Holy God am I angry - PvE and Ritualist ashes

It's been reported that Ritualist ashes have an aggro-grabbing effect, much like gears and books. It's like whoever is behind GW PvE has some kind of brain hemmorage, I mean we've had the gear and book tricks going on for what... 3,4 for months now without a fix then they add more ways to do it? Why don't they just give us a "Win" Button and save everyone the trouble?

If this makes it into release... that's it, I'm done with Guild Wars PvE.

What are your thoughts on this?

I think they do that because it is a general property of all items that you carry. Thus, Vengeful was Khanei is better than Signet of Judgement. They don't get knocked down so they hurt themselves more, it holds aggro, steals health, and isn't a freaking monk skill :P.

yeah I hate that.. tried playing a proper ritualist using the attune ashes, died in 3 seconds... never used ashes since then in PvE -.-

i'm not sure but i dont think that all ashes work this way - i've played rit for 10hrs and i didnt notice any uber-aggro when i hold some ashes... mb AI's weird again or only certain ashes are aggro object... have to wait till release to test it carefully.

I've been play Rit the whole time, I've not noticed any extra aggro soaking. I've managed to be in the middle of a mob, and not take any hits. I think this is Urban legend.

Same here, two days playing Ritualist now and haven't noticed there being an aggro difference while holding ashes. Actually, one little annoyance I had was having to wade into the fray around henchies so I could drop the ashes into the middle of the aggro heap... kinda wish they would aggro me with some of the spells.

We did a bunch of testing tonight, and we SPECIFICALLY pulled aggro onto the Rit (from very long range) every time she used the "Attuned was Song Kai" elite.

-M

yeah it does really suck
one rit tryied blind was blah blah on me
cus i am a warrior and counter attacked with spells

one word only: PLAGUE TOUCH OWNS

Yes, holding ashes does draw aggro. I'm sure this is unintended because right now, it is impossible to use any of these skills unless you wanna die in about 2.36 seconds.

I just verified this with my Ritualist and holding ashes does indeed draw all aggro towards you. I guess this would mean that with a W/Rt tank you could use the SF 5-man build in just about every PvE area now...

Strange, it worked fine last night. Guess something changed, or when I used them there was some circumstance that kept the aggro away. Oh well.

I noticed this happening too, I didn't know what was causing it and I got pretty damn pissed and stopped doing the PvE for a while. If they keep this behaviour then it will be the best way for annoying players to get their team killed.

Yeah, it does. I tried it out the first thing I did; it's geartank syndrome all over again.

My thoughts on this is that it's a fricking exploit that ANet seriously needs to nerf. The sooner the better.

This is so stupid it's ridiculous. Every ash skill will go unused by every Ritualist in the game. You can't even drop the ashes on the ground to save your life; if you do, they vanish into thin air. The only way this will be useful is for Warriors to exploit.

Please fix this, I beg you.

i just wish they fixed the whole book gear trick AI of mobs... i mean imagine if ppl did fow and sf the proper way.. wouldnt that put some serious cost on greens-shards? not to mention character skill.. cause now any warrior that knows how to activate skills can tank in sf and get greens out of luck only... isnt the game based on players skill?

I'm just going to dissagree with everyone here on every topic/post they have and call it a day.

I haven't noticed this so much yet with my bf's Ritualist, I've noticed i"ve been killed in three seconds with my Assassin without any idea what th ehell had hit me. We did see only once how everyone seemed to be attacking him specifically, it hasn't been too bad a problem yet though. But this is what the weekend is for, to find problems, experience new skills to work with, we'll all just have to see what fixes and changes come out of this weekend, inherenitly that is w hat it's for, to find problems in all the places they may have missed.

When mass amounts of thousands get ahold of this, problems will be found faster rather than with a team of may be a hundred. These sorts of preview events/beta events are great for it. We'll just see how this comes around. I need to make a ritualist at some pint to see this for myself...

Turn your weakness into a strength.

Go Rt/Mo and use smiting skills with the ashes, or even go with Rt/E and use PBAoE.

Could be alot of W/Rt's appearing as stance tanks once people work out the suitable farm areas.

truly, they need to fix such a stupid bug and at the same time stop the book/keg trick. been going on way to long and it makes an already shitty ai even more pathetic

I assumed it was an intentional design, holding the ashes gives you some pretty good skill options at the expense of drawing agro of PvE enemies. You can use this to your advantage in some cases by drawing agro away from your allies or even tanking.
I thought Prophecies PvE was relatively easy and it's good to see extra challenges in the new chapter.
Will be interesting to see if they change it or not.

Theus, this isn't about using Ashes to WTFOMGPWN Mobs, people have already figured out how to do that with Gears and Books. It's about ANet making an AI Exploit an even bigger part of the game, and ruining the challenge of PvE.

It boggles the mind that anyone would spend a considerable amount of time playing such a character.

It's pathetic. Yep, pathetic.
This kind of thing has been going on since release.
Back then I used to think it was to simulate the aggro a relic carrier in pvp
gets, but it's PATHETIC.
I mean, just lol.
We've been using this with the guild on a W/Rt to nuke the &%¤" out of
enemies and clear the repeatable quests in no time over and over again.
Again, it's pathetic.
Real nice unlocking something you can't ever really use cause if you do,
you die in about 10 seconds unless planning around the very fact.
Of course, I don't care about skill points either at the moment,
with this kind of stuff going on had we been doing this a whole day we could have unlocked who knows how much so far..

Personally, I am going to just assume it was unintentional right now. (And raise holy hell when Factions opens if it hasn't changed! )

0M

(reposted from my tirade on this subject over at GWO. i made a w/ri just to test it. i guarantee it works.)

Warrior/Ritualists. They're the wave of the future.

When GW:F is released, they will be the new keg/gear/torch/book tanks, and they don't even need a keg/gear/torch/book to be waiting for them to pick up! Not when they can cast any of the Ritualist "ashes" spells and create their own aggro magnet at will!

I was hoping... hoping against hope... that they would remove the "If someone is holding an item, direct all attacks at them and ignore everyone else" bits from the enemy AI when Factions comes out. I mean, Ritualists have 60 AL ARMOR -- some of these "Ashes" spells are pretty cool! A ritualist may want to carry the "Attuned" ashes around for as long as he can, for instance, as it is an amazing energy management elite. But wait, if you carry those "Attuned" ashes... EVERY monster who touches your aggro bubble will ignore everyone and head DIRECTLY towards you! EEK!!

Well, this isn't so bad if you're a Warrior! No, these fearless exploiters of poorly designed AI have been using this particular gimmick for many months now. Sorrow's Furnace, The Fissure of Woe, Thunderhead Keep... they all have items that you can pick up and hold onto to use as "aggro magnets". Warriors plan for this and adjust their builds to not depend on weapons and shields; stances, signets, shouts, etc... you've got your cookie cutter gear stance tank and you're set.

And now, with the introduction of aggro magnets that you can CONJURE YOURSELF, you can pull this trick off in ANY instance. UW! Thirsty River! Hell's Precipice! In every mission and every outpost all across the Guild Wars world, W/Ri will be the tank of choice.

This is sure to:

1. Dumb down the PvE experience to the point of absurdity
2. Create endless spam in every PvE outpost of "GLF ASH TANK"
3. Create endless "UR NOT ASH TANK? NOOB!!" remarks from group leaders to every self-advertised tank that isn't a W/Ri

and, most importantly,

4. Make every single "Ashes" skill unusable and, for all intents and purposes, suidcidal in the hands of a Ritualist primary.

Unless, of course, ANet decides to un-code this bit of nonsense AI from the game. I believe that this is the best course of action... completely eliminate the "book trick" or the "gear trick" or what will soon be known as the "ashes trick" from the game. It's absurd... no wait, let me bold that word for emphasis, it's absurd that enemies would mindlessly attack someone who is holding onto a freaking gear and completely ignore the foes that are dealing damage and healing. It always has been, and it always will be.

Before now, the main line of logic as to why the book trick should be left in was "well if you don't like it, don't use it, and it won't affect you at all". This argument no longer works when it makes a primary Ritualist see the need to completely ignore an entire line of skills, because to use them would be tantamount to seppuku. The book trick now affects everyone.

I imagine that the new argument from the gear tank apologists will be "If you don't like it, just don't use the 'ashes' skills" or even worse, "If you don't like it, don't play a Ritualist". That is, for lack of a better adjective, a pathetic response to a request to fix what is obviously a moronic AI choice.

Look guys, I know if they take it out, you won't be able to farm SF for greens as easily anymore. But try and see the big picture here. See how this AI choice wrecks an entire line of what would otherwise be pretty sweet skills.

Remember the AoE update? The reasoning behind that? "To make monster AI make decisions that were closer to the decisions that humans would make." I hope that ANet applies that reasoning to this case as well, and eliminates the "held item trick" before Factions is released.

I implore them to do so, with the utmost haste.

Maybe they could just remove the agro created by Ritualist skills and leave the agro created by picking up a book/gear/keg. I assume that would keep more people happy.

i already have a warrior stance tank. i am fully capable of changing his secondary to rit. then unlocking a real nice ashes skill and then never dropping the ashes while i use my stances.

yeah i see a lot more opportunity than penalty with this thing. You could go mo 2nd and smite, or w 2nd and try stances

I spent most of Saturday playing a Ritualist & I didn't notice an uber-aggro effect.

Is it possible that this is due to playing style & that some players will naturally get closer than others before activating their ashes?

If the aggro circle expands only slightly then this would explain why some players experience this problem & others don't.

I find that if you have at least two warrior henchies in your group, activate the ashes just outside of the aggro circle, cast spirits & then an offensive spell at the nearest monster they don't get near me, but instead attack the spirits & are attacked by warriors.

Nonetheless, the 'Gear Trick' ought to be patched- it is an embarassing flaw in the less-than-stellar mob AI. I think it's one of the worst parts of the PvE experience- it directly encourages farming by trivializing any encounter. If this exploit were to be possible anywhere, anytime, just by holding ashes, the slight pleasures of PvE are lost. The PvE game is too easy with these aggro tricks, and does not reflect the PvP game in any way, the hole should be closed.

ghull ka is right on the money. Fix the AI, Anet!

eudas

The armor crafters had an armor set for ritualists that gave +10 AL while holding an item on each piece (except head, of course). That should making using an ashes Rit more than viable.

if people keep saying pve is too easy ... i think you know what to do anet

I played ashes the first couple of times once the preview opened but all the mobs just run to the Rit to attack.
I dropped them and never played with them again.
They should fix this.

1) bonuses like that are never cumulative (see also: mesmer rogue's armor)
2) 60 + 10 = 70, hardly a "God mode" when every single mob around is targeting *your* flimsy ass because you DARE to carry something in their sight!

eudas

I tried the ashes spell on my Rit this weekend three times, died all three times from aggro'd mobs. So I just quit using them. Which is a shame, because I love the idea of the mechanic, and the skills are really cool.

I'm hoping they'll fix the global bonuses on certain armors when Factions is released. If you look at the new armors available, a lot of them are x while y. If the global bonuses aren't fixed by that point, you'll have people wearing 4 different armor types on chest, arms, legs, and feet, just to be uber.

It'll be even less worth the cost when it's not global.
This has to be fixed, or else using the ashes like they were intended - see how they're used in PvP(if they ever are?) for reference - will be all but impossible, leaving only tanking.

Wait a minute f00'! I already do that!!!

I never noticed this my self as a ritualist, but I stopped useing them because they are VERY uncoperative with Henchies. with them in my hands, i cant attack, and henchies kinda just stop attacking things if im not attacking something...

But yes, the "gear"trick is a slap in the face to me and anyone else who thinks the pve side of the game is fun...