Spear discussion

[thaniretouni.4762]

Everyone felt kinda underwhelmed by the thief spear. Now ANet mentions that they will nerf the dmg in pve and make it so u can use the chain skills in advance without hitting a target. So, if i understand this correctly, this means that spear 3 won't be a mobility tool for thief anymore? So, what are we gonna do with a weapon that deals below average dmg in WvW and has no mobility. Also, the dmg in pve seems too much too, but i dont care much about pve. Seriously, why willbender and other guardian specs can do it all and other classes are barely playable?

[Gazrul.3086]

Well, the spear will still have lots of utility with spammable block and spammable daze, ok heal, bad stealth but still a stealth, some mobility and solid finishers. 

[bq pd.2148]

1 hour ago, Gazrul.3086 said:

 bad stealth but still a stealth

why is the stealth bad? because it is at the end of a chain? i mean now that we can reliably reach it..
its just 1 more step than black powder + heartseeker/bound while being cheaper in terms of ini , sure its no silent scope but lasts longer than that and does not cost your endurance.

before the change i could never see myself using the block after a finisher, as when i can connect the full chain against an opponent i am usually not on the defensive. but now i can leap away, use either the lifeleech if enemy / a target is close or the other skill as filler and into stealth at which point i can in stealth use the block to heal up massively from any ranged pressure and continue with leap etc. by the time stealth runs out i am basically already at stealth again in the chain - maybe at the evade portion of the skill.

[thaniretouni.4762]

Imo, the mobility is negligible now. Only one 450 distance move. The heal is nothing for the dmg we receive in wvw. The finishers seem nice on paper but with the amount of evades and blocks and dmg mitigation in every class it seems too much trouble for no much benefit over other weapons. I guess i ll stick to my trusty staff and sword.

Edited August 10 by thaniretouni.4762

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

3 hours ago, thaniretouni.4762 said:

Imo, the mobility is negligible now. Only one 450 distance move. The heal is nothing for the dmg we receive in wvw. The finishers seem nice on paper but with the amount of evades and blocks and dmg mitigation in every class it seems too much trouble for no much benefit over other weapons. I guess i ll stick to my trusty staff and sword.

And you have my 🪓 and 🗡  !

[thaniretouni.4762]

13 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

And you have my 🪓 and 🗡  !

Actually i use axe pistol from time to time. Pretty fun burst for people who see you alone and come for u. I like u can prep the axes and pretend to be afk

[ZvolTx.3165]

Ideally they tune spear to be better in more organized/group content rather than for roaming. The changes look to be towards that end and are probably generally healthy changes. The mobility, while super fun, was faster than the warclaw in WvW and could be spammed nearly indefinitely. Not at all healthy for the game.

The auto advance is a great way to fix it. It both fixes the issue of the combos being extremely easy to drop in competitive, and keeps the distance/speed of the leap while reducing it's ability to be spammed, so it still has use tactically without being a free "run away" button. 

We will see how it all plays out. I'm hoping to finally have something that lets me play my preferred class, and participate with the rest of the class. 

[thaniretouni.4762]

22 hours ago, ZvolTx.3165 said:

Ideally they tune spear to be better in more organized/group content rather than for roaming. The changes look to be towards that end and are probably generally healthy changes. The mobility, while super fun, was faster than the warclaw in WvW and could be spammed nearly indefinitely. Not at all healthy for the game.

The auto advance is a great way to fix it. It both fixes the issue of the combos being extremely easy to drop in competitive, and keeps the distance/speed of the leap while reducing it's ability to be spammed, so it still has use tactically without being a free "run away" button. 

We will see how it all plays out. I'm hoping to finally have something that lets me play my preferred class, and participate with the rest of the class. 

I agree but i have no trust in Anet that it will do it right. If the numbers stay underwhelming it will be useless. They didn't mention anything about boosting dmg in pvp and wvw, only a nerf for pve. So. Also, with the mobility every class has, without stealth we aint go away from anyone. Willbenders can easily keep up, while dealing massive dmg and having pretty good def tools to counter our bursts. I just hoped thief would be a mobile class again instead of the stealthy one.

[nopoet.2960]

They forgot to add a leap finisher on the leap attack.  Other than that, I'm happy they were paying attention.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

11 minutes ago, nopoet.2960 said:

They forgot to add a leap finisher on the leap attack.  Other than that, I'm happy they were paying attention.

It seems it's becoming a trend to forget a bunch of finisher types on thief weapons. Malicious cunning salvo took 6 months to be fixed to be blast finisher. I'd bet some gold or etos it won't be a leap finisher on release....I expect it to be missing because they lack thief knowledge lol

[Asur.9178]

On 8/9/2024 at 6:23 AM, thaniretouni.4762 said:

Everyone felt kinda underwhelmed by the thief spear. Now ANet mentions that they will nerf the dmg in pve and make it so u can use the chain skills in advance without hitting a target. So, if i understand this correctly, this means that spear 3 won't be a mobility tool for thief anymore? So, what are we gonna do with a weapon that deals below average dmg in WvW and has no mobility. Also, the dmg in pve seems too much too, but i dont care much about pve. Seriously, why willbender and other guardian specs can do it all and other classes are barely playable?

What are you going to do?

You're going to play cele SA like ANet wants you to play and you're going to like it...or go play something else. That's what you're going to do.

Also, the damage in PvP isn't what I'd call average; it was below average in beta. It was only "functional" with a 1-shot meme build which only worked on absolutely terrible players.

Their change to the way spear combo system works only makes SA stronger and completely invalidates a reason to even try anything else. The team is so clueless about Thief that they failed to recognize this. This means you will still keep playing SA, TR, and DE/DD...like literally every single build on Thief.

Furthermore, knowing history, they will "fix" this issue by increasing initiative costs instead of overhauling SA (which needs to be done) and buffing Acro appropriately, while also tweaking Trickery and base initiative to fix that large pile of problem - since those 3 things won't happen, they will take the shortcut, increase initiative cost and call it a day. This is what you should expect in the future from the weapon and the balance team.

Edited August 13 by Asur.9178

[kash.9213]

25 minutes ago, Asur.9178 said:

What are you going to do?

You're going to play cele SA like ANet wants you to play and you're going to like it...or go play something else. That's what you're going to do.

Also, the damage in PvP isn't what I'd call average; it was below average in beta. It was only "functional" with a 1-shot meme build which only worked on absolutely terrible players.

Their change to the way spear combo system works only makes SA stronger and completely invalidates a reason to even try anything else. The team is so clueless about Thief that they failed to recognize this. This means you will still keep playing SA, TR, and DE/DD...like literally every single build on Thief.

Furthermore, knowing history, they will "fix" this issue by increasing initiative costs instead of overhauling SA (which needs to be done) and buffing Acro appropriately, while also tweaking Trickery and base initiative to fix that large pile of problem - since those 3 things won't happen, they will take the shortcut, increase initiative cost and call it a day. This is what you should expect in the future from the weapon and the balance team.

I like the previous changes to Acro and I've been having a lot of fun with it in WvW, but I'm feeding it a lot with Specter and it's shadowsteps, so it's kind of a gimmick template. I hope if they work on it more, they stay smart about it. 

I get SA can be compounding with some builds, but it would be a shame for an overhaul to possibly mess with things like its team support aspects or it's utility as consequence of whatever changes they'd make. I'd probably still take it over getting priced out of more Initiative options though. 

 

[thaniretouni.4762]

1 hour ago, Asur.9178 said:

What are you going to do?

You're going to play cele SA like ANet wants you to play and you're going to like it...or go play something else. That's what you're going to do.

Also, the damage in PvP isn't what I'd call average; it was below average in beta. It was only "functional" with a 1-shot meme build which only worked on absolutely terrible players.

Their change to the way spear combo system works only makes SA stronger and completely invalidates a reason to even try anything else. The team is so clueless about Thief that they failed to recognize this. This means you will still keep playing SA, TR, and DE/DD...like literally every single build on Thief.

Furthermore, knowing history, they will "fix" this issue by increasing initiative costs instead of overhauling SA (which needs to be done) and buffing Acro appropriately, while also tweaking Trickery and base initiative to fix that large pile of problem - since those 3 things won't happen, they will take the shortcut, increase initiative cost and call it a day. This is what you should expect in the future from the weapon and the balance team.

Y, that is why i mentioned it was below average dmg. Tbh i dont play SA often, i prefer crit strikes or acro. Anyway, I was initially pumped up about spear and got the expansion just to see my thief gain a new toy, but no ANet had to ruin it for us all.