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Where a ranger lives as one with the spirit world, a ritualist can and will be its master. Ritualists shield their eyes to better commune with spirits that grant great power and protection.
Ritualists channel other-worldly energies from the Mists and commune with spirits through mystic Binding Rituals, bending them to aid their allies or punish their foes. The energy channeled from the Mists powers ritualist skills, enhancing the deadliness of an ally’s weapon and wreaking havoc on an enemy’s health. The ritualist can also use the remains of the dead to defend the living, not by reanimating corpses as a necromancer would, but through the ritual use of urns and ashes.
Attributes
Spawning Power(Primary)
For each rank of Spawning Power, summoned or animated creatures gain 4% more Health. Spawning Power also makes many Ritualist skills related to spirit creatures more effective.
Channeling Magic
No inherent effect. Many Ritualist skills, especially those related to lightning damage and energy, become more effective with higher Channeling Magic.
Communing
No inherent effect. Many Ritualist skills, especially those related to summoning spirits, become more effective with higher Communing.
Restoration Magic
No inherent effect. Many Ritualist skills, especially those related to healing, life stealing and defense, become more effective with higher Restoration Magic.
Common usage
Restoration
Restoration magic is the healing branch of Ritualist skills. They can be as powerful, or more, than its Monk counterparts, but they’re rarely as simple to use, since its effectiveness often changes depending on conditional factors such as the presence of Spirits nearby, whether you’re holding an item or not and if the spell target is affected by a weapon spell. Nevertheless, a good Restoration ritualist can keep a party alive with remarkable competence.
Channeling
Channeling skills are the most damage-oriented tools available to a Ritualist. Rivaling in raw firepower some of the biggest guns Elementalists have to show, Channeling spells such as Spirit Rift can obliterate enemies quite quickly. However, as most skills of this class, they are not straightforward and often have a catch to use, such as the 3-second delay in Spirit Rift or dealing increased damage if certain conditions are met. The ability to summon damage-dealing spirits and to support the party through weapon spells such as Splinter Weapon further increases the usefulness of Channeling skills.
Spirit wrangler/herder
A Ritualist manager of offensive spirits that uses channeling skills like Painful Bond to increase damage to foes done by spirits , Spirit Boon Strike to damage foes while healing the spirits, and Signet of Spirits or Offering of Spirit to gain energy when spirits are within earshot when Boon of Creation is not enough as energy management. Spirits like Bloodsong, Pain, Anguish, Dissonance, and Shadowsong are seen often. Wanderlust is usually a favorite elite spirit to use along with Earthbind to cause knock downs and Dissonance to interrupt foes while they aren’t knocked down.
Spirit spammer
A ritualist which focuses on summoning spirits as often as possible with skills like Ritual Lord, Weapon of Quickening, and sometimes with the ranger stance Serpent’s Quickness to reduce recharge times of binding rituals and an energy management skill, Boon of Creation. They can either be offensive or defensive spirit spammers.
The offensive variety is like the spirit wrangler but spams attack spirits and uses skills such as Rupture Soul to damage foes before summoning the destroyed spirit, Explosive Growth to damage foes, and Doom to damage foes along with spirits.
The defensive variety uses protective spirits such as Shelter and Union in that order and healing spirits like Life, Recovery, Recuperation. Spirit to Flesh and Spirit’s Gift are used to provide additional healing. Skills such as Signet of Binding and Signet of Creation provide prolong life to a spirit for a limited time to keep spirits alive enough to summon replacements.
Note:Before the Soul Reaping nerf, they were used as a battery to provide energy to necromancers.
Minion bomber
Minion Bombers are a quite unique breed of Ritualists. Relying heavily on Necromancer skills such as Death Nova and Animate Bone Minions, the goal of a Minion Bomber is to create a quick army of disposable creatures and explode them on his enemies. Ritualist/Necromancer characters are well suited for this task, thanks to skills like Explosive Growth and Signet of Creation. While a Necromancer can use more or less the same tactics, Ritualists do it with far greater style.
Secondary professions
Warrior
Defensive stances from the Tactics line combined with defensive Item Spells can offer protection against foes. Shouts such as “Shields Up!” or “Watch Yourself!” can provide defensive benefits to most of your party. The elite skill Spirit’s Strength can be used for a large damage boost combined with a melee weapon and warrior Attack Skills to function like a warrior.
Ranger
The Ritualist’s Spawning Power can be used to reinforce nature spirits with additional health.
Serpent’s Quickness or Quickening Zephyr can reduce the lengthy recharge times on Spirits in place of Ritual Lord to use another elite. Ranger traps can be used to protect vital spirits or allies.
Weapon spells like Splinter Weapon and certain Bow Attacks like Dual Shot or Barrage can provide spiking potential.
Many running skills like Storm’s Embrace, Natural Stride, and Storm Chaser can be used.
Monk
Monk skills can provide additional condition removal and give the ritualist hex removal. Skills such as Martyr or Draw Conditions can be used with Resilient Was Xiko and Resilient Weapon to put conditions on a single person best able to handle them.
Attuned Was Songkai can be used to spam Heal Party or high costing Protection Prayers spells.
Smiting Prayers skills like Zealot’s Fire can be used with spammable weapon spells like Vengeful Weapon to help the ally and punish melee foes who are harassing spell casters or melee characters who are taking damage.
Necromancer
Spawning Power can provide more health to minions at the cost of lower level minions. Spawning Power skills can make great use of minion creation skills to add damage and energy management when summoning minions in a large group and the use of skills like Death Nova to damage foes when minions fall in battle(also with the help of Dark Bond to redirects damage dealt to you to one of your minions) which is common in Minion Bomber builds.
Attuned Was Songkai and Awaken the Blood(+2 to Blood & Curses) could be used to spam Life stealing spells in Blood Magic line or spam curses.
Mesmer
Ritualists can make use of mantras to gain armor against elemental attacks and gain whenever hit by elemental attacks. Mantra of Resolve is used to protect against interrupts which is useful when summoning spirit. Arcane Echo is used to increase the damage potential of channeling magic builds and enable ritualists to farm with Vengeful Was Khanhei effectively.
They can also make use of stances like Physical or Elemental Resistance and an addition of hex removal. Also, mesmer interrupts make a nice addition to the three ritualist interrupts.
The Mesmer skill Signet of Midnight can be to blind the user and the foe while taking advantage of Resilient Weapon and Resilient Was Xiko.
Elementalist
Air Magic skills can be used to inflict damage with armor penetration or conditions like weakness from Enervating Charge or Glimmering Mark which can be combined with the Channeling Magic lightning spells for an effective blinding ritualist. Many glyphs can be used to reduce recharge time and energy cost on spells in the ritualist’s lineup or to help spread item and weapon spells. Note that binding rituals are unaffected.
Several knock down skills from the Earth Magic line can benefit greatly from Earthbind spirit.
Ward spells can help protect the party in addtion to a defensive spirit like Union to stay alive longer. Ward Against Foes can be used to slow down melee foes that are aiming to destroy the spirit. Note that wards do not affect spirits.
Assassin
Assassin skills from the Shadow Arts line is used primarily for mobility purposes to evade and escape from attacks with Dark Escape, Death’s Retreat, and Return allows to shadowstep to a safer location or for defensive purposes with skills like Feigned Neutrality and Shroud of Distress. Note that shadowstepping will cause a bundle item like an urn and ashes to drop which can be used as an advantage depending on the bundle being held.
Spirit Walk allows efficient travel between spirits to use skills that require the ritualist to “touch” their spirits to work or to just escape to spirit that may not be near the foe. Swap allows the ritualist to switch places with a spirit like Destruction, Shadowsong, or a minion while escaping from the foe.
Spirit spammers can make use of Assassin’s Promise to increase mobility by recharging slow recharging spirits with energy return provided that the hexed foe is killed in time.
Spirit’s Strength can be combined with daggers and dagger attack skills for a large damage boost to function more like an assassin than a ritualist.
Paragon
Vocal was Sogolon can be used to make all shouts and chants last longer. There are many good candidates within the Motivation line that will give healing and energy to the party. Signet of Synergy could be used as a substitute Ghostmirror Light as Ritualists usually do not utilize enchantments.
The command skill “Stand Your Ground!” can be used to provide armor for nonmoving allies, mainly spell casters. “Help Me!” could be used to make other allies’ Spells targeting you cast 50% faster last longer just in case you’re being targeted.
The leadership skill Hexbreaker Aria can be used as an unlinked conditional hex removal.
Dervish
Ritualists can make use of skills from the Wind Prayers attribute like Featherfoot Grace to move and remove conditions quicker. Earth Prayers such as Veil of Thorns can be used to cripple the attacking foe and escape.
Spirit’s Strength can be combined with a Scythe and Scythe attack skills for a large damage boost to function more like a melee fighter than a ritualist.