Curse

Katamari · May 08, 2006, 06:52 PM // 18:52

After completing the task of unlocking all skills on my account, I finally took the time to look through all of the new tools I had at my disposal. On the subject of a Ritualist primary acting as a minion master, I believe that a Ritualist simply cannot match the raw power offered by a Necromancer primary in the traditional summon-and-steamroll fashion. However, there is still hope for the Ritualist to compete with a few gimmicky skills. Here is the list and please note that this is still in the testing and refining stage:

Attributes

12+3+1 Spawning Power
12 Death Magic
3+1 Restoration

Skills

Animate Bone Minions - [15 en; 3 sec; 5 sec] Spell. Exploit nearest corpse to animate two level 10 bone minions.
Death Nova - [5 en; 2 sec] Enchantment Spell. For 30 seconds, if target ally dies, all adjacent foes take 85 damage and are Poisoned for 15 seconds.
Taste of Death - [5 en; 1/4 sec] Spell. Steal up to 340 Health from target animated undead ally.
Blood of the Master - [15 en; 3 sec; 5 sec] Spell. Sacrifice 5% maximum Health. All of your undead allies are healed for 99 Health. You sacrifice an additional 2% maximum Health per minion healed in this way.
Attuned Was Songkai [E] - [10 en; 2 sec; 60 sec] Elite Item Spell. Hold Songkai's ashes for up to 45 seconds. While you hold her ashes, your spell and Binding Rituals cost -53% of the base Energy to cast.
Boon of Creation - [10 en; 2 sec; 45 sec] Enchantment Spell. For 63 seconds, whenever you create a creature, you gain 53 Health and 8 Energy.
Explosive Growth - [15 en; 2 sec; 45 sec] Enchantment Spell. For 63 seconds, whenever you create a creature, up to 5 foes near that creature are struck for 68 lightning damage.
Flesh of My Flesh - [5 en; 5 sec] Spell. Lose half your Health. Resurrect target ally with your current Health and 9% Energy.

How it Works
The primary focus of this build is to produce volatile pets who will stick to enemies until detonation, while supplementing minor damage in the process via Explosive Growth.

Boon of Creation and Explosive Growth are the skills which allow this build to function, as each time you cast Animate Bone Minions, you gain a total of 106 Health and 16 Energy. While under Attuned was Songkai, you are actually gaining 8 Energy each time you summon a pair of bone minions. Explosive Growth is also doubled meaning that up to a possible 10 foes near the corpse are struck for 68 lightning damage and some enemies may be struck twice depending on the situation.

This build is best suited for an area with fairly large-sized mobs in order to utilize the maximum potential offered by the AoE damage via Death Nova and Explosive Growth. My primary concern lies in the lack of direct damage output since most damage is indirect through minions. I am contemplating on substituting a different skill in place of Blood of the Master as I'm not overly concerned with keeping my minions healthy.

Constructive ideas and suggestions are more than welcome.

Valkyries · May 08, 2006, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Very nice idea!

I love it when people actually think and come up with a solid build. This is the second one today that i've saw on these boards.

Kudo's!!

I really like the addition of Bone minions (2 creatures, therefore triggers EG and BoC twice) giving you lots of energy back which combined with the ashes should really negate not having Soul Reaping. In addition to the "normal" MM version this version gives you lots of minions and dishes out a lot of damage. The only "bad" thing Ill say is that minions are somewhat squishy and they will die pretty fast. Also the max amount now is 10 minions

So Im not sure how long you can keep the combo going but honestly I haven't tried this yet but I really plan on it.

Very interesting all the same,.I am really going to have to try this out and see how it works. Tell me, have you had much success with this yet or had much time to give it a try? On paper looks great.

Good work!

Dave_Spanners · May 14, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

I ran something similar to this for a while on my PvE ritualist, considering going back to it now I have some more spells unlocked!

IMO the only really key spells are:
Boon of Creation
Explosive Growth
Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova

These were always the core of my build, I played around with everything else. My experience was that taste of death doesn't work so well for detonating minions here, as spawning power means they take two casts to die from full health. If you can keep boon of creation up, I don't think you really need attuned was songkai either - I never had energy problems unless the enchants got removed, at which point the whole build goes down the pan, sadly! Maybe attuned is good for precisely that situation though!

Other stuff I played with:
-casting signet of creation before a battle to get them all to pop simultaneously and make a big nuke, but it never really worked consistently enough to be worth it. (When it does work it's very impressive though

)
-destruction + rupture soul for a nice little AoE effect around you, plus the blind gets warriors off your back. I always destroyed it as soon as it went up, but maybe you can do something with keeping it up for some more damage.

To be honest though, I never really found any other skills that took this build to a higher level than the basic four above, but like I said, I've unlocked a few more now so I might go and have another play around.

schroedingercat · May 14, 2006, 10:28 PM // 22:28

could always toss in mark of pain. it scales fairly well with only a couple pts in curses, and adds some aoe damage in off the low level minions, to soften them before they pop.

draw back is in pve it makes things run around in an area and scatter. they usually are in range for the nova though. and if you solo with henchmen alot, i find scatter = me not dying if i can survive initial onslaught.

ckenni · May 15, 2006, 03:42 AM // 03:42

I think its nice to add Animate Flesh Golem to the build as your main Tank/Bomb as well because once you bomb him with Death Nova/Taste of Death you can immediately recall him back to battle. With Boon of Creation this build wont have much energy problems after all.

the green snake · May 15, 2006, 07:36 PM // 19:36

its a good solid build, but i agree there is really no reason for blood of the master and a direct damage spell would probably be better.

DaerunAxis · May 15, 2006, 10:26 PM // 22:26

there's a good ritualist signet that gives all your minions +6 regen for 30 sec and then kills them all at the same time... 20s gives you time to dnova 15 minions... that's more than enough

hellboy909 · May 15, 2006, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Is it confirmed that Spawning Power affects necro minions?

kade · May 16, 2006, 01:13 AM // 01:13

yes confirmed, it specifically states it in the description...4% hp for minions with each pt in the attribute...

Honestly im supprised we havent seen more use of this, its really a pretty powerful Rt aspect, guess most just overlook it...

antoninus · May 16, 2006, 10:20 AM // 10:20

i use the same build tho i lack the skills so bought the ones that were here and it works great

i was able to pull of the [death nova on 6 minions + signet of creation then BOOM after 30 seconds combo] and it was awesome o_O those Jade Knights fell like popsickle sticks

natus · May 16, 2006, 12:38 PM // 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by antoninus

i use the same build tho i lack the skills so bought the ones that were here and it works great

i was able to pull of the [death nova on 6 minions + signet of creation then BOOM after 30 seconds combo] and it was awesome o_O those Jade Knights fell like popsickle sticks

I did exactly the same, i had the thought in mind eversince the first preview.
What's even more fun about signet of creation is that, it affects all animated creatures, not only allied animated stuff.

This means you can make whateverproffession/rt with signet, go to 12vs12, you see an mm and his oh so awesome army, you get close, use sig, wait 30 seconds...

Xeeron · May 16, 2006, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Been doing an explosive growth/Boon of creation Rt for a bit now (had fiends thrown in as "carry over" minions between battles). If works fairly decent, especially in PvE areas that are densly populated. The biggest problem is really the limited amount of minions, which is only 8 for ritualists. However if everything is working out fine, your minions are only fodder anyway, used to protect you and your teammates, not really do deal damage. The damage comes from explosive growth.

A reason why we are not seeing any creative Rt builds might be the lack of healers. So easy to get a group as restoration Rt, much harder as damage dealing Rt. Almost like trying to play a smite monk.

- Xeeron