Curse

Quaker · Dec 02, 2011, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fia

In my experience, heroes like to cast SoS too early, so 50% of the time the spirits can't reach the mob.

That's true, and they won't cast it again as long as the first ones are within range. But you can simply click on SoS (or any skill) once it's ready, to get them to cast it - and that doesn't mean you need to completely micro-manage them either.

Melissa Is HOT · Dec 09, 2011, 07:51 AM // 07:51

I'm a bit dissapointed but it seems as if almost everyone in this thread has disregarded the logistics of SoS that make it such an incredible skill. What makes SoS so good is TIME.

Consider this: a discord necro with a bunch of restoration skills, and an SoS rit with a bunch of restoration skills. It appears at first that the builds are similar in that a Discord necromancer can cast 1 discord per 3 seconds dealing about 35 dps single target. The skill SoS summons spirits which deal 25*3 damage with attacks every 2 seconds, so the dps is completely comparable.

Why then is the SoS rit so much more effective? Well the SoS rit simply goes into battle and takes 1.75 seconds to cast SoS. The entire rest of the battle it can spam heals, splinters, painful bonds, whatever. Sure the dps is comparable or even significantly worse than other builds but it is the fact that the ritualist has so much free time to cast other spells that makes SoS so good.

If you want to examine the discord nec more closely look at some numbers. Discord casts in 1 second with a .75sec aftercast and a 2 sec recharge. Let's say the necro alternates spirit lights and discords. Discord takes 1.75 seconds, spirit light takes 1.75 seconds so every 3.5 seconds the necro can pump out 110 dmg and 140 heal. That's a little over 30 dps which is worse than what SoS does alone. Furthermore the ritualist could've casted 2 spirit lights in that time healing for 280 whilst still doing more damage passively from the spirits.

IMO that's what makes SoS worth bringing. The fact that it allows you to get up a bunch of damage soakers with decent dps quickly and allows the rit the time to actually get the most out of it's utility skills, something that few other characters can boast. Not to mention splinter is OP as fuark with human melee.

Amy Awien · Dec 09, 2011, 09:33 AM // 09:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gladiator Steven

...
Signet of Spirits: No energy, 30 second recharge time.

Livia and Olias take their time making babies minions anyway. Soul Reaping limiting energy-gain to 3 times every 15 second slows progress also.

Daesu · Dec 09, 2011, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gladiator Steven

Signet of Spirits: No energy, 30 second recharge time.

Blood Song: 5e, 30 second recharge time

The core and key skills of any SoS build.

Hopefully, we all know heroes can't have summon spirits equipped on them which would make this build a heck of a lot more powerful if they could so how is this skill bar viable when the recharge times are long and you breeze through enemies with the rest of your heroes?

Personally, I run three discord heroes, AoTL MM, 2 e-surge mesmers, and Invoking Lightning.

Don't know why you keep complaining about 30 second recharge time when AoTL itself needs 15e, 45 second recharge time! Furthermore heroes would wait until AoTL expires before recasting it so they don't optimize the effect of AoTL unless micro-ed, so effectively it is a 48 second recharge time at level 16.

That said, with the coming ele update, SoS would be nerfed and it may not be worth bringing SoS anymore when that happens.

AndrewSX · Dec 09, 2011, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Toning down a bit the dmg of SoS itself doesn't take away anything from all the already listed utility and sinergies.

Doing that A-Rage and Spirit Rift is the problem that i'd point out...but is just a small drop in dmg output, that's all.