Feedback on Rev Spear

[Malus.2184]

So, I spent some time testing the Rev spear and after less than an hour I had to call it quits. This is the worst-designed weapon I've ever seen. It's cumbersome to use, unfocused and lacks several of the abilities which make other weapons a vastly superior choice.

Spear 1, Abyssal Strike: Whether you're in melee or ranged it's just the same skill repeated over and over again with different animations. The Ranger spear has a different ability for range and a complete AA chain. This is subpar when directly compared to another weapon.

 Spear 2, Abyssal Force: 1-second cast and then a slow travel to the target. 600 range and it STILL takes about ½ a second for it to make impact. Being in the face of your target still has the hit happen sometime after the cast.

Spear 3. Abyssal Blitz: The only ability with a ½-second cast. This means you can reliably get it off. It's directionally targeted and summons three mines on the line when cast. Any target has to walk into the mines as even on a large hitbox you're unlikely to get more than one off even if you stand at optimal range. Using it as a dash to get away from your target TURNS YOU AROUND so you have to turn around again to continue attacking, meaning that when used like that the AA will only start AFTER you orientiate yourself towards the target.

Spear 4, Abyssal Blot: The pull, needs to be ground-targeted and then has a cast timer. It also functions as a Defiance Break, has good damage, and needs to be spammed due to it giving CD reduction to Spear 5 which makes its use as a reliable CC incidental at best. The pull only happens on the last of six hits giving people enough targets enough time to get out of it that they can be utterly unaffected. The only good thing I can say about this is that if you have picture-perfect timing you can combo this with Abyssal Force.

Spear 5, Abyssal Raze: Ground-targeted with a 1 1/4-second cast. At least goes off immediately when the cast is completed and the aftercast animation is virtually non-existent. Those are the only things I can say about it since while the benefit from the other skills is a novel idea it makes the skill feel clunky to use.

The Condi component of the spear is solely Torment.

Even with snap-to-ground targeting the Rev spear feels horrible to use. It feels like an inferior short bow and while you can get away with the qualities in PvE where the ability of mobs is limited going into PvP or WvW with this weapon is DOA. Almost all the skills of the spear can be interrupted even a basic ½-second cast Daze. The direct damage is slow and in a lot of cases easily avoidable. Using movement abilities people can get off Abyssal Blot before the pull affects them. The cast time on Abyssal Raze makes it unviable in an environment where people constantly move around. One cleanse will wipe the Condition damage component clean off, making the damage profile of this weapon in competitive environments a nonstarter. 600 Range can hardly be called ranged in the first place. It's just extended melee that you can use projectile hate abilities against.

This execution is horrible. There's no way that the abilities can be saved as even if the cast and animation time are reduced to a more manageable level the skills themselves are boring, the 1 is particularly uninteresting as you only see the same animation repeated over and over again as the only change between them are whether you're in melee or ranged.

Can everything and instead use the GS as the base and make it fully a hybrid melee weapon.

Spear 1, Abyssal Strike: An AA chain where the first attack inflicts Burning. The second Torment. The third is Burning and Torment and gives one stack of Crushing Abyss.

Spear 2, Abyssal Slash: An attack that inflicts Burning and Torment, hits up to five targets- Reduces the CD of Abyssal Raze by X-seconds.

Spear 3, Abyssal Blitz: Makes you move along a line. If you have a target your direction will always be facing the target. Spawns three mines that move towards the primary target and explode (possibly also inflicting Conditions of some kind). Each mine and the Blitz itself generates a stack on Crushing Abyss for each target hit to a maximum of five stacks.

Spear 4, Abyssal Barrier. Blocks attacks for the duration. Reduces CD of Abyssal Raze by X, each blocked attack further reduces it by Y-seconds.

Spear 5, Abyssal Raze: does damage and inflicts Burning and Torment. Each stack of Crushing Abyss increases the damage by X% and generates 1 additional stack of Burning and Torment. Ammo count 1, Crushing Abyss only goes away on the timer rather than on the use of Abyssal Raze.

This would make the spear more interactive with itself since you'd want to get the abilities off. It would also make it less Abyssal Raze-focused as right now it feels like everything else only exists in service of Abyssal Raze, which IMO is boring.

Edited Friday at 06:28 PM by Malus.2184

[Yasai.3549]

Only good things about Spear are Spear 3 and Spear 4. 

Everything else feels clunky to me, down to the range switching Auto attacks and the hilariously slow Spear 5. 

I took it into PvP and I ran Kalla because no other Legend will give me proper Condi coverage with Spear. Turns out, not even doing most of my damage with Spear. Spear literally just used to Evade and CC, and I'm doing 80% of my damage with Kalla summon dumping. Shortbow used to fill damage. Spear at best in its current state is good against dummy golems or PvE. Pointless to use in competitive unless you specifically want a Condi application Defensive swap, then in that case, it's an alternative to Mace/Shield. 

Needs improvement in Spear 5 cast speed an Spear 1 cast speed. Spear 2 is "fine" but unimpressive. 

Here's a suggestion if Anet even cares at all: 
Make Spear 5 a target instant cast animation and then let the skill finish itself, like we currently have with Hammer 5. It'll be much more intuitive to use and fair for enemies to avoid. If the delay must exist, then make the casting fast and free up the player to perform other actions. 

[Kyraios.8954]

Definitely needs a range increase as well as faster animations. 600 range for ground target + long cast times feels pretty bad. Might as well be melee at that point.

Some suggestions:

Add some boon corruption on the first few pulses of spear 4 to add some cover condis? This weapon lacks identity, its just a worse shortbow. 😞

Have spear 5 function similarly  to dragons tooth where if you cast it with a target selected, it follows them around

Add slow/chill to spear 2

Add Daze & weakness on spear 3 for enemies that walk through the mines and remove slow/chill

[Yasai.3549]

4 minutes ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Add some boon corruption on the first few pulses of spear 4 to add some cover condis? This weapon lacks identity, its just a worse shortbow

I can vibe with this. It definitely needs a little spice to compete with Shortbow, and rather than just simply MORE DAMAGE, it should be more utility which Shortbow sorely lacks. 

[Vekaiel.8493]

Trash weapon as I predicted. On top of what was said before in another post, it is impossible to maintain your stacks of crushing abyss reliably in combat.  Each time a stack apply it should refresh all the old ones.


edit: 
I went to try it in WvW a bit more and this thing has as much pressure as a support weapon without the defensives capabilities, I think scepter in a way would be more useful because you could have a decent off hand weapon, not because scepter is any good.

Went to try few of the other professions and it felt so much better. On rev it feels like trying to chop wood with a knife. 

Please put someone else in charge of revenant weapons in the future. It is the second useless weapon we get now.

Edited Friday at 05:53 PM by Vekaiel.8493
more tests

[Angesombre.4630]

I would have preferred a lance with burn, slowness and poison rather than torment, slowness and cold knowing that on the 4 with the axe there was slowness and that was removed.

[Isopod.4156]

Sigh, not surprised not even disappointed just. Why even bother adding new weapons to rev if they're all gonna be bad.

[Tobias.4975]

I'm disapointed, it hits like a poolnoodle, building and remaining stacks is awfull. It's a weapon build on and for the golem. 8 seconds duration of the abyss-stack is way too short, skills are too slow, damage is meh. For what contend is this weapon? Shortbow is way better, you know it, that's way it will be nerfed on Jantir-release.

Why is it always the revenant who gets the things that have not been thought through.

But after all, i make a bet, it will be handled like the scepter. Better nerfing other weapons.

Revenant is truly the stepchild in the profession-family, first scepter, now this... 

Edited Thursday at 08:21 PM by Tobias.4975

[Angesombre.4630]

26 minutes ago, Tobias.4975 said:

I'm disapointed, it hits like a poolnoodle, building and remaining stacks is awfull. It's a weapon build on and for the golem. 8 seconds duration of the abyss-stack is way too short, skills are too slow, damage is meh. For what contend is this weapon? Shortbow is way better, you know it, that's way it will be nerfed on Jantir-release.

Why is it always the revenant who gets the things that have not been thought through.

But after all, i make a bet, it will be handled like the scepter. Better nerfing other weapons.

Revenant is truly the stepchild in the profession-family, first scepter, now this... 

And even on a golem, it's still mediocre.

[Flowki.7194]

This weapon is fking aweful, no offense Anet but its not even beta ready, and at current only looks like a sub par PVE weapon. At that, why would you use it in pve over hammer, which has more power dmg/range to keep out of more AOE, and why would you use it in pve over shortbow, which has more condi/range to stay out of AOE. Gs is more direct dmg with a good block, even swords have more reactive immob/evade, while mace/shield on condi is far better dmg/mitigation. In PVP of any sort, 1v1, roam, group.. this weapon is a pure no-starter.

 

The biggest issue by far is the range <600 with 0 reliable CC/mitigation. The second most horendous issue is getting 5 stacks of raze. You have no stab, so you can be CCd', good bye stack building. The ability also seems to be effected by blocks/blinds/weakness, so again you are likely to lose 5 stacks in waiting out blocks etc, or hitting them by accident. In a 1v1 you are only going to build a 5 stack if the player is AFK, quite litterally. In a group fight, in theory hitting more targets means more chance of 5 stack, but, tiny aoe field, no reliable CC, no stab, and <600 range. You are absolutely garunteed to be daze/stunlocked and taking all kinds of AOE dmg just for a "low chance" of building a 5 stack weapon swap, which is mediocre dmg for that kind of risk. It actually makes the scepter look good.

 

The 2 ammo count also requires micro manedgement, spacing them out to around 4-5 seconds to ensure overlap in stack building (lets pretend CC doesn't exist). So add that ontop of energy manedgement, and boon checking enemy? way too much effort... its going to fall flat on its face vs any spec that gets intant direct dmg while block covered <wb, dh, virt, and on and on>

 

If it is going to be usable <600 range then it needs a rework of the basic mechanics, lower stack count at 3, make the CC proc on second tick, fire on third tick, and poison stacks on weapon swap, which would setup the next weapons dmg pressure, and still plenty of broadcast on the CC aoe/weapon swap AOE. Condi specs could go shortbow to then add bleed, helping to cover the tourment. The CC on spear has to be better, maybe even unblockable, or else its not worth losing mace/shield, since you can only get bleed with shortbow.

 

Oh btw.. just testing ele spear, the fire attunement alone will be wiping enture groups from 1200 range, with large radious AOE. Not even gune look at rangers 😜 

 

Edited Thursday at 10:58 PM by Flowki.7194

[Thunder.2675]

I thought they could innovate with a new concept.

It would be interesting if the weapon had a basic damage and an additional effect according to the type of legendary.

Thinking out loud:
Legendary Demon: Additional damage with torment (Same as beta)
Legendary Assassin : Additional power damage
Legendary Dwarf: Addicional Barrier

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

5 minutes ago, Thunder.2675 said:

I thought they could innovate with a new concept.

It would be interesting if the weapon had a basic damage and an additional effect according to the type of legendary.

Thinking out loud:
Legendary Demon: Additional damage with torment (Same as beta)
Legendary Assassin : Additional power damage
Legendary Dwarf: Addicional Barrier

They only did that with the trident and people still prefer the spear underwater to that, in my experience.

[arazoth.7290]

50 minutes ago, Thunder.2675 said:

I thought they could innovate with a new concept.

It would be interesting if the weapon had a basic damage and an additional effect according to the type of legendary.

Thinking out loud:
Legendary Demon: Additional damage with torment (Same as beta)
Legendary Assassin : Additional power damage
Legendary Dwarf: Addicional Barrier

Lets not make it worse by trying to add that 😅. It will already take some effort from them to unscrew the current one

[GrayListen.3587]

Will do my best to write some straightforward thoughts, and not just a knee-jerk reaction.  I've tried to understand the methodology behind the weapon and I know there's learning curve- especially with existing rotations burned into my brain.  Been playing around with the spear for a few hours now, coming from someone who plays condi rev most of the time I had really high hopes for the weapon.  First impressions:
 

• ...what's up with these cast times?  This was my very first thought using this weapon, my first response to playing it.  The weapon is already hindered in the heat of combat by being ground targeted on 3 of the 5 skills and in addition to that hurdle you have two 1s casts and a 1.25s on the skill that the weapon wants you to focus on?  These definitely need adjusted.  Look at necro staff for a ground-target heavy weapon, and its cast times.
• Skill 1 - A little disappointed there's no auto attack chain, and this hits too slow for what it does.  Would much prefer an attack chain that hit a little faster and only one or two of the hits had the cooldown reduction on AR.  Otherwise it's fine, not too hot about it.
• Skill 2 - Too long a cast time for what it does and the range is quite short, making it a wasted energy cost quite often in something like WvW especially.  That can happen with a lot of skills where you cast out of range, but your #2 is typically your "This is a nice hit, use on cooldown" not a "meh".  The AR cooldown reduction could be nice if this skill was reliable, but since it isn't...
• Skill 3 - I love this skill but I absolutely hate its targeting method.  90% of the time I'm dashing off to the right side and it being a dash/evade/mobility skill means it's not the kind of thing you want to screw around with ground targeting for.  This should be either "dash towards your opponent" or "dash forward", revs are used to these with staff 5 and GS 3 and I never experienced an issue with either.  If we could fix the targeting I would really enjoy what this skill adds to the flow of combat on this weapon.  Really nice addition to staying mobile and among mid/close range.
• Skill 4 - Would really like this to be a 3/4s cast.  It has potential as a skill but the 1s cast is pretty bad.  Necromancers can wave their hand with a staff 5 and fear an area at 1200 range, and we've got a full 1s on a very telegraphed, delayed pull with 600 range?  Honestly feels a little rude.  Very fun animation though!
• Skill 5 - I want to like this skill but to reiterate bullet 1 - WHAT. IN. THE. HELL.  1.25s?  On a ground targeted skill that necessitates you use it once to make subsequent casts valuable?  So you want me to spend 1.25s on a skill so that hopefully next time I use it, it's good?  Let's put this in perspective.  Mace 3.  That's your baseline for tormet application on a rev smacky weapon.  Mace 3, I hit a button.  3/4s and I get some mobility out of it, 1,200 range, 4 stacks of torment, might generation, comparable damage.  In competitive modes I get 2 charges and 8s on recharge counts.  Simple, effective.  Or axe 4 - you hit a button, unblockable, teleport, great damage, 3-4 torment stacks + chill.  1/2s cast.  I don't know what we think is justifying the 1.25s cast on this skill.
• There seems to be a bug with Abyssal Raze where it won't cast on weapon swap at max stacks.  I'm standing in the golem army in PvP lobby right now, gather 5 stacks, swap weapons - the stacks just disappear.  I've had it work a time or two but not entirely sure what's going on here.

Thoughts for improvement:

• Abyssal Raze (Skill 5) needs some other source for Crushing Abyss stack generation as it's incredibly difficult to generate on a single target - particularly if they move at all, recommend adding a stack to successful skill 2.
• Abyssal Raze (Skill 5) - there's no justification for 1.25s cast time, 1s is more than adequate (again, compare to necro staff ground-target skills - they're all 3/4s, I would think 1s a reasonable compromise given how often Abyssal Raze is available in comparison).
• Abyssal Force (Skill 2), recommend 3/4s cast and range of 900, + the aforementioned stack of Crushing Abyss.  Cap it out at 1 stack regardless of # of players hit.  This would make it a good opener as you approach and close the gap to 600 range, would make your first cast of Abyssal Raze not feel silly, and would make it a more reliable "Skill 2" in general with enemies not moving out of range so easily.  It hits weaker than any other revenant skill 2 - the additional range would not be problematic.
• Abyssal Blitz (Skill 3)- please change the targeting on this skill to either "dash towards your opponent" or "dash forward", great skill hindered by problematic targeting.
• Abyssal Blot (Skill 4)- 3/4s cast time, the ground targeting already increases time for skill usage.
• No specific recommendations for this but I do feel like this weapon's condi output is low, given that the intended range of the weapon often puts you outside of Demon Stance's Embrace the Darkness, which is really needed to accumulate noteworthy stacks of torment (its only damaging condition) on this weapon.  Possibly add some burning to Abyssal Raze, when at maximum stacks of Crushing Abyss?  This would help its condition damage and variation, and is consistent with other rev condition output.  I would personally be ok with less strike damage on Abyssal Raze in exchange for something like burning.

 

As a whole I think I could learn to dig the weapon, it took a couple hours for me to feel like I understood the intended range - but its skills look really nice (so much better than scepter!) and I think it achieved the sort of "destructive brush strokes" vibe pretty well.  If we could shorten some of the casts and fix targeting of skill 3, I might be looking to run it in my main build with some practice.

Edited Friday at 02:19 AM by GrayListen.3587

[notalent.4102]

Revenant Spear Beta Feedback - Thoughts:

• Increase Skill Speed: Reduce the cast times to make the spear skills more responsive.
• Adjust Energy Costs: Lower energy costs to allow for more frequent use of skills.
• Enhance Conditions: Add a variety of conditions beyond Torment to improve its utility in competitive play.
• Extend Range: Increase the range from 600 to 1200 to enhance its effectiveness.
• Improve Abyssal Raze (Skill 5):
  • Larger AoE: Increase the area of effect to make it more impactful.
  • Reduce Cast Time: Shorten the cast time for quicker deployment.
  • Targetable Option: Allow the skill to be targetable to improve usability and precision.
• Revamp Abyssal Force (Skill 2): Make the skill more unique and impactful to increase its usefulness in combat.

[Yasai.3549]

7 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

And even on a golem, it's still mediocre.

Apparently this is also the case for many other Profession spears. Many of them straight up suck because they're too slow for Gw2's action combat system. 

Spears seem to have no thought in their general design, trying to make a "slow but heavy" weapon archetype but all they did was make them very slow and very light, akin to throwing a toothpick in slow motion.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

13 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Apparently this is also the case for many other Profession spears. Many of them straight up suck because they're too slow for Gw2's action combat system. 

Spears seem to have no thought in their general design, trying to make a "slow but heavy" weapon archetype but all they did was make them very slow and very light, akin to throwing a toothpick in slow motion.

I don't know about that. The mesmer spear and engineer spear actually felt fine and fluid to me. Necro spear was a disappointment because the damage numbers were appalling for a power weapon in power gear. Small tweaks there but I am going to stand by the Revenant spear just needs to go back to the drawing board like the scepter does.

[Yasai.3549]

33 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I don't know about that. The mesmer spear and engineer spear actually felt fine and fluid to me. Necro spear was a disappointment because the damage numbers were appalling for a power weapon in power gear. Small tweaks there but I am going to stand by the Revenant spear just needs to go back to the drawing board like the scepter does.

Don't remind me about Scepter. Thing should have been the ranged support weapon we needed sorely but it was denied from us because VOOSH VOOSH VOOSH 

 

Majority of the spears literally feel like Revenant Slow Hammer all over again, but for many classes and not just Rev.

Edited Friday at 04:54 AM by Yasai.3549

[arazoth.7290]

 

Posting till they fix it. Tried it, also lacks in power coëfficiënt damage ontop of the below I said already. They pulled another off...

 

Rev spear has too long cast times on skill 1,2,4,5,  these need each 0,5 sec cast time. Since spear abilties will be used little more then other weapons skills, it has to be smooth fast enough and not slow.

Because of this the spear skills need lower energy cost.

 

 

Some larger radius on all abilties, should atleast be 240 and not 180.

600 range still looks too short if even these below get put in, so 900 range atleast.

• Auto attack: It could use more conditions like vulnerability on autos together with the torments each auto. For more condi hybrid weapon cover.

•Skill 2: Some weakness conditions on skill 2 added for more condi cover and defense.

 

•Skill 3: Longer/further evade on skill 3 with few more orbs.

Add even a 2nd ability that allows you to place the orbs at a different location which also triggers it because you moved them 

•Skill 4: Let it pulse chill conditions and not only in the end. 

If cast times are made faster, the end pulse pull will be more reliable too.

•Skill 5: Torment, poison and vulnerability conditions on skill 5. If 3 stacks max are reached, they gett applied like 3 torment, 3 poison and 3 vulnerability.

You gain stacks of abyss if a target is struck, max 1 stack and it stacks up to 3 max.

[Yasai.3549]

Autoattack: I feel like it should splinter on impact. Or bounce to 3 targets. As it is, it's plain bad. AND it's slow. The condition that this skill applies should be Poison, not Torment. 

Skill 2: Is fine but can be great. Should be made the highlight of the weapon set, being that repeated skill 2 casts ramps up in damage. This should be Abyssal Raze. 

Skill 3: Felt fine for me. I have no complaints but if others think it needs to be better, I'm all for it.

Skill 4: Should pull first, then deal its damage. Pulse conditions: Chill first > Weakness next > Cripple last. 

Skill 5: Should be changed to support Skill 2 spam. Landing this on 1 target grants 1 charge of Skill 2. Landing this on 3 or more target gives Skill 2 full 3 charges to cast at their leisure. 

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

This weapon is fking aweful, no offense Anet but its not even beta ready, and at current only looks like a sub par PVE weapon. At that, why would you use it in pve over hammer, which has more power dmg/range to keep out of more AOE, and why would you use it in pve over shortbow, which has more condi/range to stay out of AOE.

It feels like the main function is clearing out lots and lots of relatively weak enemies. The mechanic feels reasonably fluid if you're targeting a cluster of golems (condemnation by faint praise alert!), and I think it does have more AoE overall than shortbow in particular, and probably hammer (hammer technically has mostly AoE skills as well, but I don't think it can drop as many AoEs in practice as spear can). You'd probably never want to use it as your primary weapon, but I could see a logic in running mace/X or shortbow as the primary weapon, while pulling spear out when you just have a lot of trash that you want to clear as quickly as possible.

I still hate it on several levels, mind you - analysing something's function doesn't mean I think it's good - but that's my best guess as to its intended purpose.

[Yasai.3549]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It feels like the main function is clearing out lots and lots of relatively weak enemies. The mechanic feels reasonably fluid if you're targeting a cluster of golems (condemnation by faint praise alert!), and I think it does have more AoE overall than shortbow in particular, and probably hammer (hammer technically has mostly AoE skills as well, but I don't think it can drop as many AoEs in practice as spear can). You'd probably never want to use it as your primary weapon, but I could see a logic in running mace/X or shortbow as the primary weapon, while pulling spear out when you just have a lot of trash that you want to clear as quickly as possible.

I still hate it on several levels, mind you - analysing something's function doesn't mean I think it's good - but that's my best guess as to its intended purpose.

As I've mentioned earlier on, it's essentially a Condi weapon defensive swap in most content. It has a CC and an Evade, which is more than SB's only 1 CC. I can appreciate such a weapon but I'm just annoyed at how impossibly slow this thing is to even be considered a swap that can do any damage at all on anything that isn't gonna just sit there and let you whale on it. 

[Tobias.4975]

35 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

As I've mentioned earlier on, it's essentially a Condi weapon defensive swap in most content. It has a CC and an Evade, which is more than SB's only 1 CC. I can appreciate such a weapon but I'm just annoyed at how impossibly slow this thing is to even be considered a swap that can do any damage at all on anything that isn't gonna just sit there and let you whale on it. 

But on shortbow you have no problem with your energy. On spear you have nearly no energy to spend on your stance-skills for survivability or utility especialy in pvp / wvw.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

57 minutes ago, Tobias.4975 said:

But on shortbow you have no problem with your energy. On spear you have nearly no energy to spend on your stance-skills for survivability or utility especialy in pvp / wvw.

Pretty much. You are already locked in to spending 30 energy just to get that buff so spear can still be inferior to just using a mace or shortbow.

Edited Friday at 01:51 PM by Ravenwulfe.5360

[GrayListen.3587]

Chiming in again after playing with it some more through the evening.

Seriously need to make more spear skills accumulate stacks of Crushing Abyss.  Outside of trash mobs in PvE or poking into a zerg in WvW it's nearly impossible to accumulate and maintain 5 stacks.  I think I've only managed to get 5 stacks in PvP one time through very concentrated effort and that was only to see if it was possible not because there was any benefit to doing so.

The buildup of visual effects with crushing abyss stacks is really cool, you just never wind up seeing it aside from standing in the golem squad.  Honestly feel like both 2 and 4 should add a stack of crushing abyss, and stacks shouldn't disappear until spent (either via weapon swap, or perhaps you consume 5 stacks on an Abyssal Raze with a lot more varied condi application).