I Tried the GW2 Spear Beta (Engineer) in Guild Wars 2 - Thoughts

[@TheTolnoc]

This is an apology for the bow.

[@didoma73]

Shortbow was meant for support, so this DPS option wouldn't really compete/replace that

[@Decinomic0n]

@@didoma73 engi didnt need another support weapon when they made the bow, the bow still does not have any uniqueness in the design space

[@sweskey]

We have Mortar Kit at home

[@merklyz]

@@Decinomic0n It was kinda needed in WvW where it shines. So Im happy with that addition.

[@skoomadealer5173]

Bow is pretty good for wvw, also it's pretty fun to use. I prefer using bow in strikes as well. Probably not better, but more fun imo.

[@TheTolnoc]

The engineer with the engispear!

[@BrazenNL]

I learned a lot from this. Please keep doing these, no matter how simple it seems.

[@Nebarus]

Really like these short spear/class walkthroughs Muk, thank you :)

[@tyburkulosis8799]

One huge problem with spear is that the 3 skill does not activate mech's rocket punch, which is likely a bug. The 2 skill will sometimes send your character past your target if you're within a certain range. I also feel like it deserves to have more survivability than p/p since it's a melee weapon. But visual effects look great, and I'm glad it's a melee condi.

[@Mister5597]

When it starts working with Rocket Punch, I wonder if the devs will make it work with the activation or with the throw, because Rocket Punch has a 5s ICD so if the devs wanted to they could make it trigger on both activation AND throw but you would have to pace yourself to get both rockets in. And by the way, it didn't even worked with Aim-Assisted Rocket, since the spear 3 throw is apparently not considered a ranged attack.

[@CuriousMoth]

It's a good weapon, does almost identical damage to pistol/pistol in my tests. The skill 5 could be a bit quicker and smoother to use but otherwise I'm happy with it. edit: Oh, and I heard some people had issues with the skill 2 running through the target. Hope that gets solved.

[@VMSelvaggio]

I played Engineer and about 5 of the other Core Professions, and I thought Engineer was one of about 3 that felt like ANet could package them today and they would be ready to put LIVE.

[@TheTolnoc]

As a chronic Mechanist hater, I will be stealing this for my Scrapper for the leap and blast finishers.

[@ToukaGontier]

Did try it out and the skill 2 finisher only goes off if you hit a target with the skill, which with the weird targetting issues can be a bit finnicky

[@Demogarose]

hmmm. with the Leap and Blast finishers, Condi Scrapper might be a thing now...

[@rgentry9]

I think it definitely is. The downside is that because it's condi damage, you won't get lot of benefit from scrapper's free barrier because the barrier only generates based on power damage.

[@justjordan1300]

The problem with condi scrapper is that it just doesn't have any synergy with the trait line. You could try shoehorning it in just to have a condi quick build, but at that point, it loses to pretty much every other build. It would be great if they added more condi support for scrapper, but that would require trait reworks.

[@Jaricko]

Its never been incredible damage but i have been able to do 21k on one. (ages ago even) Someone who can play engineer better than me probably gets even better numbers. This was a boon support / condi build though.

[@Jaricko]

@@justjordan1300 Not all traits need to be damage-support but your not wrong. There is something to be said for providing super speed to the group, protection, quickness ect.

[@justjordan1300]

@@Jaricko Yeah, it's kinda like condi alac druid. It works, but it doesn't really get any actual help from the elite spec. Druid at least gets some benefits, but the trait that makes avatar skills do conditions competes with the alacrity trait.

[@Ashendal]

In terms of WvW we ran across a few enemy players running it on Mech with what seemed like a full Trailblazer roaming build and it was painful to fight when they were in a group. If I slacked on condi cleanse it would chunk anyone in my group and we had to start hard focusing any running it down immediately. The ones running it as power on Holo and Scrapper weren't nearly as threatening, but if numbers stay as they are it'll be something condi Engi will probably use consistently as it does great damage and avoids a lot of the projectile hate that makes p/p a bit iffy to use against some setups.

[@Mister5597]

I really liked the engineer spear when I tested it, it brings the Vulnerability and Hard CC that Condi Mechanist lacked, had a lot of fun with my Condi Alac Mech build.

[@TheRealTimeline]

All they need to do is speed up some of the cast time to fix the clunky feel of the weapon and it will be great.

[@merklyz]

I was hoping for a bit of utility, since hammer has reflect and block, but I will still try it after Janthir comes out.

[@wigotheroxxor]

A condition weapon good for quick scrapper ?

[@cattoo9266]

It’s worth noting that this is a hybrid weapon, the power damage is actually good. Tried it with scrapper and was really fun.

[@Northernsolstice]

I was not excited about this one going into the beta but it turned out to be my second favorite. I just love me some condi cleave.

[@Bunstonious]

This looks great, aesthetically they nailed the engineer spear vibe! :D Now we just need competitive kitless engineers XD

[@ToukaGontier]

Managed to figure out a way to get condi quick scrapper to work so I'm hoping it becomes a thing as I hate the hammer 3 skill on power quick. Also hoping it opens up a condi DPS build on scrapper aswell. Will say though, this weapon feels horrible in action cam. The 2 targetting is a lot worse because action cam already randomly decides "nope you're not targetting this boss even though im showing you that you are" and in order for the leap finisher to proc you have to hit a target with the end of it, so sometimes it just won't give quickness. The 5 skill is also rough, it'll place where your reticle is, and if you are zoomed out your reticle is past the boss. So you will place it over the boss and end up leaping past it. If you turn on snaptargetting to avoid this, you'll leap right into the middle of the boss's hitbox which on some fights will kill you. Basically if you want to place it safely you have to zoom your camera in and move it to the left/right of the boss, leave action cam temporarily, or have snaptargetting enabled and place it on yourself (aslong as you are in melee range). Only other wish is that they add a field or two to the weapon, because cycling through kits to find a field to place down every 6 seconds was painful.

[@culkyy7489]

I wounder if this could contest dual pistol for condi?

[@gailbrookhart1777]

When I was playing it, the 3 skill (either half) did not consistently trigger my mech to Rocket Punch. I tried it, couldn't make sense of it, asked a friend to beta another mechanist and he couldn't get success either. That left a bad taste in my mouth for spear with mechanist and so, unless this improves, I'll probably not put spear on my mech. I liked the mobility of it and the focus mechanic so right now it may just be a possible option for my holosmith to have some range and mobility that puts me in a better place to exploit Photon Forge. All the profession spears felt like pared down skills that lacked the bells and whistles (boons, debuffs, combo fields/finishers) we love in other weapons. I'm hoping that we were basically just testing a rough draft of spears and they will get a lot more dev love before JW launches.

[@Jimbr16]

I didn't get to test it but I'm starting to think with so many blast finishers a Condi Quick Scrapper could be something with a spear... EDIT: Also correction, there are no fields on the spear itself no? You need the Well drones, or Bomb/mortar Kit or Fuction Gyro for fields.

[@ToukaGontier]

The 5 is a blast finisher but a low cooldown so it isnt enough on its own but it is possible to upkeep quickness with the leap skill aswell (2) but it only activates if u hit a target properly with it. I could upkeep 100% quick though using the condi holosmith build with just the scrapper traitline for quickness. But I had to use mortar kit, bomb kit, flamethrower kit, function gyro and the shredder gyro for fields. Which at some point all the kit swapping for fields made my fingers numb lol (probably is an easier way to play it tho i just copied the holosmith build for rough idea on what utility could bring both fields and dps)

[@MisterNo1111]

Yea, sounds like fun🐣

[@xeralexdragonheart3464]

Burn ans bleed!? Ok seriously, lord hizen's condi build just got even more powerful from this 😂. Wonder if he makes a show build out of it, with spear and flamethrower?

[@Derrio-tv]

Id be happy if the auto did ranged mode like ranger/rev the theme is great though

[@mishking9547]

Feel like in roaming pve the hybrid build (Modified Amunition trait) works out better, condi/power for sure, pure condi build with spear is prolly better off with Holosmith

[@manmataya]

Ok so they really give engi an ele downer, that fastens the ele's rotation so might wanna be careful with that

[@utmastuh]

It does similar if not less dps than my current condi mech but pistols are safer and I can swap to shield with pistols. Too bad we can't do spear shield

[@kajhall3581]

But can you play quick scrapper with hammer? Does it have enough of the specific combo finishers that Anet forced scrapper's non-swappable weapon in combat to comply with to give quickness?

[@ToukaGontier]

Both hammer and the spear work to give quickness, you just have to get fields and additional finishers from utility skills. Hammer 3 is a multiple leap finisher which combined with throw mine and function gyro keep up the quickness (can also substitute grenade kit for blast gyro for easier upkeep) and the Spear has the leap on the 2 skill and blast on the 5 skill

[@kevinwestermann1001]

Ah, the bear speta test!

[@TheRedGauntlet]

Condi Quick Scrapper a thing with weapon perhaps?

[@MarkosVerse]

it would be great if the make the skill 3 a lightning field it just makes sense

[@icata12345]

lots of leaps to throw me of boss platforms

[@punthebun]

Anybody else having trouble with the video being really low volume? I had to crank my headphones to triple the usual volume just to understand what Muk was saying. (And yes, I did check that yt volume was at max, and my volume mixer wasn't scrambled by the latest windows update)

[@RhoVabien]

thanks

[@aguy6833]

condi holo?

[@zhamirdiaz3196]

This looks so muchh more fun then shortbow, so excited to try it when expac comes out. (Engi charr main here) if you ain't charr you ain't right fellers!

[@markusfischhaber8178]

can i get a link to the build?

[@schuessler-3867]

How to get that DamageMeter???? I wish i could see my damage done compared to others in the group

[@MuklukYoutube]

Arcdps. You can find instructions on how to get it here: mukluklabs.com/gw2-addons I recommend using the addon manager to download it, then the arcdps video to learn how to use it.

[@jurare89]

i´m 100% with you about everything on engi-spear. BUT (yes, i have one thing still^^): It's a bit unfortunate that it lacks a bit on the power-scaling side. I see lots of potential for it in WvW for Power-holos, even in large-scale. The kit itself, while not perfect, could completely be competetive here. However: it straight up scales worse than rifle (the current choice for zerg-power-holo), and the animations (which, for PvE, are totally fine) are too slow/clunky for WvW. Especially the spear5-aftercast is one major pain-point that effectively kills spear as an option for WvW-power-holo in large scale (however: there´s also major targeting-issues with the spear3-flip-skill especially on uneven ground) I never looked to much into the condi-side, so learning that it actually favors condi-builds is nice to hear, and i will definitely use it in PvE for a while. But unfortunately, for a WvW-main as me, this is at best a roaming-option (if any), and as said above, most likely unusable in larger groups... which is sad, because i can totally see the potential there. But, we also got some tweaks on the shortbow (the now to-go-choice for wvw heal-scrapper) so theres still hopium in the air

[@eridanuskelpi3908]

It feels more thematic for holo in my eyes, but the sword and board is too appealing 😅

[@sporebliss]

They will not take away my dual pistol!

[@eridanuskelpi3908]

Mukengie could be the 2030 american spelling of Mackenzie 😆😆 parents get wild with name variants

[@raquetdude]

Why does it sound so squelchy or are my earphones broken?

[@AirG]

The spear 4 in wvw only does 8 damage, huge letdown.

[@cyanic3148]

nooo my engie power spear dreams are dead

[@FlowerBot]

I heard Vallun has qq'd the game :(

[@aquapendulum]

What I expected Engineer land spear to be: Nail-launching musket. What I got: Temu Deadeye's Mark mechanic, but melee and condition.

[@theatfshotmydog8224]

Warrior spear was depressingly boring.

[@andrelemos8299]

Ew condi weapon

[@DeltDelt-j6n]

it work so great with fire oriented condi and holo build. I could go up without too much trouble to 35k wit ha meh build so it will be great with a real build

[@Safineya]

So far for me the heavy and medium spears felt better than the light spears. Especially ele. Obviously I was doing crap with rotations and stuff but man did the ele feel clunky. Especially water because I kept launching myself out of the circle. because of a move skill (I believe it was a 3).

[@ivanruzic2592]

Yes, it is the 3. However, remember that ele can use its utility skills to charge up the etching(s), so using those skills can help out instead of using 2, 3 and 4.