Curse

Lanier · Dec 07, 2010, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Hey everyone. For the longest time now, I have considered Offensive Spirit spamming to be one of the most overpowered (when it comes to damage) builds in the game. Whether you use SoS or SoGM, you're going to be able to pump out a ton of damage with minimal to no effort.

I always assumed that the reason why so many rits (myself excluded - I rarely use offensive spirit builds) use offensive spirit spam builds is because they are OP. I dont think anyone would disagree that they can do a ton of damage, and being able to do all that damage with easy-peasy energy management, while creating a bunch of bodies (which aids immensely in party defense)... It just always seemed OP to me. However, today, in alliance chat, someone brought up a comparison of spirit spammers to minion masters, and Iv got to say... their comparison was pretty good. Both MM (minion masters) and SS (spirit spammers) can do a lot of armor ignoring damage. They both require no effort when it comes to energy management. They both create more bodies, which will make the monk's job so much easier. So why, in my mind, did I think that SS were so OP when I didnt think that about MM? I came to the conclusion that it was because ALMOST EVERY SINGLE RITUALIST AND THEIR BROTHER runs an offensive spirit spamming build, while this is not the case with necromancers. I always assumed that they were so common because SS were OP, but now, after this comparison has been made, I can see that the amount of effort and involvement may be the factor behind this.

Well this is obviously a problem. Besides paragons, Rits are the only class that has one build that dominates usage so thoroughly over the other builds/playstyles available to them. Paragons have an entirely different situation - as they don't realy have any other effective options available to them. Rits, however, can do a bunch of stuff effectively besides spirit spamming, and I would like to see other builds being played than just SS (and the odd resto rit or defensive spirit rit for when a party doesnt have enough monks). I would love to be able to go into a pug for a zmission, or go into a group for w/e, and have people ask me what kind of build im running rather than automatically assuming that I am an SoS (which is what always happens).

I am sure that anyone out there who plays a spirit spammer will admit (if they're being honest) that Spirit Spamming requires practically no skill or effort. You lay down the spirits, you cast painful bond on recharge, and you dominate. I know that effective SS bring splinter or gdw, but im talking about the meta right now, and the meta offensive spirit spammer is a bunch of spirits with painful bond, summon spirits, and siphon spirit. A good minion master on the other hand takes some skill and timing to use effectively, as you have to cast death nova on your minions, cast jagged bones, use OoU and not kill yourself in the process, etc. This, I think, is the reason why you don't see nearly as many necros running minion masters as you see rits running spirit spammers.

Now on to my suggestion: Rather than nerfing spirit spammers, I would like to see the role of a spirit spammer become more involved.

Painful bond: 5 en, 2 sec cast time, 0 recharge
For 10...18 seconds, target spirit deals an additional 8...18 damage with their attacks.

Idea is based off of Death Nova. Identical functionality in terms of duration/damage increase.

Siphon Spirit: 5 en, 1/4 cast, 3 sec recharge
If target spirit is the closes spirit to you, that spirit loses all energy and you gain 15...43% of that energy.

Although I do think that this skill needs a slight recharge nerf (8 sec maybe?), iv decided to keep it as with its original functionality for now.

Summon Spirits: 5 en, 1 sec cast, 2 sec recharge
Target Spirit shadowsteps to your location and gains 80...112 health.

I raised the health gain and lowered the recharge to compensate for it only summoning 1 spirit at a time.

Anyway, I think that these suggestions would be a good start toward making spirit spamming less brainless (and therefore less common compared to the other ritualist offensive options). If you have any suggestions on how to make offensive spirit spamming require more effort/skill and be less pure brainless button-mashing, then feel free to post.

WarcryOfTruth · Dec 07, 2010, 08:25 PM // 20:25

I like these suggestions. An idea I would like to add is to make Sig of Spirits fail unless you have a certain amount of Spawning Power. While that doesn't really nerf the skill, it nerfs secondaries from using it, which I think is a problem.

Another idea I have is about Armor of Unfeeling. This skill is really strong, and I think that making it reflect similar to your Painful Bond suggestion is a good idea.

Something like:

Armor of Unfeeling
Spawning Power
5 Energy
3/4 Second Cast
5 Recharge

Skill: For (3...12....15) seconds, target spirit takes (5...42...48)% less damage and is immune to critical hits.

Notice I moved it to Spawning Power. I feel this makes sense because Spawning Power increases spirit health, so skills that modify spirits survivability should be placed here, the exception being Spiritleech Aura, since that follows the theme of Restoration Magic with life stealing.

**Marty Silverblade** · Dec 07, 2010, 09:23 PM // 21:23

/notsigned

I do think spirit spamming should be harder to play given how powerful it is, but I don't think this is the right solution. It just seems like you're changing a lot of skills from affect all spirits to single target. That's just annoying, not challenging. Heroes are better at that kind of thing anyway.

Lanier · Dec 07, 2010, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

I do think spirit spamming should be harder to play given how powerful it is, but I don't think this is the right solution. It just seems like you're changing a lot of skills from affect all spirits to single target. That's just annoying, not challenging. Heroes are better at that kind of thing anyway.

That is exactly what im proposing is changed. Unfortunately, I am not very innovative, so I look at existing models that work, and the model that I looked at was that of a minion master. While they arn't particularly challenging, they do require timing and targeting. That's one way to make a playstyle slightly more challenging, so that is what I have suggested. Maybe its annoying to you but it does require the ability to prioritize the order of targets and determine when which skill should be used. That requires more practice/skill than what spirit spamming currently is. If you have a different idea, feel free to tell us

.

I never did feel as though heroes were better at minion mastering/bombing than humans. With practice, it really isnt tought at all to death nova your minion army. Plus, even if heroes were "better at that kind of thing"... what would it matter? Human minion masters are plenty powerful.

jackinthe · Dec 07, 2010, 09:39 PM // 21:39

i agree with marty.
rits already have a single summon skill anyways.
and the reason people dont run mm on their necs is b/c a hero can minion bomb so much more effectively... and run discord... while the player is free to act as ap caller.

Pony Slaystation · Dec 07, 2010, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Besides paragons, Rits are the only class that has one build that dominates usage so thoroughly over the other builds/playstyles available to them.

Perma sin says hi!

As for your suggestion for Spirit Siphon, what's the point? If you have to use something other than Boon of Creation + Signet of Spirits for energy management, you're doing something wrong. I even manage to get by using Mantra of Inscriptions every time before I cast SoS, and I never have any energy problems.

snowman relic · Dec 07, 2010, 09:44 PM // 21:44

If you arent trolling but i hope you are turning spirits into immoble minions will cause rits to fall back into their useless stage

Brave Dragon · Dec 07, 2010, 09:48 PM // 21:48

*shrugs* If I want to get involved with my spirits, I usually swap out a skill with splinter weapon and equip myself a long bow. It's also great working with melee classes.

But I hate rolling spirit spamming, and I prefer protting/resto, but every pug I join wants me to be one. >_>

doomfodder · Dec 07, 2010, 10:23 PM // 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackinthe

and the reason people dont run mm on their necs is b/c a hero can minion bomb so much more effectively... and run discord... while the player is free to act as ap caller.

agreed... the main reason heros are more effective as minion bombers is that they can EASILY select a minion on which to cast Death Nova. Forcing a human to mouse-select a "friendly target" on the battle field is sub-optimal imo. I already find it annoying during battle to have to mouse-select a spirit on which to use gaze of fury - even if there's only ONE friendly spirit on the radar!!!

As an aside, I enjoy playing MM as Rt (without the bombing) as an alternate build to SoS or resto. It's just unfortunate that you can only have up to 8 lvl 10 minions with 420 HP as an Rt/N (12 death 13 spawning) but explosive growth adds to the fun...

still... dwg is effective in PvE (other than DoA)... Rt/P or Rt/A with Spirits strength + asura scan + I am the strongest has a place in PvE. Even a lame-surger can fit in to a typical HM team (as long as there's a spirit in range). Actually, there really are are several options. They just aren't part of the meta.

I still believe an ALL Rt team actually has alot of options to fill MOST needed roles in many areas in both HM & NM (but secondaries are widely needed for prot, armor, & hex remove)

sonofthort · Dec 07, 2010, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Maybe instead they could increase the amount of damage spirits take so that they die more quickly, but also decrease the energy and recharge of spirit skills. This would at least force the spirit spammer to be much more active as they would constantly need to be moving around planting spirits in strategic positions.

Master Fuhon · Dec 07, 2010, 11:31 PM // 23:31

The problem with spirit spammers is that they are currently designed for people who hate playing Ritualist and just want to wiki a farming build to either solo or get in a speed clear. When they originally designed the class, there was a spirit summoning Ritual Lord where you maintained 3 buffs and summoned 5 spirits (There was a Wanderlust Communing spammer too). All feedback indicated that the Rit Lord was played for it's power, but it was boring and a majority of people wanted it to die in PvP for something more interesting and less powerful (which I agree with). As someone who has played Rit before SoS, it's more fun supporting while using 2 spirits, and throwing splinter/ancestor's rage on things and spiking, or healing, and the 5 spirit builds were always passive and tedious. Pure spirit spamming was just a novelty that wore off when the class was no longer new to me.

Spirit Summoning suffers as long as the Signet of Spirits solo build remains a 'balancing anchor'. This means, as long as that build is considered fine, other skills are going to be skewed towards trying to fit in a meta with it. Of course, SoS is one of the skills trying to fit in a meta with permanent Shadow Form + consumables... But I doubt that SoS build is going to change, because you can run it on any class for poorly thought out single character titles (Drunkard, Sweet Tooth) and poorly designed new content (Nicholas the Traveler asking for obscure trophy farming).

I agree with the assessment that you are making the build tedious (it's related to interface issues). Spirit summoning times were originally long when they were 3 and 5 seconds, which is one of the primary factors that limited people from running multiple spirit builds in the first place. Unfortunately, they butchered what I liked about playing rit to make the spirit spammer: the flow of needing to time longer casts (2-3 seconds), needing to watch positioning, needing to anticipate better, and picking best of both worlds spirit/spell hybrids. They really should have taken the advice of people who actually played Ritualist early on (and who liked the different concepts in the first place), instead of creating an overpowered minion master clone that gets people to instantly reroll. Look at how content balanced around the Imbagon is a disaster, because no one wants to play that despite what it can do. Meanwhile there are at least 10 people on Elementalist/Ranger mains trying to get a group based on their own class skills, who get passed by for Rit alts. I've been in alot of pugs where they turn another 'worthless SoS' into a healer, because it's needed more, but obviously it's different with a speed clear.

I run into the problem with Minion Masters being uninvolved, but I run Necrosis/Putrid Bile/Signet of Lost Souls and Curse/Blood combinations to keep from getting bored. Aura of the Lich (exploiting all corpses is bad, the corpseless summoning aspect is fine) and Death Nova (kill bombing) are the main two skills that I would nerf in that line for harming the playstyle the most. With the spirit spammer, unfortunately, optimal skills are very passive and you need 4-5 summons to make a wall.

But they already made the mistake of making an overpowered spirit lord years ago, so it's a shame really that they made it again and decided to keep it.

Lanier · Dec 08, 2010, 12:45 AM // 00:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

The problem with spirit spammers is that they are currently designed for people who hate playing Ritualist and just want to wiki a farming build to either solo or get in a speed clear. When they originally designed the class, there was a spirit summoning Ritual Lord where you maintained 3 buffs and summoned 5 spirits (There was a Wanderlust Communing spammer too). All feedback indicated that the Rit Lord was played for it's power, but it was boring and a majority of people wanted it to die in PvP for something more interesting and less powerful (which I agree with). As someone who has played Rit before SoS, it's more fun supporting while using 2 spirits, and throwing splinter/ancestor's rage on things and spiking, or healing, and the 5 spirit builds were always passive and tedious. Pure spirit spamming was just a novelty that wore off when the class was no longer new to me.

Yea... I miss the old days before the crap was buffed out of spirit spamming. However, Iv always encounted quite a bit of resistence when Iv suggested nerfing SoS/spirit spam. Thats why Im trying to make due with what I apparently am expected to be using in pugs/general PvE as a whole, and am instead trying to find away to make spirit spamming actually require skill to be effective. Not only would this make it less boring, it would decrease the amount of spirit spammers and hopefully allow people to see what other options are available to rits and try them out (DwG/channeling dmg, minion bombing, spirit strength, weapon support, healing, or hybrids incorporating elements from several playstyles).

I can see that this suggestion is rather unpopular. I would hope, however, that everyone can realize a poorly designed playstyle when there is one. Therefore... what would you guys like to see to make spirit spamming require more involvement/skill to be used effectively?

As a quick afterthought, I am also curious what the community would think about changing the status of spirits back to how they used to be (no SoS, different functionalities for SoGM and Ritlord, in other words, getting rid of the PvE split and having the PvP functionalities for all of the spirits), except with no spirit's casting time exceeding 3 seconds and with the change that spirits will follow your targets rather than attacking more or less randomly. I guess this is a different idea for a different thread, but if i could get short responses to this idea, then i dont have to clutter up Sardelac with an entirely new thread.

gremlin · Dec 08, 2010, 04:58 AM // 04:58

The spirit spam build works very well in fact too well in many game areas and can also fail totally in others.

I find Raptors in hard mode esp good at destroying the spirits quickly as does roj and other area effect spells especially Earth ones.
Even if I move and heal the spirits constantly they are still tremendously vulnerable.
Then there are the skills that totally destroy spirits or turn them to fight for the other side.

I would improve some of the healing and defensive spirits a little, some of them are especially weak.
Keep the attacking ones pretty much as is but link their effectiveness to spawning power, signet of spirits especially should go into spawning power not channeling.

The final result of these adjustments should be a reduction in the number and power of spirits available as a secondary rit and a slight overall improvement for a primary Ritualist.

Essence Snow · Dec 08, 2010, 05:14 AM // 05:14

A good rit wil have a weapon spell/ancestors in their build to keep them busy when not casting apirits/pb. If they do not have a weapon spell/ancestors chances are they are a lazy rit or using some solo farming build. Always ask your rits to carry a weapon spell if melee is in your group.

Haggis of Doom · Dec 08, 2010, 05:48 AM // 05:48

As people have already pointed out, for group PvEing, a SoS/Communing split pure Spirit Spammer is inferior to a SoS rit who takes a more involved approach with Splinter, Ancestor's etc.

Thus the skills such as they are now already encourages more active playstyle. The only things holding people back are laziness and ignorance.

The problem is not that the current skills don't encourage more active playstyle; it resides in the fact that poor playstyle also works, and works well. A bit in a Ursan/Discord kind of way: suboptimal, but foolproof and more functional than anything an average PuG will come up with.

As it stands now, a SoS hero in my party usually performs better than a human SoS due to skill choice. The changes suggested in the OP will only make this even more true, in a Death Nova kind of way (I can already see a TeaseMachine with Painful Bond, Ancestor's, Splinter and Spirit Rift). Yes, it would be more complicated to play as a Spirit Spammer, but no, it would probably not be more fun. (Not that it was much fun to begin with beyond the pretty yellow numbers, imho)

As for suggestions, I can see SoGM changed in functionality to resemble OoU, which awards skillful play and prevents AI from being better than a real human (same reason why we don't use OoU heroes). Killing SoS would give PvE a step towards what it should be, whatever it is (not the joke it is now), but it would probably make most people stop playing rits.

godis · Dec 08, 2010, 07:08 AM // 07:08

Don't play it if you don't like it !
Since as you say everybody is playing a spirit spammer it must be because people like it.
So why do you wanna take that away ? I would never take a skillbar that contains skills where I have to choose a person in the party list before applying, so splinter weapon would never make it on to my bar. Neither would Death Nova when I go as MM. Perhaps that make me a bad player but I'm not the one whining about overpowered builds.
Go ahead and make yourself a rit without SoS and enjoy it, but stop screaming OP and nerf everytime something fun comes along.

Xsiriss · Dec 08, 2010, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Dunno about you guys but I'd much rather make sure I have a panic mesmer anyday. Spirit spamming is pretty new and is kind of a novelty, giving people a chance to play as a rit and have fun on it like we haven't really been able to do before. And like Essence said, it's not just about the spirits but the support they provide too and frankly they're no more OP/Powerful than an MM bomber who essentially achieves the same thing.

Master Fuhon · Dec 08, 2010, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Note that there is a difference between 'active' and 'involved', and passive doesn't always imply the opposite of active (it also means you have your role completely pre-defined externally). I wouldn't say there's big problems with builds not being 'active' enough, because a shallow definition for active would more closely refer to pushing buttons alot (true definition of physically active doesn't apply in this case). There are some problems with these builds not being 'active' in a speed clear though, where the aggro baller does most of the work, and you spend more time waiting and moving because things go *poof* so fast. However, phsyical activity is a shallow definition; since the pvp Searing Flames ele is more 'active' than the pvp Prot monk because of hitting SF and his energy management skills, does that make the Prot monk flawed? Of course not. Beyond a shallow world, we keep more than our fingers active. The correct word that applies to these builds is something along the lines of 'overactive'.

But the title, as well as the discussion, refers to 'involvement' anyway. It's about being mentally and emotionally activated, not occupying your fingers with constant mashing. More 'involved' builds (spirit spamming included) isn't going to happen, because 'involvement' is a product of team power and capability. All of our builds become progressively less involving the faster and the easier the kills happen (or the more someone else takes on the slack). But rephrasing what I said earlier, the fast activation in succession concept (spamming, which also gets combined with low recharge) is part of the general overpoweredness that has done the worst things to the playstyle, by making it less involved than it ever was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haggis of Doom

As people have already pointed out, for group PvEing, a SoS/Communing split pure Spirit Spammer is inferior to a SoS rit who takes a more involved approach with Splinter, Ancestor's etc.

I'm singling this out because the guy before it pointed out the value of Ancestor/Splinter which I agree with, but didn't call it optimal with Signet of Spirits in a general sense. PuGs run Armor of Unfeeling version to tank, in places where they cannot get Shadow Form sins or experienced Warriors (those two only speedclear). But is Signet of Spirits optimal on a build that balls things for adjacent range aoe over Destructive Was Glaive variants? I understand using SoS with AI, because no one wants to micro heroes to DwG bomb over and over to maximize half recharge gear. But doesn't DwG exceed the DPS and the targetting reliability of Signet of Spirits/Painful Bond with 3+ foes in the area? I often hit 1-2 with Ancestors, and more reliably get 2-3 when Splinter is on an adjacent aoe physical attack like barrage, but DwG is almost always 3+ because of it's range. I'll note the exception though: certain hybrids that can use the energy management (like Convert hexes in DoA taken on the SoS).

drkn · Dec 08, 2010, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

However, phsyical activity is a shallow definition; since the pvp Searing Flames ele is more 'active' than the pvp Prot monk because of hitting SF and his energy management skills, does that make the Prot monk flawed?

Completely missed reference.

Quote:

But the title, as well as the discussion, refers to 'involvement' anyway. It's about being mentally and emotionally activated, not occupying your fingers with constant mashing.

Not really.
The biggest problem with spiritmancers, besides any/Rt combination capable of doing it, is the sheer damage/protection output in the light of doing nothing after putting up the spirits. Just use a few skills, wait till the spirits are up, spam summon spirits to heal/move them, spam syphon for nearly infinite e-management, spam bond to dish out even more damage... and that's all. A build that can do that much damage and provide that much mitigation - and tactical advantage - should require more from the player. If it means making spiritmancers mash more buttons - fine.

Lanier · Dec 08, 2010, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by godis

Don't play it if you don't like it !
Since as you say everybody is playing a spirit spammer it must be because people like it.
So why do you wanna take that away ? I would never take a skillbar that contains skills where I have to choose a person in the party list before applying, so splinter weapon would never make it on to my bar. Neither would Death Nova when I go as MM. Perhaps that make me a bad player but I'm not the one whining about overpowered builds.
Go ahead and make yourself a rit without SoS and enjoy it, but stop screaming OP and nerf everytime something fun comes along.

huh? my suggestions weren't nerfs, they would just require the rit to be more involved rather than just being able to sit on the sidelines doing nothing. Besides, what is fun about setting up spirits, casting painful bond, and sitting there?

While I am aware that adding splinter + arage to an SoS build is the way to go, that doesn't change the fact that pure spirit spirit spammers are very powerful, hence why I think they need to be doing something in order to obtain ideal results from their spirits. At least minions require death nova, targeting, and OoU or Jagged Bones management to be as good as they can be. Spirits... well they don't. Like I said, Im not necessarily saying that my suggestions in the OP are the way to go (after all, i came up with those in like 2 minutes, lol), but there needs to be something about a pure spirit spammer that gets the rit more involved, because even if the SoS + splinter + arage build is better, a pure spirit spammer is still very powerful and should not be able to pump out the sheer amount of damage (and provide all of the other benefits that dkrn outlined) without being involved in the process in some way.