Curse

pah01 · Nov 22, 2006, 02:17 PM // 14:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

pah01:

I agree with what you say in that it can take a couple of games to adapt and learn the build. But usually if you design the build you already thought of how to handle most things that you know you're likely to face in one game or another. However, the other team has only the duration of the match to adapt to something they aren't used to face, and this can often grant you an advantage. I've won games before against teams we would likely not have beat in traditional balance vs balance simply because they didn't know how to react against the build we put up. They COULD have handle it with what they had at hand, but we pushed hard capitalizing on the advantage you gain from having a build people can't guess looking at your classes and not letting them a chance to adapt and counterattack. This type of play is actually very good for ladder play because you won't face the same opponent every game so you can maximize your chance to win since they don't necessarily come prepare for it. Kinda like how Bring back the Rifts a long while ago went up ladder hard by running a MM build because most ladder teams had no corpse control at all. They got destroyed using it in tournament play because the other team put Consume Corpse on a Me/N, but in ladder they rolled over teams that would have beaten them in a balance vs balance setup.

Hmm a bit like what clan cactus did last week.

We were one of the teams who didnt really realise how hard the thumper and hex pressure was going to hit - as well as a mistake in having our blinding surge guy running a flag which increased the pressure even more.

But the next time we faced them we knew exactly what we were going to do and got back our rating :P

If you are running a build up the ladder people are going to know - we have a few guys who observe perpetually to look for new threats and so on, so chances are we already know what you are running unless we happen to be unlucky.

The other thing you got to consider is - balanced builds work because it allows tactics to be used to win over anything - is the build you run with 2-3 rits actually as strong as a balanced build with both teams knowing what they are doing?

Sam

JR · Nov 22, 2006, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

pah01:

I agree with what you say in that it can take a couple of games to adapt and learn the build. But usually if you design the build you already thought of how to handle most things that you know you're likely to face in one game or another. However, the other team has only the duration of the match to adapt to something they aren't used to face, and this can often grant you an advantage. I've won games before against teams we would likely not have beat in traditional balance vs balance simply because they didn't know how to react against the build we put up. They COULD have handle it with what they had at hand, but we pushed hard capitalizing on the advantage you gain from having a build people can't guess looking at your classes and not letting them a chance to adapt and counterattack. This type of play is actually very good for ladder play because you won't face the same opponent every game so you can maximize your chance to win since they don't necessarily come prepare for it. Kinda like how Bring back the Rifts a long while ago went up ladder hard by running a MM build because most ladder teams had no corpse control at all. They got destroyed using it in tournament play because the other team put Consume Corpse on a Me/N, but in ladder they rolled over teams that would have beaten them in a balance vs balance setup.

Except if you are running something uncommon then it is probably something slightly gimped. Good teams will very quickly be able to scope out your build and identify threats, giving them the build advantage over you in most cases.

The only losses we have taken this season that I can recall have been to guilds running simmilar builds to ours (the current standard adren spike). We have also played against a load of wacked stuff like Ritualist Spike, the two Thumper three Necro builds, four Searing Flame Eles... And generally don't have much difficulty at all once we adjust our play to suit.

Program Ftw · Nov 23, 2006, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by unmatchedfury

Okay first off, i won't say that rits are completely useless.

You will and must.

unmatchedfury · Nov 23, 2006, 01:46 PM // 13:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Just for Channeling Rt damage, unless you're really bad at making build you'll include the spells that actually DO damage, and there's at least 3 (Channeled Strike, Gaze from Beyond, Wielder's Strike) that are quite reliable and hit for over 125. Spirit Burn in the area of a spirit is arguably the best nuke in the game for cost/recharge (5/1/5 doing 110 damage). And i made the comparison before and Channeled Strike-Spirit Burn hurts more than Lightning Orb-Lightning Strike against 60-100AL iirc, because while Channeling doesn't have AP, it happens to have much higher raw damage than Air.

Lets be honest.. the only time that those skills hit for 125 is if your able to get a nice squishy to beat on. IN real GvG it happens that you have to move alot. so you can't stay by spirits very well and crank out dps. "in the area" means if your a** isn't on op of the spirits your spells wont work.

warriors still =2x better than rit channeling. so why bring rits, their only atvantage is range. they lack the mobility,utility,conditions,durability,and versitility that the warrior has. also in case you bring up how horrible warriro hate is, lets not forget that the memser can own any other caster without question. its just that casters(besides new nghtfall eles) arn't really worth countering in the dmg department, its easily shrugged of because of how the rit cannot move.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

A Channeling Rt that does only Channeling will BADLY outnuke an Air ele.

I would't say outnuke. they can thanks to their one remaining good elite, AwS, which allows
sustain their low dmg spells easily, same goes for restoration. BUt when it comes to big heals or dmg when you need it on any target.. no not really.
there is only so much you can do.. and you can't have good dmg and utility because,howthe rit reaches the dps it does is having quite a few spells to spam. can't do that if your bar is full of utility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcobra

I think the problem that is being stated here is not that ritualists are bad in and of themselves, but in the PvP, GvG environment, they have been made obsolete by the nerfs and other classes. As to random utility skills, there are lots of combos that are pretty amazing at first sight, but then are realized to be shit. ......When you only have 8 (or 6) spots to fill, and you want your build to be as versatile as possible, you can't afford a mediocre utility character like a rit anymore because anything it does can be more efficiently done by another class. ......one weapon on at a time, meaning you cant use weapon of fury and warmongers weapon and splinter weapon and brutal weapon at the same time.
The thing that ritualists still hold major sway over, however, is the offensive spirit. Despite the long cast and recharge times and often the extremely high energy requirements, ritualist offensive spirits are amazing stationary damage that do constant armor-ignoring DPS. However, in a pvp environment, the stationary nature of this makes it hard to have a versatile build. Next> restoration, while a great secondary attribute, still pales in comparison to a primary monk. Why would you run a secondary restorer then, when you can just run a monk that does the job better?
As for defensive spirits, their huge nerfs make them completely insensible to use in a GvG. For example, shelter, at a decent communing level and spawning level when put up against a team with any form of direct damage pressure will die before it is of any utility in a spike. Therefore, you just spent 25 energy and 5 seconds casting prot spirit on a few people for about 10 seconds.
As for new skills, gaze of fury, while good in theory, will suffer the same problems as a ranged wander or unnatural signet mesmer (ie aggro bubble radius). Since most people are smart about spirit placement, this creates a problem.

In conclusion, ritualist, in the current state of the game, are not able to hold their weight in general against other classes that they can be replaced with. Their heals aren't enough, their damage isn't enough, their spirits cost too much and cant move, and their weapon spells can only go on one at a time.
Arenanet, in advancing the ritualist class needs to take a long session and figure out what can make a ritualist viable. This doesn't mean adding new venues for it to go to, but means more like creatively coming up with new ideas and concepts for a ritualist, allowing it overcome its problems and be effecitve in the grand spectrum.

well said.

I maight add another reason the rits offensive spirits arn't use is because sometimes the ycan stop attackign when teh rit dies,kites,moves,doesn't attack, does attack,and other wonderful stuff I've forgotten.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

Another problem with rits is that they only have 1 energy management spell. And that one is elite, in their primary attribute. All other energy management spells are extremely conditional and only good in a few combos. If you take those, secondary spells fall out of synch and you're stuck with lower max energy.

Ofcourse, Paragon solves those problems.

ON the contrary. look at the new nightfall elites. the rits have altogether too many elite energymanegment spells. however the are uniqe to the ritulist,( e.i. tied to weapons, spirits , and items) and can't be used with antoher class.

the rits need a little more varitey in their spells than +5 energy when a weapon spell is cast. very little point. when only vengful weapon is spammable and weapon spells can't stack.

unmatchedfury · Nov 23, 2006, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by tehlemming

Mighty Was Chuck Norris isn't energy management.

Of the others, besides AwS, how often are the others really seen?

they may be bad energy manaegment but they are .. technicly E-managment.

rits have far too many useless elites.

and AwS is the only remaining good rit elite that hasn't been nerfed

( VwK doesn't work as well for farming, and Rit lord I'm sure you know about)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bai

It lacks KD?
What about Grasping was Kuurong?
Ritualists can spike cannot spike as well as other professions, but it doesn't mean that it cannot spike at all.

Don't Elementalists use Elemental Attunement, Ether Prodigy, etc.?
They do use Glyph of Lesser Energy + (_) Attunement, but Ritualists can also use non-elite skills for their energy management just like any other class.
I can do fine with my channeling build by just using Essence Strike as my energy management.

I agree that Ritualists do need a push in some areas, but they are doing fine right now even without the buffs that they need.

wait lol hold on... you actually said GwK was viable? i won't even begin to point out all teh problems thsi spell has the first of which is that its elite, leaves you with no good e-mangemnt, makes you run into large gruops of enimies for it to be effective.. no GwK does not count as good USEABLE KD.

although essence strike is good e-mangment it has the problem if making your rit reliant on a spirit to be up and makes your rit have to be quite close in order to actually get the energy bonus to the skill.
and if rits were doing fine you'd actually see them used outside of RA... and once every 1000 GvG.

Patccmoi · Nov 23, 2006, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Hrm, we ran Channeling Rts in over 20 GvGs and those skills hitting for over 125 is like... most of the time. As you say, the other team has casters, eles, other softies. And those want usually to hit on YOUR softies, so they're in your range. A Mesmer is not a backline char, it's midline, and midline chars are very easily reachable.

No, you can't have as much DPS if you fit utility in, but you can still have decent DPS with strong spike assist while putting utility in there.

Take a build like this for example:

Caretaker's Charge
Channeled Strike
Gaze from Beyond
Warmonger's Weapon
Life
Mend Body and Soul
Generous was Tsungrai
Flesh of my Flesh

with stats split between Channeling/Resto (12/12 + runes)

You got high survivability, decent DPS (if you use your attack skills on recharge, it's around 40 DPS of nuking on softies which i consider good pressure), strong self healing, Warmonger's which is an incredible utility weapon spell (interrupt every hit on an ally), Life which is very good vs pressure build if you place it in the back enough, MB&S which is a decent direct heal (with this setup it's usually 109 for 5/.75/3) that can also act similarly to a Mend Conditions with other spirits around (note that a build like this is used along a Communing Rt usually having spirits and WoQuickening on your back, but i'm not considering WoQ here which actually raises your DPS, emanagement and, well everything quite well), very useful for healing melee that overextend, and a pretty good hard rez that you can self-heal instantly with GwT. And GwT usually allows you to take some punishment while you're finishing damaging someone, since just dropping it will usually do around 250 self heal, and often you can recast right after and use MB&S so in like 2-3s you can heal yourself for 500.

Note that you never need to be in the area of any spirit for anything but condition removal, so you're actually pretty mobile. You can chase someone and nuke him as long as a spirit is in your aggro bubble (and if it's not you can still do Channeled-Caretaker's for ~190 damage)

No, you're not reaching the DPS of a Searing Flame ele, but let's face it a Searing Flame Ele doesn't offer as much utility either in most cases. It's a strong split character because of its healing ability and Warmonger in split is pretty damn incredible (an Assassin comboing on a monk in Warmonger does a nearly complete shutdown along with the damage. Interrupted RoF and Return lots of times with that).

Comparing a Rt to a Warrior is kinda pointless because you don't fill the same role. I'll agree that a Channeling Rt with 0 utility is lacking, but you can fit quite a bit of utility while still keeping decent DPS.

And while you might say Mesmer counter any caster without question (which to some extent is true depending on the Mesmer build) our Channeling Rt often acted as counter to Mesmers. Because if Mesmers want to target anyone but your Channeling Rt, they're in his range and he's nuking them. And if they run back, well your job is done you DON'T have to chase. When we used a nearly pure nuking Channeling Rt with AwS he was pretty much destroying enemy Mesmers most games and they had to try shutting him down, which ends up with the same result as a Blindbot on a war, i.e. you're shutting down their offense but that doesn't help you kill, and you can't really do a 100% shutdown on someone either if they have any team support.

No, Rts might not be the be-all-end-all class of GW (not by a large margin) but they can offer things others can't really. Honestly i'm starting to REALLY like the Channeling/Resto mixes you can do because both lines are efficient without your primary attribute and you can pretty easily mix powerful heals with powerful nukes. And while you're not as good as a monk for heals or a damage ele for nukes, the ability to do both efficiently can be really useful for splits, handling ganks, etc. It's what i think the Rt class is made for afterall, being an hybrid. And when you build for it, up to now i find them quite efficient at the job.

EDIT: And btw, i'm not disagreeing that there is work to be done on the class. I fully agree that a lot of things just make no sense and aren't really usable (like as you pointed out that elite emanagement for spamming Weapon Spells when they can't stack and you have a big total of 1 non-elite spammable weapon spell... which goes better along with the other elite weapon spell). I disagree that only 1 elite is viable (Weapon of Quickening is incredible from my experience, Caretaker's while something i laughed at at first actually proved very efficient when using it in game, Weapon of Fury if fully worth it if you build around, Wanderlust is good in HA or arenas (i agree it's not a GvG elite but hell all classes have a big majority of non-GvG elites), etc.), but a lot are pretty stupid too. And a lot of the new NF skills disappointed me seriously as there are waaay too many niche skills that can't be used out of a gimmicky RA build. And spirits, like 'Essence', that have really close to no point at all. And all the 'when you raise a creature nearby allies receive X' which just sucks. And they have way too many 25E spirits overall while at least half aren't worth 25E (some are though). So yes, i hope for some big Rt skill update in the next patch, but i still think Rts have solid competitive builds possible atm.

Mithie · Nov 28, 2006, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dahnel

Ritualists still can pump out extreame amounts of area based firepower to hold locations, since in gvg its all about tactics and outplaying your enemy, i would'nt want to fight for the flagstand AGAINST such insane DPS, especially when melee is your main source of offense.

I also remember when we played a guild (cant remember name, sorry :P) that ran a single offensive spirit spammer as their choice of defense against splits to protect their archers. Held off most of our attempts at ganking some NPCs ><.

With so many teams running Spiritual Pain nowadays, if you start spamming spirits as a holding option at the flagstand, your entire team is just going to end up getting owned.

Clamatius · Nov 28, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

With so many teams running Spiritual Pain nowadays, if you start spamming spirits as a holding option at the flagstand, your entire team is just going to end up getting owned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Valkyrian : anytime someone brings up Spiritual Pain honestly it kinda makes me laugh. If you know you're facing that, you don't put your spirits Nearby others and you move if your spirit gets targetted by that. Also, you don't put spirits nearby to each other (which truly isn't hard to do and it's something that you should never do anyway because of many AOEs). But more important than that, It takes 3-5 Spiritual Pain to kill a spirit usually depending on the spirit and points in Spawning. Are you, as a Mesmer, willing to waste 30-50E to get rid of a spirit just because your spell can do it? You might damage Nearby people (which like any AOE would be stupid to stay Nearby a spirit being targetted so good luck hitting them more than once) for around 70 a hit, but you're DESTROYING your energy. Spiritual Pain is energy heavy to use repeatedly. If a Mesmer uses 30E to kill a spirit and try to damage people around, i think that the Monks on your team should be dancing and singing because with that 30E the Mesmer could've likely done something much more devastating to them.

I'd say something myself but he already said it. In this thread, even.

Silk Weaver · Nov 28, 2006, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Channeling is meant to work with Restoration, and while I see no real purpose in a GvG, it's okay. I look at the Rit as a healing/utility class with a non elite energy management, namely Essense Strike. Now you have Caretaker's Charge, but whatever. Using Generous was Tsungrai does give you the option for using a Sup rune too, I think.

For the elite, you could run Caretaker's Charge or BiP, which I did at one point during the end of last... last seaon. Wow, anyway.

Spirit Burn
Essense Strike
Soothing Memories
Spirit Light
Mend Body and Soul
BiP
GwT
Rez Sig

Honestly? I prefer this to BiP over a necro. The Channeling gives a mediocre pressure, but it is pressure. Mend Body and Soul and Spirit Light are pretty energy efficient (so are all the skills in the build, speaking in terms of numbers), but the recharge would be a limit, so I guess that's why Channeling is also used.

And you might notice the build feeds of a Spirit Spammer which are quite out of the season, so here's another limit. No it won't be the best choice, what with Paragons around and all that, but they don't suck so much as do nothing special.

I can see a PvE or HA use for it, but to be honest... nah. Maybe if they buff Channeling and Restoration again. Mend body and Soul should heal for 180, that's all =P

I Brother Bloood I · Nov 29, 2006, 12:12 AM // 00:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by unmatchedfury

Here is the reasoning for that.
1.) with spirits strength and 15+ armor when under the effect of a weapon+ sight beyond sight, and several other skills pertaining to melee it appears that Anet wants the rit to be able to(don’t laugh) be able to melee, or even tank..

I actually did a Rit/Ra ranger spike with this that was succesful.

Silk Weaver · Dec 04, 2006, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Wait, that makes sense. It is the highest + damage modifier for a bow, right? And you can stick in orders etc on it as well.

Khaunshar · Dec 07, 2006, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Actually, Spirits Strength can do insanely strong spikes, due to the armor-ignoring nature of its bonus damage.

However once a team sees its coming, the ritualist will be a target for sure.