Guild Wars 2

Balance is just as much about perception as reality.
You don’t want people even thinking that certain classes are “top shelf” and others are “underpowered” even if you want to scream “but that isn’t how either class should be played”.

So, if you find a population gravitating too heavily to some classes and builds, you are by definition out of balance. The game is designed around having all the classes be played more or less equally in WvW, PvE, PvP etc.

So the “eyeball” test for WvW is what classes are over represented. Then you ask, what do you have to do to change that to bring other classes “into parity”?

Now mind you, just because a class has/doesn’t numbers doesn’t mean it is balanced/unbalanced from a power and usefulness standpoint.

You have to balance for both.

But the two are TYPICALLY well correlated.

On that premise, melee is too prevalent (warriors/guardians). There are too few eles and rangers. In short, to achieve balance you need to make these classes more desirable.

Nope, I never ever ever use slick shoes.
Yes, it seems to happen on entering water only.
It does seem to happen if BoB is on cooldown or if I have another tool belt skill on CD.
Will have to check if it bugs when I have HT on cooldown.

Only applies when after entering water with something on cooldown on the left side of the panel (weapons and toolbelt abilities) and then swapping utility kits (e.g. typically e gun to bomb or grenade to bomb).

Odd as it really messes with me when it happens. Can’t say it is 100%.

How do I check if I have something on autocast while in a specific kit?

Typically would go only to 10 in alchemy.

In firearms, the real value is the increase in crit chance. Target the weak assisting the baseline improvement of points in the line.

Would have done trigger and increased range. I find the range extremely useful as well as anything that allows me to use my secondary heals and escapes more (e gun).

I suppose that is too much to give up for 1 condition “change to boon” every 15 seconds and a nice passive pulse heal.

Still, sitting at only 44% crit chance seems low given all the “on crit” effects we have.
Hmmmmmmm.

For Engie, you can’t have a might build really without HGH (grandmaster trait) but you can run lots of other builds

You typically either need 20 pts in alchemy for backpack regen or 30 in inventions for elixir infused bombs for secondary healing but each line is significantly valuable otherwise and you have a choice of two

You also almost always see 10 pts in Tools for your swiftness which is a pain but at least only requires 10 pts.

Trouble as Durz points out is that the ranger is almost required to trait high to “cover” deficiencies in either weapon design (high marksmanship) or survivorability (needing empathic bond).

Likewise, I would add, that we have more “to cover” with traits because that is how you improve pets too.

Together this is the greatest problem. A trait simplification/consolidation would be most appreciated. Some things which are traits really could be inherent in weapons (e.g. pierce on ranger bows) or bundled (several of the marksmanship traits) or more accessible (empathic bond or a less effective alternative in another line).

Ok, maybe a bad idea (never will find a good one without a lot of bad ones first).

So, what is the easy fix for the broken pet system?
I see a lot of answers that essentially would require massive coding changes or class redesigns which is less than likely to happen.

What is the simplest solution that doesn’t violate the idea that pets are here to stay?
Most simple solutions proposed benefit one or two builds only or are incremental versus significant enough to get ranger’s pet usefulness where I think ANet was heading.

Thoughts?

I find when I play at range I use as many if not more skills.
That being said, melee can be fun. I like to have both options available in my builds and find melee/melee or range/range to be weaker than range/melee.

I guess the real question then becomes does secondary healing outperform secondary damage especially when you can get more “on crit” conditions by moving points from the secondary healing line to say firearms?

Playing more with BR, I think it is helping. Having been a ranger for so long, I’m pretty risk adverse and quite good at healing (squish goes the ranger).

How do engineers get their long regeneration boon? Mine don’t last very long when outside of a field (e.g. HT). Fortunately the field is pretty big (unlike super elixir). Love all the pulse heals we get though! Healing Mist is my stun break and Regen Mist is great but short. In fact, all our regen is short and a problem when you want to flee and regen at same time. Thoughts?

Looking to get advice on best practices and tips in dealing with different classes/builds with a 3 kit engineer. Have several things that are working and others. . . well. . . a darn automated response engineer is a nightmare for me Necros are tough too.

I have a lot of empty space for the group to fill in as I am just getting used to the engineer! Thanks in advance.

Combinations and rotations would be extremely helpful to give me a sense of what synergizes best.

So. . . .

ELEMENTALIST

WARRIOR
Weakness and Immobilize

RANGER
+ Immobilize pet+
Condition down Ranger
Shield Block Hunter’s Call
AE retaliation off elixir gun rapid fire
Confusion really hurts rangers and pesky pets

NECROMANCER
They hurt me. Need Help.

GUARDIAN

THIEF
Blinding is so much fun
Bounce abilities ping where the thief went
Bomb refuge hard

MESMER
Kit swapping leads me to often lose target and spend precious seconds figuring out which one of them is the “real Waldo”. Any help appreciated.

Ok, so I have torment and battle on shields now and
bursting and corruption on pistols and am swapping as needed.

Thanks for all the input! Really helps when you are the new Asura.

Exactly. It acts like slick shoes but most definitely is the bomb kit.
Will have to screen shot it.

Guess, I am the only one bugged out. Typical!

Pets are not going away and would take huge resources to go away.
Massive AI changes are hard to get the time to do (and often won’t work)
We need a simple fix.

I suggest we have 2 pets out at a time vs 1. That is really the easiest solution. Everything can be tweaked globally that way.

Then all that needs to be fixed is how much total damage (does each pet take a 25% cut?) Same with HPs. It should buff total damage and HPs.

It also gives us more F2 abilities which may become the primary driver of pets.

MOST classes are fairly balanced.

2 Classes need to move down to the middle.
2 Classes need to move up to the middle.
In each case, ONE class is needing to move up/down far more than the other.
This should be ANet’s focus.

Warrior and Guardian are too OP and need to come down some.

Warrior has too many areas where it is too strong or top tier with no corresponding weakness. I needs the most nerfing.
Guardians need modest toning down.
Few non-warriors/guardians would disagree. Many would disagree over how and how much (that is the real question).

In general, melee needs to be toned down making ranged more significant.
Needless, to say, the two classes needing boosts are ranged.

Ranger needs a buff. Few would disagree even if they think you can play a ranger in WvW (skill beats challenges). Still, they need attention and much more than any other class. Part of it is the wonky pet mechanics. Part of it is the traits being bunched oddly that promotes over reaching in a skill line for a trait versus build diversity and common sense.

Elementalist is probably the second class needing a bit of attention. They have their moments (where the ranger has moments by player not class) but overall need a bit more.

I use my supply crate more to stun and then for the extra med packs than for 2 offensive turrets.

Save the hobo sack (but make an option to make it invisible)!

When in water and swapping to bomb kit, I am getting some odd animation that looks like a big blob of brown . . . . .

Then the kit is on cooldown for 60 seconds which should never happen.

Anyone seen this?

Ok, the bug seems to be tied to whether kitty is doing something or not (fighting, moving etc). Best is to use it when kitty is less “distracted” and it works about 80% +.

I tend to have him return and as returning call up the F2. Or I use the F2 when running into a fight but not there yet.

BUT, when the pet is engaged it seems to wig out half the time. As if, it can’t figure out which animation to do.

Biggest thing to help rangers would be to clean up and consolidate trait lines so we could take more for less.

Torment seems to be working ok because it is yet another condition for them to clean and AE but it doesn’t give a lot of damage so in a number of situations I am missing battle.

Not sure at all.

Ok what is the best option/s for a pistol and shield in an engie 3 kit condition build?

What about using torment? Would that be better than Battle?

Wondering if I should change my sigil of battle (might stacks) for torment in a 3 kit condi build?

Reasoning: The torment is another condition and stacks damage.
Downside: I usually have 3 or more stacks of might up as I swap a lot.

Thoughts?

P/S classic 30/10/0/20/10 with grenade/bomb/elixir gun

You need to add the new heal Healing Spring to the list of buffs.
It is net new and powerful in the right situations (especially when using nature’s voice for the regen).
It adds options.

I think people miss what I was saying as it was not well worded.

You would have ONE pet out at a time
You could swap pets on 10 seconds vs 20
Instead of only being able to swap between 2 pets it would now be a 4 pet rotation.

The key concept that may or may not be missed is the idea of being able to effectively pull off 4 F2 effects every 40 seconds (essentially one every 10 seconds).
And, moving to 10 second pet swapping makes a huge difference in “on pet activation” traits (might and AE vigor).

Yeah, having 4 pets out at a time would be nuts.

I did mean energy. Whoops.
I do on all characters run a “throw away” weapon or shield for stacks then swap it to my mains.
Sigil of battle is a given especially on a fast swapping 3 kit engineer. . . I think.
The real issue is what to pair it with. I am going bursting right now.

Vigor or an injection? (Blood or protection? I would think protection).

Noooooo. I absolutely love my hobosacks. It is absolutely perfect for my look, build. But on the other hand, I do wish you could “turn off” their appearance like you can a helm versus having everyone lose them which would make me a sad panda.

Could the skins be tied to your backpiece and then when you unclicked the back piece it would remove the look? That way if you, like me, love them you can keep them.

Need a little advice. Getting the rotations down but not really feeling optimized.

How do you maximize your initial damage stacks quickly on one target and on a small group? +Assume you are using a grenade, bomb, egun combo which is my favorite.

*How do you “stay up” in a fight that lasts a while 1v1 especially? What skills do you use first, second, etc. for defense (e.g. blinds, egun 2 etc)

So to fix pets, I propose the following:

1) Move to 10 Second Pet Swaps Helps with a LOT of on pet swap abilities that really should be the basis of ranger utility. Think of the vigor. Think of the might.

2) Allow 4 Pets to Swap in a rotation 2x F2s and that would really help take care of pets dying as you would rotate them. Now the real basis of the pet is creating a “kit” of 4 F2 abilities you can cycle thru (yes some are buggy but that can get fixed overtime).

3) Reduce Cooldowns on F2 Single Target 20 seconds. AE 30 Seconds.

4) Reduce Cast Times on F2 Again a standard time for single target and then for AE damage/boons.

In short, having 4 pets you can cycle thru is like having a single engineer kit that you design what you want. It still provides damage BUT it now greatly increases the utility tied to F2. You also would have a LOT of utility buffs you could apply to a group pre-fight as pet swapping is then very fast!

Each time you would “click” pet swap, you would get the next pet in the rotation as opposed to being able to pick which one of the 4 you wanted next (that could be OP). So you have to think about both what pets and what rotation.

Very little for ANet to change to make this work. Sure it doesn’t make the pet better in terms of basic damage or fix pathing which are huge issues to tackle. BUT. . . it does give our pets more:

1) Ability to survive in AE
2) Group Utility (conditions, buffs, damage bursts, immobilizes etc)
3) Greatly improves “on pet swap” skills to give ranger much better function in groups and pve (I think as I rarely dungeon).

Option 2

Just allow the ranger to have 2 pets out at a time vs 1.
Cheap way to improve ranger damage.
You just need to have 2 pet bars vs 1
When you swap you would swap 2 for 2 (so each set would be swapped).
Now you probably would wind up with enough damage even with all the stupidity of AI.
You would have 2x the utility F2 procs which would add some real value.
It probably wouldn’t be terribly OP compared to other classes really

Thoughts?

(Druzilla) “Devourer I’ve got no clue about, I hardly use them , I do know the one with the F2 bleed rapid fire thing can do a pretty good amount of damage though”

I like the lashtail devourer for RAO might stacking.

Agree that people underutilize bears for their AE.

Sigils:

What really makes a P/S 3 kit engie better?

1) Earth (For Bleeds)
This seems the obvious choice given we bleed well but not up to 25 stacks easily and it would basically work for any kit skill (many kit a LOT of targets).
Not sure how it works on AE.

2) Bursting (6% more condition damage)
Would that really help more than just getting more bleed stacks? I would think the bleed stacks would be faster damage too.

3) Endurance (50% on using a heal skill)
I have a lot of vigor with my engie in its current build and would I want to waste a sigil on this?
Not a big dodger in large scale or even mid scale wvw because I have so many kit skills and backline more. Maybe I should be!

Note: I always have a “duplicate” weapon for condition stacks which I then swap out once maxed or if I don’t have time to kill animals.

Again, as always, I am running a 30/10/0/20/10 spec. As name implies, I love explosions (bombs, nades, egun).

Thanks again everyone! I know lots of questions from the new kid!

So on a bomb/egun/nade build what is the real point of 20pts in apthocary?

What You Get

1) A very weak regeneration at 120 or under hps (Certainly useful but enough for 20 skill pt investment?)
2) Good, but is it necessary, minor trait that converts 1 condition to a boon every 15 seconds?
3) A little vitality which I could make up
4) 20% boon duration that really doesn’t do much for a 3 kit build. Helpful but not as important as if I was might stacking off more than a fire combo+

What I Could Get
20 more pts in firearms
1) Target weak and maim would be great damage boosts
2) Traits would likely focus on increased range and piercing pistol shots (will that cause more confusion bouncing or not???)
3) More precision is always good for condition procs on all the explosion and firearm traits and minors.

20 pts in inventions
1) Big focus is on the toughness and HP. (Healing scales up HT pretty poorly)
2) I like the idea of having my healing turret reload when I am weak. That gives me the ability to not save a heal and have a BIG one when I need it most.
3) Traits are not as synergestic. Might take shield toughness and something else defensive.
4) Option doesn’t improve damage but definitely helps with surviving

20 pts in Tools
1) I really like reducing my F1-F4 skills recharge timers
2) Minors are great for a 3 kit engie
3) Not feeling in any way that this is better than firearms for damage.

Ok. Explain why a weak always on regen beats any of these options? What am I missing? Every build seems to have BR. I must be missing something or is there really an argument that the 20 pts could be spent better elsewhere?

So, am I a heretic in thinking the BR may be over commitment for under performance?

Well, I have a mouse that allows me to hit the auto attack quickly. Don’t mind that as much as trying to figure out how often would the enemy have avoided the bomb if it were not 240 (which is REALLY hard to predict). I’m not having too much luck “bombing at the edges” of the radius and avoiding melee but that may just take more time and practice.

I seem torn between faster condition build up for bursting and some of these utility’s even including BR (which untraited is only 120ish).

Anyone going more burst and less defense?

At least on our server, you tend to get a mix of sizes of battles so you want a spec which can swap traits/kits but not gear/spec.

As such I tend to be almost always on (save my apothecary support spec which is just for fun heal bombing) a Yoshis 30/10/0/20/10 build with

a. Pistol and Shield (I like the shield a lot)
b. Grenades/E-Gun and typically bombs
c. Rabid Gear (I have 6+ ranger sets and only 2 engie. When I get full ascended trinkets at least, I will move off Rabid and build up the next).

As such, in large scale, I at least think nades/bombs works well because it is just a question of when in the fight do I need which. Initially, I tend to nade. Then later it becomes bombs OR if the enemy gets close. Plus, you have to love Big Ole Bomb.

Questions Based on Above

1) Bombs or Grenades for Large Scale?

2) What would you replace the one you are NOT taking with?

3) Do you play with Both?

4) Any reason in the World you would not play with the E-Gun?

Not looking for a power build answer or a HGH answer. But on a kit condition basis for larger scale what works?

I think I am comfortable with the roaming Yoshis build 30/10/0/20/10 with bigger explosions, IP, grenadier. . . Hair trigger. . . .Vigor and BR. . . Swift Kits. If there are tweaks post-patch to make this even more effective let me know.

Thanks. Yes I can have both BUT at the expense of IP which is often the only real source of initial burn damage until the enemy gets close.

Love IP for small battles. Just not sure it is worth it any other time! Glad I have choices in this class versus a predefined build with few options though.

Merry Christmas to you too.

Well, I don’t take a second pistol because that shield is amazing with a blast, knockback and daze/stun/block.

And I don’t take a rifle because that pistol has a great bounce confusion stack and extra conditions are a good thing with rabid gear and perplex runes.

Short fuse is interesting especially on bombs.

Mixing up the traits to see what works best but I greatly appreciate all the thoughts and opinions. I just can’t tell what is better even having tried it out!

I’m on SoS too and would love to see how you do it Icon.

Moving from my ranger to engie and certainly doing damage in 1 v 2s but too often I get locked down or can’t get off enough heals or the enemy avoids the CC that gives me enough range thru stability.

I don’t kill fast enough to not need to kite, stay mobile off lockdown etc. Somehow, I am just not getting it (but then again, it is only week 2 or 3 for the engie).

I play a ranger and an engineer so I see a lot of similar AI issues.
Turrets really face bad AI decision making and how to easily fix them is not clear.
Like the pet.

Turrets doing more conditions is probably the easiest way to fix it.
Similarly, I like to say that instead of tracking, it would be better if a turret would:

1. PBAE pulse a net.
2. Whirl shoot off rifle bullets. Anything in the way gets hit.
3. For a flame turret or treat it as a napalm wall and pulse it out. X seconds of wall every z seconds.
4. Rocket should blast a cone of five rockets each doing less damage. That way you hit more. Like a rocket barrage.

The key is rather than tracking targets, the devices should shoot on a timer. This would create a very nice defensive position.

Then you can think of conditions like. . .

1) Burn- – - Flame turret napalm wall
2) Bleed – - – whirling bullets from rifle turret
3) Track/unstealth- – - rocket barrage cone
4) Net really needs nothing other than to blast out of the top of the turret to a large pbae area.

I see turrets as a very defensive area control focus.

Turrets should stay up longer too (even if you “leave the scene”) but detonate should have a leash. It would be nice if you could leave your turrets to augment one point/guards while moving off to another point (WvW or pvp).

My spirits really don’t die much in wvw. Then again, we are not a huge server and typically you would see 20ish. I have seen pictures where that would be ugly (but then again I might change to get double AE cc from spirits). Nature’s Voice does wonders really in midsized zergs.

Likewise, too many people play spirits as “always up” pets but that really isn’t smart in wvw. You call them as needed. And their CC is quite helpful situationally especially with the long chill. Not sure you lose if the spirit dies IF you are playing for the CC vs damage.

You should be putting up some very impressive regen numbers on the group and have multiple sources of regen so ideally you can move around to cover different targets. There is a lot of HPS a spirit ranger can provide to multiple “clumps”.

In WvW, I tend to be more focused on scouting, taking out solos/camps/dolys, and providing healing/spirit support which we really do well.

Traps have usefulness in choke point fights. They are decent AE.

The whole game is too smash mouth melee and too little CC and range focused but on whole the ranger has a role in WvW, just not as part of a blob. The bigger the blob, the less a ranger is valuable.

Somehow we have gotten to a play style where blobbing is more common than multiple small groups taking objectives in parallel.

Best thing you can do as a ranger is play on a smaller server really.

I love our gear kit sacks but wish they would vary by armor set or someway we could get more skins.

But the idea of NOT having a sack would be a terrible idea.

180-240 radius is the key.

If you are melee, you will be standing in the bombs just to get me.
How much “keep away” value do you find with forceful explosions?

To what extent are you using the trait to:
1) Hit more targets (which DOES make a lot of sense in group play) vs
2) To Ensure that 1 target is getting hit? (Does it really help more than the loss of Shrapnel)?

For healing bombs, absolutely the radius helps heal more.

Thoughts?

Bear was great leveling up. No one can doubt that a damage soak had its place.

For those of you using healing spirits. One of the patches recently seems to have changed how “heal on proc” works. Now might only occurs from the surge NOT also when you activate.

I find the bear very helpful for the condition removal AND
the fact that these days so much of the value of pets is on swapping (Mighty swap and vigorous training).
Alive pets swap faster than dead ones

Rangers are a hard class to play well.
We were buffed in terms of damage and build diversity.
Rangers have much better build/gear synergy on the defensive side using spirits (AE vigor, Protection, Huge Regen, Might Stacking, Burning add etc)
Bow rangers (power and crit) often lack good survivability without extremely good game play (it exists but is hard to use because it focuses on skills and evades/knockbacks etc)
In zergs with a lot of damage flying around we are weak being backline and without significant AE. Spirit and Traps perhaps as exceptions (the first more than the later)
Our pets still struggle to survive multiple indirect sources of damage. They still are clumsy and slow.
Mighty swap now applies 3 stacks of might to YOU and the pet. It has become a standard.

Comparing these;
Healing Spring lasts for 10 seconds, it grants a powerful direct heal which scales directly with healing power (4920+ 1xhealing power). It also grants regeneration and cleanses up to 5 conditions. Through traits it will give vigor upon cast. Cast time is close to instant, making interruption very hard. It’s main downside is that it is pbaoe.
Cleansing Burst lasts 3 seconds, is not instant but has a very low cooldown. It is governed by an AI, and is thus not completely foolproof.

There is no waterfield that is better then healing spring. They all have downsides to them, as well as upsides. However none of them have more advantages and fever dis-advantages then Healing Spring.

• Couple of things*

HS is excellent but there are advantages to HT which makes it a clear second best and almost the same value skill.

1. HT provides a regen for a long time THEN you call the water field as you need it. HS often requires you to decide to save the burst heal or drop it a bit early for the regen/clean.

2. HT has significantly bigger radius on a much shorter cool down. That is it’s key advantage.

3. HT also has Healing Mist which is a huge radius. While often too fast for PUGs, a coordinated group (and engie) can get a single blast per user off with it.

Generally, I would say HT beats HS the better the group is. HS is much easier though.

[quote=3416406;Prysin.8542:]

Actually, the ranger didn’t fare too badly with the endurance nerf.
You have to look at it comparatively. Lots of other classes get walloped harder than we do.

1. We often have a sigil slot free (using 4 weapons in many builds) which can be a sigil for endurance. That is the best option for rangers not taking WS (or needing to save the adept trait for reduction in survival skills) and not taking BM.

2. We have an outstanding ability to get 100% vigor up a great deal of time with vigorous training and/or vigorous renewal.

2a. Vigorous renewal is in a line which most rangers take (for empathic bond) and has minimum requirement. If you are running spirits, you tend to have high +boon duration. If you are not, you still can get 20% of your time (potential) at 100% endurance regen which more or less mitigates the nerf. Basically, you just lose first disable goes to pet to get it.

2b. Going 20 in BM isn’t a huge stretch and Vigorous Training is AE vigor. Without any sort of +boon duration, you have effectively 31% time of 100% endurance regeneration given your pets can swap every 16 seconds in combat and the skill is for 5 seconds. I find this to be one of the more underutilized boosts a ranger can provide! Move back to 20 BM and you won’t have an issue. It is one of the best vigor skills in the game really!

HS provides the benefit of VR to a group. Water Spirit does not.

The KEY is that our class has better means to compensate for the vigor reduction than other classes which received a similar nerf. That, on whole, makes rangers more. . . not less. . . effective in relative terms.

Noble are just such a pain in the neck to get if you are not into PvE and dungeons.
Perplexity tends to be my choice (expensive but worth it) because adding essentially 2 stacks of confusion > than a small net increase in overall condition damage.

With IP having a 10 second ICD is it only better in 1v1 situations?
Shrapnel seems to add a lot of bleeds.

When creating a WvW (solo, small, big) character, which is better and why?

Assume rabid based p/s with bomb/nade/e-gun so only room for one of the two skills as giving up forceful explosions really limits bombs.

For zerging in large groups I would say we have a build that is certainly at par (not the top tier). Outside spirits, you are in the bottom tier.

I don’t know that a spirit healing build in zergs is bad at all. You have a spec where you can swap out traits fast for almost any fight.

1. You get a large regen from nature’s voice for mobile fights. You will tend to have more duration and more healing power than others.

2. You have HS for lots of blast healing and condition removal which isn’t bad. Best water field in game. HS can make a push.

3. You provide good AE might (blasting thru a fire field, stalker, the horn, altruism runes especially with that lovely spirit heal).

You have 2 AE pet shouts/supports. Just take a stalker for might (long big might) and then you can do condition removal bear, fury moa, healing hound etc. Not superlative save the stalker if you don’t have time to might up thru fire field blasts but still can be quite nice esp condition removal.

4. You have an excellent spirit heal (combine with nature’s voice for the regen) that burst heals (done well) more than almost any other AE heal. Note, you use this in mobile fights where you aren’t running to the front line and that water field won’t get a lot of blasts. I could spend all day going over when you want one over the other. Key is you can swap them so fast!

a. You get regen (over 300 hps)/on hit heal (think group mango pie)/1930 fast heal (again for group so not bad at all). There are very few group AE heals and fewer still that heal on a 25 sec timer.

5. Don’t forget about spirits in general. They excel in zergs if you know how to call them just in time and keep them alive.

A couple of keys:

1) You can’t run with spirits v call them when you need them in a zerg or they can die.

2) They are great for their CC effects in choke points. A 5 second chill is a long darn chill. And you typically will play them with the larger radius and proc on death which done well in zergs doubles up the cc (in big fights they last long enough to proc actively then die and proc again). Too often people don’t use spirits well for their CC which is rather long. 2 sec immobilize/5 sec chill/AE blind. That is a powerful set of abilities frankly.

3) You generally can run 3 in organized play because there always is plenty of regeneration (no need for nature’s voice) and plenty of swiftness.

4) When there is a backline, the spirits generally stay out of harm’s way (depends on server) and do provide range with nice burning and damage reduction buffs (which believe me can be critical in getting thru siege damage on a push for lightly armored allies. In a zerg, the +10% damage buff can be better than protection depending on if you have a blob or multiple lines.

5) Your Elite Spirit is another source of high hps.

a. Remember they put the proc on the closest allies so backline support it is.

You can do some damage (not that much) but hey you really do add a lot of large regen/protection/big heals or big water fields. Etc.