Guild Wars 2

As of now, Rangers are LACKING IN TEAM SUPPORT COMPARED TO OTHER PROFESSIONS. This is detrimental in the viability of Rangers in dungeons and in other team PvE scenarios. Our main sources of team support as of now are our spirits, which after the spirit nerf due to PvP imbalances were rendered completely useless.
Here’s what I suggest should be done to make spirits more viable in PvE:

1. Take out the inner cool down timer; if warrior banners are allowed to provide a constant buff to the team why can’t spirits be allowed to deliver there buffs without a timer. If the inner cool down timer is to remain, then increase the duration of the boons and conditions so that it may balance out.

2. As of now the active effects of spirits require them to be close to the enemy which will eventually lead them to death before they even get through their 3sec casting animation for a skill that is not that beneficial. What I purpose is to change the active skills so that instead of casting some lack luster spell, they would instead create a combo field for 3sec. This would make spirits more team viable which is something that rangers really need. Example, Storm Spirit would create a lightning field, Sun Spirit a fire field, Frost Spirit a ice field, and Stone Spirit perhaps a muddy terrain type of deal.

3. Increase the recharge time. I suggest this to balance out the changes made and not make spirits OP. I believe ANet can use their discretion to determine what the new recharge time may be; I believe 120sec would be fair.

4. Now to address the tier trait issues with nature magic. First, I believe the double health trait should just be added to the spirits by default. Second, change Vigorous Spirits to either “Increase spirits toughness” or “Spirits grant regen when they grant their skill”. Third, make Spiritual Knowledge a tier 1 trait. Fourth, change Nature’s Vengeance to “Spirits recharge time are reduced by 25%;” this will make it so that if you spec into spirits just a little bit they’ll still be viable. I don’t think this’ll create any balance problems considering warriors have a similar trait called Inspiring Banners that’s a tier 1.

5. This is just a general suggestion to the nature magic trait line and I’m not sure if it is in effect now, but make the increase in boon duration affect pet and spirit given duration as well.

• If these changes are going to disrupt PvP, make these changes to a PvE only version of the skill as it was in GW1.

I hope that ANet would take these suggestions into consideration.

Please comment with your thoughts! I’m eager to hear what people think.

Rangers work well in dungeons…very well. In fact I have done almost every no-bugged path of almost every dungeon and rangers do well in all of them. Some of my groups have had as many as 3 rangers in them. In fact every class works in these explorer dungeons. I just go down my friends list and invite the first 4 that want to do the dungeon no matter what class they are and have never had an issue.

I’m not saying rangers aren’t doing well in dungeons, what I am saying is that rangers as a class can’t support to be a viable part of a dungeon compared to the other classes and I was suggesting ways to improve it. I don’t see how what you wrote was relevant to the post.

Also, this isn’t only about dungeons but about improving a whole trait line and making the ranger more versatile.

And I’m interested in seeing you complete a dungeon with 3 rangers, perhaps you could post a video of you doing this?

Peter.9406:

to change the active skills so that instead of casting some lack luster spell, they would instead create a combo field for 3sec. This would make spirits more team viable which is something that rangers really need. Example, Storm Spirit would create a lightning field, Sun Spirit a fire field, Frost Spirit a ice field, and Stone Spirit perhaps a muddy terrain type of deal.

I like it much more than 1m useless 1in30s blind/ 1200 (!) shock dmg / muddy terrain or loltrap in random place.

I suggest replace these not-so-usefull abilities with combo fields for 3 sec each as stated above plus make the same CD (30 sec), but not SHARED.

HP pool should be increased twice, and a trait to double HP should not be removed. This will make spirits usefull in PvE.

At last I have to mention that a powerful nature spirits rangers are summoning who can’t walk is just nonsense. How it could be explained? It’s just not wise in terms of lore/mechanics/everything. Replace 3rd tier “walking” trait with one that increase radius of combo field.

Spirits are a relic of GW1, most players that played GW1 don’t have trouble with them. I myself run 2+1 spirits in every dungeon and I love it, but I do agree that their buffs should get some polish.

Ah I forgot to mention this TERRIBLE long animation of summoning. It’s so annoying considering the fact you have to re-summon 2+ spirits every 1 minute in best case ofcourse. The underwater animation is more faster and, well, it satisfies me.

Perhaps a spirit could replace the pet for 30secs (in the same way the Ele can summon axes, g-swords, bows etc.) and instead of attacking, they give off boons & conditions based on that spirit? This way they’d be a bit more viable (In that you can walk alongside them instead of leaving it behind) and you still get the benefits of them.

For example:
Sun spirit – Randomly gives Might for 3secs and randomly burns foes for 3 secs
Ice spirit – Regeneration and chilled
Lightning spirit – Swiftness and blinds
Earth spirit – Toughness and bleed.

By making them have a random chance of inflicting the above-mentioned status effects, they don’t become overpowered as you still have to sacrifice your pet AND a utility skill, but you still have the full effects of them.

Just a thunk.

I use spirits on my ranger and I don’t have any problems. You can move when casting them so there isn’t any down-time in combat with them, and the secondary activation is all up to player skill.
I’m not really sure if I’m understanding the whole ‘rangers are lacking in team support’ area since it has just as much support capabilities as any other class, it just might be a bit different, look at banner wars, glamour mes’, water eles and area-defense guardians, each one supports a team in different ways.

Peter.9406:

And I’m interested in seeing you complete a dungeon with 3 rangers

In theory, you could have a spirit ranger for support, one melee ranger with traps and area utilities for control, and another focused on dealing damage. They will all be doing damage, and they could utilise pets to control the area, particularly for bosses by drawing them in and out of attacks. Not sure if it’s practical, but it seems plausible.

Peter.9406:

I’m not saying rangers aren’t doing well in dungeons, what I am saying is that rangers as a class can’t support to be a viable part of a dungeon compared to the other classes and I was suggesting ways to improve it. I don’t see how what you wrote was relevant to the post.

Also, this isn’t only about dungeons but about improving a whole trait line and making the ranger more versatile.

And I’m interested in seeing you complete a dungeon with 3 rangers, perhaps you could post a video of you doing this?

I don’t have a video but just to make sure I rememebered right I did it again on wends night this week on purpose this time (3 rangers). The other 2 people were a ele and a guardian. We did the following on explorer, HoW, TA, CoF, CoE… CoE was a bit rough but we got through without too much trouble. The other 3 were all no issue.

One had the skill to have sigs effect both them and the pet, one was a full beastmaster, and one was nature survival.

Spirits have too high aggro as well, I placed one behind me and started attacking a bandit and he ran through me, ignored my pet and one shot the spirit before starting to attack my pet. The spirit is passive and just chillaxes, so much more threatening the 500 arrows in your face.

I realize this is mainly a thread about spirits, but since OP had to go all doom and gloom hyperbole, allow me to point out that Rangers have a 15 second water field they can use every 30 seconds. That’s 50% up time on the absolute best group-play combo field, one only available to Rangers, Elementalists, and Engineers, and which requires 0 sacrifice towards any spec for the Ranger. Tell me again how they have no useful group utility?

There are more support options than just spirits. Traps can form combo fields, axe off-hand #5 for reflecting, multiple snares, high rate of boss turning/control, to prevent cone abilities from hitting your team.

or make spirits like warriors banners

they are spirits after all

I use frost spirit in partys all of the time.,
only downside is i have to drop them behind our lines, this means all the melee (range) classes dont benefit from their skillbuff

Kal.4601:

I realize this is mainly a thread about spirits, but since OP had to go all doom and gloom hyperbole, allow me to point out that Rangers have a 15 second water field they can use every 30 seconds. That’s 50% up time on the absolute best group-play combo field, one only available to Rangers, Elementalists, and Engineers, and which requires 0 sacrifice towards any spec for the Ranger. Tell me again how they have no useful group utility?

Oh wow one effective support skill, that sure makes them more support based compared to the 5 banners the warriors have, the 2 water combo fields the ele has plus the other 7 combo fields, the wells and dark combo fields the necro has plus their minion pets, and the overall team support of the guardian. I’m not saying that Rangers suck, this isnt a bash thread. I’m saying that compared to other classes our support system is lacking and I’m saying how it can be fixed. SO, before you post fanboy ranger comments trying to defend how the rangers are amazing in dungeons, read the post and think about a comment relating to the effectiveness of spirits and how as of now they are hurting us team support wise or why you think they are fine how they are now.

Mundo.4036:

There are more support options than just spirits. Traps can form combo fields, axe off-hand #5 for reflecting, multiple snares, high rate of boss turning/control, to prevent cone abilities from hitting your team.

First of all, whirling defense isn’t a support skill. True traps are good, but they aren’t much a support mechanism considering, if you are using them effectively as an AoE, your party isn’t going to be in the middle of a group while the traps activate to utilize a 3 sec fire or ice field. I’m not disagreeing with you that there aren’t other ways to support, but compared to other classes and how effective their support is spirits are the only thing that could compare and as of right now I think they are broken.

Jyenh.5739:

I use spirits on my ranger and I don’t have any problems. You can move when casting them so there isn’t any down-time in combat with them, and the secondary activation is all up to player skill.
I’m not really sure if I’m understanding the whole ‘rangers are lacking in team support’ area since it has just as much support capabilities as any other class, it just might be a bit different, look at banner wars, glamour mes’, water eles and area-defense guardians, each one supports a team in different ways.

Have you used them in dungeons? You have to cast them so far out of enemy aggro, bc as of now enemies beeline to spirits or they get destroyed in AoE, and in a game where you are constantly moving around especially in dungeons it is easy to get out of their area to get a chance of getting their boons.

You just need to stick in between the spirits and use healing spring, that way if you just swap to melee you can take the agro with them while providing a water field and healing for quite some time, this traited with BM and nature you can get improved regen and higher healing rates, plus your pet can last longer and also helo take agro if you command it well. speaking of which, there are a pets that give combo fields, such as the murellows poison cloud.

Yes I know it is limited, but it is possible, even if only for a short time. I do agree though that banners are better for dungeons, but only because they aren’t destructible.

Please remember the other side of combos though, rangers pretty much use the combo fields constantly, so they’re really good for the second link.

I was at one point a spirit pet ranger, but ditched them because they just aren’t worth the time and effort to keep them active. You had to take 30 points in Nature Magic to even make them semi-viable and doing that means you give up a lot of other stuff.

At the very very very least, I wish the spirits had unique skins and weren’t all just tiny trees.

Rangers are worth having in parties for the pet alone, simply because it takes a lot of agro away from the players. The sprits are more of a bonus. I do agree that they could use a bit of a buff when compared to the Warrior banners (like having more vitality/toughness, or even shorter skill cooldown), but they aren’t as bad as you make them sound. They are simply just an addition to everything ells that you can do as a Ranger.

“Spirits are a relic of GW1”
While they might be intended as a “relic” of GW, they certinly did not think through the spirit mechanics. They pretty much broke the idea of using spirits from GW.

The MAIN point of using spirits in GW was the permanent effect. In GW2 the spirits’ effect are all but permanent. The spirits are not durable enough, too long cooldown and the effects are mediocre at the very best.

Compared to the spirits in GW these are not even in the same score charts. They are currently useless in all but some explicit scenarios, where they can be shielded from taking aoe damage and has a otherwise static fight.

Grim.3487:

“Spirits are a relic of GW1”
While they might be intended as a “relic” of GW, they certinly did not think through the spirit mechanics. They pretty much broke the idea of using spirits from GW.

The MAIN point of using spirits in GW was the permanent effect. In GW2 the spirits’ effect are all but permanent. The spirits are not durable enough, too long cooldown and the effects are mediocre at the very best.

Compared to the spirits in GW these are not even in the same score charts. They are currently useless in all but some explicit scenarios, where they can be shielded from taking aoe damage and has a otherwise static fight.

I completely agree with you.

Make spirit follows the ranger wherever he / she goes for the duration.

Here’s a tip: the ranger’s best utility skills are not spirits.

Traps and Muddy Terrain are, with them you give your group the ability to kite melee indefinitely.

Of course, if you are talking about exploiting certain mind-numbingly easy dungeon paths, in which case the 3 offensive traps(flame, viper, spike) obliterates large groups at once.

Rangers are more than viable and are popular choices to have for groups.

Pikafan.3792:

Here’s a tip: the ranger’s best utility skills are not spirits.

Traps and Muddy Terrain are, with them you give your group the ability to kite melee indefinitely.

Of course, if you are talking about exploiting certain mind-numbingly easy dungeon paths, in which case the 3 offensive traps(flame, viper, spike) obliterates large groups at once.

Rangers are more than viable and are popular choices to have for groups.

So this justifies the spirits sucking? Are you saying ANet shouldn’t fix the class since we have another way of contributing and leave the class lacking in a support area? I don’t know about you but I don’t want to just fill one niche in a party and play a profession that compared to other ones are crippled.
Rangers are more than viable and are popular choices to have for groups.

Peter.9406:

So this justifies the spirits sucking? Are you saying ANet shouldn’t fix the class since we have another way of contributing and leave the class lacking in a support area? I don’t know about you but I don’t want to just fill one niche in a party and play a profession that compared to other ones are crippled.

That’s your highly ignorant assumption. And we all know what “assume” does to you and me.

I didn’t say it justifies spirits sucking. I am just saying there are far more useful and effective support/utility skills a ranger has.

Also, I might point out your OP claims that rangers are not viable in parties due to spirits and that rangers lack utility – which is obviously wrong and misguided on too many levels to name.

I use the elite spirit and its great, I can even rez myself by activating it right before I go down. My spirit can keep EVERYONE alive while fighting the Claw of Jormag in Frostgorge(pulse of +480 to his -400 pulse!). I agree they are squishy and they shouldnt be THAT squishy with such a long CD(I have the same complaint for necro pets). personally I run signets, 2 for me(stone and wild) and the third I swap out for the grp either renewal for condionion heavy fights or search and rescue for fights that ppl get killed in easily. I agree with the trap builds but traps just dont work well with my build.. and thats great that we do have so many options =D

Sorry this is all jumbled but yea spirits need work, they arent a very good option for slot skills but the elite is great IMO, but I would say he dies prematurely around half the time(I have learned where to place him and this is still the case because of random aoes).

Prime.9450:

Ah I forgot to mention this TERRIBLE long animation of summoning. It’s so annoying considering the fact you have to re-summon 2+ spirits every 1 minute in best case ofcourse. The underwater animation is more faster and, well, it satisfies me.

long animation…?
How long does it take really? I’m guessing 1 second. I don’t find that long at all.

I changed the name of this thread because most of the comments are not even related to the main idea of this post.

I think one of the major problems for Spirits is the huge investment it takes to make them worthwhile. You need Vigorous Spirits to keep them alive, you want Spiritual Knowledge for the extra 15% chance on giving boon and you absolutely need Spirits Unbound to allow them to move. I personaly feel that Spirits without all 3 of these major traits are pointless. With such a heavy investment into this 1 type of utility skill you are going to take at least 2 or even 3 Spirits with you, severely reducing your flexibility when it comes to utilities.

The other issue I have with Spirits is that they are a passive mechanic, you use 2-3 utility slots for a skill that is basicly fire and forget every 60 seconds.

Some suggestions that will make Spirits a lot more populair:

The biggest problem is that noone is going to run around with 1 spirit. To remedy this I think the Spirits should always move around, without a trait. They should also have a little bit more health, not the double from the trait but at least some. This will make the standard Spirit survive a little longer and also make Spiritual Knowledge better. Maybe even more importantly, when going for Spirits does not feel like the biggest investment ever we will start seeing builds incorperating only 1 Spirit that fills the gap a certain Ranger feels his build has. A high DPS melee will take Stone Spirit, a support Longbow player might think Sun Spirit is a good addition at only 1 utility slot. This will in turn reduce the passive play that comes with a Nature Magic build.

I really hope we get a ton of brainstorming on this subject and that ArenaNet reads this. Spirits are a really cool idea and add some extra flavour to the Ranger class. A few minor changes will make all the difference I think.

I’ve been using them in pvp and the casting time is a downside.

In terms of improving them, how about making the traits more interesting.

Really at the moment you have to take Vigorous Spirits, Spiritual Knowledge, and Spirits Unbound to make them viable, and I’m not sure that one spirit is any more powerful than say a trap or sharpening stone- in the current state its like I have to take three talents just to get sharpening stone to work.

IMO those three important spirit traits should be baseline and then you can buff the spirits up with traits, like increasing fire spirit damage or add bleed proc to stone spirit (or at least give more than 1 sec of protection! I mean wth is that anyway, a joke?).

The lack of an inner CD was OP with things like warhorn 4. so the internal CD was necessary.

They could do several things to make them better. The trait that links them to your movement should link them to your defensive maneuvers as well. Weapon skill evades and dodge should make them invulnerable when you are in that phase. No need for the animation. Limitation is the CD’s on us using those skills already built in.

Our skill that translates all boons on the ranger to the rangers pet should have it’s transfer range extended greatly and transfer the spirit buffs to our pet enabling the ranger to be out of harms way with spirit buffing their pet.

It would be real nice if one of the traps/effects that is an active dropped a combo field. Swiftness and an electrical perhaps.

I will say if you run into a spirit ranger + mesmer + thief all using pet phantasm extra theif builds the force magnification of the spirit buffs is annoying.

Ebs- “I really hope we get a ton of brainstorming on this subject and that ArenaNet reads this. Spirits are a really cool idea and add some extra flavour to the Ranger class. A few minor changes will make all the difference I think.”

I really hope for this too, because the amount of post and comments on this topic is really piling on and something has to be done.

Ebs- " With such a heavy investment into this 1 type of utility skill you are going to take at least 2 or even 3 Spirits with you, severely reducing your flexibility when it comes to utilities."

I completely agree with you on this, unfortunately that’s how it is in almost every profession regarding utilities. I mean even for traps you have to spec into them so much to get full potential out of them, that if you only take one trap it feels like a waste.

Arrys- “The lack of an inner CD was OP with things like warhorn 4. so the internal CD was necessary.”

Yeah that’s why I think the boons or conditions granted/inflicted from the spirits should increase in duration to compensate for this. I mean just like Yasha said in the post before you, “(or at least give more than 1 sec of protection! I mean wth is that anyway, a joke?).” This can also be applied to sun spirit who only gives 1sec of burning which is not even worth taking compared to flame trap, which also another point Yasha makes, “and I’m not sure that one spirit is any more powerful than say a trap or sharpening stone- in the current state its like I have to take three talents just to get sharpening stone to work.”

Arrys- “They could do several things to make them better. The trait that links them to your movement should link them to your defensive maneuvers as well. Weapon skill evades and dodge should make them invulnerable when you are in that phase. No need for the animation. Limitation is the CD’s on us using those skills already built in.
Our skill that translates all boons on the ranger to the rangers pet should have it’s transfer range extended greatly and transfer the spirit buffs to our pet enabling the ranger to be out of harms way with spirit buffing their pet.
It would be real nice if one of the traps/effects that is an active dropped a combo field. Swiftness and an electrical perhaps.”

I think these are all great suggestions.

You mentioned this in another thread, so I’ll just throw in my 2c:

Spirits, are just not worth it.

The boons rarely proc, and when they do, the reward is measly. Very rarely does the damage (20% chance for 10% bonus damage) ever, ever become worth it. (hint: you can do that constantly with Hunter’s Shot). On top of that, the actives are really counter-intuitive. Support Skills with crummy control skills don’t mix.

I’d like to see the buffs they provide become constant and worthwhile, and have the actives be more supportive. Combo fields seem a bit bland, I’d rather have different effects, like Stability on Stone Spirit or Breaking Snares on Storm Spirit.

The other thing that needs to be addressed is traits. Having to take 30 points to make Spirits usable is a no-no. Spirits should start off useful, and have extra effects added through Traits. Look at Warrior Shouts, they start off good, and can heal with traits.