Are you ever going to kill Spirit Spam ?

To all those QQing about not getting into groups in PUGs because there are too many SoS rits...I've often had success, in particular with the zaishen missions/bountys by advertising as a restoration rit. Groups themselves often say lf monk/resto rit because the monks get snapped up fast. Just because a resto rit might not be up to a UA/HB monks standards doesn't mean you can't try to adapt abit and meet the demand.

Also setting up spirits is pretty brainless...But so is a bunch of other builds. Also spirits don't exactly steamroll through high end or certain types of mobs in PvE, specially if they are being smacked with AoE without something like AoU.

I think a reasonable nerf to spirits would be to lower their health and make them easier to kill. I don't think spirits were ever intended to act as a "wall" to absorb damage. The pre-buffed spirits worked actually quite well, it's just the cast times were ridiculous. This would make a spirit wrangler truly need to manage the placement of their spirits and keep them out of danger.

best to quit whining about it and wait for GW2, you dont like SoS then simply dont play it, you could H/H everything in the game if it really came down to it. but there is no use whining about it. every game you play will have a part about it that is OP, if you manage to find one without one then congrats you rediscovered pong...

Of all the things that are op/game-breaking that need to be fixed and SoS is a priority?

What does SoS have to do with all this? Were you not sober when you made this thread?

What is more OP in the general pve setting in your opinion?

...I dont get it... Thats no reason not to nerf an OP skill.

Because it is a fun build that has opened up numerous builds without being overly dominant in the meta-game, as a Ritualist can run other builds as well. However, the ease of use and sheer variety possible in SoS builds allows it to be an invaluable tool since the Ritualist buff. Nerfing it will kill off a very important aspect that defines the modern day Ritualist however.


Now, can we get a reason that it SHOULD be nerfed? Or are you just trolling us? Or are there people seriously still rambling on about nerfing skills that would only hurt PvE?

Besides being a flat-out game breaker like SF and Ursan were, the only way to truly define a reason to nerf in PvE is to prevent monsters from becoming too hard, and challenging. Hypothetically, say all Mesmers could spam 90 dmg skills in PvE every few seconds. That would be a pain in the ass, would it not?

What the hell are you running that groups would rather bring 8 SoS rits than add you?

Why would a group be so dumb as to bring 8 SoS rits?

Doesn't anyone know that bringing 2 of the same spirits would cancel out?

That is the point. Someone's build has to be REALLY bad if a second SoS is chosen over the guy who gets kicked

No, just no. I don't even own a ritualist and I don't mind Spirits. If you were able to summon the same spirits multiple times then there would be a legitimate reason to need a nerf. But the way it is now is fine.

That's 7 million sos rits looking for 7 million pugs. If you can't even get one of those pugs to take you....well.. are you playing a dervish? or a mending wammo?

look at the inane drivel on the frontpage of riverside. wonder? .... there have been countless of threads where the complaints of a vocal and persistent minority have constantly overshadowed the fact that most of us either don't care or don't think its a problem.

It seems to me that whenever we see a majority of a certain class, people start screaming "OMG! Overpowered! Nerf! Nerf!" At least that's the vibe I got pre-SF-"nerf" -- that all anybody ever saw in outposts were assassins.

Maybe it's just that, while spirits took 2 seconds to cast, everyone avoided rits like the plague. Now that spirits are "un-nerfed" everybody feels free to finally give the profession a try. Why punish that?

And I don't know about anybody else, but my spirits tend to be very flimsy (especially under AoE) and rather disorganized. The idea of dropping spirits and running like hell makes me laugh. I have to direct my lazy spirits to get going by attacking what I want them to. And even then, a few will attack my target while the others attack something else. This doesn't scream "overpowered" to me.

PvE is beyond saving at this point. Wait for GW2.

That doesn't make any sense. Why would someone wait for a different game? That's not even a valid reason to not do something.

SoS can be used once, in HM the recharge time may be good, as those mobs take more time to defeat
same with the other spirits

with 2 spirit spammers in 1 team, you gotta either change build, or use when the other's skills are recharging (which in HM is hard to see, as after a battle, the skills may be recharged, so the one who used first can use em again

just cuz spirits can be used as nice dmg dealers and a wall to let the team get less dmg, it still has weaknesses
look at the wanteds... or just the WiK enemies, some rangers have gaze of fury, which take care of 2 spirits from spirit spam

at least that happened with me everytime i fought em, 2 out of my 3 spirits from SoS got caught

let uw/fow and doa have some enemies with that skill, for all i care

anyway, spirit spam isnt as popular as it was right after the spirit buffs (from 2-3 sec casting time to less than 1)

people get bored of it mostly, so they find other builds to use

also, the OP here dont like that the game is kinda empty, well, most people left not just cuz of ursan or shadowform
and the reason that some pugs dont like other rits in their teams isnt cuz of SoS or anything, its their attitude, people only like to win lately, not all but alot only want 100% chance to make it

please dont blame certain builds/skills for the people/pugs who dont like non-popular builds

overpowered means you can beat most places just cuz of that build, but this build is just being popular, i'd say: let it be and buff some other profs

and if they dont do either, wait til people got sick of it and change their builds
without spirit spam it would be another build which would do the same, like letting pugs only take people with that kind of builds

face it, it'll be an endless cycle

oh yeah, the reason why spirits have 1 or less casting time is because rits were kinda bad back then (or just not as popular), should they nerf it back, rits wont be used much anymore, that'd be a waste of profession... and time

besides, i mostly see warriors being used anywhere in towns and outposts, and paragons are used alot too, why not kill em all? (sarcasm)

i laugh when people say its hard to use a SoS solo build. but then again a lot of people cant kite worth a beep. i dont see how SoS is over powered because it only lasts so long then you have to recast. try recasting in a mob of ice imps then see how "over powered it it". xD and besides the fact i rather get new content then a nerf/buff to skills.

I ran a balanced team in a HM mission with guildies, without using a spirit spammer. We made it to a tough spot and wiped. We could have sat down and re-tuned, but did we? No. My friend changed over to SoS and we steamrolled the mission.

It's a force multiplier, and I think it's beyond reason. While nobody has to run it, it did contribute to making PvE lazy. It's more of a crutch than anything. Chuck the strategy guide, just run spirits.

As for "killing" spamming, I wouldn't go that far. I think they should at least set fair cast times and increase the energy cost on some skills to better reflect the power. A group of spirits can be cheaper than one Bone Fiend, and probably raised in the same time. That makes no sense.

That is because necros have soul reaping and they gain energy very quickly in PvE, which can also be considered OP. So a more energy expensive spell on the necro makes sense. You can't expect all your necro spells to be as cheap as the other professions.

As for making PvE lazy, many things make PvE even lazier than spirit spamming. Cons for one, don't tell me spirit spamming is more OP than cons. If people complain that PvE is too easy then cons should be the first thing to go. PvE skills also make PvE lazy much more than spirit spamming.

Wierd that people tolerate all these overpowered things and yet asks for a nerf to spirit spamming. Obviously the mentality of some people is: Unless it is something that my characters can benefit from, otherwise we should nerf it to hell.

First, I want to specify that NERFING =/= KILLING A BUILD. I am not asking for SoS to be killed or severely nerfed. Rather, I am asking for SoS to be slightly nerfed so that they are more on par with other ritualist dps options. Now is that really going to kill off the fun for you or anyone else?

The reason why it should be nerfed? I don't really see how you can deny that SoS is a very powerful skill. It:
A. Has a high armor ignoring dps
B. Produces more bodies which is invalueable for party passive defense
C. Allows the rit to have unlimited energy when used with one of two energy management spells available to the rit.

Your last paragraph is wrong. Skills should be nerfed if they are overpowered and buffed if they are underpowered. It doesn't matter that this is PvE. It doesn't matter that GW2 is coming out within the next few years. Skill balancing involves bringing the overall power of skills onto the same level as other skills, and therefore, an overpowered skill like SoS needs a slight nerf so that it is on the same level as other ritualist dps options.

It's annoying how they have these overpowered skills in the game, but what bothers me most is the fact that the overpowered skills are for a certain profession only. Either nerf 'em, or give every profession their overpowered god-mode spell...

All this sounds exactly the same as a MM to me.

SoS alone isn't all that great. It is only when it is combined with other skills that it shines (spirit siphon, summon spirits, AoU, painful bond, and/or BoC), but isn't this the point of having builds? Using the synergy between skills is at the core of GW. There are several other Ritualist skills that provide higher DPS alone, specially when AoE is taken into consideration.

I think that's what the Devs have been doing with their Profession-by-Profession rework...

Let them go through all the Professions first. Then we'll see what's what.

It doesn't look like GW2 is fixing the bad stuff. More like removing everything good, skillbar customization, secondaries and instead adding inane bs like races.
So, no thanks.

Removing skill bar customization is in my opinion due to the fact that look what GW has become. Secondaries... well, your racial skills are sorta like your secondary, you just cannot change it. But, your skill bar will be somewhat customizable, the last 5 skills are, and there will be many to choose from to fill those spots.

On topic, does it need to be toned down, probably. But there are other things needed to be nerfed before this.

Wait, an insightful comment about "balance"? On Guru? Oh gosh, I think I've lost it. The end of the World is nigh.

Well, back on topic... I agree. I really don't understant why people get overly defensive when it comes to nerfs, and bring the absurd "fun" argument into the discussion... How people call "fun" overpowered stuff that completely defeats the point of a game is really beyond me...

I've played Guild Wars since Factions and I can't honestly remember when I could just get into a group easily at any mission I go to. People are making it seem like you could just always get into a group to do a mission. I find that the game is still alot of fun and there are plenty of people in the places where it matters. No, there aren't a ton of people doing the mission say in Cantha, but who honestly cares? Find a good guild and you can get people to do those with you if you need them.

I don't understand either when people say that SF or Ursan killed the game. If I remember right it brought a ton more people together in missions because it was possible to finish a mission. DwG in DoA, it's brought DoA back alive. I remember there when you could never find a group. "If everything was difficult there would be a topic here complaining how people can never find a group that can finish anything."

And the biggest thing though that posters have pointed out, the game is "old". Its been around for a while so of course there arn't going to be as many people.

*chuckle*
Truth.


As for why people cared about UB and SF: they made all dungeons stupidly easy, to the point that if you weren't playing these builds you were intentionally gimping yourself. A single build should not be able to absolutely dominate every elite area in the game. Now, they can't, so it's fine; SF is still powerful but it's not nearly as big a problem as it was before. UB allowed players to literally just faceroll to victory, which means that it stunted the growth of players learning how to get better. No, it's not fun to PUG with some warrior who thinks that UB is the only good build ever, and because he's used to just running from one mob to the next he ends up over-aggroing, wiping the party, and then blaming everyone else for sucking. So, yeah, it was a cancer that needed to be excised.

SoS, on the other hand, is just a really powerful DPS build that is self-limiting; it can't dominate the game since you can't bring more than one SoS. It's a bit too powerful, sure, it could stand to do with a little tap with the nerfbat so other rit DPS options don't look silly in comparison, but it's really nothing game-destroying.

I don't expect necromancer spells to become cheaper, I suggest that it cost more than 10e to have an army of spirits, and another 5e (Armor of Unfeeling) to make them tanks. SR is necessary just to make the profession work properly, like Expertise for ranger.

I'm the first to knock consumables and overpowered PvE skills, but that's a completely separate thread to make. But since you mentioned it, where's the health sacrifice for healing spirits? You can to tow them around and keep them alive under heavy damage, and in plenty of cases keep a whole mob busy by yourself.

FYI, I have a rit and have used SoS builds frequently. It's not nice to make assumptions of people.

Depends on how you define army, it does already take more than 10e to make an army of spirits.

The point I am trying to make is asking for a nerf to spirit spam to make PvE harder is ridiculous. Do you ask for a ship to save a drowning man? PvE would still be as easy as before, if it is not rits then necros would be OP, and you are just targeting a select group of players by nerfing them.

If the problem is PvE is too easy, then the first to nerf would be cons, not spirit spamming. If the problem is that you can't get into PUGs without being a spirit spammer, then that is not a problem because 2 spirits of the same type cancels out. So what is the problem?

This whole thread is ridiculous. You should rename this thread into "please make necros more OP than rits."

Minion masters need nerfs too tbh. Not large ones, just slight nerfs. A tone down of soul reaping or a reduction in damage of death nova maybe.

The problem is though that the potential of SoS to easily shine is far higher than that of other skills. I mean why would you run any other rit dps build when you could run an SoS spirit spammer? The damage potential of a SoS spirit spammer is just so high, and while there are a bunch of skills that contribute to this, I think that the best method of dealing with this problem is through slight nerfs to the primary skills in the build. Before everyone starts yelling out "ZOMG!!!!!1!!!!! HE WANTS SOS TOBE KILLZED!!!!!", notice that I am only asking for slight nerfs. Here were my ideas that I posted earlier in this thread:

1. Reduce the number of spirits summoned with SoS to 2. Raise the stats of those spirits to their pre-SoS nerf level. (in other words, SoS would allow you to raise two spirits identical to pain spirits for free)

The Dps of SoS would remain relatively unchanged (it would be a little lower but just barely...) but there would only be two spirits which means one less body and one less target for spirit siphon or boon of creation.

2. Raise spirit siphon's recharge to 8.

Although it would still be a very powerful e-management spell in spirit spam builds, this would prevent the rit from having unlimited energy.

3. Link the # of spirits teleported with summon spirits to the luxon rank (rank 1-2 = one spirit teleported, 3-7 or 8 = 2 spirits teleported and 8 or 9 + allows three spirits to be teleported).

Now look at these suggestions. I am by no means "killing" spirit spam. In fact, even if all this happened, spirit spam would probably still be the highest dps build available to rits. However, this would tone down an SoS spirit spam build slightly thus leveling it more with the other dps options rits have.

Is that really such a bad goal? To try and equal the damage potential of SoS spirit spamming builds and other dps builds available to rits?

rangers can solo both plains and parts of fow monks are key in speed clears want to remove them?

Rangers do so by using...wait for it ...........SF! There is no debate concerning monks, specially since they are being used to what?.....Heal?....They are being used as intended? As part of a team?....*notice the sarcasm*

Nerfing SoS will for the most part only hurt players who are new to the game, casual players or just not that good at the game. These are people who don't need nerfs...ever. I think the only change I would support for SoS is to move it to spawning and scale the amount of spirits created to the investment in spawning.
Talking about balance for PvE is kind of pointless, because PvE is a one-sided battle... but ok, if you want some balance in PvE, SoS is not the place to start. If you're gonna balance, you start with the high-end stuff that is being abused to make very difficult things very easy. I'll spread these out to make it easier on the trolls, because I'm just that kind of magnanimous.
Shadowform... nerf it to the stone-age. You would either need to remove the protection from spells, remove the damage reduction and quite likely make it frenzy-esque, kill the duration, increase the cost and recharge, or have it undergo a dramatic change in function to make this skill balanced.
DWG... remove or greatly reduce the damage on drop.
Ancestor's Rage... merge with PvP version.
Cruel was Daoshen... remove armor penetration.
Ether Renewal... merge with PvP version.
INB4: this is not a perfect attempt at balance, I'm just giving examples.

I was thinking five. SoS, Bloodsong, Pain. I left Vampirism out since that's a PvE skill, but AoU is another 5e and you'll never have to worry about them dying on you before you can refresh.

I'm not sure where you are coming from. None of what you said was in context to what I've said.

The topic is very clear, we're not discussing PvE skills and consumables. Rits have not been singled out for any other reason than the spirit buff being part of the meta that replaced strategy and critical thinking. It's dumbed the game down, I don't know how to make it more concise than that. If we can't agree on anything let us move on.

I don't have a problem with your other suggestions, but this one is absurd. The skill does serve a purpose, which is that long recharge spirits are simply not useful in general PvE missions without the ability to drag them around the map. Further, your proposal basically means "sucks to be you rit, go grind K/L if you want to spirit spam". That's horrible. There is no other build that I can think of that explicitly requires you to grind that much in order to get it to a playable level; even Imbagon is at least doable at level 1 K/L.

Speed clears are the biggest "problem" in PvE. If nerfing SoS will stop speed clears then it's an appropriate nerf, otherwise, come back when SoS IS the biggest problem.

SF is a bigger problem, OF is a bigger problem. ANet are too incompetant to nerf the really big problems.

Well the requirements can be lowered or just get rid of the rank scaling all together and make it so a max of three spirits can be towed around. I would agree that rank grinding is bad, so I actually like this idea more.

I was unaware that SY was maintainable at 1. I thought you had to have the 4 sec duration for it to be maintainable.

I think we are talking about two different types of "balancing" here. When I talk about balance, I mean balancing skills with other skills to make more varieties of skills and builds viable, which would be a boon to the new and casual player b/c picking "meta" builds wouldn't be a big deal.

I agree that "balancing" the interactions between players and the environment (aka balancing PvE rather than balancing skills) is pointless since it is, as you say, a one sided environment.

When I talk about balancing SoS, I mean balancing it with other skills, not just nerfing it in order to make PvE tougher.

SoS and SF never were overpowered, its the builds where they were/are in, and how people use em

SoS has nice defensive and offensives effects, but overpowered? nah

use SoS in another rit build, you'll see (a none-spirit build)

i dont like the way people think something is overpowered just cuz it makes the game easier
also, for that example that someone takes spirit spam and steamrolls through a mission:
its just the way people use builds/skills, and maybe that build was good for that mission, or the spawns were better

i do agree it makes the game some easier, but some people can do anything with hench only, no SoS, that makes the people good, not the skills overpowered

think about the reason why anet gave rit spirits less casting time, cuz people didnty like rits much back then, and now that they do, people complain... wtf

next thing being mesmer overpowered???? come on, continue life and play the game with fun, not seeing something you dont use being better than your build(s), and call it overpowered

many builds are better than spirit spam, dont waste your time trying to get that skill get nerfed once again, i got a buff for a reason : to be useful, now that it is good, they call it overpowered, same with the rit spirits having less casting time

if i'd make threads about anything stronger than my own builds (self made or which i like to use from pvx or something), then i'd better start now before gw2 comes... no, i'm too late now, would take me too long and make the forums full

live with it, you dont like it, then you dont use, just dont kill the fun for others who are just playing normal, as this is no skill for farm/solo builds

let good skills stay good, dont kill em cuz some use a good build with a good skill

i dont understand why spirit spam would hurt others
if a pug wants 1 rit which MUST use spirit spam, its a bad pug, as they dont accept anything but perfect(which doesnt exist)

** read the stone topic, it has another example about pugs asking for so called "elite people" **