Ele Spear is Fun

[Loboling.5293]

I'm going to say it, the new Elementalist Spear is fun to play. I finally got around to testing the weapon, and I don't know about the balance of it yet, but the gameplay and dynamics that exist within the weapon, along with the inherent weaknesses to the weapon, make for interesting gameplay. 

So kudos to the devs for this one. I'm enjoying leveling a new elemetalist with this weapon. 

I don't think it will ever be considered strong in pvp, but at least it finally lets Elementalist play in a way that many would imagine when rolling the class. Funny enough, I find the weapon still plays best at melee range, given it struggles to keep any kind of distance. But it chunks if you use your utility skills to keep yourself stable and alive. 

[Jski.6180]

The movement is realty nice and the updated art work as well as the animations realty make it feel a lot better. I love what they did with riptide.

The only issues is its a bit hard to tell the ranged of the etch air water earth as they are cone skills and it seems the animations keep going well pass there ability to hit (it looks cool for sure) making it hard to tell if you missed or where simply out of ranged.

Some of the dmg numbers need a bit of buffing if they are going to stay single target.

The update to ele spear seems good so far.

[Jackthetripper.9035]

It looks cool but it's useless

[scerevisiae.1972]

the damage is god-awful

[ippy.9048]

Reading this forum really makes me realize how people can make it difficult for themselves to enjoy games. I’m truly enjoying this spear, but it seems that some people can’t accept new things unless they completely surpass the old ones. I hope that there will be changes to elite specs or traits in the future to make the spear even more enjoyable.

[tykel.6073]

55 minutes ago, ippy.9048 said:

Reading this forum really makes me realize how people can make it difficult for themselves to enjoy games. I’m truly enjoying this spear, but it seems that some people can’t accept new things unless they completely surpass the old ones. I hope that there will be changes to elite specs or traits in the future to make the spear even more enjoyable.

I mean as a weaver enjoyer, I don't care if the spear is better than old weapons, I just care if the dual skills actually do something useful besides skipping the weaving part. Them not being real damage skills that feel good to use is a real bummer and makes the weapon doomed to be worse on weaver than the other specs. I like the spear besides that even if I hate volcano having the meteor shower drop off.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

1 hour ago, ippy.9048 said:

Reading this forum really makes me realize how people can make it difficult for themselves to enjoy games. I’m truly enjoying this spear, but it seems that some people can’t accept new things unless they completely surpass the old ones. I hope that there will be changes to elite specs or traits in the future to make the spear even more enjoyable.

Maybe because... It's 3rd gimmick weapon we've got so far? Hammer, Pistol and now Spear. Class is one big gimmick, it gets more gimmicks with elite specializations so we kinda don't really need another gimmick weapon, what's the point of it? The skill 3 is still garbo place holder so that makes 4 skills decorations out of 20 from get-go, skills 2 & 4 are "okay" but skill 5 (etching) is a gimmick that could replace Tempest or Catalyst specialization mechanics easily.
Just because you enjoy it, it doesn't mean it's a weapon with a good design.
It may be fun in PvE but it is absolute garbage in PvP and WvW where actual skill does matter.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

It's fun, visually, and numbers are higher than on beta; but the etching final jail to carry 50% of the DPS is quite annoying to roam in OW. 

I find the weapon too frustrating. It really lacks good AA and #2, more cleave/bounce/whatever, more boons,  ... and balance in numbers between #5 and others skills.
#5 should be a seat to earn boons, improve others skills, and the final a reward. Not the central point with filler skills arround and punish you if you're CCed, if you move out the area ...

I'm weaver main, I'm used to the piano, but I love attunement swap, the movement, and skill on demands ... not this gameplay. And it's unplayable with weaver anyway.
Otherwise I'm able to enjoy almost all other spears, minus ranger I guess (it's not really a pve weapon) I just don't get why they have this need for complicated weapon on already complex and underwelmhing class. Couldn't we just get the mesmer landspear treatment on elem ? Some gimmick on the center of zones like skills#4 + a buff if you stand on # 5, period.

[Jeyzer.1605]

Just now, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

I'm weaver main, I'm used to the piano, but I love attunement swap, the movement, and skill on demands

You're a weaver main but like skills on demands? That's like, the exact opposite of weaver, with how they gated skills 3-5. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

42 minutes ago, Jeyzer.1605 said:

You're a weaver main but like skills on demands? That's like, the exact opposite of weaver, with how they gated skills 3-5. 

4sec CD on attunement, Weave self, unravel, arcane (alacrity in pve) ; may be it isn't "instant" and obviously it asks a good knowledge of your set-up but it's really easy and fast to switch between rotations for dps, for sustain, CC... If you play weaver, you're in a constant shift, and you find yourself panicking because you don't know how to proceed for an off-hand skill, it's a skill issue, not weaver issue. It's easier to switch back to back on same element on weaver and always get your skills on demand than on tempest with overload CD, or catalyst/core.

And if you're talking about the "CC" in pve, which is often the consideration; the question isn't skill on demand, but bad CC skillS  in differents elements.

It's clearly the opposite mindset of landspear with skills #3 effective almost exclusively for one other particular skill (often final etching), and Etching, and bad skills on their own.

Edited August 21 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[DaKillaOfHell.5907]

The weapon looks cool and also is fun to play but the problem is just that you have only the choice between different alternatives.

 

And when looking at the others - spear is just a gimmick weapon up to now with no real use elsewhere.

Edited August 22 by DaKillaOfHell.5907

[pallas.8150]

Not a bad weapon but feels super basic and imo doesn't add anything 'new' to the Elementalist's arsenal.

[Uete.3805]

It seems like it could ease some piano antics and it feels rewarding to use, but I'm hoping the devs review both its damage and its sinergy with the elite specs.

Damage in pve is a numbers issue. As others have pointed out, dual skills aren't as impactful as they were in other weapons (although hammer dual skills had a similar issue). For dps Catalyst, however, I think it could work really well and become an alternative to the other more melee-focus weapons, but it needs to be able to provide more energy. A good option, I think, would be to give a small damage to fire, air and maybe earth etchings.

[Atoclone.4810]

1 hour ago, DaKillaOfHell.5907 said:

 

And when looking at the others - spear is just a gimmick weapon up to now, same as pistol with no real use elsewhere.

Pistol is the go to choice for raiding condi 

[the krytan assassin.9235]

Its a fun weapon and the dmge seems to be pretty decent right now aswell. Unfortunately many of the issues already pointed out during the beta testing have not been fixed.

Energy management on cata is garbage, dual skills on weaver are completely useless... 

On top of that the 25% extra dmge on center aoe is just annoying AF. I feel like i almost have to use snap aoe on target lock in order to be consistent with my dps output. 

But most of all the visual clutter is very problematic. Tried it out on fractal CM's today and you simply cannot see like 50%+ of the mechanics that are going on especially on 100 & 99. 

[DaKillaOfHell.5907]

9 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Pistol is the go to choice for raiding condi 

Oh okay, then I take that back.

I haven't been doing raiding now for quite a while because of job. 

[Major Bee.9571]

Anyone has a catalyst build for me with the spear?

[draxynnic.3719]

17 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Maybe because... It's 3rd gimmick weapon we've got so far? Hammer, Pistol and now Spear. Class is one big gimmick, it gets more gimmicks with elite specializations so we kinda don't really need another gimmick weapon, what's the point of it? The skill 3 is still garbo place holder so that makes 4 skills decorations out of 20 from get-go, skills 2 & 4 are "okay" but skill 5 (etching) is a gimmick that could replace Tempest or Catalyst specialization mechanics easily.
Just because you enjoy it, it doesn't mean it's a weapon with a good design.
It may be fun in PvE but it is absolute garbage in PvP and WvW where actual skill does matter.

Pretty much this, especially when the gimmick is fighting with the elite specialisations. Hammer at least has the benefit of having been designed with catalyst in mind.

Pistol is just too overloaded with gimmicks, but spear could be a good weapon... if there was an elite specialisation that was a good fit for it. But there isn't. It's a long-range weapon when both tempest and catalyst (in PvE) are designed for melee, and weaver relies in dual skills to be competitive while for spear the dual skills almost don't exist.

12 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Pistol is the go to choice for raiding condi 

On paper, but in practice you need hours of practice to match what some other builds can do with a simple priority order, and condi ele isn't exactly what you usually want for progression. People who really care about shaving a few seconds off their kill time or who enjoy insanely complex may care, but for a lot of players, even those who play raids, ele pistol still has no purpose.

[Twilightmage.8309]

 

yeah not everything can be as brain dead as virtuoso is group pve.

[Atoclone.4810]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

On paper, but in practice you need hours of practice to match what some other builds can do with a simple priority order, and condi ele isn't exactly what you usually want for progression. People who really care about shaving a few seconds off their kill time or who enjoy insanely complex may care, but for a lot of players, even those who play raids, ele pistol still has no purpose.

whilst i may not pull the top dps in our raids i usually come in the top half. if we wanted top easy deeps we wouldn't be playing ele

[Keyto.3672]

22 hours ago, Major Bee.9571 said:

Anyone has a catalyst build for me with the spear?

For open world, specially in janthir where boon corrupt and condis are present, i run this :
- Fire 3-3-1
- Catalyst 3-2-2

For the second traitline it really depends on how i want to play, but you can go for :
Air 3-3 and then you chose wich major one suits you the best
Arcane 2-2-1 (gives you a lot of room to dodge with vigor, meaning you can avoid the dmg and boon corrupt) or Arcane 2-3-1 so you get the arcane shield if you run the Major Elemental
Water 1/2 - 1/2/3 - 1 or 3, very versatile, but i didn't feel the need to run water so far

For utils :
Soothing water - cleansing fire - arcane shield - Elemental celerity or Glyph of elementals, as you wish. You can get a last utility spell as you wish, i often use flash just for mobility

Fuill zerk gear, firework relic

Also : casting your sphre count as a cast for etching, so you can keep the spell 3 to buff your #5

[Loboling.5293]

22 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

but spear could be a good weapon... if there was an elite specialisation that was a good fit for it.

Tempest is good with spear. As I mentioned, spear doesn't really have tools to survive or keep distance. So even though it's ranged, the enemies will close the distance. So, enter attunement, cycle through your etching, charge your element, and switch. 

Tempest is almost perfect for this specialization. Even better if they ever add a trait that allows you to select ranged overloads. That would finalize these two to fit perfectly together. 

But for now, it's the best fit for the new spear. 

[CafPow.1542]

27 minutes ago, Loboling.5293 said:

Tempest is good with spear. As I mentioned, spear doesn't really have tools to survive or keep distance. So even though it's ranged, the enemies will close the distance. So, enter attunement, cycle through your etching, charge your element, and switch. 

Tempest is almost perfect for this specialization. Even better if they ever add a trait that allows you to select ranged overloads. That would finalize these two to fit perfectly together. 

But for now, it's the best fit for the new spear. 

yeah i try tempest too.

i went for a fresh air but it doesn't work cause i don't wanna insta-switch back to air but play the etching.

that's a bit of a "meh"-feel i have with spear. Weaver seems kinda clunky, it would be different if the etching is on the 2 (so, mainhand side). And Catalyst is super pointless since the etching is kinda jade sphere combo-field wise. But the spear has really not much combo finisher.

i will try out core eventually too but so far the etching is kinda counter-intuitive to a lot of playstyles which is not optimal imo.

[Loboling.5293]

My thinking is more something like this for open world:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQEQHsN7CHvlt2KA-DSZYBBvFFgYYlRTFQgJgaLIhxG41cjXLAA-e

100% crit chance, you cycle between Fire, Air & Earth as needed, and use water if you need some healing or want to buff a skill with water spear 3. It's a constant stream of aoe damage, with your highest damage in Fire & Air. Earth comes with some control effects and projectile defense & stability. 

[Markus.6415]

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

yeah i try tempest too.

i went for a fresh air but it doesn't work cause i don't wanna insta-switch back to air but play the etching.

that's a bit of a "meh"-feel i have with spear. Weaver seems kinda clunky, it would be different if the etching is on the 2 (so, mainhand side). And Catalyst is super pointless since the etching is kinda jade sphere combo-field wise. But the spear has really not much combo finisher.

i will try out core eventually too but so far the etching is kinda counter-intuitive to a lot of playstyles which is not optimal 

For me playing tempest without fresh air and etching+overloading fire, air and earth feels best. You could even play alacdps with it, but the boonduration is quite tight without any extra concentration