A Counter for Spirit-spam Builds (read before you judge)

As most everyone knows, nature spirit build run amok and almost all builds lack the damage output to kill the spirits fast than they are created. Conditions, and hexes can be removed quickly, and build built around their removal can be made but nature spirits take time to kill, and a build to kill them is impossible to create. I do not wish to make spirit builds useless, but they must be brought into the same check and balance system as all other forms of damage and disabling as other skills are.

Thus, I propose an elite spell that counters spirits. The return of Unnatural Signet.
Notes: This skill, essentially creates a 1 ... 15 second spirit 'blackout', in which new spirits cannot be created. It then has a 15 second spirit 'flourish' time for spirits. 15 seconds may not seems like much, but against a team that relies on spirits it can be decisive 15 seconds. If no one else has Unnatural Signet then the spirit 'flourish' period is 30 seconds.

Unnatural signet kills friendly and enemy spirits alike.

The reason that it is an elite skills is because, normally, (as the devs intended) spirits come in small groups. This skills, calibrated for mass spirits, can be devastating to these smaller-scale spirit groups.

The 'starting with the spirits closest to caster' is specifically to combat using spirits as walls.

The range is 'on the radar'.

Personally, I think putting in this skill, or a skill similar to it would level the playing field against spirit builds without making them completely useless. But, as the creator, I'm a little bias. :P

What do you all think?

~Firax

Give it a range limit and a more gradual slope for spirits killed and it looks good.

Added: Range limit, radar

~Firax

I got another idea:

Dispel Area:
remove all rituals and wards within the targetted area

Be easier to just make spirits spirits, rather than physical walls, makes it so spirits don't affect other spirits, and make it so that more than 2 of the same spirit can't be cast inside the radius of another. It makes them easy to counter, and yet doesn't completely nerf spamming them.

This won't stop NR.

i'm completely for the return of the signet!
this would at least nerf natures renewal spammers, AND in addition to that, np spirit should have a collusion block, so they cannot be used as walls nontheless.

however:
idea: /signed

So what's your proposed nerf for the smiters running amok then?
Here's my suggestion. When A spirt is dropped it will spawn a minumum of two spirt legths away from the nearest spirt. That or make them tranapernt so that can be attacked, but also walked through.

If ity's the fact that the can be cast too fast that you don't like use a KD skill or a Distracting skill. They take 5 secconds to put down.

This would not stop NR spam as the NR does its most lethal damage as soon as it's slammed.

There may be not enough distracters against an 4-ranger-build...

what about you cannot cast a spirit if one of the same type is already taking effect at the place where you are standing.
would prevent spamming renewal as well...

the point about renewal is for me, that it just disables all eles at once.
if they drop all their enchantments, they are out of energy in 3 spells. great, and they are disabled for up to a hole f*ckin minute until they can cast their attunements again.
great for rangers, isn't it. why is there nothin that disables rangers for a whole minute? a "spirit of unholy winds" perhaps, that gives all arrows a 75% miss chance, triggers traps at random, and makes pets run amok against their masters for 30secs
how 'bout that?

back to smiters (if this is still in range of the topic): reduce cost of well of profane, reduce cooldown of other strip/drain enchantments, which work on SINGLE targets.

I think that the only enchant strip that is unbalanced is NR

I am still trying figure out how to counter Nature's Renewal in PvE. I was playing Thundershead's Keep yesterday as a protection monk and there was this ranger who kept putting up NR spirits.

No doubt natures renewal will be made elite. That's how I see Anet fixing this problem. however people can still spam spirts to block players.

I'm a ranger fan. I like to run the pet build in the tombs. However we don't use our spirts to block people and we find it a complete pain in the arse when some lame team spammes them to physicaly block our way.

It rarely works because we bring edge and can block right back at them but it still feels like such a cheap tactic to me.

If natures renewal were made elite i belive it would balance it without underpowering the rangers.

On the subject of nerfs I belive that putrid explosion should be given a longer cooldown time. The only fesible counter I've found to that is actually doing it myself.

One last though on this unatural signet skill.... Why not give the rangers a skill that does the same thing to enchantments? What? Too overpowered? Will disable half your skills?
Don't you think rangers have been nerfed enough?

Once NR gets nerfed we will probably see a rise in the healing ball builds, and then people will start bitching about enchant stacking because the other enchant strips aren't powerful enough (i.e. crappy recharge times).

I like it too... but I thought that you were actually suggesting a build setup for taking out spammers I'm disappointed...

lol same

Guys? There's already a counter to spirit spam, its called Edge of Extinction. The only thing that'll still bother you is Nature's Renewal.

concerning anti-enchanting at all:

spells which remove enchantment from 1 target should get a lower coldown, while NR has to be nerfed,not made elite.
what about, it removes only 1 enchantment from each player who is in range while it is cast. would be more than enough, considering that it has also the effect of doubling casting times for enchantments.

i think it would be enough if it wouldn't remove any enchantments at all but only double casting times. then there would be no point in spamming them in a wall to re-strip everything. ...and it wouldnt need to be elite.

on the other hand, while NR would no longer remove entchanties, we need much lower cooldowns on the other single-removements. maybe also nerf the other single-spells in effect a little then. (strip ench. gives less live e.g.)

You don't fix problems in gameplay with a single spell. You'd wind up with one guy that's filled up on "Well, just in case" abilities that never get used otherwise.

What needs to be done is introduce global area affects inside of maps that can be abused, much like the ones you would encounter in the facets of Glint's lairs.

How about *I OWN YOU*, a spell that would nerf the shit out of all enemies in Tyria Spirit spammers aren't invincible, i've seen many spirit spammer groups lose in the Tomb, so if you get your ass kicked by spirit spammers every time: either change your strategy or deal with it.There's no need to nerf everything that annoys some people that can't be bothered to find a way around it

medikamen, pls read all the posts here befor writing an "opinion"