Ritualist - Blood Power Ritualist Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build is beginner friendly.

This build was last updated on December 09, 2025 and is up to date for the December 9, 2025 patch.

Overview

A Power Ritualist build for WvW roaming.

Skill Bar

Spear

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

There are plenty of viable options for the utility slots, just be sure to keep at least 2 stunbreaks:

• Spectral Armor

• Summon Flesh Wurm

• Weapon of Remedy

Weapons

• Dagger/Focus over Spear - an equally viable option that doesn't require Janthir Wilds. Take Overflowing Thirst on Blood Magic.

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Equipment

Head
Demolisher

Shoulders
Demolisher

Chest
Demolisher

Hands
Demolisher

Legs
Demolisher

Feet
Demolisher

Backpiece
Demolisher

Accessory
Demolisher

Accessory
Demolisher

Amulet
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Spear
Demolisher

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Demolisher

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of the Wayfinder - frees up the rune slot for something that doesn't involve movement speed, if you feel like you're not getting enough value out of the current relic and you're fine with sacrificing that slot.

• Relic of Atrocity or Relic of the Mist Stranger - better life steal damage and healing.

Consumables

Food

• - passive damage mitigation and great stats.

• or (whichever is cheaper) - armor ignoring damage procs that also heal you.

• - has the lifesteal bonus of Omnomberry Ghost but also increases all stats, this is both a defensive and offensive food.

• - active damage mitigation through better access to dodging.
  • - budget version.

Utility

• or , whichever is cheaper (note that the sharpening stone lasts twice as long).

Usage

Ritualist basics

• Necromancers with the Ritualist elite specialization gain a new shroud: Ritualist's Shroud. Functionally it's no different from core shroud - you build Life Force (LF) to enter, it drains passively while active and acts as a second health bar.

• The autoattack does heavy damage and causes spirits to attack your target. Skills 2-4 summon spirits and 5 repositions both you and your spirits while also making them unleash a powerful unique special attack.
  • F2-4 skills are tied to your active spirits. You can use these to make them do another kind of special attack.

• For utilities you gain weapon spells that work a bit like Thief venoms. They provide several stacks of beneficial effects and can be shared with allies.

General

• Staff marks generate Life Force (LF) and are unbloclabke. This includes marks created by traits.

• With Transfusion you and your allies can also trigger staff marks, an enemy isn't required.

• You can keep stacking LF out of combat by making use of these 2 things: if you spam marks beneath your feet, you proc them and gain LF. This gives you something to do even if you're idling in a tower.

• Summon Spirits (shroud #5) can be used to traverse the map even out of combat, giving you both vertical and horizontal mobility. It's quite good at creating shortcuts, like teleporting up to the bridges on Temple of the Silent Storm or up the clocktower on Battle of Kyhlo.

Shroud

• Your real burst damage comes from shroud, weapon sets could almost be considered filler compared to it.

• Soul Twisting (ST) is a key part of the build, and has a huge impact on how you use shroud. It makes the first spirit you summon after entering shroud have no CD, so you can resummon it right away.

• Wanderlust is generally the best target for Soul Twisting. It does good damage, CCs targets, can be used from range, applies good conditions. Best all-arounder option.

• Anguish can be a target for ST too if all you need is damage, as it's the strongest spirit in that regard. Works best against CC'd targets however, so it's a good followup to Wanderlust if you went with that.
  • Going Anguish ⇒ Wanderlust ⇒ Anguish gives you the best burst.

• Preservation is support oriented, it's not a good first pick if you want to pressure targets but it does do some damage. It's quite good however if you need extra healing, damage mitigation or cleansing. It's always summoned in melee

• The autoattack Essence Blast does fairly high damage, so once your spirits are summoned, this is your main source of pressure in shroud.
  • Striking an enemy with the auto causes your spirits to focus your target. This is quite useful for switching targets.

• In combat Summon Spirits is best used when all of your spirits are active. It'll make them unleash powerful special attacks. It's also a good escape tool if you need to disengage.
  • If you're using this with the intent of bursting some new target that was farther away, make sure to hit the new target with your shroud auto beforehand. The teleport itself will not cause the spirits to switch targets, so their special attacks might be wasted on a target that might not even be in range now.

• Summoning a spirit unlocks a new skill above your shroud bar (F2-4). The effects are related to the role the spirits fill - you use Anguish for damage, Wanderlust for CC, Preservation for survival in the form of Stability.
  • These effects trigger around the spirits, not the Ritualist.

• Spirits die if you exit shroud, which also means you no longer get to use your F2-4 skills.

Spear version

• Spear has it own unique mechanic: soul shards. Perforate (skill #2) spends them, skills 3-5 build them. The cap is 6 soul shards.

• Leaving shroud resets the CD of Spear's Isolate, and Isolate's chain skill Distress refreshes the CD of Perforate. This will always give you an option to do good followup bursts after leaving shroud, or to chase down targets (shroud already has some mobility, and you can teleport to targets struck by the ranged Isolate).

• The main burst skill here is Perforate. It's fine to use this skill as the first and second skill after swapping to Spear, even with low or no soul shards. You're naturally going to score a CD reset and build up your shard count as you're cycling through the rest of the skills anyways, so your 2nd use of this skill should happen while it's at full potential.

Dagger version

• Use the Immobilize from Dark Pact to secure important skills like Spinal Shivers and Life Siphon.

• While all Staff skills can generate LF, Dagger/Focus is still better at building it. Soul Grasp gives you a large amount from a safe distance while the dagger autos can repidly generate this resource, if you can afford to go melee for a bit.

Sustain

• Condition cleansing in the build is rather good. You can manage condi levels with Putrid Mark, Preservation and Weapon of Remedy, or resort to Consume Conditions for a mass cleanse if you're starting to get overwhelmed.
  • With Soul Twisting you can cast Preservation twice in a row, but make sure that you wait for it to perform its attack before resummoning it.

• Life Siphon can act as your second healing skill. You can increase its odds of landing by CC'ing targets beforehand - Dark Pact is perfect for this.

• Spectral Armor (if taken) and Weapon of Warding are similar, and fill the same role - stunbreak + damage mitigation. You're free to use them for Protection as long as you have at least 1 other stunbreak for emergencies.

• Weapon spells can be used to support others, as they're shared with nearby allies (albeit with fewer charges).

• Your elite Xinrae's Weapon offers a different type of mitigation, but it's mostly just used as a stunbreak and Stability source.

• Summon Spirits (shroud #5) is your best escape tool. While it doesn't break stun, you can use it even while CC'd to escape to a safe spot.

• Staff is your defensive/utility weapon.

• Every Staff mark heals you and gives you something beneficial via Transfusion. You can also place Staff marks behind your back when kiting enemies.

• Chilblains is good for snaring enemies with the Chill} while Reaper's Mark drives them away with Fear.

• Putrid Mark offers a base amount of condi transfers + additional cleansing via Transfusion. For the cleansing part you don't even need to hit an enemy, you're free to drop the mark on your position.

Related Builds

• Ritualist - Blood Power Rit - sPvP version of this WvW build.