Guild Wars 2

So the other day i got myself thing what could be the reason why anet could have removed the lingering light trait and is made the terrible mistake of making the spirits immobile but killable.

So i thought maybe this is because the servers performance limits the there are many players in the same instance (WvW or very crowded PvE instances) .

So what about this idea to bring back the old Lingering light and mobile Spirits which i think is savvy in server processing time:

• Change them all to be a different coloured Wisps that circle around the ranger at the same fashion of the old lingering light. As those are 2D sprites should not create much overhead in the user pc.
• As to avoid taxing the server with the extra calculations from the wisp vs allies/enemies instead using the actual wisp a cone area could be used to apply the effects. This cone area size 1/5 of the circle apply the effect to allies/enemies in the area up to 1 target (if 10 targets is chosen than up to 2 targets) and change position once a second (so it takes up to 5 seconds to fully rotate). The wisp animation is made so it goes at the same speed as the turning so it gives the illusion is the wisps who apply the effect. The ranger only get the buff once every 5 seconds, when the cone area is in the initial position and it’s not taking into account for the limit thus the buffs would effectively affect 6 players( or 11).

• To avoid extra performance hog and as those wisps do not attack directly they can benefit from total immunity to conditions, they are not taken into account into target limits when is condition based.

• As to extend their life span the Wisps have a damage mitigation of 50% of damage when not targeted. Thus they can be killed easily is needed to.

• To make the effects easier to manage and simplify its use they will have simplified effects, they will apply the effect once a second to targets in the area don’t already have that buff :
  Defensive spirits:
  - Water (blue) heal for some amount (should be in line with invigorating bond from 1.5K as it’s affects the ranger once every 5 seconds) and cleanse one condition on impact.
  - Stone (brown) block next attack
  - Nature(yellow) apply +25% damage next attack (similar to signet of the wild effect) .
  - Astral Wisp(Green) small heal.
  Offensive spirits
  - Fire(red) apply one stack of fire next crit.
  - Lighting(violet)t apply lighting strike next crit.
  - Frost(white) apply freeze next crit

• The active are targeted AoE attack which make the Wisp to fly to the target and sacrifice itself to create the effect in a fancy couloured explosion. They could stay the same as now being a 1200 target AoE should regain all its utility.

• The GM can stay mostly the same, applying boons in an PBAoE radius (600) around the ranger.
  Water: apply regen. (5 seconds)
  Stone: apply stability (2 seconds)
  Nature: apply resistance (1 second)
  Fire: apply 5 stacks of might (5 seconds)
  Lighting: apply swiftness (5 secs)
  Frost: apply quickness (1 sec)

• The elite could benefit for a reduced CD from 120 to something more manageable as 60 seconds. To balance the Active could res up 3 allies instead 5 in the AoE and the lost passives from the spirit.

What do you think about the changes to the spirits? I know loosing the +10% damage from frost seems like a nerf but after that you could apply extra damage from Storm and Nature spirits, being in the end an increased dps in general (although you would need to use more spirits)

discuss.

The idea of the wisp are old but still the best suggestions still.
The effects on the other hand are pretty OP (on the defensive site) , every 5s a block for the ranger sounds kinda over the top dmg mitigation.
The rotation mechanics would bring a positioning aspect into the game that could make group content more difficult.

My suggestion since 2015:
Give all spirits a blunt buff like frost spirit has. Keep it simple.
Activations are ground targeted, old animations (with bigger oakhearts for better visbility in pvp).
Spirits are attached to the ranger (as wisps) and buff up to 5 allies besides pet and ranger.
Frost keeps its effect.
Sun gets 10% more condi dmg.
Water pulses heals and improves 10% incoming healing.
Stone decreases incoming dmg by 10%
Storm increases outgoing crit dmg 10%/ or crit chance increase
Nature decreases incoming condi duration for 15% and increases boon duration for 15%

Spirits are active for a duration.

Trait: Spirits activate on rangers position when duration ends.
Keep boon pulses the same. Cd reduction same as before.

I prefer static buffs like the ones Insane suggested – keeps things simple. If just making small adjustments to how current Spirits currently work, I’d be okay with a few things:

• Spirit % chances removed.
• Frost Spirit permanently gave 7.5% increased damage (its current average).
• Water, Stone, and Storm Spirit passive ICDs reduced from 10s to 8s.
• Storm Spirit vulnerability duration reduced from 10s to 8s.
• Nature’s Vengeance also increased the passive radius by 50%
  (to make up for mobile Spirits being removed)

Again, I’d rather have what Insane posted, but I’ll also take these tweaks, too.

I think you will find the problem is that the processing cost is, in essence, the cost of finding, and applying, and calculating the results of, the buffs across multiple players — rather than the things that you (probably correctly) identify as modified here.

That is, changing the zone of effect, and adding and removing the buff, probably costs more overall than the existing model would.

Btw i would change the topic to “Suggested Spirits QoL/Improvement” maybe they adress the wonky buffing of the spirits in the next update.

topic is changed.

I don’t think it is overpowered To have 1 block every 5 seconds that the enemy player can counter as easy as to use tab to select the spirit and hit it twice or three times with the autoattack of choice to kill it. We have 1 second evasion every 2 seconds in the Greatsword auto attack and nobody is complaining.

It will persuade the enemy players to actually play against the ranger mechanic, that actually it is to have more than one target (such the pet is or should be) to have to be worried about. Otherwise i dont see the point of having killable spirits, roots and blackholes ¿?

About the performance, aoes seem to be calculated at client side, what needs to transport to the server is how other players interact with them. Having an additional object having random collisions with many players generate a lot of traffic. Freeing the wisps from aoe conditions and most damage except when targeted should free up bandwidth. Also not having to calculate the collision of a 3d object in a 3d space, but just a 2d ground aoe, should be very performance friendly at client side.

anduriell.6280:

I don’t think it is overpowered To have 1 block every 5 seconds that the enemy player can counter as easy as to use tab to select the spirit and hit it twice or three times with the autoattack of choice to kill it. We have 1 second evasion every 2 seconds in the Greatsword auto attack and nobody is complaining.

People don’t complain about our evasion uptime with Greatsword since we have to auto attack in order to get it – and the auto hits for low damage.

Blocking an attack every 5s that can also apply to multiple allies is not overpowered, but it’s powerful enough to throw things off.

Imagine if core Guardian’s Virtue of Courage, when activated, created a shield that pulsed aegis every 5s to nearby allies and had its cooldown reduced to 20s.

Place yourself on the other end and think about how that would get a bit out of hand, especially when adding more players that provide the same effect.

But if you really want to push the idea, adjust the cooldown accordingly. Preferably, at 90s, and make the active worth while. Trading (essentially) aegis for an aoe snare is hardly worth the effort.

Just make spirits mobile please.

kiwituatara.6053:

Just make spirits mobile please.

It would make them massively more useful but the fact that you can kill them of very fast makes it more useful to give them some form in which they cannot be attacked.