Guild Wars 2

most of us found the last spirit “buff” to be more of an insult, and we’re a little worried that devs arent taking the spirit fix seriously. like a broken record i will once again state what the problem is:

- the boons themselves are not worth slotting spirits for. little bit of protection, burning and swiftness is vastly outweighed by traps, signets and survival skills. i will never slot a spirit for these boons, which are on a 10s CD anyway. i think protection lasts about 3s and it’s still RNG.

- RNG mechanics are the bane of all MMO’s and games and need to be kept to a minimum. supporting your team needs to be an on-demand mechanic, like what the ele and guardian can do. but obviously not to the same extent if spirit actives remain.

- spirit actives cast too slowly. you cant react to burst, trap someone or burst someone down in a skill-based game when important skills take 2 seconds to cast.

- even if spirits were on-demand, with better boons and instant actives, they would need about 12k HP, if not more.

so far we got:

- 25% HP increase (when spirits get one-two shotted anyway)
- +15% to RNG, which doesnt make any difference at all because it’s still RNG in the same ballpark, and the internal CD sucks, and the boons suck. so, zilch difference

suggestions:

- each spirit needs to give two boons
- actives need to be near-instant (maybe 0.5s)
- in current aoe-heavy meta, double or triple the HP

this is assuming there isnt a spirit revamp underway. please stop ignoring this profession, a third of it is not utilized. u know who u are =P and please start communicating with us to prevent the same threads popping up every day/week. give us some indication youre hearing us. you cant keep ignoring these threads and issues because they will always come up from different players until the problem is dealt with or until you communicate that youre working on some fix.

i understand the philosophy is to make small changes, but please…you dont have to CRAWL around every single major problem. spirits are SO BROKEN that a more ballsy change wouldnt hurt, at least try buffing the HP by 100% and see what happens.

Well from the looks of it ANet is short staffed to handle all of the changes on a short time frame. I wouldn’t expect any noticeable changes for a good 6 months. They also seem to be trying to do too many things at once. There are numerous class bugs that have been around since launch, dungeons lacking complexity, sub par SPvP management, and missing simple UI/interface like person to person trading/dueling etc. Not to mention all of the activities they have yet to role out. So have patience and improvise with what we have now until changes are made.

Its a spirit, it should be undead……………… remove the stupid traits that boost their HP, make them follow you and give them the option to always follow you and be undead (or die from conditions ONLY) then it would be worth slotting.

Stop with the “anet is understaffed” story pls. It wouldn’t be so hard even for a single person to understand spirits needed more than a (lol) 25%hp buff. I don’t know tbh but i feel like this spirit buff was just a teasing.

I do.
I have all spirits on my underwater loadout.

See.. when I fight near water, its an extra 3 spirits I can throw out in the water for the equivalence of having 6 utility skills available (albeit somewhat tethered), since the spirits I have in the water stay in the water even after I go back on land.

nerva.7940:

most of us found the last spirit “buff” to be more of an insult, and we’re a little worried that devs arent taking the spirit fix seriously. like a broken record i will once again state what the problem is:

- the boons themselves are not worth slotting spirits for. little bit of protection, burning and swiftness is vastly outweighed by traps, signets and survival skills. i will never slot a spirit for these boons, which are on a 10s CD anyway. i think protection lasts about 3s and it’s still RNG.

- RNG mechanics are the bane of all MMO’s and games and need to be kept to a minimum. supporting your team needs to be an on-demand mechanic, like what the ele and guardian can do. but obviously not to the same extent if spirit actives remain.

- spirit actives cast too slowly. you cant react to burst, trap someone or burst someone down in a skill-based game when important skills take 2 seconds to cast.

- even if spirits were on-demand, with better boons and instant actives, they would need about 12k HP, if not more.

so far we got:

- 25% HP increase (when spirits get one-two shotted anyway)
- +15% to RNG, which doesnt make any difference at all because it’s still RNG in the same ballpark, and the internal CD sucks, and the boons suck. so, zilch difference

suggestions:

- each spirit needs to give two boons
- actives need to be near-instant (maybe 0.5s)
- in current aoe-heavy meta, double or triple the HP

this is assuming there isnt a spirit revamp underway. please stop ignoring this profession, a third of it is not utilized. u know who u are =P and please start communicating with us to prevent the same threads popping up every day/week. give us some indication youre hearing us. you cant keep ignoring these threads and issues because they will always come up from different players until the problem is dealt with or until you communicate that youre working on some fix.

i understand the philosophy is to make small changes, but please…you dont have to CRAWL around every single major problem. spirits are SO BROKEN that a more ballsy change wouldnt hurt, at least try buffing the HP by 100% and see what happens.

One of my favorite builds is runing spirits in WvW with rune of altruism, warhorn, stalker, and red moa. What’s wrong with that build? Boon duration in nature magic is nice because in a zerg you get like 1 minute of speed from people around you, don’t even have to slot run speed.

Plus, it’s awesome running around with a bunch of pets. Slot 2x health, aoe on death, and run with you. The aoe on death punishes people for killing them. Oh, and be sure to use the secondary on the spirits. I can run away from 20 people with a frost trap, stone spirit, frost spirit, and muddy fall.

Plus…dolphins underwater!

The issues with spirits don’t make them impossible to use, they just limit their utilities. The problems are not this bad and the devs are well aware of the existing problems.

Trei.5203:

I do.
I have all spirits on my underwater loadout.

See.. when I fight near water, its an extra 3 spirits I can throw out in the water for the equivalence of having 6 utility skills available (albeit somewhat tethered), since the spirits I have in the water stay in the water even after I go back on land.

Now you’re thinking like a ranger! Awesome work…I thought I was the only one who knew that trick…we call it FISH UNDERWATER which is the cue for our rangers to do this near a shoreline.

Chopps.5047:

One of my favorite builds is runing spirits in WvW with rune of altruism, warhorn, stalker, and red moa. What’s wrong with that build? Boon duration in nature magic is nice because in a zerg you get like 1 minute of speed from people around you, don’t even have to slot run speed.

Plus, it’s awesome running around with a bunch of pets. Slot 2x health, aoe on death, and run with you. The aoe on death punishes people for killing them. Oh, and be sure to use the secondary on the spirits. I can run away from 20 people with a frost trap, stone spirit, frost spirit, and muddy fall.

Plus…dolphins underwater!

The issues with spirits don’t make them impossible to use, they just limit their utilities. The problems are not this bad and the devs are well aware of the existing problems.

thats creative, good for you. but think critically…why would you run that setup? you cant give anyone heals, you can do perma fury for your group with horn + red moa alone. the 5 stacks of might are nice, but dont even compare to 20 stacks that a guard/ele can give with their boon duration setups.

worst of all, youre giving up slots that you could be using for traps (which can be aimed and placed to actually slow down a zerg).

nerva.7940:

Chopps.5047:

One of my favorite builds is runing spirits in WvW with rune of altruism, warhorn, stalker, and red moa. What’s wrong with that build? Boon duration in nature magic is nice because in a zerg you get like 1 minute of speed from people around you, don’t even have to slot run speed.

Plus, it’s awesome running around with a bunch of pets. Slot 2x health, aoe on death, and run with you. The aoe on death punishes people for killing them. Oh, and be sure to use the secondary on the spirits. I can run away from 20 people with a frost trap, stone spirit, frost spirit, and muddy fall.

Plus…dolphins underwater!

The issues with spirits don’t make them impossible to use, they just limit their utilities. The problems are not this bad and the devs are well aware of the existing problems.

thats creative, good for you. but think critically…why would you run that setup? you cant give anyone heals, you can do perma fury for your group with horn + red moa alone. the 5 stacks of might are nice, but dont even compare to 20 stacks that a guard/ele can give with their boon duration setups.

worst of all, youre giving up slots that you could be using for traps (which can be aimed and placed to actually slow down a zerg).

I run it because I like it, it helps my team win, and I have fun. It’s nice to run spirits when I want a change of pace. I think you’re underestimating the value of 20+ people simultaneously having 3 spirit buffs (you have to keep running around to make sure everyone has the buff).

Stone spirit and frost spirit slow down zergs just as well as the traps so I don’t get your point there.

And the might also comes from rune of altruism with grants might on heal; slot offhand axe and whirl healing bolts.

I just think you need to play it and work with it for a while to see if you can get utility out of it rather than just assume it’s bad because one died on ya in what seemed to be too short of a span of time.

they are terrible.

Spirits aren’t terrible. I’m not even a good Ranger PvPer, and I found that they are AMAZING support for your team… don’t be mean.

arrownin.3128:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLyQyHSD9k

Spirits aren’t terrible. I’m not even a good Ranger PvPer, and I found that they are AMAZING support for your team… don’t be mean.

I love the music in your video, as well as the tips. When I ran this build I used the following traits

0/10 (30% pet speed)/0/30 (2x spirit health, spirit activate on death, unbound)/30 (natural healing, and the other two depend on what you’re trying to do but probably either compassion training, speed training, commanding voice, shout master)

Rune of altruism along with, probably, cleric’s gear (toughness) or trinkets (whatever is cheaper).

Spirits are better than many think, they just get so much crap, my very first build was spirits, but coming on the forums discouraged me from using them. I made the mistake of letting others influence my choices too much.

The real issues that are arguable are the survivability and the icd, but despite that, they are still viable. A buff would be nice though, I think it will come with time.

arrownin.3128:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLyQyHSD9k

Spirits aren’t terrible. I’m not even a good Ranger PvPer, and I found that they are AMAZING support for your team… don’t be mean.

sorry, i fail to see what this demonstrates. except for the part where you run around with a small zerg with SoN out.

nerva.7940:

arrownin.3128:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLyQyHSD9k

Spirits aren’t terrible. I’m not even a good Ranger PvPer, and I found that they are AMAZING support for your team… don’t be mean.

sorry, i fail to see what this demonstrates. except for the part where you run around with a small zerg with SoN out.

Yeah same here, nothing showed spirits are good.

Peter.9406:

nerva.7940:

arrownin.3128:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLyQyHSD9k

Spirits aren’t terrible. I’m not even a good Ranger PvPer, and I found that they are AMAZING support for your team… don’t be mean.

sorry, i fail to see what this demonstrates. except for the part where you run around with a small zerg with SoN out.

Yeah same here, nothing showed spirits are good.

The spirits provided buffs, which you can see proccing on the team bar (protection/swiftness) and you can see the healing numbers pop up for teammates, showing how when used, spirits can give swiftness, 33% damage reduction, and healing (plus the actives) to an entire team. Note that the effects can be traited so that protection/swiftness proc’s 50% of the times on all hits, which means that you can have theives, warriors, guardians, mesmers all taking 33% less damage moving with swiftness at the majority of the time during battles.
Considering this is hotjoin pvp, it’s going to be zerg vs zerg no matter what you do, but with spirits, you can see how you can help a party, regardless of zergging, through fights. Spirits have their weakness and they have their strengths.
I’ll admit, this is a bad example of how spirits can be great in pvp, but again, I’m not the best at pvp and my spirits weren’t up as much as they shouldve been.