Guild Wars 2

https://youtu.be/gPDVZbvObP4
Are you kidding me? Really?

This trait should be changed:
- 3s interval
- Water spirit = 2s regen
- Sun spirit = 1s resistance
- Storm spirit = 1s stability
- Frost spirit = 1s fury
- Stone spirit = 1s aegis
- Spirit of Nature = 1s quickness

Edit: Cast time of spirits should also be reduced to 0.5s to keep it in line with engis turrets. Activation of spirit detonation should be instant.

I don’t mind the might on the frost spirit, but it should be at least two seconds, and at least two or three stacks. A single might stack for such a short duration would accomplish next to nothing. Fury is also a good alternative though, although I don’t think one second of fury is really that valuable either.

Stability on the storm spirit would probably be too good, and I don’t think it fits the theme of that spirit. It makes more sense to have pulsing stability on the spirit of nature since it’s a more powerful boon, generally speaking.

Also not 100% sure about that resistance suggestion. Could easily be too powerful.

As far as the activation times though, spirit detonation would be quite convenient if it were instant. It’d be much easier to inflict a clutch blind or daze.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I don’t mind the might on the frost spirit, but it should be at least two seconds, and at least two or three stacks. A single might stack for such a short duration would accomplish next to nothing. Fury is also a good alternative though, although I don’t think one second of fury is really that valuable either.

Stability on the storm spirit would probably be too good, and I don’t think it fits the theme of that spirit. It makes more sense to have pulsing stability on the spirit of nature since it’s a more powerful boon, generally speaking.

Also not 100% sure about that resistance suggestion. Could easily be too powerful.

As far as the activation times though, spirit detonation would be quite convenient if it were instant. It’d be much easier to inflict a clutch blind or daze.

Having Fury every 3 seconds synergizes with Remorseless trait very well.

Resistance wouldn’t be overpowered considering that a full spirit ranger has no condition clears apart from the elite skill. But I guess if not resistance, then 1s reflect every 3s.

Activation of spirit actives takes wayyyyy too long. It’s mostly based on luck if you’re able to land them.

kiwituatara.6053:

Yamsandjams.3267:

I don’t mind the might on the frost spirit, but it should be at least two seconds, and at least two or three stacks. A single might stack for such a short duration would accomplish next to nothing. Fury is also a good alternative though, although I don’t think one second of fury is really that valuable either.

Stability on the storm spirit would probably be too good, and I don’t think it fits the theme of that spirit. It makes more sense to have pulsing stability on the spirit of nature since it’s a more powerful boon, generally speaking.

Also not 100% sure about that resistance suggestion. Could easily be too powerful.

As far as the activation times though, spirit detonation would be quite convenient if it were instant. It’d be much easier to inflict a clutch blind or daze.

Having Fury every 3 seconds synergizes with Remorseless trait very well.

Resistance wouldn’t be overpowered considering that a full spirit ranger has no condition clears apart from the elite skill. But I guess if not resistance, then 1s reflect every 3s.

Activation of spirit actives takes wayyyyy too long. It’s mostly based on luck if you’re able to land them.

Didn’t think of the remorseless synergy, although I’d like the boon to still be useful in general. For instance, if call of the will provided all it’s boons for 1 second on a 3 second cooldown, it would have nice synergy with remorseless, but… that’d be about it.

I think that’s a good point on the resistance bit though, although then it might make the fire spirit too necessary. Perhaps that should go to the water spirit? I guess regen doesn’t really fit that well on the sun spirit though.

Of course, they could always do an alternative buff, which would be to apply two boons at a time instead of one. So water could do regen and resistance, sun spirit could be vigor and something, frost is might and fury, earth is protection and aegis (although it doesn’t make much sense to have aegis and protection for short durations), storm spirit could be swiftness and something, and spirit of nature could be stability.

Or maybe only a few of them would have two boons (i.e. water spirit, that thing needs all the help it can get), whereas the other ones could just be one boon but slightly longer durations or stacks.

I don’t really see why the trait can’t function like experimental turrets though. Apply the boons for longer durations, but on a longer ICD (i.e. 10 seconds). In fact, experimental turrets allows for inherent 100% might and swiftness uptime, I don’t see why spirits can’t be given the same treatment… well, maybe perma vigor and stability would be bad ideas, but you could always make those 30-50% uptime or whatnot, have the might and swiftness be 100%

THE BOON SHOULD BE OP BY DESIGN SO THAT THEY OFFER A LARGE ADVANTAGE TO YOU, FORCING ENEMY PLAYERS TO HAVE TO DESTROY THEM, WHICH THEY CAN EASILY.

Spirits are still a joke.
Untraited active skill radius are super small and cast super slow.
Now they’re even immobile.

Other than some dungeon situation, spirits are even worse than before. (and they’re worthless even before the patch in PVP, now just uber useless)

lol yeah when I saw the boon duration per pulse, I pretty much wrote them off. like what in hell were the devs even thinking?

IKR, 1 second of 1 Might every 3s, that is just a troll right there.

I did some testing of spirits today. Only played a few matches but this is what I found.

Water Spirit is still terrible. The passive healing isn’t enough to deal with the damage you’re receiving even with high healing power and perma regen from other sources. Then when you need the active heal the amount of healing done is barely enough to even be noticeable. The personal active heal needs to be strong enough to save you in an emergency.

Storm Spirit makes little sense. Why is an immobile entity giving you so much swiftness? It can’t be used to kite because of the limited range. At best this will make you get to the next fight faster with stacked swiftness. It needs to do something else beside provide swiftness.

Sun Spirit was pretty decent. Little extra damage from burning is always nice. Might wasn’t even noticeable but I’d still take it for the burning stacks.

Stone Spirit is actually really strong. With protection duration runes it basically gives perma protection to everyone in the radius. This is a pretty strong utility for the investment of a single trait and some boon/protection duration. Unsure if your +duration benefits your allies too, but even without it that’s pretty high protection up time for your party. Downside of course being that the spirit can easily be sniped.

Spirit of Nature is still strong. The passive heal is good and the active that let’s you revive allies and cure conditions is still great to have.

Ultimately what I did was take Heal as One and Protect Me over the Water and Storm spirits in a settler’s build and traited shouts to provide swiftness and regen, which did the job of providing regen and swiftness better than the spirits could while giving me a strong emergency heal, a stun breaker, and some damage immunity. Sun Spirit for damage and Stone Spirit for sustain. It worked out pretty well.

I only played a few matches with it though. It might be good enough to become a niche ranger support bunker. What really kills it is the long cast time to summon spirits. 4 seconds is a lot of time to spend setting up.

It IS worth noting that spirits only have a cooldown of 20 seconds still. From what I understand it was suppose to be changed to 30 seconds, but it wasn’t. Maybe a bug, or maybe Anet took mercy on spirit builds.

If spirit traits have to be that bad, atleast unlock player limitation to 10 or 20 players, i mean that’s like adding badness to an average skill. It’s not gonna break the game (maybe tone down sun and earth if so).

kiwituatara.6053:

https://youtu.be/gPDVZbvObP4
Are you kidding me? Really?

This trait should be changed:
- 3s interval
- Water spirit = 2s regen
- Sun spirit = 1s resistance
- Storm spirit = 1s stability
- Frost spirit = 1s fury
- Stone spirit = 1s aegis
- Spirit of Nature = 1s quickness

Edit: Cast time of spirits should also be reduced to 0.5s to keep it in line with engis turrets. Activation of spirit detonation should be instant.

I agree with everything here a ton — except for the instant-activation on spirit actives. Just a quick activation is good enough.

1 stack of might = 30 power and 30 condition damage

So, on average it gives 10 power and 10 condition damage permanently.

Who’s coming up with this stuff?

I feel like Spirits in their current state are just worse turrets. Some of the activated skills are kinda nifty but their small range and delayed activation really cripple their uses.

Just a few ideas that I think would help them:

1. Increase their range and health a bit, so they don’t die to cleave as quickly and so they can be a little farther away without being useless.
2. Give them a pulsing debuff to enemies nearby. Water applies weakness, Sun applies blind, Stone applies cripple, Frost applies chilled, Storm applies vulnerability, and Spirit of Nature applies fear.
3. Their on use skills shouldn’t be based around their body but instead around yourself, so when you activate them, the spirit casts it at your location.

I’m currently running a burn spirit ranger in tpvp and while I enjoy spirits, they just suffer from their low health, their stationary effects, and their on use skills being unreliable.

1 sec might is not too big, but your pet gets ~5-7 might
protection is strong, very strong.
cast your frost and stone spirit, target your pet, and watch…
regeneration and swiftness unnecessarily.
fury is good.
quickness is too strong for this.
resistance: don’t know

Huge suggestion list taking into account overall balance
How to make spirits viable/useful

I mentionned active effects, passive effects and the boon mechanics

SStelter.4712:

I feel like Spirits in their current state are just worse turrets. Some of the activated skills are kinda nifty but their small range and delayed activation really cripple their uses.

Just a few ideas that I think would help them:

1. Increase their range and health a bit, so they don’t die to cleave as quickly and so they can be a little farther away without being useless.
2. Give them a pulsing debuff to enemies nearby. Water applies weakness, Sun applies blind, Stone applies cripple, Frost applies chilled, Storm applies vulnerability, and Spirit of Nature applies fear.
3. Their on use skills shouldn’t be based around their body but instead around yourself, so when you activate them, the spirit casts it at your location.

I’m currently running a burn spirit ranger in tpvp and while I enjoy spirits, they just suffer from their low health, their stationary effects, and their on use skills being unreliable.

I really like this idea too. This, combined with most of the OP’s suggestions would likely make spirits very viable, actually.

-Water spirit = 2s regen
- Sun spirit = 1s resistance
- Storm spirit = 1s stability
- Frost spirit = 1s fury
- Stone spirit = 1s aegis
- Spirit of Nature = 1s quickness
-Cast time of spirits reduced to 0.5s to keep it in line with engis turrets.
-Increase their range and health a bit, so they don’t die to cleave as quickly and so they can be a little farther away without being useless.
-Give them a pulsing debuff to enemies nearby. Water applies weakness, Sun applies blind, Stone applies cripple, Frost applies chilled, Storm applies vulnerability, and Spirit of Nature applies slow.
-Their on use skills shouldn’t be based around their body but instead around yourself, so when you activate them, the spirit casts it at your location.

[ I pulled these ideas (and modified them) from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Nature-s-Vengeance-and-Spirits-are-horribad/first#post5212619 ]

How about this?

RIP spirit ranger

traited engi turrets hand out boons like candy in comparison

Everyone’s trying to add more things to spirits and all I want is the same thing I’ve wanted since launch. Can my stats impact the effects of my spirits please? Water’s Aqua Surge and Nature’s regen don’t scale with healing power. Stone and Storm’s boons completely ignore my boon duration and instead use whoever’s is triggering it. Sunny’s burning suffers the same issues as their boons. Storm’s Call Lightning ignores my damage stats entirely. Probably some more things I don’t know about that came from the rework too.