Guild Wars 2

I’ll break this down by the areas of play

PvE – Spectral armor is redundant with -33% damage Spectral wall, and the extra stunbreaker is not needed when we can carry Spectral walk, which acts as a better one.
(I will choose Spectral wall for armor any day over Spectral Armor buff, and it can be used by team mates that walk through it)

WvW – Spectral walk is usually on everyone’s bar, swiftness is a given. It serves as the primary tele/swift/stunbreak utility. Again, spec. wall makes Spectral Armor redundant.

PvP – Spectral Armor is pretty much useless, if you are in a situation where you need the -33% buff.. you might as well be dead.

My suggestion would be to replace the stun break with 8s stability. One, it gives us stability, which we are lacking sources of (DS stability isn’t that long and only other sources are in elites)

we don’t need another spectral stunbreak… and the armor buff is redundant with spectral wall which is better.

most players who need that stability would also benefit from the armor buff in that moment. (most players CC then burst.)

thoughts?

I don’t know if we don’t need the stun breaker, but I agree Spectral armor is lacking right now.

8 sec stability would be awesome. It’s really bad that our only source of stab only come from one grand master trait.

The reason I don’t use Spectral Armor is also the disgustin Cooldown. 90 sec is way too much for an utility like this. Especially since you lose it if you ever hit your DS key.

Good point, spectral armor is somewhere in between wall and walk, of course you can argue that with spectral wall you need to cast it and then run through it, but still, either longer protection for armor needed (Now 6s armor, 5s wall). Stability would be also be great, though I don’t think we will be given 8s of it, 5s max imo, but it’s still better that nothing.

Abigor.4952:

Good point, spectral armor is somewhere in between wall and walk, of course you can argue that with spectral wall you need to cast it and then run through it, but still, either longer protection for armor needed (Now 6s armor, 5s wall).

If you watch your timers, you can get more than 5s from wall. Wall is up for 9 seconds, and its protection lasts for 5. So when the first protection ends, run through the wall again and get 5 more seconds.

(Before the latest patch, I believe you could run back and forth and stack protection duration, which was a bit of an exploit and they removed it. If an enemy, however runs back and forth through it, their vulnerability does stack. As far as I remember.)

So that’s actually 10 seconds of protection every 40 seconds. (If you can move, of course.)

The stun break portion is fine and should remain as such. The protection is also fine and hardly worthless. These two things are on par with the rest of the professions nominal stun breaks. The only thing missing is the 5-10s of stability that it should offer as well. As a light armored caster it’s an obvious oversight that we lack any real form of worthwhile stability with a functional duration. IMO it should be much closer to being on par with Ele’s Armor of Earth excluding the cantrip mastery.

Druitt.7629:

Abigor.4952:

Good point, spectral armor is somewhere in between wall and walk, of course you can argue that with spectral wall you need to cast it and then run through it, but still, either longer protection for armor needed (Now 6s armor, 5s wall).

If you watch your timers, you can get more than 5s from wall. Wall is up for 9 seconds, and its protection lasts for 5. So when the first protection ends, run through the wall again and get 5 more seconds.

(Before the latest patch, I believe you could run back and forth and stack protection duration, which was a bit of an exploit and they removed it. If an enemy, however runs back and forth through it, their vulnerability does stack. As far as I remember.)

So that’s actually 10 seconds of protection every 40 seconds. (If you can move, of course.)

Yes but spectral armor is more of a activate and forget skill, you don’t always have ability or time to run around your wall=)

Spectral armor could be useful if it had not more than 20-25 sec CD. Yes I am serious.

+1 for a change to spectral armor. I’ve been using it in WvW a lot. Spectral Wall + Spectral Walk is basically the same thing but better, but then you are using two utility slots instead of just one. Even testing it myself it’s hard to decide if that tradeoff is worth it. Stability or a lowered CD would help me make that decision.

What if it was just 5sec stability duration / 25 second cooldown – (traited 20 sec)

or 8 second stability 40 second cooldown (traited 32)

^ this. blahblah 15 characters

I would almost prefer it generating a 1 second fear on those hitting us and a cooldown reduction. Make it the “kitten you, chain CC!” skill.

AFAIK there are no stability granting stun breaks in the game on a CD shorter than 90 sec. And definitely none that include building a mechanic. Leaving Spectral Armor as is and merely adding 5-8s of stability would be within balance. Reducing the CD requires a trait, just like all others do. You’d also have to remember there’s a trait for gaining SA at 50% health as well giving the option to have 2x SAs within the 90 sec CD duration. This is all on par with Ele’s Armor of Earth though we don’t have near the mobility or near their healing and boon production they do, so I really feel like leaving the LF gain would still be appropriate and within balance. Causing fears on hit, or 25 sec CDs or that stuff would likely be waaaaayyy OP

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balanced_Stance
8s stability
stun break
40sec CD
gogo warriors.

hackks.3687:

AFAIK there are no stability granting stun breaks in the game on a CD shorter than 90 sec. And definitely none that include building a mechanic. Leaving Spectral Armor as is and merely adding 5-8s of stability would be within balance. Reducing the CD requires a trait, just like all others do. You’d also have to remember there’s a trait for gaining SA at 50% health as well giving the option to have 2x SAs within the 90 sec CD duration. This is all on par with Ele’s Armor of Earth though we don’t have near the mobility or near their healing and boon production they do, so I really feel like leaving the LF gain would still be appropriate and within balance. Causing fears on hit, or 25 sec CDs or that stuff would likely be waaaaayyy OP

The fears on hit and 25 second cooldown were not meant to be combined with stability.

War Mourner.5168:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balanced_Stance
8s stability
stun break
40sec CD
gogo warriors.

Or even elementals have better armor of earth:
Stability 8s
Protection 8s
Stun break
90ces CD

Does is strike anyone else as ironic that the class that’s supposed to be the master of fear instead has the least defense against it?

I’d support this change, but also make one of the fear-affecting traits also grant immunity to fear.

the main issue with spec. armor is it’s ridiculously long cd, it could stay just as it is but with a 30~25 sec cd.

Abigor.4952:

War Mourner.5168:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balanced_Stance
8s stability
stun break
40sec CD
gogo warriors.

Or even elementals have better armor of earth:
Stability 8s
Protection 8s
Stun break
90ces CD

Making SA the same thing as Armor of Earth is frankly the simplest and most likely solution, and one that should probably suffice.

90s is long— but it would be a pretty significant skill; we can trait it down 20%; and we still can get it from Last Gasp.