Guild Wars 2

Is it just the normal non-crit attacks? Probably a dumb suggestion but it’s all I can think of.

Chopps.5047:

Is it just the normal non-crit attacks? Probably a dumb suggestion but it’s all I can think of.

Not sure, hadn’t paid attention to that aspect.

I did not step into this thread to be argumentative or cause a problem, but I saw misinformation and felt I had to say something.

@Chopps
Some of these things are so easy to test, there is no reason to have misinformation floating around. Bad information can only be bad for the class, bad for people trying to play it, and might obscure legitimate bugs/issues that might take months to be recognized. I didn’t believe that drakes were healing enemies until I tested it myself, comparing before chomp and after chomp screenshots and it was clear the drake’s health did not go up at all, and the enemy’s health did not go down as much as it should.

Stone Spirit protection is granted when the ally hits. If there is any doubt, go to the mists and shoot a golem that doesn’t hit back. You will eventually gain protection.

The trebuchet always does one specific damage number to each armor class of golem in the mists. It is consistent, and when you put down a frost spirit, the procs (which are random) give a consistent 10% damage boost.

@Durzlla
It is not self-explanatory that a trait that improves the active spirit effect would also improve the passive, it is also untrue. To test this, put down a utility spirit in an area where you are alone (alone is important because spirits give their buff out based on proximity). Stand inside the spirit. Dodge roll away 3 times by tapping “V” (300 range each time). You are still in spirit range, wait there for 6 seconds to confirm this. Dodge roll away one more time (to roughly 1200 range). You will lose the spirit buff. Repeat with Nature’s Vengeance and see if there is any change in the results.

Go to the section of the mists where golems are heavily clustered together and try to set more than one of them on fire with just a piercing arrow, Sun Spirit, & Spiritual Knowledge, and no other sigils, runes, or traits. I was never able to. No matter how many piercing arrows went through how many targets, only one of them burned and there were never more than 3 tics of burning damage. Do your Sharpening Stone and other tests here, where the results are easier to see and can be replicated.

I’m glad you tested and did the heavy lifting for me. You don’t have to be mean. All I know is that in havoc and zerg I help the team win. It’s a way of playing and it’s kind of fun. I mentioned at the start of this thread that I’m basically just now getting around to testing and using spirits (as well as spiders since they seem squishy…or am I wrong about that too? Better fact check!). You really don’t have to be so pedantic. It’s this passive aggressive thing that kind of makes me want to not talk to you.

Chopps, people’s biggest issue with you is that you say things that simply are not true.

I just finished testing what you guys were saying about Barrage and the various condition applicators and I found that:

• Sharpening Stone does apply the bleed per “wave” of hits, so it is possible to apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 different targets (this was true)
• Sigil of Doom does NOT apply poison to more than one target when you use barrage (so you lied)
• Weakness from spider venom applies it to the spider’s attacks (already knew this was a lie from you)
• Sun Spirit was only ever proccing burning on one target at a time, even when I traited for +15% proc chance and shooting at the large group of golems with sun spirit and barrage.

So the only thing that was true about your posts about this “awesome combo” is Sharpening Blades + Barrage. That makes less than 1/2 what you said be true. That’s not great and this isn’t the first time.

Chopps.5047:

I’m glad you tested and did the heavy lifting for me. You don’t have to be mean. All I know is that in havoc and zerg I help the team win. It’s a way of playing and it’s kind of fun. I mentioned at the start of this thread that I’m basically just now getting around to testing and using spirits (as well as spiders since they seem squishy…or am I wrong about that too? Better fact check!). You really don’t have to be so pedantic. It’s this passive aggressive thing that kind of makes me want to not talk to you.

One of the things that annoy me, and most likely many others, a lot is when people spread false information, especially in a place where getting the facts is a primary goal. If you’re not sure of something, say so. Ask a question. Don’t go around spouting incorrect facts. If someone actually believes you and repeats what they hear without verifying it either, more misinformation is spread. Just about everything you’ve posted is simply wrong, and with your posts you are only doing a disservice to anyone who reads them. I actually got my hopes up about spirits when I read about how you thought they behaved.

Tldr: don’t post things you aren’t sure of without informing the reader that you are unsure of what you’re posting. Or just post it as a question.

Give me a break, it’s not that bad. You guys make me sound awful. I don’t have a ton of time to play lately, all I can do is sneak in forum posts. I’m not spreading misiformation either, that’s absurd. I was wrong about a couple things so what? I guess I’ll stop posting around here if ya’ll don’t want me around. People aren’t perfect ya know? I hope people cut you down and make you feel like crap when you mess something up. You deserve it. Anyhow, happy hunting!

Oh, and regardless of the details, I kill people with this build so whatever. Go fact check that one time. Get yourself some gear and try it in wvw instead of being obnoxiously right about details.

I think I know why storm and stone don’t work for siege. You will notice that the siege weapons themselves will receive the spirit buffs. I got to thinking that maybe these siege weapons themselves are different “npcs” that benefit from the spirit like any other npc.

Test performed
Place sun spirit far enough to affect me (I get its buff) but too far to affect the treb (treb doesn’t get the buff).

I shot the golem cluster for some time and not one of them got burned.

I re-positioned to give the treb the buff. I fired again and finally burned 1 golem in the cluster.

So the reason why storm and stone don’t work (or sharpening stone, attack of opportunity, etc) is because they are buffs given to who ever is the source of damage. Since the siege weapon itself is the source of damage, swiftness and protection would be given to the siege weapon (not you since you are not the source of damage). But since siege weapons can’t receive buffs, they get nothing.

From the same line of reasoning, siege weapons don’t trigger sharpening stone, attack of opportunity, etc is because damage while on a siege weapon does not come from you.

Sebrent.3625:

Chopps, people’s biggest issue with you is that you say things that simply are not true.

I just finished testing what you guys were saying about Barrage and the various condition applicators and I found that:

• Sharpening Stone does apply the bleed per “wave” of hits, so it is possible to apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 different targets (this was true)
• Sigil of Doom does NOT apply poison to more than one target when you use barrage (so you lied)
• Weakness from spider venom applies it to the spider’s attacks (already knew this was a lie from you)
• Sun Spirit was only ever proccing burning on one target at a time, even when I traited for +15% proc chance and shooting at the large group of golems with sun spirit and barrage.

So the only thing that was true about your posts about this “awesome combo” is Sharpening Blades + Barrage. That makes less than 1/2 what you said be true. That’s not great and this isn’t the first time.

Huh so sigil of doom was nerfed since beta, I assumed that since SS worked on Barrages “wave” that sigil of doom did as well (since it is worded the same) and said it applied the poison to all of them.

This is saddening, but does not alter my choice of sigil….

Durzlla.6295:

Sebrent.3625:

Chopps, people’s biggest issue with you is that you say things that simply are not true.

I just finished testing what you guys were saying about Barrage and the various condition applicators and I found that:

• Sharpening Stone does apply the bleed per “wave” of hits, so it is possible to apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 different targets (this was true)
• Sigil of Doom does NOT apply poison to more than one target when you use barrage (so you lied)
• Weakness from spider venom applies it to the spider’s attacks (already knew this was a lie from you)
• Sun Spirit was only ever proccing burning on one target at a time, even when I traited for +15% proc chance and shooting at the large group of golems with sun spirit and barrage.

So the only thing that was true about your posts about this “awesome combo” is Sharpening Blades + Barrage. That makes less than 1/2 what you said be true. That’s not great and this isn’t the first time.

Huh so sigil of doom was nerfed since beta, I assumed that since SS worked on Barrages “wave” that sigil of doom did as well (since it is worded the same) and said it applied the poison to all of them.

This is saddening, but does not alter my choice of sigil….

You havn’t used this Sigil since BETA? O.O

Killing people with a build doesn’t make it good or bad.

There is a difference between “don’t have enough time” and stating things that simply aren’t true.

Additionally, when asked directly about these things, you defended them … why would someone who “doesn’t really know” because they “don’t have time” defend these things?

jkctmc.8754:

Durzlla.6295:

Sebrent.3625:

Chopps, people’s biggest issue with you is that you say things that simply are not true.

I just finished testing what you guys were saying about Barrage and the various condition applicators and I found that:

• Sharpening Stone does apply the bleed per “wave” of hits, so it is possible to apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 different targets (this was true)
• Sigil of Doom does NOT apply poison to more than one target when you use barrage (so you lied)
• Weakness from spider venom applies it to the spider’s attacks (already knew this was a lie from you)
• Sun Spirit was only ever proccing burning on one target at a time, even when I traited for +15% proc chance and shooting at the large group of golems with sun spirit and barrage.

So the only thing that was true about your posts about this “awesome combo” is Sharpening Blades + Barrage. That makes less than 1/2 what you said be true. That’s not great and this isn’t the first time.

Huh so sigil of doom was nerfed since beta, I assumed that since SS worked on Barrages “wave” that sigil of doom did as well (since it is worded the same) and said it applied the poison to all of them.

This is saddening, but does not alter my choice of sigil….

You havn’t used this Sigil since BETA? O.O

I started using the sigil again about 2 weeks ago with my new longbow condi build (guide on the forums is called “Shoot to Maim Boys!” ), i didn’t recall reading anything on it being nerfed and assumed it still worked the same lol.

That and it’s worded the same kitten so i figured it’d work the same where it applied to the entire barrage wave and not just one target. Going to check this myself to make sure… and i’m almost positive it applies to everyone on Path of Scars, so i may test that and piercing arrows too!

EDIT: Sigil of doom applies to literally only one person now regardless of the skill.

This is what we’re talking about guys … before talking about a build and what it can/can’t do, it’d be great if you actually play-tested the build to make sure it can/can’t actually do those things.

Otherwise, I could talk about how my Mesmer’s scepter is awesome in a condition build because the autoattacks inflict confusion … and, of course, just leave out that it hasn’t done that since early beta … this would be the same as your posts.

Sebrent.3625:

This is what we’re talking about guys … before talking about a build and what it can/can’t do, it’d be great if you actually play-tested the build to make sure it can/can’t actually do those things.

Otherwise, I could talk about how my Mesmer’s scepter is awesome in a condition build because the autoattacks inflict confusion … and, of course, just leave out that it hasn’t done that since early beta … this would be the same as your posts.

Well, i have used my build and the phantom numbers that JK has been experiencing were present in my live action tests (i’m more of a trial by fire sort of guy), so i figured the poison was ticking on them too…

I had the same phantom numbers about 75% of the time while testing in the more controlled areas too and almost got on to say “You’re wrong” until i clicked on the golems to double check.

Durzlla.6295:

Sebrent.3625:

This is what we’re talking about guys … before talking about a build and what it can/can’t do, it’d be great if you actually play-tested the build to make sure it can/can’t actually do those things.

Otherwise, I could talk about how my Mesmer’s scepter is awesome in a condition build because the autoattacks inflict confusion … and, of course, just leave out that it hasn’t done that since early beta … this would be the same as your posts.

Well, i have used my build and the phantom numbers that JK has been experiencing were present in my live action tests (i’m more of a trial by fire sort of guy), so i figured the poison was ticking on them too…

I had the same phantom numbers about 75% of the time while testing in the more controlled areas too and almost got on to say “You’re wrong” until i clicked on the golems to double check.

I can’t figure these phantom numbers out, but I welcome them.

jkctmc.8754:

Durzlla.6295:

Sebrent.3625:

This is what we’re talking about guys … before talking about a build and what it can/can’t do, it’d be great if you actually play-tested the build to make sure it can/can’t actually do those things.

Otherwise, I could talk about how my Mesmer’s scepter is awesome in a condition build because the autoattacks inflict confusion … and, of course, just leave out that it hasn’t done that since early beta … this would be the same as your posts.

Well, i have used my build and the phantom numbers that JK has been experiencing were present in my live action tests (i’m more of a trial by fire sort of guy), so i figured the poison was ticking on them too…

I had the same phantom numbers about 75% of the time while testing in the more controlled areas too and almost got on to say “You’re wrong” until i clicked on the golems to double check.

I can’t figure these phantom numbers out, but I welcome them.

Yeah… i’m not sure what they’re there for, but it seems to only be for poison.

Wouldnt it be easier, that instead of sunspirit u just place bonfire and stand in it ???

Chokolata.1870:

Wouldnt it be easier, that instead of sunspirit u just place bonfire and stand in it ???

It would, but sun spirit buffs allies around it (I’m not sure how many, but AoE cap suggests 5 max targets) including 2 hyena pets and any teammates in range. Bonfire only affects people that actually step on it, or pets that leap through it.

In a 1v1 situation and the enemy is melee, bonfire is definitely better. But in Durz’s build, sun spirit is a better pick.

Durzlla.6295:

Sebrent.3625:

Chopps, people’s biggest issue with you is that you say things that simply are not true.

I just finished testing what you guys were saying about Barrage and the various condition applicators and I found that:

• Sharpening Stone does apply the bleed per “wave” of hits, so it is possible to apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 different targets (this was true)
• Sigil of Doom does NOT apply poison to more than one target when you use barrage (so you lied)
• Weakness from spider venom applies it to the spider’s attacks (already knew this was a lie from you)
• Sun Spirit was only ever proccing burning on one target at a time, even when I traited for +15% proc chance and shooting at the large group of golems with sun spirit and barrage.

So the only thing that was true about your posts about this “awesome combo” is Sharpening Blades + Barrage. That makes less than 1/2 what you said be true. That’s not great and this isn’t the first time.

Huh so sigil of doom was nerfed since beta, I assumed that since SS worked on Barrages “wave” that sigil of doom did as well (since it is worded the same) and said it applied the poison to all of them.

This is saddening, but does not alter my choice of sigil….

You gotta admit that people can have a hard time thinking of this build as viable, when this is the kind of theorycrafting it is based on.
Thinking that you have been applying poison to a lot of targets, and writing that you see “damage numbers from bleed and poison all over the place” is not very convincing, when in the end all you did was to apply 5 stacks of bleeding.
I’m not trying to give you two a hard time personally, but i was suspicious about the build when i read the guide the first time.
Even if i REALLY wanted longbow and spirits to be viable, that is just not going to happen before we see changes from Anet.

Could anybody who actually tested it give a straight answer how spirit boons work on party after update. Does it give a boon (ex protection)only for one person and then 10s cd(cooldown on spirit)? Or cooldown is on each player (ex 2-3 players can get protection and then get cooldown)?

I don’t know Bolo, but I’m online most days by around 8:00pm eastern, so if you want to message me and meet in the mists to test this, feel free :-) I’m curious about it as well … especially since maybe one day ArenaNet will eventually fix spirits and longbow.

Bolo.1976:

Could anybody who actually tested it give a straight answer how spirit boons work on party after update. Does it give a boon (ex protection)only for one person and then 10s cd(cooldown on spirit)? Or cooldown is on each player (ex 2-3 players can get protection and then get cooldown)?

I run spirits for PvE (0/0/20/30/20) and I can tell you that in Stone Spirit’s case, the Protection ICD seems to be on a per-target basis. This seems to be how all of the spirits work; all players within the radius of the spirit receive a separate buff that grants the chance to proc whatever the spirit grants, and that buff itself has a 10s ICD. You’ll see the buff once the spirit is placed that is your typical square icon (indicating it cannot be removed).

It would be pretty clear if it were on a per-spirit basis, since as soon as you got into a group your own rate of Protection gain would nosedive, but that has not been my experience.

Wallach, just to be clear, by “per-target basis” you mean “per ally”, correct?

So if we have Alice, Bob, Chris, David, and Eve in a group and Alice plops down a spirit, then each player in the group can proc the storm spirit effect but then has their own invidivual 10s ICD before they can personally proc it again, correct?

Alice’s ICD doesn’t affect anyone else’s and vice versa, correct?

Trying to gain some knowledge from this thread …

• Is the Spirit ICD across all spirits such that if I had Stone and Sun out, proccing Stone would put both on ICD (like sigils work)?
• Has anyone tried spirits since the +spirit hp patch and using the Vigorous Spirits trait to give spirits twice as much hp?

Sebrent.3625:

Wallach, just to be clear, by “per-target basis” you mean “per ally”, correct?

So if we have Alice, Bob, Chris, David, and Eve in a group and Alice plops down a spirit, then each player in the group can proc the storm spirit effect but then has their own invidivual 10s ICD before they can personally proc it again, correct?

Alice’s ICD doesn’t affect anyone else’s and vice versa, correct?

---

Trying to gain some knowledge from this thread …

• Is the Spirit ICD across all spirits such that if I had Stone and Sun out, proccing Stone would put both on ICD (like sigils work)?
• Has anyone tried spirits since the +spirit hp patch and using the Vigorous Spirits trait to give spirits twice as much hp?

Right, each target that receives a buff seems to manage their own ICD. I could jump online and test this but to be honest, it is one of those things I think would hit me like a truck were it not the case (since my own rate of Protection would dive by a factor of five any time I was in a dungeon, which it does not).

As for Spirits sharing ICDs, that I can also say with some certainty that is not the case. I run Sun and Stone together pretty much 100% of the time and their ICDs do not interfere with each other. Generally I’ll get both procs very quickly at the start of any combat (since both are typically well off ICD before engaging the next encounter) which would not be possible if they ran into shared ICDs.

Edit – I went ahead and just tested the latter again (since it only takes a couple seconds to do by myself) and they definitely do not have shared ICDs between themselves. Within the first couple seconds of combat I procced both Burn and Protection spamming Crossfire.

I also checked my Moa and observed it triggering its own Protection right after mine, which shows that the ICD is managed by each affected target separately.

Excellent! Thank you, Wallach.

Now, on to the other question (for anyone to answer).

How is spirit survivability:

• With just the patch to spirit hp
• With the patch to spirit hp and the Vigorous Spirits trait

An answer beyond “good”, “bad”, “ok”, etc. would be nice :-p

Something more along the lines of various foes the spirit has taken particular hits from and instantly died or lived with X% hp would be optimal.

Spirit toughness is pretty garbage in my experience. I don’t currently run with the HP trait (though I might test it out sometime just to see) but I can’t imagine 2x health doing much to improve their lifespan in a meaningful way. Either they are up the entire duration since I have them at my side and I keep them alive via movement, or they get sneezed on and explode (which is made slightly less painful with Nature’s Vengeance).

Thinking of a specific example that is recent enough that I’d remember clearly – when doing the Claw of Jormag event, on the first phase with the ice wall, if a spirit takes a hit from the dropping ice spike waves, they will die instantly. I believe those hit me for around 3,300 HP.

The elite spirit seems to have significantly more health than the utility spirits though, and even without the HP trait doesn’t keel over as quickly.

So should we use Spiritual Knowledge or Nature’s Vengeance? So far I have used the NV but was wondering if the tooltip/actual results of SK is worth a go.
Also does anyone know ‘for sure’ if your toughness benefits the spirit’s?
Finally do you think the Carrion Devourer’s F2 poison cloud AoE is worth it to combine with a spider pet with this build.
Sorry for the barrage of questions. I’m just a real noob at this build and haven’t had enough time to test it out properly. Only one trip into WvW thus far.

I’m curious about Quicksand (Stone Spirit 2nd activation).

• How big is the AOE
• How long does it last

Between that and Muddy Terrain, you could control quite a bit of movement in an area.

Questions about spirit health and whether ranger stats affects spirits could be tested like this:

1. Place storm spirit near non-aggressive mob like a longhorn ram.
2. Stand far back and order spirit to shock ram.
3. Add up damage numbers as spirit dies.
4. Repeat a few times, and then repeat a few times more while not wearing any armor or trinkets.

I did something like this awhile back and I estimated spirits had about 2500 health at level 80 untraited, but I wasn’t trying different armor setups or anything at the time.

To save time you could meet up with a friend (or me :-p) in an empty sPvP server with steady weapons and see how many shots it took to kill it.

misterdevious.6482:

Questions about spirit health and whether ranger stats affects spirits could be tested like this:

1. Place storm spirit near non-aggressive mob like a longhorn ram.
2. Stand far back and order spirit to shock ram.
3. Add up damage numbers as spirit dies.
4. Repeat a few times, and then repeat a few times more while not wearing any armor or trinkets.

I did something like this awhile back and I estimated spirits had about 2500 health at level 80 untraited, but I wasn’t trying different armor setups or anything at the time.

Spirits do not gain any vitality from the master, they -do- gain some toughness however, how much I can’t say for sure I can say that it’s absolutely less than 50%.

KrisHQ.4719:

Durzlla.6295:

Sebrent.3625:

Chopps, people’s biggest issue with you is that you say things that simply are not true.

I just finished testing what you guys were saying about Barrage and the various condition applicators and I found that:

• Sharpening Stone does apply the bleed per “wave” of hits, so it is possible to apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 different targets (this was true)
• Sigil of Doom does NOT apply poison to more than one target when you use barrage (so you lied)
• Weakness from spider venom applies it to the spider’s attacks (already knew this was a lie from you)
• Sun Spirit was only ever proccing burning on one target at a time, even when I traited for +15% proc chance and shooting at the large group of golems with sun spirit and barrage.

So the only thing that was true about your posts about this “awesome combo” is Sharpening Blades + Barrage. That makes less than 1/2 what you said be true. That’s not great and this isn’t the first time.

Huh so sigil of doom was nerfed since beta, I assumed that since SS worked on Barrages “wave” that sigil of doom did as well (since it is worded the same) and said it applied the poison to all of them.

This is saddening, but does not alter my choice of sigil….

You gotta admit that people can have a hard time thinking of this build as viable, when this is the kind of theorycrafting it is based on.
Thinking that you have been applying poison to a lot of targets, and writing that you see “damage numbers from bleed and poison all over the place” is not very convincing, when in the end all you did was to apply 5 stacks of bleeding.
I’m not trying to give you two a hard time personally, but i was suspicious about the build when i read the guide the first time.
Even if i REALLY wanted longbow and spirits to be viable, that is just not going to happen before we see changes from Anet.

Well seeing as how it still applies bleeding to the entire group of enemies the build is still VERY strong, the poison was just a bonus and I’m still using the sigil because it still fulfills the role of weapon swapping +attack = heal butcher.

As for the build being viable I KNOW it’s viable I have been using it for 2 weeks and we’ve lost even less tPvP matches since then and I’m the only one whose changed builds…

And in most cases seeing someone flash green and ticking for your poison damage is a pretty kittening good sign you put poison on them, but seeing as how there’s a bug that has “phantom poison” application (they do every visual cue for being poisoned but are not actually poisoned) its no longer a reliable way to test for it.

Idk why the spirits not viable you still apply AoE burning from range with it, the thing has a 900yd radius, ad can apply an maintain its effect on 10 people according to info from someone else on this forum. “Spirits apply their 6s spirit buff every 3s and prefer to put it on targets who 1) don’t have the buff, and 2) aren’t under the effects of the ICD.”

you still apply AoE burning from range with it

But it doesn’t, does it? The burning applies to one attack on one person, and the spirit MIGHT apply the buff to someone else. But “you” the player aren’t applying burning aoe, and the spirit isn’t applying aoe burning either.

Whether or not its viable isn’t really my issue, if it works for you then that’s great. But HOW it works, or might not work, does concern me.

Semil.8279:

you still apply AoE burning from range with it

But it doesn’t, does it? The burning applies to one attack on one person, and the spirit MIGHT apply the buff to someone else. But “you” the player aren’t applying burning aoe, and the spirit isn’t applying aoe burning either.

Whether or not its viable isn’t really my issue, if it works for you then that’s great. But HOW it works, or might not work, does concern me.

AoE = Area of Effect, there will be 8 allies on the battle field, 2 of them i have direct control over 2 there is 0 control over, the other 4 can be yelled at over a voip on what to be doing. All 8 of them has a 35% chance (it’s hardly a small chance, it seems to happen the first hit you have the buff) to burn some poor kitten for 1s, that either = 8s of AoE on 1 poor kittener (has happenened many a times) or 1s -3s of AoE burning to each member of their team of 5 (normally what we’ll do)

Semil.8279:

Whether or not its viable isn’t really my issue, if it works for you then that’s great. But HOW it works, or might not work, does concern me.

who cares how/why it works. Aslong as it works you should be happy, because looking deeper into ANets mechanics are only gonna lead to one of two possible things;
despair or nerfs.

I’ve said this a dozen times from headstart, spirits do not suck.
You just need to learn to play with them. Positioning yourself with spirits unbound is key. Once you manage that you’ll start to see the upsides.
Equipping longbow and shoot from a distance out of aggro and aoe (talking wvw here) while adding spirit-boons to allies helps. Going into big zergs melee, doesn’t help. You need to have some meatshields before you to take the blows while you remain behind them, sniping the enemy and give your allies around you spirit-buffs.

Then try equipping stone-spirit with the 15% extra bonus chance and spirits unbound. Now watch how often all your allies around you have protection.
It’s nice!

Robert Hrouda.1327:

This is a great thread! Glad to see the discussions being had.

I’m noticing a lot of people wondering and estimating the size of attacks, durations, and things like that… I will talk with our balance team to see how they feel about adding more detailed skill facts to the spirits.
We’re aware that spirits need more than just skill facts – we’re working on resolving that as well.

I’m actually going to recommend against doing that..

Because if you do a tooltip fix for Spirits, and nothing else…you’re going to get skewered on this forum rather badly.

Xsorus.2507:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

This is a great thread! Glad to see the discussions being had.

I’m noticing a lot of people wondering and estimating the size of attacks, durations, and things like that… I will talk with our balance team to see how they feel about adding more detailed skill facts to the spirits.
We’re aware that spirits need more than just skill facts – we’re working on resolving that as well.

I’m actually going to recommend against doing that..

Because if you do a tooltip fix for Spirits, and nothing else…you’re going to get skewered on this forum rather badly.

which is why i said what it said…

If you want to “fix” spirits, you should do one of two things;

A: Make them invulnerable with a longer “summoning time” and more cooldown
B: Make them able to move from the beginning, with infinite summoning time, but buff their combat stats (toughness, vitality, AOE immunity)

Prysin.8542:

Xsorus.2507:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

This is a great thread! Glad to see the discussions being had.

I’m noticing a lot of people wondering and estimating the size of attacks, durations, and things like that… I will talk with our balance team to see how they feel about adding more detailed skill facts to the spirits.
We’re aware that spirits need more than just skill facts – we’re working on resolving that as well.

I’m actually going to recommend against doing that..

Because if you do a tooltip fix for Spirits, and nothing else…you’re going to get skewered on this forum rather badly.

which is why i said what it said…

If you want to “fix” spirits, you should do one of two things;

A: Make them invulnerable with a longer “summoning time” and more cooldown
B: Make them able to move from the beginning, with infinite summoning time, but buff their combat stats (toughness, vitality, AOE immunity)

I’d prefer option C…

C: Make spirits REALLY powerful “totems” (IE every enemy in radius is constantly burned until the spirit dies), but leave spirits as super squishy.

Durzlla.6295:

I’d prefer option C…

C: Make spirits REALLY powerful “totems” (IE every enemy in radius is constantly burned until the spirit dies), but leave spirits as super squishy.

And then how would the cooldown be affected? How would this affect protection? +10% damage? Swiftness (lol) ?

Being super squishy, coming from a mesmer with squishy clones, makes things not last very long … enemies usually don’t even have to think about them in order to accidentally kill them while going after you. I’m not for anything that doesn’t require additional thinking on the part of the players involved (both to use and to counter).

Durzlla.6295:

Semil.8279:

you still apply AoE burning from range with it

But it doesn’t, does it? The burning applies to one attack on one person, and the spirit MIGHT apply the buff to someone else. But “you” the player aren’t applying burning aoe, and the spirit isn’t applying aoe burning either.

Whether or not its viable isn’t really my issue, if it works for you then that’s great. But HOW it works, or might not work, does concern me.

AoE = Area of Effect, there will be 8 allies on the battle field, 2 of them i have direct control over 2 there is 0 control over, the other 4 can be yelled at over a voip on what to be doing. All 8 of them has a 35% chance (it’s hardly a small chance, it seems to happen the first hit you have the buff) to burn some poor kitten for 1s, that either = 8s of AoE on 1 poor kittener (has happenened many a times) or 1s -3s of AoE burning to each member of their team of 5 (normally what we’ll do)

Unless you’re counting a person as an area, burning from Sun Spirit isn’t AoE. The area of effect of the buff might be said to be AoE, but there is no AoE burning created here.

Semil.8279:

Durzlla.6295:

Semil.8279:

you still apply AoE burning from range with it

But it doesn’t, does it? The burning applies to one attack on one person, and the spirit MIGHT apply the buff to someone else. But “you” the player aren’t applying burning aoe, and the spirit isn’t applying aoe burning either.

Whether or not its viable isn’t really my issue, if it works for you then that’s great. But HOW it works, or might not work, does concern me.

AoE = Area of Effect, there will be 8 allies on the battle field, 2 of them i have direct control over 2 there is 0 control over, the other 4 can be yelled at over a voip on what to be doing. All 8 of them has a 35% chance (it’s hardly a small chance, it seems to happen the first hit you have the buff) to burn some poor kitten for 1s, that either = 8s of AoE on 1 poor kittener (has happenened many a times) or 1s -3s of AoE burning to each member of their team of 5 (normally what we’ll do)

Unless you’re counting a person as an area, burning from Sun Spirit isn’t AoE. The area of effect of the buff might be said to be AoE, but there is no AoE burning created here.

Through spirit of sun you can cause a group of people burn, that’s AoE if you ask me….

Sebrent.3625:

Durzlla.6295:

I’d prefer option C…

C: Make spirits REALLY powerful “totems” (IE every enemy in radius is constantly burned until the spirit dies), but leave spirits as super squishy.

And then how would the cooldown be affected? How would this affect protection? +10% damage? Swiftness (lol) ?

Being super squishy, coming from a mesmer with squishy clones, makes things not last very long … enemies usually don’t even have to think about them in order to accidentally kill them while going after you. I’m not for anything that doesn’t require additional thinking on the part of the players involved (both to use and to counter).

CD stays the same, and spirits don’t really move… so the whole thing behind them is to place them intelligently for a powerful effect that can be taken away quickly, like in GW1.

Semil, in the name of great justice and whatever else there is out there.
Go away. Your personal crusade ain’t helping this thread anymore.

Back at topic.
Option “C” would ruin the whole spirit thing and be totally out of sync with the profession itself. Totems would only make sense for a shaman type of profession.

Hah, I didn’t realize exactly what spirits do until I tried them myself in the mists. Spirits do have an internal cooldown.

…this is probably why they aren’t very effective. I assumed it was something that could proc on each skill use but nope. If they remove the internal cooldown so you can proc the effects per target, I’d say that’d make them about perfect. Strong effects but destructible.

I’ve ran a spirit build with HP trait on a dungeon as simple as AC and the spirits still die in record time. Minions are just garbage in the current state of the game because they don’t have WoW’s aoe avoidance mechanic giving them AoE damage reduction or healing from the master’s damage.

Mobs in dungeons and WvW damage is specifically designed to make players with about as much as 30k HP to dodge or risk death. AI that cannot dodge out of such amount of damage is going to die unless they have robust passive mitigation and regeneration mechanisms.

On Durzilla’s guide I stated my skepticism about his understanding of ICD’s. I guess I was correct.

More importantly, I’ve found that spirits unbound kills your pets more often than not because planting them in a safe spotworks more even though it comes at the cost of not gaining their benefit often because their range is small such as a fight like Lupicus where you need to stay mobile you may walk out of their range.

Spirits Unbound as a ranger that wishes to use melee is outright sabotage of your spirits. And it’s a shame because any efficient group will want to maximize their melee uptime as not only is melee perfectly doable at high to permanent uptimes in most encounters, but it cleaves baseline for aoe damage on autoattack (your biggest source of sustained damage) and special skills and it does significantly more damage than ranged attacks.

Spirits should see their ICD reduced to 5 seconds for spvp and outright removed for the PvE aspect of the game. Alongside with survivability increases. Storm Spirit’s proc needs to be changed because swiftness is just weak in combat. A second of quickness or triggering vulnerability/blind on an opponent would be more appropriate.

Just give every spirit an individual ICD.
Stone Spirit – stays 10 sec
Frost Spirit – no icd at all
Fire Spirit – 2 sec
Storm Spirit(the most annoying mofo in DotA) – hm… This one actually needs a rework… maybe make it give a chance to get a stack of might too, then it might be worth considering.

Spirits as Totems = Basically Traps
Spirits Invulnerable = Basically Group Version of Signets

That is the current problem with ideas like that..

I have an idea on how you could change them…

@Zenith, oh, I don’t know how the ICD works? Please tell me more about how I don’t understand such a simple system!!

PS: it’s per player bro, not spirit.