View Full Version : Spirit Spam is Back, and It's Better than Ever!!!
tarutaru
23-01-2006, 13:30
okay, looks like spirit spam is indeed back, and i think my buddies and i have got the tombs build down pat. we spent the first day of the event unlocking the ritualist skills, then spent the weekend playtesting and fine-tuning the spirit spam, ritualist style!
NOTE TO ANet: the build is too overpowered to stay un-nerfed. please, don't flame me, i am not patting myself on the back. one of the main reasons we did this was to show how overpowered it is, so that for the official release this does not ruin tombs like the spammers of old did. (however, as a side note, if my logic is correct, anet might actually have intentionally allowed dropped ashes to create more spirits of the same kind. my reasoning behind this is that otherwise those ashes skills that create spirits are just useless. they are in the same category as their counterparts, the actual spirit spell, and otherwise are just there to fill up space...)
well, enough of me rambling, on to the build itself!
7 Ritualist/Elementalist (11+1 Spawning Power, 10+2 Communing, 10+2 Channeling) (the channeling points is in case we decide we don't need one of the nature rituals and decide to add more spike dmg)
Glyph of Renewal [E]
Anguished Was Lingwah
Blood Song/Disenchantment/Displacement/Disonance/Restoration/Shadow Song/Union (each of the seven take a different one)
Boon of Creation
Channeled Strike/Essence Strike/Spirit Burn (two take channel, two essence, three burn)
Spirit Boon Strike
Spirit Siphon
Flesh of My Flesh
1 Ranger/Ritualist (11+1 Wilderness Survival, 10+2 Beast Mastery, 10 Channeling)
Fertile Season
Predatory Season
Frozen Soil
Muddy Terrain
Nature's Renewal
Quickening Zephyr
Winnowing
Res Sig
well then, let's get to the strategy, shall we? okay, immediately have the ranger cast quickening zephyr, then let all the ritualists renew their ashes (lingwah). Let the mayhem begin! Glyphs recharge every 8 seconds now, so before the battle even begins the spirit spammers should have out around 25 or more spirits of pain. Energy is easily managed by using Spirit Siphon. I won't spoil the surprise, but you really get a nice energy boost from your fellow spirit :) ...
next, make sure the ranger is getting all his nature rituals down. they work as follows: fertile season gives the ritualist spirits a NICE health and armor bump, pred season makes the pain's attacks give you health whenever they hit (their attacks count as yours for some silly reason), frozen soil is obvious (and can be killed off if you want to sub-in an ally-spirit kill spell), muddy terrain works like magic if the iways try to run in with their "Sprint!" and take out the pains, nature's renewal is good if ur running against a degen-heavy build, q zephyr is explained above, and finally winnowing also boosts the pain's attack dmg.
now for the battle part. it's pretty funny, if nothing else. whatever enemy happens to get in range of the pains first gets pummled with ~700 dmg in 2 seconds (for by the time the enemy actually decides to charge in we typically had around 40 spirits out). so, our pains always worked in the backround taking out anyone close enough every 2-3 seconds. we constantly kept boon of creation and spirit syphon up to keep energy high, then whenever anyone gets within out radar we spike using our coordinated Channel Strike/Essence Strike/Spirit Burn. that spike also usually takes out anyone in 2-3 seconds flat. lastly, to finish off the build we have Spirit Boon Strike, the uber-spirit skill. Why do we love it so much? Because when 7 people spam it it heals EVERY spirit we have summoned for around 550 health. it's a great nifty way to heal all the spirits that have formed a gigantic wall around us.
and now for the fallbacks. the build does require really well-timed coordination and the team has to know what they're doing. the main destroyer of this build is aoe ele spikers. however, we think we have countered it effectively by relying on one simple fact. In order to aoe the spirit group, the ele's need to get in radar range of them. and the problem is, as soon as this happens, the pains immediately pummel the ele with attacks, and if that doesn't kill him/her, then we as a group have already picked the ele out as a priority target and will spike it to death. also, decent damage aoe spells typically have a long cast time, so in practice they never actually really get the spell to finish casting. the other bothersome nuicance to this build is if the other team has a ritualist with either spirit transfer or consume soul. but, as before with the ele, the enemy needs to get in radar range to do so, either activating the pains or causing us to spike the hell out of him.
anyway, we took tombs easily, winning about 30 some odd battles before two guys had to leave. it was fun, netted the group about a collective 500 fame. hopefully anet will nerf this for the official release, or tombs will become complete chaos once more.
tarutaru
23-01-2006, 15:19
grrr...its not letting me edit the post...
anyway, just caught that i wrote 500 fame...rofl.
i dont even think its possible to get 500 fame after 30 wins...maybe...but anywho its supposed to be 400 fame, not a big deal, but still wanted to correct it...
one question: how could you have 25 pain spirits up if only one spirit of the same kind can be up at time? O.o or is that ash somehow buged?
It's funny to hear you play a build you want nerfed :P
Great job on the post!
charrlover
23-01-2006, 15:49
wow this is a joke isn't it? lol i almost laughed! Funny that you posted that! It was kinda funny and some new players may have believed you! nice one:grin:
tarutaru
23-01-2006, 16:40
rofl who's kidding?
ashes are bugged, they let you put out more than one kind of the same spirit at a time. ie pain. and just ask around, ppl will tell you about a tombs group this weekend having like 50 pains out at a time...who else?
ColdwaveKid
23-01-2006, 16:43
Been telling people this for days but no one believed me. I seen it first to a minor extend in RA, then in tombs I seen a courtyard packed with these things. Noticed alot of pains an a bunch of other ones, I guess spread out enough not to overlap.
I got called an idiot and a noob when I pointed it out though, as people did not test it, just repeated the company line they read I guess.
tarutaru
23-01-2006, 16:50
well, its true, spirit spamming is very possible and very overpowered at this point. but i guess that was the point of the preview weekend. now anet knows the skills that are overpowered, the glitches that need to be fixed before the official release.
oh, and in case i have not made my point clear enough: unless anet fixes this, spirit spamming is back, we did it this weekend, and were almost unbeatable. get it?
Erasculio
23-01-2006, 16:57
ashes are bugged, they let you put out more than one kind of the same spirit at a time. ie pain. and just ask around, ppl will tell you about a tombs group this weekend having like 50 pains out at a time...who else?
I also saw this. I'm not sure whether that's a bug or a feature, but regardless I hope it's removed (and soon), since that's the only way I see to create a small Hell with massive spirit spaw.
(And I thought Glyph of Renewal took 15 seconds to recharge...I don't remember what each of these skills do, but does any of them work on the cooldown of other skills too?)
Erasculio
ChaosJester
23-01-2006, 17:03
I also saw this. I'm not sure whether that's a bug or a feature, but regardless I hope it's removed (and soon), since that's the only way I see to create a small Hell with massive spirit spaw.
(And I thought Glyph of Renewal took 15 seconds to recharge...I don't remember what each of these skills do, but does any of them work on the cooldown of other skills too?)
Erasculio
The second skill that reduces cooldown is Quick Zephyr, a spirit which halves the recharge of ALL skills, but at an additional energy cost of +30% which is enforced on all players.
ColdwaveKid
23-01-2006, 17:06
well, its true, spirit spamming is very possible and very overpowered at this point. but i guess that was the point of the preview weekend. now anet knows the skills that are overpowered, the glitches that need to be fixed before the official release.
oh, and in case i have not made my point clear enough: unless anet fixes this, spirit spamming is back, we did it this weekend, and were almost unbeatable. get it?
Oh I knew it would be back as soon as I seen a few spirits of pain in RA. Made a post like 4 hours into the weekend, and was basically laughed at and said to be overreacting. Pity I could not get people to abuse it with me though too. Would have hit rank 6 if I did a 400 fame run...
How did you do relic runs? or Altar matches? Since those spirits wont walk with you like minions.
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 17:29
Well I think ANet made the ashes on the purpose to be able to spamm that spirits, but surely didn't want them to get abused, as they are really the only one's that would make some effect if you spamm them, as the other spirits just work like normal ranger spirits, they have an area effect, even if on allies only. If you have two of them, they don't give you twice the effect.
However two pain spirits do twice more damage than only one ;)
And yes the spirits have some nice power in them, if I couldt have played only this weekend, I had the same build in mind, with a few differences, but that one is well-done too, nice work taru.
There's only one change they would have to do, to nerf spirit spamming completly:
Feast of Souls
Spell. Destroy all nearby allies' Spirits. For each Spirit destroyed in this way, all party members are healed for 90 Health. (Spawning Power)
Make that spell Destroy ALL nearby Spirits and only heal for allies' Spirits destroyed, you have the perfect anti spirit spammer.
tarutaru
23-01-2006, 17:29
relic runs were a piece of cake, we just massed an army and waited for the other team to get agitated enough. by that point they just ran in to try and get the relic then BOOM bye bye team! Then our ranger just ran over, grabbed their relic, and ran back to us in the time it took the other team to respawn. rinse, wash, repeat.
the alter matches gave us trouble, and those were the tough matches. the only loses we got were on those maps. for some we bided our time and took the alter early while the other teams scquabbled and fought. for others we had to do some fancy tactics, dodging in and out of range, just casting a single spirit, then doing our spike technique.
it was for those alter fights that we really wanted to see if we could sub in some healing spells, it wouldnt take much, we had so many spirits we could spare one or two sacrifices for the team's health boosts.
all-in-all though a romping good time. very abusive, very laggy, but very fun :)
tarutaru
23-01-2006, 17:31
very true too hot fo you, they wouldn't have to nerf the ashes, adjusting feast of souls like u said above would do the trick... *hint, hint* *wink, wink* Anet...
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 17:35
Now there's another major problem: Maps where you have to move, HoH, altar maps, relic runs.
Let's see your potential spirit casting:
Glyph with 8s recharge. So theoretically 1of your can cast a spirit every 8s.
Now with 7ritualists that makes 7/8= 0.875
Your potential casting is 0.875spirits per second.
You would need about 25+ Spirits to kill someone.
So 25 / 0.875 = 28.5714s
Let's round it up to 30s. To be able to kill someone with your spirits, you would generally need 30s to set yourself up. That's just suicide. I think you can see how much people you will loose in 30s. So any map where you have to move, you will generally loose.
You would be really lucky if you win a match in HoH, because if you do so, and you're holding, I don't think there's much that's going to take you off xDD
so if you get to cap the altar by any means, that can be fame farming build No1 ...
*ohhh ... nice dreams* Let's stick to reality, that won't be possible, except if the other teams are just stupid and let you set up your spirits, then gg
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 17:37
Hey taru, could you PM me your IGN name please, I definately would like to play with you some time, I found an internet café, so I would be able to get online this weekend, hopefully :-)
PS: I'm to lazy to go back to your pictures and look for your IGN :P
ColdwaveKid
23-01-2006, 17:52
For alot of alter maps if you rush in first, you may be unopposed. Many people are dead set in the DO NOT MOVE TILL 2 MINUTES. I DO NOT CARE IF YOU WANT TO RUN IN AND TRAP OR USE EOE DO NOT MOVE~!!! With this crazy mindset, odds are you can run in start to spam spirits and what 80 percent of the teams will sit back and go what are they doing.
For relic runs, remember if the other teams cannot take a relic, then you cannot lose. Just set up an army on the relic as was said and you got it made. After 20 minutes or so, even some of the most devote teams will rush in.
Halls may prove a problem, but if anyone remembers the old Warcraft tower rush style of play, it is the same way with spirits. Start a decent distance away from alter, and make a bridge of sorts till you get to it. When you get close enough to do damage there claim that as your ball area.
damm mised spirit spam again :(
the fist time i was lvl 13 in jaks bend and now i didn't try that ash -.- and it was a short time on my: "to unlock" list.
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 18:03
For alot of alter maps if you rush in first, you may be unopposed. Many people are dead set in the DO NOT MOVE TILL 2 MINUTES. I DO NOT CARE IF YOU WANT TO RUN IN AND TRAP OR USE EOE DO NOT MOVE~!!! With this crazy mindset, odds are you can run in start to spam spirits and what 80 percent of the teams will sit back and go what are they doing.
For relic runs, remember if the other teams cannot take a relic, then you cannot lose. Just set up an army on the relic as was said and you got it made. After 20 minutes or so, even some of the most devote teams will rush in.
Halls may prove a problem, but if anyone remembers the old Warcraft tower rush style of play, it is the same way with spirits. Start a decent distance away from alter, and make a bridge of sorts till you get to it. When you get close enough to do damage there claim that as your ball area.
erm yes well whatever. I guess from your post that you never played a relic run over 10minutes. Because when the timer ends, and no team claimed a relic, or both stand even, BOTH teams die.
Just to make sure you know ;)
Could i see any pictures? I really want to see how it look like.
ColdwaveKid
23-01-2006, 18:18
erm yes well whatever. I guess from your post that you never played a relic run over 10minutes. Because when the timer ends, and no team claimed a relic, or both stand even, BOTH teams die.
Just to make sure you know ;)
Actually I am impatient so I make my teams rush and die, allowing the other team to sneak on over to get a relic while we rez ;)
I totally forgot about that both die thing, as I am sure other will too, who hope for sudden death ;)
As the OP said, odds are some will rush and die horridly allowing one to run up and a relic. Figure the team you are fighting will never get a relic and if you do not rush, and camp, they will get closer and closer the spirit till bammage happens.
I've seen screenies... cute.
Possible fixes:
1. You may create 1 spirit of each type by casting & 1 spirit of each type by dropping ashes, & no more. With a max of 2 pain spirits per person, this build is no longer overpowered, but the ashes spell isn't worthless either.
2. Give spirits a slightly smaller attack radius than players. That AoE ele can now nuke the spirits from just out of their range. Teams that fail to bring AoE do so at their own peril.
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 18:57
lol
Well if you count on the other team to be naabs, you will get some funny and great wins. But however, if the other team is not a bunch of naabs and has some clearminded peeps in there, they will just wait for you to make the first mistake.
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 19:04
Ok let me tell you how it works. As I said you make 0.875 spirits per second with 7 ritualists, if your team has 2gale warriors you can just go and gale them all the time, galing one means making him useless for 60s.
Repeat that for all off the spirit casters, so they won't have anyone left. During that time use:
Signet of Creation. Makes them all die after 30s.
So only the newly casted survive, considering that the camper team only has a few one's who can get their spirits off, due to gale (let the warriors hide behind objects of course, as spirits can't move, and use prot spirit on him against the spike)
Or just use seed on the warrior if there are no objects, or shielding hands.
Now what happens, 30s later they only got 5new spirits out, the rest dies. Their team stands there, without spirits, without monks, without fertile.
All you can say there is: gg spirit spammers.
Hotmalenurse
23-01-2006, 19:48
Well, if you mind have found something that needed to be revamped, could you let the developers know? There's only so much you can do here except raise awareness
Too Hot Fo You
23-01-2006, 20:22
sure if you tell me how. I'm not one of these silly players who use /bug to tell the devs the story of their life and how they hate IWAY, so is there another way?
I was standing in the RA staging area and up on the chat pops "This isn't Guild Wars, it's Spirit Wars!"
Well, I wasn't on a spamming Tombs team, but I did figure out I could get a fair amount of "pain" up on my own. Arcane Echo + Lingwah's + Pain.
Pain - Arcane Echo - Lingwah's - Echo/Lingwah's. Three spirits of pain up in about in about 20 seconds. Nothing uber cool, but I liked it. Throw Panful Bond on a foe in a group and it'll do some nice damage.
Did I see where someone said you weren't supposed to be able to have more than one of the same spirit up at a time?
sure if you tell me how. I'm not one of these silly players who use /bug to tell the devs the story of their life and how they hate IWAY, so is there another way?
From what I understand, Anet monitors these fan forums for feedback. So, you could probably consider your entire OP as a /bug report. :wink:
SirBlack
23-01-2006, 22:31
For you viewing pleasure, screenshots from watching this trick in observer mode:
http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/937/gw080painspirits5ac.th.jpg (http://img473.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw080painspirits5ac.jpg)http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/8229/gw081painspirits7xt.th.jpg (http://img473.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw081painspirits7xt.jpg)http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/7617/gw082painspirits8vz.th.jpg (http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw082painspirits8vz.jpg)http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/373/gw083painspirits6yj.th.jpg (http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw083painspirits6yj.jpg)
Notice in the last three pictures, they were able to advance. Rather simple to do so, just create each new spirit in front of the old spirits. Though they eventually lost that game. But it doesn't sound like what I observed was as coordinated as what was described in the OP. These guys let themselves get hit with some aoe nuking and other things. If you look closely you can see a number of the spirits are damaged in the last screenshot.
TBMarauder
23-01-2006, 23:46
From what I understand, Anet monitors these fan forums for feedback. So, you could probably consider your entire OP as a /bug report. :wink:That's correct Dukan, ANet does ... :afro: ... as well as appreciate all feedback, not just from this weekend.
tarutaru
24-01-2006, 00:43
wow so many responses...glad to get the word out...and now to address some of the issues u guys are raising...
too hot yo you, and for anyone else wanting to get together, my ign's are "Illusion of Grandur" and "Wrath of All Angels," and yes, i'd love to get together and romp some tombs :)
btw, we found out that 10 min relic run sudden death kill both teams off-thingy the hard way >.> but we learned to taunt the other team and do a similar style tactic as described above: slowly moving the wall of pains forward...
to whoever discussed the gale knockdown idea for countering this...yes it would sound like it works, except for the fact that the gale'er would have to get in rader range of the ritualists, and you know what that means? Fifty little "-20's" popping up over their heads, along with a nice spirit burn spike to clean up the leftovers. it's not pretty, trust me, people tried their hardest :)
to sirblack, that wasn't us doing the spirit spam in those pics u captured, we only faced one or two different >r100 teams in tombs, and neither of which in that map...yes that team doesn't look anywhere near as coordinated as we were. dunno if any of you caught us on observer mode, might have, we all fashioned our names after my "illusion of grandur" one. i think our names were illusions of grandur, pain, weaknes, haste, life, thought, death, and power. i love coordinating names...so much fun...
well, i've had enough for one day. if anet intends to leave the spirit spamming alone and not nerf it, then yes, you are all welcome to join me in the upcoming months during the next preview event for some mayhem, laughs, and good fun... peace.
SoulsOfEternity
24-01-2006, 01:45
I don't think it'd be to hard to counter it, if someone really wanted to anyhow.
I don't know all the ele spells but if someone was an Ele/A or A/Ele they could just pack Shadow Form run in and AoE till the spirits are right? And even if the Ele/A or A/Ele could only get 20 or 30 spirits that should be enough for the rest of the team to charge in to destroy the spirit spamming team.
Also Union, Shelter, and Displacement could provide enough survivability to someone to nuke the spirits, or even a 55hp monk build, with Union and Prot Spirit that's no damage, right?
Just as well, as I've seen in a few other posts, there are Ritualist skills that destroy opponent's spirits.
Seems like a fun build to play, but a counterable one, just no one really had enough time to make up a counter, plus why would you make a counter for a build that isn't gonna last longer than 3 days? Course the expansion is coming out, but not for a couple months.
Anywho, sounded like it was fun to play with, may have been somewhat tedious though, like trapping :tongue:.
tarutaru
24-01-2006, 02:10
yes, it did take us about 5 hours straight of playtesting and talking over teamspeak to get the build in its final stage as it was posted at the start of the thread. quite tedious, but extremely fun to play and chat with opponents during a match.
it is facing some pretty serious threats, though. first is the one described above, with the aoe elementalist/assassin shadow stepping in to the group or spirits and touch-nuking them. too bad preview event is over for now, cause i would like to test this out and check how long it would take the pains to register the proximity and kill the ele. the second and much more deadly threat i believe is Signet of Creation. especially on an assassin teleporting in the the midst, this signet could spell doom to the build. in fact, all anet would have to do is reduce its casting time to 1/4 second and that would in effect nerf this new spirit spam build. as it stands with the 2 sec cast time a quick thinking group might be able to spike the ri/a in time before the signet finishes.
anyway, even though we can't test anything for the next couple of weeks, I am trying to improve the build. as of now we are seeing if we can replace some skills for some good 'ole ritualist healing for tough spots like halls itself. right now, as it looks very likely anet will fix the ashes bug, i am torn as to how to advance the build. it seems possible to pull it off (spirit spamming that is) even w/o multiple copies, as rit and ranger combined have about 30 spirits, a viable number for a build. or, and this is my personal preference, is to turn this build into a pure ritualist spike build. it would do something along the lines of only using enough different spirits to pull off the channeling spike skills. dunno how capable it would be, god i want the event weekend back!
SoulsOfEternity
24-01-2006, 02:26
I don't know if Anet will get rid of the multiple pains from ashes. Removing that benefit could render some of those ashes quite useless :undecided:.
And I've wanted to see a spirit spike group, seems like it'd be interesting to see, well a spirit spike group without the spirits doing the spiking part, more of the spirits doing the exploding part :wink:.
The only problem I think with a Channeling Ritualist would be the fact that Ritualist lightning damage has no armor penetration. The amount of lightning defense rangers have would render even the hardest hitting lightning spells of the Ritualist useless.
The Ritualist at the moment, is my favourite profession, even if the weekend event is over, I'm still salivating remembering the times I've had with the Ritualist.
I also discovered this this weekend, with the renweal of spirits and all. When i first read the skill i thought it would be just a quick way to get a single pain out... boy was I happy when i could get more than 1 out. I then inserted glyph of renweal into the build and there I was seeing the glory of the build I made. I myself did not get my guild together to try it in tombs... but I did do it in TA. Had a blast with it. I only used 2 spirit spammers though. It wasnt a totally spirit spike build like ur HoH build was. I figured at least some other people would figure out the pain spamming. lol gj on the post. I figured this would be nerfed anyway... but ritualists pain need to be able to put up maybe a limit on spirits so they are not completely usesless....
Sajittarius
24-01-2006, 03:22
unnatural signet ftw...
tarutaru
24-01-2006, 03:50
"unnatural signet"???
i just googled it...am i just ignorant or is it something else 'cause I never heard of the skill before...
is it a new memser skill for gw:f?
Scott the Green
24-01-2006, 05:01
So just drop an Edge of Extinction and wait for some of those spirits to expire.
A spirit is a type of creature, right?
aeonbahamutzero
24-01-2006, 06:37
So just drop an Edge of Extinction and wait for some of those spirits to expire.
A spirit is a type of creature, right?
hmmmm grab a destruction spirit, set it next to enemy spirits. set up EoE, then detonate destruction spirit with rupture soul = massive massive spirit damage.
So just drop an Edge of Extinction and wait for some of those spirits to expire.
A spirit is a type of creature, right?
Do you think Ritualist's spirit and Ranger's spirit are the same? lol So EoE would hurt themselves too?
I just have a question....
If A.Net didn't want Rangers to spam spirits to 'block" things, why did they create a new class that relies on spaming spirits?
Don't get me wrong, I like Ritualist. I just don't understand why Ranger spamming was an issue in the first place. I guess it's an issue when you add Oath Shot in it and now some Rangers are using Oath + spirit. lol Good god.
WhiteZombie
24-01-2006, 08:16
they just need to change it so that pains spawned by ashes will kill all other pains. the skill will still be handy, as im sure it was intended to be a fast way to run in and auto-cast a pain in the midst of the enemy.
Spirit spam is easily encountered by now if someone is looked at skills the weekend, of course you need Rt/A or A/Rt for it.
I will be very happy to destroy a lot of spirits in seconds so the enemy wont get advantage of them :grin:
its a bug, it will be fixed,
and btw you probably got owned by meh on the pvp weekend with my spirit build :cool:
tarutaru
25-01-2006, 12:22
Spirit spam is easily encountered by now if someone is looked at skills the weekend, of course you need Rt/A or A/Rt for it.
I will be very happy to destroy a lot of spirits in seconds so the enemy wont get advantage of them
hehe, you wouldn't be the first to try to get into a group of 40 some odd spirits and destroy them. as an assassin i can only assume that u are going to shadow step into the middle of them and cast one of the three spirit destroying skills, or use a chain dagger combo to take them out. However, those rit skills that destroy spirits at the current moment take too long to cast to be effective: by the time you get close to finishing the spell all the pains will have already hit you (~700 dmg) and if they don't finish you off our ritualist spike (~600 dmg) will.
tarutaru
25-01-2006, 12:44
Don't get me wrong, I like Ritualist. I just don't understand why Ranger spamming was an issue in the first place. I guess it's an issue when you add Oath Shot in it and now some Rangers are using Oath + spirit. lol Good god.
actually, we found oath shot to be quite an ineffective way to quickly recharge the spirits this past weekend. of course, in the spirit spamming days of old, the rangers needed oath so that they could recharge an entire skillbar of spirits, we however only needed to recharge the anguished ashes. so, quickening zephyr + glyph of renewal + anguished was lingwah = a brand-spanking new spirit of pain just under every 10 seconds or so. multiply that by the seven spirit spammers of us out there, and that's how before the match started we had 30 spirits of pain already out on the field. no oath shot needed, which means we don't need a target to hit with oath shot, which means we had an army all ready to go before the battle even began. (*salivating at the thought of doing it again, should anet not fix it*)
Has someone watched out Assasin Skills. Yeah the Spirits of Ritualist need blanced, but i think Assasin Skills got counters too for the Spams.
And further more. I missed the new Skills for the Core Professions in the Event. As I know their should be some nice skills for counter as Balance. But just sugestions.
aeonbahamutzero
25-01-2006, 20:00
Has someone watched out Assasin Skills. Yeah the Spirits of Ritualist need blanced, but i think Assasin Skills got counters too for the Spams.
And further more. I missed the new Skills for the Core Professions in the Event. As I know their should be some nice skills for counter as Balance. But just sugestions.
i dunno... going through the skill list for assassin i didn't see too many counters for Rts and their spirit spams. One random question since a few assassin skills deal with enemies casting spells... are binding rituals considered spells?
Xcutioner
25-01-2006, 21:19
i dunno... going through the skill list for assassin i didn't see too many counters for Rts and their spirit spams. One random question since a few assassin skills deal with enemies casting spells... are binding rituals considered spells?I think someone in my guild said that the rituals ARE affected by expertise, so that would suggest they are NOT spells.
hehe, you wouldn't be the first to try to get into a group of 40 some odd spirits and destroy them. as an assassin i can only assume that u are going to shadow step into the middle of them and cast one of the three spirit destroying skills, or use a chain dagger combo to take them out. However, those rit skills that destroy spirits at the current moment take too long to cast to be effective: by the time you get close to finishing the spell all the pains will have already hit you (~700 dmg) and if they don't finish you off our ritualist spike (~600 dmg) will.
You didn't get my idea.
Spirit Walk with Consume Soul -> fast spirit killing with decent healing from it, so it will be no problem to take out spirits
SoulsOfEternity
26-01-2006, 00:20
Hmm, I've said it before, a spirit ritualist wouldn't be that hard to counter if someone wanted to. Even if there were 100 spirits there it wouldn't matter it's quite simple really, unless you had a Rt/N of some sort.
Get an Ele/A or something like that Shadow Form walk in AoE nuke, ta-da :grin:.
Wouldn't even really need a Ele, could pack a ritualist with two spells, really, to counter this. Shadow Form and Signet of Creation, depending on how wide of an area this affects it could really be the anti-spirit spammer :tongue:.
The Spirit Walk + Consume Soul would work, for a few spirits. If there are 40 or so spirits, you may be able to get one before all the Pains just pulverize you.
I don't think it's really that hard to counter, people just didn't have enough time to think up of counters over the weekend and didn't have a counter in their build. Plus it was only three days, why plan a counter when the Ritualist is gonna go away really soon :tongue:. I do think the ashes will probably change :undecided: I like it the way it is, even thought I don't use it, I just like it because it makes everyone mad because they hafta think.
Is the skill Pain that the Pain Spirits use a spell or an attack? Or something else? Cause if it's a skill then bringing Shadow Form won't even be neccessary, Spellbreaker Obsidian Armor or w/e (I'm not to familiar with the Elementalist spells) all prevent spells from being cast on them, right?
Anywho, Ritualists are so cool!
(Edit part) Forgot to mention the thing with a Rt/N I think Shadow Form and the other means of blocking spells are Enchantments therefore a Rt/N could bring Chiblains I think it's called to remove the enchantment.
tarutaru
26-01-2006, 12:48
You didn't get my idea.
Spirit Walk with Consume Soul -> fast spirit killing with decent healing from it, so it will be no problem to take out spirits
well, not to burst ur bubble, but...
The Spirit Walk + Consume Soul would work, for a few spirits. If there are 40 or so spirits, you may be able to get one before all the Pains just pulverize you.
Exactly, u'd get one spirit dead before the pains will kill you, or we would spike you. Recharge time isn't gonna work well with 40 pains dealing 20 dmg to you at once.
Get an Ele/A or something like that Shadow Form walk in AoE nuke, ta-da .
Wouldn't even really need a Ele, could pack a ritualist with two spells, really, to counter this. Shadow Form and Signet of Creation, depending on how wide of an area this affects it could really be the anti-spirit spammer .
Again, please understand that one of my biggest pet peeves is people who don't read previous postings before posting their thoughts. As I have said numberous times on this thread, I will say it for the last time, AOE nuke does not work, period. Why? All AOE spells that I can think of off the top of my head have long cast times = one dead elementalist, for the above stated reason.
Is the skill Pain that the Pain Spirits use a spell or an attack? Or something else? Cause if it's a skill then bringing Shadow Form won't even be neccessary, Spellbreaker Obsidian Armor or w/e (I'm not to familiar with the Elementalist spells) all prevent spells from being cast on them, right?
The Pain spirit skill "Pain" is an attack skill, like a warrior's or an assassin's. Spellbreaker or Obsidian Armor would not work (Pain's dmg is shadow dmg, i.e., unaffected) Shadow Form would work, especially with Signet of Creation. Oops! Wow, we have accidentally stumbled across the counter to this build!
Okay, so everyone listen up, looks like spirit spamming can effectively be stopped by using a A/Ri using Shadow Form, a Shadow Step Skill, and Signet of Creation...
Nice, a counter to the build has finally been found. But yes, if we sub in a Necro secondary, possiblely even to the ranger, and have them carry Chillblains, we would have a counter to the counter :)
But, until then, congrats! An effective stopper to my build has been discovered!
SoulsOfEternity
27-01-2006, 01:23
That's what I've been saying, Shadow Form + some kinda heavy damage thingy and the spirit spam is effectively nullified. And as I've said before a secondary necro could bring Chiblains to De-enchant the Shadow Form. Shadow Form + Signet of Creation is prolly the best bet, however if a team doesn't want to bring a Ritualist it could be an Ele/A or A/Ele even though you discarded the idea since the AoE takes to long to cast. Doesn't really matter how long it takes to cast if they can't get hurt, right? And plus with the Ele/A idea you cast the spell within the range of the Pains but with Shadow Form won't get hurt, and you don't hafta get close so therefore a Rt/N or R/N would have to run out and cast Chiblains to get the Shadow form off of you, and it wouldn't be to smart to run out if the Ele/A's team was just waiting there.
However since you said the Pains were attacking skills, a stance warrior could slip through them pretty well right? Could alos Barrier/Bond an Ele if the Pain attacks are like an Assassin's or Warrior's attack, stances would also do fairly well against them, like Escape or Bonetti's (Bonetti's prolly wouldn't work so well but you get the idea) and with 75% evade that would reduce the total spike by 3/4ths, in theory.
I think people are making this out to be to much, in my opinion it isn't overpowered but likely all the e-mails Anet is prolly getting about it being 'overpowered' will prolly make em change it, would be cool if it wasn't though :wink:.
Auntie I
27-01-2006, 14:24
<snip>
Okay, so everyone listen up, looks like spirit spamming can effectively be stopped by using a A/Ri using Shadow Form, a Shadow Step Skill, and Signet of Creation...
Nice, a counter to the build has finally been found. But yes, if we sub in a Necro secondary, possiblely even to the ranger, and have them carry Chillblains, we would have a counter to the counter :)
But, until then, congrats! An effective stopper to my build has been discovered!
Uummmm, according to what I'm reading about Signet of Creation, it takes 30 seconds for the "Destroy all Creatures" part to kick in. Isn't this a rather long time to have the Spirits up and potentially killing your team? With the amount of damage described, it seems that while this would work, the delay would definitely hurt.
tarutaru
27-01-2006, 19:00
Uummmm, according to what I'm reading about Signet of Creation, it takes 30 seconds for the "Destroy all Creatures" part to kick in. Isn't this a rather long time to have the Spirits up and potentially killing your team? With the amount of damage described, it seems that while this would work, the delay would definitely hurt.
no, it isn't. all the assassin/ritualist would have to do is cast shadow form, shadow step in, cast the signet, shadow step out. all the other party members could stay as far back as they want. plain and simple.
and, yes, a stance warrior could possibley get to the spirits to try taking them down, but only if there were a monk backing him up. (mark of protection, anyone?). now the only problem is that, should spirit spamming not be nerfed, every team would have to use one or more of their eight slots to incorporate an effective counter to the spam. one could try to fit in a shadow form/signet of creation combo into existing builds, but i do not know how effective it would be.
krytonix
27-01-2006, 22:36
well, not to burst ur bubble, but...
Again, please understand that one of my biggest pet peeves is people who don't read previous postings before posting their thoughts. As I have said numberous times on this thread, I will say it for the last time, AOE nuke does not work, period. Why? All AOE spells that I can think of off the top of my head have long cast times = one dead elementalist, for the above stated reason.
I think you're underestimating the nuke possibility. First of all, there could easily be more than one nuker. Second of all, if the nuker brings Glyph of Concentration, Mantra of Resolve, or something similar they can't be interrupted. And assuming there's a decent protector monk on the team, the nuker(s) will not die within the time it takes to cast Meteor Shower.
tarutaru
27-01-2006, 23:32
I think you're underestimating the nuke possibility. First of all, there could easily be more than one nuker. Second of all, if the nuker brings Glyph of Concentration, Mantra of Resolve, or something similar they can't be interrupted. And assuming there's a decent protector monk on the team, the nuker(s) will not die within the time it takes to cast Meteor Shower.
Listen, i'm the last person to get into an arguement. But, nuking is just not an option. Honestly, when we were running this spirit spam build in tombs, we could care less whether we interupted the guy or not. It's all about speed killing, and massive spike. Glyph of Conc and Mantras just wouldn't work because we are not trying to interrupt. What i was saying above is that the elementalist would die from the 40 pain spikes of 20 dmg each, and the 7 ritualist spikes of 80 dmg each, all within a 2 second timeframe. That's ~1400 dmg in 2 seconds. Unless the monks on the opposing team is carrying Mark of Protection (a rare prot monk elite for tombs, most go for martyr, restore condition, etc.), then that Ele is dead on arrival. Otherwise, I sincerely doubt a single prot monk can handle that dmg load on an elementalist in tombs.
Also, what would happen if one of the defending team also carried signet of creation, I believe someone posted that it is 30 seconds from the time the last one is cast. The ritualist on their team would only have to keep casting it when it recharges to keep the spirits alive.
I could be mistaken mind.
SoulsOfEternity
28-01-2006, 00:18
Nuking isn't entirely out of the equation, just as well as someone could bring Shadow Form and Signet of Creation so could someone bring Shadow Form alone with nukes.
This would mean in a group you wouldn't neccessarily have to have a specific person geared to anti-spirit spamming totally. You could have an elementalist that could double as the anti-spirit spammer and as something else.
Two AoE nukes would probably destroy the level 11 Pain spirits, and the ele has many more than just two.
If a stance warrior could get in, maybe even without a Mark of Protection enchant on, all they would have to do is bring Signet of Creation. If they had like life bond or Guardian on, maybe even Aegis along with a stance, those pains would have trouble hitting them and they could run into the Spirit area and use Signet of Creation.
However a simple counter would probably to have each Ritualist bring one of the other spirits, like the interupt one blind one etc.
tarutaru
28-01-2006, 00:46
However a simple counter would probably to have each Ritualist bring one of the other spirits, like the interupt one blind one etc.
Exactly my team's thinking when we created the build, hence i quote myself from the start of this thread, describing the build:
Blood Song/Disenchantment/Displacement/Disonance/Restoration/Shadow Song/Union (each of the seven take a different one)
oh, and btw, the Pain attack skill "Pain" deals shadow damage, so not all dmg-reduction spells work against it.
and, should we get another preview event sometime soon, I do plan on changing the R/Ri to a R/N. S/he would carry one less spirit and no rez (in our 30 some odd battles the ranger never had to rez once), and instead take two necro skills: Chilblains (for removing Shadow Form) and Lingering Curse (general enchant removal / heal debuffer). I think the build would work much smoother having enchant remover.
So, with that in mind, anyone else wanna take a stab at the next counter to this build?
aeonbahamutzero
28-01-2006, 01:27
and, should we get another preview event sometime soon, I do plan on changing the R/Ri to a R/N. S/he would carry one less spirit and no rez (in our 30 some odd battles the ranger never had to rez once), and instead take two necro skills: Chilblains (for removing Shadow Form) and Lingering Curse (general enchant removal / heal debuffer). I think the build would work much smoother having enchant remover.
why not take rend enchantments instead of chilabains? especially if they start stacking cover enchantments on top of shadow form. plus isn't chilblains kinda energy intensive for the removal of enchantments?
SoulsOfEternity
28-01-2006, 01:32
Ooh I'll take another stab :wink:.
Lemme think, should it be like a build that doesn't have to only be an anti-spirit spammer?
Well I think it's better to think that way so here goes.
One stance, Guardian, Tranquil Was Tanasen, Signet of Creation.
Would be quite limiting in skills I guess, you'd only have 4 skill slots left with a rez of some sort. The Guardian would be from a prot monk which is very handy in a PvP group.
You would need to put a few attribute points into rstoration just to get Tranquil Was Tanasen up to a point where you can cast it run in and cast Signet of Creation. Put up your stance run in, hopefully the monk knows to cast Guardian on you as well, and a lil Aegis if he or she brought that, once you get close to the spirits (hopefully Tranquil Was Tanasen is still on) cast Signet of Creation, then start running, since likely the stance is almost up and Guardian is more than gone, but I think the recharge on Guardian and Aegis would be able to keep a constant buff.
Should work somewhat well, you don't have any knockdown spirits either so no knockdown :grin:.
Aeon, rend enchantments wouldn't work, with Shadow Form you can't be a target, like you can't be targeted. So with Chilblains you'd have to target one of their allies and activate it when the person gets close. Which is why I think a Shadow Form Ele would be the most efficient thing against a spirit spam build. With Chiblains you would have to run out get next to the Ele choose one of the other allies of the Ele and then cast Chilblains. And unless you have some decent healing on you the other team is likely going to jump you :tongue:. "Ritualist is out kill!!!!"
So, think it'll work? :wink:
IMO, I think people are OVERestimating Signet of Creations abilities. It lasts for 30 seconds with a recharge of 10 seconds. Like some previous poster said, couldn't the Spirit Spammers pack it just to renew it on the Spirits to counter this counter? :huh: Unless when you cast it it will kill all affected creatures no matter what, even if you recast. If anyone knows specifics about that could you please post? or give me a site that will tell me.
A fire ele using meteor shower with Glyph of Sacrafice (casts instantly) runs in just long enough to drop the shower, then runs out. Dunno how fast the spirits are but a prot spirit/rof/divine intervention might help here.
Don't know if this would work, tbh I am quite ignorant as to how much dmg shower does, how much health spirits have, and how much you can heal spirits.
tarutaru
28-01-2006, 12:36
very nice work...i'm dully impressed. if only people were this abundant with ideas for counters in the days of the old spirit spammers...
anyway, I think you all have done a good job at coming up with the counter for this build...Congrats!
it's been fun, a very cool wild ride, i'm not gonna be checking back in this thread anymore, becuase I think any good points have already been stated and beaten to death. If Anet decides not to nerf spirit spam (as it shouldn't considering you all have done a great job at coming up with counters for it) then I will still play spirit spam in tombs until enough teams guard against it for it to not be a formidable build anymore. Ah, but that's the way it goes in metagame, isn't it?
I invite anyone to join me then, we might get pwned every time by a Shadow Form/Signet of Creation A/Ri or a Glyph of Sac/Meteor Shower Ele, but we will still get some good laughs out of the 40 or more Pains on the field :)
So, cya later. Right now i'm gonna bide my time thinking up a more suitable ritualist build, or hell maybe even an assassins! Peace out...
(P.S. Signet of Creations don't renew eachother: no matter what after that first cast's 30 seconds are up the spirits and creatures in the area go bye-bye)
TBMarauder
28-01-2006, 12:59
Well, just in case you do check back here tarutaru, I'll repeat what I posted in the other 'spirit-related' thread:
The Spirit of Pain created from the first 'Anguished Was Lingwah' now dies when you drop the second one.
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