I am not happy with the changes coming to spirits.

[Shaogin.2679]

Yeah, I see people keep trying to use these new spirits in PvP and it is just sad. Basically a wasted utility slot since they are just instantly destroyed.

[scerevisiae.1972]

I'm extremely disappointed in the changes. They are even worse than before. The elite spirit's healing in WVW was respectable and useful and worth slotting, but now that its healing has been nerfed by 80%, it's really useless and far inferior to the alternatives.

I don't mind the activate teleportation and degeneration as a mechanic but for spirits to be even remotely worth considering or balanced vs other utility skills, the spirits should be invulnerable to damage (they're spirits, right?) and their longevity solely determined by the degeneration. Even if spirits were invulnerable, the active skills and boons are still fairly weak (except for the elite, which is decent but not amazing).

Overall IMO they are really really weak and i would never choose spirits over any other utility skill in any game mode as things now stand, so to me the patch was a total fail, 0.5/10.

[Claviarm.4860]

I'm really hurting from the changes, particularly to Nature's Vengeance.

I think the most egregious thing is that these spirits are clearly designed for melee, on a class which touts itself on character creation as favoring ranged combat. In order to maintain even the small portion of boon uptime that's still possible, you have to hit the active skill as soon as it's available, which will move the spirit to you--so you'd better be in melee, otherwise the active is wasted and the spirits may now be too far away to benefit your allies. (Let's remember that ranged weapons generally are between 900 and 1200 distance, or even 1500 in the ranger's case, yet the new spirit radius is only 600.) Either this was designed with the "everyone stack in one spot" playstyle in mind, or they just forgot that rangers might use ranged weapons.

That aside, Nature's Vengeance lost more than half of its boon uptime, and to add insult to injury the patch notes were written as though it was a buff. "Durations have increased," they say, several lines away from where they mention that they now only proc on a 20 second active ability rather than passively every 3 seconds.

On a personal level, I've been running a spirit-focused build for years and I feel like my character has been taken away from me. Weren't spirits buffed just a few patches ago because they weren't good enough? Then suddenly now they need to be overhauled into a form that's not only far weaker, but plays drastically differently? Because druids are too good so let's nerf core ranger abilities?

I've watched so many things get overhauled rather than just tweaked. My favorite example is how the trait named "Strider's Defense" has been changed so much that it's no longer related to Strider and is no longer defensive. Without a clear vision, I can't trust that anything about my character will be the same from patch to patch, and as a person who gets invested in characters, that's too much risk for me to endure.

[Eleftherios.3082]

From Raiders Druid perspective. I had the chance to try them W6 B1.

The Bad:

• You don't get the boons anymore.

The good:

• Spirts do not die anymore. You can Heal them!
• You can cast their actives at the spots you need them! You can use their actives!
• Spirit of Nature: You can revive 1-4 player every 30 seconds!! No need for healscurges.
• Waterspirit: You can actively heal yourself and the group with it now. No need to recast it anymore or let it passively stand around.
• Stonespirit: I can use its muddle abbillity when and where I need it. I can buff Protection when it's needed.
• Rest: 100% uptime!!

From a raiders perspective this is huge!

[CETheLucid.3964]

It's a pretty good change having played with it. Spirit of Natures Renewal has new utility as a big AoE condi cleanse.

It doesn't sacrifice health as long as it doesn't revive someone and with the new ability to teleport on spirit active use, you could also elect to revive a downed cluster of people regardless of where you originally put down the spirit.

The Water Spirit's active is far more dependable now and it puts out a big heal in bursts which is interesting.

Sun Spirit active is AoE burning + blind wherever you want it. Stone Spirit can teleport around and apply AoE immobilize. Storm Spirit is an AoE daze on a 20 second CD wherever you need it.

Can't say they were "buffed", but changed to accommodate the more active play style as opposed to the former passive style. It's a great QoL change overall. Spirits still aren't a great choice in PvP or WvW but they weren't before either.

As people figure it out I'm sure this will actually end up improving support builds, especially stone spirit and storm spirit. Might see druids come to pull off some crazy break bar shenanigans.

[Eramonster.2718]

More difficult to provide stability & vigor. Healing spirits gives astral energy, but it also takes 1 heal away (number of targets).

[anduriell.6280]

@Eramonster.2718 said:More difficult to provide stability & vigor. Healing spirits gives astral energy, but it also takes 1 heal away (number of targets).

um there is no point to bring water spirit if you run druid. Your glyph has 19 secs cd vs 20, heals for more, has a bigger radius and generate more LF (Verdant etching).The spirits arent brought for their actives, Druid is not there for dps.

And i seriously doubt you can keep them alive with a soulbeast and much less in an squad, although i would love for anybody to prove wrong.

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Eramonster.2718 said:More difficult to provide stability & vigor. Healing spirits gives astral energy, but it also takes 1 heal away (number of targets).

um there is no point to bring water spirit if you run druid. Your glyph has 19 secs cd vs 20, heals for more, has a bigger radius and generate more LF (Verdant etching).The spirits arent brought for their actives, Druid is not there for dps.

And i seriously doubt you can keep them alive with a soulbeast and much less in an squad, although i would love for anybody to prove wrong.

50% up time on 10 target regen. Doesn't matter in double druid+WH regen groups but that's a huge difference in solo druid groups. The passive is also decent bonus healing to the group. Excess healing is now more important since the more group healing you bring that tops off your allies at 100% health, the more likely spirits stay alive since your extra heals will spill over into them.

In fotm, the 10 target regen from water spirit will likely keep all your other spirits alive indefinitely.

[anduriell.6280]

@"DuckDuckBOOM.4097" said:50% up time on 10 target regen. Doesn't matter in double druid+WH regen groups but that's a huge difference in solo druid groups. The passive is also decent bonus healing to the group. Excess healing is now more important since the more group healing you bring that tops off your allies at 100% health, the more likely spirits stay alive since your extra heals will spill over into them.

In fotm, the 10 target regen from water spirit will likely keep all your other spirits alive indefinitely.

What do you mean with "50% uptime regen"? you get only 5 seconds regen when casting the active that is every 20 seconds CD and i have my doubts it only applies to 5 allies. Passive has an internal CD of 10 seconds.You get ~800 heal every 10 seconds and does not increase your LF. All spirits has 8-10 seconds internal CD for passives except the Frost one.

I dont get why you would defend the state of the spirits as they are right now, i don't get why spirits are considered to be used in pve other than frost. I mean don't the sun spirit applies burning once every 8 seconds by ally with the buff? Whats the point to be able to apply 1 stack of burning every 8 seconds?

And no, i don't think a soulbeast can keep alive any spirits with just the regen.

[Zyreva.1078]

5s base regen = 10s regen with 100% boon duration = 50% uptime on typical PvE support druid (without factoring in alacrity which could increase uptime further).And it only takes about 100 hp/s to keep traited non-elite spirits alive (unless they take additional dmg ofc), so technically regen only is enough, even with zero healing power.Sun spirit applies 2 stacks of burning for 2,5s (~4-5s on a condi build). Seems low dmg, but i guess it adds up when procced by 5-10 players.Don't think the changes were impactful. Nothing has really changed.

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@"DuckDuckBOOM.4097" said:50% up time on 10 target regen. Doesn't matter in double druid+WH regen groups but that's a huge difference in solo druid groups. The passive is also decent bonus healing to the group. Excess healing is now more important since the more group healing you bring that tops off your allies at 100% health, the more likely spirits stay alive since your extra heals will spill over into them.

In fotm, the 10 target regen from water spirit will likely keep all your other spirits alive indefinitely.

What do you mean with "50% uptime regen"? you get only 5 seconds regen when casting the active that is every 20 seconds CD and i have my doubts it only applies to 5 allies. Passive has an internal CD of 10 seconds.You get ~800 heal every 10 seconds and does not increase your LF. All spirits has 8-10 seconds internal CD for passives except the Frost one.I dont get why you would defend the state of the spirits as they are right now, i don't get why spirits are considered to be used in pve other than frost. I mean don't the sun spirit applies burning once every 8 seconds by ally with the buff? Whats the point to be able to apply 1 stack of burning every 8 seconds?

And no, i don't think a soulbeast can keep alive any spirits with just the regen.

As Umbra mentioned, druid support runs with 100% boon duration. My group also checked before starting actual boss fights and the boons from passive and active spirit abilities still hit 10 people. I've also looked at logs after to confirm this. So 5 seconds becomes 10 seconds on 10 people every 20 seconds. That's 50% uptime. In the case of fotm, that's 5 ppl + 5 allied npcs.

Traited stone spirit is 90% up time on protection on 10 people. That's still really strong.

Even with no bonus condition damage, 750 from 25 might and 100 from banner of strength means that sun spirit is at minimum 1.6k DPS in a 10 person squad. Condi dmg and duration obviously buffs that further. The active is now a bonus 8 seconds base burning from the druid. Traited sun spirit also brings roughly 30% up time on vigor. This was a major nerf although I think the nerf was warranted. It's also still worth it.

I have never mentioned anything about soul beast keeping spirits alive. Just that regen with zero healing power can keep them alive. I made that statement to show how little healing they require. If you are a soul beast in a raid or fotm, your job isn't to keep the spirits alive. Just position them. Your healer keeps them alive from over healing your team. Alternatively, they expire... just like they did before. Then you resummon them... just like you did before.

[anduriell.6280]

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:But do they really benefit from the banner and the might? With this im saying: in wvw it is very difficult to share boons and heals with the spirits because there is always 10 players in your surroundings, as such your spirits don’t get any benefits.

Do they in raids? I mean they are always with 10 players (maybe not in qading but the rest are mostly one boss)Have you checked the spirits are actually having those boons and buffs all the time with a full raid squad?

Also think: if they get the boons and buffs obviously there is a player whom is not getting them....

[scerevisiae.1972]

tested the spirit changes, they are 100% useless for WVW, and now the elite spirit (which was the only skill usable in WVW) is now also useless in WVW.

So no i couldn't be any more disappointed in the changes.

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:But do they really benefit from the banner and the might? With this im saying: in wvw it is very difficult to share boons and heals with the spirits because there is always 10 players in your surroundings, as such your spirits don’t get any benefits.

Do they in raids? I mean they are always with 10 players (maybe not in qading but the rest are mostly one boss)Have you checked the spirits are actually having those boons and buffs all the time with a full raid squad?

Also think: if they get the boons and buffs obviously there is a player whom is not getting them....

They have and will always been useless in WvW. I just accept that so long as they have health. Stances or glyphs have a better chance of being buffed to work better as support there. Sun spirit applies a buff to allies. Your allies do bonus burning based on their condition damage. In PvE, banners and might are always on your allies. It's not about might/banners buffing the spirit itself.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/70845/how-is-your-experience-with-the-new-spirits-in-pve-and-wvw#latest

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:Pre-patch Samarog average group up time: 67% stone spirit, 69% storm spirit, 59% frost spirit and 72% sun spirit.Post-patch Samarog average group up time: 88% stone spirit, 97.75% storm spirit, 83.4% sun spirit. Idk why frost spirit isn't showing up in the log right now.

Those are some pretty big differences! Samarog is a fight where the group moves around too. Non mobile fight: I was getting 99.8% spirit group up time on MO. The reason I'm specifically mentioning Samarog is because the spirit actives are useful. Stone for extra immob and storm for extra CC.

Yes I have tried them. On my first try, I was getting better up time with the new spirits buffs and boons than before. Exception was sun spirit's vigor which was nerfed. Again, it's not about giving your spirits buffs/boons. Staff 2 heals everything as it circles around the boss. Furthermore, if your 10 allies are at 100% health, extra healing will go to your spirits.