Guild Wars 2

What can we do about Spirit Watch? Ideas for improvement?

Honestly spirit watch is fine. Just fix how lunges and super speed is unaffected by the orbs “slowness”.

This has been said a lot. Give the orb carrier its own set of weapon skills. That will make it more balanced.

Oh, and I doubt that I’ll still play skyhammer. I’m glad they made some changes though. Hopefully this is all part of the new leadership in PvP.

I think this map could be a lot of fun if ANET would fix the major inconsistencies.

All passive 25% movement speed increases from runes and traits currently bypass the orb’s speed reduction. There is no counter-play to that. Yet swiftness, which can be removed/stolen/corrupted, does not work. What’s the logic in that?

Anet needs to make it so that all movement enhancing skills either work or don’t work.

There should also never be a case where a single player can out-run and/or tank 2-3 members of the opposing team while carrying the orb. The orb needs to be an object that requires team support given that it is worth so many points and that it can decap a captured point. That being said, all of the damage/condi immunity skills should drop the orb when used (just like teleports).

The inconsistencies between what skills allow for super speed/damage immunity and what skills drop the orb are currently mind boggling.

To encourage team play, it would also be nice if the orb applied a condition to the player that:

1) locks movement speed to 75% of normal player speed (slightly faster than current 60%) while preventing ALL movement speed buffs from working. Dodging should not bypass the movement lock either as it could be exploited to speed run the orb by builds using vigor/sigil of energy/skills that refresh endurance (all of which are popular in PVP).

2) acts as a bundle weapon that can be dropped and picked-up on demand (like those you pick-up in PVE) and gives the carrier 5 orb-specific weapon skills. This needs to be done to equalize the playing field between different classes. It also makes it easier to balance classes for orb carrying duty since the orb skills can be balanced separately.

3) makes the carrier take 10% more damage from enemies and receive 15% more healing from allies. This might open up a spot for support/healer builds on teams playing this map and could be really interesting.

SaintSnow.6593:

Honestly spirit watch is fine. Just fix how lunges and super speed is unaffected by the orbs “slowness”.

Yeah, GS, sword/WH warrior is the most OP Orb runner.

imho Spirit Watch is worse than SkyPingpong…it favors the tankier specs for orb delivery like guardian or bringing immunities and blocks, a class with movement skills on weapons or using specs with speed/traveler runes can make a huge difference. Other things like turret engis and LB rangers affect this as they could easily gank the carrier or deny acquiring the orb. if your team is all squishy then the map’s objective might work against you…unless the team opts to reroll for something more suitable to run the objective.

lets wait another year for a solution to be “considered” I guess…

Remove Spirit Watch please, I’m tired of getting 2/3 capped because some idiot Ranger on my team is running orb while we’re 4v5 everywhere else. And of course they never listen when I say, “stop running orb, it’s the reason we’re losing”. Just today the reply I got was, “lol noob you can’t even get 2 points for a minute”. I wonder why…

So fix the inconsistencies with running speed seems to be generally agreed upon.

Two more thoughts, fewer points per spirit cap and/or swapping the current mid point with the orb spawn location.

One of the problems it’s to “complicated” for a lot of players. Your team has to be smart enough to balance the orb and control points. If your team only focuses on one, you’re probably going to lose.

Pretty much it’s too difficult for soloq without any type of communication.

Orb is great for decapping points. I hardly ever take it home. I grab it and take it to the point my teammates are trying to take.

Make a person that just took an orb into “orb-carrier” class with 1 heal and 5 skills (for example: 1 leap, 1 cc, 1 sprint, 1 dmg and 1 barrier) and a fixed amount of stats.

Problem solved: now everyone can carry it equally. Other parts of the map seem ok.

Personally I think the only thing that should be changed is the mobility. Even though I can see the benefit of it (late game winner a Mesmer or Ranger speeding to the finish) I feel that the orb should take at least 2 people to transport and not just 1 very fast build. Orb is basically like a caravan or yak. Small speed boost but no tele/lung or anything like that.

Julie Yann.5379:

SaintSnow.6593:

Honestly spirit watch is fine. Just fix how lunges and super speed is unaffected by the orbs “slowness”.

Yeah, GS, sword/WH warrior is the most OP Orb runner.

sword/shield is better than warhorn for orb running, you don’t get the effect of swiftness while holding the orb but you can block without dropping it, the Warrior Sprint triat bypasses the movement reduction though

also if an engi is lucky enough to grab the orb out of combat he can switch a utility for Slick Shoes, use super speed and then switch the utility back, gets you half way to raven in seconds

Yep, rifle engi with Slick Shoes, Rocket Boots and Traveller runes can score the orb ridiculously fast. Luckily the build is pure trololol and in no way functional unless allowed to run the orb uncontested. Warrior is probably the best serious orb runner.

Overall, I agree that Spirit Watch is a bit too complicated for the average yoloQ team. Too many moving parts that make the fail oh so very real without any ability to communicate during matches. I die a little inside every time I see four of my team mates fighting at orb while we get three-capped. Good times.