[sPvP/WvW/other] Spear Guard on Willbender is Awesome

[Saiyan.1704]

Using Spear on WB for 24 hours straight and it feels goooood. The damage is incredible. Every bit of Spear hits hard and every ability has a place when it comes to rotations and engagements.
---anet I swear to GOD if you nerf spear's damage I'm not buying the XPAC... there I said it. Fix the bugs, buff other spear classes, then look at Guard Spear's damage... OK?

A little talk about each individual skill I guess idk.

Spear#2:
Felt awkward using at first, but when using it for disengaging, strafing adjacently or towards targets in-between skill rotations, it manages quite nicely. It manages because it hits. When it hits, it hits hard. The healing aspect of it complements the push into AoE damage territories, assuming you run into an ally.
(bug?? It hits multiple times on downed targets only. Up to 20k+ on high ferocity builds...)

Spear#3
Damage and Damage again. It works because the damage is hefty. There's not much to say about it. The QoL I LOVE is how you can use this ability first initially, then the second half of the damage acts like an after cast effect that can be used in combination of something else. Example: Use Spear#3 for the first aoe hit, then port to another enemy quickly for the second hit to land. You can basically multitask with this ability.

Spear#4:
I thought this would deal the most damage but it actually doesn't. Generally it has been only 2 hits on average because of how everyone moves around. The yellow impact points on the ground looks random but it's always counter clockwise in a snail-like pattern. There's a chance that you can land a 3rd hit on single target if they stand still but from my experiences, it has been 2 hits on average. If that. This is one of those Cast and Forget kind of skills.

Spear#5:
This skill takes the most... uh, skill, because you can't just spam it. You literally need to be within that 180 radius range to CC people. So you can't just faceroll your keyboard in hopes that you'll have it do something to someone. You would use Spear#5 in basically melee range, then pop Spear#2 or Spear#3 or Whirling Light to take advantage of the CC. The cooldown on S#4 would take too long.... so it's better to precast S#4 then use S#5 to CC them in the impacts.

Notice how I didn't mention "illuminations" on any of the spear abilities. As a PvP Burst Willbender... Spear rotations (properly landing bursts) in any particular fight matters a lot more than whether or not you should illuminate any particular skill for any particular cause. Illuminations do nothing for the Willbender's selfish playstyle. This spear mechanic quite literally means nothing and I'm very glad to trade this "nothing" for the damage Spear gives to Willbender.

Every aspect of Spear on Willbender feels rewarding and it should stay rewarding.

Cheers.

Edited Saturday at 07:05 AM by Saiyan.1704

[Ezrael.6859]

Spear damage is pathetic for a weapon that does little else and I'm sitting at 2900 Power with 257% crit damage and 100% crit chance in combat.

 

Against any mobile specs, against anyone with some evades or duration blocks the Spear performs poorly. It can mop up players that don't dodge roll or run awful specs, but that's what Willbender has always been good at and causes the most forum drama from those kinds of players. We can do that with any weapon.

The Spear is a worse damage weapon than Greatsword, for both burst and sustain, at range you're better off with Longbow or Pistols, for burst and some control you're better off with a Hammer. The Illuminated mechanic is meaningless and Helio Rush is the clunkiest skill ever.

[Saiyan.1704]

6 hours ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Spear damage is pathetic for a weapon that does little else and I'm sitting at 2900 Power with 257% crit damage and 100% crit chance in combat.

 

Against any mobile specs, against anyone with some evades or duration blocks the Spear performs poorly. It can mop up players that don't dodge roll or run awful specs, but that's what Willbender has always been good at and causes the most forum drama from those kinds of players. We can do that with any weapon.

The Spear is a worse damage weapon than Greatsword, for both burst and sustain, at range you're better off with Longbow or Pistols, for burst and some control you're better off with a Hammer. The Illuminated mechanic is meaningless and Helio Rush is the clunkiest skill ever.

Wild that we have opposite experiences with the spear. I've played it in AT against a plat team and have used it in 3v3's and it does more damage than GS.

BUT I'll be queueing with it more this evening when I get free from work. 

[Ezrael.6859]

When you snowball as a team or when you +1 or go against favourable 1v1 matchups it's fine. But in those circumstances we'd be fine with many weapons.

Spear was a chance to give the Guardian some niche against the things it doesn't do well vs, to give it abilities it doesn't have like evade, duration block and reflection on weapon skills.

As soon as you get hit by some lockdown Spellbreaker or Untamed or run into a Catalyst the Spear falls apart, the burst combo can work but it's also rather telegraphed and one dodge or duration block will negate it. Then on the Spear you're left with so little else you can do, Helio Rush is incredibly situational and the auto is rubbish, you just want to get off the weapon.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Yeah, I had no interest in spear on willbenders before this thread (FB main), but I was curious. I agree with others. Spear for willbenders in wvw is "fine...," but there are superior options. If you want to give up some damage or utility for minor support in small groups when you already have the advantage, yeah, sure whatever. It still needs something to set it apart from GS, sword/x, or even scepter/x. Sustain could be that edge to make it viable in more wvw situations. Give skills 1 and 2 healing on the guard, and a defensive option on 3 (block/area aegis?), and then you have something to work with. Lower CD on the symbol as said numerous times in the feedback thread.

[Kuya.6495]

9 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Using Spear on WB for 24 hours straight and it feels goooood. The damage is incredible. Every bit of Spear hits hard and every ability has a place when it comes to rotations and engagements.
---anet I swear to GOD if you nerf spear's damage I'm not buying the XPAC... there I said it. Fix the bugs, buff other spear classes, then look at Guard Spear's damage... OK?

A little talk about each individual skill I guess idk.

Spear#2:
Felt awkward using at first, but when using it for disengaging, strafing adjacently or towards targets in-between skill rotations, it manages quite nicely. It manages because it hits. When it hits, it hits hard. The healing aspect of it complements the push into AoE damage territories, assuming you run into an ally.
(bug?? It hits multiple times on downed targets only. Up to 20k+ on high ferocity builds...)

Spear#3
Damage and Damage again. It works because the damage is hefty. There's not much to say about it. The QoL I LOVE is how you can use this ability first initially, then the second half of the damage acts like an after cast effect that can be used in combination of something else. Example: Use Spear#3 for the first aoe hit, then port to another enemy quickly for the second hit to land. You can basically multitask with this ability.

Spear#4:
I thought this would deal the most damage but it actually doesn't. Generally it has been only 2 hits on average because of how everyone moves around. The yellow impact points on the ground looks random but it's always counter clockwise in a snail-like pattern. There's a chance that you can land a 3rd hit on single target if they stand still but from my experiences, it has been 2 hits on average. If that. This is one of those Cast and Forget kind of skills.

Spear#5:
This skill takes the most... uh, skill, because you can't just spam it. You literally need to be within that 180 radius range to CC people. So you can't just faceroll your keyboard in hopes that you'll have it do something to someone. You would use Spear#5 in basically melee range, then pop Spear#2 or Spear#3 or Whirling Light to take advantage of the CC. The cooldown on S#4 would take too long.... so it's better to precast S#4 then use S#5 to CC them in the impacts.

Notice how I didn't mention "illuminations" on any of the spear abilities. As a PvP Burst Willbender... Spear rotations (properly landing bursts) in any particular fight matters a lot more than whether or not you should illuminate any particular skill for any particular cause. Illuminations do nothing for the Willbender's selfish playstyle. This spear mechanic quite literally means nothing and I'm very glad to trade this "nothing" for the damage Spear gives to Willbender.

Every aspect of Spear on Willbender feels rewarding and it should stay rewarding.

Cheers.

You're farming confused reacts from pve crowd and silvers but you're right. If there is a space where guardian spear shines currently it's pvp. It hits hard with a decent build. 

My only gripes are that illumination doesn't matter and that spear 2 is slow as kitten and I can't seem to trigger self healing consistently when I strike a target. 

Edit: I also wish the heal on Spear 2 were slightly larger for sustain purposes. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with Spear in pvp.

Edit2: I personally prefer to precast spear 5 into judge's intervention then go spear 4>spear3>swap to sword/sword.

Edited Saturday at 04:48 PM by Kuya.6495

[Saiyan.1704]

8 minutes ago, Kuya.6495 said:

You're farming confused reacts from pve crowd and silvers but you're right. If there is a space where guardian spear shines currently it's pvp. It hits hard with a decent build. 

My only gripes are that illumination doesn't matter and that spear 2 is slow as kitten and I can't seem to trigger self healing consistently when I strike a target. 

Edit: I also wish the heal on Spear 2 were slightly larger for sustain purposes. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with Spear in pvp.

Oh it's perfectly fine if I farm confusion reactions 😅 I half knew that was going to happen. There's only a small handful of Plat WB's in PvP (NA). I'm glad I get to read other people's experiences with spear especially the guardian mains here who do play on a competitive level.

 

1 hour ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

When you snowball as a team or when you +1 or go against favourable 1v1 matchups it's fine. But in those circumstances we'd be fine with many weapons.

Spear shines best as a team-cleave weapon. It's not really meant to prevent WB from getting farmed by the usual classes that has always countered WB like Cata or spellbreaker on point.

[Ezrael.6859]

1 hour ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Spear shines best as a team-cleave weapon. It's not really meant to prevent WB from getting farmed by the usual classes that has always countered WB like Cata or spellbreaker on point.

Then there's no point mate, we've shined with Greatsword and Hammer as team-cleave weapons since 2012 and Beta weekend 2, when the Warrior meta was Bulls Charge, Frenzy, 100 Blades, Eviscerate. And our traits were 0 - 5 - 30 - 30 - 5 with Shelter and Meditations.

 

Spear is a chance for something new, something we don't have on any weapon at all, whether that's Power or Condi in melee or at range.

Right now the Spear is a mismatched mess of melee and ranged that's mostly Power damage with clunky situational team healing that doesn't give us anything new.

When you win a fight with a Spear you win a fight while you happen to be using a Spear, but not because you had a Spear.

 

When you did well with the Spear, apart from just doing some damage when you're able to freecast, what was good about the Spear? The Symbol with the melee range AoE 0 knockback? Even untraited Full Counter is better than that.

Edited Saturday at 06:05 PM by Ezrael.6859

[Saiyan.1704]

2 hours ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Right now the Spear is a mismatched mess of melee and ranged that's mostly Power damage with clunky situational team healing that doesn't give us anything new.

When you win a fight with a Spear you win a fight while you happen to be using a Spear, but not because you had a Spear.

 

When you did well with the Spear, apart from just doing some damage when you're able to freecast, what was good about the Spear?

You have a point in that it's just another way to do damage. I for one never liked chasing with GS and I certainly don't like wasting Judges port just to make WW land.

I don't feel the need to use any utility on my bar to make anything on my Spear useful. When Spear#3 hits, before the second half of Spear#3 finishes you can already engage with Spear#2. that does slightly more than WW's damage. Not sure how other guards goes about using Spear#2 but it forces people to chase me, even after it lands. That second use of Spear#2 is equivalent to Leap of Faith. Spear#4 is eons better than GS's symbol. Spear#5 is a quicker CC than GS#5 even though it has melee range to use. We'll call these about the same.

That's 2 hard hitting skills on Greatsword vs Spear's 4 and I don't feel the need to twiddle my thumbs when WW misses completely. I just really hate chasing with WW or being forced to use a stunbreak just to land WW.

I'm not saying Spear is this Godly weapon, I just fancy it greatly. Greatsword's WW still have a place when you're wanting to burst with WW but I've been surviving much longer with Spear, while also dishing out comparable damages.

[Ezrael.6859]

Spear is even worse to chase an enemy with than GS or Hammer, have you tried chasing down a spec with Spear? It can't do anything.

Helio Rush only hits enemies you pass through, not if you get right up to someone, it's too slow to chase down Swiftness, the other skills can't land outside of melee and Solar Storm will land 0-1 hits if you cast it ahead of someone moving away.

 

I understand what you described but for your 3-2 combo you just did as much damage as Whirling Wrath and the combo takes the same time to execute so a player hit by all of one would be hit by all of the other, and you had to commit 2 skills then run away from combo or double-tap to stop yourself and full turn around >.<     GS has a better leap that always blinds and heals 1000-5000 depending on how many you hit, amazing vs Mesmers and those with pets.

Symbol of Luminance is nice if enemies come to you or you combo it, but that's either a poor opportunity for this weapon vs most fights or you have to commit JI or similar. At least Binding Blade can pull up to 5 into Symbol Whirling and Leap.

 

If I get into a 1v2 or 1v3 they don't tend to stay on top of one another, so the idea of catching both with Spear Symbol isn't realistic, but in this situation I could potentially outplay with GS and pull a few together into a huge combo. Spear can't do that. And my issue is that it's not giving me anything extra, when I win a skirmish with it now, I know I could have done it with GS too.

Edited Saturday at 09:25 PM by Ezrael.6859

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Give skills 1 and 2 healing on the guard

Giving a self heal on a spammable 1 that requires no target is a bit of a ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Edited Saturday at 09:30 PM by Sobx.1758

[Ezrael.6859]

52 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Giving a self heal on a spammable 1 that requires no target is a bit of a ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Have you heard of Elementalist's Signet of Restoration? It's been like that since day 1.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

54 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Giving a self heal on a spammable 1 that requires no target is a bit of a ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Depends on the coefficient and what other sustain features the weapon has, but that's how it works on allies. 

I would support healing only if a target is struck, like some other auto attacks already in the game. 

[Supernova Starr.2069]

5 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Giving a self heal on a spammable 1 that requires no target is a bit of a ridiculous idea, isn't it?

200 healing on AA too op

[Saiyan.1704]

To be perfectly honest, it's hard to measure Spear without the Spear#2 bug 😞I realized yesterday that Spear#2 can also hit people who are moving in the spear's direction. I really wish they would keep it as a feature lol.

Half of Spear's damages comes solely from Spear#2 sometimes... just deleting people. It's hard spotting the multi-hits in a skirmish fight with all the other AoE going on.

Edited yesterday at 06:02 AM by Saiyan.1704

[Sobx.1758]

11 hours ago, Supernova Starr.2069 said:

200 healing on AA too op

Well, it depends. Considering celestial wb with spear adding 2 more -for now fairly slow, but still- dashes, I'm not sure allowing it to just hold 1 at air to consistently heal up is a great idea. Sure, it's not strong if the whole gameplan involves standing in front of another player and hold 1, but that was not the point.

[Supernova Starr.2069]

37 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Well, it depends. Considering celestial wb with spear adding 2 more -for now fairly slow, but still- dashes, I'm not sure allowing it to just hold 1 at air to consistently heal up is a great idea. Sure, it's not strong if the whole gameplan involves standing in front of another player and hold 1, but that was not the point.

Please, enlighten us, in which scenario 200 healing on AA is op

[Sobx.1758]

1 minute ago, Supernova Starr.2069 said:

Please, enlighten us, in which scenario 200 healing on AA is op

Did you read what you quoted? Because it doesn't seem like you did.

[cat.8975]

Spear is Greatsword if Greatsword actually had some team support built into its kit. I'm loving this weapon for small-scale fights in WvW in a mara/drag/zerk build on WB.

[cat.8975]

12 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

To be perfectly honest, it's hard to measure Spear without the Spear#2 bug 😞I realized yesterday that Spear#2 can also hit people who are moving in the spear's direction. I really wish they would keep it as a feature lol.

Half of Spear's damages comes solely from Spear#2 sometimes... just deleting people. It's hard spotting the multi-hits in a skirmish fight with all the other AoE going on.

Yeah, the multi-hit bug on downed players was actually so much fun to use. Having a good kill-secure tool felt great, and the fact that it was melee gave it some risk to use.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Well, it depends. Considering celestial wb with spear adding 2 more -for now fairly slow, but still- dashes, I'm not sure allowing it to just hold 1 at air to consistently heal up is a great idea. Sure, it's not strong if the whole gameplan involves standing in front of another player and hold 1, but that was not the point.

I guess it really depends, like you said. A few other auto-attacks can do just that. Spam the skill to heal up, and with higher numbers and coefficients. But of course that's not the whole story. Other weapon and class dynamics need to be considered. Most auto-attacks that heal, self or others, require a target to hit, which is fine. That's perfectly acceptable for the guardian spear, I would estimate.

[Sobx.1758]

35 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I guess it really depends, like you said. A few other auto-attacks can do just that. Spam the skill to heal up, and with higher numbers and coefficients. But of course that's not the whole story. Other weapon and class dynamics need to be considered. Most auto-attacks that heal, self or others, require a target to hit, which is fine. That's perfectly acceptable for the guardian spear, I would estimate.

Yup, maybe even adding the requirement to hit enemy OR a friendly target (basically "use on whomever, just don't freecast it at the air while running in circles/stright line") would remove the potential problem I mentioned above.