Why use spears?

I never said it was a spike. I said it was used to increase pressure.

my monk's kill/death ratio is 4:1. wanding ftw.

back to original topic: spear/shield (or sword/shield, even axe/shield) is purely for defensive purposes. you'll gain an extra 60hp and up to +18 armor (or even +25 armor, if you have a req7/15AL shield), which is gigantic in pvp.

They sometimes use spear/sheild for looks. Most people use it for the look and the defense also. You get +8 armor with the sheild and u can add +30 health and -5 physical dmg. That helps a lot in pvp and so many people use it. They use spears so that they can put extra energy and i put that everytime I hit someone with my spear, i gain energy. So that is basically why eles or casters use spear/sheild.

pretty sure nobody use the -5 physical damage mod anymore, after it's been mathematically proven to be inferior to +10AL vs (type).

Wanding is fine, but if you concentrate on it, you're just gonna get spiked in your cast set - good job then.

Bring a damage wand for Guild Lord race though, that's for sure. :P

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So far everyone is saying to bring +30 hp on spear/sword/axe... I say, give +5 armor a try. Both would be even better.

You don't have to concentrate on it at all. It's a reflex for me, as soon as I tab/click on a target the first thing I do is hit space bar. In fact I actually have a tendency to just sit and mash on it without realizing.

Sorry for maybe being off topic...and Im not a real pvp pro....but in AB i just love to cast insidious parasite on these monks wanding me...
so I hope Ill face some of you guys in the coming ab weekend

Ok, you do that and then i'll just stop wanding you and go do something else. Oh noez. Problem solved.

I used to use a Totem Axe on my Monk for 55 and 600 builds. Worked fine, never saw a reason to switch to a Spear. Then I realized some of the monsters I was farming had skills to deal with melee attacks (Riposte, for example). Not a big deal if you aren't attacking, but to help keep a monster attacking you, wanding/attacking is needed. Having a sword or axe would cause problems, a spear doesn't.

For the record, I agree with most everything you've said in this thread. I had to disable hints due to the annoyance when I spam spacebar when playing casters between casts.

Uses of a Spear on a non-Paragon.

For other physicals:

1. Spears have some excellent DPS and attack skills with all of the convenience of range and the benefit of being able to carry a shield for added defense. Consider this damage combined with Critical Strikes or Strength for high damage output on non-Paragon characters.

2. Building adrenaline. Use a spear to build adrenaline without giving away who you're going to target swap to or when you're going to adrenal-spike.

For casters:

1. Energy, whether +5e or -5e for hiding. Again, this allows for a shield and "bonus" armor.

2. Triggering a specific damage type. [Mark of Pain][Mark of Rodgort][Spinal Shivers]. Enough said.

3. Show (but without loss of effectiveness).

4. Pressure. A spike that leaves a target at 4 health is a kill if it's assisted by "pathetic" spear/wand damage from a midline/backline.

You didn't get me at all. If you're playing Spike Wars, you must be in your shield set 99% of the time. Wanding damage doesn't make up for you being dead.

there has been many a times in RA when i (i usually play a monk) have killed a foe who was running from a mele class with like 50 health. Wanding FTW

god no, first of all: -5/20% sucks, second of all YOU DO NOT bring a spear so you can get the benefits of a zealous mod. its called a defensive set for a reason, its mainly for the +30 health bonus you can get from it.

Maybe i am just tired, but i think your spear/offhand example is not correct... The staff you described is possible but afaik you cant make a spear 20/20, so you have to use the offhand for that. If you do that then you cant add +30 anymore to the offhand, so you have to do that on the spear. But when you add the +30 to the spear then you cant add +20% enchantments longer anymore (or visa versa)...

Possibility (if you want to keep the 20 hct/20 hrs):
1st spear) +5 energy and +30 hp
2nd spear) +5 energy and enchantments 20% longer

Offhand: + 12 energy and 20/20

No, this isn't true at all and i'm sorry to say but if you do this then your field awareness must be next to zero.

The only time that this is true is if their Warrior is playing with a KD and Shadow step and even then if your ping isn't to high and your reactions are good you can swap before the KD.

Otherwise all you need to do is watch for the Warrior who is running towards you and swap then or if the Warrior is beating on someone you're standing next to and hasn't unloaded his adrenaline. It really is basic field awareness.

We're talking about someone who just asked why people carry shield sets... And you're giving out advice to always wand. It's obvious what's gonna happen if he follows it.

You're kinda taking it out of context.

Originally I was not addressing the OP when I was explain about wanding it was some other guy.

You should also never give advice based on how bad a player is it just encourages bad habits in newer players. Otherwise we'd all just be saying "Ah, he's probably bad therefore he should never weapon switch at all, that is to advanced for him".

Granted you shouldn't start with the most advanced tactics either but really once you find out why people use weapon sets, the rest is pretty self explanatory.

I just never needed more then like 30ish energy. So started wearing shield + sword instead because I often ended up tanking mobs instead of having the dumb AI do it for me regardless of beeing a caster. Never gone back, though I do wear a Wand + Shield set a staff and a 40\40 set aswell, the spear is usually whats out.

Ahh yeah, and I moved to spear of course when it came out. Pressing spacebar and ending up right next to the enemy before you know, not good.

Answered previously: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0&postcount=10

I've never done higher end PvP, and probably never will, but I do like to try to learn the tactics. I don't understand the above. (The parens may be throwing me off.) What is "cancel swapping"? Are you referring to the use of weapon swapping to cancel casting a spell (an alternative to the Escape key), or are you referring to canceling a weapon swap? If the latter, why would one do this?

I read the link and Googled the term, but couldn't come up with anything.

Further explanation or a link would be helpful!