ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Ritualist/Make Binding Rituals active, not passive

Note: As of September 2, 2009 this page is no longer active. If you have suggestions for Guild Wars skills please go to Feedback:Main to learn how to submit suggestions that ArenaNet can use.

Well, actually dunno. Not really supported from me yet, but I don't really know what are the advanatages. Ritual lord decreases recharge MUCH, Kurzick/Luxon skill: "All Spirits you control shadow step to your location, and gain 60...92...100 Health." What else you need? If you use your attribute points e.g.: 11-11-8 (8 is spawning) than RL gives 47% recharge bonus. Rituals recharge in 15.9-23,85 seconds. Plus you can move themgelei 15:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

That's PvE only. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.215.11 (talk).

I agree making them more active because as of now, rits HARDLY run spirits and even when they do, they are most likely instantly destroyed rendering the ritualist useless when it comes to healing and/or damage.--Lancy1214 13:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

In general, ANY character based around NPC companions(pet builds, minion master, spirit spammer) is a gimmick and is overpowered against noobs but easily countered by good players. At least in the current meta. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.215.11 (talk).

Wow, that really sounded elitist...anyway, wasn't the whole point of the Ritualist to predict the sway of battle instead of responding to it? You need to plan ahead with your spirits, or they'll be useless. 145.94.74.23 20:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Better to sound like an elitist than to be a n00b. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:71.174.17.99 (talk).

Better not to try to sound like something that doesn't really matter, tbh. -- NUKLEAR IIV 18:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Passive anything is boring and bad for the game. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.230.18 (talk).

I agree that binding rituals are a pretty bad concept, but their passive nature doesn't come about from the long durations/cast times/recharge of the spirits. It comes about because of the fact that THE SPIRITS ARE THERE in the first place. In short, I appreciate that you are trying to help improve something that doesn't work well, but I think you are going about it in the wrong way. Regardless of how short duration/cast time/recharge on these skills are, the fact remains that you are placing a temporary npc on your team, who you have no control over (aside from its positioning). Doing it quicker/more often doesn't make it more active, it simply removes/limits two of the only real counters to using spirits, killing them and interruption. IMO a better way to encourage active use of spirits would be to make them somewhat more conditional, a bit like this one for example. In order to utilize it, you simply need to throw it down and it will happily attack away. HOWEVER, to maintain optimal use of the skill, you need to actively ensure that your opponent/s are hexed. If you REALLY want to get maximum effectiveness out of it, you would check who it was attacking and make sure that THAT foe was hexed. Applying conditional effects such as this would be a better way of going about rebalancing spirits IMO. Feel free to disagree, interested in what others think. /walloftext.--Revelations 13:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You're thinking about damage dealing spirit but not the rest of the spirits, which majority of them have no damage infliction. Take a look at Shelter and Union, it has a damage mitigation and mind you Ritualist are not good in that field. However, if you want to bring spirits to do some damage control to one's team, you have to use those spirits but the ridiculous amount of energy and cast time are appalling. By the time you're casting or finished casting your Shelter/Union spirit up, you either have wasted your energy and time because a) They've already spiked a target to death b) They avoid to waste their spike damage and just strike/wand off the spirit beforehand. It is so predictable to see what is happening by your foes whether your spirit is going up or not. Unlike monks, they can prot people like there's no tomorrow even when the enchantments are removed, they can still recover them by healing them. Furthermore, Ritualist has few good skills that purely conditional that you can't afford to use them at all time due to spirit being dead, cast interrupted, recharge time or you simply out of the spirit range. If you're afraid that with fast cast and recharge time would remove/limits counter, make them purge faster because of their global effect. By adding conditional effects, it won't help with non-damage inflicting spirit. It will be absurd that Earthbind spirit will add more KD time if the target is under stance/hex/enchantment (mind you this spirit is already conditional, need KD to have any effect) or Shelter spirit will protect any target ally that is under weapon spell/enchantment. Spirits global effect will be rendered useless and why bother to waste more energy just to have any of these effect. Greenery 08:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

You just missed my point entirely. The example I used, Anguish, was simply there to illustrate a potential method to making spirits more active to use. So I used a damage spirit for my example? Irrelevant. Similar principles could easily be applied to other spirits. Make union reduce damage by 10, and 25 if target is under a weapon spell. That way you get the passive effect, but it is MUCH more rewarding to use it ACTIVELY and actually apply that weapon spell to those who need it. It takes very little skill to place a spirit and forget about it, ESPECIALLY if that spirit casts basically instantly, and recharges in such a time that interrupting it becomes ineffective anyway. The reason it takes little skill to do this is because it is a passive tactic. What I have proposed is a tactic that rewards spirit users who look and think about the use of their spirit as opposed to hitting it on recharge and forgetting about it.--Revelations 07:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Your suggestion would reward profession stacking and gimmick builds rather than making ritualists useful in diverse parties. -- Gordon Ecker 08:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Please don't read too much into my examples, I was simply pointing out how you could make the skills more active. ie. Instead of having a spirit which you place, forget about, and reap the benefits, you would instead have a spirit which you place and maintain using some other active process. This could be casting a weapon spell upon an ally, it could be an enchantment on that ally, it could be every time that ally inflicts a condition etc. Obviously bad things would result if the conditions imposed upon the spirits were all ritualist abilities, but any conditional effects that they have could be as diverse as the professions themselves. I am just opposed to simply increasing the frequency at which binding rituals are used, as that makes them no more active in my opinion than they currently are. Can't be bothered logging in. Rev.--118.90.9.250 10:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Darth's Suggestion

IMO your proposed PvP versions would also be more useful in PvE than the current PvE versions. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Darth, check out Lancy's PvP-active ritual suggestions (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Lancy1214/Ritualist). --Falconeye 09:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

These suggestions are ridiculously overpowered for PvP. - Auron 10:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

they are, but the point is a good one. for example, how about a 15e 3s 30r shelter that gives allys around it a 25% block chance. The health loss would be gone, but the effect would be much less powerfull. Like that, spirits would just be subtle boosts to a party (kinda like the paragon shouts) As they are now, nobody in their right mind would actually use the defensive spirits, because you put up a shelter, and it goes down faster than the time you have spent casting it.