull, needs to be ground-targeted and then has a cast timer. It also functions as a Defiance Break, has good damage, and needs to be spammed due to it giving CD reduction to Spear 5 which makes its use as a reliable CC incidental at best. The pull only happens on the last of six hits giving people enough targets enough time to get out of it that they can be utterly unaffected. The only good thing I can say about this is that if you have picture-perfect timing you can combo this with Abyssal Force.

Spear 5, Abyssal Raze: Ground-targeted with a 1 1/4-second cast. At least goes off immediately when the cast is completed and the aftercast animation is virtually non-existent. Those are the only things I can say about it since while the benefit from the other skills is a novel idea it makes the skill feel clunky to use.

The Condi component of the spear is solely Torment.

Even with snap-to-ground targeting the Rev spear feels horrible to use. It feels like an inferior short bow and while you can get away with the qualities in PvE where the ability of mobs is limited going into PvP or WvW with this weapon is DOA. Almost all the skills of the spear can be interrupted even a basic ½-second cast Daze. The direct damage is slow and in a lot of cases easily avoidable. Using movement abilities people can get off Abyssal Blot before the pull affects them. The cast time on Abyssal Raze makes it unviable in an environment where people constantly move around. One cleanse will wipe the Condition damage component clean off, making the damage profile of this weapon in competitive environments a nonstarter. 600 Range can hardly be called ranged in the first place. It's just extended melee that you can use projectile hate abilities against.

This execution is horrible. There's no way that the abilities can be saved as even if the cast and animation time are reduced to a more manageable level the skills themselves are boring, the 1 is particularly uninteresting as you only see the same animation repeated over and over again as the only change between them are whether you're in melee or ranged.

Can everything and instead use the GS as the base and make it fully a hybrid melee weapon.

Spear 1, Abyssal Strike: An AA chain where the first attack inflicts Burning. The second Torment. The third is Burning and Torment and gives one stack of Crushing Abyss.

Spear 2, Abyssal Slash: An attack that inflicts Burning and Torment, hits up to five targets- Reduces the CD of Abyssal Raze by X-seconds.

Spear 3, Abyssal Blitz: Makes you move along a line. If you have a target your direction will always be facing the target. Spawns three mines that move towards the primary target and explode (possibly also inflicting Conditions of some kind). Each mine and the Blitz itself generates a stack on Crushing Abyss for each target hit to a maximum of five stacks.

Spear 4, Abyssal Barrier. Blocks attacks for the duration. Reduces CD of Abyssal Raze by X, each blocked attack further reduces it by Y-seconds.

Spear 5, Abyssal Raze: does damage and inflicts Burning and Torment. Each stack of Crushing Abyss increases the damage by X% and generates 1 additional stack of Burning and Torment. Ammo count 1, Crushing Abyss only goes away on the timer rather than on the use of Abyssal Raze.

This would make the spear more interactive with itself since you'd want to get the abilities off. It would also make it less Abyssal Raze-focused as right now it feels like everything else only exists in service of Abyssal Raze, which IMO is boring.

Edited Thursday at 06:00 PM by Malus.2184

[nobleboivin.4102]

Spear 1 animations could be sped up a little bit.  Feels slow

[Ghin.1653]

• Keeping up Abyssal Raze feels aweful. The 1 1/4 channel is terrible and feels ABYSSmal to upkeep and keep track of. It currently requires more attention than most other skills, the duration that the buff is active is too short.
• Currently the 900 spear range feels bad, and the auto attack randomly stops working even when in range.
• Abyssal Blitz can create UP TO 5 mines, which means there is some black magic trick to try and create maximum mines, which feels bad. It also does not currently register as a movement skill for the purpose of Aggressive Agility despite literally being a dash

If you want this skill to be the "big skill" that players use frequently all spear skills need to play much faster.

Something also to consider is perhaps abyssal raze can target abilities 3 and 4 to add effects onto those skills, similar to your idea for engineer shortbow, and bolster the effects of those skills, this would give it interesting synergy and help keep the ability counter up. Could make the abilities larger and explode for abyssal raze's damage + original ability damage + bonus combo.

Or maybe Abyssal Raze leaves an area on the ground so it can combo with itself.

Also Crushing Abyss should simply unleash the current level of Abyssal Raze, not requiring maximum stacks.

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

Okay wow yeah this is way worse than I expected.

I was trying to be optimistic but no, this is terrible guys. This has to be looked at. 

What is this weapon's purpose? For a condi weapon it only has one condi. Either give it more or just remove torment and have it be a pure power weapon, as the power scaling isn't even that good. Which is sad because after some tests I got better results with a power build over a condi build.

 

But as I said back in the preview thread, my main concern is the need to spam a ground targetted skill 5. This is cumbersome and uncomfortable. Abyssal Raze should be skill 2. This is our bread and butter. At worst it should be 3, but definitely not 5.

[Angesombre.4630]

Absolutely slow, not to mention kitten.
not enough damage, expensive energy costs to have the same CDs as the other spears, except for the 5 competence that the CD is lower.

All attacks except 3 are slow. 
Not enough damage and alteration. Why only serious torment?

Skill 4 is also abominable for competitive content, slow to launch, slow to do its stun effect and then with this effect in competitive content does no damage why not an interruption.

Frankly, a big disappointment. After the crappy scepter, still not improved, now a spear that's useless.

Frankly, I'm trying to be calm and polite, but it's very difficult.

Edited Thursday at 07:22 PM by Angesombre.4630

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

- The cast times are way to high

- dmg seems poor power wise

- just torment ist not enough, add some bleeding and burning at least to spear 5. Maybe add further conditions for different theresholds off crushing abyss. 2 stacks --> add bleeding, 3 stacks --> add burning. The stacks are increased based on the stacks of crushing abyss. means:

1 stack = 2 stack torment (there shuld at least 1 stack of torment when you first use the skill and theres no stack on you, seems, actually the first use of the skill just do some dmg)

2 stacks = 2 stacks torment, 1 stack bleeding,

3 stacks = 3 stacks torment, 2 stacks bleeding, 1 stack burning (ans so on)

- The unleash while weapon swap with maximum stacks could use some additional effects as well as some dmd increase. Maybe pulsing torment for a few seconds around the player. Also the dark aura should fade away more fast. Maybe after 3 secs or something like that (this could go together with the pulsing aura) 

[Bdecki.7856]

I don't know where this weapon fits. I was hoping I could replace my mace/axe in my cele build, but this thing feels awful to use. Building 5 stacks with the slow abilities is a chore (even with quickness), and the payoff is poor. I like to swap weapons off cooldown for double sigil procs, and you're punished heavily by losing all of those stacks as soon as you've built them for 1 tiny raze on swap. The dps is far less than that of my mace/axe, sword/sword build and that is pretty sad.  I got the most dps by camping the weapon, which was still low and extremely boring. Was hoping I could make a viable torm build just using spear,sword, and glint chills with mallyx, but the damage was less than my sword spamming chilling isolation on cele gear.. 

 

That's 2 flops in a row for rev weapons ANET. I don't expect perfection during a beta, but this is just laughable.

After mashing all of the abilities, maintaining 5 stacks, I managed 2k dps on the golem with a cele abyssal chill build. By swapping to sword/sword, mace/axe I immediately easily hit 11k with the same build just different weapons. How have you actually developed such a weak weapon ANET? This thing is a JOKE.

Edited Thursday at 08:03 PM by Bdecki.7856

[SidewayS.3789]

ROUND 1 ! SCEPTER CRAP WEAPON vs REVENANT ! FIGHT ! SCEPTER WIN !

ROUND 2 ! SPEAR CRAP WEAPON vs REVENANT ! FIGHT !!!  SPEAR WIN !

Honestly, how the kitten can you fail 2 times in a row Anet. Scepter was on par with pistol on elementalist. meaning it was a CRAP kittenING kitten weapon, and now with SPEAR it's even more crapier than Scepter. FOR REAL?

[saar.3492]

• Cast times are too long.
• Losing the "Crushing Abyss" stacks on weapon swap feels bad.

[Oldyoung.6109]

As with every post on this thread i will start with the slow Cast times and 600 range being totally insufficient, should be at least 900 as for the speed i have thoughts on each skill individually.

 

1. Abyssal strike  ¾ is simply too slow ½ would be much better 

2. Abyssal Force feels good to use but is too slow to combo well with other skills would  bring it down to ½ cast time also the AoE effect seems unnecessary it could be dropped for balance without much issue.

3. Abyssal Blitz feels really good although it could stand to have it's range increased a bit.

4. Abyssal Blot is slow and the dark field duration is too short to combo effectively, i would bring it to at least ¾ cast time and double the dark field duration.

5. Abyssal Raze feels slow but i don't believe it requires cast time adjustments rather i would reduce the cooldown to ½ from 1s and increase the radius to 240 up from 180 while it was sometimes difficult to land in competitive scenarios it was always close and given it's numerical power it should only need slight adjustments; the real issue is the Crushing abyss effect only lasting 8 seconds which is far too low to allow for weapon swapping or even missing a single shot,  the effect would be gone before i could position correctly in a fight or regain enough energy to cast again it should have a duration of at least 12 seconds you could probably push it over 20 seconds before it becomes too strong.

 

In summation Revenant's spear has opposite issues compared to scepter it's mechanically solid but with abysmal numbers holding it back.

 

Edited Thursday at 08:05 PM by Oldyoung.6109

[Angesombre.4630]

Useless with herald if you want to maintain quickness and do a minimum of damage, useless with renegat because there are no alterations to match and it's abominably slow, and vindicator is skill spam for mediocre results.
If you wanted to change revenant weapons, maybe something other than torment would have been useful. I don't know, maybe some burn, some poison, maybe even some bleed to go with Kalla.
Even the 5 skill buff is mediocre.
I stand by my opinion from the stream. 
Competence 4 is mediocre, slow and unhelpful, with an ignition delay that looks like a fart that doesn't explode. Maybe daze would have been more useful.
During the launch of 4 competences out of 5, I have time to make a coffee because it's so slow. So many opportunities for an opponent to interrupt us.
And what's this game with mines 3,4 maybe 5? who says better?
And as for the range, I don't know what to think, frankly.
If you want to compare it to the elem, which has range buffs of over 1200, yes, it's like on the rodeur, where we're well over 1500 range, plus the elementalist has some nice effects, buffs and malus, and with quickness it's a machine gun with 1200+ range. So yes, the revenant is a piece of kitten.
Just to remind you that your scepter is also crap.

Edited Thursday at 08:43 PM by Angesombre.4630

[Farohna.6247]

On renegade, feels very slow, very short range, and the bombs seem weird to be behind me (I'd rather have them tossed in front, but that may be just me).  I wouldn't trade up any of my current weapons for a spear.   

[Angesombre.4630]

The good thing is that we're sticking to the same opinion as during the stream, so you still have something to read Anet several pages ago. And even a video.

 

[Xei Han.8736]

In a word: cumbersome.  It feels like you're swinging a lead weight.  Rev has always been the flash fighter, dancing around the battlefield.  Even the hammer skills are faster than the spear skills.  While I might not enjoy button-mashing specs, playing spear is more like waiting-till-I-can-push-the-next-button.  Would not use.

[trunksam.3497]

I played it a lot in open world, it's fun to get a full rotation where you always have a skill up to use, but the weapons feel slow and so much mana vore. Need more distance especially with the 5 skill, you are a little short for some world boss as a range weapon. Crushing abyss can be hard to maintain against enemis with immortality or phases, maybe add 1-2 second to make it easier. It also need more dmg. But as i play the weapon, i have a lot of fun, try to keep the fun feeling of it !

[Jaykay.9641]

Overall Design Feedback: 

• Most are talking about the slow cast times. I expect this will get fixed based on community feedback and it's an easy fix.
• Hybrid design - With how Rev Spear is now, I feel this needs to be changed to power to make up for cast times and all the AoE spam. This is unfortunate because I really appreciate the soft CC of the numerous Chill effects which procs Torment in Corruption traits. Maybe there is space for a spammy condi AoE weapon, but then it needs to be quicker.
• Range - the 600 range is always tough on any weapon as the melee/900/1200 range is engrained in players brains. Rev players will just revert to Shortbow at 900 range which has pierce on all abilities.

Auto attack:

• Needs 900 range.
• In melee, it needs an auto attack chain for extra benefits. Or, just make the spear and torment application deal more the closer you are to the target.

Skill 2:

• Cast time needs some shaving which I expect will happen
• Would almost rather have Scepter 2 skill on spear that pulses torment and Chill around the target and can be detonated to receive a stack of Abyssal Raze.
• Should be a reliable skill 2 that should be used a lot.

Skill 3:

• I like the mine effect and it's an explosion which will probably open up an explosion relic in the future. 
• Movement distance is similiar to Greatsword 3 and just needs to be a longer dash.

Skill 4:

• probably the best ability on Rev Spear. Nice size AoE, Dark field, sets up nice combo with skills 2 and 5. Just need 900 range

Skill 5:

• I would rather the 5 ability have no cooldown and just cost energy that increases the energy cost with each stack of Abyssal Raze. Much simpler design and not a need to spam other abilities to lower CD's. 
• Was hoping there was some movement component. Was imagining Thief Staff 5 when this first got introduced.
• Always love blast finishers

 

[Ghin.1653]

If people think the weapon needs more ailments, perhaps Abyssal Raze could gain Poison at 3 stacks and ignite at 5.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

Plays like Hammer, but somehow feels worse to play than hammers. I can't believe Anet managed to pull that off.