Guild Wars 2 previews spears for Guardian, Necromancer, and Ranger – Vox ex Machina (2024)

Posted by Kyt Dotson | Jun 7, 2024 | News | 0 |

ArenaNet has finally previewed several of the classes in Guild Wars 2 for the long-awaited terrestrial spears in a video that gives away some of the animations for multiple classes – although it doesn’t give much information about how they’ll work, it does give a lot of clues.

The three classes under preview are Guardian, Necromancer, and Ranger – and each of them received actual new animations for land spears, keep reading for an analysis of what the developer has shown off.

Guardian

The Guardian gets what looks like a standard melee attack sequence with some area of effect with brilliant fire. What stands out immediately is a clear Symbol being marked on the ground, and potentially condition damage (although there’s no apparent fire on the enemy) so it’s unknown if this is a power or a condition weapon from the animations.

However, what ends up taking the entire cake from watching the video is when the guardian stomps the spear into the ground and summons AoE spears from the sky and they hammer down into the enemy. According to ArenaNet, the weapon set will include the ability to “illuminate” skills, causing them to become more powerful and granting them additional effects — and these effects can chain. It takes specific conditions to illuminate a skill.

For example, the second skill, Helio Rush, causes the Guardian to burst forward in a damaging/healing attack in a line. If the Guardian hits an enemy the next spear skill used will be illuminated. Chaining these illuminations in combos can be used to promote powerful attack formations.

Necromancer

Our deathly class is getting a gap-closer with a spear throw that jumps them into the opponent as well as a spear-flurry attack, which is reminiscent of an animation we already know from underwater spear. According to Anet, they will also produce “soul shards,” which are life-stealing objects similar to thief venoms, but will only be used on the spear’s second skill. They can be built up to six shards until they are consumed on the second use and have an additional effect.

The skill 2 is called “Perforate,” which is the spear-flurry that eats the soul shards and inflicts the heavy damage and teleporting to an enemy resets the cooldown on Perforate. The others skill also generate soul shards, so rotating into them will help build them up rapidly for more ripping and shredding.

The Necromancer appears to also be able to throw the spear so that it spins on the opponent similar to the way that axe necromancers throw their axes, but it might have a shorter range. There is also what looks like an AoE strike that might include condition (reminiscent of other attacks that display a symbol on the ground).

Once again, it’s difficult to tell if this is a power or a condition weapon here, there’s no clear indicator present to decide. However, given the overall pattern and the close range, it seems that power might be the likely attribute.

Ranger

Rangers are going “ranged” with a spear that is a straight-up javelin, they’re throwing and throwing hard, their auto attack looks like it just flung and the second strike appears to be a heavy throw. Then there’s an attack that causes them to leap to the enemy, pin them, and bring them back with them, similar to an attack the Revenant can deal.

We also see the Ranger strike and stealth, something that’s been long attached to the longbow. According to Anet, the stealth changes the other skills on the spear to become a different set of attacks. Each of them still shares cooldowns so it will depend on the attack style. Some attacks are also unblockable.

It seems more or less that this is most likely a power weapon set, given the way that it engages and stealths, it feels like a somewhat single target for grabbing and grappling. The objective here is to give Rangers the ability to move quickly in and out of melee range, use stealth to their advantage and cut through single and multiple targets.

Overall, it’s nice to see new animations given to this set and a fresh new way to engage the enemy. Guild Wars 2 hasn’t seen a brand-new weapon in a long time. Yes, players might note that spears have been in the water since launch, but they haven’t been on land ever and this counts as a new weapon.

See the reveal of spears coming to land in the previous blog post about the Janthir Wilds expansion for more information about how we will gain access to them for more information.

Image: ArenaNet