Sharp Lessons: Spear Beta Feedback Update

[King xiuras.3615]

On 8/7/2024 at 6:00 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

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. 

@Rubi Bayer.8493 Think about the thief profession too please since there is a lot of malcontent because ranger gets the stealth stuff which thief doesnt even have at all… Can you perhaps make a statement about thief for more clarification instead of ignoring the issue and neglecting the profession…?

[TwistedAlga.4235]

I am so excited no matter what for spears, we're finally getting LAND-SPEARS! It's been soon to be 12 years of waiting, since Polearm didnt make the cut back in the launch release, I am specially hyped for the Warrior Spear since it's so much alike Paragon back in GW1, the nostalgi for me is so high right now 😍

[Wulfhearth.7962]

On 8/7/2024 at 7:01 PM, Zodryn.4216 said:

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.

There was some whining about the mobility being too much so maybe it is intentional... It would still be very sad though. 

Generally, the changes sound good but i wonder if sometimes the chain progressing without you getting the effect might not be a downside. Maybe the chain could only progress if you hit but not reset if you miss? 

 

As for the other classes, i am quite excited about the Ranger and Rev changes! It sounds like they got what they needed (as well as some nice QoL for Ranger) and i look forward to playing them again when Janthir Wilds releases. Rev Spear was a lot of fun already with its flaws and i look forward to it being good, more condis are much appreciated. Hopefully it will still feel as heavy, satisfying and impactful as before only with the damage now matching the feel.

 

Mesmer again is a mixed bag for me. More reliability is generally  a good thing though it is always sad when an interesting and unique mechanic is made baseline. In competitive mode Spear already felt quite strong as well, so now that clarity should be easier to obtain, it might be necessary to balance the other skills bonus effects accordingly. 

 

As for Warrior, i'm a bit cautious about the changes. A multi-target weapon that does more damage to the first target hit could both be finicky to land on the right target, feel underwhelming and frustrating as an aoe weapon and step on the toes of rifle (a single target focused ranged weapon). I really enjoy the concept of the thrown spear and am always up for more ranged weapons on warrior, so I hope that it will find a niche in Warriors arsenal, ideally not at the expense of Rifle (which is already struggling to find use). 

Hearing some thoughts on the design philosophy behind Rifle and Spear would be awesome! What their intended niches are, what builds they are meant to fit in or enable (if any), what sets them apart and how they can both be meaningful parts of Warriors toolkit in the future.

But yay for skill 5 actually hitting! 

Edited August 9 by Wulfhearth.7962

[LichOverlord.6329]

1 hour ago, Wulfhearth.7962 said:

Mesmer again is a mixed bag for me. More reliability is generally  a good thing though it is always sad when an interesting and unique mechanic is made baseline. In competitive mode Spear already felt quite strong as well, so now that clarity should be easier to obtain, it might be necessary to balance the other skills bonus effects accordingly. 

I literally said that earlier, and people gave me confused faces 

I stans by what I said, though, and I'm glad to see at least some others share my concern - reliability is good, but I don't want to lose the skill expression

Let's just hope that the increase to damage from preforming the skill correctly is significant enough to still feel rewarding to the player, and isn't something negligible - in which case the mechanic may as well not exist at all, and just be baseline

[Squigglez.1236]

Still not sure about warrior spear. The range dependent damage it had was a terrible idea and I'm glad that died before launch, but having skills do more damage to the first hit target is also hardly a mechanic. Skill 5 only hits one target, as does the primal burst, so for those two skills the "mechanic" won't even be a thing. Additionally, the regular burst and skill 2 are ground targeted so it'll either not function with those or will do more damage to the first enemy that happens to be hit which would feel awful. Other than those skill 4 is pierce, the hardest possible way to hitting multiple targets, you'll be lucky to hit even one additional enemy, the auto attack AoE isn't exactly large, it has the same radius as a single meteor hit from meteor shower, and the last skill is a melee attack. I would also just like to mention that unless designed correctly any time a skill has varying damage it'll mentally feel like damage fall off. I'd guess for the original design you were going for warriors attacks get stronger the closer you are, but it felt like things were just weaker the farther away you were. The highest damage felt like the default, and I think it'll be similar with this. The main target won't feel like it's getting more damage, it'll feel like everything around it is getting weak runoff damage, especially with every other class doing high damage to all the enemies at once. Rather than "Emphasizing the force use to throw spears" it's makes them feel like they have noodle arms.

Some other ramblings, I really don't like having a melee attack on this thing as it still combats the idea that this is a ranged weapon. At the very least I wish it was a leap skill to a melee attack. Warriors have tons of melee they use but nobody is going to pair this thing with rifle or longbow for a full ranged build. A leap would let people use it to get back into melee to prepare to use their other weapon set, and if they needed to get space they could use it to get away from the enemies instead, could just change the knockback to a knockdown like you used the spear to sweep their legs. Could you guys really not think of anything that was more of a mechanic for warrior to have? Like having skills 2-5 change how the auto behaves for a few seconds like a pseudo stance, or have every auto attack reduce the cooldown of only the last spear skill you used, or even just giving them something similar to thief rifle kneel that you can change between single target and aoe damage. These probably aren't the best ideas but they're something I thought of in few minutes, again feels like warrior arrived late and all the mechanics were gone.

Edited August 10 by Squigglez.1236

[Doggie.3184]

On 8/8/2024 at 1:02 PM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

 

Yeah that ranger stealth fix woulda been great for fixing Thief's auto attacks breaking stealth all the time. I don't like having to turn my auto attack off to make it function properly.

[nopoet.2960]

As a thief player the only thing left on my wish list is adding a leap finisher on Unsuspecting Strike. 

As a war alt, I'm happy spear is straight forward.  But if I could make 1 change it would be to leave the spears stuck in the ground for a time so they would become a barrier for enemies.  It would immediately make spearmarshal's support and the rage attack more interesting.

[thatNEWguy.8192]

Anyone know if the guardian spear auto has been mentioned being fixed? The attack occurs where you started the cast rather than when you end the cast. So if moving forward while 111ing the skill casts behind you rather than infornt of you.

[Tofu.1865]

I hope Engi spear is not Shortbow 2.0 anymore

Jesus christ, Engineers feels like ArenaNet's middle child tbh with you.

[ShatteredStars.6548]

On 8/8/2024 at 6:24 AM, Velkix.6825 said:

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.

It's funny, most of the complaints is from wvw, pvp players, you guys just want to one shot other players and don't care, most of the feedback when the beta was going on was from people that played wvw and pvp, that's what it is with you players, me me me me.

[Wulfhearth.7962]

14 hours ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

It's funny, most of the complaints is from wvw, pvp players, you guys just want to one shot other players and don't care, most of the feedback when the beta was going on was from people that played wvw and pvp, that's what it is with you players, me me me me.

WvW and PvP is where feedback and balance matters most, so it's only natural that that's where most of the feedback comes from. 

What matters in PvE is dps, and i think a lot of PvE players (rightly) take it as a given that ANet will keep an eye on the numbers and balance them as necessary going forward. 

Edited August 19 by Wulfhearth.7962

[PixeLpics.8017]

15 minutes ago, Wulfhearth.7962 said:

C'est en WvW et JcJ que les retours et l'équilibre sont les plus importants, il est donc naturel que la plupart des retours proviennent de là. 

Ce qui compte en PvE, c'est le DPS, et je pense que beaucoup de joueurs PvE (à juste titre) considèrent comme acquis qu'ANet gardera un œil sur les chiffres et les équilibrera si nécessaire à l'avenir. 

90% players play pve, so ...  

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

On 8/19/2024 at 10:49 AM, PixeLpics.8017 said:

90% players play pve, so ...  

And 90% of pve players do not care about DPS, utilities or boon uptime. So what is your point exactly?