Water Spirit, Thoughts and the Maths

Water Spirit, Thoughts and the Maths

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

To start I’ll clear up a few points on traits. On “Natures Vengeance” procs the active heal of the player does not occur, only the AoE support heal, this was mentioned in the livestream. Rune effects (such as the suggested Runes of Dwayna) that proc on heal use will, I confidently assume, not proc when the spirit dies. The active effect also doesnt provide Vigor to allies if traited.

The spirit to me is a very unreliable heal. In a worst case scenario, the spirit dies 24~ seconds after you use the active ability, which seriously reduces the healing potential. This would be very unlucky if the spirit were to go down to AoE, but this is how clever teams and players will counterplay this skill. This seriously nerfs the potential of the heal, leaving you vulnerable.

Maths
Amount of Support
Perfect Scenario

Counting the active and passive effect of the heal, assuming all procs are instant and Nature’s Vengeance is traited, you get 805 healing every 10 seconds and a 1930 heal every 25 seconds. Given cast times, the maximum healing potential is reached if the spirit is killed instantly 74.5 seconds after starting the summon. and the heal is used instantly every time. This adds up to 168.5 healing per second (HPS) for allies. 64.8 of this comes from the passive proc, a 1000 radius, the other 100~ of which comes from the active on a traited 360 radius. The average point in sPvP is 240 radius to put this in perspective. Regeneration is 130 HPS with no healing power.

Healing Turret Comparison
Engineers Cleansing Burst is a 3 second water field and clears two condis. Without the regeneration this turret provides 162.6 HPS for allies. The regeneration makes this 204 HPS. Personally though, ignoring the regen, I would take 2 condi clears and a short water field over 6 healing per second. This is in a 480 radius, larger that the water spirit active, which accounts for most of the water spirits healing. I also didn’t count the toolkit skill.

Effects of Healing Power
I’ll be assuming for these calculations that you are using a Settlers Amulet, with an offensive Jewel (about as defensive as the Ranger spec is allowed to go Meta wise) and have no points in the final tree.

The passive effect is a base 805 healing and stacks at a factor 0.08 with healing power giving approximately 850 healing every 10 seconds. The active self heal stacks at 0.36, pushing it from 3865 to 4064. The group heal incidentally doesn’t even stack with healing power! It’s 1930 regardless of the stat. Healing power really doesn’t do much to improve the efficiency of this heal.

Healing Spring Comparison
For perfect HPS the spirit goes up, is used immediately, gets used twice more on cooldown and then dies immediately, with 6 passive procs. This is almost unachievable but this is the best case, so I’ll calculate using it for now. The spirit gives 324.1 HPS with no healing power, 335.7 as in the case above. Assuming the spirit just doesn’t die (which doesn’t actually give anymore healing as you still only get 6 procs of the spirit) it gives 296.3 HPS, 305 in the case above. In the worst case scenario, these values are reduced to 218.06 and 225.4.

Healing springs is a far more reliable heal, and can be used every 30.5 seconds. The immediate heal gives 161.3 HPS. The same healing power as above increases this to 179.9. The regeneration provides an additional 76.7 assuming 0 boon duration but that all ticks are received. This increases to 118.7 with 569 healing power. Totals here are 238 HPS and 298.6 HPS. However most of these specs have 30% boon duration from Nature magic, giving 99.7 HPS and 154.3 HPS to the regen values, so totalling 261 and 334.2 respectively. These values do not account for the provided water field and condi clears, both of which massively increase the effective HPS.

I appreciate that I am making some assumptions but overall I feel I’ve given the spirit a generous outlook in these calculations.

Final Thoughts
In conclusion, Healing Spring remains the only choice for a group heal. I genuinely don’t believe there is a single spec where I would rather use the Water Spirit be it for Soloq, Teamq or Hotjoin. I found the maths quite surprising, but this is largely due to the perfect scenario being almost unattainable and the worst case numbers really put this into perspective.

TL:DR
Can’t blame you.

  • Traits and runes have deceptively poor synergy
  • Counterplay is obvious, has serious negative consequences for the player
  • Healing per second suprisingly high in ideal scenarios
  • Healing power scaling is poor
  • In support terms, Healing Turret offers a lot lot more
  • Vs. other Ranger Heals, still no comparison to healing spring

Does anyone disagree? I know there are some people really enjoying this new heal, but I simply can’t fathom why, I’d love to see some convincing arguments for it founded in maths or experience.

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

Also how given all the HPS here that ANet can possibly justify the 397 (still 265 when poisoned!) HPS healing signet, I really can’t fathom, especially given that Troll Unguent is only 326 and if anything poison counters that harder than Healing Sig as few classes have full poison uptime and it can be saved for those scenarios. Healing Sig is also uninterruptable, and Warriors are already the highest Health and Defence class. Another talk for another day though.

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Posted by: clint.5681

clint.5681

I agree, the people in the other thread just seem to be trolling or truly believe what they said.

Rangir Dangir – Ranger | Mr. Ragr- Guardian| Sneak Stab – Thief | Mr. Ragir- Warrior
[url=https://] [/url]

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

I actually started this post as a reply there, but decided to write my own in an attempt to encourage genuine debate on the matter, if there was any to be had. Also its bloody long, and no one would have seen it otherwise!

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Posted by: clint.5681

clint.5681

I actually started this post as a reply there, but decided to write my own in an attempt to encourage genuine debate on the matter, if there was any to be had. Also its bloody long, and no one would have seen it otherwise!

I woulda read it, it seems like you touched on some of the points i brought up in the other thread. Im still wa.iting on an counter arguement

Rangir Dangir – Ranger | Mr. Ragr- Guardian| Sneak Stab – Thief | Mr. Ragir- Warrior
[url=https://] [/url]

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

You also forgot to mention in your generous comparison that the turret is a standalone heal, whereas the Water Spirit requires a 20-30 point investment in nature magic, not only being inferior but having a larger opportunity cost.

And that’s the whole summary of rangers. Only one viable build in spirits or BM condi bunkers, and ALL of their builds require heavy trait investments to prop their garbage baseline utilities just to make them usable.

But don’t worry, Powerr called rangers “competitive in PvE with strong burst” so rest assured we have developers that are in tune with the actual state of the class and not ones who do live chats with cleric thieves on double pistols.

It’ll just take another year or two to see the kitten pets fixed (pets that can hit a moving target, that are not aoe fodder, that don’t take centuries to activate a fixed conal ability long after the opponent has moved out of it, and actually be in control of utility skills like knockdowns and aoe heal screeches; maybe we will even get to use moas and pigs and any pet that isn’t a wolf or drake for a change) and trait lines cleaned up, too bad that by the time they get the ranger to the standards of today the other actually functional classes will have been iterated farther ahead.

(edited by Zenith.7301)

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Posted by: jcbroe.4329

jcbroe.4329

Nice write up. I appreciate you taking the time to calculate it all out. I wanted to add that since you mentioned in the vs Healing Turret section the value of also having condi cleanses, it would also make sense to make note of that in the vs Healing Spring section.

Jroh | Former SOAC Ranger Podcaster | Platinum Division Top 100 Player
www.twitch.tv/itsJROH For stream, stream schedule, other streamers, builds, etc
https://www.youtube.com/user/JRoeboat

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

Nice write up. I appreciate you taking the time to calculate it all out. I wanted to add that since you mentioned in the vs Healing Turret section the value of also having condi cleanses, it would also make sense to make note of that in the vs Healing Spring section.

I did =D

jonnis.2946

These values do not account for the provided water field and condi clears, both of which massively increase the effective HPS.

Thanks a lot

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

You also forgot to mention in your generous comparison that the turret is a standalone heal, whereas the Water Spirit requires a 20-30 point investment in nature magic, not only being inferior but having a larger opportunity cost.

An excellent point! I’d be interested in some spirit specs that dont take Natures Vengeance, if it weren’t for the fact that having it on the elite is so vital. A spec that has shouts granting perma regen with a lot of healing power to all party members looks like it could have some legs now spirits can move. Perhaps with full regen uptime and assuming condi clears are sufficient it could be viable there? I doubt it, but taking away the regen from healing spring leaves it feeling a bit more even.

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Posted by: Soilder.3607

Soilder.3607

I was so disappointed at the water spirit announcement. Last thing we need is more passive and Ai based play.

Did anet also forget about the fact that healing spring is the best team heal in the game and that we did NOT need another supportive heal?

They have no clue how to balance, none.

Stormbluff Isle

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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

Water Spirit Stats With Cleric Amulet:

proc heal: 903 heal per 10 seconds for the ranger and the rest of his team.
active heal: 4246 heal on self and 1930 heal per ally
Number of Targets: 5
active heal cd: 25 sec
1 more heal after it dies

total heal before the spirit dies:
on self: 12738
per ally: 5790
on procs: 5418

tell me if it doesn’t help keeping your team alive in team fights.

PVP Ranger: Prince Valentine, PVP Warrior: Prince of Hearts I, and PVP Mesmer: Prince Valentine I

(edited by Valentin.2073)

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Posted by: jcbroe.4329

jcbroe.4329

Nice write up. I appreciate you taking the time to calculate it all out. I wanted to add that since you mentioned in the vs Healing Turret section the value of also having condi cleanses, it would also make sense to make note of that in the vs Healing Spring section.

I did =D

jonnis.2946

These values do not account for the provided water field and condi clears, both of which massively increase the effective HPS.

Thanks a lot

My fault haha, continue

Jroh | Former SOAC Ranger Podcaster | Platinum Division Top 100 Player
www.twitch.tv/itsJROH For stream, stream schedule, other streamers, builds, etc
https://www.youtube.com/user/JRoeboat

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

Water Spirit Stats With Cleric Amulet:

To start, I never said it doesn’t help keep your team alive, simply that Healing Spring is a better option.

Ok, I’m assuming youre saying the spirit doesn’t die at any point since you’ve listed 6 on proc heals. I’m going to ignore the fact that I think this is an unrealistic calculation, because to be healing your allies you have to take your spirit into the centre of the action, putting in directly in harms way. I’ll look at the HPS for allies and for yourself for the numbers you posted though, and assume the ally gets every proc of the active.

I’d like to point out at this stage that you are assuming you have 1088 healing power, where a full clerics amulet will only give you 923, you also have healing power runes to increase this to 1088.

Healing on allies is actually 7720 first of all, counting the on death proc, the total time for 1 cycle is 81.5 seconds counting cast time. This leads to a total of 161.2 HPS.

The first thing I’m going to point out is that an untraited Healing Turret with 0 healing power without even counting the regeneration or the fact its a water field or the fact that it clears conditions does 162.6 HPS. You’re providing less support healing than any Engineer who doesn’t even have to care about the support he’s providing, he hasn’t even had to trait for it. The active effects also cover a larger, more realistic radius. So even with Clerics, we’re a million miles off this being the best support heal.

I don’t know what the rest of your setup is, but I’m going to assume you’re the standard spirit ranger with Water Spirit swapped in.

Healing Spring provides a water field for 10 seconds. 1/3 uptime on a water field, regardless of the regeneration it provides, the condi clears, is an incredible asset to team support if your team is coordinated. A single blast finisher in that water field every 30 seconds gives 43 HPS. I normally carry a Warhorn in tPvP as my role is slightly different to the average spirit ranger, so I always use the blast finisher. I also always communicate the fact that the field is down, incase people need to stand in it to clear condis or have finishers. If one other person blast finishes its another 43 HPS. This assumes 0 healing power. With 1088 healing power, its 50.4.

But lets ignore that and look at the 6 condi removals you get every 30 seconds. Its no secret that Empathic Bond has been a musthave in our builds virtually since the game launched. That gives 3 condi removals every 10 seconds, but we spec 30 points into a semi defensive tree mainly because of that trait. It only removes conditions from yourself and actually puts your pets at risk. 6 condi removals every 30 seconds works out to 2 every 10, and the conditions are actually removed. I can’t put a value on how powerful this is in terms of HPS, but in terms of supporting your team this is a feature that is incredibly valuable.

In a similar best case scenario for the healing spring, the regeneration provides 99.7 HPS, 154.3 when I have 569 healing power. Add to these a 43/47 HPS blast finisher respectively. Just for fun, if I had 1088 healing power, it would be 204 HPS (+50 HPS blast), far more than the water spirit, but thats unrealistic.

I just don’t think you can justify taking the Water spirit given the unreliability of the heal, the lack of a water field and the lack of a condi clear, given that the HPS isn’t significantly larger. Its a lot of risk for no increase in reward. I could maybe see it in a 2v2 paired with an Engineer perhaps, who has the turret water field anyway, and is providing regen whenever he heals so you have good uptime. Like I said I also could maybe see it in other builds with constant regen uptime, but that would be to undervalue the water field.

Personal healing the spirit doesn’t compare, and then I start to add in the sword leap, which you can accomplish twice if you’re lucky, blast finishers, even pet blast finishers, the condi clears the water field. Just in Regen/Healing alone, a comparison at 1223 healing power sees the field come out miles on top, at 0 healing power the Spirit does seem to be slightly more efficient, but that would assume a perfect scenario on the spirit side, and no finishers on the healing spring.

To reiterate, I’m genuinely not trying to say that it can’t help your team, and I actually don’t consider it useless… Until you compare it to the Healing Spring.

(edited by jonnis.2946)

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

Nice write up. I appreciate you taking the time to calculate it all out. I wanted to add that since you mentioned in the vs Healing Turret section the value of also having condi cleanses, it would also make sense to make note of that in the vs Healing Spring section.

I did =D

jonnis.2946

These values do not account for the provided water field and condi clears, both of which massively increase the effective HPS.

Thanks a lot

My fault haha, continue

Don’t blame you, theres a TL:DR section for a reason haha.

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Posted by: Kharr.5746

Kharr.5746

You should mention that water spirit adds body blocking and another target that opponents have to cycle through. Damage blocked/delayed by the spirit adds to its “healing potential”. This alone gives it a big edge in sPVP. It also moves when traited unlike healing spring. Lastly, the large passive radius means your allies don’t need to stack on you to gain the benefit.

The passive portion on the heal is very useful for dealing with low-sources of incoming damage from stray dots/attacks that hit you while the burst portion of the heal helps deal with direct damage. What’s important here is that the passive heal is active prior to setting your burst heal on cooldown — this is superior to healing turret/healing spring which require you to blow your healing cooldown to get the passive heal (regen).

The new heals were never supposed to be “the best heal the professions have.”

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Posted by: jcbroe.4329

jcbroe.4329

I was just over anxious with giving a response lol. Somebody was actually doing mathematical comparisons, exploring multiple arguments, and assessing the different aspects of other arguments.

It’s a rarity on these forums.

I think that the interesting connecting that can be made is that Healing Spring is basically to rangers what Healing Turret is to Engis; an almost necessary healing utility that (for once) doesn’t actually need any trait investment to be effective.

Jroh | Former SOAC Ranger Podcaster | Platinum Division Top 100 Player
www.twitch.tv/itsJROH For stream, stream schedule, other streamers, builds, etc
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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

just imagine a ranger with a water spirit and spirit of nature, how much heal can he provide for his team? healing spring is really effective for condition cleanse but water spirit is much better in group heal.

btw, any decent player would know to destroy the turrets first before stepping inside the node. water spirit has much larger health pool than healing turrets.

PVP Ranger: Prince Valentine, PVP Warrior: Prince of Hearts I, and PVP Mesmer: Prince Valentine I

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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

You should mention that water spirit adds body blocking and another target that opponents have to cycle through. Damage blocked/delayed by the spirit adds to its “healing potential”. This alone gives it a big edge in sPVP. It also moves when traited unlike healing spring. Lastly, the large passive radius means your allies don’t need to stack on you to gain the benefit.

The passive portion on the heal is very useful for dealing with low-sources of incoming damage from stray dots/attacks that hit you while the burst portion of the heal helps deal with direct damage. What’s important here is that the passive heal is active prior to setting your burst heal on cooldown — this is superior to healing turret/healing spring which require you to blow your healing cooldown to get the passive heal (regen).

The new heals were never supposed to be “the best heal the professions have.”

good point, man. thank you.

PVP Ranger: Prince Valentine, PVP Warrior: Prince of Hearts I, and PVP Mesmer: Prince Valentine I

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

You should mention that water spirit adds body blocking and another target that opponents have to cycle through. Damage blocked/delayed by the spirit adds to its “healing potential”.

What’s important here is that the passive heal is active prior to setting your burst heal on cooldown.(regen).

Body blocking yes, however I made these calculations largely based on the Ranger not being the focus of the attack and the spirit not providing body blocking, because if it is then it dies, and the HPS is (in the vast majority of cases) reduced by that fact. I doubt there is any case in which the body blocked received as a result of the water spirit dying is more beneficial than keeping the spirit up. I’d also point out that a lot of damage the spirit will take is AoE and will prioritise hitting the player first anyway. Melee damage is unlikely to be soaked up, so Ranged projectiles that don’t pierce the target are all the body blocking provided.

Since the changes to tab targetting that target all players first before spirits, and the fact that any decent team will not only call a target that can be targeted with a key press, but will also be mouse targetting, rather than tab targetting, I do not consider the extra spirit to be “another target that opponents have to cycle through”.

The passive is quite strong, I grant you, but not as strong as you might think. It works out to 59.26 HPS with no healing power. This is roughly equal to other sources of passive AoE healing. A traited virtue of resolve, not an unreasonable comparison given that the spirit must be traited, gives 84 HPS. Soothing mist gives 80 HPS when active with very short downtime assuming Water Attunement is accessed on Cooldown. Both these skills operate on a 1200 range, where Water Spirit is only 1000.

I would agree that the lack of need to stack is important, but thats not the case when you take the active portion of the heal into account. My other problem with the active portion is the cast times. Not only do you have a 1 second cast time to cast the skill, the spirit has a further one second cast time to use it! If you’re running around trying to heal your teammates and they head the wrong way, youve wasted that CD. But lets assume your communicating, so that isn’t an issue.

I agree that the passive healing from these sources are on CD. Healing Turret is on such a low CD that its not really a problem, especially given Engi dodges, but to focus on the ranger it can be difficult to know when to use a Healing Spring if you don’t need it. To me thats overcome by it being a water field. I can get as much healing from the active as if I manage 2 leaps and a blast finisher in my water field and someone else pulls off one more blast finisher, this is something I’m specifically set up to do, but all Rangers have access to the leap and should be using it.

I’d also point out that as soon as the spirit is out, you are in danger of your heal being put on a 20 second cooldown. So while you haven’t blown your heal cooldown, your heal cooldown is far more telegraphed and is at risk of being on cooldown even if you manage well.

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

You talk about getting bursted and the active healing you up from that, here’s some more specific examples of worst case scenarios:
A shatter mesmer bursts you. Shatters have a 240 radius, your spirit dies and you get a 1.93k heal from that, but the burst has hit you for 6k (moderate for a mind wrack) so you are low-ish. Your heal is on cooldown for 20 seconds, and you have to try to get it up against a mesmer, who will either have GS, Pistol or Dispersion Shatter to interupt you at any point during a 2.5 second cast time, and also has a period of 20 seconds where you have no healing at all to kill you.

There is no recovery in this situation, you are dead if the Mesmer is anything decent.

Youre in a team fight, and youre receiving AoE damage because youre fighting near the centre of the fight. You’ve used the active on your spirit, and when its just about to come off CD it dies, there is nothing you can do to prevent this from happening I should add, as you have no heals, short of asking your team to provide AoE healing, for your poxy spirit, which may not even get the effect of the heal anyway as it isnt a priority in the game.

You effectively in this situation have a 46.5 second cooldown since your last heal to your next one. Perhaps you weren’t the focus target at this stage, but against a good team they might notice you’re not at 100% and your spirit has gone down. You get immediately focused and people try to keep you up. The enemy guardian still has stability and as you go down under immense pressure (likely at least in part from condi spam I might add!) you manage to put up your res spirit and res yourself but you’ve wasted that team fight utility. Your heal comes off CD straight after, so you try to get it up, but youre still the target and that kitten Hambow Warrior is on your kitten . I could go on, but you see my point, if youre the target against hambow warriors youre never getting that heal back up and the active off in time to save yourself.

As I said these are worst case scenarios, but they are important scenarios which are indicative of good player on the other teams side. The fact is that the Spirit has so much counterplay that its difficult to justify taking it in a high tier game.

(edited by jonnis.2946)

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

just imagine a ranger with a water spirit and spirit of nature, how much heal can he provide for his team? healing spring is really effective for condition cleanse but water spirit is much better in group heal.

btw, any decent player would know to destroy the turrets first before stepping inside the node. water spirit has much larger health pool than healing turrets.

I would agree that a Ranger using his Elite skill and a support heal will provide a lot of Healing for his team, yes. The elite spirit provides 480 healing per second, an absolutely absurd amount of healing. That’s why decent teams will focus it down instantly, but thats besides the point. The elite spirits active also actually clears 5 conditions from all allies, a very important feature to consider if you get the chance at a second proc. Any Ranger using his elite skill to provide healing rather than resses though is wasting that utility completely. As soon as the spirit is up, like I say, any decent team will focus it, so it must be saved for clutch moments where that can’t happen.

I have already listed some other options for passive group healing that come out far stronger than the Water Spirit on other classes, namely a shared Virtue of Resolve and Soothing Mist from an elementalist. However I do agree that the passive effect is strong in this area.

Any Engineer who understands how to use the healing turret will pick up the healing turret immediately after the Cleansing Burst. This is what I have based my calculations on. There is no counterplay to the healing turret, the 0.5 second cast time is too short to realistically interrupt.

The healing turret has a health pool of 5980. Source
Will test spirit health in a second and get back to you on that one

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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

healing spring is the best heal on a ranger, no argument. but if a team decides to bring 2 spirit rangers then a spirit ranger with a water spirit can be an option. this gives more diversity in spirit builds. a team can bring a condi/dps spirit ranger and a cleric spirit ranger (both viable).

PVP Ranger: Prince Valentine, PVP Warrior: Prince of Hearts I, and PVP Mesmer: Prince Valentine I

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

healing spring is the best heal on a ranger, no argument. but if a team decides to bring 2 spirit rangers then a spirit ranger with a water spirit can be an option. this gives more diversity in spirit builds. a team can bring a condi/dps spirit ranger and a cleric spirit ranger (both viable).

My main disagreement is that spirit buffs dont stack, ie you dont get any bonus from having two storm spirits, stone spirits or sun spirits in terms of increased proc.

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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

well, at least you get 2 duelists on your team and they both have excellent team support. you can have the condition-based spirit ranger to defend home node and the cleric spirit ranger to support at mid.

PVP Ranger: Prince Valentine, PVP Warrior: Prince of Hearts I, and PVP Mesmer: Prince Valentine I

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

There are two spirit ranger teams around. Nowadays though I’d far prefer to see one running with Nature’s Voice and Guard + Shout Reduction for perma Regen uptime. I don’t think two spirit rangers is viable though, other than in pure bunker teams, largely due to the amount of stuns in the game and their lack of stun breakers, even though Hammer Warrior has taken a dip.

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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

this water spirit opens other possibilities for spirit rangers. it wouldn’t hurt to experiment. i’m sure other spirit rangers would welcome some changes in their old builds.

PVP Ranger: Prince Valentine, PVP Warrior: Prince of Hearts I, and PVP Mesmer: Prince Valentine I

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

I agree. I just don’t think that, in terms of the optimum PvP Spirit Ranger build, this is a viable choice

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Posted by: faeral.7120

faeral.7120

tested water spirit for a day in team queues. it certainly has its moments, but it is not good for backpoint b/c you need the condi cleanse for the classes you will face in 1v1 ( condi war, decap engi, spirit ranger w/ spring, etc ). edit: the staggered timing is also brutal when you need a heal in clutch moments. eg. low on health, spirit is off CD but not summoned → 2 separate cast times adding to 2.5s, with another 1.5s to get full effect.

in team fights, it has a more persistent impact than Spring ( Spirit starts helping the instant it is within 1,000 range of your team ) & you can stack a double active to relieve pressure by activating on the edge of the fight then running the spirit into the frey for the Vengeance heal.

however, Spring is just too good for team support because of condi wipe, blasts, leaps & projectiles ( your team can heal themselves with their own leaps, everyone’s projectiles will extend the regen in AoE by 1 tick, blasts are blasty ). Spring’s effect is also guaranteed for 10s, the main counterplay being AoE overlap but Spring is often used as counterplay to AoE itself.

the two biggest failings with Water Spirit are that the AoE active does not scale with Healing Power ( change the way Spirit actives scale with our stats please ), & the staggered cast time leaves you too exposed, especially when it provides no condi cleanse. the initial heal should be 1/2s cast, the spirit can remain at 1.5s for the AoE portion.

healing spring is still the king, baby.

(edited by faeral.7120)

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Posted by: jonnis.2946

jonnis.2946

tested water spirit for a day in team queues. it certainly has its moments, but it is not good for backpoint b/c you need the condi cleanse for the classes you will face in 1v1 ( condi war, decap engi, spirit ranger w/ spring, etc ). edit: the staggered timing is also brutal when you need a heal in clutch moments. eg. low on health, spirit is off CD but not summoned -> 2 separate cast times adding to 2.5s, with another 1.5s to get full effect.

in team fights, it has a more persistent impact than Spring ( Spirit starts helping the instant it is within 1,000 range of your team ) & you can stack a double active to relieve pressure by activating on the edge of the fight then running the spirit into the frey for the Vengeance heal.

however, Spring is just too good for team support because of condi wipe, blasts, leaps & projectiles ( your team can heal themselves with their own leaps, everyone’s projectiles will extend the regen in AoE by 1 tick, blasts are blasty ). Spring’s effect is also guaranteed for 10s, the main counterplay being AoE overlap but Spring is often used as counterplay to AoE itself.

the two biggest failings with Water Spirit are that the AoE active does not scale with Healing Power ( change the way Spirit actives scale with our stats please ), & the staggered cast time leaves you too exposed, especially when it provides no condi cleanse. the initial heal should be 1/2s cast, the spirit can remain at 1.5s for the AoE portion.

healing spring is still the king, baby.

Spirit is 1.5 second cast, active 1 second I believe. This confirms much of my beliefs, haven’t dared take it into team queues as I don’t think it’s viable.

However, I’ve done some research into blasts today and I wildly overestimated their potential. Its only a 240 radius centered on the blast itself, regardless of the radius of the blast or the radius of the field. I was really disappointed in that and made another forum post suggesting that the radius be increased substantially to somewhere between 480 and 600. Feel like it could massively improve team play, interestingness of combos and the skill cap without limiting new players as it would still be an advanced thing to do. I also like to see leaps become aoe, but in a tiny radius, 180 perhaps, just to give combos a little extra play.

I’ve written it all out on there and I’ll only end up babbling the same stuff again if I start, have a look if combos interest you!

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Water spirit will never be used by a ranger for the sole reason that Healing Spring is the only on demand condi clear tool besides signet of renewal for the ranger, and on spirit builds rangers don’t even have signet of renewal so healing spring is their only way to survive against necromancers and engineers and even warriors.

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Posted by: faeral.7120

faeral.7120

Spirit is 1.5 second cast, active 1 second I believe.

Yep, I was referring to reducing the Active to 0.5s cast, & the Spirit’s AoE aftercast can remain @ 1.5s. Still, without HP scaling, Water Spirit will never rival the effective HPS of Spring’s condi removal.

However, I’ve done some research into blasts today and I wildly overestimated their potential. Its only a 240 radius centered on the blast itself, regardless of the radius of the blast or the radius of the field. I was really disappointed in that and made another forum post suggesting that the radius be increased substantially to somewhere between 480 and 600. Feel like it could massively improve team play, interestingness of combos and the skill cap without limiting new players as it would still be an advanced thing to do. I also like to see leaps become aoe, but in a tiny radius, 180 perhaps, just to give combos a little extra play.

Yes, I saw that post. I’ll post my thoughts in there.

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Posted by: Lord Hammer Hand.4815

Lord Hammer Hand.4815

healing spring is a on demand healing meaning you can use it when you need it the most not like the water spirits which heals you or your ally when its not needed then die or expired when you needed the heal

Pacific Islander Legion [NoyP]
Black Gate
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Posted by: Valentin.2073

Valentin.2073

i think water spirit also heals my pet on proc. they die less frequently now that i started using this heal. i don’t need to swap pets that often anymore making it more effective in cleansing conditions from me. has anyone else noticed this?

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