Guild Wars 2

I posted something in a thread that was quickly buried and thought I’d give this a thread of its own.

As we have seen many people are disappointed with the current state of our spirit utility skills. I know that personally I am, especially considering banners and spirit weapons. So, why don’t we discuss possible changes in a constructive and cooperative manner?

Here is my current unrefined idea:

Each spirit utility skill summons a sprite (for example sake) that hovers around you as a persistent boon/effect for x duration. On first cast it creates the effect in a small aoe aura around you (this follows you); the second cast (with a cooldown) is dependent upon your current target, for allies the sprite will hover to them granting the boon/effect in a small aoe as if it were theirs for x seconds before returning, for enemies the sprite will cast x effect/damage and disappear; and for no target it will return the sprite to you early.

Let’s look at an example, shall we?
Say you are using Spirit of Nature, on your first cast you summon the spirit which heals you and anything in a small aoe then grants passive regeneration whilst active; let’s say you are in the midst of combat and need a quick heal, target no one and cast your secondary to give yourself a little health. Target an ally (pets possibly?) and cast your skill to grant a small heal and some passive regen to your ally and an aoe around them. If you target an enemy and cast you’ll receive an aoe target reticle, which you can proceed to use to revive downed allies and cure conditions.

Think Guardian spirit weapons with a twist. This would effectively keep the two part design of spirits (although it would be necessary to adjust the scale of the effect appropriately) whilst creating an opportunity for spirit system improvement and the possibility of rewarding successful micromanagement (which some enjoy about pet based classes). Furthermore, with the system not based off of chance and the variety of effects that could be linked to individual spirits, you allow the ranger to indulge in play-style variety by freeing up utility slots.

I’m curious to hear your opinions on the above system and of any improvements or recreations of your own.

So, for those of you who have made it through, let me hear them and discuss!

That’s nice! But sorry, these kind of dreams (player suggestions) can’t come true!

Additionally, the tooth fairy does not exist.

I like the idea you are moving towards, but your suggestion doesn’t really fit into Anet’s model. Anet doesn’t want players to specifically target an ally and then hit skill A to heal them or skill B to apply boons. Any skills that do such will be done indirectly, like a ground targeted AoE. Other than that spirits are the same as what you suggest in their current state. What they really need is more survivability/better boons to compensate for them dying so fast, or to operate like warrior banners to make them viable.

White Devil: I’d rather put forth an idea that has a minimal possibility to inspire developer thought than to not take a chance at all, especially if I’m unhappy with the current system.

Additionally, I’d argue the Tooth Fairy does exist, in spirit at least.

Artemos: I realize that it’s a little out of the box but that doesn’t mean we can’t reconstruct the mold. It would allow for a layer of micromanagement unique to the Ranger. That said, it would still allow for the current system to remain for those who don’t want to mess with the micro.

Hitting your next point, I forgot to mention in the main post that they are untargetable (except for retaliation). What I did not forget to mention was that the effects/boons would be scaled appropriately to the new system.

I fully agree that survivability is a real issue with spirits, but I believe ANet made the adjustment because with the current system that was really the only appropriate way to balance out the potential power of the skills (especially since their effects stack for each ranger); if they were to nerf the boons instead of survivability you would still be receiving the same amount of effect as now just within a longer span of time, you can see the problems with that. So, the only way to get away from certain limitations would be to move to a different system.

I can see how operating like a banner could work, I’m curious to hear more about what you think on that topic. Also, if you disagree with any of the above let me know why, I’m fairly new to Guild Wars so I’ll take any edification I can get.