Ventari and the support sadness.

[Coshka.1640]

Everyone calm down, ventari is okay because one ability in kalla is good in game modes where you don't have to move. Crisis adverted.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Marko Welder.3547 said:Sinp!

The issue with how you're thinking is that you actually think that defensive/sustain support is important while a group that min-max for dps don't. A meta group will assume that every player is able to put his own weight without having the need to have a nanny looking for it's health point. And thus, every little increase in damage matter. Quickness is a given whether you got FB healing of Druid and those 6-7% damage increase that you dismiss come on top of this quickness damage increase and affect 10 player not just 1. To put it simply if we assume that the average dps of your raid member is 10k dps, Your raid group will do 100K dps and the spirit will add 5k dps on top of that (which isn't negligible, there is no other unique skill/effect in game that can do that, making it enough to be one of the most effective tactic available).

Renegade might seem attractive with it's life leeching but it only offer 50% uptime of damage that cannot crit and is not affected by any damage increase bonus to your party. You actually need your whole party/raid to actually land hits more than twice per second to catch up to the spirit buff (which is plenty possible but you also have to consider that a raid with 100k dps isn't even close to what min/maxer achieve (and that those min/maxer define the meta).

[draxynnic.3719]

I presume that 6-7%% is 6-7% across the group? I wouldn't count it out so easily. 6% is 6% more than you had before.

Problem with pointing at the firebrand and revenant as 'better' is... do you need healbrand or healgade specifically to get those benefits? Alacren can still drop a strong Soulcleave Summit. Quickness being present in some form is assumed, but can come from a quickbrand or a mesmer rather than a healbrand. Other boons can generally be slotted in if you need them. Better healing and unique toughness boosts... do you really need them? Raids are often something of an 'enough is enough' environment when it comes to healing and durability. How does 400 toughness help meet DPS checks again?

Now, for 5-man, spirits are harder to justify, but in 10-man? They're worth it. And they go on druid, because druids provide enough healing, and heal druids give up less for bringing spirits than DPS builds do.

[Raffrey.5271]

My thoughts.

Making the tablet stick/follow would be a bad idea. Imagine having high uptime, highly mobile projectile denial domes moving around in wvw, that would be terrible imo.

I think changing the other 2 Ventari utility skills into upkeep skill would be great.(pulse healing/cleanse N conditions per interval when activated, something like that) Also, make them spawn some healing orbs per interval if any of the upkeep skills are active and raise either the base heal or modifier, that should do.

edit: these suggestions are slightly wvw oriented, not sure if it would work in other game modes.

[otto.5684]

@Marko Welder.3547 I agree that Druid is over rated. But it still offers a unique buff, the bonus damage. It is bad design, but why it is used. FB might is not as consistent. The mantra aoe is small. Renegade also suffers from the same issue to a lesser extent. It is easier to just use a Druid in raids.