Guild Wars 2

I always wanted to make a Spirit build with my low lvl Norn (because of his story :P), but I heard those builds weren’t worth it. But now the spirits effects rate have been increased.

Is it worth to use 3 spirit utilities plus the moving spirits trait now that the spirits are better? Or it still pales as a viable support build? I don’t have too much experience with the ranger so I would like to hear it from you. Would you recommend it (for the 3 enviroments, PVE-WvWvW-PVP)?

Nah not really.

They have a higher chance to proc but the cooldown they have for each proc makes the extra 15% pretty much useless. They also die if an enemy looks at them funny.

Maybe next patch.

I actually really enjoyed my moving spirit build while adventuring or dungeoneering with a party, or running with a zerg in WvW, even before the buff. They probably still aren’t viable for PvP, but they’re comfortably low-maintenance for casual play.

How could you get anything done with them? The few times I used spirits, even in PvE they were dead as soon as they got hit once. So if a mob had any sort of AoE the spirits would get hit and die.

If I had the trait so the spirits could move they had the same crappy pet AI and would frequently run way to far to one side if I dodged, would aggro extra mobs, then get hit once and die.

Maybe there are better skill combinations but anything is viable for PvE. I say use them.

Cakoluchiam.6901:

I actually really enjoyed my moving spirit build while adventuring or dungeoneering with a party, or running with a zerg in WvW, even before the buff. They probably still aren’t viable for PvP, but they’re comfortably low-maintenance for casual play.

They actually work pretty well in PvP, especially if you’re using a sun spirit with a mesmer/MM necro on your team, ESPECIALLY a mesmer because the CD is completely avoided with their clones because the ICD is per PERSON not per spirit (IE if i get the burning proc, my pet, and all my allies can still get the proc before my 10s are up)

PS: hyenas make the offensive spirits better, i still think stone spirit needs a bit of a buff though because of how ungodly squishy spirits are in general, maybe a 3s duration?

@OP: Spirits are viable, you just gotta be smart about them, i would HIGHLY recommend not using them with spirits unbound unless you’re going to be moving around a TON, and by movign around a ton i mean like chasing DEs moving, not during one fight moving.

When i do NOT use spirits unbound my spirits just are significantly more effective, that being said i’d also say screw the Spiritual Knowledge trait because with the ICD it really is worthless.

No. Spirits are useless. A waste of designed data space.
Even your pet alone can perform better, and that’s not even saying much for this ‘petclass’ of a profession.

Spirits die in Dungeons and WvW too quickly, so they are useless.

i found the same as durz, the range on spirits is quite large actually so you can place them in safe places that still impact your fight. having them move with me just put them right in harm’s way to get quickly gibbed.

the more allies you have, the better spirits become. as previously mentioned, spirits work well with minion classes. i wonder how much you could squeeze out of spirits in 5v5 with ranger, necro & mesmer putting up minions. not to mention rock dogs for the power junkies.

Carighan

Would you care to comment on the post above yours?

I would defend my statement. But that will just amount to thousands of useless words that will never be agreed upon by people who think that spirits are actually viable

I’ve had my fair share in this so called spirit build. It’s boring and more of a hindrance to the ranger than an actual help. The fact that you need a trait for them to follow you around is stupid. The fact that they die with the slightest touch is completely dumbfounding. The fact that the spirit’s abilities alone can not compensate for its lacking in defence. Need I say more?

Even if you don’t want the spirits to follow you around, the play-style of a ranger is to move around the area of the map as much as possible. How is having your spirits placed in a specific spot be of any help to you? What you think you can simple just stand still with your spirit hoping the enemies come to you? They simply cannot defend themselves while your ranger is off hunting its prey. Besides, don’t you need its AoE buffs/debuffs with you at all times?

And how long are you willing to risk your spirit just standing there by itself hoping that it won’t be detected by your enemies.

For spirits to even be useful, you need that 30 point trait in Natures Magic. Otherwise how else are you going to control their AoE buffs and debuffs.

Let me make it perfectly clear.

Spirits have little to no Health Points whatsoever to even survive a single swing again’st an incompetent enemy. If you think they do. If you think they’re viable. Then your on your own.

If Anet would have given a slight boost in the spirits Health, I would of considered their usefullness. But despite the fact that they die as soon as you summon them makes the CD of the summoning skills a waste of space and time to invest on.

Sorry. Spirit Ranger is not my style.

i agree with you Yum, mostly that spirit durability renders them ineffective.

i like the concept of spirits though, each having aoe abilities in addition to group support passives.

two changes that might be a different path than a simple health increase:

1. spirits must be directly targeted to receive damage ( immune to aoe / cleave ).
2. reduce CD to 30 seconds, activated abilities to 15 seconds.

I would make them by default ground targetted, and with the trait follow you around.
Further, make them take damage by giving it to you, meaning that if you get them into the line of fire too much you end up knocking yourself down, but the Spirit happily grins while you flail in agony.
This would also automatically prevent Spirit-overloading in massive encounters, because if you use 4 spirits, you better be sure you’re not subject to a wide range AE, or you take 5x the damage.

I see, I’ve only tried this kind of build in the lobby area but they aren’t attacked on that enviroment.

Maybe if the AoE skills had a great area instead of the very small (I think it is 130 from the spirit position) area that makes impossible to catch an eney? A long range AoE inmobilize, chill or blind would help with control and keep enemies in place so they don’t go after them.

And I guess increasing their base HP is a must. Even spirit weapons last longer for what I’ve seen.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I will experiment a bit with it but I guess as my rangers is the third character and my second ins’t lvl 80 yet, I can wait a bit for a fix on this.

If i were to change ANYTHING about spirits it wouldn’t be their durability, because spirits were NEVER durable, i -would- make it so that their effect was a pulse that hit everything in range of it (IE every second everyone gets protection/swiftness/burned/dealt damage) and then the active would apply a second effect to it as well so, cripple/additional damage/blind/chill it’d make them more interesting and would make their squishyness totally reasonable due to how strong they’d actually be should you not kill them, kinda like in the first game…

Two alternative ways in which I would change spirits to make them usable.

1. Buff health to levels that allow them to take a few normal hits and give them resistance to AoE but make them permanent, cool down triggers on death of spirit.

or

2. Make them totally immune to dmg but leave them with their current duration and cooldown

Durzlla.6295:

Cakoluchiam.6901:

I actually really enjoyed my moving spirit build while adventuring or dungeoneering with a party, or running with a zerg in WvW, even before the buff. They probably still aren’t viable for PvP, but they’re comfortably low-maintenance for casual play.

They actually work pretty well in PvP, especially if you’re using a sun spirit with a mesmer/MM necro on your team, ESPECIALLY a mesmer because the CD is completely avoided with their clones because the ICD is per PERSON not per spirit (IE if i get the burning proc, my pet, and all my allies can still get the proc before my 10s are up)

PS: hyenas make the offensive spirits better, i still think stone spirit needs a bit of a buff though because of how ungodly squishy spirits are in general, maybe a 3s duration?

@OP: Spirits are viable, you just gotta be smart about them, i would HIGHLY recommend not using them with spirits unbound unless you’re going to be moving around a TON, and by movign around a ton i mean like chasing DEs moving, not during one fight moving.

When i do NOT use spirits unbound my spirits just are significantly more effective, that being said i’d also say screw the Spiritual Knowledge trait because with the ICD it really is worthless.

I haven’t tested this post patch but you can switch into and out of spirits unbound while out of combat and the spirits respond.

So you can be defending a point and have your spirits well positioned and stationary. As soon as you are out of combat and moving to the next locale you can switch into spirits unbound and as they hit their 5 second refresh their chance to proc effect window they become mobile and come to you.

Likewise you can drop the trait and they lock in place.

The nature of their AOE field which procs a non debuffable proc chance onto you does make them very usable as stationary buff bots in a secure/safe location.

I’ve run into a few rangers using them with mesmer/necromancer teams. Fortunately I generally have a longbow equipped and barrage drops them but I notice my teammates tend to get pwnd while ignoring well placed spirits.

Durzlla.6295:

If i were to change ANYTHING about spirits it wouldn’t be their durability, because spirits were NEVER durable, i -would- make it so that their effect was a pulse that hit everything in range of it (IE every second everyone gets protection/swiftness/burned/dealt damage) and then the active would apply a second effect to it as well so, cripple/additional damage/blind/chill it’d make them more interesting and would make their squishyness totally reasonable due to how strong they’d actually be should you not kill them, kinda like in the first game…

Durability or have their active effects proc through the feet of the ranger so when using them stationary you don’t have to stack the DPS on them killing them to get the secondary effect.

It would be very nice if traits and signet effects passive and active benefitted spirits as well as pets. Toughness/Invuln from signets, health regen, boon duration increase(Havent tested this last one)…..

Arrys.7145:

Durzlla.6295:

If i were to change ANYTHING about spirits it wouldn’t be their durability, because spirits were NEVER durable, i -would- make it so that their effect was a pulse that hit everything in range of it (IE every second everyone gets protection/swiftness/burned/dealt damage) and then the active would apply a second effect to it as well so, cripple/additional damage/blind/chill it’d make them more interesting and would make their squishyness totally reasonable due to how strong they’d actually be should you not kill them, kinda like in the first game…

Durability or have their active effects proc through the feet of the ranger so when using them stationary you don’t have to stack the DPS on them killing them to get the secondary effect.

It would be very nice if traits and signet effects passive and active benefitted spirits as well as pets. Toughness/Invuln from signets, health regen, boon duration increase(Havent tested this last one)…..

I wish instead of the stupid spirits unbound where i essentially am pulling my spirits towards a death sentance (i mean seriously, any mob with an AoE is going to register “Oh hey there’s 4-5 things standing there (the ranger with spirits) lets drop all our AoEs in that location!” and then BOOM spirits all dead. But yeah, instead of that i wish that it’d be as you said where we trait it into the effect coming from the rangers location instead of/as well as the spirits (active effect should be included in this) OMG! would that make them so much better!!

They used to scale off of toughness/vitality btw, but it ended up being either WAY to strong for builds like mine, or way to weak for glass cannon builds so they just got rid of it…. Ah but i remember when the elite spirit was literally IMMORTAL when i put it down, aaaah the good ole days…

Arrys.7145:

Durzlla.6295:

Cakoluchiam.6901:

I actually really enjoyed my moving spirit build while adventuring or dungeoneering with a party, or running with a zerg in WvW, even before the buff. They probably still aren’t viable for PvP, but they’re comfortably low-maintenance for casual play.

They actually work pretty well in PvP, especially if you’re using a sun spirit with a mesmer/MM necro on your team, ESPECIALLY a mesmer because the CD is completely avoided with their clones because the ICD is per PERSON not per spirit (IE if i get the burning proc, my pet, and all my allies can still get the proc before my 10s are up)

PS: hyenas make the offensive spirits better, i still think stone spirit needs a bit of a buff though because of how ungodly squishy spirits are in general, maybe a 3s duration?

@OP: Spirits are viable, you just gotta be smart about them, i would HIGHLY recommend not using them with spirits unbound unless you’re going to be moving around a TON, and by movign around a ton i mean like chasing DEs moving, not during one fight moving.

When i do NOT use spirits unbound my spirits just are significantly more effective, that being said i’d also say screw the Spiritual Knowledge trait because with the ICD it really is worthless.

I haven’t tested this post patch but you can switch into and out of spirits unbound while out of combat and the spirits respond.

So you can be defending a point and have your spirits well positioned and stationary. As soon as you are out of combat and moving to the next locale you can switch into spirits unbound and as they hit their 5 second refresh their chance to proc effect window they become mobile and come to you.

Likewise you can drop the trait and they lock in place.

The nature of their AOE field which procs a non debuffable proc chance onto you does make them very usable as stationary buff bots in a secure/safe location.

I’ve run into a few rangers using them with mesmer/necromancer teams. Fortunately I generally have a longbow equipped and barrage drops them but I notice my teammates tend to get pwnd while ignoring well placed spirits.

Yeah in sPvP spirits are almost OP when you’re with a good group (ESPECIALLY if that group is heavy on turrent engies, minion master necros, or mesmers in general) if you hide your spirits out of the immediate line of fire, aka off the capture point.