I've just tried using spear together with pure "vit" - defensive type and it seems quite difficult to use.

Spears have very low damage at low levels and there aren't as many spears available as sword/odachi. They also have lower stats compared to other weapons. I don't know about higher level though.
I did well against small number of enemy and but seems to be overwhelmed quickly by large number of them.

My biggest complaint about spear in general would be that spears in game have slashing as normal attack. Slashing leaves me largely vulnerable and shortens the distance between me and enemy. I would much rather use thrust as normal attack. Thrusting then back away immediately while keeping the safe distance is a basic strategy for spears and the fact that I have to use SP for that is kinda annoying. I don't know if that will change with higher level spears though.

So, can I use spear for solo runs? Is it only a support type weapon?

Please discuss about strategy for spears. I want to know more about them.

Spears are the best at solo runs (amongst melee types) if the enemy can be stunned within its giant reach. Note that the third attack has more skill force behind it (as well as knockback).

Learn to love your AoEs. I abused that Rolling Thunder move a lot and I've moved onto Water Dragon Spear V. If you go damage oriented, you can use that ATK +500 HP -20% magatama to great effect, plus there are some awesome titles for spear users. Invest in Pow as your secondary if you're damage oriented, Mnd if you're full defense/heal oriented.

Learn to love SHIFT. Guarding is great and you're the best at it, especially if enemies get behind you (like Odin).

You know as a general rule you are right but some spear skills are op as all get out, and the cool down time on them is extremely short. Take "Frost blossom" that I have only found as a rank 4 skill, it does insane damage in a wedge shape in front of the user and with enough practice you can use it to kill off almost entire rooms of mobs. Also a low lv skill that is super handy is "wind thrust" super low sp cost and about a three second cooldown, making it kinda spamable.

Spear consider normal damage , high AoE skill , not too high like power type , usually it for tank early game ( because vit = + HP + HP regen + P-DEF + P-Magic + damage for spear )

because of exp rate ( don't even start with this anymore ) all of advange HP , HP regen , P-Def , P-Magic reduce to nothing left you with only the normal damage , high AoE and skill AoE ( which I assume I rather choose power type with this underlevel )

yeah normal attack of spear is bad you rather using thurst , so do I , that more reason why when you reach lv 35 your vit is 60 and you start to up Mind to 20 ( have more mana to spam and mana regen )

can solo , In High Level dungeon instead , because each place ( place not floors , 1 floor usually have like 5 or 6 place ) will have like 20+ monster ( suck it bow user , and even maybe twin sword ) , if you at high level you already have special spear with High AoE ( but seriously this exp rate make the dream so far )

no in High level when your main stats already max , everyone start to pump point to wis or mind so can spam skill , everyone wear a staff with movement buff or healing AoE or resurrect , so there is not really have " Support " in this game

strategy for spears , up your special spear with High AoE to + 5x 6x 7x , more damage more better and start to rekt every single creep , through have hard time with boss but with high damage you still can rekt boss face , magatama is also important
some will say they want to build tank , sadly the monster in high lv dungeon will spawn with 20+ monster mix both P-Attack monster and M-Attack monster lead you to die in 1 sec no matter how much tank you are

this is everything I know right now , no i'm not play onigiri jap I just watch hella video in youtube and reach conclusion on my own , here is some video I know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8J4gqWKECg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDQxr-gkU4s

Those are some great responses. Spears are cool weapons and I'm now more assured to use them.

I don't use guard much since I pretty much just dodge and run. I didn't know that you can guard against enemy from behind. How effective is guard anyway? AFAIK I still lose HP when guarding.

About exp, I think they kinda fixed that? Leveling up seems faster now. I've only started playing again with new character using spear today though. My best character in CBT is Power type, lv 13 and already clearing Room of Rites and it really took forever to get there.

There's this spear called Damsiel or something which is around level 15. That's the only decent spear that I found between lv10 and 20. I wonder if there is any other good spear within that level range.

Also, I do notice that I can solo kishiden or training ground hard mode at around level 5 or 6 using spear but going there with a party (>3 members) is more difficult. The battles get quite chaotic as the number of mobs increases and I tend to get overwhelmed quickly. The problem with this is probably my strategy. I always lead the mobs around until they line up closely so I can hit all of them at once with my AoE. Maybe that's not a good strategy since I usually can't get away fast enough.

Spears would have been more viable if they have some sort of "spectacular counter-attack/skill after guarding" aspect, something similar to that shield girl class from Vindictus.

graze wrote:I don't use guard much since I pretty much just dodge and run. I didn't know that you can guard against enemy from behind. How effective is guard anyway? AFAIK I still lose HP when guarding.

One of the tooltips during loading screens states that "some attacks cannot be blocked". AFAIK, I haven't yet encountered any non-boss mob attacks that can't be blocked; as for bosses, so far only the Ahriman's 4 dark "grenades" attack is the one I can't block.

Ice cedar spears have built-in Ice Blossom IV

Unnatural wrote:Spears would have been more viable if they have some sort of "spectacular counter-attack/skill after guarding" aspect, something similar to that shield girl class from Vindictus.

And normal thrust attack with back stepping follow up. Actually, normal thrust attack would be enough for me.

Lazgrane wrote:Ice cedar spears have built-in Ice Blossom IV

I really forget about that one.

It only look bad to you. The sweeping attack make engaging mob groups much easier.

You don't have to combo, just spam 1 hit -> roll -> 1 hit -> roll and you're pretty much untouchable

Lazgrane wrote:It only look bad to you. The sweeping attack make engaging mob groups much easier.

You don't have to combo, just spam 1 hit -> roll -> 1 hit -> roll and you're pretty much untouchable

I've been doing that but it always seems to be much slower than sword/odachi. Also, the damage is quite small so I mainly spam skills rather than sweeping attack.