I've been debating whether or not I should go spear Lann or not. Since I don't know which is preferred among most people, or what the pros and cons are, I find it hard to decide myself.
Help pliz? :cheer:
I've been debating whether or not I should go spear Lann or not. Since I don't know which is preferred among most people, or what the pros and cons are, I find it hard to decide myself.
Help pliz? :cheer:
How good would you say your playing skills as a Lann are? Do you have enough funds to be able to +5 to +10 all your gear? What is your skill setup? Do you more like to survive or do damage? Spears can deal very high DPS, but only if you can keep it up and constantly attack without being killed, as spears have no invincibility. Swords can deal a considerable amount of DPS, but at the cost of stamina (Double Crescent takes 25) and have good invincibility frames (0.3 seconds a slip dash at rank 6). The most reasonable option for higher leveled players would be swords, but spears can definitely help in the lower levels.
[SIZE="1"]In the long run, you'll end up using swords and spears towards end-game, but here's the basic break down.
Swords=Survivability.
Spears=Damage.
Now for more advanced stuff:
Swords have much more survivability than spears do. Our skill slip dash and nimble dash gives us .30 seconds of invulnerability at r6. The key to using swords is to NOT lag. The slightest lag spike, or delay can mess up your timing with slip and cause you to get hit. In terms of damage, Swords are in a bit of the middle ground. Spears do MUCH more damage, but it's much harder to actually perform that damage without stacking defense. In terms of skill, spears require the most skill out of every class in the game provided you don't defense stack, and against certain bosses, even stacking defense still requires some form of skill. Your best skills as a Sword Lann are Pummel Storm, Gliding Fury/Lightning Fury, Slip Dash, and Double Crescent. Pummel Storm should be your main DPS move, as r6 Pummel Storm does nearly as much damage as a Gliding Fury, which is your most powerful move. You get the second hit from Pummel Storm at r9 and it does take a bit of ap unfortunately. Double Crescent will be your counterattack mostly. At r9, you can begin to use it after nimble dash, so against a boss you'll dodge them using slip/nimble and then incorporate a DC. Gliding Fury and Lightning Fury are all triggered by crits, and are your most powerful attacks. That being said, sometimes it's not worth it to use it when you get a crit. Would you want to GF into the boss when he's turned towards you and doing an attack? Probably not, so you want to watch their patterns to determine when you can safely use it.
Spears on the other hand are all about DPS. They have the potential to be the #1 DPS in the game, but it's much easier said than done. The reason why spears are so hard to play is because their dodge doesn't have anything special going for it. Karok has Weaving and Shock Absorb, Evie has Mana Amber and Blink, Fiona has her shield and Sword Lann has slip dash. Spear Lann's dodge is basically a forward somersault, and it doesn't have anything invincibility frames, blocking, absorbing or anything. The only thing it can do is do a small amount of damage, and can crit, so you can GF off of it. For Spear Lanns to dodge things, they mostly will not use dodge roll. Dodge roll costs 30 stamina to use, compared to 8 for Slip dash and 16 for Nimble Dash. What Spear Lann's will use is Sprint Smash. The thing about sprint smash is that it lowers your hitbox, enabling you to move under certain attacks. To dodge as a spear lann, you want to exploit the monsters hit boxes. To get an idea of what I'm talking about, I recommend you look up Raidhunter. Though he has finally quit Vindi, he's still one of the best spear lanns ever. Now, as far as skills go, you only need two skills, and that's moon splitter and FI. Fury Infusion is your most important skill, as it's what makes spear lann the dps beast he is. At r9, you can use it while moving and it fully restores your stamina, gives you 900 attack and 22% crit. Moon Splitter is your 3rd smash and your most powerful one when it's fully ranked. Moon Splitter vs Spin2Win, Moon will do more damage, but you're much less mobile. When the boss is downed, that's when it's best to use it. Now, when playing as a Spear Lann, don't just spin on every single boss. That works in the beginning, but around boat 5 that can easily get you killed. When facing tougher foes, it's best to use your 1st smash, and then GF off of it. GF/LF is even more important to you than a Sword Lann, because it'll be how you deal damage and avoid it. You'll use the mobility of it to slash past your foe, keeping out of harm's way and also damaging them. You can crit off of any smash attack, and the multi hit ones are often the best way to get one, hence when I said use your 1st smash as it hits 3 times. That's about it. I'm sure someone can come and summarize what I said better, if it's too long for you to read.[/SIZE]
I can't exactly say "try it for yourself" as a proper tip as Spears get progressively harder to use as you get to the higher levels.
What I will say though is that you should stick to Swords for a while if you don't have as much NX/Gold to use. At average quality gear, about 12k Attack and 6k Defence, you're going to lack enough survivability to do enough damage with Spears to be able to match the sustained damage of a Sword. No matter how good you get at using Spears, there are always some moves that are impossible to dodge. Tanking hits is possible at ~6k Def (I do Dragon with that much), but that'd require extremely precise gameplay, which lag hurts just as much.
But if you get into the region of ~8k Defence, you should be able to use either weapon without too much trouble. At this point you'll have enough defence to avoid the problem of one mistake equaling death (for the most part). In general, Spears become more appealing as your margin for error increases. Until that point, it'll likely be too demanding to play a Spear Lann properly.
Invertex, that should be more that certain bosses have moves that are impossible to dodge. Glas is one of them, he's spear and evies bane, but Sword Lann's destroy him. Raidhunter does show what attacks are dodgeable in his solos, and there are some bosses that he can't avoid.
DC breaks off.