Curse

kvndoom · Jul 25, 2006, 09:47 AM // 09:47

Conspiracy theory: Ritual Lord will get nerfed as soon as chapter 3 comes out, and Paragons will be able to do everything Rits could do, but better. Sales figures, you know...

remmeh · Jul 25, 2006, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvndoom

Conspiracy theory: Ritual Lord will get nerfed as soon as chapter 3 comes out, and Paragons will be able to do everything Rits could do, but better. Sales figures, you know...

i like that theory

TheOneMephisto · Jul 25, 2006, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightwish

Again, making RL an enchantment is too much of a nerf. Spirit Ritualists rely too much on RL for it to be so easily removed/countered. Spirits have large radius of effect because they are static. It would be hard to use them if they are static and have small effect radius at the same time.

Whatever nerfs suggested, I would say let the changes be minimal, or else risking the ritualists become ineffective instead.

Making RL an enchantment would be perfectly fine IMO. You would still have to get a squishy up past their backline to remove it. Removing it has the same problem as removing boon.

Skye Marin · Jul 26, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42

Lowering the range of spirits severely with kill the profession. Look at the spirit elite Preservation, one that flatout heals allies in a range. The range for this spirit is way too short, barely area range.

I think a middle ground between these two cases can be found. Ritualists should be on the same backline as Monks, but no farther. In most cases, you'll find the Monks hanging out in the wards, and the Ritualist behind the corner. Ritualists and their spirits become a priority target to be able to effciently spend your offensive resources.

This topic intriques me. I didn't know so many people though Ritual Lord spammers were bad, for a number of reasons:
1) Being entrenched behind enemy lines, they can do their buisness without being susceptible to conventional and unconventional tactics. At least, not without forfieting some tactical ability. Conventional tactics include: attacking, interupting, using other skills like Signet of Humilty.
2) They draw out the game, especially the endgame, by encouraging turtling.

Current somewhat effective tactics:
-strip Boon of Creation
-use unconventional tactics, like a sneaky assassin, or elementalist nuker
-split
-use a more vigourous offense, as adding a ritualist to a team weakens their own offensive capabilities an amount

Balance Suggestions:
-make AoE of spirits smaller (75% of current radius seems fair)
-make Rit Lord an enhantment or stance or give it a window of downtime

As for other comments about the Paragon, at least the Paragon is known to be a mid-line combatant with his shouts.

Im In A Build · Jul 26, 2006, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Making RL an enchantment would be perfectly fine IMO. You would still have to get a squishy up past their backline to remove it. Removing it has the same problem as removing boon.

lol your joking right? boon has a 1 second recharge as soon as you remove it its up again while rit lord has a 30 sec recharge so if it were an enchant and it got stripped a rit would be a useless character for that time

Farin · Jul 26, 2006, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Boon of Creation, not Divine Boon.

Zui · Jul 26, 2006, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Im In A Build

lol your joking right? boon has a 1 second recharge as soon as you remove it its up again while rit lord has a 30 sec recharge so if it were an enchant and it got stripped a rit would be a useless character for that time

Someone really ought to read the topic before they post. Even simply reading the name of the topic should have clued you in to the fact people were talking about Boon of Creation, and not Divine Boon, right?

Corn Sword · Jul 26, 2006, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stealth Rider

Not really, because as weve been saying, you would need to move a mesmer or caster with enchant removal into their backlines to get to their rit, and that caster *will* be punished for it.

Thats a total exageration. It's not that hard to strip an enchant from a rit without dying.

Wasteland Squidget · Jul 27, 2006, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corn Sword

Thats a total exageration. It's not that hard to strip an enchant from a rit without dying.

Ultimately, it depends on the team you're playing against and what they've brought along. A lot of teams simply aren't good enough to identify and punish this kind of move before it happens.

Against a top 100 team, a caster extended past the enemy backline is going to get snared and immediately spiked. He'll either die or force his own monks to move and put themselves in danger, not to mention wasting a great deal of monk energy.

It's somewhat map dependent too. A lot of maps (like Burning Isle) make it easy for a Rit to hide way back and still hit most of his party. Other maps have NPCs which can support the Ritualist if anyone tries to get within range of him. It's much harder to get within casting range of the rit if you have to aggro two footmen and an archer.

XxForgexX · Jul 27, 2006, 09:01 AM // 09:01

keep the numbers on RL as they are, just make it a Stance. that way it's removable, but not easily, and it'll make spirit cast disruption a little easier (no more Mantra of Resolve/Concentration, Distortion, or Balanced Stance)

bcelmo · Jul 27, 2006, 10:35 AM // 10:35

First thing - any nerf to the now standard Ritual Lord would make the character useless and i can guarantee that he will become as unused in high level gvg (top100 ladder) as the Necromancer is right now. However i do agree that the rit is very powerfull on some maps as Warriors and Weeping Stone. There still are metods though to disable a rit with yer standard pressure build, or better, take a look at the Channeling attribute and u`ll find cheap metods to do it without using a special character for that.
There is spirit rift that can break the whole spirit line
Exploit rits spirits - Spirit Siphon
Dps with Lamentation on the enemy team ( Lamentation should be buffed with better recharge time so it can be used)
Bring necros so their Soul Reaping could benefit from spirit spam
Put Quickening Zephyr so that the lower recharge time will not affect the rit as he has far better with Ritual Lord but the way higher cost will bring him to zero very fast
Put tranquility so that he will have boon only 60 % of the time
Push the enemy to the gate .. if they make the mistake to retreat in base than u can spike the rit easy and u have a way to disabling him as any other character. If they stay at the gate, same, the only thing rit will be able to do is kite and sometimes put a spirit (my personal choice their would be soothing for my warrior hate), which he prolly would not manage because of shock, gale, ranger interupts
Please, think before asking for nerf, there are metods to disable any character in the metagame right now. It`s the same thing as disabling a bonder - he just stays far away in back and his very powerfull buffs stay on the allies, or the same thing as disbling a Heal party spammer that is just way easier to kill than any monk

JR · Jul 27, 2006, 10:47 AM // 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcelmo

First thing...and i can guarantee that he will become as unused in high level gvg (top100 ladder) as the Necromancer is right now.

Wait... what?

Tainted Necromancers are still a rather common factor in GvG, as to a lesser extent are curse spam Necro builds.

bcelmo · Jul 27, 2006, 11:40 AM // 11:40

well yeah, u can find tainted, i agree, but not that common anymore. I`m not playing in the top50, however i watch as many matches in observer as possible. There are tainted necros, but in one out of 5 teams. And i don`t recall seeing more than 3-4 curse spammers after Factions came out.
BTW, i remembered, there are some more uses of foe spirits:
Mend Body and Soul - fast cast, fast recharge, low energy cost condition removal that takes advantage of enemy spirits, without u needing to put any
Spirit Light - pretty good medium heal that takes advantage of enemy spirits.

Patrograd · Jul 28, 2006, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Ran into a really horrible dual spiritualist build last night. Only one monk. Innovative, but jeez what a pain.

Bloodsong, Pain, Wanderlust, Earthbind, Shelter, union, Shadowsong, Displacement etc

Couldnt move for spirits. Couldnt reach the monks or ritualists.

Even after we sat down after the battle and talked about what we could have done differently, we couldnt actually think of anything on that map (Weeping Stone) which would have significantly altered the course of it.

necrosfeelyaks · Jul 30, 2006, 09:45 PM // 21:45

hmmm. my guild seems to be able to draw out some VoD's against other guilds 500 and lower, in the top 100, it was very common to go to VoD, even without a ritulist on either team balance v balance. Rits are very strong backline characters, the trick is to kill as mant nps as you can and hold at the flagstand and try to get them to draw out, then strike long and hard. There is much micro-management that can be going on without trying and trying to crack a rit balance

Bio-Flame · Jul 30, 2006, 11:32 PM // 23:32

I think people forget that the issue isn't with Ritual Lord being a Stance/enchant/skill, the problem is actually GETTING to the Ritualist ALIVE and still do your job.

Even if Ritual Lord were an enchantment you couldn't get to the ritualist in time to strip it.
Sure, you could do it once or twice but the caster doing it would probably die in the attempt.

PS - I am assuming that your opponents are a good guild. If you assume that your caster will be able to get to the ritualist and still walk away....well, you're playing against noobs/very bad teams.

So, no I don't think turning Ritual Lord into an enchantment would kill the build, like most nervous people around here think. The problem would still remain: HOW do you get so deep into your opponent's backline and survive?

sir lockt · Jul 31, 2006, 10:15 AM // 10:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bio-Flame

So, no I don't think turning Ritual Lord into an enchantment would kill the build, like most nervous people around here think. The problem would still remain: HOW do you get so deep into your opponent's backline and survive?

You have a point here... the range of the spirits is awesome, so the rit doesnt need to be in the casterline..and can be even behind the backline. But the other way around: a rit make a very static defense line, he cannot handle quickly moving frontlines, simply because his spirits need to be recast. Therefore many of the games are lengthened to VoD.

So IMO a split is still viable, for its a VoD tactic as well... you lost your time thats true (I agree with that on the OP), but with a split you will ensure your victory, for you are much more manouverable AND have 1 offense char more (assuming standard 2 men monk backline on both teams). Isnt it enough to outwin rit teams until they are tired of it?

I also like the idea of a necro... with spirits around its heavilly fueled on SR, which make it an extreme powerful tool.

Still the rits remind me of the old spirit spammers....to many to move properly..certainly in narrow spaces

problem is: the rit is doing what it is meant for... so nerfing it would wipe the entire class from GvG...