Spirit Weapons Thoughts
After the buffs they got, I dare say they’re pretty decent.
They take too much aoe damage and the shield is a little unreliable. Those would be my main complaints.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
They take too much aoe damage and the shield is a little unreliable. Those would be my main complaints.
^this.
even on 5v5 can die to a one hit…. on more most of the time is a cast instant killed.
1st April joke, when gw2 receives a “balance” update.
They are terrible i believe they forgot to make them permanent in the design state like the necro pets or ranger pets (skills are some good but one use and there gone dont have time for second use even with spirit build) this shows that they are a lost path for the guardian to use sadly
There’s just too much downtime on them for a full-on spirit weapon build to be competitive, especially considering the significant trait investment (12/14 points I think?) required to maximize their potential. It doesn’t matter how strong they are when they’re up, because there’s still the fact that you’re going to be left defenseless when they’re gone.
Hammer
- Hammer auto attack chain should knock down rather than knock back.
I agree with that one. The hammer disturbs more than helps becouse of the knock back instead of knock down.
Shield
- Summoning the shield should be an instant cast stun-breaker that grants aegis to allies and weakness to foes. (No damage or bounce effect)- Active ability should be ground targeted and should create the projectile absorption effect so that you have it when and where you need it.
The shield is very bad to block projectiles. And the command is “meh”. The shield is only good if u use full spirits and oriented to dmg. (with sword and hammer). I always take Wall of reflection Instead, even without consacration traits is better, the shield dies too easly.
Bow
- Bow auto attacks should shoot foes and deal damage instead. (Ranged guardian wut?)
- Active ground target ability should heal for more, clear conditions and be instant cast.
I like the idea to heal and remove conditions on auto atk, but is just too slow to heal so little. (every 3 secs) The bow is only usable becouse of its Command. Also the command takes 2/3 of all duration (casted 2 times with +50% duration trait), so it atks 1 or 2 times? (9 secs of channeling)
The ground target is good now and don’t need to change, but you’ll need healing power, unlike before.
Sword
- Sword active ability should be ground targeted and hit multiple times like its animation shows.
I agree with ground targeted. It would really make sword more usable rather than randomly hit.
There’s just too much downtime on them for a full-on spirit weapon build to be competitive, especially considering the significant trait investment (12/14 points I think?) required to maximize their potential. It doesn’t matter how strong they are when they’re up, because there’s still the fact that you’re going to be left defenseless when they’re gone.
That is the main problem of a spirit build. Also they take too much time to be summoned, if you use 3 spirits together, you take ~5 sec just to summon them all.
Sorry for my english.
(edited by Mikau.6920)
My opinion, tho only about Sword of Justice.
The Active skill AoE is quite small, 130 units which is same as melee range attacks, would be more usable if it had larger one.
I’m a casual PvE adventurer, I enjoy combat, adventure and helping, but not farming.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
Hammer is the best out of all of them, by far. The CC that thing can churn out is insane, and it makes it quite powerful in dueling.
Sword is good for some nice damage, although it’s AoE thing could use a radius enlargement.
The shield can be quite useful when it decides to work properly. Sometimes it’ll position itself off a node and form it’s bubble there when I really want it on top of myself. It has also been known to chase after enemies, which makes no sense. It should really be focused on staying at the player’s side at all times.
The bow has somewhat weak condition clearing, although there isn’t any other weapon that will clean or support, so it’s what you have to use. I think it could be a bit more potent at cleaning, especially since people can kill it and deny you your condition cleansing. You also can’t direct which of your allies you want it to shoot at with its auto attack, although it would be nice if it could hit multiple people. I think the active ability is fine since it was upgraded in the patch.
I generally like to take both the hammer and sword, so I’m left picking between the shield and bow. I could always drop the sword and take both shield and bow, but that does take away a fair bit of damage. I feel dropping the hammer (pun intended) really isn’t an option since it’s just too powerful a tool. Perhaps having both the shield and bow would be better in a larger scale encounter since the pure damage and CC might not be as necessary.
Also, I don’t know if they fixed the leash range issue on these things yet, will have to try. Previously, you could be sitting on the home or far node and have your weapons chase a guy to the middle node and fight them there.
From what I experiened using Shield of Avenger I can say that:
The projectile bubble created by the shield is not continuous. It will last for 4 seconds (or maybe 5) until it expires, but will quickly be recast by the shield again.
The shield will not move without commands while the bubble is on. After the bubble expires, the shield will move to you if you are away (don’t know the exact range, but its not much) and cast the bubble when it reaches you, or rather what you are attacking. If you are attacking a target that is away from you, it will go by your target (needs confirmation).
The shield can be moved while bubble is present through the active skill. The active skill range isn’t too far but if the shield is moved out of the bubble, it will not cast the bubble again until the one present expires so the shield can be exposed to projectiles unintentionally.
The shield can die or disappear (due to duration timer) while the active skill is ongoing, in which it will fail to complete the skill.
The active skill can not be used without a target, and the shield will never cast the bubble without you starting combat. Therefore it is not very suitable to cast shield to block projectiles engaging a fight before actually hitting the enemy yourself. The projectiles will probably kill the shield before it casts the bubble.
The shield doesn’t levitate or fly, it seems to be carried by an invisible NPC judging from the way it moves normally. As such, its tracking may have pathing issues.
Last but not least, the bubble doesn’t seem to need the shield to run through its duration. On some occasions I have seen my shield die or expire but the bubble staying up to ita duration regardless. This may need confirmation though.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
They take too much aoe damage and the shield is a little unreliable. Those would be my main complaints.
This.
I miss the way they were in beta.
They could not die during their up time but did horrible base damage.
This actually meant they were good in PVE & WvW & even in Spvp if your traited for them.
As is now I think they should
1: Have massive changes (more controllability, better survivability & have their CD start as soon as summoned in exchange for less passive stuff)
or
2: Be completely redesigned to be more like ele conjure weapons.
If they were to be made into something like conjured weapons, they might as well just make a new skill line instead. Like utility tomes or something.
If they were to be made into something like conjured weapons, they might as well just make a new skill line instead. Like utility tomes or something.
That ^ might actually be preferable.
At least then they wouldn’t die to incidental AOE & would be something you directly control.
One thing that really keep me from using some of the weapons, like the sword, in PvE (apart from very niche situations) is that they go on a large cooldown once they disappear.
Why can’t they be like conjured weapons from elementalists? They shouldn’t go on cooldown once they ‘naturally disappear’ unless they were killed. They have so little power to be hamstrung like that.
There’s just too much downtime on them for a full-on spirit weapon build to be competitive, especially considering the significant trait investment (12/14 points I think?) required to maximize their potential. It doesn’t matter how strong they are when they’re up, because there’s still the fact that you’re going to be left defenseless when they’re gone.
That is the main problem of a spirit build. Also they take too much time to be summoned, if you use 3 spirits together, you take ~5 sec just to summon them all.
Spirit rangers were in the same situation (still are) and that build was not only viable, but optimal for the class (largely due to how terrible the other options were).
Ranger spirts are incredibly fragile, they have decent cast times and there is a good chunk of time after they die when you can’t use them again. Personally I think it made the build less interesting to play (you have periods where you can and can’t use your utility skills as a result of the cooldown) but the devs actively pushed the build that way, so I wouldn’t hope they will do any different for guardians.
(edited by Shiren.9532)
There’s just too much downtime on them for a full-on spirit weapon build to be competitive, especially considering the significant trait investment (12/14 points I think?) required to maximize their potential. It doesn’t matter how strong they are when they’re up, because there’s still the fact that you’re going to be left defenseless when they’re gone.
That is the main problem of a spirit build. Also they take too much time to be summoned, if you use 3 spirits together, you take ~5 sec just to summon them all.
Spirit rangers were in the same situation (still are) and that build was not only viable, but optimal for the class (largely due to how terrible the other options were).
Ranger spirts are incredibly fragile, they have decent cast times and there is a good chunk of time after they die when you can’t use them again. Personally I think it made the build less interesting to play (you have periods where you can and can’t use your utility skills as a result of the cooldown) but the devs actively pushed the build that way, so I wouldn’t hope they will do any different for guardians.
Your forgetting, ranger spirits help the entire group (quite a lot) & can be traited so that they have +100% health.
Guardian spirit weapons (with the exception of the shield) do not boost the group (I don’t count the bow because the rate of fire on its arrow is too slow & is single target).
Guardian spirits are more like necro summons. Except that they can only be traited to do more damage (no + health or toughness traits) and have a limited time window for use (where necro minions last until killed).
They should change the new spirit trait (Expeditious Spirit – the wiki is messed up) to increase the life instead of recduce the cooldown. At least it will make them a little bit more viable.
Sorry for my english.
They should change the new spirit trait (Expeditious Spirit – the wiki is messed up) to increase the life instead of recduce the cooldown. At least it will make them a little bit more viable.
I really hope they don’t. Expeditious Spirit is a nice alternative to Improved Spirit-Weapon Duration. I also wouldn’t want to waste one of my precious Virtue traits on the duration trait, which is worse than its alternative imo.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)