Guild Wars 2

Hiya,
I was wondering why we have the distinction between the two? The only clear difference is that the Ranger’s spirits are immobile and provide buffs, but that doesn’t seem like too much of a difference. Heck, the Reaper’s screams are going to have cast times and provide little to no group support.
I think it’d be interesting if these because the same skill type as I can see other classes use them as well (mainly Necro and Revenant). I’d love to see signets that improve them someday.
Just my opinion though.

I wondered the same thing tbh, however at the same time it always makes me wonder why spirit weapons aren’t just labeled as minions.

Minions are classified as “Companions”, which extends to most summoned creatures with AI. As for Nature Spirits and Spirit weapons, its mainly to do with Traits. Because Runes are universal, they call on generic classifications that can be found outside of a given class.

However, because class utilities are designed to work with Traits, they are given unique classifications to isolate them from unintended cross effects from other classes. Also note that most summon skills (the actual slot skill) also match the summon type, except for Eles, which use Glyphs to summon elementals.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Summoned_ally
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Ranger