Guild Wars 2

Had a few thoughts on how to improve spirits/general ranger group utility lately after testing out what we already have (or lack, technically) .

• Make spirits undamageable
• 60s cooldown
• Ends after 40s passive or on active use

Sun Spirit
Passive = 35% chance to gain might and apply burning on crit
Active = creates fire field and blinds foes in range
Frost Spirit
Passive = 35% chance to inflict vulnerability on crit
Active = creates ice field, chills foes and gives protection to allies in range
Storm Spirit:
Passive = 25% chance to interupt and gain quickness on crit (might need an ICD on that)
Active = creates lightning field and dazes foes in range.
Benevolent Spirit (my naming conventions are unrivalled)
Passive = boons gain 15% duration and allies gain 10% more healing,
Active = creates water field, gives retaliation and restores 50% endurance
Spiteful Spirit (because screw necros)
Passive = conditions gain 15% duration and allies gain 10% more condi dmg
Active = creates poison field and inflicts weakness on foes in range

Assuming spirits couldn’t be targeted (and they shouldn’t be if banners aren’t breakable), traits would be fine as they are if Vigorous Spirits was changed to increase effect range. Maybe even change them to spirit ‘totems’ that can be moved around in a similar manner. Banners buff stats, spirits give boons/conditions. A Grandmaster trait to extend duration/reduce cooldown would be good. Should only effect 5 allies in range in addition to the player (or 6 if pets count as allies, I forget) to avoid WvWvW abuse.

I already had this typed up and am a little tired right now to properly consider the numbers, but on paper it looks like using a spirit would be handy, and actually traiting a build around them would be great. Spirits as they are just don’t work; they die from a funny look and in any PvP they are targetted on sight.

It’d be nice if somebody could point out any obvious flaws in this that I’m not thinking about , but as much as I don’t like the idea I feel like it’s a waste of time speculating. An entire profession with this many problems isn’t getting fixed any time soon (not when there are new backpacks to be thinking about designing).

On crit is a terrible mechanic for a utility skill activation, as not all builds rely on critical hits. A smaller chance but simply on-hit would be preferable so that they have universal benefit.

Swiftwynd.1685:

On crit is a terrible mechanic for a utility skill activation, as not all builds rely on critical hits. A smaller chance but simply on-hit would be preferable so that they have universal benefit.

You beat me to it lol

Whatever redesign you do please lower the cooldown and make the active just trigger on death imo. The current implementation is very hard to use and high cooldowns don’t help in getting stuff to work.

20 seconds cooldown, 40 seconds duration, old spirits dies when casting a new one

Would make it so much more accessible and also solve the low hp problem imo. Oh and I agree that the active effect should just be the corresponding combo field. Keeps things simple and useful.

Like many others, I feel that the Spirits Unbound trait needs to be looked at as well. I feel that it should either:

- Give a large amount of passive regen
- Give a large buff to vitality and toughness (to stack with the trait the doubles health)
- Make spirits untargetable
- Give spirits permanent protection and regeneration

Or all the above

Richard.1498:

Had a few thoughts on how to improve spirits/general ranger group utility lately after testing out what we already have (or lack, technically) .

• Make spirits undamageable
• 60s cooldown
• Ends after 40s passive or on active use

Sun Spirit
Passive = 35% chance to gain might and apply burning on crit
Active = creates fire field and blinds foes in range
Frost Spirit
Passive = 35% chance to inflict vulnerability on crit
Active = creates ice field, chills foes and gives protection to allies in range
Storm Spirit:
Passive = 25% chance to interupt and gain quickness on crit (might need an ICD on that)
Active = creates lightning field and dazes foes in range.
Benevolent Spirit (my naming conventions are unrivalled)
Passive = boons gain 15% duration and allies gain 10% more healing,
Active = creates water field, gives retaliation and restores 50% endurance
Spiteful Spirit (because screw necros)
Passive = conditions gain 15% duration and allies gain 10% more condi dmg
Active = creates poison field and inflicts weakness on foes in range

Assuming spirits couldn’t be targeted (and they shouldn’t be if banners aren’t breakable), traits would be fine as they are if Vigorous Spirits was changed to increase effect range. Maybe even change them to spirit ‘totems’ that can be moved around in a similar manner. Banners buff stats, spirits give boons/conditions. A Grandmaster trait to extend duration/reduce cooldown would be good. Should only effect 5 allies in range in addition to the player (or 6 if pets count as allies, I forget) to avoid WvWvW abuse.

I already had this typed up and am a little tired right now to properly consider the numbers, but on paper it looks like using a spirit would be handy, and actually traiting a build around them would be great. Spirits as they are just don’t work; they die from a funny look and in any PvP they are targetted on sight.

It’d be nice if somebody could point out any obvious flaws in this that I’m not thinking about , but as much as I don’t like the idea I feel like it’s a waste of time speculating. An entire profession with this many problems isn’t getting fixed any time soon (not when there are new backpacks to be thinking about designing).

I like some of these ideas you have. I wish I was a number cruncher, then I could tell you if the ideas are OP or UP. Spirits do need help. Our elite spirit needs love too. I would like to see it get passive regen to allies.
I played the build in a dungeon recently. Luckily it was with guildies and in story mode. I am a total dungeon noob but I didn’t go down until the final boss & that was a poor communication issue on timing the attack.
Unfortunately I had to stay at mid to long range the whole time. The only benefit I provided with the spirits was to the lone Mesmer standing beside me. That and I did a few spirit suicide runs to activate them on the boss.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We’re aware that spirits need more than just skill facts – we’re working on resolving that as well.

Mind if I quote you on that?

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We’re aware that spirits need more than just skill facts – we’re working on resolving that as well.

Mind if I quote you on that?

Frosty, if ArenaNet has taught us nothing else over the last 6-7 months, it’s that they don’t mind at all if you quote them. If nothing they said comes to fruition, it’s not that they lied to us, it’s just that “the truth changed”. And in some people’s minds, you’ll find they think there’s a distinction between the two.

Before we get spirit buffs, we’ll get more tooltip and icon fixes.

Arekai.5698:

Before we get spirit buffs, we’ll get more tooltip and icon fixes.

So says Arekai the psychic … I mean pessimist, lol.

You should try out the greatsword since the latest patch. It is a much better weapon.

Maul hits much harder and the cooldown changes are actually pretty significant … even more so if you reduce them by 20% more via traits.

Any news on getting detailed information about the spirits? Many people are working hard to find a viable build that incorporates them in various settings: WvW, PvE, sPvP, dungeons.
The more information we have, the easier it is to work on the builds.
Please & Thank you
Also thanks for continuing to follow the thread. There have been many good ideas expressed herein.

Actually, yes, Robert, do you think you could relay to us any of the potential fixes that are being brainstormed for spirits? Sort of like you did for Ranger pets in dungeons and the other devs did about the “boon hate” idea in the State of the Game interview?

Most of us would appreciate it. Those that wouldn’t won’t appreciate anything anyways ;-)

Might be good for solo pve, but not dungeons.

Even with the health increase trait, spirits die in about 2 hits. You can place your spirit in certain spots if you dont have the movable spirit trait on, but you will lost too much damage.

Ping.5739:

Might be good for solo pve, but not dungeons.

Even with the health increase trait, spirits die in about 2 hits. You can place your spirit in certain spots if you dont have the movable spirit trait on, but you will lost too much damage.

Damage isn’t everything, and me being built to keep our GCs up longer and hitting harder tends to be better in instances then me going GC myself, that and I prefer that sort of play style.

@rest of the people,

I still really like the idea of spirits creating a combo field with their active, I think it’d be great if the active was also either ground targeted or target based instead of what it currently is…

Durzlla.6295:

Ping.5739:

Might be good for solo pve, but not dungeons.

Even with the health increase trait, spirits die in about 2 hits. You can place your spirit in certain spots if you dont have the movable spirit trait on, but you will lost too much damage.

Damage isn’t everything, and me being built to keep our GCs up longer and hitting harder tends to be better in instances then me going GC myself, that and I prefer that sort of play style.

@rest of the people,

I still really like the idea of spirits creating a combo field with their active, I think it’d be great if the active was also either ground targeted or target based instead of what it currently is…

I got a mesmer and a guardian in my group….. so my job is to maximize dps…

Ping.5739:

Durzlla.6295:

Ping.5739:

Might be good for solo pve, but not dungeons.

Even with the health increase trait, spirits die in about 2 hits. You can place your spirit in certain spots if you dont have the movable spirit trait on, but you will lost too much damage.

Damage isn’t everything, and me being built to keep our GCs up longer and hitting harder tends to be better in instances then me going GC myself, that and I prefer that sort of play style.

@rest of the people,

I still really like the idea of spirits creating a combo field with their active, I think it’d be great if the active was also either ground targeted or target based instead of what it currently is…

I got a mesmer and a guardian in my group….. so my job is to maximize dps…

I do too, my guardian is a GC guardian and my Mesmer is a boon manipulator, IE guardian, thief, and ele are raining down hell on the mobs/players, the mes keeps the enemies boon less and is full of boons, and I boost everyone’s survivability and damage ankittenhe “Rez kitten”/tank.

This was posted by Shiren.9532 in another thread about spirits and I think it’s great.

“We may as well replace spirits with a viable support set of utilities if they insist the current design is fine. It’s not fine, it’s passive and boring, weak and unreliable and it doesn’t give you interesting or particularly useful strategic tools to use, build or play around.

Make their actives more support oriented, this lets the spirits do what they were designed to do (support) and gives the ranger access to more ways to tap into mechanics they are sorely missing. The passives are also boring and far too weak. Compare them to the vanilla effects of shouts and banners (never mind how they can be traited and built around) and remember that spirits can also be killed.

I’d like to see something more like this:

Storm Spirit: Summon a storm spirit that grants nearby allies a chance to gain fury when attacking.
Storm Spirit (6s): 35% chance to grant 5 seconds of fury on hit. (1m) +50 precision and +10% critical damage.
Effective radius: 600
Effect recharge: 10 seconds
Duration: 60 s
Call Winds: Create a swirling wind that destroys projectiles. Doing this will disable the chance to gain fury.
Duration: 6 s
Radius: 400
Recharge: 20 s

Giving rangers access to mechanics like swirling winds allows them to contribute to groups the same way other classes can (making them more useful during fights like Kholer where Feedback, Wall of Reflection and Swirling Winds save people from his pull, rangers can also help out if they bring this skill). It makes the active more interesting and it makes the spirit more support oriented (these are our support skills, they should be powerful interesting and supportive, not pseudo AoE damage spells). Losing the chance to gain an effect when the active is on cooldowns creates interesting decisions and discourages mindless spamming. The passive bonus which is always active means the spirit will always be helping out in a small way, regardless of which decision you make.

Frost Spirit: Summon a frost spirit that grants nearby allies a chance to chill their foe when attacking.
Frost Spirit (6s): 35% chance to cause chill (1s) on hit. (1m) +50 healing and regenerate health.
Effective radius: 600
Effect recharge: 10 seconds
Duration: 60 s
Cold Snap: Your frost spirit releases a freezing blast of arctic air, chilling nearby foes. Doing this will disable the chance to cause chill.
Chilled: 5 s every second
Duration: 5 s
Radius: 400
Recharge: 40 s

Stone Spirit: Summon a stone spirit that gives nearby allies a chance to gain protection.
Stone Spirit (6s): 35% chance to apply protection on hit. (1m) +50 toughness and conditions on you expire 25% faster.
Protection: 3 s
Effect recharge: 10 seconds
Duration: 60 s
Quicksand: Your stone spirit softens the earth around it, crippling and blinding foes. This disables the chance to gain protection.
Crippled: 2 s (each second)
Blind: 3 s (each second)
Duration: 5 s
Radius: 400
Recharge: 40 seconds

Quicksand currently overlaps with Muddy Terrain. Changing the immobilise to blind brings back some of the ranger abilities from GW1 where we could get blind from throw dirt and dust trap. It also fits in with the defensive nature of the spirit and would be a powerful strategic active to justify losing protection.
Even auras would be better than their current actives.

Change a few of their traits:

Spiritual Knowledge – Spirit bonuses have a 15% better chance of providing their benefits and an increased radius of effect.
Spirits Unbound – Spirits can move and follow you and their activated abilities are ground targeted.
Vigorous Spirits – Spirits have twice as much health and toughness.

Increasing the range of their passive bonus allows spirits to stay out of harms way (unless harm comes to it) while continuing to buff the party. This will help them be useful and survive longer. Ground targeting for their active abilities will allow them to be strategic ans useful, without ground targeting their actives are very difficult to reliably use. Allow us to select where we summon them when initially casting them. Randomly appearing somewhere in front of us can be really annoying, they would live a lot longer if we could summon them behind some terrain like a pillar, a wall, up on a rock or something like that. Without the ability to survive hits through higher toughness and vitality (or AoE damage reduction), even following the ranger around isn’t going to be enough to keep them alive, especially during a boss fight.

Currently, spirits don’t provide enough benefits for the sacrifices you have to make to bring them. Their passive effects are weak and their actives are boring and too difficult to use effectively. Compared with the utilities other professions have, spirits offer weaker and unreliable buffs, boring and forgettable actives AND they are easily destroyed and put on a long cooldown."

I’m liking a good number of ideas here and where most of you guys’ heads are at.

However, honestly, at this point I really just want to hear some level of information from Robert (or any other ArenaNet employee) as to what ideas are being brainstormed for Ranger spirits as well as the Ranger’s other utilities.

As long as there aren’t a bunch of players around, you can buff siege damage with Frost spirit. 10% bigger siege hits 50% of the time without any cooldown is a significant boost… compared to the +5% you can earn with WxP.

I started a thread in the WvW section yesterday, but it didn’t get much attention:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Is-this-Ranger-siege-advantage-intended

Honestly, I think since it requires there to not be many other players around, that it is rather lackluster since you often want players around manning and defending your siege equipment.

A nice advantage on siege is what warriors gets with their 10 point trait in Tactics Leg Specialist working with the cripple from arrowcarts. Since siege is not limited to the 5 target max, you can do a 1 second immobilize on an entire zerg. Furthermore, with multiple warriors manning arrows carts, you have multiple 1 second immobilizes on an entire zerg.

They get a 100% that always works. We simply get a chance to increase damage, but only when there aren’t many people around. Ugh.

Elementalists, too, have it nice. Their swirling winds can protect siege from other siege attacks (as well as player projectiles, of course).

Best thing the Ranger has? Can command your pet while on siege … except it can’t get out of the keep/tower you’re in if that’s where you’re manning siege from.

misterdevious.6482:

As long as there aren’t a bunch of players around, you can buff siege damage with Frost spirit. 10% bigger siege hits 50% of the time without any cooldown is a significant boost… compared to the +5% you can earn with WxP.

I started a thread in the WvW section yesterday, but it didn’t get much attention:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Is-this-Ranger-siege-advantage-intended

You mean 15% from wxp.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hey folks, this should be a talk about spirits and boons, not about Anet communication. If you feel strongly about it, please start a new thread concerning it.

It will be ignored.

Seetoo.9316:

You mean 15% from wxp.

Q: Do multiple levels of 1 ability stack together?
A: The only 2 lines that persist are the Cannon Mastery and Ballista Mastery lines. This means that if you purchase 3 levels of Cannon Mastery you will strip a boon from players, increase your damage, and apply more bleed stacks.
The other 6 lines replace their previous versions. If you purchase 3 levels of Siege Might you will have a total of 3% increased siege damage, not 6%. We are looking into the messaging of these two types and will improve it in future builds.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/World-Ranks-FAQ/first#post1767952

Also the ballista and cannon mastery give 25% but the tips were incorrect.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Cannon-and-Ballista-Mastery-Incorrect-Tooltip/first#post1735857

Sweet. Confirmation to ignore every rank skill aside from ballista and cannon skills.

Seetoo.9316:

Sweet. Confirmation to ignore every rank skill aside from ballista and cannon skills.

And carrying extra supplies. That is quite nice. Increases the number of supplies you can carry by 33% to 50% (15 / 10 = 1.5 … 20 / 15 = .333).

Seetoo.9316:

Sweet. Confirmation to ignore every rank skill aside from ballista and cannon skills.

Is it bad that the only reason I’m going for Mercenarys Bane is so I can butcher Quaggons at Breakneck pace?

I’m saving my other points for when catapult mastery arrives… It’s ok, I’ll wait, my babies will see buffs one day… pets the 250 catapult blueprints in inventory soon my pets…

Sebrent.3625:

Seetoo.9316:

Sweet. Confirmation to ignore every rank skill aside from ballista and cannon skills.

And carrying extra supplies. That is quite nice. Increases the number of supplies you can carry by 33% to 50% (15 / 10 = 1.5 … 20 / 15 = .333).

Not for 300 rank points.

Seetoo.9316:

Sebrent.3625:

Seetoo.9316:

Sweet. Confirmation to ignore every rank skill aside from ballista and cannon skills.

And carrying extra supplies. That is quite nice. Increases the number of supplies you can carry by 33% to 50% (15 / 10 = 1.5 … 20 / 15 = .333).

Not for 300 rank points.

Yeah I was going to go for that too but then I saw the cost and threw up a little…

It would’ve been ok if it totaled +15. +1 costs 20pts, 300/20 = 15.

Oh, I agree that the cost is ridiculous. I just think having it is quite beneficial.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hey folks, this should be a talk about spirits and boons, not about Anet communication. If you feel strongly about it, please start a new thread concerning it. Otherwise please stay on topic. I’ll have a forum mod come in here and try to clean this place up a bit – maybe start a new thread or something where the discussion can be moved there.

Hey peeps seems like our feedback about spirits and boons is being read and considered (and what so many complain about that, devs not reading our feedback), so let’s take full advantadge of that instead of talking bout Anet communication.

On topic:

Playing spirit builds since headstart, adding my 2 cents.

WvW Spirits are only usefull in WvW when taking:

Traits
Vigorous Spirits IV Because when you enter a battle with more then approximately 3 enemies that target you, there is too much aoe which will kill your squishy spirits very very fast. With Vigorous Spirits they last a little longer.
Spirits Unbound XI Since you’re so much on the move in WvW, you really need this trait. If you somehow come into a situation where it’s group vs group or zerg vs zerg without much movement, maybe with excellent spirit-placement you won’t need this trait. But that situation occurs almost never to not bring this trait.
side-note In dungeons Spirits Unbound XI is not always a must because you and your team are often fighting in the same room/space.

Ranged
Going in with melee is in most situations not an option when having spirits equipped. Once you go in melee with spirits in WvW when in a battle with more then +- 3 enemies you’re spirits will die quickly because of aoe-attack from enemies. You could enter quickly and toggle their skills to add some conditions to them, but you’ll lose the buffs added to yourself and allies if they’re dead and you’ll have to wait for their CD to be over.
Longbow offers you the option to snipe from a distance while adding boons to yourself and allies (stated you are with allies, more info about this later). This, imo, is best. Shortbow and other ranged weapons are also nice, but I, myself, find myself to be in red circles still too often with shortbow and axe.

Team/Tactic
A full spirit-build is really team-based and not for solo-ing.
Some ppl like tanky builds and hold up against 3, 4, 5 or a lot more players. Spirits are useless for that.
I like it best when I’m in a team with other players that are tanky and get aggro or melee in front of me. This way I can snipe behind my allies while adding buffs to allies and myself and not be in aoe/aggro/red circles. This way I get full advantadge of my spirits and they’re not going down because I’m safely behind my allies whilst still doing damage (fyi, I do use trait Eagle Eye X from markmanship, to increase the distance between me and enemies even more).
In big zergs I run from side to side in a half cirlcle, or straight line, depending on how the enemy positioned itself, to get my spirit buffs on all my allies. This is not nescessary when you’re with a few allies. While doing this I snipe with longbow from the biggest range I can manage to avoid damage to my spirits.

Solo / 1 v 1 situation
Of course sometimes there is some thief that slips through, you find yourself in a 1 v 1 situation or somehow you got yourself surrounded by enemies. That’s when the spirit-toggle skills come in. I just drop them all at once (frost, sun and stone >> chill, blind, immobilize) to get out of the situation, dodging and healing my way out if you want to. Unless it’s a 1 v 1, then you just kill your enemy. It’s not the best 1 v 1 build, but it’s not that bad. I ran 1 v 1 builds a lot worse with other utilities.

Boons
In WvW I always use Stone Frost and Sun spirit and sometimes Spirit of Nature (not too fond of this one because of animation/reaction time of it’s toggle skill and it’s range, this is not cool in zerg vs zerg). Most other people have speed-buffs along with them, that’s why I don’t bring along Storm spirit. Also, people will only get Storm spirit speedbuff when they are attacking… While you actually want the speedbuff when you’re not attacking and moving from one place to another in WvW.
Spiritual Knowledge XIII Is my second trait, with the others mentioned above, I always use in WvW. No explanation needed, just the 15% extra chance for spirit-buffs to get the buffs on me and allies more often.

Conclusion
In my oppinion, spirits in WvW can be usefull and fun, but you’re really bound to certain traits, weapon, role and way of positioning yourself on the battlefield. There is no room for other traits, weapons, roles or position like I mentioned above. That makes it less fun.

I’m hoping with some future spirit-improvements we can get less bound to some of those aspects and make spirits more viable and versatile.

I would like to give a suggestion about spirits :

1)Make spirits a wisp type orb that follows you around , much like the buff u get from the svanir or chieftain in sPvP . That way it will take far less space on the screen.

2)The spirits would be invulnerable to damage

3)Keep their passive abilities procs , but reduce the downtime from 10 seconds to 5

4)Make their active abilities ground targetable

5)Tweak the trait upgrades so that the Health Buff is translated into a cooldown reduction , and the grandmaster movement buff is translated into Range and AOE radius buff .

Chokolata.1870:

I would like to give a suggestion about spirits :

1)Make spirits a wisp type orb that follows you around , much like the buff u get from the svanir or chieftain in sPvP . That way it will take far less space on the screen.

2)The spirits would be invulnerable to damage

3)Keep their passive abilities procs , but reduce the downtime from 10 seconds to 5

4)Make their active abilities ground targetable

5)Tweak the trait upgrades so that the Health Buff is translated into a cooldown reduction , and the grandmaster movement buff is translated into Range and AOE radius buff .

I believe I could get behind this idea 100%. 5 Very good points that could be done with it being balanced.

Now if only they’d balance other classes while dragging us from UP to balanced :-p

I am going to quote Durzlla from another post:

" That being said I wish our spirits still have a field effect like in beta when traited for natures vengeance…

Sun= fire, frost= frost, storm= air, stone = light (I know, it was weird), elite = water

PS: those spirit fields were WHAT THEY GAVE IN BWE2."

I played a ranger in BWE2 but didn’t even mess with spirits. If they did give these attributes did they ever say why they took it away?
Obviously they meant for the spirits to have the fields but maybe they were OP?
Maybe they could reduce the time the field was active but still bring them back.

EDIT: just to let you guys know I am searching for reasons for the nerf to spirits but the forum search is not so optimal for old posts. It loves to tease you with how many hits but you only get to see the first page of them. Off to google

Infernia.9847:

I am going to quote Durzlla from another post:

" That being said I wish our spirits still have a field effect like in beta when traited for natures vengeance…

Sun= fire, frost= frost, storm= air, stone = light (I know, it was weird), elite = water

PS: those spirit fields were WHAT THEY GAVE IN BWE2."

I played a ranger in BWE2 but didn’t even mess with spirits. If they did give these attributes did they ever say why they took it away?
Obviously they meant for the spirits to have the fields but maybe they were OP?
Maybe they could reduce the time the field was active but still bring them back.

EDIT: just to let you guys know I am searching for reasons for the nerf to spirits but the forum search is not so optimal for old posts. It loves to tease you with how many hits but you only get to see the first page of them. Off to google

The way Natures Vengeance worked in BWE2 was when the spirit died it created a field that had 2 effects which go as follows.

Sun: Burns enemies, cleanses condis from allies

Storm: Blinds enemies every few seconds, grants vigor (2s) to allies every few seconds

Stone: was REALLY weird, it removed boons from enemies and granted i want to say either aegis or swiftness (maybe both?) every few seconds… i still don’t know who signed that off, it was just kittening weird…

Frost: Created an ice field that chilled enemies (surprised?) and i think gave fury to allies?

Nature: The water field was essentially a pulsing field of its active, every few seconds it’d grant regen to allies, remove all boons from allies, and rez all allies. it only pulsed twice though.

All the others pulsed like 5 or 6 times?

NOTE: This info -WILL- be off a bit, this happened in BWE2, was ONLY in BWE2, and i cleared my “testing archives” of the info after it was removed, because beta is beta and i’m not keeping a list of what could’ve been.

Thx for the info Durzlla. The only reason I brought this up was that it was their intention to use them in such a way but it must have been OP or else it would have remained in the game.
Redesigning and thus recoding spirits would be quite intensive as opposed to taking something that was already in-game and balancing it better.

Infernia.9847:

Thx for the info Durzlla. The only reason I brought this up was that it was their intention to use them in such a way but it must have been OP or else it would have remained in the game.
Redesigning and thus recoding spirits would be quite intensive as opposed to taking something that was already in-game and balancing it better.

Yea it was there, so idk why it was removed… they were a little OP, but some basic number altering would’ve made it fine. Not to mention that those only occurred when you had a 20pt trait and required your spirits to die…

That sounded like it’d make them… You know, actually useful. What we have now…

Not so much.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

That sounded like it’d make them… You know, actually useful. What we have now…

Not so much.

It sure as hell made people not want to kill the spirits, like I remember people would even cancel out of their burst to avoid killing them because those were some STRONG fields which had HS radius.

Durzlla.6295:

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

That sounded like it’d make them… You know, actually useful. What we have now…

Not so much.

It sure as hell made people not want to kill the spirits, like I remember people would even cancel out of their burst to avoid killing them because those were some STRONG fields which had HS radius.

And that is the sort of thing the spirits need. If they can tone down the damage or the time the field is up, something to keep it from being OP, the code is there. Thus you are only talking about a number-crunching game of balancing.

As with everyone else, I’ve come to the invetible conclusion that ranger spirits are far too fragile in nearly every situation, sPvP, WvW, PvE, and otherwise. A single AoE can wipe out an entire pack before they even finish activating their abilities. Until that gaping flaw is fixed, spirits will always be ulta-useless.