Curse

Epinephrine · Sep 06, 2005, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Agreed, the maximum on enchantments is a better way to keep the flavour of the spell than turning it into an attunement for everything. It should never be able to generate 120 energy though.

The fact is that every other elite energy regen method gives about 3-4 pips overall. To be comparable with other elites you would need to max it at one (1) enchantment - that way, maxed out, just like other elite energy tools, it would generate ~40 energy in 10 seconds, and be capable of being cast twice in a minute for a total of 80 energy a minute, or about 4 pips. On top of that, it should probably lose its health bonus, but we don't need to steal everything from it. If limited to one enchanment it would be a little better than other mehthods, but at a reasonable level.

Anything more than this puts it at twice or more the power of elites like energy drain, offering of blood, ether prodigy, elemental attunement, mantra of recall, peace and harmony (hah!) etc...

Marksman's wager can still generate a ton of energy, but is so conditional that it doesn't tend to. After all, you could conceivably use tiger's fury, a fast bow, distracting shot and dual shot to get about 12 arrows off during the 12 seconds, and if you could guarantee all hits you could generate 9 energy per arrow, for 108 or so energy, every 12 seconds. The only issues are that you have a very low max energy anyway, and can't take advantage of the energy while generating it really as you lose out on energy generation while doing this, and the cost of using TF, 2 dual shots and 2 distracting shots simply to generate energy. Plus you could miss, losing energy, etc.... I doubt it'll ever be an energy engine. You could conceivably fire a bow with a nice flight time delay, switch to your foci and gain the energy up to the focus maximum by switching while the arrows were in flight... but this is getting silly - I don't think it needs to be adjusted as it is ludicrously dificult to milk it.

So 4 pips as a goal for a maxed out elite seems about right; gaining health while using it seems absurd, as none of the others have that poweful an effect - offering of blood causes you to lose health; Elemental attunement only helps elementalist spells, Glyph of Energy only helps with spells that have high costs, energy drain requires targetting an opponent with a lot of energy left, Mantra of Recall occupies your stance slot and so on.

IxChel · Sep 06, 2005, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esprit

For 10 seconds, each time you cast a spell, you gain 1-4 energy and 5-17 health for each enchantment on you. Max 3 enchantments

This still generates 3*4*10 = 120 energy over 30 seconds, for 4 en per second -- about 4x what Energy Drain does.

For 10 seconds, each time you cast a spell, you gain 1 energy and 5 health for each enchantment on you. Max 1-5 enchantments

But even this still favors a bunch of small fast-casting spells (like Smiter's protection spells) rather than the core elementalist spells. Perhaps...

For the next 1-5 spells cast in the next 30 seconds, you gain 2 energy and 10 health for each enchantment on you. Max 1-5 enchantments

This would generate 5*2*5 = 50 -10 = 40 energy or 1.3 en/sec. That's much more in-line with other energy recovery mechanisms. The health recovery in this way is at most 50hp, so its not ungodly.

Esprit · Sep 06, 2005, 06:58 PM // 18:58

With more enchantments, it is harder, for the skills that strip one enchantment at a time, to remove, so with smaller amounts of enchantments, it's easier to disrupt the spell.

The idea was more in line with the orginal skill, rather than recreating it.

Also, Energy Drain has the added bonus of taking the energy from your enemy rather than conjuring it out of thin air. So, you are depriving your foe of energy while replenishing your own, rather than just replenishing.

Though, the latter redefinition, that has it going for 30 seconds, makes it very vulnerable to spells that can disrupt it, considering it's an Elite. But it would remove the smiting exploit and balance it out. But it would then hurt the Elementalist, since Elementalists tend not to have 5 enchantments on themselves, and usually don't pair up with a monk that would give him/her another 3 enchantments.

The skill needs to be able to work fine without an Elemental being with another monk or having a monk as secondary [for the enchantments]. I play with Aura of Restoration and an elemental attunement skill active, usually, but those are timed enchantments, so I have to watch when I cast Ether Renewal.

So an Elemental with 2 enchantments, which I will assume, is pretty standard, you would get 2*2*2 = 8 energy and 40 health out of an elite spell, which is not worth the skill slot.

The assumption being made is that an Elementalist will automatically have 5 enchantments on him/her, which isn't as common, especially in PvE.

I am in favor of Epinephrine's suggestion of limiting it to one enchantment, so,

For 10 seconds, if you have an enchantment on you, each time you cast a spell, you gain 1-4 energy and 5-17 health.

That way, it still has use if you don't have as many points alloted in Energy Storage.

warped314 · Sep 06, 2005, 07:03 PM // 19:03

I think a 60 second recharge time, similar to many ele enchants, would make ether renewal much more balanced.

Epinephrine · Sep 06, 2005, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esprit

Also, Energy Drain has the added bonus of taking the energy from your enemy rather than conjuring it out of thin air. So, you are depriving your foe of energy while replenishing your own, rather than just replenishing.

To be fair, Energy Drain is one of the many energy regen methods out there, and while it has the energy denial as a plus (and a big one) it also depends on your target having energy in order to function. When used in energy denial I never nab full energy - sometimes I barely break even with these spells - for that reason I often prefer Drain Enchantment or Power Drain as they create their own energy and leave your elite slot free, if you really are trying to get energy - I mean, sure, they are both condition based as well, but I'll bet that the mesmer/necro out there will try a 2 second or 3 second spell, and there's always an enchanment around to drain - which is also a useful effect.

As has been mentioned, all the elites are comparable at 3-4 pips anyway, including the effect of elemental attunement, which lasts 45 seconds out of a minute - if you spend 80 energy in those 45 seconds it's the equivalent of spending 160, and you have essentially gotten 4 pips out of it. You could go higher and get more equivalent pips out of it, but a) it doesn't replenish energy, merely makes spells cheaper, b) it's limited to elementalist spells only, and c) to get 8 pips out of it you'd need to have 100 energy at the start of it and burn through all your energy, including the energy you gain in those 45 seconds, so it's feasible to label it as ~4 pips under most circumstances.

I assume that you didn't mean to leave the "for each enchantment on you" on that statement, right? I think that if it is reduced to that level it would be fair, and as a benefit it could be made into a stance like the Mantras, making it much tougher to counter - you would need to remove all encahantments to stop it, as it would only matter if you had one enchantment up, and stance cancelling is much less common than enchanment removal. If you were rended quickly you could still pop an enchantment back up (or a monk could) and you could still generate your energy, though you'd have lost a few seconds.

MSecorsky · Sep 06, 2005, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Simplest fix... only allow characters to carry Elites from their primary profession.

IxChel · Sep 06, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSecorsky

Simplest fix... only allow characters to carry Elites from their primary profession.

How does this fix the given abuse? I mean el/mo is using the elite from
their primary profession, elementalist. The problem with ER is that it
triggers "for-each-spell" and the /mo spamming protection spells allow
about 2x as many spells as one would be able to cast from any other
skill line (they are .25 cast instead of 1s). Even with a 1s cast (plus .75
after cast), ER is still damn powerful.

MSecorsky · Sep 06, 2005, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Ah, good point... it should only work for the elementalist spells.

Apologies. Typed faster than the speed of thought.

Mysterial · Sep 07, 2005, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Here's another idea that just popped into my head that still keeps the theme of the skill:

(Attribute scale: 1...15)

Cost: 5
Cast time: 2
Recharge: 30

Elite Spell. For each enchantment on you, you gain 3...10 energy and 10...30 health.

So if you have three enchantments on you (an average number) it's about on par with Energy Drain - it gives around the same amount of energy per second and gives health on top of it, but Energy Drain steals from the enemy so you lose that advantage. Adding more enchantments in a solo build will hurt your build and/or make you extremely vulnerable to Rend Enchantments or Lingering Curse. I added a second to its cast time to give plenty of a chance to counter the "have a teammate stack a dozen enchantments on the Elementalist" tactic (while still allowing it to succeed with a good team, as good teamwork should be rewarded)

Thoughts?

Garrett The Brigand · Sep 07, 2005, 01:11 AM // 01:11

How about this, instead of giving health per cast, take away health per cast, give it a "mana burn" effect. You want more mana? Fine, your healths gonna drop a little though. That seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.

Anir · Sep 08, 2005, 12:04 AM // 00:04

just an idea: how about increase the cast time (3+ seconds, perhaps?) without changing its effects?

this way, people can still run the same builds, but if an opposing team recognizes it, they can effectively do something against it...

Symbol · Sep 08, 2005, 12:12 AM // 00:12

Quote:

For 10 seconds, each time you cast a spell, you gain 1-4 energy and 5-17 health for each enchantment on you. Max 3 enchantments

Yup, this is what I suggested. Cap the number of enchantments and the whole scaling problem goes away.

This is still better than prodigy, so we need to rework that as well. How about lengthening the duration to 30 seconds and removing the exhaustion?

Eder · Sep 08, 2005, 12:36 AM // 00:36

I'd suggest either:

a) Cap the number of enchantments! Simplest solution, IMHO. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a fixed cap... make it something like "Maximum 1-4 enchantments" or something, just to prevent abuse. IMHO this would be the ideal solution, since it wouldn't nerf the living crap out of every Ele out there to the point of making everyone forget the skill ever existed.

b) Make it so that only Elementalist enchantments count (ie: attunements, conjures, aura of restoration). It'd fix the skill almost as nicely, since there's only 3 or 4 useful elementalist enchantments you can have at a time.

c) Make it so that only Elementalist spells trigger the recharge. This doesn't seem as efficient to me, since it's easy to sacrifice one skill slot for Flare or another low-cost, instant-recharge elementalist skill.

At any rate, I still don't see what the big deal is. I mean, there's stuff which is usually hard to counter - impossible, under certain circumstances - and then there's enchantments.

Symbol · Sep 08, 2005, 02:57 AM // 02:57

Quote:

a) Cap the number of enchantments! Simplest solution, IMHO. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a fixed cap... make it something like "Maximum 1-4 enchantments" or something, just to prevent abuse. IMHO this would be the ideal solution, since it wouldn't nerf the living crap out of every Ele out there to the point of making everyone forget the skill ever existed.

b) Make it so that only Elementalist enchantments count (ie: attunements, conjures, aura of restoration). It'd fix the skill almost as nicely, since there's only 3 or 4 useful elementalist enchantments you can have at a time.

a) and/or b) together seem like the best change. Cap the number of enchantments at 3 or better yet, have a scaling cap from 1-4 and/or only allow elemental enchants to count towards the limit. As it is only elemental attune and renewal can cover elementalist energy costs, they shouldn't nerf ER into renewal into oblivion just to prevent other professions from abusing it.

Do that and make ether prodigy a worthwhile alternative. That way elementalists will have three great elite energy management options instead of one awesome (renewal), one good (elemental attune), and one shitty (prodigy).