Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Mesmer [Merged]

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 minute ago, Noro.2879 said:

It is currently stronger than GS lol

Not even close.
GS bursts much faster and doesn't have the inconvenience of movement to proc clarity.

[Noro.2879]

Just now, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Not even close.
GS bursts much faster and doesn't have the inconvenience of movement to proc clarity.

No, it is indeed actually stronger

[Levetty.1279]

Overall I like the feel of it. Nice to have a cleave weapon on Mesmer, the animations are nice and overall it has a nice flow and feels Mesmery and nice to use. Some flaws though.

Getting Clarity is awkward, doable but awkward. The extra affects from Clarity don't really feel impactful if you pull it off. The best one is phantasmal lancer but that just turns it from a bad skill into an ok skill.

Mesmer needs all the help it can get with sustain if it is going to use a Brawler weapon. Imaginary Inversion should get the healing and condi removal by default. Maybe give it barrier if you successfully evade. Condi removal in particular being tied to clarity means its not very useful as a condi clear.

I feel like the damage on the ambush, Mind the Gap and Mental Collapse could use a little extra umph too

 

Not related purely to Spear but as I am enjoying the weapon most on Mirage and feel like it is the spec best suited to fulfill a brawler role for Mesmer, I thought I would post some ideas about what more Power Mirage needs to compete.

Make Nomad's Endurance also give extra power and crit chance.

Double the damage of Jaunt.

In relation to Mesmer needing help with sustain for brawler builds, make ambush attacks give life steal. Speed of Sand is a good candidate since it doesn't really do anything.

Change Riddle of Sand form a confusion based trait into a power one to synergise with the new Dune Cloak.

 

[yoeri.9275]

clearity, your next spear skill is empowered, not a 15 sec buff, only next spear skill.
except for ambush, i get the auto attacks, but ambush i would count as a spear skill.
i would just do a 10% buff on the empowered ambush, only empowered ambush.
making the 7 hits 10% stronger.
as for build power mirage, spear sword/sword seems to have the most DPS.
and it still feels weak compaired to power virtuosou.
would love it to get closer in that gap, or overtake it compleetly as the power spec of the class.
and to the one saying rifle is useless.
it is not a dps weapon, but a healing weapon, and for that role, the weapon is realy what chrono healer wanted all allong.
not useless, perfect weapon.
mirage is finaly getting some love, pls show it a bit more love, spear is amazing adition to mirage.

Edited Friday at 10:12 PM by yoeri.9275

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

The good:

Albeit conditional, it's a 2x Phantasms power weapon, which boon DPS Chrono absolutely loves. Clarity works even with the smallest hitbox on the kitty golem, so at least in normal stationary PvE fights there aren't any issues. Though I'd love if the Phantasms are always 2x and not conditional, since it gives a reason to use underutilized traits like Empowered Illusions. It's by no means a bad trait, but Greatsword has traditionally dominated power builds for so long that Bountiful Blades is kinda a must, especially on boon Chrono builds. Would love to see the monopoly being shaken up a bit, and the Clarity bonus on 4 is simply more damage.   

The bad:

As people have pointed out, the kit is clunky and dysfunctional with each other. Skill 2 demands that you must watch and space yourself correctly, yet 4 and 5 put you into a melee range that doesn't work with skill 2. And I have tested and a simple dodge roll can't fix that (porting through 5/dash with 4, dodge roll back, 2. No Clarity). It works fine on the kitty golem but as soon as the target sneezes the whole thing falls apart and becomes an awkward mess. There's no rhythm to how this kit is supposed to work. Even if you pull off the initial 2-5-2-4, what's next? Currently the cooldown of 2-4-5 don't really align with each other.    

And so much of the kit is focused around Clarity that it barely has any defensive abilities. Which is needed since (1) Spear demands that you're face-to-face to stuff, I mean 2 of the skills literally yank you right in front of the enemies' face; and (2) it's even worse that it's a weapon meant for power Mesmers, and these builds are even more fragile for not having the luxury of Clones staying due to constant Shatters. 

Suggestion:

Change the distance that skill 5 teleports to the exact distance needed for skill 2. Reduce its cooldown to 15s.
Buff the defensive abilities of skill 3. Blur lasts longer maybe? Or maybe the heal/cleanse needs to be less conditional.
Make the Phantasms always 2, and make the Clarity bonus something else. 
 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

2 hours ago, Noro.2879 said:

No, it is indeed actually stronger

Naa.
A GS 4 2 3 burst deals as much damage as a Spear 2 5 2 4 full clarity burst, takes ~1sec less to cast and that's not counting the time you've to take to move away to trigger clarity.

Edited Friday at 10:36 PM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Noro.2879]

3 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Naa.
A GS 4 2 3 burst deals as much damage as a Spear 2 5 2 4 full clarity burst, takes ~1sec less to cast and that's not counting the time you've to take to move away to trigger clarity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUiJb844yFQ

Yaa.

[ascii.1369]

6 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Naa.
A GS 4 2 3 burst deals as much damage as a Spear 2 5 2 4 full clarity burst, takes ~1sec less to cast and that's not counting the time you've to take to move away to trigger clarity.

 

2 minutes ago, Noro.2879 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUiJb844yFQ

Yaa.

You two are talking past each other. @Lincolnbeard.1735 is talking about PvP and @Noro.2879 is talking about PvE damage rotation. In PvP/WvW @Lincolnbeard.1735 is 100% correct that GS is better.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Just now, ascii.1369 said:

 

You two are talking past each other. @Lincolnbeard.1735 is talking about PvP and @Noro.2879 is talking about PvE damage rotation. In PvP/WvW @Lincolnbeard.1735 is 100% correct that GS is better.

Yeah, talking competitive.
Don't care about pve.

Edited Friday at 10:47 PM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[yoeri.9275]

i would indeed remove the spacing requirement on spear 2.
in raids on bosses, it doesn't matter, but on adds landing it is more dificalt.
especualy if you want heals in add phases, you are going to get out of the heal AoE's just to hit spear 2 clearity.
witch will suck if you also want alacrity.
gw2 in raids, becomes stack wars, not in the stack, no boons, no heals.
mesmer spear 2.
wich was a problem with axe 2 on mirage for boons/heals, now you just copy the problem to spear.

Edited Friday at 11:02 PM by yoeri.9275

[Tambaloneus.6290]

Like everything about the mesmer, love the look of these - glowy purple flower designs it's like you saw my wardrobe 😄 I wonder about the skill names aren't there any flower-based mythologies we could be inspired by? They're so pretty! Also they were shredding things pretty well in Orr where I was trying it. It was doing very fun things with virtuoso, I don't know which one it was but something kept stocking all my blades and I was very appreciative. The spacing on spear 2 I never had an issue with bc my playstyle is already kinda active on mesmer & ele I main daggers I know how to zoop about the place. I say this as someone with co-ordination problems and who is very casual I don't do raids or pvp, so I'm only speaking to my "casual pve scrub" abilities. I love the look & had fun playing. Now - and this a stretch but ... merch that isn't just t.shirts? C'mon, y'all have some of the prettiest fashion in gaming make me a dress already!!

[yoeri.9275]

4 minutes ago, Tambaloneus.6290 said:

Like everything about the mesmer, love the look of these - glowy purple flower designs it's like you saw my wardrobe 😄 I wonder about the skill names aren't there any flower-based mythologies we could be inspired by? They're so pretty! Also they were shredding things pretty well in Orr where I was trying it. It was doing very fun things with virtuoso, I don't know which one it was but something kept stocking all my blades and I was very appreciative. The spacing on spear 2 I never had an issue with bc my playstyle is already kinda active on mesmer & ele I main daggers I know how to zoop about the place. I say this as someone with co-ordination problems and who is very casual I don't do raids or pvp, so I'm only speaking to my "casual pve scrub" abilities. I love the look & had fun playing. Now - and this a stretch but ... merch that isn't just t.shirts? C'mon, y'all have some of the prettiest fashion in gaming make me a dress already!!

i love mesmer, especualy mirage, even though it is compleetly useless in end game group content.
and yes, the one that stocks blades is virtusou, try dagger/sword dagger/focus.
mostly rampager with krait runes. lots of damage, lots of fun.
and unfortunaly, they only end game dps build atm.
chrono is a support build, very strong, spear is great addition imho.
i just wish they gave mirage a bit more love, the spear is amazing power weapon, and i would love to see mirage be the power spec of the 3.
virtuosou be the condi spec/hybrid spec.
chrono be the full support spec, with dps boon support and boon healer.
i beleave that would balance the 3 specs of the mesmer, and would make ballance of the power ballance for mesmer a bit easyer to manage.
and it would give mesmer mains, a reason to try all the specs, and find their favorete build/spec/role.

[Tambaloneus.6290]

I do dagger shield on Virtu, bc I have the expac that lets me use other weapons & I have a cool crystal shield skin. I meant like - one of the spear skills or combo's therein was causing me to stock like 4 blades at once, I think it might have been the one that would normally stock clones. I forget the number of that. I don't care even the tiniest bit about "End Game DPS" builds, bc I don't do pvp or raids ever. So I am not commenting on how it plays on those - that's other ppl's place to say. I am a pve & expac scrub and casual so I can only comment on that experience (which I think probably also gets a bit lost bc I don't know how many of us casual scrubs even use the forums). Honestly my main focus when making a build on my alts is "is it fun for me" and "can I build a themed look around this?". I made an entire gimmick build around one of my favorite book characters & the new ranger maces & it's one of my favourite things ever.

[yoeri.9275]

4 minutes ago, Tambaloneus.6290 said:

I do dagger shield on Virtu, bc I have the expac that lets me use other weapons & I have a cool crystal shield skin. I meant like - one of the spear skills or combo's therein was causing me to stock like 4 blades at once, I think it might have been the one that would normally stock clones. I forget the number of that. I don't care even the tiniest bit about "End Game DPS" builds, bc I don't do pvp or raids ever. So I am not commenting on how it plays on those - that's other ppl's place to say. I am a pve & expac scrub and casual so I can only comment on that experience (which I think probably also gets a bit lost bc I don't know how many of us casual scrubs even use the forums). Honestly my main focus when making a build on my alts is "is it fun for me" and "can I build a themed look around this?". I made an entire gimmick build around one of my favorite book characters & the new ranger maces & it's one of my favourite things ever.

for open world, go nuts.
for end game group content, shield is a support weapon, wich is better for chrono, realy good on heal chrono.
witch is what i mosly play in group content, dagger/shield rifle.
for boon dps chrono i now wield dagger/sword GS but will change GS to spear once laucnh happend.
i own all expensions myself.

Edited Saturday at 12:28 AM by yoeri.9275

[Tambaloneus.6290]

I have a chrono too but she's got a greatsword instead. I have an alt for almost every single elite class (with the exception of firebrand & scrapper). My main support build for heals is my Pocket-Sand Necro. Speaking of I should go try out the necro spear, I haven't yet tried it.

[yoeri.9275]

Just now, Tambaloneus.6290 said:

I have a chrono too but she's got a greatsword instead. I have an alt for almost every single elite class (with the exception of firebrand & scrapper). My main support build for heals is my Pocket-Sand Necro. Speaking of I should go try out the necro spear, I haven't yet tried it.

i tried a few already.
but i honestly don't like most classes.
out of the 12 years that i play, 8 of them i was warrior main.
i've now been a mesmer main for 4 years, and i love mesmer way more than i ever loved warrior.
but i have to say, i do love the permenet berserk uptime on berserker.
not that i am going back to burnzerker, i am kinda done with that build.

[Matt H.6142]

I find I'm using the range indicator to find the 'outer edge' of Mind the Gap, which is not where I want to be looking.  And I know playing an Asura often means accepting smaller animations, sometimes alternative better/worse animations, but Mind the Gap feels a little less tactile probably because to hit the outer edge means the spear isn't really swinging close to the enemies.

 

[Deth.4109]

So here is my feedback.

Spear is a weapon on the cusp of true greatness. The potential kit it adds is both visually stunning and satisfying to use.

here are my PVP and WVW focused concerns

keep these they are good:

• skill 4 being usable without a target
• skill 5 being usable without a target
• skill 3 providing healing and an evade
• auto attack proving weakness

Improvements to the Skills

"Mind the Gap" is often hard to land. The range indicator of the inner and outer circle is not very clear. This skill needs a better visual cue for confirmed hits if it is going to continue functioning this way. The lack of clarity in "Mind the Gap" can make the weapon feel very boom/bust, but not in a good way.

Needing to use one of the non-empowered skills without clarity feels awful. Once you do land "Mind the Gap," you aren't always in a position to capitalize before needing to swap off. This can lead to long periods of being unable to use your skills for their intended purpose. Consider also allowing this skill to benefit from clarity. Perhaps when empowered, it could do its full damage at the end radius at all ranges, or provide protection, stability, or blind a target.

Phantasmal Lancer This skill needs increased range to be an effective opener. The phantasms often do not spawn or miss their target completely, neutering the skill's damage. The non-empowered version and empowered version aren't very satisfying or interesting. It would be nice for this skill to do more when empowered.

Illusionary Inversion This skill is not the best survival tool. It starts up fairly slow and is not as snappy as its counterpart, Blurred Frenzy. Clarity being held hostage on "Mind the Gap" is stifling the usefulness of this skill specifically. Illusionary Inversion should most likely provide a "lesser" clarity effect when an attack is evaded or a target is struck. The heal and cleanse should be baseline, and your movement during the skill should be increased to allow a faster retreat. Alternatively, this skill could leap you backwards, putting you within perfect range of triggering "Mind the Gap." Consider adding swiftness to successful evades with this skill when empowered.

Psycut Auto-Chain Consider allowing this skill to trigger clarity on the third swing of the chain ("lesser effect") or be affected by clarity itself. For example, the first hit of Psycut could provide daze or quickness when used while empowered, allowing faster execution of burst combos.

Mental Collapse One of the best skills visually and incredibly satisfying to land when empowered. The issue is that "Mind the Gap" holds so much of this ability's true power that it can make this ability unreliable. I don't always feel like I land on my target properly when using the skill. You don't have I-frames when porting, causing interrupts to put the skill on full cooldown. This must be changed for the skill to be anything other than a suicide button against AOE. The animation could also be sped up a bit.

I would like to see a portion of this skill's power be decoupled from clarity. If I have to use the skill without empowerment, it would be nice to benefit more from putting my squishy body in direct danger. This skill could use a daze effect when non-empowered, which turns into a full stun when empowered. Alternatively, it could provide boons or apply a condition like slow.

Conclusion Overall, I like the weapon and the direction its design is headed. I just feel like the skills need more cohesion with themselves and with existing Mesmer traits and weapon skills. The weapon in its current state feels incredible when the stars align, but it feels absolutely awful when they don't. In its current form, the weapon lacks the urgency of its sister greatsword in providing the player with on-demand damage and counter-pressure. Having a defensive skill on 3 that takes a defense-through-offense approach is good, but it needs refining. Keep tweaking, and you will have made one of the most well-crafted tools given to players in this game in a long time.

Edited Saturday at 01:33 AM by Deth.4109
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[PlanetBobAlpha.6508]

Mirage with spear awesome in pve i like big number it gives big numbers brain satisfied!

[yoeri.9275]

1 hour ago, PlanetBobAlpha.6508 said:

Mirage with spear awesome in pve i like big number it gives big numbers brain satisfied!

i dissagree, the numbers aint high inof, could use more damage.
empowered on ambush for extra damage i think will fix the damage output, and maby a longer timer on the damage buff with mirage ambush, it sucks if you don't have to doudge before the swap, and you did not do a ambush.
adding 2 maby 3 sec to the 10 sec timer, might fix that problem.
don't foget, it's your only damage modifier on mirage, and that's 15% damage lost.
pesonely, i would like to see that number at 25% or a buff like ambush spear empowerement.
power mirage doesn't have a good 2ndary weapon to begin with, your best option is sword/sword.
the spear is what has to save the spec for PvE content, atm it fails to do so.
the spear is strong for mirage, but not strong inof.
i highly request the balance test team, to get power mirage to a 10% difrends in dps of the best virtuosou build.
any more, and the virtuosou is still the only dps mesmer you can run in end game group content.
and right now, that's allot of ballance tweaks.
and it is fine to overbuff Power mirage for launch.
POWER is allot easyer to ballance than condi builds.
example for overbuffing.
putting the ambush spear buff on 45% damage increace, on a 15 sec timer.
you can get the right ballance within 2 weeks after launch that way.
and this will save you allot of time, before launch.
and removing the skill gap of spear 2, to just on hit clearity, not a spacing clearity, for pvp players
you can leave it the way it is for PvE, thouh it would be better to not have it at all.
it was a great idee on paper, but not in practice.

(no, this is not ballanced at all, but it will stop compains for a while, and let you focus on other tasks till after launch. giving a tip on how to make players happy, and forget about it for the time being.)

Edited Saturday at 02:48 AM by yoeri.9275

[Geronmy.3298]

2 hours ago, PlanetBobAlpha.6508 said:

Mirage with spear awesome in pve i like big number it gives big numbers brain satisfied!

You get more damage camping sword.

[DarkLancer.1902]

This. THIS is incredibly rewarding to play. Cooldowns are reasonable. Speed is high. Damage is good. Gimmick will take some learning, but since it's not critical to success, that doesn't matter. As both Mirage and Virtuoso, spear cycles well, and it's just plain FUN. Loving the capacity to stand in a cluster of flak mobs and obliterate them.

[Squigglez.1236]

I only tested it a bit on chornomancer but it felt surprisingly decent. The attacks felt faster than a lot of the other classes spears do. I like the visuals and being able to generate 3 clones by using 2 then 4 (after the phantasms end) is nice for shatters. I'm not sure how much I like clarity only coming from skill 2 though, I get a bit frustrated when a lot of a builds effectiveness comes from using a single skill (like dragon trigger). Also I wasn't paying enough attention but the teleport from skill 5 may not put you in good range for skill 2, I always felt I had to take a step back afterwards to get the correct distance. This could've just been paranoia though since I found it a bit confusing what constitutes the "edge" of the attack radius before using the skill.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

After further testing I can confidently assert that -as far as pvp is concerned- a teamfighting chrono with spear can do wonders. The shenanigans you can perform with quickness, continuum split and gravity well are beyond obscene.

[Fabulous Faprio.2718]

I mainly play Chrono and Mirage in WvW roaming and PvE open world. All the skills have great animation, but I have a problem with the overall design.  #2 Mind the Gap is where you dance around and keep 300 range distance to hit your target with the outer ring, but #3 Imaginary Inversion, #4 Phantasmal Lancer, and #5 Mental Collapse require or put you into melee range (you're breaking the 300 range distance to use those skills). I would like to see chill, superspeed, or resistance to help maintain the 300-range distance playstyle. There is no gap closer, #4 Phantasmal Lancer and #5 Mental Collapse can be used as a gap closer but do you really want to use it as a gap closer? If you use Blink, you lost a stun break and your "oh kitten button". I am forced to use Mirage in WvW for the sword ambush for the movement and gap closer.

 

PVE: Both Chrono and Mirage feel great to play.

Chrono (quickness dps)

#2 Mind the Gap(6s cd): you have quickness, alacrity, and might, it feels great to spam spear skills. 

#5 Mental Collapse(20s cd): good for break bar, good damage 

Mirage

Fractured Glass: It misses a lot

 

WvW roaming: Chrono does not feel very good in WvW. Mirage is my prefer 

Fractured Glass: It misses a lot

#2 Mind the Gap: It has 8s cd in WvW. I could not think of a reason why I would wait for 8s for 4 stacks of might and I never run into a situation where I have the Clarity buff and the rest of my spear skills are on CD. If I am going to wait 8s to use the same skill again, It should have a bigger pay-off. Another problem, It feels really difficult to keep people at your 300-range distance. This skill could use a chill or superspeed when you hit with the outer ring

#3 Imaginary Inversion: It feels really bad when you are under pressure and you have to evade + successfully attack for the heal. There are too many requirements for a 1600 heal. You have to be facing your target, evade, and land a successful hit. 300 range instead of the 160 range would be nice

#4 Phantasmal Lancer: Great non-targeted dash! Maybe this is just me but this skill also misses a lot. The Phantasms do not feel as impactful as some of the other weapon phantasms.

#5 Mental Collapse: I hate it because it requires you to have a target to teleport. When you do teleport, it teleports you on top of your target when you are supposed to keep the 300-range distance. Make it a true teleport like Willbender F3 (Crashing Courage). I would love to see the same mechanic from #2 Mind the Gap for this skill, hit your target with the outer ring. 1st ring: cripple, 2nd ring: chill, 3rd ring: immobilize