Secondary Prof. Question

Can secondary professions be as powerful as if it were your primary? D:

For example, I reached the point in the Prophecies where I can use M.O.X. I want to use him as a Ritualist hero via the secondary profession, but I'm not sure if he'll be as powerful as an actual primary profession ritualist. I'm also wondering if it's wise to use him as a ritualist, or just keep him as a dervish (I have access to the elites and such).

Thanks in advance. ^^

No, he (it?) won't. Being a secondary Rit means you won't have access to Spawning Power (meaning the spirits will be much more fragile than a primary Rits as well as not being able to improve any SP skills) and you won't be able to use runes (so you won't be able to make the skills as powerful as they could be).

The main limitation of the secondary profession is the Primary attribute, which can only be spec'd into by the primary profession. So, for example, MOX as a ritualist would not be able to put any points into Spawning Power -- the skills in that line would be mostly useless to him, and he would not get the inherent benefits that the attribute provides (healthier spirits, etc).

Additionally, you cannot use the profession runes of a secondary profession, so a secondary is limited to 12 attribute points in a specific attribute, whereas the use of runes can give you up to 16 natural points.

There are some cases where a profession's primary can support running as a secondary -- rangers, with Expertise, can be decent rit spirit spammers because of their primary attribute's energy management.

IMO, unless you load up some serious energy management skills, I don't think a dervish would act as a very good rit.

Indeed, spawning power provide spirits with more health, and weaponskills last longer. So a character or hero using those skills will have more durable spirits/weaponskills. To counteract that effect, you need to be able to put up new spirits quicker. This can only be acchievement by energymanagement.

This again can be done in two way's:
By increasing energy through runes/weaponmods. This has the downeffect that real ritualists don't need those upgrade and can use different ones (like e.g. higher health).

The other way is to use the profession's primary atribute to increase energy management.
The professions that can do that are:
Ranger: reduces energycost of rituals.
Nercromancer: when foe is killed you gain energy.
Elementalist: Higher energypool to start with.

So to summorize, the best profession to use ritualistskills with would be Ritualists, followed by rangers, necromancers and elementalists.

Last but not least: Don't use M.O.X., He is retarded

No, it'll never work.

-either not enough armour or not enough energy (that's why warrior/monks can't ever hope to heal)
-unable to use skills that depend on the primary attribute (that's why only warriors can use Flail)
-unable to use runes and insignia of the primary, thus limited to two attributes of 12 as opposed to 16 max of a primary (often the difference between "buff maintained 100% of the time and buff just long enough to get to melee).

All the limitations of running MOX as a ritualist are summed up in the above posts (even though I don't understand what warriors being unable to play as a monk has to do with anything... since warriors have 2 pips e-regen, dervish has 4).

They are all correct.
That being said, if you need/want a hero to bring SoS, but only have MOX available for the role, I would say it's viable in Normal Mode. A good skill to make sure he doesnt run out of energy is "Eremite's Zeal" (in Mysticism).

In HM and maybe even in late-game NM I would suggest you take a primary ritualist.

And before asking if something is a good idea, you might want to try it out, and see for yourself if it works or not. If it does what you want it to do and fits your needs, then it obviously works well enough (I'm not flaming you, just giving some advise. Tinkering with hero builds, figuring out where they go wrong and fixing them is a fun part of the game, I think^^)