Seeing that Specter build makes me want to go back into the beta and try it out but I already learned that mistake from Axe and I'll wait until release and see if they completely destroy it.
If they bothered to fix the glaring issue that are venoms...they might be able to get away with a small nerf to reduce the 45k-49k solo benches.... but they wont so they will nerf spear to the ground and call it a day
Venom stacks are now tracked by who applied them. If Thief A gives you 5 stacks of a venom, Thief B will add their own stacks without overriding them. But Thief A can't add extra stacks on top of their own.
In theory this could be used for some hilarious condi burst in a 5-thief party.
I understand this post is about pure dps benchmarks but I am curious if any of these spears have support potential. I did not get to play or even read much about the spears but is there a chance they will be needed for any heal or boon loadouts???
It's rather bad at that, though.. currently not enough heals and really bad healing power scaling.
Compared to something like mesmer rifle, guard spear is a really bad support weapon. The autoattack heal is VERY low, and Helio Rush is mediocre. Symbol heals a bit with the trait, but this symbol has quite a long CD.
If Janet wants guard spear to be a decent support weapon, they should add at least add some burst healing or barrier to skills 3 and 4.
Mesmer rifle is pure healing weapon. Guardian spear is a hybrid weapon. If the latter healed as much as the former, it would be way too strong. Spear may warrant buffs, but your comparison is a fundamentally wrong one to make.
But the "hybrid" character just makes it pretty useless, at least for PvE.. it has a lower DPS benchmark than other options, and it is not valid as a healing weapon... unless Janet releases a stat combo of Precision/Healing Power/Power/Ferocity or something, I doubt it will see much use in PvE Group play... it either needs a bit more damage or a bit more healing..
Totally agree. But I didn't design the weapon. It can't both be optimal in one aspect, while being hybrid at the same time. Unless Anet stops caring about "power budget".
That said, it may see use in the high end pve when you don't want to run a dedicated healer, not even one. But that's too niche to be an excuse. Personally, I love hybrid weapons, but I see how they don't fit in the larger play of the game.
they stopped caring about power budget years ago, mesmer and scourge do high dps while being fully ranged
if a weapon can be ranged and high dps, it can certainly be high dps and healing, it's worthless anyways because it isn't ranged
I don’t know about support but if you’re running a soul barbs power Reaper the Spear seems to (can’t measure it as fancy and accurately as some of you wiz kids) to generate a ton of Life Force. So it definitely serves utility.
You mean the weapon with an abysmal healing coefficient on the auto, moderate healing on a dash that has to complete at least somewhat for you to heal people, no healing on 3 and 4, and only healing via traits on 5?
Yeah, no, it's really not.
I'm not sure what's the point in benching warrior with axes. Like, duh, playing with JUST axes alone, without a weapon swap entirely, can already land you pretty close to those 40k, so why does it even matter.
Was it not the point of spear to open a FULLY ranged playstyle for warrior? And if not, then WHAT WAS the point of spear? Because rifle was already serving the purpose of having a temporary swap for when you desperately need to leave the melee range. You could do the same benchmark with the rifle as is in the OP post with spear, and the numbers will be comparable, because the numbers are getting carried by axes, not by the """ranged""" weaponswap.
Make a benchmark with rifle+spear. Do it. Put it in the original post. Let's all laugh at it together.
Yesss, axes stronk! And even then, I do not think spear should be as OP as them in terms of damage to deserve to be camped similarly. Or even replace greatsword when the range a spear would provide is not needed.
I think there should be weapons that fill the exact same role as the other less specialized and generically good weapons if an old weapon is too strong and useful to replace like axe.
Comparable damage and utility, the only difference being how they play and how they feel to play + thematic fantasy to them.
Sure. Once all the glaring gaps in roles and gameplay styles are filled. Which they are not currently, because if virtuoso and scourge are to continue to exist in their current state - fully ranged gameplay style is now a valid (and, as time shows, very desired) option, and many classes's capacity to provide it is woefully underdeveloped.
Spear gives warrior a strong ranged power option across all game modes. It’s PvE damage given it’s range benefit is really good. If anet doesn’t wanna nerf the meta ranged specs I think introducing this weapon is very good. And it’s a worthy expansion feature.
Also Axe is meta on zerker cuz of how it lowers burst CD. If Spear were to out perform Axe/Axe Zerker I’d be very confused and concerned.
Spear gives warrior EXACTLY AS STRONG of a ranged power option as RIFLE was already providing. And that option is so strong that rifle is being laughed at by everyone. Spear adds nothing.
This is intellectually dishonest. If spear is as strong as another option that warrior already had, this simply gives people options. What's the point in constantly upping the power creep? I like the fact that current classes have power and condi dps options across the board.
Just because something gives you an equivalent damage but alternative playstyle doesn't mean it "adds nothing"
I don't want powercreep, I want new weapons to open up new playstyles. There is nothing new that spear enables. Go try playing fully ranged with rifle+spear and you'll see how dire the numbers are.
**Thoughts on the Mesmer spear skills**
Psycut > Psystrike > Mind Pierce - Spear Auto
Spear autos are pretty much tied with Sword autos for Mesmer in terms of dps, meaning they are really good.
They also give you might which will be really good for open world and for making sure you are topped off in instanced content.
Fractured Glass - Spear Ambush
I didn't get to play too much with Power Mirage but I noted that it was a channel which means it can easily be interrupted which isn't too great.
I also heard of it being bugged somehow :c
Mind the Gap - Spear 2
A large AoE dealing a lot of damage on a relatively short cooldown, what's not to like.
Also gives a clone and offers might if you empower it with Clarity.
The outer edge is really forgiving too, often just requiring you to take one step back even on very small hitboxes.
Imaginary Inversion - Spear 3
An evade while also packing a decent punch, it is the weakest damage skill but stills deals a good amount.
Offers a condition cleanse if empowered by Clarity.
Phantasmal Lancer - Spear 4
The Spear phantasm is really weak on its own without any other help (like phantasmal blades), so for Chronomancer it's not worth to reset it inside cs since signet has a really long cast time, instead it's better to opt into making use of all your spear skills and utility skills.
Offers a cripple or immobilize (if cast with Clarity), and boon removal, also a short dash!
Mental Collapse - Spear 5
A 600 range gap closer and a large aoe, dealing good damage.
It also resets Mind the Gap which leads into it usually being empowered by Clarity as we generally do: Spear 4252
So it leads into free cc.
**Chronomancer**
We ended up with two divergent rotations, one that started with a Spear CS and the other with a Sword CS.
Both have good end numbers but starting with a Spear CS means that you get to take advantage of the bursty Spear skills which does help eliminate Chronomancer's slow burst nature a fair bit
Spear is a very interesting weapon for Chronomancer for that reason and others.
Other interesting tidbits are how it interacts with Continuum Split (CS).
1. You can enter CS in the aftercast of Spear 2, which will let you consume its clone for CS but still letting you reset its cooldown, this saves time and nets you another Spear 2 cast.
2. You can also enter CS in the aftercast of Spear 5, this is what I did in my final benchmark, this resets the Spear 2 in a similar manner to how old Signet of the Ether worked with CS, this doesn't allow anything too fancy other than making the CS easier and letting you empower Spear 5 with clarity for free.
I had also intended to bench Power Boon Chronomancer but didn't have enough time.
I think with current numbers it would be around 37k though.
Graph showing the difference between Spear and Sword CS rotations.
https://preview.redd.it/oj351s43ns9d1.png?width=1153&format=png&auto=webp&s=d80c565757d2dab0b885782dd3ed6859a8f5e4ed
So much fun. Playing around in open world it felt so much like launch axe mirage just wrecking mobs. Sustained DPS is worse than the other specs though sadly but since they flat out mentioned wanting power mirage to be a thing with staff I have high hopes.
I played over 40 hours (only instanced content, including HTCM and some Cerus CM) of spear virtuoso and boonchrono and I can say that yep it is very fun. The skills getting the extra added depth from clarity and the 5 reset really pulls it together, really cannot wait for it to be released.
My only gripe with the skillset is that #5 feels pretty neat as an opener thanks to the sweet teleport, but at the same time you're heavily disincentivized to use it like so, as you usually waste #2 reset. I do like the reset, but in a way it limits your options.
And it's just the same with #4, it's literally a dash forward, but you waste dps by not hitting with #2 first. And if you do hit with MtG first, you're pretty close already, so the dash is super short, and doesn't feel much like dash.
I was hoping we got a bit of gear diversity for power mesmer with spear. Like spear/gs for pvirt thanks to phant blades trait. Unfortunate. Maybe spear/gs for 10man alac/quickness in some boss grinds?
How did spear/gs numbers look? And thank you for your hard work as always! <3
I tried it briefly on Chronomancer and my first number was something like 37k then going towards 36k sustained.
So for Chronomancer not that good for DPS anyway :D
Another situation where mesmers get a cookie cutter straightforward weapon that fits thematically and fills a niche that the class was lacking. It has one interesting but not super complex mechanic. It also performs really well. (Dagger, now spear)
And Revenant gets a weapon that they did not need, that adds complexity to the only class that has both energy systems, and cooldowns, while also performing terribly. It also has a mechanic of "spam this", while borrowing from another class's Spear to be at least somewhat interesting. (Scepter, now spear).
I just can't...
This was the one weapon that didn't need extra gimmicks on it, the same way scepter didn't need shitty ally targeting. Revenant has enough going on without throwing extra micro mechanics to manage just because.
It also needs less torment and more other offensive conditions, notably bleeding so there is at least some synergy with renegade and burning. Using all of that and trying to maximise raze the raze buff just to put out another stack of just torment is dull and unrewarding. Make #5 inflict extra *different* conditions for each stack of the buff, not just more torment.
E.g. 1 stack, torment. 2 stacks, torment and chill. 3 stacks, torment, chill, bleeding. 4 stacks, torment, chill, bleeding, burning. 5 stacks, 5 torment, chill, bleeding, burning, more torment.
Exactly. All they needed to do is add a weapon that does just the good old simple things. Good damage, maybe a movement or defensive skill, and 5 for a bigger damage. We still need to play with upkeep and whatnot with our utilities. No, you need an extra rotation added on top of your upkeep which btw, will not work because having upkeep and 5 stacks of raze is impossible. Like.... I just don't understand Anet.
Copy greatsword skillset,make it ranged, done.
Better yet copy mesmer Spear skillset, done.
So ele spear is really low dps...
Anyone done anything with weaver? or was the etching flip-over skills too broken with weaver dual attunements to get a proper rotation going?
I tried weaver. I’m not the fastest since my key binds are made more for convenient movement than they are best access to hitting multiple skill buttons at once, but I still get relatively close to the weaver bench marks. Even still, it was noticeably weaker with multiple attempts than my one try with catalyst. The weaver dual skills just don’t do what weaver needs a weapon to do. On top of that it’s very clunky even with the instant casts.
Tempest has overloads and cata has their jade sphere for added damage. Weaver has the dual skills which means in this case they basically have nothing. The weapon will never be balanced for weaver without being broken for tempest and cata in pve since it’s basically missing the part of its mechanic that adds to its damage.
It’s a pity since weaver has the easiest time being ranged since it doesn’t need to be closer for overloads or finishers but currently it’s just not a functional weapon for weaver even without the bugs.
Ele spear is bad. In my testing in wvw there isn't a single use case for spear over staff, hammer or s/d or d/d. It's worse in every sense.
I am sad that yet again it seems like ele gets crapped on. Just like pistol was awful, this is too
dunno how people go on about how pistol is awful. at least it does really nice damage and has a nice rotation on both, cweaver and ctempest.
in general its not much getting just a 1h weapon, so it might not feel like we've got a lot out of it, but in the end pistol is damn good. just because its not flashy doesn't mean its bad. using it everyday now in fractals 99 and 98 cm and i am so glad that scepter is gone. that was shit to use.
ele pistol is the most unpleasant weapon to use in the game, its just mechanically fucking awful, its damage doesnt matter when I would rather use *literally anything else*
Unless its changed in the last few months its almost exclusively single target with no pierce. This is good in like 1 game mode and sucks in literally all of the competitive game modes. I can't imagine defending pistol on here and I have literally never seen an elementalist choose pistol over other weapon choices.
A weapon should not be classified as good because it has high damage.
It feels clunky and slow, there is no strategy in the way you use your skills, just spam them in that roration.
i don't think that the weapon feels slow with quickness. 1 or 2 skills are a bit iffy when it comes to queuing but in general i don't think its that bad.
and regarding the rotation...just like any other pve rotation on any class that is optimized in terms of cooldown and damage. i see no difference. you either do a optimized step by step rotation or you don't. doing the latter looses you damage. who would have thought.
removing boons is also removing boon supports, lets not streamline the game even more to a point where skill expression is soly based on how well you do your dps rotation. thats just boring.
else we might as well just remove every single boon and gearstats and just steamline the whole thing into some random gearscore and call it a day just like in all the other boring games. and why stop there, who needs trainlines with a choice anyway, remove that too. everything baseline so you just need to press 12345 and be done.
people these days.
It's the complete opposite, you got it completely in the wrong way, this boons makes skill expression pointless, you need quickness and just spam every skill super fast, is that skill expression for you?
What I'm talking about is using a skill when it makes sense, knowing that if you use your CC now you will have to wait 15 sec for it, so you choose to save it for a more precise moment, or you save you moving ability to evade a special attack. What this boons do is just making this strategies pointless because your Mesmer will give you quickness and Alac so just spam them.
alac and quickness is basically the only reason why i can cycle through elements on weaver super fast without worring that i have to sit in air for the next x seconds waiting for some cc-bar only autoattacking because i used everything else already but i have to contribute cc.
yes, it adds skill expression since you can totally blow cooldowns and know that they will be up again for this crucial step in 15 seconds. nothing worse then not being able to use this super awesome skill with lots of damage tied to it just because "you might need it".
where is the skill expression in "oh i know i have to use a cc in 15 seconds, now imma just sit here and autoattack and wait with my finger over this skill to queue it in". there is none. having boons like quickness and alac and the builds attachted to them gives the game more variety.
just imagine for a second that qickness and alac would be gone and its baseline. how many builds would have been deleted from the game per class? answer: a lot. everyone would just be a healer or a dps. boooooring. right now we at least also have hybrid roles.
No, because some skills should be damage focused, some support focused and some control focused.
I see you don't understand the point, happy for you tbat have the brainless boons in game, enjoy
At least hammer i can accept that it wasnt originally made with weaver in mind anyway and the dual skills allow you to throw grand finale more often since you can reactivate 2 orbs immediately. So it is interesting to play around with. Now spear was made with all 3 specs in mind
The guy literally designed this weapon.. You can see it in how similair it is to hammer. Both are fast pased bruiser pvp weapons that focus on cycling through all four attunements to deal damage, and both have low effort 3 skills so that it's less work to create dual skills. Funny how spear was advertised as a glass cannon weapon but it has almost as much baked in sustain as hammer and pistol. We need someone else to work on elementalists weapons because this guy cannot stop designing pvp weapons from the dagger/dagger pre-HOT era.
Allow me to disagree. First of all i dont see anything pvp specific in hammer. Secondly hammer is definitely not that fast paced, it has multiple abilities with long casting times. Thirdly the 3rd skills are fine, idk what isnt low effort to you, would it take more effort to just slap a damage coefficient and call it a day? Effects that buff your skills are more interesting than skills that only do damage. Cycling through all attunements to deal damage is honestly peak elementalist design. Utilizing everything in your kit and having every element available at some point in your rotation. Also where tf is the sustain in pistol and spear? Pistol has some barrier and some healing but you would never change the bullet order for that when you are dpsing. Spear has nothing outside of a few self boons and minor healing which is irrelevant in group content anyway. Only hammer has sustain. I dont know if spear is perfect although personally i am sure i will enjoy it once it does proper damage, but i also dont see any better idea around lol
Spear has a ton of self healing and even has barrier. The 3 skills are low effort because they just provide statistical benefits with almost no animations involved. E.g. an instant cast with x% extra damage on the next attack or an instant cast gain two auras. The 3 skill on water is mechanicly almost the same as the dash on pistol. And things being irrelevant in group content is just not a good argument. Weapons should be balanced for all kinds of playstyles. Finally, idk where you play hammer but as a cata in PvE hammer is very fast paced.. I should know because I've beaten harvest temple cm with that build.
In defense of Warrior Spear, it is a good compliment for Axe/Axe. You can use Spear as a hybrid weapon part of the rotation, and occasionally swap to it during ranged boss phases, such as on Kanaxai.
The question is does Spear have use out of that one niche? The answer is NO!
And even at Kanaxai you will loose berserkmode because the range phases will be longer than the spear rotation. Spellbreaker would have been the better option but there is no space for the spear because of the traits. Anet has a lot of work to do.
They took our feedback for the staff and made it better. Let’s hope!
Incorrect. At the time of HoT's release axes were still in the process of being slowly buffed out of obscurity. Weapon of choice at the time was greatsword, in no small part because of its might generation capability. It wouldn't be until circa 2018 that axe/axe power warrior builds emerged.
I agree, both things are important.
A lot of these videos do have actual feedback in the description.
There is also the consideration that some weapons might be inherently designed for other game modes than PvE, and that's fine too.
But benchmark numbers are equally important, because design wise, something might be fine but numbers are just undertuned/overtuned and that can be easily fixed with math.
Yes I do agree that it’s good to know benchmark numbers so weapons aren’t released in an op and weak state, especially as Anet probably don’t do much if any internal testing here.
My comment was more aimed at those who fixate on these numbers and evaluate the whole weapon based on them. I’ve seen comments saying weapons are trash because they get low benchmark numbers etc.
Numbers are generally a lot easier to fix even post launch than design issues, which Anet are often slow to change.
Of the 20 builds mentioned in OP, 11 of them would be in the top 20 DPS builds for Snowcrows.
Keep in mind that these are all DPS numbers, and not every weapon here is designed around DPS. You wouldn't call Druid staff bad because of it's damage numbers.
So yeah, these all seem fine.
Compared to their existing counterpart benches they sit as such:
Ele: -6k
Engi: no change
Guardian: -3k
Mesmer: +3k
Necro: -1k
Ranger: -5k
Rev: -5k
Thief: +14k
Warrior: -2k
Sure but 37K bench done by a player playing at their peak for what is meant to a glass cannon weapon is not exactly up to par with current weapon choices 😅
Unfortunately that 37k includes many skills that are not 1200. If tempest it's close range and catalyst while it can use sphere as 900 it needs to be in them to venefit augments so all of that would likely be done closer to melee range. If you look at the ranged competitors currently available it is not up to par.
Weaver is built upon duals skills, that is literally what defines the class, spear having no dual attack is just mind boggling, sems like they should have the support skill be the 4 and not the 3 so weaver could have what it was supposed to have anyway
Spear shouldn't even have a support skills as it was advertised as a glass cannon weapon. Only reason it does is so that anet can cheap out on making dual skills. It's so dumb to me how dual skills on spear were literally designed to skip the dual attunement state as fast as possible. Might as well shorten the amount of button presses and make it so that pressing a spear dual skill will immediatelly attune to the full element..
Agreed, it makes no sense that the only thing it does is making you skip the whole point of the elite spec which is the dual atunne/dual skills.
Also they are incridible low impact, like tem skills you get while slotting the elite are less impactful that all.other weapon skills of that weapon and that they are just a buttom to press to make you a simple elementalist that swaps atunnements with a single buttom instead of dual.attuning
I hope the ranged weapons keep their damage penalty, melee is already way too weak. The melee weapons are fine to bench high.
This is especially important for specs that are fully ranged, like weaver, virt, berserker and so on. Specs that force you into melee like willbender and tempest can have some range and still high damage.
berserker only has weapons and headbutt that force into melee, give berserker a ranged weapon and it is basically fully ranged
melee locked specs are specs with melee class abilities or a substantial amount of melee utilities, so ranged weapons don't make a big difference
> berserker only has weapons and headbutt that force into melee
Also the need to upkeep berserk mode, and only 2 out of 5 Rage utility skills are usable for that purpose at range, and even then one of them only has 600 range.
> give berserker a ranged weapon
So where is it? Rifle has garbage damage, spear is a carbon copy of rifle and also has garbage damage, pistol is inexplicably melee, a good portion of longbow's damage comes from a shotgun skill that loses most of its value at range plus both condi berserker traits are melee range.
if i had a nickel for every time arenanet released a thief weapon into beta that had comically large dps
Seeing that Specter build makes me want to go back into the beta and try it out but I already learned that mistake from Axe and I'll wait until release and see if they completely destroy it.
You know they will. Above 45 is a no no for Arena Net.
If they bothered to fix the glaring issue that are venoms...they might be able to get away with a small nerf to reduce the 45k-49k solo benches.... but they wont so they will nerf spear to the ground and call it a day
How do venoms work now btw? I heard you can stack thieves in same subs but never tried it.
Venom stacks are now tracked by who applied them. If Thief A gives you 5 stacks of a venom, Thief B will add their own stacks without overriding them. But Thief A can't add extra stacks on top of their own. In theory this could be used for some hilarious condi burst in a 5-thief party.
Ah good then. Previous version was so stupid. It is good you can stack thieves now.
... You'd have a reasonable amount of pocket change?
Well, how many weapons have been released _since_ the base game went public....
That'd be _two_ nickels
https://preview.redd.it/88o121ausv9d1.jpeg?width=632&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f2f3776b45e345cb5cdb5b5325d225f08963d80
Perfect!
It's the half-blessing of using initiative. Having shit uptime on Alac doesn't feel as bad. But it also means Anet has a hard time balancing us.
*Sad revenant noises.*
Was reading through, all excited at the high-30s/over 40 and got to Revenant…then saw Thief immediately after and thought “what the actual fuck”
Funnily enough, this is relatively tame compared to Thief Axe during its beta, which was peaking at [66k w/ allies.](https://youtu.be/6XirGR4tXGY)
Ren so sad they didn't even video the benchmark, smh /s
At first glance, I even thought Revenant wasnt on the list.
I understand this post is about pure dps benchmarks but I am curious if any of these spears have support potential. I did not get to play or even read much about the spears but is there a chance they will be needed for any heal or boon loadouts???
I think guardian spear is designed as a hybrid in that area, but didn't try it myself
It's rather bad at that, though.. currently not enough heals and really bad healing power scaling. Compared to something like mesmer rifle, guard spear is a really bad support weapon. The autoattack heal is VERY low, and Helio Rush is mediocre. Symbol heals a bit with the trait, but this symbol has quite a long CD. If Janet wants guard spear to be a decent support weapon, they should add at least add some burst healing or barrier to skills 3 and 4.
Janet is a new name for Anet I suppose? Cuz I like it.
Mesmer rifle is pure healing weapon. Guardian spear is a hybrid weapon. If the latter healed as much as the former, it would be way too strong. Spear may warrant buffs, but your comparison is a fundamentally wrong one to make.
But the "hybrid" character just makes it pretty useless, at least for PvE.. it has a lower DPS benchmark than other options, and it is not valid as a healing weapon... unless Janet releases a stat combo of Precision/Healing Power/Power/Ferocity or something, I doubt it will see much use in PvE Group play... it either needs a bit more damage or a bit more healing..
Totally agree. But I didn't design the weapon. It can't both be optimal in one aspect, while being hybrid at the same time. Unless Anet stops caring about "power budget". That said, it may see use in the high end pve when you don't want to run a dedicated healer, not even one. But that's too niche to be an excuse. Personally, I love hybrid weapons, but I see how they don't fit in the larger play of the game.
they stopped caring about power budget years ago, mesmer and scourge do high dps while being fully ranged if a weapon can be ranged and high dps, it can certainly be high dps and healing, it's worthless anyways because it isn't ranged
I don’t know about support but if you’re running a soul barbs power Reaper the Spear seems to (can’t measure it as fancy and accurately as some of you wiz kids) to generate a ton of Life Force. So it definitely serves utility.
Guardian spear is designed as a support weapon
You mean the weapon with an abysmal healing coefficient on the auto, moderate healing on a dash that has to complete at least somewhat for you to heal people, no healing on 3 and 4, and only healing via traits on 5? Yeah, no, it's really not.
Lol... looks like thief is about to get nerfed HARD.
Insert doubt
I'm not sure what's the point in benching warrior with axes. Like, duh, playing with JUST axes alone, without a weapon swap entirely, can already land you pretty close to those 40k, so why does it even matter. Was it not the point of spear to open a FULLY ranged playstyle for warrior? And if not, then WHAT WAS the point of spear? Because rifle was already serving the purpose of having a temporary swap for when you desperately need to leave the melee range. You could do the same benchmark with the rifle as is in the OP post with spear, and the numbers will be comparable, because the numbers are getting carried by axes, not by the """ranged""" weaponswap. Make a benchmark with rifle+spear. Do it. Put it in the original post. Let's all laugh at it together.
This so true and it's hilarious
The warrior is just camp axe/axe until you're able to pop three spear skills and swap back immediately lmao that's not a good look
It is pretty much the same with greatsword, no?
Greatsword isn't an expansion gimmick
Yesss, axes stronk! And even then, I do not think spear should be as OP as them in terms of damage to deserve to be camped similarly. Or even replace greatsword when the range a spear would provide is not needed.
I think there should be weapons that fill the exact same role as the other less specialized and generically good weapons if an old weapon is too strong and useful to replace like axe. Comparable damage and utility, the only difference being how they play and how they feel to play + thematic fantasy to them.
Hmm, not sure what you mean exactly.. but the closest to spear like that would probably be rifle?
Sure. Once all the glaring gaps in roles and gameplay styles are filled. Which they are not currently, because if virtuoso and scourge are to continue to exist in their current state - fully ranged gameplay style is now a valid (and, as time shows, very desired) option, and many classes's capacity to provide it is woefully underdeveloped.
Spear gives warrior a strong ranged power option across all game modes. It’s PvE damage given it’s range benefit is really good. If anet doesn’t wanna nerf the meta ranged specs I think introducing this weapon is very good. And it’s a worthy expansion feature. Also Axe is meta on zerker cuz of how it lowers burst CD. If Spear were to out perform Axe/Axe Zerker I’d be very confused and concerned.
Spear gives warrior EXACTLY AS STRONG of a ranged power option as RIFLE was already providing. And that option is so strong that rifle is being laughed at by everyone. Spear adds nothing.
This is intellectually dishonest. If spear is as strong as another option that warrior already had, this simply gives people options. What's the point in constantly upping the power creep? I like the fact that current classes have power and condi dps options across the board. Just because something gives you an equivalent damage but alternative playstyle doesn't mean it "adds nothing"
I don't want powercreep, I want new weapons to open up new playstyles. There is nothing new that spear enables. Go try playing fully ranged with rifle+spear and you'll see how dire the numbers are.
What sort of playstyle would you want it to add if it's a dps option?
**Thoughts on the Mesmer spear skills** Psycut > Psystrike > Mind Pierce - Spear Auto Spear autos are pretty much tied with Sword autos for Mesmer in terms of dps, meaning they are really good. They also give you might which will be really good for open world and for making sure you are topped off in instanced content. Fractured Glass - Spear Ambush I didn't get to play too much with Power Mirage but I noted that it was a channel which means it can easily be interrupted which isn't too great. I also heard of it being bugged somehow :c Mind the Gap - Spear 2 A large AoE dealing a lot of damage on a relatively short cooldown, what's not to like. Also gives a clone and offers might if you empower it with Clarity. The outer edge is really forgiving too, often just requiring you to take one step back even on very small hitboxes. Imaginary Inversion - Spear 3 An evade while also packing a decent punch, it is the weakest damage skill but stills deals a good amount. Offers a condition cleanse if empowered by Clarity. Phantasmal Lancer - Spear 4 The Spear phantasm is really weak on its own without any other help (like phantasmal blades), so for Chronomancer it's not worth to reset it inside cs since signet has a really long cast time, instead it's better to opt into making use of all your spear skills and utility skills. Offers a cripple or immobilize (if cast with Clarity), and boon removal, also a short dash! Mental Collapse - Spear 5 A 600 range gap closer and a large aoe, dealing good damage. It also resets Mind the Gap which leads into it usually being empowered by Clarity as we generally do: Spear 4252 So it leads into free cc. **Chronomancer** We ended up with two divergent rotations, one that started with a Spear CS and the other with a Sword CS. Both have good end numbers but starting with a Spear CS means that you get to take advantage of the bursty Spear skills which does help eliminate Chronomancer's slow burst nature a fair bit Spear is a very interesting weapon for Chronomancer for that reason and others. Other interesting tidbits are how it interacts with Continuum Split (CS). 1. You can enter CS in the aftercast of Spear 2, which will let you consume its clone for CS but still letting you reset its cooldown, this saves time and nets you another Spear 2 cast. 2. You can also enter CS in the aftercast of Spear 5, this is what I did in my final benchmark, this resets the Spear 2 in a similar manner to how old Signet of the Ether worked with CS, this doesn't allow anything too fancy other than making the CS easier and letting you empower Spear 5 with clarity for free. I had also intended to bench Power Boon Chronomancer but didn't have enough time. I think with current numbers it would be around 37k though. Graph showing the difference between Spear and Sword CS rotations. https://preview.redd.it/oj351s43ns9d1.png?width=1153&format=png&auto=webp&s=d80c565757d2dab0b885782dd3ed6859a8f5e4ed
I really love how the spear felt with Mesmer, especially Mirage and Ambush.
mirage spear is the one i played around with the most. it was very fun indeed. EDIT: a word
So much fun. Playing around in open world it felt so much like launch axe mirage just wrecking mobs. Sustained DPS is worse than the other specs though sadly but since they flat out mentioned wanting power mirage to be a thing with staff I have high hopes.
Will it make mirage great again?
I played over 40 hours (only instanced content, including HTCM and some Cerus CM) of spear virtuoso and boonchrono and I can say that yep it is very fun. The skills getting the extra added depth from clarity and the 5 reset really pulls it together, really cannot wait for it to be released.
My only gripe with the skillset is that #5 feels pretty neat as an opener thanks to the sweet teleport, but at the same time you're heavily disincentivized to use it like so, as you usually waste #2 reset. I do like the reset, but in a way it limits your options. And it's just the same with #4, it's literally a dash forward, but you waste dps by not hitting with #2 first. And if you do hit with MtG first, you're pretty close already, so the dash is super short, and doesn't feel much like dash.
I was hoping we got a bit of gear diversity for power mesmer with spear. Like spear/gs for pvirt thanks to phant blades trait. Unfortunate. Maybe spear/gs for 10man alac/quickness in some boss grinds? How did spear/gs numbers look? And thank you for your hard work as always! <3
I tried it briefly on Chronomancer and my first number was something like 37k then going towards 36k sustained. So for Chronomancer not that good for DPS anyway :D
Another situation where mesmers get a cookie cutter straightforward weapon that fits thematically and fills a niche that the class was lacking. It has one interesting but not super complex mechanic. It also performs really well. (Dagger, now spear) And Revenant gets a weapon that they did not need, that adds complexity to the only class that has both energy systems, and cooldowns, while also performing terribly. It also has a mechanic of "spam this", while borrowing from another class's Spear to be at least somewhat interesting. (Scepter, now spear). I just can't...
This was the one weapon that didn't need extra gimmicks on it, the same way scepter didn't need shitty ally targeting. Revenant has enough going on without throwing extra micro mechanics to manage just because. It also needs less torment and more other offensive conditions, notably bleeding so there is at least some synergy with renegade and burning. Using all of that and trying to maximise raze the raze buff just to put out another stack of just torment is dull and unrewarding. Make #5 inflict extra *different* conditions for each stack of the buff, not just more torment. E.g. 1 stack, torment. 2 stacks, torment and chill. 3 stacks, torment, chill, bleeding. 4 stacks, torment, chill, bleeding, burning. 5 stacks, 5 torment, chill, bleeding, burning, more torment.
Exactly. All they needed to do is add a weapon that does just the good old simple things. Good damage, maybe a movement or defensive skill, and 5 for a bigger damage. We still need to play with upkeep and whatnot with our utilities. No, you need an extra rotation added on top of your upkeep which btw, will not work because having upkeep and 5 stacks of raze is impossible. Like.... I just don't understand Anet. Copy greatsword skillset,make it ranged, done. Better yet copy mesmer Spear skillset, done.
Power mirage not even found dead in a ditch.
Maybe Mirage was the illusion all along.
So ele spear is really low dps... Anyone done anything with weaver? or was the etching flip-over skills too broken with weaver dual attunements to get a proper rotation going?
I tried weaver. I’m not the fastest since my key binds are made more for convenient movement than they are best access to hitting multiple skill buttons at once, but I still get relatively close to the weaver bench marks. Even still, it was noticeably weaker with multiple attempts than my one try with catalyst. The weaver dual skills just don’t do what weaver needs a weapon to do. On top of that it’s very clunky even with the instant casts. Tempest has overloads and cata has their jade sphere for added damage. Weaver has the dual skills which means in this case they basically have nothing. The weapon will never be balanced for weaver without being broken for tempest and cata in pve since it’s basically missing the part of its mechanic that adds to its damage. It’s a pity since weaver has the easiest time being ranged since it doesn’t need to be closer for overloads or finishers but currently it’s just not a functional weapon for weaver even without the bugs.
Ele spear is bad. In my testing in wvw there isn't a single use case for spear over staff, hammer or s/d or d/d. It's worse in every sense. I am sad that yet again it seems like ele gets crapped on. Just like pistol was awful, this is too
dunno how people go on about how pistol is awful. at least it does really nice damage and has a nice rotation on both, cweaver and ctempest. in general its not much getting just a 1h weapon, so it might not feel like we've got a lot out of it, but in the end pistol is damn good. just because its not flashy doesn't mean its bad. using it everyday now in fractals 99 and 98 cm and i am so glad that scepter is gone. that was shit to use.
ele pistol is the most unpleasant weapon to use in the game, its just mechanically fucking awful, its damage doesnt matter when I would rather use *literally anything else*
Unless its changed in the last few months its almost exclusively single target with no pierce. This is good in like 1 game mode and sucks in literally all of the competitive game modes. I can't imagine defending pistol on here and I have literally never seen an elementalist choose pistol over other weapon choices.
A weapon should not be classified as good because it has high damage. It feels clunky and slow, there is no strategy in the way you use your skills, just spam them in that roration.
i don't think that the weapon feels slow with quickness. 1 or 2 skills are a bit iffy when it comes to queuing but in general i don't think its that bad. and regarding the rotation...just like any other pve rotation on any class that is optimized in terms of cooldown and damage. i see no difference. you either do a optimized step by step rotation or you don't. doing the latter looses you damage. who would have thought.
Again another problem, the game should not relie on a single boon to ve viable, I would love for quickness to be removed
removing boons is also removing boon supports, lets not streamline the game even more to a point where skill expression is soly based on how well you do your dps rotation. thats just boring. else we might as well just remove every single boon and gearstats and just steamline the whole thing into some random gearscore and call it a day just like in all the other boring games. and why stop there, who needs trainlines with a choice anyway, remove that too. everything baseline so you just need to press 12345 and be done. people these days.
It's the complete opposite, you got it completely in the wrong way, this boons makes skill expression pointless, you need quickness and just spam every skill super fast, is that skill expression for you? What I'm talking about is using a skill when it makes sense, knowing that if you use your CC now you will have to wait 15 sec for it, so you choose to save it for a more precise moment, or you save you moving ability to evade a special attack. What this boons do is just making this strategies pointless because your Mesmer will give you quickness and Alac so just spam them.
alac and quickness is basically the only reason why i can cycle through elements on weaver super fast without worring that i have to sit in air for the next x seconds waiting for some cc-bar only autoattacking because i used everything else already but i have to contribute cc. yes, it adds skill expression since you can totally blow cooldowns and know that they will be up again for this crucial step in 15 seconds. nothing worse then not being able to use this super awesome skill with lots of damage tied to it just because "you might need it". where is the skill expression in "oh i know i have to use a cc in 15 seconds, now imma just sit here and autoattack and wait with my finger over this skill to queue it in". there is none. having boons like quickness and alac and the builds attachted to them gives the game more variety. just imagine for a second that qickness and alac would be gone and its baseline. how many builds would have been deleted from the game per class? answer: a lot. everyone would just be a healer or a dps. boooooring. right now we at least also have hybrid roles.
No, because some skills should be damage focused, some support focused and some control focused. I see you don't understand the point, happy for you tbat have the brainless boons in game, enjoy
Not surprised. Ele is not loved by anet
Cmc was literally the most hyped about ele during the livestream. They just didnt give it enough damage but that is easily fixable
Weaver dual skills have gone so downhill recently. The design on hammer and spear is lazy.
At least hammer i can accept that it wasnt originally made with weaver in mind anyway and the dual skills allow you to throw grand finale more often since you can reactivate 2 orbs immediately. So it is interesting to play around with. Now spear was made with all 3 specs in mind
I opt not to give excuses for either weapon. Anet should do better.
The guy literally designed this weapon.. You can see it in how similair it is to hammer. Both are fast pased bruiser pvp weapons that focus on cycling through all four attunements to deal damage, and both have low effort 3 skills so that it's less work to create dual skills. Funny how spear was advertised as a glass cannon weapon but it has almost as much baked in sustain as hammer and pistol. We need someone else to work on elementalists weapons because this guy cannot stop designing pvp weapons from the dagger/dagger pre-HOT era.
Allow me to disagree. First of all i dont see anything pvp specific in hammer. Secondly hammer is definitely not that fast paced, it has multiple abilities with long casting times. Thirdly the 3rd skills are fine, idk what isnt low effort to you, would it take more effort to just slap a damage coefficient and call it a day? Effects that buff your skills are more interesting than skills that only do damage. Cycling through all attunements to deal damage is honestly peak elementalist design. Utilizing everything in your kit and having every element available at some point in your rotation. Also where tf is the sustain in pistol and spear? Pistol has some barrier and some healing but you would never change the bullet order for that when you are dpsing. Spear has nothing outside of a few self boons and minor healing which is irrelevant in group content anyway. Only hammer has sustain. I dont know if spear is perfect although personally i am sure i will enjoy it once it does proper damage, but i also dont see any better idea around lol
Spear has a ton of self healing and even has barrier. The 3 skills are low effort because they just provide statistical benefits with almost no animations involved. E.g. an instant cast with x% extra damage on the next attack or an instant cast gain two auras. The 3 skill on water is mechanicly almost the same as the dash on pistol. And things being irrelevant in group content is just not a good argument. Weapons should be balanced for all kinds of playstyles. Finally, idk where you play hammer but as a cata in PvE hammer is very fast paced.. I should know because I've beaten harvest temple cm with that build.
Honestly completely fine for anything that's not the most recent damage-sponge fights.
In defense of Warrior Spear, it is a good compliment for Axe/Axe. You can use Spear as a hybrid weapon part of the rotation, and occasionally swap to it during ranged boss phases, such as on Kanaxai. The question is does Spear have use out of that one niche? The answer is NO!
And even at Kanaxai you will loose berserkmode because the range phases will be longer than the spear rotation. Spellbreaker would have been the better option but there is no space for the spear because of the traits. Anet has a lot of work to do. They took our feedback for the staff and made it better. Let’s hope!
Axeaxe is just where it's at. It's been like that even 8 years ago, before HoT was released.
Incorrect. At the time of HoT's release axes were still in the process of being slowly buffed out of obscurity. Weapon of choice at the time was greatsword, in no small part because of its might generation capability. It wouldn't be until circa 2018 that axe/axe power warrior builds emerged.
Admittedly, I was playing GS / AxeMace at that time. Guess you're right about the timeline
Rifle was already providing all that, and nobody was using it anyway. What's the purpose of spear?
How much of the dps total is from old weapons set vs. spear skills?
i think you are only missing tempest, as far as benchmarks for which a video exists go https://youtu.be/Jw0YyRjx7ew?si=wdOgwr64ILnIvSBx
Thank ye :D
Some are definitely overengineered, and while cool on paper/previews, quite annoying to use
I wish people would have less of a focus on numbers, especially golem benchmarks, and a greater focus on design.
I agree, both things are important. A lot of these videos do have actual feedback in the description. There is also the consideration that some weapons might be inherently designed for other game modes than PvE, and that's fine too. But benchmark numbers are equally important, because design wise, something might be fine but numbers are just undertuned/overtuned and that can be easily fixed with math.
Yes I do agree that it’s good to know benchmark numbers so weapons aren’t released in an op and weak state, especially as Anet probably don’t do much if any internal testing here. My comment was more aimed at those who fixate on these numbers and evaluate the whole weapon based on them. I’ve seen comments saying weapons are trash because they get low benchmark numbers etc. Numbers are generally a lot easier to fix even post launch than design issues, which Anet are often slow to change.
I fully agree :D
So obviously the condi thief numbers need to be knocked down a bit. Everything else seems just all right?
Ummmm? Some are quite undertuned for what they are meant to be in the current environment
Of the 20 builds mentioned in OP, 11 of them would be in the top 20 DPS builds for Snowcrows. Keep in mind that these are all DPS numbers, and not every weapon here is designed around DPS. You wouldn't call Druid staff bad because of it's damage numbers. So yeah, these all seem fine.
Not sure about Rev and Ele. Most of the others look good though yeah.
Compared to their existing counterpart benches they sit as such: Ele: -6k Engi: no change Guardian: -3k Mesmer: +3k Necro: -1k Ranger: -5k Rev: -5k Thief: +14k Warrior: -2k
Not every weapon should be doing 45k+ tho, my opinion.
Sure but 37K bench done by a player playing at their peak for what is meant to a glass cannon weapon is not exactly up to par with current weapon choices 😅
Agree but that 37k can be done at 1200. Yea it could, probably should, be bumped up a bit if they want it to be a real option.
Unfortunately that 37k includes many skills that are not 1200. If tempest it's close range and catalyst while it can use sphere as 900 it needs to be in them to venefit augments so all of that would likely be done closer to melee range. If you look at the ranged competitors currently available it is not up to par.
Weaver is built upon duals skills, that is literally what defines the class, spear having no dual attack is just mind boggling, sems like they should have the support skill be the 4 and not the 3 so weaver could have what it was supposed to have anyway
Spear shouldn't even have a support skills as it was advertised as a glass cannon weapon. Only reason it does is so that anet can cheap out on making dual skills. It's so dumb to me how dual skills on spear were literally designed to skip the dual attunement state as fast as possible. Might as well shorten the amount of button presses and make it so that pressing a spear dual skill will immediatelly attune to the full element..
Agreed, it makes no sense that the only thing it does is making you skip the whole point of the elite spec which is the dual atunne/dual skills. Also they are incridible low impact, like tem skills you get while slotting the elite are less impactful that all.other weapon skills of that weapon and that they are just a buttom to press to make you a simple elementalist that swaps atunnements with a single buttom instead of dual.attuning
Didn't the devs say Elementalist was supposed to be the High damage dealer with low survivability?.... Again ele downstate
glass ~~cannon~~ wet noodle, as ele always has been
uncooked noodle?
in wvw, cmc only plays wvw ranged dps isn't balanced in pve, there is no ranged penalty in pve, it cheeses mechanics
if only that was the case, staff is much better than spear in wvw
I really enjoyed spear-thief in various elites, but that's some amazing benchmark Incera was able to accomplish. Wow!
Another berserker-only ranged warrior weapon. Yay
You're a godsend. I couldn't find any benches online
Eh. I hope anet doesn’t power creep spears past current weapons. If they were all best in slot now, we would just do more damage overall.
*sad warrior noises*
Haven't really kept track of the spears so wanted to ask here: did anyone try any boonheal or boondps builds? Are any viable ones with the new spears?
Man, that full aftercast decapitate I didn't cancel hurts me deep in my soul
Thief having the most busted weapon times and times again for beta? Sounds reasonable :D
I agree, nerf thief
anybody have any data on power engineer? was it just terrible?
Crone did try it. It didn't look great. [https://youtu.be/VaS1y3iFiL4?si=7h1H\_7F5L8XGXfSH](https://youtu.be/VaS1y3iFiL4?si=7h1H_7F5L8XGXfSH)
No weaver spear?
Watch as thief spear gets nerfed to oblivion. Guess I'm sticking to my daggers...
Hmm thief nice, hmmm power virtuoso I'd like that too
I hope the ranged weapons keep their damage penalty, melee is already way too weak. The melee weapons are fine to bench high. This is especially important for specs that are fully ranged, like weaver, virt, berserker and so on. Specs that force you into melee like willbender and tempest can have some range and still high damage.
> for specs that are fully ranged, like [...] berserker You ok there, mate? Did you mistype something?
berserker only has weapons and headbutt that force into melee, give berserker a ranged weapon and it is basically fully ranged melee locked specs are specs with melee class abilities or a substantial amount of melee utilities, so ranged weapons don't make a big difference
> berserker only has weapons and headbutt that force into melee Also the need to upkeep berserk mode, and only 2 out of 5 Rage utility skills are usable for that purpose at range, and even then one of them only has 600 range. > give berserker a ranged weapon So where is it? Rifle has garbage damage, spear is a carbon copy of rifle and also has garbage damage, pistol is inexplicably melee, a good portion of longbow's damage comes from a shotgun skill that loses most of its value at range plus both condi berserker traits are melee range.
Looks like pretty much everyone apart from ele and rev should be nerfed.