Doing the research thing - PVP Ritualist Healing and Razah

Hey everyone. A Warrior player here, and a former Ritualist. That was back before Nightfall was ever mentioned.

So anyhow, its been a while. And my time as one, though productive, was short-lived. In the end, I liked being a meat shield.

I've been equipping and tweaking all my heroes, and now I come to Razah.

I've dug around the Hero build forum, and unfortunately he doesn't get too much love with a restoration build. I haven't had too much luck there.

So I thought - I should come to the source! Why not see what experienced Ritualists are doing? Perhaps I could find some new insights on the standard cookie-cutter builds.

Based upon what I've seen suggested, I've come up with this preliminary build:

CODE: OACiEyk8QMjmZs4Z1TaO5MmA

RESTORATION: 12+4
SPAWNING: 12+1

[skill]Attuned Was Songkai[/skill][skill]Soothing Memories[/skill][skill]Weapon of Warding[/skill][skill]Wielder's Boon[/skill][skill]Recuperation[/skill][skill]Mend Body and Soul[/skill][skill]Spirit Light[/skill][skill]Flesh of my Flesh[/skill]

He heals effectively, but I was wondering if anyone had tips to further improve Razah's effectiveness, if that is possible.

Some notes:

- For now, I'm not too interested in using Shelter and Union. Human Ritualists are there for that, although I may consider it if GW:EN brings another Ritualist hero. Or perhaps a spiking build.

- I like to keep the heroes using as few attributes as possible. I treat them as powered up henchmen. When I want more skilled builds, I go for real players. So for this, I'd prefer to stay with just the Restoration and Spawning lines, although I'd consider Communing if necessary.

- As with the above, keep it to one profession. I generally use heroes when I feel like variety or can't find any groups. Generally, I go with real players when I can find'em or need some more interesting builds.

- I'm especially interested in any builds that use Weapon Spells and elite skills other than Attuned Was Songkai.

Thank you for your time in advance. I hope to find some interesting tips and/or suggestions.

Personally I prefer Life over Recuperation, I don't see what makes it worth 25 energy...

If you want.. you could try a build replacing Attuned Was Songkai with Weapon of Remedy and using Protective Was Kaolai along with Soothing Memories for energy management. Add in Life, and you'll have a party-wide heal available to you most of the time.

I don't know how Razah would cope with this build though.. I haven't got the chance to find a good group to acquire him yet..

It's 25 Energy because even non-primary Ritualists can give +3 Health regeneration to all minions, pets, allied NPCs, party members, and spirits within range. It's Godly.

I'll give the above a look, and see what happens. Conditon removal would be something to work around, actually.

Any good builds that specialize in that? Seems like they have some decent condition removal options over monks.

As for getting Razah, you can do itself without too much trouble. I had little luck getting a group on my own as well, so I went for him on my own. I did it using Nogru with an interrupt build (Power Block for the win), Magrid the Sly with an interrupt build (Dazed effects work wonders), and Tahlkora with a protection build. You could probably switch Nogru or Magrid out for a fire nuker, also. I had Nogru focus on monks, and Magrid focus on elementalists. With them shut down, me and the henchies took care of the rest. For henchies, I went with Herta, Cynn, Devona, and Mhenlo (or the other one, I forget).

The hardest part is when you first enter the area. Just wait at the entrace, one group will come straight for you (helps to set a waypoint for all at the entrance). Defeat them, and its just a matter of pulling and luring. When you do the actual quests, be careful, as you get ambushed at each spirit. If I remember correctly, there's a group of Abaddon's creatures (Word of Madness, etc.), Shadow Creatures, and Titans. I think the Shadow Creatures were the most difficult, but I did it without many casualities.

Quote:

I actually prefer the Monk heroes over Razah. Most Ritualist skills require triggers (a spirit up, a weapon spell on someone, or an item in your hand), and from what I've seen of Razah's AI he uses most things poorly. Spirits are dropped at the wrong places, item spells are run with no regard to energy management, and weapon spells find themselves put on the most random of allies.

If you REALLY want to bring Razah with you, I would set him up with some easy Channeling build and use him as a secondary Elementalist. If you have a human Ritualist with you, perhaps you could give Razah Mend Body & Soul or Spirit Light to use as the human puts the spirits down in the proper locations.

I've just been frustrated out of my mind using Razah. I just think that of the three heroes you can bring, the Monk and Elementalist builds are generally much more straightforward and difficult to screw up.

From GuildWiki:

At 12 restoration magic, Recuperation causes +3 health regen for 39 seconds, which is a maximum of 234 points of healing per affected ally. With few allies, it is on par with some Monk healing spells if calculating healing per energy spent. However, if affecting a full party, a few NPCs, minions, pets or even an allied party, the energy efficiency can reach values that beat any monk healing spell.

...which I agree with. So... I suppose it's more like "ZOMG FULL PARTY/MINIONS/PETS/SPIRITS ORISON WITH DF BONUS!"

Seriously: as easy as it seems to make a rest build for a rit for pvp, it isnt. The "12 rest, 12 spawning" approach is horrendous, and here's why: Rits aren't very good at spike healing. Every second you spend laying a spirit is a second someone in your party might be getting spiked to death. Solution? Here's mine:

Spirit Light Weapon
Spirit Light
Mend body & soul
Shadowsong
Pain
Disenchantment
Recovery
Flesh of my flesh

11+3+1 Rest
10+1 communing
10 Spawning

Why?
The spirits have long durations. That makes the rest skills work better.
I would never go into pvp without shadowsong. Place it on your back and you're immune to assassins.
Disenchantment is awesome utility. Sometimes you don't use it at all, sometimes it saves your team.
Recovery makes burning arrow rangers much worse, and SF elementalists basically suck.
Try it before bashing please, you'll be pleasantly surprised, I think.

EDIT: Btw, if that's a pvp build, you might consider a second spirit. I dont know about the rest of you, but I kill Recuperation on sight(-3 regen for the whole party, -25 energy for the rit? Sign me up). Then your skills #6 and #7 suddenly suck.

I agree that Recuperation is not a viable PvP skill. However, The Campfire is a PvE board... and I'm guessing that this is a PvE build (esp. since it's for Razah).

The problem is that this thread is FOR RAZAH. The AI priorities for Ritualist skills right now is so fubar'd that it's far too frustrating to run anything other than a RitLord build on him. If you put a comprehensive Ritualist build on Razah, I can say with near-certainty that he's gonna screw it up. He can't hit the triggers unless they're absolutely braindead, he lays spirits over healing people, etc., etc., etc. It's just too frustrating for me.

If you MUST use Razah, set him up with the most braindead of builds. [skill]Mighty was Vorizun[/skill] would be a nice choice for an item skill. The cooldown is shorter than the item's limit, so Razah will be able to carry the item forever (and he will want to). With that item spell, you can unlock a fairly decent channeling or restoration build based around item spells. Possible other good item spells to use would include [skill]Generous was Tsungrai[/skill] or [skill]Protective was Kaolai[/skill]. Each has a long cooldown, and Razah will normally be smart enough to keep the pot in his hands so he'll hit the triggers of his spells.

I don't like basing his builds around Spirits or Weapon Spells. From what I've seen, Razah has no idea where to put them. Splinter Weapons go on Tahlkora and Dunkoro. Life goes down during periods of no activity whatsoever, leaving it in cooldown when it's actually needed (at the very start of a battle). Builds that are theoretically set around perfectly good skills are horribly mangled. I've found that you really almost need to set YOURSELF up so that Razah doesn't act like a complete imbecil.

That'll normally mean that you can only use a combination Spirit/Item skill on Razah, with you taking a Spirit/Weapon Spell combination. Razah would only be getting skills that trigger off of spirits (like [skill]Mend Body and Soul[/skill]) and item spells (like [skill]Soothing Memories[/skill]), coupled with a simple item creation skill like I said earlier. I don't think that you should put skills that trigger off of weapon spells on your bar, because at the moment I'm unsure if Razah knows to hit those triggers or not (I haven't had time to check, so take that last statement with a grain of salt).

That would leave you with the bigger part of the build, the one laying spirits and putting beneficial weapon spells on people. Just something as simple as a [skill]Recuperation[/skill][skill]Life[/skill][skill]Offering of Spirit[/skill][skill]Essence Strike[/skill][skill]Resilient Weapon[/skill][skill]Weapon of Warding[/skill] might work (the rest would be optional, probably take a heal spell or two).

You have to make things absolutely braindead if you want to bring Razah with you. I just think that it's more fun to bring a fun build that you want to play with.

Just checked, and Razah does NOT use wielder's boon more often on characters with weapon spells on them. He will also always finish laying down a spirit, even if after the first second he's being hit by 15 foes.

After trying some builds out on a friend's account (who has unlocked Razah, unlike me :P), I wholeheartedly agree. The AI for Ritualist Heroes is completely and utterly !@#$ed. They don't recognize the synergy of ANY of their skills that I could notice, save for the ones that are nearly automatic (X only happens if a spirit is nearby, etc.).

Made me want to cry.

Oh.. also.. just noticed--this thread should probably be in the Gladiator's Arena forum, eh?

PvP ritualists start and end with weapon of remedy. I don't know if Razah can handle it, but it's really just putting up your item and enchant, then spamming the shiite out of vengeful weapon and weapon of remedy.

Try something like

[skill]renewing memories[/skill][skill]generous was tsungrai[/skill][skill]vengeful weapon[/skill][skill]weapon of remedy[/skill][skill]soothing memories[/skill][skill]power drain[/skill][skill]leech signet[/skill][skill]flesh of my flesh[/skill]

Seems pretty brainless, and actually does something a monk can't do.

Actually PvP Ritualists are either Weapon of Remedy guys or Splinter Weapon guys. Would be both, if you could make the energy not suck.

For Razah, Weapon of Remedy is the only bar I've found that he'll play reasonably well on his own. He throws around the weapons like heals, which isn't quite what you want but is close enough. Also, if you give him a pot he's good about holding it all the time. That enables Soothing Memories.

The bar Dr Strangelove posted is pretty solid. I don't think Renewing Memories is very good without 13 Spawning though (for the -2 per cast) and that precludes Inspiration...Razah doesn't really spam weapons enough to make it worthwhile. I've tried Wielder's Remedy in that slot as well, which is OK (he maintains it) but he also doesn't seem to know what it does, so results are sketchy. If there was something else good for that slot, I'd run it.

I like Generous, but am in love with Protective Was Kaolai on Razah. He keeps the pot up at all times, and more importantly he knows what it does. If your team gets blasted by a big AoE hit, he will drop the ashes almost instantly for a party-wide heal. Then he puts it right back up. It's really phenomenal and a rare bright spot for an otherwise inept AI. Generous on the other hand isn't maintained up like Protective...he only puts it up as a self heal, so he'll be firing off Soothing often without any benefit.

With the pot dropping, he ends up being pretty good with Ether Signet too, if that's something you're interested in exploring.

Peace,
-CxE

When I first got Razah, I was so excited to see the potential 2 rits could do in every area possible.


Wow, big mistake.

Rits are the most technical profession skillwise, and obviously Anet didn't remember that when making his AI. It's like taking a person who has played solely on a W/Mo in Proph, tossing him on a rit, and just giving him the skill names -_-

IMHO, rits are easily my favorite prof ever, but Razah makes me look at my dreaded Zhed and *click*.