Quick question

is a Ritualist basically a healer that summons spirits to protect while they heal?

Rits are versatile (i.e, you'll be running a hybrid most, if not all the time). You can't just sum them up in one line. Read the sticky to see what sort of things you should be doing and builds you should be running. If you like what it looks like, you'll like the profession.

Rits are interesting. They are not great in any one thing, but they can mix roles reasonably well. Healing with spells/spirits, damage with spells/spirits, protection with spells/spirits. They are also the only ones that can cast item spells and weapon spells. Somewhat like enchantments, but they can not be striped.

Ritualists are, as Marty said, a bit versatile. You can run support, you can run spirit spammer, you can run as a (somewhat mini) nuker. The Ritualist is basically, in my opinion, the combination of a Necromancer and a Monk, but with spirits.

Rits are very powerful, in some respects they are stronger than Eles and can heal better than Monks. However they have far more conditional skills, it can be hard to meet the conditions when you need to.

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I enjoy my Ritualist alot. The spirt summoning time of 3 seconds is a bit long but I make it more managable with the Kurzick summoning skill that brinks all your spirits to you and heals them. Set up before the agroo then bring in your artilery line of spirits, its great fun. But no they don't fall into a specific build I don't think, very versatile. Try them out most people that have tried Rit's have enjoyed them.




Carpe Turkey

Ritualists have 4 attribute lines:

Restoration allows them to heal and protect. You will find healing spells as well as spirits in there. It basically replaces a healing monk, but lacks the protection capabilities of a monk.

Channeling is like an Elementalist line. You will find good direct damage spells in here, usually dealing lightning damage. These spells deal good damage and are on par with the ones an Elementalist has to offer - which isn't that great to be honest since Elementalist damage sucks in hard mode. There are also a few damage dealing spirits in here.

Communing is all about spirits. You will find most of them here, they offer anything from damage to protection. However, especially the defensive spirits have been weakened and are now nearly useless.

Spawning Power: The biggest problem of the Ritualist. The effects of this primary attibute are nearly useless. Spirits die way too fast for the few HP to matter and 2% on weapon spells isn't that great either. Spirit Strengh allows for some fun builds but generally I'd say Spawning Power is the worst primary attribute in the game.

Because Ritualists have such a useless primary attribute, almost all Ritualist builds can as well be run as N/Rt or even E/Rt. Those will have far superior energy management, making all skills spammable (at a lower skill level because of the lack of runes - but the better energy management is usually worth it).

To sum it up:

Strength:
- can replace a Monk as healer
- can deal Elementalist damage with lightning spells
- can go spirit spamming (offensive ones for good armor ignoring damage, defensive ones just suck too hard)

Weakness:
- most of that is better done by a N/Rt

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