How to fix Ritualist

Hello, I have a suggestion on how to fix the Ritualist subclass

The problem is that not only is she much harder to control than the Amazon (which is interesting for gameplay), but she also doesn't have any bonuses for it. On the contrary: her survivability problems are only exacerbated by the fact that the damage from bleeding cannot be instantaneous, which means that the enemy, even having received damage sufficient to be destroyed, still has the ability to hit her

And when survivability is based on dodge, 1 hit that passed through dodge and became a crit can become fatal, even if it was made by a white monster. It gets to the point where I bought the final trial, despite the fact that I could hit the boss no weaker than the one who sold it, but for 32 rooms in the trial I always got one-shots and therefore simply could not reach the boss

Therefore, a subclass that deals damage over time needs a way to survive the time until this damage affects the enemy

And the hint came from the last patch, where all belts were given the ability to have up to 3 slots. Which makes the ritualist's charm branch practically useless

Therefore, I suggest replacing this branch with 1 of 2 options:

1. Acceleration of bleeding (although this may contradict the unique node in the tree)
2. Transformation of all incoming damage to the character into bleeding damage. After all the modifiers, the damage number itself, so that you still need to collect all the defenses.

I like the second option more, it even fits the specifics of the class, because perhaps to balance the incoming damage will need to be increased and this will be a kind of ritual over yourself

As in the branch with an additional ring, the hiking node will give a negative effect like +10% (15, 20) of all incoming damage, and after it the ability to turn all damage into bleeding (possibly accelerated, the entire amount of damage flows out not in 5 seconds, but 2-3)

That is, the problem of survival based on dodging from a pure gambling game (will I get a crit or not) turns into a task that is interesting to solve within the framework of the game (how not to get so much bleeding that my reaction and health potion are not enough to survive it)

I think this would make the character interesting because now he is not simple. He can inflict a lot of damage not with 1 button, but using the right ones in the right situation. And since you force players on this subclass to play more complex gameplay, then this should be compensated by the ability to solve more problems, in case of successful pressing of all buttons

And now it turns out that I play a new subclass, on new mechanics, in a complex build, and it is almost impossible to achieve the result (to get at least mediocre survivability you need 3 such rings, of which even 1 is not yet on sale for any money). It is sad - the subclass is interesting and the mechanics are interesting

I started as Ritulist hoping that at end game I would be more powerful then Amazon

Now that you can swap ascendancies when ever you want (easy to do)

Why would ANYONE play a Ritulist until they got some end game rings?

Amazon is way way better.

Anyone playing Ritulist before L82 is just making it harder on themselves

I lvl 87, & I have breach ring for physical dmg + raryty + resists, but not for 200 HP with it

Perfect rings now is not for great power - just to play normal

The issue lies in character identity. We do not consider the third ring, as it does not make this class stronger. The two real sources of power are the ritual itself and Blood Boil.

Let’s start with the second. To make Blood Boil effective, you need to increase the presence area of effect. The nodes for this lie deep in the warrior tree, so you can forget about an evasion build. You can also rule out elemental damage, as this part of the tree lacks elemental damage passives, and you don’t have enough points to create an additional path. This leaves you with only one option for dealing damage: physical. The only way to enhance this damage is to heavily invest in bleed damage, since the Huntress has no pure physical damage skills except Spearfield and Rake. However, bleed damage scales poorly and becomes lackluster in the endgame. Moreover, Blood Boil’s damage does not scale with bleed passives, has a very small spread radius, and low DPS. Most importantly, the Huntress has no skills that can kill one or two enemies to trigger Blood Boil’s spread. All her damage sources are AoE, so when you kill one enemy, the others are usually nearly dead as well, making the spread effect useless. Therefore, investing in bleed damage is pointless; it’s more effective to focus on the pure physical damage of Spearfield and Rake, where the bleed effect from the second skill is negligible.

This brings us to the second issue: the Ritualist gains no benefits from using a pure physical damage Spearfield. Furthermore, this skill’s progression is stupid - actual DPS decreases as the skill levels up, rather than increasing. From this perspective, you could use almost any other spear skill, such as a lightning-based one, but the Amazon does it better. Alternatively, you could switch to a different weapon like a crossbow, but the Mercenary outperforms in that role.

The Ritual skill itself is utterly useless, as it provides random, often ineffective buffs for a short duration. In contrast, you can always obtain a permanent, useful buff from your timed beast. Why gamble with a random effect when your pet consistently provides what you need?

Overall, the ascendancy design is poor made and clearly created by people unfamiliar with the passive tree or the game itself. It’s evident that no testing was conducted for this ascendancy before release, as the issues described above become fucking obvious after just one hour of playtesting.

Bleeding is just perfectly scalable in the endgame and it is due to the rings. Three rings with a good roll on fizuron, sharpened by 40% and strengthened by 25% give quite a sufficient increase

I do not complain about DPS, there are several ways to make even a boss bleed out very quickly. You can put him in a whirlwind, preventing the meme from hitting and hitting point-blank with quick blows, sometimes exploding the tips with a spear throw, or combine the retreat skill with the approach skill for more mobile gameplay. In the first case, more of the usual damage, in the second - bleeding

The problem is precisely in survivability. After all, no matter what the damage from bleeding is, it is not instantaneous, and a character dealing damage through dots must be able to survive until these dots do their job

Especially if we are talking about a character fighting in close combat