Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Ranger

[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 rangers in this thread!

[Aamu.3952]

PvP Feedback;

1. Stealth#3 is not much different to base#3 apart from the unblockable. While it has some niche uses, it doesn't feel good to use compared to the other abilities.
2. Stealth#4 feels bad using as it's your only source of hard CC, but also exists as your only source of mobility. I can't always use it to go in, sometimes I need to use it to escape/reposition. CC is wasted when using for disengage or mobility.

Suggestion: Move the daze from Stealth#4 to Stealth#3. IE; unblockable daze similar to steal on thief. Make stealth#4 a longer leap (600»1200?). This way the abilities have a clearer identity and purposes. #2 is damage, #3 is CC, #4 is engage/disengage, and #5 is utility.

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Edit - More PvP Feedback;

Issue: Revealed on ability activation makes no sense
Suggestion: Remove

Issue: Stealth #5 is really punishing to use. 50 seconds worth of cooldowns for a small packet of dmg and an immobilise
Suggestion: Remove ammo system, increase stealth to 3s, decouple stealth versions from base versions

Issue: Some animations need to be cleaned up;
#3: 3/4s cast time feels too slow for a simple ranged spear toss, change it to 1/2s
#4: Has a slight precast, and the dash speed itself is super slow
#5: Please consider making this instant activation. It's the key to the whole kit and doesn't do anything else but stealth.

Edited 21 hours ago by Aamu.3952
More feedback

[BadSanta.6527]

first impression its sad how bad ther ranger animation second to warrior 

second unleashed its a shame is only mele and not range also i dont get why its healing and not stelth or something 

so far i dont see any use for it in pve maybe pvp has better opinon on it buy i dk 

so far not clicking for me 2/10 

[Steviet.9184]

Spear skill #4 should swap with spear skill #3. Leap skill on #4 slot feels weird.

I would also like to apply "Revealed" with some skills on spear. #5 or #3 seems fitting. 

Range increase in all skills would be great, as it is a spear. I thought it would have more range than sword or sth. 300 or so would be great.

[Beddo.1907]

40 minutes ago, BadSanta.6527 said:

i dont get why its healing

Cause it's unleashed ambush.

[Asthenea.1546]

Just some notes on the "flow" of the weapon, ignoring numbers of course. 

Being half melee/half ranged makes it so sometimes you are stuck auto attacking for quite a while you wait for your abilities to recharge. Example is when in ranged, you really only have auto attack and the 3 skill that throws the spear. And since the stealth skills share a cooldown, you really only can go into mellee and hit the 2, but then everything is on cooldown so you sit there auto attacking. 

Suggestion: 

Either have the the 2 skill have a ranged version as well, so you arent totally locked out at range. Or have the flip skill on the 4 be a disengage. 

[xXxOrcaxXx.9328]

It'd be great if Spear 1 can be set to either the melee or ranged attack if no enemy is targetted, similar to how Hammer 2-5 can be swapped for non-Untamed specs.

Also, I don't get why the flip skills on stealth reveal by default? Thief skills also don't reveal the Thief when no enemy is hit or the attack is blocked (which should be changed btw), so why dies the Ranger get revealed, even if the enemy is missed or blocks?

Edited Thursday at 06:21 PM by xXxOrcaxXx.9328

[anna.5487]

The main problem is the low dps. No use in Pve. 

Pvp wise, it's clunky and low damage. 4 doesn't land, and the skills go away very soon, the invisibility is ok, but doesn't make such a difference. Unleashed is low damage too, compared to sw or anything.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

PvE Oriented Issues:

#1 priority should be boosting damage. It doesn't compete with our other strong weapon sets. In my opinion this should be loaded into the stealth attacks to allow for the mechanic/draw of the weapon to be better overall- skills 3 and 4 especially could have some damage boosts for their stealth skill, but more damage on 2 (stealth or not) to help offset the cast time would also be nice. It wouldn't be that big of a deal if the stealth mechanics made it unviable for PvE coincidentally, but the weapon can absolutely function in both PvP (where the stealth is more valuable) and in PvE (where stealth attack damage bonuses would be more valuable) without stepping on each other's toes.

#2 priority is fixing a small amount of skill jank. Autoing a target and then stealthing with skill 5 (or the new effect on Jaguar, although it isn't required to get the 3 Wolf's Onslaughts you want for DPS rotations) doesn't actually cancel your auto, causing you to potentially waste the stealth (and be revealed, a huge issue for the flow of the weapon). Cancelling spear autos in stealth should be done (unless I had a weird bug happen where it was supposed to and didn't) to ensure rangers don't waste stealth when they didn't mean to hit their target in the first place.

Predator's Onslaught should also be changed to where you "leap faster" the closer you are to a target, as for a melee oriented weapon you spend way too much time leaping at a target's feet for it to take so long to cast- like the sword animation locks, but way worse because it lasts for so long comparatively.

Overall the weapon feels nice to use for the most part, Wolf's Onslaught (stealth skill 2) could use a cast time reduction or a damage boost to make it feel a little better to use. Spider's Web (skill 5 stealth) could use a pet bonus to make it more enticing in PvE- like the dragonhunter relic "hunted" effect that makes a target take more damage, but for pets. Boost that damage overall (especially sustain) and it should be good to go.

A final note on the stealth mechanics as a whole- there are multiple bosses (such as Samarog in the Bastion of the Penitent) that make stealth either impossible to keep on a player or constantly give them Revealed, decreasing "stealth windows" that would otherwise be fine to have for DPS builds. This should be changed to be a "True sight" effect, similar to the one the Turai Ossa boss has in the Queen's Gauntlet, Veil Sight. For those who don't know, Veil Sight literally just lets Turai see a stealthed player, and this effect could be taken one to one into every single instanced boss encounter that wants to avoid "stealth cheese".

This would allow for spear rangers to not necessarily have to worry about swapping off on a given boss, in case they really like spear for whatever reason or don't have access to better alternatives, and the ranger couldn't cheese mechanics by stealthing to avoid a bosses' targeting. This would also help boost Deadeye's viability, a strong build that is harshly hindered by built-in drawbacks and unintentional "nerfs" via raid and strike stealth mechanics.

 

Edit:

Another issue has been found. Spear unleash ambush doesn't lock the auto skills like it does for other weapons. This means you can cancel the ambush by hitting 1 more than once, which is bad across modes since this provides some of Untamed's damage increases in PvE (the ambush is decent, could use more damage but not the end of the world if it doesn't get buffed) and a lot of Untamed's self sustain in PvP (due to the lifesteal all ambush skills have).

Unleash ambush not having a stealth attack is also somewhat disappointing, as well as the autos not having one. I get not wanting to add too many stealth skills, but either basic autos or unleash ambush having one would be nice, even if it's just a "this skill deals x% more to disabled or defiant targets" buff.

While not necessarily an issue, I think conceptually Mongoose's Frenzy (and maybe Wolf's Onslaught), spear 2, should have the cast time reduced. The non-stealth version takes the same amount of time to cast (or is at least listed as such) as the stealth version despite losing an extra strike.

Edited Friday at 09:09 PM by RainbowTurtle.3542
Some more feedback and an issue that has been found

[Vavume.8065]

The animations and colour used are all terrible. The skills are also meh apart from the stealth access.

[frazazel.7501]

PvE thoughts:

With 5 being a skill mainly to empower your other skills, and it doesn't do much on its own, we effectively have only 4 skills to use in our rotations. The fact that we have more options is great, but we actually get to use real weapon skills fewer times per second than with other weapon sets. Spear skills need a relatively shorter cooldown to keep up regular skill use, unless the weapon is intended to have increased focus on auto-attacks.

Contrast to Guardian's spear, where empowering the next skill is actually on a skill that does something, and it's possible to empower many skills by properly chaining them together. Ranger instead gets 1 less skill to use, and can furthermore only empower 1 skill per 10s (with 2 ammo).

The empowerment also doesn't even feel properly impressive.

• The bonus damage on empowering 2 is probably fine. You double your damage on 2 for a charge of skill 5.
• But empowering 3 isn't doing much for you in PvE (blocking and needing a piercing ranged attack is rare), and it bakes in the bonus damage for hitting immbolized/disabled targets.
• Empowering 4 for CC means that you need to hold a charge of 5 and not cast your 4 skill as part of your rotation. This feels bad.
• Empowering 5 uses an extra charge for some condis that rarely matter in PvE. Costing 2 charges total feels terrible for this ability.
• The utility you get by empowering your choice of skill is decent, but skills 2 and 3 feel pretty bad when not empowered. Their power budgets feel like they require empowerment to be good, but you only get that once every 10 seconds, and at the expense of actually having a 5th real weapon skill on your bar.

I would do the following things:

• Make all empowered skill deal meaningfully more damage compared to their unempowered counterparts. Don't make me choose damage or utility. Reward me with damage and my choice of utility.
• Reduce the cooldowns on all skills so that they're about 80% as long as on comparable weapons.
• Move the bonuses around. Putting damage/evade/reposition/CC on the same skill makes the skill overloaded, but it also means that it's hard to use for its more niche uses, and making the CC conditional on saving a charge of 5 for it feels even worse.
  • Make the wide attack (2 skill) deal minor additional damage and include a knockdown when empowered.
  • Make the throw (3 skill) deal additional damage when empowered, in addition to being unblockable and piercing.
  • Make the leap (4 skill) deal less damage, and put a short immobilize on it at baseline. Make it longer range and move faster and deal more damage if empowered. Make it better at its main job, instead of adding new abilities to it.
  • Web shot (empowered 5 skill) can stay mostly bad for PvE, I guess.
• Make the Unleashed Ambush do something more inspiring. Maybe it pulls the enemies towards you. Maybe it makes you shadowstep between enemies a la smokescale attack (evading during your attack). Maybe it applies stealth to you, giving you an effective bonus charge of 5 whenever you activate it? Maybe it reveals enemies and debuffs them?

These changes would mean you can reposition as needed (sometimes as an evade), then empower (5) your wide attack (2) for a CC during breakbars. Since your 3 skill and 5 skill have the same cooldown, it's easy to keep your second charge of 5 for breakbars, and your 2 skill is a low cooldown, so it will frequently be available even if used in your rotation. Your damage won't fall off as hard if you need to stay at range for a while, since more of your damage is on the ranged attacks. You are also penalized less for hanging onto your leap (4), since it deals less damage, and empowering it when you need to reposition faster will feel like a skillful play instead of a mandatory play to even be able to help with breakbars.

Some of the problems are probably not issues in PvP, where stealth is a powerful ability in its own right. But in PvE, it's really just an "empower next skill" button.

[Beddo.1907]

The most important stuff:
1. 
-Range detection feels like there is a stutter from time to time, making you do another melee out of range. Improve it a bit.
-Bee's Sting damage is too low (lower than faster AA axe), making you want to stay in melee, even when range is safer. Buff power damage or/and add poison and add piercing.
-Unleashed ambush needs some effects on it, be it utility, debuffs or damage boost mechanic.
-Bee's Sting projectile feels too small and light.

2.
-Base seems ok, but Ambush should have it's animation sped up.

3.
-Normal skill damage is low. Increase damage and add piercing.
-Ambush skill damage is low and the effects on it are weak enough to not want to use a stealth charge, since damage seems roughly the same to normal. Buff damage, make the hitbox wider and add a way to increase the damage even more when set up properly.

4.
-The animation feels stiff and warclaw model feels off. Improve it. 
-The range is low. Increase it to 900, to match the other spear ranges and allow to get into melee range from throw range.
-The cooldown is just a bit too high. Reduce it to 16s.
-Remove reveal on cast, to allow for disengage, without getting out of stealth.

5.
-The stealth skill prevents animation queue, causing a significant delay between being able to use the skill. Might be caused by skill flip. Please fix it.
-The stealth skill cooldown in PvP is way to high, making spear just a setup weapon after both charges are spent. Reduce it.
-Spider's web is pretty weak and not worth a charge (or two if stealthed with spear). Add more utility, reduce cooldown (as said above) and make the projectile unblockable.

Miscellaneous.
-Change color saturation and hue on skills, to suit ranger more.
-Fix skill flip stopping skill queue.
-Reduce self reveal duration.

Edited 16 hours ago by Beddo.1907

[Mixchimmer.7230]

Hello!

Just some very quick feedback on Ranger spear!  This is from a PvE perspective.

Currently, Untamed doesn't have a very strong single target ranged power ambush, and I think spear would fit this niche nicely.  I'm not wild about the ambush being something that still requires you to get closer to the enemy.

 

I almost think it would be cool if the ambush is different depending on your range just like the auto-attack.

 

Just my thoughts!

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

1 hour ago, anna.5487 said:

The main problem is the low dps. No use in Pve. 

I second this. It was...I think Maurodeur set on the beta charahter? 2400 Power and the dmg was really low. Idk.

Also, the leap could need a more smooth animation. it looks like yjunpunkt in the aur and crach into the ground, when u are at the highest point. Looks really clunky.

[Aamu.3952]

1 hour ago, xXxOrcaxXx.9328 said:

Also, I don't get why the flip skills on stealth reveal by default? Thief skills also don't reveal the Thief when no enemy is hit or the attack is blocked (which should be changed btw), so why dies the Ranger get revealed, even if the enemy is missed or blocks?

This. Reveal on ability activation makes no sense.

[Beddo.1907]

1 hour ago, xXxOrcaxXx.9328 said:

Also, I don't get why the flip skills on stealth reveal by default?

Probably to prevent no reveal from missed ambush.

Edited Thursday at 07:55 PM by Beddo.1907

[Twilightmage.8309]

whats the point of it having range if all the damage is melee.

[Ilsgard.3714]

I had a few issues with the Ranger spear sadly, 

The animations weren't really to my liking, kinda didn't feel "ranger" just some dude swinging a greenish glowing tipped stick 😄 compared to some other profession spear skills ranger was really a let down in the class fantasy section. Also as most people above already mentioned the skills feel a bit off to use, the 5 skill has this odd problem that u either use it for the ambush of another skill whether u miss or land that ambush skill or u go for the net and until the 2 charges go off cooldown u cant use it again, I understood that u have 2 charges of skill 5 which u either use for 1 - stealth - ambush skill - out of stealth - and u still have 1 charge of the 5 left for another stealth, or  stealth - skill 5 again - net - no more charges , thats how I understood the skill should work and it did not work like that at all 😄 ( might be my misunderstanding so meh) 

Also back to class fantasy it really isn't fair like some of the other professions have these new cool looking skill effects and rangers get a strange clunky transparent warclaw and thats it?

I would love for the skills to have more interactivity between them, something in the direction of thief, or at least for the weapon to do something  like mace for example. It doesn't really do anything a greatsword can't do not to mention the unleashed attack it just a re-copy of the greatsword unleashed attack.....I mean you still have time to make something cooler better looking and feeling, for now as an avid Ranger profession lover - I do not love the ranger spear sadly 😞   

P.S.

the 3 and 4 skills need to swap places 😄 it feels weird to have a movement skill on the 4 not only for ranger but most of the other profession's spears were with mixed up movement skills compared to the rest of the weapons ingame..wtf.

[WittleKitty.4152]

PvE Feedback:

UI:
Some of the tooltips go off screen

Revealed:

• Revealed duration is too long. Ranger wants to press buttons fast, having to wait 3 seconds before you can stealth attack again feels bad.
  remove revealed or reduce its duration to 1 second

Skill 1:

• Melee damage feels mostly fine, ranged spear throw should do more. It does less damage then axes with the same range and grants no boons or inflicts conditions.

Skill 2:

• Damage is low, should be on par with Axe 2

Skill 3:

• I don't see myself ever wanting to use the Stealth version of this skill. It needs to give some significant bonus, be it much more damage or utility., pierce is nice, but not enough.

Skill 4:

• Stealth leap and regular leap should switch on what they do. CC on demand is important.
• If they switch, Stealth leap should do much more damage, regular leap which now does cc could do less.
• Edit: I forgot to mention that its range should be increased from 600 to 900, to match its ranged skill 1

Skill 5:

• does nothing but stealth, which means all other abilities need a boost to make up for the lack of an ability
• stealth version feels bad, does not do enough to justify using up 2 charges of the most important ability
• if revealed duration is only reduced, this should have a cool down between charges matching revealed duration to prevent wasting charges of this skill

Visuals:

The shade of green gives me more necromancer vibes, rather then ranger green.

Summary:

• Revealed duration needs to be changed or removed.
• Needs more damage
• Stealth Attacks need to be vastly more powerful then their regular variants (damage and utility)

I really want to like it, but as it is right now i find it very hard to justify using it.
Its competing with axes and loosing badly.

Thank you for reading my feedback!

 

Edited Thursday at 08:59 PM by WittleKitty.4152

[Mazinger.1084]

Skill 5 needs a shorter cooldown or a trait giving an extra resource for it to be worth taking the weapon.  It is entirely built around stealth, so I shouldn't have to wait so long for a single charge, nevermind the two needed for the immob.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

The spear Stealth attack should not put the regular attacks on Cooldowns, please consider changing this to make the spear a much more fluid weapon. It would make the weapon less clunky.

Edited Thursday at 09:09 PM by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Vavume.8065]

2 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

-Change color saturation and hue on skills, to suit ranger more.

Agreed 100%.

[frazazel.7501]

As a pie-in-the-sky wishlist item, I would love it if spear was reworked to be a condi weapon, or a hybrid damage weapon similar to ranger axe.

While axe is a ranged weapon that needs to go into melee regularly, spear feels like a melee weapon that can deal a bit of ranged damage when mechanics force you away from your target. That's not a terrible place to be in. But its ranged attack needs to not be worse single-target damage than the melee attack if this weapon wants to be taken seriously as an actual ranged weapon.

[enkeny.6937]

[PvE]
Numbers should be increased. At the moment, it has the lowest damage as a physical damage weapon. I has stealth and mobility, but mobility is not better than almost any other option.
In melee at least 10% damage increase need to be in the same level as other options. maybe let it works with 'two-handed training'

In range.... at least 80% increase to bee's sting.   I get it the range damage should be lower than the melee, but not half as much damage without any condition and/or boon. 
with +80% it still has lower damage than a long bow auto attack, but at least it can be called 'damage' for an auto attack.

And finally what I would change:
At the moment if feels like spear is a melee weapon, with a range skill. Like when we could throw the great-sword. So if the goal is melee-ranged hybrid weapon let it work as a range weapon.
switch the cooldown of #2 and #3. So it can be more usable in range.
Also increase #4 to 20 sec CD. That way spear has a skill for Firework relic. A skill with 15-20 sec CD will be used only 1 time in every rotation, so in PvE actually it will be a b
 

[mandala.8507]

The effects on these skills are amazing, but I think they could be more impactful sounding. I would go back and compare to the core ranger "spirit creature" attacks like greatsword 2 and 3, sword 3, etc. to match them sonically. It literally might just be a relative volume thing, because I do hear them, but it's so quiet.

There could also be a little more definition in the spirit animals on the stealth attacks for spear 2 and 3. Genuinely such a great touch, but they're a bit too subtle compared to the absolutely massive spear 4 creature.