Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Necromancer

[felincyriac.5981]

8 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

It started like that when the professions actually had more differentiated identities. Necro was designed to have a tankier playstyle. It had lower mobility, but also more survivability with shroud and lifesteal, and could make up for that to some extent with ranged attacks and minions.

sounds like it would be decent about 8 years ago, sadly things have become more fast paced now. 

[FalsePromises.6398]

3 hours ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

While we're on topic of Isolate - i feel it would be far better of shards were generated by the initial hit and
not the follow up teleport.  Imagine doing a dps rotation and you gotta cast isolate twice  - wasting time & port just to charge the Shards.
One good throw and you're done charging Shards, that's how it should be.

I actually really like this idea, can't believe I never really thought of it when I was using it. The original, which obligates the teleport by tying the soul shards to it, results in skills piling up on top of each other in high speed rotations. Putting the soul shards on the spear throw itself (and making the skills better able to be queued while they're at it) would make spear MUCH more user-friendly and have a better "poke" identity, since you'll be able to throw your spear and cast Perforate from any range you please, instead of being teleported right in between their legs. 

This is with the idea that the Perforate recharge is also moved to Isolation from Distress too, otherwise it's not really sensible. 

Edited Thursday at 11:04 PM by FalsePromises.6398

[Batalix.2873]

51 minutes ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

sounds like it would be decent about 8 years ago, sadly things have become more fast paced now. 

They have, but that won't stop me from advocating for more diverse archetypes all the same.

[FalsePromises.6398]

32 minutes ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

sounds like it would be decent about 8 years ago, sadly things have become more fast paced now. 

I think they missed mentioning some points that it wasn't just tanky and slow, but also devastating for its debilitations and control. They gave up a lot of reactive defenses (blocks, evades, invulns, even a little bit of consistent mobility/healing/cleanse were sacrificed) for passive defenses (damage reductions, shroud health) that made them have to focus more offensively or be overwhelmed, and they were given special tools to make their offense more sustainable and harder to ignore via siphons, transfers, corrupts, debilitations, and powerful control. Necromancer is supposed to be a powerful and weighty dampener with staying power, and it kinda evolved to deal more damage as anet wanted more fairness between classes, especially in endgame PvE. Harbinger kinda hopped the tracks by removing shroud health for mobility and a little spare regen and also kinda losing some of the AoE and debilitation aspects, but scourge and reaper are definitely more true to the original. 

[Batalix.2873]

1 minute ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

I think they missed mentioning some points that it wasn't just tanky and slow, but also devastating for its debilitations and control. They gave up a lot of reactive defenses (blocks, evades, invulns, even a little bit of consistent mobility/healing/cleanse were sacrificed) for passive defenses (damage reductions, shroud health) that made them have to focus more offensively or be overwhelmed, and they were given special tools to make their offense more sustainable and harder to ignore via siphons, transfers, corrupts, debilitations, and powerful control. Necromancer is supposed to be a powerful and weighty dampener with staying power, and it kinda evolved to deal more damage as anet wanted more fairness between classes, especially in endgame PvE. Harbinger kinda hopped the tracks by removing shroud health for mobility and a little spare regen and also kinda losing some of the AoE and debilitation aspects, but scourge and reaper are definitely more true to the original. 

This is true, it also made up for slowness by leveling the playing field with movement conditions and boonrip.

And I am grateful that between Reaper, Scourge, swords, and spear, they are still generally maintaining that identity, even if we have lost some of the fun edges to the profession. I just hope the devs don't listen to everyone clamoring for every weapon to be "faster." That's a kit take for several reasons, and the sort of feedback that, if acted on, homogenizes gameplay even more.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

feedback time!

• animation: Too clumsy and undefined. Unlike Swords or Greatsword, which clearly show your actions, Spears give no clue about their purpose or whether they’re hitting anything.
• damage: Over the top. I’m literally one-shotting everything and haven’t lost a fight unless more than four players (and a few NPCs) jumped me.
• survival: Null. The massive damage spears deal makes them unnecessary in duels or small-scale fights. However, in large-scale battles, they become unreliable. Being a melee weapon, you have to get really close to deal damage, but then you either have to run before landing a single hit or you insta-die.
• support: 404 not found. I guess that’s fine. Necromancers kill; they don’t help.
• utility: Nope. No pulls, no leaps, no fear makes them bad when i come to escaping or chasing.

so far, I enjoy using Spears in WvW. As a dueling weapon, they feel great and perhaps even necessary. I have no problems dueling with Greatsword or Swords, but the Spear feels much better. However, unlike Greatsword and Swords, it’s mostly worthless in Zerg fights. So, considering all the disadvantages it has, the current massive damage is okay, but if nerfed, then Spears will be absolutely useless.

[HotDelirium.7984]

8 hours ago, 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 necromancers in this thread!

Skill 2 is visually unremarkable. You guys might need to buff sword vs spear because why would I try to take a weapon that costs health is the ending skill isn't amazing vs spear sapping it all for me?

[Batalix.2873]

Oh also, Necro spear feels like it is missing something, just a little more flavor or gimmick.

Actually, I think the problem is that this is just a less flashy greatsword. We didn't need another chill/power weapon, and this spear is really looking aesthetically like it wants to be condi. What this really needs is poison and fire damage on top of chill to feel especially necrotic and make it feel like a better balance of condi Reaper and condi Scourge. I propose:

* Dark Slash - add fire.

* Deadly Slice - add poison.

* Perforate - add one poison stack for each soul shard

* Distress - add fire.

Edited Friday at 09:33 PM by Batalix.2873

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Just tested it.  The debuff from Extripate is absolutely worthless, since each stack of Might or Stability gets counted as a separate boon.  3 stacks of might or stab negated is totally worthless when most skills that apply either do so 5+ stacks at a time.  This needs to go up to 5 stacks per hit minimum to have any chance of an impact, and 10 stacks is probably when it actually gets noticed.

Edited Friday at 02:56 AM by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Talis Whitewolf.4183]

It's just like the Necro swords beta all over again. Except the swords where better placed, if not brilliant at the time.

 

This time round the spear lacks range, so much so that using it that close to a boss may be fatal. And to be honest while the spear may well end up as good as the swords in its own way, without that range I won't feel comfortable using it.

 

Would a range of 900 to put it on a par with the swords be to much to ask?

[ShadowX.6348]

I did some testing, for how much i played and waited for a good weapon for necro, and this one came, a pointy stick with green trails, and i come to the conclusion that the spear for necro is bad and under performing. 
The dmg is kinda mediocre and it could do some more work, is slow, no support, low healing, the animations are clumsy and undefined, and it feels like it doesnt have and identity, just another weapon on the shelf.
I just wana be short and to the point about the changes on what it should be added or modify, a bit more on the mid range side, and dont tell me it has range, cause skill 4 is just a teleport. So: 

•  Skill 5: For an AoE skill it should have a radius of 300, with an additional Regen Boon for Self and for Allies. (one thats for the support)
•  Skill 4: The Soul Shards should be on Isolate when you throw the spear,  and Distress when you teleport should leave a 130 radius pool for 5 sec wich apply Crippled and does
  250 dmg every sec. 
•  Skill 3: This is the skill that kinda gives the question mark, cause its kinda work like a stun, kinda wana do dmg, kinda wana do something... For this i'd say, a range of 240, and also when you have shards above the threshold you remove 2 condition from self and allies. (another for the support)
•  Skill 2: Its nice, i like it, but it could show how much hp you heal from a shard consummed. (and maybe a Burning condition cause its fast 😅) 
•  Skill 1: And this is the main problem. I dont realy like how the animation works and what stats has. The animation should be 1st Slash, 2nd Stab, 3rd Spin Slash (kinda like the 1h sword autos).  First 2 Chain attacks should have both dmg above 1,000 cast half a second and a range of 240, the last Chain attack should have range of 300 with the same cast time, but with 5 targets. First Chain attack shoud give 2% Life force, and the 2nd Chain Attack should apply 2 stack of Bleeding for 5 sec.
• Or Better, the Skill 1 autos to work as the 1h sword works, but first 2 chain attacks with a range of 240, and for the last Chain Attack to be a wave (same as 1h sword but larger visual) with 900 range and 5 targets too.  
•  Every Soul Shards should refresh the stack, and should have a time of 5 sec insted of 10, cause its hard to keep them up with skill 1 autos while the other skill are in cooldown.  

And im not criticizing just cause its bad, but i want it to be better. This is not my dream weapon, i dont see it to be an op weapon, but a good one, and i would like to think its possible.
And i hope at least the Skill 1 to be change, for more range, mid-range, dmg, and the animation and cast time, cause otherwise, its just a pointy stick with green trails. 🙂

[Dadnir.5038]

Well... As expected that wasn't the greatest work of the developper's team.

• Personaly I'm alright with the range even if the skills animation seem to have longer reach.
• I didn't want a 2nd GS and yet that's what spear is... I did expect it so I'm not disappointed.
• Soul shard work as expected... What's there to say... I doubt anybody will play some utopic cleric gear build just because they fancy spear skins...
• To much power budget invested in the Soul shards... Way to much...
• The mobility skills... I find them alright. Not what I wished to have as a mobility skill but still alright. It interesting to note that yet again it's not a leap finisher...
• The boon prevention debuff is as useless as expected.

Good job delivering us what you sold us.

What I'd do:

• I'd forget the life siphon concept for the soul shards and instead make the soul shards grant life force and apply vulnerability. Then you just have to put back some power into perforate's coefficient.
• I'd give skill#4 a leap finisher and make skill#5 heal the character for each boon removed.

What I like:

• I do like the fact that a skill have some interaction with exiting the shroud. I'd like more skills following this concept (not necessarily throught a CD reset).

[felincyriac.5981]

skill3 should definitely immob without the soul shard threshold, hard to actually land all your damage without a proper lockdown

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

ok, after further testing and actually reading what every skill does, it’s obvious to me that the Spear was intended to be a burst weapon. Based on this, my only suggestion would be reworking Isolate and Distress (skill #4) into a single-use skill. Remove the reactivation and simply teleport on hit. In its current form, it feels clumsy, is easy to miss, and ultimately unnecessary since without the teleport component, the skill becomes pointless.

[Sjentra.3409]

Worse than staff. The only difference is staff has twice as many skills to use before you swap it out.

Cooldowns are way too long and soulshards are just a useless punish mechanic. 

[zeyeti.8347]

Add maybe a bit of life force generation on the aa chain end , in terms of damage it seems decent but how can you replace gs who is basically a powerhouse in pve even more on target under 50% with gravedigger insane damage , maybe will be used to combo 2-4-4-2-5 before going shroud but actually it's less efficient than Gs in term of damage 

[Bale.3851]

@Dadnir.5038totally agree with you. Could be easily so much better but the interaction is nice. A good chain could be 2 into 4 into 2 into shroud. But the shard generation is to cluncky for this.

Also skill 5 is underwhelming for the cast time. The outcome is meh and the radius just lol. Btw the melee range of a dagger on spear?? really? Do our arms shrink on spear use?

Edited Friday at 08:07 PM by Bale.3851

[Poplolita.2638]

As of right now, the spear feels like a weaker GS/Sword, with lower damage and the same conditions (chill and vulnerability mostly). Have you considered adding the SLOW condition? Necromancers currently have the worst access to SLOW among all professions which doesn't make sense anyway considering how slow they are. So if you give SLOW to spear, it will make it stand out among the rest necromancer's weapons. Maybe, after reaching a certain soul shard threshold, the spear's #4 toggle ability consumes soulshards to inflict SLOW on the opponent after teleporting.  

Summary: 

Greatsword: Chill, Vulnerability, Blind, Boon corrupts, and Pull (CC). 

Sword/Sword: Chill, Vulnerability, Weakness, Boon Corrupts, Fear(CC)

Spear: Chill, Vulnerability, [Add SLOW instead of Blind and Weakness], Boon removal + Unique Debuff, Immobilize + stun (CC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 03:07 PM by Poplolita.2638

[Dadnir.5038]

16 hours ago, Poplolita.2638 said:

As of right now, the spear feels like a weaker GS/Sword, with lower damage and the same conditions (chill and vulnerability mostly). Have you considered adding the SLOW condition? Necromancers currently have the worst access to SLOW among all professions which doesn't make sense anyway considering how slow they are. So if you give SLOW to spear, it will make it stand out among the rest necromancer's weapons. Maybe, after reaching a certain soul shard threshold, the spear's #4 toggle ability consumes soulshards to inflict SLOW on the opponent after teleporting.  

Summary: 

Greatsword: Chill, Vulnerability, Blind, Boon corrupts, and Pull (CC). 

Sword/Sword: Chill, Vulnerability, Weakness, Boon Corrupts, Fear(CC)

Spear: Chill, Vulnerability, [Add SLOW instead of Blind and Weakness], Boon removal + Unique Debuff, Immobilize + stun (CC)

Well, the main issue is that slow is one of the most annoying condition one can be afflicted with since it suck the fun out of the game. If there is too much slow in the game, competitive mode players become extremly annoyed.

That said, I agree that slow is thematically fitting for the necromancer and I'd rather replace every single instance of immobilize necromancer skills can apply by this condition. Funnily enough, cripple and poison are also supposed to be thematically fitting but the devs tend to favor chill and torment for necromancer since EoD.

The things that the devs seem affraid to give the necromancer are blast and leap finishers. I would have love a weapon with a dark field, a leap finisher and a dark aura skill + a skill dedicated to exploit dark aura just like elementalists have skills dedicated to exploiting their various auras. A simple yet effective design that would have allowed the necromancer to exploit the numerous dark fields that he got.

I mean, if I had to design a necromancer's spear:

• AA: Melee chain + range attack all applying bleed. (simple and effective) (Edit: To go further along the "dark aura" concept we could even imagine needing an aura to apply conditions on AA)
• Skill#2: A short CD leap finisher that cripple or chill your foe and reap life force on hit.
• Skill#3: A very short duration fear (0.25 second) to interrupt the foe (the fear don't need to be long, even half of 0.25s would be good enough as it's only meant to interrupt and proc traits).
• Skill#4.1: Gain dark aura.
  • Skill#4.2: Transmute dark aura on you into a dark wave that deal damage, slow and torment foes around you. (with no CD on this follow up skill which should be the "gimmick" of the weapon)
• Skill#5: Lay a dark field at the necromancer feet. Dealing damage on foes within and healing allies within whenever a foe take damage from this field.

Edited Saturday at 06:58 AM by Dadnir.5038

[Axiom.3245]

Skill 4: The extra shards from isolated targets should also be given against defiant foes also imo

Edited Friday at 05:06 PM by Axiom.3245

[Oldyoung.6109]

overall i enjoyed the spear but either soul shards should last a little longer or perforate should have a lower cooldown as it is now it's very easy to lose stacks while you sit at full hp waiting for the right moment.

[Antycypator.9874]

21 hours ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

- why are the autos so slow and weak? Barely stronger than sword autos, but at least sword autos are ranged and heals. Difficult to maintain shards whilst in melee.

Because autos are meant to generate soul shards, increase damage of other skills. And spear autos actually do more damage than swords.

[felincyriac.5981]

20 minutes ago, Antycypator.9874 said:

Because autos are meant to generate soul shards, increase damage of other skills. And spear autos actually do more damage than swords.

yh the 3rd hit of the incredibly slow aa chain gives you 1 shard, you can't even get max shards this way as they time out.

 

Also never said they are weaker than sword autos, just not strong enough to account for the lack of range and healing.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

I don't know where they should go, but I feel like there are a few different things that could be added to the Spear's kit to improve it in its role of "power assassination weapon."

1. AoE Slow for protecting against counter-burst (probably best on Extripate or Distress).
2. Self-Fury for ensuring crits to improve the burst.
3. Rapid vulnerability stacking.  8 stacks on Isolate is not enough.
4. Long duration, low stack count Torment. There's Chill to benefit Reaper, but Harbinger needs Torment to get its bonuses.

As for improving what we already have in the kit:

•  Extripation debuff is useless in practice because of how many stacks of Might and Stability get applied in one go.  It doesn't matter that you negated 3 stability stacks when they still have 2 from the random Guardian popping "Stand Your Ground!".  Either the stack number needs to be at minimum tripled, or changing it to a short "no boons gained" effect similar to old Winds of Disenchantment for it to actually have an impact.  Alternatively, remove the boon rip entirely and make Extripation a debuff that suppresses boons for its duration, similar to what Resistance does with non-damaging conditions.
• Soul Shard generation outside of Distress is horrible.  There are a number of ways to fix this, from speeding up the auto chain, adding additional stacks on 3 and 5, to even increasing the duration of the buff so there's a chance you have some when you exit shroud.
• Life Force generation is bad.  Addle can potentially do 20%, but it's a short range skill and your target must be activating a skill to get that amount.  While the latter condition is almost guaranteed in competitive modes, it's not likely to hit in them either due to its range.  In PvE, there's a lot of time your target isn't using a skill, but since this is also your only interrupt, you want to save it for defiance bars, not life force generation.  Add some life force gain elsewhere in the kit and speed up the autos.
• Addle needs to lose its shard threshold for immobilize.

Edited Saturday at 08:16 PM by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Lynnie.7213]

Spear in pvp needs some change. Too short range, too slow animations(yeah its a necro but even for this standard is slow af and the dmg is not there to backup). Only good thing there is the "mobility" on skill 4 and the utility on skill 5 but again too slow to actual land if not playing against bots.

This weapon needs to be fixed asap, because as it is right now there isn't a reason to even exist. It loses in dps, utility, mobility, range, animation speed to any other necro weapon. It just doesn't have a role right now

Edited Saturday at 12:54 AM by Lynnie.7213