Guild Wars 2

Concept Profession: Spiritualist

Introduction:
Since the waters surged, and the drowned city of Orr rose from the depths, Canthan Ritualists have been evolving. The Ritualist, finding themselves cut off from their ghostly ancestors by some unknown force, have evolved, learning to harness their own spirits in battle. The Ritualist has become the Spiritualist, and the Spiritualist rushes into battle with their soul tied to their Soul Orbs.

Profession symbol (inspiration)
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/amravinhome/digital%20thoughts/Picture13.png
Once garbed in light clothes for easy of movement, the now heavily built ritualist relies on armor to protect his soul-deficient body.

Mechanics:
Soul Orbs:
• Health receptacles that spin around the spiritualist, containing 10% of their total health.
• A Spiritualist may have a maximum of 4 Soul orbs at any one time.
• The mainhand weapon defines the type but not number of soul orb that is summoned
• When a Spiritualist is hit to 0 health, They are teleported away and a soul orb is destroyed
• The soul orb provides them with 10% health.

Soul Orb types:
The f1-f3 skills are soul orb mechanics.
F1 summons a orb
F2 activates the innate effect
F3 destroys the last-cast orb

Soul orb inspiration:
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IWuqqwJ7xIc/0.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IHHF1ke5I00/0.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ygpzcGlFOjU/0.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yrI_qKDSCww/0.jpg

The Spiritualist can have a maximum of 4. A trait will activate the aggressive effect (in parentheses).
• Mace – Bai : The Defensive Orb. Pulses, (knocking back enemies and) provides Protection
• Sceptre- Chi : The Offensive Orb. Pulses, (causing bleeding and) providing Might
• Staff-Qing: The Supportive Orb. Pulses, (causing poison and) providing Regeneration
• Dagger-Shen: The Speed Orb. Pulses, (causing cripple and) providing Swiftness
These have no cool downs out of combat, and will remain passive until activated or the Spiritualist enters into combat

Possible combinations:
- 4 orbs that grant ability x (1 weapon)
- 2 orbs that grant ability x, 2 that grant ability y (2 weapons)
- 1 orb that grants ability x, 3 that grant ability y (2 weapons)
- 3 orbs that grant ability x, 1 that grant ability y (2 weapons)
- 4 orbs that grant ability y (1 weapon)
You would have to choose between those 4 weapons and their respective boosts, and decide upon which 2 you like more, or you can simply stick with 1.

Rituals:
Weapon skills 2 and 5 are both rituals, long channel skills. Skill 2 will require max 2 Orbs, and skill 5 will require max 4 orbs to be fully charged. The more orbs the spiritualist has, the stronger the ritual will be. Rituals do not require a sacrifice of orbs.

Dolls:
Environmental weapons that allow for the casting of curses or blessings. Curses punish enemies for making choices, blessings reward players for the same. Eg:
see further in the thread for examples
Doll types
Greater Dolls are specific to target. Lesser dolls are not specific (AoE). Greater Dolls will not work on any target they were not specifically summoned for. That being said, Greater dolls are much stronger.

Grave Markers:
Place a grave marker upon the ground, and have a small AoE effect. The spirit of the dead aids you. Think reverse banners.
Eg: Baoyi the wise- reduce cooldowns by 10%
Minghei the blind- forces opponents out of stealth for 1 sec every 3 sec

Curse Markers:
Create a cursed object, and dangle it from a tree, watch as your enemies whiten and flee
Eg: Gaomei’s last breath: immobilise all foes within range
Kakai the white snake: Create a line in the sand. enemies who cross are plagued by the demon Kakai, and will suffer poisonous ague

Death masks:
Utility skills that copy the skills of an opposing profession. Each will copy a certain type of skill, such as a damage, control or support mask.

Weapons:
Example Weapons
The spiritualist is a caster in medium armor, for a good reason. Seriously lacking in health when sacrificed, they mitigate damage through their Soul Orbs. Examples of weapons include
F1 Soul orb skill is solely dependent on the Mainhand weapon..

Two-handed and Mainhand weapons
Staff (Supportive)
1° Spirit light (apply regeneration to allies near target)
2° Spirit strike (blind)
3° Ritual of the Mother’s Touch: (with 2 orbs, ) Reflect incoming damage for 2 seconds by calling upon your ancestors (gain x % (scales with level) more Healing Power per orb for a duration of 5 seconds.)
4° Thump (knockback)
5° Ritual of Sorrow: (With 4 orbs, ) Summon a forgiving ancestor who cures up to 3 conditions and grants AoE heal. ( each orb present also immobilizes one enemy in the area, but they do not take damage, while immobilized to a maximum of 4 enemies.)
Mace (Defensive)
1° Smash (attack chain)
2° Rock (grapple foe, knocking down).
3° Ritual of Warding:(With 2 orbs) Summon a protection bubble around yourself, deflecting ranged damage for 3 seconds(plus 2 seconds per orb).
Scepter (Offensive)
1°Soul Scar (chain) : cut scars into your foe, applying vulnerability, bleed
2°Sacrificial scream: Scream with fury, gaining fury for 3 seconds and damaging enemies in a cone in front of you
3° Ritual of Empowerment:( With 2 orbs and) Focus on your inner strength, and release your power. Spirits slash at your foes repeatedly (cripple added with 1 orb sacrificed, bleeding with 2)
Dagger (Speed)
1°Dagger throw: throw your dagger, bouncing off multiple foes
2°Thickened Blood: Slash forward, striking all in a cone in front multiple times.
3° Ritual of Urgency: (With 2 orbs to) gain swiftness for 5 sec (plus 3 sec per orb)
Offhand Weapons
Torch (Defensive)
4°Soulflame: Burst into flames, interrupting all nearby foes with fiendfire
5° Ritual of Unfeeling: (With 4 orbs and) Call upon the souls in the Vault of Souls to stand around you. They will take 1/3rd of the damage you get dealt and reflect 50% of the attacks for 2 seconds (plus 1 second per orb)
Focus (Offensive)
4°Calming grace: Center your energy, teleport to your enemy, deal a strike, and teleport away again
5° Ritual of Pain: (With your Orbs, and) gain protection (plus 2 stacks of might per orb sacrificed)
Dagger (Speed)
4°Chained Dagger: Throw a dagger tied to a chain, pulling your foe towards you and interrupting them.
5° Ritual of Immediacy (With 4 orbs to apply swiftness to yourself and allies for 2 sec per orb and to) apply quickness for 5 sec to yourself, at the cost of all endurance.
Trident

The Mainhand weapons are mainly ranged, and offhand weapons are ranged/melee.

(Further editing needed for consistency from this point on)
How will this fit in?
The unique playstyle that this reflects is “damage portioning”. Essentially the prepared spiritualist cannot be one-shotted, as they will have up to 5 health receptacles, being their own and 4 smaller ‘in their poket’ with 10% of their total health.

This is an idea I developed a few months back, and I’m hoping there are some experienced players with good mechanics knowledge that can help me refine further. Looking for your suggestions, ideas, criticisms, and compliments.

Cheers,

Redrex

Scroll down to view some other ideas and concepts that have been have developed together as a team. Shout out to Direksone and Sirendor!!!

Wow I like the idea a lot. Most people think there is no way that ritualists can come back to GW2 seeing as some of their quirks have been distributed among the other classes but this post provides an interesting viewpoint on how the ritualist can still be unique yet maintain its identity in GW2.

Thanks for your comment Leo, you’re very kind. Anything specific you liked, or thought needed expanding?

I like it. Thumbs up.

This is a fantastic crafting of the ritualist. I like how the mechanic is being able to silo your health to fuel skills, support allies, and to recoup at any time.
I suspected your idea was to place soul jars in a spread out way like how in GW2 combat you’d strategise the placement of spirits for least-AOE damage?
Are there other skill types your Spiritualist would use amongst these? For example, what would the Spiritualist do for dps if they have no soul jars available?

In essence it sounds pretty cool, but… :p

Heavy armor? Seems a bit weird for more a caster like profession. You mention because they use their health a lot, which seems a valid point, but for some reason I’m not sure..

The jars I am not sure I am fond of. I am an Engineer and for a while played Turrets only. They are extremely weak, unless Traited then they’re decent, but still not good. They are more offensive however and their AI wasn’t always smart (targeting non visible targets and firing away). What was the radius/range you had in mind? Right now the offensive ones have to be placed quite close to the enemy and that never worked out for my turrets, they would get killed in one hit (even when traited) hence I never used close range turrets.

Things I like: the dolls and rituals. Pretty solid and seems like a lot of fun. I see the doll(s) as being kit(s) that engineers have and I quite like them. One for each? Buffing one solely with buffs/heals etc. and offensive having attacks and debuffs? I think that would be more fun to work with, you’re almost a voodoo doctor then as opposed to just attach them to a player.

Weapons: solid choices, I would just like to see one more main hand weapon added, but perhaps that would result in too many weapon choices?

How exactly do the health bars work? You can’t die, but instead use up one of your jars? I like the idea, but it would need some balancing, having 4 up seems like a lot to me.

I never played GW1 so my knowledge about the Ritualist is limited.

However I personally would see this class being more developed into a voodoo doctor type of profession with basically the core mechanics you mentioned here: Jars, Dolls & Rituals. I would however put them in Light or Medium armor and take away the possibility of them using a shield. My view of them is that of a caster.

Hopefully you can do something with my feedback, let me know if you want me to elaborate things! Overall a pretty solid idea my friend! I like!

FacesOfMu absolutely, those jars should be as far apart as they can safely go. We’ve all seen summons-builds that cave under AoE. Turrets, Minions, Elementals, and Clones/Phantasms and all the rest all suffer from AoE spikes. I would want players to make decisions about where they want the jars, and this also gives a learning curve.

Inititally I had the thought that a Spiritualist could sacrifice health to do larger damage, but thinking again this game is very health-centric, and without potions that mechanic would quickly serve against a player.

I might be drifting from the aesthetic but two possibilities are ‘Death Masks’ or ‘Ash Urns’ or ‘Grave Markers’ (I haven’t decided which fits better with the concept) which would be Utility Skills. Death Masks/Ash Urns /Grave Markers are toggleable, temporary weapons that the Spiritualist uses, like kits or the guardian tomes. I can flesh some out, but with a maximum of 3 (and a heal and elite), they should provide a variety of dps (as direct or condition damage). What do you think of those ideas?

p.s. the only issue i can see with toggleable weps is we might get too much variety of weps. That’s why engineer is so limited in wep choices.

The problem is that the rit has been taken over by the Engineer .

Turrets =Spirits
Ashes=kits
and
Guardian has spirit weapons so i cant really see a rit or as you call it a spiritualist making a return any time soon .

Direksone, I went with heavy because of the 2/3/3 in soldier/adventurer/scholar ratio, and then made up the reason. I have a feeling this works out better as a adventurer or caster.

Adine, I know, that’s why I’ve modified the playstyle. I wanted to introduce some unique mechanics into an old profession, same as the mesmer got it’s facelift with clones.

Adine, that does not matter, I pointed that out as well, but the same core mechanic can still work for different classes with a different skin on it and also different uses.

Redrex: I guess I view the class slightly different as I said, to me, on paper, it looks more like a voodoo doctor (from Diablo for instance) and I would find light or medium to be more fitting.

Direksone, I’ve edited the original post as medium armor. You were totally right, ‘voodoo doctors’ wear animal pelts and skins. Edited

To tackle the idea of the health bars, you won’t see them in the UI. That makes the profession a challenge. You might notice your health increase when a Jar is ‘killed’ and your health returns to you, but if you miss it…you miss it.

Well written and a thought through concept, I really like it!

Cool, hehe, glad to see my feedback going to good use :p. I was more referring to it for the enemies, PvP especially. There would be a fine line between being too weak that they get destroyed easily and too hard making really hard to take down a Spiritualist.

Also. Idea for the story, I see this happening: Cantha opens up, Story revolves around Primordus, perhaps Tengu become playable and same with Spiritualist.

As they are Cantha exclusive I think the best way to have their first bit (lvl 1-10 perhaps choices) in Cantha, if not all (1-30 ish) a bit like what happened when Death Knights came out in WoW: your race did not matter, your starting area was the same. I think the same could be applied here, because it would be weird that a Human from the streets all of the sudden can become a Spiritualist.

Cantha opens up and this allows the 5 races to travel there and become a Spiritualist if they so desire. What exact personal story options there should be I do not know, but I think having the same approach as the Death Knight would make the most sence ‘lore wise’. What do you think?

Cantha may open up, but the Order of the Whispers and the Durmand Priory would be over there so fast, they’d bring the profession over in a heartbeat. Profession has no impact on storyline, so I’m not sure if Arenanet would embrace switching, since if you switch one way, people will invariably want to switch back…

I’ve just changed a core effect of a soul jar. Jars now only apply boons unless traited to be aggressive. This should avoid turning Jars into Turrets

Ah good point, the orders. Well I think that in essence this profession looks really cool, taking some of my favorite mechanics from my favorite classes. It’s a bit an engineer, but then more a spellcaster and that’s good! Because the mechanics an engineer has are things I really enjoy. That’s just me though. I think that will do it justice Redrex. Traiting will have a lot to do with exactly how everything works.

What wasn’t completely clear to me: in PvP. Spiritualist places 4 jars, so 40% health down. If you kill a jar his HP goes up, right? So it would be best to just kill the Spiritualist him/herself?

Also, if you are a Spiritualist focused on Voodoo, do you still need to rely heavily on the the Jars or is that more a specific type of build?

Killing the spiritualist teleports them back to the jar, with that last 10% of health, giving them the opportunity to heal up and come back at you. You’ve given back to the player something you don’t want: time. First, kill off the jars, that puts the jar on cooldown, then go at the Spiritualist.

The jars are the core mechanic. The Ritualists had their ancestor spirits, but we Spiritualists, we use our own.

Aha, but killing the jars would give the health back, no? What would the range be for the teleportation of these jars? I can imagine if you lure the Spiritualist away they’re done for as well.

Have you ever played with the necromancer’s flesh wurm? Even if it is far away, the teleport still works. Besides 10% isn’t a whole lot of health. 20,000 health down to 12,000, with 8000 in your pocket, hidden away? If the Spiritualist has hidden their jars TOO well, they will also be giving you time to heal up. That’s why they need to place their jars carefully, not too close to avoid detection but not too far so that they are thrown out of a fight. And yes, they get that health back. You’re portioning your health. Jars are the receptacle for the soul, not the soul itself. Break the jar and the soul is released, snapping back to its home body

No I have not;). Alright well I’d love to hear more about the profession and seeing it tweaked!

Why the choice of the shield? Also do you have ideas for attacks in general for the weapons? Same with trait lines, and since my question wasn’t answered: are Spiritualists ‘obliged’ to use their soul jars or can they, if they so desire, focus their traits on for instance Voodoo and still be viable.

Mesmers fuction well without clones; Necromancers without death shroud. I wouldn’t want to back them into a corner. They can focus on other aspects of play as well.

Torch, dagger and focus were obvious ones. The shield was about being supportive. The Spiritualist uses his shield to protect his own soul and the souls of his allies with a war shield. The dagger was offensive, the focus was magical and the torch is condition-y. I wanted to choose an offhand that would really ‘round’ out all the other choices.

That being said, I’m not married to the idea.
Mainhand ideas:
Staff will focus on AoE and have 2 Dolls, one friendly, another malevolent.
Sceptre will focus on direct damage
Dagger will be Ranged (throwing dagger) and conditions
Offhand Ideas:
Torch: conditions
Dagger: direct damage
Focus: speed/offence and support
Shield: defence and support

P.s. I just wanted to say how you’ve all been really supportive, helpful and enthusiastic, I’m really appreciative of all your ideas and questions. I was actually quite nervous to post this concept but I’ve been really chuffed how great you’ve all been.

You should work for a-net actually to improve their game. Inspiration is needed and that you bring all along as this thread demonstrate.
The concept has really cool ideas and i think you had long time to get this together

No problem! I really dig the idea of it! Weapon choices seem solid indeed. I would just suggest that you take the dolls out of the weapons and have them function as kits instead, like with engineers. Each of them (at the moment two) having their own unique skillset. You could compare the friendly one to the Medkit of the Engineer for instance.

Redrex, As I see it we should drop the idea of using spirits and jars and instead focus on the original restoration and channeling magic the ritualist worked with.
I’m not sure how we should use this to make an original concept though, but the way turrets and kits are used with the engineer is barely viable.
The jars are (imo) ok as the n°6 heal skills, but in no way we should let the whole combat mechanism of spiritualists lean onto it.

Instead I’d go for an approach that makes the spiritualist into a melee heavy arm fighter who is specialized in the ritual/voodoo kind of magic and has access to following weapons:
→ Gauntlets: allowing him to use the power of spirits through a bond and let the power stream through the gauntlet. I would think that once the spiritualist charged the power into the gauntlets he can they use them in all sorts of ways (n°1 to 5 skills).
→ Battlestaff: used for channeling magic, which would be focused on blind/stun and heavy damage, to wreak havoc. Also able to cast wards and rituals.
→ Dolls: use a doll of the enemy to destroy him with black magic.
I do not see this black magic as the death magic necros use, but rather as a sort of magic that uses the power from the vault of spirits. Also I’d like to introduce a new feature with this: when you can’t control your magic, your health gets drained.
→ Main-hand torch and shield.

If you like my suggestions, please add them to your existing top post

My personal standpoints of view to that concept:

1) Ritualists are no masters of souls, the Necromancer IS, your concept is way too much necromancer heavy influenced by calling the gameplay feature soul jars
I think you just thought of the ash urns and how to rename them, that it doesn’t look obviously copied from GW1

2) The Soul Jar F-features look way too much cloned working from the elementalists attunements, where every attunement also gives boons when changing to them and when right traited you have also debuff effects when changing your attunements through elemental auras …

3) Ritual feature is way too overpowered if you give the class with them that way some kind of “mini god mode”

The spiritualist maintains a connection with their history with rituals, skills that have a long channel, during which they are invulnerable to damage( but not control effects,)

This will only get abused …

4) When Soul Jars are deployed, the Spiritualist sacrifices a portion of their total health into it.
No..just No Health Sacrifing is such crappy, boring and total uncreative gameplay…
It basically always screams out.. make me overpowered, because I try to kill myself reasoning the massive OPness and even if at at, then again, this gameplaxy belongs to the *Necromancer" as health sacrifing is part of BLOOD MAGIC and this is part of the big magic lore about guild wars set in stone about the blood stones and the types of magic categories… if there is any REAL ritualist at all, then it was from the begin on anyhow the Necromancer with his blood rituals, even before the ritu class has even existed in the game.

5) The only real very creative thing I found in your concept here, that would take the gw1 ritu into a new direction without cloning/stealing any other classes mechanics are the Dolls, but then again you could call them just their kind of summons/minions instead of spirits, as every class except from the warrior has any kind of summonable creatures via class relevant skills.
But dolls would turn this concept into some kind of “Puppeteer Class”, the only aspect I personally find a bit original from the concept and that tend to like…

Other than that, this concept massively lacks in personally in creativity, for me it is besides the dolls just some kind of renamed GW1 ritu, which uses instead of spirits as class feature renamed ash urns with copied/stolen gameplay mechanics from elementalists and necromancers (GW1 were always by the way just wannabe necros, they both are nothing else than occultists using undead minions and spirits are nothing else, than undeads, just without corpses)
——
ANet has redesigned the Assassins also for GW2 and made Thiefs out of them.. thats the same way how you have to redesign the Ritualist for GW2, so that it will suit into the new game
The way how I think it will work with a ritu comeback under a complete new way of looking at this class is by searching for missing class niches, which perfectly can synergize with the concept of the GW1 Ritu and then combine them.
These 2 class niche scome into mind, which can perfectly work together with the ritu gameplay

• The Chronomancer
• The Oracle

So by adding topics like time magic and astrology (astral magic/visions, tarot) into the pot, you can give the concept something completely new, something, that rarely to never has been in any other MMORPG before and mix it together into something unique for GW2, that will blow our minds simply.

I agree with a great deal you say Orpheal, but if we adapt this “Spiritualist” enough, it can really turn out with something rather cool, as I’ve very bluntly/shortly suggested.

Sure we can do, thats short said aside from my little wall of text before ^^ exactly what I was suggesting here. Instead of just wanting to remake simply only a GW1 ritu for GW2 looks, it would be in general much better for the whole game, if we just take something specific from the old GW 1 Ritu, that will take its “spirit” of gameplay over to GW2 and fill up the gaps that Anet has left in the Ritu, by putting complete new gameplay aspects to it, which nearly never got used in any MMORPG’s, like all kinds of fortune telling gameplay features and as said time magic (in combination with spirits > time spirits) to manipulate timespace and the thematic about past, present and future effects.

That way you can turn the old ritu into such a new direction, that the result will be a great unique improvment to the game, whose gameplay will definetely feel completely different and whose F-features surely won’t look like being copied from the Elementalist.
Then rename it at the end to something, that fits the result and to the world of GW2’s Tyria and there we go – a Visionary for example… a class, that could use for example also as another additional unique feature “psychokinesis”, or in general kinetic skills" to using unique weapons like gauntlets and orbs.

Look at this picture and imagination about what I’m speaking should come into your minds ^^

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110915163755/soulcalibur/images/6/6f/ME0001449620_2.jpg

Look at it and think about a magical class that manipulates time space and timelines with chronomantic powers, using time spirits as channelings to increase their powers or to use them as damage dealing units that create time distortions that work like the ritualists “spirit rift”
A class like this, that has visions with the help of spiritual bondings and can basically see into the future with tarot cards and uses with their wisdom about astrology and spirits astral magic. The orb as weapon is the symbol of the fortuneteller/seer, where the gauntlet increases better the kinetic forces that this class could unleash, while being empowered with spiritual boons.

Thats my personal vision of a successful ritu redesign that would have a great comeback by addin to the game a good unique class, that offers players something, what many were searching for years in MMos, but never have found yet somewhere.

The Visionary should have 3 different gameplay modes between which players could change via F1-3

F1 = Spiritual Mode (strongly designed gameplay with ash skills/visions)
F2 = Manipulator Mode (Chronomancer Gameplay via Time Spirits)
F3 = Mental Mode (strongly kinetic gameplay by using through meditation and spirits increased mental forces

The Joker is F4, with F4 you can draw after some time always a randomous Tarot Card, which adds to the gameplay a kind of “gambler mechanic”.
Astral Magic is mostly found then under the weapon related skills or as utility skills/elites

What do you think of such a kind of unique concept remix?

PS: kitten i knew i forgot something, want to place in somewhere the dolls xD..hmm maybe under F1 as some kind of ritual puppets that come to live through the ash …

I would like to see some of these ideas used to flesh out the necromancer, good ideas but it doesn’t really fit the gw lore.

To begin with: it’s not a ritualist, but a spiritualist. I actually find a lot of the suggestions he has made cool. What is the mechanics are close to another class? In essence a lot of things are similar to each other within the classes we have already.

The classes suggested by Orpheal are something totally different and belong in a different topic. Not that they are bad ideas, but they are so much different that you should start a new topic about it and leave this one as it is about the Spiritualist.

Ok I’ll go one-by-one.

Empathic Fighter, Thank you!

Sirendor, Thanks for your suggestions, but I don’t want to stray too far from the mold that Arenenet has already set. I won’t add new weapons until Anet decides to do so themselves. The battlestaff idea is excellent. Exactly how I imagines two-handed staves would work in the hands of the Spiritualist.

Orpeal,

Ok lots to respond to here,

1) Necromancers are masters of Death, but the original ritualists had spirits summons which aren’t so different to necomancer minions. They summoned souls. Min summons his own soul. There are parallels between the two in both the original game and in my concept.

2) Similar to elementalists attunements. I can see how this conclusion was drawn as well. However, they function more like traps or turrets than attunements or even kits. I don’t see how they would give repetitive gameplay.

3) Agreed. Edited

4) I’m gonna go ahead and say that maybe it’s not a mechanic that you personally enjoy, but I believe others might and I guess this concept is more for them.

5)Dolls are kind of like the original weapon spells, with a facelift.

5.5) I can see you’ve also developed some ideas, I would be happy to give my 2 cents to your own concept in another thread. Can you post a link further on? thanks

To all
I think the mechanics I’ve provided are both simple to understand and have an innate learning curve attached. I’ve provided for different types of gameplay and have mechanics to work with in most situations.

I’ll be editing the original post for clarity and the new Ideas you’ve all given me

Ok I’ve changed the core mechanic slightly, have a look and tell me what you think?

Alright Redrex, I gave it a quick look and it’s hard not to love your idea.
I have some issues with your theory still though :P

1) I like the way how you made it that jars are just a minor part in the combat, leaving the 1-5 skills open for other attacks. Though I don’t think anyone would use them. I’ve played the guardian and I never ever touch my f1-f3 skills. Also, as is already pointed out, the jar you’d use would depend on the weapon you use, very similar to attunements on ele. Also it would barely be worth it, since you can only use 2 weapons while in combat, so you couldn’t possibly get all 4 jars up at the same time.

A better idea would be to make the jars just an utility, but it seems like it becomes very much alike the guardian that way :/

2) Sacrificing health still doesn’t appeal to me. Makes the spiritualist very vulnerable. Only way I could accept with that is if the spiritualist gets heavy armour or some sort of damage negation.

3) Dolls: I really love this, but again too much similarity to mesmer. Also, even if’d use these dolls, nobody would attack them, cause they don’t resemble the player.
I think it’s better to use these dolls as a weapon rather than a distraction, with the same mechanism you use:
→ Good doll: cast magic upon it to grant yourself boons and protection, and get healed by the benign spirits.
→ Evil doll: cast magic upon it to put curses (bleed, poison) on your enemy, upon which he gets bound by the evil spirits.

Oh yeah, also: Orpheal, please make a new thread about your class(es), I will gladly put some comments and support on.

The jars can’t be utility skills, or the Spiritualist will lose its ‘mechanic’ of damage portioning. The type of jar you can use at any time is tied to your weapon…will you fill the role of offensive/defensive, offence/support, speed/support… etc. I think that gives greater customizability than the 4 attunements. The f1 skills creates a jar, overwriting the first one if the Spiritualist does more than 4. That can be of whichever combination they choose.

I deliberately chose to tie the jars to health so that there is incentive to use them. By creating these 4 health pools the player is protected against 1-shots.

The dolls could become a class of utility skills. Certain ones do certain things and the like. But they would have to be toggleable to be viable, and that’s starting to resemble device/weapon kits? I guess if they remain a summons the Spiritualist becomes too summons-heavy.

Also, how do these sound:

Grave Markers: Place a grave marker upon the ground, and have a AoE effect. The spirit of the dead aids you.
Eg: Baoyi the wise- reduce cooldowns by 10%
Minghei the blind- forces opponents out of stealth

Curse Markers: Create a cursed object, and dangle it from a tree, watch as your enemies whiten and flee
Gaomei’s last breath: immobilise all foes within range
Kakai the white snake: Create a line in the sand. enemies who cross are plagued by the demon Kakai, and will suffer poisonous ague

Death Masks: Twist your soul, rend it to shreds, put the pieces back, not end to end.
Drop weapons that grants you the skills of the enemy. Eight masks reflect eight professions. The skills would be watered-down versions of the originals.

Dolls: Ok, I’m thinking we have to change this mechanic. I won’t put dolls as a f-something skill because then they’re just attunements with another name, However, if they were character-bound, not a summons but there was a visual effect, and were simply a ‘state’ in which you place yourself/enemy, would that work? like cursed or blessed? They would be removed after time or with condition removal, and each doll punished you for a specific thing (adds confusion, cripples you if you dodge-roll, reflects conditions back to you, rips your boons off) would that me more viable?

Benevolent dolls reward you for doing damage (adding a stack of might) for dodging (adds swiftness) for adding conditions (grant boons) etc?

Sirendor: as an Engineer, I can say that I use, and you should, the F1-F4 abilities. With a guardian they are better as passives, but with Engineers and in this case, the Spiritualist you would be almost crazy not to use them;).

Redrex: A forcing out of stealth, does any other class have it? I can’t remember, if not: multiple classes should have it for balancing. But it might also become too powerful against Thieves.

Death Masks seem like a cool idea, would fit with what I’ve said before: the Sprititualist being close to a voodoo master. Whether there should be 8 and watered down versions of professions I don’t know, but I like the idea (kits, I love ’em).

Same with Dolls: I’d make them kits, but perhaps you would get too many kits if you also have masks.

Supporty doll: Gives boons, debuffs, heals etc. A bit like the Engineers med kit.

Offensive dolls: Straight forward attacking (and debuffing?)

Basically you pull out a doll, as a kit, and depending on which one you get 5 new attacks, just like how a kit works.

Again if you would want to take that approach with dolls, the Death Masks would have to be revisited.

PERHAPS! Work like a Sigil.

Mask of the Necromancer:
- Passive: Poison nearby enemies (a bit like the elite skill the Necromancer has, the plague one, but of course less effective)
- Active: Fear nearby enemies.

Mask of the Guardian:
- Passive: Increased Toughness
- Active: Release a fiery ring that burns nearby enemies (a bit how Judge’s Intervention works, but without the teleport)

These are just ideas for the Masks, working as Sigils. They should have a passive effect that is nothing crazy, something every class has anyway (improved speed, toughness etc.) and an Active use that is not too powerful when similar to other classes attacks.

Also: the death masks could work with the lore, because he summons spirits! What does he do with a Death mask? Conjur the power of a spirit of profession X into it. BAM. Lore works.

Alright I’m getting what you are looking for a bit better now Red.

First off: misconceptions:
- I thought the jar would be something you would put on the ground, and the enemy could easily destroy them by attacking them and shattering them in one hit. I think your idea now is of summoning jars that will dangle from your weapon and disintegrate within a certain span of time? I like that more

- Also I thought you could only activate 1 jar per weapon, e.g. if you activated the jar on staff, you can’t make another one. I see that is not at all the way you look at it. In your vision (as I think you mean it), you are able to stack certain jars of the same category, allowing you a bigger benefit.

Alright so now some comments on the other things:

→ Dolls as a state of being… ok! But I have a bit of trouble reflecting how this works in battle. For example the Evil Doll would allow you to cast a state of being on your enemy that punishes him with all the actions he does:
- If he tries to heal, his heal gets disabled for one more second and only heals for 75%
- If he tries to dodge, he gets crippled, but he manages to dodge.
- If he tries to attack, his attacks return and so on…
Problem with this: what if there are more than one enemies? Do they all get cursed, or only one? How does this skill manifestate? Like a doll and needle in your characters hands?
I have an idea for this: you get a doll and you absorb damage for 5 seconds. Depending on how much dmg you received, the doll will have more or less strength. On the moment the damage absorbing is over you automatically use one of the 1-5 skills, depending on the grade of “power” your doll has reached.
Every uneven skill on the Evil doll casts a curse, every uneven one casts a blessing.
Every uneven skill on the Good doll casts a blessing, every uneven one casts a curse.

Doll skills:
- Curse of Malanvai (evil doll)
- Blessing of Delunvai (good doll)

Other option, as Direkson has suggested.

→ Markers: magnificent. I think they function a bit like the wells of Necromancers, but I like the idea of spiritbonds. These would also be an utility, just like dolls.
- Good markers or Holy markers?
- Evil markers or Dark markers?
- All sorts of variety between these, like you suggested

Idea for an elite skill: “Spirit Power”: channel magic through yourself to stun and damage enemies over time and empower and heal allies.

Thanks for the great ideas guys, lets build something out of this.

I do think there is a flaw with the Jars: maximum of 4, 1 per weapon: you can only equip 2 weapons. This would result in 2 in combat, switching to other weapons out of combat to get 2 more summons seems like a hassle., especially in PvP.

That the effects are bound per weapon is nice though. I’m a little in between the old version you had and the new;)

Also: Markers could function as an attack like Symbols do with Guardians, no?

Direk, I already adressed the issue about the jars and it is a misconception. If you read what I say, you’ll understand it.
I’ll explain is short here: Redrex didn’t put a restriction on the number of jars per weapon, but did put a restriction on the number of jars in total. This means you can use the f1 skill more than one time! For example:
- 4 jars that grant ability x (1 weapon)
- 2 jars that grant ability x, 2 that grant ability y (2 weapons)
- 1 jar that grants ability x, 3 that grant ability y (2 weapons)
- 3 jars that grant ability x, 1 that grant ability y (2 weapons)
- 4 jars that grant ability y (1 weapon)

You would have to choose between those 4 weapons and their respective boosts, and decide upon which 2 you like more, or you can simply stick with 1.

Markers can function as symbols, agreed. It’s not for us to decide though. Even IF Anet decides that the spiritualist is a worthy addition, they will change a lot of it.

Aha! That makes sense indeed, now I get it. Sounds good.

Well of course ANET will probably change things, but the speculation and discussing is fun nontheless

Heheh It is. And it really is an awesome idea

Definately! Really original concept as posed by Redrex, it takes some game mechanics from other classes, but makes it unique in its own way.

@ red and sirendor

I realize, that my concept is much more different, than the OP’s concept and takes the basics of the ritualist into a different direction, but thats absolutely wanted to, because I’ll always support more classes, which add completely new things to the game, which have basically never been so far in MMORPG’s or only extremely rarely, as these class mechanics need their chance, to prove, that they can become in a game like GW2 something really great and unique to improve the whole uniqueness of the complete game over all the rest of MMO’s out there actually like WoW, Tera, Rift, Aion, PW, RoM and so on

Please don’t get the impression as if i wanted to hijack here the thread or so with my concept. I tossed in just partwise my thoughts to show you, that a ritualist revamp for GW2 could be just soo sooo soooooo much more, than just being something basically build up onspirits working mostly the way like it did in GW1, what would look in the end then only like a engineer copy with elementalist mechanics and old necromancer gameplay mixed up together, rather than being something totally new, what in the way how it plays would have never been in any MMORPG before GW2.

Thats my goal behind concepts, when I think about classes, even those old discarded ones from GW1 – how can the result be something totally new and add to the game something, that has never been in any game that way before?

Thats my key way of concepting I try to follow as good as possible and a basical redesigned ritualist using ashes as its core mechanic taken over to GW2 with adds from complete different synergizing classes is definetely something new and something, that has never been this way in any MMORPG before.

But as you wish, I’ll make about this concept an own thread in the way I did with my Dragoon Concept, fuller of details and examples

Oh I wasn’t feeling that at all! Looked like a cool concept, but indeed different so instead of having 2 dicussions going on here 2 threads would be cleaner:)