Infuse Health

Why am I not surprised? People are getting so used to whining for skill nerfs and always getting what they want they now do it before the previous one even gets nerfed. ER healing is better than monk healing? GOOD! At least now they're good at something other than being a utility bot. You don't get this many people worked up about how the ele's original role got completely destroyed thanks to hard mode's super armor, anti burning and all of those crap. With the amount of pug failure lately thank god there's at least one character that I have confidence in being not horrible.

That's because elementalists were not completely neutered. They still retained their utility capabilities. And depending on what the next skill update holds, they may regain their former tanking status.

Saying that monks can out-party heal ER eles is ridiculous. In the time it takes a monk to cast Heal Party, an ER ele can infuse half the party. And in the time it takes for Heal Party to recharge, the ER ele will have infused the other half of the party. In other words, he's beaten the monk in party healing.

And let's not forget that the ER ele can spam infuse all day, whereas a monk cannot afford to spam Heal Party.

Ah, but if you're an IR infuse spammer, you don't need any prots or heals on them.

QFT. I tried the ER build and didn't like it...the hench monks kept wasting their energy healing me and being at constant 50% meant the mobs would attack me first. Some will say don't bring hench then, but relying solely on an infuser? =bad. esp with my rubbish connection(and bad reflexes QQ) I can't catch spikes well. IMO prot > mass heal, especially in HM and monks can do the protting better.

Anyway I always see people spamming "LF monk" but never "LF ER infuser". Usually Ele healer is only used as a last resort. Maybe I'm playing in the wrong areas but I think overall a good HB is still more reliable. At least it doesn't rely on a gimmick that screws you up the minute your bonds get stripped.

One problem: ER healers are better at prot.

Well since eles have more energy storage they should be better spell spammers but this ...... i dont see any monks complaining out there. Only saw ER healers filling party spots when cant find monks :/

That's because it's not currently part of the meta, due to the fact that most of the game's community either doesn't know about it or is stuck in the "durr, monks are best healers cuz of DF, durr" mindset and refuses to even understand how it works.

But rest assured, if it does become part of the meta and monks start being phased out, you'll definitely start to see some complaints.

Isn't it better to nip this one in the bud, rather than let it become meta and make a lot of people angry when it does get nerfed?

Necros are bet healers than Rits due to Soul Reaping. Assassin/Warrior uses a scythe better than a Derv. Paragon uses SY better than a Warrior. Ranger uses Necro touch skills better than a Necro. How many things in the game will you want to change before you finish? All of the things I have seen you ask to have changed have been around your particular play style. I don't use Sabway or Discordway. I don't use spirit spamming heroes either. I don't use perma SF. I don't use SY. I don't use, and have never been on a team with an E/Mo healer/protector. But if people want to use them, let them. Unless what it is replacing (Monk healing) becomes insufficient it isn't a problem. Monk healing and Monk protection works good, and better than most options, if not all options.

Until it is used because Monk healing does not work, just play how you want to and let everyone else do the same.

Actually, I don't monk in PvE.

I don't recall ever speaking out against SY!, sabway, or spirit spam. The only things I've been really vocal about needing a change is SF, ER, and dervishes.

It has nothing to do with my "playstyle", it's about the fact that the existence of the ER build removes the purpose of playing as a primary monk. In other words, the class might as well not exist, since you'd always be better off with an ER healer.

Paragons using SY! better than other classes is fine, because the paragon does not completely take over another profession's role by doing so (warriors have many things they can do far better than paragons).

Necromancers healing better than Ritualists is fine because Ritualists have other things they can do better than necros (such as spirit spam).

With the exception of condition and hex removal, there is nothing that a monk can do better than an ER healer. To say that ER is fine is equivalent to saying that monks who focus on healing and prot instead of condition/hex removal are suboptimal in the same way that a mending warrior is suboptimal (ie, focusing on something someone else can do better to the detriment of what you are better at).

.. JUST leave it alone. It's such a drag goin to a town to do the daily ZB/ZM and no healers are there. Give it a rest. So an Ele can B a healer/protter. GOOD!!!! At least they can play instead of adding a hero/hench to an HM party.

THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE TO AN ELE BEING A HEALER. A HM PUG will STILL take a HUMAN Mo over an Ele Healer almost every single time IF one is available.

No, but there is a downside to them doing it better than a monk. That is, there's no longer any reason for the monk to be used.

Yeah, I see what you did there. My point wasn't that ER isn't so strong a nerf would be unjustified. My point was that this topic has come up all of the sudden and I'm suspicious of the sudden attention. ER is no more or less powerful than it was last week when no one seemed to even remotely care. The skill hasn't changed. What's changed is Dhuum arrived and he just happens to be designed in a way that makes him particularly easy for ER eles. So we've got folks who are basically saying "I can't beat Dhuum, but other people who use ER can! NERF THE OTHER PLAYERS!!!" and some other folks saying "hey, a-net, we know you always eventually cave in to cries of 'nerf,' but let's not be kneejerk about this -- please nerf ER in a manner that doesn't totally break it." Really, why should anyone care any more about ER's degree of overpoweredness than they did a week ago? Is any of this thread anything other than e-peen envy or attempts to preemptively counsel a-net away from a kneejerk overnerf to appease the e-peen envious?

I would rather have Monk they can use WoH along with IH.

FAIL.

ER is not used in overpowered/solo farms like 55, 600, perma. Enough.

Either the posters in this thread lack that much knowledge of the game, or we all got trolled ;3

I think I started to realize that as soon as the QQ about eles making monks useless started. Bwahahaha, that comparison is funneh!

This. End of story.

I've also tried the ER infuser and frankly hated the build. My HB monk > ER infuser anyday. (Although admittedly I haven't tried an ER prot build yet, so I really can't comment there.)

Until I see pugs shutting monks out of groups and only taking E/Mos then I don't see what the problem is. Of course on the flip side, if E/Mo does become the meta then yes a nerf is in order - but not now...

Actually, I've made my feelings about ER clear long before Dhuum. It's just that I only now decided to suggest a change. Probably bad timing though.

Yes, because the only time something needs to be nerfed is when it's used for farming. Making other professions useless is fine, right? That's what this is about. There is no reason to play a monk when ER builds are possible, just like there's no point in playing any profession other than the assassin while SF is maintainable.

1. No. You still have a large pool of energy (you're an ele, remember?) that you need to manage until you put ER etc back up.
2. No. You can bring hex removal and/or condition removal if needed.
3. Prot saves the day, either your own or other party member's.

No.

I'm having a hard time believing either of you has really played an ER Infuser. Or if you did, you tried to do literally everything yourself - with no backup heal, prot, or condition/hex removal in the party whatsoever.

Do you really need me to quote myself: "FAIL"
How can you even begin to complain that monks are useless because of ER when you *don't even play one*? It is impossible to comprehend, though I admit I have a logic mind... my disadvantage.

Disregarding your absurd claim that an elementalist that has to sacrifice 5 skills on his bar in order to make spamming 2 monk skills possible is *better* than a monk that can use all his 8 skills for healing and protection... let me give you some usages for a Mo today (since the hint was obviously too obscure for you): 55, 600/smite runs on any dungeon for cash, 600/smite any elite area for farms, 600/smite in teams for maxing luxon and kurz titles by repeated and fast vanq, so on.

Exactly how are monks rendered useless by ER eles more precisely? And exactly how is the ER ele replacing the Mo in all of the above? I haven't heard any team kicking a Mo cause an ER ele came along. I've never even seen a "GLF ER ele" actually. Not to mention that I've never heard of groups of 8 ER eles doing any speed clears or vanqs.

And yes, unless it's used like a gimmick build allowing dungeon runs for cash, allowing quick faction vanquishes, allowing elite area farming, etc.; unless all that, I don't think it's over powered. It's a decent build that people might take along but it most definitively does not render monks unusable as a class. Your logic needs to be a bit defective to claim that.

You don't need to play a monk to see how much more overpowered ER infuse is. On the other hand, I have both an ele and monk, so that makes me perfectly qualified. Not really. 5 skills? WTH are you talking about, dude? All you NEED is ER and infuse. You then fill the rest of your bar up with enchants which you can spam as much as you want on recharge or maintained enchants which you can then maintain on your entire party.
Wow, way to completely miss the point.
Wow, way to completely miss the point. CSB.

They can touch ER ele once they add in this:

Energy Storage: For every rank of energy storage, all elemental spells gain 5%-10% armor penetration, and have 5% chance of burning foes with burning immunity.

Otherwise, hands off.

Why do I even bother to make some sense in these trolling threads?

"Obviously". Well I play both too and my monk toon is not afraid is going to run out of business in favor of my ele toon.

OK since your maths is not in a good shape:
Elite Enchantment Spell. (21 seconds.) Each time you cast a spell, you gain 4 Energy and 20 Health for each enchantment on you.

That was the description for energy 12+1+3. Now do the maths and tell me how many enchants does the ele need to maintain? And does he need a glyph to maintain ER or not? So that would be how many skills of the build bar all dedicated to just the ER folly? 4 or 5 perhaps? And you do all that for being able to spam a single skill?

Well I don't know about you but in my book dedicating 4-5 skills for energy management/self healing is ... really bad energy management. Not to mention that interrupts and enchant stripping and symbiosis (which is a pretty common spirit) renders the build ... useless.

Well whatever... can't argue with fools, waste of time.

Maintaining ER is not necessary.
An Ele should manage the downtime on ER with a 20% enchantment set (about 5 seconds). The lack of Infuse spammability may hurt though.
GoS is more of a luxury than a necessity.
The same goes for Life Attunement, it boosts the healing from ER in two ways - from its effect and from the fact it's an extra enchantment. You should make do with just keeping Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond on yourself.

You maintain 3 enchantments on yourself (ER, LA and Aura of Restoration) for much more than just spamming Infuse. The prots Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit are just as (if not more) important. If you're so inclined, you can run Prot Bond and then, nothing is too difficult.


I can't really say Symbiosis renders the build useless either. It appears in two areas (Northern and Far Shiverpeaks) and only means PS prevents a little less damage - your initial infuse heals for more though.
And enchantment stripping is only dangerous in the forms Rend Enchantments, Gaze of Contempt and Well of the Profane. None of those are particularly common.
The biggest threat is perhaps ER being interrupted. But then, you just drop any maintained enchantments and manage your energy like a normal monk (and hey, you have much more energy to burn through in 30 seconds than any monk has).

Your point: you can make it suboptimally work with a min of 3 dedicated skills instead of 4-5. You say not a necessity ... maybe for NM. Even having to use 3 out of 8 slots seems a big price.

So you just drop all enchants... adapt... put them back on when ready... you have a bigger energy pool cause you're playing an ele... but you don't have Divine Favor cause you're not playing a monk... It all seems so familiar... sounds to me like normal build play of a GW class.

Also remember the build has a single usage. It doesn't both heal and kill like spirit masters, perma sins, 55s, 600s, etc. It can do nothing by itself (solo). It can do nothing in a team of 8 ERs. It can do nothing in duo or any kind of farms. It's pretty useless unless in a full team and even so it would need extra heal/prot support in general. It can be shutdown by AI during normal play....

Except the skills "3 dedicated skills" are neither three or dedicated. Or are you saying maintaining bonds on your whole party is useless? Wow, and you talk about logic fail.

Who said anything about dropping enchantments? You burn through your energy for a while and then suddenly and magically you have infinite energy again. Yes it does seem familiar.

Way to miss the point completely.

Lol, pretty much this, but much more balanced, of course.
Eles suck now. Hardcore.
They've sucked ever since the introduction of Factions, in fact. Prophecies didn't have numerous high armor enemies like the other campaigns do.

I don't call shaving off half your hp every time you heal an advantage. Sure they heal for big numbers but there is also a big downside. Furthermore if you have a decent prot/dmg reduction, such massive heals would be nothing more than overkill.

A monk can spam substantially large heals without saccing or dedicating 3-5 slots to energy management. I'd call that an advantage.

You've never run this build before have you?

You are aware that there is nothing wrong with an "overkill" if you aren't paying the price?
The problem of an overkill when it comes to healing is that you end up wasting energy on something that does not need that energy investment. An ER guy has unlimited energy so there is no downside to massively overhealing stuff.

But can a monk also run only ONE healing skill?

A necro has an unlimited energy pool (hence all the necroways) - without using half their build bar for that, actually without using *any energy management skill* (not to mention an elite skill like ER... which is elite after all). So following the same logic and for the same reasons in this thread soul reaping needs to be nerfed, because having an unlimited energy pool is defective. (!?)

ER pus Soul Reaping to shame. The two are simply not comparable.
I can drain my energy with SR in a short amount of time. If I keep ER up and a couple of enchantments it is not physically possible to drain my energy.

The reason we run N/Rt's or N/Mo's for hero bars is because heroes are shit at energy management and SR is a pretty brainless form of energy management.
I myself prefer ER on a hero, even though they can't maintain it.

Yes.

(You are aware I've been bitching about the need for a SR nerf for years now, right?)

You obviously aren't aware of just how much energy ER gives you. Illustration: with every cast, ER can give you 16 energy quite easily. That's every cast. Once every second. Soul Reaping gives you 16 energy x3 every 15s maximum. ER is a LOT more powerful than Soul Reaping at energy management.

What's more, the idea that you've used oh-so-many skills to make a build work makes it bad is just plain wrong. Permaform Assassins use Shadow Form, Deadly Paradox and Glyph of Swiftness. They're using skills to make Shadow Form work. What's wrong with that? The final end product is what matters, not how many skills you have to dedicate to it. If there were a skill that went something like 5e 0 recharge shout: target foe dies if you have no other skills equipped, would you call it overpowered? Think about it. You've used 7 slots on your skillbar to use this single skill, yet with this skill equipped you can go out there and slaughter everyone. Overpowered or not?

That said, I'll stick my head out now and call for no nerf to ER. There are multiple reasons:

1. There're lots of overpowered stuff in the game. ER is overpowered, but then so are so many other builds; until they are all nerfed it's not fair to nerf Ether Renewal.
2. Ether Renewal Elementalists can only be used in balanced builds. They cannot partake in speedclears nor can they be used to farm (not very well anyway). Unlike Shadow Form for example, Ether Renewal does not massively affect the economy / efficiency at clearing dungeons.
3. Ether Renewal is a bit overrated to be honest. It's had its weaknesses since Varda and I pioneered it, and those weaknesses haven't changed. Against areas where nothing threatens it it works very well. Against areas where the counters are there you can have lots of trouble. Stuff like Disenchantment, Strip Enchant / Gaze of Contempt / Rend Enchants, multiple interrupts, debilitating hexes, Dazed and Blind, party-wide degen, Sheer Exhaustion, etc - they all hurt Ether Renewal builds. Just because Ether Renewal works better than real Monks in several areas doesn't mean it works better in all.
4. Ether Renewal is a bit overrated to be honest. Sure, an ER Ele and a Smiter suffices for most areas of HM. I've experienced that myself first-hand, H/H. But then I amazed myself one day when I accidentally brought Mhenlo + a Smiter into Gate of Pain HM (or whatsisname mission - the one where you have to kill Terrorblade Dryders who're farming souls). I lived, and that's with Mhenlo being a rather unspectacular Monk. Real Monks have received quite a few buffs too (e.g. Selfless Spirit, Divine Boon).
5. Elementalists have no other options. Unless they get buffs somewhere else, what's a poor Elementalist going to do?

If someone argues that when you have a full 8-man team (or close to it), ER Elementalists are typically better choices than Monks, then I'd point out that if you have a full 8-man team you should be able to blaze through every area in the game with real Monks, no big difference.

And finally: some have said that no profession should be able to tread on others' toes the way Elementalists outheal Monks and Warriors use Scythes better than Dervs. Simple question though: exactly why not? What's wrong with having an Elementalist that can heal better than Monks? They've always been able to heal better than Monks. Before Ether Renewal you could run Ether Prodigy + Heal Other + Jamei's Gaze and pump out more heals than a real Monk ever could. Post Ether Renewal you could run Ether Renewal + Prot Spirit + Spirit Bond and pump out more prots than a real Monk ever could, but you still have weaknesses only the Monk can clean up. Is it somehow wrong to have a successful build that utilizes the secondary profession? If so, I don't see why.

Conclusion: if ER is to be nerfed, then #1 buff Elementalists somehow and #2 nerf everything to go along with it. There is no shortage of overpowered PvE skills. Nerf them all, and then maybe nerf ER.

All very true.


The problem with this line of logic is that the only way anything will ever get fixed under it is if everything gets fixed at once.


How often do you see deep enchantment removal, really? You're more likely to come across touch skills or offensive signets.

Dazed and debilitating hexes hurt monks just as much as ER healers.

I don't understand the party-wide degen argument. It would seem to me that ER healers would actually be better at dealing with it than monks. When it comes to party healing, the monk's best friend is Heal Party, which takes 2 seconds to cast. In that time, the ER healer can infuse half the party. And then, by the time Heal Party recharges, the ER healer has infused the other half of the party. Since Infuse is more powerful than Heal Party, the ER healer wins out in party healing. Is there something I'm missing here?

Real monks are certainly good. But why use anything less than the best?


First off, the status quo is no better, except that monks are the ones left asking themselves that question. So I don't see that as being a very good argument.

Second, elementalists do have things they can do. They just don't involve nuking. There's OF (which will probably become the standard for tanking after the next skill update), for example. And in the case of this particular example, there are still many opportunities for elementalists to be useful, even with ER. For example, you could spam Blood Ritual.

And then there's this build I came up with one day:

ER+GoS+MirageCloak+SignetOfPiousLight+AoR+Convicti on+AoS+MysticRegen

60 PBAoE earth dmg every 1.25 sec, infinite energy, weakness spam, tons of health regen, 80 armor, and a 250 self-heal every time you do the chain. Tell me that isn't useful.

And you could merge it with earth magic for less damage but more tanking. And I don't even have an elementalist! Imagine what someone better with the class could come up with. The true potential of ER has yet to be explored.

No, but it's wrong to have a build that makes a primary profession worthless. Why play as a dervish when anything you could do using the dervish would be done better by a warrior/dervish, regardless of what secondary class the dervish took?

Isn't it funny how everyone except the two "ER is the doom of monks" is basically agreeing this is not a problem and all have decent opinions on it?

The difference is as you point out very well and are well aware is that ER builds don't prevent all damage (god mode) + dish out damage to kill any foe. It is so limited in usefulness that it only really has one purpose, one of the crappiest if you ask me since I don't believe in overhealing and prefer protection.

Exactly what I've been saying all along. And what many other said as well in this thread. Just that no matter how rational you and I are and how many arguments we bring to the table we'll never convince the two preachers of doom.

So I'll stop here.

You really don't get it.
ER allows for spamming Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond on recharge, almost all the time. That's spamming two of the most powerful prots in the game.
Or they could run Prot Bond and maintain that on everyone.
Their damage mitigation capabilities exceed that of anything else. They then have one big heal.

What they crumble against are heavy pressure from either lots of damage sources, hexes or irritating conditions. That's when you need strong cleaning and some lighter, but less costly* healing.

*In the long run Infuse is basically free, but you cannot spam it on recharge for long, even on an ER.


ER is overpowered. What it allows is ridiculous.
With two ER Eles keeping you alive, the amount of stupidity your team can get away with is insane.
But it doesn't hold a candle to what currently exists. There are some things that need to go first.

I'm sorry, but the two standard arguments thus far have been: 1) Who cares? Monks are still the meta, and 2) Eles have nothing else to do.

Neither of these actually addresses the central concern that ER healers are so much better than primary monks that running one is suboptimal.

Nobody is preaching a scenario of doom. I for one don't expect ER to become meta for a while, if ever (due to people's stubborn refusal to accept the idea that some other profession might just be able to outheal the monk). We're saying that
A) ER healers > Monks
B) This is wrong
Therefore:
C) It should be changed.

Why is it wrong? Necs can still outheal rits and they haven't been nerfed. Ele's really can't do anything in HM that isn't terrible aside from ER, SF, and AP spam.

Last time I checked there was a thread about ERs being the deaths of monks.

/notsigned

Because Rits have other things they can do besides heal; things necros can't do as well as they can. It's fine so long as everyone has something they can contribute better than everyone else. Monks currently do not.

If I want cleaning with lighter heals, I won't bring an ER Ele.
The downside is I can usually cram enough cleaning onto the midline to make do using monk elites.

Thank you for making my point for me.