Guild Wars 2

Activated Spirit abilities are decent in my opinion. They are neither bad or good, with some lacking more than others. Toying around more with Spirits, what are the community’s thoughts if Spirits received these tweaks?

Active Changes

• Activated abilities apply up to 5 targets instead of 3
• Call Lightning: Additionally applies 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds
• Cold Snap: Is considered an Ice Field
• Aqua Surge: Additionally cleanses 2 conditions

Spirits Unbound

• Spirits can move and follow you. Activated Spirit skills can be ground targeted.
• Range: 600

Radius for Spirit actives are not great, so, with the suggestions given below, I think that ground targeting the actives would be all right and make sense if Spirits Unbound was taken (since they will always be nearby). A short range similar to traps seems tame.

Nature’s Vengeance

• Activated skills of Spirits are stronger and trigger when killed.

What this means when Nature’s Vengeance is taken:

• Aqua Surge: Converts 2 conditions into boons
• Call Lightning: Additionally inflicts Weakness for 5 seconds
• Solar Flare: Additionally inflicts 2 stacks of Confusion for 6 seconds
• Cold Snap: Chill duration per pulse increased from 1 to 2 seconds
• Quicksand: Cripple duration per pulse increased from 1 to 2 seconds
• Nature’s Renewal: Revives downed allies to full health

The actives on the spirits are not good because of their horrible range that and the fact that they have to survive while something is in their bad range is a big issue.

Not to mention that we have to use one major trait to get their proc rate out of “complete suck” range and another trait to get them to follow us. That is, we have to use at least one trait for them to be partially useable (mainly taken only for Frost) and another trait if we want it to actually follow us … though that can often result in it dying since it can eat direct and condition damage as well as be crit … not to mention doesn’t dodge and we can’t control its movement to not stand in the AOE next to us that we aren’t in.

I agree that Spirits are, on a whole, bad. Their active abilities could be better, though. Changing spirits survivability is another issue, so I didn’t comment on that part, only the actives and the GM trait which doesn’t “feel” necessarily worth the GM slot it retains because of the switch with Spirits Unbound.

Though, it would be nice (survivability-wise) if Spirits were like GW1 Spirits and were immune to all conditions except burning.

EDIT: Activated spirit ability range is horrid, but what if the Ranger was able to ground target them from their position? Added it to the original post. Seems like it should help a bit if they could be ground targeted and placed by the player.

I would like to see the activated ability become “Kill spirit”, clicking it will make them die and the skill go on CD….

So that… They can be invulnerable and move by default. Then have a charge counter, like a venom and each attack they modify (with a 100% chance to do so) reduces the counter by one. Counter reaches zero, spirit dies and skill goes on CD. Activated just allows you to refresh the counter between fights.

@Heimskarl:
That sounds awfully similar to the crap we deal with as Mesmers with mantras. I’m not sure how I feel about it … though it can’t be worse than the current incarnation :-/

I think I’d prefer an improvement not resemble something that myself and most of the Mesmer community already dislike.

It would be more like a Venom with Venomous Aura traited. A continuously changing aura that affects whoever is in range (no limit to numbers) When the charges are used the spirit dies, then you can re-cast after 20s CD. So by yourself it could last many attacks, if in a WvW zerg it could be all used up instantly on a massive burst by the zerg.

Imo, that would be a million times better than what we have now.

As an aside, anyone know the base health of spirits?

@Heimskarl:
Perhaps I’m holding onto GW1, but I simply want our spirits to provide a non-proc effect and either not die or have good enough range that I can safely park them beforehand with some good planning.

At the very least, I want our spirits to not be worse than the utilities that provide similar functionality. As they are:

• Frost Spirit provides similar functionality to Warrior banners … but it provides less of a boost, provides it as a proc, and it can be killed while banners are invulnerable.
• The burning could be compared to Thief Venom (sort of) … but it can be killed and its a proc while the poison is a sure thing with limited charges (as you pointed out). It does benefit from lasting longer … but with a 10s ICD and 60s duration, you’re talking about a maximum of 6 procs.
• All of our spirits have a 35% chance to proc before traits … this is pathetic … especially when you factor in their limited range and ICDs
• All of our spirits are even worse at surviving without that very same trait that is required to make their proc chance “not suck”.

If you want to test the hp of spirits sometime, just look me up in game sometime after 7:30pm Central and I’ll probably be free and jump in to some empty arena with you.

I would also love the spirits to be exactly as they were in GW1, except not affect foes. They would need like 10,000 range though lol. And they would be so OP in WvW if they were like that. Does anyone remember HoH in GW1 before they patched spirits, when you could stack them? We had an RSpike team that stacked about 50 Favorable Winds and Winnowing spirits, body blocking the point and you could one shot people, was hilarious!

I’d love to test it out mate, but I can’t play for the next 8 months, I’m in Antarctica and Antarctica has slow internets. Great job though

Thankfully, our longbow and shortbow have decent interrupts, so we still retain some of that capability from GW1 :-)

Spirits … meh … they, like our shouts … are “le suck”.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

As an aside, anyone know the base health of spirits?

At Lv80:

Spirit Base HP: 7,415
Spirit HP with Vigorous Spirits: 14,832

Fun Fact: Base Spirit HP used to be 4,635 before it was buffed 60% and 3,708 before a 25% buff long ago.

Actually, I like the idea. But not the placement.

But I think that our GM trait should only include Effects duration increase and Make the effects a ground-target mechanic.

On the other hand, Spirits Unbound should have the range and radius boost (also a passive effect range grasp increase). This way, you could actually use that trait for something. It would get useless if you could Activate bonuses from 900 range distance while your spirits are at a safe spot away.

We need a “teleport the spirit to you position” and then some support like “nearby allies get xy buff”. That would be a cool feature and you don’t need the spirit mobility-trait for a permant use of the skill.

Unkillable spirits would be too op with no counters. I don’ like ground targeted actives, don’t forget that passives are strong (not untraited i know) : burning is a strong condition, protection is a strong boon etc. Strong passives with ground targeted actives looks definitly too powerful.

I think it could be a bit like ele attenuments.

Vigorous Spirits — Spirits have increased health and a greater chance to trigger their benefits. By default.

Adpet : While summoning a spirit, you and all nearby allies gain a boon. Storm : vigor 5 s, Sun : might 15 s, Stone : aegis 5 s, Frost : swiftness 5 s, Nature : regeneration 5 s

Master : Spirits can move and follow you. Maintain the passive effects of spirits when they die x seconds.

Grandmaster : Activated skills of spirits are larger, gain additional effect based on spirit. Storm : gain an attack of opportunity , Sun : ? , frost : remove chill, immo and cripple, stone : break stun

Something like that.

borya.2964:

Unkillable spirits would be too op with no counters.

Not necessarily, you just balance the skill accordingly. Thief venoms cannot be removed once they have been used, they run out of duration, but you can’t kill them. I think Spirits need to be the same, charges that run out and kill the spirit.

I like were all you guys are going with this! I too miss GW1 spirits there were nice at controlling the battle field at certain range. Merging your ideas would be like:

-spirits cannot be kill
-spirit range is 1,000
-spirits 35% chance to give 1 charge of proc (number of allies 3-5)(10 sec)/ 10 sec CD
-spirit active will give 3 charge of proc (10 sec)/30 sec CD

spirits:
-Stone remove boon added cripple(immobilize or bleed?)
-Frost stay the same added next attack cannot be block
-Sun stay the same
-Storm remove boon added vulnerability(or Weakness?)

Grand master traits will give 1 boon on active (on proc could be way too strong)
-Stone gives protection
-Frost gives aegis (or Frost Aura?)
-Sun gives might (or just Fire Aura?)
-Storm gives swiftness

Basically there like beacon of boon wen in range like a hybrid of banner and venom while keeping some Gw1 feel to them, having spirits follow you should almost be remove in this case since it would be OP.

PS.
I miss Rajazan Degen Farmer back in the day aw Factions …miss cantha

I feel like a few of the suggestions are too strong, but for the love of god do they need to make spirits actives targetable and buff natures vengeance. Natures Vengeance isn’t strong enough of a trait to be a GM trait, it should, as you suggested, strengthen the effect.

Made a few edits based on suggestions. I agree, some of the previous suggestions in the original post were too strong.