Topic, I really want to play a support ranger, I was revolving around the ideas of spirits. If they are that bad what’s the likelyness they will be fixed?
I think the main problems with spirits is that their buff range is too low I think, that the buffs they give really aren’t very good, but most importantly that they die to the slightest aoe damage from trash monsters (let alone veterans and bosses) even when traited.
For them to be more durable their health needs to be increased greatly (multitudes), but they also need a 75% aoe damage resistance, along with our pets as well, otherwise even if you make the health ten times larger they will still die too fast, where as warrior banners cannot be destroyed at all for example.
In this game, monsters do huge amounts of damage, so any pet-class is suffering greatly right now from extreme fragility. Pets, especially spirits, usually don’t last more than one to two seconds into a trash monster encounter.. against veterans and bosses they just get one shotted at the first aoe attack.
The #1 most frustrating thing about playing a ranger are the pet bugs.
I’d put the uselessness of the spirits as #2. For providing such weak buffs, their effective range is extremely low, especially considering that dungeon mechanics are designed to keep everybody as mobile as possible.
Hopefully ranger spirits are on the dev’s list for a complete overhaul.
They are basically worthless right now, and you have to put 30 points in Nature Magic to make them a little less worthless. They should be similar to Warrior banners and Guardian spirit weapons in that they can’t be attacked. They should also have the radius of the Warrior banners and their overall effectiveness needs improved.
I also wish they look liked the spirit animals in Orr, those are cool.
They are not useless because they suck or the buff range is too low, they are useless because they die in 1 hit to a level 3 doe. I don’t think it needs to be said that dungeon enemies hit far harder than a level 3 doe.
You might as well have an empty slot on your bar because you will be far more effective not wasting your time casting than trying to put the spirit in a right spot and watching it get killed instantly because not only do enemies target it but boss AoE specifically looks for them and kills them, too.
They are pretty bad as of now. Not worth taking at all for the reasons listed above by everyone. It’s ridiculous how many post and comments on how bad the spirits are and ANet has done nothing about it.
Ya I was one of the people sayin they were great cause I used em a lot in the last stress test and blah blah blah, but after using em live…. Let’s just say I don’t even think of using them as of now…
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
I have been experimenting with spirits (untraited) lately and the biggest issue IMO is how squishy they are. I have been testing the range and feel it is decent and the effects are useful, especially the more people you have around.
I have used spirits since I could get one. What I have found is they are squishy so I want to utilize them the most right as they get laid down. I drop frost and sun pop my ult and QZ and then swap pets right when QZ wears off. Just off of auto attacks people freak out. Usually have my short bow 5 right after to stop the incoming heal. And then it is over. A bit of set up but you can turn everything on while you are running. I only use spirits for burst because odds are I will be moving in a fight out of their range and they will be useless once someone glares at them wrong.
I love this burst build I feel like for 6 seconds or so it is the peak damage in game. then everything dies and I go back to being normal ranger. With pets able to hold someone down just long enough to get off a huge round of damage this build is the bomb.
I have added the trait to double spirit health and I drop them constantly in dungeons. Their cooldown is the same length as their life, so if they do survive, which they do most of the time if you place them properly, you can re-drop them the second they expire.
The range could definitely use a boost, but I mainly drop them for MY benefit because of the short range, and anyone else who happens to be near me gets the buff of course. I use the burning/damage/protection spirits.
It’s also worth noting that spirits CAN be healed with any AOE healing spell.
Really, it’s the durability that is the issue here. As others have pointed out, a stiff wind can kill these things.
My wishlist would be:
- Spirits cannot be damaged by AOE
- Increase HP
- Increase overall effectiveness (% of times buff activates)
- Allow them to move with you without being traited
This is extremely disappointing, in BWE1 I used a full spirit build and was unstoppable in pve and pvp. It’s sad to see how much they have been nerfed since then.
Has anyone tested their health vs. that of engineer turrets? They seem kinda similar in theme, so I’d imagine they should be about as tough, right? Of course, I don’t play Engineer, so I may be talkin’ out my butt… =P
I have used spirits since I could get one. What I have found is they are squishy so I want to utilize them the most right as they get laid down. I drop frost and sun pop my ult and QZ and then swap pets right when QZ wears off. Just off of auto attacks people freak out. Usually have my short bow 5 right after to stop the incoming heal. And then it is over. A bit of set up but you can turn everything on while you are running. I only use spirits for burst because odds are I will be moving in a fight out of their range and they will be useless once someone glares at them wrong.
I love this burst build I feel like for 6 seconds or so it is the peak damage in game. then everything dies and I go back to being normal ranger. With pets able to hold someone down just long enough to get off a huge round of damage this build is the bomb.
How on earth are your pets “holding someone down” for 6 seconds, as you’re obviously referring to pvp situations? You must be facing some really dumb people. I’m generally drawn towards your way of using spirits, as it seems pretty much the only close-to-viable thing, but would think most smart opponents would have knocked down, interrupted, disabled and shred you in the 3 seconds you need to even drop the spirits and are doing ZERO damage.
No, spirits works great. It’s just that they die way too fast from damage, and sometimes they bug out in dungeons and die as soon as they are spawned. But while they are alive, they are a great tool to have. I’m really hoping that ArenaNet buffs them, by either giving the spirits skill effects a 100% chance of working, or giving the spirits more vitality/toughness. When you compare spirits with the Warrior banners, the spirits just seem way too weak
80 Ranger | 80 Mesmer | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 40 Engineer
“The learned is happy, nature to explore. The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”
-Alexander Pope
No, spirits works great. It’s just that they die way too fast from damage, and sometimes they bug out in dungeons and die as soon as they are spawned. But while they are alive, they are a great tool to have. I’m really hoping that ArenaNet buffs them, by either giving the spirits skill effects a 100% chance of working, or giving the spirits more vitality/toughness. When you compare spirits with the Warrior banners, the spirits just seem way too weak
Even if they didn’t die, they wouldn’t be useful. Their internal cooldown only allows each pet to effect a single individual in your group at a time and their range is really poor. You have to dump 30 trait points into Nature Magic to even make them move.
They are just flat out terrible. Others have said it before, but I’ll restate for emphasis what I hate about the things…
- The buffs they provide are weak.
- The range of said buffs is too small so this makes the buffs they provide even less useful.
- Thier on use skills are questionably useful and the fact that they have to do a long animation paired with their short range makes them even more useless.
- The fact that you need to constantly re-summon them and said re-summoning has a long cast time makes them feel even more awkward to use.
- Lastly to add insult to injury they have pathetic amounts of health so they barely get a chance to do their pathetic skills or give their useless buffs.
As far as changes they really should just be invulnerable.
The on uses need to be tailored to be more useful for people fighting at range and also be more responsive in general with shorter animation delaying their effects.
The buffs need to be brought up to the level that other buffing abilities in the game are at.
The casting time either needs to be reduced or they need to last longer to make them feel less awkward to use via needing to constantly re-summon them in the middle of a fight.
Just so many things that needs to be changed about them to actually make them “fun”.
Even if they didn’t die, they wouldn’t be useful. Their internal cooldown only allows each pet to effect a single individual in your group at a time and their range is really poor. You have to dump 30 trait points into Nature Magic to even make them move.
I’m not sure why you think it only affects one player at a time? The short range just means that you have to learn to put the spirit down at the right place (and time). You can’t just place it down without considering if your allies are going to move around a lot. I use the protection spirit a lot in dungeons for melee allies. I usually try to place it behind them, so if the boss or mob goes after us who are standing at range, the melee allies don’t move away from the spirit, but towards it. I even used the spirit that gives swiftness in a dungeon yesterday, because we needed more speed to avoid ranged attacks from a boss. We would run from side to side, with the swiftness spirit standing in the middle, so when we ran past the spirit we would get the swiftness buff. I also often use the 10% damage spirit if there’s a lot of ranged allies around. So I don’t agree with saying they are useless.
80 Ranger | 80 Mesmer | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 40 Engineer
“The learned is happy, nature to explore. The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”
-Alexander Pope
Just bumping this to express my frustration with spirits. Everything that needs to be said has been. I like the spirits, I wish I could bring more utility to my groups but their fragility makes them pretty much useless. This is coming from the standpoint of a CoE ranger. All I do is run CoE because I want the armor, Subject Alpha, a re-occuring boss who has basically the worst types of AoE this game offers.
Not only does your pet die in seconds but spirits are typically dead before their buffs can even register. Getting hit by collateral AoE isn’t even the worst part, though. They are also targets for the boss. You can tell because his little ice patch forms under them, me and my pets, which makes this instance 3 times as fun because you have to dodge circles 3 times as large as everyone elses, should you be foolish enough to use spirits!
Iv tried and tried and tried and I just can’t find a use for spirits.. they have like a combined total of 8hp between the 4 of them. Indeed, they do have a trait that increases their health by double though.. but tell me, what’s 8×2?
These things seriously need to be completely redone so rangers can actually bring more to the table than water field and sometimes fire field.
If spirits are going to be destroyable while warrior banners are not then they should have some corresponding advantage that offsets this disadvantage.
As they are right now, their effects are so minor for the most part that an intelligent enemy wouldn’t bother to target them, but they’re so fragile that they go down in just 1 or 2 hits to random AoE effects anyway.
The utility spirits are generally a waste of the utility slot. The elite one isn’t much better. Anet has shown us they like tracking player statistics, so I’m sure they’re aware that most rangers aren’t using these skills. Hopefully some rebalancing is in order.
I actually disagree with spirits being useless. and that pets die easily. I have always liked playing a non-magic ranged characters in MMO’s and this one is no different. I have started using the Spirit that heals and revives and I have found them to be very useful as a support. Numerous times have people thanked me due to the fact that we were able to kill a boss or champion due to my spirit reviving downed players. And for some reason he never gets aggro from the enemy. As for pets…I have to agree that they die a lot more easier during boss fights but it is not often. I usually use a pet with high power/precision paired with high toughness or vitality….I like vitality better than toughness though. Having both together is best Have been using a bear for the longest time and my reserve is a Drake. As long as I keep spamming the HoT and switching whenever they die…they are pretty effective and have helped me dozens of times from being killed due to aggro. Have to keep looking for better pets though. I have a feeling there should be better ones when I get to 80.
@Leknau well you have to keep in mind you’re using the only spirit that is good, which is our ulti (thank god he’s still worth bringing or i’d be flipping tables and screaming in fury), now -he- takes an effort to kill, mostly because he still has high toughness, vit AND heals himself over time which is FANTASTIC! I also agree with the pets, pets are not an issue they don’t die -that- much, however big fights like the priests of <insert god here> in Orr, or even just some of the bigger events end up with him getting destroyed by AoE i can’t get him out of…
As for the utility spirits…. those…. are well…. atm they’re just disgraceful for utility, as people said earlier if they either buffed the toughness and vitality on the spirits so they’re hard to kill, or just making it so the spirits are still really squishy but just radiate their buff constantly every second (IE 3 second buff every second, spirit dies to like 1-2 attacks so it’s kinda like a DEAL WITH ME! skill) would both make them highly useful.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
@JonG the reason you didn’t need to invest points into your pet to follow you is because it’s your class mechanic, the reason you need to put points into your spirit to follow you is because a long time ago they used to be INCREDIBLY powerful and having them follow you was a huge advantage because you became a roaming buff bot of OPness. However that time has passed and now they’re not even worth the utility slot, yet the traits that buffed them to OPness are still there, yet don’t even buff them to being “great” they buff them to being “Ok i suppose.”
Also don’t even use the argument of i didn’t need to do X to make my pet better so therefore my spirits should be better by default because that’s like saying “I didn’t need to put points into my attunements as an elementalist to be able to use tons of skills so i don’t care about CDs, therefore my utility skills should have a shorter CD”
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
Thanks. I’m aware of how they behaved in beta. I’m also aware they were nerfed to obsolete status.
Fact is though, if i spawn something that has legs, I would expect it to follow me by default. Spending a grandmaster trait on something that should be default is a huge slap in face.
They are pretty bad as of now. Not worth taking at all for the reasons listed above by everyone. It’s ridiculous how many post and comments on how bad the spirits are and ANet has done nothing about it.
LOL – Give them a chance, it’s not as if they have nothing else to do. In any case, It’s much better to approach balance issues slowly and carefully than to try and stick a quick bandaid on the problem, as GW1 players will well know. And it’s not as if rangers are lacking other things to do in the mean time.
Generally, its better to be underpowered than OP, then you can expect a nice buff and a new way of playing the class some time in future, rather than to have your build destroyed by a nerf.
Even if they didn’t die, they wouldn’t be useful. Their internal cooldown only allows each pet to effect a single individual in your group at a time and their range is really poor. You have to dump 30 trait points into Nature Magic to even make them move.
I’m not sure why you think it only affects one player at a time? The short range just means that you have to learn to put the spirit down at the right place (and time). You can’t just place it down without considering if your allies are going to move around a lot. I use the protection spirit a lot in dungeons for melee allies. I usually try to place it behind them, so if the boss or mob goes after us who are standing at range, the melee allies don’t move away from the spirit, but towards it. I even used the spirit that gives swiftness in a dungeon yesterday, because we needed more speed to avoid ranged attacks from a boss. We would run from side to side, with the swiftness spirit standing in the middle, so when we ran past the spirit we would get the swiftness buff. I also often use the 10% damage spirit if there’s a lot of ranged allies around. So I don’t agree with saying they are useless.
They have an internal cooldown timer on their procs. They can only proc their ability once every three seconds… and that isn’t per person in range of its area of effect. That is once every three seconds per spirit, period.
I just want them to not die in 1-2 hits, increase the buff range, and not take sooo long to finalize their “attack” animations. it feels like 3 seconds watching it raise its arm to smack it on the ground to do its thing.
Its funny because the GM trait is the worst trait to make spirits useful.. The only success I’ve ever had was hiding my spirits in a corner in a dungeon.. But even the the buff range is so terrible.. I totally forgot we had spirits for the last few weeks until seeing this post..
dunno bout you guys but i’ve been winning in sPvP with spirits.
Storm’s attack does alot of damage and the chilling from frost and immobility from stone is really good with a Jaguar/Raven with some precision and critical damage
that and people are so bad mechanically at this game I become hard to target and hard to kill
and they are useful when they die cause… with traits you get the benefits
dunno bout you guys but i’ve been winning in sPvP with spirits.
Storm’s attack does alot of damage and the chilling from frost and immobility from stone is really good with a Jaguar/Raven with some precision and critical damage
that and people are so bad mechanically at this game I become hard to target and hard to kill
and they are useful when they die cause… with traits you get the benefits
You could win a race in a Yugo against someone in a Ferrari if they didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission, that doesn’t mean that a Yugo is a good car.
That is by far the worst comparison I’ve ever heard in this decade.
So you’re saying skill has nothing to do with it? Meaning if you were to go up against someone who was smart enough to annihilate your spirits in the first five seconds you’d still win?
your comparison is bad because not even a rookie driver would lose that race.
and yeah I’d still win cause I get the boons and survive with my combo fields like I have been against heartseeker spam thieves and hundred blade warriors
your comparison is bad because not even a rookie driver would lose that race.
and yeah I’d still win cause I get the boons and survive with my combo fields like I have been against heartseeker spam thieves and hundred blade warriors
If you don’t know how to drive a manual transmission, you’re not gonna hop in a Ferrari and win, sorry.
Second, even if you do everything perfectly the spirits aren’t guaranteed to give you a boon. There’s a 20% chance you get the five second boon in the few seconds that the spirits are up.
You can use spirits and do well, sure. Against bad players. Against skilled players you’re passing up way too many GOOD and USEFUL skills to pick up some shoddy spirits that aren’t worth the investment for PvE or PvP.
@nldixon it looks like someone has only used the “meta” spirit build…. natures vengeance, when your spirit dies it causes an effect where it was, the sun one causes burning, the storm one constantly blinds and damages (as well as acting as an air field), the stone one creates a muddy terrain, and the frost one creates an ice field…
On top of all that the spirits effect persists for anyone in the area of its corpse, so yeah… he can get the boon even after you pounce on his spirit in the first 5 seconds of the fight, and those fields last for a good 10seconds unless they got nerfed which would create all sorts of death and despair for the idiot who killed all 4 spirits at the same time… oh yeah, the elite spirit creates a field (granted significantly smaller then the other 3 that removes conditions constantly as well as providing a pretty sexy heal for the duration of the field.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
AoE buff auras are not unique to GW2, and games use a variety of ways to balance them. Some root the buff area in place, some allow the buff-giver in question to be easily squashed, while others put them on long casts and cooldowns.
Paradoxically, Spirits suffer all 3 of these balances and are also seen (in today’s meta) as the weakest AoE buff available.
Removing even 1 of these limitations would go a long way to making them feel useful. In my own opinion I’d remove the frailness and up their effectiveness. Then you’d have a buff bot on a long cool down that can take a punch, and if you specialize in them they become something pretty special by walking around as well.
@nldixon it looks like someone has only used the “meta” spirit build…. natures vengeance, when your spirit dies it causes an effect where it was, the sun one causes burning, the storm one constantly blinds and damages (as well as acting as an air field), the stone one creates a muddy terrain, and the frost one creates an ice field…
On top of all that the spirits effect persists for anyone in the area of its corpse, so yeah… he can get the boon even after you pounce on his spirit in the first 5 seconds of the fight, and those fields last for a good 10seconds unless they got nerfed which would create all sorts of death and despair for the idiot who killed all 4 spirits at the same time… oh yeah, the elite spirit creates a field (granted significantly smaller then the other 3 that removes conditions constantly as well as providing a pretty sexy heal for the duration of the field.
I’ve tried Nature’s Vengeance. Yes, it’s nice, but that should be something that happens automatically when your spirits die, not something you have to trait for. It also doesn’t change the fact that you can get WAY more benefit from other skills with way less investment.
Spirits are fun, they’re unique, but ultimately they stink.
@Nldixion, yeah natures vengeance should absolutely NOT be passive… that is totally worth the trait…
However, the rest of your post ABSOLUTELY agree, the fact that to make spirits even remotely viable it requires a trait is ridiculous, i really think spirits need a buff…
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
Have been using a bear for the longest time and my reserve is a Drake. As long as I keep spamming the HoT and switching whenever they die…they are pretty effective and have helped me dozens of times from being killed due to aggro. Have to keep looking for better pets though. I have a feeling there should be better ones when I get to 80.