Curse

Guy With Big Stick · May 21, 2006, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Im having a bit of trouble with my build here wondring if i could get some help

skill bar is
1) Spirit Light
2) Soothing Memories
3) Mend Body and Soul
4) Life
5) Recuperation
6) Shelter
7) Union
8) Flesh of my Flesh

Attributes
Restoration 16 (12 +1 +3)
Communing 11
Spawning 4

I basicaly try to put out spirits then use 1,2,3 to heal while they recharge till i can get em out again (if i have to)

Saider maul · May 21, 2006, 07:46 PM // 19:46

well try replacing recuperation with displacement. this will give both allies and spirits 50% evade and with union out first reduces the damage taken by spirits as well.
Also for faster casting and more spirit avalibility use soul twisting (elite )
this is the only skill close to ritual lord, allowing you to produce more spirits in the same amount of time.
Turning up spawning will add health to your spirits making them more durable to dmg over time. This is especially useful in keeping spirits alive until the next cycle.
of course ritual lord is the key to spirit spamming.

hope this info helps.

Hella Good · May 21, 2006, 10:51 PM // 22:51

You don't have an elite. You need to either take something to recharge your spirits faster (like RL, Serpent Quickness, whathaveyou), or that makes them anyhow spammable (Soul Twisting).

zemelett · May 22, 2006, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

well try replacing recuperation with displacement. this will give both allies and spirits 50% evade and with union out first reduces the damage taken by spirits as well.
Also for faster casting and more spirit avalibility use soul twisting (elite )
this is the only skill close to ritual lord, allowing you to produce more spirits in the same amount of time.
Turning up spawning will add health to your spirits making them more durable to dmg over time. This is especially useful in keeping spirits alive until the next cycle.
of course ritual lord is the key to spirit spamming.

hope this info helps.

displacement is a nice skill except that if there is any amount of fighting going on, even with communing at full its still taking 44-40 dmg per hit so the thing is dead like 3 seconds after you summon it. Then 60 seconds for the recharge and your worthless...

Aran · May 23, 2006, 01:32 AM // 01:32

I use almost an identical build, but I use 12 spawning, 12 restoration, 12 communing and Attuned was Songkai as opposed to Life.

I find it works very very well in tyria, although in cantha I play all-out restoration/healing or Ritual Lord-ing.

Saider maul · May 23, 2006, 01:52 AM // 01:52

watching displacement and using soul twisting on it mostly does help alot .
But your right displacement does die alot and is always first to go.
Not as fast as you suggest. It is still a viable skill.

carbajac · May 23, 2006, 08:28 PM // 20:28

The problem with using Soul Twisting in this build is that if you're paying attention to your spirit, then you're probably not paying close enough attention to your teammates, since you are planning on healing them too.

There are a few issues that I see with this build. First is energy management. You have very high cost skills: Recuperation and Union are 15 energy and Life, Shelter, and Spirit Light cost 10 energy each. When over half of the skills in your skill bar cost more than 5 energy, you won't be an effective healer or protector. The second problem is that you've got four spirits you're trying to keep up. When they die or when they recharge, you're going to want to put them back up, which will happen in the middle of battle. Unless your teammates aren't taking any damage, those 3 and 5 second casts will get your guys killed without heals. Another part of this problem is that while you are waiting for your spirits to recharge, you probably will be trying to heal the rest of the team, using up your energy. Not forgetting you have no energy management, you're probably going to end up waiting on your energy so that you can create your next spirit. If you have energy to cast your spirit, it will really hurt your ability to heal because your energy will take a big hit. The third problem is that you only have four points in Spawning Power. With Communing only at 11 and Spawning Power at 4, your spirits will not have the health or stats to be useful for very long. On a side note, I'm pretty sure with all attribute points and a minor Communing Rune and minor Spawning Power Rune, you can get 13 points into Communing and 4 points in Spawning Power. So your attribute point allocation should look like this: Restoration – 16, Communing – 13, Spawning Power – 4. The fourth problem has to do with the stats of the healing spells. Orison of Healing for a Monk is so useful because it heals a good amount and it recharges in 2 seconds. A big problem with the Ritualist heals is their recharge time. It's bad enough that you can't outheal a Monk because Ritualists don't have Divine Favor, but because of the recharge times, when things get rough, you won't be able to heal fast enough, let alone heal enough to keep up with the damage being taken by your team. Healing fast is a big enough problem for monks, but they get a bit of a buffer because of that healing bonus.

As far as the skill choices go, here is what I have to say. If you want to heal as a Ritualist, you will have to go Rt/Mo and don’t use Spirit Light, it’s a terrible spell. For the same energy cost, faster cast, and faster recharge, Heal Other or Jamei’s Gaze is a much better choice. Not only that, for Spirit Light to be the most effective, you have to have a spirit nearby so that you don’t sacrifice health. Life is a bad spirit for many reasons. You have to wait for it to die before you can get the area heal and how many players will be standing next to the spirit when it dies? Also, it’s a three second cast and in 30 seconds the heal will be pointless because either your team is already dead for the ~120 area heal to be useful, they’ve moved on, or the team isn’t really in dire need of the heal (like casting Heal Area when the players in the area are near full health).

I have a Ritualist and I have tried a build similar to the one posted and the above problems are the ones I ran into. I keep hearing everyone say that a Ritualist won’t replace a Monk or a Ritualist won’t replace an Elementalist, good because they aren’t supposed to. But just as the Assassins had to learn that even though they are melee, they are not tanks, so will the Ritualists have to learn that even though they have heals and area damage, they aren’t meant to be healers or nukers. If you want to be a backup healer, that’s fine, but when team builds for PvE or PvP require everyone to have a job, the “backup healer” will have to go for either a real healer or something else important to the team. I realize that a Rt/Mo may just join the E/Mo as a kind of support class (spamming Heal Party or using Binding Chains to slow enemies) in PvP, and maybe that’s where the Ritualist’s fate lies.

So to improve the build, here is what I suggest. If you want to heal and protect as a Ritualist, rethink your skill bar. If you’re going to bring Shelter and Union or even Displacement, you will need Ritual Lord as your elite and probably Boon of Creation as your energy management. To carry around those spells, you will have to put more points in Spawning Power to make them useful. This is a good idea anyway because the more health you can give your spirits, the longer they will last since they will be losing health pretty quick. But again, if you’re bringing spirits, be mindful that you will be recasting them in the middle of battle when your team may need some heals. Also, you will have to recast Boon of Creation and Ritual Lord in the middle of battle to keep your spirit creation moving along. With both skills costing 10 energy each, it will be tough to keep your energy high while trying to heal at the same time. Attuned was Songkai could help, I only practiced with it during the FPE so I’m not sure anymore how helpful it can really be. If you bring Attuned was Songkai, it means you can’t bring Ritual Lord, so your spirits, while costing less, will be up a lot less. Truly, I think that if you’re going to bring spirits, then be spirits and connected spirit spells only, if you’re going to heal, heal only and don’t bring spirits. If you want to bring spirits, Feast of Souls is a great party heal, but it will cost you your spirits, but with Ritual Lord they shouldn’t be down for too long. Another good energy management skill is to use Spirit Siphon. It will require Channeling magic so you may have to forgo bringing Restoration at all, it doesn’t seem the spirits use energy anyway so they won’t miss it. If you really want to use Restoration Magic, then I don’t suggest you bring Recuperation. It sounds nice to have a team Mending but as your only spirit (that you should be bringing) you’ll be wanting to use Mend Body and Soul with it for the condition removal and if you are compelled to bring Spirit Light, you won’t have to sacrifice health. However, without Ritual Lord or Soul Twisting, you will be without the benefits of having the spirit around for about 20 seconds. Same thinking goes for the Life spirit. If you still want to be a healer, then do what the rest of the other professions do, be a Monk secondary. If you still want to use Restoration Magic, carry Monk skills to supplement the heals and weapon spells of the Restoration Magic line.

To me it seems that the Restoration Magic line is not really meant to let Ritualists be healers, but as a self-preservation skill set. For example, any class can bring Resilient Weapon to offset hexes and conditions while giving extra armor or Weapon of Warding for the regeneration and evasion and pair that with Wielder’s Boon for the extra heal; an arguably decently spent 15 energy for self-healing. To boot, the weapon spells are not enchantments, so they can’t be stripped. I see and hear Ritualists using this as part of their healing build, but it’s not a good idea to spend 15 energy on another player just to make Wielder’s Boon useful. Self-healing is one thing, group healing is another.

So I write all of this because I think people have the wrong idea with Ritualists, just like people had the wrong idea of the Assassin. To tell you the truth, unless Arena Net decides to make the Restoration Magic line a lot more powerful, I think you should try to figure out how to use Restoration Magic as self-preservation while you annoy the crap out of Warriors and other melee with the Soothing, Shelter and Union combo, and Shadowsong spirits. Also, the Dissonance spirit ticks just about everyone off.

EDIT: I read the description of Life wrong. It is an almost party heal (they have to be in range of the spirit), but still, the 120-150 party heal...after 30 seconds won't really help more than another spirit.

Saider maul · May 23, 2006, 11:02 PM // 23:02

lol yeah Rt is played in the background but it presence is felt strongly.
if anything the Ritualist is over powered. i play more a dmg manipulator but i spike well with 2 skills 1 channeling, 1 spawning. runing into battle dropping my near death spirit then killing it with rupture soul and still spiking to 300 aoe lightning dmg. and all my speed mods are in this sense caster buffs on weapons do not effect rituals.

protector with a 300dmg AOE spikes every 8 sec anyone? LOL