Every Profession In Guild Wars 2 Is Getting Spear Changes Based On Your Testing Feedback

In just a little under two weeks, Guild Wars 2's Janthir Wilds expansion will be released into the, well, wild. One of the largest new features (outside of content, of course) will be the addition of spear combat on land. The MMORPG's team has been previewing each profession and how they'll utilize the weapon and a beta test for spears was held.

In a new blog post, the team is ready to reveal some of the changes that will be made before launch based on your feedback. While the full change log won't be released until we see patch notes, today we get to see how every profession will be updated at a high level.

I'm going to start with Necromancers due to my personal bias and love for the profession. Necromancers used the spear in a "gain and spend" resources way and the team saw that Soul economy was dominated by Isolate and Distress abilities. Spreading out the soul generation a bit and refreshing soul shard duration upon each shard generation should balance the power out a bit and make a missed Isolate less punishing.

Elementalist looks impressive with some amazing animations, but damage output was lacking and the rotation wasn't as smooth as the team would have liked. Both will be changing.

In addition to some other changes, Mesmer will see a change to Mind the Gap. The ability will now generate Clarity even if you don't hit the target's outer edge. Hitting the outer edge will still provide bonus/crit damage, though. Lancer phantasms will have an easier time dealing with terrain when the expansion releases.

In a big change to Thief, skill chains will continue to progress for each ability you use and won't be dependent on actually hitting your target anymore. Rangers get a change to Panther's Prowl that will now grant Hunter's Prowess. This will allow you to use your next stealth skill even if you're revealed. This should smooth things out when popping in and out of stealth.

A few smaller changes come for the remaining professions, but they should help make the spear a bit easier to use. Engineers get increased ways to know which target is marked/focused and a casting time decrease. Revenant will also see casting times decreased and Crushing Abyss's maximum stacks reduced to 3 so they deal damage faster all the way around. Finally, Guardians were great in WvW, but lacked elsewhere. They'll be receiving target location changes and healing ability updates.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that I didn't mention Warriors. Yeah, they were just...bad outside of PvP. The range threshold mechanic itself wasn't great and Warriors will actually be getting a new ability, but we'll have to wait until later for specifics.

Janthir Wilds releases on August 20th.