Solution to Nature's Renewal

If you think there is no effective counter to spirit spamming, it means that you are just not good enough to counter it.

The difference being Anarkii that it would take the entire team to spam it instead of just one person. Not to mention that having Quickening Zephyr up will affect both teams casters in a whole new diretion. The current combination of OS and NR puts a lot of anti-hex+enchantment power in the hands of one player.

That one ranger can effectivly shut down all enchantments and hexes for both teams for the entire match. Leaving the rest of his team free to do whatever they need to instead of using up skill slots (and time) to maintain spirits. Not to mention that there's extended coordination required to keep the spirits popping up correctly (if a couple folks drop NR at the same time... then you've missed out on one or more removals).

I agree Kao, making Nature's Renewal an elite would help. Not sure why greater conflag is an elite and NR isn't... could just swap them and make greater conflag a non-elite.

Greater conflagaration eliminates physical damage from the game, making a fair number of skills (notably necro enchants/hexes) useless. Sound familiar? Yeah, I think it needs to stay elite.

Winter does the same thing though, just cold damage and it's non-elite. So does elementalists conjure flame/frost/lightning.

Winter does NOT do the same thing. Conflag makes all PHYSICAL damage into fire damage. Winter only changes other ELEMENTAL damage into cold damage. Definately a difference as Tellani mentioned because many hexes are triggered by physical damage. At the same time however, making NR elite would at least reduce it's abusability with Oath Shot.

Ahh you're right, I always thought it was all damage, not just elemental damage lol. No wonder people think I'm crazy when I suggest it in builds. Back to the OP though, NR is probably the most powerful non-elite skill in the game. There are counters to it, it's just tough to counter. When you combine it with oath shot, you really only need 1 ranger on your team to spam it.

Winter doesn't do the same thing as greater conflagaration. It doesn't touch the distinction between physical and elemental damage, which is an important distinction.

The only skills winter really shuts down are 2 conjures, iron mist, glimmering mark, thunderclap, mark of rodgort, and elemental mantras other than frost. It buffs mantra of frost against elemental teams. There are +15 armor vs. cold damage armor sets for rangers and elementalists. It nullifies all non-hydromancer/fur-lined elemental sets for rangers and elementalists. That's pretty mild for a ritual.

Then there's greater conflagaration. Skills shut down by conflag: Winnowing, physical resistance, dark bond, order of pain, order of the vampire (GWG skill descriptions are inaccurate), barbs, mark of pain, weaken armor, essence bond, and shields up. By itself, it buffs elemental resistance (want a +40 armor stance in constant effect for 10 energy every 45 seconds?) and grasping earth, nullifies warrior and necro bonelace armor bonuses, and buffs all ranger armor and monk wanderer armor. When used along with winter, it buffs mantra of frost (want ~40% damage reduction and free energy?) and makes the +15 armor vs. cold sets for rangers and elementalists look pretty good.

Neither ritual is useful without skills and equipment to back it up. Elemental resistance is a pretty obvious use for greater conflag, and the winter+mantra of frost addition is an extremely powerful defense if you can keep the spirits alive. Toss in fertile season and symbiosis and you've got double-health spirits with extra armor. Now laugh as the other team feebly attempts to kill your ghostly hero/guild lord while your mantra of frosted monks are stacking enchants and getting free energy. This is the whole point of "spirit spam" in tombs, and it's nice for griefing in GvG. You don't see greater conflag used much these days because oath shot is a better elite for spirit maintenance. Would we still see NR abuse if it were elite?

Winter doesn't eliminate Physical damage from the field; it only changes elemental damage to Cold.

Coming from a Ranger myself, I think making it an elite is a good idea. I don't think it NR is very overpowered at all, but I think it would balance things out.

Many Ranger spirit spammers forget the whole reason behind the build. It wasn't made soley for killing off hexes/enchantments, it was created to be able to take Spike Teams "Spike" and shrug it off. When I try to get a spirit spam team PUG, nobody has Frostbound, Matra of Frost, Winter, or Greater Conflagration but me. Making NR an elite will NOT kill off TRUE Spirit teams.

Also, I play as a Necromancer, so I understand where others are coming from and why they are frustrated. You say "Your either running it or you getting hurt by it" or "Just don't use enchantments/hexes". When you say this, you are telling me to either play a Death Necro and wait over corpse like a vulture or to quit the profession all together. Same thing goes for Protection Monks.

Yes, there are counters for NR. However, I prefer that I actually contribute to the counter in some way. I cannot contribute as a Necro who's hexes are constantly being stripped away by one skill and making my cast time twice as long.



Making NR an Elite would most deinitaly help the spammability. To be blunt, if everyone in your spirit spam team is a spirit spammers, your team is doomed to fail. If NR is an Elite, that means that some of your team members have to choose between NR, Greater Conflag., or Oath Shot for the other spirits. The end result would be that you would see less NR spam. The skill itself is not overpowered, but when combined with Oath Shot, the balance is questionable.

Keep in mind that this is all coming from a Spirit Ranger. To be honest, I really don't enjoy the fact that when people think of "Spirit Spam", they automaticaly think of Nature's Renewal and not their spectacular defence towards Elemental attacks.

Again, I don't see making NR as an elite would be much of a nerf, simply a differance in the playing style of current Spirit Spam teams.

Here's the problem. The reason why there are elite skills and why only one can be used, is because some are TOO powerful when used in conjunction with another. A great number of elites can be used to highly increase the effectiveness of NR, which is already very powerful. For instance, you can use a fast cast mesmer. Fast cast + serpent's quickness + quickening zephyr + mantra of recovery. In case you don't know the numbers, you can cast NR in about 2 seconds that way, 33% + 30% + 50% skill recharge as well, on a spell that globally removes ALL enchantments and hexes, as well as making the rest take more than twice as long to cast. Or you can use Oath Shot, and instantly remove the cooldown for NR. Do you see a problem yet?

Before all you yell at me for "not being able to find a counter," and how this will make rangers "suck again," listen up. I KNOW you can counter almost every build. I KNOW you can counter NR. If you think this will make rangers shunned, why don't you have some food for thought: Rangers can be deadly in pvp and pve without spirits, maybe YOU should use some strategy and come up with one.

I know it is possible to have 8 rangers and spam spirits still, but how easy would it be for you to heal and deal damage? The point is not to make NR ineffective, the point is to BALANCE it. Hey, I like rangers too. Disallowing the use of other elites with NR would make it not as effective to spam spirits with only 1 or 2 rangers, so you have to sacrifice some healing and firepower if you still want to use it.

Another thing is, I don't see why not they can't make NR elite. Just let everyone that already has it keep it, but turn it elite. They are coming up with bosses in Sorrow's and Grenth's Footprint, one for each class, why not just make the ranger one carry NR as elite? I know I may sound harsh, but I want to get my point across.

You know there is one thing you guys are all forgetting... NR makes it so EVERYONE'S spells recharge slower... it affects the ranger/casters as well. This is why NR is NOT an elite and we get Oath Shot... so we can get OUR skills recharged despie being under NR.

Hell if they nerf this... I want to see them nerf Backfire for Mesmers too... everytime someone casts a spell they get damaged for huge amounts? Yeah, ok, that's just as fair... or how about Empathy?

The same arguments that you have against NR can be made about skills for every other profession...

Leave the rangers alone, we already get very little respect.

Wrong. It does not make ALL SPELLS recharge slower. It makes ENCHANTMENTS and HEXES take longer to cast. A marks ranger uses ATTACK SKILLS and STANCES and SPELLS, not ENCHANTMENTS and HEXES. There's many hex remover skills for backfire and empathy, and they only affect ONE person, not the whole map. Remove hex, shatter hex, hex breaker, smite hex...etc. Like many others have previously said, if you had taken the time to actually read, NR is not as EASILY countered as many other skills.

Ahh.. my bad. I got my spirits all mixed. I don't use them as much so I mispoke. Still, nerfing stuff like this would make the ranger class even more ineffective than it already is. Unless someone is building an all Ranger team, rangers RARELY get picked for a team, no matter what build they are using.

A Ranger shouldn't have to go into PvP relying on it's secondary class for taking enemies down. Taking the only edge they have against spell casters away would take them OUT of PvP all together.

What people are missing here seems to be the fact that spirits are NOT invincible. Jesus get a Warrior with Balthazaars Aura to stand next to it and it will be dead in about 3 seconds. Stop trying to get it turned into an elite, because you KNOW its NOT gonna happen. How about next time you either target the Ranger who is laying it or the spirit itself? Stop crying about how it removes all your spells and start using some skill. These kind of topics are really beginning to annoy me now. Can we just please leave the already underated and eventually useless Rangers alone?

So? The damage is done when the spirit is summoned.
When it is summoned all enchantments and hexes on all players within it's area of effect (read: all the players) are removed.
While it's active, they take longer to cast.

Now then, killing the spirit does not reinstate our enchantments and hexes. We need to cast them all again. With the spirit dead, that is faster than when it's alive, but still, using Oath Shot, rangers can summon another one soon. No more enchantments/hexes.

This reduces Necros to using death magic or some useless blood magic. No more curses, many of which are very good.

Protection monks lose all point.

Mesmers can't use any of their numerous useful hexes anymore.

Teams built to spam this don't lose anything, as they don't bring hexes or enchantments.

The only counter is to increase the recharge on oath shot, or interrupt the ritual. Which isn't so effective if there are 8 people doing this. You'd need 8 people who are capable of knockdown and increaseing skill recharge times, as it isn't a spell so skills that disrupt spells don't work on it.

EDIT: "Target the ranger that's summoning it." Now, you try that when it's 6 rangers with NR spam, and 2 healer monks.

Wow that NR penalize all my hex and enchancement

wow what should say the warrior?

Ward against melee , aegis, blind spell,dust trap , wirling defence , gladiator stance ,bonetti defence , guardian , distortion ,ecc ecc ecc ...

yeah no kidding ... think outside the box then. It seems to be the current flavour of the month ... "omfg thats so cheap azz NR, FS, SB, Oath shot ... wtf u n00b suXX0rs ... your dead"

holy crap ... for the amount of SS teams their are ... a team should have no trouble running up and taking the hall with the counter ... read the skills and build a counter yourself... they cant use hexes and enchants either ... so beat em at their game ... just read the skills ...

Thing is backfire doesn't affect an entire team or both groups, it affects only one person and has quite a long recast time. So you're comparing apples to oranges here. NERF NR. NERF RANGERS! NERF NERFERS! lol

AMEN!

Actually, the flavor of the month seems to be not reading. Did you just read the title of the thread and decide to post based off that? If you actually read the thread, you'd know I already responded to someone else that had the same gripe as you.