There are reasons these weapons are almost always treated as secondary weapons in a ranged build (e.g. the rapier for mobility in a musket/rapier build), and very rarely used on their own in a build designed around them: they are awful to use, like really awful vs something like the greataxe or warhammer.
As they stand today, these are the biggest problems with them:
Poor tracking on normal attacks or abilities (supposedly this is being improved for the Spear in the upcoming patch)
Unforgiving/wonky hit detection. This makes abilities like āPerforateā useless. You are going to be lucky if you can land one hit on a target that has been knocked down, much less land the full 3 hits.
Long animation times on attacks or abilities. For example, why does the Spearās light thrust attack take longer to execute than the Greataxeās light attack? Letās not even talk about the Spearās heavy attack. Even if you can land a stun or knockdown on a human player, you are not going to have the time to hit them with a heavy spear attack.
Long transition times between attacks. For example, there is an exceptionally long transition time between the Rapierās 1st light attack and the 2nd and 3rd slash attacks. Why is my character hesitating here? The Rapier is supposed to be an extremely light weapon and its attacks should flow smoothly from one to another, not this janky mess that we currently have. I can thrust my hips forward in real life and transit to a sideways shake faster than my supposedly dexterous character can do with his light Rapier.
To AGS: The Rapier and Spear are primarily dexterity based weapons. Players should feel agile and dexterous when using them. A good player should be able to weave in and out of combat, and keep other heavy melee weapon users (e.g. the greataxe or warhammer) at max reach while doing chunks of damage with quick thrusts before swooping in for the kill. Instead I consistently feel slow and sluggish with these weapons, missing my hits and abilities while a greataxe user murders me effortlessly. I think when you guys copied Dark Souls for some of the in-game weapon attack animations in New World, you forgot to copy the Rapier or Spearās as well.
" missing my hits and abilities while a greataxe user murders me effortlessly."
Again AGS canāt be balancing the game around bad/average players.
Rapier/Spear very good weapons in the right hands I would say they almost feel OP with some players, they are able to do everything you are complaining you are not able on doing, dash in do damage dash out.
Why are people complaining, wait for the new patch they got massive nerfs to STR build, most people already switcher to DEX now even more will be playing DEX builds.
If anything in a week or so people will coming tot he forums and complain to nerf Rapier/Spear bow/musket lmao
They balance around bad/average players tho, thatās why they give an autolock aimbot to a melee weapon aka GA, void blade, etc. Also what he is saying is playing with the rapier/spear on its own, full melee vs melee against a GA, they stand no chance. They only do now because they are secondary weapons to a ranged weapon. They not good as primary weaps, hence noone uses them as such
to Edit, OutPost rush is already not fun (My server Pluto) as most people play Bow/musket and you barely see any melee fights. just a Bunch of ranger seating on top of the mountains and inside the bases sniping lol.
They need to nerf musket range, itās stupid that every ranged weapon has a distance on how far they can shoot, but musket is like a modern sniper rifle 5km no problem.
Spear maybe I agree. Spear vs GA, GA wins but not with Rapier. Rapier is good right now to be on its own. (At least from the Duels I seen)
Again with the new patch if everything comes out the way it is on PTR no point be an STR build.
On those duels, do they really use rapier as the main weapon? Against another light or even medium GA i can believe so, but against a heavy GA i donāt think rapier on its own can win.
Sure the point of the rapier is to get inā¦ do damage and get outā¦ the problem isā¦ all it takes is a single AOE from the GA or Hammer and its game over most of the time
Ye dude, I got a few guys that are so good they would duel GA users and use only rapier to beat them.
I see your point about Heavy AG users, b.c ye they would use Rapier to do some damage but mostly to get away from the them switch to Musket/Bow and finish them.
But still there need to be some kinda Rock/Paper/Scissors balance, If Rapier can beat AG users in light and Medium they should be some counter like using Heavy. otherwise, what is the point of going Heavy if everyone already can run away from you and now they can take you out with no problem being up close. do you get my point?
And about Balancing weapons around bad/average players. You will always have complaints then. As there are people who will take the weapons that got buffed for bad player use and make it look OP.
My points have been about issues with the Spear or Rapier, such as hit detection and janky gameplay. This isnāt a cry for buffing these weapons, but fixing problems that make them so awful to play with. If AGS wants to nerf Rapier damage because it is too high, go ahead, but they should make these weapons satisfying to use and an expression of skill-based gameplay. Really, you need to have had used meta melee weapons such as the greataxe, and then used the spear, to really appreciate the difference between these two.
Can a very good player make these weapons work? Sure they can. But there is a reason why the current melee meta in both mid-scale pvp (OPR) and large-scale pvp (wars) is greataxe/warhammer heavies. These weapons are extremely forgiving to use: they have good hitboxes, great aoe cc abilities that have a ridiculous range, and hit for large amounts of damage. Try the spear. More often than not you are left looking like an idiot when your perforate hits nothing.
The upcoming patch isnāt going to change the balance between Dex and Str melee weapons. Until AGS picks up their balls to introduce diminishing returns on cc, the warhammer will still be the meta melee weapon.
I can see that with Spear, I tried to main a spear at some point felt awful. WIth Rapier I am making a switch right now, it feels fine to use.
But I agree with you a lot of weapons need improvement.
I canāt agree about meta switching to DEX. on My server its already happened most people run in DEX builds. With the new patch, even more, people will be switching.
ādiminishing returns on ccā yeā¦ I can see that.
I guess for Wars/Invasions I do see enough Warhammers GA nothing changed in here but b.c I donāt do them often enough I donāt recall care. But in OPR and in Open World all I see is Musket/Bow now lmao
I am on board with the spear feeling less than ideal but I think your entirely off base with rapier. I use rapier in most my builds and feel its hands down one of the best weapons in the game. As you pointed out the mobility makes it a great secondary weapon. But on its own its also has some of the best burst damage and outplay potential in the game. You donāt need tracking and adjustments to the auto attacks. What you do is flecheā>backstabā>evade into a few lights. Sure they are going to be able to run away from your autos after, but there is a big if here. IF they live through that burst damage. Fleche is your way of getting damage in and its low enough cooldown. Not even getting into the fact that overall its the most well rounded kit in the game. There really is no reason you cant kill a GA player with it. You just have to get in for damage, avoid getting hit, and burst again when its right. You cant just go toe to toe and expect vcictory.
I love spear. It does soo much damage that Iām happy with it. The tracking is a bit off but you can time your abilities + itās a team game. Outside of duels if you tag along with hammer or ga guy you can even play it with full pve right side build! You will rend and back stab impalers are crazy
My comments have to do with the general feeling of playing the Rapier, not its burst potential or its ability to win duels. I agree that Rapier hands down has the best dps and burst damage in this game, and yes it can win against a gaxe player. Your post demonstrates exactly whatās wrong with the Rapier: it relies too much on āEvadeā and āFlecheā to tie everything together.
Firstly, this reduces build diversity: Rapier players overwhelmingly choose the right weapon mastery tree rather than incorporate skills from the left tree because of āEvadeā and āFlecheā.
Secondly, when the aforementioned 2 abilities are on cooldown, everything else about the Rapier feels quite of a clumsy mess to play. How many times have you flinched because you accidentally transited into the 4th hit of the Rapierās 4 light attacks combo (this is the attack that we Rapier players actively try to avoid)? Why is there a significant pause between the 1st hit to the 2nd and 3rd slash hits in the 4 attack combo? These are my points about the Rapier at the moment.
Again I repeat, AGS can reduce the damage of Rapier if it is too bursty. But make the damn weapon feel smooth to use instead of forcing players to rely on āEvadeā.
The average weight of a Rapier is 1kg (or 2.2lbs). You are correct that the Rapier is about the same weight as a one-handed sword, yet the one-handed sword in this game feels so much better to use.
The OP is completely right about the spear. Thatās the only thing Iām going to comment on since I donāt play rapier.
I have 933 hours of gameplay and around 850 of those hours are with bow/spear.
Spear has a ridiculous amount of problems right now and while it is true that you can make it work that doesnāt mean we should ignore the amount of bugs spear currently has.
There are videos that go over 5 minutes long just showcasing all the bugs spear currently has. Unfortunately, AGS keeps buffing the spear instead of fixing it. No amount of buffs are going to make up for the bugs it has. It would be a very strong weapon if it worked right.
Sweep bug which is crucial to work right, otherwise weāre just pretty much dead - Sweep - YouTube
The list of many bugs the spear has that are known, thereāre likely more than these - Spear bugs? - YouTube
The tracking of spear laās/haās and abilities is nonexistent. Itās like playing with a melee musket/bow where you need to hit exactly where the player is and once you press the button your animation is going to go where you pointed at the start of the animation no matter what.
Letās compare that with a Warhammer now.
Try using any of the great hammerās abilities. While pressing the button for any of your ability and while youāre inside of the animation you can rotate and do 360ās if you want and your hammer is going to hit where your crosshair is at the END of the animation.
Try looking at the either left or right side of your opponent, not directly at your opponent and press your LA/HA. They go on your opponent.
This is something that the spear needs as well.
Hopefully, the upcoming patch is going to help with that. Iām genuinely looking forward to it because spear is by far my favorite weapon.
Iāve ran Firestaff/Rapier since release and I understand where youāre coming from. The light attacks CANā¦ feel clunky. Rapier does have a lot of animation cancellation abilities and such a massive cool down % that even if you get that āclunkyā feelingā¦most players can or will transition to a roll/dash or an ability and not really even notice the .5s delay. In my opinion, itās one of the more, if not the most, smooth weapon optionā¦ and once you have the Rapier down patā¦itās like sliding on butter itās so smooth.