The Ritualist thatll rock you.

DarkzCloudz

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

First of all, it's good to be back in the Guildwars grand scheme of things.

Now, my build is the Spirit Spammer Summoner Damage Dealer Dude.
( Communing 16, Spawning 14 )

Health: 441
Energy: 43 recharge +4

Armor: 1.5k 60 phys defense Rit Armor, all dyed silver, soon to be black.

Skills in order and their purpose:

1.Explosive Growth.15 mana, 2 to cast, 45 regen.
This is good in any situation, you deal a good 60 lightning damage to up to 5 foes in your area each time you summon a spirit and the foes are in near by. This is essential to maximize damage dealing capabilities in any spammers case. Lasts almost a full minute, or beyond, depending on stats set up.

2.Boon of Creation, 10 mana, 2 to cast, 45 to regen.
Basically, whenever you make a spirit, you get healed for life and mana, which is usefull if you want to summon 4 or 5 spirits in a row very quickly in a crowd of monsters or people and live. Lasts a min or more.

3. PAIN, 5 mana, 3 ot cast, 45 to regen.
This is spirit number one, a lvl 9 damage dealer of about 17-22 damage depending on the monster or people you face! After more then 150 seconds it will die, and is best used from a distance or up close to an enemy with explosive growth. ( this is true with each spirit )

4.BLOOD SONG, 15, 5, 60.
This is my favorite, because it makes a flashy animation on those it hits and because it will ALWAYS drain out 20 to 23 life from an enemy!!! It lasts more then 150 seconds, and is best used as artillery or close to enemies or people.

5. SHADOWSONG, 10, 5, 45.
When it comes to messing up a pvp warriors attack or bringing distruption to your monster foes, this is the spirit for the job. A level 6 spirit that deals minor damage, and each time it hits, 6 seconds of blindness baby!! This spirit will die after 30 seconds, and is prefered to be summoned second to last in the row of spirit spamming, for maximum effectiveness.

6. DISSONANCE, 25, 5, 60.
A level 8 spirit that does 15 damage, each time it hits it will interrupts a foes attack or spell casting. Now, automatically I knew this was perfect for pve and even pvp if used right. Even though the poor things alive for only 30 seconds, they can cause chaos when they decide to aim at bosses, healers, etc...

7. Doom, 10, 1, 15.

37 lightning damage delt to foe for every recharging binding ritual you have. Max is 135, and you can reach this. Find what monster your spirits are targeting ( or what person ) and use DOOM. Bam, it's a 1/5 health to 1/3 health reducer, depending on what the targets stats are. And once it recharges, you will still have 3 spirits rechardging, and after that, maybe even one or 2 if the battle really lasts this long. Be aware you have 4 spirits bombarding your targets, plus a whole team, so you might or might not have to waste any more energy. Have fun, 300 damage total estimated if performed 3 times on one enemy. Ouch! ( plus your spirits, wow... 400-500 damage? )

8. Res, 10, 6, 5.
This is for either if your the last one left alive and need to res the monk, or in case you really need to revive someone and your the only one left for the job. Might as well remove this and put in vital weapon to support a team mate, but.. ya never know!

Now, for my questions.

1. What skills could I replace, re order, or how can I improve my stategy? FOR PVE?

2. What skills could I replace, re order, or how can I improve my stategy? FOR PVP?

3. Whats the effectiveness of this build on the scale of 1 to 10. Be honest, any comments or "constructive" criticism are welcomed.

Zinger314

Zinger314

Debbie Downer

Join Date: May 2006

N/Me

Spirits in a Ritualist build. Wow. Exciting.

Francis Demeules

Francis Demeules

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada, Qc

[Holy]

Me/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkzCloudz

<snip>

2.Boon of Creation, 10 mana, 2 to cast, 45 to regen.
Basically, whenever you make a spirit, you get healed for life and mana, which is usefull if you want to summon 4 or 5 spirits in a row very quickly in a crowd of monsters or people and live. Lasts a min or more.

3. PAIN, 5 mana, 3 ot cast, 45 to regen.
This is spirit number one, a lvl 9 damage dealer of about 17-22 damage depending on the monster or people you face! After more then 150 seconds it will die, and is best used from a distance or up close to an enemy with explosive growth. ( this is true with each spirit )

4.BLOOD SONG, 15, 5, 60.
This is my favorite, because it makes a flashy animation on those it hits and because it will ALWAYS drain out 20 to 23 life from an enemy!!! It lasts more then 150 seconds, and is best used as artillery or close to enemies or people.

5. SHADOWSONG, 10, 5, 45.
When it comes to messing up a pvp warriors attack or bringing distruption to your monster foes, this is the spirit for the job. A level 6 spirit that deals minor damage, and each time it hits, 6 seconds of blindness baby!! This spirit will die after 30 seconds, and is prefered to be summoned second to last in the row of spirit spamming, for maximum effectiveness.

<snip>

1. What skills could I replace, re order, or how can I improve my stategy? FOR PVE?

2. What skills could I replace, re order, or how can I improve my stategy? FOR PVP?

3. Whats the effectiveness of this build on the scale of 1 to 10. Be honest, any comments or "constructive" criticism are welcomed. 1)Generally, if you use Exploding Growth that mean there monster near you... which its a bad position. I like Doom, but less since I updated my build la little more with my Sac Spirits build. Another point, Doom is reduced by the armor. I already did like 74 on a Afflicted Warrior with 5 spirits (dmg reduction). If you want to spam dmg, Gaze from Beyond in Channeling. It ignores the target defense but take HP of 1 spirit nearby (Allies or foes). Restoration is a good spell to... um.... rez anybody in the area. I use a Sac spirit spell with it (Consume soul, Feast of Souls or Rupture) instead EG

2) Skip it, I dont PvP... net yet

3) From my exp in PvE, you have the 4 basic spells on you (Bold). If you want to do dmg with Exploding growth, you to get yourself in the enemies range. Maybe "In a Area" is large, but not large enough for safety.....7/10 for the idea but with some dangerous way to use it. Good dmg dealer for a Communer thought


Oh and I forgot, what is your secondary?

morimoto

morimoto

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2006

Ft. Worth TX

House of Soot?!

Mo/W

ditch explosive growth. it damages ppl near you and i dont think ritualists want ppl near them. i tried the spell and personally i dont like it much (at least not in the build i was using).

tivaan stormbringer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2005

R/N

A little something about exploding growth wait a sec or two for the first enemy to fall get close to the group and summon minions and watch the damage fly : )

Francis Demeules

Francis Demeules

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada, Qc

[Holy]

Me/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by tivaan stormbringer
A little something about exploding growth wait a sec or two for the first enemy to fall get close to the group and summon minions and watch the damage fly : ) Of course, MM as primary Ritualist is good with EG. Animatate bone minions, double the power of EG

suprise.....

.... ok that was old news from another thread I helped someone

how786

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Francis Demeules
Of course, MM as primary Ritualist is good with EG. Animatate bone minions, double the power of EG

suprise.....

.... ok that was old news from another thread I helped someone Francis, could you elaborate what you mean here for newer players like myself, please?
How

Francis Demeules

Francis Demeules

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada, Qc

[Holy]

Me/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by how786
Francis, could you elaborate what you mean here for newer players like myself, please?
How the majority of Ritualist/Necro are Minion Master (MM). You create Animated Bone Minions, and you have 2 minions which goes out of the corpse. With Exploding Growth (EG), each time you create a spirit or animated creature, the foes around that creature when create receive lightning dmg. In other words, you have created 2 minions, exploding growth strike 2 times all the foes where the creatures are created. So you can kill faster the foes near the corpse

TGgold

TGgold

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

Flying Gophers

Rt/P

I do believe minions trigger boon of creation twice as well, right?

Dahnel

Dahnel

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Oct 2005

Rt/Me

this is the build i use when i play "artillery"

15 communing
13 spawning
7 channeling

Doom
Pain
Bloodsong
Shadowsong
Wanderlust {e}
Boon Of Creation
Painfull Bond
Rez Sig

Setup spirits ... choose your target and wack painfull bond on it ...and watch it drop :P

Hollerith

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Sep 2005

Artillery for me in pve is

16 Communing
12 Channeling
Spawning

Bloodsong
Pain
Shadowsong
Dissonance
Wanderlust [e]
Painful Bond
Boon of Creation
Rebirth

I really don't like spirits in pvp because I can't control who they attack, and also because 1/4 of the time they simply don't attack anyone (even when I'm autoattacking someone).

Francis Demeules

Francis Demeules

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada, Qc

[Holy]

Me/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by TGgold
I do believe minions trigger boon of creation twice as well, right? Yep

Ok, my artillery in defense line

Boon of Creation
Pain
Shadow Song
Blood Song
Shelter
Restoration/Flesh of my Flesh
Consume Soul (E)
Edge of Extinction/Serpent Quickness/Painful Bond

Dont really use EoE against Afflicted and Human thought

Hella Good

Hella Good

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Oct 2005

None, free and clear

What's the news in a Pain/Blood/Shadowsong build? Geez I'm off to make a Grasping was Kuurong build just to break down the monotony of these forums.

Dahnel

Dahnel

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Oct 2005

Rt/Me

if it aint broke dont fix it .. pain, bloodsong and shadowsong work well for bombarding your enemies. as for a grasping build i guess you could use some kinda earthbind combo.. and thats all i got to say on the matter since its 7:31am

Hella Good

Hella Good

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Oct 2005

None, free and clear

Yea, I hear you there but I got bored of doing the Pain/Blood/Shadowsong thing with RL during the 1st preview event... I'm loving these item/wapon spells- they like undispellable enchantments. And Channelling is soo good. Like a delayed spike with Rift works great both PvE and PvP.

Dahnel

Dahnel

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Oct 2005

Rt/Me

well when i play channeling i go with a gaze from beyond / destruction build (gotta love that broken gaze :P) staying close to my destruction spirit and spamming skills like spirit burn and essence strike to punish the target then hit em hard with gaze or lamentation (when they are near a corpse or come to close to my destruction)

Francis Demeules

Francis Demeules

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada, Qc

[Holy]

Me/Mo

Rift+Rage for a overall dmg while well setting

Gaze from beyond is a ignore target defense spell. No more exhaustion from Obsidian flame and easy to spam for a 5 energy cost.

Destruction is cool in many way. Last 30 sec and recharge 20s. You know when it recharged, it did 20 sec last. You can spawn another one and sac the old one to make his effect.

12 channeling, 4 dmg each sec it last. 80 every 20sec. If you use Rupture, I dont really need to tell the dmg around.

There so many possibilities. Each players have there own combo. just pick one and go in the battlefield.

dfscott

dfscott

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

Atlanta, GA

Me/Mo

As fun as these Pain/Shadowsong/Bloodsong builds are when they work, it's rare that they ever do in PvE. 80% of the times, it's:

Wammo: I'm attacking Jade Brotherhood Knight!
Me: I'm using Pain!
Ele: I'm using Meteor Shower on Jade Brotherhood Healer!
Me: I'm using Shadow.... wait, where's everybody going? And what happened to all the enemies?

Consider that Pain+Shadowsong+Bloodsong takes about 13-15 seconds to pull off (assuming no Fast Casting, Soul Twisting, etc.). In most cases, the fight is going to be half over (or even completely over) by the time your spirits are up and running.

sdliddo

Academy Page

Join Date: Feb 2006

Mo/Me

actually... i played around with communing a whole lot and find that you dont need to really cast them all. Cast what you need and use it. I usually play a communing/restoration ritualist and usally end up doing the omfg gotta rest the dead sin or warrior rather than letting the monk do it.

I cast my spirits and leave them to do the dirty work while i do backup heals on the monk and rezzing dead people. Its not a perfect builf imho but it does its job especially in helping keep the monk alive somehow

SnipiousMax

SnipiousMax

Perfectly Elocuted

Join Date: Sep 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hella Good
<snip>... I'm loving these item/wapon spells- they like undispellable enchantments. <snip>
Me too! It's such a new way of playing, so different from anything I've done before!

Back to the topic at hand though...

In PvE to make this build quicker playing, I'd drop all but two spirits, three at the max. I'd cast my spirits out of aggro range, than use Draw Spirit to bring them into the mix. As they don't attack who you attack (can you imagine if they did!!!!?!?!?!), I like using them as fodder for things like Rupture. And focus on things like Channeling or Restoration.

Not sure this build is mobile enough for PvP...then again, maybe you could camp a flagstand or something. Certainlly you could in Alliance battles....probally not in GvG.