Guild Wars 2

I don’t do sPvP much. Is it viable in sPvP? I’d imagine most rangers running the bunker trap build in sPvP.

I don’t see any use for it in PVE since damage output is much more important. I mean spirit boons aren’t all that helpful in PVE; you’d be much better off in terms of damage by traiting something else (eg. Skirmishing for extra crit damage) than for Nature Magic. Nature Magic also seems very underpowered right now; I find that toughness feels better than the extra vitality (I don’t really know the math behind it), and rangers don’t really have many boon utility skills for boon duration. I may be wrong~ does anyone know if boon duration affect spirit procs?

Using Spirits in dungeons/FOTM? I’ve only tried spirits a few times in dungeons tbh, and I think they die too quickly in dungeons. Have not tried FOTM, but I imagine it’d be the same? Does anyone know if agony affect spirits?

WvW… I guess they can be a little useful here, but I seriously don’t see much rangers using spirit build in WvW (maybe like 1 ranger a week?).

tdlr: Does anyone have a good spirit build or can give tips/strategies on how to use spirits? Thanks a lot!

trick question: you don’t.

Sadly true. After their huge nerf, the spirit build was all but shelved. Once in a great while I’ll see a spirit ranger, but I suspect it’s more for RP or from ignorance.

One AoE shuts down the build completely.

I like them in open world. Great for events. Spirits unbound and natures fury is nice. Lets their effects happen by you. Or they live pretty well with double health.

I just wish they would make a little combo field if anything. Could be perfect as say whirling in the muddy terrain would fling dirt around and blind. Or the lightning storm could arc lightning from your weapon to a enemy. Ice arrows could just hit harder. That sort of thing.

You dont.

/thread

I’ve never used them since first trying them…they are useless..

For PvE & dungeons, I often take stone & sun spirits, with traits for doubled health & increased proc. I like them, and my guild likes them.

Stone works out to about 8-9% direct damage mitigation for the party. With my traits, my pet gets twice that. Stone is also very nice when defending brainless NPCs.

Sun can apply 100% uptime on burning to a single target if everyone is attacking it. My leader is particularly fond of how well sun plays with his condition-based necro.

Boon duration does not affect proc chance. Boon duration does affect boons applied by spirits (protection & speed), but it’s the boon duration of the person who procced the boon, not the boon duration of the person who dropped the spirit.

They live better if you trait their health, place them sensibly, and drop a healing spring on them. I don’t use them on fights that are going to take under half a minute, and I don’t want them following me around. I’m tanky — they are not.

I used them during the BWEs, then they nerfed to useless and guess what, never found a way to use it well, at least not in a better way than the rest of our skills, and bear in mind that our skills aren’t great.

Only our elite SoN may have some uses if you place it in the right spots in specific situations, like in some dungeons.

I used to use a Spirit Build in tPvP/sPvP, PvE, and WvW, it was highly effective in -most- situations, especially after the 25% health buff and the fact that someone told me that spirits buffs actually get thrown up every 3s, last 6s and has a 10s ICD on the buff proc. IE every 3 s the spirit throws up the “<insert spirit name>” buff on allies in the area and then for 6s you can proc the effect, it will prioritize people -not- under the ICD over people who currently are btw.

However, the build was boring, it’s too passive and it’s just not game altering at all other than the fact you don’t really use your utility skills, like ever. It’s more dull than a signet build… it was effective though, more so in tPvP and WvW than in the others (players aren’t programmed to AoE the 5-6 names running around together where NPCs are).

If you wanna try it i can give you the build, just keep in mind it’s a VERY passive build, and it gets boring pretty quickly… however you are really sturdy and provide a lot of meatshields/buffs for your allies.

Dante.1508:

I’ve never used them since first trying them…they are useless..

The same. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to use them, I’d love it if they were nearly as viable as in the first game where they could drastically affect large areas of the battlefield but as they are they just plain suck.