Guild Wars 2

I want to run this discussion here before posting to the CDI to avoid additional cluttering, and also get feedback from the Ranger Community first. I do not main a Ranger, but I have played rangers throughout the two years of GW2 and have remade my ranger twice (remade from 65, then remade from 40, he’s now level 16 to level with a friend).

My goal is to try to make Ranger Spirits more meaningful to the profession, instead of Rangers scorning the set of utility skills.

I’d like to begin by listing out my perceived issues with Spirits in general:

• Stationary, unless you take the trait
• Cannot control when the effect takes place
• Effects are uninspiring. The Spirit utilities seem like an AoE version of a Phantasm utility skill, except they do not have any synergy with existing Ranger’s class mechanics.
• The 3 traits (seriously, only 3!?) that affect Spirits are also uninspiring
• Can be targeted, nullifying the skill and its associated traits
• The fact that they are utility/healing skills means that the entire line of Spirits can be easily ignored

The inspiration for my changes comes from this quote by Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

…

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

My proposition is to have the Spirits be bound to our Weapon skills.
This is to make Spirits akin to the skills of other professions: Phantasms for Mesmers, Symbols for Guardians, and Marks for Necromancers.

Weapon skills would simply summon a Spirit that lasts for a few seconds, pulsing its effects in an AoE. The location of where the Spirit is summoned depends on the weapon skill.

My reasons and inspirations for this change:

• Shorter cool down increases the frequency of the Spirits (increase reliability)
• Players have more control on when the effects occur (increase reliability)
• The increase in reliability will make the Spirit traits much more appealing
• The short lifetime of the Spirits allow ease in skill balancing
• The increased frequency in seeing Spirit abilities reinforces the spirituality of the Ranger
• The shorter lifetime of the Spirit means that the position of the Spirit is less important
• The effects of the utility skills are simple enough to be transferred to a weapon skill

But by far, the main reason I propose this change is because this gives potential for further development, in the form of new traits and better weapon skills. This will be reflected in my second post.

Example of Skills with Spirits (most of the numbers are grabbed from Into The Mists Calculator):

I want to illustrate how Spirits can be incorporated into the Weapon skills. Most examples add Spirits to existing skills, while some are completely new.

[Greatsword 4] Counterattack
Block and Summon a Stone Spirit beside you to counter an attack with crushing force.

• Damage: 480
• Cooldown: 15 seconds

Stone Spirit (6 seconds)
Grants Protection to all nearby allies, and cripples all nearby foes.

• Radius: 300
• Protection: 1s per pulse
• Cripple: 1s per pulse
• Pulse: 1 pulse per second

[Sword 2a] Storm Refuge
Strike your target, summon a Spirit of Storm behind you, and somersault towards the Storm Spirit.

• Damage: 235
• Distance: 135
• Cooldown: 8 seconds

Storm Spirit (6 seconds)
Grants Swiftness to all nearby allies, and shocks nearby foes.

• Radius: 300
• Swiftness: 1s per pulse
• Damage: 60
• Pulse: 1 pulse per second

[Sword 2b] Storm Strike
Leap back into the fight, striking your target with lightning.

• Damage: 336
• Distance: 600

[Longbow 3] Solar Shot
Shoot a sun-blessed arrow, blinding enemies on the path, and summoning a Sun Spirit at the target to burn foes.

• Damage: 317
• Range: 1200
• Combo Finisher: Projectile
• Cooldown: 12 seconds
• Blind: 3 seconds

Sun Spirit (6 seconds)

• Burns nearby foes.
• Burn: 2 seconds per pulse, 328 damage
• Pulse: 1 pulse per second
• Radius: 300

[Main Hand Axe 3]Winter’s Path
Throw a chilling axe so that it returns to you, and summoning a Frost Spirit at your target, applying vulnerability to nearby enemies.

• Damage: 435
• Cooldown: 15 seconds
• Range: 900
• Chill: 5 seconds
  Frost Spirit (6 seconds)
• Vulnerability: 1 second per pulse
• Pulse: 1 pulse per second

These skills are simply attaching the existing effects of the Spirits to the weapon skill. The numbers are purely there for clarity, not for balance.

Example of Spirit Traits
The increased reliability of Spirits allows for more spirit traits that can be placed in any trait line, not just Nature Magic! Some ideas:

• Nature’s Wrath: Grants additional area damage to Spirits.
• Unyielding Nature: Spirits grant Stability.
• Nature’s Rejuvenation: Spirits grant Regeneration to all allies.
• Nature’s Reach: Extends the range of Spirit’s pulse effects.
• Empowering Spirits: Spirits grant might to your pets per pulse.
• Spiritual Calling: Spirits last longer.
• (Grandmaster Trait) Nature’s Echo: Spirits mirror their effects on your pet.
• (Grandmaster Trait) Spiritual Amplification: Spirits are combo fields.

Further Details

Do we need one Spirit skill per weapon set?
Not necessarily. While all Mesmer weapon sets have a Phantasm skill, not all Guardian weapon sets have Symbol skills.

Will Spirits be killable?
Debatable. The fact that spirits have duration makes them less important to kill off compared to a Mesmer’s Phantasm. On the other hand, it would add another tactical element to make them killable.

Conclusion, and Implications for the Future
I understand that this change is not by any means minor.

First and foremost, the Spirit utilities will be removed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but this will require additional work from the developers to create a new set of utilities to replace the loss of the Spirit utilities. I’m sure that the developers could even make more Spirits to summon, akin to the additional Phantasms that the Mesmers have, or have utilities that affect spirit skills. I view this as a positive, giving developers potential space to have more meaningful utilities.

Secondly, the developers need to decide which weapon skills will receive Spirit weapons, and how they will be balanced for PvE, WvW and PvP purposes. The introduction of Spirits to all three of these game modes, rather than only in dungeoneering, will certainly cause disruption.

I hope that this post will provoke meaningful ideas from the community and from the developers on how we can improve Ranger Spirits. I see potential in the concept of Spirits, but the current implementation seems too unreliable to make use of that potential. I also understand that I have limited knowledge in the Ranger end-game world, which is why I posted this here. Please feel free to criticize or revise my suggestions.

This addresses so many problems I have with spirits. I would prefer they are unkillable and are just used more often with short durations. That would both help differentiate them from phantasms as well as clear up the AI clutter.

+1, nice ideas.

Going to give this topic a nudge, in hopes of more people joining the discussion.

I for one really like the sound of this idea.
My main issue with the spirits is their inability to stay alive. In sPvP they have their uses, but elsewhere they are limited and often die long before anyone benefited fully of their effects. Especially the one that grants swiftness suffers greatly, and serves no key purpose anywhere.

In this fashion you suggest, the spirits become more like a mix between Guardian Symbols and Mesmer Phantasms, rather than the squishy, bizarre crossover of Warrior Banners and Guardian Spirit Weapons they are now.

I’m particularly fond of how well balanced your proposed traits look.
“(Grandmaster Trait) Spiritual Amplification: Spirits are combo fields.” is well powerful, but requiring those 30 trait points whilst having very short fields (akin to Engineer toolbelt fields, which require outstanding timing to use) would balance it out perfectly.

All in all, an interesting idea. I think it’s well worth putting this forward to where some developers might notice it. Even if they do not take in the full idea, having so much as a shred of the concept added to Ranger weapons (to make them less bland) would be a victory!