My experience with AAs (Ritual)

[Mecrushu]

<div>I finally got enough aa to activate the AA Ritual. At app1 (first rank) it increases heals by 20%.  First you will need a symbol in the secondary slot and tartons wheel is apparently not considered a symbol. </div><div> </div><div>The AA is actually a buff that must be cast prior to the heal being cast.  The buff last for 12 sec and can be recast every minute.  Although the description says it last for 12 secs, the first heal seems to end the buff.  I could have just been the timer but I could not get 2 heals off with the buff up.</div><div> </div><div>At first I thought I was very disappointed about having to cast another spell just before I need a big heal.  I mean geez who has time for all that.  What I did to eliminate that was make a macro. </div><div>/usea ritual</div><div>/usea learned healing</div><div>It actually worked quite well.  I just replaced my macro icon where the learned healing icon was in my hotbar.  If the timer was not ready on the ritual buff it did not interfere with learned healing going off as normal.  In limited use I did see one heal for 1696.  That is a 19% increase over my ad3 version of learned healing that maxes at 1425.</div><div> </div><div>Very interesting.. however I completely intend on redoing AAs once more the is A LOT more information out there.  I am just exploring this line.  I will be looking eagerly for all other real games experinces with new AAs</div><div> </div><div>Thanks</div>

[thedu]

That's really sucks that I got to equip something that's a symbol in my secondary just to heal a little better. I got great shield right now, and I don't know if I want to sacrifice some of the stats from that.....<div></div>

[Banditman]

What's truly sad is that when you do a strait comparison, we have to spend a goodly number of AA's so we can heal NEARLY as well as a Defiler with no AA's for 12 seconds out of every 60.*sigh*I suppose it's time to start the Crusade again.  :/<div></div>

[Kyin]

<div></div><div>*have not recently checked this so not 100% sure</div><div> </div><div>Yeah the +max hp that our heals do is nice if you over heal but from what I remember if you do not then that extra hp is useless as it does not add it to there life total with the healing.  The defilers heals are a slightly slower recast (1 sec) and heal for a lot more.  this spell along with there high heals gives them a much larger advantage with healing.  Our wards are 100% the same so we do not even get a nice boost in that area to compensate for weaker heals.</div><div> </div><div>Now here is another question.</div><div> </div><div>Again i have yet to put the AA point in anything besides the pet because I am waiting to see what the skills look like with 8 points in them but what I would like to know does this skill effect torpor?  If so does it also effect the amount regenerated towards the ward as well?  If so that would be wonderful.</div><div> </div><div>Anyway in short I think Defilers and Mystics should heal for the same or give us faster casting times instead of the max hp.</div><div> </div>

[Geilt]

FYI for all you using Runed Combine Talisman, it now fits into your Ranged Slot, so you can switch out your shield with your Orb or Censer or whatever is in yoru ranged slot if it will go into secondary. I use a pearl orb in secondary for ritual, and Runed Combine talisman in ranged. I plan to replace The pearl orb with the FT 4 or 5 ranged  / secondary item that comes from the Nest of the Great egg or some other instance. The only big difference is you get no AC bonus with that shield in ranged, thought its a blessing to be able to free up the secondary slot.Another idea ive had is treating ritual like Guards treat tower of stone. Have two items, Runed combine Talisman, and a Orb or some other such nice item for temproary stats, click the item to switch out, cast ritual, cast heal, switch back to shield. Its alot of work but may help out for raids if you really want that shield =).<div></div>

[Banditman]

Watch out with all that switching.I thought I would get "cute" and try something like this with the dagger on my Conjuror.Basically, a Conjuror has an AA line that requires a dagger.  Now, both my Mystic and my Conjuror have their Prismatic.  FT12 is pretty big.  So, I bought a cheapie dagger and set up a hotkey to switch them out so I could use the dagger AA.Yea, that worked well.  Not.The dagger AA basically gives you another dumbfire pet to go do damage, but you have to have a dagger equipped to summon it.  This is the only listed requirement.What is NOT listed as a requirement is that you must have a dagger equipped for the ENTIRE DURATION of the spell.  As soon as you unequip the dagger, the spell is broken.I would assume any AA would work like this, though I've only tested this one.(I respec'ed out of that AA line)<div></div>

[NimSul]

<div></div><p>Ritual is a boost to the next heal you cast, the 12 sec duration only means that you have 12 sec to cast the spell.</p><p>Personally i havnt tried a quickswitch macro for this, but having a shield in off hand seems like its almost the same as not having one. The times i would have wanted a shield is by far far outweighted by the usefullness of ritual. Of cause i dont solo so it might be different, but if i was solo i would want the shield for our shieldbash AA.</p><p>And yea when push comes to shove ft12/14 is darn nice.</p>

[Banditman]

Ritual is TOTALLY a Raid AA.  When soloing, all you need is a Ward and Torpor, and PERHAPS an occasional minor heal.  I can't remember the last time I used a big heal when soloing.However . . . only one heal?Gah, w t smurf?I dunno.  I think I may go a different route.  If it was a 20% increase on EVERY heal for 12 seconds, yea, ok, that's decent.  I'd be able to crank out like 3 heals and feel like I did something.  However, one big heal every 60 seconds is nothing but e-[Removed for Content].<div></div>

[Kyin]

<div></div><p>Well the 1 heal every 60 secs might be a downer (yeah i rather be as many as you can get in in 12 secs) but looking at the teir 2 AA skills ritual is the best by far, even if it is just 1 heal ever 60 secs that 1 heal can make a huge difference. </p><p>So far my max heal is 2440 with 2 points in ritual which is a nice heal.</p><p>Later I might respec for a spell slow build if the pet lands hits on epics but till then Ritual will be used alot. </p><p>I might even go to get 8 points in the crit heal AA but I will only do that if it gives a high % like 16% increase or at the smallest 10%   otherwise the points to get there are worthless to me unless i go the mellee solo AA build.</p>

[bouhh]

<div></div><p>ummm...guys? did anyone notice that this works on wards too? the icon</p><p>vanishes just as soon as you cast a ward just like when you do a heal...</p><p><img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p><img alt="Your Signature" src="http://www.eqsig.com/sig/2560.png"></p>

[Fi]

The Ritual buff vanishes when you cast a ward, yes, but the ward absorbs exactly the same damage (on Feb. 26). It <i>may </i>increase the amount healed if a single target ward runs for full duration, I did not test that.<div></div>

[Banditman]

Look, here's the math to show how valuable Ritual is, you guys know how I like math.I'm going to use a vastly oversimplified method to show the answer, but it works pretty close to actual numbers.  Since the numbers I'm looking for are percentages, the actual values are irrelevant.Let's say a Mystic heals at 1000 HPS.  Over 60 seconds, he (or she, hey, I'm not sexist!) will heal 60k HP.Our heals average about 2.25 seconds of cast time (speaking only of single target heals here, including Wards).  So, using our above information, 2250 HP of our healing is subject to a 20 percent bonus to it's heal amount.  So, you get 2700 HP of healing in that slice of time where Ritual works added to the 57.75 seconds where it doesn't.All told, you get 2700 + 57750 or 60450 healing or an increase in heal power of .75 percent.  Yea, less than 1 percent increase in total healing power over 60 seconds.If "emergency" healing is your problem, you are far better off just dropping Bolster than hoping your target can wait two seconds or three seconds for one slightly better than normal heal.<div></div>

[TangBaBa]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:Watch out with all that switching.I thought I would get "cute" and try something like this with the dagger on my Conjuror.Basically, a Conjuror has an AA line that requires a dagger.  Now, both my Mystic and my Conjuror have their Prismatic.  FT12 is pretty big.  So, I bought a cheapie dagger and set up a hotkey to switch them out so I could use the dagger AA.Yea, that worked well.  Not.The dagger AA basically gives you another dumbfire pet to go do damage, but you have to have a dagger equipped to summon it.  This is the only listed requirement.What is NOT listed as a requirement is that you must have a dagger equipped for the ENTIRE DURATION of the spell.  As soon as you unequip the dagger, the spell is broken.I would assume any AA would work like this, though I've only tested this one.(I respec'ed out of that AA line)<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Man- this truly is teh suck.</p><p>Check this out...</p><p>[quoting from Kendricke]</p><p><strong><font color="#ff8c00">Restrictions:</font></strong>Virtually all paths are related in some fashion to a particular type of weapon or armor that will be required in some fashion to use some of the Achievements in the paths.As an example, the Agility path of Paladins and Shadowknights is related to the use of a great spear of some kind. In additional, several Paladin and Shadowknight achievements require the player's character to be mounted. A good illustration of this is the Joust achievement which greatly increases the damage of an attack by a Paladin or Shadowknight, IF the crusader is both mounted AND using a great spear.The Templar achievement of Turn Undead, from our Wisdom path, requires us to be wielding a symbol.It is possible to find paths which compliment each other well, or possible to find paths that use weapons you can quickly switch.</p><p>[end quoting]</p><p>The entire post for the above quote can be found at <a target="_blank" href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=gameplay&message.id=30924">http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=gameplay&message.id=30924</a></p><p>That last line is the clincher - "find paths that use weapons you can quickly switch."</p><p>I guess the definition of "quickly" here is quite subjective.</p>

[Mystiq]

<div></div>My experience with Ritual and some responses on this thread:Ritual is a great AA, possibly one of the best priest AA's there are. It's better than crit heals for one, because you can buy it way sooner and not waste points, and get the extra heal boost exactly when you need it. I have used it a ton while exping, because my group is hardcore and we always have at least 3 encounters at any given time, and I found out quick that ward just isn't enough, and group ward takes too long to cast. I have Ritual maxed rank and it's points well spent.I'm not too bothered by the 12 sec duration, or the recast. BTW Ritual will fall off no matter what spell you cast, whether it "works" or not, so don't use it till you need it, and don't change your mind and cast something else figuring you have time. It DOES work with Torpor, every tick of it for me was doing around 240 at adept 3. I don't know how/if it effects the ward portion. I've heard it works with single ward but have not confirmed it myself yet. It does not work with group ward or Bolster.<div></div>

[Kaharthemad]

<div></div>why couldnt they leave aa's well enough alone from the days of EQ1 this stuff is pure drek