Curse

spirit of defeat · Mar 06, 2009, 09:39 AM // 09:39

Why make SP related to energy? Rit's don't have energy problem's.
Make it relate to what make's rits uniqe weapon-itemspell and spirit's.

raise creatures levels easiest idea.
That won't cause to much nerf's

Lourens · Mar 06, 2009, 10:31 AM // 10:31

There are many ritualist spirits that lose health while doing something [shelter][displacement] etc

-Makai- · Mar 06, 2009, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by kazi_saki

Someone should just create a spawning power buff thread and sticky it. That way, all the suggestions can be compiled and people can just add on to it without cluttering. They can place it either in riverside or here.

Agreed.

I just came up with another idea to give spirits more survivability. At three ranks and above in Spawning Power, spirits can be effected by wards, weapon spells, enchantments, healing, etc.

Nightow · Mar 07, 2009, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by kazi_saki

Someone should just create a spawning power buff thread and sticky it. That way, all the suggestions can be compiled and people can just add on to it without cluttering. They can place it either in riverside or here.

While we're at it, could we add in that the old [Ritual Lord] build could really use a buff too?

It was originally nerfed due to PvP skill balance issues.
The Ritual Lord skill itself got a buff but not the skills that are commonly used with it. (Shelter, Union, Dissonance)
We now have the wonderful PvE/PvP skill split.
Many melee classes can mindlessly spam [Save yourselves!] and yet, we can't use skills that require not only proper skill chaining but also proper placement.

draxynnic · Mar 07, 2009, 03:47 AM // 03:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lourens

There are many ritualist spirits that lose health while doing something [shelter][displacement] etc

True, but they tend not to be used much nowadays.

Relying on a small sample of skills to give Spawning Power purpose just isn't working. It needs to have a reasonably general effect.

-Makai- · Mar 07, 2009, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by draxynnic

Counterarguments:
How many Warrior builds get no benefit from Strength? Back when the Tactics/Strength balance was different to what it is now, there was a tendency for Strength to only have a handful of points after the weapon attribute, Tactics, and any secondary profession attributes got their share, but it is very hard to make a Warrior build that gains no benefit at all from it. Even if you DO dump Strength entirely, Warriors have another primary attribute, one that requires no point investment at all: +20 armour with an extra +20 versus physical. And lets not forget how many Strength-based skills are seen as vital in today's Warrior builds.

How many Monk builds gain no benefit at all from Divine Favour? You could probably put one together, but I don't think it would be popular. Nor, with the possible exception of the Mesmer/Monk signet spammer, would I expect to see some other profession play to their secondary in order to combine Monk smiting skills with a 'more appropriate' primary attribute in any serious play.

Few Dervish builds fail to gain a benefit from Mysticism. Few Paragon builds fail to gain a benefit from Leadership. Few Assassin builds fail to gain a benefit from Critical Strikes. Those that do can certainly be played as a weaponswap from another class, but in each case, the actual choice of weapon is kinda incidental to each class. And are you really suggesting that Soul Reaping doesn't provide any benefit at all to a character not using Soul Reaping skills?

In short, none of the other professions are at risk of being pushed out of their role due to the situations where their primary attribute doesn't help.

Compare to the Ritualist, where in the current meta, the primary attribute almost NEVER helps. Spawning Power in its current form does nothing to break the paradigm that a spirit that comes under direct attack - or even that simply falls afoul of some AoE - is going to go down in seconds, and with pretty much all of the spirits that take damage on their effect triggering nerfed into oblivion, you don't see SP coming into play there either. In fact, except in the case of spirit spamming for specific (generally solo) quests, spirit use nowadays tends to be restricted to cheap tokens that will trigger conditional benefits of other skills. The popular weapon spells are those that only have a limited number of triggers - Splinter, Vengeful, Remedy - meaning that the weapon has often discharged before the full duration expires in the first place. Heals and Channeling zaps, of course, gain no direct benefit.

In short, while in all your examples the primary attributes still provide a benefit to pretty much any build you'd expect to see using that profession, Spawning Power provides nothing significant to the majority of current Ritualist builds.

The end result? Most people who are stubborn enough to continue playing Ritualists are dumping Spawning Power entirely to focus on Restoration and Channeling. Others use those builds on primary Necromancers and primary Elementalists to reap the rewards of energy-providing primary attributes on a profession whose skills were designed to be usable without them. With Spawning Power doing absolutely nothing, if they're only using one Ritualist attribute they have no incentive not to apart from the loss of the rune (whoop-de-doo), and even if they're using both Channeling and Restoration, running three attributes is not much harder than, say, running Channeling, Restoration and Spawning Power.

So, for the tl;dr version: The reason why Spawning Power needs fixing more than any other primary attribute is not because of the number of individual skills that don't benefit from Spawning Power... it's because it's the only primary attribute which provides no benefit to the majority of complete builds used by its profession. Even Mesmers get at least a token benefit from Fast Casting, but the typical Ritualist in the current state of the game gains nothing from Spawning Power, and conventional wisdom states that pretty much every primary Ritualist would be better off as a Necromancer primary with Soul Reaping. This is why Spawning Power needs to be improved.

Completely agreed with you on this.

DoomFrost · Mar 07, 2009, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Would this be a nice general effect?

For each rank of Spawning Power you have, creatures you create (or animate) have 4% more Health, weapon Spells you cast last 2% longer, and ritualist spells and binding rituals you cast heal you and adjacent ally spirits for 4 health.

So at 8 spawning power you and adjacent spirits would get healed for 32, at 12 - 48, and so on.

draxynnic · Mar 07, 2009, 05:51 AM // 05:51

Hrrmn. Could work, although it might need some alteration of health sacrifice skills to compensate, as well as skills that already exist to heal spirits (Spirit Boon Strike comes to mind, but I believe there are others). I expect the main benefit would be the AoR effect on the Ritualist while the paradigm would remain that a spirit targetted by the enemy simply dies would likely remain. However, it might keep damage-on-activation spirits like Union active for a little longer.

street peddler · Mar 07, 2009, 07:26 AM // 07:26

for every 4 ranks in spawning power, your ritualist attributes are raised by 1. also keep the health buff effect on summoned creatures, either keep that effect or rework a ton of skills (which i doubt will happen). would make ritualists the desired profession for ritualist skills (hurrrr), and kind of make sense for the class (the spawning power of the spirit world makes them more powerful or whatever)

also a huge ovehaul on spawning power skills wouldnt hurt, they could all use some attention. [skill]Renewing Memories[/skill],[skill]Weapon of Renewal[/skill], [skill]Spirit Channeling[/skill] to name a few. the biggest problem with most of them is that theyre not practical and are never used in a realistic gameplay situation. seriously, when does a frontliner ever need more energy? so much that you would need to commit a skill to it. never.

spirit of defeat · Mar 07, 2009, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoomFrost

Would this be a nice general effect?

For each rank of Spawning Power you have, creatures you create (or animate) have 4% more Health, weapon Spells you cast last 2% longer, and ritualist spells and binding rituals you cast heal you and adjacent ally spirits for 4 health.

So at 8 spawning power you and adjacent spirits would get healed for 32, at 12 - 48, and so on.

Not a bad idea. But which spirits need healing? mostly the protection spirits. And it won't help them much. unless you start spamming [[Renewing Surge] which doesn't combine with the protection spirit's

Eragon Zarroc · Mar 07, 2009, 08:48 AM // 08:48

like, 1% armor pentration to what? spirit attacks? wanding attack? lol

Vehemence · Mar 07, 2009, 11:54 AM // 11:54

How about not buffing spawning power but just create a new useful primary attribute. Maybe energy management attribute like most other classes.

spirit of defeat · Mar 07, 2009, 12:42 PM // 12:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vehemence

How about not buffing spawning power but just create a new useful primary attribute. Maybe energy management attribute like most other classes.

Rit's don't have energy probelms. so if SP is related to energy it will cause many nerf's.

DoomFrost · Mar 07, 2009, 12:56 PM // 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by spirit of defeat

Not a bad idea. But which spirits need healing? mostly the protection spirits. And it won't help them much. unless you start spamming [[Renewing Surge] which doesn't combine with the protection spirit's

It's not really supposed to keep a spirit up indefinitely, just enough. Obviously Anet would have to fool around with it to find a balanced number.

From my thoughts when I said "adjacent ally spirits" that means two or more rits could heal the same ally spirit with whatever they had in spawning power. So I really took that into consideration when I was playing around with the number and thought 4 to be the best all around.

Even then though if you had 4 ritts at 15 spawning power, all four of them could heal a spirit for 240 health. And that's just by using one skill. Even 192 at 12 spawning power.

spirit of defeat · Mar 07, 2009, 01:31 PM // 13:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoomFrost

It's not really supposed to keep a spirit up indefinitely, just enough. Obviously Anet would have to fool around with it to find a balanced number.

From my thoughts when I said "adjacent ally spirits" that means two or more rits could heal the same ally spirit with whatever they had in spawning power. So I really took that into consideration when I was playing around with the number and thought 4 to be the best all around.

Even then though if you had 4 ritts at 15 spawning power, all four of them could heal a spirit for 240 health. And that's just by using one skill. Even 192 at 12 spawning power.

I still don't think it has enough value.
Doesn't help with necro's who spamm heals.
Maybe increase item spell duration? higher spirit(and minion) level?

Lourens · Mar 07, 2009, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vehemence

How about not buffing spawning power but just create a new useful primary attribute. Maybe energy management attribute like most other classes.

Would be fun to increase the 4% to 10%

Minions with 160% more health make great tanks

Dr.Jones · Mar 07, 2009, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by spirit of defeat

Rit's don't have energy probelms. so if SP is related to energy it will cause many nerf's.

Yea but its one of the main reasons people go N/rt instead of Rt/n.

Nightow · Mar 07, 2009, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr.Jones

Yea but its one of the main reasons people go N/rt instead of Rt/n.

This is the key problem. We're dealing with a class (Two now with [Ether Renewal]) that have near-infinite energy. Sure, rits have great energy management and that's originally why I made mine but when a N/Rt can completely outshine even the best of ritualists, You've got to admit that something is amiss. If you asked me maybe months or a year ago, I would have said that Arenanet would somehow balance the two primaries but with the latest skill balances looking more ham-fisted than the last, my confidence is waning more and more.

Maybe they just can't balance a hybrid (healer/buffer) / summoner class.

spirit of defeat · Mar 07, 2009, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr.Jones

Yea but its one of the main reasons people go N/rt instead of Rt/n.

True but if you make rits have more energy it will result in a lot of nerf's.
Creating an other effect which make skills more effective will cause less nerf's.

Lourens · Mar 08, 2009, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Ritualist are summoners they summon spirits and healing is just something they can do to I mean Paragons and Dervishes can Heal to but are they good at it? NO... so just leave the rit healing alone and focus on the supportive spirits weapons spells offensive spirits they all benefit greatly from spawning power as they should be, I mean restoration is like inspiration for mesmers you use them next to your main attribute (domination,communing,illusion,channeling) And I mean a N/Rt can never be a better healer then a Monk but a Rt/Mo with some hex removal can there are lots of good secondaries for ritualists that makes them shine