Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Mesmer [Merged]

[Gesbo.6420]

2 minutes ago, Akeera.7912 said:

Would be nice if they moved the evade from skill 3 to skill 5 (suicide dive) and made the spear 3 a parry like mechanic similar to scepter 2/sword 4 block the next attack, and counter with a punishing strike

Move the dash from skill 4 to instead be on skill 2, and grant clarity from all range (enable the mesmer to land it more reliably)

Overall decent, but for power virt I think it is still outdamaged by dagger, and greatsword, and you have to be high-risk close to land anything whereas you can just spam unblockables from range with other weapons. Need to give virtuoso a niche, chrono has double phantasm, mirage has ambush  virt feels lacking without blade traits to bump it up to performance of other weapons

 

 

I like the idea of the dash being added to 2. Point dash. From darius q to kayne q 😄

[Vinny.7260]

I was mostly enjoying this weapon in PvE as an alternative to GS on PChrono. While I couldn't have my gear min-maxxed due to not having legendaries, I was able to crank out some pretty solid damage. ~32k on my best attempt with 89% crit chance with all exotics and 2700ish power. (Comparing to 41k on my best attempt with GS and 100% crit and all ascended with much higher power).

Basically uses the same rotation but you can take Empowered Illusions (not sure if it actually works with Spear 4 as it doesn't update the tooltip).

Only difference with Spear is that you do: 2 -> 4 -> CS during 4 -> WoC -> Ether -> Disenchant -> 2 -> 4 -> 5 -> 2 -> WoG -> end CS

GS being: 2 -> 4 -> CS during 4 -> WoC -> Ether -> Disenchant -> 4 -> WoG -> 2 -> 3 -> WoG -> end CS

Spear honestly feels far more fluid than GS does for golem punching and once you have confidence the cast times are definitely way shorter and allow you to squeeze way more buttons out of CS.

 

Notes:

• Let Fencer's Finesse work with all Spears.
  • Heck, remove the cool down reduction and make the sword CDs baseline. Fencer's Finesse already procs off of the Phantasms on Spear anyway, so just commit to it.
• Spear Ambush is VERY inconsistent when testing it in PvP and PvE.
  • As other people have mentioned, it feels inconsistent with landing all of its strikes.
• PvP mention: Spear 2 shouldn't consume Clarity, perhaps make Clarity stackable instead. (Max of 2 stacks).
  • You hardly benefit from Spear 2 providing might anyway.

[zeyeti.8347]

20 hours ago, Thar.9465 said:

The biggest issue for me is the missing blade attribute. Virtuoso is already extremely limited by having only two effective weapons and if this doesn't get the attribute either, then it will just be another one that will never be used by them. Unless, of course, the numbers are just so hight, that it gets over that disadvantage with brute force, in which case the spear will still be much better in the hands of a chrono.

The spear is  a dagger on a stick, it's only logical it should count as a blade if dagger does.

Totally agree with that , with recent buff to power virtuoso , any weapon who hasn't the tag "blade" will feel inefficient trough traits taken as condi apply bleed on "blade" crits and power has +10% strike damage for "blade" skills , both will feel incompatible to virtuoso.

Not gonna talk about mirage , the only benefit is the +15% strike damage , nothing else 

chrono seems to be the most fitting to it and even the fantasma skill is not great at doing damage (which hinder chrono a bit due to 2x fantasma spam) but it's quite funny to see your 2 fantasma dash trough and then back to youin a cross way.

[comarusprimus.9461]

Spear is very good weapon in PvP. A lot of utility and burst potential. It can ship in its current form IMO.

Pros:

- A+ mobility

- good burst damage which can be dumped AoE

- skill 3 evade is great (it makes really makes you think about picking spear over sword)

Cons:

- auto attack have very short effective range

- big CD on skill 2. I would lower damage by ~ 30% and give it 3 sec CD.

 

[eXistence.3876]

I love it. It feels great to use. The only thing it seems clone development is slower. That could be user error though. Beautiful design and art. Gj!

[Gaiawolf.8261]

5 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

First things first: the visual effects are nice and the AA is straight up gorgeous. 3 contrails, glitter and glass shards? YES PLEASE. Mechanically it's also very fun. It's a very "fair" weapon, which is new for mesmer standards; because of this fairness, it could use a slight damage bump in PvP (kind of like vindi gs, for example; every skill is a FAT bonk)

SKILL BY SKILL

• AA: simple. A bit too simple but I won't complain.
• Mind the Gap: decent damage, decent mechanic, decent radius AoE. A bit slow, but acceptable for a skill of this kind. Very hard to trigger clarity in 1v1, the outer circle radius isn't very generous. Works fine in teamfights tho, which I guess is the intended design and I can live with that.
• Imaginary Inversion: mechanically wise, it's blurred frenzy on steroids. Let's put aside the fact that blurred frenzy does deserve a buff, this one is a very decent skill with very decent mechanics.
  • Invert the cleanse and the healing; the skill should heal when empowered and cleanse if it evades anything, so that removing those 10 stacks of poison can be done reactively, which is more important than some healing
• Phantasmal Lancer: the coolest skill, but the one which probably requires the most work... which admittedly, is still not that much. THANKS FOR LETTING THIS BE CASTABLE WITHOUT A TARGET, THANKS FOR THE LEAP FINISHER.
  • Phantasms should be summonable even if the opponent is blocking\dodging, like all other phantasms. This needs to be fixed.
  • Phantasms need better pathing. Very often one of them will be unable to find a path to the target and end up doing nothing; it's a skill that requires a setup, and having your setup being denied by rocks is never fun This needs to be fixed.
  • Range could be improved a bit (60 more range would probably do, doesn't need much).
  • Switch the effects from the phantasms and the mesmer; mesmer will cripple\immob, phantasms will boonrip, so that the mesmer thrust can act as a setup for the lancers.
• Mental Collapse: super fine skill. THANKS FOR LETTING THIS BE CASTABLE WITHOUT A TARGET, THANKS FOR THE LEAP FINISHER, THANKS FOR FINALLY GIVING MESMER A TARGETED PORT WITHOUT A RANGE CHECK.
  • Refund on Mind the Gap should happen only if it hits a target.
  • It's super weird to be ported in melee range and then be expected to use again Mind the Gap... which you don't want to use in melee range. Can be worked with, but it's weird.

The good: it covers a niche mesmers really struggled with; as in, teamfighting melee bonkers.
The bad: it relies A LOT on clarity, and getting clarity is trivial in teamfights... not as much in 1v1 tho.

Overall, it's a beta and obviously there's bugs, but the weapon itself is fun.

Spear itself doesn't provide great defensive and it struggles in teamfights because of the cast times; you need stab, and the weapon doesn't really provide it.
For this reason, it works very well with chaos (stab\prot on shatter, to cover your casts) or mirage (straight up evading while attacking).
The cast times also would love quickness, and for this reason it works very well with chronomancer (quickness on shatter) and virtuoso (quickness on block); virtuoso also provides ranged options, which is something the weapon struggles with otherwise.

Long story short: mesmers clearly don't suffer the "RIFLE IS USELESS ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN DEADEYE" syndrome. For different reasons, every elite spec has a convincing use case to actually improve the spear toolkit.

All in all 8/10 would play again.

Well, I was going to put my thoughts together after testing, but this evaluation says most of it better than I could. I agree with most of these points.

Overall, my biggest takeaways are:

1. The outer edge of Mind the Gap should be wider to help with getting Clarity a bit easier against mobile opponents. I like how the effect lasts long enough to use if you don't get another spear skill off right away. Guardian illuminations could learn from this.
2. Cast times are a touch slow. It makes the weapon feel just a bit clunky and not quite as smooth.
3. Movement during Imaginary Inversion is appreciated but feels a bit slow. Maybe if the skill gave a short burst of swiftness on activation?
4. Some pathing issues need to be fixed, especially on Phantasmal Lancer.
5. The graphics of both Mind the Gap and Mental Collapse should include a cool shockwave on a successful hit when getting or having Clarity, maybe only visible to the mesmer. Slightly tone down Mind the Gap brightness for other players only. Phantasmal Lancer should also include a signal animation if both phantasms hit.

[Thar.9465]

One more thing from PVE perspective: In endgame PVE there is currently no reason to use clarity with skill 2 or 3. Might is abundant and condi cleanse is usually done by supports, though it might come in handy in extreme situations. Since spear obviously is supposed to be a dps weapon, it would make sense for those to also receive a minor buff for dps (again, for PVE) to make clarity worthwhile for those skills. But compared to the blade attribute, that's a minor request.

Overall I really like the feel of the spear. Once the numbers are properly adjusted, it fills a gap in the Mesmer's arsenal with good mobility and aoe damage. It feels and I like the animation (though the purple ground on 5 might be toned down a little so it doesn't cover enemy aoe). Now just make sure it doesn't become yet another weapon that only Chrono can use effectively.

[Flauschi.3281]

Yeah, well i don't know. Mesmer spear feels weird. Its a melee weapon but you can't engage with a gap closer because then you are to near to get clarity via skill 2. And if you not you have to watch too closely your skill bar that you don't get too near too soon. Then after you manage to get a 3 clone shatter out via using skill 4 with clarity; again you are to close because skill 4 is a charge. Then you have to walk away again to get clarity. And skill 5 is a teleport to the enemy target. Now you can use mind the gap again buuut you are to near and have to walk away again. And if the application of clarity depends on the hitbox and its easier to get the larger the hitbox is whats the purpose of this mechanic then ? I like the idea mentioned somewhere above to grant clarity always an give a damage bonus for the outer ring. To me the weapon feels messy, inaccessible and is exhausting to use. Oh yeah and i cannot fathom how you make this work in sPvP. Honestly! xD So here are my spontaneous thoughts after trying the weapon out for a bit.

[frazazel.7501]

I feel like a lot of the problems with this weapon stem from the weapon being a normal melee range weapon with a kit that mostly synergizes with that, except that its most important skill (MTG) that interacts with every other skill requires you to be at slightly longer range. So you need to move between 130 and 300 range rapidly and frequently. If MTG was a higher damage skill with a longer cast time, so that you could walk from melee to 300 range while charging it up, this might make it feel better in PvE. It would probably make it even easier to avoid in PvP, though.

Your gap closer puts you in melee range and resets MTG, which is bizarre for a situation where you're fighting a boss. Optimal usage suggests that you'd want to hit MTG then reset its cooldown soon thereafter, then hit it again. So you start at MTG range, then the reset moves you into melee range, and you need to walk back out to MTG range again. The reset should NOT be on an engage skill, unless the intent is to allow Mesmers to flow between different targets? Is this a WvW / PvP consideration? It doesn't sound useful in PvE at all.

[oOLiLithOo.9831]

Spear Mirage... After messing around with it for quite some time in open world, i noticed a couple things that need to be changed. 1)Ambush Fractured Glass definitely needs a small leap forward in order to feel/work better. Since you chose to make spear a melee weapon it only makes sense for the Ambush to be able to engage/disengage you from the battle. 2)Mind the Gap skill has a cool idea mechanic in theory but is not practical in reality and it's a "hit or miss" skill. I suggest you keep the idea of the Damage increase when enemies get hit from the outer ring BUT Clarity shouldn't be depended on that. Just make it plain and simple, by using skill 2 you gain Clarity and your next spear skill is Empowered. There is no need to make things even more complicated in an already not that easy class to play/master. 3) Spear skills damage need a little tune up in general with some helpful boons. And last but not least while you are at it, please reconsider the design of the stance of our characters while they holding the spear. It looks kinda lame. Thank you and have a good one!

[AJVO Havoc MX.7294]

5 hours ago, oOLiLithOo.9831 said:

Spear Mirage... After messing around with it for quite some time in open world, i noticed a couple things that need to be changed. 1)Ambush Fractured Glass definitely needs a small leap forward in order to feel/work better. Since you chose to make spear a melee weapon it only makes sense for the Ambush to be able to engage/disengage you from the battle. 2)Mind the Gap skill has a cool idea mechanic in theory but is not practical in reality and it's a "hit or miss" skill. I suggest you keep the idea of the Damage increase when enemies get hit from the outer ring BUT Clarity shouldn't be depended on that. Just make it plain and simple, by using skill 2 you gain Clarity and your next spear skill is Empowered. There is no need to make things even more complicated in an already not that easy class to play/master. 3) Spear skills damage need a little tune up in general with some helpful boons. And last but not least while you are at it, please reconsider the design of the stance of our characters while they holding the spear. It looks kinda lame. Thank you and have a good one!

I agree to everything but specially to the redesigning of spears stance, looks ridiculous the way it's holding it imo, at least it does on thief, mesmers as as the one i have checked it out on... Thank you and have a good one too!

[Imaginos.3756]

I found spear 2 (mind the gap?) to be very unreliable in the ability to give me the spear buff and the buff falls off far too fast and doesn't seem to stack. Not a fan of only one way to get that buff. We don't get it from our shatters either. This made spear 3 pretty useless for removing a condition or dropping a heal when I needed it, which makes the weapon pretty useless for that. Damage felt a little weak.

The visuals are very pretty and the animations look sweet.

As others have said needs to be a blade for Virtuoso.

Saddened that it doesn't have a shield + spear option so I could be a sunspear and that it's a 2h weapon. Also not a fan of doubleclicking my spear to equip it and having it go into the aquatic weapon slot instead of my main hand... then I'm looking around going where did my spear go?

Edited Friday at 04:56 PM by Imaginos.3756

[Teknomancer.4895]

17 minutes ago, Imaginos.3756 said:

This made spear 3 pretty useless for removing a condition or dropping a heal when I needed it

You'll definitely need a condi clear if you get Crippled or Chilled, otherwise your spear is nerfed and you're a sitting duck for your opponent to get right up in your face.

[ascii.1369]

5 hours ago, keyokku.5412 said:

I posted that earlier but thinking about it again, what would easily fix the awkwardness between using gap closers or using them in melee with mind the gap range:

make clarity stack.

this simple fix will allow most skills to actually activate with clarity (just takes one of the stacks) since you'll have a surplus stock of them to use (your mind the gap cd is much lower than your others) and you can use them as gap closers appropriately without worrying that you'd be doing it without clarity

I don't get it, how would that improve anything? If you want to stack clarity you would have to afk for the full duration of its cooldown after using "Mind the Gap" to be able to get a second stack. Couldn't even reset it since that would consume the first stack. Can you elaborate on this?

[Kris Knives.8513]

So I apologize for not being more constructive but aside from the Phantom power, I did not enjoy my time with Mesmer spear.  I feel like it really lacks a signature trick power the way most Mesmer weapons have such as the swords ability to swap places with a clone, the rifle's portal, the torch's vanish, the staff's clone back dash or axe's multi-clone teleport.  While competent it didn't feel special or engaging to me and the clarify mechanic was not all that interesting for me personally.  Nothing felt egregiously wrong and I agree with some of the praise above specific powers, it just felt less interesting then I've come to expect from Mesmer weapons, particularly melee weapons.   I'd just like to see something more in line with their illusionist/trickster vibe. 

Maybe that is asking a little much given how much ground they've already covered, but it is still what I'm looking for with each new weapon.

[keyokku.5412]

11 minutes ago, ascii.1369 said:

I don't get it, how would that improve anything? If you want to stack clarity you would have to afk for the full duration of its cooldown after using "Mind the Gap" to be able to get a second stack. Couldn't even reset it since that would consume the first stack. Can you elaborate on this?

I mean it doesn't majorly improve the core issues, but it at least gives you a bit more control and choice in how you use your skills situationally,

currently you basically have to mind the gap between every single thing you do, if you blow it on an evade you have to load up again, etc. ofc you can just sacrifice one without clarity but seems like a big trade off we aren't in control of

for example if you were to pursue an opponent or close the gap in wvw or pvp, you can load up at least 2 stacks prior, bc you aren't just standing around using spear skills only, you would be shattering, you might be using the 2 for clone generation, you might be baiting, using util, and weapon swapping, instead of only getting one shot at a gap closer and they dodge or reposition, it would be easy to respond to us making any effort to gap close with our 4 and 5 and knowing we have to mind the gap again, or you can also an evade/heal/condi cleanse if need be without worrying about loading up again for an offensive 4 and 5, rather than needing to be in mind the gap melee range after doing one thing at a time, the need to be in range for mind the gap after every skill use especially when needing to gap close is really awkward,

in pve, under alac, and if we get any spear traits your CDs are lower and you can stack clarity quicker and optimize and not have to wait for those 4 and 5 CDs to come up or else you rewrite your clarity on hitting 2

I think it gives more user agency and control, at the least and lets us decide how to use our skills

[leanne.1579]

Only tested spear on Virtuoso as that is the main elite spec I use. Overall is it very good and am happy to use as it is but I feel like it could be a hell of a lot better with some improvements.

1.  Auto Attack - make it same as ranger, throw spear at range then make it melee close up using same attacks as it has now. New mechanic for spear should be available on all classes.

2. Mind the Gap - give clarity in the whole area (not just the outer ring) but make it last longer if an enemy is hit by the outer ring just like damage is increased in outer ring. This makes sense as others have mentioned that spear is currently a close combat weapon so if focusing on one enemy you have to doge back just to get main benefit of the weapon.

I feel this would massively make the spear more fun for me 🙂

[Seneca.6319]

Remove the outer edge restriction to get Clarity on Mind the Gap. This skill shouldn't be so punishing and so single scenario focused to get the benefits out of the rest of the skills.

[Orion Templar.4589]

I've been having a lot of fun testing out the Mesmer spear. I don't think anything I have as feedback is different from what others have already said, but I'll add my two cents. On the plus side, the phantasm(s) skill is useful, the skills when you have clarity have great synergy, and the mirage ambush (especially with Infinite Horizon) can provide a lot of quick hits and damage. But on the negative side, I found that trying to get perfect distance for Mind The Gap ended up just stealing the fun factor away.  Having both a teleport and a dash are awesome, but then having to move away to try to hit Mind The Gap for clarity was both anti-synergy and not fun.  I'd vote for clarity being granted on any hit, or maybe on critical hit, but please remove the distance requirement.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Played some more today, could really use one more defensive skill.
If using spear as a replacement for gs, it might work, although gs is miles better,  but as a complement for gs, survivality becomes an issue.

Edited Friday at 07:08 PM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[ascii.1369]

6 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Played some more today, could really use one more defensive skill.
If using spear as a replacement for gs, it might work, although gs is miles better,  but as a complement for gs, survivality becomes an issue.

Yeah I noticed that too. Sword + off hand just offers so much utility/defense that it's hard for Spear to compete. Now I do think Spear should be slightly worse defensively and in turn offer more damage. But it does feel lackluster with how difficult it currently is to get clarity. If you could get the healing/cleanse on #3 and the stun on #5 reliably it would be a different story.

[Solo.6873]

1 hour ago, leanne.1579 said:

Only tested spear on Virtuoso as that is the main elite spec I use. Overall is it very good and am happy to use as it is but I feel like it could be a hell of a lot better with some improvements.

1.  Auto Attack - make it same as ranger, throw spear at range then make it melee close up using same attacks as it has now. New mechanic for spear should be available on all classes.

2. Mind the Gap - give clarity in the whole area (not just the outer ring) but make it last longer if an enemy is hit by the outer ring just like damage is increased in outer ring. This makes sense as others have mentioned that spear is currently a close combat weapon so if focusing on one enemy you have to doge back just to get main benefit of the weapon.

I feel this would massively make the spear more fun for me 🙂

This....

And if you don't want to make the AA ranged....

Could we have a mesmer loot stick?  ( For the new kids, the guardian spear uses the old animation of guardian staff which was a cone, that tagged up to 5 things in front of it, thus earning it's name, The Loot Stick)

Edited Friday at 07:27 PM by Solo.6873

[Noro.2879]

3 minutes ago, Solo.6873 said:

This....

And if you don't want to make the AA ranged....

Could we have a mesmer loot stick? 

Just play mirage greatsword if you want lootstick... Spear being truly melee in this case is amazing. Mesmer doesn't have a melee two handed weapon prior to this and its melee one handed weapons aren't all that great with power right now. This fills a hole that exists in mesmer's kit.

Edited Friday at 07:27 PM by Noro.2879

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

7 minutes ago, ascii.1369 said:

Yeah I noticed that too. Sword + off hand just offers so much utility/defense that it's hard for Spear to compete. Now I do think Spear should be slightly worse defensively and in turn offer more damage. But it does feel lackluster with how difficult it currently is to get clarity. If you could get the healing/cleanse on #3 and the stun on #5 reliably it would be a different story.

That could work, make it compete with gs for damage.

[Noro.2879]

9 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

That could work, make it compete with gs for damage.

It is currently stronger than GS lol