Good Bye, Ritualist...

Reading FTW

Quote:

Would be nice if they re-increased all weapon spell durations. Not it's too low....
Besides that, spirits are great in PvE now!

Anet is probably taking this slowly. They will probably work more on rits and paras next month. Hence why certain aspects of the professions were not re-worked or given serious re-works. Take motivation for example.

I do bloody hope that ritualists haven't seen the last of these updates. I am quite happy about the buff that spirits got, but the spawning power 'buff' wasn't really a buff at all.

I don't like being niched, and this update made me feel niched. At least it's fun to be in that niche, but it's still a niche.

Personally, I tried running a Channeling/Resto hybrid before on my Rit...and I hated it. Support is not my thing. It's boring, it's nitpicky, and I just can't stand it. I'd rather give a hero a few weapon spells and let them do it.

So I've always had my Rit set up as a spirit spammer with a few offensive spells. Sure, it was annoying having to take so long to set up my spirits, though even pre-nerf if I was able to get them all up before running into a fight, I never had all of them die before the fight ended (unless I was stupid and cast them in the same stop and they got RoJ'd). Before being level 20, even.

Now, though? Last night, just after the update, I took my Rit and did Vizunah Square. Ran around filling up the battlefield with spirits. The person from the other side had an MM hero. Between my spirits and the other person's MM, it went much easier and quicker than any other time I've done this mission, even when my friend and I did it from opposite sides and both had an MM hero.

I love the buff. I love using spirits. I find it far more fun than the hybrid builds, and I'm glad I can do so efficiently now.

The only thing they did wrong in the update was to not somehow tie the new, reduced casting times of spirits to spawning(like a clause for each spirit" for every 3 ranks of spawning this binding ritual casts 33% faster" or something, so as to keep the new spirits out of the hands of necroes and eles ect). Maybe they could have knocked up the weapon spell duration buff to 5% or 6%...

On the PvE side, rits are becoming a bit more 'necro' like with their skillset now, instead of exploiting corpses for volume and energy, we get to summon fewer, stronger turrets without the corpses, then exploit those for energy damage or healing as we see fit.

It is a buff to these so called 'hybrid' builds too. Less time spent casting a spirit is time I could be casting resto or channeling support. Instead of setting up a spirit and dragging it along to effect the first half of a fight, I can still set up shop beforehand, drag it along with summon, and now I have the option to re-cast in the middle of a fight(effectively doubling the use of a slot dedicated to a spirit). Stopping your damage or healing to cast a 3-5 second long spirit used to be moronic, now with the 3/4-1 sec cast times I can drop at will, and move on. Who cares if it's 'mindless'(which i do dispute). Technically so is going full on MM, but necroes have that option, now rits have the option to go full on rit lord, or pack a couple spirits, and some stuff that exploits those spirits, like an MM can take a few offesive/supportive skills instead of 4 minions, death nova and BotM.

Also, with the new armor of unfeeling, the old soul twist, rit lord, or the new recaim essense, or that old broken standard AP, communing just might be viable in PvE. I've already tested out the channeling turrets, they're like a minion wall, I had them on a bridge, and on corners, HM stuff was getting hung up on them, nuking, AoEing, and still not killing them with AoU and Summon spirits. If I were to attempt keeping them out of harms way with summon, hell... communing resto might finally be slightly on par with heal/prot, but balanced for a party wide scale.

Then there's the brokenness of Signet of Spirits, this one alone, even after they nerf it to the 20 sec recharge it's supposed to be at, is going to make all those spawning "do X with this spirit" or "do X when a spirit is created" skills worth taking. 3 Conditions, something like 150ish health, thats like better then the old protective was kaolai(and you can still pack kaolai and run restoration stuff that runs on spirits inclucind something that will bust 3 conditions minimum, and be getting +15 energy free, 3 wanding meat shields, just freaking epic...)

Signet of Spirits
Boon of Creation
Spirits Gift
Protective was Kaolai
Mend Body and Soul
Spirit light
Spirit Transfer/Feast of souls
Your favorite weapon spell(i like vengeful for pve), an additional spirit(life, recup, rejuve) or maybe siphon spirit(you get 3 to siphon off of with similar returns to offering of spirit, but every 3 seconds, and refreshed every 20... it's almost like SR....)

reading back through this thread, half of it translates directly to "waaah, waaah, waaah" - but, that happens with every single move they make, so its no surprise.

bringing some life to spirit-spammin builds wasnt a bad thing folks.
QWITCHER-KWWYYIINN

There's some potential here for some skill combo's that might actually be *gasp* FUN to play with...

Or, if you dont think thats fun, then *double gasp* dont play it.

If you dont like it - well, it's done, so, too bad

Thanks, ANET, for continuing to put some effort into changes, whatever they may be. Personally, I like most of these changes, keep 'em coming.

*The Minion Bomber wonders what's going on?*

Seriously though, good first half-step Anet, now keep buffing Rits more!

So I wanted to laugh a bit and went in hard mode with my rit, of course I wanted to use spirits because everyone loves them.

I loaded 14 in communing and 13 in spawning, armor of unfeeling, shelter, union, displacement, reclaim essence, boon of creation, summon spirit and spirit gift. I added some heroes and henches, went in HM and exited TOA because I wanted to pawn some of the mesmer mobs outside. I put armor of unfeeling on, casted my spirits and aggroed because after having casted the spirits I didn't have anything else to do, no slot and a bad attribute spread. Spirits lasted about 3 seconds even despite the fact I casted summon spirits to heal them.
I logged on my paragon, same heroes and henches setup, same area in HM, save yourself and TNTF worked better, well spirits didn't work at all of course paragon was going to work better.
Then I said, let's try the offensive spirits but signet of spirits summons do not work, sadly .
Do the spirit buff justify the nerf on weapon spells? No, the tradeoff is bad, what is this shit, spirits suck.
Therefore at least for me the spirits are viable argument is nil.


End

WoW Keira.

So before you used Channeling + Resto. Best skills of rit ancestors rage, splinters weapon, OoS, etc.

What do you do now?

You go out and play communing + spawning.


It just seems to me you are trying to make the changes look bad.

You do understand that when you use SoS and Feast of Souls with Life it can heal for 400hp, if a class can give a 400hp heal party wide every 10 sec and a 300 every 10 sec, i think that's a pretty good buff imo.

The Update is just showing that they lost the concept of balance:

PvP: Nothing changed, maybe even to the worse
PvE: They are now superviable, aka overbuffed

Spirit Spam just rocks. 3 Ritualists without heroes or henchies made it to Fendi Nin, thanks to Signet of Spirits and Spirit Spam. And that even with Spirits having targetting/attacking issues (Basically, the 3 guys are programmed not to focus down a single target, and if there are less than 3 targets only one bothers to attack occasionally).

Balance is out of whack, they just shifted to the other extreme. The intention was, as usual, honorable, the execution as always flawed.

Give your Heroes the Signet, combine with some Necroes, it does not get ANY easier. And never was easier to wtfpwn in PvE before.

I don't see how people whine about a buff.
The buff has done nothing but good to the whole profession.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates

As you see, the weapon spells have been nerfed slightly and the spirits have been improved big-time in PvE. Also there are some skill changes to the Spawning Power line to make it more interesting.

Myself, I'm using an epic healer build that is equal to a WoH monk, and with the buff it has grown even better

12+1 Restoration Magic
12+1+3 Spawning Power

Spirit Light - Soothing Memories - Mend Body and Soul - Remove Hex - Draw Spirit - Preservation - Energetic Was Lee Sa - Flesh of My Flesh

With the buff on Preservation I can spawn it without worrying that an ally might die whilst I'm casting.

I don't see this being overpowered in PvE, just the one who abuse the class are idiots. Luckily the hype will fade away in a month, I'm quite sure, too bad ArenaNet does not see that and will nerf them even worse than that they were before.