Ritualist Spike Owns

Ok, so me and my guild were running our usual Obsidian Spike build. We start facing a group of a bunch of ritualists. They owned us, I must say. They used all sorts of AoE like Cruel Was whatever his name was and the one that does damage to foes in the area. What are your thoughts on the Ritualist Spike subject?

I think you ran into us.

It was "Lady Jazmynne's Team"?

We're from Section One [One] but we had some members from our smurf, so we didn't register as a guild.

Ritualist spike is good, I guess, but we had a lot of trouble with it.

We're not very mobile. We use a lot of AOE damage at one time, so it works better if we run up and charge a tight group or have them all charge us. It's best if we kill a big number of people all at once by catching them off guard.

Yeah, I think that was it. Did you meet a team called, Eat My Happy Place? We didn't have enough guild mates on. But yeah, you caught us off guard, and took advantage of it. GG. Anti IWAY ftw?

Maybe if you match a bunch of Ritualists together, but ive been playing Ri since yesterday and the skills that we are allowed to use are very weak. Ive been trying out all kinds of combos and the problem is the damage is medium like most of the Necro damage skills, but they take about 3 times longer to recharge. Most of them seem to be around 10-20 seconds. You spend a lot of time standing around. They are basically like a weaker Necro. Not nearly as versatile with the skills weve been given so far.

i agree ^ it seems a ritualist has better skills as a healer, like that one premade pvp character, as a damage dealer it seems to lack unless you go crazy with the lighting, but if u wanted lighting power be an elemantalist..

The recharges seem to take too long, since u can only have one of each spirit *unless u use that one to get some more pain ones* i dont see why the recharges arn't a bit faster

The ritualist may get pushed aside for many team things due o that fact, i mean who wants to w8t around for the spells to recharge, and the spells charging arnt that killer anyway

As of right now, it doesnt look to me that the Ritualist is going to be replacing any of the standard PvP team classes like a Trap/Pull Ranger, Battery Necro, etc. But that could change once we learn more about the skills. But right now, the Ri doesnt seen all that useful to me.

I`d like to point out that the Ritualists have alot of stuff that reduces the recharge of skills...

But, yea, the ritualist does seem a little underpowered offensively.

I don't think they're really that strong as an "offensive" class either, from what I've seen and played so far (which isn't much at all). It doesn't look like they were really designed for direct offense.

It's apparent that Ritualists are all about zone control though, and it looks like they're a "counter-attack" class though when it comes to damage. Like, blow a spirit up when a foe comes within range and then quickly chain 1-2 quick Channelling spells on the target for 200+ damage. Makes those Frenzy Warriors (PvP) think twice?

Quote: Originally Posted by Hiryu

Quote: I don't know, man, some of those Channeling skills are reeeeeally high damage. What of Gaze from Beyound? I just checked out Gaze from Beyond from photics.com. It's 18 damage (at level 12, I'm assuming), takes 5 spirits in the area in order for it to hit max damage (18x5) = 90. I'm guessing that it might do something like 25 at level 16, so then (25x5) = 125. So yea, if you can chain another spell that does around 80 damage you could do some significant damage. Plenty for making a good assist in a focus fire.

Problem is, it looks like all the spells that do direct damage have a relatively long recharge time. I'm not trying to say that direct damage isn't viable, but it almost feels like I'm playing a variation of the direct target-and-damage Smiting spells when I'm playing the Ritualist Channeling line. It just feels a lot slower and "unspammable" unlike the faster recharging high damage Elementalist spells or even the Necromancers with their medium damage (but life stealing) Blood Spells. So to keep the damage flowing (more an issue for PvE than for PvP, in my opinion), you have to stack more damage skills on your skill bar than some of the other classes -- which takes precious space out for other utility skills. I guess that's what I'm trying to say there.

I'm rdy to swear that there is a hidden 25% armor pen in Gaze. Not sure, so don't quote me on that but I've taken 130 + damage from it and I think it has like low recharge. Dunno.... still, depending on what spirits you got u can do some massive damage rite there, while healing urself with imba Spirit Transfer. Not to mention u can keep the spirits alive with HA.

Channeled strike is better.

I found spirit rift and channeled strike (among others) very useful. To those claiming Rits are underpowered offensively I beg to differ simply based on combinations of spirit rift and channeled strike/ancestor's rage/etc.
Spirit rift has a 3 second delay before it strikes so in combination with a 2 second cast time secondary skill the damage a ritualist can do in the ONE spike is greater than that of an ele. Sure elementals use only a single skill and the can follow up easily with a second but a 3 rit spike works well (and in one hit), and since people are new to all of it most people don't know what hit them. My team were accused of being an E-bomb.
As for spirits being useful in pvp... well that is another question altogether. Personally I don't think they are (except for the healing ones) but I'll probably change my mind after the release of factions.

The ritualist is so overpowered its ridiculous.

What was the skill in the healer build, 50% chance to block and +4 health regen, basically mixing Guardian and a low level breeze into 1.

Also how exactly can you counter 'Cruel was thingy' ashes. 60-70 AoE knockdown, unreducable (except prot spirit), even if you spread out if they time dropping the ashes perfectly they will kill someone. Can't exactly use Infuse if they die in 1, SB won't stop them.

They do have a fairly large amount of lightning damage too. Not to mention the most overpowered spirits i've ever seen.

Natures Renewal - Monks get annoyed, bonders get pissed off, sorta ends pressure builds
Primal Echoes - Bonders get pissed off, warriors get pissed off, ends signet mesmers

Union (the 1 with 10% max damage) - Every damage dealer in your team is put out of action.
Soothing - Basically a massive Soothing Images it takes that damn long to build adren up. Talk about anti-IWAY.
Wanderlust - What the hell is this skill, basically if you stop to do anything you fall over. What exactly do you do? W/E w/ Bulls Strike/Charge and Wanderlust, you stop and fall over, keep running and fall over.

Ritualists have a lot of damage potential, but little of it as spammable as, for instance, elementalist spikes. I also think part of the problem is just as you said "getting caught off guard". Cruel Was Daoshen spikes can work, obviously, but you can't pull those on an enemy every 8 seconds (GoR?). Destruction + Rupture Soul is decent, but it suffers from predictability. Spirit Rift, Ancestor's Rage, etc., all have their uses, but they're not going to replace Eles and Warriors yet.

But when combined maybe with Rit/E using water magic like quite a few of these skills could be much more devastating than an ele skills.

Throw a ranger in there with Crippling Shot and spam Spirit Rift and Ancestors Rage at something and you could end up with a fairly nasty spike. Of course vs Ranger Spike you wouldn't have a prayer due to there high ele AL and the fact that an organised group could technically down a player everytime Dual Shot recharged if you had to get close.

Rt/E, Iron mist + lightning damage spells. They can't run, and they are getting beaten on by a bunch of ritualists using lightning damage.

Well that is actually something that I hadn't thought of. I remember that a couple of water magic hexes allow for greater damage, or is that only with ele air skills? Anyway, Iron Mist + channelling could be lots of fun

There is a reason why Rts have all kinds of elites that help recharge their skills faster- most Rt skills take forever to recharge. I think Channeling is like a blend of Smiting, Inspiration, and Air Magic- it's most likely it will be used as sparingly as Smiting is, and for reasons that Inspiration is, with only a few people running it as Air Magic is. But I could, of course, be wrong. I guess we're gonna find out pretty soon.

Hella, I actually found that you could nearly spike on one single character if you maxed your channelling. As I mentioned earlier, barring nerfs, ritualist should be able to run a 3 man spike in HA. There are, of course, a couple of downsides to this.

I actually think the largest problem will be the preconception of the ritualist as a backup healer.