Janthir Wilds Spear Beta Event Feedback: Elementalist

[ShadeSlayer.4765]

Some feedback from a PvE perspective:

Spear Skills

* The Fulgor effect from air 2 stacks duration rather than intensity, which means there is absolutely no benefit to casting the skill more than once every 15 seconds. It feels really bad to see your main attunement skill come off cooldown and knowing there is no point casting it again for another 10 seconds. That also means that any air traits that allow you to use your air skills more often, such as Aeromancer's Training and Fresh Air are really bad with spear and provide no benefit to your main air skill. That doesn't feel great. The effect needs to stack intensity.
* The damage is bad - real bad. Preliminary benchmarks show ~30k dps. The damage on the 5 skills is especially disappointing - they are supposed to be big, flashy "reward" skills but their coefficients aren't particularly impressive by modern GW2 standards. The damage on the 4 slot skills is also pretty bad when you consider the fact that they need to make up for us not having damaging 3 skills. Also - the damage from volcano is less than half of the tooltip damage, not sure whats up with that.
* The etchings cover up boss mechanics - they need to be more see-through.
* It is easy to accidentally double click your 5 skills and unwillingly use the lesser version of the flipover skill - please add a short cooldown between the etchings and their rewards (similar to elementalist's hammer 3 skills).
* Fire 3 and Air 3 get triggered on Auto Attacks, which means that you might accidentally waste their effect. It would be nice if they only triggered on non auto skills.
* Water 3 forced movement feels bad, since you want to use it as part of your dps rotation. Also, its distance gets longer with quickness and it has a habit of breaking you out of the map - which is actually problematic for a skill that you want to use.

Catalyst

* Energy generation as catalyst is really bad with spears - the only skills that multihit are fire 5 and water 2. That makes Spear a really unattractive choice for catalyst. Air 2 Also Doesn't generate energy.
* Spear is also quite light on combo finishers - water 4 could certainly be a whirl finisher (Also why is air 4 a blast finisher as opposed to a whirl finisher? my immersion is ruined).
* Volcano is really buggy with the catalyst elite Elemental Celerity. the reset on the damage reduction per hit has an icd, which means that if you cast 2 volcanos back to back with you elite the second volcano will use the lowest possible damage for all hits. Additionally, you cant charge a second volcano while the first one's etching is still up. This makes Elemental Celerity really bad with spear, as fire would normally be the attunement you want to use it on. Also, Volcano gives you persisting flames stacks, but doesn't count as a fire field and doesn't get extended by the trait? Weird.

Weaver

* The etching skills are extremely buggy on Weaver. if you use an etching on your off hand, then fully attune to your main hand attunement, you will be able to finish your etching and use  the flipover skill. However, if you use your offhand etching and then attune to a different attunement than your main hand one, you will not be able to complete your etching and use the flipover skill unless you swapped attunements while casting the etching spell. Additionally, if you start an etching while fully attuned and then attune to a different element, the etching will cancel and go on a full cooldown despite the fact that it should still be available.
* None of the Weaver spear dual skills deal any damage, which means that they don't apply weakness when equipping Superior Elements - which is actually quite impactful for solo and fractal play. It would be nice if Superior Elements applied its weakness in an AoE around you regardless of a dual skill's damage component.

Edited Friday at 07:38 PM by ShadeSlayer.4765
Further improved readability

[SoulTermination.2764]

12 minutes ago, Arcosa.9123 said:

 

Etching skills

• Crucial: The visuals on Etching skills needs to be dialed down.
•  

Yes, yes, yes, sweet baby Jesus yes. It's fricking impossible for me to see anything through even my own Etchings, nevermind if any others are around. Given that we STILL can't change the colors of enemy AoEs to stuff we personally are able to see better, these need toned WAY TF DOWN natively or give us an option to do so. They look amazing, but they're obnoxious.

[Demented Yak.6105]

Get rid of the etching animations. I know the art team must have worked very hard but it's impossible to see anything beneath it. I can barely see things on top of it. Just get rid of it.

Having every skill do roughly the same thing in each attunement makes the weapon seem very flavourless and boring to me. I'm sure I'm in the minority on this point but it sucks for me going from one attunement to the next doing exactly the same thing but with different colours. For people who only play PvE and love following rotations this weapon will probably be great.

Beautiful animations. Awful gameplay. Low damage. No defence. 3/10.

 

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

Etching is just an APM trap.

• Way too short a time
  • Especially with ground-targeted skills (golems may not move, but mobs do, so ground-targeting isn't so instant).
  • Glass-cannons can't stand still, so I often need to reposition too.
• No countdown (e.g, maybe like a mantra/ammo recharge?) 
• What is "full potential"? Why do I want it? (Not on the tooltips) How will I know when I have it?

At first glance, this seems unfun, and I'm not seeing the potential in it for fun. When is the staff rework?

EDIT: Etching makes things like Mordrem hammer area yellow warnings on the ground invisible. Probably does the same to Chak Lobber head slam AOE warnings, etc.

EDIT2: Get rid of the Etching skill mini-game.  This is ruining the potential for spear: spear should be a tool for the player, the player should not be a tool for the spear. 

   

Edited Thursday at 09:05 PM by TheAgedGnome.7520

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Honestly speaking, I'd combine the "Etching" and skill "3" together to make them into AoE area that buffs you and your allies and move them to skilll slot number 3 with 15s cd 5s duration. Meanwhile the skill "5" after would be left of the buffed version meaning "Etching: Volcano" would simply be "Volcano".
So:

• Fire: slot skill 3: Seethe + Etching: Volcano > Etching of Fire (fire field, 5 targets, duration 5s, cd 15s) > Apply on cast 5 Might and Fury, Increase outgoing damage for you and your allies by 20%, Each attack applies 1 burning (1s icd). You could add also some detonate to it, so you could blast that field to deal damage and apply burning in that area. In slot 5 as I wrote it'd be stand alone fully charged Volcano.
• Water: slot skill 3: Ripple + Etching: Johulhlaup > Etching of Water (water field, 5 targets, duration 5s, cd 15s) > On cast remove 3 conditions, Periodically heal your allies, Each attack applies chill (1s icd). Detonate etching to burst heal allies. In slot 5 I'd change that skill into AoE like waterfall to push away enemies from center in targetted area.
• Air: slot skill 3: Energize + Etching: Derecho > Etching of Air (lightning field, 5 targets, duration 5s, cd 15s) > Increase crit dmg by 15%, Apply periodically revealed in Etching AoE area. Detonate daze all enemies in 360 radius, unblockable. In slot 5 full powered Derecho can stay I think.
• Earth: slot skill 3: Harden + Etching: Haboob > Etching o Earth (dark field, 5 targets, duration 5s, cd 15s) > Apply barrier on cast, Reduce incoming damage by 15%, Attacks apply weakness (1s icd). Detonate removes 3 boons from enemies. Haboob can stay.

Just to be clear, I'd remove the requirement of "cast 3 skills to get full buffs" completely. It's already complex class, it doesn't need more complexity. Simple is the best.
Beside that:

• Auto attacks should have cast time of 1/2 or even 1/4, since it'd be just reskinned staff...
• Weaver skills are as humanly possible boring, make them deal some damage or some evades or something fancy... If you combined 3 + 5 as I wrote then you could make "Unstable Etching" series or something.
• Eathen Spear feels like glorified auto attack, instead of 1 throw, make it small 3 earth spears that apply slow, cripple and weakness with lower damage
• Change Fulgor into one like Guardians Ray of Judgement
• Blazing Barrage more like Blazing Fart, 1 projectile, another glorified auto attack
• Remove the "-10% dmg per hit" nonsense from this game
• Skills like Meteor, Undertow, Twister, Fissure need their second mechanic of "center radius" to be removed, stop trying to force Ele mains to much higher standard, when everyone else doesn't have that kind of handcap
• Undertow, Tiwster and Fissure need their durations to be longer and it needs full effects on it's whole AoE area

That's about it I guess?

[IndigoAneirin.1590]

I think right now, the etchings should be just a tad bit longer to make it easier to get in 3 hits for it to roll over. Right now it's a bit of a tight window to reach, and if you get interrupted or smth, you lose that.

[Malv.3065]

I don't understand how skills match spear theme. They more match staff, especially 5th skill. Spear is mobile and versatile weapon so skill should match it, for example add mobiliti to some of them, make auto attack work like Ranger spear. Other then that I have 2 main point, both for skill 5: 
1. Animation is nice but too bright, it cover anything else. 
2. Skill is too short. It will be nice to have extra second.

[GoodWithGravy.8019]

Feels like a PVE golem weapon, disappointing in WvW, probably on anything that moves

 

1 target AA cap is unnecessarily low, if it's a full dps weapon let its autos cleave 

Volcano/Flugor pulse for too long, and too little each pulse, zerg will just walk around it, make them shorter and burstier, increase their radii by 25-50%

Single strike (e.g. fire 2 & 4) abilities are too heavily nerfed from PVE values to give any reliable spike - why is fully etched Derecho so weak in WvW?

 

Mobility is just a little undertuned given all of the 1200 range CC available, consider at least one of:

• Putting a bind/cripple/chill clense on air 3
• Changing ripple to a 900 or 1200 movement skill, preferably not the "quick etch" 3 slot
• 1500 range? 🙃

Even with all that I don't think it will be considered seriously in WvW, damage is low, user is vulnerable, no major down generation

It just doesn't pose any thread to the opposing team, maybe even less than staff - and that is far from meta! 

It needs to have the spike to generate downs or have some other value like boon strip - these would also help in non golem PVE....

 

Etch is OK, but another classic case of Ele dps being balanced around a bunch of convoluted extra hoops, that has led to vanishingly low play rates in PvE endgame...we have enough weapons like that

A better approach could be to make the etches give utility buffs (stab, resistance, add soft CC to outgoing attacks) while you are in them, but vanish when you use the flip skills.

[Vinny.7260]

PvP Perspective:

All the autoattacks are useless.

Fire 2, Fire 4, Air 2, Air 4, Water 4, and Earth 4 are not retargetable. This makes it borderline impossible to get skills to land.

Air 4 and Water 4 either need to guarantee CCing or get damage back. Getting punished super hard just because of the lack of retargeting is insane. 

Etching is incredibly non-conventional. All the skills also cannot be retargeted. Etching Volcano is useless and incredibly easy to avoid.

Fire 3 should not be consumed by auto attacks.

Air 2 should critically hit. It's a POWER weapon.

 

Etching bugs out on Weaver if you swap from one attunement to another. Despite the off-hand skills being the same. Such as Water/Water to Air/Water, you won't have access to the follow-up skill anymore. This is incredibly counterintuitive.

 

Why are the dual attacks so incredibly mediocre? You can't make use of Superior Elements AT ALL because none of the dual attacks are dual attacks.

 

Edit:

Adding some additional notes here since I've been playing it more.

• Fire 2:
  • Pathing is lower than it should be and collides into the ground too soon at 1200 range.
• Fire 4:
  • Animation for the meteor continues even if stowed and is put on full recharge.
• Water 2:
  • Starting the cast without a target and then targeting removes the beam.
    • Same deal with retargeting.
• Water 3:
  • Scales with movement speed increases and decreases.
    • Immobilize prevents movement, even if cleansed, entirely, not sure if it's because of the movement speed or not.
• Air 2:
  • Affects structures and deals damage to them. (WvW issue mostly).
• Earth 2:
  • Moves like a pool noodle and doesn't reliably land.
• Fire/Water/Air/Earth 5:
  • Extend the window of the actual skills themselves.
    • 5 seconds with the boons pulsing and field; 5 seconds if successfully unlocked the full skill.

Edited Saturday at 08:53 PM by Vinny.7260
Typos

[marixon.6754]

- Like everyone else already said, the etching skills should give more time to charge them up

- It is quite sad that 3 out of 4  etching skills feel the same since they all are a short blast in a straight line except for fire. I really would have liked more freely targetable Aoe's. Maybe with some inspiration from Gw1 skills like "Churning Earth", "Earthquake", "Invoke Lighting", "Thunderclap", "Deep Freeze", "Maelstrom" and so on, you get the idea. 

- A little bit of Aoe on auto attacks would feel nice

- Don't remove the skill visual effects, give more options for LOD... still waiting to get my cloud back on the air overload like in the HOT beta, I'm just saying.

[Yer.8096]

1 hour ago, Twilightmage.8309 said:

Etchings need to last longer as everyone else said.
why are the combo finishers blast ones when our combo fields are under us on a 1200 range weapon?
air 2 should be able to crit, and stack in intensity instead of duration.
air 5 just looks bleh and should be more lightningy to differentiate it from earth 5
Weaver feels really lacking with no big powerful combo skills.
cata spheres bug with etchings
tempest really needs ranged overloads to go with it.
also it just doesn't do much damage as the "glass cannon wep"

Totally agree. Warriors as always have more damage on fastest skills. Spear damage do not justfiy almost none defensive skills...

[Seth Moonshadow.2710]

Please add "Lesser Volcano" as second tool tip description. I didn't even know it was there until I decided to just cast that one skill  and see what happens.
THANK YOU! For NOT locking the ele into animations so that it just sits getting attacked and dies while trying to cast!
I get it, I get it, but again #5 skill set to have big CD's....😐
THANK YOU! For nice looking low overhead animation skills! HUGE +💖

That's all my input for now as i see others have done a decent job.
Thank You

[causticzz.1642]

Tempest is my favorite elite spec so I've been trying spear out on it. I'm running mostly berserker's with enough assassin's pieces to hit 100% crit with fury, fire signet and accuracy sigil.
I managed to get about 33k dps out of it, which is a good bit lower than existing weapons, but hopefully some number tuning will align it better with existing options.

The traits I settled on are the standard fresh air power tempest traits:
Air 3 3 2
Fire 1 3 1
Tempest 3 1 1

The rotation:
Overload Air
Fire -> 5 2 4 3 5
Air -> 2 then auto attack until -> Overload Air
Earth -> 4
Air -> 5 2 4 3 5
Repeat

Obviously, this might still be off from the real optimal rotation, but I feel like this is getting pretty close. There might be some water 3 tech that I'm missing...

The weapon definitely needs some numbers tuning, as well as some skill priority adjustments (Etching Derecho should not cancel Glyph of Storms). After smacking the golem for a few hours, I do like the feel of it though.

[Mithos.5182]

It just occurred to me the the interaction between Ripple and Etching:Jokulhlaup is bizarre.

Not only is the distance of ripple larger than the radius of Etching - meaning that casting it from the center will unavoidably move you out of your etching. But on top of that, it only gives charge to the etching if you *end* in the etching.

[mond.8439]

This Weapon just sucks in WvW:

I tried to commit into it by going Catalyst. In a proper Rotation (Fire: 5-4-2-3-5) it took llike 5-6s to be prepared for the "big bomb" and it didn't connect at all. The main issue is the big build-up time. Using 3 skills to reach the "proper vulcano" is really slow, but then you have to wait like another 2s till the first dmg connects. That is way to slow for todays WvW. Preparing it beforehand doesn't work either due to the short casting-window. And on top: You have to stay in Fire to reach the end and then the effect isn't really there. With all this effort, it should hit the full-dmg in one or two hits. Let us hit hard in one blow. Not uncountable small ones .

EDIT: Vulcano only hits 3 ppl?! That is way to underpowered! 

Air is also a joke. Air-2 can't crit, Air-4 isn't dealing dmg, so using Air-3 isn't worth it besides the air-5. Get rid of the DoT-feature and let it work like LH-4. 

Water felt okay-ish. Using Water-3 as a movement-skill is  kinda annoying, because the other skills aren't for movement. I would recomment switching it to water-4 or sth like this.

I was fine with earth. The earth-4 worked nicely, earth-3 was okay, earth-5 is great utility. 

And the synergy with "good old friends" isn't there. Where are the auras, the blasts, the group-utilities? 

In general the build-up-time is slow, the damage is way to low. You should consider tuning it down to 2 skills inbetween. More AoE on the Auto-Attack would be nice. Why can't it hit 3 ppl instead?

The spear doesn't offer much in terms of partywide-buffs, no auras, medium AoE and no DPS at all. 

Edited Thursday at 10:16 PM by mond.8439

[Nup.4591]

The purpose of the weapon seems to be 

Place etching > charge etching > cast empowered skill > swap to next element

But after testing a lot in the aerdrome I always had to wait for cooldowns of the etchings after a full rotation. Really breaking the flow.

I suggest lowering the cooldown to 20 untraited.

[Magik Dude.2173]

I tried out the skills with Kamohoali'i Kotaki equipped, and I believe it would be a lot better if the skill 5 projectiles were not changed into Sharks:

1) For me, it makes it harder to tell where the actual path of the skill is after it's launched

2) I could imagine the same would be said for the enemies: unless they see a red area showing where it's flying, it will be very misleading seeing just a small shark when the area is MUCH larger.

3) It takes away all the time the artists spent on those big skills.

I don't mind the auto attacks and other tiny projectiles being turned into sharks, but having the bigger ones turn into tiny sharks is misleading. So my suggestion is to change how the legendary treats the bigger projectiles, or change the size of the shark/change the effect of the legendary to match those particular skills.

[ckajlooc.8791]

On the visual side of things, the spear 5 etching idea is fantastic (it makes me feel like my favorite magical girl anime character haha), but the execution feels a bit corny. I would love if the etching itself was less overwhelming: increased transparency on the "paint splatter", or maybe outlining the inscription instead. Additionally, the "full potential" on fire, water, and earth just feels like some rocks pop out, and I think the dedicated particle effects on air are more impactful.

However, the latter suggestions are in conjunction with a lack of understanding on what exactly "full potential" does. I think adding clear tool tips on the difference between base etchings and their final form could iron that out.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Would be nice if #3 didn't apply the effect on AA. I don't really care to get crit or damage on AA.
Fulgor doesn't crit. Big issue for an AIR (precision/ferocity buff etc) skill. The point is to stack 12sec of fulgor on an immobile target, with Air #4 I guess,  but equipped with ranged weapon it's sad to body block targets for slow DPS,  and it is not worth it in pvp/wvw/ow. You should add something : crit, or slow or whatever.

Etching : too short duration. It's litteraly "SPAM WHATEVER AND HOLD 5555" to cast the full potentiel, not really tactical.
And may be it's still beta, but the full tooltip would be nice too. For example on Weaver I don't undestand what i'm actually casting with #5.

On weaver :
Dual skills don't trigger Superior elements. A 1 damage (like hammer) would be appreciated.
Dual skills have quite weak effect alone for mixed time saving actually on attunement swap, as you still need to hold F#Key after them.

Edited Thursday at 10:45 PM by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Arcosa.9123]

37 minutes ago, mond.8439 said:

Air is also a joke. Air-2 can't crit, Air-4 isn't dealing dmg, so using Air-3 isn't worth it besides the air-5. Get rid of the DoT-feature and let it work like LH-4.

This is actually such a funny point that I didn’t consider. Yeah, the Air-3 just doesn’t work with the other skills in the same attunement.

[Exzen.2976]

Overall I like the flow and the feel, but the dmg is wayyyyy too low. You could literally double the dmg in wvw. Its definitely more glass noodle than glass cannon. There is currently no reason to use this weapon for dmg, it's really lacking, even staff does more. 

I also echo everyone else's comment about the etchings needing more time, especially in wvw/spvp. It's enough of a drawback that you keed to stay in the circle - the tight timeframe is unnecessary.

Volcano lacks impact too, give it more dmg upfront. It looks cool, but it's really not great for competitive play. All the 5 skills feel lacking, but if the damage is fixed, the others are probably fine.

Also, Fulgor needs a rethink - it's currently not worth the cast. The damage is laughable, even compared to the rest of the spear skills. In fact, the whole air line feels like it needs some attention. The 3 skill doesn't synergize at all with Fulgor or air 4. Air 4 is too hard to land in competitive for the radius given, especially since this is the main hard cc on the kit. It would be better to make the float happen on the whole radius and give the vuln in the centre. 

If the above can be addressed, as well as the Weaver bug which other have mentioned, I could see myself maining this. It's a cool idea, just needs some serious tweaking. 

Edited Friday at 06:15 PM by Exzen.2976

[TheDetective.8172]

The dual skills for Weaver are extremely disappointing in the same way that hammer dual skills are. The design feels lazy and uninspired.

[Tempest.8479]

Without having the chance to play yet, I can't make any concrete judgements. However, it appears that a lot of the initial concerns myself and several others brought up after the stream concerning awkward fit with current elite spec design, opportunity cost of damage, and missing components rendering certain traits non-functional seem to be well founded.

I think immediate feedback I can add is that, like the pistol, I think autoattacks on air/water should pierce 3 targets, and fire/earth should add aoe so that they can hit 3 targets as well. As others have said, they should also not consume the 3 skill bonuses.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Fulgor should be treated as a secondary effect that works like a condition for power builds, thereby adding additional DoT pressure, than the primary function of a weapon skill. I would like to see the Fulgor skill be renamed and reworked to add a primary power damage component, which then marks targets with Fulgor for a shorter total duration. I also think it would be interesting if all/most of the spear air skills applied Fulgor as a secondary effect, spreading out it's total duration across the entire attunement. I would also like to echo that it should stack intensity rather than duration. 

This could add a new kind of pressure for power builds across the attunement, and make skill 2 a worthwhile cast at all times in. Taking this approach to the Fulgor effect could even open the door for it to be added to other weapons and traits.

Another interesting idea could be to lump effects like Fulgor, the new Necro boon negation effect, and others into a new mechanical category and bring back Hexes from GW1. Create a new umbrella mechanic, introduce some form of counterplay, and a whole new layer of mechanical depth could open up for the game as a whole.

 

Edited Thursday at 11:28 PM by Tempest.8479

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

The full circle is counter intuitive (and visual pollution once the "wow" effect gone) as  only the caster has to be inside... and the traveling line goes outside the circle, and is easily dodgeable anyway + visually misleading particularly for Fire.
It's a lot of effort for  ... almost nothing enjoyable.

Should Etching skills be better in many ways if the elementalist WAS the Etching ? Like Warrior torch #5.
Make it 130~180 radius for combo field, duration 7~8 sec, give the boons to allies too please; and then you can freely move to cast your other skills, and you launch a SPEAR to the target, or target area, not a frontline lock.
Etching skills have so many issue with Weaver, it has not been anticipated.

Plus it  lacks some identity in skills and animations between each elements. It feels more like swapping for a different color effect, than swapping for differents skills : the same mono-target AA, the Hammer#2-like #2 aoe, the same "(wasted) self buff on next spear attack", the big aoe thingy, the same Etching mechanic.
Make air AA multi-target for example : bounce between targets. Earth AA a shock wave, like ... Shock Wave staff 5. May be one skill #3  could be a buff for allies. One #4 not a target location... I don't know, I feel a bit sad you gave effort in design with Etching, fulgor, "buff next skill", and it's just copy-paste skills in fact.

Edited Thursday at 11:52 PM by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[OneAutumnLeaf.3915]

Bug report here for the elementslist: wvw can take down walls and gates with spear no need for siege, already ran into several duos of doing that over and over