[JGJTan]

It being over 24 hours since the opening of the PvP event for Guild Wars: Factions, I was just wondering if anyone wanted to share some thoughts about the new classes and the new area which opened up.

I've only tried out the Ritualist and looked at all the Ritualist skills (since prefer support as opposed to close-combat) and I have to say Ritualist seems pretty awesome. As a template, I chose the Ritualist/Monk and I have to say, the Ritualist has some pretty nice healing and defensive skills and spells.

The Ritualist seems to be a combination of the Monk and the Ranger. With the Ritualist, you can create more than one spirit to have a small area affect on allies or foes. The Ritualist/Monk combination seemed to be healing, anti-condition and anti-hex and some of the spells are really nice. A new kind of skill is a "Weapon Spell" which grants the target ally a special ability for a set amount of time e.g. 75% chance to block using their weapon for 10 seconds and +3 or 4 (I forgot) health regeneration.

Also as I was browsing through all the Ritualist skills thanks to the Priest of Balthazar, it appears Ritualists can summon a hold item. I'm not too sure how the hold item works however I'm presuming it will be like holding any mission/quest item in the sense that you won't be able to use your weapon or focus item. These hold items seem pretty useful (even if they have odd names) e.g. hold the ashes of whoever for however long and once the item is dropped, foes adjacent are blinded for 7 or so seconds.

Well that's all I can remember about the Ritualist... anyone care to share about the Assassin?

[Goto]

The assassin is the second melee class in the game. They dual-wield daggers using the Dagger Mastery skill, and their dagger-based skills are combo attacks. You have to link combos together in the right order, or the later attacks in these sequences miss. These combos seem to focus on inflicting conditions, as well as dealing a fair amount of damage.

The daggers by themselves are quite weak (max damage of 7-17, making them the weakest weapon in the game), but they are also considerably faster than any other weapon. Assassins also rely on critical hits to increase damage output. With every level fo Dagger Mastery, they gain 2% chance at a crit hit, and their primary stat is 'Critical Hits'. If a critical hit is due to the primary stat, it actually restores some of your energy, which is a handy feature.

The armour is slightly inferior to that of a Warrior (70 armour max, instead of 80 or 85 of the various warrior sets), however that is still above average, and is made up for by a larger supply of energy.

I haven't had a chance to check out the offensive skills yet, but they have a set of defensive skills, incorporating teleportation and misdirection. The preset builds have spells to teleport to enemies, to dodge attacks (ending with healing once the enchantment ends), and so forth. There's a skill with interesting applications that acts like Sprint, except once it finishes, you return to your original position. While it wouldn't be able to be used for runs, it could be quite handy to keep yourself safe when in danger.

I'll try to think of what else there is, later.

[Ferret Overlord]

A/R would be, by far, the best assassin combo in the game. Assassin's can lay traps using shadow step, then lure the targets into the traps just as they get reset to their original places. Not to mention, a panther accompanying someone who's supposed to be uber-stealthy is so COOL!

[Neraphym]

What are the new prefixes now that there are two that start with R (Ranger, Ritualist). Is it Ra = ranger and Ri = ritualist?

[JGJTan]

Ranger stays as R and the Ritualist is shown as Rt now. So it's different to how the other classes are shown since it doesn't use the first and second letters of the profession.

And yeah, I was thinking about different class combinations and I have to admit the A/R is a pretty good choice. But I still love the Rt/Mo class and nothing can change that unless they have some sort of uber support class better than that.

[Aaron]

I just dabbled into the Ritualist and Assassin, but I really didn't have a chance to try the Assassin out a whole lot. The summoning skills of the Ritualist are very cool . I like them both because they are exactly like a Shaman and Rogue (respectively) on WoW .

[Pendragon205]

I'd have to say Rt/Mo is freaking awesome. Nothing better than summoning a level 9 spirit who just won't die
About the assasain however, I think it would have been better if the skills didn't miss as much. They have good skills and attacks, it just sucks when you use one and it misses.

[Ferret Overlord]

Pen... They don't miss. It's a new feature. You need to hit succesively in an order. The mark that's shown in yellow in the top left of the skill is what contributed toward the gr(e/a)y spot on another spell. That's why they're in order. Lead, something, something, final.

[Goto]

Most of the skills seem to go Lead attack, Off-hand attack, Dual attack, and then there seems to be another off-hand. If you use them in the wrong order, or the condition isn't met (for example, I saw one that had to hit a hexed foe) then the attack will always miss, it isn't that they have low accuracy.

[Althena]

I also played the ritualist/monk. I haven't played a monk (primary) before so I don't know how good it is for supporting your party, but the Rit/mo build seems pretty good. For characters who are in battle, you cast the weapon spell that gives 50% block and +3 regen. Then you can heal him with a spell for people with that weapon spell. Other than that, you just have some simple skills like a heal that loses your HP unless you have a spirit out... and a heal that removes conditions for each spirit. Then two healing spirits. (one regen and one healing) Then a ressurection spell, and remove hex from monk. (I think)

Anyway, I haven't played world of warcraft or anything but, to me, a ritualist is something like this:

If there was a race of necromancers, and they made thier own version of a monk, then it would be the ritualist. He uses blood type skills to res and heal his ally and his skills are colored green (necro!) lol... anyway just my opinion.

Theres not much to know about the ritualist because theres not a lot of skills in the PvP buils... The attacking spirits seem interesting though. But is the ritualist just spirits + heal?

And is the assasin just shadow moves and knife combos?

And um... I know its a lame joke but I call the Rt/Mo the El Rit/Mo Tropical. (Song from Dance Dance Revolution)

This post has been edited by Althena: 23 January 2006 - 03:38 AM

[Moogalite]

i found the assasin fun to use myself nice to use a fast melee class for once... R/A being a better combo. As ferret said the trapping is good but its better to get those extra stats using runes for your trapping... meaning max damage on them... im going to make a R/A when i buy the expansion not so sure about the ritualist i prefer warrior or ranger second as i have to lure when im with tan farming hehe last trip was good... should have got tan to take a screeny of us being chased by a chain of dolyaks