Curse

Zodiac Meteor · Mar 14, 2009, 07:42 AM // 07:42

I was trying out a different build with the first pick. Didn't work as well.

The second picture, our healer left with another person, yet we beat magmus HM with me being the only healer. No perma ether

Take a close look at the teams.

Edit: image fix

Jeydra · Mar 14, 2009, 01:32 PM // 13:32

@second picture - consets zzz.

I might try doing the same dungeon too as a single healer, although I will bring midline defense (Aegis, maybe some Smiting Monks). It's more of a "I-think-your-ER-build-is-bad" thing though.

By the way I think one of my friends saw your build on YouTube, and now I can't persuade him to switch off it lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

Please explain why a healer who is not named, Alesia(Healer Henchman), would consider doing that.

There are reasons why an ER healer would want to be on the frontlines. Ether Renewal restores like 100 health per cast. If you're not using Infuse (and you won't be Infusing all the time) all that health goes to waste. If you are tanking and taking damage, not only would you have an easy time throwing Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond on yourself, you would be almost invulnerable (ER gives [almost] infinite health just as it gives [almost] infinite energy). The only time when you're vulnerable is when you are refreshing ER, that's when you can be interrupted / KD'ed etc. Still, against some monsters there's nothing stopping you from tanking.

EDIT: Turns out Heart of Shiverpeaks is easy. I did it with like no midline defense (just Reckless Haste / Enfeebling Blood / Foul Feast - didn't have any self-heals on my heroes too) with no problems. Died once because after Magmus died he spawned heaps of Magma Blisters who chained Mark of Subversion so well I couldn't outheal the damage. The Corrupters proved annoying (#!$*#@ Vital Blessing 2s recharge #!($@#) but they never got removed ER and they never killed anyone.

I used this build:

Energy Storage 13
Air Magic 4
Healing Prayers 5
Protection Prayers 12

Infuse Health
Spirit Bond
Shield Guardian
Protective Spirit
Aura of Restoration
Ether Renewal
Vital Blessing
Glyph of Swiftness

Also had VoR Mesmer, SS Necro, Splinter Barrage, Zho, Lo Sha, Cynn, Hertha, and no consumables of any kind (that includes candy corn, clovers, etc).

I was going to use Life Attunement until I thought, no second Monk anyway and Infuse is almost always an overheal so why bother, I brought Vital Blessing instead. 5 seconds after leaving the Eye of the North I remembered LA increases the heal from Aura of Restoration / Ether Renewal, but I went ahead anyway and it turned out all good.

Screenshot available if you want to see it.

Janja · Mar 18, 2009, 12:47 PM // 12:47

Just wondering, is this runnable by a hero? Can't really try it out myself due to not having access to some of the skills yet.

distilledwill · Mar 18, 2009, 01:48 PM // 13:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janja

Just wondering, is this runnable by a hero? Can't really try it out myself due to not having access to some of the skills yet.

its pretty good on heroes, they can't maintain it 100% as theyre stupid with Glyph of Swiftness but this is what I run with my Sin:

[build prof=E/Mo Energy=12+1+2 Smiting=10 heal=6 prot=6][Infuse][Protective Spirit][Smite Hex][Draw Conditions][Aura of Restoration][Ether Renewal][Life Attunement][Strength of Honor][/build]

Pumps up damage, keeps off conditions and is fairly sturdy. Nowhere near as efficient as a player one but its still pretty good.

Snow Bunny · Mar 18, 2009, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janja

Just wondering, is this runnable by a hero? Can't really try it out myself due to not having access to some of the skills yet.

The hero will not properly understand what to do.

Chthon · Mar 19, 2009, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janja

Just wondering, is this runnable by a hero?

If you dumb it down, yes. The heroes totally do not understand glyph of swiftness; they won't spam Infuse as often as you'd like; and they can't really manage the numerous maintained enchants a human can; but, other than that, they work OK.

Try
[ether renewal][protective spirit][spirit bond][infuse health][dwayna's kiss][convert hexes][aegis][aura of restoration]
The heros "get" how to use that bar. DKiss forces the AI to heal when you need it and it's being irresolute about infusing. (I really dislike using another heal when Infuse should be all you need, but, after trying heroes both ways, I've become convinced that this gap in the AI is well worth plugging.) The AI will chain Aegis properly. It generally doesn't blow its energy during E.Renewal's downtime. Definitely give it 16 ES and a 20% enchanting weapon. Set the AI to "avoid combat."

^ Credit to Carinae Dragonblood for DKiss, Aegis, and a couple other changes to the build.

Jeydra · Apr 01, 2009, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Just did Duncan HM H/H with ER, it really shows its resilience and strength, even though the weaknesses were just shoved into my face a few times. Some things can't be taken for granted as well with ER, I realized. ER Elementalists have no hex and condition removal, so you can't just sub out a Monk for an ER Elementalist (or N/Rt healer, etc). They also have a huge weakness not yet mentioned in protting minion damage. That goes under Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit, and while you can Infuse through the damage, Infuse is mildly dangerous, and if your health is under 50% when ER drops and you're getting hit you could find yourself in trouble. This happens quite often for me since I'm spamming so much I have no time to kite. The 2+ seconds when you're refreshing ER is really very dangerous too, and plenty of time for someone to die, although with Air Magic at 4 you can Glyph of Swiftness -> Infuse -> put up Ether Renewal.

I'm beginning to think the strongest ER build in general is this one:

Air Magic 4
Energy Storage 11 + 1 + 1
Protection Prayers 12
Healing Prayers 5

Infuse Health
Spirit Bond
Shield Guardian
Protective Spirit
Aura of Restoration
Ether Renewal
Life Attunement
Glyph of Swiftness

Life Attunement is really complete leetsauce. It ups the health you gain from ER / AoR as well as up the health you gain for healing your allies. With the setup I was running for example an Infuse from max health is a 480 HP heal. That's more than two WoH's (gg Age). Not to mention the health you regain is tremendous: in the range of 150.

Shield Guardian is an interesting case. It's not a very strong skill - it's either that or it's somewhat bugged, because I don't seem to get the heal to trigger much even when the guy protted is getting wanded. Its strength comes from the 1/4 cast and 1s recharge. Because of the fast recharge you can spam so much the 'cooldown' on Infuse is much lower. It also has a relatively long duration, so if you're not getting hit you can use it to pump Ether Renewal. It's either Shield Guardian or Reversal of Fortune, one or the other. I'll have to try RoF a bit more often.

The maintained enchantment I find to be very very strong indeed, perhaps even too strong to give up. The enchantment brings an automatic +1 to your enchantment count, automatic +15% while enchanted to all your allies if they have that mod, makes you less vulnerable to getting stripped (since monsters might strip your allies) and still brings with it all their benefits. Life Attunement, as mentioned above, is total leetsauce and I'd run it whenever I can. When LA isn't viable (too many physical characters in team), it might be better to run Vital Blessing. Both spells pump Infuse; LA by increasing the heal while Vital Blessing by increasing the amount of health you can sacrifice.

Breath of the Great Dwarf ... it's a good skill, but the cooldown is atrocious. For the less spammy Elementalist it might work, but these days I begin to think it's better to powerheal through. Especially if you're running a maintained enchantment and operating with -4 degen, having Breath of the Great Dwarf is one less skill to spam with. You need to stop more, as well as be more careful with energy whenever ER is close to expiring. While the 86 heal to all party members (assuming LA active) is great, why not just run Shield Guardian, spam it a bit (it heals more than BotGD when it triggers too) and Infuse whenever.

And then there's Great Dwarf Weapon. It's a good skill of course, but kind of slow (albeit not as slow as BotGD). It might be a good choice to run Vital Blessing + GDW for the two optional slots, but given how much I play with H/H, and given how much I like casterballs with H/H, I don't think I'll get much chance to experiment with this.

And one final note: since ER healers have no room for condition and hex removal, it's essential to have them on a hero or henchman. Without hex removal Arcane Conundrum for example can incapacitate this build. The heals and prots won't be affected, but when it comes time to refresh ER, you will cry.

thinkingofaname · Apr 19, 2009, 06:48 AM // 06:48

[build prof=E/Mo Energy=12+1+3 Heal=3 Prot=12][Infuse][Aura of Restoration][Glyph of Swiftness][Ether Renewal][Life Attunement][Holy Veil][Purifying Veil][Protective Bond][/build]

Time to take ER to a new level. This is the new ER build I made, what do you guys think of it? It has both hex and condition removal, and protection against them. Basically pick the dangerous ones to remove, and just power heal the rest. More importantly, nobody ever dies due to [Protective Bond] (including yourself), you don't have to watch the field ever.....just hit infuse like a madman and hit Glyph + ER when needed, the rest of the build plays itself.

Just in case....you keep bond on all 8 member, rest of the enchants on yourself unless someone need a veil.

I haven't test this exclusively in HM, I want to know how it works.

Might need a grail for +1 prot if things hit too fast, but I haven't encountered this and you literally gain 19 energy per sec with this.

FoxBat · Apr 19, 2009, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Even if you have the energy for it, there's some cap on the number of maintained enchants (10?)

Xenomortis · Apr 19, 2009, 08:50 PM // 20:50

The point of Ether Renewal, is that you do have the energy for it. Played properly. you'll never run out.
I can't find anything that mentions a maximum number of maintained enchantments, so I'm not sure on that.

It'd be a bit scary though, even with just Protective Bond on all 8 party members (taking you to -4 energy degen). ER shouldn't let you down though and if ER does suffer some downtime, an ele has a huge energy pool to play with.
And if things get bad, just cancel them and cast them later when possible.

I can't really judge the build myself though, as I have little experience playing such builds.

Chthon · Apr 19, 2009, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

The point of Ether Renewal, is that you do have the energy for it. Played properly. you'll never run out.
I can't find anything that mentions a maximum number of maintained enchantments, so I'm not sure on that.

It'd be a bit scary though, even with just Protective Bond on all 8 party members (taking you to -4 energy degen). ER shouldn't let you down though and if ER does suffer some downtime, an ele has a huge energy pool to play with.
And if things get bad, just cancel them and cast them later when possible.

I can't really judge the build myself though, as I have little experience playing such builds.

In my experience, putting Prot Bond on a ER build works spectacularly, right up until it fails spectacularly. You can vanquish entire zones without anyone dipping below 80% hp (except you when you infuse), but you can also lose all your bonds and all your energy in a blink if your party decides to stand in some AoE. I would not recommend it for really hard content unless you've got all human party members (less likely to stand in AoE) and some other heavy damage reduction to keep PBond from triggering constantly (SY!, aegis chain). In any event, the bonds need to be split between two ER builds or your just asking to overload.

Jeydra · Apr 20, 2009, 07:04 AM // 07:04

Agree with Chthon here. I've found 8 Protective Bonds to be too dangerous to run. Though ER provides almost infinite energy, that's only the case when you can spam. If you ever have to stop for whatever reason (KD'ed, time to refresh ER etc) then you are dead. Your energy can disappear in 3 seconds, you can't Infuse with no energy and you're basically paralyzed for a good 15 seconds or so. Not a good idea.

With the rest of the build I don't quite see the point of Holy Veil if alternative hex removal are better (Reverse Hex, Convert Hexes), although it should work. Also, with Protective Bond falling into the problem above, I think Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit are simply too important to give up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

Even if you have the energy for it, there's some cap on the number of maintained enchants (10?)

The cap is -10 degen - so since you're an Ele with 4 natural energy regen, you can maintain 14 enchantments.

******

@topic - a couple of new insights to Ether Renewal.

Vital Blessing vs. Life Attunement: After having tried both skills considerably I think both are good. Vital Blessing is obviously superior when you've got physical characters in the team. It's also easier to put up in a fight if it gets removed (3/4s cast vs. 2s cast). Since it gives direct bonuses to health, it's superior if you've got some Death Penalty. Also since it gives direct bonuses to health, you're relatively safer from otherwise-deadly Elementalist foes. Although extra health can mean just taking longer before a team wipes, since ER bars hardly ever run out of energy that extra time can mean you don't party wipe after all.

On the other hand, Life Attunement is +44% health healed, which will make any healing Monk happy. It seriously boosts the health gain from Heal Party (which is a weak area of ER bars), and it helps normal heals fill out red bars completely. Although overhealing is an issue when you've got limited energy, in this case the heal Monk isn't actually spending energy on overhealing - the energy cost is borne by the ER Elementalist, and he has more than enough energy to spare. The extra heal comes for free; the 'cost' is actually the +168 health from Vital Blessing, which you necessarily won't have if running LA. The other major benefit of LA compared to Vital Blessing is the increased heal from Ether Renewal, which lets you Infuse more often.

I'd conclude that Life Attunement vs. Vital Blessing is more or less a tie, and you pick whichever you need for your purposes at that time. If you have 2 physicals, take Vital Blessing. If you're going to clear Shards of Orr HM where Fendi hits for 200 damage, take Vital Blessing. If you're doing Gyala HM and need to keep the turtles alive, take Vital Blessing. Outside of these situations though (i.e. for general PvE) take Life Attunement.

Reversal of Fortune vs. Shield Guardian: Shield Guardian is a clear winner here. It has lots of advantages over RoF - it lasts longer (12s vs. 7s), is superior healing and it recharges faster. Reversal's only real advantage is that it triggers against more kinds of damage, but since all monsters wand it's not a big deal at all. There's a bug with Shield Guardian that although it does trigger you won't see the +67 health gain you normally do when you heal someone (unless it's on yourself). Kinda disorienting to heal without seeing the heal, it made me think it wasn't triggering in the first place ...

I seem to have come full circle. The original ER bar I came up with is, outside of the 4-spec in Air, completely the same as the one I use these days. I've gone through all sorts of variants, I've used GDW, I've used BotGD, I've gone without maintained enchantments ... and in the end I've decided that the original bar is the best. I still have things to try of course - eg, running with Imbagons in the party more often. But for the styles of PvE that I do (mainly H/H, sometimes with one or two other players) I've tried out almost everything. This is the best, and it's carried me through the hardest areas in the game.

Shyft the Pyro · Apr 23, 2009, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

In my experience, putting Prot Bond on a ER build works spectacularly, right up until it fails spectacularly. You can vanquish entire zones without anyone dipping below 80% hp (except you when you infuse), but you can also lose all your bonds and all your energy in a blink if your party decides to stand in some AoE. I would not recommend it for really hard content unless you've got all human party members (less likely to stand in AoE) and some other heavy damage reduction to keep PBond from triggering constantly (SY!, aegis chain). In any event, the bonds need to be split between two ER builds or your just asking to overload.

The solution is incredibly simple: Life Bond for the party, Prot Bond for the ER ele!

thinkingofaname · Apr 24, 2009, 06:36 AM // 06:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Agree with Chthon here. I've found 8 Protective Bonds to be too dangerous to run. Though ER provides almost infinite energy, that's only the case when you can spam. If you ever have to stop for whatever reason (KD'ed, time to refresh ER etc) then you are dead. Your energy can disappear in 3 seconds, you can't Infuse with no energy and you're basically paralyzed for a good 15 seconds or so. Not a good idea.

With the rest of the build I don't quite see the point of Holy Veil if alternative hex removal are better (Reverse Hex, Convert Hexes), although it should work. Also, with Protective Bond falling into the problem above, I think Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit are simply too important to give up.

The cap is -10 degen - so since you're an Ele with 4 natural energy regen, you can maintain 14 enchantments.

******

@topic - a couple of new insights to Ether Renewal.

Vital Blessing vs. Life Attunement: After having tried both skills considerably I think both are good. Vital Blessing is obviously superior when you've got physical characters in the team. It's also easier to put up in a fight if it gets removed (3/4s cast vs. 2s cast). Since it gives direct bonuses to health, it's superior if you've got some Death Penalty. Also since it gives direct bonuses to health, you're relatively safer from otherwise-deadly Elementalist foes. Although extra health can mean just taking longer before a team wipes, since ER bars hardly ever run out of energy that extra time can mean you don't party wipe after all.

On the other hand, Life Attunement is +44% health healed, which will make any healing Monk happy. It seriously boosts the health gain from Heal Party (which is a weak area of ER bars), and it helps normal heals fill out red bars completely. Although overhealing is an issue when you've got limited energy, in this case the heal Monk isn't actually spending energy on overhealing - the energy cost is borne by the ER Elementalist, and he has more than enough energy to spare. The extra heal comes for free; the 'cost' is actually the +168 health from Vital Blessing, which you necessarily won't have if running LA. The other major benefit of LA compared to Vital Blessing is the increased heal from Ether Renewal, which lets you Infuse more often.

I'd conclude that Life Attunement vs. Vital Blessing is more or less a tie, and you pick whichever you need for your purposes at that time. If you have 2 physicals, take Vital Blessing. If you're going to clear Shards of Orr HM where Fendi hits for 200 damage, take Vital Blessing. If you're doing Gyala HM and need to keep the turtles alive, take Vital Blessing. Outside of these situations though (i.e. for general PvE) take Life Attunement.

Reversal of Fortune vs. Shield Guardian: Shield Guardian is a clear winner here. It has lots of advantages over RoF - it lasts longer (12s vs. 7s), is superior healing and it recharges faster. Reversal's only real advantage is that it triggers against more kinds of damage, but since all monsters wand it's not a big deal at all. There's a bug with Shield Guardian that although it does trigger you won't see the +67 health gain you normally do when you heal someone (unless it's on yourself). Kinda disorienting to heal without seeing the heal, it made me think it wasn't triggering in the first place ...

I seem to have come full circle. The original ER bar I came up with is, outside of the 4-spec in Air, completely the same as the one I use these days. I've gone through all sorts of variants, I've used GDW, I've used BotGD, I've gone without maintained enchantments ... and in the end I've decided that the original bar is the best. I still have things to try of course - eg, running with Imbagons in the party more often. But for the styles of PvE that I do (mainly H/H, sometimes with one or two other players) I've tried out almost everything. This is the best, and it's carried me through the hardest areas in the game.

The point of holy veil, in addition to the protection factor, is that it is an enchantment itself and can be maintained, so you gain +4 energy and extra health from ER. The energy gain works due to infuse having 0 recharge, so you can spam it every second, and health gain from ER with Pbond means you cant die either even at 50% hp all the time. The highlight of the build is that other than keeping up ER, you have to do nothing other than hitting infuse non-stop for energy and red bar up. KD and AoE would be a counter to this build, I normally run a modified necro way with this build, so I have enchantments from other resources and minions as baits for AoE, and you are back far enough that most KDs shouldn't hit you, but I can see how those may be a problem. But with the correct team setup, this is probably the most fail safe way to keep your party alive.

Jeydra · Apr 29, 2009, 02:23 PM // 14:23

I've thought about Life Bond, but I've never tried it. There are two reasons:

1. You can't use Life Bond on yourself. This means that you've just added a skill that won't give you +1 to enchantment count, straining an already crowded bar.
2. It works only against physical attacks. Against Elementalist, Mesmer or Necro damage it is powerless.

I've never tried it. How good does it work?

@above - that sounds very much like one of the infinite-infuses build mentioned in this thread. I've never played one myself, although I've played with Elnore while he ran it. The problems are ...

1. You can't Infuse everyone. It takes, what, 4 seconds to Infuse everyone in the party, which is dangerous and more than enough time for people to die. It's a party heal problem that's inherent to most ER bars though.
2. You can't live on just Infuse. At least, in the areas I play, it doesn't work. The LA / SB / PS / Shield Guardian bar I run is almost infinite Infuse as well, but whenever I do Duncan HM with it if I have to stop protting and rely on consecutive Infuses it's a sign that the party is under serious pressure. Sooner or later I have to stop and prot, without it the damage is simply too high (Spirit Bond + LA = +126 ftw!).

Now if you can feasibly maintain 8 Protective Bonds, then I can see the point of the build, it's just that I've found in the tough areas it doesn't work. On a 600 HP character 5% HP is 30 health. Everyone hits above 30 damage in the tough areas (even the minions in Duncan HM hits above 30 damage). The drain on energy is tremendous, too tremendous even ... I don't know if you can have 8 Protective Bonds spread across two Elementalists, but in my experience - H/H though - using 8 bonds on one Elementalist is too dangerous. It works spectacularly right up until it fails spectacularly, and when it does fail spectacularly you will wipe (since you're down for some 15s).

Anyway some things I tried out but never fully pursued, since I gave up the idea - you might find them useful instead. First is Burning Speed. The skill is an enchantment, 1/4s cast and 0 recharge. You can spam it nonstop, thus keeping up energy, while waiting for someone to take enough damage to warrant an Infuse. Come to think of it though this might not be a good idea because you might as well cast Infuse anyway, especially if you're using infinite Infuse builds where the second Infuse isn't much weaker than the first, if it is weaker at all. The second option is Breath of the Great Dwarf. Since you don't normally want to Infuse for 60 heal, you could use BotGD to fill out party bars instead. Up to you to try, if it works all the better (make sure to share the build though)

Shyft the Pyro · Apr 29, 2009, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I've never tried it. How good does it work?

You know how in HM everything is 50% tougher? Life Bond makes your H/H take 50% less damage. I don't know about you, but my math says that's pretty good

Seriously, though, Life Bond on an ER ele is great when the H/H can deal with the mobs themselves. By keeping the party bonded, you're effectively giving them extra time to handle the mobs - not to mention giving yourself extra time to catch a dying ally with Infuse. Only 2 things can make Life Bond a bad choice:

1. If you need to bring extra killing power on your character, such as if you're using Discordway (PvE skills + Assassin's Promise)... but you're not an ER ele then, are you?

2. If you know there is mass enchantment removal in the area (mostly Mirror of Disenchantment in GWEN, but also Chillblains).

Keeping multiple maintained enchantments up does require that you spam something for the energy, which means you'll be taking more to get to places as you can't walk while casting. It's fine for an occasional change of pace, though, and it does create an extra "fail buffer" that is more than welcome

Chthon · Apr 30, 2009, 02:49 AM // 02:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I've thought about Life Bond, but I've never tried it. There are two reasons:

1. You can't use Life Bond on yourself. This means that you've just added a skill that won't give you +1 to enchantment count, straining an already crowded bar.
2. It works only against physical attacks. Against Elementalist, Mesmer or Necro damage it is powerless.

I've never tried it. How good does it work?

I've tried it. It's so-so.

Quote:

Now if you can feasibly maintain 8 Protective Bonds, then I can see the point of the build, it's just that I've found in the tough areas it doesn't work. On a 600 HP character 5% HP is 30 health. Everyone hits above 30 damage in the tough areas (even the minions in Duncan HM hits above 30 damage). The drain on energy is tremendous, too tremendous even ... I don't know if you can have 8 Protective Bonds spread across two Elementalists, but in my experience - H/H though - using 8 bonds on one Elementalist is too dangerous. It works spectacularly right up until it fails spectacularly, and when it does fail spectacularly you will wipe (since you're down for some 15s).

I've tried extensively to make this work. It doesn't, for the reasons you stated. The one situation that I haven't tested that might work is 2 eles with 4 bonds each on a largely human team with SY!, Aegis, and other party-wide damage mitigation flying around. Maybe, maybe, maybe with enough kiting and other damage mitigation, you might be able to keep the energy loss manageable.

Basically you're looking at (4e*enchants+1e)/1sec energy gain from ER and AoR if you spam Infuse on the aftercast and -4e/hit. So...
...with 4 enchants, you can keep up with 4.25 hits/sec against the people you bond;
...with 5 enchants, you can keep up with 5.25 hits/sec against the people you bond;
etc.
Considering that most HM monsters attack speed and the fact that they do enough to trigger PB on every hit, you've got a big problem with any sort of large mob.

The second concern is getting your energy spiked to zero. Due to their brilliant balling behavior, it's not uncommon for H+H to get your full team zapped with multiple deep freezes or a meteor shower. Trying to bond 8 people taking 3 big AoE hits is 96 energy. Toss in a couple of melee monsters attacking at the same time and you energy can go from full to zero faster than you can cast a single infuse. Splitting the bonds up 4/4 between 2 eles cuts that in half, but losing 50e in the blink of an eye is still a big problem.

Quote:

Anyway some things I tried out but never fully pursued, since I gave up the idea - you might find them useful instead. First is Burning Speed. The skill is an enchantment, 1/4s cast and 0 recharge. You can spam it nonstop, thus keeping up energy, while waiting for someone to take enough damage to warrant an Infuse. Come to think of it though this might not be a good idea because you might as well cast Infuse anyway, especially if you're using infinite Infuse builds where the second Infuse isn't much weaker than the first, if it is weaker at all. The second option is Breath of the Great Dwarf. Since you don't normally want to Infuse for 60 heal, you could use BotGD to fill out party bars instead. Up to you to try, if it works all the better (make sure to share the build though)

Burning speed is a worthless effect. Might as well just infuse someone who doesn't need it. Also worthless, but saves a skillslot.

Ensign thought BotGD was awesome for ER healer bars. I never agreed though. Too little healing for too long a recharge IMO. I'd rather spam a bunch of Shield Guardians. Statistically, you'll get more healing per time. It might work better with Air of Superiority to knock down the recharge. Maybe. In any event, I've largely outsourced party healing to my minion bomber via Dwayna's Sorrow for most party configurations that don't have a live MM. PS, SB, and Infuse make sure no one dies, and DSorrow will eventually clean up the nicks and scratches.

Jeydra · May 04, 2009, 10:02 AM // 10:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shyft the Pyro

You know how in HM everything is 50% tougher? Life Bond makes your H/H take 50% less damage. I don't know about you, but my math says that's pretty good

It doesn't right? Life Bond only triggers on attacks, which means it does not affect Visions of Regret, Searing Flames, Spiteful Spirit, etc. If it did trigger on everything then I can see the purpose of it, but if it's only attacks, I'm more skeptical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Burning speed is a worthless effect. Might as well just infuse someone who doesn't need it. Also worthless, but saves a skillslot.

Ensign thought BotGD was awesome for ER healer bars. I never agreed though. Too little healing for too long a recharge IMO. I'd rather spam a bunch of Shield Guardians. Statistically, you'll get more healing per time. It might work better with Air of Superiority to knock down the recharge. Maybe. In any event, I've largely outsourced party healing to my minion bomber via Dwayna's Sorrow for most party configurations that don't have a live MM. PS, SB, and Infuse make sure no one dies, and DSorrow will eventually clean up the nicks and scratches.

Well problem is Infuse is dangerous: you are usually at around 50% health while Infusing, which can kill you, especially if Protective Spirit drops for whatever reason.

As for BotGD ... yes, these days I'm increasingly convinced it works less effectively than spamming Shield Guardian. Recently I tried the Ensign bar again when I went into Kathandrax with 3 Rangers, so I brought Great Dwarf Weapon, but the bar really isn't as good. You can only cast Infuse like 2 times before you can't heal effectively anymore. Not a good thing. On the other hand, the bar does allow you to operate without Glyph of Swiftness. Free from the pressure of spaming Infuse constantly as well as maintaining 8 enchantments, you can afford to let ER drop for a while. I do wonder though if the gains outweight the losses. It looks suspiciously like, I no longer have Rodgort's Invocation on my bar, so I no longer need GoLE either ...

But then, you are a Prot Monk in some sense, so pushing up red bars can be relegated to the other Monk - while you can still spare some time buffing the party (GDW) or removing stuff (Glyph of Swiftness -> Convert Hexes maybe?), while still being able to heal every now and then. I don't know. These days my partner Monk is Mhenlo, and he's not about to tell me how well he copes with damage.

Faure · May 05, 2009, 03:45 PM // 15:45

As simple answer to the title; True monking will never die, as it is not so incredibly boring as infuse spam.

I made an ER infuser and just trying the build for once mission was enough for me to never load it up again. There are probably people willing to non stop spam infuse, just like there are minion masters who like to click on their minions and cast death nova. But in the end; monking is simply fun. Watching a field, seeing some ele boss running to your 60al necro and being in time to catch his 600dmg lighting orb with a well placed prot.
Good monking gives so much more satisfaction then infuse-spamming. But then again, most people get more satisfaction by running something that gives them 500k in 2 weeks, then skill.

Shyft the Pyro · May 06, 2009, 11:39 PM // 23:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

It doesn't right? Life Bond only triggers on attacks, which means it does not affect Visions of Regret, Searing Flames, Spiteful Spirit, etc. If it did trigger on everything then I can see the purpose of it, but if it's only attacks, I'm more skeptical.

You know, I've never noticed that. I want to say I've taken redirected Bond damage from spell effects, but I'm usually too busy watching the party's health to notice. Maybe someone with more time can go out and test it...