The HORRENDOUS Balance of Spears Explained - Elden Ring

[@MooTheDog72]

All I want is hornet ring animations

[@HellMakerY]

Man tell me about it, they really should put it on the game!!!

[@zawarudo8991]

All I want is DS2 mechanics back > "take a seat" parries > full offhand weapon movesets > Powerstance with different weapontypes > backstep I-frames

[@HellMakerY]

@@zawarudo8991 can i give u a thousand likes?

[@Ashlevon]

@@zawarudo8991 Fun fact! Dark Souls 1 also had backstep s! It's a fair bit tougher to use than rolling, because it has less s, covers less ground as a roll, and is bad against thrusts, but it's there as an option.

[@rigorm136]

@@Ashlevon Yeah, but like you said it’s only four s, 8 if you use flip ring

[@spacedoohicky]

The hit box needs to be shrank. As it is dual spears are like holding a surf board in front of you. They should have the hit box on the tip only. A thrust should not be able to hit someone when they are on your side. This would enable skilled players to strafe the dual spears while also still allowing a chase down option for light rollers. The fact is that people fear dual spears because the setup cannot be strafed due to a very dumb hit box that is like two enormous hotdogs down nearly the whole length of the visually apparent model of the spears.

[@glatykoffi6672]

They are definitely not giving the weapon a sweet spot, best we can hope is a little reduction and a tracking nerf that many weapons already need.

[@spacedoohicky]

@@glatykoffi6672Well, it is true that they often do not do what they should do.

[@Sinphanius]

This is also the only way to provide a meaningful balance adjustment between the super long and super short spears. Because otherwise unless you nerfed the Longer Spears damage like crazy everyone would still choose the longer ranged spear and just accept that the fight will take longer. This is also the actual real life balancing factor of Spear Combat, especially against weapons that aren't Spears. The way you beat a Spearman with a Sword for instance is rushing in and getting inside their effective range. Granted that's still easier said than done. There's a reason that Spears were the absolute King of all Battlefield Combat for all of human history until we invented Guns and even for a few centuries after that.

[@spacedoohicky]

@@SinphaniusI think spears would still be strong with this sort of nerf. But they wouldn't be so broken. It's also very bizarre to be past the tip, and get hit anyway. Halberds also have this property which likely means they should get the the same treatment except halberds would get a slightly larger hit box for slice animations. That being said, I am not holding my breath for this sort of nerf.

[@Kamawan0]

They've been using huge hitboxes on spears since Demon's Souls, you think they're going to change it after 15 years of not? At this point, I'm fairly certain it's done on purpose with all weapons to have huge hitboxes, to compensate for how hard it is to gauge depth in 3rd person games.

[@incius8341]

spear R2s so bad they not even mentioned in the video

[@kunit6076]

Short spear's charged R2's are good. but that's about it unfortunately. Wanted to make a javelin-hoplite build work.

[@WeeabooPocky]

there are some instances where they shine, for example i like to use stormcaller on the naginata, and if you catch someone with the first part, usually people will try to panic roll the second part, and there's where the heavy attack shines, because it roll catches, except for high lat and light roller players.

[@austin0_bandit05]

Then dont use R2. You dont need it to still be bulkshit

[@seang8702]

Short spear r 2 s are great for proccing status and winged sword: prosthesis tally’s. And partisan has excellent sweeping r 2s.

[@JetStream0509]

partizan's R2 is alright, as is the short spear R2, but yeah... not a lot of actually good R2s

[@kunit6076]

Wished spears had the moveset the knights using them have. 3 rapid thrusts that advance forward, and a thrust followed by a quick sweep.

[@Gojira_uz]

Honestly a lot of enemies in Elden Ring have way better movesets than us Tarnished haha. Especially all the knight types.

[@KABLAMMATS]

​@@Gojira_uz well its actually lore accurate, since we are just a nobody in souls game so we kinda dont know how to effectively swing our weapon, idk about Bloodborne. And in sekiro we are a super ninja samurai with amnesia, but regain all his skill in the end game.

[@Zythryl]

@@KABLAMMATSwell that’s just not true. You play as a god of combat. That’s why you know how to swing ALL available kinds of weapons, even without meeting stat prereq’s. The only things barred from you are magical effects. On the scale of regular human to literal divinity, in all From games you’re closer to the latter. Even in Sekiro.

[@KABLAMMATS]

​@@Zythryl Swinging all weapons doesn't make you a god of war 😂 God of war by the end of the game? Sure you can call yourself that, but we are always nameless tarnished at the start. This is always the theme of soulborne game, a nobody challenges the world and kills god, and makes a name for themselves.

[@Ashlevon]

Powerstanced Spear attacks remind me of how untelegraphed fast weapons were in Dark Souls 3 (especially Daggers, Straight Swords, and Curved Swords), all of which were made more telegraphed in Elden Ring, but they didn't apply the same philosophy to fast powerstanced weapons (again, Straight Swords, Curved Swords, and now Spears). Also, even on horseback, the spear is still pretty bad, which makes even less sense than it being bad on foot.

[@GameFreakuser]

Really wild that the Magic Cross-Naginata has a higher AR than the Clayman's Harpoon for Int builds. At least Int builds have a variety of offhand weapons to pair with a main hand spear such as Carian Slicer, Gavel of Haima, and Adula's Moonblade.

[@petercottantail7850]

clayman harpoon has the unique quality that you can buff it while already having magic damage. with 80 int and no other investment, using lusats with magic armament on a standard infused clayman will let do almost 50% more than an 80 dex keen nagi after damage reduction in pvp. its because of how the damage formula works that the more of one damage source, the lower the percent of damage is reduced, and being able to stack multiple magic damage sources means much better returns on a lower defense stat so clayman gets to pop off when it can do something most other weapons can't. especially useful when they buff physical defense. of course duel spears being a much better moveset you could only have one of these at a time buffed meaning you cant double up on the power spike. but having access to more damage from spells as an option can do wonders

[@dingdong6563]

@@petercottantail7850 greases can help in that regard

[@pitshoster401]

Very informative video. It truly is a conundrum that powerstanced spears are the way they are. I'm oft reminded of a local Polish saying first coined by local hero and draft dodger, Dominik Kowalski. It goes as follows: "Powerstanced naginatas? More like overpowered-stanced naginatas!"

[@bear_6]

this thumbnail goes HARD bro, good job

[@pretty_fly_for_a_jeskai]

Im still just enjoying how PSS sounds like "piss" so seeing a gold using them i just go, heres another piss man. It feels accurate. Another thing that bugs me about the pike in general is, why the fuck are the stat requirements the same as the Lance? It should really be like 10-12 str 18 dex and then maybe id be like, hey lets use the pike on this low level dex build. No, its either Nagi or no spear at all and Lance.

[@Gloomy_Antonym]

R.i.p to all my Reds who died in the tests of this video good and entertaining video and love the composition of the thumbnail, cherry player!

[@SgtJager00]

Thank you man! Yeah the reds probably weren't too happy lmao

[@glatykoffi6672]

Video from 3 days ago, comment from 9 days ago ?

[@SgtJager00]

@@glatykoffi6672 member

[@Felicificity]

More than anything I want 1H and 2H spears to just have more hitstun/priority. It just feels so bad to score a successful hit with this tiny, narrow hitbox, and still lose vs people mashing out of hitstun

[@abrahamrangel2326]

Fromsoftware still dont giving the two handed spears attacks done with the other end of the staff is such a big L move, imagine r2 being a low damage thrust with the staff quicker than the r1 and doing heavy poise damage to allow us vortex players, ffs just look at the spear monks from sekiro and tell me why they only reused their slow grab for an aow instead of any of the other moves they have?

[@WeeabooPocky]

spears really need some attention, especially the 2h movesets :'v, the amount of times i'm fighting someone with high pose and they just smash out of hit stun, and i cannot do anything to keep the priority. also, i'm ok with the swipe move of the running attack, at least you can sometimes hit multiple people with it... but the rolling/crouching attack is really atrocious, i remember that move being on the great lance back in ds3, but at least that one was faster, so you could use it as a defensive move just in case someone was trying to pressure you. however in elden ring is not even worth for how slow, low damange and the lack of hyper armor it has.

[@VincentPaulS]

make sure you put weapon buffs like bloodflame and lightning grease on both of them and spam crouch poke while wave dashing, gamers love that the most

[@cho4d]

you forgot about the slow-walk and the point down emote when you win.

[@stevemichael652]

Yea too bad you can’t use blood flame and lightning grease on both. Pick one of them. Or how about , don’t cheat and use the most broken trash meta build in the game ? It requires 0 skill and it just screams “I get my ass kicked so many times I need to use this for and ego booster”

[@leonardo9259]

Mad

[@VincentPaulS]

@@stevemichael652 ya, that’s the joke, and you definitely can put two different buffs on each one of your weapons

[@stevemichael652]

@@VincentPaulS can u please tell me how to grease the LH weapon?

[@claudiuskeat8336]

Non-PVP player here. Love playing with Spears. But your point is completely accurate. There's no way my spear will ever be useful in PVP.

[@C_A_I_N_N]

the issue if you ask me is the fact that they still are going by the old animationS and movesets since demon souls rather than making proper unique new movesets for each weapon type so they kinda just gloss over each one with a simple paintjob to make it look better than in past games slightly before calling it a day and so each moveset is both basic and not even considered for whether its balanced or not as if they dont even understand how serious an impact the animations and movesets play in a weapons viability.

[@esincorporated6123]

It's unfortunate too because you never see anyone two hand the damn thing because power stance is so op. I actually like two handing the cross naginata.

[@zwidowca1]

tl;dr spear design in Elden Wrong is bad and it shows that From has no clue how a melee weapon actually works Ok so I will leave a more serious comment as well: the two handed spear moveset issue. Long post with some technical info about real spears. Long story short FromSoftware has no conception how melee weaponry actually works. It shows that they did not even bother to hire ANY consultants that would explain it to their animation crew. It always bothered the fock out of me, but Elden Ring pushed this issue to such an obnoxious level that it is hard to ignore. *Why are the in game animations for spears (not powerstanced) completely wrong* Spear as a weapon should be used either with 2 hands or with an offhand shield. How can one make such a claim though? Simple - the other means of spear wielding went extinct or vanished from the history (throwing excluded since there were specific spears and other weapon designed for that).There are multiple reasons why these 2 ways to wield that weapon were so prevelent, but that is beside the point. Current animations look, to put it mildly: *absolutely silly*. *2 handing a real spear* Holding a spear with two hands grants superior thrusting precision and power while also providing greater control over the weapon. Furhtermore it allows for much faster maneuvering than 1 handed, which in turn leads to much quicker and greater range of motions you can execute. This motion range is so obnoxiously OP on a field of battle that the spear is sometimes called the "king" of the mediveal weapons. No vector of attack is off limits: swipes, thrusts, downward and upward swings, ALL of them will work for you if you can maintain your distance and exploit the reach advantage. *1 handing a real spear with an offhand shield* By taking up a shield we sacrifice the motion range and speed, but we gain an extra layer of defence and become much more annoying for the enemy. Not only do we retain our superior range, but we will now be focusing mostly on thrusts, which if not deflected, can be lethal even against proper chainmail. A shield can also trivialise quite a few different weapons, especially anything sword-like used one handed. Shield can also be used for deflections and parries, which allow you to open up your enemy to a nasty stabby counter. *Spear size/length* It makes sense that a longer spear would deal more damage. Physics supports this. For the game balance purposes however SOME compromise should have been made. Sadly FromSoft shat the bed quite badly here. *Powerstanced spears problem* Powerstancing, or dual wielding, spears makes no logical sense. You reduce your motion range and speed for no defensive benefit whatsoever. Spears are also not very easy to handle if they happen to be long. If any culture ever did this (which is pretty much guaranteed) it was either forgotten or just did not make it through history to present day. Essentially you double down on spears' few weaknesses and you do shit all to mitigate them. *Proposed changes* The in game PSS animations and damage are completely absurd and need serious adjustement. For one I would like to see a 20% damage reduction for PSS pokes and running attack, if there would be no animation changes. Secondly, if there would be animation changes, I would like to either change the animations of pokes completely or at least give them more varied timings to make them dodgeable based on skill on luck and predictions. Thirdly I would like to see more animations that are quick, but instead of using both the spears at once, strike with right hand spear and then left hand spear after a few frames. This would allow a player to dodge one attack out of two or time the dodge well and dodge both hits. Currently the PSS animations are just 50/50 of hit/no hit. Or with latency they can be 100% hit chance, sucks to be you invader, ha ha get ganked by 2 overlevelend phantoms that 1 shot you with PSS. As an addendum I have about 2 and a half years of experience in historical fencing and I seriously would not ever want to fight a spear with anything shorter than a greatsword. You need either STUPIDLY fine tuned technique or total control over the distance between you and the spear tip to not overcome, but just be RELATIVELY SAFE against this weapon. From has no effing clue how this works and it is painfully obvious.

[@glatykoffi6672]

Before someone ask you the 1 million dollars question "am I reading all that ?", I gotta tell you that you can and should shorten that, eventually post another reply below for precision. Make a clickbait title if you must :p Also, do you really think that the irl information that you know will never apply at even 20% in 99% of games is relevant here ? It's not "some" compromises that needed to be made, it's ALL of them. You ever saw the games that do have this realism as a priority ?Fundamentally different. This is a balance and diversity problem, you suggest irl unbalance and lack of diversity as a solution. About that animation suggestion, there is something I realized: the powerstanced movesets that do hit one after the other currently all suck (specifically in this game), with their running attacks maybe not all sucking. Aside from the tracking, it's oppressive nature isn't wrong per se, it's just the damage vs ease of use (easiest in the game). Stamina cost is already good, for exemple.

[@zwidowca1]

tl;dr you missed my point, you made an incorrect assumption and you really did not pay attention to any games that strived to have consistent/good/realistic combat systems. Oh and as an addendum, if you think that this is too long and you don't want to engage in an honest discussion: just don't reply. I'll happily add you to ignore list if you disregard that : ). Have a great day and try to understand what exactly you are replying to next time. @@glatykoffi6672there is literally a tl;dr and a warning that this is going to be a serious/in depth comment... I'm afraid we are just going to have to disagree on the length because I want to provide accurate information in order to support my point. I'm not going to clickbait, if you don't want to read it then don't read it. The author of the video reacted to it so I will assume at least they noticed what I did here. Furthermore the information is relevant because it all serves the purpose of showing how little From cares about animation quality and weapon balance. My explenation leads to that conclusion and the fact you either ignore it or take it the wrong way is irrelevant to me. 1st response: " You ever saw the games that do have this realism as a priority ?" Yes I have. There is still balance and unrealistic elements in said games, but clearly somebody gave a shit. Somebody put the effort in. Kingdom come, hellish quart, For Honour. To a lesser degree: Mount and Blade ( if you don't exploit the shit out of it ), Ghost of Tsushima. Hell, EVEN Nioh 1/2 do a level of realistic fencing stuff and the games are purely japaneese fantasy souls rip off. It does not need to be 100% realistic it just needs not to be f*cking stupid. I think we both agree that the current state of Elden Wrong's combat systems is beyond idiotic and is in dire need of changes. Addendum: The system does not have to be 100% realistic. It just has to be good enough to not cause eye rolling/scoffing/etc. when we see some more bizzare weapons setups. In other words it has to keep our suspension of disbelief and not take us out of the experience. This can be subjective but PSS is a great example of an immersion DESTROYING setup as it is factually good enough to kill tournament level players g9/steelovsky when used by brainless gankers. 2nd response: "It's not "some" compromises that needed to be made, it's ALL of them." [...] "This is a balance and diversity problem, you suggest irl unbalance and lack of diversity as a solution." You are barking up the wrong tree if you think I disagree with the fact that changes need to happen to PSS. SOME for me might mean A LOT to you. But you clearly applied some sort of a standard here, which I am not aware of. That is because this standard is subjective. You also make an assumption which is completely incorret. WHERE IN MY MESSAGE DID I STATE VERBATIM TO IMPLEMENT REALISTIC SPEAR COMBAT IN ELDEN RING? WHERE? Nowhere is the answer. The point just wooshed right over your head so badly that I have the time to make 10 home runs before you even find the ball and attempt to throw it back. My point is in the tl;dr and at the end, and it is for the record: spear design in Elden Wrong is bad and it shows that From has no clue how a melee weapon actually works. How hard is it to notice that????

[@zwidowca1]

tl;dr YT has already deleted my response, so here is a new one: you missed my point completely. I will not clickbait. Don't read it if you don't want to. If you don't read it then just don't interact with me. @@glatykoffi6672 You missed my point completely. As for the length of my comment, clearly it has been appreciated by the video author and that is all I care about. I got my point out there. I could care less about what length of text you subjectively consider readable, but that is not the point either. *Firstly:* "You ever saw the games that do have this realism as a priority ?Fundamentally different". No, not at all. You cannot provide me objective evidence for it either. These games also boild down to: hey you go stick that sharp stick into your enemy. The combat system does not need to be 100% realistic, it just needs to be good enough to suspend your disbelief and be consistent. Elden Wrong fails at both spectacularly. Balance is all over the place and fantasy element of you being able to take on titanic threats such as Rykard is dispelled the instant you realise 3 brainless gankers with PSS can kill g9 or Steelovsky who are tournament level players. This system kills enjoyement for many a player and the community has been raving about it for quite some time now. As to which games do it better with their combat systems here are some examples: Kingdom Come Deliverence, For Honour, Hellish Quart, Ghost of Tsushima, Mount and Blade games( if you don't exploit the shitty engine ). Some much less realistic but still very well done, consistent and with elements of fencing game combat sytems systems: Sekiro, nioh 1 & 2. An example from a completely different game type, hand to hand combat: SIFU, a good albeit mostly cinematic take. *Secondly:* "It's not "some" compromises that needed to be made, it's ALL of them." [...] "This is a balance and diversity problem, you suggest irl unbalance and lack of diversity as a solution." Provide me with the exact part of my initial comment in which I verbatim state to introduce IRL spear fighting elements into Elden Wrong. I'll wait. Spolier: you can't because I never stated that. I provided the changes I'd like to see and as this is just an opinion it is pointless to discuss it. It is very likely that From will do nothing to fix PSS as a weapon setup, because they are seemingly comletely clueless when it comes to balance in this game. You.Missed.My.Point.Completely. You also make an assumption about what I suggest, and you know what they say about assuming... *Thirdly:* I have put in a tl;dr in the original comment and a warning that it would be serious. This is enough to realise that I will go in depth. Just don't read it if you cannot be bothered. Move on and don't waste your time and mine. You also missed my point completely. I provide information about spear combat and some supplementary commentary to support my point. POINT BEING: "spear design in Elden Wrong is bad and it shows that From has no clue how a melee weapon actually works". Anything that is not related to this directly is therefore IRRELEVANT in this discussion.

[@KABLAMMATS]

Umm ackhtually, the player is actually a nobody, they don't really have a good technical skill about the arsenal and only know how swinging hard as they can ☝️🤓

[@radjamss6390]

An appeal to practical use isn’t a sound argument as the game makes no other attempts to cooperate in this manner.

[@genghiskhan6809]

Sgt jager: “The HORRENDOUS balance of spears” Me: oh so how it was in history then?

[@Kamawan0]

My first exact thought, same brain lol. Made me also think of the weapon hierarchy for Japanese warriors, with bow & arrow at the top, follow by spear, then sword, small sword, dagger, and finishing with hand to hand at the bottom.

[@ExileTwilight]

Well, apart from how spears were used in two hands and/or alongside a shield. And by and large it was mostly on the battlefield it was the superior weapon choice, in a one on one fight it still has advantages, but it's far easier to get around it than against a spear wall.

[@edcaous]

well in history you wouldn't dual wield spears... the 2h spear moveset should be waaay better to reflect history lol

[@LampseekerForevermore]

Two-handed single cross naginata, while overshadowed by its counterpart, is quite fun.

[@cap6786]

Keep it up buddy! You are providing amazing content for this community

[@lovewilcox6874]

All powerstance motion values need lowering across the board. They currently sit at around 0.9 and should be dropped to about 0.6 IMO.

[@LampseekerForevermore]

PSS is one of the only things that gets me to just spam triple rings until my opponent is dead.

[@pixsouls7474]

Two handed spears were dealt such a bad hand it this game. It’s a shame as it’s my go to in every from game. Thank god the swordspear exists.

[@Sinphanius]

I have to admit it is kinda funny that you talked about how the 2H Crouch/Running/Rolling R1 must be designed to be terrible and how if the other games had it spears would be considered shit because its literally the same 2H Rolling R1 that spears have had since Dark Souls 1. The Crouch and Running R1 are all just derived from the same 2H Rolling R1 that's been standard on spears for over a decade now. FROM has a central library of weapon base moveset animations and unfortunately they're base Light Attacks have been largely static since Dark Souls 1. Only DS2 introduced any sort of variety for the standard weapons, to the point that DS2 is still the source of the R1 variety even now in Elden Ring with things like the Fancier (and more realistic) Knight's Greatsword Animations that derive from the DS2 Drangleic/Mirrah GS Moveset. Even Demon's Souls had a similar 2H Rolling R1 for its Spears and Halberds, albeit more horizontal because all of Demon's Souls' animations were just slightly different (and better) than Dark Souls 1.

[@scpfilechildrenbarrow2212]

Interesting. Do you think it's a budget issue?

[@sleepyjackdaw]

Justice for the Powerful Poking Partisan. And the Iron Spear. Thing should have been the iron GS of spears.Wwe were robbed gentlemen, robbed!

[@newstandardaccount]

Some really great points. Worth emphasizing that From too often tries to balance their weapons via either damage buffs/nerfs, or attack speed, but there are SO many more ways they could choose to balance. First up - when you adjust via damage, you increase/decrease the weapon's viability in a straightforward linear fashion. However when you mess with the attack speed, you mess with the weapon's viability in difficult to predict ways, and ways in which a weapon may suddenly go from very good to very bad, or vice versa. This is especially true when you mess with attack speeds where the attack is near the frontier of what can be reliably reaction rolled. I think attacking the tracking of spears would be a great way to nerf these. You might even choose to nerf it primarily when powerstanced. If people had to actually manually aim these monstrosities, it'd at least take some skill to use properly. Or - how about making you take increased counter damage when attacking with PSS? Or maybe doing very little poise damage to your opponents? Or, you get no poise while attacking and therefore will always get interrupted? Maybe with PSS though the best approach is also the simplest - give PSS a straight 30% across the board damage haircut, and a 20% stamina increase.

[@crestfallenhussar895]

The Clayman harpoons aren't for pure int builds they are for hybrid int strength. I wanna say they maintain a higher scaling in str when given both a frostbite enchant while also benefiting in magic buffs. Weird weapon very fun. But yeah the partisan used to be my favorite weapon but not only is it worse than the spiked spear which is an annoyingly rare drop but if you want a partisan, you really need to just be a faith build and use the great partisans Vyke's for dex and Siluria's for str. All of these are weird builds for a weapon that was traditionally a dex-quality class too. I recall a video talking about how the role of dex in previous titles has in Elden Ring been entirely given to arcane and dex now functions very differently.

[@MooTheDog72]

I PSS especially level 20 invasions with lighting infusions…

[@LS-rp6yq]

Based

[@MooTheDog72]

@@LS-rp6yq especially with the radago sorseal, millicent prosthesis and prosthesis wearer heirloom for 15 extra dex so I can get to 30 dex without leveling up as a samurai so I can dump everything into vigor 🥹 we twinkmaxxxing.. we can also use the opiline hard tear to cancel the sorseal out 🥹

[@ghoulbuster1]

This gets hard countered by host disconnecting the ethernet cable.

[@doofusrick5998]

I feel like most low level invasions just have a host player getting carried by their twink friend with tons of overleveled gear, so this doesn't seem so bad

[@MooTheDog72]

@@doofusrick5998 mhm

[@connorjensen9699]

dual spears are not the only light roll option, dual whips/urumi can get them just fine

[@swordierre9341]

Very thorough breakdown. Your suggestions are on point, i hope fromsoft sees this and implements them.

[@warframelichyt]

They could have used the Drang Twinspear moveset and there would have been no issues

[@ungone7133]

13:21 PS dmg nerf is needed but instead of the rest: make all poke attacks including the ps spears relyably strafeable, without poise trade or anything - cause that just copium calling that strafe, the tracking nerf is needed. 2handed spears could get 133 poise break even on 2nd poke. Making powerstance moveset having same animation startup, but so much longer recovery Tho, game's engine is just broken, droped inputs, random poise event, pc netcode is straight up unplayable, so forget playing on that platform, existance of sleep status, only 4 player limit with no low quality areas with 6 player limit and current state of lightroll is just cherry on the top

[@tn7403]

I think in general powerstance offhand weapon should not do as much damage. Even 20/25% of its full damage would be enough, that includes poise

[@shambleshef]

Completely agree on spears lacking overall diversity and especially in the R1 department. 2H spears are especially disappointing. I prefer to run halberd for my dragoon build because they typically have a more diverse moveset. I use serpent hunter on a beast build but I understand that by doing that I am effectively handicapping myself, but my setup compensates for that weakness as serpent hunter is more or less just one of my tools. Even though serpent hunter is the only spear with a slashing heavy attack, and its technically a great spear. They are basically spears but even lamer in terms of a weapon class. There is no reason to use a great spear over a regular spear unless you want to spam mohgwyn's spear which is boring.

[@IamtheSubSandwich]

All I want is gowers ring of protect back.

[@DataDrain02]

Okay, it's a bit silly that the 2-handed spear moveset is bad. Historically, spears were OP as fuck (until guns came into play. Power creep, am I right?). And you used them with 2 hands....

[@modtyrant1784]

The problem with reach weapons in dark souls is you can't grapple them. Realistically you want to parry / block the spear close the distance because a spear would be significantly weaker the closer you get. As the assailant's body has closed the distance, the spear user can no longer wind up an effective thrust against an armoured opponent. At that point a spear user would have to disengage/escape the grapple or change weapons.

[@glatykoffi6672]

Getting past the range of a weapon is a basic concept that never matters here because blocking in these games is worthless for weapons and shields, except for ~10 shields and half that for weapons with said shields. Funny how perfect block, a glitch that erase the block stun of a hit actually allows for the strat, but it's useless as it doesn't solve the other half of the problem: stamina consumption.

[@matth464]

Great info and tips for those who are interested in PSS.

[@SgtJager00]

"TIPS"

[@skywalkersbutido6375]

I would buff every single weapon across the board and power creep pss,no nerfs so nobody complains?idk obviously the setup and the moveset was mistake.

[@leonardo9259]

Obviously what greatswords and katanas is to be better

[@hansdammers00]

Go to 14:00 "Power stance damage is way too high" *Hits a NAKED guy with NO ARMOR to prove his point for 1k damage on LIGHTNING INFUSION* Now to showcase the actual damage of the power stance spears in same video; Go to 14:20, slow down video to x0.25 speed. He first gets a partial hit (only 1 of 2 spears hitting) for 262 damage. Soon after that he gets a hit with both spears for (802-262 =) 540 damage. 540 damage on lightning infusion and both spears hitting as a standing power stance attack. Now go back to 14:18 and you see him hit the red for 348 with a single spear running attack. 348. Go to 13:51. "Reduce power stance damage by as much as 30%" 540x0.7= 374. So your reward as a player for power stancing both spears is roughly 26 more damage. So that's 100÷348x372-100= 6.89% more damage with power stancing, if the 30% nerf is implemented. Extra info: Opponent looks to have eaten a boiled crab and possibly flask with damage reduction, but even then the percentages in the end results should still remain the same. Remember, the enemy could be having a SORESEAL and SCORPION CHARM equipped that reduces one's own physical defences even further, which is why you sometimes nuke someone in pvp invasions, and also maybe because sometimes the opponent is naked. Using online pvp invasions as testing footage is wack and a poor way to showcase if something is broken or not. Please use a more controlled testing environment next time for a video like this. My opinion: power stance spears are slightly overpowered considering it's ease of use. Increase stamina consumption by 30% (during pvp only if possible?) and lower damage by 5% (in pvp only) and make standing and running attacks way more telegraphed and crouch attacks less telegraphed. I also think weapons are allowed to be strong, and people should be more careful with calling for nerfs as this will eventually lead to a nerf spiral where eventually everything will get nerfed so much it will reach a singularity and implode on itself and the end result is the flame of frenzy ending

[@FurtiveSkeptical]

100% on the mark with this commentary. Let's talk about stunlock exploits and possible fixes next. Whatever happened to being able to roll after 2nd hit?

[@DrkCarbalt]

Btw if one hand spear moveset if buffed too much it could end up being as bad or worse than power stance spears because of high stamina builds and talismans and that is not even talking about other piercing weapons in the game.

[@MennydorgesERArchive]

This is for all the suffering we spear users had to suffer in ds3, don’t care if powerstance looks dumb, spears historically deserve to be at the top

[@edcaous]

I would prefer 2 handed spears to be better though, since historically that was how they were used (besides when they were 1 handed w/ a shield) lol. Those animations need to be replaced though.

[@CFallescence]

Please Fromsoft just make the 1H spear moveset not totally dogshit thats all I ask

[@WokeandProud]

They need to massively buff one and two handed spears and at least a 30% nerf to PSS.

[@rotofrim8096]

They should just add the mikiri counter in elden ring

[@executioner_ecgbert884]

Now we're talking

[@jangofett4547]

Hahahahaha fuuuuu that would be wild

[@cho4d]

Shields should be buffed against most things, except blunt. I feel shields are either useless (95% of them) or opressive but requires your build to be based around having an oppressively strong shield. If medium shields could counter sharp sticks but themselves be countered by blunt then maybe we could get some semblance of balance and counter play. Not sure. Just feel like holding a normal shield up makes you more vulnerable in current patch which is absolutely dumb if you consider what a shield is.

[@cho4d]

the more i think about this the more i like it. Set up parry is the counter to brain dead R1 spam. Always was... just shields in this game are terrible :(

[@glatykoffi6672]

Blocking in general is not thought out, weapons and small shields can't block a single hit, majority of mediums block a single hit, greatshields are the only that really blocks, but at the end if it ain't shield poking, it gives no reward. The best use of block is the perfect block glitch 🥴

[@FurtiveSkeptical]

Small shields need more attack potential to compensate for the lack of resistance to guard break. For example, taking less guard/stamina damage when performing a shield bash/crash into an enemy attack. Shield hyperarmor? And upping the damage offensive small shields can do as well as having a prompt recovery from the AoW that's better than a larger, more defensive shield. Particularly when status effects are imbued to the small shield. A small defensive boost in basic blocking would be useful although rewarding the risk of proactively "using" a shield and its abilities would be better. Not a fan of folks abusing excessive turtling behind shields, but hopefully there's a middle ground somewhere.

[@diegoalderette6485]

Lower damage/poise damage on any power stance off hand weapon to 55% for dex and elemental infusions and 70% for str, except fists and claws. Makes no sense that using a weapon one handed and with your weaker hand should hit as hard as you holding it with 2 hands, thematically.This will promote using a different weapon in the offhand since it will not only hit harder but break poise easier. Keep the reach and speed to incentivise power stancing and help with light roll. This will also help balance ps straight swords and jump attack spam since it wont hit as hard.

[@rocketbronson6943]

Increase the default invader count by one with a set time between each unique invader. As to how to balance power-stance spears, I have no clue. There is still so much that needs tweaking as well.

[@nopnop9077]

Fromsoftware literally the Best game devs out there literally the Worst balance team out there LITERALLY

[@ianwilliams2632]

I got annoyed when I first faced them in like Sept. 2022. But I had the blessing of being invaded by the same guy like 3 times. He didn't vary his attack pattern at all, so I learned to dodge not when they wind up to poke (the telegraphed movement of holding the arms back), but at the exact moment the poke would start moving towards me. It solved a lot of frustration and I don't feel so intimidated by the setup anymore.

[@hunterjohnson8836]

Love the content 👌

[@swave7019]

Been using main hand naginata off hand icerind hatchet. Icerind has the faster axe moveset thats very handy

[@SonicSanctuary]

i really want to just use the pike by itself, but man the movset is slooooow

[@radjamss6390]

PSS also becomes a necessity against other tactics. It can serve very usefully against a myriad of other builds and ganks that are also just pure meat grinders. PSS is more of a symptom of the overall balance (or lack thereof) of the game. I like your analysis of the PSS.

[@apolloisnotashirt]

I mean... Spears are quite literally one of THE best weapons irl as well.

[@CPAgamer313]

Just parry it bro

[@cho4d]

🤣

[@cho4d]

i find the funniest thing about this suggestion is that the ultra high risk option of parrying would probably not do more damage than an ultra low risk l1 from PSS unless you happened to have a crit build.

[@DedicatedTryhard]

@@cho4dyou’re probably right. And that scares me

[@JetStream0509]

I hope they are able to make powerstancing actually balanced at some point. In DS2 it was honestly uninteresting in a lot of cases, what with the fact that you only have two moves. And the stat requirements meant that builds were locked out of it as an option. But also, that meant you had to make sacrifices to use a tool that was honestly pretty powerful in the right situation. Also, i liked how you could switch between having an off-hand weapon and powerstancing, it made it more dynamic and an actual stance. Although, it sacrificed the ability to two-hand your left-hand weapon, which is important in elden ring where L2s are so strong. But honestly even though powerstancing has more moves in elden ring, the horrendous balance makes it honestly a worse version of the mechanic imo. For some weapons (spears, greatspears, straight swords, most curved swords, daggers, and probably more) the ps moveset is so much better than the one or two-handed moveset that there is no reason not to use the ps moveset on a build where you don't need your offhand for a second thing. And even then, swap slots exist, and its not like these weapon classes are that heavy. Meanwhile, on the heavier classes, powerstancing is punished much more due to how heavy these weapons are, which is a shame since some of these movesets are kinda mediocre. And then you have shit like axes, hammers, and flails, where the ps moveset is so bad that it actively puts you at a disadvantage. Powerstancing is pretty much the crux of awful balance in an awfully balanced game. Bringing back the 1.5x stat requirement could be a good idea or not. There are points for and against it. Like, while it would make it so you have to make sacrificies to use powerstance and it's not just the defacto best option in a lot of cases, it could affect weapons unequally. Like, some of the more problematic weapons in the game, such as the bandit's curved sword and the cleanrot knight's sword have very low requirements which would make powerstancing them much more attainable for a lot of builds compared to powerstancing some of the less good endgame weapons with weird stat requirements. But then again, it would make it so that casters and arcane builds would have to sacrifice more to powerstance weapons like the cross-naginata, which is good since powerstancing is most obnoxious in bleed and caster builds. Overall powerstancing definitely needs to be looked at and I hope it can actually reach a state where it's actually a balanced and fun mechanic. And if it can't then I'm fine with just scrapping the mechanic and leaning hard into paired weapons, those are more fun and interesting and balanced anyways.

[@glatykoffi6672]

It's funny, cause ds3's paired weapons were nice and not bad balance wise. Gothard's, twin axes, fists, even ringed knight's paired greatswords were miles ahead in quality. All they needed was right there in previous games with data, but they choosed to do worse. They just didn't do any global balance, pvp or pve, it's like every weapon was made in a vaccum.

[@a-youtube-rat]

5:18 I hope they add an ashe of war that gives you the back step attack in the dlc alot of classes could benefit from it

[@revenant097]

Absolutely spot on. Great stuff

[@petercottantail7850]

slightly nerf tracking forcing freeaim as the primary aggressive option and give them that unique property flails get where they do more damage at a certain part of the attack animation (deal normal damage or poise damage for spears at the very end of the attack in this case and considerably less poise damage and/or damage at the beginning of the attack) spears are by design a weapon to keep your target at a distance, if they are up close and in your face, a spear should be less reliable if they fail to space properly. maybe only apply that change to one handed and powerstancing. personally i think 2 handing a soear would mean you know.. faster attack speed but what do i know

[@DrkCarbalt]

Finally, people are addressing the problem with spear balancing in the game besides just telling that the other players are bad for pointing that out.

[@borntopwnyou]

The one good thing about them being so overpowered is that the shitters who google their builds gravitate towards them and will never press any other button except for L1, making them easy to parry.

[@Smaxy_]

PSS is for sure a strong setup but when you consider ladder restrictions it isn't that dominant. When you take away insane range (pikes/nagis/gransax) and tone down the damage a bit (nagis/gransax) you end up with a good but not unbeatable moveset. Slow backswing that doesnt rollcatch, some recoveries between attacks, huge stamina costs etc... Outside duels though I agree PSS is breaindead. But there is hope if they address the range and dmg.

[@scalycoronet5198]

I will say that although the Clayman’s harpoon sucks in 99% of scenarios, if you make an int/fth build you can have dual flame art clayman’s harpoons with scaling in all four stats which is kinda fun. Doesn’t make them good, but still interesting

[@understated1908]

don't crouch or backstep?? You can run while changing between crouch and standing to preserve stamina while staying in opponents range and since you're running you'll do a running L1 either way. The backstep L1 is great because the staggered attacks can roll catch. Use with reverse backstepping.

[@humanratteler9760]

…curved greatsword 1h main hand doesn’t do >135 poise dmg on every swing. But it does when off handed (I checked) wtf???

[@kaimoro]

I love spear but i hate cross-nagi. it's outshine other spear.

[@revenant097]

Did G9 mention any of this in his video he sent to bandai?

[@Dautar748]

is the frame data you provide when the game runs at 30 or 60 fps?

[@petercottantail7850]

30

[@captainwafflezs4799]

Fantastic video. 11/10.

[@cho4d]

the argument that PSS needs to be so strong because something else is broken strong is baffling. i don't believe i have ever, once, in my admittedly short time playing this game, come across someone running a light roll build, and if i did, i didn't notice or care. PSS on the other hand just dominates every single time. it's opressive, it's not fun, and i will give up upon seeing it. have fun with your "victory". you literal god gamer you equiped the pointy stick you win.

[@swave7019]

A good player on light roll makes you want to rip your hair out

[@leonardo9259]

I feel its easier to blacklist certain invasion areas and nerf light roll tham juat saying "well too bad we'll leave it like that"

[@cho4d]

PSS has longer range, quicker animations, better tracking, higher damage and quicker recovery than PS heavy thrusting swords. what?

[@wizardswine]

Honestly powerstancing was a mistake. It has no place in the game and makes the two-handed and one-handed movesets and stats of many weapons impossible to buff due to their powerstancing being overpowered. Everyone has a go at the damage being an issue in Elden Ring when frankly if it wasn't for powerstancing, the game would be miles better than DS3 in terms of damage (everyone praises DS3 but straight sword and UGS two hit combo beg to differ.) Dissapointing edition that should have died with DS2s other experimentations.

[@someyeeterontheblock2421]

Nah it’s cool 😎

[@Bobbie_Boy]

this made me wanna play elden ring again

[@leoornstein3963]

When not Powerstance, Halberds, Greatspears, thrusting swords, and heavy thrusting swords do exactly what spears does but miles better.

[@GoToBedSheeva]

Armored core music was nice

[@radjamss6390]

Lmao. Yeah, every build I make typically includes a PSS option, usually in the form of dual partisans. Mage, faith, dex, strength, anything can run a PSS.

[@TripPy_Poly]

Imagine if you can mikiri counter in this game

[@dabbid_0214]

One of the few things that make me not want to play Elden Ring....

[@falionna3587]

Is light rolling a issue? The absence of any armor and poise makes one quite vulnerable as a light roller, not to mention light rolling got nerfed.

[@skeleskor]

Sgt Jager my commander ❤

[@rojo3031]

rough and decent mentioned

[@simonshephard3834]

Making polearms one the best dual wielding weapons are already pretty dumb in the first place.

[@humanratteler9760]

Having not watched the video yet here’s my opinion: they forgot to design them with fucking weaknesses. They’re fast, they hurt, they have super range, they’re easy

[@Umbra_Ursus]

Didn't think spears were particularly good. I've just been using a partisan as part of my cuckoo knight build, and it didn't seem notably better than most anything else... Seems worse, honestly. Does great as a shield-counter and jumping attack, though.

[@me_mistmoore]

Gonna make a PSS build now. 😈

[@Kamawan0]

I knew before I clicked that it was a PvP vid. But, I've been around a long time, too. I think it would be worth mentioning in the title that it's for PvP, for those that may not know at first. Spears are actually ass in PvE!

[@LooterGameplays]

Only reducing the damage by 30% is actually not enough, HALF IT, HALF IT IMMEDIATELY

[@Alter_Ego_V1.1037]

My favorite part is how From trys to give all these varrying and interesting animations to wielding weapons in all styles and then nobody uses any of it. Why bother making slower attacks useful for frame traps, like having a fucking use for axes and hammers, optimizing the fun out of PvP is the name of the game.

[@GoToBedSheeva]

The horrendous balance of bows(not in a good way)

[@VillainMommy]

jumping l1 on pss is perhaps the best jump attack in the game, because of its incredible speed and the fact that its a thrusting attack. this makes raptors mist on ps cross nagis the most devastating and fucked up thing i've ever experimented with.

[@DrkCarbalt]

Please send this video to Fromsoft maybe some day it could be fixed or at least change into something different.

[@DCCLXII]

Oh god hes gone and done it 😭 hes turned into *Chasing Bourne Man i used these exactly once for a combo video, and I deleted my cache, my Internet browser history and got the fbi to put me on a watch list

[@lemeres2478]

Hey, spears are perfectly balanced. That is why everyone can wield two of them one handed. You couldn't do that with a weapon without a good point of balance.

[@Shmeky.]

Man i forgot to watfh this today

[@BlackGeine]

Fought a guy having pss bhs + full heal in the arena. Literally could've killed him three times. kills me with R1 and starts shitting. Was there anything else he was missing?!

[@TheMuslimMan1337]

A brain

[@oysterlad]

When I see a ganker right out of spawn with pss it's an automatic sever and block.