edging is not worth. also, spear sucks.

[scerevisiae.1972]

there's not much of a difference between the fully edged and lesser edged versions of skills so i'm finding them not worth the opportunity cost of staying in the same element. seems like a major oversight.

 

the damage in WVW is already super low so better to chain the 2 & 4 skills together and ignore the 3 and 5 skills for the most part.

 

worthless skills (not worth the time to cast):

• fire 3 - too slow / low impact
• fire 5 - too slow, low damage (players just walk out without even taking a tick of damage)
• earth 2 - crap dmg
• earth 4 - crap dmg
• earth 5 - crap effect, crap dmg
• air 2 - crap dmg except on downs
• air 3 - only useful when kiting
• water 5 - only used to setup a water field to blast

 

overall whole weapon set feels like a worse version of engineer nades, only engie nades can all be cast behind you, and engie has stealth, tons of superspeed and leaps, plus loads of other utility on ther kits and weapon skills.

 

which is depressing considering entire ele spear kit is worse than or equal to 1 core engineer skill. ele spear should have OMGWTF damage to compensate for its relative lack of defense.

comparing to ele staff:

• less/equal AOE damage - staff fire 5 (MS) >> spear fire 5, other AOEs are 
• much less CC:
  • staff:  air 3 (knockback), air 5 (stun), water 4 (chill field), earth 4 (knockdown), earth 5 (immob), versus:
  • spear: air 4 (float), air 5 (daze), water 4 (pull),
• less defense:
  • staff: fire 4 (evade + movement), earth 3 (reflect)
  • spear: water 3 (evade + movement)

 

in short, spear in its current state sucks (WVW perspective). lack of block/reflect/projectile denial really cripples the kit. WVW ele still going to be staff, sceptre, dagger, same as 12yr ago.

pretty depressing.

Edited August 22 by scerevisiae.1972

[Santo.2419]

Don't forget that air/water 4 both become zero damage coz of cc in wvw too

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I assure you; edging is always worth it 😏

[Downstate.4697]

I edgemax and mew everyday. I fired my boss yesterday after the CEO saw how hard I’ve been working to mog people with only Ohio rizz

[ShatteredStars.6548]

my god, all these threads about spear are from wvw/pvp players, who want the spear to do massive damage and have the etching move with them, maybe you don't know what balance means.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

What is balance then ?

[Bladestrom.6425]

34 minutes ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

my god, all these threads about spear are from wvw/pvp players, who want the spear to do massive damage and have the etching move with them, maybe you don't know what balance means.

And maybe your ignorance would be better served by understanding the builds properly and not just when your spamming a npc.  For example, Weavers primary specialisation benefit is duel skills and superior elements.  Both DO NOT WORK with Spear.  You are apparently are also not aware that the Spear Duel skill damage has been removed entirely and replaced with a benefit that pushes you to single atunement..when Weavers benefit is duel.  Next Tempest, Tempest is melee, next Cata, Cata is melee.  Its a mess.

Go try pvping with your ranged weaver or melee specialisation(?)  that winds up its brutally obvious 1 trick pony etching with a stupidly large 'look at me i'm casting' circle  that your enemy (a real person) will just dodge and laugh at and then maybe your understand how bad it is. 

Edited August 24 by Bladestrom.6425

[Knuckle Joe.7408]

I am just beyond sick of every multi-hit ability from ele's getting that stupid reduced damage with each hit. I get it might be justified in PvP but in PvE it is dumb. Volcano on fire spear would be amazing if it didn't do kitten damage after 5 hits.

Edited August 24 by Knuckle Joe.7408

[RazieL.5684]

On 8/22/2024 at 6:23 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

there's not much of a difference between the fully edged and lesser edged versions of skills so i'm finding them not worth the opportunity cost of staying in the same element. seems like a major oversight.

 

the damage in WVW is already super low so better to chain the 2 & 4 skills together and ignore the 3 and 5 skills for the most part.

 

worthless skills (not worth the time to cast):

• fire 3 - too slow / low impact
• fire 5 - too slow, low damage (players just walk out without even taking a tick of damage)
• earth 2 - crap dmg
• earth 4 - crap dmg
• earth 5 - crap effect, crap dmg
• air 2 - crap dmg except on downs
• air 3 - only useful when kiting
• water 5 - only used to setup a water field to blast

 

overall whole weapon set feels like a worse version of engineer nades, only engie nades can all be cast behind you, and engie has stealth, tons of superspeed and leaps, plus loads of other utility on ther kits and weapon skills.

 

which is depressing considering entire ele spear kit is worse than or equal to 1 core engineer skill. ele spear should have OMGWTF damage to compensate for its relative lack of defense.

comparing to ele staff:

• less/equal AOE damage - staff fire 5 (MS) >> spear fire 5, other AOEs are 
• much less CC:
  • staff:  air 3 (knockback), air 5 (stun), water 4 (chill field), earth 4 (knockdown), earth 5 (immob), versus:
  • spear: air 4 (float), air 5 (daze), water 4 (pull),
• less defense:
  • staff: fire 4 (evade + movement), earth 3 (reflect)
  • spear: water 3 (evade + movement)

 

in short, spear in its current state sucks (WVW perspective). lack of block/reflect/projectile denial really cripples the kit. WVW ele still going to be staff, sceptre, dagger, same as 12yr ago.

pretty depressing.

i agree with everything i just don't want them to nerf staff to compensate for how kitten spear is...

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:27 PM, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

my god, all these threads about spear are from wvw/pvp players, who want the spear to do massive damage and have the etching move with them, maybe you don't know what balance means.

oh, we know what balance means.

Anet does not. Anet thinks that Willbender and Harbinger are balanced. 

Edited August 25 by VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.

[Eventine.8024]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:27 PM, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

my god, all these threads about spear are from wvw/pvp players, who want the spear to do massive damage and have the etching move with them, maybe you don't know what balance means.

Spear is bad in PvE, worse than other weapons in WvW, unusable in PvP. Basically, if it wasn't fun and "good-looking" NO ONE would equip it for more than 20 minutes on the new Exp release.

NO ONE

But at least is a bit fun and good-looking, so open-world PvE players will play with it for 2 weeks, and then drop it.

And I mean OPEN WORLD, because in Strike/fract/raids it's hardly usable, and would be considered only if it did straight 50% more damage (since etching covering AoE and movements are main issues)

[TYTan.5246]

Agreed with many things, there is no mechanics in the weapon, many people think there is but its only a gimmick, for example you dont have a choice of when to use the skills 3, you HAVE touse them or you will gona be missing on damage, crit, etc, if there is no "oh I should save this skill for this moment", then why have the skill at all? 

The same with skill 5, if you go to a new attunment realistically you "dont" have a choice, you HAVE TO always use skill 5 and you HAVE to use etching or you will be missing in alot of damage, CC, etc, so if we always have to use skill 5 and always have to chatge it why having that gimmick at all? At least let us use the skill like a normal one, we change attunments and press 5, thats it, no need to press 5, randomly press all the other skills and press 5 again.

 

Let us have tatics, dont make it complex just because without any tactics involved.

[Ragnarox.9601]

spear with 0 defensives and auras and 0 dmg impact. Its just fluffy magic with no effect. It was advertised as glass canon but its like wooden stick, so its false advertising?

[Exzen.2976]

It literally is the worst weapon I've ever played in wvw. 

[Rocker.2906]

On 8/28/2024 at 2:22 PM, TYTan.5246 said:

Agreed with many things, there is no mechanics in the weapon, many people think there is but its only a gimmick, for example you dont have a choice of when to use the skills 3, you HAVE touse them or you will gona be missing on damage, crit, etc, if there is no "oh I should save this skill for this moment", then why have the skill at all? 

That's very true and supposed to be a major concern in mmorpgs. Why have many buttons if they don't 'feel good' to press? I feel like the requirement of using 3 skills is kinda too steep? There is already the major drawback of having to stand in its designated area, but also having to charge it?  What use is in beeing ranged in pvp if you can't move? People WILL catchup, and then you don't have that many defensives to compete with them in melee. 

To me, solutions could be: 

-The area from skill 5 doing AoE damage (or condis) when charging, discouraging people from stepping in before you charge it

-The area emanating the element corresponding aura, but that could be weird since it's like Tempest whole identity

-The charge number being kept between elements, so you could charge in water and launch in fire, as an example

-Getting rid of the requirement of staying in the area. Is it the spear or the ground that is getting charged? let us move!

- 

[scerevisiae.1972]

IMO spear is lacking supprting traitlines more than anything, like, it needs some level of customisation, along with a design pass over some of the more obvious "pure filler" skills.

i think abandonning the traits/specialisations in order to pump out more (much lower quality) expacs in order to create more gemstore SKUs was a terrible thing for the game but no going back now.

what could be done however is shoehorning some new weapon mechanics into existing traitlines. eg: edgings look a lot like glyphs -- just make them glyph skills and tweak existing glyph traits?

 

 

[Bleikopf.2491]

6 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

IMO spear is lacking supprting traitlines more than anything [...]

[...]

what could be done however is shoehorning some new weapon mechanics into existing traitlines. eg: edgings look a lot like glyphs -- just make them glyph skills and tweak existing glyph traits?

 

 

The traits need a big look at in general. I'd rather they do it all at once with an idea in mind, rather than mess with the traitlines every 6 months and suddenly you can't change any trait without breaking a weapon. Of course, that would take effort..

Edited September 5 by Bleikopf.2491

[Junkpile.7439]

This basic ele stuff. Probably didn't even test whole thing like pistol four bullet special attack. It does so low damage that it's probably bugged. When you play ele only circle kitten inside fields reward you.

[scerevisiae.1972]

1 hour ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

This basic ele stuff. Probably didn't even test whole thing like pistol four bullet special attack. It does so low damage that it's probably bugged. When you play ele only circle kitten inside fields reward you.

to be honest i forgot pistol even existed. haven't seen a pistol ele once in game.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I still remember all the previews where they showed us elementalist e-specs, and they died miserably against trashmobs without the dev's cheatcodes ... Same with the preview for weapons with the "no-cd" cheat, wow impressive ... until release ...
Clearly the gamers carry the class, because devs don't know how to play it.

[Phoenix the One.4071]

Wvw maybe, for pve I really like how the change of elements just feels natural and not forced due etching.

That is a "me"-thing though

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

On 8/29/2024 at 1:10 PM, Rocker.2906 said:

That's very true and supposed to be a major concern in mmorpgs. Why have many buttons if they don't 'feel good' to press? I feel like the requirement of using 3 skills is kinda too steep? There is already the major drawback of having to stand in its designated area, but also having to charge it?  What use is in beeing ranged in pvp if you can't move? People WILL catchup, and then you don't have that many defensives to compete with them in melee. 

To me, solutions could be: 

-The area from skill 5 doing AoE damage (or condis) when charging, discouraging people from stepping in before you charge it

-The area emanating the element corresponding aura, but that could be weird since it's like Tempest whole identity

-The charge number being kept between elements, so you could charge in water and launch in fire, as an example

-Getting rid of the requirement of staying in the area. Is it the spear or the ground that is getting charged? let us move!

- 

very good thoughts!

another brainstorm for etchings (using ideas above taking into consideration that ele has to stop kiting), especially if it gives anyone else other ideas

-the "field" of the etching should do enough damage and CC to discourage enemies from entering the etching. they should be punished for entering our etching, since we're being forced to STOP KITING. for example: every "charge" we add to the etching (through using another skill) should pulse damage (like 1k base) and strip stab within the etching, and the skill that "fully charges" the etching should pulse extra damage (like 2k) and strip extra stab / boons.

-etchings could have filled the role of GW1's wards, until they are fully charged and cast for damage / CC

[Suyheuti.1732]

Even if spear deals 60k dps, it it worthless weapon now. Because of visuals. Not seeing ground ends up with wipe in instanced content. Examples, W4 all ispecially Deimos, 99CM Kanaxai, W6 Twin Largos, XJJ CM, W2 Sloth, etc. 

Ground effects must be transparent. 

[Ragnarox.9601]

They should remove etching aoe ground stuff and make it character bound with some icon above head like mesmer and guardian mantras charging = voala problem solved. It took 10 sec to solve problem but sadly theres no ele dev to fix this ele problem. 

Edited Wednesday at 01:51 PM by Ragnarox.9601