View Full Version : Ritualist Spike build idea
For 8v8...the ritualist has some great channeling skills for spiking. And their ability to use communing/restoration to add to the defense makes them a good choice for a Spike build it seems.
The spike: Channeled Strike->Spirit Burn does 138+88 damageat 16 channeling. That's every bit as good as Orb->Strike, and both of the ritualist spells don't need line-of-sight.
Ritualists can use a mesmer secondary for Mantra of Resolve, but still bring some decent healing/protection by using their own skill lines.
I heard of others using rit spike during the Factions FPE, but I didn't PvP much then...so this may not be original. But I haven't found a rit spike posted anywhere, so here's my idea on how to do it.
This is totally untested.
3 monks (or rit healers maybe?)
5 x Rit/Mes
Channeling:11+4
Spawning:9+1
Rest/Commun:8+1
Inspiration:7
Attuned was Songkai (great energy management)
Channeled Strike (130 dmg)
Spirit Burn (83 dmg)
Mantra of Resolve
Rez Sig
Drain Enchant/inspired hex?? /other defense skill
***Spirit Light
***Mend Body and Soul
The last 2 skills should be defensive skills and spirits. Some spikers will bring binding rituals, others restoration healing. Here are some skills worth bringing:
2 x Spirit light, Mend Body and Soul (from restoration)
Union, Shadowsong, Shelter (communing)
This way you have 5 spikers capable of delivering an un-interruptible spike of 650+415 damage. That's plenty of damage to overcome Infuse Health, Reversal of Fortune, etc. And for defense you have 3 monks plus each spiker can provide some decent assistance there.
Attuned was Songkai works nicely with restoration skills, but it isn't as useful with the defensive binding rituals (they don't cost much and recharge slow). So on a spiker/communer maybe there needs to be a change...
First, you want 16 channeling.
Second, use the channeling energy maintenace skills. Maybe even Signet of Spirits. You need NO spawning power. Attuned isn't good unless your casting ALOT. Probably don't need elite energy skill on here.
Third, Healing on spikers will never work unless you have really good players.
Fourth, the Rt res would work well here.
Fifth, this works better in a balanced spike team, because you can use the communing spirits to support the team.
Sixth, if you really want to make a deadly spike, try that spirit rift skill. Try to make it go off at the same time as your channeled strike hits.
These channeling Rt could make balaced spikes VERY dangerous.
But of course a Ritual Lord completely shuts down any spike team. If either Shelter or Union is up during a spike it won't go through against a good infuser, or STer.
-Fal
Yep, Ritualist spikes will be nasty alright.
Some great points Falrow...I'll have to look at the communing energy elites. Heres some responses:
FIRST:
I went with 15 channeling instead of 16 so that I could get inspiration up to 7. Mantra of Resolve is VERY nice on a spike team. One good Cry of Frustration mesmer shuts down an entire Necro spike team. The difference in damage is pretty minimal. (8+5 per spiker=40+25dmg difference from 15-16) I think it's a good tradeoff. Lose 40-65 damage per spike for protection from interruption.
SECOND:
I picked Attuned was Songkai for 2 reasons: it allows you to spam heal spells in between spikes, and it gives you something to hold for Channeled strike. But I haven't looked that hard at all the rit skills yet...there may be better energy elites out there.
THIRD
As I see it, there are 2 reasons to go with a spike team. The first is to overcome a monks ability to heal (unless they have fast reflexes). Second is to free up your spikers to bring more defense to the team. Necro spike does this very well. Rainbow spike also. You spike once every 12 seconds, and play defense in between. Your target caller needs to focus mostly on offense, but the other 4 spikers can easily heal in between spikes.
FOURTH: agreed
FIFTH: yeah, this might work best in a rainbow spike...good idea
SIXTH:
Spirit Rift does great damage...but you can see it coming, and unless someone stays put for 3-4 seconds, you won't be able to reliably spike with it. Good for general damage (and PvE), but I don't think it'll be good for spikes.
You're right that Shelter/Union will be good prot tools, but I don't think that's any reason to give up on spike builds. This spike will still kill through Union. Shelter will stop it...but one spike will kill the shelter. Unless they can put it up as fast as you can spike (every 12 sec or so) you can beat Shelter.
---------
Your fifth point may be the most important...I think Ritualists like this may end up being like Warders in PvP. They can easily play defense, then participate in a called spike.
I think clamor of souls (I have no idea how big the area is though), cruel was Daoshen... would be good skills for spiking
Assassins with Dark escape or teleporting skills can allow easy approach too I think...
Just my thoughts so far... I have no real experience in 8 v 8 thus far...
My third point was about having heals on offensive players. Trust me, I've tried this, with players that arn't bad, and it gets ugly quick. Either people forget to heal or forget to spike. Blood Spike is successfull only when you play alot with good players the same build for a while. The Zaishen do good cause they play it for months every night. I know some people in the guild, and have played with them before.
Spikes are a great way of getting around monks, but you have to remember thats the point of them, to avoid the monks and prevent then from healing the damage your doing.
And trust me, union will remove enoght damage even from Blood spike to make it not that great. Oh and ritual lord recharges spirits, thus is able to put them back up in around 15 to 18 seconds, and can put them far away from the front. But the meta game will show how well spike will work, I think it's going to run into alot of trouble in factions, but thats just me.
And as for spirit rift, we have to test to see how well it'll work. If the person moves out it doesn't reduce the damage of the rest of the spike any, and if they don't cause their a warrior focused on a target, the spike is just that much more. You use the skill to suplement a rainbow spike, not just spike with it alone.
The Rt seems like a very flexible class, which has massive advantages in competative GW.
-Fal
MaximumSquid
17-04-2006, 13:18
Spirit burn is amazing, but channle strike has too long of a cooldown.
If your whole team is doing this 12 seconds is too long to wait between spikes.
Now if you did something like Iron Mist > to > Spirit RIft > to > Dropping Cruel was Daoshen on a mass scale then I think you'd have a free kill.
Here's an interesting setup:
6 earth magic
12 communing
15 channleing
7 spawning
Cruel was Daoshen
Spirit Rift
Iron Mist
Spirit Burn
Spirit Siphon
Guided Weapon
Glyph of Renewal
Restoration
10 second iron mist / 10 second guided weapon for your buddy with an electric weapon
Hit Spirit Rift after iron mist. . . walk up and do spirit burn while dropping the "Depth Charge"
Your target is not going to be feeling happy =/
Unfortunately, unlike most other spike builds, Channeling skills that deal lightning damage don't have armour penetration/ignore armour, thus are not powerful enough to be able to face the majority of teams out there in a spike.
If you come up against a ranger spike, for instance, all your lightning damage will be halved. Even a good team who anticipates what you're gonna do can drop a Fertile Seasons and the +24 armour and extra health will totally ruin your spike.
I'm kinda irritated actually, because I have thus not really looked at these Channeling skills because they all lack amour penetration. I don't think it's that overpowered to implement it, do you?
That iron mist idea is really good with spirit rift...
As for the things Shamed said, all that applies to other spike teams too. For the armor penetration problem, the channeling skills have have higher initial damage, but the penetration is a large advantage.
Still, with iron mist + rift + Channeled strike, your doing 122 + 138 = 260 damage all at one time from only one guy. With a 88 dmg after spike, 1 second cast.
If you ask me thats a really nasty spike, you just have to make the rest of your team spike with lighting damage, which will be tricky.
Maybe it can be done without iron mist? Probably makes it less consitant. Also iron mist has a 30 second recast.
-Fal
Artemis Shadowhawk
19-04-2006, 20:08
The spawning tactics thread had several good non-lightning spikes just recently posted. I also think that they are more creative than a channeling specific build.
[QUOTE=shamed]Unfortunately, unlike most other spike builds, Channeling skills that deal lightning damage don't have armour penetration/ignore armour, thus are not powerful enough to be able to face the majority of teams out there in a spike.
If you come up against a ranger spike, for instance, all your lightning damage will be halved. Even a good team who anticipates what you're gonna do can drop a Fertile Seasons and the +24 armour and extra health will totally ruin your spike.
/QUOTE]
Actually, I think the channeling damage stacks up fine vs air ele spells. For example lets look at damage done by Lightning Orb/Lightning Strike vs Channeled Strike/Spirit Burn
Armor 60:
Orb/Strike: 140/70
Chan Strike/Burn: 138/88
Armor 100:
Orb/Strike: 83/42
Chan Strike/Burn: 69/44
About a 10-15 point difference in damage...nothing too drastic.
Now channeled strike needs you to be holding an item, and Spirit Burn needs a spirit in the area...but on the other hand Orb needs line of sight and can be dodged. A ritualist also has some excellent team support lines that could make it a valuable part of a rainbow spike.
You're right that a ritualist spike will have a very hard time killing rangers...at least until the monks are down. But I don't think that the lack of armor penetration makes channeling useless. A full team of rits may be a bad choice, but a ritualist can definately contribute to a spike.
Agreed that a pure Rt spike team would have a hard time being flexable, but with a Rt/A, you can use spirit walk + consume soul to keep those pesky anti-spike spirits on the ground, making spiking posible.
Any spike team that doesn't have a good way to kill shelter and union from a Ritual Lord will have a thought time.
-Fal
Actually for starters I think spiking with lightning damage will no longer be a viable strategy after Factions is released, the reason for this being that there have been quite a lot of anti-spike and anti-caster skills released...especially the monk has been beefed considerably to counter (air) spike builds...not to mention air ele spikers have really gained almost nothing to their weapons arsenal. Any competitive spiking builds you'll see are probably going to be Necro spikers since they have gained CONSIDERABLE boosts in this department and are overall far more versatile.
That being said I played a Ritualist channel spiker using the Spirit Rift, Channel Strike, Burn combination (and some other skills)for most of the Factions preview event to see what it was like and while I did enjoy the experience (most of the time) I very much doubt this will be able to survive in any competitive level.
Apart from not needing line of sight and the cool animations, I found little advantage in playing him over my also recently made Air Spiker. The recharge times are generally higher and while the channeling items do have their uses they really require close contact which is not where you want to be especially against an assassin since ritualists do not have any equivalent to Blinding Flash available or something else to drastically disable their damage capabilities.
That's not to say there aren't any competitive channeling builds possible, I've already posted some ideas in the Spawning thread but they are going to require a lot of skill and creative thinking to work...if you just plan on simply blasting spells from a distance with little other thinking involved, the Air (or earth which did get a considerable boost) elementalist IS and will probably remain better.
I think Ritualists have the potential to become "the" spiking profession. Or at least as a secondary profession.
My idea for a Channeling Ritualists spike:
Situation: GvG. Both sides have run into the middle, with the flag in-between them, and are waiting to see who'll make the first move.
Idea: The Channeling Ritualists (Number of them, I don't know. 4? 8?) cast Cruel Was Daoshen and run into the other side.
All of the Ritualists cast Channeled Strike on any enemy monk in casting range (or anyone carrying the enemy flag), spreading it between them (e.g. 2 monks get 2 Channeled Strikes each).
...and then the Channeling Ritualists drop their ashes.
All the Channeling Ritualists then cast Clamor of Souls{elite}.
Then, all the Channeling Ritualists cast Ancestor's Rage on themselves (for the Warriors who'll probably still be alive and attacking the Ritualists).
Any good? :undecided:
Definitly scary.
probably hard to make massive damage spike skills like that work, and clamor of souls is REALLY bad, because one person only does the damage once to someone around them.
Scary for a starting change tho, but a good prot spirit or two would wreck you.
-Fal
PS: Spiking in Factions isn't a problem with the Rt, it's a problem for ALL spike builds, thus not applying to the discussion.
and clamor of souls is REALLY bad, because one person only does the damage once to someone around them.
As far as I'm concerned, say 5 Ritualists are all nearby to each other... and they all cast Clamor of Souls at the same time. That's 5 x (5 x 94 damage), which is 2350 total damage to 5 or more foes around them (Assuming the Ritualists all have about 15-16 Channeling Magic)! That's about the equivalent health points of 4 and a half people!
But worth an elite slot?
And the problems of pulling off a touch range spike is not simple. After the first one it's basicly usless against anyone thats organised.
Other elites like expel hexes, or others, are really great compared to it.
-Fal
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