Yea, i think this should be changed to "I dont know much about Ritualists and none of the Rt builds seem easy to use for me".
Yup i agree.
Thanks for the reassuring words. I'll be sure to mouth off about you if I ever see you in game.
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Except you're forgetting that neither monk nor mesmer are easy to use in pvp, but they are very powerful. But you're still wrong - RLord spam is very easy to use. And it's not conditional.
RLord spam relies on meat shields to protect you from harm while you spam away. Oh wait, your meat shields died early in an attempt to Death Nova bomb the enemy.
The condition is that you're standing still and nothing is attacking you.
That's a rare case in PvP.
Not so bad in PvE, but you don't control the AI.
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Elemental damager? Rt/E with Attuned Was Shongai can make a pretty nice ele i heard.
Hold on, you mean to tell me that you yourself haven't tried some of these builds? Who is the newb here?
Try it then. You might be surprised how much of an elementalist you're not.
Ritualists aren't the only profession that have a means of reducing the energy cost of spells. And when you consider that you might get interruped while using the skill, or maybe get knocked down and lose the ashes, that 80 to 100 energy suddenly becomes really handy.
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Yea, mesmers have very goot protection and heal skills, and their dmg skills just own... oh wait no, mesmer parties relied alot on their secondaries. Hmm damn, there goes your argumentation line.
Show me a ritualist team that can fast cast, Echo spam, interrupt, and Illusionary Weaponry their way to victory like a mesmer team can.
Again, they've got five out of eight professions covered with fast casting. Ritualists can only cover three with spawning power.
Casting spells is not a problem with mesmers, they're perfect with interrupts, and they even have a skill that gives them a slight advantage over traditional melee. By themselves they are a decent class, and have little to no trouble using caster secondaries.
Ritualists need to put preparations on themselves to cast faster, their interrupts are slow-moving, and they have no melee. They are powerful when given the chance to summon their spirits, enhance their weapons, and hold items.
When given the chance.
It's not a matter of being able to use a secondary profession. Every profession has a good use for every other secondary. But it is a case-to-case basis.
A full Mesmer team is not the same as a full Ritualist team. You are not seeing that.
Just because the Mesmers did it does not mean the Ritualists can do it.
The mesmers have the advantage of being able to do a lot of things quicker than everyone else. And luckily players and AI often have a hard time countering that.
That is not the case with ritualists. They do everything at the same speed as everyone else, and are further vulnerable when running spirit builds.
If done correctly, ritualists are no more vulnerable than other professions. But they are neither more powerful.
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Mesmers are very situational. Have you checked most of mesmer skills? They usually require some condition to be met, and they are difficult to use properly. I would know, considering mesmer is my fav class, and i played it so much i got sick of it.
A lot mesmer skills require the enemy to be doing something other than just standing still.
Enemy AI by default commands them to be doing something other than just standing still. That makes a mesmer's job easy, now doesn't it?
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Have you noticed they require a spirit, and NOT a spirit skill on the skill bar? When you have a party of 12 Ritualists, skills which require a spirit nearby are not situational and conditional AT ALL.
Great idea. Have a party of 12 ritualists, and only a few of them bring spirits. Then those ritualists all die during the binding rituals because they're vulnerable, and there's no bonder to prevent them from taking so much damage because ritualists don't have Divine Favor.
The spirits died too quickly because enemies targeted the channelers that were spamming Spirit Boon Strike to keep the spirits alive, and the healers ended up panicking and used Spirit Transfer or Feast of Souls. The meat shield rits died because the spirit spammers casted weapon spells on themselves instead to keep themselves alive.
Everyone holding ashes lost their ashes because Aspect of Surrender made them drop the ashes.
The MM never had strong minions anyway, so the extra meat shields were dispatched quickly.
Anyone close to the assassin enemies got interrupted, or lost all their energy avoiding the interruption.
Good game.
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You're a noob at mesmering as well as you're noob at ritualist. Have you ever seen good mesmer? He keeps casting spells 24/7 and does not run out of energy in a short time. In case you did not know, mesmer has the best energy-gain skills in the game.
Only if the mesmer brings Inspiration skills.
You can do tons more damage if you drop a few Inspiration skills for Domination and Illusion, provided the spells play into the enemy's actions.
Energy isn't important if the enemy is dead after you run out.
Just sit back and regen with the monk.
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And i suppose a Me/Mo who uses only monk skills is as effective as primary monk would be? Dont be hypocrit. Your own arguments go against you. So freakin sad.
Did I say that a Me/Mo is as good as a regular monk?
A Me/Mo with a lot of points into Fast Casting and a good means of regaining energy can spam heals faster than a regular monk, and possibly perform just as great a net amount of healing.
And I'm not being a hypocrit, because a Me/Mo still may suffer from downfalls to having monk as a secondary.
For instance, in one spell a monk can heal for much more than a mesmer in one spell. Over a period of time, the mesmer can provide the same amount of healing. But during that period of time, the mesmer might be interrupted several times, and if they fail, it's not all that bad, because the mesmer doesn't heal for much anyway. In the case of the monk, the interrupter has only one chance to interrupt the monk, and if the interrupter fails, the consequences are tougher.
I explained already that a Me/Mo is not the same as a Mo/Me.
It is because of the timing of the AI and the timing of other players that mesmers can easily be more successful at mimicing other professions than ritualists can.
This idea that you have in your head that anybody can accomplish anything is based off of luck and human error.
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I saved this for the last...
Ok let's see how conditional are mesmer skills:
*Domination line*
Chaos storm - requires target to stand still and act stupid, plus casting spells
Cry of Frustration - requires target to use skill
Diversion - it requires target to cast a skill
Energy Burn - requires target to have energy (ooops! means that if they switch to offhand this skill does nothing)
Energy Surge - same as above
Guilt - requires spell casted
Shame - same
Hex Breaker - only makes sense if ur the target of a hex
Ignorance - only makes sense if target a) even has a signet b) would even intend to use it
Mind Wrack - it only works if energy really reaches zero
Panic - only does dmg if enemies really use a signet, if they dont even have a signet, touch luck. It also requires enemies to group together.
Power block - requires a cast. Missed it? Tough luck.
Power leak - same, plus it does nothing it energy was already near zero
Power spike - same
Shatter Delusions - does nothing if no hex
Shatter Enchantment - does nothing if no enchant
Shatter Hx - same, if enemies aint hexing it's a useless skill
Signet of Wearyness - if already at zero energy or offhand, does absolutely nothing
Wasterl's Worry - uh useless if enemy casts a skill
Complicate - requires skill cast and/or other signets present for higher effect
Overload - requires spell casted
Psychic Distraction - requires skill casted
Instability - same
Signet of Disruption - already said
*Fast casting*
Power Return - requires spell....
*Illusion*
Arcane Conundrum - useless if enemy group has no caster, or if it's prot
Migraine - same
Clumsyness - has to attack
Ineptitude - same
Distortion - useless to cast it if ur not getting hit
Fevered Dreams - useless if target does not suffer from condition
Fragility - same
Illusion of Weakness - does absolutely nothing if you degen to death
Illusionary Weaponry - does nothing if you cant catch the foe (yes sounds funny i know!)
Soothing images - does nothing if no one in enemy group has adrenaline
Sympathetic Visage - same, plus does nothing if others are hit
Accumulated Pain - requires 2 hexes
Illusion of Pain - has to kill the target
Recurring Insecurity - requires constant hexing
*Inspiration*
Channeling - does nothing if no nearby foes (i fail to see how that's being different than having nearby spirit...)
Drain Enchantment - same as shatter, plus if you're at max energy u wont get energy benefit from the skill
Resistance skills - useless if enemy group has different attack types
Energy Drain - same as Burn/Surge plus requires casters energy to be less than maximum to be full effective
Energy Tap - same
Ether Feast - wont heal a zilch if target has zero energy, and, unlike other heals, requires enemy to be in range
Inspired hex - same as shatter
Leech signet - same as other interrupts
Mantra of Concentration/Resolve - a waste if you wouldnt get interrupted in the first place
Power Drain - has two conditions as well
Ether Signet - requires less than x energy
Feedback - foe has to have enchant and more than zero energy to fully use the skill
Hex Eater Signet - requires allies grouped together, who have hex
Lyssa's Aura - enemies have to be dumb to constantly cast on u..
Power Leech - do you feel lucky?
*Other*
Epidemic - same as Fragility
Expel Hexes - if target has no or only 1 hex.. a waste
Lyssa's Balance - "If......" nuff said
... to sum this up, mesmer skills have way more conditions than Ritualist skills. The only thing is that everyone takes mesmer conditional skills for granted. They dont seem conditional because over a year people learned to use all those skills automatically. Ritualist skills are different, people aint used on those conditions YET, but in time the condition "have to be near spirit" will become as habbit for a ritualist as all these conditional mesmer skills are for a good mesmer.
Alright, I made a typo. What I meant to say was that ritualists are more reliant on self-induced conditions.
Mesmers do a lot of waiting around for the enemy to do something. Their spells are conditional, but they don't need to prepare themselves much, other than a few enchantments here and there. Most of their time is spent babysitting the enemy instead of babysitting themselves.
And since the enemy AI is fairly predictable, mesmers can easily prepare for them.
Ritualists don't have that. The ritualist is on the other side of the field, usually summoning a spirit, casting a spell, or waiting for something to recharge if they haven't brought Ritual Lord or Soul Twisting.
A 12-man team of ritualists is effectively a bunch of casters that are attempting to tank, heal, protect, and nuke all at the same time. The only problem is that the only thing their primary attribute is good for is giving more health to the spirits, and destroying the spirits in times of panic.
They can't move very far, or else they have to take a minute or two to set up again.
They're defenseless against sudden pop-up groups of enemies.
And they do more damage when enemies are close by, but they have to ditch their extra energy and ability to use attacks with their staves and wands when they summon ashes to protect them and do damage.
By being knocked down, they lose the ashes.
By being interrupted, their rituals take forever to recharge.
By losing their spirits, they lose a lot of protection and heals.
They lack armor benefits unless they take the time to summon spirits and ashes, or cast weapon spells on themselves.
They are a primarily support-oriented profession that is attempting to prove that they are more than just support.
What else does it prove if they succeed? That like all-mesmer teams, the AI simply isn't advanced enough to combat the effective ineffectiveness of a 12-man ritualist team.
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ps: can you say owned? 
I don't hear any singing.
More saddening is your satisfaction from owning someone on the internet.
I'm glad to know the intarweb cares about stupid people like me.
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pps: insisting how only 'hex-required' mesmer skills are valid makes no sense to me. A conditional skill is a conditional skill. Ritualist skills in all attribute lines are based around spirits and items, and that is perfectly ok since both of these give great bonuses. On the other hand mesmers aint focused around hexes. You can be a domination mesmer who uses no hexes at all. But regardless of that, mesmer skills overall have their own conditions, as seen as a list above. Again, i dont see how "If spirit is around.." is worse than "If Bigfoot is around...". Both are conditions, and moreover, having spirit or item is easier to have than Bigfoot. I can imagine how 'bad' a condition "if holding an item" is for restoration Rt who uses Generous was Tsungrai... wow.. absolutely horrible.
Covered it up above.
PS: Do us all a favor and read about The Deep.
It's not just the fact that using a whole rit team would be inefficient in a general sense; the environments and creatures would have a field day on an all caster-based team.
14 Jul 2006 at 11:20 - 39
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Originally Posted by Shiraishi
Mesmers don't have to stand still for a lot of things. They have fast casting, which enables them to stand still for the least amount of time for any profession.
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I fail to see the relevance of this. I mean, what on earth are we debating, the uniqueness of each profession? What you're saying is "oh warriors suck they need to be in melee range to hit....".
Makes no sense, so im not even going to debate this. Having to stand still isnt difficult if you're experienced. And if having to stand still means i'll have a whole fortress around me after i spam it... being able to spike people SOLO.. then hell yeah i like it. Standing still half an aggro circle away from the nearest enemy isnt a problem for me either if im spamming prot spirits.
In any case im not going to debate things like these because it's just plain useless. Like "oh but warrior cant spam spells like ele, how useless must he be".
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I also have a ritualist, and have spent countless hours trying different builds. You can't tell me that you've never had a sense of a loss of mobility between your mesmer and your ritualist.
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No, im trying to say something else - after you spend countless hours with Ritualist you dont have the sense of mobility at all, you already become so used to it, and use it so well, that reduced movement becomes no problem at all. Also, considering how much benefit you gain from that reduced movement.. well it pays off in most cases. For instance, if i encounter a difficult mob in pve, i can rush and risk dying, or i can with Rt spam dmg spirits just outside of aggro, then pull, and totally obliterate the mob. Yeah i sacrifice some seconds of movement, but it pays off in a longtime. If i died, i'd have to walk alllll the way from shrine to the point where i died, and continue the journey. Or fail the mission if it's mission.
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Without backups, your team is spirit-less for sometimes up to 60 seconds.
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Yes, under certain circumstances i agree. And these circumstances are offset by individual skills of the player
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None of them give you enough armor to match what warriors are capable of.
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I never said Ritualist is there to replace a warrior. Just as that all-mesmer team didnt have warrior armor, it didnt mean instant loss. As i will keep saying, individual skill ftw. No armor will save a bad player.
Still, Rt's aint that bad. Let's take at Rt armor, in a hypothetical situation where one of the enemies is hexing or giving conditions. I think you would agree that there's gonna be at least one enemy in the mob who will give hex or condition.
AL 60 + 24 (resilient weapon) + 22 (Tranquil was..) + 15 AL while being under a weapon spell (i think it's 15, might be 10 im too lazy to check now).
Let's see... that's total of 121 armor without any efforts. Resilient has insanely long duration, cant be removed. Ashes cant be removed either, as cant armor bonus on equipment. So, unlike enchants, Rt gains 121 maintainable armor... I think that's impressive. Another enchants and stances can be added to that. All these skills use only Restoration line, so it leaves a lot of attribute points.
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MM Rt has low-armor minions
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I dont play MM so will restrain from commenting on this. Still, i find it unlikely that 16 points in the attribute line make insane minions and 12 makes presearing minions. Also, since well of Blood heals spirits as well, i think it would have a place in 12-Rt team with a MM. The first enemy is gonna die from spirit spike anyway, so that's instant Well.
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That's already 5 people who need to run a spirit-based build. See what I mean about the spirit dependency?
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What on earth are you talking about, have you ever seen Restoration line? There's like 2 spirits there! So 1 resto takes 1 spirit the other take another one. The rest of the skills are heals anyway. Spirit dependancy? Geez gimme a break.
Besides, it's a ritualist team, not a freakin mesmer team. Ritualists are about rituals, the whole TEAM is spirit dependant which is great. That's all beside the point, we are talking about clearing the Deep right? And you're talking about how whole Rt profession is flawed and they better delete it cause there's warrior and mesmer so who needs Rt. Yawn.
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And Communing isn't as powerful as bonds. In order to effectively protect a team, usually a bond monk and a communing rit are put in place.
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Yea i agree, a communing Rt isnt as powerful as communing Rt AND a bonder. Where did i claim it is ?
Besides, im sorry but, where exactly was i debating on bonders? Im talking about one thing, you're talking about totally another. Great.
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but is really quite useless if you don't want to leave yourself vulnerable from holding an item. Yes, some items give you more armor. But there's always a downside to losing your staff or wand/focus.
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Yea i agree, for instance, a communing Rt holding item is at such a great loss compared to the one having a staff. That recharge bonus 20/20 and faster cast on spells, really really help a Rt who is casting spirits.
And channeling Rt can use BOTH staff and item, and imo he should. Run up to enemy group DROP ashes, do dmg, and start casting spells. Once you drop ashes you automatically switch to staff, and all your subsequent spells have staff bonuses. Again, im no expert on channeling, so maybe i missed something, but from what i see others using, it looks similiar to that.
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Why would you use Vengeful? At least with Gladiator's Defense you can still attack. You're not much of a melee rit if you're holding an item.
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It was an example. And Vengeful is armor-ignoring AoE life-steal. It's not comparable to Gladiator defense at all. Besides, if i dont hold item, what am i gonna do, wand people to death? Uh right. I'd bet you never tried using Vengeful, otherwise you wouldnt say "ur not much of a melee.." I can "melee" 10 trolls in drok cave with Vengeful without prot spirit and with 500 health (thus, not being 55-monk). I fail to see how im not melee, they are grouped around me
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With a ritualist, you either have to use Illusionary Weaponry, or buy yourself a nice sword or axe.
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No, i just have to stop with the theory and start trying out things in practice. IW is a joke, Rt can survive among enemies who strip enchants. None of Rt's specialities is removable. Weapons aint, ashes aint. Rt's have Khanei. It kills melee, rangers, and casters who wand you.
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Neither will make a melee attacker as powerful as a mesmer or warrior.
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