Janthir Wilds is an expansion forGuild Wars 2that brings many features requested by fans throughout the years. Player housing and new raids are among the hottest ticket items, but the biggest surprise is the addition of a new weapon, the Spear, which was previously used exclusively for underwater combat.
Now, every class gets access to this Spear once the Mastery has been unlocked, letting you use spears with all your characters, even if they aren’t level 80. With all their new and powerful skills, it is worth looking at what they have to offer, since you’ll likely find your new favorite weapon here.
9Guardian
The Support Spear
If you’re only looking to fill the support role in your group, then the Guardian variant of the Spear might be right up your alley. It’s a little bit more involved than other supportive options, since you need to pay attention to your positioning so you’re able to “illuminate” your skills, making them do more damage, give out more boons or provide healing for greater value.
Beyond support, this Spear isn’t doing nearly enough damage to make it your main weapon when casuallyplaying on your own.A lot of the skills feel wasted when not playing in a group, and even when you are, you might end up focusing too much on illuminating your skills instead of helping others get back into the fight.
8Revenant
All About Abyssal Raze
The rotation of a Revenant Spear is clear: make the biggest impact you can with Abyssal Raze (skill five) by lowering its cooldown and gaining more empowering stacks. Once you use the almighty Abyssal Raze, the stacks of the ability make another damaging pulse if you swap weapons, making it the clear final skill.
The only issue with that is how there is little in the way of experimentation with these skills, and you’re almost forced to swap weapons, even if you don’t want to. With how Revenants need to tread carefully with their energy consumption, it makes a Spear a bit of a hassle to deal with, and only slightly worth it if you’re aiming for a condition damage build.
7Thief
Odd Usage Of Initiative
The idea behind Thief’s Spear skills is to chain combos together, almost like playing a fighting game. As such, it shines when using it in competitive modes, although it can only do so when you’ve learned every single combination of the combos, which can take time.
For other game modes, the Spear has trouble keeping up. Its main appeal is how involved it can get to use it, but it is also its main drawback: since Thieves can use initiative to spam certain weapon skills together, a more casual player will gravitate towards Daggers or Pistols that let them deal damage without learning a combo spreadsheet.
6Ranger
Aggressive Stealth
Rangers use their Spears as stealthy hunters, with every single Spear skill being empowered when attacking from stealth. Their main source of stealth is the Spear skill five, vanishing them from sight and letting the skills get their maximum damage output.
Like many other Spear skills, this is both a blessing and a curse, since you may end up focusing more on being stealthed than ondoing well in combat.The key difference between a Ranger Spear and all other ones, is that entering stealth is not that complicated, and you can even pair it with a Longbow so you don’t waste the charges of skill five.
5Engineer
The Cinematic Spear
The Spear for Engineer has two main mechanics: marking enemies with skill two, and priming skill three. Both mechanics are independent of one another, and easy enough to follow, making a Spear a very solid choice if you’re looking to make a melee build for your Engineer.
Skill two, Conduit Surge, is your gap closer as well as the way you mark enemies, making all other skills deal additional effects against your focused foe. Lightning Rod (skill three), on the other hand, generates a powerful floating Spear that, once finished, can deal a massive amount of damage to your enemies, and it has such a visual effect that you don’t need to keep track of it on the skill bar.
4Necromancer
Stacking Soul Shards
Necromancers have always been good at surviving lots of damage, but the skills of the Spear might make them nearly unstoppable, at least when fighting within range. Not only does the Spear kit let them chase down opponents, the Soul Shard mechanic lets them burst said enemies down before they can react.
As for how the Soul Shards function, you gather them with nearly all your skills, and spend them with Perforate, the skill two of the Spear. This lets you rotate through all other skills as you see fit, letting you experiment until you’re ready to unleash the full power Perforate has to offer.
3Warrior
A Needed Ranged Option
Warriors have access to a lot of weapons; the most out of all classes by a large margin. Even then, their options for ranged damage are fairly limited, including only the Longbow, the Rifle, and thanks to Janthir Wilds, the Spear.
While the Longbow and the Rifle are great not only as ranged options, but as main weapons as well, the Spear shines when combined with your preferred method of melee damage. All Spear skills are about crippling, immobilizing or chasing down your opponent, letting you catch them with ease so you can then swap and unleash your melee combo on them.
2Elementalist
What Staff Dreams It Could Be
Players looking to fulfill the mighty spellcaster fantasy with Elementalist are usually drawn to the Staff, only to be underwhelmed by its performance. Even the animations have lost some of their magic as the years have gone by, but the Spear is here to pick up where the Staff failed long ago.
Each Spear Skill has a fluidity in its animations that makes you feel like a real wizard, but this is also accentuated by gameplay. The skill five for each element grows in power as you use skills, making you really work for that ultimate spell, be it a bursting volcano or a mighty windstorm.
1Mesmer
The Perfect Combo
The way Mesmers use the Spear combines many things from the other classes, fulfilling everything that makes all other Spears fun without it being a chore to use. It also gives Mesmers a decent melee option, since they are already spoiled for choice when it comes too long ranged damage.
The idea behind a Spear for Mesmers is to strike your enemies with skill two, which empowers your next Spear skill, but you have to hit them with the tip of the spear. This makes you want to go for a specific rotation, without being mindless about it; you have to consider your positioning relative to your enemy if you want to make the most out of this rewarding weapon.
