User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Underpowered Skills/Ritualist/Archive 2

Channeling Magic

Weapon of Fury

This skill is pretty useless atm, as it is energy management for melee, which don't really need it, especially considering splinter weapon exists and is far better to put on your melee than this. I don't know what should be done about it really, but it definitely needs some improvement.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 23:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

this skill is fine.24.47.18.113 01:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wanna give a reason why, or do you just wanna say something without any basis?--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 04:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Pure support skill, throw it on a physical attacker, he has a zealous weapon for 20 seconds..nothing really wrong with it to make it worth changing.24.47.18.113 20:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

And why would you put this on them over something like warmonger's or splinter, which are generally much more useful, making it outclassed by non-elite skills within the same attribute?--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 02:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

This on the Paragon, Splinter on the warriors/dervish/volley ranger. --Deathwing 02:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Paragon's need extra e-management? I still don't think it really justifies its elite status, Splinter or Warmonger's have better reason to be an elite than this would IMO.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 02:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

No, but out of a Warrior and a Paragon, a Paragon has much more use for energy. The 50% more adrenaline isn't to be ignored either. With this a Paragon can pretty much constantly use energy and adrenaline skills, whereas a Warrior will probably already have D-Slash, and be loaded with adrenaline, and have little use for energy. Plus, you can't really keep Splinter up on everyone constantly, usually only 1 maybe 2 people. --Deathwing 05:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Quicksilver is correct in one thing at least: Splinter is more powerful. Than again it's OPed massively, so that's hardly surprising. An unremovable 20 second adrenaline+energy boost is frightening on any attacker (especially fun on a DSlash, 7 adrenaline per DSlash is scary pressure).Akirai Annuvil 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Gaze of Fury

Change name to Fury, Summon Lv 1-8 spirit of Fury, spirits attacks take 5-17 damage spirit has 20% chance to double strike. Spirit dies after 30-44 seconds. 15 cost, 3 cast, Recharge 25 secs. ashesfalldown 11/17/07

The wierd thing about this skill is that the "destroy target spirit" part of this skill is that it can be a benefit or a drawback depending on the circumstances. I'm not sure if it would be practical to implement, but I'd like to see the "destroy target spirit" effect to become optional rather than mandatory. -- Gordon Ecker 04:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow this skill is also fine, no reason to change it.24.47.18.113 18:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, could you give a reason, or just continue to make useless comments?--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 06:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

There are other destroy spirit spells, I think this would be better just to be changed in to a spirit. Lets face it Rits got seriously jipped with GW:EN skills, there horrible. I think its a interesting change for the skill, seeing as you never see this in anyones builds. And above was not a comment, its a suggestion. --Ashesfalldown 18:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

ever played slaver's??? this skill has its uses, you destroy a rather irritating enemy spirit while creating one of your own at the same time. Don't complain about the good stuff please Rhydeble 18:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No, its a bad skill, its in no way good, except in a very very niche situation in one area of PvE, which means, its pretty close to useless, niche skills, in a game where you can only have 8, are bad.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 22:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It's used on every PvP team that runs Frozen Soil. It is a niche skill, but not as useless as you make it sound. --71.229.204.25 22:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Agony

This skill is good, its effect is good, the biggest problem is how quickly it dies(because of the amount of health it has) making its effect almost useless. This also goes for most other spirits, such as Rejuvenation, Displacement, Shelter etc... The spirit nerfs as of lately(-50 hp to all spirits, can now be set on fire, lower spirit levels etc...) are destroying the "what used to be decent" spirits. There almost completely useless to bring because they die very quickly. In PvP and in PvE. While i do agree spirits were becoming a problem in PvP this was mainly because of the abuse of many of the ranger spirit effects mixed with ritualist ones as well as abuse from the N/rt healers. Now theyve also been nerfed, and ranger spirits. The ritualist needs some kind of buff to make their own spirits useable again. This "could" possibly be done without much abuse from other profession by buffing "Spawning". The suggestion im going to put across is, making the spawning attribute actually useful, currently its quite useless, and if u want to make a spirit strong for example shelter, then you need to max out communing to 16 then spawning to 15, even then its pretty weak and still not worth bringing. Spawning change suggestion -> Spawning: "For each rank of Spawning Power you have, creatures you create (or animate) have 8% more Health, when you create a spirit it loses 20% Health for EACH other spirit in earshot of where it was created, When a spirit within earshot dies you gain 6 health, and weapon Spells you cast last 2% longer. Some Ritualist skills, especially those related to Spirit creatures, become more effective with higher Spawning Power." With this suggestion it strengthens spirits that are alone within earshot, though you could possibly place the spirits well enough so theyre all outside of earshot range of each other, but even then the effects from different spirits wont all be overlapping each other to gain greater effects because of their effect range. Almost all other professions primary attribute are some form of e-management e.g. leadership, mysticism, soul reaping, expertise etc... and i think added an e-management on spawning would be crazy for a ritualist, so adding in a health gain instead when a spirit within earshot(so its not abused from huge distances) dies would be nice for a ritualist, since that is what they are focusing on... The 2% on weapon spells could possibly be increased slightly but we have to think about the stronger weapon spells(warmongers) OblivionDanny 00:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

its fine as it is, with rit primary, 15 communing and 13 spawning its 240 damage in the area, if you use rit lord or soul twisting thats 240 damage every 15 seconds, add signet of binding and its 440, the skill is meant to be used with pressure builds and its pretty amazing when combined with 10 degen on opposing party.

As i said, this skills effect is fine, the damage is "ok" if its only hitting 1-2 foes... if we use your numbers for example... (i assume you ment 15 channeling...) and 13 spawning 240 damage in the area, now lets assume were in HA hitting 8 foes, 240 / 8 = 30 damage each... really is pathetic damage... and its mainly because of the fact of its low health. I also mentioned this isnt just for agony, its for alot of other spirits too (mainly defensive ones) which really need some buff to be used more effectivly. There are also much better skills to use in "pressure builds" then this in its current form. I'm also suggesting that you shouldnt need to waste ALL your attribute points into communing/channeling/restoration + spawning just to make "a" spirit worth its slot, when it really isnt anyway... This is of course assuming its not hit... otherwise it would be dealing alot less damage. and dont forget to sign your comments with (~~~~). OblivionDanny 14:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Lamentation

Does anyone use this skill now? I don't like the idea of Rt being spiker (hate spiking). Rework skill: "This skill is recharged each time someone in earshot range dies". And adjust damage. Servant of Kali 13:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

People still use it. It ignores armour. The skill is fine as is. adjusting damage to accommodate such a change would mean a damage reduction and basically move it into redundant land. Why bring a skill that ignores armour but deals as much AL ignorant damage as Spirit Burn on 80-100 AL? Just use Spirit Burn and save a slot right? yeah... Fro 14:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Anything armor-ignoring smells of spike, and I don't think it has a place in Rt line. Lamentation is a skill with cool name and potentially nice conditioned effects, and armor-ignoring shouldn't be one of it. I don't care how this skill is tweaked but right now it has no place in any non-spike build, it's that bad. Servant of Kali 18:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand your point of view. Lamentation is a good skill. Fairly conditional but good in the right circumstance. It deals a logical maximum of 79 damage every 20 seconds. It is indeed somewhat of a spike skill, but I think your being overly hypersensitive to the term 'spike'. It's an inherent element of the game. When your team is faced with solid defense, you have 3 options to progress things: Spike, pressure, and shut-down. It's not necessarily bad, it's just that a lot of the degenerate builds that have raised their ugly heads over the course of the game have had 'spike' somewhere in their names. This doesn't mean it's not a valid method.

This skill barely does more damage than Essence Strike. That skill is energy management and it's damage is considered more pressure than anything else. It's main value is armour ignorance. A lot of people complained about it when it happened but the change made sense (could do with a 15 second recharge though). Lamentation used to be more spike orientated when it had a 0.25 second cast and it did far more damage (around 100 damage + I think). To consider it 'spike' now you must have missed that earlier iteration... Fro 19:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat of a spike skill? You're kidding right, this skill is utter garbage outside of spike skill, and as such I consider it a horrible skill. You can complain that I'm biased against spike and that spike is a valid game strategy, but I'll still be against all-out-spike skills. If my team is faced with solid defense and the need of spike arises, something is wrong with game mechanics and skills. In other word, whenever spike is the best solution, something stinks. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Servant of Kali .

this skill is shitty in PvE and PvP consists of spiking. - Y0_ich_halt 20:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

i think this skill is exellently balanced. why make it stronger? especially the first proposal here would bring about ultimate rit spike teams(at least in ha): 8 ppl with this can spike anyone to death. if it recharges right afterwards you can permanently spike. o.O - Y0_ich_halt 19:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Argh my head! You guys are crazy! :) First this skill is bad, then it's spike so it's too good! Your making me dizzy ^_^.

Seriously the point I was making about the damage is that it's good in terms of pressure since it's so close to the Rit pressure optimum (around 60-70 damage imo, same as Air). Even if I think the recharge could safely come down to 15 (not a major requirement), It sits nicely in situations where your lightning damage just isn't cutting it, and is falling below pressure standards. For instance trying to pressure a warrior or worse, a ranger or stationary paragon. With this in the mix, you get the opportunity to push through with solid, dependable damage. Since the armour changes rolled out, most people run with +AL if they can get it. Never mind shields and offs with +10 vs something or other (I know I do these days).

Incidentally, hating spike is mental. It's one of several methods of achieving kill, each of which is better than the others at different times. It's 'not' the only method. An irrational hate brought on by the somewhat imbalanced Rit Spike will just limit your game.... Fro 22:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

so you're saying the skill is ok? i agree. - Y0_ich_halt 22:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No, Lamentation has zero pressure damage, because of a recharge. Lamentation absolutely blows as a pressure skill, and only, only has uses in spike, which is a bad design of a skill IMO. Spike is not fun for anyone except those who play it, unlike other builds. If i play hex teams, condition teams, balanced teams, I can to some extent enjoy. But playing in or against spike team is so utterly degenerating in terms of game fun, that I can't possibly see why I would not be against it. If i wanted to play in or against spike team, I would play Counterstrike and not Guild Wars. So you're saying that if I hate spike it limits my game? Yeah sure, not leeching in Fort Aspenwood also limits my game, not running a griefing wammoish cant-kill-me build in RA also limits my game. Not running lame overpowered-on-purpose things like SF also limits my game. Yes, I agree on all of that. IRL when I decide not to rob someone I can, it limits me. But I take all these limits and enjoy with them, more than without them. Servant of Kali 10:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

u...hu... i still think it's ok. if ya wanna pressure take renewing surge or something. there's enough possibility out there imo. could as well say renewing surge should be changed as it only fits pressure purpose and can't be used in a spike well. anyway, changing the recharge here will not make it more useful for pressuring, but for spiking. it's a cool spike skill, and with lower recharge you can spike more frequently. so we need some other way to change it... - Y0_ich_halt 11:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

80 damage is not really a spike skill. It can be classed as spike I guess if you want to use it like that, (since it's in that grey area of damage level and it's armour ignoring), but it doesn't need to be used like that and just doesn't need to change.

@ Kali: It has value on a pressure bar. 20 seconds like I pointed out is a little long but its still reasonable. It's not going to be the only skill on your bar either. It takes roughly twice as long to recharge as the more pressure oriented spells, has the same cast time and cost, but is slightly more powerful. It can easily function in pressure. It can't function in spam however. Which seems to be what your getting at.

Since you kinda' rocketed along a tangent for the rest of your post, I'll leave it there... Fro 13:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

20sec recharge skill which does 80dmg (albeit armor-ignoring) is NOT what I would call a pressure skill. A Dervish can do that much on a squishy with one swing of a weapon, now that's pressure. Can you tell me what Observer mode match should I watch, to see a team using Lamentation for pressure? Servant of Kali 17:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There aren't any, as everyones using N/A rit spike or some other varient, and there aren't any pressure skills... Yet (at least not until a few nerfs happen, hint hint Izzy ;) ). I don't consider this spike as getting kill with this at 75/79 damage is not exactly easy. However, like I said, it's in the 'grey' area in terms of damage though, and you use as you wish after all. On a pressure bar, I can see value in it, regardless of your scythe wielding melodrama (comparing melee to caster; pointless?). In fact the Dervish is actually pretty good at the 'spike' you hate so much. How do you sleep at night! _-_ ... Fro 20:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There aren't any? Well there you go, proves my point. You can't use Lamentation as you wish, you either use it as a spike skill, or a complete waste of a slot on your skillbar. As for Dervish, I don't support its spike skills either, so I don't get your point. Yeah yeah, Warrior can spike too, Mesmer can spike too (PP Shatter) etc etc, but they at least don't have skills which are specially designed only for 3-2-1-spike. Anyway, I said all I had to here, anything more is a waste. Servant of Kali 22:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indent) ''Hex Spell. Target foe takes 7...44...53 lightning damage. If that foe was near a corpse of some kind, that foe is hexed with Lamentation for 3 seconds and takes 5...37...45 when it ends. 5 1 15 . how about that? - Y0_ich_halt 11:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

That reminds me of an elementalist spell too much. Why not something similiar but more original? "Hex Spell. Target foe is hexed with Lamentation and takes xx-xy damage every second." Adjust duration of the hex to be something like 10-20 seconds. It would act like Spirit Light Weapon, just on the offensive side. This would be much nicer, since damage would be nice, and it couldn't be used for spiking (which is awesome). The skill can be removed of course, which is OK, and even if it isn't removed it's still damage-over-time, which means that total damage of the skill can be safely increased IMO. Servant of Kali 17:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

so you basically mean an AoE without AoE and dodging. idc. - Y0_ich_halt 17:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

What AoE? Servant of Kali 22:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The AoE from Mending, duh? Maybe he meant like the DoT AoE spells like Sandstorm, except that it only effects one person, and they can't dodge it. Even though calling it Degen without Degen would probably fit better. --Deathwing 23:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

i'm fine with it whatever they do. the recharge makes it shitty for spiking, compared to wielder's strike etc, so i don't care what they do about it. - Y0_ich_halt 11:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I stopped using this after that update that reduced the max damage. If the damage were put back to 10...82...100 and exhaustion were added it would be nice. Otherwise, 20 second recharge, conditional damage, 75 max. nah --Redfeather 15:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow that says alot servant of kali, if there are different play styles and strategic advantages and disadvantages to different builds than it stinks? That is utter trash, and I don't care what anyone thinks about it, a strategy game is ment to have different tactics which players can employ to overcome their foe with builds, teamwork, control, strategy and intuition. Spike roughly means coordinated attacking, and more directly means coordinated nuking, if you think that stinks, who cares, that is a valid and enjoyable as well as talented combat tactic, this is not a hack and slash game, and I can't take any influence from a suggestion which is based out of a distaste for the root and identity of this game.--BahamutKaiser 05:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Please stop posting in threads that require knowledge of the game and IQ. Thanks. Or at the very least stop replying to my posts and spare me. Servant of Kali 10:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Your approval of a relavent correction means nothing, this is a skill balance wiki section, and you can describe your opinion on topics, or ignore a remark you dislike. But when you make a hainously disfunctional comment on the relavence of a skill based of unacceptable interests which are clearly in opposition to what the game is designed to provide, you get railed for it, and if you believe otherwise you can debate it, but your acceptance is irrelavent because this isn't your property, it is Anets, and they are using this to collect information about players recognition and interests on issues, not your unjustified acceptance or denial of what other players think and expect.

I whole heartedly deny your justification for this issue, reguardless of the skills issue relavence, because it is clearly in opposition of the games wellbeing, you can argue it, deny it, or ignore it, but you cannot make demands of other players so don't dilude yourself with an assuption of justification or control.--BahamutKaiser 23:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic, you two have gone off topic in a second section of the Ritualist's underpowered skills. Cut it out. The more you two argue, the less likely that suggestions will be read. Seriously, who wants to read this crap? mrrr. Back on topic. I hate the way the rits have abused this skill, and the nerf was just deserts. But now that the skill isn't used anymore it needs to be looked at in a way that will make it more interesting than it used to be. I liked the 1/4 cast time, and the short recharge. The damage can be kept low, but that last hit is what was so cool about this skill. Sure... Impale is a similarly better skill, but to have something like the suggested lamentation in the channeling line would be great. If that is not the case, then try something new? "5|1|20 If target foe is within earshot of a spirit, that target will lose 10...75 health, and the spirit will be healed by an equal amount. If that foe is closer to a corpse within earshot, that foe takes 20...110 lightning damage instead.(Terra Xin 02:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC))

This skill does the exact same amount of damage as Signet of Sorrow but does not have a conditional recharge and costs energy. Let it have a conditional recharge like SoS and it will be fine. Lightow 21:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree this skill should get a buff, SoS like recharge clause seems the easiest way to go.

Or you could make it like a rits version of shadow strike just give it 12-15 sec recharge, and in addition to the armor ignoring damage if they are near a corpse or spirit, make it so if they are attacking, or using a skill (or limit it to spell), you steal health (same amount as armor ignoring damage).--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 05:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been playing my rit since factions and this alone is the worst rit skill i can ever come up with, 20 seconds recharge for what? 79 damage if the foe is near a corpse? Its only 79 damage, this is just g*y and retarded. If i bring it for pve i never get the chance to use it as the monsters dies too fast and 20 seconds recharge destroys it completly, i never even used this when factions came out. not even in pvp can 79 damage make sense enough to bring this, and its too f**king conditional too, who the f*ck stands close to corpses anyway? Signet of Sorrow makes this look retarded, and i think that reducing the recharge or making it recharge faster if the foe is near a corpse could help this skill. --Cursed Angel 04:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Gaze from Beyond

Why does this skill have such large cast and recharge rates? Done25 19:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

This was one of the core skills back when the old rit spike was popular in pvp. It was nerfed to make it harder to spike with. OblivionDanny 23:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Spirit Rift

Twice the cost of Ancestor's Rage, 8 times the cast length (2 to its 1/4), and it takes 3 times as long to activate which usually means that by the time the spell takes effect they are gone. Done25 00:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The 3 seconds delay should be reduced to 2 seconds, because even if my opponent is knocked down or slowed down to 90%, he still able to escape without problems and monks have 5 seconds to cast prot spirit on him, wtf ?!. 87.189.233.105 15:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, comparing Spirit Rift to Ancestor's Rage ist not realy fair. One is a nuke, the other support damage. But i think Rift should go back to 1 sec castingtime. And maybe increase Range to nearby. This way in PvP it would take a little bit more than just a small sidestep to completely ignore this spell and in PvE it would be usable again and ritus an alternative to fill in a dmg slot. Beetlejuice 13:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer that this skill either has a 1 second cast time, or an increase of range. Not both. This skill has nice damage, and anet will nerf it if people start to abuse it.... err... more than they already try to do now. (Terra Xin 03:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC))

Wailing Weapon

Low energy cost doesn't make it good. With this skill on, you're forced to attack an attacker, which will mean Warrior Ranger or Dervish in most cases. Taking into account good armor or heal capabilities on these professions, which weapon will do nothing but interrupt - no damage. Also, interrupting an attacker is not nearly as dangerous as Warmongers against a caster. If we add the fact that one can only have one weapon spell on, it makes it even weaker compared to other choices. A 5sec recharge reduction would be nice. I tried using this skill but it never did much, just too conditional. If anyone made good use of it lemme know. I certainly don't intend to vouch for buffs of usable skills, but never saw anyone using this. Servant of Kali 16:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd reduce recharge to 15s. Still not 100% uptime, and you still have to hit their guy for it to do anything. It'd be an interesting anti-physicals tool if it didn't fail so much on stats Patccmoi 12:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I have always seen this as a skill used by the mid-liners (casters, mostly), to cripple off melee targets that stray behind the front-lines. It's a skill that has some great potential if it were used properly, but the conditions suck... I was looking at what it means to 'wail' and wondering what it has to do with the description, so how does this sound? Wailing Weapon: For 1...10 seconds, target foe loses one shout or chant when struck by Wailing weapon, and whenever it strikes an attacking foe, that foe is interrupted. Now 'that' is mid-line defense. I still think the recharge could be lowered slightly, like pat suggested.(Terra Xin 09:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

This is what I dont get about this skill. Why is this weaker than Warmongers weapon when warmongers weapon has a stronger effect? Warmongers is completely IMBA and totally useable and wailing weapon is very hard to use and has a weak effect. Wailing weapon need +5 mroe energy cost and a better effect. OH and -5 recharge time.

Because Izzy finds this skill "insanly" overpowered in small format(e?) PvP. --Deathwing 02:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It just needs to be alot more cost effective, simply put, interrupting someone who is attacking isn't as valuable as someone who is not attacking, and likely using spells or healing skills. Since most healing skills arn't attacks, you can be sure that anything but their attacks will be canceled with warmongerer, which is much more effective if you attacking a foe with the obvious intention to kill them, blocking their attacks is just damage reduction, so the cost should be universally lower.

Cost not just in energy, but offering the same or higher duration as well as lower recharge time so this spell is not just cheaper, but more active than Warmonger, allowing a player to effectively stop a foes attacking capability wile attacking them, still a lesser function than stoping all of their other efforts like defending themselves, casting any kind of spell or using almost any healing technique to survive those attacks.

In the end, this will simply be a lesser function than warmongerer, it would probably only see valuable use if Dervish got an amount of AoE back on their attack, so it simply needs to be an all around bargain.--BahamutKaiser 03:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the best skills out there to interupt warriors, the other option is Soul Bind which is far more hard to use as you would probably have to stand and spam parasitic bond or wastrels worry. I love ritualists but i dont think this skill needs to be on the underpowered page. --Cursed Angel 04:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither this or soul bind are really used to shutdown warriors (I know you said interrupt, but interruption falls under the idea of shutdown), why use these when you can just use BlindBots to shut them (soul bind is a bad elite imo, there are better melee shutdown hexes than it, some aren't even elite) down, it needs a boost, or you could just switch recharges and durations with Warmonger's, since its a much better skill, and Warmonger's could maybe use a nerf, maybe, but either way, this should have better stats than warmongers, at least.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 21:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Clamor of Souls

Useless thrashy skill, absolutely horrible and a copy of Ele non-elite skill. Rework skill: "Each Spirit you control deals xx..yyy lightning damage to adjacent foes." There. See? It's not that difficult to make a useful and fun skill. What does this skill do? Risk and reward system. Rewards grouping spirits, for a possible spike since each spirit will do that dmg on it's own. At the same time, grouping spirits is risky because AoE easily kills em all. Servant of Kali 13:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That just promotes spirit-spam (which isn't good). The spell does indeed need help however as it's rather bad for an elite, especially considering Ancestors Rage. There have been a few suggestions for this that I agree with, but a simple idea is to just allow it to ignore armour. It's still not amazing (since it's PBAoE) but far more worth it. Nearby 122 damage Armour ignorant damage would be okay. Even with the clause. Fro 14:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

How does it promote spirit spam? It takes an elite slot, it makes spirit spam more interesting and diverse. Instead of this skill you can use, sure, Wanderlust or something like that if you're spirit spammer. This just gives an option, nothing less, nothing more. Besides, this skill does absolutely nothing to non adjacent foes. Spirits are a part of the game, deal with it. This doesn't make em more overpowered. Servant of Kali 18:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Less spike skills (if you're sick of Rt spike raise your hand?), more utility. I'd much rather see something like 'For each nearby Ally, 1 nearby foe takes 10..100 damage. For each nearby foe, one nearby ally gains 10..100 health and 1..5 energy'. Now it can be used for both damage and self heal, as well as giving energy to allies. Can't really be abused since you need Nearby foes. Patccmoi 14:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like spike skills but still don't see how exactly can you spike anyone with this, in an intended manner (unless the guy is too stupid ofc). You can't really tell someone "stand close to the spirit" :> It's more of a surge dmg to melee foe who goes and start killing your spirits, but it's not like you're gonna spike warrior just like that, especially not team spike IMO. Besides, as the guy after me said, your solution is the one actually promoting more spiking :) BTW remember that I'm one of those who stopped playing Rt once it turned from an interesting unorthodox DPS lightning dmg class into a hated spike class. Servant of Kali 18:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You haven't done much here. Other than actually create a great skill for Rit spike. Healing 'and' damage in one skill right? It's still a spike skill whichever way you look at it in terms of damage. How different is 100 damage from 122?.

Rit Spike should be weakened a lot pretty soon anyway(I hope that's going to be the case anyway), and PBAoE spikes aren't exactly amazingly good are they? Elementalists in 'every mans' pvp areas like RA and AB have been using 'better' non-elite skills to do this for ages, and they have never amounted to much. Add healing to this and just think of all the wonderful things Rit Spike teams could do with it... Fro 15:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

And you'll have a bunch of Rts running around holding hands trying to use Clamor on you for 100 lightning damage (i never meant for it to become armor ignoring, i just didn't put damage type in description sorry)? And if you have Savannah they all die? And they'll all use the same elite? I can hardly see how you'd manage to make any efficient spike out of Clamor. If it was possible, you'd see teams of 8 Mo/Es spiking with Flame Burst already Patccmoi 15:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That's why I said PBAoE wasn't all that great in terms of hurting things. My point is that in a universe where Rit Spike wasn't beaten up by Izzy in a fist-fight update, adding 100 healing and 5 energy when they hurt (try to) someone only gives Rit Spike a fantastic elite to team-[t]ele-gank with. Even if you don't get kill, you get 100 hp, and Spirit Bond recharging for 2 seconds all for 5 energy. Pretty darn amazing deal if you actually get kill to.

I imagine Izzy will deal with Rit Spike so the whole 'less spike' argument doesn't matter. Armour ignoring damage or +100 heal and 5 energy. Really don't care. As long as it's better than it is now... Fro 15:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) I like Patccmoi's suggestion. It's still extremely limited if you want to do both effects - if someone were to use it, what would he have to do? Unless his opponents are all in nearby range from each other, it would only trigger the self healing for one person, even if more than one ally is close to the caster; that's infrequent enough to not make this powerful in a spike, while common enough to make it useful against opponents with bad positioning (at least IMO). It would be really, really cool if it could heal spirits (even if it only healed spirits), as it would be highly conditional yet very useful with the proper positioning. I think Ritualist skills need to focus more on things that help the Ritualist and his team, and less in raw damage. Anyway, I had mentioned it before, and Isaiah's reply may be seen here. Erasculio 15:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I liked the idea of being like an Ancestor's Rage on all of your controlled spirits. "It promotes spirit spam", and? That's what Ritualists are supposed to do. That's like saying Dwayna's Kiss is bad because it promotes enchantment spam. This skill needs something to do with spirits though, given the "souls" part of the name. It is kind of tricky though, it is in Channeling, but if you make it a somewhat decent damage spell, people will complain about rit spike. If you make it be effected by spirits, people complain that it promotes spirit spam. --Deathwing 15:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It's already affected by spirits irc (allies?). The difference being Spirit-spam is passive nonsense. You could call Rit spike active nonsense if you like but there it is...

Edit: The idea isn't so hot whichever way you look at it. Creating and Ancestors' Rage around spirits only limits the skill to use with spirits, actually making the skill worse. Quite impressive considering how bad it is... Fro 16:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't make it worse if the damage is correctly adjusted. It makes it interesting, fun, and usable. Clamor of Souls *CANNOT* be usable in the current design state. If you buff it, it's just gonna be in spike builds, and if you leave it as is, it's going to be one of the worse skills ever. Servant of Kali 18:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Heh, it's funny, isn't it? What do Ritualists do? What is their unique role? IMO, it's spirit spam or spiking (and spike isn't even unique, really). If you avoid doing something because it would favor one or the other, then the Ritualists need to be given a new role, but that is going to be somewhat hard, IMO... Erasculio 16:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's put it this way. I dislike mindless spirit spamming. But right now, how much do you see that around, except in RA? I honestly don't. With every newbie running SF eles, offensive spirits are not that great as some make them to be. Personally I like them, but hey, have you never seen how fast AoE's and Warrior kill em? Not to mention interrupts? Now, if we put that aside, Ritualist number one role should be *territory control*, that's how they were supposed to be designed. Why then are people complaining about Spirit-based skills which actually make some sense? It's not promoting spiking, it's making spirit spam more versatile, which is a good thing. It makes it different, not more powerful. What exactly people expect Rt to do? Heal as good as monk? Cast potent Ele-like spells? I'm not gonna mention spike because I don't like it. What Rt is left, are spirits. Someone may like it, someone may not, but negating spirit aspect of Rt means throwing the whole profession in the trash can. No, ashes and weapon spells won't save it. Servant of Kali 18:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. In truth I don't think there are any roles left. Even the role I'd like to see more of for the Rit (sort of like a cross between Mesmer, Necro, and smiter, with offensive and defensive support buffs in the form of Xinrae's, Warmongers, Guided, Vengeful etc.) it's just a mixture of possible jobs already within other classes. Same goes for almost all of the new classes actually. The key element in this situation is variety I think. A Rit mid-line bar would look very different to a Mesmer or Ele bar say. As much as the high-end would hate to have more stuff to consider for the 64 slots, I still think it would be good for Ritualists and more importantly, good for the game.Fro 16:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) To be honest, all the new professions have been somewhat forced out of their original roles. I'm glad they're changing the profession lineup in GW2, because in my opinion, Assassins, Rits, Dervs, and Paragons are all flawed concepts. Spike killers cause tons and tons of whining and aren't worth using if they can't reliably kill since they're glass cannons. Reinforcement creators aren't any good if you can't even keep the reinforcements coming. Avatar of Melandru is pretty obviously flawed, but that's just one skill; Dervs as a whole are more balanced IMO. Paragons as well have been forced out of full support with the mass nerf to Motivation skills, but they still live on because their energy management is some of the best in the game and they can contribute to a spike. I guess in conclusion, the extra professions might have been a mistake, and I reiterate that I hope GW2 will fix that... Now back to the original topic, Clamor of Souls. >_> |GD Defender / contribs 18:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

God forbid there's any diversity in the game..

I'm not seeing how this is so broken, if your surrounded by foes and allies, you can potentially wipe a half dozen or more foes with around 100 damage for 10 energy, that's not all bad, if anything needs to be improved here it would simply be the range, it could be adjusted to in the area and than it would reach even more allies and foes, but if your using this right it can be effective. I don't even see how this requires spirits, it says allies, that means teammates as well, a player, even using rit secondary, rushes a group of foes with a group of allies and nails a few of them for a good amount of damage. The use of spirits allows you to increase the number of allies around you and make an even greater impact, in a very crowded battle it can offer a lot of damage. I would simply say increase the range of the ability, to area or earshot, that will be enough to make it powerful, too powerful maybe.

As for this remark about excluding the additional professions in GW2, I would like to see some evidence, cause I've read everything I can get my hands on, and I've yet to see them say anything of that nature. Besides, simply changing the roles doesn't mean the new ones and not the old ones. Personally, I blame the whinny players for how poorly the new professions are, players are comfortable with what they are already using, and they complain about new mechanics instead of trying and accepting good counters to these new professions, it is really stuborness and poor revolution of power that makes the game stale, Anet is only to blame because they won't tell the players off and exercise better revolution of power. This goes back before even the new professions, Elementalist abilities have been poor for a long time, it wasn't until some adjustments and additions to their arsenal that they were even significant AoE damagers.--BahamutKaiser 21:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You don't see how it's so bad? OK let's put that to a reality test. Since no one else in any form of PvP uses this skill, would you mind demonstrating to us anywhere how exactly this does anything? And in the meantime while you're testing this skill in practice, compare it to Flame Burst. With Fire Attunement (which is a given) Flame Burst will cost pretty much as Clamor of Souls, it hits ALL nearby foes regardless of allies near or not, it does slightly more damage, had lower cast time, has much lower recharge time. And, it's not even an elite skill. So, there's a non-elite skill which is 2x better than an elite skill. And for you that's OK? Servant of Kali 06:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It is definetly weak, but it isn't soooo broken, it just needs a little range tweak. Gotta recognize that this is ritualist and not elementist, even if it is an elite.--BahamutKaiser 04:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Look, I've seen your other posts and they are absolutely horrible and show zero understanding of PvP. I wouldn't mind if you spam some topics I don't read but I mind when you spam these because at least some people are trying to raise a concern for useless builds. Then you come and say "no all is fine because it's Rt and not Ele and Rt's are not meant to be played they should collect dust too bad for you that you bought Factions instead of going to pub and wasting 50$ there mwahaha.." etc. You get the point. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Servant of Kali .

What a load of Bull. You haven't read jack, or you would have noticed that I said that Ritualist is the most broken class and needs the most attention in the game, saying otherwise disproves your claim. Neither did I say this skill shouldn't be changed, I said it isn't a significant issue for Ritualist, the real issue is elsewhere, and wile I think it needs a little improvement, the real adjustments need to be made to the alternative options Ritualist should be providing.

Making such clearly false and slanderous statements as an obvious retaliation to being harshly corrected elsewhere only describes your immaturity as well as lack of recognition for relevent topics. You can claim any amount of assumptions and falsehoods that you like, but it is extremely obvious that you cannot recognize issues relevent to the professions overall effectiveness and build value when you address skills in comparison to other skills without recognizing the context those abilities belong in, wile overlooking the primary and outstanding weakness in the profession.

You apparently don't have any idea who your talking to anyway, since I was probably the most passionate defender and promoter of adding a diversity of cultural content and introducing new professions when the majority of the the forum participating fan-base denied the possibility of addtional profession balance and Asian content in a "European theme only" game. I was the one of the first people to write an advanced idea for a ninja type profession in the game when most people could not even accept the idea of additional professions, and I defended additional professions with logic and support more than anyone else on the forums. So you can honestly cram your ignorance up you ***, I have nothing further to remark on you since you've undeniably proven your ignorance.--BahamutKaiser 23:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I support Bahamut's argument. Anyway, what really annoys me is when people try to make critical comparisons between Rits channeling line with the Elementalist, because when you do that, you're trying to make suggestions that might as well say 'make an Ele' which is totally useless towards improving the Rit. Clamor of Souls can work in it's line, but is overshadowed by other skills that have more ease of use. I don't agree with the increase in range, but I do like patccmoi's suggestion to heal allies as well as simultaneously damaging foes - but without the energy gain. I remember suggesting it a while ago myself, (not claiming dibs, here), but it faded in the depths of lost threads. I think a solid form of healing would be elite-worthy for someone investing into the channeling line.

Oh. And Can we avoid the conversation about how big either of your ...'s are in GuildWars? Its stupidly off topic. This thread is about improving Ritualist skills. You won't get any sort of recognition here.(Terra Xin 10:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

Elite Hex Spell. For 2 seconds, nothing happens. When this Hex ends, for each Spirit within (your) earshot you deal 60 lightning damage to target foe and all foes nearby to target foe (maximum 30...150...180 damage). 10 ¼ 10

Numbers probably need some tweaking... but what do you think? --Kemar 19:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a very unique twist. The damage seems a bit exaggerated, as very few abilities (I can't recall any) deal much more than 100 damage to a foe in a single strike, and not close to 180, even though the actual damage dealt can often be more than listed in certain situations. Personally I like the idea of extending it's effective range to earshot because none of Elementalist skills have that kind of area of effect, and wile this only effects a number of opponents depending on a number of allies, with earshot range it will reach and include a lot more allies and opponents, and compensate for its lack of cluster potential with superior radius of effect. This gives this original attack spell a relative advantage, wile keeping it distinguished from abilities like Incendiary Bonds, which is also a delayed hex nuke with different modifiers. This also introduces spirit dependency, whereas Clamor triggers on any ally.--BahamutKaiser 00:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

My initial thought was "man this is going to ruin pvp" but then I realized it was a hex. Nice move, Kemar. :D (Terra Xin 10:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

I think the fact that it's an hex is what makes this skill so interesting. Opens up a lot of possibilities. The caster for example can put the spirits a little bit behind on the battlefield, run forward to the enemy but out of range of the spirits and then imediatly run back to the spirits so the spell has it's full effect. The target on the other hand can remove the hex (although I think that's rather unlikely, but I don't know that much about PvP; perhaps increase the duration to 3 seconds so it's easier) or run away from his teammates, whereas the caster can for example knock him down to prevent that. Initially of course the reason why this is a hex is of course kill the spike ability. Got a little inspired by Ancestors' Rage here, I think it was an elegant solution. --Kemar 20:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of people talking about PBAoE skills, and I was just wondering if anyone knew that this skill doesn't suffer from a normal PBAOE's aftercast? Sorry if you guys did, it just seems like it would be something popular to point out :S (Terra Xin 10:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

"Team-tele-gank" not "Team-ele-gank". (Tele as in 'teleport'). Careful with your edits...

I like the hex idea...giving it the ancestors rage treatment and making it viable at the same time...24.47.18.113 20:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sigh, I really was hoping it would be changed this timein some way... well, let's start waiting again. Kemar 07:35, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Clamor of Souls: Spell. All foes adjacent to target ally are struck for 30..110 lightning damage. With AR's nerfed CoS would be finally a skill worthy of being Elite. 2 November 2007

I would keep it as it is just reduce recast to 4-6 sec and make it targeted. That would hardly be overpowered (around same dmg but 2-3 times the recast of SF and conditional aoe) but at least it would be usefull. Beetlejuice 14:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Communing

Mighty Was Vorizun

This skill is horrible. It provides 15 armor and 25 Energy. A defensive set provides 13 armor plus 30 Health and weapon and shield inscription bonuses, while an Energy set can provide 17 unconditional Energy plus weapon suffix, focus suffix and focus inscription bonuses. -- Gordon Ecker 02:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Displacement

I'm actually kind of shocked this isn't here already, considering it is a broken skill. 15 energy, to block 7 or 8 attacks over an entire group at a 75% ratio every 45 seconds. And that is assuming high investment in Spawning power as well as Communing. The durations only purpose is to allow you to set up way ahead of time that way you can get a second use somewhere toward the beginning of a battle, really pathetic.

But lets compare it to a rival skill. The monk profession, which is meant to be a focused support healer has always had a better group blocking skill. Even at 15 energy Aegis dominates Displacement, with 10 seconds of unlimited blocking on an entire party, with an even greater reach than Displacements proximity, and a certainty to block more than 7 or 8 hits on any one or 8 party members being hit by a melee relevant opposition, besides any unreasonable number of foes. 25% less block rate means nothing since displacement will fall faster than a lumber jack can yell timber under any kind of physical pressure, and the fact that an enchantment can be removed is less significant than the fact that a spirit doesn't require a skill slot to counter, regular attacks will punish it just fine, and a nuke attack can one strike it or at least close to it, it doesn't take a special skill to address, and I'm sure there are other purposes for Nukes in a few other situations, like killing foes.... how often is that in practice?

I actually suggested that displacement only block some hits a long time ago, I said 50%, back when it blocked all hits...... Anet might have heard that, since we finally got 75%...... which made very little difference..... with this we can pretty much recognize that even at 50% it would drop like a bee in a smoke stack. So what I suggested was this.

Displacement should be 10 energy, 30 second recharge. lvl 1-10, 25% chance to block, takes 40 damage per activation (maybe less considering aegis new cost), 10-35 second duration.

This goes along with the other suggestions I made for Shelter and Union as well. All of them need reasonable costs for Ritualist, because 15 and 25 energy is pretty broken for a profession without any passive energy management, and all of them have suggested reduction in protection, reduction in damage received per activation, reduction in recharge time and reduction in duration.

With the reduced recharge and duration, it will be usable often enough to provide repeated use in battle, but will not be capable of being overlapped without elite additions. With the reduced protection and reduced activation damage, it will last dually longer, reduced activation triggers will mean it takes damage less often, and because it blocks less often and less effectively it also takes less damage, also making it last longer. This ensures that it will hopefully last at least half their duration, making it a semi continuous effect.

This shifts Displacement to a useful role, pressure relief. It does not block often enough to provide certain protection, only enough to throw a wrench in an assassins attack chain, or cut off a little damage here and there, it basically slows the opponents output down just enough to give the team some time to react to attacks, instead of trying to shave off large amounts of damage like Aegis. Against a highly focus physical attack team, it will not block enough damage, and be overwhelmed shortly even with a 25% rate and 2/3 the damage per activation, things like Aegis, or at least guardian would be a better call, if mass attacks are expected, or at least a synergy.

Really, as it stands, a Ritualist doesn't have a significant role in a party, it is either providing gimmick defense which doesn't relieve the use of 2 monks in most cases anyway, or is trying to play as alternate to roles covered better by other professions. With this function, Ritualist will be able to offer effective damage reduction for a party, giving them all just a little relief to survive attacks and react. With the moderate yet lasting relief provided by Ritualist defensive spirits, a party can actually consider using one monk and one Ritualist as their party support, as the moderate continuous relief will be just enough to allow one monk to react to situations, and relieve the cost enough so one monk can cover most of the healing along with a little boost from Ritualist healing skills.

It really is a problem, and poor design when only 1 out of 10 professions NEEDS to be doubled in full size parties to cover the healing, and the alternative cannot be safely used as the alternative for at least one of the healing/protection support because their skills are extremely dysfunctional. It is sad that even a combination of monk, Ritualist and paragon using support intensive skills cannot safely cover the healing needs of a party in many situations. Ritualist is the most dysfunctional, unreasonable, broken profession in the game, and Displacement, Shelter and Union are the core of this dysfunction, as well as unreasonable recharge times, overdone on binding rituals, and many other skills unrelated to this. These three skills are all it takes to put ritualist back in the role it belongs, or any role at all, all it takes to justify the weakness of some of their less reasonable spells, and all it takes to make Ritualist an interesting and fun profession.

On a related note, I would take some of the offensive spirits out of communing and put them in channeling, and put some of the spirit healing attacks from channeling to communing, it makes more sense, and separates Ritualist ability to use a few particularly devastating offensive spirits with useful defensive abilities, particularly wanderlust and dissonance.--BahamutKaiser 05:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

You always write too much. :S I'd like to see a secondary element added to Displacement to provide better defenses for the rit. How about this? "Every time an attack is blocked in this way, this Spirit takes 60 damage. Every time Displacement does not block an attack, it is healed for 30 health." I think it would be an alternate counter (not direct) towards builds that use anti-blocking skills, without diminishing its ability to assist the party. But I can't think of a suitable percentage chance for it to block. I suppose 25% would be cool, that way it will last its full duration. What do you think? (Terra Xin 23:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC))

Sorry, I don't like to discuss something partially, because people who disagree will attack undeveloped and undescribed portions of an idea, regardless of stability, especially a radical one.

As for your suggestion, if it had a 25% block rate, and took 60 damage 25% of the time, wile receiving 30 healing 75% of the time, what would that amount to? It would actually gain health, 30 X 3 odds is 90 wile 60 X 1 odd is only 60, it would gain 30 health for every 4 strikes taken, 3 would miss for 30 healing each, and one would strike dealing 60 damage.

It is an innovative idea, at a 50% ratio it would work, but my interest here is to offer a low potency, long lasting, wide proximity defensive supplement, and having a 50% block ratio is enough to make even outstanding melee thrashing ineffective, wile most melee onslaughts will still be threatening with only 25% of it being blocked.

Another alternative would be that it had a 50% ratio to reduce damage by a large amount, or negate damage altogether, from just melee, or maybe all attacks, but not block, ensuring that Assassin attack triggers, condition and degeneration triggers still activate on attacks, this would be significantly less effective than simply blocking attacks, yet I still feel my first concept delivers the best results, give or take some minor alteration to the health lost depending on results.

Thanks for your thought though.--BahamutKaiser 04:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

True. I just think it would be cool if it performed a dual role, but your idea seems straightforward. (Terra Xin 08:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

Reduce life loss. 87.189.229.209 23:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Binding Chains

Lower the rec to 15, e to 10, cast 1, duration 13. Readem Promote My Ban Here 06:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

this skill is for 1v2 scrimmages >.> - Y0_ich_halt 11:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

lol, yeah. Rl PvP is 1 vs 1 nubs! Readem Promote My Ban Here 18:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That change might actually make this skill played since there are so many Me/Rt in GvG. This skill can be equipped on a MoR Mesmer with some points in Communing. A Rit Flag Runner can find use with this too. With points in Communing maybe Weapon of Quickening will also be used. Imagine the day people use communing builds without spirits... RIOT!!!! --Shadetz X 11:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Signet of Binding

If you're going to give up a skill slot to do more of what spawning power already does, at least give it a 5 or 8 second recharge so it's available for every spirit, kind of like the ele glyphs. --Palebluedot 08:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I've always prefer Signet of Creation because of the AoE effect over this skill. How about adding 1..3 pipes of health regen so that with Signet of Creation together you can achieve 10 pipes of health regen on spirits. Make spirits die in 45 seconds instead. --Shadetz X 23:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This skill is good to use on a Union spirit. Normally, it won't last 30 seconds anyway, and this skill will give it quite the boost. --Deathwing 23:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I run Rit Lord quite a lot and used this skill a few time. The rate at which Union, Shelter and Displacement die in PvE severely outweighs any gain this skill would give you. Half the time while im trying to cast this on a spirit the spirit dies before I finish casting it. Signet of Creation is much better - affects all spirits so if the one you target dies maybe one of the others lived o gain the benefit. If you pre-cast, creation is still MUCH better imho because the benefit to three spirits outweighs the benefit to one. Dancing Gnome 03:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Signet of creation is much better on spirits that damages themselves, the health regeneration counters the health loss. I always carry both signets on my ritu when i use protection spirits and if you dont have enough spawning powers your spirits will often die before you can cast any of the signets.--Cursed Angel 23:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Soothing

25 energy? 60s recharge? 5s cast? Everything about this skill is wrong. A warrior/paragon is just going to auto attack this spirit until (after about 5 seconds) it dies. Not good. Maestro Ed 18:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

IMO make it far less clunky (at the very least 15e, 3s cast, 45s recharge), and then make it earshot range so that it can get killed. skaspaakssa 19:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

With the buffing of so many adrenaline gaining skills I don't see the harm of lowering energy cost and casting time. --Shadetz X 09:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with Earshot range + better stats (15/3/45 seems ok overall). There IS tons of adrenal gain skills added, and few ways to control adrenal. This one would be worth it. The retarded part of it was the range so you couldn't actually kill it, but with Earshot it would be very counterable Patccmoi 13:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. --Xeeron 15:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think a universal reduction is good for this skill. You can then utilise it as another refuge if you want to get away from a warrior who is just using you to gain adrenaline. I don't have much experience with adrenaline gain/loss (warrior is my least favoured), but what if a secondary effect were to be added, would that be giving it too much? I was thinking along the lines of having adrenaline expiring faster than normal? (Terra Xin 10:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

This spirits recharge is too long and 25 energy is just awfully wrong, ritualists doesnt have energy storage so giving them skills with an energy cost over 15 is wrong, besides that this spirit doesnt deserve it. You just reduced spiritrs health and this falls under a few seconds, sure i can see how annoying this can be if anyone used it. --Cursed Angel 19:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Union

Lower energy cost to 10 please. 76.64.186.175 03:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

lol. that skill isn't underpowered at all. just look at it! that's Protective Spirit for your whole party (and the other party in some missions)! 10 energy would make it so superior to prot spirit, everyone would play either Mo/Rt or Rt/E. - Y0_ich_halt 15:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Umm.. no. — Skuld 15:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

we're thinking of pve here. i've never seen union in pvp, except some gimmicky rit builds in arenas. - Y0_ich_halt 15:31, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No matter how I resist I must disagree with you. Prot spirit reduces damage to 10 of max health. If you have 480 health, 10% is 48. If you're hit by a spirit rift, you take close to 400 damage (TIN DAO KAINENG), Protective Spirit reduces the damage to 48, Union to 385. You must be referring to Shelter but still... Can monk be 5 seconds out of a battle? - IH 17:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

sorry, i always confuse union and shelter. thinking of union: adjust reduction to attrib like e.g. 5...21...25. that way it completely annulates base base damage from weapons except hammer and scythe. - Y0_ich_halt 18:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Except then it dies in 1/4 of a second instead of 3/4 of a second and doesn't really negate any more damage. --Deathwing 19:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

are you supposing damage for the spirit equal to the reduction? i'm thinking of a fixed 15 damage, or maybe 15...10...9. - Y0_ich_halt 19:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Well you never said otherwise, and that is how it works currently. Maybe instead of what you suggest, making it scale the damage, such as.:

"Create a level 1...7 Spirit. Whenever a non-Spirit ally in its range takes damage, that damage is reduced by 15. For every 1...2...3 points of damage reduced this way, the Spirit takes 1 damage. This Spirit dies after 30...54 seconds." Might make it too strong though. --Deathwing 20:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

you mean 3...2...1 i guess. otherwise i'd avoid raising communing. bit hard that way, though, so maybe rather make it 4...2...1. :) - Y0_ich_halt 20:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed the wording :) --Deathwing 20:23, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

aaah, that makes way more sense. it's still hard to scale supposing you mean the values for communing 0...12...15, because it would make more difference from 12 to 15 than from 0 to 12, then. - Y0_ich_halt 20:31, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Progression
Communing Damage	0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 2 6 2 7 2 8 2 9 2 10 2 11 2 12 2 13 2 14 2 15 3 16 3 17 3 18 3 19 3 20 3 21 3

--Deathwing 20:34, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indent) ok. just sounded so unjust. - Y0_ich_halt 20:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

wow, just realized that would kill gvg rits who wanna use this. (ok, crappy for gvg anyway), major rune in gvg! xD - Y0_ich_halt 22:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

IMO, this skill is fair the way it is.--Shadetz X 06:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It negates around 200-300 damage every 45 seconds. Could use a slight buff IMO. I mean it dies within miliseconds. --Deathwing 06:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Of Shelter, Union and Displacement this is the spirit that stays up the longest. With Signet of Creation and Binding it can be kept up pretty long. - IH 14:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Right now this is the only one of the 3 that even does it's job fairly well, and outside of the broken recharge and duration, it could really just stay the same. I would reduce the damage covered and received to 10 simply because it would last a little longer, wile still cutting off just enough damage to combat high hit rates. I already wrote what I think it should be wile discussing shelter.

Union should be 10 energy, 30 second recharge. lvl 1-10, reduces damage by 10, takes 10 damage per activation, 10-35 second duration.

I hope all 3 are changed into skills appropriate for ritualists energy and realistic battle needs, that way ritualist can get their role back as a support alternative instead of monk monopolizing 2 and 3 spots reguardless.--BahamutKaiser 05:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Same comment as for Shelter: Spirit HP got nerfed, and they now burn. Give them now a reduction of life loss, so that they at least have the low level of efficiency they had before. They were already badly nerfed before HP got lowered. --Longasc 19:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Reduce life loss. 87.189.229.209 23:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Shelter

I know you're a busy man, Izzy, but when you have time could you look at this skill a bit? What I'm hoping is a slight buff for it, even it it would be pve-wise. For example when I want to go to capture that above-mentioned Xinrae's Weapon and I take my usual Ritual Lord -build (with signet of creation and binding, union and displaecment, boon of creation) the problems occur as following:

• Shelter dies under half a second (especially when there are several barragers shooting at the mobbed henchies)
• Displacement dies even faster (not a critical problem itself but would be nice if it would buy some time to respawn some spirits)
• These three spirits used in the same build with ritual lord will cause serious energy problems even with boon of creation. I have to admit that I'm a noob who doesn't bother collecting +energy sets but should it really require that to make these spirits useful?
• I can't take any elite energy management either, since Shelter dies so fast it's the same you wouldn't take it anyway.

Some thoughts to resolve this problem:

• Lower the energy cost, maybe to 15
• Lower the recharge, imo 30 would be nice.
• Lower the damage taken / reduction. A party hit once with an aoe spell will cause shelter to take 344 damage with 16 communing. That means that if you've cast Signet of Binding to it, it'll survive.
• If these would cause imbalances in PvP, then it could probably better to lower the duration of the spirit (unless used to pre-prot, the spirit has no way surviving 45 seconds in a battle in PvE)

I know you don't like passive defences but have some love for the communing ritualists :( After you'll nerf the rituspike played in HA the ritualists don't have anywhere to go :l

I base this opinion/statement on my experience of vanquishing cantha with my ritualist, playing Ritual Lord almost in every instance. It IS good to save you and Olias and Tahlkora from that nasty Dragon's Stomp once, or should the tank's aggro leak a bit. As an long-time defense it's pretty much less-usable :| - IH 00:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what they can do with this to improve its' PvE viability without altering its' balance in PvP, other than adding a PvE-only skill to replace it. I can think of two solutions, each of which requires adding a new skill. One is to give Ritualists a version of Angelic Bond, Angelic Protection or Blood of the Master for spirits, or a skill which gives the target spirit X seconds of invulneribility followed by death, the other option is to add a more powerful, PvE-only version, like how "There's Nothing to Fear!" was added after the "Incoming!" nerf. There's probably some other solutions which don't require new skills and don't interfere with PvP balance, but I'll need to know what this skill is used for in PvP (anti-spike, anti-pressure etc.) to figure out what those solutions are. -- Gordon Ecker 00:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess making the impossible possible is what they do for living.

Last I used this in PvP was way back when it was still 10 energy (or 15) and ritual lord decreased recharges with 75+%. I remember being a target of heavy pressure and "opinions containing constructive critic".

One way to solve this problem could be to think what abilities there are which may not be fully used.

In other words, they could cut the recharge, since in PvE it rarely stays up for 3 seconds to cast signet of binding and creation. What I had in mind would be to make it last for about 15-20 seconds and significantly lower the health lost (maybe to 10-20) or increase the spirit level, as well as lower the energy cost (or make Ritual Lord decrease the energy cost :) ). This way it's most likely less used to put up in PvP to prevent a spike, should that come up sometime.

Above suggestion is based on the fact that in PvE you get hit significantly more and with more powerful hits, as in PvP the damage won't exceed 10% so often, maybe with dervishes and warriors the most. Hope we'll find something to make this a bit usable :) - IH 17:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

IMO, don't touch this skill - it's solid in pvp and well balanced (ie: it dies quickly so you can get on with your match). For PvE you can always make a PvE only version of Rit Lord that's insanely imbalanced so that spirits like this are more spammable. --Tankity tank 13:26, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel Shelter was hit too hard by the pre-Nightfall skill balance. Shelter got hit with an increase in damage taken, increase in energy cost (from 10 energy to 25 energy. A sharp increase!) and decrease recharge (does not matter b/c of the high energy cost). In addition to the nerf, complement skills like Ritual Lord and Boon of Creation also got nerfed. I understand that this skill was abused in GvG and HoH but with so many nerfs hitting this skill at once it is now underused and quite ineffective for Ritualist builds. The reason this skill was so popular before even when it is so easily interrupted was the effect the spirit provides and the cheap energy cost (Spirit cost 10 energy while Boon of Creation gives 8 energy back the net energy cost was 2). I think that energy cost should be reduced to 15 energy. This will encourage people to use this skill in PVE again and promote the use of Signet of Creation to sustain the spirit. Hit two birds in one stone. --Shadetz X 06:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

As well as the use of signet of Binding. I use them both at the moment but still Shelter dies sometimes in 3-10 seconds and I rarely have any energy to cast it again. - IH 14:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, Shelter is NOT meant to be maintainable. Even a full build dedicated to it should have a very hard time doing so. Why? Because it's the best damn party defense in the game. When Shelter is up, you can't kill if they have a monk left unless you have insane degen pressure and shutdown. All direct damage ways of killing is meaningless. A guy with 60% DP is virtually unkillable except through degen (i remember very well having my damage capped at like 20 on some people and monks refilling their bar with any kind of base heal). In PvE it's the most retarded defense too since PvE 'difficulty' mostly comes in the form of big damage packets that are reduced on EVERYONE by Shelter (so even your monk could tank). It can save you from a spike to give you time to let pressure settle, or slow pressure on you for a few seconds, and it does that. It still sees play. But i think that Izzy likely wanted this nerfed just as much for PvE as for PvP (Rt Lord in PvE was EXTREMELY broken pre-nerf, possibly more than in PvP cause in PvE mobs never try to gun for him and interrupt him when he's out of combat range).

The only way i see to make those mass defense spirit more usable without being retarded is to reduce range to Earshot (so spirit has to be within killing range) and then adjust the stats from there. But it still shouldn't be fully maintainable, it should just cost less possibly. Reduce range to Earshot, reduce cost to 15E. At best for PvE, give a 'Signet of Binding'-like PvE skill that drastically raises the health of a spirit (or does something like spirit gains +100..400 health and +1..5 pips of health regen). But in PvP a maintainable Shelter is the last thing you wanna see Patccmoi 13:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe changing it to work like Displacement, by giving it a 25%...75% chance of triggering when someone takes damage? It would be less reliable, but at the same time it would last far longer, so it would not be kept indefinitely but it would help more than it does now while still having more or less the same effect. Erasculio 21:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

make that this spirit doesn't lose any health for the first 3 seconds 80.133.63.242 29 August 2007 (UTC)

If you summoned it in advance, it generally wouldn't start preventing damage until after the 3 seconds are over, and if you summoned it in the middle of battle, the party would have to survive 5 seconds of triple damage nuking from a level 28 Elementalist boss. What about limiting the amount of Health it can lose per second due to damage prevention? -- Gordon Ecker 01:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Aside from all defensive binding rituals being far to infrequent IMO, this one is totally broken for a ritualists build. Ritualist simply doesn't have this kind of energy to spend, if it is too powerful, the obvious answer is to reduce its effectivness and its cost as well. All of Ritualists defensive bindings don't last long enough, it really is ment to be a passive defense, and passive defense is ment to be mild, widespread, and lasting.

I'm going to metion Displacement, Union and Shelter all at once, since they all pretty much go together.

Displacement should be 10 energy, 30 second recharge. lvl 1-10, 25% chance to block, takes 40 damage per activation (maybe less considering aegis new cost), 10-35 second duration.

Shelter should be 15 energy, 30 second recharge. lvl 1-10, prevents health lose over 15%, takes 30 damage per activation, 10-35 second duration.

Union should be 10 energy, 30 second recharge. lvl 1-10, reduces damage by 10, takes 10 damage per activation, 10-35 second duration.

The whole point with Ritualist not working well has always been that the use of their defensive abilities are not reasonable. Monk abilities are ment to be focus on one allie and provide outstanding, focused, brief support. Ritualist is ment to be a lasting area supporter. The way all of these spirits are now, they don't really work, all they do is hold back the enemies attack for a few seconds, this obviously doesn't work for an ability which takes 45 seconds to reuse, and cost massive amounts of energy on a profession with no passive energy management abilities, the whole concept of ritualists defensive capabilities is totally broken, saving a group from a momentary heavy blow or saving a single target from heavy onslaught briefly with a single spell is monks role, ritualist needs to provide long lasting, widespread relief, not salvation.

By altering all of these abilities to provide moderate damage reduction over longer periods of time, it develops a much stronger defensive use, it slows down the amount of damage taken over a moderate period of time. Instead of displacement stopping all of about, what 5 or 10 attacks on any 10 or so allies for 1.5 seconds, it can slow down the number of hits received over a few allies of a few seconds, like maybe 10.... By simply moderatly slowing down the amount of damage taken on a large group for a short period of time, it fights a very powerful build, preasure, it mildly relieves preasure for a moderate period of time. 5 seconds of relief every 45 seconds is a joke, utter nonsense.

By increasing the threashold on Shelter to 15% of max health, it will not be as good as protective spirit, and only block out heavy and high damage attacks, thus meriting less damage taken per activation, and also reducing the number of hits which are defended against. This makes it a better long term defense against very damaging attacks, instead a one shot wonder against a quake or even Eruption or something. This also undertones the use of mixed defense, because a monk can use protective spirit as well an heavily attacked targets, preventing Shelter from triggering on a spiked allie.

Their existing extended duration is just a gimmic, a statistic which is useless in the heat of combat, and their recast time make using it without Ritual Lord completely worthless, a group of skills should not be determined by their use with one elite. Wile Ritual Lord shouldn't change, it will allow these to be used every 15 seconds, making them...... well I don't know.... an elite build? Duh.

In lineu, I really think the frequency, duration and power of alot of abilities deserve to be improved, particularly AoE and DoT effects. And maybe, just maybe, foes will have to resort to counter measures to defeat these defensive tactics.... like destroying the spirit, honestly you don't even need special spirit killing skills, they are lvl 10 spirits for crying outloud, they take nearly double the damage and have at most 70% of the health normal opponents have, it doesn't even take special attacks or counters, just attack the spirits instead of the foes if you think they are mitigating enough damage to keep your attacks from succeeding......BahamutKaiser 22:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

If a spirit spammer is ever viable in high level competitive play, it is too good. These skills are weak, and need to be for the health of the game. -Ensign 23:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

They only need to be brief because they are too powerful, balance is simply taking away from one end and putting it on the other, not taking most of it off one end and removing it completely from play out of fear.--BahamutKaiser 14:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

With the recent nerf to spirit health, this skill is not only weak, but pathetic. Totally done. The same for union, it lost a lot of power, too. And they were already nerfed before. They could use some love, really. --Longasc 19:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Reduce life loss. 87.189.229.209 23:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Restoration

The skill is ATM too conditional. You need to 1) cast it 2) someone has to be in range 3) spirit needs to die which means one needs to have a spirit-consuming skill to be reliable 4) and even if it does the job, recharge is huge. This skill maybe had some use with EoE bombs, but right now I just don't see it. Servant of Kali 13:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to say use of this skill is very limited. If the spirit is killed before you die it would be wasted. This is really not worth 5 seconds casting or to be part of the skill bar. Lively was Naomei works much better than this. Since the spirit name is restoration maybe it can give health regen (1-3 pipes) to allies within earshot or to nearby allies; that way it doesn't outshine recuperation and is more usable. --Shadetz X 09:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

If they just increase the range and ensure that even if the entire party dies, it will still rez them instead of canceling a mission or something, it may be useful. They reduce the recharge to 30 seconds, it may not be that bad. Or even reduce the duration and recharge to 20 seconds.--BahamutKaiser 21:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

This spirit is far too conditional, no one can rely simply on this skill to be a useable rez in any situation. There is no simple way to just cast this for 5 seconds in the middle of the fight without anyone notice, first you have to run in there with your fragile armor, after that you'll have to stand there for 5 seconds. The problem is the cast time which needs to be lowered. I can see this being useful in a smiting group or something in team arenas, and everyone standing close to the spirit but still, this spirit will never see use. If you're all alone and have to rez you cant simply cast Light of dwayna or something, first of all i dont think many people die at the same spot, second you'll probably have to kill your spirit to rez. --Cursed Angel 19:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

This is skill is way passive...The only thing I can see that would be buffing it without losing the purpose of this skill would be to make it automatically resurrect the next party member within range that dies with X health and X energy. That would make it worth 5 cast time to me. But it's really too passive to get considered. xP RitualDoll 00:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Dulled Weapon

Buff with: "Removes weapon spell on target foe. No weapon spells can be cast on that foe." Game skills need more flavor abilities IMO. Servant of Kali 13:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The whole point of Weapon Spells is that they 'can't' be removed. It's why they don't stack. It's why their strength is weaker that certain counterparts (Vengeful Weapon, RoF for example). If they can be stripped, then there is no point in using them. Even if there is only one Strip skill in the game. Which in itself is ridiculous. Fro 14:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, and the whole point of this skill is that it should negate and remove Weapon spell. I don't see anything wrong with it, the skill name suits it, and for game and skill balance it would be good. When you have so many skill types which cannot be removed, you get a Paragon, a class which you can't counter because 90% of skills have absolutely no counter (I'm not counting Vocal Minority). Of course, you could blind him etc, but that's like saying monk enchantments don't need a counter, you can always drain his energy. Well, right. In short, If you're not gonna use them because 1 skill could strip them, I couldn't care less, just don't use it then. Weapon spells got a small buff recently anyway, with reworked Spawning Power. Servant of Kali 17:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

For 3...9...10 seconds, weapon spells have no effect on target foe. 5 1 15 would be ok imo - Y0_ich_halt 17:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that one is OK too for puritans. It wouldn't thus remove any weapon spell. Then just make it not allow new Weapon spells for the full duration of the Hex. I mean, it's not like anyone uses Dulled Weapon in its current state. Servant of Kali 17:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

weapon spells are not to be removed. they dont stack, if there was weapon removal they would fall completely out of use because enchants stack and weapons dont. never put weapon removal into the game, it's a bad idea. —The preceding awesome-sauce comment was added by Skakid9090. 18:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yada yada yada, it has been said already and it's adjusted. No weapon spell is removed. Additional weapon spells are prevented from being cast. There you go. Servant of Kali 18:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

why prevent casting new weaps? i'd just say make them useless. that would still allow triggering weap-requires. i think that would be pretty balanced, it's a compromise between not removing and removing - Y0_ich_halt 18:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Wait, if i understood you completely, you mean that it should be "if target foe has a weapon spell, that spell has no effect"? If so, yea, that's fine too. No need for removal or prevention, and when Hex is removed or ends, the weapon spell continues to function. Servant of Kali 18:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

didn't say anything else. - Y0_ich_halt 18:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Or you could just make Dulled Weapon a weapon spell castable on enemies, instead of making it impossibly complicated. I believe it's the only rit spell with "weapon" in its name that isn't a weapon. Shard 22:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

i was hoping they would introduce skills like that in GW:EN. but if you let it stay like that it's too easy to remove. if that rit has a weap spell, he will likely be able to just cast it again. most weaps that are actually used recharge fast or are cheap. although the party panel will still show that one has a weap, there's ts to coordinate that. areas where you don't have ts to coordinate such removal don't need it. - Y0_ich_halt 22:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Huh how about, 5 energy, 1/2 second cast, 10 second recharge, 'Weapon Spell. For 5 seconds target foe cannot critical.' You're not stripping a Weapon Spell you're overwriting it :p

They could also give Dulled Weapon a flat out damage reduction in all non-blunt weapon damage. Would be interesting against scythes.

How about a -5 damage reduction for each attack, this hex ends when the target takes damage. Kind of like Binding Chains. Readem Promote My Ban Here 06:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

If this is to be a determental weapon spell which can replace a foes weapon spell it should also only work on one foe, and be removeable by placing a benificial weapon spell over top of that as well. It simply comes down to making it reasonable. Because of the simplicity, it will promote use of weapon spells both offensive and defensively to counter eachother, both promoting the use of ritualist. I don't see a problem with this as long as it works both ways, it would just have to be trimmed to a single foe and altered in effect to be a balanced effect under the conditions.--BahamutKaiser 20:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The idea of having a weapon spell countering weapon spells is fantastic. I also like the suggested idea of using a weapon spell on an enemy. So with those two in mind, what about this? "10|1|15 For 5...10 seconds, target foe has a Dulled Weapon and cannot cause critical hits. If this weapon spell is replaced by another, you lose 10...5 energy, and Dulled Weapon is reapplied. Dulled weapon will end if you have no energy." Now the last thing you'll want to do is constantly spam your own weapon spells to completely drain the one who casted dulled weapon. What do you think? (Terra Xin 11:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

Make this spell cause the hex equivalent to weakness minus the attribute reduction, and let it retain the ability to disable critical hits for hexed foes, and let it retain its AoE. It might become useeful then, at least against Melandru Dervs :/--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 05:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Armor of Unfeeling

Buff. I'm not a huge fan of skills such as these, but since it exists at least make it usable in Random Arenas or something. I'd say rework the skill, it's too limited in its current form. Besides, if this skill becomes usable as it is, I can already hear complaints from those who deem that Rt's shouldn't use spirits at all. Servant of Kali 14:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

"Enchantment Spell. For 10...30...35 seconds, you have 5 base damage reduction. While casting Binding Rituals you have an additional 5 damage reduction and cannot be interrupted." --Deathwing 14:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually like the idea behind this skill. I like this kind of skill - it's not a straight damage skill, but rather an utility (...kinda of) skill that helps the Ritualists to be better at what was their intended role (spirit using, to not say the dreaded spirit spamming). I think as it is it's kind of weak, though - monks have complete spell immunity thanks to Spell Shield (that theorically would have a huge drawback, but the skill is currently bugged, as seen on its description, and despite that it's not overpowered), so I think this one deserves a buff. Either to make the damage reduction to scale with communing (5...15?), or to give it some small kind of secondary effect. Erasculio 14:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

One thing i always wished this thing did as a secondary effect is make you 'resilient' to interruption like some PvE bosses. Not 'can't be interrupted', this seems too powerful, but that it takes 2 interrupts to interrupt you (while casting spirits ofc). It's not like it's that hard to do when you consider many spirits have 5s cast time, but it means that a Ranger would at least need both his interrupt to get you, or have a Mesmer assisting with Web, Leech Sig, etc. Ofc they could also just remove the enchant. But it would give this skill a much, much needed utility for Rts using spirits : a resilience to interruption. It's extremely hard atm to think of using any 5s cast spirit in a big fight, especially if the other team has a Ranger. But if this was changed to what i said, then you could wait for the Ranger to use his DShot on something, and start your spirit right after so that he doesn't have 2 interrupts ready to stop you. It would allow for more in-fight spirit use, which would be really good if you want to use spirits out of RA (cause in GvG, using spirits out of 1 Bloodsong or something is suicidal since most opposing teams will have a Ranger that will never let that happen). Along with that, AOE-effect spirits could be reworked to have their effect works for 'Earshot' with maybe small buffs or recharge reduction, which would make Rts using spirits much more involved in the fight instead of being remote and defensive spirits would have to be within killing range. Ofc the thing people must think right now is 'Rt spike!', but this is all assuming Rt spike will actually get the nerf it deserves, which according to Izzy it should Patccmoi 15:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought about no-interrupts but as you said it seemed too powerful. 2 interrupts needed would make it interesting, but I think it would be too strong. In practice, it would mean you're immune to interrupts from everyone except a Ranger with 2+ interrupts (and KDs). What do you think? BTW Pat, you don't use R/Rt anymore at all? I tried it few times recently, It worked on Nomad's Isle, wasn't bad at all. Granted, my guild isn't top50. I kinda used Quicksand effect haha and was mainly putting spirits in it, so when Dervish or Warrior wanted to kill em, they were also losing energy, while energy wasn't a problem for me. Servant of Kali 16:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the power of this, but I was looking at the idea made to make rits more inclusive with their spirits outside of places like RA - suggested above. What about: For x seconds, every time you are struck while activating a binding ritual, that spirit will spawn with an additional 1...3 damage reduction. If you are interrupted while using a binding ritual, you will gain that damage reduction instead. -- then you could perhaps alter the recharge and durations to suit. What do you think?(Terra Xin 09:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

I think this skill needs some use outside of spirit spamming. Make this a weapon spell (weapon of unfeeling or whatever) and make it like a spirit bond for interrupts, like for 10 seconds, the next 2...5..6 times target ally would be interrupted while using a skill, they are not interrupted. Or just allow it to give a base reduction of damage for allies when they use skills, but make the reduction worth it, not base 10 likes it has now, because that doesn't even come close to being better to stoneflesh (granted if this would become a weapon spell it would be better than it is right now, but it would still need a substantional boost since it doesn't affect them unless they are using skills).--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 20:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I have 2 points to make on this one. First, is Stoneflesh Aura, I don't even have to compare Earth Defensive skill value to Communing defensive skill value, since defensive ritualist was shutdown, but it shouldn't be, so lets make adjustments based on how Ritualist should work and not by how it doesn't. This enchantment has longer duration, and lower damage reduction, that would be fair if one wasn't unconditional and the other was conditional, but obviously one is conditional. The other point is that binding rituals have exagerated casting times, mostly from 3 to 5 seconds, that is just as long as meteor shower. Not being able to be interupted is too effective, but in order to counter the entirely handicaped casting time on ritualist spirits, this should block interrupts wile casting binding rituals.

By first fixing binding rituals, particularly defensive ones, this offers a remote but significant use for ritualist in order to counteract the very vulnerable state they go in wile spirit summoning (that's what it really should be called), and it offers a competative effect for a skill that only offers conditional damage reduction 1/3 as potent as Elementist famed StoneFlesh. This change alone would make it highly valuable for spirit summoners who expect to be interrupted and need a reasonable skill to counteract the very vulnerable state they are in specifically wile summoning. Though, this doesn't amount to much if defensive rituals in particular are completely worthless.--BahamutKaiser 03:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Sundering Weapon

Take away the ends in one hit clause. Not much of a point in sacrificing your skill slot for an easy to apply condition and one hit of 10% penetration. Done25 20:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Restoration Magic

Blind Was Mingson

For an ashpot that requires things to be in your face to be blinded, it should have a lower recharge or other buff. Maybe -10 from physical damage while it is held? At least rangers' throw dirt doesn't require them to micro "drop item" buttons and hotkeys.--Life Infusion «T» 21:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't seem like a horrible skill, or even a bad one, it has a fairly good competition with throw dirt. Perhaps having a blocking bonus of 50% wile holding would be nice, or longer blind duration. And it's nearby too.... I really don't know.--BahamutKaiser 23:35, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It is one of the best skills in the game for HB. Readem 23:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

If it gave all enemies attacking, 25-50% chance to miss attacks against you while holding the ashes (maybe decrease the duration you can hold it), sorta like distortion, it would be awesome, maybe too awesome, but it just seems to be lacking at the moment imho (granted quite a few item spells are lacking, but still)--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 00:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is simply due to the loss of your in hand equipment when you use an item, and not something specific to this item spell. To be honest, probably a great benifit to Ritualist item spells and spawning power would be if spawning power added some additional value or benifit wile holding an item, honestly, something like 1 point of energy per attribute would be way more useful than that bit of weapon spell duration, which is mostly just exchanged off the effective spells that benifit from it.--BahamutKaiser 02:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, Ritualist + Blind was Mingson --> Restoration Magic + loss of weapons/focii/shield. I doubt you will pre-cast this and hold it, given it has no passive benefits. So add on to this list of maluses the dropping an item while kiting melee and the fact that Weapon of Shadow is in the same attribute line (better for single target protection). Then compare this to a Ranger with EXPERTISE (something every ranger specs no matter what build it is) + throw dirt (which happens to blind longer than Blind was Mingson at 16 restoration with roughly 8 expertise). Who would you take into a team? Consider a Ritualist has 60 base armor and shouldn't be trying to blind melee, they ought to be kiting their behinds off since the only thing that saves themselves from being smashed to pieces (Restoration is more or less completely healing with hardly any prot) is Weapon of Warding (which got nerfed) where the Ranger has Natural Stride, Whirling Defense, Lightning Reflexes, Dust Trap (pre-positioned), among other things to protect them while they blind the melee and maybe cripple the melee as well (Crip Shot /pin down). If this item spell gave passive miss/block it would be overpowered since item spells aren't removable and would just add to the stack of blocking in PvP (aegis + wards + shield of deflection + guardian) and it isn't removable due to being an item spell. However, it does need a buff like damage reduction from physical (but not block) or lower recharge (even mesmers' Ineptitude got 5 seconds shaved off the recharge time). About the range difference of adjacent (throw dirt) and nearby (Blind was Mingson), most likely the only time you have physicals clumped is melee, which means adjacent will be adequate for blinding them. Maybe as a pseudo pre-prot Blind was MIngson wins out in this case.--Life Infusion «T» 19:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ritualists have quite a few skills that need a buff, but this is not one of them. AoE blind on demand is pretty powerful. With 1 second casting time, it is not even impossible to cast this while getting wacked at (notice how weapon of warding has the same casting time), but normally you will pre-cast this. You lose your shield, so what? As soon as you notice the melee converging on you, drop the ashes: All melee blinded and you can achieve this before you are even hit once, due to the big range. And then you have your shield back and can start kiting. --Xeeron 12:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

And then they have blind removed after a second or so, if it wasn't for the good size AoE and maybe pre-cast (I know people like to say it is a strength, but its a very niche strength, IE, its normally not worth it) this skill would be useless. With so much condition removal in the game now, 20 recharge isn't all that great, especially for an item spell (this, Weapon of Shadow, and PwK could use a recharge decrease).--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 21:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Preservation

The range needs to be increased to earshot. Making the spirit use a targeted heal skill with the AI prioritizing low-Health targets would be an improvement over the current heal, which affects a random ally. -- Gordon Ecker 00:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

it's still seen frequently in arenas. - Just_m3 00:53, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

And we should care, why?

The problem with this skill imo, is, that it's a spirit. People just can't rely on its random healing. If I were to change it at all, I'd make it give a healing bonus to all rit spells, kind of like Aura of Faith/Healer's Boon does... but I fear N/Rt abuse. Saph 12:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

To Saph, then why not moving it into Spawning Power with your suggestion? ~~ Azul 13:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It is decent in RA because if all of your teammates run away from it, which is likely, then you can stand by it and get all of the heals. This makes you a little more difficult to kill. Spirit Light Weapon does a better job of that though, atleast IMO. --Deathwing 13:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

In close quarters context this spirit is very much _not_ underpowered, it's fscking great. It's particularly great because most nubs have no clue what it does and so they don't kill it ASAP - the fact that it's a 5e cost on a short cycle makes it that much more awesome. /NOTSIGNED IMO. --Tankity tank 13:23, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

i think it's great. even if you use some restore build and throw this in to feed, e.g., spirit light. i still prefer sl weap, it's just better controlable, so maybe they'd rather nerf that instead of buffing this. total heal by this spirit is 2115hp at 12 restore, btw (in case someone cares). - Y0_ich_halt 15:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Total heal from Recuperation is 2256 in an 8 man team, with better range than this. Granted. Recuperation costs .555 energy per second to have up, while this costs borderline nothing. --Deathwing 16:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

recup. has 5s cast. this has 3s, that's why it rocks so hard to feed spirit req skills. preservation is pretty balanced imo, there are just better alternatives for the same purpose. iow, Spirit Light Weapon. for a restore rit with 15 restore and 13 spawing that's 13 seconds of 15 regeneration = 390hp for 5e on your target as long as you cast Life or something else. - Y0_ich_halt 16:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Recuperation has 3 seconds. Would be cool if it would really heal the player with lowest health, would make it more useful against a pressure. - IH 17:34, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

If you only need a spirit to fuel conditional effects, Empowerment has the same cost and activation time, a slightly longer recharge and doesn't take up an elite slot, so you can use it with Spirit Light Weapon or elite Energy management. -- Gordon Ecker 07:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the skill, even though it's more of a RA skill for instance. Nevertheless, I don't see a problem with a skill if it's used at least in some PvP arena. Leave it for now. The goal should be to make totally useless skills usable, for start, and then tweaking skills such as Preservation. Servant of Kali 13:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This skill is totally useless. It heals for about as much as orison on a random target in a space the size of my pinky fingernail. Is there some hidden benefit I'm not seeing here? It's trash. -Auron 15:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It fuels Soul Reaping really well, so N/Rts use it in HA. Seriously it's really not that bad but you need a team that knows how to use it well. The size is really not that small (it's a ward) and if it waas bigger it WOULD become totally random. Well used, people that require it will run around the spirit getting the heals while people that don't won't stay in its range to suck up the healing. It's a good elite well used, bad misused. Doesn't really need a change imo. I think one thing that could be seen as a buff would be to prevent it to heal people above 90% health (kinda like LoD). This way at least the 'random' heal wouldn't target full or nearly full people. Could also increase the rate of healing to once every 3 secondsPatccmoi 15:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're not seeing the full benefit of the skill. First, I am not going to debate this skill outside RA, because I haven't used it anywhere else. IIRC a guildmate used it in GvG a long time ago but can't talk about that myself. As second, you're missing few features here. See, If im Rt healer in RA, I don't have many elites to choose from. Actually, Preservation seems like the most efficient to me with the combo I use (Resilient Weapon). Now, Preservation doesn't heal randomly if you position nicely. Second, Preservation is an obstacle you can kite around and warriors get stuck more easily (no kidding). Third, Preservation is life saver when I get knocked down - a huge benefit, I can count on so many times I was knocked down or in some way disabled and the only thing that saved me was this spirit. Fourth, when you precast the spirit and enemy goes to kill it, it's still one more thing he needs to waste time and effort on. Fifth, if it doesnt get killed (and often it doesnt there), this spirit heals for a long time, for 5 energy, which really isnt much, so it's kinda economical. Servant of Kali 10:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If you're a rit healer, you have the single most energy efficient heal in THE ENTIRE GAME to choose; it's called Spirit Light Weapon. Not only does this spell only cost 5e, it lasts quite a while, and the healing over time isn't even regen, so it stacks with pure regen spells/skills (recuperation, restful breeze, troll unguent, etc). Why would you throw that away from something as utterly crappy as Pres? Use Pain if you want a useless spirit simply to spam and get energy back from. -Auron 22:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Because I prefer to use Resilient Weapon and Spirit Light just doesn't stack with it. Aside of that, you ignored some of the reasons why I said I prefer Preservation. It's a personal choice I guess, I don't mind Spirit Light Weapon, but I think it's not that much more energy efficient than Soothing Memories for instance. I'll test SLW more, but I don't see it as the same skill as Preservation, it's somewhat different. Servant of Kali 00:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what others like in this skill, I never use it, I never really liked it, but if a lot of others like it... its fine, I guess. I actually wouldn't increase this to earshot, by being close to the spirit you get to 'hog' its benefits. Increasing the range will decrease the chances of you getting the heal when you most need it. It's short recharge makes up for what it may lack (someone trying to kill it off, for instance) I think it's OK as it is. (Terra Xin 10:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

I don't understand how one can begin to complain about this skill, it is an EXTREME preasure reducing skill. Want to fight preasure, how about 100 health every 3 seconds for the next 90 seconds at the remarkable cost of ........5 energy. It is inaccurate, and it does have a limited range, but the simple fact is, nothing compares to this in simple value, try reproducing this amount of healing on a monk, forget for a second that it is immobile and random, a monk would have to use a 5 energy healing skill with a 3 second rechage, and probably have max divine favor and max healing to match the healing potency, and than multiply that 5 energy by 30 times, forgiving that there may be some delay or what not in the function, that is 100 healing 30 times over the next 90 seconds, on top of whatever else you can cast, for the remarkably low cost of 5 energy.

The fact that it is immobile, just below full reach, and elite still don't change the fact that this is a bargain, very few abilties can compete with the amount of healing this does, and none for the cost, wile most that do compete do so in multiplied application on a large group, wile this gains effectiveness with smaller numbers. I mean, your basically using your elite slot and 5 energy to add a monk henchmen to the field, that ain't bad. But what I really wan't to know (since I only played against this and not with it) is how far appart do you have to be to create another copy of the same spirit, because if it is anthing like close....... 2 of these working, even at different locations is an extreme value. I can just imagine a GvG split realizing this is a priority target when you set it up on both ends to "perserve" your defense.

Also, to take into account one very obvious thing, healing is most neccessary when the foe is spiking a target, and if all the damage is on one ally, than this works at maximum potential.--BahamutKaiser 04:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess it can be decent in some situations. I would much prefer if this healed your target instead of one random ally. Something like....

"Elite Binding Ritual. Create a level 1...8...10 Spirit. For 30 seconds, whenever you cast a spell on a target ally, this Spirit heals that ally for 10...94...115 Health. This effect only works every 6 seconds."

Numbers are all screwed up, but yeah. Probably too strong, but it can be killed, and takes ages to cast. --Deathwing 04:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to pressure a single person, you don't hack away at them while they're standing in the area of a healing spirit. If you want to spike them, you don't care about a ~100 heal every 4 seconds. Potential healing is irrelevant when I can claim Life is capable of healing over nine thousand with enough allies in range. --24.179.151.252 05:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The ability to relieve preasure continously compared to the ability to spread healing over a bunch of allies, after 20 seconds is so inaccurate it isn't even relavent, we all know how unreliable life is. Even ohter spells like heal area and LoD which can potentially heal a great deal on several units does not have nearly the application of a repeated 100 health every 3 or 4 seconds. Beside all that, with some judicious use of draw spirit, or summon spirits, you can set this up and drag it into the appropriate range that way it will keep contributing, even with 2 skills it still outmatches anything else for value.

Hopefully no one brings this in hope that it will counteract a spike and put healing where it is needed most, if your a healing character, obviously your going to have other healing skills used when needed to address serious threats, this addition however, will keep pumping out health to any targets that need it within range, saving you energy, time, effort and attention. Even if this only healed the person who always needed the healing the least, so long as they needed it some, it would help by relieving you of the need to pay out more healing to allies that will take up more time and energy to support, the value is all in the cost. Every single limitation it has is absolutely neccessary to ensure this isn't entirely broken, and aside from the fact that it is easy to destroy, and players just don't priortize them as easy targets to eliminate, it really has little liability.

Now there are some creative ways to adjust it, that don't include broken required actions, but it would just mean a trade off in cost, duration and recharge to compensate for its value, so I would take very cautious steps before considering any alterations, since this does plenty, it just isn't being appreciated.--BahamutKaiser 18:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't do plenty, though. Either there's nothing to heal, or whatever's doing the damage is a couple steps away from hitting the spirit. Being a short-range elite spirit is more liability than it's worth. --24.179.151.252 13:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Grosely underestimating the worth of 2500 healing for 5 energy released over 90 seconds in 3 second intervals of 100ish healing. It is perfectly valuable in the right situation, and effective manipulation abilities exist to maximize it's use. Plenty is underestimating really, it does outragiously economic healing, all liabilities included as a tradeoff are totally neccessary. I could consider some adjustments, but not from anyone who doesn't already reognize the value, someone with a prejudice perspective can't come up with a balanced alteration. You may as well go rally nerfs for Melundru.--BahamutKaiser 16:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I always laugh when I see teams bring this. It's sooooo bad. Leave t the way it is, let the terrible players waste the elite slot until rits get fixed. 72.235.48.41 12:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Theoretically, it's great if you sit there and they don't attack it directly or hit it with splash damage, but any skill is theoretically great against a team that makes no attempt to counter it. -- Gordon Ecker 02:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Rejuvenation

I've tried this skill a few times in RA and in PvE. The fact that it heals (and loses life) players at full health really debilitates this skill. It simply dies too fast while it heals indiscriminately. If it reserved healing players who are not at full health, it would be much more useful. --Thervold 21:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

People has already foresaw most GWEN restoration skills as being weak and inflexible and Rejuvenation is no exception. Just look at the discussion page for this skill and you will see other people's negative thoughts about this skill. IMO the biggest problem with this skill is survival. Maybe to have it survive longer the spirit can be healed whenever an ally uses a skill within earshot, maybe about 50-100 hp. That skill will not make this skill overpowered because this spirit only heals in earshot range and the heal is about 2.5 pipes of Health Regen. This change may encourage people to bring Spiritleech Aura which is another new weak Restoration skill. --142.58.211.181 21:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I would have to try this to have a stronger opinion about this, but that is pretty hard considering the poor condition Ritualist have to play in, naturally reducing the time spent using it. I think the original suggestion makes plenty of sense, this ability is obviously meant to scale in function depending on the number of units it effects, drastically changing its function between large and small groups, but the fact that it suffers from units not actually being effected is a serious issue. A good trigger for it to exercise would be that it only effects units under 100% health, or even a reduced amount of health so it is preserved for those who need the healing more.--BahamutKaiser 00:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It's sort of like using heal party, but it takes too long to take effect, and it's one of the healing skills that you would 'hate' to have no control over. It requires more skill to use than its counterpart Agony. FYI, the health regeneration equivalent is +5 at rank 15-16, not +2.5. I would like to see what would happen if the range were to be reduced to the 'area', then it would encourage spirit spammers to place it out of the way, and provide a refuge for players to 'retreat' to the spirit if they needed it. It would also preserve its durability. That way, you have at least a little more control over it. But with that suggestion, the amount of healing would need to increase slightly to match Well of Blood (Terra Xin 09:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

After thinking about it more, and trying it a few times, it seems more like a slow release heal party, the problem is that it isn't very scaleable for large groups, it could use more frequency or the forementioned treatment, and only function of allies that need it. I will say though, after tinkering with it, it did seem to have some advantage, though I would highly question the situation I tested it in.--BahamutKaiser 02:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

HORRIBLE skill. This skill ends up dieing after 4 heals - it sucks so bad! That's 40 health at 16 restoration for each party member. Compare it to heal party which heals for around 180 health to each party member for only 5 energy more, 28 seconds faster recharge and 1 second faster casting - this skill is HORRIBLE!. I don't understand how anyone can think this skill didn't suck amazingly bad - this was all predicted before the skill was introduced it should have been changed. To point out a flaw in the comments made about this about the rit skill Signet of Creation good luck casting any signet on this before it dies! It's up for like 5 seconds and then dies - this skill is worthless. In fact, the 3 second cast mid battle (which is when it needs to be cast otherwise no-one needs healing) is more harmful than the help the skill itself gives. In those three seconds the restoration rit needs to heal other pple, or the effect of this skill needs to make up for any damage taken in that time - 40 health will not do that! This skill sucks BAAAAAD. This is nothing like Heal Party! Heal party heals indiscriminately too but heal party heals for A LOT more, shorter cast time and greater range. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE skill. Even removing the indiscriminate healing effect would not be enough as heal party is still MUCH better than this skill, this skill would need to be a high level than 8 at 16 restoration to give it enough health to give a few heals. HORRIBLE skill. It would be great if it died after a certain timer - like 10-15 seconds, that way it doesn't need the life loss thing and indiscriminate healing wouldn't be a problem neither would the spirit level. It doesn't need to counter Agony with life loss, life loss is a horrible way to balance the spirit. 58.110.139.72 09:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Drugs are bad. --Deathwing 14:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

At least it no longer wastes its' healing on party member who already have max Health. -- Gordon Ecker 10:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Tranquil Was Tanasen

1/4 cast time plus "You cannot be knocked down". Even then i dont see it used.. Servant of Kali 13:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Another method to increase its usage: put it under communing or spawning powers. As you have to invest heavily into this skill to keep it up, resto is mostly a bad choice as primary healers will never use it. I'd suggest solving two problems at once and just swap it with Weapon of Quickening. The weapon would be of better use for healers and the ashes are more appropiate for spirit keepers. --Ineluki 13:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Just give it an interesting effect on drop, since it has none atm. For example, all your Restoration skills are recharged (could be nice with some spirits or stuff like Weapon of Shadow). Or you lose 1 hex and 1 condition. Or you gain x..y health/energy. Etc. Just give it a dual effect, ashpots need that. Patccmoi 14:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah yeah, that's a nice suggestion, totally missed it. The main problem still remains, this skill is in Restoration line and not Communing. What is exactly use of this skill? Spamming spirits? If so, it's not gonna do much, you'll need communing, spawning and resto to make it better than R/Rt and even then.. If it's for resto rt against daze and interrupts, it might be interesting actually, but needs a serious "when dropped" bonus to make up for the fact that you're not holding Staff (+ energy, up to +armor for instance, thus negating much of Tanasens bonus). Heh how bout lol... "when you drop ashes, all enemies in the area are interrupted"? Since the skill deals with interrupts, a bit of Cry of Frustration effect won't hurt, it's an elite after all. Servant of Kali 17:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this skill's duration and casting time should decrease to 1/4 seconds. 10 energy every 15-18 seconds is a heavy investment on a ritualist with an urn (30-40 energy with no benefits from weapon). 1 second casting time on a skill that prevents interruption is skill too long. An interrupt mesmer or ranger can easily interrupt this. --Shadetz X 23:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Well yeah that's kinda given, 1/4sec is a must for anti-interrupt skill. But the skill needs other bonuses. I think interrupting everyone on AoE when dropped might be interesting and fun. Servant of Kali 09:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

i think generally those self-defense items are all underused and -powered, because you just can't control others. ok, in pve you can tank. but in pvp that doesn't work, unfortunately. needs interesting thingies imo. agree. - Y0_ich_halt 00:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention they cost a skill slot, negate weapon and offhand bonus and they cannot stack. Item spells have more constraints than weapon spells. --Shadetz X 04:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

To comment Shadetz's comment. I'm sure we all remember it being 3 second cast in the past :D - IH 10:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

urgh. - Y0_ich_halt 11:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

If it prevented KD's I'd use it (Terra Xin 02:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC))

I was about to say that this has a very powerful effect, than I realized it was elite. It definetly seems like a good skill, a good way to combat mesmers and dazed effects. But it is Elite and does replace your weapons. I think blocking interrupts is more valuable than preventing knockdowns, even though knockdowns are more devistating, there are good alternatives for Knockdown protection, but a cheap, long lasting interrupt block and added defense is useful.

I might consider replacing the armor, or adding a boost in casting speed as well, as slowing casting speed is related to interrupt, and a faster cast can be very valuable. Beside that, if interrupts (along with many things) were more frequent, this would also increase in value.--BahamutKaiser 02:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe make it an anti-hex version of Pure was Li Ming instead of making it try to make it an anti-interrupt skill (which if you really wanted to, there are better skills for it, that don't take up your elite spot), this would at least add something new to the ritualist, hex removal and hopefully add to its support role.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 05:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I recall it being said Ritualists will never be given hex removal. Regardless I think adding "cannot be knocked down" would strength the skill.--Life Infusion «T» 21:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

All this skill needs is a decent drop effect, maybe alittle extra armor buff also like up to +30. OblivionDanny 21:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

i'd move this skill into Communing , and change into "Your binding rituals cannot be interrupted" , and maybe when you drop his ashes all your binding rituals are recharged.

Vocal was Sogolon

Was a fun skill for a short while. After nerfs to Paragon, it's useless. And will remain to be useless as far as I can see. The main issue is that you can only use energy shouts with it. It's not like you can keep attacking someone and holding ashes. This limits the skill in two serious ways: you have a small set of energy shouts at your disposal, and, unlike paragon who can keep casting shouts plus doing nice damage, you only cast shouts. And have much worse armor. And, of course, lose staff bonuses. I understand that this was a niche skill from the beginning, but so is Spirit Strenght and it's at least used :) Servant of Kali 16:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

But you can make Incoming last 4 seconds, that is totally worth removing yourself from the rest of the battle. --Deathwing 16:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Incoming was the main reason this skill was used I think. As I said, the main problem with the skill as I see it, is lack of possible combos. So, I suggest this: "Every time you use a Chant or Shout, you gain 1..2 adrenaline". Might spice it up and open the field for more combos, which is badly needed. If Incoming is the only choice, the skill will either be too annoying or useless. Servant of Kali 17:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. The main problem with this skill is that it kills adrenaline gain (and severely hurts Energy management). I'd prefer either a flat C strikes of adrenaline or a smoother progression of adrenaline points. Another option would be making it reduce the cost of shouts and chants. -- Gordon Ecker 01:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Exploitable. Use For Great Justice, and then you can loop-spam Watch Yourself!, Fear Me!, and, if you so desire, Coward!, endlessly. --72.211.155.160 16:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ouch, that is pretty exploitable. What about making it "Chant or non-adrenal Shout"? -- Gordon Ecker 20:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(I put this on the paragon page before on accident, this skill really puts you in a paragon mindset, here's what I put and the comments from the paragon page)

This skill is very ill-conceived. I have a pet peeve for skills that don't have a place in their profession or force a profession combination. Not to mention it's just bad. It has nothing to do with ritualists, much less Restoration Magic. My idea for this skill is this:

10e 1e 25r Hold Sogolon's ashes for up to 10...26...30 seconds. Whenever an ally within earshot is affected by a Shout or a Chant, that ally gains 5...13...15 health.

This would make it actually have to do with RM and encourage coordination in team builds. It practically requires two people to work together, since it's hard to use lots of shouts/chants if you're holding ashes. It's also a small amount that adds up with things like GftE spam. But whatever you want to do with this skill, it must be completely reworked. It's gotta have something to do with Restoration Magic and shouldn't force P/Rt or Rt/P. --Heelz 06:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

While your idea sounds interesting. It will NEVER EVER get implemented. I'm sure others will explain :) --Deathwing 13:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate an explanation, I think that's a very good idea... But I was wondering what a rit skill was doing on the paragon page. To be honest, though, I think it's more appropriate left here... Armond 13:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

7 Paragons + Ritualist. GftE spam = immortality. --Deathwing 15:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Gotta agree that this would only lead to mass paraway using some Resto Rt healers (or Mo/Rt...). Basically, uncapped stuff like 'whenever x happens, ally gains x health or y energy' tends to only lead to gimmick builds that will exploit it if it's good, or be ignored if it's bad. Patccmoi 16:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Shoot, I put this on the paragon page?! That just shows how much they intended for this spell to be used with paragons. I'm gonna move it to rits. --Heelz 01:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Vocal Was Sogolon. For x seconds, your shouts and chants have 2 times the normal radius and last 50% longer. - It should give reason to take the skill, plus it makes more sense... Vocal? Hello!!. As it currently stands, and as others have suggested, you lose your weapons for something that isn't worth bringing, and most shouts or chants are not improved by lengthening their duration - because they trigger 'on the next' instance. I think that having one skill that can increase the range of shouts and chants would be greatly beneficial. But what do you think? (Terra Xin 09:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

Actually, Terras suggestion is very good, wile I would say the increased duration has always been a hardship forced upon paragon. Have to say that many Paragon Shouts are very useful with other professions, throwing in a little team healing or team regeneration in a bind by an elementist or mesmer can really make an impact. I think the problem is that alot of these shouts have very delicate durations, and 50% more just makes some of them a remote liability, pushing them to be reduced. Wile many Paragon shouts and chants are currently way overnerfed, and should be improved reguardless, this allows a hand full of energy based duration shouts to be even more useful.

I would say break down the increased duration to 5%-20%(25%) and give it a 30 or 40% greater range, or it could increase to the range of a spirit. Wile it is possible to use this with adrenaline shouts like Watch Yourself and Chorus Chants, it is disfunctional because these require adrenalin. And it's use with instant effects and Chants offers little to no benifit. With increased range it would offer a significant benifit, and having increased duration can be removed altogether, this allows a shout support unit to offer benifits without being closely packed.

I think the value of increased spread outweighs the value of increased duration, duration causing only imbalances in shout values, wile spread simply offers ease of use. The more I think about it, it would be best if they just tolk away the increased duration altogether, and simply added increased spread. It could even be a no attribute skill, it doesn't really matter.--BahamutKaiser 03:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the only skill this would be useful with is Stand Your Ground! (and maybe Shields Up), since only the duration scales while the effect remains just as potent. Any shout that needs adrenaline is more or less out of the question and having a Ritualist using shouts better be for a reason. Stand Your Ground fits the Ritualist nicely in that it supplements Restoration Magic when you don't want to bring spirits and lose mobility. The problem is, simply bringing Watch Yourself with 11+ tactic is almost as good and doesn't require you to lose energy of your focus + weapon as well as ability to wand/spear/etc the target. Following this line of thought, another few skills that could be used include Fall Back (energy intensive on ritualist and the health gain scales), Brace Yourself (utterly useless due to its conditional-ness), Help Me (why would you bother), Make Haste ( other than making a flag runner, not much use since other ally and it already has a recharge less than duration), Incoming (totally useless after a load of nerfs), Never surrender (nice, but not worth bringing 2 slots to make it 100% uptime given the mending refrain-level potency), We shall return (please, you don't plan to die that often that you need a skill just to res better), Godspeed (okay, but why would you need your entire team to run if they are all enchanted), Energizing Finale (it died a long time ago), Song of Power (how you will afford with 25 energy cost and no focus+wand is beyond me), Charge (why you would do this when Fall Back + vocal was Sogolon > charge for almost all situations), Retreat (not worth it), You're all Alone (maybe since 7*1.5=10.5sec exactly), Predatory Bond (maybe...if you're going for Beastmaster I don't know how you will get that attribute spread), Otyugh's Cry (unblockable pet but it had so little downtime as it is), Shields Up (all that for one skill). All in all, unless you plan to use it on a P/Rt (which means I have no clue how you can afford to use so many energy skills without spear-ing and using adrenal shouts) you can just use Enduring Harmony on all essential targets for the same effect. --Life Infusion «T» 20:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

By definition, the only thing it is useful for is shouts, not chants since chants end after a situation happens (attack skill/damage, etc.). Defensive Anthem maybe is worth it on 16 Leadership for 5 downtime unremovable block. It really isn't a chant other than the fact that it has a activation time when you look at the usage, the same with Song of Power (whcih is very much liek Never Surrender in terms of semantics). Both function more like a shout that ends when you attack. Promoting mindless button pressing in both cases doesn't seem good though.--Life Infusion «T» 21:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't found any chants this could be used with except maybe for that elite chant in leadership, anyhow its as hard as finding skills to use with Deadly Haste. There are a few shouts out there but then you're probably a paragon and use Enduring Harmony, sure you can use both that one and vocal was sogolon but then you cannot use warrior shouts, and then you're probably better of being a paragon/ritualist, and as leadership+restoration=failure you can just go and do randomway in heroes ascent.--Cursed Angel 04:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if my idea was introduced, then single target shouts would really get the benefits. You could use a shout without even needing to be in range. That might be cool. (Terra Xin 11:00, 2 November 2007 (UTC))

Protective Was Kaolai

This skill will probably be buffed anyway, but I want to make sure to call some attention to it. I think the recharge is too long and/or the healing is too weak. Probably some of each. Anyway, this skill is neat since you have some interesting control over when you trigger the heal. --TimeToGetIntense 08:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This skill is FAR from being underpowered, the whole reason it is so good is because of the +24 armor. the fact you can maintain it constantly, and also gives a nice party heal also makes it FAR from being underpowered too. OblivionDanny 21:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ummmm, it is underpowered, +24 for yourself is nowhere near worth noting, when a warrior with WY is sooooo much better (especially since the addition of the cap on armor stacking). Only a few self-defense skills are good, this is not one of them. The fact that you can pretty much only use the party healing only 20sec, yea yea yea, Ive heard enough about precasting, sure, it may be decent to start off an engagement, but its bad until that engagement is over, LoD still beats it atm imo. Needs a decent buff (12 or 15 would be a good start).--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 04:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

you obviously haven't faced teams that have 2-3 copies of that skill... they cant die in aoe. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:59.167.110.164 .

Did you just say that LoD is better than this? --Deathwing 02:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

And teams with 2-3 copies of Heal Party can die in AoE? By holding the urn, you're giving up any bonuses for your weapon and offhand item, and the +24 armor doesn't stack with anything. -- Gordon Ecker 02:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that almost all ritualist item spells are vastly underpowered because they hardly manage to compensate the mayor downside of not having the energy and cast time mods of your equipment available and on top of that have to long castingtimes and to bad energy/duration relations. But what surprises me is that as an example you choose pretty much the only item spell that is actually worth all this trouble. 1 sec castingtime and a long duration doesn't make this a pain to use like so many other item spells and the effects are actually quite nice. Constant unremovable +24 armor is great if you just made yourself a primary target by speccing into restoration and heal party is the big downside of ritu healers so a heal party even though it is only every 20 sec is still a very nice bonus. Don't wanna say this couldn't use a small buff but pretty much every other item spell is much worse.134.130.183.235 14:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Spiritleech Aura

I think this skill is too conditional to be a good self heal, and too weak to be a passive counter against spirits (not to mention how it makes no distinction between allied and enemy spirits). I would suggest changing it to, "Whenever you cast a Retoration Magic spell, your target steals 5...20 health from one spirit within earshot" - it would then give a (very small) Divine Favor to Restoration. Erasculio 15:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Spawning Power

Renewing Memories

One of the many underpowered spawning power skills making primary Ritualists obsolete. While reduction of energy cost is pretty powerful this one is conditional and only affects item spells (which you seldomly spam) and weapon spells (which do not stack and so do not have great spam potential either). This one should be easily maintainable with medicore spawning power investment (consider the lack of "of enchantment" mod because of item spell requirement). At least increase the max duration to 30 to make it worth the skill slot in a dedicated weapon spell spammer build.134.130.183.235 15:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Energetic Was Lee Sa

Increase duration to 5...21...25 seconds and reduce castingtime to 1 second. This way you can use it to cover your item spell requirements and the energy management effect of at best 0,66 energy per second is still far from beeing overpowered compared to other non elite energy management options.134.130.183.235 15:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Wielder's Zeal

Reduce energy cost to 5 and slightly increase duration. The upkeep cost of this enchantment is way to high for its very limited triggers due to weapon spells bad spammability (weapon spells long recasts and lack of stackability).134.130.183.235 15:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Empowerment

It's extremely conditional and the effect isn't that powerful. -- Gordon Ecker 07:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I've gotta say, your max energy between this and Mighty Was Vorizun is equivalent to that of an ele, but that's also two skillslots and a lot of time spent. Agreed with Gordon, maybe reduce spell cost for allies in range at the cost of the spirit's health? |GD Defender / contribs 07:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The two of them provide 40 Energy, but you can have up to 15 unconditional Energy with a staff or 18 unconditional Energy with a focus and a one-handed martial weapon, and the skills cost 5 Energy each, so Mighty Was Vorizun effectively lets you take out a "loan" of 7 to 10 Energy with a 5 Energy interest cost, and Empowerment lets you effectively take out a "loan" of 5 more Energy with another 5 Energy "interest cost". A 15/-1 swap set can do the same thing without using up any skill slots. -- Gordon Ecker 08:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Empowerment effect is aweful. What it should always have been imo is a 'dummy' spirit. A spirit that you basically use to fulfil requirements and to power Spawning Power skills (like Rupture Soul, etc. that are hardly usable because no spirit can really be spammed enough unless you use stuff like Rt Lord, but no Rt Lord build is truly worth it anymore). Make it 5/2/10. Then we can FINALLY have a 2s cast spirit that you can put up fast in a fight repeatedly. And with a short recharge, it could power lots of Spawning utility, MAYBE making the line useful again someday. And with its less than interesting effect, 5/2/10 aren't too good stats for the spirit at all. Patccmoi 14:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think spirits are meant to be spawned in only 2 seconds. :| - IH 14:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No, but this one is totally useless out of being a spirit, and if you ever want Spawning skills to have a potential use, you need a spirit that spawns faster than 3s. Patccmoi 14:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I REALLY like Patccmoi's suggestion. I think this skill is necessary, even being as bad as it currently is, thanks to how someone using ashes loses the bonus energy from his staff/focus - while you can just use items that don't give extra energy or just deal with the reduction, this spirit allows someone using ashes to better deal with (almost nulify, even) that problem. However, that's a bit limited for a spirit : P Making it a general "Spirit that is there to help other Ritualist skills, not only ashes" is, IMO, a great idea. Erasculio 15:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, one thing i just realized though is that with those stats it would become a retarded battery for N/Rts (can easily use it over and over to get SR bonus out of it). Maybe add something like 50% failure with 5 Spawning or less? It shouldn't be just something for Necros to abuse. God i hate Soul Reaping working on spirits, makes everything so needlessly complicated Patccmoi 15:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe adding a "This skill is disabled for 60...5 seconds" clause? Primary Ritualists would be able to reduce it a lot, so it would work as an easy way to provide a spirit, but non primary Ritualists (in other words, Ne/Rits) would not be able to abuse it with Soul Reaping. Erasculio 22:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to say I really dislike skills that increase the maximum energy for xx amount of seconds. Most of the time when the time runs out you have no energy left and you become a sitting duck. I think instead of giving +10 maximum energy it should give +1...2 energy regeneration for allies holding an item. Channeling Spike teams already have good energy management and doesn't need this (Caretaker Charge and Essence Strike). --Shadetz X 21:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

What about making it buff or heal other spirits? For example "Create a level X Spirit. All other allied Spirits within its range gain Y maximum Health. This Spirit dies after Z seconds." or "Create a level X Spirit. This Spirit heals all other allied Spirits within earshot and below 90% Health for Y Health each second. This Spirit loses Y Health for each spirit healed in this way. This Spirit dies after Z seconds.". -- Gordon Ecker 23:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like Paragonesque skills which are only good en masse. A skill should be good on its own, outside of a full group of spirit spammers. Servant of Kali 09:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A spirit which buffs other spirits would work better with multiple spirit spammers, but a spirit which heals other spirits could be more effective with less spirits if it only heals one spirit at a time or loses health proportionate to the number of spirits it heals. -- Gordon Ecker 19:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is totally useless, as specific use of Empowerment can make an impact when at least two units are using Ritualist Items, and it can also benifit a flag carrier. But I do agree with Patccmois idea, I wouldn't take down the recast time, but if it had a cast time like 15 seconds it would also double as fuel for spirit leeching and spirit sacrificing skills. I think 15 seconds is rather short, and it can be used with Ritual Lord, so it's value as spirit fuel would be very strong in certain combinations.--BahamutKaiser 03:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I see where Kali is coming from. This skill could do with a better function than only working on players using item spells, or instead of trying to make it into a skill that would work better with 'more'. So how about "Empowerment 10|3|30: Summon a level x spirit that dies after xx seconds. Whenever a player within earshot uses a spell, the energy cost is taken from Empowerment instead. Empowerment has 10..34..39 energy which cannot regenerate, and it will die when it reaches 0 energy." Now it's not really that powerful because the energy is always taken out before activation, so if you're interrupted during your 'free spell' then the energy goes to waste. And of course, less casters, more energy. (Terra Xin 02:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC))

Spirit to Flesh

This is one of those skills which give "meh" impression on the paper, and are totally worthless in practice. There are better skills if ones goal is to destroy allied spirits. Healing nearby allies won't do much, because allies are not meant to be on your spirits, where they accidently get under scythe sweep or both into AoE. Sometimes some will be, but that makes this skill way too situational. Spirit Light will heal for just as much (energy wise), it doesn't require spirit killed, and it is more reliable. Spirit to Flesh might only be good for those Rt's who ball up (well, sort of) and wait for enemy to come to them so they can spike some. But I don't play in these teams nor do I support anything that benefits them (and no one else). This is a non-elite version of Consume Soul, and someone please recall when was Consume Soul seen in PvP ;) I'd much rather see a more fun skill, such as: "Spirit to Flesh. Spell. The Spirit closest to you is destroyed. Target ally is ressurected with xx..yyy% of health and energy that Spirit had." Adjust stats, 1-3sec cast or whatever is fair (you do need a spirit after all, it's risk and reward system). Note that this would destroy enemy spirit too, but it's again risk and reward system as you'd probably need to overextend (unless you're using no spirits), and since this skill is in Spawning the effect on non-Rt primaries wouldn't be that great. Servant of Kali 17:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The reason this skill is not used is because it requires a sacrafice of a spirit and destroying a spirit is quite costly. Spirits have very long casting and recharge times. People do not want to spend so much time creating a spirit just to destroy it. People do not have the time to monitor the health of Spirit of Union, Displacement or Shelter and even if they did this skill might not be useful as allies might not be in range. The benefit that comes with destroying the spirit does not outweight the benefits by a far margin. This skill should be changed to earshot range. Maybe then people are more willing to use this on some spirits like Destruction or Life. Same applies to Feast of Souls and Consume Soul (not worth an elite even when it can destroy enemy spirits). --Shadetz X 09:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

All those Spawning skill will always be bad until you have a spammable spirit. Make Empowerment 5/2/10 and then you can start using some. Patccmoi 13:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This skill could use an, all party member effect, so it functions like a heal party. Having to touch the allies spirit when it is unlikely that a group of members are huddling around it, and are asking for AoE punishment if they are, makes this very unwieldy. Besides that, it is the spirits frequency which needs alteration, this skill would be useful if spirits were not rare functions and it compensated for its limited activation with widespread effect.--BahamutKaiser 03:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Spawning Power

Even with the 2% weapon duration and the 4% health to created creature this is a horrible primary. I don't care in any way how many points I put into spawning unless I need a skill from it, it's effect means nothing to me. Most rit builds which are used in PvP don't even use any of these effects - spirit spammers are necros not rits these days and channeling doesn't care about spirit health and most builds don't even run weapon spells aside from Weapon of Remedy and the RoF one, and neither of those cares about duration. This needs some other effect to make it viable in the most common builds run for ritualists, like some kind of energy management. Dancing Gnome 04:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I pretty much agree. Spirit health only effects communing, and few weapon spells benefit from the increased length, and even fewer of them are interesting/beneficial enough to care about. Warmonger's Weapon and Spirit Light Weapon are the only two that I can think of off the top of my head. Warmonger's is in channeling, which hardly benefits from Spawning Power, minus Attuned Was Songkai builds. Spirit Light Weapon, with high Spawning Power gains a massive 2-3 seconds. I'm not sure how to make it more worthwhile for Channeling/Restoration builds, but even for pure Communing builds it still only offers a mediocre benefit. --Deathwing 01:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The boost power of increased health on Rituals is relavent if the spirits are relavent, effectively giving a spirit which does reasonable damage or reasonable defense at a level of 10, the same health of a player that is around lvl 20. Particularly, with 40% more health (4% X 10 points invested in the attribute), the spirit lasts exactly 40% longer, a very obvious improvement. It lacks luster because the spirits which directly benifit from this the most are nearly worthless.

As for weapon spells, this is really comical, a 20% boost (2% X 10 points investment) on a single abilitiy. I say single ability because weapon spells cannot be stacked, and very rarely does a Ritualist have a reason to equip more than one weapon spell because it cannot be used together. This effectively reduces the value of the improvement to 2 to 4 seconds of added duration on a typical weapon spell which is really a joke. Weapon spells have their limitations, they can stand to have at least a 4% boost to net around 40% if the attribute is invested in. And that doesn't mean nerfing Weapon of Warding so it can never be overly effective, the whole point of a primary is offering a significant advantage with that professions abilities, and abilities like this should be a staple effect for Ritualist.

Inevitablly they can change everything a Ritualist does and than back again, but until they Ritualist is accepted for the primary role they were designed for, Defensive, and developed, they are all improvisions which will leave Ritualist undesired.--BahamutKaiser 22:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Spawning Power is a weak primary attributes. 4% increase in health serves very little purpose now that defensive spirit builds are nerfed to the grounds and offense spirits are at such low level they die in several hits regardless of Spawning. I understand that Anet is trying to compensate Spawning by giving it more skills but there are only a few Spawning skills that are useful, the others are weak and broken. No one is going to waste points in Spawning for an extra second on a weapon. The Ritualist class has always been restrictive and gameplay is about overcoming constraints (one items & weapon spell at a time) and satisfying conditions (skills that require you to be near spirit or hold an item or with a weapon spell). The problem with most of the Ritualist skills is that even if you satisfy the conditions of the skills the reward is often inadequate; when it comes to balancing Ritualist skills like Spirit Siphon, Feast of Souls, Spirit’s Gift, Tranquil was Tanasen Signet of Binding and etc, it is important to take into consideration that a skill takes up a skill slot, may have contraints (can only carry one item or weapon spell at a time *this is an opportunity cost), may have to meet conditions (some effects only work if around spirits, item spell or weapon spell and some of these skills do not work at all without the requirement) and rewards (does the skills compensate enough for dealing with constraints and conditions). --Shadetz X 05:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with your saying "lasts 40% longer" is a good improvement is it is % not hard numbers. Percentage increase works better with bigger numbers, longer duration. Spirits die so quickly, within one/two attacks and in the case of Displacement, like 3 seconds, any longer duration would be less than 1 second, which is not an improvement. I don't think the existing boosts should be nerfed or nything, and the OP didn't say that either. I think it's just the effects of Spawning Power are so minimal - they don't really help ritualists that much, the only real benefit of weapon spell duration lengtheners is to "replicate" the enchanting mod, eg at 10 spawning it's 20% longer, but weapon spells are different enough from enchantments this comparison is rather weak. Most weapons spells used these days don't care about length, if they do, don't invest in spawning for the extra 2-3 seconds, if that. The passive benefit from their primary doesn't REALLY effect many of the builds used by rits, or if it does, it does so in a minimal way. For example, I can buy a 20% enchanting mod for my staff/sword, and have Divine Healing on all my spells. Compare this to the rit who can have +30hp or something similair, and 26% longer weapon spells, so 2-4 seconds longer on each spell but NO divine favour. Which would you rather have? 122.104.228.149 12:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The weakness lies in the failure of key skills, and no amount of complaining or adjusting spawning power will achieve desired results.--BahamutKaiser 04:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll ask the question, how is a Restoration Ritualist better then a Restoration Necromancer? His weapons spells last 3 seconds longer? There aren't that many spirits used by restoration before the nerf, and with the nerf they die with one hit. At least the necromancer gets energy everytime something dies, making them faaaar more powerful than a restoration ritualist. The only advantage restoration has is the ability to use runes. That's fucking pathetic, now do you still think Spawning Power is fine? Dancing Gnome 06:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Stronger heals, and can spec into Channeling to be a hybrid. --Deathwing 14:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

A problem with spirits and weapon spells, and Ritualist in general doesn't mean that changing spawning power will make Ritualist more successful. And though Necromancers have energy management with spirits, Ritualist have stronger spirits, so the issue is, the primary benifit of this needs to be valuable. Since spirits will die pretty easily anyway, the largest benifit is with defensive ritualist spirits where the health available directly impacts it's value, but there have been a few new additions like Agony and Rejuvination which also directly benifit from additional health, effectively adding 40% more value.

Now they can add some more weapon spell duration to make a significant economic impact on spells like Weapon of Warding for added advantage, but the primary failure here is the weakness of defensive rituals and the lack of utility the profession has because of it. Energy management is nice, but trying to copy monks divine favor on top of what spawning power already does is just a rip-off. Ritualist isn't fine, pointing at the wrong problem woln't solve Ritualist problems, and it isn't like Ritualist can't use abilities to create stronger creatures, gain energy and cause creation damage with necromancer skills as well.--BahamutKaiser 15:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the failure with ritualists is the fact that their primary attribute doesn't have an inherent energy management function, and the energy management skills in the attribute require you to fill a bar (or close to it) of one kind of skill that is unique to the rit to actually be beneficial (boon of creation, wielder's zeal, renewing memories, exception is AwS) most of them being elite too, even if spawning power (which judging from previous changes, will never give spirits more than they have now) did give even more health, they would a) still die fast and b) still be very passive. The 2% increase in weapon spell duration needs to be a lot better considering that the few spells that actually work on time instead of your next few attacks are incredibly short and are barely affected. Anyway, the ritualist usually has to rely on their awesome elite e-management (one thing they do have going for them) or the cost of the skills they use add up very fast, which leaves a lot of elites, in the dust. Also, agony and rejuvenation won't magically become powerful if spawning power boosted health anymore, until the design behind the skills is revamped, they will most likely stay horrible.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 16:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ever how good or bad agony and rejuvination are, they are simply 40% better with spawning power. I already agree that the weapon spells could use a better boost, but that simply woln't solve the ritualist downfall. And trying to rip off Necro and Monk primaries just to make a quick patch job on Ritualist is not going to fix the problem. We already have necro and we already have monk, so if you cannot offer something new and original with Ritualist, than don't bother, because we don't need multiple options for the same effect, we need balanced options for different effects, that is how different professions work.

Now we could boost boon of creation, and we can boost spawning powers weapon spell boost to 4% (I already suggested that much), but the simple fact is that Ritualist fails because it doesn't have that defensive utility that this profession was halmarked for, and that is the one and only thing that will fix the profession, everything else if vanity, so fix spawning power all you want, but you still not going to solve the problem.--BahamutKaiser 20:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The best solution would be to make the existing skills in the spawning line useful. Let's make an example of strength vs expertise, in normal circumstance people will choose ranger to do a warrior's job if the build is energy intensive. But, warriors have many useful skills in the strength attribute and this restricts rangers from doing a warrior's job. There are less than a handful of useful skills in the spawning power line. Buffing skills like Feast of Souls, Ruptured Soul, Spirit to Flesh, Empowerment, Ghostly Haste, Signet of Creation, Spirit's Strength, Sight Beyond Sight, Wielder's Remedy, Consume Soul, Reclaim Essence, Spirit Channeling and Weapon of Renewal is the best approach to improve the attribute without having to improve the inherited effect. --Shadetz X 12:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No-one said to make the rit into a necro, or that it needs to emulate the necro, they just said the necro does what the rit would do, only better because their primary is useful whereas the rit primary is useless to the majority of ritualists. Before the nerf more health on spirits was pretty irrelevant, especially with the Displacement and Union - two of the few spirits which rely on more health, making the Spawning Power primary effect near worthless anyway - being complete garbage. Most rit builds don't care one hoot about how much health their spirits have, unless you are a spammer you usually only run 1-2 anyway and that is the entire effect of their primary attribute aside from weapon spells. The weapon spell duration is a sad attempt to emulate enchantments, which is simply not how weapon spells work, 2-3 seconds is nearly worthless on most skills which get it, and the others are removed based on a number of hits, or being hit so durations is hardly relevant there, not to mention they don't stack so working towards enchantments is a bad idea anyway. I'm not saying it needs to be some kind of energy management added, I'm just saying that it is next to useless atm - when your build doesn't care how high the attribute is unless it's for the skills something is wrong. Posting here seems pretty pointless, I don't recall any changes being made which reflect feeback on these pages. Dancing Gnome 03:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Alright, idea. Spawning Power. Each rank of spawning power increases weapon spell duration by 4%, summoned creature health by 5%, and increases healing amount of Restoration Magic skills by 2%. The only attribute not really effected is Channeling Magic, but I'm not sure that needs help. Maybe, gives Channeling Magic spells +.5% AP per rank? Thoughts? - HeWhoIsPale 13:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Still kinda bad, the spirit health would still be useless, the resto thing is decent, the weapon spell increase is decent (granted it is still lacking since there are Weapon Spells that are reliant on attacks more so than duration), channeling doesn't need more damage through AP, it needs utility. So overall, I doubt it would still be used unless you happen to have some extra att pts (and of course an AwS build, but thats about it). It needs to give you some form of emanagement or it will still be pretty bad.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 15:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Buff the skills in the attribute, make it like strength, the effect sucks but the skills make it worth it.24.47.18.113 01:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I know no one cares, but could Spawning power give additional max health and energy while holding a ritualist item ? You could say it is part of the strategy, but being punished for playing your class is not exactly compelling. Things like Vorizun and Empowerement would then need a rebalance, but I just wanted to share an idea. "Ritualist item" just in case someone would worry about the flag.

Also, why can't spirits have much more health but much less armor ? This way, spirits that consume their health per use would last long enough to be worth it, and would still be as vulnerable as before if someone damages them.

Also, another non-related idea could be to make the duration of a spirit linked to Spawning power (instead of a completely fixed flat duration now) and maybe of ritualist bundles as well. Yet another idea could be that spirits have a constant health degeneration, determined by Spawning power. 86.208.46.194 06:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Spawning power is really the most underpowered primary attribute in the game. The additional health for spirits wont increase the durability of spirits beeing attacked and those few binding rituals who draw from spirits health are down so fast that it is hardly a difference either. The increased weapon spell duration is a very minor boost to about 3 weapon spells, the rest is pretty much unaffected because duration is not really an issue since they trigger on next hit or something similar. And since weapon spells are not stackable that doesn't make points in spawningpower worth it. Now one could say that spawningpower has lots of skills in it to compensate for it. Problem is, they all suck. Attuned was Songkai and Spirit's Strength are the only reasons to put points into spawning power. Spirit Strength is a very speciallized elite so if you do not run that one you pretty much have to take attuned to justify beeing ritualist primary. So my suggestion would be to fix all those broken spawning power skills and think about some inherent spawningpower bonus that is actually usefull. Btw, i like the "ap on channeling spells" suggestion for spawningpower since channeling ritus don't profit at all from spawning power inherent bonuses. But since GW is balanced around PvP and right now ppl seem to be to stupid to move out of a bright flashing animation of an adjacent range aoe within 3 seconds (=>spirit rift nerf) channeling nukes seem to be an issue and i don't see that happen. So all that is left is to hope for some spawning power skills to get the required buffs to make me unmule my ritu again. Will add some of them here because as it seems with the long list of underpowered ritu skills they were overseen.134.130.183.235 14:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Ghostly Haste

Reduce energy cost to 5, maybe slightly increase duration because of lack of "of enchanting" weapon mod accessability in most ritu builds. Right now it is just a bad energy drain because of short duration and high energy cost.134.130.183.235 15:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

No attribute

Soul Twisting

ATM this skill is almost non existing in PvE or PvP. The point of this skill is to maintain a spirits like Shelter or Union. This is not used because in pre-Nightfall this skill is overshadowed by Ritual Lord and in post-nightfall protective spirits became too energy intensive. I suggest change the description to '5/10 Elite Skill. Destroy target spirit. The next Binding Ritual you perform casts 66% faster, recharges instantly, and cost 50% less energy.' You can target enemy spirits with this skill. The rational behind this suggestion is to make protective ritual builds a bit more workable and not too overpowering. This change will allow a Ritualist to maintain one protective spirit while the other spirits will have to go through regular recharge. This way you cannot keep Shelter, Union, Displacement, Soothing, Recuperation and Life up almost 100% of the time like in pre-Nightfall. --Shadetz X 10:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Skill lacks versatility. Maybe add also "and if used on enemy spirit that spirit is destroyed".Servant of Kali 10:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

This skill is fine. It's mostly used in PVE.24.47.18.113 20:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This skill is pretty useful for repeated reuse of a spirit. It is much better with offensive spirits, since you don't have to worry about them wiping out suddenly before you can reap them, and it could really benifit from some sort of notification of the spirits expiration. If you could monitor how much longer a spirit has to last, as well as it's health, it would allow you to accurately reap a spirit and reproduce it repeatedly. It may be a bit difficult, but being able to keep up something like dissonance or shadowbind constantly is a benifit. It could still use a boost through, like lower recast. It isn't like the spirit is free if your casting it alot, and compared to ritual lord, it is kind of limpy.--BahamutKaiser 02:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I like to see this changed into something like "target spirit dies after 3 seconds..." instead of killing the spirits instantly, so you can still use other spirit-killing skills like rupture soul after using soul twisting. --Lunk 09:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Offensive Spirits (Pain, Bloodsong, etc)

The offensive spirits do strong damage, have a good recharge for their duration, and so on. However, they are too unreliable - there is no way to control who they will attack. This makes skills like Anguish and Painful Bond to be less strategic than they could be - instead of using Painful Bond on the target I want to take the damage, I have to use it on the target that the spirits have chosen to attack. Would it be possible for us to control who the spirits will attack? No idea if it would be possible to create a "Target Lock" like the heroes have, but if, say, Painful Bond made all spirits attack that target, or even if the spirits attacked called targets, they would be more reliable, and so a better strategic tool, IMO. Erasculio 20:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I've never really had problems with them attacking the wrong target. Cast Painful Bond on them and they die in a few seconds. --Deathwing 22:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

IMO the offensive spirits are alright as is - they're very strong pressure in the right context, the smaller the fight the more pressure the spirits are. In skirmish and in 4v4 these things can totally destroy people. --Pork soldier 22:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

They really work very well in 4v4 - but is that because they're simply better under that format, or because they have less target options, so they're more likely to hit who you want them to hit? I don't really expect this feature to be implemented, as I think it would be something too hard to implement (I have heard that even the "Lock Target" thing for heroes doesn't work all the time). But I think this would add a bit more of strategy to the game, as the offensive spirits would go from a generic "Attack something in their range" to "Focused, armor ignoring damage at your target as long as it's within range". If it were made as a hex (if Painful Bond made the spirits attack the target under it), it would be even better. Erasculio 00:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand the "one of each per party" limit on passive spirits, but I dislike how the limit also applies to attacking spirits. Would it be possible raise the limite on attacking spirits to one of each per character? -- Gordon Ecker 00:56, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Raising the amount of attacking spirits in the area to one per person, would quite effectively overpower spirits. I.E. You would see a group of four ritualists running a 5 spirit pressure build in ra. Elementalist and Mesmers would not be able to keep up with that amount of spirits.

As for targeting, spirits work similar to NPC's. I've noticed they prioritize monks over other characters. They also attack what omes into their agro range first. Sometimes they will split between a monk, the enemy the ritualist is attacking, and the first enemy to enter agro. When that happens(in pve normally only happens when some overzealous warrior rushes everything) is about the only time spirits are somewhat ineffectually. Kyle van der Meer 11:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Spirit damage should be reduced by armor. Simple and clean. Shard 20:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It's annoying enough to see parties camping behind their allies' spirits - please don't encourage this. :S Oh, and as for priority, they will generally go after the target with the lowest AL, with highest priority going to whoever attacks them. They don't do this immediately, though. Anyway, if you're going to suggest the possibility of 'target locking' I think that the mechanics of the spirits will need to be changed. I just think that if target locking was introduced with the current state of the spirits, it may be too powerful in organized groups. I'll give you one example and you can all tell me if it would be a good resolve, OK? Pain: This spirit's attacks deal 10 damage and deals an additional 1..5 damage for subsequent hits. (Max: 40 damage) If any foe avoids Pain's hits for 5 seconds, the damage counter is reset.(Terra Xin 09:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

Make a new spell, "Mark of vengance" or something which hexes a target and causes all attack spirits in range to target that hexed foe. --Ckal Ktak 22:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Thats a horrible idea. A skill slot is the ultimate cost in GW, you can generate energy, health, reduce cast time, and reduce recharge, but you only get 8 skills and there is no way to increase that. Using 1/8th of your abilities just to provide a targetting mechanism is horrendous.--BahamutKaiser 01:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You could just add it to the spell, Painful Bond. Since it's in the interest of the Spirit Spammer to use the hex due to it increasing spirit damage by almost double, many bring it anyway. As a side note to this, I was under the impression it worked as a "attack this target" for spirits already. 122.104.228.149 12:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Signet of Spirits, Spirit Channeling

These rit energy management elites are terribly underpowered. The former is inferior to OoS in every way (even if you're at 0 energy, just switch to a high set), and the latter has small energy returns. I say change SoS's functionality - gain 5...13 energy, if you're within earshot of a spirit, gain 5...17 instead. Spirit Channeling could do with a duration of 15 or even 20 seconds. 220.101.136.85 11:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Spirit Channeling nets you as much energy as GoLE, with same recharge, and health loss. Make it 0...1...2 energy gain per second, per spirit (Maximum of 4) maybe? --Deathwing 11:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If the duration of Spirit Channeling gets raised, make sure to lower the degen a bit too... you'll have to go a pretty long way before you hit that heal at the end, and most of your Ritualist health regen options don't last long enough. You'll end up having to use all your new energy on healing spells, which kinda defeats the purpose... it would basically be an enchantment that forces a Resto Ritualist to heal themselves whe they could be healing their teammates. -- Jioruji Derako.> 12:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Spirit Channeling has a potentially massive health bonus at the end, which may offset the degen, increasing the duration obscures this advantage. Because both stipulate the requirement of, or the benifit of a spirit to be used or benificial, it is counter productive. You will have to spend energy on spirits to get benifits from these, basically binding the energy your gaining to use with spirits. Because of it's inflexibility, I think both could use a recharge decrease, and if the horrendous infrequency and overpriced nature of spirits are not improved, it deserves a major recharge decrease to offer a viable energy source for these broken costs.--BahamutKaiser 02:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Spirit Channeling should be a lot better (especially since it is in spawning power, maybe something like this....

Spirit Channeling 5 energy/1sec Activation/20-30 Recharge

Skill---For 10 seconds, you gain +1...5..6 energy regen. If you are within earshot of a spirit when this would end, Spirit Channeling is renewed for 5 seconds.

Signet of Spirits, should really just be changed in effect, to maybe be an effective heal for your spirits, that takes an elite slot, and should be moved to communing, I don't really see it adding anything new to the rit when it comes to e-management, considering Attuned and OoS exist, and if spirit channeling gets changed, it would really be outclassed.--Quicksilver Switch-Blade 02:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Drop Dead Spirits

This is simply an outrage, here we have defensive spirits which are already worthless, and Anet drops their health and makes them vulnerable to a commonly AoE associated and devistating condition. "Great work", this is completely bias, with no reguard for the already worthless state of Defensive Rituals, just address offensive spirits with supreme generalization. Can we please get some attention on the DEFENSIVE RITUALIST SPIRITS!!!, THEY BLOW!--BahamutKaiser 05:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Now that Keystone Signet was buffed, does the title of 'worst elite in the game' now go to Wanderlust? :3 But seriously, I have similar sentiments, sans the rage. What spirits Ritualists need more than anything else is a reworking of the basic mechanics of spirits - one that facilitates a buff to usefulness - in addition to having Spawning Power do *something*. This update...I don't understand the intention behind a lot of the changes, but this recent treatment neglect of Ritualist skill balance is asinine. (Señor Sappypants) 06:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest converting Preservation, Shelter and Union into wards. If they're too powerful as wards, they can buff the durations of some ADoT spells to make them better ward counters. -- Gordon Ecker 06:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I saw the nerf to spirits as a way to shutdown to those N/Rt in HA and HoH. I did expect that passive defense will take a major hit soon so this was not a surprise to me. This nerf will definetely have an impact on the Ritual Lord build. GW is becoming more fast paced and much in favor of offense. --Shadetz X 10:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that defensive spirit spammer was the Ritualist's niche in PvE. LoD monks can out-heal them, ZB / prot monks can out-heal and out-protect them, ADoT and Searing Flames elementalists can outdamage them and Paragons can provide defense, healing and energy support in the same build. They're no longer the best at anything except 1v1 solo quests. -- Gordon Ecker 10:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh lord, it doesn't need to be changed into a ward, I've already come up with ideas for fixing it, it's rather simple. The issue is that they were not only completely ignored, but hammered even harder simply in association with other spirits with no consideration at all for an improvement. ATTENTION PLEASE!, the defensive spirits are not good enough.--BahamutKaiser 17:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that change on spirit was needed, because some of them are pretty nasty in Random arenas. I remember I always brought an anti-spirit skill like banishing strike whenever I had a slot left for that. On the other hand, spirits with a health loss are really weak now, so the health loss should be decreased in line with the general health reduction. I also think that defensive spirits should be made more active by reducing their range to something like earshot (so that they are like wards but can be killed by enemies and have synergy with some skills). Another problem with spirits is, that many spirit-related skills rewards bringing many of them leading to degenerated builds (like spirit-way). Those skills should be changed to get an advantage if only used with a single spirit. For example, spirit boon strike could recharge instantly if it healed only a single spirit, so it rewards players for intelligent use of single spirits instead of brainless spirit spam. --Lunk 15:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It really isn't about how relavent the change was for spirits in general, the issue is that there are some very significant spirits that are already worthless, and that they tolk the time to nerf spirits in general, and make these even worse, without bothering to fix and accomidate the defensive spirits the way they should be. The 50 health was really not a big deal, the burning was, either way, defensive summoning already sucked, and they just reduced the value even more without any reguard. These really need the change.--BahamutKaiser 16:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)