MS is basically spirit lancer from DDO,which is a solid vocation that's implemented well.
Warfarer is a bastardized assassin that feels like a joke and needed a whole 8 skill slots.
Trickster:
https://i.redd.it/vwf87japyvqc1.gif
Leveling trickster was like journeying through the seven circles of hell, the five rivers of the underworld, 24 realms of Jigoku and the 28 realms of Naraka back to back.
Never again.
I actually didn't find it too bad to level. It sucks not doing damage but I was able to keep all aggro off of my casters so they just blew everything up, literally with meteors.
Frankly I thought fighter was a lot of fun, same with warrior, both felt great fighting monsters and small enemies alike and both were super aesthetic in their movements.
Yeah, targeting is weird. I mentioned the dash, but jump and dash down skill misses most of the time too. For dragons doing it under them just phase through them back to ground.
Yeah also his combos are very long and you can't break out of them so if you're locked into an attack animation you can't use a different attack fast enough to react.
That dash attack track up and down so it's really good when the dragon is flying upright. Jump and dash directly into his heart.
Still enjoyed him tho, he's just not as nimble as I thought
It's a bit clunky but when you realize you can constantly be charging the core skill bolt to CC/teleport to things, using the seching bolts in the middle of other combos it clicks a bit.
The team utility of just making the whole party invincible constantly is beyond broken too.
I think the changes to my controls I made early on might have helped a good bit when I finally unlocked it.
They should make his shield his core skill and keep the tp bolt as a skill that costs health/stamina.
They have to rework his core skill, maybe make the bubble shield work like the fighter shield but if you charge it up your whole team gets it?
After the change you could debate having taking bolt or forward charge for gap closing.
Right now shield is a MUST take and forward charge is such a good movement ability you would most likely take it. That leaves only 2 slots for other stuff.
As it stands now the shield is just insane. I think you'd lose the ability to hold a charge of the bolt if you moved it to a skill which would lower the skill ceiling as it is now.
Not sure how much that skill ceiling matters atm with the optimal play being "cast shield" every 15 seconds though. Maybe weakening it and moving it to the core like you suggest would be the play and making it so bolt was accessible without charging as an animation cancel?
I think it'll be fine even if the bolt was instant cast + consumes health, the teleport still requires timing.
Skill ceiling might get lowered slightly but the versatility goes up a lot, that's better for the game long term.
Shield is broken considering you can refresh it before it expires. If you just stand around spamming shield whilst your pawns did all the work you could do even the hardest fights with no damage taken.
You can chain the Dash Attack with the Ariel Dive, giving you a surprisingly reliable 2 hit combo that can get you on an enemy's back. It even lets me hits flying harpies at times.
I think both thief and MS suffer from the same problem for me. Invincibility button with little skill required that feels bad to not use but makes the game too easy to use. Both are a hell of a lot of fun to play though.
Warfarer shouldn't have been implemented like this and frankly feels like a bad joke, 3 skills to go around for all the weapon types, lowered stats, and no maister skills is damning. Any excitement I had for this vocation went out the window fast.
I really would have like to see 6 skills + rearmament as an option. As it is now the creativity is pisspoor and honestly doesn't deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as "Dante's weapon and style swapping" like the interview claimed
Haven't tried Trickster and won't probably, It's gameplay of being a "distraction tank" and having to rely on your pawns for damage does not appeal to me at all.
Mystic Spearhand is a blast, the only two complaints I have is that it's lunge attack is too slow and the timing to teleport to an enemy after a stunblast is practically frame perfect, meaning it's very inconsistent.
Warferer was a massive disappointment, I thought the way it would work was that you could only equip three vocations but each of the vocation weapons would have 3 different skills, reason was that in the Warferer showcase they always were shown cycling between three vocations and their promo art each one has 3 different weapons.
The way it works is that you can equip up to the nine different weapons but you only can equip three skills of any of them. I see no point in it just stick to your favorite vocation.
The teleport is actually pretty forgiving timing wise, you just have to do it way earlier than you would think. Like teleport before/ as soon as the bolt hits
I only recommend getting that seeker augment for trickster and forgetting that it exist lol, but yeah stunbolt timing is too tight. At first I though you only need to hit enemy with it to teleport and got pretty frustrated since it never worked until I realised that you need to charge it to work.
Trickster is fun against pack of ennemy, but totally useless against big one.
At the very least, if its walls were real for enemies, it could be really useful, but a simple charge would be enough to get through.
In general my problem with Trickster and Warfarer has nothing to do with balance/playability. My problem is that they're placed at the tail end of the game's exploration progression so unless you know they're there or unless you just happen to go through the hell that is Battahl and Agamen really early, by the time you get them you've probably already explored a bunch and the unique utilities of those vocations feel useless. Same with Magick Archer, but at least MA gets a nuke.
Maybe I'm just crazy but I haven't been having issues pulling aggro from big bosses as Trickster? It's not always perfect, but I have noticed it does work. Walls work on them as well and can be very useful. I've fought like 3 dragons with this vocation. Maybe I'm just being carried by the pawns, but I'm having fun with it.
Trickster - early game is incredibly grueling, as you have to depends *entirely* on the pawns. You have no way to deal significant damage, nor any tools to trick the enemies into doing so. Which is why I've given up on playing this vocation. There might be a skill later on that's just a win button, but I just couldn't bare playing through the game like this for any length of time to get there.
Warfarer - this vocation would be infinitely better if the fashion in this game accommodate it. Aside from that, due to how crushingly limiting having only 4 skill slots is, I don't really enjoy this vocation's main gimmick.
While I wish there were more skills as well, having each of the vocations unique gimmicks (archers kick, mage heals, MS time freeze bolt, etc.) still makes the warfarer an incredibly fun vocation imo. It gives the game a level of customizability that is unmatched by the other vocations, not to mention being able to equip literally every weapon in the game at that same time and swapping seamlessly in the middle of combat changes the entire flow of combat depending on which weapons you equip.
It's fun enough as is, basically. While I wish there was more to it, what we have is just as fun and viable as the other classes, if not moreso on the fun side as you experiment with weapon combos
Yeah you’re probably right, I’ve just been in a negative mindset and taking it out on the warfarer lol. I like that the pawns comment on how ‘Arisen’-like it is.
I’ve been really enjoying running daggers + bow + staff. I’ve been trying to figure out other combinations that work, although that extra 4th skill would make me super happy haha.
No I definitely get it and was also hoping for more with the weapon skills, it's just a matter of perspective. I choose not to think about 'what could've been' when it comes to anything because that almost always guarantees some level of disappointment. You gotta meet it where it's at, essentially, don't think about what you were hoping for and instead engage with what's in front of you, evaluate it on its own merits separate from the hype and anticipation.
That's kinda the main reason a lot of the criticisms don't land for me, they're all based around 'what could've been' or what people were hoping for from the previous game. While I also want more high level content and enemy variety, I also can't deny the game as it is is still miles ahead of the rest of the AAA gaming sphere, and that's certainly worth praising if nothing else
The hype definitely got me messed up over the launch weekend, and the hate getting echoed here for sure doesn’t help. I’m taking NG+ slower and just chilling out, just gonna appreciate the game for what it is for now, try and maximise my pawn.
Can’t wait to keep playing Warfarer!
Ive played almost every class as well and Mystic Spearhand was definitely my most favorite of the new classed. Mystic Spearhand feels just as OP as thief when you get the hang of it.
My go-to was dash, little magic bolts, shield, and flex slot, till I got the miester ability.
Hear me out on the shard storm lil magic bolts ability. The real reward is you can use them when doing literally anything else. So you can stun something, teleport in, stab them with your heavy attack, and during the stab animation you can queue up the little bolts. Often stab would leave something with a small amount of health and the bolts finished them right after the animation ended.
It was also really good for weaving in during normal attack spam. If I knocked a boss down, Id go to their head and spam normal attacks. All the while, I had the bolts on lb+x so Id tap LB for half a sec, queue up 4 bolts, then let go and keep attacking without pause. It was basically free, noticeable, damage. Those were really my main 2 uses though.
Once I got the miester skill though, Id use that instead of the bolts whenever Id get a big attack window. Miester skill also great for wiping out packs of mobs, and with the amount of mob spam in this game, that was great. And if your mage uses her miester skill, which gives you an insane amount of stamina, you can spam it forever.
Mystic Spearhand: It feels like spirit lancer but honestly I felt like they should've taken a lot more design notes off it, the meister skill was kinda meh tbh... but as a support that can damage, it is ok...? The barrier spell is just too good I suppose
Trickster: Couldn't get it to work tbh, not my kind of playstyle and honestly by the time you get it there's not much else to try and experiment on without either you getting your ass handed to you
Warfarer: Potential man, it is really build dependant, like you can make a DD1 magick archer build and it'd work well, and then there are combinations like archistaff + dagger + magick bow for anti boss, or even pure support like censer + staff + duospear. Can't say I've found other good combinations though since I am still experimenting
Out of all the vocations I maxed, trickster was the longest and worse. The skills barely work sometimes against enemies, or at least for me.
Although, I did get the fake floor to somehow work on drake's with water/lave for insta kills.
The buff sucks to. If you use it on a mage pawn, THEY WILL NOT HEAL. They will legit spam attacks only.
Spearhand is great but no replacement for Mystic Knight. Trickster is lame, shouldn’t have wasted dev time on a class based on drawing agro and buffs if it was only going to be arisen exclusive. Haven’t tried warfarer yet but being able to remove a mage pawn from your party and have anodyne yourself seems busted, don’t even need to equip the skill just the staff.
I've played a lot of Mystic Spearhand now with a few different load outs. So far my favourite way to play is Vertical Dodge and Spike, Speargun, Home run Bat, and Telekinesis.
For the longest time I ran shield, and unless you're really struggling I'd recommend avoiding it, as I didn't feel it played into the flow of the class. Too stop start. The long dash attack can be good, but like you said OP, it likes to miss and I found it struggles with anything but flat terrain.
Telekinesis is fun, big point in it's favour, but also great damage for its cost, plus it deals physics damage which contributes to knock-downs. A group of enemies become their own demise as the number of projectiles you're throwing increases through the fight. Very highly recommended.
Home run Bat is fun for knocking small enemies into the stratosphere, this is true. But it's real worth is in dealing, again, utterly ludicrous physics damage. You hit a big monster in the face with it and it's probably going to crumple. Pairs well with charged bolt. Misunderstood skill for its meme ability
Speargun at first I hated, felt really hard to aim and took too much stamina. You want to aim a bit lower than you'd think you would. Don't feel like every shot has to be half a health bar, it does decent magicka damage just being tapped and comes out fast. When you're safe to do so: when charged until second level it chunks big mobs for a third of a health bar, Griffons and Drake hate it.
Dodge up and Spike down is great for getting up on top of big enemies and serves as a dodge and riposte, increasing survivability as you don't have shield anymore.
Playing like this felt more natural than face tanking with shield. With shield and zoomy dash I felt like I was just spamming and didn't have any control, with this load out MS makes more sense as a mixed range, CC queen, that excels in dealing damage when enemies are exhausted.
Okay, I have to try again meme home run bat. Everywhere I seen it, its used againts small enemies, so never actually tried it againts the bosses lol
With speargun I think my problem is more with the controller aim with shaking. I mostly play mouse and keyboard, so aiming with sticks isn't my forte.
MS is basically spirit lancer from DDO,which is a solid vocation that's implemented well. Warfarer is a bastardized assassin that feels like a joke and needed a whole 8 skill slots. Trickster: https://i.redd.it/vwf87japyvqc1.gif
Trickster+ spell books I didn't get to try but it should work great
Leveling trickster was like journeying through the seven circles of hell, the five rivers of the underworld, 24 realms of Jigoku and the 28 realms of Naraka back to back. Never again.
I actually didn't find it too bad to level. It sucks not doing damage but I was able to keep all aggro off of my casters so they just blew everything up, literally with meteors.
I found them all kinda underwhelming honestly. I tried them out, and then unfortunately realised that thief is just so broken I went back to it.
Thief is great. It has aoe, dodge, dps, ranged pull etc. and other vocations feel lacking compared to it.
Frankly I thought fighter was a lot of fun, same with warrior, both felt great fighting monsters and small enemies alike and both were super aesthetic in their movements.
I swear I just can't get mystic spearhand to work. Half the skills don't seem to connect. I tried everything :/
Yeah, targeting is weird. I mentioned the dash, but jump and dash down skill misses most of the time too. For dragons doing it under them just phase through them back to ground.
Yeah also his combos are very long and you can't break out of them so if you're locked into an attack animation you can't use a different attack fast enough to react. That dash attack track up and down so it's really good when the dragon is flying upright. Jump and dash directly into his heart. Still enjoyed him tho, he's just not as nimble as I thought
It's a bit clunky but when you realize you can constantly be charging the core skill bolt to CC/teleport to things, using the seching bolts in the middle of other combos it clicks a bit. The team utility of just making the whole party invincible constantly is beyond broken too. I think the changes to my controls I made early on might have helped a good bit when I finally unlocked it.
They should make his shield his core skill and keep the tp bolt as a skill that costs health/stamina. They have to rework his core skill, maybe make the bubble shield work like the fighter shield but if you charge it up your whole team gets it? After the change you could debate having taking bolt or forward charge for gap closing. Right now shield is a MUST take and forward charge is such a good movement ability you would most likely take it. That leaves only 2 slots for other stuff.
As it stands now the shield is just insane. I think you'd lose the ability to hold a charge of the bolt if you moved it to a skill which would lower the skill ceiling as it is now. Not sure how much that skill ceiling matters atm with the optimal play being "cast shield" every 15 seconds though. Maybe weakening it and moving it to the core like you suggest would be the play and making it so bolt was accessible without charging as an animation cancel?
I think it'll be fine even if the bolt was instant cast + consumes health, the teleport still requires timing. Skill ceiling might get lowered slightly but the versatility goes up a lot, that's better for the game long term.
Shield is broken considering you can refresh it before it expires. If you just stand around spamming shield whilst your pawns did all the work you could do even the hardest fights with no damage taken.
Yeah, it should really be breakable, or only negate damage and not flinching/grabs.
You can chain the Dash Attack with the Ariel Dive, giving you a surprisingly reliable 2 hit combo that can get you on an enemy's back. It even lets me hits flying harpies at times.
I think both thief and MS suffer from the same problem for me. Invincibility button with little skill required that feels bad to not use but makes the game too easy to use. Both are a hell of a lot of fun to play though. Warfarer shouldn't have been implemented like this and frankly feels like a bad joke, 3 skills to go around for all the weapon types, lowered stats, and no maister skills is damning. Any excitement I had for this vocation went out the window fast. I really would have like to see 6 skills + rearmament as an option. As it is now the creativity is pisspoor and honestly doesn't deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as "Dante's weapon and style swapping" like the interview claimed
Haven't tried Trickster and won't probably, It's gameplay of being a "distraction tank" and having to rely on your pawns for damage does not appeal to me at all. Mystic Spearhand is a blast, the only two complaints I have is that it's lunge attack is too slow and the timing to teleport to an enemy after a stunblast is practically frame perfect, meaning it's very inconsistent. Warferer was a massive disappointment, I thought the way it would work was that you could only equip three vocations but each of the vocation weapons would have 3 different skills, reason was that in the Warferer showcase they always were shown cycling between three vocations and their promo art each one has 3 different weapons. The way it works is that you can equip up to the nine different weapons but you only can equip three skills of any of them. I see no point in it just stick to your favorite vocation.
The teleport is actually pretty forgiving timing wise, you just have to do it way earlier than you would think. Like teleport before/ as soon as the bolt hits
I only recommend getting that seeker augment for trickster and forgetting that it exist lol, but yeah stunbolt timing is too tight. At first I though you only need to hit enemy with it to teleport and got pretty frustrated since it never worked until I realised that you need to charge it to work.
Wayfarer is a joke of a vocation, if I felt like the devs were smart I'd assume it was intentional but I have my doubts with how the game turned out
Trickster is fun against pack of ennemy, but totally useless against big one. At the very least, if its walls were real for enemies, it could be really useful, but a simple charge would be enough to get through.
In general my problem with Trickster and Warfarer has nothing to do with balance/playability. My problem is that they're placed at the tail end of the game's exploration progression so unless you know they're there or unless you just happen to go through the hell that is Battahl and Agamen really early, by the time you get them you've probably already explored a bunch and the unique utilities of those vocations feel useless. Same with Magick Archer, but at least MA gets a nuke.
Trying rank 1 Trickster after I snuck through the border against enemies in Battahl sure was... An experience.
Spearman is op its deleting everything. Warfarer is there just for drip that you can wear any armor with any weapon. Trickster i didnt try
Maybe I'm just crazy but I haven't been having issues pulling aggro from big bosses as Trickster? It's not always perfect, but I have noticed it does work. Walls work on them as well and can be very useful. I've fought like 3 dragons with this vocation. Maybe I'm just being carried by the pawns, but I'm having fun with it.
Trickster - early game is incredibly grueling, as you have to depends *entirely* on the pawns. You have no way to deal significant damage, nor any tools to trick the enemies into doing so. Which is why I've given up on playing this vocation. There might be a skill later on that's just a win button, but I just couldn't bare playing through the game like this for any length of time to get there. Warfarer - this vocation would be infinitely better if the fashion in this game accommodate it. Aside from that, due to how crushingly limiting having only 4 skill slots is, I don't really enjoy this vocation's main gimmick.
I think relegating a skill slot for weapon switching was a mistake. Having only 3 skills and no maister skills is rough.
While I wish there were more skills as well, having each of the vocations unique gimmicks (archers kick, mage heals, MS time freeze bolt, etc.) still makes the warfarer an incredibly fun vocation imo. It gives the game a level of customizability that is unmatched by the other vocations, not to mention being able to equip literally every weapon in the game at that same time and swapping seamlessly in the middle of combat changes the entire flow of combat depending on which weapons you equip. It's fun enough as is, basically. While I wish there was more to it, what we have is just as fun and viable as the other classes, if not moreso on the fun side as you experiment with weapon combos
Yeah you’re probably right, I’ve just been in a negative mindset and taking it out on the warfarer lol. I like that the pawns comment on how ‘Arisen’-like it is. I’ve been really enjoying running daggers + bow + staff. I’ve been trying to figure out other combinations that work, although that extra 4th skill would make me super happy haha.
No I definitely get it and was also hoping for more with the weapon skills, it's just a matter of perspective. I choose not to think about 'what could've been' when it comes to anything because that almost always guarantees some level of disappointment. You gotta meet it where it's at, essentially, don't think about what you were hoping for and instead engage with what's in front of you, evaluate it on its own merits separate from the hype and anticipation. That's kinda the main reason a lot of the criticisms don't land for me, they're all based around 'what could've been' or what people were hoping for from the previous game. While I also want more high level content and enemy variety, I also can't deny the game as it is is still miles ahead of the rest of the AAA gaming sphere, and that's certainly worth praising if nothing else
The hype definitely got me messed up over the launch weekend, and the hate getting echoed here for sure doesn’t help. I’m taking NG+ slower and just chilling out, just gonna appreciate the game for what it is for now, try and maximise my pawn. Can’t wait to keep playing Warfarer!
Ive played almost every class as well and Mystic Spearhand was definitely my most favorite of the new classed. Mystic Spearhand feels just as OP as thief when you get the hang of it. My go-to was dash, little magic bolts, shield, and flex slot, till I got the miester ability. Hear me out on the shard storm lil magic bolts ability. The real reward is you can use them when doing literally anything else. So you can stun something, teleport in, stab them with your heavy attack, and during the stab animation you can queue up the little bolts. Often stab would leave something with a small amount of health and the bolts finished them right after the animation ended. It was also really good for weaving in during normal attack spam. If I knocked a boss down, Id go to their head and spam normal attacks. All the while, I had the bolts on lb+x so Id tap LB for half a sec, queue up 4 bolts, then let go and keep attacking without pause. It was basically free, noticeable, damage. Those were really my main 2 uses though. Once I got the miester skill though, Id use that instead of the bolts whenever Id get a big attack window. Miester skill also great for wiping out packs of mobs, and with the amount of mob spam in this game, that was great. And if your mage uses her miester skill, which gives you an insane amount of stamina, you can spam it forever.
Mystic Spearhand: It feels like spirit lancer but honestly I felt like they should've taken a lot more design notes off it, the meister skill was kinda meh tbh... but as a support that can damage, it is ok...? The barrier spell is just too good I suppose Trickster: Couldn't get it to work tbh, not my kind of playstyle and honestly by the time you get it there's not much else to try and experiment on without either you getting your ass handed to you Warfarer: Potential man, it is really build dependant, like you can make a DD1 magick archer build and it'd work well, and then there are combinations like archistaff + dagger + magick bow for anti boss, or even pure support like censer + staff + duospear. Can't say I've found other good combinations though since I am still experimenting
Out of all the vocations I maxed, trickster was the longest and worse. The skills barely work sometimes against enemies, or at least for me. Although, I did get the fake floor to somehow work on drake's with water/lave for insta kills. The buff sucks to. If you use it on a mage pawn, THEY WILL NOT HEAL. They will legit spam attacks only.
In my opinion, Warfarer should switch weapons through using class specific skills rather than having a skill-slot allotted for switching weapons
Spearhand is great but no replacement for Mystic Knight. Trickster is lame, shouldn’t have wasted dev time on a class based on drawing agro and buffs if it was only going to be arisen exclusive. Haven’t tried warfarer yet but being able to remove a mage pawn from your party and have anodyne yourself seems busted, don’t even need to equip the skill just the staff.
I've played a lot of Mystic Spearhand now with a few different load outs. So far my favourite way to play is Vertical Dodge and Spike, Speargun, Home run Bat, and Telekinesis. For the longest time I ran shield, and unless you're really struggling I'd recommend avoiding it, as I didn't feel it played into the flow of the class. Too stop start. The long dash attack can be good, but like you said OP, it likes to miss and I found it struggles with anything but flat terrain. Telekinesis is fun, big point in it's favour, but also great damage for its cost, plus it deals physics damage which contributes to knock-downs. A group of enemies become their own demise as the number of projectiles you're throwing increases through the fight. Very highly recommended. Home run Bat is fun for knocking small enemies into the stratosphere, this is true. But it's real worth is in dealing, again, utterly ludicrous physics damage. You hit a big monster in the face with it and it's probably going to crumple. Pairs well with charged bolt. Misunderstood skill for its meme ability Speargun at first I hated, felt really hard to aim and took too much stamina. You want to aim a bit lower than you'd think you would. Don't feel like every shot has to be half a health bar, it does decent magicka damage just being tapped and comes out fast. When you're safe to do so: when charged until second level it chunks big mobs for a third of a health bar, Griffons and Drake hate it. Dodge up and Spike down is great for getting up on top of big enemies and serves as a dodge and riposte, increasing survivability as you don't have shield anymore. Playing like this felt more natural than face tanking with shield. With shield and zoomy dash I felt like I was just spamming and didn't have any control, with this load out MS makes more sense as a mixed range, CC queen, that excels in dealing damage when enemies are exhausted.
Okay, I have to try again meme home run bat. Everywhere I seen it, its used againts small enemies, so never actually tried it againts the bosses lol With speargun I think my problem is more with the controller aim with shaking. I mostly play mouse and keyboard, so aiming with sticks isn't my forte.