I am not happy with the changes coming to spirits.

I'd like to share my point of view of what is coming for the spirits in the next patch, well with the information which has been provided.

First the good

• I'd like to say i like the idea of the teleporting the spirit to your location. It's not what i would have done, but it's a half way meeting point and somehow solves the issue of very mobile gameplay.
• The idea of remove the fixed duration and use a life pool instead i find it interesting. Now the spirits will last a bit longer, in perfect situation it should last 78 seconds.

Now all the bad

• The Elite spirit will last only 33 seconds in the best conditions. (unless you become a healing turret for the spirit and there is nobody else around)
• The nerf in the passive range is a massive nerf. Now you need them close by which will get them killed before even you get to use them once.
• The spirits have base health of 7k, which is roughly an autoattack for many classes.
• The 0,25 cast time for the active sounds nice, however we haven't been told the spirits will actually not spend 2 seconds cast animation once they got teleported to your location.
• The new mechanic about the life drain is even a bigger nerf. It will impact the spirits in a ways they will die even from a random bleed because of the tiny health pool + life drain.
• The nerf to the actives to the offensive spirits, having in mind that they will die in the first activation, is uncalled. It's an PbAoE skill which does less damage than the same traps version.
• The change to the grand master trait, will make the ranger unwanted in raids which was the only content where it was needed. Spirits wont apply the boons periodically anymore.

And what do you think after reading this?Do you agree with my points?Do you think spirits will still be used nevertheless?Do you think System team should have a quick review about the all the changes planed?Do you think is fair to have the potential duration of the elite spirit to 33 seconds?

Some ritualist spirits worked in a similar way in GW1, but even better.
Instead losing a fixed amount of health, they lost health based on the number of affected targets.A spirit that would prevent damage over 10% of your max health and lost health every time it did that would last longer the less people it had to protect, and a spirit that healed allies would not lose health if allies didn't need healing.

The way they work could be used to improve this new version o ranger spirits even more. If that was applied to ranger spirits, if the party splits, then the spirits would last longer when they affect a smaller sub-group, and the healing spirit would last longer the less people it has to heal, and it would not lose health for allies in range that are already at full health.

I like to call that "self-balance". Instead designing for all possible cases, you make the design consider key variables and make them the pivoting part of the mechanic, and the mechanic balances itself as a side-effect.
Then you no longer have to worry about the design being too good on certain circumstances and too bad in others. You don't even have to worry about extreme cases as they would outright break the mechanic before it can cause problems in those situations.

I don't see ranger being unwanted in raids since it appears only the passive pulsed boons are removed. Stuff like 5% extra damage, extra burning, protection etc etc on hit should still apply. Not to mention GoE and GoTL wasn't affected so druid still has a spot in raids for the usual support work.

Doesn't it read like you'd be able to heal them?

@Blocki.4931 said:Doesn't it read like you'd be able to heal them?

will you be able to thou? The minions are the last in the queue which means you may not heal them if there are allies around.Also, what happens if you play core or soulbeast? Does it mean the elite will be trash?Even as a druid the spirit will expire even before you can reposition it for the second time (40 secs for the active), or you mean the druid will be static? What's the point of the teleport then?

What's the point in expressing our opinions?The people in charge with "balancing" never seem to read forums and just do what they want anyway.Also, I have a strong impression that they don't actually play the end game content, or else, most of these changes would have not even be up for discussion.So many popular requests have gone without a response for years, while stuff that NOBODY requested is implemented.I think they don't even load the game client anymore. Just look at some tabular data and then add or subtract some % or seconds to random skills."Let's just do this and that so the players will have the impression that we do something for the game"

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:Doesn't it read like you'd be able to heal them?

I'm speaking strictly from PvE perspective since the spirits, unless changed, die in 1 hit in PvP anyways.

You can currently heal spirits so I don't see why that would change especially since it does read like you'll be able to manage their health to manage how long they last. With the exception of the elite, all the unique spirit buffs pulse every 3 seconds.

7415 base health is 556 health every 3 seconds. Nature's vengeance brings it down to 372 health every 3 seconds. Regen is 130 healing per second without any healing power. So if you are solo, regen alone with zero healing power can keep every spirit (aside the elite) if you have NM.

If you are an actual healing Druid in fotm/raids, staff 2 heals around 450*1.6 = 720 health to every target it passes through. Even without over healing, that's more than enough to keep them alive. This means that frost and sun spirit's buffs can now have 100% up time since you can teleport them around every 20 seconds and heal them. If you spam them every 20 seconds, stone and sun spirit give roughly the same vigor and prot up time from nature's vengeance. So better up time of unique buffs and easy to heal.

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:7415 base health is 556 health every 3 seconds. Nature's vengeance brings it down to 372 health every 3 seconds. Regen is 130 healing per second without any healing power. So if you are solo, regen alone with zero healing power can keep every spirit (aside the elite) if you have NM.If you are an actual healing Druid in fotm/raids, staff 2 heals around 450*1.6 = 720 health to every target it passes through. Even without over healing, that's more than enough to keep them alive. This means that frost and sun spirit's buffs can now have 100% up time since you can teleport them around every 20 seconds and heal them. If you spam them every 20 seconds, stone and sun spirit give roughly the same vigor and prot up time from nature's vengeance. So better up time of unique buffs and easy to heal.I get you point, you think you'll be able to heal the spirit. Let's rethink about that:

• During this week can you check your spirits and check if the get the boons in a raid? Or the healing?

I mean because from the changes in how the boons and healing was applied first to players, spirits should not receive any boon unless there aren't enouh players around.

• In this case in a raid you will not be able to share any boon with them, or sharing a very low uptime.
• Healing is the same. Although it could potentially overflow and be hit with some from the druid, then again what would happen to Soulbeast and Core Ranger? How will the be able to keep the spirit alive?

So effectively Sprits has been nerfed for anything that is not a Druid, and even then if there are many players around the sustain will be very inconsistent at best.

• If Anet is to implement this mechanic at least make the ranger to share the regeneration buff with them so they keep at least the base duration.

Otherwise in my book Anet just nerfed the spirits to the ground as they:

• Nerfed the spawn time
• Nerfed the actives
• Nerfed the ranger of the passives.

I am still an advocate for the ground targeted summon with a fixed duration, ammo Charges and the active on summon and death.

@anduriell.6280 said:

• The 0,25 cast time for the active sounds nice, however we haven't been told the spirits will actually not spend 2 seconds cast animation once they got teleported to your location.

I am quite confident that its a 0.25s cast to summon the spirit to you then the spirit does its 1s or 1.5s animation.The spirits will get cleaved out very easy but hopefully for PvP they can still maybe work.

Can't say I rightly have it figured out without playing it, let alone hate it just yet. As far as I understand it the spirit active won't auto-kill the spirit anymore but instead take a chunk of health away and teleport it to your location.

On some spirits that's going to be pretty strong, the water spirit in particular, assuming you have a means of healing it (Druid). AoE heal spam. Positioning is going to matter a lot more.

I imagine they'll be even stronger in raids and group content where everyone's dog piled onto something.

PvE cleave doesn't do much to spirits, pets, summons, etc. unless they're specifically targeted which is rare. They'll be a lot weaker in WvW/PvP due to player cleave which doesn't share that quirk.

Those are my initial thoughts anyway. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

I just did Twilight Oasis T4 on my Healing Druid with Spirits. It went very well, but my Spirits kept dying. I can't imagine how easy they will die with the new changes.

Why would I use Druid over FBrand now ? FBrand can give QUICKNESS, Stability (easily), Aegis (Block>Receiving Damage) and Protection (easily). The only thing Druid ''got'' over is Might stack. It is not that hard to keep Might up with FBrand if you use Staff, Rune of the Pack and Quickness/Might Mantra. So many classes pump up their own Might stacks nowadays. It pushes even more to play FBrand.

@"CETheLucid.3964" said:I imagine they'll be even stronger in raids and group content where everyone's dog piled onto something.Definitely in wvw they will be useless. In sPVP i have serious doubts it will be of some use, as players once they recognice the spirits will kill them with a couple of autos.

But my point is in raids how will you manage? I mean if it's a 10 players squad and the actual queue of effects makes the minions the very last to get buffs and heals, so your spririts, which will be exactly in the middle of teh groups (because the actives) will not recive any healing/boons because the limit is usually 5 players around.

Which means will get the funny meme: "Heal the spirits Druid, you are not healing your spirits Druid!!"

@Krispera.5087 said:I just did Twilight Oasis T4 on my Healing Druid with Spirits. It went very well, but my Spirits kept dying. I can't imagine how easy they will die with the new changes.

Why would I use Druid over FBrand now ? FBrand can give QUICKNESS, Stability (easily), Aegis (Block>Receiving Damage) and Protection (easily). The only thing Druid ''got'' over is Might stack. It is not that hard to keep Might up with FBrand if you use Staff, Rune of the Pack and Quickness/Might Mantra. So many classes pump up their own Might stacks nowadays. It pushes even more to play FBrand.

Well honestly, you wouldnt. The only thing that redeems druid over FB is the massive healing and the braindead might generation. Spirits are a miniscule DPS increase in fractals as only CM encounters last long enough to make them noticeable (as in by the time you have your spirits up, the boss or one of your mates is already dead). Everything else is a burstfest, where glyph of empowerment should be more than enough, if even. FBs have more boons and more damage. From a raid perspective, they supplement each other perfectly, but in 5man content I dont see too much space for a ramp up heavy class like druid.

That of course does not mean druid is shit and should never be played in fractals, FB is just the better option.

For the spirits change, I have to say I am cautiously curious. The repositioning and actual active spell usage sound very nice. I honestly had to look up what the spirits actives actually do as I never used anything but elite spirit for its effect. I also believe you can be able to heal your spirits if required. Just put them slightly off group and give them the occasional staff 5+3 combo.

They are obviously intending to rework the very passive nature of the spirits. People rarely even used the active skills after they were changed to instantly kill the spirit back in the day. Losing the passively ticking boons is huge, no doubt, but it remains to be seen how good or bad this change will turn out in the long run. Being able to reposition them seems interesting at least.Though, I am going to miss some of the fancy shenanigans like leaving the Spirit of Nature somewhere to res peope from range (when you went down at Deimos, teleported over at Xera, etc.).

I also highly doubt Druids will lose their spot in raids. The damage modifiers provided by our offensive spirits will remain a must-have in 10 man content given everything else the Druid does well.

I may be missing something but it seems like a nerf to the boons they apply. I like them having a more active play style but over all as a non-raid player I barely ever use them and I feel like I have even less of a reason to use them now.

You're not missing anything. The patch notes straight up say they want spirits to have a "more dynamic gameplay experience". Unfortunately, only the heal and elite spirits have useful base actives while the others only have useful actives when you take the grandmaster trait that makes them give boons.

While I enjoyed how strong the passive boon output used to be as much as the next guy, you can't really blame them for nerfing it. You could drop down a sun spirit, forget about it and have 66% vigor uptime. Water spirit was perma regen on 10 targets by just placing it down and doing nothing else.

If I were to implement this balance, I would add to the trait by making your active spirits be healed by an amount when you heal allies, and damage enemies (in much the same way that AF generation works). That way you can keep them up through active gameplay without having to worry about the allies you're trying to heal keeping you from healing your spirits, or gearing SlB and making spirits useless. Also, I would make the duration of the boons granted by the active effects longer.

@Deadvillager.1956 said:FBs have more boons and more damage.

It is still March. Not yet April 1st.

Yep. Tested. Still bad. They still have health. They can still be attacked. They can still be interrupted. They still have that UTTERLY STUPID LONG ANIMATION TIME. Great Rework. If you wanted to shave it in PvE please just do that instead of pretending to want to make it better. You could have taken away the boon production boosted its lifespan to its new limit and it would have been the same for everyone else. Edit: Wait no it wouldn't because you also nerfed the ALREADY TERRIBLE ACTIVES into something even LESS worth taking than before. Just to be certain no one outside of PvE would really want it.

I actually think I have finally given up. Took me long enough.

@Shadelang.3012 said:They still have that UTTERLY STUPID LONG ANIMATION TIME.

Oh yeah, it was the first thing I tried when the patch went live. It's so bad, LMAO. They nerfed Sun Spirit burn stack (From, 3 stacks of 5 secs to 2 stacks of 4 secs), because you know, you can't let a Druid burn every 20 secs. Are they scared the Druid gonna compete with the Firebrand on Burn Damage ? Because FBrand is already miles away. For a Condi Ranger ? Why would he takes the Sun Spirit, when it just can take another Trap or utility such as Sharpening Stones.

You wanted to interrupt someone with Storm Spirit 1 sec Daze ? Oh well, think 2 secs before, because it's the time it takes to do whole thing with the self casting/port, then the Spirit animation. It is if it lands, not hit, killed, blinded or CCed. Who am I kidding ? Nobody use Spirits in sPvP.

Overall, it's an over-complicated mechanic that is shoved down on sPvE Druids that are becoming less and less relevant.

So can spirits still be killed by other players? Never mind, just saw they can. So now spirits have health degeneration AND can still take incoming damage...sooooo, wow, OK. ESO it is.

Spirits could be decent back when they were able to move. Ever since they took that away, they simply can't get it right anymore because they don't know what to do with them. And it shows.

tried it, don't think it usable in PVP, spirits should have at-least 10 times more health and instant action ability for the it to be even considered. Shame....

also the hp degenration seems absurdily fast, regeneration cant keep up in any of them.Elite just lose life so fast its impossible to keep them alive.

Anet shoudl remove the degeneration by pulse. Or take into consideration some of our requests and make them mobile again. And means to keep them alive other than wasting the astral form just to keep using the spirit.