Guild Wars 2

Spirit weapons is something the guardian has that is really not worth bringing often. It’s also missing a healing and elite version. I’d like to see a change that can bring spirit weapons to the frontline of possibly using it in either pvp or high level play like raids.

It’s just an aspect of the guardian that fell to the wayside

It’s also a great concept having those Spirit Weapons, but yea shame they aren’t that useful.

Since HoT power creep, A lot of skills dropped well below average. I’ve only just managed a way to make shouts viable again these last 2 weeks.

Why do people care about SW? Is an awful concept: to rely in pets instead of the use of skills, in a class which isn’t mean to be a pet user (as Necromancer or Ranger). Having also viable pets means as mandatory that the damage you deal must be distributed between you and your pets (as Ranger), which means that your attacks will deal less damage. Why do you want to deal LESS damage and to give some of your damage to the control of an arguably mediocre AI? The whole concept is absurd.

I am of the opinion that SW need a rework, not just a simple numerical buff. There have been plenty of amazing suggestions over the past couple years that could be adapted in such a way that the original functionality wouldn’t be hurt, but new (and interesting) functionality could be added.

My favorite suggestion has been to make SW into “kits” in a way. I like this suggestion because it could be adapted as follows:

• Summoning spirit weapons summons them as an AI, just as before. All of their auto-attack/auto functions remain the same.

• The “commands” are replaced with a skill that summons the spirit weapon back to your hands (in the concept art, they are “bound” to the guardian by a chain) giving you 1-4 skills (skill 5 puts the SW back out as an AI again).

• Skill 1 would be a spammable but perhaps toned down version of what the spirit weapon does automatically. Skill 2 would be what the current “commands” are for each weapon, skill 3 would be offence/defence/utility depending on the weapon, and skill 4 would be an ace up the sleeve of sorts on a long cooldown (can only use once or twice per SW summon).

• Summoning spirit shield to your hands would break stun of you and any allies between you and the shield (since it flies linearly to your hands) plus give aegis.

Just an idea. Anywho, I doubt we’ll be seeing any sort of significant buff or change to SW until around the time the next expac drops.

Arcaedus.7290:

I am of the opinion that SW need a rework, not just a simple numerical buff. There have been plenty of amazing suggestions over the past couple years that could be adapted in such a way that the original functionality wouldn’t be hurt, but new (and interesting) functionality could be added.

My favorite suggestion has been to make SW into “kits” in a way. I like this suggestion because it could be adapted as follows:

• Summoning spirit weapons summons them as an AI, just as before. All of their auto-attack/auto functions remain the same.

• The “commands” are replaced with a skill that summons the spirit weapon back to your hands (in the concept art, they are “bound” to the guardian by a chain) giving you 1-4 skills (skill 5 puts the SW back out as an AI again).

• Skill 1 would be a spammable but perhaps toned down version of what the spirit weapon does automatically. Skill 2 would be what the current “commands” are for each weapon, skill 3 would be offence/defence/utility depending on the weapon, and skill 4 would be an ace up the sleeve of sorts on a long cooldown (can only use once or twice per SW summon).

• Summoning spirit shield to your hands would break stun of you and any allies between you and the shield (since it flies linearly to your hands) plus give aegis.

Just an idea. Anywho, I doubt we’ll be seeing any sort of significant buff or change to SW until around the time the next expac drops.

The idea isnt bad, but Anet would have to design 3 new skills per SW instead of just redesigning them.

I would change them this way:

Bound SW to the guardian. They can float like orbs with different skins arround tze guardian to visualize them. The passive would be like an AoE effect that pulses arround the Guardian. And the activation skill is just an additional weaponskill depending on the SW.

Heal:
Fokus → pulses healing arround the guard while active. Heals area arround guard.

Utilities:
Sword: Pulses Raw dmg and vuln
Hammer: Pulses a short stun
Bow: Cleanse pulses
Actives Remain the same.

Elite:
Staff: Pulses burn on passive, and summons a burning meteorshower on activation (simmilar to ascalonian mages)

InsaneQR.7412:

I would change them this way:

Bound SW to the guardian. They can float like orbs with different skins arround tze guardian to visualize them. The passive would be like an AoE effect that pulses arround the Guardian. And the activation skill is just an additional weaponskill depending on the SW.

Heal:
Fokus -> pulses healing arround the guard while active. Heals area arround guard.

Utilities:
Sword: Pulses Raw dmg and vuln
Hammer: Pulses a short stun
Bow: Cleanse pulses
Actives Remain the same.

Elite:
Staff: Pulses burn on passive, and summons a burning meteorshower on activation (simmilar to ascalonian mages)

This is exactly what I meant when I said that there have been many amazing suggestions over the past couple of years for SW reworks. I like your proposal as well. It’s slightly less dynamic/fun than mine imo, but still far better than what we currently have.

Would you change the SW trait in any way given your proposed SW rework?

All they really need to do to make spirit weapons viable is to make them function like necromancer minions, no duration. Doing this would make the sword a viable choice as the 3rd utility in raids and would also make condi guard better because you would always have your weapons attacking for burn stacks. Anet would have to swap the active and passive of the shield because otherwise it would give 100% projectile block all the time.

Arcaedus.7290:

InsaneQR.7412:

I would change them this way:

Bound SW to the guardian. They can float like orbs with different skins arround tze guardian to visualize them. The passive would be like an AoE effect that pulses arround the Guardian. And the activation skill is just an additional weaponskill depending on the SW.

Heal:
Fokus -> pulses healing arround the guard while active. Heals area arround guard.

Utilities:
Sword: Pulses Raw dmg and vuln
Hammer: Pulses a short stun
Bow: Cleanse pulses
Actives Remain the same.

Elite:
Staff: Pulses burn on passive, and summons a burning meteorshower on activation (simmilar to ascalonian mages)

This is exactly what I meant when I said that there have been many amazing suggestions over the past couple of years for SW reworks. I like your proposal as well. It’s slightly less dynamic/fun than mine imo, but still far better than what we currently have.

Would you change the SW trait in any way given your proposed SW rework?

Probably some effect on activation depending on the weapon itself could be neat, not something major just some boons.
Focus: Protection or regen
Sword: Fury
Hammer: Stability
Bow: Resistance (short duration)
Staff: Might (5 stacks maybe)

SW only have 2 issues, A.I and CD, even traps CD is better than SW CD…

Imo that is the main thing that needs to get fixed atm, btw getting those boons on command would wactually be nice, still bow and shield already does something,
Shield gives aegis and stunbreak to localnearby targets and yourself and bow command heals, altough the scale should be increased -_-, or heach command arrow should remove a condi for who hits.

Hammer and Sword are both offensice dont need to give nothing to the caster, well hammer is very annoyting KB every 3 auto and a KD on command excellent to disrupt mobile targets still weapon is to squishy and CD is way to long for the time weapon stays on a afight.,

Sword needs to atack and move much more faster,.

overall CD’s need to be tweaked… for them to be playable, Shield is actually very good when dont run out form combat to get near a ambient creature… or some one that is far far away.

SW are a fun concept, the problem they dont fit this aoe spam damage game.

sephiroth.4217:

Since HoT power creep

Spirit weapons where not viable before HoT……

And honestly they shouldn’t be viable anyways. NPC gameplay is dumb and is archaic design from launch that rightfully died off.

Crinn.7864:

sephiroth.4217:

Since HoT power creep

Spirit weapons where not viable before HoT……

And honestly they shouldn’t be viable anyways. NPC gameplay is dumb and is archaic design from launch that rightfully died off.

SW SoA is the only decent utitlitie from those :\m, DH, ReV, Ranger\druid, pistol thiefs spammers just keep shooting at the dome….

Usually i take that on WvW alot, its a block(with traited blocks effect), stunbreaker and a range absorver, than can be moved so against druids and their LB and scale pet combo.
It is a very decent skill.

In my opinion they should just decide between giving them health and no timer.. or Timer and no health.

I like the concept, adding a little more dps, but even more utility Just make them like Revs facets.. okay when on “standby” better when active.

I mean they could even add it as a new Elite.. Having F1-4 representing a weapon.. When passive the grant a few benefits, Shield will block once every X, Sword will burn, Bow will heal and Hammer stun or whatever.
When you activate it you get the effect instant, and add a little buff. But your weapons will break untill the CD is reset.. Not the mot imaginative idea for Elite.. but hey then they could reuse stuff :v

They are not that bad. Shield is pretty much mandatory if you cannot trust your teammates for projectile defense, and its duration is almost as long as the cooldown of Wall of Reflection so you can chain a WoR, SoA and WoR again seamlessly. Hammer is also good if you again can’t trust your teammates for CC and don’t want to slot Dragon’s Maw. Sword isn’t bad for burst damage I guess – should be atleast better than using Test of Faith only for initial damage like most people do. Bow is meh, but atleast it has cool visual effects you can use on LA.

If any change is to come, I would rather Spirit Weapons revamped completely to remove AI aspect. Look at how pets/minions cheesed other classes, I dont want that for Guard.

Buran.3796:

Why do people care about SW?

because they were supposed to be a pretty huge part of guardian, early on we got glimpses at the classes through a fancy piece of artwork this is the guardian one.
SWs can be and should be a viable playstyle as they were intended,
not simply forgot and left for dead.

Liewec.2896:

Buran.3796:

Why do people care about SW?

because they were supposed to be a pretty huge part of guardian, early on we got glimpses at the classes through a fancy piece of artwork this is the guardian one.
SWs can be and should be a viable playstyle as they were intended,
not simply forgot and left for dead.

Also they counter range classes, shield 5 SoA + SW SoA rotation it is a nice damage avoidance combination against some classes.
That is the reason i do care about SW, mostly the shield, the other 3 dont have any use.
Tried even to use bow command on a zone where DH F2 would land, meh to much stat sacrifice as usual to make it decent healign burst as usual.

Shield besides A.I is fine. (well… health and CD are huge drawbacks as obvious, i still wonder why Anet needed to nerf SW long time ago…).

Issues are:
Sword and Hammer die in1-3 hits, they are slow every class can outrun them, shield and bow use same A.I as sword and hammer so they wil try to melee in close range this show how awful Anet is on building the classes and their skills.

And Buran.3796: check my signature… :] pitty this game went to the noob friendly spam gimmik thing…instead of have decent mechanics, and Anet never cared to fix alot of things in this game, and prefered to throw sand toplayers eyes by giving them HoT spec so they could ignored what needs to be fixed….

I’ve only just had this idea so don’t hate please.

What if Spirit Weapons changed so that instead of actually summoning a physical weapon, they instead grant an active buff, kind of like Revenant’s Facets.

Here are examples of possible changes:

Sword of Justice – When activated grants +150 Power and 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds every 8 seconds.

Shield of the Avenger – When activated grants increased Vitality and one stack of Aegis every 10 seconds.

Hammer of Wisdom – When activated grants +150 Toughness and 3 seconds of Stability every 20 seconds.

Bow of Truth – When activated grants +150 Healing Power and 5 seconds of Regeneration every 10 seconds.

I really have no idea if this would be viable so let me know your thoughts below!

There’s a lot that could be done to make spirit weapons good. In fact it wouldn’t really be that hard, but unfortunately it takes ANet months or even years to buff weak utilities even a little bit, for some reason.

The biggest issues with spirit weapons are that:
- They have short durations despite being the squishiest pets in the game.
- Their cooldowns are huge.
- Their cooldowns only start after they disappear, so their downtime is insane.
- The trait that makes them semi-useful damage-wise is in Zeal, which is generally the worst trait line on guardians.
- They don’t scale off of the user’s power (AFAIK).
- A lesser issue is that Bow of Truth’s active has an absurd cast time despite spirit weapon actives not normally requiring cast times. It’s AoE is also too small and its auto-attack doesn’t cleanse enough conditions.

If they received buffs in these areas, I’m pretty sure spirit weapons would at least be viable.

Since they are spirits, they could make them … invunerable to phisical damage and take condi damage only :P

@Fashion Mage.3712, if they did that or at least make SW scale with player stats that would be really really cool, we could use them on power builds, condi/fire builds and defensive gameplay/healling support.
IF they contintue to be squishy as hell, they need to have stronger duration and stronger effect while in game, game changer when user cast them :|

Aeolus.3615:

Since they are spirits, they could make them … invunerable to phisical damage and take condi damage only :P

They used to be immune to all damage and they were trash then as well. About the only time Spirit Weapons were ever considered “good” was when they first put the knockback on the hammer auto attack. The reason was because the hammer never stopped attacking and in PvP if you didn’t have stability you would get CC’d for the entire 15 seconds the hammer was up (which is what PvP feels like nowadays anyhow).

To make spirit weapons be considered worth while, all Anet has to do is make them minions like the necro’s minions and have no duration. I could at least see the sword being used in raids over Test of Faith for the 3rd utility then. And who knows, maybe burn guard in PvE would be viable with permanent pets and the trait, but I doubt it.

Azoqu.8917:

Aeolus.3615:

Since they are spirits, they could make them … invunerable to phisical damage and take condi damage only :P

They used to be immune to all damage and they were trash then as well. About the only time Spirit Weapons were ever considered “good” was when they first put the knockback on the hammer auto attack. The reason was because the hammer never stopped attacking and in PvP if you didn’t have stability you would get CC’d for the entire 15 seconds the hammer was up (which is what PvP feels like nowadays anyhow).

To make spirit weapons be considered worth while, all Anet has to do is make them minions like the necro’s minions and have no duration. I could at least see the sword being used in raids over Test of Faith for the 3rd utility then. And who knows, maybe burn guard in PvE would be viable with permanent pets and the trait, but I doubt it.

If they did this, I feel the CD needs to be nerfed to something similar to necro pets. The 45-60 second cooldown is very high. Even necro’s minions are like 15-20

Buran.3796:

Why do people care about SW? Is an awful concept: to rely in pets instead of the use of skills, in a class which isn’t mean to be a pet user (as Necromancer or Ranger). Having also viable pets means as mandatory that the damage you deal must be distributed between you and your pets (as Ranger), which means that your attacks will deal less damage. Why do you want to deal LESS damage and to give some of your damage to the control of an arguably mediocre AI? The whole concept is absurd.

Necromancer doesn’t really have the problem you describe, since the minions are balanced against the utility skill which could be in that place. There’s nothing saying that spirit weapons couldn’t also be so balanced.

I understand that some people hate any AI minions at all with a fiery passion, but having nerfed damage to make space for the minion only happens with rangers and mesmers because in those cases the minions are baked in to the profession. For other professions, the theoretical damage of AI minions is balanced against the effect that a different skill in the same slot could have.

Some players want spirit weapons because they’re “fun”. For me that means:

• I like how they look
• I like that they have a super-natural, spritual kind of theme going (rather than undead)
• I like that they have an active component in addition to the passive component

They are tricky to balance because they are parallel damage (like minions or ranger pets).

The original SW were a bit better imho because they were indestructible — there was a lot of groaning from other players back then because they couldn’t eliminate the SW threat, except by dodging and there’s only so many times you can do that.

At this point they are nerfed to an undesirable place because (imho) the difficulty in balance. When I see a guardian playing SWs, it does make me smile and think “live the dream buddy, live the dream”.

Aeolus.3615:

SW only have 2 issues, A.I and CD, even traps CD is better than SW CD…

Imo that is the main thing that needs to get fixed atm, btw getting those boons on command would wactually be nice, still bow and shield already does something,
Shield gives aegis and stunbreak to localnearby targets and yourself and bow command heals, altough the scale should be increased -_-, or heach command arrow should remove a condi for who hits.

Hammer and Sword are both offensice dont need to give nothing to the caster, well hammer is very annoyting KB every 3 auto and a KD on command excellent to disrupt mobile targets still weapon is to squishy and CD is way to long for the time weapon stays on a afight.,

Sword needs to atack and move much more faster,.

overall CD’s need to be tweaked… for them to be playable, Shield is actually very good when dont run out form combat to get near a ambient creature… or some one that is far far away.

SW are a fun concept, the problem they dont fit this aoe spam damage game.

The AI isnt even that bad except their lack of selfconservation.
The CD is waaaaay to high for spirit weapons i mean 60s on shield? Really? Make them.not killable , reduce the cd by 15s and we are talking. The give supperb utility but they live neither long enough nor can you respawn them fast enough to profit from it.

the CD is way to dumb… i dont understand how Anet even permits it.. maybe to for all guardians to play DH medi \ trapper…. force players play the gimmick so players stop complaining with what is not working since they are being carried with XYZ builds…. it is a awfull concept.

Just a hunch, but I can see spirit weapons changing come next expansion. Otherwise, asking for fruitful changes now seems wasted by the design/development team. It could also be a route they don’t want to take Guardians in anymore – use of AI.

phokus.8934:

Just a hunch, but I can see spirit weapons changing come next expansion. Otherwise, asking for fruitful changes now seems wasted by the design/development team. It could also be a route they don’t want to take Guardians in anymore – use of AI.

They didnt have to make fruitful changes. Make them unkillable again and reduce CD. SW would be useful again.

That won’t make them useful, they’d still be terrible. And the biggest reason is there are much better alternatives and aren’t AI.

InsaneQR.7412:

phokus.8934:

Just a hunch, but I can see spirit weapons changing come next expansion. Otherwise, asking for fruitful changes now seems wasted by the design/development team. It could also be a route they don’t want to take Guardians in anymore – use of AI.

They didnt have to make fruitful changes. Make them unkillable again and reduce CD. SW would be useful again.

I don’t want them to be Necro Minions 2.0. AI builds are boring. If they make them untargettable (so they don’t aggro) that is a different story. But even then, its better to have their effects on player rather than seperately on them.

Pregnantman.8259:

InsaneQR.7412:

phokus.8934:

Just a hunch, but I can see spirit weapons changing come next expansion. Otherwise, asking for fruitful changes now seems wasted by the design/development team. It could also be a route they don’t want to take Guardians in anymore – use of AI.

They didnt have to make fruitful changes. Make them unkillable again and reduce CD. SW would be useful again.

I don’t want them to be Necro Minions 2.0. AI builds are boring. If they make them untargettable (so they don’t aggro) that is a different story. But even then, its better to have their effects on player rather than seperately on them.

Well SoA is a dencent skill, it worths alot to take it, it lacks A.I or more control over the shield positioning, a flag to control it like we had on gw1 enchies would be nice.

Set flag XY position and dome interval would happen there, this migh work for shield and “horribow” control, but for Sword and Hammer they need to atack our target.

Horribow needs new skills :\

It would be nice to direct SoA towards where we need projectile defense, but why would we need the AI between the command and the action? I say we remove the AI completely, and make them skills we control.

I was thinking something like a mix of a projectile and area effect, like Staff 2. For example, skill replacing Bow of Truth can instead send a projectile that converts conditions to boons on allies it passes through (including self). You can detonate the projectile and heal in an area but cooldown of skill increases.

Bow of truth could be converted like that, select zone and weapon would bomb with those 60Hp healing arrows, with in a 8-10sec interval (or we have 3 charges after 3 charges spent utility enter in CD), weapon would last 30seconds, and with a 1 minute recharche, conditions are randomly tranformed to boons(when traited).

Both, Hammer and Sword would be fun if they get atached to Guardian, and command sends them to cast skill on target (in range) then get back close to guardian.

Crinn.7864:

sephiroth.4217:

Since HoT power creep

Spirit weapons where not viable before HoT……

And honestly they shouldn’t be viable anyways. NPC gameplay is dumb and is archaic design from launch that rightfully died off.

I never said they were?

Don’t get delusional on me now mate :P

@Aeolus

I was thinking to scrap the healing arrows thing and have instant heal. Projectile part of the skill already require positioning so requiring allies to be somewhere again for its duration might be too much.

In general I am thinking something like Mesmer Shield 4 in terms of the projectile area and speed. Not all of the spirit weapons can be translated directly to this version so alterations can be made.

Hammer of Wisdom’s projectile counterpart can stunbreak allies it passes through, and its detonate stuns for 3 seconds. Sword of Justice’s projectile can increase the damage of allies it passes through for %33 for the next 2-3 seconds and deal nice damage on detonate. Shield of Avenger’s projectile can give 2-3 seconds of Aegis to allies and 2-3 seconds of Weakness on foes and put a dome of projectile defense for 20 seconds on detonate, cooldown increase on detonation is adjusted for the big effect as Shield of Avenger is a unique skill for its long projectile defense and it should stay that way. Each of the skills have 20 second cooldown, and the cooldown increase for each skills is x2, except for Shield which should be x4.

I dont think positioning is that bad, that would make the caster need to be a bit clever to put the sbow on safe zone and then select the zone to barrage on command.
Something like a siege of small burst heals, and remove condis with its AA (1 target and 2 close allies to that target).

To use the skill like ur saying that means discard the skill entirely :\ righ?
Why would cast a bow that dont use arrows? XD

Meh, the weapon themes themselves can be scrapped. I am just suggesting to keep the main ideas behind them and a bit more, like in the case of Bow its condi clear and heals.

Buran.3796:

Why do people care about SW? Is an awful concept: to rely in pets instead of the use of skills, in a class which isn’t mean to be a pet user (as Necromancer or Ranger). Having also viable pets means as mandatory that the damage you deal must be distributed between you and your pets (as Ranger), which means that your attacks will deal less damage. Why do you want to deal LESS damage and to give some of your damage to the control of an arguably mediocre AI? The whole concept is absurd.

Don’t compare them to Ranger pets. Rangers always have a pet, no matter their build, and so their dps is split between them and their pet.

Spirit weapons are the same as Necro pets. Since you lose skills slots to bring Spirit weapons, you lose damage and utility already, so it’s not like they would have to reduce Guardian’s dps further to make spirit weapons viable.

Lastly, Necro is not a pet class, it became a pet class because the devs decided to support Necro pets with buffs and through traits, when the rework happened. Before HoT, minion necro was a joke. There’s no reason why Guardian is not allowed to have Spirit weapons be as useful as Necro pets, they are part of our skills. It’s like saying Guardian is not supposed to be a shout class, like Tempest, because Tempests use their shouts more, because they are better/have better traits.

I like the idea of staff elite and meteor shower. It would be pretty cool if the animation were similar to “ray of judgement” from guild wars 1.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ray_of_Judgment

On another note, wish the animation for the focus ability ray of judgement in gw2 were more akin to the one in gw1, would be a lot more epic.

Pregnantman.8259:

InsaneQR.7412:

phokus.8934:

Just a hunch, but I can see spirit weapons changing come next expansion. Otherwise, asking for fruitful changes now seems wasted by the design/development team. It could also be a route they don’t want to take Guardians in anymore – use of AI.

They didnt have to make fruitful changes. Make them unkillable again and reduce CD. SW would be useful again.

I don’t want them to be Necro Minions 2.0. AI builds are boring. If they make them untargettable (so they don’t aggro) that is a different story. But even then, its better to have their effects on player rather than seperately on them.

“AI builds are boring” is a subjective opinion. Some people like them, and it’s likely that the whole reason why such skills exist on professions like guardian, elementalist and thief that aren’t traditionally MM professions is so that people can mix in a bit of the MM flavour in if they so choose… or leave them out if they choose otherwise.

We already have signets for skills that have an effect on the player and can be used for an immediate effect.

draxynnic.3719:

Pregnantman.8259:

InsaneQR.7412:

phokus.8934:

Just a hunch, but I can see spirit weapons changing come next expansion. Otherwise, asking for fruitful changes now seems wasted by the design/development team. It could also be a route they don’t want to take Guardians in anymore – use of AI.

They didnt have to make fruitful changes. Make them unkillable again and reduce CD. SW would be useful again.

I don’t want them to be Necro Minions 2.0. AI builds are boring. If they make them untargettable (so they don’t aggro) that is a different story. But even then, its better to have their effects on player rather than seperately on them.

“AI builds are boring” is a subjective opinion. Some people like them, and it’s likely that the whole reason why such skills exist on professions like guardian, elementalist and thief that aren’t traditionally MM professions is so that people can mix in a bit of the MM flavour in if they so choose… or leave them out if they choose otherwise.

We already have signets for skills that have an effect on the player and can be used for an immediate effect.

Exactly.

Additionally i have to say that spiritweapons still would be temporarely like they were before.
If they make them unkillable again and reduce the CD of the weapons you can use them as a new weaponskill slot which works indipendently from the main actions of the guardian. They can be summoned just before combat to help.
Necro spirit are different, they are permanent till you kill them and walk through the world with you.

draxynnic.3719:

“AI builds are boring” is a subjective opinion. Some people like them, and it’s likely that the whole reason why such skills exist on professions like guardian, elementalist and thief that aren’t traditionally MM professions is so that people can mix in a bit of the MM flavour in if they so choose… or leave them out if they choose otherwise.

We already have signets for skills that have an effect on the player and can be used for an immediate effect.

This. Even if most people don’t like AI builds, not everything needs to appeal to everyone. 90% of the stuff in this game already appeals to the majority anyway.