Guild Wars 2

in your opinion if Land Spears were ever added, would you want it to be a 1hander like GW1 (but for different uses based on class)

or would you want it to remain a 2hander weapon like the sea spear?

I’ve always pictured the spears in Guild Wars 2 as two-handed pole-arm weapons. I could see them being used similarly to how they currently work underwater; warriors having a more melee approach, while guardians exert their paragon-like techniques of spear-throwing.

I’d personally like them to return as they were in GW1. Since water combat’s a thing of the past and isn’t being worked on, I think this would be an awesome way to spice a few things up whether one-handed or two. Might have to tweak them a little, though.

In Nightfall. they were one-handed weapons. More or less javelins. Don’t see a reason to change that.

Why not add both?

Not having played GW1, I couldn’t say. But, IMHO, a “spear” seems a one handed weapon and, as Ardenwolfe says, very javelin-like. In one sense, following on from that, they could almost be classed as a projectile weapon.

I’d prefer they’d be javelins, to keep the people from getting confused too much.,..

2h.

I’m also a “GW1 purist” and I think it should be an 1hander.

Belzebu.3912:

I’m also a “GW1 purist” and I think it should be an 1hander.

^this.

They would be 2H Polearm Weapons and nothing else.
The Spears we know so far for Underwater Combat would get then renamed to “Harpoons” to make the difference clear between the Land and the Water Combat Skill Versions and Harpoon Guns should get renamed then to “Bolt Gun”, while ANet should merge Staff with Trident and add therefore other Weapons to Underwater Combat too, like Daggers, Swords, Axes, Maces, Focus and Torchs.

1h for some, 2h for others would be an interesting concept. Or both 1h and 2h for anyone that could use it, with different skillsets attached to both.

1h or add paragons! Guardians are magic; paragons are more like warriors but support based.

I kind of like the idea of it being 1h if you equip an offhand, giving you mid ranged attacks (distance comparable to pistol) and 2h if you don’t equip an offhand, giving different skills for both.

Zoso.8279:

1h or add paragons! Guardians are magic; paragons are more like warriors but support based.

You mean like warriors who use warhorns, shouts and banners?

Kaos.9162:

1h for some, 2h for others would be an interesting concept. Or both 1h and 2h for anyone that could use it, with different skillsets attached to both.

^this. I see it more as a pole arm, but with maybe 1 or 2 throwing skills in there.

Spear one-handed
Halberd two-handed

or a stat mutable spear.. two handed stats when equiped alone, one-handed stats if off-hand is also equiped

1h
Guardian: teleport, fast multi-strike hard hitting attack similar to the underwater version, vuln on auto-attack (aka armor pierce)
Warrior: Bleed’s, Riposte, Impale burst skill
Ranger: Evade, throw for immob, poison

2h
Guardian: Large AoE cleave slow hard hitting attacks, hit the ground for AoE stun
Warrior: Battle-Axe

Diovid.9506:

Why not add both?

This is the right answer.

God people, when will you finally give up this Paragon Junk??? this class will never ever reappear. Deal with it.

The paragon has absolutely nothing to offer as class mechanic, which can’Ät be done already by the Warrior or the Guardian. Everything what this class had, got absorbed completely by those two classes.
1H Spears make no sense, pulling unendless javelins out of thin air was already immersion breaking and in fact it would be also a little nice weapon balancign for GW2, if you would have to automaticalyl reload your arrows/bulets after say every 50 shot for a few seconds being not able to attack, which would lead to players using ranged weapons getting for the advantage of engaging combat first save from range also the final required disadvantage for it, that you have to go into defensive playstale/positioning for when you need to quickly reload your ammonition.

That would allow also ANet to give Ammonition more design relevant importancy, like turning Ammonition also into a Equipment Type with its own Stats/Effects as part of Bows/Pistols/Rifles, which could affect also partwise then your Weapon Skills, like giving for example little extra chances to deal various conditions with your weapon skills., or to make your shots fly faster than normal and so on … what would create again more Build Variety then.
——

howeve, to come back to Paragons, Guardians already have a PvP Achievement, that is called for them Paragon. That alone is another sign, that this Class got completely absorbed by Warriors and Guardians.

The only thing that is missing from them is basically only Polearm Weapons, that are useable on land and even then they would surely have under their Weapon Skills something, that would allow them to throw somehow the Weapon, because ANets combat system for GW2 is so designed, that all classes always have some skills, which can be used always for all kinds of at least melee to midrange distances, so that no class is forced to have to run to a foe just to be able to attack them.
And if thats not the case, then you have gap closers for that or skills, that can pull the targets to you instead from midrange distances.

Their Anthems and Hymns were nothing else than basically Shouts and if Anet should ever come up with the intention to bring back these 2 mechanics somehow new and different working into GW2, then I would like to see them back at a place, where they originally would belong to alot better by design – as new Utilities or as Class Mechanics for BARDS unlocked as a Mesmer Sub Class, because singing is all about Inspiration and they show already signs that Mesmers are about singing when fightign under water.

2h spear really doesn’t have a place in GW2 land combat (or water, really). It’s a non-projectile ranged weapon that is utterly useless inside of 5 or 6 feet. It really isn’t useful against non-mounted opponents either.

As a projectile weapon the 1H doesn’t make a lot of sense either, since it’s one use.

But a 1H thrusting weapon with greater than normal melee range and some blocking could be interesting.

Well what wepon roll will it cover? The weapons in the game for the most part cover all the wepon types as in attk types. I guess the only thing kind of missing is the “shot gun” type where you simply fire a short ranges attk a lot like guards staff attk but more aimed on dmg then support. Could the Spear cover that? As for a 2h Spear or polarm i think for the most part GS covers its attk ideal much like how the hammer cover the G.axe ideal.

I guess the easy way would be just to add in skins that look like the weapons that ppl want much like the scy staff skin. At the end of the day your more like to see existing weapons just get added to other classes that tends to be the safer way to add new skills to this game then just simply adding in new random weapons because ppl think they look cool lol.

A scythe like 2h spear would be kittening awesome

Diovid.9506:

Zoso.8279:

1h or add paragons! Guardians are magic; paragons are more like warriors but support based.

You mean like warriors who use warhorns, shouts and banners?

No I think your thinking of a Warrior. Paragons are like warriors but are more focused on range but I can understand why someone like you doesn’t understand the difference. Warriors imo should be focused more on melee kinda sucks that all viable builds for warrior ALL use longbow. Feels like warriors are rangers with hammers lol

Orpheal.8263:

God people, when will you finally give up this Paragon Junk??? this class will never ever reappear. Deal with it.

Although I agree with you, you might want to relax a bit.

No I think your thinking of a Warrior. Paragons are like warriors but are more focused on range but I can understand why someone like you doesn’t understand the difference. Warriors imo should be focused more on melee kinda sucks that all viable builds for warrior ALL use longbow. Feels like warriors are rangers with hammers lol

So the warrior in-game does not fit your idea of a warrior? Well… what can I tell you.. that must be hard for you.

I played GW1 a lot and enjoyed playing a paragon but I always thought that the paragon could’ve easily been added by giving the warrior an attribute called spear mastery and adding a few more skills to Strength and Tactics.

Furthermore, lore-wise the paragon evolved into the Guardian. It’s gone.

Black Frog.9274:

2h spear really doesn’t have a place in GW2 land combat (or water, really). It’s a non-projectile ranged weapon that is utterly useless inside of 5 or 6 feet. It really isn’t useful against non-mounted opponents either.

As a projectile weapon the 1H doesn’t make a lot of sense either, since it’s one use.

But a 1H thrusting weapon with greater than normal melee range and some blocking could be interesting.

In a world where we have aquabreathers functioning as gills, magical staves shooting firebolts, greatswords with ranged attacks, arrows conjured from thin air, etc. etc., there is no place for a spear? Ok.

Diovid.9506:

Orpheal.8263:

God people, when will you finally give up this Paragon Junk??? this class will never ever reappear. Deal with it.

Although I agree with you, you might want to relax a bit.

No I think your thinking of a Warrior. Paragons are like warriors but are more focused on range but I can understand why someone like you doesn’t understand the difference. Warriors imo should be focused more on melee kinda sucks that all viable builds for warrior ALL use longbow. Feels like warriors are rangers with hammers lol

So the warrior in-game does not fit your idea of a warrior? Well… what can I tell you.. that must be hard for you.

I played GW1 a lot and enjoyed playing a paragon but I always thought that the paragon could’ve easily been added by giving the warrior an attribute called spear mastery and adding a few more skills to Strength and Tactics.

Furthermore, lore-wise the paragon evolved into the Guardian. It’s gone.

Yeah lore explains it but still I like paragon so ill ask to see it again. Warriors using ranged as much or more then melee for me makes 0 sense.

A spear should be 1 handed, imho.

A “2-handed” spear would be more of a Pole Arm .

This is a snip from a post I made quite some time ago, but I’ll add a bit more to it.

I think there should be two types of spears introduced in this game:

1. Polearms, halberds, or lances for the heavy classes. It’d be a melee weapon, obviously, and one they could pair with an offhand shield, sword, etc. (like Hilde from Soul Calibur). It could also simply be a two-handed weapon depending on the combat style they would use for it. Anet could probably use some animations from warrior banners, now that I think about it.

2. Throwing spears, javelins, or harpoons for lighter classes. Magically-charged javelins for elementalists would be nice, kinda like how the magic bow works in Dragon’s Dogma (if you’re a magick archer). It’d probably be a mid-range weapon, I would imagine. I’d love for my water-ele to throw hydro-javelins (I like water-based skills more than ice). They could also have a whirlpool skill where they throw the javelin on an AoE-determined spot and create a swirling water vortex that pulls foes similar to one of the mesmer’s underwater spear skills. Maybe there could also be a skill where the ele creates a wave and rides it for a distance, damaging foes and healing allies along the way. Regardless, throwing spears would give elementalists another physical weapon choice besides just daggers, which would be a welcome addition, in my opinion.

Also, I’d definitely like to read your guys’ thoughts on what kind of skills you’d like to see for magic-infused throwing spears for eles. …or any land-based spear skills for whatever profession you’d like, for that matter. Let’s keep this thread going and get the Anet creative team to read this, or at least Gaile if she likes the idea!

1handed within a magical "This is Tyria!!!

Goose.8195:

Black Frog.9274:

2h spear really doesn’t have a place in GW2 land combat (or water, really). It’s a non-projectile ranged weapon that is utterly useless inside of 5 or 6 feet. It really isn’t useful against non-mounted opponents either.

As a projectile weapon the 1H doesn’t make a lot of sense either, since it’s one use.

But a 1H thrusting weapon with greater than normal melee range and some blocking could be interesting.

In a world where we have aquabreathers functioning as gills, magical staves shooting firebolts, greatswords with ranged attacks, arrows conjured from thin air, etc. etc., there is no place for a spear? Ok.

A 1H spear, sure. 2H no. And none of your examples deals with range mechanics, which is ultimately the issue here. You’ll note that there actually is a comparable weapon, the Staff (spear with no point), and it’s used as a ranged, magical weapon. Perhaps you can come up with some close range skills for a 6 to 8 foot long weapon with a point but no blade? Or maybe you’re suggesting that a 2H spear be used entirely at range and you’d be screwed at close range?

I completely agree with Seabreeze! Would be awesome to have not one, but TWO types of spear-weapons.

1) Something lance/halberd-like for heavy combat (i imagine a skill to prevent the enemy from getting close enough to use close-distance/meleé weaponsholding by piercing him and holdin him off…)
2) And then throwing spears/javelins. Would add some diversity to the middle-distance fights. Could be introduced along with the Tengu… would perfectly fit i think.
And in general spears would go along perfectly with everything Antic/Middle-East/Africa inspired. So the very moment we are approaching Elona, spears will becoming business! :-)

Best regards to all players

Black Frog.9274:

Goose.8195:

Black Frog.9274:

2h spear really doesn’t have a place in GW2 land combat (or water, really). It’s a non-projectile ranged weapon that is utterly useless inside of 5 or 6 feet. It really isn’t useful against non-mounted opponents either.

As a projectile weapon the 1H doesn’t make a lot of sense either, since it’s one use.

But a 1H thrusting weapon with greater than normal melee range and some blocking could be interesting.

In a world where we have aquabreathers functioning as gills, magical staves shooting firebolts, greatswords with ranged attacks, arrows conjured from thin air, etc. etc., there is no place for a spear? Ok.

A 1H spear, sure. 2H no. And none of your examples deals with range mechanics, which is ultimately the issue here. You’ll note that there actually is a comparable weapon, the Staff (spear with no point), and it’s used as a ranged, magical weapon. Perhaps you can come up with some close range skills for a 6 to 8 foot long weapon with a point but no blade? Or maybe you’re suggesting that a 2H spear be used entirely at range and you’d be screwed at close range?

Go hit someone with a 6 foot long magical pole and ask them how it feels, since RP seems to be the main basis of argument here. Maybe a 4 or 5 skill could be a spin move that creates a fire field, 2 skill could be a rapid attack in succession like the underwater attack, 3 could be a midrange lunge or gap closer. All you have to do is use your imagination. Why would you be screwed at close range? Try using a giant hammer at close range on someone, you’d never get an attack off before being struck or countered in some way, yet in game it works just fine.

You don’t always have to hold a spear at the very end.

Edit: as far as 1h goes I would envision them as being more of a javelin/midrange attack weapon.

Goose.8195:

I kind of like the idea of it being 1h if you equip an offhand, giving you mid ranged attacks (distance comparable to pistol) and 2h if you don’t equip an offhand, giving different skills for both.

I like this idea. Sort of having a changing effect similar to duel weapon skills on thief that change.

2 hander Polearm when off hand not equipped. And it becomes a 1 hander main hand weapon when off hand weapon is equipped.

To me, I want both.
But if we get a 1hander Spear,
I would like it to be a Melee weapon instead of pure throwing weapon.
I have a similar weapon in Archeage. I like the look of a Melee spear with shield in off hand on my guardian /warrior.

:-)
:-)

Goose.8195:

Go hit someone with a 6 foot long magical pole and ask them how it feels, since RP seems to be the main basis of argument here. Maybe a 4 or 5 skill could be a spin move that creates a fire field, 2 skill could be a rapid attack in succession like the underwater attack, 3 could be a midrange lunge or gap closer. All you have to do is use your imagination. Why would you be screwed at close range? Try using a giant hammer at close range on someone, you’d never get an attack off before being struck or countered in some way, yet in game it works just fine.

You don’t always have to hold a spear at the very end.

Edit: as far as 1h goes I would envision them as being more of a javelin/midrange attack weapon.

I’ll just leave this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear

The reason you’d be screwed at close range is angular momentum. You can’t build up enough with a long weapon at close range. In the case of a spear or staff, the weapon has no edge in any event. If the person I was swinging a 6 foot stick at had any sense, they’d step close to me and wouldn’t be hit by the stick with enough force to do anything but inconvenience them. There’s a reason all polearm and spear carrying troops after the bronze age also carried a short sword. Spear at distance and vs horsemen, drop the spear when foot soldiers close in, and draw your sword. When soldiers carried the spear as the only weapon, they were shorter, thrusting weapons that were wielded along with a shield (which is why I think it totally makes sense to have 1H spear).

Nothing in this game has to mirror reality, but the game does a pretty good job of being logically consistent with itself.

If they were to add a 2H spear, I’d say some of what you say makes sense, field creation and that sort of thing. But if it gets additional range, then it needs to be balanced with close range penalties. If doesn’t get range, then the question becomes why add it as a new weapon at all? What niche does it fill that isn’t already being filled by another weapon?

Knighthonor.4061:

To me, I want both.
But if we get a 1hander Spear,
I would like it to be a Melee weapon instead of pure throwing weapon.
I have a similar weapon in Archeage. I like the look of a Melee spear with shield in off hand on my guardian /warrior.

:-)
:-)

I envision a hoplite skin set with lots of polished metal

Black Frog.9274:

Goose.8195:

Go hit someone with a 6 foot long magical pole and ask them how it feels, since RP seems to be the main basis of argument here. Maybe a 4 or 5 skill could be a spin move that creates a fire field, 2 skill could be a rapid attack in succession like the underwater attack, 3 could be a midrange lunge or gap closer. All you have to do is use your imagination. Why would you be screwed at close range? Try using a giant hammer at close range on someone, you’d never get an attack off before being struck or countered in some way, yet in game it works just fine.

You don’t always have to hold a spear at the very end.

Edit: as far as 1h goes I would envision them as being more of a javelin/midrange attack weapon.

I’ll just leave this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear

The reason you’d be screwed at close range is angular momentum. You can’t build up enough with a long weapon at close range. In the case of a spear or staff, the weapon has no edge in any event. If the person I was swinging a 6 foot stick at had any sense, they’d step close to me and wouldn’t be hit by the stick with enough force to do anything but inconvenience them. There’s a reason all polearm and spear carrying troops after the bronze age also carried a short sword. Spear at distance and vs horsemen, drop the spear when foot soldiers close in, and draw your sword. When soldiers carried the spear as the only weapon, they were shorter, thrusting weapons that were wielded along with a shield (which is why I think it totally makes sense to have 1H spear).

Nothing in this game has to mirror reality, but the game does a pretty good job of being logically consistent with itself.

If they were to add a 2H spear, I’d say some of what you say makes sense, field creation and that sort of thing. But if it gets additional range, then it needs to be balanced with close range penalties. If doesn’t get range, then the question becomes why add it as a new weapon at all? What niche does it fill that isn’t already being filled by another weapon?

Thank you for assuming that I don’t know what a spear is, and the short history lesson.

Would you not just step in close on a norn wielding a highly realistic 7 foot hammer as well? (I don’t believe gigantic hammers relative to character size have much combat functionality in a realistic sense period) Fields, 2 handed knockback, lunges, maybe slamming the spear into the ground as a thief and doing some physical move off of it.

I spin with a greatsword on a guardian and it flings out immobilization that can pull enemies back in towards me. Does that also relate to a time in history?

I jump to the idea of saying 2h but part of me has this ideal of using a spear and shield, much like my mesmer did in gw1.

The perfect outcome would be having throwing spears 1h and then 2h pole arms. One would be a ranged weapon and the other melee.

Goose.8195:

Thank you for assuming that I don’t know what a spear is, and the short history lesson.

Would you not just step in close on a norn wielding a highly realistic 7 foot hammer as well? (I don’t believe gigantic hammers relative to character size have much combat functionality in a realistic sense period) Fields, 2 handed knockback, lunges, maybe slamming the spear into the ground as a thief and doing some physical move off of it.

I spin with a greatsword on a guardian and it flings out immobilization that can pull enemies back in towards me. Does that also relate to a time in history?

The greatsword has an edge and the hammer has a large, weighted and balanced head. The spear is a thrusting weapon. Again, angular momentum. But for this discussion, the issue is related to game mechanics. Both of those weapons already fill the 2H weapon niche and the magic stick with field generating properties is filled by the staff. So what is that a spear is going to be doing that won’t put everything else about every class back on the balancing drawing board?

Realism or historical accuracy isn’t the issue. It’s, what is this for? Creatively it’s lots of fun to talk about, but it doesn’t add much of anything. The magic stick spear would give warriors some of the guardian’s niche. The throwing spear overlaps the throwing axe. Why do we need this spear!?

If we’re going to just brainstorm, forget spears, I want a chain weapon for my thief and I want unarmed combat. If we’re going down the rabbit hole, let’s go deep.

Zoso.8279:

Diovid.9506:

Zoso.8279:

1h or add paragons! Guardians are magic; paragons are more like warriors but support based.

You mean like warriors who use warhorns, shouts and banners?

No I think your thinking of a Warrior. Paragons are like warriors but are more focused on range but I can understand why someone like you doesn’t understand the difference. Warriors imo should be focused more on melee kinda sucks that all viable builds for warrior ALL use longbow. Feels like warriors are rangers with hammers lol

Bunnythumper! Didn’t need a pet anyways.

Black Frog.9274:

Goose.8195:

Thank you for assuming that I don’t know what a spear is, and the short history lesson.

Would you not just step in close on a norn wielding a highly realistic 7 foot hammer as well? (I don’t believe gigantic hammers relative to character size have much combat functionality in a realistic sense period) Fields, 2 handed knockback, lunges, maybe slamming the spear into the ground as a thief and doing some physical move off of it.

I spin with a greatsword on a guardian and it flings out immobilization that can pull enemies back in towards me. Does that also relate to a time in history?

The greatsword has an edge and the hammer has a large, weighted and balanced head. The spear is a thrusting weapon. Again, angular momentum. But for this discussion, the issue is related to game mechanics. Both of those weapons already fill the 2H weapon niche and the magic stick with field generating properties is filled by the staff. So what is that a spear is going to be doing that won’t put everything else about every class back on the balancing drawing board?

Realism or historical accuracy isn’t the issue. It’s, what is this for? Creatively it’s lots of fun to talk about, but it doesn’t add much of anything. The magic stick spear would give warriors some of the guardian’s niche. The throwing spear overlaps the throwing axe. Why do we need this spear!?

If we’re going to just brainstorm, forget spears, I want a chain weapon for my thief and I want unarmed combat. If we’re going down the rabbit hole, let’s go deep.

The 2h spear could kind of fill a melee style staff hybrid.

As for why? So we can use the underwater spear skins because so many of them are beautiful, and to add variety.

I’m cool with other weapon brainstorms as well, but the skins are there for spears, so making them functional on land would be an awesome way to make use of existing resources.

Add them both and I’ll give you my money already!

The spear needs a LotRO warden playstyle (being a melee weapon that can be thrown if needed) where the spear would have those two as weapon-sets to swap between.

(I do think Anet should remove the swapping of different weapons in combat overall and instead have two skillbars for each weapon to swap between with different characteristics like the spear idea i mentioned).

Two very fine examples of how the spear is used in combat:
from Troy, Achilles vs. Hector:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ62frK74u0

From Game of Thrones, The Red Viper of Dorne vs. The Mountain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyOw7ScY4F4

I want to dual wield quaggan.

I don’t care about spears.

Zoso.8279:

Yeah lore explains it but still I like paragon so ill ask to see it again. Warriors using ranged as much or more then melee for me makes 0 sense.

Lore explains what happens to Paragons in Tyria. Seeing how they originated in Elona, the profession could very well still be used in those parts.

Black Frog.9274:

2h spear really doesn’t have a place in GW2 land combat (or water, really). It’s a non-projectile ranged weapon that is utterly useless inside of 5 or 6 feet. It really isn’t useful against non-mounted opponents either.

I’ve to disagree with you strongly here and tell you, that you are absolutely wrong here with this statement.

I had so much fun playing the Paragon in Nightfall, it would be great to bring something like that back to GW2. I stand by my idea for it being an elementalist throwing weapon so they can have another physical-type weapon, but it would also be very cool to see how other classes handle said weapon too!

Spear underwater “1” for guards gives me kitten. I am against for throwing weapons that magically returns back to you from nowhere. For that reason i also dislike warrior bladetrail (boomerang srsly?)