Guild Wars 2

So after Anet “fixed” spirits they have been completely unseen in nearly every game type since except for FS in dungeons. I was actually kinda excited to have spirits become immobile because it would be more about skilled placement and would have very large passive radius effects that might have been game changing. It could have been like spirits in GW1 but NOPE! Chuck Testa! Instead we got immobile spirits with 1 second of might every three seconds. Is this a joke? Because I definitely don’t understand how these numbers could ever be taken seriously. I get that we got some nice toys but why was it necessary to nerf an already terribad spec? Unless there’s something i’m missing and spirits are secretly meta.

/rant

Anyway on a more constructive note what do you guys think should be changed with spirits to make them useful in PvP and also engaging to play? Or should we just wait until druid and hope there’s synergy kinda like daredevil and acrobatics?

Lethal Njection.8741:

Or should we just wait until druid and hope there’s synergy kinda like daredevil and acrobatics?

I’d be against that. Although thematically linking druids and spirits works very well, I am not a fan of having core aspects of a profession which only work in conjunction with an elite spec.

I agree but currently it seems like the only way Anet will make them viable.

You know, I have the weird feeling that some of the Druid utility skill will feel like spirit 2.0.

Dadnir.5038:

You know, I have the weird feeling that some of the Druid utility skill will feel like spirit 2.0.

Wouldn’t be surprised, Dare Devil ended up being Acrobatics 2.0

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Dadnir.5038:

You know, I have the weird feeling that some of the Druid utility skill will feel like spirit 2.0.

Wouldn’t be surprised, Dare Devil ended up being Acrobatics 2.0

And Berserker rage skills are Physical 2.0

Revamp the spirit grandmaster trait to actually give useful boons (fury for remorseless procs, maybe quickness), increase spirit HP, increase range of spirit passive effects, make active skills ground targetted.

At the moment spirits are pretty much one of the most useless utilities in the game. The current Nature’s Vengeance is just a slap in the face, I’m l really curious who in their right mind thought this is appropriate for a grandmaster trait when they designed it.

I like the fury proc idea. But 1 second of anything is still pretty terrible. I always thought spirits were supposed to be more about large radius passive effects though. Not to encourage brain-dead play but it was supposed to be more about changing the battlefield in your favor. If the passive effects were a bit more interesting like in gw1 then the low hp of spirits wouldn’t be too much of an issue as you can place them off point.

Make them auras that radiate from the ranger, not killable 2hp gnats that get insta-killed by random aoe. fix the GM trait to be something worth investing in.

how hard is it to do? Spirit rangers providing protection, burning and damage multipliers to the group would be amazing…

Oh, wait, I guess thats we have Warriors and Revenant for now. Banners/Facets=Spirits that actually work, because they stay with the fight and arent destructible. /wrist.

Making them auras clashes with what spirits are supposed to be. Spirits are a carry over skill from GW1 and should remain stationary area effects.

However an increase to their buff range so they can be placed in harder to reach areas would go a long way to making them more viable. Letting the ranger place them within 600 range from themselves would also be a big help so we don’t have to leave the point to place our spirits. Cutting the cast time in half would make the spirit set up faster so we waste less time before being able to initiate combat.

Bonus points is the spirit teleports to a targeted area before self destructing when the ranger uses their active skill so we can aim it without the pet needing to be in danger.

If all these changes were made spirits would be a pretty decent area support tool.

Beyond that I’d also change the passive proc of Storm Spirit to be a direct damage lightning strike similar to Sigil of Air. This would give rangers a second DPS increase utility to go with Frost Spirit in dungeons as well as give power spirit rangers a viable option for a damage dealing spirit.

Ehecatl.9172:

Making them auras clashes with what spirits are supposed to be. Spirits are a carry over skill from GW1 and should remain stationary area effects.

This isnt GW1. Fights now are far less stationary PvP and stationary doesnt even exist in WvW.

Stationary or not, they aren’t tough enough to be used at all. Spirits having small healthbars makes them bad a joke in dungeons, completely non-viable in wvw and pretty stupid in spvp. Survivability of the spirits directly effects their usability.

There is a reason banners are viable: they dont die.

It is, however, GW2. A sequel to the original with some carry over with many skills that are references to GW1 skills. Spirits are meant to be like that, and changing them into auras would ruin what they are thematically.

Stationary isn’t impossible to do. Turrets are stationary and before they got absolutely GUTTED by Anet they were a dominating force in point control and were quite powerful in Team Death Match. I even saw them have use in Stronghold for protecting the supply area from the enemy team. Banners are stationary but work well because they can’t be destroyed as you mentioned. As long as our PVP Game modes have points that need to be defended stationary is perfectly viable.

Their survivability is an issue, I agree. Which is why doubling the range of their passive effects and making their actives teleport them to a designated area would be such a huge boon. Keeping them out of harm’s way but still letting them be functional is the best way to keep them alive long enough to be made useful without completely removing all counterplay to them. Making them too tough to kill or untargetable would just get them nerfed into the ground as the masses cry OP.

Immobile anything doesnt work in a game that is all about action combat and cleaves. This isnt WoW totem Shaman. Thats the problem. They were badly designed for this game from the start.

Spirits like they were before the nerfs were in a good place.
Need the trait to make them mobile again in case you want to, reduce the ICD of the passive abilities to 6 seconds and change the master trait to proc 3 seconds boon.
If the spirits were mobile we wouldn’t even need to change the radius of the active.
Right now the passives are really bad because of the recharge + interval + chance.
Spirits should be reworked to apply consistently the effect, not so much random chance never ever actually works.

75% proc chance every 6 second for 3 second up to 5 allies. Scratch that recharge time that the spirit has. 10 triggers by spirit if not killed before. That’s something useful in line with other classes.

I still use Sun spirit with Natures trait to add on Vigour party wide .
this powers Steady focus too plus improves dps through burns on my Hybrid sinister gear very usefull even on a stack plant it wait till the first Burning proc then trigger it .

if a guardain is using quickness it will trigger before it dies too adding other 3 burning stacks+blind.

i Believe spirits just need the Trait improving and changing Nature Spirit to apply Resistance rather than Stability the boon proc’ing for 1sec every 3 is really pointless when trying to time it with incomming CC , it may randomly proc when the CC hits you but then its just luck kicking in, I;d rather it apply Resistance and give the opposing team a reason to kill it than to ignore it.

and this goes the Same in PvE , it could be used in High condition hard content Aoe Resistance on a pulsing boon would equal to a 25% condi damage reduction over the spirits life time or untill its triggered.

in PvP this can be used to Lightly counter the High condi burst stacks by a lot of damage as these burst stacks are of short duration so it implies tactical use of both teams , to kill the spirit or counter the ranger by interrupting its summoning.

Nature spirits cooldown also needs a cooldown reduction as 120 seconds is not worth it for one Trigger / activation it needs to be atleast 90seconds !

It is unlikely that Druids will have traits that concern spirits unless they summon short duration spirits on the staff skills or something which is unlikely. I think it would be a first in the game to have weapon skills share the same typing as a utility?

Spirits need to have significant effects. The fact that they are stationary and killable, means that they should provide powerful buffs in compensation. A minor change that they could make to at least start the process would be to make the boons longer duration on natures vengeance so that they could at the very least be perma with enough boon duration.

Edit: phantasms/clones share utility and weapon skill type, maybe engi too? Not sure, not too familiar with them.

Well, it IS possible the druid might have a playstyle that meshes well with spirits rather than having a trait that directly buffs spirits.

For example the auto attack could be fast or a multi-hit skill that procs the passive spirit effect frequently like the shortbow. It could also have skills that grab and pull enemies to specific locations or block movement so we can protect the spirits more effectively.

You know, I have the weird feeling that some of the Druid utility skill will feel like spirit 2.0.

Now that I think about it…
Technically, there’s nothing that stops Druids from having Spirits.

They could shuffle a revamp of the lore-appropriate utility line to the Elite Spec and add 5 new things to the Core Ranger. That would offer the support people seem to clamoring for, give a less-than-stellar utility line another Fkey to get it’s act together, and would also fulfill that ‘Almost’ Sword of Damocles from half a year ago.

You know: “Almost every elite specialization will gain access to a complete set of new skills”. …I totally forgot that was a thing until just now.

Break the spirits, charge £35 to have them fixed in expansion. Could see it.

Probably a terrible idea but what if Anet brought back frozen soil where I guess all rezz speed is reduced by half or something? Or maybe even the old muddy terrain where everyone moves 10% slower? The interesting thing about old spirits was that they affected your team as well so you would need to build around what they do.

So many gimmick builds I want to try

Lethal Njection.8741:

Probably a terrible idea but what if Anet brought back frozen soil where I guess all rezz speed is reduced by half or something? Or maybe even the old muddy terrain where everyone moves 10% slower? The interesting thing about old spirits was that they affected your team as well so you would need to build around what they do.

So many gimmick builds I want to try

That kind of creative build diversity does not exist in this game nor has it ever. They made it clear they wanted to condense the available build potentials by forcing us to fully grandmaster 3 trait lines to prevent muddying of traits for more “creative” builds.

Yeah I am aware of this. I don’t blame them for not adding this it’s just a humerus thought I wanted to share. Regardless of what Anet decides to do with spirits (or not do) should be a bit more interesting in my opinion. Or at the vary least viable.

Dadnir.5038:

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Dadnir.5038:

You know, I have the weird feeling that some of the Druid utility skill will feel like spirit 2.0.

Wouldn’t be surprised, Dare Devil ended up being Acrobatics 2.0

And Berserker rage skills are Physical 2.0

Not really.

Berserker is like Burn Guardian 2.0.

Future of the spirits: none. 0. nada.

Unless the go back to be mobile or they change the active abilities spirits have no place in anybody hearts.

All I really want to see for spirits is a baseline area of effect increase. The Nature Spirit haveing a 240 effect range just isent cute at all. To compensate for the spirit being immobile it should at least be able to effect the fight it has been placed in. Give it like a 1000 or 1200 range so it can actually help your ally’s rather then just making them aoe bait.