Solo/henchie PVE ritualist

I'm looking to play only with henchies and was wondering how most people got through pve with a ritualist. I just started one and it seems a bit slow and boring to constantly resummon spirits and cast weapon spells on your henchies. Does this improve later on in the game with better skills? One thing I dislike about GW is constantly having to fight low level mobs to get somewhere, which is especially slow with having to wait for recharge for spirits. I've read the other threads here and many have indicated how much fun they have with rits, but don't elaborate other than saying they're versatile. Am I missing something? I really want to play this class but am too inexperienced to realize how to have fun with them. Thanks for your help.

Right now you might want to wait for the AI to settle down. Secondly spirit summoning can be a bit boring. FOr something more of the BOOM variety try minion bomber. or an attuned echo spirit rift.

here's something pretty basic that will be decent fun and very, very effective for hench-and-hero pve:

boon of creation
ritual lord (weapon of quickening works alright as well before you get rit lord)
shelter
union
displacement
pain
shadowsong
doom

great defensive utility if you manage your 3 defensive spirits correctly, and Doom packs a great amount of punch when you have your spawning power jacked way up for builds like this.

alternately, for a lot more fun...the Explosive Growth MM:

max out your spawning power and death magic, and...

boon of creation
explosive growth
blood of the master
...round out with all the minion spells you can pack in.

maintain BoC and EG, and go bananas...with your spawning power hiked up, you'll be healing yourself, getting a partial energy refund, and also doing aoe damage every time you create minions. this, on top of having minions with lots of extra health running around. this is one of my favorite builds. simply put, it's a blast to play, and you'll be a big steamroller of death. also wicked in AB, and all the spells for this are pretty easy to get access to. no elites required--although the flesh golem is a very nice one to use when you do get it.

Here, use a channeling rit build. It uses only Destruction that has a recharge of 20 seconds, when facing mobs it will take about that long to kill them if your heroes are compitent - so you have some good mobility there. With its DPS in the mid 60's per hit on warrior targets, and steady 100's on caster types, it works very well:

Any Elite {E} (I use Echo for mine, but any elite or other skill to support your skillbar)
Destruction
Gaze from Beyond
Essence Strike
Lamentation or Gaze of Fury (bring a support skill if you like, just dont bring Spirit Boon Strike, you can cast GfB and Spirit Burn by the time you finish pulling this skill off)
Spirit Burn
Mend Body and Soul
Resurrection Signet