Feedback on Rev Spear

[wesly.6497]

 

My Thoughts on the Spear Update
The spear feels like a bit of a slow weapon overall.  I think the skill casting range for ranged attacks should be increased to 900.

Spear 1: Abyssal Strike

If the goal is for the spear to be a hybrid weapon, then Abyssal Strike doesn't apply enough Vulnerability. It could benefit from a buff to its Vulnerability application.

Spear 2: Abyssal Force

To make maintaining the Crushing Abyss buff less reliant on just one skill, consider adding the buff to Abyssal Force as well.

Spear 3: Abyssal Blitz

This is a great addition to the Revenant's arsenal. It's a well-designed skill that the class previously lacked.

Spear 4: Abyssal Blot

Abyssal Blot could use some additional conditions. Adding 1-2 Burning stacks to the skill would be a good improvement.

Spear 5: Abyssal Raze

The combination of a long cast time and a short range (600) makes Abyssal Raze difficult to land effectively in both PvE and WvW. Here are some suggestions for improvement:

Increase the area of effect radius from 180 units to 240 units, allowing you to hit more targets more comfortably. 
Extend the duration of the Crushing Abyss buff applied by this skill to 10 seconds.

By making these changes, the spear will feel more fluid and effective in combat.

 

 

[Raiz.2478]

Too slow to be useful in any game mode especially competitive modes like pvp.  Skills are very telegraphed. We also already have a ranged hybrid weapon in shortbow. Would be nice to see this turned into primarily a 2H melee condi weapon - like a condi alternative to staff or greatsword. Could have skill 1 still flip to a ranged spear throw option as that seems to be the theme with other spear weapons but encourage a more melee playstyle 

Skill 1: Increase the range to 900. Make the melee attack chain a bit faster to encourage closing the distance and using this as a melee weapon. Lower CD of abyssal raze by 1.5 seconds for each target struck

 

Skill 2: Swipe spear in front of you in an arc applying 2 torment 1 chill and reducing the CD of abyssal raze by 10 sec if at least 1 target is struck

Skill 3: Increase the range on the dash so it can be used to engage or disengage

Skill 4: Make this a 2 part skill. 1) Unleash gravitational mist initially chilling nearby foes 2) collapse the mist pulling nearby foes (make the pull a player activated skill)

Skill 5:  Make this a 2 part skill that has a base amount of damage that does not change until fully charged (eg: 3 torment and 1 chill). Once 5 stacks of crushing abyss have accumulated the skill becomes a stronger version and consumes all stacks of crushing abyss: something like applies 5 stacks of torment, 1 stack of chill and does a 3 second knockdown. A knockdown would be nice as it would allow the torment to tick for full damage if no stunbreak or stability - also encourages you timing the skill appropriately. If no knockdown then make it do something interesting like apply additional cover condi like poison and vuln or apply a debuff that increases the damage of applied torment by a certain percent. Also need to get rid of the easy dodge indicator that ripples out from the center of the orange circle completely telegraphing the attack or the skill will never land outside of pve. Would be nice if the stacks of crushing abyss do not reset until they are either consumed or you leave combat. 

Great animations to the weapon skills. Please make it useable. 

[Batalix.2873]

10 hours ago, wesly.6497 said:

 

My Thoughts on the Spear Update
The spear feels like a bit of a slow weapon overall.  I think the skill casting range for ranged attacks should be increased to 900.

Spear 1: Abyssal Strike

If the goal is for the spear to be a hybrid weapon, then Abyssal Strike doesn't apply enough Vulnerability. It could benefit from a buff to its Vulnerability application.

Spear 2: Abyssal Force

To make maintaining the Crushing Abyss buff less reliant on just one skill, consider adding the buff to Abyssal Force as well.

Spear 3: Abyssal Blitz

This is a great addition to the Revenant's arsenal. It's a well-designed skill that the class previously lacked.

Spear 4: Abyssal Blot

Abyssal Blot could use some additional conditions. Adding 1-2 Burning stacks to the skill would be a good improvement.

Spear 5: Abyssal Raze

The combination of a long cast time and a short range (600) makes Abyssal Raze difficult to land effectively in both PvE and WvW. Here are some suggestions for improvement:

Increase the area of effect radius from 180 units to 240 units, allowing you to hit more targets more comfortably. 
Extend the duration of the Crushing Abyss buff applied by this skill to 10 seconds.

By making these changes, the spear will feel more fluid and effective in combat.

 

 

Eh this is just doing to Rev spear what needs to be done to Necro spear. I agree on vulnerability and speeding up the cast of abyssal force, but just speeding it up and tacking on a crapton of arbitrary condis is not my black cherry fantasy.

Just make it do more power/torment damage, ANet. Let Rev have a bruiser weapon. I actually really like the gameplay loop on power Rev, it just doesn't do nearly enough damage.

Edited June 29 by Batalix.2873

[arazoth.7290]

In really short summed up again ==>

Revenant spear is really good in making the openent immortal. Because revenant spear has:

1) No damage

2) too slow cast time

3) no condi cover

4) too low power damage

5) too expensive energy wise

6) too much abyss stacks required for optimal effect in 5th skill. Should be 3 stacks max, 1 stack gained per time max you hit with it.

Poison, vulnerability, torment 1 stacks ramping up to 3 stacks each of them when 3 abyss stacks has reached better hybrid.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

1 hour ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Eh this is just doing to Rev spear what needs to be done to Necro spear. I agree on vulnerability and speeding up the cast of abyssal force, but just speeding it up and tacking on a crapton of arbitrary condis is not my black cherry fantasy.

Just make it do more power/torment damage, ANet. Let Rev have a bruiser weapon.

One type of condition means it will be subpar for PvE and pretty much unusable in PvP. It's not a bruiser weapon.

[Batalix.2873]

30 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

One type of condition means it will be subpar for PvE and pretty much unusable in PvP. It's not a bruiser weapon.

Eh I would like to see this design space explored more, instead of just lazily tacking on bleeding or poison or confusion. Weapons that could maybe work as doubling down on a single condi in certain situations but are just fine as power weapons.

The condi system in this game is frankly kind of disappointing. Everyone clamors for all the condis on every condi build, nothing feels unique anymore.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Eh I would like to see this design space explored more, instead of just lazily tacking on bleeding or poison or confusion. Weapons that could maybe work as doubling down on a single condi in certain situations but are just fine as power weapons.

The condi system in this game is frankly kind of disappointing. Everyone clamors for all the condis on every condi build, nothing feels unique anymore.

That's because if you only do one condition all it takes is one cleanse and your DPS falls off a cliff, especially since it takes time for condi to ramp up. Having multiple different conditions helps prevent your DPS from falling off a cliff. It's not actually bad design at this point and what is the bad design is laser focusing on one condition and then trying to claim it a good weapon.

There's a reason that the best condi DPS builds stack multiple different conditions because in the long run since condis do cap off eventually on stacks, you will be doing more DPS longterm. And to claim that spear is hard hitting for revenant is bewildering since even with the condi, it's way inferior to the mace and short bow.

[Batalix.2873]

17 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

That's because if you only do one condition all it takes is one cleanse and your DPS falls off a cliff, especially since it takes time for condi to ramp up. Having multiple different conditions helps prevent your DPS from falling off a cliff. It's not actually bad design at this point and what is the bad design is laser focusing on one condition and then trying to claim it a good weapon.

There's a reason that the best condi DPS builds stack multiple different conditions because in the long run since condis do cap off eventually on stacks, you will be doing more DPS longterm. And to claim that spear is hard hitting for revenant is bewildering since even with the condi, it's way inferior to the mace and short bow.

"Best" and "boring and homogenous" look very similar. Condi would be way more interesting if they didn't always stack the same conditions. And my thought is that certainly single condi builds could be viable in PvE modes, as well as some hypothetical PvP mode that restricted boonrips/condicleanses more.

But I think you and I are speaking from totally different worldviews. I think minmaxing is the bane of fun, just makes everything play too similarly.

Edited June 29 by Batalix.2873

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

1 hour ago, Batalix.2873 said:

"Best" and "boring and homogenous" look very similar. Condi would be way more interesting if they didn't always stack the same conditions. And my thought is that certainly single condi builds could be viable in PvE modes, as well as some hypothetical PvP mode that restricted boonrips/condicleanses more.

But I think you and I are speaking from totally different worldviews. I think minmaxing is the bane of fun, just makes everything play too similarly.

It's not from a minmaxing point it's from a point of practicality. There's a fine line between it all there. You don't need a minmaxing build to have fun, of course, but you absolutely need a build that can't be turned off just because your fighting a guy that knows how to use hand soap. And this isn't because of a worldview, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding you're having.

The spear is boring, it's unfun, and its counter intuitive design has already guaranteed it as being yet another weapon that revenants will not use unless it receives a massive overhaul at this point. You're prescribing traits to the spear it does not have, and the fact that it revolves around pushing one button over and over (a very meta mechanic btb) makes it even more boring to use.

[Batalix.2873]

11 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

It's not from a minmaxing point it's from a point of practicality. There's a fine line between it all there. You don't need a minmaxing build to have fun, of course, but you absolutely need a build that can't be turned off just because your fighting a guy that knows how to use hand soap. And this isn't because of a worldview, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding you're having.

The spear is boring, it's unfun, and its counter intuitive design has already guaranteed it as being yet another weapon that revenants will not use unless it receives a massive overhaul at this point. You're prescribing traits to the spear it does not have, and the fact that it revolves around pushing one button over and over (a very meta mechanic btb) makes it even more boring to use.

I actually really liked the Rev spear gameplay loop. It's weighty, I like juggling Abyssal Raze and the other skills, even if I currently suck at it and the duration and Raze reset could maybe be fiddled with a bit. It's up there with Engi and Mesmer for me in terms of kits I would actually consider coming back to the game to play.

It just doesn't do enough damage to justify the mobility/range tradeoffs, and is stuck in the really crappy limbo only having five damaging conditions does to condi-class gamefeel. I would personally just play it as a power weapon, I don't really see why I would want to spoil that "smack'em" feel by making it a full condi weapon.

As I said, the design seems to want to lean into bruiser. Obviously this is a beta test so who knows where they will take it, but I don't presume a little flavor torment and chill means it *has* to be a condi weapon. And I certainly am not so unimaginative as to propose what *everyone* proposes for condi builds, which is just to stack bleeding or poison or confusion on everything as if that makes for a satisfying job fantasy. Maybe for functionalists like you, condi flavor doesn't matter, but if that is how I am expected to play every condi class, I just won't. It's stupid, kitchen sink design that is hardly better than 100% uptime full boonball support design.

I'm waiting to see how they rebalance things after the beta. If the slower spear classes like Rev, Ele, Guardian, and Necro are "sped up," I probably won't come back to this game. I'm not into every profession taking after Weaver, thanks.

Edited June 29 by Batalix.2873

[Shagie.7612]

what is this bruiser nonsense

it's has almost nothing in the kit to actually make you more beefy, awful chill and slow duration, no weakness, no blinds, no blocks, no cleanses, just an incredibly short evade, and it demands all your energy so you can't even use your utilities to improve your survivability to actually BE a bruiser

you want a kit like that, look at guardian spear, something that has heals built in, blind, weakness, reso, resistance, a gap closer, CC, and cleanses

it's just slow, that doesn't make it a bruiser of any sort lol

e: "literally nothing" was a bit of hyperbole

Edited June 29 by Shagie.7612

[Batalix.2873]

29 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

what is this bruiser nonsense

it's has almost nothing in the kit to actually make you more beefy, awful chill and slow duration, no weakness, no blinds, no blocks, no cleanses, just an incredibly short evade, and it demands all your energy so you can't even use your utilities to improve your survivability to actually BE a bruiser

you want a kit like that, look at guardian spear, something that has heals built in, blind, weakness, reso, resistance, a gap closer, CC, and cleanses

it's just slow, that doesn't make it a bruiser of any sort lol

e: "literally nothing" was a bit of hyperbole

I'm saying that is what the playfeel is like. I do think it needs more tankiness to it for it to work that way.

[Shagie.7612]

17 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

I'm saying that is what the playfeel is like. I do think it needs more tankiness to it for it to work that way.

A weapon that has zero facing requirements and will ALWAYS highly encourage you to try and weave in and out of 600 range like a nade kit engi feels like a bruiser?
Even if it did get more survivability added to it in some form you'd still play that same way because that would make you even more difficult to kill.

I don't think that's very accurate at all.

If you want a slow bruiser, you want a melee weapon, not one with 600 (or almost certainly 900 soon) that highly rewards proper spacing.

Edited June 29 by Shagie.7612

[Angesombre.4630]

Having tested the spear quickly, no one waits in the zone to get hit because it's so slow.

[Kyraios.8954]

Spear should honestly be a utility+condi hybrid weapon. The trade off should be that it would do slightly less damage and offer more to a team fight than just damage. 

I'm not understanding why Anet made Spear the way it currently is when shortbow exists? we already have a condi hybrid weapon with LONGER range, that is significantly faster and has more reliable damage. Not to mention the ability to stack a multitude of conditions.

[arazoth.7290]

4 hours ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Spear should honestly be a utility+condi hybrid weapon. The trade off should be that it would do slightly less damage and offer more to a team fight than just damage. 

I'm not understanding why Anet made Spear the way it currently is when shortbow exists? we already have a condi hybrid weapon with LONGER range, that is significantly faster and has more reliable damage. Not to mention the ability to stack a multitude of conditions.

Well IF spear would be succesfull it could be a weapon that gives high constant keeping up condis/damage on the enemies but in a different way.

But for that, some changes need to be made, because it isn't there yet 😂

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

8 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

I'm saying that is what the playfeel is like. I do think it needs more tankiness to it for it to work that way.

Given your statement about vindicators, it's clear you seem to be feeling something else and not this weapon or this particular class in general. It's clear you aren't wanting to play rev but something else that is not rev.

Edited Saturday at 01:19 PM by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

5 hours ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Spear should honestly be a utility+condi hybrid weapon. The trade off should be that it would do slightly less damage and offer more to a team fight than just damage. 

I'm not understanding why Anet made Spear the way it currently is when shortbow exists? we already have a condi hybrid weapon with LONGER range, that is significantly faster and has more reliable damage. Not to mention the ability to stack a multitude of conditions.

I can get behind something like that since the dismal design of the scepter, and it would be nice to have something to go with the staff because the shield is still too clunky to actively use in most team support situations (not that I would take a herald as a heal support when there are much better roles that won't be out of position because of a clunky energy bar anyways).