Spear - how to use it?

[anonim.5932]

Hey guys,
potentially I am just dumb, but I feel a bit overwhelmed with the spear skills. What kind of combos (222, 223, ...) do make sense in which situation and in what type of build? Also rotations with stealth attack in between and so on - I am really unsure how to use the spear "correctly". Any advice on that would be great!

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

for power i 333, 1,222,4 and repeat

only after 3rd 3 ill use #4 / 5

not worth breaking stealth for a kitten spear throw

 

[thaniretouni.4762]

For what content? For pvp, 323 1 is decent, when u are lower hp , 333 4/5 3231.   Things like that depends.

[Asur.9178]

PvE: depends on what espec/build you're playing

PvP: just don't try use it as there are significantly better options

[Lyralia.2945]

Here are the instructions for WvW-
WvW: Encourage Anet to replace balance team so it becomes viable.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

PvE: Spam 2 when you want damage, spam 3 when you want heals and stealth, use 4 to interrupt and for breakbars and use 5 to block big hits if you're out of endurance. 

WvW: I genuinely don't know how to make this work. Like, at all. It felt passable when 3c was a guaranteed stealth as then you could cycle through to 2c for a big hit but now 3c has to hit something to get the stealth plus the generally low power damage, it just feels bad all around. 

[FrancisN.9276]

For spear, which one is better, power or condi?

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

12 hours ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

For spear, which one is better, power or condi?

Power or Mixed.

The Spear dumps a lot of condi, but with poor scalability damage wise. It only has two damaging conditions. The condi is better seen as an addition to your power damage. The rest of the condies it puts out usually cripples the victim in some way, Immobilize, cripple, vulnerability, reduced healing. Overall it has 5 unique condies, useful to know this for later.

The nice thing about spear that is keeping me using it despite the nerf it took is that it is probably the cheapest weapon thief has in their arsenal, allowing you to finally drop trickery for something else. And it interacts so nicely with just about every trait line.

The spear also interacts pretty well with most of the traitlines.

Acrobatics is actually a good match with spear if you like using 3. Three has movement, and evasion which allows it to proc things in this tree pretty easily. It's good for additional damage as well as survival and speed if you're not running DD with dash.  Dodging off of 3 restores only 1 init.... Sooooo it helps. Not something I'd rely on. But your vigor and regular evasion helps. Combine with DD's bounding dodger or Lotus for additional nasty.

Deadly Arts is also an extremely good pick. You have a brief immobilize on two allowing you to apply poison. If you do pvp, this is nasty even if you're not speced for condi damage due to poison reducing healing. If you spam your combos you will often have reveal on you, making revealed training solid for random burst fits. Even the Odds you can easily proc as well. Spear also passively dumps a few unique condies onto people making it easy take advantage of exposed weakness.

Deadeye with Be Quick or Be killed is downright demonic with spear as it is capable of some very disgusting burst damage. In WvW I like to open up with Basilisk venom, binding shadow and 3 spam into a stealth attack. It kills people running zercs before they have a chance to fight back. And it chunks bulkier targets.

 

I wouldn't go full condi with this weapon, but Having mixed wouldn't be a bad idea. Your choice on increasing duration or condi damage in priority. I would personally prioritize Duration. You have more benefits to doing it this way. Longer cripple and immobilization duration, longer times for when healing sucks (which lets be real... Every class and their mother except thief has extremely easy access to sustain). Easier to stack vulnerability which will easily make up and increase your damage loss - and increase team mates damage.

 

Ranged weapon, I would go with axe. Power or Condi. Both have their advantages

Edited August 29 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[FrancisN.9276]

14 minutes ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

Power or Mixed.

The Spear dumps a lot of condi, but with poor scalability damage wise. It only has two damaging conditions. The condi is better seen as an addition to your power damage. The rest of the condies it puts out usually cripples the victim in some way, Immobilize, cripple, vulnerability, reduced healing. Overall it has 5 unique condies, useful to know this for later.

The nice thing about spear that is keeping me using it despite the nerf it took is that it is probably the cheapest weapon thief has in their arsenal, allowing you to finally drop trickery for something else. And it interacts so nicely with just about every trait line.

The spear also interacts pretty well with most of the traitlines.

Acrobatics is actually a good match with spear if you like using 3. Three has movement, and evasion which allows it to proc things in this tree pretty easily. It's good for additional damage as well as survival and speed if you're not running DD with dash.  Dodging off of 3 restores only 1 init.... Sooooo it helps. Not something I'd rely on. But your vigor and regular evasion helps. Combine with DD's bounding dodger or Lotus for additional nasty.

Deadly Arts is also an extremely good pick. You have a brief immobilize on two allowing you to apply poison. If you do pvp, this is nasty even if you're not speced for condi damage due to poison reducing healing. If you spam your combos you will often have reveal on you, making revealed training solid for random burst fits. Even the Odds you can easily proc as well. Spear also passively dumps a few unique condies onto people making it easy take advantage of exposed weakness.

Deadeye with Be Quick or Be killed is downright demonic with spear as it is capable of some very disgusting burst damage. In WvW I like to open up with Basilisk venom, binding shadow and 3 spam into a stealth attack. It kills people running zercs before they have a chance to fight back. And it chunks bulkier targets.

 

I wouldn't go full condi with this weapon, but Having mixed wouldn't be a bad idea. Your choice on increasing duration or condi damage in priority 

A really interesting point about Acrobatics you have there. I did not choose it out of fear that they have not fixed Swindler's Equilibrium not triggering for land spear. Would you say, for spear, choosing Acrobatics fits Daredevil better? The same way Shadow Arts fits Deadeye?

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

17 minutes ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

A really interesting point about Acrobatics you have there. I did not choose it out of fear that they have not fixed Swindler's Equilibrium not triggering for land spear. Would you say, for spear, choosing Acrobatics fits Daredevil better? The same way Shadow Arts fits Deadeye?

Depends on your play style. The spear opened up a lot more options than any other weapon thief has. And I haven't looked into it all

 

Hell it is even nasty with core thief due to being able to get multiple strike damage bonuses.

 

It's definitely a weapon that doesn't work with the standard thief setups that we were stuck with for nearly 10 years. Which is why it probably comes off as weak. (Trickery, Critical Strikes, DD or DE)

 

But it's probably the most diverse weapon we have as you do not need trickery to be able to fight other players or do PVE kitten.

Edited August 29 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[kash.9213]

23 minutes ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

A really interesting point about Acrobatics you have there. I did not choose it out of fear that they have not fixed Swindler's Equilibrium not triggering for land spear. Would you say, for spear, choosing Acrobatics fits Daredevil better? The same way Shadow Arts fits Deadeye?

I use Acro with Hard to Catch even though I use sword. I guess it depends on the game mode but Guarded initiation isn't a bad trait either. I'm in zerg fights a lot and my Wells and Infiltraitors Strike keep my Endurance dodge ready. Swindlers still gives some power either way if you're trying to round out stats.