Suggestions for Ritualist class

I've noticed many Ritualist builds never using the Spawning Power attribute, its PRIMARY attribute, and it brought concern to my attention. All other primary attributes have radical effects if you invest enough in them, but frankly, the Ritualist usually gets 2-3 points invested, if ever any. This concern brought about ideas that I figured might make the attribute more viable and, in fact, a necessity for effectiveness in builds, especially weapon spells.

First off, the buffing of Spawning Power. It used to be purely for the effectiveness for your spirits, but then Anet introduced the effect on weapon spells. Even with that, the attribute is very underused, and too specific for its functionality to make it apply to most builds. All Ritualists run now are 12 in channeling, 12 in restoration... and a whopping 3 in spawning. Could a ranger survive like that with 3 in Expertise? Even the paragon's primary attribute is WAY more popular than this attribute, because that attribute section has skills that work awesome and exclusive to paragon, so a suggestion would be to relook at all the Spawning Power skills and possibly give a lot of them a buffing, making a lot more of those skills very worthy of playing with. Another suggestion is to lower the duration on ALL weapon spells, and make Spawning Power increase their duration by a LOT more, almost reaching a peak of an additional 80% longer duration, so a 10 second weapon spell could last 18 seconds. Doing this will make people not only want but NEED to tap into Spawning Powers more, thus instituting more balance with Ritualists.

Secondly, I want to mention the one big, imbalanced feature of weapon spells: the inability to strip them, ever. Enchantments you can, but apparently not weapon spells. Why is that? In my honest opinion it screams imbalance, but nothing has been done about it. Once that warmonger's goes up, it'll last its whole duration, whereas say if I used the elite Shield of Regeneration to protect myself... uh oh, my enchantment got stripped by Shatter Enchantment.

Another thing about weapon spells that I'd love to see applied to ALL weapon spells are the limited uses of it (ex. "your next 1...3 attacks..."). A suggestion would be like for Warmonger's weapon: "your next 2...8 attacks interrupt targets who are not attacking." and its duration would be the same BUT, with the newly adjusted spawning power, the weapon could almost last double its duration, making a more skillful player wait and use his attacks more skillfully to interrupt rather than brainlessly train a target and hope to interrupt.

Now I went through all the Spawning Power skills and plucked out those I feel could use awesome buffs to make players use the attribute more effectively.

-Feast of Souls: change it to all spirits nearby rather than just allied spirits.
-Rupture Soul: change it to any spirit rather than an allied one.
-Reclaim Essence: change it to any spirit. To make the elite a more viable choice of an elite to bring into pvp, bring down the energy gain and make it give energy back to party members within earshot (or nearby).
-Consume Soul: change it to any spirit. Possibly change it to a spell rather than a touch skill, and make it party wide heal regardless of people's location.

One might say the elites are buffed too much. I say I just gave them a chance into the pvp world.

So let me know whatcha think. I would be really excited to see my 4 skill changes take effect the way I said =)
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yeye! thats pimp ! perfect analogy and descriptions! haha nice i agree 100% no no ...actually 150% gg!

Very nice description!
I do think Spawning Power is the worst primary in game, and this surely will change the gameplay

But I came across this
If weapon spells are removable, then they should make it stackable.
Then, it would be as same as enchantments

So, my suggestion is this

Make weapon spell removal, but make it like

"in 5 seconds, weapon spell will get stripped", not like "instant" removal


Just my thought

Very true point. I guess that's where some of the balance is. But it's still a very weird balance: at the loss of not being able to stack, it lasts the whole time. So when it comes down to it, you either have to interrupt it, or it's gg pretty much.

the whole concept of the Ritualist is imo not very wel designed around its primary attribute, because all the unique thigns of the ritualist got splitted on all its attributes >.>

I think, the Ritualist should have been released with attributes like this from the start on:


Primary: Spawning Power
For each Point in this Attribute, will receive Ritual Ghosts, Undeads and Nature Spirits x% more Health. Every 4 Points, summoned creatures of those 3 Skill Types will also receive, when summoned +1additional tier of AL.
all those 3 types start with AL of 60, with SP 4, its then 70, with SP8, its 80, with SP12 its 90 and with SP16 it would be 100.
Every 3 Points will become Ritual Ghosts also more able to be summoned more then once.
So with SP3 you're able to summon 2 same Ritual Ghost, with SP6 it will be 3, with SP9 then 4...SP12 > 5 and SP15 then max 6 same ghosts.
This Effect of SP is a party effect, what means, that it will be enough, when 1 Ritualist has R15, so that the party becomes able to summon 6 same ghosts.
When the party reaches the max of and a 7th will be summoned, then will disappear automatically the oldest ghost.
****
Spawning Power will contain ALL kinds of Ritual Ghosts, there will be no difference of Channeling, Twilight or Renewing ....


Souls of Weapons:
This Attribute contains all kinds of Weapon Spells. Raising points here will increase the power and duration of them naturally


Occultism:
This Attribute contains Demon Pacts, so personal Buffing Skills (Enchants) through making a pact with a Demon, or summoning a Demon, for sacrificing either Health, or some Ritual Ghosts in your near. Max 1 Pact can be active, when usign a 2nd, it will replace the 1st.


Astral Sphere:
A splitted attribute, like a Twilight, which contains Party Heal Spells, which also damage nearby foes, and this for both effects - damage over time and area of effect like spells, through making a connection with the spiritual world, the Astral Sphere.
--------------------


Example Skills:

Spawning Power:

Simple think of it like Spawning, Twilight, Channeling and Renewing in one, anything what has to do with Spirits only is then here ... this way, spirits also become unique to primary ritualists, making also the primary in the end more viable at least for primarys, which are in the end the only, which can use it.


Souls of Weapons:

imagine simple an attribute, that contains all known Weapon Spells of the Ritualist we know from the other attributes


Occultism:

Demon Wings
Pact Enchant
Sacrifice 5 HP per Second, 10 Energy, CT: 3, RT 60

As long you keep up this Pact, you will steadily loose 5 HP per Second, but your Movement Speed will be increased so long by 15-33%% and Earth Elemental Skills will do no damage to you, but Holy Damage will do double damage

Eyes of Rage
Pact Enchant
Sacrifice 5 HP/sec while moving, 5 Energy, CT: 3, RT 60

As long you keep up this Pact, you will receive the red glowing Demon Eyes of Rage. While this is active, all adrenaline gained while moving, will be doubled. Whenever you use a skill that needs adrenaline for activation, while under the effect of Eyes of Rage, it will use up all adrenaline, but therfore you will roar up, like a demon, emitting a wide dark red shockwave of pure destructive chaos which hits all nearby foes for xx-xx chaos damage


Astral Sphere:

Spiritual Protective Ambush [Elite] 15E CT:5, RT:60
Skill:
Are Ritual Ghosts or Nature Spirits in your range of near, then will appear up to 8 poltergeister. These will protect the targeted Ally for up to 8 attacks/spells. Everytime normally the protected Ally would receive damage, will fly away 1 of the Poltergeists to a nearby foe and attack it up to 1-x times consecutively by simple flying through the enemies body and siphoning health from it away. The 1 Poltergeist will than transfer its siphoned health, after all its attacks are over, in a splitted wise to all party members adjacent to the ritualist. Are the no one,sthen wil receive the Ritualist the full siphoned health as heal.

Soul Leecher: 10E, 1s, 5s
Enchant Spell
For the next xx-xx seconds, whenever a foes taps into the range of one of your summoned ritual ghosts, they will suffer on -1- -2 Energy Degeneration.
While this enchant is up, you or your targeted party member will receive +1 Energy Regeneration per Enemy, which stands in range of a Ritual Ghost. (max +3) When a Ritual Ghost dies, while being under the effect of this Enchant, the enchanted ones will be healed by xx-xxx health points.


just a way i think, Ritualist could/should work in GW, beign more unque, by not being so heavily splitted up in their attributes in kind of their unique skill types.
Why have ritual ghosts and weapon spells on 4 different attributes, when its really enough to have for both kinds of skills just 1 attribute... to give the ritualist space for 2 new attributes which make the whole profession more unique and interesting

It's a fun concept, but it's too much work to change a lot. A simple tweaking of Spawning Power is really all that's needed. Your ideas would be an awesome change in Guild Wars 2 though, I will give it that.

I would actually like to see some sort of energy management component added to this:

"For every 2 ranks in spawning power, whenever a spirit in the area dies, you gain 1 energy"

And what about increasing the time that takes to cast 'Summon creature' skills?

Including all the 3seconds Necromancer and Asura summoning skills.
It could save up to 1 second, for a min of 2 seconds...?

Or getting a bonus anytime something is 'created' or 'resurrected' instead of when something dies.

Hm... Spawning power is wuite nice, but too limited compared to other primary attributes...

I agree with the skill changes, but weapon spells, IMO, were never broken in the first place, and don't require fixing. If you're going to say something that cannot be removed is totally over powered and should be nerfed, you'll have to execute the entire paragon class.

Spawning Power needs attention, and these are some good ideas, but again, I don't think this is the answer we're looking for.

Well the arguement over the removal was minor. The bigger stress is over making Spawning Power more acceptable and, in fact, desirable. You're right about the paragons and shouts/chants. It really wasn't that big of an issue. However, weapon spells being the unique spells they are, need more uniqueness and the limited use (like the 1..3 next attacks) is an awesome way to make the weapon spells. I honestly believe ALL weapon spells should have that function, even if it means to change some of the skills original uses (make spirit light weapon like rof but for the next 1...10 attacks). It's a neat idea to look into and would definitely change the meta (and change the way we use Ritualists.

I really am not a fan of the idea of Spawning Power being so specific. What if Soul Reaping was like "You only gain energy from warriors that die" or what if Divine Favor was like "Only players under the effects of enchantments take effect of Divine Favor." It's too damn specific, and Spawning Power tends to favor "Communing" the most, since the majority of spirits are in that attribute.

I really think Anet should look into this. It could really change the meta.

I'm constructing a list of all the skills that could be changed with this fix. Give me a bit.

When ANet made the nerf to spirits to give them 50 less health and vulnerability to burning, I think that was their attempt at saying, "Put more points into Spawning Power so that your spirits stay alive!"

And nobody cared.

And I liked how they added the buff to make weapon spells longer, until they took just about every weapon spell I was using and cut their durations by obscene amounts.

Boost it. /signed

The point with spawning power it's that is only 'useful' for 3 professions: Ritualist, Ranger and necromancer.

The rest are much widely usable with other profession combinations, specially Energy Storage.

Strength? Nice for all 5 professions with attack skills.
Expertise? Usable by anyone with attack skills, binding rituals and touch skills. That makes... well... all 10 professions.
Divine favor? For anyone using spells that target allies... that makes hm... 7.
Soul Reaping? All prfession benefit from winning energy with enemy deaths!
Fast Casting? 8 Professions have spells.
Energy Storage? Hey! All professions benefit from more energy!
Critical hits? Another one for the 5 martial weapon users.
Mysticism? Well, enchantmens are the most recurring type of skill in farming builds. This makes 8 professions again.
Leadership? This one is quite limited too, only 3 professions have shouts and only one have chants.

When you thing of a build, you start by the primary attribute and the runes.
So primary attributes should be a bit more versatile, regardless if they are powerful or not by themselves.

Strength is the worse primary in terms of effectiveness, the warrior however has many good skills in strength that makes people put their points into it, such as Bull's Strike and Rush.

Well, ~10% armor penetration always is not so bad, specially with increase of attack speed and high damage weapons, like Hammer or Scythe.

strength can be awesome ,when equipped with right weapon and buffed with right skills.


Take a Sundering Sword of any Bane, customize it for 20%5 more Damage

20% Armor Penetration every 5th Hit
+10-16% AP from Strength
-----
30-36%

+ 20 % from Smite Monk Skill
----
50-56% AP which means, that you can ignore half the Armor of Enemies, when buffed so, thus beign able to do double physical Damage.

With AP of 50% you hit vs. Enemies with AL of 80+16, as if they would have only AL of 48, AL60 squishies have then only a defense of AL 30.

Combine these with Skills, which increase passively the Attack Power by increasing the damage output for example with pve only skills, like the Norn one "I'm the Strongest" and skills, which increase you attack speed, which is best for sword... and you bash enemies into the ground XD.
Not to mention that you can wear with strength of 13 self the strongest armor level of 100

reachign such a high armor penetration can only 2 professions, the Warrior, and the ranger with Horn Bows, because these are the only weapons, which come with an own 10% AP Bonus
---------------------------------

About my concept there. sure not for GW1 ...i know. I hope so or so, that the professions will receive all for GW2 improved concepts ...

Divine Favor only works on Monk spells. So no, Divine Favor is only useful for Monk spells, and not anyone else.

Firs off, CourtjeztA, please do not quote the Original Post, it's totally unnecessary and just wastes space.

I think this could work. It picks up where Soul Reaping cuts off. It might even make people more inclined to run a Ritualist primary instead of a N/Rt.

Although, if they did make that change, they might have to lower the energy gain from [wiki]Boon of Creation[/wiki] to prevent abuse.

Uh....you know that you can only use the primary attribute of your primary profession right?

Only Necromancers can use Soul Reaping.
Only Elementalists can use Energy Storage.

And you know you can have secondary professions, right?
Expertise affects Necromancer touchs, for example.

Didn't knew that with Divine favor.
Since when it's like that..?
Maybe the spanish translation is wrong or old...
That's another bad thing.

Uhm, Strength only applies when you use an attack skils. Also 20\20 is based on chance. People only put points into strength for the skills, not for the %armor penetration.

For the rit class, people will put more points into spawning power only when they're skills that will make them willing too.

the opposite would be better imo,

"for every two (or even just one maybe) ranks in spawning power, whenever a spirit is created, you gain 1 energy"

back in the pre SR nerf days it would have included minions too of course.

Yea, makes more sense with the whole spawning part. I'm in favor of it doing something related to energy management, since ritualists have some pretty costly spells (most of them spirirts).

Yet again, it would require them to lower the energy gain from [wiki]Boon of Creation[/wiki] to prevent abuse.

I agree with this. To have it when a spirit dies would make it basically a buffed clone of Soul Reaping.

Boon of Creation would have to take a little nerf too, but, it would be for the good of the Ritualist.

I feel spawning power should make those really good spirits that lose(sac) health last longer.
Right now it does that but only a little, it could be done by just tripling the effect per rank, but that might create some unbalance as it also affects minions.

I suggest it increases the charges on spirits and weapon spells.
I support th OP's idea that all weapon spells should read for X...X+3Y(X+4Y) hits.

Spawning power
Every rank in spawning power, health loss on spirits you create is reduced by 3% and every 3 ranks weapon spells last for 1 hit longer.

This makes spirits lose less health from damage, as well as from the damage they deal to them self, up to 48% allowing for almost twice the duration.
The effect on minion health, could be replaced by some enchantment that does a dummed down version of [skill=text]Signet of Binding[/skill] and without the 30 sec till death(or with it, as only bombers use spawning powered minions anyway).

This makes spirits on a spawning power rit much more resilient, which is highly needed since the implementation of dervishes, that are just too good at wiping out the rit and their spirits at the same time.
Also making spirits like shelter, twice as effective on a rit with high spawning power, opposed to the 3-4 additional effect fires you get from it now.

All of this, in my opinion, is beautifully thought out. I actually REALLY like this version of Spawning Power a lot! Spirits not having additional health but rather damage reduction is brilliant. Almost like armor but not really. For weapons to have an additional hit longer, then all weapon spells should therefore be limited to a number of uses. Weapon of Warding should specify the next 1...10 attacks block 50% as a nice example. And Spirit Light Weapon should definitely be like some sort of rof-like effect, where the next 1...8 hits are healed instead (max 10) and if within earshot of a spirit that max is upped to max (25). Again, that's just an example of how weapon spells could work.

Actually I like Weapon of Warding for it's prot potential, I think it should have after blocking X attacks.
That way it only ends after a number of successfully blocked attacks, would be a shame to put a nerf on the rit's second best protection skill when trying to make them more likable.
That is not like [skill=text]Reversal of Fortune[/skill] its more like [skill=text]Mark of Protection[/skill] in which chase it could be pretty overpowered, note the lock and recharge of mark.

[skill=text]Weapon of Remedy[/skill] and [skill=text]Vengeful weapon[/skill] would do that pretty much, Spirit light should live up to it's function more, a low cost long duration restoration weapon spell that is good to trigger [skill=text]Wielder's Boon[/skill] and also provides helps keep that party meber allive, I'm thinking that like its name mate [skill=text]Spirit Light[/skill] it would move a %/# of the next 4...13(16) hits of damage towards you or the nearest (allied or not)spirit in earshot if there is one.
But thats just a random thought.

weapon spells don't need to be removed.
Many of them don't see play anyways, and one of their best features it that they cannot be removed.

Just becomes Warmongers is very iffy doesn't mean the characteristics of the Skill Type is.

o.O didn't notice this.Weapon spells aren't supposed to be removable, its part of the skill type.
Their use is limited as they don't stack, but are unremovable in return.
I do not think it is a good idea to make them removable.

I think Anet originally intended to use [skill=text]Dulled Weapon[/skill] as a foe targeting weapon spell to overwrite weapon spell on a group of foes, but didn't because it conflicts with lore.

Weapon spells replace your weapon:
If anything should remove them it's the warrior skill disarm.
Other than that there is no reason someone would give their weapon away, or use a weapon a foe hands to them.

Temporarily setting aside skills linked to a primary attribute, one of the reasons of having an inherent effect to a primary attribute is to make that profession "better" at its own "thing" as compared to a secondary. For example if Divine Favor didn't add extra healing, there would be little reason to have a monk primary, since an E/Mo could heal just as well, and have a larger pool of energy to draw from. But because DF does add extra healing, a Mo/E makes a better healer than an E/Mo in most scenarios.

My point in this is that Spawning Power should make a primary Ritualist better than a secondary Ritualist at "Ritualist things". Right now the buff to spirit health and duration of weapon spells is nice, but not nearly enough. Some of the ideas outlined above seem very viable and worthy of consideration.

Hm... so... the things that ritualist do are...
Binding rituals, weapon spells and item spells...

What about having a buff while holding any item? Like... +1 energy per level?

Isn't that just a nerfed version of energy storage?
Sides the best used item spells are already for energy management I think.

Wut about a supportive buff?
Rits do a lot of things, but they do most of them to support someone.
I mean the rit will not be called 'the tank' or 'the healer' a hybrid channelling/restoration rit with ancestor and splinter, probably won't be referred to as 'the nuker'

So what if their primary supports their allies?
Like the effect of [skill=text]Weapon of Quickening[/skill].
What if every 2 ranks in spawning power(would need a rename) reduced the skill recharge of all allies in (spirit-)range by 1% ?
(would probably be needed to limit it from stacking any higher than the combined effect of 5 ritualists)
(Even though, the limit to summon only 1 of the same spirit per team, should already nerf them enough to not make all rit teams(thrust me I've been in them in RA, it's pretty useless))

Spirits like pain, use a skill every 2 seconds, it would make them attack faster, primary ritualists could spamm spirits, weapon/item spells and heals just a little faster, obviously making them better at what they do.
But not only that you would also improve your team, making you better at what ritualists do without even trying.

Hm... I somehow like the increase attack speed in spirits... but not all of them attack, and there are some that lose health when attacking, so more speed for them could be bad...

And what about an increase in range for ritualist-only effects (Spirits, Weapon spells and Item spells)?

Let's say that the radius of each area is:
Soul Reaping rank 0:
0- Single target/Touch: 0m.
1- Adjacent: 3m.
2- Nearby: 9m.
3- In the area: 15m.
9- Within earshot: 45m.
12- Spirit attack range: 60m
21 - Spirit range: 105m
I don't know the real figures, these are just references for the idea.

Now, based on that:

Each rank of Spawning power would increase the range by 2%. At rank 15, that would mean 32%m more. That is:

Soul Reaping rank 16:
0- Single target/Touch: 0m.
1- Adjacent: 4m.
2- Nearby: 12m.
3- In the area: 20m.
9- Within earshot: 60m.
12- Spirit attack range: 80m
21 - Spirit range: 136m

Since it won't affect spell, just weapon, item and spirits, it won't be too much overpowered.
And if they were, those could be deboffed to work right now with 0SpawnPow, so only Ritualists have them working powerfull enough.

A bit more of range always helps.

Like spawning power matters. It's used for energy management or something on ritualists, I think. The only skill I have with Spawning Power is Boon of Creation. Which gives so much health and energy when you summon a spirit using a spirit skill thingy. Most people play rits as a support character. If 80% of your build doesn't involve some decent input in spawning power, quit whining about it >.> And I hardly ever play rit because, imo, they suck. I like dealing damage, not doing screwed up healing. I got a spike build with my rit, but it's annoying since you have to constantly apply pressure, than do something real quick and it be done. Of course, I'm talking about PvP :P But still.....

The biggest problem with spawning power is the lack of good spirits outside of gimmick builds (and even then, people take n/rt), and the fact the weapon benefits aren't so great. But to respond to some of the points, a necro can fare pretty well going 12 curses, 12 blood, and 3 soul reaping. A warrior can go 12 sword, 12 tactics, and 3 strength. The thing is that in the right builds, other classes only need 3 in their primary attributes as well. Unfortunately for the ritualists, the only viable builds are those kinds of builds.

Having the next x...y attacks for warmongers is basically like reducing its duration. No one is going to wait and not attack when they could be doing constant DPS. The reason is that it's impossible to time an interrupt on anything that's 1 second or less with that waiting method, so it's not like it matters if they save the uses.

Spawning power elites could use buffs, but just because the attribute has a few good skills doesn't mean someone will sacrifice their standard rit build for it. Even if you buff those 4 mentioned skills, it's still going to see play in places like HA or GvG. For GvG, there simply aren't any spirits to use them on. For HA, you're basically wasting a character and an elite to counter IWAY, which most good teams can beat anyways. RA/TA is even more situational. They'd be great for certain PvE areas, like Duncan, but unless spirits get an overall utility buff (which'll end up overpowering them probably), you won't see spawning power.

Maybe Spawning Power would become more attractive if we kept the existing spirit health and weapon spell duration buffs, but also added a decrease to casting time for binding rituals. For example if you invested enough points in Spawning Power possibly a 5-second binding ritual could be reduced to 4-seconds or even 3-seconds.

Maybe for all 'Summonin' skills:

- Animate spells.
- Bind Rituals.
- Nature rituals.
- Asura summons.

Uhmm you know, not just Rit but all other Primary atribute skills are not used very often. BUT it does not mean it never be used lol! in some build they do use it. Like Consume Soul is used by Sin be4, Reclaim ess is used in Rit spike and such. What your suggestion is pretty much nerfing PD out of HA lol. Cause PD is mostly used for Ghostly hero and Spirit spammer -,-". So idk, I like owning Iway lol! but not sure if its justified!