Guild Wars 2

This is my own opinions of course. I don’t know why I would have to point this out. But sometimes people seams to forget that simple fact

Hi everyone.

I’m going to make this as short and to the point as possible. Instead of making a wall of text, I’m going to break it down, for my thoughts on changes in a shorter version down below. And we’ll see how this discussion evolves. But if you’ve played, or playing a ranger. I don’t see why there should be no doubt, only if so.

First I would like to say that I like the thought and understand the use of the spirits we have in our ranger arsenal. Most and for most they are a on hit,—chance to gain an advantage, a boon to say.
Also there is a second activation for each spirit for a condition effect, boon or field effect.

Now to the sad part. As I said before, I understand the thought behind the spirits and how, you at Anet, wanted the rangers to benefit from our spirit friends. However this is the point I want to argue.

Let’s ask our selves how they preform in the different situations below.

PVE
You move around much in PvE don’t you? I know you do. But your spirits don’t.
Unless you trait the full 30 points in making you spirits able to walk and talk, they are not much of use unless you want to stand still and be static like they are. And if you decide to stand next to the spirits, due the short range on the area they effect. You do not want to risk them get hit by a AoE spell. And lose the cooldown and the spirit in a blow.

If you have traited, so your spirits can run in the wilds with you. Here we can see the more true nature of what the spirits are made for. But, if and I say if as in very often, go up against a mob that’s though to kite. You can kiss your spirits goodbye.

The activated abilities are so slow that they are not even worth your finger pressing the button. Why? Because you they take valuable time and distracts you from the other, more usable skills you have.
This is due the slow activation, small area of effect and/or the static placement. To “force” and enemy to run through the field is often a pain in the neck.

The area of effect they give to allies is nice. If you can get them to stand still at the spot, very close or even better right on top of the spirit. But wait, this game is build around mobility and movement. I guess that’s out of the window then?
Or you have to tell them to run right next to you, holding hands all the time. Hands and feats inside the cart please!

Is it worth it? No.

PVP
Please can you stay overthere or, if you get close don’t use any AoE, Thank You!
If you don’t trait spirit movement in PvP—Forget it!
One exception is in WubWub(WvWvW) is if you place it on a castle wall while holding a gate etc. But still, the area of effect to allies and your self is worthless in it self. Well not worthless, but bad for your team. Imagine if you told everyone to hug each other at the same spot in WubWub? Here you go, one hundred AoE spell delivery!
So no, absolutely no.

Now if you have traited the movement, it works. But only for you and I don’t mind that at all. If it wasn’t for the paper spirits, trait toughness or not toughness. Almost, if not more than half of the times. If I summon a spirit in a combat zone, they go instantly on cool down. Because someone split some milk on it so it died!

Spirits in PvP? No, you can try it your self if you’d like. Mediocre, not viable.

Dungeons

Based on the above, and thank you for reading this far. Dungeons is about mobility, the whole game is based on mobility. Bringing, may it be static or moving spirits is not viable. More like a gamble for something they already can do them selves or give them selves already(Boons).

If you got walking and talking spirits, they have to follow you and stay close. But that’s not a good idea in a dungeon is it? We all know that-no point to argue, let’s move along. The bad idea for dungeons is that the effect they give is a chance to get an effect. But they have to follow you and you don’t want to stay close to anyone who has a mob/boss on them. The majority of the mobs has AoE and will instantly tear your spirits apart. So do your self a favor, don’t use spirits in dungeons. Unless you have a spot, concerns trash mobs, that is safe(for the moment).

Well, let’s not let me do all the talking. What are your thoughts and ideas for changes. And they clearly need it, I’m tired of people who are over confident in spirits. It’s not helping and please, understand it’s OK to argue. So don’t make any excuses if you fell like it.

Thank you for reading this far. I’ll see you in game and Anet I await your thoughts too. Thank you for making such a extraordinary game.

Here are my thoughts and ideas.

-Spirits needs to be able to move without trait, the game is about mobility so i miss to see why we must spend so much to keep up with something so simple.

-Spirits needs damage reduction against AoE by atleast 75-85%. Or just immune to all damage. They already take a utility slot, if so they will despawn after a wile instead. But they would be depressing.

-The area of effect needs to be much, much and MUCH larger.

-Activation skill area needs also to be much, muc.. ah you get the point.

-Activated skills should be instant, more or less a lot faster.

A fair, reasoned writeup.

I’ve played the ranger a fair amount, as well as other classes, and off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything in the game that is NOT insta-cast … except for the ranger’s F2 pet ability and their spirit abilities.

I have other skills that are very useful, but it does make me sad that the spirits are, as of now, a waste of skill points.

I completely agree with you, the added effects do not seem to be worth it, there secondary click does nothing for anyone, they need to completely re-work them. Now I was hoping to see something coming out of this patch for rangers but I expected that there is a pretty big issue with them at this time. There are effective builds that you can run, but it seems that most of the skills are worthless. For example I like traps and I wanted to use burning trap/spike trap with the throw trait, but it literally has no range, I was thinking it was going to be muddy terrain and have a pretty nice distance on it or at least close to that distance, but no it throws it right in front of your feet. It made me step bank and think about actually playing the class till they worked on it some more, I have been ignoring the bugs and still having fun and reporting things, but I hope that Anet will come out and surprise us with reworking a lot of skills and traits to make us more viable for a support role in the game(which is what I like to play), the only thing we have going for us right now is healing spring.

WvW build: http://tinyurl.com/bufrffk

PvE build:http://tinyurl.com/bv3resj

Thank you for reading it through and also for you thoughts on the matter. Paddy, I understand what your saying. And for me saying instant is faulty. I mean it must be almost instant or much faster.

Again thank you, keep it going. Give the spirits the attention they need.

I think what needs to be done with spirits is make them like signets but instead of giving you passive buffs they give them to pets. When you activate them you provide a group ae benefit depending on the spirit that lasts 10 ish seconds but removes the pet buff maybe unless traited. Would make them a ton more useful.

@Kildari ugh god no, no more passive bull kittens!! I’d rather them as is then that… Btw is there any reason why in order to receive my spirits buff (other then Natures spirit) I practically need to be standing on it?

Durzlla actually my idea could fix two issues at the same time. Its actuality sort of perfect. Two of the biggest complaints are pet suvivability in dungeons and sucky spirits. Lets say spirits give passive benefits like say 50 percents reduction to pet ae dmg taken while not activated. Push the button and ae protection for xx seconds. Each spirit could provide pets with decent passive abilities.

A n easily killable spirit will almost never be used. However my idea would make them actually useful situationally.

@Kildari your idea also makes them boring and not used by a lot of people because they’re just that, boring and stagnant it’s why the good players mock those who use 3-5 signets because you know EXACTLY what they can do and they don’t have much room for anything else…

Your idea is essentially “lets give rangers 2 sets of signets because signets are good lawlz!!” No way in HELL would most, if any, players would be happy about that, most people just want spirits to provide a large radius of effect and either a better reason for them to be squishy (IE significant buffs) or just be sturdier like they were.

Your idea doesn’t solve any problems and is just a bandaid fix.

Spirits are 100% useless. More surivability would still not make them useful. A % chance for a spirit to actually have an effect means they will never be used over another skill that actually has a guaranteed use on activation. The fact they can be killed at all and don’t do squat but MAYBE buff makes them the worst buffing skill out of every once single profession in the game.

Kildari.2480:

Spirits are 100% useless. More surivability would still not make them useful. A % chance for a spirit to actually have an effect means they will never be used over another skill that actually has a guaranteed use on activation. The fact they can be killed at all and don’t do squat but MAYBE buff makes them the worst buffing skill out of every once single profession in the game.

You realize spirits have chain skill right? And the elite spirit is currently a total boss, not to mention that frost and fire spirits are still good for ranged (just stand infront of them so stray ranged attacks don’t rock em) hell all of em are good for ranged, the problem is they are so squishy and have no area of effect, and you clearly have NO idea what you’re talking about…

Spirits used to just be tougher but still had a % chance to give their buff and guess what!! Spirit masters were OP!! Zomg good thing no one will use spirits if they’re not abysmally squishy, cause you know… NO ONE would use them if it was only a chance, oh wait that’s just you talking out of your kitten!

Sorry but i have to disagree. Traps are currently more useful than the spirits.

I was stomping around BWE3 with a greatsword + spirits build in random sPvP and was doing quite well. Dunno what changed between then and now…

Though Nature Magic always did strike me as an oddly constructed trait line. I like the “melee shaman” sort of feel that the trait line encourages, but spirits don’t really have the fortitude to make that idea as viable as it ought to be.

Grakor.3450:

I was stomping around BWE3 with a greatsword + spirits build in random sPvP and was doing quite well. Dunno what changed between then and now…

Though Nature Magic always did strike me as an oddly constructed trait line. I like the “melee shaman” sort of feel that the trait line encourages, but spirits don’t really have the fortitude to make that idea as viable as it ought to be.

That was prior the range nerf, i think they were fairly sturdy then still though…

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not spirits in GW1 affect you constantly for as long as they were up? Not just “This spirit has a chance to maybe affect you”. At least I know that I was under constant affect of my foe’s spirits as long as I was in the area of them.

Sorry but i have to disagree. Traps are currently more useful than the spirits.

You are absolutely right. Traps are a better choice in a tactical manner, damage and helpful. The thing all abilities should be, useful. Spirits looks nice, that’s all. Better to have something that you know will help, than to “hope” for something to happen.

There are more abilities for the Rangers that makes no sense to me, but spirits makes a waste of your utility slots you have. Just like the utility, Guard. It’s just a hold command on your pet. Why is this an utility skill? Blows my mind.

Good input, continue.

Wish I had read this thread before I put some skill points into using spirits. -facepalm- Oh well…perhaps there will be some improvements over time. I appreciate the feedback from the community though — helps me decide is it worth using in dungeons and or not.

Along with pets, these are some of the biggest problems that plagues the ranger class. I agree and let’s hope the dev fix it soon.

OP is right on. Make them mobile right from the get-go. Reduce the aoe damage to them. Or just make them like banners…un-destroyable. Their secondary ability is actually pretty awesome…if it weren’t for the animation delay…and the abysmal range. The idea behind our spirits is great. And I’d totally run a 3-spirit build. If they were at all viable.

I don’t survivability is much of a problem when their range is so short you pretty much can’t move or use dodge and still benefit from having one up. Who cares if it dies instantly or lives forever if you’re never in range to benefit from it anyhow?