Ether Renewal healers - the death of true monking

After logging in extremely briefly to test something, I need to eat my words from an earlier thread. In the thread (which I can't find), I argued that a good monk is better than a good E/Mo infuser with [ether renewal]. I have to retract that, based upon the fact that with [mindbender], Eles can infinitely powerheal for 500+ with no problems.

There's no need to pre-prot, or prot at all for that matter when you literally, just powerheal anything that takes damage. Went on an urgoz run, taking 2 eles instead of 3 monks, and it was painfully easy. Next urgoz run used 1 ele - challenging, had about 3 deaths, but still, that shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Question is, why hasn't this caught on?

Because heroes can't run mindbender? Or maybe because ER doesn't last that long so most people wouldn't think about it.

I suppose it will eventually.

Ele infuser? You mean this? A way to spam infuse

It's my favorite build. Enchant removal = DEATH

Yeah...the best reason, ER gets removed, you gotta rely on that 80 energy to keep up the team until ER recharges.

Quote: Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10317939

That's the thread you want. My feelings on ER healers haven't changed much, although why are you running Mindbender when the bar is so compressed already and the only skill that takes longer than 1/4 second to cast is ER itself?

ER healers have weaknesses, and they are glaring. If you end up in situations where everyone takes damage at the same time (eg. Wurm Bile @ Frostmaw's, some people mistakenly standing together and eating an Elementalist boss'es Rodgort's Invocation) then you are weak. Sure you can powerheal with Infuse every 2 seconds, but you can't cope with massive party degen, and every consecutive Infuse is weaker. You need to refresh ER every 20 seconds, which is about 2 seconds of time when you can't heal - plenty of time for someone to die. Losing ER has immediate effects on your bar; you won't be completely incapacitated but you have to react fast and play conservatively. Finally, you lack anti-conditions and anti-hexes. Not always bad, but when your team's Warrior gets Blinded you will regret it.

ER-based healing encourages bad Monking, but there's no such thing as not protting and relying on Infuse in HM. You will die, monsters simply deal too much damage.

By the way nice of you to retract your earlier claims, the original thread pretty much killed my opinion of [TAM].

Hex removal doesn't keep AP away from people's bars either (even though it sometimes really should.)

That period you have to glyphsac->ether is also a (small) window for bad stuff to happen. Part of the reasoning why people aren't doing GoR->Divine/Selfless Spirit and spamming patient+prots all day long.

But yeah, ER healing is still underrated, the raw power is nuts even accounting for frailties. Probably a fair number of people that think PvP teaches you everything you need to know about PvE, that physical-based builds are still faster than a well-run cryway, etc. If the PvP version of ER was removed you'd certainly see it abused to high hell.

Pure red-bar-goes-up builds are very boring my opinion. Sure you can heal for big numbers, but why make a need for healing such big numbers? Damage mitigation > big heals as far as I'm concerned, protting provides more safety versus spikes and is more reliable.

Also, there are probably better things for Elementalists to be doing, with the exception of those pesky missions or areas where you need to babysit an NPC, such as anything with Master Togo xD. Even in HM, with the right build an Ele can do a good deal of damage, or provide a great amount of utility!

Quote: Originally Posted by Ariena Najea

Pure red-bar-goes-up builds are very boring my opinion. Sure you can heal for big numbers, but why make a need for healing such big numbers? Damage mitigation > big heals as far as I'm concerned, protting provides more safety versus spikes and is more reliable. This, ER also has a big weakness. Every 20 seconds you have a 2 seconds of reapplying ER. Those two seconds can easily mean a teammates death.

When I run ER, I bring 3 raywayers. Each with [[smite condition] and [[smite hex]. That with distributed [[smiters boon], [[protective spirit], [[guardian] and [[leech signet].

It does surprisingly well. Only problem is [[ether renewal] gets removed or interrupted... Oh, god, we will start dropping like flies in seconds. Pray that rayway will keep us alive.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ariena Najea

Pure red-bar-goes-up builds are very boring my opinion. Sure you can heal for big numbers, but why make a need for healing such big numbers? Damage mitigation > big heals as far as I'm concerned, protting provides more safety versus spikes and is more reliable. This quote is a clear example of inexperience with regards to the ER build.

Look at standard ER bars please, and tell me they don't mitigate damage. ER Elementalists are fantastic protters, with only a few protection skills out of their reach - Seed of Life, Shield of Absorption / Shielding Hands and Aegis. What else could you possibly want that cannot be substituted for by Spirit Bond and Protective Spirit?

There are things you can't prot with Spirit Bond / Protective Spirit but can with other skills, but there aren't many. For almost all situations, ER bars prot against everything, sometimes better than real Monks.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeydra

This quote is a clear example of inexperience with regards to the ER build. everybody is open to opinions however, every good monk in their right mind knows that prot is the key to good monking not red bar builds.A good WoH hybrid who is interrupted is still more potent than an ER ele who has been interrupted

I ran ER healer ele quite a bit when I still PvE'ed on my ele, and it was retardedly good.

Even without running any PvE-only skills or dumb infinite-infuse chains, sticking ER+AoR with 6 monk skills felt stronger (in terms of e-management) than a monk with gole+sig rejuv or something. The only downside is that you have to actively cast more (since each heal/prot is slightly less effective than from a monk), and also if ER gets stripped, all you're left with is to troll lemming.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeydra

Quote: Originally Posted by traversc None of what you said made any sense whatsoever. Massive party degen? [heal party] + [mindbender]. No prots? Cmon, it isn't so hard to take [protective spirit] Just curious, what do you bring on Monk bars if you don't have healing power (as implied by not having Heal Party + Mindbender) as well as no prots (as implied by not having Protective Spirit)? That ought to give you a clue that you're misreading my post.

Do you have any idea what the standard ER bars are?

Quote: Originally Posted by Ranger of the abyss

tbh leave the healing to the monks or the n/rt's,[ether renewal] eles are awesome with prots,spamming [protective spirit],[spirit bond],[shield guardian] and hehe heroe's are good at spaming spirit bond and prot spirit

I'd still rather Monk. They've got everything I need and no strong weaknesses such as heavy enchant removal so my opinion remains.

I don't know why , but I feel much safer when I know that someone in my team has at least PS. If ER is stripped the ele can just /dance 'till ER recharges.
Maybe more experienced groups will run an ele healer over the HB healer + the regular prot monk?

How much heavy enchant removal do you guys see in general PvE?

I never see Rend, except in UW, and otherwise, it's Chillblains. You could still throw in [protective spirit] to cover yourself, and with a 5sec recharge, you're good. You can even cover yourself with other enchantments. The bar isn't really that compressed, seeing as it's 4 skills to give yourself infinite 500health powerheals, which is substantially stronger than a WoH hybrid.

In high-end areas with lots of conditions, damage, and hexes, like FoW/Urgoz, you're going to be spamming your skills anyway simply due to pressure.

So why wouldn't you want a practically infallible build?

Yes, the build is more boring, but I guess I'm talking about efficiency here. A lot of you missed a crucial point, but whatever. You don't need to preprot at all - unless they can spike 9 guys for 500 each simultaneously, you're fine. You can literally clean up everyone no-problems whatsoever constantly.

It takes a bit more active playing, and is more boring, but it's stronger. I have to argue with my ex-guildies here - it's a superior build.

Go go infuser!

Just don't get stripped or "omg we're screwed." It also lowers your monking abilities. After playing infuser, stick with RA for a while.

Quote: Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

It takes a bit more active playing, and is more boring, but it's stronger. I have to argue with my ex-guildies here - it's a superior build. Don't worry, it would probably take many more months for PUGs to realize this. My ele just got kicked from a PUG for being a ER protect/infuser rather than a nuker.

There are also real limitations to the build.

1. You can't bring monk elites
2. You need to bring a skill that make ER recharge faster (e.g. Glyph of Swiftness). That leaves only 6 skill slots.
3. You can't go hybrid because you need to max out energy storage.
4. You have no divine favor, so DF skills are quite useless to you.
5. Enchant removal can be a problem.
6. Your prots are weaker than a decked out prot monk

It doesn't make you or your party invulnerable since infuse is single targeting plus you have to keep renewing ER with GoS.