Ranger Spirits

[Axl.8924]

I got a question for you guys. So I was thinking about my druid in SPVP being inefficient, and then I thought again about other support classes for PvE and how it compares.

How can druid hold up if firebrand is a better buffer and cleanser, necros also better cleanser of condis(Scourge) and ele better healer?

Or am I wrong and the spirits are that good that they make me equal to other classes? just trying to learn your guy's thoughts.

To me, it looks like druid underperforms, but I could be wrong since I am inexperienced.

[Abyssisis.3971]

Only way Druid is going to compete is to wait for a 3rd elite spec to come along so that Anet nerfs the other elite specs down to Druid level to make next expansion elite specs more powerful/attractive so that people buy it...

[aymnad.9023]

@Axl.8924 said:I got a question for you guys. So I was thinking about my druid in SPVP being inefficient, and then I thought again about other support classes for PvE and how it compares.

How can druid hold up if firebrand is a better buffer and cleanser, necros also better cleanser of condis(Scourge) and ele better healer?

Or am I wrong and the spirits are that good that they make me equal to other classes? just trying to learn your guy's thoughts.

To me, it looks like druid underperforms, but I could be wrong since I am inexperienced.

Spirits are definitely one of the reasons druids hold a spot in raids.If you remove spirits you lose a source of high bonuses / boons for your squad. With grace of the land they allow a great flexibility for your second healer. Do you want a stronger heal? Go tempest. Do you want other boons that druid does not provide ? Go Firebrand. Do you want damage mitigation and rez to bypass some mechanics? Go Scourge.(revenant and scrapper are also good options but more situational)An alternative can be to let the soulbeast carry it. But then they are not healed as often, they die faster, the slb looses dps. They also work great with druid because outside of a few situations you can still have 2 and provide decent healing.If druid did not have those spirits. I think it would still be used (in raids because of cc, spotter, grace of the land, entangle, some utilities) but less than right now and it will also make revenant or tempest more popular. (only guessing)

Edit : Spirits + heal were one of the reasons druids were also used in fractals. But right now fractals showed some of the druids weaknesses when we have a lot of condi or things requiring movement. This is why we saw Firebrand rising with more utilities, faster spells, more healing.

[Axl.8924]

So druids are fine because of the spirits?

[Revolution.5409]

I don't like the current spirit mechanic, I would like to be able to use them in every mode and not only in raid / fotm with Druid, a way to play them more actively would make them better for many more players.

[Idhayan Thomas.2697]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:I thought they sucked when they first came out, and they still suck now.

They're just so... poorly thought through. When is a WVW player ever going to use spirits?

For them to have any use at all to me they would need to be immune to damage & healing, such that their lifetime was solely determined by base degen rate and frequency of active skill use.

eg: base degen = 8% health/sec == ~12.5sec uptime, active use = 25% health per active use with 5sec CD between active uses. GM trait halves these costs. Larger radius of effect should be baseline.

spirits die way fast in pvp and are completely uselesswish they rework just as u have mentioned

[One Kiss Away.9180]

What do you think is a good build for a Ranger. I like the Beastmaster just so I can get rid of the pet, I wish that they would give us an option to not have a pet as they can aggro groups and slow you down. PVP Trapper ranger was the bomb.

[Strider.7849]

@One Kiss Away.9180 said:Why do the Rangers Spirits no longer follow you, Almost makes them useless.

I am really hoping they bring this back.. the current spirits are the worst implementation they've made in the history of this game to them. Since they lose health over time now I wish they would make them follow you instead of having to spam click them on cooldown - only to run out of range of them before the cooldown is back up. I really think the only reason this change was made was for raid environments which most people don't play. I really wish one of the open world devs or PvP/WvW ones would use the spirits and see how bad they are to manage anywhere other than a raid situation.

[scerevisiae.1972]

bump. now there we have game mode splits, there's no excuse for an 8-year old game to still have so many wildly bad skills.

It's like GW2 designers think of these cool ideas for skills but don't bother playtesting them in the real game.

[Strider.7849]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:bump. now there we have game mode splits, there's no excuse for an 8-year old game to still have so many wildly bad skills.

It's like GW2 designers think of these cool ideas for skills but don't bother playtesting them in the real game.

Buffs and changes are made based on data, rather than actually playing the game. So these changes where on paper a spirit that gives 3 stacks of night every so often and a 5% damage boost may seem good, the thought of it used anywhere but a raid situation never came to their mind. Not to mention they forced these spirits, several core ranger utilities, to be usable primarily by Druid.

I remember reading a post about how some small time game Dev from a different game talked about what it's like to be a developer in a game. You come to work spending all your time on such a game and when you go home you don't want or have the energy to play the game you do at your work. I think that's what goes on with GW2. We see the one random dev every so often running around open world pve but rare in the other environments (and maybe a livestream in WvW for like an hour), and it's quite possible that's where they draw PvP and WvW balance combined with the crying on the forums from players who lose against something in silver or low gold rank.

[One Kiss Away.9180]

Yes the Ranger does need its Spirits mobile again and a way to stow away the pet until you unleash him. Best part of Soulbeast is as soon as I spawn I go into Soulbeast mode so no pet to Aggro mobs or slow you down

[scerevisiae.1972]

another 6 months later and i've yet to ever see even a single player use spirits in wvw. Not even once.

[Solanum.6983]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:another 6 months later and i've yet to ever see even a single player use spirits in wvw. Not even once.

I tried to use them today but unless you're fighting in one spot for a long period of time like SM lord or something they get almost no use, But even then they just die anyway. There's too much movement during fights for them to be worthwhile in my opinion.

[Deepcuts.9740]

What I would like changed in PvE: faster spirit activation.Too many times I activate one, the animation plays but the skill gets interrupted for reasons.I think I have some spirit up, when in fact it is not. Constantly checking my skill bar. No fun really.I really dislike the speed with which I can activate 4 spirits, sometimes all 5 of them in a row.If high dps group, by the time I spawn my spirits the group moved a long time ago.

Horrible experience as a Druid.

[Dadnir.5038]

@scerevisiae.1972 said:another 6 months later and i've yet to ever see even a single player use spirits in wvw. Not even once.

Minions aren't really great for large scale fight. And for small scale fights/roaming, summoning a spirit will get you killed while the active skills won't allow you to gain the upperhand. Maybe someone could make them work for siege battle, but they are usually so short that I doubt it would be worth it.

Spirits are playable in PvE (not great, but still playable).

[Thornwolf.9721]

What Id like is for them to make them able to move again, and permanent until killed/used like in core. I remember being able to walk around with my little zoo of spirits; Which was super cool and its a damn shame that it has been reduced to what it is now. If you wanted totems, then you should in the next elite spec add totems in the form of turrets that rather than firing pump out buffs. That could be a cool new utility, but spirits =/= totems and thats how it should of been....

[One Kiss Away.9180]

I am glad to see such a discussion on this topic and also like that I am not the only one who feels this away. Imagine if they nerfered Minions or Clones like this, people would go nuts.