Guild Wars 2

I read the forums a lot so I’ve heard a lot of the problems with using spirits.

My question is does anyone use spirits in PVE or dungeons with any success? If so, how are you managing this?

I really want to run a spirit build but it seems like it’s pretty hopeless at the moment.

Has anyone had any success … anyone?

the way i’ve seen the spirit buffs work is, they give a nice large area their initial buff. lets call it inactive, because we can, in this state you don’t see it nor does it affect you. the way they work is, they have a % activation rate of 35% base with 50% traited. the sun, frost and one thats escaping me, the swiftness one. the way these work is when you attack, meaning use any weapon skill you have a given % of chance to receive the buff from the spirit, while it may seem only 5 bodies are getting the buff, i kid you not, it does not happen. now the way i have experienced it is, only 5 individuals are able to have the buff activated. heres the key thing. they can be activated at different times and overlap, meaning at points you are going to have a full party with all spirit buffs if the attack speed is high enough to negate the % chance and you receive the buff.
spirit of earth i think, works in the opposite way, you get the boon protection when you are hit for a given time. so at 50% it means every 2nd hit ideally you should be receiving the boon. the elite i have no clue about, still working to unlock it. the spirits are not AOE constant boons, they are % based boons that lay dormant affecting all within range and work well.

why all people QQ about the spirits being weak? did no one care to learn how the spirits were used in the first game? you put them at a place that you are in range of, while in range to the enemy while the opponent is going to have a bad time getting to it, or wasting their time on it because of its location.

Tried it for a while, unimpressed by the results and annoyed at having to resummon three of those buggers every sixty seconds. They die too quickly even with careful positioning, and their effects are subpar at best. It’s just not viable.

Thanks Drasleona!

Pendleton.6385:

Thanks Drasleona!

All the utility spirits work based on you attacking.

Frost spirit +10% damage has 0 ICD it can proc multiple times in a row. You can verify this by going to HOTM purchasing a steady weapon from bag 3 of the weapons vendor detraiting everything and stripping armor and beating on a golem while watching your combat log. Easier to test with a weapon that doens’t ahve multiple 1 attacks. I prefer SB.

The elite pet you cast and it procs it’s heal hit the button again to activate it’s raise condition removal AOE. It has a 30 second cd on it’s active lasts for 60 seconds traited procs on death. Die at it’s feat having hit your hotkey just before death.

That the underlying passive buff is only applying to 5 targets is accurate and the spirits if stacked on top of each other seem to always take 3 of those slots. This is a huge problem. It seems to be based on proximity with the 5 closest targets getting the passive buff. This is highly unfortunate due to their survivability as well as the fact the spirits themselves by virtue of never attacking have zero chance to proc the buffs. It definitely needs to be fixed bug it in game. However as it clearly seems proximity base placing them in a horseshoe in PvE should compensate some. AKA place 1 @ 600 units behind the targets to be buffed one on a left diagonal and right diagonal as well. Clearly this isnt’t very practical but it places the people in the center of the horsehoe potentially closer to each spirit individually a ven diagram sort of. They also annoyingly don’t place predictably. But it does let you keep them from stacking on each other. 2 would be easier.

Some people will tell you that all the passive buffs are linked and that when 1 person procs the boon other people are tied to their CD for that boon. Based on testing with my pet this is false. With no boon sharing was able to get both protection and swiftness procs up at the same time on me and pet. Just turn of autotargetting and beat on the lined up army of golems while your pet also goes to town and is your target. you’ll see it as well.

One of the interesting things I noticed is the minor trait Fortifying bond only seems to share a maximum of @5 seconds of additional boon duration from the ranger. The transer duration also doesn’t seem to be effected by + stacking on the ranger when initial boon is under 5 seconds. i.e. the stone spirits 3 second protection buff when boosted +70% remains a 3 second transfer to your pet(assuming rendering of duration is accurate anyways.)

That passive stacking is annoying bugging nightly.