Guild Wars 2

Can we turn them back to invulnerable, and have their duration increase to 45 seconds when traited with “Expeditious Spirit”. Maybe buff their damage by 10% too or have an aura that gives might, stability, fury just like the traps.

I would like them to be invulnerable but to balance it out they can’t hold aggro any longer. In fact just the opposite: the AI automatically targets the owner when struck by a spirit weapon. I think that would be a fair trade.

I think Spirit Weapons being so squishy is actually an interesting weakness. The problem is that spirit weapons aren’t particularly powerful, so they’re like glass cannon pets without the “cannon” part.

There are quite a few ways they can be buffed, like casting time, duration, cooldown starting on summon or just reduced cooldown, improved effects, etc, although ANet seems to avoid spirit weapons just like the rest of the underpowered utilities that they avoid buffing for some reason. It was a miracle that Sanctuary even got buffed last patch.

I don’t think they avoid SW’s … they were changed a few times since release and IIRC, the last time had some reasonable buffs. I believe it’s just a cycle they go through and SW’s are just going to have to wait their turn. Of course, that’s probably a good year or so out, but that’s the expectation Anet has set with previous work.

I think we all got a few ideas on how SW’s should be handled. Let’s hope Anet has theirs in the queue

Direct answer: No. We CAN’T turn them back to invulnerable because in general MMOs can’t turn ANYTHING back to what it was previously. You can move sideways, you can move forward, but directly retracing your steps is PR suicide.

I think they should, or at least give them the same stats as the most durable ranger pet. They’re so weak last night when I used them on a diamond ranked queue a power rev took less than 5 seconds to destroy the hammer, shield and sword using staff. Not to mention that long recast time. Once he destroyed those its pretty much gg lol.

I’d rather have them be permanent instead. If I want a temporary dps boost, the last thing I need is to rely on AI.

Spirit Weapons take the disadvantages of both Necrominions and Gyros. They’re going to need a lot to be competitive, but there’s potential there.

Making them invulnerable again is likely never going to happen. Counterplay is the lay of the land now, and you can’t counter an unkillable AI. At best you interrupt the initial cast, but that’s probably not enough for the current design philosophy.

I actually don’t really want them to become invulnerable again either. I’d rather have other areas improved to the point where they’re useful while being killable. Shorter cast time, longer uptime, stronger effects. More survivability would be nice as well. Not through invulnerability, but more health and maybe a pulsing aegis effect to make them more durable than they currently are.

Do you remember turret engineers? If they buff spirit weapons to a point where there good enough to use in a competitive build that fiasco is gonna happen all over again.

I LOVE my guardian and I love the idea of spirit weapons. But I really don’t wanna get turret engineered. And the community will lose there kitten if they even THINK an “AI” build is anywhere NEAR meta.

That aside. Taking spirit weapons makes the guardian himself pretty vulnerable to conditions. (if you invested into them trait wise and are using more than 1). So I feel it wouldnt be too far out there if they were immune to the effects of conditions themselves.

Outside of that. Id change the bow of truth so that its arrows applied resistance (3-4 second duration) in an aoe around the friendly “target” it hits instead of cleansing.

And its aoe healing barrage altered to do slightly less healing but to cleanse conditions in an aoe. This helps protect not only the guardian but the other spirit weapons as well. And this MIGHT be strong enough to be considered a heal skill.

Sword of justice I would love it if its aoe radius was increased and pulsed damage instead of firing it all in one burst.

Like lets say it slams into the ground and creates a symbol as long as its rooted (it should get 2 stacks of stability here) That pulses aoe vuln and damage.

If the hammer when it smashed into the ground created a circle that acted similar to hollowed ground. Pulsing stability to allies inside it.

The shield I feel is actually pretty good. Though I would reduce the cooldown on its command a bit more.

What these do is allows a guardian to act in a similar way to other guardian builds that currently exist. But in a completely different fashion. Sort of being able to pick and choose certain strengths while giving up another option that leaves it vulnerable.

You can have aoe damage, projectile destruction, and aoe stability and single target cc. But you don’t get cleanses.

You get Cleanses Stability and Projectile Destruction but you are lacking in pressure.

Just my own idea though.

spirit weapon can be easy adjust to this current meta

here is example
spirit hp need to be doubled
when they die it should do something
the command skill should be inherent in the spirit attack like the third attack
the command should be replaced
dmg done by spirit should be raise or the cd should be much lower

trait – only 1 trait attached to spirit – shame.
easy fix – spirits get healed by the amount of dmg they done

hammer command – kd aoe and when it dies it stun foe for 2 sec the area around it

sword command – should be a block for 2 sec and aoe dmg when it dies

bow command – should heal for 2k and cleanse 2 conditions and when it dies create an healing fountain for 3 sec on its location which heal and cleanse allies every sec

shield command – the shield should give regen and protection around it for 3 sec every 5 sec. when it dies give all boons for 5 seconds (kidding only protection, regen, retaliation and aegis)

So after thinking for a bit, here’s what I’d want from Spirit Weapons:

• They no longer die after their time limit is up. Between their casttime, recharge, and command skills, they act far closer to Necrominions than Gyros. This is the most impactful change while turning the least knobs.

• Sword has no changes

• Hammer auto-attack Stuns for 1s instead of Knockback. Command cooldown adjusted to 30s from new lifespan.

• Shield swaps auto-attack and Command skills. It will now bounce around granting Aegis to allies and Weakness to enemies. Command will be a ground targeted deployment of its absorption shield and retains its Stun Breaker. Shield Command now at 20s recharge because of new lifespan.

• Bow now fires a piercing attack at the targeted enemy (damage equal to Shield). Any allies that are hit are cleansed. Bow Command at 30s recharge due to new lifespan.

• Expeditious Spirit keeps its Spirit Weapon cooldown reduction and burn on attack, but loses its Command skill recharge reduction. Instead, Spirit Weapons drop a Fire Field (4s, 180u radius) that can cause burning (2s) when crossing the boundary.

There were some things I didn’t take into account, but for what I did look into, these are the mechanical changes I’d like to see from Spirit Weapons as they currently stand. I can already imagine the number of builds that could come out of these changes, and none of them should get out of hand.

Shadelang.3012:

Do you remember turret engineers? If they buff spirit weapons to a point where there good enough to use in a competitive build that fiasco is gonna happen all over again.

I LOVE my guardian and I love the idea of spirit weapons. But I really don’t wanna get turret engineered. And the community will lose there kitten if they even THINK an “AI” build is anywhere NEAR meta.

Ever heard of Necromancers?

And Spirit Weapons don’t have to be “turret engineered”, they are already useless as is. We really have nothing to lose.

RabbitUp.8294:

I’d rather have them be permanent instead. If I want a temporary dps boost, the last thing I need is to rely on AI.

I second this. Having 3-4 permanent little “pets” running around with you would make them really great. Obviously their power would have to be nerfed (like increasing the cooldown of their big move) and trait changed to make up for this, but if they are not going to be super powerful, you can at least make them fun.

Ghotistyx.6942:

So after thinking for a bit, here’s what I’d want from Spirit Weapons:

• They no longer die after their time limit is up. Between their casttime, recharge, and command skills, they act far closer to Necrominions than Gyros. This is the most impactful change while turning the least knobs.

• Sword has no changes

• Hammer auto-attack Stuns for 1s instead of Knockback. Command cooldown adjusted to 30s from new lifespan.

• Shield swaps auto-attack and Command skills. It will now bounce around granting Aegis to allies and Weakness to enemies. Command will be a ground targeted deployment of its absorption shield and retains its Stun Breaker. Shield Command now at 20s recharge because of new lifespan.

• Bow now fires a piercing attack at the targeted enemy (damage equal to Shield). Any allies that are hit are cleansed. Bow Command at 30s recharge due to new lifespan.

• Expeditious Spirit keeps its Spirit Weapon cooldown reduction and burn on attack, but loses its Command skill recharge reduction. Instead, Spirit Weapons drop a Fire Field (4s, 180u radius) that can cause burning (2s) when crossing the boundary.

There were some things I didn’t take into account, but for what I did look into, these are the mechanical changes I’d like to see from Spirit Weapons as they currently stand. I can already imagine the number of builds that could come out of these changes, and none of them should get out of hand.

those actually look really good if we dont loose dome on shield wich is actually nice since not every guardian play meditation with gap closer….. but overall it looks simple and would help the SW, still for those to work, Anet had to change the A.I of bow and shield, since they use the same A,I that hammer and sword, they tend to run near the target to auto atack it(since they dont have AA they will just stand there doing nothing).

The dome would be the command skill, so you’d have more control when it’s active. The AI is probably fine. I’m sure it tells the weapons to get in range for their auto attack, but since Shield and Bow have none they sit in melee. With ranged autos they’ll likely start attacking at 900-1200 range just like Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm.