Curse

Made In Ascalon · Nov 28, 2006, 07:00 AM // 07:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by unmatchedfury

wouldn't work. The problem is that would only affect the ritulists abilities.
Spawning ideally is fine. The problem is that guild wars. despite being team based has very little summon spell besides the necromancers. so +64% to hp doesn't really help much. However something like +64% to dmg and Hp of summoned creatures(including pets ) would be great and help rits find a class specialty of their own. The only thing that all rits really do right now is have 75% of their elites be energy management.

and of course stationary offense.

Pets aren't summoned creatures. It wouldn't make sense with the class itself.

And yeah...there's not that many E-management elites. A lot of those elites are pretty damn useless though (spirit channeling, wtf? all you need is attuned!).

frojack · Nov 28, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

I have to retract a lot of what I've written in the past based purely on the Paragon. I mean, why bother using rit's anymore? I am very fond of the class but this is getting silly now...

Anet introduce a class (Ritualist) notice a few issues, so nerf spirit use. Fair enough. It happens, we adapted. Then Spirit-spamming got nerfed (one I was personally happy about actually). Many were gutted. Most of the more creative players moved passed this...
Then Anet roll the Paragon (Ritualist 2). Ritualist 2 has no mobility problems. No energy problems. Warrior class armour, and un-removable buffs. Hmm...
Ritualist 1, a long time sufferer of identity crisis, begins to fade from the game even more.

Dutch Masterr · Nov 29, 2006, 10:27 PM // 22:27

ritualists are a very valuable asset to have on any pve team. they help negate alot of damage for the whole party as well as put out decent damage. as far as pvp goes, in my opinion, they are horrible in AB, but good to have in all other forms for good defense and to create spirit walls in key areas....ill take a rt on my team any day

and as far as nefing rits goes, thats just silly...ritualists are probably the most underplayed class in the game, next to mesmer, and dont do anything that overly-powerfull....

draxynnic · Nov 30, 2006, 03:31 AM // 03:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by unmatchedfury

the reason rits don't have too much versitility is that there skills all have little backgruond requirements like near a spirit, under the effects of item of weapon spell. spirit requirements are bad because monk dont have to stop every 30-45 seconds and make the party vulnerable. 3 seconds in a battle is a long time. also spirits have a huge energy cost at times, making them take you out of busness once every half a minute. item spells are jsut as bad. taking away 15 energy is rediculous. unfortuantly thats how it works and having 0 energy for 3-4 seconds can be pretty bad in a heated fight.

Rits can be very good with other rits because of how their prerequisites for spells become a given. all rits teams are great in the dfense department. and pretty good at pressure, although lacking at spikes. rits are unfortuantly designed to suck if not near spirits. so that means they can't move well and are easily counterable.

I've managed to handle myself well as a Rit healer in the past. You'll want to be acting as backup for a monk rather than on your own, yes, but if you're alert you can drop the spirits (although I'd admit to having a strong preference for 3s rituals - 5s is just too long unless you can preprepare) during the relatively quiet times during a battle when the monk can handle things on their own, setting yourself up to be able to provide full support when things get hairy. And don't forget that when things do get hairy, those spirits (unless their something like Union which dies in fairly short order - in which case, it's probably died keeping things from getting hairy quickly) will still be there doing what they can to relieve the pressure when things get hairy.

While some spirits can be expensive, using Halcyon's/Radiant and an offhand can get you around 50 energy, leaving you enough to drop a Recuperation and have enough left to keep going as long as you have decent energy management. The trick is not to be too obsessed with dropping spirits - when in healing mode, I normally use Recuperation as the primary spirit, and something cheap and quick like Life or Pain to get the conditional effects. (I don't particularly care what the secondary spirit actually does in a build like this - the important thing is that I can stand next to it and throw my healing around.)

That said, the true power of the Ritualist can come from when you can lure the enemy into a pack of spirits - just like the trapping ranger can be used offensively, but when they're truly powerful is when you can lure the enemy onto a pile of traps. It's something I've considered to be a shame for a while that in the same chapter as they introduced a class that requires a certain degree of patience for it's true power to shine, they also introduced a mission reward structure that stressed rushing.

Another thing that's important for ritualists to do in PUGs is talk to each other. The number of times one of my characters with a ritualist component has rocked up to a PUG, asked about the other ritualist's spirits, and received no response... only to find out that, sure enough, the other ritualist is carrying the same spirits I am... (Okay, when it's Union or something like that that expires quickly, that can be useful. When it's something that generally lasts until it's killed or until the skill has recharged anyway like Pain, however... not so useful.)

Purple_Genius11 · Dec 01, 2006, 03:00 AM // 03:00

.......... Im Really Dissapointed In U Guys Rit Are The Best Class For Me!!!!!!! I Can Pwn Any Prof But Have A Little Trouble With Mes So I Dont Think U Guys Have A Right To Say To Avoid Them And Stuff Like That Its Just Not Right

unmatchedfury · Dec 01, 2006, 03:57 AM // 03:57

purple genius. if you would be so kind avoid trolling in the forums. this is something of a serious discussion thread

kk thnx U vry much

Made In Ascalon · Dec 01, 2006, 04:56 AM // 04:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Purple_Genius11

.......... Im Really Dissapointed In U Guys Rit Are The Best Class For Me!!!!!!! I Can Pwn Any Prof But Have A Little Trouble With Mes So I Dont Think U Guys Have A Right To Say To Avoid Them And Stuff Like That Its Just Not Right

Any profession can potentially "Pwn" any other profession. Do you have a point?

Alucard Teppes · Dec 05, 2006, 09:34 AM // 09:34

well i have been able to do decent at pvp and pve with this build

channeling 10
communing 16
spawning power 10

painful bond
vital weapon
spirits strength (E)
boon of creation
anguish
pain
bloodsong
res

with this build energy may start to run down at times and take a few seconds to get up but at first u cast boon and then the 3 spirits.
pain and bloodsong have long durations so u only need to cast them when they die or you need to move. look who your spirits are hiting and use painful bond on them. and vital weapon and spirits strength when your not summoning
added up this build can do a lot of damage. i mean u got 3 attack spirits doing 20+ damage and anguish is doing around 40 damage with painful bond plus the extra +16. when your not spawning your doing between 30-40 damage a hit from your wand which you use in between casting spirits or to regen energy. you add all that up its a lot of damage i mean i can take out a lvl 24 in pve in about 5 seconds sometimes shorter. and for spirits attacking the same person i usually find that when they are placed on top of each other they usually attack the same person more but not always. basically anyone coming in my range will have a hard time killing me.
try it out i think it works really well and is proof that rits can be good if played right.

as for item spells losing your energy from weapons this isn't that true. you can actually take advantage of the energy lose to your advantage. for example empowerment will give you +10 energy when u hold a item. plus when you drop the item u get a quick boost of energy. its kinda hard to explain

also always cast highest cost spirits first especially when your using skills like boon of creation. for example if u cast pain first most of the energy that the skill cost is regened by the time you finish the spell. casting spirits like anguish first makes sure you get to keep that extra energy that regened during the cast and you get to keep the bonus from boon as well.

i have been playing rit awhile and just wanted to share with you what i learned along the way, i hope it helps as it is a hard class to play well.

Epinephrine · Dec 05, 2006, 03:53 PM // 15:53

Well, I am pretty pleased with many new Ritualist skills. In fact, I have been enjoying a few ritualist builds, one of them being a flagrunner in GvG (posted on wiki, here).

Signet of Ghostly Might allows for one heck of a bombardment, with Anguish and a hex in the mix it's just evil (104 damage a pop!), and even the non-elites are pretty nice; Renewing Memories makes a weapon-spell user happy, as does Wielder's Remedy, clearing conditions with each weapon spell.

There are still a few skills that need help (grr, weapon of Warding, if only you had a 1 second cast time!) and unfortunately the protective aspect of ritualists was hurt pretty badly, but overall they are still quite playable. Heck, I did Jennur's Horde with henchies and got masters, something many human parties have trouble with apparently, and though I haven't finished the game yet (with my Ritualist) I pounded Varesh flat last night with henchies in under 5 minutes, thanks to spirit offense.

My big dismay is in fact with the skill Spiritual Pain, which is overpowered without its spirit killing powers - with this in play in most GvGs it is completely hopeless to even think of bringing spirits of any kind; you just make it possible to AoE spam your group if you get in range of one.

Patccmoi · Dec 05, 2006, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epinephrine

My big dismay is in fact with the skill Spiritual Pain, which is overpowered without its spirit killing powers - with this in play in most GvGs it is completely hopeless to even think of bringing spirits of any kind; you just make it possible to AoE spam your group if you get in range of one.

This is a pretty big misconception from my experience. Everyone always bring that up, but we used spirits in GvG against good teams with Mesmers with SP and the thing is this just doesn't happen.

Yes, in theory they could AOE nuke your team, for around 70 damage a hit every 1.5s or so, nothing that scary considering you can just move from the spirit (it's just a Nearby AOE, and nothing prevents you from moving. Anybody getting hit more than 1-2 times better be galed or he's stupid). You rarely have more than 1-2 person in Nearby AOE of a spirit, and you should never have 2 Spirits Nearby one another if you notice you're facing SP (basically if the other team has a Mesmer!) or you're asking for it.

Now, look at it from the Mesmer's perspective. It takes 30-50E to kill a spirit depending on its level/spawning power. How much damage/disruption can a Dom Mesmer do to your team with 30-50E? How much will they do if they use it to nuke a spirit (and maybe do SOME AoE damage)? They don't have infinite energy from Motivation Paragon anymore, and most Dom Mesmers are actually really tight on their energy and mostly use tactical casting to handle emanagement with something like PDrain or GoLE as only emanagement (sometimes Drain Enchant too, but that's like 5E every 30s).

Basically, Spiritual Pain on spirits is a huge energy waste for Mesmers and if they're doing it your monks should be really happy cause if that 30E would be used to use ESurge-EBurn-Diversion on them, they'd have much more trouble than having to maybe cast 1-2 5E spells if the AOE isn't just cleared by a Heal Party from an E/Mo. And the funny thing is that many Mesmers actually DO use SP on spirits. And most of the time it honestly don't hurt us at all. And they don't seem to realize that they're destroying their energy in the process. If anything, the fact that SP kills spirits is just a bait for bad Mesmers to drain their energy for nothing and ends up helping you. As for the fact that it actually kills your spirits, any spell that actually DOESN'T ignore armor is usually much more energy efficient and faster at it so it's a non-issue. Spirits can be killed, there's no way around it and it's what balances them, so it's all about positioning and countering the counters. Their recharge is usually pretty good now anyway so if they spend their time killing spirits it's a lot of time they won't be killing your team.

I like your runner build overall, i always liked the Vengeful/Remedy combo, but just a question. Don't you think you'd be better off with Wielder's Remedy or MB&S than Resilient Weapon? I know how good Resilient is, but it also prevents you to use any of your other weapon spells on the target. Seems like Wielder's Remedy even with only 4 Spawning would be more useful in general. It's basically a 5/1/10 enchant that would make Vengeful/Remedy remove a condition every time they're used for 15s. Gives the Rt really efficient condition control. Another option would be Wielder's Strike but it's a little more tricky to time depending on the situation if you rely on Vengeful/Remedy for weapon spell. But it's a pretty nice nuke and when someone isn't targetting you it's a good way to make use of your weapon spells to add to your nuking power. Dunno, just suggestions.

Epinephrine · Dec 05, 2006, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

This is a pretty big misconception from my experience. Everyone always bring that up, but we used spirits in GvG against good teams with Mesmers with SP and the thing is this just doesn't happen.

Encouraging, but as someone who has run a Spiritual Pain spiking build I have to say we'd chortle with glee if we saw spirits. The advantage is that you don't need to even target a spirit; just aim for a player near any spirit, if Spiritual Pain even damage a spirit at all it recharges instantlty, allow a quick followup spike on another player.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Yes, in theory they could AOE nuke your team, for around 70 damage a hit every 1.5s or so, nothing that scary considering you can just move from the spirit

I'm not worried about them nuking the spirit, I'm worried about giving the enemy free recharges of a deadly spiking skill. They kill the spirits as per usual, with the added benefit of doing AoE damage to them and getting free recharge as a bonus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by =Patccmoi

Basically, Spiritual Pain on spirits is a huge energy waste

Agreed, but spiking a player who wanders near one is really efficient - spike player, get free recharge, wipe out annoying spirits as an afterthought.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I like your runner build overall, i always liked the Vengeful/Remedy combo, but just a question. Don't you think you'd be better off with Wielder's Remedy or MB&S than Resilient Weapon? I know how good Resilient is, but it also prevents you to use any of your other weapon spells on the target.

Well, I have no spawning power (hence no Wielder's Remedy) and no spirits in the build; Resilient Weapon is really handy versus a Me/A degen runner for example, and can be used to support your team at the stand as a form of counter degen. It's not a great synergy but it's got specific uses for a runner, providing a AL bonus and regen when you (for example) get a pile of conditions on you or hexes and need to keep running; I like it on approach to drop a flag, as I'm sure to get snared etc, so it's free 6 regen and 24 AL while my team supports me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Seems like Wielder's Remedy even with only 4 Spawning would be more useful in general. It's basically a 5/1/10 enchant that would make Vengeful/Remedy remove a condition every time they're used for 15s. Gives the Rt really efficient condition control. Another option would be Wielder's Strike but it's a little more tricky to time depending on the situation if you rely on Vengeful/Remedy for weapon spell. But it's a pretty nice nuke and when someone isn't targetting you it's a good way to make use of your weapon spells to add to your nuking power. Dunno, just suggestions.

Oh, I do appreciate that. On the discussion page I mention that if you were to drop the Channeling for Spawning Power, Renewing Memories or Wielder's Remedy would be good substitutes; not sure whether I'd prefer 3 energy Vengeful/Remedy and 7 energy Resilient for party support (from RM) or the extra condition removal, I think it'd depend on the team's condition handling. I do like having spike support though, since there are times when you have a tough nut to crack, so you wait for the runner to arrive and get the extra 100+ damage on the spike. Thanks for checking it out

Patccmoi · Dec 06, 2006, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epinephrine

Encouraging, but as someone who has run a Spiritual Pain spiking build I have to say we'd chortle with glee if we saw spirits. The advantage is that you don't need to even target a spirit; just aim for a player near any spirit, if Spiritual Pain even damage a spirit at all it recharges instantlty, allow a quick followup spike on another player.

I'm not worried about them nuking the spirit, I'm worried about giving the enemy free recharges of a deadly spiking skill. They kill the spirits as per usual, with the added benefit of doing AoE damage to them and getting free recharge as a bonus.

Agreed, but spiking a player who wanders near one is really efficient - spike player, get free recharge, wipe out annoying spirits as an afterthought.

Well, I have no spawning power (hence no Wielder's Remedy) and no spirits in the build; Resilient Weapon is really handy versus a Me/A degen runner for example, and can be used to support your team at the stand as a form of counter degen. It's not a great synergy but it's got specific uses for a runner, providing a AL bonus and regen when you (for example) get a pile of conditions on you or hexes and need to keep running; I like it on approach to drop a flag, as I'm sure to get snared etc, so it's free 6 regen and 24 AL while my team supports me.

Oh, I do appreciate that. On the discussion page I mention that if you were to drop the Channeling for Spawning Power, Renewing Memories or Wielder's Remedy would be good substitutes; not sure whether I'd prefer 3 energy Vengeful/Remedy and 7 energy Resilient for party support (from RM) or the extra condition removal, I think it'd depend on the team's condition handling. I do like having spike support though, since there are times when you have a tough nut to crack, so you wait for the runner to arrive and get the extra 100+ damage on the spike. Thanks for checking it out

I didn't know that if the AOE hit the spirit it made SP recharge, i always thought it was the direct target only. Good thing to know! I still don't think it's too big an issue overall (because really you're rarely standing by spirits and it's not always easy for the other team to time spike on someone near a spirit), but it does make it a little more dangerous.

And i do like support nuking too, what i was suggesting is really not to drop Channeling for Spawning but just put 4 in there and use Wielder's Remedy. 5/1/10 so you really don't need much points to make good use of it. Not true for Renewing Memories though.

I see why you use Resilient and it's true that it has advantages there but i dunno. It's not like a Me/A can kill you if you use Soothing Memories anyway (that alone outheals degen, and GwT can easily cover for the rest), but i guess it's useful to plant flag. I used Channeling/Resto hybrid often but never as runner, usually their main role is to use Warmonger and provide support healing/nuking.