Summoner's Insignia

To start, please note that it is not my intent to definitively compare Ritualists to Necromancers. I am merely comparing certain traits that both professions share, primarily the summoning of creatures. Also, please keep in mind that this proposal is from a PvE standard--my experiences with PvP are limited to occasional RA and AB matches.

In their current PvE state, Spirits are somewhat of a gamble. Their slow activation time, low level (lower AR, increased susceptibility to criticals) and immobility make them incredibly easy to kill and frustrating to use. AoE damage will render a Spirit completely useless, leaving the binder with a 20+ second recharge. Furthermore, many of the more powerful Ritualist spells such as Spirit Light and Offering of Spirit require a Spirit, thus a large partition of the build is crippled once the Spirit easily vanishes. Most Ritualists these days choose to only bring one or two spirits for this exact reason. The general "rush" nature of PvE also makes re-binding frustrating between skirmishes.

Though the summoner has a few methods of keeping his Spirits up longer, these skills are a mixed bag and require investing in either Communing (widely considered to be a dead line) or Spawning Power (also rarely used because of its weak inherent bonus, even with a heavy investment the health increase is hardly enough). Spirits are also exempt from wards, most forms of direct healing, enchantments, weapon spells, shouts and passive effects from other Spirits.

A few skills do offer the Ritualist some reprieve by skill recharge rates, but these either require him to spec attribute points in a secondary profession (Serpent's Quickness) or take his elite slot (Ritual Lord, Soul Twisting, Weapon of Quickening, etc.). Others opt to use Summon Spirits to reduce mid-battle downtime, but it is frustrating in large areas and makes Spirits ripe for AoE damage. Because Spirits are created through binding rituals and not spells, HCT/HSR mods and similar effects have no impact.

Another issue that Ritualists have is lack of insignias useful for general play. Let's examine our current selection:

Shaman's Insignia:
Armor +5 (when you control 1 or more Spirits)
Armor +5 (when you control 2 or more Spirits)
Armor +5 (when you control 3 or more Spirits)

Spirit Spamming's inherent weaknesses coupled with nerfs to both spirit health and the Communing line have rendered this insignia nearly worthless.

Ghost Forge Insignia:
Armor +15 (while affected by a Weapon Spell)

This is really only useful in a Spirit Strength build.

Mystic's Insignia:
Armor +15 (while activating skills)

Just a copy of the Mesmer's Virtuoso Insignia...helpful in some situations, but not useful in general play because many Ritualist spells have low cast times.

Needless to say, Ritualists have a very limited range of Insignias, which is unfortunate because of the profession's versatility.

My proposal is to add a fourth Insignia, called a Summoner's Insignia. This would help Ritualists summon Spirits more frequently, thus allowing them to recoup after a sudden Spirit destruction or let them "set up" faster after a battle.

Summoner's Insignia:

Reduces recharge time of creature-creating skills by 20 or 25% (non-stacking)

Note that this would also affect Necromancer minions and Asuran summons. My rationale is that since Bloodstained Insignias affect all corpse-exploiting spells (which are also affected by HCT/HSR) such as wells and teleports, it would be balanced. The minion cap (8 at 12 Death Magic) coupled with the Ritualist's generally moot energy management would keep it fair enough, but also grant Minion Bombers a slight boost.

In summation, I believe this would be helpful because:

1. Even with a heavy investment in Spawning Power, Spirits still die incredibly fast and are unaffected by most protective skills.
2. Spirits are not considered spells, and are therefore unaffected by HCT/HCR mods, Ebon Vanguard Standard of Wisdom, etc.
3. Only one Spirit of a particular type can be active in the area for one period of time, reducing the need for skills like Serpent's Quickness. This would free a skill slot and attribute points otherwise used to load-bear a slow system.
4. Downtime between battles would be reduced.
5. It would be balanced compared to the Bloodstained Insignia because it would not affect other corpse-exploiting spells (corpse teleports, Putrid Explosion, wells, etc.)
6. While it would help Spirit Spammers, it would not be overpowered because Communing itself is a poor attribute line.
7. It would give the Ritualist another Insignia option.
8. Lesser used methods of play such as Minion Bombers and utilizing Asuran Summons would also benefit.

Thoughts? Opinions? I'd be interested to see what the common Ritualist board denizens think of this.

i find it a good idea

i hate spirit spamming
just because of the recharge <_<

/signed

/signed

may it go from your post to A-net's dev. team. (here's hoping)

(Although I admit to a slight bias, because I love rits, as broken as they might be...)

/signed

or even if it was an insigna were u things u summot do and additional 5% dmg and have 5% more armor (had to fill up 12 letter min.)

Well the problem with insignias is that most of them are useless (profession specific ones). Other than bloodstained, stonefist, windwalker, and geomancers, survivor or radiant will outperform the insignias. But on the matter of spirits, i agree.

/signed

/SIGNED more insignias need no be eather buffed or removed.

I don't want the Anet dev team to look at anything for a Ritualist until they BUFF SPAWNING POWER. Give the spirits/minions armor or something. Anything. Seriously. Make it worth using.

But, once they do that, I'm all for this. I've always thought that Ritualists should be more in tune with the dead than Necros - it's why I've never cared about sacrifice in Ritualist skills.

/signed

QFT. The lack of armor is the biggest thing imo. Every 3 points in spawning gives 5 armor to spirits along with the weapon spell duration and spirit health.

Insignia is also a nice Idea.

/signed a thousand times over.

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys.

I agree. Old systems should always be fixed before new content is added. I know I say this at every opportunity, but the spirit health/burning susceptibility needs to be reverted in PvE. With the PvE/PvP split, I see no reason why this nerf should remain.

centur posted a suggestion thread about Spawning Power; I'm going to throw a couple ideas around in there.

I'd rather see Spawning Power altered to either give an energy gain whenever a spell is used, or reduce spell cost (like Expertise, but for spells), or give a pip of energy regen at certain intervals.

I'd rather see spirits worked to be mobile, long-lasting, and highly durable; where a Necromancer has many average minions a Ritualist would have a few powerful minions (maybe with a limit to the number, such as one offensive and one defensive, but they'd be very strong).

That said, I do /sign this, but I'd like to see Ritualists be reworked significantly.

Some spirits are made so that they are SUPPOSED to die. For example, shelter. It would be too powerful for a spirit to give prot spirit (without the enchant) to every party member. I just think the concept of spirits in which are created cause spirits to be not helpful most of the times. Maybe make offensive spirits to be able to move, and defensive not? You have to look at pvp perspective too. Moving recuperation and life...

And yet, as they stand now, they die after only a few uses, and themselves die in a couple hits. For a 25 energy spell that seems pretty weak. I'm also pretty sure I don't have to look at a PvP perspective now that skills have started to become separated for PvE and PvP.

/signed. I totally agree. Ritualists are amazing, but the summoning part was never that exciting. I think they deserve a buff in PvE.

if they did this and made spawning attribute lower recharge times of binding rituals it might actually make spirits viable again....go figure

I was going to actually mention this as it would be smart to do. Such as I feel Critical Strikes should lessen the Aftercast of shadowstepping.

Ritualists only shine really as flag runners as sad as it is to say. I believe the insignia would be a great addition. I would love more insignias to be added, more for the Paragon for example.

/signed

Would be a nice addition. But even if these insignias were added they should buff spirits and spawning power

Hmmm, sounds good to me. /signed

We need more options than generic stuff like Survivor.

/signed

I'll write the code myself if I have too.

Most people don't take the class insignias anyways as nearly every single class's class insignias are worthless, the only notable one who does being the Warrior (extra KD length wins games, and hex duration reduction = winzz). It's pretty much always better to take Survivor's.


(note: PvP stand point)

/signed

Found this thread from a link in the Rit forum. Yeah, I'd like SP and spirit buffs and more Insignias, but with the development on GW2, I doubt we'll see any of this. Otherwise, I'd Animate the "Want Minion Toolbar" thread again.

/signed -> insignia

/signed -> SP buff (somehow)
Change SP power so it's useful to spammers,
decrease spirit's recharge.
Some e-mang ( when a spirit of you die you gain 1-3 en, does not effect Necro, would be overpowered.
Increase spirit's level.
Something else

I really like the idea. I was using survivor or radiants all the time. If they also buff spawning a bit I would play my rit again. I think in pvp it is really needed.

In pve rits does not seem to need a buff. For example I still consider rit boss a higher thread than any necro or sin boss which in my opinion is sign of a power in this class. By playing rit I feel more confident than by playing necro or mesmer (or I just suck on them...). Maybe people just need to play rit more? In my opinion ritualist is the class not mastered yet properly. So big yes for the insignias idea but and spawning power changes but no for spirit buffs.

I still very much like this idea along with some of the suggestions made in the spawning power thread

/signed

An insignia for primary rits would be nice. In PvE, necromancers often come out superior at rit's job... In PvP, apart from runner or occasional Ritual Lord, it's hard to spot one.

[Summon Spirits] - no need to invest in other attributes for this one

So... your solution for PVE is to grind (in other words, 'invest time in') PVP? Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I generally hate PVP. I hate most grinding, too. I grinded for max Sunspear Rank, and that was it for me. XP

I'll support the rit class as they are crucial in a team anyways.

/signed.

The main reason this need to be done is so that RT's can play Spirit spam in a good way that team's will accept.
If i run the build below nowadays -it's a decent build- team usually won't be happy and say stuff like: more splinter/AR
[build;OACjAqiLpSDg+gfTlTRbHXVTriA]

When I play my rit I'll run that exact build above, usually swapping out GDW for Flesh of my Flesh because I don't care how effective it is, spamming weapon spells is boring as shit. Now if I was in an elite area or something, sure I'll do weapons but for normal PvE play it's all about fun (it's certainly not about challenge) and weapon spells are not fun. Spirits are very fun. Oh, and obviously I'd be using the good Kurzick skill and not the crappy Luxon skill.

So months later I'm going to /re-sign - still wish they'd fix Spawning though.