Guild Wars Ritualist Questions

[Wolf]

Alright so I've decided I'm going to give guild wars a try since the last time I did was that 3 day beta at an E3 probably 2-3 years ago. I'm going to pick up Factions because thats what my friends play and decided on a Ritualist/Necromancer combination if everything goes as planned. I went to the Guild Wars Factions website to get more information on the Ritualist class but couldn't find the page that described that class or the assassin.

Does anyone know any good pages out there with information on the Ritualist?

I chose Ritualist/Necromancer so I could have 9 (or so) pets out at once, is that possible? Will I have any mana after that?

How long do those summons last?

Anyone with experience with this combination have any issues with finding a group/soloing?


EDIT: Blah, just read about how long the summons last as a Ritualist, only a few seconds, hmmm. How long do necromancer pets last? I was reading and it didn't say if there was a time limit on them or how many you could have at once out. Answers to the last question up there would still be helpful though.

[Jandau]

I'd suggest heading to the official GW site, checking out the community section and heading to one of the top fansites.

Personally I use
http://www.gwonline.net/

Be sure you check the forums too.

As for your build, Ritualist spirits are nice but have a more dynamic management system. They can't move and don't last too long. On the other hand, with a proprer build the spirits can be extremely powerful.

Necromancer minions are raised from corpses and their health slowly decays (the decay rate increases as time passes). There are necromancer spells that heal minions and many Minion Masters take monk as their second class to help with healing.

So, for a pet crazy build I'd suggest Necro/Ranger, Necro/Monk, or Ritualist/Necro. Necro Ritualist can't take advantage of the Ritualist primary attribute Spawning Power and is less efficient.

Necro/Ranger - standard minions + a ranger pet
Necro/Monk - standard minions + area heal spells to help with minion decay
Ritualist/Necro - minions that do less damage, but have more health (you decide if this is a good thing)
Necro/Ritualist - standard minions

For a bit more detail:
GW skills are divided between several attributes. Each class has 4-5 attributes. One of these is the primary attribute and you only have the primary attribute from your main class (not from your secondary, hence the uselessness of Necro/Rit).

Each attribute can be raised up to level 12 with attribute points. Each att level costs more than the previous one. You can have 2 atts at lvl 12, but then you'll hardly have any points left for other atts. In comparison, instead of 2 atts at 12, you can have 4 at 10. You attribute point distribution depends on your build. Minion Masters are a very focused build and usually go for 2 maxed attributes.

Also, atts of your primary class can be increased by using runes (max +3 per attribute) and helmets (+1 for one att).

So, what does all this mean?

Let's take a look at a standard MM (minion master)

Death Magic 16 (12+3+1)
Soul Reaping 12

No big suprises there. His minions will be max level and he'll have a good source of energy with Soul Reaping

With a Necro/Ranger you might shift some points from Soul Reaping into Beastmastery to boost your ranger pet.

With a Necro/Monk you'd do the same with Healing Prayers.

With a Rit/Necro, you'd have the following:

Spawning Power 16 (12+3+1)
Death Magic 12

Since your primary class is Ritualist, you can't use runes and headgear to boost your Death magic, but can boost Spawning power to give your minions +64% health which will land them higher than 16 Death minions.

16 Death minions will do more damage and have more armor, but will still be less durable than SP16 D12 minions (especially considering minion decay).

Well, there you have a basic overview of the Minion Master. I didn't go into specific skills since that would require a few more pages of text. Have fun with GW ;)

[junior]

Late in the original Guild Wars campaign you had the option to change your secondary class. You completed a quest corresponding to that class, and could then change your secondary class at will to that particular class by talking to the NPC who gave the quest (you had to do the quest for your original secondary job if you wanted to change back to it).

I've barely played any of Factions, but I would imagine that there's something similar in the expansion. As a result, I don't expect that you'll be permantently stuck with the same secondary job if you don't want it. On the other hand, if you do switch to a new job you'll have no skills (since you haven't received any yet with that character) and will need to quest for or purchase any and all skills that you want to use with that job.