Thoughts on spears in 1.22?

[Tabulius]

Haven't played the update yet, but curious what people who have think about the spear change. I was excited when I saw the addition of iron spears, then rolled my eyes when I saw it said that they all got nerfed. Is this basically a glorified global nerfing of spears where now the new iron spears are hardly better than the old bronze? Or is this a reasonable balance change? Anyone able to compare the old stats with the new?

Edited March 6 by Tabulius

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

Nothing iron is "hardly" better than old bronze. The quenching loop currently can make some pretty powerful items if you have the time (you almost always have the resources with iron)

 

As for the lower tier spears from what I've played they didn't seem to get nerfed under any break points. At least not that I could tell. If I hadn't been told they were nerfed I don't think I would have noticed. At the same time I barely used metal spears so I'm probably not the best to say if the nerf was significant. 

[LadyWYT]

Echoing what @Lugh Crow-Slave said, the spear balance in 1.22 feels mostly fine to me. The base damage could possibly be increased a tiny bit, however, the quenching process shouldn't be underestimated. So far it doesn't seem terribly hard to quench an iron(or better) spear a couple of times for a 25% power boost, though I daresay it could be pushed farther, albeit at more risk. That should bring the iron+ spears up to what old bronze spears were with ease, if not grant them even more power.

The most important balance factor, in my opinion, and the biggest change to get used to, is that rapidly firing spears is no longer possible and throwing a spear is a much more deliberate action. That makes the spear a solid general-purpose weapon, in that it has good melee damage with a longer poking distance and good ranged damage for softening up a target before it can engage in melee(if the target doesn't otherwise die). Basically, it's a jack-of-all-trades but master of none.

For hunting, the health of smaller creatures has been adjusted to account for the new spear damage, so players shouldn't be going hungry in the early game. Larger animals will still take a few shots to kill, and hunting bears is a bit of a riskier prospect now, if one relies purely on spear throws.

For combat in general, the spear isn't going to do as much damage as a falx in melee, but the reach means that you can poke at things from safety a little better(think poking at things in caves, or otherwise kiting certain creatures). In ranged combat it will still hit pretty hard, but the player is only going to get a couple of shots off, most likely, before a target can close the distance and engage in melee, so it's best to plan accordingly. Great for softening up tough enemies at a distance, but not necessarily the only weapon the player should be relying on.

27 minutes ago, Tabulius said:

Anyone able to compare the old stats with the new?

I do want to note that in pre5, the quenching is currently working for spear melee damage, but doesn't seem to be getting applied to ranged damage. So it's a little difficult to fully compare. There is a report up on the bug tracker so hopefully it's fixed in another pre or two.

 

30 minutes ago, Tabulius said:

Is this basically a glorified global nerfing of spears where now the new iron spears are hardly better than the old bronze? Or is this a reasonable balance change?

I think it also depends on who one asks, and what the player in question expects. Aside from what I said above, I think it's the kind of change that prompts an initial negative reaction since the player does need to adjust to the changes and reconsider a few strategies. The change to fire clay had similar reactions when it was introduced. Rather startling when first encountered, but a change that makes sense once one plays around with it a bit.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Tabulius said:

Haven't played the update yet, but curious what people who have think about the spear change. I was excited when I saw the addition of iron spears, then rolled my eyes when I saw it said that they all got nerfed.

haha my same reaction. I was hoping that the spears would stay the same. But nerfed? hmm... no. Balanced is more like it because with spears, there was previously no reason to use a bow and arrow or a falx until you got to steel.

1 hour ago, Tabulius said:

Is this basically a glorified global nerfing of spears where now the new iron spears are hardly better than the old bronze?

No. Because quenching wasn't a thing before so actually I expect the new iron spears to become better and steel even more so.

1 hour ago, Tabulius said:

Or is this a reasonable balance change? Anyone able to compare the old stats with the new?

It feels reasonable. As @LadyWYT explained the health of numerous creatures was adjusted so that they still feel the same, but with the addition of quenching and tempering the new spears have a chance to go higher than was ever possible before. In addition, because the spear numbers were actually brought lower, other weapon types are gaining more relevance, primarily the falx and the bow/arrow. In fact, I appreciate the offering of choices now because before I felt shoehorned into only using the spear due to the hunter's melee penalties, but now, even with the longer windup, it feels better than it did before. 

[Zane Mordien]

Well now that we have heard from the coolaid drinkers. It's time for debbie downer to post.

I used to use spears heavily so they are nerfed pretty hard. Oh sorry Balanced pretty hard. I think it is a bit of an overcorrection. They are super slow to throw accurately and do less damage.  It's going to change how a lot of people play the game. 

If spears are going to be so.. balanced.. then I think they need to make hit boxes more realistic on animals. If I'm hunting with spears early game it shouldn't take 15 spears shots to kill a bear and 5 to kill a deer. Head shots should do more damage for example. That 15 is probably 10 if you aren't a blackguard or other class with a range debuff.

Edited March 6 by Zane Mordien

[Teh Pizza Lady]

53 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

Well now that we have heard from the coolaid drinkers. It's time for debbie downer to post.

I used to use spears heavily so they are nerfed pretty hard. Oh sorry Balanced pretty hard. I think it is a bit of an overcorrection. They are super slow to throw accurately and do less damage.  It's going to change how a lot of people play the game.

oh yeah they could probably use a damage boost, a slight one, but they feel like they're in a pretty good place right now.

[ArgentLuna]

Thoughts on spear: I barely use them as is and cant see that changing but when we update to 1.22 will certinally make at least one iron one for my friend to use.

[williams_482]

Apparently the devs agree that they overdid the damage nerf, so I look forward to seeing where and how much they correct upwards. 

And yes this definitely is a "nerf". The word doesn't mean make something bad, it means make it weaker than it was before. Which has clearly happened. 

[CastIronFabric]

21 hours ago, Tabulius said:

Haven't played the update yet, but curious what people who have think about the spear change. I was excited when I saw the addition of iron spears, then rolled my eyes when I saw it said that they all got nerfed. Is this basically a glorified global nerfing of spears where now the new iron spears are hardly better than the old bronze? Or is this a reasonable balance change? Anyone able to compare the old stats with the new?

reference:

In the old version it took 3 hits with a copper spear to kill a boar if I recall correctly.

In the new version when I was crouched and aimed well, it took me 3 hits with a cooper spear to kill a boar.

so the same. I have not studied it closely though to be fair.

 

Edited March 6 by CastIronFabric

[Thorfinn]

I think the stone (and flint and obsidian) need another half point at least, and I would leave copper alone, and boost bronze. At the moment, the Stone Age is weak, particularly for newer players, copper makes a huge difference, and bronze is a why bother. If you are swimming in tin, why not, but it's not worth the effort to go mine more.

[Thorfinn]

On 3/5/2026 at 8:17 PM, Zane Mordien said:

They are super slow to throw accurately

This is going to sound weird, but I didn't even know you could throw them quickly. I thought you had to wait for the reticle.

[MKMoose]

They've been adjusted again in rc.1. Machine gun I think is still viable at short range. Full accuracy is reached after holding for ~1.1 s if I recall correctly, though I'm not sure at this point. Damage below. Copper and bronze are neatly balanced between each other. Iron is in a limbo now because ranged damage seems to be unaffected by quenching due to a bug - if that's fixed, then iron spears will be in certain contexts better than bronze pre-update. They would be just fine if quenching was removed.

"*-flint": 4.0,
"*-obsidian": 4.5,
"*-scrap": 5,
"*-copper": 5,
"*-hacking": 5.5,
"*-bismuthbronze": 5.75,
"*-tinbronze": 6.0,
"*-blackbronze": 6.5,
"*-ruined": 6.5,
"*-iron": 6.8,
"*-meteoriciron": 6.9,
"*-steel": 7.0,
"*-ornatesilver": 7.0,
"*-ornategold": 7.25,
"*": 3.0

If quenching gets fixed to affect ranged damage as well, then an iron spear quenched twice (or potentially a meteoric iron or steel spear quenched once), relative to a 1.21 tin bronze spear, will have:

• higher damage with better breakpoints (roughly the same damage and breakpoints as 1.21 black bronze),
• longer accuracy windup time (not as significant for close-range spam, impactful for longer-range combat),
• much higher melee damage (~4.75-5, whereas tin bronze has 3.75).

Edited Saturday at 09:35 PM by MKMoose

[Tabulius]

On 3/6/2026 at 5:23 AM, williams_482 said:

Apparently the devs agree that they overdid the damage nerf, so I look forward to seeing where and how much they correct upwards. 

Do you have any reference of devs saying this?

[LadyWYT]

4 minutes ago, Tabulius said:

Do you have any reference of devs saying this?

Here you go: