How to fix Spirit Weapons
Mr.Whiskers is an important part of this community and you- ! Ahem I mean. Those are some interesting thoughts on spirit weapons. The updates to the AI would certainly be a boon. I’m not to fond of making them uncritable though.
Between the horrible AI, the fact that if they die your stuck with nothing but wasted traits, the fact that they have low base HP and you cannot upgrade their HP at all they really should just get rid of their current iteration and start all over.
I say that because reliance on an AI is just bad design for the class & the game no mater how good or bad the AI is.
Personally I would like to see them either
1: Redesigned to be more like elementalist conjure weapons
or
2: Redesigned to be a mix between warrior banners & ranger spirits. In that I mean they would be stationary (you could pick them up to lower the CD), invulnerable & give a static buff to allies nearby but be able to command them to give the guardian a buff specific to the weapon.
Personally , when traited (Expeditious Spirit ) Sword Of justice is really good on a burning Guard build , each swing burn foes + 5 Vulnerability .. i get around 2 600 Burning damage with my build.
The spirit shield is situational .. i use in conjunction with wall of reflection. When the wall is a at 22 second cooldown i cast the shield so the shield takes over when the wall end. Hammer life is too short , cool down too long .. even with a blast finisher it don’t worth it.
SpiritBow is totally useless .. make it shoot at foes .. water field on command ?
The sword attacking isn’t too bad right now. I would think 50% speed on any of them is over the top. A perma swiftness boost with the in-combat limitations would be fine though. Their biggest problem is survivability, just like almost every summon besides mesmer clones because who cares if a clone dies in 2 seconds, make 3 more in it’s place. Their damage is not bad, never has been horrible but the durations on them coupled with really long recharges even when traited cripple them and make them highly undesirable.
The shield bubble I think is ok as-is. I know it’s annoying to have it pop behind where you are fighting sometimes, but I’ve also found good uses for that, in that it guards the squishies.
The bow however, it seems to only work when it feels like it, even then…. a single condi removed on a single target every 7 seconds or so…not to mention it thinks it’s a melee dps weapon so it stands directly next to the enemy instead of back like it should.
Nah, bow needs total rework. It needs to have some function much like focus 4- bouncing between allies and foes, removing condis on allies and debuffing foes (I do not think it needs a damaging ability at all though other than any burning it would apply when triated)
There are a few issues with Spirit Weapon:
1. Its attacks are really slow.
2. When you run forward and you order your Spirit Weapon to do sth, it often stays behind and you have to wait till it comes to you.
3. It often dies in teamfight/in AoE.
4. After summoning all of your weapons you will stay with nothing for next 30s.
5. Spirit Weapons can be good in PvE, but not in PvP and WvW if you are going to take all three of them as utilities.
The best Spirit Weapon is definitely: Shield, because it doesn’t attack on its own so it won’t die in AoE easily. You can feel that it protects you from projectiles. Plus its active ability always works and it is mostly useful in combat.
What to change:
I don’t think that Spirit Weapons in current form are useful. Spirit Weapon shouldn’t appear in the physical form as summons but more like commands.
1. You can no longer summon a Spirit Weapon in a physical form.
2. You can command Spirit Weapon to appear for a short period of time (untargetable), do what it does (heal in the area, knockback, AoE damage, AoE Aegis + dome) and then disappear. I mean something like Revenant’s hammer skill #5 where weapon appears only as a animation.
3. Cooldown would be much shorter: sword-15s, hammer-20s, bow-30s, shield-30s.
Trait:
1. Spirit Weapons cooldowns are reduced by: 20%.
2. Spirit Weapons give boons to allies around their target: sword-retaliation, hammer-might, shield-protection, bow-regeneration. //but since it’s in Zeal line it must be sth more offensive not boons, gotta think about it
(edited by Assic.2746)