Guild Wars 2

By making them susceptible, they made them suffer what makes all minions/pets in the game garbage — cleave/aoe damage from dungeon mobs and WvW.

Please reconsider, or implement WoW’s 90% aoe damage reduction to pets/minions in dungeons/WvW.

Just tested this. The spirit weapons barely have any health whatsoever. The Mesmer PvP npc in the Heart of the Mists literally 3-shot my spirit hammer with auto attacks.

Yep, tested as well.
They are completely useless utilities now.

Gj Anet, hope you’re proud.

They were balanced around the fact that they could only be killed with indirect damage. Now that they are free-for-all, they need to compensate somehow. My suggestions are as follows:

1. Cooldown needs to begin from the moment the weapon is summoned, as opposed to after it is defeated/expired.
2. Command skills need to not destroy the weapon on use by default (no more trait requirement)
3. Increase to survivability (they need much more health now since they die on a pin-fall)

That is all for now.

Or leave them to be invulnerable because they weren’t really a threat. If you tested properly, you’d notice that the weapons only attack once every 5 seconds. This is hardly a threat.

They made sure noone will ever use Spirit Weapons…so stupid
They barely have any health and die from 1-2 aoe or direct hits…seriously…

Here is why I am angry:
I totally understand why they did this. The ability for spirit weapons to just be free damage + Knockback, etc was pretty outrageous. I loved my spirit weapons because they were pretty much fire and forget unless I wanted a specific effect. In PvP I could imagine this was VERY frustrating as once a spirit weapon was headed for you, there wasn’t much you could do but wait for it to expire.
However, this is a terrible way to try and fix this problem, it shows two things that dissappoint me.
1) It seems lazy. Essentially putting back in some code that was removed for the spirit weapons is really drag-and-drop approach to fixing the problem with them. If it really is a problem, rebuild spirit weapons from the ground up. Increase their HP, make them only targetable by CC abilities, have them tether back to the guardian summoner if they get too far away, adjust cooldown times, etc. As it stands they did NONE of that and just made them easily killable. This makes no sense.
2) It removes one more thing that made Guardians unique. Most classes have pets, and each are a bit different. Mesmers can explode theirs, Elementalists have some utility in theirs, Engineers have stationary ones, etc. Guardians used to have unique pets because they couldn’t be directly attacked. Now, Guardian pets are basically exactly like necromancer pets. I really don’t see a difference between the two anymore except graphics… oh AND the fact that ours don’t last indefinately like the Necromancer ones do. So for the same utility slot, Necromancer pets are actually BETTER than guardian’s.
So, the uniqueness of the class, and therefore the game, was reduced today, and that’s sad. One of the great things about Guild wars 2 was that is was rather unique and different depending on class, even if they can serve similar roles. I fear that is slowly dying. Soon, we may have a game with every class the same except with different graphics.

I understand your argument but the same thing could be said about Retaliation. It’s a lazy mans boon, you fire it and do nothing.

My build was focused on SW , a nerf to spirit weapons was the last thing we could ever think about !!!

Now thee are trash and it’s better to remove them from the entire game !

I beg you Anet , just tell us why did you do that ?

I’m flabbergasted. Of all the nerfs, this is the last one I expected. Make them susceptible to CC, but to make them this ridiculously weak is unreal. There’s literally no reason to use them now. None.

Hm, this skill has a problem that was at most a minor annoyance to a few people. Better destroy its viability entirely to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

remove spirit weapons from guardian and make ritualist profession and give spirit weapons to them

This definitely did not need nerfing. They already nerfed them in the past. Now they most likely are totally worthless. They last such a measly short time as it is. I’m betting the guy nerfing them doesn’t play a guardian.

The incredible thing to me is that they buffed Empower, which can heal for over 5k on a 16 second cooldown, but they nerfed Spirit Weapons, which can mildly annoy someone.

Empower is pretty much the best asset Staff has (and many would argue the only asset Staff has, with all the complaints about it being terrible). I don’t really disagree with buffing it, especially since they’ve attempted to buff it and failed in the future (back in November the patch notes listed a change to 10 seconds but in-game it didn’t actually happen, only the description was changed not the actual time).

Nerfing spirit weapons is just insane, though. They weren’t even that great to begin with. I’m jumping on to test them now, not looking forward to it >.>

Knowing Anet they’ll probably give SW’s a +50% HP boost in the next patch, but they’ll still suck and die easily regardless. I was thinking about gearing a SW build too, at least I wont be wasting 20g now.

roamzero.9486:

Knowing Anet they’ll probably give SW’s a +50% HP boost in the next patch, but they’ll still suck and die easily regardless. I was thinking about gearing a SW build too, at least I wont be wasting 20g now.

Pretty much. Nerf into oblivion. Slight buff, “working as intended”. Rinse, repeat.

haha another guardian nerf we are the only class who had major nerf every patch, not even one buff and we are squishy like hell not even toughness works well

edit:
and btw ONLY YES ONLY viable build for guardians is AH build in groups, meditation solo greatsword builds are useless -> zeal is useless, all glass canon classes use power traits we ignore that
i will remain to play guardian because i love it , love skill graphic hate dmg but i wont play OP classes ill rather quit then play thief or mesmer or d/d elementalist. so anet you can nerf guardians every patch i will play them anyway.

This is really making me angry. I was one of the few SW Guardians on my server and only used them in PvE. Now the entire concept which made me play a SW Guardian is destroyed because of this completely uncalled for NERF!

Why should I bother investing all those points in traits to make SW more viable, when they can just be killed when a random mob sneezes in their general direction?

If anything, they should have changed a trait to something along the lines of: “Spirit Weapons are immune to damage” so we could still have some viable option in using them.

Easier to nerf the clusterkitten out of everything and consequences be kitten

Ranger here…..welcome to the club. At least minions/summons aren’t you’re main mechanic with 20% of your damage delegated there….

To be fair though…I don’t agree with being able to target them, however, if they are being 3-shotted, then either their damage should be scaled up or their cooldowns scaled down.

I’m a little bit concerned about the shield of the avenger. It was undoubtedly the best of the spirit weapons, providing up to 25 seconds of projectile absorption. It was among my favorite skills, even untraited.

Perhaps it was a bit too powerful – even completely untraited – but a blanket nerf to all spirit weapons is just too much. Perhaps the trait “eternal spirit” should be changed to read “spirit weapons are invulnerable” in addition to not being destroyed when commanded. I would say that it fits within the theme of the trait.

The thing is is that you have an excellent healing skill(troll unugent) that effects both you and your pet on a very short cd. We can’t heal our very limited SW

Arken.3725:

We can’t heal our very limited SW

SWs act as allies – we can heal them and give them boons.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Darcy.2079:

Arken.3725:

We can’t heal our very limited SW

SWs act as allies – we can heal them and give them boons.

I’ve never seen that happen before.

Ok, lets say that’s true. What are we going to heal with? We don’t have any healing skills that benefit both us and the weapons equally

Hey dont worry new expansion will give us new heavy profession and renaming guardians into guinea pigs i hope they give us dreamer shorbow and i can finally shoot unicorns while laughing at my executioner

Spirit Weapons have never been able to recieve boons before. They were immune to everything, friendly or enemy (sans certain retalitory attacks). If they can recieve boons now, it’ll be interesting (namely with Empower), but not worth the fact that they die in a stiff breeze. Spawn a weapon, buff it with Empower, and maybe it’ll get an attack before it gets killed.

That said, I doubt that will be the case anyway. Turrets can’t get buffs, and I don’t believe phantasms / clones can either (besides trait-based buffs anyway, but not from stuff like Mirror Blade for instance), so I can’t see Spirit Weapons getting them.

Hey, at least they didn’t nerf something useful !!

I use to run a SW build, but ditched it because other guardian builds were simply better. SW guardian required you to get certain traits to even be remotely viable which left you gimped stat-wise, they were very poor defensively with almost no condition removal or mobility, and were left completely vulnerable for long periods of time due to the extremely long cooldown on SW skills. I haven’t tested the new SW yet, but I have to say nerfing them doesn’t make a lot of sense as they were already pretty terrible and I rarely ever saw SW guardians. I guess they could be considered annoying since they forced you to kite while fighting, but on my list of annoying things in this game, SW guardians are wayyyy low on the list. The class at the top of my list received no notable changes, interesting.

I just tested in game, Spirit Weapons do indeed gain boons and everything else. But they still die if an enemy even looks at them.

Lol read what happened to ranger pets though well maybe my guardian got some lovin, i should have know.

So what did they buff on warriors this time?

Can’t wait to do dredge fractal on lvl 40 (which i am right now) without spirit shield.

The funny thing is they LITERALLY did the same thing to rangers. In the beta weekend, Ranger Spirits were overpowered, so instead of making a logical fix, they simply nerfed them into oblivion to ensure no one would ever use them in basically any situation.

It appears they did the same to the spirit weapons.

anyway we have 2 new useless triats right now.
good balancing job. -.-

Spirit weapons last longer?
- WHO CARE lol they last 5 seconds

Spirit weapon is not destroyed when commanded?
- I wonder if a can lunch the first command before the weapons is destroyed o.o

George Steel.1804:

Hey, at least they didn’t nerf something useful !!

I used spirit weapons under water because … I (and everybody else) is rubbish underwater!

Now I have to go back to using my out-of-water skills underwater too. Shouts galore, “GLUG!”

Really really disappointed with the change. Had been using hammer and sword underwater since they help with our anemic damage there, only used the shield out of water. Now they are so useless they won’t ever see my skillbar again. And yea expecting them to get 10% more health in the next patch to “balance” them

I just don’t get it, I just do not get this!

Why? Why make already nerfed skills obsolete?

Come on A’net, please tell us this is not what you intended and fix is coming!

Not just little health increase…well, maybe for temporary fix…but something must be done.

If this is the direction they are going with SW, well ummn…

Look Anet they need more health. They shouldn’t be damaged by AOE and they need maybe 3-4 times the health they have.

They go down in around 3 hits? That just dreadful and they probably wouldn’t even make it to the target if they get knock down that fast. I hope Anet will balance things out fast like giving them a lot more HP.

Jade.2954:

Can’t wait to do dredge fractal on lvl 40 (which i am right now) without spirit shield.

Yup, had mine die before it could even activate on 10 today…dont want to think about 26 and 30 runs. Worst thing is they still have the 60 second cool down.

TBH id be happy if they just removed the spirit weapons and gave us something else, I hate pets.

NERFING GUILD WARS 1 STYLE. DUMB NERFS BUT ALWAYS A GG.

The balacing team in this game is terrible. They seem to not know fixes around nerf this to the ground, make this weaker, make this die faster so it isn’t in play longer.

Do they even scale to our own traits and armor like the kits do now? At this point, these hamfisted “adjustments” just make me laugh. Still, watching my spirit weapon fade because a bandit looked in its general direction makes me cry just a little more every time.

An Etinn killed all my 3 spirit weapons with just 3 hits.

I was one of the few dedicated SW Guardians. This change basically killed us who were very few to begin with. SW build was underrated, the CC from hammer was amazing…

Now SW is completely useless. By the time you summon them, they are dead. I’m sure some adjustments will be made with the next balance/nerf fix..

Apraxas.3685:

TBH id be happy if they just removed the spirit weapons and gave us something else, I hate pets.

I agree with this person, the spirit weapons are rubbish and should be replaced. As it stands they are taking up valuable skill slots that should be taken up by something useful.

Well, back to meditation.

I was one of the few dedicated SW Guardians. This change basically killed us who were very few to begin with. SW build was underrated, the CC from hammer was amazing…

Now SW is completely useless. By the time you summon them, they are dead. I’m sure some adjustments will be made with the next balance/nerf fix..

As a HoW user, myself, I can attest that you can still summon it and pop it’s knockdown. But this update certainly makes the “not destroyed upon use” trait all but worthless.