Curse

Skye Marin · Jun 04, 2007, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Ritualists and Paragons have been taking their share of heat in this forum and others because of their abilities to be both Highly Offensive and Defensive, causing degenerative play builds where entire teams are made of a single type of class. This is because in many Rit and Paragon skills, an attitude of "More is Better" is used with a few game mechanics, specifically, Spirits with the use of skills like Spirit Burn and Spirit Transfer, and Chants with the use of echoes.

The same concept can be applied to something like Searing Flames. Having a whole team of Searing Flames eles is better because one person can ignite an enemy group, while the other can dish out pure damage. One suggestion (a while back) to solving something like this was to make the skill so that whenever it does the damage, it also ends the burning on that creature. This way, a group of Searing Flames eles wouldn't have an advantage over a single one in terms of DPS, or, Mark or Rodgort would have to be up anyways, which opens up hex removal as a viable counter.

Now, we move that concept over to Spirits and Chants.

Spirits- All Ritualist skills that require an ally Spirit in Earshot now require a Spirit that in directly under your control in Earshot.

Killing off the spirits is now an option, because now each Rit is tied to their own spirits. Of course, this isn't the first step. Skills like Wielder's Strike and Splinter Weapon will get their due nerfs, while other skills, like Spirit Light Weapon for example, would get buffs (like exempting it from that previous rule, and buffing the potential healing power).

Chants - If you are under the influence of a Paragon's Chant, and come under the influence of a chant from a different Paragon, you lose all previous chants without triggering any Echos on you.

This change would very effectively remove Zergway-style builds, and easily pave the way for numerous profession skill buffs in both Chants and Echos, making a paragon an effective addition to a team. It does not restrict the number of Paragons on a team directly, but does limit the number of paragons that can effectively use chants in a group of players.

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? I'm all ears.