Curse

Captain Robo · Oct 20, 2007, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Funny how Weapon of Warding was nerfed because of the Spawning Power buff considering there are still NO good Rit builds that can even run a 14 Resto/13 Spawning spec.

The entire ritualist class needs to be reworked. It excels at nothing, and has no purpose.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 20, 2007, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

The entire ritualist class needs to be reworked. It excels at nothing, and has no purpose.

It excels at putting splinter on physicals, and that is it's only purpose.

Thomas.knbk · Oct 20, 2007, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

It excels at putting splinter on physicals, and that is it's only purpose.

lol, so true

Riotgear · Oct 20, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Warmonger's too!

Ensign posted a thread a while ago detailing well why they suck: Their abilities are extremely one-dimensional in effect while being heavily conditional to do much of anything.

Of course, making a class revolving largely around teamwide defensive buffs far out of enemy range and dropping turret farms which are only effective via mindless saturation wasn't a particularly good starting point. They actually had an opportunity to become less degenerate with the addition of exhaustion and lowering of skill costs, but PvEers cried.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 20, 2007, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Rits aren't actually in a bad place right now. Through the buffs, they've put together a few robust, non-conditional skills. Splinter is strong enough to make a character out of, and Warding + Ancestors give that guy something to do besides spam Splinters. The Rit that splinter-bombs people is the major player in a lot of top games right now, and it forces teams to watch their positioning pretty closely. The main thing that guy lacks is good choices of elite skills.

Thomas.knbk · Oct 20, 2007, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The main thing that guy lacks is good choices of elite skills.

An in-attribute offering of blood for moar splinter/ancestors/draw conditions spam is bad? ok.

Dr Strangelove · Oct 20, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I never died to a solo Sin as an E/Rt. Use Blurred Vision better?

If there are TWO Sins (which is what everyone does now; haven't seen a solo dedicated ganker in a long time) and you've got no support, SoR doesn't matter anyway. You're still going to die. SoR is useful because it gets around interrupts and that's about it (a rather big "it", of course, enough to make SoR Elems very common before Weapon of Warding was nerfed in the first place). Funny how Weapon of Warding was nerfed because of the Spawning Power buff considering there are still NO good Rit builds that can even run a 14 Resto/13 Spawning spec.
~Z

You could take that further and say there are no good rits with spawning power at all.

moko · Oct 20, 2007, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

An in-attribute offering of blood for moar splinter/ancestors/draw conditions spam is bad? ok.

he didn't say offer of spirit was bad -- just the other choices you have. limitation to that one elite makes it all kind of meh.

Captain Robo · Oct 20, 2007, 11:47 PM // 23:47

I'd really like to see Ritualists developed as more of a "buffing" class than anything else. Their current role is more or less a smiter with more utility. They need to rework a lot of the spirits that got nerfed in Summer 06' so that Ritualists can actually function as viable damage mitigation characters, and orient them more towards improving a team's cohesion.

As you said, turret farms and splinter bots should not be the defining abilities of a class.

Zaelen · Oct 21, 2007, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

I'd really like to see Ritualists developed as more of a "buffing" class than anything else. Their current role is more or less a smiter with more utility. They need to rework a lot of the spirits that got nerfed in Summer 06' so that Ritualists can actually function as viable damage mitigation characters, and orient them more towards improving a team's cohesion.

As you said, turret farms and splinter bots should not be the defining abilities of a class.

I think the real question is what stops something like WoR from being playable? On paper it looks like a great Rit runner elite.. great against ganks, decent pressure skill at the stand, solid 1v1 skill.. but, much like every other Rit elite, it doesn't see play because taking a Rit Elite that isn't e-management alone pretty much kills that character.

Spawning Power is garbage. It needs to provide some kind of passive e-management that functions with both spirits and weapon spells in some creative manner. I'd like to see a mechanic where by the fewer weapon skills or spirits you have in play, the more efficient they are.. that way selective usage doesn't gobble up your energy but keeps spammers from running a muck.

Riotgear · Oct 21, 2007, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

he didn't say offer of spirit was bad -- just the other choices you have. limitation to that one elite makes it all kind of meh.

I see Weapon of Remedy run quite a bit. But it is pretty much that and OoS.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 21, 2007, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaelen

I think the real question is what stops something like WoR from being playable? On paper it looks like a great Rit runner elite.. great against ganks, decent pressure skill at the stand, solid 1v1 skill.. but, much like every other Rit elite, it doesn't see play because taking a Rit Elite that isn't e-management alone pretty much kills that character.

Other way around. Weapon of Remedy and Offering of Spirit are the only rit elites that sees regular competitive play, with Remedy being much more popular. You need Remedy to make that guy an effective split force in addition to powerful a stand character. Offering of Spirit is the sort of thing many spam-caster builds in Guild Wars love, but most of your skills cost 5 anyway, so it's not like you can't get along without elite energy management.

My original point was that it would be nice to have some elite choices besides those two.

Rits are already seeing serious competitive play. They promote skilled positional plays at the stand, and serve as an excellent split character. Comments like this make me think the community is just used to bitching about rits, and haven't actually looked at the metagame or templates that are seeing competitive play.

Captain Robo · Oct 21, 2007, 07:59 AM // 07:59

The point is that Ritualists have very little build diversity and normally only fit niche roles that only a limited number of team builds can allow.

I'm not talking about splinter weapon spammers, because only showcases one dimension of what a ritualist should be.

Every class has a forte, but is also flexible enough to be used for a variety of purposes:

Elementalists can be damage pressure casters, blinders, warders, snarers, and still carry a few defensive or healing skills to help the team. They're great mules for loading expensive party-wide monk buffs on, and their large energy pools make them great for just about any energy intensive jobs. All things considered, Elementalists are probably the most flexible class in the game.

Mesmers, to a lesser extent, can fulfill that "jack of all trades" caster role with intrinsic energy management, but they can also be used for surgical disruption on your enemy's backline, pack a long-casting hard rez, and form the other half of a hex based offensive in hex builds.

Rangers excel at spreading conditions, interrupting, and can lend their support anywhere on the battlefield. With evasion stances and troll unguent, they're hard to take down, and mobile enough to perform split tactics, run flags in a pinch, and get in and out of tight spots regardless of monk support.

So on, so forth, you get the idea.

Where does ritualist fit into this?

What is the ritualist's well defined role?

The problem lies with the fact that any role that a Ritualist would fit really well into, is not really a good build in terms of today's metagame.

If not, people would be playing it; it would be winning; and we'd be complaining about it.

I'm pretty convinced that Anet made the Weapon of Warding nerf just so people would have to play ritualists in order to use it.

Also this thread has been completely and totally derailed.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 21, 2007, 11:49 AM // 11:49

Again, I'm not sure what Observer Mode matches you're watching, but I continue to see rits destroying teams with Splinter weapon and making use of life-stealing weapon spells to win skirmishes. That's their role in modern GvG, and it's as critical as any other class.

Buildwise, Rits remind me very much of rangers right now. You have one solid template, put together from a patchwork of the few extremely strong skills the class offers. Most of the skills on the template don't change much, except for a semi-flexible elite. Though some people might dislike the Rit template itself, I don't see how rits have any less of a clearly defined role in GvG than rangers do.

Would I like to see more rit templates viable? Sure, if they were the sorts of templates that promoted skillful play and weren't too strongly focused on degenerate playstyles. The problem is, most Rit skills are poor concepts, who's conditions almost guarantee that they'll only see play in degenerate builds. Those skills don't ever start to look good no matter how much you tweak the numbers, until you can put them into a silly combo that ends up destroying game balance.

But there's nothing inherently wrong with a class that doesn't use all its mechanics, or a class that doesn't live up to its original design goal. Every class has skills and mechanics that they throw by the wayside in favor of using the things that are actually good. Every class turns out a little different from the way the designers envisioned it on paper. That's just the way competitive play works.

Captain Robo · Oct 21, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

I've always believed that versatility was the key to game balance, and where a character cannot be designed to be versatile, this can be fixed by allowing additional classes to fill this role (i.e. you can design a build to have a warrior based offense, or you could use dervishes just as well; both have their advantages).

The ritualist's role is, in essence, the same as it was when they were Ritual Lord spirit spammers. Except now it's with Splinter Weapon, Weapon of Warding, and Ancestor's Rage. Bring Weapon of Renewal or Offering of Spirit depending on if you're going to be mobile or stand-oriented, and wait till VoD until you can tear everything apart with splinter weapon.

I realize that its hard to argue that this is a stale build when every ranger build in the past year, up until recently, has either been a thumper or involved some combination of Natural Stride, Unguent, Savage Shot, Distracting Shot, Apply Poison, Mending Touch, and Burning Arrow (and now crippling shot). (One could, however, argue that the effectiveness of this build depends solely on the ability of the player to interrupt well, but this is an entirely different matter).

In the end I guess its just an impossible dream at this point to achieve proper balance. I doubt it will have any effect as long as we play what works, even if that's not how I think the game should be played.

Seamus Finn · Oct 21, 2007, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Offering of Spirit is the sort of thing many spam-caster builds in Guild Wars love, but most of your skills cost 5 anyway, so it's not like you can't get along without elite energy management.

Actually, this is more why you really want OoS if you are playing a stand rit. A lot of rit spells are cheap, but you want/need to spam them so much that you really need some emanagement on the character and GoLE is really inadequate since your spells are generally quite cheap. Remedy is really just for a runner since you will be burning your energy out in pushes when you hit the flag stand really quick(which is fine since you will probably be running a flag soon anyhow).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

I realize that its hard to argue that this is a stale build when every ranger build in the past year, up until recently, has either been a thumper or involved some combination of Natural Stride, Unguent, Savage Shot, Distracting Shot, Apply Poison, Mending Touch, and Burning Arrow (and now crippling shot). (One could, however, argue that the effectiveness of this build depends solely on the ability of the player to interrupt well, but this is an entirely different matter).

One can argue such if they know nothing about rangers.

Shmanka · Oct 21, 2007, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

he didn't say offer of spirit was bad -- just the other choices you have. limitation to that one elite makes it all kind of meh.

This has been a problem on most class' since prophecies?

Ensign · Oct 21, 2007, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Actually, this is more why you really want OoS if you are playing a stand rit.

Hmmm? Usually you drop Weapon of Remedy for Offering of Spirit on the 'stand Rits' because the Restoration stuff isn't nearly as valuable at the stand, and you need the energy management to power whatever it is you're doing with your secondary. The standard WoR templates don't typically have energy problems in prolonged 8v8 fights; your energy tends to mirror your Monks in my experience.

Captain Robo · Oct 21, 2007, 08:40 PM // 20:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

One can argue such if they know nothing about rangers.

With the exception of trapper, the only other popular ranger builds have been Burning Arrow or some permutation of Rampage as One Thumper. The only difference between the Burning Arrow (or Broad Head Arrow for that matter) ranger of the past year and the current Crippling Shot ranger is exactly that: its the same damn bar except the titular skill has been changed.

Burning Arrow
Cripshot
Broad Head Arrow

These have been the three most popular ranger builds since the introduction of nightfall, with Cripshot seeing use only since it was buffed.

These builds differ by only one skill, which vastly changes their functionality.

What I originally said was correct: just about every ranger that wasn't thumping was following one of the above templates. Bow rangers are the physical damage dealing analogs of Mesmers, in that they deal damage through degeneration and specialize in interrupts; but their true strength is being able to attack from a distance and compensate for low overall damage with high mobility and great resilience. The three above builds showcased the ranger's best attributes in a way that no other ranger build could, and used the best possible skills for every aspect of the character's role.

What I'm saying is that these builds represent the best ranger skills for any specific role you'd ever need a bow ranger for, and this is what makes them good.

Though the builds work well, that doesn't stop them from being stale, as they only differ by one skill per build; which was my original point.

Seamus Finn · Oct 21, 2007, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

Whatever he says

Sorry I was speaking more to your quote about a rangers usefulness resting solely on his ability to interrupt. I can pretty much agree with the other stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

your energy tends to mirror your Monks in my experience.

I can agree with this. But a stand rit wants splinter off pretty much on recharge, and assuming there's decent targets ancestors as well. Both you want your 40 recharge so that is enough energy for 4 pips I think...