That's the Spirit.

I've read that Spirit rangers can be quite powerful... but something about Spirits puzzles me... for example,...

Muddy Terrain {Elite} - Nature Ritual
Create a level 1-8 Spirit. For all creatures within its range, all creatures move 10% slower than normal, and speed boosts have no effect. This Spirit dies after 30-78 seconds.

It looks like spirits that have negative effects do so for your party as well as the bad guys. Is this true, and if so, how do the Ranger gurus use these to positive effects for their group?

You notice no groups use that? Spirit groups only use the good spirits.

The word creatures to me implies monsters, so it wouldn't affect your party or your allies but only creatures. Meaning it would really only be useful in PvE and useless in PvP as other teams are not creatures. But this is just speculation.

To be honest, I'm new at rangering (well, the game in general...) and my ranger has only 1 spirit in the arsenal that I'm aware of, so no, I haven't really had the chance to notice what is or isn't used, that was merely a cut and paste example.

So what would be considered "good" spirits, and if they're good, don't the bad guys benefit as well?

The trouble is Creatures actually means everybody, I have checked. They need to fix that to everyone instead of creatures.

Search the forums for Spirit, and you can find plenty of good spirits.

Quicening Zephyr is good with monks.

It affects everything and everyone, pvp and pve. The way to use these types of 'global enchants' is pretty simple really, you come prepared. For muddy terrain, you dont bring speed enhancements, because thats just a space on your bar that would be wasted. If you were to run muddy terrain in pvp, it would be because your using all rangers, with long range. The idea would be making it harder for the enemy to reach you and do damage. Though, it is unlikely that anyone would use muddy terrrain in pvp.

Wouldn't Quickening Zephyr also benefit the bad guys monks as well?

In PvP yes, in PvE, no.

Creature:
Something created.
A living being, especially an animal: land creatures; microscopic creatures in a drop of water.
A human.
An imaginary or fantastical being: mythological creatures; a creature from outer space.
One dependent on or subservient to another

why would they need to change it?


Spirits are very very good...they have pros and cons. They have negative affects on your party and positive affects on your party. The point is to use a spirit that benefits your party more than it does the mobs. If you are fighting in an area where mobs do fire damage...winter can be an amazing spirit as all these mobs are now going to do cold damage AND all of YOUR damage is cold damage(for the whole party)...which fire creatures are susceptible to. If you are fighting things like Jade Scarabs you can drop a Muddy Terrain spirit well outside the Scarabs aggro...then go and aggro with your bow and it will take them forever to get to you...your ranged fighters have extra time to deal damage. Only a couple of examples...but you just need to know when to use the spirit...and it can be very effective.

Re: the PvE bit: Why not?

There aren't very many enemy monks in PvE.

Ah! Ok.. thought you meant they were immune to the effects or something

Muddy terrain rocks! My ranger uses it just like a trap. You cast it just outside aggro range of the mob you are going to pull. Aggro them then use stormchaser so you move closer to normal speed and keep just out of attack range the mob gets in muddy terrain range and you have that much more time to let your party nukes blow them to bits.

For the record, Muddy Terrain is no longer an elite. It will also reset speed debuffs as well, so if you're Iron Misted for 90& movement reduction, Muddy Terrain will reset it to Muddy Terrain's penalty level.

does Storm Chaser have an effect??? Muddy Terrain is supposed to block it

The trick is to use storm chaser just after you aggro the mob which should be just before you get in range of muddy terrain. This way you have a speed boos that will get you 1/2 to 1/4 of the way through the spirits AOE. It gets close cause the mob is snapping on your heels but you make it out of the AOE well before them and they should all have been nuked by the other traps you set as well as nukes from your eles in the group. I have always thought of muddy terrain as more of a trap than a spirit becuase thats how i use it.

lol...most of the time I don't use traps the way they were designed.

example...fighting sand drakes:

Pin Down -> Throw Dirt -> Drop Barbed Trap -> Ignite Arrows -> Tigers Fury

in general I drop the trap under the mob once it's been aggro'd

So how long do traps last, a set period of time or until triggered?

set period of time dependant on your Wilderness Survival