Guild Wars 2

I don’t play one, but I am generally curious, say spirits entirely went away and became basically aoe “support” signets with just partical effects on the player when active (they’d work the same, last x amount of time, have the CD, and ability to use while active) would you like them more? Because then they wouldn’t be an AI class; which is what everyone complains about, they’d just be a support class with active buffs that last a duration that benefit team members with secondary abilities (more buttons to have to press). Would you actually be happier that they weren’t an AI build anymore?

Before you answer, take notice that this would be a buff because AoE wouldn’t shut them down so easily anymore and you wouldn’t be able to CC his spirits in any way.

Similar things have been suggested before and have always been ignored.

People have suggested removing spirits and instead make activating the skill place a aura on the Ranger’s normal pet for example. Same premise as yours but at least this reinforces the general pet mechanic of the class that is currently seen as an afterthought by most. It would also make it easier to counter and control.

Yes this would be wonderfull and very interesting.
Yes this would be a huge buff.

Spirit Rangers actually now are fine.They are still braindead and boring but not as much OP as it used to be.And it has to do with the counters they found on their way..I would like to use spirits in a way Mesmers use portal….Without needing to go all the way to 30 points and pick 4 of them.I dont understand why other classes can take skills without needing to trait em for 3 major traits to make em strong.While Rangers have to invest at least 60 points to make a build viable for pvp..First you take Empathetic bond for 30 and then if you want Signets you must go another 30 to affect you as well and if you want spirits you must take 30 to follow you..Ppl never played Ranger dont know this but most of the Rangers hate spirits but we are forced to take em to be effective in a spvp match, otherwise other classes can easily take Rangers place..Its a “bring aoe rezz or gtfo” situation

I think this would be great because then people could accept it for what it is, and stop complaining about what they don’t understand (its not an AI build, the buffs are just from a separate entity, if the on-use abilities came from the spirit ranger themselves they’d actually be more useful because then they could control them, or even their 1 active pet.) No one complained about shaman Totems being OP AI class users in WoW (for good reason). I think if they just made spirits particle effects on the ranger or the pet it’d go over well, they could be simple little sprites that fly around the head or even more exciting like animated Eagle wings with one spirit (likely the elite) and other things like fiery claw hand effects for others, doesn’t really matter how it’s done but at least them people could see it for what it really is and stop complaining about the AI aspect because frankly, its annoying. It actually makes the Rangers job HARDER having to deal with them rather then the effects just coming from themselves or the pet.

(Granted, if it was from the pet, the range would have to be greatly increased, otherwise it could be problematic for LB users, thus would just end up being bad design)

The tabbing is quite annoying.
Another reason people don’t like it is due to passive damage. It is perceived as easy. Yes, it is pretty easy…but unless you are playing…. scepter mesmer or some other terrible combination the game is pretty easy.

Honestly, if they changed spirits I’d be quite happy. I’d love it if power builds were more viable (LB1 kinda screws that….)

Hedgehog in the fog.1053:

The tabbing is quite annoying.
Another reason people don’t like it is due to passive damage. It is perceived as easy. Yes, it is pretty easy…but unless you are playing…. scepter mesmer or some other terrible combination the game is pretty easy.

Honestly, if they changed spirits I’d be quite happy. I’d love it if power builds were more viable (LB1 kinda screws that….)

Tabbing is already a non issue, the game prioritizes players > minions. If you mess up, a. it’s your own fault for being trigger happy, and b. just deselect and re-tab once. Pretty easy (since last patch). And the other thing, you brought up the exact point I always make. Nothing in this game is “hard”, its all burst build or bunker builds with a few easy to pull off combos… The only thing that’s hard is a non-evade/stealth spamming thief. Other than that, the game is LOADED with passive effects. At least those passive effects have to be summoned, have they looked at traits recently? 90% of those are PASSIVE. o.O

AI= body block,aoe cap,screen clutter,hard to target the player
so mass AI isnt like a aura or just active buffs.
and passive=less skill aka braindead gameplay
and sun need a lil nerf.
and spirits are ugly

ronpierce.2760:

Hedgehog in the fog.1053:

The tabbing is quite annoying.
Another reason people don’t like it is due to passive damage. It is perceived as easy. Yes, it is pretty easy…but unless you are playing…. scepter mesmer or some other terrible combination the game is pretty easy.

Honestly, if they changed spirits I’d be quite happy. I’d love it if power builds were more viable (LB1 kinda screws that….)

Tabbing is already a non issue, the game prioritizes players > minions. If you mess up, a. it’s your own fault for being trigger happy, and b. just deselect and re-tab once. Pretty easy (since last patch). And the other thing, you brought up the exact point I always make. Nothing in this game is “hard”, its all burst build or bunker builds with a few easy to pull off combos… The only thing that’s hard is a non-evade/stealth spamming thief. Other than that, the game is LOADED with passive effects. At least those passive effects have to be summoned, have they looked at traits recently? 90% of those are PASSIVE. o.O

O I know. I love my ranger. I play a spirit build. Its not too dissimilar to guardians, except we have to invest heavily. Thats why I hated the “PETS TOO STRONG”, it is a single target condition. Thats it.

The only time I have issue with tabing is necro minions with Asura….there faces are pretty similar to their minions.

As I said, I’d love more viable builds. I was playing a beast master kind of build the other day and it was a blast. Not nearly as viable…but hey…life…

Yes, spirits are ugly, they needed unique visuals per. Next, Spirits are LESS brainless than others. They require active use for a long-term buff, with a second button to press. So technically its no different than any other buff. I guess 1 button that gives 8 seconds of stability is brainless because the effect lasts longer than the initial button press. think about these things before you go on about them.

The one thing I agree with is body blocking can be pretty useful. Granted.

The AI “clutter”, most people who complain about these things leave enemy nametags on, which shows all of their names, that’s their fault. If you want to fix this:

Turn off enemy name plates.
Turn ON player name plates.
You get enemy player names ON and minion names OFF. Try it, its a life saver.

I would love if spirits could be activated one at a time and were activated of your pet. So, your pet has a red mist, blue mist, etc depending on spirit.

I think the whole ranger/pet thing should be explored. Allow buffs that effect ranger, effect pet, but more importantly, vice versa. That way rangers get those buff from melee range.

I know rangers are fine in PvE with melee, but kitten Id love to use a bow.

Passive builds need a nerf so that they aren’t highly competitive and very rewarding for such little player input and skill required.

Spirit Rangers when watched tend to barely dodge any attacks (often wasting them on dodging nothing) and mostly waste their weapon skills by not being in range or using it at the wrong time, but there’s no punishment for this.

As most of the Spirit Ranger power comes from the passive procs the player is rewarded with high damage output and condition spam on the target just by auto-attacking with a ranged weapon.
(Ranged condi spam from auto-attack being the easiest form of gameplay in GW2 yet highly rewarding for Shortbow Ranger and Scepter Necro).

Passive builds are fine as a concept, but they should be the weakest build for each profession as they require the lowest amount of skill and the player takes very little punishment for mistakes and spamming skills as soon as they are available.

Right now the two strongest builds in the meta with Spirit Ranger and Signet Warrior get most of their power from passive effects.
And the one right behind it the Necro gets so much power from condition procs that come from passive traits.

Ezrael, to resolve those issues ANet would have to redesign nearly every Ranger weapon. The majority of them are nothing but auto attack spam or mindlessly clicking skills off cooldown. The utility many of the weapons provide is quite weak in comparison to what other classes provide.

The only engaging way to play a Ranger is to use Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch with a condi/regen build and even that is really about keeping burn on the target and evading attacks and not so much about lining up attacks or timing burst/AE (2 things the class has almost none of).

What you’re effectively advocating is the removal of the Ranger class from sPvP.

Atherakhia.4086:

Ezrael, to resolve those issues ANet would have to redesign nearly every Ranger weapon. The majority of them are nothing but auto attack spam or mindlessly clicking skills off cooldown. The utility many of the weapons provide is quite weak in comparison to what other classes provide.

The only engaging way to play a Ranger is to use Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch with a condi/regen build and even that is really about keeping burn on the target and evading attacks and not so much about lining up attacks or timing burst/AE (2 things the class has almost none of).

What you’re effectively advocating is the removal of the Ranger class from sPvP.

or go bm-traitline with stupid traits for pets and watch your pet running circles hitting nothing

or need to go into skirmishing for traps… so u got precision and critical dmg for conditionutilities.

hooma.9642:

Atherakhia.4086:

Ezrael, to resolve those issues ANet would have to redesign nearly every Ranger weapon. The majority of them are nothing but auto attack spam or mindlessly clicking skills off cooldown. The utility many of the weapons provide is quite weak in comparison to what other classes provide.

The only engaging way to play a Ranger is to use Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch with a condi/regen build and even that is really about keeping burn on the target and evading attacks and not so much about lining up attacks or timing burst/AE (2 things the class has almost none of).

What you’re effectively advocating is the removal of the Ranger class from sPvP.

or go bm-traitline with stupid traits for pets and watch your pet running circles hitting nothing

or need to go into skirmishing for traps… so u got precision and critical dmg for conditionutilities.

Traps is just more of the same thing though… passive play where you load a target up with condis and spam evades while they do their work. I just don’t find the weapons at all engaging and there’s very little synergy between weapon sets and traits. If the goal is for the class to be more reactive and less passive, it’s going to need a lot of work. Something ANet simply isn’t going to do while the class at least has some representation left.

I wondered about this, having the pets as a buff rather than a minion, but wouldn’t that remove the counterplay in killing the spirits? Especially for the elite.

Making the particle mess go away would be nice (even if spirits do look cool). Reconsidering the additional passive damage would be nice, as something would have to be changed if the counterplay changed. Maybe more about utility? The traits would also have to change, which gets to the point that it seems like too much work for Anet to consider… Also if it was a buff on the pet, wouldn’t it make it less reliable if pets ai was being odd?

Regarding the ranger depth, wouldn’t that be fixed by allowing ranger pets to be controlled more? Though we know how anet reacts to that and fire attument eles…

Honestly, this class will always have haters simply because it is an AI-based class. Even non-spirit builds are AI-based because of pets, so when you have multiple rangers in a match, you’re still going to deal with AI clutter.

People are so silly. “Too much passibe” “X is the worst about it”, look at the traits… Initiative gain traits are passive. Adding daze to steal is passive, chance on crit traits/sigils is passive and rng, I could go on for a long time with everything on every class that’s passive. Having passive benefits isn’t bad, their intent is to have a duration boost in power, generally SOMETHING had to be done to cause it. All these active versus passive arguments are getting annoying because no one thinks about it. MOST of this game is passive, as long as people are pressing their F buttons and 1-0 then fair game… Nothing about this game is hard, most traits don’t make you think harder, they just BOOST your buttons, not give you new ones.

People complain about Spirit Rangers for 2 reasons.

A. They have to stand on a point, which means you can’t just avoid the Spirit Pets, notice you don’t see complaints about Spirit Rangers in World vs world, because they’re free kills by anyone with half a brain.

B. Change Shortbow Animation on its shots to be different on each one. Lot of times people say they’re spamming auto shot, but in reality, you use everyone of your abilities on your shortbow as a ranger….There is not one ability you don’t use. The thing is they mostly have the same animation and they all do virtually the same damage.

A. That’s an issue with the game, not spirit rangers. You think I wanna stand on the point with a warrior? x.X Or engi/necro aoe condi spammer? It sucks, but it sucks for EVERYONE.

B. Fair point, they did this with necro marcs a bit, they really should be a bit more distinguished. That said, not a spirit issue, its a whole ranger issue.

Xsorus.2507:

People complain about Spirit Rangers for 2 reasons.

A. They have to stand on a point, which means you can’t just avoid the Spirit Pets, notice you don’t see complaints about Spirit Rangers in World vs world, because they’re free kills by anyone with half a brain.

B. Change Shortbow Animation on its shots to be different on each one. Lot of times people say they’re spamming auto shot, but in reality, you use everyone of your abilities on your shortbow as a ranger….There is not one ability you don’t use. The thing is they mostly have the same animation and they all do virtually the same damage.

B. wrong. they look maybe exact the same. but u can tell what was used from outgoing effect. u know poison, u see the evade, u notice the cripple and u notice the interrupt.

spirit rangers are ok as they are now. necro’s minions deal more damage anyway. from what i know, this build was already nerfed. storm spirit only deals 1000-2000 damage which is useless.

btw, not a lot of rangers play a spirit ranger. running a spirit ranger build requires you to stand on a point and tank. most rangers prefer to kite from afar avoiding direct damage.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Yes this would be wonderfull and very interesting.
Yes this would be a huge buff.

Spirit Rangers actually now are fine.They are still braindead and boring but not as much OP as it used to be.And it has to do with the counters they found on their way..I would like to use spirits in a way Mesmers use portal….Without needing to go all the way to 30 points and pick 4 of them.I dont understand why other classes can take skills without needing to trait em for 3 major traits to make em strong.While Rangers have to invest at least 60 points to make a build viable for pvp..First you take Empathetic bond for 30 and then if you want Signets you must go another 30 to affect you as well and if you want spirits you must take 30 to follow you..Ppl never played Ranger dont know this but most of the Rangers hate spirits but we are forced to take em to be effective in a spvp match, otherwise other classes can easily take Rangers place..Its a “bring aoe rezz or gtfo” situation

Empathic bond aint that good btw and in tpvp and dungeon its much easier to play w/o unbound than wvw.