Effective ritualist guide

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''Note: this article is intended to provide guidance for experienced characters playing a new ritualist or experienced ritualists looking for additional options. If this is your first time playing Guild Wars, please see Getting started in Guild Wars Factions.''

The Ritualist profession is only available in Guild Wars: Factions. Guild Wars: Prophecies users will not be able to use this profession unless they have linked a Factions key to their Prophecies account.

=A Ritualist's Place= The ritualist is a 'jack-of-all-trades' usually seen as a support character, rather than primary damage dealer. The role of the class is to aid allies with additional damage, healing, and adding or removing conditions from hexes or enchantments.

=Being a Ritualist=

PvE Ritualists
Playing a PvE Ritualist is totally dependent on one's playing style. Since this class can be both an awesome support damage/healing character. Given that Professor Gai serves as a faux Protection Monk;
 * A PvE henchmen-assisted solo player can easily go the damage route to help out Tanks. Not to say that PvE Players couldn't do Gai's job themselves, but why not mitigate the deaths of your enemies?
 * If however one is a PvE player that likes to play with "live" allies instead of Henchmen, consider going for the Protector/Healer builds. Shelter/Union/Displacement make for strong protection when used in conjuntion with Ritual Lord and Boon of Creation.

PvP Ritualists
=Building=

Attribute Priority
There are two general trends for pure ritualist builds: those who use many spirits will spec strongly into Communing and Spawning Power, while those who do not will use Restoration and Channeling skills to support the offense or defense more directly.
 * Spawning Power: This ability is either extremely important or almost useless, depending on whether your build uses Spirits or not. Many spirits, such as Shelter and Union, will lose health when they take effect.  Having many ranks in Spawning Power allows them to stay alive longer.
 * Communing: When using a mix of spirits and other spells, Communing probably goes farther for you than Spawning Power as it will increase duration and effect of spirits as well as other spells.
 * Restoration Magic: The Restoration line is generally inferior to the Monk lines, but because it does not require a second attribute such as Divine Favor to be fully effective it is popular on hybrid characters that like to retain some damage dealing potential. Restoration and Channeling work well together for this.
 * Channeling Magic: As with most offensive lines, Channeling tends to be all or nothing. If you have many ranks, it is useful for dealing damage.  If you do not, it is better to use your energy elsewhere.

Types of Ritualists
This is not an exhaustive list of builds, but rather a short summary of common themes that many popular ritualist builds fit within. For specific builds see the article on Builds.

Restorer
A ritualist focused on healing and aiding, either in place of or in addition to a monk teammate. With a focus on restoration skills, the ritualist can do a pretty good job of healing.

Spirit Wrangler
A ritualist focused on managing spirits. This is probably what you want to focus on if you like doing damage, but don't want to tank. Some good spirits to take are Pain and Bloodsong, along with Recuperation. Spirit Boon Strike will do damage to your enemies while boosting your spirits' HP. Mend Body and Soul is a good compliment.

Minion Bomber
A ritualist, when played right can be a Minion Master, but perhaps not as effective as a necromancer, as it will be 2 minions short. However this is offset with the massive AoE damage of Explosive Growth. Primary skills for the minion ritualist are Boon of Creation, and Explosive Growth. If your secondary is Necromancer, Death Nova should also be seen as vital.

Item Carrier
Skills like Generous Was Tsungrai are useful, especially when paired with Channeled Strike. This kind of build is also useful for some of the later missions, where you are carrying items a lot.

55 Ritualist
It has been suggested that the ritualist can make an alternative to the 55 monk build.

The Secondary Profession Dilemma
Perhaps moreso than any other profession, the choice of secondary for a ritualist is difficult. The ritualist plays very well when using only Ritualist skills. It can be difficult choosing a secondary when none of the choices seems to offer anything the class can't already do. A common strategy is to chose anything just to be able to progress past the initial Shing Jea Monastary quests and then ignore it. That advice however, can leave a new player unable to decide, and PvE for a ritualist can stall over this conflict.
 * See also Ritualist:Profession Combinations

Assassin
Assassin skills can allow greater mobility for a ritualist, combining along the same theories that would be useful for a Monk Assassin combination.

Elementalist

 * Glimmering Mark can be combined with the Channeling Magic lightning rituals for an effective blinding ritualist.
 * Glyphs can also be used to reduce Recharge time and energy cost on healing or damaging spells.
 * Earth Magic can enable a Ritualist to survive in PvP long enough to set up sufficient Spirits.

Mesmer

 * Using Mantra of Resolve and Mantra of Concentration this combination can become an effective counter ritualist, shutting down other ritualists or Ritualist Assassins.
 * Mesmer skills can also be useful for energy management of the primary ritualist.
 * It has been suggested that Mesmer as secondary is ideal for farming.
 * The Arcane Echo and Echo skills can be useful for spamming slower spells, although Arcane Echo unfortunately will not work for any binding spells.

Monk
The combination of Restoration and Healing Prayers can make for a very powerful support character.

Necromancer
As the Rt/N Explosive Creation build shows, this combination can make for a different and potentially potent minion bomber.

Ranger
Ranger Traps can be combined with Spirit placement to corall victims into bombardment. Serpent's Quickness can serve as a weak version of Ritual Lord in the early game.

Warrior
The warrior's low energy demands can allow the ritualist to conserve energy for Rituals, but the skills do not generally compliment each other.

Suggested Strategies

 * Insert strategy advice here.

Spirit Stats
Spirits cannot be healed directly, but can be healed via the sprit boon strike spell, can be targetted by attacks, and are immobile. Spirits effects either work within a range around them, or are targetted by the spirit against those within their range. The exact range varies according to the spirit. Detailed information on Spirit stats is available within the Spirit article.

Managing Your Spirits
Ritual Lord/Boon of Creation builds allow for Spirit spamming. Your first priority should be to get and keep Boon of Creation going as much as possible. If you've got red anywhere on the radar, have this spell active. You do not want to enter combat without it up.

Get faster casting spirits up first, then fall back behind them just enough to switch agrro off of you and work on the rest of your list. If you are working with a specific build it may have different advice, and you should consider which suggestion is correct for you.

Spirit spells have very slow recharge times, so you will need to have a plan for what to with yourself in between. A spamming build will make up the space with other spirits, and offensive or protective builds will keep you busy with their own spells.

Consider Draw Spirit as an option to bring vital spirits with you as you move, but be careful to not waste it on a short lived spirit in the heat of the moment. Spirits that take a lot of damage or have short life times are simply not worth the effort, even if the recharge time for them is long.

The hardest part of spirit management is not actually the spirits, but your teammates. Avoid 'go-go-go' PUGs if at all possible. If you end up in one, you are better leaving the mission or quest than hanging around and becomming the 'kill-guy'. When they run, all your spirits will be left behind, and with them all the support you could have provided until your recharge comes around. More than likely, you will get the blame for their error. A spirit spammer is a build that works best on a thinker's team. You want a team willing to let you set up a 'battle / spirit platform' (the area where you cast the majority of your spirits) and then to defend that space until the fight is over. You want them to draw in the opposition, lure them to your spirit platform, rather than chase it down.

With henchmen, this becomes easier to manage. Most henchmen will not stray too far from the PCs, and when they do will return if you choose not to follow them. On the other hand, they will not seek out and draw in opponents as readily as fellow players might, and often you will have to leave your own spirit platform to draw in an enemy, and then flee back hoping the hostiles follow and your henchment don't stop them too far away from the spirit platform. It is a delicate game, but it can be managed.

Resurrecting
With Flesh of My Flesh, Lively Was Naomei, and Restoration the Ritualist might be equal or even superior to the Monk in resurrecting dead allies.