Spirit Walls: do you believe in them?

I've been through Urgoz a few times as Rt and had teams that either requested the spirit walls or didn't. A few in my last team birthed kittens over the request. So, do you believe in their use, or not?

My personal take:

I'll do them for the initial aggro, but I won't run around on the frontline making myself part of the wall itself.

There's three very negative points about this strategy:

1) The rangers need to be very coordinated with their timing. Displacement, my longest spirit lasts about 50sec or so. The least longest is Life at 20sec. So they need to have traps ready within 50sec from when I lay displacement, and lbe uring within 20sec of life. This rarely ever happens and about half the spirits have gone by the time the creatures arrive.
2) With +10 spawning, Displacement and Shelter tend to take about 5 uses of their ability before they've absorbed all they can. That's five hits against the lurer, the minions, whatever, and they're gone. What use is this as a wall?
3)Some creatures (particularly in Hard Mode) don't give a damn that there's a spirit between it and the tasty monk, ele or necro at the back. To me, if they pick their target then they pick their target. Lack of pathing ability won't change that quickly.

In the last group I refused to dance around amongst the enemy putting up this imaginary wall that would be downed in 3 sec, not because the spirits were being hit but because they were doing the ability they were meant to be doing.

Most groups I've joined I very safely stayed at the rear spamming my spirits and making life for the Monks much much easier. Not only did this mean I could keep spamming until the last minute (for when the front line breaks, MM fallen, and everyone is retreating) but it's also meant I've been one of the few ppl left alive in some cases to come out and spam Flesh of my Flesh on the rest.

If you want more blockers, take another MM. If you want a nice guarrantee of survival, take an Rt and treat them nicely, especially given the lack of rewards they tend to get! I don't think walls during battle, or lack thereof, will overshadow the skill and ability of the rest of the team.

Indeed, spirit wall is of little use if not the timing of placement is right and the nuking of the foes reaching the wall. From luring to finishing the mob there shouldn't go more then 20-30 secs anyway otherwise start running.

Key is to keep the mob at the traps and spirit wall just a bit longer for the nukers or splinter/barrage to finish them off. Therefore eartbind is still good to have along. Life i don't know, shelter and dissonance yes despite the short life time.

You can increase the spirits life time just a little using signet of binding, or signet of creation. The latter however is a bit tricky because this one kills all sprits and creatures after 30 secs, including EoE !.

Therefore the 20-30 sec duration from luring to last foe down is essential. Given this time frame the spirit wall will last (provided you give them signet of creation on the way).

Whether spirit wall is of any use if the 20-30 sec criterion is not met I do not know, I tend to agree with you that it is of nu use with foe battles lasting more then 20-30 secs. In that case it would be better to go splinter barrage (Rit/R) with pet.

Hmmm - I think the spirit wall has value, but 80% of my Urgoz runs have been with barrage/pet teams. Usually have the rangers cast FW and winnow along with the Rit spirits while the lurer is out collecting the wolves. Timed well it is rare that there is more than one sprit down. It is also easier to survive in my experience if the pull was poor (ie double / triple group) - ie you know you are going to lose some team members but less likely to end in a party wipe.

Never seen the rit stay in the line though - usually timed to cast their spirits and retreat to the back rank before things get nasty.

The timing would be much tougher with a trap party, and I would be inclined to just give the spirit wall a big miss then.

i will lay the spirit wall before aggroing a new group and keep them up until the traps are ready.
once enemies have been pulled, i spam them in the back where they (and myself!) can't get mauled.

Ah, thanks for the responses and the validation! Frankly I've seen more Urgoz runs fail because of bad timing overall and simply flaming and people leaving because of abuse, than because of spirit walls, etc (which I don't think is any, but I may be biased to avoiding blame! ).

Spirit Walls are really usable... Even if you use a spirit (Anguished was Lingwah? + Soul Twisted Spirit) to run (Raisu Palace and the bridge part) away from mobs. And casters like to be behind a spirit, because spirit can be sacrifices, when a Monk can't. And traps + spirits = win.

spiritwall/traps alongside the wall/corner where the entire pulled area will ball up ...sac ms /barrage/ sf /ss /eoe ... and on to the next stage