Feedback concerning the Ritualist.

[HonshuHigamori]

I'm not terribly sure offhand where to put this thread, so I figured I'd make it here.

Dear Devs,

I would like to preface this with the statement that I am indeed very intrigued by the content of Chapter 2 due to how it will be changing the game mechanics. The Ritualist and Assassins, if done well, could provide a true, serious alternative to Monks and Warriors for the role as Healer or melee damage dealer, respectively.

That said, unless you intend Ritualists to become a mere support healer, just providing minor blanket support and not a genuine healer, I think there is still some major work to be done. That said, if you *do* intend the Ritualist to become a mere support healer, unable to truely carry the role of healing like the Monk can, disregard the following statements.

With the help of Spirits, it appears as if Ritualists can definitely rival Monks as healers. However, and this is a big however, Spirits are extremely fragile and easy to kill. This, combined with their long recharge time, leads to me to view them as being to the role of a Healer what the Glyph of Renewal Divine Spirit build is to Monks. That is, quite effective, but very fragile to break. I can offer no genuine solution if this is an actual problem yet, nor can I honestly say that I believe it is an actual problem and not just an limited thought made from someone who simply has not had enough time with the class to properly judge it. Thus, I desire to end this with a note to the reader: These are simply views that are made with me barely having two hours to play the class. I will not say they are actual *problems*, but I will say they are my observations, and hence may be dispelled by further information related to the class at a later date.

To summarize for those of you who dislike "wordy" posts: The feeling, observation, that the Ritualist is giving me so far is that of an easy-to-counter Monk, on account of its long recharge and easily killed Spirits.

Now, instead of mere observations such as the above, I will now instead offer actual feedback concerning something which I believe, nay, know is just wrong on every level.

Devs, if you are reading this, please, please for the love of God make Preservation, the Elite Ritualist healing spirit thingy, give priority to damaged units. Countless times I have been seeing it healing fellow teammates with full health when there was a heavily damaged player standing right next to it. It is not only frustrating, but makes utterly no sense for it to heal something undamaged.

Nerf the casting of the heal and/or the power of the heal itself if you must, but for the love of God, when you're almost dead with the rest of your team is full on health and you have a 1/4 chance of actually getting healed by the stupid thing, (And let's not even get into what it would be like in Tombs...) it isn't just not worth it, it falls into the realm of "why is this skill in the game like this".

That said, let it be known that thus far, I am highly enjoying the sneak peak you, the Devs, have given to us of the game. Quite few companys would do this sort of thing, giving them an actual window into the next Expansion for a time, instead probably opting to tantalize them with "new lewtz" and "bigger monsters" and things such as that. For that, I must commend you.

I'll continue to post my thoughts and impressions concerning the Ritualist here as I get more playtime.

[botrytis]

I agree! I think A.Net really needs to rethink the Ritualist. It is so burdensome, with all the spirits, etc.

Please go back to the drawing board.

Dave

[Patccmoi]

How many games did you actually play with Ritualist?

I used a slightly modified Rt/Mo build from the template and we went on looong conseq runs in TA, tons of flawlesses, and both times we lost was against some top 20 guilds using old builds (W/E Gale, Spiteful Necro, Air Ele, Boon-Prot...)

I was the only one with any healing on the team. The others didn't even have a form of self-heal. Oh wait not true, the other Ritualist had Blood Song which drains health when it hits and give it to the Ritualist casting it.

I was EXTREMELY impressed by the Rt/Mo healing abilities. Warding Weapon is insanely good, can't be removed, gives 50% block for 10 seconds with +4 regen, which is 80 health. For a 10/1/5 spell. And it turns your 5/1/4 spell into healing 100.

Then you got the craziest healing spell i EVER saw, Spirit Transfer. Since we had me as defensive ritualist and one offensive one, we had many spirit... well i was healing 248 with a 5/.25/0 spell. You realize the kind of healing this is? No monk spell can come CLOSE to this.

Then you have a spell that heals 75 and remove one condition/spirit in the area around you... i could remove mass condition and heal with a 5/.75/3 spell. It shames Mend Ailment.

The only spell i used from /Mo was Holy Veil for hex control. All the rest was pure Ritualist, with 2 spirits. And yes, my spirits were killed quite often, but they still heal quite a bit before they die.

In 1 line, the ritualist has both healing AND protection (warding weapon is an insane Guardian). You don't have Divine Favor, so against spike damage you're not as good and you heals aren't as energy efficient as monks. You don't make monks useless this way (which would've destroyed the monk class, i'm sure ANet didn't want that) but you can easily fill the role of healer yourself or be a strong secondary support.

Ritualists are extremely good from my experience. Learn to play with their skills (i doubt you unlocked that many? Don't just read the description, play in game with them) it took me 30-45 min before i was comfortable with them. They're out for half a day, i think it's a little bit too early to say they're easy to counter? Maybe people are just not using their stuff right, you know...

[MasterNightfall]

While I realise that the Ritualist isn't supposed to be a monk clone, I think that the presence of spells such as "Spirit light" - 130 healed, 1 second cast, 4 second cooldown... Sacrifice 10% life... No other benefit... Compared to Heal Other (~200 healed, 3/4 second cast), or even Orison (~100 healed, 2 second cooldown, 5 mana)... Is... A bit... Odd.

[Patccmoi]

While I realise that the Ritualist isn't supposed to be a monk clone, I think that the presence of spells such as "Spirit light" - 130 healed, 1 second cast, 4 second cooldown... Sacrifice 10% life... No other benefit... Compared to Heal Other (~200 healed, 3/4 second cast), or even Orison (~100 healed, 2 second cooldown, 5 mana)... Is... A bit... Odd.

Orison needs Healing AND Divine Favor for 100. You can't ignore that.

Heal Other can only be used on others, and again it's 140 without Divine Favor. It's not fair to compare this way, because the Ritualist can invest in another line too while monk needs Healing-DF to get these numbers.

How about that Spirit Transfer? If you have Spirits around you (and if you have more than one Ritualist in your team, it's very easy when using the good skills even with people running around trying to take them down), you have a 5/.25/0 skill that heals 50/spirit around you. It hurts the spirits, but they can stand a good amount before they die from this if you have some Spawning Power. I was healing 250-300 with a 5E spell that can be used on myself or other, how is that bad?

They just play differently. Spirit Light is the first thing i dropped tough cause it's not energy efficient. But you got like Wielder's Boon, heals 100 for 5E if the guy has a weapon enchant which is quite nice. Combined with Vital Weapon (gives +40-140 max health for 30 sec, 5/1/20) for yourself and Weapon of Warding for others (or yourself when you need the 50% block), you have an efficient healing. And for those wondering, you CAN have 2 weapon enchants on you at the same time.

[Vexed Arcanist]

I played numerous matches with the Rit/Mo. I played with the standard pregen build, I like the spells especially Flesh of My Flesh. That being said I have to agree that the long cast times of the base "healing" spells and the fairly long recycle will not allow the Rit to take the place of a Monk in small environments like 4v4. Their skills are too easily interrupted. That said in larger groups where many want 3+ monks I can see a Ritualist fitting in nicely.

I will reiterate I only played with the base build included for the PvP weekend event. I did augment it with one spell, Shielding Hands, which I never take into PvP as a Monk. The Rit/Mo did not dissapoint me but I had no interrupts to face. Of course an Rit/Me with Mantra of Resolve will work but that is more of an excuse on the slow cast times.

The heal that removes a condition (sorry I forget the name) and Flesh of My Flesh are excellent skills that I could see a Mo/Rit seriously using in small arena, along with Divine Favor and Healing Touch to recover from FomF.

[Patccmoi]

I played numerous matches with the Rit/Mo. I played with the standard pregen build, I like the spells especially Flesh of My Flesh. That being said I have to agree that the long cast times of the base "healing" spells and the fairly long recycle will not allow the Rit to take the place of a Monk in small environments like 4v4. Their skills are too easily interrupted. That said in larger groups where many want 3+ monks I can see a Ritualist fitting in nicely.

I will reiterate I only played with the base build included for the PvP weekend event. I did augment it with one spell, Shielding Hands, which I never take into PvP as a Monk. The Rit/Mo did not dissapoint me but I had no interrupts to face. Of course an Rit/Me with Mantra of Resolve will work but that is more of an excuse on the slow cast times.

The heal that removes a condition (sorry I forget the name) and Flesh of My Flesh are excellent skills that I could see a Mo/Rit seriously using in small arena, along with Divine Favor and Healing Touch to recover from FomF.

Try Spirit Transfer. It's just insane if you have an offensive Ritualist with you. It's like throwing infuse healths without any sacrifice (well you sacrifice small health from all spirits)

As for Shielding Hands, i unlocked Union. It's pretty nice, spirit that reduces all damage done by 15 and transfers it to itself.

[Dukan]

As one who likes to see the "personality" of characters... I hope the Ritualist gets it's own movement. I can't help but see an elementalist in disguise, as far as just getting around goes. And she doesn't dance. A Guildmate says his Assassin does the ranger dance.

The Ritualist seems more Cajun to me than Asian. But I do realize that there are some Southeast Asian/Indonesian cultures that have/had Shamans and the like with practices that could be seen as what I know as "cajun." So, I'm curious to see what kind of dance they get.

I have no sound effects on most spells. There's one for Pain. I'd like to hear what others are like.

I realize this is beta stage and this is all likely to change. But, this is a feedback thread.

[Dukan]

I really wish there was a way to target spirits other than clicking on them. I keep trying to use Rupture Soul and by the time I target the spirit I want amidst others fighting around it, the foe I wanted damage has ran out of range.

I know this is brought up for Necro minions as well... the targeting of them. Think this will ever get addressed?

[Dark Wolf]

Personaly, I find the casting time and recharche time of skills ridiculously too long, and I don't find spirits overpowered at all since I usually die trying to cast one. How can spirits harm players if you can't cast them in the first place? I haven't tried the protective spirits yet but again these spirits are useless if you can't cast them, or die trying. I play Elementalist and Necro and I thought 3 seconds was long but 5 seconds is way too much. Give it regular casting time like the other spellcasters between 1 to 4 seconds top.

[Dukan]

Personaly, I find the casting time and recharche time of skills ridiculously too long, and I don't find spirits overpowered at all since I usually die trying to cast one. How can spirits harm players if you can't cast them in the first place? I haven't tried the protective spirits yet but again these spirits are useless if you can't cast them, or die trying. I play Elementalist and Necro and I thought 3 seconds was long but 5 seconds is way too much. Give it regular casting time like the other spellcasters between 1 to 4 seconds top.
Casting and recharge times for Binding Rituals are comparable to Ranger Nature Rituals. They seem like long times for me, too. But, I've never played a spirit ranger.

[ratavalive]

reducing the cast/recharge time of spirits would overpower the class imho.

i think most of the people complaining now are just misplaying the class and just spam the spirits stupidly.

btw i went on several long flawless streaks without a monk and a offensive/defensive ritualists in ca/ta and i must say i am really impressed (i was a necro so soul reaping was yum).

i can already see the potential of strategic placement of spirits in gvg now.

[Too Hot Fo You]

Yes Ritualist and Assassin have more than a lot of potential.
I think actually Ritualist has an over-potential, and I don't want the devs to change it, I think it would be working fine.

The starter of this post, what you say is sorry for the word, but it is crap. The only point where I agree with you, is that the spirit should be healing a damaged ally.
Now Ritualists have so much power, they can control conditions, heal, inflict conditions, deal HEAVY damage, what you want more?

I think they would be overpowered, if they had some sort of good energy management. The problem with ritualists I see is running out of mana.
They have a lot high mana, low recharge skills, very low recharge skills.
I'm working on a ritualist build already. Give them a full mana pool and the ennemi team is generally doomed.
The only more thing I can say there is spirits FTW!

[the grieving terror]

I agree, remember guys, this is just effectively a beta event, and we haven't even had 24 hours with the new professions. I think that once people have started unlocking the skills and thought of new ways to play the classes, opinions of them will improve.

[HonshuHigamori]

Well, I certainly didn't expect this thread to become so popular.

I'm going to go ahead and try out your suggested skill unlocks Pacci because I will indeed confess that I did not play anything more than the prebuilt healer Ritualist (Except that I swapped Remove Hex for Holy Veil). Other than that, I don't have much more to add yet.

[charrlover]

Originally I liked the idea of the assasin as I was unsure if Anet would get the Ritualist quite right! I thought the ritualist class might end up being the Diablo 2 Druid! But it really isn't, I think it's great! I absolutely adore the Ri/Mo Template! Great healing if you have 2 in a random arena team and both coordinate the spirits and the weapon casts you can seriously strengthen your team! I really love the playing style of the ritualist and the armors are awesome! They look great imo and the head gear is quite unique! But I personally think the Ritualist will be subject to change and maybe a nerf:cry: or the other classes will all be strengthened! At the moment the weapon spell can be spammed on and off and if there are multiple ritualists all taking different spirits you can wreck havoc!

[Tempest Rave]

I think in essence what we have here is strategic support... sure ritualists have to cast the spirits but they benefit the team alot, and so just like warriors protect eles as they fire up their...fire, ritualists will have to be protected too. they just need to be played differently, after all you dont charge in with ur mesmer or ele (altho that new e/a build changes that :rolleyes: )

both new classes really liven things up imo, breathing new slants into strategys and character builds.

[TBMarauder]

A most intriguing and interesting debate, all.

Please do bear in mind though (as others have stated), you are only viewing the Rt profession through very narrow blinkers during this weekend, using the available templates (what do you think of those, btw?) and what skills/runes you have managed to unlock thus far.

Most of you experienced the existing Prophecies 'core' professions (that of the Wa/Ra/Mo/Ele/Me/Nec) through 'natural progression', as it were. We all started as lvl1 fledglings and 'discovered' our chosen profession as we went through the game, unlocking and learning to use new skills/spells etc.

Imagine what learning the Rt will be like, from that lvl1 beginning? :)

[CMEPTb]

Imagine what learning the Rt will be like, from that lvl1 beginning? :)

Agree whole-heartedly. I am looking foward to doing such with both new proffessions once Chapter 2 rolls out.

Cannot wait to test Me/Rt, Mo/Rt, and Rt stand-alone builds come April (As I am guessing to be the "Spring" release date).

~CMEPTb
:innocent:

[Vexed Arcanist]

Try Spirit Transfer. It's just insane if you have an offensive Ritualist with you. It's like throwing infuse healths without any sacrifice (well you sacrifice small health from all spirits)

As for Shielding Hands, i unlocked Union. It's pretty nice, spirit that reduces all damage done by 15 and transfers it to itself.

Indeed. I have been Ritualing all day and unlocking for both a Binder build and Restoration build. My current favorite is a Binder build with Union and Soothing Memories to help heal a bit. I lowered Spawning to ~8 and Communing by 1. I use 2 Major Runes for Spawning and Communing since I am more in a race to unlock skills than unlock Superiors. I dropped Mantra of Resolve and Inspiration due to the glaring lack of Interrupt rangers with all the Assassin madness.

For the Rit/Mo I really like Vengeful Weapon and if you can handle the energy Weapon of Warding.

[HonshuHigamori]

Well, I'm going to have to say that the testing out the Ritualists healing thing isn't working out that well because I have yet to find a good offensive ritualist to group with. Combined with relatively low faction to spare (I can't help but spend it all on Channeling Magic, I luv throwing lightningz D::), and I cannot say that am giving a good, fair, firsthand look at the Healer Ritualist. However, after fighting several Ritualists and seeing the strength of their heals, which certainly rivaled any Monk, alongside reading some of the replies to this thread, I'm definitely beginning to think that I was wrong in my observation. Essentially, I underestimated the power of Ritualist heals, and have now gone from "observing" that they're half decent to knowing that they're a force to be reckoned with. However, the best counter to them still seems to be to simply attack the Spirits first.

The big problem I've noticed with them is that they're extremely vunerable without their Spirits, and when pretty much everyone can do damage, it makes Ritualists relatively easy to counter. So while I'll definitely admit I was wrong about their healing power, I maintain that they're still a smidge too easy to counter, as compared to Monks.

That said, again, I must remind everyone that I am acknowledging that I do not know the full story, nor have I made any claims (outside of my lamenting about Preservation) to be making anything less than observations and impressions. A few of you seem to be taking what I'm saying far too seriously. Truely, I cannot possibly claim to know problems and advantages about the class in a concrete fashion with barely two days experience with fighting/playing as them. I am making observations and voicing impressions.

I encourage others to continue to post their thoughts and impressions concerning the Ritualist here, as I've certainly picked up some interesting information myself here.

[charrlover]

A most intriguing and interesting debate, all.

Please do bear in mind though (as others have stated), you are only viewing the Rt profession through very narrow blinkers during this weekend, using the available templates (what do you think of those, btw?) and what skills/runes you have managed to unlock thus far.

Most of you experienced the existing Prophecies 'core' professions (that of the Wa/Ra/Mo/Ele/Me/Nec) through 'natural progression', as it were. We all started as lvl1 fledglings and 'discovered' our chosen profession as we went through the game, unlocking and learning to use new skills/spells etc.

Imagine what learning the Rt will be like, from that lvl1 beginning? :)

Quoted for Truth!

We haven't seen to much and most people are using the templates. We are making judgements based on a glimpse at the classes and I don't think that we are getting the big picture... People are screaming murder and nerf in the direction of the Ri/mo! It is the best starter template and in most cases it's facing people using assassins for the first time. The Assassin/War doesn't seem to be as good as the Ri/mo so the odds are really in favor of the Ritualist. Noone really gave any arguements as to why the Ritualist should be nerfed other than the fact that they make battles last longer...
Uhm? Give me some good arguements as to why you think certain skills need to be nerfed, till then I will not accept the idea of nerfing the Ritualist in any shape. So shove off all you ritualist haters!
About the templates in general I think they are okay but kind of incomplete and sub par. Assasin/Warrior doesn't use any warrior skills and has bad healing...
To make the builds more effective you need faction and I don't have that- Basically they let you test the classes but not much more. Few are really effective enough to gain large amount of faction with:embarassed:

[SoulsOfEternity]

As a Ritualist the Random Arena matches do seem to drag on. And when I do TA with friends of mine we seem to go forever, flawlessly :grin:. I remember only like twice or thrice losing when we've had a competent monk, and I remember two times losing because the people we were fighting had a lil iQ at the end...distortion was impossible to hit through without a stance removal.

A.net the Ritualist is a new favourite of mine, gonna go through withdrawal after the weekend :tongue:.

Oh, oh, I remember this one time, was my friend as a R/A a pick up prot/heal monk and me as a Rt/Mo (one of our team members had to leave, but forgot to do so prior to the next match) and so it was 3v4. This is TA and well we ran into a group and it was a long fight, we managed to kill a caster once and a warrior once but we couldn't kill the monk. So the battle pretty much dragged on and on, then apparently the opposing monk got tired of it and left, so we won in a 3v4 :grin:

[HonshuHigamori]

It has come to my attention recently that there is a rather serious bug with the Anguished Was Lingwah. Due to the lack of threads concerning this, I can only assume that the majority of people do not know about it. Thankfully, now with the Chapter 2 Preview gone, certain Guilds can no longer exploit it. Considering that a Bug Report isn't what this forum or thread is about, I suggest you all please report any serious bugs you've found with the Ritualist to this thread in the Bug Report forum: http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?p=3882799#post3882799

You can also read of the bug concerning Anguished Was Lingwah there.

[Hurricane Six]

I have played monk for along time in this game and i have to say that the ritualist is a very powerful healer more so than monk Me and another offensive Rt went 2v4 in a match and won never had that happen as a monk They are very weak against interupts and im trying to figure out how they will be played in pve but in pvp I would choose a Rt over a monk any day as for the matchs being long I have to say I like that its gotten so its 5 mins and youre done in the arenas anymore

[tarutaru]

im unsure myself about whether or not anguished was lingwah is a bug or not. i would prefer that it is just a mixup in the source code (as a programmer i know that unforeseeable bugs always happen, discussion below). Anguished Was Lingwah uses the wording "summons" not "creates" as in most other spirits, including pain itself. Dunno whether this makes a difference or not.

Anway, on to my point, which is how this glitch could have been born. Okay, so the devs obviously last summer fixed the previous spirit spamming by saying that if there is a previous spirit of the same type created, the oldest one is destroyed. however, in lingwah's ashes case, the skill might in fact be side stepping this process in that the game might not actually registering the creation of the spirits, thus not kicking in the "destroy previous incarnation" line of code. i have two pieces of evidence to back this theory up. first, when first testing spirit spamming, i found that anguished spirits dont kill an original pain or themselves, but, when i try to cast another pain from the actual skill "pain," it would not destroy the anguished ones, just the very original summoned through my first cast of "pain." second, boon of creation still registers when anguished drops a spirit, because i believe its wording states "whenever you create a creature" not "whenever a creature is summoned."

so, maybe its just a code error. or, could the devs really have planned this? *start twilight zone theme song*