12 Man Ritualist Deep Team

rofl, you gonna block kanakai up with spirits? xD

Quote: Originally Posted by Jetdoc

Quote: Originally Posted by Avarre

Typical groups often run 4 hp for redundancy though. Not much harm in keeping 3 healers as if you lose aggro or take a bad warp in scorpion room... well better to be safe, especially with err7s around.

Quote: Originally Posted by Voltar

Quote: Originally Posted by Avarre

If you are on European Server I would gladly join with you guys... just send me a msg and let me know what is going on.

I have lots of hours with my Ritualist in both PVP, and PVE. I've finished the Factions compain (Working on Tyria now) and I would enjoy doing the deep missions... pretty good idea mate

So if you need me, just ask away. If not, then no harm done

Also, just FYI Im a healer/Resto ritualist...

Ok this is a quick build I have put together before I go to work, any comments suggestions or changes is fine by me go for it

Now this build is mainly a healing build no wards at the mo so that's one place I think it should be changed, the other would be my energy management.

Attr
13 Healing
16 Restoration

And rest in spawning

(E) Attuned was Songkai
Flesh of My Flesh

Spirit to flesh
Spirit light
Soothing Memories
Mend Body and Soul

Healing Seed
Heal Party

I have broke it up into 3 groups, the first group req spawning attr, the second restoration and the third if u all didn't all ready know healing.

Kai Shin Darkstone

Flesh of My Flesh is restoration

Just a note that in the morning (12 hours) i'll pay the thread some more love and we'll get this sorted out properly


time is 8PM (GMT) meet saturday, i'll ferry those who've been there from my guildhall

Ok let me know if I can join up with you guys. Looking for a group to go to the Deep with

Valkyrie Azriela is my IGN so send me a msg in game if you are interested.

rit lord, channeler, healer..

< ign

just need to know the time and date

Ritualist as main char available

I'm used to spirit spam ( both offensive and protective ), restoration healing and Channeling.

IGN <<<<<< ( Sethis Bilan )

Pm me in game if needed, i am italian so in european servers. ( no problem playing til 3/4 am in the morning if needed )

I'll go as anything. Ritual Lord would be best

IGN A Ritualist

Should be fun, i've been playing Rt since Factions came out, almost all the time Love it.

Was thinking of making 8 Rt GvG team just for fun lol, but my guild is meh.

I see a few problems with a 12-man team composed of Ritualists.
The saying that "too many cooks spoil the stew" is easily applicable to Ritualists.

You can only have one of each spirit out at a time. This limits the amount of people that can bring each spirit down to one or two. And evenly spreading out spirit responsibilities might make the task of summoning spirits easy, but it makes it harder for specialization.

On the other hand, putting all the spirit responsibility on two or three people makes bringing another seven or eight Ritualists pointless. If they're not going to be sitting in the back all the time, channeling the spirits into damage or heals, you'd be better off having them come as a different primary to take full advantage of the other profession they're supposed to represent.

And think about what happens when there's more than one minion master in a party. You often see them fighting over corpses, and losing a lot of energy in the confusion. Ritualists would find themselves doing something similar, fighting over which spirits to draw, which spirits to rupture, etc.

Furthermore, pure Ritualists are constrained to only three types of builds; damager, protector, or healer. None of the three types are as easy to use as Elementalist damagers, Monk protectors, or Monk healers, and rely heavily on specific conditions being met in order to be effective.
Most of the time you're going to be sitting ducks while waiting for the specific conditions to be met.

This is nothing like the 12-man Mesmer team, because Mesmers don't have these kinds of problems. Like the other professions, Mesmers don't have to rely on the environment as much. They're at home on any terrain, because they're not waiting for their teammates to set up crucial spirits.
And another great thing about Mesmers is that their skills are so odd and varied that they can fit all kinds of roles. The possibilities of skill combinations are practically endless with Mesmers.

Ritualists are centered around spirits, right?
Look at how many Ritualist skills require a spirit nearby or as the target to be effective.
Mesmers are centered around hexes, right?
Compare those Ritualist skills to how many Mesmer skills require a hex on the target to be effective.

Mesmers are cursed with the ability to lose all their energy in a short amount of time via fast-casting. It's what prevents them from replacing the other professions all together. Fortunately, the variety of their skills makes it possible for them to mimic other professions if they need to.

The tedious task of fufilling conditions is what prevents Ritualists from replacing other professions. And unlike Mesmers, the meeting of these conditions becomes a blessing for primary Ritualists and allows them to function almost independently, but hinders their ability to mimic other professions and form a balanced team.


Is a balanced 12-man ritualist team possible? Probably.
But is it as effective as a team with varied primary professions? I doubt it.
They simply lack the ability to function in the different roles of a balanced team without the help of their environment.

Quote: Originally Posted by Shiraishi I see a few problems with a 12-man team composed of Ritualists. The saying that "too many cooks spoil the stew" is easily applicable to Ritualists. That's what people thought of my favorite profession - mesmers. But mesmers demonstrated they can get anywhere, to counter the arguments such as these. Before that everyone was saying they suck (except us who played em n new how powerful they are).

Quote: You can only have one of each spirit out at a time. This limits the amount of people that can bring each spirit down to one or two. Have you missed the entire thread?

Why would everyone need to have spirits? Channeling Rt can just use Distruction. MM Rt wont use spirits. 2 Communing Rts can split spirits (one dmg one defense). 2 Restoration Rt's can split spirits, which isnt a problem at all. That's already 6 pretty diverse ones.

After that you can add whatever is needed, like another channeling, a meleer with Vengeful was Khanei or whatever works in the deep (sorry, cant help there since i dont know enemies in the deep) etc etc. You can get another Rt who will have copies of some communing spirits such as Dissonance and Disenchant, so that instead of RLord the 1st dmg communer can take Wanderlust for instance. Or whatever works. Besides even with RLord and Boon it's difficult to keep both disenchant n dissonance on, as well as others. That same Rt can also have a backup copy of Displacement since it dies fast as is.

There are plenty of options, and as mesmers why not use secondaries? Why not i dunno, R/N who uses Attuned was Shongai and spams curses? As i said, i wasnt yet in the deep, have no idea what works good against enemies there, but be resourceful

Quote: On the other hand, putting all the spirit responsibility on two or three people makes bringing another seven or eight Ritualists pointless. What puzzles me is that you're in Rt forum, and you have like next to no knowledge of Ritualists. Moreover, you give suggestions and "comments" on Rt team builds. I guess you're one of those Rt's (if you play Rt at all), who can only press 7+8 (RLord Boon) and then 123 123 123.... there are other Rt builds which work good, aside of spamming few spirits.

Quote: Ritualists would find themselves doing something similar, fighting over which spirits to draw, which spirits to rupture, etc. Yawn. We are talking about going into the Deep right? With Ritualists who got that far in the game? Not those who are in Shing Jea and learning how to activate spirit and what does it do..

Quote: Furthermore, pure Ritualists are constrained to only three types of builds; damager, protector, or healer. Oh is it so? On the other hand pure warrior is contrained to damage. So is pure range. So is pure assassin. Wow who would say! So is pure ele!

So ritualists are "only" constrained to just about anything you need. What other class has such versatility? Maybe monk. Except that dmg abilities of Rt are far above monk, that is, more to choose from.

Quote: None of the three types are as easy to use as Elementalist damagers, Monk protectors, or Monk healers, and rely heavily on specific conditions being met in order to be effective. 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.

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.

Elemental damager? Rt/E with Attuned Was Shongai can make a pretty nice ele i heard.

Quote:

This is nothing like the 12-man Mesmer team, because Mesmers don't have these kinds of problems. 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. Quote: Like the other professions, Mesmers don't have to rely on the environment as much. They're at home on any terrain, because they're not waiting for their teammates to set up crucial spirits. 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. Quote: Ritualists are centered around spirits, right? Look at how many Ritualist skills require a spirit nearby or as the target to be effective. 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. Quote: Mesmers are cursed with the ability to lose all their energy in a short amount of time via fast-casting. It's what prevents them from replacing the other professions all together. 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. Quote: Is a balanced 12-man ritualist team possible? Probably. But is it as effective as a team with varied primary professions? I doubt it. 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. Quote: Compare those Ritualist skills to how many Mesmer skills require a hex on the target to be effective. 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. ps: can you say owned? 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.

Quote: Originally Posted by Servant of Kali That's what people thought of my favorite profession - mesmers. But mesmers demonstrated they can get anywhere, to counter the arguments such as these. Before that everyone was saying they suck (except us who played em n new how powerful they are). 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. I know mesmers are good, I have one. 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.



Quote: Have you missed the entire thread? No. Explain to me what I've overlooked.

Quote: Why would everyone need to have spirits? Because unless everyone brings Ritual Lord or Soul Twisting, those spirits can possibly die quickly. Without backups, your team is spirit-less for sometimes up to 60 seconds.

Quote: Channeling Rt can just use Distruction. Destruction is really hard to manipulate, and if you get close to mobs, you increase the chance of it dying before doing considerable amounts of damage. And that means that you have to get really close as well.

There's multiple ways of decreasing the amount of damage to your rit via armor mods, but one requires you to own spirits, one requires you to be using a skill, one requires you to hold an item, and one requires you to have a weapon spell on you.
None of them give you enough armor to match what warriors are capable of.

Quote: MM Rt wont use spirits. MM Rt has low-armor minions. MM Rt needs spirits to help keep his minions alive unless he's planning a Death Nova spike.
Death Nova is easily removed, as the minions are usually the first target for enemies.
Also, Death Nova spike = bad meat shields.

Quote: 2 Communing Rts can split spirits (one dmg one defense). 2 Restoration Rt's can split spirits, which isnt a problem at all. That's already 6 pretty diverse ones. That's already 5 people who need to run a spirit-based build. See what I mean about the spirit dependency?

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. Shelter, Union, and Displacement die in a heartbeat, and that leaves the team open to attack for up to 11 seconds while the ritualist is putting the spirits back on the field. The bonds fill in those gaps.

Quote: After that you can add whatever is needed, like another channeling, a meleer with Vengeful was Khanei or whatever works in the deep (sorry, cant help there since i dont know enemies in the deep) etc etc. I think I established earlier that a channeling rit is a high-risk build, unless you equip all the long-distance damage spells, or throw in some air magic. But if you're going to do lightning damage, save your breath and go with an elementalist.

ArenaNet put some helpful hints in the skill descriptions for channeling magic. The intention is to use channeling magic against enemies that are brave enough to run right up to you, and you need quick amounts of damage to deter them. Even if the damage from the spells can be staggering, the fact that a skill like Channeled Strike is more powerful when you're holding an item tells you that it makes for a great warrior-away spell, 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.

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.
Now the thing that made mesmers great for melee was Illusionary Weaponry. In many cases it made them more powerful than warriors in melee.
With a ritualist, you either have to use Illusionary Weaponry, or buy yourself a nice sword or axe.

Neither will make a melee attacker as powerful as a mesmer or warrior.
This is what I meant by mesmers having more diversity in their spells.


Quote: You can get another Rt who will have copies of some communing spirits such as Dissonance and Disenchant, so that instead of RLord the 1st dmg communer can take Wanderlust for instance. Or whatever works. Besides even with RLord and Boon it's difficult to keep both disenchant n dissonance on, as well as others. That same Rt can also have a backup copy of Displacement since it dies fast as is. Dissonance has a shorter range than Disrupting Shot or Savage Shot.
Disenchantment is harder to target than Shatter Enchantment, Rend Enchantments, Strip Enchantment, etc. Nor can you time it as well as the spells.
Same kind of problem with Wanderlust. Furthermore, the enemies are not guaranteed to be dumb enough to get close to the spirits.

The problem with Displacement is that you can't time how fast it will die. And it takes another three seconds to get it out again. The two ritualists could easily spend a lot of their time just trying to keep Displacement up.

Ever wonder why ArenaNet restricted a skill that allowed ritualists to summon spirits faster to an elite? It's so that people wouldn't be able to successfully protect a party purely by means of ritualist spirits. Soul Twisting might help, but it's not a guaranteed fix, especially in a place as hostile as The Deep.

Quote: There are plenty of options, and as mesmers why not use secondaries? Why not i dunno, R/N who uses Attuned was Shongai and spams curses? As i said, i wasnt yet in the deep, have no idea what works good against enemies there, but be resourceful What you're not understanding is that it's easy for mesmers to take advantage of their secondaries, even though they lack the ability to do as much damage as the primaries. While a mesmer nuker may lack the 119 fire damage from Fireball, they can spam it twice, maybe even three times the speed of a regular elementalist.

A once popular PvP build utilizes the fast casting abilities of the mesmer, where a whole team runs Me/E with full fast casting and full air magic. Through smart coordination, the entire team targets a single player and quickly bombs them with Lightning Strike, killing them in about a second. They then move to the next target as quickly as possible, bomb them, and repeat. One team used this build to go all the way to HoH.

Five of the eight professions use a lot of spells, which gives mesmers a lot of potential for fast casting.

Spawning Power, on the other hand, is very limited in its uses. The only creatures that players can create are minions and spirits. Three professions make use of minions and spirits. And ranger spirits are generally unhelpful to the spell caster types.

Quote: What puzzles me is that you're in Rt forum, and you have like next to no knowledge of Ritualists. Moreover, you give suggestions and "comments" on Rt team builds. I guess you're one of those Rt's (if you play Rt at all), who can only press 7+8 (RLord Boon) and then 123 123 123.... there are other Rt builds which work good, aside of spamming few spirits. That's a bold statement for someone who has only seen a few posts.
No, in fact I've played a lot of those ritualist builds. And having a warrior, elementalist, monk, mesmer, and necromancer to compare them to, I can see that there are many ways in which a ritualist is inferior when trying to mimic them.
ArenaNet didn't design each profession so it could effectively mimic another. The diversity in each profession is what makes Guild Wars so great to play with a team.

Quote: Yawn. We are talking about going into the Deep right? With Ritualists who got that far in the game? Not those who are in Shing Jea and learning how to activate spirit and what does it do.. Canthan questing moves a lot quicker than Tyrian questing. I made it to the end of the game with my ritualist after about three days of playing Factions. By Prophecies standards I was still a noob, but I still managed to complete the game.
And you'd be surprised what kinds of people you might find at the end of the game.
For all you know, they had someone else playing the game for them up until the Deep. Sometimes they lead you to believe that may indeed be the case.


Quote: Oh is it so? On the other hand pure warrior is contrained to damage. So is pure range. So is pure assassin. Wow who would say! So is pure ele! And I bet by having a primary warrior on the team you might do more axe damage. Or do more arrow damage. Or do more dagger damage. Or do more elemental damage.
Have primary warriors, rangers, assassins, and elementalists become obsolete because of your |337 |2i7u4|i57 SKILLZ?

Quote: So ritualists are "only" constrained to just about anything you need. What other class has such versatility? Maybe monk. Except that dmg abilities of Rt are far above monk, that is, more to choose from. No, ritualists are constrained to making use of their created creatures, and it just so happens that most of the skills either heal, do damage, or protect people. And if they feel the need, they can toy around with their second profession, but never really be able to use their secondary to its full potential.

There's more than one way of doing damage. There's also more than one type of damage. Doing damage via spells is different than doing damage via physical means. And doing damage via lightning damage is different than doing damage via Backfire.

Yes, the fact is that every team needs heals, damage, and protection.
Yes, ritualists can provide all three. So can everyone else.
But a ritualist does not have the attributes of Soul Reaping, Energy Storage, Divine Favor, Strength, Critical Strikes, Fast Casting, or Expertise.

This should all sound familiar to you.

Now tell me what it is that makes you think that ritualists make good Necromancers, Elementalists, Monks, Warriors, Assassins, Mesmers, or Rangers, without the ability to gain energy when something dies, increase their maximum energy up to 100, heal party members whenever they cast monk spells on them, have extra armor penetration in melee, earn energy for critical hits, cast spells faster than normal without the help of other spells, or use less energy for attack skills without the help of spells.

The best a ritualist can do is creatively combine skills from their primary and secondary in the hopes that they can end up accomplishing the same net damage, healing, or protection as the other classes.
Yeah, I'd say that is a bit limiting.

Say you're trying to be a warrior. And something goes wrong, like you get interrupted while using Galrath Slash. But you don't have the armor penetration of a regular warrior to continue using regular melee attacks, and yet you still want to keep doing damage. So you switch to some ritualist skills to continue dealing out more damage.

That doesn't count as being a good melee damager. I don't know why you think that such a thing can replace a good ol' warrior. It's not the same.
And you need to be really lucky to have enough time to be able to cast whatever spells you need to stay alive, before the enemies own your feeble ritualist body.

Given the circumstances presented by the mission, it's hard enough for varied-primary teams to get it done. Oh wait, you don't know anything about The Deep.

Quote: 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. 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".

Quote: 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. 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.

Quote: Without backups, your team is spirit-less for sometimes up to 60 seconds. Yes, under certain circumstances i agree. And these circumstances are offset by individual skills of the player

Quote: None of them give you enough armor to match what warriors are capable of. 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.

Quote: MM Rt has low-armor minions 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.

Quote: That's already 5 people who need to run a spirit-based build. See what I mean about the spirit dependency? 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.

Quote: 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. 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.

Quote: 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. 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.

Quote: 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. 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

Quote: With a ritualist, you either have to use Illusionary Weaponry, or buy yourself a nice sword or axe. 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.

Quote: Neither will make a melee attacker as powerful as a mesmer or warrior. Yea well, i agree, it's difficult for my Ritualist to compete with imaginary characters.

Quote: Dissonance has a shorter range than Disrupting Shot or Savage Shot. Oh no it doesnt Sad to disappoint you tho

Quote: Disenchantment is harder to target than Shatter Enchantment, Rend Enchantments, Strip Enchantment, etc. Nor can you time it as well as the spells. Yea, and neither of these spells do constant armor-ignoring dmg for 30+ seconds. Neither of these spells are 'recast' after 2 sec all the time for these 30+ sec.

Yes it's more difficult to target, but i fail to see your point. Are you saying every skill in the game has to be the same? And that elementalist AoE skills should be removed because it's difficult to target? Maybe we should remove firestorm because in 1 sec you can simply step out of it. Maybe we should remove mesmer interrupt skills, because they are difficult to target. Great. Next.

Quote: Furthermore, the enemies are not guaranteed to be dumb enough to get close to the spirits. Yea... hmm let me see, i got 50+ gladiator points in Random and Team arena because no one got near spirits. I got tons of faction in Aspenwood for the very same reason. Uh ya... no wait.

And in pve enemies are known for their high IQ. You gotta be kidding me.

Quote: The problem with Displacement is that you can't time how fast it will die. Yea, and maybe when you stop imagining flaws which dont exist, we can move on with discussion. Or can we?

I mean, the "arguments" you're coming with are "a warrior cant know how many times he will be able to hit a target protected by aegis or ward, so it's better not to have warriors at all"

And monk skill Life Sheath has to be useless as well.. i mean, who knows how long it will last

Quote: The two ritualists could easily spend a lot of their time just trying to keep Displacement up. Yea... imagine, with constant displacement up, you're immune to rangers, warriors, assassins.... It doesnt matter how long is displacement up, it acts like Life Sheath, absorbing dmg. If the skill absorbed 1000 dmg in 3 sec and died, you would still complain because it died quickly. Im tired..

Quote: Ever wonder why ArenaNet restricted a skill that allowed ritualists to summon spirits faster to an elite? It's so that people wouldn't be able to successfully protect a party purely by means of ritualist spirits Serpents Quickness?

But yea i agree with you... a party cant purely be protected just by Rt spirits. So, thus, the spirits suck. ANet needs to buff the spirits so they can make AND deliver pizza, they should be indestructible, move, be cast in 1/4 sec, AND on top of that still do the most dmg per second WITH various other effects such as blind, knock down, enchantment removal, interrupt. Each spirit should heal party members in the radar range for 1000hp each second it's alive. They should also have a voice recognition so that when I shout on Vent 3-2-1 they immediatly spike the person that is called. After death, each spirit should drop a green item.



Quote: What you're not understanding is that it's easy for mesmers to take advantage of their secondaries No it's not. Only Eles really benefit from it. The benefit other professions get is very very small and not worth the primary profession.

Quote: A once popular PvP build utilizes the fast casting abilities of the mesmer, where a whole team runs Me/E with full fast casting and full air magic. The very same pvp build who lost to a team with 3 ritualist so to say?

Sorry i just had to lol... was funny to watch how a team with 3 Rt's (i think one R/Rt tho) totally owned FC air. Not a scratch :P We could now debate about methods and skills, but still i find it funny

[quote]One team used this build to go all the way to HoH.[/qoute]

Only one team? IWAY is in HoH every day, wow... a man could draw some conclusion bout this :P

Quote: Five of the eight professions use a lot of spells, which gives mesmers a lot of potential for fast casting. No. Even FC air is weaker than ele air. It's only good in spike, but even that is now hard to find. Yes other professions use a lot of spells. In reality, 1-sec spells will hardly benefit from FC. Since we are talking about pve here, i cant imagine why i would use FC with curse necro. I can spam hexes as fast as i want anyway. Or FC with Rt? Channeling spells r mostly fast as is. Monk? What, ur gonna reduce 1/4 or 3/4 sec spell to.. ? There are like few monk spells which benefit from FC, and they are just fine on monk, especially in pve which is the focus of our debate anyhow. No one is gonna take MeMo instead of MoMe. Casting 5 fast spells even faster is useless. Stronger heals are much much much better. A Rt will heal or protect better IMO than MoMe.

Quote: Spawning Power, on the other hand, is very limited in its uses. Yup. Ritualists are selfish! On the other hand, warrior primary is very useful.... to how many professions. Or assassin primary. Or especially monk: "For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 3.2 whenever you cast Monk spells on them"

See, monk primary isnt even for all heals. It was made to be reserved only for monks. Im still waiting for u to say how monk primary attribute sucks because it's only for monks.

Quote: ArenaNet didn't design each profession so it could effectively mimic another. The diversity in each profession is what makes Guild Wars so great to play with a team. Really? How come you then completely missed certain things which you said, and which try to make Rt and Rt skills same as those of other professions? In half of the post u were flaming Rt because it didnt have the same style as other professions, and its skills didnt act the same as others.

Quote: And you'd be surprised what kinds of people you might find at the end of the game. I do agree with you. I've seen a lot of noobs in Ring of Fire, wondering how on earth they got that far. But i dont think it's good to use individual lack of skill as an argument against profession so let's skip this.

Quote: Have primary warriors, rangers, assassins, and elementalists become obsolete because of your |337 |2i7u4|i57 SKILLZ? If think you got completely lost, and need to check what this thread is about in the first place.

Quote: and it just so happens that most of the skills either heal, do damage, or protect people. And if they feel the need, they can toy around with their second profession, but never really be able to use their secondary to its full potential. So they heal do dmg and protect. How much use would they get from secondary profession, im sorry? If i have all i need on primary, why use secondary? Using your logic, a good profession has to use 2 skills or primary profession and 6 of secondary just for the sake of it. Great. Let's all make touch rangers.

Quote: There's more than one way of doing damage. Hmm yes let's see; Rts can do lightning dmg. Some of it completely armor-ignoring some not. They can do life-stealing armor-ignoring melee dmg. They can do armor-ignoring ranged dmg. They have plenty of AoE skills.

Yes i so feel the lack of dmg types when playing Rt.

And lack of fun.

Quote: I see a few problems with a 12-man team composed of Ritualists. Can't you say the same of any 12-man team using only a single profession?

Who cares! The spirit of this thread (excuse the pun) just seems to be some ritualists having fun to see how far they can get in the Deep. 'Problems' be damned. Good luck, guys, and have fun. I've been running a ritualist since Factions came out and really enjoy it.