Curse

Tyla · Aug 25, 2008, 02:51 PM // 14:51

I don't have energy problems on my Ranger at all, and if I need to I usually bring Volley anyway, so I'll switch to a zealous bow and Volley.

DarkSpirit · Aug 25, 2008, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

I don't have energy problems on my Ranger at all, and if I need to I usually bring Volley anyway, so I'll switch to a zealous bow and Volley.

Are you sure Volley+Zealous allows your ranger to spam a 10e spell every 5s?

Tyla · Aug 25, 2008, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Who said I spam it on recharge?

I use it when needed and reapply when possible, and if I'm basing my bar around energy heavy skills I'll use Prepared Shot instead. Whether or not my Ranger can do this, is not part of the discussion and I merely said that I'd prefer to run it on a midliner instead of a backliner.

DarkSpirit · Aug 25, 2008, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

Who said I spam it on recharge?

I use it when needed and reapply when possible, and if I'm basing my bar around energy heavy skills I'll use Prepared Shot instead. Whether or not my Ranger can do this, is not part of the discussion and I merely said that I'd prefer to run it on a midliner instead of a backliner.

Well, any character can carry GDW. If I am not mistaken, the point of carrying GDW on an ER build such as this one, is to be able to spam it on recharge.

Tyla · Aug 25, 2008, 03:57 PM // 15:57

You won't need to spam it on recharge though, you'll only have to reapply every 20 seconds.

DarkSpirit · Aug 25, 2008, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

You won't need to spam it on recharge though, you'll only have to reapply every 20 seconds.

That is 20s for each ally in your team.

Snow Bunny · Aug 25, 2008, 05:39 PM // 17:39

prot monks are better

stop being bad

JDRyder · Aug 25, 2008, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfected Shadow

GDW is the reason for me. How do you get more out of monks when ER can infuse and spam prot while the other backliner can purely heal? Well I'm sorry that my guild isn't TAM or have leet monks but ER covers that weakness since it's easier to play.

cuz your have to rely 100% on having all that shit up, just about every elite area has [rend enchantment][gaze of contempt] or some form of enchant removal, that can 100% RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up this build, you dont have to maintain shit with a monk

I also think if the guy using this came under any pressure he'd just RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing die cause he has to himself to heal other people, in HM non-elite areas theres a ton of shit that goes right under prots and your not going to be able to spam infuse w/o killing yourself also if AoR gets disabled somehow your RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed

this build is something thats fun to run like the OP said, its not replacing any thing and its not as good as a monk. This is coming from some1 who has monked for 3 years not ele'ed, this bar has nothing to do with eleing it has to do with monking and its not any where near as good as a real monks bar

ALF71BE · Aug 25, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRyder

cuz your have to rely 100% on having all that shit up, just about every elite area has [rend enchantment][gaze of contempt] or some form of enchant removal, that can 100% RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up this build, you dont have to maintain shit with a monk

I also think if the guy using this came under any pressure he'd just RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing die cause he has to himself to heal other people, in HM non-elite areas theres a ton of shit that goes right under prots and your not going to be able to spam infuse w/o killing yourself also if AoR gets disabled somehow your RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed

this build is something thats fun to run like the OP said, its not replacing any thing and its not as good as a monk. This is coming from some1 who has monked for 3 years not ele'ed, this bar has nothing to do with eleing it has to do with monking and its not any where near as good as a real monks bar

You gotta have half a brain to run this on places with massive enchantment removal. And even then, since you have high hp with Vital Blessing (assuming you brought it) you're not primary target for the AI, and thus those both spells mean nothing. Unless they use Chilblains, in which case you get the hell out of the AoE, or wait in the back, as any backliner does. When I'm using ER on an ele hero, I flag them to the sides whenever I see Mandragors popping out. Every other place doesn't matters as the hero is not the target of the spells.

AoR and Vital Blessing serve as good cover enchantments, and you can recast them quickly after ER. Few spells remove more than 3 enchants.

And in places with enchant removal, a monk who has less ability to spam prots will have any Aegis/PS/SB removed from their target almost instantaneously, yet he won't be able to put it back after 2 seconds. Then the mobs can't remove it because enchantment removal spells have a recharge of 15 seconds, so even though it was removed quickly, it can be put on again and not removed as easily.

JDR note that this is about a 2 backline with a monk doing the heals (this job doesn't requires more than WoH+Kiss+HP) and the ER doing major protting and minor healing with RoF/Shield Guardian.

Snow Bunny · Aug 25, 2008, 10:18 PM // 22:18

Ok, when you're an ER Ele, you have to maintain 3 enchants on yourself to make good. Ok. That's 3 enchants, plus glyph of swiftness.

What could you possible need infinite energy for that's not better done by a human prot monk.

Shield Guardian is a piece of shit. This debate should be over; if you're packing a shitton of costly utility & PvE-only skills, then it's useful. Otherwise, a human monk does the trick.

Stop sucking.

JDRyder · Aug 26, 2008, 12:03 AM // 00:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by ALF71BE

You gotta have half a brain to run this on places with massive enchantment removal. And even then, since you have high hp with Vital Blessing (assuming you brought it) you're not primary target for the AI, and thus those both spells mean nothing. Unless they use Chilblains, in which case you get the hell out of the AoE, or wait in the back, as any backliner does. When I'm using ER on an ele hero, I flag them to the sides whenever I see Mandragors popping out. Every other place doesn't matters as the hero is not the target of the spells.

AoR and Vital Blessing serve as good cover enchantments, and you can recast them quickly after ER. Few spells remove more than 3 enchants.

And in places with enchant removal, a monk who has less ability to spam prots will have any Aegis/PS/SB removed from their target almost instantaneously, yet he won't be able to put it back after 2 seconds. Then the mobs can't remove it because enchantment removal spells have a recharge of 15 seconds, so even though it was removed quickly, it can be put on again and not removed as easily.

JDR note that this is about a 2 backline with a monk doing the heals (this job doesn't requires more than WoH+Kiss+HP) and the ER doing major protting and minor healing with RoF/Shield Guardian.

you do know in every HM area there is almost all ways enchant removal right?

any monk that spams is bad

for the people that are saying a ER ele is better than a monk STFU L2P

/thread

Ensign · Aug 26, 2008, 03:38 AM // 03:38

It would be questionable to replace a truly good Monk with an ER guy in some HM situations. You do give up a good amount of flexibility for raw power.

You would have to be downright retarded to not replace a mediocre Monk player with one of these guys. With anything less than top notch placement and maximization of all of your utility, the fact that this guy kicks out 3-4x the raw power of a Monk bar dwarfs what a typical Monk player will do.

Snow Bunny · Aug 26, 2008, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

It would be questionable to replace a truly good Monk with an ER guy in some HM situations. You do give up a good amount of flexibility for raw power.

You would have to be downright retarded to not replace a mediocre Monk player with one of these guys. With anything less than top notch placement and maximization of all of your utility, the fact that this guy kicks out 3-4x the raw power of a Monk bar dwarfs what a typical Monk player will do.

I think the attribute spec and loss of an elite really clinches this, though.

A WoH hybrid in hardmode works so well; the loss of that powerheal for infinite energy (in my experience) isn't worth it.

Jeydra · Aug 26, 2008, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

If people didn't run N/Mo's over Mo/x's unless they don't have a Monk available or are using heroes, what makes you think that ER will change it?

Soul Reaping provides nowhere near the energy ER does. Think about it. Suppose one person dies every 10 seconds. That's 14 energy / 10 seconds. Against that, with 4 enchantments on the Elementalist, every single spell he casts restores 16 energy. That's more than anything Soul Reaping can provide. Even if you shorten things to one death every 2 seconds, ER can still restore more energy (I can easily achieve 24 energy return every cast).

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRyder

you do know in every HM area there is almost all ways enchant removal right?

any monk that spams is bad

for the people that are saying a ER ele is better than a monk STFU L2P

/thread

You need to clear both misconceptions about the Ether Renewal Elementalist healer build. The first is that only bad Monks spam. An Ether Renewal Elementalist healer is not a Monk. Repeat, not a Monk. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Both aim to keep the team alive, but the Elementalist is utterly reliant on spamming while the Monk is not. Why? Because spamming fuels the Elementalist's energy while draining the Monk's. You do not seem to appreciate this crucial difference. Energy is critical to healers, and good Monks 'spam' GoLE as much as they can, too.

The other thing is that Ether Renewal is almost always covered under heaps of enchantments. This makes only a few skills dangerous, typically: Lingering Curse, Rend Enchants, Gaze of Contempt. Against areas using these skills you simply don't run Ether Renewal, the same way you don't run Fire Magic against Destroyers. It's common sense: citing anti-enchants as the counter to Ether Renewal shows your lack of experience with the bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowy Bunny

A WoH hybrid in hardmode works so well; the loss of that powerheal for infinite energy (in my experience) isn't worth it.

If we look at heals and heals only, Infuse Health is far more powerful a heal than WoH. It heals more, has no recharge and casts faster. It has serious drawbacks of course (the same as the rest of the ER bar), but the drawbacks of Infuse (high energy cost, health loss) are both negated by ER. It may be less 'spammable' in a sense than WoH, but have you seen what it's like for the Elementalist to Infuse, then drop Prot Spirit, then drop Spirit Bond, and then Infuse again in 3 seconds? Not that the guy would need to be Infused since he's under Prot Spirit, but you get the idea.

********

As a primary Elementalist in PvE I've played a lot with variants of this bar, and here're (a lot of) thoughts on this bar and similar. First, Elementalist ER healers vs. real Monks. Elementalist ER healers have a lot of advantages over real Monks, as well as a lot of disadvantages.

Advantages -

1. Elementalist ER healers never run out of energy. Never. Pretty much the only way to run them out of energy are to 1) interrupt or remove ER or 2) Divert all their skills so they can't spam.
2. Elementalist ER healers never run out of energy. ER is powerful enough an energy management skill that such Elementalists can easily maintain 8 enchantments and -4 energy regen and still have some room for error. In fact, such an Elementalist can even maintain 14 enchantments and operate at -10 energy regen, but they have to stop and refresh their energy often (i.e. frustrating for the party). This is a relatively minor point though (see below).
3. Elementalist ER healers heal themselves while spamming. This reduces stress on the other healer(s) in the party.
4. Elementalist ER healers can literally spam Prots. Maintaining Spirit Bond and / or Protective Spirit permanently on 3-4+ party members is cakewalk; no real Monk will have this kind of energy.

Disadvantages:

1. Real Monks can bring hex and condition removal. Elementalist ER healers cannot (there isn't enough room on the bar, plus the skills aren't spammable enough). Draw Conditions goes some way towards countering conditions but it doesn't remove them.
2. Real Monks have a lot more room on their bar, which means they get to use more skills. Real Monks have at their disposal some really powerful skills like Seed of Life and Shield of Absorption; these are not available to the Elementalist ER healer.
3. Elementalist ER healers die horrible deaths if ER is removed somehow or interrupted. Their bars simply do not have enough space to allow more than a delaying action. The other Monk(s) really have to work harder when this happens.
4. There is relatively little room for error with the ER bar. If you're maintaining 8 enchantments and ER gets interrupted, you have to drop all enchantments ASAP to keep your team from wiping. It can be done, but it takes skill and experience with the bar. Also, if the Elementalist casts Glyph of Swiftness before ER is recharged, he is paralyzed and cannot heal until ER recharges (if he casts some other spell, the Glyph will be cooling down when ER does recharge, which in turn means ER drops, which means the Elementalist runs out of energy).
5. Elementalist ER healers have to stop every 20 seconds to refresh Ether Renewal. This is a 2-second window in which they cannot heal, every 20 seconds. Enough for people to die.
6. Elementalist ER healers' only real heal (Infuse) is single target, unlike a real Monk with Heal Party or LoD. Although Infuse is the game's most powerful pure heal (neglecting the energy cost and health sacrifice, as always) it is not infinitely spammable because it does take a few casts (~3-4) for the Elementalist to get his health back up again.

My personal verdict: Elementalist ER healers are at least as good as real Monks when up against pure physical and / or elemental damage, the kind which can be protted by Shield Guardian, Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond. Against mass conditions or mass hexes (Mandragors come to mind) they are inferior.

Second major line of thought, variants on the bar. I said earlier that the ability to maintain 8 enchantments is an advantage of the ER Elementalist bar. So why is this a minor point? Because, curiously enough, there aren't all that many skills that can be maintained:

Life Barrier / Healer's Covenant / etc. are elite; you cannot run them with ER.
Mending is out of the question.
Life Bond cannot be maintained on yourself (which you want, since you need as many enchantments as possible to fuel ER).
Vital Blessing's extra HP is not all that powerful (especially since you're spamming Prot Spirit already).
Protective Bond's effect is extremely powerful, but even ER's prodiguous energy-fuelling abilities are not enough to fuel 8 Protective Bonds on all party members (in HM anyway, where I tested).
Balthazar's Spirit isn't good since you can't reliably fuel energy on the affected people (there's no guarantee they'll be hit).
Strength of Honor / Retribution are in Smiting Prayers, which are out of the Protection Prayers line - crucial, since the Elementalist cannot use runes to fuel Smiting Prayers.
Divine Boon - I include this here even though you can't maintain 8 copies of it, you get a (tiny) amount of Divine Favour-like return against a negligible energy investment. That said, not enough in my opinion.

All in all I think the best enchantment to maintain 8 copies of is Vital Blessing, if only because there aren't any alternatives.

Next thought: general shape of the bar. There're two skills that absolutely cannot be dropped, namely Glyph of Swiftness and Ether Renewal. Glyph of Swiftness may actually be expendable so long as someone keeps up Quickening Zephyr, but this kills the energy of the rest of the team, so no. After that, there're the spam skills. Skills in this category need to be of low casting time and quick recharge; energy cost does not matter. Which leads to -

Protective Spirit. Probably essential. Also a self-targetting enchantment so it can fuel ER.
Spirit Bond. Also probably essential, and another self-targetting enchantment
Shield Guardian. Terrible skill for real Monks, but fits the ER bar just fine (and another self-targetting enchantment).
Reversal of Fortune. OK, but without Divine Favour the heal it really is rather insignificant. Can self-target but the 6-second duration that may end at any time makes it rather unattractive here.
Reversal of Damage. Not that good. In Smiting Prayers, and no heal from Divine Favour, and the Elementalist can't use Smiter's Boon.
Draw Conditions. This is good but not something I use often, if only because I play with a RC Monk.

Three of these spam skills should suffice to keep energy up. After this, the Elementalist needs a real heal and only Infuse really suffices here. So the bar is now something like:

Glyph of Swiftness / Ether Renewal / Prot Spirit / Spirit Bond / Shield Guardian / Infuse Health

That's six skills, with room for two more. I typically use Aura of Restoration, which is a fast-casting fast-recharging spell that is also a long-lasting enchantment. A possible alternative is Zealot's Fire - you got plenty of energy so why not (again, a fast-casting fast-recharging long-lasting enchantment). For the last spell, there're a few alternatives. With so much energy to spare the Elementalist can run one of the following:

Vital Blessing. It's is an enchantment that can be put on 8 players and fuels Infuse Health (you sacrifice more, so heal more).
Extinguish.
Some PvE skill (Ebon Vanguard Ward of Courage, Pain Inverter, yada yada).
Convert Hexes. Probably the most powerful non-elite hex removal spell that unfortunately cannot self-target.
Aegis.

Next thought: it's possible to get Glyph of Swiftness to affect 2 spells if you switch headpieces every cast. Possible, but I'd say too much micromanaging for most people.

Next: how many enchantments are really required to keep up the spam? To be fair with the bar I use I simply do not run out of energy, not even close. Can I give up some enchantments and still not run out of energy? It's possible. I once used ER with only two enchantments and was able to keep up Heal Party / Extinguish / Jamei's Gaze / Heal Other / Breath of the Great Dwarf spam. 8 energy return per cast, plus 4 natural energy regen, allows you not to run out. That said, I certainly think going Protection Prayers / Energy Storage is better most of the time (only reason I ran that build was because my team didn't have a real Monk and we were doing A Time For Heroes). Back on point - I think the typical ER bar can give up some enchantments but still not run out of energy, but I don't think it's advisable. The only one you can really give up is Aura of Restoration (with the others, simply don't cast on yourself), and that helps with getting health back up after Infuse.

Finally: so why don't people use the ER healing bar? I think the primary reason is that people don't appreciate its power. The build spams prots far more than anyone other build can; I've even gone ahead and Infused minions before - that's how much power the build has as its disposal. It works, but it's unconventional for an Elementalist and requires an altogether different playstyle; not easy to begin. But once used well I think the return is so high that the ER healer can hope to outdo a real Monk in areas where the Prots are effective; that's how broken ER is.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought about this

@Ensign - I once asked Silmor what he thought of the bar; he said it's a sad thing that builds like this work. He's right (he's never wrong, what the heck). If Izzy nerfs Glowing Ice and Icy Shackles so as to 'tilt the balance of power in favour of Elementalists' then he ought to nerf ER to 'tilt the balance of power in favour of Monks'.

*******

EDIT: After I made this post I went back and read a few pages, maybe Vigorous Spirit would indeed be a good skill to use. I've never really liked the skill and it's in Healing Prayers, but ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'm partial to:

Ether Renewal
Glyph of Swiftness
Aura of Restoration
Protective Spirit
Spirit Bond
Infuse Health
Great Dwarf Weapon
Breath of the Great Dwarf

11+2 Energy Storage
3+1 Air Magic
11 Protection Prayers
8 Healing Prayers

I'm curious over the 8 Healing Prayers when Infuse is already almost always an overheal, but the variants you bring up - especially Breath of the Great Dwarf and the 4 Air Magic - certainly look like improvements. I'll take a closer look at it when I can, thanks for the idea.

EDIT#2: The more I think of it, the more I think this is the bar to run. After all, the other difference - Vital Blessing - is relatively minor, and you have a lot more room for error in that you're not working with 4 energy degen (although you should try it just to see what it's like, imo). What I'd change is the skill point distribution, to -

11 + 2 Energy Storage
4 Air Magic
12 Protection Prayers
5 Healing Prayers

This allows you an extra Vitae rune for little loss, since Infuse already overheals anyway. I still have to try this though, just preliminary thoughts.

Tyla · Aug 26, 2008, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Soul Reaping provides nowhere near the energy ER does. Think about it. Suppose one person dies every 10 seconds. That's 14 energy / 10 seconds. Against that, with 4 enchantments on the Elementalist, every single spell he casts restores 16 energy. That's more than anything Soul Reaping can provide. Even if you shorten things to one death every 2 seconds, ER can still restore more energy (I can easily achieve 24 energy return every cast).

That isn't my point. I'm not bothered about the superiority in terms of energy management between the two.

My point was that Soul Reaping is an incredibly powerful energy engine in PvE, so before ER's buff, why didn't people run this over a regular Monk?

DarkSpirit · Aug 26, 2008, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

That isn't my point. I'm not bothered about the superiority in terms of energy management between the two.

My point was that Soul Reaping is an incredibly powerful energy engine in PvE, so before ER's buff, why didn't people run this over a regular Monk?

One reason is that Soul Reaping doesn't support Infuse the way the ER build does and SR triggering is inconsistent (i.e. based on deaths) with a max limit of 3 times per 15s.

Tyla · Aug 26, 2008, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Yet it's still enough energy management to fuel several skills that cost alot of energy and allows a bit of spam?

As for it not supporting Infuse as much, you do understand I'm talking about before the ER buff anyway, and if infinite energy is really that godly why didn't people go Necro primary?

DarkSpirit · Aug 26, 2008, 04:32 PM // 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

Yet it's still enough energy management to fuel several skills that cost alot of energy and allows a bit of spam?

As for it not supporting Infuse as much, you do understand I'm talking about before the ER buff anyway, and if infinite energy is really that godly why didn't people go Necro primary?

Before or after the ER buff, soul reaping still didn't grant any health bonus to support Infuse, so I dont see your point.

Infinite energy has always been godly. But SR energy bonus is more inconsistant since it relies on death while ER energy bonus is consistant because the more you spam, the more energy you receive.

Tyla · Aug 26, 2008, 04:35 PM // 16:35

If you're not killing stuff you're doing it wrong.

JDRyder · Aug 26, 2008, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

You need to clear both misconceptions about the Ether Renewal Elementalist healer build. The first is that only bad Monks spam. An Ether Renewal Elementalist healer is not a Monk. Repeat, not a Monk. Not in the traditional sense anyway.

ive need w8ing for some 1 to say that so i get to do this

HAI GUYS THIS BUILD IS NOT A SIN ITS A MONK
[build=OwcS05PPPMGWCThhwwdNQXG]

Spamming heals and prots is bad even if u have the energy, just heal the guy getting hit, and if u do that your energy will be fine as a monk and your team will not die

also the only places that dont have rend or some shit, are easy as hell and theres no point to look for the ele ER spammer, cause the monk will still do better and most of the attacks will go under the prots the ER spammer uses "before u say change the build" if you do that you lost the point of the build, why spam 5E heals and prots? a monk can do it better and have more flexibility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

That isn't my point. I'm not bothered about the superiority in terms of energy management between the two.

My point was that Soul Reaping is an incredibly powerful energy engine in PvE, so before ER's buff, why didn't people run this over a regular Monk?

cuz monks are better and dont need the energy management