Curse

Aethon · Sep 15, 2007, 07:52 PM // 19:52

@Calen: I suppose that's more reasonable than what I thought you meant, yet I doubt it will happen. Still, I'm not certain that's the best way to take things, as it is a fairly drastic change.

@Iñaki: I forgot about the armor stacking limit, and the +energy, in retrospect, is probably not going to be much consolance if one is interrupted; I guess that kind of invalidates my reasonings. Still, I felt it was kind of generic just being +armor. Maybe it could be reworked as a purely anti-interruption skill? Ritualists could use one that actually works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Your concept of balance correlates very weakly with reality, if it correlates at all.

Who in this thread are you speaking to, exactly? But more importantly, how can anyone accept this statement without some justification? If something doesn't seem right, nothing is more useful than clearly stating why that is, and nothing is less useful than refusing to do so at all. Please try again for the sake of the discussion.

But just to reiterate the point of this thread, the idea is to change spirits so they can be viable without being sharply on either end of the overpowered/underpowered spectrum, and this is hoped to be achieved by altering them to require skill for proper use. Is this not a noble goal to undertake? Fail or not as we may, at least we're trying.

Ensign · Sep 15, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calen The Civl

Do you have any insight on these skill discussions, Ensign?

If a spirit spamming character is ever a legitimately strong, attractive template, then those skills are way too good. That applies to both offensive and defensive spirits.

The original poster proposed massive buffs to all of the passive defensive spirits, increasing their raw power, their durability, and their resilience to disruption. I cannot understand what he can be thinking that would make those proposed changes a good idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aethon

But more importantly, how can anyone accept this statement without some justification? If something doesn't seem right, nothing is more useful than clearly stating why that is

The original post included a patently absurd buff to Shelter, though it has since been edited out. It also currently includes enormous buffs to Union, Displacement, Preservation that are *obviously* out of line with every other bit of passive defense currently out there. I thought I gave all of the information I needed before; the suggestions in the original post are absurd, and all you need to reach that conclusion yourself is the ability to read his post.

All I was doing was pointing out the painfully obvious in case some readers had turned their brains off.

Iñaki · Sep 15, 2007, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Hello everyone again:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The original poster proposed massive buffs to all of the passive defensive spirits, increasing their raw power, their durability, and their resilience to disruption. I cannot understand what he can be thinking that would make those proposed changes a good idea.

What I was thinking was that many people wanted to see the passive play of Binding Rituals gone and subed for a more active style of play. You are probably right about the original post, but throughout the thread, the ideas have been remade thanks to the help of plenty of people, from different perspectives and point of views, even including PvE. Thats why I edited them out.

Originally, I was trying to compare the effects of the spirits to other skills, like for example comparing Shelter to Protective Spirit, but I guess its not valid since Ritualist are not Monks therefore they should not do the same thing, even if a bit different (AoE effects).

That is why it was proposed to completely change the mechanics of Shelter and Displacement, and therefore the original Shelter was changed. But I still haven't been able to think about anything for Displacement. Aethon said that maybe make it a clone of ward against melee, although I don't think you would agree as I said above.

This is what Displacement could possibly look like:

Displacement(15e,2c,30r): Binding Ritual. Create a level 1...7...8 Spirit. All non-Spirit allies within earshot have a 50% chance to block incoming attacks. This spirit dies after 1...3...4 seconds.

What do you think? Imo, it lasts a bit longer than the current Displacement and has a better recharge, as well as a 2 second casting time, and since Ritual Lord would not affect recharge times, there would be no spamming. I based it mostly on [SKILL]Ward Against Melee[/SKILL] and the current Displacement.

But, I can't really see why you think Union is so overpowered, as it still does the same thing, only that it is harder to kill by damage because of Spawning Power.

As for Preservation, your probably right, so maybe I suggest this:

Preservation(5e,2c,30r)[Elite]: Create a level 1...7...8 Spirit. Every 2 seconds, all allies within earshot of the spirit are healed for 20...45...50 Health. This Spirit dies after 2...8...10 seconds.

How about that?(I'm just trying to get you to help me out a bit).

Also as I said, an actual Spirit Spamming build would no longer exists, because Ritual Lord and Weapon of Quickening would not affect recharge times. But there would still be mostly-Spirits builds.

Off-Topic: I love your signature, because it reminds us that since you are arguing with us, we are idiots

. Thats cool, very creative.

Aethon · Sep 16, 2007, 03:27 AM // 03:27

@Ensign: Thank you for elaborating. I wasn't sure if you were talking to me, or Iñaki, or Calen, or someone else. I do get grumpy at one-sentence replies, but I don't have a problem if one extends their point eventually.

I assume you are referring specifically to spirit spam as it is now, being one-sided, long range, passive effects? I guess you could say we're trying to take the "spam" out of "spirit spam", while also making them less horribly rigid. Certainly we can do something to achieve this end? So far it seems that by reducing spirit's range, making them unmaintainable, and dropping their duration/casting/recharge, we can at least begin to approach this desired balance. I'd like to hear if you think this is a vain attempt or not, if there is something specific that we're overlooking and we should change our perspective on the task.

@Iñaki: I think the deal with the Union listed in the first post is the fact that the original Union, when used in a situation that could use it's damage reduction faculties, would almost never last it's full duration (about ~20 hits while needing to last 45 seconds for the original, now it lasts ~20 hits but only needs to last 20). So it's like compressing the original Union's health into a shorter duration, effectively allowing one to keep it up indefinitely. The thing is that these things shouldn't be anywhere near maintainable, even at 16 points. Energy back to 15, recharge up to 30s, and make it's duration capped at ~16 seconds at 16 communing, maybe double the damage it takes. It might need further tweaking, though.

I took yet another shot at Shelter. I'm really getting sick of this thing.

I changed it into a utility that is far more useful to Ritualists in general: anti-interruption. Tranquil Was Tanasen sucks, let's be honest, but at least it lets us know that such an option is possible for a Ritualist skill (unlike, say, Hex removal). I took a good long look at other anti-interruption skills and they all looked pretty much maintainable, so being that this isn't, hopefully it's okay. I just wanted to get it down and out of my head.

Shelter 15e / 3c / 30r
Binding Ritual. Create a level 1...8 Spirit that lasts 10..15 seconds. Spells and rituals performed by allies in earshot of this spirit cannot be interrupted. Whenever an interruption is negated in this way, this spirit loses 50 health.

That's about 6 interrupt blocks (it can handle one every two seconds), though something like Cry of Frustration or Distracting Blow can make it implode pretty fast. Still, something doesn't feel right about it; I'll probably think of it eventually, realizing an obvious error in my logic. I always spend way too long editing and re-editing my posts, so I'll just end abruptly and take what comes.

transparo · Sep 16, 2007, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Permission to join thread

I like the OP's idea of active play and trying to make spirits more mobile/viable. ATM my RT hardly plays the communing line due to spirits long cast, long recharge, immobility and short life. If the Ritualist is regarded as "broken" it is in this area while the rest I am quite happy with it. I hate sitting for 5 seconds doing nothing while observing the ever-changing battlefield. Those 5 seconds are the most frustrating and can be fatal to the entire party. Not to mention after 5 seconds, your spirit manages only to get its head above ground and then die.

Here is my wild(est) idea :

Some of the health loss spirit could use a delay before their effects actually kicks in, similar to spirit rift. It gets summon and appears on the battlefield. Nothing happens until after, lets say 3 seconds, their abilities then effect the entire party. This would allow the RT to spend less time putting down spirits. (I.e. 2 cast time for shelter and 3 seconds after the spirit appears, it's effect kick in.) A good RT player would then need to concentrate on timing these delays while he could also be doing other things during those 3 second delay than casting a binding ritual. This in effect would still make shelter take 5 secs to activate while making the RT more active.

For example :

Shelter 25s, 2s, 45s .
After 3 seconds, Non-Spirit allies within its range cannot lose more than 10% maximum Health from a single attack. When this Spirit prevents damage, it loses 75...51 Health. This spirit lasts 30...54 seconds.

The only problem I see with this is making RTs less prone to interrupts. Good or bad I will leave this for discussion. IMO 2 second is more than enough for a half-decent interrupters.

Some ideas I like : Displacement. making them less effective like 50% block is a good idea. And it is still powerful then, considering party wide prot for 15e. Reduce the health loss a little would be nice.

For example :

Displacement 15e 2s 45s
Create a level 1...8 Spirit.
After 3 seconds, all party members within its range have a 50% chance to block incoming attacks. Every time an attack is blocked in this way, this Spirit takes 40 damage. This Spirit dies after 30...54 seconds.

IMO current RT protection spirits should retain there functions rather than changing them. I like my RT to have some protection capabilities to give to the party. Just make them easier to maintain, more flexibility and while balancing so they aren't too powerful to allow the old rit lord days to creep back.

Some other spirit change I like to see : Preservation. Making them heal the lowest HP party member in range. Keep it single ally heal and rework on rejuvenation to make it more effective and efficient so we have more diversified spirit types

.

Calen The Civl · Sep 16, 2007, 07:31 PM // 19:31

I have never been very good at the number section of skills. I am an overall concept oriented person. The delay on the effects kicking in is interesting,transparo. It would allow signets to be applied to the spirits at least.

In an extension to the idea of the spirits being converted to item spells (although the feasibility of the idea is low I admit) kd now makes you drop an urn. This would also allow a more balanced increase of urn effects if desired.

Spirits really are a thorny balance issue. By their nature they are passive, which is against the current direction of play. Yet to make them more active they almost require a complete overhaul which isnt possible.

Ensign · Sep 16, 2007, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aethon

I assume you are referring specifically to spirit spam as it is now, being one-sided, long range, passive effects? I guess you could say we're trying to take the "spam" out of "spirit spam", while also making them less horribly rigid. Certainly we can do something to achieve this end? So far it seems that by reducing spirit's range, making them unmaintainable, and dropping their duration/casting/recharge, we can at least begin to approach this desired balance. I'd like to hear if you think this is a vain attempt or not, if there is something specific that we're overlooking and we should change our perspective on the task.

To be blunt I do think that you're wasting your time to a large extent, for several different reasons.

Spirits do not lend themselves to being active effects, at all. A best case scenario for them as 'active' effects would be a comparison to Ward or Aegis, neither of which are terribly active defenses. But they balance differently from those skills, because of the spirit itself. The spirit provides a built in countermeasure for a spirit, that it can be chopped down. But as you lower the natural duration of a spirit, or lower recharges, that countermeasure becomes less and less relevant. You eventually hit a situation where you simply have a passive defense that happens to pop a meaningless spirit up on the screen, as a mechanical artifact. That doesn't make any sense to me; you can reinvent what the spirit means, but the spirit really needs to still be central to the mechanic.

Communing as a line is broken beyond repair. A passive skill or two on a character usually doesn't cause any balance problems; similarly, a character that runs a defensive spirit as part of a larger strategy isn't undesirable. Communing unfortunately offers very little besides making spirits; at the same time, its spirits are extremely attribute point and resource hungry. Hence it's virtually impossible to design a character that only wants 1-2 defensive Communing spirits; once you've invested in one, it almost becomes a given that you're going to invest in all of them.

If a heavy spirit character is viable, it is too good. Spirit spamming is easily the most mindless mechanic in Guild Wars. If that sort of strategy is ever competitive at anything more than the most casual levels of play, you have a problem. Games need to reward effort and player skill, spirits largely do not do that.

All that said, I don't think it's a complete waste of time to look at spirit mechanics. I'd suggest brainstorming along the following lines:

How else can we make use of the spirit mechanic? Is there anything besides being an effect anchor or health reserve? You can continue to lower the AoEs on these skills, say to In The Area, as well as lowering their potency to compensate for the necessary duration, but is there anything better?

How can you lower the attribute burden on spirits? Right now Communing spirits are the most attribute demanding skills in the game, in competition only with minions for that distinction. How do you change that so that these spirits are useful at low spec instead of requiring you to pump up multiple attributes to make them attractive?

How do you discourage loading a bar up with spirits? If you already have 1-2 passive defensive skills, why doesn't a character want to take even more?

As far as I can tell those are the central problems with the spirit mechanic; getting around those problems is the only way they can become a net positive addition to the game instead of a detriment.

Aethon · Sep 16, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

EDIT: This is what I mean when I say I take too long to write/edit things. I missed the last post above, so I'll get to that ASAP.

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I took some of these ideas to heart, and I'm starting to think that the simpler changes have a greater chance at being implemented. So, once again, I give it a shot, except I hope to be more faithful to the original concepts.

-
Shelter 20 energy / 2 casting / 30 recharge
Binding Ritual. After 3 seconds, you create a level 1...8 Spirit at this location that dies after 10...18 seconds. Non-spirit allies in earshot of this spirit cannot lose more than 15% maximum health from a single attack. When this Spirit prevents damage, it takes 100...40% of the damage negated.

Notes:
-I upped it to 15% so it would trigger slightly less often. It will last longer, which is probably more useful than blocking that missing 5%.
-I've never seen a 20 energy skill, but 15 felt too low and 25 too high. If it isn't possible, I'd rather err on the side of 25.
-I cut the recharge and duration. It's spike protection, which means it should only need to stay up a little while, and this makes it more flexible to boot.

-
Displacement 10 energy / 2 casting / 30 recharge
Binding Ritual. After 1 second, you create a level 1...8 Spirit at this location that dies after 7...16 seconds. All party members within earshot of this spirit have a 50% chance to block incoming attacks. Every time an attack is blocked in this way, this Spirit loses 21 health, and another 21 health after 1 second.

Notes:
-DoT allows it to live long enough to catch a spike, but then is expended shortly thereafter.
-Slightly less damage on effect and a reduced activation chance results in a much longer lasting spirit.
-Compare to Aegis (which still owns this thing):
*Aegis has no movement restrictions, no trigger limit, activate the effect faster, and has no spirit to worry about dying.
*This triggers some Ritualist spell effects and lasts a little longer under normal circumstances.

-
Union 15 energy / 2 casting / 30 recharge
Binding Ritual. After 1 second, you create a level 1...8 Spirit at this location that dies after 10...20 seconds. Whenever a non-Spirit ally in earshot takes damage, that damage is reduced by up to 15 and the Spirit takes 200...150% of the blocked damage.

Notes:
-Damage taken by the spirit is increased due to the reduced recharge.
-Not maintainable, but still lasts a good while. Good for anti-pressure when just meeting the enemy.
-Lasts for 8 hits without SP (190). At SP=9 (258), it can last 12 hits.
-The blocking description is more accurate to it's actual effect.

I need specific feedback this time. The good, the bad, is it active enough, is it overstepping it's role, yadda, yadda. I tried to outline how I balanced things, so hopefully the problems can be more accurately identified.

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I don't want to make a new post, so I'll just add more here.

@Ensign: That is exactly the kind of insight I like in discussions like this. It gives us a firm foundation on exactly what points need to be resolved before we can say whether or not we have succeeded in any way. It may very well be a vain attempt, but I'd rather try and fail than never have tried; it's not like I'm being paid to do this, so there must be something about it that keeps me going.

I've been at this for a while, so I'm going to take your words into consideration and reply when I can muster a more hearty response.

Quicksilver Switch-Blade · Sep 17, 2007, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

All that said, I don't think it's a complete waste of time to look at spirit mechanics. I'd suggest brainstorming along the following lines:

How else can we make use of the spirit mechanic? Is there anything besides being an effect anchor or health reserve? You can continue to lower the AoEs on these skills, say to In The Area, as well as lowering their potency to compensate for the necessary duration, but is there anything better?

How can you lower the attribute burden on spirits? Right now Communing spirits are the most attribute demanding skills in the game, in competition only with minions for that distinction. How do you change that so that these spirits are useful at low spec instead of requiring you to pump up multiple attributes to make them attractive?

How do you discourage loading a bar up with spirits? If you already have 1-2 passive defensive skills, why doesn't a character want to take even more?

As far as I can tell those are the central problems with the spirit mechanic; getting around those problems is the only way they can become a net positive addition to the game instead of a detriment.

Some of the things that I think make spirit spamming so enticing:

The primary attribute Spawning Power, before one of the recent updates, only affected spirits (and minions, but thats a big thing really), it did not affect their other two unique skill types at all, which pretty much meant that the emphasis was on spirits, or at least, thats what it seemed like.

Boon of Creation-A spawning power skill that gains you minor health and energy for one spirit, but you start using multiple spirits, you get a very effective emanagement skill, but if you only have one or two spirits, due to recharge of the spirits, you would only trigger this once or twice for each spirit, making this really only useful for spirit spamming. This is also one of the few non-elite emanagement for rits.

Spirit Siphon-Another skill that is only useful if spirits spamming, due to the fact it has a fast recharge, but very minor gain, and can pretty much be used once after creation and once before death (if your lucky) of a spirit so it makes the skill somewhat useful, but again, only for spirit spamming.

Communing in general-This is where a majority of your spirits are, meaning you didnt have to spec into multiple lines for a spirit spammer, but also, if you chose this line, left you with not much else, other than to spirit spam. Many of these spirits also had little synergy with other skills in other lines if only one or two spirits were used. Many spirits had synergy with each other though (shelter, union, displacement/attacking spirits).

Spells with conditions requiring spirits-Quite a few of rit spells require spirits to go from sup-par skill to very nice skill, but in PvP and in some cases, PvE, this is a very exploitable vulnerability if you are the only rit or the only one with spirits, as once your spirit was gone, so was your effectiveness (and many decent spirits kill themselves with their effect), but if you spammed spirits, you still were somewhat effective, though you lost your skills that required the spirits mostly, but you also didnt rely on spirits living.

Ritual Lord-This skill only affects rituals, and is an elite, so if your gonna use an elite for rituals, you better have plenty of rituals to put that elite to good use (problem with this is compounded by the communing line).

Lack of way to keep spirits alive-Not only does this lead to passive play (since you cant really try and heal them and all, and their are very few skills that can heal, but are limited use skills) but also makes spamming more enticing so you can keep yourself effective to your group as much as possible.

All skills that require the destruction of spirit(s)-These all require spirit(s) to be destroyed to have an effect, low and behold, they are almost all in the spawning power att, since most spirits have a useful effect to the party, and due to the long recharge on most spirits, most of these skills seem very counter-productive, unless you are running a multitude of spirits, even then they aren't that enticing, but still, you get the idea.

At this point in time, the ritualist would need to be almost redone in order for spirits to ever to be unique, requiring thought, and still be useful, imo.

Currently spirits are the only gripe I have about ritualists, the rest of their skills are cool, and pretty good (give or take a few skills of course, but every profession has it underused or bad skills).

Bargamer · Sep 17, 2007, 07:32 AM // 07:32

I like the Minion Bombing suggestions, first off. As for the spirits side of things, the ONLY time I've ever been happy for them is when I go tear it up in the Norn Arena. Outside of that, I use Shelter/Union, and maybe one other Spirit, either Shadowsong or Dissonance, depending on the Boss I need to complete the quest. And I NEED to bring a spirit-spam build for them, because they die too quickly, even when I'm spamming. They, frankly, suck.

I'd support some sort of change to spirits, but the way you guys are going about it, you want to put the Rit into the front-lines. Ear-shot? Really? Shaman's Armor only gives +5 through +15 to Armor. I mean, heck, they MIGHT survive in PVE. But not in PVP.

Aethon · Sep 18, 2007, 01:41 AM // 01:41

I put some more thought into this problem, and came up with a quick concept draft to illustrate a few possible ways to address these issues. It quite possibly has a few holes and whatnot, so I hope to get some good feedback on it. When designing this concept draft, I used the following items as deliverables, in order of importance:

1. Reduce passivity of spirits
2. Reduce investment costs / Discourage "spamming"
3. Minimize the need to alter existing skills to conform to the new spirit paradigm
4. Allow Spawning Power to make more viable builds
5. Reduce their mobility "drag"

Proposal A
Concept Summary:
-When a spirit is created, it is bound to target ally*
-Spirits will move towards their bound ally until they reach 'in the area'**
-Spirits will only affect the bound ally unless otherwise noted
-Multiple spirits cannot be in use on the same team at the same time, regardless of range
-Spawning Power is modified to become more viable and interesting
-Attribute scaling is modified to reduce necessary investment for skill viability

*Inspired by the discussions in the other thread, but I gave it a bit of a twist, as you will see.

**The graphics options for such a feature are already in the game, as noted in an early Ritualist quest. The irony of the spirit in question does not escape me.

Concept Details:
Binding Mechanic: When a spirit is created, it is bound to target ally (if none is selected, it defaults to the caster). The spirit will follow this ally up to "in the area" range, and benefits provided by the spirit are given to this "bound ally" for so long as the spirit lives. Also note that, in order to prevent wacky body/wall-blocking hijinnks, the spirit will teleport to this target ally should it ever leave earshot range.

Spirit Limitations and Peculiarities: Despite the similarities, this system provides a number of unique features to distinguish itself from other buff skills. Like current limitations, no more than one spirit of the same kind can exist at the same time on the same team, but now this limitation extends to infinite range for Binding Rituals. It is also quite possibly the most easily broken buff effect in the game, as nearly any class can easily dispose of spirits. Lastly, under some circumstances, spirits may be bound to a different ally, allowing the caster to save resources on having to cast the spirit again.

Changes to Spawning Power: Despite alterations to spirits, changes to Spawning Power would be well deserved to make the class more sought after. Specifically, Spawning Power is quite weak and lacks versatility. As such, the following modification is suggested:

For every 3 ranks of Spawning Power you have, creatures you create (or animate) will have one extra level. For every rank, weapon spells you cast last 2% longer and you gain 1 maximum energy while under the effects of an Item Spell.

The specific reasons for this change are in part based on the alterations to the scaling of spirit-creation spells, as well as the fact that the use of item spells can often lead to negative energy, and this hopes to reduce such situations (it's like an energy loan, worded so Item Spells are more useful than picking up a random object). As for the weapon spell effect, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Investment Costs: Or rather, reducing the necessary investment costs whilst maintaining a fair return at higher levels. Given that the "new and improved" Spawning Power shall affect spirit levels, the spirit levels can be fixed. This will allow spirits to remain viable at all levels. In order to keep fair to higher investments, it is the quality of the effect that scales, rather than the quantity of effect triggers. For more specifics, see the example skills section further on. I am open to other ideas on this matter, as I am certain there may be other ways to do this, I just figure that this is the kind of change that requires the least effort to implement.

Discouragement for Spamming: It is unclear to me whether or not further discouragement would be necessary if other fixes are made, however it would be best to cover this should it still be needed. Rather than list just one, I came up with several different methods to discourage this kind of behavior, and would like feedback to tell which option(s) is the best, or even if a combination would be optimal.

Option 1: Caster Degeneration
After casting a spirit, the caster receives one or more points of health degeneration while that spirit lives. Alternatively, this may be energy degeneration, though I suspect Ritualists might be better off with fewer energy maintenance issues.

Option 2: Caster Damage
Rather than the spirit taking damage for it's effects, the caster takes the damage. This would make spirit destroying skills more appealing (like a cancel stance) as well as discouraging stacking spirits with damaging effects. Again, energy can be substituted, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea.

Option 3: Sacrifice
Ritualists have something like 3 sacrifice skills, and is something I'd like to see extended upon. Perhaps casting rituals takes a part of their "essence", and as such they need to sacrifice health to pull it off. It might also make Armor of Unfeeling a bit more appealing, due to the potential for increased vulnerability while casting.

Option 4: Spirit Contention
When a spirit loses health, ALL allied spirits (in a certain range?) lose health. This would probably need to be combined with a general reduction in spirit health loss when their effects trigger. Could the effect be reversed for skills like Bloodsong or Vampirism?

Option 5: Area Maintenance
If the caster leaves a certain range, let's say earshot, then the spirit becomes less effective, takes more damage, or degenerates in some way. If they want to maintain all of them, DoT-AoE spells can actually be used effectively against the Ritualists themselves.

I'm sure there may be other ways to handle this, so this is open to extension as well.

Example Skills: It would be best to demonstrate how these new skills would work, I think, so here are some candidates I've chosen to represent each category of spirit. I've also included some other skills which may need tweaking, and how I'd like to see them altered to suit this new system. Note that these skills were designed with the Spirit Contention mechanic.

Union 15 e - 2 c - 30 r
Binding Ritual. Create and bind to target ally a level 10 spirit that dies after 8...20 seconds. Whenever bound ally takes damage, that damage is reduced by 5...16 and all spirits in earshot lose the same amount.

Bloodsong 10 e - 5/4 c - 20 r
Binding Ritual. Create and bind to target ally a level 10 spirit that dies after 8...20 seconds. Whenever bound ally is attacking, this spirit will perform a ranged attack at that same foe that deals 5...18 damage and heals bound ally for half that amount. Whenever this spirit deals damage, all spirits in earshot lose 20...15 health.
(Note: Bloodsong gets a two-second attack rate.)

Recovery 15 e / 2 c / 30 r
Binding Ritual. Create and bind to target ally a level 10 spirit that dies after 10...20 seconds. Whenever bound ally casts a spell, they lose one condition. Whenever a condition is lost in this way all spirits in earshot take 20...15 damage.

Empowerment 5 e - 5/4 c - 10 r
Binding Ritual. Create and bind to target ally a level 10 spirit that dies after 5...30 seconds. Bound ally receives an additional 5...15 maximum health and 1...3 maximum energy for every second this spirit is bound to him. Benefits of this spirit are increased by 50% if that ally is holding an item. This spell costs 5 more energy for every spirit already bound to target ally. (Maximum health bonus = 150, maximum energy bonus = 30)
(Notes: Affects all items on purpose. The contention effect is different by necessity of being a weird spirit.)

Draw Spirit 5 e - 1 c - 6 r
Spell. The bound spirit nearest to you is bound to target ally and teleports to his location.
(Note: A rebinding skill, though I may have overlooked something with the whole rebinding mechanic, I just can't think of what.)

The numbers may very well be off, but I tried to make them reasonable. Feedback is appreciated, especially if one can identify which of the deliverables it violated and any methods of solving the issue. I don't expect to be able to solve this myself, so hopefully we can work out the bugs. Suggestions are welcome, too, as I may not have considered every relevant deliverable or thought of every possibility. It took me some time to write this or I would have attempted to address some of the other problem skills, though feel free to do so yourself.

Addendum: One quick question - Assuming we somehow succeed, would there need to be a change to the skills in certain attribute lines? There seems to be some strange crossovers that might give a Communing Ritualist (primarily defense), for example, access to a potent damage skill (like an updated Anguish).

Oso Minar · Sep 18, 2007, 02:38 AM // 02:38

This is just getting silly, to be honest. Moving spirits? Binding to targets? Obviously overpowered suggestions?

This thread is quickly turning into a joke, if it hasn't already. Maybe a tiny decrease (5e to some of the bigger spirits), a tiny decrease to casting times (2s or 4s), and a slightly smaller health hit on a spirit's longevity would be helpful to the people who really really really feel like just sitting around dropping spirits all day.

That's all.

Calen The Civl · Sep 18, 2007, 01:38 PM // 13:38

This is just a brainstorming thread, oso. Creative thought is the path to finding a solution to the passivity and the broken nature of the communing line as Ensign has illustrated.

As for my outlandish idea: limit spirits to 1 per ritualist and make them similar to a combination of a pet and a minion. The spirit will follow the ritualist and be upward to lvl 20. Like a pet it would have controls but have a set duration to live. Allow the spirits to receive weapon spells but not enchantments. Spirits would have ranged attacks or even melee if desired. Basically, a spirit will turn into a familiar for the ritualist.

This is just an idea to throw into the pile. It is not very well conceived but would make the communing tree more active as the ritualist must choose the right spirit for a given situation and then control that spirit directly. Dissonance and other spirits would have to be modified however.

Develop the idea or discard it. A little out of the box brainstorming never hurt anything.

Dean Harper · Sep 18, 2007, 02:01 PM // 14:01

seems kinda pointless... i like rits the way they are....

Iñaki · Sep 19, 2007, 05:48 PM // 17:48

I would like to change the subject of the thread and just make this a poll:

Who thinks that the Communing line should be changed, fixed or whatever you want to call it?, If Anet made a mistake in implementing Spirits like Shelter and Displacement to promote passive play and no skill in Spirit Spamming, should Anet simply remove Communing from the game? Should the uniqueness of the Ritualist come from Weapon Spells and Item Spells only, and forget about Binding Rituals?

Is there anything wrong with Communing, and the defensive spirits?

If there is, then what would be the point in having a Primary Attribute that affects Spirits Health? Should Spawning Power also be changed?

Calen The Civl · Sep 19, 2007, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iñaki

I would like to change the subject of the thread and just make this a poll:

Who thinks that the Communing line should be changed, fixed or whatever you want to call it?, If Anet made a mistake in implementing Spirits like Shelter and Displacement to promote passive play and no skill in Spirit Spamming, should Anet simply remove Communing from the game? Should the uniqueness of the Ritualist come from Weapon Spells and Item Spells only, and forget about Binding Rituals?

Is there anything wrong with Communing, and the defensive spirits?

If there is, then what would be the point in having a Primary Attribute that affects Spirits Health? Should Spawning Power also be changed?

The Communing skill tree does need a closer look, but it does not need removed in my view (nor will Anet remove it). Spirits are too passive, however, and encourage turtling tactics in pvp. In addition, spirits are too immobile and weak for pve. The damage they do is nice for both areas but their mechanics are rather unwieldy. They are simply too attribute and time intensive.

The defensive spirits are inherently flawed in their mechanics. As they are now, they are either too strong or worthless.

Although I do enjoy spirit bombing on occasion and am guilty of spirit spamming in pvp in the past, I would prefer the defensive spirits converted into either item or weapon spells and all other spirits converted to a familiar-like summon that can receive weapon spells. Spirit familiars would be capped at 1 per ritualist. I would also prefer any other sound, well developed active solution instead of the current depreciative passive spirit play.

However, I am not certain how energy intensive such a change would be for the programmers. I assume spirits are a separate class object and changes in that class would influence all objects that extend that class.

Any significant change to the communing tree would require spawning power to be reworked as well. The two trees depend upon each other.

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I rarely use spirits anymore when I play. I prefer to run the other skill trees. Spirits only enter my bar to achieve the skill conditions.

Calen The Civl · Sep 19, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Edit: Double Post

Dr Strangelove · Sep 19, 2007, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iñaki

I would like to change the subject of the thread and just make this a poll:

Who thinks that the Communing line should be changed, fixed or whatever you want to call it?, If Anet made a mistake in implementing Spirits like Shelter and Displacement to promote passive play and no skill in Spirit Spamming, should Anet simply remove Communing from the game? Should the uniqueness of the Ritualist come from Weapon Spells and Item Spells only, and forget about Binding Rituals?

Is there anything wrong with Communing, and the defensive spirits?

If there is, then what would be the point in having a Primary Attribute that affects Spirits Health? Should Spawning Power also be changed?

Communing has a three big problems:

1) Requires you to spec very heavily in both communing and spawning power, leading to one dimensional builds. You either spam all the spirits or you don't bother. I don't really see an easy way to fix this without completely changing things.

2) The active spells in the communing line are generally crap too. Fixing this might help the line a bit. Dulled weapon and binding chains anyone?

3) Spirits are passive and generally require zero skill. This could be tweaked by lowering the health of spirits, but raising the effectiveness of spirit support skills, like signet of binding or spirit boon strike - instead of catching the spike on a player, you catch it on the spirit.

As for spawning power as a primary attribute, it really sucks. The only time it's ever worth speccing in for the effect is if you're spamming spirits, which is lame. The 2% extra time on weapon spells is a complete joke. Yay, if I waste half my attribute points, my weapon of warding will last 1-2 seconds longer. Big friggin whoop. The skills in spawning power are mediocre at best, and are rarely a reason to spec in it anyway.

A last ditch way to balance defensive spirits would be to have them affect both teams, same as a ranger spirit, and get rid of the health loss aspect entirely. Thus, they become more tactical skills that you avoid using unless you want to screw your offense.

Zahr Dalsk · Sep 19, 2007, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Binding chains should be changed so that it doesn't run out when the enemy takes damage; that makes it worthless as a snare. It can already be removed by hex removal so it's just as fair to have it end only be duration as it is for the elementalist snaring skills.

Aethon · Sep 21, 2007, 03:01 AM // 03:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iñaki

Who thinks that the Communing line should be changed, fixed or whatever you want to call it? If Anet made a mistake in implementing Spirits like Shelter and Displacement to promote passive play and no skill in Spirit Spamming, should Anet simply remove Communing from the game? Should the uniqueness of the Ritualist come from Weapon Spells and Item Spells only, and forget about Binding Rituals?

Communing needs a change to it's skills. What I've seen is that all but three non-spirit skills are trash in most cases. I don't regularly run communing, since I don't like it, (so I can't comment on the attribute investment stuff) although it does make sense being that SP boosts health, and this line contains almost all of the spirits that lose health on effect, making them scale less effectively than non-health loss spirits.

Quote:

Is there anything wrong with Communing, and the defensive spirits?

Communing is filled with bad skills, and the defensive spirits don't defend well (in addition to being passive).

Quote:

If there is, then what would be the point in having a Primary Attribute that affects Spirits Health? Should Spawning Power also be changed?

Spawning Power needs to do something relevant to skills beyond just spirits (the weapon spell clause doesn't help much). Leaving it unaltered just means that Ritualists are being neglected. Ignoring the weak Weapon Spell addition to SP, the only benefit to being a primary Ritualist is that spirits get more health. Oh sure, so do minions, but a primary Necromancer will be better in all but niche applications. So, it seems designed specifically for spirits that lose health on effect; this is the most narrow and useless primary attribute effect in the game. It doesn't give these spirits a notable boost in health, so it's all about the skills in SP. There are some okay ones, but do they really make being a primary Rt more appealing than being an N/Rt? Or an E/Rt? Or even a freaking Me/Rt?

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I'm going to throw out some questions, too:

Should Rt attributes be designed around a skill type (EX. communing = spirits, channeling = urns, restoration = weapon spells) or around their usage (EX. communing = defense, channeling = damage, restoration = healing)? Or something else? Right now it feels like a muddled compromise between the two distributions I have listed.

Are Ritualist skills too conditional? (i.e. in earshot of spirit, under effects of a weapon spell, etc.) Are the possible skill conditions really fulfilled to their potential? I'd love to see more stuff adjusted to act like Spirit Rift or Ancestor's Rage, where they have interesting effects besides "you must spam at least one spirit/weapon spell".

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The reason I was participating in these threads was that I wanted a basic change to what it meant for a skill to be a binding ritual, rather than just letting Arena.net nerf them, and then proceed to forget about them because they're passive. I want them to become active, usable, and balanced.

I've looked over Izzy's userpage, where one can petition changes, but have yet to post anything due to inexperience with a wiki. Apparently he's been "out to lunch" in terms of responding there lately, but I think it needs more exposure to matters like this. So, Zahr, you can use this to petition for a change specifically to Binding Chains, like a number of individuals have done before you.

If anyone intends to post something, make sure you're on the right subpage.

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For the sake of convenient reference, at least for myself, I have listed all proposals from both threads that I could remember, in simplified form:

1. Give spirits charges, which are expended instead of health
2. Bind spirit effects to an ally, which then affects just that ally and nearby allies
3. Give spirits effects that trigger only on an ally's actions
4. Alter existing skill primitives (i.e. energy, casting time, recharge, duration, etc.)
5. Change the problem spirits to non-spirit skills
6. Turn them into something akin to weapon spells, but the effect is granted by a spirit following the affected ally
7. Limit binding rituals to 1 of any kind at any time, acting like a "spirit pet" for the caster