Guild Wars 2

Storm Spirit: Changed the on-hit boon to now apply 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds.

Nature’s Vengeance: Increased the might per pulse for Frost Spirit from 1 stack to 3 stacks and the duration from 1 second to 3 seconds. Increased the swiftness per pulse for Storm Spirit from 1 second to 3 seconds. Increased the regeneration per pulse for Water Spirit from 1 second to 3 seconds.

Though abit disappointed no change to Nature Spirit.. (shorten the CD abit since it’s immobile now?)

Now less reason to pick up Druid’s useless glyphs :P

Thank. The. Gods.

I’m a bit disappointed there was no notes about Spirit of Nature’s passive being 1000 range, or even a CD drop to like 120, but I’m happy Storm Spirit FINALLY gets a purpose now in game modes other than a pseudo-road marker.

Now this begs the question – Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit or both?
Frost is now a 7.5% damage bonus with permanent 3 stacks of might on you and your party (15 on your pet, assuming Nature Magic), while Storm is just 15 stacks of vulnerability. Thoughts?

Vulnerability is usually well covered throughout the party. One warrior, one ranger and an ele can keep up decent vuln without much investment. If you’re not using quickening zephyr, having Sun spirit is the best extra damage you can add to the party. The extra burns, plus the detonation near the end of the fight is pretty good, even without condition damage. Just the condition damage from might stacks and bonus damage from vuln make it worthwhile.

Maximum Potato.5923:

Now this begs the question – Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit or both?
Frost is now a 7.5% damage bonus with permanent 3 stacks of might on you and your party (15 on your pet, assuming Nature Magic), while Storm is just 15 stacks of vulnerability. Thoughts?

All three.

Frost, Sun, and Storm are our best group damage contributions.

The most replaceable will be Storm since vulnerability is easy to stack, but what this means is other classes can trait for other things and not worry about applying vulnerability.

With a ranger and storm spirit, for example, elementalists don’t even need to worry about glyph of lightning storm.

This still doesn’t address the issues with spirits. They still die way to easily and in a lot of cases are just sub par.

Maximum Potato.5923:

Now this begs the question – Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit or both?
Frost is now a 7.5% damage bonus with permanent 3 stacks of might on you and your party (15 on your pet, assuming Nature Magic), while Storm is just 15 stacks of vulnerability. Thoughts?

That would depend on other sources of vulnerability. 15 stacks of vulnerability = 15% more damage on target. If you, or your group can max that anyway, go with Frost.

In my experience, the overwhelming majority of dungeon runners are still in ascended power infused berserker rather than sinister gear (myself included) so I don’t know if sun really does that much pre-expansion? I also am skeptical condis actually decrease a boss kill time any measurable amount when they all die instantly to crits and ferocity without waiting for burning to kick in.

Kitty.1502:

This still doesn’t address the issues with spirits. They still die way to easily and in a lot of cases are just sub par.

They don’t die that easily tbh (well maybe if you place them under Tequatl or something that has AoE’s with above 5 target limit). In dungeons most AoE skills are limited to 5, and spirits/pets don’t get affected if all players are in range to be targeted first. And even when they die, the buff still pulses for a few seconds (I believe it’s 6 seconds, not sure). So their actual downtime is less than the 20 second recharge. And with the buff to WHaO, there’s less of a need to go for beastmastery, making nature magic and its longer boons/personal damage boost trait available (at least for the zerk build, the cond build is still all about beastmastery/wilderness/skirmishing).

EDIT:
@Fluffball
At 25 might stacks (750 cond dmg) 2 stacks of burning applied by the passive of Sun spirit deal 1487 damage over 3 seconds. With 25% more from vuln that’s 1858 (or 1859 if the game rounds up). From 5 people all proccing it once during the 8 second ICD that’s an extra 9290 damage. All that’s required for that damage to become “real” is the boss fight lasting 8 seconds which pretty much all do. You can also detonate it almost as soon as you put it down in case the boss melts fast and it will add another 3 stacks for 5 seconds. You will still get the buff for another 6 or so seconds after its detonation.

I would say both depending on the party and the Ranger’s build. For unorganized groups/PUGs, the change to Storm Spirit should make it sought after for LFGs in parties that lack vulnerability application. I would guess that if total vulnerability from the party cannot breach 10-12 stacks, take Storm & Frost Spirit if you’re Berserker. If you’re Sinister, drop Frost for Storm.

Elorna.5329:

Kitty.1502:

This still doesn’t address the issues with spirits. They still die way to easily and in a lot of cases are just sub par.

They don’t die that easily tbh (well maybe if you place them under Tequatl or something that has AoE’s with above 5 target limit). In dungeons most AoE skills are limited to 5, and spirits/pets don’t get affected if all players are in range to be targeted first. And even when they die, the buff still pulses for a few seconds (I believe it’s 6 seconds, not sure). So their actual downtime is less than the 20 second recharge. And with the buff to WHaO, there’s less of a need to go for beastmastery, making nature magic and its longer boons/personal damage boost trait available (at least for the zerk build, the cond build is still all about beastmastery/wilderness/skirmishing).

EDIT:
@Fluffball
At 25 might stacks (750 cond dmg) 2 stacks of burning applied by the passive of Sun spirit deal 1487 damage over 3 seconds. With 25% more from vuln that’s 1858 (or 1859 if the game rounds up). From 5 people all proccing it once during the 8 second ICD that’s an extra 9290 damage. All that’s required for that damage to become “real” is the boss fight lasting 8 seconds which pretty much all do. You can also detonate it almost as soon as you put it down in case the boss melts fast and it will add another 3 stacks for 5 seconds. You will still get the buff for another 6 or so seconds after its detonation.

Hasn’t been my experience, they die over 50% of the time in any stack boss within the first 3 to 5 seconds of being placed down.

Kitty.1502:

Hasn’t been my experience, they die over 50% of the time in any stack boss within the first 3 to 5 seconds of being placed down.

You’re putting it in the wrong locations. Is there a particular boss you’re having your spirit die at? I’m sure we can offer you several safe locations for it. You typically put it where no one goes. For the burning effigy, put it just outside his big red circle. For the 4 boss combo in uncategorized fractal, put it in one of the prison cells. Some you can stick in range but behind a rock like the first boss in Arah P2.

Boon duration doesn’ t seem to apply on Buffs given out by Nature’s Vengance. I have 40% increased boon duration and the tooltip says Swiftness(4 1/4s), but it actually is only 3 seconds.

Or is boon duration in general broken?

Rabe.2456:

Boon duration doesn’ t seem to apply on Buffs given out by Nature’s Vengance. I have 40% increased boon duration and the tooltip says Swiftness(4 1/4s), but it actually is only 3 seconds.

Or is boon duration in general broken?

Nature’s Vengeance boon duration is broken on Frost & Storm Spirit’s Might & Swiftness. Just tested in game with all the spirits with boon duration gear. The other spirits are fine, though.

Aomine.5012:

Though abit disappointed no change to Nature Spirit.. (shorten the CD abit since it’s immobile now?)

And this is the problem. 240 radius for the regen and, if traited, the stability-buff is nothing. In the current state, the Spirit is only usable for condi-remove and for rezzing. But for the other effects, you have to place it within the enemys…and then it dies instantly.

My Suggestion is, if they nerfed it, cause of the “Natured Vengance”-Trait, then make it pulsing stability all 5 s, but by the six gods, increase the passiv back to 1000 like all spirits have. 900 radius rezz and condi remove for up to 3 ppl is ok, but 1000 pulsing 320 HP/s and 1s stability for 5 ppl every 3 sec is to OP?

And for all other Spirits, increase the radius of active effects to the same, Spirit of Nature has. Then, IMO, all Spirits are really viable and usable.

Passive effects: 1000
Active effects: 600 (900 traited)

Reduce daze for storm spirit to 1s and everything would be fine.