Guild Wars 2

I feel as if the spear skills underwater are way too passive. I dredge going underwater because our only initiative dump is on the speargun. Otherwise the spear is very passive, waiting to block an attack to unload damage. I also feel like the stun at the end of the pull ability slows down combat even further. Not only that, but our only useful slot skills underwater is venoms, and signets, which promotes the passive and slow play.

actually I tend to use the 5 skill almost exclusively not the block one, with the Opportunist trait(15 pt critical strike) I gain enough initiative that I can usually not spend it fast enough, however yes the spear seems a bit boring at times, yet brutally effective against most stuff. Only really uses harpoongun against bosses and such

I’m a little disappointed that we have to use spears for melee, I think a diving knife would have been much more appropriate.

That said, I do use the 5 skill a lot and I tend to avoid using the flanking attack (#2 I think) since it swings you around and causes potential aggro.

I love the spear. You can essentially be a tank underwater with it.

Charge in, use 5.

After 5 imediately hit 3 because the enemy is usually about to throw off an attack.

use 2 once or twice and the enemy should be dead.

In a 1v1 situation you would have sustained no damage from that combo.

SyF.1693:

I feel as if the spear skills underwater are way too passive. I dredge going underwater because our only initiative dump is on the speargun. Otherwise the spear is very passive, waiting to block an attack to unload damage. I also feel like the stun at the end of the pull ability slows down combat even further. Not only that, but our only useful slot skills underwater is venoms, and signets, which promotes the passive and slow play.

Spear can dump initiative through shadow assault and flanking strike, I agree the self stun on tow line kind of sucks but is probably needed for balance.

The big thing I agree with though, is the lack of utility skills and more importantly, elites that we can use under water. Especially elites, since we only have 1 that works under water and it’s our (imo anyway) most lackluster elite.

The cast time ruins most of the potential of the skill as an interrupt, and it doesn’t even seem to work with harpoon gun, only spear.

Nine tailed strike. Thats all you need. Get in melee range, use the skill. If the enemy attacks, you do about omgwtkittens amounts of damage. If they don’t, you regain initiative. Lather -> rinse -> repeat.

I have killed veteran level bosses, including story bosses, using this skill alone. And they never did one single point of damage. It’s easily the most ridiculous skill in the game, with consideration to land and water skills.

Seriously. Get right up in the bad guys face and just sit there with a spear and hit 3.

AcidicVision.5498:

Nine tailed strike. Thats all you need. Get in melee range, use the skill. If the enemy attacks, you do about omgwtkittens amounts of damage. If they don’t, you regain initiative. Lather -> rinse -> repeat.

I have killed veteran level bosses, including story bosses, using this skill alone. And they never did one single point of damage. It’s easily the most ridiculous skill in the game, with consideration to land and water skills.

Seriously. Get right up in the bad guys face and just sit there with a spear and hit 3.

Only works against a single enemy, and you need to get the timing pretty good, and it’s a pretty slow way to kill things (albeit safe, it’s like keeping veterans permablind with black powder while you autoattack them to death)

I don’t like how we have extremely poor AoE capabilities underwater, making crowds (and c’mon, underwater it’s always crowds) a pain and tagging mobs for loot/xp/contribution even more of a pain. The spear doesn’t even have any AoE abilities at all.

Spear is also worthless when somebody other than yourself is being attacked – all you can really do is spam #1. Does it really need 3 evasion/block skills? #3 handles single targets just fine while actually pumping out okay damage, and #5 is nice for groups. I don’t see why #2 exists. Tow Line is also pretty bad at catching things. It’ll take you to them, and it will cripple them, but there’s a pretty significant period of time after using it that you cannot do anything at all rendering the whole thing pointless against stuff that keeps moving.

The elite situation is the worst. I don’t understand why I can’t use thieves guild underwater. Can thieves not swim? I seem to swim pretty okay.

Vargs.6234:

I don’t like how we have extremely poor AoE capabilities underwater, making crowds (and c’mon, underwater it’s always crowds) a pain and tagging mobs for loot/xp/contribution even more of a pain. The spear doesn’t even have any AoE abilities at all.

This!