Guild Wars 2

While some of you are aware of the changes of the spirits, I saw one change that really struck me that these beautiful ambient wooding creatures have never been really given a chance to really shine, ever since the so called “demolishing” of the spirits ever since the Nerf they received during the beta weeks. Which in my opinion, yes the spirits were hit hard, but there was a reason for it. Spirits are meant to be a support option for rangers, but when rangers can take on 2 or 3v1 and the 1 being the ranger and winning, as a support class was something to really consider looking into fixing, and yes far beyond the reaches of over powered.

I think people never really gave a chance to these ethereal spirits because I feel people are still stuck in the past of what spirits were like, high health, and deadly beyond words alone or with allys. Now that they hit what people assume to be the breaking point and no longer “viable” people just gave up on them, never really wanting to even to get to know how to play these creatures to unlock their hidden potential, and a hidden fighting style I’ve discovered that really puts me at my highest peak of survival. I can’t really say much in pvp, but what I’ve tested in dungeons has by far surpassed my expectations as a healing class, support class, survival tactics, and the fast pace game play that the spirits provide. Now your thinking, “wait, as a healing class or a support class you don’t really need much to think about” or some might be thinking " yea right, rangers can’t heal as well as other classes". But my friends, let me tell you. Rangers are by far one of the most difficult classes to play, and the most rewarding when you finally master such a class, and you feel a sort of warm comfort when you realize you are the only one standing as the four of your other party members are downed and you are their last hope wink, wink spirit of nature

I wanted to post my build here, but decided that maybe I shouldn’t and that simply just telling you exactly what my build is wouldn’t help people truly appreciate the spirits, and sometimes things are never really appear as it seems, and that there is more then one way to think and fight, you just need to look deeper, and learn to read between the lines. for example I’ve been in a situation when I was the “lightweight” or medium armor in a dungeon run, as I was looking at nothing but 3 warriors and a guardian they said to me, and I kid you not when they said this, “don’t worry little ranger, we will protect you.” and people tend to assume that being ranger, I don’t have the toughness or health to protect myself. Being a spirit ranger I did have something to protect me, and that was the word in itself, “protect” the boon protect, and that not only toughness and vitality is the only way to survive and trust me I can honorably say that I never once died in that dungeon and when 3 people were aoe’d into a down state, the “small little ranger was there to save them”.

Maybe later I will post my build, but right now I’m loving it so much and in really high demand in dungeon runs that I don’t want to share my build as of this moment.

I appreciate you being positive but the spirits at the moment are horrible. Any aoe kills them instantly EVEN with the 2x hp trait. They do not stay in fights long enough to be anything but useless.

Not true, have you ever considered why the spirits have health? it’s because they can be healed. If you spec into healing you are able to keep them alive longer, using sigils like sigil of water and life can increase the duration of their life span traits like regen duration increase also increases their life span. Using moa pets can help with healing if you get to close to enemy range, though very risky and inconsistent, but that’s a risk one must make on their own. Knowing when to get close and when to pull back is a judgmental skill that determines life or death of your spirits, also knowing when to summon, where to summon, and how many to summon, what kind to summon is something that will also increase the survivability of the spirits, and your team overall effectiveness in certain situations, but that kind of knowledge can only be acquired with time and experience. If you look how they are summoned I found that only summoning one when traited to move around is easiest to control, but when controlling 3, that’s when the radius of the spirits widen making them more pervious to damage.

The build I am using is a spirit build as you can see, but I literally have no trouble keeping them alive, and with a lot of skill the right gear and traits you can keep them alive for two rounds of their complete life span in a final boss fight. How would I know? because I’ve done it. And spirits really does speed up dungeon runs, you just need to be able to think on your feet to keep them alive, and invest heavily on healing and traits to be able to make them live for a long while.

Spirits though I think is something not a lot of people can play, or a matter of fact, understand, for it’s a play style that has to fit certain personalities. One who chooses to walk with spirits, one has to lose their ego. The desire to flaunt off high damaging numbers and the vanity of one’s brute strength but instead have the compassion to heal, for you are not only giving life to yourself, but to your spirits, your pet, and your comrades. You know, you are not doing the most damage, but the support you give to your allies is more then enough.

I typically run with Spirit of Earth and Spirit of Nature in my build. You know why I don’t run more? It’s counter-productive.

Every spirit you put in play eats boons that would otherwise be more beneficial on players. This is especially bad now that most AoE buff abilities cap at 5 (like Call of the Wild or Healing Spring). Sure you can heal your spirits, but shouldn’t you be healing your teammates instead?

This is on top of the other issues of squishiness (CoE Subject Alpha is murder on spirits and pets in path 2 or path 3), long internal cooldowns on procs and abilities that can only be used effectively when the spirit is most vulnerable… melee range.

I want to like spirits. At this point, they’re mediocre at best. I use them now because I’m stubborn. I’d like to someday use them because they’re actually good support that doesn’t detract from my other supportive abilities.

When healing melee players your moa’s will do that for you, actually the moa’s aoe of heal is quite large so it will heal close and mid range fighters. If you invest in 20 points (prefered) or even 15 into the beast mastry line, and invest in the trait “pets heal for more” the moa’s do a huge chunk of healing for you. Rotation of the moa swapping is the key to healing with your pet, healing spring isn’t the only way to heal nor is the elite skill spirit of nature.

As for the spirits as I said invest in healing gear that has vit, crit, and healing power, and majority of the vote people always go axe/warhorn with spirits. use that to your advantage, get sigil of water and life. the 30% proc rate at 10 seconds is what will help keep your spirits alive your warhorn 5 skill should also help with the healing proc rates. As I mentioned before earlier, know when to get close and know when to pull out. You, are the biggest factor in what keeps your spirits alive, your skill, a lot of the dungeons are predictable use that and make it work for you.

Like I said spirits are very difficult to understand, and not a lot of people are willing to put in the time to effectively use them, or to learn them, or understand their movement behaviors. I can honestly say it’s the player’s skill that makes the difference on whether or not your spirits survive.

How exactly does sigil of water work? Does it activate on hit or on attack?