Spirit popularity

So for the majority of Spirit Spammer rits, the elite of choice is SoS. In addition, Bloodsong and Vampirism are automatic choices.

The rest of the points usually goes to Communing for Pain and Anguish.

My question is, is it even necessary to split into the communing line?

I propose using high Spawning Power + Spirit's Gift + Agony as an alternative.

When there is alot of enemies, I see Agony being ridiculously powerful but the cost of such power is a very short duration. With Spirit's Gift at high Spawning, it is possible to keep Agony alive for long periods of time assuming you also use a high lvl summon spirits.

Opinions?

IMO Agony becomes increasingly less useful the larger the mobs you face. I don't find it worth the skill slot outside of the 4 player party areas.

Aside from that, SoS/Bloodson/Spiritual Pain provide more than enough damage and additional meatshields for me. As such, I'm actually quite disappointed when I end up /w a PC spirit spammer b/c I'd much rather run a channeling SoS/healer hybrid hero for the additional spot healer.

Yeh I use spawning power for boon of creation and spirits gift,communing (and resto really) isn't needed.

12+1+1 chan
11 Smiting
6 Spawn

SoS, Vamp, Bsong, GDW, Judge Insight, SoH, Castigation, Flesh

I use 12+1+1 Channeling, and 12 Spawning.
Spirits Gift, Boon of Creation (Both can be maintained with 12 SP), SoS, Bloodsong, Vampirism, Painful Bond, Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, Ebon Vanguard Sniper Support. For the bigger deal I will usually switch EVSS with Pain Inverter too.

With a 40/40 set or Ssyn's staff I've never had energy management issues. And I've used this setup for Legendary Vanquisher and Guardian. Goes great with Sabway or Discord, great energy management, area wide healing and condition removal.

I've seen people with some pretty weird builds, but I guess really most work fine.

One other thing to remember about AGONY also is that it gives out and take damage from charmable animals within its range without turning them to a foe. If you are in an area with lots of charmable animals, agony becomes even less effective.

Quote: Originally Posted by MasterSasori

The rest of the points usually goes to Communing for Pain and Anguish.

My question is, is it even necessary to split into the communing line?

I propose using high Spawning Power + Spirit's Gift + Agony as an alternative. Honestly, both options aren't very good.
With SoS alone you already have enough spirits for Spirit Siphon to never run in energy problems, additional spirits won't have much synergy with the rest of the build.
If you don't intentionally tank with your spirits they should easily survive their recharge time even without Armor of Unfeeling or high investment in Spawning Power; also, Agony recharge time is too high to be useful.
Going as a full spirit spammer is one of the worst things you can do as a SoS-rit in a non-farming build.
Your staple skills should be SoS, Spirit Siphon and Splinter Weapon/Great Dwarf Weapon; if you have an additional spirit spammer in your group bring Painful Bond, Bloodsong and maybe Vampirism also; in either case use your superior energy managment, for example spec into restoration and spam WoW and other restoration skills, spec into blood and spam dark fury/order of pain, spec into smiting for SoH and Judge Insight.

Some of you are making bad e-management recommendations.

If you spec into channeling, there is nothing better than siphon spirit.

Why do people take Pain and Bloodsong instead of Shadowsong for instance? It's not like with Syphon there are any energy problems, and shorter duration is not a big deal IMO. I think perma blind in HM on just one enemy can help a lot. And with proper positioning it will quite often blind the right target. So if you already have points in Communing, why not?

Quote: Originally Posted by The Josip

Why do people take Pain and Bloodsong instead of Shadowsong for instance? It's not like with Syphon there are any energy problems, and shorter duration is not a big deal IMO. I think perma blind in HM on just one enemy can help a lot. And with proper positioning it will quite often blind the right target. So if you already have points in Communing, why not? Bloodsong does more damage.

Also, blinding one target isn't that useful outside of solo farming.

Blinding just one target in some areas means negating quite a lot of damage, for only a slight reduction in damage.

Quote: Originally Posted by The Josip

Blinding just one target in some areas means negating quite a lot of damage, for only a slight reduction in damage. You aren't making a very good argument.

Why waste a slot for a "slight reduction in damage" when you can just kill everything?

The same reason people say "just trust me" and insist to bring charm animal with ursan because "I like bears"



Vampirism is a bad spirit skill, no matter what anyone says. It is only useful when you don't have anything better at your disposal. But if you have communing, using the low-damage vampirism over the blindbotting of shadowsong is just dumb.

Thanks for all the informative posts. I have a few comments.

I've been meaning to try out Rt/Mo SoS-Smiting builds but never got around to it.

I didn't like the Restoration/Channeling builds I've tried, but perhaps I should go more in depth before dismissing it.

I've been pretty dissatisfied with the common SoS builds that load the bars with spirits.

I don't really find high spawning to be of that much use. It's mostly for BoC/SG/Agony and the benefits are pretty marginal. There seems to be other spells that help support the team better. Keeping Agony alive isn't as hard as you would imagine with constant Summon Spirits/Spirit's Gift + good positioning, but overall, it's not worth the trouble.

Communing doesn't really seem to help the bar much as Pain at lower levels just suck and Shadowsong/Anguish just doesn't seem to make up for the communing stack. I think communing is even worse than the 16/14 Channel + 13 Spawning Method as adding the extra spirits seem to be not that useful. Furthermore, Armor of Unfeeling completely blows if you don't park your Spirits in a RoJ or something.

BTW, the more I think of it, the less I like Anguish. When Painful bond is on, the SoS spirits should destroy the target quickly, not to mention the discord heroes. Otherwise the damage from Anguish is measly, the spirit is low level, and bad recharge.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard

You aren't making a very good argument.

Why waste a slot for a "slight reduction in damage" when you can just kill everything? Because the entire team is build around defense/offense ratio. Sure you can just go with 8 offensive characters and kill everything..

Quote: Originally Posted by The Josip

Because the entire team is build around defense/offense ratio. Sure you can just go with 8 offensive characters and kill everything.. Again, bad argument.

Explain how blinding 1 target (while doing less damage than other spirits) is beneficial in a team?

Just as a sidenote, contrary to its description shadowsong actually DOES damage for as much as most other communig spirits.

And Josip made quite a good argument: If you already deal about ~150 DPS dealing ~5 DPS less is hardly noticeably, but one oppenent that produces less than 10% of its original damage output can be highly noticeably.
For such a small loss of damage capabilites most other classes/builds cannot blind one or more foes constantly.

Quote: Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Just as a sidenote, contrary to its description shadowsong actually DOES damage for as much as most other communig spirits.

And Josip made quite a good argument: If you already deal about ~150 DPS dealing ~5 DPS less is hardly noticeably, but one oppenent that produces less than 10% of its original damage output can be highly noticeably.
For such a small loss of damage capabilites most other classes/builds cannot blind one or more foes constantly. Pain and Anguish do more damage.

I am still not hearing a viable reason for bringing a single target blind over more damage. If something is that dangerous, kd/interrupts and prots are better anyway.

Yea, that's why no one brings other defensive stuff, prots and kd/interrupts is what everyone uses to defend the team.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard

Pain and Anguish do more damage.

I am still not hearing a viable reason for bringing a single target blind over more damage. If something is that dangerous, kd/interrupts and prots are better anyway. This.

Your staple defense should be good enough to handle that one more enemy that isn't blind, and if it can't, there's something wrong with your team setup. Also, the fact that spirits don't know how to prioritize targets means that you could be wasting your blind on a spellcaster, which in HM will likely not ever be actually attacking.

A dead monster doesn't need to be blinded.