Suggestion for alternative rit spike balance

Instead of strapping in exhaustion, could ANET have come up with better ways to nerf the relevant skills while making it still viable?

Some suggestions would be (not originally my idea of course) :

Ancestor's Rage

Revert to original 10e 3/4c 8s

Change functionality to : Enchantment spell. Target ally is enchanted with ancestor's rage. After 2 seconds, all foes adjacent to that ally is struck for 30-110 lightning damage.

"Enchantment prevents spamming on a single target for spike while still balancing the power of the spell."

Wielder's Strike

Change functionality to : Increased energy to 10. Target foe is struck for 15...51 lightning damage. Lose one weapon spell. If a weapon spell is lost this way, target foe is struck for an additional 15..51 lightning damage.

"Increase energy cost and lost of weapon spell when cast to reduce sustainability of the spell as spike skill."

Spirit Rift

Revert to casting time of 1 second.

"1 seconds cast and 3 seconds for skill to activate is more than enough to get away from the damage. Snaring is a teamwork coordination, relies more than 1 person to execute thus is not an excuse to nerf this"

Spirit Burn

Target foe is struck for 5...60 lightning damage. If any Spirits are within earshot, target foe is set on fire for 3..5 seconds.

"Still maintain same power as before but loses effectiveness greatly if spammed on single target since burning condition cannot be stacked."

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Other spells are just a victim of exhaustion thrown in. Since it would not "make sense" to throw in exhaustion for just 1-2 skills so they just throw in other skills to make it seem like a general concept for the ritualist class WHICH WASN'T DESIGNED TO HANDLE EXHAUSTION IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Please post some of your ideas and suggestions so that ANET may see the light. Thanks.

I like these changes. Too bad they won't happen .

well ok here's some of my suggestions all piled into one post.
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Wielder's Strike - 5e, 1c, 5r - Target foe is struck for 15...51 lightning damage. If you are under the effects of a weapon Spell, you deal an additional 15...51 armor-ignoring damage and this Spell causes exhaustion.
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Change arena rules so that getting hit by a spell gives you a 1sec immunity to that specific spell being cast on you again
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Scrap the whole balance-skills-around-pvp idea and make pvp be strictly sealed play matches with approved skills
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give mesmer, necro, or rits a spell to remove weapon spells from target
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increase damage and radius of spiritual pain


I'm sure I'm missing one....

if they become removable, why not just make them enchantments? It'd be like Blocking and evading... Same thing, just different names.

...because you can still only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time

edit: oh, and while we're on the subject, make glyphs and preparations removable too

...

Those are all Awesome changes.

You took the Zip out of the Rit Spike,without sodomizing the Channeling line.

oooo I even thought up a specific skill!

Short Term Memory Loss - 10e, 1c, 30r - Remove one stance, one preparation, one glyph, one weapon spell, and one shout from target enemy. If more than one effect is removed, you lose 10...1 energy for each effect removed and all of your skills are disabled for 6....2 seconds. Could be in either fast casting or illusion I'd say.


speaking of fast casting, did anyone ever bother to throw arcane languor on a ritspike? no?

No, because wasting an elite slot just so ONE less rit is spiking you won't help at all.

I just have a small problem with this one.
IMO this would kill AR faster then exhaustion does now in PvE since it relies too much on the actions of a team player. 3/4 is needed because the skill needs to hit almost instantly - at the moment that the foe is near your ally.
The timer kills the point of this skill.

I prefer the lower cost, lower damage, lower recharge method that was listed.
5e, 3/4s, 4s
15-65ish damage.
The damage output is roughly the same - one can just not deliver such a spike with it.

thumbs up.

each of theese chanrge can effectivelly kill said skill for spike, but retain usefulness for normal single Rt.

With the exception of Seed of Life for PVE is there another enchantment that allows stacking? If stacking was disallowed for Ancestors Rage it would take out the spike.

I would definitely sign on for these ideas. Still, I'm with Jeebus because they'll never admit they made a blunder and impliment these more sound ideas.

First of all, if Ancestor's Rage could be put on a target ally, it wouldn't prevent a spike because you could use a dervish to remove the enchantment in one second flat or even use a warrior with twin swipe.

For wielder's strike, I don't see how this could be balanced since you could always use an easily spammable 5 energy weapon spell like vengeful weapon to do the extra spike damage.

Your changes for Spirit Rift, I don't have a problem with.

Spirit Burn, well if you can't stack the burning condition, you can still sure as hell maintain those 3-5 seconds of burning if you keep casting it. So no, I don't agree with this change as well.

All in all, I think ArenaNet did a good job with the Ritualist balance changes and those who whine about the loss of effectiveness with their favorite spirit spammer should just pull up their pants, get back on the horse, and make a new build.

these ideas rock

So? He would remove it one seccond earlier. then what? its not like it would target anywhere close what ancestors used to do.
Energy management... seriously. Anyway, you have no idea how important for pulling-off ritspike was having long lasking vital weapon.
even 5 sec of burning is inferior to what was direct damage bonus on it.

anyway, if spaming subpar direct damage spell wuth bonus burning is so powerfull, i think we would have imolateway had long time ago, amirite?

jeez.

After 2 seconds does not equal when this enchantment ends. removing it early would completely negate the effects methinks.

hehehehehe just wait for the AIRI build to surface in mainstream pvp.... man thats some big targeted AoE damage and burning. no Rits involved, of course, since rit decent damage potential is... well... gone

Good alternative idea on changing AR to pressure damage. With the original proposed change we could increase the range to nearby and drop the damage slightly. Dunno if this would over power the skill tho.

Wielder's Strike is a difficult one to balance IMO. I believe the best way is probably to reduce the damage and increase the recharge and/or energy.

I believe rit spike imbalance comes from their ability to spike at very regular intervals and can maintain that intensity from cycling thru key spells like AR, SB and WS. So throw a wrench in there (in whatever form) to make it much harder or tedious to maintain such cycles would help i think.


Having spikes in 1 sec interval is much better than having all 8 instantly. It gives the monk time to catch it. Besides. those dervish and warrior skills have recharge do they? Dont think they can effectively remove an enchant on themselves every second.


You obviously have something against the RT class don't you? You seem to be against all "positive" alternatives. That being said, I welcome SENSIBLE balance. If some of the key spells are balanced but still viable then I would happily accept that. Recent RT balance i think is just ANET's easy way out solution rather than spending time thinking creative ways to deal with it.

Spirit rift is perfectly fine with a 2 second cast. Seriously, I've used it. Compare the skill to fireball, a solid skill in it's own right. Spirit rift does more damage and recharges faster, the drawback being a 3 second wait. It's fine, quit complaining.

Adding burning to spirit burn makes a lot of sense to me. People keep parroting that the DPS on spirit burn has improved. Yippee, who cares, no one used burn for DPS anyway, it was a spike skill. Change it to burning and you've got a far more interesting and useful DPS skill. if this is overpowered, immolate is overpowered. Stop whining.

I prefer the idea of ancestor's rage as a defensive punishment skill, like reversal of damage, weapon of remedy, and vengeful weapon. How about:

10/.75/8
For 8 seconds, target ally is enchanted with ancestor's rage. The next time that ally takes damage, all adjacent foes are struck for 30...110 lightning damage.

No spike potential, sort of a fun tool for characters being melee trained.

Wielder's strike - Really stupidly overpowered as it was. Really stupidly worthless with exhaustion as it is. No one would use it if it removed your weapon spells, either. How about making it an attack, like the old smite, or making it touch range?

Xinrae's weapon/ashes - Tone down the disabling time to something like 3...10, and remove the exhaustion altogether. The effect isn't that devastating that a 10 second recharge and duration would make it imbalanced, and it does require an elite slot. Besides, with decent recharge and cost, it makes a really nice anti-gimmick spell.

Spirits - Are fine, except anguish. Why does a really expensive, low duration pain warrant exhaustion?

Lamentation - Doesn't work at all since the update, someone fix it already

Other rit stuff not from the update but needing fixes

-Vampirism doesn't trigger painful bond
-Clamor of souls needs something. Perhaps the same as the above version of ancestor's rage, but target all adjacent allies?
-Signet of Ghostly might needs to last 30 seconds, not 10.
-Improve the targeting for preservation, or make the range of the heals earshot.

I don't know why there's a lot of complaining about the Spirit Burn and Spirit Rift changes...both are reasonable skills in their current state.

The Ancestor's Rage nerf hurts a lot though. That was your best source of AoE for almost 2 years and now it's garbage. I don't think it matters if the skill stops being PvP viable entirely with a damage reduction, it's a skill at its best in PvE, and a vital one there, and that should have been taken into account.

Wielder's Strike, feh, it's a skill that has only ever been used to spike people. Exhaustion makes it crap. It should have really just fit into the Spirit Burn mold, 90ish damage under the condition with a 5-8s recharge.

I adapt to the game changes rather than pining over the good old days when armor stacked and the world was filled with amber worth 3,000g each. Whenever a class I use gets nerfed, I create a new build.

It's as simple as that, and those are my last words on this thread. I gave my opinion.