Signet of Spirits - Worth it?

With the AI bug of Signet of Spirits, a lot of debate surrounds this skill.
Some love it. Some hate it.
Nothing more to say about this thread than it is debate whether it is worth it or not.

Me?
For spirit spam builds, I much more prefer Signet of Ghostly Might along with Anguish, Painful Bond, Pain, and Bloodsong.
Having a spirit that deals 58 damage with each hit is insane. And the fact you have other spirits hitting the same target AND having IAS, as well as super armor thanks to "Armor of Unfeeling", is really just plain awesome.

I really don't see why to use Signet of Spirits for spirit spam build due to the AI bug that NEEDS to be fixed.

On the contrary, Signet of Spirits isn't that all bad even in its current state.
Thanks to Boon of Creation, each cast of Signet of Spirits provides a free 9, 12, 15, or 18 energy.
And if you use Mantra of inscriptions, this allows you to lower its recharge to an average estimate of 13 and TRULY be able to spam the skill.
That said, its true potential must lay in support builds.

Spirit Transfer barely removes any health from the spirits and can heal for an average of 201 health to players. While its 10 energy cost may turn down some players, the fact you gain a big amount of energy every few seconds for free and refill your "ammo" can be a huge advantage.
Some say spirits will die too easily with this skill. But because you have Summon Spirits, spirits will be healing more than they lose.

And because you can make spirits so easily, Feast of Souls will be able to heal your whole party for an average estimation of over 200 for whenever the party heal emergency calls.
This spirit spammability and e-management also allows you to utilize and spam spirit transfer with no draw backs and activate the secondary effect of Mend Body and Soul.

I have yet to check this skill's usefulness outside of restoration magic, but being a channeling signet, I'm sure it may have some synergy.


Bottom line though:
They NEED to fix it. And they should also try to work buffing some of the other underused ritualist skills this month, hopefully reviving Channeling nuke builds.
Offtopic, but I wish Spirit Rift was instant in Pve- Not like it'd be overpowered anyways once hugeass HM armor is taken into account XD

Anyways, that's my opinion. Let's hear that of you guys?

honestly, its not that bad. altho i wouldnt mind it begin fixed.

So that would be:
S/I/R/C
Mantra Of Inscriptions
Signet Of Spirits
Summon Spirits
Mend Body & Soul
Spirit Transfer
Feast Of Souls (I am guessing this was the skill you meant with "Spirit Transfer will be able to heal your whole party for an average estimation of over 200 for whenever the party heal emergency calls")
Boon Of Creation
random


How about the basic hybrid:
14/14/3
Life
PwK
Spirit Syphon
Signet Of Spirits
Mend Body & Soul
Spirit Light
Splinter
Weapon Of Warding

Your damage output will be insanely better and the healing options would be pretty much equal to what you are outputting.
I simply do not see why one would run Spawning in a hybrid build. And if you are running Channeling, you kinda should be running a hybrid because the line just doesn't cut it on it's own.

you mean signet of GHOSTLY might, right? :P but nitpicking aside...

I'm pretty sure that that elite's still bugged too, not granting bonus damage to bloodsong/vampirism

EDIT : and to compare the two, I'd say that due to the attack speed increase, ghostly might is likely the better of the two (for total DPS) though the master of damage could help you to test that out. I really wish signet of ghostly might effected allied spirits within earshot, same with spiritleech aura (which I also think belongs in channeling now)

I'll bite, what is the AI bug?

NM: Checked the wiki, ANet needs to get on that I was planning on using that skill for my new rit.

asking this is like asking if ms/db is worth it, ofcourse its worth it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Super Igor

asking this is like asking if ms/db is worth it, ofcourse its worth it. I'm sorry, but I can't help but say that post is dumb.
SoS is a very controversial skill and a ritualist has multiple attributes they will be using, unlike the assassin who just throws in Critical and Daggers attributes.

However, the meta of a ritualist is split amongst many attributes and they must run multiple things.
Signet of Spirits, unlike Moebius Strike, is bugged though.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kain Fz

I'm sorry, but I can't help but say that post is dumb.
SoS is a very controversial skill and a ritualist has multiple attributes they will be using, unlike the assassin who just throws in Critical and Daggers attributes.

However, the meta of a ritualist is split amongst many attributes and they must run multiple things.
Signet of Spirits, unlike Moebius Strike, is bugged though. Oh please!

Every Rit I've seen loves SoS like Sins love MS/DB.

I noticed that the spirits sometimes attack different targets but they dont freeze like wiki says and when there arent much targets around they all lock on one target, pwnage.
Not to mention that its an entire spirit wall in one skill for zero energy, ubah bar compressions right there dawg.
Oh and youre forgetting that it's in the same attribute line as other useful skills such as Painful Bond, AR and Slinter and gives you amazing partyheals when combined with Feast of Souls.

Quote: Originally Posted by Super Igor

Oh and youre forgetting that it's in the same attribute line as other useful skills such as Painful Bond, AR and Slinter and gives you amazing partyheals when combined with Feast of Souls. Someone obviously didn't read the first post if you think I said it's useless.

I implied it is dumb to compare to Mobius Blossom. Not that it's a bad skill.

Personally, I've never had any issues with SoS. Sometimes the spirits pick different targets, yeah, but since I use Explosive Growth with a shadowstep, by the time I've got my spirits up it hardly matters anyway, because whatever I'm fighting is usually on half health at the most.

Anyway, considering that I prefer to deal damage and find playing a support role extremely boring, I love this skill. Pulling off PBAOEs is a lot of fun.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Someone obviously didn't read the first post if you think I said it's useless.

I implied it is dumb to compare to Mobius Blossom. Not that it's a bad skill. Why is it dumb to compare it to Moebius Blossom? Same powerful, commonly used meta skill but just for Rits.

Also show me where I wrote that you said that it's useless.

Signet of Spirits would be absolutely amazing even if they didn't hit anything ever. There is of course the large amount of energy they provide with certain skills, but they're awesome for laying down crap you don't care about to keep enemies off your party. It's free, recharges quickly, lays down three, and even without armor of unfeeling they're reasonably resilient. with armor of unfeeling, they're amazing, and it takes very little investment to make it last as long as it recharges.

But they do hit things, even if the AI is spotty, and it really makes a difference. Sig of Ghostly Might won't work with Bloodsong and Vampirism anyway, so there's no reason not to take it if you run channeling.

Quote: Originally Posted by Made In Ascalon

Sig of Ghostly Might won't work with Bloodsong and Vampirism anyway, so there's no reason not to take it if you run channeling. Half right. SoGM doesn't add damage, but they still attack 33% faster. Which is still awesome.

Quote: Originally Posted by zelgadissan

Half right. SoGM doesn't add damage, but they still attack 33% faster. Which is still awesome. Oh yeah, almost forgot So it's probably a damage increase over SoS' spotty AI. I wonder how close the difference would be if it was fixed.

Quote: Originally Posted by Made In Ascalon

I wonder how close the difference would be if it was fixed. If SoS was fixed, it would become part of THE meta. Not "the" meta, but "THE" meta, that is, the meta of god skills amongst tyria.
'Nuff said.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kain Fz

If SoS was fixed, it would become part of THE meta. Not "the" meta, but "THE" meta, that is, the meta of god skills amongst tyria.
'Nuff said. I cannot see how this skill would be any good even if spirits worked correctly.

HB is a good pve skill, Ether renewal is a good pve skill, SS, VoR, Assasin Promise, Earth shaker, Shadow Form.

SoS is a niche skill limited in its uses, even if correctly used the 3 spirits are nothing to be head over heels for. You cannot gain energy management unless you invest in spawning power (for Boon) or bring spirit siphon, the spirits are low on survivability unless you spend points in spawning or bring summon spirits or go communing for armor of unfeeling (and even then they ain't that great), even their DPS is not that good. They make nice meatshields, but again, you don't want your spirits to be there soaking damage and die before recharge. All coupled with the fact that this elite is in an attribute (channeling) which has been nerfed to an extent that only 2-3 decent skills are left.
I could have understood the use of this elite when the recharge was lower.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keira Nightgale

I cannot see how this skill would be any good even if spirits worked correctly.

HB is a good pve skill, Ether renewal is a good pve skill, SS, VoR, Assasin Promise, Earth shaker, Shadow Form.

SoS is a niche skill limited in its uses, even if correctly used the 3 spirits are nothing to be head over heels for. You cannot gain energy management unless you invest in spawning power (for Boon) or bring spirit siphon, the spirits are low on survivability unless you spend points in spawning or bring summon spirits or go communing for armor of unfeeling (and even then they ain't that great), even their DPS is not that good. They make nice meatshields, but again, you don't want your spirits to be there soaking damage and die before recharge. All coupled with the fact that this elite is in an attribute (channeling) which has been nerfed to an extent that only 2-3 decent skills are left.
I could have understood the use of this elite when the recharge was lower. While I agree that even a fixed SoS wouldn't be a "god" skill, I don't think SoS even in it's current state isn't worth disregarding. With the update spirit spamming is on par with (non-OoU) MM-ing for providing lots of damage across a mob as well as providing meat-shields (though in the case of spirit spamming probably not the correct term ) for the team.

I never realized that one skill would have changed the face of the Ritualist so much. Still, I never thought that Anet would put the skill in the form of a signet. Hmm...

OT, while SoS may be bugged, it still offers insane synergy with all those Spawning skills that we're all so familiar with now. With SoS, you free up much of your bar, while being able to put up 3 meatshields/turrets that can also be used for party wide healing, near infinite energy, and still have room for support or damage through the other channeling skills. Definitely the new elite of my choice.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keira Nightgale

their DPS is not that good. At 16 Channeling the spirits have a combined 51 armor-ignoring DPS (assuming you've got enough targets that the AI bug doesn't kick in).

That stomps all over any other source of non-leveraged damage in the game. Discord @16 is 38 DPS and requires 2 procs. Dragon Slash @16 is 47 DPS if you maintain a 33%IAS and an adrenaline doubler. Etc. I don't claim to have examined the DPS of every elite in the game, but I'd be very surprised if any of them kept pace with 51 armor-ignoring DPS.

Yeah... and then you add painful bond and it becomes 82.5 armor-ignoring DPS.

And that's just DPS. We aren't yet even talking about the "on spirit creation...," "if there's a spirit nearby...," and "destroy spirit to..." effects that it supercharges.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon

At 16 Channeling the spirits have a combined 51 armor-ignoring DPS (assuming you've got enough targets that the AI bug doesn't kick in).

That stomps all over any other source of non-leveraged damage in the game. Discord @16 is 38 DPS and requires 2 procs. Dragon Slash @16 is 47 DPS if you maintain a 33%IAS and an adrenaline doubler. Etc. I don't claim to have examined the DPS of every elite in the game, but I'd be very surprised if any of them kept pace with 51 armor-ignoring DPS.

Yeah... and then you add painful bond and it becomes 82.5 armor-ignoring DPS.

And that's just DPS. We aren't yet even talking about the "on spirit creation...," "if there's a spirit nearby...," and "destroy spirit to..." effects that it supercharges. Too bad that 51 becomes 51/3 (17) considering that most of the time spirits attack different targets (even with ctrl+space and painful bond) on top of that the elite becomes useless right after you've used it while with discord you can actually play it. Spirits need to be kept alive as well, all in all I find discord need for an hex/condition which are going to be there anyway less of a threat, on top of that you can have multiple discords in the same team while you cannot effectively use multiple Signets.



Skills with an higher DPS? Mark of pain, splinter weapon, you need something else to trigger them but hey, they aren't elites.
I find this skill, well spirits in general, are too much out of a general teamplay concept, if I bring this signet I'm forced to build my whole bar upon its utility (feast of souls, boon of creation, bond, etc) at that point I might go /R load MOP on a necro and achieve more usefulness by unleashing volley/barrage. Again, this skill makes ritualist look like a even more niche class.




Edit: Spiteful spirit and Vor under certain circumstances (wich is almost always since mobs don't have a super AI) achieve some great DPS as well.