0
http://www.guildwars...ld/page__st__30 is a post concerning my previous build with minor alterations to bring spirits to play. Literally the only thing I changed was
I've dropped signet of stone, I kept it mostly for its active to keep my pets alive if I needed to buy time to swap. The more I played with my pets and the better I got at managing them I found I never used it. the toughness was laughable so I swapped it for stone spirit. With stone spirit you get 33% mitigation 33% of the time. Thanks to the Wilderness survival line I can keep it up roughly 75% of the time. Even more when I am vigor munching with my spring. With my regen and base armor I become a seriously tough cookie. Much better than the paultry base toughness that only cut off a few damage points.
sick'em is dropped for sun spirit. Advantage of Sun Spirit, through your pet and ranger you can get 6s burn duration every 10s. when playing in parties for dungeons WvW etc. you have even more people proc'ing the burn (3s each). If your group focus's targets you have 100% uptime on burn for extra damage source. More damage over time versus the burst potential of sick'em.
I keep signet of the wild because it is a corner piece of my build which allows it to survive just about everything I encounter.
Rampage as One is swapped for Elite Spirit for even more healing and the self rez/ party rez that is discussed at the end of the above mentioned topic discussion.
How I've managed to utilize my Spirits:
Funny thing is you don't really need to invest in the trait line to get the best potential. Even after grabbing the bonus health they are still quite squishy, so not worthy it. The actives for the most part are kind of bland, I carry them primarily for the passive buffs. 15% bonus proc chance, negated by internal cooldown. Since it already proc's 1 in 3 attacks you won't be waiting long for the effect especially since rangers have pretty fast attack animations.
Never get spirits unleashed. My opinion I know, but here is why I have found it to be a waste. The only thing it is good for is if you like to use the actives and need to keep them in range. But having them run with you is begging for them to be smashed to ribbons by AoE, why so many rangers complain about them.
To maximize the potential drop them on the outside of the battle. The passive buff range is really big and will reach just about every square inch of boss battle room. And then run away from them, stay away to minimize there chance of being splooted by AoE. Also inform your dungeon groups/ parties to not stand by them.
If you deploy them right you can keep them up 100% uptime for major fights. My typical deployment strategy, disengage with a roll, cast spirit, at end of cast roll and start next spirit, etc. and then one extra roll before reentering fray. they'll keep chasing you and when they finally close your spirits will be safe outside the fray.
Final Synopsis:
In the end it makes for an insanely supportive tankish as hell build that can still do great damage with its loyal and dependable pet. Great for solo and purely awesome when grouping and Even more Godly when used in Zerg battles where even more people are proc'ing the effects.
Edited by Daisy Rogers, 20 December 2012 - 09:09 PM.
