Spear in WvW after expansion

[thaniretouni.4762]

I tested spear a bit in a couple power builds.The animation feels good overall. Despite the nerf to the 3 as a mobility tool, i find that with stealth it can still work well as a mobility/sneak attack tool for the weapon. However, the dmg still feels kinda mediocre. Because it has some sustain it is not terrible  but requires some bump. I would suggest a 10-15% accross the board for power based builds and /or 10% across all skills and give the 120 extra power from the equilibrium mastery (giving the extra 120 power only to underwater spear feels cheap).

[bq pd.2148]

i suppose one could reduce damage condi durations in favor of higher power coeficients in competitive modes.
edit: keep in mind that would not really nerf the condi part much as many would cleanse condis regularly, so it would also be a buff to cele builds.


personally i feel like hybrid weapons tend to end up condi/cele as power usually is lacking in damage, axe works because of its bursty nature and the stronger split between power/condi through offhand choice.

Edited August 20 by bq pd.2148

[bq pd.2148]

after roaming a bit on cele a/d + spear:

• i first used SA + DeadlyA + Deadeye, with rending shade in SA:
  was fantastic against noobs, but the defense kinda relies on both stealth and the defensive boons (+ INI) from m7 which can be hard to come by against opponents that avoid your attacks.
• swapping to SA + Trickery + Deadeye, with shadow rejuv then:
  this helps with resource management at considerable damage cost, yet against builds that avoid a ton of hits like a mirages the fight takes too long for my tastes.
• however biggest issue i see is on the defensive side the lack of blind and easy to interrupt skills make it IMO more fragile in cele than deadeye or axe bound daredevil are on power. avoiding hits seems to be still better than just taking a bit less damage from the hits.
  sure the block after shattering assault is nice resustain but then you are pretty much out of juice (4 ini for the skill + 3 missing from stealth attack) and so your opponent also gets to resustain. getting even to shattering assault under high pressure will be difficult with skills being easily interrupted and using the block without shattering assault is an even greater waste of resources.
  have not tried but might work on some power build with dash to get safer through the chain, but i doubt the power side of the spear hits hard enough to bother.

overall i can see myself using spear in group setting if i want to spamm rending shade strips with some soft CC/poison spamm, but for solo roaming ill stick mostly to other options and more importantly power builds i think.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

2 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

after roaming a bit on cele a/d + spear:

• i first used SA + DeadlyA + Deadeye, with rending shade in SA:
  was fantastic against noobs, but the defense kinda relies on both stealth and the defensive boons (+ INI) from m7 which can be hard to come by against opponents that avoid your attacks.
• swapping to SA + Trickery + Deadeye, with shadow rejuv then:
  this helps with resource management at considerable damage cost, yet against builds that avoid a ton of hits like a mirages the fight takes too long for my tastes.
• however biggest issue i see is on the defensive side the lack of blind and easy to interrupt skills make it IMO more fragile in cele than deadeye or axe bound daredevil are on power. avoiding hits seems to be still better than just taking a bit less damage from the hits.
  sure the block after shattering assault is nice resustain but then you are pretty much out of juice (4 ini for the skill + 3 missing from stealth attack) and so your opponent also gets to resustain. getting even to shattering assault under high pressure will be difficult with skills being easily interrupted and using the block without shattering assault is an even greater waste of resources.
  have not tried but might work on some power build with dash to get safer through the chain, but i doubt the power side of the spear hits hard enough to bother.

overall i can see myself using spear in group setting if i want to spamm rending shade strips with some soft CC/poison spamm, but for solo roaming ill stick mostly to other options and more importantly power builds i think.

same, as it stands in wvw the spear is garbage, ive had better results with 

more than anything

seems other spear skills are just better on other classes, ranger keeps stealth attacks even if revealed, thief gets shyte in similarity to this despite having PULSING PREPARATIONS! favoritism, biased balance patch. unfair and borderline favoritism. 

[kidbuu.4071]

I've been having a great time using a core build focused on deadly arts, trickery, and shadow arts, along with celestial gear and trapper runes. I've used this setup for small-scale roaming and taking camps, and it's been really enjoyable. I've been able to hold my own in groups of 25 or more, block and mitigate damage, heal myself, and move in and out of stealth. My primary weapon skills are 2, 3, and 1, and I use them in combination with traits that strip boons and apply fear for crowd control. I also have access to a nice block skill on demand, significant healing, and the ability to disengage. I use an axe/dagger and spear, along with food and sigils that provide a variety of conditions for cover.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

6 hours ago, kidbuu.4071 said:

I've been having a great time using a core build focused on deadly arts, trickery, and shadow arts, along with celestial gear and trapper runes. I've used this setup for small-scale roaming and taking camps, and it's been really enjoyable. I've been able to hold my own in groups of 25 or more, block and mitigate damage, heal myself, and move in and out of stealth. My primary weapon skills are 2, 3, and 1, and I use them in combination with traits that strip boons and apply fear for crowd control. I also have access to a nice block skill on demand, significant healing, and the ability to disengage. I use an axe/dagger and spear, along with food and sigils that provide a variety of conditions for cover.

axe/dagger does it better. in pve you can perma stealth, though i wouldnt find a reason to, on deadeye. axe has more evades and more fear/boonsteal aoe 10 max per stealth attack. ive tried for all the beta and nothing really benefits on any other than maybe Daredevil with the evade / condi skills....thing is deadeye has more openings and stealth incorporated into the setup with more CC for more creative kills (bye felica off a cliff).... axe hits more, does more and has more stealth rather than spamming the yeet #3 chain (nerfed from beta)

also big thing here and no one sees synergy: no spear skills are projectile finishers (4), leap finishers (#3 first chain) or fields (maybe for #5) requiring skills to follow a finisher is a clunky design but the chaining from gw1 is welcome. It would be a good idea to add Hex type skills/utilities that would act as deadeye stolen skills but bring in some unique ideas to buff the thief in a more unique way, give it an identity. 

incorporate said hexes into the deadeye system of design, however when the specter (best fit for hexes due to no stolen skill gain from siphon) siphons an enemy, every 3 seconds the stolen skill (hex) will change, these skills will cause the hex effect which are hard cc benefitting skills: the Hexes will have a 5s cooldown PER use but will alternate every 3 seconds (use it or lose it)

Hexes are from gw1, find the assassin ones, apply gw2 stylized versions of the hexes from gw1....more build synergy to work around and making things like this SPEAR into an actual meta!



 

[vanflyheight.6832]

the prob with spear is that, there's no syncronizing between the prev weapons and spears into the current traitlines at all. So what anet has done is by releasing these weapons without sycronizing em, makes em all completely useless. Like is there any traits that give bonus dmg, or utility to like spears or like rev scepter at all? none of em do so anet will be pushing these weapons by changing the traits to fit these in which will squeeze the other core weapons out. 

 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Not had time to really roam all that much yet, but putting spear on my marauder crit strikes/trickery/SA core dual melee build (S/D & D/P) in place of D/P felt pretty good for general camp capping and sustain etc.

It had a pretty nutty amount of healing for a straight power build between spear, zakiros relic and invigorating precision which was pretty nice, and frankly I'm happy with any option that eliminates the need for D/P. I know it's strong but it's been 12 years, I'm bored of playing it. 

Edit: Okay, been roaming tonight, the power damage on thief spear is kinda kitten compared to what other classes are pulling. It's nice utility and mechanically but it just isn't killing anyone except mesmers that don't know how to deal with a thief spamming spear 3, and I'm pretty sure they'd die to anything I did really.

Also the 2 chain seems to randomly do less damage than the 3 chain, and I cannot understand why the evade on the stealth skill in the 3 chain is not on the leap instead. No defensive ability plus low damage to the point that it won't make a zerker build back off is a really bad combo. 

Edited August 23 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

28 minutes ago, vanflyheight.6832 said:

the prob with spear is that, there's no syncronizing between the prev weapons and spears into the current traitlines at all. So what anet has done is by releasing these weapons without sycronizing em, makes em all completely useless. Like is there any traits that give bonus dmg, or utility to like spears or like rev scepter at all? none of em do so anet will be pushing these weapons by changing the traits to fit these in which will squeeze the other core weapons out. 

 

Shadow savior wont even work on axe/dagger #3 harrowing storm so i agree. ive reported it several times!

[Lyralia.2945]

Its damage is bad and I told everyone it would be.

What if anet used chatGPT or something to listen to their players for them, since its clear effort is too much to expect?

ChatGPT might have also caught that unsuspecting strikes was already a thing and renamed unsuspecting strike.

Edited August 24 by Lyralia.2945

[Dextra.8162]

in what world can we just run up to anything and melee straight out with spear..

that's not a thing anymore because every class does more dmg (while having godlike sustain) than thief, and it's been like that since forever c":

i don't know how they think we can just get through all the flip skills when willys and everything else exists that can nuke us in a few moves while we wet noodle kitten along lol

 

[Eugenides.1274]

I've been having fun with it running S/D & spear. As other's said though the damage does feel a bit lacking in comparison to other classes considering the setup needed. Deadly Arts/Trick/DD, Acro/Trick/DD, and CS/Trick/DD all felt pretty nice. A power damage buff would be welcome and I'd also like to see Swindler's Equilibrium work with land-spears as well for more synergy.

I also don't think that the nerf to 3's stealth access was necessarily a bad design choice but it's definitely a confusing one when other non-conditional spammable stealth options like D/P 5-2, /P Bound, rifle kneel 4, and ranger's spear 5 exist. Why was spear stealth access so much more problematic that it warranted a nerf?

Edited August 26 by Eugenides.1274

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

7 hours ago, Eugenides.1274 said:

I've been having fun with it running S/D & spear. As other's said though the damage does feel a bit lacking in comparison to other classes considering the setup needed. Deadly Arts/Trick/DD, Acro/Trick/DD, and CS/Trick/DD all felt pretty nice. A power damage buff would be welcome and I'd also like to see Swindler's Equilibrium work with land-spears as well for more synergy.

I also don't think that the nerf to 3's stealth access was necessarily a bad design choice but it's definitely a confusing one when other non-conditional spammable stealth options like D/P 5-2, /P Bound, rifle kneel 4, and ranger's spear 5 exist. Why was spear stealth access so much more problematic that it warranted a nerf?

Axe/dagger#3 still doesnt work with a majority of shadowstep/teleport traits. Honestly i want some of these fixed before spear gets an update. As of now it feels like 1 main selling point of the spear in expansion isn't worth it and I expected this to happen.

 

Super Adventure Box wooden stick feels more rewarding 

Edited August 26 by Lithril Ashwalker.6230