Guild Wars 2

I feel as if Spirit ranger is highly lacking, but I know that’s not new. I hope ANET buffs this build up. I don’t really care to be a Pew Pew Power ranger all the time.

In terms of what needs help on Rangers shouts need way more help than spirits. I doubt they’ll tackle both at the same time so I would like to see shouts addressed (Hello instant cast like other professions!) before spirits.

Well, there is only one shout with a cast time, “Guard”. Both spirits and shouts are in about the same spot. Frost only sees use in dungeons, and not much really at that and guard only sees use in WvW and even less. Despite how good the reveal is, Sic Em hardly gets used either.

Since the thread is about spirits, I say they get fixed first as they are unique to us.

Spirits are an easy fix: make them exactly like warrior banners. Party Buff giving tools with 100% chance and none of this 35% or 70% BS. None of this kill able crap either. Honestly, I don’t see much difference in using FS and not using FS in real world experiences.

And no shout should have a cast time. That’s just silly.

I agree, just balance the effect with the fact that the spirits will be persistant and follow by default and all is good.

AI builds do not need improvement. Arenanet ’’helped’’ turet engis and now every braindead player uses it.

@glock:
Perhaps you are not familiar with Ranger spirits, but they operate very differently from Engineer turrets. They are more closely related to Warrior banners.

Ranger spirits do not auto-attack every X interval.
Ranger spirits provide a Y% chance to proc an effect dictated by which Spirit it is (+10% dmg, Swiftness, Protection, Burning, Healing) … and have an ICD on top of that proc chance because … reasons.

I agree that shouts also need some love. We didn’t even have a full set of utilities when the game was released and then they gave us shouts … which we don’t use because of how bad they are. I think spirits and shouts are both products of the rushed release and neither has received the attention required to bring them up to actual playable values.

Sebrent.3625:

@glock:
Perhaps you are not familiar with Ranger spirits, but they operate very differently from Engineer turrets. They are more closely related to Warrior banners.

Ranger spirits do not auto-attack every X interval.
Ranger spirits provide a Y% chance to proc an effect dictated by which Spirit it is (+10% dmg, Swiftness, Protection, Burning, Healing) … and have an ICD on top of that proc chance because … reasons.

When spirits were meta they irritated PvP players to no end because they body-blocked, provided effects on death, promoted passive play, and were otherwise a brain-dead build that wasn’t fun to fight against. Those are some of the same complaints leveled at turret builds. So, no, spirits don’t actively attack at x interval, but turrets and spirits share certain problematic commonalities that a lot of us would like to see disappear from gameplay altogether. In that vein, I think its more reasonable to consider spirits less potent turrets than banners.

xev.9476:

When spirits were meta they irritated PvP players to no end because they body-blocked, provided effects on death, promoted passive play, and were otherwise a brain-dead build that wasn’t fun to fight against. Those are some of the same complaints leveled at turret builds. So, no, spirits don’t actively attack at x interval, but turrets and spirits share certain problematic commonalities that a lot of us would like to see disappear from gameplay altogether. In that vein, I think its more reasonable to consider spirits less potent turrets than banners.

Spirits are not in any way related to turrets. They deal zero damage and have no passive crowd control. Spirits provide buffs to those near them, which is exactly what banners do. The only reason people complained about them is because they couldn’t comprehend the difference between an ACTUAL AI and what amounts to a less effective, killable, yet mobile banner.

Spirits also die to a light breeze, unlike turrets that are immune to critical hits, conditions, and have way better armor and health. They are far easier to put down to the point that it’s actually a struggle to stop them from dying on accident, and impossible to protect when the enemy actually wants to kill them.

And the biggest difference between the two is that a spirit ranger is a team fight focused party buffer build. Their job is to provide their team with the spirit’s buffs while keeping up sustained pressure on a single target. Meanwhile turret engineers are pure area denial bunkers designed to hold a point forever and use their elite and crowd controls to de-cap other bunkers off their points. They perform entirely different roles using tools that aren’t at all similar to one another. They are not comparable.

Ehecatl.9172:

Spirits are not in any way related to turrets. They deal zero damage and have no passive crowd control. Spirits provide buffs to those near them, which is exactly what banners do. The only reason people complained about them is because they couldn’t comprehend the difference between an ACTUAL AI and what amounts to a less effective, killable, yet mobile banner.

Spirits also die to a light breeze, unlike turrets that are immune to critical hits, conditions, and have way better armor and health. They are far easier to put down to the point that it’s actually a struggle to stop them from dying on accident, and impossible to protect when the enemy actually wants to kill them.

And the biggest difference between the two is that a spirit ranger is a team fight focused party buffer build. Their job is to provide their team with the spirit’s buffs while keeping up sustained pressure on a single target. Meanwhile turret engineers are pure area denial bunkers designed to hold a point forever and use their elite and crowd controls to de-cap other bunkers off their points. They perform entirely different roles using tools that aren’t at all similar to one another. They are not comparable.

Look, spirits aren’t banners or turrets. Saying otherwise is obviously going to efface all kinds of important differences. My point, which I thought was pretty clear, is that spirits are problematic like turrets in similar ways, although I clearly acknowledged that spirits are not on the same level as turrets with my concluding line. How in the world is that controversial?

xev.9476:

Look, spirits aren’t banners or turrets. Saying otherwise is obviously going to efface all kinds of important differences. My point, which I thought was pretty clear, is that spirits are problematic like turrets in similar ways, although I clearly acknowledged that spirits are not on the same level as turrets with my concluding line. How in the world is that controversial?

You addressed someone who was telling someone else that spirits aren’t an AI build, which they aren’t. Spirits are effectively objects that produce a constant buff and just so happen to be destructible. At best you can trait them to follow the ranger.

The reason it’s controversial is because you came to the ranger forum, clicked on a thread discussing ways to improve the spirit utilities, and said that they should be phased out completely. You want to remove the only viable support build rangers have, removing another option from a profession that’s already struggling to find a niche they can fill in PVP.

Furthermore your entire reason behind spirits being removed from the game relies on the idea that the people complaining about the build on the forum should be listened to and be the deciding factor behind balance. If we made major balance decisions based on the feedback from PVPers rangers wouldn’t HAVE a build to play.

Spirit Ranger: “AI Trash build! Promotes passive play!”
Power Ranger: “222222222222 spamming trash build! Promotes unskilled play!”
Condi Ranger: 1111111111 auto attack spamming trash build! Promotes passive play!"

What are we suppose to play? Beastmaster? Sorry, that relies on an AI too. So that’s out.

At any rate, this thread wasn’t made to discuss wether or not spirits are a better or worse immobile buff supplying object than other things PVPers don’t have an issue with for whatever reason. It’s for coming up with constructive ideas on how to improve spirits to make them more effective and more fun to use. So to that effect we shouldn’t derail the thread further.

I said this in a thread I created recently but I’ll say it here too.

Reduce the cast time on spirits by 1 second so it’s a 0.5 second cast time. That way they can be recast mid-combat when they die. 1.5 second cast time is too prohibitive to use during a fight for the minimal effect they produce, especially if they just die immediately after casting.

I think there are other issues with spirits as well but given the current state I think that one change would make a significant difference in their viability. If nothing else you could trait for the active on death and have a double cast of the active after every CD.

I still use spirits sometimes in PvP.

Here’s some critical issues I’ve noticed with them:

1. Spirits won’t always activate their skills when you tell them too. This is especially true if you try to use it right after summoning them. It’s not that the spirit gets hit and is interrupted or something, the spirit just doesn’t use it, despite it going on cooldown. They just continue to shuffle around and stare at you blankly.

2. They can’t be positioned. This is a huge issue when it comes to the AoE skill effects because you might need them in certain places at certain times. IMO, all of these should be ground targeted skills, and the spirit would use it in that exact spot. The way it is, the spirit might decide to reposition itself way off to the side just before you decide to use it, and it will just end up hitting nothing. Maybe this means that the spirit has to shuffle over the targeted spot before using them, but at least it would allow you to position them in some fashion. This functionality could even be tagged onto the unbound spirits trait since having stationary spirits would negate the need for ground targeting anyways.

3. Their cast animations are really clunky. I don’t mind them having cast animations, but they’re quite sluggish. This is especially problematic with the sun spirit because it makes it highly impractical to use to help secure stomps. It’s a similar issue with the necromancer’s shadow fiend. Too long a wind up on something that needs to be used on reaction. The slow speed only encourages people to pop it “whenever”, because they won’t be able to use it in a reactionary fashion. With the other spirits, it just makes it hard to combo properly with their abilities. Again, it just encourages people to pop them “whenever”, just so the vicinity is filled up with crap that will hit/disrupt people without any real strategy or precision being employed. The ranger is giving up extremely valuable utilities and traits to spec into spirits, so it sucks when the skills they provide can’t be reliably used to help them in situations at the exact moment they need it (i.e. no clutch blind from the sun spirit triggered on reaction).

4. They’re squish-squish. This maybe isn’t so much of a problem in PvP or PvE, but it makes them virtually unusable in WvW. This is also exacerbated by the fact that they can’t be manually positioned, so if they decide they want to run into some AoE, they’re just gonna go ahead and do it.

5. No stun break. It’d be nice to see one of them get some sort of stun break functionality. Even if it’s just a crappy stun break like the one of shield of the avenger that guardians have.

6. No condition cleanses. The problem here should be pretty obvious. This means that you’re going to be completely reliant on something like empathic bond for condition cleansing, which means you’re locked into an xx66x build. That is, no variation whatsoever, unless you’re able to tolerate weaker spirits. Although admittedly, nature’s vengeance is of questionable value given the aforementioned unreliability of the active skills. And yes, the spirit of nature can clear conditions, but only on the active skill which has a 30s cooldown, and which you’ll generally save to revive people/yourself.

7. Water spirit. This thing sucks. Like, really, really sucks. I’d rate it lower than litany of wrath on a guardian, and that’s saying something. It needs the living ectoplasm or whatever it’s made out of buffed to hell. Ok, maybe not to hell, but it is such a weak healing skill. I get that it’s supposed to provide benefits to your allies as well, but ~800 healing every 6-8 seconds is not going to save anyone from being bursted down. It would maybe be a passable healing skill if the active skill wasn’t so severely delayed, or had some other benefit like providing some condi clearing or generating a short-duration water field (I mean, it’s not like it’s a water spirit or anything… oh wait).

Anyways, that’s all I really have to say about them. I don’t think they’re outright bad (aside from the water spirit), they’re just… on the weaker side. Of course, I generally like to do gimmick builds, so I’m talking about builds that go full out on spirits. I think more serious builds tend to only take two spirits at most.

Spirits were good some time ago. Then Anet decided to cripple another build choice for the ranger, and was gone….

Forget about rebuff, that’s not going to happen.

I agree with everything Yamsandjams said. It sums up all the problems I’ve had running spirits in both PVP and PVE.

I think the biggest buff would be to have spirit active abilities be ground targeted. Then, instead of the spirit moving to the location, just have the spirit cast their active ability on the selected area from where they are stationed. This way you can control your spirit effects without putting your spirit right in the middle of all the cleaves.

I’d also make at least some of the spirit form fields with their actives. Sun Spirit making a fire field would provide way more value as the ranger can then blast it for might or shoot through it for better burning up time. Water Spirit should drop a water field, and air spirit should drop a lightning field. This is suppose to be our main support build so make it more capable of providing support to allies.

And I’d buff Frost and Storm so that they have more noticable effects in PVP. I know people want to buff the damage bonus from Frost Spirit for PVE purposes to put it in line with some warrior banners, so that could help. But I’d make it’s active ability apply 2 or 3 seconds of chill per pulse and leave a frost field for combos. Storm Spirit I’d like to use have a chance of dealing weakness on enemies either in addition to or instead of swiftness. Make it a more aggressive spirit like Sun and Frost.

Water Spirit needs it’s passive buffed to be noticeable. Not too much since it does effect the entire team, but enough that your team can tell there is a buff without looking at their bar. With it’s passive healing for the team and leaving a water field it’d be a decent heal skill for the build, though I’d also like to see it cure conditions. Maybe cure 1 condition each time it’s passive activates and three conditions on activating it’s active skill. That would make it a very strong anti-condition heal for the entire party to compensate for not taking Survival of the Fittest, Signet of Renewal, or Healing Spring in your build, and to open up doors in build variety as we wouldn’t need Empathic Bond anymore either.

Water Spirit cleansing conditions is a fantastic idea, the issue there is that the Initial Self Heal casts faster than the Spirit can smash the ground for the active. Having to cast Water Spirit, only to activate Aqua Surge for yet another cast time to heal yourself is pathetic.

Sure, it would be great for the people around you to get healed and have conditions cleansed, but the Ranger suffers. Even if Water Spirit’s active could cleanse conditions, if you’re poisoned, your self heal is reduced before it can cleanse it.

Compare Water Spirit and Healing Turret for example.

Water spirit heals for 809 every 10s (assuming attacking and proc the 35% chance to get the heal on the 10s mark) with a 3,865 heal to self every 25s and it lasts for 60s before a 20s CD. You can trait for it to follow you, have double health, double the proc chance to 70% and make it activate its skills on death and have a larger radius. At best, for the Ranger that is 210 health per second over the duration of the skill.

Healing Turret heals for 2520 and perma Regeneration (130hps @ 0 healing power), you can then heal for another 2520, remove 2 conditions, create a water field and give 5s regen every 15s. The skill lasts 5 minutes and has a 20s CD. That is 340 health per second over the same duration, plus removes 8 conditions and creates 4 water fields that can be blast/leap finished for thousands more. With boon duration, you will have a lot of residual Regen after you trigger the CD. They can also trait to make it give 30% up time of vigor, heal itself, take 30% less damage, have 50% larger radius, be ground targeted, then they can blow it up doing damage, more damage and a KB if traited and its a blast finisher.

Turrets are also much harder to kill as they are immune to crits and conditions, although, they cannot move. Still, Water spirit needs TONS of work to get to that kinda standard.

They could make spirits have the same armor/health/immunities as turrets and then make the heal on Water Spirit into a lifesteal with 100% chance and then it would be pretty cool.

Turrets are not going to keep their immunities for long. Devs have considered making turrets susceptible to critical hits and conditions. So, there soon goes our comparisons between Spirit and Turret as far as defenses are concerned.

Considering means nothing my friend. I have considered robbing a bank plenty of times, but I never do it… I doubt it will happen anytime soon, if ever, the nerf to turrets that is, not my bank robbery

Let’s hope so. They seem set on it. If they do go through with it, I doubt Spirits will ever have a chance to earn some immunity by default. The only possible stretch of Anet considering giving Spirits an immunity would be to have a trait for it – which would be reasonable imo.

If Spirits Unbound was also 30% damage immunity, like Metal Plating it would be good. Then Nature’s Vengeance just needs some love, like experimental turrets and we would have a build again.

Oh, that sounds good actually. Would give more functionality to Spirits Unbound. Nature’s Vengeance definitely needs some improvement. Swapping it’s place from Master to Grandmaster without some sort of compensation was lazy.

Nature’s Vengeance could reduce the CD of the activated skills perhaps, the ones with long CD can only be used max twice in the life of the spirit, I would prefer a reduction in effect balanced with a lower CD, the you could also trait for -20%.

Or maybe it could remove conditions like SoTF, or heal us on using a spirit skill, like Monk’s Focus. Maybe remove one condition and also heal on spirit use (including initial cast) that would be pretty cool.

As mentioned elsewhere, the 1/2 second cast would also make them a LOT better.

Please take a look in the PvP Subforum. There has beena dev posts about them making turrets no longer immune to critical hits and conditions:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Proposed-Changes-for-Engineer-Turrets/first#post4988827

That was a pretty good comparison of Healing Spirit to Healing Turret … highlights just how bad the Spirit really is.

It’s similar to comparing Frost Spirit to Warrior banners … highlights again how Spirits are subpar in multiple ways to the alternatives provided by other classes.

Well, that is good news for PvP players as the turrets seemed to be very annoying there. Seems they did consider it, deeply

I think they just have several issues and not enough manpower to cover it all at once … so they simply have to prioritize … I know most software shops are like that, and I hear game dev shops aren’t really that different.

Here’s to hoping that having more than half of our utilities “not suck” is higher on the priority list :-)

I’d love to feel like I had more than Signets and Survival skills when choosing my utilities…

Though I’ll give that there are some cases for Sic’em (if you really hate stealth), Search and Rescue (group support), and Frost Spirit (PvE Zerk meta) … but they are very niche and I’d argue sub-optimal, especially compared to similar abilities provided by other classes.