An open letter to Arena Net about Restoration Rits

First of all, I would like to thank the people at Anet for making a second support character. The Ritual Lord Commune build is one of the finest damage reduction builds in the game at the moment, rivaling Prot monks in terms of sheer protective power and surpassing them in certain areas/situations.

But I think that there are several inherent problems with the Restoration skill lineup, which I hope to show in the following post.

I believe that the idea behind Restoration Rits was to combine the two most powerful skillsets available to the monk, healing prayers and Protection Prayers. While in theory heal with prot has been the goal of every good monk, and realized to great success with the Boon Prot monk, a skill bar with spells designed to do both is a tough balancing act to play off well. With 10 mana spike heals, condition removing spam spells and energy returning Orisons, the Restoration Rit at first looks like that build in realization. Added with a Commune Rit Lord, it would appear that a Resto Rit is a force to be reckoned with in game, taking up the condition and hex removing slack of the union-shelter-displacement communer while adding heals atop even more protection buffs (that can’t be stripped) and spike heals that are nothing to sneeze at.

There are several problems with this however.

1st, Ritual Lord, the Elite that Commune RL builds revolve around, is found only in Kurzick and Luxon country at the tail end of the game. For a profession that really needed to prove itself in the eyes of Guild Wars players, the placement of this not just powerful but necessary spell has led to a lot of in-game bias toward the class as a protector. So too for most of the best Ritualist Spawning and Restoration Elites, our energy managers and Preservation, etc.

With no Droks run (which let Tyrian monks skip part of the game, cap high end elites and return to run the lower level missions with "tweeks") these Elites remain locked to the character, pushing it toward a more offensive role for most of the PvE game in order to be more effective as it grows.

2nd; for a class where the 2 most sought after skillsets are protection and healing, Ritualists have no hex removal. Many people say "who cares? Good monks are all /Me for energy management hex removal anyway now and Divine Favor doesn’t work on non-monk spells.” I agree, in theory, but most monks carry stronger single target spam heals thanks to Divine Favor, making them more powerful overall when it comes to healing in most situations.

Many people say “that’s alright because we have Mend Body and Soul, a Condition remover that kicks out a 70 HP heal every 3.75 seconds. Under the condition that we be in nearby range of the a spirit, tethered to its location or to bringing draw spirit on our bar, otherwise it’s just a 70 HP heal. But 70 HP is good, right?

Mend Condition: 57+45(assuming 15 DF for a prot monk at 11 Protection Prayers to allow for /Me Emanagemnt hexes) is a 102 heal to any other player with a condition on them every 2.25 seconds. And this is the prot monk, not the healer. Even without conditions, 2 MendCs hit for 90HP with the DF boost, every 4 seconds. Twice the mana and no reason to cast it (better to drop RoF) but this is where the cracks begin to show in Resto.

Both have added conditions in them. MendC is only for others, meaning that you cannot cast on self. MendB requires a spirit be present, and you in nearby range for it to be effective. So, why is one of the few “spammable heals” available to the Ritualist further nerfed with weaker heal per cast and a poorer recycle? Don’t say it’s because of Mend Ailment. That’s been proven time and again to be a nuke heal in the right hands, blasting self and others for 200+HP in condition heavy areas.

“But,” says the aspiring Resto Rit “like you said, our spike heals are better.”

Are they?

Heal Other/Jaime’s Gaze: 151+45(again assuming 15 DF for a heal monk at 11 Healing Prayers to allow for /Me Emanagemnt hexes) for a 196HP spike heal to target every 4 seconds. And thanks to Glyph of Renewal+Divine Spirit combo, a monk can drop this heal for 5 mana every 2 seconds using both skills on its bar. That’s ignoring the 10 mana heal party now at their disposal, and the “free” spam heals they can drop as well.

At 11 Restoration Spirit Light, the most used 10 mana Resto heal, is only for 134, with a 10% sac built in if no spirits are in the area every 5 seconds. Spirit Transfer, another conditional spell, heals for only 189 and that only once every 10.25 seconds, considerably less than its Infuse Health inspired cousin.

Put another way…

Orison: 60+45 for a 105 HP heal every 3 seconds
5 Orisons=525HP returned over time. In the same time to cast those spells, 3 Spirit Lights have healed 402, less than the weakest heal at a heal monks disposal. That’s not factoring in the 10% sacrifice, time to cast spirits to negate the sac or (on the monks side) energy management but I think the point is made. And keep in mind, this is a 10 mana spell versus a 5 mana spell we’re talking about here. In 20 seconds you can cast 5 Heal Others or 4 Spirit Lights, for a heal return of 980HP for Heal Other or 536 for Spirit Light. Far from equal, considerably less than balanced and these are pure heal spells.

While Spirit Transfer is a good Spike Heal, rivaling Heal Other at 189 and self targeting, it loses this fight too when compared to the return/recycle. 980 HP for 4 Heal Others in a 20 second cast period, but only 2 casts of Spirit Transfer in the same amount of time (due to its massive recycle) make it a measly 378, the weakest heal over time spell of those discussed.

To be fair, the thing about a 10 mana 185 HP heal is that you don’t always need it. But when you do, you need it now and you probably need it in more than one place. Heal Other is back up and ready to cast in 3 seconds. The self casting Spirit Transfer is not. The question is why? You can’t go crazy and spam it; you’d kill your spirit in no time, destroying the spells fuel. So if it already self nerfs, why does it need an insanely long recycle as well?

Turn around and Compare Orison to Soothing Memories and its less than half the heal over time (due to SMs 6 second cast+recycle period) for, thankfully, less than half the mana (again, under the condition that you are holding an item). Signet of Devotion takes as much time to cast/recycle, for more heal a hit and it’s free!

Which brings it back to the original point: Rits may not heal as much, but we reduce more damage than than a stock monk. Even a heal prot monk.

Vengeful Weapon, the Restos RoF. Even forgetting DF boosts for a second, Reversal of Fortune has a higher heal potential than Vengeful does. While these are the two closest mirrors to one another between Monk and Ritualist, and VW pops for its full amount every time, when you do factor a little Divine Favor back into the equation RoF is as strong as an Orison. With RoFs faster recycle Resto Rits lose again.

Weapon of Warding: 10 mana for a 10 second Guardian and half a Healing Breeze…every 7 seconds. Unless you sacrifice your Energy management Elite for a recycle booster, you can barely keep this 10 mana skill on one person at a time. With Breeze and Guardian dropping every 3 (with the added DF heals on top of that and the fact that they are not as easily interruptible) it starts to become clear that even at the lower end of the scale something stinks in Cantha.

I think the idea behind Restoration was an attempt to combine the 2 most powerful skilltypes at a monk’s disposal: Heal and Prot. While the effort was noble, giving Ritualists a list of potentially strong skills that could rival many monks in certain situations, the nerfbat outweighed the strength of the builds that can be created with Resto. A serious re-analysis of cast times, HP return and recycle, across the board, seems the only way to return Resto Rits from the butt of peoples jokes to a Heal/Prot that can be used effectively in game.

Thank you for reading this. I know it was quite long to just say Rits need a buff but I thought I needed to make a good argument if things are going to change. If any other forum members would like to add to this in support or to refute, I would like to hear what you have to say.

X

From Guidlwiki

So it can be found in the Jade Sea.

Also the main difference between RoF and vengeful weapon is that RoF will stop the incomming damage then ealyou. Vengeful will still have you take the attack damage, but it will then hurt the person that attacked you. If the attacker doesn't have enough hp for you to steal the full ammount vengeful won't heal for full, but it will kill the attacker.

I agree that Monk is a more durable support class, and has stronger focus healing than ritualist, but likewise, Ritualist is a better specialty support class, and has better group protection than monk.

A monk has better healing because of Divine Favor, noting that he has to put points in that as well to get that extra healing aside from effectiveness in whatever the skill does. A Ritualist has Spawning power, which ensures that his binding rituals will last much longer than others, further increasing the survival and effectiveness of his rituals. Although Spawning power doesn't directly support teammates as well as Divine Favor, it also allows Ritualist to summon undead with more health than even a Necromancer can, so it isn't secluded to improving monk effects, unlike Divine Favor.

I agree that Ritualist is more difficult to play because of its technical use of spirits to make many of his skills useful, but it is rather effective for the cost, not just in energy, but attribute points. I don't like the fact that good Communning ritualist depend on a particular elite to be effective protectors under any light, but as long as it works, it ain't that bad, it is a lot better than I thought.

By the way, thanks for introducing me to Guildwiki, I have been investagating and discovering the game on my own up til this point, this may greatly improve my knowledge of the game.

I play a RestroRit, and I have to say they are fine the way they are, people in ToA are beginning to take me over searching for a Boon Prot Monk, simply becasue I can Prot a whole party better than a Boon Prot monk can.

Yes the idea of a Ritu class was to combine Healing/Prot into one skillset, and provide a damage dealer from another, but thats just it, Anet said the new classes would be harder to play. when I ToA my Ritu doesnt carry any spike heals, I work with,

Warding
Shelter
Union
Life
Recoup
Boon of Creation
Lord
Rebirth

I'm not healing as much, but damn the protting is good, we Rits arent meant to replace the monk, we are just meant to be damn good alongside one, and thats what we are.

Personally I dont agree with your suggestions, bringing a rit spike heals on par with a Monk means that you get a hulluva lot more out of attribute points from a Rit than a Monk.

Monk needs to use > Healing, Prot, Devine + Mesmer attr to give their Healing, Proting and Energy Management

Rit is using > Communing, Spawning, Restoration attrs to giev Healing, Proting and Energy Management

This already means you can have some attrs more effective, and of higher value that your equivalent monk attrs.

So personally, I would rather not see Ritu spike heals on par with monks, simply for ba;ance issues, Ritus would replace monks if they could spike heal equally, and prot better.

Restoration Rits can protect entire parties way better than a Primary monk can; their spirits are all AoE.

Rits are balanced right now. No need to complain.

Too bad most of those spirits are in the Communing line? not Restoration?

well monk healing are on healing line , protection on protection line ... where is the probrem?

They never meant Rits to be able to compete with monks in pure healing. Think of them as secondary healers/full party protectors. Then it's easier to understand why their heals are weaker than monks.

I always thought it great to now see people looking for 1 monk and 1 rit instead of the ever once popular "glf 2 monks" constantly.

Monks and Ritualists work great together if the players know what they are doing.

People look for 1 monk 1 rit in pve because of the shortage of monks, not neccessarily that a rit is better but for pve it is good enough and easier to find.

Thank you bilateralrope. I did not know that Rit Lord could be found in Silent Surf. But that is also a map at the end of the game. I was trying to say that most of our Restoration, Spawning and Commune Elites are all locked out to us. There is no Word of Helaing that you can get to tide you over like in the desert and no way to "skip" part of the game to get to them. It was the smallest point I was making though.

There is a problem with this. The secondary healer in Tyria was the prot monk. You had one really good healing prayers healer and one not so good healer who also reduced damage. Bringing 2 prot monks in many missions (except a pair of boon prots, since they include healing in their build) instead of heal/prot is asking for trouble in Tyria. Same thing in Cantha.

But if you could get a decent healer with some protection spells and put him with a good pure prot monk you would be ok. The reduced damage would outweigh the need for stronger heals. Thats what I first thought we had with a 2 rit backline. We do not.

What I'm trying to say is that a 2 Rit backline should be as good as a 2 monk backline. I think the idea behind rits was to give people options. Resto Rit is not a very good one at this time. Heals are too weak, too infrequent and conditional at the same time. Prots are decent but expensive and clumbsy to use. Of the four support spell types (heal, prot, commune, and restoration) resto is the weakest link. The other 3 (though commune must rely on a single elite to make it so and that makes it very easily nerfable) are equally strong in different ways and work well together as long as 1 person is a healing monk or a person who has healing prayers.

Thank you everyone who has responded to this. I disagree with what many of you say but I do appreciate your comments.

Nice article. I haven't tried out a restoration ritualist-though I have all the skills- so I can't really comment. However, the fact that I haven't seen a single one on a high level PvP team does indeed bode ill..

Nice article but I can't agree with you. I find their healing quite effective and they don't need a buff. Why? Because like many other says:

"We aren't meant to replace healing monks"
"They never meant Rits to compete with monks"

Should be as good, but sadly no. We are just there to provide some back up.

I might agree with many of you if Guild Wars Factions had represented the Ritualist in another way. The Henchmen are not Channelers. They rarely even use Communing in their builds. Henchmen use Restoration spells in a support role to heal and protect other team members. There were several threads about how horrible hench healers were at the time of Faction's startup. Many attribute this to people not knowing that the Rit was a support healer as well. I never saw that as the case in game.

By the way, I made my calculations based on monks at lvl 15 DF and lvl 11 healing prayers and protection, not max 16 16. With the new Major runes that take less life, this is more than possible to achieve and still have good energy. I do take into account a monk's need need for an alt proffession energy manager in my OP, and Resto is still below the healing abily for a prot monk (not healer, a PROT monk) in all cases shown, and most cases where I've run the numbers.

In cases where our heals are "pure" healing, with no buff or condition removal, they are much lower than the healing prayers line, sometimes to less than 1/3rd, as I have shown. If these spells also protected, I would be inclined to dismiss that. But they do not. They are pure heal, serving no purpose than to put HP back onto someone's bar. As such, they are also conditional on spirits or items to be used or used effectively. Thats like saying you can't use Orison unless you have an enchantment on yourself, and then dropping how much healing Orison can do at the same time. Thats not balanced.

I've played Rest Rt in pve and I agree the heals could use some buffs. I wouldnt say they are awful or anything. I've healed groups pretty well with my Rit but I would rather have a heal monk to heal me.

The point here isnt about the protection in the communing line its the restoration line. I dont mind the skills being conditional but since they are conditional they should do a bit more than what they currently do.

The problem i see if half the the Spirits are in Communing, with some random ones in Restoration and Channeling. Then on top of that, half the Restoration spells require Spirits, half hte Channelling spells require Spirits.

On a side note, am i overlooking something here. Spirit Light Weapon is the worst elite i have ever seen, the other elites have a use in at least 1 build. This is Healing Breeze made elite.