Update - Thursday August 16

plz take an other look at "jagged bones" the 15 sec recharge is to long to keep my minions alive
lower the recharge plz, thnx

They really stacked like that, people under these hexes would hit nothing. Otherwise they would hit in 28% of the cases still, and they never did. SO at that time they stack as plus. Maybe they changed it last half year. But I used it, as I was curious to the stacking, and then I found out they stacked as sum and not as a product. Smart people just stopped, preventing me to gain energy

Read through all the post and wondering ..... why the discussion about Reckless Haste? I don't see that on the list of skills changed.

Good job on the un-nerf of the Rit. Now, if we could just get the re-connect feature back.

I've left the Euro districts for America due to the new party search additions. I've become quite fond of selling and buy in the party search window and in Europe it's almost useless again for english speaking persons...

yes it hasn't been changed BACK to its original or simillar setting.

RT spike, welcome back

Haha you're so bad at Guild Wars. Read the description again, THEN repost saying that rit spike is back. Because it isn't, and never will be.

This update gets a pass from me.

You know that you can't have multiple instances of the same enchantment on you right?

Assasins are coming for you...

Buffs I go woot for

Way of
Palm Strike
Iron Palm
Unsuspecting strike

Palm strike and Iron palm are great finishers for the umm.. signit spike build.

Unsuspecting strike is great to use in rotation in pve.

wild strike buff is much needed what they need to to fix the Lead-off hand problem is

Make most leads have 1/4 activation time and have a special component in off hands that says If this skill follows a lead attack it uses 1/4 activation etc.

Exhaustion was not the way to handle the Ritualist. Thank you ANET for listening to the community about this. Classes with 45-55 energy were never meant to handle it as was demonstrated last week. Heck I might even start using Xinrae's Weapon.

Now if you would please return Bloodsong back to the communing attribute where it belongs and move Anguished was Lingwah to channeling. That would be fantastic.

Some classes have the luxury to whine about a skill being in the wrong spell line. Necromancers have taken so much hate lately nobody would ever dream of asking Dark Bond to be moved to Death Magic.

As long as we don't draw any attention to any particular spell, maybe we'll get to keep it as it is...

The sin buffs are pretty cool, will they see use other than me and a few others now? I dont think so off>dual off>dual will still be the meta untill gwen mabay.

I *love* the new ancestor's rage on my dervish.

I have my tahlkora set up as a smiter/channeler, mostly built around zealot's fire and splinter weapon (yeah I'm sure there are better things to do with a monk hero, but I like moar pew pew), and with the new AR she'll also give me a little energy.

Couple things though, isn't it time to add graphical effects for ending enchants? With the new AR, the effect plays when you receive the buff, but nothing happens when it deals damage. Same thing goes for a lot of the dervish enchants which have effects when they end like mirage cloak, aura of thorns, and so on.
Another thing is that AR now displays the yellow damage numbers for the person who received the enchant and not the one who cast it. Not a huge deal I spose, but just a little sideeffect I noticed.

I like everything in this update. I didn't like Exhaustion on Ritualist skills, and now they've removed it. The changes they made to slow down Ritualist spikes seem to be pretty reasonable, and the change to Spirit Burn makes it stay very good for a single Rit to use while hurting its group spike power considerably.

Also, this pretty well destroys any arguement that they don't never change anything meaningful after they throw it onto live for a test week. They tried something interesting and it didn't turn out well, so they removed it and tried something else. I just hope that anyone who thinks it was the rants that changed their minds will go back and take a look at all the reasonable, carefully explained feedback as to exactly why giving Ritualist skills exhaustion was not a good way to balance Ritualists.

Yes. Obviously a 130+ damage spell with a cost of 5 energy, a casting time of 1/4 and a recharge of 8 is balanced.

This is my personal opinion, but Ritualists ruined GW PvP completely. Every single aspect of Ritualists is pure gimmick. Weather its lame spirit spamming or back when they had the spiking and whatnot. They've made HB obsolete pretty much, sins are destined to be good in that situation so they SHOULD be on a lot of builds because its logical. But it at least takes a bit of skill to worry about positioning and watching the overextension and whatnot to play a sin. However a spirit spammer just goes 1-2-3 etc, rinse repeat. The entire class takes no skill whatsoever to play, and is THE most gimmicky profession I've ever seen on ANY game.

I personally loved the nerf to Rits, pretty bummed that they reverted the stuff back.

Posting this in every thread that discusses skillbalance? You must really be desperate for fame

^ It's a valid complaint. JB has been nerfed silly. I know of the exploit. It's still been nerfed silly.

we got reconnect back a couple days ago.

Hero Battles are a gimmick.Not Ritualists.Try again.

Protip:Hero Battle's suck ass.Always have,always will.

Anyway,its at least reaffirming that Anet used the changes listed instead of Exhaustion,it at least makes them usable.

ive been w/ this game for about a month now,
I can already tell they fix bugs and do lot of necessary(?) adjustments and updates,
i always wonder around different online game, but I think ima settle w/ this game for a while now

Is it ironic that someone from [ftl] keeps suggesting this?

Because you decided to be a pompous ass about it, I decided to reply where a reply really isn't necessary since you obviously missed my entire point because you were too fixated on an EXAMPLE I gave.

Rits in HERO BATTLES was ONE example of how ritualists ruined GW PvP. I also mentioned the rit spike which was commonly found in HA. I also mentioned spirit spammers who, and this might be a shocker to you since you obviously have a vast understanding of PvP, are actually used outside of Hero Battles. Spirit spammers were a huge part of the game ever since they were created, they single handedly made Soul Reaping too powerful, with taking VERY little skill to play such a powerful build. They ruined HA, they forced A-net to make a change to Necros that was unnecessary until Rits came into the game, and now they've ruined yet another form of PvP (though a lesser form, none the less...) in HB.

There really is no way to use a ritualist in a versatile manner, basically every other profession you have a few cookie cutter builds and then some room for creativity. With rits, the list ends after the cookie cutter builds.

I really see no good in having ritualists in the game.

With lols. Complaining when you get what you want?

Cute - but he is right.
Rits does not have the depth of other chars.

Spirits, from the beginning, where always a bad idea. The mechanics governing it is terrible. It is spam or nothing. It slows the game down and sets the battle to AI non-skill based game.

Weapon spells although sounded promising is also flawed. irremovable and often 'set it and forget it' usage behind it.

So spirits and weapon spell, 2/3 of the idea behind Rits, are heavily flawed.

Ashes has a lot of potential but....

Its greatness is in its versatility to fill any needed roll except anti hex. Ashes are fantastic if you understand how to use them. Apparently you do not.

Just because you can't understand something does not mean the class fails. It only in proves your failure in understanding it.

Apprently your lack of actual argument gave you a permission to be stupid.

Your cliche 'failure' spouts are ironic, considering I am the one that explains my stance with supporting explanation while yours is just unimaginative garbage that comes out from those who lack actual insight.

Let me see - versatility in what?

It's most powerful skills - spirit - is a 'set it and forget it' mechanic. You do nothing. Actual work is done by the program's AI. What skill does it actually involve?

How about weapon spell? Most efficient when used with other team members. But again, many are 'set it and forget' mechanics. Throwing it back at them when you see the little sword disappear from your party list. Actual work (be it targeting, kiting, interupting, etc) are done by OTHER team members. Not the stupid Rit.

Not to mention, spirits slows down the game unnecessarily. It also promotes stagnant team movement because everyone is camping defensively and the battle is focused on a small portion of the map.

This is why most if not all spirit Rit builds are so vulnerable to splits.

As I said 'Ashes has a lot of potential'. But it is limited by its current implementation. Comprende senor Glory Fox?

So what is your actual argument? Or do you just flame?

The class is dumb. You fail for your shallow and knee jerk response. You fail along with the Rit that should be removed from GW. If you are going to flame, better be ready. Regurgitating 'fail' flames you hear from your HS playground is not really an argument.

I have to agree with Shiz here..let's examine the rit abilities for a brief moment.

Channeling=basically a retarded version of air magic. I don't really see a point to it.

Communing=mindless spamming that in numbers creates a wall of defenses difficult to penetrate.

Restoration= A bunch of conditional heals which conflict with the monk and don't really serve a purpose.

Spawning Power=Umm..not much to say about this, although it is getting better with skills like spirit's strength and such.

Pretty much there isn't much strategic dept to them, and I wouldn't mind if they were nerfed harder really.

Umm..What?

wow seems there are a few upset "ritualist-haters" who saw the nerf reverted back. Seriously, have you all ACTUALLY tried playing an RT? The grass is always greener on the other side. I am fed up with this easier to use or no skills crap. Before I used to think melee classes would be easier to play. With all the conditions and anti-melee hexes, I was wrong and they are not that better off.


Channeling :
Most channeling skills require a condition to make it effective. Compare to Ele a majority spells they can cast it straight without worrying about conditional effects. Contrary to some people's belief, Ancestor's rage and Spirit Rift are harder to use than they seem. They require setup and good timing. Some of the imbalances come from coordination of two or more teammates, not from the skill themselves. The person on the receiving-end always thinks its easy but they dont see the preparation, coordination, and/or timing needed to execute it.

Spirits :
Spirits are unreliable, they have a predetermined targeting behavior which most of time is unpredictable. Placement is important so they have maximum chance of targetting your desired target. Yes i do agree the the pre-nerf ritual lord build was a no-brainer, but that was the pass. Did i mention spirit setup is time consuming? Ever had shadowsong gleefully attack a caster when a melee class is bashing away at your monk nearby? No work done due to program AI? Ranger pets? Necro minions? Pets and minions at least follow their called targets.

Weapon Spells :
Weapon spells are fire and forget? Well I dont see how its different than placing enchantments type spells on a target ally. You can still pick your targets wisely. and/or whoever needs it the most. Yes they cannot be removed but they cannot be stacked. A teammate RT with multiple weapon spells can easily cancel each other out, doing more harm than good. That also requires coordination. Little green swords and bright green enchant arrows. How is it different?

Ashes and Item Spells :
Ashes are an interesting concept to master, you energy and health fluctuates from every cast and drop of the item. Mistime its drop or cast and you can end up with 0 energy. Or you can even use it to hide energy. No skills involved? Not entirely so.

I like how everyone saying the "Rits are versatile, you just don't know how to use them" argument is in a guild no one ever heard of and are, and this is just my guess based on 2.5 years of reading this forum, completely awful at pvp.

Warriors just mindlessly bash things with swords and axes and hammers.
Necros can mindlessly use minions, or mindlessly hex whatever, or mindlessly give energy to monks that are mindlessly enchanting the mindlessly bashing warriors, while eles are mindlessly nuking things. Rangers then can mindlessly touch, thump, or shoot arrows. Assassins can then mindlessly run funny.

Guess the only profession not mindlessly playing are mesmers.

/end sarcasm

What people mean is that there is no cookie cutter for rits that rewards skilled play like say Burning Arrow ranger. Rits like support resto-chans and remedy/gust flaggers just haven't been on obs mode in a while. 5e rage and the mild SoR hit might change that slightly, but maybe not.

There seems to be some ignorance in this thread.

It's first important to get one thing straight. Ritualists are indeed a noob-friendly profession. Certain and basic Ritualist builds can be very easy to use and still be very effective, even in high-end PVE and moderate-skilled PVP. The important distinction is that there are also very good Ritualist builds that require much more skill and expertise. It can be easy to see why an outside class looking in at the way many Rits play can lead to frustration.

However, after extensive time played with Ritualists, I have grown to love them for their versatility beyond the noob-friendly builds. They are indeed a "Jack-of-all-Trades." They heal well with their entire Restoration tree (though not as directly well as Monks). They support a team well with skills such as Vital Weapon and spirits such as Shelter. Ritualist/Necros make good Minion Master alternatives with the health support provided by high Spawning Power. Ritualists are very decent spikers with the Channeling line (although these abilities have conditions that must be met and requires much more skill than cookie-cutter Spirit Spamming builds). With Nightfall's Spirit's Strength, they're even shockingly good at Melee and even ranged with a bow. There's really only a couple things a Rit can't do well: tank and break hexes (although when it comes to tanking, I've seen some smart builds when it comes to Rt/R builds using VwK...

But the true beauty of the Ritualist are the little twists that they bring into the picture of each advanced build they use. When it comes to healing, you can't classify a Rit as being "kind of the same" as a Healing Prayers monk, or "kind of the same" as a Prot monk. Ritualists have their own, supporting flavor.

They aren't as good as primary healers (although if a Monk is tough to find, Ritualists can definitely suffice), but I personally feel that there is no better secondary healer with the cards they can bring to the table. The weapon skills like Weapon of Remedy and Vengeful Weapon provide not only for some extra, immediate protection on a player getting pounded on, but the vampiric quality of the skills allow for the heals to dent the enemy back as well. Restoration is a great Spirit that allows a monk or another healer to save mana from the small hits or debuffs like bleeding.

When it comes to being a Minion Master, obviously the four lost points in Death Magic hurts the offensive output of a Ritualist MM, despite the added health the Minions get from Spawning Power. However, the Ritualist "twist" comes with the skill Explosive Growth, which when especially used with Summon Bone Minions, provides the Rit MM with a bit of a helpful damage spike for large or bunched groups as well as the joy of getting minions in the process.

As far as skill goes, one must understand that Ritualists indeed have many, many much more advanced skills than "Pain, Shadowsong, Disenchantment, Dissonance, *waits for energy to replenish*, Anguish, repeat." Spirit Spiking or Spamming is effective, but Ritualists aren't limited to these easier tactics.

Many skills in the Ritualist lines are based on conditions that must be met to achieve full effectiveness (or any sort of effectiveness). A spirit must be present, or a weapon skill must be cast on a player (which don't last long at all if you're thinking about any other weapon skill than Vital Weapon, and then you have to hope you got enough points in Communing). An item must be held, which usually just means you need an Ashes spell in your skillbar and to use it. These ashes spells are very good, but require some skillful energy management as well since a Ritualist loses his or her weapon bonuses that become very easy to rely on.

Even the trees that usually have a specific purpose have variety in them that allow for other twists of old strategies. A very underused skill I see from Resto Rits in RA, TA, and AB is Blind was Mingson. Even a Rit, with all of the other skills based in healing, can add that Restoration tree skill to their bar to really fudge up melee instantly. Just make sure you have the skill and timing to know when to cast the spell and right when to drop the ashes, since you want to make those 8 seconds last but before you get knocked down and helpless.

Ritualists, with the range of builds they can successfully use and add their own unique flavor to the classic stereotypes of "healer," "minion master," "spiker," "supporter," "melee," "range," and of course the classic "spirit spammer," are easily the most versatile profession in the game. It's to the point where it's basically an objective fact. Do they make the best healer? Most of the time, no although there are exceptions like Arborstone. Do they make the best Minion Master? In most situations, not really although the explosive corpse factor is likely to be preferred by at least a few players out there. Do they make the best melee class? Not with that armor, but you'd be unwise to underestimate their damage output with Spirit's Strength (a melee build was requires 2 conditions to be constantly fulfilled and skillfully kept up). The point is that the Ritualist still performs all these functions well and effectively, with added bonuses and twists here and there as compensation. These bonuses and twists only come, though, if you have the skill and strategy to experiment and discover the proper build variations.

A noob probably sees spirits as the main draw of the Ritualist, but after many hours and extensive play, I see the main draw as pure versatility. There are a slew of completely different, effective, and entertaining builds on top of the easy Spirit Spamming builds so commonly (and accurately) associated with new and inexperienced players. Just don't mistake these easy builds as the extent of the Ritualist's arsenal.

@crimsonfilms

I did not troll you I expect the same courtesy. I merely pointed out that just because you fail to understand many of the dynamic’s of the class does not give you any validation to state the following as fact.

How does this statement give you any credibility at all? If I already know you are set in this position what argument can I possibly say to change your mind? You have already stated your position in other posts and it is futile and a waste of my time on the trivial tripe you call an argument. Therefore you "fail" at understanding the class and the skill it takes in overcoming its deficiencies. Therefore any attempt I have at educating you will be a waste of my time. So I will waste some of my time in an attempt to educate you to what many good players already know.

The Ritualist has by default many obstacles to overcome if it is to be reconciled on the battlefield that is PvP. These obstacles can range from long casting times (such as the 5 seconds for Shadow Song) to fulfilling the requirements upon efficiently using damaging spells such as Channeled Strike.

This is why you fail, the build of a Ritualist is paramount to the Ritualist succeeding his/her role while overcoming the limitations of the spells he uses. Many classes simply do not have this problem to overcome such as an Elementalist who can mindlessly spam Meteor Swarm or Blinding Flash. Thus a good Ritualist player will be better than most other professions due to the planning involved overcoming his limitations.

You accuse the Ritualist player of being mindless at Spirit placement. However many of the spirits act little differently then the Wards of an Earth Elementalist or the Wells of a Necromancer. The exception is that Spirits such as Soothing and Earthbind, can be eliminated from damage whereas Wards and Wells cannot be dispelled or removed. Yes the Spirits can last longer and do have a greater range than wells or wards; the reasoning (balance) that you seem to not understand) is to make up for the fact that a ward and wells in many cases can be cast 3x or more than a spirit with no fear of being removed. Therefore the planning of Spirit placement is paramount to the success of the Ritualist player. Many of the attacking spirits are and were meant to be distractions to provide the Ritualsit with some moderate protection so he can set up his "Wards" or Spirits such as Soothing or Earthbind to protect his area. This was far to strong in the early use of the Ritualist so they balanced it by placing Blood Song from communing into channeling.

Furthermore placement of the Spirits is paramount for its most effective use while avoiding an interruption and soaking up damage because you cannot move for the 5 seconds it takes to set up your Earthbind or Soothing type Spirits, and as anyone who is good at PvP knows if you don't kite your dead.

This deficiencies of the class do not make the Ritualsit weak but rather force the player to improve his overall game. Bad player using Ritualists get killed whereas good players only make bad PvP players frustrated.

You can learn a lot from this quote there is wisdom said here.

Trolling someones guild is pure tactless crap.

The versatility of the Ritualist comes form its ability to Protect, Ward through Weapon Spells and Spirits, heal with effective condition removal, attack though channeling energy, and defend though attacking spirits. This is one of the many reasons why an all Ritualist team does very well. Few classes can afford the versatility the Ritualist class offers. This makes the Ritualist effectively a Jack of all Trades and yet the master of what it does when in groups.

So are you talking about pvp or not? This thread seems to be pvp people saying "rits are bad for the game" vs pve people who are saying "well you obviously aren't using 'insert bad skill here'".

If you are talking about pve, who gives a crap, change your build and continue to beat pve as easy as it ever was. If you are talking pvp, then I was right the first time by saying that anyone who plays pvp and is pro-ritualist is a scrub.

Please prove me wrong.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HnOKDXr2K4g
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BCdz13rQ_WI

Oh hey look, an effective Rit PVP build. Apology accepted in advance though

I'm sorry, you failed. Please try again later.

I have a ritualist. I played through the entire Factions campaign using an Attack Spirit build. You can target your spirit's attacks. All you have to do is hit the desired target with a single attack (wand, staff, spear etc.).

Minions on the other hand, don't follow calls or respond to attacks at all.

I like the ritualist supporting a split, or as a flagrunner. WoR+vengeful gives healing and offensive support that a monk can't give.