Spears are pointless.

[Viking[420]]

I would love if they changed the way you hold the spear because in its current state doesn't act like a traditional spear and more of a javelin and when using it as a melee weapon becomes painfully frustrating when you have to stand so close to any enemy to even get a hit, as a spear it renders it useless for its role. It would make so much sense if you could change your stance from holding it with 2 hands like a traditional spear or with a shield as well as the stance you hold it currently for when you wanna throw it, Hopefully they'll sort this because iv seen so many people with the same feed back so they'll have to have acknowledged it at some point.

[blankitosonic]

Is the best dps weapon at early game , wrecks everything in meadows and flint/bronze spear its very good vs trolls in black forest
After that other weapons are better

Fang spear is very good vs meele lox fight

[warrenchmobile]

Escrito originalmente por UncleAcidic:

I hear ya. the overhand attack motion negates the reach that you'd expect from the spear. an underhand thrust would make more sense with a shield and there should also be two-handed options as well, like a longer pike or glaive style weapon. you can get good with the spear but it's a niche weapon for most people

In my opinion, the issue is almost entirely aesthetic. Try a little experimentation with whatever length of pointed stick one favors. While standing still, the reach advantage of an underhand grip over an overhand grip is approximately 7 centimeters for a thrust. Hardly a game-changer.

[The Big Brzezinski]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2400065038
I mean, just look at it. He looks like he's just holding it upside down.

The practical reason for using a spear is its high piercing damage potential on targets directly in front of you whilst still being able to carry a shield. The they hit very quickly at short and narrow range. They're good against large single targets, like lox and trolls. They are far less effective against anything faster, smaller, or more numerous. They function more like you would expect a dagger to than a spear.

Their throwing function is useless. There is no target that the material cost of a spear is worth throwing at. It might be worth it if spears were disposable and stackable, like arrows, but this is not so.

[Dracoco OwO]

Spears needs a rework as a previous spear main, there is no reason to use it over knives. Sure you may kill Eikthyr slightly faster with the Flint spear but the knives after that are infintely more safer and more consistant damage and safety wise.

Actually i think an easy fix to this would be to make a new endgame harpoon with a basic attack and the harpoon throw so when you throw it you can grapple an enemy but also get your spear back if you cancel the throw and the throw itself do "normal" damage a spear should do, this would make the spears infinitely more usefull.

[Complaintdesk]

This thread should have been posted in "Suggestions & Ideas". That being said, I have to agree, with the OP. A spear's attack should be instigated by an underhanded thrust, an extension of how it is held when in the at ease stance. Its regular forward, underhand attack thrust should be one of the fastest attacks in the game. I did enjoy the spear as a weapon in the beginning of my Valheim game experience, but out of all the weapons in the game, it racks up more misses than any other weapon, which realistically should not be the case. When using a spear in real life, no one acquainted with using a spear (and similarly a knife) would ever leave themselves exposed by jabbing with it using an overhand thrust.

[blankitosonic]

Escrito originalmente por Dracoco OwO:

Spears needs a rework as a previous spear main, there is no reason to use it over knives. Sure you may kill Eikthyr slightly faster with the Flint spear but the knives after that are infintely more safer and more consistant damage and safety wise.

Actually i think an easy fix to this would be to make a new endgame harpoon with a basic attack and the harpoon throw so when you throw it you can grapple an enemy but also get your spear back if you cancel the throw and the throw itself do "normal" damage a spear should do, this would make the spears infinitely more usefull.

Nah , flint spear still works well in black forest against trolls
Flint knife do 8+8 pierce and slash damage
Flint Spear do 38 pure pierce damage and have almost the same basic attack speed , after that i agree , as there isnt BM spear tier and knife do
Knife jump takes more time and stamina than basics...and sometimes fails/bugs in the target not hitting

[Zep Tepi]

Spear fighting?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3TBhWXnbGs&t=80s

[The Big Brzezinski]

Knives also work much better if you strike after a parry.

I think if you slowed down the spear's rate of attack, increased its range to be greater than other one hand weapons, added a decent knockback component, and made the alternate attack a lunge, it would feel a lot more natural and effective. A less Hollywood stance and attack animation would help as well.

[Mjarr]

Escrito originalmente por The Big Brzezinski:

A less Hollywood stance and attack animation would help as well.

The stance used with the spear is perfectly valid form of using spear. Even going back in time when phalanx was common it was more common form to hold spear up like that rather than under. And if you want to take it even deeper the are quite a many ways of holding anything resembling a spear, whether we're talking spear, halberd, pike or alike, and some of the means of using them do overlap, and some are more impractical with others than... some others.

Ignoring boring realism and historical aspects, as far as Valheim is concerned the only real problem with spear mostly is more jankier hitboxes even relative to other weapons and that in pure minmaxing scheme of things it can be very redundant. Why (from purely minmaxing perspective) use spear when you can just use knife or sword and parry and the game plays itself for you against anything that isn't two-star fuling, wolf or so?

Outside that it's perfectly functional and versatile weapon, and the odds are you are just using it wrong. Or running into the joke someone is not metagaming 100% optimally and therefore [insert angry words here].

[blprice61]

Unfortunately in this game you can't completely ignore the meta-gaming aspect because of the overpowering presence of overused and overpowered mechanics such as resistances and parry/stagger. The spear also suffers because of sharing a damage type with bows, while spear (along with every other weapon in the game except bow) has a linear increase in effectiveness with skill while bows have an exponential increase.

As someone noted earlier; the spear is a great weapon early game however it becomes less and less effective the further you progress because of the over use of overpowered resistances added to the lack of a blackmetal spear and the unfriendliness of the mountain biome to spear throwing, (even the short range variant) combined with terrain that just emphasizes the hitbox limitations.

It is not that the spear needs reworked, it is that the entire combat system needs reworked - even a simple rework such as halving the effect of resistances/weaknesses and stagger (along with eliminating the exponential power curve of bow skill) would go far.

However, given that the devs bowed to the "But its funny!" crowd in the parry/stagger of distance weapons, I have absolutely zero faith we'll see anything of the sort anytime soon if ever.

[Mjarr]

Escrito originalmente por blprice61:

Unfortunately in this game you can't completely ignore the meta-gaming aspect because of the overpowering presence of overused and overpowered mechanics such as resistances and parry/stagger. The spear also suffers because of sharing a damage type with bows, while spear (along with every other weapon in the game except bow) has a linear increase in effectiveness with skill while bows have an exponential increase.

Only if you rely it as your sole damage source. If someone wants to carry only one weapon around that is their call, but carrying multiple weapons around is mostly matter of (very light) inventory management, and most early game options for various damage sources are quite cheap to craft and upgrade before they reach any kind of functional obsolescence. There is also the question of how many players, solo or dedicated, "experience" of said players and whatnot to consider too that if there's 300+ bronze nobody wants to use, I'll be sure to upgrade the crap out of bronze tools so I can skip iron and maybe consider silver\blackmetal next at earliest.

Escrito originalmente por blprice61:

As someone noted earlier; the spear is a great weapon early game however it becomes less and less effective the further you progress because of the over use of overpowered resistances added to the lack of a blackmetal spear and the unfriendliness of the mountain biome to spear throwing, (even the short range variant) combined with terrain that just emphasizes the hitbox limitations.

The trick to throwing spears in mountains is never throw it downhill, and always wait drake to be almost stopped before you throw, sprint towards it and as the spear hits the drake it falls 100% straight below it, and autopickup does the rest for you if you did this right. Drakes have very predictable pattern how they fly away and approach and before they spit crap at you, so it is mostly matter of timing and positioning yourself so in case if you do miss, you never throw the spear half the world away. In same way, unless there is extreme angle of elevation, if you back off (or back off in ( manner so you rotate) and make so the level ground is horizontal rather than vertical, you just eliminated so now you can hit with anything in mountains. Sure, bad terrain can make that impractical but on average the joke here is do you want to spend few seconds repositioning yourself or just swing wildly and realise you won't hit at all, while enemies probably do.

(Now why would you go your way out to use spear to kill drakes? I mean it works, maybe I am low on arrows, maybe I forgot bow and it's restricted portal run, maybe my bow broke, maybe I had to take care of dozens of wolves while the guys using bows kept missing their shots and I have to take care of that crap and so on. Obviously high bow skill makes that utterly redundant, but it's not like the game specifically requires I use bow if I don't mind taking slightly longer to get rid of drakes that way.)

Escrito originalmente por blprice61:

It is not that the spear needs reworked, it is that the entire combat system needs reworked - even a simple rework such as halving the effect of resistances/weaknesses and stagger (along with eliminating the exponential power curve of bow skill) would go far.

However, given that the devs bowed to the "But its funny!" crowd in the parry/stagger of distance weapons, I have absolutely zero faith we'll see anything of the sort anytime soon if ever.

I do agree, the combat in general could do overhaul at some point, or at least some tweaks to it. At the same time I suppose one fun aspect of Valheim is you can play very suboptimally and the game hardly penalises you for it either, while if you minmax the crap out of the game it basically plays itself for you.

[loppantorkel]

Escrito originalmente por Mjarr:

I do agree, the combat in general could do overhaul at some point, or at least some tweaks to it. At the same time I suppose one fun aspect of Valheim is you can play very suboptimally and the game hardly penalises you for it either, while if you minmax the crap out of the game it basically plays itself for you.

I'd not be opposed to tweaks to the combat. I mean better hit boxes and some improvements in height differences could be made, but I seriously doubt anything close to an overhaul is reasonable to do or to expect. There will always be a crowd wanting more advanced, realistic, 'better combat, but sometimes simple is better. The current combat works surprisingly well and is fun and often challenging enough. Adding complexity for the sake of it may be a mistake.

That said - tweaks and improvements are of course expected and welcome. Maybe after Mistlands or the biome after that.

[Kman]

What would be nice is if you use a axe to break down something you built, it was actually hit where you crosshairs are pointing too.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Escrito originalmente por Mjarr:

Escrito originalmente por The Big Brzezinski:

A less Hollywood stance and attack animation would help as well.

The stance used with the spear is perfectly valid form of using spear. Even going back in time when phalanx was common it was more common form to hold spear up like that rather than under. And if you want to take it even deeper the are quite a many ways of holding anything resembling a spear, whether we're talking spear, halberd, pike or alike, and some of the means of using them do overlap, and some are more impractical with others than... some others.

Ignoring boring realism and historical aspects, as far as Valheim is concerned the only real problem with spear mostly is more jankier hitboxes even relative to other weapons and that in pure minmaxing scheme of things it can be very redundant. Why (from purely minmaxing perspective) use spear when you can just use knife or sword and parry and the game plays itself for you against anything that isn't two-star fuling, wolf or so?

Outside that it's perfectly functional and versatile weapon, and the odds are you are just using it wrong. Or running into the joke someone is not metagaming 100% optimally and therefore [insert angry words here].

It's Hollywood. It's been Hollywood since people painted it on clay jars and cave walls. The pose looks dynamic and powerful, as though the subject is putting their entire body into a thrust. Maybe that's appropriate because we're doing heroic deeds against mythical monsters in a land lost to time. It would help if characters would at least hold the spear half way down the length. As it is, you could perform the exact same strike with a sword held point down, and you have to shake-weight an entire spear shaft.

I tend to go ax and atgeir. The ax is a tool as well as a weapon, and slots are limited. The atgeir is a powerful and versatile weapon when it's time for a big fight. I've cleared whole fuling camps with just an atgier, Bonemass buff, and good footwork. Stamina is for killing, not evading.

[Mjarr]

Escrito originalmente por The Big Brzezinski:

It's Hollywood. It's been Hollywood since people painted it on clay jars and cave walls. The pose looks dynamic and powerful, as though the subject is putting their entire body into a thrust. Maybe that's appropriate because we're doing heroic deeds against mythical monsters in a land lost to time. It would help if characters would at least hold the spear half way down the length. As it is, you could perform the exact same strike with a sword held point down, and you have to shake-weight an entire spear shaft.

Not really. As off topic as this is getting, if you assume relatively tightly packed formation with some kind of depth in it, and you have second row of soldiers and they would be armed with spears as well, front row keeping spears under and not above them is a lot more restrictive how much you can even move (in spear+shield combination, not assuming it's just basically more pikemen from later eras packed together) your arm and adjust your thrust and grip. It is no different that say, lancers would only have first row presumably with lances at ready as deeper formation + lances behind = they have hard time using them behind the first row and horses besides accidentally poking them behind should they come to more abrupt halt in chaotic situation.

All in all it just boils down to context and given the all various thrusty and pointy bits humans have used and invented over the time, poking spear over rather than under is as valid form as it is in reverse especially when accounting a shield. Or anything doubling as javelin even if it's obvious purpose is not to be primarily a thrusting weapon.