Curse

Kale Ironfist · May 07, 2009, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Life Bond is as Jeydra said, it's attacks only.

Jeydra · May 15, 2009, 06:46 AM // 06:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faure

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.

Lol you can do that with ER as well - in fact, you can do it better, since you've got both Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond to spare ...

Anyway with the update it might be time to change the build.

The big change is Strength of Honor. With +25 damage now, and ER's ability to maintain 8 enchantments with little pain, and Zealot's Fire, we could have a super melee buffer who maintains Strength of Honor, uses Judge's Insight (maybe), Great Dwarf Weapon (probably), and spams the crap out of Reversal of Damage, Smite Condition, Smite Hex and Zealot's Fire, with Infuse too just for fun. Could also have Prot Spirit just because it's there. So how about:

12 + 1 + 1 Energy Storage
12 Smiting Prayers
3 Healing Prayers

Infuse Health
Strength of Honor
Judge's Insight
Great Dwarf Weapon
Zealot's Fire
Aura of Restoration
Reversal of Damage
Smite Hex or Smite Condition
If speccing Prot Spirit, drop Energy Storage by 1 and raise Protection Prayers by 6

Since this character doesn't have to maintain that many enchantments and since he's not primary Infuse either, I don't think Glyph of Swiftness is needed ... Reversal of Fortune might take place of the second smiting skill just to trigger Zealot's Fire. This probably works best with Dervishes since you are now essentially pumping their energy pool via Mysticism.

I don't know, this is just conjecture at the moment, and since I seldom play with physicals I'm not likely to get much chance trying this out.

Wish Swiftdeath · May 15, 2009, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Yeah infuse gives out a pretty good return. I can see 3 melee 5 monks being run

.

Perfected Shadow · May 21, 2009, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Hmmm, maybe it won't get nerfed since ER is still not very popular from my recent experiences in HM ZQs. I've always thought of this as the most useful thing my ele can do in pve (since they're outclassed by physicals in dps, outclassed in support roles by necros, etc).

Oh and about maintaining 8 enchantments, wouldn't you need to be casting constantly to keep energy up even between fights? I think that seems a bit slow when your group is already moving on to the next mob and you're straggling behind.

What I do with pugs is I put Vital Blessing on 4 players including myself and the monk so I can keep up with the group. The 4 would usually not get targetted because of VB. It worked fine on a successful HM Vloxen pug. I never had ER stripped or interrupted (maybe due to VB stopping me from getting targetted?), except during some disorganized wipe situations (they 'forgot' to gtfo sandstorm) and the boss.

Jeydra · May 21, 2009, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Regarding maintaining 8 enchantments, yes, you will need to be casting constantly to keep your energy up in between fights. Still I find it a worthy trade, especially since you've got 13 / 14 Energy Storage anyway so there's quite a while before you need to stop and refresh. Just be sure to tell your teammates that you need to refresh your energy. Personally I've found the energy drain slight enough to cope with at -5 and even -6.

I suggest you try maintaining 8 enchantments once, then deciding if the need to pause is too much for you, and eventually work out a compromise (eg. -1 energy degen from 5 Vital Blessings would hardly scratch your energy pool and ought to not bother you).

PS: Congrats on successfully PuGGing Vloxen's, I wound up H/H'ing the dungeon myself. The boss is a threat to ER - Expunge Enchantments from his minions annihilate all the prots you can put on someone. My heroes died a few times while I was there ... but the party never wiped and Zoldark died first. Congratulations again, it's a tough dungeon.

Ensign · May 24, 2009, 11:42 PM // 23:42

The Strength of Honor change doesn't make smiting all that more attractive; it only works on melee anyway and you rarely want to play turbo-melee in PvE even if you have a bunch of physicals. You're much better off making it work on a Monk Smiter.

After the first 6 skills (Ether Renewal, Aura of Restoration, Glyph of Swiftness, Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Infuse) I don't feel that anything you put on the character is that important. Maintained enchantments are reasonably good (pick your favorite), though it makes the character significantly more fragile, and forces your 8th skill to be something spammy (and weak) to keep your energy up.

If you don't take a maintained enchantment, you can really put whatever you want in those slots. You cover all the functionality you need from the first 6 slots so both can be fairly niche spells. I'm very partial to Great Dwarf Weapon provided you have at least two physicals to put it on; the amount of damage that does, and can prevent, far outpaces anything else I've found for that slot. For the other one, it really doesn't matter. I've put all sorts of random stuff there and never ended up using it in a game, and I didn't feel like I was missing anything because of it. I have a Vanguard Ward there at the moment, but of course all sorts of things would work just fine.

In the abstract the bonding versions have a higher peak power, but are also more fragile and less forgiving on how you micro it. Which is better is largely a function of how many other things you need to think about while playing the character.

Jeydra · May 31, 2009, 07:20 AM // 07:20

@Ensign -

I agree with what you said about Strength of Honor. You can't overload melee. And since you can't overload melee ER's strengths in maintaining multiple enchantments simply does not apply. No point.

I'm completely partial against Great Dwarf Weapon however, perhaps because I only ever run casters in PvE. Massing casters is especially good with Life Attunement. With Life Attunements on everyone you can make Smiting Monks heal for heaps with every Reversal of Damage / Divine Healing. You only need you as a dedicated defensive character now, and every other character can both deal damage and play defensively, depending on what the team needs at that time. Maintaining 8 Life Attunements doesn't force your last skill to be something weak as well. I've maintained 8 enchantments before with Breath of the Great Dwarf as the last slot (OK so BotGD is weak, but that's not the point). You just need to stop more.

I find the bonding versions quite sturdy. Aside from LA pumping the heals from your partner Monk, LA + Shield Guardian also allows you to spam Infuse a lot more than you would otherwise. Since you never run out of energy it means also that you are not going to die unless the party takes too much damage to heal through (which doesn't happen that much) or when you're refreshing ER (unfortunate weakness).

I believe as well that if you are not maintaining enchantments, Glyph of Swiftness isn't necessary. You should have well over 70 energy when ER drops, and the downtime is less than 10 seconds. You need about 20 energy to put ER back up when it refreshes and start casting to regain energy. This gives you 50 energy + 13 from natural energy regen to use in that 10 seconds, which should more than suffice. You can even use Infuse Health once (or even twice) if you've got Kaolai etc to party heal you up, and that's not counting Aura's new, improved health and energy return. What's more, if you run into severe difficulties there's always the high set. Might as well drop Glyph for BotGD, GDW, Reversal of Fortune, Convert Hexes and whatnot, and spare the 4 points in Air to bring Energy Storage up to 12.

Ensign · Jun 07, 2009, 12:15 AM // 00:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I'm completely partial against Great Dwarf Weapon however, perhaps because I only ever run casters in PvE.

This is perfectly reasonable if you are playing with heroes and henchmen. Heroes and henchmen are awful at playing any sort of physical bar, with the notable exception of Paragons - though on many maps it is not worth cutting a Necro hero or a smiter for a Paragon. Otherwise you're just discussing whether or not you want to put GDW on Ranger henchmen, vs living with the typical Necro/Mesmer henchie trash.

When playing with other players, not running physicals is almost always wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Maintaining 8 Life Attunements doesn't force your last skill to be something weak as well.

I submit that if you are not running GDW, whatever you put in that slot is necessarily going to be weak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I find the bonding versions quite sturdy. Aside from LA pumping the heals from your partner Monk, LA + Shield Guardian also allows you to spam Infuse a lot more than you would otherwise.

What does Shield Guardian have to do with spamming Infuse?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Since you never run out of energy it means also that you are not going to die unless the party takes too much damage to heal through (which doesn't happen that much) or when you're refreshing ER (unfortunate weakness).

When I refer to fragility of the ER template, it always refers to how well it deals with Ether Renewal getting stripped / interrupted, or really nasty hexes or conditions getting on you (Backfire, Soul Leech, Dazed). It does not have anything to do with the amount of damage you can heal through under ideal conditions. Under ideal conditions a character maintaining 8 enchantments is obviously better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I believe as well that if you are not maintaining enchantments, Glyph of Swiftness isn't necessary. You should have well over 70 energy when ER drops, and the downtime is less than 10 seconds.

The value of Glyph has very little to do with that, and more with having a choice about when Ether Renewal drops. 8-10 seconds without Ether Renewal is not an issue from an energy perspective; it is usually a problem from a health perspective, either due to broken aggro or needing to mash on Infuse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Might as well drop Glyph for BotGD, GDW, Reversal of Fortune, Convert Hexes and whatnot, and spare the 4 points in Air to bring Energy Storage up to 12.

BotGD, Reversal of Fortune, and Convert Hexes aren't anywhere near as good as Glyph of Swiftness. They don't solve any problems, and don't prevent any problems from occuring the way Glyph of Swiftness does. If there were strong skills competing for the last slots, there would be more to discuss, but there aren't.

Jeydra · Jun 07, 2009, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

What does Shield Guardian have to do with spamming Infuse?

If you're running Shield Guardian you can cast more (Shield Guardian 1s cooldown) and therefore have more health to Infuse with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

When I refer to fragility of the ER template, it always refers to how well it deals with Ether Renewal getting stripped / interrupted, or really nasty hexes or conditions getting on you (Backfire, Soul Leech, Dazed). It does not have anything to do with the amount of damage you can heal through under ideal conditions. Under ideal conditions a character maintaining 8 enchantments is obviously better.

Backfire Soul Leech who cares? Spirit Bond Prot Spirit yourself and cast anyway (yes I know they don't work against Soul Leech but they are enchantments, and they return you more health from Ether Renewal). Dazed who cares? 1/4s cast spells across the board, it only matters if it's past time to refresh ER (then you micro some condition removal on yourself). If Ether Renewal gets stripped or interrupted, you drop all maintained enchantments at once except possibly the one on you and start playing more conservatively. You're still almost as effective as if you weren't maintaining an enchantment anyway.

The real time when you are paralyzed is when you're maintaining Protective Bonds and your energy disappears before you can drop them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The value of Glyph has very little to do with that, and more with having a choice about when Ether Renewal drops. 8-10 seconds without Ether Renewal is not an issue from an energy perspective; it is usually a problem from a health perspective, either due to broken aggro or needing to mash on Infuse.

BotGD, Reversal of Fortune, and Convert Hexes aren't anywhere near as good as Glyph of Swiftness. They don't solve any problems, and don't prevent any problems from occuring the way Glyph of Swiftness does. If there were strong skills competing for the last slots, there would be more to discuss, but there aren't.

Ether Renewal lasts 19 seconds with 14 Energy Storage, as you can have when not running 4 Air. +20% enchant mod and you get 23 seconds with a downtime of 8 seconds. Aura of Restoration heals 48 health per cast. Assuming you have some party heals in your team (which I always do), or if you have Breath of the Great Dwarf, then you can easily use Infuse three times, if you hit your Prots as well. Even without party heals in your team you can still easily use Infuse twice.

If your party is splintering in such a fashion that you need to mash Infuse with Shield Guardian and Life Attunement, then there's a good chance the 2-second window in which you're putting up Ether Renewal will likely result in deaths. If you aren't running Life Attunement then having Ether Renewal won't save you. I had the maths earlier in the thread, but pre-Aura buff. Assuming 4 enchantments on you (pretty standard) then Ether Renewal @ 13 Energy Storage restores 18 * 4 = 72 health and Aura of Restoration adds 10 * 480% = 48 health for a total of 120 health. If all this goes into Infuse @ 8 spec, then you get 120 * 119% = 143 health. Not a lot. And you yourself will be at 120 health while Infusing. If your party is already splintering then Ether Renewal without LA will not save the party. It might save you, but it won't save the party.

Ensign · Jun 07, 2009, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If you're running Shield Guardian you can cast more (Shield Guardian 1s cooldown) and therefore have more health to Infuse with.

I don't understand why Shield Guardian is any different from some combination of Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Backfire Soul Leech who cares? Spirit Bond Prot Spirit yourself and cast anyway (yes I know they don't work against Soul Leech but they are enchantments, and they return you more health from Ether Renewal).

The issue is less with those things themselves, but with the understanding that if they are getting cast on you then you are also getting hit with other things as well. Aggro on you often turns off Infuse, which is most likely to get kills. Hexes / Daze / etc are just more likely to cause that to be a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If Ether Renewal gets stripped or interrupted, you drop all maintained enchantments at once except possibly the one on you and start playing more conservatively. You're still almost as effective as if you weren't maintaining an enchantment anyway.

More effective I think, since the Aura heal boost is all the more important in that case.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Assuming you have some party heals in your team (which I always do), or if you have Breath of the Great Dwarf, then you can easily use Infuse three times, if you hit your Prots as well. Even without party heals in your team you can still easily use Infuse twice.

You mean without Ether Renewal up don't you? With Ether Renewal up, you can Infuse pretty much endlessly with Life Attunement and Ether Renewal up, save for its tendency to draw aggro.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If your party is splintering in such a fashion that you need to mash Infuse with Shield Guardian and Life Attunement

Is the party splintering due to AoE on a henchieball? That's the only situation I've seen where mashing on Shield Guardian when splintering even starts to help. If you don't have a henchieball tanking AoE Shield Guardian is the worst skill on your bar to mash during an emergency.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

And you yourself will be at 120 health while Infusing. If your party is already splintering then Ether Renewal without LA will not save the party. It might save you, but it won't save the party.

I'm not really sure where you're going with this. Are you trying to argue against dropping Glyph and Life Attunement? I don't think you should drop either of those spells; Life Attunement is way better than whatever else you could put in that slot, and Glyph helps fight the situation you're describing. I guess you could drop Life Attunement, and Glyph, and get...14 ES and a bunch of skills that aren't as good as Life Attunement and Glyph. Are you reinforcing that point or did I miss something?

Jeydra · Jun 07, 2009, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't understand why Shield Guardian is any different from some combination of Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit.

I really didn't think you would fail to understand this.

Spirit Bond has a cooldown of 2 seconds. Prot Spirit has a cooldown of 5 seconds. Aura of Restoration has a cooldown of 12 seconds. Shield Guardian has a cooldown of 1 second. Having Shield Guardian ensures that every single second you have can be spent casting (.25s cast + .75s aftercast = 1s = Shield Guardian cooldown). This allows you to crank more heals in unit time than you can otherwise. If you are unconvinced, try maintaining 8 enchantments with and without Shield Guardian. You will see a difference.

Also: Shield Guardian is an enchantment. It is a different enchantment from Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit. You can use it to pump ER. Granted, it ends quickly if you are taking damage. But you won't always be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The issue is less with those things themselves, but with the understanding that if they are getting cast on you then you are also getting hit with other things as well. Aggro on you often turns off Infuse, which is most likely to get kills. Hexes / Daze / etc are just more likely to cause that to be a problem.

How can you be hit without also having Prot Spirit / Spirit Bond on yourself? Prot Spirit at least. You've got so much prots to spam, you might as well throw Prot Spirit on yourself, if not to prot damage, then to pump Ether Renewal. And if you do have Prot Spirit / Spirit Bond on yourself then why do you care about getting hit? Aggro on you does almost nothing to turn you off - you Prot Spirit + Spirit Bond yourself and keep casting. It stops you from Infusing that much, but if the aggro's on you then your teammates should be taking less damage and so need less Infusing. I know, because one of my standard tactics when using ER is to use myself as a quasi-Obsidian tank. Usually the only threat to that tactic is losing ER (interrupts, KDs, enchant removal). Hexes I can usually laugh off - the really dangerous ones are Migraine, Arcane Conundrum and Diversion, with the former two only a problem when ER is dropping. Backfire / Soul Leech / Shame / Mark of Subversion do not hurt you too badly if at all. Haven't met Dazed much, although I don't see how it is different from Migraine / Arcane Conundrum (or if it's from Incubi, wherupon Soulrending Shriek removes enchantments too). If it's too big a problem micro Foul Feast and get rid of it.

There are times such a cavalier attitude to Infuse and aggro can cause you to die. From my H/H Duncan runs I know that two such examples are Infusing onto a target with Scourge Healing / Soul Bind, which can cause a huge sudden spike in health loss, and any damage that goes through Prot Spirit + Spirit Bond (most importantly life stealing). But such times are uncommon. Actually not uncommon. They're really rare. And you can still deal with Scourge Healing and Soul Bind with Prot Spirit + Spirit Bond.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You mean without Ether Renewal up don't you? With Ether Renewal up, you can Infuse pretty much endlessly with Life Attunement and Ether Renewal up, save for its tendency to draw aggro.

**** drawing aggro. Tank it! With Life Attunement and Ether Renewal, you're looking at 200++ health / cast, which is essentially 200 healing per second. And chances are you will have Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond on yourself. You're almost invulnerable. What's the problem?

It is my experience that the only major problem is losing Ether Renewal, either it being stripped or interrupted while you are refreshing. If that happens, you still have Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond and Life Attunement on yourself. The +126 from Spirit Bond triggering will keep your red bar full for its duration. Drop all (other) maintained enchants, and if the damage looks too heavy to keep up with with ER down, run. In this way it is no more fragile than not having the maintained enchantment. If you don't have the maintained enchantment, then all you gain is the time it takes to drop all enchantments, and the extra enery loss incurred while the entire "get-interrupted-and-drop-enchantments" episode is happening. There's also aggro, which can be on you. But if aggro hasn't broken yet then you can ... tank it with Prot Spirit + Spirit Bond, and if aggro has broken then you run for it / count on your partner Monk(s) to rise to the occasion, no difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Is the party splintering due to AoE on a henchieball? That's the only situation I've seen where mashing on Shield Guardian when splintering even starts to help. If you don't have a henchieball tanking AoE Shield Guardian is the worst skill on your bar to mash during an emergency.

I can give you examples where you need Shield Guardian with henchmen already flagged apart, but that's irrelevant. The point is, if you don't need Shield Guardian + LA for Infuse purposes, then what's the problem with dropping Glyph? You said having Glyph is necessary because of health problems when ER is down. Except by this same argument you won't need to Infuse too badly right?

Shield Guardian might be the worst spell to mash in an emergency, but it can also be the only recharged spell (not counting LA and Infuse).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'm not really sure where you're going with this. Are you trying to argue against dropping Glyph and Life Attunement? I don't think you should drop either of those spells; Life Attunement is way better than whatever else you could put in that slot, and Glyph helps fight the situation you're describing. I guess you could drop Life Attunement, and Glyph, and get...14 ES and a bunch of skills that aren't as good as Life Attunement and Glyph. Are you reinforcing that point or did I miss something?

You missed something. The argument is that you don't need Glyph. If you need Glyph because you need ER up to keep Infusing because the party is splintering, then it's too late. You're almost certainly going to take casualties, unless you are running Life Attunement - wherupon you need the Glyph anyway because it's a maintained enchantment (I said no Glyph when no maintained enchantment).

Ensign · Jun 08, 2009, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I really didn't think you would fail to understand this.

Infuse has a cooldown of 0 seconds.

One of the reasons I like Breath of the Great Dwarf is that between Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Infuse, and Aura, you already have plenty of spells to spam every second if need be. There is no particular reason why any additional spell needs to be spammable; it is more important that it adds something that your other spells do not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Having Shield Guardian ensures that every single second you have can be spent casting (.25s cast + .75s aftercast = 1s = Shield Guardian cooldown).

This is not correct. The cast time does not factor into the cooldown. Spamming Shield Guardian results in casting a spell every 1.25 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

How can you be hit without also having Prot Spirit / Spirit Bond on yourself? Prot Spirit at least...**** drawing aggro. Tank it! With Life Attunement and Ether Renewal, you're looking at 200++ health / cast, which is essentially 200 healing per second. And chances are you will have Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond on yourself. You're almost invulnerable. What's the problem?

Damage on yourself is not the concern, as much as all the other crap that comes with having aggro on you. Damage is only a concern if you find yourself having to Infuse spam while taking damage yourself.

Of course, that situation usually means that someone did something stupid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

In this way it is no more fragile than not having the maintained enchantment.

Besides the opportunity cost of whatever else you could have in the slot of that maintained enchantment. However I've come to think that there isn't anything obviously better than just maintaining Life Attunement on yourself with that slot, so this is largely a moot point, until such a time that there potentially is something better to put in that slot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I can give you examples where you need Shield Guardian with henchmen already flagged apart, but that's irrelevant.

Please do share. I have never encountered a situation where I felt that Shield Guardian was anything but a dead skill on my bar, something that was cast extraordinarily sparingly. The skill is not nearly powerful enough for something I cast once every couple minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

You missed something. The argument is that you don't need Glyph. If you need Glyph because you need ER up to keep Infusing because the party is splintering, then it's too late.

Note that the value of Glyph in splintering situations is that the first Ether Renewal of the encounter is glyphed. The second one, in an emergency situation, is usually unglyphed. The difference is that you can then cast the 2nd ER at any point you want. Without glyph you have a forced downtime before you can put ER back up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

(I said no Glyph when no maintained enchantment).

What would you run instead? If you're not running a maintained enchantment or glyph, what could you possibly run instead? I don't understand why this train of thought is useful at all.

Jeydra · Jun 08, 2009, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Infuse has a cooldown of 0 seconds.

One of the reasons I like Breath of the Great Dwarf is that between Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Infuse, and Aura, you already have plenty of spells to spam every second if need be. There is no particular reason why any additional spell needs to be spammable; it is more important that it adds something that your other spells do not.

Infuse makes you lose health, not gain it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

This is not correct. The cast time does not factor into the cooldown. Spamming Shield Guardian results in casting a spell every 1.25 seconds.

Doesn't matter. Shield Guardian essentially lets you spam on cooldown. You might not have to cast Shield Guardian -> Shield Guardian, but you can certainly Shield Guardian -> Spirit Bond -> Shield Guardian -> Prot Spirit -> Shield Guardian -> Spirit Bond etc. That should be obvious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Damage on yourself is not the concern, as much as all the other crap that comes with having aggro on you. Damage is only a concern if you find yourself having to Infuse spam while taking damage yourself.

Of course, that situation usually means that someone did something stupid.

Then you are doing it wrong.

You've got a minimum of Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Life Attunement, Aura of Restoration and Ether Renewal on yourself. You are almost invulnerable so long as ER stays up and you keep casting. Here's the proof. Those 5 enchantments + 13 Energy Storage = 90. Aura of Restoration gives you 48 health for a total of 138. LA @ 12 Protection Prayers is +43% health healed, for a total of 197.34 health healed every second.

What could possibly deal more than 197.34 damage per second? If that something is dealing it in packets more than 60, you're already safe because Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond combine to give you a net 0 health loss. What else is there? Minion attacks? Sure they deal less than 60 damage, but they also do it slow. They are not going to deal 197.34 DPS.

I can safely say that in all my time of running Ether Renewal, I have killed myself with Infuse in only three situations. First: Infusing while tanking unprottable vampiric damage (see below). This happened the most times, perhaps because of the areas I frequent. Second: Infusing onto a target with Scourge Healing. Only happened once. Third: Infusing after a Symbiosis dropped, causing instant death. Only happened once. I can conceivably see me killing myself against unprottable Holy damage as well, but it hasn't happened yet.

You can easily keep Infusing while taking damage.

If you can't, then maybe you should run Shield Guardian.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Please do share. I have never encountered a situation where I felt that Shield Guardian was anything but a dead skill on my bar, something that was cast extraordinarily sparingly. The skill is not nearly powerful enough for something I cast once every couple minutes.

The Wilds today. I was running Melonni and Koss + GDW. Unprottable life stealing (yay) with no Shield Guardian to pump HP cost me hard. First time I used Vital Blessing instead of LA and wiped. Second time I used LA but kept GDW, and wiped. Shortly after that I decided to screw Melonni and Koss and go back to casterballs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Note that the value of Glyph in splintering situations is that the first Ether Renewal of the encounter is glyphed. The second one, in an emergency situation, is usually unglyphed. The difference is that you can then cast the 2nd ER at any point you want. Without glyph you have a forced downtime before you can put ER back up.

It's a good point but so what?

Without Ether Renewal, in the short term, the things you cannot use are Infuse (not too much spam anyway) and maintaining enchantments. The latter does not matter since you're not maintaining one (assumption). The first you can still use Infuse twice easily. If those two Infuses aren't enough to save your team from wiping, then I doubt more Infuses @ 150 health each will. Maybe they will save a couple more people, but half the team are going to wipe anyway. Like I said above: if your party is already splintering then Ether Renewal without LA will not save the party. It might save you, but it won't save the party.

Of course without the Glyph you could have BotGD and save some people, too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

What would you run instead? If you're not running a maintained enchantment or glyph, what could you possibly run instead? I don't understand why this train of thought is useful at all.

BotGD, Air of Superiority, a Vanguard Ward, Convert Hexes, an Asuran summon, a Vanguard Sin, I Am Unstoppable, Mindbender + Heal Party, Reversal of Fortune, Aegis, etc.

Snow Bunny · Jun 08, 2009, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+GoS+ER+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+GoS+ER+I nfuse

That's all.

Rasco · Jun 08, 2009, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+GoS+ER+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+Infuse+GoS+ER+I nfuse

That's all.

Not enuff, roll wammoo

Defy pain+ endure pain + signet of stamina + infuse health = win

Itsss ovvveerrr 9000!!!!

P.S Dont forget vengeance.

ive actully seen this run on HA randomway. lolz

Ensign · Jun 10, 2009, 01:28 AM // 01:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Doesn't matter. Shield Guardian essentially lets you spam on cooldown. You might not have to cast Shield Guardian -> Shield Guardian, but you can certainly Shield Guardian -> Spirit Bond -> Shield Guardian -> Prot Spirit -> Shield Guardian -> Spirit Bond etc.

Why do I need to spam on cooldown?

You are almost certainly casting way too many Shield Guardians in the above rotation. You are almost certainly better off slow-rolling an Infuse or two.

I stand by my assertion that in order to make Shield Guardian worth a slot, you necessarily need to cast it instead of much better spells, which weakens your character overall. It is useful in situations, but not as useful as Glyph or Life Attunement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

What could possibly deal more than 197.34 damage per second?...You can easily keep Infusing while taking damage.

How much health do you lose from casting Infuse per second? What's the net healing you gain while casting Infuse? If you are going to show numbers, please make sure that the numbers you are showing are relevant to the point you are making.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

First time I used Vital Blessing instead of LA and wiped. Second time I used LA but kept GDW, and wiped.

Between knockdowns from GDW preventing damage and Infuse I had no problem whatsoever with those mobs. 80 damage lifesteal touches do not even begin to outrace 400+ heath heals.

Perhaps if you can't deal with that with Infuse, you might need Shield Guardian? I will say this about Shield Guardian - it is a much, much easier skill to maximize than Infuse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Like I said above: if your party is already splintering then Ether Renewal without LA will not save the party. It might save you, but it won't save the party.

You keep bringing this up and I am still confused as to why, as I still consider it largely irrelevant. You are dropping Glyph + Life Attunement for *something*. What is it, and why is it better than those two skills? Sure, you don't *have* to bring Glyph or Attunement. You can live without them. But I haven't found anything that makes the character more robust than those skills.

FWIW: I consider the most powerful / important skills on the bar to be Prot Spirit, Great Dwarf Weapon, and Ether Renewal, in roughly that order, followed by Spirit Bond, then Infuse + Life Attunement, then Aura, the Glyph. While I'm hesitant to cut either I'd cut Aura before Life Attunement. I'm most interested in cutting Glyph, but again I've found nothing yet that strengthens the character more than having that second Ether Renewal per encounter on command.

Snow Bunny · Jun 10, 2009, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

How much health do you lose from casting Infuse per second? What's the net healing you gain while casting Infuse? If you are going to show numbers, please make sure that the numbers you are showing are relevant to the point you are making.

FWIW: I consider the most powerful / important skills on the bar to be Prot Spirit, Great Dwarf Weapon, and Ether Renewal, in roughly that order, followed by Spirit Bond, then Infuse + Life Attunement, then Aura, the Glyph. While I'm hesitant to cut either I'd cut Aura before Life Attunement. I'm most interested in cutting Glyph, but again I've found nothing yet that strengthens the character more than having that second Ether Renewal per encounter on command.

At the risk of arguing with someone that's better at the game than I am, I'll respond to and argue a bit with these two points.

But I'll also preface it with this - Shield Guardian is worthless. To make it worthwhile, the target has to be under attack, and then the enchant ends for a measly 70-something heal and then they're still under fire.

I don't know (and truthfully at this point don't care) about how the mechanics work, but I know that with Life Attunement and I believe AoR, the life heal/loss levels out spamming Infuse and you're left at about 50% health free to spam your Infuse all you like.

Heal party is a terrible skill on the bar, namely because that even with Mindbender, it's much easier to blast off several infuses to bring each party up by 300 or so instead of casting HP several times to mop up whatever AoE it is that's afflicting your party.

Ensign, I'd seriously argue with your order of skills there, particularly with PS and SB. Infuse outranks them both - that was the whole point of my initial post, mainly that you can blast off Infuse so much and so fast that enemy damage can't keep up.

I'd say it's Infuse/PS/AoR, namely that the first and the third complement each other, while PS is there just so that some HM lvl 32 ele boss can't one-shot 75% of your party with some elite aoe.

The bar, at least when I ran it...
Glyph, AoR, ER, Infuse, Life Attune, Prot Spirit, optional, optional

Prots are almost redundant, as you can powerheal more effectively than N/Rts, N/Mos, or HB monks could dream of.

zzz

Racthoh · Jun 10, 2009, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

I'd say it's Infuse/PS/AoR, namely that the first and the third complement each other, while PS is there just so that some HM lvl 32 ele boss can't one-shot 75% of your party with some elite aoe.

Boss encounters are typically going to be the most difficult, basically the fights you need to be most prepared for. Trash groups aren't going to one shot party members so Infuse spamming will suffice for those encounters; the risk of death in those situations should be minimal. Protective Spirit's worth against bosses, the fights that matter as the chances of death increase, makes it invaluable. It's a similar argument against the usefulness of Spiteful Spirit; to get the most mileage out of that skill it has to be used on the last enemy you're going to kill, the least threatening one. Protective Spirit falls on the other end of the spectrum becoming more powerful the more threatening the enemy is. Sure Protective Spirit may only shine in a handful of scenarios but consider the difficulty reduction it offers in those instances.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

While I'm hesitant to cut either I'd cut Aura before Life Attunement. I'm most interested in cutting Glyph, but again I've found nothing yet that strengthens the character more than having that second Ether Renewal per encounter on command.

I'd argue the ability to keep the Ether Renewal up puts it above Life Attunement and Aura of Restoration. Like Protective Spirit it's going to help more in those difficult situations. In the event the second Ether Renewal needs to be used odds are something is going wrong and you need time to figure out what needs to be done to get things right. The effects granted by Life Attunement and Aura of Restoration can be replicated simply by feeding Ether Renewal more enchantments, a feat that can be achieved by the other bars in play. Granted Life Attunement can be maintained on other casters but the usefulness of that characteristic varies depending on the party composition. After all a physical heavy party more than likely consists of Order of Pain and Dark Fury to assist in powering Ether Renewal; while an additional two enchantments won't match the same health return as Aura of Restoration you'd have to consider the frequency Infuse Health needs to be applied as the majority of the party would be boasting higher armor values.

However the other factor to consider is whether something can be put to better use in that slot as already mentioned. Depending on the situation two additional PvE skills could surely find a way to strengthen the character. Although it also depends on what you consider the more valuable asset of the bar; Infuse Health spamming or infinite energy to draw upon. The former would be more geared to finding skills that make the character more resilient while the latter finding more ways to make use of all the energy it has. All and all it will depend on the makeup of the party and what you can expect to encounter.

Carinae · Jun 10, 2009, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

After all a physical heavy party more than likely consists of Order of Pain and Dark Fury to assist in powering Ether Renewal;

...and Aegis makes 3.

And at that point you have an argument for DKiss.

Jeydra · Jun 10, 2009, 07:46 AM // 07:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Why do I need to spam on cooldown?

You are almost certainly casting way too many Shield Guardians in the above rotation. You are almost certainly better off slow-rolling an Infuse or two.

I stand by my assertion that in order to make Shield Guardian worth a slot, you necessarily need to cast it instead of much better spells, which weakens your character overall. It is useful in situations, but not as useful as Glyph or Life Attunement.

Obviously I'm casting too many Shield Guardians in the above rotation, but it is ... an example. If you ever need it you can call upon it. Kinda like if you ever need ER to be up all the time you can call on the Glyph to allow you that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

How much health do you lose from casting Infuse per second? What's the net healing you gain while casting Infuse? If you are going to show numbers, please make sure that the numbers you are showing are relevant to the point you are making.

Enlighten me on how your post is relevant to what I wrote?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Between knockdowns from GDW preventing damage and Infuse I had no problem whatsoever with those mobs. 80 damage lifesteal touches do not even begin to outrace 400+ heath heals.

Perhaps if you can't deal with that with Infuse, you might need Shield Guardian? I will say this about Shield Guardian - it is a much, much easier skill to maximize than Infuse.

How much defense did you run (as in team composition)? Also tell me if you were maintaining LA on your Paragons?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You keep bringing this up and I am still confused as to why, as I still consider it largely irrelevant. You are dropping Glyph + Life Attunement for *something*. What is it, and why is it better than those two skills? Sure, you don't *have* to bring Glyph or Attunement. You can live without them. But I haven't found anything that makes the character more robust than those skills.

Let me get this right. Are you saying the strongest ER bar in general to be Infuse, Spirit Bond, Prot Spirit, GDW, Aura, ER, Glyph, LA?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rachtoth

The effects granted by Life Attunement and Aura of Restoration can be replicated simply by feeding Ether Renewal more enchantments, a feat that can be achieved by the other bars in play.

LA heals more than simply feeding more enchantments. With 5 enchantments on yourself for example + Aura, you're healing ~140 HP. 43% of this is about 60 HP. To feed Ether Renewal until it gives you another 60 HP would require 4 more enchantments, for a total of 9 enchantments on yourself. Hard to do, especially since LA qualifies as an enchantment and you don't have it anymore.

I won't rank the effectiveness of the skills, I'll just say that noticably the least useful skill is Shield Guardian. It's good, just not necessary. Without the maintained enchant I think the Glyph can go too, giving three free slots.

@Carinae Dragonblood - I get the feeling that the AI doesn't use Infuse because there was this update that made the AI check what the stats are on a spell before using it (so it wouldn't simply throw around something it gets from Inspired Hex, for example). To get it to Infuse then you need to spec in Healing Prayers, which in turn means you get a reasonably powerful Dwayna's Kiss you might as well use, especially if you've got all those enchantments already up.