Improvements to Spawning Power/Communing.

First off, I would like that i love Ritualists. However, their only good attributes atm are restoration and channeling. While these are good, they lack the real spirit aspect of a Ritualist, and using these spirits to aid the team as a whole. Communing has the potential to be a powerful (but not imba, which i realise it was at one point) attribute. Atm, though there are limitations which make these lines mostly inviable.

Spawning power: This increases the health and armor a spirit has, but with today's dual attribute lines, this is mostly left out. The amount of health and armor needs to be buffed by a good deal to make some of the spirits in communing viable.

Energy management can be a problem for the high priced spirits. They have good e-management skills such as OoS, but these are in channeing. Things like boon of creation need to be buffed:

[skill]boon of creation[/skill]This is similar to an elementalist attunement, and it would fine, but there are differences:
1. Energy storage: Eles cast about the same cost spells, but eles can have a higher energy pool.
2.Glyps: eles have glyphs to power or decrease energy costs of spells, but rits don't, plus glyphs don't work with rituals.
3.Energy return: attunements return energy from percents, boon returns a set amount.
So my fix to this would be something like this:
10e 2c 45r For 36-55 seconds, whenever you spawn a creature, you gain 30% of the energy cost plus 1 energy for every creature you are controlling.

[skill]Ritual lord[/skill]:5e

[skill]shelter[/skill]Currently, this can only prevent damage around 4-6 times. Not worth is for 25e/5c. This spirit needs to be buffed to survive longer. Either buff the spirit level, or decrease the amount of health lost. Or change this to something with the effects of the urn of st. victor. 25e/3c/45r. For 30 seconds, the next 100...420...500(something like this, the urn goes up to 500) damage on allies within earshot is reduced.

Earthbind: 10e/3c/45 recharge.

Shadowsong: Show damage in description

Union: 10e and/or 30r

Wanderlust: Increase the lifespan, this dies usually before this is up, also reduce the amount of hp lost per hit.

1 More thing, with Rit spike dead, i think we can decrease the casting time of spirit rift to 1 second again. Right now, its just interrupt bait.

Thoughts/suggestions?

FYI, Elementals don't have Signets, while other Profs do, which is why they only have Glyphs (which do work on rituals).

The problem with Spawning power is that it's is ultimately a very niche ability. It only helps if you are creating things, and even then, it doesn't always help (as many spirits will time out long before they die). It has some ok spells, but again, they're fairly niche. A fix for this, for example, might be to make it work like an inverted Soul Reaping (Gain energy and/or life every time something is created or resurected near you).

i agree with communing/spawning power needing buffs, but i have a few issues with some of the skill ideas you have:

anguish- it is actually a good skill combined with painful bond, and 15 energy would be pretty cheap

disenchantment- some mesmer skills cost 15 energy to remove ONE enchantment, let alone a spirit that can remove like 10?

boon of creation- your not controlling spirits, your creating them, and if you have a team of spirit spammers, you'd have endless energy, because they wouldn'tbe able to tell who's spirit is who (i think).

i totally agree with shelter, seeing as it it a pretty hefty cost for basically a ritualist protective spirit (1/4 cast, lasts on average 19 seconds, only downside is it is an enchantment)

most of the protective spirits are just more expensive but un-removeable forms of monk enchantments, and in my opinion they aren't worth their weight in casting time/recharge.

Edit: Anguish and disenchant removed.
The thing with boon of creation, you could only get energy from spirits you spawned, so other people's spirits would have no effect. The programming recognizes which spirits you made, as shown by [wiki]Summon Spirits[/wiki].

@Bront: Yes, they may have signets, but these are either in channeling, or destroy the spirit. I can understand killing something like pain, but then you must recast it.

Bump this up, added a change to spirit rift as well.

much to learn i have to do

I think ghostmirror light should heal myself, the target ally and all spirits in the area. Give me something more then the 2 signets to increase a spirit's lifespan.

The thing with spirits, it would be nice, since only spirits that effect an entire party, like Shelter. When the description for maintaining skills or w/e (when they're in normal form, not small maintaining form that reduces energy regen), at the end of the description, you could have a message that says "Spirit controlled by Dark Shadowbane."

umm - are you comparing eles with rits?

Just comparing ele's e-management and able to keep track of their crap is 999999999999999999999999999999% easier than a rit's.

Ya, rits basically have no energy management without going into channeling, and with a ritual lord build, you want max into communing and spawning.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...muning_spirits

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...irit_Mechanics

pick ur fav

id like to see pain's power reduced and then giving it a 1 second cast making a lot of other ritualist skills that need a spirit viable and a better reason for communing.

You could always make Spawning Power work like fast casting for summoning spells too, which would somewhat solve the issue...