Guild Wars 2

I have been playing around with other classes in preparation for HoT mainly because I am not extremely excited for druids unless they use this opportunity to revamp the pet system. My hope is that if you stay ranger you get an in depth pet system but if you go druid your focus will be more on nature spells (they mentioned that there would be advantages/disadvantages to picking up a specialization) buuuut I don’t think it’ll happen.

To the point, I have been playing engineer and was thinking why can’t spirits last until destroyed like engineer turrets? They both give bonuses and have abilities to activate when they are out, and it is not like spirits are so great that it would be game breaking to have them last longer than a minute or so. They generally die to AOE anyway but I feel like it would be a small quality of life fix.

Someone important at ANet plays an Engineer and the person he hates plays a Ranger.

Yea I really see spirits as being very lackluster. They just die real easily in any large fight. Engineer turrets have an advantage in that they can’t be critically hit and the engineer himself can heal them with traits I believe.

Ranger spirits were at one point part of the PvP meta, and people complained very much about them as they were seen as cheese and of a low skill cap. Not gonna argue; I didn’t like them. However, like any build, people who play it well are always rewarded over those who don’t.

The passive effects of two spirits were eventually nerfed (sun spirit lost a second of burning and spirit of nature lost 160 hps) and the active effect of the storm spirit had its damage reduced by 33%. This, along with some changes among other classes, eventually led to them being pushed out of the meta.

It is worth noting that a patch back in April of 2013 I think buffed the health of non elite spirits by 60% in PvE.

Here’s the balance patch that bumped spirits into the meta. It did so through trait compressions and other buffs to spirits.

imo, they should make spirits invulnerable and persistant as well as have a counter like venoms attached to them, so, once they have affected a certain number of attacks, they die and the skill goes on CD.

Engineer almost never get nerfed. (Except automated response something), and all of their abilities had been buffed already.

As for ranger, it get nerfed for at least 5 times, with each nerf destroying one viable build, to the point that there’s not many builds left for ranger. Also Anet is very quick on nerfing ranger, (they nerf the beastmaster, spirit rangers so quickly as they became meta for just 1~2 months)

On the other hand, they have yet to nerf anything from enigneer except for the turret explode pushback range. Turrets and slick-shoe had been broken for over a year and nothing had happened yet.

They’d have to rework spirits to make them permanent, since spirits don’t have a “self destruct” feature that would allow you to kill them off once you wanted to move them to a different location. Which would kind of be a problem, having a permanent spirit in a location you’ve since moved on from (or just the need to reposition them in general) without any way to blow them up and start over.

Engineers use their toolbelt skills to destroy them. Rangers don’t really have that option. So the only way to do it would be to make the Spirit’s active effect kill the spirit on use, which… might actually be a nerf in some cases, though I suppose they could make the active effects stronger to make up for it perhaps?

Electro.4173:

They’d have to rework spirits to make them permanent, since spirits don’t have a “self destruct” feature that would allow you to kill them off once you wanted to move them to a different location. Which would kind of be a problem, having a permanent spirit in a location you’ve since moved on from (or just the need to reposition them in general) without any way to blow them up and start over.

Engineers use their toolbelt skills to destroy them. Rangers don’t really have that option. So the only way to do it would be to make the Spirit’s active effect kill the spirit on use, which… might actually be a nerf in some cases, though I suppose they could make the active effects stronger to make up for it perhaps?

Hey bro, you only have to shift your skill bar abit to manually cancel your spirit.
This is a bad excuse you know. (Well, I do understand in ranked match you cant switch it, but honestly, who in their right mind wouldn’t take spirit unbound when go for spirit ranger in PVP?)

Also old spirits recharge CD while summoning and lasts forever, but after the nerf, they only stay for 40 seconds and has a 20 seconds predetermined CD…

Ranger is broken. No chance to have it balanced.
That’ s why if you truly like ranger…think twice about buying the new expansion

Ah, when I said spirits should be permanent, I also meant to say they should follow by default too. No different to banners or venoms then and frees up a couple of trait slots for better ones.

Don’t expect fixes to spirits, the spvp whine-babies made sure spirits were nerfed into irrelevance for everybody else.

Electro.4173:

They’d have to rework spirits to make them permanent, since spirits don’t have a “self destruct” feature that would allow you to kill them off once you wanted to move them to a different location. Which would kind of be a problem, having a permanent spirit in a location you’ve since moved on from (or just the need to reposition them in general) without any way to blow them up and start over.

Engineers use their toolbelt skills to destroy them. Rangers don’t really have that option. So the only way to do it would be to make the Spirit’s active effect kill the spirit on use, which… might actually be a nerf in some cases, though I suppose they could make the active effects stronger to make up for it perhaps?

They only need to kill them as soon as you get out from their range of 1200 units (let put like 2000 units just is case). Thus they wouldn’t need to change the skill too much.

I think the spirits should be permanent as well.

I feel about Ranger Spirits similarly to how I feel about some of the Mesmer nerfs and inconsistencies.

Compare Ranger Spirits to Warrior banners

• Why can the spirits even be killed?
• Why are the bonuses from Spirits less than those from Warrior banners (especially when not traited for a higher proc change)?
• Why are these weaker bonuses from Spirits plagued with an ICD when the Warrior banners’ bonuses are not?
• Why can Warriors use their banners for blast finishers but my Spirits don’t even make Combo Fields with some of their AOE area activate-ables (just look at Frost Spirit’s … why isn’t that one? <_<).

Compare Ranger Spirits to Engineer turrets

• Why can the Spirits be killed so easily?
• Why can the Spirits be critically hit?
• Why are the Spirits’ activate-ables less responsive than the Turrets’ activate-ables?

I see cons of Ranger Spirits versus the other two similar utilities … but I see no benefits to offset them. This is what irks me about Spirits.

Sebrent.3625:

I feel about Ranger Spirits similarly to how I feel about some of the Mesmer nerfs and inconsistencies.

Compare Ranger Spirits to Warrior banners

• Why can the spirits even be killed?
• Why are the bonuses from Spirits less than those from Warrior banners (especially when not traited for a higher proc change)?
• Why are these weaker bonuses from Spirits plagued with an ICD when the Warrior banners’ bonuses are not?
• Why can Warriors use their banners for blast finishers but my Spirits don’t even make Combo Fields with some of their AOE area activate-ables (just look at Frost Spirit’s … why isn’t that one? <_<).

Compare Ranger Spirits to Engineer turrets

• Why can the Spirits be killed so easily?
• Why can the Spirits be critically hit?
• Why are the Spirits’ activate-ables less responsive than the Turrets’ activate-ables?

I see cons of Ranger Spirits versus the other two similar utilities … but I see no benefits to offset them. This is what irks me about Spirits.

Because Anet doesn’t care about ranger. They’ll make sure ranger to be on the bottom of the food chain. They’re so quick at nerfing spirits and pets even when they’re not even strong to begin with, while leaving things like turrets and banners alone for several years.

They add trash pet’s exclusive traits as filler because they do not bother dealing with ranger, and do not care to revamp those useless traits. They also do not care about pet’s F2 broken ai scripting.

The developers will probably read through our posts, laugh a it, and move on to other classes because they do not care.

Sebrent.3625:

I feel about Ranger Spirits similarly to how I feel about some of the Mesmer nerfs and inconsistencies.

Compare Ranger Spirits to Warrior banners

• Why can the spirits even be killed?
• Why are the bonuses from Spirits less than those from Warrior banners (especially when not traited for a higher proc change)?
• Why are these weaker bonuses from Spirits plagued with an ICD when the Warrior banners’ bonuses are not?
• Why can Warriors use their banners for blast finishers but my Spirits don’t even make Combo Fields with some of their AOE area activate-ables (just look at Frost Spirit’s … why isn’t that one? <_<).

Compare Ranger Spirits to Engineer turrets

• Why can the Spirits be killed so easily?
• Why can the Spirits be critically hit?
• Why are the Spirits’ activate-ables less responsive than the Turrets’ activate-ables?

I see cons of Ranger Spirits versus the other two similar utilities … but I see no benefits to offset them. This is what irks me about Spirits.

So much yes. I searched back through the forum to see if anyone else had brought this up and I was surprised to not find anything. I am glad to see I am not living in crazy town.

It is a little sad because ranger conceptually has everything I want out of a class but…it is kind of like a bad relationship, I know I should get out I just don’t want to.

If you search back far enough (~1 year) you’ll see similar issues with spirits. Spirits are better than they used to be … but they still aren’t good … they just used to be completely horrid as opposed to this thing that is so close to being useful outside of some small niches.

There’s no reason to “get out”. Play what works for you and you enjoy and keep on trucking :-p

Sebrent.3625:

If you search back far enough (~1 year) you’ll see similar issues with spirits. Spirits are better than they used to be … but they still aren’t good … they just used to be completely horrid as opposed to this thing that is so close to being useful outside of some small niches.

There’s no reason to “get out”. Play what works for you and you enjoy and keep on trucking :-p

That is the issue, and why I am getting out. Well not exactly that spirits could use some work, more that my bar practically never changes from lack of useful skills (PVE), I am not confident the pet system will have any drastic changes and adding staves is not very exciting for me.

Conceptually I love the class but guardian or engineer are way more active (read:fun for me) of a playstyle unfortunately. I have held on for awhile now but HoT will be a fresh start.

Meh, I find myself changing from setting a Frost Spirit in a “safe corner” with 10+ points in NM for the +7% dmg bonus for the group for some fights.

For others I swap to 2 damaging traps.

Others I make sure I have Signet of Stone.

And others I’ll swap in Zephyr, Muddy Terrain, etc..

I find myself swapping to match the fight. Moreso than I usually do on my Mesmer which is more of a question of “do I need reflects for this fight” …
… Yes? Traited Focus and Feedback Utility.
… No? Whatever I feel like … unless we want some more boon/condi steal/removal … I’ve got the tools for that :-)

Why don’t they just make spirits an aura that surrounds the ranger like rampage as one. It would have a different colour for each spirit and still give the benefits to the group. It could also have the same cds as well.

@Lyger:
Because that wouldn’t look as much like the spirits from GW1 who had an enormous range to their effects unlike our 1,000 range spirits.

For some reason, it appears that there is a desire to adhere to some of the look and feel of the spirits from GW1 … despite the facts that those had far superior range … and I believe you couldn’t stack them … and they were constant effects as opposed to chances to proc …

Not really sure why the only aspects ported over were the ones that people don’t like :-(

Sebrent.3625:

@Lyger:
Because that wouldn’t look as much like the spirits from GW1 who had an enormous range to their effects unlike our 1,000 range spirits.

For some reason, it appears that there is a desire to adhere to some of the look and feel of the spirits from GW1 … despite the facts that those had far superior range … and I believe you couldn’t stack them … and they were constant effects as opposed to chances to proc …

Not really sure why the only aspects ported over were the ones that people don’t like :-(

The ranger spirits were called nature rituals in guild wars 1.

And yes, they had a huge range, but were immobile and could only be moved if you had the ritualist as a primary or secondary profession. Important thing to note is that the effects from the spirits also effected enemies. You couldn’t stack the effects of spirits either, but you could have more than one of the same spirit if it were a ranger spirit (ritualist spirits are destroyed once the same one is cast by another ritualist).

@Soilder:
Thanks. My memory of GW1 is obviously more hazy than yours.

So they brought over:

• Can’t move (bigger issue given the drastically smaller range of spirits in GW2)
• Can move with some investment (GW1 Alt Profession vs GW2 4 trait points)
• Spirit can be killed (could have done without this … especially when compared to other classes’ similar utilities … also a bigger issue due to the drastically smaller range of Spirits in GW2.)

They did not bring over

• Huge range (this would be nice to have)
• Affects enemies (glad this didn’t get brought over)
• Spirit effect is a constant, not a proc (debateable … but our current procs are lacking compared to other classes’ constants from their similar utilities).