Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Ranger

[willow.8209]

Still checking out ranger but first impression is that the spear is weak, and the color effect makes me not want to use that. It looks much more like jade bot stuff, than nature stuff. And just unappealing for light effects. 

Odd because the mace was like, amazing ranger theme. Beautiful. Over-energetic as some of the MH weapons are (which makes my character feel untrained or desperate), but beautiful visuals and useful skills. And very thematic.

And the spear just doesn't have any ranger vibes at all, to me. 

[CETheLucid.3964]

Initial impressions:
The flow could use some work. For example Bee Sting, the ranged part of the AA, should match up with Falcon's Swoop/Owl's Flight at 1200 range. Bee Sting is 900. That screws with me. I also feel like every other time I try to do a stealth set up, my skills are on recharge.

I wish the stealth skills were on a separate cool down from the regular skills instead of sharing the same CD between them.

Otherwise? The weapon is power supreme. It hits fast and hard. It's a simple, fun slap you around weapon. Range or melee. Tons of utility. There is no escape from the pressure outside of active defense. A ranger with a spear is going to hit you. With the caveat from above for work on the flow, it seems solid. I like it.

I'll need more time with but yeah. Pretty good with it for my first go around.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Short and sweet-

-Can skill 1 projectile be an actual bee, can the ambush also be ranged and a bunch of bees :3

-Can skill 5 include a green spider animation somewhere

-Make owl animation a little bit bigger it looks almost like the auto attk.

-Great mechanic of stealth+new attacks.

 

[Batalix.2873]

Um...it's VERY green. As someone else said, Jadebot green.

I like most of the leaf effects, but I feel like the saturation could be toned down a bit on this, and maybe pushed just a tad bluer into more emerald/forest green territory. More jungle stalker vibes.

[DarkLancer.1902]

So, this was an interesting concept, but it's not worth the hassle. The stealth gimmick is clunky, and damage is otherwise low. Apart from the fact that it can operate at all ranges, which is useful for some bounties in the Crystal Desert, this kit has no utility advantages over the greatsword, and deals considerably less damage. Better to re-work this kit as a melee condi weapon, since the main-hand dagger needs 100% quickness uptime to be functional.

[Khalif.2076]

6 hours ago, frazazel.7501 said:

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).

 

THIS 1000%  right now we essentially only have 4 skills to use. the simplest "fix" imo is to keep "stealth" and non stealth skill cds separate.

when i stealth, i should get access to my stealth skills independent of the main skill CD

Edited June 28 by Khalif.2076

[AliamRationem.5172]

Pretty much agree with what others have said.  The damage feels low and there's nothing aside from the range capability to recommend this over other available power options.  The stealth feels bad in PvE.  It's like my other skills deal low damage simply to justify the ability to juice them via stealth and then they still deal less damage than other weapons like sword/axe.  The ranged/melee options are an interesting concept.  Maybe the answer here is to scrap the stealth and design the flip skills around the ranged/melee conditional, granting more damage to the melee options and more utility to the ranged options?

[OTGBionicArm.2417]

After going through all the new spear weapons, I feel Ranger Spear is the most underwhelming. It feels like you get the most out of the skills with stealth, which is neat in theory, but it makes me think of Thief, and Thieves aren't sacrificing parts of their skills by ignoring stealth, only an ambush ability. Second is the fact that this weapon seems the most deliberately split down the middle of being a melee and ranged weapon, where the others maybe had the hybrid 1 skill thing, but otherwise functioned mostly as one or the other. This made it feel rather janky and unwieldy to use.

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, OTGBionicArm.2417 said:

After going through all the new spear weapons, I feel Ranger Spear is the most underwhelming. It feels like you get the most out of the skills with stealth, which is neat in theory, but it makes me think of Thief, and Thieves aren't sacrificing parts of their skills by ignoring stealth, only an ambush ability. Second is the fact that this weapon seems the most deliberately split down the middle of being a melee and ranged weapon, where the others maybe had the hybrid 1 skill thing, but otherwise functioned mostly as one or the other. This made it feel rather janky and unwieldy to use.

I actually agree with both of these points, but also this weapon feels very "solo PvE roaming" more than most of the other weapons. So I'm much less concerned about pretty much all of these issues. It works just fine as a weapon that can stealth/ranged approaching mobs but won't feel like wasted potential cutting them down with fewer, weaker melee skills.

[Johnny.1634]

Not a single skill interacts with our pet what-so-ever...you know....our WHOLE PROFESSION MECHANIC....

Yet another disappointment. You guys just never seem to learn.

 

[OTGBionicArm.2417]

1 hour ago, Batalix.2873 said:

I actually agree with both of these points, but also this weapon feels very "solo PvE roaming" more than most of the other weapons. So I'm much less concerned about pretty much all of these issues. It works just fine as a weapon that can stealth/ranged approaching mobs but won't feel like wasted potential cutting them down with fewer, weaker melee skills.

I don't know. The whole cat and mouse stealth / wait / ambush thing feels bad to me in solo PvE stuff, which is most of what I do. When I play a Thief, I just use a staff and beat things to death rather than trying to be technical about it. That said, Thieves and Mesmers have many, many, many more tools to accomplish this gameplan, where as here it's basically all baked into the spear, via... 1 ability. Another issue I'd say I have in hindsight is that yeah, Rangers don't have a lot of ways to get stealth on their own outside weapon abilities (longbow 3 for instance), so it feels like you can't really press this mechanic to the heights I think it could go.

[Vargs.6234]

Really not a fan of the generic melee unleash ambush. The ranged hybrid mechanic of this thing feels completely pointless considering how bad the single target ranged auto is + needing to be in there every 5 seconds for the 2 and the ambush. The animations/effects are quite plain, and from a PvE perspective I don't love how I'm giving up a 5 skill just to make my 2 hit an extra time 98% of the time (with the other 2% being the CC). Leap is super short rang and slow. The stealth skills in general are just pretty boring, and the last thing I need on my ranger is another power melee weapon when there are already so many stellar options. Sadly despite being most excited for this spear during the initial preview, I was quite disappointed.

Edited July 11 by Vargs.6234

[Batalix.2873]

37 minutes ago, OTGBionicArm.2417 said:

I don't know. The whole cat and mouse stealth / wait / ambush thing feels bad to me in solo PvE stuff, which is most of what I do. When I play a Thief, I just use a staff and beat things to death rather than trying to be technical about it. That said, Thieves and Mesmers have many, many, many more tools to accomplish this gameplan, where as here it's basically all baked into the spear, via... 1 ability. Another issue I'd say I have in hindsight is that yeah, Rangers don't have a lot of ways to get stealth on their own outside weapon abilities (longbow 3 for instance), so it feels like you can't really press this mechanic to the heights I think it could go.

I mean, sniping with Daredevil is also inefficient, but people enjoy that in PvE too. If the fantasy is solid and people are into it, I don't think efficiency matters much.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

From an impromptu duel in WvW...

Spear has (roaming) potential.  A lot of the attacks are overly vanilla but the amount of ways you can enter stealth now is actually bonkers.  

It's clear that this was a PvP weapon design again, so naturally it works pretty well with Untamed, and naturally I think a lot of people are going to really hate it.  

[OTGBionicArm.2417]

13 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

I mean, sniping with Daredevil is also inefficient, but people enjoy that in PvE too. If the fantasy is solid and people are into it, I don't think efficiency matters much.

True enough. That's why I'm not against it conceptually. I think Ranger would benefit from more ways to gain stealth to facilitate this more however.

[BadSanta.6527]

so after playing with it alittle bit more and compere it to the other classes in game 

heres my thoughts : 

1. is the same art designer really works on all classes ? 

2. clunky clunku clunky , the all outo melle ranges feels bad dmg to low , and to be honest its more a gimmeicky and annoing 

3. skills 3 range feels weird 

4. amush should grand stelth really boaring ambus 

5. the animaton of the stelth skills should feel different for me its the same skill 

6. overall the wepons was not fun to use only the melle auto attack 

[notrlvnt.4139]

I mainly play PVE and the spear skill set feels meh. Not sure which better way to describe.
I won't be mentioning numbers, other people have already did that.

Skill 1 range feels underwhelming. Just poking with only the benefit of a "small" range. No conditions or boons. Like quickness over time after 3 shots at the enemy or something.

Skill 1 ambush should also have a range option for situations where going close is not doable.

Skill 4 is ok but the placement is weird. I think there should be an effort where all the movement really skills be on the same button. This or let us move a skill to our designated key slot.

Skill 5, I should have more time to choose which skill I want to use next. Feels that I don't have enough time for it. 

Overall, It's meh. The maces were more interesting to be honest.

[willow.8209]

Ok more considered opinion, this is pretty good other than the shade of green. I'd use spear instead of longbow, if I ran a power build. On ranger I usually use condi. Of course I favor condi more overall.

 

However, sometimes I'm too far for melee and the hybrid skills swipe ineffectively at the air instead of using the ranged variant. I suspect this is related to the targeting bug. 

Edited June 28 by willow.8209

[enkeny.6937]

Stealth part:
Only 1 skill do more damage. It is actually a good thing, because stealth attack will be used for more damage, so if there is more than 1 only the best damage would be used.
Pet superspeed:
move it from Spider's web to Panther's Prowl.  (I realized pet also get the swiftness)
Ambush:
It do damage. Not huge damage, just damage. Other ambushes do more damage and do other effects. 
Hammer gives stability, Greatsword do vulnerability, Sword do CC, MACE, same damage, longer range, heal,  Immobilize, do the weapon mechanic stuff!
It looks unfinished.

Edited June 28 by enkeny.6937

[Ajxs.9385]

From a purely PvE perspective.

Good

- The concept of the weapon is interesting. The switch between range and melee on the Skill 1 isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's really nice to have.

- Animations are lovely, the motions feel very graceful, effects are not that great but I don't think they're bad neither.

- Seems like a decent option for Open World. Stealth and cleave are two good selling points.

Bad

- The numbers are underwhelming, this is pretty self explanatory. An important note here is that Stealth Spear 2 features a massive cast time and Stealth Spear 3 and 4 are not worth using or even entering stealth for.

- The stealth mechanic is clunky, entering stealth while casting any skill or having any hitbox out (spores, traps, ...) will pull you out and give you the "revealed" status, making you lose a crucial part of your loop. This is especially prominent with Jaguar's new F2, as it doesn't stop any action on the ranger, pulling him out of stealth at the end of the action.

- While Stealth in PvE mostly means "just another stance", there are bosses that will give you the "revealed" status effect further impeding the use of that stance. This already happens with Deadeye, making it not playable on a practical level in some encounters like Old Lion's Court since their main mechanic and loop is not usable there.

- The leap is very uninteresting, it's a slow leap and that's it. Making it faster if you're close enough and making it have a bigger AoE if you're further enough would provide the skill some identity, specially if you want to lean into the Melee/Ranged split facet of the weapon.

- The Unleashed Ambush is a nothing burger, just your average 3.0 coeff, no spores like Sword or Greatsword, no healing and Range like Maces, hell, even Staff and Longbow are giving you something more interesting.

The current cons far outweight the pros in my honest opinion, so, on the brighter note, it makes me very glad we get stuff like these betas or threads that ask for our feedback.

[phandaria.4891]

Why is it bright jade bot green? Mace got the green right, spear green however, should be given to mechanist instead of ranger.

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

RANGER SPEAR

[1] - ''AUTOATTACK''

•  The melee combo chain is fine. Granting stealth on the 3rd chain is an interesting and welcomed effect - allows you to keep pursuing the target
•  The ranged attack is lackluster on many aspects - the attack rate is too slow - perhaps go from 3/4 to 1/2 of a second? The damage is also pretty low. The fact it also has no other elements to it feels uninspired - just a 900 range, slowish ranged weapon. Perhaps adding cripple to it would add more synergy with the Swiftness gained from the melee attacks?

---

[2] - MONGOOSE'S FRENZY (NON-STEALTH)

•  It is fine - 5-targets, double hits, moderate damage, applies 8 stacks of vuln

[2] - WOLF'S ONSLAUGHT (STEALTH)

•  The only thing it adds is an extra blow - I feel it could benefit from something else - perhaps gain fury on the initial 2 strikes just before the extra blow?

---

[3] - FALCON'S STOOP (NON-STEALTH)

•  Mostly fine though the casting time is once more a bit too slow - a change from 3/4 to 1/2 would be great. It would have interesting synergy if other than its cripple, it would immobilize a target with cripple - that way it would ''pin'' down a crippled target

[3] - OWL'S FLIGHT (STEALTH)

• Pretty solid upgrade - pierces, is unblockable and has a 1200 range rather than 900. But again, cast time is too long.

---

[4] - WARCLAW'S ENGAGE (NON-STEALTH)

• The traversal duration is too slow - should be snappier, faster to leap and land. The radius also _feels_ smaller than it should be? The indicator definitely doesn't reflect the proper area of effect... 

[4] - PREDATOR'S AMBUSH (STEALTH)

• Same issues as non-stealth version - traversal is slow, radius doesn't seem like the right one. The daze is a solid extra effect

---

[5] - PANTHER'S PROWL (NON-STEALTH)

• This skill needs to have a SEPARATE cooldown and charge from its stealth skill - sharing the same cooldown and charge with the flip skill means you need to use both charges at once

[5] - SPIDER'S WEB (STEALTH)

• See previous comment - it needs its own, separate charge and cooldown - otherwise, solid soft control skill and the superspeed on pet is a nice touch

---

GENERAL FEEDBACK

 

⚠️ REMOVE ''REVEALED'' FROM ALL STEALTH SKILLS

All the stealth skills have the effect of granting ''Revealed'' to the Ranger - that means the Ranger is revealed **upon skill activation** and whether or not the skill hits - this really sucks and doesn't make sense.

 

ADD MORE SOURCES OF STEALTH

This weapon is a bit too reliant on stealth and has limited access to it. The recent addition of granting stealth to the ranger from the Jaguar's F2 was a nice touch, but it isn't enough -

 

What if there was a trait to grant stealth to the Ranger upon using a beast ability?

Well, there is a perfect contender for that:

• Beastmastery Adept -  GO FOR THE EYES

Not only does the name thematically fit (going for the eyes blinds the target) - it would add more sources of stealth to the Ranger. Of course the cooldown would need to be increased - from 12s to maybe 20, 25s - and perhaps the trait could be moved to Master Tier - but adding a trait that grants stealth would make the Spear work really well. Remove the Ranger stealth from Jaguar F2 and add this new trait so that any pet can potentially grant Stealth with their F2

Moving that trait to Master Tier would also allow for something else related to the Spear - The Master Tier of the Beastmastery line also has TWO-HANDED TRAINING - currently, it was changed to only affect underwater spear - but if that same trait tier offers both TWO-HANDED TRAINING and GO FOR THE EYES, the player will have to choose between extra stealth to synergize with the spear, or extra damage and reduced cooldown - one of the two!

---

Right now, as with most other professions, it is difficult to find a use or niche for the Ranger Spear - other weapons excel at their role whereas the Spear doesn't have a clear purpose and identity. On one hand it is heavily reliant on stealth but on the other, stealth isn't really part of the Ranger's kit - Rangers do have some stealth through skills or combos, but not enough to warrant an entire weapon benefiting and synergizing with it so much

Edited June 28 by ProtoMarcus.7649
Formatting

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

Low damage and uninteresting.

Thematically, the stealth is cool and appropriate but when it comes to the gameplay, it's a clunky useless mechanic that doesn't add anything to the ranger's kit.

[Nero.7369]

WvW / General Feedback

Expected Role: Stealthy and Bursty Roamer

Overall Feedback

• I like the stealthy theme for the ranger, just doesnt work out yet
• Damage is way to low
• You can chain up skills to combo smoke fields beacuse all skills will reveal you, while thief will not be revealed when kittening up their stealth attacks so they can spam it over and over till they hit. While i would appreciate this in general because stealth camping get denied. it should be the same for everyone and designed around it. Else it's just unfair. And in this case not smooth at all. Because the next points. Change it so that it only reveals when you actually miss an attack due to block aegis blind dodge... 
• Base skills are kinda boring, just a bit of damage, and you cant combo stealth attacks quickly because of revealed debuff. For example i can imoblize with Spider Web (5) but then cant follow up with a Daze from Predators Ambush (4) and then hit Hard with Wolf's Onslaught (2). So no good skill chaining. 
• Really boring to have just slightly improved skill versions. Guess elementalist consumed all energery.
• Shared cooldown feels kinda bad.
• Should apply some fury / quickness

I won't go into to much details for the weapons, you really have to make the stealth attacks and the normal ones completly different and indepent to be more interesting. And the damage should not be so reliant on stealth, sou you can actually open up with a cc and follow up with some damage combo.

1 - Autoattacks

Gets the job done

2 -  Mongoose's Frenzy / Wolf's Onslaught

• Okayish Animation
• A bit slow, specially the follow up
• Damage should be a tiny bit higher since this will be the main Stealth Attack for Damage

3 - Falcon's Stoop / Owl's Flight

• Really Boring Animation
• Damage is way to low in wvw
• Good to have an unblockable projectil to hunt sth down

4 - Warclaw's Engage / Predator's Ambush

• The animation is terrible, the spirit animal is way to big. Maybe make it from 3 Small one's and let it hit 3 times.
• The Pre-Cast-Time and After-Cast-Time make it even worse, doesn't feel smoth at all

5 - Panther Prowl / Spider Web

• 2 Seconds of Invis is a Joke, specially because you cannot chain up invis easily with the spear itself. 
• 2 Charges and Swiftness is a good thing tho
• Super Speed on Spider Web should be applied to the ranger as well
• The shared cd here is a big problem cause using Spider Web is a huge sacrifice imo
• Panther Prowl cast time should be reduced to 1/4 sec

Bonus

Stalk from the Jaguar stealth duration to cd is really bad right now. 35sec for 3 sec stealth is garbage. Yes it's instant and it makes it strong. Smokescale and Blast leap finishers can be chained up tho for a longer duration. And AoE Invis. on 20 sec cd. Not instant tho.

Edited July 2 by Nero.7369

[eXistence.3876]

I want to really like this weapon. The concept is awesome! I feel the implementation and the skills fall flat. It doesn't really feel impactful and you barely notice a difference between stealth and non stealth attacks. Damage seems super low too. Except for unleashed skill which hits like a truck. But, the unleashed skill is not really unique feeling. It seems like a standard weapon skill. Doesn't have anything unique to ranger or nature magic...alot of it feels like it could go over to warrior or thief and you would not even notice a class difference...sad