Guild Wars 2

So would a spirit druid be at all possible these days. Was thinking of toying around with something new in Unranked play, and I’m currently playing with the idea of a pure support druid based around spirits.

Anyone think this would be in any way feasible? Also, I know spirit rangers were once a thing but I didn’t play Ranger much back then. What was it that made them so viable then and what happened that destroyed them?

I dont know. But I want to do it for the laughs&Rage.

They made it so that Spirits can’t move anymore. When spirit builds were a thing, the spirits would follow you around. By this nerf, but also because of other things, spirit builds aren’t viable anymore. Maybe you can figure out a build that involves 1 spirit like I did, but that will be about it.

Shaogin.2679:

What was it that made them so viable then and what happened that destroyed them?

There once was a trait that made spirits move and follow the ranger much like the pet does called ‘spirits unbound’. On top of that spirits did not kill themselves when you used their flip skills, so you could maintain the buffs even after you spammed out all of their active effects.
There was also a trait that gave them more hp and made spirits auto cast their flip skills when they died. This trait is still in the game but it does something totally different now, it is ‘natures vengeance’ (the name made more sense in the context of the previous version of it).
You can imagine having 3 spirits up and casting all 3 of their flip skills only for them to cast them again after they get cleaved down, the screen looked like a disco floor. Also the fact that spirits could move made the elite one borderline op (and the fact that it had a larger effect radius), you could have a battle standard that flowed you around and then a on demand rez (which you could use to self rez) and another one when the spirit died (this was harder to make use of but you could always just walk the spirit on top of aoe’s if you knew allies were going to die).

There are other minor things but the 2 traits that got deleted are the biggest reasons why spirit ranger got the shaft, at least spirits are still useful in pve.

Spirit rangers were never OP, they were at most annoying to some folks.

The nerfs were undeserved, and they effectively removed all spirit skills and their traits from pvp, never to be seen again. Now they only have a place in raids and some of the harder pve content.

Another fine example of Anet “balancing” things.

Yeah, I remember them being able to follow and being able to use their actives without killing them and the active effect on death trait, just didn’t seem like that big of a game changer on paper. Well, maybe the biggest nerf was no longer being able to use the active effects without killing the spirits. But yeah, Anet does like to over-nerf things and then leave utilities in a broken state (rip turret engi).

I’ll toy around with something tonight. The biggest issue I forsee is simply trying to keep the spirits alive. I guess in this aspect it would have been great if the spirits could still move so I could guide them out of Aoe damage, but maybe with smart placement and the healing from Celestial Avatar it could work?

Was thinking of using the water spirit, stone spirit, and elite spirit at a minimum. Should be able to get decent heals from those along with perma protection and a self/group revive. Not sure if any of the other spirits would be useful from a support standpoint. Might take the condi transfer Signet and Signet of stone for the other two utility slots.

If I were to do a spirit build with something like that, was thinking of taking staff, but not sure what the best weapons would be for my second set. Maybe sword/dagger, making it like a bunker druid with spirits?

You’ll lack swiftness and stability I think.

I don’t see one top 10 player here so I have to ask how many of these individuals offering advice have actually experimented with spirit druid in ranked? I’d prefer not to give away any of my self made builds. But what I will tell you is that Druid’s have the best healing in game. I’m not talking about just pure numbers either. Tactically coupling a variety of different strategies into one build may be more viable than it initially appears. Try not copy pasting sometime, you might actually learn a thing or seven.

shadowthejedi.3089:

I don’t see one top 10 player here so I have to ask how many of these individuals offering advice have actually experimented with spirit druid in ranked? I’d prefer not to give away any of my self made builds. But what I will tell you is that Druid’s have the best healing in game. I’m not talking about just pure numbers either. Tactically coupling a variety of different strategies into one build may be more viable than it initially appears. Try not copy pasting sometime, you might actually learn a thing or seven.

You’re not top 10 either. Kinda the platinum joke would be closer.
OT plenty of high level players run at least 1 spirit on their bar for pvp.

Gwaihir.1745:

shadowthejedi.3089:

I don’t see one top 10 player here so I have to ask how many of these individuals offering advice have actually experimented with spirit druid in ranked? I’d prefer not to give away any of my self made builds. But what I will tell you is that Druid’s have the best healing in game. I’m not talking about just pure numbers either. Tactically coupling a variety of different strategies into one build may be more viable than it initially appears. Try not copy pasting sometime, you might actually learn a thing or seven.

You’re not top 10 either. Kinda the platinum joke would be closer.
OT plenty of high level players run at least 1 spirit on their bar for pvp.

When I say Top 10, I’m not referencing win/loss ratio aka the win rating LB. i\I’m talking about mechanical skill with a certain class. As far as druid goes, I’d be hard pressed to find 10 that are better than I am

Why would you need mechanical skill to theorycraft stuff? Knowledge about the game/class/gamemode is more important in this regard.
And most people seem to know, that spirits die super fast, so even if they would pose a threat somehow, it would be way to easy to counter. And giving up important defensive utilities for something that can be rendered useless for so easy, will never be a good idea.

Spirits were viable at one point, but I should point out.
-Revenants were not a thing back then. Their buffs are better than spirits ever were because they couldn’t be destroyed.
-Spirits could move.
-The build concept was kind of to overwhelm by sheer numbers. A pet, 4 spirits, the ranger, and any allies and their minons.
-Druid wasn’t available back then. Basically all pvp builds are druid driven now.

Spirits have kind of been unviable in pvp just because everything is pretty much a better alternative. But when it comes to min:maxing for raids and fractals, they have their place because of the damage buffs rangers can supply.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Why would you need mechanical skill to theorycraft stuff? Knowledge about the game/class/gamemode is more important in this regard.
And most people seem to know, that spirits die super fast, so even if they would pose a threat somehow, it would be way to easy to counter. And giving up important defensive utilities for something that can be rendered useless for so easy, will never be a good idea.

Mechanical skill has to do with knowledge of execution and mechanics behind your build. Know how to execute a build with as much impact as possible allows the build that is theory crafted to be best implement. Anyone can shuffle around traits and “experiment”. It’s the execution that matters lad. Spirits do die super fast, but have you checked their range? They aren’t limited to 300 last time I checked. That should give you an idea….

Knowing how to execute a build and actually pulling that off perfectly are two different things.
And spirits have 1k range, which won’t hinder anyone from killing them. If they don’t get killed, it is just because people ignore them, since their impact is not worth bothering with them. Just kill the ranger instead- who will lack defensive utilities to deal with the focus fire …

shadowthejedi.3089:

As far as druid goes, I’d be hard pressed to find 10 that are better than I am

Thanks for the belly laugh.

I saw a small few ranger spirits when I decided to pvp and it always made me smile to see them. I’m not so sure about the elite one, opportunity cost, fairly long cooldown working against the preemptive nature of the skill use, more of a priority target than the others to enemies (even if it’s just out of spite heh, though I suppose if it’s being attacked and you’re not then it’s technically doing it’s healing job) etc., but one different utility and a different heal skill are a lot easier to live with.

Rashagar.8349:

but one different utility and a different heal skill are a lot easier to live with.

It’s a lot harder to live with them, literally, because you’re giving up a really really good utility for complete crap. SoS, PM, SoR, gaurd, LR, etc for like…. sun spirit? WHaO for water spirit? No, objectively wrong answer if you’re not less than PvP level 80 like some people in this thread supporting spirits are.

I’m sure you can make it work, but you’re making subpar choices let’s be honest.

Fluffball.8307:

Rashagar.8349:

but one different utility and a different heal skill are a lot easier to live with.

It’s a lot harder to live with them, literally, because you’re giving up a really really good utility for complete crap. SoS, PM, SoR, gaurd, LR, etc for like…. sun spirit? WHaO for water spirit? No, objectively wrong answer if you’re not less than PvP level 80 like some people in this thread supporting spirits are.

I’m sure you can make it work, but you’re making subpar choices let’s be honest.

Hehe I’m sure you know I meant it in the figure of speech way but I do appreciate wordplay. =)
Since I haven’t played with it myself, from the point of view of water spirit vs WHaO, I sort of assumed it depended on how quickly you could charge celestial avatar and using it to take pressure off your heal skill. It’s definitely sub par from a personal perspective but in team fights I can’t be as sure. It’s probably also true that this spirit druid idea is even more vulnerable to focus fire due to their utilities.
Checking the wiki quickly to see if they changed it, it does seem a shame that half the water spirit stuff still doesn’t seem to benefit from healing power though. As weird as it might be, that small bit of disappointment is always what turned me off trying water spirit, rather than anything else.
edit to check
Does anyone remember how long spirits continue to affect their surroundings after they die? I used to know but…

In teamfights you should easily be able to enter CA on cd with traited WHaO, so that’s not really an argument for water spirit.

I used sun spirit on a core condi bunker build in season 1 and 2. It wasn’t a bad utility for this kind of build, but it only worked because a) people tend to ignore the spirit, when it is placed off point, even though they could destroy it with a few autoattacks, b) many builds where condi, so team mates would actually benefit from the burning. But now most play power builds, so there is little benefit from the spirit in teamfights. Aside from this, power ranger/druid is better than condi anyways and there is no valid reason for marauder or menders druid to replace any of its utilities with a spirit.

Edit: It is about 10s.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

In teamfights you should easily be able to enter CA on cd with traited WHaO, so that’s not really an argument for water spirit.

If this part is replying to me, that wasn’t what I meant by that part of my post. Gah communication is hard. Never mind.

edit
Thanks =)

Oh, i see now, what you meant.
But even if you don’t need the self healing from WHaO, water spirit is so bad, it is never worth taking over any other healing skill. The passive healing is so minor, it is worse than regen without healing power. Even when spirit ranger was meta, most of those where running a different heal skill, which tells a lot about how “good” water spirit is. For pure team support, healig spring is still the better option.