Ether Renewal healers - the death of true monking

well no matter how good ER infusers are, they won't beat a monk in PvP .

yes, i must say i haven't read the previous posts, yeah you guys managed to convince me that a e/mo is better than a monk in healing but an ele loses to a monk in PvP, Farming, Running. nuff said.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lusciious

well no matter how good ER infusers are, they won't beat a monk in PvP .

yes, i must say i haven't read the previous posts, yeah you guys managed to convince me that a e/mo is better than a monk in healing but an ele loses to a monk in PvP, Farming, Running. nuff said. Where did you see anyone post that e/mo's would be good healers in PvP then?

I've been meaning to weigh in on this for awhile now.

1. Yes, E/Mo E.Renewal "healers" outclass primary monks -- at least the WoH hybrids that have come to typify primary monks -- by a very large margin.

Forget about healing for a moment. The primary advantage for the E.Renewal healer, the thing that's just totally broken and wrong, is the fact that they have a 0-energy-cost PS that they can spam on the recharge. Monks have to use their PS very judiciously because they can't afford the energy to use it often, and they often have to substitute a 5e "small prot" or a 5e heal after the fact when a PS would have been better. Meanwhile, the E.Renewal healer is dispensing PS's like candy -- anyone who even might maybe conceivably possibly get hit gets a PS. (And, on top of that, they can throw SB if they need something while PS is on recharge and cover PS with SB if they like.)

The spot healing advantage is secondary, but also a place with a big gap. Which skill is better -- 300+ healed for 0e, 1/4cast, 0recharge OR 250ish healed for 5e, 3/4cast, 3recharge? Durrrrrr. Or, as Snow Bunny put it...
Quote: Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

AP is all win!

Ether renewal needs toning down.. especially when you see just how broken the numbers are.. not nerfed to the shit tip, just brought into line with a swift smack in the face.

I always wondered why it was given so much juice in the buff anyways :S my guess is a typical balance brain fart...

I feel this bears mentioning:

Just because an Ele can heal doesn't mean a monk should Nuke. Divine Favor doesn't give monks more damage to every spell, all it does it augment healing. Energy storage and the skills in that line allow Eles to attempt essentially any caster role they so desire (apart from Dom, but zzzz).

When I began this thread, I didn't mean it for it to be an argument. The PvE meta, if you can call it that, has a long history of bandwagoning onto whatever works in PvP. All I was asking here is -

Because of PvE/PvP split power creep, can Eles effectively replace monks as primary healers? I believe thus far, the answer is a conclusive 'yes'.

The enchantment stripping argument does not hold up; I've done additional testing and in over a dozen high-end pve situations I have never found myself in a place worrying about enchant stripping; simply covering it with PS/AoR solved that.

The mantra of prots > heals would hold up, except that 350+ heals on demand with free-energy > prots.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon I've been meaning to weigh in on this for awhile now.

1. Yes, E/Mo E.Renewal "healers" outclass primary monks -- at least the WoH hybrids that have come to typify primary monks -- by a very large margin.

Forget about healing for a moment. The primary advantage for the E.Renewal healer, the thing that's just totally broken and wrong, is the fact that they have a 0-energy-cost PS that they can spam on the recharge. Monks have to use their PS very judiciously because they can't afford the energy to use it often, and they often have to substitute a 5e "small prot" or a 5e heal after the fact when a PS would have been better. Meanwhile, the E.Renewal healer is dispensing PS's like candy -- anyone who even might maybe conceivably possibly get hit gets a PS. (And, on top of that, they can throw SB if they need something while PS is on recharge and cover PS with SB if they like.)

The spot healing advantage is secondary, but also a place with a big gap. Which skill is better -- 300+ healed for 0e, 1/4cast, 0recharge OR 250ish healed for 5e, 3/4cast, 3recharge? Durrrrrr. Or, as Snow Bunny put it...


I've heard some talk of removal being a strong point where monks beat eles, but I don't find that to be so. On the condition side of removal, I've long since ceded that to mid-liners with Foul Feast or Draw Conditions. Half the time my monk isn't even carrying Dismiss, and when I do carry it, it's for redundancy's sake in case something goes wrong with the mid-liner. So, I can't really buy that condition removal makes up a whole lot of ground for the monk. As for hex removal: Most hexes tend to do damage, which the ele can just power through with the raw healing power of Infuse. On the rare occasions when the monsters have meaningful non-damage hexes, the ele can slot Convert Hexes, which is far better than any of the non-elite 5e hex removals common for monks.

I've also hard some talk of party healing being a strong point where monks beat eles, but I don't find that to be so either. Newsflash: Party healing got nerfed. The best thing left in the monk's repertoire is Heal Party + HBoon, but that's too pricey to spam. If you're willing to tolerate its haphazard nature, eles can get a surprising amount of area heal/time from Shield Guardian. If you want something more reliable, Breath of the Great Dwarf used on the recharge is more-or-less equivalent to Heal Party + HBoon used as often as you can afford it. (I wouldn't recommend Heal Party on an ele; the long cast time interferes too much with spamming PS.) In the end, neither monk nor ele has really excellent party healing.

Finally, there's the nagging "well, E.Renewal can get stripped." Yeah, if you're a moron who doesn't cover it with the half-dozen enchantments on your bar. There's very, very few places in GW where the monsters will be able to get at E.Renewal if it's well-covered. And for those, you can either change to monk or bring along a ranger or mesmer who's aware of what the removal threat is.

FYI: I strongly favor
[Protective Spirit][Spirit Bond][Infuse][Shield Guardian][Great Dwarf Weapon][Glyph of Swiftness][Ether Renewal][Aura of Resto] (+ rez scroll) for my E. Renewal build. (Breath of the Great Dwarf can sub for Shield Guardian if the latter proves to haphazard; and Covert Hexes can sub for Shield Guardian or GDW if serious non-damage hexes are an issue.)

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2. Does this mean the end of the PvE monk? Well, maybe. It certainly means the end of the WoH hybrid that PvE monking has settled into. If monks are to remain viable for PvE, they're going to need some new and better builds.

This starts with making up ground on PS spamming, since that's the location of the quantum leap from hybrid monk to E.Renewal ele.

In order to do that, monks need a massive energy source. Five options come to mind: (1) Selfless Spirit + AP, (2) Divine Spirit + AP, (3) Selfless Spirit + Air of Superiority, (4) Divine Spirit + Air of Superiority, and (5) Lyssa's Aura + Asuran Scan. Regarding these options: First, I'm not sure if that's an exclusive list. I just asked myself "how could a monk possibly afford to spam PS," and that's what I came up with. Maybe there's more; chime in if you can think of one. Second, these options are not created equal. To answer FoxBat's question, I find that Air of Superiority comes through reasonably well except when you need it most, so that's out. I didn't even bother trying Lyssa's Aura, since it effectively reduces energy costs by 1/2, while Selfless Spirit and Divine Spirit both reduce costs by more than 1/2 if you've got a few 5e spells on the bar. As between Selfless Spirit and Divine Spirit, that's a closer call. Right now, I find myself heading towards the opinion that the duration on Selfless Spirit, plus the fact that it takes 5e spells all the way to 0e (there's a huge difference between 1e and 0e) more than makes up for the weird end conditions.

So, that leaves me with [Assassin's Promise][Selfless Spirit][Protective Spirit]. Is that enough? Maybe. It certainly doesn't catch up with the ele for raw PS spam. But it does seem to have enough energy to put up PS where it needs to be, as long as you're not totally profligate about it. Of course, a PS spammer that needs to be smart isn't as good as one that can mindlessly pound the PS button, so the monk is going to need to do something more, something that the ele can't do.

So what can a monk do with the remaining 5 skills that the ele can't? Well, you've got the DF line and you've got Assassin's Promise. The best I can pull out from that is perma-Aegis thanks to Assassin's Promise and frequent Seed of Life, thanks to DF and Assassin's Promise. Arguably, those can make up for the weaker PS spamming and the weaker spot healing. Arguably.

OK, so that makes [Assassin's Promise][Selfless Spirit][Protective Spirit][Aegis][Seed of Life]. The remaining 3 slots need to cover spot healing, and whatever else you can cram in there.

So far, [Assassin's Promise][Selfless Spirit][Protective Spirit][Aegis][Seed of Life][Patient Spirit][Dwayna's Kiss][Cure Hex] (+ rez scroll) is the best I've come up with along that line. I need to put it through a lot more testing before I decide if it's really comparable with a E.Renewal healer or not.

(Yes, I've tried Racthoh's [Assassin's Promise][Divine Spirit][Aegis][Seed of Life][Divine Boon][RoF][Shield of Absorption][Deny Hexes] build. I don't much care for it. First, no PS. Admittedly, the build was designed for teams with 2+ copies of SY!, but even still, I want PS to cover the initial aggro and the gaps in SY! coverage when things don't go as planned. Second, the energy is uncomfortably tight with Divine Spirit's short duration and Divine Boon's extra energy pressure. Third, if things go badly and you can't get an AP trigger when you need it, you're basically reduced a RoF-Boon spammer, since everything else is on recharge or too expensive or both until AP recharges stuff and DS comes back online. All criticism aside though, the build does represent a much-needed break from the "WoH hybrid, WoH hybrid, WoH hybrid" mentality that's never going to produce anything to rival the E.Renewal healer.)

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3. The TL-DR summary: E.Renewal eles are far better than the WoH hybrid PvE monks in common usage now. If it's possible for monks to catch up (and it may not be), the builds to do it will probably start with [Assassin's Promise][Selfless Spirit][Protective Spirit][Aegis][Seed of Life]. Tried the bar, need to swap divine spirit in for selfless spirit since aegis cancels selfless.

Works well so far but i haven't really put it through any rigorous testing, ala Urgoz/DoA

Quote: Originally Posted by Snow Bunny The PvE meta, if you can call it that, has a long history of bandwagoning onto whatever works in PvP. All I was asking here is -

Because of PvE/PvP split power creep, can Eles effectively replace monks as primary healers? I believe thus far, the answer is a conclusive 'yes'. I agree. I also agree with the implication that bandwagoning onto whatever works in PvP does not produce good PvE builds.

Quote: The enchantment stripping argument does not hold up; I've done additional testing and in over a dozen high-end pve situations I have never found myself in a place worrying about enchant stripping; simply covering it with PS/AoR solved that. I agree.

Quote: The mantra of prots > heals would hold up, except that 350+ heals on demand with free-energy > prots. I'm not sure what you mean.

The mantra of "prots > heals" that you hear in the monk forum is wrong, and it always has been. As far as monks are concerned, the heals have always had much better energy efficiency, except (1) if there's a danger of someone being wtf-pwned before you can react, they should be protted, (2) if the incoming damage/sec exceeds you maximum heal/sec, you should prot because you can't heal any more than you already are, and (3) a couple of prot skills are actually super-efficient -- PS, Aegis, SB sometimes, SoA and Shielding Hands if you can focus aggro.

In the E.Renewal context, that goes away. When all skills cost 0e, they are all equally energy efficient. It becomes a question of time efficiency -- which skill most deserves the second it takes to cast + aftercast? Largely this is a false dichotomy -- prot and heal shouldn't be competing for the same moment of cast time. Prot can be cast the second before damage happens, and heal the second after it happens. The only time they really compete is when you have someone you failed to pre-prot and you need to choose whether to heal up the last hit, or prot for the next one. In that case, I'd say PS, then Infuse if the target can survive through PS's aftercast; Infuse, then PS if the target would be likely to die during PS's aftercast.


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Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon

With a modicum of intelligence you can remember that Aegis must lead Selfless and not the other way around. You should have no trouble doing so, since they always recharge together.

The tradeoff for picking Selfless over Divine is that you gain ~50% longer duration and taking the 5e spells all the way to zero, but you have to pay a second of cast+aftercast time every time you use Aegis. I always cast aegis before selfless but you should be killing stuff within 11 seconds so it doesn't make much of a difference which one you take.

Edit: Not even in the same stratosphere as ER.

It does fine in NM but just feels too clunky, even more so in HM. Pretty much every other bar i've run is just as if not more effective

Quote: Originally Posted by Chton I've heard some talk of removal being a strong point where monks beat eles, but I don't find that to be so. On the condition side of removal, I've long since ceded that to mid-liners with Foul Feast or Draw Conditions. Half the time my monk isn't even carrying Dismiss, and when I do carry it, it's for redundancy's sake in case something goes wrong with the mid-liner. So, I can't really buy that condition removal makes up a whole lot of ground for the monk. As for hex removal: Most hexes tend to do damage, which the ele can just power through with the raw healing power of Infuse. On the rare occasions when the monsters have meaningful non-damage hexes, the ele can slot Convert Hexes, which is far better than any of the non-elite 5e hex removals common for monks. Removal is a place where Monks outclass Elementalists. It's not always you'll have a place for Draw Conditions / Foul Feast on a midliner, and neither skill pushes red bars up - but Restore Condition will. Convert Hexes is a great hex remover, but it has 12s cooldown. Compare vs. Peace and Harmony and the difference speaks a million words. The other major difference is, as you touched on, party heals. Healer's Boon + Heal Party is huge party healing and while you are right that you won't have the energy to spam it much, you also should not need too much of it - two casts of Heal Party for example would total over 200 health to everyone in the party, even more if backed by Life Attunement. This should fill out every party bar quite simply. Finally there're skills that Monks can use but Elementalists cannot - Aegis, Seed of Life and Shield of Absorption. All good skills.

So I won't say Monks will go extinct, they simply have to alter their playstyles and skill choices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny The enchantment stripping argument does not hold up; I've done additional testing and in over a dozen high-end pve situations I have never found myself in a place worrying about enchant stripping; simply covering it with PS/AoR solved that. There are places ... eg. FoW burning forest (you need to be careful about running into enchant-strip region), and any area with heavy interrupts where the monsters might get ER. It's a weakness, not a serious one, but a weakness nevertheless. PS: Prots typically > heal, especially in PvE where monsters hit for hundreds of damage. Don't see why you think otherwise ... it's still the case when Infuse heals over 350 health, because the second (and third, and fourth) Infuse won't hit for 350. PPS: Humans didn't evolve from monkeys; humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. But that's for another topic.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeydra Restore Condition...
Peace and Harmony Where do you ever run eithe rof these in PvE?

Quote:

PS: Prots typically > heal, especially in PvE where monsters hit for hundreds of damage. Well, in that case PS > heal. Since you can potentially stop thousands of damage. The rest of the prot line is pretty meaningless against a multi-hundred hp hit (except for the blocks if it's a physical hit). Even SB is only going to shave ~80 off it, which probably won't be enough to extend the number of hits it takes to kill you. If you're not going to have PS in place, might as well just (hope to) power heal after the fact. Quote: it's still the case when Infuse heals over 350 health, because the second (and third, and fourth) Infuse won't hit for 350. Actually, they should. There's an equilibrium point where 50% hp equals whatever ER and AoR heal you for. You can spam back-to-back Infuses for the same amount over and over. Though, to hit 350 I'd think you'd need to spend some skills for life attunement and/or vital blessing and sacrifice a lot of rune/insignia/weapon mod slots for more hp -- neither of which I think is necessarily an optimal choice.

RC - well the point is that when there is a Monk already with WoH, having a second WoH Monk, although not bad, isn't exactly necessary. Of the elites remaining to use RC would be the obvious choice: SoD is expensive and the effect isn't all that great, AoF is less expensive but the effect isn't too hot either, ZB conflicts with WoH and kills your energy if you miss, HB conflicts with WoH too since both are powerheal elites, etc. RC isn't a bad skill in PvE too, it heals for a lot so long as there are conditions.

PnH - the ultimate anti-hex tool. Use whenver monsters have 'meaningful non-damage hexes', as you put it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chton

I rather like PnH on imbagons in DoA. There's just too much blind/blurred/soothing images running around to risk it. But there are only a handful of places like that.

Quote: Originally Posted by FoxBat

A player monk maintaining PnH on a seperate paragon running the typical focused agression imba build. The whole thread is about monks vs eles, and PnH-para is 1) not an imbagon 2) not a monk and 3) obviously ridiculous.

Quote: Originally Posted by FoxBat

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeydra

while a real Monk can just ride GoLE and HB / Heal Party for 300++ health to everyone. Can I see that build? Assuming that the monk also has a BiP.

Oh, by the way, Infuse = Health > Healing Prayers.

In other words, if you have 600 health your going to heal 300++. The only problem with that is ER will only heal you so much, however, Aura of Restoration or any spell that isn't infuse will max your health allowing you to hit 300+ again.

Quote: Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Quote: Originally Posted by Age

You are forgetting about Divine Favour which would heal more with WoH with healing at 14 DF at 9 or 10 will heal for more than infuse I tried this long ago.This also applies to protection the only thing Eles can do is chain aegis with GoR Monks still produce the Divine Favour bonus with PS,Guardian and SoA.Monks still have Eles beat.

Snow Bunny you play Monk so why aren't you supporting them instead of Eles.My main is a Monk so I support them although I do have an Ele.

I would like to ask if Eles are this superior than Monks than why even use them in PvP???????I never see them getting used like Monks. Oh really? Prove it. Prove that WoH heals more at 14 Heal and 9-10 Divine Favour than Infuse at 0 spec. Do the maths. This should be easy to prove. If you mean instead that WoH will refill the health you lose from Infuse, prove that too. WoH will not, there will be some health lost anyway, and you spend 15 energy for an effective 300+ HP heal.

As for PvP ... three reasons why ER doesn't work in PvP:

1. Rend Enchantments.
2. Diversion.
3. By far the most obvious ... Ether Renewal (PvP).

Nobody said Elementalists will replace Monks in PvP, you're dreaming that up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zodiac_Meteor Can I see that build? Assuming that the monk also has a BiP. It's nothing special: 14 Healing Prayers, Heal Party, Healer's Boon and GoLE. Don't need a BiP. Heal Party would heal at 108 per cast, then 2x casts, then +44% health healed from Life Attunement = 300++ health from two casts.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeydra

Oh really? Prove it. Prove that WoH heals more at 14 Heal and 9-10 Divine Favour than Infuse at 0 spec. Do the maths. This should be easy to prove. If you mean instead that WoH will refill the health you lose from Infuse, prove that too. WoH will not, there will be some health lost anyway, and you spend 15 energy for an effective 300+ HP heal.
I am not talking about infuse only WoH it will out heal infuse wit hthe divine favour bonus plus the bonus for WoH which only costs 5e.Monks don't need infuse.

Buff to aura of resto... Even more hp back after an infuse. and it slides even further over to the ele;s.