Ritual Lord Guide
–by Zinger314 (GWGuru)
Have you ever wanted a permanent Protective Spirit on your entire party? Maybe with a permanent Shielding Hands? Maybe with Distortion? And maybe you want to cast a 109+ Heal Party instantly?
Well, then the Ritual Lord is for you.
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Ritual Lord is an Elite aligned to Spawning Power, the primary attribute of the Ritualist (so don’t attempt to use Ritual Lord with any other class!)
Ritual Lord: For 30 seconds, your Rituals recharge 15-63% faster. 10e 30r
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At 16 Spawning Power, Ritual Lord will give all your spirits a 79% reduction on their recharge.
Henceforth, with Ritual Lord active, Rituals with a normal 60 second recharge (the core Rituals have a 60 second recharge) have a 12.6 second recharge, and Rituals with a normal 45 second recharge have a 9.45 second recharge time.
As you can see, Ritual Lord is needed for casting spirits often. Very often.
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There are 5 (including Ritual Lord) core skills in EVERY Ritual Lord build.
Boon of Creation (w/16 Spawning Power): For 63 seconds, whenever you create a creature, you gain 53 Health and 8 Energy. 10e 2c 45e
Boon of Creation is your Energy Management. You will NOT have enough Energy to keep casting 10 and 15 Energy spirits without it. Make sure it is ALWAYS active
Shelter (w/15 Communing): Create a level 8 spirit. Non-spirit allies within its range cannot lose more than 10% maximum Health from a single attack. When this spirit prevents damage, it loses 30 Health. This spirit lasts 60 seconds. 10e 5c 60r
Shelter is the infinite Protective Spirit. With it active, all your party members will see are 40s and 50s, not 80s and 100s.
Shelter at 15 Communing and 16 Spawning Power has 352 HP, which means it can proc 12 times before it dies from damage.
Union (w/15 Communing): Create a level 8 spirit. Whenever an ally in its range takes damage, that damage is reduced by 15 and the spirit takes 15 damage. The spirit dies after 60 seconds. 15e 3c 60r
Union is the permanent Shielding Hands. It lessens the damage, which relives a lot of the pressure off the Monks in the long run.
Union at 15 Communing and 16 Spawning Power has 352 HP, which means that it can proc 24 times before it dies from damage.
Displacement (w/15 Communing): Create a level 10 spirit. Attacks made by foes within its range are "evaded." Every time an attack is evaded this way, this spirit takes 60 damage. This spirit dies after 60 seconds. 15e 3c 60r
Displacement is basically the middle finger towards Warriors, Assassins, and Rangers. Those classes can’t do much when their attacks don’t hit!
Displacement at 15 Communing and 16 Spawning Power has 442 HP, which allows it to proc 8 times before it dies from damage. (Which is very, very quickly.)
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Other skills I will use in these builds are:
Feast of Souls (w/16 Spawning Power): Destroy all nearby allies' spirits. For each spirit destroyed in this way, all party members are healed for 103 Health. 10e .25c 10r
You might as well destroy your spirits for a quick, yet godly heal for your entire party!, right before you recast them. Or whenever your party is in trouble. It’s economically friendly! Usually, you’ll get Shelter, which is a quick 103 HP.
Signet of Creation (w/16 Spawning Power): All spirits and animated creatures in the area gain +7 Health regeneration. After 30 seconds, those spirits and creatures are destroyed. 2c 10r
Cast it after you finish your Spirit Combo. +7 regeneration equates to +14 HP per second, which gives Shelter and Union a LOT more procs before you recast them.
Mighty Was Vorizun (w/15 Communing): Hold Vorizun's ashes for up to 60 seconds. While you hold his ashes, you gain +15 armor and +20 maximum Energy. 5e 2c 30r
If you have the space in your build, a little extra Armor and Energy is helpful.
Vital Weapon (w/14 Communing): For 30 seconds, target ally has a Vital Weapon and has +166 maximum health 5e 1c 20r
Extra life never hurts.
Rupture Soul (w/16 Spawning Power): Target allied spirit is destroyed. All nearby enemies are struck for 146 lightning damage and become blinded for 13 seconds 10e .75c 5r
Warrior or Assassin annoying you? This should take care of that problem...
Mantra of Resolve (w/ 6 Inspiration Magic): For 54 seconds, you cannot be interrupted, but each time you would have been interrupted, you lose 8 energy or Mantra of Resolve ends. 10e 20r
Ah, Interrupts. Rangers will love to spank you while you cast 3 second and 5 second Binding Rituals. Very important for PvP. Interrupted Rituals will NOT have their recharges reduced by Ritual Lord.
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Location
Ritual Lord is found, unfortunately, very late into the Factions campaign; you can only find Ritual Lord after your factions’ respective mission (The Eternal Grove for Kurzicks, and Gyala Hatchery for Luxons.) Ritual Lord is found with Spiritroot Mossbeard in The Eternal Grove for Kurzicks, and with Whispering Ritual Lord in Silent Surf.
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Armor
Halycon’s Armor (+7 energy) is the primary choice for a Ritual Lord, since a Ritual Lord should be staying out of combat completely. (More information below)
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Weapons
Weapons are a bit of a tricky issue for Ritual Lords. Since “Halves casting time/recharge of spells” mods on weapons don’t affect Binding Rituals, those mods are useless. Henceforth, we go to our new friend introduced in Factions, the +5 Energy Weapon.
Ritual Lords will use two sets of Weapons. (The second set is optional, but recommended)
Set #1: Katana/Cleaver of Defense (+5 Energy, +5 Armor)/Communing Focus (+5 Armor/+45 HP while Enchanted)
(+5 Energy Katanas/Cleavers can be crafted at the Divine Path at the end of the game for 10k + Materials, the Communing Focus can be found on a collector outside the Molostrav Trail exit from Vasburg Armory for 5 Stone Horns)
You will almost always be enchanted with Boon of Creation, so this is the most effective set to use.
Set #2: Katana/Cleaver of Enchanting (+5 Energy, 20% longer enchantments)/Communing Focus (+5 Armor/+45 HP while Enchanted)
(The cheapest method to obtain the weapon is to buy a Totem Axe for 5k)
Switch to this weapon set when you cast Boon of Creation. It increases the duration by 12.6 seconds, which is pretty hefty.
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Strategy
The trick to a Ritual Lord is to stand as far as you can away from combat and still have your spirits affect your party. The radius of the Spirits’ abilities is half the radar, which is double the radius of the aggro circle. Henceforth, Ritualists should be entering combat AT ALL in PvE, and rarely in PvP.
Note that Ritual Lord is a skill without a cast time. Skills without a cast time can be used while casting other skills. Hence, you should activate Ritual Lord near the end of the casting of a Ritual. Just make sure Ritual Lord is active before you finish casting!
The Spirit Combo (assuming Boon of Creation is active) is:
Shelter -> Union -> Displacement -> Signet of Creation (if applicable) -> Feast of Souls (if necessary) -> repeat
The order of casting Shelter and Union is important. Shelter must be cast before Union for the effects to work properly.
Use other skills (Mighty Was Vorizun, Mantra of Resolve, etc.) when appropriate.
The end result is that your party will ALMOST ALWAYS take no more than 30-38 Damage Per Hit and will avoid MANY ATTACKS.
(Ritual Lords also can super-charge Necromancers through their Soul Reaping. However, that’s relatively insignificant...)
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The Builds
These builds are my own, but feel free to tweak them as you please.
Yes, I am using 2 Superior Runes. Deal with it.
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The PvE Build (where Ritual Lords are King)
16 Spawning Power (12 + 1 + 3)
15 Communing (12 + 3)
Ritual Lord (e)
Boon of Creation
Shelter
Union
Displacement
Signet of Creation
Feast of Souls
Any Resurrection Skill/ Earthbind (if you are playing in a group with Elementalist Nukers or Spike Trap Rangers, normally during Elite Missions)
The trick is to stay out of combat (learn to love your aggro circle!) and use the Spirit Combo when using Feast of Souls as appropriate.
Ritual Lords easily replace any Protection Monk in PvE. For 8 man groups, I recommend 2 Healers + Rit Lord, and for 12 man groups I recommend 3 Monks + Rit Lord.
Enemies who normally do melee damage for 200+ are a lot easier to manage when they only deal 30.
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The Casual PvP Build (i.e. Fort Aspenwood, Alliance Battles, etc.)
16 Spawning Power (12 + 1 + 3)
15 Communing (12 + 3)
Ritual Lord (e)
Boon of Creation
Shelter
Union
Displacement
Signet of Creation
Feast of Souls (in Fort Aspenwood/Jade Quarry)/ (Vital Weapon or Mighty Was Vorizun) (Alliance Battles)
Rupture Soul
All the Spirits affect allies, which include every damn person within range!
You protect EVERYTHING! How does it feel to have that much power?
However, your spirits die in less than 3 seconds. But that can’t be helped.
You turn the tide of the inevitable Dragon Roost battle in Saltspray Beach. You protect all the Kurzicks from the Siege Turtles in Fort Aspenwood.
I don’t take Mantra of Resolve since you seldom run into an opponent who can interrupt. But it’s your choice.
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The Hardcore PvP Build (GvG, Heroes’ Ascent, i.e. “u must be r9 2 spam 3 spirits, n00b.”)
16 Spawning Power (12 + 1 + 3)
14 Communing (11 + 3)
7 Restoration Magic (6 + 1)
2 Inspiration Magic (2)
Ritual Lord (e)
Boon of Creation
Shelter
Union
Displacement
Mantra of Concentration
Feast of Souls
Lively Was Naomei
Learn how to exploit terrain so that the enemies cannot attack you easily. Height is a good example (i.e. Isle of the Dead map)
Spam your spirits and keep the damn Mantra of Concentration up if needed
Lively Was Naomei should be kept up constantlyly and used in emergencies (or against Frozen Soil)
And learn how to run to the Monks and/or use Feast of Souls if something goes wrong.
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And that’s it. Show everyone the power of the Ritual Lord, and maybe people won’t regard us as “the new class which isn’t Assassin.”
Post questions or comments here, or message me in-game, Syria Metaphysical, if you have any questions (but PLEASE read the guide first!)
