Guild Wars 2

Hey.

I have some ideias (new ones, yes, again) to make Spirt Weapons (SW) more viable without complete redesign and keep them more unique compared to other summons.

Make all SW invulnerable to damage, but still susceptible to stuns and effect condions (chill, cripple, …). Or, if this is too much, add a significant toughness/vitality to them. But I don’t believe that would be overpowered (still needs to test). Maybe double/triple the CC and condition duration on they to balance.

Like necro Minions (I believe that is the closest to compare), the SW have ~1.5 seconds of cast time, but unlike necro minions they have a limited time and have higher cooldowns, so a lot less uptime. And thats is fine, but when it is active, the SW needs to make some diference to justify the utility slot. So making them invulnerable to damage (but not CC or other effects to have some counter) could be sufficient to make them more viable.

Also, some small changes:

Sword of Justice: Change its Command skill to it move/jump/teleport to your target before activating. It is very hard to keep track if it is in the right postion to be commanded.

Hammer of Wisdom: Change the last hit of auto to be a knockdown instead of knockback. Is really frustrating to use a melee weapon and your target keeps going away.

Bow of Truth: Change its “attack” to target foes instead of allies. Would do very little area damage (about 240 radius) and its effects (heal and remore a condition) would effect up to 5 allies in the area. In that way the burning part of the Expeditious Spirit trait would take effect on this SW, it already attack very slowly (for about every 5 seconds) and the command have a very high channel time (about 9 seconds).

Also, Reduce the Command cooldown to 15 seconds, so it can be used up to 3 times if traited (can still be used only 2 times if not traited).

These changes would make more viable and make more sense to be traited (both burning and one extra use of the command).

Shield of the Avenger: Currently its effect is too unrealiable and its not because the bubble activates several times for shot duration, but where it activates. That are 2 suggestions to fix this problem:

• Suggestion #1: Instead of follow the Guardian, the shield would be in place and not move. The command would be AoE, make the shield to “jump” to this new place and still apply its effects (Weakness, Aegis and Damage) in the area. Reduce the command cooldown to 10 seconds. In that way you would have more control where it activates. The effect would be similar to Protective Solace (Ventari tablet) from Revenant, but you wouldn’t have control on the bubble uptime and the cooldown to move would be higher as well.
• Sugestion #2: The shield would always be close and track the Guardian moviments to begin to follow if the Guardian moves further than ~200 range. The bubble can activate while moving (like Shield of Absorption when using as Guardian). In that way it would never be in odd spots where its effect is useless.

TLDR: Without complete redesign, make Spirit Weapons immune to any source of damage, but still susceptible to Stuns and Condition effects. Maybe double the stun/condition that they recieve to balance. Make some small changes to be more effective where they are intend to.

I can endorse this proposal, but with the following changes

Gyros were inspired to work like Spirit Weapons I think, so they should be closer to Gyros rather than Minions. With that in mind, make their cast times reflect gyro cast times (more instant than not) and significantly reduce SW cooldowns to more closely match Gyros. Or, make them much closer to Minions and remove their auto death. Either way works. If more Gyro, lessen the command skill cooldowns and summon cooldowns. Of more Minion then keep cooldowns the same. Only minorly increase their defenses.

I agree with the Sword teleport

I also agree with swapping Hammer knockdown on command with 3rd auto knockback. The command should be the knockback.

Bow should attack enemies and pierce for low damage each, removing conditions as normal.

Shield should completely swap active and command properties. Attacks enemies on its own for weakness and allied aegis, and create the bubble on command.

Spirit Weapons don’t have great synergy, have the combined disadvantages of Gyros and Minions without either advantage, and their trait interacts poorly with Shield and Bow. These changes would fix those problems while keeping majority of original design.

For spirit weapons I would go with something like this.
You summon them as items but on pickup they add a passive effect.
For Sword it would be your basic attacks burn (every third attack?). For Hammer it would be your critical strikes cause a combo field blast. For Shield it would be gain resistance at a set interval and for bow it would be something worthy of an elite skill such as increase the range of all your attacks to 900 or 1200….because as guardians we have a bad selection of elites….or heals the targets with the lowest hp within a 600 radious of the buff holder.