Curse

Patccmoi · Nov 20, 2006, 03:05 PM // 15:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

Keywords are 'but the master-of-none', as opposed to rangers who are the masters of snare and interrupt. (no, mesmers are not better at interrupting than rangers and eles are not better at snaring)

I can't honestly think that Cripshot is superior to Freezing Gust at all. Freezing Gust imo is THE best snaring skill in the game, and it's not even elite. 1s cast, can't miss, snares much harder, same recharge as duration (which is low so if it's removed you can use it fast again) and it doubles as damage dealer if you have other water hexes (so you can do Deep Freeze-Freezing Gust and it actually does ~150 damage).

Just for Channeling Rt damage, unless you're really bad at making build you'll include the spells that actually DO damage, and there's at least 3 (Channeled Strike, Gaze from Beyond, Wielder's Strike) that are quite reliable and hit for over 125. Spirit Burn in the area of a spirit is arguably the best nuke in the game for cost/recharge (5/1/5 doing 110 damage). And i made the comparison before and Channeled Strike-Spirit Burn hurts more than Lightning Orb-Lightning Strike against 60-100AL iirc, because while Channeling doesn't have AP, it happens to have much higher raw damage than Air.

And Warmonger Weapon isn't Adrenaline-Energy (though i forgot about that one, Weapon of Fury is definitely utility too giving a warrior basically a second Zealous mod with no penalty and +50% adrenal per hit and that can be kept on 2 people all the time which makes an incredible unstrippable buff. Really useful for Paragon or even Thumpers, i ran a Thumper with Weapon of Fury and as optional skill i gave him Brutal Strike and he had enough energy to spam it on recharge with only 9 Exp). Warmonger is any attack interrupts any non-attack. So if someone is using a skill out of an attack skill, you interrupt it.

Honestly the non-spirit spammer Rts are so underused that most people don't know much about their efficiency out of it. Resto Rt are not a second rate monk and Channeling Rt are not a second rate nuker. They just have different strength and weaknesses as the core classes. For Resto Rt i'd say it makes them less viable in GvG (though a primary healer Resto Rt in other areas is perfectly viable and sometimes better than a monk) because of the big mobility there, but for Channeling Rt i don't think it actually makes them subpar to Eles at all because Channeling Rt can be made to be quite mobile overall. They don't have that much of a reliance on spirits and you can pretty easily make Channeling Rt builds that won't require any spirit at all, just Weapon Spells or Ashpots but that's pretty easy to have.

samcobra · Nov 20, 2006, 03:47 PM // 15:47

I think the problem that is being stated here is not that ritualists are bad in and of themselves, but in the PvP, GvG environment, they have been made obsolete by the nerfs and other classes. As to random utility skills, there are lots of combos that are pretty amazing at first sight, but then are realized to be shit. Take for example the combo of blood drinker and plague signet. It sounds good on paper... steal health and make them bleed... but in reality wasting an elite slot when you only have a few skills to run is not efficient. A similar circumstance comes about in a GVG or in HA. When you only have 8 (or 6) spots to fill, and you want your build to be as versatile as possible, you can't afford a mediocre utility character like a rit anymore because anything it does can be more efficiently done by another class. Weapon of fury for example.. You are buffing a warrior, but besides that, what? you can only put one weapon spell on at a time, meaning you cant use weapon of fury and warmongers weapon and splinter weapon and brutal weapon at the same time.
The thing that ritualists still hold major sway over, however, is the offensive spirit. Despite the long cast and recharge times and often the extremely high energy requirements, ritualist offensive spirits are amazing stationary damage that do constant armor-ignoring DPS. However, in a pvp environment, the stationary nature of this makes it hard to have a versatile build. Next> restoration, while a great secondary attribute, still pales in comparison to a primary monk. Why would you run a secondary restorer then, when you can just run a monk that does the job better?
As for defensive spirits, their huge nerfs make them completely insensible to use in a GvG. For example, shelter, at a decent communing level and spawning level when put up against a team with any form of direct damage pressure will die before it is of any utility in a spike. Therefore, you just spent 25 energy and 5 seconds casting prot spirit on a few people for about 10 seconds.
As for new skills, gaze of fury, while good in theory, will suffer the same problems as a ranged wander or unnatural signet mesmer (ie aggro bubble radius). Since most people are smart about spirit placement, this creates a problem.

In conclusion, ritualist, in the current state of the game, are not able to hold their weight in general against other classes that they can be replaced with. Their heals aren't enough, their damage isn't enough, their spirits cost too much and cant move, and their weapon spells can only go on one at a time.
Arenanet, in advancing the ritualist class needs to take a long session and figure out what can make a ritualist viable. This doesn't mean adding new venues for it to go to, but means more like creatively coming up with new ideas and concepts for a ritualist, allowing it overcome its problems and be effecitve in the grand spectrum.

**now, about rangers (a little off topic), their main goals aren't snares, but the ranger excells at ranged damage (still the best ranged damage class), conditions (rangers are masters of conditions, possibly only bested by the assassin), and interrupts/utility. Until the recent expertise nerf, rangers used to be the kings of all non-spell skills, allowing them to be one of the best utility classes. While an ele can also snare and deal damage as well as have utility, it 1) cant interrupt, and 2) have lower survivability. Furthermore, since rangers have inherent e-management in their primary attribute, they dont have to have their bar hindered by e-management skills, whereas an ele will almost always have 1-3 skills taken up by e-management skills, one of which is often the elite.

African War Lord · Nov 20, 2006, 04:00 PM // 16:00

They may be unpopular but they are an amazing class. When I'm making a group in pve I say the more rit's the better. I remember this one mission where we had 4 rit's and it was so easy and fun. We made sure everyone coordinated their spirits first and didn't bring the same ones. Rit's are almost unstopable I tells ya. If set up right you can barely get close to them without dying. I also recently watched a gvg battle that featured a 7 rit and a paragon team and they absolutely raped.

Rit's don't suck at all.

Bankai · Nov 20, 2006, 04:16 PM // 16:16

I think I see the main problem with rits.

They do what they do. Nothing more.

For example. An air elementalist. An air elementalist can be a spiker. However, he also has gale as a utility weapon, blinding flash, blinding surge, shock, etc. A channeler? You can do damage.

A healer. You can heal, protect, get rid of hexes, conditions. A restorater can heal, and do some protection spells. Oh, and 1 condition removal.

THAT is the problem ritualists face. They can't do anything apart from what they're supposed to do.

Patccmoi · Nov 20, 2006, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

I think I see the main problem with rits.

They do what they do. Nothing more.

For example. An air elementalist. An air elementalist can be a spiker. However, he also has gale as a utility weapon, blinding flash, blinding surge, shock, etc. A channeler? You can do damage.

A healer. You can heal, protect, get rid of hexes, conditions. A restorater can heal, and do some protection spells. Oh, and 1 condition removal.

THAT is the problem ritualists face. They can't do anything apart from what they're supposed to do.

That's if you're not using Rts to take advantage of their strong point where their primary line is useless for anything out of Communing (or Attuned was Songkai if you want that). While this will always seem like a weakness to most people, from using Rt to me it's a blessing.

Your attributes are free to do whatever. You're a Channeler, you have 14-16 Channeling... and 103 points to put ANYWHERE. You can do a Channeling Rt that is an excellent warder with 12 Earth too (and they have emanagement IN Channeling so they don't have a problem for that). You can do a Channeling Rt that also has very great support healing with 13-14 Resto too.

The problem as i say for Rts is that they were really underused and people didn't make any good builds with them except the more than obvious Rt Lord and Offensive spirit spammers.

A Resto Healer has points to put 12 in Prot, Earth, Healing, etc. You can have them as versatile as you want.

A Channeling Rt that does only Channeling will BADLY outnuke an Air ele. An Air Ele on the other hand can carry BFlash, or Gale, etc, right? Well you can have 16 Channeling-12 Air and use that (i did it before, though actually it's better to go for BSurge elite than BFlash and an elite emanagement now). And why use a Channeling Rt when you could just use an Air Ele? Because they offer nice Weapon Spell support (Warmonger as i said, etc.), their nukes are extremely energy efficient and don't require EStorage and aren't screwed because suddenly you lost your attunement and none of them require LoS unlike LOrb, etc. It's different utility than an E/Mo ofc, but you don't always need an E/Mo.

And if you go Attuned was Songkai for elite with like 9 in Spawning you can also power Heal Party on a Channeling Rt/Mo pretty easily.

Rts are made to be versatile. Don't just look at what you have in one skill tree but look at the fact that you have 103 points free unless you spec Communing (and Communing offensive spirits offer something no other class can). And they can be used in any secondary. So versatility isn't that much of a problem.

And the reason why most people don't come up with good builds is that they look for a good build for 1 single Rt. But with all the requirement for Rts to work efficiently (must have weapon spell, spirit, ash, etc.) it's usually better to have 2 or 3 working together. But those 2 or 3, as i said, can often put points anywhere in any secondary to fill tons of different utility, it's just that they help each other with the requirements

Valkyrian · Nov 20, 2006, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Most guild teams are running with a single e-denial Me/E or Me/Mo that has Spiritual Pain somewhere in their build (I know because I run it)... that skill alone is enough to make Rits fairly useless as spirit spammers.

pah01 · Nov 20, 2006, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And the reason why most people don't come up with good builds is that they look for a good build for 1 single Rt. But with all the requirement for Rts to work efficiently (must have weapon spell, spirit, ash, etc.) it's usually better to have 2 or 3 working together. But those 2 or 3, as i said, can often put points anywhere in any secondary to fill tons of different utility, it's just that they help each other with the requirements

The problem with rits IMO is how people actually balance their build for ladder play. This is just my take on how you are going to make a standard balanced build at the moment, and in general.

A Balanced build almost always has two monks and two warriors. The reason is you need two monks - and a restoration rit healer wont cut it due to prot spirit/spirit bond and reversal of fortune always being staple skills.

Gift of health is almost too good to not run at 8 or 9 healing on a prot bar so monks are always going to be vastly superior to anything a restoration rit can offer. Current Monk elites like divert hexes, blessed light and even RC again now are just too good to not consider.

You are going to need to be able to pressure and spike and none of the other classes can do both of these to a high eneogh level to be worth it. Thumpers dont spike too well and you generally dont play them that way either, but they are vulnerable to spikes and cant overextend too well.

Dervish are actually not bad - nice pressure, decent spikeability IMO but just cant overextend too well and 70AL and no shield means I got more reason to run warrior. Assasins have the same weaknesses as the dervish but have some nice utility.

The warrior will always be the king of melee and you will want a damn good reason for replacing them for dervish/assasins/thumpers. At the moment I see dervish/assasin being used for ganking and thumpers for pure pressure as always.

In a balanced build you also got to have room for a flag guy, shutdown guy with diversion so you need a mesmer lol, Then you need some melee hate so maybe a blindbot or a hexer or two, you might have some more room for another mesmer. Then you got to give your utility self survivability so they can deal with splits and melee cleanup so you need one or two monk secondaries.

Now you have to run a paragon so thats another slot gone. I just dont see where you can fit the rit in a balanceway.

If you are running 2-3 rits so that the rits do well together then they are not going to be as good as the other utility/midliners chars IMO.

Joe

Bankai · Nov 20, 2006, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Another problem with rits is that they only have 1 energy management spell. And that one is elite, in their primary attribute. All other energy management spells are extremely conditional and only good in a few combos. If you take those, secondary spells fall out of synch and you're stuck with lower max energy.

Ofcourse, Paragon solves those problems.

TofuMoe · Nov 21, 2006, 03:10 AM // 03:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewfense

Not sure about the well armored, but ritualist do fit under healing (restoration) and unstripable buffs (weapon spells), both of which function unhindered under NR/Tranq. The main problem is finding a suitable spike counter for a rit.

Similar things can be said about a paragon, but as unmatched said, there are enough threads on that already.

I was refering to rits. Restoration has fantastic energy efficient heals and the weapon spells are powerful and unstripable. As for the well armored part, because of the energy efficiency of the resto spells I typically don't use +energy armor and use either armor +10(while holding item) or armor +15(while affected by a weapon spell).

Using Mighty Was Vorizon item spell gives me 85 armor or if I'm using my mostly weapon spell build I have Mighty Was Vorizon + Vital Weapon (both are unstripable) giving me 90 armor and +157 hp allowing me to provide support needed for our warriors to over-extend because I'm not so weak that I have to hang around the back lines.

I don't replace back line healers (monks) I provide the front line healing that soft targets can't afford to do. Though I think a rit could replace 1 of the 2 monks on a typical 8v8 team if they took Me or Mo 2ndary. Protective Spirit lasts 9 sec with just 3 points in protection and either class as a 2ndary helps deal with hexes.

Terra Xin · Nov 21, 2006, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Ritualists don't do enough damage with Channeling (a lot of spells, even maxed out, only do ~50 damage, which isn't really useful), can't protect efficiently now that Shelter's been taken out, and no PUGs will take you in Factions ("Wtf, if u dun have a mo secondry, u cant heal!!").

um, wrong, Channeling has a damage range of 60-120. It only deals 50 damage to the only class worth worrying about, the Ranger.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

(no, mesmers are not better at interrupting than rangers and eles are not better at snaring)

Elementalists are the most superior class when it comes to snaring. Rangers have... cripple... that's it. They have alot of skills that cause cripple, but they only have cripple. Rangers are better with interrupts in general, but Mesmers have a wider array of interrupts. In this case, you can't say which one is better with interrupts, it's easy to pace a ranger's interrupts so you can avoide them altogether, but you can't predict a Mesmer's interrupt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Resto Rt are not a second rate monk and Channeling Rt are not a second rate nuker. They just have different strength and weaknesses as the core classes. For Resto Rt i'd say it makes them less viable in GvG (though a primary healer Resto Rt in other areas is perfectly viable and sometimes better than a monk) because of the big mobility there, but for Channeling Rt i don't think it actually makes them subpar to Eles at all because Channeling Rt can be made to be quite mobile overall. They don't have that much of a reliance on spirits and you can pretty easily make Channeling Rt builds that won't require any spirit at all, just Weapon Spells or Ashpots but that's pretty easy to have.

My Channeler eats Elementalists... easy. Especially those SF flameballers... pfft.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

Another problem with rits is that they only have 1 energy management spell. And that one is elite, in their primary attribute. All other energy management spells are extremely conditional and only good in a few combos. If you take those, secondary spells fall out of synch and you're stuck with lower max energy.

Ofcourse, Paragon solves those problems.

Off the top of my head:

Signet of Spirits
Essence Strke
Soothing Memories
Caretaker's Charge
Boon of Creation
Mighty Was Vorizun
Attuned Was Songkai
Reclaim Essence
Spirit Channeling
Wielder's Zeal

Actually I think that might be all of them. They directly affect energy management, making them energy management skills. I can't imagine how they couldn't be, especially when they have the words "you gain # energy" in there texts. Yes *sarcasm* Paragons would solve all of their e-management problems *sarcasm*.

scamPOR · Nov 21, 2006, 06:22 AM // 06:22

I've never thought of rits as lacking energy... they are almost like elementalist's in that they almost have to run an emanage as elite...

*lemming* · Nov 21, 2006, 09:06 AM // 09:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra Xin

Signet of Spirits
Essence Strke
Soothing Memories
Caretaker's Charge
Boon of Creation
Mighty Was Vorizun
Attuned Was Songkai
Reclaim Essence
Spirit Channeling
Wielder's Zeal

Mighty Was Chuck Norris isn't energy management.

Of the others, besides AwS, how often are the others really seen?

Patccmoi · Nov 21, 2006, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by tehlemming

Mighty Was Chuck Norris isn't energy management.

Of the others, besides AwS, how often are the others really seen?

Hrm, nearly all Resto Rt have Soothing Memories
Nearly all Channeling Rt have Essence Strike
Many Communing Rt have Boon of Creation

Offering of Spirit is missing from that list. It's not the best emanagement in the game (it's basically an OoB that gives 5E less but allows you to not sac life) but it's efficient still. Also miss Spirit Siphon which with high Channeling is actually really good emanagement if there is many spirits around, though i usually find it too complicated to use correctly in the middle of a fight. But it's useful if as a Channeler you use a couple of spirits since you can just cast it right after using a spirit to gain 4E back, similar to a Boon but less vulnerable and not requiring high spec in Spawning.

I've been running lately with Caretaker's Charge on Channeling Rt simply because it allows a dual spec in Channeling-Restoration with 15-14 points making spells in both lines really efficient instead of having to have one line lower to accomodate AwS. It's not the best emanagement in the game, but it's quite sufficient considering how energy efficient Rt spells are.

Honestly, i think that Ritualists have the most energy efficient spells of any caster out of monk. Most of their 100+ damage nukes cost 5-10E, compared to 10-25E on Ele (Channeled Strike = Lightning Hammer, and it's 10E vs 25E). Their Resto heals like Mend Body and Soul heal for 121 in .75s AND can remove conditions all at once. Spirit Light is close to a Heal Other for 5E. Etc. I nearly never have energy trouble with Rt and i don't use elite emanagement in most of my builds. If a build is really energy heavy, you can often go and put like 10-12 in Inspiration and fit Power Drain and that pretty much solves all your problems. The only time you TRULY need elite emanagement is if you try to use those 25E spirits (which i think there is too many of. They're not all worth 25E).

So while their EManagement might seem worse at first glance than say Ele one, the fact that their skill are so much more efficient energy-wise balances that. If an Ele doesn't run an emanagement elite, it usually needs at least Attunement + GoLE because their spells cost a disproportionate amount otherwise. A Rt rarely needs 2 EManagement slots.

Valkyrian : anytime someone brings up Spiritual Pain honestly it kinda makes me laugh. If you know you're facing that, you don't put your spirits Nearby others and you move if your spirit gets targetted by that. Also, you don't put spirits nearby to each other (which truly isn't hard to do and it's something that you should never do anyway because of many AOEs). But more important than that, It takes 3-5 Spiritual Pain to kill a spirit usually depending on the spirit and points in Spawning. Are you, as a Mesmer, willing to waste 30-50E to get rid of a spirit just because your spell can do it? You might damage Nearby people (which like any AOE would be stupid to stay Nearby a spirit being targetted so good luck hitting them more than once) for around 70 a hit, but you're DESTROYING your energy. Spiritual Pain is energy heavy to use repeatedly. If a Mesmer uses 30E to kill a spirit and try to damage people around, i think that the Monks on your team should be dancing and singing because with that 30E the Mesmer could've likely done something much more devastating to them.

pah01: What you're saying is truly extremely limitating. I know that it's how most guilds build their team, but I've run many successful builds that don't follow that setup at all before and you see builds not following it often from top guilds on ladder too. The way i look at a build i make is more of 'can it handle everything required?' and not 'does it have X classes?'. If a build can kill (usually requires some form of spike that can take into account most common defenses), can handle gank, can split against spikes (or beat them head on but i rarely try that), has sufficient hex/condition removal depending on your team setup (for example if you have many attackers your condition removal is much more important than if you're nearly all casters), can pressure decently or prevent the other team for pressuring (i usually much prefer pressuring than preventing pressure since often pressuring does that by itself), has snares for runners, etc. I look at if every 'role' is fit. The 2 Monks-2 Melee-Dom Mesmer-E/Mo Runner is the 'traditional' setup covering for more or less everything. But it's not by any mean the only functional balanced setup, it's just the most well-known and since more or less everyone started from there and simply make small mods from it it's what you see most of the time. But as i said, as long as all the aspects of balanced game play are covered by a build, i couldn't care less if there's 0-1 melee in it or 4. The philosophy of 'you need X' imo is what limits most people from creating varied builds when they want to run anything not gimmicky.

OT: Terra Xin, are you the Channeling Rt we invited once in TA when we did our 3 Rt builds? I seem to remember that Daughter name in your list hehe.

Bai · Nov 21, 2006, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by unmatchedfury

4.) Finally channeling. It can apply a form of easily stopped pressure,(pure elemental dmg has never been very good) the rit has very good E-management in AwS. Thus it keeps going very well. But with no armor pierce or degen type condition (hellllllllllooo fire) it lacks in the pressure department compared to other classes. And although it does do about as well as a warrior, while being ranged, it lacks KD, Interrupts,Conditions, and the ability to spike. The same build aren’t able to do the wide range of things a warrior can do as well as pressure at the same time.( I know some of you ritualist fans will rise up and proclaim WHAT! My rit can dmg! I went 30 wins in TA with it, or some such garbage. Believe me, the rit is my favorite class. But I won’t deny the facts and say the rit can really do anything better than other classes( except for two notable differences.)

It lacks KD?
What about Grasping was Kuurong?
Ritualists can spike cannot spike as well as other professions, but it doesn't mean that it cannot spike at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scamPOR

I've never thought of rits as lacking energy... they are almost like elementalist's in that they almost have to run an emanage as elite...

Don't Elementalists use Elemental Attunement, Ether Prodigy, etc.?
They do use Glyph of Lesser Energy + (_) Attunement, but Ritualists can also use non-elite skills for their energy management just like any other class.
I can do fine with my channeling build by just using Essence Strike as my energy management.

I agree that Ritualists do need a push in some areas, but they are doing fine right now even without the buffs that they need.

Patccmoi · Nov 21, 2006, 04:48 PM // 16:48

There's an idea i had for Spawning Power. Do you think this could change something about the Ritualists?

Spawning Power:

For each rank of Spawning Power you have, creatures you create (or animate) will have 4% more Health. When you cast a spell, you gain 1E for every spirit in the area (max 1..3E). Some Ritualist skills, especially those related to Spirit creatures, become more effective with higher Spawning Power.

Breakpoints for the energy gain would be the same as Assassin, so 3 Sp = 1E, 8 Sp = 2E, 13 Sp = 3E.

This would make Ritualists extremely powerful at defending key points because they wouldn't really run out of energy unless you destroy spirits around them. You could have a Channeler nuking to his heart's content without an elite emanagement or a Resto healer throwing heals for extremely cheap. No, it wouldn't help them on the run, but their skills just aren't designed to be good on the run in the first place so i'd rather see their strong points being made significant than try to make them more mobile which will likely end up failing and simply make them a subpar of other classes.

I really don't think it would be broken considering you can destroy spirits or force the Rt to move away from them. Could give Draw Spirit some use too to carry spirits with you if people kite. And mainly it would give their Primary attribute SOME use for Channeling or Resto Rt, because atm unless you truly want the skills in there (which honestly aren't vital, i very rarely use SP as a Channeler or Resto) it doesn't do jack for those 2 lines. Since primary attribute for caster is usually for EManagement (except Mesmers but they have a line fully dedicated to it. I consider DF a form of EManagement for monks since you have to heal less because of it), it would help in a way that seems to fit the Ritualists quite well imo. And i don't really think that it's bad when you consider Paragons being able to gain insane amount of energy from adrenal shouts.

pah01 · Nov 21, 2006, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

pah01: What you're saying is truly extremely limitating. I know that it's how most guilds build their team, but I've run many successful builds that don't follow that setup at all before and you see builds not following it often from top guilds on ladder too. The way i look at a build i make is more of 'can it handle everything required?' and not 'does it have X classes?'. If a build can kill (usually requires some form of spike that can take into account most common defenses), can handle gank, can split against spikes (or beat them head on but i rarely try that), has sufficient hex/condition removal depending on your team setup (for example if you have many attackers your condition removal is much more important than if you're nearly all casters), can pressure decently or prevent the other team for pressuring (i usually much prefer pressuring than preventing pressure since often pressuring does that by itself), has snares for runners, etc. I look at if every 'role' is fit. The 2 Monks-2 Melee-Dom Mesmer-E/Mo Runner is the 'traditional' setup covering for more or less everything. But it's not by any mean the only functional balanced setup, it's just the most well-known and since more or less everyone started from there and simply make small mods from it it's what you see most of the time. But as i said, as long as all the aspects of balanced game play are covered by a build, i couldn't care less if there's 0-1 melee in it or 4. The philosophy of 'you need X' imo is what limits most people from creating varied builds when they want to run anything not gimmicky.

The other problem is the time it takes to run something that you are not used to. Everyone knows (up my end of the ladder anyway) how they are expected to play against the type of builds that you come up against in the build they run. It will take a lot of time to design a build - to have everyone run it to the required level of play and make all the necessary tweaks for facing down various types of builds. The other problem is people play what works. Balanced builds will play vs anything provided your strategies against various opponents are good.

The thing is in tournament play you can plan for maps and opponents strengths. So you can have a specific role in mind for a rit like IQ in playoffs.

Joe

Bankai · Nov 21, 2006, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Quick note: I never looked at the nightfall ritualist spells. And apart from 3 of the ones on that list, they're all NF emanagement skills.

What you didn't notice was that I never said they had little management (well, maybe as a conclusion). My main problem was that all emanagement was extremely conditional.

Patccmoi · Nov 21, 2006, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

My main problem was that all emanagement was extremely conditional.

Well that's called a Ritualist. Notice that about half their skills have a condition to work (at all, or for the full effect). The big thing with Ritualists is managing to meet this conditions, in which case most of their spells are superior to the alternative core classes offer (like Spirit Burn is far superior to Lightning Strike if you're in the area of a spirit in any situation, maybe unless you face someone with 300 AL. And Mend Body and Soul with 2+ spirits around has close to the strength of Restore Condition in most cases).

Imo that's something that only gives the class a lot of depth. It's not as easy to make good builds out of them, but good Rt builds are often incredibly efficient as long as you manage to meet your requirements (which in many cases require 2 or more Rts to have it reliable, but they can have totally different roles).

If your problem is having conditions and requirements for your skills to work well, there is really nothing out of spirit spammer that can be worth it on Rits for you.

pah01:

I agree with what you say in that it can take a couple of games to adapt and learn the build. But usually if you design the build you already thought of how to handle most things that you know you're likely to face in one game or another. However, the other team has only the duration of the match to adapt to something they aren't used to face, and this can often grant you an advantage. I've won games before against teams we would likely not have beat in traditional balance vs balance simply because they didn't know how to react against the build we put up. They COULD have handle it with what they had at hand, but we pushed hard capitalizing on the advantage you gain from having a build people can't guess looking at your classes and not letting them a chance to adapt and counterattack. This type of play is actually very good for ladder play because you won't face the same opponent every game so you can maximize your chance to win since they don't necessarily come prepare for it. Kinda like how Bring back the Rifts a long while ago went up ladder hard by running a MM build because most ladder teams had no corpse control at all. They got destroyed using it in tournament play because the other team put Consume Corpse on a Me/N, but in ladder they rolled over teams that would have beaten them in a balance vs balance setup.

Bankai · Nov 21, 2006, 07:21 PM // 19:21

It's not a problem for me. It's the problem for high-end gvg.

BTW, the true reason why I don't think ritualists aren't good at high-end is because they're so conditional. I just never said that in this thread.

Khaunshar · Nov 22, 2006, 12:31 AM // 00:31

The problem with conditions is, people dont enjoy having to set up circumstances to get maximum efficiency, when they can just play a different class and get the max efficiency with that one without having to do it.

The fact that Ritualists, once conditions are met, usually surpass other classes in their chosen field of expertise is secondary to these people.

Also, its safe to assume that there are few truly inventive "trend-setters" in GvG environment, and most rather copy and adapt from the top 20 guilds. So, if those guilds dont play in a Rit-supporting way, chances are no Rits creep up in the main crowd either, because nobody showed them how it worked.

The single highest melee spike currently possible, for example (spike meaning in under 3 seconds) is a Ritualist build.... but that doesnt matter, because not many know it, and even less look at Ritualist skills at all, cause they "know" Rits are bad, cause they never see them in high-ranked GvG.

Personally, I have more or less resigned on playing my Ritualist outside arenas for now. In there, however, its always sweet to be accused of cheating when taking down a monk in 3 seconds alone, or planting 5 attacking spirits at the flag post