Moving Spirits?
One reason behind it was possibly to encourage more active gameplay, rather than just activating the spirits and be done with them. As it currently stands, you’ll now be more active in choosing where to place them and use their skills. The devs did also improve them to compensate for the loss of mobility.
Similar reasoning goes behind the engineer turret changes that allowed them to be hit by critical hits and conditions (not entirely sure if that made it into the game as I haven’t played my engineer in ages, but it was at least an idea the devs were toying with that demonstrates the same thinking) which reduces engineer players in simply activating turrets and being done with them.
Except that turrets can attack people at range, Spirits have a PBAoE active effect and a 1000 radius passive effect, which is not enough since they only apply an effect on a timer of 8-10s. Pretty much pointless now since they don’t even activate the active ability on death, which happens pretty quick.
Except that turrets can attack people at range, Spirits have a PBAoE active effect and a 1000 radius passive effect, which is not enough since they only apply an effect on a timer of 8-10s. Pretty much pointless now since they don’t even activate the active ability on death, which happens pretty quick.
well you’d think that on death triggers the abilities would be passive play Click and forget.
so it got changed.
the only thing spirits suffer of right now is the lack of Decent Battle terrain way too much open space for effective placements and offers Easy route of escape.
Ritualists had to place spirits in good locations like on bridges or tunnels for them to be effective , you couldn’t just put them down in random locations open in the open it was so easy to avoid Ritual spirits just as ranger spirits are easy to avoid in the open.
wonderlust had a very small radius so did most of the other ritualist spirits, these spirits only survived when Buffed up with protective skills/placed to support each other just like now Natures Vengence provides more hp supporting boons to help keep spirits alive longer though you’ll need the correct mix of spirits and example would be Sun spirit+ stone spirit one is Summon Sacrifice the other is used when needed the protection from stone spirits PBAoE won’t be of much use to the sun spirit since it’ll be sacrificed nearly right away.
this is the route guild wars lore of spirits is based upon just like most of the other skills are based around lore then balanced for Pvp , if the mechanic doesn’t match up to what spirits should be , (aka not Mobile turrets but Party support and active damage)
other than that natures vengence needs a slightly longer boon duration though we still don’t know what druid traits will offer .
spirits like Stone spirit should cause a KD effect when Sacrificed and the likes.
the current actives don’t have much Utility use apart from short duration chill and Immobilise, and a one off revive (which before could be used 2-3 times) now only once then its Sacrificed now makes it a less effective to use for its active.
with how the spirits acted before they were play and forget , not much reason to use the actives in general combat and those old actives were weak compaired to now.
the way we use spirits now is redifined
nature spirit = used for party stability+regen first , sacrifice second
Stone spirit = Active first Sacrifice for its Mobility CC when needed do not dely for more passive time , passive second builds up protection time 3secs each crit on 75% chance and extended by 1sec per pulse keeping this spirit alive for two pulses is more than enough benifit no need for it stay on the field any longer.
Sun spirit= for active use blinding + burning when needed cast as often as possible + sacrifice , second passive this spirit applies vigour every 3secs you’ll get two procs of vigour for 6secs which is equal to 1 extra dodge or 25% endurance up keep (the longer the passive is running the more deminishing the Vigour bonus is as you can’t resummon without sacrificing first)
frost spirit = Passive first used for Might maintance and 10% damage , Active Secondary only Sparce use as a last resort to slow running foes by placing this on stairs at the side node but the active should never be used other wise.
Water spirit= Passive heals a set amount + 1seconds worth of regen , this should be combined with Timber shouts for more Regen to boost the healing amount, active Secondary and summoned on point then Sacrificed when needed rather than actively keeping the most uptime on the PBAoE.
Storm Spirit= Active first used for Damage purposes+daze mainly summon and Sacrifice as soon as Possible if needed, passive Swiftness is a Secondary need won’t be much use for on point fights but again helps with running or chasing if left passive for its first tick. (natures vengence just allows it to add 1 extra second the closer you are to it no real bonus apart from pulse>75% trigger>sacrifice run away/postion) apart from running away or chasing this spirit should be Sacrificed as soon as possible no waiting after summoning.
the roles of these spirits slightly changed in how they are used a lot of them became more active some more than others.
moving spirits just caused problems it made them hard to balance the cast times made it hard for a player to fight while moving and cleaving just ment you wouldn’t manage the spirit effectivly due to always being in cleave range+AoE range meaning since they no longer move the effectively take less damage more often.
its other learning curve for us ranger , i do hope druid brings up a more effective line of spirit traits or even some new spirits so we would have the role of Nature ritualist providing boons/buffs and Area Denial , how knows they may re-add moving spirits as a minor trait (i hope) for the druid trait line.
(edited by Zenos Osgorma.2936)
Activation on death is not passive, its to punish people for killing the spirit (in 1s) so that if you do not see them attacking it, you may actually get some benefit from having used it. As they are now, you can lay them down and they are killed before the passive buff even gets on your bar and you essentially got zero effect for a 30s CD. At least if the active activated on death, you would get something.
You are right though, moving spirits caused problems that are fixed by making them not move, now they will never see use so, therefore, no problems.
Activation on death is not passive, its to punish people for killing the spirit (in 1s) so that if you do not see them attacking it, you may actually get some benefit from having used it. As they are now, you can lay them down and they are killed before the passive buff even gets on your bar and you essentially got zero effect for a 30s CD. At least if the active activated on death, you would get something.
You are right though, moving spirits caused problems that are fixed by making them not move, now they will never see use so, therefore, no problems.
one half of the coin , its also passive because you don’t Activate it yourself.
Activation on death is not passive, its to punish people for killing the spirit (in 1s) so that if you do not see them attacking it, you may actually get some benefit from having used it. As they are now, you can lay them down and they are killed before the passive buff even gets on your bar and you essentially got zero effect for a 30s CD. At least if the active activated on death, you would get something.
You are right though, moving spirits caused problems that are fixed by making them not move, now they will never see use so, therefore, no problems.
one half of the coin, its also passive because you don’t Activate it yourself.
I don’t really get what you mean with that.
Passive is something that you set and forget, so activation on death would be somewhat passive, yes, but without it, you basically need to cast the spirit, then immediately activate it for the effect before it dies (so you get some benefit rather than nothing), in which case, the active is not worth a 30s CD.
Spirits do not attack by themselves like turrets do so they cannot be compared to them, they also can be killed so they cannot be compared to Banners. They are somewhere in between.
What I think Spirits need is a MUCH larger range so that they can be placed strategically, 1000 is nowhere near enough with the amount of mobility in this game. 2000 may be adequate. I would also say that they can just remove the active abilities, buff the passive effect and make the active a “summon spirit” skill to move the spirit to your location like we had in GW1. Then they would be fine.
The effect is passive, sure, but placement of them is not. The drama is that you cannot play them at all right now as they die so fast. They should die pretty easily, but also have a long range so that you can place them in your backline, forcing an over-extension to take them out.
Right now, no counter play to spirits needs to exists because they just die to splash damage randomly in the area, because they need to be placed to close so the fight, or someone just AAs them a couple of times on their way in. There also does not need to be a counter play because the affect on the team is so small, it is negligible.
The range, effect and the boon they pulse should be good enough to force the other team to have to move out of position specifically to deal with the spirits or play at a disadvantage. Ranger needs things like this to get a place in the Meta.
Activation on death is not passive, its to punish people for killing the spirit (in 1s) so that if you do not see them attacking it, you may actually get some benefit from having used it. As they are now, you can lay them down and they are killed before the passive buff even gets on your bar and you essentially got zero effect for a 30s CD. At least if the active activated on death, you would get something.
You are right though, moving spirits caused problems that are fixed by making them not move, now they will never see use so, therefore, no problems.
one half of the coin, its also passive because you don’t Activate it yourself.
I don’t really get what you mean with that.
Passive is something that you set and forget, so activation on death would be somewhat passive, yes, but without it, you basically need to cast the spirit, then immediately activate it for the effect before it dies (so you get some benefit rather than nothing), in which case, the active is not worth a 30s CD.
Spirits do not attack by themselves like turrets do so they cannot be compared to them, they also can be killed so they cannot be compared to Banners. They are somewhere in between.
What I think Spirits need is a MUCH larger range so that they can be placed strategically, 1000 is nowhere near enough with the amount of mobility in this game. 2000 may be adequate. I would also say that they can just remove the active abilities, buff the passive effect and make the active a “summon spirit” skill to move the spirit to your location like we had in GW1. Then they would be fine.
The effect is passive, sure, but placement of them is not. The drama is that you cannot play them at all right now as they die so fast. They should die pretty easily, but also have a long range so that you can place them in your backline, forcing an over-extension to take them out.
Right now, no counter play to spirits needs to exists because they just die to splash damage randomly in the area, because they need to be placed to close so the fight, or someone just AAs them a couple of times on their way in. There also does not need to be a counter play because the affect on the team is so small, it is negligible.
The range, effect and the boon they pulse should be good enough to force the other team to have to move out of position specifically to deal with the spirits or play at a disadvantage. Ranger needs things like this to get a place in the Meta.
you mentioned the old Natures vengence being spirits on death triggered the abilities that was passive play and forget , it did not matter if you used its active ability you could just wait till it died or summoned it inside cleave damage to get the instant active ability , you realy did not have to click any of your Utilities apart from to summon and forget , that was the point i was making.