Aksharack
26-02-2007, 18:46
Summary Index
Intro.
Class Summary
Secondary Profession
Ritualist Only Skill Types
Armor and Weapons
Elite-Free Builds
Capture This! Useful Elites
Introduction
Welcome aspiring Ritualists! This is a guide dedicated to you, the person who has decided to come give the Ritualist profession a whirl. I hope that this guide can help you avoid mistakes and quickly get the hang of the Ritualist profession. I’ll cover everything you need to know, from armor, weapons, secondary classes, to elite free builds and where to grab some of the tastiest elites!
Class Summary
The first thing you as a young Ritualist should know about is what sort of things you are good at. A ritualist has many skills that have very diverse effects, so it can be hard for a beginner to know where to focus. However, there are three major areas where ritualists excel.
Ritualists possess excellent healing abilities that are notable in particular for being energy efficient. Ritualist healing is distinguished from a monk by its excellent ability for dealing with mass pressure caused by hexes, conditions, or other effects. Ritualists have many ways for reducing the effects of conditions, and also for mass part healing through spirits and cheap, spamable direct heals. Unlike a healing monk, a ritualist is very energy efficient at healing, making them ideal for extended battles.
The other great skill of the ritualist is direct damage via the very dangerous Channeling spell line. Channeling Rts are especially good at single target damage with spells and life steals such as nightmare weapon, making a channeler an ideal character for spiking bosses. Channeling also contains AoE spells that can be used to quickly damage groups of monsters.
Finally ritualists can use Spirits and Weapon spells to damage and cause general chaos amongst the enemy, and I do mean chaos. The communing line contains spirits that can interrupt, remove enchantments, knockdown, and skill disabling skills. Not to mention in this same line you can cast spirits that protect your team mates and weapons that cause them to deal more damage or recharge their skills quicker. Its an excellent skill line for those who want to disable the enemy while strengthening their teammates.
The communing line leads us to the ultimate strength of the Ritualist, and that is the ability to do multiple things at once. Unlike other characters, you can easily and effectively combine many different abilities into a single build, and be able to effectively fulfill multiple roles simultaneously.
Secondary Profession
After all that positive talk about the profession, it is time to discuss secondary classes and how they can help a ritualist overcome the weaknesses of the class. I can recommend several secondary professions that are especially helpful for the young Ritualist.
Rt/Mo -- This is an excellent choice for a character who plans to become a dedicated healer. Ritualists suffer from bad hex removal, limited abilities to prevent damage, and resurrection spells with serious drawbacks. A monk secondary can help solve these problems, and is an excellent choice for a restoration specialist.
Rt/Me – This is another good choice of secondary for a Restoration Rt, since this class contains both hex removal and many non-elite energy management options that can be helpful when you do not have energy management elites available yet. It is also a good choice for the farming ritualist, since it contains arcane echo and other skills key to Vengeful Farming.
Rt/R – Although not as useful as the above to secondary professions, for Ritualists who can sail to Tyria is allows for he use of Serpents Quickness. This skill is fantastic for young communing ritualists and can make battling the Afflicted much easier than it might otherwise have been. There are also many spirits available through this profession that can be useful.
Rt/E -- This skill line contains many energy management options that the young Channeler may find invaluable, as well as additional damage spells and wards that can help protect the party.
Other professions can also be very helpful, but in general their uses are more specialized. Rt/N is especially useful for minion summon spells, which synergize well with Ritualist skills. Melee seconday professions is also something that ritualists can also explore through weapon spells and other enchantments.
Ritualist Only Skills Types
The Ritualist class also posses a collection of spell and skill types that are unique when compared to other caster classes.
The first and most important of these are Binding Rituals. These skills summon spirits that, unlike Ranger spirits, help only your party. Many Ritualist skills depend on spirits being within earshot (this would be the inner agro circle that you can see surrounding you on the compass map) to be completely effective. It is best to place spirits just slightly back from the battle to keep them protected, so you can effectively use other skills on your bar.
The second unique ritualist skill is the Item spell. Item spells summon urns that you hold in order to gain a benefit. Item spells cannot be cat on allies, and are strictly for your own use. Many of these skills also give you a benefit when they are dropped. You cannot use more than one item at a time, so it is not advisable to bring many item spells with you. Like spirits, they are often a prerequisite for the effective use of other spells. Unlike the enchantments that are used by other casters, item skills cannot be stripped which makes them very dependable. The only way an Item skill can be lost is if you shadow step using an assassin skill, at which point the item will be automatically dropped.
Finally there is the weapon spell. Weapon spells can be cast on your allies, and much like an item spell they cannot be stripped, nor can they be simultaneously used with another weapon spell. Since you cannot use more that one weapon on someone at once, it is very unusual for a build to contain more than two o these skills. Once against there are some ritualist skills that depend on weapons to gain their full benefits.
You will notice that ritualists have many skills that depend upon each other for their effect. A major attribute of a good ritualist skill bar is synergy between all the spirits, item spells, and weapons to create effective builds that allow for the full use of the many powerful but conditional spells that ritualists possess.
Armor and Weapons
The best all around armor for the Ritualist is the +energy Halcyons. It is perhaps more critical than it is for other classes for a Ritualist to have this + energy, because of the large number of builds that utilize ash pots. These ashes do not have additional energy on them, so you will find the energy boost provided by Halcyons to be very useful. Other armors provide useful defensive benefits, but these are much more specialized and should be reserved for later if you purchase another armor set.
The First thing to say about Ritualists and weapons is that they are not terribly critical to your effectiveness. It is possible to use just about any weapon you want and practically as effective as a ritualist with a perfect weapon set. However a good weapon set can help make your life easier, as I describe below.
The frequent use that Ritualists make of item spells also makes the choice of a good weapon unusually tricky. Item spells provide many benefits but they do not have a natural +energy. Staves as and Focii do, however, which can lead to energy management problems. It is a common mistake while holding a staff to cast an item spell with only 10 energy left, only to watch that energy disappear since it was provided by the staff that you are no longer holding. It is quite possible, when you drop your staff for an item, to end up with an energy deficit as high as –20, which is certainly not what you want.
For this reason I recommend the following weapon sets as ideal for builds that use item spells.
Ideal Weapon Set
A 15 –5 energy sword/axe/spear with a 20% enchantment mod, along with a blue +5 energy foci obtained from the weapon smith in Shinjea Monastery. Also ideal if you could find it would be an inscribable +3 or +5 Ritualist foci from Elona, although weather or not such an item exists I don’t know.
OR
Any sword/axe/spear with either 20% enchant or +30 health along with a shield +30 health and additional mods of your choice.
I consider either of these to be the ideal weapon set for the item using ritualist.
Additionally, you might also want these weapons if you are a communing ritualist
Longbow, +5 energy 20% enchant is also useful for communing, to make your spirits fire at targets outside of aggro range.
A communing staff with 20% enchant and lots of + energy. HCT and HRT are not very useful since most communing skills are not spells.
Restoration and Channeling weapons also have some good applications, but the extensive use of item spells in these skill lines makes these uses very limited indeed.
Elite Free Builds
Here are some suggestions for builds that you can use to safely work your way through Cantha that use no elites. Attribute spreads are not specifically recommended since you will not have all attribute points while you use these builds. Put the most points in the top attribute listed for the build, and the fewest in the lowest attribute listed for the build.
Basic Communing/Protection
Communing
Spawning
Channeling
Pain
Shadowsong
Bloodsong
Brutal Weapon
Union
Boon of Creation
Glyph of Lesser Energy/Serpents Quickness/Feast of Souls
Rez Signet
Basic Primary Healer
Restoration
Channeling
Spawning
Protective was Kaolai
Soothing memories
Mend Body and Soul
Spirit Light
Weapon of Warding
Life
Remove Hex/Ether Signet/ Resilient Weapon
Flesh of my Flesh/Rebirth
Basic Dual Channeling/Healing
Channeling
Restoration
Spawning
Mend Body and Soul
Spirit Rift
Bloodsong
Life
Splinter Weapon/Nightmare Weapon
Essence Strike
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Rez Signet/rez of choice.
Capture This! Useful Elites
Of course, using elite free builds is less than optimal, but when you hit mainland Cantha you will have opportunities to begin growing your skill base through the use of elites. Obviously there are many to choose from, but I will highlight some here that you should especially take note of.
Weapon of Quickening: This is the first elite available to Ritualists for capture, and it’s a good one too. It is useful both for recharging your own skills and for helping others to do so as well. It first becomes available in the Vizunah Square Mission, on The Afflicted Hakaru boss. It’s also available from the afflicted Hakaru again in Pongmei Valley. Don’t pass this one up!
Wanderlust: Another fantastic communing elite available early in the game. Wanderlust knocks opponents every time it hits them. It is a great skill for disabling the enemy, and in this way it protects you’re your party. It especially shines during boss fights, where it can keep an enemy boss completely disabled and unable to do anything. This skill is available in the Tahnakai Temple Explorable area from Quansong Spiritspeak, who is surrounded by powerful elementalist Temple Guardians. It is recommended that party members bring along mass interrupts such as Choking Gas to make this capture as easy as possible.
Spirit Channeling: This is the first elite energy management skill available to Ritualists, and thus it can be a valuable elite. It is especially recommended for Restoration or Channeling specialists, who will benefit greatly from the energy boost. It can first be captures from Cho, Spirit Empath in Shenzu Tunnels
Signet of Spirits: A fantastic energy management elite in the Channeling Line, this is a fantastic choice for channeling specialists who don’t want to be tied down to Spawning Power for energy management. Great for characters who want to explore dual channeling/communing or Channeling/Restoration. It can be captured from Wagg Spiritspeak in Ferndale.
Attuned was Songkai: One of the signature skills of the Ritualist, this elite skill is used in a plethora of builds. It is a fantastic skill both for endurance healing and for constantly dealing damage, and can be of benefit to almost any build. It can be captured from The Skill Eater in Drazach Thicket.
Ritual Lord: Once one of the best skills that a Ritualists could have this elite still has limited use for those who want to reduce the recharge times of their spirits, particularly spirits such as Union that quickly loose life. It is available for capture from Spiritroot Mossbeard in the Eternal Grove explorable area, and also from the Whispering Ritual Lord in Silent Surf.
Vengeful was Khanhei: Finally, this is an elite skill that cannot be passed over. It is at the core of many successful farming builds, as well as a very solid self-defense skill for Restoration specialists. It can be captured from Bazzr Dustwing in Mourning Veil Falls, and also from Delic the Vengeance Seeker in Rhea’s Crater. For the easiest capture interrupts and passive degen skill such as poison and hexes work best since they can kill the boss without activating VwK’s life steals. A melee strong party is not advised when attempting to take out these bosses.
Intro.
Class Summary
Secondary Profession
Ritualist Only Skill Types
Armor and Weapons
Elite-Free Builds
Capture This! Useful Elites
Introduction
Welcome aspiring Ritualists! This is a guide dedicated to you, the person who has decided to come give the Ritualist profession a whirl. I hope that this guide can help you avoid mistakes and quickly get the hang of the Ritualist profession. I’ll cover everything you need to know, from armor, weapons, secondary classes, to elite free builds and where to grab some of the tastiest elites!
Class Summary
The first thing you as a young Ritualist should know about is what sort of things you are good at. A ritualist has many skills that have very diverse effects, so it can be hard for a beginner to know where to focus. However, there are three major areas where ritualists excel.
Ritualists possess excellent healing abilities that are notable in particular for being energy efficient. Ritualist healing is distinguished from a monk by its excellent ability for dealing with mass pressure caused by hexes, conditions, or other effects. Ritualists have many ways for reducing the effects of conditions, and also for mass part healing through spirits and cheap, spamable direct heals. Unlike a healing monk, a ritualist is very energy efficient at healing, making them ideal for extended battles.
The other great skill of the ritualist is direct damage via the very dangerous Channeling spell line. Channeling Rts are especially good at single target damage with spells and life steals such as nightmare weapon, making a channeler an ideal character for spiking bosses. Channeling also contains AoE spells that can be used to quickly damage groups of monsters.
Finally ritualists can use Spirits and Weapon spells to damage and cause general chaos amongst the enemy, and I do mean chaos. The communing line contains spirits that can interrupt, remove enchantments, knockdown, and skill disabling skills. Not to mention in this same line you can cast spirits that protect your team mates and weapons that cause them to deal more damage or recharge their skills quicker. Its an excellent skill line for those who want to disable the enemy while strengthening their teammates.
The communing line leads us to the ultimate strength of the Ritualist, and that is the ability to do multiple things at once. Unlike other characters, you can easily and effectively combine many different abilities into a single build, and be able to effectively fulfill multiple roles simultaneously.
Secondary Profession
After all that positive talk about the profession, it is time to discuss secondary classes and how they can help a ritualist overcome the weaknesses of the class. I can recommend several secondary professions that are especially helpful for the young Ritualist.
Rt/Mo -- This is an excellent choice for a character who plans to become a dedicated healer. Ritualists suffer from bad hex removal, limited abilities to prevent damage, and resurrection spells with serious drawbacks. A monk secondary can help solve these problems, and is an excellent choice for a restoration specialist.
Rt/Me – This is another good choice of secondary for a Restoration Rt, since this class contains both hex removal and many non-elite energy management options that can be helpful when you do not have energy management elites available yet. It is also a good choice for the farming ritualist, since it contains arcane echo and other skills key to Vengeful Farming.
Rt/R – Although not as useful as the above to secondary professions, for Ritualists who can sail to Tyria is allows for he use of Serpents Quickness. This skill is fantastic for young communing ritualists and can make battling the Afflicted much easier than it might otherwise have been. There are also many spirits available through this profession that can be useful.
Rt/E -- This skill line contains many energy management options that the young Channeler may find invaluable, as well as additional damage spells and wards that can help protect the party.
Other professions can also be very helpful, but in general their uses are more specialized. Rt/N is especially useful for minion summon spells, which synergize well with Ritualist skills. Melee seconday professions is also something that ritualists can also explore through weapon spells and other enchantments.
Ritualist Only Skills Types
The Ritualist class also posses a collection of spell and skill types that are unique when compared to other caster classes.
The first and most important of these are Binding Rituals. These skills summon spirits that, unlike Ranger spirits, help only your party. Many Ritualist skills depend on spirits being within earshot (this would be the inner agro circle that you can see surrounding you on the compass map) to be completely effective. It is best to place spirits just slightly back from the battle to keep them protected, so you can effectively use other skills on your bar.
The second unique ritualist skill is the Item spell. Item spells summon urns that you hold in order to gain a benefit. Item spells cannot be cat on allies, and are strictly for your own use. Many of these skills also give you a benefit when they are dropped. You cannot use more than one item at a time, so it is not advisable to bring many item spells with you. Like spirits, they are often a prerequisite for the effective use of other spells. Unlike the enchantments that are used by other casters, item skills cannot be stripped which makes them very dependable. The only way an Item skill can be lost is if you shadow step using an assassin skill, at which point the item will be automatically dropped.
Finally there is the weapon spell. Weapon spells can be cast on your allies, and much like an item spell they cannot be stripped, nor can they be simultaneously used with another weapon spell. Since you cannot use more that one weapon on someone at once, it is very unusual for a build to contain more than two o these skills. Once against there are some ritualist skills that depend on weapons to gain their full benefits.
You will notice that ritualists have many skills that depend upon each other for their effect. A major attribute of a good ritualist skill bar is synergy between all the spirits, item spells, and weapons to create effective builds that allow for the full use of the many powerful but conditional spells that ritualists possess.
Armor and Weapons
The best all around armor for the Ritualist is the +energy Halcyons. It is perhaps more critical than it is for other classes for a Ritualist to have this + energy, because of the large number of builds that utilize ash pots. These ashes do not have additional energy on them, so you will find the energy boost provided by Halcyons to be very useful. Other armors provide useful defensive benefits, but these are much more specialized and should be reserved for later if you purchase another armor set.
The First thing to say about Ritualists and weapons is that they are not terribly critical to your effectiveness. It is possible to use just about any weapon you want and practically as effective as a ritualist with a perfect weapon set. However a good weapon set can help make your life easier, as I describe below.
The frequent use that Ritualists make of item spells also makes the choice of a good weapon unusually tricky. Item spells provide many benefits but they do not have a natural +energy. Staves as and Focii do, however, which can lead to energy management problems. It is a common mistake while holding a staff to cast an item spell with only 10 energy left, only to watch that energy disappear since it was provided by the staff that you are no longer holding. It is quite possible, when you drop your staff for an item, to end up with an energy deficit as high as –20, which is certainly not what you want.
For this reason I recommend the following weapon sets as ideal for builds that use item spells.
Ideal Weapon Set
A 15 –5 energy sword/axe/spear with a 20% enchantment mod, along with a blue +5 energy foci obtained from the weapon smith in Shinjea Monastery. Also ideal if you could find it would be an inscribable +3 or +5 Ritualist foci from Elona, although weather or not such an item exists I don’t know.
OR
Any sword/axe/spear with either 20% enchant or +30 health along with a shield +30 health and additional mods of your choice.
I consider either of these to be the ideal weapon set for the item using ritualist.
Additionally, you might also want these weapons if you are a communing ritualist
Longbow, +5 energy 20% enchant is also useful for communing, to make your spirits fire at targets outside of aggro range.
A communing staff with 20% enchant and lots of + energy. HCT and HRT are not very useful since most communing skills are not spells.
Restoration and Channeling weapons also have some good applications, but the extensive use of item spells in these skill lines makes these uses very limited indeed.
Elite Free Builds
Here are some suggestions for builds that you can use to safely work your way through Cantha that use no elites. Attribute spreads are not specifically recommended since you will not have all attribute points while you use these builds. Put the most points in the top attribute listed for the build, and the fewest in the lowest attribute listed for the build.
Basic Communing/Protection
Communing
Spawning
Channeling
Pain
Shadowsong
Bloodsong
Brutal Weapon
Union
Boon of Creation
Glyph of Lesser Energy/Serpents Quickness/Feast of Souls
Rez Signet
Basic Primary Healer
Restoration
Channeling
Spawning
Protective was Kaolai
Soothing memories
Mend Body and Soul
Spirit Light
Weapon of Warding
Life
Remove Hex/Ether Signet/ Resilient Weapon
Flesh of my Flesh/Rebirth
Basic Dual Channeling/Healing
Channeling
Restoration
Spawning
Mend Body and Soul
Spirit Rift
Bloodsong
Life
Splinter Weapon/Nightmare Weapon
Essence Strike
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Rez Signet/rez of choice.
Capture This! Useful Elites
Of course, using elite free builds is less than optimal, but when you hit mainland Cantha you will have opportunities to begin growing your skill base through the use of elites. Obviously there are many to choose from, but I will highlight some here that you should especially take note of.
Weapon of Quickening: This is the first elite available to Ritualists for capture, and it’s a good one too. It is useful both for recharging your own skills and for helping others to do so as well. It first becomes available in the Vizunah Square Mission, on The Afflicted Hakaru boss. It’s also available from the afflicted Hakaru again in Pongmei Valley. Don’t pass this one up!
Wanderlust: Another fantastic communing elite available early in the game. Wanderlust knocks opponents every time it hits them. It is a great skill for disabling the enemy, and in this way it protects you’re your party. It especially shines during boss fights, where it can keep an enemy boss completely disabled and unable to do anything. This skill is available in the Tahnakai Temple Explorable area from Quansong Spiritspeak, who is surrounded by powerful elementalist Temple Guardians. It is recommended that party members bring along mass interrupts such as Choking Gas to make this capture as easy as possible.
Spirit Channeling: This is the first elite energy management skill available to Ritualists, and thus it can be a valuable elite. It is especially recommended for Restoration or Channeling specialists, who will benefit greatly from the energy boost. It can first be captures from Cho, Spirit Empath in Shenzu Tunnels
Signet of Spirits: A fantastic energy management elite in the Channeling Line, this is a fantastic choice for channeling specialists who don’t want to be tied down to Spawning Power for energy management. Great for characters who want to explore dual channeling/communing or Channeling/Restoration. It can be captured from Wagg Spiritspeak in Ferndale.
Attuned was Songkai: One of the signature skills of the Ritualist, this elite skill is used in a plethora of builds. It is a fantastic skill both for endurance healing and for constantly dealing damage, and can be of benefit to almost any build. It can be captured from The Skill Eater in Drazach Thicket.
Ritual Lord: Once one of the best skills that a Ritualists could have this elite still has limited use for those who want to reduce the recharge times of their spirits, particularly spirits such as Union that quickly loose life. It is available for capture from Spiritroot Mossbeard in the Eternal Grove explorable area, and also from the Whispering Ritual Lord in Silent Surf.
Vengeful was Khanhei: Finally, this is an elite skill that cannot be passed over. It is at the core of many successful farming builds, as well as a very solid self-defense skill for Restoration specialists. It can be captured from Bazzr Dustwing in Mourning Veil Falls, and also from Delic the Vengeance Seeker in Rhea’s Crater. For the easiest capture interrupts and passive degen skill such as poison and hexes work best since they can kill the boss without activating VwK’s life steals. A melee strong party is not advised when attempting to take out these bosses.