Primary Ritualist, why?

SP also makes minions alot more durable. I'm talking surviving ele bosses sliver armor in HM durable.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard

Depends on what kind of team you are using. I'd love to know what team build you've got where bone minions don't cover that role far better.

Quote: Originally Posted by MasterSasori

Spawning power makes a big difference on Rejuvenation and more importantly, Agony. With high channeling, spawning, and summon spirits. Agony becomes a ridiculous, sustainable max degen on any small to medium crowd. Just a quick reminder that it's not max "degen". Max degen is 20 damage per sec - which means Agony represents the equivalent of 5 degen. Still because it's not actually degen, which means it can be used on top of skills that cause max degen, it's an interesting mechanic.

Quote: Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

I'd love to know what team build you've got where bone minions don't cover that role far better. UW using this team:



Primary role for Rit is to tank 1 side for 4H and for Earthbind.

Bone Minions die faster, deal less damage, require corpses, and are more susceptible to AoE.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard

Rits cannot spike or heal as good as other professions. You're funny.

Its funny because a elem does heal and prot better than anyone else.

Quote: Originally Posted by AndroBubbles

You're funny. Post a rit build that spikes better or heals better than monks/eles.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard Post a rit build that spikes better or heals better than monks/eles. Eles aren't "the spiking profession" anymore, and ER makes the healing aspect ridiculous anyway.

SoS restoration is easily comparable to a monk, and a well placed splinter weapon is a spike in itself, which can be added to with ancestor's rage. Or I can use the SoS spammer with painful bond to absorb some aggro AND apply a lot of damage.

To give one other skill as an example: Recuperation has one of the highest potentials for net healing in the game. It supports any ally (sans spirits) in range. If you calculate with restoration at 14, it gives a net total of 258 health PER ally. Remember that this effect includes the minions you use for tanking and activating your offensive hexes, and all other beneficial NPCs in range. In an area where sustained battle is common, it's hard to match that.

Quote: Originally Posted by maxxfury

Its funny because a elem does heal and prot better than anyone else. Yes, but that's obvious. My point is that ritualists are more than capable of doing multiple jobs very well.

Posts Merged by Cebe: Please use the button rather than double posting!

Quote: Originally Posted by upier

Just a quick reminder that it's not max "degen". Max degen is 20 damage per sec - which means Agony represents the equivalent of 5 degen. Still because it's not actually degen, which means it can be used on top of skills that cause max degen, it's an interesting mechanic. Thanks, I should have clarified. Agony's degen is not the traditional degeneration mechanic in GW.

It's very similar to Spirit Light Weapon cept it causes enemies to loose life instead of healing a party member.

The only potential advantage of using a ranger or necro over a rit for spirit spam is that you don't need boon of creation or spirit siphon, and can therefore bring along another spirit (assuming your passive energy management is enough to fuel that extra spirit).

This seems like it would make necros and rangers better spirit spammers, but let's look at the math.

Let's assume a build like this:
SoS
Pain
Bloodsong
Anguish
Vampirism
Painful Bond
Spirit Siphon (Rit)/Bloodsong (N/Rt or R/Rt)
AoU

The rit gets 16 channeling, 13 communing, and 4 SP. The non-rit gets 12 channeling, 12 communing, and 6 SR or Expertise.

For the rit:

SoS 34 dmg x3
Pain 27 dmg
Bloodsong 26 dmg
Anguish 18 dmg x2
Vampirism 20 dmg

Painful Bond 21 dmg x7

211+147=358

Non-rit:

SoS 27 dmg x3
Pain 25 dmg
Bloodsong 21 dmg
Anguish 17 dmg x2
Vampirism 20 dmg
Shadowsong 17 dmg

Painful Bond 18 dmg x8

198+144=342

Nope. Even though the rit has one less spirit, they still win out in damage. Oh, and the less spirits you bring with you, the worst this gets for the non-rit, because then SoS becomes a bigger and bigger portion of the damage (and that's one of the major places where the rit comes out on top). Oh, and this is all while having tougher spirits (spirits gain 6 armor and 20 health per level, and there's also SP to consider), and superior energy management overall thanks to spirit siphon.

Now, at 14 channeling the necro and ranger can beat the rit in pure damage output, but the rit is still going to have tougher spirits and better energy management, and the toughness of spirits is half the point. They just don't RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing die.

Of course, it's not even a fair comparison, because then we're assuming the rit won't take a superior rune for channeling but the necro or ranger will take a superior rune for soul reaping/expertise. So we have to assume they don't do that. But now there's a problem. 4 SR or Expertise won't be nearly enough to fuel the extra spirit that would be required to beat the rit in damage. So the rit still wins.

Quote: Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Nope. Even though the rit has one less spirit, they still win out in damage. Oh, and the less spirits you bring with you, the worst this gets for the non-rit, because then SoS becomes a bigger and bigger portion of the damage (and that's one of the major places where the rit comes out on top). Oh, and this is all while having tougher spirits (spirits gain 6 armor and 20 health per level, and there's also SP to consider), and superior energy management overall thanks to spirit siphon. There's nothing stopping another class to bring spirit siphon as well. There certainly is a difference between rt/x and x/rt when it comes to spirit spamming. However the more meaningful difference (at least for me) would be that weapon spells last so much longer with a rt/x. "Would be", because most weapon spells end after a certain trigger, which makes the big rit update back then miss its mark imo.

I think everyone has missed the BIGGEST reason why a Rit primary si better for this!

The twisty cool dancing casting animation is epic!

As well as the higher spec splinter! or a longer duration gdw.

To be honest with an sos bar, if you need more Eman that siphon spirit....hmm

Quote: Originally Posted by maxxfury I think everyone has missed the BIGGEST reason why a Rit primary si better for this!

The twisty cool dancing casting animation is epic! Correction, it WAS.
The longer casting animations felt like the guy worshipped the gods and called upon the souls from an another realm of existence. The new, 1 sec cast times just look like he's suffering from a spasm.
That was the first thing I raged about after the change when everyone was going "Uhhh, ahhh, ohhh!"

Cant deny it was better with longer casts. /good point

Quote: Originally Posted by Lhim

There's nothing stopping another class to bring spirit siphon as well. There certainly is a difference between rt/x and x/rt when it comes to spirit spamming. However the more meaningful difference (at least for me) would be that weapon spells last so much longer with a rt/x. "Would be", because most weapon spells end after a certain trigger, which makes the big rit update back then miss its mark imo. You misunderstand the purpose of that comparison.

Rits have access to runes. Non-rits don't. So however powerful an N/Rts spirits might be, a Rit's will be even more so. The only potential thing a Necro could ever have on a Rit with regards to spirit spam is passive energy management. So I decided to run with the assumption that a Necro with a 12,12,6 spread could fuel all their spirits, and that this in turn would allow them an extra skill slot for one more spirit. I then did the math to see if this would be enough for them to do more damage with their spirits than a Rit. But the Rit still wins. The weapon spells thing isn't relevant to what I was calculating (spirit spam offense). If it was, I would have mentioned that Rits are much more awesome with splinter weapon than any other class could ever hope to be.

Quote: Originally Posted by upier

That's the thing - it's not the same.
Spirit spam on a non-rit is ALWAYS weaker than on a ritualist. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by running it on a non-primary rit. I'll disagree. Even on a non rit, the SoS spam build is an offensive powerhouse when deployed correctly. Even Warriors can do it by subbing in Siphon Spirit for e-management. Rit primary's can do more damage overall, but you can not dismiss the damage the spirits put out at 12 att. points.

I just recently switched my necro over to it to for a change of pace, and I personally think it kills faster when I H/H now. Only time I run into trouble is if I run into an ele with strong AoE that I didn't take into account. Which would also be the case against a Rit primary.

Quote: Originally Posted by FyrFytr998

I'll disagree. Even on a non rit, the SoS spam build is an offensive powerhouse when deployed correctly. Even Warriors can do it by subbing in Siphon Spirit for e-management. Rit primary's can do more damage overall, but you can not dismiss the damage the spirits put out at 12 att. points.

I just recently switched my necro over to it to for a change of pace, and I personally think it kills faster when I H/H now. Only time I run into trouble is if I run into an ele with strong AoE that I didn't take into account. Which would also be the case against a Rit primary. You said nothing to prove that spirit spamming on a rit isn't stronger than anything else.

Quote: Originally Posted by reaper with no name

So I decided to run with the assumption that a Necro with a 12,12,6 spread could fuel all their spirits, and that this in turn would allow them an extra skill slot for one more spirit. A Ritualist can run 7 spirits (SoS, Bloodsong, Pain, Vamp and Anguish) with no energy management skills. It is quite possible to have full uptime on those spirits and get Painful Bond on enemies with a fair degree of reliability.

All the Necro gets is the ability to keep Anguish up more easily and Painful Bond on enemies more reliably.

Another very awesome combo for the Ritualist is the Ebon Vanguard Sin and Asuran summon skills. With Spawning at 13 those pve summon skills can do some serious tanking. I have seen my 20th lvl ebon sin tank whole mobs for the duration of the spell.

Quote: Originally Posted by Genius Was Revrac

Another very awesome combo for the Ritualist is the Ebon Vanguard Sin and Asuran summon skills. With Spawning at 13 those pve summon skills can do some serious tanking. I have seen my 20th lvl ebon sin tank whole mobs for the duration of the spell. That's an interesting combination that I hadn't thought a lot about. I'll try that out sometime.