[Rendar]

Spirits are notoriously either really good or quite literally just 5 extra damage (if that). Some skills go from 120 ele + 100 swa to 130 ele + 100 swa. Which isn't that much.

Meanwhile, other skills go from giving you 300+ extra hp to giving you 400+ extra hp. Not all skills are created equally in terms of spirits, and instead of saying "Lets just remove spirits", it's probably best to just touch up on the especially egregious ones that are, for all intents and purposes, insane whenever spirited.

Wraithguard: 300 hp > 400 hp
Second Set: 150 hp base > 200 hp base
Rain Trap: 1 extra tile (This is all around just a difference between it and other traps. Why? idk.)
Hell's Beating: Crit: +15%, Sound Damage: +30%, Hesitation: +5 lvl
Cherry Blossom: 10% extra earth attack, +50 on the global heal
Gentle Garden: Extra 60 hp on the heal (in most cases)
Pied Piper: Less that spirited Pied Piper is a problem, and more getting 50% DR pre-defenses is actually a problem. lvl 48 charm is insane.
Idol Step: I will actively hate this ability for ever. Gets an extra step.
Mass: 1 extra size
Rescue: 1 extra tile (This is mostly just insane with enhanced Mass)
Water Tentacle: +20% water attack (done every round for 10 rounds)
Brine Blade: Can get wonky. +20% water attack on every melee attack for basically the entire fight
Refreshing Flow: Everyone loves having 60 HP regen instead of 45 HP regen.
Needle: Extra needle, 48% light attack scaling.
Blink/Swap Position: Both get extra range, which makes them kind of insane but alright sort of.
Jetpack: 1 extra tile of range
Bash: Becomes 0m
Hanging: +1 range (more hit / tile traveled)
Haunting: +1 range
Forced Move: Bigger.
Winged Serpent: +1 range (but like. What else would putting levels into this do?)
Pinball Strike: I don't think literally anything in the game should have an eight tile knockback. Seven tiles is already borderline insane on a teleport.

I'm almost certainly missing other classes having wildly insane Spirited potential that I didn't notice, but I went through the list of classes on the test server and checked what I saw what really stood out amongst the "+10% elemental attack" crowd. +10% SWA is, generally, more than +10% ele attack.. but it's generally in the same vein, and therefore alright in my eyes.

Realistically, the answer is "just make spirits equalized" or "Just make spirits a slight buff, rather than an extra skill rank".

Though, spirits as is, for certain classes, is just insane value for.. taking like 7% more damage maybe if someone's running a specific build.

[Ray2064]

wait holy shit

i never realized the thing about 0M bash

[Miller]

wait holy shit

i never realized the thing about 0M bash

spirited bash doesn't give 0M bash despite the skill ranks implying that

[MegaBlues]

i'm up for just giving white spirits a completely new effect, such as 1% DR against a specific racial set. something equivalent to black spirits

not a big fan of ranking up skills and i think their existence is a constant design debt that detracts much more than it adds and is part of the overarching issue sl2 has with swinginess; i.e., the discrepancy between the high and low ends of build efficiency

[MothEnthusiast]

Definitely don't like the idea of changing how spirits work. I like being able to pick a few skills to push past their limits. If anything, I think more skills need to be brought up to the level of what's being described, not pushing the ones listed down. It gives more variability between what people actually want to do with their builds that way.

Also just a side-note on the 8 tile knockback comment, just go look at earth dragon with weapon charges / CM. 10 tiles, I think it was?

[the REAL Minos Prime]

Honestly, I think that instead of nerfing spirits, we should just buff things that counter them.

[Autumn]

Its true that white spirits are incredibly free, but the skill ranks that go beyond the maximum skill rank is a key feature now of SL2 and only adds to builds, if anything it should be it's own system if the counters to spirits should stay toned down. Cause the overall feeling of spirits that many players feel is there's little reason to NOT run them, you're nerfing yourself on purpose from some really powerful effects.

[Rendar]

I'll be honest.

I do, actually, like the Spirit system-- or rather. The stuff it allows you to do.

Autumn had an idea awhile back about tying the "extra skill ranks" to Mastery points. Which every class at level 30 would get. And Destiny would give another. So a Destiny Soldier would get 2 for base Soldier. 2 for each promotion class.

While a non-destiny would get 4 in total. 1 for each base class, and 1 for each promo class.

Then changing White Spirits to something else.

[MothEnthusiast]

I'd 100% be down for something along those lines. Spirits are too much of a needed mechanic to forego, even on a character that realistically wouldn't know how to utilize spirits like that / has IC reasons not to. It's bad for IC because it nerfs you if you want to stick to what makes sense.

That said, I think just giving everyone 5 to spread across any skill they'd like the way it currently is would be more enjoyable than limiting it based on base class / promo class. I have 4 spirits in one promo class and would very much like to keep it that way.

Unless your suggestion is just for EARNING the points and not spending them, in which case I support it. Give everyone 1 to start for the total of 5 we have now and I'm down.

[Rendar]

The idea was 2/2/2 or 1/1 and 1/1.

5 could be fine enough though, 1 + 1 every 15 character levels or something, and changing White Spirits to be something else.