So, I spent some time testing the Rev spear and after less than an hour I had to call it quits. This is the worst-designed weapon I've ever seen. It's cumbersome to use, unfocused and lacks several of the abilities which make other weapons a vastly superior choice.
Spear 1, Abyssal Strike: Whether you're in melee or ranged it's just the same skill repeated over and over again with different animations. The Ranger spear has a different ability for range and a complete AA chain. This is subpar when directly compared to another weapon.
Spear 2, Abyssal Force: 1-second cast and then a slow travel to the target. 600 range and it STILL takes about ½ a second for it to make impact. Being in the face of your target still has the hit happen sometime after the cast.
Spear 3. Abyssal Blitz: The only ability with a ½-second cast. This means you can reliably get it off. It's directionally targeted and summons three mines on the line when cast. Any target has to walk into the mines as even on a large hitbox you're unlikely to get more than one off even if you stand at optimal range. Using it as a dash to get away from your target TURNS YOU AROUND so you have to turn around again to continue attacking, meaning that when used like that the AA will only start AFTER you orientiate yourself towards the target.
Spear 4, Abyssal Blot: The pull, needs to be ground-targeted and then has a cast timer. It also functions as a Defiance Break, has good damage, and needs to be spammed due to it giving CD reduction to Spear 5 which makes its use as a reliable CC incidental at best. The pull only happens on the last of six hits giving people enough targets enough time to get out of it that they can be utterly unaffected. The only good thing I can say about this is that if you have picture-perfect timing you can combo this with Abyssal Force.
Spear 5, Abyssal Raze: Ground-targeted with a 1 1/4-second cast. At least goes off immediately when the cast is completed and the aftercast animation is virtually non-existent. Those are the only things I can say about it since while the benefit from the other skills is a novel idea it makes the skill feel clunky to use.
The Condi component of the spear is solely Torment.
Even with snap-to-ground targeting the Rev spear feels horrible to use. It feels like an inferior short bow and while you can get away with the qualities in PvE where the ability of mobs is limited going into PvP or WvW with this weapon is DOA. Almost all the skills of the spear can be interrupted even a basic ½-second cast Daze. The direct damage is slow and in a lot of cases easily avoidable. Using movement abilities people can get off Abyssal Blot before the pull affects them. The cast time on Abyssal Raze makes it unviable in an environment where people constantly move around. One cleanse will wipe the Condition damage component clean off, making the damage profile of this weapon in competitive environments a nonstarter. 600 Range can hardly be called ranged in the first place. It's just extended melee that you can use projectile hate abilities against.
This execution is horrible. There's no way that the abilities can be saved as even if the cast and animation time are reduced to a more manageable level the skills themselves are boring, the 1 is particularly uninteresting as you only see the same animation repeated over and over again as the only change between them are whether you're in melee or ranged.
Can everything and instead use the GS as the base and make it fully a hybrid melee weapon.
Spear 1, Abyssal Strike: An AA chain where the first attack inflicts Burning. The second Torment. The third is Burning and Torment and gives one stack of Crushing Abyss.
Spear 2, Abyssal Slash: An attack that inflicts Burning and Torment, hits up to five targets- Reduces the CD of Abyssal Raze by X-seconds.
Spear 3, Abyssal Blitz: Makes you move along a line. If you have a target your direction will always be facing the target. Spawns three mines that move towards the primary target and explode (possibly also inflicting Conditions of some kind). Each mine and the Blitz itself generates a stack on Crushing Abyss for each target hit to a maximum of five stacks.
Spear 4, Abyssal Barrier. Blocks attacks for the duration. Reduces CD of Abyssal Raze by X, each blocked attack further reduces it by Y-seconds.
Spear 5, Abyssal Raze: does damage and inflicts Burning and Torment. Each stack of Crushing Abyss increases the damage by X% and generates 1 additional stack of Burning and Torment. Ammo count 1, Crushing Abyss only goes away on the timer rather than on the use of Abyssal Raze.
This would make the spear more interactive with itself since you'd want to get the abilities off. It would also make it less Abyssal Raze-focused as right now it feels like everything else only exists in service of Abyssal Raze, which IMO is boring.
Edited by Malus.2184
