Sharp Lessons: Spear Beta Feedback Update

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Spears land in Guild Wars 2 very soon! Our design team has some updates to share based on your spears beta event feedback. Check out the latest spear info for each profession. 

[mungozen.2379]

I am amazed, Mesmers asked for changes and got them as requested.  This is a good thing, keep it up.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

that heavy armor guy looks like he's whispering the words : "I am pretty... oh so pretty... and witty... and smart..."

[rabbitofharmony.6943]

I'm glad to see changes in Ele spear as well, but the points touched on did not include if the visual noise would be reduced as to allow seeing combo fields, enemy attacks, ect

Has there been any mention or murmur of the dual attacks for weaver giving a tick of long ranged damage for sake of superior elements?

[rabbitofharmony.6943]

1 minute ago, rabbitofharmony.6943 said:

I'm glad to see changes in Ele spear as well, but the points touched on did not include if the visual noise would be reduced as to allow seeing combo fields, enemy attacks, ect

Has there been any mention or murmur of the dual attacks for weaver giving a tick of long ranged damage for sake of superior elements?

ah, in my skim i missed the comment of reducing visual noise, my apoligies

[Iskarel.7240]

Article I wrote about Thief's Axe; bottom discusses Power Axe/Pistol Deadeye build. Can read that as a primer if what I discuss below is new to anyone.
 

Quote

 

Ranger

Additionally, due to the popularity of traps and other pulsing damage skills, it was hard to weave in and out of stealth and complete your attack before you were revealed. To remedy this, Panther’s Prowl will now grant Hunter’s Prowess for a short duration. Hunter’s Prowess will allow you to use your next stealth skill even if you were revealed.

 

This is a joke compared to Axe Deadeye and it'll be ridiculous if this quality of life is only given to Ranger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXe43q7TOTw

This is a benchmark for a build that CURRENTLY deals over 49,000 DPS.

We don't feature it on SnowCrows' website. I made that decision. Why?

Because the build:

- has axes constantly flying in front of and behind you, which can strike other enemies besides your main target
- has variable time for the axe recalling to target, based on:
    - where you were when you first threw the axe
    - where your target is now
    - is your quickness provider slacking?
    - what is your source of stealth?

The difficulty of playing this Deadeye build is simply way too high for anyone who needs a guide. It expects full mastery of Axe, Deadeye's gameplay flow, and Stealth timing/reflexes.

"It was hard to weave in and out of stealth to complete your attack before you were revealed"

Huh, how about that, never would have guessed that kind of thing is hard.

THIS IS HARD. It has been hard for Thief. It's been hard with Thousand Needles pulsing. It's been hard with Magnetic Bomb pulsing. It was hard with Shadow Flare pulsing on Deadeye before ANet removed the pulsing

As an aside, Shadow Flare now requires that you shadowstep-swap with the skill to deal its full damage, which is unintuitive, a bit disruptive, and nukes the skill's damage at range. It used to have a 3.6 coefficient at range, now it only deals 1.0).

You know what other builds are about to use popular pulsing damage skills, that resemble traps, that will have you weave attacks in before you are revealed?

Condition Core Thief with Spear.

Condition Specter with Spear.

Condition Daredevil with Spear.

Why does Axe have a Blast finisher attached to the Stealth attack? Thief does not have many fields, and you can't even use the Blast to gain Stealth.

If you use the Blast finisher, you were already in Stealth.

If you recall the Axe with skill 3, you can blast a Smoke field to gain Stealth... but you will instantly reveal yourself with that attack!

It is maybe hard to weave a recalled axe 3 in and out of stealth.

Where's the quality of life for the profession that has been working with this constraint for YEARS?

Or is that profession not popular enough for time to be devoted to this?

This is NEW content that is about to be released. Thief spear. Popular damage skills. We've done been using Thousand Needles for years.

This doesn't even get into all the problems that encounter design causes when bosses apply Revealed to players but because I don't want to derail, I will not discuss that at length. Suffice to say: stealth timing has always been problematic for thief on a conceptual level, and it's made worse by the implementation of encounters.

[Mor The Thief.9135]

12 minutes ago, Iskarel.7240 said:

Article I wrote about Thief's Axe; bottom discusses Power Axe/Pistol Deadeye build. Can read that as a primer if what I discuss below is new to anyone.
 

This is a joke compared to Axe Deadeye and it'll be ridiculous if this quality of life is only given to Ranger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXe43q7TOTw

This is a benchmark for a build that CURRENTLY deals over 49,000 DPS.

We don't feature it on SnowCrows' website. I made that decision. Why?

Because the build:

- has axes constantly flying in front of and behind you, which can strike other enemies besides your main target
- has variable time for the axe recalling to target, based on:
    - where you were when you first threw the axe
    - where your target is now
    - is your quickness provider slacking?
    - what is your source of stealth?

The difficulty of playing this Deadeye build is simply way too high for anyone who needs a guide. It expects full mastery of Axe, Deadeye's gameplay flow, and Stealth timing/reflexes.

"It was hard to weave in and out of stealth to complete your attack before you were revealed"

Huh, how about that, never would have guessed that kind of thing is hard.

THIS IS HARD. It has been hard for Thief. It's been hard with Thousand Needles pulsing. It's been hard with Magnetic Bomb pulsing. It was hard with Shadow Flare pulsing on Deadeye before ANet removed the pulsing

As an aside, Shadow Flare now requires that you shadowstep-swap with the skill to deal its full damage, which is unintuitive, a bit disruptive, and nukes the skill's damage at range. It used to have a 3.6 coefficient at range, now it only deals 1.0).

You know what other builds are about to use popular pulsing damage skills, that resemble traps, that will have you weave attacks in before you are revealed?

Condition Core Thief with Spear.

Condition Specter with Spear.

Condition Daredevil with Spear.

Why does Axe have a Blast finisher attached to the Stealth attack? Thief does not have many fields, and you can't even use the Blast to gain Stealth.

If you use the Blast finisher, you were already in Stealth.

If you recall the Axe with skill 3, you can blast a Smoke field to gain Stealth... but you will instantly reveal yourself with that attack!

It is maybe hard to weave a recalled axe 3 in and out of stealth.

Where's the quality of life for the profession that has been working with this constraint for YEARS?

Or is that profession not popular enough for time to be devoted to this?

This is NEW content that is about to be released. Thief spear. Popular damage skills. We've done been using Thousand Needles for years.

This doesn't even get into all the problems that encounter design causes when bosses apply Revealed to players but because I don't want to derail, I will not discuss that at length. Suffice to say: stealth timing has always been problematic for thief on a conceptual level, and it's made worse by the implementation of encounters.

Relevant: https://imgur.com/JJSTZzY

[mirage.8046]

I am so stoked about engineer receiving those few sweet changes, also looking forward to the new changes for mesmer's spear. Special effects such as Clarity and Focused should be rewarding when players use specific skills with them for bonuses, as well as visually clear for the latter.

[Zodryn.4216]

I really hope the thief spear skills don't flip over when out of combat or possibly when not targetting anything. Leap chaining will basically be gone otherwise.

[ZEUStiger.3590]

Lackluster toolkit of warrior spear unaddressed.

Adrenaline generation issues unaddressed.

Problematic (in several respects) berserker F1 unaddressed.

Still 900 range.

Inverse-range-scaling mechanics are being removed, but it remains unknown what parameters would skills now use - closer to what they were at melee range prior to this, or to what they were at max range. Depending on that decision spear skills might either be "borderline viable to be clicked in combat with multiple enemies" or "extremely weak".

While some of these might be addressed in the future patchnotes (although I doubt it), I think these are major enough issues to warrant being mentioned in the blog post, if they were being addressed. So I'm assuming they weren't. Instead, we got a third of the notes dedicated to describing a blatant bug fix.

The new "mechanic" of primary target receiving more damage, despite how laughably simple and uninspired it is compared to mechanics of other classes' spears, might be the only saving grace of the spear in PvE, but the damage modifiers must be so high for it to actually make a difference (in mid-to-high double-digit numbers) that I have little faith in that being the case. But even if it was the case, the aggressive mediocrity of rifle will prevent them from being used together, thus, when attempting to make a fully ranged build, your performance will inevitable be dragged down by just how awful rifle's damage output is.

Edited August 7 by ZEUStiger.3590

[Wutwurzel.9325]

Unfortunately Skill 2 wasnt - imo - the only Problem of the Guardian Spear. The whole Mechanic is bad compared to the Mechanics of the other classes..

I dont think these two or three Changes will make such an impact, 

[LichOverlord.6329]

I'm not sure how I feel about this as a mesmer

On one hand, yes, it wasn't quite clear where the outer edge ended and the center began, so you kind of just had to eyeball it and hope you did it right - so in that sense, having an indicator now is a great addition 

As for clarity, however, im somewhat on the fence: having it always applied means that yes, your performance will be more reliable now, but by changing the requirement you risk removing the skill expression of the weapon, and thus players aren't rewarded for "minding the gap"

I hope that the damage increase from properly aligning the skill is significant, because ideally the skill should reward players for careful positioning, rather than just being a "fire and forget" skill

As for the phantasms, I hope there's a cool animation for them with the new jumps - having them dash through you looked really cool, and I would hate to lose that "wow factor" in favor of a reused animation from warrior's spear throw (sorry, warrior)

All in all, I'm okay with the changes, but I worry that you all are focusing too much on what "plays good" rather than what "feels good"

Both are important, and the cool factor, uniqueness, flavor, and skill expression of a weapon shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of performance - I hope that this is not the case here, and that my concerns are unfounded

 

[AvaLilly.6375]

Very happy to see these changes for Mesmer. Thank you for taking on board the feedback. Excited to get my spear into action. 

[Doggie.3184]

No more Thief zoomies? Can't spam the leap anymore if chain always progresses. 😞 The movement speed was super fun in beta.

I'd rather the leap be moved to skill 4 then and forget about the current buff mechanic on 4~ move it to last chain hit or just get rid of it for better damage built in...

also while I'm here I'll ask again; can you please change Thief's loud annoying axe sound effect?

[Zekent.3652]

Spear warrior auto name:

>'Mighty Throw'
>*Look inside*
>No might

[HotDelirium.7984]

My 2 cents-Even though I'm glad we are getting new weapons I want the devs to just have it in the back of their mind that we the players are still going to be doing almost the SAME rotations with the same builds since we won't be getting any new elite specs anytime soon. While weapons add some new flair...new mechanics and builds really add a lot to the play factor.  New maps, story and metas are cool but doing them with the same rotation/build for years really does wear ya out.

[Gehenna.3625]

15 hours ago, Wutwurzel.9325 said:

Unfortunately Skill 2 wasnt - imo - the only Problem of the Guardian Spear. The whole Mechanic is bad compared to the Mechanics of the other classes..

I dont think these two or three Changes will make such an impact, 

Personally, I'm fine with the mechanic. It's just a matter of getting used to for me. What I have trouble with is what role it should play. It's essentially a short range weapon with one 900 distance option but is a bit more forgiving than a melee weapon with regards to range. It's got some support in there as well.

Could it be a more DPS oriented alternative for mace + shield? Not sure yet but I feel that that's where it's at. In any case, I'll use it on at least one of my Guardians. 

[Velkix.6825]

I think dev actually knows the most issues. My only concern is ele's spear. I think the weapon should get greatly reworked instead of dmg buff. Ele is lack of utility and the new weapon has none. Even worse, most of the attunement has the exactly same skills with different colours. Don't try to say "This weapon is only for dmg output". The design logic of ele is: "ele has 20 skills, so each skill makes half dmg than other specs. It should be balanced!" However, the casting time is doubled, and the cleave is low. Cleave is the most important thing as a power weapon, especially in fractals, PvP and WvW. Dmg weapons is a lie for ele, and most mechanics of ele are melee-based. The conflict of the design logic makes the spear a joke.

[Mistwalker Tari.5186]

Regarding Mesmer Spear: I'd like to see just a little extra change to the phantasm skill 4.
I'm focussing on WvW gameplay here, as the dash into enemies will probably just kill the mesmer.
I think the mesmer should either perform a similar spear throw with the boon removal effect, or the mesmer could perform a magically extended thrust (I imagine the Greatsword 3 animation bursting from the spear tip). I think both of these options should also receive the Blade tag for Virtuoso.

[Kelalis.4790]

22 hours ago, Iskarel.7240 said:

Article I wrote about Thief's Axe; bottom discusses Power Axe/Pistol Deadeye build. Can read that as a primer if what I discuss below is new to anyone.
 

This is a joke compared to Axe Deadeye and it'll be ridiculous if this quality of life is only given to Ranger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXe43q7TOTw

This is a benchmark for a build that CURRENTLY deals over 49,000 DPS.

We don't feature it on SnowCrows' website. I made that decision. Why?

Because the build:

- has axes constantly flying in front of and behind you, which can strike other enemies besides your main target
- has variable time for the axe recalling to target, based on:
    - where you were when you first threw the axe
    - where your target is now
    - is your quickness provider slacking?
    - what is your source of stealth?

The difficulty of playing this Deadeye build is simply way too high for anyone who needs a guide. It expects full mastery of Axe, Deadeye's gameplay flow, and Stealth timing/reflexes.

"It was hard to weave in and out of stealth to complete your attack before you were revealed"

Huh, how about that, never would have guessed that kind of thing is hard.

THIS IS HARD. It has been hard for Thief. It's been hard with Thousand Needles pulsing. It's been hard with Magnetic Bomb pulsing. It was hard with Shadow Flare pulsing on Deadeye before ANet removed the pulsing

As an aside, Shadow Flare now requires that you shadowstep-swap with the skill to deal its full damage, which is unintuitive, a bit disruptive, and nukes the skill's damage at range. It used to have a 3.6 coefficient at range, now it only deals 1.0).

You know what other builds are about to use popular pulsing damage skills, that resemble traps, that will have you weave attacks in before you are revealed?

Condition Core Thief with Spear.

Condition Specter with Spear.

Condition Daredevil with Spear.

Why does Axe have a Blast finisher attached to the Stealth attack? Thief does not have many fields, and you can't even use the Blast to gain Stealth.

If you use the Blast finisher, you were already in Stealth.

If you recall the Axe with skill 3, you can blast a Smoke field to gain Stealth... but you will instantly reveal yourself with that attack!

It is maybe hard to weave a recalled axe 3 in and out of stealth.

Where's the quality of life for the profession that has been working with this constraint for YEARS?

Or is that profession not popular enough for time to be devoted to this?

This is NEW content that is about to be released. Thief spear. Popular damage skills. We've done been using Thousand Needles for years.

This doesn't even get into all the problems that encounter design causes when bosses apply Revealed to players but because I don't want to derail, I will not discuss that at length. Suffice to say: stealth timing has always been problematic for thief on a conceptual level, and it's made worse by the implementation of encounters.

I completely agree. It's unclear who is responsible for the Thief class at ArenaNet, but they need to address the issues surrounding the axe and the overall state of the Thief class in PvE. Although I don't have the exact numbers, as I see it appears to be the least popular class in open world and PvE and it already says a lot.

It would be greatly appreciated if ArenaNet could make the Thief class as enjoyable as the Reaper, for instance. Currently, there seems to be a lack of response on various forums and Reddit, and since the introduction of the axe, there have been no fixes or clarifications regarding the situation. We are looking forward to any response and hopeful for future improvements.

[Kelalis.4790]

In the latest YouTube video, @MightyTeapot shared a similar opinion. It's a crazy how everyone recognizes the issue that rangers are receiving things that thieves have needed for years.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

On 8/7/2024 at 12:40 PM, Iskarel.7240 said:

Article I wrote about Thief's Axe; bottom discusses Power Axe/Pistol Deadeye build. Can read that as a primer if what I discuss below is new to anyone.
 

This is a joke compared to Axe Deadeye and it'll be ridiculous if this quality of life is only given to Ranger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXe43q7TOTw

This is a benchmark for a build that CURRENTLY deals over 49,000 DPS.

We don't feature it on SnowCrows' website. I made that decision. Why?

Because the build:

- has axes constantly flying in front of and behind you, which can strike other enemies besides your main target
- has variable time for the axe recalling to target, based on:
    - where you were when you first threw the axe
    - where your target is now
    - is your quickness provider slacking?
    - what is your source of stealth?

The difficulty of playing this Deadeye build is simply way too high for anyone who needs a guide. It expects full mastery of Axe, Deadeye's gameplay flow, and Stealth timing/reflexes.

"It was hard to weave in and out of stealth to complete your attack before you were revealed"

Huh, how about that, never would have guessed that kind of thing is hard.

THIS IS HARD. It has been hard for Thief. It's been hard with Thousand Needles pulsing. It's been hard with Magnetic Bomb pulsing. It was hard with Shadow Flare pulsing on Deadeye before ANet removed the pulsing

As an aside, Shadow Flare now requires that you shadowstep-swap with the skill to deal its full damage, which is unintuitive, a bit disruptive, and nukes the skill's damage at range. It used to have a 3.6 coefficient at range, now it only deals 1.0).

You know what other builds are about to use popular pulsing damage skills, that resemble traps, that will have you weave attacks in before you are revealed?

Condition Core Thief with Spear.

Condition Specter with Spear.

Condition Daredevil with Spear.

Why does Axe have a Blast finisher attached to the Stealth attack? Thief does not have many fields, and you can't even use the Blast to gain Stealth.

If you use the Blast finisher, you were already in Stealth.

If you recall the Axe with skill 3, you can blast a Smoke field to gain Stealth... but you will instantly reveal yourself with that attack!

It is maybe hard to weave a recalled axe 3 in and out of stealth.

Where's the quality of life for the profession that has been working with this constraint for YEARS?

Or is that profession not popular enough for time to be devoted to this?

This is NEW content that is about to be released. Thief spear. Popular damage skills. We've done been using Thousand Needles for years.

This doesn't even get into all the problems that encounter design causes when bosses apply Revealed to players but because I don't want to derail, I will not discuss that at length. Suffice to say: stealth timing has always been problematic for thief on a conceptual level, and it's made worse by the implementation of encounters.

 

[Kheron.9062]

Lots of requested Rev changes, awesome! We could def use more range though, at least 900. Less needed but we could also probably use might, either directly or thru fury procing the trait that self-boons might.

[latlat.4516]

10 hours ago, Kheron.9062 said:

Lots of requested Rev changes, awesome! We could def use more range though, at least 900. Less needed but we could also probably use might, either directly or thru fury procing the trait that self-boons might.

Agreed, considering the spear directly competes with short bow, I do hope the changes in condition are going to compensate that minus  300 range, was def. not the case during the beta

[GamerToad.9248]

No mention if they are adding any type of boon to warrior spear.