Advanced Spear DPS

Overview#

In this build we go over the best gear and skills for a Spear DPS player as well as providing some options based on what you have and your playstyle. We go over the optimal ability rotation so that you can spam your abilitiesf rot he highest DPS. We pair the Spear with the Great Axe so that you can clump mobs and nuke them down as fast as possible.

If you want the super quick TL&DR:

Gear#

Import on NW-Buddy

Spinweave Helm

STR Light

• Enchanted ward: -4% damage from light and heavy attacks.
• Enfeebling Skewer: Skewer hits apply Weaken, reducing the target's damage by 27% for 8s.
• Health: +2.4% max health.

Azoth Crystal Shirt

MAG Light

• Enchanted ward: -4% damage from light and heavy attacks.
• Refreshing: Reduce max cooldowns by 4.01%.
• Fortifying Perforate: Perforate hits gain a stack of Fortify, increasing your armor by 10.44% for 6s (Max 3 Stacks).

Azoth Crystal Gloves

MAG Medium

• Enchanted ward: -4% damage from light and heavy attacks.
• Refreshing: Reduce max cooldowns by 4.01%.
• Health: +2.4% max health.

Attuned Leather Pants

MAG Medium

• Elemental Aversion: Receive 4.5% less damage from ranged, elemental attacks.
• Refreshing: Reduce max cooldowns by 4.01%.
• Health: +2.4% max health.

Azoth Crystal Shoes

MAG Light

• Enchanted ward: -4% damage from light and heavy attacks.
• Refreshing: Reduce max cooldowns by 4.01%.
• Health: +2.4% max health.

Mythril Amulet

STR Amulet

• Void Protection: Receive 14.99% less Void damage.
• Empowered: Empower you apply lasts 33.91% longer.
• Health: +7% max health.

Soulpollen

DEX Ring

• Leeching: Heal for 7.06% of the damage you deal (Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects).
• Thrust Damage: +7.11% Thrust damage.
• Hearty: +10% max Stamina.

Endless Thirst

MAG Earring

• The Thirst: Healing consumables are 33% stronger, but healing potion cooldowns are 25% longer.
• Empowering Toast: On Potion Drink: Gain 10% Empower for 8s (10s cooldown).
• Fortifying Toast: On Potion Drink: Gain 20% Fortify for 8s (10s cooldown).
• Refreshing Toast: Consumable cooldown 10% faster.

Runewood Spear

Dex Spear

• Vicious: +6.99% critical damage.
• Arboreal Attunement: Attacks deal +14% weapon damage as Nature (1.5s cooldown. Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects).
• Bleeding Sweep: Sweep's Coup De Grace now applies Bleed for 28% of weapon damage for 8s.

Mythril Great Axe

STR Great Axe

• Enfeebling Maelstrom: Targets hit by Maelstrom's No Reprieve are Weakened, reducing their attack damage by 27% for 8s.
• Vicious: +6.99% critical damage.
• Arboreal Attunement: Attacks deal +14% weapon damage as Nature (1.5s cooldown. Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects).

Perk Choices#

Firstly, we’ve chosen to go with the light loadout for the 15% bonus base damage. It is true that we are going to take more damage as a result but this is an advanced guide and we expect that you know how to avoid mechanics and are willing to push the envelope.

The first required perk to get is always going to be Enchanted Ward. The reason for this is that thanks to the amazing work of Ginie at nw-buddy we know the majority of the attacks mobs do are counted as either a light or heavy attack and very few are counted as ranged + magical which is what is required for Elemental Aversion to apply.

To help with our ability rotations we’ve also chosen to stack as much refreshing as we can.

For our choice of armor artifact we have chosen to go with Attuned Leather Pants. The reason for this is that it lets us hit Attribute Threshold Bonuses (ATBs) that we wouldn’t be able to hit otherwise.

For the ring, we obviously want hearty since a lot of our rotation revolves around dodging for the CDR. We also want more damage so choose the Thrust Damage perk and lastly, to help with our Diamon uptime we’ve chosen leeching.

For the earring, we’ve chosen to go with Endless Thirst. The reason for this is that we get both Fortifying Toast and Empowering Toast which are normally mutatually exclusive (they both have the “consume” label).

We’ve chosen to put the Bleeding Sweep perk on the spear as it is the largest DPS increase of the three weapon perks.

If you wanted to run Cyclone instead of Perforate you would swap the Fortifying Perforate on your armour for Leeching Cyclone.

Azoth Crystal Shirt

MAG Light

• Enchanted ward: -4% damage from light and heavy attacks.
• Refreshing: Reduce max cooldowns by 4.01%.
• Leeching Cyclone: Cyclone hits heal you for 35.45% of weapon damage (Max 3 targets).

Gems#

For M3’s specifically you should always be using the mutation specific gem in your armour as per the table below. This also applies to the protection on your amulet. You should have 63% protection from the element. While there is a 50% cap, gems and the amulet protection will actually let you exceed this cap.

There will be situations where you will want to swap sets to another protection for specific bosses because they don’t get the split damage from the mutation. That is outside the scope of this guide but we will have guides for each expedition coming out soon.

Spear Choices#

Previously (Season 4) the Lifering Spear was the one recommended by most people. Now in Season 5 that has changed because AGS made a change so that the bleed from Keenly Jagged can only be applied once. Since most tanks run The Butcher and that has Keenly Jagged on it there is little point in running another Keenly Jagged weapon as it is a dead perk. If for some reason you don’t have someone running Keenly Jagged, the lifering is still a very good choice.

Another option could be that you put Bleeding Sweep on your armour and then put Enfeebling Skewer on the spear.

The other option would be the Keratin Spear. The main difference between the recommended spear and the Keratin Spear is that Keratin has Rogue instead of Vicious. If you could have high uptime on Rogue and we’re fighting a backless boss such as Cilla, Chardis, Neish etc it would be a very close second.

You will always use a Diamond in the spear assuming you can keep your health full most of the time. Just be sure not to overlap the runeglass case element with your teammates if you can help it. Putting the Diamond in a runeglass case will help charge your heartrune faster.

Keratin Spear

Dex Spear

• Rogue: +10.68% Backstab damage.
• Arboreal Attunement: Attacks deal +14% weapon damage as Nature (1.5s cooldown. Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects).
• Bleeding Sweep: Sweep's Coup De Grace now applies Bleed for 28% of weapon damage for 8s.

Lifering Spear

Dex Spear

• Vicious: +6.99% critical damage.
• Keenly Jagged: Inflicts Bleed on critical hit, dealing 10% weapon damage per second for 6s (7s cooldown).
• Bleeding Sweep: Sweep's Coup De Grace now applies Bleed for 28% of weapon damage for 8s.

Ancient

Dex Spear

• Vicious: +6.99% critical damage.
• Abyssal Attunement: Attacks deal +14% weapon damage as Void (1.5s cooldown. Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects).
• Bleeding Sweep: Sweep's Coup De Grace now applies Bleed for 28% of weapon damage for 8s.

Heartrunes#

There are a couple of options that mostly come down to personal/team preference.

Detonate#

Detonate is great for advanced speedrunning where you really want to maximise your damage and you understand all of the mechanics in the expedition.

Vines#

Vines is a great heartrune if you’re missing some CC. It gives some extra rend and weaken as well. The only things to watch out for are that you don’t vines before the mobs are clumped.

Brutal Heartrune of Detonate

Recommended

Detonate: Charge yourself with explosive energy for 3s and then detonate, dealing 100% heartrune damage within a 5m radius.

• Accelerating Charge: +30% movement speed while charging.
• Escalating Explosion: +20% Explosion damage. Gain Rend while charging, reducing your armor by 50%.

Brutal Heartrune of Grasping Vines

Grasping Vines: Summon vines around you that deal 100% heartrune damage and root enemies within a 4m radius for 3s.

• Enfeebling Vines: Inflicts Weaken on hit, reducing the target's damage by 20% for 8s.
• Rending Vines: Inflicts Rend on hit, reducing the target's armor by 20% for 5s. Reduce your Stamina regeneration by 50% for 5s.

Stats#

The stat values should be considered a base to work from and as you and your team get more confident with the build you can adjust as needed dropping right down to 15 CON.

• We choose 350 STR as it is slightly more damage than going to 350 DEX.
• If it is a Nature or Ice mutation, you could drop to 300 STR for 300 DEX to get the cleanse on weapon swap.
• We spec 25 INT for the extra backstab and crit damage which is awesome on the spear since we crit a lot.

Weapon Builds#

Spear#

Perforate Tree#

Import on NW-Buddy

Cyclone Tree#

Import on NW-Buddy

Great Axe#

Import on NW-Buddy

Ability Usage#

As a DPS you need to wait for the tank to be in position before you start doing damage so that you don’t steal the threat.

• Grav
• Maelstrom if safe
• Pot (Focus/Regen)
• Dodge
• Skewer
• Dodge
• Perforate
• Dodge
• Sweep

Now your Skewer and perforate should be back up and you can rotate through those two abilities twice more and then on the second round you do another sweep as the bleed should be ending. You will need to make sure that there are no mechanics about to happen when you use Sweep because once you start it you’re animation locked.

The reason we start with a grav is to clump the mobs so if it’s just on a boss that step can be skipped. We then pot to proc the empowering and fortifying toast perks.

We dodge for the CDR into a skewer for our empower and weakening the enemy.

Dodge again for the CDR and then into a perforate for our fortify and to rend/weaken the enemy.

Finally we dodge for the CDR and then go for the sweep to put the huge bleed on the enemy as well as the knockdown giving us bonus damage from Merciless Strength.

FAQ#

Conversion gems#

Q: What about using the INT gem for the mob weakness?

A: When you get say a 30% boost to your damage from the mob weakness e.g. fire for Angry Earth, you’re really only getting 15% because you’re only converting half of your damage. The other part of that is half of your ring damage is gone too.

Conclusion

My testing shows that there are specific scenarios where having a conversion gem will outperform a diamond. It is required to have the matching ring damage type and also to have a high amount of base damage increase to make it out perform. Even under those circumstances the gain you get is between 1.1 - 3.1% on average excluding the mjolnir test.

My recommendation is that unless you’re really pushing for a world record the cost isn’t worth the minimal gains.

Summary#

I hope this rundown helps you navigate the nuances of this advanced DPS build. Your feedback is invaluable to us, so don’t hesitate to drop your thoughts either on Discord or shoot me an email at feedback <@> 5con.club . Whether it’s a thumbs up or suggestions for improvement, I’m all ears!

Changelog#