The Madness That Is Ether Renewal

Alright, well...

I have seen a level of hopelessness, a tired feeling creeping into my guild. I have been pretty much puzzled at the relative silence on these fora regarding the latest PvE updates. It is as if this general feeling of despair has sunk into the depth of the "hardcore" PvE userbase. A feeling that protesting is meaningless, and that PvE is effortless and unsalvagable, despite not being so in the past.

Arenanet introduced the different Blessings - Ursan, Volfen and Raven. I am sure they did not even understand at the time what an impact this would have. They were also apparently completely incapable of balancing the blessings against each other, with Ursan by far being the strongest of them all. They have stubbornly refused to change them, with the result being that for all but the very, very, very strongest teams, Ursan Blessing is now the way to beat PvE. Basically, it is a skill that allows every player with even a minimum of in-game skill to beat every area in the game, in Hard Mode as well as Normal Mode. What it comes down to is that everyone plays the same bar (except the monks), and nobody designs their own bars anymore, because why bother when Ursan is so strong?

Now, instead of trying to be sensible about these PvE-only skills, they do the same to established ones.

Ether Renewal was a skill that was nerfed for a reason. While the nerf might have been harsh, the fact remains that it was far too strong in the first place. Now it hasn't just been "reverted" for PvE. It's way, way stronger than it was in the first place.

Ether Renewal lasts 20 seconds at 15 Energy Storage. With an enchantment upgrade, 24 seconds. With Glyph of Swiftness, recharge is reduced to 22.5 seconds.

This makes it not only possible but eminently easy to fully maintain Ether Renewal.

Ether Renewal is an elite Energy Storage skill. This means it can only be used by Elementalists to any effect. This also means that Arenanet has now turned Elementalists into PvE gods.

An elementalist can easily achieve more than the equivalent of fifty pips of energy regeneration using ER. He can, for example, maintain Life Bond on every other member of a 12-man party while maintaining Vital Blessing and Life Attunement on himself, and spam Heal Party, Heal Area and Karei's Healing Circle on recharge, without ever running out of energy. Can anyone claim this is not broken?

Arenanet stated that they nerfed Soul Reaping "for pve as well as pvp purposes". Does anyone actually believe this anymore?

I urgently implore Arenanet to rethink its strategy for "balancing" PvE versions of skills. They are turning that side of the game into more of a joke than it has ever been.

Kindly, Thomas

I couldn't agree more with you, and I am hoping it will be reverted.

I concur. The balancing these days is off, to say the least.

Please nerf Soul Reaping while you're at it aswell, thanks!

Sorry, PvE players asked for PvE to be cut away from balance, so now they get what they ask for. I'm sure the majority is ever so happy.

/agree
i loved when i started playing it, you know in the days of the standard team.2 wars, 2 eles, 1 SS, 1MM and 2 monk. After that came the heroes wich screwed up some things but made everything a bit more relaxed. But now with ursan its just QQ playstyle. As i for one refuse to have ursan on my barr i cant seem to find any group atm so i am kinda persuaded to make a monk. Anet pls hit Ursan with the nerf-bat cause i want groups to be fun again and not mindless skillpressing. Btw ER+SF deserve a slight nerf too maybe make ER last 12 sec (still decent time imo) and SF reverted to old duration cause sin are now the masters of pve and pvp.

~cheers, wraith~

Yes, i see it everywhere too ... depressing, really ...

And Expertise. And Leadership.

It is true that many PvE players asked to be "cut away" from PvP balance. That doesn't mean they asked to be cut away from all balance. Relegated to playing one bar, only one bar, because the kind people on Arenanet gave it to them. Now, it's hard not to see even monks going the Ursan route, with elementalists replacing them as party healers. Running just one elite, because everything else is meaningless.

This isn't limited to Ether Renewal. It also applies to "There's Nothing To Fear", "Save Yourselves", permanent Shadow Form (the most degenerate skill in the game buffed for PvE purposes.) However, the Ether Renewal "update" is one of the worst.

What's wrong with Expertise? QQ

Ursan Blessing says hi.

You complain when skills get changed for PvP, you complain that skills need to be seperated, you complain when skills are nerfed for PvE and you STILL complain when skills are buffed for PvE.

Seriously, stop QQ'ing, if you don't like it, don't run it, don't play with people who run it, if they want to run it in PvE it's not hurting anyone else, yes, maybe they're bad at the game and they need it to win, but fair enough. Play with your Guild and Alliance, I don't see why you would want to PuG anyway.

I play with H/H, none of this bothers me.

When people complain about things, and then complain when they get what they want, I hardly think it's fair to blame the people who gave it to you.

It's getting really REALLY annoying...

Completely agree with you, Moloch.
Why has everything been made so easy? it seems ridiculous at the moment.

Wait - we have a necro player stating that an ele form of e-management should be nerfed?
For balance reasons?
In PvE?

That just warped my fragile little mind!

Because if A-net made it challenging, people would complain.

Simply put, A-net can't win over the PvE crowd no matter what, such sick hypocrisy on the PvErs side.

Can the majority now finally admit that they have no idea what it is they truly want?

The majority hates to admit being worng, hence why A-net gets the blame for everything.

This idiotic fallacy needs to die. Guru has many different groups that complain about different things. It is perfectly consistent for one group to complain about X and another to complain about the opposite of X. Please pick up your nearest textbook of elementary logic and have a read.

You treat all PvE players as if they were a single person. Now, that is hypocrisy.

^^^^^^^^
You broke it for yourselves, have fun.

Without a challenge or some risk no game is worth playing.

People are still unhappy that Expertise is applied indiscriminatorily across the board for attack/touch skills, making Rangers be able to spam high energy attack skills on recharge (e.g R/D builds)



So an Ele can spam Heal Party as good as an HB Monk in an Ursan group. Big deal. Anet always wanted to lessen the "requirement" of having the Monk class in every party, and it's not like SR isn't already fueling healers' energy pools with the amount of deaths in PVE. In fact, if it were up to me, I'd still take a N/Rt WoR hero with Splinter Weapon, over a Renewal red bar pusher.