Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Ranger

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Wonder if they leave the reveal but make it so #5 removes revealed. 

There are 2 charges on the #5, so it would allow for both attack and defense, and if the charges are up then you just get revealed for 3s on the last stealth attack you used.

So, something like smokescale stealth, then #4 to evade which will temporarily reveal, but can go defense and use #5 to remove it, etc. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 6/28/2024 at 9:38 AM, evasivemonkey.8961 said:

Visually the skills are really nice, but they hit like a wet napkin unfortunately. I think across the board the numbers need to be raised, OR you can add bleed and poison condis to so some of the abilities, and make it more of a hybrid weapon. As a mostly condi player I know I'm biased, but we really have quite enough pure power two handed weapons as ranger, and hammer and great sword are very potent.

I do think the stealth and ambush mechanics need a little more tuning, there's not really enough difference between the base and stealth attack versions of the abilities. I think adding a few offensive boons to the stealth attacks would be nice, or just raising the damage would work fine. I'd like to see more variety in the actual effects of the ability, but even just a damage boost would be better than what it is right now. Additionally, the revealed duration seems too long, and makes the stealth mechanic feel clunky.

The leap is a little small, I don't think we need something as long as the staff movement ability, but it's a little puny at the moment. Maybe increase the base range, and increase it further when coming out of stealth.

I like the spear, or at least I think I'll like the spear in the future. It feels like when it's a more complete weapon it will be very fun to use, but it's for sure not finished. But that's the point of the beta, so keep it up and thank you for giving us great content!

 

 

Pls add bleed/poison I'm begging you.

I'm sure the problem they're running into trying to shoehorn this stealth 5 skill in is that you have to compensate for the lost skill slot on 5 while making the flip skills on 2-4 impactful without making the regular skills complete garbage.  So, let's say they do that and you really want to use those flip skills for impact.  Now any time you fail to use them you're losing out on a ton of damage (or utility, etc.), making for a touchy rotation reliant on not getting revealed.  Then the rest of the time you're hitting with wet noodle attacks.

On the other hand, if you don't do it that way, then the 5 skill feels low-impact.  Who cares if I stealth or not?  The skills are too similar.  So why even have them?  Worse, why lose a skill on slot 5 just to stealth for low-impact effects?

It might be useful in PvP, but stealth just isn't a benefit in PvE.  I think devoting a weapon skill slot to it and requiring its use to make your other skills worth using is always going to be a problematic mechanic.

 

[Artemis.8034]

Okay just a thought here, I think all professions number 1 button attack should be throw when at ranged and melee when close. Spear is disappointing me on several classes, I was hoping for the reality of what a spear is. A spear is a weapon that is thrown but also used to thrust parry stab. I think the basic attack across the board should be a weapon you can throw as you run in and then use in melee with melee attacks. I mean having one or the other looks silly someone throwing spears at an enemy in their face is just not a good look. Should swap to melee combat once in melee range of the spear. And even melee builds should have the ability to throw the spear at range.

[Fenris.8563]

On 6/27/2024 at 12:27 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

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!

Thank you for adding the spear! This has been long awaited by me personally and I am truly grateful.  

I mainly play Untamed Ranger, and the spear for us so far, has potential, but I think it needs some tweaking. I actually am not a huge fan of the way stealth is working in order to use the stealth attacks.  I don't want to actually be tied down to a specific pet(s) to make this work.  I love that you changed the panther's stealth to also stealth Rangers.  In general,  this was very necessary to make the Panther viable!  With that being said, I enjoy versatility, especially with pets. I have an idea for a change where we can still incorporate pet abilities to the spear:

Instead of utilizing stealth for the.... stealth attacks (hear me out, their names can change lol); What if using ANY beast ability (including beastmode abilities) were what actually provides access to those stronger abilities? Or perhaps add stealth to every beast ability?  This way we can use ANY pet we want, and still be able to get the most out of the spear.  As of  right now, it feels like you need at LEAST either the smokescale or the Panther to be able to use all of the stronger spear abilities in a rotation. 

If you're not willing to do that, I'd like to see  Panther's Prowl/Spider's web change.  Let's combine those 2 abilities, and add 1 more charge to it.  What I am proposing is when you use this ability, you are using Spider's Web on an enemy, and by using that, you gain Panther's Prowl (stealth and swiftness).  **Would be cool to bump up the stealth to say 4-5 seconds to react to certain things in combat  but I know that's pushing it.**  

Either of these would allow us to use any pet we want, while still maximizing spear to it's fullest potential.

Untamed: Please give us Untamed abilities! I would love to see the Spear react to untaming your pet like the Hammer does.  Part of why I main untamed, is because to me it is so much fun to play with a hammer.  It just flows SO well based on how I play.  I would really love to see the spear have a similar feel.  

Right now, as excited as I am to finally be able to wield a spear on land in this game, it really does not have a very good 'flow' to it, IMO.  Maybe I just haven't really figured that flow out.  But I feel like I figured out the best flow available for it with:  basically prowl > owls flight > prowl > smoke assault > Predator's Ambush > Wolf's Onslaught.     Leaving out utility and what not for simplicity for the example.  

While the AOE potential of spear seems incredible, I'd like to see some bigger numbers from some of these abilities more like hammer.  Maybe it's just me but it seems like the damage is a little on the weak side for single targets.   Although sometimes I do reach similar numbers, it just doesn't seem as consistent. 

Overall: I think this is going to be an excellent weapon for Ranger, as I had hoped. But I do think there should be some tweaks to some extent so that we aren't forced to use specific pets, and also limit it's usage to mostly AOE situations. 

 

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

These are problems I see the weapon having.

• Stealth attacks share CD with your  regular attacks, this makes game-play is  slow and clunky
• Trying to extend stealth with leap finisher 4 with smoke will not work, due to the reveal mechanic
• Ambush should be completely reworked, it is literately another version of Greatsword ambush without the boonstrip, What makes this weapon ambush different from other weapons?
• being revealed using a stealth ability hampers the play style alot, consider removing this and make it reveal when you hit someone.
• Some animations need to be speed up.

If anyone curious how stealth mechanic actually works here's a wiki about it, the first paragraph explains how it functions mechanically in all game-modes.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth

Otherwise, interesting weapon I would probably use it if it fixes the majority of these issues.

Edited Monday at 05:52 PM by Oahkahmewolf.6210
Make it more clearer and straight to the point.

[Chyro.1462]

Can someone clear me up why people are saying that the ambush skill is melee only?

I wasn't trying the weapon out for long, but did try the ambush skill a few times. It does show a wide white circle that shows up for a short moment when casting, and as far as I could tell enemies within (or even slightly outside of) that range got hit by the ambush spores. Isn't that ranged? Just curious if I misunderstood something about the skill.

[CETheLucid.3964]

I want to know what build the people who say it's low damage are running. It's a power weapon comparable to GS. The beta starts you in marauder gear. If you touched nothing it's already a decent setup, let alone if you tweaked it a bit.

Unlike GS it's less defensive and more all in on damage, so I can understand wishing it hit a little harder, but to say it's low damage is hyperbole. The amount of utility it provides is top tier, even before we get to stealth shenanigans. I'm already worried someones going to cry it into obscurity once I slap the wrong person around with it.

Ranger's been eating pretty good lately. A nice change of pace.
 

Spoiler

Also whichever dev gave Jaguar back the stealth and then doubled down and let it give the ranger stealth? I love you. Please don't take it away again, thx. ❤️🐆

[Wulfhearth.7962]

The weapons this batch (with a few exceptions) feel very "balanced". 

The Ranger Spear skills all do a single, specific thing without too much fluff and have longish cooldowns so you need to make their use count. They also have slow, dodgeable animations and a lot of them need setup to reach their full effectiveness. Which is great until you compare them to the powercrept, overloaded mess that is the other specializations/weapons and the current fast-paced state of the game. Comparing Ranger or Necro Spear to their GS illustrates this fairly well. 

At this rate i feel like in order to make room and meaningful niches for the new weapons, ANet needs to take a look at existing weapons and redistribute things a bit: redefine weapons and their niches, reign in powercreep a bit, maybe give older weapons more interesting mechanics too or make some of the stronger weapons more conditional as well (as in skills only CC/reset a cooldown if a specific condition is met). 

 

As to the Ranger Spear itself, i quite like the base concept but it feels a bit lacking. The ranged/hybrid nature of the weapon is a cool idea but for it to really work , i think the ranged auto needs more damage and the 3 a slightly lower CD and maybe a longer duration on the cripple. Ideally the ranged aa would be the same skills as the melee version with the cripple and swiftness so you can chase or kite before going in for the kill with 4 and 2. 

Another option to deal with the longer CDs would be to make the base skills and the empowered skills not share a cooldown (which would be especially useful for the 5 Spider's Web) and make the use of your 5 skill more meaningful.  

The stealth duration on 5 also feels a bit short to do anything other than empower your other skills and even for that it feels a bit tight sometimes. I get that you don't want the ranger to do stealth shenanigans on the level of thief (or the old trapper rune R.I.P. 😢)  but 3 seconds like Hunter's Shot on LB should still be fine and make it a bit more versatile and forgiving. Even just for baiting a dodge or actually aiming your empowered skills.  

 

Another thing that would be fun would be if two-handed strength affected land spear (and maybe even hammer) in the same way it does greatsword, to open up more builds for more weapons. Taking beastmastery without GS always feels a bit weird and that weapon brings more than enough to the table already without exclusive trait privilege.

Edited Sunday at 01:39 PM by Wulfhearth.7962

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Adding a small roaming vid:

Mostly posted as a potential 'bug report', as something is weird; at 2:42 I use spear #5 and my pet stealth's but I don't, and it loses a charge--I can't figure out what happened there.  

I don't know, I just know that I think I stand by initial assessment and a lot of opinions in the topic in that spear feels a lot like Tofu atm.  

[aymnad.9023]

It is really tough for me to give suggestions because… just as I feared I disliked the way the spear gets access to its V2 of the skills. And when I look at others feedback it feels like I am in the minority so I am going to explain why I dislike it and why I think it should not be buffed with durations. I will address the stealth last.

Here is what I experienced after 8 games in PvP on untamed. I played it for the unleash skills and combo but maybe druid would have been better in some situations, worst on others. Not sure it will be great on soulbeast

 

INTERFACE

Just like I reported during the Soto beta the effects of the skills are hidden on the screen. It happened for dagger on untamed, it happens with spear on untamed.

 

SKILLS

Auto : The close combat felt ok. The range felt a bit weak.

Unleash (untamed) : The range seems crazy.

2 : The damage is ok. The cleave was the most fun part.  -> (V2 stealth) was pretty much the same, final hit is nice but takes a while to access and use.

3 : On a light golem I did not find the damage that high even with opening strikes AND the buffed damage.  -> (V2 stealth) The unblockable felt really good. But it takes a while to access and use.

4 : the animation feels a bit slow. Probably because the range is not that high. The evade seemed a bit weird. ->(V2 stealth) since you reveals yourself early you cannot combo with a smokescale aoe to disengage. Just like other skills accessing it for the cc will take too long.

5 : The bread and butter of the kit. Needed for everything. -> (V2 stealth) the most crazy skill. Damage and utility. But you need a way to get stealth outside of the 5 otherwise you lose access to every other stealthed version in your kit.

I struggled to find a synergy with some of the existing traits. Most skills are not single hit (for opening strikes). Smokescale seems mandatory because the stalker dies really fast and you want to be able to use the 5(stealth) on occasions. I also mention that some utilities are hard to access which leads me to …

 

STEALTH AS A MECHANIC

In PvP we can have a problem with stealth on burst skills. Sometimes a revealed player is still hidden on another screen. Deadeye dj is a perfect example of a skill we should see but sometimes does not show up. I feel like you really wanted to avoid this frustration. It was a smart choice to make it last a short time and reveal immediately. But the animations are long or the damage is not that high or hidden behind animations … making it slow. (and behind a long cd)

edit : I know the comparison is not fair or accurate but mesmer will trigger the enabler more often (even with 50% fail) and will deal immediate dmg.

You have to stealth then use your skills. It means I have a >1.Xs delay before I can do what I want. It creates situations where I want to use a skill but my 5 is not ready yet. But I cannot wait ! I need to pressure the enemy! This created frustrating situations where I was checking my cds all the time. In theory it should create an interesting dilemma. Can I go stealth? Do I wait? But during my games I felt like I was losing for waiting and losing for using my skill immediately. If I attack I do not get the bonus but if I wait for the bonus then I lose my advantage and can even waste 2 cds (the 5 and whatever skill I want to use) if they dodge / block / cc / blind / blink away.  Also since the stealth is short (again I doubt buffing it will be healthy in PvP) I often cannot change my mind and adapt my style since my base skills are often on cd and the cds are shared (I think it can be fine if the rest of the kit feels better).

CONCLUSION

I had some great moments of going in / out of stealth vs 2 players. Forcing people to rotate to catch me, getting a kill then kiting. But I often felt restricted. Not a huge dps, not that much sustain (outside of stealth which has to be used). To be fair ranger already has a great kit which makes it hard for a power weapon to compete. I feel like the mechanic should have been different. Either a deadeye like weapon where the 5 makes you change stance or a 5 that has no charges but the stealth version cd is not shared with the main version.

Edited Monday at 06:25 PM by aymnad.9023

[Levetty.1279]

As predicted an utterly pointless weapon.

Damage numbers are obviously low but even if they were on par with the multiple competing weapons on Ranger it would still be the worse of the bunch because of the lackluster skills and awkward mechanic. 3 shouldn't be single target and the Stealth Attack "mechanic" only results in you having to cast stealth every time you want to use 2, creating an awkward and slow feel to the weapon. Not to mention frustration as, traps, spores, unleashed pet abilities and even the auto attack continuing just results in you being revealed before you can use a stealth attack.

Take this back to the drawing board as it would be nice if Ranger got an actual new weapon for this expansion.

[aymnad.9023]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Adding a small roaming vid:

Mostly posted as a potential 'bug report', as something is weird; at 2:42 I use spear #5 and my pet stealth's but I don't, and it loses a charge--I can't figure out what happened there.  

I don't know, I just know that I think I stand by initial assessment and a lot of opinions in the topic in that spear feels a lot like Tofu atm.  

You still had Revealed ticking from sic'em (from 2min38-2min44)

Edited Sunday at 06:12 PM by aymnad.9023

[Gotejjeken.1267]

23 minutes ago, aymnad.9023 said:

You still had Revealed ticking from sic'em (from 2min38-2min44)

Ah, didn't even notice it on their bar--didn't hear the 'sic em' tell either...good catch.  

Could be an interesting use case then, as it basically is an extra stealth for Jaguar even if ranger is revealed, interesting.  

[enkeny.6937]

17 hours ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

I want to know what build the people who say it's low damage are running. It's a power weapon comparable to GS. The beta starts you in marauder gear. If you touched nothing it's already a decent setup, let alone if you tweaked it a bit.

Unlike GS it's less defensive and more all in on damage, so I can understand wishing it hit a little harder, but to say it's low damage is hyperbole. The amount of utility it provides is top tier, even before we get to stealth shenanigans. I'm already worried someones going to cry it into obscurity once I slap the wrong person around with it.

Ranger's been eating pretty good lately. A nice change of pace.
 

  Hide contents

Also whichever dev gave Jaguar back the stealth and then doubled down and let it give the ranger stealth? I love you. Please don't take it away again, thx. ❤️🐆

Full berserker, scholar rune, thief relic. I have full legendary. No infusion. 

As specializations, skirmishing with beast mastery+soulbeast or marksman/nature magic+untamed.
It is close to greatsword in damage, but greatsword is not high damage. Most importantly, greatsword has a trait for extra damage, that is not working with the Land version of the spear.

In melee damage is not good, but in range it is terrible. Why? 
in full berserker just hit the golem with auto attack.
sword axe ~22K
greatsword (without trait) ~18K
long bow - long range ~19K
spear ~17K
spear ranged ~9K

If ranged around 16k, I say it is low, but acceptable. Not good, just acceptable. (and it do nothing else, just flat damage) 

"The amount of utility it provides is top tier" - good maybe but top tier?!   It has stealth, 1 mobility skill with evade and if you can use stealth (not Revealed)  then there is cc, immobilize, piercing. 
greatsword also has a mobility skill with evade and reliable CC and block
hammer: barrier, cc, boon remove, immobilize, fury, protection
maces: regeneration, vigor, heal, protection, CC, Stability, barrier, condition remove
sword has 2 mobility skill
off-hand axe has ranged attack, cc, reflect.
Staff: heal, condition remove, mobility, projectile destroy, immobilize. (low damage) 

If you are Revealed, fore any reason, spear utility is a mobility skill and range (with terrible damage) It isn't sounds like top tier for me.

[latlat.4516]

Here's my feedback for ranger spear, tested in roaming context :

The good

• the base idea of the weapon is good. By that, I mean it provides an alternative that can be squeezed in the power ranger choices, thanks to its melee/range hybrid nature. Note that I'm only talking about the concept here, not actual numbers.
• giving the ranger an unblockable pierce without having to slot/use signet of the hunt is a good idea. 
• all in all, the spear has a fast recovery  (11.5s average cooldown against 14.5 for LB, 14 for GS,  13.5s for hammer)

The bad

• I do have the impression the damage is frontloaded in the #4 skill (well, actually it accounted for about 20% of my total damage in duels and small scale fights I could partake in). The reason it feels bad is that this skill is a movement skill, and the only hard cc on it as well. So if it also does as much damage as the #2 in an actual fight, we might have a small 'balance" problem in terms of relative usefulness of each skill
• the weapon barely has any boon, and that's when you couple it with some traits that are active for all weapons. I'm kinda sad it has not interaction with 2-handed training
• I would have liked to see a "cd reset" mechanic for the #2 on the weapon, in a similar fashion to GS and old sword, even at the cost of a slightly higher base cooldown. (something like "resets cooldown when using a skill from stealth"). 

The ugly

• honestly, I don't see any use for this weapon outside of roaming/sPvP power ranger. Which is sad, since it's already the niche ranger had the most options for in terms of weapon choice. I would have liked a condi equivalent to GS, but hey this is not santa's wishlist, just a "feedback" thread. 
• self-revealed is too long
• untamed unleashed has a delayed strike which can reveal you if you stealth just after cast the unleash

[kappa.2036]

I like the concept of the spear, it gives us the opportunity to have a different playstyle. However, the issues I've encountered are the following:

1- Skill #1 does too little damage, especially at a distance.

2- The Ambush Skill #1 has no utility and the damage is low.

3- Skill #3 cannot be used if the enemy is behind you.

4- Skill #4 should cover more distance.

5- The stealth version of Skill #5 is useless as it is practically never used.

The damage overall is too low, especially considering that only 4 out of 5 skills deal damage.

Moreover, there are no useful boons or conditions.

The main problem is that every skill reveals you, which doesn't make sense.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

My main feedback:

• Increase DPS, make it a viable option (e.g., 26k damage)
• Green colour: change to a more khaki/yellowish green to match the Ranger colour scheme better (right now it looks like Necromancer's green)
• Make stealth more impressive. It didn't feel like a stealth-focused weapon

 

[Lazze.9870]

On 6/28/2024 at 6:40 PM, MagicalLeaf.1307 said:

I just don't particularly understand the direction. Yes having the 1 is cool being melee and ranged, but ALL the damage including unleashed is melee based. So what's really the point of having it be ranged? I think that there should be skills for each ability based on melee/ranged.

What's the point having the autos ranged? The point of having it ranged is to you can hit kitten when you're not in melee. It's a blatant upside of the weapon that other melee weapons don't have, and you complain about a "lack of direction"? Third skill is also ranged. Forth skill is a leap. Fifth skill is stealth or ranged immob. So it's not even full melee anyway.

---

As for my feedback:

1. The effect colors are too necromancer green. I'm not sure what happened in their design studio after HoT, but their facination for fart clouds and necromancer adjacent greens instead of the greenish yellow (or yellowish green) that was the class' actual color to begin is something I don't understand. Druid and core ranger had some nice details in the animations and arts - everything after is fugly (albeit, to be fair, the spear animations are generally fine, but I'm assuming a lot of them are shared with the other classes).

2. It's awkward to make a stealth weapon for a class that has no stealth interaction with its traits and normaly use its limited sources of stealth as a form of defense or disengage. But it's not like they're gonna rework how the weapon works, so ehh.. I would have just made the stealth attacks the baseline and adjusted the numbers. Still kept the #5 as a source of stealth.

3. Speaking of #5, using stealth and then the immob skill feels awful. The window is too short and you're burning what could have been a second stealth for a garbage skill.

4. Numbers are off, but that's likely the only thing they're gonna fix anyway.

5. I appreciate the unblockable ranged attack, with piercing. A nice middle finger to all our other projectile weapons. (Sidenote: you should take a note and apply piercing to the longbow like all the other bows in the game as well).

Edited 15 hours ago by Lazze.9870

[Screamlight.8374]

Ranger Spear Design
Philosophy of Use: As a ranger 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. The ranger should be able to flow in and out while in combat like a spider toying with its prey. Buffs available to the ranger should include swiftness, stability and quickness. Conditions should include bleed, poison, cripple, daze, torment and vulnerability. As a theme for the spear use the web as the build focus around the design and allow the art department to create a ground based web of appropriate color similar to the other spear's awesome designs. Just make it muted enough to see ground based threats! Maybe include the Black Widow Spider as a pet if using the spear as a weapon for one pet slot as a selling point!
Spider themed spear design:
1. Spear Ability - Drake Swipe New name - Widow's Weave
    Ranged or melee auto attack chains
    a. First attack applies Poison.  Ranged attack is Spitting Spider range 900 Poison
    b. Second attack applies Cripple. Ranged attack is Spitting Spider range 900 Cripple
    c. Third attack applies poison stack and ranger gains quickness to start frenzy. Ranged attack is Spitting Spider range 900 poison stack and ranger gains quickness.
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 - Mongoose Frenzy New name - Feeding Frenzy
    a. Melee attack as it is currently is in beta.
(Stealth) Dazing Prey vulnerability stack, extra attack and daze condition.
    Damage -     Range -     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
3. Spear Ability - Falcon's Stoop New name - Widow's Kiss
    a. A ranged cripple attack that cripples and chains a web strand to the target that ranger can use to pull himself to the target like guardian's Spear of Justice ability.
(Stealth) Widow's Embrace - same attack as above pierces, unblockable and knockdown.
    Damage -     Range -     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
4. Spear Ability - Warclaw's Engage New name - Jumping Spider
    a. Ranged attack causing cripple and torment
(Stealth version) Widow's Ambush - ranged attack causing torment stack and daze.
    Damage -     Range -     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
5. Spear Ability - Panther's Prowl New name - Web Stalker
    Ranger gains stealth and swiftness. Can deploy traps without being revealed.
    (Stealth) Final Fangs - Once in stealth, ranger can jump to target up to 600 range gaining stability. Victim and 2 nearby targets are webbed in place and hit with poison cloud similar to thief's shortbow skill. Get the art department to do a ground based  web like the other classes ground designs in appropriate colors for ranger class.
    Damage -     Range -     Condition Damage and duration -     Cool downs -
Balance around all 3 specializations for special abilities. Make the Black Widow Spider included as a default pet for one of the pet slots while using a spear on land.

 

[Vooksa.2941]

To preface, I was the most excited about Ranger spear going into the devstream, but by the time the beta ended, I was kinda ambivalent about it. Crossposting from some of my reddit comments.

• It doesn't really feel impactful to use. Long cast times, floaty animations, lacking animation and sound design that granted weapons like greatsword, sword, axe, and longbow a certain "thunk" to their impacts. Mostly an aesthetic fix than a balance one, but especially Mongoose's Frenzy felt like a paintbrush than a clawing, and I know you guys were excited to use the new warclaw skin for a skill, but PLEASE replace the animation with the WvW-engage skill clawing. Warclaw's Engage/Predator's Ambush felt like I was dropping a potato on enemies.
• Much like every other spear I tried, this weapon is surprisingly comfortable as a Core Ranger, but mostly because of how allergic it is to the tech that each elite spec wants to have. No spear condi and no pDPS Druid tech means [Celestial Shadow] feels iffy to use, very lacking in CC that maces, GS, OH axe, and hammer have either multiple of or on short CD means poor UT adoption and SB [Twice as Vicious] accessibility, no quickness, no SB poison, no prot, or boons much to speak of at all. If maces were built to do everything, spear feels built to do nothing.
• How slow the weapon is and lacking in multi-strike means poor useage of [Hunter's Gaze] might, [Sharpened Edges] crit bleed application, [Potent Ally] might, Strength of the Pack might, SB One Wolf Pack and Vulture Stance applications, and UT's [Ferocious Symbiosis] and Forest's Fortification CD reduction. Lack of reliable CC includes issues from above, but also unreliable use of [Carnivore], making Wilderness Survival an extremely iffy pDPS pick. [Two-Handed Training] preemptively removing spear value means Beastmastery is also a terrible pick, since you don't even have the CC to make it grant you fury.
• Warclaw's Engage/Predator's Ambush being 18s feels preemptively nerfed, as the only source of CC (and even then, only while stealthed), and a leap finisher you could use to leap a smoke field for stealth. Far too long a cooldown. (I could have sworn it was 18s in PvP, but the wiki lists 15s.)
• Falcon's Stoop/Owl's Flight feels weird. It's ranged, inflicts cripple, but also deals bonus damage that relies on movement impairment? Which is available on the melee-range autoattack strike, and Spider's Web? Is this meant to be used in melee range or not?
• Panther's Prowl/Spider's Web feels awful. The stealth duration isn't long enough (3s would do), but 25s per charge, x2 charges, for what? 2s immob, 1s cripple, pet superspeed? 50 seconds for that? (I could have sworn it was 25s per charge in PvP, but the wiki says 10 and 15s for PvE/Competitive. It's still not great.) Only having dedicated stealth on Jaguar, combo stealth on Smokescale, non-pDPS stealth on Druid, and weaponswap-reliant stealth with longbow feels like we don't quite have enough stealth to make all the stealth reliance on this weapon feel good, and locks us into even more rigid pet use than we've suffered since Smokescale was introduced.

I know that numbers-based changes are all we can expect by now, but I can't tell if spear was designed to work with only a specific set of traits and skills in mind, or if it was designed without acknowledgement of traits and skills at all. Hence, my disappointment after the reveals and testing.

Things I'd recommend:

• Boost the animation and projectile speeds a little, add a bit more impact-bass when the skills connect, replace the Warclaw animation with the WvW engage.
• HIGHLY recommend halving the damage of Mongoose's Frenzy/Wolf's Onslaught, but doubling the number of strikes/attacks. Instead of 2 hits, 3 if stealthed, landing 4 swipes, and 2 bites if stealthed, for a total of 4-6 hits, helps proc Ranger's multi-hit tech a little more, a unique 2H low-cooldown tech piece.
• I'd almost suggest Falcon's Stoop/Owl's Flight grants you and your pet fury on skill use, to help proc Marksmanship's [Remorseless] before impact, but really, I just want there to be more boons than swiftness on this thing.
• Put CC on the non-stealth version of Warclaw's Engage. It's too reliant on an unreliable state.
• Consider giving the stealth version of each skill it's own cooldown, similar to Elementalist transmutes, as the reward for finding more sources for stealth. Simple raw DPS increases on the stealth skills make the skills feel like a mistake to use if you don't have stealth, but stealth is too infrequent to not press those buttons.
• Remove the forced Revealed on each stealth skill. If we land a hit we get Revealed anyway, all this is doing is punishing a miss. We don't even have a trait like Thief's [Revealed Training] where we could benefit from forced reveal.
• Consider upping Panther's Prowl to 3s of stealth, or adding a core trait that extends our stealth duration and another method of gaining stealth. Maybe when we inflict blindness?
• I would actually love if we had a core trait somewhere that gave us benefits on applying/while under superspeed. We have enough sources now, including one on each of Druid ([Celestial Shadow]), SB (griffon stance), UT (perilous gift and forest's fortification), and core (quickening zephyr, signet of the hunt, [Zephyr's Speed]), and now pet superspeed with Spider's Web, not to mention Relic of the Pack, Wayfinder, and Unseen Invasion specifically turning our stealth into superspeed.
• Heavily consider reworking [Two-Handed Training] into something that benefits "not using a weapon in your off hand", such that it benefits greatsword, hammer, longbow, shortbow, and land AND water spear. Not least to speak of other weapon-dependent traits like [Lead the Wind], [Strider's Strength], and [Honed Axes], but Beastmastery specifically needs an overhaul that makes it valuable to non-Soulbeasts.

The weapon is serviceable, it's just... bland. It doesn't feel great to use on any elite spec, or even core, because of how many valuable traits it shoots in the foot simply by merit of it's skill design. It introduces more tech, but capitalizes on it poorly or in a way that feels awkward to use. I sincerely hope that we don't just slap extra damage on the weapon and call it a day, and take a look at exactly what tech "A Ranger With A Spear" is expected to be using from a synergy and fantasy perspective.

EDIT: I can't believe I didn't say this, absolutely outraged that Untamed's spear unleash doesn't grant stealth. It's RIGHT THERE. It's so painfully obvious an interaction.

Edited yesterday at 03:48 AM by Vooksa.2941

[Vooksa.2941]

57 minutes ago, Screamlight.8374 said:

Ranger Spear Design
-spider spear stuff

I really like some of the useage ideas in most of these abilities, but I think we're past the point of reworking the entire weapon into a cDPS. I could imagine all of these on some kind of land-harpoon gun (harpoons are often tied with rope, and Ranger harpoon gun is already a condi weapon), but even things like including Black Widow as a pet and not simply as skill FX is a little out there.

[Xaylin.1860]

I tested all Spears in a rather casual PvE setting. So this is more of a first impression than a thorough assessment.

I enjoyed the Spear on Ranger and I think the mechanic is simple enough to not distract from the niche the weapon can fill for Ranger (stealth). I probably would have preferred it leaning a bit more into the hybrid territory. One particular thing I didn't like: Cost of Opportunity for Spiders Web. Ranger has rather limited options to gain stealth. Spiders Web might be quite powerful in certain situation but I caught myself saving up the stealth instead. I'd love to see stealth added on maybe an underused core utility (or more than one e-spec utilities) to make this playstyle more flexible.

Also.. why isn't there a stealth attack for the AA? 🤔

[Matt H.6142]

Another profession I felt hit the mark well.  1 weapon with 8 non-auto attacks will always feel better than one with 5 (hello, engi.)  Good damage and versatile.

[CETheLucid.3964]

18 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

Full berserker, scholar rune, thief relic. I have full legendary. No infusion. 

As specializations, skirmishing with beast mastery+soulbeast or marksman/nature magic+untamed.
It is close to greatsword in damage, but greatsword is not high damage. Most importantly, greatsword has a trait for extra damage, that is not working with the Land version of the spear.

In melee damage is not good, but in range it is terrible. Why? 
in full berserker just hit the golem with auto attack.
sword axe ~22K
greatsword (without trait) ~18K
long bow - long range ~19K
spear ~17K
spear ranged ~9K

If ranged around 16k, I say it is low, but acceptable. Not good, just acceptable. (and it do nothing else, just flat damage) 

"The amount of utility it provides is top tier" - good maybe but top tier?!   It has stealth, 1 mobility skill with evade and if you can use stealth (not Revealed)  then there is cc, immobilize, piercing. 
greatsword also has a mobility skill with evade and reliable CC and block
hammer: barrier, cc, boon remove, immobilize, fury, protection
maces: regeneration, vigor, heal, protection, CC, Stability, barrier, condition remove
sword has 2 mobility skill
off-hand axe has ranged attack, cc, reflect.
Staff: heal, condition remove, mobility, projectile destroy, immobilize. (low damage) 

If you are Revealed, fore any reason, spear utility is a mobility skill and range (with terrible damage) It isn't sounds like top tier for me.

So like I said, it's comparable to GS: in both damage and function. It shares a lot of it's utility with twists of it's own. It's silly to argue that you can't realistically camp range on a hybrid weapon where much of the gimmick of it is to maintain pressure.

If ranged DPS was your goal you'd clearly be better served using one of several dedicated ranged weapons ranger has access to.

But maybe that's not where you're going with that? Wouldn't say no to more damage on the range moves for spear, but you're not going to argue parity with melee when even the dedicated ranged weapons aren't doing that. At least not in good faith.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

On 6/27/2024 at 1:45 PM, Ilsgard.3714 said:

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.

So, I was actually a bit confused with the stealth mechanic. I dueled my partner in WvW to get a quick feel for the weapon, and there were times when I wasn't revealed after using an attack. However in PVE, I was being revealed with each attack. I considered it a bug, but after reading other people's posts, it doesn't seem to be a bug at all but rather how it's supposed to work.
I mean... it should tell you something if the way it's meant to work is taken as "surely it's a bug", because I can't think of a reason why it should work that way. The stealth effect itself already has a very short duration compared to other stealth skills available out there. Giving it a 2nd charge doesn't really make a difference if you're unable to stealth up until the revealed debuff is gone. So I'm wondering what the actual point is.

I also agree with the way the skills have been crafted for this class, as it feels like an after-thought. Not to say that there isn't anything good- I love that the spear is a melee/ranged hybrid with access to stealth and stealth-specific skills! But it feels like it's only halfway there. I truly hope to see more work put into this so it can at least stand next to the other classes without feeling like it's already on sale.

Further additions:
-Two-Handed Training currently only affects underwater spear skills (and it definitely didn't affect the land spear's damage during my testing). Will it be changed to include the new spear as well? (Because it should!)
-Skill 3 felt clunky to use. I can't fully pinpoint why. Perhaps it's because it's the slot that it's in (which is typically a move skill), or that I can only throw in one direction, or both.
-Skill 4 feels slow and the distance too short.
-Stealth skills didn't feel different from their non-stealth counterparts. I was expecting something else that would make them a bit more unique but other than using 5 for the quick stealth access and maybe the net, the other skills don't give that much of a benefit. Additional effects, like application of more crowd control abilities, useful conditions, buffs, or a much higher damage would make sense.
Especially since stealth as a mechanic doesn't interact at all with any Ranger traits, making it so they don't have other ways of getting buffed or having additional interactions. In addition to the fact that they share cooldowns with base skills, the skills themselves should have more to them than what's been presented due to all of this.
-This is mentioned already but worth repeating. Please remove the reveal on skill-use.
 

Edited yesterday at 01:46 AM by meerfunkuhtron.9725