Guild Wars 2

To make Spirit Weapons less useless (hopefully to the point of near viability) without reworking the skill type, implement the following:
Baseline

• All Spirit Weapons stay alive until slain.
• All Spirit Weapons’ cooldowns will recharge in the background.
• Using a Command will add a cooldown that is equal to the Command skill’s cooldown to the corresponding Summon skill. (e.g. summon Shield of the Avenger 60s CD , use Command 15s CD once. Shield of the Avenger cannot be summoned until 75s has passed. Use Command twice within a single Shield of the Avenger lifetime, one must wait 90s to cast it again.) Command cooldown additives will recharge in the background as well.
• If Command cooldown additives can’t recharge in the background, the Summon skill will undergo a cooldown equal to (n*0.5*cCD); where n=number of times Command was used within a Spirit Weapons lifetime, and cCD=cooldown of the Command skill (e.g. summon Shield of the Avenger, use Command three times. After 60s has passed and the Shield dies, one must wait 22.5s to summon the Shield again).

Trait

• Move “Fiery Wrath” into the Minor Master position
• Merge “Symbolic Exposure” into the Minor Grandmaster position.
• Create new Major Adept trait: “Boundless Spirits” – Spirit Weapons apply blind near them on Command and attack faster. (Perhaps the blind should be replaced with a 0.75s Immobilize to prevent blind spam. This trait is supposed to have synergy with Blinding Jeopardy.)

Thoughts? I know Spirit Weapon builds will probably not be meta, but at least these changes will make the skills more enjoyable and individual skills may even have an appropriate place in particular settings.

(edit: added “All Spirit Weapons stay alive until slain.” I can’t believe I forgot this skill fact.)

I think guard needs a trait to auto summon weapons. Because wasting slot on a weapon is a waste.

I agree that they should stay alive until slain. A bit like minions.

But if the cooldown is in the background that mean that most of the time they will be perma present and it’s a bad thing. They should take the approach of Mantra. The cooldown start when the spirit weapon die, but the cooldown is low like 15-25 second.

My friend is using a burn Spirit Weapon build. He’s a good guardian player so he kind of carry the build a bit, but he can do some damage with it. A bit like power necro, he’s super powerful when downed so he usually always win any 1vs1. The main problem is that the second his spirit weapon die he have almost nothing else for the long cooldown. They should start by those change and then see what happen before buff too much the spirit weapons.

I agree with Thaddeus on the cool down part. Permanent AI companion are exclusively ranger and necro mechanics. What I’ve noticed is that devs tend to balance a lot of things based on the role play feel f the class and the the tics of more than the mechanics. So I’d be surprised if they adapt a permenant approach or anything close to it.

What I would recommend is having them on realistic cool downs considering how easily they die. Even in 1v1, it doesn’t take more than 10 seconds to wipe out all the spirit weapons with direct damage and conditions. Which basically means the enemy player will have about 30-kitten (when traited) window to kill the guard fully knowing the guard has absolutely 0 utilities and 0 suatain. The only sustain spirit weapon the bow, it’s healing skill is at the level of symbol heal even at a full healing spec making it more or less not as effective considering the very very long cool down.

Also the damaging weapons are both melee making them easy to cleave, cluster, and just condi bomb. Where as the necro minions have multiple ranged aspects to it and ranger also have ranged pets. This means that kiting the weapons is far easier, and killing them is also easier. I once had my weapons die to burn damage because I guardian just kited them around his purging flames to the point they stacked 15 stacks of burning on themselves.

make the cool downs in the range of 15-25 when traited … Make the spirit weapons immune to conditions or somehow able to survive for a decent amount of time. Heck I’d be all game for full immunity of damage but that might be op. Keep the disappearing of spirits as that diffrenteas them from minions but must balance cool down to compensate. 15-25s cool down when traited should do be a good balance.

Ya they should be a lot more resistant like minions. Right now they are just a joke to kill.

I feel as if either the duration limit needs to go, or the weapons need to be much much harder to kill or just straight up immune to damage while they’re up. The biggest problem I have right now with the skills (beyond the bad AI) is the overly long CDs that make it necessary to stand around between every battle unless you wish you run in with them still recharging or on the verge of running out of time. They feel clunky and weak and the amount of time they’re dead or on CD make the damage or other effects they provide worthless in comparison to Meditations or other alternatives (except Signets, they kind of have the same issue).

I mentioned elsewhere in a thread I made that what we need to see is some sort of better interplay between the Guardian and the spirit weapons. I’ve seen suggestions that perhaps they should offer some sort of more reliable condi cleanse, healing or defensive abilities to make them a worthwhile alternative, rather than a serious weakening to the Guardian’s survival.

AI is definitely something that needs reworking with the Spirit Weapons, but there are so many other things that could be done to make them viable even while we wait for such a fix.

I think OP is on the right path suggesting some reworks like this (I think the more posts we have on the topic, the better, honestly, as it seems to have been a very low priority for the dev team for a long time). However, I’m not sure such a complicated CD structure is necessary. I think just dropping the regular CD a bit and giving the weapons additional effects (and not, you know, making them splatter in an instant) when traited would go a very long ways toward making them usable.

As I posted in my own thread on the topic, Spirit Weapons were the reason I was attracted to this profession in the first place and a great amount of that appeal feels as if it’s missing these days. :/

I just had an idea in another thread and figured i’d post it here as well.

using spirit weapons as a mix between minions and kits. while they’re on your utility bar they follow you around and provide support through damage and healing, then if you ‘activate the kit’ by pressing the skill you can then physically equip the spirit weapon and gain a new set of skills to play around with.

This might sound overpowered in that they would be active at all times but i’m sure there could be some sort of solution or change that could enable it to work. Maybe a cool down if they are destroyed while in minion form. I dont know, seems like a cool way to retain the idea of spirit weapons aiding you independently while also introducing the ability to use them actively.

merchantchuck.4875:

I just had an idea in another thread and figured i’d post it here as well.
(…)

This might sound overpowered in that they would be active at all times but i’m sure there could be some sort of solution or change that could enable it to work. Maybe a cool down if they are destroyed while in minion form. I dont know, seems like a cool way to retain the idea of spirit weapons aiding you independently while also introducing the ability to use them actively.

If it sounds like a overpowered guardian it means it is on the same spot with some other class specs.
Game is only about play what Anet made overpowered and easy" gimmic-able".

;)

Spirits on gw1 look stronger than spirit weapons but they are easy wiped with fire, since they have weakness to fire, if they added that here lol SW would be worse than useless if that is even possible.

merchantchuck.4875:

I just had an idea in another thread and figured i’d post it here as well.

using spirit weapons as a mix between minions and kits. while they’re on your utility bar they follow you around and provide support through damage and healing, then if you ‘activate the kit’ by pressing the skill you can then physically equip the spirit weapon and gain a new set of skills to play around with.

This might sound overpowered in that they would be active at all times but i’m sure there could be some sort of solution or change that could enable it to work. Maybe a cool down if they are destroyed while in minion form. I dont know, seems like a cool way to retain the idea of spirit weapons aiding you independently while also introducing the ability to use them actively.

Pretty good idea. As long as they retain some sort of minion quality I’d be down for it. I think the best way to handle that would be to make the spirit weapons have a duration limit, but maybe not a usage limit so that they can’t be held indefinitely like Engi kits, but neither do they run out too quickly without being traited like Conjured weapons. I could see a 30 second time window to make use of the skills before the weapon goes on CD. I like that idea quite well.

Sadly I can’t see the devs being willing to give a class like Guardian access to 4 full kits unless it was through an elite spec that removed weapon swap. :/

What if instead of spirit weapons having command skills they were combo attack skills with the Guardian of some sort? Perhaps activating the command skill would cause the Guardian to perform a leap attack in tandem with the hammer or a whirl to compliment the sword’s thrust. Maybe these skills could even make use of dual combo finisher effects like leap or blast or something? Could be a way of introducing passive support through condi cleanses by smartly creating and using fields.

Or what if instead of Command skills the activated skill of a Spirit Weapon augmented the Guardian’s auto attack for a brief time? I could see them giving the Guardian an effect akin to venoms, but obviously thematically more appropriate. Such as activating Spirit Bow would make the next few Guardian attacks produce a small heal or condi cleanse in the immediate area (could combo with Mace quite well for support!) or activating sword to give damage increase for the next few attacks, etc. Depending on the effects given, this could seriously make up for the lack of defensive and sustain abilities available to the Guardian on taking Spirit Weapons over just about anything else.

Just my two cents.

I’ve always wanted them to just make them toggle skills. Invulnerable and persistant. Then balance around that fact.

I believe the only reason spirit weapons are a timed summons is to differentiate them from Necromancers minions as without the summon duration they function exactly the same (but worst passive AI).

I believe this is one component which needs to be considered.

• Guardian – Timed Summons
• Necromancer – Permanent
• Engineering – Immovable

If interested I’ve posted Spirit Weapons – A Crazy Idea which is a total redesign & I would be very interested in your thoughts.

First thing i think if they want to keep current Cd times adn life time ,they should make them invincible.

Not sure about sword ,
but bow should deal serious dmg(like ele bow) and cure more condi+chil.
Shiled should do the healing bow does and grant protection and aiegis,
hamer should be more aoe ,and retaliation or weaknes on hit.

If they dont make them invurneable ,then same as minions live till killed and certanly more life to them ,u can kill tham all in few sec as it is now.

Another idea I’m wondering about that’s actual could be minor change but I’m interested in how it would change the gameplay is to change them to Bounded Minions

What I mean is keep spirit weapons as they are but limit their roaming range, a Spirit Radius as such. This would reduce travel time to target, which with the loss of travel time could increase attack frequency.

Then some further changes could be:

• Make them permanent summons until killed (Differentiated by Guardians – Bounded Summons).
• Visual / Function addition: Chained to Guardian / contact with chains cause Damage over Time &/or an Effect (condition, boon, etc).
• Change cooldown reduction to: When a spirit weapon is de-summon or destroyed (death) all spirit weapons on cooldown have their cooldowns reduced by 5-10 sec (some fixed duration).

They can start by making them invulnerable again. They were perfectly fine when you couldn’t kill them but wound up changing it to its current form.

phokus.8934:

They can start by making them invulnerable again. They were perfectly fine when you couldn’t kill them but wound up changing it to its current form.

For the player playing with them, and I’ll admit I had great fun when this was the case & when they survived after death just to watch them kill / down the foe that killed you. But playing against them was frustrating as there was very minimal available counter play options against them.

I played a good lot with them yesterday in open world pve to test some stuff and took them to unranked pvp and did quite well.

I think OPs ideas are all good I think the blind would be a little much and the CD mechanic would make the shield quite strong. The current Weapons do need some tweaks before we go to the general mechanic.

What they need:
What I found in both scenarios was infact that spiritweapons need to be cast instant or lowered to 1/2 second at least. The weapons already have a delay and a very slow hit rate. getting them out takes 1 1/2 seconds which is horrid.

if you have a target Sword + hammer should spawn with the command skill at the targets location when in range.

In addition their hits should also count twords F1 sprocs. They do not at the moment which is weird since they trigger sigils. Note that this would be a hugeh thin in Permeating wrath builds and probably OP as hell. I expect a burn nerf however so it might be working out then.

Manging their durations is also a big issues because in pvp for example I precast them when I see an enemy closing in. Often enough he decided to move to a different point which basically ment you wasted a utility for nothing.

I think SW will also need more synergy. With DH it will be interesting since the F2 will give you serious means to protect them from damage while they dish out and it would be a great way to make use of Defenders Dogma.

Greatsword needs to blink to target on command. The animation is very slow and hard to place. The blink would actually make them work and increase the “on target” time. Sometimes its anyoing when 25% of the time they are out is spent for running to the target.

The bow needs a bouncing attack like focus. The command should create a waterfield and/or function like eles healing rain.

The GM should not be a contender to shattered Aegis. I would merge these two GMs – I feel Aegis is a spirit weapon somehwo anyways. Shattered Aegis has so much potetial to work great with SW. It multiplies the effect in solo play.

What they do already pretty good:

If you haste them they can apply 4 fairly long lasting burn stacks per weapon very effectively. wait for rotation to end and command right after.

The Hammer command and chain is glorious with Purging flames. knock down > chain 1+2 > cast purging flames > knock the enemy back > leaving them with 10 stacks. This worked very well in spvp with Scepter #3+#2. (most people do not know what the hammer will do.

They wreck normal mobs with a sinsiter build.

The can crit for 2k damage easily in a sinsiter build

Most of the suggetion are QoL Changes that would make them even more fun to play with.

I admittedly haven’t had any opportunity to play with the new Dragonhunter toys to comment on the bow, but frankly I’ve never really had much trouble using thenSpirit Weapons. I just think you’re seeing them as if you’d prefer them to be me to minions rather than actually being Spirit Weapons. They’re sort of fundamentally different.

I freely agree that they have a huge recharge time, but given how useful, potent, and powerful they can be, I always felt it was pretty justified.

The shield and bow are basically dungeon staples for me. In long fights with lots of projectiles/conditions they can be lifesavers. My friend has a pure healer Guardian build she likes to run in dungeons and WvW to help keep her glass-running DPS boyfriend alive, and what she can do with the bow and healing breeze to keep people up is very impressive. Making them perma with themind of effects they throw out would require a massive nerf to balance them, wouldn’kitten

The sword and hammer are outstanding when I know I’m about to come up against enemies and want to shut down and kill them fast. They stick around a long time and normally my traits allow them to survive the duration unless my team has dumb people in it. Again, that added DPS and burning on top of my regular DPS isn’t something I feel it would be balanced to keep around nonstop, regardless of whether or not I use their skills.

If people really want to buff them, I might suggest upping the sword damage, revamping its skill, or raising the health for all healing weapons to make them a little more sturdy, but otherwise I see them as just fine they way they are.