Guild Wars 2

Spirit weapons currently are underpowered and require a lot of investment to make them half way functional. I’m just going to skip to the point just in case the devs so happen to read this thread.

Whats wrong with spirit weapons

• Spirit weapons health is very low they are usually 1-2 shot by burst attacks

• The user is severely punished by using spirit weapons:

• 1. You are punished by summoning them ahead of encounter due to their low duration.

• 2. You are punished if you summon them mid encounter due to their long casting time

• 3. You are punished if they die mid encounter due to their long cooldown (with the exception of sword of justice)

• 4. The user is punished if they do not take eternal spirit because spirit weapons self destruct upon skill use. No trait should be mandatory but they should be optional.

• Spirit weapons suffer from poor AI. Watch bow of truth and shield of avenger follow a enemy target when they are suppose to guard the user

• Bow of Truth is useless, the condi removal never seems to land, its command skill doesn’t scale with healing power

• Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdoms tooltip doesn’t even reflect the amount of damage it does, leaving the user guessing how much it does and if it scales with stats

• Spirit weapons traits are scattered through out three separate trait lines, making it possible to only have one spirit weapon build

What should change

• Spirit Weapons should no longer self destruct upon skill use if you do not have eternal spirit. Eternal spirit should be made baseline

• Eternal spirit can be replaced by a new trait that increases the health of spirit weapons

• Shield of avenger and bow of truth AI should be reworked to ensure that it stays near the summoner and guards them instead of running off

• Bow of Truth needs to be reworked so that its actually functional. Currently bow of truth is just disgraceful and the example of how Anet appear to not care if something works or not

• Traits should be found within two trait lines not three. This leave room for the user to explore their own builds instead of being locked into one particular build just to get spirit weapons to work half way

• How severe does Anet want spirit weapon users to be punished? Currently there are three big ones I named. It needs to be limited to one, its punishing enough if they are destroyed mid encounter and the guardian is forced to re summon them. The cast time is long enough for all types of counter play. Lower the base cooldown to Hammer, Bow and Shield to 30 secs like Sword of justice.

I agree spirit weapons leave much to be desired. Long cast times, timed summon, cooldowns not starting till spirit weapon dies (standard for all summons bar Mesmer & Warrior), substantial cooldowns.

Now Guardian cooldowns I believe are a legacy of when spirit weapons were invulnerable. As compared to all the other summons they have the shortest summoned up time and quite long overall cooldowns.

As I have no problem with the the actual skills (bar Bow of Truth) I would first look at summon up time, cooldowns and maybe not destroying spirit weapons on spirit skill activation. (Note all skills are listed as untraited with mention to some traited summons)

Warning long list of summon skills
——
Guardian – Timed summon, destroyed on skill activation (if not traited) & killable.
Summoned times:

• Sword 30 sec
• Hammer 20 sec
• Bow of Truth 20 sec
• Shield of Avenger 20 sec

Cooldown times:

• Sword 30 sec
• Hammer 45 sec
• Bow of Truth 60 sec
• Shield of Avenger 60 sec

Necromancer – Permanent once summoned, not destroyed when activating minion skill & killable.
Summoned times: Permanent

Cooldown times:

• Blood Fiend 20 sec
• Bone Minions 20 sec
• Bone Fiend 30 sec
• Shadow Fiend 30 sec
• Flesh Wurm 40 sec
• Flesh Golem 60 sec

Ranger – Timed summon, not destroyed when activating spirit skill.
Summoned times:

• Water Spirit 60 sec
• Sun Spirit 60 sec
• Stone Spirit 60 sec
• Frost Spirit 60 sec
• Storm Spirit 60 sec
• Spirit of Nature 60 sec

Cooldown times:

• Water Spirit 20 sec
• Sun Spirit 20 sec
• Stone Spirit 20 sec
• Frost Spirit 20 sec
• Storm Spirit 20 sec
• Spirit of Nature 180 sec

Engineer – Permanent once summoned & 1 timed summon, not destroyed when activating turret skill & killable.
Summoned times: Permanent bar Supply Crate 60 sec

Cooldown times:

• Healing Turret 20 sec
• Rifle Turret 20 sec
• Flame Turret 25 sec
• Net Turret 30 sec
• Thumper Turret 50 sec
• Rocket Turret 50 sec
• Supply Crate 180 sec

Mesmer – Permanent once summoned but die on targets death, destroyed on shatter, cooldowns begin recharge after casting & killable.
Cooldown times:

• Utility skills – Mirror Images 45 sec, Phantasmal Disenchanter 20 sec, Decoy 40 sec & Phantasmal Defender 30 sec.

• Weapon skills – Mirror Blade 8 sec (GS), Phantasmal Berserker 20 sec (GS), Phase Retreat 10 sec (St), Phantasmal Warlock 18 sec (St), Ether Clone 1 sec (Sc), Illusionary Counter 10 sec (Sc), Illusionary Leap / Swap 12 sec (Sw), Illusionary Riposte 15 sec (Sw), Phantasmal Swordsman 20 sec (Sw), Phantasmal Duelist 20 sec (P), Phantasmal Warden 25 sec (F) & Phantasmal Mage 30 sec (T).

Thief – Timed summons, no alternate skill once summoned & killable.
Summoned times:

• Ambush 20 sec
• Thieves Guild 30 sec

Cooldown times:

• Ambush 35 sec
• Thieves Guild 180 sec

Elementalist – Timed summons, no alternate skill once summoned, summoned based of attunement & killable.
Summoned times:

• Glyph of Lesser Elementals 60 sec
• Glyph of Elementals 60 sec

Cooldown times:

• Glyph of Lesser Elementals 45 sec
• Glyph of Elementals 120 sec

Warrior – Banners are a bit of summon & a bit of conjure/kit/environmental weapon. But looking at them in the view of a summons they are; Timed summons, unable to be killed or destroyed, cooldowns begin recharge after casting, unremovable passive stat buffs & regen boon (as in almost instant reapplication if traited).
Summoned times:

• Banner of Defense 90 sec
• Banner of Strenght 90 sec
• Banner of Discipline 90 sec
• Banner of Tactics 90 sec
• Battle Standard 60 sec

Cooldown times:

• Banner of Defense 120 sec
• Banner of Strenght 120 sec
• Banner of Discipline 120 sec
• Banner of Tactics 120 sec
• Battle Standard 240 sec

Bezagron,

Excellent post, just what this thread needs.

Spirit weps are weak in pvp, and that’s a good thing.

/thread

No thanks, I really don’t want another kind of build similar to MM necro or spirit ranger where you can basically stand idle and still do well. Rather than buffing spirit weapons, I’d rather have them deleted altogether and have a new and interesting set of utility skills that may actually be viable. And while they do this for the guardian, they can do this for every single other profession as well because all of them have a vast amount of skills that are completely useless.

Phaeton.9582:

Spirit weps are weak in pvp, and that’s a good thing.

/thread

The last thing pvp needs is more pve… Just sayin.

Okaishi.8320:

No thanks, I really don’t want another kind of build similar to MM necro or spirit ranger where you can basically stand idle and still do well. Rather than buffing spirit weapons, I’d rather have them deleted altogether and have a new and interesting set of utility skills that may actually be viable. And while they do this for the guardian, they can do this for every single other profession as well because all of them have a vast amount of skills that are completely useless.

It would be impossible for guardian to stand idle with spirit weapons, unlike ranger spirits and necro minions, spirit weapons don’t offer any form sustain. And the trait lines where spirit weapons are found offer no sustain.

Standing idle would result in a quick death.

Okaishi guess you also dislike the mesmeriser profession as at it’s heart is all about pet control (clones/phantoms) but out of all of GW2 pet builds the most balanced.

I guess I have no problems with pet builds, so long as there are counters to them and not this is the only build that can counter them. In a way I see two types of game play strategic & tactical. I would place pet builds as strategic in GW2, planned to achieve maximum effect for what’s it design for but when caught out total outplayed by anything designed for tactical game play. And it this balance that’s needed.

Pet builds need to go three ways, pets doing the damage then pets need to be squishy. Player doing the damage then the player needs to be squishy or pets & player are balanced both doing average damage and having average defence. Depending on the type either destroy the pet(s) or draw the player away or out of position in association of the pets.

What should not be possible is bursty pet plus player as give the same damage as if you had two burst players attacking you (this is unbalanced), or bunker player plus bunker pet(s) if they feel like your fighting two bunker players.

One of the biggest advantages with pets is targeting noise and this is what seems to make most players frustrated. Add imbalanced pet damage or defence and it really makes players rage.

Lastly pet builds were for the micro managers as not only did you need to control you character but these other ones as well. GW2 pet build problem I believe is partly due to a large passive nature of the pets. And this passive nature has been one of the largest complaints from those that truly love pet builds.

I don’t believe pet builds should be removed but that they need to have more complicated control management skill required as pet builds create target noise, the ability to be in more then two places (more pets more places) and avoid punishment skills (as the pets take the punishment).

A quick thought for some pet build counter skills is a skill that does more damage with the number of targets hit. So hit a single target does little damage but hitting multiple target increases the damage dealt. This could be decided no just targets hit or design so it effects pet builds but not groups of players.

In truth I feel it’s that we need more counters to pets builds not remove them.

wow u want to buff spirit weapons?

LOLOL

they can lock someone down very well and the hammer can hit anywhere between 4-8k…

Bezagron.7352:

In truth I feel it’s that we need more counters to pets builds not remove them.

kittenty, un-fun mechanics don’t need counter builds. They need to be unviable in any meta.

Phaeton.9582:

Bezagron.7352:

In truth I feel it’s that we need more counters to pets builds not remove them.

kittenty, un-fun mechanics don’t need counter builds. They need to be unviable in any meta.

7 of 8 classes have those mechanics. Its part of the game so you have to deal with it. Its bad design to have skills that no one uses because of how it functions.

Anyhow, I think it would make more sense if bow of truth was a slotted heal than a utility.

I actually stream my guardian pvp matches who uses a spirit builds in the meantime to show what it can/cannot do

http://www.twitch.tv/maxwilso

I’d like to see them have at least 10k health each, 50% immunity to AOE and Condition damage and not be destroyed when commanded as a baseline, then I may consider using them.

What about making the 50% duration trait into a permanent duration trait.

Eliminates a lot of the punishments listed. And, you’d still be able to counter them with killing the low hp pets that have a reasonable cool down upon dying. You’d still have to trait in them but they’d be much better and more reasonable.

Do that and fix bow to work correctly and I could see myself pulling them out.

Jerus.4350:

What about making the 50% duration trait into a permanent duration trait.

Eliminates a lot of the punishments listed. And, you’d still be able to counter them with killing the low hp pets that have a reasonable cool down upon dying. You’d still have to trait in them but they’d be much better and more reasonable.

Do that and fix bow to work correctly and I could see myself pulling them out.

This is a good idea, but I think it would be too powerful for a Tier 1 trait. I could see permanent duration trait being apart of eternal spirit.

It would make more sense if Bow was turned into a healing slot skill and made functional. It does have a 370 heal every 5 secs in addition to a condi removal every 5.5 secs. Thats powerful if it works.

Bow should replace litany of wrath and litany of wrath should be made a utility skill.

Sorry Phaeton but what is un-fun, who’s fun are we talking about. What one person finds fun might be un-fun to someone else. Every player has a different fun.

Instead of just removing pet builds because there un-fun, why not identify the un-fun aspects(s) as these typically can indicate something is unbalanced or needs improvements. So;

• What is it about pet builds that you find un-fun?
• What changes could be put in place to improve the the fun factor?

Just labelling un-fun and should be removed does not help. An example could be that burst builds are un-fun as they can kill you before you get any change for counter play. Should these then be removed because there un-fun.

Now un-fun burst could be because they can kill you too fast. So let’s look at this, what are the causes, Too fast

Okay lets ask ourself’s what is a reasonable burst kill time which still feels bursty but allows for counter play. 3 sec, 10 sec.

This is more important when you start to look at online play as latency can also be a large factor. So burst kill time is important as if too fast any latency issues can result in burst being a very un-fun mechanic to play against.

At the moment I feel players complaints are more because other then blanket AoE there and to few counters to pet builds. Before removing pet builds in total (which I don’t like because it reduces play styles) I would first look at improving counter play.

Also a solution for pet builds through successful counters could also provide counters to zerg play & the stack game play which also some have complaints.

Bar that we’re talking about spirit weapons (aka pets) the OP is more talking about problems with existing utility skills which feel lacking when compare to other similar utility skills from other professions and when compare to other Guardian utility skills.

Untraited spirit weapons feel very unrewarding. As there are a 2 step skill for actual use. To use the spirit skill you have to first summon then and then activate the spirit skill which is usually the actual effect you want which after the spirit weapon dies.

You the attacker have two opportunities to make this utility have no effect. Interrupt the cast and/or kill the spirit weapon.

Before they were invulnerable once summoned which allowed you to active the spirit skill any time throughout the summons, and it is this plus that spirit weapons died on use is what they were balanced on.

Unfortunately pets in general are implemented poorly and promote passive play which no-one enjoys fighting either with or against.

While guardian spirits have tons of issues, fixing them will still leave them in the same state as other NPC “helpers”.

I would prefer them to only activate skills on command ( rebalanced for command effect and CD ), or become actual utility summons ( like kits or elemental weapons ) to help promote more active or skillful play.

This will never happen.

I used hammer spirit jut for fun yesterday was fun to observe the thied being kd several times before cloaked

So Tarsius it the passive play that’s at least one problem aspect (And I agree largely passive play should not create high preforming builds).

• So what can be done about it?

I see two actions;

1. Make them more active. (more complex control schemes, active skill effects)
2. Punish them for they type of play. (summon/group focus punishing skills)

First agree they need more active game play but it’s the second option I feel could help the most

. For me it’s this group punishing skills that could open up the counter plays to pet builds, zerging & stacking game play. Could group punishing skills work?

They could have or be:

• AoEs or single target
• Greater effect / more damage for the number of targets within an area
• Greater effect / more damage for having active summons
• Greater effect / more damage for number of summons
• Deny / disable the passive effects gain from group/summons but does not remove from the source of effect
• Take control of targets summons
• Skill effect is mirrored in part or in whole back to the group/summon(s) or from summon back to summoner.

Having this counter play could turn what is now unenjoyable into enjoyable.

I find this play and counter play is what makes encounters enjoyable. Without any chance for any counter play in an encounter that is when I find it becomes unenjoyable. So for me it’s all about making these counter plays.

Tarsius.3170:

Unfortunately pets in general are implemented poorly and promote passive play which no-one enjoys fighting either with or against.

While guardian spirits have tons of issues, fixing them will still leave them in the same state as other NPC “helpers”.

I would prefer them to only activate skills on command ( rebalanced for command effect and CD ), or become actual utility summons ( like kits or elemental weapons ) to help promote more active or skillful play.

This will never happen.

Gw1 had the exact samethings:

1. Necro pets
2. Ranger spirits
3. Ritual spirits

They still had passive play but no one complained about a pet build in pvp. So I don’t feel the passive play is the issue at hand, I feel its the targeting system in conjunction with the fast pace dynamic game play.

Okay so targeting a problem what can be do to improve or provide counter play?

Remembering this targeting noise is one of the benefits of summoning builds. Like stealth’s targeting benefits, being untargetable.

Aza.2105:

Phaeton.9582:

Bezagron.7352:

In truth I feel it’s that we need more counters to pets builds not remove them.

kittenty, un-fun mechanics don’t need counter builds. They need to be unviable in any meta.

7 of 8 classes have those mechanics. Its part of the game so you have to deal with it. Its bad design to have skills that no one uses because of how it functions.

Anyhow, I think it would make more sense if bow of truth was a slotted heal than a utility.

So perhaps we should be bringing it down to 5.. Not going for 8/8.

This game has some genuinely intriguing builds that are fun to play and watch. But they get countered by the easiest builds; those 7/8 described…

Also when s/d gets toned down meditation guard will be very viable. We also have lots of outlying builds for people looking for variety, as there’s so many interesting ways to self sustain.

Bezagron.7352:

Okay so targeting a problem what can be do to improve or provide counter play?

Remembering this targeting noise is one of the benefits of summoning builds. Like stealth’s targeting benefits, being untargetable.

In GW skills existed that could annihilate summons. I think mesmer had a skill that did double damage if it hit spirits, Monk had a skill that did double damage to undead aka minions.

None of that exists now and probably can not due to the skill structure. For now the counter play that exists is just to simply kill the summon. This is a valid counter, since it takes 1 1/2 secs to resummon one. If you are running 3 summons then thats around 4.5 secs of being vulnerable to all type of attacks.

Not including guardian pets, I think most summons maybe too tanky in 1v1 encounters but too squishy in group encounters. Maybe they could scale pets similar to enemy npcs. The more people that are around, the more hp it has.

Aza.2105:

Jerus.4350:

What about making the 50% duration trait into a permanent duration trait.

Eliminates a lot of the punishments listed. And, you’d still be able to counter them with killing the low hp pets that have a reasonable cool down upon dying. You’d still have to trait in them but they’d be much better and more reasonable.

Do that and fix bow to work correctly and I could see myself pulling them out.

This is a good idea, but I think it would be too powerful for a Tier 1 trait. I could see permanent duration trait being apart of eternal spirit.

It would make more sense if Bow was turned into a healing slot skill and made functional. It does have a 370 heal every 5 secs in addition to a condi removal every 5.5 secs. Thats powerful if it works.

Bow should replace litany of wrath and litany of wrath should be made a utility skill.

Yeah after I posted that was my thought, a bit much for the placement it’s in, but I’m sure they could swap it around to make it better fit, there are surely plenty of deeper traits that are pretty /meh for their placement as well.

And I like your other ideas as well.

as a PvPer the very last thing i want to see is ANOTHER NPC BUILD.
we’re already suffering the cancer of NPC crutch builds like turret engis and MMs.
what next? guardian spirit weapons and ele elementals?
at what point does PvP become EvE(a bunch of NPCs fighting eachother while the players spam auto attacks)…

Liewec.2896:

as a PvPer the very last thing i want to see is ANOTHER NPC BUILD.
we’re already suffering the cancer of NPC crutch builds like turret engis and MMs.
what next? guardian spirit weapons and ele elementals?
at what point does PvP become EvE(a bunch of NPCs fighting eachother while the players spam auto attacks)…

I don’t disagree with this train of thought, but why the hell do we have them if they’re going to be complete crap?

I’ve done some spirit weapon builds in PvP, but I can’t really see them working very well outside of hotjoins or dueling… maybe they’d work ok in solo queue against a disfunctional team, but otherwise you are really handicapping you and your teammates by not bringing other guardian goodies.

Hammer: I think the hammer is actually pretty nice, if not a bit slow. It can apply a lot of CC to your opponents, although you just have to be careful it doesn’t knock them back when you don’t want it to. It’s activated ability is especially nice since it actually goes to the enemy rather than just activating in a localized area like the sword and bow.

Sword: The main issue I have with the sword is that its AoE activated ability is rather slow. This makes it rather useless unless you’re outnumbered since it results in a DPS loss, and the enemies have to stay mostly bunched up around the sword since it doesn’t move to them. Perhaps if it jumped to the enemies upon activating it might be more useful.

Shield: The shield is ok, but sometimes it decides to be an annoyance and just sit off to the side, especially if it was presummoned and you were moving when you got into combat.

Bow: I do agree that the bow is fairly bad though. It needs to stay more localized around the guardian. The activated ability is commonly requires the guardian to move to the bow, when the bow should really move to the guardian so that it can actually hit him. I’ve had the bow just shoot its healing field right beside a node when I needed to stay on the node and defend it. The bow should at least ensure the guardian is the focal point of the healing rain.

I do also feel the enduring spirit trait should be baseline. I know they were trying to establish some unique feel in that the activated abilities would basically serve as a tradeoff or some kind of “finishing move”, but it makes it very pointless to destroy the sword, shield, and bow. The hammer I could see working in that regard since you can set up a CC combo, but its still a pretty big opportunity cost when you consider other utilities.

I feel the cooldowns on some could also be lowered a bit, but better to take care of the bigger problems first.

I haven’t really tried them in PvE, but I don’t feel they’d be that useful. Well, except for the shield since it can completely nullify enemy attacks.

I don’t think it’s a problem of summon builds in PvP but that other then AoEs there is very little counter play. Targeting each summons individually mainly results in the summoner being able to re summon the first one killed which can be a never ending cycle.

Looking at this lack of counter play. It’s here I feel change needs to happen. Creating more counter play to these summon builds other then AoEs and its this I was looking at in my above post.

Being a summons or not should not exclude any skill from improvement is their lacking.

buff em up like what happened to turrets and there we go the new meta but wait…you gotta wait six months

Last thing we need is more passive AI spam.

Gotta say In my own opinion as someone that both plays for and against AI builds on a regular basis im kinda dissapointed at all the naysayers. Its pretty obvious many of them have NEVER played an “ai” build to realize how it actually plays.

Ai builds are really only strong at two things. Holding a point against a SINGLE player that rushes in without even considering whats about to happen to them. Or 1v1ing out in the middle of no where.

Ai builds are strong against single opponents due to there “saturation” style damage.
I.E. they kill by providing a continuous stream of damage that can be mitigated but not completely destroyed. Thats pretty much there only real strength.

Each individual AI build has its own strengths and weaknesses that once recognized make them EASY to kill…..and I mean pathetically easy.

A spirit rangers spirits DONT do damage with the exception of the air spirit which is fairly rarely seen in most pvp matches. And thats a once in a blue moon ability with a pretty tight cast range. EVERY OTHER DAMAGE SOURCE is going to be coming from the ranger itself. Which means blinds and ccs work wonders just as well as they do on any other ranger.

A MM Necro (in EITHER primary build but focusing on VMM) can have alot of sustain/control. but they only have one burst ability. (bone minions) And there sustain gets weaker the logner hte fight goes…wanna cut down a MM fight time in half? Range that blood fiend down. The necro is gonna drop pretty kitten fast if hes using it. If hes using consume conditions thats an easily interrupted heal and then hes screwed. other than that the necro will act as a control bot…trying to cc you so the minions will kill you for him cause he does kitten poor damage.

Turrets are strong right now yes. But again there easily countered. Nearly all the turrets have VERY low health. as in…4-5shot them low… the thumper turret is hte only real exception. The biggest hit is coming from the rocket turret/rifle/flame turret combo and all of those can be killed in less that 5 seconds…the whole group.

As for spirit weapon guards…..At the moment they DONT succeed at anything really cause there too easily countered by a conscious opponent. Meaning if you have half a brain and a little bit of caffeine you can negate them in moments. There all on longish cooldowns…They all have low health… They dont have condi immunity or damage resistance. And to make it even better? The build offers NO sustain to the guardian itself…meaning it can be bursted unlike most naturally tanky Point Defense AI builds.

Thats all it is really. Most ai builds are POINT DEFENSE builds..meaning they SHOULDNT be fun to fight on point. The whole idea behind the role is to make it as unfun for you to take it as possible. They are going to try and lock you down and kill you before you decide to run away and get help. These arnt bunkers…These are defensive forces DESIGNED to ruin a thieves/warriors/decap engis day. Just like those classes are designed to be able to screw over bunkers.