Nuggetty Goodness

One of the things I dislike about Ritualist healing in PvP is that the spirits are so, so slow to cast. It feels like I'm standing there with a big, 'HAI INTERRUPT ME NAO!' neon sign flashing over my head. And I dislike the lack of mobility that results from using spirits.

At the same time, I recognise that spirits are an appreciable plus... if used right. The idea is to maximise on spirit use for healing while minimising on cast time.

That's where these builds come in. This is the first in a series of builds I've written and tested over the last two weeks. ;)

Preservation Physical Pwner & Healbot OAOjAqhMJORTppw76VwaJTMxJA

The Concept
Great defence from physical and degen builds. Never run out of energy. High mobility.

Skills
Soothing Memories
Mend Body & Soul
Spirit Transfer
Weapon of Shadow
Mighty was Vorizun
Remove Hex
Resilient Weapon
Preservation {Elite}

Stats
Communing [10]
Restoration [12]
Spawning Power [8]

Gear

• Minor or superior restoration and / or communing rune. I don't have a pvp set for my rit, so I just run around with my Sup resto rune. Yes. In pvp. XD
• Weapon doesn't matter, you'll be clutching your ashypot 99% of the time
• Radiant or herald's insignias work best.
• Superior or major vigor rune
• Attunement and vitae runes (balance em out so you're at least over 480hp)

Campaigns Needed
Factions. That's it. =)

How to Use

• Leave a mini-you beside you at all times (Preservation) to power Spirit Transfer and Mend Body and Soul.
• Leave the mini-you to guard gates/shrines while going to other gate/shrine to heal
• Make physicals run away crying after they hit you, or anyone you've plopped Weapon of Shadow on
• Weapon of Shadow on CD and have degen or hexer stuck to you? Resilient weapon lets you make faces at them
• Run around with Mighty was Vorizun on at all times - that's 60-70e depending on your gear, and you should not ever have e problems.

Variants

• Mesmer secondary: Revealed / Inspired Hex in place of Remove Hex, and put your remaining spare points into Inspiration magic. This should guarantee a free, or almost free hex removal. Downside is that it doesn't recharge very fast.

Counters

• Having Mighty was Vorizun interrupted / forgetting to renew it before it runs out. This is serious - it will put you in a heavy E deficit. (In the worst case, -30e says hello.)
• General caster hate

Additional notes
Don't you have e management problems? 70e doesn't mean infinite e!
It does, if this build is used right. Even being the only healer in FA a few times, e wasn't much of a problem unless I forgot to renew Mighty was Vorizun before it ran out. With judicious use of Soothing Memories and Resilient Weapon, and putting down Preservation whenever available, your e is effectively infinite.

HAHAHA NUB! PRESERVATION SUCKS!
Well yes, usually, it does. This is the only place where I use it, because in FA/JQ, it's great. Everything is an ally, it's incredibly cheap, and you can leave it as a miniguard at gates and shrines. People don't bother to kill it that I have noticed. Additionally, it doesn't take damage when it heals, and lives a long time. This means it powers spirit transfer, when you need it, for a 200+hp heal. Not shabby at all.

 

Industrious nugget is industrious! Just the background to go, then the final polishing bits. Hopefully I'll finish it within the next couple of days. Deadline is looming!

I've fiddled with the colour a bit, and I think I like the new version (the third from the left) better than the older ones. -_- If anyone other than my neurotic fiddly self can tell, anyway.

The lionesses were pretty fun. I haven't painted a furry thing in a looooooooooooooooooong while, so it was great to re-explore rendering fur with the shiny new capabilities of Pshop CS4.

Wikipedia has this to say about the leanan sidhe (yay for quoting the Intarwebz!):
"The leanan sídhe is generally depicted as a beautiful muse, who offers inspiration to an artist in exchange for their love and devotion; however, this frequently results in madness for the artist, as well as premature death."  

A thought I've been kicking around for a while now though, is that the depiction above is a rather unfair one. For one thing, it isn't just inspiration she offers, or at least, it doesn't seem to be. It's both skill and inspiration... and then they die young, her chosen artists. But how good you get as an artist also depends on how much time and care you put into your art - same as any other skillset. In other words, artistic skill (if not necessarily inspiration) is what the artist gets in return for parcelling away chunks of their lives to their muse. 

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell mentions something about how it takes most humans 10,000 hours or so to attain a highish level of mastery. That's 10,000 hours of your life you'll never see again.  

So what's the leanan sidhe really doing? Stealing the lives of her 'chosen', and dooming them to early splatting? Or is she merely compressing the whole process? Maybe that's the real bargain she offers. ;)

'Listen, puny mortal, you can spend the rest of your life improving your craft, or you can just pay me upfront, now, and I'll give you all the skills that would have accumulated in the time you've just bargained away. And I'll throw in some inspiration as a plus!'

...suddenly she doesn't look all that evil anymore.

>.> Especially since her way is the easy way out. You don't get to procrastinate your life away instead.