This thread is about how to make the most out of spear, and why it is useful.

[Ghishlain]

Since the topic of Ninja has been brought up, I did a very light theorycraft at Richard's behest to kinda see the differences between Spear vs. Balance in the current dynamic. This is what I came up with in that other thread with a few small edits for clarity:

Some food for thought since Richard brought it up and made me think about. Let's discuss Spear over the duration of one minute:

Ninja can Ninjutsu Raiton 3 times in a minute for a total of 1,080 Potency in that time frame.
Assuming you draw Spear twice in a row and do it just as their Ninjutsu goes on CD, they'll get Ninjutsu's going off every 16s seconds. Effectively they'll get four Ninjutsu's Raitons in 64s, giving them a 360 Potency Increase in that about one minute time frame.

Ninja's most damaging combo is their Aeolian Edge combo, which is a total potency of (150 + 200 + 320) = 670 Potency. Assuming no haste, no poisons, no slashing debuff, no buffs, absolutely nothing - Ninja can perform this 670 Potency combo every 7.5s for a total of 5,360 potency. Add 10% from double Balance (or Extended Balance) and you get an additional potency of 536 which is much better than what double Spear can give your Ninja DPS. This also doesn't include the fact that Raiton itself will be affected by Balance as well and you'll up with an additional 108 Potency over those 60s.

Just a bit more food for thought in terms of probability:

Drawing two Spears in a row is a 2.77% chance of occurring (Extended Spear is not the same as double Spear due to how the spacing of Ninjutsu - spear would wear off after the third Ninjutsu and push the 4th Ninjutsu to 68s)
Drawing two Balances in a row is a 2.77% chance of occurring. Drawing Spear and RRing it for Extend then drawing Balance is also 2.77% chance (you'll probably end up using Arrow unless TP is tight at the time) - this effectively makes drawing double Balance / Extended balance a 5.54% occurrence.

Neither of these probabilities take into account the usage of Shuffle.

It's a simple example, but I think it illustrates Spear's desirability compared to a straight DPS increases like Balance (and indirectly increase like Arrow).