The Ritualist Observation

After feeling ritualist is being undershadow by the assasin (typical... people seem to love anything related to ninja) and that I found my self plenty of time during this hour, I just decide to share some of my opinion about ritualist skill (thank GW knight templar for such neatly organized and simple informative skill section, with pictures too!).

Ritualist brought 2 completely new system into GW, one being weapon spell, another being holding ahes. This 2 system of buff is unremovable as enchantment unless by death, with ashes by the player's will also. Another large contribution ritualist made was making spirit a huge matter in the battle field. Forification strategy are now stronger than ever.
========================
One of the first thing I went for was the channeling during the event as a ritualist (perhaps due to that I was an elementalist ever since I join GW, and me prefering a quick result for the work I do).

Channeling Magic:
Straight foward damage dealing, elementalist style. Better or worse, hard to say.

-Spirit Rift (Spell) Open a Spirit Rift at target foe's location. After 3 seconds, all adjacent foes are struck for 10..94 [122] lightning damage.
-Ancestor's Rage (Spell) All foes adjacent to target ally are struck for 10..82 [106] lightning damage.
-Destruction (Binding Ritual) Create a level 1..8 [11] Spirit that dies after 30 seconds. When this Spirit dies, all nearby foes take 1..4 [5] damage for each second the Spirit was alive.
-Cruel Was Daoshen (Spell) Hold Daoshen's ashes for up to 15..51 [63] seconds. When you drop his ashes, all nearby foes are struck for 40..112 [136] lightning damage.
Spawning
-Rupture Soul (Spell) Target allied Spirit is destroyed. All nearby enemies are struck for 50..122 [146] lightning damage and become Blinded for 3..10 [13] seconds.

PvP
With the above few skills, I was able to play around with 3-4 different variations of spike by a single ritualist alone. I can soon see these ritual spike becoming mostly useless once ch2:faction be release into the community for 1 month; the same thing happened to lightning surge as from beta to retail.
PvE
Excluding destruction, those above skills will be quite powerful for a PvE group. However, considering the armor level and health of most monsters, this might not be so. However, unlike the spawning power and communing line, channeling is full of mobility.
Note:
*Destruction does armor ignoring damage.
*Spirit burn seem to be bugged or the skill decription is wrong.
*If a spirit party is ever created, you can bet this line is going to be use often.
*slow casting, but cheap and decent recharges.
*wailing weapon can make a monk as annoying as an interrupt ranger.
*weapon spell is not an enchantment


Ritualist's energy management is also top notch with
-Spirit Siphon (Spell) Target spirit loses all Energy. You gain (15..27 [31])% of that Energy. (channeling)
If you decide to go channeling that is, as it aren't that great until you hit 11 channeling or so (8 energy gain; 5 energy used).
=====================
Restoration Magic:
I can't deny how good ritualist healing are for being just one line attribute (thats one of their strong point).

-Weapon of Warding (Weapon Spell) For 5..10 [11] seconds, target ally has a Weapon of Warding that grants target ally +(1..3 [4]) Health regeneration and a 50% chance to "Block".
-Spirit Light (Spell) Sacrifice 10% Health. Target ally is healed for 50..134 [162] Health. If any Spirits are in the area around you, you don't sacrifice Health.
-Spirit Light Weapon ELITE (Weapon Spell) For 10 seconds, target ally gains 3..13 [16] Health each second. Spirit Light Weapon ends if that ally is not near a Spirit.
-Spirit Transfer (Spell) Target ally steals up to 5..41 [53] Health from all Spirits in the area.
-Wielder's Boon (Spell) Heal target ally for 15..51 [63] Health. If that ally is under the effects of a "Weapon Spell", Wielder's Boon heals for an additional 10..34 [42] Health.
-Mend Body and Soul (Spell) Target ally is healed for 10..70 [90] Health. That ally loses one Condition for each Spirit in your area.
These are all quite standard healing skills, with spirit transfer being the more interesting one.


PvP
Ritualist can't compete with the current boon prot in both energy and healing efficiency, with restoration magic alone that is.
PvE
A ritualist will be just fine in terms of healing. Recuperation give mending to all the ally under its effect without costing you a single energy after usage, who wouldn't want that?

Note:
*Spirit Light Weapon is like a regen yet stackable with regen.
*Preservation spirit would heal anyone randomly, would ignore the dying and heal the full hp.
*Mend Body and Soul have the power to replace mend aliment and mend condition, but considering the build of today's boon prot, it is not likely so; the currentl boon prot is more than enough.
*If anything, I would actually see restoration magic as the most useless line of the Ritualist, due to that other can do better in everything it do; for PvE it might not matter.
*THE potential new attribute line for new farming builds.
=========================
Communion:
The most support utility in one attribute line I had ever seen. If I must decribe with core class reference, it would be a line that is protection monk/spirit ranger/ward&hex elementalist/shutdown necro/anti-warrior mesemer squeezed into one line.

(too lazy to put copy-paste skills @_@)

PvP
This going to be one of the most annoying single line for the offense team, more annoying than warrior facing ward against melee. Once shelter and union is put on the field, no one can ignore those spirits; for every sec your ritualist battle your opponent's damage dealer for the survival of those spirits, your team are closer to wining (if your offensive power are enough). While you worry about shelter and union, you will have to worry about other things such as shadow song, disenchantment and dissonance shutting your attack force down. This one line will most likely change the current metagame of PvP when it is attached to spirit spam.
PvE
Most might feel that ritualist won't do great in PvE with this line, but I do not believe that is true. Against a mob of large number you can survive, while your battle will drag longer and allow the recharge to be just fine. Against a small number of mobs, you won't need much to begin with, therefore the ritualist won't have to put up all the spirits.


Note:
*Capable of replacing defensive support ele.
*When both shelter and union is on the field; it is more effective to kill union first then shelter, because shelter will be weaken more by itself while you kill union comparing to vise versa.
*These spirit must be treated like monk (primary target), and unlike monk, they can not be shutdown (while spawning attribute making them quite durable).
*AoE elementalist may have a role in top GvG if comunnion ritualist ever get too popular.
*I would hate to watch a GvG of team base on communion ritualist; the most obvious way to beat it is to fight the opponent out of spirit range, or split them up; any spirit team that know their own weakness can and will camp guild lord for that next 30 minutes until VoD, dragging to VoD will be a good thing for them if anything. At this rate, both team would need a communion ritualist to fight at fair level. The only way this doesn't happen is if barrage/elementalist/channeling can succesffully destroy those spirits easily; if the spirit team can spam shelter and union, taking spirit out easily won't likely to happen. There are also plenty of anti-interruption.
*Binding ritual is not a spell.
================================
Spawning Power:
This line is probably a must have for most of the ritualists out there. A line that primary necro wish they had.

PvP
Make your spirit live even longer, what can be better? With Ritual Lord (not stance nor enchantment, 12 sec recharge on both shelter and union? wow...).
PvE
If you are looking for a minion master to tank, you probably won't need necro again... The 4% spawning power make a lv10 bone minion to have more hp (459 with 16 spawn) than a lv18 bone horror (440). Although the bone horror probably have more armor (did anyone test that? someone should), but the bone minion make it up for having more.

Note:
*Signet of creation is only half of the answer to spirit spam, all it do is resetting the field AFTER 30 sec. If the ritualist can not be stop while they put up more spirit after the reset, it would a pointless effort. Not only that, signet of creation won't effect any new spirit that is comming out after its usage. While using the signet, you are under threat of interruption too.
*Ally destroying spirit skills allowed alot of ranger ritual also become more flexible, such as when you need your own frozen soil to die.
*healing ball may be ressurected onto the PvP field again.
=================================
Interesting things to think about
A potential overpower build? A good number of Rt/Mo + Ancestor's rager + zealot's fire + sending a warrior to chase someone.

A more powerful version of 55 monk or maybe a 55 ritualist?? 55 + protective spirit + regen + Vengeful was Khanhei

A more powerful version of trapper farming? Cruel was daoshen + traps

Nightmare weapons potential in spiking?

Potential of vengeful weapon comparing to reversal of fortune?

What type of damage does spirit of pain deal? If it is physical, will it OoV/OoP effect it as somehow the damage dealt by them was counted as your? (under predatory season, you are healed whenever pain does dmg, so I heard)

Will earthbind power thunderclap enough to make it worthy?

defensive w/rt = the new paladin?
=====================================
Seemingly useless skills:
Doom- Not enough damage for its energy, recharge, damage, and also situational.

Dulled Weapon- Not practical at all, there are plenty of other things out there. This is only good if there are large number of crit assasins out there while a cover hex is used with it. As good as scourage sacrifise.

Destruction- Chance of it reaching its highest potential are slim to none in high-end PvP, even if it did reach the higher, it isn't enough. Even reaching half way would be a problem, it also isn't worthy to keep alive given the tiny AoE size as a spirit.

Mighty was Vorizun- I can't see how this space is worth it, if it stack with weapons then I would be happy to take it. Carrying this also means you can not use other item spell.

Blind was Mingson- Throw dirt had better effect than this... How often do you see throw dirt in GvG? Might be good in CA.

Lively was Naomi/Restoration- It is better if you make your build to never need this skill.

Resilient Was Xiko- Not worth giving up your weapons for the little effect it gave. Maybe good for CA.

Its a brilliant skill for Edge Bombs :P
Seems to be armor ignoring damage.

Actually, Resilient was Xiko as the potential to provide a cheap healing skill when combined with:

Soothing Memories - 5 en 1 cast 5 recharge
Spell. Target ally is healed for 10 Health. If you are holding an item, you gain 3 Energy.

Heck you might lose your weapon/focus but you gain a decent mitigation against hex/condition and a very cheap healing skill. Resilient is a good skill to combine with Memories due to it's cheap cost and quick recharge.

It is hard to say that Xiko can be use for that, as a healer you will most likely to want as few hex/condition on you as possible.

You don't want to stay cripple to get beating from warrior
You don't want bleed/poison/disease on you as that already over power the regen
You don't want to stay daze now do you?
Burning last a bit too short to be even considering to remove it

Now what hex will you be hit with? Anti caster hex?

I would consider melandru's resilence for the energy regen, but not this.

There are other better option to use soothing memories with.

Can't argue with EoE bomb, but I don't know how often the chance of it being use sucessful (both EoE and LwN) to be worth taking along.

for most of the weekend i was running a ritualist healer with soothing memories and attuned was songkai. I couldn't run out of energy while it was up and the focus swap which it makes you do when you drop the item gives you the energy to heal through the 15 second down time.

Destruction caught my eye, not for it's crappy damage, but as the best spirit to sacrifice for spells like Rupture and Consume Soul.

No other spirit that I saw has 10 en / 3 cast / 20 recharge.

The extra damage done when it's sacrificed is just icing on the cake...

Personally I think Soul Twist is going to be nuts. It's the elite I'm looking forward to running.

Destruction would be a good sacrifice for that as well...

Of course, with only one Spirit type available at a time, you're basically just sacrificing one spirit to sacrifice another? (to take advantage of the instant recharge)...

Ideally the skill would be used to create a chain of spirits to be quickly renewed. Sacrificing one spirit that the refresh time has already recycled, then moving through the lineup keeping all the refresh timers active. The problem is, i have doubts that the ritualist energy will keep beyond the first cycle of spirits if they include any of the 25e spirits. It is something i think would be idea in attempting to sustain something like union or shelter while under constant pressure.

Destruction's weakness is just like Ele AoE, you need the them to stand in the range of it. That doesn't really happen once people know what it does.

I don't think ritualist have energy problem at all, since they are already quite decent by themselves, while they still got a 2nd profession to help them out with it. More than enough.

I see R/Rt's becoming more popular than Rt/x. As phades mentioned, Ritualist would have problems keeping any of the 25 energy spirits up for very long. Since the costs are affected by expertise, a Ranger can put them up nearly indefinitely with Oath Shot. I could, however, see some problems will the health sacrificing spirits like Shelter, Displacement, and especially Union. That probably won't last longer than a few seconds without some heavy investment in Spawning Power.

Hmmm, well, Ritualists do have more energy than Rangers, but will that help?

Plus, Ritualists have spells that either gain energy while summoning, or speed up recharges (nothing like Oath shot, to be sure).

But again, if you can only have one of each spirit up at a time, how quickly do you need to recharge?

I can honestly see E/Rt more common for PvE - especially with Channeling.

But I've already decided to make a Rt/x. I just need to decide my secondary. Whether it works well or not remains to be seen....

If it's a part of a spirit spam team, Quickening Zephyr would probably see play, enabling them to refresh all of their skills every 10 seconds, rather than 20. Only need 2-3 spirit spammers to make it nigh-impossible to keep up with them all, and with enough of a variety of defensive spirits, you could probably get away with it. Whirling Defence and Displacement drop the chances of being hit by an arrow-based interrupt significantly, and Leech Signet and Cry of Frustration are the only options for spell based. (And an interrupt won't help for long)
Toss in some player-controlled direct damage, hex removal, condition removal, and you're set.

It's true that there are other choice to use with soothign memeory who arguably have better effect then Xiko. But those choice all are either elite, have a long recharge or cost most energy to cast. Thus I beleieve that Xiko is the most flexible choice since it can easly be dropped and recasted should the need occur. Plus, even though in an ideal situation you do not want to be victime and condition, there are many time when you cannot effetively remove them all instanteneously or don't feel the need to. For example, what would be the point to remove life siphon when the net degen would be -1?

I just like Spirit Spamming and when I am being attacked, I use Mighty was Daoshen and I can survive a TON longer. Plus, I have less chance of being spiked.

There is a way to have multiple spirits of the same type. I forgot how it was done but there is a pic in one of the other post here.

I biggest problem with spirits is they CANNOT kill you. They will reduce your life to 1 but cannot kill. That means they are useless for def unless there is an npc or another player there with them.

There's an Ashes skill that creates a Pain Spirit when dropped. It was bugged over the preview weekend which allowed people to create multiple copies of Pain. I assume it'll be fixed by the time Factions goes live.

Or, say, a Ritualist willing to wield its wand/staff? After all, no matter how pathetic caster weapons are compared to normal offensive weapons, they can do one lousy damage :-P

The point was you can't leave spirits alone in GvG for seiging your lord to defend ganks off.

You are forgetting a spirit can be killed with 2-3 hits from a warrior.

You will slow down the other team but they will soon be on top of you. Even wanding the spirits gets them down pretty fast.

Personally I will be running a ritualist healer in GvG, they are very hard to kill indeed