Guild Wars 2

Right, lately ive been experimenting with spirits and how to make a build with with em.
my final solution was this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQNAsfVjEVN1lVKWo2BiWBN9eEr03e3jSRqTlxRf8KC-jUyAYrkhyEEpGBi+AmBLiGbBsIasqIMFKRUtXpIa1SBAxYA-w

The build itself is based around a ridiculous HP pool and regen ability rather then pure damage mitigation. So far, iv’e been able to hold off, at best, 2 P/D thiefs at once. Mostly because i got too much HP for them to take away in a reasonable time, along with the Storm Spirit “attack” which often hits for around 3k (did extensive testing. average damage was around 2890)

This damage is more like a joker, then a real “utility”. What makes you powerful, is the ridiculous amount of passive regen (i think at most, i get close to 390/sec with 25 stacks of Life bonus).

The uptime on the spirits are, in most cases, quite good, even in blobbing conditions. But you must pay attention to heavy AOE, such as running through AC fire. The range, of which the spirits effect are applied to allies is around 900-1200. I am not sure of definite range (even wiki doesnt seem to know). So you can stay safe in the rear of the zerg/blob while providing huge bonuses.
For zerg play, the “Stone Spirit” is extremly powerful. Those 4 1/2 sec’s of protection helps alot when you are in a tight spot.

However, this setup was not originally supposed to be a spirit build, it was supposed to be a “venom ranger” build. Aimed towards heavy poison damage.
The Venom ranger “tweak” relies on the racial utilities you get from being an Asura, namely Radiation Field.

Venom Ranger Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMQQNAsYVlAVSu3cTyCr1ASThmYevHxS6JiOFjSnkxRb8KC-jUyAYrkhyEEpFBiOAmBLiGbptIasqIMFKRUtXpIa1SBAxaA-w

Warning; the Venom Ranger is incomplete and needs more testing. But initial results show that it will demolish anything in 1 v 1, regardless of how they are specced, simply due to its unique ability to supress healing power.

Cool build, nice to see someone use beastmastery again.

Obvious thing to me is swap that sharpening stone for a tuning crystal. You’re built more for condition damage, not power/crit.

Even then tho, you don’t have much condition damage compared to BM bunker. How are you going to kill anything?

Well, storm spirit is a big lightening strike—with fury and might stacks I’ve seen mine crit for 7.5k. What happens with this build, though, is your right: damage is relatively low. So you’re trying to outlast them, CC for your pet, etc. eventually, the ranger might slowly win. Just standard bunker stuff, really.

Sube Dai.8496:

Obvious thing to me is swap that sharpening stone for a tuning crystal. You’re built more for condition damage, not power/crit.

Even then tho, you don’t have much condition damage compared to BM bunker. How are you going to kill anything?

the spirits provide me with heavy conditions and heavy hitting attacks. Yes it takes forever to beat someone. I spent 35 minutes fighting a tanker guardian, in the midst of a supply camp (vale) with all NPC’s hostile to me. Neither of us could win. Only reason he died was that an enemy zerg came by to cap the camp. (was funny though, their entire zerg stopped to watch the two of us trying to beat eachother, both going full bunker and neither being able to even down the other. They just stood there for 5 minutes before meddling. Shoulda recorded it)

Prysin.8542:

Sube Dai.8496:

Obvious thing to me is swap that sharpening stone for a tuning crystal. You’re built more for condition damage, not power/crit.

Even then tho, you don’t have much condition damage compared to BM bunker. How are you going to kill anything?

the spirits provide me with heavy conditions and heavy hitting attacks. Yes it takes forever to beat someone. I spent 35 minutes fighting a tanker guardian, in the midst of a supply camp (vale) with all NPC’s hostile to me. Neither of us could win. Only reason he died was that an enemy zerg came by to cap the camp. (was funny though, their entire zerg stopped to watch the two of us trying to beat eachother, both going full bunker and neither being able to even down the other. They just stood there for 5 minutes before meddling. Shoulda recorded it)

Why then, why do it? Its great in groups but why fight any one solo with this build?

Because there isn’t an emote that says, “hey now, you leave me alone because I’m just running back to my zerg!”

Priest.8752:

Because there isn’t an emote that says, “hey now, you leave me alone because I’m just running back to my zerg!”

35 minutes gtfo thats bs

No one is a) forcing you to run the build, or b) forcing you to solo with it. Some people like the challenge of doing unconventional things.

If i ran this build i prolly would drop BM to 20 and raise WS to 20, getting the protection on dodge is great and you can pick up oakheart if u want. but thats just me! thanks for posting

I applaud you for trying something new. it seems par for the course in this game for people to not work on their toons, They just copy and paste a build from the boards and pray for the best.

and while a 35 min fight isnt appealing to me. Ive had a couple 15 min ones against a guardian and a thief and it was exciting.

So keep up the testing, dont get discouraged and keep up the great work!

Jaxx of GRIM
-Darkhaven-

hyjaxxx.1584:

I applaud you for trying something new. it seems par for the course in this game for people to not work on their toons, They just copy and paste a build from the boards and pray for the best.

and while a 35 min fight isnt appealing to me. Ive had a couple 15 min ones against a guardian and a thief and it was exciting.

So keep up the testing, dont get discouraged and keep up the great work!

Jaxx of GRIM
-Darkhaven-

well to those of you who doubt. I sometimes play a game called Freelancer. Its a space shooter.
It is 90% skill based, thus, if matched with an equal opponent, you can find yourself dueling for more then an hour. It is no so much the duration of the fight, then my stubborn competitive attitude that make me go on fighting even when there is no end in sight.

I like it that way, when battles change from being all skills and builds to being a war of attrition.

thats understandable, the one thing i would say in regards to this build is youve got SUPER bunker with the vit/healing but your damage form is diluted. you only have 800 condi damage, and your power is super low too. I would work on focusing on one or the other to get some more damage out of it. if your build was optimized the fights would be 10 instead of 35

well, i dont roam with this build, i got a separate build for that, or rather 3 other builds. However i have been looking into boosting raw DPS, since condition DPS would mean i either need to redo the traits (really dun want that) or ill have to respec the gear into something along the lines of Apot. Which would send me back into the “BM Bunker” build thats been used for ages.

i think i managed to tweak it a little bit. Upped the power and conditions slightly, along with vitality, sadly, healing and toughness took a hit….

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQRAsf3YjEVN1lVKWo2BkWBN59IWSPR09oUIlTJlj8lniA-jkyAYrkhyGEN1IQ0nQnBLiGbptIasKbMFKRUtNHzjQEVLFAErBA-w

hmmm a couple things.

1) even with higher vit. your toughness being that low it going to cause people to run through you like a greased torpedo. especially now that your healing is 40% less.

2) you still seem to have points in Power. which i think should be removed completely for condi damage.

other then that things can be moved around to your liking. Im interested to see what you do to iron out the bumps in this build.

hmm, i tried yet another alteration, going more towards conditions. i’ve also chosen to use reef drake, as the confusion damage applied by this drake can give me a significant DPS “addition” given that most opponents in WvW use “spamming” weapons over slow hard hitting ones.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQRAsf3YjEVN1lVKWo2BiWBN9eEL13e3jSRqTlyL+yTRA-jkyAYrkh4GEN1IQ0nQnBLiGb1sIasKbMFKRUtNHzrQEVLFAErBA-w

In case I missed it earlier, where, and what style of play will you be using this build ? WvW solo roamer ? ..WvW zerg surfer ? Small man ?

First thing I was going to say before I see you have adjusted. Using SB leaves a lot of damage off the table that you could really use…..and I see you added Axe to drop SB which I think is a good idea.

I ended up testing Lighting Call a while back, and i could never get it to crit.

and i had a lot of crit at the time, i’ll try again to see if i can get it to work.

It might work off its own crit chance or something.

Xsorus.2507:

I ended up testing Lighting Call a while back, and i could never get it to crit.

and i had a lot of crit at the time, i’ll try again to see if i can get it to work.

It might work off its own crit chance or something.

Lightning call are based on the players stats. So, if you use full zerker, it will do insane damage, if you use a condition build, it will hardly do any.

Forzani.2584:

In case I missed it earlier, where, and what style of play will you be using this build ? WvW solo roamer ? ..WvW zerg surfer ? Small man ?

First thing I was going to say before I see you have adjusted. Using SB leaves a lot of damage off the table that you could really use…..and I see you added Axe to drop SB which I think is a good idea.

SB may have more raw solo damage power, but axe has better condition damage then SB (due to the lame limitations on crossfire)

I’ve been using this spirits build for about half a year now:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBlYDbkoqqurysC0OQwKoo3jWRr27eMKSdqK+IH-TsAgzCmIuRdj7GzNybs3MqYVxGEA

Focus is on support and healing (full cleric’s gear for strongest possible healing spring, traited moa AoE heal, elite spirit), and it feels very much like a “druid”.

Works great in WvW if you play it right. The trick is to actually go into melee on top of your commander and have a friendly guardian nearby to provide you with stability. (Lack of own stability is the achilles heel with this build, but in guild raids that shouldn’t be a problem.)
As you charge in with the other melee people, fire the spirit CC effects around you and watch yourselves carve a path of desctruction. ^^ Most common misconception here is that people think spirits are useless because they die too fast, but the thing is you WANT them to die, right there in the middle of the pit, because they will pop all their AoE CC effects again then. So it’s actually useful getting them killed in the middle of the fight instead of having them die a natural death of old age later on where they don’t hurt anybody anymore.
Their buffs are nice while they last, but the AoEs can be just as good in the proper place. Especially because enemies are likely to have used up most of their condition cleansing/stability by the time they trigger for a second time.
Also if it’s a larger/longer fight, you will be re-casting them soon enough anyway and get your buffs back again, too.

Healing spring plus dwayna runes give lots of survivability, moa heals the crap out of everyone around it and the elite spirit is my personal favourite here. Never know what it will do, get up one downed NPC or ress up to 5 dead (not downed) players…have seen all of that happen now.

I really like this build and find it lots of fun in WvW, but it does get a bit bland after a while. You have 3 skills (=spirits) that all use the same mechanics – cast, keep an eye out, trigger AoE, recast. If it wasn’t for the fun elite, it would probably be very boring to play on the long run.
Still have to say it’s very effective especially if you run with a melee-heavy group, people love your buffs and healing and you look very flashy, too. ;P
I never really understood why there are so few spirits around in WvW…

PS: I’m obsessed with the shortbow and bring the sword just for potential 1v1 scenarios, you might wanna use a greatsword and axe instead which makes more sense.

Prysin.8542:

Xsorus.2507:

I ended up testing Lighting Call a while back, and i could never get it to crit.

and i had a lot of crit at the time, i’ll try again to see if i can get it to work.

It might work off its own crit chance or something.

Lightning call are based on the players stats. So, if you use full zerker, it will do insane damage, if you use a condition build, it will hardly do any.

Unless its completely different in PVE environment this is completely untrue

It doesn’t crit, and it isn’t based off our stats

It did around 3000 damage if I was naked or in full power gear

Just tested it in SPvP again, It may crit, but its crit rate is so unbelievably low that i’ve seen it do it twice I think (and even then i’m not completely sure if it critted, or if just hit some random grey mob, I need to video it)

With or without the necklace the damage seemed to be around 2800 or so..it varied slightly.

Just went and tested it in SPvP, but recorded it, I did manage to get it to crit, but it seems to be based off its on Crit stat

cause it didn’t crit at all very much.

However changing necklaces/weapons ect ect did nothing to change the damage, though I think its positioning will (i’m starting to think it gets our damage traits)

http://www.twitch.tv/xsorovos/b/432529953

Video if you want to watch

Xsorus.2507:

Just went and tested it in SPvP, but recorded it, I did manage to get it to crit, but it seems to be based off its on Crit stat

cause it didn’t crit at all very much.

However changing necklaces/weapons ect ect did nothing to change the damage, though I think its positioning will (i’m starting to think it gets our damage traits)

http://www.twitch.tv/xsorovos/b/432529953

Video if you want to watch

please be aware that sPVP sometimes have other mechanics then PvE and WvW. Are you sure spirits are not affected? because when capping a camp in the spirit build, i do around 3200 MAX against the NPC guards. I specced for full glass cannon and did 6900 to the same NPC in the same camp.

i will do a recording later to make sure it wasn’t a coincident. After all, for all i know, they may just use a random algorithm on the whole thing.

Edit: scrap that, just did a test against dolyaks around the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthshake_Basin Waypoint. In PvE enviroment, it does a constant 2790 damage, with occasional spikes up to 3600 (1 in every 15 strikes)

So conclusion; either it has random crit effects that somehow kept hitting, and i just happened to be ridiculously lucky with those lightning strikes. Or WvW has a completely different mechanic, apart from PvE and sPvP

Seriosouly lacking condition removal. HS is enough for general condition removal but against a strong condtion based ranger or necro (or maybe even thief) you will melt away.

Prysin.8542:

Xsorus.2507:

Just went and tested it in SPvP, but recorded it, I did manage to get it to crit, but it seems to be based off its on Crit stat

cause it didn’t crit at all very much.

However changing necklaces/weapons ect ect did nothing to change the damage, though I think its positioning will (i’m starting to think it gets our damage traits)

http://www.twitch.tv/xsorovos/b/432529953

Video if you want to watch

please be aware that sPVP sometimes have other mechanics then PvE and WvW. Are you sure spirits are not affected? because when capping a camp in the spirit build, i do around 3200 MAX against the NPC guards. I specced for full glass cannon and did 6900 to the same NPC in the same camp.

i will do a recording later to make sure it wasn’t a coincident. After all, for all i know, they may just use a random algorithm on the whole thing.

Edit: scrap that, just did a test against dolyaks around the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthshake_Basin Waypoint. In PvE enviroment, it does a constant 2790 damage, with occasional spikes up to 3600 (1 in every 15 strikes)

So conclusion; either it has random crit effects that somehow kept hitting, and i just happened to be ridiculously lucky with those lightning strikes. Or WvW has a completely different mechanic, apart from PvE and sPvP

Th 6900 was a crit, but the crit rate on them is incredibly low, even with high crit rate on the ranger, so I will assume thakittens based off the spirits crit rate, which whatever that is.

So we are hanging our hat on a lightning blast every 20 seconds ? Is it worth it using a slot for that ?