Guild Wars 2

In beta. well, here are some suggestions:

GS Positives

It’s a decent weapon currently only viable in a few situations. firstly, it’s a necessary bunker weapon, wont say any more on that. secondly, it’s a fantastic escape weapon with swoop and #4. thirdly, a full berserker ranger can do decent aoe damage with quickness in PVE situations (only).

GS Negatives

It doesnt really synergize with offensive builds, especially condition builds. adding bleeds to #2 is a good step in the right direction.

GS Solution

Seeing how it’s a solid, but subpar weapon, the buffs need not be too big, and the solution is very simple. 1) increase autoattack damage by about 15%. this is a reasonable amount that would make the GS more viable for power builds. 2) add a 1 bleed stack on first swipe of autoattack. this is a paltry increase for power builds, but would make GS a decent addition to condition builds. with about 4-5 stacks of bleeds from #1 and 3 stack from #2, GS would make its way into some condition builds.

Spirit Positives

After thoroughly testing spirits for about 2 weeks, i have to say that spirits of stone, sun and nature are absolutely fantastic. with boon duration runes you can get protection for more than half the time, and with condition damage, your entire group is burning for 2k every 10 seconds. SoN with +healing gear spirits unchained is absolutely awesome and if these aoe nerfs do go through, it will be a solid and reliable choice.

Spirit Negatives

Storm and frost spirits are absolute garbage. and the overall problem with spirits is that they die when you need them the most, i.e. against an approaching zerg or something. 1v1 theyre fine.

Spirit Solution

With the current spirit design, you need to increase HP by at least another 50%. Their buffs and actives are simply not significant ENOUGH to warrant such low HP. storm should give fury AND swiftness on proc, and have a much larger pbaoe. sun spirit needs a larger pbaoe. frost needs to give about +20% damage every 10 seconds and needs to apply to conditions as well, which it currently doesnt. With these changes, spirits would be solid.

Pretty nice suggestions. At least your trying to be proactive in trying to give some feasible options.

And being that the Nature Magic traitline has a focus in spirits, I beg Anet to please redo that traitline. Please forgive me, but whoever did the design did a kitten poor job. The elite skills of the trailtine are outlined below:

“Spirits Unbound” which allows spirits to move and follow you. Seriously Anet? The trait would have been “ok” if spirits didn’t get reduced to the state their in now, but that’s not the case. And the elite doesn’t do anything for anyone who invest 30 into nature magic being that not everyone uses a spirit build, and barely anyone uses spirits now.

“Evasive Purity” which removes blind and poison on a dodge roll. I could see if one of those conditions were replaced with bleed, and then you could make a case for Evasive Purity, but this elite skill can easily be a master trait. And for this to be an elite skill, you would think that it is something that can really make a big difference. This trait is not a difference making skill that give a player an edge.

Your use of the word “You” in title is not right as No Anet dev reads forums except in the sPvP section(And mods who are most likely farmed out to another company anyway.).

While buffs to GS would be nice, maybe its meant to be more of a power weapon? I know it does have a bleed skill but every weapon can’t have everything. If that was the case let’s get some bleeds on longbow too The spirits definitely need a huge boost in hp/toughness, and why not give them some minor damage pulse within their radius of effect. Either that or make them immune to damage because as you said, the times when you’d actually need them, ie dungeons, champions, boss fights and wvw zergs, they implode if anything so much as glances in their general direction. That’s a problem with all summons except full BM ranger pets though, I sincerely wish anet would give spirits, spirit weapons, necro minions, thieves guild, turrets, etc some kind of blanket aoe damage reduction, as it is they are all utterly useless in almost any situation except casual soloing and 1v1 fights. Core, class defining abilities shouldn’t turn to worthless garbage when the going gets tough, that’s when they should shine.

Great Sword needs two things to make it viable as a weapon, they’re really small things as well.

A second condition, Don’t really matter what, Just a second condition somewhere in the line.

Maul to become a Blast Finisher

Spirits are awful, its been covered.

They’re not going to be fixed either, Look at the Guardian Spirit Weapons.

JP made fun of spirit rangers recently. in last sotg i think.

anyway, im suggesting small buffs that wouldnt create any imbalances.

GS is still very viable in PvP with the gap closer, the counter, and the stun. However, I think the GS should remain a power weapon (but a dmg boost would be nice). The only reason I think the damage is low is because most of the attacks are AoE unlike the sword. You are definitely right about the spirits though. Spirit of nature can be great in PvP. Self rez is fun, double self rez is even better, and triple self rez sucks because you are laughing too hard to play properly anymore. Spirit of sun is one of my favorites as I can easily tear down trap rangers with the condition damage and just stay off of their trapped point until they die or their traps are triggered and on CD by my pet.

I would add that some of the active affects of spirits need to change. 1k damage from the storm spirit is just weak I think it should scale with the player. Also, the fact that they can’t move and cast their active makes things really awkward. Hopefully I can use them on the new PvP map (although I won’t be able to since I will be running that orb all day).

To warrant such long cooldowns on spirits in a game that emphasizes mobility as much as GW2 does, spirits need to move with us as a baseline function. Either that or reduce their CD. I understand that they are powerful, aoe, party-wide buffs. And that would be impressive if I could actually use them more than every few minutes. As it is, their CD doesn’t restart until they die. If I’m running PvE and they aren’t killed before my battle is over I’m forced to move on and wait for them to die before their CD starts. Sun Spirit lasts a minute. Wait for it to die, another minute for the CD, and I’m without its effects for way too long. The flip-side of that is in WvW or dungeons when they die in 3 seconds, nobody benefits from them, and you’re stuck waiting a full minute for what you hope will last longer the next time you drop it.

TL;DR – spirits need more HP (or aoe damage reduction) and to be mobile.