Ranger Spirits: Fixed a bug that caused spirit boons to be granted in a circle around the ranger instead of the spirit. <- Revert This Change Please

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

^ Thread title is a recent bug fix in this latest patch.

Thing is, that unintended bug that allowed boons to pulse from the Ranger rather than spirits, was desperately needed and the best skill redesign Ranger has had in years.

It made spirits so much more viable to use in pve and even pointed them into the right direction of viability for competitive modes.

I'm going to use Druid play in this example of why boons should be pulsing from the Ranger:

1. When the boons pulse from the Druid, a player can run mechanics on bosses, move from mob to mob, and stay stacked on his party to maintain the 100% uptime of those boons. This allows the Druid to be comparable to a Firebrand in terms of ease of maintaining party boons.
2. When the boons pulse from the spirits, a player has a very difficult time positioning the spirits to maintain 100% uptime of those boons. In fact, boon uptime goes waaay down in most situations where the party has to keep moving, kiting, running certain mechanics, quickly DPSing mobs and moving from mob to mob. The cool-down to reposition the spirits is simply not low enough to realistically maintain those boons in any sort of practical manner. This again, makes the Druid look like a bad Firebrand.

We know that boons pulsing from the Ranger was an unintended bug, but it was a bug that should have stayed.

Please revert this change and allow spirit boons pulsing from Ranger to be a mainstay intended design.

Ranger needs it.

~ Thanks

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sansar.1302]

this is so true

[Beddo.1907]

I'm guessing they would prefer to make it a normal feature later on when they get to revising spirit changes (like the banners were), rather than leaving a bug that can get worse.
It's a shame that we don't have it anymore and won't get any news about it till the end of August, but what can you do.
At least since the bug happened it gives Anet data on how useful it was and raised the chance of it being added as a part of the spirits changes revision. (Assuming that we will keep mentioning it to make it clear we want it back)

[anduriell.6280]

What we need is to restore the mobility of the spirits baseline so at least they can benefit from AoE regeneration when using the warhorn or shouts. 
 

so they can be used in something else that raids. 

[Zaret.1450]

17 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

^ Thread title is a recent bug fix in this latest patch.

Thing is, that unintended bug that allowed boons to pulse from the Ranger rather than spirits, was desperately needed and the best skill redesign Ranger has had in years.

It made spirits so much more viable to use in pve and even pointed them into the right direction of viability for competitive modes.

I'm going to use Druid play in this example of why boons should be pulsing from the Ranger:

1. When the boons pulse from the Druid, a player can run mechanics on bosses, move from mob to mob, and stay stacked on his party to maintain the 100% uptime of those boons. This allows the Druid to be comparable to a Firebrand in terms of ease of maintaining party boons.
2. When the boons pulse from the spirits, a player has a very difficult time positioning the spirits to maintain 100% uptime of those boons. In fact, boon uptime goes waaay down in most situations where the party has to keep moving, kiting, running certain mechanics, quickly DPSing mobs and moving from mob to mob. The cool-down to reposition the spirits is simply not low enough to realistically maintain those boons in any sort of practical manner. This again, makes the Druid look like a bad Firebrand.

We know that boons pulsing from the Ranger was an unintended bug, but it was a bug that should have stayed.

Please revert this change and allow spirit boons pulsing from Ranger to be a mainstay intended design.

Ranger needs it.

~ Thanks

 

If i had to do it... id take the trait that copies your boons to your pet, its caled fortifiing bond, i think it fits better in beastmastery trait line, and id put spirited arrival as a minor, it gives fury and vigor on pet swap so... it kinda minor thing, and then you can put a trait there.

the best would be something like gyros, i mean you transform your spirits from land spirits to fliing spirits, and the are allwais around you, but they have less health, or the area of effect is smaller, so you can move but need to be more stacked and carefull.

or make it so the boons start from your pet, like it swallowed the spirits or smth, and thus the pet has all those boons perma and pulses them to alies, but it cant attack or smth

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Yes, with recent banner rework, spirits also need a large rework.  

If spirits are destructible banners, then they need to be able to be moved at will and need to yield far better pulsing  boons. 

Almost like a tri-toggle:

1. Spirit spawns

2. Shadow step for movement

3. Within small window of 2, spirit active effect / alacrity; this is the thing that goes on CD for 20s

Pulsing around the ranger was great and probably will make them unusable now in WvW, etc. but if they go down that route then they should just be gyros.  Think the astral wisp from Druid but around the ranger itself, each color coded to know what one is on the ranger.  Then just make the actives localized to the ranger.  

 

[Eurantien.4632]

Have to agree.

[InsaneQR.7412]

Just give us mobile spirits F F S.

Edited August 4, 2022 by InsaneQR.7412

[Lazze.9870]

They should have reworked them properly, make them behave more like facets on herald.

A shame to see the litt creatures go, but that's the only way to make them both easy to use in PvE and compelling in competetive modes.

[anduriell.6280]

47 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

They should have reworked them properly, make them behave more like facets on herald.

A shame to see the litt creatures go, but that's the only way to make them both easy to use in PvE and compelling in competetive modes.

Glyphs should work more closer to facets, tethering facets so they a bit different than playing herald. And one of them should provide the alac instead the spirits. 

Spirits were mostly "fine" when they were mobile. Even a little bit on the weak side.  They only got nerfed because "muh visual noise" and well no-dev actually using the class for anything. Spirits with throwable traps were the only ranged AoE the ranged had. 

 Spirits need to come back to be mobile, this time baseline. And to modernize them the actives should be ranged ground target abilities, so a ranger at least has something to offer in different game modes. If the "muh visual noise" crowd is still around just make them small ball of lights. At least ranger can get back some of the ranged capabilities. 

Unique buffs need to be returned to the spirits too. Ranger was used in some places because of the uniqueness of it's buffs. Anet devs in their grandiose wisdom and wiki foresight by removing the unique aspects of the ranger but not buffing everything else are destroying the class as whole. Such a disgrace. 

[InsaneQR.7412]

2 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

They should have reworked them properly, make them behave more like facets on herald.

A shame to see the litt creatures go, but that's the only way to make them both easy to use in PvE and compelling in competetive modes.

Tbh they dont even need to remove the spirits as "pets". Just make the smaller and let them run arround the ranger to indicate the "facets" similar to herold grohnd effect.

The animation of the active can remain. Just make it ground targeted.

[Lazze.9870]

22 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Glyphs should work more closer to facets, tethering facets so they a bit different than playing herald. And one of them should provide the alac instead the spirits. 

Spirits were mostly "fine" when they were mobile. Even a little bit on the weak side.  They only got nerfed because "muh visual noise" and well no-dev actually using the class for anything. Spirits with throwable traps were the only ranged AoE the ranged had. 

Glyphs should not be reworked into anything. They work perfectly fine as they are, just bump up the radius to 450 and reduce the cooldown on the avatar in pvp.

Spirits on the other hand? kitten moving spirits. If you want usable utility skills across all game modes that still do something in the same ballpark as they do now; turn them into facet-like skills.

It's been seven years. Give up on the moving spirits already. Ask for something that actually works. Facets work. The reworked gyros work. Moving spirits that can be killed? Barely worked in the end back then, not gonna do any better if they returned today.

[Sansar.1302]

4 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Glyphs should not be reworked into anything. They work perfectly fine as they are, just bump up the radius to 450 and reduce the cooldown on the avatar in pvp.

Spirits on the other hand? kitten moving spirits. If you want usable utility skills across all game modes that still do something in the same ballpark as they do now; turn them into facet-like skills.

It's been seven years. Give up on the moving spirits already. Ask for something that actually works. Facets work. The reworked gyros work. Moving spirits that can be killed? Barely worked in the end back then, not gonna do any better if they returned today.

Support this 100% 

[anduriell.6280]

On 8/6/2022 at 1:13 PM, Lazze.9870 said:

It's been seven years. Give up on the moving spirits already. Ask for something that actually works. Facets work. The reworked gyros work. Moving spirits that can be killed? Barely worked in the end back then, not gonna do any better if they returned today.

And that’s why, it’s been seven years of proving how the devs behind ranger nerfs do not work and should start reverting most of them. Seven years with spirits being relegated to one instanced content. 

If you are so obsessed with the facets, then you should try herald. There is no point to have exactly the same mechanic in other class, most importantly something so passive and bland as facets are.

Tethering is the answer you are looking for, similar enough to facets yet mechanically different so we don’t have a discounted herald on the Druid.

[Lazze.9870]

13 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Seven years with spirits being relegated to one instanced content. 

If you are so obsessed with the facets, then you should try herald. There is no point to have exactly the same mechanic in other class, most importantly something so passive and bland as facets are.

Lol, they were already relegated to PvE only even before they removed the trait that made them mobile. And you're talking about me being obsessed, you're the one who has been rambling on about moving spirits ever since they removed the trait.

Facets are AN EXAMPLE of how they could function or draw inspiritaion from. Not because I'm obsessed with them, but because they are similar with their passive and active effect. And they WORK. Across ALL GAME MODES.

And instead of doing what kittenING WORKS, you want to re-instate moving spirits. Get real. Moving spirits were already nerfed in PvP before they removed the trait that made them mobile. No one played spirit rangers in high tier pvp the months prior to HoT. You know why? Because it kittenING SUCKS.

Then you want some stupid tether mechanic on the glyphs for no other reason than tying up that weird-kitten vision you have for how ranger should work, with half the changes being completely unecessary. Glyphs are fine. Buffing the radius while reducing the PvP avatar cooldown would make a couple of them borderline op as they are.

Bland and passive? You know what's passive? Tether mechanics and spirits.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[anduriell.6280]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Bland and passive? You know what's passive? Tether mechanics and spirits.

Sure it is. Comparing a mechanic  which needs to use active  positioning to one you just fire and forget. In any case facets use energy, ranger does not have that so thought luck I guess.

Glyphs are also super dumb mechanic, instacast, no visual, totally forgettable effects. Anet devs tried to give some depth to it with the dual aspect, yet they failed.

Spirits were fun too, it was a bit too much random for pvp because of how the spirits moved around, but the fact they cast the actives when defeated mitigated that. Yes they would need something else to be playable in pvp/WvW like  immunity while not directly targeted like it is in PvE, but that is not something is not already in game.

In any case is not like I trust Anet to deliver tethering done in a fun way with interactions when the tethers are crossed for example.
 

 

[Levetty.1279]

They need to rework spirits all together. They should have used the alacrity change to do it but we all know they were too busy buffing mech.

 

This whole summon thing doesn't work and just makes them clunky to use outside of static raid bosses and people only put up with them there for the unique effects they used to have. Completely change the mechanics and buff them so they can compete with Mech, Firebrand and banners.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Levetty.1279

[Lazze.9870]

On 8/8/2022 at 2:23 PM, anduriell.6280 said:

Glyphs are also super dumb mechanic, instacast, no visual, totally forgettable effects. Anet devs tried to give some depth to it with the dual aspect, yet they failed.

You can dumb down half the ranger utility skills to "no visual and instacast", and as far as forgettable effects go, Glyph of Alignement is one of the most noticeable utility skills a ranger can put on their bar when used right. Massive heal and condi cleanse or immob + weakness. Huge impact. Only thing holding it back is the 300 radius. But, since druid isn't meta outside of pve, no one talks about it.

The failure here isn't the mechanic of the glyphs, 3-4 out of 6 of them are fine as they are mechanically (elite is a bit wonky, but still good in a way), but all the other factors that puts druid outside the competetive meta. Lack of stability, few defensive boons, avatar cooldown, radius of skills and the handful of trash elements that Anet never adressed (staff #2).

On 8/8/2022 at 2:23 PM, anduriell.6280 said:

Spirits were fun too

Spirits have never been fun. They were semi-cool in GW1, but never fun. The only thing they got going for them are lore and visual flavors. Gameplay is a dud.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Draeyon.4392]

Spirits do need a rework that much is for certain.

Unkillable wisps that follow the ranger is what I advocate for.

Any AI that can be killed by enemy AoE is useless in WvW

[anduriell.6280]

On 8/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Lazze.9870 said:

The failure here isn't the mechanic of the glyphs, 3-4 out of 6 of them are fine as they are mechanically (elite is a bit wonky, but still good in a way), but all the other factors that puts druid outside the competetive meta. Lack of stability,

Well it seems somebody listened to you or you got into the secret dev discords… you got what you asked for: 360 increased radius and stability.

Now going back to your point: you are totally ignoring mine, an instacast, no visual queue mechanic should not have an strong effect behind hit. It breaks the balance and not in a good way, 

That’s why your new stab in equality is behind a CA transformation which adds an extra CD and resource management over that. If you want stronger effects, at least a relevant  ones the utility has to be balanced somehow: add the tethers. It decreases the boon spam and adds an additional trade off to balance the effects. Additionally it discharges some responsibility of the support onto the receivers, if you want the boons/ effects don’t break the tether.

With that Anet should feel free to add lasting boons/effects with Druid. Tethers add an additional mechanic which can playwright and make Druid traits actually interesting, as it seems the original designs are problematic and Anet keeps nerfing them. New traits for fun mechanics where the other players and Druid positioning comes into play.

 But it doesn’t matter, Anet devs keep doing bad choices, there you go stab in ca for equality. Now not only you get a subpar skill but you will be forced  to deal with their nightmare fuel of mechanical design because pugs will demand it. Probably we will see this tether mechanic in some future update for other class thou.

[Lazze.9870]

2 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Well it seems somebody listened to you or you got into the secret dev discords… you got what you asked for: 360 increased radius and stability.

If you paid attention you'd know that's only half true. It's PvE only. It's like taking my suggestion and making it exclusive to the only mode I don't give two shits about because the majority of your utility bar is gonna be spirits (which is the thread's topic, but you feel like adding in uneccessary glyph changes to the conversation as well), and the game mode where a change like this is nice but not as needed as in the other two modes.

It's actually frustrating. They got their head so far in the PvE room that they don't even realize how nice of a change this would be for a support spec that currently can't break into the support meta in those two other modes. But when they added quickness to scrapper? They didn't give two shits about giving it in all three game modes and making WvW support scrapper even stronger than it is.

When I'm talking about specific larger radius on glyphs and lower CA cooldown, it is a pvp/wvw discussion for me. So no, didn't get what I asked for. Not yet. But, this is EXACTLY the kind of change they should do.

The PvE side of it is the spirits (and nothing about druid really, what druid brings - as a spec - to the table is fine in PvE) where I advocate skills that these skills should and could work outside of PvE as well. That means no mobile, killable spirits, because that barely worked the last time.

Ignoring your tether talk because it's the definition of an uneccessary change. Small adjustments is all you need. Clearer animation and cast times if that's an issue. Boons (which druid has basically none of in pvp/wvw) is balanced with skill duration and stat availability. Done. The baseline is fine, and your obsession with changing things that are fine doesn't solve anything. Spirits on the other hand? Terrible baseline. That's why you fundamentally change them.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

They just need to revert the change and allow boon pulse from Ranger rather than Spirits.

Clearly this is already in coding and would take no time at all to conveniently configure during the next patch update.

[Snowyz.3762]

I wholeheartedly agree! I think the bug was actually a better way to play Druid because the squad/party tends to move around a lot and it's hard to keep everyone within the radius even with a 20-second recast. Personally, I find spirits to be an annoyance rather than a fun and interesting mechanic because all they do is pulse boons to allies within their radius. 

 

When the unintended change was made back in June, I found Druid much more enjoyable to play and less stressful to manage my spirits. 

[Snowyz.3762]

On 8/13/2022 at 12:51 PM, anduriell.6280 said:

Well it seems somebody listened to you or you got into the secret dev discords… you got what you asked for: 360 increased radius and stability.

Now going back to your point: you are totally ignoring mine, an instacast, no visual queue mechanic should not have an strong effect behind hit. It breaks the balance and not in a good way, 

That’s why your new stab in equality is behind a CA transformation which adds an extra CD and resource management over that. If you want stronger effects, at least a relevant  ones the utility has to be balanced somehow: add the tethers. It decreases the boon spam and adds an additional trade off to balance the effects. Additionally it discharges some responsibility of the support onto the receivers, if you want the boons/ effects don’t break the tether.

With that Anet should feel free to add lasting boons/effects with Druid. Tethers add an additional mechanic which can playwright and make Druid traits actually interesting, as it seems the original designs are problematic and Anet keeps nerfing them. New traits for fun mechanics where the other players and Druid positioning comes into play.

 But it doesn’t matter, Anet devs keep doing bad choices, there you go stab in ca for equality. Now not only you get a subpar skill but you will be forced  to deal with their nightmare fuel of mechanical design because pugs will demand it. Probably we will see this tether mechanic in some future update for other class thou.

please check out my post about the stability application from Glyph of Equality, I'd love to hear your feedback!! 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

On 8/14/2022 at 1:42 PM, Snowyz.3762 said:

please check out my post about the stability application from Glyph of Equality, I'd love to hear your feedback!! 

They can go ahead and put Stab on Equality, that's fine.

But what they really need to do is put pulsing Stab on the Elite Spirit. Let him pulse Stab as his boon, just like the other spirits pulse boons.

Firebrand essentially pulses Stab and plenty stacks of it. Druids should have a solid source of it as well.

It wouldn't be OP because of how difficult it will be to manage the Elite Spirit's repositioning due to its ICD. Giving the Elite Spirit pulsing Stability as well as Stability to Glyph Of Equality, would make sense and allow Druid to be on par with Stability output when set next to a Firebrand.

What I don't want to see is some partially impractical implementation of 1 stack party stab that doesn't even last very long, which is what I'm assuming is going to happen with Equality. This is along the lines of what your post discussed. If they only add Stab to Equality, it needs to be potent, like 2 or 3 stacks of Stab that lasts for a base of 10 seconds.

As far as CA Kit #5, they just need to entirely rework that skill. I personally don't want it to be a Stability rotation. I don't want any of my "preemptive support skills" to rely on the CA Kit honestly. The CA Kit is to be saved for "reactive support skills", the heal bursts. If they try to put preemptive buffs in the CA Kit, it will serve only to lure people into using CA Kit for preemptive support Stab, which puts CA Kit on ICD and then if the party needs burst heals, the CA Kit is inaccessible until it comes off ICD. This is one of the reasons why Firebrand is so strong. Its kits are separated between preemptive kit F3 and reactive kit F2. Druid only has one kit, CA Kit. Our Stability needs to be a part of normal utility/elite utility somehow, or possible a trait rework that ties into these things. CA Kit #5 I'd like to see turned into some kind of utility support rather than reactive heal support or preemptive buff support, something that is actually convenient to use during a burst heal rotation that helps control mobs while you burst heal.

Just my take on it.